by Billy Wells
Ike said, “You can see where someone broke off the connectors all the way down. The fasteners are still embedded in the rock. It doesn’t make any sense at all. Why would someone go to the trouble and expense of constructing such a sturdy ladder and then remove it?”
Barry looked at Ike with an expression of horror and said in a whisper, “Maybe they found something down below they didn’t want to reach the top.”
Ike’s face turned ashen, and he asked with marked anxiety, “Do you really think so?”
Barry broke into a fit of uproarious laughter at how seriously Ike responded to his ridiculous assertion.”
“I don’t think this ladder being removed from the wall is a reason to go bonkers, for Christ sakes. It doesn’t matter. We aren’t using it anyway.”
Ike was totally pissed at Barry’s rebuff as he pointed his laser into the black hole. The darkness swallowed the light far below without offering any clue of how far down they would have to go to hit bottom.
Everything Curtis had told them at the Purple Puma was true. Just as he had said, none of the members of the Everest Club had ever been in a cave this deep.
Barry suddenly thought about Jules Verne’s book, Journey to the Center of the Earth and the monsters those travelers encountered on their trek into the unknown.
Barry also thought about the monster the explorers had roused in the movie, The Descent. A chill ran up his spine as the two of them sat against the rock face and silently considered their next move. Barry had planned this adventure well. Unlike the morons in the standard horror flick, Barry had left detailed instructions of their whereabouts with his roommate, Noah Watkins, before leaving on the trip. If Barry didn’t contact him in three days, it would mean they were in trouble, and he should notify the authorities they were officially missing.
Barry’s thoughts about monsters made him rethink what Ike had said about how strange it was someone had removed the ladder, but he decided not to bring it up again.
Just as Curtis had done before, Ike tossed a rock into the shaft. They both strained to hear a sound, but just as Curtis had said, neither of them heard it hit bottom.
“Christ,” Ike groaned, “Can you believe how deep this hole must be?”
Barry didn’t like the tremor he heard in Ike’s voice and wondered where this was going.
“Are you sure you want to continue,” Ike said. “It's just a big black hole. There's really nothing to see down there we can't see right here.”
Barry could see Ike's eyes under the lamp on his helmet, and he looked truly freaked out.
“Are you wimping out on me? I thought you had more balls than this. We haven't gotten much farther than Curtis and his friends did.”
“I've got balls, Mandy can testify to that, but is it worth taking a chance on going deeper?
“Did you see the movie, The Descent?”
“Of course, I did. I saw it with you, birdbrain… and no, I don't think there's a monster down here that's going to eat us for lunch.”
“Then, what are you afraid of? Why are you building up all those muscles in the gym if you don't want to use them?”
“What if there’s a flood and water starts filling the hole? What if there’s a cave-in? Anything can happen.”
“What if the sky falls on your head, Chicken-Little?” Barry groaned with irritation. “Life is a gamble and then you die. It's the luck of the draw, Bwana. My grandfather was a chain smoker until he died of a heart attack at ninety. That comedian, you know, the one from The Man in the Moon, that Jim Carry biography….”
“You mean the guy on Taxi? Christ! You must've been three years old when you watched that show.”
“I caught it on the reruns. Andy Kaufman, that was his name. He died of lung cancer and never smoked.”
Ike glared at Barry as if he had two heads. “I’m getting tired of this macho bullshit. Our lives are on the line here. “There's a big difference between sitting on your ass on the sofa watching TV and descending thousands of feet into a big black hole.”
“Why, pray tell, did you come with me if you weren't going to explore the cave?”
“I never thought it would be like this. If the Everest Club goes on suicide missions like this, count me out.”
“Look, Douche Bag, are you with me or not?”
Ike stood pondering this question over and over in his mind. Trying to decide if he had the balls to go with his best friend he'd known since the second grade. Reluctantly, he gave in and finally said, “Okay.” He exhaled and quickly added, “I hope I live to regret this.”
“Are you sure you don’t believe in monsters?”
“Stow the bullshit about monsters. Let's go before I change my mind and let my reservations prevail. I've got a bad feeling about this big black hole.”
They returned to the cable and continued their descent into the abyss.
Barry shook out a cigarette and lit up as they watched the rock face moving past the Plexiglas.
“Those things will kill you if that macho I’m unbreakable attitude doesn’t get you first,” Ike said popping a Lifesaver in his mouth.
Ignoring the macho part, Barry answered, “Like I said my grandfather smoked a pack a day until he was ninety. It’s the luck of the draw, I tell you. When your luck runs out, you’re fucked.”
Ike peered over the edge and pointed his flashlight into the blackness.
“Do you see anything yet?”
“Nope,” Ike replied and tossed a rock.
They waited. Then Barry said, “Did you hear that? I think I heard it hit bottom.”
They looked up, and now they could barely see any light from above.
Ike turned to Barry, “Are you sure Noah knows where we are if we don’t call?”
“Absolutely. Stop worrying.”
* * *
While Barry and Ike continued to descend deeper into the abyss, back in Washington, DC, Noah, Barry’s roommate, had struck up a conversation with a stranger seated next to him at a local bar. The nerdy young man named Marshall, who wore wire-rimmed glasses and weighed about one–hundred pounds soak and wet, offered to buy Noah a beer.
Marshall had a big nose, big ears, and a pie face. He seemed nice enough, and somehow spelunking became a topic of conversation. During the half hour they talked, Noah mentioned his roommate and some friends were exploring a very deep and dangerous cave this weekend.
“Yeah, Marshall,” Noah said cordially when the brew arrived. “Thanks for the beer. It’s a big responsibility to be the only one entrusted with the location of this cave. I also have to contact the authorities if they don’t return on time. If I get hit by a truck, they could be shit out of luck.
“You’re right. It is a huge responsibility. You must be a really reliable person,” Marshall replied. “You don’t think any of the others know the location. You would think they would.”
“No. Barry said he’s the only one that has the map his friend Curtis gave him after he returned from the cave. He made a copy for me. That’s all.
“Well, I’m sure nothing’s going to happen, and it won’t matter anyway.
Noah looked at his watch and said, “I have to study for an exam tomorrow, so I have to leave. It was nice to meet you. Thanks again for the beer. You sure do look familiar, but I can’t place you.”
”I don’t remember meeting you before, and I remember faces well. Till next time.”
Noah rose and made his way to the men’s room as Marshall hurried out the door and walked briskly down the street.
Marshall was the nerdy guy Barry’s spelunking group, The Everest Club, rejected when he applied to join. For no legitimate reason, other than his looks, the Club had made a fool of him publicly when they had returned his application in a box full of turds in a booby-trapped Fed Ex package. When he opened it at his mailbox in the student union building, they videoed it exploding and splattering him and everyone around him with shit. The final straw came when they placed the video on You Tube, and it went viral.
The Club had been reprimanded and had to pay a fine for the distasteful prank, but everyone at the college had shunned Marshall ever since the horrendous episode had occurred. He was not only the laughing-stock of the campus but also cyberspace. While his male hormones were running out of control, none of the girls at the college would give him a second look.
When Noah entered the street, he started listening to music with his ear buds on his phone. Immediately, a Justin Timberlake tune played as a man in a raincoat came walking toward him.
This section of the sidewalk was dark because it was covered over by scaffolding due to a construction project, but he recognized Marshall immediately. He’d just spent the last half hour talking to him.
“Hey, Marshall,” Noah said, “I thought you said you were headed uptown on the two to Penn Station?”
No sooner were the words out of his mouth than Marshall produced a switchblade knife from his coat and thrust the blade three quick times into Noah’s stomach. He gave the third thrust an extra twist and sliced across his midsection. Blood gushed from the wound and part of Noah’s intestines slid down the front of his pants as he slumped to the pavement writhing in agony. Marshall looked both ways, and like the last time he’d checked, he saw no one approaching in either direction. He reached down, removed Noah’s wallet, draped his raincoat over the now motionless body, and fled.
Since it was dark inside the scaffolding, several people hurried by, thinking Noah was a drunk who had passed out on the sidewalk. He was beyond help when a woman finally noticed the blood on her shoes when she emerged from the scaffolding and went back to investigate.
Marshall stopped a few blocks away to inspect Noah’s wallet. He found the map and the instructions inside. He stuffed the cash in his pocket, tossed the note, the wallet, and its contents into a sewer drain, and headed for the subway.
Marshall had big plans for the members of the Everest Club. They had humiliated him, and they did not deserve to live. Now, they were in the cave, he had their balls in the palm of his hands, and he was about to squeeze.
* * *
Suddenly, as Barry and Ike continued to descend into the depths of the cave, from far below, they heard someone call, “Help!” The word reverberated up from the hole and seemed to linger on a breath of cold air that emanated from the black maw.
Looking down, they both saw a strange red glow far below.
“What the hell is that?” Ike barked, his eyes bulging withintrepidation.
“It’s someone in trouble. Didn’t you hear him calling for help?”
“Yeah, I heard that, but what’s that red glow down there? Does it remind you of anything?”
Barry looked perplexed. “No, Ike. What does it remind you of?”
“Hell in Dante’s inferno”
Barry shook his head at Ike’s remark and his obvious apprehension in proceeding any further, and at the same time, increased the speed of their descent on the remote.
“Something’s not right about this, I tell you. I can feel it in my bones,” Ike stammered.
“What do you want to do, Ike? Leave the poor bastard to die without trying to rescue him.”
Ike stood there, scared shitless, glaring at the strange red glow below.
Barry pointed his light into the hole, and saw the outline of the bottom of the cave floor getting closer. Looking back at Ike, he asked, “Are you with me?”
Ike nodded reluctantly.
When Barry and Ike finally reached the bottom of the abyss, the strange red light illuminated the cave, but they couldn’t identify the source. Inspecting the immediate area, they saw other tunnels winding in several directions. Someone had created a network of passages far below the surface of the earth, but it appeared it was a long time ago
Barry finally said, “Looks like someone's been prospecting for something down here. I guess that explains the ladder.”
“I’d still like to know why they destroyed the bottom section of the ladder. If they did find something valuable, why didn’t they construct a lift or an elevator to bring it up?”
“Who knows? The bottom line is we’re not the first people down here so we can forget about getting our names in the Guinness Book of World Records.”
“Well, la de da,” Ike groaned. “That was never on my bucket list.”
They heard another cry for help from the left.
They moved toward the sound, and Barry cried out, “Hello. Where are you?”
“I’m here!” a weird resonating voice answered.
Rounding a bend in the wall of rock, they saw a young man lying on the floor in a cell constructed of iron bars.”
Ike shined the flashlight into the cell, and the man winced from the blinding beam in his eyes. Barry noticed the door was slightly ajar and motioned to Ike. He nodded.
“Are you hurt?” Barry asked.
“No. I'm not hurt, but I’m weak from being held prisoner for so long. Two ruffians bound me up and locked me in this cell.” His eyes darted about as if apprehensive that his captors might return at any moment.
“I hate to break it to you, Bwana, but the door isn’t locked. You can see it standing ajar unless you’re blind.” Ike said sarcastically. The stranger peered at the door and didn’t seem to know how to respond to this remark.
Both Barry and Ike looked uneasily at the strange man, who definitely had a foreboding and malevolent air about him. His eyes were piercing, hypnotic , and extremely bloodshot. To add to the creepiness, his teeth were abnormally pointed. Not just the incisors, but all of them. They reminded Barry of a ghoul he’d seen in a Tales from the Crypt show on HBO.
Barry gripped the pickaxe in his belt, just in case.
“Where are these… ruffians now?” Barry asked skeptically.
“I’m sure I don't know.”
Ike pointed at the door and said, “Push the door open and walk out. You really aren't a prisoner.”
“I can't, I tell you; it's not the lock I fear. These blackhearts said they would chop off my fingers if I touched the door. It doesn't need a lock if touching it means I’ll lose my fingers.”
“When was the last time you saw these men?” Barry asked.
“It's been a long time.”
“How long?”
The stranger hung his head and began to sob.
Barry and Ike looked at each other, and Ike raised his finger to his ear and made a circular motion signifying the man in the cell might be crazy.
Barry nodded.
“What have you been eating all this time?”
The man looked up with a wild expression, obviously terribly distraught, "Please, enough of this interrogation. Open the door so I can leave this horrible place, before they come back. We need to leave now, I tell you. These fiends are cannibals.”
Ike saw Barry with his hand on his pickaxe and followed suit as he proceeded to the door, and, with a degree of ceremonious panache, pulled it open. Something shiny fell from the top of the door to the ground.
A loud squeak that could have awakened the dead echoed through the cave. In the blink of an eye, the stranger morphed into a giant bat and flew through the yawning cell door. They both watched with their mouths agape as he disappeared into the darker recesses of the cave.
“What the hell was that?” Ike stammered.
“It looked like a giant bat to me,” Barry replied, pointing his flashlight into the maze of shafts leading away from this spot.
“I’ve got that bad feeling again, and it’s a lot stronger this time,” Ike moaned, his lip twitching. Their eyes returned to the shiny object on the ground next to the cell door. Barry went to it and picked it up. It was a jewel-encrusted crucifix. “This must have been placed on top of the door, and it fell out when you opened it. That’s why he couldn’t escape. He couldn’t remove the crucifix.”
“I saw a Twilight Zone episode like this once,” Ike said, still shuddering from what he’d just witnessed.
“Yeah, I remember it, too, some kind of
demon was in the cell. Right?”
“No, not a demon. It was the devil,” Ike said, grimacing at the thought.
“Well, we’re in luck. This guy was only a vampire.”
“What's this luck shit? Are you out of your mind? We're over a thousand feet below ground in the lair of a vampire. What's lucky about that?”
“Better a vampire than the devil.”
“How do you figure?”
“I know several ways to thwart a vampire.”
“Thwart? I didn't know that word was in your vocabulary.”
Barry ignored the sarcasm. "Let me see," he pondered. “There's garlic, a crucifix, holy water, sunlight, a wooden stake. I think you can even drown a vampire, if I’m not mistaken.”
Ike exhaled, not believing the bullshit Barry was spouting. "That's good to know,” he retorted, "Did you bring any of those items with you in your backpack?”
“What I'm trying to tell you is a vampire is vulnerable to certain things like Superman is to kryptonite, but I don't know a single way to kill the devil.”
“Superman is in a comic book; this is real life, Nimrod. Let's get the hell out of here. Now!”
They heard a bloodcurdling scream in the direction of the main shaft. The light was dim, but the aura of the mysterious red light illuminated the cave so they didn’t need their flashlights to make their escape.
Running back to the Plexiglas car at the bottom of the hole, they splashed through a puddle of something on the path and stopped in their tracks. Turning on their flashlights, they saw their pants-legs were covered in what looked like blood. They heard a ferocious growl approaching from the right and then another bloodcurdling scream from the left.
"I’m too young to die." Ike stammered again, almost incoherent this time.
Barry saw Ike’s eyes flitting back and forth in their sockets, trying to decide which way to run, as the howl of a wolf echoed through the tunnels behind them.
“In some movies I've seen,” Barry explained, "a vampire can turn into a wolf."