by Tempe O'Kun
The canine glanced down as his mobile lit up. No signal this deep in the earth, but wireless transfers worked fine.
“Those are the ones I know about, but I haven’t been in most of them. Like I said, I’m still working on these caves. Also, the tunnels punch through into mine tunnels in a few places, and I’ve got no maps for those. You might go through half the town underground before you find where this thing is getting in.” Sarah flipped her ears over her shoulders and guided them back up the winding path to the shop.
Kylie stepped back into the sunlight and kitsch of the gift shop. “Can you take us down there?”
Max’s ears popped up.
The rabbit froze for an instant, assessing the idea. “I go on lunch break in like twenty minutes.” She bit her lower lip, looking back into the caverns. “If you guys want to wait until then, I guess I could.” She made them sign a waiver, then ushered them outside and got on her phone.
The pair stepped outside and sat on a stone bench looking over the sifting troughs and fool’s gold panning station. The old badger grumbled her way through an explanation of various types of granite. Birds chirped, likewise unaware of any monster roaming below the surface.
The husky looked at her askance.
Kylie gave a defiant squirm. “What?”
He sat back. “So we’re going in the cave.”
She flipped her paws forward. “We have to. We need to find out what the creature is.”
“We’re going into an enclosed space to seek out a large carnivore.”
“And bringing one of my own.” She patted his knee. “I’m sure you can deal with whatever it is.”
“We’re not on TV, rudderbutt.”
“Fine, we’ll take a look around, then scoot if anything seems sketchy.”
The dog crossed his arms and set his lips.
Eventually, the badger gave up on teaching the pups anything and muttered her way into the store. Seconds later, the brown-and-white bunny exited in tight-laced running shoes. She bounced in place, settling into them. Her long, supple ears flopped in time.
Kylie clucked her tongue. “Just have to outrun us, huh?”
She dangled a lop ear. “I don’t get it.”
A webbed digit pointed at the athletic shoes. “Because the monster will stop once it catches us.”
Sarah rolled her eyes. “No signal down in the mines. If something happens, I need to get out of there fast if I’m going to get help.”
“Right.” Unconvinced, the otter glanced around. “So, where’s the entrance?”
“This way…” Her fuzzy paw gestured for them to follow her.
The trio trudged into the leafy woods surrounding the Crystal Caverns. They filed down a ridge, then deeper into the brush. After a scrambling up and down a few hills, they reached the weather-beaten, root-strangled beams of a mine entrance. A deep, earthy smell wafted from the tunnel.
Without a whisker of hesitation, the rabbit led them inside. A heavy click turned on her flashlight. Her dandelion-yellow shoes gleamed in the dank dark. “People claim they see ghosts down here. I can see why. ”
Max fished out his pen flashlight, comically small in his massive paws. “You don’t seem worried about crawling around through unstable old tunnels.”
“Being a rabbit certainly helps. And when I’m down here, I can almost feel the presence of everyone who dug them.” She touched a rough rock wall. “Knowing that somebody dug out every inch of these tunnels, it makes me feel connected to everyone who dug them, you know? It’s…peaceful.”
Kylie looked down at her sneakers squishing in the mud, then up at the almost-as-muddy ceiling. “Helps you ignore the half-mile of rock above your head.”
“Oh.” Her tail fluffed. “We’re not that far down.”
“Don’t mind her.” Max held the otter back, calling ahead to their guide. “She’d feel safer if the tunnels were flooded.”
“I would!” The otter squawked. “It’d slow down falling rocks!”
“Having well-dug warrens fall on you is about as likely as a house falling on you.” Still walking, she glanced back at them. “It’s all about proper maintenance.”
Max straightened, then had to duck under a low rafter. “Have these been maintained?”
“Oh heavens no. Not in years.” She chuckled at the absurdity and brushed an ambitious root aside. “They’re just the old family mines.”
With a suspicious glance at the walls, the otter preformed a grouchy little dance that failed to shake the mud from her shoes.
Sarah hopped deftly from rock to rock, avoiding the mud. “How’d you get onto this stuff, anyway?” Her emerald eyes flashed back in the dim light. “Did my brother put you up to this?”
She stomped to a stop. “Your brother?”
“He works with you.”
Kylie ticked down the list of coworkers. It was a short lis. Only one person on it: a cat. “Shane?” She tried to think of a way of asking if one of them was adopted or from a previous marriage or something, but couldn’t think of a way to not sound nosy.
“Yeah.” Stopping at last, Sarah’s flashlight beam angled up a steep chimney of stone. “Look familiar?”
“Is that where we looked down?” She turned to the bunny. “And you wanted me to shimmy down that?”
“The trick is to brace your hands and feet against the sides.” She spread her stance wide to demonstrate. “I’ve gotten up and down lots of shafts like that.”
Trails traced the stones here: dry, dark, and ruddy. Kylie knelt to examine them. What she thought at first were tool marks looked more like three-clawed scratches gouging the rock. She snapped a few quick photos with her phone, the flash startling in the deep darkness.
A faint noise echoed down from some unseen tunnel, distorted beyond deciphering.
“Guys, I really don’t like hanging around here.” She held very still. “We should go back.”
Max looked up from pondering some kind of lumpy white mushroom.
“We just got here!” The lutrine chittered with irritation. “We should at least take a look around.”
Her floppy bunny ears lifted a centimeter, the only movement on her whole body. “No, I’m getting a weird feeling. We should probably get out before something happens.”
The otter met her boyfriend’s eyes, but they darted back down the entrance. He swept the tiny flashlight down the various side-tunnels, his free paw on his pocketknife. With a quiet huff, she trudged back through the muck back to the path that’d led them here.
With the darkness closing in, the three of them retraced their steps at a much quicker pace. Once outside, the sun shined through a canopy of cheery leaves. Crickets chirped. Songbirds tweeted.
They tramped back toward the Crystal Caverns in silence. At about the edge of the parking lot, she stopped, as though it had just occurred to her how insane this all had been. She turned to point a finger at Kylie. “None of this gets back to Cindy.”
“And give her more gossip to smear my family with?” The lutrine crossed her arms. “No, thanks.”
She led them back into the gift shop, then paused, watching. “You’re not as nuts as Cindy said.”
“These last few months have been kinda stressful.” Max offered a farm dog smile and shrugged in Kylie’s direction. “Normally, she’s even saner.”
The bunny simpered and straightened her polo. “Just try to stay out of this thing’s way, whatever it is. And Cindy’s, if you can.”
“We’ll try. And we’ll let ya know if we find anything.” The otter extended a paw.
Sarah took it. “Thanks.” Her ears flopped to the sides a bit and she looked relieved. “Hey, thanks for coming by, too. I had no one I could talk to about this stuff and I felt like I was going crazy.”
Kylie ignored Max’s pointed elbow to her ribs. They said their goodbyes and headed outside.
Max studied his phone. “Think she suspects it’s something more than some wild animal?”
The otter’s fee
t squished through the damp earth. “No, not unless she’s trying to send us to our deaths.”
“About that…” His eyes met hers, mouth a fixed line of worry. “We lucked out this time, but we still have no plan for dealing with this thing.”
“You have a point.” She patted his shoulder. “But we need proof. You know, we’ll capture it or something.”
His eyebrows rose.
“Or just take some pics.” She shrugged, heart pattering at the thought of jumping the giant black switchblade-monster. “Whatever we do, we’ll be careful.”
The big dog grumbled, but said nothing else. Walking at her side, he flicked over to a map on his phone and zoomed in, then held it out for her. “The city of Windfall only lists the mines they used for utility tunnels. Guess the old silver miners weren’t very good about keeping records.”
She groaned. “Back to walking through the monster-infested forest.”
He studied her for a second, then threw an arm over her shoulders.
The otter nestled against him. Her stomach gurgled. “Wanna try lunch again? That soup’s wearing off.”
He wagged. “Sure it is. You just want more chowder.”
“It’s good!” She watched his tail, amused. “That bunny totally stared at your butt.”
Max twisted, trying to stare at his own rear end. “You always say that. Why would anyone want to stare at my butt?”
“Big guy, the simple fact is you have a butt worth staring at.” She slipped an arm around to swat his rump. “And I’ve got four years of video evidence to prove it.”
After food, they headed back to Curios & Quandaries, which by this point had deigned to open. The door’s tiny bell jingled as they entered. They grimaced their way through clouds of pipe smoke and past shelves packed to the ceiling with weird little knickknacks and oddities.
The schnauzer shopkeep sat up at his station, perusing a document in his white-gloved paws. “Welcome, madam, and welcome back, sir. Your previous purchase suited you, I hope?”
“Yes, sir.” Max set his shoulders back, every inch the statuesque husky. “Actually, we’re hoping you could give us some more information.”
“Antiques, antiquities, and objets de curiosité: all flow through here with equal ease and each carries a story.” He rolled the parchment up with swift care, then guided it into a varnished wooden tube, which he capped with a plug carved to resemble a rose. The scroll vanished under the till. “Just what sort of information are you looking for?”
The otter stepped forward to rest interleaved fingers on the counter. “I’m researching my family’s history.”
One digit pressed his spectacles up his muzzle. “And who are you?”
She tried to keep her expression neutral. “Kylie Bevy.”
A slim eyebrow rose. “Bevy? Now that is interesting.” He tapped tobacco into his pipe, then lit it. “Tartle’s the name. Looking for more ideas for your TV show?”
“The show’s over. Mom’s moved on to other projects.” She resisted the urge to snark at the tiny dog. “I’m just trying to get a handle on my family history.”
“A loaded topic.” He rose and puffed into an aisle of his shop. “But I may just have something for you…”
They followed. The shelves held an array of a small wonders. A delicate golden chain coiled up an iron spike. A glass sphere of water and fungus teased at motion within. A perfectly articulated gauntlet shone in a display case, carved from a single bough of petrified wood. An ornate cuckoo clock clicked and ticked on the wall as a parade of wooden velociraptors circled its base on a precise mechanical hunt.
Near the back, the mustached canine stopped and stooped, releasing smoke from his mouth like air from a dropping airship. He drew a volume from a row of mismatched leather-bound books, then held it out to Kylie. “This might be of interest.”
She took and opened the hardback. In a swirl of dust, its yellowed pages blossomed open to scratchy handwriting, all in code. She turned to the inside cover and found a very familiar name. “Leister Bevy…that’s my mom’s uncle! How’d you find this?”
“Your family’s holt has a reputation.” The old dog stuck his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets. “The town knows better than to throw away something related to it.”
Kylie clutched the book to her chest and bounced. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
The schnauzer watched with amusement, stroking his ample whiskers with the stem of his pipe. “Money would be the traditional means.”
Max gave the journal a wary look. “Didn’t someone steal that from her family’s property?”
The schnauzer waggled his mustache in offense. “If I’d been overly concerned about rightful owners, it never would’ve made it back to you.” He say back on the stool, tail wagging under the hem of his vest. “Consider it a finder’s fee.”
Wallets and hearts lighter, they left the curio shop. Max sniffed, snorted, and finally sneezed, trying to clear the pipe smoke from his nostrils. It’d smelled like the guy had been puffing away in there for hours. He glanced up at the curtained second story, wondering if the owner lived above his shop.
Walking at his side, Kylie flipped through the encoded text, then froze, blood chilled. She held the book open. “Look familiar?”
The husky peered down, then froze too. On the page, in nervous fountain pen, crouched a black figure on jackknife legs. The same jagged form they’d seen plummet out of a tree and onto a wild deer. The reality of their chase rushed back into the husky’s mind. “Yep.”
“We need to translate this.” Her paw traced the yellow-edged page, over the old ink.
He rested a paw on her shoulder. “Think it’s the same code as before?”
“I know one way to find out.” She glanced up, in the direction of the public library.
Once inside the old brick building, they hurried to a scanner and spread the important looking pair of pages inside it. Kylie retyped the scans, transferred the cipher from her phone, and ran the whole mess through the Kibble Puffs website. The ancient computer churned through the decryption.
Her webbed paws danced over the keyboard. “It’s a little surreal, all this.”
The dog blinked back to the moment, having been trying to think of a way to download the Kibble Puffs decoder for safekeeping. “Yeah?”
“We’re basically acting out the plot of a Strangeville episode.”
“This never would’ve made it past the censors.”
Kylie noticed a flash on the screen and hopped with glee. “It worked!”
“Sort of.” The husky squinted at the screen. Words and sentences looked complete at first, but some contained nothing but a jumble of letters and numbers. He turned the monitor for Kylie to scrutinize.
The otter frowned. “Yeah, Great Uncle Leister had really bad handwriting. I had to do a lot of guessing.”
A distant librarian shushed them from a passing book cart, then vanished back into the stacks.
The lutrine leaned over Max for a better look, her voice low. “Okay, so it’s not a perfect translation. We can clean it up later.” She ran a claw tip along a line of somewhat jumbled, but decrypted text. “‘Ley lines’…something…‘not just lines of power around the Earth. We’re not that important.’”
Max pointed to another line. “‘Vanguard of an invasion.’” He blinked. “Ominous.”
They skimmed the next few entries and ran a few lines through the same process.
“‘The monster has an accomplice in Windfall. He’s encouraging the rumors of my madness.’” A shock translated through her body. “Accomplice. Someone’s working with that thing? That means—”
“—it’s intelligent.” The husky stroked his chin. “Explains why he coded the journals; he didn’t want the accomplice reading them. Or the monster.”
Kylie sat in a free chair and flipped through the book, past several illustrations of alien creatures. “Or monsters.” She pointed to one that looked like the unholy offspring of a parrot and a tic
k, then scrolled to that part of the translation. “He calls these ‘skitters.’ I think it says they live in the old mines.”
“I remember these. They’re called skitters in the show too.” Max tapped a claw tip on the screen. “We did that episode where the house got infested with them.”
“Ah yes, I always forget things that were green-screened in.” Her gaze flicked to him, then back to reading. “My great-uncle must’ve told Mom about them at some point.” She smoothed her whiskers and leaned forward at the computer. “His other journal mentions them too; says they drift in on ethereal winds, whatever that means.”
“Assuming they also exist.”
“Well, yeah. I guess my uncle could’ve been crazy and correct at the same time.” A few more pages, same process. Kylie then added the step of flopping back in the chair in disgust. “Ugh! This’ll take forever to fix! All the words are coming out wrong. And then it turns to pure scribbles—I can’t even tell if it’s the same code!”
The dog nodded. “At least we have something.”
“I know.” She spun around in the desk chair. “I just want a button I can press to solve this problem.”
“Somebody probably would’ve done this already if it were that easy.” He finished scanning the journal.
Kylie’s phone buzzed and she pulled it from her pocket. “Hey Maxie, do you like fish tacos?”
A beat, and then he woofed a laugh, earning another dirty glance from the reference librarian.
“Oh grow up.” She spun in the chair and swatted him with her tail. “Mom made us supper.”
Mirthful, he uploaded the scans and offered her his paw.
She took it and stood, and walked with him out of the library. “You’re lucky I like you.”
He responded with a snicker and wag. “I know.”
Kylie awoke, heart racing, chest tight. Lingering tendrils of nightmare scrabbled at the edge of her mind. Every move revealed sore muscles. She forced her jaw to unclench and rubbed her tongue over sore teeth. Night’s deep shadows clutched every corner of the room, animating every pool of darkness with the fear.
The dream itself escaped her. What little she could grasp of it consisted of tangled phrases, quivering movements, and stars sliding slick across an inky sky. She burrowed under the imagined safety of the covers, but couldn’t escape her worry. The dreams kept getting worse. Some rational part of her brain claimed it was just a few nightmares: not indicative of actually going crazy.