by Tom Hunter
“Remember those cave paintings we told you about? The figures and large bird-like dinosaur-ish creatures we saw?” Thomas asked.
“Yes, Thomas, I remember,” replied Don, his voice tinny through the comms.
“Well, I think they’re still down there, in the caves beneath Death Valley.”
“How do you know it was the creatures and not your old…friend?”
“Well, he does resemble a caveman,” Thomas chuckled. “But seriously, they’re real, Don. We’ve found an ancient subterranean civilization.”
There was a pause at the other end. “Good God!”
“My thoughts exactly!” Abby chimed in.
“Got any pictures?” Don asked.
“’Fraid not,” Thomas replied. “Got caught down there with some of Noah’s goons and well, let’s just say, their guns were no match for the spear throwing cave dwellers.” Thomas laughed, but one look at Abby and he was contrite. “One of the goons didn’t get out of the way quick enough. Got a stone spear in his belly for his trouble. Far as I know, he’s still pinned to the wall down there.
“Anyway, it’s gonna take more manpower than we’ve got with us at the moment. I think it would be a good idea to add a few more rangers to the team, and skilled animal hunters, with high-powered weapons and tranquilizer guns.”
“Too many guns are like too many cooks in the kitchen,” interrupted Donald Cunningham.
“Just a minute, Don, no, I don’t want to hurt the creatures.” Thomas looked at Abby, shrugged, then nodded. “It wouldn’t hurt to have some extra guns for self-defense either.” He turned back to the radio and continued, “The guns are in case the tranquilizers don’t work. These creatures have no concept of good guy or bad guy. Their spears don’t discriminate,” Thomas explained.
“So…do you think these creatures might be the owners of the bones you sent me?” Don Cunningham was giddy with the excitement of the find. His museum didn’t need any more gold jewelry or ancient coins. This. This was the discovery of the millennium.
“I suppose it’s possible. Though I’ve only heard or seen shadows of them or in paintings. I have yet to actually see one in the flesh,” Thomas hedged. He had suspected the same, but his perfectionism wouldn’t allow him to jump to conclusions.
“Brilliant, Thomas! Absolutely brilliant! Of course, I want you guys safe and sound whether the danger is above or below ground. You’ll have a dedicated team of rangers and hunters in less than twelve hours.” Ecstatic to hear about the existence of ancient civilizations, Donald could hardly contain his excitement. But, above all, money was no object when it came to the safety of his friends.
“Thanks, Don. We appreciate it. But, there is one more thing you should know,” Thomas interrupted. “We’re not alone out here.”
“Yes, I figured Noah would make another play. With Howard gone, he thinks that initial foray was a win for him. I’m not surprised to hear he’s there,” Don remarked, his excitement tempered by the news.
“That’s not what I mean. I mean, yes, he is here - Noah and company. But, when I say we’re not alone, I mean we made contact with someone that may live down in the caves,” Thomas explained.
A sharp intake of breath, Don whistled, and exclaimed in a low voice, “Oh, I see.”
Thirty-Four
The digging sounds had grown closer and now breached the walls. Miss Welker and her men shrank back, speechless, as claws appeared where crumbled rock shook itself loose from cavern walls. Whatever it was, it had reached its destination. Miss Welker, Ramon, and David watched tips of claws grow longer as they breached the walls, their height of puncture seven or eight feet up along the wall.
“Jesus,” Miss Welker muttered. “What the hell is that?” She shrank back further and prayed the giant claw wouldn’t find her.
David stood hands on his hips, a smug smile played at the corners of his mouth. The bitch was about to get her comeuppance. “So, Miss Welker. What are our orders now? Stand and fight or not?”
Miss Welker shook her head, true panic settling in, “Hell no. We’re out of here! Gather only the essentials. Move!” she commanded.
The tense stillness as the claws breached the walls, exploded into activity as the team rushed to grab only the most important supplies. They raced down the tunnels, the shattered walls crumbling at their heels, thunderous pounding and digging claws echoing in their ears.
The slope they found themselves on adjusted to a steeper decline. They scrambled to keep their footing on the loose scree, as the walls erupted on either side. A guttural growl shook them to the core. Behind the growl, they heard what Miss Welker thought sounded like the pounding of feet. Thomas Knight and his team had long been back topside. Who else would have dared follow them?
“What the hell?” David shouted running full speed down the slope, unable to stop.
“Stay together and keep running!” admonished Miss Welker.
“Aaahhh!” cried David as his foot twisted and got caught in the other. In a flash, he was on the ground, sliding painfully to a halt, holding his foot. He brightened as his comrade, Avery, rushed forward to help him up. But, the breath was forced from his body as Miss Welker pulled the good Samaritan back.
“Keep running!” she commanded. Avery looked at her in surprise. She eyed David coldly. “It is better only one man die instead of two.”
David’s eyes widened in fear. He was stuck here, with no escape, as the digging creature bore down on them. In one last desperate attempt, David called, “Help! My leg, I twisted it,” and watched helplessly, as his team members passed him with barely a look, intent on escape.
David screamed as the creature took him in its massive claws, and swung him against the rocky walls and ground. Miss Welker, Ramon, and company cringed at the ear-piercing shrieks of the dying man, his bones crushed, limbs torn from their sockets, his body shattered against the stone walls and floor.
Miss Welker and the others ran, their sights fixed on their destination. As David’s Samaritan tried to run, Miss Welker cringed as the creature caught him. The low guttural growl they’d heard drowned out the dying man’s screams. The sickening sounds – two thuds and a great cracking sound like that of a twig broken clean through, echoed down the tunnel. So much for ‘it’s better one than two’, she thought to herself.
Their passage now became a steep climb, heading ever nearer to the surface. “Keep moving and don’t look back!”
Thirty-Five
Ropes dangled high upon a cliff face, still swinging from the weight they’d borne. Ramon and his men had jumped the last few feet or so, their rappelling gear clinking and thudding as they landed. The fear of a few hours ago was replaced by excitement.
They’d rappelled down a smooth underground cliff face and found themselves in a wide chamber. Along the walls, ten-foot tall doors stood open wide, welcoming any who wished to enter. Elements of housing stood here and there, and the promise of a treasure room beckoned them further in.
Ramon stood in the center of the chamber and looked around. Between crooked index finger and thumb, he stroked his chin, taking in all he saw. The hum of voices was a low constant backdrop to his thoughts. “Take up the perimeter.” His arm moved in a circular motion calling his men to action. As they took their posts, he pointed to one of the chambers, and headed toward it.
He could still hear his men shuffle into place as he moved into the room. The soft warmth he’d felt in the chamber had intensified. Like he stood too close to a campfire, he thought. The heat didn’t bother him; it made the place feel homey. As he walked the perimeter of the room, the heat intensified, and he noticed paintings on the wall. Human figures stoked fires upon which eggs rested. “Looks like no egg I’ve ever seen,” he muttered to himself.
Within the paintings, he noticed chutes in the ceiling around the egg. At the center of the room, this was replicated in real life. Guess this is where the smoke would go. Following the chutes to their source, his eyes fixated on what looked to be the
remains of an egg. Intact, it would hold a small man, he reasoned. Now, it was a shattered mess.
“To make an omelet, you got to break a few eggs,” Ramon laughed quietly to himself. He stepped back outside. “Who’s hungry, fellas?”
“What are you talkin’ about, man?” replied a short grunt.
“Who’s in the mood for omelets? I got one hell of an egg in here,” Ramon repeated, wondering what the hell kind of chicken lays an egg like this.
His men were too well trained to comment or move and the joke was lost. He’d thought at first to pack up the egg shards and realized he didn’t have enough room in his pack. Instead, he found in a dark corner of the room, a triple wide stone tablet. Each third of the tablet bore words in a different language: Spanish, Shoshone, and a third indecipherable language.
Though his native Portuguese shared some similarities with Spanish, there was nothing in the tablet he recognized. He knew the second language was that of the Shoshone Native American tribe but he couldn’t otherwise read it. One thing he did know, however, was valuables. And this tablet was valuable.
He set it back down, then upended his pack. He’d need to reorganize his gear to make room for the tablet. At the top of each column was a small Rosetta Stone symbol. “I may not have the language to read this, but I bet Noah does. Or hell, even Miss Welker. Now, that’s just the knife-sharp edge we need,” Ramon concluded, under his breath, as he finished stowing the ancient tablet in his pack.
He smiled, when he heard the successful shouts of some of his team members. They’d come to the door to show him their finds: mostly jewelry, necklaces and bracelets. “Put them in your packs,” he directed. “Carefully. And what you’ve shown me here had better be the same when you show it to Ashbridge. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good,” Ramon stood up and re-shouldered his pack. He heard a loud crack, and fearful he’d broken the ancient tablet, he started to put his pack down again to check. As he did so, he heard the cracking sound again, and turned toward it only to come face-to-face with an enormous, muscular being, swinging a spear at him.
With military training and survival drilled into him, Ramon’s response became one fluid motion as he dodged the spear, hollered for backup, removed his weapon from its holster, and unloaded an entire clip into the creature.
Wide shoulder structures tapered into a V-shaped mid-section, then widened again in the creature’s legs, its bow-leggedness reflecting the diamond shape of its upper torso. This thing could almost be human, except for its clawed feet and long bony fingers, imagined Ramon. It was covered in a gray, scaly skin.
“What the hell are you?” he asked loudly, as he stared into its beady, dark eyes. It was twice as tall as he was.
Ramon’s attempts to kill the beast were more like annoying a wasp. It only got angrier.
“You were supposed to go down,” he told it. The creature tilted its head to one side, like a dog listening for tone, not words. Then, finally, it crumpled to the ground.
Ramon looked around to see if there were any more. Not that it mattered. He was out of bullets anyway. Finding clarity in desperation, he spotted a wall with what appeared to be a secret door into the chamber. That door wasn’t open when he’d first entered the chamber, he realized.
“So, that’s how you got past my boys,” Ramon whispered to the creature. Ramon took a step back, and from his new angle, an almost unnatural light illuminated his spear swinging adversary.
Ramon’s crew crowded at the door and spilled into the chamber. “Ramon! You okay?” asked one. “What’s going on?” asked another.
“What the hell is that?” exclaimed one of his Ramon’s closest confidantes, pointing to the grayish black ooze puddling on the stone floor. Remnants of what might have been a man lay still at Ramon’s feet.
“I found one of our attackers,” explained Ramon. “Or rather, it found me. Anyway, I killed it. It only took one entire clip to do it, and even then, the damn thing kept comin’ for me.”
As if on cue, the creature began to twitch. Ramon moved swiftly, drawing a knife from his boot and stabbing it viciously until it was still once again.
For a moment, no one moved. Then, as one and without orders, they grabbed their packs and raced back to the cliff face. Each one wondered if anyone had seen them. Ramon stopped. “Not again!” he exclaimed, as the now familiar sounds of shuffling and digging through stone made themselves known once again.
Thirty-Six
“Listen, Abs, I know you heard me tell Don about Noah’s people – Ramon and that Welker woman,” Thomas said. Abby nodded, frightened, remembering Howard’s fate. “Well, I’m worried, too,” Thomas went on. “If they were in the cave too, and let’s just assume they were down there for a while, then it stands to reason they know the tunnels better than any of us do…” Thomas trailed off.
“Where are you going with this, Thom?” Abby pursed her lips, let me rephrase. “What do you want to do about Noah and company? Look, we – you – are on the verge of discovering a new civilization, and creatures or no, the world deserves to know what lies beneath Death Valley. Seems it’s not so dead after all.” And with a twinkle in her eye, she joked, “Death may be in the valley, but there may be a canyon of life below. Well, for all we know anyway,” shrugged Abby.
“I’m excited. And worried. I wish it were enough to just be excited, but it’s not,” Thomas cautioned. “I’m tired of claiming ‘no one dies on my watch’ and now find myself two-for-two. I want everyone to be safe from Noah, from the brutal temperatures of the valley, and from whatever is down there.”
He splayed a hand and ticked each worry on his fingertips. “Consider this: we have trained killers who want what we have or might find. That’s one. Strange animals that can throw spears and dig through stone walls. That’s two. One dead mutilated body with no idea what caused it or how it got there. That’s three. An entire survey team either missing or dead. That’s four.”
Thomas took a breath as Abby interrupted gently. “And five?”
“And five.” He wiggled his fingers. “We have all these dangers and unknowns, and we haven’t even scratched the surface yet, of what lies beneath the valley in the twisting tunnels beneath the earth.” He ticked his last finger, his pinky. “This is why I’m worried, and at the same time, excited for the discoveries to be made.”
“Fair enough, Thomas. And I wasn’t down there. I don’t know what you saw; only what’s been described. I’m sorry. I’m getting ahead of myself.” Abby held up a hand, “But, I still want to know what you think should be done. Don may write the checks and we do need to be careful, but this is your team, your dig.”
Thomas tapped his chin and considered what Abby had said. “For once, I’m going to err on the side of caution. I can’t take another death, Abs, and that’s the least of our worries. Isn’t that weird?”
“I say we wait for Don’s reinforcements, our security detail, before we explore any more of the mine,” suggested Thomas.
Abby leaned forward and placed a motherly hand on Thomas’. “I think that’s an excellent idea and agree wholeheartedly. Safety is far more important. I’ll spread the word we’re on hiatus until backup arrives. I just hope whatever Noah Ashbridge is doing in the caves won’t ruin this new find.”
Thomas covered Abby’s hand with his, “Thank you, Abby.” Thomas opened the tent flap and stepped into the tempered brutal heat of evening.
Thirty-Seven
Over the next few days, Thomas and Abby noticed a nervous tension spread through the team. Low voices discussed the existence of others inside the caverns, and rumors of wild animals flourished. As Abby passed a particularly vivid description of the creatures, she darted a glance at Robbie, now wholly ensconced as “Mr. Popularity, YouTube Star.”
It was too late for damage control, Abby realized. She smiled at the small prayer group gathered around Pediah and Alexia.
There was something about Robbie that Abby couldn’t put her fi
nger on. At first, she thought it was his status among the team as an online personality. But, even away from his adoring fans, Robbie seemed giddy as a school girl. Something was up with that boy. Abby wished she had time to figure it out. On the flip side, she thought, he’s not getting into any trouble and he’s happier than he’s been in a while, since… it happened. A single tear escaped, as Abby thought of her daughter, Robbie’s wife. He was too young to be a widower.
Back in the quiet peace of his tent, Thomas sat at his desk, sipping his coffee, his feet beating a staccato against the plastic mat below his chair. What was taking Don Cunningham so long? He wondered. Didn’t the man say twelve hours for sending reinforcements? It had been three days! He was ready to get back to the dig. The hurry up and wait drove him crazy.
He looked up at the sound of footsteps, and a beam of hot sun heat pierced his tent, as Alexia poked her head inside. “Mind if I join you?”
Thomas smiled, “Come in, please. What brings you along?” he asked.
Alexia smiled in return, “Well, I’m not working at the moment, and when I’m not working I get bored and go stir crazy. And when that happens I get curious. Now I’ve had time to process the craziness from the other day I thought I’d come see if I could, um, pick your brains?”
“Pick away! My mind is an open book,” Thomas said, as he leaned back in his chair.
“I want to see what you really think about what’s going on here.”
Thomas took another sip of coffee and set it down on the table, “I like a woman who gets straight to the point.” At Alexia’s arched eyebrows, he laughed, “I mean, I’m glad you came by.”
Alexia smiled, and slid into the chair in front of him, her chin down, her eyes up. “Are you now? Why is that?”
Thomas spread his hands across his desk and shrugged, “I’ve already read all my books and didn’t have any way to pass the time. Like I said, ‘my mind is yours, an open book, ready for picking.’”
