Death In The Dark - Complete

How long have I been here? A day, a week; months, perhaps years. No, it couldn’t have been years or I would long since died to become nothing more than rotted flesh with brittle bones. How I came to be here isn’t important, only that I must not give up a way of escaping; but how?

I don’t know.

I know I am hungry and that my insides feed off me as I’ve lost a lot of weight. My face, my very flesh feels sallow, and were I not too tired to scream, I know I would if I were to see myself, such as it has to be. Pale white in most places, high yellow in others, and I haven’t helped matters by scratching all the places that itch without water to stay clean. Each time my nails rake my flesh, they tear off scabbed over blood and puss marks, leaking out an odor that wafts up to my nearly lost senses.

As I feel around me in between the hours I am able to sleep; hum all the forgotten tunes, force out mangled laughter as the jokes no longer seem funny, I have surveyed my prison and as I sometimes trace my hands along naked stone walls; though not really naked as I can caress the texture of dust that will always be alive as it moves from place to place and I think this is what I will become.

Dust.

I had to be curious. I just had to see what was below the metal door leading into the old tunnel. I wouldn’t and couldn’t listen to all the stories told by the old-timers in Cantry.

Nooooo, I had to find out the hard way.

The metal door led to five steps that led to one room that led to nowhere. Just one room. A room with four walls, a wooden floor, and nothing else. No other door and no windows to look out of.

That was part of the reason that made me come here, to see why. Why would someone build this? Certainly not as a bomb shelter, it isn’t below ground far enough. If it was supposed to be an underground cabin, the idea was plausible but not practical. No running water or electrical outlets.

The stories I heard was that it was just always here. No one who lived in Cantry knew who built the one room, and no one knew where the steel door came from; it was just there. The old-timers said whoever went inside, never came out.

There has to be a way out.

There aren’t any skeletons, no smell of rotted death within these walls; only my own fear sweating around me is all I can smell.

All around me.

I love a good mystery as much as the next person, so in my head I figured there must be a buried treasure in here; why else the stories, but it keeps strangers away? It made perfect sense to me, but if there is a treasure, I wouldn’t know where. The walls are solid; no loose stones to turn and the floorboards won’t pry open.

What food, water and other supplies I had have long since disappeared as well as fifty or sixty pounds. If I’m not discovered soon, I think I will disappear into thin air. I think I am going mad. I don’t think that at all.

I know it.

The old-timers in Cantry must believe I have long since left the area, or else they would have come to look for me by now.

Well, they would have, don’t you think?

__________

Perhaps, but not every belief becomes a reality.

__________

“Mildred, get the pot ready. They should be back before long.”

“Then he’s ready for the festival, Jesse?”

“Yup, he is at that. Tonight we will all be singin’ and dancin’ like we have all these years past.”

“Do you think he’s lost much weight?”

“That, I can’t be sure of woman, but it don’t matter none. The meat on the bones will still be there, and by the time you boil them bones, they’ll be tender as soft moss after a good rain.”

“True enough, Jesse. After the festival tonight, with the passing of the moon’s fullness, our old bones will step livelier and our eyes and thoughts keener. I just wish more young folks like him would stop by this way more often. It ain’t like it used to be back in the day when we could fifty to a hundred a year to fall for that old story.”

“I know, Mildred. But not to worry. As long as some young buck or couple stops off in Cantry, we’ll always be able to keep ourselves goin’. You know, you still look as good as the first day I married you back in sixteen.”

“Why, Jesse; that was over four-hundred years ago, but you know something? I still love it every time you say those words.”

__________

That night, the old-timers had their fill and danced under the stars and the full moon which seemed brighter than usual. They danced and partied until the day captured concealed the moon’s orb and his behind the shadows of a bright blue sky.

And they all slept like a new born.

__________

A year later, a newlywed couple came west on highway sixty-four and spotted a small sleepy village to their left and decided they would spend the night there before it got much later.

And the old-timers began making preparations, for they knew they were coming and smiled.

__________

Cantry. A place of beauty, a place to feel at home.

There’s no place like it.

You’re welcomed there—but only once.