Tunnels 02, Deeper

skulls. All bore teeth marks and, from their size, could have been rabbit or squirrel. Then she noticed a much larger skull with pronounced canines.
    "Dog," she said, identifying it immediately. Stuck to the skull was a chunky leather collar, darkened with dried blood.
    She was in the cat's lair!
    The newspaper article she'd read in the hotel suddenly came back to her.
    "So you're the one who's been snatching dogs!" she said. "You're the beast of Highfield Common," she added with an amazed chuckle, addressing the darkness where she could hear the cat's regular breathing.
    She got herself up, the skeletons cracking and splintering beneath her feet, and began down the gallery that led off the bone pit. Its sides were battened with timbers that to her practiced eye didn't look too sound -- there were signs of wet rot and the green of excessive dampness on them. Worse still, there weren't enough of these props to brace the roof, as if someone had been randomly removing them without any thought for what effect it might have. She shook her aching head. She certainly wasn't in the safest of places, but she needed somewhere to recover from her injuries.
    The gallery took her lower, and then she emerged from it into a larger area. She glimpsed some duckboarding on the ground, its surface covered with spreading tendrils of white rot. On this was a pair of dilapidated armchairs positioned side by side. In one of these, the cat was sitting perfectly still, as if it had been waiting for her for some time.
    She shone the light around her and gasped with surprise. At its widest point, the earthen chamber was approximately fifty feet across, but at the back end the wall had evidently collapsed, a drift of soil reaching almost as far as the armchairs. Water dripped steadily from the roof and, as she edged around the wall, she stepped straight into a puddle. It was deceptively deep, and she lost her balance.
    Cursing, her foot drenched in muddy water, she grabbed at the nearest thing she could to steady herself, one of the roof props. Her hand came away with a clutch of soggy splinters and she fell against the wall, her leg slipping even deeper into the pool. Worse still, as the prop she'd grabbed shifted, a gap opened in the bowed timber planks supporting the roof. A torrent of soil cascaded over her.
    "For heaven's sake!" Sarah fumed. "What stupid fool built this place?"
    She stepped out of the pool, wiping the soil from her eyes. At least she'd managed not to drop her flashlight, which she now used for a more detailed examination of her surroundings. She made her way carefully around the excavation, assessing the props, all of which appeared to be in various stages of decay.
    Pursing her lips, and asking herself what had possessed her to come down here, she turned to the cat, which hadn't as much as moved a muscle while she'd been flailing around. It was sitting patiently in the armchair, its head held high as it studied her. She could have sworn that there was something about its expression -- as if it was quietly amused by her antics.
    "Next time you try to take me anywhere, I'll think twice about it!" she said angrily.
    Careful! She held her tongue, reminding herself what she was dealing with. Although the cat looked placid enough, Hunters, especially if they turned feral, could be volatile, and she shouldn't do anything that might alarm it. She edged closer to the empty armchair, taking care not to make any sudden movements.
    "Mind if I sit down?" she asked in a gentle voice, holding up her muddy palms to the cat as if to show she meant it no harm.
    As she lowered herself into the seat, a thought began to nag at her. She was looking around the excavation, trying to work out exactly what it was that was bothering her, when the cat made a small lunge toward her. Sarah drew back, then relaxed as she saw it was merely rubbing its muzzle against her armchair.
    Sarah noticed something draped there, and slowly reached across to take it in her hands. It looked like a piece of damp fabric. Sitting in the armchair, she spread it open. It was a mud-soaked rugby shirt of black and yellow stripes. She sniffed at it.
    Despite the heavy odor of rot and damp that pervaded the air, a single smell could be perceived. Just the faintest trace. She sniffed it again to make sure she wasn't mistaken, and then looked intently at the cat. Her brow furrowed as a bubble rising to the surface of water, it suddenly burst into the open.
    "This was his ,