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head. A second wore some type
of chainmail garb. A third was dressed in what looked like the very old and
rusted armor of a Roman centurion. The other two wore leather armor with
strange patchwork. I squinted, blinking the sweat from my eyes, and tried to
focus the binoculars better. Gasping, I felt my gorge rise. The leather was
human skin. The patchwork was faces and tattoos and in one case some type of
surgery scar.
    I’d felt an instant sense of loathing upon first spying the
serpent men, for as I mentioned before, I’ve always had an unnatural and deep–seated
hatred of snakes. That emotion turned to anger and revulsion upon seeing the
flayed human skin that they’d so callously draped themselves in. My first
impulse was to pull out the .45 and open fire, but I resisted. They were too
far away, and the weapon was essentially useless at that range. The old adage
came to mind—a handgun is only useful for defense until you can make it back to
the rifle you should have been carrying with you in the first place. Instead of
shooting them, I continued to watch, unable to look away no matter how much I
wanted to. They moved in tandem and seemed to be communicating with one
another, although no visible speech or hand movements were apparent.
    Suddenly, the leader stopped. Behind him, the others did the
same. As one, they slowly turned in my direction, staring directly up at me. I
knew that I was too far away to be seen, hidden as I was behind the rocks, but
I still ducked down in fright. Had it just been coincidence, or had they really
known I was there, and if so, how? My scent? That seemed unlikely, given the
distance between us. Telepathy, perhaps? Some sort of sixth sense? Or maybe it
was just bad luck. Maybe they weren’t looking at me, or perhaps they had heard
the bird I’d spooked. I crouched there with my back against the stones until my
breathing and heart rate had returned to normal. Then, I carefully raised the
binoculars and peeked over the edge again. The snake men were farther away now,
moving into the jungle. Sighing with relief, I wiped the sweat from my brow and
returned my attention to the shadowed crevice.
    Dirt and gravel crunched beneath my boots. I went slow, watching
for scorpions, spiders, or anything else that might be lurking among the
cracks. I came across an animal skeleton. The bones were yellowed and moldy and
scattered so badly that it was impossible for me to identify what they had
belonged to. I also spotted some rabbit tracks in the dirt. How was it that something
so familiar—something like a rabbit, or a Jeep, or the quarter I had
found—existed simultaneously with snake men, and razor–grass, and three–eyed
tigers with wooly mammoth tusks?
    My thoughts returned to the serpent men. In my occult studies, I’d
read of a supposed race of ancient amphibians known as the Dark Ones, who were
said to have resided on Earth at one time, and indeed, as some speculated,
still lived in cities beneath the ocean, far from the prying eyes of mankind.
They were a highly intelligent race, able to fashion tools and weaponry and
harness beasts of burden and possessed arcane knowledge. But by all accounts,
the Dark Ones were said to look more like Gila monsters or Komodo dragons. The
Reptilians I’d witnessed earlier were decidedly snake–like. Could they have
been a distant cousin of the Dark Ones? An evolutionary offshoot, perhaps? Or
were they something entirely different? Perhaps even alien?
    As I continued my exploration, the winding crevice grew narrower,
and the rock walls loomed far overhead. Moss and lichen covered the stones in a
blanket of green, brown, grey, and hues unlike any I’d seen before—orange and
red and yellow. I avoided touching any of them. It was cooler here in the
shade, and for that I was grateful. The sun had me perplexed at this point. I
was certain that it hadn’t moved in the whole time I’d been on this level, and
because of that, I had absolutely no sense of