by T. S. Hall
Thirteen
FATHER
An excruciating headache woke Allora in the middle of the night, a sharp pain that felt like a pickax to her brain. Five minutes of throbbing pushed Allora to escape the confines of her sleeping bag in search of relief. Her friends snored softly as she walked through the maze of debris to the dark blue lake at the bottom of the path. In its depths, she could see small, bluish lights swimming through the water. Every few seconds, the luminescent creatures would brighten, creating a sparkling orchestra of blue light.
“Fascinating, aren’t they?”
Allora jumped backward and slid on her rear, searching the dark cavern for the source of the voice. Two beady eyes were perched on a ledge behind a large pillar of rock. The eyes darted around the corner and finally became familiar.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you,” Sas said, noticing Allora’s frightened glare.
“You keep doing that!” Allora said, clutching her head. She didn’t mean to be so irritable with the friendly beast, but her headache was becoming worse, and all she could think about was the pain.
“They’re called Botaqua bugs. They clean the water,” Sas said, jumping down from ledge to the water’s edge. “Great natural filtration system.”
“Fascinating,” Allora replied, sarcastically.
“What’s wrong?” Sas asked, helping Allora to her feet.
“I’ve just got this horrible headache, and I don’t know why.”
Sas left the pool and disappeared behind a pile of black inner tubes. He came back a minute later and handed her two white pills.
“What’s this? Magic fairy pills or something crazy like that?” she asked, hoping for something powerful.
“Nope, just aspirin,” Sas said, moving toward the edge of the glistening pool.
Allora shrugged, took a drink from the waterfall, and swallowed the pills, happy to have something for the pain.
“Sometimes when you expel a large amount of hadrons like you did tonight, it depletes your body of water and energy, resulting in a throbbing head. It’s a common side effect,” Sas explained.
“Yeah, well, I’m pretty sure headaches are also a side effect of a fifty-foot tree landing on me.”
“Right. That could’ve had something to do with it,” Sas said.
They both laughed.
The pool twinkled in the dark cave as they stared quietly at the serene water. A flutter of bats sounded in the dark crevices of the cavern.
As they sat there, listening to nature, Allora’s mind wandered back to Mr. Swan’s request. She assumed it would take some maneuvering to get the necessary information from Sas. “What was your father like?”
The question caught Sas off guard, and he turned to look at her in surprise. “Why would you ask about my father?” he asked, his tone rigid and apprehensive.
Allora realized she had to choose her next words carefully. She didn’t want Sas to become defensive and shut her out entirely, for that would destroy any chance of finding out the location of the last piece of parchment. “I never had a father,” she said.
Sas’s body language became less tense. “Oh. Right.”
“I just figured it was something we could talk about.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I just get a little suspicious of those who ask about my father.”
The slight verbal maneuver had worked. Allora felt a little guilty for manipulating her hairy friend, but it was imperative to find The Eye, and she couldn’t be too passive or polite when it came to collecting the necessary information.
“He was also named Sas. I took his name out of respect, an honor to his legacy. He was an amazing guardian—taller, bigger, and far more skilled than I could ever be. He served as the leader of the Guardian Council during a very tumultuous time. When he died…” Sas teared up, feeling the same pain he’d felt the day he was told of his father’s demise. “When he died, it was a great loss for us all, especially for me.”
“How did he die?” Allora asked.
Sas became suspicious again, searching Allora’s eyes for malicious intentions, but he could find none. He stared back at the blinking blue lights in the water, which was slightly rolling in the wake of the cascading waterfall at the back of the pool. “As I think I mentioned vaguely before, my father was searching for something,” he began. “It was… something of great importance. When he left, he told me he’d found what he was looking for but that it wasn’t a safe time to go after it. I never quite understood what he was talking about, and I never got a chance to ask him.”
“What happened the day he died?”
“He… I…” He paused and choked on his words. “Allora, I cannot talk to you about this,” Sas admitted. “It’s very dangerous. Whatever my father was searching for, it was so important that someone killed him for it.”
Allora was determined. She knew the consequences were severe, but there was no distinction between dying from Royal Guard assassins or some other way. “Sas, I think I know what your father was searching for,” Allora admitted.
Sas perked up and faced the small human. “You do?”
“That parchment you gave me. The one that my uncle had. There is one last piece, and I believe that your father found it.”
“So… this little talk really wasn’t about your father, was it?” Sas asked.
Allora put her head down. Dishonesty wasn’t part of her nature, and she was overcome with guilt for misleading a friend. After a few awkward silent minutes, Allora turned around to go.
Before she could leave the area, Sas said over his broad, hairy shoulder, “Mount St. Helens.”
Allora stopped in her tracks and walked back to the water’s edge.
“Before he left, he told me the secret lies in the lava tubes.”
Allora smiled and hugged her hairy friend. He reciprocated reluctantly, wondering whether he had made the right decision to give away the secrets of his father’s death. Watching Allora saunter back to the large pile of sleeping bags, Sas thought back to the night his father had died. The news had been tragic, but what bothered Sas so much was that his father had been ambushed by a group of assassins. That meant that there was a traitor within the guardian organization who had betrayed his father. Sas had never found out exactly what happened that day, because the consequence of that day had caused Mount St. Helens to violently erupt.
Fourteen
CAVE
“Mom!” Allora yelled down the hall. “Where is my bow?” Allora rummaged through a pile of clothes in the corner of her room, well aware that she had a tendency to misplace her stuff.
“I put it in the garage, honey,” Milly yelled back.
“Okay, thanks.” Allora made her way out to the garage and began sifting through the boxes lining the wall, and finding her bow in the corner.
“You’re not bringing your bow on the field trip are you?” Milly asked, peering around the door frame of the garage. “Not exactly a very discreet accessory.”
“No, mom. I just wanted to make sure that Sas had brought it back.”
“You’re going to stay with Aunt May while you’re in the Ape Caves, right?”
“Yes mother,” Allora said, rolling her eyes. “You’ve grilled me a hundred times already.”
“I just don’t see the necessity in this trip. Can’t you kids get a geology lesson while at school?”
“And miss out on the real thing? No way!”
Milly wandered back to the kitchen, leaving Allora to rummage some more in the boxes of old stuff. One of them in particular caught her eye. It had her Uncle Ben’s name written on it in big block letters. The box hung out over the edge of the top shelf in the corner, as if it was just asking to be rediscovered. She stared at the box, touching it, and then pulling her hand away. More than ever before, she wondered about her Uncle Ben and who he really was. Milly never talked about him and had always changed the subject whenever Allora inquired; the same happened whenever the girl asked about her father.
&
nbsp; With her curiosity piqued beyond her ability to avoid the temptation, Allora gave in and pulled the box down from the top shelf. Right before she pulled back the lid, someone yelled her name from inside.
“Allora, Katie’s here.”
She stopped, staring at the dusty lid for a minute. “I’ll look at you later,” she said to the box, then shoved it into a discreet corner of the garage.
After jumping into Katie’s car, Allora surveyed her friend’s outfit. She wore a puffy white coat, pink stockings, strawberry lip gloss, white tennis shoes, and a pink scarf wrapped elegantly around her neck. “You’re really dressed for the occasion, huh?” Allora teased, shaking her head at the ensemble that looked more appropriate for a winter fashion show than a journey to the center of the Earth.
“Who says I can’t look good while I go spelunking?” Katie remarked, while driving toward the main road toward school.
“Spelunking?” Allora asked, shocked by her friend’s suddenly broad vocabulary.
“I know, right?” Katie said, rolling her eyes. “Maureen’s been forcing me to study S.A.T. flash cards. Ugh, boring!”
They parked, and walked toward the front entrance. A line of yellow school buses were ready to ferry the junior class students on the impromptu field trip to the Ape Caves, just south of Mt. St. Helens in the state of Washington. Mr. Swan had quickly arranged the trip after speaking with Allora regarding her conversation with Sas.
Two hours after leaving the school parking lot, and they arrived at the national park.
“Make sure you don’t forget your jackets,” Mrs. Ferris instructed as the large group of students filed off the bus. “It will be quite chilly down there.”
The Ape Caves, where the field trip had been scheduled, were located just south of Mount St. Helens, in the national forest. Winter had brought with it a sharp cold front, and a thin sheet of white covered the path as the parade of students made their way to the entrance of the caves.
Descending into the dark cavern, Allora was reminded of the conversation she’d had with Sas. As they passed the stalactites hanging down from the cavern roof, Allora searched the area for anything that seemed out of place. “I don’t even know what we’re looking for,” she muttered quietly.
“Where’s Mr. Swan?” Katie asked. “I was sure he’d chaperone this little trip.”
“Mrs. Ferris said they think he’s being followed,” Allora whispered. “He thought it would be safer if he didn’t go.”
Katie locked arms with her, and the two moved together down the narrow path.
“What we have here is quartz,” the tour guide began. “This is created when rock, heat, and pressure mix to form small crystals. These lava tubes once had immense heat and pressure.”
Katie and Allora stood in the back of the group, snickering at the park ranger’s uniform: large hiking boots, knee-high socks tucked into his pants, a dark green fanny pack strapped around his waist, a tight green national forest jacket, thick, horn-rimmed, black glasses, and a highly starched flat ranger’s hat that was too tall for his head.
“Now he’s dressed for the occasion,” Allora joked. “You gotta get a fanny pack like that.”
“Right,” Katie said.
“The Ape Caves were discovered by a Boy Scout troop, and those boys named it after a group of foresters, The St. Helens Apes. Many believe it was named for the infamous man-ape, also known as Bigfoot or Sasquatch, who is said to have roamed these parts.”
“Has anyone ever seen such a creature down here?” Allora asked.
All four became attentive, moving closer to the front.
“Well, one lady claimed she did,” the guide said, “but I was told she was a little crazy, so I’m sure she was just seeing things. Now, please follow me, and we’ll continue the tour.”
“Wait!” Allora yelled at the ranger, who was already moving down the path.
When the yell reverberated against the cavern walls, the ranger stopped. “Yes?”
“I wanna know what she said.”
“Miss, we have a long tour ahead of us and another group coming behind us. We need to move on,” he said.
“Can you just answer the girl’s question?” Mrs. Ferris asked, which seemed to annoy the ranger. “Just for fun?”
The ranger sighed and walked back up the short incline, laboring with each step as if utterly bothered by the reversal of direction. He stopped short of where the girls stood, pointed aggressively down a narrow cavern, bent down and pushed his horn-rimmed glasses back against his face.
They looked at the black opening and saw a large rope draped across it, along with a “Keep Out” sign.
“That area is restricted, so there’s no way she saw anyone walking down there. As I said, absolutely crazy.”
Allora and Katie leaned back to avoid inhaling any more of the aftermath of the tuna fish sandwich the ranger had obviously eaten for lunch. They half-smiled, grossed out by the weird, awkward gestures of the ranger.
The tall, thin man snapped around, as if he were in boot camp, and went back to following the cavern path. “All right, people, let’s move along,” he barked.
Allora, Katie, and Mrs. Ferris remained behind, quietly moving out of sight against a rock outcrop.
“We’ve got to move fast, girls,” the teacher whispered. “Like he said, there’s another tour coming along behind us.”
Just then, Tanner and Dax showed up, running, and came to a hurried stop.
“Sorry we’re late,” Tanner said between gasps after his fast-paced sprint through the underground labyrinth.
“Where were you guys?” Katie asked.
“Our bus got held up because of a car accident,” Dax said, looking agitated. “The bus driver assumed the car had hit an animal, but when we passed by, it looked like a crumpled heap of metal. No animal could have caused that much damage.”
A bat screeched as it fluttered only inches above the group. A squeal followed, but it had come from the blonde girl all wrapped in pink and white.
“I hate bats!” Katie said, grabbing Allora’s arm.
“All right,” Mrs. Ferris said, ignoring the girl, “we need to split up.”
“We’ll go that way,” Allora said, pointing to the restricted area.
After the others left to search other openings, Allora and Katie crawled under the rope and ventured into the dimly lit, off-limits cave. Luckily, Allora had remembered to bring a flashlight. The farther they moved, the colder it became. A slight sting formed at the tips of their fingers, and their noses became numb from the frigid air. Pretty soon, only the small beam of the flashlight was visible. The only sounds were the occasional drip of water and the deep, smoky breaths from the two frozen girls. As they moved deeper into the cave, the walls began to narrow. Creepy shadows danced along the rock, caused by the flashlight beam casting over the sharp stalactites.
Allora and Katie squished closer together, fearing the unknown ahead of them. A quiet scurrying echoed in the dark. Allora frantically swung the light around, feeling her heart beat twice as fast. The beam of light projected a large shadow of a spider, seen on the wall as over ten feet high. Katie screamed, but when their narrowed eyes finally grew accustomed to the dark, they saw a tiny arachnid spider dangling from the ceiling, no bigger than a pencil eraser.
Embarrassed, Katie walked ahead defiantly. “I could have taken that spider!” she said.
Allora squinted in the darkness. Above Katie, something moved against the cavern ceiling.
“They are such awful little creatures,” Katie said, shaking with disgust. Above her, a long, thin leg clasped a stalactite, tightly wrapping itself around it. “Their webs are the worst. Ew!”
Slowly, Allora moved the light up, illuminating a grotesque figure. The creature had what looked like three heads joined at the ears, a single cyclops eye in each. Its arms looked like razor-sharp butcher knives, with fingerlike tentacles. The creature’s body was thin, covered in short-fuzzy hair, and equipped with more than ten lo
ng legs, allowing it to move along the roof of the cave with frightening quickness. The monster was like nothing Allora had ever seen, like something right out of a nightmare. When it crawled closer and hung right above where Katie stood, Allora was paralyzed with fear, unable to react. All she could do was stand there with her mouth open, frozen with fright.
“Not funny, Allora,” Katie said. “I’m not turning around, so stop trying to scare me.” Katie defiantly stood with her hands crossed on her chest. “This isn’t the time or the place for practical jokes, so you might as well—”
Just then, the creature reached out with its butcher claw, and Allora planted her foot and sprang forward with a jerk, a forceful lunge that knocked Katie off her feet. The creature swung its cleaver-like arm downward, missing the feet of the flying teens.
After she rolled to a stop, Katie got to her feet in confusion. “What the hell are you doing?” she asked, shaking the dirt and dust from her white coat. “Do you realize how expensive this thing is?”
Allora crawled on all fours, grabbed the flashlight, and projected it on their attacker. The light shined on the creature as it pulled its arm from the ground.
“Oh… that,” Katie said.
The creature let out a terrifying screech, arching its back in an obviously aggressive gesture. Allora grabbed Katie’s arm and pulled the shocked girl down the only escape. Sprinting through the dark cave, the two girls randomly chose their path. The flashlight bobbed up and down with every step, only illuminating a few feet ahead. Unable to turn around, they heard the creature scurrying quickly along the ceiling and walls behind them.
“What do we do, what do we do, WHAT DO WE DO?” Katie said, frantically waiving her arms.
“How am I supposed to know?” Allora yelled back.
A new smell wafted into their nostrils as they moved deeper into the cave, the aroma increasing in intensity with every step.
Katie glanced over her shoulder just in time to see an arm swinging at them. “Duck!” she said, pushing Allora forward.