Extinction Plague: Matt Kearns 4

by Greig Beck

  Maddock grinned. “If it’s there, we’ll find it. We didn’t come all this way just for a sub ride, right?”

  CHAPTER 33

  Walnut Grove, Redwood county, Minnesota

  Karen Kearns pulled up out front of her home, with Megan still grumbling in the seat beside her after she had driven into town to pick her up.

  Her house was a well-kept American Foursquare dating from 1919. It had handcrafted woodwork, was the typical boxy design, two-and-one-half stories high, and a large front porch with wide stairs that she loved sitting out on in the late, warm spring evenings with her dog, Belle.

  “C’mon, Meg, cheer up. We’ve got plenty of food, booze, and wood for the fire. Plus Matt promised to try and be here for Thanksgiving dinner.” She grabbed one of the bags.

  Megan grabbed two more bags. “Yeah, well, my bestest cousin Matt blew me off, the conference was boring, and Danny isn’t talking to me. My life sucks right now. Thank god for booze.”

  “That’s the spirit.” Karen grinned as she headed up the steps. At the top she dropped the bag and squinted at a small card stuck in the doorframe.

  “What is it?” Megan asked.

  “Looks official.” Karen turned it over. “Someone from the government was looking for me. Asking me to contact them.” She checked her watch and then shrugged. “Too late now, I’ll do it tomorrow maybe.”

  She tucked the card into the side pocket of her jacket. And forgot about it.

  CHAPTER 34

  Matt quickly typed in a message to Jack Hammerson asking about his family and sent it as the helicopter winched them down onto the deck of the Chilean dive command ship.

  At the rear, tied to the huge platform, was their submersible, the machine was a brilliant yellow and shaped like a vitamin capsule. At its rounded front was a large domed window, and underneath were folded mechanical arms, like those of a praying mantis, which ended in what looked like long-nosed pliers and a cutting tool.

  Matt checked his phone – no response from Hammerson. He cursed and looked back at what was going to be their home for the next few hours. Along the side were tiny portholes and he had already been told that the submersible was tested to a depth of twelve thousand feet, certainly not the deepest of dives by this type of craft, but considering they only needed to drop two hundred or so, it would be a walk in the park. He hoped.

  “Load ’em up,” Maddock yelled, and Vin and Klara climbed up the side and dropped in.

  Damn, he thought. “Just a minute.” He stared at his phone, willing it to answer. Hammerson was usually good at responding. Unless, that is, he didn’t want to.

  Hartigan went into the sub next, and Lana grabbed his arm. “Come on, or all the best seats will be gone.”

  “It’s not a fun park ride, you know.” Matt grinned as she slipped on a rung; he gave her ass a push up the ladder.

  His phone buzzed and he stopped to read the message: Haven’t located them yet. Will keep at it. More soon. Out.

  “Come on, Mom, where are you?” he whispered, and then tucked his phone away and climbed in through the hatch.

  The submersible was even more cramped than the helicopter. The three HAWCs, doctors Lana and Phillip Hartigan, and Matt, plus the single pilot of the submersible, Miguel, a small man with wild hair like dark wire, were jammed in tight.

  Matt nudged Lana. “Remind me which of these seats were supposed to be the good ones.”

  “Stinks,” she whispered into his ear.

  Matt inhaled. “Yep.”

  She was right; they were sealed in with the smells of oil, cold steel, body odor and a hint of bad breath.

  Each of them was close to a window, but most of them faced forward toward the larger domed window that acted as the main viewing portal. In minutes they were being lifted and then hoisted over the side.

  It was a sun-filled day, and they were told they’d have good visibility for the first hundred feet, and then more of a deep blue twilight following that. Matt knew it would stay like that while they remained in the epipelagic zone that extended down for around six hundred feet. But below that, in the mesopelagic zone, everything suddenly turned to a lightless dark.

  And that lightless dark wasn’t far way; the entire island was a volcanic uplift and though they would be traveling along a shallow, submerged spit, its slopes fell away for thousands of feet. Matt blew air through pressed lips. He felt a little claustrophobic in the lemon yellow tin can.

  The submarine reached the bottom and, even though there was faint light, the powerful lamps came on. The bottom was rocky with patches of weed and a few large blue gropers watching them from small caves, their thick lips hung open and fat fins kept them in a hovering position as they watched the submarine power past.

  Beside him Lana crowded close to his porthole. “Try and imagine what it was like all those years ago. It was dry land and people were walking out there.”

  Matt nodded. “They might have walked along some sort of path with trees all around them as they headed toward what would have been a narrow peak many hundreds of feet high. That’s now just a tiny rocky outcrop poking a few hundred feet above the waterline.”

  “Is that what we should be looking for, a stone pathway?” Lana asked.

  “Unlikely. It might have been more like an animal track. I think at the time the island was as remote as you could get. So that was why it was chosen as a hiding place, or why the fungi survived here in some sort of last outpost. Whichever way, there’ll be no telltale signs or structures. At least no external construction anyway,” Matt replied.

  “Whatever we find, it’ll be flooded.” Lana turned to him. “After twelve thousand years, there’s no such thing as watertight.”

  “Certainly not if it was on a downward slope.” Matt turned. “But if it was in an upward-sloping cavern, it’d be in a bubble, right?” He smiled. “Let’s stay positive.”

  “Coming up on the island outcrop now,” Miguel said.

  The outcrop was only a few hundred feet in circumference above water, but down here it was nearly a thousand around, and looked to be a sheer wall rising up before them. There were a few pockmarks in its surface and some kelp waved lazily on its side.

  Miguel moved the light beams slowly back and forth over the bottom, and then lifted them to the rock wall.

  “Starting our circuit now.” Miguel maneuvered the craft along the wall’s face. “We’ll corkscrew around it toward the surface,” he said.

  Maddock moved up to the front of the craft to take a seat beside Miguel. Vin crouched between them, as it was the largest window with the best view, while Klara, Hartigan, Lana, and Matt took up positions on the individual porthole windows and stared out into the twilight darkness.

  After twenty minutes Matt felt the beginning of a small tension headache behind his eyes from concentrating so hard. He rubbed at his temples with thumb and forefinger for a moment and then stared again.

  “All stop,” Maddock said softly, and the pilot engaged a little reverse thrust to keep the craft hovering in the same spot.

  Maddock turned. “Professor Kearns.” He motioned Matt forward.

  Matt clambered to the front and Vin stepped out of the way to make room.

  “What have you got?” Matt asked.

  Maddock pointed. “You were looking for an opening?” He turned and grinned. “I give you an opening – a damn big opening.”

  Matt grinned as he stared at the huge cave opening. “But twelve thousand years ago the island was heavily forested. The cave mouth might have been overgrown.” He ducked forward to try and see inside the cave opening.

  “Do you think we can fit inside?”

  Miguel bobbed his head. “I think yes, just fit.”

  “Then take us in, sir,” Maddock said.

  The submarine inched forward as the pilot worked the small joystick like a gamer, and Maddock worked one of the spotlights, panning it around the cave mouth.

  Proximity warnings flashed on the console.


  “Going to be tight. Please take your seats and strap in,” Miguel said as he gently pushed the stick forward.

  The submarine eased inside and only scraped away a little of the weed walls from the cave mouth as Miguel threaded the needle.

  “Big,” Matt whispered.

  Inside, it was larger than any of them expected. Once out from under the entrance lip they found themselves in a sunken cathedral-sized cavern.

  “Going to do a circuit.” Miguel switched on all the external lamps, and the cave wall glowed all around them.

  A shape glided past that looked like a long gray, striped torpedo.

  “Whoa, that is some shark,” Maddock said. “Tiger, fifteen footer.”

  “Man-eater,” Matt observed. “And also woman-eater.” He turned and winked at Lana.

  She wrinkled her nose at him in reply, as another shark followed the first. It was only slightly smaller.

  “Chances of me swimming are now less than zero,” Lana pronounced.

  “Seems this is their home.” Maddock snorted. “And the early Rapa Nuians had to swim to this island.”

  Matt nodded. “You can see now why many never made it back.”

  Miguel moved the submersible around the perimeter of the cave at about three knots, and everyone pressed themselves up against their respective windows, trying to see everywhere at once.

  “I’m not seeing anything,” Vin said. “Big old empty cave with a few fish wondering who the hell we are.”

  “We haven’t gone all the way around yet. Everyone keep a lookout for anything that looks like it’s not natural – like statues, broken fragments, columns, or maybe even writing. But even straight lines are an indication of past workmanship,” Matt said.

  They continued to maneuver around the outside, coming to the center of the cave.

  Maddock suddenly sat forward. “What about steps?”

  “What, where?” Matt unbuckled himself and crawled forward. “Where?”

  Maddock pointed. “I’m pretty sure they’re not natural, wouldn’t you agree, Professor?”

  “No, I mean, yes.” Matt smiled and then spoke over his shoulder. “Lana, come see this.”

  The woman crawled forward to wedge herself in between the men. “That’s definitely carved.”

  “Miguel, can you get us in a little closer?” Matt felt his excitement rising.

  “I’ll try and get in under this lip of stone.” The pilot lowered the craft until they just heard the gentle scrape from below as their undercarriage kissed the bottom for a moment.

  He eased in, and then slowed. “Can’t get us any closer than this.”

  Matt looked at the steps and then along the cave walls. There were no other adornments or markings. He craned his neck to look up.

  The steps seemed to disappear at the end of a flat, shimmering roof. “What’s that?” he pointed upwards.

  The pilot followed his gaze, and then nodded. “That is the surface. Seems there might be an air pocket in here.”

  “Could only be a few inches of clearance up there. Or …” Maddock turned to Matt.

  “Or a complete cave system, that’s hopefully dry.” Matt rubbed his hands together. “We gotta go see.”

  “Agreed.” Maddock sat back. “Take us up, slowly, Miguel.”

  The pilot checked his console, and then blew a little ballast to gently ease them upwards. He kept his eyes on his instruments while Matt and everyone inside the submersible were glued to the windows watching for the breach of the surface level.

  “Can’t see a thing,” Lana observed. “We might breach onto solid rock.”

  “Miguel knows what he’s doing,” Maddock said calmly.

  Miguel simply watched his instruments. “Breaching in, three, two, one …”

  “Brace,” Maddock said softly.

  They continued to rise, and Miguel slowly lifted the craft’s windows above the water level. Miguel shook his head as he read data from his instrument panel.

  “Is amazing. We’re still one hundred and sixty feet below sea level, but we’re in a dry cavern. Big one.”

  Water poured down from the windows, but the team saw nothing but their own reflections.

  “Switching on lamps.” Miguel flicked switches along the top of his panel, and the cavern became illuminated.

  “Wow.” Matt saw that the steps continued to climb out of the water and onto flat ground. He scrambled forward and looked out of the very top of the large domed window.

  Matt glanced down at the console and saw that the air temp was eighty-two degrees. “It’s like a greenhouse out there.” He turned to Lana. “That’s good, right?”

  She bobbed her head. “If it was fully sealed off from the outside world, then the conditions certainly could be favorable.”

  Matt turned to Maddock. “Can we go out?”

  “It’s why we’re here.” He got to his feet. “Vin, Klara, you’re up. Everyone fix headlamps, it’s gonna be dark.”

  The two HAWCs rose, did a quick weapons check and headed for the hatch. Maddock pointed to the steps. “Try and get us in close, Miguel. Don’t want us getting in the water with all those striped bear traps swimming around out there.”

  Miguel nodded. “The water is calm, so we can bump right up against the platform edge. Lose a little paint, but okay.”

  “Good man.” Maddock turned to watch as Vin climbed the metal ladder and unscrewed the hatch. He cracked it and immediately air rushed in, popping everyone’s ears.

  Vin inhaled deeply. “Smells like old wet socks out here.”

  Matt followed them up, but stayed just inside the hatch tower. Maddock crossed to Hartigan, and Lana. “Everyone should come, but if you want to stay, then feel free.”

  Lana had unbuckled, pulled the headband with flashlight onto her forehead, and then shot past him.

  “Do you know how often we get a budget for field work?” Hartigan chuckled. “We’re coming.”

  Matt perched on the small tower as he watched Klara and Vin leap down onto the rock platform. He turned about slowly, letting his pipe of light illuminate the shelf, and tried to take it all in. An odd breeze ruffled his hair as if a small gust had blown by.

  He turned – the water surface was like a sheet of black glass so it was a little weird to feel wind, seeing how deadly calm it was in this void. Must be a hole in the cave wall somewhere, he thought. No, impossible. The water pressure would flood the place in minutes.

  He climbed out and carefully leaped to the rock platform and then looked back to the submersible. The sub had seemed dull and dark when he was in there, but now, compared to the stygian darkness of the cavern, it seemed lit up like a Christmas tree.

  He could see the top of Miguel’s head showing in the huge glass-domed front window as he sat at his command chair. Phillip Hartigan was the last to jump down, leaving the hatch lid open for their return. Everyone’s lights moved one way then the other, creating a chaotic strobing effect.

  Matt was about to turn away, when he noticed movement. Beyond the submarine, the calm water was now home to several v-shaped ripples as shark fins cut the flat water. He guessed that the activity, or maybe the electrical impulses of the submarine, had drawn them.

  Some members of the group switched on extra flashlights, but it did little to dispel the deep shadows.

  “It’s a shell,” Lana observed. “Halo-ooo,” she yelled.

  The inside of the tiny island was completely hollow, and hundreds of feet above them her echo bounced back. Matt knew that they were still below the sea level, so that meant the cave roof was sealed and this cavern under enormous pressure; otherwise the water level would be equal with that outside.

  Behind him the rock wall disappeared directly into the water. He heard a splash and the submersible bobbed, grazing up against the rock platform with a metallic grinding. It was probably one of the sharks coming up to take a quick look, maybe at Miguel, or perhaps at the several soft two-legged creatures just out of reach, for now, up on the rock sh
elf.

  Matt watched the fins sailing around in the inky water. Sharks had amazing vision, and could see above and below water, and with their special eye lenses saw perfectly well in darkness, making them excellent night or depth hunters.

  Maddock walked back to the rock shelf edge to look back down into the water for a few seconds. As he did, something large, gray, and conical lumped up in front of him, making him step back as rows of serrated teeth worked in the air for a moment.

  He looked over his shoulder at Matt. “Seems the locals aren’t taking too kindly to us being here.” He turned back to the dark water. “Sorry, buddy, but no one is going swimming, so not a chance.”

  The rock platform was only about one hundred feet across, and empty except for some fetid-looking rock pools and patches of dark mosses. At its end there was a rock face, but in one area, there was a small alcove.

  Lana pointed. “That’s not a natural formation.”

  “That’s a tunnel,” Maddock said. “Let’s go.” He walked them toward the opening in the wall. Arriving at the outer rim, they saw the carving and Maddock stood aside. He held up his flashlight at the markings. “Professor, your opinion please.”

  Matt pushed forward. “Yes, yes, this is it.” He translated: “Hiding or secret place of the gal-ka-tar – the tall fungus.” He looked over his shoulder at Lana and Hartigan. “Pro …?”

  “Prototaxites,” she said.

  Vin looked around in the gloom. “Not much sun for them, if this is where they’ve been for millions of years.”

  “They don’t need sunlight. The primordial Earth that they once inhabited was mostly still shrouded in volcanic vapors. They shouldn’t be hard to miss as they grew to thirty feet tall,” Lana replied.

  “So, we’re looking for a tree that grows in the dark.” Matt turned back to the tunnel.

  “Nope, more like a thirty foot stalk of asparagus, and shouldn’t be hard to miss.” Lana smiled. “Ouch, hey! What the hell?” She put a hand to her head, frowning.

  Everyone turned to her, and she scowled as multiple light beams lit her face up.