Bats

In the Canadian Rockies, there is a town most maps mark but few mouths dare to name aloud. They call it Eerie, British Columbia, though those who live there have learned not to say the word after dark. It stains the tongue. It carries weight. And it never lets go. If you are reading this, you have already stepped too close. I warned myself once, too. I thought it was only folklore, the rambling of an old woman tethered to her last breaths. Dolores Balcom. She lived more than a century, and yet the final thing she gave this world was not wisdom or comfort but a confession. She whispered of Abaddon's bats, creatures no light has touched, wings that blacken the air, a hunger born beneath the mountains. They laughed at her. I laughed too. But laughter does not silence the dark. The caves below Eerie are older than stone, older than the blood in your veins. Miners heard them first: wings beating against the black, claws scraping the rock, the echo of screams that did not belong to them. They sealed the tunnels, but the earth does not hold forever. What waits inside does not rot. It waits. It listens. Dolores knew this, and with her last breath she left the burden in her daughter's hands. Carla never wanted it. No one would. But secrets like these do not vanish. They grow restless. They demand witnesses. And now you, unfortunate reader, have heard it too. You can close this book, put it back on the shelf, bury it beneath your bed, but Eerie already knows your name. The wings will find you in the dark. Consider this your only warning.