Anaideia 33

The eyes of the man, our captor, widened in awe at the horrifying and unbridled majesty of Penelope. He was slow to raise arms, not that it would have mattered, and his comrades scrambled to figure a plan of attack. The captor on the right opened fire but the speed of a bullet was no match for Penelope’s supernatural and inhuman powers. She lashed out at her attacker, reaching for his ankles and smashed his body into a bloodied mess on the cavern wall. The captor on the left panicked and attempted to flee but was met with claws burrowing into his belly and bits of stomach and intestines spewed out.

The man was speechless and three of us in the cage were powerless with him. He was alone and Penelope towered over him then hissed and the man fell to his knees to beg forgiveness from a seeming beast that knew no mercy. “Penelope,” he pleaded with tears streaming down his face, “you’re the most beautiful creature I’ve ever witnessed! I never meant you no harm! Please! Can you find the humanity within yourself to let me go?! Your blood is my blood! You can have all this land! It’s been in my family for generations! It’s all yours! All I’ve ever wanted was a continuation of your kind!”

I looked deep into her glowing yellow eyes and for my sake and the sake of Dale and Old Jim, I prayed that there was a shred of humanity buried deep within her. But if there was, she wasn’t prepared to share it with the man on his knees. She raised her giant right hand and swatted it at the man’s head, knocking it clean off and it rolled towards the cage. When it stopped, it revealed to us that the last sensation that man ever knew was abject terror.

I looked at the head and then at Penelope. She approached the cage and glared at us intensely and it was the first time I had ever gotten a clean look at her face. She didn’t hiss or growl. She looked at me not with malice but with curiosity and while her alien features were apparent, I also saw the human. Though behind a cage and of no threat, I raised my hands in the air. “Penelope, I don’t know if you can understand me,” I said, “but I want to thank you for freeing us. I have a greater understanding of you now. I beg of you to let us be. We will not pursue you or harm you in any way.”

She studied us for what felt like eternity and then she placed her face close to the cage and I lower my hand. She sniffed at it for a bit before blinking then standing straight up and once again revealing her majesty. She blinked once more indicating her farewell then rushed out of the cavern like a fading dream.

I exhaled a sigh of relief and immediately crawled out from the bottom of the cage towards Vic. He was barely alive. His intestines were splayed out on the ground while his legs laid several feet away. I knelt down by his side to give him a sense of comfort before he died.

“Thank you for rescuing me,” I said as I laid my hand on his chest.

But in his dying daze he looked at me and with his last bit of strength, he reached up and grabbed me by my throat and blood spewed from his mouth he uttered his dying words. “I’m dead because of you!” he gurgled.

I struggled to pry his fingers from my neck and Dale rushed to my side to wrestle away his arm. But his strength slowly gave way and his eyes rolled back in his head and his hand fell flatly to the ground. And when he released me, I fell backwards and coughed uncontrollably to regain my breath.

“Christ!” I spat out.

Dale did a Hail Mary to mourn the passing of Vic then laid his hands on his eyes to close them. “Do we bury him?” he asked.

I look around to the cavern to the other bodies splayed about then I stand up to look at the carcass of the dead Scotsman once more. “Leave him,” I said. “This was what he wanted.”

I unlatched the cage to free Jim and the three of us traversed the narrow chambers of the cave and up to the opening where evening greeted us. On the outside we felt like three fallen angels that had escaped our hellish torment. Then each of us mounted one of the three horses deserted by our captors and proceeded down the trail.

We said nothing to each other.

As night fell and the moon hovered gloriously above the mountain tops, I saw Penelope silhouetted against the sky like a lone specter haunting the valley. She watched us trot away and then she disappeared into the darkness.

TO BE CONTINUED…