by Sarah M. Awa
“We do have flashlights,” Pam said, “and I didn’t see any cameras earlier. We should be all right. Your phone could be in here somewhere, Mel. I’m going to try calling it again.”
She did so as they delved into the cavern’s depths. They trudged for quite a while without hearing a sound other than their own whispery footfalls and the drip-drip of rain through the occasional crack in the ceiling. Melanie checked the ceiling for bats but didn’t see any. She wasn’t about to admit that the gloomy cave did spook her, like Timmy had taunted. As long as she had companions—undesirable though one of them was—she felt reasonably safe.
They followed the red arrows on the walls, the girls scanning every inch of the ground for Melanie’s phone. Timmy glanced around in a preoccupied manner, and sometimes he winced at shifting shadows. Ha—he’s guilty of his own accusation, Melanie thought. But at least he’s not running his mouth, for once. A frightened Timmy was apparently a quiet Timmy.
Half an hour went by, and they didn’t see or hear any traces of the lost phone. “Did we come this far earlier?” Pam asked as they entered an enormous, open cavern with tunnels forking off in several directions.
“Yes, I remember this room—the beehive,” Melanie replied. “And I believe we went . . . that way.” She pointed at the tunnel directly opposite.
“We might as well go look,” Pam said. “I’ll dial your number again.”
The tunnel they’d chosen had a low ceiling, low enough that Pam had to duck her head. The ground was uneven, and each of them stumbled once or twice. The passageway grew narrower and narrower as they trekked along, but eventually it opened to form a room, rough but uncluttered by stalagmites. The only other exit was a tunnel in the wall through which a fairly thin person might crawl.
Opposite the crawlspace was a niche in which someone had stashed a pile of clothing: shoes, socks, even a belt.
“Okay, that’s weird,” Pam said. “Either there’s a streaking hermit who lives in here, or—”
“Hey, look, it’s my phone!” said Melanie, shining her flashlight into the waist-high crawlspace. A small silver object glinted at the far end, near where the crawlspace joined another room.
She wormed her way into the tunnel. The others turned to watch her, Pam aiming her light at Mel’s retreating feet.
“You okay getting it?” Pam said.
“Yeah,” Mel called back.
After crawling a dozen claustrophobic feet, she grabbed the phone. Sure enough, it was hers—the screen bore an image of Pam and Melanie making goofy faces in front of their dorm, Hartman Cottage. Mel grinned with relief and began to scoot backward.
Timmy better not be staring at my butt, she thought. “Ow!” she cried as her knee scraped a sharp rock. She hoped her cuts hadn’t started bleeding again.
“You all right in there, Mel?” Pam called. “You got your phone?”
“Yes and yes. I bumped my knee; that’s all.”
Maybe I should climb out of this end and turn around so I can see where I’m going, Melanie thought. She scooted forward once more and was about to drop into the large cavern beyond when a low, throaty growl froze her in place.
What the—?
They appeared, at the far end of the dark cavern: two glowing yellow circles with deepest black at their centers.
The fiery eyes swiveled and fixed straight on her.
Sweat broke out on Melanie’s forehead. Fingers of dread traced a glissando down her spine. A scream caught in her dry throat.
The eyes narrowed, and an earsplitting howl echoed through the cavern. The creature advanced, its bulk emerging from the shadows and into her flashlight beam: a huge canine form. Its hackles were raised, and its fur stood on end. The skin of its muzzle bunched above its nose as its lips peeled back, revealing gleaming white fangs dripping drool.
She scrambled backward, ignoring the pain of her knees scraping against rock. Please don’t let it fit in here!
The beast bounded across the cavern, massive paws propelling it with astounding speed. Snarling and foaming with rage, it lunged at the narrow tunnel opening. Its head and front paws surged inside, and it wriggled and writhed, trying to squeeze its shoulders in. Its slavering jaws snapped wildly.
Then it suddenly stopped thrashing. Its furious, eerie golden eyes caught Melanie’s wide brown ones.
She tried but failed to tear her gaze away from the beast’s. Those ghastly, hypnotic orbs stared into her. Her muscles slackened, and her breath caught.
A sharp, searing pain shot through her hand, and consciousness returned to her, sending her backward once more.
“What’s going on in there, Mel?” Pam screamed. “What’s happening?!”
Fierce growls, frightened whimpers, and scraping sounds emanated from the crawlspace. Startled, Pam dashed to the edge of the tunnel and shined her flashlight in. Feet and legs motored toward her. A moment later, Pam caught Melanie as she fell.
Mel trembled violently, eyes stretched wide with terror, nostrils flared. Tears streamed down her cheeks; blood coated her knees and palms. “Run!” she croaked.
Timmy yelped and took off. Mel grabbed Pam’s hand, and the girls dashed after him.
Pam threw a glance over her shoulder and saw two yellowish points of light gleaming in the dark tunnel. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled. “What the—hell is—that thing?”
Her friend was sobbing too hard to reply.
“Is it following us?” Timmy squeaked.
“It will be, as soon as it gets out of that hole!” Pam swerved sharply to avoid the stalagmites in her path.
A minute later they arrived back at the enormous “beehive” cavern. They dashed straight across it, into the passageway by which they’d entered. Pam kept listening for signs of pursuit. The animal’s growls had died away, but Pam held no hope that the beast would give up. She figured it could track them by scent, and Melanie was bleeding.
Thinking of bleeding . . . “Did it hurt you?” she asked her roommate. “Did it bite you anywhere?”
“I—I don’t know,” said Mel. “It all—happened so fast. . . .” She sounded like she was growing tired already.
How much longer can we keep going? Pam wondered. What if the beast caught up to them? Just keep running. Just keep running.
They pressed on, dodging between rock formations and keeping watch for the red arrows that pointed the way out. After what seemed like an eternity, they heard the pattering of rain. Almost there! The ground’s uphill slant leveled out, and suddenly the cave mouth yawned before them.
They burst out into the rain, now only a light drizzle. Timmy took an abrupt spill in the slick mud, landing hard on his rear end.
The girls stopped running and tried to help him, but he slapped away their hands. “I can get up by myself!” he snapped.
“Who’s there?” called a voice from the surrounding darkness.
Pam nearly jumped out of her skin. Melanie let out a small shriek, and Timmy whimpered. A man wielding a long-barreled gun stepped into view from behind a tree.
“Sir! You’ve got to help us!” said Pam, thinking he was a park ranger although he wasn’t wearing a uniform. “There’s a, a monster in there, and it’s coming after us!”
The man’s eyes widened. “Is it huge, with glowing yellow eyes?”
“Yeah. How did you kn—?”
“Get out of here now!”
He believes us! “Aren’t you going to run, too?”
The man raised his gun, aiming it at the cave mouth. “No. I will deal with the beast. That’s why I’m here.”
He acts like he knows all about it! thought Pam, astonished.
“Wait a second,” said the gunman, holding up a hand. “Before you leave, tell me: Did it bite any of you?” His voice was grave, and he scrutinized each of them from head to toe. His eyes lingered on Melanie’s knee abrasions and blood smears.
As she turned to give Melanie a questioning glance, Pam saw that there was quite a bit of blood on her room
mate’s left hand. But Mel shook her head. “W-why?” she asked. “Does it have rabies or something?”
Before the gunman could say or do anything else, an enraged howl echoed from inside the cave. The girls jumped, Timmy yelped, and the stranger tensed. “All right,” he said, “you kids get out of here and leave the beast to me. I’ve been tracking it, and I know how to bring it down. Go!”
They followed his orders without hesitation. As they tore off down the trail, they heard the gunman call after them: “If you can’t find your way out of the forest, climb a tree! It can’t follow you. You’ll be safe after sunrise.”
The trio ran farther and farther, slipping in muddy patches and praying that they were going the right way each time they reached a fork. Rain had washed away the girls’ marks.
Pam’s legs and lungs screamed at her, but she wouldn’t stop. She couldn’t. Even though a man with a gun now stood between her group and the monstrous creature, she didn’t dare let down her guard. She didn’t want to tempt fate.
Beside Pam, Melanie lurched and pitched forward, barely catching her balance by grabbing hold of the nearest tree trunk. Timmy, a few paces behind, almost slammed into the girls. He cursed. “C’mon, we gotta keep going!”
Ignoring him, Pam reached out and grabbed her best friend’s arm to help support her. “Are you okay, Mel?”
The smaller girl nodded, but her panting and wheezing and the way she leaned heavily on Pam told a different story.
“Are you sure?” Pam shone her flashlight next to—not in—Melanie’s face and saw that there were dark circles under her eyes. “Maybe we should stop and rest.”
“No! We can’t! We have to get out of these woods!” Timmy insisted. He stomped a foot in impatience, eyes darting around in fear.
Melanie groaned and swayed. Pam steadied her and frowned at Timmy. “Help me out, then,” she said, hoisting Mel’s left arm over her shoulders. Timmy grumbled but slung Mel’s right arm across his shoulders.
The trio hobbled along, their height differences increasing the discomfort of their strange six-legged race. Pam’s back ached from hunching at an awkward angle. Mel stumbled, and her feet dragged in the mud. Her slack wrenched Pam’s right side further downward, pinching her shoulder blade. Pam screwed up her face, bit her lip, and bore the pain.
Just when she thought she’d have to switch sides with Timmy or risk dropping her friend, Mel’s knees buckled.
“Hey!” Timmy protested as her weight dragged him down. He let her go and jumped back to avoid falling himself.
Mel slid out of Pam’s grasp and sprawled, unconscious, on the muddy path.
“Why’d you do that?!” Pam screamed at Timmy.
“Why d’you think?” he shot back.
Pam dropped down next to Melanie and shook her awake. Hoisting her up again, she said, “C’mon, dear, we have to keep moving. We’re still in danger.”
With a small moan, Mel stood, legs trembling like the strings of a plucked cello. She staggered and clutched at Pam. “Just leave me here,” she rasped.
“You really are out of it!” Pam retorted, feeling Mel’s forehead—which was burning up.
Timmy kicked at a bush and cursed.
Pam sighed. She felt his urgency. What if the beast got past the gunman? She hadn’t heard any howls or gunshots, though. Melanie’s in no shape to keep going, and I don’t want to worsen her condition. If only I could carry her!
“Here, Mel, why don’t you sit down against this tree?” she said at last. She helped her friend to the ground. “I don’t hear that thing coming. We may be in the clear.”
“Are you crazy?” said Timmy. “It could be stealth-tracking us, moving silently like a ninja. It could be seconds away from pouncing!”
What a drama queen, thought Pam. She was about to retort that the creature hadn’t demonstrated that it was the epitome of subtlety, but Melanie spoke first.
“I’m sorry, guys.” Her voice was a soft moan.
“Don’t be,” said Pam. “It’s not your fault.”
Timmy growled and paced around until Pam thought he was going to carve a rut into the dirt trail. “Here,” she said when she couldn’t stand watching him anymore, “take my flashlight.” She thrust it at him. “Go on—find your own way out of the woods.”
He took it but didn’t move. “I, uh . . . well, the trail just . . . goes in too many directions. I don’t know if I can . . .”
Pam remembered that he’d been very lost when she and Mel had run into him at the cave mouth. Oh, great, she thought. There’s no way he can make it back by himself. We’re stuck with him.
Then her ears caught Melanie’s quiet suggestion: “Why don’t we try to climb a tree? Remember what that hunter guy told us?”
“Oh yeah,” said Pam. “Good thinking, Mel. Are you feeling okay enough to do it?”
Her roommate nodded.
Pam retrieved her light from Timmy and started inspecting the forest around them. “Let’s see, which one of these trees would be easiest to climb?”
Half of the trees here were evergreens with skinny branches, sticky sap, and prickly needles; she eschewed those as poor options. Among the deciduous trees, many were too young and frail. She walked farther and finally spotted a sprawling oak a dozen yards off the trail. Its thick branches looked sturdy and reached low enough for the trio to catch. “I found a good one,” Pam said, returning and helping Melanie to her feet.
Timmy grumbled about the plan, but he scrambled up first and climbed the highest. Pam gave Mel a boost and then followed her up.
Please, please let us be safe now, Pam thought as she hugged one of the oak’s broad limbs and forced herself not to look down. They’d climbed frighteningly high.
As the night wore on, she listened for gunshots, howls, or human screams, but none of those echoed through the silent forest. Eventually the light drizzle of rain petered out, to her relief. She’d been shivering in her damp clothes since they’d escaped the cave, and she prayed that she and the others wouldn’t catch pneumonia.
A few branches above Pam, Melanie Caldwell alternated between shivering and roasting; a high fever held her in its grip. The world blurred and swam in front of her eyes, and she clung to her perch as tightly as she could, fearing that she’d become dizzy and fall.
Melanie’s left hand throbbed in time with her heart, needles of pain shooting through her arm whenever she moved it or for no reason at all. Her fingers were half numb, half tingling. During the flight to safety, she’d been so panic-stricken that she’d barely noticed the pain. But now that they were resting here, her hurting hand hollered for attention.
She lifted it toward her eyes, squinted, and shook her head to try and clear away the mental haze. It dispersed a bit, and she noticed a torn spot along her hand’s outer edge, halfway between her pinky finger and wrist. Blood seeped from the wound despite its diminutive size.
Why did it hurt, while the abrasions on her palms no longer did?
Mel examined the wound more closely. It was triangular and rather deep—a puncture mark. Something had pierced the skin, something thinner and more knifelike than the rocks in the cave. There was a whitish substance crusted around the edges of the mysterious wound.
What . . . what happened back there? She struggled to recall the terrifying moments after the beast had appeared.
Images flashed through her mental fog: hypnotic, hellish eyes—a low, menacing growl—the beast lunging at her—bone-white fangs gleaming—
Stop, stop! Tremors of fear racked her all over again, and her gut heaved and threatened. Melanie clung to the tree and fought to calm her body and mind. Deep breaths. In and out. In and out.
The controlled breathing slowly relaxed her. Then the haze began to creep back across her consciousness, lulling her into drowsy tranquility. No—stay awake, she told herself. Think of where you are.
But tendrils of mist kept reaching out to her; the fog roiled and gathered strength. It sapped her resistance and tugged her t
oward oblivion.
The clouds above trundled eastward, pushed along by a strong wind. They broke rank and tore where the cloud cover had been stretched thinnest. The moon leered down, round and full, a great eye searching through the foliage, searching for her. . . .
Her eyes drooped, and she slumped back against the trunk of the oak.
3
Complications
September 18, Waning Gibbous Moon
He resurfaced into consciousness in the usual manner, post-transformation: trembling with fear, exhaustion, and pain. As always, it took several moments before he became fully aware of himself and his surroundings. But this morning, the process of reawakening reached its end much more abruptly when he realized—
He wasn’t in the cave anymore. He was in the woods.
Shit. What the hell happened last night?
A groan escaped his lips as he struggled to pull himself up to a seated position. His head swam, and he gulped in deep, steadying breaths. As soon as he was able to focus his eyes, he inspected the area around him for signs of a fight—of a kill.
If he had attacked someone last night, there would be trails and puddles of blood close by, with a mangled corpse at the center of the mess. His hellish alter ego liked to stay near its fallen prey, gnawing at and shredding the lifeless body. Unless, of course, there was other prey to bring down.
He shuddered in terrified anticipation. However, as he looked around at the towering, stately pines and scanned the ferny underbrush and the damp forest floor, he could find no signs that anything dangerous had happened here. No splash of red marred the calm greenness.
Before he allowed relief to flood him, he inspected his hands. Splotches of dried mud mingled with plant debris across his palms and under his fingernails. More mud and pine needles clung to the rest of his pale, naked body, along with a fleeing spider . . . but there was no blood. Nor was anything crusted around his mouth except the usual saliva.