Shallow breaths.
Ted's Caving Page (also known as Ted the Caver in some parts of the internet) is a Web Serial Novel detailing the attempts of spelunker Ted and his friend "B" to explore a strange, undiscovered portion of a local cave. Ambiguous horror ensues. First published on the Angelfire webhosting service in 2001, this story was an early example of using the Internet to tell a horror story Blair Witch-style, and remains pretty effective to this day. It can be found here
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An indie film based on the original story was released in 2013. A YouTube channel adapting the story more faithfully than the film can be found here.
This story contains examples of:
- Being Watched: Frequently whenever someone climbs through the hole into the unexplored part of the cave. Whatever is in there is implied to keep a vigilant eye on the group...
- The Big Guy: B is too large to crawl through Floyd's Tomb. Ted also mentions that B has a lot of upper-body strength.
- Bolivian Army Ending: Ted's final journey mentions that himself, B, and Joe are returning to the cave so they can confront whatever it is lives there. Because there are no further journal entries, it's implied that none of them ever returned.
- Catchphrase: "I was pumped!" He also seems fond of calling things "bizarre."
- Chekhov's Gun: The glow sticks. Toward the beginning, Ted even mentions that it would be possible but very difficult to find one's way out of a cave using them and no other light sources.
- Claustrophobia: There are very, very detailed descriptions of crawling through very tiny holes full of sharp rocks.
- Driven to Madness: Those who encounter whatever resides in the cave and manage to escape alive inevitably become deeply disturbed by the experience. They withdraw themselves from friends and family, begin suffering from horrific and vivid nightmares, and start to hallucinate.
- Dug Too Deep: Implied to be the case with the miners originally, then becomes the case when Ted and B break through the wall that has... Whatever the creature in there is.
- Eldritch Location: The cave. In one of the final entries, Ted remarks that it feels as though the cave itself does not want them in there. There's also the fact that the pictures of the creature's lair won't develop...
- Evil-Detecting Dog: B's Jack Russel terrier, Whip. To quote Ted, "I have seen her square off with dogs twice her size, but now she acted as if Satan himself was lurking in the darkness."
- Evil Smells Bad: When Ted is fleeing from the creature in the cave during the story's climax, he describes smelling a horrible, putrid, rotting, death-like odor.
- Fictional Counterpart: The "Mystery Cave" is based on Interstate Cave in Utah.
- Genius Loci: Maybe. It's not entirely sure if things in the cave are moving on their own or if it's the result of the creature in the cave.
- Handicapped Badass: B was once injured in a caving accident and was told by doctors that he would never walk again. Not only did he regain the ability to walk, but he was able to return to caving and suffers from only minor difficulty getting around.
- Hell Is That Noise: An in-universe example. Says Ted of the mysterious scream, "I would say it sounded like a cross between a man screaming in fear, and a cougar screaming in pain."
- I Don't Like the Sound of That Place: Invoked, as Ted names the passage that they discovered "Floyd's Tomb." As if that weren't ominous enough, it's named after caver Floyd Collins, who died after getting himself caved in.
- It Can Think: The thing that freaks the protagonist out the most is that whatever the creature is, it is smart enough to try and break the rope they were escaping out with by pulling it back into the cave and was also smart enough to cut the phone cord the two were using to communicate with each other.
- It's Probably Nothing: Ted and B dismiss the creepy rumbling from inside the cave as trucks driving on the nearby highway, and later, rushing water. It's neither.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: By trying to break open and explore the passage of the cave that (supposedly) hasn't been explored yet, the protagonists have allowed whatever was trapped in there to escape...
- No Ending: The final entry is Ted saying that he, Joe, and B plan to return to the cave that day, and he'll update the blog either that night or the next day with information on what they discovered. Suffice it to say, he never does get around to updating it.
- Nothing Is Scarier: Ted never gets a good look at whatever lives in the cave. He only hears it and smells it.
- Oh, Crap!: SOMETHING WAS PULLING THE ROPE BACK INTO THE CAVE!!!
- Primal Fear: Go ahead, read the bit about being in total, pure darkness, and see if you don't get at least mildly creeped out.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: The creature originally was sealed away by a tough rock wall in the deepest part of the cave that required the duo several days of solid work to get past and broke several of their power tools in the process. Unfortunately, thanks to the protagonist, it's finally free.
- Shout-Out: Ted explicitly compares the hieroglyphics deep within the cave to The Blair Witch Project.
- Stylistic Suck: The story does a very good job of looking like an ordinary Angelfire page from the early 2000s (because that's exactly what it is).
- Unseen Evil: It's obvious that there's something down there that doesn't want to be disturbed, but what it is, we never find out. Ted briefly mentions an old myth regarding the Hodag, a creature that dwells in caves, but nothing much comes of that.
- You Look Like You've Seen a Ghost: Or at least, whatever poor Joe saw in the cave.
The film adaptation contains examples of:
- Bittersweet Ending: Joe and Uncle Charlie are both killed by the monsters, and Ted ends up sacrificing himself. However, Brad escapes and successfully seals off the entrance to the cave, trapping the creatures once more.
- Canon Foreigner: The film mostly uses an Economy Cast consisting of the three cavers from the original story, with the major exception being Charlie, Ted's uncle.
- Chekhov's Gun: The brothers find an old stick of dynamite at the beginning of the film. Ted ends up using it to hold off the creatures during the finale.
- Death by Adaptation: Type 2. Joe was with Ted and B in the original story's Bolivian Army Ending, and presumably perished with them. In the movie, he dies in his home much earlier on, leaving Ted and Brad to venture back to the cave on their own.
- Heroic Sacrifice: After being injured too badly to make it back to the surface unassisted, Ted blows himself up with a stick of dynamite to hold off the creatures long enough for Brad to escape.
- Named by the Adaptation: B is given the name Brad.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The brothers accidentally release the creatures while expanding the passage they find in the cave. The enormity of this finally dawns on them when Brad finds a newspaper article that says a family of campers went missing near the site of the cave.
- Related in the Adaptation: B was just Ted's buddy in the original story, but here he's Ted's estranged younger brother.
- Sole Survivor: Brad is the only member of the core cast to make it to the end of the movie.
- Spared by the Adaptation: In the original story, B is part of the Bolivian Army Ending alongside Ted and Joe. In the movie, he's the only one to survive the final encounter in the cave.
- Weakened by the Light: During the finale, the brothers and Uncle Charlie are able to keep the creatures at bay by using flashlights and flares.
