When One Digs Too Deep

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. The candle itself was red; intricate carvings filled with gold flakes surrounded its waxy, dust-covered skin. Tiny faces of horned figures and winged creatures, all locked in infinite battle. Particles of ancient dust crackled into short-lived microscopic explosions as they entered the tiny flame’s combustible embrace. The flame cast phantasmal shadows across the dark, broken floorboards of the stale, moss-covered cabin room. It illuminated both the ancient rusty mining equipment leaning against a wooden storage crate and thin cloth drapes, some clinging by just a thread off the protruding vines that had forced their way into the dark dwelling through tiny cracks of the cabin’s dry rotted outer walls.

The all too familiar copper smell of blood mixed with stagnate sulfur filled Isaiah’s nostrils. Pain surged up, like lightning strikes, from the open wounds below his left armpit and from under his sternum. Large pieces of old, dirty cloth were packed deeply into the wounds slowly giving way to the amount of blood they had collected. The large match, burning dangerously close to his fingertips, fell to the ground, shook loose by the deep, guttural bellow from within the hole that Isaiah had just clawed his way out of.

“You belong to me, boy!” the voice echoed, seemingly amplified by the circumference and length of the cave from whence it came.

“I can… smell you,” it screeched, its voice accompanied by the bubbly spattering noises of saliva as the words escaped its large, dark blue lips.

Isaiah reached into the small, dust-covered box and ignited another match. After examining the wounds and wiping away as best he could the blood that flowed towards the waistband of his pants, he rummaged through the mining equipment and extracted a rusty pickaxe. The handle– broken and cracked in multiple places– was held together by straps of thin leather. He confidently grabbed the red candle from the windowsill with his tiny free hand, placing it at the mouth of the hole protruding from underneath the broken fragments of wooden planks that had once made up the cabin flooring.

“Then come and get me, ugly!” Isaiah screamed, goosebumps appearing across every inch of exposed skin with every word. “I don’t belong to you. I now belong to no one!”

*****

7 YEARS EARLIER:

Isaiah was 12 years old when his father Joseph bought the old cabin and 10-acre plot of land on a mountain side just north of the mining town of Bodie, Washington. It was just a couple hundred yards away from a natural karst cave, a small opening in the ground carved by decades of underwater erosion. Joseph, coming from a long lineage of miners, some coal, others gold, and everything in between, knew that this cave would provide what he had come here for. Gold, intertwined within the rocky subterranean formations that the town of Bodie was built upon, stretched like the hairy legs of a gigantic spider lurking just below the wet, moss-covered rocky surface. Mining companies and families alike had already profited richly from the soft valuable substance found within the surrounding area.

Within a few weeks, he had reached the bottom of the karst cave, working day and night with his canary, lanterns, pickaxe, shovel and dirt buckets. Some of those buckets, once sifted, began showing signs of the shiny, precious mineral. Tiny flakes and slightly larger chips of gold. Proving those who continuously ridiculed him wrong only fueled Joseph’s primal drive to continue digging through the apparent dead end of limestone and granite that stood before him. His attendance at the family dinners became more sporadic, regardless of his wife’s clearly communicated concerns and contesting pleas.

The townsfolk of Bodie mocked Joseph for purchasing the desolate plot of land. They said the area was known as the “Voiding Grounds” for it had been prospected many years, prior to its most recent owner, and gold had never been found no matter how deep the dig. Miners and their families mysteriously vanished without so much as a trace, thought to have given up and moved on to other prospecting towns. Rumors of guttural noises and dark figures in the area after nightfall were common amongst the townsfolk. This mattered not to Joseph for he was a cocky sort and believed these to be stories for misbehaving children. Many times, prospecting folk tried to sway his efforts away in order to collect newfound riches for themselves. He had never given up on a prospect, and that had always worked for him, regardless of how many hours in a day it would take him.

This did not sit well with Isaiah. He did not like his father going off at night into that dark cavernous hole, always alone with the exception of his stupid, tiny, yellow bird. The bulk of his fears came from the other children that occasionally braved their way up to the cabin, no doubt on a dare, speaking of ghouls and eaters of man living in the holes of the mountain side. His mother, Samantha, had comforted him more than once on those particular long nights. She would always assure him that his father knew what he was doing.

“Oh Isaiah,” she would say, wiping tears from his cheeks, “your father is too strong and loves you too much for anything to keep him from coming back to you.” This did little to quell the boy’s fears, but he learned to never show it. It was more than this fear for his father that had kept him up at night, but his mother refused to believe him.

Weeks prior, the night was as normal as any other. His father had not yet come back from the cave, and Isaiah cried himself to sleep. A cool, feather-down pillow laid tucked neatly between his knees and arms, as if holding his father as he slept. He awoke to the sounds of tapping against his bedroom window. The glass, covered in swirls of melted moonlight, made it difficult for him to see what was outside. Removing the pillow and stepping onto the cold, wood floor, Isaiah slowly walked over to investigate the noise. Perhaps it was his father, letting him know that he was back and wanting him to come and see all of the gold he found. At first, Isaiah could see nothing as he looked through the semi-translucent glass. Then, a figure slowly rose into view less than a few inches from the window. Isaiah could not move as if his feet were nailed to the wooden planks beneath them. His mouth would not open, robbing him of the chance to yell for his mother. His hands were locked at his sides.

It was his father, but something about the way he looked at Isaiah caused fear to swell like a bee sting within the boy’s throat. His father’s eyes were dark– fraught with tiny, gold lights in the center of where his green eyes should be. His father’s lips were curled upwards into an almost supernatural and impossible grin, each corner of his mouth seeming to touch the outer portions of his eyes.

Dark saliva dripped from his father’s oily teeth as he said, “Hello, boy.” Isaiah closed his eyes and was then released by whatever invisible force held him. He screamed.

Samantha swung the door to his room wide open. He explained through interrupting sobs and gasps of air what he had just seen outside of his window. His mother draped her large cotton shawl around her shoulders and grabbed the lantern by the front door. Cautiously opening the door, she shoved the lantern far in front of her into the evening moonlight. Shifting the light to Isaiah’s window, she noticed nothing. Then, as if on cue, she caught a glimpse of a dark figure working its way from the direction of the cave. She began to shiver, trying to recall where her husband had placed his gun. Then, to her relief, Joseph’s face replaced the shadowed figures. Exhaling the air that she unknowingly held within her lungs, she ran to him.

“Samantha?” he asked, for this was not the welcome home he was accustomed to as of late. “What concerns you?”

“Oh, it is nothing my dear husband,” she replied visibly shaken. “It appears that your late evenings at the cave are wearing on our child’s mind, birthing strange nightmarish things while he sleeps.”

Joseph looked through the front cabin door at his son, pale as the snow that covered the mountain floors around them. He walked up to Isaiah, kneeled before the boy and placed his large hands on his son’s shoulders.

“I assure you that it was just a dream, my boy. You know that I want nothing more than to be here with you and your mother, but I must keep going.” Joseph reached into his pocket and produced a very large gold nugget the size of the leather handball that Isaiah received for his 5th birthday and placed it in the boy’s hand. Samantha squealed with excitement.

Looking up from the gold nugget that lay within the palms of his hands, he watched as his mother and father embraced. At first, Isaiah was relieved. His father had returned home safe and this time, with evidence of the gold he had worked so hard for. But his relief would be short lived, for when his mother and father turned in their celebratory embrace, his father faced him, chin over his mother’s shoulder, gold lights in his eyes. Isaiah’s world faded to black.

*****

The next morning, Isaiah awoke to the smell of ham and biscuits. He could hear his father and mother talking from the main room of the cabin. He was confused. Had everything been in fact a nightmare? Had they just been figments of his own fears mixed with those stories the children whispered into his ears? He slowly swung his legs over the side of his bed, placing his feet against the cold floor. It reminded him of the encounter, or nightmare, he had the night before. The pleasant smell of the breakfast his mother was cooking caused his mouth to water. His father was sitting on his large, fur-covered log chair, grinding the dull edges of his pick and shovel. Smoke billowed from the cornhusk pipe protruding from his mouth as he spoke. His mother was just placing the food on the oak table when she looked up at Isaiah.

“I have something for you by the front door,” she said, gesturing with a nod, “I bought it this morning when I went into town.”

His father stood up from his chair and let out an audible snort as he began shoving supplies into his satchel prepping for the cave. “You are babying the boy,” he said, shooting an odd glance towards Isaiah’s mother. “It was just a bad dream. And all of those stories the children from town fill his head with? Not surprising in the least.”

Isaiah walked to the front door and there lied a cylinder wrapped in brown paper tied together nicely with hemp. He grabbed the package as his father nudged past him. Looking up, he watched as his father just shook his head and closed the cabin door behind him.

“Don’t mind your father,” Samantha said, “he is just working hard to take care of us. And with this gold, trying to change our lives.”

The boy smirked as he began pulling at the hemp rope that held the brown paper package closed. Out from the package slid a large, red candle. It was heavy and had golden drawings around the outside. He looked at his mom with confusion in his eyes.

“I met an old gypsy woman in Bodie. A candle maker. She sold candles that she said promised good fortune. Some candles were for ailments. I asked her what would help with your bad dreams, and she gave me this candle.” She gently took it from Isaiah’s hands. “This candle wards off evil spirits when lit.”

Samantha placed the candle back into her son’s hands.

“If you wake, and you are scared, light this candle. As long as the flame glows, nothing can hurt you.”

Isaiah was old enough to understand what his mother was doing. She would say or do anything to make him feel safe. He knew that she did not believe in magic and potions and stuff like that. But he did not want to hurt her feelings. Isaiah thanked his mother and placed the candle on his windowsill next to an old box of matches that he acquired from the cooking stove. Besides, if it was just a bad dream, what could it hurt?

*****

That evening, Isaiah laid in bed staring at the window. It was even later than last evening, and his father had still not returned. He loved his father but was beginning to feel that his father loved gold more than him. He swung out of bed and walked to the bedroom window. In the distance, he could make out the tiniest of lamp light marking the entrance of that stupid cave. Isaiah wished that his father had never heard of this place, and that they were back in Oregon with the ore miners. At least they never went out alone.

Just then, something caught Isaiah’s eye. The dim light disappeared and then reappeared. This happened over and over again. Snow began to fall making it more difficult to see. He squinted his eyes desperately trying to make out the distant light. The flashing continued even faster, and Isaiah felt the hair on his arms and the back of his neck stand on end. Soon he could no longer see the light, just the shadowy form that was running unbelievably fast towards his window.

In a panic, Isaiah grabbed the box of matches. They fell from his hands and opened up on the floor releasing hundreds of matchsticks. He bent down and began grabbing at the sticks, eventually getting a hold of one. He stood up and was face to face with something familiar but not quite the same as the night before. He knew it was his father. Its head was bulbous and covered with what Isaiah could only describe as large black thorns. Its skin was blue, and the eyes were yellow like tiny suns. Its mouth in an upward wicked smile just like before, only this time, the teeth were not like his dads. They were sharp and bent in multiple directions. The smell of rotten eggs and noticeable heat began to seep through the tiny opening under the window.

“Come with me my boy. Help your old man in the cave” the thing spat. “I have so many things to show you”. Drops of saliva slowly slid down the warped glass leaving visible etching behind. Its voice was like listening to rolling thunder during a storm, low and crackly.

Isaiah struck the match as tears began streaming down his cheeks. With the match lit, he raised it to the wick of the large red candle. His father’s golden orbs looked down at the candle and then back to Isaiah as he began beating the outside of the cabin. The candle ignited, seeming to illuminate the entire bedroom. The thing outside let out a wrenching scream as it flew backward through the trees. Isaiah could once again see the flickering of that distant light as his father ran back to the cave.

Samantha opened the door to see Isaiah huddled on the ground with his hands wrapped over the top of his head. The candle was bright allowing her to see the tiny lake of tears forming on the wood between his feet.

“Isaiah, what was that noise?” He did not answer, only continued to cry.

She looked out the window only to see nothing but falling snow. “Isaiah, what happened?”

“It… it was Father. Only, it wasn’t Father.” Isaiah had difficulty speaking through the hiccup-like interruptions of his uncontrollable sobbing.

The front door of the cabin opened and shut with a thud.

“Mm… Mom, d…don’t go!” His voice filled with high pitched terror.

“It is your father. He has returned home and will straighten this out.” Samantha said.

She stood and pulled away from Isaiah’s tight grasp. He refused to watch what happened next as his mother disappeared through the doorway into the main room. He heard his mother’s soft voice as she said “Joseph!” It was quickly followed by the loud thud of something heavy hitting the floor, then low whispers. The heavy footsteps of his father’s boots echoed throughout the cabin as he walked towards Isaiah’s room. The boy reached up, grabbing the lit candle, extending it out in front of his face. The candle’s flame went out in the process.

The door swung open once again and there stood his father. Not the blue, evil, stinky one that he thought he had seen outside of the window. This was his father, green eyes and all, covered in layers of dirt with cuts and bruises along his arms and neck. His mother walked in behind Joseph.

“My boy” he said as he reached out his large, dirty hand to Isaiah. He lifted his startled son onto his bed while Samantha ignited the two lamps once sitting cold on the boy’s dresser cupboard. “Come, I have some things to show you.” This sent shivers down his spine. Isaiah watched as his father stood, turned and walked out into the main room. Reluctantly, almost as if in a trance, Isaiah followed.

His father placed the lamp that he held next to a large satchel. He then opened the flap and tipped the bag over on its side. To his amazement, Isaiah was looking at dozens of large golden rocks, some bigger than his fists.

“This is why I stay in the cave so late into the morning, Isaiah. I found a cavern full of what you see here. The walls shine as far as the eye can see with gold in the lamp light. This is our gold and no one else’s. Our lives will be changed forever, and all of those that scoffed at the idea of prospecting this land will regret the things they said.”

“You see, Isaiah,” his mother spoke, “your father is right here, he is okay, and nothing has happened to him. I fear your dreams are becoming all too real, and I am beginning to worry about you.”

What was happening to him? Was he losing his mind? Question after question shot through Isaiah’s mind, most without answers. Why was this happening every night? Surely, they are just dreams. But they felt so real.

“I’ll tell you what, Isaiah. Why don’t you come with me to the cave, and help your old man out tomorrow?” This all sounded eerily familiar to Isaiah, but he could not remember why. As was usual with these dreams, his mind would cloud over almost immediately as if attempting to remove the dream completely. “You will see there is nothing to worry about.”

*****

After breakfast the next morning, Isaiah packed up some provisions and his pick hammer in his leather shoulder bag and put on his thick hide boots that he wore when playing outside in the snow. He and his father headed out to the cave. The walk was farther than the boy had realized. Once at the cave, his father filled the lamp sitting outside of the entrance with kerosene and ignited it. They slowly slid down into the cavern with ropes tacked into the cavern walls to help balance on the slippery rocks. Isaiah could have sworn that he noticed a flash of blue light when he entered the hole but brushed it off as another figment of his imagination.

They passed through tiny openings carved through the rock by his father’s pickaxe and into large, natural caverns, some with ceilings too high for even his dad to touch. It seemed like hours, even days had gone by to Isaiah when they had finally made it to the bottom of his father’s cave. But he knew it had not been that long. That would have been impossible. Something felt off, but he could not quite grasp it. The entrance was covered with wooden boards, and flanked by another kerosene lamp which his father lit.

This area seemed to be much hotter than those that they walked through to get here. Isaiah thought that his mind was beginning to play tricks on him when the smell of rotten eggs filled his nostrils. His father noticed the grimace on Isaiah’s face.

“That is sulfur that you smell, my boy. It means we are close to a volcanic tube or possibly a lake of lava just right around the corner.” Isaiah’s father emphasized by making a large round shape with his arms as he smiled.

Pulling the wooden planks from the hole into the next cavern only enhanced the sulfuric smell. Isaiah felt as if he were dangerously close to vomiting. As they walked through the small, man-made passageway, the light from the lamps that they held seemed to light up the entire cavern. It was as his father had said: gold as far as the eye could see. This cavern was the largest of any that they had climbed through that day. At the other end of this cavern, a dull, blue light was revealed; that was strange to Isaiah.

“Father, what is that over there?” Isaiah pointed in the cardinal direction of the barely noticeable blue hue.

His father stood, as if in a trance, neither moving nor answering his question.

“Father?” Isaiah began to feel something was incredibly wrong.

He tugged at his father’s sleeve with no effect. The cavern grew even hotter and brighter. Isaiah began hearing deep chanting, low guttural sounds that seemed to grow louder and tune with each other. He could now see that the floor of this cavern was covered with what looked like human bones, torn clothing, old picks and lanterns, and one crushed birdcage complete with a tiny skeleton of its former resident. The blue hue was now a bright glow, as shadowy figures began walking out of it and towards him and his father.

Audible cracks accompanied by his father’s screams echoed throughout the cavern. Isaiah watched in horror as his father’s body twisted and contorted slowly into an all too familiar form. It was what stood outside of his window. He now knew this was not his father.

“You have no candle to protect you little one,” the creature said as he reached out to Isaiah with his long, gnarled fingers. “This is where you belong now, my boy. Your sacrifice will complete the binding ritual of Astaroth, the Great Duke of Hell.” This thing pointed to the now clearly visible beings walking towards them. Their skin was also covered in large, black thorns. Some were larger and thicker than others. They dragged behind them a gigantic block of stone with strange symbols on it. Isaiah was brought here to be sacrificed to the devil.

He looked up at the ugly face of this thing that held onto his tiny, sweat-covered arm. Its face, again, twisted upwards into some sickening grin as it peered at the spectacle before it. Isaiah looked at the hole behind them and realized that this monster was entirely too big to crawl back through quickly. Thoughts of his mother being alone caused something to swell within his small body. He pulled free from the demon’s slippery grip, and ran through the opening from whence he came, but not before the demon ripped at his torso. He heard the deep, bubbly growl, no doubt from that thing he once thought of as his father, as it tried to scrape through the opening.

It did not take Isaiah long before he realized that he was lost. The lantern he grabbed from outside of the opening was quickly going dim, and the sounds of things chasing him grew close. Fear manifested as the knot he now felt swell within his throat. He stopped only to rip his shirt into makeshift bandages like his father had taught him. He packed them into the wound under his left arm and the wound on his chest from where the demon had grabbed him.

Just when he felt that all was lost, Isaiah noticed a tiny bit of light shining through the ceiling of this new cavern he found himself in. He ran as fast as he could down the new corridor. The dim light seemed to seep through the straight openings between the exposed boards above. Isaiah looked around and found two barrels, one of which looked strong enough for him to stand on. With some effort, the boy rolled the barrel underneath the boards above. He withdrew the small pick hammer that his father had given him last year out of his shoulder bag and began smacking the wood above. It seemed very old and weak with dry rot and years of serving as a food source to colonies of termites. Before long, the first wooden plank cracked under the pressure from the pick hammer. Isaiah desperately pulled at the broken planks, wincing in pain as he did. Eventually, the hole was big enough for him to crawl up into, and just in time. The loud thuds of those that pursued him grew much louder.

Isaiah looked around the familiar room. The moonlight shining through the smashed window was just enough to make out the dust-covered bed, torn blankets, and dresser cupboard. He lifted the dimming lantern. The walls were covered in vines and the room stank of wet moss and mildew. Chilling winds flowed through the aged cracks of the log walls. Spider webs covered everything within the room. How could this be? This was his room!

“Mother!” Isaiah yelled as loud as he could. There was no answer.

Looking to the dresser, he noticed old, dried flowers that lay underneath a picture with the words “My Beloved Son, Isaiah Pete O’Brien – 1805 to 1907. May Our Souls Find Each Other Once More.” The picture was his. Tears began swelling in his eyes. That blue light that Isaiah had noticed when he and his father entered the cave. Isaiah new something felt different from that moment until now. Time had somehow past him by while in that cave.

The thudding stopped below the hole in the floor. The smell of sulfur began to fill his room. He could hear the demons below scratching against the bottom of the exposed wooden panels. They spoke to each other in a deep, sloppy language that Isaiah had never heard. Then he remembered. He looked up at the broken window and on that windowsill sat a cylindrical object and a box of matches.

*****

PRESENT:

“Then come and get me, ugly!” Isaiah screamed, goosebumps appearing across every inch of exposed skin with every word. “I don’t belong to you. I now belong to no one!”

The demons shrieked away from the flame. Those that attempted to reach through the hole in the floor recoiled as their long, knobby appendages burned and bubbled. Isaiah smashed anything that managed to find its way past the candle. Arms and hands, now spread like a fine dark paste across the wooden floor.

“You fail to understand your importance, my boy. To fight is futile.” The smell of the demon’s breath was unbearable.

Isaiah stood and ran into the main room of the cabin, which was now barely recognizable, and grabbed the old kerosene can from behind the stove. It was empty. He then ripped old drapes from the windows. He would burn this place down on top of them using the candle’s flame. He returned to the room and noticed an old woman kneeling over the hole. She looked up and Isaiah could see that it was an old gypsy woman. Once again, Isaiah could not move as if nailed to the floor.

“Hail Astaroth, the Great Duke of Hell,” subdued the gypsy, voice raspy with age, “your trial, my boy, has run its course. War awaits its ruler”

She reached out to the wick of the red candle, extinguishing the flame with her thumb and index finger.

The End