Damon

by Vanessa Hawkes

He winced as if in pain. “I probably shouldn’t have done that,” he said. He nodded to his right. “I found the entrance to the cave. And that’s when I remembered what I was supposed to remember. So, it’s okay.”

  The gun was empty, and that was good, but we were not okay. Far from it. “Do you have more bullets in your pocket?”

  He raised his eyebrows, then turned out his pockets. Only a green lighter and his pocketknife fell out to the ground. He retrieved them.

  “Okay,” I said. “What did you remember?”

  His eyes softened, at last. “That you’re not crazy yet. But I am. I’m crazy. And if you say I shouldn’t kill us, then I shouldn’t. I have to remember to listen when you say my mind is playing tricks.”

  I let out a hard breath, finally able to relax. And forgive him.

  He reached out, hesitantly, and ran a soft hand over my head. I leaned toward him and he pulled me in for a warm hug. Tears sprang to my eyes and I clung to him, needing comfort more than I ever had. I’d been angry enough to leave him, but I couldn’t survive on my own.

  I’d end up back at Cynthia’s, resuming my old life, until she drugged me half to death in a couple of years. Then, I’d end up sitting in a wheelchair like Mama had, staring into space.

  I’d have rather watched a bullet enter my brain than end up like that.

  “I’m sorry,” Damon whispered in my ear. “I meant to do it before you turned around. Before you knew. So you wouldn’t have to be scared. But I lost my nerve.”

  I gave his hair a pull. “Don’t do it at all. Not until I tell you to.”

  He nodded, but I needed more.

  “Promise me.”

  He nodded again, holding me tighter. “I promise,” he said. “But tell me to do it before I beat you to death. I couldn’t stand that.”

  Probably because of the stress, I suddenly found this conversation perversely funny. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll tell you to kill me before you beat me to death.”

  “Promise me,” he said, seriously. “I couldn’t stand that.”

  I leaned against him and closed my burning eyes, really needing to go somewhere and rest for a while. “All right. I promise.”

  ***

  We arrived at the entrance to the cave minutes later and stood there, just staring into the low-lying gap in the ground. I’m not sure what I’d expected, but something more than this. The entrance was about six feet wide and only about two feet tall. It looked like a big mouth, with its lips slightly parted in a sneer.

  Vegetation grew all around the opening and several basketball-sized rocks blocked the path inside. They appeared to have been lined up in a row in an attempt to hide the entrance.

  “How are we supposed to get in there?” I asked, hoping we might get to turn back and abandon this quest.

  Damon jumped down to the lower depression in front of the cave and began rolling the rocks out of the way. When he finished, he straightened and rested his hands on his hips to catch his breath. “We crawl through.”

  I took a step back. “You expect me to crawl in there?”

  “It opens up after a few dozen yards.”

  “A few dozen yards?”

  I still didn’t know if he’d ever actually been here before, or if he knew what lay beyond. I didn’t want to go climbing into a hole in the ground blindly.

  “Your grandmother did it,” he said.

  “You’re daring me now?” But it did work, a little. If this really was the entrance to the cave Gram, Bella and Verna had explored, then they must have crawled on their bellies to get inside. I could barely imagine that, but I wasn’t about to be outdone physically by Bella and Verna. Even though they’d been young at the time. About my age.

  “There’s a whole world down there,” he said, probably hoping to entice me. “A world you can’t believe.”

  I decided to give it a try, but…. “You go first.”

  Damon reached into the vegetation beside the cave and pulled out a large flashlight. “Ready?”

  “How did you know that was there?”

  “I left it here last time,” he said. He switched on the light and shined it around.

  “So, you did find this place before?”

  “Yeah. I came here and found the beast. I told you all that.”

  He had. He’d told me that. He’d said he’d found the cave and the red beast had come up to him and touched him, then let him go free. “You also told me it wasn’t true.” He’d been talking about finding his father at his house in Nashville.

  He showed me the flashlight, shining it right in my eyes for a second. “I couldn’t remember. But this proves it. It was real.”

  Made sense to me - that he’d found the cave before. Not, necessarily, that he’d encountered the red furry beast that had terrorized a young group of treasure hunters fifty-five years ago.

  I stood still blinking until the bright circle in my vision began to fade.

  He dropped to his knees and began crawling forward, having to flatten himself to get through. Once his feet disappeared, and I was alone, his story about dozens of alien vampires watching us began to spook me. So, I followed, more concerned about being left alone outside than entering unknown darkness.

  I crawled and crawled over gravely dirt, following the glow of the flashlight way up ahead. Finally, as Damon had claimed, the cave opened up and we were able to stand. He shined the light around. We were in a narrow tunnel. He took my hand and we began to walk.

  About twenty steps in, Damon turned off the flashlight. He pulled the lighter from his pocket and used it to illuminate a small circle around us. He let go of my hand and walked over to the wall were he found a stick propped against the rock.

  “My torch,” he said. “I soaked it in oil, so it should be good.”

  “Shouldn’t we use the flashlight instead?” I asked, rubbing my arms against the chill. The cave had turned cool and damp. We hadn’t thought to bring jackets.

  Damon tossed the flashlight aside. “Naw, this is better.”

  More dramatic, he meant. It took him several tries to spark the canvas. But when he did, the tunnel opened before us.

  He took my hand and we walked. “This way.”

  There was only one way. He moved on, but I pulled away and grabbed the flashlight, wanting to keep it with us just in case something happened to the torch. “Do you know where you’re going?”

  “This way.” He was distracted, so I didn’t talk as we walked through the endless tunnel. The sounds of our muddy, gritty footsteps echoed off the walls, as did our ragged breathing. We sloped downward endlessly until at last we came to an open chamber with smaller passages to the left and right.

  “I think I went right last time,” Damon said without slowing.

  Beyond a low archway, which could have been a decorative arch in a house, we entered a different type of tunnel. Not just a cave, a cavern. With stalactites, stalagmites, and various other formations I didn’t know the names of. We maneuvered our way forward sometimes over a smooth, lumpy floor, and other times climbing over and around rocks of all sizes. The air was thicker, and water dripped continuously from somewhere.

  The passageway was wide at first, then began to narrow and shrink, seeming to constantly tilt downward. We had to drop to our knees in places to maneuver through tight spaces. The farther we went the colder it got and my sinuses began to burn.

  “Do you know where we are?” I asked him as I stood up, brushing off my shirt and the knees of my muddy jeans.

  He looked at the torch, which was burning lower, and nodded. “I’ve got my lighter and we’ll burn clothes if we have to.”

  “I have the flashlight,” I told him, as creeping tingles of fear worked up my spine. I wanted to leave, immediately. I didn’t want to get lost in this place, and was beginning to feel the pressure of claustrophobia squeezing my chest.

  We came to another open chamber, this one too big for the torchlight to reach all sides. Our voices echoed as if we were in a cathedral.<
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  “This is it,” Damon said. “I think.”

  I shined the flashlight around. “This is what?”

  “Where I saw him. He went into a passage.”

  The red beast? I tugged on his arm. “Let’s go back.”

  He pulled away. “Stay here,” he said. “I’ll walk it and check for passages.”

  I grabbed his arm as my light caught something odd. “Look up there.”

  Damon looked at me instead. “What?”

  At first, I thought it was another odd cave formation. “Look. There on that ledge. Is that a foot?”

  A series of ledges and rocks led up to a higher ledge. I began to climb first since Damon seemed reluctant to veer from his mission. When I reached the top and saw the body sitting there, I gasped and dropped the flashlight, quickly back-stepping. I almost fell over the ledge but Damon caught me.

  I grabbed the flashlight then stepped back again. Damon stepped closer and lowered the torch to inspect the body. It was a man and he was completely naked, just sitting there, staring ahead.

  He was dead.

  We’d discovered a dead body.

  But that wasn’t the disturbing part. I swallowed hard and lifted my flashlight again, to shine on the man’s face.

  He was not in great shape. In fact, he was grotesque. His skin was pasty and gaunt, his features slack, but even still, his face was recognizable. He’d been in his late twenties with golden brown hair curling against his shoulders. His eerie eyes were an unusual shade of grayish-blue, staring right at me.

  The beam from my flashlight began to dance. The dead man sitting there naked and decomposing had Damon’s face.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  I looked to make sure Damon was still there with me, standing and alive. “Is that you?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” he said.

  I turned my light on Damon. “He looks like you. He looks just like you. Except, you know, dead and disgusting.”

  He nodded, then bobbed his head from side to side. “Yeah, I can see that.”

  “Do you have a brother?”

  Damon knelt down and squinted at the body. “No. No brother.”

  I took a careful step closer. I didn’t want near that corpse, but I’d noticed something else. The man had Damon’s scars, like lash marks across his chest, where he’d once taken a razor blade to himself on a bad night of anger and despair. I held the flashlight with both hands to keep the beam steady. I’d traced those scars dozens of times. I knew those scars. “Why is he like that? He’s exactly like you.”

  “Yeah, weird. Let’s keep searching.”

  Damon stood and tried to maneuver around me on the ledge, but I stopped him. “Damon. This is a dead body. We have to do something. We have to call the police.”

  He tilted his head back and made a sound of annoyance. “No. No police. They’ll come in here. They’ll mess everything up.”

  I couldn’t take my eyes off that dead man there, sitting there, dead, with Damon’s face. I couldn’t comprehend what I was seeing. “Why does he look like you? Look. He has a head wound. And he has two holes in his neck.”

  “Yeah.”

  “My god. He’s staring at me. He’s staring right at me.”

  “Let’s go farther in,” Damon said. “We need to keep moving.”

  Damon tried again to turn me around but I couldn’t tear myself away from this unbelievable situation. Irrationally, I wanted to touch the man and see if he would wake up.

  “We have to tell somebody.” My voice came out distant and automatic. “His family must wonder where he is. Why does he look like you?”

  “He doesn’t have any family. Let’s go.”

  “How do you know that? Who is this man?”

  Damon shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “He’s dead! It matters! Jesus. He looks just like you. He has your scars. He’s been bitten. Damon!”

  “Maggie,” Damon said, taking my arm. “Forget about him. He doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “Did you kill him? What’s happening? Tell me what’s happening.”

  “He shot himself.”

  There was nothing on the body – no clothing and no gun. His hands rested casually at his sides. He had Damon’s scars on his wrists. I shined the light all around the ledge. “There’s no gun.”

  Damon took the revolver from the back of his jeans and laid it next to the dead man’s hand. “It’s there. It’s okay.”

  “That’s the same gun you pointed at me? Is that true? How do you know that? Did you take this gun?”

  Damon left me and hopped his way back down. I hurried after him, moving carefully down each level. When we stood on comparatively steady ground, away from the body, I grabbed his wrist. I needed to feel the warmth of his skin and the pulse of his heart. I needed to feel the scar there – still there.

  I looked into his eyes, eyes with life and sight. “You need to help me, babe,” I told him, my voice and body shaking uncontrollably. The cave was cold, but this kind of chill rattled my bones. “I need help. Is my dead body in here somewhere? Are we dead?”

  Damon took his gaze off the surrounding darkness and finally seemed to notice me. “I was here. He said I could take his blood. He looked me in the eye and pulled the trigger. He didn’t die right away. He said he couldn’t stand life anymore. Granddad was dead and I couldn’t take it anymore. Wandering around lost and alone. I had no one. I scare people and they keep blaming me for things I didn’t do. The police wanted me again. They were going to lock me up, just like Dad. I couldn’t let that happen. I thought David would die when I became Damon, but he didn’t. He wouldn’t die. His memories wouldn’t die. I had to end it, finally. I needed peace.”

  “Damon….”

  He smiled dreamily. “I saw the red beast. I saw it. Right before I died. I really saw it. An alien vampire. It’s real. It’s here in this cave.”

  “Damon….”

  He blinked and took my arm. “Let’s go. He’s empty. We need to move on. We have to find the portal to our home world. It’s all here. We have to find it.”

  But I wouldn’t budge. I couldn’t move. The moment I’d dreaded for ten years had finally come. I couldn’t fight it any longer. No more excuses could be made. I was crazy, just like my mother. Heredity had finally grabbed me in its heartless arms, and would eventually squeeze the life right out of me.

  “Damon, I’m going crazy. I’m seeing you lying there dead and standing here alive. That’s crazy. It’s happening. It’s happened. I’ve gone crazy. Help me!”

  He gave me a kiss on the forehead and whispered in my ear, “I’ll get us home, baby. I promise. We’ll go home and everything will be beautiful.”

  “Are you a ghost? Are we dead? What’s happening? How is this happening? Who are you?” I pointed toward the ledge. “Who is he?”

  He gave me a reassuring smile and took the flashlight from my hand. “Vampires don’t like artificial light. I’ll be right back. Stay here.”

  I stayed behind, rubbing my arms against the cold, wondering how much air was in this place, trying not to think about that ledge, and watched the golden glow follow Damon around the large room.

  From somewhere near or far I could hear a rumbling sound, almost like a giant creature snoring beneath my feet.

  I started pacing off my worries, and tried to appreciate the mystery and wonder of the cave, but we weren’t experienced enough to be in here alone. We didn’t have any supplies. There was a dead body in the room.

  Damon moved off, having found a passageway, and left me alone in total darkness.

  “Damon,” I complained, heading off after him. But somehow, I’d lost my direction and walked straight into a rock wall, knocking myself half-silly.

  “Damon!” I called, feeling the slippery rock blocking my path. I’d landed against a large stalagmite. I stepped to the side and a space opened before me, but I took each step gingerly, keeping my hand stretched out in front of me, counting my steps.
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br />   “Damon!” I yelled. “Don’t you dare leave me here with a dead body! I can’t see!”

  I’d walked a dozen paces when my boot slipped on wet rock and the floor disappeared from under my boot, sending me wildly off-balance. I tried to fall backward and land on the solid floor, but my seat landed on another slanted, slippery slope and I went forward down a slide, unable to catch hold of anything, unable to stop the rush forward. Blind in total darkness.

  The slide ended and I fell over the edge of a black cliff, falling into nothingness that never seemed to end… until it did. I didn’t land in water or anything reasonably soft. I landed on solid rock, falling forward and tumbling head over heels to a stop. I landed hard against a wall and lay there, stunned, and possibly broken to pieces.

  “Maggie!” Damon yelled.

  I opened my mouth to respond, but I couldn’t catch my breath. I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t move. I was paralyzed.

  “Maggie!” Damon screamed. “Don’t be dead, oh god…. Where are you? Wake up!”

  I put my hands on the floor and slowly pushed myself up to a sitting position, amazed my arms had worked.

  “Where are you?” Damon called. His voice was hollow and scratchy. I looked up but couldn’t see him.

  “Let me see the torch,” I said. But he couldn’t hear me. I could barely hear myself. Let me see the torch, Damon.

  He held the torch over the opening and at last, I could see his face above me. He wasn’t too far away, not nearly as far as I’d thought. I put my legs under me and stood, finding a rough impression for support with a groping hand.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked. “How bad are you hurt?”

  “You can drop a rope down,” I called upward.

  “I don’t have a rope. Maggie, don’t move. You might be on a ledge. Hang on just a minute. Don’t move.”

  “Toss me the flashlight.”

  The light vanished from up above and I stood very still, trying to listen. The rock earth rumbled all around me, again bringing to mind the idea of a giant creature in the cave with us. I couldn’t even see my hand in front of my face, let alone anything that might have been in the cave with me. Creepy, crawly things. Or worse, unearthly creatures with fur and fangs – just waiting for us to be alone. Or even worse, I might be standing on the very edge of a ledge, with a mile-long drop off right in front of me. I’d seen too many movies to be in a situation like this. My imagination ran wild in every direction. I began to think the cave itself was a creature wanting to eat me.