Page 77 of Reset

“A little. Don’t worry about me though. There’s no chance of me getting lost, seeing as there’s only one way to go.”

The tunnel became even tighter, and Sarah had to angle her body to get it through the narrow space. Thankfully, it widened up again on the other side.

“Be careful here, it’s very narrow,” she said. “There’s a rock sticking out on our left that you need to shimmy past.”

“Got it, thanks.”

How he managed to get through that space, she couldn’t guess. It’d been a squeeze for her.

The rubble was really piling up now. From the look of the ceiling, parts of it had come down at some point, shedding small stones that were sharp if you happened to press on them. There were larger rocks too. Some strangely smooth and round. She picked up one to move it out of her way.

Instead of being heavy, as she’d expected, it was lightweight in her hand. Frowning, Sarah set it beside the wall and watched as it rolled toward her. That’s when she realized it wasn’t rock.

It was part of a skull.

“Hey,” Ryan said as he bumped up against her. “Don’t stop now.”

Sarah couldn’t speak. She dug the iPad out of her shirt and shone the light up ahead, sucking in a horrified breath at what she saw. It wasn’t rocky debris that covered the passageway floor. It was bones. The rest of the tunnel was littered with them. Skulls. Femurs. Ribs. Tiny bones from a hand or foot. A broken pelvis wedged against the wall. Some were in pieces, most were intact.

All of them were human.

They were crawling through a grave.

“Stats,” Ryan said. “What’s the holdup?”

There was ringing in Sarah’s ears. Her eyes remained glued to the sight in front of her as her brain tried, and failed, to make sense of it. The bones came in all sizes, from child to adult. All of them scattered. Discarded. Filling the space. There was no way around them. No way not to touch them. Their only option was to go over them.

To crawl, hand and foot, over human bones.

No.

Nonononononononononoo…

“Sarah, talk to me,” Ryan ordered.

“Are you people coming?” a voice called from the other end of the tunnel.

“Yeah,” Ryan answered. “We’re in the tunnel. We’re going as fast as we can.” He lowered his voice, speaking only to her. “Why have you stopped? Tell me what’s going on.”

Sarah wet her lips. Knowing, somewhere in the back reaches of her mind, that she had to tell him what she was looking at. The words seemed stuck in her throat.

“Sarah?” he demanded.

“Bones,” was all she managed to get out.

“Bones? What are we talking about, Stats? Describe what you’re seeing.”

She cleared her throat as her palms became clammy. “The tunnel. The whole tunnel. It’s filled with bones. S-skulls. I-I touched a s-skull. There are other ones too. L-leg. Hand. There’s h-hundreds. Thousands. There’s no way past them.”

She heard Ryan curse and knew what he was going to say. She was already shaking her head, even though he hadn’t uttered a word yet.

“We have to go over them, Stats,” he said gently but firmly.

“I can’t do that.”

It wasn’t possible. These were human remains. She couldn’t crawl over them. It was wrong. Sick. The stuff of nightmares. And she already had enough material stored for a lifetime of nightmares. She didn’t need more.

“We don’t have a choice, baby. It’s the only way out of here.” He sounded so reasonable, but he couldn’t see what she was seeing.