The Little Woods by McCormick Templeman

Pigeon.”
    “It stuck?”
    “I like it.”
    “You know”—Freddy smiled, pushing her hair back from her cheeks—“one time in New York, I saw a man catch a pigeon with his bare hands. No joke.”
    Far off down in the darkness, I thought I heard a sound—a horrible kind of scream. My heart stalled. I looked around. Freddy and Pigeon looked pale.
    “What was that?” Freddy said. A cold silence surrounded her question. With uncharacteristic haste, she moved to the ladder and called down. “Helen?” Her voice echoed out, strange and strong.
    We could hear a rustling below, and then we heard noise as something ascended, the ladder wildly undulating.
    “Helen?”
    Helen’s face emerged into the stream of Freddy’s flashlight, and I was struck by her pallor. When Freddy lent her a hand and pulled her up onto the landing, I noticed she was shaking.
    “Helen, are you okay?”
    Slowly she shook her head and closed her eyes. For a moment I thought she might faint.
    “Did you fall? What happened?”
    “A body,” she said, and stumbled. “There’s a dead body down there.” A deep retching noise came from her belly. Her hand flew to her mouth, and she choked it back down.
    “What?” Freddy gasped, holding a hand to her heart. “No. It can’t be a body. Your mind’s playing tricks on you.”
    “It’s a person. It’s all decayed. Oh my God, we have to get out of here. We have to tell the police.”
    “No, it’s the pot,” Freddy said, standing tall, smoothing down her skirt.
    Color flushed back into Helen’s face in strange patches, and tears came quickly to her eyes. “I know what I saw. You guys don’t believe me, go down and look.”
    So we did, all except Pigeon, who didn’t want to look gullible. We followed Helen down the ladder to the bottom of a pit. Nothing, not even the smell that preceded it, could have prepared me for the scene we found below. It was badly decomposed, wet and black in parts, stringy and dry in others. It had hair and teeth, but not much else aside from bones.
    “This can’t be real,” Freddy said, but we all knew it was.
    I was numb from my knees down. Helen fought back tears, and Freddy shook her head as if her mere refusal could change the tableau.
    “This can’t be happening,” she said, shaking.
    I stifled a scream that threatened to rise.
    “Everyone just be cool,” Helen said, her voice now low and controlled.
    “It really is a person, right? It’s a girl,” Freddy said, her voice quavering. She was rocking back and forth, clutching her shoulders.
    “I think we should leave,” Helen said.
    “Yeah,” I muttered, feeling dizzy.
    “Oh my God. Oh holy shit.” Freddy was grabbing my arm a little too tightly. And then her eyes widened, and her lips curled back in terror. “There’s something on the wall.”
    “On the wall?” Helen whispered, and moved toward the other side of the cavern, lifting her flashlight. As she neared, we could see chalk drawings emerge.
    My brain had nearly as much difficulty interpreting the image as my eyes had extracting it, but soon what appeared to be random blue lines coalesced to form a massive blue creature with swirling blue scales, horrible eyes, and a head like ascythe. I found myself stepping away from it before I realized I was doing so.
    “Is that … is that a dragon?” Helen gasped.
    “Oh God,” I heard myself cry.
    “Let’s get out of here,” Helen said calmly. “Let’s go right now. Go.”
    And we did. We climbed back up the ladder as quickly as we could, each of us just barely resisting the urge to push, and when we reached the top, Pigeon was waiting for us with a wry smile.
    “While you guys were, like, body hunting or whatever, I ate all the Nutella.”
    Helen took her firmly by the arm. “Listen, Pidge, there really is a dead body down there. We have to leave right now. No questions, okay? Grab your stuff and go.”
    Eyes wide, uncertain for a moment, Pigeon slowly nodded and then did as Helen