Chapter Thirty-Four #3
Where on earth was this animal from? Or…
maybe it wasn’t from earth. The possibilities multiplied exponentially.
Still, Imani’s curiosity burned greater than her fear.
Whatever it was, it didn’t seem to want to hurt her, whether it was from not squeezing her hard enough to crush her or protecting her from the terrain. That was the most important thing.
The Beast’s movement was slowing, so Imani called, “Let me out!”
Why not? If it were magical, or an alien, maybe it could understand her. She couldn’t make assumptions anymore. This day had taught her how little she knew about anything.
Whether it was coincidence or not, the being stopped its forward motion and rolled over slightly, unfurling its flaps. The embrace loosened. She was free!
Imani was unsteady, but she found her bearings enough to distinguish up from down and crawl quickly from this womb into the soupy dark.
Vague, gray light was visible from around a hidden bend, where she guessed the cavern’s entrance might be.
The light illuminated a shadowy cavern wall, but nothing else.
She couldn’t even see the thing near her.
But she knew it was still there. She could smell it. It made a sound like a buzzy whimper, as if its voice box were broken.
“Keep away from me!” she said.
In the dark, she couldn’t keep proper distance from it or see if it was lunging at her with those terrible teeth bared.
Imani patted her shoulders, relieved to feel the straps from her backpack.
She hadn’t dropped it! Her fingers trembling with adrenaline—part leftover terror, but mostly excitement—she wriggled out of her backpack and unzipped the main compartment to feel for her stubby, L-shaped flashlight that could light up her whole backyard at night.
When the light clicked on, Imani gasped.
Bones.
Her light shone toward a mosaic of large and small bones arranged in oddly neat piles as tall as she was against the cavern wall.
Empty eye sockets from skulls of different sizes and species stared back at her, a macabre display.
One skull crowning the closest pile was obviously human, arranged like the star at the top of a Christmas tree.
Animal pelts and ragged human clothing and shoes were woven within the tapestry of bones. The leftovers.
Imani screamed. The echoes mocked her in the caverns.
The Beast chittered in response, a sound that filled the cavern, matching her volume, a regimented tik-tik-tik-tik-tik like rows of rusty scissors snapping slightly out of rhythm, each a hair behind the last. The sound was more horrifying in the confined space.
Imani had nearly forgotten that the Beast was so close.
She swung her light toward the sound, and it was half coiled the way it had been when it confronted her in the snow—but its long snout was closed.
No threatening teeth. Still, it was raised to her father’s height, its flaps extended as if it might snatch her again.
“Stay back!” Imani said, backing away. “I mean it!”
Something crunched beneath her boot. She didn’t dare swing her light down to look, but it sounded like a small bone cracking from her weight. Bones lined both walls, casting horrific shadows above her in her beam.
Tears slipped from Imani’s eyes. She had been in denial when this thing took her, assuring herself that such a gentle passage meant Mom must be alive.
But this wall of bones—this room of bones—was evidence that this creature had been killing animals and people for years, for generations, just like the severed hand her father had found under the Jeep.
Maybe it didn’t kill its meat right away because it liked its meat fresh. Not carrion. Maybe she was just a snack for later, and it had eaten its fill today.
Imani’s flashlight showed her the fuller dimensions of this cavern, which was a dozen feet high and nearly as wide, with narrower passageways in three directions—but only one that promised light.
Without thinking, she grabbed her backpack and ran toward the bend where she’d seen faint light.
Her running was wild, her boots slipping on rocks—or bones—scattered in her path.
Imani barely heard the swooshing sound that brought the Beast back in front of her, blocking her path. It had moved so fast from behind her that its motion was blurred in the light. A breeze followed, late.
Nothing earthly moved that way.
Imani screamed again, more tears spilling. The word that flew from her throat as she crouched to the cavern floor was pure instinct: “Mommy!”
Through her own panicked breathing and the Beast’s chittering, she heard a faint voice from somewhere behind her: “Imani?”
Imani held her breath, and the world jolted still as she listened to make sure the voice was real and not her deepest wish. “Imani—where are you?” Mom, like her, was crying.
Imani picked up the biggest stone she could find and hurled it at the Beast, her best fastball.
It ducked away almost as if it knew what she would do as soon as she thought of it, darting out of her light beam.
The stone cracked against an invisible cavern wall.
If she had hit a person in the head with that throw, they might be dead.
“Leave me alone!” Imani screamed.
Then she turned to run into the darkness.
Toward her mother.