“Yeah,” his eyes travelled over her face. “There’s more.”
He reached for her hand as they started towards the waterfall. She felt him tense. The grip on her hand turned into a vice, but when she was about to ask what was wrong, she saw his gaze had shifted past her shoulder.
Anxious, she followed that stunned stare. At first nothing was evident. Beyond the reach of their torches lie the abyss they had just travelled from–a blackened confluence of tunnels and caverns. One avenue led to life-sustaining food and oxygen, another led to extinction. In that shadowed junction two eyes glared out at them.
Ghostly–floating–unblinking. Those pulsing green orbs stalked them. The shadowy figure advanced to the furthest reach of their torchlight. Stella’s gasp was trapped in her throat, and her feet became numb, useless for any means of flight.
What had simply been a pair of luminous eyes now took on mass under the ambient light. Black shadows congealed to form an upright figure, tall, but hunched. Its neck hung low so that its head was even with the sloped shoulders. Maybe there was the hint of a mouth or nose, but those features were lost on the charred face–lost to the gleaming eyes.
It took another awkward step forward, an imbalanced stride as if it didn’t know how to handle its own weight. The legs were long, defined, but seemingly soiled. Likewise the long torso and dangling arms. There were human elements to the creature, but it was naked, every inch of it covered in what now appeared to be blackened scales.
When Stella took a step backwards its eyes latched onto the movement. It had the predatory instincts of an animal.
“Get behind me,” Colin whispered.
Stella stuck beside him. Colin reached forward and brandished his torch. Green orbs followed the motion. He took another step with the flames thrust forward. The creature grew agitated, aggressive, as it lumbered headfirst towards Colin.
“Col,” she cautioned with a yelp.
The creature reacted to her cry. It lurched towards them, but Colin waved the torch and it held its ground, swaying side to side. Its arms extended and Stella could make out scaly hands with squat fingers. The palms were exceptionally large, reaching to mid-knuckle.
Stella raised her torch and edged closer, standing shoulder to shoulder with Colin. The motion pressed the beast back. It lifted one of its arms to deflect the flames.
“It doesn’t like the fire,” she mumbled through tight lips.
The sound of her voice made the sullied head snap in her direction. It freaked her, but she jabbed the torch in the air again, forcing it to retreat.
“Okay,” Colin urged quietly. “Let’s start backing up. Keep waving the torches. I don’t think it will follow us past the waterfall.”
Stella swung her flare. The sound of falling water filled her ears, but over it she heard a keening pitch. The creature was moaning, torn with the desire to give chase, but wary of the flames. As Colin and Stella reached the waterfall, the beast dropped its arms in apparent resignation. It swung around with its head hunched and its charcoal legs plodding stiffly away.
As it disappeared into the shadows Stella fell into a cold sweat. The hand that gripped the torch trembled.
“Come on,” Colin encouraged, his fingers on her arm.
She followed him. Trauma was setting in and she could feel the blood pounding in her head.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
“Stel?”
Boom. Boom. Boom.
“Stella?”
She blinked hard and saw the path to the Underworld ahead, the waterfall fading behind her. Colin’s hand was steady and strong around hers. The memory of his kiss startled her. Had that really happened, or was everything on the other side of the waterfall a bizarre illusion?
“We’re almost there,” he assured.
Stella forced one foot in front of the other, some of her aches and pains flaring into focus now. Ahead, Margie’s boisterous voice was heard before she even came into view. As they wound around the curve of the footpath Stella saw the curvy woman stooped over a footlocker, pulling scarves out like a magician would do with his hat.
“Will this work?” she asked her husband who was busy tying drab-colored ribbons to the rope railing along the path.
Jordan glanced up at the matted furry boa wrapped around her neck. He raised an eyebrow and smirked. “Is there a tiara in there to accompany it?”
Margie’s rear made a giant heart as she stooped over and searched the box. When she rose with a victorious smile she held up a sequined hair comb in triumph. Her smile suddenly fell and she dropped the comb. Jordan followed her gaze and frowned.
“Oh my,” Margie exclaimed. “Have you fallen in the stream again?”
Glancing down at her clothes covered in a blend of soot and grime, Stella drew her shoulders back and inched her chin up.
“Something like that.”
“Tsk tsk,” Margie turned to Colin. “You don’t look much better.”
Colin remained silent.
“Well then,” she plopped her hands on her hips, the faded pink boa dangling beneath her waist. “Go get cleaned up. Stella, do you still have that dress?”
In fact she had just cleaned the dress yesterday. It was sitting folded on her desk.
“Yes ma’am,” she replied automatically.
“And you,” Margie frowned at Colin. “Jordan, do you have something he can wear while he’s cleaning up?”
“Thanks,” Col muttered, “but Frederic gave my father and me some clothes. I’ll be fine.”
Relief washed over Margie’s face as if the ultimate crisis had just been averted.
“Great. After you clean up, come join Jordan and I. We’re sorting through our supplies, looking for decorations for the New Year’s party next week.”
Stella forced on a smile. “That sounds swell,” she gushed.
Colin’s elbow poked her and she rubbed a hand over her mouth to conceal her smirk.
“We’re hoping to make the event a special one.” Wrinkles folded around Margie’s blue eyes as she focused on Colin. “We want you and your family to know that even though you’ve lost someone–” she hesitated, “–there are others here to care for you. And we will do our best.”
Jordan cleared his throat. “Let them go change, Margie.”
Stella offered him a grateful smile. The man gave her a quick wink and settled back to decorating.
As she and Colin walked away from them, he tilted his head towards the infirmary. “Are you okay,” he whispered. “Your toe, and your palm–those are two pretty nasty cuts.”
Stella flipped her hand over, remembering the slice from the sharp rock. The blood had clotted.
“I think I just really need to soak in the water. I’ll be fine.”
The concern in his eyes warmed her. She suddenly felt shy in front of him.
“Go soak,” he ordered softly. “Clean up, and then we’ll find Etienne and Frederic and tell them about what we saw.”
Staring down at the scratches on her toes, she nodded. When there was nothing more from him, she glanced up and caught the slow grin that caught the corner of his lips.
“And then,” he murmured, “we will revisit what happened between us.”
CHAPTER 15
“No more. You can’t tell me I’m imagining things. We both saw it,” Stella stressed, swinging her arm towards Colin who was beside her in a plain white t-shirt and his freshly cleaned shorts.
Frederic stood with his arms crossed, his slate eyes pensive. He was much more composed than his counterpart, Etienne, the agitated sailor that now paced the infirmary.
Only moments ago, Colin and Stella had gathered Etienne and Frederic just outside of the airplane as they sought a bandage for Stella’s palm.
Sarah had adeptly applied clean gauze and then ducked through the hatch after a dismissing nod from her husband. Once she was gone, Etienne’s pacing halted. He stared at Stella with eyes the color of ice-covered cement.
“If you had listened to my advi
ce,” he uttered, “you wouldn’t have had any encounters. They stay on that side of the waterfall.” He pointed over her shoulder. “They do not bother us here.”
“They?” Colin probed.
Etienne’s eyes shot to Frederic who just shrugged.
Moving up to a cracked window, Etienne peered out. His head swiveled back and forth, furtively scanning the courtyard. He glanced back to them with his lips pressed thin.
“We came across the first one not long after we were stranded down here.”
“The first?” Stella repeated in a whisper.
“They are rarely seen,” Etienne resumed his short march. Each step elicited a creak from the warped floor. “They shun the light. They stay away from torches, that’s why you won’t see them on this side of the waterfall.”
“What are they?” Colin stepped into Etienne’s path to halt his tread. “Some sort of prehistoric creature?”
The man reached up and scratched beneath his hat. His lips twisted into a sardonic grin.
“Prehistoric creature,” he repeated as if it was some private joke. He went so far as to roll his eyes at Frederic who didn’t look that amused.
“To presume that we were the first survivors to wash up in this cave would be very arrogant and naïve,” Etienne explained. “We’ve seen signs of others that came before us. We’ve watched people die down here from the high levels of CO2. We’ve watched people die down here from the trauma of the rapid descent–from the trauma of their injuries–from all sorts of acclimation illnesses.”
“The pit of skeletons,” Stella murmured. “You didn’t toss those victims back into the pools. You just threw them into a mass grave.”
The corner of Etienne’s eye twitched. “Goodness, you really did travel deep into the caves.” He pumped a fist into his open palm. “Yes, you found our burial pit. If we started throwing bodies into the pools it would entice unwanted visitors. There are sharks at this depth. Rare, but we like to keep it that way. If they start hanging out down here it will be harder for us to get to our food source.”
“Those creatures–” a horrifying thought occurred to her, “–were you feeding them?”
Etienne laughed. His head tipped back and a loud cackle poured out. Frosty eyes glared at her.
Stella shot Colin a glance and he nodded in agreement. Etienne was succumbing to toxicity, or maybe just madness from civilization deprivation.
“No, we aren’t feeding them,” he spat. “There aren’t enough corpses down here to sustain the Chimaera,” he rationalized, not noticing Colin wince. “And, there have been very few Chimaera spotted, anyway.”
“Ky-mere-ah,” Stella repeated his enunciation. “Another mythological reference?”
She had read about the Greek creature made up of more than one animal. It had the head and body of a lion, but it also had a goat’s head on its back.
“You’re up on your mythology,” Etienne nodded in approval. “Although it is pronounced the same, the Chimaera is also a rare breed of shark that inhabits the lower depths of the ocean. It rarely swims any higher than 500 feet below sea level. It is called the Ghost Shark, and that is what we call the creature you saw.”
Stella’s hackles immediately raised. “That was no shark we saw. It walked. It raised its hand and pointed at us.”
She sought Colin’s glance for validation.
“It looked human,” he confirmed. “A scaly human.”
Etienne studied both of them and some of his enthusiasm waned.
“Yes, well, we call them Chimaera. I’m not saying they are actual sharks.”
Frustrated, Stella reiterated the question. “Then what are they?”
Frederic hefted off the cabinet he was leaning against. “The life you find around the hydrothermal vents are called extremophiles. Creatures capable of living in extreme conditions. Constant darkness, freezing cold. Just like us, there is enough to support the Chimaera down here for a very long time. We don’t know how long they have been here.”
Stella’s eyes flared. “So you think they are something prehistoric?”
Frederic exchanged a glance with Etienne. She resented that air of collusion.
“Tell them,” Frederic ordered. “Everyone else knows. All they’d have to do is ask.”
Etienne frowned. “It’s too soon.”
“If they’re going to go snooping around it’s better for them to be armed with the facts. Something terrible could have happened today.”
Colin stepped up. “Yes, the facts would be nice.”
Etienne barely acknowledged him. He continued his pacing, stopping to run his fingertips along the cot that Anne had been sleeping in just yesterday.
“The Chimaera,” he began in a tense voice, “are us.”
Aggravated, Colin looked to Frederic for an explanation.
To his credit, Frederic did not wait for Etienne’s approval. He stepped forward, his shoulders eclipsing the gaunt sailor.
“It is our theory,” he explained, “that the Chimaera were once human–perhaps some of the first victims to wash up in this cave.”
Stella held her hand to her mouth. “What happened to them? How did they live so long?
“After a prolonged period, their bodies simply adapted to the environment. At first these survivors might not have had the means to make a fire, to have any light. They adapted to the dark. Even with the torches, we have learned to live with minimal light. Imagine what it would be like for Etienne or me to see the sun right now?”
Vampires. The word jumped to her mind.
“Their eyes were probably the first to alter,” he continued. “The physical changes might have come from their diet. All they had to eat was whatever deep sea creatures that washed up in the caves, or perhaps they sustained themselves with the organisms breeding near the vents. The Chimaera’s skin started to transform based on its nourishment. The dark color, perhaps a natural form of camouflage. It depends on the individual and the environment on how long it takes for the change to start.”
Stella couldn’t help herself. She openly gawked at him, searching the skin exposed above the neckline of his undershirt. He seemed amused with her inspection and tilted his neck to the right and to the left.
“No, the change has not begun in me yet. But we have had people down here who showed symptoms–”
His Adam’s Apple bobbed as he hesitated. Etienne sulked in the background, occasionally turning his head to search the window.
“The eyes,” Stella prompted. “You said it starts in the eyes. I swear sometimes when I look at people down here I see a flash there, similar to what I saw on that creature, that Chimaera. But when I look closer it is gone.”
Frederic nodded. “It takes such a long time to ever evolve into what you witnessed. To have reached that stage–”
“You would have had to survive madness,” she whispered.
“Perhaps.”
“But, these Chimaera are not human. Not anymore. And, they are hostile. They have attacked me. You, yourself acknowledge that the torch line keeps them away. You tell me you travel beyond the waterfall to get food. Haven’t you had run-ins? Haven’t you had to protect yourself? Have you ever had to kill one?”
Stella caught Etienne flinch. He brushed Frederic aside and stepped up close to sneer at her. “You don’t kill your own kind.”
Foul breath washed over her face, and she caught another cryptic flare in his otherwise pale eyes.
“We must study them. We must be prepared. We must understand what may happen to us. They need to be treated with respect,” he bristled.
It was impossible to debate with this man. Rather than rile him, she chose a less volatile path.
“How many do you think are out there?”
Etienne eyed her warily, but muttered, “It’s hard to tell. We know of at least five or six. We can distinguish them from each other by shape, height, coloring.”
“And still, you don’t look for a way to the surface, when that is going to be y
our fate?” Colin challenged.
“Did they find a way to the surface?” Etienne fired back. “There is none.”
Stella read Colin’s dark expression. He too knew this was pointless.
“All right, look,” he eased. “If we’re all going to live down here together, we’d just appreciate you being a little more upfront with us. We’re not fragile. If there is anything else like the Chimaera out there, please let us know. If you have any other secrets, it’s a small place. We will find them. So, do the wise thing and share them now.”
Etienne’s pale face darkened. Perhaps on a healthy man it would have appeared as the red flush of anger. On this man it was as if ash filled his veins.
Frederic hooked his hand across the man’s shoulder, restraining him.
“That’s fair,” he agreed. “But, you now know everything that we are aware of. We weren’t purposely being secretive. We wanted to spare you having to see where our departed have been placed because it is a traumatic sight. Seeing something like that–it will play with your psyche, thinking that your fate might be close at hand. You’ve only arrived here a few weeks ago. You are acclimating, and that takes a long time. Mentally, I’m talking.” He paused. “Dead bodies. Creatures with glowing eyes.” He shook his head and even managed a grin. “That’s a little too much to grasp so soon. Understand that Etienne only wanted to spare you from that.”
Stella shot a look at Etienne, and from his dark expression, she doubted there was any benevolence behind his motives.
“Great,” Colin uttered, unconvinced. “We’re going to go now. Thanks for the information.”
He hesitated. “But, one last question. Did you really release my mother back into the water, or are you planning on bringing her to that pit?”
The rawness of his voice pained Stella. To have to ask such a question–it was inhumane.
Frederic was first to respond. “I personally took her to the pool.” His tone was sincere, and the sympathy in his eyes seemed genuine. “She deserves the peace of the sea. What you saw in that pit–they never had surviving family down here. They were alone.”
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