Amushopihk

Sheriff Stuart silently crept around the lake, looking for the rock that signified the entrance to the cave. He took slow, careful steps in the dark. It wasn’t unheard of for a tree root to hide under the sand, waiting to stub a toe or trip an unsuspecting lake-goer. An accident that would be pain-inducing under normal circumstances, but potentially deadly under these, if the tale that brought him here was true.

He still wasn’t sure if he believed it. But a dozen people had gone missing in his sleepy little Maine town, and if it was true, he didn’t have much time left to save them.

She comes out for two weeks every 300 years and takes 14 creatures to sustain her until it is time to come out again.

The note was scribbled in an old diary of one of the founding members of the town, passed down over the centuries from family member to family member. When Shirley first brought it to him, he scoffed at the idea.

“A monster? Here?”

“No, under the lake.”

“Shirley, that’s just ancient folklore. A story parents told their children to keep them from wandering off in the woods.”

“Then how do you explain this?”

She opened the ancient book and pointed to the page where her ancestor wrote down the tale he heard from a visiting explorer. The explorer heard the tale from a Passamaquoddy man.

“It says the explorer was on the Archangell in 1605 when he spoke with the man. The man was estimated to be in his thirties and he said the creature visited them when he was a very young boy.”

“Okay…”

“Do the math, Donald. If it was 1605 and the man was in his thirties, then he would have been a boy in 1579, which was 300 years ago.”

The Sheriff stared at her uncomprehendingly.

“Ugh, do I have to spell it out for you? The creature slumbers for 300 years. The last time it took lives was 300 years ago. We have had eleven people disappear over the past eleven days, one a night. What else could it be?”

That night, another person went missing and Donald decided he had to at least give the crazy theory a chance.

According to the book, the Passamoquoddy man found the creature’s lair when he was exploring the lake as a boy. Before the explorer shared the tale with Shirley’s ancestor, he went to find it himself. According to him, the creature was nowhere to be found in the dark cave under the lake. But there were desiccated bodies hanging from the ceiling, wrapped in spider silk. The man turned from the lair terrified. He gave Shirley’s ancestor detailed instructions for returning but never dared go back himself.

Damn superstitious, crazy old coot. It was probably stalagmites or something and he envisioned bodies because he wanted the story to be true.

As Sheriff, even though he didn’t believe the tale, he couldn’t pass on any lead.

He got to the rock, exactly where the book said it would be. But the landscape must have changed because the entrance to the cave was not visible.

Donald considered returning to town, telling Shirley it was all fake, that there was no cave.

But what if there’s another disappearance?

He had to find out if the story was true. And he had to kill the creature if it was. The best time to do that was now. He could sneak into the cave and wait for it to return from its hunt.

This is crazy.

He waded into the water, running his hands along the edge of the boulder. Suddenly, the bottom of the lake dropped out from under him and he found himself underwater. Shocked and turned around, he swam the wrong way and got caught in an underwater current that swept him along straight towards the rock.

He braced himself for a collision that never happened. Instead, the water deposited him on the bank of a shoreline.

What happened?

He looked around but couldn’t see anything in the darkness.

Am I in the cave?

He crawled forward, away from the water. He swiped the air around him. He didn’t dare try to stand, but he reached up to see if the ceiling of the cave was near. He crawled a few more paces and swiped, then reached up again.

Maybe if I can find the edge, I can find a way out.

Crawl, swipe, reach. Crawl, swipe, reach. Crawl, swipe…

Dear god, what is that?

It was sticky, like…

A spiderweb!

He tentatively reached up again and touched whatever it was that hung suspended above him.

“Uungh!”

He jerked his hand back again.

That sounded human.

Then, from the other side of the cavern.

“Please, don’t hurt us anymore.”

There are people, there are…living people in this cave!

Donald struggled to breathe. The story couldn’t be true, it was too crazy. Yet here he was, in a cave, with a person hanging above him wrapped in spider silk.

It was almost too much. But he had sworn to protect the citizens of his town when he became Sheriff, no matter what. It was his job, his purpose in life.

He reached up again.

“It’s okay. It’s Sheriff Stuart. I’m here to save you.”

“Sheriff?!?! No! You can’t! It’s too horrible! If it sees you then the one you love most will be next. You will hear them cry out in pain as it sucks them dry and then it comes to finish you off! It’s horrible Sheriff, you have to leave!”

“Amy? Is that you?”

The voice sounded like the town’s Kindergarten teacher, who went missing two nights before, but it was hard to tell because it was raspy, like she had been screaming for hours.

“Go now, Sheriff! It’s going to be back soon!”

“I can’t leave without you. You said it comes to finish you off. How do you know? Is anyone dead?”

“They all are! Except for Marv, Bobby, and me.”

“How do you know?”

“I heard them die, Sheriff. It was…”

“No need to relive it now, Amy. I only heard you and whoever is above me that moaned. Do you know who that is?”

“It’s Bobby. He hit his head and then, I think the creature took too much blood. He’s so little and his anemia…” She trailed off, sobbing hysterically.

“Amy! I need you to pull yourself together. Do you know where Marv is?”

“No. Maybe. No. I know where I heard his voice the last time he screamed, that’s all.”

“You said it was coming back soon. How do you know?”

“I don’t, really. It's tough to tell time here. I just know that it seems like a long time since the creature left.”

“Okay. Let me cut Bobby down, and then I’ll come to find you.”

“Please...hurry.”

He pulled out his knife and reached up to cut the boy down. But he couldn’t reach high enough.

“Amy.”

“What?”

“Is your head facing up or down?”

“Up, thank god.”

He poked at the hanging boy to try to get him to moan again.

“Bobby!”

“Uungh!”

Good, his head is up too. Maybe I can cut him out instead of cutting him down.

It was a dangerous move, but Donald sensed that he was running out of time.

“Bobby. I don’t know if you can hear me or understand, but I am going to try to cut you out of this thing. I know you’ve lost some blood so I’m going to try my best not to cut you. But I don’t know how thick this stuff is, or how hard it’s going to be to cut through it. It’s your best chance of survival.”

Donald didn’t get a response, but he knew he had to do it. He didn’t know how much time he had, or where the other two still living victims were. He couldn’t see anything, and he didn’t know when the creature would return. He started to hack away at the boy’s wrapping.

A few minutes later, he hadn’t made much progress. The silk was sticky and hard to cut through.

“Shit!”

“Sheriff?”

“Yes, Amy.”

“We’re running out of time.”

“I know.”

“Are you close?”

“No.”

“I hate to be frank, Sheriff. But Bobby's almost dead. And so is Marv. If we don’t get out of here, we’ll be dead, too. I love Bobby, and this breaks my heart, but maybe you should just save yourself. Come back with more people.”

“And save you.”

“Yes, and save me.”

Donald sighed. She had a point. There was no telling when the creature would return. He let go of Bobby and started to crawl in the direction of Amy’s voice.

He didn’t get far when a faint scratching noise came from the back of the cave.

“No! It’s back! Sheriff, please! You have to save me!”

Then a skittering noise as the creature moved towards him. It seemed to be growing as it got closer. But it was hard to have any sense of what was happening in the pitch black of the cave.

All the sheriff knew was that the presence of the creature filled him with a greater sense of dread than he ever felt before in his life. Panic overwhelmed every cell in his body and his ability to think rationally was gone.

He scuffled backward, reaching for the edge of the water where he had come up into the cave. He had to flee!

“Please, Sheriff! Save me, please!”

He flung himself back into the water just as he felt something sharp and spiky touch his leg. Amy’s screams echoed in his ears as he gave himself back to the current that swept him into the cave.

Donald emerged on the bank of the river some ways away from the lake. He trekked upstream dispiritedly. The ride had been rough and he ached with bumps and bruises.

He came upon the lake as the sun was rising. The surface was covered in a dense fog that only added to the eerie feeling that loomed over him after the events of the previous night.

When I get back, I’m sure someone else will be missing. 13 total. But I am never going into that cave again. The creature can have its last victim tonight and then we don’t have to worry anymore.

He waited until the fog had lifted, lost in fear and regret.

When he returned to the station, he discovered that Bobby’s mother disappeared in the middle of the night. No one could find any trace of her. He sighed as he sat down at his desk, surrounded by reports of the missing townspeople, and he wrote his letter of resignation.

I failed them.

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