Tunnels 03, Freefall

She built small campfires from material she'd collected along the route, using them to heat up the provisions, and kept them alight as she and the boys took it in turns to sleep. And she would always sprinkle a few sprigs of Aniseed Fire round the edges of the fire, so it burnt slowly and filled the air with its pungent odor.
    On the fourth day, as they were walking Will noticed how all of a sudden it felt very different underfoot -- it wasn't the crunch of gravel or the springiness of the fungus, but something softer.
    "Mulchy... like old leaves," he said as he sniffed deeply, trying to identify the different smells. Then he noticed something else -- movement on the wall next to him. At first he assumed his eyes were playing tricks because he was so tired. Then he saw that the movements were real and coming from all over -- not just the wall, but on the roof and the floor of the tunnel.
    "Wait!" he cried, drawing do a halt and forcing Chester to do the same at the other end of Elliott's stretcher. Squinting, Will saw many white wormlike things on all the surfaces. Then one crossed the ground just in front of his boot. Around ten centimeters in length, it was like a thin, perfectly white snake and didn't appear to have any eyes. With some sort of sucker at each extremity, it moved by turning end over end, as if it was continually performing cartwheels.
    "Yeuch!" Chester exclaimed. "Big bloody maggoty things!"
    Bartleby pounced on one, trapping it under his paws. Snapping at the worm, he managed to nip one end between his teeth. Its other end began to spiral quickly around, faster and faster as it tried to extricate itself from this unknown predator. Bartleby's eyes rolled in their sockets as he tried to watch its effort. Then the creature stopped wheeling around, and planted the sucker on its free end straight onto Bartleby's nose. With a shocked squawk, the cat shook his head frantically and released it from his jaws. That was enough for Bartleby -- he looked decidedly uneasy as he surveyed the sheer number of cartwheeling worms all around him, and made small leaps to avoid them, as if he was a pony jumping fences.
    Martha heard the commotion and came back to the boys. " Loop snakes . They won't hurt you," she informed them, as she began to pluck them from the walls and stuff them into a sack.
    "I'm sorry, Martha, but if the idea is to eat those things, you can count me out. And no way am I sticking round here," Chester said decisively, shuffling to one side to avoid a snake that was trying to attach its sucker to his toecap. He made a guttural sound deep in his throat to demonstrate his absolute disgust of the creatures, and set off at a pace, yanking the stretcher and Will along with him. "C'mon, Will, we're going!"
    Will was reluctant to follow, impeding Chester's quick getaway as he looked at the ground in fascination.
    "Buck up, Will!" Chester yelled, as he pulled at the stretcher. "I'm not in the mood for a nature class!"
    As they left, Will peered behind and saw Rebecca put down her rucksacks. She began to help Martha harvest the Loop Snakes. Then he saw Martha say something to Rebecca, who stepped quickly away from the woman. Rebecca hoisted on her rucksacks again and came running down the tunnel.
    Will didn't see any more because Chester broke into a jog, forcing him to move at the same speed. And it wasn't difficult to see why Chester was in such a rush. The number of Loop Snakes had increased until it was as if they were passing through an unbroken carpet of waving white fingers. They were everywhere -- some even dropping from the roof above and landing on Elliott and the stretcher. The boys couldn't avoid crushing them under the soles of their boots. They burst with a rather off-putting squishing sound, and a luminous fluid squirted from their bodies so that the boys left softly glowing patches in their wake.
    Eventually they came to a stretch of the tunnel which was free of Loop Snakes, and they waited for the others to catch up.
    Rebecca came along first.
    "What happened back there... with Martha?" Will puffed, still out of breath.
    "Nothing," she mumbled, not looking him in the eye.
    "That's rubbish," Will said. "I was watching. I saw her say something to you."
    "I tried to give her a hand with the Loop Snakes..."
    "Yes... and?" Will urged her.
    "She told me to get lost and that she was going to kill me," Rebecca said, keeping her voice low.
    "Did she, now," Will growled. "Don't worry, Rebecca --