The waning moon has yet to rise but one of us can see just fine. We creep into the night into Kikito’s Jeep, blazing down highways and interstates as quickly as we can get away with. Streetlights whiz by but each ball of light is distinguishable to me no matter how fast he drives. Deer speckled with dozens of white flecks on their behinds cling to tree lines in the distance. They take their time chewing mouthfuls of herbaceous goods, un-bothered by cars driving yards away. Bats make their nightly journeys above in a cacophony of squeaks. It chills me knowing I’m not supposed to hear them.

I take the wheel once we get in to the forest, urging that my eyesight is far superior now. His eyes are on one whenever he thinks I’m not paying attention. They’re popping out of them sockets. I look at myself in the rearview mirror. I think I look monstrous too. It was an uncanny valley — the stuff ancestors were afraid of before language existed to explain it. Saying I felt like a human being is an overstatement.

Kikito surprises me by making a phone call. “Where are you right now?” He asks.

“I’m at the cabin. What’s wrong?” He replies with clarity that surprises me more. I realize our windows are up but I can hear everything in the forest around us, even the soft grunting of a bear nesting.

“I need you,” he says and blushes, “I need your help I mean. If I explain I’ll sound nuts but you need to meet me at that cave I showed you today.”

“I’ll be right there, Kik. Are you okay?” There’s urgency in Greg’s voice that sounds more personal than coworkers looking out for each other.

“I’m fine. I got the guy who found it with me so don’t freak if you see two of us.” Kikito pauses. I watch the gears working hard top turn in his mind. “I don’t know him I’m just letting him go get something he left here.”

“Okayyyy...I’m on my way. Don’t go wandering off on me.” Greg says and hangs up on him. Kikito chews the inside of his mouth as he puts his phone away. I choose to say nothing.

The Jeep takes us as far as the gates go. Tucked safely out of the way, we continue on foot. We work together; he leads the way and I confirm the landmarks he can’t see until lights burst out of the woods coupled with a roaring engine. It turns out to be an ATV but it sounds like a Harley to me. Greg arrives on it clad in the red ranger clothes Kikito had shed: a handsome young man with blonde hair gathered under a wide-brimmed hat and brown eyes that shot right into Kikito’s when he parks.

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He glances to me and then looks into my eyes, most tension dissolved. He’s just as tall as Kikito is when he stands over me. “Can you see?” He asks, reaching out to touch my face to give a lookover. I recoil on instinct. “That’s good.” He looks at Kikito. “What the hell is going on here? His eyes look irradiated.”

“He had his pupils dilated today,” Kikito says. We wait for him to register how ridiculous that sounds.

“Okay that dog ain’t gonna hunt, Kik. He looks like he’s on drugs.” He shines his flashlight into my eyes and I yelp with pain. He immediately drops it.

“If you come with me I think I can make it make sense,” Kikito says quietly. Greg raises his eyebrows but then he sighs.

“You and your weird little quests. Does he even need to get anything?”

“I do,” I say, “my friend used to come here. She died and I wanted to put something of hers inside. It meant so much to her.” I hate using death to disarm someone but at least it’s the truth.

Greg’s face softens. He points his flashlight and gestures to Kikito. “Well? Lead the way.”

Kikito nods frantically and starts running with us in tow. We weave through brush and webs until we come upon the opening but it’s larger now. Debris surrounds it. The forest is silent and Greg and Kikito have noticed too.

“Was that there earlier?” I ask.

“I wish the answer was yes,” Kikito replies.

“We’re not going in there,” Greg says matter-of-factly, “a bear must have moved in.”

“When have you seen a bear do this? You’ve been working here as long as I have!”

Greg, appearing offended, opens his mouth to say some choice words but the rumbling beneath our feet interrupts them. He swings his light around the woods and cave opening. He grabs Kikito’s wrist as the ground near us breaks open. A long, flat head slithers out, resembling a crocodile with pale yellow limestone skin. A hard body follows its head and crawls on an uncountable numbers of legs digging into the dirt and flinging up rocks. Two holes replace the eyes. They open and close in unison with the clicks that vibrate our bones. It has no mouth we can see, only long creases resembling a closed flower’s petals.

It clicks into the air. A tongue darts out from the culmination of the creases and twitches. Its clickings quicken and rise an octave as its head turns to face us. Flaps of stonelike flesh peel back from the head to reveal a long, thick tongue darting out from a void of internal blue light that tingles my eyes.

Greg shouts at us to get back. The tongue strikes at us with impossible speed, wrapping around his body with a series of cracks and yanking him to the ground. Kikito grabs his torso but with a tug Greg is out of his hands and barreling towards its chasm of a mouth. It greedily retracts its tongue and Greg, ballooning in girth to accommodate the man’s size. We watch the creature’s belly nearly explode and shrink right back. All in a minute. Kikito is trying desperately not to scream.

Several more clicks from the creature again towards them. It doesn’t make much progress before it convulses, clicking high and shrill into the forest. Its inner blue light shoots out of its body in beams getting brighter and hotter.

I grab Kikito’s arm and pull us down into Welkin’s Cave.