short story: benita cruickshank
The Tunnel
I am crouched by the fire, shivering on my stone bench. One of the smaller kids has a stick of charcoal and is scratching around the shape of her hand on the cave wall.
The sound of slow rain dripping on the giant leaves outside is as loud as pebbles falling. I listen to the rhythm and then I hear his voice in the valley. His hunting call is like a bison, deep and long. The children hear him and scramble to their feet. They’re gone. I don’t know how they can stand the cold. Even though I am burning my side by the fire and my skins are singed, I can’t get warm.
He is surrounded by stick figures as he enters the cave. The eldest has her head under his arm as if he is dragging her, but he’s not, she’s giggling. I can’t see their faces because of the light shining in behind them but I can see their silhouettes, like the drawings on the wall.
He slings a rabbit down by the fire. He points at me and gestures towards the light behind him.
‘Out.’
I blink at him. I raise myself on my knuckles and stare at the girl now standing at his side. He gestures with his elbow at the faint sunlight in the entrance to the cave. ‘Out.’ He is bellowing now and the vibrations ricochet around the walls. The pain in my ears is intense. My skin prickles, even the hair touching my neck hurts. I see him gather his great shoulders, ready to pick me up and hurl me out into the valley below. The girl smiles.
———————————————————————————
There was a hand shaking my shoulder.
‘Don’t. It hurts,’ my voice was a mumble.
‘What did she say?’
A man was crouching over me. His yellow jacket smelled of smoke. There was the sound of crashing and breaking glass in the dark over to my right, and then to my left. Moving shadows loomed everywhere. Some were climbing over the jumble of wreckage. Others were groaning and muttering in the dark. Or was that me?
‘I think this one has broken something. Her legs are trapped under those seats.’
‘Right. I’ll give her a shot. We’ll have to cut her out later.’
———————————————————————————
I am standing now. The big male can see I am trembling and weak. The girl beside him is strong and fertile and ready. I sniff at her and draw my skins about me as she leans forward to pluck at one of them with greedy fingers.
I hold firm and pull myself up straight. I feel the earth under my toes. I stumble a little on small stones and bits of bones. This makes the girl laugh and point, but the male ignores her.
He settles down to skinning the rabbit with the knife which was my dowry when I came to join this tribe, three days’ walk from here.
——————————————————————————-
‘Is anyone coming to help us?’
‘They are coming back. They gave you a shot.’ The voice was right beside me.
‘What’s happened to me?’
‘Can you feel your lower body?’
‘I try to move but I can’t.’
I could see vaguely that the man lying there was wearing a coat and he raised a shadowy arm to try and wriggle his hand free. ‘It’s hot down here.’
‘Is something burning?’
‘I think there was a bomb.’ He had a nice voice but I couldn’t see his face.
‘Where is everybody? The carriage was jammed with people.’
‘We’re the lucky ones. They said they had to get the bodies out before they could get to us.’
‘What time is it?’
‘Can you reach my watch?’
I almost laugh. ‘I couldn’t see it. It’s so dark. Do you think anyone is coming?’
‘They’ll come.’
‘Are you hurt?’
‘Yes. I think so. I feel as if there is a warm lake forming beneath me.’
—————————————————————————————
The male puts the bloody knife down on my stone seat and looks up at me. Now I am the one with my back to the light and I see his eyes, blue and wild. He gestures with the back of his hand, ‘Go’.
The girl leans forward and picks up my knife and I don’t like that. I seize it from her and hold it aloft. She looks up at my hand and backs away. She moves round the fire and cowers behind the male. The smaller ones shriek and dodge backwards out of the way.
I turn at the edge of the cave and follow the narrow track down the side of the hill, the knife ready in my hand. As I descend I take a long look between the trees across the valley, now dark below me. If I can make it to the other side I will only need two days to get back to my tribe.
I move on, fired up. I strike at foliage with my knife in the semi-darkness. The sun disappears behind the tree-lined hills. I am trembling with anger and humiliation now, the fever burned away.
————————————————————————————
It was the man in the yellow jacket again. He bent over me but didn’t touch me.
‘You will have to wait a little while yet. Can you hold on?’
‘What’s happening?’
‘There are more people trapped in the next carriage and they are cutting them free.’
‘What about him?’
‘Who?’
‘The man lying next to me.’
‘He’s been dead for some time.’
‘He was talking to me.’
The man in the yellow jacket grunted. I sensed rather than saw him back away.
‘I’m not dead,’ my friend said. ‘I’m just dreaming.’
‘Me too. What are you dreaming?’
‘I seem to be in a different time zone.’
‘Me too. Tens of thousands of years ago. I have been rejected by my mate and my eldest daughter. But I am not going to let them get away with it. I’m going to survive.’
‘Good for you.’
‘Do you think we have lived before?’
‘If we have, we will live again.’
‘What colour are your eyes? Are they blue?’
‘I felt a slight tremor beside me and I realised he was laughing. ‘We are from Africa.’
‘Sorry, I can’t see your face.’
‘Not sorry! Why did you ask?’
‘The man in my dream has blue eyes.’
———————————————————————-
‘Do you have any relatives?’ It was yellow jacket. He held up a phone so I could see it.
‘Why?’
‘We need to call them.’
‘No-one.’
‘There must be some-one.’
‘They are all dead.’
‘I mean there must be some-one who acts as your next-of-kin.’
He was getting impatient. Of course, he had lots of others to ask the same question.
‘My solicitor. My address book. It’s in my handbag.’
‘is this it?’
it was sticky with something black. ‘I can’t see.’
He shone a pencil light on my bag and I fumbled with the book.
My hand flapped back to my side. ‘How much longer?’
‘I don’t know. There are a lot of people down here.’
————————————————————————————-
Stars are gathering in great clusters far overhead. I am following the narrow pathway and the faint glimmer it carries serves me well. Rain drips from the trees and the sounds of the night are so loud I can tell which animal is scuttling through the fallen leaves.
I wonder if I will make it to the other side. This is better than slow dying in the cave on the hill. I look back and up. I can see the glow from the fire up there. It will keep the bears away.
Something flings itself at me in the night. The knife is in my hand and it tears at fur and flesh. The creature makes no sound as it darts away. I don’t pause to find out what it is. I scramble on as fast as I can. The rush of fear speeds my feet.
**********
The daylight was blinding. The stretcher wobbled as people stumbled and pulled and pushed to get me into the ambulance.
‘What about the man?’
‘What man?’ A flushed and concerned woman’s face looked down at me from the doorway.
‘Please find him.’
‘What’s his name?’ The doors were closing.
‘I don’t know. He’s from Africa. That’s all I know.’
Another face appeared beside the woman’s. It’s yellow jacket. ‘He’s dead, dear.’
‘No, he isn’t.’ I was screaming.
*******
I reach the top of the hill as the sun comes up. I have a tremendous leap of feeling, greeting the dawn with an outcry of wonder.
I look at the knife in my hand. It is bloody and I wipe it on my skins as I scan the plains below.
I see yellow deer streaming through the sparse trees. I see a dark-skinned stranger following them. He is like no other man I have seen before. I call out. I feel no fear.
—————————————————————————
I answered the bell slowly. I still had to take my time getting off the sofa and onto my crutches. The man at the door seemed to know that because he waited and didn’t ring again like some impatient people do.
‘Hullo. You don’t know me, but I owe you my life.’
‘I recognise your voice,’ I said. ‘Come in.’
He followed my slow hobble into my living room and walked up to the mantelpiece. ‘Where did this come from?’
‘The knife? It’s been in the family for ages.’
about the writer: benita cruickshank
After five years in marketing, a couple more as a restaurant owner, I started travelling. This turned into thirty years as an international teacher trainer, discovering such wonders as Easter Island, Xi’an, Komodo dragons and Galapagos marine life. A published non-fiction co-author, I am now London-based, writing satisfying crime about a lady sleuth. You can read more here: https://www.benitacruickshank.com/
[Also she is one of my personal heroes. sv]
