by Greig Beck
“No, ah, I mean, I play be dead,” Anya had clarified.
“You’re going to play dead?” Ally asked.
“Yes, so they leave me. Sorry.” She sobbed. “I must try.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Ally urged.
So, then Anya had refused to eat, make a sound, or even move when prodded, bit, or scratched. She kept it up for maybe days.
On the third day, they ripped her from her bindings, breaking her arms when they pulled her free from the straps. Then they took her out and Ally heard them tear her to pieces, ripping her apart, stripping the meat from her bones, wasting nothing.
A fresh dead body had value, as protein. Ally tried to block her ears but couldn’t. She finally turned her head to scream. “Help me! My name is Ally Bennet. I’m here!” she screamed, over and over. “Help me, help me, help me.”
The echoes bounced away for miles in the cold stone labyrinths miles below the ground.
CHAPTER 08
Help me!
Zhukov held up a hand and the group stopped at a junction in the caves. He turned to his second-in-command, and the big man nodded.
“I heard it too,” Vlad said softly.
Zhukov clicked his fingers. “Mister Yuri, get a direction on that voice.”
Yuri Chaika drew forth an instrument that looked like a flare gun that quickly unfolded into a cone at the end and pointed it into each of the caves.
Help me!
He panned the device around for a few moments and then shook his head. “All over the place. The stone is bouncing the sound everywhere. We need to be closer.”
“Doctor,” Zhukov said, calling up the female scientist. “What lives down here?”
“Down here, in the caves at this depth?” Dr. Valentina Sechin’s mouth turned down. “Nothing other than some methane-ingesting bacteria.” She shone her flashlight around. “There is nothing to survive on. No food source, no sunlight or heat source. It is a dead zone.”
She then smiled up at the Russian captain. “And yet, I heard the voice too.”
Zhukov patted her shoulder. “Then we’re not going mad after all.” He turned to his group. “Anitoliy, send a pulse into each cave and let’s see which one is a dead-end and which one is the way forward.”
Anatoliy Serdyukov nodded and aimed the pulser into the first cave that would send a sonar pulse and read the returning wave. It would then decode the information and tell them how deep, and even how big the opening was.
After another moment, he read the screen. “Five hundred and twelve feet. No branching.”
“Next,” Zhukov ordered.
The man did the same with the larger one and at first looked about to respond, but then: “Wait…”
“What is it?” Zhukov demanded.
“I thought it was blocked.” He frowned down at the device. “But seems to have unblocked. Must have been a glitch. There was no return pulse, which means the wave continued for over a thousand feet without hitting an obstruction.” Anatoliy moved to the last cave, and after a moment shook his head. “Shallow, it narrows, and ends in a squeeze choke.”
Zhukov walked toward the large cave and put a hand on the edge. He quickly drew it back and looked at his gloved palm in the glare of his helmet light. His fingers glistened, and he rubbed his thumb and forefinger together.
“Doctor.” He held out his hand.
Vlad joined them and his nose wrinkled in disgust. “Looks like snot.”
Doctor Valentina took hold of his hand and examined his fingers closely. She then reached into a pouch at her waist and lifted free a magnifying glass that had several lenses. She pushed them together for maximum magnification and studied his glove once more.
“Very interesting. It might be biofilm—basically, millions of bacteria all clinging together in an excreted gel.” She looked up. “And forms the basis of a food chain.”
“I thought you said there was nothing living down here?” Zhukov lifted a single brow.
“I did say that. And I meant it. But nothing is absolute all these miles down because we just don’t know enough. Only a few years ago, a group of scientists from the University of Ghent in Belgium discovered live nematodes two miles down in a disused ore mine.” She smiled. “They were living on biofilm.”
“Yech.” Zhukov wiped his hand on his pants. “Nematodes are just little worms, yes?”
“In shape only,” she replied as she stepped forward to examine the rim of the new cave. Doctor Valentina moved her light over it. “Nematodes are one of the world’s oldest survivors and possibly date back a billion years. They’re extremely hardy, able to cope with extreme heat, cold, and dehydration. If any animal could live this deep inside the Earth, it would be them.”
She turned. “One more thing—the scientists found that the deeper they searched, the larger the worms.”
“How much larger?” Vlad asked.
“Well, they found one close to eleven inches long.”
The man snorted.
She smiled. “But the largest found on Earth lives in the belly of a whale and grows to twenty-three feet. Be interesting to see how large they grow down here at the 10-mile depth.” She checked her kit. “I must take some samples back.”
“Better you than me.” Zhukov watched as she scooped some of the slime into a small jar, and then turned to his team. “Mr. Fradkov, prepare to take us in.”
***
The team moved in a procession of bobbing lights, and although cool, dry caves have little odor, Zhukov could detect the smell of the granite around them and was conscious of the fact that above his head were billions upon billions of tons of rock.
The cave the group traveled within soon became just a crack between two vast walls, and the men with the broadest shoulders began to scrape and were eventually forced to turn sideways. Zhukov thought they’d soon have to slide, and he hoped that after moving within their chosen cave for an hour they wouldn’t need to turn back and find another way forward.
From up ahead, Fradkov yelled his discovery and the echo of his voice had an open quality to it and not the enclosed bounce-back they got within the rift-crack, but then they found out why—the young Russian soldier stood on a ledge.
“It ends here,” he said and turned to lean out and point his rangefinder downward. He shook his head. “No return pulse, so could be a thousand feet deep or ten thousand.” He leaned out a little further and pointed his finder upward. He read the information on the tiny screen and snorted softly. “Possibly half a mile.”
Zhukov stood beside him and pointed his flashlight. They seemed to be on one side of a massive rip that had torn the earth in two, maybe by some earthquake many eons ago, or even a crustal shift. To his left and right, the massive cliff wall disappeared without end. And below them it seemed bottomless.
“No, the cave doesn’t end.” He pointed his light straight ahead and across the dark void.
About thirty feet across, there was an opposite wall, and matching their own cave, there was another just like it.
“Seems our cave was split in half at some time.” Zhukov narrowed his eyes. “We need to cross this chasm to continue. Volunteers?”
His second-in-command elbowed Fradkov in the ribs, eliciting a grunt from the young man.
“Thank you, Mr. Fradkov, your brave offer is accepted.” Zhukov grinned as Fradkov spluttered, and the other men laughed.
Doctor Valentina joined him. “How would the American woman get across?” she asked.
“Maybe she didn’t have to. Maybe she came from the other side.” He turned to the smaller woman with his brows raised. “Or she was carried.”
Fradkov muttered as he dropped his pack and began to extract carabiners, ropes, and expansion pins. He checked each one closely and then hung them from his belt.
Vlad handed him the loaded harpoon gun, and the young man threaded his rope into it. The foot-long device was a little like a spear gun in that it ejected a high-speed projectile. But instead
of using a rubber launcher, it used compressed gas and fired a tungsten-tipped dart with such velocity that it embedded into solid rock.
The other feature of the caving tool was that the bolt upon striking its target immediately expanded within the stone, locking it in place. In addition, its normal break-and-strain level was close to five hundred pounds, so a single man even with fully loaded kit should have had no problem.
Fradkov lifted the gun, aiming just to the side of the opposite cave mouth. “Fire in the hole.” He pulled the trigger and with a sound of high-pressure air, the dart flew across the chasm taking the rope with it and struck the opposite wall with a solid thunk.
Fradkov tugged on the rope. His final task was to secure his end high in the cave they waited within, and he hammered in a spike to then tie the other end off on his rope. He yanked on it, then hung from it for a few seconds.
He saluted Zhukov. “Bridging line achieved.”
“Well done. Proceed,” Zhukov replied. “And don’t fall. I don’t want to have to tell your mother.” He cuffed the young soldier’s shoulder.
Fradkov replaced his pack and secured it tightly to his body. He then took hold of the line, reached up to clip a shorter line from his waist to the rope, tested it one last time, and then began to cross, one arm over the other.
He avoided looking down and just kept his eyes on the opposing cave mouth. In just a few minutes, he was nearly there. Zhukov smiled, now having a better impression of the young man after his initial fuck-up over Pytor.
When Fradkov got to the end, he swung himself into the cave and dusted his hands down.
“Easy,” he called back. “Next.”
“Well done,” Zhukov called. “Wait there, and when…” He turned and nodded to Yuri Chaika, “…Mr. Chaika joins you, I want you to reconnoiter the cave for two hundred feet. Then double straight back and report.”
Fradkov nodded. “Sir.”
Chaika immediately hooked his line to the rope bridge and started over. He moved quickly and surely and in only a minute was across. Fradkov helped him into the mouth of the cave and then bumped fists with the big man.
He turned to give Zhukov the thumbs up and then he and Fradkov disappeared into the new cave’s depths.
Then, one after the other, the men went across the rope bridge. The only challenge was Vyrin Andropov, the largest and heaviest of them. The man’s Slavic eyes never blinked as he reached up for the cord and gradually pulled down on it. There were a few pops and creaks as the elasticized cord took his weight as he began his crossing. It sagged more than with the others, but as expected it held and he was eventually across.
Finally, there was just Zhukov and Dr. Valentina Sechin. He turned to her and saw she looked pale in the glare of his light.
“Okay?”
She shared a watery smile. “Did I tell you I don’t like heights?”
He leaned closer. “Did I tell you I don’t either?” He winked.
She nodded and turned to look up at the rope.
“We’ll go together. The rope will easily take our combined weight.”
She nodded again and her lips were pressed into a tight, bloodless line. She looked like she didn’t want to speak in case her voice trembled and gave her away. Zhukov helped her hook on.
“You go in front, one arm over the other, just like when you were a kid at the playground.”
She looked back over her shoulder. “I used to fall at the playground.”
“Not this time you won’t. I won’t let you.” He rubbed her shoulder. “Go.”
Valentina got up on her toes to grasp the rope. Zhukov reached up and pulled on it, bringing it down another few inches so she could get a good grip.
Both of her gloved hands worked on the soft rope for a moment, and she sucked in and blew out air twice like she was about to dive into icy water. Then she lifted her legs and threw one hand out to grip the rope a foot further out from her position.
“Well done. And again,” he said.
She did the same, swinging her arm out, gripping, getting her balance, and then repeating the process. He waited until she was a few feet over the chasm before he gently pulled down to begin his own crossing.
Zhukov didn’t want to be so close as to cause the rope to jump in her hands but also didn’t want to let her get too far ahead if she…
She fell.
Valentina screamed as she hit the end of her waist tether, six feet down from the rope bridge. She had thrown a hand out, but this time her grip was on nothing but thin air. Her single arm wasn’t enough to hold her for long.
From the other side of the chasm, Yuri went to climb out to meet them, but Zhukov held up a hand and stopped him.
“Stay calm,” he said to her. “Breathe easy and keep looking at me.”
He moved out to be on top of her and gripped her tether. Looking down, he saw her eyes were wide with fear, but he could tell she trusted him. That was good.
He smiled calmly. “I’m going to pull you up to me. When you’re close enough, grab my leg and climb up my body. Then onto my back. Okay?”
She nodded vigorously.
Zhukov then gripped her tether rope and lifted it. He then wound it around his hand, and did the same again, slowly reeling her in while holding on above his head with one arm.
Soon she was close enough to grab his leg, and she used his pants, belt, pack, and everything else to grip onto him and then climb up and around him.
“Good,” he said calmly.
When she was at his back, she looped her arms around his neck.
“Sorry,” she whispered into his ear.
“You’re safe now,” he said and easily scaled the rest of the way across, barely feeling the woman’s extra weight.
When Zhukov got to the cave opening, Vlad reached out a hand to grab the front of his caving suit and pulled the pair of them into the cave. The big man leaned forward.
“You could have carried me you know.” He winked.
Zhukov slapped his friend’s shoulder. “You, I would have dropped.” He turned. “Are you okay?” he asked her.
Valentina nodded. “Yes, but I feel a little stupid.”
“Don’t. You, and I, would have felt a lot worse if you had dropped.” He turned. “Before we leave here, there will be more first mistakes, by all of us. The second mistake is when you don’t ask for help. That’s the one that is usually fatal. We’re a team, remember that.”
Zhukov walked a few paces into the new cave. “Where are Fradkov and Chaika?”
“Not back yet,” Vlad replied. “We were focused on you.”
Zhukov growled as he stared into the cave depths. “What part of come straight back do those fools not understand?” He shook his head. “Okay, rest, take coffee, cigarettes, then we go after them.”
***
Fradkov and Chaika crouched beside the pile of empty clothing. It was little more than rags now, and Chaika lifted the remains of a boot. He saw that even the leather sole was rotting down.
“This is a Russian boot,” he said. “But it must be over a hundred years old.” He then lifted an ancient caving piton, which was heavy, forged iron, with a spike at one end and loop at the other.
“There were other people down here?” Fradkov asked as he got to his feet. “A hundred years ago? They were dumber than we are.”
“Maybe.” Chaika looked up at the young soldier. “Notice something missing?”
Fradkov looked around and then shrugged.
“The owners of the clothing. Where are the bones?” His forehead creased. “Did they strip off and go running off into the dark, naked as a skinned bear?”
“Maybe they went mad.” Fradkov glanced at his watch. “We better get back or we’ll be the ones getting skinned, by the kapitan.”
Chaika tilted his head, listening.
“What?” Fradkov asked.
“Something.” He rose, still holding onto the boot and staring off into the darkness. “Two more minutes, I think there�
�s something else up ahead.”
Fradkov scoffed. “Well, you get to tell Kapitan Zhukov why we’re late.”
Tock.
Chaika paused and looked over his shoulder. “Did you hear that?”
“Water dripping?” Fradkov suggested.
“Maybe,” Chaika responded softly.
Help me.
The pair of them spun to the voice, their eyes staring into the stygian blackness.
Finally, Fradkov swallowed and broke the silence. “The woman.” He turned slowly to his colleague. “Coming from just up there, I think.”
“She’s alive,” Chaika breathed.
“She sounded strange,” Fradkov whispered.
“So would you if you’d been down here for nearly a year.” Chaika pulled his handgun.
“We should get the others,” Fradkov urged.
Help me.
Chaika pointed with his weapon. “She’s just up ahead. Come on.”
The two men crept forward, guns up and flashlights held firmly in their other hand. Chaika led them, and in a few more minutes they entered a larger void.
“Phew,” Chaika said. “Shit hole.”
Fradkov moved his light around the walls. There was little to see but some of the rocks glistened as though spattered with something putrid that looked exactly like what it smelled of: shit.
Help me.
Chaika walked forward. “Where are you?” he boomed. “We’re here.” He turned to his young teammate. “What was her name?”
Fradkov shrugged. “Ally something.”
Chaika nodded. “Ally! Where are you?”
Tock.
Fradkov spun back.
Tock.
Tock. Tock.
“I don’t like this,” Fradkov whispered. “That’s not water dripping.”
Tock, tock, tock.
“Come on, let’s get out of here.” Fradkov gulped noisily.
“Shut up, I’m trying to think,” Chaika demanded. He turned back to the darkness. “Ally. American. Where are you?”
Tock, tock, tock.
All around them the smell got worse.
“Where is she?” Chaika demanded.
Help me. My name is Ally, help me.
