Chapter 2
The Hole
The frogs in the nearby swamp chirped their incessant song into the night. Lincoln set down his journal carefully on the fallen tree he sat upon. He was not tense, he was not nervous, he was just ready.
The moonlight was bright and clear, so he hadn’t bothered to set up lamps. This was his preference on the off chance he got a sprinter. It was hard chasing something through the trees while also waiting for his night vision to improve.
Lincoln’s dad had taught him that.
He reached down and picked up the crossbow leaning against the log. It was already cocked, so he raised it smoothly to his shoulder in a practiced motion.
Lincoln listened, mouth slightly open. He had heard that your hearing was improved slightly by doing this, though people on the internet still argued about this. Because it’s the internet.
The dappled moonlight cast gently across the mossy remains of the burnt cabin as Lincoln stepped, heel-toe, heel-toe, across the soft earth. He kept the ground clear of debris just for these purposes.
For the thousandth time he told himself that if he couldn’t see the creature, it couldn’t see him. Since he was a kid hiding under the covers while his parents fought about the monsters. You can't see me if I can't see you.
“Yeah, right, unless it’s got a special power from it’s undead witch cult leader of infinite evil,” he told himself. Also for the thousandth time.
Lincoln stepped between pieces of the rotted floor boards, so old they were just squishy strips of black. He paused. About ten feet from the edge of the sinkhole in the middle of where the cabin used to stand.
The Hole, his family called it.
With the rounded wall posts that still remained reaching up from the ground, and various bushes and weeds growing around the perimeter, it still reminded him of that Star Wars monster, a Sarlac, but with lots of broccoli stuck in it’s teeth. Lincoln liked to stay back so as not to be a snack, which was really the only thing Boba Fett amounted to… come at me! The new series was just confusing in his nerdy heart.
Anyway-
A faint breeze gave a leafy rustle through the trees, but as it subsided he heard it. From the impenetrable depths of the 10 foot wide hole, a scrape and tumble of tiny pebbles. Lincoln and his family knew very little about the Hole. But a few years ago, Elena, his sister, had lowered a Go Pro and a flashlight down into the hole. She had gotten into so much trouble! Their dad had ranted for 15 minutes about taunting the things that came from the Hole.
When he finally ran out of steam and slammed the door to his bedroom, Elena’s face had switched from sorry to curious as she connected the camera to her computer and loaded it up. All they learned was that the dirt rim turned to stone a few feet down, and then widened out after a few more feet into a wide cavern.
A little deeper in the camera glitched out.
So now, as his finger settled on the trigger and took out the slack, he knew the thing in there was upside down clinging to the rock as it neared the opening.
Lincoln took a deep, slow, silent breath and exhaled. Then slid forward toward the Hole. His perspective shifted forward as he could see further down.
The sound of scratching rock turned to stabbing sand. That was his cue.
This is what happened in the next second.
He shifted forward the last few feet quickly, knees bent as he held his breath and acquired his target.
Spread across the Hole was what at first looked like a skinny, muscular, naked man… if that man was also half spider. He had only a second to take in the creatures details. The chitinous, flesh colored plates that protruded over the spine, running down to a filthy pair of butt cheeks. The hands and feet were gone. In their place were solid looking single spikes that reached out farther than he would have expected. The milky white ends stained a reddish brown where they stabbed into the ground on all four sides. "Probably stained from stabbing cute bunnies to eat," Lincoln thought. He couldn’t see any head, to speak of, but he did not wait. He loosed the bolt.
The crack of the string being pulled along by the limbs of the crossbow and pushing the arrow at over 300 feet per second was incredibly loud in the night. But not as loud as the “whack!” as the broad-head bolt bounced off the creatures spine. Lincoln had aimed for center mass without adjusting to avoid the armor-like protrusions.
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The next second was even worse.
The creatures head swung up into view. From between the bony shoulders, a too-long neck swung up and pushed a bald head into view. The face that rotated around to find Lincoln had a sharp brow, no nose, and a thin, too wide mouth. The eyes were large red saucers that looked almost black in the moonlight.
“Kind of like a high Voldemort,” Lincoln mused before willing his body to move. Lincoln had never been high, but he had seen Adult Swim.
The creature was faster. It’s neutral expression didn’t change as it lowered it’s body slightly, then flung itself straight up out of the hole.
Lincoln’s brain returned to real time as he scrambled back, dropping the crossbow and waiting to see if the creature would attack, run, or fall back in. No monster had ever fallen back in, but it would be hilarious.
And for a moment, Lincoln thought this might be the one! Since it had launched straight up, it had to fall straight down, right?
But at the apex of it’s leap, it twisted and lunged an “arm” out to the side, stretching farther than seemed possible, and with a crack like a rotting knuckle, it made it’s spear-like hand into a right angle down to grab into the rotted wood floor around the Hole.
Leading with it’s three other pointed appendages, the creature launched itself at Lincoln.
He immediately threw himself headfirst into a roll to the side, keeping an eye toward his enemy as his world spun. With the grace of a dancer- a very tough and well trained warrior dancer, thank you very much, he rolled to his feet and spun.
The sound of his home-made, one-handed sword sliding from it’s leather sheath was barely a whisper.
The blade was cheaply made from old leaf springs from the nearby junk yard. The steel was excellent and had been ground down to just enough weight that it could take a beating and still cut a cow femur in half. Don’t ask. It was honed wicked sharp is all. The handle he had grown to prefer was a carved micarta that looked entirely too fancy on the ugly blade, but hey! Life’s about the little luxuries… when you fight monsters for your family in the middle of the night while your depressed father stares at the tv all day and your moody sister sneaks out doing god knows what in between rants about cycles of family trauma! Or something like that. The oiled leather sheath hung from his hip next to the quiver of broad head bolts.
The beast spread it’s legs out wide as it dug into the floor or the long gone cabin. Flexing it’s legs to leap as it brought it’s arms around to point like a promise at Lincolns chest.
And all Lincoln could think about was how badly he wished these things wore pants. It’s bait and tackle let him know it was male.
The creature leaped at him and Lincoln dropped completely to his back, letting the attack fly over him. The wiener seemed to wave at him as it flew by. Lincoln twisted once the wiener passed and scrambled toward where the monster would be landing.
As the creature landed face down, before it could use it’s pointed arms to turn over, Lincoln ran over it and did a one handed polo swing up between the creatures legs.
“If this hits that crusty butt crack, I am melting this sword,” he thought.
It hit the crusty crack. And the bait and tackle. Thudding deep into the creatures pelvis. And getting stuck solid in it’s pelvis.
As the creature, still silent, rolled over, it pulled the weapon from Lincolns hand and stood. It hunched forward to look down at itself. Blood flowed like a split milk carton… but instead of milk, it had blood. The creature looked up and locked it’s red saucer eyes onto Lincoln’s.
“Sorry?” Lincoln said weakly.
The creatures lipless, too wide mouth split open into a gaping maw with irregular needle-like teeth. It’s scream was just the rasp of air forced from it’s lungs.
Lincoln pulled two of the heavy crossbow bolts from his quiver. He slid his right leg forward, wielding the arrow in his right hand like a rapier, and the one in his left was back low and held like an ice pick.
This was going poorly.
Lincoln did not wait for the creature to attack. He lunged forward, snapping the lead arrow out in a few fast jabs, aiming for the creatures eyes. The creature ducked to the side as Lincoln lunged past. Lincoln let his lunge carry him forward, past the monster, pivoted his hips, and brought the left hand arrow overhead and down in a powerful strike.
Face to face with the creature from the Hole, Lincoln sunk the bolt in deep behind the creatures clavicle. He pushed, willing the point deeper and deeper. The creature exhaled breath that tasted like rotten leaves to Lincoln.
And that’s when the pain reached out from Lincolns thigh, up into his chest, squeezing the air from his lungs. He looked down and saw the creatures arm punched through the front of his right thigh, passing the bone and sticking out of the back of his leg. It created an absolutely not awesome looking bump in his leg muscle that stretched his pants taught.
In a distant part of Lincoln’s mind, he thought that the monster had been looking to return the favor by impaling Lincolns so far unused baby-making devices. Luckily, Lincoln’s man meat had lunged to safety.
“Heghk,” Lincoln huffed a weak chuckle.
The creature’s smile was even less pleasant than a clown hiding in a sewer. It raised it’s arm’s to finish off Lincoln.
Stuck where he was, Lincoln pushed down with his left hand as he brought up his right hand, stabbing under the creatures chin, through it’s smiling mouth and into the roof of it’s mouth. Where it stopped solidly. Not reaching the brain
“Farts,” Lincoln cursed.
He could see himself in the glossy sheen of the creatures eyes. A dull shadow about to become a shade. The creatures free arms reached up into the moonlight, sharp ends cracking and twisting to point toward Lincoln.
And then the creatures head was gone. Snapping to the side and erupting as a jacketed 180 grain bullet from a .308 round punched through and created such outward force that it came apart in all directions. Including into Lincoln’s open eyes and mouth. A chunk of the creatures skull smacked Lincoln in the forehead and he fell backward, bringing the creature with him since it was firmly attached to his leg.
They fell like a pair of tangled marionettes to the soft ground.
As Lincoln’s vision closed in from the edges, he saw his sister, Elena's, irritated face say “Fuck a duck in a truck, Lincoln, did you only bring one sword?”
He raised his middle finger and passed out.