“Do we know what we’re looking for?” Russell said.
“I just don’t see why he had to take us on so many back roads,” Sammy said. “We could have made it here hours ago.”
Nathan drove the car on, passing acres of uncut grass stretching from the narrow lane flanked by lime-green bushes.
You have arrived at your destination, the digital speaker announced.
Nathan slowed the vehicle to a stop. They rolled down the windows, and looked up and around. There were no buildings or people, no utility wires strung along the road.
“You think this is it?” Russell said.
“There’s a path, Nathan, to the right,” Gus pointed.
Nathan turned the car onto a furrowed path whose grassiness suggested it wasn’t used.
“There’s like an entrance ahead,” Russell said, straining to make it out.
“A gated entrance,” Gus said.
“Were you here before, Gus?” Leeda asked.
“No.”
The Range Rover stopped at the foot of a massive vertical cliff whose top they could not see for the outcroppings growing out from it.
Leaving the vehicle, they walked to an entrance. Grated rusted iron gates slopped from the center where they joined. Their sides hinged into the flat stone of the cliff wall. Behind the gates rested two heavy old wooden doors the same shape as the gate doors. Nathan pulled the gates but a locked chain held them closed.
“The instructions from Hain said to knock,” Shawn said.
“That would seem to be the polite thing to do,” Sammy said.
Nathan knocked on the wood door. The others looked around and saw no one.
Nathan knocked again.
“Maybe they went out for curds and whey,” Sammy said.
Again, Nathan knocked.
“Bring the car up and toot the horn, Nathan,” Leeda said, and just then, a latch sounded from the opposite side of the door.
“Trolls?” Sammy said.
The heavy door slid open a crack. “Mr. Hain?” a man’s voice asked.
Nathan looked a question to Gus, then turned back, “Yes, Conrad Hain,” and the door opened wider.
“We were beginning to think you would not arrive in time, Mr. Hain,” said a middle-aged man wearing a polo shirt, and adjusting his glasses. “I’ll get the lock open . . . There. You and your party come right in. Everything has been prepared as discussed.”
The six passed through the opened gate and door, and entered a well-lit smoothed-stone tunnel. “Just follow me, please,” the man said. “My name is Samuel.” Approaching another man with matching polo shirt and khaki slacks, he introduced him, “This is, Pierre.”
“How do you do,” Pierre said, also smiling politely.
“We were who arranged everything for your visitation, and who hope your experience is as you hope and paid for.”
“Yes,” said Pierre. “We appreciate your generosity, Mr. Hain, and we are certain you will enjoy your experience in the cave.”
“Thank you, I’m sure we will,” Nathan said, the friends exchanging puzzled looks.
“You will find the necessary attire inside, a large bundle, the garments can’t really be hung,” Samuel said. “And as per your wishes, we will not disturb you before morning.”
The group followed the attendants down the curved tunnel.
“Here we are,” Samuel said, stopping at an aluminum sided door that he proceed to pull open with Pierre. Pulling together from inserted handles, they tugged with effort until the foot thick door’s opposite side cleared the threshold, and then stopped. “Because of the sensitivity of the cave to outside air, I’ll ask you to enter as quickly as you can once there is room to squeeze through.”
“We also remind you of the fragility of the wall paintings and that you absolutely under no circumstances should touch or even breathe near them. This is paramount.”
“You really cannot disturb the paintings.”
“It could be ruinous to us.”
“And to you.”
“That was made clear in the communications to you, no Mr. Hain?”
“Yes. Perfectly clear,” Nathan said. “We won’t disturb the paintings.”
“Here we go then,” Pierre said, again pulling the door with his colleague. “Slide in quickly.”
With just enough space for them to slide through, the group filed through the opening, disappearing behind the door.
“Use the torches. There are plenty to last you the night.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Hain. Enjoy.”
“We will not open the door until morning.”
“Goodnight sirs and madam,” Pierre and Samuel said, as they slid the thick door shut.
On the door’s opposite side, the complete darkness dissolved from the light of a torch Nathan lit.
“Nathan, where the hell are we?” Sammy asked.
“Nathan was only going along,” Gus said. “Conrad Hain clearly arranged this and indicated that he would be participating in this, em . . .”
“Experience,” Sammy said.
“Take more of those torches,” Nathan said, “and light them from mine.
They picked torches from a neat pile, and lit them from one another’s.
“So you don’t know what this is about, Ace,” Russell said.
“No.”
“This will be a test of our worthiness to accept The Book,” Gus said.”
“Didn’t we pay the guy enough?” Sammy said.
“We did, but that only showed our desire for what we want. Through this test he wants us to demonstrate our worthiness of character to possess the secrets and powers found in The Book of Yulen,” Gus said. “And he is right to do so.”
“So what do we do, Ace, here all night like the guy said?”
“Russell, I don’t know.”
“He said something about necessary attire,” Shawn said, reaching his torch light behind them. “There’s a bundle of things there on the ground.”
They stepped to it, and picked up pelts and skins of animals, leather cords hanging from them. “Booties,” Russell smiled, holding up furry footwear.
“I think we’re supposed to put these on,” Nathan said. “Part of the experience, I suppose.”
“And if we don’t decorate ourselves like Neanderthals?” Sammy said.
“I can tell you from experience, Sammy,” said Gus, “that we must follow all instructions from Mr. Hain, and satisfy all details, or be disqualified from the test.”
“I think they’re kind of sexy,” Leeda said, holding a furry top across her chest.
“Let’s just do as we agreed, follow the instructions, and fulfill the test, okay?” Nathan said.
“I just know we’re going to find Ralph Lauren 15,000 BC labels in these,” Sammy said, pulling pelts from the pile.
>
After the stalwarts exchanged their twenty-first century clothes for the rough-hewn animal skins, and hours passed with nothing happening, they set to explore the dark cave. Along the walls, they found lively colored prehistoric paintings of stick figured humans, and lifelike bison, horses, antelope, and other mammals that seemed to dance in the flickering torchlight.
“Shawn, you have the best arm,” Nathan said. “Take a stone and throw it up to see how high the cave is.”
Shawn bent and picked a stone from the packed dirt, positioned it in his fingers, and threw it high. Nathan and he listened steadily and then heard it drop to the ground. “It’s pretty high,” Shawn said.
“Try another.”
Shawn took a second stone, gave Nathan his torch, and then flung the rock hard. This time there was a sound before it fell to the ground, and of something else hitting the ground. “It’s glass,” Shawn said, of the fallen slivers he picked up.
“Mineral?” asked Gus.
“No . . . don’t think so. Looks like glass . . . like from . . . a lamp?”
“God’s living room,” Sammy said.
“Don’t know,” Shawn said, �
��but this cave is darn high.
“Throw one across,” Nathan said.
Shawn took another stone and threw it ahead. Several seconds later, they heard it strike.
“Ground, or the far wall, this place is huge,” Shawn said.
“More of an immense cavern,” said Nathan.
“I just hope no one sees us in these costumes,” Sammy said.
“Where’s Leeda and Russell?” Nathan said looking around.
In another part of the cavern, Russell and Leeda separately explored the colorful paintings of human hunters and wild animals. Russell brought his torch close to them. The running animals were painted in relief against the uneven shape of the cavern sides to give them greater lifelike appearance. Russell’s hand passed over the backs and long sharp antlers of the deer and antelope. His hand attempted to rub off the dark red colors but they did not come off. He tried again, scratching with his nails and palm, and it looked like he removed some, but his unhealed wound opened and bled on the animals. Trying to rub the blood off, he smudged it into them.
Farther down the cavern, Leeda was drawn to big cats standing on their hind quarters ready to leap, and others already doing so in mid air, mouths open, eyes fiery. Bringing her face closer to see them better, her foreign breath formed droplets on the painted bodies of the sabertooth tigers.
“Leeda. Russell,” Nathan and the others called. “Leeda.”
“Here,” she called back.
“Over here, Nathan,” Russell signaled.
“Come on back. The place is huge. You could get separated.”
“Nathan,” Shawn said, standing beside Nathan. “Do you hear something?”
“Yeah,” said Sammy. “Like far away. I’ve been hearing it a while.”
Nathan listened.
“Hear?” said Shawn.
“Yeah . . .”
“Not just noise, but it’s like steady.”
“As if some sort of—percussion?” Gus said.
“It’s really far,” said Shawn.
“But growing.”
“Getting closer.”
“Definitely like a drumming.”
“Percussion . . . instruments?” Gus said.
“Definitely a beat,” Shawn said, straining to hear.
“Steady. Yes a beat. Beating.”
“What’s up, Ace?” said Russell, returning.
“Don’t know. There’s some kind of sound coming from out there.”
“Getting louder.”
“You hear it?”
“Uh . . . no, don’t hear it,” Russell said.
“Well then it must be these torches,” Sammy said. “Kerosene poisoning making us delirious.”
“What’s that drumming?” Leeda said.
“Ah!” Sammy said.
“Let’s walk toward it,” said Nathan.
“It’s far but definitely growing or coming this way,” Leeda said.
“Everybody’s got a torch?”
“I have extra,” Gus said.
“Light them all. Stay together. Let’s see if we can find what’s out there.”
“Why be so nosy?” Sammy said.
Sticking together, only their torchlight beyond the enveloping darkness, they cautiously advanced, loose pieces of animal pelts dangling against their hard, buffed bodies.
“Okay, am I losing it?” Sammy said, after a while, “Or was that a growl? Like from an animal.”
“Your nervous stomach,” said Shawn.
“But I heard it too,” said Gus.
“This is creeping me out,” Sammy said. “Let’s just knock on the cave door and say we’re done here.”
“Then the challenge will be over and we will have lost,” Gus said.
“No refunds?”
“No refunds and no book, and no point in setting out. We must complete every part of the test. If it stated to remain here the night, the night we must stay.”
The distant sound grew louder. It wasn’t clear if it increased because they neared it, or it neared them.
“It’s definitely drumming.”
“And chanting.”
“Oh the long lost tribes of Israel.”
“Quiet, Sammy,” said Russell.
“We approach the jaws of death, and I’m supposed to just be like fearless, and simply absorb impending doom without a peep.”
“Sammy, I don’t know what it is, but if they’re singing, whatever it is can’t be too bad,” Nathan said.
“So it is a kind of song,” Gus said.
“Chanting.”
“Beating drums and steady chanting.”
“Look. Lights.”
“Torch lights like ours,” Shawn said, of the flickering orange shadows far ahead.
“So they have to be men.”
“From the voices, sounds like men and women,” Leeda said. “Hear them? Really low cadences from male voices, and higher from women?”
“So we’ve established they can sing. Now let’s go back.”
“And that definitely was a wild animal sound,” Shawn said, of an echoing growl.
“Come on. Pick up the pace,” Nathan said, keeping steady toward the increasingly brighter light.
“It’s like, like Indian singing,” Gus said “Of the Wild West.”
“So where’s the Seventh Cavalry?”
“I think they would be us, Sammy,” said Shawn.
“Wait, weren’t they the ones at Custer’s Last Stand?”
Having nearly covered the length of a football field, they saw that the mysterious sights and sounds seemed to come from behind a natural stone corridor cut into a cavern wall ahead.
As the source of the chanting and banging made its way into the cavern proper with its cathedral high ceiling, they identified it as distinctly human. Every so often, a horn blew a shrilling note, and many voices rose to meet the horn’s sound.
Again, the horn blew, and the female voices especially rose. Scratched and rubbed instruments became distinct, these offsetting the drumbeat. White smoke swirled from the yet unseen torches, but as the shadows climbed higher against the rear wall of the cavern, the bright yellow and orange of burning handheld torches began turning into the cavern where Nathan and the others slowed.
Men, carrying torches, led the procession. Many other men, attired in tightly fitted animal skins followed. Behind them came others, dressed in fur wrappings of antelope, bear, and big spotted cats, hooded and hanging over them. These danced intensely, bobbing and chanting, their knees bending low and then springing up.
Behind them, more scruffily beaded men spread out. They carried spears that they struck into invisible victims while grunting and yelling all form of spirit cries. Following the hunters came the drummers and chanters tossing long loose hair.
Nathan’s group stopped to watch beyond. Deer men and bison men ambled to the front of the tribespeople. They charged into one another mimicking animals fighting, and their deer antler and horned bull headdresses locked onto each other.
The tribe of seemingly prehistoric people appearing from behind the rock-faced corridor grew excited watching the animal men dance and mimic fighting animals. The men with spears stabbed their stone tipped weapons into the air. The heated drumming, chanting, and screams intensified.
“These aren’t men,” Sammy said, his face pale.
“Paleolithic,” Gus said.
“Are they some kind of ghosts?” Russell said.
“I don’t think so,” Gus answered.
Tuba-like sounds blared, the Paleoliths blowing into twisted hollowed trunks resembling tubas. Others of the muscular but small chinned and highbrowed Paleolithic people blew strenuously into bison horns. Piercing shrills shot across the cavern. The clubs and femur bones hitting the stretched skin drums struck harder and faster. Animal men who fell to their knees were symbolically speared by the worked up, intoxicated hunters. In trance state, they pulled at the animal guts that tied their pelts across their chests, tearing them off for greater ease of moveme
nt.
Scream and holler the hunters and chanters did. Torch light reflected off the walls, and it shimmered from the mineral deposits on the cavern’s soaring stalagmite and stalactite columns. Beyond the spectacle of the tribe, jabbered roars, bellows, and piercing grunts of wild animals.
Chanting and moving forward in unison, the tribe stepped toward the intruding hunting party before them, and Nathan and company slowly moved back.
“Look, Nathan,” a terrified Russell said, pointing to a wall revealed by the Paleoliths’ torches. As if to pull off from the wall, a bison, and then cave lions resembling saber-toothed tigers, wild boars the size of bulls, and horses covered in wooly coats, leapt from the walls where they’d been captured in paint of ochre, blood, and mineral. And when the awakened animals hit the ground, the tribespeople shrilled bone shaking screams so high, that cracked stalactites fell crashing to the cavern floor. The hunters raised their spears. They sent their lithe bodies forward, sprinting toward the running animals—that charged in the direction of Nathan and company.
Immediately the six turned to flee, their disbelieving sprint slowing to look behind to see if it really was real. “Don’t look back and slow down!” Nathan called.
“Where are we going?” called Sammy.
“Just run for dear life!” Nathan yelled, as a stone tipped spear passed his face, and the roar of stampeding hooves and claws approached.
The tribe’s horns blew deliriously. Charging horses neighed. Screams from the prehistorics echoed off the cavern walls, and ululations from the women shook more stalactites loose. Some of the missile-like rocks landed like anvils on the animals, striking them dead. Other stalactites s crashed to the ground, barely missed the fleeing group.
“There’s no place to hide!” Sammy yelled, a sharp spear whizzing by him. The spear struck the ground ahead, sending sparks, before then disappearing into darkness. “There!” Nathan yelled, pointing ahead. “Crevices! Get ready to jump!”
Two cave lions roared just behind them. More spears flashed by them and hit the stony ground, sending off sparks like lit fuses. Behind Russell a high-shouldered bison charged, its muscular neck lowering its horns.
The mammoth raptor cats readied to pounce and dig their saber-shape incisors into Leeda and Gus. “Get ready to jump for all you’re worth!” Nathan yelled, lifting his torch and throwing it where they ran. “The crevice! Jump it!” he called, as his thrown torch lit the way. He ripped Shawn’s torch from his hand and threw that one too to light ahead. “Jump the crevice! Now!” he called, as they reached a wide black slit in the stone ground that the torches had fallen into. “Jump!” he called.
Yulen: Return of the Beast – Mystery Suspense Thriller (Yulen - Book 2) Page 7