“Shut the fuck up!” Nicole whispers.

“Shut the fuck up!” Nicole whispers, “if you want to live do not make a sound.”

You can feel a hard pointy piece of wood pressing against your left breast.

“Now you will answer by nodding. Is that clear?”

You shake your head desperately up and down.

“Have you been bitten?”

“No,” your head says.

“I suspected so much, the turning time would have been far too short.”

The stake rolls to the ground.

“We might still have chance. Are they at the entrance of the cave?”

“Yes,” your head says.

“How many are there? Bite my hand once for each of them, is that clear?”

Your head says yes and you bite her three times.

“Is that all of them?”

“How should ...” you start but she presses even harder with her hand on your mouth.

“Shut up, shut up, shut up! They will have a hard time hearing me but you, they’ll hear you crystal clear. It’s hard to explain, but there’s some kind of buffer around me that makes me harder to detect for them... Now last question? Is there a short brunette with them? Old school, Victorian hair style, one that radiates much more evil and lust than any of them?”

You stop to think, Deb does fit the general profile but then, the threat from the man felt so terrible that you suspect that Nicole is making a reference to something else altogether.

And, also, Nicole knows Deb, so she could have simply asked : “is Deb with them?”...

You finally reply no, shaking your head, obviously.

“Good, I felt a draft back there and I was about to try to find its origin when I heard you. Now you must also know that I have partial night vision so you’ll have to trust me and take my hand. Oh and bow your head, the roof is pretty low back there.”

You nod. You grab her hand and start walking behind her. The pain in your arm is growing numb. You do not know what it means but the adrenaline and the fear are probably helping.

The progression seems to last for ages when the whole trip probably does not take more than five to ten minutes. You knock you head several times, your shoulders and elbows scratch against the rock and dirt falls in your mouth but after a while, crawling through the bowels of Earth, you finally reach an opening. Some thirty feet above you the forest and beyond the stars. You are in a cenote.

Nicole looks around, no other exit.

“Shit! We are stuck.”

Behind you, you hear a terrible howling. The monsters probably grew tired of waiting and they are coming after you.

You look at the wall and analyse it.

“Nicole, just follow my lead, this might not be easy but we’ll get out of here before they catch us!”

And you start climbing. Despite your broken arm, you manage. The first fifteen feet are pretty easy but then you reach a perfectly flat wall. You will not be able to pass it without Nicole’s help. She climbs ahead of you, before turning around.

“Come on we can’t wait.”

“I can’t, my arm is broken.”

“Grab my hand,” she finally says.

You climb a bit more, and you extend your valid hand for your friend. She grabs it and pull. For a moment you think, she is going to let go but the fast pace of the monsters hammering in the cave below gives her the extra motivation needed. You finally reach a ledge just below hers. You are cutting close, the sound of the creatures is growing louder and louder below. You start climbing again.

You make it. You crawl in the mud of the forest and start to run.

You have to find a hiding place, quickly.

Luck seems to be on your side. Just in front of you a small pond covered in plants. You look at Nicole, she has seen it too. You both slowly enter the stagnating waters.

Just in time.

The vampires come out of the Cenote. Hidden under a bunch of exotic water lilies, you see them pass at least fifty feet away from your hiding place and continue on their way. You are about to stand when Nicole stops you.

“They are bound to come back, they will not find our trail so they will come back. For now, we shouldn’t move.”

“But we have to find a way out of the island, otherwise we are just delaying the inevitable.”