“Bring the Browning,” he called over his shoulder nervously. He unslung his Remington and flipped the safety off. Jared approached and released the safety on his own rifle.
The boys’ hearts raced inside their chests, and Kyle could taste copper as a very rational fear slunk through his body like some reptilian predator in tall grass. Swallowing, he stepped on the rock and pressed down.
Click. Clunk! CLANK!
The rock face shivered once and swung inwards with the clatter of rusty cogs and grinding stone.
A dark passage opened up beyond the door, one large enough to accommodate a tall basketball guard. The stench that wafted out of the darkness hammered into them, assaulting their senses with equal parts shit, carrion, sweaty locker rooms, and the rotting feet of soggy corpses.
“Jesus, that’s rank!” Jared said. He turned sideways, covering his mouth as he fought the urge to vomit.
“Damnit,” Kyle said, staring into the darkness. “We need the headlamps.” He moved toward the trailer. “Watch the tunnel,” he said over his shoulder. He propped his Remington against the frame and opened the footlocker. Their baseball bats and gloves hit the ground first, then the sleeping bags and tent. He pulled out the headlamps, tossing one to his brother. He slipped his own over his head, clicked it on, and put the Remington into the footlocker. A dark cave meant close quarters, so he pulled out a pistol-grip Mossberg 12-gauge, pumped it once to chamber a round, and then flipped the safety off.
He cracked open a box of shells, slammed one home into the Mossy’s receiver, and filled his pants pockets with as many shells as he could fit.
“So, ummm…Wiley said to wait at the entrance,” Jared said slowly. The unspoken suggestion in his voice wasn’t wasted on his brother. Adrenaline pumped through them. They were worried about their friends. “I’m still wondering how the fuck he knew about this place.”
“Well, it can’t hurt to take a quick reconnoiter, can it?” Kyle asked. “I mean, Cindy and the others might still be alive.”
Jared’s smile was wicked. “I’m thinking it’s a long shot, but we gotta try.” He motioned for his brother to proceed. “You’ve got the shotty. You go first.”
Reason and fear struggled against adrenaline and dreams of payback. Kyle hesitated for a few moments but then thought about what he’d been taught. The shotgun was the natural weapon to lead with.
He nodded and stepped silently into the cave, straining to hear anything further in the cave as his heart pounded in his ears. They now hunted on someone else’s turf, and those someones were more dangerous than anything they’d ever faced. Silence was their best friend and would be right up until the shooting started.
Jared followed him in, reminding himself that in the cavern he’d have to really check his targets. Not only was his brother in front of him, but their friends might still be alive somewhere.
The passage opened before them, rough-hewn and changing in size from about two meters to almost three in places. They moved forward slowly, the passage descending with a slight curve to the left.
“You know, there’s something I don’t get,” Jared whispered.
“What’s that?”
“Why the fuck would anyone be down in a cave in the middle of the fucking desert?” He shook his head. “Something doesn’t smell right.”
“No shit,” Kyle replied, trying not to suck in the foul air still pressing into his nostrils.
“I’m beginning to think these aren’t people we’re dealing with.”
“What do you mean, ‘not people’?” Confusion twisted Kyle’s face into a knot. “What then?”
“I don’t know. Cultists or something? I mean like real psychos.…They sure as hell smell bad, whatever they are,” Jared muttered.
About forty meters in, they encountered what had to have been a cave-in. The walls seemed scorched, as if explosives brought the ceiling down rather than time or pressure. Jagged chunks of rock littered the floor, and someone had reinforced the widened area above them with rough, iron struts and irregular timbers. The cave-in continued for another twenty meters and then ended, with the passage going back to rough-cut stone.
They continued creeping along, and it was clear they were in a large, spiraling tunnel that looped deeper into the earth.
“What do you think Mom will do when she finds out we came in here?”
“Well, assuming we make it out, you know, as opposed to being eaten by psychotic cannibalistic cultists, I’m pretty sure she’ll take the escrima sticks to us both.” Jared shrugged. “Whether or not she beats us to death remains to be seen.”
“Yeah…” Kyle whispered. He couldn’t disagree. “I think—”
A grunt of some kind—like a big animal—echoed up toward them along the passage.
Kyle froze in his tracks and held up a fist.
Slowly, he reached up and switched off his headlamp. Turning, he pointed to his brother and pointed at the ground, indicating he wanted his brother to stay put. Then he pointed to fingers at his own eyes.
Jared nodded, tightened his grip on the Browning, and set the stock into his shoulder so he could cover Kyle as he scouted ahead.
Kyle lowered into a crouch and moved forward, listening intently as he inched along. He held the shotgun at waist level, his finger poised on the trigger guard and the barrel aimed straight ahead at waist level. As he proceeded, pale light seeped around the bend, a faint, flickering glow that grew in intensity as he drew near.
Then he heard the voices.
But they weren’t in any language he’d ever heard. They were guttural, rough, and the sounds reminded him of dogs or pigs or something, only deeper…more menacing. As he approached, the stench of carrion increased, mixed in with the smell of a slaughterhouse—butchered flesh and spilled blood. There was also the smell of roasting meat, but not any meat he recognized.
And they were just around the corner.
Kyle turned. His brother’s headlamp was barely in view around the curve of the rock. He tapped his headlamp, made a cutting motion with his hand, and motioned for his brother to come forward.
When his brother came up, he moved forward. Side by side, they inched along. The darkness around them faded, and the passageway opened a dozen meters ahead into a torchlit cavern. They turned the corner together and froze in their tracks.
A single torch protruded from the wall between two unfamiliar teenagers hung on the far wall. The boy and girl had been stripped bare, their hands cuffed in dark, metal shackles hooked on pins anchored to the wall above them. Their feet dangled a foot off the ground. Their throats had been slit, and blood covered the front of their bodies to pool beneath them and run off in a trench along the wall. Additionally, the boy’s left leg had been hacked off at the hip.
But that isn’t what terrified the brothers.
Off to the left squatted five humanoid creatures about four feet tall with greenish-black skin, broad shoulders, spindly limbs, and dark, matted fur. Their faces were piglike, with short snouts and inch-long tusks protruding up from their lower jaws. Beady eyes in deep-set sockets glowed with an inner, reddish light.
The things wore a mishmash of hide clothing, cast-iron bracers, and greaves. A couple of them also wore odd pieces of filthy human clothing that looked like it belonged in the 1980s. Each had a badly crafted weapon of some sort lying on the stone floor within easy reach, including a couple of hand axes, a battered sword, and one larger, double-bitted axe that belonged to the largest of the five.
They conversed in their strange, grunting language as the larger one rotated a severed human leg on a spit over the campfire.
Rage blossomed in Kyle’s chest.
“WHAT THE FUCK?” he growled.
All five creatures turned surprised faces toward the Schaeffer brothers.
BOOM! Turkey-shot from Kyle’s Mossberg turned the nearest pig-face into a red, meaty cloud that spattered across two pig-faces behind him. The headless corpse flew backward and slammed into another pig-thin
g.
The four monsters still breathing squealed in unison, grabbing their weapons as they rose.
Jared aimed at the next one in line and fired twice. The first round caught it in the chest, forcing it backward. The second hit it in the face, sent a burst of brains out the back, and hammered into the shoulder of the next one in line. A single shot from the Browning sent that one to the floor in a heap.
The big one roared a challenge and rushed forward, double-bit axe held high.
Kyle pumped the action and fired again, catching the thing square in the chest. Jared followed up with a shot through its throat. It tumbled backward to slam onto the stone.
The last one screeched in terror, turned, and bolted for the passage on the far side of the cave.
Both brothers shot it in the back. The thing slammed into the rock face next to the passage it had run for. Kyle took two steps, pumping the action of the Mossy again. He took aim, pulled the trigger, and blew the head off the last pig-face. The body slid to the ground and tipped onto its side, one of its legs twitching.
Silence filled the room, broken only by the adrenaline-fueled panting of the brothers. Gunpowder filled their nostrils, and the ringing in their ears reminded them why shooters wear earplugs at ranges. Half in shock, they stared down at the carnage as smoke dissipated on a current of nauseating air drifting up from below.
The pig-faces’ blood was nearly black, and almost as thick as honey.
“Holy shit…” Jared reached into his pocket and loaded a fresh mag into the Browning. He chambered it, hit the safety, and then slid four more rounds in.
“What the hell are those things?” Kyle asked, slipping fresh shells into the Mossberg. “And what were they doing here?”
“I’m guessing they were guards.” Jared shrugged. “But I’m more worried about where the rest of them—” A deep drumming sound caught his ear. “Do you hear that?”
The ringing in their ears had faded, and now that they were listening for it, the sound of distant drums and grunting chants drifted up to them from the downside passage.
“We should keep going, but if we run into many more of these things, I’m thinking we need to get the hell out of here. We only have five rounds each.”
“Yeah. Well, if we run into more, you shoot the ones on the left. I’ll shoot the ones on the right, and we’ll work toward the middle. That way we don’t waste ammo.”
Jared nodded. “Good thinking.” He hefted his rifle and motioned for Kyle to take point again.
The brothers moved forward more quickly this time, moving deeper down the spiraling passage. They passed one single side tunnel that angled back and up at a steep angle. It was narrower than the main passage, but still large enough for something large to move through.
With the sound of the drums and chanting growing, they continued on. Jared glanced back occasionally to check their six. They made one more loop downward, the drums and chanting rising to a deafening level and the tempo quickening with each heartbeat.
The brothers killed their headlamps again, revealing a growing brightness in the passage ahead. They crouched low and inched toward a widening section of passage that opened up into a massive cavern brightly lit by torches and a huge bonfire. They got down on their bellies and crawled forward, rifles ready.
The path split before them, branching off to the left and right along the cave wall. A rocky lip stuck up that gave them perfect cover to look down into the cavern onto whatever lay below.
Kyle gasped.
Off to the left, Ashad’s gutted body turned slowly on a spit. Two small pig-things worked the spit, straining to keep the body rotating over open flame. To the right, a row of large pig-faces in identical hides and war paint hammered on great drums. In the middle of the room, a mob of the pig-things stomped and grunted to the quickening beat. On the far side, Cindy lay trussed upon a large stone altar, her unconscious body restrained by four pig-things. Just beyond, a bruiser of a pig-face nearly seven feet tall in dark plates of armor stood next to a large cave opening, holding a massive iron mattock.
Then something moved inside the cave. The brothers watched in horror as a giant spider nearly ten feet long leapt out of the cave and pierced Cindy’s chest with its foot-long fangs. The girl screamed once and then went limp.
Kyle, blind with rage, started to get up, ready to unload into the crowd, but his brother grabbed his arm and held him down.
“NO!” Jared hissed.
“But—” Kyle strained against his brother’s grip.
“There’s nothing we can do for them now!” Jared’s voice was urgent. “But these motherfuckers must pay.…” He locked eyes with his brothers. “All of them.”
“How do we do that?”
“We’re gonna need bigger guns.”
An idea popped into Kyle’s head. “Yeah, and maybe something else,” he added with malice.
“What are you thinking?’
“Trust me.” He crawled backward as silently as he could. “I have an idea.”
* * *
“I’m pretty sure I said, ‘Wait for me at the entrance.’” Wiley scowled at the brothers as they walked out into the night.
“Oh, shit,” Kyle mumbled.
“We thought we might be able to save them,” Jared said quickly. “They’re dead, Wiley…Our friends. They’re all dead.”
Wiley sat on the hood of their ATV, his trusty LAR-47 cradled in one arm and two large duffle bags on the ground a few feet away. The old man wore a camo boonie-rat hat, his bushy gray ponytail protruding down his back. The boys stopped short, in part because Wiley was there, but mostly because he had on a set of combat armor they’d never seen before. It covered his whole body, and there was a strange logo on the right shoulder guard.
His Jeep CJ-5 was parked behind their ATV.
“Is Mom back?” Kyle asked anxiously, trying to change the subject. He could still see those two teenagers hanging on the wall.
Wiley winced, knowing full well what Kyle was doing. It was an old dance for both of them. Kyle was the more sensitive of the two boys. “No. She’s still in Vegas seeing an old friend and getting you your birthday presents.”
“Old friend?” Kyle asked. “Who—?”
“So,” Wiley interrupted, “how many of those pig-faced fuckers did you kill?”
“How did you—?” Jared blurted.
“Not my first rodeo,” Wiley said simply. “Look, boys. There’s a lot you don’t know, and your mother may not forgive me, but this is more important than my sorry old ass.”
“What do you mean?” Kyle asked.
“I’ll tell you everything tomorrow. Okay?”
Both boys nodded.
“Gimme a status report,” Wiley ordered, groaning slightly as he got off the hood. He left his rifle leaning against the ATV and limped forward a step. He’d limped for as long as the boys had known him. He’d said he’d taken a hit during the war, but it didn’t keep him from kicking their butts during training.
Jared quickly filled him in on what had happened, worried that the mob down below might discover the dead pig-faces.
Wiley nodded when Jared finished up. “Well, boys, we’ve got two choices.” He stepped up to the duffle bags. “We can either call in the cavalry or”—he reached down, picked up the bags, and dropped them in front of the brothers—“you two can go back down there and take care of the bastards that killed your friends.”
“There’s an awful lot of them,” Kyle said doubtfully.
Wiley reached into a vest pocket and tossed a box at Kyle. It was brown cardboard and looked like an ammunition box.
Kyle caught it. It was heavier than he expected, and it had a military-style label.
“Wiley…” Kyle stared at the old man. “These are—”
Wiley nodded slowly. The grin on his face would have made the Devil proud. “Yep.”
“Aren’t these like super illegal?” Kyle showed the box to his brother, whose face went wide with surprise.
“I won’t tell anyone if you don’t,” Wiley said. His chuckle got both boys smiling.
“Even with those,” Jared chimed in, “I don’t see how we can get them all.”
“You haven’t seen what’s in the bags,” Wiley said.
The boys bent down and opened the bags at their feet.
“Holy shit!” Jared blurted as he pulled out an FN FAL. The battle rifle had been modified with a larger flash suppressor, a laser sight, and what appeared to be a custom-built stock.
“That was your father’s,” Wiley said.
“Is this a—?” Kyle said quietly when he opened his bag. He couldn’t believe his eyes as he pulled out a solid-framed monstrosity.
“An AA-12 auto shotgun,” Wiley finished. “I bought that for you shortly after you and your brother were born. “There are Colt Commandos in there for you both as well as a shit-ton of special ammo perfect for what’s down there. And you got your father’s pistol, Kyle.” Wiley crossed his arms and smiled at both boys…men, he corrected in his head. Today they were men. “I figured you both deserved one of your father’s weapons, and those two saw him through quite a few shit storms. It’s your birthright.”
“So what’s this?” Jared asked, pulling out the upper portion of combat armor virtually identical to Wiley’s.
“You both get a set,” Wiley said with pride. “Also your father’s.” He looked a little embarrassed. “I’m afraid they might be tight. You two are a bit larger than he was. But for tonight, I figured they might come in handy.”
“What the hell is all this stuff?” Kyle asked. He pulled out his own armor and examined the emblem on the shoulder. It was a cartoonish version of Elvis smoking a big cigar on an olive green background.
“Well, the emblem is for Team Vegas.”
“What?” the brothers asked in unison.
“Look, all I can tell you right now is that those things down there are the ones who killed your father. Three months before you were born. Back then there was an army of them. We thought we got them all and sealed up the cave, but apparently we missed a few.”
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