"What was the name of that boy?” Stu called. "The one the trooper said drowned in the lake? It was Jason, wasn't it?"

"How do I know?" Donny called back, his voice faint. "Anyway, what's the difference? Get over here, would you? You got to see this. There are more wall markings in here. Oh, wow! I'm telling you. It's like some kind of shrine."

Stu felt woozy in the knees. "Donny, I think we should get out of here. Donny? That writing back there, it says Jason, Donny, only it's written upside down. Why would someone write upside down, Donny?"

As if in response, there was a sound—well, not so much a sound as a beating of the air—on the other side of the cave wall.

"Donny?"

Still no answer.

"Donny!!!"

But the only answer from the next cavern was the beating of hundreds and hundreds of tiny wings. It was answer enough for Stu. He scurried back from the hole, tripped, almost fell. He whirled but the room was so dark he couldn't tell which way he was going. He only knew he had to get out, get out at once.

But he couldn't see a thing without his flashlight. He groped around wildly, his hands in front of him.

One hand touched something furry.

He screamed and started to run.

A mistake.

He banged facefirst into a rock wall. His head rang like a bell. Putting his hands out, he held on to the wall as if it could somehow hold him, protect him, save him. He turned himself slowly around, so that his back was to the wall. This position felt slightly safer. He licked his lips. He tasted blood. He listened, straining his ears, but except for the ever-present sounds of dripping water, the cave was silent once more.

Drip... drip... drip...

He began inching along the wall, feeling with his hand for the large opening that led back to the next grotto, and the grotto after that, and eventually—he prayed—to safety. He just had to take it on blind faith that he was going in the right direction, that he—
He stopped cold, listening again, listening not just with his ears, but with every pore of his skin.

He felt like something big was coming toward him. As if part of the darkness in the room had broken free and was flying right at his head.

He was so sure he was about to be attacked, he covered his face with both hands, bracing himself for the blow.

No blow came.

And after a moment, he was ready to move again. He took his hands down.

Maybe his eyes had adjusted to the terrible darkness of the room, because he thought he saw the way now, the way out. He'd walk straight ahead, right across the cavern and—

Go! he shouted at himself. But he was too scared to move. And while he hesitated...

The large and hideous vampire bat, which had landed on the cave wall above his head, sank its fangs deep into his neck.

   Chapter 6

They were in the last room of the cave. There was a dim light spilling from a metal flashlight that lay on the cave floor. Strewn near the flashlight were the chewed-up remains of a middle-aged man in a tattered, blue-plaid hunter's vest.

Some of the light from the flashlight spilled onto the cave walls. Something had been scratched all over the walls, like a decoration in wavy lines.

Summer struggled to her knees. But the masked man picked her up. He carried her, kicking, to a large, smooth rock like an altar. He put her down on her back across the rock, so that her head hung back off one end, her legs off the other. With her head at this angle, she could read the markings scrawled so furiously all over the walls. It was the word Jason, scratched into the wall upside down as with tiny claws, over and over and over.

That wasn't all she could see. Way up high, the entire ceiling of the cave was wriggling with furry little bats.

   Friday the 13th: Road Trip, chapter 24