I Discovered Something Evil at the Bottom of the Grand Canyon | Part 1
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12 of us hiked into the canyon. Midway through the trip, I knew nobody would make it out alive. Going to college was my idea, but the hiking trip was my parents' bright idea. I'd gotten accepted to Northern Arizona University, a fact that, frankly, surprised me as I'd dropped out of high school as a junior and got my GED. Shortly after my acceptance letter arrived, my parents heard about the school's welcome program.

For 500 bucks, you could go on a backpacking trip down in the Grand Canyon with about a dozen other people. Most of them other students, but also a few chaperones. It was a way for incoming freshmen to get to know some friends before the first year started. It took a little prodding from my well-meaning mom and dad to get me to agree. They were happy to pay the fee and buy all my gear. They both knew how much I was struggling, how much I was suffering.

I needed to get out of my slump, to get my life on track. And I figured going to college was my best hope. Up to that point in my life, all 22 years of it, I had done everything they tell you that you're not supposed to do if you want to succeed. I did drugs, I hung out with a bad crowd, I drank too much while working a dead-end job. I was a real pillar of society. And then came the accident. I don't know how many times I heard people say it wasn't my fault.

My parents, my girlfriend before we broke up, the therapist my parents paid for, and even what few remaining friends I still had. It became my life's mantra, but other people always spoke it. "Corey, it wasn't your fault!" But that was easy for them to say. They didn't see the things I did. They didn't have the images seared into their retinas.

They didn't see the blood, and the way the two bodies had been essentially torn apart after the car had finally come to a violent stop wrapped around the utility pole. I saw those images every time I went to bed, and sometimes even during the day. They didn't fade with time either. They stayed there, as vivid as the day I'd seen them. Those people who insisted the accident wasn't my fault don't carry the nightmares I do.

You don't kill a five-year-old kid and just walk away like nothing happened. Yeah, so what if his dad had been shit-faced? No license, no seatbelt, doesn't really matter. The fact remains that if I hadn't been on that particular road at that particular time, returning from a grocery store booze run, then that kid would probably still be alive. Nevermind that I hadn't had a drop yet. I was a problem drinker in training at that point, but I still had enough sense not to drink and drive.

Besides, it's not like his dad is around to take the blame anyway. Sometimes, I think that would have been better. If the guy had lived, maybe I could have looked into his eyes and seen what a piece of shit he was and moved on with my life. But he died in the crash. I saw his insides and pints of his blood draining out of him. He wasn't buckled either, but it's the kid that really haunts me because he was still alive when I ran up to the car.

The trip started on August 11th, a Saturday. We all met at a small community center near the Grand Canyon that afternoon. The trip up from Phoenix was uneventful aside from my dad asking me if I wanted to drive when we got out of the city. I knew he wanted me to make progress, so I said I would drive. I actually thought I could handle it. I figured since we were out of the city, I'd be okay.

Dad and I switched seats in a gas station parking lot, and I shared a look with my mom in the passenger seat. She smiled and nodded encouragingly. I eased the 4Runner back onto the road and then the highway. But, like every other time since the accident, as soon as I got over 50, I started shaking and twitching. I couldn't stop my eyes from darting everywhere too fast. My mind ground to a halt as I tried to process everything at once.

"Okay," my dad said from behind me, putting a hand on my shoulder. "It's okay. Just pull over to the shoulder and I'll drive again." Once we switched back, the car was silent. I sat behind my father as he drove, and I looked out the window. Tears of frustration ran down my cheeks, which were hot with embarrassment. I didn't want this. I wanted to be okay again. I wanted to get my shit together before I fucked everything up for good.

Two hours later, I said bye to my parents and watched them drive out of the parking lot. They would be back in a week with my dorm stuff to help me move in before school officially started. Once they were out of sight, I hauled my overloaded hiking backpack into the community center and found my group in the gym. After checking in with an overly enthusiastic redheaded 20-something named Sammy, I eyed the people I would spend the next week with. I was the oldest of the bunch,

The rest of these people were 18, true freshmen. So far, there were four guys, myself included, and three girls. Some of them were already chatting and laughing. I looked on jealously, wanting to laugh so freely. A circle of 12 chairs stood in the middle of the gym, but no one sat in them.

At check-in, Sammy told me we would sleep in the gym before heading to the trailhead in vans bright and early the next morning. "Just choose a spot and get comfortable. We'll have some get-to-know-you activities later, followed by pizza," she said "pizza," like a babysitter might say it, to a ten-year-old living in a strictly health food household. Still, I returned her smile as best I could and said, "Looking forward to it," before venturing off in search of my own square of hard floor.

Good thing I'd brought a mat to sleep on. I spread out my mat and sat down with my back against the wall. Another guy had shown up, bringing our number to 8, excluding Sammy, the chaperone. A slim guy with glasses and a backpack he couldn't possibly carry for one mile, much less for the full 8, sat across the gym from me, looking miserable. I caught the slim guy's eye from across the way and gave him a little wave.

He frowned and then went back to staring at his phone. So much for making friends with other wallflowers. Scanning the crowd, I noticed a gorgeous raven-haired girl talking to Sammy, checking in. She smiled and nodded as she chatted with the redhead. When the interaction was done, she moved deeper into the gym, smiling politely at the others. Two other guys eyed her hungrily. Suddenly, I was regretting coming on this trip.

I put my head down and shut my eyes, but that little boy in the smashed car flashed through my head. His name was Angel, Angel Jenkins, and his mangled body was in the gym with me, in his dad's Saturn sedan. I opened my eyes, banishing the vision temporarily, but kept my head down until I sensed movement nearby. "Do you mind?" the dark-haired girl asked. She stood to my right, gesturing at the empty floor there. I shook my head,

"Thanks," she said, putting her backpack down. "Already regretting this trip, huh? You look like you're having the time of your life is all," she said, stepping over and extending a hand down. "Sylvia, Cory," I shook her hand. She studied me intensely with her hazel eyes, still shaking hands. Then those dark spotlights were off of me and scanning the room. "I, for one, am looking forward to this. I've never been inside the Grand Canyon. Have you?"

"I did a day hike once," I said. "A long time ago, but never to Havasu Falls?" I shook my head. "Nope, never there. I hear it's something else though." "Yeah," Sylvia said, plopping down next to me, close enough to bump elbows. "I was doing some research about the turquoise water and the minerals that make it look like it came straight out of a Caribbean ocean or something. Yeah." I was suddenly happy for the distraction from my dark thoughts. "I heard about that,

Every Arizona calendar ever made has at least one picture from Havasu Falls in it. Right, Sylvia said. That's why I'm bringing my new Nikon down there. I'm gonna take all the pictures. Maybe some places no one has ever seen. I frowned, looking into Sylvia's eyes. Her irises had little black flakes, giving them a sense of depth that was almost hypnotizing. What do you mean? Corey, you don't know? I guess not.

"You heard about the storms that hit up here in the spring, right? It was all over social media. People risking their lives to get video of the floods that swept through the canyon." I shrugged. "I guess I haven't been on social media much this year." Sylvia straightened her back, tendons standing out on her slender neck as she looked at me like I was from a different planet. "I wish I was like that," she said, slumping back down against the wall.

But anyway, apparently those storms essentially changed the structure of parts of the canyon, uncovering caves and creating new waterfalls and making it a whole new canyon. Isn't that wild?" I smiled. "Yeah, that's pretty cool. I mean, it sucks that people died during the flash flooding, but they couldn't get everyone out in time. It just came out of nowhere, I guess. Crazy."

"Oh," I said, swallowing loudly while trying not to think about Angel Jenkins. "Yeah, that does suck. Luckily, it's not supposed to storm while we're down there," I nodded and said. "That's good." But three days later, that wasn't exactly the case, and that's when people started dying. "We better get back," Mark, our guide, said while eyeing the creek we'd been hiking alongside.

It had been a good overall trip for me, even though I hadn't slept more than a couple of hours each night. Not only did images of Angel Jenkins keep me up, but those images made me wake up screaming at home. I was terrified that would happen here. The last thing I wanted to do was make a fool out of myself by waking up the camp. So I stayed up as long as possible, talking to Sylvia or any other night owl. Mostly, I talked with Sylvia late into the night.

She and I had something going. It was a friendship, but I had the feeling that it could be something more if I were to make a move. But with everything going on, I wasn't about to make a move. Friendship was what I needed, even if some part of me kept saying I needed something more. I'd also made friends. Neil was from New Mexico and an avid hiker. Amy was the kind of girl that was friends with everyone because she was genuinely interested in other people.

Jerome seemed like a born comedian. He had a sharp wit and his quips had made the 8 mile hike down to our campsite go by quickly. Some of our group, like that slim kid with glasses, were determined to be miserable. His name was Mason, and I got the feeling that he and another guy, Leroy, had been forced into this thing by their parents.

They bitched and complained the whole time about every little thing. So when they opted not to come with the rest of us on a day hike to the Colorado River, everyone else was relieved. Everyone but one chaperone, Dale, who had to stay in camp with the two wet blankets. Everyone else, including Sammy and Marcus chaperones, was happy to leave their heavy packs behind for a leisurely five-mile hike down to where the Havasu Creek emptied into the Colorado.

Which is why when Mark announced we should head back before we'd even reached the Colorado, everyone grumbled. "Look at the creek," Mark said to explain, gesturing at Havasu Creek. "See the way its color changed since we've been hiking along it?" "That's silt, right?" Sylvia asked. "Coming from somewhere upstream?" "Yeah, that's right," Mark said, rubbing his black goatee and looking as serious as I'd seen him the entire trip.

He was a big guy with full-sleeve tattoos over muscular arms. I could tell by his demeanor he'd been in the military. He said he'd done over a hundred guided trips across the Grand Canyon. "That means there's probably rain somewhere upstream," Mark continued. "Since we have to cross the creek twice before we can get back to camp, we need to go now. There's no telling how much it might rise." It was true. There were no bridges down here.

We'd waded hip-deep through Havasu Creek twice as we made our way down toward the Colorado. There was no other way to get back, so if it rose much, we'd be stranded until it lowered again. I looked at the sky. It was a cloudy afternoon, but it didn't look like rain. Still, I thought about what Sylvia had told me back in the gym. About how the flash floods had come out of nowhere, and about how people had died because they couldn't get to high ground.

"Alright," Sammy said in her chipper voice. "Let's get back." We all turned around on the narrow trail and headed back. The rust-red canyon walls loomed over us, sheer cliffs that even the most experienced and well-equipped climber would struggle to scale.

I still hadn't gotten used to the slightly claustrophobic feeling of being deep in a massive canyon. And since Havasu Creek was an excellent water source, all kinds of desert plants crowded between the canyon walls, only adding to that closed-in feeling. Here and there we saw signs from the flooding months earlier, like dead branches piled up high near the canyon walls where they had been stranded by the rising waters.

But for the most part, the plant life that had stayed rooted down had largely recovered, even flourished in the months since. As we hiked, I checked out Sylvia's legs since I was walking behind her. She had very short shorts on, and my view rivaled that of the exquisite canyon all around. "Snap out of it, man," I thought. "You're in no shape to be in a relationship right now. You can't even drive a goddamn car without freaking out. You wake up screaming in the middle of the night.

I snapped myself out of it. Instead, looking over at the creek we walked parallel to. It wasn't all that wide, maybe 20 feet, but it seemed to rise by the minute. When we had first started on the hike, the water was still tinged blue-green from the minerals that gave Havasu Falls their distinctive turquoise color. Now, it was red-brown from all the dirt in it. I could only imagine what the falls four miles upstream now looked like.

As we continued to hike, we came upon a sizable hole in the rock wall about 25 yards up a steep slope where the canyon wall met the floor. We had passed the hole, which was almost certainly a cave mouth, on the way down. Even Mark had mentioned it, saying that he'd never seen it before and that the recent floods must have uncovered it. Sylvia had begged to go check it out, but both Sammy and Mark were adamantly against it.

It was a liability thing, they said. Wasn't safe. Could collapse at any moment. Sylvia gave it her all, but she'd been overruled. I felt for her, but I thought our chaperones had a point, and I didn't want anything to happen to Sylvia. I didn't want anything to happen to any of us. I couldn't take seeing another dead body, especially one belonging to someone I just met. This time, we marched past the cave without so much as a peep from Sylvia.

Although she did look forlornly up at it as we passed, raising her Nikon to snap a couple of pictures. Mark, who had been watching the creek like a hawk, urged us to hurry. "It's definitely rising," he said. "We need to move faster." I could hear just a hint of fear in his voice. Not for himself, I was sure, but for us. Fifteen minutes later, as we approached the creek crossing, the clouds had turned ugly and it was drizzling on us.

The creek was noticeably higher at the crossing point, and definitely moving faster. We all piled up on the shore to watch as Mark waded in to test the waters. Just a few feet from the creek bank, he was up to his thighs and clearly having trouble staying upright. If Mark, who outweighed the heaviest of us by a good 40 pounds, couldn't cross, then the rest of us didn't have a chance. He came back onto the shore and stood with his back to us, hands on his hips, thinking,

Sammy moved up to him, and the two of them huddled together, discussing their options. Finally, they both turned back to us. "Okay, we're not gonna risk it," Mark said. "We need to wait until the creek goes back down, which means we might be out here all night." Concerned murmurs erupted from several members of our small group. Even Jerome had nothing clever to say about this new bit of information. Sylvia took my hand and smiled weakly when I met her eyes.

We can find a place out of the rain and build a fire when it gets dark, if the creek is still up in a couple of hours. Everyone still have water in their bottles? Most everyone did. Plus, we'd all been told to bring snacks, so we had food. After the initial discomfort, the thrill of our situation hit home.

and a contagious spark of energy sizzled through the group as we searched for some place out of the rain. Jerome fed on the energy, soon had everyone laughing, even Mark and Sammy. We found a rock overhang up the slope from the trail near the canyon wall and sat under it as the rain intensified and the creek continued to rise. As the sunlight faded, which it did early down in the canyon, that thrilling spark of adventure fizzled out

The creek was still rising, but the storm was getting worse. Mark and Sammy were undoubtedly worried. I got the feeling they weren't just worried about keeping us safe, but now they were worried about their own necks. The overflowing creek crept toward us, submerging shrubs in the trunks of stubby trees that grew along its banks. Sylvia kept hold of my hand tightly as we sat under the overhang, darting glances at Mark and Sammy.

Finally, when there was just enough light left, Mark urged us to gather around. "Okay, listen," he said, raising his voice over the pounding rain and occasional thunder. "I won't sugarcoat this. It's not good, but it's far from a dire situation yet. The important thing is to stay calm so we can think clearly."

"What I'm going to do is check out that cave just down the trail about a quarter mile. If it's safe enough to ride this thing out, we'll go in there. That's about as high as we're going to get without climbing gear." He smiled at the joke, but no one else did. It was a weak joke, anyway. "Just stay put," he said. "I'll be right back. You might get to see your cave after all," I said to Sylvia. She rolled her eyes but smiled, and then leaned her head on my shoulder.

I reveled in our closeness, looking out through the pouring rain. Lightning flashed, illuminating the canyon in a split second of ghostly daylight. And right across the way, on the other side of the rising creek, I saw Angel Jenkins staring at me. He was exactly how I'd seen him in that Saturn sedan. Skulls split open right down his forehead, making his ruptured eyes slope away from each other.

He had lost the hand on his right arm, and his left arm was severely disfigured. Both legs were broken, but he somehow stood upright, bones poking out through his dark skin. I jerked, accidentally bucking Sylvia off my shoulder while letting out a strangled gasp. Everyone looked toward me as Sylvia asked, "What's wrong?" Blinking, I stared out at the spot where I'd seen the dead child. Lightning flashed again. Of course, he was no longer there. He'd never been there at all.

Sorry. I shook my head, trying to clear it. Sorry. I'm okay. Are you sure? Cillia whispered. You look like you saw something out there. No, I didn't. A few minutes later, a soaking wet mark appeared with a smile and two upthrust thumbs. We're in business. Let's go.