Dweller - Jeff Strand [9]
Toby turned in a slow circle, shining his flashlight all over the cave, and it really did seem to be a single room, maybe twice the length of one of his classrooms. Not that impressive. Still, he wondered what its purpose was. Obviously, somebody had used it for something, or there wouldn’t be hinges and the sign. It could have been the start of a mine. Maybe the owner was a bumbling incompetent and after bringing all of the equipment out here and digging for a couple of days he’d realized that there were no minerals to mine. He’d sheepishly sent everybody home, put up the sign, and declared bankruptcy.
Or, the workers had been attacked by rats. Giant rats. Well, not giant rats—not fifty-footers, but rats twice the size of normal ones, with glistening greasy fur and glowing red eyes and pus leaking from their ears. As the workers drilled, a section of the wall collapsed and thousands of them swarmed out. The three closest men were consumed immediately, their shrieking forms reduced to skeletons within seconds, like a cow falling into piranhainfested water. The others had panicked and opened fire, killing one rat for every fifty that latched onto their flesh. The owner made it to his automobile just in time and sped off, running over his assistant in his haste to drive out of the area. He’d abandoned the mine idea and concocted an elaborate story to keep himself out of prison.
Yeah.
Toby did another circle with the flashlight. Kind of disappointing, but still, he’d found a cave! There might be other caves nearby. An entire system of caves. He could get a girlfriend for sure if he knew his way around a local cave. They were dark, slightly spooky, romantic…
Something bellowed.
The sound, which came from inside the cave, startled Toby so badly that he dropped the flashlight.
Another bellow. It sounded like God himself were shouting from the cave walls.
Toby raced for the exit—or tried to. His foot came down on the flashlight, slipped out from under him and twisted with a painful crack, and he fell to the ground.
He scrambled on his hands and knees toward the exit, hurting his foot even worse but not caring, terrified that the entire cave was going to collapse and splatter him under tons of rock and dirt.
Toby made it outside without the cave ceiling splattering him. Now the only noise was his own frantic breathing. What on earth had it been? What made a noise like that? It wasn’t his imagination, and it was unlikely to have actually been God, so what was it?
The question was answered quite satisfactorily when the monster emerged from the cave.
Toby hadn’t believed that there was such a thing as truly paralyzing fear. Sure, you could be held immobile by bullies, and you could be frozen in place when your father came at you with his belt just because you knew that running away would result in worse punishment, but Toby had never imagined being literally too frightened to move. His muscles ached with the effort to move them, yet he couldn’t budge. He just knelt on the ground, staring at the horrific sight before him.
He remembered it. Very well.
It was covered with thick brown hair, except for some bare patches on its arms and legs. It stood upright, like a human, though its arms and legs were slightly twisted, as if they’d been broken and not healed quite properly. Its claws—good God, its claws were huge, curved white razors at least three inches long on each finger. Its yellow eyes were set deep inside of its face.
Its jaws were a complete horror show, with teeth that were almost cartoonishly large and sharp.
He’d remembered the monster as being bigger, although of course back then he’d been smaller. It was still an imposing, terrifying creature. One that clearly had every intention of devouring Toby, chewing off his face while he lay paralyzed on the ground. Not even chewing—biting it clean off in one chomp.
The monster regarded him closely. It narrowed its sunken eyes as if studying him. Wondering which body part to bite into first.
It walked forward. Toby noted that its toes also