Sarah loosened the grip on her reins as she pulled up to the barn with her mother. This old stable has been worse for wear since Pa had passed some years back. It doesn’t feel like years; not to Sarah. Feels like maybe only a week has passed and it sure feels it every time she glances at the hollow blank expression on her mother’s face.

Her older brother Billy took it even harder than she had. He’d act out always getting into trouble. Even though Billy was her elder of 5 years he could throw a better tantrum than she ever could muster. Sarah would always cry red faced when she’d get mad. No violence only tears even though sometimes she wanted to. Oh boy sometimes she sure did…

Billy ran out on them. Straight into the night like a bullet. He got into a nasty fight with mama, and she had slapped him hard across the face. Like a shotgun it was so loud. After you’d be able to hear a pin drop in the mountains it was dead quiet. Those two staring each other down like two wolves fighting over a kill. Then he just ran off. Took Pa’s horse and disappeared; they hadn’t heard him since.

…but then she heard it. A voice on the wind. Mama was getting the horses fed when Sarah caught a sound slipping through the trees like a snake to her ear. It sounded like a man… no, a boy. “Hey mama you hear that?”

“Huh hear what? Nothing out that way for miles but coyotes and god knows what else.” She lowered her voice a bit and repeated, “…god knows what else.” Sarah could tell she was thinking of her brother. Despite her trying to be hard she was aching inside. A hurt a mother can’t shake no matter the bottle she’d find herself in.

There it was again. A yell? No a sceam. It was a boy she could tell that much. Sarah found her feet slowly drifting her toward the fence line in its general direction.

“Don’t you go runnin’ off on me, you hear?” mama let loose as she saw her daughter out by the fence. “Stay where I can see you; don’t go past that tree line. You know the rules. “Of course!” Sarah yelled back but was fixin’ to lie. Her curiosity was tickled.

After getting all the way to the back fence gate she’d stop and stand real still. Just the birds. Maybe it was nothing after all. Maybe a hunter far off in the valley with a circumstantial echo. You know when the wind and rocks play together just right. Sarah turned her head back toward the house getting ready to abandon her quest when she’d catch it again. It sure sounded like Billy. Maybe he’d come home and had gotten himself caught up by something.

Pushing the gate enough to strain the chain she could squeeze herself through no problem. One of the benefits of being small I suppose. Stopping at the tree line she turned around and looked back towards the house. Mama had finished pegging up the laundry and had gone inside. Probably prepping for dinner. “Saaraaaah,” again on the wind. Had it just said her name? Had she heard it right then it HAS to be Billy.

It wasn’t long before Sarah found her feet in a trot down Pa’s old hunting trail. It had become overgrown and unkempt in his absence. Hopping over a few fallen branches and rocks wasn’t an issue for her as she loved to explore. This wasn’t her first time in the woods much to mama’s frustration.

This was, however, the young girl’s first time coming to this particular rock formation at the foot of a large hill leading up into the mountain side. Here it was quite craggy, and with these shoes she wasn’t going to be doing any climbing. “Saaraaaah,” sounding much closer now and echoing through a crack in the rock. This crack wasn’t but maybe a foot or two wide but wide enough for someone small. Like with the gate she could just fit herself through. Maybe Billy had taken shelter in here and gotten himself stuck.

Sarah’s forgotten how dark a place like this could be without a lantern. In all the excitement she hadn’t thought of how she’d be able to see anything in this cave. The only light streaming in through the crack in the rock she’d just shimmied through. Telling herself she would only go in as far as the light would allow her to keep on.

Slowly her feet shuffled forward, and she placed her hand on the cool rockwall to her side to help maintain her balance. “Billy! Are you in here? I can’t see a dang thing…” The air was stale and it felt as if the temperature had gone from summer to winter. Goosebumps crept over her for more than just the cold. Now she doesn’t count herself a fearful child. She was as adventurous as they come, and her Pa took his little girl out with him far more than a handful of times. Reminding herself to stay calm she’d reached the edge of where she could still see her feet.

“Billy… I… I can’t go any further, I can’t see anything!” “Saaaaraaaaah….” “Saaaaraaaaaaaaah….” The voice was shifting now. Echoing off the walls in every direction. That’s not the only way it shifted; this wasn’t her brother Billy. It sounded… wrong somehow. Like when a person’s voice was ravaged by consumption only less- human.

Sarah turned to run when she was hit by an awful noise. A nails on a chalkboard sound the like she’d never heard before, and it was deafening. So much so she’d lift her little hands off the rock wall to her ears and tuck her head down into her arms. Unfortunately upon doing so she had stumbled forward catching her foot on the uneven rocky surface sending her tumbling.

Wincing and bracing for impact, but it didn’t come. At least not as soon as she expected as the floor had ended just beyond where the light could reach, giving way to an impressive fall. The kind of fall you don’t wake up from only Sarah, unfortunately, did.

She didn’t know how much time had passed or even where she was. It was pitch black. The kind of darkness where you can’t see your hand directly in front of you. Her head was wet, and her legs had snapped at the knees. All she could feel was pain. A white hot kind of pain that makes you vomit.

Billy whispered close to her. Just over his sister’s final resting place. “Sarah.” Tears welled in her eyes as she tried to wail but choked on her blood as that sound, that awful sound, carried her off into the dark.