by Dirk Patton
“Aye, aye, Sarge! On it.”
The Blackhawk slowed and eased its way down towards the ground, its running lights washing over the scene below. Equipment lay in broken splashes, spread in scattered arcs across a wide expanse of the rocky terrain.
Graves turned towards McCally. “When was the last time you talked to the team here?” he shouted over the whirling thump of the rotors.
“Six hours ago!” she replied. “We figured the residual energy was interfering with communications, but I think that’s another reason they asked you for escort services!”
The sergeant gestured out of his open compartment and Dr McCally leaned over to glance outside. He saw her eyes widen in surprise.
“Where are they?” she asked, though she knew nobody there would have the answer.
“Touchdown in one!” Greer shouted from the pilot’s seat. The second she finished speaking the rotors clunked and the Blackhawk lurched left. Graves shot upright, reaching out and gripping the seat.
“Fucking hell!” Yarvis shouted, the M-249 back on his lap and fully loaded.
“Engine sputter!” Greer shouted back. “Instruments are going haywire!”
The helicopter dipped forward and charged as if trying to headbutt the ground, and Greer yanked back on the stick with both hands, struggling to get the aircraft level.
“Going in hard!” she yelled. “Everyone buckle up, this bitch is fighting me!”
The AH-1 banked left, coming around in a rumbling semi-circle. Dust kicked up around them as they neared the ground, the whirring blades picking up small stones and dirt, pelting the aircraft and everyone inside.
“Hold on to something!” Graves shouted right before the Blackhawk pounded into the ground belly-first.
* * *
“Well, that could have been a hell of a lot worse,” Greer said, looking at the Blackhawk. The front landing gear had snapped off in the harder than expected landing, so the nose now tilted forward, the blunt and rounded front of the aircraft worn and twisted by the impact. Light smoke spilled from the rotor joint and the propellers spun in lazy haphazard circles over their heads as the momentum wound down. Around the broken bird, Graves’ team had filtered out in a defensive perimeter.
Several portable light posts bracketed the site, forming an eight hundred-meter perimeter around the research area, four hundred meters from the geyser itself. Pale, artificial light baked down upon the ground, illuminating the rock-covered area and showcasing the damage that had been done.
Every workstation and their metal crates stood pulverized into twisted clutches of iron and polymer. Shattered monitors sprayed all over the rocky surface of the surrounding ground. Eight-inch-thick beams holding geological sensors and long-range scopes were twisted and pulled apart like Twizzlers, laying in shredded halves among the rocks and sand.
The scientists were nowhere to be found. The geologists had detected the shift in tectonic plates ten days ago, identifying it as a massive earthquake deep underground. The land had split underneath the geyser and released a cacophony of molten water and lava that sprayed into the air for forty-eight hours straight. Then, it had stopped. All that remained was a huge vacant hole in the ground. A doorway into the Earth’s tough hide.
Kari Greer made her way over towards the fissure, her pilot’s helmet cast aside, and an M4 Carbine clutched in her gloved hands. Everyone in Graves’ crew was expected to multi-task, and Greer was no exception. A former Warrant Officer in the Army, she knew how to handle combat just as well as the flight stick of a Blackhawk.
“Don’t get too close!” shouted Graves. “We don’t know what we’re getting into yet.”
Not too far away, Mitch Brayshaw crouched in the dirt, his hands making strange patterns among the rocks. “Sarge, you might want to come check this out.”
Graves approached Brayshaw and crouched as he drew near, narrowing his eyes towards the rough pattern of sand and dirt near Brayshaw’s hand. Thin divots were dug out of the hard material in even, three-pronged patterns – trenches dug among the material. A faint copper-hued patch of dirt dragged along the same path, making an almost attractive artistic statement in the sediment.
“These marks,” Brayshaw whispered, pointing to the trenches. “They almost look like claw marks.”
Graves glanced up at him from under the carefully maintained comb over of thick hair. “You been watching X-Files again, Mitch?”
“Seriously, man,” he said. “And check this out.” He gestured towards the copper-colored dirt and moved it around with his hand. “See how this is clumped together where it’s discolored? I think it’s old blood.”
“How old?”
“Few hours maybe?”
“Maybe six hours?”
Brayshaw locked eyes with Graves, both thinking the same, uncomfortable thing.
“Guys, what are you looking at?” Quezar asked, coming up on their flank. His pace slowed as he neared the swath of rust-painted ground. “Oh damn,” he whispered. “That what I think it is?”
“This makes no bloody sense,” Dr McCally complained as she stormed past them. Her eyes affixed on Greer who bent low near the mouth of the geyser, closer than Graves was comfortable with.
“Hold up, Doc,” he said. “And Greer, back away from there a little, wouldya?”
“Something got you spooked?” Greer asked, standing and turning towards them. “Just a big hole in the ground, right—”
Her chest exploded without warning, a vicious and angry outward burst of thick red, clumped with torn muscle and shredded fabric from her tactical vest. A twisted and gnarled barb ejected through her flesh, coated in gore, then clacked apart into splayed, bony fingers. Her eyes glared down at it as the appendages spread, latching into her skin like a grapple. It tugged, and she whirled backwards, toppling into the silent darkness without even a scream.
“What the hell!” screamed Yarvis, as he took two cautious strides forward, his Squad Automatic lifted into the crook of his arm.
“God dammit!” screamed McCally, taking an unsteady step backwards. There were a few beats of silence after Greer’s disappearance, and the low clatter-click of insect legs on rock echoed from the darkness of the geyser. Dozens of narrow green eyes blinked into illumination just beyond the crest of the geyser, all of them glaring up at the small team of operatives who converged behind the scientist, weapons ready.
“Fuck me sideways,” hissed Brady, coming up on Graves’ left.
“What did they dump us into?” Brayshaw asked.
The clacking footsteps halted, but the eyes remained, peering out at them, curious and hungry and attempting to test their purpose here. Suddenly, four pairs of them charged, hurtling forward, their claws smacking on stone and dirt.
Graves glimpsed one before they reached the team. Its pale skin was thick and leathery like the hide of an albino crocodile. Two long, narrow legs were bent backward at the knees, ending in three protruding talons. Its four spindly arms wrapped around Dr McCally like a sick embrace, coiling her up into the creature. Its head was flat and wide, the skin just as empty of color as the rest of its body, creatures that appeared to have not seen the sun in a very, very long time. The monster dragged McCally backwards, her arms wheeling as three of the other creatures charged Graves and his team.
* * *
“McCally!” Graves screamed, but she disappeared from view as the remaining creatures stormed towards them; twisted, bone crusted fangs extended, their green slits for eyes narrowed and glaring. “Open season on these mother fuckers!”
Brady swiveled left and opened-up in full auto with his M4, the silenced weapon snapping in his hands. Bullets stitched a lazy diagonal line down the skinny torso of the first approaching creature and split its hard flesh into ribbons, spraying a dark ichor in thick rivulets down onto the sand. It slumped forward and tumbled, limbs flailing.
“They’re fast, but not bullet-proof!” Brady shouted, altering his aim and seeing two other creatures had already collected be
hind the first three, covering some serious ground in less than a handful of seconds.
Yarvis moved to intercept, his M-249 exploding with a shattering noise. The drum-fed machine gun sprayed 5.56-millimeter rounds into the tight clutch of approaching pale creatures, shattering through them and splintering limbs and shredding flesh. Graves moved forward, stepping through a pair of exploding beasts, ducking away from their spraying blood and taking aim at two more that approached quickly. Keeping it on semi-automatic, he squeezed off three shots with the M4 into the forehead of an approaching geyser monster, swiveled and pumped two more rounds into the second.
He rounded on the opening to the fissure, his weapon at the ready but the eyes had vanished, and the crest of the crevasse was clear. No monsters. And no McCally.
“They got her,” he hissed. “Fuck!”
“We got a few of them, too,” said Yarvis, glancing around at the half dozen torn, pale corpses surrounding them.
“Jesus did you see how many eyes there were?” Quezar said. “Big deal we killed six of them. It looked like there were six fucking hundred.”
“What the hell are these things?” asked Brayshaw, dropping into a crouch, touching the rigid flesh of one of the creatures.
“Spent too much time underground,” muttered Graves. “Buncha fucking morlocks or something.”
“So what do we do now?” asked Brady. “Time to call in reinforcements?”
“Like who?” asked Graves. “Freaking Ghostbusters?”
“I say we call a damned bomb strike in here,” Quezar mumbled. “Shove a tactical nuke up their asses.”
“Yeah, I’m sure that would do wonders for the unstable tectonic whatever the fucks down there,” Brady said. “Blow this geyser and blow the entire world to shit.”
“McCally was here because they called her. They wanted her here, and they wanted her here quickly. That means some shit is about to go down,” Graves said. “We just gotta figure out what that shit is.”
“And how do you suppose we do that?” Brayshaw asked. “Go down after her?”
Graves looked at him.
“God dammit, Sarge. You’ve got to be fucking kidding? And end up like Greer?” He halted for a moment, as if Kari Greer’s fate had just occurred to him.
Graves was thinking the same, staring up into the dark sky and picturing his pilot’s face, her vacant, staring, unknowing eyes as the thing’s barbed fingers dragged her down into the darkness.
“We owe Greer better than this,” Graves said. “We owe her more than cutting and running. Her and McCally. Comms are down, and the bird is broken. We can either sit on our asses and wait for help to come, or we can toughen up and see what’s going on down there. I know which choice I’m making.” As if emphasizing that fact he yanked the magazine from his M4 and checked the load, then slammed it back home.
“You with me, or what?”
* * *
Graves crested the lip of the geyser, looking down into the looming darkness. His M4 Carbine now had a tactical flashlight bolted underneath the suppressor to go along with the top-mounted sight, and it cut a pale path through the inky darkness. Halting for a moment, Graves passed his weapon left then right, illuminating the section of entrance where they stood.
“It goes down deep,” he said, turning to speak over his shoulder. As he’d known they would, Quezar, Yarvis, Brady and Bradshaw had all volunteered to hit the geyser with him, if not for McCally or for the future of the world, then for the Warrant Officer they’d spent the last three years of their lives with. The woman who had flown them into and out of some of the hairiest shit imaginable. Although none of them agreed on what the rest of the world deserved, they knew Greer, and knew she deserved better.
“Looks like some kind of tunnel system,” Brady said, moving up next to Graves, his own light shining down through a narrow passage. “Some kind of anthill bullshit going on down there.”
“Fuck. This is sounding better and better all the time,” Quezar muttered.
“We need you, man,” Graves said. “You and your C4. You’re our explosives guy, the combat engineer. If we’re bringing this thing down, that shit in your backpack is what’s going to do it.”
Quezar nodded and sighed deeply. “Whatever you say, Sarge.”
Graves stepped onto the rock and followed the passage down, drawing in a deep breath and holding it as the walls closed in to a narrow, circular passage surrounding them. They could only walk two at a time, shoulder-to-shoulder, and even that was a little too close for comfort. They walked for a long time, going down into the blackness of the Earth, moving farther and deeper than any of them felt comfortable with. A dull, wet heat soaked the air around them as they walked, like thick, hot hands gripping and pressing on them, slowing their pace.
Bringing up the rear, Quezar turned and looked up from where they’d come. “I can’t even see the stars or sky anymore,” he said. “How deep are we?”
“Not deep enough,” Graves replied.
“Hold up,” Brayshaw whispered. The former recon specialist had what seemed like a sixth sense for tracking, and he pushed up past Graves and Brady, holding his hand up and moving his fingers as if feeling the air. “I’m feeling a cross breeze,” he murmured. “More passages are likely linking up to this one ahead.”
Noise exploded from deeper within the earth. Claws scraped and clacked on the rock, and the air grew thick with menace.
“Oh, shit,” hissed Brayshaw, lifting his weapon and back-pedaling. “Shit, shit, shit!”
“Where are they?” barked Yarvis. “Where the fuck are they? I can’t see shit with this light!”
“Whose dumb ass idea was this?” barked Quezar.
“Calm down, all of you,” Graves hissed. “Take it easy! Sound carries in enclosed spaces, if we’re hearing them, then they’re hearing us. Shut your damn traps and let’s move, quick and quiet.”
They froze, silencing their movements as much as possible, slowing their breathing and taking quiet steps. Graves inched forward, one step, then another. Yarvis placed a hand on his shoulder and pulled so that Graves would move aside and let him come up on his left, placing the heavy weapon at the front. The clicking sounds were still coming from up ahead, a near avalanche of clawed footfalls. A low, red light throbbed in the distance, barely illuminating the far end of the access tunnel. It revealed a few branching tunnels along each wall.
“This isn’t going to end well,” Quezar whispered.
The group continued in silence, step by step, muscles tensed as they heard the skittering of clawed feet all around them. Graves could now hear them above him and to either side and knew there must be countless passages throughout this buried ecosystem. Dozens of those creatures, if not hundreds.
Perhaps even thousands.
He kept watching the low, red illumination from up ahead, focusing on that, the mythical light at the end of the tunnel. As he took one more step clacking footsteps rattled from just ahead and to the right. He shifted, moving the pale cone of tactical flashlight just far enough to see an opening where another passage connected. A shift of motion in the gap of the wall caught his eye.
“We’ve got movement! Two o’clock! Brady, Quezar get up here with those 203s. I think we’re getting company!”
The two specialists pushed forward with their M4 Carbines that were underslung with 203 grenade launchers. Yarvis clung to the left wall, his automatic drifting towards the opening on the opposite side. The claw clicking stopped, a sudden and swift cut of noise, draping the tunnel in a disorienting silence.
“Slow,” Graves whispered. “Take it slow.”
They burst from the opening like water from a broken fire hydrant, exploding outward in a flood of pale-skinned skitter, clamoring over and around each other and swarming the tunnel with flailing limbs and smacking claws.
“Hoooly shit!” Yarvis yelled as they poured out, several of them peeling away and scrambling up the sides of the tunnel and over the ceiling. Within a second the 249 wa
s up in his arms, stock rammed shoulder-tight, his other hand supporting the barrel as it roared loud and long in the dark confines of the tunnel. Rounds shredded the first group of approaching creatures, blasting them apart in strips of pale flesh and bone.
Graves moved forward, shifting and firing his M4. Two others dropped as a dull whump and streak of smoke sailed over his head, the grenade clunking along the curved wall for a moment before exploding amid a group of them, throwing shrieking, broken forms in all directions.
“Press forward!” Graves shouted. “Head for that red light!” He broke into a run, charging through and around disoriented creatures, shifting and firing a swift burst every few paces. Yarvis discarded his spent ammo drum and retrieved another, punching it tight into the weapon and turning and firing again, battering another group of creatures with lead.
Brayshaw moved on Graves’ flank, firing his M4 in bursts, sending two more creatures scrambling for the ground. Another 203 launched from Quezar’s rifle, striking the wall and exploding, showering rocks and wet clumps of flesh over the group as they raced forward.
Graves glanced to his right as he ran past an opening in the passage; another horde of creatures charging up that tunnel to attack them.
“Quezar!” Graves shouted. “You’re last in line, seal that passage!”
Brayshaw and Brady hurried past the opening, the floor of the tunnel now piled and slick with the broken, bloodied bodies of the beasts they’d already slain. Quezar halted by the passage just as a creature lunged from it, screaming. It lashed out with its narrow, boney right arm, fingers pressed together into a jagged barb. The soldier shifted to the right, the barb skidding over his left shoulder and carving a hunk of thick flesh from it. Wincing, Quezar lifted his foot and kicked, smashing the creature high in the chest and throwing it backwards. As it toppled back down the hole, he slammed a 203 round into the ceiling. It detonated with an ear-shattering blast, blocking it from within.
“Passage sealed!” Quezar shouted, picking up the pace, his left arm hanging limp at his side.
