Thrilled to Death

by James Byron Huggins

  A murderous collision followed by a victorious roar sounded at the distant end of the tunnel, alerting them to the fact that the beast had almost defeated the fire door. Quickly everyone began to slide beneath the vault into the sprawling cavern beyond.

  But Chesterton broke away from Connor and leaned against a wall, staring back down the passageway. He drew a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol from his holster, infinitely weary. Yet he still retained his military bearing and Connor began to understand the true strength of intelligence and will that had made the man a colonel in the first place. Then Barley and two other soldiers slid beneath the narrowly raised vault, entering the cavern.

  “We’ve got to slow it down,” Chesterton said weakly, face smeared in blackened sweat. “We can’t outrun it.”

  Connor grimaced, knowing he was right.

  Overhead lights swung, vibrating to the thunderous bellowing that traveled the length of the tunnel, and Connor looked up to see the huge power cables running across the roof. His teeth came together with a snap.

  Of course.

  Immediately he spun, seeing where the cable tied into the intermediate connector box, high and to the side of the vault door. “Chesterton!” he shouted. “Get your men to bring me a ladder! Do it quick!”

  Chesterton didn’t even question the idea; things were obviously too bad for him to question anything at all.

  His voice rang out and Connor heard a response on the far side of the vault, inside the Matrix, the rush of men scurrying to obey. In a moment two soldiers slid an extension ladder beneath the fire door. Other soldiers raised it to the wall, following Connor’s instructions.

  A violent, shattering concussion shook the cavern floor, and Connor knew that the vault had finally struck the ground, slammed out. Connor glared down the tunnel, trembling instantly, expecting to see the nightmarish shape rushing toward them, glaring, gaping, slashing.

  Nothing happened.

  Silence.

  Frank was beside him, sweating, breathing heavily as Connor stared down the wide, twisting passageway.

  “Why isn’t it on top of us?” Connor whispered.

  Frank shook his head, quiet. “It’s probably feeding on the soldiers who died when the roof came down. Because of its enhanced metabolism, Leviathan has to eat about a thousand pounds of meat every two hours. I think we might have another minute.”

  Connor backed carefully to the ladder. “When it comes down the tunnel will it come fast or will it come slow and careful?”

  “It’ll come slow,” Frank answered. He wiped a blackened arm over his brow, smearing even more soot over his sweating face. “Because of what we just did to it, it’ll be looking for another ambush. It’s always learning. It’ll probably be looking for explosives.”

  “What else would it look for?”

  “Heat signatures in the dark.”

  Connor began climbing the ladder. “Good.”

  In a moment he was at the top. He quietly opened an intermediate breaker box. Like most of the circuit connecting points, the box was crammed with lines of varying power. Connor found a line of 10,000 volts. He studied it a minute, calculating. “No, not enough,” he whispered. “Not enough to put you down for the count ...”

  He continued to search until he came across it—a line of over 100,000 volts. It was as thick as his thumb. Connor knew it was a primary feed line from the power plant. He began loosening the brackets as he looked down, observing Chesterton’s upturned face.

  He spoke slowly, distinctly. “Chesterton, raise the vault all the way and tell your men to remove a section of the walkway right in front of the door. Then have them remove another section on the far side of the cavern.” Connor leaned down. “Tell them to put as much fiberglass and wood under the legs of the middle section as possible so that the steel is not touching the ground! I’m going to electrify the middle section, and I’m gonna use that thing behind us to ground out the current.”

  Chesterton’s eyes blazed. “Let me get this straight! You need the middle section of walkway insulated from the ground so when that thing steps on the steel, the current’s going to go through it and into the ground?” His relief was wild. “Do you think that will kill it?”

  “I don’t know,” Connor replied. “There’s no way to know how much resistance that thing has to a current.”

  “What do you mean?” Chesterton staggered.

  Connor grunted as he twisted the brackets holding the wire. “That thing weighs almost six tons, Chesterton. I don’t know how much current it’ll take to kill it!”

  “But that much will hurt it, right?”

  “Hurt it, yeah, but I don’t know if it’ll be enough to kill it. This stuff is complicated.” Chesterton nodded and ducked under the doorway, giving tense instructions to Barley. Instantly there were shuffling sounds echoing in the cavern, the tunnel.

  Working feverishly, shaking sweat from his face, Connor managed to break the sturdy ceramic brackets that held the high-voltage line in place. Because the line was heavily insulated, he grabbed the rubber coating with his hand.

  Then, careful to hold the bare copper ending far from anything that could ground it out, Connor pulled the cable from the wall. It was backbreaking labor because he was forced to pull with one hand and yet in thirty seconds, powered by pure fear, he had hauled out thirty feet of excess line.

  Still holding the end of the line by the insulation, Connor rapidly descended the ladder. As he hit the ground, cautiously holding the insulated section of 100,000-volt line in his fist, Connor saw that Chesterton had come back under the vault and stopped dead in place, white and trembling, staring with wide eyes down the passageway.

  Connor whirled, glaring to see the gigantic Dragon shadow that blackened a close section of the darkened tunnel. The godlike image stood carefully outside the light.

  Angry eyes glowed.

  A growl vibrated the passageway.

  ***

  “What was that?” Beth asked, staring at the wall of the Housing Cavern. The shock wave had trembled the entire structure, more than twenty rooms, even breaking a lighting fixture loose from the ceiling.

  The guard, Private Thompson, held his rifle close. “I don’t know, ma’am,” he said carefully, staring at the wall beside her. “It sounded like some kind of explosion.”

  “What kind of explosion?”

  “I’m not in demolition, Mrs. Connor, but if I had to make a guess, I’d say it sounded like dynamite.”

  “Like someone was dynamiting one of those vaults?”

  Thompson nodded. “Yes, ma’am. Maybe. I don’t know what else it could have been. But it was pretty deep in the cavern. A few miles maybe. Or maybe more.”

  Dr. Hoffman was at her side. “I believe that they are still alive, Mrs. Connor,” he said. “At least, from the sound of the explosion, it is clear that at least some of them are still alive. Perhaps your husband is among them. We must not give up hope.”

  Beth turned to him, smiling faintly, grateful. Then she heard Jordan crying and she turned instantly away, moving toward the room where he lay. She didn’t know who or what had caused the explosion, but she knew that there were obviously still some men alive in the deepest part of the cavern.

  Coldly wiping a tear from the corner of her eye, she prayed that Connor was one of them.

  ***

  Thor could not move another inch through the ventilation shaft. A large fan, easily powerful enough to clear the entire cavern of smoke, spun blindingly, only inches from his eyes.

  He had crawled two hundred feet through the shaft before encountering it, a spinning black haze highlighted by the fluorescent lights that blazed from inside the facility. He could not see past the revolving blades, but he knew he had reached the cavern itself.

  Yes, this was where the smoke had passed.

  He studied the spinning bl
ack blades a long time. He knew that if he stuck a hand in there he would lose it instantly. The dusty edges would still be sharp enough to sever his arm. He glanced at the fan’s foundation, visible in the dim white light, and saw that it was anchored into the wall with stout bolts sunk in concrete blocks.

  He nodded, bringing up the battle-ax beside him. It was a difficult movement, turning the ax in the shaft until he held it by the broad, double-bladed head. Then he held it by the top of the wide steel with one hand, the steel handle of the ax protruding in front of him. For a moment he thought that he could time it, but the fan was spinning too quickly. He made two abrupt motions to thrust the handle through the blades, pulling back at the last second. Then he gritted his teeth with determination and shoved the handle with all his might, driving it forward.

  The battle-ax was almost torn from his hands as the fan wrenched the handle to the side and Thor shouted, holding a tight grip and driving the handle in farther, at an angle, up and through the mesh on the far side of the spinning blades. The fan engine screamed to spin the blades, and Thor released one hand from the ax handle. Shouting, he brought his left hand back and slammed it against the fan motor, smashing the heel of his palm on the motor, but it didn’t move and the engine strained to spin the blades.

  Grimacing in pain, Thor could smell the engine overheating, pulling with incredible force against the ax handle. The ax handle was moving inexorably through the aluminum mesh, tearing, shredding, surrendering to the power of the engine.

  Thor saw what would happen if the ax handle came loose from the far side; the double-sided blade on his side would spin uncontrollably in the confined space of the shaft to slice him into pieces. He cursed in rage, hitting the engine motor savagely with his open hand, driving forward, all his weight into the vicious blow.

  It did not move.

  Again and again he pounded, howling, pushing on the frame. He brought his hand back even farther, seeing the bloody black smear on the engine frame, and he struck it again and again, exhausted now, sweating and unable to breathe in the dank air but still it did not give and with a bellowing roar Thor saw a red rage and imagined his death here in this infernal shaft and he struck the fan to break his bones or shatter the bolts and the top of the foundation tore away, the fan frame leaning out.

  Thor felt no relief, allowed no respite. Caught in his rage he hit it again, numb to the pain, and again, driving the frame out. Suddenly the ax shuddered in the iron grip of his right hand, almost tearing loose, the fan blades beginning to break free. Then Thor saw a narrow white line coming from the torn section of wall, snaking into the engine and with a hated curse he reached out, fiercely tearing the wire from the motor.

  The fan engine died but Thor was in a black berserk rage and he hit the fan again with his palm, grasping it solidly as his hand smashed against it. He pushed with all the strength of his arm and shoulder, roaring and pushing harder still with his scrambling legs to drive it out and the frame tore cleanly out of the concrete wall, falling down and away to carry the aluminum mesh with it in a long, continuous crash.

  Snarling at the pain in his hand, Thor tossed the battle-ax ahead of him and crawled quickly out of the shaft grasping the edge as he passed it to lower himself to the ground.

  Panting, still angry from the rage required for the effort, Thor reached down and immediately hefted the ax again, to stand. When he turned toward the cavern he was met by the sight of a lone man, a young man. It was apparently one of the scientists.

  Wide-eyed, hands clasped, the man stared.

  He was the cavern’s only occupant.

  Towering eight feet above the cavern floor, Thor steadily approached the man. Thor’s ice-green eyes blazed with pain and his red hair and beard dripped with dark sweat. His white bearskin was blackened by the crawl through the shaft and blood fell heavily from his left hand as he held the gigantic battle-ax in the other.

  Finally he stood over the man, frowning down.

  The young man trembled before Thor’s colossal, mythic aspect. And Thor knew that the paling scientist would have fled if he could have only found the strength.

  “Who are you?” the young man whispered.

  Thor gazed down, smiled.

  “No one you should fear.”

  ***

  “Oh no,” whispered Chesterton, backing up.

  “Don’t move!” Frank said tensely.

  Blinking sweat, Connor froze in place. He felt his face cold and wet, the skin on his back crawling. Not just because the beast stood before them. It was because the growl that came from the depths of the darkness was more than bestial; it was supernatural and hateful.

  The growl continued a long moment before it descended to a horrible, trembling threat. And then with a quickness that made Connor almost leap back, Frank took a solid step forward, boldly making a stand in the middle of the tunnel.

  The scientist stared dead center at the ominous shadow.

  Connor watched in absolute horror as Frank raised clenched fists to his sides, staring at Leviathan with no aspect of fear whatsoever. The scientist held the defiant, weaponless position as if he would never move, as if he could kill the beast with a glance. Connor was shocked almost as much by the suicidal stand as the beast crouching in the darkness less than three hundred feet away.

  Leviathan’s growl, angry and suspicious, rumbled from the blackened section of the passageway. Then Connor stiffened his trembling knees and somehow managed to speak: “Frank! What are you doing!”

  The scientist’s reply was shockingly loud.

  “It doesn’t understand!” he shouted.

  Chesterton jumped.

  “Frank!” the colonel hissed through clenched teeth. “Are you insane! It will kill you!”

  “It doesn’t understand!” Frank yelled and took a very small step forward. “It doesn’t understand how one man would come against it without a weapon! It suspects a trap! That’s how it’s programmed to think!”

  Frank held his fists at his sides, glaring utterly without fear. Then in a challenging movement that caused Connor to curse out loud the scientist pointed dramatically at the floor.

  With a volcanic growl Leviathan retreated a single step.

  “God in Heaven help us,” Chesterton whispered, closing his eyes. His sweating fist trembled on the .45.

  “Back up!” Frank yelled. “Connor, set that trap! Fast!”

  Connor and Chesterton stepped back without thinking. But even as they moved, the creature responded, clearly understanding retreat. It leaped forward from the darkness, covering a hundred feet with a bound. Growling more angrily, Leviathan crouched long and low in the tunnel, tail sweeping left and right, balancing the gigantic dragon form.

  A green-black horror in the full light, the Dragon lowered its massive reptilian head toward Frank and roared, causing a shock wave that reverberated along the tunnel, quaking the walls.

  Chalky white dust fell from the ceiling, and overhead lights trembled, swinging. But Frank continued to glare, defiant and challenging, pointing theatrically to the floor. He held an aspect that promised sure and swift doom if Leviathan took another step forward.

  Leviathan growled gutturally, head tilting. Its vengeful eyes glowed brighter, like light. Connor was mesmerized by the standoff but somehow managed to take another cautious step until he had backed around the tunnel door.

  Shocked, he looked down to see the steel walkway near his feet, and he suddenly remembered. He was actually startled to find the 100,000-volt line still in his fist. A panicked breath escaped him. He had completely forgotten the line during the standoff, and he was lucky that he hadn’t grounded it to himself by touching the bare copper ending. Chesterton backed around the corner, lifting a trembling hand to his face.

  “He can’t hold it there,” Chesterton whispered. “In another second it’s going to figure out that he’s bluffing.�
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  Connor didn’t bother to reply.

  Angrily scattering cold sweat from his eyes, he bent to study the walkway. He saw that the soldiers had done a good job. They had separated a small section right in front of the vault, and the middle section appeared to be completely insulated from the ground with thick sheets of plywood, two-by-fours, and fiberglass paneling. But still, Connor wasn’t sure whether it was enough insulation. He worried that the current would still be able to leap through the wood to ground out without the beast stepping on it. This entire stunt was wildly dangerous, he knew, but it was all he had.

  Connor searched, saw a clear path of escape to the right, far from the middle section of the walkway. He saw that the rest of the platoon was working feverishly at the far door, attempting to rewire it as Connor had taught them. They hadn’t yet begun to raise the portal, but Connor knew he couldn’t wait for that. He was certain that Frank couldn’t hold the beast much longer.

  Breathing deeply, Connor leaned his head cautiously around the corner to see with alarm that the creature had taken another step forward. And yet somehow, perhaps still shaken by Frank’s ultimately defiant stand, it remained uncertain whether to attack. It lowered its head close to the floor, searching, studying even as it never took its eyes off Frank, who still stood in the center of the passage.

  “Frank!” Connor hissed. “Come on!”

  “It’s going to charge when I move!” the scientist yelled.

  “All right,” Connor said quietly. “When you come through this door, make a sharp right. Run as fast as you can and do not touch the steel walkway! Do you understand?”

  Frank shifted his weight. “Yes.”

  Connor looked at Chesterton. “You ready?”

  “I’ve been ready.”

  “All right, Frank!” Connor yelled. “Run!”

  Almost immediately Frank rounded the portal but darkness was following fast with a terrifying roar and thunderous strides. Connor didn’t even look back as Frank passed him and then he threw the cable out, the copper hitting the walkway with a spark to glow a split second before melding solidly to the metal. Then Connor was also running, three steps behind the scientist and he felt rather than saw the monstrosity that paused in the doorway, casually watching their frantic retreat.