Book 1: Key To The Beyond

Prologue: Morning To Him Is As The Shadow of Death

Facundo Bigotes had never been so scared during the night in his life. Night was usually the time he felt most safe. That way, curious eyes couldn’t scan the area for whatever Facundo was doing he might not want the cops or bystanders to know. It was day when he was twitchy, day when he was nervous, afraid someone would recognize him in the clear daylight as the vague figure that stole their TV or jewelry in the dead of night. 

Ever since he was a kid, Facundo learned to be a patient predator, using the cloak of night to sneak his way into whatever job he’d roped himself into. Half the job was just not getting caught and darkness did half that job. But for this job, no amount of hiding could make him feel safe.

The half-Brazilian, half-Mexican specialized in burglaries ever since he gained the reputation as good at scoping out easy targets at thirteen. Whether they be houses, stores or banks, Facundo had an eye for picking out the weak. However, Facundo didn’t like violence. Violence was messy and bad for business. He’d rather go in when no one was home than have to spill blood. This was no robbery. 

“But boy do I wish it was,” Facundo muttered to himself. 

As he stood next to an oak tree he nervously fiddled with a cigarette in his hand. He nervously looked to the hole in the ground more than thirty feet away, wondering if he could carry the merchandise down there with such slick hands. The fingers of his left hand were so slick with sweat, Facundo could hardly click his lighter. The man was chattering his teeth loud enough to set off a xylophone in his own head. 

“Hey!” Hector Hernandez snapped beside him. “Boss said you can’t smoke! You’ll give away our location if the feds are sneaking around!”

“Can’t help it, man,” Facundo admitted, still fiddling with the lighter. “My nerves are more shot than back when we had to outrun Matezo’s gang in that crappy minivan.”

“Don’t tell me fast talking, smooth Bigotes is gettin’ all squirrelly,” Hector said. “I’ve seen you staring down the muzzle of a gun and talking your way out of it like the gunner was your own mother. Strange place to stop having guts is doing a routine delivery job.”

“But it ain’t a routine delivery job,” Facundo said. “Nothing routine about whatever these…these U-parts is or whatever.”

“OOParts,” Hector replied. “OOParts. We call them OOParts. Yeah, I know…they’re weird…they’re really, really weird but-”

“Ssshhh!” Facundo said as he gestured for him to hush.

“What?” Hector asked.

“Hear that?” Facundo asked.

They both sealed their lips as tight as an unopened jar lid as they searched through the vacant, dark air for anything out of the ordinary. As soon as Hector shut up, the sounds became more clear. His muscles tightened at the approaching shuffle of feet.

It was unmistakable in the dense forest as the movement of something two-legged. The dead leaves were crunching like crackers under their feet while underbrush such as thorns and branches were being knocked over. Facundo had a bit too much experience in places like these to not know there was at least five coming towards them. 

And they were coming fast. Faster than walking, almost running. Immediately, they both sprung into action.

Hector, the better of the two gunmen, grabbed his Glock 22 concealed from the back of his shirt. Even without needing to stow away his lighter and cigarette in his pocket, Facundo still wouldn’t have been fast enough to the draw. By the time he grabbed his own Glock concealed by his shirt and belt, Hector was already pointing the handgun at the source of the noise. 

Facundo had just started aiming his firearm forward, where the rustling was coming from before he saw them. However, he lowered it once he recognized them. As the vague silhouettes became more and more visible in the moonlight. The grove they stood in was devoid of the canopy that obscured everything beneath the forest. Now that Facundo could see the rushing men, he recognized them and he had to hold in a scream.

It was Ramiro Feo and his gang running towards them. Strangely enough, none of them were carrying crates that held the OOParts they were going to sell. And they all looked awful. Facundo had to keep from squealing at their wounds. 

All of them were completely bloodied. Each of the six men had what looked like bite and claw marks on their flesh. Some of them had their clothes torn to rags by what looked like some giant cat. Half the men’s shirts and paws were ripped off to reveal five long, deep gash marks.

And they were the lucky ones. Two of the six had missing arms, the bleeding stumps looking like they’d been chewed off by some huge dog. Everyone except Ramiro had a lump taken out of their flesh that was perfectly teeth and jaw shaped. 

Hector lowered his gun, completely caught off guard by the bizarre wounds while Facundo felt his stomach churn. He leaned over to vomit on the leafy ground at his feet, coughing as the last bit of digested food hit his boot. He wasn’t exactly surprised with his own reaction as Facundo didn’t have the strongest stomach. He wasn’t a cold-blooded killer like his friend, Tomas. While Facundo killed his fair share, he couldn’t exactly ignore blood and gore the way most hardened, career criminals could. It was something he’d try not to look at if he could get away with it.

“What on Earth happened to you?!” Hector asked. “You looked like my old lady’s house cat got you and didn’t let you go!”

Ramiro shook his head, holding the slash marks across his chest with as many of the rags that used to be a shirt as he could. The normally brutish and ugly man with a gaze of iron looked like a three year old who had taken a whipping from his daddy. He looked dazed and confused, almost in a trance, shaking from pain. 

Facundo ran up to Ramiro, catching him as the man older than him by nearly twenty years almost fell over. He tried his best to lift the captain of the Lonzo gang to his feet but the guy’s legs were more wobbly than jelly. Hector looked around at the rest of the men as they either fell over in pain or panted in exhaustion.

“Where’s the merch?! Hector demanded. “The stuff you were supposed to bring for us to sell?!”

“Lo…” Ramiro said. “Lost…lost it when…when they got us.”

“What happened?!” Facundo asked. “I thought you were bringing fourteen with you!”

“All…” Ramiro said as Facundo held him. “All others dead…”

He tried his best to catch his breath to explain.

“Dead?!” Hector asked as he turned to the captain. “The feds?!”

“No…” Ramiro said as he tried to catch his breath. “I mean…the feds…they were chasing us, hot on our tail…we got into a gunfight…back…back a while ago.”

“So it was the feds!” Facundo said. 

“It…” Ramiro said. “It was one of them…”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Wait…” Hector said. “You said it wasn’t the feds…then you said it was one of them? Well which is it?! Was it the feds or not?!”

“No…” Ramiro said. “Just…just listen…we were…hauling the merchandise but…but a group of ‘em…feds came at us. Less than our…our fifteen…we could take ‘em but…but then one of them…”

He shook his head.

“What?!” Facundo said. “What?! What he do?!

“Not gonna believe…” Ramiro said. “They…this guy transformed.”

“Transformed?!” Hector asked. “You mean…like, like a-?”

“Like some kind of werewolf,” Ramiro said. “And…and came at us. No…not just us…this thing…he started killing the other feds…”

“Killed his own teammates?!” Facundo asked. “How…why?!”

“Wanted this,” Ramiro said.

Ramiro reached beneath his shirt and pulled out a long object. Facundo recognized it as an OOPart. It was onyx black, glossy dark like obsidian and shaped somewhat oddly. It was a foot long rod that had a circular ring at one end and three sharp teeth at the other. 

“Looks…” Facundo said as he took it. “Almost like a-”

“Like a key,” Ramiro said. “Yeah, I know. That werewolf fed that ate…ate both us and his friends…said if we handed this and only this over, he’d…he’d let us go. But, you know…oldest trick in the book before…before they take what they want and kill you.” 

Facundo was aware. He had witnessed others say the same thing before killing those they’d swear to release. Facundo had used the same trick himself.

“Seems…seems…” Ramiro said. “They want…they want this…key, more than practically an…any of the other OOParts.”

“Whose ‘they’?” Hector asked.

In a single moment he got his answer. They turned to the source of a huge roar bellowing from the treeline beside them. Emerging from the forest was the most hideous creature Facundo had ever seen.

Underneath the moonlight, he could make out its body resembled that of a bipedal panther, the fur of the creature as white as snow. Black stripes adorned its thick legs and arms, both sets of limbs as wide as small trees. It stood maybe seven feet high if not higher. Silver claws stretching from its long, half foot long fingers and toes shined in the night. 

But its head was the worst of it. It was not feline in the least, almost mutated looking. Everything from the neck upwards looked like a mix between a jackal’s and a human’s. The weird fusion between a dog’s tapered snout and a human’s jawline caused Facundo’s stomach to churn again. Its loud roar was deafening, shaking the leaves on the ground around them.

“What the-?” Hector said.

The thing charged at them, screeching as it did. Facundo barely had any time to avoid the charging monster as he let go of Ramiro and fled. Facundo didn’t even bother firing his gun at the creature, too afraid to look back. 

“Gahhh-OOOOH!” 

Ramiro’s blood curdling scream was too loud for Facundo to ignore. He turned his head to find that Ramiro’s head had been lopped off by the creature’s long nails. As it rolled across the forest floor like a bowling ball, the monster bit the head off another of Ramiro’s team members. 

Just gotta make it into the tunnel. He thought as he ran, his eyes locked onto the large cavity in the ground. Just gotta make it into that hole in the ground.

If the screams behind Facundo were anything to go by, wholesale slaughter began. Screams of the men filled the air in the grove as loud growling followed. Sounds like bone ripping apart and flesh torn from bodies only hurried Facundo’s legs. He was maybe five feet away before the sounds of gunshots stopped him dead in his tracks.

He turned around to find everyone torn to shreds except Hector, the man firing every round of his Glock into the monster facing him. Facundo stared bug-eyed as the spray of bullets lit up Hector’s face and the monster’s form for a second as the monster glared a mere two feet away. For a second, Facundo breathed a sigh of relief, thinking shooting at point blank range would kill the thing.

It didn’t even make the creature bleed. It looked more annoyed than anything. After wincing from a couple hits, the monster slapped the gun out of Hector’s hand and wrapped his giant mix between a paw and hand around his neck. Facundo could feel his heart flutter as the thing spoke.

“The Key!” it said. “Where is it?!”

Hector pointed to Facundo, the monster turning in kind. Facundo looked down to find he was still holding the OOPart Ramiro had given him. The giant furred monster squeezed Hector’s neck closed with such force his head popped off like a bottle cap. The monster sauntered forward, his hand outstretched.

“Give it here,” the thing said. “And I promise you’ll live.”

Facundo knew he was a deadman hearing those words. He’d heard the same words come from his fellow gang members, enemies cornering him into a bad position and from himself. And all resulted in someone getting killed. Facundo sighed as he knew it’d take a little thinking to get out of this one.

If I still wanna make money off this hassle that made me lose my best gunmen…He said. I’m gonna have to play dirty.

He threw his gun to the ground, before slowly hiding his hand behind his leg. As Facundo held the OOPart to him, the creature walked forward to take it. However, by that point, Facundo’s hand had already crept up his hip to snake along the beltline just above his right leg. 

As he dug through the waistline of his pants, he performed a difficult act he’d mastered to a T: unhooking a grenade with one hand. Facundo was proud of that little talent of his more than anything else in his life. He always kept an extra flashbang with him at all times since there were plenty of ways one was more useful than a firearm. It might not have been possible with his less dominant left-hand that was slick with sweat but his relatively dryer, dominant right-hand could do so.

Only problem is when it’s close range, like this. He thought. Gotta get going even before it goes off.

The monster pulled back his hand, seeing that Facundo was fiddling with something behind his back. But it was too late by the time he had thrown it forward. Facundo had already turned to run by the time the flashbang impacted right on the creature’s stomach. 

The crook figured that a creature immune to bullets was immune to an already less than lethal grenade but that wasn’t the point. It did its job of, for a very brief moment, turning night into day and slightly blurring Facundo’s vision. The sound of the thing going off only a few feet away was more of a nuisance to him than anything else, his ears ringing from the explosion.

“Gah, I can’t SEE!” the monster screeched.

Just as Facundo reached the edge of the tunnel’s entrance, he looked back to find the monster’s large paws held over its eyes, clearly stumbling from the flash. It continued growling in pain, shaking its head in confusion. Just as he made sure the thing was temporarily disoriented, Facundo jumped into the tunnel.

The ladder of stairs beside blurred in the dim light before his shoulder hit the tongue-like surface below, wincing in slight pain. He didn’t like jumping into the ground below, especially considering the squishy, wet feeling of the floor below. The tunnel down into the underground was only ten feet down before opening up to a four way intersection of circular tunnels. 

The tunnel that led above led into the center of the intersection with the walls probably a little less than nine feet high. The chambers themselves were maybe twice that wide. The underground being made of the pink flesh rather than dirt was still disturbing to him, something that confused and disturbed Facundo to this day. 

How the public doesn’t know about this…He thought. It’s wild. Anyone with a good digger or drill could find it and…and they still believe in plate tectonics or whatever. It feels so weird to be walking in what feels like a giant series of overlapping tapeworms. 

Just as he sighed from the slight dampness below clinging to his clothes, the roar of the creature above spurned him to jump to his feet. He raced through the tunnel, clinging tightly to the OOPart in his hand. With his free hand, Facundo dug a small flashlight out of his pocket and turned it on. Pointing it at the wall of pink flesh to his left, he found what he was looking for.

Facundo immediately jumped into a depression into the wall, a sort of pit that was maybe two feet deep and more than six feet high. As soon as he pushed himself inside it, the wall of pink flesh surrounded him. Like a tongue that overlapped across the mouth, it covered Facundo. He hated it, hated the stickiness, the wetness, but knew its value.

This is why we chose this place to dive into the underground. He thought. Has so many good hiding places like this little pit. This little pit is going to trap me here for thirty minutes to an hour before letting me go. And furball up there will be long gone before it lets me loose. And for whatever reason…the hole to this tunnel uncovers itself at night and closes during the daytime. It’s odd and we don’t understand it…but we know how to use it. 

He then pushed his arm up to his face against the tight wall of flesh clinging to him to stare at the OOPart in his hand.

This thing must be worth a pretty penny to get this kind of attention. Facundo thought. And with the way things turned out, I won’t have to split the cash when I bring it to the seller. Not that I care but, what exactly is it?