Nanny to the Shifter

by Leela Ash

  “Okay,” he said quietly. “I get it.”

  “Good,” Melissa crossed her arms over her chest and looked back out of the window. Hopefully with that out of the way now, she would be able to enjoy the rest of the journey, both to Bordeaux and with whatever was to come after…

  3.

  The hotel in Bordeaux was in the center of the city’s historical square and much more exquisite than Melissa could have imagined. She had traveled away for expeditions before and had been put up in some nice places, but this was something else. It was the kind of hotel a couple would go to on their honeymoon, the sort royalty would check into while away on official business. Melissa marveled at the opulence of the décor and her mouth gaped open as she and Jake walked into the reception area. A huge hallway greeted them with gold leaf walls, six foot urns with luscious plant life and marble flooring that was ice cool on the balls of her feet as she rested her foot down and readjusted her shoe. There were some of the biggest chandeliers Melissa had ever seen, and candelabras adorned the top of every surface.

  “Wow,” she said. “Looks like someone really came through for us…”

  “You’re not wrong,” Jake gasped. “This place is insane.”

  As they checked in, Melissa told the receptionist that they were with the Archaeologists Association and the girl behind the desk instantly changed her manner. She became overly friendly and presented them with their room keys, telling them they were on a private floor with the rest of their party.

  As they followed the bell boy, who was carrying their bags on a trolley and wearing an adorable red jacket and matching cap, Melissa turned back to look at the hotel entryway… It was such a beautiful hotel. She had no idea why they had been taken there and why they were being treated so well.

  Jake and Melissa’s rooms were thankfully at different ends of the same hallway so she didn’t have to worry about him pressing his ear to the wall and trying to hear her on the phone. She could imagine him doing something like that before coming and knocking on her door with blatant sexual bravado. She just hoped that after telling him off on the train, he had finally gotten the message.

  As she entered her room, she stopped and stared in awe. It was a beautiful suite with rich red velvet curtains tumbling down the sides of the windows, a big separate living area with a bottle of wine on ice waiting for her and the biggest super king-sized bed she had ever seen. She tipped the bell boy, closed the door and ran straight over to it, flopped down and stretched out. She could hear the hustle and bustle from the square below through the open balcony doors, and she had to pinch herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. It almost seemed criminal that this would be the only real time she got to spend at the hotel, as come morning, she would be in full on work mode and heading over to the research site. As she rolled over, she noticed a large folder resting on the desk in the living area. She got to her feet and crossed over to it. It had her name embossed on the front, and when she opened it there was a welcome letter from Dr. Quattro, the leader of the expedition. It requested her to be present in the hotel’s business center at 9 pm. She checked her watch and realized it was almost eight. She put the folder down, quickly unzipped her bag and pulled out a change of clothes. She would have to shower quickly in order to get there in time, and she needed to revive herself after the past twenty-four hours of travel.

  At 9 pm, she made her way down in the mirrored elevators with Jake and got off at floor three where the business center was located. There was a buzz in the hallway, and Melissa realized that there were a lot of people present for the welcoming…more than she had ever seen on expeditions before.

  As she sat down in the conference room and looked around, there appeared to be people from all over the world. She tried to catch their titles on their name badges, but they weren’t clear enough, and by the time Dr. Quattro walked into the room, everyone around her erupted into applause.

  “Thank you,” Dr. Quattro said as he waved out to the crowd and the lights dimmed. “First of all, I want to wish you a very warm welcome to Bordeaux… As you know, we are here for a very special reason, and I have put together a team of some of the best people in your respective fields… There has been a lot of privacy surrounding what was discovered for fear of either military or press interference, but now that we are all present, I am in a position to tell you a little more about what was found…”

  The room was deadly silent as everyone hung onto his every word. Melissa’s heart was racing as she realized that this was different to anything she had done before… What had been found? And why was Dr. Quattro keeping it away from the military?

  “As you know,” he continued, “a cave-like structure has been discovered at a site some miles from here. The location must remain confidential for now, so it will not be disclosed to you. Even tomorrow, you will travel in vehicles so you will not know where you are traveling.” Melissa looked at Jake and raised her eyebrows. She didn’t like the sound of this one bit…

  “The Lascaux Caves and what we have found are not so dissimilar,” he continued, “except for one thing.” He paused and looked around the room seriously. “One of my men went in there and did not come out…”

  A wave of whispers hissed around the room.

  “Something in that cave took him,” he said as the hairs on the back of Melissa’s neck prickled. “And I do not mean an animal.” Dr. Quattro leaned forward onto his lectern. “I mean something is present in this cave… Something changed, opened and allowed our colleague to travel to another place.”

  Everyone was talking now and looking around the room. No one seemed to understand what Dr. Quattro was getting at and Melissa was right there with them. She was so confused.

  “What do you mean?” one man shouted from the crowd.

  “Is he still alive?” another called after him.

  “We don’t know,” Dr. Quattro said. “All we know is that something happened down there, something to do with the prehistoric paintings and the rock formations… Something aligned, a vortex of some kind opened, and he was swallowed whole. Something is down there and we need to find out what.”

  Jake squeezed Melissa’s arm, and when she looked at him, he had panic written all over his face.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

  The room around them was full of people shouting questions and demanding answers. All the doctor seemed able to tell them was that something terrible was lurking down there, and he had assembled so many people because he knew a lot would not want to take part in the expedition once it had been explained to them. Not all of the men and women around them were archaeologists; some were scientists, astronauts, astronomers and physics experts. For the first time in her career, Melissa felt truly intimidated. She didn’t know exactly what was happening, but she knew she wanted to be involved. Luckily, Jake looked like he was backing out. He got to his feet and walked to the end of the aisle, and Melissa watched him.

  “Come on Mel,” he called after her. “This is all crackpot shit.”

  She watched him as others hushed around them and waited for her reaction. There was no way she was going to miss out on something this big, and it wasn’t her fault that Jake was too stupid and inexperienced to understand the significance of this discovery.

  She shook her head at him and watched as he stormed out towards the main doors. Dr. Quattro lowered his head and raised his palms high towards the sky…

  “Now is the time to follow if you don’t want to be involved,” he said, motioning after Jake as the doors swung lamely behind him.

  Around twenty other people got to their feet and made a dash for the exits.

  “Enjoy the rest of your time here in Bordeaux,” Dr. Quattro called after them.

  Melissa looked around her and realized she was one of only a handful of people who had stayed.

  “Right,” Dr. Quattro continued. “Now that we have separated the men from the boys, it looks like I have a team.”

  Melissa smiled at him
and at the others around her.

  “Tomorrow is going to be a defining moment in your careers,” he said. “I can’t wait to introduce you to the caves.”

  Melissa’s blood ran cold with anticipation, and as she walked back up to her room with an official secrecy document in her hands, she knew she was on the verge of something amazing. Whatever the day ahead was going to bring, she was sure that it was going to change her life.

  4.

  The next morning as Melissa boarded the bus that would take her to the excavation site, she was full of so much hope, fear and anticipation she didn’t know what to do with herself. She and the other members of the team all sat in silence as Dr. Quattro led them into the French countryside and out into the hills. She didn’t know where they were going or even how long it had taken them. Quattro had taken all of their cell phones, watches and electronic equipment in case they somehow interfered with what he thought may be some sort of electromagnetic field.

  Melissa found herself skeptical. She had heard of people going missing on excavations like this. The terrain was unpredictable and who knew what the architectural state of the cave would be? In the back of her mind, she just kept thinking that surely Quattro’s colleague had fallen into a break in the rocks and either became covered or fallen so far down there would be no hope for recovery. Quattro however, was adamant this wasn’t the case.

  As they disembarked the bus in the middle of an open field, Melissa shivered and she looked around her, realizing how totally alone out there they were.

  “This way,” Quattro said as he marched ahead.

  Melissa noticed a break in the ground and what looked like it could easily be a badger sett was the ground crumbling away and opening into a hole of about three feet wide.

  “We need to start from here,” Quattro said. “Travel about a hundred meters down and then the rocks open up and reveal the entrance to the cave.

  Melissa couldn’t even speak. This was her last time to back out, but she knew she wasn’t going to.

  “Let’s do it,” Quattro said as he strapped on his helmet and began to crawl into the tiny space before disappearing out of sight. Melissa wasn’t far behind him, and as she maneuvered her body down into the earth, she decided now was not the time to second guess her decisions. She was going for it with everything she had, and she was going to make her mark.

  Underground, as they scaled the rocks, she could smell the familiar scent of damp earth which rapidly gave way to clay. It was pitch black in there apart from the light on her helmet and just when she thought the journey down to the opening of the cave was never going to end, she heard Quattro call up to her that he had gotten there.

  When her feet touched down next to his, she breathed a sigh of relief. She crawled forward on her hands and knees in the tunnel that could have only been around a few feet high and suddenly it opened out into the most spectacular underground world.

  “Oh my god!” Melissa exclaimed as her voice echoed around the cave. There was a lagoon down there, huge prehistoric paintings of bulls and horses adorning the walls and star maps present, too. She had never seen anything so spectacular in her entire life and she knew instantly why Quattro had wanted to keep it so secret. There was a magic to the place… It was so hidden, so concealed from the world, it was a miracle it had been found in the first place. Everything in there was perfectly preserved and the contrasting rock formations of stalagmites and stalactites were bone chilling.

  “They’re amazing,” she whispered, and her voice still echoing. She stepped forward and made her way to an area that seemed to pull her there… She couldn’t explain why, but there was something about the rocks that made her determined to walk to them. She needed to touch their points and feel the moisture running along them.

  It took Quattro a moment to realize where she was heading, but when he did, he spun around with a look of horror on his face and called to her. “Wait, no!”

  But it was too late. Melissa had reached the rocks and had one in each hand. As she held onto their tips, a fire raged through her and what felt like lightening rocketed up and down her spine.

  She was pummeled backwards, and the whole world went black. Everything was silent, and the pain in her head throbbed. She couldn’t hear Quattro anymore, and she couldn’t feel anything. With a rush of nausea, she fell unconscious before she could even process what had happened.

  5.

  The cold bit her skin, but she could smell the faint smoky drift of firewood. The crackling and snapping of twigs brought her more back to life as she rolled over and realized she was on ice-cold ground.

  “Quattro?” she croaked as she leaned up on her elbows and looked around. She was in the cave…but it was different. No one else was there and a small fire burned around nearby. She looked down at herself and realized she was wearing the black skin of an animal. The fur was keeping her warm, but she had raggy material tied to her feet and she was dirty.

  “What the hell…?” she said as she got to her feet. The pain in her head was still raging, and she was sure that someone was playing a joke on her as she looked around at the lagoon and the ancient rocks. The paintings weren’t as extensive, but they looked fresh, as if they had only just been done. The cave looked different because it wasn’t as developed or underground… She could sense something had changed with time and space… She had gone somewhere else.

  Her mind raced as she thought back to what Quattro said about his colleague disappearing. He had said something about a vortex, about him being taken by something. Melissa looked around in panic… Could the same have happened to her? Could it have been the rocks? Something so strong had pulled her there and then… Nothing. Blackness. Then she had woken up there.

  She trembled as she tried to piece it all together. Then with horror she threw herself back against the wall of the cave as she was sure she could hear something.

  She wasn’t alone.

  There was something else in there with her.

  She swallowed hard as her heart pounded loudly in her chest. She could hear something snarling and moving closer. She curled into a ball, trying to make herself as small as possible so it was almost like she wasn’t there. She was so terrified, she didn’t dare move, and when she finally had the nerve to look up, her heart almost stopped beating.

  There in front of her, about a hundred foot away, was a saber-toothed tiger, massive on its haunches, snarling at her and eyeing her up for its next meal. Melissa wanted to scream, she wanted to run… but she just couldn’t move.

  “It can’t be,” she whispered. “This isn’t happening.”

  The tiger snarled again and moved forward. Its huge paws padded across the frozen earth, and Melissa kept closing her eyes and pinching the skin on her legs.

  “Wake up,” she muttered. “This isn’t real, wake up.”

  When she opened her eyes, the tiger was still in front of her, its immense tusk-like teeth dripping with saliva and the taste for her. She began to wail. The tiger reared up on its hind legs before lunging towards her.

  Suddenly from above, there was a flash of black fur as another creature leapt over her. It dived at the tiger with rage before it could reach Melissa and drove a long spear into its heart. The tiger collapsed onto the floor and whimpered as it let out its last breath. The creature that had saved her got to its feet and stood tall and proud.

  It was with both relief and trepidation that Melissa realized it wasn’t another animal at all, but a person. A handsome man wearing a similar animal pelt to hers, all muscles and dirt, his long hair matted with mud and his chest heaving with exertion. He walked over to her and blocked out the light from the fire with his huge frame before extending a hand to her to help her up.

  “Woman,” he said gruffly. “Get up.”

  6.

  Melissa put her hand in his and he pulled her forcefully to her feet. His eyes were bright and innocent through all of the caked mud and dirt that was covering his skin, and she had the intense urge to reac
h out and stroke his face.

  “Go,” he said. “Now.”

  Melissa looked up at him and wondered why there was so much urgency. He had killed the danger. The saber-tooth was dead. What else could be waiting for them? She noticed a look of shock on his face and turned to follow his gaze. Behind her in the darkness of the cave were small, strange-looking men with big ugly features crawling out of the shadows.

  Melissa shrieked as he lifted her high up over his shoulder and began to run with her for the cave entrance. She squealed as she bobbed along, her hair trailing right down his back as he clung onto her taut thighs with his big, rough hands.

  The men running after them were like something she had studied. But it couldn’t be possible. They couldn’t be what she thought they were, surely…

  Neanderthals.

  Her savior ran quickly out over the barren terrain, and she clung to him for fear of losing her grip and being dropped in the middle of the icy field and savaged. The sun was setting and casting an orange glow over the ice, and as they ran up an incline and he made a left around a rock, Melissa suddenly felt safe. This place felt free of danger, and it appeared they had outrun them.

  He slowed his pace but still kept a rough grip on her. She could feel his muscles beneath the pelt, and she ran the tips of her fingers over them, lightly stroking each rock-hard flex. She bit her lip with excitement… Although all this seemed unbelievable, she was having the time of her life.

  “Home,” the man said as he approached a cliff face.

  He placed Melissa down on the ground and began to roll away a large boulder that was covering the entrance to another cave.

  “In,” he said.

  When Melissa hesitated, he pulled her by the arm into the cave and began to roll the boulder back over the opening.

  It was dark and warm in there, with the heat and light from an embering fire casting dancing shadows along the walls. She could see paintings of the bulls and horses and wondered if he had decorated some of the caves that she discovered on her excavation with Dr. Quattro.