"Back up!" Alice shouted.
"I'm trying!" Brian said, his foot on the gas, tire spinning. "We're stuck."
Flames started to crawl up the hood.
Brian didn't know if the hood was actually on fire or if the flames were simply licking it from their base within the tree branches, but he knew either way they couldn't stay where they were because eventually the car would go up.
"We gotta get out of here," he said.
"On foot?" Alice said, disbelief in her voice. "I don't think we can make it. Look at it out there. We'll be dead in minutes from the heat."
"We'll be dead if we stay in here." In his mind, he pictured the gas tank erupting and splashing them with flaming fuel.
Alice didn't reply.
"Let's go out my door," he suggested. "The tree isn't so thick on that side and we can jump over it. After that, if we stay in the center of the road, I think we'll be okay."
"Okay."
Brian took several deep breaths and then opened his door.
50
Cheryl had been hoping to find water within the cave, but she couldn't find a single drop, the only evidence of any having been present at one point in the form of a plastic beach bucket that was now lying on its side. Another bucket was present as well, this one in a corner. It was not tipped over, but after getting to within three feet of it, Cheryl realized what it was for and decided against peering inside.
In a small cavern off the main one, she found the makeshift bedroom, Brendon having brought in pine boughs and moss to sleep on. He had also carved out a nightstand-like area in the rock, one that actually had a framed picture of his mother and sister on it. A small candle sat next to it, one that she felt was likely used for light rather than any sort of ceremonial shrine-like purpose that would have been coupled with the picture.
Was this where Annie had been kept and fucked?
Is this where he would have brought me?
A shiver raced through her at the thought. With it came a question of why he had fixated on her. What had been the spark that led to his obsession? Was it something she had inadvertently done? Was it something someone had said?
No answers arrived.
None ever would.
And then she found the shrine that he had set up, one dedicated to her.
Pictures, clothing, and trinkets were on display, one of those trinkets being a high school textbook that had gone missing, one that the school had made her pay for. Another was a leather-bound journal, though how he ever would have gotten that was a mystery given that it had never left her bedroom—until its disappearance during her junior year in high school.
Had he been in her house way back then?
How would that have even been possible?
It wasn't.
And then it clicked.
Beverly had taken it.
That also explained some of the clothing items, skirts and panties from when she had been a teen, ones that she had accused her mother of misplacing while doing the wash. Such an answer, her mother somehow misplacing them, had never seemed correct in her mind, but had seemed the only possibility at the time. Now she knew different. Guilt followed. She had screamed at her mother, the cost of those clothing items having meant she needed to save up quite a bit of money to replace them, her thinking being her mother should pay for them since she obviously was the one who had misplaced them. Her mother had refused.
Tears appeared in her eyes, some of them due to the sadness of her lost youth, some from the fact that Beverly had never really loved her, the rest because she knew that it was all over. Once the fire burned out and she left the cave, she would still likely go to jail. Even if she didn't, she would have nothing left and nowhere to go.
She wiped the tears away and then picked up one of the skirts, but then quickly dropped it back down when she felt the crustiness present. Brendon had jerked off onto them, or maybe had forced Annie to wear them while fucking her and had dribbled on them.
Disgust flowed.
The diary did not have any stains on it.
She picked that up, thinking she might need something to pass the time with while the fire burned all around the cave.
A sudden squealing noise echoed, causing her to give a little gasp. It was coming from a cavern beyond the small one she was currently in, a small tunnel-like passageway leading to it, one that forced her to first hunch and then actually crawl on her hands and knees to get to it.
While doing this, the flashlight started to go.
She hit it several times.
For some reason, that seemed to do the trick and the light beam became steady once again.
Another squeal echoed.
Hesitation followed.
Maybe seeking out the sound was not the best idea at the moment.
And then something scurried by, causing her to scream.
The squealing stopped.
Had she startled whatever it was?
Going against her better judgment, she decided to continue through the tunnel, a horrific smell beginning to unfold, one that forced her to breathe through her mouth.
The tunnel opened up into a small cavern.
Rats!
They were everywhere, their beady eyes reflecting in the flashlight beam, which then revealed the body of Marlon Gibbs. They had been feasting upon it.
Unable to control herself, she twisted around, whacking her head on the cavern wall as she tried to get back into the tunnel, her mind struggling to stay conscious as she scrambled away on her hands and knees, the flashlight going on and off as she did.
And then she was back at the shrine, diary where she had set it after hearing the squealing noises.
She looked back.
The rats, seemingly content with the meal they had in Marlon Gibbs, had not followed.
Diary in hand, she started back to the main part of the cave.
Once there, she decided to go peek outside to see if the flames were near.
She couldn't even make it to the opening, the flames having arrived, the heat from them too much for her to get beyond the halfway point of the tunnel.
Goodbye, Beverly, she said to herself, wondering if the smoke had taken her or if she had suffered the agony of burning to death once the flames arrived.
51
Brian dropped to his knees with relief once they were beyond the flames and on solid road. Alice joined him, her hands scrambling to take off her shoes, which had started to melt on the hot roadway as they raced across it. Brian's had too, but he did not remove them, mostly because he feared that doing so might make them impossible to get back on, and he knew they had quite a distance to walk still if they wanted to get back to town.
Or did they?
Someone might come along and pick them up.
The fire had to have been reported by now, the size of it making it impossible for the town of Crystal Creek to not be aware of it. A response had to be in the works, especially given all the warnings about fires that had been present. Various agencies had likely been put on standby in case a fire broke out and were likely being mobilized.
No one arrived.
Five minutes turned to ten, which then turned to fifteen.
Brian stood up. "Let's keep going."
Alice didn't say anything; she simply slipped her shoes back on—without any trouble—and started walking alongside him, her hand eventually reaching out and finding his. They walked like this for nearly an hour along the twisting road, a county patrol vehicle that was patrolling the area eventually coming upon them.
52
Cheryl was horrified by what she found while reading the diary. Someone, most likely Beverly, had taken it upon herself to write as if she were Cheryl for several pages following the last entry Cheryl had made before the diary disappeared, the falsified entry being a long graphic description on how she couldn't get Brendon out of her head and longed for another moment in the woods with him, one where he would stalk her like the animal he was and eventually pi
n her down and fuck her. She wanted to be hunted and then ravaged, and to make it real, she would fight tooth and nail against him when he did eventually take her. Following that, she wanted to be whisked away to a cave, his captive, one who would pretend to want to get away, all while hoping he would prevent it and punish her for any attempts she made, her body eventually bearing him Bigfoot children.
Why?
It was the only thought that went through her head after reading it.
Why would Beverly do such a thing?
No answers arrived.
None ever would.
And then she heard a cracking sound, one that shifted her focus from the diary to the entrance of the cave.
For a moment, all was still, and then another loud crack echoed, followed by the sounds of something crashing down.
Oh no!
Dropping the diary, she sprinted toward the entrance just as a cloud of dust and debris shot out of it.
No! No! No!
Panicked, she waited until everything settled and then, flashlight in hand, started into the entrance tunnel, knowing what she would find long before she did actually find it.
The entrance had caved in.
The heat from the flames had caused it to crack and give away.
She was trapped.
Is there another way out?
What is beyond the cavern that Brendon put the bodies in?
She doubted all those rats had come in from the main entrance, which meant there had to be another that they used. The question was, would it be big enough for her to get through? Another question arrived, this one more terrifying than anything she had contemplated up until that point. Would the rats wait for her to die before they began to feast upon her?
About the Author
William Malmborg is the author of six novels, Jimmy, Text Message, Nikki's Secret, Dark Harvest, Blind Eye, Santa Took Them, and Crystal Creek. Future works will included Daddy’s Little Girl and A Taste of Pain, as well as an episode in the Linger series published by Braun Haus Media under the pseudonym Edward Fallon. When not writing, William spends time reading, doing puzzles, planting peach trees and looking for ghosts in the 116-year-old farmhouse in Elgin, IL where he lives with his brother Tom and their two cats Toby and Truman.
@wlmalmborg
wlmalmborg
[email protected]
Also by William Malmborg
Jimmy
Text Message
Nikki’s Secret
Scraping the Bone: Ten Dark Tales
Dark Harvest
Blind Eye
Santa Took Them
Crystal Creek Page 21
