by Greig Beck
‘Gel-based C4 – twice the boom for half the bucks. I’ve coated it in military styrocrete, which should muffle the noise and direct more of the blast wave into the stone. In case I’m wrong, it’s best if you don’t stand there – ya got ten seconds.’ He laughed and ran towards the mouth of the cave.
‘Shit!’ Lagudi ran after him and disappeared around a bend in the stone tunnel.
Adira and the others followed, with Alex jogging at the rear, shaking his head. From behind them came a sound like dry wood cracking, followed by tumbling rocks.
Alex rounded the bend into a frozen silence and a scene from one of his worst nightmares.
Framed in the mouth of the cave, gently lit by the creeping dawn sunlight, was a scorpion, spider, crab – all of them, and none. Its shape was everything that made you pull your hand from beneath the log, when you felt the touch of many unseen legs on the backs of your fingers. But now standing before Alex that horror was amplified in both its size and grotesqueness.
The creature stood like a living pillar of mottled green shell and bristling insectoid hairs. Its upper body was thrown open to reveal two powerful spiked limbs and dozens of smaller appendages that moved and clicked as if in mad anticipation of some feast to come.
Eyestalks like ropey tentacles swivelled towards Alex, and black bulbs delivered a soulless, unblinking stare that was all the more hideous for their lack of life or emotion.
There was a blinding pain in Alex’s head as a scream tore through his mind. It was an attack cry and it hadn’t come from anyone on his team.
‘Fire!’ Alex ordered.
He was first to pull his gun, followed by Adira, Sam and then Rocky. Bullets sprayed towards the creature, the impacts sounding like heavy hail on a tiled roof. Its cartilage plates clamped together in defence and the gunfire did little damage to its body.
Irish ran to squeeze between the tumble of rocks and the creature that was blocking the middle of the cave. Perhaps he was trying to draw the thing out into the open where they stood a better chance. But it moved quickly, beyond anything they had ever encountered, its hardened legs clacking as it raced towards the running man.
Only Alex saw the large serrated claw fire out at Irish – the movement was too fast for normal human vision. The blow lifted the HAWC off his feet and smashed him into the wall. His pack went bouncing off his body and skidded in the sand of the cave floor.
‘Damnit.’ Alex fired again and again at different angles, but with the same lack of result – the creature just compressed itself down behind its thick carapace plating. He could see there was little damage and the monster wasn’t going to retreat.
It moved sideways across the cave mouth, staying low against their fire, only fully opening its thorax to display its grasping claws when it was close to Irish’s fallen body. The thing had started to drag Irish towards it when Adira ran forward with both her guns held out together, firing a stream of jacketed lead bullets in an accurate but ineffective attack. At least the creature had stopped its attempt to spear the HAWC.
‘We’re hurting it, but not enough,’ Alex yelled over the gunfire. He guessed they were little more than an annoyance to the large arthropod. It swung back towards them and he saw its body compress slightly – like the way a spring coiled before it was unleashed.
‘Sam, get Irish and pull him back. That’s an order,’ Alex shouted.
He heard Adira’s guns click on empty chambers and saw her step back to reload. As she moved, the creature’s eyestalks swivelled in her direction. Alex heard the unearthly scream in his head again as the thing shivered in preparation to attack.
‘Oh, no, you don’t.’
Alex dived and grabbed Adira, rolling her away from the creature, then he physically threw her out of the way. She hit the sand near Sam who grabbed her and yelled into her ear, ‘We gotta get Irish.’
Alex came up firing again, moving in front of the creature to distract it, betting on his own speed to keep out of its killing range. He looked quickly over his shoulder and saw Adira pull her arm free from Sam. A brief spasm of anger crossed her face. For a split second Alex met her eyes and he knew she understood what he needed her to do. She and Rocky grabbed the fallen HAWC, while Sam took Zach by the upper arm and pulled him back deeper into the cave.
‘Okay, ugly, let’s see what you’ve got.’ Alex pulled his helmet visor down and reached over his shoulder for the KBELT. His hand came back empty. ‘Oh yeah, that’s right.’ It was back near the place where O’Riordan had punched through into the new cave.
The creature moved and Alex dived. He felt an impact to the back of his head and something warm on his neck. He kept rolling and wedged himself into a small crevice, barely wide enough for his body, and kept moving back into the narrow passage. He felt up to his helmet casing and it came away in two pieces. The creature’s claw had sliced the hardened ceramic in two, but only just managed to graze the back of his head. Already the trickle of blood had dried and the wound was scabbing over.
Alex raised his gun as the thing moved slowly towards the gap in the rock. Its foot-long eyestalks extended into the crack – hanging there like a shark’s dead eyes. It was dark, but Alex knew the creature saw him clearly. The sickening smell of sweet vinegar filled the crevice. Night bugs, Alex thought, remembering Zach’s description of the smell. Slowly, almost gently, the monster extended one of its claws. It telescoped on a double hinge and the large serrated blade hooked forward, falling just inches short of Alex face. The long eyestalks reappeared and shivered for a moment.
Alex lowered his gun and exhaled. ‘This ain’t gonna end well, is it?’
The stalks withdrew and the creature repositioned itself to try again. This time the claw came further, and as the serrated blade started to unfold Alex grabbed it and held on.
Visual images punched into his mind: once again he saw a heavily forested landscape – its strange colours rendered even more incredible by the orange hue of the sky and a low blazing sun of the deepest blue. The images vanished as the thing tugged against his grip. This time it was the creature’s emotions that Alex sensed – they were raw and primeval – all about anger, killing and dominance.
It pulled harder and Alex skidded forward a step. The thick bristles and large inward-curving teeth on the claw gave him a good grip and he wedged his shoulders sideways to further cement himself into the crack in the rock. But the strength of the thing was unbelievable. Alex exerted all his own strength and pulled, but the creature pulled back even harder. Thoughts of snapping off the claw evaporated as he analysed the extraordinary density of the waxy, chitinous material. The monster had obviously evolved to combat things a lot more formidable than Alex.
Alex tightened his grip and decided on one last almighty twist. Before he could move, the creature drew back its entire body and pulled him out of the crevice like a cork from a bottle. Alex had no time to react; he was whipped free and flung against the cave’s wall. Without his helmet, the side of his head impacted with the cold stone and he crumpled to the floor of the cave unconscious.
O’Riordan had done his job well – there was an almost perfect hole in the tunnel wall, three feet around and so clean that it could have been cut by machinery. The HAWCs stepped through, Rocky and Sam dragging Irish between them, but Adira held back.
‘I’m not a HAWC,’she said. ‘You must follow your captain’s orders, Sam Reid, but I don’t have to. I shall be back shortly.’
Adira picked up speed as she raced back down the tunnel, pulling both her reloaded Baraks from the front holsters. She rounded the bend and cursed when she saw what lay before her.
The creature had Alex’s body pinned to the ground. One of its large jointed legs was digging into his back, only the armadillo plating stopping it from piercing him completely. Its twin eyestalks swivelled around to peer at Adira then back to Alex. The creature leaned forward. Its mandibles opened and a spike like an oily black spear slid out towards Alex’s exposed neck. Adira had a pretty good
idea what was about to happen.
She screamed at the beast as she raised both her guns and charged. The Baraks were loud and the impacts hard. She aimed for the creature’s head and was momentarily rewarded when it pulled the tube back into what passed for its face and stepped off Alex’s body.
Adira knew that if the creature could best a warrior like Alex, then she would not stand for long if it attacked her front on. She looked around and saw Alex’s destroyed helmet… and O’Riordan’s backpack. She dived for the backpack.
The creature remained immobile. Perhaps it knew that she couldn’t do it much harm, or perhaps it was hungry and wanted to stay close to its next meal. Whatever the reason, it gave Adira the few seconds she needed to dig around in the backpack and pull out the tube of C4 gel. She holstered one of her guns, thought for a second, then simply pulled the top of the tube open and squeezed a large lump of the sticky gel into her hand until she had a mound the size of a pool ball. She sucked in a breath, gritted her teeth, and sprinted at the creature, flinging the sticky ball at its back. She had no time to be careful of Alex; she just hoped the thing would shield him. And if it didn’t work, they were both as good as dead anyway.
The ball stuck; the creature didn’t even bother turning. It was once again lowering its head towards Alex’s neck.
Adira slowed, aimed at the blob and fired.
The result was more than she’d hoped for. The high-energy explosion kicked the creature twenty feet down the tunnel. It immediately righted itself, but seemed disorientated. Staying low to the ground, it scuttled away towards the mouth of the cave.
It was the only chance she was going to get. She sprinted for Alex, grabbed him under the arms and dragged him back towards the team.
THIRTY-SIX
Zach stood back against the inside wall, watching as Rocky gave O’Riordan a sip of water. O’Riordan grabbed the bottle, pulled off his helmet and poured some over his short red hair, mumbling something about a car crash as the water ran down his face.
‘What happened? How’d I get here?’ he said, shaking his head and flinging droplets to the dry cave floor.
Rocky took the water canister from him. ‘Ms Senesh and the boss ran defence for you. She stopped it skewering you, and then the boss distracted the… uh… thing to give us time to pull you out.’
O’Riordan rubbed his hands through his hair and looked around. ‘So where are they now?’
Rocky glanced at Sam who just gave a shrug.
‘Ahh, fuck it.’ O’Riordan closed his eyes and tilted his head back.
Rocky looked down at the cave floor, then quickly back up at Sam. ‘I think it was guarding this place,’ he said. ‘Maybe the Iranians were controlling it somehow? Or maybe it lives in the caves – like a dinosaur, or a demon. Hey, maybe there are more in here.’
‘Great. Let’s all go fucking insane as well,’ O’Riordan sneered, grabbing the water back from Rocky.
‘Dr Shomron,’ Sam said, and Zach jumped at the sound of his voice. ‘What the hell was that thing?’
Zach frowned – for a moment, he was having trouble remembering what he’d seen. It was as if his mind was trying to shut the image out. Slowly, however, the monster formed in his mind, but refused to be categorised.
‘I’ve no idea,’ he said. ‘I’m in physics and that’s outside my area of expertise. I really -’
‘Just have a fucking guess, genius. This is your shit-suckin’ stompin’ ground,’ O’Riordan said, glaring at him as he got slowly to his feet.
‘Um, ahh… I think, um… non-indigenous, I know that much. Mutation maybe? If they’ve been using high-energy radiation here then it’s possible there’s been some kind of corruption at the cellular and nucleic acid level.’ Zach put a knuckle to his lips and thought for a moment. ‘Unless…’
‘Contact.’ Sam whispered. He’d been peering through the hole looking for any sign of Alex or Adira. He pulled his sidearm and spoke quietly over his shoulder. ‘Soldiers, go to red.’
Rocky and Irish fanned out into a defensive position on either side of the hole in the wall. Zach felt his stomach lurch at the thought of the large creature pushing through the tunnel while they were trapped inside. He backed up until his shoulders touched the dry wall, his teeth locked in a grimace. He couldn’t stop his hands dancing at the ends of his arms, even when he held them up in front of himself.
‘Rocky, eyes out. Irish, with me,’ Sam ordered.
He leapt through the hole, quickly followed by O’Riordan. Zach tried to back up even further as he heard a sliding sound coming closer.
‘Heeey.’ Rocky placed his pistol back in its holster and leaned through the hole. When he stood again, Zach could see that he was supporting the upper half of an unconscious figure. The man’s helmet was off and, despite the dirt and dried blood, his face was clearly recognisable as the HAWC captain’s. Zach felt as if a giant sack of stones had been lifted from his shoulders. He stepped forward to help.
*
Adira bathed Alex’s face. Her movements were soft and she spent more time washing the dirt away from his forehead and cheeks than was probably necessary. Nice face, she thought.
‘I think you have many lives, Alex Hunter,’ she said as he opened his eyes.
Alex sprang to his feet and looked around. ‘Where is it?’
Sam grabbed him by the arms. ‘Easy, boss. Ms Senesh gave it an explosive kick up the ass and it ran out of the cave. Rocky and I went back to scout the skirmish zone; there’s nothing there now.’
Alex looked at Sam for a few seconds, then towards the hole. He seemed to be listening. He swung back around quickly. ‘We’re out of here – now. Sam, take ’em in.’
‘Roger that, boss. Rocky, take point. Dr Shomron, I want you with him to check for any further radiation traces. I’ll take left; Irish, take right. Let’s go, soldiers.’
Adira pulled one of her Baraks from its holster and let it hang by her side. She watched Alex as he walked back to the hole and swung his head through. Again he seemed to be listening. After a second he shook his head and pulled two metal boxes from his belt pocket. He typed some instructions into each, then stuck one to the outside and one to the inside of the hole.
‘It’s still out there isn’t it?’ she asked.
Alex looked at her. ‘Yeah, it’s close. We’ll just leave it a little surprise.’ He grinned and nodded at the little metal boxes. ‘Come on.’
The tunnel was like a tomb; not a drip, a rustle or even the hushed whisper of a breeze broke the silence. Out at point, Lagudi was moving forward quickly and carefully. Zach, on the other hand, seemed to find every single piece of fallen debris, mound of dust or broken rock shard. He had a small flashlight, but they mainly relied on Lagudi’s barrel-mounted torch for illumination. Though it had a powerful beam, it created a pipe of light that left much of the peripheral darkness untouched. After what they had encountered in the outer tunnel, that was way too much shadow for Zach’s liking.
They came across the skeletons about ten minutes along the tunnel – mummified cadavers scattered on the dusty floor, their parchment-like skin drawn back from gaping mouths. Yeerk, thought Zach. Skeletons always unsettled him. The tendons in the jaw shortened as the body decomposed, and in a dry atmosphere this process pulled the mouth wide, making them look as if they were screaming. Patches of long wispy hair were still attached to some of the skulls. Zach shivered and looked away. He knew that it was a myth that the hair and nails continued to grow after death; it was just that as the body dried and shrank, the hair seemed longer by comparison. Basically, dead was dead. But still… yeerk.
Rocky held up his hand. ‘Let’s wait for ’em.’
Zach nodded and jammed his hands into his pockets to keep them still. They didn’t have to wait long. In a few moments torchlight coloured the tunnel walls as the team approached.
Adira went down on one knee beside the closest skeleton. ‘Not old – no more than five years, I’d say, maybe even less.’
&nbs
p; She went through its pockets and found a few hundred rials, a comb and what was once probably an apple wrapped in a handkerchief – a final meal never eaten. She moved quickly to the next, whose tattered jacket gave up a wallet. She checked its contents. ‘Faribez ibn Yousef – a student at Tehran University… hmm, one too many student protest rallies, I’d say. Head shot, ribs shattered from gunfire. These guys were executed.’
O’Riordan lit up the wall behind them – it was scarred by dozens of bullet impacts. ‘I’d say they were lined up and gunned down right here.’
Adira nodded. ‘I think they’re probably Iranian, maybe prisoners or dissidents who were made to work on the hidden facility and then disposed of when their work was completed – dead men don’t talk. A lot of people go missing in Iran for the most basic misdemeanours.’
‘Bad for them, but a good sign for us,’ Alex said. ‘Means we must be close. Rocky, continue on – fast and quiet.’
Zach noticed that as Alex moved them on, he kept looking back over his shoulder, squinting into the darkness.
The creature clung to the cave wall, compressing itself down so it looked like an enormous spiked barnacle, its heavily armour-plated back to the cave’s interior. The thunderous sound of the explosion had startled it. It had never felt an impact like it, or such searing heat.
It waited for the next attack. Hours passed before it extended its eyestalks again. No great creature stood waiting to deliver the killing blow. It scuttled down from the wall.
The small creatures had disappeared, their heat trails vanishing further into the tunnels.
There was no danger now; there was just the hunger.
