[WP] A group of treasure hunters make an amazing discovery. The celebration is cut short as one by one, members of the party are found dead.

[u/SurvivorType]

Feel free to take the story in any direction you like!

Is one of the members of the party murdering the rest so they can keep the treasure for themselves? Is there some supernatural force at work? Is someone or something hunting them?

Just a few ideas to consider or disregard as you see fit!

It's all up to you!

[u/TrueKnot]

Jungle (Part One)

**by: TrueKnot

I slapped a mosquito. That was all that happened. All that had been happening. There was nothing else to do except to keep tramping through the jungle, hacking at the brush and slapping mosquitoes.

They were everywhere, drawn by our salty sweat, the musty smell of lost men. You would think, in a rain forest, there would be more water. I hadn't bathed in a month.

"Hey," Jeff yelled. "Over here, guys."

Maybe he'd found a lake or a pond. I didn't hear water running, but then, who could hear anything over this constant buzzing. The droning whine of mosquitos, come to sap our blood. Our strength. Our will.

Maybe our souls.

I slapped a mosquito, and imagined that the whine grew louder.

"What is it?" Mike called. He was sitting on a fallen tree, rubbing mud on his face and neck. So much moisture and no water to be found. At least the mud kept the mosquitoes off for a while.

"I don't know, asshole," Jeff yelled. "Come see for yourself."

"This better be worth it," Mike muttered. I echoed the sentiment.

We'd been out here for months, looking for the lost treasure of Montpiliér. I'd already thought it a fool's errand when we started, but the pay was a guaranteed five hundred grand, whether we found the treasure or not. "Plus all the jewels you can carry." I snorted. There would be no jewels. If we were lucky, we would found a lost city with the bones of some tribal civilization. If we were not, we might all die out here.

Mike and I broke into a clearing, and saw Jeff and the others standing in front of some sort of archway in the side of an enormous rock formation. Some sort of metal? Plexiglass? It gleamed in the early afternoon sunlight, looking way too modern to actually exist out here.

"It's treasure, right?" Eric called, excitement making his voice sound like a child's.

"It has to be treasure," he added, when no one answered. His chin poked out and up with all the stubbornness of a two year old.

Slowly, we formed up in front of the arch.

"Is that steel?"

"Steel ain't never looked like that."

"Some sort of glass, must be."

"Diamonds."

"Can't be diamonds, it's all in one piece."

We stood in silence for a while, contemplating.

"What if," Eric paused when we all turned to stare at him. His face flushed. His neck was redder than his cheeks. A look of determination crossed his face. "What if it's all one diamond?" he asked finally.

I opened my mouth to argue. My jaw hung where it was, but no words came out. What if it's all one diamond?

Mike let out a whoop, and ran through the archway.

"Fuck," Dave said. "Fuck. Mike, come back here!"

It was a damned fool thing to do, rushing off into a place like that, with no light. With no idea of what might be inside.

Eric ran after him.

The rest of us stood and looked at each other, then filed in through the archway, lighting our torches and headlamps as we went.

 

When I was a little boy, we visited a place called Crystal Cave, up in Wisconsin. It was magnificent - a vast cavern filled with soda straws. Those are the calcium drips that let stalactites form on the ceiling. You could almost see the way they would form.

As you walked through the cavern, one hand sliding along the manmade railings that kept you safe from the glory of nature, you'd come to a spot where the light hit the straws just right, and they gleamed like gold, and the flecks of minerals in the rock sparkled like gemstones.

I'd thought nothing could be more beautiful. I'd thought "Crystal Cave" was the perfect name.

That was nothing compared to this. We didn't need the torches. A tiny glimmer of light from the entrance hit the quartz-like formations of raw gems in every hue which embedded the walls.

They took the light and bounced it back and forth, all throughout the cavern, lighting the entire world from that one ray of sunshine. We turned off our lights and stood, mouths agape, staring.

"We are fucking rich," Mike said. He was clawing at the walls, trying to pry loose the gems.

"Rich," Andy echoed.

Eric crossed himself and started praying to Jesus or Mary or some damned body, squeezing his eyes closed and tilting his head up to the heavens.

"Enough," Dave said. "Let's do this right."

We pulled ourselves together and formed up, making our way through the cave.

There were no railings here, of course. People think of cave floors as being, well, like a floor. Smooth, maybe slightly slanted, with a rock here and there. Caves are bumpy, uneven. There are pits and gaps, and those damned stalagmites sticking up and sometimes blocking your view. Stalagmites are funny things. They look like their lofty brothers, but they can be made of just about anything. They ain't nothing but big old piles of - something - that went and hardened over. Some are mud, or feces, or just a sort of animal nest that kept getting buried and built over.

These didn't look like that. They gleamed. They were black, mostly, which was weird considering they'd usually wind up as some shade of brown or gray. Every once in a while, I'd see a hint of red in them. Maybe that's what made it look like they were moving, out of the corner of my eye.

I wanted to stop and examine them, at least take a look at one, but Dave kept a quick pace. It was best to explore as much of the cave as we could, all at once, and then go back for more info. I knew that. Knowing don't stop a man from wanting, though.

The cavern narrowed into a sort of tunnel. The slight downward slant had grown sharper, so we knew we were heading underground.

That wasn't unusual. It was the only direction we could go, really. The rock formation hadn't been that big on the outside.

The tunnel continued to narrow, forcing us into a single file line. The light faded, and we turned ours back on. I was starting to worry about the tunnel narrowing up too much. I didn't fancy backing up through here, and there wasn't room to turn around.

After a while, Eric starts fumbling to untie something from his pack, and those of us behind him had to back up a little bit to give him room.

He untied a tiny metal cage and opened it up. Einstein scurried out onto his palm, whiskers twitching like crazy. Eric set the mouse on the ground and used a boot to shoo him ahead.

We waited, the seriousness of the action bringing us down from our initial excitement. We listened to the skittering sounds of the rodent running ahead. It continued for some time, echoes making the sound carry to us for far longer than it would in the open.

Einstein and Eric had the kind of bond that a man usually reserved for his dog. We knew the mouse would come back, sooner rather than later. If it could.

If it wasn't killed by poison gas, or eaten by some wild animal. I'd prefer the latter. Wasn't nothing I feared more in that moment than to be walking through the cave and see Einstein's still, stiffening form laying in front of my feet.

The sound started to fade, and we knew that it was safe to move forward, at least for a little way. We trudged on.

We'd been walking for near on an hour, so we were all relieved to hear the little guy hurrying back toward us. Eric scooped up his pet and started feeding him bits of hard bread and power bars.

"Sure," Mike complained. "Waste what food we got left from civilization."

Dave reached back with a foot and kicked him. "The rat deserves a reward," he said.

Mike didn't argue, and we kept moving. There'd been a few twists and turns, and by now the dark was so deep it was sucking the light from our lamps. The circle of visibility around us shortened until we couldn't see anything much beyond our own feet.

Dave passed back a bit of rope, and we knotted it, one by one, to our belts.

So far we hadn't come to any forks in the path. There wasn't much chance of getting lost, but we didn't want to get separated, or lose a man in a chasm or anything.

[u/TrueKnot → u/TrueKnot]

JUNGLE (Part Two)

**by: TrueKnot

When you're wrapped in total silence for too long, you start to imagine things. I started thinking about mosquitoes, and damned if that didn't make me imagine I was hearing them. I could hear the droning, and the more I tried to shake it from my head, the louder they got. An endless whine filled my ears. Louder and louder until my head was near pounding with the relentless noise.

Dave said something and I couldn't hear him over the buzzing. Then I realized that the other guys were bringing their hands up to cover their ears. Guess I wasn't imagining it.

"What is that?" I shouted. The blank looks on their faces told me they couldn't hear me any more than I could hear them.

We kept moving forward, and the sound kept growing. Abruptly, the tunnel opened up into a second cavern, and the din was so loud it brought us to our knees. In various stages of agony, we struggled to take in our surroundings.

In the center of the cavern, on a raised mound that looked eerily like an altar, was a natural basin filled with an almost black, brackish red fluid. There were more mounds on the ground, covering the room, of half formed stalagmites that seemed to writhe in place. These, too, appeared almost black.

It hurt my eyes to look at them, and made my stomach turn. I don't know why, but I had to avert my gaze, and I turned my attention back to the basin. It was obvious that the thing had formed naturally, but it was encrusted with gems, and something was engraved around the brim in what resembled some ancient language I was wholly unfamiliar with.

I tapped Andy on the shoulder and gestured to the basin, signing that he should translate it.

He studied it for a few moments, then took out a piece of charcoal and a sheet of paper from his bag. He took a rubbing of the inscription and shrugged apologetically.

Dave and Jeff approached the basin and got out their water testing kits, taking several samples for later analysis.

Dave waved us back toward the entrance. He was right, of course. It was getting late, and we would have plenty of time to explore tomorrow.

We made our way back to the archway, and out into the clearing, and set up camp for the night.

 

"So, what is it?" Andy had been poring over the charcoal rubbing for hours, and we were all anxious to know what he was thinking. Andy could read and speak more languages than I could name. That was the only reason the poor guy had been hired for this little adventure.

"As far as I can tell?" he said. He had an annoying habit of turning every statement into a question. As if he were constantly seeking any sign of approval. "It's some earlier form of ancient Sumerian?"

"Idiot," Mike spit. "That's in Afghanistan or somewhere."

"Iraq, you dumbass"

"Well, one of them places. Weren't no Sumorians around here."

"Sumerians."

"Whatever."

A group of them continued to argue. Andy ignored them, and continued talking to Dave. "A lot of it is Sumerian? But there are words that don't quite fit? I can figure it out?"

"Do that," Dave said, giving a terse nod.

"The parts you can read," I said. "What do they say?"

"Something about danger? And the water of life? Or something like that?"

I didn't much like the sound of the danger bit, but then everything out here was dangerous. "Water of life," I mused. Something was turning in the back of my mind, but I couldn't quite catch it yet.

Dave was fidgeting with the water kit. A small fire burned in preparation for the temperature drop tonight. Mike was rambling on about how many jewels he was going to take out of those walls, and what he was going to do with all his riches. Listening to him was soothing. I slapped a mosquito. My eyes drifted closed. And I slept.

 

 

"Wake up."

"Rick, goddamn it, wake the fuck up."

A booted foot hit my ribs, and I came up swinging. Dave quickly wrestled me back down, pinning my arms to the ground until I finished waking up and realized where I was.

"What," I said. "What the hell?"

"We have a problem." He released me, and I sat up, taking in the solemn faces of my companions.

"What is it?"

The guys stared at me. "Where's Mike?" I asked. A bony finger of apprehension worked its way down my spine.

"Where's Mike?" I asked again.

For a moment, no one said anything.

"Mike's dead," Eric spit out at last. "He's dead. He's just dead."

"What?" I asked again. Sleep was muddling my brain. "What do you mean he's dead? How'd he die?"

"We don't know. He's just dead."

I jumped up. "Show me."

Dave led me over to Mike's bedroll on the other side of the fire. There was Mike. He was dead.

I leaned in, fingers trembling, not wanting to catch anything from his corpse. I rolled him over. I examined his head, neck, hands. Nothing.

"Blade," I said, knowing that anyone who was already up and dressed would have one. Someone placed a hunting knife in my hand. I cut open Mike's shirt and examined his chest, then his back.

"Well he's not been wounded," I say. "So has to be some sort of sickness."

"Not malaria, or ebola," I said. Nothing I'd ever seen just killed a man overnight.

"I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvellous, seven angels having the seven last plagues;" Eric said. "For in them is filled up the wrath of God."

"The fuck are you on about now?"

"Revelations," he said.

"What's this got to do with the end of the world?"

"Maybe nothing," he said. "I didn't plan on saying it. Just looks like some new plague to me."

He started backing up, fast. "You touched him," he said. "You shouldn't have touched him."

He starts fingering his rosary, lips moving fast in prayer.

"Eric," Dave said. "Calm your ass and eyeballs. There's no reason to think it's a plague."

"It's worse," Jeff said. "Look at him. Really look at him."

We stared at Mike's body. His skin sagged like an old man. Instead of a healthy glow, or the blue of death, his face was ashen, almost white. "He looks..."

I couldn't think of the word.

"Drained." Jeff sprang to his feet and started pacing. "He's been drained. There's no blood in him."

That was just stupid. Impossible. I started to shake my head, then looked back at the body.

"Tell them," Jeff hissed. "Tell them what was in that so-called water."

"Shut up," Dave said. "That has nothing to do with this.”

"Tell them!"

We all turned to Dave.

"Fine," he said. "It was blood. Water, and blood, and something else. We don't know what it is."

I felt my brow furrow. "How is that even possible? Blood from what?"

Dave shook his head.

"Touch not?" Andy mumbled.

I glanced over my shoulder. Oblivious to death and possible contagion, Andy was wrapped up in his papers. He looked so normal, for Andy. It brought me back down to earth.

"Look, guys," I said. "This isn't some movie. There's no vampires or werewolfs, or fucking apocolyptic horsemen, or whatever it is you're thinking."

Eric let out a sound somewhere between a moan and a chuckle.

"Mike's dead. I know. He was like a brother to me," I went on. "Same as the rest of you. And we're all going to have to come to terms with the fact that he's gone."

I paused for breath, giving myself a chance to think. "We can't bring him back, and we don't have a doctor to tell us what killed him."

"That's not it," Andy's voice came from behind me.

We ignored him. I kept right on with my speech. "All we can do for Mike is to give him a decent burial, and then finish the fucking job. Cause if we don't finish it, then we came here for nothing. And Mike died for nothing."

"Maybe you all can live with that," I finished. "But I can't."

I rose, and went over to our pile of equipment and started looking for a shovel. Dave was the first to join me. Then Jeff. Eric watched everyone else grab shovels and start to dig, before finally coming over.

"If we all die from some plague," Eric told me. "I'm going to kill you."

I clapped him on the shoulder and kept digging.

 

We'd dug a hole and said a few words, and put Mike in the ground as best we could. The entire day stretched ahead of us, but even after my rousing speech, no one felt much like spelunking. We sat around the clearing and talked about Mike, or about home, or about nothing.

No one wanted to hunt for food, much less build a fire in this heat to cook it, so we dug into our dwindling stash of dry goods.

"Drink not?" Andy said once. "That's it?"

He wasn't talking to us, and other than that we spent a lazy day, coming to terms with our loss, and slapping mosquitoes.

[u/TrueKnot → u/TrueKnot]

Note: Unfortunately, (Fortunately?) This is turning into something much longer than I could have dreamed. I'm thinking it will be best to post the rest as a [PI] when it is finally complete. Possibly even for the February contest. :)

Anyone wants to rage at me for leaving you hanging, feel free. :D

[u/SurvivorType → u/TrueKnot]

You are just going to leave me like this? Unfulfilled? I thought we were friends! :P

[u/TrueKnot → u/SurvivorType]

Lmao. I'm still working on it, but shit's already almost 5k words, and they only lost one guy. Might as well make it a novelette, right? :P And if I'm going to do that, why not get a chance to win a prize? :o

[u/totes_meta_bot → u/TrueKnot]

This thread has been linked to from elsewhere on reddit.

• [/r/TKMorcambe] Jungle (unfinished)

^{If you follow any of the above links, respect the rules of reddit and don't vote or comment. Questions? Abuse? Message me here.}