The Cave

by Tom Clarke

  “Tyler’s dead. I don’t know what that thing inside with Nico is, but it’s not Tyler!”

  “Hey!” Thor yelled, “what about my shop? How was that guy inside able to talk like my wife? What the hell is going on!”

  Jim grabbed Thor by the shoulder, “Justin my brother, I will explain everything to you on the road. We have to go, if you stay here you are going to die!”

  Thor looked at Jim for a second, “Fuck it! I was thinking about a suspicious electrical fire anyway.”

  “My man!” Jim relied slapping Thor on the shoulder. “Get this thing started and cover the street, I’ll grab Nico.”

  As Thor got into the driver’s seat of the Jim’s SUV and started the engine Darrel, who was now wearing an olive-drab colored external body armor vest and magazine carrier, grabbed the M-4 rifle and ran across the street. He took up a position using the corner of a brick building not lit by the street lights as cover. This position concealed him in the darkness, and still allowed him to watch the crowd moving down the street towards them.

  “Nico, we got to go!” Jim yelled as he ran back inside the shop. Stepping back into the light of the motorcycle shop he saw Nico standing over Tyler with a folding knife in his hands.

  Tyler looked over at Jim, smiled, and then looked back up at Nico. “Think about it Longinus, it’s a fair offer.”

  Nico looked back at Jim, closed the knife and without saying a word started walking towards the front door. “Their world is going to end Longinus! You know that!” Tyler yelled, “you are all going to burn!”

  As Nico and Jim walked out the front door of the shop they passed Thor who was heading back in. “We got to go, now!” Jim said as Thor ran back towards his office.

  “I’ll be right there, I forgot something.”

  Just as Jim was getting into the front seat of his SUV he heard the familiar crack of an M-4 .223 rifle being fired. He looked across the street and saw Darrel firing slow, deliberate shots down the street. When Jim looked in the direction Darrel was firing, he saw that the group they had seen through binoculars up the street were now almost right on top of them.

  Jim jumped back out of his SUV and ran to the back where he opened a locked built-in gun box and removed another M-4 rifle and three 30-round magazines.

  Jim loaded one of the magazines into the rifle, grabbed the charging handle with his left hand, and yanked it to the rear seating a round in the chamber. He then put the other two magazines in the back pockets of his jeans.

  “Nico get in the driver seat, I’m going to get Thor!”

  As Nico slid into the driver’s seat Jim turned and through the front window of the shop he could see the silhouette of Thor beating Tyler with a baseball bat.

  Jim ran into the shop, “Come on God Damnit let’s go, they're right outside!”

  Thor, who was standing over Tyler’s motionless body looked up at Jim, “Sorry bro, I could not let this shit stand, not my Misty. Listen head out I-90 West, take exit 16. Meet me at the 50,000 Silver Dollar Bar, I just got to grab my pack right quick, I’ll meet you there.”

  Jim nodded and ran back out to the SUV with Nico in the driver seat. The crowd of chanters was now walking into the parking lot. As Jim jumped into the SUV he yelled for Nico to pull across the street and get Darrel.

  As Nico pulled across the street Jim watched as Darrel struck one of the chanters, who was attempting to grab him, with the muzzle of the rifle.

  As the man doubled over from being hit in the gut Darrel dropped the rifle, which only fell as far as the sling would allow it. In one smooth movement Darrel shuffle-stepped back as he presented his handgun and fired two rounds into the chest of his attacker.

  Nico pulled up to Darrel, running over the man in the brown suit who Darrel had just shot. Darrel threw himself into the back-seat yelling, “Let’s get the fuck out of here!”

  “Which way?” Nico yelled.

  “Go left and then take the exit for I-90 West” Jim replied as he looked back at Thor’s shop.

  As Nico, Jim, and Darrel pulled away from Thor’s shop they looked back and could see that the men in the brown suits had now surrounded the building and were kneeling with their hands in the air. As they pulled onto I-90 Jim looked down and could see driving on a side street away from the area of the shop on the back of a Chopper style motorcycle was Thor.

  Jim’s cell phone started chirping from the center console. It was the email from Paul with information on how to find the cave. The email had a name, John RedFoot, with an address of 101 Squire Lane, Tusayan, Arizona. Attached to the email was a picture of Shelly, she was sitting at a large dinner table wearing a flower print dress and smiling. Jim set his phone down, “Looks like we’re going to Arizona.”

  10.

  Centurion Longinus

  The drive out of Missoula and over to the 50,000 Silver Dollar Bar took about an hour. During the ride no one spoke a word, except for Darrel, who, from time to time, would shake his head and let loose with a string of expletives.

  It was almost 10pm when Jim, Darrel and Nico arrived in the parking lot of the 50,000 Silver Dollar Bar. It was a rustic tourist stop on the Montana side of the Montana and Idaho border, at exit 16 off I-90. As they pulled in they saw a couple of cars parked around the large lot and Thor’s motorcycle nestled up against the building.

  “Pull around that side of the building over there,” Jim said, pointing to a far side of the main building that was not lit. “Park nose towards the lot, cut the headlights, but keep the engine running.”

  “What are we doing?” Nico, who was still driving asked.

  Darrel leaned his head forward between the seats and said, “Making sure that no one followed us out here.”

  Nico looked at Jim, “You don’t trust your friend Thor? You think he may have told someone our location?”

  Jim didn’t answer, he just kept peering into the poorly lit parking lot, hoping that he would not see any other vehicle following them in.

  After 10 minutes Darrel again leaned his head forward between the seats, “I think we’re good brother.”

  Jim nodded, “Yeah, okay. Let’s leave the rig here, this is good concealment with the low light. Listen fellas, you guys make sure that you’ve got full magazines. Darrel, reach back into my bag there and grab a flashlight. I should have two.”

  Darrel reached into a small duffle bag in the back of the SUV and removed two small tactical flashlights. Each had a beveled head and the on-off switch was located on the bottom of the light. Jim took one and Darrel took the other as Nico removed the magazine from his Sig Sauer P226 .9mm handgun. “I’m good” Nico said.

  “Yeah, me-too Jimmy” Darrel reported. “You ever been in this place before?”

  “Yeah, once on a motorcycle ride” Jim replied. “It should be pretty quiet this time of night.”

  Jim, Darrel, ad Nico quietly made their way from Jim’s SUV to the front door of the bar, keeping in the shadows as best they could.

  When the three walked in the front door, they walked into a large gift shop. The lights in the gift shop were dimmed and the registers were closed, but the lights in the bar area that was accessed via the gift shop were on and shining bright.

  As they walked through the gift shop they could hear Thor talking with some folks in the bar.

  The bar area was all very rustic looking and made up of a long bar with stools and then several round tables set about. Thor was sitting at the bar chatting with the older male who was serving the drinks that evening. Jim made eye contact with Thor and motioned to a table towards the back of the seating area, well away from the older couple sitting at the bar next to Thor.

  As Thor started to get up Jim pointed at the beer in Thor’s hand and then at the table. Thor nodded, ordered a round of beers for the rest of the group, and then headed over to sit with Jim, Darrel, and Nico.

  As Thor sat down, the bartender brought over the four beers and took a food order from the group. When he had walked away Jim looked at Da
rrel, Nico, and Thor and asked, “Is everyone okay? Anybody hurt?”

  Thor and Darrel answered that they were fine, Nico just starred at the table and started drinking his beer.

  Jim took a long drink of his beer, looked up at his friend Nico and said, “Talk. What the hell was all that back at the shop?”

  Nico didn’t respond, he just took another drink of his beer. “Nico, we're your friends. We have seen some next level shit together, you can talk to us. What’s going on?”

  Nico looked up, finished his beer, and said, “Back at the shop, that demon’s name is Den-Ra-Tenian. He is in direct conflict with the monster that’s got your wife. It’s the one I told you about back at your house, Rin Alue-Ran, he calls himself Alan these days, but you know him as Lone Wolf Reaper.”

  Jim shook his head and muttered an expletive as he took a drink from his beer.

  “What about Tyler?” Darrel interrupted. “Is he really dead, I mean was that thing really Tyler or did it just look like him?”

  Nico looked into the top of his empty beer bottle, then answered, “Your friend Tyler has been dead for some time. Den-Ra-Tenian, I imagine, either killed him or had him killed. He then assumed his likeness to get closer to Jim.”

  “Okay, why me?” Jim asked.

  “It’s pretty simple really,” Nico replied. “You beat him, Alan that is, before at Rockets. Because of that defeat Alan’s plans were set back, he was forced to relocate, find a new food source and set up a new base of operations as it were.”

  Jim looked at Nico with an expression of confusion on his face. “Look Jim, Alan is not the only force looking for this relic. Den-Ra-Tenian, the demon that took your friend Tyler’s form, he’s in competing with Alan, both for power and resources. Of the two Alan is older and stronger so I would imagine that he figures you can handle Den-Ra-Tenian, or any others that would oppose you.”

  “Any others? What the fuck does that mean?” Thor asked. “Jimmy what the hell is going on, who is this cat?” Thor asked, pointing his empty beer bottle at Nico.

  “Hey… hey, shut up man!” Darrel interjected. “What others Nico? What are we dealing with here?”

  Nico looked at Darrel and Thor, then back to Jim. He took a deep breath and then started to speak in the same tone a teenager would use to tell his dad he just wrecked the family car, “My brothers roughly 10,000 years before the birth of Christ in a place now called Gobekli Tepe, in what we know today as Turkey, this is where we believe the first demons were called into our realm. Ancient writing tells us that a master and an apprentice were summoned, how, and by whom we have no idea. There was some sort of an uprising, the temple at Gobekli Tepe was destroyed, buried by the inhabitants, but not before the master demon was able to escape back to its own realm.”

  Thor looked at Jim, Darrel, and Nico with a smirk on his face. “His own realm? What the hell is that supposed to mean? And I know for a fact that the dates you’re talking about pre-date mankind so why don’t you stop with the ghost bullshit and tell me what’s really going on!”

  “You have a small mind” Nico replied. “Men, humans, and other things have been on this planet for much longer than that. And as far as his realm, well, I guess hell might be a way to describe it.”

  Thor finished his beer and started to stand up from the table. “You fuckers have all lost your damn minds!”

  Jim reached out and grabbed Thor by the arm. “Sit back down” Jim said. “This shit is all true bro. Think about what we saw at your shop!”

  Darrel leaned in, “Look dude, it was hard for me to accept at first too, but I’m telling you these fucking things are real!”

  Thor looked at Jim and Darrel, the expression on their faces was one of serious concern. “Jim, this shits on the level?” Thor asked.

  “I’m afraid so Justin” Jim replied.

  Thor swallowed hard, shook his head several times, took a deep breath, and sat back down. He looked at Jim and nodded, “Okay, and stop calling me Justin!”

  Jim looked at Nico, “Go on.”

  Nico, looking at Thor with a disapproving look continued, “The master made it back before the temple was destroyed, the apprentice did not and was forced to flee with some of his followers.”

  “Don’t tell me,” Jim said, looking at his empty beer bottle, “The apprentice was Alan. Or as we knew him before, Lone Wolf Reaper.”

  Nico nodded his head, “Yes. Others have been able to cross over since then. Mostly lower level demons that rely on disguise, misrepresentation, and influence. They fall short of possession, that’s where the upper level demons come into play. The lesser monsters are drawn to the upper level demons, they see them as masters.”

  As Nico was talking Darrel had gotten up and went to the bar. When he returned, he had four glasses of whiskey that he passed around the table. Then Darrel asked, “Okay, so why did they grab Jimmy’s old lady, and what’s this relic they want?”

  Nico looked at his glass, raised it in a toast, took a long sip and replied, “The relic is a stone tablet from the temple at Gobekli Tepe. On one side is an inscription that will allow the reader to conjure up a doorway. On the other side is an inscription that will allow for the closing of a doorway, basically trapping the demon in whatever space they’re in at the time. That’s what I, a few other priests from the church, and a couple of Navajo medicine men did. We lured and then trapped Alan and some of his disciples in a cave in Arizona in 1864.”

  Jim choked on his drink, “1864! What are you talking about Nico?”

  Nico picked up his glass and drank down the entirety, “My real name is Longinus. I was a solider in the Roman army with the rank of Centurion. I am the one who speared Jesus while he was hanging on the cross.”

  Darrel, Jim, and Thor just sat there looking at Nico. Jim took a long drink from his glass, looked up at his friend and said, “Okay, then what?”

  “Then what?” Thor said with sarcastic disbelief, “Are you kidding me! Jimmy do you hear what this cat is saying? He is telling us that he has not only been around since the time of Christ, but that he’s the one that poked a hole in his all mighty while they had him strung up!”

  “Wait a minute” Darrel said as he leaned in towards the middle of the table. “I went to Catholic school, I thought that Longinus got his head chopped off by some Roman governor?”

  Nico smiled as he rocked back in his chair. He looked back at the bartender and motioned for another round of drinks for the table and then turned his attention back to Darrel, Jim, and Thor.

  “Don’t believe everything that you read. They certainly tried to chop my head off but didn’t have much luck. You see I was sick, had been sick for a while when I got sent out to silence the man that they had crucified. My vision was failing, and I was having a hard time breathing, even standing, but when I speared that man on the cross I was splashed with some of his blood and within minutes I was cured.”

  Nico stopped his story to pay for the round of drinks brought over by the bartender. As the group started sipping their drinks Nico continued. “After that it all became pretty clear to me and I left the army. I went to a place called Cappadocia to become a monk. It was there that I tried to give up a life of violence and atone for what I had done. But my former brothers in arms came and arrested me. They started to pull out my teeth and that’s when I decided to go back to a life of violence. The ensuing fight ended up with that piece of shit governor getting his head chopped off by my hand, I then burned his house to the ground.”

  Nico took another long drink from his glass, “After that I ran. I tried to become a farmer, but that didn’t work, so I wandered, selling my sword for any lost cause that came along.”

  Looking at his glass as if it were a mirror Nico continued, “After a while it became apparent that I was not getting any older. I watched rulers come and go, empires rise and fall, until eventually I found myself at the doorstep of the church again. I once again denounced my violent ways and turned to God. They took me in and I have been
working with his holiness and the church since.”

  “Okay, let me get this straight,” Thor said as he waved at the bartender for another round. “You have been creeping around since the time of Christ and in 1864 you and some other cats trapped one of Jimmy’s demons in some cave in Arizona? Jimmy are we really buying into this shit? Listen, I agree that we experienced some weird stuff, and I am even willing to accept that it involves the supernatural, but this, this is some pretty far out stuff.”

  Jim looked at Thor, “Look bro, I can’t thank you enough for what you did back in Missoula. But if this is too much for you then hit the road.”

  Thor looked at Darrel, who nodded his head in support of what Jim had just said. Thor picked up his new glass of whiskey, sat back in his chair and continued to listen.

  Nico took a long sip from his glass, “It’s okay to be afraid” he said. “I don’t pretend to understand all of it. To be honest with you it scares the shit out of me too.”