Faith in Darkness

In the darkness, you could hear the things scurrying.

Jacob tried to shine his lantern’s beam upon them, but all he ever caught were just glimpses of their fleeing shadows. Their voices too filled that echoey underground, meaningless syllables that foretold only menace. Curses were rising up in him, phrases he did not often repeat; however, he found that he had to clamp his mouth shut to stall the ready blasphemies. Such were his frustrations, and unconsidered, he had not the time to recognize how angry he had grown, both with man and God.

With man, a man, with man’s choice in man, the pompous ass the little town had chosen for mayor. He could still see the bulbous face; the fat and flabby cheeks were before him like a vision in the darkness. He wanted to scream.

A loud clank echoed through the damp chamber, shattering the hated image. Snarling, Jacob shone his beam of light toward the sound. It was the first good look he got at one of these undergrounders, as they were called. Its curved fingers were raised covering its eyes as its mouth opened with a hiss. The thing was cornered, which was no good to it or to Jacob.

He lowered the light away from its face and down toward the creature’s feet. The eyes, glowing like a cat’s, glared at him.

Now was the time, he knew, when an ambush might come, and so he kept his hand on his knife, listening for the lightest of steps. Why the devil had they all run‽ he cursed. He’d come down here leading a posse and then the moment his back was turned, they’d all scurried back up to the light and locked him in. Now, face to face with one of the things they’d warned him of, he was helpless.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, hoping it could understand. He still wasn’t sure whether this thing was animal or some twisted form of man. Twisted in any regards.

The thing only stared.

There they stood, frightened in the darkness. Jacob began, carefully, slowly, his hand on his knife the whole while, to edge away from the opening he’d trapped the thing in. Shuffling, inch by inch, until he had to make the choice: the next shuffle would mean losing sight of the thing, allowing it to return to the unknowable shadows. There, to plot, destroy, sneak. But to hold it in his vision, to keep it before his eye, would be to stay here in perpetuity. Faith, it would seem, was unavoidable; it was faith or death.

So, he moved away from the opening, letting the thing alone to whatever devises it chose, and ran.