The creeping trip through the tunnel’s decaying core took forever. Those who used the passages to sneak in and out for what little enjoyment they might find elsewhere had marked them well, once a man or woman knew what to look for, but they had never been built for someone Deena’s size in the first place. It was as if the tunnels were made by dwarves for dwarves. There were a few tight spots, and two moments of near disaster as teetering stone groaned and shifted, but it was the time that truly frightened Deena.
The world was a hard place where people got hurt, and the best a woman could do was hope to look after her own. But even as she swore at herself, she knew she could not have just walked away. The only thing that truly bothered her—aside from the probability that it would get her killed—was whether she’d done it to save herself or simply because of how much she hated people and things that harmed women—be it a monster or abusive husband. Either was reason enough, it was just that a woman liked to feel certain about things like that.
Two hundred feet more and the chamber ended in a vast waterfall, but the water has turned to stone. Above the waterfall is an opening, but it is twenty-five feet up a smooth wall and she had no ladder. The journey was at an end. Tired, wet and muddy, she started on her return trip; crossing a dark lake under were the waterfall had once emptied into, and retraced her steps to the place under the opening without realizing that she had lost track of time underground.
The small eyeless beings had been noticeable in the water everywhere but now came swimming then walking onto the shore of this lake in an astonishing multitude, and as unconscious of any possible danger as bees in a flower garden. Having no eyes, they were naturally undisturbed by the light, so the limited light Deena had produced could be held close to the water for a satisfactory examination of the happy creatures.
She saw the monster as it began to swallow huge cubes of the gelatin that Deena knew had once contained people. For a large monster it was nowhere near as muscular as she would have imagined. The relative lack of muscle is not a disadvantage as it primarily swallows edible matter.
Deena also had her first true glimpse of the monster in its entirety. It had a camellia head, a serpent like body and fins and a tail. It had a neck some two feet long, a big round body, a mean looking tail and an evil, snaky look to its head. A slimy, mobile tube of glistening scarlet flesh with dull, staring eyes and an obscene, probing barbed end came out of the tunnel directly for Deena.
The beast had a long, torpedo-shaped body, with ten tentacles, two of which extend longer than the rest. These are equipped with three columns of suctions cup. It has a strong beak, similar to a parrot’s and large round eyes. It also had an enormous squid-like creature or a dragon-like creature with horns and humps on its back.
Deena was startled by a terrifying noise. A stinging sensation like thousands of electrified needle points suddenly stabbed through their clothing.
The air was filled with a strong current of electricity that caused every nerve in the body to sting with pain, and a light as bright as that created by the concentrate on of many arc lights kept constantly flashing.
She could see that the small, eyeless creatures that seemed to work for the monster were the source of the electricity as well.
She saw her chance to escape—a large tunnel to her right. She ran for it. The entrance to the tunnel was much lower than she’d expected.
The rock ceiling was low enough that she could scrape against it with the tips of her fingers if she reached up. The cave was extremely narrow, not quite claustrophobic, but she wouldn’t be able to lie sideways on the floor. She couldn’t see the far end, so she continued walking forward, very slowly and carefully.
A few more feet in, with barely any light she discovered only more rock.
Then she saw Arlene—encased in a gelatin cube.
When she saw Arlene the tears streamed down her cheeks. Arlene looked weak, and white, and worn to a shadow. She never had been robust, and it was only too plain that privation had robbed her of what little strength she had ever had. Arlene was nothing else but skin and bone. Physical and mental debility was written large all over her. Deena was sickened by the appearance and the brutality the woman must have endured to look like that.
Arlene had not been bad-looking—in a milk and watery sort of way. She had pale blue eyes and very fair hair, and Deena thought at one time, had been a spruce enough woman. It was difficult to guess her age anymore, one ages so rapidly under the stress of misfortune. Her voice, though faint enough at first, was still that of an educated woman, at least high school, and as she went on, and gathered courage, and became more and more in earnest, she spoke with a simple directness which was close akin to eloquence and which told Deena she was slowly being dissolved in the slime covered gelatin cube.
“I’m sorry, Deena,” Arlene said.
* * * *
Deena was in such a state of mind, that she could perceive no alternatives but to forgive her captor, and, in spite of its recent and scandalous misbehavior, again appeal to him for assistance.
“You need to get out of here before the Mas—before the monster sees you,” Arlene mouthed more than said to Deena.
“Why?” Deena asked her once friend.
“I had no choice. He made me do things—bad things. Forgive me.”
Deena’s interest in the quest was already far other than a merely professional one. The blood in her veins tingled at the thought of such a woman as Arlene Balleza being in the power of such a monster.
It seemed, if the story told by Arlene whom Deena had found in the tunnels was true—incredible though it sounded, she spoke like a truthful woman threatened by some dreadful, and, to Deena, wholly incomprehensible danger; that it was a case in which even moments were precious; and she felt that, with the best will in the world, it was a position in which she could not move alone. The shadow of the terror of the night was with her still, and with that fresh in Deena’s recollection how could they hope, single-handed, to act effectually against the mysterious being of whom this amazing tale was told? No! Deena believed that the monster did care for her, in its own peculiar way; she knew that she was quick, and cool, and fertile in resource, and that she showed to most advantage in a difficult situation; it was possible that it had a conscience, of a sort, and that, this time, she might not appeal to it in vain.
“Run!” Arlene screamed in terror.
Deena turned and saw the monster coming toward her.
She ran then almost stopped as her thoughts turned to Arlene. She looked back at the cube and noticed Arlene screaming silently for her to run.
* * * *
Frantic, his heart pounding, Gary Chapel left Mike Leopold and the rest of the team and ran back into the nearest sinkhole opened tunnel, after arming himself, of course. They had decided that he would serve as a decoy to lure the creature out into the open where Leopold and the rest of the team would ambush it with the hopes of killing it. It wasn’t the best plan, they had also agreed, but things were becoming desperate with the town slowly being swallowed by sinkholes.
Just before running back into the tunnel Chapel had made a plea to his boss—the sheriff—in hopes of getting her on board with what was really happening. He punched out the numbers of Sheriff Lindsey Hill’s cell phone. He was anxious to get back down underground to find Deena Hopping and to confront the monster again.
“Come on, come on,” he muttered.
His call was sent straight to voicemail.
“Fuck!” He left a panicked and quick message: “This is Detective Gary Chapel. Call me! I know this is going to sound absolutely insane but hear me out. I have found the true kidnapper and killer of all of these people. It is a monster—an honest to God monster straight from the depths of hell. Believe it or not—it no longer matters. I’m going down underground to lure it out and hopefully put an end to this once and for all. I don’t want to die but if I do know that the beast killed me. Sheriff—um—Lindsey please heed my warning and believe in me. There truly is a monster under Strafford and it is killing our citizens and destroying the town. If I should fail, you must stop it.”
Mike Leopold, that old nutcase, watched as Chapel spilled the beans. But he wasn’t the culprit; he wasn’t the one who had to fear the damned monster’s wrath. It was Chapel who was going back down to face it.
Hard to believe. Things had changed so suddenly and radically.
Frank Marsden was a human monster—a depraved soul who preyed upon women and did horrible crimes against them. He was also a killer. This was all true; however, he wasn’t responsible for the majority of the killings or disappearances in the town.
“Right under our goddamned nose,” he said, cutting a glance at his reflection in the rearview mirror of his car. His jaw set, his eyes dark as obsidian, the corners of his mouth pinched in disgust and anguish. He knew what he needed to do.
It was now time to end this. He was going to face the monster and kill it or be killed.