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Gone Batty – v.1
“Hey. Hey!” an eager voice whispers. “Come,
listen. Please. Listen carefully. There is much I wish to say.
“I have a
sort of story, if you will. A warning.”
His voice
grows sure, less eager. In the dim light, a look of sincerity—care, or perhaps
concern—crosses his face. The light flickers, and for second, his eyes glimmer
softly with the unmistakable taint of experienced fear.
“Are you
ready? Good. Take a seat.
“Now, let me
begin by saying I don’t expect you to believe everything I’m going to tell you.
In fact, it may be better if you don’t. Still, I implore you hear me out.”
He does not
speak for a moment, long enough to enunciate the slow, sharp crackling of the
dying fire against otherwise stark, ubiquitous nothingness.
“People
experience phenomena which rational thought has yet to explain. Things science
denies. Things, maybe, we’re just not ready for. Not ready to accept. Not ready
to understand.
“And it may
be just as well. If you’ve ever heard a first-hand account, one told in
extensive detail, you know just how unbelievable they can be. But who can
really say, fairly, if their stories are true?
“It is
rumored there are three men from the time of Jesus Christ still here today,
wandering the earth until He comes again. Saints. Apostles. Who really knows? Their presence here has been
attributed to common bigfoot-sasquatch sightings. Some say these men live among
us: participate in our day-to-day routines. Every seven years, however, they
disappear, change their identities, and pay a visit to the fountain of youth.
These men have, so to speak, become a double-layered myth: an explanation (one
that is more acceptable to some) for our pop culture’s own mythologies. Ironic,
though, how two unrelated tales are irrevocably bound together by this
testament to our Christ.
“But such is
the nature of the unknown. Simply by its observation, it is changed forever—the
least of which is its change from unknown to known, unobserved to observed. It is much like your modern science’s string
theory. Our observation brings about irreversible changes; our nature and
desire to dig further sets in motion a chain of events the likes of which we
may never fully understand. But once the door is open, the wall torn down, the
line erased, it cannot be undone. In spite of that, we seek it out. We strive
for more, thrive on it. Discoveries never cease; progress never stops; and
thus, our own destruction lurks ever closer. The magnitude of mayhem wrought
upon our fragile Earth by even one such ‘advancement’ is impossible to tell.
Each one is a Pandora’s box: myriad madness disguised
as a gift.
“‘Curiosity
killed the cat,’ they say. And, ‘ignorance is bliss.’
“I can tell
you of one incident, however. That is, if you still wish to listen to the
ravings of a decrepit old man.
In the early
acceptance stages of the technological revolution, three men (with unknown ties
to the United States government—that’s important) took an interest in the arid Nevadan
desert. For some reason which has yet to be—and may never be—ascertained, the
three went digging. Who knows? Perhaps they were looking for pirates’ treasure.
But they did find something. Something absurdly
extraordinary. One of Satan’s final touches after Lord Jesus and Michael
finished creation, perhaps. It was undeniably hellish. And just as
unbelievable.
They stumbled
upon a cavern, as best they could tell. Several hundred feet below the
surface—God only knows why they were that far down—the men met unexpected
resistance. They hadn’t struck gold on the lid of a buccaneer’s chest; that was
certain. Instead, it was soft… much softer than the sediment they had been
plowing through. And it squeaked. Faintly, but audibly.
They tried to dig around it, but the wall of winged, black squeaking things
extended far past their will to excavate.
Not about to
be stopped by what amounted to nothing more frightful than an enormous child’s
toy, the men abandoned their shovels and set to find what lay beyond this barrier.
They worked
one-by-one, taking shifts consisting of working, guarding, and sleeping.
Each small,
furry creature pried from the mass immediately spread its wings, let out a
high-pitched screech, and then flew up and out of the pit. The digging took exceptionally
long: repeated bat-wails in quick succession left all three with murderous
headaches. After several days, several thousands of excavated bats each, and
several extra feet in depth, a large, apparently empty cave revealed itself.
The men threw
a rock down the hole to test for depth. They were met with a shrill echo of
what was probably another bat-scream.
Perplexed,
but mostly curious, one of the men tried to climb down through the hole. His
first leg got about knee-deep in the chasm, and then it was gone. None of the
three saw it happen, but the curious man felt it. The layer of soft, squishy,
squeaky black bats was nothing more than tannish-brown, rocky sand.
The man was
dead before the other two got him out of the hole. His leg was cleanly gone
about the knee, and a fatal portion of his blood poured out on the rope-ride
up.
Just as
quickly and surely as it had gone, the cave had retaken its former location; no
remnant of the recently deceased was ever located.
The diggers’ story
piqued the interest of an official to the United States government. He was a
Senator (though it remains unknown which state he represented) with a powerful
influence. The story of a colony of bats residing underneath the Nevadan desert
was fantastic. That a man had died trying to discover what was inside made it
that much better.
The Senator
rashly determined he needed to know more. The best way to do so, in his
opinion, was to use his influence to take government possession of the land.
He’d have full access to whatever was discovered there—it was his proposition after all—and wandering civilians would not
have the chance to interfere.
Obviously,
though, the true story couldn’t be on the Congressional proposition for
government funding. Who would believe it? Who would give any money for a blind archaeological dig with no apparent benefits?
So instead, the proposition was made to construct an underground research
facility under the code name of Area 51.
Being
democratic, the number 51 is of some importance to the
The first
Area 51 government-funded research project was going to be the rediscovery and
exploration of the vanishing bat-cave, under the guise of simple
reconnaissance. That didn’t quite turn out, though. Two members of the initial
dig team disappeared entirely while at least seven more lost limbs—clean,
straight, precise cuts.
Government
officials found it progressively more difficult to replace the injured dig
team.
An
archaeologist—the first real one to join the team—discovered the key to
continuing the team’s research. Slowly, meticulously brushing away at the sand
of what was thought to be the site of the original discovery, the
archaeologist—“Daniel” will suffice for our purposes—came upon a buried bat.
Daniel dug around the bat, trying not to disturb it, but also to determine how
far the wall of them extended.
He found the
bats extended a great while, and at what he thought was a slight curve. Daniel
inferred the bats to surround some spherical, hollowed-out cavern, based on the
relatively thin layer of bats and the depth to the other side. To his
amazement, Daniel was unable to perceive light from within the cave. He lowered
a lit candle, which he tied to some loose string, inside to test his theory,
but the entire thing vanished before his eyes, cutting the string and nearly
his fingers. The bat-cave took three days to reappear, and the entrance he had
created was no longer there, either.
Eventually,
Daniel figured it out. It was literally a
bat cave. Nothing but bats—or, as Daniel discovered, things attached to bats—and the occasional
particle of sediment could get inside.
Daniel’s
theory was proven when he tied another candle to a captured bat. The cave
remained—for awhile; eventually, the bat dropped its luggage, and Daniel had to
wait another three days to resume testing—and he saw no light as soon as the
candle passed what he assumed to be the threshold.
In a bizarre
act of cruelty and disregard for animal life, our archaeologist, Daniel, tore
through layers of bats, throwing hundreds up and out of the pit. He created an
enormous, gaping, lightless chasm which, as he wanted, put a slight dent in the
spherical shape of the bats. As best Daniel could tell, when he restructured
the general shape of the cave wall, the invisible threshold followed suit.
Daniel discovered that the location of the threshold was determined by the
depth to which the bats extended. However, practically speaking, Daniel
couldn’t just get rid of all the bats. There were too many. Running out of
options, Daniel surpassed his past act of harsh cruelty to the bats. He plucked
several bats from the nearby wall, tied them firmly to each of his limbs, and
descended into the hole.
While trying
to slip slowly into the realm of the bats, Daniel lost his grip. He fell
quickly, penetrating the threshold gracelessly and immediately losing all sight
except his peripheral vision. A faint glow of red light sat tauntingly at the
edge of the visible blackness. The restrained bats flapped and struggled
powerfully against Daniel’s body. He grew fearful; what would happen if the
bats broke—
All at once,
the bats broke free of their bindings.
The cave
vanished with Daniel.
● ● ●
Three days
later, on the cave’s return, the remaining members of the expedition went
through with their own experiment. The cave was getting in the way now, and
despite present obstacles, the government still wanted an Area 51 built. Two men dug a new hole through the wall of
bats. When it was finished, the two were hauled out and a large quantity of
dynamite was tied to two bats—from what they understood of Daniel’s research,
that would suffice—and dropped into the hole, fuse
lit. Long out of sight, the bats freed themselves from the explosives and the
cave disappeared. Three days later, it still had not returned.
Construction
of the Area 51 underground research facility resumed a “normal” status.
Approximately
2400 feet below the original entrance, a colossal mound of dead bats was found
at the base of a statue. The monolith’s eyes were set with two angry red
jewels. Those who saw it claimed the eyes followed them, like a creepy old
painting in an empty house. The gems in his—its—eyes were not rubies; the type
of jewel could never be identified. The bat-pile was cleared out, but the
statue was immovable. Everyone who touched it vanished for three days and quit
work immediately after, without a word. Instead, a containment facility was
built around the statue; no connection to the main Area 51 construct was ever
built.
It stayed
solitary, locked away forever.
No official
records of the bat-cave were ever made, and excessive care was taken in preventing
any unofficial accounts from cropping up.
The
archaeologist’s family was told he had died honorably, serving his country.
On occasion,
people inside Area 51 still go missing. One was lucky and lost only his finger.
These events
go unrecorded.
● ● ●
From
time-to-time, the story finds its way to a new researcher. He unfailingly wants
to be assigned to the project. He is politely informed that research is
underway, but no new recruits are being assigned to the project.
Most
startling of all, there are recorded
incidences of bat infestations around Area 51 from time to time.
Regular
chemical fumigation occurs every three years. This is passed off as an extended
vacation to all employees.
The old man
finishes his story with a sigh. He is shivering; his clothes are torn and
raggedy, and the worn jacket he uses for a blanket is clearly not helping. The
last ember of his evening fire, set atop an upside-down metal barrel, goes out
with a faint crack. The silent emptiness of the abandoned city becomes more
apparent in the pitch black.
“How do you
know? How do you know what happened to Daniel? He was never found.”
“I didn’t say
he was never found,” the man responds. “I only said he disappeared.”
“But how do
you know?”
“I was there.
I went into the cave. What I saw after that, I won’t tell. Nobody deserves to
have to know… even what feeble explanation I could put into words is too
horrific. Suffice it to say, what I went through incapacitated my spirit.
“You’ll
experience it yourself one day. We’re all going to Hell anyway.”
THE END
Jeremy
Davidson
February
15-22, 2007
This page (and all the contents therein) is copyright © 2008 Jeremy
Davidson.