Dove: A Zombie Tale (Byron: A Zombie Tale Book 2)

by Wieczorek, Scott

  I peered above the console. A dozen more tentacles wormed their way down through the overhead skylights.

  Jake tapped me on the hand and I turned in his direction. He gestured—two walking fingers, staircase. I couldn’t understand what he wanted to say and shrugged at him, holding one finger vertically across my lips to shush.

  The tentacles scanned the cell block, examining each and every cell. The first one that came in floated in our direction, searching the rotunda. As it entered, the other heads broke off their searches and followed the first. They fanned out, hovering inches above the floor, studying it.

  They are looking at chemical traces of your presence. Your shoes all leave residue behind. So does your skin—oils, skin cells, and other secretions. They will find you in a few moments.

  Almost as if my Symbiots had coordinated with the heads, they all whipped around the console. The monitor screen erupted with motion as more tentacles shot out from the beast’s maw. The camera bounced, danced, then fell before the screen turned to static. Something had knocked the camera from its mount.

  Glass crashed above in all directions. Pushing away from John, I jumped onto the console, swords in hand, and hacked at whatever tentacles I could reach.

  Two heads fell to the ground and I brought the swords down on another pair. The severed tentacles retracted with a nasty snapping sound, like a broken, meaty rubber band.

  “Move!” I shouted as a terrible roar reverberated through the place. It drowned out my voice and everyone stayed hunkered down behind the console.

  Swinging like a madman, I lopped off head after head. Tentacles retreated. For every one that left, five more appeared. Soon, the rotunda swam with them.

  People finally rose from the floor, swinging and striking. Hacking and slashing. Trying to extricate themselves from the tangled mass of disturbing tentacles writhing through the various openings in the prison roof.

  Jake ran, heading through a doorway tucked in behind the console. John and Esmerelda followed with Sammy in tow. Dove ducked through as I chopped several more heads from tentacles. I lost count at how many swarmed around me. I could not win this battle by chopping away. I needed to escape. With one final swing, I leapt through the doorway, ready to shove the door shut behind me. It slammed as I passed the threshold. A thick steel bar slid into a cradle on the inside to lock it.

  “Come on!” Jake bellowed. “We need to keep going deeper.” I slipped the swords into their sheaths and jogged after the group as tentacles banged against the barred steel door behind us.

  “Where are we?” I asked.

  Jakes voice drifted back to me. “We’re heading for the underground solitary cells. Only a handful of people know about these areas.”

  “How do you know about them?”

  Dove answered. “He used to work here as a guard. You missed that conversation while you were outside invoking the wrath of some Great Old God upon us.”

  We trotted down an iron stairway and I ignored her snark. “Is there a way to get outside the walls?”

  Jake’s voice drifted back again. “We can access service tunnels down here that link up with some of Philly’s sewer and utility lines.”

  Sammy turned to look at Dove. Something passed between them in their expressions. “What am I missing, guys?”

  Dove slowed a little until I caught up with her. “We did this before. This morning, in fact. We used the sewer tunnels to get out of the church and convent we visited in North Philly. Not exactly the best route for escape, if you ask me.”

  “That straight-up sucked!” Sammy added. “Might as well just walk into that thing’s mouth slathered in marmalade.”

  “I think we may have some marmalade in the packs we collected at Esmerelda’s restaurant.”

  “Dammit!” Dove shouted. “We left all our supplies in the Rover.”

  The ear-splitting sound of tortured steel being torn apart wound its way down the corridor. Jake dove through a door to the left. “This way!”

  We followed single file and he slammed the door shut behind us, barring it like the last.

  The ground shook beneath our feet.

  “What the hell is that?” Dove shouted.

  “That thing digs,” I told her. “It came up right under my feet out there.”

  “Hold up! That monstrosity from hell can tunnel and we’re driving ourselves underground? What’s to stop it from—”

  She never finished her question as the brick wall to her right gave way, falling outward toward the earth beyond and toppling into a cavernous void. Tentacles poured through the opening, wrapping themselves around her arms and legs. Others grabbed Jake and Sammy. John, Evan, and Esmerelda kept running, not turning back and pouring on more speed.

  I stopped and drew my weapons, chopping at the thick appendages constricting around my companions. Heads fell and tentacles snapped back, I kept chopping, using my enhanced senses and muscles to avoid injury to anyone but the beast outside.

  Screams filled the tunnel. Vaguely human in nature, they reminded me of a parrot’s imitation of a human scream. The noises came from the mouths within the tentacled heads. I hacked faster.

  “Byron!” Dove’s voice carried above the din of screams. Before I could react, she flew backward out through the hole in the tunnel, dragged by the tentacles restraining her. Jake and Sammy followed, their cries disappearing into the blackness beyond the subterranean tunnel.

  “John! Evan!” I screamed after them, but they disappeared from the tunnel with the Klang of another steel door.

  Letting out a heavy sigh, I jumped through the gaping hole and into the blackness beyond.

  chapter thirteen

  I remember the sensation of flying backwards through the air. And then, the world became darkness. My head hurt from the pressure of the absolute silence surrounding me.

  “Hello?” Something between an croak and a hiss escaped my lips. I tried to cough—to clear my throat. “Hello?” Still unintelligible.

  A moan, not unlike the sound I myself made, resonated to my left.

  I lifted my left arm, tried to turn my head. Neither worked. A heavy, viscous liquid held me in place, resisting all my best efforts at moving.

  “Is anybody there?” I called again. The words formed into more recognizable sounds. “Sammy? Jake? Byron?”

  Another moan answered my call. Someone else had to be here. Could there be hope?

  “Who’s there?” I fought against the liquid, but it easily resisted all my efforts.

  A long, bawling moan. A chill ran down along my spine. The sound bore no semblance to anything human. I could feel cold, tingles creeping into my cheeks.

  “Sammy?”

  Schlorp! Something pulled free of the gelatinous liquid holding me in my place. Something off to the right.

  Split—split—split—split!

  Running feet approached me.

  “Dubh!” An unfamiliar voice called to me, booming in the relative silence. It stood just off to my right. “Dubh. Ehr ewe okee?”

  I couldn’t understand what it said.

  “What? I don’t understand. Who?”

  A hand grabbed me around the left arm and pulled me upward while another wiped at my face. I wanted to slap it away. Who? What? In a moment’s time, I felt my feet touch ground that seemed firm but pliant.

  “Let me go!” I yelled. But the hands persisted in clawing at my head, my face, my ears.

  “Dove?” Sammy’s voice made me snap my head in his direction.

  “Sammy? What’s going on?”

  “Hold still, dear. And stop fighting me. You’re covered in goo.”

  Light assailed my eyes, blinding me and stinging my brain. Details came into focus. We had only dim light in the space, but it seemed enough to be able to discern our whereabouts. The only problem is that none of it made any sense.

  It seemed a vast cavern of sorts. A thick, gelatinous goo comprised the ground upon which we walked. The walls I could see were leathery, covered
in places with hair or fur. As my nose became clear, the horrid stench of the place overcame me. I hunched over, fighting the urge to vomit.

  “Whoa!” Sammy called as he straightened me up. “Easy there. I know it’s not the best smelling place in the world, but hold it together.”

  “Smells like we climbed into an elephant’s colon.”

  “I don’t think you’re too far off the mark,” he replied, shining his light around.

  I examined the floor surface and gasped. A face gazed up at me from below. Sightless eyes stared into nothingness—a Goner. “Are you messing with me right now?”

  Sammy shook his head. “No.” He shone the beam of his light all around, then lit me up. “I wish I had a mirror to show you what you look like.”

  I studied his appearance. “Same here, pal.” His dread locked hair matted to his head with strings of black goo threading between them. His clothes exhibited new holes with no visible evidence of fraying or tearing. They reminded me of acid burns from the chemistry classes I took ages ago in high school. “Sammy, where are we?”

  He swung his light around, stopping for brief moments in specific locations. Each stop on his light show revealed a hand, or arm, or face of another Goner or person. He swept the beam along the inside of the walls, following its gentle curve toward the ceiling where a gaping hole hovered above us. “I think we are in this thing’s stomach.”

  I blinked at him, his words not quite registering in my head. “What did you just say? I mean, did I hear you right?”

  “Yep! You heard me. I said that I think we are in the creature’s stomach. These are all Goners in the process of digestion. You and I both have acid burns all over us, and it smells like a dead buffalo’s colon.”

  I nudged him with my elbow. “How do you know what a buffalo—”

  He shot me a glare—not the time or place for snark. Message received, bucko!

  A moan caught my attention off to the far left and I nudged Sammy again, pointing. “What’s over there?”

  The beam danced across the floor and came to rest on the figure of a man half-trapped in the gelatinous floor. His hands were stuck below the floor surface. He lifted his face toward us.

  “Jake!” I shouted and trudged over to him, finding that my feet had sunk into the floor a little. We reached him about the same time. I started clearing the digestive goo from him while Sammy dragged him up and out of the mire.

  “What the hell is this?” he screamed, fear blooming in his voice. “Where are we? What happened?”

  “I think that thing ate us,” Sammy retorted in a matter-of-fact tone.

  “How did we not get shredded up by those damn teeth?”

  Sammy and I passed glances to each other and shrugged. “I don’t know,” I replied. “Maybe he had too many tentacles out reaching around that he didn’t want to grind himself up.”

  “It just seems strange. I mean, don’t you chew your food?” He had a slight chuckle in his voice, finding a little humor in the situation.

  It took both me and Sammy to pull Jake up out of the digestive goo. He finished brushing himself off and took in the surroundings. “How in the hell do we get out of here?”

  “Good question,” Sammy responded. “We were just trying to figure that out ourselves. You don’t know any way to make an ancient alien creature gag, do you?”

  I gave him a hard stare.

  “Hey, just a thought, you know. I haven’t heard you come up with any great ideas, yet.”

  “Let me think,” I retorted as I pondered our predicament. “Just let me think.”

  “Hello?” Another voice called from deeper in the beast’s stomach. We all spun, Sammy’s flashlight fighting to pierce the darkness.

  ~ ~ ~

  I fell about fifteen feet to the ground below. All things considered, not that fantastic of a drop. But given the utter and complete darkness enveloping me, I wondered if I had made the right choice in blindly leaping after some strange being.

  “I can’t see anything,” I whispered to my Symbiots.

  My eyes adjusted. There is some bio-luminescence in this cavern. We are making your eyes more sensitive to it. You should be able to see soon.

  And see, I did. None of the subway or automotive tunnels I had traveled through in my life, or my tour of Crystal Cave Park near Kutztown, Pennsylvania could prepare me for this tunnel. Glass-like walls lined the perfectly round tube as if the tunnel had been melted or burned through the rock.

  I stood in the middle of the several-hundred foot wide rock tube and stared in awe. Behind me, it arrived with a sudden drop. Ahead, it stretched straight for a short distance, then turned a sharp angle away.

  “What could make this?” I asked.

  “I have no idea,” called a voice to my right. I turned to see Evan standing in the opening to the prison’s underground corridor. “But I don’t want to wait around long enough to find out.”

  “Evan, if you want to go rescue your parents, then we need to get our friends back and start heading to Ohio.”

  “I know.” He swept a flashlight around the darkness.

  Its light exploded in my eyes and I dropped to my knees, my head pierced by the blades of light. “Dammit! Turn that thing off!” I covered my face with my hands, but the beam’s light still penetrated between my fingers.

  “What? Turn what off?”

  Another voice came over his shoulder. John. “Your flashlight, dummy! His thingies probably adjusted his eyesight to see in the dark.”

  “Oh.” The beam flicked off. “Then how are we supposed to see? We’re not super-vampire-mutant zombie things like him.”

  “Just don’t shine it in my eyes, dweeb!” I shouted at him. “Keep the light at my back and we’ll be fine”

  We can adjust your sight to accommodate the flashlight.

  One by one, John, Evan, and Esmerelda climbed down the rubble and debris from the collapsed wall and into the tunnel. Evan switched the light back on, and I advanced a few paces to keep out of its beam.

  “So what do you make of this place, Evan?” I tried to put the perturbation at his folly with the light from my mind.

  “I’ve read about places like this.”

  “Really?” Esmerelda’s inquired.

  “Yeah. But only in fiction. This is like something straight out of the stories of Howard Phillip Lovecraft.”

  “Who?” John and Esmerelda spoke in unison.

  “H.P. Lovecraft, the famous early twentieth century horror writer?”

  “Never heard of him.”

  Evan stopped in his tracks. “You’ve never heard of the Necronomicon? Of Cthulhu? The Great Old Ones? The Watchers from Beyond? At the Mountains of Madness?”

  The both gave him blank stares. John clapped Evan on the shoulder. “Sorry dude, I’m not a complete dork. Just a good student.”

  Esmerelda chuckled. “I don’t have time to read that garbage.”

  “Garbage? Lovecraft’s fiction has inspired thousands of horror writers. Some of the best writers today have followed in his footsteps and have taken up the mantle of the Cthulhu mythology he created.”

  “Sorry,” she responded. “No dice. Maybe if we survive this, I’ll take a look at one of his books or something. But right now I’d rather figure out how the hell we’re getting out of here and save my niece and John’s father than argue the literary merits of some dead writer.”

  “On that note,” I cut in before anyone else could continue, “you were saying about this reminding you of something from Lovecraft’s fiction?”

  “Well that’s just the thing. Lovecraft had a style of writing where he seemed convinced that he himself had seen and read the Necronomicon, this book that explains the mythology he created. People have hotly debated this aspect of his fiction. But in those debates, people keep pointing to some of the creatures mentioned in his stories and suggesting that they may actually have existed and fed Lovecraft the stories he wrote, making him their troubadour. Of course, the ones who proffered
those theories were always laughed at as nut jobs and whackos.”

  I scanned the absurdity of the tunnel around me, marveling at its perfection. “Given the current circumstances, I would be willing to hear more of what these nut jobs had to say.”

  “Exactly,” Evan responded. “The basic gist of what these people suggested is that Lovecraft somehow learned about a pantheon of demonic demi-gods who exist in a parallel dimension and are always seeking a way to enter ours and take it over. More contemporary writers, like Brian Lumley, with his Titus Crow series and the Hero of Dreams stories, have worked this pan-dimensional angle and even hinted at the mathematics and science behind travel between the dimensions. In his fiction, people have the ability to cross that boundary within themselves through the subconscious mind—as an extension of some cosmic collective unconscious. Further, the diary of an early twentieth century antiquarian named F.J. Whitcomb was recently published under the title The Search for Charles Abbott Hart. In it Whitcomb described a world outside his own where humans had evolved into some grotesque perversion of anthropomorphic forms. They captured genetically pure humans and experimented on them, then ate them.”

  “So what does that have to do with what we’re looking at, Evan?” I needed to reign him in and get him back on track.

  “One of the creatures mentioned in these stories resembles the thing that dug this tunnel.”

  “And?”

  “And if those stories are accurate, in any sense of rationality, it has its own minions and this isn’t even the worst of what’s out there.”

  “So what you’re saying is that you think this is one of those inter-dimensional demonic demi-gods.”

  “Not precisely.” His voice shook and he wrung his hands. “What I’m saying is that this thing is an inter-dimensional demi-god’s cute little puppy!”

  ~ ~ ~

  The flashlight beam illuminated only so far down into the creature’s cavernous stomach.

  “Hey!” Sammy called. “Who’s down there? Show yourself!”

  “You with the police? Did Alan send you guys?” A man walked with cautious footsteps, his hands held up in surrender in front of him. “I’ve been waiting for a couple days for a rescue team. Are you them?”