Volunteering to serve coffee at rest stops gradually became an obsession of mine. At first, I was just fascinated by the act of driving out to remote rest stops and brewing and serving free coffee on my own time and sometimes at my own expense. It just gave me a feeling that I could only get while doing that.

The complaint had come to me, my number being the only one posted on the visitor's board upon the old wooden shelter. I recalled leaving it there years ago, the one time I had visited the primitive rest stop. My purpose then was to get attention from potential volunteers to try and make improvements. Sometimes the scouts would build a bench, or a youth group would come out and spend an afternoon landscaping. Nobody was interested in the place, but my phone number remained as a contact for the rest stop. Not even the state had any interest in the rest stop.

I opened the door of the nearly collapsed outhouse. I could barely believe that anyone would have used it, but they had. Their story chilled me to the bone. I had suspected some kind of prank, but their voice on the phone, the terror, it was genuine.

I shone the flashlight I had brought into the hole and saw that it was situated over some kind of tunnel or old mine. I felt fear, alone out there and facing the darkness. It was not my way to turn back or to give up. Despite my fear I carefully climbed down into the hole. I would be able to climb back out and with that established I walked stooped over to see if I could spot what they had somehow discovered. It was only two steps before my light caught the pile of bones, most of them animal bones. Some of the bones were human.

I gasped in horror. Their story was true. Something, the creature they had described, lived under the rest stop. It fed on the occasional visitor and hunted local wildlife. The monster had tried to pull the outhouse sitter into the tunnel, leaving scratches on her butt. She was rescued, but not before she saw the bones and the hideous thing that lived below.

I heard breathing, heavy and horrible, from behind me. I slowly turned around, trembling in dread. I shone my light on it as it flinched. I caught parts of it and my mind assembled the dark shell, the many eyes and mouths, the reaching claws, the dripping incisors - all into a cacophony of discordant nightmarish apparitions. Nothing could be more terrifying. Some deep ancestral echo, some kind of fearful layer of my mind, some thoughtless animal voice in my thoughts - recognized it as a primal god.

The pistol I had brought for use against rattlesnakes seemed pointless against the hulking and chitinous beast. It unfolded its multiple pincher mandibles, then its tendrils began to snake towards me. I fired the small caliber twenty-two pistol into one of its mouths and it let out an angry and pained hissing shriek.

The abomination sounded like an accordion being punctured while getting run over. I'd heard such a noise during a crazy childhood incident. I almost laughed at the memory, terror causing me to lose my mind momentarily. Still chuckling to myself I tried to climb back out of the hole.

The monster wasted no time trying to grab me from below. I felt it take my boot and rip my waders. The bite of its claws felt cold and almost painless. Then the searing pain of the injury made me scream and the realization that I was going to be dragged back down and eaten alive made my pained scream into a cry of mortal horror.

The wooden structure collapsed all around me, leaving me under the open sky without getting crushed. Somehow the planks had sealed the hole and buried the creature. I could hear it trying to dig its way out. I looked back and saw one of its evil appendages extend from the wreckage and begin to steam and boil in the sunlight.

Dazed by the nightmarish encounter I staggered down an old path towards the creek. I stopped and washed the wound on my ankle in the cold clear water. I looked up and saw the shallow entrance of a cave.

I poked my upper half inside, over the mounded rocks and dirt from the eroded hillside. I shone the light around and spotted pottery, a stone altar, human bones and painted walls. An obsidian dagger rested on a pedestal made of blood-stained, hairy skulls. I blinked and stared at the painted walls. The images shone the creature sitting adorned in flowery wreaths and shaman-like priests sacrificing people on the stone altar. I heard a prolonged scream of rejection and realized it was my own voice.

I wriggled free of the dark hole and stood again in the sunlight. The day seemed to be quickly fading. It would soon be dark.

As I turned around, I saw the under the overhang of the opposite hill where half a dozen vehicles sat rusting, hidden from the road. The creature was intelligent enough to push and hide the evidence of those it had already eaten. Nobody had thought to look for them in such a remote place and their vehicles remained undiscovered.

I heard the noises from the creature and knew instinctively that it would come out in search of me. On foot or even on horseback I would not be able to get far enough away before sunset. I went back to my vehicle and smiled morbidly. I was not like the ancestral prey that couldn't escape the range of night. It wouldn't be able to hunt me, I could drive away. I would certainly escape.

Reaching into the pocket for my car keys: I found only a hole where the pocket was ripped. I said:

"Shit!"