 The sound of Caleb's rifle erupted, launching a clashing and artificial crack against the otherwise still sounds of nature all around us. Less than an instant later, a small metallic ping could be heard in response, some 50 yards or so away from where we were standing. Which one were you aiming at? The right one? I asked, as I raised my binoculars to eye level. Nah, the middle one. Caleb retorted nonchalantly. It's further out than the other two. As my eyes began to adjust to the sudden magnification of the world around me, I moved the binoculars over to where I recalled the center target being. A small metal dartboard style concoction of rings and dots perched on a swivel came into view. Mounted above the stump of a felled tree, I could see it rocking slightly back and forth against the world around it from the percussion of the shot. First left of the bull's eye was the silver-gray indentation, contrasting heavily against the clean-painted reds and blacks of the target, undoubtedly where the bullet had found its mark. Just left of center. I mumbled. Eyes still pressed against the scopes. Pretty damn close, though. Ah, that should be all right, I reckon. Caleb said as he continued to reload his rifle, I'm not really looking to hit it in the hard valve anywhere in the chest I'll do it. I put my binoculars down and left them hanging around my neck as I grabbed my bag and my own rifle. I slung the bag around my shoulders and checked my gun once more to make sure it was loaded and that the safety was on. All right then, I said with a slight air of impatience, let's kill a coy dog. Three days prior, our grandfather had called telling us that something had been killing his chickens. He thought that it might have just been a raccoon at first, but after one of his dogs came limping out of the woods and onto his property, he seemed pretty confident he was dealing with a coy dog. The result of stray mongrel's breeding with a region's coyotes had over the course of time resulted in a pretty sizable population of hybrid offspring. Larger and far less timid than your average coyote, coy dogs slowly began to make themselves more and more of a problem among the rural citizens surrounding this particular stretch of eastern Appalachia. My grandfather being well into his 80s no longer had the strength to go out and hunt wild dogs across the mountains, so he called me and I who had no desire to move across the mountainside in the evening by myself had in turn called my brother Caleb. It was this unassuming sequence of events that found us walking off into the woods of my grandfather's property against the setting sun. As we passed the fields and entered the tree line, we were met with a feeling of a comfortable welcoming back. The woods had always been where we belonged and though our adult lives had resulted in us quickly becoming too busy in the towns and cities to spend as much time out here as we'd liked, the ancient trees around us had not forgotten its former caretakers and we had not forgotten them either. After scanning the ground around me for several minutes, I finally saw the first sign of our hunt. On the ground in some dampened dirt was the unmistakable footprint of a canine. Broken twigs and pressed plants indicated that the animal had began making its way west and uphill. A few more stops revealed another set of tracks affirming my suspicions. That's right here, headed up the hill. I spoke over to my brother as I walked carefully in my intended direction. They're a little big for a coyote. I think this is the one we're looking for. Caleb nodded quietly and trailed behind me a ways. Although I'd never admit it, Caleb was always the better shot between the two of us and although he would never admit it, I was always the better tracker. But in our adult years, we understood each other's strengths and had no quarrel in trusting the other's observations, even if we didn't talk about it. Marching up the rugged terrain of the Appalachian foothills was always an arduous task. The steep incline and unpredictable earth would almost have a man walking on all fours up the hills from time to time. And if you didn't take a break periodically to chart your next few steps, you could find yourself quickly tumbling down the side of the hill into the holler below. Cautiously, we made our way up to the ever-increasing steepness of the hill. Our breathing began to get heavy and our steps began to fall loudly and clumsily against the leaves and branches below our feet. Shit, I am out of shape. I cursed myself as we continued our march. Caleb laughed with an exasperated air. Well, if you were looking to surprise this thing, we might as well head back down. I chuckled between breaths at the remark as we continued to half walk, half climb. After maybe a half an hour of this exhausting process, we found ourselves at the top of the hill, panting like dogs and attempting to catch our breath. No way. Caleb said, breaking the silence. I looked up and around me to try and see if I could make out what he was looking at. It didn't take long. Ahead of us was the infamous jutting in pitch black entrance of the Devil's mouth, a large cave that we'd known about for years. Our grandfather had forbidden us as children to ever go in there. Not wanting to adhere to the wrath of our grandfather, we'd always abided by this rule. This stayed with us through our teen years, and even as men we found ourselves feeling nervous in the wake of the pitch black abyss. As if our 85 year old grandfather was going to sprint up that hill and beat us silly for even stepping close to this place. On the wet ground below the entrance were the tracks that we'd been following most of the early evening as prominent and indistinguishable as a set of tracks could be. We think grandpa is going to whoop us for going in there after it. I laughed as I nudged my brother in the arm with my elbow. Loudly, but with a hint of nervousness, my brother responded, Geez man, that old bear has got more life than the both of us combined. He's probably sprinting up here with a belt as we speak. I laughed in return to his depiction, completely capable of seeing the scenario in my mind. He was an old man, but he was a fierce one too, and when grandpa gave you a rule, well, you listened to it, and that was that. But we were no longer children running through the woods of our grandfather's land, and the things that used to frighten us no longer held the effects that they once did. I looked over to my brother and observed him for a moment. Gray hair had begun to clash against the blonde under his hat, wrinkles could be seen on his forehead. His sharp and chiseled facial features had begun to sag slightly under the weight of time, and crow's feet could be seen peeking out of the side of his brow, giving him the middle aged look. With my brother being three years younger than myself, I knew in my heart that I was probably looking older than he was. I could start to feel it in my bones. When I woke up in the evening, when I went to bed at night, I could hear it in the things that I said. I could see it in the way I'd started to view the world around me. We're old men ourselves now, I reminded myself, with a disappointed sigh. I don't know how it happened, but it happened. We don't have to be afraid of caves anymore. Well, I'd hate to have walked up that hill for nothing. I said as I began to walk forwards into the mouth of the cave. I'm straight, my brother agreed from just behind me, as we passed the threshold into the devil's mouth. The light from the world outside the cave began to fade quickly, and before long we were met with nothing but pitch black darkness. The unnatural kind that only being in places like a cave can make, it would make you go crazy if you stayed that way for too long, and would instantly heighten the other senses around you. Really reminding you of how creepy places like this actually were. Suddenly the cave was lit up by LED lighting. I looked over and saw that Caleb had pulled his handheld spotlight from his bag, and illuminated the area with a ghostly white beam of light. He held it still on me as I pulled my own flashlight from the bag. The cave itself wasn't much to look at in retrospect. We looked around at the high ceilings and the moist walls around us in a sort of whimsical interest. The last uncharted region of our wooded paradise. It was in the midst of these observations that I heard Caleb whisper sharply. Obvious concern and growing anxiousness could be heard in his voice. Look in front of you, shit. There on the cavern floor, mere feet from us, was the body of the koi dog we'd been tracking, or rather, what was left of it. The creature lay in two pieces across the floor, connected by a trail of blood and strewn intestines. The front half of its head was smashed in from the top, crushed flat. Its tongue hung out of the top of its jaw in an almost cartoonish fashion. Brain matter could be seen splattered around its vicinity like organic confetti. All around the mangled koi dog's corpse were the assortment of other smashed bones, a ribcage over here, a fractured skull over there, pelvis bones, and leg bones and antlers seemed to litter the entire cavern floor. Slowly, we began to step back. I raised my rifle over my left arm, holding the flashlight in place with my hand. I could tell from the adjustment of light beside me that my brother had done the same. Fear began to creep into my thoughts and I became on high alert to the fully illuminated area around me. Eyes darting back and forth at the shapes on the cave, I tried to make out the silhouette of something I prayed I wouldn't see. We're in a bear den, my brother said suddenly, making me jump at the intrusion of sound in the eerily silent cave. At first, I agreed with him. What else could have killed so many things? And in such a manner, it didn't take the county coroner to deduce that these animals had been killed by something big and heavy. There wasn't any other animal it could have been, not in this area of the world. We've seen more than our fair share of black bears running around the forest as kids and figured they'd have to be living somewhere. But never in a thousand years would we have imagined ourselves standing in the middle of one of their dens. It was in the midst of these panic-stricken thoughts that I remembered a detail. A small one, but one I couldn't shake. Breaking the silence of the death-filled cave once more, I addressed my brother. There weren't any bear tracks, though. I said to him as we peered into the darkness with rifles raised. Why wouldn't we have seen bear tracks outside the cave? I don't see any gnawed bones, either. They're just smashed. What do I look like a scientist? He whispered back almost in a shout. Maybe he's hibernating or something. I don't know. I shook my head at the speculation. It was only late July. Bears wouldn't be hibernating until much later in the year. It's too early for all that. I responded. It was then that I noticed something I hadn't before. Sitting on a rock just behind the ruined koi dog's body was a skull I'd never seen before. Two rows of teeth jetted out between the jaws, some pointed like in animals, others flat. Two sockets where eyes might have been stared emptily at us from across the cave. The skull was undeniably a human's, but there was no way that could have been possible. The skull in question was huge, bigger than both of our heads put together. Again, the county coroner wouldn't need to be called up here. Any fool with half a brain could tell you this skull was way too big to be a man's. What the hell is that? I almost shouted as I pointed my light towards the object I was looking at. In the darkness I hadn't seen it, but now in the light it was horrifyingly obvious. Just below the skull was a hole in the cave's floor, at least 12 feet around and seemingly bottomless. What the hell? Caleb said, in an astonished and slightly fearful town, as his light remained transfixed on the enormous skull, have you ever seen anything like that before? Astounded by what I was seeing myself, I shook my head. I have never seen anything even remotely close to what I'm looking at right now, but if there's a bear in here then we would have seen it by now. I'm going to check it out. Rifle still raised. I inched my way to the hole in the ground, eye-scanning periodically for any other crevices or indicators of the cave stretching further out than we thought. The rifles we had were muzzle loaders, essentially just modernized muskets. Though a bear could certainly be killed by the guns we carried, we weren't going to get another shot if we missed, and I didn't want to take a chance at that if we somehow startled a bear that we hadn't seen in here. Through the silence of a cave, I could hear Caleb's footsteps trailing just behind me. Finally, we approached the side of the hole and looked down. Even with our flashlights, the void appeared bottomless. I kicked the leg bone of some type of animal over the ledge and waited for the echoes to return to us as it hit the bottom, but they never came. Even perhaps I'd over-focused and somehow missed the noise. I kicked another bone down and waited, nothing, no sound at all, careful around here. I said as I walked around the perimeter of the hole towards the skull, that might actually never end. I'm not easy about this, Caleb responded. I think we should get going. I agreed with what he was saying. The air around us had fallen unnaturally still, like something horrible was waiting for us to do something wrong, as if at any second whatever had created this mess of bones would come flying into the cave and add us to its collection. You're right, I said, as I continued to make my way forward. He says as he continues to walk deeper into the serial killer's cave. Caleb reproached, trying to mask his growing concern with sarcasm. I'm taking this skull with us. We'll see what grandpa thinks about it. I said, trying to reassure him that our time in this cave was coming to an end very soon. Suddenly, from the bottom of the chasm below, a loud and tremendous roar could be heard. It shook the walls of the cave and echoed violently all around us. Terrified, I screamed and tried to run back to the mouth of the cave, skull in hand. I was suddenly grabbed and flung to my face hard by something behind me. Red hot pain seared through my knees and head as I tried to pull myself up, but whatever had caused me to trip was now pulling at me, trying to drag me into that hole. I screamed as I flailed about the cavern floor, trying desperately to grab onto something that would slow my death, but there was nothing to grab. Hopelessly I clawed at the earth as I felt myself being dragged further and further away. A loud bang filled the area around me. Light flashed vibrantly for less than a moment before my eyes were again introduced to the darkness of the cave. Whatever the entity was that had grabbed me loosened up, just enough for me to kick myself free. Like mad, I clambered my way onto my feet, but quickly fell down again in pain. I screamed out as I tried to pull myself up, and then I heard another bang, ears ringing, surrounded in darkness and losing consciousness with the horrible agony coming from my left leg. I desperately clawed my way towards the mouth of the cave, trying to get away from the cavern I was being dragged to. I felt a force pick me up, and I heard Caleb's voice through the ringing, muffled and distorted. Come on, come on help me out here. With Caleb holding me up, we escaped the cave and somehow made our way back down the hill into the valley below. Limping along with the desperation of a wounded animal, trying in vain to escape the predator, we were sure was coming for us. We made it to the bottom and looked around in wide-eyed fear, but there was nothing. Just the sound of night birds and crickets in the forest around us, I groaned out again in pain, embraced myself as the wave rose and slowly faded back to its steady dull ache. What the hell was that? What the hell happened? I screamed at my brother, who continued to look up the hill in shock and unchecked fear. He turned around and pulled me up again as we limped through the forest towards my grandfather's house. He spoke. It was... it was a hand. He said in disbelief through the pants and heavy breathing. It came out of the hole and tried to pull you in. I shot it twice. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. He had to have been mistaken. You mean... you mean like a paw? I gasped through the pain in my leg. Like a bear's paw? No, not like a damn bear's paw. He yelled at me in a complete loss of composure. Like a hand? Like five fingers and knuckles and an elbow? Like a hand? It shot out of that hole and almost killed you, dude. I... another wave of anguish seared through my leg and seemed to travel up my body. I think my leg's broken, Caleb. Yeah, your leg is definitely broken. Stop talking. We're almost back. He said, before I could respond, the world faded to darkness. I woke up several hours later in the hospital, my grandfather sitting at the corner of my bed with the same look of stern disapproval he always wore. I told you not to go into that cave, boy. He said sharply, in matter of factly, never showing the slightest trace of emotion. Don got yourself broken by a bear, the doctor saying its lucky little Caleb was with you. I looked around at the hospital room I was in, and I didn't see my brother anywhere. Where is he? I asked as I tried to prop myself up. The exhaustion mixed with the pain medication I was certainly on resulted in me collapsing back into my bed in defeat. Stop moving, you damn fool. My grandfather remarked, seemingly unconcerned at my lack of strength. Your legs busted in three places. You got enough percocetting you to kill a horse. He's fine. He's outside talking to cops. I laid in the bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to make sense of the thoughts that were coming back to me. Finding the cave, being grabbed, running through the woods. The doctors must have thought it was a bear. It had to have been a bear. I rationalized to myself. Caleb just freaked out. It was dark. He couldn't see it well. And just then, my grandfather spoke up again. I always just thought kids had no business running around in deep, dark caves. He said, with an air of elderly reminiscence. Never in a hundred years could have told you there was a bear in that hole. Cherokee, who used to live here, talked about giants living deep in there. Big old man eaters with two rows of teeth. Shocked at what my grandfather was telling me, I looked over to where he was sitting in a wide-eyed expression. Well, you're alive. I'm dying of boredom. I'm going home and I'm going to bed. The old man pulled himself up and stammered over to me. He reached into his pocket and pulled something out. When he gets back, give these here to your brother. He put his hand on my chest and padded my shoulder with his other hand before making his way out of the hospital room. I looked down and stared in horror and disbelief at what my grandfather had placed in my hands. Tied in old string was a necklace made out of teeth, way too large to be a man's, some sharp like an animal's, and some flat.