Prologue.
Appalachian Mountains,
June 12, 1992
“You doing okay, Geni?” Noah grunted as he locked the next alloy carabiner deep into the rocky crevice before him.
Geni squeaked out a determined, “Yeah,” which she didn’t honestly feel. When she had suggested a couple’s getaway, rock climbing had not been the first thing she imagined they would do.
It wasn’t even in the top five on her list.
And now here she was, deep in the forests of the Appalachians, attempting to keep pace with her more athletically inclined boyfriend.
Don’t get her wrong, she loved the outdoors just as much as him but she had little experience when it came to scaling natural or artificial walls... she was even less inclined knowing what was slowly growing inside her womb.
She would have to tell him soon—her belly was extending far past the reality she had been miserably trying to deny for the last four months.
“We’re almost there,” he assured her and he wasn’t lying.
He hauled himself up and over the ledge. Turning back, he held out a gentle, patient hand to help Geni do the same.
Geni stood, surveying the landscape before her.
This was not the highest mountain in the Appalachians by far, but the scenery was nothing less than magnificent. From here, she could see miles into the distance, the mountainous forests covering every inch of luscious land. Large, white clouds cast rolling shadows on the woods below, the effect nothing short of breathtaking.
She suddenly felt guilty for ever considering traveling to California’s wine country instead. Of course, they hadn’t attempted to scale down the mountain yet so those thoughts still had the possibility of drastically changing.
Noah kissed her forehead. “Check it out,” he whispered, nodding his head to the cave entrance behind him.
“Oh! Wow,” she squinted her eyes and cocked her head in wonderment. “Can we go inside? You have a flashlight right?” She wondered if this was one of many unexplored caves that dwelled within the heart of this mountain range. It didn’t sit at the bottom of the formation like most so she doubted anyone had climbed this high to venture inside. Six stories up and set back along a five-foot or so ledge, it was well hidden from the common passers-by.
Noah laughed at the excitement that poured from her. He dangled his flashlight in front of Geni, an ornery grin plastered across his face.
The world outside disappeared once they passed the tight threshold. The temperature dropped dramatically, plunging them into darkness. If not for Noah’s flashlight, they would surely be unable to see their hand before their face. The smell of wet limestone was strong and Geni wrinkled her nose in repugnance, her senses heightened by the life taking residence inside her.
The stoney floor was smooth. The condensation caused it to be more slippery than one would expect. She latched onto Noah’s arm, right before she lost her balance. He wrapped that arm around her waist instead. “Careful,” he cautioned.
His flashlight scanned the spacious rotunda, and Geni’s eyes were full of fascination and awe. Just the thought of the proper conditions the earth had to go through to form such a creation was formidable. As one of the oldest mountain ranges on earth, it would have definitely seen some shit... she hoped they found something cool.
Fossils perhaps?
Maybe an undiscovered lifeform?
The passageway narrowed once more, leaving the spaciousness of the rotunda nothing more than a mere memory. The air here was colder, suggesting a possible karst system. This was good news. They may be able to exit on the opposite side.
While most caves have clean, fresh oxygen, this one seemed to have a rather potent stench as they traversed farther inside. Geni had explored many caves in her lifetime and was used to the moist smell of stone and the wafting scent of flowing water—but this cave, in this direction, suddenly smelled wrong. Like something had crawled inside to die... or many somethings.
It was not normal.
And that was not comforting.
As if reading her thoughts, Noah immediately stopped in his tracks. She could feel his muscles stiffen and his lungs seize. “Time to go back, Geni,” he warned.
Disheartened by the thought of not exploring farther, she asked, “Why?”
But he didn’t reply. He only swung the flashlight around the limestone walls, slowly, as if searching for the answer to her question.
It was then that something caught her eye, something she was surprised Noah hadn’t noticed. She gasped, “Look!” Geni tore herself away from Noah’s arm, inspecting the section of rock the flashlight had just swept over. “Over here,” she said, as Noah changed directions, sending more light her way.
Geni’s fingers traced the scratches carved into the solid bedrock. They were deep, discolored—lighter than the wall itself and there were a lot. “Oh my God,” she murmured. Different sizes, different shapes, sporadically placed... some bunched in threes, others in fours. She clawed her fist, placing it directly above one particularly gnarly gash, “They’re claw marks.”
She did not add that she suspected they were human claw marks.
“Let’s go,” Noah said. The urgency in his voice was not lost on Geni. It made her heart lurch and her stomach twist... but the ominous suggestion came too late.
A strong gust of wind breezed by her from out of nowhere, blowing the back of her shirt and whipping the loose hair that hung from her ponytail.
“Oomph,” was all Noah could muster out as he was surprisingly ambushed from the left, transported abnormally fast away from Geni.
The flashlight crashed to the ground, no longer held within his grasp.
Dread washed over her, a tidal wave plummeting into the shore. “Noah!” She shrieked, the panic in her voice denied restraint. If something happened to him here, how would she get him help? They were too deep in this cave, too far into the forest and too high up in the mountains... but the squelching, gurgling sounds now resounding through the cave was what motivated her body to search for its origin. Falling to her hands and knees, she scampered to the fallen flashlight, the only source of brightness she had to discover what happened.
And when that light fell on Noah, fear gripped her in its iron clutches.
He was sprawled on the opposite wall, his face pale and his eyes wide in panic and confusion. Blood poured from the laceration in his neck. With every breath he struggled to take, more flowed out, cascading down his chest in magmatic swells; a rolling tide of bright, red gore.
She could feel the bile welling within her stomach, the urge to vomit was overwhelming. Fear and anxiousness coiled her insides, yanking the air straight from her chest. Her temples throbbed, pulsating to the beat of her racing heart and swaying the world around her.
Before her brain could process what her heart already knew, red eyes popped up directly in front of her, hiding the bloody scene she was desperately trying to understand.
A scream caught in the back of her throat. Like numerous nightmares she had dreamt throughout her life, she couldn’t make a sound.
The eyes were large and circular and not nearly befitting of the heart-shaped face that housed them.
In the spot where a nose should be, there wasn’t, the bone structure apparently non-existent. In its place sat two small holes, the only indication that the creature had anything remotely close to such a feature.
But that was not what terrified her the most...
The thing before her chomped the air around them, a demonic grin slowly morphing into long, narrowly sharp teeth. Teeth meant for ripping... tearing—sat unnaturally close together, no room for the skin of prey to get stuck and decay within the insubstantial space between.
Geni whimpered, turning her head and closing her eyes tightly. If she didn’t see it, it wasn’t there.
The creature leaned in, her elusive nose sniffing and snorting Geni’s belly, sensing the life growing within her womb. “Mm, baby,” the raspy, yet feminine voice hissed, chilling Geni to the bones.
The tone was layered, like a hundred different voices in a hundred different timbres. It was talking! Now she knew she had to be dreaming! She wasn’t here in Tennessee. She didn’t just witness Noah’s death. She was really asleep, safe at home in her bed, and dreaming this terrible dream because she probably ate too many carbs before bed.
Yeah.
That was it.
Wake up, she shouted at herself.
But she couldn’t wake up...
And so the thing before her kept speaking, “Need baby. You help, yes?”
The expression on its face was too earnest... too delighted, and it bewildered Geni even more. This monster just slit her boyfriend’s throat open and now it wanted to have a conversation with her as if the whole situation never happened in the first place. She was flabbergasted, her brain not functioning at its highest caliber, “W-w-what?”
“Key is coming. Need baby. You give, yes?”
Geni blinked numerous times, trying to understand the meaning behind the primitive dialect, “You w-want my b-b-baby?”
It nodded ardently, overjoyed that the human had comprehended its needful request.
A gawking Geni stared at the hideous animal before her. How had it known she was pregnant? Why hadn’t it killed her yet? Why was it asking for her baby of all things?
Why was it asking for anything at all!
Wake up, wake up, wake up! She urged herself.
“No!” Her body finally discovered the bravery that had surged out of her with every ounce of blood that leaked from Noah’s throat. It was a dream. Nothing more than a bad dream so she could will it away.
She would will it away.
The thing frowned, frozen in an intense stand-off with a less frightened, now more perplexed, human. This was not going it’s way. It needed the baby. It had plans for the baby. It would have the baby. So, it shrugged, carelessly, “You give or me take. Only choice.”
Geni’s face pinched in disorienting disgust, “You can’t!” She was only four months along, not nearly close to labor and she refused to stay in this hellish space long enough to give birth. The thought of just casually placing her child in the arms of—wait. Were they actually arms? It didn’t appear so... Regardless, she wouldn’t do it-couldn’t do it.
Physically or emotionally.
Dream or not.
Wake up!
It giggled, “I can. Your choice.” It had no problem forcefully taking what it desired as it had done so for thousands and thousands of years. What’s one more time?
“What will you do with him?” Geni queried a single brow, wondering if she was quickly losing her sanity. If she gave this thing what it wanted, would she finally wake up? Would that be enough for her subconscious to set her free from this strange, terrifying nightmare?
The monster snapped at the empty space around them before its red eyes fell on Geni once more, “Vengeance...”
What a weird thing to say.
She would definitely be researching this dream later.
Whatever message her brain was trying to tell her would need to be thoroughly analyzed because she did not desire to have such a nightmarish hallucination ever again. So when she asked, “And you’ll let me go,” it was more of a symbolic type of freedom.
Free from this dream.
Free from the situation her waking life was currently experiencing that led to this horrific vision her subconscious deemed she went through.
“Go where?” It tilted its head once more, in curiosity. What an odd question. No one and nothing had ever asked it to let them go. Of course, it had never conversed with a human this long before.
“Go home. I can leave? You’ll let me go if I give you what you want?”
It pondered her question, taking only a moment before responding, “Yes.” It couldn’t promise her a pain-free release, but she would be released nonetheless, “Yes. Set free. You help?”
Geni nodded, ready and more than willing to be done with this scary dream.
Things happened monumentally fast after that.
Impaled through the shoulder, Geni screamed as a spider-like leg hung her high against the limestone wall... and she was now suddenly aware that she shouldn’t be experiencing this type of pain while asleep.
Teeth bit her gut, sending its poisonous saliva straight into her awaiting uterus and leaving an oozing wound in its wake.
Geni watched in horror as her stomach extended, growing larger—the thing inside her pushing against her womb, frenzied to be free from its confines. Hands and feet kicked and beat against her insides, the evidence coming in tiny human-printed shapes that jutted out from her abdomen. She squirmed and fought, flailing in an attempt to free herself... or alleviate the agony, she wasn’t sure what her motivation was at this point.
A cry of anguish pierced the solitude as sharp stabbing pains ripped her from the inside out, the hurt threatening to steal her consciousness.
She was not dreaming.
This was actually happening.
And there was no stopping it.
She gazed helplessly, mouth wide in frozen terror, as her skin tore, the heat of her liquid fell down her groin and followed an imaginary path along her pants.
Blood gushed and splattered upon the granite floor.
The baby, now fully formed and crying, slipped out of the gaping hole it had dug inside her body. Falling into the waiting limbs of the crablike creature that coddled it like a priceless treasure. The wicked animal pulled its spindly leg from Geni’s shoulder, allowing her dying body to crash to the ground in a pathetic heap.
It glanced at Geni, watching her eyes glaze over and her heart stop pumping. “Now you free,” it chimed.
Staring down at the baby, the creature cooed, “Key coming... you help unlock door. Help me.” It pulled the child to its breast, allowing the infinitesimal growing teeth to latch on and suckle the bloody nectar of its new mother.
The baby would mature faster than normal. Half-human, half-vampire, it would be the first of its kind—an experiment of sorts. What it would become from here on out was unknown but the vampire queen was willing to take the risk.
She was done wasting away eternity in this cave.
Done being trapped within its cold, dismal walls.
There was a new world outside this prison... she just had to be patient. She just had to let the pieces fall where they may.
She had some years to go before the key was born, but it was okay.
She knew what was to come and that was comforting enough.
“Patience. We wait.”
