Shadow of the Tomb Raider--Path of the Apocalypse

by S. D. Perry

  She turned sideways as the tunnel started to narrow, aware that she might not have a choice in the matter. If she’d just climbed into a dead end, confrontation was inevitable.

  And you’ll kill him and keep moving! Hurry, go!

  Twenty-two minutes, twenty by now. If she could get up fast, she could make it. God only knew what she’d do when she got there but she would worry about it then. She didn’t think Jonah would sit still for being shot, but he could be injured, maybe unconscious… She had to be there.

  Lara sidled through the narrow tunnel, breathing easier when it opened up and branched a minute later. The eastern-facing passage sloped up, and there was guano on the floor. She took the passage, holstering the semi when the rocky floor tipped more steeply, the better to climb. She could hear Harper’s rough ascent, soft echoes from the chamber where Mitchell had died. Falling farther behind.

  The climb wasn’t technically difficult but it was muddy and strenuous. The muscles in her arms and legs were getting tired but she pushed on, the tunnel opening in front of her, branching again…

  She climbed into a small, rounded chamber with three openings besides the one she’d come from, a thick slick of mud on the floor. She checked her compass, wiped sweat from her brow. Three openings: one that that faced northwest, aimed back toward the chamber she’d just left; a crack that turned down and south; and a low, rounded tunnel that opened to a gentle incline, a straight stretch that aimed right at the drop, northeast.

  Too good to be true. The passage had been used by bats, but not much.

  And if it’s the wrong choice you’ll find out but not if you don’t GO!

  Lara went.

  * * *

  Harper threw himself up the rocks, propelled by his rage.

  Blood leaked steadily from the flesh wound on his upper left arm. He stopped on a ledge to bind it; a healthy chunk of flesh was actually missing. He bore down hard on the knot, the physical distress fueling him. How dare she? Did she think he wouldn’t kill her and torture her friends to death for such an affront? He only regretted that he wouldn’t be able to watch her die more than once.

  His weak headlamp took in Mitchell’s broken body as he climbed, flashes of her corpse slowly disappearing under the simmering blanket of insects. She looked like she’d been to hell and crawled through mud on her way back. Three of the lizards ventured away from their curving lake to scuttle toward her, chirping, perhaps drawn by all the blood. There had been six of the small monsters lined up along the shore when he’d first looked, but now there were eight of them, swinging their eyeless faces to listen to him labor up the rocks. More had crept in when he wasn’t looking, blind witnesses to his shame. Crawling up rocks in a disgusting hole, injured, limping, actually bleeding, his top players dead.

  Bitch. Lara fucking Croft had killed three of his best, then shot him and skipped away, but she wasn’t counting on the power of his will. He forced his body to work, his knee to bend, his ankle to support him. A deep, dreadful ache radiated from the hole in his shoulder, burning, but the pain wasn’t incapacitating him, it wouldn’t interfere with his mission.

  He reached the opening in the rocks where Croft had escaped the chamber and followed the Glock inside, ready to fire at anything that moved, holding his gasping breath to listen for her.

  Nothing. He moved quickly, turning and sliding as the cold rocks narrowed, pushing at his back and chest. On the other side the tunnel branched. He followed the one that sloped upwards. She’d gone up, he was sure; his bit about a kill order had pushed her to get back to the surface before time ran out. She was going to lead him to the exit, all he had to do was follow—and he could take her light after she was dead, and spend the rest of his Glock’s rounds blowing away every lizard he saw on his way out.

  The floor sloped up to near forty-five degrees but it was like a climbing wall, lots of holds and holes. He saw part of a fresh boot print in the mud, a small one, and grinned. He was on her trail. If his leg had been working, if he hadn’t been holding the Glock, he’d have been up in no time, but he wasn’t about to disarm, not until that bitch was dead.

  He willed himself up, grin turning back into a clench as the muddy rocks crept past.

  * * *

  Dead end.

  Lara turned away from where the tunnel narrowed to a wide, flat crack, not quite big enough for her to get her head through. Past the crack a chimney rose straight up, thin and smooth. Too tight for her to get up, even if she could wedge herself through the crack.

  She’d wasted three minutes working through the low passage. Lara hurried back toward the small chamber where the tunnels met, feeling the seconds tick by—

  Movement. Far ahead of her, back in the tunnel of the easy climb. She heard Harper’s boots scuffing over rock, a grunt of exertion.

  Lara picked up speed, racing him to the chamber. He was faster than she’d expected, but he wouldn’t beat her. She’d have two choices when she got back, south or northeast. Had she come up high enough to be on safe ground if she went back towards the big room where Mitchell had died? It was that or go in the wrong direction entirely.

  She reached the mouth of the dead end and saw the weak light from Harper’s helmet reflecting off the roof of the tunnel that had led her up to the branch. He was less than a minute behind her, if that.

  Lara didn’t hesitate, spanning as much of the muddy floor as she could in two hops, stepping to the northeast passage and in. The roof was higher than the tunnel she’d just been in; she still had to walk bent over, but at least she wasn’t crouching anymore. The passage ran straight for a few meters and then curved farther east, sloping down.

  She reached the curve as Harper’s faltering light swelled behind her, his uneven steps coming into the chamber at her back. He stomped quickly to the dead-end tunnel—but stopped, not going in.

  The mud. Lara covered the LED with her hand and slid around the curve, pulling the Remington again. She’d hoped he would follow the obvious prints, but it seemed not. Her two light steps to the northeast opening would be obvious, for someone looking.

  Harper didn’t move. She unshaded the barest glimmer from her light and forged ahead, ducking, watching her feet, slowing down enough to move very quietly. The tunnel curved north again, but continued to descend.

  She heard him come into the passage—and turn off his light, and start to creep forward. A squeak of mud, a hobbling step.

  The tunnel leveled abruptly and branched. Lara didn’t even have to pause her stealthy steps; she could see the one veering east and up was dead, no sign that any animal had been through. Not an exit.

  Did Harper know what to look for? She was sure he couldn’t see her LED. The floor was rocky here, no prints to follow. She stayed with the gradual descent. Perhaps twenty meters behind her, Harper stumbled. His headlamp tapped on for a bare second, flickering weakly. Even from the bare smudge of it she could see, it was obvious the batteries were about to give out.

  The tunnel branched again, both passages opening west, both alive with rustling bats somewhere ahead. Larger echoes stirred. Lara quickly calculated where she was in relation to where she’d been, remembering the crumbling ceiling of the big room. Tunnels with holes in the floor, and she was headed right for them.

  She didn’t have her axe and the idea of jumping across open pits above a twelve-meter fall was distinctly unappealing; the floors hadn’t collapsed because they were stable. Jumping meant noise. And there would be bats to contend with, she could hear them; the ceiling of the chamber had been packed with them.

  Kill Harper. Go back.

  No. She didn’t want to go back. These passages turned north again, and the large bat colony had to have access to the top of the cenote. It was the closest exit. If she couldn’t do it she’d turn around, but she had to keep moving, aiming for the drop. Jonah’s life might depend on it.

  Yes on killing Harper, though. The dead end had cost her—he was too close. If she had to line up a jump she couldn’t affo
rd to have him on her heels.

  Lara considered the passages. The one on the right opened at an angle; she had to step inside to see down it… And so would he. Good enough.

  She settled against the wall in the dark, Remington up, listening. Harper had reached the split behind her—and she heard him take the wrong passage, the dead one.

  Lara hesitated. How far would he go before he had to turn back? She considered going after him but it was more time that she didn’t have, and she definitely wasn’t going to wait.

  She turned on her torch, shining it down the passage she’d stepped into, then quickly checked the other one. They both curved out of sight; she only saw rocks and heard the sounds of the big room whispering, ahead and below.

  The one on the right was closer to Jonah, and taller. She started into it, moving quickly but tapping her steps, not sure where she might find weakness. Between the bumps and drips of calcite formations, the walls and floor were smooth, ancient. Within a few meters she saw the first crawling bugs and the sound and smell of the colony sharpened, rustles and squeaks. A curve to the right and she saw rows of dark hanging bat bodies on the rising ceiling in front of her, and the first hole into the open dark below.

  The jagged hole was just over a meter wide, barely a hop, and the rock on the other side was thick, no other holes in immediate sight. The guano was layered deep, there were fewer insects around the opening to process it, but it looked solid. She listened for Harper but heard nothing.

  Lara holstered the .45, backed up and then ran, jumped, landing well past the far edge of the opening—

  —but the hole was bigger than she’d allowed for. Thick layers of guano gave way beneath her foot and she stuttered forward, landing on her knees. A hefty clod of the crusted shit fell into the chamber below, widening the hole by another thirty centimeters.

  It splashed a second later, and the salamanders below started to scream aggressively, incredibly loud in the huge space. The sound filled the tunnel, filled all of the tunnels. The bats in front of her shrieked, dropped and flew north, a furry, rushing frenzy of sudden movement as the agitated troglobites howled their distress.

  She couldn’t hear if Harper was coming over the din but with most of the bats rushing out, she could see that the tunnel she was in branched ahead of her—openings up high, and from the quality of sound, plenty more holes to navigate.

  She hurried on, boots sliding in the crap. He couldn’t be close yet; she would look at her new choices and be on her way before he reached her… Or she would hear him coming and wait inside one of the tunnels ahead.

  Not for a second longer than I need.

  No, not a second. The salamanders had left off screaming but were huffing, defensive, ready to attack, the sounds rising up from the big room in echoing bursts. More bats fluttered away, disappearing into the passages ahead.

  Lara followed them. The first tunnel she came to opened over the cavern three meters in, the entire bottom of the passage gone. A crumbling ledge ten meters away and the passage continued, but there was nothing she could climb, the walls slick.

  She turned and hurried back to look at the next one, listening for Harper.

  * * *

  The tunnel he’d taken crept upwards, cold and damp and perfectly empty, no bats or bugs or lizards. Harper was starting to think that Croft hadn’t taken it even though it clearly ascended. Bats wouldn’t roost somewhere with no exit, would they? She wasn’t hiding, she was trying to beat him out, and the silence in front of him was as cold and dead as the rocks themselves.

  The screams of the lizards spilled up behind him and he turned eagerly, hearing the rush of bats somewhere close. It was confirmation, a sign. He ran down the slope as the lizards screamed, not worried about keeping quiet or his flickering lamp. She must have kept going down, westwards. She can’t have gotten far.

  He turned where the tunnel branched, dimly aware that his shoulder was bleeding again, his knee locking up, a ring of fire around his ankle… But she was on the move and he was close, so close. They both had guns but he was also bigger than her, stronger in spite of his injuries. There was nowhere she could go that he couldn’t follow.

  He came to a pair of tunnels and chose the one on the right with the higher ceiling, not stopping to check his compass. West? North? It didn’t matter, he could hear the bats ahead of him, the rising, spiraling squawks of the mutant lizards below. He needed to look at the map but he could feel how close she was, maybe no more than a minute between them. If she took a wrong turn or got hung up on—

  He’d rounded a curve and saw the wide hole in the floor, four feet long and no way around. He looked ahead, the Glock up. More cold passages, and shadows squirming with bats.

  His light dimmed and flickered off. Harper tapped his helmet and it came back on but too weakly for him to see what was under him, through the hole. He could hear it, though, the chirps of the foul lizards settling themselves, the hiss of insects. Lara had led him to the top of the big chamber they’d just left.

  There were prints in the mud and dreck on the other side of the hole, a thick crust torn away at the edge. She’d jumped it and knocked some mud loose, riling the lizards below.

  Harper backed up, aware that he couldn’t trust his right leg to perform. He’d jump it anyway, before his lamp died. He wasn’t letting her go.

  He ran and leapt, throwing himself forward, landing on his left foot. When his right came down his ankle screamed and he staggered sideways. His lamp faded and died.

  He let himself fall forward, away from the hole, left hand sinking deep into the reeking cold muck. The black took his breath away, and he sat up and grabbed for his phone, wiping bat shit across his shirt so he could punch the button.

  The flashlight came on, bright and strong. Too bright. He slid his finger over the light and crawled to his feet, sweeping with the Glock as he started forward. He gripped the phone more tightly than the gun. It was the only light he had; if he lost it, he was lost. Reddy would send people in eventually but Croft could get out, get away—

  And you’d be here. Trapped in the cold, overwhelming black, bleeding, unable to move for fear of falling.

  He heard movement, a light thump followed by a small flurry of bats. Coming from one of three openings ahead, on the left.

  Harper covered the light more and crept forward quickly. A few bats spilled out of the second opening and fluttered around, cheeping, before flapping back in.

  There you are.

  He hurried to the edge of the passage, breathing with his mouth wide, minimizing his steps. He covered the phone’s light completely and darted a look into the tunnel—

  —and saw her. The tiniest blur of pale blue light, floating in the black thirty feet in front of him, disappearing a second later.

  Harper raised the Glock and fired, four rounds right where he’d seen the spark. The flare from the Glock blinded him and he ducked back, heart hammering. Bats screeched and flapped.

  No return fire. The ringing in his ears faded and he strained to hear anything—a groan, a gasp, footsteps—but she didn’t make a sound.

  Did I get her? Her light had disappeared a second before he’d fired, but had she covered it, or moved into another passage? He couldn’t hear anything—she could be dead or dying, but she could also be waiting for him to step into the tunnel, to turn on his light.

  Or slipping away, while you wonder.

  There were holes in the floor, he’d heard her jump one of them. He couldn’t go after her without taking a look. He hugged the edge of the rock, readying himself to hold up the phone, to fire, praying that he would see her bleeding to death on the shitty rocks.

  He extended the phone low into the passage and slid his finger down off of the light—

  —and the phone exploded, his index finger blown off at the top knuckle, the darkness crashing over him.

  * * *

  Harper shrieked, and emptied his Glock down the chamber, firing wildly. Lara lay on her stomach in the
dark, 1911 extended, and fired twice more at the muzzle flare. She didn’t hit him again and he ducked away, presumably to reload.

  One-handed. In the dark. His helmet light had died and he didn’t have a torch or he wouldn’t be using his phone. There were two holes in the floor between them, one a hop, the second a running jump. Unless he had a lighter, he was stuck.

  She started edging backwards, nervous bats shifting overhead. She hadn’t heard him until the last second, barely enough time to drop to the floor. He was persistent, and capable of moving quietly in spite of his injuries; she should have been more careful. Her initial impression, that he was a driven man, had proved correct.

  The rock curved behind her, and Lara turned her body, dragging the tips of her boots lightly back and forth, making sure there was floor behind her as she backed out of his firing line. As soon as she was clear, she could get moving again. Even if he found some other source of light, she’d hear him make the jump.

  Harper ran into the passage and charged her, firing.

  * * *

  Fucking bitch!

  Harper ducked into the tunnel, firing straight ahead, spacing the shots, watching his feet in the flare from the Glock. He saw the first gap and leaped over it, landing on his bad leg. He stumbled and fired again, and again, lurching ahead, blindly laying down his cover, using the rounds to light his path. He saw the second hole, a longer jump, and picked up speed, firing a last round before he leapt—

  —and as he hurtled over the gap, Lara fired, two shots from out of the dark and low, the flash of the .45 illuminating her grim face only a few meters ahead of him, down on the floor.

  The first round slammed into his upper right thigh, spinning him. The second tore into his stomach, just above his groin.

  Harper dropped the Glock and shot his arms out, suddenly in the dark, grasping, his forearms slamming down on rock as he fell into the hole. He clawed up mud and slipped backwards, grasped a single horn of stone and hung on, his body dangling over open space.