Erik and Dillon were hiking a trail through a forest. Their backpacks hung off their backs, slowing them down, each step echoed the tinny sound of their beer cans knocking together. The sun cut through the leaves overhead creating tiny spotlights on the trail ahead of them, illuminating their path.

“I’m stoked you guys put this together,” Dillon said. “My only concern is, how are you going to convince a stripper to come out here? That’s going to cost you guys some coin.”

“Don’t worry,” Erik said. “Jeff has been working on some moves. I don’t know if you’ll want to see them, and he’s not as nimble and limber as your fiancée, but it’ll be entertaining at least.”

They continued on, their feet scuffing on the dirt path. They came to a fork and Erik looked down one way, a dirt path with trees on either side. He looked the other way hoping to see something different, but it was the exact same, a dirt path with trees on either side. He turned and looked back the way they had come. Dirt and trees. “Shit,” he muttered. He hesitated, left, or right? He checked his phone but there was no reception out here, so he couldn’t look up the map online. “Shit.”

“Everything all right?” Dillon asked.

“Yeah, I just don’t remember seeing a fork on the map. It should have been a straight shot, only the one path. Jeff said follow that and we can’t miss it.”

“Well, that way looks dark and scary,” he pointed to the left. “Where that path is bright and sunny. So, let’s go that way. Worst case we turn around, it’s not a big park. Before that we should take a break and lighten our load a bit?” Dillon swung off his pack and leaned it against a fallen tree. He reached in and pulled out a couple cans of beer.

Erik took one and cracked it open. “Cheers buddy.” They tapped their drinks and took a sip. “Hey, do you hear something?” There was a sound, like a low hum, floating around the area. He tilted his head one way, and then the other, trying to find its origin, but he couldn’t detect it.

“Normal forest stuff; leaves in the wind, some insects and birds. Is it a bird you’re hearing?”

“No, it’s not a bird. I don’t know, it’s a steady ringing. You don’t hear it? I must be getting old, hearing starting to go. Wanna keep going?” Maybe it was just his hearing, but there was something unsettling about the noise, the way it surrounded them, like it was emanating from the forest itself. The vibration in his ear was unsettling. It sounded like an alarm, a warning. He shook his head to try and forget about it. They picked up their bags and kept trekking, following the beaten trail forward.

An hour later, their drinks long since done and the cans crushed and stashed in their bags, they were still walking with no camp in sight. “I don’t know, maybe we’re walking slower than I thought? This is the way that Jeff told me, their cars were in the parking lot at the trail head. We should turn around.”

“I’m sure it’s just around the corner. We’re in no rush, right? Shall we pull another beverage to carry us on? Lighten the load again?” Dillon pulled two more cans from his pack and handed one to Erik. Erik noticed he was pulling forward, inching his way further along the trail. When he went to hand him the beer he didn’t walk over to where Erik was resting but waited for him to get up and take it from him. He pushed it out of his head, it was nothing.

They cracked them open and tapped them together.

“So, are you nervous about the wedding?”

“I hope not, it’s only a couple of weeks away. Now’s not the time to be getting cold feet.” He took a swig from his beer. “But honestly, most of my life I’ve always wondered ‘what if’; like what if I went to a different school instead of the one I did, what if I chose a different job, should I get really into photography, or cars, or French new wave. Like life is a bunch of open doors, and I’m still trying to keep as many of them open as possible, trying not to settle for one thing. But this is one of the few things in my life that I’m sure about. I don’t mind closing that door.”

Erik smiled, but then was distracted. The noise came in high and sharp, like it was reminding him it was still there, before subsiding again. “There it is again, that noise. Are you sure you don’t hear it?”

“Is it coming and going?”

“No, it was always there, but it’s getting louder. You really don’t hear it? It’s like a wobbly hum, oscillating between two notes like a wave.”

“Oscillating? Nerd.” He took a few more steps along the path. “Seriously, I don’t hear a thing except the forest. You want to keep going, or? That other path is like an hour back. Let’s give this one a bit more time. This beer, then we’ll turn around.”

It was starting to feel dangerous to Erik, like if they kept moving something bad was going to happen to them. He didn’t want to, but Dillon seemed eager, like he couldn’t wait to press forward, even if the camp wasn’t that way. He figured things would relax once they got to the camp. Maybe one of the other guys could hear it as well, or by then it’d have gone, and he’ll have forgotten all about it by the end of the weekend.

As they crushed their cans they came to a small clearing in the forest where there was a cave. The hum had gotten even louder in Erik’s ears. He tried plugging them to little effect, it still got in his head. They both looked around but couldn’t see where the trail picked up again. There was no way forward, their only option was to turn around. “God damnit, I’m sorry Dillon. I must have made a wrong choice at that fork an hour back. We’ll have to turn around and take the other path.”

“It’s fine man, we’re still making good time. But what do you say we lighten our load a little bit more with another beer – and while we’re at it take a break and check out that cave a bit?”

At the mention of the cave the noise pierced his head again, shooting a pain through his brain and down his spine. It coursed through his whole body.

The cave.

No, that wasn’t a good idea. He couldn’t explain it, but the hum was coming from that cave, and there was nothing good in there for them. “I don’t think so. We should turn around and head back, find that fork again. The guys are waiting for us, we don’t want them to get worried.”

“First off, if they got there earlier this afternoon then they’re three sheets in themselves and won’t notice the time. Hell, I’ll be surprised if they even managed to pitch the tents. And second, this is my bachelor party and I want to check out this cave. Just a peek, we’ll be like ten minutes.”

“I don’t know-”

“Christ, come on already.”

“All right, fine,” Erik relented and cracked another beer. With the heat and walking, carrying the heavy packs, he was starting to feel the few drinks they’d already had. He chugged half the beer hoping it would deaden the noise coming from the cave. This was not a good idea.

The cave was shallow, more like a long tunnel ten feet across and ten feet high, the ground covered in sand. The walls were smooth and straight, no hint of a change. Erik ran his hand along them as they walked; they were cold to the touch, chilled but not damp as he expected. It felt sort of like stone, but also not. Like an approximation of stone, imitation stone, which didn’t put Erik’s mind at ease. They came to a set of stairs carved into the stone that headed down. “This is it,” Erik said. “We should turn back now.”

“Oh hell no, are you kidding? This is exactly where we should keep going. Why are there stairs here? I have no idea, but I want to find out.” Dillon pulled on his headlamp and turned it on. “Where’s your sense of adventure? Let’s go.” He didn’t wait to see if Erik followed.

Erik hurried after him. They reached the bottom and continued to follow the tunnel. The sand had returned. Dillon was leading the way while Erik trailed behind, glancing back to make sure there was nothing following them. He had the feeling of being watched, like there were hundreds of tiny eyes just beyond what he could see in the darkness. It didn’t make sense, wasn’t rational. His headlamp illuminated the wall and ceiling that surrounded them. No eyes to be seen. But still the wall had eyes, he was sure of it. That humming, louder and louder, it was almost deafening now, and still rising to an almost feverish peak.

Then it stopped.

Erik looked around, the ceiling had opened up, stretching up into darkness beyond what their little flashlights could reach. They had entered a chamber. He looked around the room, checking the corners, the darkness, making sure there was nothing moving there. No eyes, but he could still feel them.

“Holy shit, look at this,” Dillon said. Erik followed his beam of light as it landed on a large bell hanging in the centre of the chamber. “How long do you think it’s been down here? Who put it here? My god, I have so many questions.” He ran up and began inspecting it.

Erik looked at it himself. Vines and leaves grew out of the sand, snaked and curled their way up, forming the stock the bell hung from. It looked like gold, or at least shined like it, and there was something written on it. “Hey Dillon look over here, can you read this?” They both followed the lines etched into the metal, some form of runic writing that they didn’t understand. Erik couldn’t read it, but something about it seemed angry to him. But there was also a righteousness he felt while looking at it; it filled him with a feeling of belonging, a feeling of purpose.

“Look, there’s something else here,” Dillon said. Erik looked and Dillon was holding a small hammer. “Must be for the bell, dare me to ring it?”

“No, absolutely not.” Erik broke out in a sweat even though the cave was cool. He could feel his limbs start to shake, and his voice cracked when he next spoke. “I can’t stress enough how much of a bad idea that is. Just put the hammer down and let’s get out of here, it’s been a half hour already.”

Erik watched as Dillon smiled at him. “Yeah, you’re right. Though it is MY bachelor party,” and then he struck the bell with the hammer. It rang out into the cavern, reverberated off the walls and folded in on itself, creating a sonic wave that bounced around and echoed down the tunnel back to the stairs and the outside world. Dillon looked around, expecting something, but nothing happened. He threw the hammer down in the sand. “Well, that was a little disappointing.”

For Erik it was so much more. When the sound hit his ears, it was truth, and chaos, and redemption. The curtain was pulled back, a history of terror and monsters rose in his mind. There was no longer the soft shell that encased him, he could see it all. The eternal fight between good and evil. That soft shell had been replaced by hard determination. He looked to his friend, his childhood friend, the man he had known for decades. There he stood in all his monstrosity; blood dripped from his hands, the scars of a thousand evil deeds etched in his skin, his eyes blackened with hate and malice, drool oozed from his mouth as he gnashed his razor teeth.

Erik rushed forward, catching Dillon off guard. He scooped the hammer from the ground, raised it up, and brought it down on his head. The impact sent a squirt of blood out that landed and dried up in the sand. Dillon fell back on the ground, eyes wide with surprise. Erik didn’t relent, he jumped on top of him and brought the hammer down again, and again, the sound of breaking bones and the soft wet sound of the hammer meeting flesh and blood. He cried out at first, but those stopped as his head caved in, and bone and brain and blood mixed with the sand.

When the body went limp Erik stood up and looked down. He saw his friend laying there dead, his body broken and bloody, his face unrecognizable. He didn’t feel sadness, no remorse. He knew what he saw and had acted. He watched as the sand opened up and swallowed the body. He turned and made for the entrance; the bloody hammer still clutched in his hand. The oscillating buzz and hum had cleared, and he recognized it for what it was – a signal, showing him where the rest of the monsters were. He would see them all in time.