Roads To Hell: A Horror Anthology

Part 7 - The Sons of Tithonus

Will looked at the map and then back at the fissure. A great crack in the earth's skin, it stretched for about a kilometre in either direction, and was perhaps one hundred metres across. Ben and Kate were sitting on the edge, legs dangling. Jenny had tried to tell them to stay back, but they laughed her off.

"This isn't supposed to be here." Will was indignant, as if the presence of the crevice was an insult to his map-reading abilities. Which was why he'd insisted on leading them through Belanglo State Forest. They'd let him, only because it wasn't worth arguing with him. He liked being in charge.

"Maybe...we're lost?" Jenny suggested.

"We're not lost!"

Jenn flinched at the sharp tone. Will's shout echoed and a few bird in nearby trees squawked loudly, launching themselves into the air. The dark shapes flapped across the darkening ochre sky, into the setting sun. Jenn wished she could fly away too.

"We could go back the way we came?" she suggested.

Will scoffed, "You mean, walk another seven hours in the dark? The campsite is just over there!"

"On the other side of this chasm?" Ben laughed, as if the whole thing was a joke.

"It's not supposed to be here!" Will hissed, fists clenched and for a moment Jenn was worried he'd do something. She wasn't sure what. Punch Ben maybe, or push him over. She could see the veins in his hands and neck, pressed up against his skin, he was so tense. Will's teeth were bared and he rocked for a moment, before turning his back on Ben. Jenn let out a breath she hadn't known she was holding.

Will spread the map out on a large rock next to the dirt track. Jenn let him pore over it, muttering to himself as he retraced their steps with a finger.

"I'm just going to...take a look around?"

None of them responded - Kate was too absorbed in her search for phone reception; beside her, Ben was flicking pebbles and clumps of dirt into the deep darkness, straining to hear the sound of them hitting the bottom.

Along the edge of the chasm, the pine trees were browning. Some of them had fallen over, but most were near death. A startling difference to the deep green of the trees Jenn had seen on their trek. The air smelled like pine, and clay dirt. And something else she couldn't quite put her finger on. Something bitter on the wind.

Jenn picked her way through exposed roots and fallen branches, shoes crunching in piles of dry pine needles - fodder for a firestorm. If a fire ever started here, it would quickly spread through the whole forest, maybe even all the way to the highway. It had been a dry winter, and the fallen plants were as good as tinder.

Jenn got as far as she could - the sheer rocks to her back protruded outwards and met the chasm: she could go no further. The path they had taken was the only way in and out between the cliffs. The rock scraped her shoulder as she peered into the deep. The last rays of the setting sun illuminated nothing but layers of rock and dirt, and then there was shadow.

She went back to the others, who were much the same as she had left them. Will's map was even more crumpled and she strongly suspected he had scrunched it up, only to spread it flat again. Jenn decided not to bother him.

"Nothing that way," she said, though she didn't think anyone was really listening. "We can't get around the rocks."

"God damn it!"

"Shut up, Will! We can't do anything about this now. We may as well go back." Kate pushed up and brushed off the seat of her pants. "I'm tired. I want to go home."

Will wouldn't hear anything of it. He blamed them all for turning a five hour walk into seven hours, because they had to stop and rest, or take goddamn selfies or closeups of weeds, no matter how ugly they were. He was the experienced hiker, and they should have listened him.

They argued back and forth for a good half hour while the shadows deepened around them. Ben and Jenn stayed out of it. Until Will insulted Kate a little too personally and Ben leapt to his girlfriend's defence, pointing an accusatory finger at Will.

"Shut up about Kate!" was as far as he got when the screaming started.

It came from the chasm, deep in the heart of the darkness. A buzzing, high-pitched chorus. An ancient thrumming that was as familiar as it was terrifying, the siren call of the deepest primordial fear. First it distracted them from their argument, and they crept closer to the edge, heads tilted. Curious. It got steadily louder, until the four of them were covering their ears, tears streaming down their faces from the pain of it. The sound was everywhere. They couldn't escape it.

Jenn was crouched behind a large rock, eyes shut, unable to think past the searing pain in her ears and head. When she opened them - unsure of how much time had passed - the moon was high. She could see Will, blood dripping from his nose and ears. He was pale, eyes wide with terror.

Ben and Kate had collapsed near the edge of the chasm. "Over here!" Jenn shouted, but she couldn't hear her own voice over the dizzying sound that echoed from the crack in the earth. She doubted they could hear her either.

Then they were gone - mouths gaping in shock as something yanked them over the edge, into the darkness. Jenn stared at the space were they had been. She started to crawl, vision blurring and head aching. She stopped when, out of the darkness, they emerged. Huge shapes, many legs folded neatly against their midsection, and bulbous iridescent eyes seeing in all directions. Flying on wings that were a blur to Jenny's poor, human eyes.

Will saw them too - out of the corner of her eye Jenn saw him stand wobbly, and try to run away. She reached out for him, but he didn't look back once. He didn't see her, or the thing that swooped down and grasped his unprotected head with four of its legs, each tipped in a curved claw. Jenny couldn't hear the sickening rip and pop as Will's head was wrenched from his shoulders. In that brief moment though, the creature paused, and Jenny saw the curious pattern on its wings and the jewel-like colour of its carapace. She might have thought it beautiful, in a monstrous way. Will's knees bent, and he collapsed into a pool of dark blood that quickly soaked the ground. Then the thing was gone, rejoining the swarm.

Jenny lie prone on her back, shaking but otherwise still. Maybe they couldn't see her if she was still. Hands over her ears, vision darkening at the edges, she watched the sky. Hundreds, thousands rose from the chasm. For how long they had been hidden, waiting, she didn't know. The earth is old and these primordial creatures were following the hard-coded task evolution had set for them.

Wait. Rise. Feast.

They had waited. Now they emerged, all of them screaming.

...

This one is a gothic cosmological horror, inspired by Lovecraft's style of course, but with a modern twist. Incidentally, the forest that the characters are hiking in is known to be a place where several serial killers have buried their victims. And on top of that, there is an ongoing experiment in decomposition, so a lab has several bodies half buried there too. My high school took us camping there when I was 14. Good times.

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