My God, Jay thought. It’s a killing machine.
Trell lowered its head and gazed at them, its eyes glowing like the embers of a freshly-stoked fire. A gravelly sound emanated from its throat—something midway between a laugh and a growl.
Crystal reached for Jay’s hand and squeezed it, and Sarah pressed her face against his stomach. He could feel her hot tears soaking through his shirt. She was trying to tell him something, but he couldn’t quite make out the words.
Deeper into the cavern, Sarah’s mom moaned. She sat up suddenly, as if yanked by invisible wires. Then her jaw dropped open and her mouth began to form speech in the clumsy way of a ventriloquist’s dummy.
“You have arrived just in time to witness Margaret birth a most extraordinary child. How convenient that you will be present for its first feeding. As you’ll soon discover, the child will emerge quite ravenous. So please, step inside, and partake in the ancient ritual of death begetting life.”
Trell bounded over to Margaret in two quick leaps, moving with a fluid grace that belied the creature’s size.
It’s fast, Jay thought, and felt a sinking in his stomach. Too fast.
He raised his dad’s .45 and aimed for the scaly ridge between its eyes.
All right, you son of a bitch. Let’s see if you’re faster than a speeding bullet.
The gun exploded with sound as he squeezed the trigger. The force of the shot snapped Trell’s head back a fraction of an inch. A split second later, something whizzed past Jay’s ear, and he realized with dawning horror that the bullet had ricocheted off its face.
Trell’s lips twisted into a freakish grin. “Did you really think you could just walk in here and dispense of me with those pitiful weapons? It appears that you came all this way … just to die.”
Jay lowered the gun. Blue smoke curled up from the muzzle and swirled into the air.
Tim swung the rifle off his shoulder. “Where’s Maria?”
“I’m afraid your precious Maria met a most unfortunate demise. But perhaps you can take solace from knowing that you’re close to her final resting place, for her blood swims in these very waters, her bones rot in their dark depths. I can still hear her screams echoing off these walls. Such a beautiful voice. Such powerful lungs.”
Trell inched closer, its eyes gleaming. “I forced her here under my power, but relinquished control as she entered the cavern. She tried to fight me, Tim, tried to flee. But she died. In the end, they all do—even you. And in your deaths, I will grow stronger. I have lived in this cave a thousand years. I will live here a thousand more. Nothing can stop me. Not you, not your guns, not Samuel.”
“Is that so?” Tim asked. “You ever hear of armor-piercing bullets? Think you can guess what that means?” He squeezed off two shots in rapid succession, twin reports pealing like thunder.
Trell rocked back on its hindquarters, its blood spraying the air. A scream rose from its throat as it leaped off the ground and jumped high into the vaulted ceiling.
Tim followed the arc of its flight, planting one foot forward, anchoring the butt of the rifle against his shoulder. He fired again. Missed. The bullet hit rock and ricocheted back, whining through the air.
Trell crashed into the water with a gigantic splash that left Jay and the others dripping wet. Then it sank beneath the surface and disappeared, leaving only the rippling water in its wake.
The four of them glanced at one another. “You hurt it,” Crystal said. “I saw it bleed.”
“Yeah, but now it’s healing itself,” Jay said, his eyes fixed upon the pool.
Tim crept forward, aiming the rifle into the water.
“Don’t get too close,” Crystal said.
Sarah tugged at Jay’s arm, her eyes brimming with tears.
“What is it?” Jay asked. “Are you okay?”
She tried to speak, but her chest kept hitching with sobs. “Mom said … to …”
“Take a deep breath,” he said. “Try to relax.” He shifted his gaze back to the cavern, his eyes moving from floor to ceiling.
Destroy the gateway.
What gateway, Samuel? I don’t see any gateway.
He turned toward the pool and studied the aura of blue that glowed around its edges. Could that be it? Jay wondered. Could the pool be the—
Somebody screamed.
Jay whirled around and saw Crystal restraining Sarah. “What is it?” he asked.
Crystal motioned to Margaret with a nod of her head. “Baby’s coming.”
Tim raised the rifle. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
“So do I,” Jay said.
Margaret pulled up her nightgown and exposed the bloated mound of her belly. Something wriggled just beneath the surface of her skin—an alien form swimming in and out of focus.
“My God,” Jay muttered.
A claw pierced her abdomen from the inside out, sending a droplet of blood running down her side. Margaret screamed as the claw sliced down the length of her stomach, cutting through layers of fat and muscle with a wet, ripping sound.
Sarah screamed and tried to rush forward, but Crystal held her back.
A creature emerged through the bloody slit, wriggling and writhing until it dropped onto the floor. It resembled a miniature Trell, its reptilian body coated in a glistening slime of blood and afterbirth. It tilted its head in Jay’s direction before propping its forelegs on Margaret’s belly and tearing a sliver of flesh from her womb.
Sarah’s mother—still screaming—batted the creature with her fists, but it only buried its head deeper into her womb like a lioness devouring its prey.
Tim scrambled toward the edge of the pool. “I can’t get a clear shot!”
“Please!” Sarah yelled. “It’s killing her!”
Jay lunged forward and kicked the creature in the face. It latched onto his foot and clung to his sneaker like an alien barnacle. He kicked his foot back and forth, trying to shake the beast loose, but it held fast, squealing and hissing.
Water crashed behind him as Trell erupted out of the pool.
Christ, is it healed already?
Jay stumbled toward a cluster of stalagmites and kicked his foot against it, smashing the creature’s head into the daggers of limestone. The creature lost its grip and fell to the ground, and Jay stepped back and unloaded his weapon into it. Black blood sprayed into the air and ran down Jay’s face in hot rivulets.
The creature rolled onto its back, gave a spastic kick, and then lay still.
Jay backed away from the carnage, wiping its blood off his face.
“Look out!” Crystal yelled.
He glanced up and saw Trell galloping toward him. A deep growl emanated from its throat. He ejected the spent clip and slapped in another, squeezing off a shot that ripped into its jaws.
Trell reared back, writhing its head to and fro. Then it shrugged its massive shoulders and glanced down at the child lying near it.
Jay retreated further into the cavern and took up position behind a cluster of stalagmites.
Go on, he thought. Try to save it.
Trell snarled at him, then snatched the child in its jaws and bounded back toward the pool. After it vanished beneath the surface, Crystal rushed to the water’s edge and filled her hands with water.
“What are you doing?” Jay snapped. “Are you crazy?”
“It’s for Sarah’s mom.”
Before Jay could argue, Crystal tiptoed away from the pool and poured water over Margaret’s ruined abdomen. Sarah and Tim quickly followed suit. Margaret was alive but unconscious, and the water seemed to stop the bleeding.
Sarah kneeled down beside her mom and kissed her on the cheek. “Please don’t die,” she whispered.
Jay reached for Sarah’s hand. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but we’ve done all we can for now, and we can’t forget that Trell still controls her.”
Sarah allowed Jay to pull her up without another word, and the four of them hurried back to the mouth of the cavern. Jay nodded to
Tim. “Be ready with the—” His gaze dropped to Tim’s arms. “Where’s the rifle?”
Tim stared down at his feet. “Trell jumped out of the pool and I just … I dropped it. I was trying to get a better angle to shoot that thing, and I got too close to the water. I’m sorry.”
“The gun fell in the pool?”
Tim nodded.
Christ, Jay thought. The rifle was the only weapon that seemed to have any effect.
“Will those bullets work in either of our guns?” Crystal asked.
Jay shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
A shuffle of footsteps emanated from the tunnel behind them, the sound mingled with a distant chorus of grunting.
Jay sucked in his breath. Trell’s assassins would be here any minute. He had to do something. They were running out of time, running out of options.
Across the room, Margaret stirred. “The amulet, Sarah. Tell them …” Her words trailed off into a wheezy gasp.
Sarah glanced at Jay and made a grabbing gesture at her throat. “She said to pull off its—”
Trell rose out of the pool, ribbons of water spouting from its nostrils. It stepped toward them, its eyes burning with rage. “The child,” it hissed, speaking through Margaret. “You murdered the child. And for that you shall pay.”
Tim shook his head. “Just listening to you is torture enough. You wanna know something? You’re nothing but a bully. And that was the ugliest baby I’ve ever seen. Looked like something a dragon threw up.”
Jay nudged him in the ribs. “Careful,” he said through clenched teeth.
“My, Tim, aren’t you just full of bravado? But I’m afraid you can’t fool me. Beneath all that tough talk is the same scared, little boy who wet his pants in the library. So tell me … how would you like to die? Shall I gut you like an animal, spill your steaming entrails onto the ground? Or perhaps I should rip out that wagging tongue of yours and strangle you with it. Seems rather fitting, don’t you think? Or maybe I’ll just kill you after I rape Sarah. What do you think? Would you like to see that, Tim? Perhaps she’ll even enjoy it, perhaps she’ll even scream my name in the throes of ecstasy, shout for me to push deeper as did that whore, Maria.”
Tim yelled something unintelligible and lunged forward, but Crystal yanked him back just as Trell’s forepaw raked the air, missing his head by inches.
Jay fired off three shots from his dad’s .45, sending a hail of bullets into the demon’s face. He reached into Tim’s backpack and pulled out a grenade. “Hey Trell! Want to watch me destroy the gateway?”
He charged toward the pool and could hear Trell’s claws clicking against the stony floor as it bounded after him. He needed to find the source of the blue light and destroy it, and if he had to sacrifice his own life in the process, then so be it.
He dove into the water and plunged into its icy depths, the shock of cold turning his body instantly numb. For a moment, it paralyzed him, but he fought through it and propelled himself deeper.
Somewhere near the surface, Trell crashed into the water after him.
Seconds crawled by. His chest began to tighten. He glanced behind him, searching for Trell, but he could see little in the murky depths. A minute passed. He could feel heat building in his lungs, could feel his throat constricting as his body begged for air. But he kept swimming.
Voices whispered in his mind, thousands of them jumbled together, voices of men, women, and children long dead, pleading with him in a half dozen different languages, begging to be set free.
Trell’s victims. Trapped forever in this pool. People from different times, different worlds, here together, sharing the same fate.
The water brightened as he dove deeper. The shades of gray grew progressively lighter, transforming into the same pale blue luminescence of the pool’s outer glow. The water was denser here, thicker somehow. He could discern objects drifting across his field of vision, clusters of gray that neither sank nor rose. The pressure in his ears grew painful. He pinched his nose, blew, and swallowed…and his ears equalized with a hissing pop.
He glanced behind him and saw the dark silhouette of Trell hovering in the water above. One of the gray things bumped against his shoulder. He pushed it away and realized after a moment that it was a femur. When the silt cleared and his vision came into focus, he saw that there were thousands of bones suspended before his eyes, stuck like flies in honey, rotting slowly away in this watery grave. And then the phosphorescence brightened, sharpening until it formed a ring of pulsing blue.
He drove himself toward the light with a final kick …
… And then he was falling.
His shoulder slammed into something solid, and he rolled onto his side and gasped at newly found air. The grenade rolled out of his hand and spun in a slow circle near his head. The pool was suspended above him, angled perpendicular to the ground like a ship’s portal. Through the ring of pulsing blue, he could see the murky water, could see Trell’s massive shape approaching the edge.
He dragged himself off the ground and staggered to his feet. He reached for the grenade and glanced quickly around. What he saw left him breathless.
Stars glittered in the sky above, billions of them scattered like jewels across a violet canopy, alien constellations lined up in dizzying complexity. A comet burned across the heavens, streaking through the sky as simultaneous explosions of color and light burst around it, giving birth to new stars, new galaxies.
Somehow in passing through the gateway, he had crossed into another star system. He was light years from home, so far from Earth it was beyond comprehension.
He glanced at his feet and saw that he stood on a platform of dark stone so smooth and polished it reflected the light of the stars above. On the opposite end of the platform rose twin pillars etched in intricate detail, covered in archaic designs that spiraled up to the base of an elaborate archway.
The platform seemed to hang suspended in space, surrounded on all sides by a kaleidoscope of stars. There were other platforms near his, dozens of them, all connected by a narrow catwalk, all with stone arches and gateways that pulsed a phosphorescent blue.
A sloshing noise drew his attention back to the gateway, and he turned in time to see Trell squeezing itself through the opening. It landed heavily on the platform, clots of liquid splatting down next to it like mucus.
Jay shoved the grenade into his back pocket and reached for his dad’s .45. But the gun was gone, the holster empty … lost somewhere in the pool.
The waters must have provided some kind of psychic connection, because Jay could suddenly hear Trell’s voice booming in his mind.
“You cannot destroy the gateway. This is a place of power, a place of magic. And you are but a mortal.”
“Then why did you follow me?”
“Look around you. You’ve got nowhere to run. No options remaining … save for death.”
Jay inched backward and glanced over the edge of the catwalk. The whole universe unfolded beneath him, an endless void flecked with the pinpricks of glimmering stars. The view gave him vertigo, and for a moment he thought he might tumble over the edge.
“Go ahead, Jay. Step off. See what happens. This place … it is not space as you know it. It is a place of Limbo, a great void between worlds created eons ago by the Ancients. The concept of weightlessness does not exist here. If you step over the edge, you will fall. But there will be no bottom to hit, nothing solid to crush your bones against. You will fall forever, for all of eternity. Even after you have died of thirst, of starvation, your body will hurtle through the stars, disintegrating bit by bit.”
Trell inched forward and grinned. “I’ve seen it happen.”
Jay retreated another step and felt his back brush up against one of the pillars. He stole a glance at it, at the designs spiraling up to the arch above.
Not designs—runes!
Trell crouched on its hindquarters and prepared to pounce.
“Hey, Dragon Breath! You forget about me?”
Jay turned toward the gateway where Tim stood with a gun drawn, mucus oozing down his body. He held Crystal’s Glock—the nine millimeter with the laser scope. The red dot glowed on Trell’s forehead.
Jay was about to yell for him to turn back, that the gun might not even work after getting wet, but then he saw the bag of bagels ripped open at his feet.
Smart kid.
And then Tim fired. The bullet struck Trell between the eyes, sending it staggering back a step.
Jay dodged behind the pillars. He scanned the columns, searching for a match to the runes Frank had scrawled in his own blood. Each rune was set in a perfectly carved square. He found the first match halfway up the back of the nearest column. He touched the center with a trembling hand. It gave beneath his touch and sank partway into the pillar, a blue light tracing the rune’s outline.
A second shot rang out behind him, followed by an ear-splitting shriek of pain.
“You’d better hope they make dentures in your size!”
Jay searched the column from left to right, his eyes poring over every inch. He found the second rune and pressed it. Blue light pulsed in the outline, crackling like electricity.
He crouched down, scanned the base of the column. Nothing. He moved to the next pillar, began searching at the middle, and then worked his way up.
Come on, come on.
He heard another shot, followed by another scream from Trell. But this time it seemed more angry than hurt. He spotted the final rune near the top of the pillar, one square below the base of the arch and at least two feet above his outstretched hand. He glanced back at Trell, saw that it was halfway between him and Tim. It seemed to be deciding whom to go after.
Jay leaped into the air and wrapped his arms around the pillar. A few seconds later, he had shimmied his way up to where he needed to be.
“Jay, look out!”
Trell galloped toward him, saliva flying from its jaws in a frothy line.
Jay waited until it was directly beneath him before pressing the final rune.
Trell shrieked and launched itself into the air. Its claws raked his shirt and cut into his stomach like razors.
Colony of the Lost Page 26
