Beasts Below 

by V.A. Odell

Pana grimaces as he tightens the cable to the concrete wall, hands shaking in their effort. The cable groaned as it flexed, pulling the trap taut. Growls echoed down the long corridors, bouncing unpredictably along the curved walls. He wasn’t sure how far the beast was, but he could tell it was getting closer. 

“I think it's ready,” he hissed in a low voice to the woman down the line, who had a bag of meat prepped for the bait. One thing they did know about the beast was its fervor for meat.

She nodded, dumping out the wax lined bag onto the ground between the long iron lines. In her haste to depart once she dropped the meat, she stumbled on the track, foot catching on the raised leads. Pana reached out to catch her, but realized the trap was slipping. He needed this trap to stay as tight as possible, to make sure the spiked thing hanging above them would stay as far out of sight as possible. 

“Run!” He hoarsely whispered, wishing he had another set of arms. Meili panted, rubbing her bruised palms that caught her fall. The growls of the beast grew louder, increasing to a roar as it caught the smell of meat on the wind. She looked around, panicked, all planning and practice flew out her mind as she froze, listening to the loping footsteps turned the corner. 

Pana pressed himself against the wall, as flat as he would go. His skin covered in metallic oil to cover his scent, and his clothes rubbed with rotted food, to the beast, he should go unnoticed. Smelly, but not edible, was the goal.

Meili composed herself just as the beast poked its head into view, sniffing the air to confirm which fork to take. At first, it almost walked past their tunnel, the nature of the tubes hard to pinpoint. Pana sucked air through his teeth imperceptibly, willing it to catch the scent. Meili dashed further down the corridor, disappearing with quiet footsteps into a creaking door. That caught the attention of the beast, its head snapping to them, where the door sneaked closed behind her. 

Pana inhaled softly through the crook in his elbow to dampen the sound. His shoulders strained as he held onto the cable, tendons screaming. Just a little closer… he thought, holding his breath, gritting his teeth. He chewed on the inside of his cheek, nearly to the point of drawing blood to distract from the burning in his arms. 

The beast lumbered forward, sniffing the air with unusual caution. Every time before this when he had seen the beast, it was rabid, wild and unwavering as it barreled towards its prey. Now, it walked with a sense of caution, poise almost. The beast continued forward with short steps, sniffing the air after every few steps. Pana didn’t dare stare more than a few glimpses at a time, worried it would sense another's gaze on it. Agonizing moments passed as the beast padded forward, this time catching a whiff of the meat in ernest. Its careful plodding exploded into rapid steps, large fur covered feet carrying it within meters of Pana. His shoulder burned in pain, his hands sweaty with exertion. The trap shook slightly as Pana readjusted his grip minutely, curling the cable under his armpit and around his wrist. Pana watched out of the corner of his eye as the beast inched towards the meat, smelling it before wolfing pieces down in large rabid bites. 

Pana released the cable, his body recoiling as feeling returned to his arm. The trap rattled downward, ragged blades jostling in the makeshift bearlike trap. With growing despair, Pana realized Meili placed the meat just slightly too far forward. It would only catch part of the beast, not a wounding blow. Pana hissed, feet pointed towards the exit. Not nearly as fast as the beast, which roared as jagged metal pierced into its haunches and legs. Its eyes met Pana’s, old meat forgotten for some live bait.

Blood rang in Pana’s ears as he willed his body to move, but that gaze was entrancing. Deep and unsettling. And something underlying in it that felt… awake. Human. Pana wrenched himself back to reality, rubbing life back into his arm as he turned and ran. 

He sprinted down the dark stone passageways, footfalls light as he ran as fast as his legs could take him, sparing only the quickest glance behind him. The looming figure which had followed him for nearly half a mile before finally losing his scent, turning down a curved passageway beyond. Its lumbering footsteps echoed in the circular walls of the tunnels they now called home. 

Pana panted, covering his mouth with a ragged sleeve as he slipped into what used to be a service corridor, one of the many offshoots in the maze of subways people were forced into. 

He trailed a hand along the wall, guided by a mental map in the darkness. 45 steps, then to the left, and another 50 steps would take him out to the station his family now called home. 

Pana emerged from the service door, panting and blinking in the light of Station Lowrey. His mother looked up from her cooking, a large metal sheet beaten into a wok like curve sat on a coal fire. The smoke funneled upwards through a makeshift vent system of pipes that led up and through the ceiling. He didn’t actually know where it ended, the surface wasn’t something people went to anymore. He closed the door behind him, pressing his back against it as he dragged air into his lungs. 

She saw the sweat on his face, and she pursed her lips. 

“It didn’t work, did it,” she asked in a way that felt like she already knew the answer. 

Pana shook his head, inhaling deeply to steady his racing heart. “The bait was a little off, the trap only grazed the back of it.” He wiped sweat off his face with his stained sleeve. “It… was odd,” he said softly, walking further into the room, to find a  kneeling  spot in front of the fire. 

“Odd?” Echoed his mother.

Pana looked into the fire, watching the flames dance in a hypnotizing way. “It… well I don’t even know how to describe it,” he said slowly. “It's like it could tell it was being set up.” A snort from his mother jerked his eyes to her face. 

“By the creator, Pana. That beast is deadly, you heard the story about Genesis Station and their massacre.” 

Pana nodded solemnly, recalling the stories he grew up on. Stories passed station to station down to theirs, nearly at the end of the track. 

“But that was 20 years ago-” he tried but was cut off by his mother. 

“-Do you think a fire gets less treacherous over time? That a ravine is less dangerous after 20 years? This beast killed everyone on that station, just one year into the settlership.” Her eyes were dark and serious. “I knew people from that station, we could smell the blood all the way here. By the time folks were alerted, there was nothing but pieces. We couldn’t even put them together, they were so ragged. We never saw your uncle again.” She crossed her chest out of habit. Religion was more of a habit than a belief here. 

Pana winced as the images his mother had described. “Yeah….” he said, still not convinced. The somber, unusually present eyes cut through the memories of the past. Something that felt like looking at a dog, or at the wizen eyes of a person not quite there. There was some unusual thing that drew him into that gaze, an intelligence and light that seemed not quite beastly. A scream broke him from his reverie, a woman burst into the main space, sobs wracking her body.

“Neva!” She cried out, falling to her knees. Pana’s mother rushed to the woman’s side, holding her and asking what was happening. 

“Neva, she’s gone,” the woman croaked. “She was right behind me-” she hiccuped, rubbing her face furiously. “-right behind me. I was just cooking, and she, she was just gone!” Her dark eyes implored the people around her. “I looked everywhere, in the sleeping den, down the way to the wash corridor, nothing. Nothing!” Cries overtook her again, and Pana’s mother rubbed soothing circles on the woman’s back. 

 

Pana steeled his shoulders, standing from the squatted position at the fire he had settled into. “I’ll help out. I’ll find her,” he promised. His mother met his eyes, serious, steady but an underline of worry. He wasn’t sure if she’d tell him to stop, to stay here and safe. Or if she’d encourage him to go, maybe make up for his failings earlier in the day. Well he thought it might be day, their lives had been nocturnal since he could toddle. 

“Go,” his mother said. “You know the beast the most, you’ve seen it the closest. You know its injuries, its weakness.” 

Pana nodded. It didn’t hurt he was still dressed in the stained clothes, smudged with grease and old food. 

“Which direction did Neva go?” He asked the woman in his mothers arms. 

“Northeastern, past the sanitation corridor. She–” the woman dissolved into sobs. “She’s not even four. She doesn’t even have her shoes…” The woman’s weary eyes met his own, focus dancing between them as she searched for something. A promise? A guarantee? 

“I won’t come back until I find her,” Pana swore. He stepped forward, kissing his mother on her forehead, searching the corner of the living space for a weapon. The best option was an old, iron flaked bowie knife. He tucked it in his belt, nodding to the women and the silent few who lined the walls. No one else dared meet his eyes. It was like a silent jury, condemning him to righteous death. 

“Go with the creator,” his mother called out as he pulled open the service door, hinges quietly protesting the change. She crossed her chest, kissing her thumb at him. 

Pana pursed his lips, and stepped into the darkness. 

***

Pana walked as silently as his moccasins would allow, footfalls slow and gentle as he searched for traces of the beast, or of little Neva. He craned his ears for sounds, any sounds. Growls or whimpering cries of a lost child. 

He continued down the path, left hand tracing the wall as his right settled uneasily on the dagger hilt. Pana must have travelled almost half a mile before he saw something on the ground. Well, more stepped on it than really saw it. 

A small wooden carved figure. He picked it up, examining it closely in the near blackness of the tunnels. 

It was a bear, the signet of the family Neva came from, namesake of her deceased father, Ursus. 

He tucked the bear into his worn pocket, kissing it before tucking it away safely. He quickened his pace as much as he dared to stay quiet, looking around for other clues, ears straining in the silence. Then he heard it, a quiet shuffling. A snuffling and a sharp squeal. 

Pana’s heart leapt into his throat, blood rushing in his ears so furiously he almost couldn’t hear. He stepped forward, looking down a split in the track, eyes adjusting in what shocked him to be firelight. Fire? Who made it this far away?

A large, fur covered back pulled him from the shock of the fire, a tiny figure silhouetted against the bright backdrop dancing on the curved walls. The back was angled partially away from him, Neva was further past the beast, close to the fire, sitting across from the beast. 

Pana nearly leapt across the room, knife white knuckle gripped in his hands. But then the sound from Neva clarified the closer he got. She was laughing!

He searched rapidly around the room, eyes never leaving the child more than a second. But then he saw a pile of leather and fur, arranged into a makeshift bed. Then he saw a pair of furred boots, complete with bear claws and soft leather paw pads. The spine of fur that cascaded down the beast…well maybe not a beast? Looked like that raised spine of a coyote or hyena, mixed with the dark colors of a bear. The closer Pana crouched, the more he realized it was a patchwork of furs, mottled into a suit of beastly proportions. The man inside however looked barely human anymore, weathered and stained face almost as dark as the pelts around him. Mottled in age, and scarred by toxic exposure. 

Pana’s jaw all but dropped as the beast– the man– pushed a round wooden ball across the floor to Neva. She squealed in laughter, picking it up and shaking it, laughing in that bubbly unbridled tone of a perfect child. She threw it back with all her might, it skipped across the floor to the beast. It, or he rather, crouched forward to reach it, pushing it back to Neva with a low rumble of a laugh that echoed through the small room the beast had chosen as a home. Pana stepped forward slowly, pushing the dagger back into his belt. 

“Neva?” He whispered?

The beasts’ head whipped around to Pana, who caught Neva’s attention as well, who giggled in delight. 

“Panana!” She bubbled, clapping her tiny hands. 

Pana held up his hands in open surrender, dropping to his knees. “Hi Nevie,” he said softly, eyes never leaving the child. 

The beast stood, towering over Pana, head closer to the ceiling than to Pana’s own height. Tumored cheeks bulbous, drawing one eyebrow low over his left eye. 

Those dark eyes met his again, searching his face, clawed hands poised to strike before dropping slightly. A low, gravel voice of someone who hadn’t remembered words in years met him. 

“Pana?”