by David Wood
“Three tunnels?” Slater asked.
“Let’s find out.”
They started on the far right and found it wasn’t so much a passage as a rent in the stone that only went back about ten feet, like a rock closet hewn into the cave.
“Not a way out, but it might be a good hiding place,” Aston said.
“I dunno.” Slater’s voice was weak, an edge of despair to it. “The monster could easily see us or smell us in there. Does it have a good sense of smell?”
“No idea.”
“I’m not sure it would be much of a safe haven. That thing is huge, but I think it could get its snout in there. That might be enough encouragement for it to keep trying until it got us.”
“True.” Aston shuddered at the mental image of him and Slater splayed against the rock, watching as the snapping jaws came ever closer. “Let’s keep looking.”
They moved to the next opening and this time it was a tunnel—a ragged passage with a rock-strewn floor, and easily big enough for the monster to squeeze into. But it led away into darkness. They followed it for about thirty yards and came to a fork. One passage of equal size swept around to the left while a smaller split in the rock branched away to the right.
“Let’s check the wider way first,” Aston said. “It seems to be part of the main tunnel.”
They moved on, the tunnel curving more to the left, and before they long emerged on a small ledge back into the monster’s lair. They stood gazing across at the pile of bones where they had stood only moments before.
“This is the third tunnel,” Aston said.
“It’s a half loop.” The despair in Slater’s tone increased with each word. “Easily big enough for the bastard to fit right through.”
Aston frowned. “It’s okay. This gives me an idea, maybe.”
“You’d better think quickly! That thing could be back here any second.”
“Let’s go back and check the other way.”
They returned to the fork and took the narrower tunnel. It sloped gently upwards and narrowed further as it went. After about sixty feet, Aston looked back.
“Well, there’s no chance the monster can get up here, the way is far too small now.” He allowed himself a moment of quiet hope. “We can hide out from it, at least. Hopefully we can get a lot further up, just in case it does have a good sense of smell.”
“Do you think this is the way the Nazis used?”
“Must be. If the story is true and this is that cave, it’s the only option right?”
Slater glanced back. “I wonder where the supposed entrance to the Hollow Earth is? Remember Mo’s story?”
“Underwater, Mo said, so somewhere in the vertical shaft leading up here, I guess. If the story is to be believed. Or it might even in the long ocean shaft at the bottom.” He shook his head, amazed at the train of his thoughts. “But seriously, just because this may very well be the cave the Nazis found, that doesn’t mean there’s actually an entrance to the Hollow Earth here.”
Slater shrugged. “Sure. But the legend claims the way is guarded by a leviathan. Do you remember that part of Mo’s yarn? Doesn’t that add to the credibility of the tale?”
Aston paused. The caves, the beast, the legends. It was true that a lot of folklore was based in some kind of truth. Then again, the locals might have simply conflated the legend of the lake monster with the Hollow Earth tale. “Maybe,” he conceded eventually. “Perhaps there are more interesting underwater caverns around, even if they’re not actually access to some mythical other world. But I’ve no idea how people in days gone by would have found the entrance down there.”
Slater nodded. “I really wish now we’d taken the time to look for it. It would have made an interesting extra angle for the show.”
Aston cocked his head. Something had been bothering him, but no time had felt right for clearing the air. Right now, with the fear of death hanging over them, probably wasn’t the best time either, but if Slater was straying off-topic, so could he. If they were going to die, it would be nice if no doubts lay between them.
“Speaking of the show, what’s the real story behind your late-night walks? Holloway said you were uploading files?”
Slater’s shoulders sagged. “I was covering my ass in case Holloway screwed me over. I had a couple potential buyers for the material and I was uploading to my own cloud in case I turned to them in the future.”
“I thought you said you vetted Holloway thoroughly.”
Slater nodded. “I did, but when you’ve worked in the film and television industry as long as I have, you assume everyone’s out to give you the shaft.” She lowered her head, a solitary tear tracing a rivulet down her cheek. “I’m sorry, Sam.”
“What for?”
“Holloway was obviously paranoid. I can’t help but wonder if finding out what I was up to pushed him over the edge.”
Aston circled her shoulders with one arm and gave her a squeeze. “Don’t talk like that. The man was a nutter, and I don’t blame you for having a backup plan. And now, when we get out of here, you’ve got all that footage backed up and no Holloway to worry about, right?” He leaned over and kissed the top of her head. “Let’s go a little deeper. See if we can get out, or see how far in we can go to hide.”
They walked on, shining their lights left and right. The passage continued to rise gently. After another sixty feet or so, their flashlights glinted off a pile of white and red. They stopped and stared.
“What the hell is that?” Slater whispered.
Chapter 42
Aston let out a small laugh, as much from disbelief as anything. Several wooden crates were stacked in a pile on one side of the passage, each branded with the swastika and eagle symbol of the Third Reich. A large red and black flag bearing the same motif was draped over the boxes, tattered and threadbare with age. Leaning up against the boxes and the tunnel walls, and lying on the tunnel floor, were several skeletons in crumbling German military uniforms.
“Well, we have our proof that Old Mo’s story was true and this is definitely the cave in question.” He moved over to the pile of crates and ran a finger across the surface of the one closest to him. Three words were stamped on the front: SPRENGSTOFF DEUTSCHEN WEHRMACHT. He knew the last two words translated to ‘German Army’ and he could guess what the other meant. “Explosives.”
Slater stared at the bizarre scene before her. “This can’t be the entire German unit, so what happened to the others? They just left these men here to starve to death?”
“Who’s to say any of them survived? They might be part of the bone pile out in the lair. We know…” Something caught his eye.
“What?”
Aston pointed, at a loss for words. Another pile of bones stood off to one side, next to the black scorch marks of a small fire. A couple of daggers lay atop a neatly folded uniform. The skeleton itself was broken up, the arms and legs separated from the torso, and the larger bones cracked open.
“Did that one get undressed before he died?” Slater asked quietly.
Aston gritted his teeth as he took in the grisly scene. “I think maybe he didn’t undress himself.”
“The others undressed him? Why..?” She didn’t finish the question. After a moment she said, “They ate him?”
Aston shrugged. He knelt beside one of the uniformed corpses. It had a hole blown in the skull and a Luger pistol clutched in its bony fingers. “Whatever they did, this one couldn’t take it anymore.”
“Jesus Christ,” Slater said. “They couldn’t wait for their friends?”
“Assuming there were any friends to wait for. Maybe they figured the rest of their unit had already been killed. They probably reached a point at which it was every man for himself.”
“What, they didn’t realize the monster couldn’t fit through here?”
“I’ll bet it had them tr
apped. They probably held out as long as they could, waiting for help to come. Once they ran out of provisions, water in particular, they were done for.”
“I can’t imagine. But if they came in by land, why not leave the same way?”
“Wait here.” Aston jogged further up the tunnel. Sure enough, he soon came to a tumbled rock wall, the result of the explosives from Old Mo’s story, perhaps. A cursory inspection revealed scorch marks, tunnel walls scoured and pockmarked by flying debris, stone fragments covering the floor. Having a good idea of what happened, he returned to Slater.
“It’s a dead end up there. The tunnel is caved in, either deliberately or accidentally, but almost certainly from blasting.”
Slater frowned. “So what happened?”
“I reckon maybe the entire platoon was running from the monster after it snacked on a few of them. This must be the way to the surface, but perhaps they blew the tunnel behind them in an attempt to end the chase. The rest probably buried themselves and these guys here were the only few stragglers left, but were trapped on this side. Or maybe the others escaped and sacrificed this lot. Given Mo’s story told of no one ever making it out, I’m thinking maybe they really fucked up and brought the whole passage down on themselves. One idiot’s stray grenade could potentially do that. Either way, we can hide a little deeper in.”
“If only these guys had realized there was an underwater passage leading out to the lake,” Slater said.
“Wouldn’t have done them any good. They don’t have the gear to make it.” Aston pointed to an old fashioned diver’s suit, a large, round brass helmet and hand-pumped bellows for air. “They only had the necessary equipment to send a single man down exploring. Looks like only a few hundred feet of hose at most.”
He moved to the boxed and pulled the flag away. It disintegrated at his touch and he brushed it aside. It didn’t take too much effort to lever the lid off the crate and inside he found a selection of supply boxes, food and drink, all torn and emptied.
“My god,” Slater whispered. “How long were they here before…” She gestured to the naked, butchered skeleton. “Before that?”
“Maybe quite a while,” Aston allowed. There were scrape marks on the tunnel floor that seemed to indicate they had dragged whatever supplies remained to them up to this point and camped out. He winced at the thought of them awaiting rescue, knowing it was never going to happen. What a horrible, slow way to die. Far too much time to think about it. He didn’t blame the guy with the Luger P08 in his lap.
“Do you think we can get out through there?” Slater pointed toward the blocked passageway. “Maybe clear the rubble?”
“If several soldiers in their prime couldn’t do it, I doubt we can. The blockage will have only gotten worse over the years, the little cracks filling with dirt and gravel. I reckon it’s sealed shut.”
“You’re such an optimist.”
Aston nodded. But the discovery of the crates had given him an idea. He picked up one of the Nazi daggers and, working with the utmost caution, pried the lid off of the top crate. When he looked inside, he froze, half terrified, half elated.
“What’s that?” Slater asked.
“That,” Aston said, “is a bloody great box full of dynamite.”
“Seriously? Is it dangerous?”
“Probably. Nitroglycerine, which is what makes dynamite volatile, doesn’t evaporate. Let’s not move around too much now, it might be a bit unstable. Let me investigate here.”
He leaned over the box, reluctant to touch anything. The sticks were pristine, with none of the waxy coating or crystallization that would indicate increased volatility. They appeared safe to handle. He noted that the fuses were thick and coated with wax.
“These were made to burn underwater. Looks like these guys anticipated having to blow their way in or out of somewhere.”
He moved to another box and opened it to find more dynamite, this time lacking the waxy fuses. “With these you attach wire to the blasting caps. They’ll have used a manual detonator and some of that,” he pointed to a roll of detonator wire wrapped around a wooden wheel, “in order to get down deep.”
“Why didn’t they use this stuff to blow their way back out up there?” Slater pointed up the tunnel toward the dead end.
“Maybe they tried and only made it worse. I don’t think it would work, probably just bring more of the tunnel down on them. In such a small place, the concussive blast would be hell.”
“Cover it up,” Slater said. “I don’t want to get blown up!”
Aston grinned at her. “No, I won’t be covering it up. I’ve got a plan.”
Chapter 43
Slater stared at him, silence reigning in the passageway. Her mouth opened and closed once or twice before she finally managed to speak.
“Are you saying you want to blow up the monster?”
“Why the hell not? There’s that half loop of passageway back there, right? We set up a booby trap of dynamite halfway around. When the bastard arrives in its lair, we lure it into the tunnel, run around the loop and come back out into the cave, and then fire the trap. We’ll blow that fucker into pieces trapped in the loop. Or at the very least bring the tunnel down on it. Then we run for the water and dive straight back down the shaft and back out into the lake to freedom. That way we know exactly where the thing is while we escape. And it’ll hopefully be dead.” He paused, a pang of scientific grief washing through him. The thought of killing the magnificent animal when it could teach them so much was painful. But his primary motive was survival, for him and Slater. He could return with a team and dig out the remains, they would still learn heaps.
“Do you really think that’ll work?”
He shook his head, distracted from his thoughts. “Sure, why not? And honestly, can you think of a better plan? I’d rather swim out into that lake again knowing exactly where the monster is.”
Slater looked into his eyes for a moment more and then shrugged.
“Let’s get these cases back out into the lair,” he said. “We can set up the trap and have the remaining dynamite out there in case anything goes wrong and we need more.”
Slater bit her lip. “If something goes wrong, we’ll be eaten, Sam!”
He planted a quick kiss on her stunned lips. “Trust me.”
She put her fists on her hips and arched her eyebrows. “Have you ever worked with explosives before?”
“Sure I have. I know what I’m doing.” He wasn’t about to tell her that it had been while he held a part time job at a gravel quarry outside Sydney, and he had only ever helped while the qualified people did all the setting and blasting. But he was an observant guy and a fast learner. He was sure he could handle this.
Slater pressed her mouth into a flat line as she helped him lug the crate of dynamite back out into the cave. He could tell she hated every aspect of his plan, but there really were no other options as far as he could tell.
They emerged into the wider loop tunnel and hurried around until they reached the end where it opened out into the back of the beast’s lair.
Aston moved around to put the wall between them and the tunnel mouth. “Set it down here.”
He quickly unpacked an old-fashioned plunger style detonator and several sticks of dynamite and charges. Beneath them he found a collection of German stick grenades, so recognizable from all the war comics he’d read as a child. Each stick had a screw cap on the end that would reveal the pull cord to start the five second fuse. With a smile, he stuffed two of them inside his wetsuit.
“Just in case,” he said to Slater’s questioning look.
She gestured at him and he handed her two, which she wedged into her own wetsuit.
He ran back and retrieved the Luger from the dead German’s skeletal grasp, checked the magazine and confirmed the seven remaining bullets appeared to be in pristine condition. No reason it
wouldn’t fire, though how much good a nine millimeter bullet would do against a prehistoric creature he couldn’t say. Still, it felt good to have it on hand. He tucked it into his dive belt, grabbed the wooden wheel of detonator wire, and returned to Slater. “Come on.”
They hurried back until they were about halfway around the loop of passageway. Aston paused, looking left and right to judge their position.
“Do you think this is the best spot?” Slater asked.
“If we lure it in that end,” he pointed back the way they had originally come, “and then sprint through to where we left the stuff, we’ll be well ahead of it. You’ve got to think it moves pretty slowly on land, right?”
“I hope so. Our lives depend on it.”
“By the time we get to the other end, it should be about halfway around. About where we are now? So if we blow the tunnel right here, we’ll hopefully be bang on target.” He was estimating wildly in regard to the creature’s speed. They would need a tremendous amount of luck for this to work, and they both knew it. But even if he didn’t manage to kill or bury the creature, the explosion ought to stun or even injure it.
Slater shrugged and looked around. “Just hurry. It could come back any moment.”
Aston carefully wedged charges and dynamite into cracks in the wall of the tunnel, as high as he could reach. Once he’d got several sticks in place, he checked the lead-wires from each and began delicately trailing them back. “We have to hope this stuff is all still operational,” he said, as much to himself as Slater. “There’s no reason it shouldn’t be, but it’s pretty old.”
Slater cast her light around the tunnel again. “Are you close to being finished? I’m going to go get our gear, and I’d really like for you to be ready when she comes back.”
Aston gathered the lead-wires together and twisted them into a thin rope, attached them to the detonator wire, and began unfurling it from the wooden spool. He moved along as quickly as he could, not wanting to pull the wires loose from the explosive charges. As he emerged from the tunnel, Slater put their gear down beside the box they’d carried out.
