Him…

I was day dreaming when Maggie shook my shoulder, “are you okay? You look tired” she asked, her disturbance moving my forearms away from their warm place on the counter to which they had rested, sending a minor chill through my body and a cold realization of where I was again.

I’m fine I noted back, as she grasped my shoulder firmly, we’ll head off soon I said, and my eyes caught the attention of an attractive red head approaching us from afar. “A large plate of sandwiches and two coffee’s” she sighed, obviously not at satisfaction with her current occupation, as she handed our food to us.

 As Maggie and I commenced eating the redhead walked away and Maggie let out a deep frightful cough and sniffled, “I think I’m coming down with something she said” as she took a sip of her coffee. I just stared at her and held her hand, we won’t be all day Angel, she looked back at me with a smile and moved her hand to pick up a sandwich; I reached into one of our bags sitting on the seat next to me and pulled out a map, as her attention no longer needed mine.

As I rummaged through the large piece of paper it made a rather annoying crinkling sound as I set it down on the table to my right, away from the sandwiches, ‘Rebardo Cave System’ the title read on the map, our destination for the day.

As I scrolled over the map sipping my coffee a man of about forty sitting behind Maggie’s chair stood himself up and turned to our seating location, leaning one of his arms on the top of the chair and keeping his head above Maggie’s, “I take it that’s a Rebardo cave map” the man asked as his eyes met mine.

Yes I confirmed, “Well then we don’t get many tourists out this way but the few we do seem to all seek the same destination as you pair. “I have a friend you might meet up there, tell me if you see him” the man stated. Excuse me? I remarked, Maggie with her head just under the man’s forearm eyeballing him, then at me in a stare of discomfort.

“I’m heading up to the cave system myself later on today, he’s an old friend of mine that likes to explore the cave, you’ll know him when you see him, tell him John say’s hello if you run into him.” The man now known as John gave Maggie a weak smile and lifted his rugged arms off the top of the seat and left the truck stop.

“That was weird”, Maggie uttered before letting out another nasty cough, I know, I replied, “c’mon we better go” she stated, yeah I’m not exactly hungry anyway I replied as I finished the last of my short black and packed the Rebardo map back into my pack.

As we packed up our things I called for the cheque and paid the twelve dollars and seventy five cents, handing the money over to the red headed waitress and giving her a tip, she smiled at me and walked away, uplifting her otherwise gloomy day.

Maggie and I held hands and walked out of the truck stop together, heading towards our four wheel drive we passed by the man known to us now as John, he stood leaning against the door of his car, following us with his gaze and that weak smile of his, finally before waving as we got into our car. “That guys fucking creepy” Maggie said as she hopped into the passenger side of the four wheel drive, yeah, I replied calmly.

I turned on the engine and with a vibrated rumble our car hummed to life and we drove north-east, John staring at us still, from our rear vision mirror, finally disappearing from our sight as we made distance with each passing broken white line on the road.

About a forty five minute drive later we had come to the green covered rock walls of the Rebardo valley area, looking down at my map we had come to the right area, now it was just a matter of finding the cave entrance.

Driving a few hundred metres down a beaten track from the main road we passed what seemed a great wall of grey rock covered in a green mix of vegetation and moss, and then we saw it. A great gaping maw of black that stood out on the wall of grey and green not more than fifty metres away from us, the vegetation looked thick and relentless so Maggie and I decided we would walk.

As I opened the car door I was greeted by a gust of chilling wind that seemed to do all but freeze my face, I heard another of Maggies painful coughs as she walked over and put her arm around my waist, reaching over like lightning and stealing my keys from me. “Dibs driving back” she said to me tauntingly as she placed them in her jacket pocket, letting out a cheeky smile at me.

I felt myself smile back and took her hand into mine; we then began walking towards the entrance of the cave, as we approached it I felt her grip tighten on my hand, rather hard, just before she let out another insistent cough.

As we stood before the entrance of the cave I was overcome with a heavy sense of dread, this did not seem like an ordinary cave carved out by Mother Nature herself, it looked home to more ancient and mysterious things, as if a realm, I stared at, it seemed to stare right back at me.

But this was why we loved exploring caves, no other place that man had not touched could hide such secrets, the beauty of the dark and hidden drew us into the entrance of its realm, and we began walking.

I felt Maggie’s warm breath on the back of my neck, along with a rather annoying tapping sound to my ears as Maggie began hitting her helmet torch making it sputter to life, illuminating the dark crevices which things from our childhood imagination may hide.

I equipped my own helmet torch and turned it on by its switch, now there was greater light in the dark cavern, two beams of illumination that seemed to dance around each other like playful children.

Once we were geared up comfortably Maggie took out her digital camera and we ventured deeper into the dark mouth, the entrance of the cave gave a very misleading interpretation to the proportion of how high one might have imagined the caves height to be once inside.

Around us stood peculiar wall formations and what appeared to be interconnecting pillars from the ground comprised of what looked like basalt, stretching possibly fifty to seventy meters high, connected to a roof hidden by shadow.

Step by step we ventured further into the cavernous deeps, Maggie taking photos with her digital camera, illuminating the entirety of what was to be our continued path as we walked, shelves made of this grey rock with unusual patterns lighting up and then falling to black, as if the cave were a mouth and took pride in clamping down at the end of each flash.

As Maggie and I continued to walk, the shadows from our helmet torches seemed to trace along the walls steadily, leaving the shadows they conquered to fall then rise again even higher and more tauntingly as they left them behind.

Maggies cough ever insistent seemed to echo and bounce around the walls of the cave, her beam of light darting on its destination as she recoiled to accommodate her sudden discomfort, and then I saw it.

As Maggies light pierced the shadows in a disproportioned movement I saw what looked like a hand scrape along the wall of the cave and then disappear, my jaw tightened and a sudden skin tingling feeling flooded my chest and arms progressively, causing my heart to race.

What was that, I uttered quickly without hesitation, “what was what?” Maggie replied in confusion, pointing her beam of light at the same location I had locked onto, both rays of illumination unmoving like steel on the same point of contact, nothing.

I moved my helmet torch around, searching for what I had just seen, around the left side of the shelf, then to the right, not even a disturbance of dirt itself had unsettled if someone, or something, were to be lurking around us in the shadows.

“I don’t understand” Maggie said looking at me in reply to my sudden strange behaviour, it was nothing, I was just imagining things I remarked, Maggie leant over and kissed me silently with a weak smile before continuing on ahead, I followed.

As we continued walking I could not stop replaying in my mind what I thought I had seen, a hand that seemed to flow with silent movement, but had been there for a second and a second alone.

Nothing could have out maneuvered the small vicinity of where our beams of light had patrolled, nothing human at least; I dismissed my paranoia to nothing more than my mind playing tricks on me, yet I could not escape the feeling of Maggie and myself not being alone down here.

We must have walked for what seemed like an hour, we came to a stop and I pulled out the map from my bag, “I don’t think it was supposed to take this long” Maggie said confusingly as I set the cave systems document on the ground.

Looking over it the tunnel went two ways, one a short route that takes no more than thirty minutes to reach the other side which was our choice, the other was a more tedious route designed for better equipped cave explorers, and we had taken the wrong route.

Upon inspecting where we had gone wrong the first tunnel route should have had a clear distinction leading to the left after an approximate walk of ten minutes, Maggies eyes met mine with the same concern, at no time in the beginning of our venture did we see any such distinct walk way.

Never mind it’s okay we’ll just go back the way we came I said, “Alright honey I...” Maggie trailed off as I heard it too, rapid scurrying of what sounded like rats behind me, I turned around, both our beams shining on the empty now illuminated space behind me, nothing.

I began to feel my blood run cold, not knowing what made that sound, as we began to pick ourselves off of the ground we heard a large thump, then an ear splitting crack to the far right of us left a large basalt chunk of earth plummet and smack down to the ground beside us.

“Fuck run!” Maggie yelled, her voice losing its boldness due to the cough she had acquired, I picked myself up off the cold hard earth as quick as my legs could take me and began to run with Maggie, our torch beams darting wildly around the grey walls as the basalt roof collapsed around us.

Then suddenly as I saw Maggie steps ahead of me, I felt a titanic force besiege my head, followed by a large cracking sound and a flash of red then blackness.

I awoke to an obsessive poking and prodding, my mind pounded with pain, it was clear I had been knocked unconscious, my hands felt weak at my sides as I clenched them, like I had been in a deep sleep.

As I began to come to I felt the obsessive poking and prodding turn to a vice like grip that clenched my shoulder and started shaking me violently, it was Maggie.

The severity of the situation dawned on me and as I felt around for my helmet torch my searching led me to acquire large pieces of sharp broken plastic, my head piece was broken.

I sighed with despair, looking up at the ceiling of the basalt cave I could make out rather small pockets of light that pierced the surface of the black heavens, enough light to create a silhouette of my hand in front of my face but not enough to see it.

Maggie continued to shake my shoulder violently, tightening her grip, this time from either concern or frustration, alright enough! I preached in frustrated response to her actions, before my mouth finished moving she was leaning over the top of me in an instant, her eyes glowing from the minor illumination that pierced the cave, right in front of my face.

She let out a horrid cough that sounded almost inhuman which frightened me, sending a surge of wakefulness down my entire body; it sounded more like a bark a dog would make than a cough.

Her glowing reflective eyes looming over me, she pulled me up by my shoulder that she held so vigorously tight and I sat upright, she began tapping me, it was clear that she could no longer speak and had lost her voice temporarily.

As I sat in place I began to hear a dull ringing in my ears, for how long I was unconscious I do not know, but Maggie just sat there still and silent, staring at me with those eyes, it made me wonder if mine were glowing from the reflection as well.

I began to rise to my feet, I was rather dizzy, but Maggie grabbed my hand and let out another painfully severe cough before we started moving, I was concerned, we had no idea where we were in this cave or for how much longer it may stretch for.

As we moved she seemed to lead the way, she began clearing her throat and breathing hoarsely, she most certainly did not sound like herself at all, I wonder for my own concern how the cave in may have injured her.

As we continued searching for the exit Maggie began stopping at various points to clear her throat, as if she was trying to navigate us through the dark using echolocation, the same noise method bats use to maneuver in the dark.

The whole time we made our way through the dark the more time I had to think about my injuries, my head throbbed with pain and the entire left side of my torso seemed to sting with agony, the head injury quite obvious but the stinging pain did not make sense to me.

We walked for what felt like thirty minutes; every few steps Maggie would turn after clearing her throat and look at me, her eyes glowed almost like a strong yellow, then suddenly we heard a voice “is there anybody in there! Hello!” it belonged to man, not more than twenty meters away we both saw the darting beam of a flash light pierce into the darkness darting curiously.

Then it hit me, the darkness of this cave we have been wandering has been pitch black, the piercing beams of light that adorned parts of the cave when I had awoken were long gone and… Maggie’s eyes were still glowing.

I felt a sense of confusion, Maggie was no longer in front of me, and I turned around to see her glowing eyes staring at me still and silently, and then she approached me slowly, stopping right in front of my face.

The next thing I heard sent my spine tingling into overdrive and made my blood run cold, a female voice then called out “are you in there baby!” Maggie’s voice darted through the cave, and as the yellow eyes began to shift from a relaxed gaze to an animalistic snare right in front of my face, I heard the words uttered to me in a deep inhuman tone accompanied by a hot sour breath, “Get…Out!”

I screamed and ran, nearly choking on my own voice! As I ran the yellow eyes ran right beside me staring at me angrily and impatiently, as if it was toying with me, letting me know just how at mercy I was and have been the whole time with this creature!

Oh god leave me alone! I screamed, running as fast as I possibly could with tears streaking my cheeks and before I knew it my pupils burned with the obnoxious rays of the sun as the daylight once again accommodated me out of the shadows! I tripped and slammed onto the ground.

I panted severely; I had never run so fast in my life, shock stricken I struggled to get a hold of myself as Maggie held me in her arms on the ground, “what happened!” Maggie questioned, I half laughed and half cried, I felt between madness and complete relief.

I jumped as I heard the man’s voice, “your girl here came and got me, and she was nearly as stressed as you are right now” I looked up at him while breathing heavily, he was the man we met earlier known as john, Maggie looked at him too and held me tightly, “it’s okay miss, he just saw him”  “who?” Maggie asked, and before she could ask more John handed Maggie her digital camera, when I saw what was on it I swear I went mad…

There, in the cave, stood a creature as tall as any common man, as thick as a powerlifting athlete, with a bats face and long pointed ears, accommodated with fang like teeth that sat under yellow, glowing, eyes.

What the fuck is that thing I screamed! “It’s just him” John replied, “my old friend” and in an instant John lifted up his shirt to reveal a series of large bite mark scars that covered most of his torso.

In an instant I remembered the left side of my body hurting and I lifted up my jacket immediately, the left side of my chest and stomach were completely covered in blood that oozed out of identical bite marks to John and I screamed.

“He mustn’t have liked the way you tasted” said John as he smiled before looking down at Maggie who had gone completely pale and whose gaze shot directly back into the cave exit of where I came out of, and as my eyes followed her stare, there stood a pair of yellow glowing eyes that stared right back at us, before moving back slowly, disappearing into the darkness, the only glowing pair of eyes that belonged, to him…

By J. D. Sinclair