An operation gone wrong leads to a life-or-death situation in a dark cave.
Serena Rojas stars in THIGH HIGH, a thriller short story.
2200 words.
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She checked the wound in her side as she bent down and opened the box. Her flashlight was almost dead. In the scant light of the cave, she had to make the most of the waning battery, only turning it on once every minute or so.
Inside the box, she scanned through several passports. Erica Vasquez, Carolina Pire, Stacey Hernandez. She settled on Maria Delgado. The hair didn’t quite match up. Maria’s was much shorter, but they were almost the same shade of black. Close enough. It wouldn’t matter all that much, anyway. Only if someone decided to get particular about it.
After opening the box’s first aid kit, she cleaned her hands so she could explore the stomach wound. Specifically, to see if the knife had punctured through. But there was no second wound on her lower back. She cleaned the gash as best she could, grunting at the sting caused by the field cleaning kit’s chemicals.
When her flashlight’s batteries finally fizzled, she gathered up her possessions and marched toward the mouth of the cave. Only a pocket knife would act as her weapon, since she’d had to abandon everything else. According to operational protocol, she needed to ditch any compromised materials as quickly as possible.
She had gone into the cave as Serena Rojas and now exited as Maria Delgado.
Standing on the perch outside the cave, she looked down at the lights of Chattanooga. Specifically, at the Cherokee Universal Resort and Casino, where she was supposed to be right now, flirting with a particular high roller. Serena had planned to wear her hair in an upsweep, with four-inch heels and a glittering black dress cut with a thigh high slit. She’d been looking forward to getting dressed up, actually. At home with her cat, Serena usually didn’t stretch her fashion muscles beyond yoga pants and a t-shirt. Not unless she had to be somewhere, or she was trying to impress someone.
But now, no dress and heels for her. She was a mile from the casino, with a stab wound in her side. The high roller’s bodyguard was dead in the cave behind her. None of this had been part of the plan.
If she’d had her phone on her, she would’ve called Harry Boukadakis and requested fresh supplies, but her phone was in the Tennessee River, along with those heels and dress and matching earrings. With the injury in her side, she figured it would take her fifteen minutes to reach the casino. Any faster and she’d probably bleed out from the exertion.
So, complete the job, or abort the mission? The high roller wouldn’t wait around forever. But, she didn’t feel good about the clotting on this wound and it wouldn’t help much to feign the high society act with a glaring burgundy circle above her hip.
Either way, she needed to contact Harry. They had an unexpected dead body, and that meant cleanup. Per orders, Serena had left the knife buried in his chest, evidence for someone else to come along later to erase.
She turned back toward the cave’s blackness as an idea formed. The bodyguard would have a phone, as well as a willing thumb or face to unlock it.
With the flashlight now dead, she reached into her supplies to pull out a couple of glow sticks. They had been an afterthought tossed in with her gear, since she knew there were caves near the casino. Never had she expected to use them. But that’s why she put out the effort to plan for occasions like these. For emergencies.
She clipped one glow stick to her left shoe so she could keep an eye on the uneven footing in the cave, and she held the other out in front of her, like a radiant magic wand.
Serena tread lightly back into the cave’s interior, using the blood droplets below as breadcrumbs.
And when she returned to the spot where she had left the high roller’s bodyguard, his corpse was no longer there.
***
On instinct, Serena lowered herself to the ground. Grimacing at the pain in her side, she wrapped one hand around the glow stick latched to her shoe, and she cradled the other to her chest to create darkness. Within a couple seconds, her night vision had returned, and she squinted through the darkness. She saw nothing.
Behind her was the path to the cave’s mouth, and he definitely hadn’t gone that way. The passages were cramped enough it would’ve been impossible for him to sneak past.
She noted two other potential paths. He could have either continued on the central path to the inside of the cave, or gone via a side tunnel to the south. The side tunnel looked slim and unforgiving, and Serena didn’t see any blood splatter headed that way.
But she did see a few droplets pushing deeper into the tunnel. He’d escaped further in, probably hoping to hide until she’d left.
Serena couldn’t let that happen.
First, she changed her bandage, then used the bloody one to wrap the glow sticks, effectively snuffing them out. She put that in her pocket and then drew her tiny blade. As she held it out, she almost laughed at the puny thing. It reminded her of the time her 3rd-oldest brother had gone after her 2nd-oldest brother with a butter knife one day after a turbulent Easter backyard football game.
But it was all she had. It would snap quite easily in a fight, but if she had the element of surprise and the right amount of pressure, it would slit a throat just as easily as a machete.
Now fully in the dark, she stayed hunkered and closed her eyes. Somewhere, she could hear dripping, which had been a recurring background noise since entering this cave. She could also hear the sound of a slight breeze moving through the cave, bending at the turns. Cool air from inside the cave swirled around her legs while warm around from outside whooshed past her upper torso.
Serena was hoping to hear the sound of him panting. Given the fight they’d had only a few minutes ago, she’d thought him dead. And since he wasn’t dead, he had to be close to it. The fight had been quick and intense, but she had a reasonable idea that his right hand was broken, his left ankle had been turned. Not to mention the knife wound to his chest, which should’ve been the one to do him in.
She took great care to slow her own inhalations so she could focus. But she heard nothing in the emptiness around her.
“Where are you?” she whispered, moving her lips with no sound.
And then she heard it. Softly, barely audible, the sound of breath moving in and out, mixing with the other sounds in the cave.
Serena gripped the knife and stood to her full height. A mental map of the area played in her head. Two feet in front of her, she would have to duck to avoid smacking into a stalactite. But she couldn’t remember the layout well enough to know which way to turn past it.
She took a step forward. Then she stilled again, listening. The breathing had become louder, no doubt about it. He was within a few feet of her.
“I can hear you,” she said, hoping to draw him out. She had to assume he already knew her position, since he would have seen the glow sticks’ sphere of reach as soon as she’d turned them on.
But he made no response.
Her eyes crawled over the darkness. She could make out hints of lighter shadows among the rest, but nothing that resembled part of a human. Too much visual confusion.
Serena reached into her pocket and separated one of the glow sticks from the bandage. She performed this maneuver inside her pocket, so the light wouldn’t escape.
“Last chance,” she said, and he didn’t reply, but she thought she’d heard his breathing escalate. Only a little.
Serena waited another few seconds, then she readied her knife as she whipped a glow stick out of her pocket. She flung it into the air. A bubble of green glow followed it as it smacked against the stalactite.
The fist came out of nowhere. She saw it a split second before it hit and ducked right to avoid the blow. The bodyguard was standing three feet to her left.
After that punch, she thrust out her leg for a roundhouse kick, connecting with his midsection, which bought her a couple seconds. The glow stick had settled on the cave floor, a few feet to their right.
But now, they faced off, and she could see him. A curtain of blood had turned his white dress shirt red, down to his pleated slacks. His face dragged, his eyes drooping. His skin had turned pale from the loss of blood.
But he was still standing at attention. And he was holding Serena’s knife in his hand, the one he had plucked from his own chest. How had he done that and not made a sound? She would’ve expected to hear something like that.
“Who are you?” he said, his voice wheezing and thin, but also full of rage.
Serena shook her head. “I’m Maria Delgado, but that doesn’t really matter. I can just stand here until you pass out. You have to be close, right? Better take your swing before you run out of time.”
So he did. Grunting, he lashed out with the blade, thrusting at her midsection. She easily leaned out of the way and noted that he was rooted to his spot. Probably too afraid of tripping over the uneven surface. Maybe he didn’t even see the stalactite a foot to his left.
While he was bent over, she slashed at his face with his knife. The meager blade cut through his flesh, but not deep. She watched dots of black blood whisk through the air as she drew her hand back. Her side ached with the movement, but she couldn’t afford to worry about that now.
He lunged. This time, he did put one foot forward, and Serena shuffled to her right. She smacked into the side of the tunnel which sent a shockwave of pain radiating out from her side wound.
The bodyguard pivoted and came toward her. She could barely see him, with the glow stick now several feet away. He bumped against the formation coming down from the ceiling, slowing him. But she saw his hands high, holding the blade in both. He intended to swipe down and stab her in the chest.
Serena leaned back again as the blade came down. She waited until he was most of the way through his swing, then she jabbed her pocket knife forward. She felt it enter his neck, just below his Adam’s apple. A fraction of a second later, the blade snapped, and she drew back half a pocket knife.
But it had worked. His eyes went wide shock.
The bodyguard dropped the large knife. She heard it clatter to the floor. He took a step back, closer to the light, and she watched the surprise and horror on his face as his hands desperately tried to stop the tide of black flowing out of his neck.
A couple seconds later, he stumbled backward, smacked his head on the stalactite, and then sank down into a sit.
Serena stood, watching with intent. She’d already mistakenly thought him dead once, so this time, she waited. No movement.
Thirty seconds later, she ducked down and checked his pulse. Definitely dead.
Serena dropped her broken knife on top of him, snatched the glow stick, and then made her way back along the tunnel. She took one last look into the cave. Squinting through the dark, she could barely make out his form. Still in the same spot.
At the mouth of the tunnel, she paused to catch her breath. Chattanooga looked the same down below; the same lights, the same traffic, the same humidity.
Serena checked her wound. She’d lost a lot of blood.
After a few moments to settle her nerves, she checked behind her again. No zombie bodyguard coming after her now.
Serena studied the casino. She could probably patch up this wound and make it down there without being too far behind mission parameters. She could find a dress in the resort’s laundry, and probably shoes and earrings. Maybe not one with a thigh high slit, and she’d have to forgo the upsweep for her hair, but she could pull this off.
Serena Rojas cleared her throat and started down the hiking trail from the cave. “Okay, Maria Delgado, you’ve still got work to do.”