Return To The Center Of The Earth

by Return To The Center Of The Earth (epub)

  It was proof for Mike that some of the race down here had survived the attack of the Y’ha-nthlei.

  Finally the warriors relented and turned to begin leading the group down along a magnificently carved tunnel and along their own underground highways to what they hoped was the gravity well.

  Harris and Ally talked softly to each other just behind the lead warriors, and Nadia dropped back to Jane and Mike.

  “How’s the shoulder?” Mike asked.

  Nadia rolled it. “The wound is already closing up. And no pain.” She held up a small wooden container with a lid. She handed it to Mike. “They gave me more of the salve. Enough for all of us.”

  Mike took the lid off and sniffed. “Hmm, a little like eucalyptus oil. We’ll have to get this analyzed.” He handed it back. “Though any plant species it’s from might be a little hard to come by up top.”

  The tunnel they moved along was paved with a smooth interlocking stone, and interspaced every twenty or so feet there were alcoves, and in each of them statues stared blankly back at the passing surface people. There were figurines of men and women, some in standard leader pose, but others depicted as fighting warriors, and even children holding baskets of food.

  “Their heroes,” Mike observed.

  “Do you think they have a religion, a god, or many gods?” Jane asked.

  Mike shrugged. “If they do, one thing’s for sure; it won’t be that Dagon abomination.”

  Jane laughed softly and gazed at more of the statues. “I wonder if this was the only band of people down here? I remember from the original murals in the cave city that another group set out over the water. Maybe they survived somewhere as well.” Jane slowed next to one depiction of a family.

  “And if they do survive somewhere, if these people are in contact with them?” Mike said. He followed where she was looking and there was a depiction of a warrior with a long spear skewering one of the monstrous Y’ha-nthlei. “I get the feeling these two races have been at each other’s throats forever.”

  “Well, if we have to take sides, I know who I’m rooting for.” She turned and gave him a half-smile.

  After a while they pulled up behind a huge door set into the end of the tunnel. The warriors slowed them, while one produced a key, exactly like the one that they had recovered from the cave city secret room.

  The warrior unlocked the door and pushed the heavy frame in. The men braced themselves and held their spears ready. A draft of hot air blasted into them, and Mike could smell fish, and something else unidentifiable, but nonetheless unpleasant.

  They also noticed that the fine carvings of their tunnel ended, and the passageway from here on looked more rough-hewn.

  “Might be the limits of their city,” Harris said over his shoulder.

  “Our guides sure are a little jumpy in here,” Ally said, keeping her gun up.

  “If they’re jumpy, we should be too,” Jane replied.

  The warriors continued and even sped up a little, perhaps wanting their allotted task to be over.

  The new tunnels led for miles, and after another hour they noticed that the magnificently carved tunnel they started in, that after first turning more roughhewn, was now getting worse and beginning to be nothing more than raw cave.

  “Getting hotter,” Mike said.

  “Closer to the Gadime well?” Jane asked, hopefully.

  “I’m feeling confident,” Mike replied. “Ulmina seemed to know what we were inferring.”

  “Makes me wonder whether they had ever tried to travel up there, and see what’s on the surface. If they even knew about it,” Jane said.

  “Do you think they knew that those beasts in the caves were their long-lost kin?” Mike scoffed softly and glanced down at her. “I wish…”

  “Don’t even think it,” Jane shot back. “Yeah, sure, it’d be nice to understand more about this race’s history, and if Katya survives long enough to create some sort of language roadmap then who knows what secrets it could tell.” She lowered her brow as she looked up at him. “But that’s not our job now.”

  Mike nosed toward Harris and Ally. “But someone will be back. Count on it. Whether it’s our team or someone else’s. This hidden place offers too may riches and opportunities.”

  Jane just grunted.

  Up ahead the warriors began to whisper and slowed them down.

  “What’s happening?” Nadia asked.

  Harris and Ally picked up on the vibe and held their guns up ready.

  “Something’s got our guides spooked.” Mike craned his neck to see as they caught up. “What is it?”

  Their tunnel split into separate side caves, some small and some looking enormous. Most were ancient, but within a few of them, the rocks seemed newly broken and scraped.

  One of the warriors turned and mimed putting his fingers on his lips to keep them closed. The motion was obvious: stay silent.

  They continued on, slower, and keeping all sound to a minimum. Mike and Jane had used an old trick of hanging their crystals around their necks, but Mike reached for his flashlight and decided to use a bit of its precious battery’s energy as he flicked it on and into one of the new caves.

  He paused, straining his senses. Inside the cave he felt a humid and stinking draft on his face and moving his light around he saw it was dripping wet inside compared to the arid dryness of the tunnel they had moved along.

  Up ahead the warriors stopped and urged him to follow. Mike nodded to them but turned back briefly. Jane was beside him peering in as well.

  “Shit,” Mike whispered. “See that?”

  Up against the rear of the cave were several ovoid shapes, pale and powdery looking. He turned to Jane who mouthed a single word: eggs.

  “That’s what I think,” Mike whispered back.

  The ovoids came to his knees and they looked leathery rather than the normal hardshell coating. Whatever had laid them must have been of considerable size.

  One of the warriors prodded him with the butt of his spear. He scowled at Mike and put his hand to his face in front of his mouth, making the fingers like dagger teeth.

  “I get it.” Mike grabbed Jane’s elbow. “Let’s go.”

  They continued on for another few hundred yards and Jane tugged at his arm. “I wish we could ask them how much further.”

  “Yeah,” Mike agreed. “But at least this route means we don’t have to hack through jungle, climb mountains, or trek over desert. And by my estimation, we’ve covered most of the distance to the column mountain.”

  Mike’s foot squelched in something, and he looked down. “Yech.” His nose wrinkled. There was a puddle, or rather large blob, of some sort of jelly-like substance.

  The caves they were passing through now were natural formations and looked to be extremely ancient stone. There was no single tunnel, and in some areas out to their sides there were no cave walls, just massive spaces or rips in the solid stone where everything just disappeared into darkness.

  Columns held aloft the ceiling, most likely from stalagmites and stalactites joining up after countless millennia of mineral dripping.

  The warriors gathered together near one of the columns and urgently whispered amongst themselves. After another moment they seemed to come to a decision and called the surface people in closer.

  One of them held up his crystal and pointed to the column closest to them. On it was an arrowhead carved into it, pointing to one of the cave entrances.

  Mike nodded. “That way, huh?”

  The small red warriors gathered together with their leader at the front and bowed.

  “They’re leaving us,” Jane said.

  “I guess this is as far as they go.” Mike walked forward and patted the leader on the shoulder. “Thank you.”

  The small red men bowed again and with that they turned silently back the way they’d come.

  Harris watched them go for a moment more. “Was it something we said?”

  Mike pulled out his flashlight again and shone it
down the dark cave. “We stick to the cave with the direction-arrows and keep moving. Hopefully, it comes out at the Gadima gravity well.”

  “We follow the yellow brick road and then keep a look out for an ‘x’ marking the spot.” Ally grinned. “Kinda would have liked the little guys to hang around until we got there. After all, one of them was kinda cute.”

  Mike scoffed. “But he was half your size.”

  “There’d be nothing left but a smoking loincloth.” Ally laughed out loud.

  “You’ve been down here too long,” Mike chuckled.

  “Lucky for you, Miss Jane is here, or you’d be mine by now.” She winked at him, and Jane groaned.

  “Quiet,” Harris ordered. “Those locals know this place better than we do. If they were nervous, we should be.”

  Mike moved his light around. “They’ve been spooked ever since they saw those eggs.”

  “They didn’t exactly settle my stomach either,” Harris said and walked a few paces to the inky black cave exit. “We’re on our own from now on. And the sooner we start…” he turned away, “…the sooner we’re home.” He led them onward.

  They moved quickly but cautiously. Though the crystals gave off good light, they didn’t throw it forward very far. It was like moving within a blue bubble of illumination. In fact, it illuminated you and your immediate surroundings more than it illuminated anything hiding in the dark ahead, behind, or beside you.

  Harris slowed as he came to a cross cave and in to sniff. He fished in a pouch for his flashlight, held it up in his fist and shone it into the cave.

  Harris bared his teeth and cursed softly. “More damn eggs.” He spoke over his shoulder. “And these ones have hatched.”

  Jane moved in beside him. “Shit,” she said softly as she stared. “And recently.”

  There were several eggs stuck to the wall and floor. They were open but not cracked, and instead had been ripped or peeled as if the occupants had simply grown too large and burst out of them.

  The casings still leaked a glutinous fluid, as the atmosphere hadn’t had time to dry them out.

  “So, somewhere around this place there’s several critters scuttling around, and one momma creature big enough to push those things out.” Harris quickly moved his light around inside a little more. “You know, I’m kinda thinking we should up our pace.” He began to withdraw.

  “Works for me,” Ally added.

  They continued on for another ten minutes before Ally in the rear closed the gap a little.

  “Guys,” Ally said from the darkness. “Hearing some weird shit back here.”

  “You need help?” Harris asked from the front.

  “Just a little more speed,” she replied. “Think we might have picked up some followers.”

  Mike looked back to see Ally walking back for a while. She had switched on the barrel light from her gun that was illuminating the passage they had just come out of.

  “Don’t suppose it’s our red people escort?” Jane asked.

  “Maybe,” Ally said. “But sounds like who or whatever it is, is trying to be re-eeeal quiet.”

  “Double-time,” Harris said and broke into a jog.

  Mike placed a hand on Jane’s shoulder to steady himself as he walked and looked back to Ally. In the glow of the blue light from her crystal he saw that her brows were drawn together, and she constantly turned to look back the way they’d come. But for now there was nothing but the swallowing blackness.

  Ally ran silently, probably hoping that if she couldn’t see what was going on, she could at least hear what was happening behind her. She turned back momentarily and saw Mike watching her.

  She shook her head. “Yeah, it’s back there, and it’s still coming.”

  Mike nodded and when they entered a long and straight section of the tunnel they were in he took out one of the smaller shards of crystal Ulmina had given him and let it drop to the ground.

  Ally saw it and stepped over it, and they continued on. But this time as they ran, the cave behind them remained illuminated.

  After a few seconds, Ally slowed. “Something.”

  Mike and Jane slowed to watch, and Nadia noticed and began to back up, but into Harris.

  Harris spun and pushed her aside. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Here it comes,” Ally whispered.

  From a narrowing in the cave, just back from the illuminated section, a pair of human-like hands gripped the rocks to the top of the passageway. Then easing its way through came a pair of shoulders and head, still human-shaped, they thought.

  But only at first because as it leaned in closer to the illuminating crystal they saw that the head looked smooth except for two holes high up on the front of the face that opened and closed wetly. It seemed these weren’t eyes, but nasal holes for sniffing the air.

  But there were more anomalies, as instead of a mouth there was a tight ring of crinkled muscle in the lower face that slowly stretched open and out showing rings of needle-like teeth. This hole was actually on the end of a fleshy pipe that extended outward for a few inches, waved in the air and then drew back in.

  “Oh, fuck off,” Ally whispered, lifting her rifle.

  Any final semblance of the creature being human-shaped was shattered when it drew the rest of its body in closer to the light. As it appeared, they saw that the upper human-like torso was attached to something that was like a short centipede, with segments and multiple sharp-pointed legs that it carefully placed forward, obviously still working in stealth mode and not aware it had been seen.

  Ally lifted her gun. “Anyone want to take a guess at what laid those eggs?”

  “This is what the red warriors were afraid of. Probably for good reason,” Jane said. “We need to back away, real slow.”

  From behind them a single gunshot rang out, making Nadia squeak and Mike cringe and turn. Ally just braced herself with her gun up.

  Mike saw that it was Harris that had fired a single round into the thing, and snapping his head back around saw that his bullet had punctured the chest plate. The creature froze for a moment, but gave zero indication it had been hurt.

  Jane shook her head. “With that weird symmetry we have no way of knowing where any of its vital organs are.”

  The creature lifted its blank face and its nostril holes fluttered for a moment and they could hear the sucking intake of air.

  “It’s tasting us,” Jane said softly. “It knows we’re here.”

  From beside it on all sides, smaller versions of the creature began to appear. Each of the mini horrors was about a foot long and clung to the walls and ceilings like elongated spiders.

  “The hatchlings,” Jane whispered.

  The group began to back up. More of the smaller creatures appeared, now numbering about a dozen.

  Harris breathed. “We’re out of here, people.” He walked forward a few paces to Jane and Mike, grabbed Jane’s shirt and tugged on it, while keeping his eyes on the thing.

  Ally began to back up, as Nadia got behind them all.

  Then, as if being given a signal, the swarm charged. The huge creature barreled down the center of the cave, filling it, while the cave walls and ceiling became covered in the scuttling hatchlings.

  “Run,” Harris yelled and fired. Ally gave a burst and then turned as well, while occasionally firing back over her shoulder.

  The upside of the single tunnel was it kept the creatures behind them. But the things were fast and Mike knew they’d be run down quickly.

  In seconds the smaller creatures were among them, and each of the humans were fending off the tiny horrors as they tried to latch on with their sharp legs and attempted to burrow their long tube-like mouths into their flesh.

  “Argh!” Ally reached down to grab one of the things that had attached to her leg.

  Mike grabbed one from Jane’s back and threw it hard against the wall. All that did was make it bounce, roll and get back to its multiple feet to scuttle after them all over again as if nothing
had happened.

  Mike then felt one on his calf and the pain was excruciating as the thing gripped and then burrowed in. The mouth end on the pipe seemed like a suction cap with the needle teeth when they stuck and then wormed their way into the flesh.

  He pulled his knife blade and swept it down hard enough so that he chopped several of the legs from the body. It dropped away, scuttling lopsided back into the darkness. He turned to run on.

  Ally screamed her fury and her gun went full throttle. The huge thing had caught up to them, and it had tried to pin Ally with one long pointed leg. She dived and rolled away and came up firing again as the group continued to be forced back.

  Finally they were pushed into a larger cavern with multiple exits. The crystals only provided light in close and with all the confusion and panic, and gunfire, and encroaching darkness, the group was forced to different corners and spread out.

  “Hey, this way,” Jane yelled to the group and pointed to an arrowhead carved into a wall.

  Mike followed her and together they ran hard, hearing the rapid footsteps and gunfire of the others close behind them.

  In minutes more they came to a narrower opening and Mike and Jane stopped to get their breath as the others caught up. Harris and Ally burst in after them, and Ally fired off another few rounds, until her rifle clicked on empty.

  “That’s it, this baby is out.” Ally pushed her rifle over her shoulder and pulled her handgun, holding it in two hands to aim back down the passage.

  They waited, but nothing followed them.

  “I think they’ve given up,” Harris said.

  “Why?” Jane asked.

  Mike frowned. “Hey, where’s Nadia?”

  Harris scoffed. “That’s why.”

  *****

  Nadia ran, almost blindly down the passage. The blue glow of her crystal only gave her a split second notice for twists, turns, or outcroppings in the labyrinthine cave.