by Greig Beck
Jackson came in with Jennifer, who looked shaken but alert. She gratefully took Jackson’s offered water. “Thank god you came. I think they were waiting for the tide to come in or something.”
Jackson looked at Alex. “Yeah, something like that.”
Alex lifted his head to look back to the water. “What the hell is keeping …” He bared his teeth, the words hissing from between them. “That sonofa …”
Yang had untied both his men now, but instead of them making their way back to their staging place, they were moving along the bank … towards the ships.
“Motherf … is he doing what I think he’s doing?” Jackson said, his mouth open in a disbelieving grin.
“He’s going for the submarine.” Alex’s eyes narrowed, a hate welling up inside him that he could only barely contain.
“And then what?” Jackson asked.
Alex continued to stare. “Then he holds his ground, and waits to die, or for us to die.” Alex’s brows came together. “Or maybe he doesn’t have to do anything. I’m no engineer, but that powerful distress signal could possibly be adapted. He can tell anyone who’s listening that he has found the submarine and is in control of it. At a minimum it would be a propaganda coup for the Chinese government.”
“What do you need us to do?” Blake asked.
Alex got to his feet. “Yang’s orders were to take the sub, and mine were to stop him. Let’s get back, quickly.”
Alex and Jackson quickly dragged their injured team members back up through the tumbled boulders to where their group waited on the ledge.
“Fucking Yang.” Casey Franks had the gun to her shoulder.
“Save it,” Alex said. He turned to look up at the cliffs behind them, and then overhead. There were no small bodies dropping nooses, but the sensation of life was growing with every passing second.
The small being still lashed to Rhino edged to the end of her leash to reach out to him. Her small pale fingers curled on Alex’s forearm. She pointed to her mask, which Aimee still held.
Alex looked deep into her black eyes, and then nodded. “Aimee, give it to her.”
Aimee handed it over, and the pale creature immediately pulled it over her head and face.
“That’s an improvement,” Casey said.
“She knows something,” Alex said.
The group fell silent, and hunkered down, watching and waiting. Alex pulled out the walkie talkie and turned to the three men sprinting across the rocks, now becoming indistinct in the shrouds of mist.
*
Yang dashed across the moss-slicked boulders, his two men trailing just behind. He always knew he would succeed in his mission. He knew his intellect was vastly superior and more formidable than the engineered American soldier, Alex Hunter.
The two small pings at his belt confused him momentarily, until he remembered his walkie talkie. He smiled as he reached for it, looking forward to the dialogue.
“You’ll never make it,” Hunter said.
Yang grinned. “But I’m nearly there.” His grin widened. “I think it is you who will not make it. Maybe I will watch from within the Sea Shadow as your skull is added to the pile.”
There was silence for a few seconds, until the American’s voice returned, now low and lethal. “Don’t make me come and get you.”
Yang scoffed. There was no way the threat could ever be exercised, so he decided to have some fun. “Be patient, Hunter. When I find a way out, I’ll be sure to tie up all loose ends – one being the collection of your son.” He waited, but heard nothing but empty air. He could imagine the confusion from the man.
Yang threw out a hand to keep his balance as he negotiated a particularly slimy group of boulders. The stink was near overwhelming the closer he got to the water – decay, slick mosses, and something tangy that stung his eyes.
Yang enjoyed the distraction, and decided to continue goading the American. “Your son was lucky last time, but even now, we know where he is. Joshua … that is his name, yes? He is on the American base, alone, while you and his mother are down here.” He couldn’t contain his laughter, or the jubilation he felt – the submarine was so close now. His success was assured.
He sneered. “Your American military can’t protect its secrets, its technology, its people, and it certainly won’t be able to protect one small boy.” There came a sound like a growl over the walkie talkie and Yang gripped it harder. “Imagine how much more valuable he will be, if his father, the original Arcadian, is now dead?”
Yang concentrated on running for a moment, and wished he could see Hunter’s face, even just a glimpse. His breathing was becoming ragged, and he coughed, not just from exertion, but from the stink in the air around him that hurt the lining of his nose and throat. The submarine was no more than fifty feet away, half rolled towards him, and he could make out the hatch on top. He’d be inside in another few minutes.
The gunshots were loud in the cavern, and just as the twinkling blue pinpricks of light went out, he felt the hard punch to the back of his thigh. The pain was excruciating, and he stumbled forward. He cursed, holding his leg to stem the bloodflow from the bullet wound, and climbing quickly to his feet.
The lights began to come back on, and he lifted the walkie talkie once again. That was the best they could do? He shook his head; one more taunt before he was inside. He turned to look back over his shoulder.
“Huh?” He blinked in confusion; only one of his men was following him now. His last soldier, who had been lagging from his injuries, had vanished. There was the rocky shoreline, the dark water, and further back, the twisted mangrove-like plants. But there was no sign of his soldier, and nowhere else he could have gone.
Yang, still limping from his bullet wound, turned back towards the sub, hobbling in a restricted sort of jog, as he tried to lift his pace. The stink got worse as he got closer, and though his breath rasped loudly, he thought he heard the sound like someone had something stuck in their throat, and then came the soft splash of water. He turned briefly to his lone soldier, but saw he was now alone.
The mist wasn’t so thick that they could be hidden; no, they were both gone. There were no pursuing HAWCs, no ropes dropping down from above, and no bodies lying on the shoreline, shot by his enemies. They had just vanished into thin air … or water. Suddenly the stink became more recognizable, and for the first time, a surge of fear ran up the PLA captain’s spine. Ignoring the pain and his bleeding leg, Yang began to run for his life.
Yang’s vision blurred as the acrid odor was now so strong it became a stinging gas all around him. He didn’t want to turn as he could sense something behind him – cold, huge, and indomitable. Water dripped onto his head and shoulders.
He heard a small whine that could have only escaped from his own throat. As if it had a will of its own, his head began to turn. He couldn’t stop the scream escaping his lips, and he lost concentration and coordination as his fear began to short-circuit his muscle movement. He raised an arm over his head and fired his revolver several times.
The loud report of the revolver made the lights go out. In the pitch darkness, he felt the first touch of the thing – cold, like slimy rubber, and immensely strong. His mind conjured up an image of an elephant’s trunk, and then the lights came back on.
He screamed again, sanity slipping from him. The tentacle had him, circling his waist. He followed the limb to where it snaked from the water, and could see the behemoth just beneath the surface. Yang’s scream was long and loud as the thing lifted him, and then began to tighten.
CHAPTER 56
Aimee let Casey take the gun from her hands. Luck more than skill had guided the shot that had struck the PLA captain. She continued to watch, a grim smile on her lips.
Yang’s body was held aloft, and then the green and black tentacle around his waist began to tighten. Yang’s screams became a moan as the squeezing continued until the coil met in the middle, just stopping at his spine. His body was crushed like a tube of toothpaste, all t
he contents forced to either end. He flopped in half, just the skin holding the two separated portions of his body. Only then was the carcass drawn silently down below the water’s surface.
“Straight back to hell,” Aimee whispered.
The group stood in silence for several moments more, and Aimee could feel Alex’s eyes on her. She wondered whether he was shocked by her callousness. She faced him, and raised an eyebrow. After a moment he nodded and turned back to the water.
*
Shenjung felt Soong burrow into him, pressing her face hard into his shoulder. He didn’t want to watch either, and though he detested Yang, no man deserved the fate that had been inflicted upon him and his men.
“Oh god,” Jennifer said. “We’ll never make it past that.” She looked around, almost panicked. “We’ll never make it. We need to go back, find another way.”
“There is no other way,” Alex said.
“Then we’re dead … dead.” Jennifer turned away, and Franks went to her, talking softly.
“It’s a suicide run,” Jackson said softly.
“It’d be suicide to sit here and wait for rescue,” Aimee said. “We’ve got to check that sub; it’s the only chance we’ve got.”
“If it works,” Cate said, her face pale.
“We overheard Yang and his men talking,” Soong said, with a glance toward Shenjung. “The Sea Shadow’s power source is nuclear, and everything internally was designed to deal with a highly damp and extremely caustic and corrosive environment.
“If the hull wasn’t breached, then it could still be operational,” Alex said.
Rhino joined Jackson’s side. “Good enough for me. And one more thing to think about. If the hull wasn’t breached, then there could be survivors.”
Shenjung grimaced and looked back to the pile of skulls. Though some looked ancient, there were a few still a glistening bone-white. “This is wishful thoughts,” he said to Soong. Blake was nearby and nodded, his face still pale.
“Your submarine disappeared in 2008,” she said. “If there was anyone inside that made it here alive, we doubt they survived for long.”
“If it works, then it’s got to be our way out,” Aimee said.
“No, it is our way out,” Cate added.
“What are you thinking?” Alex tilted his head.
“When you and I first dropped into the water, the sea,” Cate started, “we passed through a column of freezing water – a vortex. This corresponds to algal blooms in the Antarctic’s coastal zones. We think it’s due to an upwelling of warm water, an unexplained phenomena in the freezing waters of the Southern Ocean. The water obviously came from here.” She pointed. “That sub, we need that sub. If it can still do what it was made to do, then that vortex might be a way out for us – an open sea tunnel.”
Alex exhaled and turned back to the far shoreline. “Well, I got nothing else.”
“But it’s beached,” Jackson said. “How the hell do we get it back in the water?”
“The props are still in the water. Reverse thrust and that thing will pull itself back in,” Alex said.
“Then we need to get to it,” Rhino said, and smiled. “This is going to be a rush.”
“We need to think about this. There must be another way.” Jennifer grimaced. “Please.”
“Every option now is probably a bad option,” Aimee said, her eyes on the group. They lingered on Alex. “We just need to choose the one that gives us the greater return on our risk.”
Jennifer put a hand over her eyes and rubbed. “By risk, you mean our lives.”
Casey cradled her gun. “Well, I ain’t staying here to become a member of the clan of the cave squid.” She pointed a thumb at the small being that was still standing docilely behind them. “And I like my teeth as they are.”
Alex turned to the small being and drew his knife. “Best if she’s not here when we’re about to go to war with her god.”
“Wait,” Shenjung said. Soong turned to him, and he tried to continue in English. “You said the ultrasonic sound they made … scared it off.”
Jennifer crowded in. “Make her do it.” She grasped the small being by the shoulders. “Make her do it to protect us.”
“How?” Alex asked. “I don’t think I can make her understand. I’m not sure she’d want to help anyway.”
He went to cut her bonds and Jennifer pushed his hand up. “Then we keep her with us … as a shield.”
“That might work,” Shenjung said. Alex looked over at the Chinese engineer, and Shenjung immediately knew that the American leader didn’t trust him. He sighed. “Perhaps not then.”
Alex cut the bonds, and placed a hand on the being’s shoulder. She lifted her mask, and the huge dark orbs stared into Alex’s eyes for a moment, before she looked down at her cut bonds, her long deathly white fingers picking away the remnants of the cords, and dropping them to the ground. She turned to Alex again, staring for a few more seconds before lowering her mask, and then in an instant, she scampered away, dancing over the rocks like a goat. As soon as she was within a few feet of one of the openings, dozens of the small pale folk appeared, to grab at her and take her in. They all held spears, knives, and loops of rope. They stared down at Alex and the group for a few moments, before backing silently into their caves.
“Look’s like we got an audience,” Rhino said.
“I think we always had one,” said Jackson.
“Mighty Aztlan, center of the world, and possibly the seed of all human wisdom, now reduced to cave dwellers,” Aimee said.
“All civilizations fall. It’s not a matter of if, but when,” Alex said. “One thing these guys learned to do is survive, and anyone that can do that down here is pretty clever.” He turned back to the group. “We can’t take this thing head-on with the weapons we have. Options?”
“Diversion,” Casey said. “I take one group over to the other side with the rifle, and attract its attention, draw it to us. Keep it off you guys as you make it to the sub.”
“Oh please, can I be in that group?” said Jackson, grinning. “Because that sounds like a real long-term career option.” He turned to the wounded HAWC. “What do you say, Blake?”
Casey grinned back. “I accept your volunteering. Especially since you’ll make the bigger target.”
“Forget it; Jackson is right,” said Aimee. She folded her arms, turning to Casey. “You’d last about two minutes. It’d finish you off, and be all over us again – your death would be wasted. And then what do we do once we’re in the sub? That thing is obviously big enough to move it around – it dragged it in here for godsake. And as for outrunning it, it probably overtook the sub when it first grabbed it all those years ago. We could just piss it off.” She shrugged. “Sorry, Casey.”
Jackson exhaled. “Thank god for that.”
Jennifer looked pale, her eyes red-rimmed. “Then we just get to the sub and seal ourselves in. Wait it out.”
“Fish in a bottle,” Cate said, shaking her head sadly. “Ever heard the story of the biologist who gave an octopus a puzzle once. He placed a small fish in a jar, and screwed the lid tight. Now, the octopus had never seen a jar before, and didn’t know how it operated. But it wanted the fish real bad.” She sighed. “It took the octopus ten minutes to work out how to undo the jar, and then it ate the fish.”
“Oh god, we’d be the fish.” Jennifer giggled. “We’d be the tuna in a can.”
“I don’t think it’d even need to wait. It could rip the sub in half if it wanted to,” Alex said. Aimee looked back towards the vessel. “We use what we learned – this thing flees from heat, and we know it vanishes at the first hint of a cave-in. How can we use that?”
“We create a cave-in by pushing some of those boulders down on top of it.” Casey pointed. “Up there, that overhang should do fine.”
Hanging above the ships was a shelf of stone, hundreds of tons of dark rock, jutting out over the lake.
“No, too risky; we could crush the Sea Shadow,” Al
ex said. “But I like the idea of creating a cave-in and panicking it. We can simulate a collapse with an explosion.” He held up the grenades he took from the PLA soldiers. “At least we can give it an upset stomach.”
Cate raised her head to peer over the rock barrier at the lake. The mist was rising again. “All quiet, maybe it’s sated for now and gone back to its midden. That’s where it …”
As if in response, the water broke as a tentacle lifted from the water just in front of them. They hunkered down, but it wasn’t seeking the group. Instead, it gently unfurled at the mound of skulls, dropping another onto the top of the pile. This one was fresh, and with streaks of flesh still clinging to it. Another tentacle snaked from the water, and a similar skull was carefully placed beside it, and then rearranged, until the creature decided it was in its right place.
Alex could see the gigantic mass spreading below the water. The monstrous bulk just beneath the surface looked like a mottled green and black stain. Two car-sized unblinking discs watched its own handwork as it arranged and rearranged its toys. Satisfied at last, its tentacles eased back below the surface without a ripple and then the rubbery mass dove into deeper water, to digest its last meal or wait for more to come.
“I feel sick,” Jennifer said, sitting back down by Blake.
Alex held out one of the grenades. “Casey, you get one, and I’ll keep the other. On my word, you launch yours. Hopefully we won’t need two, but we don’t know what it’s going to take to scare this thing off.”
“Scare it off?” Jennifer giggled dementedly. “Did you see that fucking thing? It’s as big as a jumbo jet. And you think throwing a firecracker will scare it off.”
Jackson put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay, Jenn, I’m scared too. And you know if you get a firecracker in the eye, you’re gonna have one hell of a bad day.” He smiled and shook her shoulder. “So, good a plan as any, and if it leads to us getting out of here …”
