"The Cave Dwellers"

"The Cave Dwellers"
The log book of Paul Landis.

A hollow place in earth, usually an opening in a cave opening in a hillside.
is the assion of my wife, Susan and myself. We are cave explorers, and
this log details our latest sojourn into the underworld where one never
know what mysteries one may encounter.

There are numerous caves located in the Gyp Hills in Sorthern Kansas,
and Susan and I have explored many of them. It peaked our interest
when rancher Eric Wharton, a widower, who with his brother, owns
two thousand acres in the area. He told us about a cave he had
discovered that he believed to be much larger than any of the others
doscovered in the area.

On a humid, overcast July morning, Susan and I drove our black four
wheel Dodge pickup down a dusty road where we met Wharton, a
tall, muscular man with a handlebar mustache who was clad in
western gear complete with the fourty five calibre pistol strapped to
his hip.

Wharton led us along a narrow, rough winding trail until we came to
a large pond that was lined with cedar. We traveled some three
hundred yards farther until he stopped a small slope. To the south
there was a towering rocky hill that was partially covered with
cedar trees. Susan and I gathered out backpacks, rope and my
twenty two calibre pistol and out headlands, on of which I gave to
Wharton. We trudged through the ankle deep green grass to the
top of the knoll and looked down on a rectanular valley that
reminded me of a hugh bathtub. Wharton pointed to two cedars
that hid the mouth of the cave.

"How did you find this place"? I asked.

"I was out here checking on the cattle. There was this cow standing
beside the lake," he explained. "When she saw me, she ran down
here. When I went to check it out, I found she had had a newborn
calf that was unable to make it up the slope. I carried the calf out,
and that was when I noticed the opoening behind the cedars. I
went back to my pickup, got a flashlight and checked it out."

We put our headlamps on and entered the cave which began as
a three foot by three foot tunnel that extended some two
hundred yards before it became large enough to stand upright.
We were between walls that some ten foot high. As we moved
on I could hear what sounded like a waterfall.

We entered a large chamber where a waterfall cascaded down
over a rocky shelf and flowed somewhere down below from where
we stood. Stalagtites hung from the ceiling, and it cast a red
glow in the light of our headlamps.

"This is beautiful,"Susan said. She looked at Wharton who
gazed about him in open mouthed wonder. "Im glad you called
us."

Wharton shook his head. "Too damn bad this place is so out in the
boondocks." He licked his lips. "People would enjoy this sight, and
it appears we still have a long way to go."

Susan sat down next to me as I wrote down what we had seen
so far. She took her helmet off and ran her hand through her
blond, shoulder length hair. We have been married for twenty
five years, and we have a grown son and daughter. During our
first years of marriage, she only went with me on our cave
exploratrion a couple of time. She remained on our small farm,
because being a mother consumed most of her time, but in the
past fifteen years, she has accompanied me. Both our children
our married, and it accured to me that we should have told one
of them where we were going.

Out of the corner of my eye I caught a fleeting glimse of a
figure watching us as a cold chill crept up my spine and back.

"Unless my eyes are playing ticks of me," I said, "someone or
something calls this place home."

Susan gasped and Wharton stared at me in open mouthed
disbelief.

"What do you think it is?" Wharton asked as he put his hand
on the butt of his forty five.

"I have no idea," I said, pulling myself to my feet,"but I've never
see anything like it inside of a cave before. "Let's keep moving."

As we made our way along, the cave seemed to close in us as
we entered a four foot passage.After a hundred feet or so, we
entered another large chamber. It wasn't as large asd the one
we had passed through earlier. The walls had dropped away,
and beside the trailk was a large pool of water which contained
a variety of small fish, frogs and turtles. They were blind
because of the world of complete darkness in which they found
themselves.

A squaking sound escaped from Susan's throat. "Something
is watching us." She pointed at the blackness to the north side
of the pool. I searched the area with the beam of my flashlight
but whatever it had been had moved farther back in the
darkness. "It stood upright, like a human."

"What the hell is going on down here?" Wharton growled.

I sat down on a rock and made a couple of notations. I sat
there for a time, then looked up at Susan and Wharton. "We
have no idea what we are dealing with here. Would either to
you like to head back?"

"Hell no," Wharton snapped, glancing around in the darkness.
"This is my land, and i'd like to know who's down here."

"Do you thik that whatever is down here means to harm us?"
Susan asked in a voice that was barely above a whisper.

"I don't know, but I'm sure there are more than one of those
creatures down here."

"You called them creatures," Wharton said. "Do you think
they could be something other than human?"

"In all the caves I have explored, I've never encountered
anything like this," I said. "That's why I asked if either of
you would like to head back to the entrance."

When Susan and Wharton expressed their wish to continue,
I stood up and led them deeper into the cave as a faint
roaring sound was heard up ahead.

The chamber narrowed to a three feet by six feet space as
the hair on the back of my neck prickled because I felt our
every more was being observed.

We entered a chamber that was much larger than the two
we had passed through, and a blue glow greeted our
unbelieving eyes. We moved on until we came to a deep
chasm. Silently we stared into the abyss as our eyes
adjusted to the sight. Water filled the bottom of the chasm,
and there on the waters surfacxe sat two round metallic
objects. The roat we had heard was made by rushing water,
but I was unable to locate the source. I sat down and wrote
what I was seeing in my book.

"What the hell are those things?" Wharton asked in a low,
hoarse voice.

"They look like alien spacecraft one sees in science fiction
movies," Susan said.

"That's exactly what they are," I said.

"How the hell did they get there?" Wharton asked.

"They had to come in through the pond." I stood up and stuffed
my log book in my pocket. "No telling how long they have been
here." I glanced around in the blue mist, but didn't see any
beings. "Whatever these creature are, and wherever they came
from, they might try to stop us from leaving." I grabbed Susan
by the hand and half drug out of the mist and into the narrow
corridor.

We entere the second chamber. I glanced behind me to see
where Wharton was, but he wasn't there. I called to him several
times, but there was no reply, and there was no sign of his
light. I pulled a terrified Susan on through the chamber and
into the narrow corridor.

We stopped to catch our breath when we reached the first
chamber while I made some notes. Susan was only three
feet sawy when a long, scaled arm with tentacles whipped
out from the blackness above, grabbed her by the arm and
lifted her. I grabbed her leg, but my headlamp crashed
against the rock cutting a gash in my forehead. I fell on my
back as Susan's screams ceased. I knew I would be too
late ever if I had been able to scale the wall. I pulled myself
to my feet, grabbed by flashlight and plunged headlong toward
the cave's opening when I turned my ankle on a rock and
crashed into the wall.

I began to crawl since I could see light that emitted from the
cave's entrance.Blood trickled down the side of my face and
the right side of my body was badly scrapped from my two
collisions with the rock walls. Breathing heavily, I leaned
against the wall and cast the beam of my flashlight behind me
to a groteque figure standing some thirty feet sway. I know it
had no intention of letting me leave. The creature seemed to
be at least part aquatic since it's face and body were scaled
like a carp, and it had long tantacles attached to it's back.
It's large eyes were white, and it's large mouth opened and
closed repeatedly.

I pulled my twenty two revolver and fired six shotsw at it, but
I didn't see to faze it. I threw my pistol at it and pulled my log
book out of my pocket. These creatures will undoubedly hide
Wharton and my pickup, probably by dumping them in the
lake. Nobody will ever know what happened to us.

I hope someday sombody ginds this book, and I hope they
don't venture any further into this case least they suffer the
same fate as Wharton, susan and myself. The creatrure
moves toward me. It's tentacles reach out as they search
for their next meal. I thought of Susan, and the fact that we
died doing something we......

The End.

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