The Tunnel
By M.R, Phillips


The tunnel had been a bad idea. Johnny knew that now. Cameron was in front of him, playing the flashlight beam up the sides of the tunnel, piercing the darkness of the never-ending throat of the thing.


"Hey Cam, maybe we should go back," said Johnny.


Cameron stopped, shuffled his feet, and then turned around. He put the flashlight on Johnny, forcing him to cover his eyes.


"What the fuck?"


"You always want to go back," said Cameron.


"I feel like we're in a dungeon," said Johnny.


Cameron turned back towards the pit. The flashlight beam stretched into the darkness.


"Maybe we are. Don't you want to know what's down here?”


Cameron started downward again. Johnny followed, wishing he had his own flashlight. They kept on, the aperture of the tunnel growing smaller as they descended. Cameron stopped. He couched and held the light down low. Johnny crouched behind him, his teeth chattering with the stiff cold that was coming from the deep.


"You hear that?"


"No," said Johnny, "What was it?"


Cameron played the light up the sides of the tunnel. He clicked his teeth.


"Sounded like some kind of creature," said Cameron.


"Go to hell. Go to hell," said Johnny.


Then it came. A twisted flap of sound. Whoop. Whoop. Whoop.


"What is it?"


Cameron took a step back. Johnny crouched lower, hiding behind the beam of light. He looked back at the darkness from which they'd come. No way he was going it alone.


Cameron was silent. The sound came again.


"Well," said Johnny, "What the hell is it?"


"How the fuck should I know?" Cameron said, growing irritated, scared.


He kept the flashlight beam pointed down into the tunnel. The sound grew louder, more frenetic. It sounded to Johnny like something beating its wings. Something very big beating its wings. It was moving towards them. Cameron stumbled backwards, dropping the flashlight. Johnny grabbed the light and helped Cameron to his feet.


"Let's go. Now," said Johnny.


A chorus of chirps and high-pitched chatters rose from below.


Johnny turned back the way they'd come with the flashlight and started to run. He could hear Cameron breathing behind him, trying to keep up. The beam of light bounced up and down, across the walls and over the damp floor. The noise grew deafening and vast at their heels. It built to a roar of squeals and screams. Before they could escape Johnny saw the ominous, fluttering silhouette of a thousand hungry bats enter the perimeter of his singular beam of light.


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M.R. Phillips lives and writes in Southern California. His work has been published in The Flash Fiction Offensive and the San Diego City Beat. He can be reached here: matt44west@gmail.com.