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wouldntyou-liketoknow · 2 months

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There Are Some Cons to Being an Archeologist. . .

(Disclaimer: two of the characters in this story belong to me. You can find more information about Penn and LeviathanPat here. Illinois belongs to the Markiplier Cinematic Universe.)

The amazing artist @insane4fandoms has drawn my fanegos multiple times now. I wrote this to show my gratitude. (GO FOLLOW THEM AND REBLOG THEIR STUFF OR ELSE YOU FORFEIT YOUR KNEECAPS.)

(Trigger Warnings: descriptions of dark and slightly claustrophobic areas, descriptions of being chased/pursued/stalked, blood, panic/fear, body horror, teeth, eyes, strong language, eating/drinking. Please let me know if I missed anything.)

(If you’d like to use distorted fonts like the one you’ll be seeing in this story, then I recommend going here).

Tap-tap-tap

The sun was still sinking, still casting beautiful streaks of pink, purple, and orange across the clouds, but it wouldn’t be long.

The rock spire’s shadow grew wider and longer with each passing minute.

Outside, the entrance to the cavern yawned open just ten or so feet away.

Penn couldn’t believe he’d thought it was dark earlier.

The shade further inside was bright compared to the monster.

The monster almost didn’t even briefly blend in with that darkness as he paced by the cave’s mouth for the hundredth time now.

Whatever excuse the monster had for skin wasn’t just pitch-black. Oh sure, it glistened like tar one second, then sprouted veins that throbbed like a diseased organ would against blood-clots the next, and then appeared raw like leathery scales or a rough carapace the next, and, and, and. . .

But that was just it.

The grotesque way it kept shifting and stretching—the constant changes were only ripples against the pitch blackness it was made of.

It wasn’t like mere shadows or clouds of smoke or puddles of ink.

The monster was a moving, breathing, sentient void.

He was nothing.

He was a nothing that was somehow bigger than anything because it kept all sorts of horrible things trapped inside it.

Tap-tap-tap

Throughout his career, Pennsylvania James had come across several opportunities to invoke a phrase that managed to be so simple and so acidic at the same time: “I told you so.”

To his credit, he’d only taken said opportunities once or twice. Most of them had come up via honest mistakes not worth starting a fight over.

In this scenario, however, that infamous quip would absolutely be justified.

The red jeep he was currently sitting in belonged to none other than Illinois Jenkins. It’d also belonged to several other parties before aforementioned treasure-hunter had purchased it.

In a way, that kind of made sense. If you made your living looking for relics, then why not drive something that could probably classify as a relic itself?

Penn understood that the market for cars was a complete and total trash-fire, as well as how the concept of sentimental value worked in mysterious ways. Really, he did!

But no amount of understanding would make this thing work when he and Illinois really needed it to work.

Tap-tap-tap

Like a few minutes ago, for instance, when the engine had only offered a weird sputtering noise after Illinois had twisted his key around in the ignition a few dozen times in the span of half a microsecond.

. . .At least, the more logical parts of Penn’s brain were sure that only a few minutes had passed. The less logical parts insisted that it’d been a good couple hours since he and Illinois had bolted out of the cave’s entrance and into the jeep for shelter.

Oh, yes. There was no way in neither heaven nor hell that Penn could be blamed for telling Illinois that he’d told him so about this damn jeep.

But he couldn’t do that right now.

Tap-tap-tap

Right now, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to speak again for the next day or two.

Right now, the only sounds in the air were heavy, raspy panting courtesy of himself and his friend.

He felt his heart bashing against his sternum over and over and over; each beat was legitimately painful. His pulse thundered in his ears as the blood rushed throughout his head. Though, if he listened closely enough, he was sure he could hear Illinois’ own heart on the brink of explosion in his chest.

Tap-tap-tap

. . .As well as that godforesaken tapping.

The sound was so light, so quick, so obviously produced by the jeep’s windows.

And yet Penn’s instincts swore up and down that his skull was being struck for that little rhythm.

It seemed Illinois was under the same illusion, if the way he ground his jaw was anything to go by.

The monster sidled up to the jeep again, placing one hand (or paw, or clutch of talons, or tentacle, or what-the-hell-ever) on the hood while another appendage stretched to rest somewhere on the roof.

More arms spilled out from his heaving sides, being planted against the ground as he steadied himself and leaned forward, craning his neck toward the windshield.

His eyes. . .God, somehow they were the very worst part of him. They glowed with a sickly light; not at all like the sun or the moon or even the stars. No, they looked like someone had taken a flickering ember from the bottom of a firepit, and then wrapped strips of pale, decaying flesh around it.

Penn tried to lean even further back against the leather seat. His spine could feel the monster’s malevolent gaze, and it wanted to crawl out of his skin and find a better hiding place. But it couldn’t, due to both Penn’s attempts to keep it where it belonged as well as the fact that no living thing could ever hide from those eyes no matter what it did.

Penn watched as a dark, slick, shaking claw reached around the side of the windshield, being pushed toward the passenger window.

Tap-tap-tap

___

Nomad’s Nook.

That was what the glowing, candy-red sign on this building’s roof spelled out to greet passersby. It sort of made the hotel a centerpiece, as this town was made specifically for drifters and the like, full of tidy little convenience stores and gas stations.

Desert areas had their charms, but they hardly ever felt like the right place to make a home. Unless, of course, you were a fennec fox, or a gila monster, or a rattlesnake. But even then, you could only survive in an environment like this if you had a shady place to rest.

Such as a tunnel boring through the base of one of those towering rock spires that had formed an odd million years ago.

A tunnel that just might lead to an underground cave. . .or maybe two. . .or three. . .

Then again, places like that could also be on your radar if you just so happened to be named after one of the fifty States.

“So, care to wager?”

“Hmm?” Penn raised an eyebrow, still working on a bite of the takeout ravioli his companion had slaved over a hot cellphone for. By the time they’d parked the jeep outside and trudged into the lobby downstairs, it’d been about two hours since sunset; any meal was long overdue. “On what?”

Illinois, who sat on another bed across the room from the one Penn had claimed, looked up from his own supper (grilled chicken margherita) with a smug grin, dark brown eyes glinting under the rim of his Akubra hat.

“Chuck’s Hole,” he clarified. “Up until now, we’ve only been guesstimating. We still can’t be sure just how far its depths really go. It could have all kinds of things in store for us. . .”

Penn doubled over as the need to take a deep breath collided with the mouthful of food he’d just barely swallowed.

“Thanks—a lot,” he hacked, trying to give Illinois a death-glare. Due to the giggles that leaked out, though, this effort wasn’t very successful.

Illinois tried to shrug it off, all cool and casual, only to wrench his eyes shut as he too fell victim to a violent bout of snickers.

This wasn’t the cavern’s official title. . .not yet, at least, but it had a good chance of sticking. A title like that was too stupid and too funny to forget any time soon.

The idea stemmed from another one of Penn and Illinois’ projects. The former had discovered a documentary relating to the very specimens he’d been after, and the latter had agreed to watch it with him.

Well, at some point, the narrator (who absolutely deserved a raise, what with the intensity and drama of his voice) had been describing the body structure of some carnivorous theropod. Particularly its skull and jaws.

The instant subtitles, in their notorious janky nature, had interpreted the quote, “—designed for ripping its prey apart and swallowing chunks whole—” as “—designed for ripping its pray a part and swallowing Chuck’s hole.”

Chuck’s hole.

Chuck’s.

Hole.

. . .Damn.

It was a wonder Penn hadn’t caved in the spacebar on his laptop’s keyboard when he’d paused the video, rendering those words temporarily frozen in brackets at the bottom-left corner of the screen. His free hand had curled into a fist, which he repeatedly slammed against the desk like it owed him money, cackling like a deranged gremlin all the while.

Illinois had slumped in his chair, raising his hands to knead at his forehead, becoming so wracked with belly-laughs that he ended up choking on a combination of air and his own spit. And after the two of them had calmed down enough to speak coherently again, he’d vowed to one day name a new subterranean area he found in honor of this beautiful moment of idiocy.

Despite how he insisted on “working best alone,” it wasn’t uncommon for Illinois to call up Penn and invite him to join the odd adventure. Likewise, though he was typically a bit more hesitant, it wasn’t uncommon for Penn to take those invitations. (The team he usually worked with needed breaks, after all.)

This current project was more of a coincidence. No-one had explored it yet, and rumors about it had reached both of them around the same time.

Penn leaned back against the too-firm pillows, subconsciously catching his fair skin, chocolate-colored hair and matching eyes in the blank screen of the television at the front of the room. “There were only so many burrowing dinosaurs back then. And caves usually only have trace fossils in their walls, but that depends on the environment. In a place like this. . .”

He paused, drumming his fingers on the thin blanket whose corners had been tucked under the mattress tighter than a pageant star’s girdle. “. . .There’s a good chance of finding nocturnal remains. Y’know, bats and the like.”

“Sure, but that can’t just be it,” Illinois replied. “C’mon, think a little bigger!”

Penn tilted his head to the side, reaching over to pluck his deep red neckerchief from the nightstand. He began weaving it about his fingers as he thought. “I guess I can’t rule out the possibility of hyenas, wolves, or bears. Maybe even the odd hominin or two, but I’d have to be really lucky for that.”

“Well, it’s a good thing you’ve got me,” Illinois declared, smirking as he took off his hat to smooth back the raven hair that almost tickled his shoulders.

Penn rolled his eyes, half fond and half exasperated. “Right, right. The guy who gets chased by boulders every time he steps outside is just the pinnacle of luck.”

Illinois scoffed. “Oh, please. The boulders are small potatoes compared to animal-rooted curses. Have you ever seen a beaver with green smoke pouring out of its eyes? Awful stuff, man. Awful. Stuff.”

The adventurer paused, shuddering as a distant, unreadable look manifested in his eyes. “Last time I bumped into one, I spent a week with the feeling of splinters all over my tongue. Don’t even get me started on how orange my teeth turned!”

“. . .I’m not sure why you’d put orange teeth in a worse spot on the tier list than invisible splinters in your mouth,” Penn deadpanned.

“You weren’t there to see it! My dentist wouldn’t stop trying to convince me that I’d either been eating Play Doh or doing all sorts of drugs!” Illinois argued, shaking his head, eyebrows arched so severely they could’ve left dents in the ceiling. “And that was just what I got from a scratch. The stupid overgrown-water-hamster hadn’t even bitten me.”

With all the trivia he gathered on instinct, Penn knew that somewhere out in the world, there existed an obituary that could easily be summarized as Death By Beaver. And, assuming the guilty rodent in question was a normal, non-cursed one, an event like that being reality was already weird enough.

“It could’ve been worse,” Penn mused. “Imagine getting attacked by a cursed koala. If that’s not a bad omen from the universe, then I don’t know what is.”

Illinois grimaced, no doubt recalling the time he’d unwillingly learned that koalas A. could somehow throw temper-tantrums that rivaled those of crocodiles, and B. carried strands of chlamydia around like those stupid designer purses. “Fair point, though I doubt any curse would give a koala more braincells to work with.”

Penn snorted. “Exactly.”

On one hand, Penn could be a bit of a skeptic. Not always, since you couldn’t put strange, vast skeletons together without being imaginative. But as a young boy, he’d lost count of all the times he’d been laughed at for collecting rocks simply because they were shinier or more colorful than average.

On the other hand, one of his and Illinois’ earlier co-op trips had seen them stopping by a Walmart for supplies and then getting chased out ten minutes later by a rogue boulder that had apparently manifested somewhere in the candy aisle because why the hell not?

Certain parts of his mind hadn’t known peace since then, but other parts were now more open than they were before. So, Penn supposed that could count as a balance.

Illinois paused, eyes to widening and twinkling. “Oh! And speaking of omens, hang on a second—”

He placed his to-go box to the side before reaching over to the bedpost. There hung a satchel, the same one he claimed to have inherited from his mother and always took on his escapades. He rummaged through it, eliciting a chorus of sounds that suggested it was packed with many, many more things than it should’ve been capable of holding.

After an awkwardly long moment, the silence was broken by a short cry of victory. Illinois got to his feet, crossing the room and extending his arm to show off the package that was now taking up space in one hand. “I got something for you. Fresh from the other side of the world.”

Penn felt his lips quirk as he carefully took said package. It was a bundle of brown paper, complete with a long string of twine that had been tied into a bow at the top. Whatever was inside could only be about as long as his hand, but it had a definite heft to it.

Penn placed it on his lap as he fished through his pockets, bringing out a small folding knife to cut the cords. The paper yielded quite easily, shuffling and crackling and spreading like the petals of a dried-out flower as he unfolded it.

There, in the middle of those layers, sat the gift.

It was cold against his palms. It felt a little rough too, despite the paint (which was the grayish-purplish color of a bruise) that covered it. Hardened clay, Penn guessed.

It resembled an animalistic head, though Penn wasn’t sure what animal the artist had taken inspiration from. An oblong shape like the snout of a dog, or maybe a lizard; if he was honest, it seemed like someone had tried to sculpt a velociraptor’s skull strictly from memory. Whatever the case, its snout split open into a leering maw full of sharp, crooked teeth. And just above those teeth. . .eyes.

Eight eyes, to be specific, organized in a line of four on either side of the face. They’d each been painted an unpleasant shade of yellow, each adorned by a wide, black pupil. Penn squinted, realizing that those pupils were holes. Just hollow pits boring further inside the head.

There were two more holes in the bottom half, right under the thing’s lower jaw. A small spire jutted out from the base, adorned by a tiny rectangular chasm. Like the mouthpiece you could expect to find on any wind-instrument.

“. . .An ocarina?” Penn finally asked, glancing back at Illinois.

Illinois tutted, shaking his head. "Penn, buddy, c'mon. After all the crazy shit you've seen me handle, you really think I'd give you just any old ocarina?"

“I mean, that's sort of what this looks like. Big emphasis on the ‘sort of,’ though, I'll give you that," Penn quipped, a hesitant laugh following his words. It felt like the thing’s eyes were watching him. They couldn’t be, though. They were hollow, they were made of clay. This thing was not alive.

Penn didn’t like how he had to remind himself of that.

“It’s a Chimera Pipe,” Illinois continued with a ghostly edge to his voice. “Whenever you play it, the music is supposed to ward off evil spirits. What do you think?”

“Interesting. Pretty damn interesting.” Despite the cold, clammy feeling creeping around his stomach, Penn couldn’t help but smile. “Y’know, I was gonna say I’ve never seen anything like this, but it reminds of that little doll you got a few years ago.”

“‘Little doll,’” Illinois echoed, incredulous. “I think you mean my Warden.”

“Right, sorry.” Penn raised a teasing eyebrow in return, then glanced back down at the Chimera Pipe. “Really, though, doesn’t this thing give off the same vibe as that?”

“It’d better give off the same vibe; it was made by the same person.” Illinois reached into one of his breast pockets to produce the object in question. “I honestly can’t believe I managed to bump into them again. I mean, of course they’d recognize me, of all people—”

Illinois’ shoulders popped up in a cocky little shrug as his free hand hovered over his heart. Penn clicked his tongue at that.

As Illinois held the Warden up, allowing it to catch the light, a lump manifested in Penn’s throat. His companion had a point: doll wasn’t the most accurate term for it. It had been carved from wood, yes, but that was where the similarities ended.

Small, oily black feathers and strands of hair (actual human hair, mind you) had been wrapped around its torso in a tight bundle. Six jagged, spidery twig-arms jutted out from said bundle, bent in ways that suggested the totem was both trying to free itself and claw at anything that got near it.

Its head almost resembled the skull of a tiny monkey. . .almost. About ten eyes had been painted all over it. Or, Penn assumed eyes had been painted there. It was hard to tell, what with the plethora of steel nails that had been driven into it from every which way. A decent chunk had been carved from it, leaving the entire lower half to serve as a gaping, disfigured mouth filled with needle-teeth.

Thick strings had been twisted around its torso, coming to a knot around its neck, which in turn spilled out into a wide loop. Apparently the maker had explained that its protective powers would be most efficient when it was worn as a necklace, but it would still work nicely when hung from a bedpost, or a rack on the wall. . .or a doorknob.

(Illinois went for the last option, since he couldn’t resist using that to make jokes about not needing to put a tie or sock on the knob anymore.)

Penn rested his fingertips over the pipe's eye-holes and his thumbs over the jaw-holes. He pushed the mouthpiece toward his face, only to flich back, wrinkling his nose. “Oh—oh, geez.”

“What the matter?” Illinois asked, tilting his head and taking a few steps closer.

“Nothing, it just. . .smells funny. Strong,” Penn answered. He’d already expected a distinct, earthy scent from the clay. And while it was there, it was overpowered by something else. Something that had a bite to it, like vinegar or cigarettes.

Illinois scratched at the hair growing along his jaw. “That must be the paint. I was told all sorts of spices and herbs had to be mixed into it for it to work. Kind of like the stuff people use to cure animal hides, y’know?”

Penn hummed, offering a shrug. He could see the logic of that.

Illinois then gestured to the pipe, silently prompting him to resume.

Penn nodded, raising the pipe back up until the mouthpiece was less than an inch from his lips. Then, he took a deep breath, held it in his chest for a second, and blew it out.

The ensuing noise was. . .unique.

It was a mixture of guttural and keening, shifting through a good few notes as Penn tapped his fingers against the eye-holes, trying to find a rhythm. It certainly didn’t sound like any music he’d heard before, but it wasn’t a person’s voice or an animal’s cry. So, music was the only thing it could really be called.

After a moment, he decided to stop playing and pulled the pipe away from his face. Illinois gave a brief, soft applause.

“I can’t see any evil spirits in here. Can you?” Illinois asked, making a show of glancing around the hotel room.

Penn shook his head, turning the pipe over in his hands. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Great! It must be working, then. . .well, unless the Warden is just doing all the heavy-lifting.” Illinois grinned, spinning the creepy little doll-thing between his fingers.

“WOW.” Penn raised an eyebrow, grinning right back as he placed a hand on his hip. “Are you putting my playing skills to shame?”

Illinois squinted and pursed his lips, holding one hand flat in the air and turning it to and fro in that classic Maybe-Kinda-Sorta gesture.

Penn scoffed as he set the Chimera Pipe on the nightstand next to his own hat (another, older gift from Illinois), still tracing its eye-holes with his fingers. “. . .Thanks for thinking of me, Illi. This’ll really stand out in my collection.”

Illinois nodded as he strode back to his own bed and flopped onto the mattress. “No problem, Penn.”

___

Spelunking definitely wasn’t a hobby for everyone.

There was a reason storytellers often used “Rocks fall, everyone dies” as a catchall conclusion in a pinch. Even in the safer scenarios, caves were still cold, dark, enclosed.

When stalagmites and stalactites alike (try saying that five times fast) protruded from the floors and ceilings, it wouldn’t take a paranoid imagination to see how those things resembled rows of irregular, snarling fangs.

That, in turn, led to the cave looking like the maw of a beast, which would obviously make the tunnels comparable to said beast’s throat. All in all, the correlation between caverns and monsters wasn’t that much of a joke.

But archeology buffs weren’t everyone.

Penn and Illinois trekked side-by-side, led only by the glow of flashlights, their footsteps reverberating as they descended further and further into the behemoth’s belly. The sunlight trickling in through the craggy entrance of Chuck’s Hole had faded away with the distance.

Most cave systems consisted of one long, uneven tunnel that simply wound deeper and deeper into the earth until inevitably hitting a dead end. (A literal and figurative rock bottom, if you would.) Sometimes there could be thinner passages as well, branching off the main one and offering a much shorter path to a much smaller chamber.

It reminded Penn of the ant farm he’d cared for back when his undertakings had been limited to the neighborhood playground.

Chuck’s Hole was no different.

Penn paused, lowering his flashlight as he leaned against the wall.

A hollow phantom pain crawled up and down his left leg. As though the ache was leaking through the huge, jagged bitemark that marred the skin of his thigh. It’d healed and scarred over quite a while ago—and the limp Penn now walked with wasn’t too noticeable—but that didn’t stop it from stinging like hell at times.

It took a few seconds before Illinois glanced over his shoulder and stopped as well. He opened his mouth, only to immediately shut it with a little snap. He chewed his lip, making a clear effort to not stare at Penn’s leg as though he could see the scar through his pants. The guilt that trickled into his dark eyes, however, he hadn’t moved fast enough to hide.

Penn shook his head and rolled his shoulders. “I’m fine, I’m fine. We can keep going.” He took a bottle from one of the compartments in his canvas rucksack, lifting it up and taking a few gulps. The icy water felt good. “You said you had a feeling there’d be more for us to see, right?”

Illinois nodded, smiling once more. “Right.”

With that, the duo continued on, soon discovering a fork in the main tunnel just a few feet ahead. That was where Illinois suddenly halted yet again, leaning around the curve of the craggy wall to peek at the secondary pathway. He let out a low whistle, then disappeared around the corner.

The hidden scar burned as Penn quickened his pace, but that was easily pushed aside once he entered this new chamber.

“Say ‘Cheese!’” Illinois called before a bright flash illuminated everything within five feet of him. Penn flinched, squawking as one hand flew up just a millisecond too late to shield his face.

Illinois guffawed. “Ah, that’ll be a good one for the corkboards!”

After a second or two of scrubbing at his eyes, Penn shook his head and sighed, offering a disappointed glare that could make dads all over the world green with envy. “I should’ve known you were gonna pull something like that.”

“Yes, you should’ve,” Illinois agreed, smirking as he turned away to take some more pictures, this time of the things they were actually down here to study.

Though he tried hard not to, Penn ended up snickering to himself. “Did you at least get my good side?”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Illinois answered with a shrug as he slipped his camera back into his satchel.

The lower-half of the chamber could be compared to an ammonite shell: it twisted in on itself and offered three ledges, each one trailing off into the next and going slightly deeper.

As Penn approached his companion, he noticed how the sides of each ledge were different from the main tunnel. They resembled the work of a tattoo artist who was, to the great misfortune of his paying canvas, whacked out on three different cocktails that had been served with more than just salt on the rims of the glasses.

At first his heart jumped, assuming he and Illinois had stumbled upon a few dozen crinoids. That spark died a quick death as he looked closer, though his interest was still piqued. Every inch of the rock in here was scored, covered in twisting lines and shapes that couldn’t be naturally-formed layers or cracks. They’d been carved with crude instruments, and quite hastily at that.

“What do you make of these?” Penn asked, squinting and having to keep turning his head. All of the carvings seemed to work together to create a larger picture, but it was so hard to fit them all in his eyes at once.

Illinois pursed his lips, a mixture of curiosity and adrenaline flickering on his face. “They’re not like a lot of the hieroglyphics I’ve seen. I think can make out a few similarities, but not enough to actually translate anything. I’ll have to check my journals for a comparison later.”

He’d already strolled to the third ledge, which trailed off around a pit in the bottom. “I was just about to ask if you had any ideas about this.”

As Penn followed and looked down, he felt his eyes widen to the size of dinner plates.

It looked like a circle had been hollowed out of the rock, about as wide as both his and Illinois’ wingspans lined up together, and then filled with. . .something.

Whatever it was, it must have been viscous before it was left to harden God-knows-how-many-years-ago. A few hundred filaments and frozen bubbles gleamed from under the surface against the bright artificial glow of his flashlight.

There was no way to truly tell, but the hole must have been pretty damn deep, as the substance was flat as a window.

Illinois knelt down and reached over to carefully tap at the edge of the petrified mass, eliciting a dull tik-tik. He then dragged his nail across it, tilting his head as he saw how no scratch mark was left behind. “Amber, maybe?”

Penn shook his head. “I think agate would be a closer option. Like sardonyx or Mexican Fire.” He paced around the pit, keeping his torch’s beam trained on it. “I’ve seen plenty of amber samples come in different colors, but none of them had any patterns like this.”

Sure enough, an assortment of long, winding shapes could be seen further within the substance. They were a dark shade of gray, reminding Penn of tree branches, or roots. . .or veins.

Except they were all bent and contorted, tangling rather than smoothly flowing together. As though the bottom of the pit had been some kind of burial mound, and a bunch of pale, malnourished limbs with WAY too many joints for comfort had been writhing through the soil just as this stuff was poured in.

Illinois hummed as he stood back up and wandered closer, now following Penn’s gaze. “Sort of reminds me of horn coral. Y’know, like charlevoix?”

Penn offered a shrug. “I guess so. Or something along the lines of opalized septarian? I mean, that’s the closest thing I can think of in terms of the pattern, but the colors seem completely off.”

It never failed to fascinate him just how pretty rocks could be, depending on how and where they formed.

The mass in the pit was not an example. Not by a long-shot.

As he kept examining, Penn saw shades of white and red and orangish-brown. While he’d seen those types of colors mix very well together in other things, the mixture here just looked. . .wrong.

In fact, the longer he stared at it, the more its colors appeared almost fleshy.

And, following that comparison, the gray of those vein-like bands were like fungal threads growing on a carcass.

Penn grimaced at the thought. He then slid his rucksack down one arm and onto the craggy floor. He got to his knees and fished around inside it, now holding his flashlight between his teeth as he produced a hammer and chisel. They shone in the dim light, having been cleaned and sharpened for what was probably the thousandth time not too long ago.

He leaned over the petrified mass, pressing the chisel’s flat edge flush against it and lining up the hammer’s face.

He started with a few cautious taps. The substance didn’t feel like concrete, of course, but it still seemed just as firm.

Penn tightened his grip, then wound back and gave a much stronger strike. The chisel’s blade dug in a couple inches deeper.

Penn kept at it, readjusting his tools every few seconds as he carved a piece, feeling an odd type of comfort as the percussion reverberated through the bones of his fingers and wrists.

A smile flickered on his face as a palm-fitting chunk finally broke off from the rest of the mass. As he laid his instruments off to the side and took aforementioned chunk into his hands, however, that smile died a slow death.

The substance was dry. You could tell just by looking that it was very, very dry.

True, the inside of this cavern was much cooler than the outside, but it was still smack-dab in the middle of a desert. True, Penn and Illinois were underground right now, but they still had yet to find any water deposits in here.

And yet it. . .it felt moist and sticky against his skin.

It slipped out of Penn’s grasp, giving a very anticlimactic thunk as it fell to the ground. There was no residue, no filmy strings, no evidence of any sort of liquid on his fingers.

Confused, Penn reached down and picked it back up. That same, sickly-wet feeling came with it, once again not leaving a single hint that the sample was anything other than dry as a bone.

Although, if he really thought about it, that term only applied to old bones.

A freshly-removed bone, on the other hand, would be quite slick with blood. . .

As he side-eyed the rest of the mass, a sharp, ugly sensation manifested inside him. Like he’d swallowed a spool of jagged, oily wire that was now unraveling in his stomach. He felt his free hand curl into a fist at his side. He didn’t want to look at the mass anymore, but he just couldn’t seem to turn his head away.

The colors. . .those awful, fleshy-looking colors. . .were they vibrating?

No.

No, no, nononono, they couldn’t be.

They couldn’t be, and they weren’t.

Penn made sure of that via grinding his jaw and blinking furiously.

H i t i t a g a i n , whispered something he couldn’t hear.

It almost felt like one of his thoughts. But it wasn't. Whatever it was, it had NEVER been in his head before and therefore had no right to be in there now.

That sensation was now in his skull, fluttering along his temples like the beginning flares of a migraine. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled. Goosebumps sprouted along his arms. Something in his brain screamed at him to hold his breath, and he listened to it without even thinking.

Still looking at the mass, still clutching the sample he’d taken. . .still feeling what his instincts now recognized as the impatient stare of an apex predator.

From out of nowhere, weight came down on his shoulder. At the same time, his hat was titled upward to make way for something rough and uneven that was suddenly being pressed against his forehead.

Penn startled, a small scream tearing its way up his throat only to die halfway through his mouth as Illinois appeared before him.

“Whoa, hey! Take it easy!” Illinois almost recoiled in turn, but held steady.

“What are you doing?!” Penn squawked, trying to edge away.

“I’m trying to help you!” Illinois barked. One hand remained on Penn’s shoulder while the other refused to leave any room for Jesus between Penn’s brow and a small, blurry object.

In a flash, Penn was back on his feet, reeling away until his shoulder collided with one of the walls. Illinois approached, hovering before his companion, holding the Warden in empty air.

The two of them engaged in a very uncomfortable staring contest for about ten seconds. Even with all its little nail-stab-wound-eyes, the Warden was really the only winner.

“You’re not okay,” Illinois announced. His eyes made it clear that he knew it would’ve been pointless to ask otherwise. “You felt strange while taking that sample, didn’t you? Your head was hurting, right?”

Penn offered a shaky nod before trying to ask, “How did—why were you—?”

Illinois let out a deep breath, nodding back. “This thing was made to be a guard dog. But that doesn’t mean it can’t help with the more, ah, internalized bad juju.” He raised the Warden for emphasis. “I kinda felt it, too. Sudden pain isn’t too uncommon in shrines like this.”

“Yeah, well, your experiences aren’t universal,” Penn snarked, cringing at how dry his mouth suddenly felt. The naturally-formed tombs of ancient animals were one thing, but actual shrines were another.

Illinois glanced down, fidgeting with the Warden’s cord before lifting it over his hat, letting it drape along his neck, the creepy totem now resting over his heart.

As Penn watched, he felt himself reach into one of the lower pockets of his hiking vest. His fingers brushed against dry paint, feeling the Chimera Pipe's clay teeth and hollow eye-holes. He’d been worried about the possibility of it getting stolen while he and Illinois were away from the hotel room.

That was the main reason he’d brought it along.

Had anything else compelled him to. . ?

Illinois rolled his shoulders, briskly shaking his head. “Alright, c’mon. We need to steer clear of this particular chamber. For a little while, at least.” He turned and started walking back up the ledges, beckoning for Penn to follow.

Though Penn didn’t reply, he was quick to gather up his things, slinging his rucksack over his shoulder and marching along. He didn't dare look back at the sample he'd just carved, very pointedly leaving it behind.

Pieces of that oily feeling were still in his head, much more muffled than before. That wasn’t much of an improvement, since they also felt angrier, more desperate than before. Penn shivered badly, his eyes watering without warning, which led to him tripping over his own feet.

Illinois caught him before he could taste the craggy floor. The adventurer’s features contorted with worry as he helped the paleontologist regain his balance. Penn guessed that his eyes were significantly more bloodshot than they had been a few minutes ago, judging by how Illinois sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth as he peered at them.

“. . .Or maybe should we just head to the jeep,” Illinois coughed, keeping a hand on the small of Penn’s back as the two of them drew closer to the chamber’s entrance. “Get some sunshine, take a longer break, weigh our options before we come baaAAAAAAUUUGH!”

How had neither of them noticed the ground beginning to tremble?

Penn barely had time to register the scream before Illinois barreled to the side, half-shoving-half-dragging him along. He let out a shocked shriek of his own, which wasted no time bouncing off the chamber walls as the duo landed in a heap in the corner of the first ledge.

What felt like a Category 4 earthquake rammed into the chamber’s opening, accentuated by a thunderous cacophony of grinding gravel. The stone walls shook, causing centuries-old dust to rain from the ceiling.

Both Penn and Illinois cried out again, ducking and covering, grabbing onto one another for dear life.

For a brief, horrible moment, the world was nothing but noise.

Nothing but BOOMING and CRASHING. . .

Until the very last second, when the unmistakable chorus of splintering, then cracking, and then full-on shattering drowned out anything else. It almost sounded like glass, but it just didn’t quite make the mark. Whatever was breaking was obviously much thicker than glass, much more ancient than glass. . .

Penn knew what that was. He knew without having to see, without even having to know.

And then. . .well, it would be wrong to say that a heavy silence settled over everything. The sound of hitching, ragged gasps for air almost seemed deafening.

“. . .I-is anything broken? Or bleeding?” Penn finally blurted, opening one eye a few seconds before the other. His companion looked like he’d been involved in either a classic baking fiasco or a freak accident in a cocaine lab. Even with a significant lack of mirrors down here, Penn could tell he was in the same boat. “There’s only a few scrapes on my arms.”

Illinois opened his mouth to reply, only to launch himself into a coughing fit as the tiny particles were sucked in. He shook his head and offered a thumbs-up. “Same here.”

His nerves were obviously still on fire, but the day he wasn’t a do-er was the the day he wasn’t Illinois. He gritted his teeth, brushing the dust off his face before craning his neck to survey whatever the hell had just happened.

The answer was. . .interesting, as an odd mix of triumph and aggravation swept over the adventurer’s features. He was back on his feet in a flash, readjusting his hat as he rushed away from the impromptu fallout shelter. “YyyyyyOU SON OF A BITCH! I THOUGHT WE’D SETTLED THIS THE LAST TIME!”

Give him his due, Illinois seemed to sense the way Penn winced, as he paused his tirade to glance over his shoulder and wave a hand. “Don’t worry, I’m not talking about you.”

That statement seemed to kickstart something, as Penn was suddenly up and following on shakey legs before he even felt himself moving. “What is it?! What is it?!”

Illinois scoffed, pointing an accusatory finger at the bottom of the chamber, at the petrified mass. . .or, what was left of it.

At least a couple hundred shards had been broken off and sent flying onto the higher ledges, courtesy of a large boulder that had crashed into the pit. Despite not struggling the way an animal would, it was clearly stuck, lodged in halfway.

Penn heaved a long-suffering sigh. He wasn’t sure if this topped the Walmart Disaster or not; even if the boulder really did have a mind of its own, at least it was in a place it actually had a modicum of business being in right now.

“How many times do I have tO TEACH YOU THIS LESSON?” Illinois demanded, stooping down to snatch up a much smaller, more primitive cousin to his adversary and hurl it. The rock hit the boulder with a loud plunk before tumbling back down to the ground.

“Knock it off, Illi,” Penn started, giving his friend a dig in the arm. “I’d say yelling won’t do anything, but in your case, yelling is only gonna make it mad.”

“Oh, please. Like it isn’t already mad!” Illinois contended. He kept his eyes glued to his craggy nemesis. “It’s because you didn’t catch me all those years ago, isn’t it? That’s your own damn fault! Losing a race to something eight times smaller and a few hundred weightclassses lighter says more about YOU than it does about your target!”

Penn narrowed his eyes, weighing the pros and cons that would come with reaching over to knock Illinois’ hat off. He’d just barely raised a hand when his gaze wandered back over to the boulder. . .to the cracks it’d left in the petrified mass. . .and he found himself frozen once more.

“Illinois, wait—” he whispered. He started shivering, and not just from the cold lumps materializing in his throat.

The explorer in question interrupted. “I wasn’t even taking that one idol; I was literally just trying to put it back! What the hell would a boulder want with an idol anyway?!”

“Illinois, stop, listen—!” Penn tried again, shaking his companion’s shoulder.

Illinois cut him off yet again. “Why don’t you just sprout legs already, huh?! I’ve met rhinos who had better aim than you! And at least rhinos have bad eyesight as an excuse! You don’t even HAVE eyes, and yet you STILL try to single me out every damn year!”

“ILLINOIS!” Penn snapped, his voice shooting through several octaves as he grabbed the other man by the arm and forced him to take a few steps back.

The monologue came to an abrupt halt. Illinois swiveled his head to meet Penn’s eyes.

“What?” He asked with just a hint of attitude, looking perfectly casual for someone who had just been shouting obscenities at a boulder.

Penn gritted his teeth, his frustration giving way to fear as he frantically motioned toward the boulder. Or, to be more precise, what was happening underneath the boulder. What was happening to the remains of the mass in the pit. . .

Illinois looked back, squinting, incredulousness wafting off him in waves for about three seconds. By the fourth second, all the color drained right out of his face.

There was something on the other side of the mass. Something that was now pooling up through the new cracks with a chorus of soft, sickening sighs.

Penn remembered watching videos of octopi using their boneless nature to their advantage, squeezing through the thinnest, tiniest, most unbelievable spaces to escape their enclosures. As stomach-churning as it’d been to watch, it’d managed to also be just as funny and fascinating.

There was only one way to see what was happening right now as funny or fascinating, and that was to simply not be human. Actually, scratch that, it involved not being anything that could be found among the natural order, or among sane, innocent minds.

A large clot of dark, viscous tendrils clung to the boulder, slithering along to the top of it, visibly straining as more and more and more came oozing out. What was left of the petrified mass creaked and groaned and splintered, now swelling like either an egg on the brink of hatching or a pimple on the brink of popping. The pieces that hadn’t flown off were now being pushed up by the rising horror.

It almost seemed to move like a liquid; this wasn’t tar, oil, or even the unimpressive sludge you could find anywhere just by digging deep enough to reach the moist, cold, protected bowels of soil. Magma mixed with gallons of blood was the closest guess, but that still wound up being wrong.

This was flesh.

Blistering, boiling, contorting flesh like some awful hybrid of spider and slug that seemed to take any and all light and swallow it up.

A type of flesh that wasn’t supposed to exist.

In under a minute, enough of it had oozed out to create a mound that nearly touched the chamber’s ceiling. It kept writhing in place, but with purpose now. At least six coiling limbs sprouted from its sides, the ends of each splitting into a clutch of dripping claws.

“. . .¥ê§. . .”

The voice was like a swarm of cicadas, shifting through several pitches at once. A masculine edge seemed present somewhere within it—hell, there even seemed to be a hint of Midwestern accent, for some ungodly reason.

Holes of various shapes and sizes tore themselves open everywhere, screaming and soon gnashing as sets of shark-like teeth came blooming around them. Just as many, if not even more, eyes followed suite, bubbling through the skin, each blinking erratically and shifting through all sorts of colors.

“¥ê§, ¥ê§, ¥È§!” The abhorrent voice continued. “Ì†'§ håþþêñêÐ! Ì'm ðµ†! Ì'm £ïñåll¥, £ÌñÄLL¥ ÖÚ†!”

The empty space at the top of the mound shuddered, forcing some of the material around the middle to surge upward, molding itself together to shape first a neck. . .and then a head.

A pair of sockets drained themselves out in the front, promptly being filled by two more eyes, larger and wider and more focused than all the others.

A maw split open beneath them, revealing rows of teeth sharp enough to make even the most intimidating swords of yore look like Swiss Army toys.

“£RÈÈÐÖM!” The newly-formed monster cried, his laughter rippling through the air the same way lightning would streak through clouds and rain.

All at once, the oily feeling was back, now focused on Penn’s chest rather than his head. It seemed to literally wash over him; the haze made him feel soaked, made his clothes feel like they were clinging to his skin.

And unlike a few minutes ago, it wasn’t just squirming somewhere inside his flesh.

No, this time, only half of it was doing that.

The other half was outside of him, as obvious-yet-invisible as the air itself.

And it.

Was.

PULLING.

Like he was a cadaver on an examining table, like the mortician had sliced a long line from his throat to his navel, like the two freshly-seperated halves of skin on his torso were being tugged apart, like his intestines were being dragged out hand-over-fist.

None of it felt like normal pain, like real pain.

It felt the same way a long, fat worm looked when its glistening, slimy skin was covered in fine soil.

It felt the same way sulfur smelled as it rose up from a geyser in clouds of heavy, near-palpable fog.

It felt the same way a infant sounded as it screamed while its umbilical cord was being cut.

Penn knew he wasn’t bleeding, knew nothing was actually pouring out of him.

That didn’t make things any better.

His mind was bleeding. Ulcers were growing on his thoughts.

He couldn’t know what the oily feeling was so ruthlessly taking from him, but he knew without knowing that it was something important. Something that he could survive without. . .but that kind of absence would make survival pointless.

Pointless. . .pointless, pointless, pointless, pointless, pointless, pointless, pointless, Penn’s mind chanted as the monster’s multitude of eyes all stopped moving in their sockets, pupils dilating one after the other.

All staring at him and Illinois.

The monster stiffened, a surprised, excited gasp rushing into the air.

“Wêll, wêll, wêll!” With a chorus of awful pops and cracks, the monster turned his neck to gaze down, down, down, his primary eyes shining with the same predatory slyness of a snake that had just cornered a mouse. . .or two.

“ÄñÐ hêrê Ì †hðµgh† §ðmê†hïñg wå§ ð££!”

“Oh, something’s extremely off right now,” Illinois replied. It would’ve been a totally badass gesture on his part. . .except for the fact that his typically deep, rich, velvetine voice had tapered down into a shivering squeak.

“ñðw, Ððñ'† gê† mê wrðñg, †hï§ ï§ †hê ßê§† †hïñg †ð håþþêñ †ð mê ïñ ÄGÈ§. ßµ† £ðr å mïñµ†ê, ï† jµ§† rêåll¥ £êl† lïkê §ðmê†hïñg wå§ mï§§ïñg, ¥'kñðw?” The monster explained thoughtfully, seeming much more amused than unfazed. “Äñ êvêñ† lïkê †hï§ jµ§† ï§ñ'† ¢ðmþlê†ê. . .”

He dipped his head, lowering himself to the ground, limbs tensing and back arching. Just like a cat getting ready to pounce.

“. . .wï†hðµ† å ñï¢ê lï††lê rï†µål §å¢rï£ï¢ê!”

The monster’s mouth gaped open, the abyssal skin around his jaws shuddering as he cackled. Three long, sinuous tendrils stretched out between its fangs. One of them was a blur as it cracked like a whip, seemingly of its own accord, sending droplets of ichor to splatter against the walls and floor and immediately sizzle through stone.

Penn didn’t know how—or even why—he managed to move. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the abomination, couldn’t think through the haze of dread and terror. He was beyond steadying himself, but he still moved.

Paint-coated clay greeted his palm like a friend he’d known even longer than Illinois.

In one swift, fluid, subconscious movement, he raised the Chimera Pipe to his face.

The strange, warbling, howling music poured into the air.

As it did, as Penn put more force behind his breath, the monster froze.

The monster’s skin stopped writhing. Those three tongues reeled back into his mouth, vanishing within the rows upon rows upon rows of teeth.

As Penn stared, still playing, still expecting to die. . .somehow, he caught a glimpse of a shape in the monster’s form. Smack-dab in the spot where his neck met his chest. That shape trembled in a very unpleasant way, just like those full-body-twitches people got while they slept.

And then the monster started SCREAMING.

It was a hideous concoction of shock and pain and fury. Like nothing Penn had ever heard before and desperately hoped to never hear again.

Yet, by some miracle, it didn’t drown out the music.

Penn’s lungs felt like they were on fire. His teeth were vibrating. Tears cascaded out of his eyes, streaming down his face, a lucky few managing to slide onto the Chimera Pipe.

But he kept playing it.

Even as his vision blurred, even as he felt Illinois grab him by the shoulders and start dragging him away, he kept playing it.

All the while, the monster kept shrieking as the music drilled into whatever awful mess his ears were.

Penn just kept on playing. . .until. . .until. . .UNTIL. . .

___

“Ì'll å§k ågåïñ: hðw êxå¢†l¥,” the monster seethed, “ÐïÐ ¥ðµ gê† ¥ðµr grïm¥ lï††lê håñÐ§ ðñ †hê§ê. . .†hïñg§?” He jabbed an accusatory talon first in the Chimera Pipe’s direction, then pivoted it toward the Warden, spitting out the last word like it was a rotten oyster.

He’d gone back and forth between leering at the trapped archeology buffs and snarling at the Chimera Pipe multiple times now. Because it seemed that one of the very few things he couldn’t do was get too close to it, let alone try to touch it. He’d already hovered one of his hand-like appendages over it, only to snatch it away and hiss a few seconds later, as though the clay instrument had an invisible cloud of poison around it.

“And I’ll tell you as many times as I have to: it’s none of your fucking business!” Illinois retorted. “Besides, you’re one to talk. Our hands aren’t grimy, and they’re not little, either.”

In spite of his horror, Penn couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow in Illinois’ direction. The monster’s palms seemed to be as wide as the jeep’s tires (for now, at least).

A strange growl rose from the monster’s throat, sort of like a honey badger that just pulled what was left of its tail out of a malfunctioning garbage disposal. It signaled the very odd way of how the creature’s anger issues combined with the fact that hell would have to freeze over before said creature even thought about giving a damn.

The growl transitioned into an equally grating chuckle as the monster lightly shook his head. “¥ðµr §þê¢ïê§ ðñl¥ hå§ å £êw †hïñg§ gðïñg £ðr ï†. ÄñÐ Ì gµê§§ mðxïê ï§ ðñê ð£ †hêm.”

The monster obviously couldn’t relate to humans (or anything that had been born on Earth, for that matter). There was no doubt that he saw things differently, considering how his too-many eyes rolled and shook and popped and melted and dilated and constricted and. . .

Therefore, Penn had no idea how the monster saw things like moxie.

Moxie felt more distant than the setting sun, than the slowly-dying light that was clawing against the ground.

As much of an adrenaline junkie as Illinois was, as stubborn as he was to sass a warping mound of flesh made of nightmares, it was easy to tell that he was terrified. Anyone with a single, solitary iota of sanity would be terrified.

Penn couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so helpless. As he stared through the windshield, the monster had most of his attention, of course. . .but the Chimera Pipe was quite a strong contender, what with how it was now lying on the ground just a few feet away from the jeep.

How had he possibly dropped it?

It shouldn’t have mattered how fast he and Illinois had been running, how violently he’d been shaking. He should’ve had the death-grip to end all goddamn death-grips on that thing.

If he hadn’t dropped it, then he could’ve kept on playing it.

If he could keep on playing it, then maybe that would’ve forced the monster to leave him and Illinois alone. Penn was sure that the monster would keep coming back to prowl around them, taunting or threatening or making sarcastic attempts at cajoling, but at least the pipe’s music would’ve forced him to keep just a little more distance than this.

But that wasn’t going to happen, because he’d dropped it like only a disposable movie character could. Now, staying in this car, watching the monster’s body spasm and twist, listening to his vile smalltalk was the only option he and Illinois had.

Oh sure, Illinois had taken the Warden’s string from around his neck, opting instead to tie it to the rearview mirror and let the totem slowly spin to and fro.

While Penn now understood how the creepy little thing truly did have some protective mojo to it, whatever supernatural vibes that wafted off of it only kept the monster from pressing his horrific face right up against the windows.

Because life could just never be bothered to be that easy or fair.

“What the hell are you?” Penn finally blurted. “What was that stuff in the chamber? How long were you down there?”

One of the monster’s primary eyes slid around on his face and drilled into Penn’s brown, watery orbs. He was unable to look away as that eye twitched—no, squirmed in its socket. Little lumps appeared under the sclera, bulging and stretching until a bunch of spindly shapes burst through.

. . .Arms. Nine tiny arms that thrashed the air as the monster’s quivering pinprick pupil spun in the center of them. Not just clawing aimlessly; they were trying to reach for Penn, every single one of them.

Penn clasped a hand over his mouth to keep something much more solid than his ragged breath from spilling through his lips.

The monster chuckled again. “Wêll, †hå† lå§† qµê§†ïðñ ï§ †hê êå§ïê§†: †ÖÖ ÐÄMñ LÖñG. §ïñ¢ê ßê£ðrê ¥ðµr åñ¢ê§†ðr§ wêrê êvêñ rð¢kïñg ïñ †hêïr ¢råÐlê§.” The monster then cupped his chin with one of his many maladjusted hands, casually drumming another set of crooked digits on the jeep’s hood. “ÄñÐ Ì'm håþþ¥ †ð åñ§wêr †hê ð†hêr§. . .ï£ ¥ðµ ¢ðmê ðµ† hêrê.”

The nausea was stubborn, but Penn still managed to furrow his brow and roll his eyes. “Right, right. Why wouldn’t we have a meet n’ greet with the same thing that just tried to kill us?”

“ßê¢åµ§ê ¥ðµ ÖWÈ mê!” The monster snapped, a metallic screech mixing into his tone as he dragged his claws along.

Illinois blinked incredulously. “How do you figure that?”

The monster resumed pacing around the jeep—well, slithering was probably a better term, since he didn’t seem to move any muscles or make any sort of effort. And yet he moved with fluid, frightening speed.

“¥ðµ †wð £rêêÐ mê. WÌ†HÖÚ† £ïñÐïñg å wå¥ †ð ¢ðññê¢† ¥ðµr§êlvê§ †ð mê, Ì mïgh† åÐÐ.”

The jeep as a whole suddenly dipped, leaving Penn to presume that the monster was now leaning on the top. He thanked his lucky stars that the sunroof’s fabric panel was closed against the glass.

“. . .Technically, that damn boulder freed you,” Illinois argued.

“¥êåh, wêll, ¥ðµ ßrðµgh† †hê ßðµlÐêr hêrê ïñ †hê £ïr§† þlå¢ê!” The monster sputtered. “Ì£ ¥ðµ †hïñk ¥ðµ ¢åñ jµ§† wålk åwå¥ £rðm whå† håþþêñêÐ êårlïêr, †hêñ Ì'vê gð† §ðmê ñï¢ê ßêå¢h-§ïÐê þrðþêr†¥ ïñ †hê †hðµ§åñÐ-È¥êÐ †ï¢k Qµêêñ'§ þð¢kê† Ðïmêñ§ïðñ †ð §êll ¥ðµ.”

“Ha! Four-and-a-half vengeance curses have been put on my head, and I managed to get through all of them!” Illinois craned his neck to aim a smug smirk at the monster. “If dodging consequences was a sport, I’d be in the Hall of Fame.”

The monster groaned, a huge forked tongue flicking in and out of his maw like a party favor. He began to mutter under his breath in a very much non-English language, closing each and every one of his eyes for almost a full minute. The way they all eventually snapped open again would’ve given anyone with trypophobia a stroke.

“†hå†'§ whå† ¥ðµ †hïñk rïgh† ñðw. Ì'vê ålrêåÐ¥ gð††êñ å gððÐ rêåÐ ðñ ¥ðµr §ðµl, åñÐ… å¢†µåll¥, ñêvêr mïñÐ. Ì wðµlÐñ'† wåñ† †ð §þðïl åñ¥†hïñg.” The monster hummed with malicious delight. He then sighed, drumming whip-thin tendrils against the back window. “Lððk, ï§ ï† †hê §þïÐêr'§ £åµl† whêñ å ßµñ¢h ð£ £lïê§ gê† §†µ¢k ïñ ï†§ wêß? ñð. Må¥ßê †hê £lïê§ wï§h ï† wå§, ßµ† Ðêêþ Ððwñ †hê¥ kñðw †hå† †hê¥ gð† †hêm§êlvê§ †råþþêÐ.”

“Wow. It’s almost like the spider spun that web in the first place,” Penn muttered.

“Èxå¢†l¥! ßê¢åµ§ê †hå†'§ †hê §þïÐêr'§ rïgh†. †hå†'§ jµ§† hðw §þïÐêr§ lïvê.” The monster peeked over that spot where the roof met the top of the windshield. “§ð, hðw ï§ ï† åñ¥ Ðï££êrêñ† ï£ Ì †åkê ¥ðµ?”

“If we had any way of actually knowing that you were somewhere in Chuck’s Hole, then we never would’ve gone poking around in it!” Illinois contended, raising his arms in a frustrated lame gesture.

And now it was the monster’s turn to blink. It took much longer than it probably should have “. . .Ì'm jµ§† gðññå ïgñðrê †hê £å¢† †hå† å hµmåñ ï§ ¢ållïñg m¥ þrï§ðñ ‘Çhµ¢k’§ Hðlê.’”

Penn froze again for three, maybe five seconds, before doing something he hadn’t thought was possible right now: he sputtered a laugh. It was a very small and very short-lived laugh, yes, but it still seemed to echo through the jeep’s interior.

A name like Chuck’s Hole just had some weird magic to it.

It was funny even when spoken by a gruesome Stephen-King-wet-dream-come-to-life whose voice sounded like broken glass that just so happened to be dripping with blood.

Illinois swallowed a lump in his throat, glancing at Penn and offering a tiny, grateful smile.

Hell, even the monster seemed to be biting back a grin at such a title; or, the extra mouth that had just opened up somewhere on his stomach-region was doing that, at least. The monster’s primary mouth continued to snarl, his front row of teeth actively lengthening and curving upward like tusks.

His weight disappeared from the jeep’s roof. Subsequent thumps and slight bounces were elicited from the undercarriage as he crawled beneath it, making Penn think of a shark lurking just below a fishing boat.

“Öh ¢’mðñ, Ìllïñðï§. §ðmêðñê wï†h ¥ðµr ïñ§†ïñ¢†§, ¥ðµr êxþêrïêñ¢ê, ñð† ålrêåÐ¥ kñðwïñg †hå† §ðmê†hïñg lïkê mê wå§ wåï†ïñg £ðr ¥ðµ Ððwñ †hêrê?” The monster surged back up and stood right next to the driver-side door. He shrunk to the size of a normal man, but his eyes and mouth were still far too large as he peered at Illinois through the window.

He nodded toward the mouth of the cavern and giggled, a chittering noise similar to an engine that was melting from the inside out. “¥ðµ ¢åñ'† §êrïðµ§l¥ êxþê¢† µ§ †ð ßêlïêvê †hå†.”

Rotating his head at a 270 degree angle, the monster leaned closer, just enough so that the discolored steam of his breath fogged up the glass. The horribly strange sweetness that could only ever waft off of rotting flesh seeped into the car.

“ñð, ¥ðµ håÐ å £êêlïñg åßðµ† mê. †hå†'§ wh¥ ¥ðµ wåñ†êÐ ¥ðµr £rïêñÐ hêrê †ð ¢ðmê ålðñg, ï§ñ'† ï†? †ð gïvê hïm å §†ðr¥ †hå† wðµlÐ å¢†µåll¥ ßê ïmþrê§§ïvê †ð †êll? †ð §hðw hïm å rêål ¢hållêñgê? †ð †ê§† hïm åñÐ þrðvê †hå† hê §†ïll ¢åñ'† håñÐlê å§ mµ¢h å§ ¥ðµ ¢åñ?”

For the very first time all day, the energy drained from Illinois’ features.

His mouth dropped, opening and closing with no words coming out. His eyes bulged from their sockets, contorted by his brow as a dark, slick, awful form of guilt welled inside them.

He forcefully bowed his head, now trying to keep his focus on the steering wheel and only the steering wheel.

He’d shown fear before, but this was different.

This was despair.

“NO!”

The monster’s head snapped up, now gazing through the jeep, past Illinois, who didn’t dare budge an inch.

Penn dug his nails into the armrest, feeling beads of sweat materialize on his forehead. He’d surprised himself before, but never quite like this.

“ÐïÐ Ì hêår ¥ðµ rïgh†?” Some of the monster’s eyes narrowed in time with how his smile sharpened. “ÇðµlÐ ¥ðµ rêþêå† †hå† £ðr mê?”

“I said NO!” Penn echoed, his heart beating with the speed of a phantom hummingbird. “Illinois didn’t drag me into anything! We made the mutual decision to come here!”

Penn’s throat was raw from all the acidic bile he’d been keeping down, his jaw ached as though he’d just sprinted in a marathon.

“He doesn’t think any less of me just because my work is different from his! He’s never tried to test me before, and that’s not what he was doing today! He’s one of my best friends! We work on projects like this because we respect each other! You’re wrong!”

In his peripheral vision, he watched as Illinois kept his head down, quiet as a statue. Aside from the way his hands trembled, it truly seemed like he would never move again.

“. . .Mê? Wrðñg?” Amusement crept into the monster’s rolling eyes. He seemed to tsk-tsk at Penn’s statement, unwinding the sound into a mess of clicks and hisses. “ ñ È V È R . ”

Penn blinked, and the monster was suddenly looming right outside the passenger door. Now staring at him through the quickly-fogging glass.

It was all Penn could do to not shrink back as the monster bared his teeth. “Wh¥ §hðµlÐ ¥ðµ þµ† ðñ åïr§, ¢ðñ§ïÐêrïñg whå† ¥ðµr ¢ðµ§ïñ§ årê Ððïñg?”

Penn's shoulders slumped out of raw, blind confusion. “. . .W-wha—?”

The monster smirked like the leader of a high school gossip-mill. “Öñê ð£ ¥ðµr ¢ðµ§ïñ§ WÌ§HÈ§ hê håÐ †êê†h lïkê mïñê. Hê jµ§† LÖVÈ§ ßï†ïñg ïñ†ð †hê þïñk §†rê†¢h ð£ £lê§h! Hê måkê§ hï§ lïvïñg §lïÐïñg kñïvê§ ålðñg §kïñ åñÐ §¢råþïñg †hêm ågåïñ§† ßðñê§. Wå†¢hïñg lï£ê Ðråïñ ðµ† ð£ ê¥ê§ åñÐ †hrðå†§ åñÐ £êêlïñg ï† rµ§h ðvêr hï§ håñÐ§, åll wårm åñÐ rêÐ.”

As the monster spoke, the grin on his face kept growing. . .and growing. . .and growing. His lips just didn’t stop peeling back, didn’t stop stretching. A grotesque amount of new teeth had to materialize to fill his expression.

In less than a minute, the monster’s entire face was a maw, his eyes having been overtaken by the layers upon layers of enamel and sinew.

“. . .Öh, ÐïÐñ'† ¥ðµ kñðw †hå†, þêññ? ÐïÐñ'† ¥ðµ kñðw †hå† ðñê ð£ ¥ðµr ¢ðµ§ïñ§ ï§ å ßµ†¢hêr? ÐÌÐñ'† ¥ÖÚ?!” The monster then threw his head back and laughed, revealing multiple sets of malformed jaws nestled inside his hellish smile.

The oily haze tugged at Penn’s guts yet again. It hurt in the same, surreal way as before. . .but not quite as much. This time, while he was definitely losing something he still couldn’t identify, it came out in more of an unsteady trickle than a firm, ruthless pace.

It was similar to a nightmare. It almost felt real, but it just couldn’t fully exist. Not while there was a physical shield between prey and predator.

Sooner or later, the monster’s laughing fit died down to mere giggles. That wasn’t much of an improvement, since the giggles in question felt like drops of boiling water to the ears, but at least it wasn’t as loud.

“Jµ§† §ðmê†hïñg †ð ¢hêw ðñ,” the monster mentioned. “Må¥ßê µ§ê lïñê§ lïkê †hå† ï£ ¥ðµ §êê hïm; Ì †hïñk hê'Ð åþþrê¢ïå†ê ï†.”

Penn knew he should’ve passed out by now. He should’ve crumpled onto the glove compartment and accidentally set off the airbags (thankfully, Illinois wasn’t in the proper headspace to get angry at something like that) and stayed that way until he was forcefully woken up at a hospital.

But he was still awake, so his subconscious decided that he might as well keep on surprising himself.

“Sure,” he replied, voice hollow and quiet. “I’ll take advice from something that can’t even break a single damn window.”

Those layers of teeth pulled away from the monster’s face, letting his eyes reappear just in time to give Penn a vicious, appraising look that reached into him and made his pancreas break into a cold sweat.

The monster clicked one of his tongues again. “Mðxïê.”

Then, with a terrible cr-i-i-i-ck, the monster’s head turned away, taking his focus off of Penn and directing toward the space behind the jeep. A shudder ran through his contorting body; his eyes all widened as he rolled his shoulders.

Heart in his throat, Penn’s eyes ventured to the rearview mirror. The reflection was still and silent; nothing but rocky sand that made up the ground, complimented by the dry shrubs and cacti growning here and there. More rock spires stood patiently, looking like simple smudges in the air due to the distance, just barely visible in the moonlight.

Penn felt his stomach drop for what had to be the sixty-ninth time today.

THE MOONLIGHT. . .

The sun had set. Everything was dark now.

“Äh, †hå†'§ mµ¢h ßê††êr. ßrïgh†ñê§§ åñÐ hêå† måkê§ mê ï†¢h,” the monster announced, his twisted voice forcibly snagging Penn’s focus and shoving it in the right direction.

The monster slid back from the jeep, still in full-view of its occupants from the windshield. He remained the size of a human, with a shape that was almost convincing.

Almost was the key word here, since most humans didn’t tend to have an assortment of eye-and-mouth-covered tentacles where a pair of legs should’ve been.

“Gµê§§ ï†'§ ¥ðµr lµ¢k¥ Ðå¥, ßð¥§!” The monster chirped, sarcasm mixed with a fair bit of unholy venom dripping from his maw. “Ì mïgh† †ê¢hñï¢åll¥ håvê åll †hê †ïmê ïñ †hê wðrlÐ, ßµ† Ì'vê ålrêåÐ¥ wå§†êÐ êñðµgh ð£ ï† hêrê.”

He swayed from side-to-side like a flower caught in a gentle breeze. A third eye opened up in the center of his forehead, pitch-black with a shaking, shining white pupil. It squinted at Penn in a mocking-yet-thoughtful way.

A distinct pinching sensation bloomed under the skin of Penn’s face, followed by a faint dripping noise in the back of his head.

The monster snickered as the third eye sunk back into whatever special kind of hell was lurking inside him. “§ðmê §å¥ ¥ðµ'rê ñêvêr ålðñê ïñ †hê Ðårk. ÄñÐ å§ †rµê å§ †hå† ï§. . .†hê Ðårk ï§ñ'† whå† ¥ðµ ñêêÐ †ð wðrr¥ åßðµ†. ¥ðµ kñðw wh¥?”

Grotesque stretching noises ripped through the quiet as his skin split on several different areas of his body, like seams bursting on a raggedy doll.

“ßê¢åµ§ê †hê êxå¢† §åmê †hïñg gðê§ £ðr ¥ÖÚR MÌñÐ.”

Without warning, the monster’s form began to unravel.

His writhing, warping flesh almost seemed paper-thin. Strips of it tore themselves away in various sizes, first lapping at the air around him, and then curling through it.

“ñð må††êr whêrê ¥ðµ gð, whå† ¥ðµ §êê ðr Ðð, hðw ¥ðµ †hïñk åñÐ Ðrêåm åñÐ lïvê. . .”

They all formed a shadowy a halo around him, moved with the same impossible sychronized grace as a school of fish. The process was a blur, moving too quickly and too slowly.

“†hêrê'll ålwå¥§ ßê ð†hêr †hïñg§ wåï†ïñg £ðr ¥ðµ ïñ †hêrê. ÄLWÄ¥§.”

The strips of skin began to dissolve into nothingness, the same way wisps of steam would vanish as soon as they climbed high enough. All at once, the only seemingly solid parts left were the monster’s primary eyes, as well as his jagged, glinting teeth. Those features hung in the air, glowing and staring and grinning like some psychotic bastardization of the Cheshire Cat.

“Wêll, †hå†'§ åßðµ† ï† £ðr ñðw. Ì'll £ïñÐ ¥ðµ ågåïñ §ðmêÐå¥!”

The eyes flickered, melting in place. The teeth gnashed, abandoning their structured rows in favor of gliding around in a tight, sharp circle.

“ Ì ' l l £ ï ñ Ð ¥ ð µ å g å å å å å ï ï ï ñ ! ”

And then. . .they were gone.

Just like that.

As if nothing had even been there in the first place.

Penn stared at the empty space for what felt like an hour. Then a strong, salty, metallic taste dribbled into his mouth and broke the spell. The organic stench clung to the back of his throat, feeling dry and moist at the same time. He shook his head in revulsion.

Thanks to the lack of light, his reflection in the car window was just an inch away from not being visible at all. The amount of blood seeping from his nose changed that rather quickly. His hands moved in a mechanical manner, fishing napkins and tissues from the glovebox to wad up and press against his face.

Illinois was still holding his head low, shivering, knuckles white around the steering wheel.

Not-so-distant memories of the chamber came flooding in, and before Penn knew it, his free hand was wrapping around the Warden, tugging it away from the rearview mirror and pushing it up to Illinois’ temple.

A shudder ran through the adventurer’s shoulders before they visibly loosened up. His grip slackened. But his jaw was still clenched, and his eyes were still glued to his lap.

So, Penn did the next best thing: he gripped the ends of the Warden’s string and rotated his fist, making the totem spin in a circle. A breathy whistle began to cut through the silence.

Once the creepy little doll was a blur, Penn grabbed Illinois’ hat and flung it to the backseat. He then flicked his wrist, causing it to crash against the top of Illinois’ head.

The ensuing thunk! was promptly drowned out as Illinois all but trebucheted himself against the window. “—aaaAAAUUGH GETOUTGETOUTGETOUT!”

“Hey! Heyheyhey! Illinois! Illinois, calm down!” Penn cried, grabbing his companion’s arm.

Illinois’ movements slowed, and eventually stopped, though his chest heaved in and out with unnecessary force. He gazed at Penn with wide, bloodshot eyes.

Penn quietly reached under his seat and produced one of many spare water bottles. The plastic was sweaty, the ice inside having melted long ago, but still cold to the touch. He offered it to Illinois, who shakily took it and started chugging.

“Not too fast, you’ll make yourself sick,” Penn half-heartedly coached as he shoved the tissues into a trash bag by his shoes. His nose should’ve taken longer to stop bleeding.

Illinois’ voice was a sopping-wet wheeze as he finally put the bottle down, having emptied half of its contents. “. . .Feel like that’s the least of our worries.”

“Don’t remind me.”

Penn set the Warden down on the dashboard, sliding it across to its owner.

Illinois didn’t hesitate to grab it and hold it close to his chest like a little boy who’d just found a beloved stuffed animal he’d lost a couple weeks ago. He closed his eyes, gently tapping his fingers against the doll’s head in a quick, specific rhythm. This carried on for a moment, and some of the tension drained away from his features. His breathing slowed into a little sigh.

His eyes snapped back open and automatically began squinting at Penn.

The paleontologist raised his hands in a confused, defensive gesture.

“Where’s the pipe?” Illinois murmured.

Penn pursed his lips as he nodded at the windshield. The Chimera Pipe was, indeed, still out there, laying on the ground in a way that made it seem to be staring at the sky.

Illinois nodded, clicking his tongue. “Go get it.”

Penn flinched, eyes darting over to the mouth of the cave. To the palpable-looking darkness that waited further inside. . .

“He’s gone, Penn,” Illinois reassured, though his face twisted at such a gruesomely obvious mention. “If he was still here, we’d both feel it. Trust me.”

It took another awkward minute for Penn to reach over and grab the door’s handle. He sucked in a deep breath through his teeth and sprinted out, nearly tripping into a slide on the dusty gravel.

Then the car door was slamming shut and he was back in his seat, this time with the beastly ocarina resting on his lap. It grinned up at him, its bruise-colored paint shining in the dim light.

Penn was so caught up in staring at its little eye-holes that he didn’t hear the jingle of keys or the engine finally starting to rumble. (He barely even noticed the string of profanities on Illinois’ part.)

For the next five minutes or so, the only thing to register was the rumbling of tires beneath his feet.

Finally, Penn forced himself to break the silence. “. . .So, we’re going back to the hotel?”

Illinois nodded, not taking his eyes off of the road. “And once we get there, we’re packing up and heading home.”

Under normal circumstances, that type of last-minute nonsense would’ve left Penn all sorts of aggravated. But these circumstances were nowhere near normal. Even with how late it was, how Penn was feeling a type of fatigue that should only come after you had all but a pint of blood sucked out by a swarm of mosquitos, Penn knew he wouldn’t be able to get any sleep tonight. Not for the next couple nights, really.

“We’ll have to call a company before we leave, though,” Illinois sighed. “To get Chuck’s Hole sealed off, I mean. No-one else can go down there. It might have other. . .things waiting.”

A small, vague hum was the only response Penn could come up with. That was what confirmed how the rest of the night wasn’t exactly going to be pleasant; the title wasn’t even enough to make him or his friend laugh like before.

Illinois seemed to glance at him, to catch the state of his features, to maybe even read his mind for a second or two. “Things’ll turn up, Penn. I can guess how you’re feeling right now, but that’s just because it’s your first time dealing with something like this. We’ll both bounce back, I swear.”

Penn turned the Chimera Pipe in his hands, drumming his fingers on its clay teeth. “Be honest: does the whole ‘happens to the best of us’ schtick really apply right now?”

“Yeah, it does,” Illinois said in a matter-of-fact tone. “I’ve had worse experiences.”

Penn rolled his eyes, bracing his elbow near the window to rest his cheek against his palm. “Oh, let me guess: sometime before you even met me, you wound up accidentally releasing a surreal-horror-manifest just like the one who was looking at us like someone wheeled out a birthday cake?”

Illinois’ face went blank for several seconds, making a clear effort to stay focused on driving rather than stare at his companion with unfathomable dark eyes.

Fortunately for him, Penn took on staring for the both of them, now worried. “Illinois?”

Illinois sighed again, lightly shaking his head. “. . .I wouldn’t say that guy was exactly like the one we just saw. For one thing, he was on the other side of a door at the end of a hall—”

“You’re kidding.”

Illinois didn’t answer.

“Please tell me you’re kidding,” Penn repeated, voice completely and utterly deadpan. “Please. You have so much to live for.”

“You’re right, I do.” Illinois snorted, seemingly in spite of himself. “That’s why I take the Warden with me everywhere. That’s why I string it up on the door before I go to bed. So I don’t have to hear any knocking or demands or bribes or. . .” He trailed off, hands slowly but surely starting to shake on the steering wheel again.

One of Penn's sore eyes twitched. He didn’t want to close them; closing them would only conjure images of writhing flesh, of too many eyes where there shouldn’t be eyes, of too many teeth where there shouldn’t be teeth.

Still, he had to. He had to close them and knead at him forehead in a strange effort to keep his braincells intact. “. . .Oh my God, Illi. . .”

The jeep shuddered as Illinois drove, the sandy road a bit loose under its tires.

The blurry figures of cacti stood almost at attention as the duo passed them by; a tiny owl poked its head out of a hole in the base of one, its huge, curious eyes shining in the dark. If you concentrated, you could just make out the howls of coyotes somewhere off in the distance.

Illinois spoke up again, a hefty dose of hesitation having been injected into his voice. “What did he mean about your cousins?”

A spark of cold energy rattled through Penn’s ribs and plummeted into his stomach. “I didn’t think you actually heard that.”

“Well, I did. What did he mean when he said. . .those things?” Illinois coughed.

“I. . .” Penn stayed quiet for a moment before sighing again, this time with an air that was more anxious than tired. “I have absolutely no idea. I haven’t seen or heard from either of them since we were kids.”

Illinois considered this. The thoughtfulness in his eyes wasn’t a hopeful type. “You really don’t know?”

Penn shook his head. “No, I don’t.”

Illinois cringed, carefully sending a concerned look his companion’s way. “If that’s the case, then you need to find out sometime.”

Penn didn’t know how to reply to that.

So, he settled on gazing at the sky through the window, nervously taking in the moon’s silvery glow, trying to ignore what felt like sharp teeth wrapped around his lungs.

@sammys-magical-au @insane4fandoms @im-a-weird0 @b-is-in-the-closet

#my writing #my stories #matpat #egopats #my fanegos #fanmade egos #penn/pennsylvania james #leviathanpat #ahwm illinois #markiplier #tw dark and slightly claustrophobic areas #tw descriptions of being chased/pursued #tw blood #tw body horror #tw teeth #tw eyes

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