Page 25

She hooked her leg over the fence, checked to make sure no one had seen her, and then waded through the weeds towards the cave entrance.

Up close, it towered over her head, the opening at least fifteen feet tall. It all looked very overgrown, with grass and weeds forming something like a welcome carpet leading inside and leaving her convinced that it wasn’t likely to collapse on top of her.

Quite likely, it had stood exactly as it was for a hundred years or more because, no matter what Ambrose claimed, there was no way at all that this cave was four or five hundred years old.

Therefore, it would probably be quite easy to prove that there had never been a missing mayor or missing sheep inside.

As she took a couple of steps into the darkness, however, she felt a sudden chill wafting out and began to feel rather uncomfortable, as though she were making a terrible mistake.

She took a couple more steps, and her nerves almost failed her.

But she was determined now that she had got this far to at least satisfy herself that the cave wasn’t what Ambrose had claimed.

If she could at least find evidence of drilling or some kind of cutting equipment, surely a quick photograph and an email to a local mining history museum would be enough to date the cave and therefore give her some bragging rights over the supposed paranormal investigator.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and took one more step.

Then another.

Then another.

And found herself walking on hard, gravelly ground.

All around her was an encompassing darkness, broken only by the spot of light given off by her torch.

Terrified, she glanced over her shoulder and saw the cave entrance far behind her, a grey circle way back in the dark, as though she had been walking at an unnatural speed.

She stared at the entrance as it appeared to recede away from her, taking her further into the darkness, and she could barely bring herself to breathe when suddenly she heard a sound coming from deeper within the cave.

‘Is there anyone there?’ she called, but the only response was the crack of a falling rock somewhere deeper in, followed by a shingly clatter as an area of rock gave way.

The sound came again.

And it sounded like—

Kelly let out a gasp of horror and dropped her torch.

It bounced once, the beam of light stretching deep into the cave before it bounced again and shattered, the light cutting off.

But in that brief moment when it had penetrated deeper into the darkness, Kelly had seen something that made her blood run cold.

White and elongated.

A pile of bones, with a skull resting on top.

And above the empty eye sockets rose a twisted pair of curling horns.

With a scream, Kelly fled, her feet crunching over the hard ground beneath her.

Behind her, that hideous, terrifying sound came again.

‘Baa.’

‘Baa.’

‘Baaaaa.’

Then she was out in the daylight, running through the weeds, too afraid to look back. Desperate to get away, she attempted to hurdle the fence but caught her foot in a loose twist of wire.