Three Danish explorers stumble into a cave in the Atlas Mountains, and just when they are excited to discover a new, untouched territory, they find a highly decomposed body in the cave. The frightened explorers stumble their way down the mountain, only to be placed under house arrest by the native Shilu, and the local beast “Iblis” shows up with another murder ……
Cave Adventure
The Atlas Mountains of Morocco are a unique landscape in North Africa. Those inaccessible and barbaric places attract the attention of many travelers, and every year there are explorers deep into them.
In March 2021, three 26-year-old Danish guys, Kyle, McElroy and Jody, formed an expedition group to the Atlas Mountains. The three were college friends and frequent travelers together, and this was their first foray into the greater Atlas Mountains.
The three found a cave deep in the mountains, and judging from the traces of the cave entrance, almost no creature had ever come close. Looking down from the mouth of the cave was a ramp at a 45° angle, and it was so dark inside that there was no end in sight. “Maybe we’ve found a new land! There’s not a single trace of people here!” Jody looked excited.
After fixing the rope on the rocks outside the cave, the three people went into the cave in turn with the rope, the most experienced Jody walked in the front. After the real cave to find, the cave is not too deep, Kyle concluded that this is a natural cave through the groundwater flow, the flood season will have groundwater roaming through.
The first to enter the Jody, in Kyle and McElroy study of underground water when, has been alone forward more than ten meters, suddenly he exclaimed. Kyle and McElroy rushed over a few steps and saw a body on the ground.
Due to the natural warm and humid conditions in the cave, this human body has decayed to almost a pile of white bones, but clothing still wrapped around him, can not see the shape and color, let alone determine when he died.
Although they had seen corpses during their not-too-short expedition, they were all of animals. All three were a little scared and immediately decided to withdraw from the cave and call the police as soon as possible. In any case it was a human life, and the more activity in the cave the easier it was to destroy the evidence, although the groundwater that had roamed through had most likely changed the scene over and over again.
After exiting the cave, the three were in shock and recorded the coordinate points and moved off. A day later, supplies were almost depleted, and Jody, who was at the front of the pack, saw what appeared to be cooking smoke in the distance, and the three couldn’t help but cheer. Unfortunately, just as they were powering along, Jody accidentally stepped on a loose rock and broke his calf. Kyle and McElroy could only help Jody slowly forward.
They arrived at a Moroccan village of Shilu people. The long walk made the three of them become very unkempt and look in a bad way. Soon, they were taken by the Shilu to the house of the village chief. There, an elder whispered something to the villagers, who immediately left.
With him came a young man in his early 30s and a doctor. The young man spoke French, and McElroy understood some of it, which started an effective exchange. The young man’s name was Moby, who had left the village to live in the city as a teenager and learned French, but also very limited. The two men gestured for a long time before they could figure out what both sides meant.
The doctor immediately began to examine Jody with Moby’s explanation, and finally wrapped his injuries with herbs and put on a splint. Expediency can only do so, the three men looked at each other, can not refuse, the heart is also very grateful.
In the cave to see the body, the three are very tacit agreement not to mention, after all, the language barrier, in the absence of the police, they worry that rashly said before the villagers will be misunderstood.
Moby told them that if they want to return to the city is not difficult, he can be a guide, riding livestock about half a day to find the road, where you can hitchhike along the way, but because Jody was injured, it is recommended that they rest overnight before leaving.
The three men discussed and decided to accept Moby’s suggestion. And Moby told them that the village chief agreed to their stay and expressed his friendliness. The village is not connected to the telephone, much less the Internet, and the satellite phone that Kyle carried with him was out of order, so the three had to stay overnight at Moby’s house to wait quietly.
Escape from the village
However, this night, the village happened in a big way.
When they woke up in the morning, the three were invited into the village chief’s house. The village respected several old man face serious expression makes them feel the situation is not good. And before the enthusiastic offer to send them to the city Mobi, but also stammered with not very fluent in French to tell them that the village chief has forbidden them to leave, in the matter is not clear before the village must not set foot outside half step.
It turns out that in the night, the village for centuries the legendary beast has reappeared. A middle-aged man named Abyssin stayed out all night in the village and was found dead outside the village early in the morning by people who had gone up the mountain. His neck was scratched by sharp claws and bloody, his internal organs had been peeled open, and he died in a terrible state. It was thought to be attacked by wild animals, but the village chief who arrived on the news smelled a strange fragrance on his corpse that had not yet dissipated. The elderly village chief Kamel changed his face at that time: this fragrance is the legendary local beast “Iblis” smell.
For hundreds of years, this beast is known for its ferocity and ghostly appearance, so much so that the most fearful period, people are afraid to use any spices, in order to be able to identify its smell as quickly as possible.
This beast does not appear often, but when it does, neither man nor beast can be spared. People fear to the extreme, moreover, there is talk that even the dead can not rest in peace. No one knows what this monster looks like, each claiming to have seen it say different things, so the locals believe that it is subject to change, except for the smell of the body. Over the years, the locals named the beast after the most notorious soul-eating demon in Islam, “Iblis,” and even designated the places where it is said to have appeared frequently as forbidden places, and regularly sacrificed animals to keep it safe.
The most recent appearance of “Iblis” was more than 20 years ago, when it snapped the neck of a widow who was working outside, but disappeared before it could devour her amidst the shouts of the villagers who came to hear the news. People only saw the back of a speckled animal without a tail that faded like lightning deep in the jungle.
Coincidentally, the dead Abyssin was the first teenager to arrive when the murder occurred, and it was he who scared away the “Iblis”. The village chief of Kamel shook his head and sighed: “‘Iblis’ is really a heinous crime, after all these years still did not spare this poor man.”
Kyle, McElroy and Jody, who happened to enter the village, were thought by some villagers to be intruding into the forbidden place where sacrifices were made to “Iblis” for a long time, thus bringing disaster to the village because of the direction they came. So the village chief decided to temporarily put them under house arrest.
The three people who were crying out for help remained in Moby’s house, and at this time they had almost no personal freedom. Moby is a good-hearted young man, he was educated in the city because of modern education, do not quite believe in these legends, but the custom is such that he did not dare to disobey the village chief’s orders to his face, but only to reassure them that they will certainly come up with a way to eliminate this misunderstanding as soon as possible.
In conversation with Moby, the three slowly learned that the widow who was killed that year is his mother, because of the unfortunate death of the orphaned Moby by the village chief of Kamel care, and years later sent him to the city to study. Moby was educated in the city and worked for a while, but finally chose to return to the village because he was not used to the life there.
The three men exchanged glances and felt that Moby should be trustworthy and decided to tell him what they had seen in the cave. After listening, Moby asked in detail about the exact location and route, and finally concluded that the three did not break into the forbidden place. And the corpse in the cave, although he was not sure, but a few years ago the village did have people wandering away, living and dying, he was also very suspicious of what was going on.
“That cave is a day’s journey from the village, we usually don’t leave the village that far alone unless we are out hunting as a group, it’s too dangerous. And our people weren’t hunting when they disappeared, just an ordinary outing of labor. Could that body in the cave be someone who came to explore and lost their footing like you did?” Moby said.
McElroy shook his head: “There’s absolutely no way to tell. Our tools and knowledge are too limited to stay much longer. What we can say for sure is that he didn’t have similar backpacking gear on him as we do, but the gear could have been washed away by the underground water in the cave, too.”
Moby pondered for a long time, and finally made a difficult decision: “I think they will probably go out en masse today to sacrifice in the forbidden land, I will go and explain to the village chief to see what he decides, and if they do not intend to tie you up with their peers, then I will certainly find an opportunity to let you leave. But I think it can only be Kyle and you go first, Jody has a wound on his foot, walking around will certainly affect the healing, just stay here for the time being, I think they will not make it difficult for an injured person.” He also said to McElroy: “I will leave an old horse for you, it knows the way. I think the best thing to do now is for you to go outside and get help as soon as possible.”
Things went smoothly in the direction Moby had expected. The group went to the forbidden place to sacrifice en masse, Kyle three were defaulted to remain in the village under Moby’s guard, and with his help, Kyle and McElroy left without incident. And when the villagers and the village chief found two people missing, but also because there are still Jody the “hostage” and not more severe punishment for Moby, just a few lashes, plus the village chief’s rounds of reprimand.
The truth about the beast
I don’t know if it was because of the villagers’ devotion to sacrifice, the next few days “Iblis” did not appear again. Moby said when he was changing Jody’s medicine: “Maybe there is no ‘Iblis’, who knows? I hope your friends can bring someone to figure it all out soon.” Jody couldn’t understand what Moby was saying and only saw his serious face.
Half a month had passed, and Kyle and McElroy had not returned. Moby was getting anxious, but Jody was calm, confident that his friends would not abandon him.
Sure enough, a few days later, a few strangers entered the village, and Jody was surprised to find that one of them had a fake beard on, and it was McElroy. They talked to the village chief for a long time, and finally reached an agreement to take Jody away.
Another half month later, back in the city, Jody was able to walk, and he learned from Kyle and McElroy everything that had happened in the village of the Shilu people of the Great Atlas Mountains.
A few days after leaving the village, Kyle took several police officers and professionals back to the cave where they had seen the bodies. The geologists finally decided based on the direction of groundwater flow that the bodies in the cave were most likely floating with the groundwater from other caves, while flowing upstream, they explored dozens of connected caves and finally identified the two underground caves most likely to be the source of the bodies, which happened to be near the village.
Because of customs and religious barriers, the police were not convenient to enter the village on a large scale to survey, so they entered in an unofficial capacity and picked up Jody after consultation. In the subsequent investigation, it was found that the “Iblis” attack killed Abyssin was first attacked by a blunt object to cause brain coma before being mutilated by the beast, and the beast is not the legendary “Iblis” is still in doubt. Coincidentally, the bodies in the cave were also found to have been killed by a blunt object to the head by forensic examination.
The cause of death of two people is clear from a coincidence. The woman who cleaned the room for the village chief of Kamel accidentally broke a container, and a few seconds later a strong aroma filled the air, which spread rapidly and was smelled by every villager who passed by. People who had been curious to smell the scene of Abyssin’s murder immediately found that the two smells were identical.
The news of the “Iblis” smell in the village head’s house was no less than a heavy bomb. Soon, all kinds of questions began to circulate, I do not know who actually went into town to notify the police. Because of the loss of trust of the villagers, the mayor of Kamel had to be questioned by the police under the pressure of public opinion, and within a few days he revealed the secret that had been sealed for years.
Abayshin was killed by the mayor of Kamel, who died for almost the same reason as the deceased in the cave, both due to blackmailing the village head. The reason why the mayor of Kamel was threatened with extortion was because of the widow who died 20 years ago under the fangs of Iblis.
Kamel, who had been elected village chief at the time, had committed adultery with Moby’s mother, and because of religious customs, if the matter was revealed, they would not only be disgraced but would most likely be sentenced to death. The young widow asked to marry Kamel, but was refused, and during their argument, she fell down and fainted. The widow was attacked by a beast and then found by Ibrahim.
Abyssin, a clever teenager, in fact witnessed the village chief’s departure, and after the village chief described the beast as the legendary “Iblis”, he deduced that he and the widow were having an incestuous affair, and then threatened the village chief of Kamel for decades.
The dead man in the cave had in fact been killed by the village chief more than a decade ago and thrown down the hole in the ground, and floated with the current to dozens of kilometers away. He had also inadvertently crashed the village chief’s adulterous affair with his widow, and used it as blackmail ……
For the sake of reputation and status, Kamel took the lives of two people and led the culprit to the legendary existence of the beast “Iblis” that has never been seen by the people of the world.
After hearing what happened, Jody was shocked, but also had questions: “So ‘Iblis’ actually exists? What is that aroma? Is it just a cover for the village chief of Kamel?”
“Strangely enough, Kamel only admitted that it was a fragrance made by the widow herself and only used on herself during their rendezvous, and he did use it to divert attention at one point back then, but he adamantly denied that the jar that was broken in his house was his. I think ‘Iblis’ might actually exist, and that’s what people think of as evil.” McElroy said.
“Also, what was that spotted animal people saw back then? I’ve always wondered about that.” Jody asked again.
Kyle replied, “Experts are speculating that it was a serval, they are vicious but also afraid of people, so they quickly fled after a shout. But this animal has not been seen in the Great Atlas Mountains for a long time, and further research is needed to find out if it is it or not.”
When the village chief of Kamel was convicted by the court, the villagers had contempt, shock, and regret. Only Moby, who looked at the back of the village chief of Kamel being taken away, murmured a prayer: “May your soul be consumed by ‘Iblis’ and fall into the fire forever.”
No one knows that there is a secret corner in Moby’s house, where there is a very small glass bottle, through the gap in the cork, people with a keen sense of smell can smell a fragrance, if any, exactly the same as the fragrance coming from the village chief of Kamel’s house, but also the legendary monster “Iblis” body confusing and full of sinful fragrance ……
