Episode 3 Group 3

Jacob led the way through what appeared to be an old mining tunnel.  After recieving their weirdly creepy instructions, he and the rest of his group left their room and entered the damp cavern. Tracks made for minecarts started from the door, and continued down the long tunnel.  It was the only way to go now, Jacob thought.  The black door behind them shut and was now locked. 

            Luckily, a few lights that were strung alongside the tunnel walls.  Otherwise it would be incredibly dark down here.  Jacob shivered.  It wasn't nearly as bad as some of the caves that he'd explored in his time, but it was still chilly and he had a normal t-shirt on.  

           They only had one girl in their group, Jane.  She had pretty ash-blonde and large blue eyes and she seemed to be holding her own pretty well.  Jacob was impressed.  Even he wanted to freak out a little. 

            The other three in the group were all dudes; Kord, Matt, and Dwight.  Kord had broad shoulders and he was average height; almost resembling Jacob's build.  Matt and Dwight on the other hand were both super tall, Dwight being the lankier one.  Matt had a Deadmau5 shirt and wore thick glasses, giving Jacob the hipster vibe. Dwight seemed more like an average-Joe with a plaid button down shirt and jeans. 

            Even if the sexes were one sided, their group was pretty diverse.  Jacob had no idea who these people were or why they were all here together.  But they were definitely going to find a way out of this mess, he thought.

            “So… Are you all students?” Jacob asked.

            The notes they found in their pockets instructed them to learn more about each other, which seemed odd, but if it meant they could escape then Jacob was going to become everyone's best friend right then.

            “I am,” Jane said, “Communications.”

            “Same,” Dwight said.

            “Not currently, but my friends and I run a pretty big YouTube channel,” Matt said, “I got my Associates last year.”

            “I’m actually teaching already,” Kord said, “Finished with the whole school thing... I guess that’s ironic to say.”

            Jacob forced a laugh.  It usually wasn't so tense and awkward to have a normal conversation for him, he enjoyed people, but this was beyond a regular situation.

            “So… What are we supposed to be doing exactly?” Jane asked.

            “I’m not sure,” Jacob said, “The hint they gave us didn't explain a whole lot.”

            “This reminds me of a morbid version of the get-to-know-you games we’d play in elementary school,” Matt commented.

            “Yeah, why did they tranquilize us?  I feel like that was unnecessary if we're participants... I don't remember volunteering for anything,” Dwight said.

            “Maybe we didn’t,” Jacob said quietly.

            That made Dwight shiver, but they were all thinking it.  Someone kidnapped them and brought them here.

            Finally, the tunnel was starting to change into something else.  It opened up into a larger room with multiple tunnel entrances in different directions. Ladders and wood platforms surrounded them, but they looked ancient and unreliable.  An old gated elevator covered in rust as was there as well, but the chances of it working were slim.

            “This is spoopy...” Jane said.

            "You mean spooky?" Kord asked.

            Jane just shook her head.

            "What’s that?” Dwight pointed to the end of the cave.

            Past the elevator the ground looked like it dropped off.  Not too surprising, Jacob thought, these tunnels looked really old.  It would be silly to not expect cave-ins or the occasional gigantic hole right?  However the lights were still working... Odd. 

            Almost like someone else was here.

            Unsure of what else to do, the group approached the hole.  It had to be at least three cars wide and long.  The pit was too dark to see down, but they could see tons and tons of spiderwebs.

            “Gross, ” Jacob muttered.

            Jane cringed and walked away.

            “Those webs are huge… And I don't just mean that they're lengthy. They're... thick,” Kord noted.

            It was true.  There was something off about these webs in particular.  Instead of wispy they were clumpy, and you could even see glittering from the stickiness.  Jacob hated spiders.  Whatever lived down there was probably the size of a basketball.  He felt sick thinking about it.

            “Check it out,” Kord said, “Looks like people actually used this hole for something.”

            Hanging was a broken wide piece of wood.  It was attached to some rope and a wheel for cranking it up and down.  As they examined the the hole more closely, Jacob spotted something else.

            “Is that…” he started.

            Kord followed his gaze.  Hanging smack-dab in the middle of the dark hole was something that resembled a human body.

            “It's a person,” Jacob breathed.

            “Are you sure?” Jane asked uneasily.

            “Yeah he’s kind of wiggling still, I wonder if he’s stuck... Hey!” Jacob called to him.

            Jane hushed him angrily, her eyes wide with alarm.

            “He could be alive,” Jacob insisted.

            “He’s stuck in a freaking massive spider web! Who knows how long he’s been there!  I don't see anyone else hanging around,” she added, pun intended.

            “We need to get a better look.”

            Jacob started searching around the cave for anything, but not sure what.  Someone had to have left something good behind, he thought, like a flashlight.  Dwight, Kord, and Matt helped him, with lack of anything better to do.  Jane stood stubbornly opposed to this mission.

            “Hey,” Matt said excitedly, “Found something.”

            He brought over a flare, unused.       

            “Brilliant,” Jacob said.

            They walked back towards the hole, lighting off the flare.  The bright red lights sparked and danced.  Jacob got as close as he could to extend the light further into the darkness without falling in. 

            “What the hell is that!” Matt backed away.

            The body hanging was a person's, and it was wiggling, but not because he was alive. 

            A large spider, probably the size of a labrador, had it’s nasty pincer-like mouth inside the dead man’s stomach, tearing at a long organ that could only be his intestines.

            Jacob threw himself backwards, dropping the flare.  It traveled down the hole, lighting the walls and exposing several more large hairy spiders.  Once it hit the bottom, there was a moment of deadly silence.

            The flare had started a flame on the webs.  The pit started to glow orange, heat spreading upwards.  There was a rumble of soft angry hissing, and then the sound of scurrying legs that shook the cave.

            Everyone froze, looking from one another’s faces. 

            “Run!”

            Stupid, stupid, stupid, Jacob wanted to smack himself.  Everyone started to run back the way we came, but Jacob quickly pulled on Jane's arm.

            “No! There’s only a dead end that way,” Jacob said.

            “Where do we go!” Dwight cried.

            “Up there!” Kord said.

            A ladder led towards another tunnel above them.  Everyone scrambled up, not taking their sweet time.  The tunnel looked depressingly similar to the one they entered from, but there was no way of knowing which tunnels lead where.

            And there was no turning back now.

            Behind them, two of the dog-sized spiders had already started pursuit.  Both of them hissing, and used the walls instead of the ground to crawl towards the group.  It was like something out of a nightmare.

            “ARGGHH!!!” Jane wailed, “No, no, no, no!”

            She was leading the group now, arms pumping with all her might.

            By dumb luck, instead of a dead end they made it into another room with a slight incline.  At the top of the baby hill were some minecarts.  They were parked and filled with dark chunks of rock.

            “Out of the way!” Jacob ordered.

            With all his might, he pushed the first cart toward the tunnel they exited.  It screeched loudly, but eventually glided down the slope, picking up speed.  One of the spiders happened to return to the tracks just in time for it to get pummeled.  It’s legs crunched and scattered while spraying gray bug juice.

            More spiders crept through the tunnel’s opening.  Some charged straight toward them and the rest gathered along the walls.  Some even getting a top view of the group.  Jacob couldn't believe how many there were. The walls were almost completely made of hairy spider legs now.

            “There’s too many of them,” Dwight said.

            “I don’t think we can beat them with speed,” Jacob said, panting.

            “I don’t think we can beat them at all!” Jane added.  She was frantically dancing around, and stopped to hide behind Matt.

            “There has to be another tunnel in here…another way out!” Kord said, sounding pretty hopeless.

            The spiders on the ceiling were started to spin webs and descend.  Each spider had several moist twinkling eyes, making it look like stars were slowly falling towards them.  Jane crouched, watching them get closer and closer, and started to cry.

            “I think I found more flares,” Matt said, "We could use these to scare them right?"

            They all turned around to see Matt carrying things in his arms.  Two were flares, one was dynamite.