The Beasts in the Dark (slightly edited)

(Have edited this story a little more, trying to help its pacing a little and make it a bit more entertaining and give a bit more character to Arthax, trying to make him a bit more than a John Constantine rip off.)

(Hopefully you enjoy a slightly edited version, I'm sure theres still a few things that i could change to help the story a little.)

The Beasts in the Dark

By

Rhys Causon

 Arthax Jenkins moaned as the world came back out of the dark. 

  “Okay, what happened this time?” He thought out loud as pain started to seep through his body. He scanned as much of his surroundings as possible, hard to do in such dim light. After standing up and dusting himself off Arthax patted his trousers and long black coats pockets; attempting to remember which pocket he put his torch into. 

  Let’s see, phone… no signal. Of course. But at least I’ve got a bit of light from the screen. A can of bug spray… bloody mosquitos. Wallet… thank the gods I still have that at least. Let’s see, money, ID, business card… “Arthax Jenkins. Demonologist. Folklorist. Paranormal Pest Control. Need to change that last part... sounds a bit crap.” Arthax squinted at the picture on the card, his own face looking back at him with his green eyes, scruffy hair and scarred cheek. 

  Is everything important here? Passport? Good, lets keep that safe. And sunglasses… not much use right now. And aha!

  His hand brushed against the small black torch in one of the deepest pockets. Arthax took it out and tuned it on, clicking the button at the base of the torch letting a beam of light out to fight the darkness. As the light passed over the dust and slime slicked floor something caught his eye. A vast array of skulls of various sizes. 

  Not good, he thought this time without saying it out loud, just in case the thing that caused these skulls to end up here was close to him in the dark. Looking over his shoulders and attempting to stay quiet, even while slipping in a puddle of something disgusting, Arthax moved over to the skull pile. His torchlight was reflected back to him by the bones of the long dead and some quite freshly dead going by the smell and cloud of flies buzzing around him. 

  Hmm, not just one species here. Seems to be a lot of animal skulls here… this’ll confuse some archeologists in the future.

  Swatting away a fly that had landed near his eye Arthax kneeled down to pick up a small skull and resisting the urge to recite Shakespeare, he peered into the deep blackness of the eye sockets. A strangely shaped skull stared back with its black voids of eye sockets.

  Not entirely human, what are you? A monkey? Not going by those teeth you had. Definitely a carnivorous species, lots of tearing teeth, no visible molars or any sort of crushing teeth… Almost lizard like in design. Maybe you’re the reason these bones are here.

  He looked over the rest, noting what he saw. At least three humans, fifteen cattle, an uncountable number of big cats, nine of the lizard like skulls, six hippo skulls and then he saw it. One adult elephant skull with its tusks ripped off. He looked back into the eyes of the first skull.

  Ok… don’t think you’re to blame after all. He put the skull back on the slick ground. So what the hell am I dealing with here?

  Moving his torchlight passed the pile of bones, now trying to peer further into the darkness looking for a sign of movement, ears pinned to hear the smallest of noises. Moving slowly as he tried to stay upright, feeling almost every inch of the ground slick with God only knows what.

  Come on Arthax, try and work out how you got here? You were in the jungle checking out those ruins the locals told you about… where those children disappeared from… and then. Black. What could have snuck up on you knocked you out and dragged you to… wherever the hell this pla…

  His thought was interrupted by the growls of some creature in the dark… a deep guttural noise, a noise not of this world.

  Demons? Great! His thoughts oozing with sarcasm. How the hell am I going to fight demons without any of my equipment? Although lets face it, you’ve taken out things without the right stuff before. Gorgon’s with a pair of mirrored sunglasses, a werewolf with a silver dollar and a well-timed shot of a kids catapult. He chuckled at the memories as they came back to him then remembered the situation he was in. Although if they are demons, why am I alive? Lets see if I can work out what the hell is going on here?

  

  Scurrying forward as quietly as possible the cave opened up to a large naturally formed room with stalagmites and fallen rocks creating some very nice areas to hide behind to allow Arthax to assess the room, the noises of the unseen demons echoing around the room bouncing off the cave walls and filling the space around Arthax.

  Makes it sound there’s a bloody army of them… hopefully not or might as well just start booking harp lessons. I need a visual on them.

  Clicking his torch off and crouching behind a rather large body of stalagmites and rubble Arthax peered into the gloom to try and spot his captors and get a definite species. The faintest hint of a campfire at the edge of the room giving the lowest of light levels to the surroundings.

  What I wouldn’t do for a bit of night vision right now.

  

  A noise from very close by instantly snapped Arthax’s attention to his right, his hand acting faster than the best quick shot of the Old West to turn his torch on his possible attackers. In the light stood a small, skinny, scaly figure raising its forelimbs in front of its eyes in an attempt to stop the blinding light. The creature let out a hissing shriek, clearly acting out of instinct, sounding a cat attempting to scare a predator. 

  “Whoa, hey, hey, HEY! Stay there!” Arthax ordered in an aggressive whisper while pointing at the creature, “right there buddy.”

  Sweeping his torch up and down the creature quickly it was obvious this was the only creature around, although the torch did light up a very large, very ugly and horribly spindly spider next to Arthax’s shoulder. Ignoring the spider, having dealt with far worse than that thing, Arthax looked back at the hissing creature getting a good look at it.

  White-ish pink scales speckled with black spots covered the creature from head to foot, with a black stripe starting at its neck traveling down to the base of its tail. Tough scales seemed to cover most of it’s body aside from the hands and what would seem to be the underbelly, which seemed to be a lot smoother, the fingers joined together by a thin layer of skin and fold on the palms of the creature were obvious as it held it hands in defense of it’s eyes.

  Lowering the torch caused the creature to also lower its arms. Now Arthax could see the bright red eyes leering at him as the creature snarled at him, bearing hundreds of tiny sharp teeth at Arthax. These teeth very closely resembled the unknown skull Arthax found earlier with the rest of the pile. Its eyes also seemed to be much more forward facing than Arthax first expected.

  “Aah… That explains it…” Arthax said to himself as if he finally answered a question that had been bugging him. “Lizard folk, y’know I’ve always heard stories of ya, yet never seen any of you though, honestly I thought you were just legends, though I guess I should have known better.”

  “Inmto?” The creature cocked its head to one side as it squinted at him then turned its head away from the light.

  “And I’m basically talking to myself right now, sure why not?” Arthax placed the torch on the floor, the torch still on and pointing at the creature and raised his hands to show he was not going to hurt the lizard man, “It’s ok buddy, I’m not going to hurt you, honest.” Please understand I’m unarmed and mean no harm.

   The lizard growled a raspy growl at Arthax and its eyes narrowed on the torch on the floor, it’s light still pointing towards the creature.

  “Igtf imb igew,” it hissed at Arthax, squinting badly as it spewed the sentence at him.

  Shit… I could be in trouble here unless I think of… A realization came over Arthax and so moving slowly while looking at the lizard folk, he reached down to the torch and clicked it off and plunged this section of the tunnel into very low light again then slipped the torch back into his pocket.

  “Better?” he whispered in as friendly a tone as he could.

The lizard blinked rapidly and rubbed its eyes; a higher pitched hiss seemed to be positive, as Arthax was not being attacked right now.

  “Rwiw ittog?” The creature’s inflection seemed to suggest this was a question.

  “I’m sorry mate, don’t understand that accent of yours… can you give me something to go off?” Arthax responded in confusion.

  “Rwiw ittog?” The creature asked again, Arthax heard it shuffle closer and felt a hand on his chest, ”Inmto cr rwiw ittog?” Arthax squinted as his eyes adjusted to the dark and saw the lizard tap its own chest and say, “Tullek,” sounding like it was coughing up something disgusting as it spoke. 

  Another realization.

  “Oh ok! Ittog must mean name! So you’re called Tullek” Arthax said as he worked it out and tried to repeat the creature’s name as best as he could.

  “Rddi! Ittog!” The creature’s mood seemed to be slipping into aggression at the language barrier, its hand rising to Arthax’s face, its claws dangerously close to his eyes.

  “Arthax! Tullek my ittog is Arthax!” He said pulling his head back as he saw the claws get closer to him but as he answered the creature, Tullek, stopped reaching for Arthax. Arthax pointed at Tullek, “Tullek…” back to himself, “Arthax…” Now I bloody know how Jane felt when she met Tarzan, always thought it was going to be the other way round for me… and with a lady not a lizard.

  “Rddi!” Tullek seemed happy at this step forward in communication between the two of them while Arthax was happy he didn’t have eighty needle sharp teeth digging into any part of him. 

  “Right…  ok.” Arthax looked at Tullek, “Any idea what’s over there?” He pointed across the cavern at the flickering flames that were visible.

  Tullek looked at Arthax’s finger, growled out of confusion then as Arthax pointed again Tullek worked out where to look and let out a hiss of fear as his scales all turned black and his stance changed from bipedal to that of a quadruped, arching his back and puffing up his body as he hissed in that direction.

  “So… definitely bad then.” Arthax leaned against the rocks to hide himself as best as he could, his face scrunched up in thought. “If I knew what I was dealing with I’d have a good idea on where to start… hmm” He looked back at Tullek who was still looking fiercely across the room noticing the shade of his scales compared to how he looked only a few minutes ago. Pretty much the same colour as his coat. 

  Camouflage. Useful to know.

  “Not good at discerning shapes in the dark I guess, so no dark vision,” Arthax looked over the rocks again as he continued his train of thought, “hence the use of large campfires,” he squinted to try and work out the size of the fire and judged by the height of stalagmites around it Arthax worked out that the fire seemed to be around ten feet in height. 

  “Right ok… so I’m guessing that I’m dealing with at least two creatures that are big, maybe ten feet tall or taller and possibly cannot see well in the dark. Am I anywhere near right?” He looked at Tullek, who responded with a titled head and confused chirp.

  Arthax looked blankly at Tullek’s confused expression. “Yeah that’s pretty much the response I expected.” Standing up properly, he buttoned up his coat and raised the collar as much as he could to hide as much as his face and body as possible. 

  As if he worked out what Arthax was doing, Tullek scooped up a handful of dust and patted Arthax’s face to hide his face but ended up pushing a fair amount of dust in Arthax’s mouth.

  Choking on the dust but trying to not cough too loudly Arthax just patted the lizard folk’s shoulder and gave him a thumbs up as if to thank him, squinting to try and hold back tears before he rubbed the dust clear of his eyes. The lizard looked happy to have helped and seemed to dance happily to itself before moving into the dark.

  “Cagyl paanoyl” Tullek said. His raspy voice whispered out of them a few seconds later. “Cagyl Tullek,” this time sounding more like an order as a hand reached out and grabbed Arthax’s sleeve pulling him forward into the shadows as well.
  “Arthax cagyl Tullek?” Arthax questioned as he pointed first to himself then between the two of them in a forward motion.

  “Rddi… Cagyl!” Tullek letting out a little sigh of annoyance at the dumb human not able to understand him. 

  “Cagyl, follow,” Arthax noted to himself as he let himself get lead through the dark.

  Being dragged along by a giant lizard in a dark tunnel to face the unknown, what could possibly go wrong? Arthax thought to himself as he attempted to not trip over unseen rocks or bumps on the floor. He felt Tullek’s fingers barely holding his sleeve but could feel a great amount of strength in his loose grip. 

  Ok… Don’t get on the lizards bad side. 

  The two new allies stopped abruptly as Tullek froze on the spot, his head darting from side to side as he cocked his head to the side as if listening to the creatures.

  “Problem?” Arthax questioned in a whisper.

  Tullek quietly hissed at the stupid human for interrupting him as he listened to the unseen creatures. Getting the message Arthax stayed quiet as he looked passed the lizard folk’s shoulder, trying to see if there was anything in front of them. There wasn’t that he could see aside from a ball of light floating towards them, swaying slightly from side to side as it came closer.

  No, not a ball of light… that’s a torch that’s being carried.

  Just as that thought was finished Arthax felt himself get pushed to the floor, instinctively tucking his legs up under his coat and covering as much of his face as possible while keeping his eyes uncovered.

  Footsteps were moving closer, the ground shaking just a little more with each footstep as the entity came closer.

  Peering over his collar Arthax saw the light much closer and now, for the first time, could clearly see the creature that somehow caught him.

  Arthax felt the gasp catch itself in his throat. His eyes widened as he looked up at the huge creature trying to take in as much information about the species as possible.

  Thick, black hair covering the entire body. Able to hold things so must have opposable thumbs. Strong but stocky build. Clearly cave dwelling but use of fire suggests bad dark vision. About ten feet in height… average creature could be taller as this specimen is hunched. Short stubby nose but no idea how good the sense of smell is. Hearing can be helped by sound echoing off the walls. Basically just a giant gorilla… but much more human.

  As the creature moved passed, Arthax and Tullek began to move again, this time however Tullek stayed low to the ground, scurrying along the floor much like a regular lizard. Arthax crawled on his hands and knees having never had the strength in his legs to crouch for too long though crawling in situations like this may not be the best idea if they needed to run at any time.  

  

  A minute or so later Tullek let out a little hiss and stopped, Arthax stopping just not before stepping on the end of Tullek’s tail, which obviously caused the lizard to let out a little chirp of pain.

   “Oh! Sorry… although to be fair to me, you’re fully black and stopped in the dark!” Arthax angrily whispered at Tullek, who turned to and leant into Arthax’s face.

  “Tgoc…” Tullek spat the word at Arthax, “Tgoc tjop! Iblily ystad liziam picn.” 

  The tone of the lizards voice seemed to suggest to Arthax that he was annoyed and that Arthax should wait, so wait he did. He hid behind a rock leaning his head in his hands in order not only keep out of the dust and slimy floor but to also try and follow the movements of his helper who had proceeded to climb up the wall of the cavern with swift movement, his scales still a deep shade of black making tracking him on the wall difficult.

  Having lost track of Tullek Arthax stayed still and waited for him to return… hoping he would return. Moments passed slowly. Arthax began to question if the lizard would return at all, it’s not like we’re best mates looking out for each other, but as he thought that the noise of scales rubbing against each other started to get closer and grabbed Arthax’s attention. 

  “Arthax?” the raspy voice of Tullek came from the dark. 

  What can I say that he’d understand? 

  “Rddi?” Arthax whispered into the shadows to the best of his pronunciations ability and soon heard the patter of feet on the cavern floor. “Tullek?”

  “Rddi.” The lizard scuttled closer to him becoming visible in the low light, then rested a hand on Arthax’s shoulder and shook him in an attempt to get him up. 

  “Good to know you’re back, see anything?” Arthax mimed pantomime style actions to hopefully help the meaning come through. Tullek looked carefully at the actions, a raspy confused noise followed as he made the connections in his head. Arthax, hiding irritation, sighed quietly pointed at his own eyes and then covered them, hoping to show that he couldn’t see much in the darkness then pointed at Tullek’s eyes then into the darkness and somehow there was a spark of realization in the lizard’s eyes as the meanings behind the strange dusty, pink creatures actions became clear.

  “Rddi!” Tullek smiled exposing his sharp needle-like teeth and pointed to the fire, which was a lot more visible now, then scratched three lines in the dust on the floor.

  Arthax looked at the lines in the dust and rested his chin in his hand, “Hmm… so we’re dealing with three of those gorilla giant things, four counting the one that wandered off a few minutes ago.” He looked back at the lizard. “Any weapons?” He smacked a fist into his other hand to signify aggression and hoped that Tullek didn’t think it was aimed at him. Tullek nodded, pointed to a stalagmite then mimed a club being swung at the floor.

  “Oh… ok,” Arthax now felt some worry setting in as he added that information to what he knew about the creatures. 

  Strong enough to break large stalagmites and use them as clubs, uses weapons, higher chance of predatory behavior.

  Swallowing a little bit of fear Arthax remembered one thing. These creatures use fire to light the dark; therefore they can’t see well in the dark. Arthax reached back into his pocket and pulled out his torch again.

  “Ok Tullek… I’ve got an idea. Cagyl.”

  The size of the fire in the middle of the creature’s area was huge, lighting the cavern greatly for a fair amount of space surrounding it. By the time Arthax and Tullek had reached the camp site the fourth creature had returned and thankfully not seen them on it way back. 

  As Arthax peeked over the rocks he was hiding behind he saw three creatures devouring mountains of meat, blood pouring onto their hairy bodies, making each creature even more disgusting to look at. 

  Need a distraction to start. I should have something I can use.

  He reached into his pocket and felt around for something useful, finding the bug spray. And if there is something everyone knows you never chuck these things in fire... I really hope this works.

  After checking that nothing was looking his way again, Arthax stood and threw the can of bug spray, aiming for the fire and managed to get it where he wanted it. Right in the middle of the fire. Cinders flicked as the can landed hard in the fire. One of the creatures noticed the cinders fly up and got up to look in the flames, slowly approaching with some obvious confusion he leaned in close to the fire and… BANG!

  The fire grew in size only for a moment but that was still enough to catch some of the thick black hair on fire. The creature immediately began screeching in pain and flailing its arms in its face attempting to put the fire out. Guttural screams of confusion, pain and fear all at once started bouncing off the wall as this flaming beast tripped over a large stalagmite and fell onto a large cluster of thicker stalagmites skewering itself several times. 

  Oh! That… that wasn’t meant to happen. Sorry buddy.

After this incident the other creatures dropped their food, stood up and started to scan the area. The remaining beasts reached down beside them and grabbed giant stalagmite clubs, raising them above their heads while bellowing as if challenging the area around them.

  As the first creatures cries became weaker and weaker, Arthax took his torch from his pocket and clicked it on aiming it at the closest creatures eyes, blinding the creature momentarily, which caused this creature to bring its club up to its face a bit too quickly, smacking itself in the face hard. Now staggering around in confusion and bloody faced the creature began swinging its club wildly managing to bash the other creature in the side. Thinking it was being challenged the second creature started fighting back, clubbing the first creature in the back and shoulder.

  These clearly aren’t the smartest creatures on Earth but we can use that to our advantage, Arthax thought to himself as he crept around the rock he was hiding behind and aimed his torch at the skewered creature, which was still on fire, the smell of burnt hair beginning to fill the cavern. Not a good way to go out, sorry again mate. Pocketing the torch, he moved from behind the rock completely and started running towards the tunnel on the far side of the creatures fire his coat flapping in the air as he ran.

  As he ran past the fighting pair he had to duck quickly to avoid a club swung wide by one of the Gorilla beasts feeling the breeze from the weapon, as it got much closer than Arthax wanted it to. As he ducked low momentum took Arthax off his feet and sent him sliding through the dust. As Arthax attempted to get back to his feet he noticed Tullek scurrying on all fours passed the fight. However as he faced forward and started to run to the exit again a raspy, piercing scream came from behind him. 

  Skidding to a halt Arthax looked back, his coat whipping around him and flicking up the dust on the floor. Looking at the spot where the scream came from he saw Tullek pinned in place by the tail where one of the clubs landed after the creatures stopped using them as the had clearly decided fists and teeth were better weapons in this cavern. 

  Torn between running and leaving this strange creature and creeping back to help, Arthax stood still in place just staring at Tullek watching him struggle to escape. Looking down the tunnel over his shoulder Arthax clenched his teeth and ran back to help Tullek. Throwing his weight against the club in an attempt to push it off the lizard’s tail only to find he couldn’t move it at all. Groaning loudly in annoyance Arthax grabbed Tullek around the waist, at least he thought it was the lizard folk’s waist, and attempted to pull Tullek out from under it. 

  “Sorry if this hurts,” he whispered to the lizard and pulled as Tullek dug his claws into the floor and both of them attempted to move forward at the same time. A sound of wet tearing followed and Arthax felt the floor grow slick from an unseen substance. 

  “You better not have just crapped yourself in fear mate,” Arthax said through clenched teeth as he pulled Tullek further then heard a snapping. 

Similar to how a chair leg sounds when its cracked across someone’s head in a bar fight, Arthax thought and suddenly he flew forward with Tullek pulling him along through the dust. Looking back Arthax saw what seemed to be Tullek’s tail twitching under the club though not bleeding as much as it looks like it should be. 

  So it’s a giant Gecko mixed with a bit of a Chameleon thrown in and much more humanoid… interesting. 

  As they moved further away Arthax let go and began running beside Tullek and while digging the torch out of his pocket again he noticed the tunnel getting brighter, shadows forming from a light source in front of them, the end of the tunnel was closer than he thought!

  Almost there, almost there!

  Fresh air greeted his lungs for the first time since he had woken up that day and suddenly Arthax realised he was out, he had made it… into the blindingly bright sunshine. The wind blowing through the leaves of the trees around them a much more welcome sound than the bellowing of giant gorilla people though if he listened carefully Arthax was sure he could still hear the creatures fighting in the cave system. 

  As the adrenaline started to ware off Arthax realised he was squinting in pain at the sudden change in brightness, even though the canopy blocked some of the light. Arthax thrust his hand in the breast pocket holding his sunglasses and put them on quickly.

  Not as bad as it was but still need my eyes to adjust. Though if I’m struggling what’s Tullek like? 

  Behind him Tullek was attempting to stay in Arthax’s shadow rubbing his eyes with his balled up hands, wincing in slight discomfort and hissing in annoyance. 

  Taking off his sunglasses he held them in front of Tullek’s face. 

  “Here you go mate, you clearly need these more than me,” he waved them at the lizard and showed him what to do. Tullek took them slowly then gently put the sunglasses onto his own face, held there by balancing them on his stubby snout and the fact that Tullek’s head was just that little bit bigger then Arthax’s. 

  “Citw,” Tullek hissed with a slight bow of appreciation.

  “You’re welcome mate,” he put his hand on Tullek’s shoulder, pointing towards the depths of the jungle, “now lets go see if we can find help eh?” A smile on Arthax’s face in order to show he was still acting friendly towards him. 

  “Tullek cagyl Arthax?” the lizard croaked out in its dry raspy voice.

  “If you want to, rddi!” Arthax replied and put his arm around Tullek, “Tullek, I have a feeling this is going to be the start of a…” he paused to find the right word as Tullek looked at him behind his new sunglasses, “…very strange relationship.” He looked at the lizard folk carefully, “Though if this is going to work, you need to learn a bit of English… I cannot wrap my tongue around your language.” 

  Tullek looked up at Arthax, seemed to grin a little and croaked out, “Inmto?” 

  Letting out a sigh, Arthax started walking into the jungle, unbuttoning his coat as he walked, “Never mind mate. Come on, cagyl.” 

  “Ok Arthax,” Tullek croaked out and started to crawl through the leaf litter after Arthax.