Chapter Nineteen
Cornered Animals
Jameson Bishop
The moment we’re all together again, I can finally breathe. But only enough to talk.
Not enough to calm the thing clawing at my ribs.
I’m dangerously close to the edge, every nerve lit up, every instinct screaming.
I feel violent. Not uncontrolled, but primed. Like one wrong move from anyone in these caves will snap whatever thin restraint I’m holding onto.
Rachel stays close. It’s the only thing keeping me from tipping over. Her scream is still ringing in my head, and the image of that suit towering over her won’t leave my mind.
Beth keeps glancing between us, jittery and pale. David looks like he’s aged ten years in the last ten minutes, his shoulders slumped, eyes hollow.
But I can’t deal with them yet. I need to get a handle on myself.
I drag a hand over my jaw, grounding myself with the scrape of stubble. “He didn’t just make a disguise,” I say, voice rough. “He built an identity.”
Rachel’s eyes flick to mine; sharp, haunted, knowing.
She already knows. She saw it up close. She felt it.
Beth shivers. “Why would someone do that?”
David answers before I can. “Because it gives him power.”
I nod once. “He used that suit to move through these mountains without being questioned. People saw whatever he wanted them to see. They didn’t look for a man. They looked for a monster.”
The truth tastes bitter.
He left it behind. Shed it like a skin. Because whatever he’s become or whatever he thinks he is, he doesn’t need the claws or the fur anymore.
“We may be dealing with a psychotic break,” I say. “An unstable killer is so much more dangerous when they’re cornered.”
Beth hugs herself tighter. David’s grip on his flashlight turns white-knuckled. Rachel steps half a pace nearer to me, close enough that I feel her warmth in this freezing hell.
I look at all of them. “We stay together. No exceptions. He’s not pretending anymore, and that makes him more dangerous.”
Rachel nods, jaw tight. “Then let’s move.”
I take point again, leading them deeper into the tunnels. The air feels colder. The shadows feel thicker. And every instinct I have is screaming the same thing:
He’s watching us.
And he knows these caves better than any map ever could.
The tunnels change as we push forward, the walls narrowing, widening, twisting like something alive. Every step feels heavier now that we know what he’s capable of.
Beth and David follow tight behind, their lights jittering across the stone. No one talks. No one wants to break the fragile silence.
I mark the wall with chalk to indicate our path. One line, then another. “Stay close,” I say. “If he’s down here, he knows every inch of this place.”
Rachel’s breath catches. “He’s been living in it.”
I nod. “Long enough to make it his.”
Beth whispers, “I hate this. I hate all of this.”
David doesn’t answer.
He’s listening to the echoes around us. I am too. The cave has a rhythm, a pulse. But underneath it, something else moves. Something subtle. Something deliberate.
A faint scrape echoes from somewhere ahead.
Rachel stiffens beside me.
Beth grabs David’s sleeve.
My hand goes to my weapon.
But the sound fades.
We move again.
The tunnel splits into two. One path slopes downward, swallowed by darkness. The other curves sharply, the ceiling dropping low enough that we’d have to crouch.
Rachel studies the ground. “Prints,” she says. “A lot of them.”
I crouch beside her. The drag marks are deeper here. More frantic. More recent.
“He took someone this way,” I say. “Down.”
Beth’s voice trembles. “Do we really want to follow him?”
I look back at her. “We’re not leaving anyone behind.”
Rachel nods, jaw tight. She pulls out her own weapon, checking the safety is off. “We go.”
We descend.
Water drips from the ceiling in slow, steady beats. The air tastes stale.
Then a sound; A soft, deliberate exhale.
Rachel’s hand finds my arm. Beth freezes. David’s flashlight shakes.
I raise mine, sweeping the darkness ahead.
Nothing.
But the feeling doesn’t go away. The pressure in the air. The sense of being watched.
“Something is here,” I say.
Rachel whispers, “I know.”
And we keep moving deeper into the dark.
The next cave system opens up like a hollowed-out cathedral. The wide, echoing space dripping with cold water that falls in slow, steady taps.
Every instinct I have is already on edge. Rachel stays close enough that I feel her breath when she exhales. Beth and David hover behind us, their lights jittering across the stone.
We step inside.
The air shifts. And then it happens.
A scream; raw, human, torn straight from someone’s throat explodes out of the darkness.
Before any of us can react, a figure barrels toward us.
Shaw, filthy and disheveled, squinting the harsh beams of the flashlights.
He comes out of the shadows swinging something long and heavy. Bone, sharpened at one end like a club. His face is wild, streaked with dirt and blood. His clothes are shredded. He looks feral, like he’s been living in the woods.
Our flashlights hit him all at once.
He screams again, blinded, stumbling forward with the bone raised.
Rachel shouts behind me. Beth shrieks. David ducks.
Shaw charges straight at me.
I don’t think. I don’t hesitate. I step in front of Rachel.
He swings. I fire.
The gunshot cracks through the cavern, deafening. Shaw’s body jerks, the bone club clattering against the stone. He collapses hard, sliding across the dirt.
In the silence following, my ears ring and my pulse hammers. The smell of gunpowder mixes with the damp cave air.
I lower my weapon slowly, scanning the shadows for movement. Nothing.
Just Shaw, bleeding, and unconscious.
Rachel moves beside me, breath shaking. Beth is crying. David kneels next to Shaw, checking for a pulse.
“He’s alive,” David says. “Barely.”
Beth whispers, “It was him. It had to be him.”
I look at Shaw. He’s broken, filthy, terrified even in unconsciousness. He looks like he’s been running from something. Or becoming something.
“Why the hell would he be down here in the dark without a flashlight alone?” I mutter. Everything we find just makes this more confusing. We aren’t finding answers, just more pointless questions.
And its starting to piss me off.
There’s no sign of anyone else. No victims. No bodies. No creature. No man in a suit.
Just Shaw.
Rachel meets my eyes, and I see the same doubt in hers that’s twisting in my gut.
This was too easy. Too sudden. Too clean.
If Shaw was the monster, why did he leave the suit behind?
And if he wasn’t………
Then the real monster is still in the caves with us.
“We’re taking him out,” I say, voice rough. “Now.”
David grabs Shaw under the arms. I take the other side. Rachel covers us with her flashlight up, scanning every shadow like she expects something else to leap out.
We haul Shaw through the tunnels, back toward the surface. His head lolls, blood dripping from the wound. He mutters once; too soft to understand.
Daylight hits us like a slap when we finally emerge.
Beth collapses to her knees. David lowers Shaw gently onto the ground. I stand over him, breathing hard, scanning the tree line.
Rachel steps beside me. “Bishop… if it wasn’t him…”
I finish the thought for her.
“He’s still down there.”