His brow furrowed. “It came from inside the cave?”
The librarian shrugged, “I don’t know.”
Wade drove along the two-lane road heading towards Sunset Canyon. It was a clear, starry night, pitch black outside except for the bright glow of his pickup truck’s headlights. Calm, warm air blew through the cab of his truck and he had the radio on low, humming along to an old Rod Stewart song.
Wade yawned. Man, he was getting tired of this moving stuff back and forth routine. ‘Gettin’ too old for this shit,’ he would often whine to his wife and kids. ‘Ain’t no sense doing these late night runs anymore.’ He vowed to retire year after year but never followed through on that promise. He vowed to shut down the business or pass it on to his sons but never did. Thus, Wade became known as the town whiner; thick on talk, thin on action.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, he mused, ain’t no crime in that, is there? He could imagine his wife’s answer Sure ain’t, sweetie,’ but folks are mighty annoyed by you talkin’ ’bout it all the time.
But, a job was a job, and he had a mountain of bills to pay at home. Not to mention the roof needing fixin’. He looked over his shoulder at the crates and boxes of fruit and veggies through the cab’s window. The townspeople depended on him. So Wade cranked up old Rod and sang along.
He had already passed by the cave a few miles back when all of a sudden he felt something heavy land in the back of his pickup. “What the?” he said, turning down the radio. He peered through the cab’s window but couldn’t see anything because of the darkness, when more boxes fell over, crashing with a loud thud. Sighing, he pulled over to the side of the road and got out. When he reached the bed of the pickup truck he didn’t see anything except for the overturned boxes that had created a mess. Tomatoes all over the frickin’ place! Wade shined his flashlight at the other crates, making sure that nothing else was out of place. He was about to lower the gate when out of nowhere something huge and black flew down and lunged at him. Wade had no time to react or defend himself, screaming as the giant crushed him on the ground. Wade continued screaming, feeling several of his ribs crack from the weight of the beast. Blood gushed out of his mouth.
“Please, don’t kill me!” Wade pleaded, thinking about the past three murders. “Please, I beg you! Please!” The beast was still on top of him, its piercing red eyes staring down at him, its wings flapping gently in the desert night. Jeez, it was heavy! “Oh, God, it hurts!” Wade moaned as more blood flowed out of his mouth.
The creature continued gazing at him before finally lowering its large head to Wade’s neck.
Wade felt its long, warm fangs on his neck. Before he realized it, he was pissing in his pants.
“What cave?” Sheriff Briggs frowned. He was cranky in the mornings.
“The one on the outskirts of town,” Taylor replied. “See anything unusual around there?”
“Oh, that cave,” He leaned back in his creaky swivel chair, shaking his head. “No. What did you hear about it?” There was a sparkle in his eyes.
“The librarian told us about a weird encounter she had there. I figured it’s worth looking into. Just wondered if you knew anything, that’s all.”
Briggs rubbed his iron chin. “Interesting. I wouldn’t recommend messing around in no cave. It’s dark, slippery, and dangerous in there, rocks fallin’ all over the place. You could trip and hit your head. Naw, you don’t want go in there.”
Going against Briggs’ advice, Taylor and Jan drove towards the cave. She spent the drive jotting down more notes in her journal. Taylor glanced at her, wondering what she was writing. When they were almost to the cave, they spotted a Chevy pickup truck parked off the road. What caught Taylor’s eye was a small, dark stain near the back of the vehicle.
Taylor slowed, then stopped and got out. They cautiously approached the truck close enough to see that the pool was actually half-dried blood. A trail of it led away from the truck and towards the desert. Jan covered her nose.
They followed the trail of blood, but it eventually ended in the sand. They returned to the pickup truck, where Taylor immediately phoned Briggs. Briggs and Deputy Justin arrived minutes later, searching the scene.
Briggs looked at the pickup grimly. “That’s Wade’s truck.”
Justin pushed his shades up his nose. “What was he doin’ out here?”
“Or, more to the point, what attacked him out here?” Taylor added.
Jan led Briggs and Justin along the trail of blood, showing them where it ended. Briggs studied the arid wasteland ahead of them, brooding again. “Your cave is up there, Taylor. I guess we’d better take a gander.”
The quartet hiked up to the cave opening, which was located on a higher plateau. Taylor took out his handkerchief and mopped the sweat from his forehead and face. The harsh rays of the sun beat down on them but luckily there was a bit of shade at the entrance. Taylor turned and scanned the vast, flat desert below them, sprawled out like a huge tan map. Here and there along the two-lane road cars glinted like jewels, and further down a small mass of dots and squares represented Sunset Canyon.
Before they went into the cavern, Taylor looked at Briggs and asked, “What did the lab say about the broken nail and the autopsy results of that creature at Point Peterson?”
“It ain’t any species known to us,” the sheriff responded simply, making sure his shotgun was fully loaded. After snapping it shut with satisfaction, he added: “As we used to say in ’Nam, let’s blow them outta their nests. That thing killed three of my townspeople, probably four countin’ Wade. It’s payback time.” He and Deputy Justin led the way into the cave with their shotguns at the ready, their flashlights knifing through the inky blackness, playing over stalactite and stalagmite formations.
It was deathly silent inside and Taylor was suddenly aware of his own breathing. He started to breathe quietly, not wanting to attract attention to whatever was out there. In his hands was a rifle and on his head, a hardhat with a light attached to it. Jan wore a similar rig, her rifle resting protectively against her hip. She squinted ahead, thinking she saw something in the black void. Even though her eyes had adjusted to the darkness it was hard to see and make things out. Maybe it’s nothing, she rationalized. Moments later, she almost tripped over a human skull on the trail, gasping.
The others saw it, too. They moved on. Briggs’ powerful flashlight beam shined on some droplets of blood on the cave floor. Next to the blood was a pile of bat dung.
As they followed the trail of blood, Jan whispered to Taylor, “Hey, the creature we found earlier is dead, so I wonder how many more of them are there.”
“Good question.”
Eventually, the trek led them to a clearing with a high stone archway. It was beautiful and serene in a religious, spiritual kind of way. Beyond that the quartet had to thread themselves through a series of narrow passageways where it seemed the darkness was threatening to engulf them all.
Jan stopped, taking deep breaths.
“You okay?” Taylor whispered gently.
After a pause she nodded. “Just a bit of claustrophobia.”
The drops of blood ended mid-way through the tunnel. They stood for a moment, confused, until Taylor pointed his flashlight up. A large bat head stared at them, hanging upside down. Blood dripped from its long fangs.
Briggs aimed his shotgun and fired but the bat was faster. “Damn!” He quickly chased after it.
“Wait!” Taylor said, but Briggs and his deputy didn’t listen. By the time Taylor and Jan caught up, the sheriff was aiming his weapon at the beast, which was perched high above their heads on a rocky ledge. They were in another stalactite, stalagmite chamber in the cavern. Briggs squeezed the trigger, blowing a chunk of rock from the ledge, but the bat just flew even higher into the chamber. Briggs seethed with anger. Now, more than ever, he had that look on his tough, stony face that showed he was determined to kill the beast.
“Point your lights up and try to find it,” he ordered the deputy.
&
nbsp; Justin complied, his light eventually locating the creature perched on another ledge. Briggs aimed carefully, fired, and missed again. “Shoot!” The creature was flying above them in circles, taunting them.
“Sheriff, I think we’d better leave and return with backup,” Justin suggested, looking at the bat creature with apprehension.
“I agree,” Taylor added. “There could be more of them. You’re just wasting your ammunition. Plus, you don’t want to be a victim of a cave-in. Your shots might be just enough to set one off.”
Briggs glared at him and his deputy. “Duly noted, Professor. But I hired you and I command you to stay. That goes for you, too, Deputy. Call for backup.”
Justin was already on it but all he got from his radio were crackles and static. He checked his cell phone. “No network.”
Briggs was mesmerized and angered by the creature hovering above them. As he stared at it, he said: “I found one of those ugly things out on the highway a month back. It was smaller than this one, was just a baby. I thought it was going to attack me so I shot it down.”
“Oh, no,” Taylor frowned. “But it might not have hurt you. It probably strayed away from the nest. Why didn’t you tell us this earlier?”
Briggs didn’t look at him. “I’m sorry.”
“Now you angered mama and papa,” Jan said, looking up at the beast.
There was a look of regret on Briggs’ face. “Yep, and that’s why they went on that killing rampage.”
Justin tried to use his radio again but crackles were the only response. As the winged creature flew lower towards them, Briggs aimed his shotgun at it and fired, this time striking it on its left wing. The beast smashed against the cave wall, smearing it with blood, before dropping to the ground. Briggs stormed over to it, aiming for its large head with its pointy ears and long snout. Its piercing red eyes seemed to be pleading with him to spare its life but the sheriff did not lower his weapon. He noted that the creature was female.
“Don’t do it,” Taylor advised. “You don’t want an army of these creatures descending on your town like a net.”
“But if I don’t, it’ll surely hunt me down or other folks.” And with that, Briggs ended it by squeezing the trigger. Blood splattered everywhere.
Suddenly, another big bat creature swooped down at them with blazing speed, knocking Briggs down. The tough sheriff got back up, aimed at the bat, and fired another round, blasting a hunk of stone from the wall. “That must be papa,” he seethed, reloading his shotgun. But before he had a chance to fire, the creature swooped down again and snatched him off the ground like an eagle grabbing its prey. He and the bat disappeared into the darkness.
“Holy shit!” Justin said. “Where’d he go?”
Taylor and Jan scanned the cave with their lights, not seeing any signs of them. Moments later, they all heard something fall to the ground with a loud thud. Taylor traced the origin of the sound and ran to it, discovering Briggs’ ragged body lying twisted on top of a pile of sharp, jagged rocks. His head had been twisted around at an impossible angle; eyes wide open and glazed over.
Deputy Justin turned away. Taylor and Jan climbed on top of the jagged rocks, squatting down next to his body. But the tough, old sheriff was gone. Taylor cursed under his breath.
“Hey, look at this,” Jan said, pointing to the two puncture marks on Briggs’ neck. His face was ghostly pale, as if all blood had been drained from his body.
They heard the fluttering of wings approaching. Taylor grabbed his shotgun and climbed down from the rocks. “Do you see it?” he asked Justin.
“No,” Justin replied, his shotgun drawn. “Wait, its over there!”
Taylor looked at where he pointed, seeing the bat spiraling down from the cave ceiling, shooting towards them like a missile. He carefully aimed his rifle and fired, surprised that his first shot hit the beast on the right leg. Its deafening shriek echoed throughout the cave. Jan covered her ears. Justin fired a round, clipping off one of the beast’s wings.
“Good shot!” Taylor said. He finished the bat off by blowing its head off. Then he looked at its genitals. “So this was papa bat.”
“And the other one was mama bat,” Jan concluded. “Hopefully, that’s the end of it.”
As the group headed back to the cave opening, unbeknownst to them, they were tracked by watchful eyes hovering over a nest full of eggs. An egg slowly cracked open…
The Gargoyle’s Curse
Mhairi Shaw
When Megan opened her eyes, she immediately wished she’d been unconscious for longer. She was in the upstairs floor of the McGregor Lodge, propped up against the wall, her head pounding and there was a metallic taste in her mouth. She ran her tongue over her teeth, checking that they were all accounted for, and then she found something. Numbly, she pulled it out, holding it up in her bloodstained fingers.
It was a lump of flesh.
Her stomach heaved. There were thick black hairs sprouting from it, beaded with saliva. The flashback hit her; The gargoyle had grabbed her by the hair, tried to pull her outside so it could fly away and rip her throat out. She could still taste its leathery skin in her mouth, its stink flooding her nostrils. Suppose a girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do, right?
“Hey Meg, welcome back to the land of the living—you alright?”
Big Dave had claimed domain on the bed opposite her. His sleeping bag was unzipped and he was using it in the fashion of a blanket. His right leg was sticking out; the trouser leg had been removed, replaced with a thick wad of bandages.
“Yeah, I think so,” Megan said, her Scottish accent flavouring each word. “Just don’t expect Mr. Fletcher to be a good nurse when it comes to aftercare. I nearly choked on this bloody thing.” She threw the rubbery bit of flesh away.
“Mr. Fletcher’s dead.”
“What?”
“It’s only you, me and Rogan left.”
“Shit.” That meant the gargoyle had also killed Kevin and Alice.
Big Dave lowered his voice, “I know it’s a horrible thing to say, but I wish it had taken her instead. Kevin was a good guy and Ally never had a bad word to say about anyone. But she’s worse than that fucking monster. You alright, Meg? You’ve gone pale.”
Megan leaned back and closed her eyes. She wasn’t just Scottish, but also red-haired. She was always pale. “Yeah, this is just difficult to digest.”
“I know what you mean.”
Along with Big Dave and the others, Megan had been part of the Health and Fitness class at Forth College in Newcastle. They’d travelled up to the Highlands of Scotland for a week of camping and hill walking. Mr. Fletcher had completed the West Highland Way and Ben Nevis in his youth, and was keen to drag a select few over more challenging and obscure routes. Everything had been going fine until they’d arrived at the McGregor Lodge.
The lodge was constructed of stone, and had the most basic of furniture inside: a bed, a table, chairs and a desk. It had two floors and there was a barn outside. As for personal belongings, these were sparse and consisted of a journal, some work clothes, a torch and an axe. There were also some tins of food in the cupboards, but these were over five years past their shelf life.
Megan was the one who’d found it. While everyone was looking around the lodge, she’d went to the barn, opened the door until sunlight filled every nook and cranny. And there it was—the ugliest statue she’d ever laid her eyes upon.
But of course, when the sun went down the gargoyle had come alive. It had taken Alice away first, soaring off into the night sky. Mr. Fletcher had gone after it, but only returned sometime afterward with Alice’s body. Her neck had been broken, and her arms and legs were sticking out at odd angles, like she was nothing more than a rag doll. It had returned again, attacked Dave and then gone after Megan. She couldn’t remember anything else after that, which was probably a good thing.
“I can’t believe they’re all dead.” Megan turned to Big Dave.
“Yup. Thought you were a g
oner too. But, while you’re tough as old boots, that bugger’s ripped me several new arseholes. Rogan’s the only one without any injuries.”
“And where was she hiding? Under the bed?”
“Closet, actually.”
“Where is she now?”
“Downstairs, probably listening to Lady Gaga on her iPod or something.”
Megan sighed and looked at her watch. The face was flecked with blood so she rubbed it off. It was still ticking, displaying the time as half past twelve in the afternoon. That was good; they still had one thing on their side, even if it was only daylight.
Fangs of glass and bits of wood littered the floor downstairs. Megan could hear music crackling from headphones, which were raised to ear-splitting volume. Hello, darkness my old friend. I’ve come to talk with you again. Blood was smeared across one wall, and Alice’s body lay under a waterproof jacket, brown curls peeking out from underneath the hood. Megan fought the cry that was building up in her throat.
“Couldn’t find the others.”
Emily Rogan switched off her iPod. She was sitting at the kitchen table eating a cold pop tart and drinking a can of energy juice. There were rucksacks open all around her, the contents of one spilled across the table.
“Good morning to you too, Rogan.”
Rogan grinned, revealing her pearly whites. Her blonde hair was shoulder length and despite everything they’d been through, still retained its gentle beach-style waves. Her eyes were accentuated with eyeliner and smoky eye shadow.
“Please tell me you have not put your makeup on. Not while all this shit has been going on round about us.”
“Well, yeah. What else was I supposed to do? You could use a little yourself, Meg. You look like death warmed up. Besides, I’m not letting myself go because people have gone and let themselves get killed.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
Both Barrels of Monster Hunter Legends (Legends of the Monster Hunter Book 1) Page 62