Halloween Story Idea Help

[Caiaphas]

I recently came up with an idea for a short story for Halloween while perusing the SCP Foundation site. Here's the bare bones of it: there's been a disappearance under extremely dubious circumstances of a research team. They, two days ago, went into a large cave that had been designated 682 due to several incidents in the past where the bodies of several local men and children were found outside of it, some with the arms burned down to the elbows but the clothing and the rest of the body untouched, others in fetal positions with bones decomposing and dating back hundreds of years.

It should be noted that it is unknown whether the cave houses 682 or whether it is 682.

The story follows a Commander Dreyfus as he leads a combat team down into the cavern with a fully armed platoon of very heavily armed men in an attempt to rescue the researchers. One by one his team starts to disappear, some taken by overt forces, others suddenly going mad and having to be put down. Walls in the cave seem to shift around them, blocking off exits and pretty much forcing them to go deeper into the cave.

It ends with the good Commander's absolute terror at seeing a thing rushing at him after the rest of his men have been taken out.

It feels empty to me, somehow, and yet I haven't been able to figure out what's wrong with it. Could you please tell me how you believe you could improve the story?

Thank you all kindly.

[Littlefoot]

This sounds like a really bad B movie I saw a few years ago, one of those direct to rental and value bin ones. But here is what I suggest. Drop the rescue angle, been done to death. Go with either curious kids or a forensics team. Kids might be curious enough to go in past the shadow line, and that should be far enough to damn them. Everyone knows that solders will die, but a child will go willingly towards something that an adult might shoot first, and that is creepy in its own right. Play up the ambiance of "living" walls. Have them be warm to the touch but the air is cold or something like that. from there bust out the Lovecraft and mind rape everyone. There are supposedly haunted and hidden caves near where I live, with backgrounds like Civil War hideouts and Rebel storehouses and native American burial grounds. The more you tie it in with the real world the better. Is this cave the desecrated grave of vengeful souls? Or a gateway to the underworld of your choice? Granted, the only thing I've posted was the result of mass amounts of caffeine, so you have to take this all with a grain of salt, but my general rule of thumb is that if what I write gives me nightmares, then its good enough.