Book of the Dead

by Greig Beck

  Matt doubted that the glyphic writing Andy had discovered in the sinkhole had anything to do with the land drop, but as he had been only a few hours away, it was worth having him come and look them over. If they were anything like the image he had seen in the newspaper, he doubted he’d be able to help. But he was interested, and he still he got paid whether he could help or not – money for old rope, as his father used to say.

  He noticed that Andy held tight to the railing in the five-man cage and listened to Tania deliver a continuous stream of information as they slowly descended. She explained the different machines, people involved, and what their overall expectations were based on his report. At one point she had Andy point out to them where exactly he had found his samples, her voice piped to all their suits via a two-way radio.

  Matt pulled at his visor. Tania had explained that for now they would need to use what was termed a Level-A suit – the highest grade of protection against vapors, gases, mists, and particles. Even though it was warm outside, and he was encased in a single piece whole-body garment of thick, impermeable material, the suit contained a personal canister of breathable air that was ice-cool against his skin. Fresh air and air conditioning: bearable, he thought as he adjusted the hood again. Apart from this stupid visor. He held it in place for a second or two.

  Matt had to swivel most of his upper body to look at the military woman. The full-face piece – a large curved sheet of clear material – was difficult to get used to, and allowed zero peripheral vision.

  On the other side of Tania, Frank gripped the bar, hard. The older man’s large and overweight frame pushed at his suit front, and even behind the faceplate he was visibly flushed.

  Matt nudged Andy, and motioned towards his colleague.

  Andy turned and peered at Frank. “Okay there, big guy?”

  Frank flashed him a look, and then nodded jerkily. He added a small salute.

  The cage eased to a stop and Tania pushed open the gate. “Gentlemen.” They stepped out, and Tania shut the gate. “Follow me.”

  She took the lead and they walked single file. The amount of light and activity created a show-room environment that made everything seem garish and movie-set-like. Still, Matt was thankful for the extra light as it mostly dispelled the sensation of foreboding he had experienced travelling down.

  The four of them skirted other people in similar suits who were working in teams, either collecting the dead birds, scraping samples from door frames and window sills, or waving what looked like Geiger counters at different sections of the newly fortified walls.

  “What killed the birds?” Andy asked.

  Tania looked from the geologist to the men dragging the bags of feathered corpses. “The birds killed the birds – did it themselves. Just flew into the ground.” She stopped beside a stack of shovels and picks ranging from full ditch-digging size right down to gem-collector picks.

  Andy picked up one of the tiny hammers and turned. “Where do we start?”

  Mat snorted, liking the guy.

  “Very funny.” Tania took it from him. “I didn’t know geologists had such sophisticated senses of humor.” She smiled and dropped the tiny tool back onto the pile. “And we can start wherever you say – you get to show us where you found the sleeve, and we’ll commence there. Further to your report, we’d also like your advice and commentary on what the consistency of the soil looks like as we excavate – any changes or anomalies.”

  She swiveled to Matt. “And Professor Kearns here can give us his insights into the symbols.”

  “So it was a language?” Andy asked, eyebrows raised behind the Perspex.

  Matt shrugged. “Might be nothing more than a formation anomaly. Once I’ve seen the site, and also any evidence of other communication, I’ll be able to judge whether it was human in origin or not.”

  “Excellent,” Tania said. “Are we good?”

  Frank and Matt nodded, and Andy bowed, and held out an arm. “This way.”

  Tania waved over a couple of men and motioned for them to bring the digging equipment. Andy approached a section of wall and leaned in close. “Here.”

  Matt stepped up beside him.

  “This is where the shirt sleeve was…and the carving or whatever it was.” He waved his arm over a wall now pocked with digging marks.

  Matt reached out and touched it. It was quite solid. “You said it was soft?”

  Andy reached out and stuck a finger in. “It was softer than this.” He turned and looked over their shoulders. “Can we…?”

  Tania spun. “Turn that light over here.”

  One of the halogen stands was swung around and they were lit up like stage actors. Andy backed up a step.

  “Notice something strange, Frank?”

  The older man folded his arms. “Yup; most of the surrounding strata down this far is Cambrian-age bedrock, some shale, and a little limestone for good measure. Most that is, except that section right there.” Frank pointed with a thumb to the ten-foot-wide area Andy had just been examining up close.

  “Bingo. It’s hardening up now, but still not rock.” He held a hand out to Matt. “Stand back, Prof; real men at work.” He grabbed a medium-sized shovel and gently stuck it into the wall. He pushed and then levered free a bucket-sized clod, and used the shovel end to gently mash the soil flat. “Still soft, and not even rock fragments; it’s like there was a tunnel here that was filled in.” He looked back to the wall. “But nothing I know of could do it that completely without leaving a trace of the excavation work.” He turned to Tania. “Could you guys? The military, I mean.”

  Her mouth turned down and she slowly shook her head. “We’ve got equipment and techniques that are powerful, fast, and adaptive, but not pretty. There’d be traces of any work done by a team like ours.”

  “That’s what I thought.” Andy turned back to the wall. “Frank, give me a hand – let’s see where this rabbit hole leads.”

  Matt watched as together the two men gently shoveled dirt from the section. Tania had her soldiers clear away the debris, piling it further along the cave. The piles grew as the hole became deeper; and after about fifteen minutes, the pair had dug about five feet into the wall. The going had been fairly easy due to the softness, but still, working in the thick suits must be hot and fatiguing.

  Andy stopped. Frank was already leaning on his shovel, slightly bent over.

  “Hot.” He wiped at his forehead, and then growled at not being able to reach the damp skin behind the faceplate. Matt could see that Frank’s face was once again very red and streaming with perspiration.

  Tania obviously saw the same. “Shift change.” She pointed to the two young soldiers. “Jackson, Morris, take over, and easy as you go.” She turned to Andy but spoke to her men. “Mr Bennet here will supervise.”

  Andy handed over his shovel, and the two men set to deepening the tunnel.

  After a further twenty minutes, the lights behind them had to be re-angled to illuminate the hole’s depth. They had dug in close to twenty feet, the soldiers having made much better headway than the geologists.

  Jackson dug in hard, and a slab of earth fell away. He called over his shoulder. “Got something.” He stepped aside.

  Morris did the same, and Tania ordered them out so she, Frank, Andy and Matt could crowd in.

  “Like what I saw before.” Andy traced the glyph with his hand.

  Matt held up his flashlight, following the indentations over the whorls, dots and lines. “Well, it’s definitely not a fluke of geology.”

  Andy blew air from his lips. “I could have told you that, genius.”

  Matt shook his head. “It’s probably a picture language, or a talisman, but like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

  “It looks a little like Sumerian,” Tania said as she crowded in close to him.

  Matt hmm-hmmd as he reached out to touch the symbol. The pain was instantaneous and acute. There was a roar in his ears like that of a train approaching in the subway, and immediately he
felt his gorge rise to the back of his throat, burning it with the acid from his belly.

  He stepped back and coughed. As if a switch had been thrown, the pain, noise and other sensations vanished.

  “Hey, you okay?” Tania grabbed at him, and stared hard into his visor.

  “Whoa.” He shook his head. “Weird.” He blinked. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Must have…” He shrugged. “I don’t know.” He smiled at her and squeezed her arm. “Yeah, I’m okay.” He held up his hand and rubbed his thumb and forefinger together; the dirt was mushy between his fingers. “Sumerian, sure, it’s certainly old enough. I mean Sumerian or Egyptian got interesting around five thousand years ago, beating out Minoan and Chinese by like a thousand years. But there were languages long before that; it’s just that they didn’t survive in a written form.”

  “Can you read it?” Andy asked.

  Matt shook his head. “From one symbol? No way.”

  “Hey, I’m glad we brought you.” Andy grinned.

  Matt flipped him the bird, it not quite working in the suit’s bulky gloves. He turned. “Can you get a shot?”

  “On it.” Tania lifted a small camera, and it flashed several times.

  “There’s something else in here.” Andy nudged Matt aside, and lifted his flashlight. He tugged at something in the dirt, teasing it free. “Another shred of material.” He looked around and scoffed. “This far in? That’s freaking impossible.” He handed it to the military woman.

  Tania lifted it up in the light. “More shirt.” She looked up. “We DNA-tested the previous sample you found – we confirmed it was definitely on Mr Anderson at some point.”

  Frank snorted. “Well it isn’t now, and it didn’t get down here via sedimentation, percolation or even via some sort of drain – way too deep. That leaves it getting in there after the land fell into the sinkhole.”

  “And that doesn’t make sense either.” Andy said. “But it’s in there, so let’s follow it.” He lifted his shovel. “The trail of cookie crumbs says: go this way.”

  “Wait.” Matt held up his hand with Andy’s shovel poised over the symbol. He would have loved to take an imprint, but he knew it wasn’t possible in the time they had. “Ah, forget it.”

  Andy dug in again. Both Frank and Andy excavated for another ten minutes, stopping now and then to pull more fragments free: more scraps of clothing; a woman’s shoe, split open; a wristwatch, still working; and what could have been a large clump of hair.

  The soil now had the consistency of an underdone chocolate cake – soft, moist, but slimy moist. For the last few minutes the men had been scooping it away rather than digging, and the going had been easier.

  “Jesus Christ.” Frank staggered back as a huge clod fell away and the glare of the light revealed the object. In the harsh illumination, the back of a human head came as a shock. There was thin gray hair, the tips of ears and just the hint of a blue checked collar showing.

  “Holy shit; he’s stuck in there, goddamn it.” Frank coughed wetly in his suit.

  Matt grimaced as he looked at the grisly thing.

  Andy placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Hold it together, Frank. You don’t want to puke in that suit or you’ll be swimming in it until we leave.”

  Captain Tania Kovitz stepped in close to the head. “Mr Bill Anderson, I presume. So there you are.” She held up her light, moving it to different angles, illuminating the gray-haired scalp.

  Matt could see that inside her mask her eyes showed no fear, but were instead puzzled and curious. She looked briefly back and around at the tunnel they were in.

  “We’re a good thirty feet in here,” she said.

  While they had been digging, the soldiers had been installing support struts of the same strong synthetic material that lined the huge pit outside, more of them in close to where they were now, as the soil looked like it was liquefying once again.

  She reached up with one gloved hand and touched the hair. She shook her head. “How the hell would this guy get blasted so far in?”

  Andy just shook his head, apparently not able to speak. He looked baffled, and Frank’s pallor indicated he was indeed fighting against his lunch making a reappearance. Tania reached for the knife at her waist, and gently started to clear the soil away from one side of the head, bringing her face in real close. After a minute she slowed.

  “What the hell…?” She dug a little on the other side of the embedded head, wiped and then sheathed her knife. She reached up again and took hold of Bill Anderson’s head, and tugged. There was a wet plop, and then the skull, or what was left of it, came free in her hand. Frank got even closer to losing it, retching loudly.

  “Oh god.” Andy coughed and held a forearm uselessly up to the faceplate of his suit.

  Matt grimaced at the thing she held. The skull wasn’t a skull at all: instead it was nothing more than a cranial cup, as the front half, the half with the facial features, along with the skull’s contents, was gone.

  Tania stood looking down at it, her face hidden in the suit’s hood. “I don’t understand.” She held the flashlight up, illuminating the grisly cup – inside it was coated in black slime. “Did he get blown apart?” She looked from Matt to Andy.

  Frank cleared his throat and took a few steps closer. He edged around Tania and to the wall. He placed a hand on the dirt where the skull came from. “So soft; strange. Maybe before, when the sinkhole started to fall, it was almost totally liquid, and Bill sort of…sank or floated in there. When it solidified, the geo-pressure tore him apart.” He shrugged. “We’re a long way down.”

  Tania nodded slowly and looked back down at the remains of Bill Anderson in her hands. “I better bag this.” She walked past Andy and Matt, carefully carrying the skull fragment. Andy looked up at Frank, who nodded, and motioned for the two young men to follow her, before turning back to the wall. The two soldiers who were with them continued to remove debris, following them out with another couple of wheelbarrows full of soft soil.

  Andy caught up to Tania and Matt. “That can happen.”

  “Huh?” She looked bewildered.

  “The soil…it can get liquid soft. If it was like liquid, he might have…”

  “Really?” Matt waved an arm at the pit floor. “Look around, Andy.”

  The geologist didn’t bother. “I know, I know, why isn’t everything else coated, or destroyed? Why is it only Bill and Margaret that have been…” he exhaled and shrugged “…I don’t know. Extracted?”

  “He’s right,” Tania said. “Extracted, drawn in…and then pulled apart.” She called for a sample bag, and dropped the fragment in. Her face was creased with frustration. “Still doesn’t work for me, Mr Bennet. I was sent here for answers, and so far, I’ve got nothing.”

  “Back to Mr Bennet now, is it? Hey, don’t get angry with me.” Andy straightened his visor. “Look, I agree there’s still a lot that doesn’t make sense, but at least we know what happened to the Andersons now.”

  “No, we don’t. We know where bits of them ended up, and that’s about it,” she fired back.

  “Okay, okay.” He held up his hands and straightened. “Tania, Captain Kovitz, I’m not sure we should go on. Getting dangerous in there. The soil is way too soft, and no matter how much we secure it, there’s a growing chance it’ll collapse on us.”

  She turned, and after a few seconds nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. I’ll get this sample back to the lab.” She shrugged helplessly. “I’m sorry, Andy. But my boss isn’t going to be happy. I’m not exactly bringing him back any real answers.” She raised an eyebrow at Matt. “None of us are.”

  Matt shrugged. “I agree, we’ve done all we can today, we should…” There came a grunt from Frank, and Matt saw Andy quickly look over his shoulder to the excavated hole, from which the older guy hadn’t yet emerged.

  “Frank, come on out, buddy, we’re done for the day. Let’s get out of here,” Andy called, even though the microphone in his suit would have carried the voice di
rectly to his friend’s ear.

  Andy turned back to Tania and smiled. “Friends?”

  She smiled and nodded.

  “Buy you a drink later? We can toss around some ideas.” He flashed her a winning smile.

  Matt groaned and was delighted to see Tania shake her head. “Rain check – got to get back.”

  More of Frank’s grunts came over the radio, followed by the sound of his suit material rumpling violently.

  “What the…?” Andy frowned. “Frank?” He took a step toward the hole. “He can’t hear me.”

  Tania grabbed his arm. “You’re talking directly into a two-way radio – he can’t not hear you.”

  They heard more grunting and then what sounded like a sob. “Shit.” Andy raced to the hole, disappearing inside fast.

  “Wait!” Tania yelled after him. “Soldiers, at arms.”

  Matt followed Andy, as Tania waited for Jackson and Miller.

  In a few seconds Matt caught up to Andy and slid to a halt. The man just stood there, as if in a daze. Matt came up beside him and saw his face was pale, and his mouth slack.

  “What is it? What did you see?” Matt looked around. “Where…?”

  The end of the tunnel was empty – Frank was gone. The section of wall where the remains of Bill Anderson had been found looked…disturbed, and glistened as if coated in oil or slime.

  “It…took him.” Andy’s words were barely audible.

  “Huh? What did?” Matt shook the geologist.

  Andy suddenly put a hand to his head, over the microphone at his ear. He moaned. Matt knew why; they could all hear Frank’s voice, not words, but strangulated grunts, struggling and more of the god-awful sobbing.

  “Oh god, he’s in there…in there.” Andy lifted a shovel and started furiously digging. “Get him out, get him out.”

  “Stop!” Matt yelled.

  Almost immediately the soil above them collapsed.

  *

  Andy Bennet sat in a corner of a bustling meeting room with his head in his hands, still not understanding what had happened to his long-time friend and colleague. One minute the big man was right there, and the next he had been in the wall. He sat back. In the freakin wall…but still alive, and sounding like he was being dragged away. How can that even happen?