by Tom Hunter
“Do you know what a Woidnuk is?” Thomas asked suddenly.
“Um, no.” Adam’s eyes narrowed. “Why would I?”
Thomas shook his head.
“A Woidnuk is a giant humanoid creature.” He tried to gauge Adam’s reaction and wondered if that’s what his face had looked like when he first came upon Mochni in his tent.
Adam swallowed. “Go on.”
“Well, we…have one. Long story. But the kid is pretty P.O.’d at old Ramon in there.” Thomas jerked his thumb behind him in the direction of the security tent.
Adam’s head tilted from one side to the other like a dog trying to understand its master. Thomas took it as sign to continue. “I told Mochni – that’s his name – that he wouldn’t be allowed to bring Ramon below ground for Woidnuk justice, but…”
“You never said anything about him not getting his justice up here,” Adam finished with an appreciative nod.
“You catch on quick! Now, I can’t let him hurt the man too bad because we need him to tell us where his boss is, but maybe…we can team up on the scare tactics. You’ve got a lengthy jail sentence to offer and I’ve got…” Thomas shrugged and offered a lopsided grin when Adam again completed his thought.
“Mosh-knee.” Adam worked the name with his tongue and wondered what this Woidnuk looked like.
“That’s the one!” Thomas exclaimed. “We’d better head back. I don’t like leaving Ramon with only one guard for too long.”
“Agreed.”
As they neared the tent, they finalized their plans.
As if in afterthought, Thomas asked, “Now about that glove? What’s the deal with it?”
“Ah yes. I didn’t get to demonstrate it for you, did I? Well, you saw how it fit itself to my hand. But inside it are tiny sensors which send a little shock when hands get clammy or when someone lies. Call it a high tech lie detector, for lack of a better term.”
“Niiice!” Thomas exclaimed. He wondered if Alexia had ever seen one. But Adam answered his thought.
“It’s proprietary to government officials. I’ve only seen it used once. But if we can get it on Ramon’s hand and your Mosh-knee kid can get him to sweat, then we just might get the truth out of him.”
“So, no matter what,” Thomas reiterated, “the end game is to get the information we need. Got it?”
“Got it,” confirmed Adam as they stepped back inside the cool confines of the tent.
Thomas dismissed the Park Ranger to his next job and he and Adam put their heads together for final comments on their plan. On the table, papers began to rattle and the liquid in a cup of water rippled. “Not again,” muttered Thomas.
“You’re used to this?” asked Adam incredulously.
Thomas and Ramon both nodded. They both knew who and what caused it. The tremors echoed the ripple effect of skipping rocks on water. In moments, they’d grown nearer and increased in strength and pitch.
Mochni’s booming voice broke the silence and ushered in the storm. His feet pounded the Earth as he ran, calling to anyone who would listen to head for cover. “The Kisgar are here! They are among the surface dwellers!” he shouted. “Run!” he commanded. “Take cover!”
Twenty-Three
Thomas felt the ground shake beneath his feet. Rough and fast, the earth tried to shake loose the tent poles from their trenches. Shouts and screams peppered the air outside, then came together in a cacophony of chaos and bedlam. This was like nothing he’d witnessed so far. He grabbed at one of the tent poles to steady himself.
Through a rift in the canvas of the tent, Thomas Knight saw it. Mountains became landslides. Dirt and soil erupted. And the Kisgar took their first breath of the air on the surface of the Earth.
They burst forth and immediately set to their inner natures: destruction. Like children who didn’t want to share their toys, the Kisgar roamed the camp, smashing and destroying everything in their path. Eknom’s folly had been realized once more.
“Shit! Noah’s here. Or at least not far away. He’s got the Kisgar all riled up which means he’s got the drum and has learned what it does. Shit. Shit.” Thomas felt like he’d stubbed his toe on a door that kept constantly getting in his way.
Adam and the Park Ranger steadied themselves against the shaking table. “What the hell is going on?” shouted Adam. The other ranger looked at him. It hadn’t been this bad before, but he was no stranger to it.
“It’s too long a story to explain now!” Thomas shouted. “Just…ride it out,” he said as he gripped harder. He tilted his head back toward Ramon and muttered “Damn!” under his breath. He still needed to question the man, but it looked they’d have to wait just a little bit longer. He hoped Adam could handle the tremors and then pull himself back together for interrogative plan.
“Ride it out? Are you loco, man?” Adam had lost all sense of the world he knew.
Thomas frowned and swiveled his head back toward Adam. His mind was racing and he weighed the option of leaving Adam to interrogate Ramon versus checking on his team to make sure they were safe. He dismissed the thought just as quickly as another wave of tremors shook the freshly cracked dirt.
Mochni was here. Abby could look after the others. But his eyebrows remained knit together in concern and his mouth was set in a firm line. Dust settled in his hair and beard and on his clothes from the chaos, and the beard comb in his pocket rattled for attention. He ignored it all and swept his gaze once more from Ramon to Adam and back again. Hell or high water, he thought. The time was now.
Ramon smirked. “Looks like you’re a little busy just now. So, what are you gonna do, really?” He watched Thomas closely as he said the next. “I mean, you can’t be in two places at once, can you?”
He wasn’t about to let on and remind Thomas Knight that though the earth moved beneath them, he, Ramon had nothing to hold onto. He stared at the roiling ground and wondered how much longer he’d remain in the chair. He hoped it might give him an edge to escape. He was still mentally kicking himself for letting his guard down and getting caught in the first place.
Thomas was committed to his decision to stay and interrogate Ramon with Adam. He didn’t trust Ramon and he still wasn’t sure he trusted Adam Lane either. “Jury’s still out,” he muttered, letting the noise cover his voice.
But Ramon had hit a nerve. Though he knew Abby and the others could take care of themselves, he was still the leader of this team. He couldn’t leave them. Between the tremors and desks and papers falling and flying, Ramon continued his verbal jibes to stir Thomas Knight’s pride and fear. It worked.
“Ach!” Thomas grumbled. He looked to Adam, whose face had finally turned flesh colored from the greenish hue it had been before. Adam met Thomas’s gaze.
“I know.” Adam nodded. “Go on. We’ll be okay here.” He looked to the Park Ranger who bobbed his head up and down in agreement. Both their faces were ashen from the tremors, but resolute in their decision to stay.
“I’ve just got to check…” he paused and his voice caught. He turned and addressed Ramon, “I’ll be right back.”
Ramon twisted his mouth into a sneer and raised one eyebrow. “Fine. Whatever.”
Thomas stepped out of the tent and caught sight of Mochni running toward him. Then softer, higher voices came echoing from a distance. The other side of the camp? What were they saying? He strained to hear and then it was clear.
It was Abby and Alexia shouting, “Get away!”
Twenty-Four
Chaos reigned as Thomas raced through the dig site toward their voices. From the corner of his eyes and across his line of sight, he saw tents torn apart. Poles pulled from their groundings, and equipment mangled and scattered. Nothing was safe from the Kisgar. Everything in their path was smashed beyond recognition and repair.
He heard the distant sound of a drum as his voice grew hoarse from calling to his team. The echoes reverberated in his mind, but he pushed them aside. He had to focus. Abby and Alexia were in trouble. “Hold on!”
he roared, hoping it would carry over the cacophony of sound wrought by the Kisgar’s screeches and the shouts of the crew.
He turned toward the women’s voices, but called over his shoulder for the others. Alexia’s voice rang out clearly and Thomas sprinted toward it. He stopped short when he came upon them at last and his mind raced about what to do next. Abby and Alexia were trapped inside the truck.
The buzz of a drone overhead caused him to look up. Thomas frowned, then glanced at the Kisgar. The drone was the only thing keeping them at bay, as they backed away from it. But the creatures’ frustrations were evident in the thrashing of their tails, and if they got any closer to the truck, they would crush it with the girls inside.
“You’re in a truck! Move! Why aren’t you driving away?” Thomas shouted over the din.
“You think we didn’t think of that?” Abby retorted. “The engine’s dead. It won’t start!”
Oh. A shadow of chagrin flit across his face. The Kisgar were getting braver. He needed to do something. Fast.
Thomas looked around for something to use as a weapon. Anything. Aha! He spotted a broken pole which had once held up a tent and realized the break had created a sharp, pointed end. With wooden spear in hand, his heart pounding, he ran into the fray.
He’d gone toe-to-toe with these creatures before, but then, he’d had a gun. Thomas was getting more used to the alien-like creatures from the Earth’s depths, but that didn’t mean he still didn’t get the cold dread of fear as he recalled the last time he’d been this up close and personal with them. His life flashed before him now just as it had then.
Alexia pulled a small device from her pocket and entered commands into its dark screen. Thomas turned as something buzzed past his ear. He swatted at it and realized in an instant that Alexia had redirected her drones. She’d called them both back and when Thomas looked to see why he didn’t have the hot breath of the Kisgar on his neck, he saw why.
The drone hadn’t just buzzed past his ear, and he watched as the Kisgar turned and clawed at the flying machines. It roared, attacked, and dodged the drones, and in its fit, chased after it as Alexia led the Kisgar away from Thomas.
As the Kisgar followed the drone, Thomas was able to maneuver his way over the rubble to line up his shot. A spear was not his usual weapon of choice and it held the disadvantage of being heavy and unwieldy. He had never been a javelin thrower.
Soon, he found a bit of higher ground from which to mount his attack and saw the Kisgar stop as if it knew he was behind him. Thomas held the spear and balanced its weight in his hand as he determined the best trajectory for success.
Thomas pulled his arm back and as the Kisgar turned to face him, he let loose his makeshift spear and watched as it soared toward the creature.
Direct hit! His aim true, Thomas had lodged the spear in the Kisgar’s eye. It teetered on its tree-trunk size legs and seemed as though it was dizzy. Falling with a horrendous thud, its thrashing soon slowed and the beast was down.
One down, Thomas thought. Now, how many more to go? At some point, the others had left the creature which lay like a great stone, still breathing though out of commission. But Thomas had seen more. Where had they gone and why had they left? He listened to the stillness. No drum beat echoed.
Abby and Alexia slid from the truck and joined Thomas. The three embraced. “That was close!” Thomas exhaled.
“You’re not kidding!” Abby and Alexia laughed, a brief respite of relief.
Thomas looked around. He could still hear shouts and fighting, but couldn’t place the voices of his other team members. “Where are the others?” he asked in trepidation.
“Well, Mochni was first out of the gate,” Abby replied. “He ran off to join the crux of the fight.” Thomas arched an eyebrow. “What, you think these few were all that escaped?” Abby asked incredulously. “Oh no, we just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Actually,” chimed in Alexia. “We were in the right place. We just didn’t anticipate our escape vehicle not being able to run.”
“Point taken,” Abby conceded.
“Oh, as for the others,” added Alexia, “I think they went as backup to Mochni. Though I imagine he can take care of himself.”
“I agree. Mochni can take care of himself.” Thomas frowned. Now that he knew where everyone was, he needed to get back to Ramon. There’d been something he couldn’t put his finger on about the man when he left him with Special Agent Adam Lane and the park ranger. The nagging feeling of foreboding was getting stronger.
He hoped Mochni didn’t get so caught up in his bloodlust that he mistook Pediah and Robbie for the enemy. The boy was essentially a teenager, he recalled, and all that it implied. But he was also the new leader of a people. He’d have to grow up fast and learn to keep calm even when he didn’t want to.
He’d hoped to get Mochni to help with Ramon’s interrogation, but now wondered if his hatred of Ramon might have the opposite effect. If it remained unchecked…Thomas shook his head. “Someone’s going to have to teach that boy how to keep his head.”
Lost in his own thoughts, his head jerked at the sound of gunfire. “What the – ?” he asked as his head swiveled all around.
Their eyes wide, the women looked for the source.
“No idea…” Abby breathed.
Thomas began walking toward the sound, with Abby and Alexia hot on his heels. They came to a sudden halt as he surveyed the security tent from a distance. “Oh, shit. He’s escaped.”
“I thought you had people watching him!” exclaimed Abby.
“I did.” Thomas shared a glance with Alexia and they took off at a run.
Twenty-Five
Abby strained to keep up, but the strain of the events since joining the dig weighed on her. Though in her 50s, Abby Hogan was in good shape. She walked, swam, ran, and played tennis. But the fire in Thomas and Alexia’s bellies ran deep, their fear driving their feet to move faster. Thomas worried about Abby. He called over his shoulder, “Abs! You okay?”
“Yes, yes. I’m fine,” she stopped to catch her breath and waved the other two onward. “I’ll go and see if I can’t find some sort of vehicle to – ”
At the same time, Thomas suggested, “Why don’t you see if you can find a truck or someth- ” They were both cut off by Alexia’s scream.
A stray Kisgar blocked their way, its tail thrashing. It dug one of its great claws into the ground and used it as leverage to begin spinning. As it picked up speed, Thomas wondered if it planned to launch itself at them rather than just swipe at them with its claws. Did the particular beat of the drum tell it what to do and how to do it? he wondered idly.
Thomas swept his gaze from one side to the other to see if he could spot something to use as a weapon. The odd spin dance the Kisgar had begun had given Alexia an opportunity to back up slowly from Thomas and reach into her pack for a small, black object.
As Alexia held it on the flat palm of her hand, it sprouted rotors and took off. Alexia then immediately withdrew her smartphone from her pocket and began to control the small drone.
She flew it right under the Kisgar’s nose, startling it. It momentarily stopped attacking Thomas and swiped at the device.
Alexia hit a button on the app that said ‘ARM’, circled its head, and then flew it straight into the creature’s skull. With a bright flash and a bang that thumped against their chests, pieces of the creature’s head flew in all directions. They narrowly avoided being hit by bits of bone and brain matter. The Kisgar slumped uselessly to the ground.
“Holy crap!” Thomas breathed. “I knew you were handy to have around, but…”
“So, what’s the next step?” Alexia asked.
“No idea,” Thomas admitted. Alexia stood with her hands on her hips.
“Are you serious? You have no plan?”
“How exactly do you suppose someone plans for…for this?” Thomas retorted in exasperation. He huffed, then scuffed his toe in the dirt. “We’ll j
ust have to wing it.”
Alexia rolled her eyes. “We’ve been winging it since this whole thing started,” she grumbled. “But I see your point,” she conceded. “This is one situation which it is near impossible to plan for. I mean, who knew these giant birdlike creatures had been living below ground for umpteen thousands of years?” She threw up her hands then fell in step with Thomas as they neared the security tent.
He didn’t think anything else could shock him. The scene before him seemed so unreal. “Guess he didn’t escape after all,” he whispered to Alexia.
“He’s been there the whole time? Then who – ?”
They stared in disbelief at the small band of soldiers leading Ramon from the tent. “Oh,” Alexia whispered when she saw who led the rescue.
“Yep,” sighed Thomas. “The one and only Miss Welker.”
Someone turned in time to see Thomas and Alexia.
“It’s Knight!” the man shouted. Another raised and fired a rifle. Miss Welker turned with Ramon at her side.
“Dammit,” Thomas muttered. “If Ramon gets away, we may lose Noah and the drum with him.” His eyes swept the vast expanse of desert. “Death Valley will earn its name a second time.” Alexia turned and looked sharply at him. He seemed resigned to the desert’s ultimate destruction, precipitated by the Kisgar and orchestrated by Noah Ashbridge.
“Hey,” Alexia’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “I have an idea.
It looks like they’re heading toward some kind of transport. Do you think you could buy me a little time?” Thomas turned sharply to Alexia and asked, “What exactly are you planning?”
“Trust me,” she teased with a lopsided grin.
Great. She’s using one of my own tactics on me, he thought. “Fine, I’ll…distract them.” Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a pile of mangled and smashed supplies.
He slid toward the pile, thankful its mound doubled as a cover. He grabbed the first thing he saw and threw it with pitching precision toward one of the soldiers. Before the soldiers could return the pitch or fire on him, he picked up another object and entered a one-sided snowball fight using communications equipment. This had been the nearest tent, he’d deduced from the items he’d used to pick a fight. All the while, he lobbed taunts at Ramon. “Scared of little old me?” Thomas jeered. “Thought you were the head mercenary. And yet, MY team got the jump on you! Ha!”
