It was good that I’d brought my backpack into the cave. In
the bottom of the pack, I found a crumpled plastic bag. I filled it with cold water
from the floor of the cave and dropped the eyeless fish inside.
“Will it live long enough for us to get it home? Chuck
asked. “I’ve got a fish tank we can put it in.”
“The fish will be fine if you don’t mash him or jostle him
around too much,” Adam said.
Like Hansel and Gretel following their fairy tale trail of
breadcrumbs, we followed my string back to the cave’s entrance. On the way out,
we saw several shadowed side tunnels, and without the string it would have been
hard, maybe impossible, to find our way out. I hated to think about getting
lost in the black cave so long that our flashlight batteries would give out.
We emerged into the sunlight and began the slog home through
the cold waters of Gaillard Creek. We somehow managed to keep the fish alive. When
we came out of the woods, we went to Adam’s house, snuck by his mom and went to
his bedroom. There, he pulled an empty fish tank from his closet.
While Chuck held the bag with the fish, Adam and I filled
the tank with water from a bathtub down the hall. We carried the tank slowly back
to his bedroom, careful not to slosh water onto the floor, and placed the tank
on his desk. Chuck tipped the fish out of the plastic bag, and it swam around
slowly as if trying to gauge the boundaries of its new home.
“I bet he thinks he’s still in the cave,” Adam said. He
opened a desk drawer and pulled out a small canister of fish food. He opened it
and tipped a few flakes into the tank.
At this point, we’d forgotten all about any lost treasure that
might be somewhere inside the cave.
The next morning, the three of us met at the stop sign that
marked the spot closest to the woods and our subdivision. Adam and Chuck were
standing there when I peddled up on my bike. I knew without asking that
something was wrong.
“The fish died,” Adam said.
“How?”
“It was floating dead on top of the water in the tank when I
got up this morning,” Adam said. “I showed it to my dad when he came home from
the pulp mill, and he said that the water from the bathtub probably killed it.
He said that small fish can’t stand the chlorine in Claiborne city water. He
said we should have used fresh water instead.”
“What did he think about it not having any eyes?” I asked.
“He didn’t say much about it,” Adam said. “He just flushed
it down the toilet.”
As Adam and I talked, Chuck stared into the woods, deep in
thought. “Let’s just go get another one,” Chuck said. “If we found one fish,
there’s bound to be more in the cave.”
We agreed to go look for another fish, and a half an hour
later, after stashing out bikes in the edge of the woods, we found ourselves at
the entrance to the cave. As odd as it sounds, the entrance seemed a little
wider. Only later would I learn that there had been several small aftershocks
stemming from the Flomaton earthquake, which may have widened the opening a
little.
Even more surprising, the stream of water flowing out of the
cave’s entrance the day before had gone dry. The fan of sand at the entrance to
the cave was still damp, but there was no sign of any running water. As we
stood there, preparing to go inside, it was Adam who drew our attention to a
set of large tracks in the sand.
We crowded around to see the tracks of a big coyote. The
tracks were fresh, maybe a couple of hours old. Most disturbing of all was the
fact that they went into the cave, but there were no tracks coming out.
“It’s not a good idea to go in there,” Adam said. “That
coyote is probably bedding up inside. If it’s female, she might have puppies,
and she might jump on us to protect her young.”
“Don’t be a wuss,” Chuck said. “She’ll be more afraid of us
than we are of her. She’ll break her neck trying to get away from us.”
“Not if she’s cornered,” Adam said.
“Maybe there’s another way out,” I said. “Maybe the coyote
entered this side and came out a hole somewhere else. If we follow the tracks,
we might find the other exit.”
With that said, we clicked on our flashlights and entered
the cave. We followed the tracks, and they eventually took us past the weird
cave painting and the point where we first found the eyeless fish. We saw where
our earlier visit had disturbed the sand and noted that the coyote tracks
continued deeper into the cave.
At this point, my heart sank as something suddenly occurred
to me. “Guys, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I forgot my string,” I
said. “On the way back out, we’ve got to be careful not to go down one of the
side tunnels.”
We all stood there for a long time, our flashlights the only
light in the dark, damp cave. Adam, always the one to act tough, said, “It’ll
be OK even if the lights go out. Just reach out, find the wall to your left and
follow it back to the creek. No sweat.”
How long had we walked? Half a mile? How hard will it be to
find the entrance if our batteries run out?
I kept my thoughts to myself as we continued to follow the
coyote’s tracks deeper into the cave. I noticed that the ceiling was getting
lower, and I couldn’t remember the last time that I’d seen or heard a bat. A
few moments later that the tunnel opened into a large chamber.
The unexpected chamber was about the size of my bedroom at
home, maybe 15 by 15 feet. Oddly, the chamber appeared to be walled with old
bricks. I shined my light on the wall to my right and was surprised to see the
words “Claiborne Water” stamped into an old, rusty brown brick at eye level.
“What is that?” Chuck asked. He shined the beam of his
flashlight on an object lying on the dirt floor of the cave against its far
wall.
“It’s a treasure chest,” Adam said, excited. He darted
across the cave, his flashlight beam bouncing up and down as he ran.
I followed and saw that the coyote tracks led to the edge of
the box. Only too late did we realize that this was no ordinary box. It was an
old coffin with heavy brass handles, adorned on top with an inlaid square and
compass. The date June 13, 1862 had also been carved into its rough surface,
barely legible.
Suddenly and without warning, its lid flew open, its ancient
hinges creaking loudly, like fingernails on a chalkboard. The thing that burst
from the coffin lashed out at Adam, who was standing closest to the coffin. The
front half of his face disappeared in a blast of red as the thing’s claws torn
off his face.
In the blink of an eye, before Adam’s body hit the floor, and
the thing leapt at Chuck. Flashlight beams bounced all over the room in the
melee, and I never saw clearly what happened to Chuck. He made one muffled cry
and that was all.
The only thing that saved my life was the fact that I’d been
the farthest away from the coffin. All that has unfolded in my long life hinged
on that simple fact. I’d been last in line, and my two friends, now long dead,
were the only things that separated me from the first vampire that I would ever
kill.
(All rights reserved. This story is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author's
imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or
locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.)
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