On our late-night journey home, the refrigerator moon had set. A heavy curtain of clouds rolled overhead. No rain. No wind. Just darkness on a desolate road. I could see only what Erifnus’s headlights allowed. A dozen miles ahead we’d pass Devil’s Icebox, a cool fissure hiding in the dark. My mind wandered past the headlights, into the darkness, and the long list of geologic formations given satanic names.
Devil’s Well. Devil’s Elbow. Devil’s Tongue.
In our travels, Erifnus took me to some truly dangerous spots, places called “don’t go there.”
One chilling hellhole was Snake Pit Cave, off Route 66, near Leasburg. The sinkhole from this collapsed cave has sheer walls down to the bottom of a pit twenty-five feet deep. If I ever had to dungeonize a vile transgressor with no hope of salvation, I would dump the cretin into Snake Pit Cave. According to a guy named Rimbach who climbed into the sinkhole, there’s no way out of the pit except by ladder. Any animal who falls into the pit must survive its last days eating other trapped animals. Most of them are snakes. Dozens of snakes. Guess who eats.