Thad closed his eyes, but the only thing he sensed was his immediate surroundings.
Of course, the dwarf expected him to drop down into the caverns first. Thad sighed, but didn’t argue. He stepped through the door and as soon as his feet crossed the threshold, a series of blinding, white lights set high in the ceiling buzzed to life. Thad shielded his face, at first, thinking they were UV lights. When his flesh didn’t begin to break down, he lowered his hand.
In front of him was a hole ten feet in diameter, perfectly round, smooth as dolphin skin. The hole extended maybe another fifty feet into the earth before corkscrewing out of sight. He had always wondered just what kept the savages in the pit from climbing out and slaughtering the inhabitants of the great house, and now he knew. Savages were every bit as fast and agile as the vampires they stemmed from, but even the best of vampires couldn’t hope to climb up the slick corkscrew and make the fifty foot jump straight up to the door. Without a hand or foothold, it just wasn’t going to happen.
“Is this what we can expect at the other end?”
“Yes, except on the other end is a door hidden in the rock, just in case any humans might wander down into the caves. Savages can’t get out. Humans can’t get in.”
“So, if we manage to not get our brains eaten, how do you suggest we get up and back out?”
Sebastian made a nervous glance down the hole. “Well, I’ve never actually been down there, but from what I understand, there is a switch of some sort at the top of both spiral tubes.” He pointed to a mark on the wall where the hole began to curve. It looked like a cave drawing of a man standing in the sun. “I believe that’s it. If you can press that switch, without sliding back down, then supposedly a series of small ledges will appear, giving you a ladder to climb up.”
“What’s the catch?”
“When you activate the switch, the ledges only stay out for thirty seconds and the lights at the top of the shaft alternate from full spectrum to UV.”
Thad shook his head. “This just keeps getting better all the time. Can’t we just bust out a window or leave through the front door?”
“Only if you want the Hunters to burn us to ash before we make it a hundred yards. The good news is, from one spiral to the other is only about a half mile. You should be able to cover the distance in no time now that you’re so powerful.”
“Yeah, right.” It didn’t matter how fast his new vampiric body was if he had a dozen savages hanging off of him. But there was no turning back now. Death would be waiting for them no matter which direction they turned. At least, in the caverns, they had a chance. Thad dropped the dead man down the hole, and watched as the corpse spiraled out of sight. “He can go first.”
They listened for moment, but there was nothing but silence from below. Sebastian crawled up Thad’s leg like a spider monkey, onto his back and perched himself upon Thad’s shoulders. “I’m sorry, but from here on out, I’ll need you to carry me.”
Thad snarled, but didn’t object. He scooted forward until his toes dangled over the edge. He had only been a vampire for around an hour. He had been human for almost twenty years. The idea of dropping fifty feet into a dark hole gave the butterflies in his stomach diarrhea. Thad took a deep breath, held it, and then stepped off into the hole.
The wind whistled in Thad’s ears and his stomach lodged in his sinuses. He was expecting a bone-jarring transition as they passed into the spiral tube, but instead, he hit at just the right angle, and the slick stone caught him like a caressing hand. They picked up speed and the centrifugal force pinned them to the outer wall. The spiral tube spit them out, and they rolled across the hard cavern floor, coming to rest next to the nearly-nude corpse.
The air in the cavern was colder than the house, yet far warmer than it was outside. Thad stood up, Sebastian still clinging to his neck like a bad scarf, and pulled the lab coat closed. His breath pooled before his face in a white plume, and he shivered uncontrollably for just a few seconds before his new body adjusted to the temperature change. Very little of the bright lights above filtered down here, making it difficult to see.
“We should have brought a flashlight,” Thad whispered. The dwarf fished a small chrome cylinder the size of half a pencil from his pocket. He twisted the end, and thin but bright light shone forth. “I don’t suppose you have a weapon in your pocket.”
“Sorry. No.”
“Didn’t think so.” Thad grabbed the dead man by the ankle and started walking. “You planned all of this, yet didn’t think to arm yourself.”
“There isn’t much we could’ve brought, short of a flamethrower, that wouldn’t just make the situation worse. What do you mean to do with our friend down there?”
“When the savages come, I’ll throw the body at them. Maybe it’ll distract them long enough for us to escape.”
“Not likely. Savages always go for live meat first.”
Thad wanted to say, then I’ll throw you at them, but it no longer seemed safe to talk. The gloom in the cavern deepened, like the mire of an ancient marsh, hindering every step. There was no sound, save for the soft scratch of the dead man being dragged behind them. The dwarf’s tiny light gave enough illumination for his new eyes to see by, but now there were jittering shadows leaping out from every crevice, startling and distracting Thad with their harlequin antics.
The cavern was around twenty feet wide with a high, peaking ceiling full of stalactites. The path was fairly straight, worn smooth from countless feet shuffling back and forth for time untold, but every so often, fissures opened in the rock walls, creating the perfect hiding spots for savages waiting to strike.
Thad watched each crack they passed for even the hint of movement. He held his breath and tried to will his rampaging heart into submission. A tiny noise sounded, almost like a groan echoing to them from a distance, and Thad stopped mid-step. He stood scanning the darkness when the dead man gave a heavy spasm, nearly sitting up. Startled, Thad dropped his leg and backed away. The dead man convulsed. Thankfully, the only noise he made was from the tiny pebbles he scattered across the cave floor.
“He’s turning,” Sebastian whispered in Thad’s ear. “I say we leave him here. Let him draw the savages toward him and away from us.”
Thad nodded in agreement. He turned just as a set of powerful jaws snapped shut mere millimeters from his face.
The light from the dwarf’s flashlight spilled onto the repulsive face of the savage, and he drew back with a loud shriek, covering his blood filled eyes. Thad kicked the beast in the chest, and sent it soaring into the darkness. Growls and shrieks rang out from every crack and crevice, and the inky black walls came alive with life.
Two groups of savages came at them from both sides. They moved with supernatural speed, and had Thad still been human, he would have been done for. Thad dropped to one knee as several savages launched themselves at him. The savages collided over his head in a clash of raking claws and gnashing teeth. As they fell on top of him, Thad exploded upward, knocking the savages back into the other fiends that rushed up behind them. Sebastian, still clinging to Thad’s neck, let out a terrified scream as he made contact with the savages.
Feet, bare and fast, slapped the cold, damp cave floor. “Sebastian,” Thad yelled. “Behind us!” The dwarf raised his flashlight, dousing the approaching savage’s face with bright, unnatural light. The creature tumbled to her knees, clutching her face in agony. Thad punted her like a football, and up she went, smashing hard into a stalactite.
The circle of blood-filled eyes tightened. There were too many savages to count, but luckily, they all seemed to be mindless brutes who hadn’t regained consciousness. They rushed in all at once, no plan, no strategy, just a lust for flesh and brains. Thad reached down and grabbed the only weapon he could think of.
Thad took hold of the ankles of the mostly naked man, who was well on his way to being born of the bite, and swung his body upwards. He connected with a pair of savages and sent them toppling backward in a wadded
knot. He turned in a circle, catching five more savages leaping for him. The man groaned with each impact, his arms flailed wildly as Thad used his torso to knock savages into the air like they were baseball pitches.
Sebastian barked warnings into his ear. “Behind you. To the left. There’s one dropping from the ceiling.” Still, no matter how many Thad drove away, there seemed to be two to take its place.
This wouldn’t do. They couldn’t stand here and hope to win this fight. Eventually, the savages would overrun them. “New plan. Hold on tight.”
Thad flipped the man up and caught him by the armpits. The man’s bloody head lulled side to side, but his eyes opened in confusion, and a question started to form in his mouth where a set of newly formed fangs now resided. They didn’t have time for questions. Thad dug his shoulder into the man’s chest and exploded forward, bowling into the savages like a juggernaut.
It didn’t go as he had hoped. Instead of ripping through the horde of savages, the beasts latched onto the man with unbreakable grips. They tore the man screaming from Thad’s hands, and sent him and Sebastian rolling another hundred feet across the rough cavern floor.
Thad jumped to his feet, the lab coat in a tangled, shredded knot. He peeled it off just in time to snare the head and hands of a savage rushing to meet him. He whipped in a circle and hammer-tossed the savage into the crowd.
Several of the creatures were fighting over the flesh and brains of the man, but not all. Sebastian knelt on the ground, smacking his busted flashlight into his palm, but was unable to revive it.
“Hey,” Thad shouted, bringing the dwarf’s panicked eyes up to meet his own. “Didn’t you say there were lights in here?”
Sebastian’s face lit in frustrated realization. He jumped up and darted into the darkness. A strange dizziness flooded through Thad, and he wobbled on his feet. It passed quickly, but for just a moment, it felt as if there was a magnet resting in the pit of his stomach, and the stone of the cavern surrounding them was forged of metal. The stone and dirt wished to come to him, if only he would call it. Thad shook off the sensation and followed after the dwarf, smashing several savages out of the way as they tried to attack the tiny vampire.
The dwarf made it to the wall and stood pointing at a Y-shaped lever several feet above his head. “Here’s one of the switches. Push it up and it will turn on the lights.”
Thad did as instructed. The string of large lights set in the cave top burst to life, their sharp white light sending the savages fleeing for the crevices. Sebastian let out a bellowing laugh, pumping his tiny hands in the air. Then a large shower of sparks exploded from the switch, and darkness reclaimed the cave.
The dwarf kicked the wall, letting loose a string of obscenities that would make a construction worker blush. “Old, worthless junk. Should’ve been replaced five decades ago.” The savages, once again, spilled from the cracks in the rock. “Come, we must go. The exit isn’t far.”
Sebastian climbed onto Thad’s back and the two ran for the end as fast as Thad could go. The dwarf’s flashlight was gone, and they were buried in impenetrable darkness that even the keenest of vampiric eyes couldn’t overcome, but Sebastian could see with more than just his eyes. He tugged on Thad’s ears, left or right, depending on which way he needed to go, and though it was annoying, it worked quite well.
“Stop here,” Sebastian said, pulling back on both of Thad’s ears.
“I’m not a horse.” Thad bent at the waist, propping himself up, hands on his knees. He wasn’t winded exactly. His new body felt as powerful as ever, but that strange sense of magnetism had returned. The savages were coming for them, swimming the darkness with deadly accuracy. He knew he needed to move, but the stress and anxiety rushed through his veins like a deadly toxin. Thad fell backward against the cold stone wall and slid to the floor.
“Thad,” the dwarf said, true fear in his voice. “This is no time for a nap. We’re at the spiral chute. Come now, I can’t make it up on my own.”
“Something’s wrong,” is all Thad could say.
The roar of the approaching savages thundered around them. They moved with speed and purpose, sensing their prey had reached the impossible exit. Thad could feel their feet drumming on the cave floor, their wretched hands sliding along the walls, as though the cavern was an extension of his flesh. Twenty yards, fifteen, ten, they continued to close the gap. Thad looked up into the darkness, where the stalactites perched for millennia and begged for their help.
A burst of power rushed outward from Thad’s chest and he screamed in shock. A horrendously loud crunching sound echoed overhead. A shower of grit and pebbles rained down from above, then the stalactites fell to the ground, crushing several of the approaching savages.
“Oh my,” the dwarf said. “I wasn’t expecting that.” The darkness was impenetrable, so he must have sensed what had happened. He tugged on Thad’s arm. “We really need to go now. The ones you crushed are going to fill this place with a cloud of spores, and the others are already finding their way through.”
Thad wanted to ask what the dwarf meant by ‘the ones you crushed’, but now wasn’t the time. He scooped Sebastian onto his back, then started up the spiral chute. The rock had been polished smooth, but Thad found there were tiny imperfections his fingers could take hold in.
“Do not slip,” Sebastian said. “We’ve only go one shot at this. I can see the cave drawing with my mind’s eye. When I hit it, the UV lights will come on. It’s going to hurt, so be prepared. Something should extend from the wall. Grab it. We’ll only have thirty seconds.” Thad wanted to tell the dwarf he’d give it his best shot, but he was breathing too hard. The air cooled and became less humid. “Almost there.” Sebastian stood on Thad’s shoulder and slapped at the wall. “Got it.”
A terrible thought occurred to Thad. What if the power surge had knocked out whatever device actuated the UV lights and the rungs in the wall? He didn’t have long to worry, though. This part of the cave was apparently newer, and fed from a separate source of power, because the shaft buzzed to life with a purple light that was every bit as pleasant as standing in a giant microwave oven.
A series of four metal pegs popped out of the stone face, alternating from wall to wall, about twenty feet between pegs. The UV light scorched his eyes and blistered his skin, but Thad refused to give in to the pain. He reached to and took hold of the first peg, placed his feet against the wall, then leapt to the next peg. His skin began to melt like wax in a fire. The dwarf writhed on his back, bringing his pain to an excruciating level. Still, he refused to stop. Up he went until he found a small ledge with a large metal door fixed into the stone wall.
Thad jumped to the ledge. The dwarf dropped from his back and immediately started working on the door, rolling a series of cams set in the center back and forth.
“Hurry,” Thad shouted. “Get it open before we melt.”
“I’m trying,” the dwarf screamed back. “This isn’t easy, you know.”
A large rock, the size of a basketball, zoomed straight up the shaft, smashing into the UV light. The lamp exploded in a brilliant display of sparks, covering them in a soothing blanket of darkness.
“The pegs are still extended,” Sebastian said, his voice short and hurried. “The savages are coming up the shaft.”
“Then get the door open!”
“It’s a combination lock. I’m doing my best. You need to keep them from getting up here.”
“How?”
“Drop the ceiling on them, like you did before.”
“What? I didn’t— I don’t know how I did that.”
“You’re a terre-kinetic. You can do this.”
“A what-kinetic? Now you’re just making up words.”
The dwarf’s tiny hands clicked across the cams with incredible speed. “Terre-kinetic. You can manipulate dirt, sand, rocks… Things from the ground. It’s real, I assure you, even if the Stewards don’t think it’s a gift worthy for their Hunters. You need to do whatever you di
d before right now or we’re dead. Do it!”
The magnetic lump returned to Thad’s stomach, and there came a pulling from behind his eyes. He wished the door would just open so that their lives wouldn’t depend on him conjuring some hokey form of magic. He wished for the rock above the shaft to fall. All of it. However many tons of earth and stone was above them, let it come down and bury the savages forever.
The stone split with a thunderous crack, but not from the ceiling. The rock around the metal door ripped like an old cloth. The dwarf stepped to the side just in time to miss being swept off of the ledge as the metal door shot from its place and tumbled down the shaft, sheering off the climbing pegs and taking the ascending savages with it. The stone ceiling shuddered violently, cracking, and sending dirt and rubble raining down upon them.
“It’s time to go,” Thad said, scooping Sebastian up and leaping through the now open doorway.
The world above filled the world below until it could hold no more. Thad stood in the pitch darkness, staring in the direction of the calamity. Did he really do all that? Did he really have that much power?
After a time, Sebastian tugged on his hand. “We need to go. The sun is up, but we should rest closer to the exit. When dusk hits, we need to start our long journey.”
“Where are we going?”
“To find Jerusa. But first, we’ll need to locate an old friend of mine. His name is Victor. He’s unpredictable, and more than a bit insane, but we’ll need his help if we want to set things right.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Goodalle walked the halls looking at the devastation that had been his life’s work. There were so few of them left now. Some had tried to leave. Starnes took care of them. The rest had fallen victim to the umbilicus. Those that remained were busy wiping hard drives, torching research documents, and purging any and all specimens. It was heartbreaking. They would have to start all over, if that was even possible.
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