The Eyes of an Angel.

Since I was a child, I have always found peace in the outdoors. It began when my father took me camping at a National Park for my eighth birthday and it is a passion that stayed with me all through my life. Growing up, I would read Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet novels and imagine myself in the North American wilderness alongside Brian, captivated by the wonders of nature around me. Even now, as I begin to enter my 30s, it is still my preferred means of escape. Each and every winter, I clear my schedule nearly half a year in advance and I ask for time away from work, and begin to prepare. I ready myself to escape the cramped confines of the city, to leave all the noise and people behind me as I make my return to the wild, but no more.

Never again will I venture into the untamed wilderness, whether it be a national park or something a simple as an RV park. For nearly two decades, I have deluded myself into believing that I could handle any hardships the natural world threw my way, all because I read some books and subscribed to outdoorsman magazines. Years were spent trying to persuade my husband to join me on these trips, coming to terms with the fact that he wasn’t as passionate as I about the outdoors, but no longer. Still he asks me why I refuse to return, but there are just some things I can never tell. Some things even a husband would dismiss as hallucinations or madness.

It was little more than a year ago when I embarked on my final journey into the wild. There was a national park I had come to love over the years, a place I once considered so beautiful that I took no issue with the hour-and-a-half it took to travel there by air. It was blessed with numerous hot springs, many of which were too hot to bathe in, yet breathtaking to admire, especially when the snow had freshly fallen and all was frozen save for those pools of near-boiling water. There was one hot spring that I loved in particular. The fact that it was nearly a two-hour hike from the campsite never deterred me. It was nestled neatly away in the middle of a small valley where I would sit as close to the edge as I deemed safe and gaze out into the winter wonderland, music playing softly in my ears as I found a peace I was certain few had ever known. Upon my last visit however, peace was fleeting.

It wasn’t until the second day that I was able to trek into the valley. The deciduous forest was absent of leaves, the winter winds weaving through withered branches with its biting chill attempting to force its way beneath my winter clothes, all to no avail. The hike itself was uneventful, almost uncharacteristically so. There was no sudden movement of a rabbit diving for cover or a fox chasing its quarry, not even the tracks of deer that I had long since come to expect to find dotting the snow. My arrival at the hot spring was as unceremonious as ever and the first hour was spent drinking hot chocolate from a thermos, reading a copy of Brian’s Winter with music playing softly in my ears until I felt a sudden chill. Whether it was the wind or some other sense I do not know, but something called my attention to the other side of the hot spring. Looking out across the water I caught a glimpse of colour, out of place in this world of white. Was it an animal? Another camper? I did not know, but I was drawn to find out. It scarcely took me more than a few minutes to circle the waters edge, yet when I came upon the site, I froze.

Frozen blood stained the snow, highlighting the carcass of a grey fox at its centre. The body of the animal was stiff and ice had begun to form around the corpse, clearly having been there for some time. I found it odd that no scavengers had stripped the corpse, as there was no shortage of raccoons, and coyotes in the area, but my question was quickly answered as I stepped closer to investigate. I felt my boot collide with something solid, disturbing something not too far beneath the snow. As I knelt down to examine the item I found that I felt much colder than before, until I exposed the object beneath me and my breath caught in my throat, all thoughts of cold suddenly leaving me.

It was the body of a coyote, dead like the fox and just as frozen. Beside it lay the buried paw of another animal and I suddenly found myself quickly moving to dig out more snow. Another coyote corpse lay beside the first as well as what looked like the frozen form of a dead raccoon. All three bodies had what seemed to be large wounds on the back of their necks, deep enough that I could see what I can only assume to be their severed spines. It was then that I became aware of a sound in the distance, through the trees in the higher parts of the valley. A haunting sound that sounded impossibly beautiful, alluring and terrifying all at once, the sound of singing.

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Hurrying back to the campsite I spent most of the journey looking back over my shoulder, listening out for that eerie, wordless song. Upon my return I sought out the first park ranger I could find and relayed to him the things I had seen and heard. He assured me that it was nothing to be concerned about, that coyotes would usually fight over food and that once the snow melted it revealed all manner of animal bodies that would begin to decompose in the springtime. As for the singing, he excused it as either an animal call or howl, possibly some bird late in its migration, reassuring me that there was nothing to worry about. While I admit that his words did put me at ease, I still did not return to the valley for three days.

When I did return it was after much internal deliberation coupled with periodical pep talks whereupon I would tell myself that I had been coming here so long, camping most of my life knowing full well the risks and taking care to act as responsibly as possible. Even with all of this motivation I still did not depart for the valley until after noon, arriving later in the afternoon than I would usually like to.

Looking back on it all now I realize how naive I really was. I wasn’t behaving responsibly, I wasn’t aware of the risks; I was just some city-dweller who’d fallen in love with a story, a romantic idea of what nature was. I’d spent so much time pining for an idea that I ignored the reality held within the pages of the story I treasured so dearly. The dangers of animal attack and of traveling alone, unarmed with no reliable communication. I was no outdoorsman; I was a tourist with a high quality tent nestled cozily on the camping pad of a National Park out who was out for a walk. I was a fool so blinded by my own fantasy that it was through my own folly I found myself in that valley under a setting sun.

The moment I first realized my dilemma was when I noticed that the words upon the pages of my book were becoming difficult to read under the dimming light. To my credit I’d had enough sense to carry a flashlight with me for no other reason than “just in case,” yet the light was still rapidly vanishing in the valley. It was as I was turning to leave that I heard the singing, coming from the other side of the hot spring like before yet growing closer, descending into the valley. My first instinct was to stay and listen to the song while a deeper, much more primal part of me screamed to run, to hide from the approaching sound. For a moment I was frozen in the vanishing light of the valley, unable to commit to any one decision until I saw a glow beyond the trees. Faint yet unmistakable in the darkness of a rapidly approaching night sky and causing me to first take a step backwards, followed by several more until I found myself backed against a tree, instinctively ducking behind it, only to peek around its trunk in an attempt to see the approaching glow. To this day I still cannot fully believe what I saw as it entered into the clearing and made its way to the spring.

I saw God.

A glowing, winged form traveled along the treetops, descending into the valley and glowing just brightly enough in the moonless night that I could not make out much else besides its most basic features. Feathered wings carried it through the air from branch to branch, supporting a slender human form as it stood atop a circle of light. Watching it fly to each new tree branch its massive wings seemed to have trouble carrying it very far, as if it were unused to flying through earthly skies or was too heavy to take to the skies, yet it had no other way means of travel. At that moment I thought it to be injured as its arms and legs hung unmoving, supported first by the branches it landed upon them by the circle of light at its feet as it took flight. It glowed with an otherworldly radiance, singing with a jarring, haunting series of notes, like a series of clicks woven into the song of some sea creature, like a dolphin or a whale.

As it left the final branch I watched it settle into the waters of the hot spring, water far too hot for a human to endure, resting atop that circular glowing platform where it remained perfectly still until I noticed more glowing forms descending into the valley. More glowing beings, carried on wings struggling to give them lift came to settle in the waters of the spring. I wasn’t witnessing God, I was seeing His angels, coming to rest in the waters of my own personal paradise, their wings struggling under earthly forces so vastly different to those of their heavenly home.

In awe I stepped away from my hiding place, allowing my flashlight to light the way down to the hot spring while listening to the chorus of the angels as they sung in the steam as it rose from the spring water in the cold winter night. Drawing closer, one of the heavenly beings noticed me and began to fly closer towards me, its massive 15-foot wingspan carrying it several feet at a time as it came to rest momentarily within the waters of the spring before continuing in my direction. The angel grew larger as it drew closer, standing nearly eight feet in height and bathed in that heavenly glow. It wasn’t until it made its final leap into the air towards me until I realized something was wrong.

There was no hair to speak of anywhere on its glowing body. The feathers that adorned its wings were coated in some manner of oily substance and they spread down over its shoulders, partially covering its abnormally large pectoral muscles while the circular pad that supported it in flight seemed to distort in shape while airborne. As it drew closer I realized that the circular pad was not the solid platform of light that I had first mistaken it to be, but was instead a series of thin, glowing, hair-like tentacles spreading out from what I incorrectly thought were its feet. From there, a single limb, like two legs fused together, met with an armless torso, all of which supported a completely featureless face. It had no mouth, nose, eyes, or ears to speak of; just that slick, oily skin emitting a light bluish-glow.

Before I could react, the creature was upon me, those thin tentacles at its base impacting against my chest and wrapping around me as I felt something grab hold of my jacket, hearing the fabric tear. For a moment its song halted as it knocked me screaming to the ground. I found myself grabbing at the thing’s “legs,” trying to tear it off of me but finding it difficult to manage to grip the thing, its skin feeling impossibly soft under my grip, the oily substance covering its flesh hampering my efforts as if I were trying to grab the body of a worm yet still I persisted, an animalistic fear overcoming me as I struggled against my attacker until finally I felt something give under my grip followed by a shrill series of clicks.

The false angel fell away from me, attempting to fly away but faltering, falling backwards onto my legs and pinning its wings beneath own form. I suddenly found myself face to face with that circle of tentacles, looking into the maw of madness itself, for beneath the tentacles, where its feet should have been, was a mouth. No, not a mouth, a beak; one that appeared to be two beaks fused together side-by-side yet sporting rows of razor-sharp teeth. Circling its mouth was a ring of numerous tiny eyes, no bigger than an infant’s, each eye glowing a lifeless white under the glow of my flashlight, like that of a corpse. Looking down at my chest I saw where it had torn into my jacket in its attack and I now have no doubt that, had it been able, it would have preferred to latch on to the back of my neck, severing my spine and leaving me to die in the cold.

Looking into that piercingly clicking beak a panic overcame me as I struggled to throw the creature off from me. Expecting an unreasonable amount of weight I was shocked to find the creature to be impossibly light, though in hindsight that could have been thanks to a sudden surge of adrenaline. Tossing the creature off of me into the snow, I scurried backwards and onto my feet, looking out over the water of the hot springs in time to see the other “angels” fleeing into the trees, abandoning their injured companion as it struggled to right itself, green blood spilling from a wound torn into its legs, the blood forming a slowly reddening pool in the snow.

Without a second thought I turned and ran. I ran until my lungs burned and my head swam from the exertion, my consciousness threatening to leave me at any moment. I ran into the night with nothing but my flashlight and instincts to guide me. I do not know how it is that I managed it, but I eventually found myself back at the campsite, unaware of how much time had passed and frantically dismantling my things. I never tried to warn anyone or to find a park ranger. How could I? Who would believe me? Glowing angels with the bodies of feathered worms in the hot springs, whose flesh was so fragile that it tore under the panicked grip of a gloved hand? They would call me mad, say that I’d been attacked by some wild animal and imagined the experience out of fear. No, I knew then that I needed to leave that place, to never speak of those things I saw lest I be committed or dismissed as someone seeking fame.

I packed my belongings and I fled that same evening, throwing my jacket out the window as I drove for fear of the questions it would raise and taking the first flight home. I spent the remainder my vacation in a hotel, unable to face the questions of my husband attempting to drink those memories away for eight consecutive days until finally finding the strength of will to compose myself enough to return home, telling my husband that I had caught an earlier flight home because I had missed him. He will never know this truth that I shall take to my grave, yet still I awaken in the middle of the night drenched in sweat, unable to breathe. For if I truly intend to take this tale to my grave, what angels will await me when I get there?

Paint Rock Canyon.

I need to have my story heard. I need to write this down. If I don’t, then I fear I’ll end up as mad as everyone thinks I already am. I’ve spent the past 11 months trying to find meaning and answers at the bottom of a bottle, but it never helps. Every night I wake in a cold sweat, shaking uncontrollably and gasping for air in the wake of the memory of the things I saw. Even now, I cannot venture past my door after dusk for fear of what lies beyond. Every bark from my dogs is a warning; every flicker of the floodlights that surround my house has me running for the generators. I have no idea what future awaits me past this moment, but I know I can’t stand the thought of another day where my experiences are not recorded in some way.

I farm a sizable piece of land, some several thousand acres in size. What I farm isn’t important, just the location. Upon my land occurs a unique land formation — a type of rock that bears in a pattern unique to this area. In all the world, there is always something similar, but never quite exactly the same. Imagine a type of rock used by the early peoples to make paints that they would apply to their faces — colors of orange, tan, red, white, and blue — and embedded within these rocks are numerous geodes. It was always my plan that, should I fall upon financial hardship, I would sell these geodes at local stores or flea markets to the more “spiritual” people that frequented the larger towns near my home. Now however, that is no longer an option.

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Until last year, I would allow hunters onto my land each winter to hunt deer and elk, occasionally joining them, as one elk could feed me for the better part of a year. They were my friends — men I had hunted with for years and whom I had come to depend upon. I can still remember crawling through the brush of my property some year ago, only to came face to face with a mountain lion that appeared just as stunned as I at the encounter. I scarcely remember un-holstering my sidearm, a Beretta that had been gifted to me some years ago, and unloading half a clip into its still startled face as the panicked hands of my hunting buddies tore apart catclaw and mesquite branches alike to reach me before the second gunshot had rung out.

I still hold fond memories of how we laughed at the encounter that evening as they applied hydrogen peroxide to their bloodied hands in-between sips of beer. None of us went back for that mountain lion carcass. I think we honestly believed it wouldn’t be there if we looked, as if it had shrugged off several 9mm rounds fired point blank and was laughing off the encounter with its own buddies in much the same way we were. Sometimes I can still think back on that evening and smile at the image of all of us, wearing our beanies and fatigues, rifles slung over our backs…. The only two things that saved me in the end were my sidearm and the men at my back.

It was supposed to be a good year for hunting, the weather had been kind to us over the months and the uncharacteristic amount of rain for the area meant there was more grass to graze. Already I’d begun seeing elk lying dead on the side of the road. Unfortunate for the driver, but hopefully a sign of greater numbers that season. It was a more humid year than we were used to and it seemed like the winter would be harsh, but for us, it only meant buying more firewood. I’d been keeping the corn feeders stocked throughout the year and keeping a mental checklist of every deer and elk I saw. Even the javelina were starting to become a nuisance, although a decent source of meat provided you got a clean shot before they could musk.

I knew every inch of my property like the back of my hand, or at least I thought I did. It wasn’t until two weeks into the season that we encountered it. We were on a night hunt, trekking through a part of the property I’d taken to calling “Paint Rock Canyon,” due to the abundance of the unique rock formations in that area. It had needed no descent, just a brief 45 minute drive to the area situated between two mountains that sat almost directly in the middle of the property. We were all outfitted with LED headlamps and Maglites and most of us had outfitted our rifles with night-vision scopes, save for Anthony.

Anthony was not a large man, but he did seem to carry luck on his side. His medium length hair was usually tied back into a small ponytail and he had an almost ill-informed love of his neatly trimmed mutton chop sideburns and mustache that had earned him the nickname “Lemmy.” He couldn’t be considered lanky, nor could he be called overweight. On the whole, Anthony was quite normal, which many mistook for “average” — brown hair, brown eyes, and a tanned complexion shared by the rest of us (the result of a life lived working outdoors). He had brought his AR-15, something he won in a local rodeo raffle, equipped with a thermal scope. While the others had found the rifle enviable, I was less impressed. Admittedly, I was disappointed that I didn’t win the second prize, which was a lever-action rifle with a custom saddle holster, provided by my favourite, local saddlery. I’m ashamed to admit it in retrospect, but I took a small comfort in the fact that Anthony was limited to featureless black-and-white as opposed to the rest of us.

Apart from Anthony, the hunting party consisted of Markus, Forrester, and myself. Markus was a heavy set Hispanic man who I turned to whenever I needed help with any of my vehicles, which was typically one per month. Auto repair was his family’s business and he’d taken over the shop from his father after his passing. Forrester on the other hand was a pious man, a devout Baptist, and the only one among us who could honestly say he’d never known the taste of liquor in his life. While the rest of us would set up the satellite to watch the game and drink to the point where we felt 10 years younger, Forrester could always be found over a smoker or grill that he’d welded together himself, a root beer in one hand and a cooking utensil in the other. He was the shortest of all of us, but the only other farmer apart from myself, and my main source of hay when it came to animal feed.

That’s how I will always remember them before we found that damn hole under the light of the full moon. It was impossibly large and dug into the base of one of the mountains where the Paint Rock began. The hole was larger than any one of us and seemed like it was freshly dug. It certainly hadn’t been there when we’d last passed through the canyon scarcely two days prior. We stood in front of it in confusion for several minutes, questioning what could have caused such a thing when an elk came sprinting out, startling us all. Anthony was the quickest on the draw, bringing his rifle up and letting off several quick bursts as the gigantic animal bound towards us. The rest of us dove for cover, all but Anthony who, with his unbelievable luck, pierced the animal’s heart, bringing it crashing to the ground as he finally dove away from the falling body of an animal that weighed enough to total any vehicle unfortunate enough to collide with its form.

After calling to ensure that everyone was unhurt, we quickly turned our lights on the elk’s corpse, which turned out to be a cow rather than a bull as we’d all assumed. Bullet wounds marked its body and I could have sworn the wounds on its back looked far too large to be caused by the 5.56 rounds fired from Anthony’s rifle, yet I dismissed them as exit wounds despite being able to vividly recall no upward angle to his shots.

We were all thoroughly shaken by the experience and yet, for some unknowable reason, our curiosity was piqued. What was this hole? How deep did it extend? I recalled no one else on my land and doubted border-jumpers could have made something large enough to conceal an elk in less than two days. For reasons I will never fully know, none of us contested the idea when Markus suggested venturing inside the tunnel. We readied our night-scopes and light sources, pocketed some extra ammunition and abandoned what little light was offered by the night sky and made our way into the darkness.

The first thing we noticed as we entered the tunnel was its slope, which I think we all expected, except instead of sloping down into the earth the hole slanted upwards, ascending into the mountain. Out flashlights and headlamps illuminated the earthen walls yet saw no immediate end to the tunnel, which seemed to extend almost impossibly far.

Markus led the way, followed by Anthony, Forrester, and myself. I looked in awe at the almost circular hole that could almost comfortably fit a tractor within, provided you never intended to turn around. It was maybe a hundred yards into the tunnels depths that we first noticed a change and felt hesitant to continue. The air felt cool…yet thicker. It was uncharacteristically more humid than any of us were used to. At first, we dismissed it as a result of being underground until we also began to realise we also felt lighter. Not only that, but the air somehow seemed thinner, like we were suddenly much higher in altitude, even though no mountain on my property was more than a few hundred feet tall. As our nerves began to take hold, Markus noticed what seemed to be an opening ahead, possibly into some sort of cavern. With none of us wanting to be the first to suggest turning back, we all agreed to at least see where the tunnel led before heading back.

After another 50 or so yards, Markus came upon the opening and froze. When asked what it was, it seemed all he could do to manage a wordless stutter, apparently rooted in place by whatever it was that he was witnessing until Anthony made his way beside him to shine his own light into the opening. I caught a brief glimpse of green on the ground before Anthony turned his head back and slowly, disbelievingly called Forrester and myself forward.

Exiting the tunnel, we stepped into…I still don’t know how to describe it, a Jules Verne novel? The center of the earth? All that I know is that I now think of it as hell. What looked like greenish-black moss and algae covered the ground around us and giant, impossible plants grew amongst the moss. Various black-leaved ferns grew several yards, like those you would see in pictures of tropical climates, some growing upwards and branchless, maybe 10 feet tall with leaves like black pine needles reaching for the sky. And there was a sky. As impossible as it sounds, the four of us stood in silence, in a tunnel dug into a mountain at our backs, staring into a night sky. At first, my mind didn’t want to believe — it reeled at the idea. I first rationalised that they were some sort of glowing insects on the cavern roof, that there was no way they could be stars, but it wasn’t long until I realised that the size and shape was wrong, even for stars. Together we stared into a night sky dotted not by distant suns, but by distant galaxies.

All around us, under an alien night sky, life grew up from the ground. The trunk of some massive tree reached towards the night sky just to the right of us, nearly a 100 feet high and four feet across, yet instead of branches, it looked more like an asparagus stalk, sprouting tightly packed, pale looking pods that resembled mushroom caps. Another tree looked not dissimilar to a spanish dagger cactus, yet with the same black leaves as the alien fern and almost three times larger than it should be with bark that resembled alligator skin, dotted with large white flower towards its apex. Around us countless alien plants grew, too many to recall had I even noticed them, because that was the moment something grabbed Anthony.

Our first warning was a rapidly approaching series of clicks, but apart from that, the thing was impossibly quiet, swooping down from above with blinding speed and snatching Anthony up, carrying him screaming into the darkness as the rest of us were knocked to the ground by a gust of wind. By the time we were up and calling for Anthony, he was gone and Markus was running after off into that alien landscape, screaming his Anthony’s name as Forrester and I gave chase.

Our pursuit was hampered by how light our bodies felt, every step propelled us farther than we were used to, which made it difficult to balance ourselves at any speed. Regardless, Markus had enough of a head start that by the time we caught up to him, he’d already started firing. He was aimed into the branches of some alien tree above him, firing shot after shot until something fell at his feet. Following his gaze, it was too dark to see high enough into the tree, but bringing the scope of my .308 to my eyes, I saw the creature. 

Through the green colouring of my night scope, I couldn’t make out the color of its feathers, but the creature was huge. It was large enough to steal a small horse into the sky. The creature was armed with talons the length of my arm, which were wrapped around a branch, a long, needle-like beak protruding from the centre of a flat, only vaguely bird-like face. The creature seemed like some unholy union between an owl and some reptilian creature. Its face was almost entirely free of feathers and covered in a scaly skin with a pair of forward-facing eyes so large that they seemed to take up more than half of its head. It sat on the branch, letting loose a series of bizarre clicks until one of Markus’ bullets struck its abdomen and it took off, flying away into the night.

We looked to Markus and saw him crouched down over Anthony’s crumpled form — he had fallen from the branches when Markus had started firing. Even before making my way to him, I knew he was dead. The fall was too high, his body looked too twisted. When the light from my flashlight illuminated his body, I immediately wished it hadn’t. The creature’s talons tore his chest, stomach, and legs open. From the state of his innards — as they lay splayed around him — it was apparent that the creature had begun to feed before Markus started firing upon it. As we stood in stunned silence around Anthony’s corpse, Markus began to moan, a low, woeful sound, as if his body and mind couldn’t reconcile whether to be violently ill or if he should cry out in anguish. Forrester and I stood silently, neither of us certain of what to do. We were unable to process that our friend was dead until it slowly dawned on us that none of us knew where we were. In our haste to save Anthony, we had left behind our only means of returning home.

It was at that moment I truly began to feel what others describe as despair, a feeling of such hopelessness fueled by the loss of one of my dearest friends and the crashing realization that we were alone, trapped in a place that had likely never before been seen by human eyes. I felt what seemed like tears of panic and sorrow begin to form. My breathing quickened as panic threatened to consume me. My heart hammered away — I know not whether from fear of from adrenaline, yet through some means I will never fully know, I was able to keep my composure, possibly because I still refused to believe that any of what was happening was real.

When we tried to tell Markus of our situation, a fury seemed to take over, adamantly refusing to leave Anthony’s body where it was while we tried to explain to him through panicked whispers that it was too dangerous to try to carry him with us, especially if other creatures like the one that had carried him away were lured by the smell of blood. Markus ignored our reasoning, instead muttering with only passing moments of coherence as he calmly attempted to reinsert Anthony’s innards back into the torso. Markus mumbled that it would be okay, that things were lighter here, that he would take Anthony home and patch him up, that he’d be okay as long as he got him back out into Paint Rock Canyon, because where they were was so impossible that it would be impossible for him die there too. His ravings became louder and louder as Forrester and I frantically tried to calm his growing madness.

From where the next creature came from, I still do not know, but like everything else on this world, it was monstrous and impossibly large. It made no noise when it grabbed Forrester between its massive pincers and Forrester’s attempts to scream were cut off by a gurgling wheeze when he was torn in half, as if all the air and blood were trying to escape from his lungs all at once. In the dim torchlight, the creature seemed jet black, as wide as a feral pig, yet its serpentine body trailed more than 15 feet behind it. Its head seemed to be little more two giant eyes that had formed into one, yet was like that of an ant while the rest of its body was like that of a centipede, covered in a insectile, chitinous exoskeleton that seemed almost reddish-brown in color.

Blood and viscera spilled onto the alien soil as Forrester’s legs fell away from him, the same wheezing, gurgling sounds escaped from his lips for what seemed like minutes. I am ashamed to admit it, but at that moment, panic and fear took their hold on me and I found myself stumbling back, toppling over Anthony’s crumpled body. I crawled backwards in an attempt to escape the nightmare that was illuminated before me. My last memory was the sounds of Markus chastising me followed by several rounds of gunfire and a sharp pain as something struck the side of my head, followed by the darkness of unconsciousness.

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When I awoke, I found myself alone. As images and memories of what had happened returned to me, I sat up in a panic. I was back within the tunnel, presumably carried there by Markus, but the bodies of Anthony and Forrester were nowhere to be seen. In the distance, I heard no gunfire, no screams, no clicks from some monstrous raptor soaring through alien skies, scanning the land for prey. Out of fear, I refused to call Markus’ name, instead I fled down the slope of the tunnel, and refused to look back. Not even when I exited the tunnel back onto familiar earthen soil and ran to the waiting vehicle did I dare look at that tunnel, terrified that I might see that gargantuan insect-like creature pursuing me.

Everything following that was a series of calls, first on short-wave radio and then to the sheriff on my landline once I found myself back home. Search parties were mobilized, questions were asked, I was treated for shock, underwent numerous evaluations, was asked whether it could have been a mountain lion — whether my mind had created the scenario to deal with the trauma. They found the tunnel, but it led nowhere. No alien world lay beyond. It simply ended with an earthen wall some 10 feet in. Officially, it was dismissed an abandoned illegal camp being used as a mountain lion den, but there were rumors that there was no sign it had been used by either. People began to talk, to say I had snapped and killed my friends. But I know what happened, what continues to happen.

Whenever I find the corpse of a deer or an elk, I know it was some hellish, clicking, avian creature that slaughtered it, flying forth from whatever doorway is contained within that canyon. I know I can’t ever sell this place, for I am the only one who knows the signs to look for, for the tunnels to cave in. I haven’t found any more since that night, but I know they’re out there, leading to the bodies of my friends who’ve been left to rot in some unknowable hell, under the sky of a world between galaxies in the darkest region of existence.

And yet I can never truly call it hell, because if it was, then why did the tunnel ascend?