“Ah.” Ally pointed and grimaced. “Boss.”
Harris and the group approached what she had found. Right on the demarcation line was half of a boot. It looked cleanly cut.
Harris reached out.
“Careful,” Mike said.
Harris paused for a second, but then inched his hand forward and grabbed the piece of boot. He drew it back, and then lifted it.
“Jezus, still got some foot in it.” He turned back to where he grabbed it and looked out over the empty plain. “The rest of them is still in there?”
“Yes, the remains are there. Hitch and Bull were just smashed down to atoms by the gravity. Instant death,” Mike said. “The crush land only occurs during the few days of a full moon. When it’s over it can be passed through. We think.”
“Those poor men,” Penny whispered.
“There’s nothing, not even a mark on the ground,” Ally said, crouching down and peering at where the men entered.
Harris bared his teeth. “Sonofabitch.” He threw the rest of the boot and Hitch’s foot into the crush zone. The piece vanished out of the air as soon as it crossed the line. “I needed those goddamn men.”
“Are we go, no-go, boss?” Ally asked.
Harris exhaled and then reached into his pocket for the tracker. He looked at the small screen for a while and then held it up. He cursed under his breath, and then turned to the crush zone. “Well, of course those damn Russians are going to be on the other side of this freaking crush thing.”
He turned to Ally. “We go.” He smiled flatly and with zero humor. “And you just got promoted to being lead soldier of my entire armed forces.”
“Ready and willing. Thank you, sir.” Ally grinned.
“Seriously, Harris? You still want to go after the Russians that will undoubtedly outnumber us? And when you find them, take them on? Just with Ally?” Mike asked. “This is ridiculous.”
“You don’t think she can take ‘em?” Harris raised an eyebrow. “Maybe I’ll have her kick your ass, then you won’t need to ask that question again.”
“For God sake, stop competing with us,” Jane said.
“Madness,” Mike added.
“Well, Mr. Monroe…” Harris turned back to Mike, “…we know the Russians are here, but they don’t know we are. So we have the tactical element of surprise and it is a powerful weapon. All we need to do is find them, and then we’ll take care of business.” He half-turned. “Isn’t that right, 1st lieutenant, Allison Bennet?”
“Sir, yes sir. Looking forward to it, sir,” Ally shot straight back.
Harris faced Penny and Alistair who just stood wide-eyed. He finally turned away. “Mission profile is unchanged.”
“Good grief.” Mike sighed.
Harris checked the tracker one last time. “We follow the edge of this damn crush land, and then when we get to its end, we pick up the Russians’ trail again.” He turned back to the shimmering landscape. “Thank you, Bull, thank you Hitch, you were damned fine soldiers, and even better folk.” He saluted.
“We’ll miss you, boys,” Ally added, then also saluted.
Harris repositioned his kit. “The sooner we stop these bastards, the sooner we all go home. Ally…”
“Yes, sir.” Ally led them out.
CHAPTER 19
“What do you think?” Dmitry held field glasses to his eyes as he stared out over the expanse of blood-red water. There was a thin spit of sand running for at least two miles and acting as a land bridge between where they stood and the next landmass.
“Passable.” Chekov nodded. “But I think this place has tides.”
Dmitry grunted his affirmation. “And is it low or is it high right now?”
Both men faced the water. The pellucid sea before them was mostly like a sheet of glass. But now and then bubbles popped and ripples marked its surface.
“It looks like still blood. But there is life in there.” Dmitry nodded over his shoulder. “Just ask the old woman.”
Chekov placed a hand over his eyes. “A few miles further down I can just see there is a ridge of mountains that might also cross the water. But it’s maybe a good ten to twelve hours march.”
“Too much lost time and energy,” Dmitry said. “Let’s just get across this nightmare sea.”
“Will all the water in the ocean wash this blood from my hands? No, instead my hands will stain the seas scarlet, turning the green waters red.” Chekov raised his eyebrows.
Dmitry began to grin. “A soldier with a good mind that can quote Shakespeare? Dangerous indeed.”
Chekov raised his eyebrows. “And Macbeth as well; a tragic tale.” He scoffed softly. “But as to your question, we don’t know enough about the cycles down here to know what the tide is doing, how high or low it can get, and even how long between tidal cycles.”
Dmitry nodded. “There is no moon for us to be guided by.” He squinted into the distance. “There is no other way if we want to cross it quickly. And we will need to carry the woman.”
“Two miles, easy. You know the world record runners can do a mile in under four minutes these days?” Chekov grinned.
Dmitry lowered his glasses and turned to his friend. “The last time you ran that fast, it was to the bar when your vodka ran out.”
“Yes, I broke records that day.” Chekov’s laugh was a deep rumble in his chest. He turned back to the sea. “But I think if we double-time, it should only take us a few hours, even with the woman.”
“The sooner we start…” Dmitry circled a finger in the air, “…we finish.”
Dmitry and his team of Viktor and Chekov would lead them out, the scientists in the middle with Sasha carrying Katya, then lastly, his remaining soldier, Pavel.
For the most part the group had to walk in a single line as the lapping water narrowed the spit down to just a few feet. As they began, Dmitry noticed that the sand created a bank out into the shallow water, and small sprats darted in and then out from the warm sea.
But as they progressed, the depths increased. The water still had clarity even with its red tint from the boiling sky overhead, but the darkness of the water told him that it must have been at least fifty feet: more than enough, he knew, for one of Katya’s sea monsters to get in real close.
Dmitry and his team cradled their rifles and shotguns. And after ten minutes, the heat and silence were beginning to lull him into a trance-like plodding. Just the sound of his and his team’s boots scrunching on the wet sand was metronomic to the point of hypnotizing.
From time to time they encountered blue, football-sized crabs that waved pincers at them, but scuttled out of the way to let the humans pass as their bulbous eyes twitched as they watched the strange two-legged humans go by.
The red heat continued to beat down on them, and the radiated reflection from the water was burning Dmitry’s cheeks. He reached up to touch one, feeling the sting of the burns.
He turned to walk back for a few paces, checking on his team. He was happy to see they were all alert and even the scientists weren’t stopping to investigate every interesting oddity they found.
The only thing that concerned him was the old woman clung to Sasha with clawed hands. He stopped and waved the team on to keep going as he waited for the pair. When Sasha and Katya got close, the young man nodded to him, and Dmitry turned to walk by their side for a while.
“Is everything okay? You comfortable, Katya?”
Her head rose and for the first time she also lifted her veil to stare into his eyes. “I don’t like being so close to the water; it’s too deep.”
Dmitry nodded and turned to look out over the red sea. “We’re nearly a third of the way now. We should be fine,” he said.
She snorted softly. “Your optimism is only matched by your mad looks, Captain.”
“And I have a winning smile.” He grinned, not being able to help liking her directness. “Like I said, we’ll be fine.”
“Will we?” Her blue eyes had a hint of cloudiness, but they fi
xed him like a pinned butterfly. “Have you noticed the tide? The spit is getting smaller every step we take.”
Dmitry looked back the way they had come. She was right; the sand spit was definitely narrower than when they had set out. He had been right to wonder what the tide cycles were like here, and whether they would work faster or slower. Now he had his answer: faster.
“We need to hurry, Captain,” Katya sighed. “We do not want to be caught here if the tide rises to cover the sand.”
Dmitry nodded and looked back to their destination. He reached out to place a hand on the woman’s thin shoulder and gently squeezed. “Then, why don’t we go faster?” He jogged back to fall into line behind Chekov and Pavel.
Chekov pointed. “The tide.”
“I know,” Dmitry replied. “Let’s pick up the pace.”
The men lengthened their stride.
Dmitry turned. “Keep up, people.”
In another few minutes, the sand was becoming waterlogged and Dmitry cursed under his breath. They were in a race, and short of running, it looked like the tide was going to win.
He sped up, trying to keep a good pace while not allowing the team to string out too far.
The sudden splash jerked Dmitry from his reverie, and he spun to the water.
“What was that?”
Chekov and Viktor had lifted their guns and aimed out at the water, where a spreading circle of ripples was still fanning out.
“Something came up,” Chekov said solemnly.
“There,” Sasha said. He pointed with his forehead while still holding the old woman on his back.
“What did you see?” Dmitry yelled back to him.
Viktor stepped to the water line, and then jerked back. “Putja,” he cursed. “Something there, big.” He turned. “Looked right at me.”
“Run, run.” Katya’s voice was dry and croaky like leaves blowing on an old porch. But they carried enough fear for the group to start backing away.
“Double time.” Dmitry began to jog. Behind him the others followed, keeping up the accelerated pace.
In the distance the second land mass loomed. But it was still far enough away to be slightly shrouded by the sea vapors rising from the bath-warm water.
Up ahead there was a larger sandbar that lifted their sand spit out of the water by a few extra feet, and seemed like a small island. Dmitry hoped it would mean it would be impossible for anything of size to get close to them. Would the tide submerge that as well? he wondered.
He squinted, as there seemed to be something growing on it. A good sign it stayed above the surface, he thought.
“Faster now,” Dmitry yelled and started to increase his own pace.
“We’re being ghosted, sir,” Sasha yelled from behind.
Dmitry turned just in time to see a weird sort of spined dorsal fin rise up close to the group at the rear. The rising fin peaked at about six feet, and there was a swirl further back that might have been where the tail ended. It was big, and maybe it knew it only had to wait before the tide would allow it to pick them of without having to beach itself, or even better, its prey would simply float free.
He bared his teeth. “Put a few rounds into it next time, soldier. Send it back to the deep.”
Dmitry came up behind Pavel and he remembered the young soldier had been a sprinter in school. “Pavel, run ahead and stake out a defensive position on that sand spit. And put a few explosive rounds into that bastard that’s ghosting us.”
“Yes, sir.” The soldier put his head down and ran hard, immediately leaving the group behind.
Dmitry turned. “Hurry up, people. We do not want to be swimming today.”
Pavel closed in on the tiny island with the growths covering it. As he ran, he scanned the water, and finally got to the raised lump of sand that was no more than fifty feet around.
Good, Dmitry thought, now at least we will have some cover fire.
Pavel arrived at the sand bank, slowed and walked up through the ring of knee-high stiff growths as he pulled his rifle. He was about to turn to give the group support but instead stopped and looked down. And then strangely, he yelled something and went to run back to them.
But in that single instant the sand exploded around him and Pavel screamed his fear. The sand blew up and closed around him like a trap. The growths became teeth and the fifty foot-wide sandbank was actually the head of some large creature just buried beneath the sand.
With Pavel in its mouth, the buried thing rose about ten feet in the air on a muscular trunk or stalk.
“No, no, no.” Dmitry pointed his gun and sprinted forward. He aimed and began to fire into the creature’s neck or stem, or whatever it was.
Pavel screamed; he wasn’t dead and was only trapped in the soft palate that had used the growths like the bars of a cage to stop him escaping.
The group closed in but stopped several dozen feet back. Dmitry changed his magazine to explosive rounds and fired again. Chekov also fired, and finally a piece of the trunk blew away.
Pavel’s screams became strained sobs as the mouth began to compress. But in the next instant, the thing began to draw back into the sandbank.
With a sound like grinding rock, the massive creature withdrew, taking Pavel with it. Their last vision was of the man reaching out from between his prison bars, his face wild and frightened as it was pulled below the wet sand.
Bubbles popped in the sand mass and it swirled like liquid for a moment before it settled. The sand seemed to dry, and then it was as if the creature and Pavel had never existed.
Chekov fell to his knees. “It took him,” he said softly. “It was hiding under the sand.”
“What the hell was that?” Dmitry spun on his team, demanding answers none of them could possibly give.
“Like some sort of giant Venus fly trap, maybe,” Nadia said. “He walked in amongst those growths which must have been like sensory hairs. He triggered its reaction.”
Oleg Krupin, the biologist, shook his head. “It bled. It was an animal, not a plant. I think it was more like a giant tubeworm. They live in the ocean and thrive beneath the sand and capture their prey by laying in wait for them, just like that. It’s just that they’re a hundred times smaller.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Dmitry turned to the reed-thin voice.
Katya slid down from Sasha’s back and held her stomach for a moment. “I warned you about underestimating this place, Captain. You didn’t pay attention and now it has taken another of you.”
Dmitry pointed at her. “You didn’t exactly give us any warnings. If you knew there was danger, you should have spoken up, Ms Babikov.”
“Fool, I did warn you. There is always danger, everywhere, all the time,” Katya shot back.
Even with her veil, Dmitry could feel the weight of her glare, and he turned away to stomp out over the empty sandbank. He pulled his gun and fired several rounds into the sand, cursing until his face burned from his surging blood pressure.
Finally he stopped and sucked in a few deep breaths before turning to her. “I don’t need people warning me of danger, after the danger has struck.” Dmitry slid his gun over his back.
She hobbled closer to him. “Then I’ll warn you now…”
“What?” Dmitry looked up.
Katya was pointing out at the red water. They all turned. Where she indicated, there was a huge head, twenty feet across, that on seeing it had been noticed slid back below the water.
“It won’t be long until it can reach us,” Katya said. “Then I think more of us will die.”
Dmitry raised his gun, but the thing was gone.
Katya tilted her head. “You’re a good man, Dmitry Varanov. But you can’t see everywhere all the time. You must assume the worst case down here, because it might just be even worse than the worst case.”
Dmitry nodded. “I understand.” He slapped Chekov on the shoulder. “We stay in tight, but we move fast. Viktor, you watch the water, load explosive rounds, and a
nything that moves out there, you shoot it.”
He turned back to the land in the distance. “Less than half a mile. We can make it.”
Chekov went to lead them out, but Dmitry called him back. “Time for me to lead.”
Chekov shook his head. “No, I should lead. If I die it’s just another lost soldier. But if you die, we lose our leader.”
“Thank you, Leonid. But this is an order.” Dmitry half-smiled. “Just watch my back.”
Chekov saluted and held his gun tighter. “I’m ready.”
Dmitry looked back at his ever-shrinking group. “Move fast and stay in close to each other. Keep watching the water, and yell if you see anything.”
He turned and began to run. After a few minutes he turned back to see the tiny sand island had grown its strange projections. Again the beast beneath the sand had obviously digested Pavel and waited now for its next free meal.
Dmitry sucked in a huge breath and let it out through puffed cheeks. He had to believe he was doing the right thing and that he would complete his mission and get his team home.
He wiped his brow with a hand and then glanced at the tattoo on its back, the snarling wolf holding a dagger in its mouth, and underneath, the motto: Death or Victory.
Then death or victory it was, he thought. He grit his teeth and continued on.
*****
Slowly but surely they ate up the distance between themselves and the mainland ahead. But equally, the tide was winning the race, and the first thin layer of water washed over the sand, making their feet splash as they traveled.
Dmitry held his gun tight, constantly feeling the prickle of warning his soldier’s intuition gave him about hidden danger. He looked to his side and noticed he was passing over another deep spit, and the dark red water here seemed bottomless.
He wondered how high the tide would come up: another few inches, few feet, or so high it would mean swimming? If that was the case, it would also mean they would be dead.
“Contact.”
Behind him, Viktor fired off several rounds into the water.
Dmitry half-turned to look over his shoulder and saw the soldier curse and shake his head.
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