Damon

by Vanessa Hawkes

  “Damon! Where are you?”

  Damon’s glowing face appeared over the edge of the opening. “Here, catch,” he called. He was lowering the torch down, preparing to drop it.

  “Forget the torch,” I yelled at him. “Give me the flashlight!”

  But he dropped the torch, anyway, and I caught it with a wild flair, trying to keep the flames away from my hair and clothes.

  I turned, illuminating everything around me. First, with relief, I saw there was no ledge, and that I was alone with only some rocks. Relief turned to horror, though, when all I saw were walls. Walls enclosing me, shooting up toward the sky in every direction. Nothing but a circle of rock, caging me inside a small space. I was trapped at the bottom of a well.

  “Damon!”

  “I’m here,” he said from so far up above. He was miles and miles away now. “Don’t panic.”

  “I’m not.” My voice was too shaky to be convincing. “I’m okay.”

  “Are you hurt?

  “I don’t know.” I couldn’t feel anything except the terror raging through my body. I tilted my head back and tried to see him in the darkness, lifting the torch high over my head.

  He was lying on his stomach reaching a hand down. I rushed forward and tried to reach his hand. Even when I jumped, we didn’t come close to touching.

  “Take off your jeans and hold them down. Maybe I can reach them and you can pull me up.”

  In a moment, he lowered his jeans over the side. I leaned the torch against the wall and was able to reach a leg. He pulled and I tried to climb but soon he started slipping forward, so I let go.

  “I can’t brace myself,” he said. “It’s slippery up here. There’s nothing close enough to tie on to. My god, Maggie.”

  “You have to go get a rope,” I told him. “Go back to town and get a rope. Or, get some help. Find the police or forest rangers or someone. Or, no, go up the road to Pawpaw’s. They’re closest. See if they have a phone.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  A fresh wave of horror passed through me when I realized I would have to be left alone down here for… hours, maybe. Damon had to get out of the cave and hike back to the car. Then he’d have to find help, and they would have to make the journey back. I would be down here alone for hours.

  Provided Damon didn’t forget about me entirely. That was also a risk. In the time it would take to get help, he might forget I even existed. He might go off in search of the secret village where our snarling, furry, blood-drinking ancestors lived.

  And I would be left in pitch-blackness. The torch was burning lower and lower and Damon would need the flashlight to get out of the cave. “Give me the lighter.” I could burn my own clothes if I had to but I wanted the lighter for backup, just in case.

  “I lost the flashlight,” he said.

  I held the torch higher, needing to see his face. I was instantly angry and my voice came out calm and flat. “You did what?”

  “I had to get rid of it. The vampire doesn’t like artificial light.”

  I didn’t care about the goddamn vampire anymore. I wanted out of this cave. I wanted to see the sunlight and breathe fresh air.

  I wanted to punch Damon right in the face.

  “Okay,” I said, taking a good, long, deep breath. “You’ll have to take the torch.” I couldn’t even take his lighter in case the torch burned out. “Here, catch,” I called to him. “I’ll throw it as high as I can.”

  “No, keep it,” he called.

  “You have to be able to see to get out and get help. If you get lost, we’ll never get out. We’ll both die down here.”

  “Just hold it up so I can see.”

  I was already holding it as high as I could. “See what?”

  Then I was the one to see, Damon crawling over the edge of the pit, lowering himself down to arms length.

  “Damon, don’t!” I yelled.

  But he let go and fell, landing on the floor beside me. He stumbled backward, finally sitting down against the wall.

  I dropped the torch and rushed over to check on him. His teeth were clenched but he nodded that he was all right. Once I saw he was alive, I didn’t care about any injuries he might have. Panic took over and I grabbed him by the shirt as he stood, hopping on one foot.

  “Now we’re trapped!” I yelled at him, shaking him. “We’ll never get out! What is wrong with you?”

  He grabbed me by the shoulders and held me firmly. “It’s all right,” he said in a calm voice. “You found the portal. This is where we needed to go. This isn’t natural. It’s manmade. It’s alien-made. It’ll lead us out.”

  “No,” I moaned. My legs gave way and I plopped down in despair.

  Damon picked up the torch and shined it around, the light of confidence fading from his face as he absorbed the death walls all around us.

  “This isn’t right,” he muttered with a shaky voice. “It’s not written this way. This pit leads to the portal.”

  “No one knows where we are, Damon.”

  He limped over and sat beside me, pulling me into his arms. “Just rest a minute and we’ll get out,” he told me with a soothing voice, stroking my hair. “I know of a way. I’ve been down here before. Just let me rest a minute. We’re on the right track, baby.”

  I knew he was lying, and he knew he was lying, but it was the nicest lie anyone had ever told me. For the next few minutes, I could believe we would survive.

  “You know what?” I told him. “None of this is real. We’re dreaming.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “It’s a dream.”

  “I mean, there’s a dead man up there with your face. That can’t be real. How can that be real? Not unless you have an identical twin brother and you both have identical scars.” I laughed softly as I truly began to believe myself. “That can’t be real. We’re dreaming.”

  He held me tighter. “Yeah, this is just a weird dream.”

  “But, your dream or mine?”

  “Same thing,” he said.

  As my tension eased, I became aware of a trickling sound. Like water flowing in a babbling brook. My thoughts turned to the days of rain we’d had recently, and then something cold and wet touched my leg. The rumbling sound I’d heard was rushing water. The water was coming our way and we were trapped. We’d drown in this pit.

  I held onto him against the cold and dread. This day had been charging toward me for years and it had finally arrived. This would be my last day on this earth.

  “I promised I’d never leave you behind again,” Damon whispered in my ear.

  “You sure did.”

  I decided it would be better like this, after all. People like us - we had to be stopped.

  ***

  I sat in a puddle of water, feeling indifferent to our situation, while Damon examined our own personal waterfall.

  That’s when I gave up. We couldn’t get out. We were trapped, and one day someone would stumble across our bones, and wonder who we were. I only hoped they wouldn’t find us by falling in as I had.

  “Stand up,” Damon told me. “You’ll freeze.”

  “We’re going to drown. In about thirty minutes. Hear the rumbling? That’s water. Rushing water. This trickle is nothing compared to what’s coming.”

  He strolled around the room, pounding on the rock. “There’s a door here somewhere. Get up and help me find it.”

  I felt like I had the time Mama had pushed me out of the car six miles outside of town on a deserted road. I’d returned home filthy, exhausted, and feeling ultra calm. Tired of running, tired of trying, tired of listening, tired of everything. All I’d wanted was a shower and some sleep. No energy left for thoughts or feelings.

  It was the perfect feeling - indifference.

  The safest feeling in the world.

  Damon came to stand over me and held out his hand. “Come over here,” he said. “I’ll lift you over my head and throw you. Like cheerleaders do. I’ll get you out. I’ll save you.”

  I ignored his hand.
“Then you’ll be trapped down here,” I said in a dull voice. “You’ll drown before I can get back with help. I’d rather die here with you. If you die, I’m killing myself, anyway. Annoying as you are, I can’t live without you.”

  He propped the torch between two rocks. The flame was flickering and burning low. Soon even that comfort and slight heat would be gone.

  “You need to keep off the rock,” he said. “It’ll suck your body heat right out.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said, wanting to cry, but too dull to find the energy. “You should have shot me in the head. I was wrong.”

  “The vampire will come along,” he said. “You’ll get numb.”

  “I’m already numb.” The cold had seeped into my bones to the point I wasn’t shivering anymore. I was soaked to the skin. “I’d rather be numb when it happens.”

  He pulled me to my feet and held me close, sending me whatever body heat he could spare. The instant his warmth reached me I began to care whether I lived or died. I was frightened, and I held onto him, prepared to stay that way to the very end.

  “I’m so sorry I did this to you,” he said, stroking my hair. “I was so sure. It’s not supposed to be this way.”

  I could only nod against his shoulder. I knew he hadn’t done it on purpose, even if my survival instincts wanted to shout at him for being so stupid. I still loved him enough to forgive him, and to die with him.

  “C’mon. Sit down and we’ll drink,” he said. “You’ll feel better. I’ve got my pocketknife.”

  I nodded, knowing it was true. We could get drunk and spend our time down here thinking we owned the world. We’d be gone before we knew we’d died.

  He dug into his jeans pocket. “Here, hold the lighter so I can see.”

  I was about to take the lighter when we both saw moving lights from up above. Two tiny silver lights. They darted to the side and then disappeared.

  We stood in unison.

  Damon grabbed me and pulled me behind him. “It’s him,” he whispered. “It’s happening. He’s here.”

  I opened my mouth to ask who, and then I remembered why we’d come down into this god-awful cave in the first place. To find the red vampire beast. The same kind of beast that had attacked my grandparents and Bella and Chester years ago. The same kind of beast that had killed Joseph Jarvis. Torn him to shreds, Verna had said.

  We both stared up into the blackness for long moments until finally the lights returned, shining down on us. A low growl replaced the rumbling of water.

  The shining lights flew through the air, moving lower and suddenly there it was, standing right in front of us. By the dim glow of the torch, I could see it, just as Bella and Chester had described. Just as Elliot had written in his book. The beast stood on all fours, covered in red fur, snarling at us with jagged fangs. It might have passed for a small red bear if not for the disturbing human face. A human face covered in red fur. Just as Damon had described.

  But instead of recognizing us as his own kind, this thing seemed vicious, angry, threatening, and seconds away from killing us. It rose to two legs and I saw it’s long claws move as it snapped its hands open and closed. Taunting us.

  We both slowly backed up until we hit a wall.

  “We’re like you,” Damon told the thing. “We have your blood in our veins.”

  The beast hissed and took a step closer. If it could understand, it obviously didn’t care.

  “I can’t fight it,” Damon said, his voice shaking. “I only have my stupid pocketknife. I don’t have my gun!”

  “I don’t think it would matter,” I told him.

  We were trapped. We couldn’t maneuver around this thing. We couldn’t outrun it. We couldn’t fight it. Damon had found exactly what he’d been looking for. Death.

  Damon turned to me and grabbed my shoulders. “Before it kills you, you have to drink some of its blood. Otherwise, you can’t return. That’s the cure. I’ll cut it with my knife.” He gave me a hard shake. “Maggie! Remember.”

  “I’ll remember,” I whispered, shaking so hard my head was banging back against the rock wall. I couldn’t take my eyes off that thing. This was it. This was the moment. We were going to die. Violently. Painfully.

  Suddenly, Damon pointing a gun to my head seemed like nothing. A meaningless incident. Even the idea of drowning sounded pretty good.

  Looking into the eyes of a living monster, any other kind of death seemed preferable.

  Our dream had officially turned into a nightmare.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Damon slowly moved his pocketknife around to lift the blade but like a flash of light, the beast charged at us, grabbing and tossing me before I even had time to yelp.

  I flew through the air and landed on rock, much as I had when I’d fallen into the pit, except this time I landed much more gently, on my butt, on the cave floor above the pit, sliding a few feet before coming to a stop.

  Damon landed beside me. We were in the dark and I only recognized him by the smell of his shampoo when his head bumped against mine.

  An instant later, the beast flew out of the pit, holding the torch. It landed in front of us and tossed Damon the torch, which he caught in reflex.

  The red beast with glowing silver eyes stepped closer, his facial features gradually changing into that of a man as he approached.

  Damon and I could only stare at him, at this creature with a human face and a body covered in red fur.

  He wore a red cloth wrapped around his waist and reached down to untie the knot. He shook out the material and stepped into a military-style jumpsuit.

  And suddenly a human man stood before us.

  A handsome man in his late twenties or early thirties, with long, straight dark hair. He might have looked like any man on the street if not for the glowing silver eyes.

  He spoke in a deep, resonant voice, in a language I couldn’t understand. I inched backward on my hands wanting to run, but I couldn’t run off wildly into pitch blackness.

  Damon stood and I quickly joined him, pasting myself to his side, reminding myself to always, always, always carry my own flashlight. If I made it out of this alive, I would never be without one of those tiny key ring flashlights in my pocket. Never.

  I wanted to take a step backward, but Damon stepped forward.

  The strange man spoke again, this time gesturing, sounding urgent, and a little annoyed.

  Damon moved closer to the man and I held onto handfuls of his shirt trying to hold him back, but he was ignoring me.

  “I understand this,” Damon said. “I understand those words.”

  And then I let go of Damon’s shirt and took a step back when Damon started speaking the same foreign language as the man. As they began carrying on a conversation.

  A dialogue in a rapid language.

  A dialogue as if between friends.

  Damon’s voice rose from soft, shaky disbelief to loud, shaky conviction. He crossed his arms over his head, nearly setting his shirt on fire with the torch. But he dropped it instead. He made an odd sound and stumbled to the side. He might have fallen if I hadn’t pushed against him when it seemed he might land on me. He glanced at me and took my arm to steady me, as if he were so distracted he thought I were the one stumbling.

  I pulled my arm free and stepped farther back, now seeking the darkness, the instinct to hide taking over.

  Damon and the creature hugged and laughed, talking over each other in excitement.

  Damon pointed upward, toward the dead Damon on the ledge, still speaking that bizarre, complicated language. A language I couldn’t even identify by sound. An alien language.

  The notion came to me as a mere spark of thought, but then my mind slowed and I realized they were. They were actually speaking in an alien language. Damon was speaking to a creature that transformed from a red, growling monster to a human man. He was speaking to the creature in its native language.

  As if… as if it were Damon’s native language, too.

&n
bsp; Then, Damon looked for me, found me in the darkness, his eyes glowing silver. His face glowing from the brightness of his eyes.

  He came for me as I backed up, unable to stop myself, unable to take my eyes off him. I didn’t know if I was awake or asleep, sane or crazy, alive or dead, but I knew he wasn’t behaving like a human. He wasn’t behaving like the man I knew.

  Honestly, I might not have been so alarmed if the other man hadn’t been in the cave with us, speaking the same language, behaving the same way, but the two of them were aliens and they were ganging up on me. I out outnumbered. I was the outsider.

  “Calm down, Maggie,” Damon said in English, in a soothing voice. “It’s okay. I know what’s happening.”

  Maybe he did, but I didn’t - and I didn’t like it.

  In my effort to keep his hands off me I stumbled over the uneven cave floor and Damon caught me, pulling me into his arms.

  Where once I’d found warmth and comfort I now felt trapped, caught, under attack. I fought against him in a panic, finally freeing myself from his grasp. I turned and ran blindly into the darkness, wanting to scream, but unable to find enough breath or voice to do so. The scream resonated in my mind, instead.

  I ran, bumping off walls and unseen objects, stumbling, at times using my hands on the ground to keep moving, until I saw two silver eyes race in front of me and I landed against a wall of male chest. Damon wrapped his arms around me again.

  Inside my head, I heard his voice as clearly as if he’d spoken.

  Stop, Maggie. You’re safe. I remember everything. My mind is clear again. We’re saved. We can go home now.

  But to whose home? His or mine?

  He held me close, in strong, warm arms, and I dropped my forehead to his chest in exhaustion. In the darkness, I could imagine that nothing had changed between us. That he was the man I’d loved and married and planned to spend the rest of my life with. I could pretend to be blissfully ignorant. Just for a few minutes, until I could rest.