Wednesday 30. I slept poorly that night, namely due to the horrors I had experienced that day. Oh, sorry, you thought I was referring to whatever was in the well? No, what I mean was Randy's mother's cooking! Steak that was both burnt to a crisp and underdone, boiled mush that used to be vegetables, gravy the consistency of tap water and the approximate flavour too. Needless to say it was silently agreed between us as a group that we'd had a big breakfast before we arrived that day.
Apparently, my issues with sleep were mine alone, as whilst Sid woke up at six on the hour, as he had done before, Randy... did not. Through water or violence, he'd continue to snore, barely stirring enough to mutter a few words before drifting back off. We eventually managed to rouse him when Sid threw a couple of chunks of ice on his face, which woke him long enough to remain awake for the day. First priorities would be going into the well ourselves to find out what happened to the ACD, recover it if we could, and learn more about what the threat would be. Figuring out a plan for capturing it could come after we'd found out what it was. So, with the sun already up, courtesy of Randy, we approached the well cautiously, and prepared to climb down. That was, of course, before we heard a little voice behind us that we hadn't noticed before.
"Can I come too?"
"Zeke!" Randy shouted, his fists balled as he marched towards his cousin. "What the f...lip are you doing here!"
"I want to see the monster! I want to come with you! Please!" Zeke pleaded, as Randy unclenched his fists and tried to act more reasonable.
"Zeke, please, this is serious. You can't come with us. Go home."
Randy's tone sounded tired, though that would be near impossible given the amount of sleep he had.
"No!" Zeke exploded, stamping his foot and turning beetroot. "I don't wanna, and you can't make me!"
Firmly, Sid pushed Randy aside, nodding professionally and reassuring him.
"Let me deal with this."
Sid approached the child, still stamping, and stood at full height, towering over him. Zeke, undeterred, let out his mightiest kick into Sid's shin. With no change in expression, Sid lifted him by the shirt and held him to eye level, as Zeke's expression shifted and he became far paler.
"Kid, listen to your cousin." Sid ordered in a firm, low growl. "This isn't a joke. This is seriously dangerous. You could die. Go home. Now. Or else."
For just a moment, I thought he'd call Sid's bluff- at least I really hoped it was a bluff. But Zeke darted off as soon as his feet touched the ground again.
"Little harsh, don't you think?" Randy asked, to which Sid snorted passively.
"Didn't see your way working." Sid replied with a smirk.
"It was a little harsh." I agreed, as we encroached on the well. Of course, the well as just as mossy, dark, terrifying and abandoned as it was yesterday, so the obvious question, after we'd lowered the rope, would be who'd be descending first.
"Last to say Kappa goes in first!" Randy shouted, waiting for the two of to fight between us. "Well?"
"Well," Sid explained, "neither of us are saying it. So that means you were the last to say it. You're up."
Gulping, Randy slowly started climbing. And it was all going so well, until the rope snapped.
"Randy!" I shouted, eyes darting in panic. "Are you alright?"
There was no response. I turned to Sid.
"Do we have another rope?"
"No, but we still have some length of this own left." Sid noted, unsurely. "If you're happy to continue to use rope that's just snapped on us."
"Do we have a choice?"
Shaking his head in begrudging agreement, Sid handed me the frayed rope's end. Carefully, I tied it around my waist and lowered myself down the well and into the cold water, landing next to the winded Randy who was just beginning to rouse. Sid followed me into the ankle deep water, and we stood together in formation as to not get surprised as we planned our steps going forwards. After a short, hissed discussion, it was decided that we'd try and follow the path the ACD took. So with me in lead, and torches to hand, we began our trek through the damp well cave.
Little conversation was had as we walked, but some unresolved tension seemed to remain between us. Randy tried to lighten the mood by humming as we progressed but Sid quickly silenced him, much to his chagrin, in case it alerted whatever was down here with us. We walked so long that the torches became dull, and of course, none of us thought to bring spare batteries, leaving us in the dark. All of us were on the lookout, sure that the ACD was lost somewhere around here but not knowing the exact area.
"Hold up, hold on, stop moving." Randy whispered suddenly, pointing ahead of where we stood. I strained my eyes in the darkness to try and see what it was, but to no avail. Pressing forwards much slower now, we moved as a unit close enough to recognise that what we were seeing was a body. A large, hairy, mangled body.
None of us dared move, left staring at the Bigfoot's body in horror.
"It's... dead." Randy spoke first, in shock.
"Wow, really, you think?" Sid sarcastically replied, as Randy's face became mildly beetroot. "No, wait, give it just a second, I think I just saw it blink!"
"Jeez, did you accidentally wander into the Kappa containment area before we left for here?" Randy snapped back. "Because ever since we've arrived, you've had something stuck right up inside your-"
"Guys!" I shouted over the pair, as both turned their heads towards me. "Whatever the hell... this is, can we save it until we're not being pursued by-"
It was now my turn to be cut off by the insidious growling emanating from the corridor behind us. A huge lizard-like head came into view in the almost darkness, as we slowly backed away in a unit further down the corridor. We never saw more than the head as we backed away, daring not get a good view of what was chasing us. As it stopped to sniff at the Bigfoot corpse, I made the elective decision and shouted an order to the team.
"Run!"
And so we ran, splashing the water loudly beneath us and not even caring, just so long as we could retreat for now. Sure, we could have turned and shot blindly into the darkness to try and hit it, but that wasn't the goal of this mission.
"The ACD!" Randy shouted, spotting its flashlight that lit up the noticeably bone-littered cave space that we were currently running through.
"We can come back for it, but only if we're alive!" I shouted back, taking a turn away down another corridor, hoping that it would be the one to get us out of this labyrinth. By the time we felt safe, we were thoroughly lost, but we seemed to be in the clear.
"Okay, let's talk." I authoritatively began, looking between Sid and Randy. "Clearly there's something going on so, how about we all vent here, get it all out now, and then we can pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and get on with it."
"In that case, Randy, your family are awful!" Sid finally shouted, ranting at the walls, before sighing apologetically. "Sorry..."
"Glad you can see what I spent seventeen years dealing with." Randy sniggered, shaking his head. "Next time Eva tries to send us back here, at least we're all in agreement that it's a definite no."
With a united front reattained, I was happy for us to try and find the exit, until I heard the sound of movement from further up the passage and silenced the team. Holding my breath, I awaited for whatever was down the corridor to show up, teeth bared, claws outstretched. So imagine the flood of emotions when what appeared was just a particularly large rat.
"False alarm!" I sighed, tension relieved, until the squeaking began to raise in volume, the silhouettes began to raise in number, and the rats began to raise in size as more showed up; looking big enough to reach my knees if they stood on their hindlegs. Worse still, they looked inclined to attack. There was no way for us to outrun this threat. We'd have to fight.
"Jesus, Michael, that was my leg!"
"Sorry, Sid, it's pretty dark in here, you know!"
The benefit of larger rats is that they were much easier to hit, even if I was using a tranquilliser gun as a club. Randy had taken on a more stabbing motion, whilst Sid was relying on good strong kicks.
"They don't stop coming!" Randy shouted, sounding ragged.
"Okay, on the count of three, we try and move away from the wall." I replied, similarly exhausted sounding, at least to myself. "One, two, go!"
Moving down the passage, back to back, kicking rats in the water, my hope reappeared when the light from the top of the well became visible, and I couldn't help but grin as I saw the frayed end of the rope. It was silently decided that as the lightest, I'd climb up first. As I was halfway up, the growls came again, as the rats scattered. Sid didn't wait for me to get all the way to the top before he began to follow me up, with Randy getting more worried at the bottom of the well, clearly having seen something I hadn't. And then, it came into view.
The creature was huge, maroon, reptilian with a long snouted, lizard-like head and a somewhat snakelike body. It had six legs, evenly spread roughly a third of the way down the body, with short stumpy wings above the first pair that looked borderline useless for flight. Randy was still stuck at the bottom, staring at it and clutching around the rope, daring not look away. The rats were still in the process of scattering, and the scaled creature managed to snap one up in its mouth, before it turned its attention towards Randy.
"The rope, Randy, start climbing!" Sid shouted down, as soon as he'd reached the top with me, shaking the rope as Randy finally clutched it. The creature snarled, as Randy wrapped the rope around his hand and began to fearfully and ineffectively climb. Sid and I pulled him up, with the reptile leaping up and snapping at Randy's heels, aided by it's wings but coming fortunately short. As my muscles strained, Randy finally rolled over the side of the well, lying on the ground staring at the sky.
"What now?" I asked, panting, after enough time had passed for the shock of the situation to fade.
"Now," Sid replied, pulling Randy to his feet, "we call Eva."
There was near silence through Sid's phone after we'd explained the situation, only occasional clicks, page turning and murmurs from Eva for a solid few minutes. Eagerly we awaited her answer, and that answer finally came.
"Well, I have bad news about the farm." Eva admitted. "Or rather, about what exactly the farm was built on top of. You think a sinkhole is bad? Try a Knucker hole."
I, for one, was no more clear.
"Knucker hole- so that thing down there is a Knucker?" I asked, confused. "What even is a Knucker? Some kind of dragon?"
"Well, that's dubious." Eva responded, clearly reading from something. "It says here that Knuckers are seen as offshoot serpentine dragon-like creatures but not true dragons. They're most commonly found in the British countryside, dwelling in watery locales and underground. They're best known for their exceptional skill in digging long tunnels, their 'holes' in which they spend most of their time dwelling inside of. It's also said that in these 'holes', they tend to have a nest where they drag their prey to in order to feed."
"Yep, we found that." Randy sighed, before guilt came over his face. "I'm so sorry about what happened to the ACD by the way."
"I couldn't have asked for a better field test for the prototype." Eva audibly beamed over the phone. "That's not important now. What is important is how we're going to capture this Knucker. What equipment do you have to hand?"
"Some frayed rope, some tranquillisers, three rifles, a shovel and whatever raw meat Joanna hasn't tortured yet." I responded, lowering my tone for the last one just in case she was nearby.
"Good." Eva replied, determined. "I can work with that. Here's the plan."
Fifteen minutes later, and two of the three of us had descended back into the well. Each of us would be taking different roles for the plan to work, but Randy had to do his job before we could do ours. Honestly, it was nice to have somebody else be the bait for once; with any luck whatever I was pulling these things in with would be less alluring than the slab of steak in Randy's pockets. My mission was to collapse the tunnels in with the shovel, and since they were already pretty crumbling, Eva valued my ability to avoid being crushed by rubble over my ability to draw in cryptids this time around. Randy's uncertain shouts echoing down the corridor told me that it was time for me to move. He had his loop that he'd be able to go around for as long as was needed, and I had to collapse every other escape. One by one, the ceilings fell to the blunt edge of my spade, as my shoulders caught some slight debris that I was certain would bruise within the next few days. Once all routes were our for the count, I gave my own signal, with Randy and I rendezvousing at the exit point, Knucker close behind, as the plan came to it's crescendo. As long as the rope held...
As we passed each other, Randy tossed me the meat.
"You sure you're good for a lap?" Randy asked, clearly sweating.
"Yeah, you focus on climbing." I answered, running down the planned route. If I lured the Knucker around the loop just once, it would hopefully give Randy enough time to climb out of the well, and if I ditched the meat for it to investigate, hopefully I'd be able to get our unscathed too. The hissing was a good sign that it was behind me without me having to check, so I put all my focus onto running and making the turns in darkness when I needed to. When light graced my eyes again, my full attention was on the rope. Unloading the prime meat onto the floor, I grabbed tightly with both hands and began to climb, chancing a look down to see to my dismay that the Knucker had far more interest in making me lunch than the meat, as it was scaling the walls of the well far quicker than I was.
"Sid!" I shouted, as the bald barbarian aimed over the side with the tranquilliser rifle, focused on the shot. Just as jaws clamped inches from my leg, a dart flew, hit it's mark directly, and the Knucker fell to the bottom of the well as it lost consciousness.
Whilst everything else was well planned out, how we were actually getting the draconiform creature out from the well wasn't so clearly defined. But we eventually figured out tying the rope around it, and using a joint effort to lift it from the well. With that, the mission was complete, and Randy just had to say goodbye to his family. My eyes glanced at Zeke, and my mind flared with concern.
"If it's okay with you, Sid and I are gonna wait in the car with the Knucker." I suggested, Sid clearly sharing my concerns and nodding. "You know, give you some time alone with your family."
We watched the interaction for five minutes from a distance, before Randy finally entered the car and began to drive.
"Good talk?" I asked, to which Randy gave a dismissive half-shrug.
"Well, I need a new phone." Randy replied, smacking his lips with regret. "They want my phone number, and obviously I'm going to need a new one."
Exhausted and hungry, all we hoped was that when we got back, we'd be able to wrap up with Eva quickly so we could get something to eat.
Escorting the sleeping Knucker to the habitat Eva had clearly quickly constructed for it, it didn't take long at all for it to awaken.
"Good trip?" Eva asked, smile wide and disposition cheerful.
"It was... eventful." Randy replied, evasively. "It was better than I expected, if that's what you mean. But if you ever send me there again, I'm packing rations."
Leaving the Lab, my stomach growled as I began to head to the nearest fast food place. Tomorrow was another day, and another mission. Whatever we would face, at least it wouldn't involve Randy's family.