The sun was setting and Venus was making her nightly appearance as the evening star next to the moon–a full moon, that hung prominently low in the sky like the ghostly body of some weird, spectatorial creature, silently looming. Plain-Man had noticed this when it became the only light that night as he walked on the trail into the canyon, towards his destination. He pulled out his phone to make sure he was headed in the right direction. A mile and a half to go to make it to where the first report of the incident had taken place.
An hour prior, a couple were out here hiking in the Cleveland National Forest when they were attacked by a large, wild animal and sent out a distress signal. Plain-Man was being dispatched to follow up on the call and assist if necessary. Though, he wondered, how could he possibly help out in this sort of situation? He couldn’t assist anyone with any medical needs, and there was just no way he was going to do anything about some big, dangerous animal, besides, maybe, get eaten while the others escaped.
As he was going deeper into the possibilities of what could happen, his senses were alerted to another lifeform heading in his direction. At first he heard the snap of a branch and a quiet mumbling sound for a second, then, nothing.
Finally, he tried, “Hello! Who’s there?”
“…Oh, thank God!”
Two people ran up to Plain-Man through the darkness, a woman and a man carrying a walking stick, wearing outdoor attire. They both shared noticeable expressions of worry on their faces, as they approached with an excitement that they seemed like they were trying to keep at bay.
“Are you two alright?”
“No… I mean, yes…” The woman said, unsure.
“Were you the ones who sent out the distress signal?”
The man spoke up, “We weren’t sure if it went through or not… There’s a lot of interference back there, it seems like …”
“Well, you want to tell me what’s going on, or what happened?”
The couple looked at each other, their eyes sending some message to other, until the man looked forward and sighed.
“We wanted to enjoy the full moon and go on a night hike, tonight, when out of nowhere, the biggest dog or wolf we’ve ever seen jumped from out of the bushes and attacked us. We barely were able to escape, if it wasn’t for this other couple who was just a little ahead of us. It decided to go after them instead, up the trail, while we ran back. I don’t even want to imagine what could’ve possibly happened to them…”
“There’s another couple?”
“Yes! And if you don’t mind, we don’t want to end up like them, so if you’ll excuse us…”
The man grabbed the woman by the hand and swiftly pulled her into the darkness, away from Plain-Man who watched them disappear before continuing on. This is sort of like the night at the airbase when he met Fight Man, he thought to himself, except he always chalked up that experience to being a hallucination from overworking and lack of sleep. But now, maybe, not so much. He wasn’t sure how he made it out last time, and he definitely wasn’t sure whether this time he would, but there were other people in trouble and all he cared about at this point was finding out if they were alright. He couldn’t imagine how bad he would feel if somehow someone got hurt on his watch, that would probably destroy him.
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Plain-Man picked up his pace and traveled further into the blackness of the trail. Even through his beanie mask and thick jacket, he felt the growing chill permeating from the gravely path under his boots and began to see his breath. He heard owls hooting, frogs ribbeting in the creak, perhaps a squirrel scampering in the bush, but no coyotes or anything that sounded like a canine.
The canyon walls grew higher and narrowed around him until finally he neared the location where the signal was originally sent out, then the walls widened out, growing into the hills and mountains above. He crossed over a small bridge and took out his phone, walking directly to the dot on his GPS had been placed. On the other side of the creek bed that ran parallel with the trail was what looked like a private property with a house, some fencing, a fountain, and other fixtures. Nobody appeared to be home, but it wouldn’t be a bad idea to check, he decided.
After carefully scaling down into the creek bed, jumping over the baby stream that ran, and ascended up to the house, he walked onto the old creaky porch and knocked on the door. Minutes passed, and he tried again, and then tried the knob, which was locked. No one home, he said out loud, and circled around to the back. Down below the patio, he noticed what looked like cellar doors that were folded opened and went to investigate. He took out his phone and turned on the light. Instead of the old, rotted wood he expected to find like that of the house, the inside of the cellar had a metal stairway that led down into a steep darkness.
“Hello? Is anyone there?” his voice echoed deep below him and he began wondering what exactly was under his feet. He turned around and checked his vicinity one last time, and still only seeing the mountains, the moon, and the trees, he took his first step down below.
The staircase led into a large, open basement, much larger than the house above, and appeared to be empty for the most part except for the old farming equipment leaning against the walls. He found a big tractor that they used to use back in the day, but obviously seemed it had been out of use for some time. But then Plain-Man thought about something: How could a big tractor like this get underneath the ground in the first place if it was bigger than the doorway to the cellar? Maybe there was some sort of underground passageway he thought to himself as he walked the circumference, shinning the light of his phone on the walls, though he saw no doors or anything. He decided to check the tractor itself for any clues, stepping up onto running board to get a better look. The tractor lurched forward for a second, completely throwing Plain-Man off balanced and in an attempt to steady himself, grabbed onto one of the levers, pulling it towards him. Suddenly he heard a loud rumbling from the ground below. He picked up his phone and held it out at the noise. Illuminated by his light, Plain-Man witnessed the entire side of a wall slide into the other, revealing a completely separate interior connected to the cellar he was in.
Something fishy was going on here. If Plain-Man was going to find this missing couple and figure out what was going on with these big dogs, he had a feeling it had something to do with all this strangeness taking place here.
He called out again, “Hello?” No reply.
In the following chamber, he found walls of crates stacked from ceiling to roof everywhere he looked. The inspected the one nearest to him and discovered the faded painted word on the side that he was pretty sure read “Dullenhut”. But before he could dwell on it too long, a loud high pitched screaming sound filled the underground chamber and attacked his ears. It cut out and Plain-Man desperately waved his light around to locate the source. Over on the next row of crates, a huge doggish head was sticking up while the rest of its body remained hidden.
He gasped with fear, but before his instincts took over and he could book it on out there, some large body from out of his periphery knocked him right over, sending him toppling to the ground. Whatever hit him fell as well and all he could feel was a shifting mass hiding in the shadows right next to him as he frantically searched for his light.