It wasn't lost on Will that Chester and Elliott had chosen to sit together and were chatting away in secretive tones — even passing a canteen between themselves. Will's high spirits paled and he felt excluded yet again. It rankled him so much that he completely lost his appetite.
He needed to relieve himself. In a fit of pique, he got to his feet and stumped away from the group, grateful he'd be spared the spectacle of Chester and Elliott's cozy little tête-à-tête at least for the time it would take to empty his bladder. As he left, he glanced over his shoulder at all of them sitting around the lantern. Even Drake and Cal were totally engrossed in whatever they were discussing and didn't take any notice of his departure.
Preoccupied by his thoughts, Will just kept walking. It was becoming increasingly evident to him that he was set apart from the rest of them because there was something he had to do. All of them — Drake, Elliott, Chester, and Cal — seemed to be entirely caught up with their day-to-day survival, as if this was their sole lot in life, to scrape out a primitive existence in this forsaken place.
But Will knew he had a single, overriding purpose. One way or another, he was going to locate his father, and, once reunited, the two of them would work as a team to investigate what was down here. Just like the good old days back up in Highfield. And then, finally, they would return to the surface with all their discoveries. He caught his step as it dawned on him that, with the exception of Chester, none of the others had any desire whatsoever to go Topsoil. Well, he had a greater calling, and he certainly wasn't going to spend the rest of his days in this harsh subterranean exile, scuttling away to hide like a frightened rabbit whenever the Styx showed up.
As he reached the perimeter wall, he was the mouths of several lava tubes before him. He stepped into the nearest of these, relishing the feeling of detachment as the inky darkness enveloped him. When he was done, he emerged from the lava tube, still lost in thought about the future. He took ten or so paces, then stopped stock-still.
Where he thought he'd left the others, there was no movement, no voices, and no light. The group was gone.
Will didn't panic right away, telling himself that he must be looking in the wrong place. But, no, he was pretty certain he wasn't — and, besides, he hadn't wandered that far. Had he?
He scoured the darkness for a few seconds, then lifted his flashlight above his head and swept it from side to side, hoping it would alert them to his position.
"There you are!" he exclaimed as he caught sight of them. From what seemed an alarming distance away, somebody in the group signaled back, letting slip a brief flash of light in answer to his waving beam.
And, as if caught by a camera flash, the picture of them running chaotically like a herd of startled gazelle seared into Will's retinas.
The flash had revealed Drake pointing urgently into the distance. But Will didn't understand what he meant. Then he'd lost all sight of Drake and the rest of them.
Will glanced back to where they'd been sitting. He had left his jacket and rucksack there, only taking with him the small battery-powered flashlight. He had no light orbs, no food or water — nothing!
His stomach felt as if it had been dropped from a tall building. He should have told them where he was going, and he knew with inescapable certainty that whatever was making them flee in such disarray was something threatening. He also knew that he should be running. But where to? Should he attempt to catch up with them? Should he try to recover his jacket and backpack? What should he do?
He suddenly felt like a small child again, reliving his first day of school. His father had deposited him at the front doors and, in his usual absentminded way, hadn't thought to make sure Will knew where he was supposed to go. With increasing anxiety, Will had walked aimlessly around the empty corridors, lost and with no one to ask.
Will strained to catch another glimpse of Drake and the others, trying his utmost to figure out where they had been heading. Undoubtedly they would take refuge in one of the other lava tubes. He shook his head. Fat lot of use that was! There were just too many of them. The chances of him picking the same one were slim, to say the least.
"What do I do now?" he said several times in quick succession. He fixed on the dark horizon where Drake had been pointing. It looked innocent enough, but he knew in his heart of hearts that it couldn't be so. What was it? What had made them run?
Then he heard a familiar faraway barking, and the hairs on his neck bristled.
Stalkers!
Will shivered. It could mean only one thing: The Styx were closing in. Again he frantically across to where he had left his kit, but he couldn't see it in the gloom. Could he get to it in time? Did he dare? Gripped by a mounting dread, he stood watching as the tiny points of light from the approaching Styx came into view, seemingly so far off, but near enough to send him into a blind panic.
He took a few tentative steps toward where he thought his jacket and rucksack were when there was a sharp noise, like a loud slap, followed quickly by a second. Mere feet away from his head, flakes of rock scattered down. The report of the rifle shots followed, rolling back and forth across the plain like a ripple of distant thunder.
They were shooting at him!
He cowered as another burst of shots flicked the dirt on either side of him. More came, falling uncomfortably close. The air felt as if it were alive, sizzling with the passage of bullets.
Covering his flashlight with his hand, Will flung himself to the ground. As he rolled behind a small boulder, a salvo hit it, and he could smell the hot lead and cordite. They were zeroing in — they seemed to know exactly where he was.
He scrambled to his feet and, crouching so low he was almost doubled over, he ran awkwardly back into the lava tube behind him.
As he passed around a bend in the tunnel, he didn't stop. He eventually came to a junction and took the left fork, only to find a huge crevasse in the way. As he hastily retraced his steps to the fork, he knew that his first priority was to put as much distance as possible between himself and the Styx.
But he couldn't ignore the fact that he would eventually have to backtrack if he wanted to rejoin Drake and the others, and this would be nigh on impossible if he just kept going. The network of lava tubes was complex, each tunnel virtually indistinguishable from the next. Without some kind of feature or landmark, he didn't have a clue how he would find his way back.
Torn between the need to escape and the knowledge that he was going to get lost if he continued, he hung back for a few seconds at the fork. He listened, wondering if the Styx were really on his trail. As the low baying of the stalker echoed down the tunnel, he was spurred into action again. He had no choice but to run.
He covered a reasonable distance in only a few hours. It hadn't entered his mind that he should be limiting the use of his flashlight. But then, to his horror, he noticed it was starting to lose its intensity. He began to conserve the power, switching it off when there appeared to be an uninterrupted stretch ahead, but it wasn't long before the beam began to flicker and dim to a feeble yellow.
Then it failed altogether.
He was submerged in absolute, pumping darkness.
Will frantically shook the flashlight, trying in vain to squeeze more life out of it. He took out the batteries, rubbing them between his hands to warm them up before putting them in again, but this was no use, either. The flashlight was dead!