The Black Stone

The summer heat in the lowlands hung so heavy you could taste the dirt on your tongue. The sun was a dull, angry brass disk pinned to a pale sky, beating down on the dry creek bed that ran along the border of the reservation.

Sarah wiped her hand across her dripping forehead, her throat raw and dry. "David, we shouldn't be over this fence," she called out, her voice straining over the shimmering heat haze off the cracked mud. "You saw the signs at the access road. This is sacred land. We aren't supposed to be out here searching for arrowheads."

A few yards down the bank, David didn't look up. He was crouched in the shade of a dying cottonwood tree, brushing away dry silt with a small trowel. "People come out here all the time, Sarah. I'm just looking. If I find an arrowhead, it’s just history."

"It's disrespect," she begged, her voice cracking with a sudden, overwhelming wave of anxiety that made her stomach turn. "Look at the trees, David! Look at those red cloth strips wrapped around the branches. They marked this place off for a reason. Please, let's just go back to the truck."

David sighed, standing up and dusting off his knees. But as he turned, his boot kicked against something embedded deep in the sunbaked clay.

It wasn't an arrowhead.

He leaned down and pried it free with his fingers. It was a smooth, heavy piece of jet-black river stone, carved with a single, deep spiral that seemed to swallow the glare of the summer sun. The moment his bare fingers closed around it, the incessant hum of the cicadas in the canopy instantly cut out.

The entire forest fell dead silent.

"Look at this," David murmured, his voice sounding oddly hollow, as if he were speaking from the bottom of a deep well. "It's smooth as glass."

"Drop it!" Sarah cried out, tears of pure, unexplainable dread stinging her eyes. She reached out and grabbed his arm, her fingers sinking into his sweat-soaked shirt. "David, put it back right now! Look at you—you're pale as a ghost!"

David stared at the stone in his palm, his dark eyes wide and unblinking. "It's... it's heavy, Sarah. It feels cold."

Before she could yank it out of his hand, a sudden, violent shudder ran through the ground beneath their feet. A low, subterranean groan rumbled up from the dry creek bed, so deep it vibrated inside Sarah's chest.

"We're leaving. Now!" she sobbed, pulling him hard toward the embankment.

They scrambled up the loose dirt to where the old truck was parked on the sun-bleached gravel road. The air inside the cab was an oven, suffocating and stale. Sarah slammed her door, scrambling into the passenger seat as David climbed into the driver's side, setting the black stone squarely on the center console between them.

David turned the key in the ignition.

The starter gave a weak, pathetic click, and then the entire electrical system died. The digital dash went completely black.

"No, no, no!" Sarah wept, hitting the dashboard with her palm. "David, start it! Please!"

"The battery was fine ten minutes ago," David muttered, his hands trembling on the wheel. He grabbed the flashlight from the door pocket, his face pale with a cold sweat that didn't match the stifling summer heat. "Stay in the truck. I'll get out and check the battery cables."

"Don't leave me in here!" she begged, catching his wrist. Panic was a physical weight crushing her ribs. "David, don't step out there!"

"I'll be right at the front bumper," he whispered, forcing a tight, unnatural smile that didn't reach his terrified eyes. "I won't be long."

He opened the door, stepping out into the shimmering wave of heat.

Sarah sat frozen in the baking cabin, watching him as he walked to the front and popped the heavy hood. She listened frantically to every small sound—the squeak of the hood hinges, the crunch of gravel under his boots, the sound of his heavy breathing.

Then, the sound of his footsteps stopped completely.

"David?" she called out, leaning toward the open window, her heart pounding a frantic, desperate rhythm against her ribs.

There was a silence that hurt your ears.

"David! Answer me!"

Nothing.

Panicked, Sarah threw her door open and stumbled out onto the scorching gravel. "David!"

She ran around to the front of the truck. The propped-open hood cast a sharp shadow across the engine bay. The battery cables still intact. David was gone.

Leading from the front tire into the thick, dry brush at the edge of the sacred ground were deep, ragged drag marks in the dirt—as if something heavy had been yanked violently backward into the woods.

"David!" Sarah screamed, her voice tearing in her throat as she lunged through the tall, brittle weeds, the dry branches tearing at her arms, causing whelps of blood "Where are you?!"

She ran into a small clearing in the dense brush and froze, the breath trapped in her chest made it almost impossible to swallow.

Sitting on a mound of dry, disturbed earth was the black stone.

Only it was no longer small. It had grown into a massive, jagged monolith of smooth black rock, its etched spiral pulsing with a faint, greasy heat that warped the surrounding air. The earth beneath it was churning, root-like tendrils of dark stone bursting up through the dirt.

From the shadow directly behind the monolith, a voice rasped into the dead summer heat.

"I’ll be right at the front bumper”.

Sarah gasped, backing up as hot tears blurred her vision.

"I won't be long.." the voice repeated. It was David's voice—exact in every pitch and inflection, but completely flat, devoid of life, repeating his last words like a broken recording.

"No... oh God, no..." she sobbed.

Before she could take another step back, a strong hand reached out from behind a thick oak tree and pulled her roughly into the dense brush.

Sarah went to scream, but a heavy palm slammed over her mouth.

"Shh! Don't make a sound!"

It was David. He was pressed against her in the weeds, trembling violently despite the suffocating heat. His skin was deathly pale, covered in deep scratches, and his eyes were wide with pure, unadulterated terror.

"David..." she wept against his hand as he slowly let go. She threw her arms around his neck, burying her face in his shoulder, feeling the frantic, terrified hammering of his heart. "I thought it took you... I thought you were gone..."

"It was waiting for us," David whispered, his teeth clicking together as he shivered. "The stone... it's a lock, Sarah. We broke it."

"We're running for the main road," Sarah sobbed, gripping his shirt desperately. "Forget the truck. We just run."

She pulled back to look at his face—and the blood froze in her veins.

The arm holding her had gone terrifyingly heavy. Rigid. Cold as winter ice.

Under the bright glare of the summer sun filtering through the leaves, she watched in horror as the skin on David's face began to dull, turning a dark, calcified gray. The color drained from his lips as his flesh hardened into cracked, polished granite right before her eyes.

"David?" she choked out, her voice dropping to a terrified whisper. "David, look at me!"

His eyes didn't move. His pupils turned a dull, chalky white, locked in a blank, stone stare.

From ten feet behind them, down in a dry ditch hidden by the weeds, a weak, agonizing groan rose from the earth.

"Sarah... run..."

Sarah’s mind shattered. The real David was lying bleeding in the dirt behind her, his legs pinned under massive stone roots bursting from the soil.

The thing standing right in front of her—the stone replica wearing her friends face—slowly tilted its head with a sickening, heavy CRACK.

Its jaw unhinged, stretching unnaturally wide, revealing a dark, hollow throat that smelled of dry dust and ancient rot.

"Did you hear that?" the stone creature rasped, its voice grinding like two massive boulders crushing together. "And we're not alone."

A blood-curdling scream tore from Sarah's throat. She shoved the heavy stone imitation with all her strength, turned, and ran blindly back toward the road.

Dry briars tore at her skin, but the primal shock of terror carried her forward. She burst out of the treeline, hit the scorching gravel, and threw herself into the cab of the truck, slamming the door and throwing the lock down just as a rock-hard fist slammed into the door panel with a deafening THUD.

She scrambled across to the passenger side, sobbing hysterically, pulling her knees tight against her chest as she pressed herself flat against the door.

Out in the blazing heat, the towering black monolith uncoiled from the earth, rising into a misshapen mass of dark rock and ancient roots. Beside it stood the stone replica of her friend, its gray face twisted into a wide, tearing grin.

The replica walked slowly to the driver's side door, raised a heavy, stone finger, and tapped gently on the glass.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

In the suffocating, sweltering darkness of the cab, Sarah buried her face in her hands and wept bitterly as a second pair of heavy, stony knuckles began to pound against the windshield.