by Guy Riessen
Moving forward they stepped over a male cadaver clothed in torn jeans and an oil-stained wifebeater tank top.
“Ugh, now that’s just unpleasant,” Derrick said. The dead man’s head was bitten through just above the lower jaw. Its tongue lolled back over the exposed windpipe. Remnants of brain tissue and the top of the spinal column glistened in the afternoon light.
As they reached the front of the house, Derrick moved the Batdar sensor over the porch. “Looks solid, H.”
Howard walked up the steps. The dry wood creaked but didn’t otherwise show any strain. Moving over to the front door, he flicked his rifle light on. The door was slightly ajar, and he shined the flashlight through the crack between the door and the jamb. The rest of the team moved up onto the porch. Sarah turned and watched them approach, her gun tucked into her armpit, the barrel tilted down.
“Whatever’s left of the Primary is covered in dirt from the collapse of the pit edges.” She looked past them, waving the barrel of her rifle in the general direction of the pit.
Derrick turned to look. They could see partway into the pit from here. The walls of the pit had slumped down filling the pit with a sloped cone of dirt. He couldn’t tell where the ramp down into the pit was, it was utterly obliterated. The surface of the dirt was not moving.
Howard looked around at each of them, and after receiving silent nods, he pushed the door open with the tip of his boot. His rifle was up, and he sighted along the barrel. The green laser sight cut through the dust that hung in the darkness of the open door. The entire beam was visible due to the amount of particulate floating in the air. Derrick tapped Mary on the shoulder and nodded with a thumbs-up. Cool laser show, he mouthed.
Mary seemed to answer with a silent but emphatic, grow up, but Derrick wasn’t sure, he didn’t read lips too well.
Howard stepped in over the threshold, his laser cutting left to right, then up and around, then he stepped around the door and kneeled with his barrel facing into the main room where stairs descended from the second floor. “Clear,” he said under his breath.
Derrick stepped in next, moving his scanner around in a careful pattern. “Looks like structural damage to the roof ... and we’ve got a support-wall failure over there.” Derrick pointed at the wall in front of them to the right. It had a ragged crack from floor to ceiling, and the middle of the wall bulged.
Derrick slid his hand along the wall near the door, then flipped the light switch when he found it. Nothing happened. “Power’s out.” The lights on their rifles painted the room in thin strips of brightness.
The floor was carpeted in a long red shag discolored to a dark brown. Mary leaned down and dragged a finger through the matted fibers and sniffed. “Wow, the carpet is literally stained brown with cigarette smoke. Feels tacky to the touch.”
“Nineteen seventy called, they want their carpet back,” Derrick said.
Mary’s rifle light flicked over along the walls. They were a light brown or orange, it was difficult to tell in the poor lighting, but lighter and darker streaks stretched from ceiling to floor. “Looks like water damage.”
“The air here is dry though,” Sarah said.
Derrick pulled a wired-sensor out from the side of his watch and pressed a couple tiny rubber keys. “Humidity is only fourteen percent right now. Not exactly moist, that’s for sure.”
“How you feeling, D?” Howard asked.
“Well, much better now that the Primary is toast. There’s still some powerful Mythos activity in the area though. Could be the Grays, could be something else. Feels a bit like before the golem manifested at the Haunt.”
“OK, stay sharp everyone,” said Sarah.
They moved farther into the house. The stairs went up to the right. Derrick scanned them with the Batdar and said, “Hmm. The wood is loose all over the place in the stairwell. I recommend bypassing for now, but we can ... hold up.” Derrick raised his hand then moved over to the right, then back to the left, moving the scanner up and down along the wall.”
“Got something?” Sarah asked. They all kept their voices at a whisper, letting the earpiece commlink do the work.
“Oh yeah. Interesting too,” Derrick said. He reached out and pressed along the edges of the wall near where the stairwell started. He turned and handed Mary his rifle. “Hold this for a sec. And give me some more light if you can, guys.”
They all pointed their rifle lights at the wall where Derrick was probing with his hands. “Oh, here we go.” Derrick pushed in quickly along one edge then backed his hands off. There was a “snick” sound and a section of the wall swung out, the bottom cut to match the profile of the risers. “Secret door, man!” he said. “Cool, right? Like Scooby Doo.”
The opening was small, but as Howard leaned his rifle in, it was apparent that while there were four walls and a ceiling behind the trap door, there was no floor. Shining his light down the vertical shaft, it looked like the dirt floor was about ten meters below. Looking around, Howard realized there was a ladder which started right below the opening, built of two-by-two “rungs” attached flush with the wall closest to them, like a kid’s tree-house ladder nailed to a tree trunk. The opening at the bottom looked to open into a larger room. The shaft itself was about a meter and a half across. To go down, they’d need to strap their rifles to their backs, then turn around and lower themselves using the ladder with their backs to whatever might be waiting below.
Derrick leaned in, looking down. He thought he heard a low shuffle. Sensing movement, his eyes flicked down to the dirt below.
“Something’s moving down there,” he whispered.
A thin billow of dust moved through his flashlight beam.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
HOWARD MOTIONED THEM to one side, away from the opening and whispered, “Derrick, scan the shaft walls, let me know if they’re solid.”
“You mean, ‘Derrick, use your super cool Batdar?’” Derrick whispered back.
“Fine, whatever dude, just let me know if the walls are solid. You guys are familiar with rock climbing?” Derrick and Sarah nodded. Mary shook her head. “Well,” he said softly, “You can climb wide shafts or seams behind large rock flakes by ‘stemming’ your legs across the gap and using counterpressure from one wall to the other. You hold yourself up using pressure and friction. Alternate the pressure between feet and hands and you can move by pushing against the opposed surfaces and moving your body up or down.”
Derrick leaned into the opening and quickly scanned the walls of the shaft. “All solid, H,” he whispered as he stepped back to the group.
“But how will stemming the shaft help? There’s already a ladder,” Sarah said.
“Well, it’ll get a little tricky,” Howard said, then explained his plan.
“It’s risky,” Sarah said, “but I don’t see any other options.”
Howard nodded, then they all moved back over to the shaft. He turned his rifle light off and pulled the strap around until the rifle hung down in front of him. Sarah patted his shoulder then whispered, “Uh, on second thought, there’s no way. You’re too heavy and those aren’t climbing shoes. I’ll go first.” She didn’t say she was the only one strong enough to pull it off with combat boots, but everyone understood. She turned and leaned into Mary. “With Derrick’s bad leg, it looks like you’ve drawn the short straw, Mary, since I’ve got to do the stemming, and Howard is too big to move past me in the shaft.”
Mary grinned and pulled the knife from her sheath. She whispered back, “Ready and able! It’s not often that Doctor McCoy gets to lead the landing party! Y’all get ready, I’m bringing the science hammer.”
Sarah spun her own rifle around on the strap until it hung down in front of her. Then she leaned in through the opening and reached her arms across, pressing her palms flat against the walls. She stepped through, her legs swinging free as she hung in an iron-cross position before she smoothly pressed her feet out to the sides.
She moved her hands down, then her feet
, keeping her body bunched up to maximize her leverage. When her head was even with the bottom of the stairwell opening, Mary moved over to the secret entrance. She handed Derrick her rifle. Howard shined his light in through the opening. Sarah’s head lowered a little more, dropping out of sight.
Mary watched Sarah’s progress for a couple seconds, then turned around and lowered herself through, feet first, holding on to the step, then she began to descend the ladder. Derrick and Howard leaned in and shined their lights down so Sarah and Mary could see what they were doing.
Sarah stopped when she was about two meters from where the shaft opened at the bottom. Mary moved down the ladder until she was next to her. “Good hunting,” Howard whispered. Mary glanced up, her face looked white and small in the beams of the two flashlights. She raised her knife hand up in a salute.
Then she moved down, past where Sarah stemmed. Sarah moved her hands off the walls, supporting herself with her feet, and lifted her rifle up by the strap, and placed it to her shoulder. Derrick could tell by the angle she could see a short distance into the room below.
Mary held on to a rung with one hand, knife in the other, then kicked off from the ladder and dropped the last two meters to the floor below. She rolled left, just like her paratrooper training taught her, slapping both hands against the ground to absorb some of the impact force. The air whooshed out of her as she rolled up into a crouch with her knife ready.
There was a flash of gray that careened in from the right. Mary caught the creature in the neck with the blade, and slammed the hilt with her other hand, trying to drive the point through the thing’s spinal column.
Mary crashed back into the wall, the creature straining forward against the blade and hilt of the tac knife, teeth flashing. Sarah’s gun barked, loud in the confined space. A chunk of skull shattered free, spraying the dirt with the Gray’s brains and blood. But the creature was still arching its head forward toward Mary’s face, Derrick could hear its bones grinding against the steel blade in its neck.
Derrick looked at Howard, but he had no shot with Mary moving like that and Sarah wedged in the shaft.
Suddenly Sarah kicked her own feet free of the walls and plummeted straight down. Like an arrow, her feet together, she struck the creature in the lower back as it bent over Mary. There was a loud crack as its spine fractured. The creature and Mary were slammed back against the wall as Sarah did an arching handspring off the creature.
The creature’s legs weren’t moving as it crashed forward and Mary slipped down to the ground. Its head was jammed into the ladder steps, the broken edges of its skull collapsed, pushed inward by the wooden rung. The thing’s motionless legs slipped down along Mary’s thighs as Sarah’s rifle cracked twice again.
Sarah was out of Derrick’s line of sight, but the room flashed twice, bright from the rifle’s discharge. The rest of the creature’s head splattered against the wall and its body rolled to the side as Mary twisted her hips under its weight. She scrambled to her feet, yanking her knife free from the thing’s neck, but although its hands twitched and clutched, the headless body was not moving.
Sarah backed up, moving into view, playing her rifle light back and forth around the room below. She used her foot to roll the creature away from the bottom of the shaft, then gave a thumbs-up overhead.
“Guess that means it’s safe for us kids to come down and join you?” Howard said.
“Sure thing, but watch that last step, it’s a doozy,” Sarah whispered back as Mary shook the gore off her blade, wiped it on her pants and slid it back into its sheath.
“Blech,” Mary said, “Sometimes this job is so gross.”
“This from the only person among us to have her hands inside someone’s chest, hand-pumping blood through their heart to keep them alive?” Derrick whispered back.
“Not to mention, pulled that cyber-flesh-eating-scarab out of your ankle, eh, Derrick?” Sarah added.
“Exactly what I’m saying,” Derrick said.
“Well, y’ain’t wrong, but gloppy knife-goo is inna different category altogether,” Mary said.
Once Howard had climbed down the ladder, Derrick dropped Mary’s rifle and his cane down to him. Derrick turned around and backed into the shaft, moving with deliberation so as not to hurt his thigh inadvertently.
At the bottom, the room was small, maybe four by four meters. The walls were sealed concrete blocks, but fluid was leaking along cracks in the mortar and down from the seam between the walls and ceiling. Light from their flashlight beams reflected brightly in the wetness. There was a door set into a normal frame and it didn’t appear to have a lock. If Derrick stood tall, he could just reach the ceiling. He dragged his finger along the wall seam.
“Slimy,” Derrick said as he pulled his finger away and a long thread of viscous material stretched between his hand and the wall. “Thick, like mucous.” He sniffed it. “Smells a bit of rot, like forest floor detritus. Leaf mold with hints of dead animal.”
“And notes of chocolate and dark cherries? Derrick, slime-connoisseur,” Howard said.
Mary pulled a small bag from her med kit and collected some of the slime, while Howard moved over to listen at the door. He stepped back, examined it, and whispered, “I hear movement. No voices. Door opens inward, toward us.”
Howard knelt just behind the arc dragged in the dirt floor from the door opening, his rifle shouldered. Mary stepped to the right side of the door, her rifle up, and Sarah stood behind Howard, her rifle also up to her shoulder and aimed. Derrick could see their two laser sights against the wood of the door, Sarah’s jiggled in a small circle, Howard’s was dead still. Derrick gripped the door knob, turned, and yanked it open. He stepped back and lowered his rifle, leaning back against his cane.
Beyond the door, was a rough-hewn passageway. Crumbling side tunnels joined the main hall at irregular intervals. When Howard and Sarah didn’t immediately fire, both Derrick and Mary stepped in from the sides and their lights and lasers played down the dark passage.
The earth of the tunnel looked moist, and the clear viscid slime seeping into the ladder room was ever-present, strung from ceiling to floor around every side opening. Drops of moisture slid down the stringy, gelatinous cables, making it look like they were pulsing thick and thin along their lengths. As they watched, thick globs of the goop stretched and plopped intermittently onto the floor from the ceiling.
Derrick pointed his rifle down the tunnel then played the Batdar scanner around the walls, nodding. “It’s solid. At least like what you’d expect a dirt tunnel to be. It’s mostly absorption; the scanner’s not picking up any bounce that might indicate a hidden door. No definitive weaknesses in the ceiling, despite the fact that it’s not buttressed with supports.”
“You think it’s solid?” Sarah asked.
“Well, I have nothing to compare it to. Haven’t spent much time, you know, spelunking with the ol’ Batdar, man.” Derrick waved at his leg. “The whole leg-thang, yeah? This is the first time I’ve scanned a tunnel, let alone one made of dirt. But it reads like, you know, the ground, only even less reflective. But I don’t have the data pool to know if the scanner could pick up an area of likely cave-in or something.”
Derrick turned the dial on the side of the QQTV scanner. “The temperatures are above what’s typical ten meters underground. It should be somewhere around ten degrees C, give or take, but what I’m reading is fifteen degrees. And then, there’s these,” He leaned over so Sarah could see the screen, “those yellow areas are up to around twenty-five degrees.”
On the QQTV screen the tunnel was a uniform blue, while semi-circular patches, around the openings on either side, the walls warmed to a blotchy yellow.
“Any ideas what it means, Derrick?” Sarah asked, but Derrick just shrugged and peered down the tunnel.
“Ah dang, guys, check it out, man,” Derrick said as he looked back down the tunnel, “It’s all freaking moving.”
As they all looked at the sides and walls of the
tunnel, they realized the entire passage was undulating in heavy waves, with infrequent shudders along a side tunnel opening that shook strands of the slime free from the ceiling to stretch down to the floor.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
THEY ALL PLAYED THEIR lights to the far end where the corridor bent slightly right and continued out of view.
Howard wrinkled his nose and said, “Smells like a fucking stray dog’s breath. And it’s humid as hell too.”
“See, I told y’all it was gross,” Mary said.
Derrick nodded. He turned the dial on the side of the QQTV box to the air-vector setting and whispered, “We got air currents moving around the entrances to the side tunnel. I’m not seeing any vectors traveling the axis of the main tunnel, beyond a light one traveling the length toward us from when we opened the door. I don’t think anything’s moved down the main tunnel within the last several seconds. The Veil is thin here though—I can feel the Mythos-energy ... sickeningly thick and oppressive. Bad, man. Real bad. We’re close to the origin of the Primary Entity tear.”
Sarah whispered, “Turn your lights off.”
They all switched off the lights on their rifle rails. The room they were standing in plunged into darkness. As his eyes adjusted, Derrick could see lights flickering and pulsing from the side tunnels.
“Ideas?” Sarah asked. They all flicked their lights back on.
“Grenades ready for the side tunnels?” Howard offered.
Sarah shook her head. “Could cause a cave-in.”
Mary said, “I don’t think this is exactly a tunnel. The slime, the movement. Looks like dirt, but ...”
“Feels like a sneaker?” Derrick smiled.
“Yes, Derrick it feels like a sneaker. No, I think we may be inside a living organism—a Secondary Entity maybe?”
