The Unnamed

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. It was the first light to have ever shown from that place, and Presley had been watching from her study for the last three years. Horrific aged tales of missing persons, mutilations, murders and suicides surrounded the cabin, despite suspected abandonment. There was always the occasional rumor of something or other about it. Some said a family of shut-ins had lived there for years surviving off of the flesh of those mutilated - a story of cannibalism, others with the traditional tale of hauntings and supernatural occurrences, and some even spun tales of extra terrestrial abductions and experimentation. With decades upon decades of existence under its belt, there was plenty of time for an array of pictures to be painted about this most ominous place. Presley had been a daily observer, though, before and after her son’s disappearance, and nothing of that nature ever struck her as the truth. It had been quiet for so long until Toby was gone.

There were sounds, from time to time; almost like screeching and she suspected occasionally she could hear the mumblings of a very distorted voice, though she was far enough from the cabin. That could not be. She surmised it resulted from insomnia. It was as though it was invading her mind, like another was living inside her head. This all started soon after Toby vanished. He was 7 years old, with a knack for making even the most curt of people laugh. The goofiest child you would ever meet. He had a heart as big as the sea. His smile was the size of the crescent moon and his brown tussled hair was always in tangles. Those deep blue eyes were that of a genuine soul. The house was uncomfortable and lonely without him.

With three years of sorrow and grief, Presley had pulled away from work. She was a doctor, and a damn good one. The community loved her; she loved them, too. She was known for her ability to work from the root of their ails. Everyone in town had sought her help, knowing they would always remain in their best health. Her husband, Val, was a P.I. and had been working tirelessly to find answers about their son since the day he’d gone, at least he did until the last year. He spent long nights at the office researching, hunting and reviewing footage he would capture of the cabin every day and night. As of late, he would turn up home with the smell of alcohol all over his coat. He convinced himself he had failed by now as a husband, and especially as a father. Presley rarely ever saw him anymore.

Toby vanished the day after his 7th birthday. Val had gone inside to prepare a few glasses of water, and Presley ran to retrieve the baseball from their last game. It was a hot day; the sun shone high. Just as Presley turned around, and Val was coming to deliver the beverages, they witnessed Toby making a beeline for the Cabin just off from their property. It was almost as if he had become ensnared. They raced as fast as they could to catch up to him before he reached the woodland. Anyone in the Bayou knew to stay away from that place, all rumors aside, the surrounding terrain was nearly impassible; swampy and overgrown. In the blink of an eye, they both watched the front door blow open as a massive wind swept through the area, and his purple ball cap flew straight through the cabin’s doorway and then he was gone. It was completely unreal. Both of them paralyzed into shock, they tried to press on to the front door, but each time they would nearly drown in the marsh. They did this for hours until they realized it was no use. Toby was gone. It was every single day from then, Presley and Val had stood vigil, and investigated every moment for what it would take to get there little boy back, but as the years went by, hope was spread thin.

Presley was up late that night; particularly late. She had planned to return to work again in the morning. She had to do something other than stalk that cabin day in and day out. She half heartedly looked forward to the possibility of work taking her mind away from it for a few hours. It was about three thirty in the morning and she’d usually find herself in bed by one or two. This feeling of up rise disturbed her in her chest, so she sat again, in front of her study window, watching the cabin from afar. That’s when she saw the candlelight. It was the first time she had ever observed that someone was actually there. As a few moments passed, she had seen a shadow flicker across the walls within. She practically flew down the staircase, hurried to dress herself in some old errand boots, and threw on a coat. She sped out the door, not even bothering to close it behind her. Among the towering cypress and thorny brush, she weaved her way through, until she reached the cabin’s threshold, before the marsh. She noticed right away it looked different. There was no marsh. The ground was solid; it was never solid.

It was difficult, and she gashed her leg pretty good along the way, but all she could think was Toby, and as she stood just a few horrific yards away from the cabin door, the candle still burned. She waited in anticipation before slowly daring to approach further. Just as she edged to the steps of the disheveled porch, a man appeared in the window, blonde hair and a mud smudged face. She slowly kneeled to the ground, hoping to avoid his gaze. He was tall, malnourished, and dressed in tatters with markings on them she had never seen before. He looked like a walking corpse, skin pitted and sallow. There were tears from his flesh about the arms. She could hear his breath, raspy and ill. If there were ever a depiction of pestilence, his portrait would have painted it exactly. Presley was stunned, partly because not one person ever seemed to have lived here, and partly because it was almost as if he weren’t even human. She stared for what felt like an eternity, and he stood there just as long. Eventually lumbering away, she listened for the sound of him leaving. Once he finished whatever he was there to do, it sounded as though a hatch was lifted and he tread underground. After a few moments of astounded silence, Presley slowly lifted herself to the more stable parts of the deck and opened the unexpectedly heavy front door.

Inside, the cabin was stained in grime, and a fluid she couldn’t recognize. It smelled like death, feces, and a sour note of what she couldn’t tell. Graffiti, none like she had ever seen. It was ritualistic and off-putting. The candle still sat in the window, so she slowly crept up and plucked it from the sill to light the dark. As she ventured deeper into the cabin, there was an unnatural air running throughout. Distracted by the walls and the writings all around, she nearly tripped over the hatch handle lying buried under a disintegrating rug. This must have been where that man had gone, she thought.

She pressed her ear to the wooden boards beneath her to listen, but there was no sound. She picked herself back up and tried to tug at the hatch door, to no avail. How in the world, in his condition, did he pull this open? She wondered. After a few minutes of struggle, she heard a rustling outside; she took the candle and silently sped through the cabin to hide behind its door. As the shuffling got louder, she panicked at what she would do. She heard the porch boards creak, and a soft footfall reach the doorway. Peering through the crack of the jam, she quickly made out the silhouette of a woman. Is that Amy? she thought for a brief second. Amy was her best friend. She took a chance and called to her quietly. Amy turned to see where it came from. It is! She sighed in relief.

They embraced as Presley described to her what was going on. Amy had found the front door to the house wide open, and came trekking through to find her. Amy stood soaking in the cabin for all it was, and listened to the account Presley had of the man she had seen here. Amy then immediately mentioned how easy it was to get to the front door. The swamp was the whole reason Val and Presley had been driven away when Toby went missing in the first place; it was all sinking marsh. Both of them puzzled and unknowing of what to do, Presley led Amy to the hatch she found at the back of the cabin. With both of them there, maybe they could pry it open. Several hard tugs and a labor of breath later, the latch broke free, and the odor that permeated from below was atrocious. All these smells made Presley want to rip her nose away. As the air settled a bit, they peered below. It was pitch black, and a single ladder fell all the way down; or at least, it appeared to. Amy hesitated and nervously commented how it might be good to wait for Val or call the authorities. Presley agreed, but was determined, and once again only thought to herself, one thing - my boy is in there. Presley collected the candle and readied herself for the descent. Amy waited above and called for help. She watched as Presley faded to the depths of the passage.

The smell got stronger as she neared the bottom; it was a metallic and musty smell; that of decay, and blood, and a pretty prominent scent of bacteria. Her feet hit the ground, and she met with rock solid terrain; a small splash of water disturbed at her feet. As she waved the candle about, the walls were cavernous; the atmosphere was dank and warm. At the edge of her vision, another light shone in the distance and as she approached, she gradually stumbled upon rows of torchlight. How convenient, but how are they lit? What was this place? Her thoughts coursed all over. The walls slowly opened up and finally she found herself in a massive opening. She marveled at the height of the cavern ceiling and quickly noticed the hollow was decorated with far more torchlight than the cavern hall, and with symbolism much like she had found in the cabin smeared all about, in what seemed to be rotten flesh and bowel. Where in the hell am I? How could this place exist beneath that small cabin? she pondered, as she stood before the gore of this ugly scene.

She stood in this area for a long while before finding enough courage to take her next steps forward. She made it to the end of some stairs that didn’t appear to be all that stable, made up of rotten wood and rusted nails. Before climbing the treacherous way, she had glimpsed an odd flash of color out of the corner of her eye and just off from the staircase, jammed between a crack in the cavern wall, was Toby’s purple hat. She pulled it from the divide and held it close. Finding it down here amongst the dark, and the rot, was extremely disturbing. She felt a jolt of panic in her nerves all over. It was then she heard it, a building scratch in her mind, like an incantation. It was the sound of that unknown voice she had been hearing over the years. This time, with far more clarity, it got to where it was like nails on a chalkboard, and she felt it. “He’s here, but not as you would like him to be. There is no more child with the blessed blue eyes and infectious grin.” It was bone chilling and made her feel sick. What is this madness? This pain is incredible, she thought back. A few minutes passed, and so did the echo of the voice.

She placed the cap on her head and veered back to the edge of the staircase. She trudged upward, very deliberate of each movement. With a couple of close calls, she had made it about halfway up when she sensed a presence behind her. She spun around quickly to find nothing in her immediate view, but noticed a shadow scuffle along the wall. As she watched, the sound of an animal’s nails scraping the stone slowly reached her ears, and before she could process it, a call of a sharp squealing came from above. It sounded like a wild creature, but none that she had ever known. She took a few deep breaths and watched around her as she glimpsed skittering shadows and listened for more screeching calls. As quietly as possible, she pressed forward and made her way up the stairs until finally reaching a platform extending from the top. The candle was dying out by now, so she plucked a torch away. It hung mounted just before the opening of another cave tunnel. Before entering, she explored the rest of the platform. There was a mining cart broken and derailed from its track a small way off. When she got closer, inside was a grotesque mash up of wildlife entrails and more of the unknown fluid she had run into at the cabin. It was repugnant.

Her leg pulsed with intense pain, she needed to sit down, but with the feelings she had just being inside this place, it had her doubting her every move. She re-approached the tunnel and carried on. If Toby was here, she wasn’t leaving him now. This opportunity was the first she’d had in three years to look deeper into his disappearance. It would not be squandered. As she stepped before the cave passage, she heard a large crash come from below, and a man yelling about sacrifices and innocence and “The Unnamed”. She jumped at the sudden disruption and scrambled for a place to hide. She followed further down the tunnel, his obscenities slowly fading from her ears.

There were many other tunnels within this one, but she stayed moving straight ahead. She came to a pretty small enclosure, but it was ripe with the smell of mould and excrement. As she stepped in, investigating where she was, in some strange way, the space resembled a bedroom. This must be where he sleeps, she thought. The bed was made up of stacked stones, and she could make out a small lantern in the corner. Upon further study, she found he had body parts in pieces, hanging from the low ceiling by chains and the symbolism strewn together in the cabin, and earlier in the cavern adorned the walls here, too. As she blundered about to leave the room, she frightfully danced around stalagmites dressed with human and wildlife carcasses alike, jutting about the ground. Presley turned and couldn’t hold it anymore. She vomited at the sight of all this death, the aroma of her vomitus being welcomed compared to the rest of this place. She didn’t think that the smells could get any worse. She turned and left the room; it was far too much to believe. This can’t be where my Toby has been all along, she thought with fear.

Presley was terrified as she thought to herself, This place is a massacre. Has it been here all along? Moving on was the only option she had left. With the idea of never being able to even reach the cabin’s front door again, she didn’t even consider collecting protection from the house before coming down here. Her only hope was knowing that Amy bore witness to her entering this damned cave, and that she had alerted help. It was the most horrendous place she had ever seen. Not even reminiscent to the mutilations and sadness that had been catalogued in history papers, based around the cabin. She turned at the first tunnel she noticed. Luckily enough in her sweatpants pocket, she found some of the putty that Toby used to play with. She usually kept it with her, to fumble with in her times of anxiety after he went away. She tore a piece, bright yellow, and placed it at the edge of the tunnel to mark her direction.

This cavern way felt colder than the rest of the place. Within this tunnel it let out to a clearing of rock and darkness, with a small single hole peering from the ceiling. She could feel the draft coming from it. It must lead straight out to the land above. In the dead center of this room stood a stone table and sketched around it, in soot and grit, was a depiction of twisted and alarming imagery. It showed a bat-like creature devouring a collection of human bodies, and another chewing the tongue from a living man’s mouth. Fresh blood dripped from the tabletop and on it sat a brain that looked as if it had been feasted upon. There were multiple doors, one sitting beyond the stone table on the far wall, and one to both the left and right. She dared not open them, no. Instead, she realized that running in a complete circle around the room was an oil trail. She ignited the trail, and as the walls lit up, an ear-piercing screech from above fell to her level. The ground shook, and she laid eyes upon a creature so horrendous and so unbelievably abhorrent she thought she had died in that very moment. It stood before her. It was tall and evil looking. Limbs as long as a spider’s would be if scaled to our size, wings just as large, and vascular. It was the color of snow and snarled the sharpest and most intimidating rows of teeth. Its eyes nearly appeared to be sewn shut, though no suture shone from the skin. Its hands and feet composed of skeleton like appendages and claws thicker than the fingertips themselves.

She didn’t move, she barely breathed. This thing tossed its head about, sniffing the air and wildly clicking its teeth. She was sure she would die soon. As the room got still and she watched as the creature focused, she heard the voice again, “You must be his mother.” Presley listened. “Your boy has been given to me, mother. He is no longer.” She released a tear. “What’s left of him actually sits right there, on the altar.” This cannot be. Is this the voice of that abomination spea—? Before her thought could even finish “Yes, it is I who curdles your blood at night when you try to sleep. It is I who disturbs your darkest hours, like a gnat in your ear. It is I who devoured your boy.” She screamed in rage after it planted the thought in her mind. She peered at the organ sitting on the table. There was no way that was all that was left of him. As the pressure built, and she stared longer, “You dare to torment a mother with thoughts of mutilation, and despair of her child’s last breaths!” She shouted. There was a long silence. The creature let out a disgusting cry lunging to the ceiling. She heard its nails scratching all around, unable to follow their orientation. It was taunting her.

The creature invaded her mind once more. “We are older than your Earthly plain. You have no comprehension of what’s been awakened here. It will be good to feast on your despair after all is said and done. I will properly marinate you for our next feeding. Your boy’s purity was a different craving. We want your rage and sorrow to course through us, as we ruin your soul and feed on your flesh and blood.” As the voice scraped against her skull, a ringing in her ears trailed as she felt its presence dissipate. She fell to the ground, sobbing and calling her poor boy’s name. Never once had she suspected Toby was quite literally dragged to hell. It was the most repulsive place she had ever known. As the flames continued to burn around the room, Presley kept hearing the creature’s words: We are older than your Earthly plain. That means there is more than just one.

She strongly considered running back to Amy, and returning better equipped, but what would even stand a chance against something as unnatural as that? She also thought of her poor Toby, and how frightened he must’ve been here. She pulled herself up and followed her putty trail back to the entrance of the passage. She re-emerged into the main hallway and followed it back until she stood before the stairway. She peered over to find no one below. Surely that man heard the commotion from where me and that creature encountered one another. It’s a wonder he’s lived this long down here, she thought. She began her walk downstairs and her thoughts raced with absolute fury. She would not accept that monsters had eaten Toby up. Can I even trust my mind? If a creature like that really were to exist, I wouldn’t be walking away from it right now. There is no way. That man wouldn’t be prowling around here… Have I gone mad? She reached the bottom of the staircase and just stood there in the dark for a long while. She could not process what she had just witnessed. All the words echoing in her head, all the obscene things she had stumbled upon through these caves and no sign of her baby, but his purple hat. She pulled it off her head and held it to her chest. She sobbed and sobbed until she couldn’t catch her breath.

After about thirty minutes of pure disbelief, she heard a sound from her right side. She heard obscenities and mumbles of insanity - it was him. She stood tall; she was enraged. Instead of running away, she rushed right up to him by the sound of his voice. “You! Who are you!? And what the hell have you done with my boy?! You have been here, you live with these, these things! What business does anyone have being here?!” she yelled. He receded in fear, as if she were going to strike him. “Who are you!?” she yelled again. He winced and cried out, “I am of them, they of me. The Unnamed, that’s who they are. They are our maker, our leaders. They hide waiting, waiting, waiting….” He clamored with his words, and let out small nervous laughter in between his claims. “Is that what they are called? The Unnamed?” Presley asked “The Unnamed! The Unnamed! Yes, that is them. There are many, many, many… These caves span for miles upon miles, they flood the underground. I serve, I protect, I feed them to save my life.” He stammered. This man was deranged.

The mention of him feeding these creatures caused her to become unhinged. The voice came to her again, much faster this time. “Yes, you think correctly. He brought us the boy; Your Toby. We clicked our tongues and clattered our teeth at the smell of him and called out in celebration of his bloodshed. As we closed in on the boy, he cried and called for you, but you never came.” Presley’s eyes changed. They blackened with hate as she grabbed the man by his neck and squeezed as tightly as she could. She listened to the sound of his gurgles and pain and screamed to the ends of the caves. “You brought my baby to these monsters! You are a detestable human being with no conscience of your fellow man. How could you bring a boy so small back to this hell?!” She still had him suspended by the throat. She would’ve killed him too, but her eyes softened, her grip loosened, and he fell from her grasp.

Presley backed away, mortified by her actions and infuriated by her discovery. She ran from the man, making her way back to the ladder that brought her to this torment. She was flaring with feelings she had never experienced before. She thought the pain couldn’t get any worse than that of never knowing what happened to Toby that day. As she crawled back up the ladder, she could feel itching at her skull. “You will return. You will think you have the resources to burn us all away, but you will see. We’ll be waiting.” Presley’s face ran hot with tears, her leg burned like fire with pain and all she could keep thinking was how sorry she was to her son. Then that's when she heard him, "Mommy!" Presley froze right then and thought only one thing - Toby.