by Sharp, Tracy
No one said a word. We let his statement sink in.
Ozzie wiped the back of a glove over his mouth, then lifted his hand. His voice had lost most of the conviction he’d shown before. “We get in. We find them. We get them out. We deal with everything else afterward. Okay?”
“Yeah,” I said. The word stuck in my throat like a bone.
“Okay,” Ryder said, forcing more courage into his tone than he felt.
“Got it. Let’s just get them out.” Mina placed her hands on her hips. Her face had hardened, but her lips quivered slightly.
We were all scared shitless.
I felt my stomach clench at the idea of going down into the tunnels again. It seemed that each discovery we made was worse than the last.
“Okay, are we ready?” Ozzie asked, his gaze shifting to each one of us.
Everyone answered in the affirmative.
Ozzie gave a single nod. “I’ll go down first, then Zoe, Ryder, Mina, and then Kyle.”
“Who is going to watch for Zekes?” Ryder asked. “It could happen again.”
“I am.”
We all turned in the direction of the voice.
Sherry approached us in a snow white parka, a white, fuzzy hat on her head. “I’m not letting you guys go down there without a look-out, and you need every one of you to back each other up.”
“Logan okay to stay alone for a bit?” Kyle asked her.
“Yeah. He’s safe where he is.”
No one stated the obvious, which was that if we all died underground and Sherry was overcome by deadies, Logan would likely die.
But then, we might lose us all if we were overcome by deadies again while we were underground.
Six of one, half dozen of the other.
We didn’t have a lot of options.
“Thanks, Sherry,” I said.
“Of course,” she said. “Now get going. Get our ladies back.”
Ozzie flicked on the light on his hard hat and lowered himself down into the hole, his handheld UV light clipped to his belt. He paused. “As soon as the ground levels out, everyone get your UV light in hand. Understood?”
We all nodded.
Numbness spread over me as fear clawed at my stomach. Dread filled my chest and made it hard to breathe. I forced my legs to move toward the hole as Ozzie disappeared into the darkness, the light on his hard hat bouncing around the entrance to the tunnel.
My movements felt stiff as I tried to get a grip on my panic. The roaring in my ears made it harder to coordinate myself enough not to lose my grip and go sliding into Ozzie. The knowledge that we were heading into a very real hell made me look up at the sky above us, certain that this would be the very last time that I’d ever see the light of day again.
And worse, the possibility; the likelihood that Mina and I could be trussed up and hung like the other females underground made death the more desirable of the two evils.
Stop! Just stop! You have a job to do. A mission to complete. Do it.
I followed Ozzie down further into the underground. The hardened varnish-like, yellow substance was everywhere, keeping the dirt from caving in.
At least there’s that.
A powerful urge to laugh hysterically came over me, and I shoved it down. Now wasn’t the time to lose it.
Oh, now is the time to lose it. If those things get us, you don’t want to be lucid. No, not at all.
Still, I fought the urge and continued moving downward. Every hand-hold, foot-hold, that led me further into the cave brought with it a new level of dread and terror. I wished I was back at the college picking cheerleader gum off my mop. Those were the good old days.
Those girls were almost certainly down here somewhere. I didn’t want to see them.
I didn’t want to see any of them.
“Okay, Zoe.” Ozzie’s voice shook. “Here’s where it levels off. The room where the girls are is behind me.”
I heard Ozzie’s deep intake of breath, preparing for the sight we saw on his laptop screen.
Another couple of steps downward and the tunnel leveled off, just like he said.
With my nerves jangling beneath my skin, I turned. I looked up and around me. There were no holes in the walls in this part of the tunnel. No hive.
But the sickly sweet smell, with the tang of pennies beneath it made my stomach roil.
Ozzie stood a couple of yards away, just inside the opening of the cave-like space used for breeding. His face was a sickly green, and I was sure it wasn’t entirely because of the color of the shiny walls around him being reflected back in the light of his hard hat. He stared at me, his face pained. He didn’t want to turn around.
But he did. Slowly.
A shuddering breath came out of him then, and a thin, forlorn whimper.
“Ozzie, we have to do this.” I couldn’t believe I had the courage to say this to him. I was beyond afraid; beyond terror. But somehow I found the strength to keep functioning through it. “Think of our girls.”
He nodded, leaning over and looking around at each face through the filmy, gossamer sacks, not unlike gluey spider webbing.
I did the same, following him.
The abject horror and pain of what had happened to them was frozen on their faces in death. Shock stamped in their wide eyes forever.
Even as it was happening, they simply hadn’t been able to believe it.
Mina came up behind us, then Ryder and Kyle. Sounds of mortification came from them all.
Face after face, I looked for Kelly, following Ozzie’s hitched breathing and shadowed figure.
Mina, Ryder, and Kyle did the same.
There had to be twenty women in the room.
“What about Logan’s sister?” I whispered.
“I saw a pic of her on his phone. She’s not here.” Mina’s voice cracked.
Ozzie turned toward us, taking several breaths and pressing the back of his hand over his nose. The smell of blood was sharp in this room. Stepping in it was unavoidable. He closed his eyes for a moment before speaking. “Let’s keep going. There have to be other rooms like this down here.”
We followed him out of the room, all of us moving slowly, our UV lights in hand.
The tunnel broke apart into four separate trails.
“Maybe we should separate,” Mina said. “We could cover more ground that way.”
“No,” Ozzie said. “We stay together. Those things could be anywhere.” He stopped, looked down a corridor to our right, lowering his head a little to shine his light through the tunnel. The light revealed a row of openings on either side of the underground trail.
He stood in front of the other trails, shining his light in each.
Each corridor had rows of openings, and separate, smaller caves.
“Good, Christ,” he murmured. “Help us.”
* * *
We moved forward, slowly, and I thought I could hear everyone’s heart beating in my ears. My legs felt leaden as I forced myself to take another step toward the horror that awaited us. And another. All of my senses sharpened. I heard every breath, every scrape against the strange shellacked floor of the cave. I saw each shape within my sights more clearly. The smell of rotting meat and blood assaulted my nostrils and made me gag.
It was so cold. Every breath seemed to freeze my lungs a little more.
My entire body trembled, and if I allowed myself to think about what I’d see, I’d lose it.
So I just kept moving.
Ozzie moved into the first opening in the walls, his UV light lifted, ready.
The scene in this cave was like the last. We searched each terror-stricken, tortured face, all of us swiping away tears. It was too horrible.
We couldn’t harden ourselves to it. We had no defenses against it.
We continued, cave after cave.
And then a cry rang out. And another. And another. Then screams.
We all froze.
The hair lifted on my scalp and my heart leapt into my throat.
Then we were moving. We ran in the direction of the screams.
They grew louder and shriller with every opening we passed, every cave housing roomfuls of hanging women, until finally we reached them.
A cave with women whose cocoons hadn’t been torn outward. Not yet.
We ran in, looking at faces.
“Oh, God. They’re moving. Their bellies are moving,” Ryder cried.
I looked down at the belly of the woman hanging in front of me. Her stomach was undulating.
And she was shrieking, her fingers clawing at the skin of her belly.
I took a step back, banging into another hanging, screaming woman.
We all stumbled back.
Except Ozzie, who dropped to his knees and wailed, his hands on the belly of the woman hanging in front of him. “Noooo! Noooo! NOOOOO! NOOOOOO!”
Kyle stared, wide-eyed for a moment, then blinked and ran forward, grabbing Ozzie under the arms and hauling him back.
“Let go of me! It’s Diane! It’s Diane!” Ozzie yelled.
“Something is coming out of her, Ozzie. We need to stay back.” Kyle yanked him backward. “UV lights! UV lights!”
When the first of the creatures moved upward, a strange, snake-like shape moving beneath the skin of Diane’s chest, up into her neck, her screams were cut off. The thing tore through her throat as Diane’s body convulsed. A greenish grey thing poked it’s head out through her stretched lips and screeched at us, rows of tiny serrated teeth snapping.
Mina stepped forward, aiming the UV light straight at the creature.
Dark, glistening, spindly arms emerged from the mouth, smoking in the UV light. The small, dome-like head shook back and forth, and then the thing let out a high pitched shriek as the head fell into itself and disintegrated into a smoky, slimy substance hanging from her mouth.
Ryder did the same with the woman hanging to her right.
But there were too many of them.
We stepped further back, toward the opening and aimed our UV lights at the things as they burst from their screaming, choking mothers and scrambled like insects away from us, skittering up the walls and over the ceiling of the cave, hissing and screeching.
They burned, sizzled and disintegrated, the gooey remains plopping to the cave floor.
Then it was quiet, except for our frantic gasping and Ozzie’s helpless sobbing.
Kyle looked up and frowned. He lifted his hand. “Shhh.”
We all held our breath, listening.
A low hissing sound came from down the corridor.
“Move! Those things are coming!”
We ran into the corridor, but when we came to the area where the tunnels branched off, we stopped.
“Which way?” Ozzie asked.
“Left!” Kyle shouted.
We moved as fast as we could in the close confines of the tunnel, ducking down as the hissing grew louder.
And then Mina screamed.
And then Ryder screamed.
They were everywhere, skittering along the walls and the ceilings.
I lifted my UV light and aimed for the ceiling, still moving forward, blinded by Ozzie and Kyle’s lights.
A crawler directly above me sizzled and screeched, and fell behind me, and I kept aiming and moving.
Things moving along the walls crackled and shrieked, the steam and smoke coming from them burning my nostrils and eyes, and I couldn’t see any longer.
I swung my UV light crazily, waiting to be grabbed by the claws of a crawler directly behind me. It was so close I could feel its stinking breath on my neck. I rolled, light held up, and heard the thing fall backwards, bursting like fireworks. Scrambling backwards, I kept moving upward, heading toward the entrance, toward the daylight, sure that another was coming up on me.
My throat burned as I burst through to the surface, scrambling up onto the snow. I continued aiming my UV light into the hole, hoping to get as many crawlers as I could, willing whoever was left to make it back up to the light.
Snow fell fast on my face and I opened my eyes to stinging slits, trying to see enough to make my aim true.
With blurred vision, my eyes burning, I saw Kyle burst through into the falling snow, then Ozzie coming up behind him. His arms reached the surface as he pulled and crawled toward us. Both hands reached the snow, his eyes round with terror.
And then two ovaloid, smoking heads appeared in the murky light and his mouth opened in a scream as they pulled him back into the depths.
Chapter 11
Sherry lifted me under the arms and dragged me toward the compound. “Run! I hear the dead coming!”
Through bleary, raw eyes I squinted into the storm, but couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of us. “Where? Where are they? I can’t see!”
We were running through a white-out blizzard. Stumbling, our arms in front of us, trying to feel our way around. This is what being snow blind is. The blizzard couldn’t have come at a worse time.
I felt a hand grab my arm and breath on my ear, and my heart froze.
Kyle said, low. “Move slowly and carefully. Stay close to me.”
Sherry moved beside me, staying close to Kyle as he led the way. We were silent, not even the sound of our labored breathing could be heard as we walked blindly through the blizzard.
The howling of the wind confused our ears. It was hard to tell the difference between what we’d come to know as the groans of a deadie and the moaning of the wind.
Spitting snow whipped into my eyes, soothing them of the stinging, but obscuring my vision further. I grasped for Kyle’s jacket, but came up with nothing.
Bringing my hands up to my eyes I tried to rub the icy water from the snow out of them.
When I opened them again, Kyle and Sherry had vanished.
I was alone again, with the dead searching for something to eat in the storm.
Logan was alone with no one to help him.
Hank was waiting for me in the compound. If Logan died and Sherry and Kyle didn’t make it back, and I froze to death or was caught by a deadie, he’d starve.
And then I was sobbing silently, tears spilling from my eyes and freezing on my face.
I couldn’t stand the thought of Hank being alone, waiting for me and dying a sad and lonely death.
A white hot rage came up from my belly and warmed me, and then I felt completely pissed off. I was seventeen years old, damn it. And I’d been through more hell in the past few days than most people in horror films had to endure.
This was bullshit.
I was making it back to that compound, back to my dog.
I blinked the tears away, and was surprised to find that my eyes felt better, and I could even see.
Lifting my arms out in front of me, I continued walking. Slowly, carefully walking.
It seemed I walked for a long time, the cold wrapping around me like a heavy, frozen blanket.
And then I was on my knees. I didn’t even remember falling. I stayed like that for a while, my eyes growing so heavy. If I rested just for a minute. . .
A moaning sound, turning into snarling. A figure emerged from the swirling white, walking slow and stiff.
I tried to grab my knife from my boot. I couldn’t feel my fingers. I got it, lifted it out, and then dropped it in the snow.
Plunging my hands into the snow I felt around for it. I came up with it grasped in both hands. I waited until the deadie fell onto his knees in front of me to take a bite, and then summoned all the strength I had and used both hands to thrust my knife into his eye.
Using my entire body, I yanked my knife out, then pushed myself to my feet and kept moving.
Another figure emerged from the white.
A big, bounding body with a blocky head.
“Hank!” My voice was lost in the wind, but he heard me.
He jumped toward me, and seemed to smile at me through the snow, and I grabbed onto his collar.
“Take me home, Hank. Back to the compound. I can’t see where I
’m going, buddy.”
And he did.
* * *
When the storm slowed, I took a short walk to the edge of the woods to look for Sherry and Kyle. The storm had receded to a fine dusting. Fine powder floated in the air around us as we stepped out into the winter wonderland of nightmares.
I saw my own tracks, under a layer of fresh fallen snow. It hadn’t taken long for Hank to lead me back to the compound. I’d been wandering in circles only a little ways from the fence.
Peering through the white I scanned the area for any sign of Sherry and Kyle, I had to accept what I already knew. There were none.
Hank stayed close to me as I headed toward the fence. He whined, then barked, and sniffed at the ground.
I stopped and watched as he carefully nudged a spot on the snow. He whimpered, tapped at the ground and then took a few steps back, letting out another sharp bark.
My pulse throbbed in my throat as I looked at the area he’d pawed at, trepidation clenching in my chest. I crouched, using a broken twig lying near me to clear snow from the area.
He whimpered again, and then let out a low snarl.
The edge of the hole emerged as I continued to clear snow from it.
I stood up and stepped back, my body humming with fear. Scanning the ground, I noticed several slightly dented areas dotting the edge of the woods. There were so many more than before, only a few yards apart from each other.
This was how they trapped their food.
If it hadn’t been for Hank, I would’ve likely gone under. I would’ve fallen into this hole, just like Wilson’s father had.
Kyle and Sherry had dropped through holes in the storm. I was sure of it. There were no bloody remains in the snow or deadies tearing into anyone. In fact, there were no deadies at all right now.
Maybe they had all fallen through, too. What did they do with the deadies? Did they eat them?
How close had I come from falling into a hole earlier, wandering, snowblind in the storm? Had I been that lucky? Or had the new holes just not appeared yet?
