by Thomas Head
Stones exploded in on them. Slabs of concrete the size of a torso scooted in and jutted toward them. Metal girders crashed over their heads, the dead, round timbers the naked metal poking downward like spears before splintering and shooting at them with a great rumbling snaps.
Now figures dropped from the floors above them, pounding to the broken stone floor in agony.
Then the bullets ceased.
But Doc did not hesitate.
“Spears!” he roared.
The great grinding noise of a collapsing wall deafened them to his cries.
“Your spears, fools! Grab ye spears ‘for I shove mine up ye’ asses!””
Jickie, Tyler, Rocco and more than a dozen barmaids, their wounds less grave than they had first seemed, each grabbed their spears, shoving rubble out of their way.
Uncle Jickie shook his head, loading shells into a shotgun. “Fuck that!”
Doc tared in amazement, shaking his head too, and he roared, “Work the same spot all the way through!”
Tyler and Rocco raced to an area where they could get some higher ground. And for several hopeful moments, it was just so much macabre sport. They sent shells into the windows, deep into the busting glass.
“Heave, heave those spears and send that buckshot on in there good!” one of them shouted, laughing like a wild savage.
Debris still burned about their feet, and this too was flung at the machine in their frenzy. But as the helicopter opened fire again, two of the maids were cut in half as they scampered like mad to escape.
A third barmaid was struck, and he managed to get her loose shells.
But that was the last of the amo.
Someone else was shot, and Doc thought it first it was Uncle Jickie, because he roared out such a cry that despite all the crazed and hellish fury of that moment, Doc turned to him. But he had not been shot. It was a cry of war, and Doc saw him stand on a fallen chunk of concrete to fire on the machine at window level.
The bullets once more ceased.
Then, the wall between them and the machine fell away.
The barmaids fell back as far as the limited space would allow, and now they were firing their bows again.
Doc feared they were fools, fighting for nothing, and that all their struggles would soon be over, because all that the helicopter had to do at that point was engulf them in bullets and it would be over. But either it could no longer produce its terrible spittle, or the longmongers in its belly were dead.
But then, at the edge of victory, the floor collapsed. Doc heard the himself roaring even as the stones groaned beneath their feet, and they fell fourteen feet beneath the earth.
He remembered hitting the ground awkwardly, at an angle.
Then everything went black.
Chapter 53
Doc would swear he woke up just moments after he struck the stones. He knew he was beneath the earth, but it felt foggy and slow, as if he were still in some sleepy dream.
Finally, Doc managed to form something resembling thoughts in his head. They were all bent and stirring, two groups of them, facing every direction. The ruins were just a giant ring of rubble, open to the graying morning sky. The helicopter was still silent.
In the center of all that bloody, smoldering concrete and metals debris, the whole went deeper still.
“Down here, boys!” cried Big Rocco, who was apparently still very much alive, roared up to him.
Doc looked back at what he thought were stirring bodies. It was strange to be so mistaken, for all that Doc could discern now was the corpses of a dozen barmaids—apparently, their outward position had been their demise. He peered down into the hole again, and he was utterly taken back at the sight of his uncle, who was missing a part of his left hand. Jick had a deep gouge running down the length of his face, but was still very much in the high spirits of battle.
“Doc, old boy!” said Dale.
“You, sir, are still alive!” said Tyler. “And it seems you’re none the worse for wear!”
His uncle Jickie spat. “Now see here! Enough will all this pussy-ass catching up! This thing looks like it leads to the lair. Get ye’self down here and help us kill the fuckers before I blow thee bones out ye’ damned hide!”
Of the commandos, it seemed that aside from Jickie’s wounds, Doc had borne the worst of the brunt of the fall. Every one of them that had survived the initial onslaught was still among them: Rocco, Dale, Tyler, Jickie, and a trio of barmaids. Bik and Andi were two of them. The third was bald as the ass of a baby bird, and she was completely unknown to him.
“Dinga,” his uncle called to the third, “help that lazy nephew of mine down here, won’t you girl!”
Doc smiled, then looked down, and could not keep a frown from the corners of his mouth as he waved Dinga off, giving her a look to let her and his uncle know that, by damn, he’d not be needing help this day!
“We’re going down there?!”
“Yep,” Rocco said. “Slithering our asses down like oiled up snakes!”
“Fucking hell,” Doc called, picking his way down through the rubble.
For a moment, he thought to tell them that they needed to slow down and collect themselves, to find their gear and their weapons. But the boys were far too eager to stop, and to rest now might melt away the courage that was propelling them after the fearsome longmongers. He paused only to gather more wood for torches.
“Here we go,” Dinga said, ignoring his look and helping him down anyway. She handed him a long bow, a quiver of two arrows, and his broken samurai sword, which was missing about seven inches.
“Now we’ll they have ourselves some sport!” he said, flipping the ridiculous weapon in his hand.
Bald Dinga looked at him, as if sizing him up.
“We’ll make a barmaid out of you yet!” she announced, at which the others, bloodied, grimy and depleted, began roaring with laughter.
* * *
Light and dust still streamed from the opening behind them as they formed a chevron of swords and flaming wooden posts.
They began stepping down further into the earth through winding pits and crevices. Soon they were under the high ceiling of the caves. Doc gripped the broken post that was his torch, his fist quaking. They picked their way together across a rock bridge. The pits to either side of them were seemingly bottomless. And they traveled this way for hours upon hours. It was as horrifying as it was beautiful. At places, they had to swim and much as they walked, and at other places, the cave floor was as smooth as a hand-hewn tunnel. There were long stretches of broken stalactites or bits of stone on which it seemed some beast’s flesh clung
In time, their primitive torches became short, and they had to wait, cautiously, holding more wood over them and praying that the next torches caught fire before the first one went out. To lose light at these depths was a death sentence.
They had gone miles, it seemed, though it was hard to say how much time had passed without the sun or stars to guide them. There were spots where they peered over the edge of the stones down at a tremendous river that no doubt spilled into the lake, wondering if they would lead to the lair But then they would think better of it, remembering their fire.
As they went along, shoulder to shoulder, Doc was sometimes surprised at the emptiness, at the great enormity of the silence, and at the steam that rose in tremendous, low clouds from certain pits. At a particularly wide stretch of the cave, there was a great wall, covered in a brilliant orange substance that Doc suspected was mold of some sort, but it was hard as stone.
The arm of the cave they traveled seemed to starch on forever at one point. It was so wide and dark that they all paused, fearing an ambush. But the only thing they encountered was a column of stone that rose from the floor of the cave, spilling steaming water from its top like a massive fountain.
It was probably only six or seven hours, but it felt like a full day had passed under the earth until finally the thin and grayish light of an exit ahead of them.
* * *
They heard the sound of the waves breaking in the distance, and they emerged at the foot of the black mountain, which rested atop a series of the smaller, rock-strewn hillocks that were not visible before. They rolled distantly and softly across the sweeps of stone that rolled away back to the east.
Doc came out, slowly, and kept to the edge of cliff that rimmed a good part of the mountain, staying as concealed in shadow as he could possibly remain while the others emerged, squinting. All of their narrowing eyes turned upward at the mountain, at the enormous spires and craggy caves that stretched a half a mile into the sky. Like the cave, it was as beautiful as it was foreboding, and it was stunning in a very literal sense. It hushed the soul into stunned silence.
The mountain shared something else with the cave in that it was quiet, emptied of all birds and their nests that one might normally expect. There was only the white noise of wind and dull lake surf. At a bend of crags, succumbing to more and smaller, jagged spires, the stones congested around the largest entrance, the very one they had first seen the helicopter emerge from. It was three fourths of the way up, and just above that, it was capped by thin clouds that rolled thinly and lightly across the top.
Nearer, along the rock-strewn beach that surrounded the southern face of the mountain, was a small gap that promised them a way up—but it was a thin promise.
Tyler looked at Doc.
Doc stare back. “What is this?”
“When the plane crashed, I mean, just before…”
“Yeah?”
“There was a light. The plane… The … there’s no way any pilot kept that plane in the air.”
“What… what are you saying?”
“That light became the plane, I think.”
“What?”
Tyler looked at Doc again.
“You heard me. You’ve seen these machines. What we’re facing. It isn’t from this world.”
Chapter 54
.
There was no sign of the longmongers, nor any clue how the might normally enter the mountain. There was just the silence, interrupted in leaden waves as the pewter-colored lake washed back and forth on the cliffs.
For a long moment, the eight of them just stared up at the entrance, which was easily a quarter mile up. They were breathing heavily. All of them were damp, cold, and silent.
Then distant splashes resounded from the water.
They turned
There was nothing.
Suddenly, for just the briefest flash of a moment, Doc thought he heard Emily’s cry, far above.
Tyler strode out away from them, peering up. He seemed senseless and focused at the same time, and there was something beyond fear on his face. It was not terror or hate, or even hope.
It was a curious fearsomeness.
His stomach lurched as Doc watched him, half out of his head, scampering along the wall for a place to start.
At the mere thought of climbing, the way up seemed almost infinite; one would have to be a spider or a bird to even think it was possible. His head was swimming. Death could come so easily, at the mere cramp of a finger or a leg on such a climb, but Doc knew there was no stopping him as he hefted himself without words onto the first ledge.
Doc shook his head, and told the others to stay where they were, but already the rest of the party was slipping on the iron-slick stones, and just as he joined them, a wind came like the howl of some ancient force. Strafes of spray from the lake bit into his face. His torn camo was beating wildly. Sweat-soaked hair snaked across his chest-plate as Doc raised one raw hand after another.
“Rocco! Uncle Jickie! Won’t you stay here and search for another way in?”
“Pah!” Rocco thundered, clasping his uncle’s shoulder. “Why, sir, have you never told him me our nephew was such a glutton for all the glory and danger!”
“Of course he is, sir! His mother was a McCarthy, don’t you know! And no McCarthy ever learned how to share glory but by it being stolen from him!”
“Then after you, sir!” Rocco said to him.
Doc could only spit, and wish them well.
Out toward the lake a bit, Tyler’s graven face showed no expression. Even as stones slipped from his footing, jarring into the water, he only looked up. His hand stayed white as he climbed, sweat rolling from his nose. It seemed he saw only his wife and little lad.
They were some thirty feet up when a small goat path appeared. Doc almost dropped, having to grab a wet stone with both hands to get up onto it
Then Doc heard screaming, collapsing stones, and as he launched himself up onto the trail, he saw Miss Andi hurling downward headfirst. Doc went numb. The stones reddened as she landed, ferociously quick. The noise was like a cruel and disgusting pop, and it was audible even as his ripped camo was beating like a banner in the fierce wind.
Then Doc saw what had felled her. It was a small shaft from which steam shot out and rose in great, hot plumes on the wind, only to dissipate against the rocks.
Doc looked down again at the barmaid. Pieces of her skull were spreading with the pool of blood around her lifeless head. She was smiling, as silent and motionless as the rocks on which she rested.
With a nod from Bik, her companion, Doc launched himself upward again. Then it started raining, and the fats drops came in on them sideways as they ascended. The very warmth of his blood seemed to steal away, and yet with gruesome roars of pain and exertion, they each flopped sideways, onto higher and higher trails.
When Doc saw Rocco and Jickie, alongside Dale and Bald Dinga, it seemed their old red faces would explode.
“Hoooold on, Mister Rocco,” his uncle roared, helping the large fellow up over a slick ledge. His uncle’s voice was as strong as a bull, and even at his impressive age, there was an imposing amount of power left in his arms. “We’ll be food for the gulls and crabs if we don’t mind our steps there, sir!”
Now massive sheets of wind swooped, and the rain thinned and began stinging like tiny missiles. The monstrosity of the climb was only just underway, and already his arms felt frail, and his own body felt like a wagon of freight.
Yet Tyler was swift, driven by something Doc could only call madness. He was already forty feet higher than everyone else, ascending in zigs and zags like a barn swallow.
“Ho! Keep a hold on ye’ ass and mind your footing, boys!” Rocco wailed, and Doc echoed his cry, but no sooner than Doc did, the big fellow went screaming with laughter over the edge, Dale reaching after him. But Dale’s leg snapped, and Rocco, still laughing his boisterous, thunderous laugh, fell.
His uncle froze, looking down.
Rocco had died, laughing, busting his back and cracking his helmet on the rocks below.
Uncle Jickie grunted. He took a deep breath, wiping his face. Then he spewed vomit over the side, roaring out his anguish in a strangely silent way at the sight of his brother’s broken body. He was both laughing and fighting tears. But in the end, he just shook his head and spat again. His lips pursed. He refused him even a glance as Dale waved them on, and they began once again up the side of the structure.
Tyler had fallen a bit, but was picking his way back up to where he was gripping and thrusting in ever-upward undulations and kicks.
Doc looked down once more at Dale, noting that his leg was angled gruesomely.
Again, he waved them up.
“Go, Doc! Mind your friend Tyler!”
Doc nodded once more, and charged up the mountainside with all that he had in him. But he had not gone twenty more feet up when his hand ripped open on a sharp leave of stone. Doc almost plummeted to the rocks below before he caught himself on Bik’s sweaty forehead, which he kissed.
Twice.
Doc helped her swing upward ahead of him, cupping her heels as she scampered above him onto another one of the smallish trails. But her strength was leaving her, too; she swung up awkwardly, and slipped, and the force of her heel on his face again almost sent them crashing downward to their deaths.
A
nd there were more vertical stretches above.
Many, many more.
But somehow, straining and grunting, sweating and cursing, farting and screaming, they made it up.
Chapter 55
As they flung themselves atop the utmost ledge, right into from of the mouth of the devils’ lair, Doc could no longer breathe. There was no feeling left in him but a pain in his left shoulder like a seizure of the heart.
Tyler had finally exhausted himself too. His eyes were closed as he helped Bik, Dinga, and Jickie up.
He flopped lifelessly onto the stones.
They all lay there, panting. They were unable to even sit upright. But when Doc finally did, fear flushed down his back like cold water. The inside of the lair was horribly dark, and had been unable to bring their burning timber up the sheer cliff face. But that was not was struck him with such fear—when Doc looked again, and something struck him as so odd that Doc had to look yet again.
This was no cave.
This was a tunnel, a hall… which meant that the entire mountain was not a mountain at all, but some manner of…
Well…
Shit…
He had no idea what it was.
Doc rubbed his face in disbelief. Folk often say that they could scarcely believe their eyes, but in his case, it was true. Doc wondered if he was getting enough blood to his head, or if something in their journey had driven him to madness. For this leviathan to have been built would take a technology more powerful than even the Sci Fi old tales spoke of. It was a fierce dose of reality to absorb, and it scooted him back a step. The same recognition began to wash over the rest of them, and they all looked in at the cobbled walls and floor.
“Thundering fuck,” Tyler wheezed.
His uncle drew him under his arm. “What in the frozen depths is this, boy?”
“I… don’t have a fucking clue.”
