“No,” Chuck answered, “I’m afraid for a reason I have no idea about yet.”
Tamar cocked a curious eyebrow up at him. She hadn’t known him that long but she was sure that man wasn’t afraid of much. She, too, was feeling something that made her uneasy. JJ turned off the truck as they all climbed out.
“No JJ,” Chuck said. “Leave it running and wait here, turn it around so we can leave fast if this goes south. As Antonio would say ‘my Oh Shit Meter is in the red’.”
JJ looked questioningly at him; he hadn’t heard that particular phrase yet. Chuck’s instincts were usually correct so JJ moved the truck while the others walked the remaining distance to the quarry. As they got closer, Kerry jumped and they all froze.
“Did you see that?” he asked, his voice high pitched with fear. “What the hell was that?”
They had only gotten a glimpse of it, but all agreed that they saw whip-like appendages, much larger than any mutant animals, reaching briefly for the sky before pulling themselves back down.
“Weapons out,” Tamar spoke quietly but unnecessarily. Everyone had pulled them out when they got out of the truck.
They crept closer and felt the ground beneath them rumbling rhythmically, as if it were breathing.
“I really want to go home now,” Susan whispered in a quavering voice.
Normally she was as tough as they came, but this scared her so much she had trouble thinking; all she thought of was Sol, and if she would make it back to her. Chuck stopped them again. His nerves were buzzing in a way they never had before.
“I’m going to the edge to see,” he said. “I’m not going to force anyone else to, this is creeping me out like never before.”
He started walking forward alone until Tamar and Kerry stepped up pace to catch up to him. Tamar glanced back at Zach, who tilted his head at Susan; she stood frozen next to him. She nodded in understanding.
“Holy shit!” Chuck whispered as they got within sight of the opposite wall of the quarry.
It hadn’t collapsed but it sure didn’t look like a quarry anymore. It looked like someone took a giant drill straight down into the earth. The walls were spiraled in a downward direction. Red earth was infused with green ooze and scattered rocks embedded the walls. There were hundreds of spiked appendages coming straight out of the walls and waving around as if in search of something. He was reluctant to get any closer, but Chuck had to know what they were dealing with. He motioned for the others to stay while he crawled on his belly to the edge. What he saw at the bottom gave a new meaning to the word nightmare. There was no bottom. It was a giant mouth with huge jagged teeth, pulsing in time with the breathing. And yes, it was breathing.
What the fuck? he mouthed silently.
Squinting, he could see smaller sets of teeth deeper in the mouth. This was one giant mutant! But mutant what? They weren’t anywhere near the radiation zone. They’d been dumping all zombie refuse in here, regular zombies and mutants. Was that the cause? Did we create this?
He looked around for a sense of direction and was relieved to realize the underground river was in the other direction completely. They just needed to determine how far the reach was for this thing. He hoped it couldn’t get out and move; they’d be screwed if that were the case. He decided to back up slowly and get everyone away before trying to determine its reach. He was crawling backward and almost screamed when he felt hands on his ankles.
“Hush. Just me,” Kerry said quietly, “I’m getting you out. Get your weapon out now.”
Chuck glanced up to see several of the spiked appendages coming out of the quarry, slowly wavering in the air and spreading to beyond the quarry edges. One was headed straight for him. Chuck pulled out his sharpest knife; his club would be useless in his position and he felt rocks and dirt fill up his shirt as he was quickly pulled back. He swung his knife out as one appendage flew over his head. He heard a scream at the same time his feet were dropped. He squatted and jumped up only to be kicked in the head by the wildly kicking boots of Kerry. His body was wrapped by an appendage and he was stabbing at the thickness with his knife. Chuck reached for his feet but he was pulled up, out of reach and as the others ran forward, Kerry was pulled into the great maw. Other appendages took hold of him as they pulled him closer to the center. One took his wrist and twisted until he dropped the knife. He screamed, staring in horror at the teeth chomping below his feet.
“Kill me! Kill me!” he screamed, as he was being pulled down to its massive mouth. Tamar pulled out one of her throwing knives and took aim.
“Yes!” he screamed to her as he tilted his head back to give her a better target of his neck.
She threw as hard as she could and buried it in the side of his neck, severing his jugular. Blood flew in all directions and the appendages flew closer as they tried to catch each drop. His face turned white as the blood drained from him quickly and he mouthed a final Thank You before he died.
Once his body reached the mouth, it was torn to pieces.
“Back now; hurry,” Chuck waved and whispered, ”while it’s distracted.”
They backed up and stopped when they assumed it was safe.
“How do we know for sure?” Zach asked, “We have to know so we can mark it off and others won’t get killed.”
Tamar picked up a rock and tossed it to land twenty feet from the quarry edge. An appendage immediately whipped out and grabbed the rock, testing it, tasting it, then dropping it back to the earth when it realized it wasn’t food.
“There’s our test,” Tamar remarked. “We start from there and work our way further out until we see where it can’t reach.”
“What will we mark the ground with?” Susan asked.
“We’ll mark it with rocks until we can come back with some kind of flags or rope,” Chuck suggested.
They continued to test the reach from around the entire opening and found that the reach on one side of the quarry was easily thirty feet more than the other half.
“Just to be on the safe side we’re going to mark another ten feet from the farthest reach and keep that diameter the same all around from the center,” Chuck decided. “Just to be sure.”
After they finished marking with all the rocks they drove back to see what kind of flags Shirley could come up with. They were too far to hear or feel the low vibrations of the earth shaking purposefully as the monster in the pit shook the ground, rolling all the marking rocks closer to the edge.
After cleaning up, the first thing they did was sit down to discuss what that thing was and how to go about marking the area.
“We need to make some kind of flags or barrier strips in the brightest color cloth we have,” Chuck was telling everyone, “but I want to make it as weather resistant as possible. I don’t want to have to keep getting near that thing to replace them every time it storms.”
“What about those old-style traffic cones?” Antonio asked. “Do we have any of those here?” “We’ve got about ten or twelve of them,” Richie said.
“That won’t be near enough,” Chuck replied. “There has to be enough to go around the entire quarry.”
“We can spread them out all around and put signs in between each one,” Richie suggested. “We’d have to stake down the cones anyway, so we could make signs on posts. It’s all we’ve got.”
“We can’t let anyone get near there,” Susan said, still shaky. “The reach on that thing was unbelievable.”
“What was it?” Shirley asked, “Where did it come from?”
“The only thing I can guess,” Chuck replied, “is that all the dead zombies we’ve been throwing in the quarry were just oozing between the rocks at the bottom. I really think it’s all these new mutants that have been showing up that we’ve been dropping in there. Maybe that’s doing something to the earth or some plants that are deep below the surface.”
Two days later, they drove back out to the quarry with all the supplies needed to put up the barricade. Antonio went with the former crew this
time, along with Carlos, Izik, and Mark–another of the young assassins. They only had thirteen cones so they spread them out evenly, staking them with long poles, following the rocks’ patterns. They had made fourteen signs on posts with WARNING DANGEROUS MUTANT AREA to put between each cone. No one could miss these unless it was dark, and no sane person would be out after dark. They carefully dug holes as deep as they could first and put the signposts in, and then filled them in. They put rocks around the bases to keep them sturdy. No one wanted to hammer into the ground and gain its attention. They were on the last post when the ground rumbled gently beneath their feet. They all jumped back except for Mark and Susan who were finishing the post.
“Almost done,” Susan grumbled, nervous beads of sweat dripping down the sides of her face.
“We can come back later,” Chuck called softly to them.
He wasn’t taking any chances with this new mutant.
“What’s the problem?” Mark asked, still piling rocks around the post, “We did the measurements. We’re in the safe zone.”
“Nowhere is safe anymore.” Antonio ordered, “Leave it for now.”
For some reason Antonio ordering them was pissing Mark off. I only take orders from Tamar. Why would I take an order from this man?
“If we keep jumping back every time it makes a noise we’ll never get this done,” he retorted. “Once it’s done we don’t have to worry about it.”
“Mark,” Tamar growled at him, “get back, now.”
Izik was walking around, staring intently at the original rocks that marked the safe area.
“Something’s different here,” he muttered to himself, “something’s wrong.”
He walked around and looked closely at six or seven of them. They all had trails in the dirt radiating outwards and he said as loud as he dared, “Guys?”
“I’ll always worry about it,” Chuck ordered, “Get back now!”
“Hey guys?” Izik asked again, even louder.
“You guys just love to give orders don’t you?” Mark stormed.
“Hey, steady that post dammit!” Susan was backing away from him, shocked at his sudden anger.
“GUYS!” Izik yelled.
Before anyone could see what he was yelling about, Chuck suddenly bellowed, “Susan! Drop!”
She didn’t hesitate for a second; she just dropped to the ground and rolled onto her back. A scream was stuck in her throat at the sight of the huge spiked appendage that swiped horizontally, curling the air right where she’d been standing.
“They can’t reach!” Mark stammered, frozen in shock. “They can’t!”
“Susan! Roll! Right!” Chuck yelled again.
She rolled twice and felt the ground vibrate as the appendage slammed to the ground a scant second after she moved. Green pus splattered on the ground and she frantically wiped at her face to see if any got on her.
“Carlos, no!” Antonio screamed.
Carlos had run towards Susan and to the right, distracting the appendage, which now followed him.
“Stay beyond the barricades, dammit!” Tamar screamed to him, pulling out two of her blades.
He jogged over a step, which should’ve kept him outside the danger zone, but was caught up as the spikes impaled his midsection and pulled him towards the pit.
“How?” Antonio asked in shock.
The appendages’ reach had passed their markers! Everyone had moved as close as they dared to get to Carlos. Tamar jumped in and used both blades to sever the appendage before it could pull him in. He lay on the ground, bleeding from the waist. Another scream caught their attention and as they were pulling Carlos back, they turned to see Mark on the ground, scrambling for a handhold as an appendage wrapped around both his legs. They were both bleeding from the spikes.
“Antonio, Susan!” Chuck yelled, tilting his head to Mark. They ran to him and Susan grabbed his hands and pulled while Antonio used his axe to sever the appendage.
“Antonio, drop!” Susan screamed.
Antonio ducked as another appendage swiped the air and slammed into Mark’s back and head. It raised back up in the air with Mark impaled. From below, he seemed to float in the air. Susan was forced to let go of his hands or she would’ve been dragged with him. He could only moan in pain, he was dying but wasn’t dead yet. Antonio wasn’t about to let him go down into those teeth still alive.
“I’m sorry.” He stood up and slammed his axe into Mark’s head before his body was pulled into the quarry.
Everyone jumped back and ran to Carlos who was in bad shape; he was bleeding out. The appendage had tightened on him when it was severed, instead of loosening, and they couldn’t get it off him.
“Kill me now,” he begged. “It hurts so bad. The spikes are moving around inside me! They’re growing and going in deeper. Please. You know I’m infected anyway.”
Chuck waved everyone away, “I’ll take care of him.”
After saying goodbye to Carlos they walked dejectedly back to the trucks and Antonio started it up.
“You’ve become a great warrior and an even better friend,” Chuck said to Carlos. “You’re my family and always will be.”
Carlos smiled at him, his teeth covered in blood, “It’s been good to know you Chuck. Tell Rodrigo and Carmen I’m sorry for leaving them.”
The ground under them began to shake and crack.
“Get away!” Carlos said weakly, “Kill me and run.”
“I’m getting you out of here,” Chuck said. “I’m not leaving you here for that thing.”
“I’ll be dead; I’m already dead,” Carlos countered. “It won’t be me anyway, just an infected body. Dammit, hurry! I can feel it coming up from under the ground. I think it’s right below me.”
Chuck looked around in a panic, saw the rocks thrumming on the ground, and turned back to Carlos. He swung his club, and crushed his head. He reached out to pull Carlos to him, despite Carlos’ previous protests. As soon as his hand reached him, the ground below him opened up, and Carlos’ body became engulfed. More than a dozen smaller appendages wrapped around him and pulled him down. Chuck jumped back just in time and ran for the trucks.
“We still have to put up some kind of barricade,” Antonio said days later, as they sat at the table.
“I’m not risking anyone else to that thing,” Chuck replied feeling lower than he had in a long time. He’d kept everyone safe for so long. They generally lost people occasionally; it was inevitable in a zombie apocalypse. But twice they went to the quarry, and both times came back missing people.
Three people! Three of my family! Killed by whatever that was!
“And if we don’t want anyone else to stumble near it, then we have to put a barricade,” Antonio insisted. “We just make sure we put it much further than the reach. Probably where we had the trucks parked, that should be safe. If it could have reached us there, then it would’ve.”
Chuck looked into Antonio’s eyes and Antonio saw the pain that Chuck was feeling.
“Whatever,” he replied lowering his eyes.
That is it! “Snap out of it!” Antonio yelled at him as he punched him in the chest, knocking him from the chair.
Oh shit, this is going to hurt, but if it works...
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Chuck roared as he scrambled up and stood toe-to-toe with Antonio.
He was much bigger but Antonio didn’t back down.
“We need you Chuck,” he said. “Wallowing in guilt won’t help the rest of us. We need you standing and fighting, not crying like a bitch.”
Chuck growled and shoved him, slamming him into the wall.
Yup, that hurt!
“Don’t put that bullshit on me!” Chuck said, “No one calls me a bitch! I know how to take care of my family!”
He yanked out his club in anger and stopped at the look on Antonio’s face. Then he looked around and noticed the frozen and silent faces of those in the room.
“Oh shit, you didn’t?” he suddenly
smirked, chagrinned as he put the club back and put his hand out to Antonio.
“It worked didn’t it?” he laughed, wheezing just a bit.
Chuck pulled him into a huge bear hug, which took away his breath again, and whispered, “Thanks brother, I did need that.”
You could hear the collective sighs of relief scattered around the room. Tamar glanced around and quickly slid her blades back in their sheaths, happy she didn’t have to use them.
“You okay?” Jim asked her, coming up from behind. “Don’t worry about them. Antonio did that on purpose. He knows how to rattle someone’s cage to wake them up. He’s very good at it.”
“I see that,” she replied warily.
In the cave no one had to do that; no one lost their temper, with the exception of Mark’s occasional griping. Instantly, she felt bad for thinking ill of the dead.
“Come on,” he said, holding out his hand, “I’ll get you a coffee.”
She took his hand as they made their way to the constantly brewing coffee pot. Chuck told her it was instant, no one had seen any real coffee in a long time, but she’d never had it at all until she came here, and she loved the bitter flavor.
Antonio and Chuck sat back down and a few others joined them as they tried to figure out how to make that quarry area safe.
“What if we blow it up?” Rodrigo asked, a hard look on his face that had been there since Carlos’s death.
Their sister, Carmen, was in their room crying and had begged Rodrigo to stay with her. He was torn; he wanted to mourn and cry with her but he wanted to be in on whatever was next. If there was a way to kill it, he wanted to be a part of it.
“With what?” Antonio asked. “I haven’t seen any kind of explosives in years. Only Z.E.D.s have those. Besides, I don’t know if that will work. That thing goes deep into the earth.”
“And while it’s not near the river,” Chuck added, “I don’t know what an underground explosion might do to the river. What if it blocked it or tainted it? That would be the end of us here.”
Rodrigo had to admit they were right and since he hadn’t seen it himself, he took their word for it. He didn’t want to just barricade it from other people; he really wanted to kill it.
Survive (Book 1): Salvation Page 14
