Epilogue, Part One
Wow. I mean wow. I can’t put into words what the outpouring of concern for me and my family has meant to me. I’m sorry for leaving this the way I did, and for not filling you in for so long, but things have been crazy here since all this happened.
After I finished writing, I searched for local information about the tide, but I couldn’t find shit in the time I had. We pulled into Southside-on-sea Station before I even had a chance to look for hardware shops in Southside.
I used my trusty maps app again to find a shop that would have a torch. Southside-on-sea is on a hill, and it’s a very old-fashioned town because that’s what pulls in all the tourists. It must be a ruddy pain to live here.
It was gone 16:00 when I was walking around town, and still daylight. The first few shops I went into seemed bamboozled by a crazed woman begging for a torch and offering to pay way above market price for one, even one that was second hand. I knew that as I ran from shop to shop that I was making a scene of myself. But maybe this is how local legends start. Crazy woman from the North terrorises local businesses in search of torch, is later found by police in a cave with her six-year-old son and a madman.
I finally found one in a shop ran by an elderly man who was selling beach stuff. Plastic spades and buckets for the kids, rubber dingies, beach towels. It reminded me of trips to the beach with my son and daughter. Beach trips are exciting as a kid, boring as a teenager and young adult, then exciting again when you have your own little ones. Just like Christmas.
The man sold me a torch as slowly as is humanly possible and commented on how I don’t sound like I’m from around here. I smiled, trying to calm my rage that he was taking so long.
“I’m from up north,” I replied.
He looked down at the torch in his hand. “I ‘ope you’re no plannin' on a night walk on the beach, at least not for too long. Tide's comin' in.”
“Is it?” I asked eagerly.
“Yeah,” he said, and placed the torch in my open hand. “So, you be careful alright? Don’t get trapped in any caves.”
I looked into his eyes, and he smirked.
“We can always tell,” he said, half-laughing. “You younguns always think you can pull a fast one. Look, I don’t know who you’re goin’ down there with, but the coastguard gets enough calls from tourists who get stuck on the beach in the dark because of the tide. You get your arses off the beach before 9, you hear me? And don’t lose your way in the dark. There’s no light down there, so head back way before 9. Do you understand me?”
I hadn’t been spoken to this way since I was a child, but I was so unbelievably grateful to him right now. Now I knew how long I had to rescue my son, how soon we had to be out of there, and that there was a reliable coastguard service here used to dealing with people getting stuck in the caves due to the tide.
“Thank you,” I said, and left as fast as I could.
My legs had managed to recover from the sprint in Pestleton on the many hours long train journey, but now I had messed them up again. By the time I reached the steps that lead down to the beach, the light was already beginning to fade. It was still daylight, but it was on the turn indeed. It was undoubtedly the time to be leaving this beach, not climbing down onto it.
I took the steps down two at a time. The place looked the exact same as it had all those years ago, which was equally nostalgic and depressing. The steps were covered in sand and grasses, before my feet hit the soft sand at the bottom. In such dull light, the sand looked grey and desolate. I looked out and saw the tide looming nearby, roaring and grey and beautiful and dangerous. Everything we love about nature.
I don’t know what it looks like to see someone fully dressed, shoes and all, running frantically on dry, soft sand, alone across a beach. But I do know that because Southside-on-sea was on a hill, that there were houses that had full view of this beach, and as I ran, torch in hand, I felt that unmistakable feeling human intuition gives you that tells you someone is watching you. I felt the eyes on me, and I knew it must look hilarious.
Then I saw it up ahead. The mouth of the cave, facing the sea, wide and dark. I reached it and by the grace of God I could see inside with what natural light was remaining. I could see the walls and the ground, but I couldn’t see any detail, like that first time you open your eyes under water, and you can see lights and shapes before it stings like hell. My feelings led me this far, and my feelings told me my son was in here, and that he was in extreme danger.
I stepped inside as quietly as I could and resolved not to switch the torch on until I absolutely had to, so I didn’t risk giving myself away too early while Mikey stood in the shadows, weapon in hand.
I crept further in and felt a breakage beneath my foot. I looked down to see a vague, grey shape in half. I bent closer and saw that it was a shard of rock in the shape of a blade like the kind we’d played with as kids all those years ago. Now snapped in two beneath my adult foot. I crept on.
As the darkness closed in the deeper I went, my eyes naturally adjusted. I still couldn’t see detail, but I could see the walls closing in as I walked on, and saw the cave twisting to the right. Then, to my horror, it all came to a small tunnel.
I peered inside and could see nothing but dark. I got down on my hands and knees and stuck my head inside to listen. It was mostly silent, except for the occasional sound of wind rushing by, then stopping, then rushing again.
The tunnel was wide enough for two people to crawl through side by side, but no where near tall enough for anyone except children to walk through. We had seen this as kids, but as it sloped downwards, we had been too scared to try going down it. Feeling distinctly as though I might be a little crazy myself, I got onto my arse and slid my legs inside. Since I remembered that in the light you can see it slopes downwards, I wanted to go down it arse first.
I sat on the cusp for a moment, my torch in my pocket and my hands steadying myself on the cave walls, when the doubt in this entire journey entered my mind. What was really going on here? What proof did I actually have of any of this? Was my husband right when he said this was just my way of controlling a situation that can’t be controlled?
Then I realised, with a shock of horror, that any adult who climbed down here could easily get out by shimmying themselves up the narrow tunnel, pushing their legs and torso against the sides to get upwards and out, as long as they were fit, but that six year old kids were far, far too small to ever be able to get back out after they’d slid down. Or been forced to slide down.
Then I heard a footstep from down there, and my heart exploded in heightened terror. I slid down.
It was dark and dry when I got to the bottom. The ground felt as though it hadn’t known water in millions of years, and it was so completely dark that you would have needed a torch down here even if it was full daylight outside. But getting to my feet told me that this was a large, spacious cavern, as echoes of my movements sounded from all sides. The echoes took a long time to come back to me. I stood still and listened. I heard not a single other sound.
Stepping forward, I made sure to put my foot down as carefully as possible each time, since I couldn’t see the ground at all. I suddenly grew concerned there may be a shelf, and that the ground may drop suddenly into an ancient underground space. So I gave in and switched on my torch. It had three settings, so I set it to the lowest one at first and shone it at the ground. It looked similar to the ground back at sea level, but now I could see the detail of the rocky ground.
I stepped on and on, stopping still every now and then to listen for sound. I saw no evidence of a drop in the floor. Due to the silence, I grew braver and shone the narrow, weak, white beam in front of me and out to my side. It never hit a cave wall at all, which made me feel out in the open. Vulnerable.
When I next stopped to listen, I felt an ineffable urge to stay still a moment longer. Then I heard a very tiny, but very distinguishable, cough.
“Hello?” I hissed through the dark. There was silence again. I shone the torch around. “Hello?”
A sound came. Loud and panicked. The loud hum of someone that had their mouth covered. My heart pounded. “Who’s that?” I hissed again. The sound came again. From the right. I shone my torch towards it.
The figure of a man. On his knees. Hands behind his body, hair dishevelled, mouth covered. I shone my torch to his face, changed the setting so that it was a brighter and stronger beamed, and saw the terrified face of Mikey Wellis.
He made a sound like he was trying to talk. I ran over to him and stared down. His hands and feet were tied to a post behind him, with chains, for God’s sake. Chains, not rope. I pulled the piece of fabric down from his mouth.
“Ada,” he breathed, “thank God.” He had fresh wounds on his face, and he looked exhausted.
“Mikey – what,” I stammered. “What are you – is my son here?” I asked, a thousand questions all fighting for dominance.
“Yes,” he said, “look to your left.” I spun around and shone my torch in that direction.
A line of children crouched in the same position as Mikey did, on their knees with their heads drooping, their hands behind their backs. They were all roughly the same height, and only a few of them looked up at the light. One of them, a boy, stared the longest, and in the broken and hurt eyes I recognised the face of my son.
I ran to him, and how I managed not to fall on the rocky uneven cave floor, I’ll never know. I seized him by the shoulders and hugged him.
“It’s okay I’ve got you,” I said as I hugged him, feeling him move into me, hearing him cry. I pulled the fabric away from his mouth.
“Mummy,” he breathed, before crying again. I hugged him and then began pulling at the chains around his hands stupidly, as though I could magic them apart. “I’m gonna get you out of here, okay? I’m here now, don’t worry, you’re safe. I’ll get you out of here.” I moved to stand up in front of him.
Turning to the other children, I shouted, “and all of you. You’re safe now. I’m going to rescue all of you and get you home to your families.” I shone my torch across them as I spoke, and some of the faces I recognised instantly. The first and most easily recognisable was the face of James Hyson. “Your families have been looking for you all,” I told them, and then I shone the light on myself, “and I’m going to rescue you and get you back to them. Where you will be safe.”
“Safe from what?” came a cold voice. Stunned, I stayed where I was as the reality of the situation returned to me. The questions that had been fighting for dominance all returned to me in one go; if this wasn’t Mikey’s doing, whose was it?
I turned around slowly and switched my torch to the brightest setting.
“Safe from you,” I called back. I wanted them to speak again so I’d know which direction to shine my torch in.
“But I am their safety,” came the voice again, and to my horror I realised it came from above. I shone my torch up into the pitch black above me and saw there was a shelf to the cave wall up above, and on the shelf, smiling down at me, was Lucy Erin Wellis.