To The Center Of The Earth

by Greig Beck

  “Pfft, they’re all spread by bats, and none of those little suckers are way down here.” Ronnie shook his head. “Pussies.” He drained the last of his canteen and then dipped it into the water to fill it up. He finished by dropping a small pill inside and shaking it. “Give it five minutes for that to dissolve and guess which one of us won’t be thirsty anymore?”

  Andy also looked into the water, and Ronnie nodded. “Go ahead, it’ll be fine.”

  The young caver looked to Angela who almost imperceptibly shook her head.

  “Nah, I’ll wait. Besides, you can be a guinea pig.” He turned. “Michael, what do you think?”

  “I’m thinking if he ends up with diarrhea, I can’t wait to see him try and get it all in his poop bag.” He chuckled. “Okay, everyone, let’s keep moving.”

  In another half-hour, they found themselves passing through a huge cavern. Their spirits were still high as only a while back they had passed a simple carving in the cave wall of “AS” and an arrow, indicating the Russian alchemist had passed this way and wanted them to know it.

  Ronnie was already drinking from his canteen and grinning. “Tastes like…heaven. Anyone wants a sip, feel free.” He farted loudly and then sipped again. He lifted the canteen in either an offering or a toast.

  “Wow, really going for it, huh, buddy?” David raised his eyebrows.

  “Yeah, it’s unbelievably moreish,” Ronnie replied and swigged again.

  Jane sniffed. “What’s that smell?”

  Michael snorted. “Probably Ronnie. But you tell me, you’re the biology teacher.”

  David also sniffed. “Sour lemons. Like citric acid. Have you guys ever smelt stink bugs on lemon trees?”

  “Yeah, they stink, alright,” Angela piped up.

  David nodded to her. “They suck the sap of the new shoots on citrus trees and sometimes on the lemons themselves. They ingest it, but also use some of the concentrated citric acid as a defense mechanism—they can squirt it into an approaching predator’s eyes. They’ve blinded lots of curious dogs and cats.”

  “They sound nice,” Michael said. “Remind me never to own a lemon tree.”

  “The humidity is off the charts in here,” Jane said.

  “So?” Ronnie asked. “We already know there’s water in here.”

  “Yes, but it shouldn’t be suspended in the air like this.” Her feet began to squelch. “Mud now?”

  Brittle crunching under their feet followed this, and Jane shone her wrist light down at the cave floor. “What is this?” She crouched. “Hold up, everyone.”

  Michael shone his light around and then turned to her. “Is it some sort of branching crystal?”

  Jane lifted up a long stick-like thing. “No, no, this is a bone.”

  “Here? We’re at about three miles down. Nothing lives this deep,” Michael announced.

  Jane looked up. “How do we know that? Have you been down three miles before? Has any of us?” She held it out. “This is an animal leg bone, small femur.” She looked it up and down. “But damned if I know what from.”

  “Maybe something crawled in here long ago and died.” Ronnie came closer. “Happens a lot. There’s this cave in the Australian outback that is a treasure trove of mega fauna, because they fell…”

  “Ronnie, you remember some of those drops we came down? How’s an animal going to get down here?” Michael scoffed.

  “Do you think it’s indigenous to the caves?” Andy asked. “There are thousands of animal species that live in caves—troglobite, I think they call them.” He wandered a few paces out from the group, looking down at the cave floor. “There are lots of bones. All over.” He turned back. “And some of them don’t look that old.”

  “Troglobite, that’s right. Cavernicolous species.” Jane examined the bone under her light. “But they’re tiny, and usually insectoid. But this thing looks mammalian.” She peered at it intensely. “Weird, looks a bit…dissolved.”

  “Maybe that odor in the air is because the atmosphere has a high sulfur content. That’d break down things pretty quickly,” David said.

  Angela sniffed. “We better not hang around if that’s true—it’ll corrode our equipment.”

  Jane slowly stood, still turning the bone over in her hands. “I don’t know if that’s it.”

  “Hey.” Andy, still a few dozen feet from the group, held up his arm with something glistening on it. “Rain.” He touched some of the drops and a viscous string stretched from it. “Sticky rain.”

  More drops of the liquid pelted down around them.

  “Holy shit.” Where the drops had landed on Andy’s arm, small wisps of smoke curled into the air. “What the hell is this?”

  “What’s going on?” Angela held a hand up over her face, as some of the drops began to fall among the others.

  “I don’t like it.” Michael pointed. “Andy, get back in here.”

  As the group watched Andy, something shot out of the darkness from the cave ceiling, and like an elastic piece of rope, stuck to the young caver’s helmet. Like magic, it stretched tight, pulling his helmet upward. He immediately reached up, choking for a moment, before his helmet strap was ripped free and the helmet disappeared up into the darkness above him.

  “What the fu…?” he yelled, holding his abraded neck.

  Everyone turned to point lights toward the ceiling but the cavern roof was well out of reach of the strength of the beams. In another few seconds, Andy’s slime-covered helmet clattered back to the floor.

  The group stared at it for a moment as it rocked back and forth. The slime coating glistened in the light like a rainbow.

  “What the hell just happened?’ Andy jogged out a little further to retrieve it.

  Jane backed toward the group. “Andy, can you come back over here with us, please?” She turned to Michael who was facing the cave ceiling. “Michael, get us out of here.”

  The elastic shot down again and this time glued itself to Andy’s shoulder. It tightened and Andy was yanked backward. He spun his arms wildly, and with a tearing of the tough cloth of his suit, he was free.

  “Everyone, get to the wall!” Michael yelled.

  The group ran to the wall as the fleshy rope-like things continued to shoot down at them. In seconds, they were at the wall with their backs pressed to it.

  More of the tendrils shot down, some only just missing them by inches.

  “There’s more than one.” David held his knife out, slashing at the things.

  “We’re too exposed here.” Jane pointed. “That small shelf.”

  Just 50 feet from them was a shelf of stone about 10 feet above the ground, forming an ideal shelter from above.

  “Go!” Jane yelled.

  The group ran for it, but the small herd of humans on the move proved irresistible to whatever was tracking them from above.

  Another tendril flew down and scored a direct hit on David. It immediately tightened and then began to draw back in. David screamed and started to be dragged for a moment.

  “Ach…help!”

  Then to everyone’s horror, he began to get lifted off the ground.

  Michael and Andy ran at their struggling friend and grabbed him, tugging down and managing to get the guy’s feet back on the cave floor. But then another rope shot down to stick to Andy’s shoulder. He screamed as he was tugged up as well.

  “What the hell is going on?” Angela backed away.

  “No, stay together!” Jane yelled and then turned. “Michael.”

  Michael could see nothing in the darkness above him, but whatever had hold of his team must have been of significant size to be able to lift grown men from the ground.

  He reached for the holster-like pouch on his belt, drew forth his bolt gun, and quickly placed a cartridge of bolts into its feed. He aimed upward where he thought the strings were ending, and then fired.

  The bolt shot away, and he heard it clang against rock—a miss. So he fired once, twice, three times more.

  The
re came squeals from hundreds of feet in the air, and then out of the darkness something like a giant bag came sailing down to thump to the cave floor in the middle of them.

  David and Andy were released, as there came a sound like shuffling from above them. But a long, fleshy appendage still trailed to David’s back.

  “Holy crap. David, stay still.” Andy whipped out his blade and began to saw through it.

  David slapped at his back. “It stings. Get it off, get it off.”

  “Stay still.” Jane came and used her own knife to pick the thing from his clothing.

  They gathered around the fallen body. “Jane, please tell me what the hell I am looking at here.” Michael kept his bolt gun ready, but they could see the fist-sized hole the bolt had punched right through a furred and protruding abdomen. A dark, jelly-like substance oozed from the wound.

  “Is that a spider?” Ronnie asked with a tremor in his voice. “Hey, isn’t there a giant prehistoric one that used to live on Earth?”

  “Yes, but this isn’t it.” Jane had her knife in her hand and held up the thing she had cut from David’s back. It looked a little like a meaty bear trap or one of those carnivorous Venus flytrap plants, in that it was oval with spikes around the outside and suckers on the inside. It was attached to a long and elastic boneless limb that now leaked dark blood.

  “This is from no spider I know of. Or anyone knows of.” She carefully crouched beside the thing. “It’s almost colorless and blind. A true cave-dwelling troglobite. This thing evolved down here.”

  “With no eyes, how did it see us, or find us, I mean?” Angela had a hand on a still jittery David’s shoulder.

  “Look here.” Jane pointed to the head and upper body. “Those are sensory hairs. It—they—detected our movements as vibrations in the air. Then when it does sense movement, it shoots down these things to snare its prey and haul it back in.”

  “It shouldn’t exist,” Andy said. “I know there are tons of insects that have evolved to live in caves—mites, spiders, scorpions, all sorts of weird things. But they’re tiny. What could it possibly feed on down here?”

  Michael grunted. “The bones you found. Big predators need big prey animals. Or lots of small ones.”

  “It’s huge, and it certainly had no fear of taking on something the size of us.” David got unsteadily to his feet.

  Jane used her knife to prod at the body. “Things in caves evolve quickly, but no human has ever been this deep. Well, not since Katya and her team. We have no idea what it really is or what it lives on. But you’re right, it shouldn’t be down here.”

  “Down here?” Michael turned to her. “Or up here?”

  The group looked from Michael back to the strange corpse—it was segmented like a stretched spider with multiple legs, but on the end of each instead of the sharp-tipped leg like an arachnid was a claw for gripping rock. The upper body and eyeless head bristled with hairs, some fine like silk, and some like spikes.

  “We should head back,” David said softly. “I think we’ve come far enough.”

  “No,” Michael said. “This is amazing, and nothing like this has been seen before. Every step we take will be dangerous, but caving always is—you all know that. But every step we take, we may find something stupendous. It is an opportunity only a few privileged individuals on this weary and cynical world will ever get the chance to take.”

  Michael looked to each of them. “This is our time. We are more than cavers this day. We are Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus, and Neil Armstrong, all rolled into one. I say, seize the day.”

  The group stood looking from one person to the other for a few moments before Andy shrugged.

  “I’m a little scared shitless,” Andy said and looked up. “But I vote we go on.”

  “And I’m dumb enough to second that.” Ronnie half-smiled.

  “Jane, what do you say?” Angela asked.

  She looked from Angela to the group. “I say we go back. Get some better kit, and only then come back.” She pointed at the horrifying creature. “We’re not ready for this. I mean, what else could we run into? Michael, I loved your carpe diem speech, but you’ve got to lead us out.”

  “I know we’re scared. I’m scared. The unknown is scary. And I won’t for a second keep anyone here who wants to go back topside.” Michael held her gaze. “But Jane, c’mon, you know as well as I do that it would take us months, years maybe, to be ready for another drop expedition.” He smiled flatly. “Or we may never come back at all. And all the while assholes like Harry Wenton will be touring the world, being celebrated as a great explorer, ground-breaker, and champion for simply sticking it out a little longer than we did.” He lifted his chin.

  “I don’t care about any celebrations. I just don’t want anyone to get hurt, or worse,” Jane replied evenly.

  “My life would feel forever unfulfilled if I backed out now. It’s our time to win, and that time is now.” Michael lifted his hand. “I vote we go on.”

  Angela looked back at the dead creature. “I don’t think it can get any worse than this.” She shrugged. “We’re all the way down here, and I have to admit, I’m curious as hell. Maybe a bit further wouldn’t hurt.”

  Michael swung to Jane, waiting.

  She threw her hands up. “Okay, okay.” Jane looked back down at the creature. “But by the way, we have no idea of whether this is truly as bad as it gets. And if it does get worse, then we leave, deal?”

  They agreed.

  She snorted softly. “And we better sleep with one eye open from now on.”

  Ronnie stared at the creature and wrinkled his nose. He scratched his head, and then lifted his chin momentarily to also rub at his neck.

  He grimaced. “A shower would be nice. I feel like I rolled in poison ivy.”

  “Hey.” David had his head tilted. “Does anyone else…?”

  “Yeah, I feel it too. Tremor,” Michael whispered.

  CHAPTER 09

  “What do you think?” Harry Wenton asked.

  Maggie stared at the stone bridge and bobbed her head. “Looks solid enough.”

  He walked to the edge beside the bridge and stared down into a chasm of impossible depths for a few moments. Then he lifted his eyes to the other side. For some reason, he had a nagging feeling they were going in the wrong direction.

  “Okay, we’ll check it out but just for a while. Let’s drop our excess packs to lighten the load.”

  They dropped their kit in a pile and took just their basic caving equipment. Jamison held up the boom box—the pack of dynamite, consisting of eight full sticks, and half-dozen quarters.

  “Bring this?” he asked.

  Wenton looked at the box for a moment, and then nodded. “Yes, make space in your kit.”

  Harry Wenton was first across, but Jamison paused on the bridge to drop a glow stick over the edge and they watched it fall. They had been able to track it for a few moments before it fell from sight, with no sound of it striking anything.

  He pulled out the pulser and aimed it downward and after a moment shut it off. “No reading.” He looked up. “It can’t find a floor or obstacle to bounce back from.”

  Maggie shone her light down into the rift and on the opposite rock wall, and then upward. “All those striations in the stone, probably dating all the way back to the Silurian period. This rift is damn old, hundreds of millions of years at least.”

  Jamison looked down into the darkness. “Like a continental rift—an old sliding plate, maybe even from Pangaea, supercontinent,” he said. “This could drop for miles.”

  Marcus was out in front. “One thing’s for sure—we’ve just set a new depth record.” He turned, arms outstretched. “And every step we take is another record.” He cupped his mouth. “Yehaaa!”

  “Keep it down, fool.” Wenton shook his head. Dumb kids, he thought.

  Maggie suddenly froze and then crouched and placed a hand on the ground. “Everyone, stop moving for a moment.” She cocked her head.

>   Wenton frowned. “What is it now?”

  “Shush… I think…” She closed her eyes for a moment and then they flicked open. “I can feel something.” Her eyes widened. “Quake.”

  From somewhere above them, a bread-loaf-sized rock crashed to the ground and exploded.

  “Shit.” Wenton turned one way then the other.

  Behind them was the stone bridge, 20 feet wide and about two dozen thick. Ahead of them were several narrow passages. For a split second or two, he was torn between going back and going forward.

  Their packs were over there, they needed them, so he decided. He pointed. “We go bac…”

  More rocks rained down, and then in the next instant, a boulder the size of a Mack truck struck the bridge, dead center, and took the entire middle out of it. Wenton felt his heart jump in his chest so hard it actually hurt.

  His options had been changed for him. “Into the cave!” he yelled and the group sprinted into the center crevice in the wall.

  By now, the rocks shimmied and shook all around them. It was a caver’s worst nightmare: being underground when the quiet earth “woke up.”

  Marcus took off down the throat of the middle cave. It was a crack in the wall, running up and out of sight, but with a good width of about three feet. The young man was like a jackrabbit and already 50 feet ahead of Bruno. Behind him was Maggie, then Harry, followed by Jamison.

  Gravel and small rocks rained down on them, plinking on their helmets and bouncing from the shoulders of their toughened cave suits.

  In seconds, the shimmy turned into a roar and the cave walls began to shudder.

  Please open up, please open up, Harry prayed. He didn’t like being in the “throat” when the ground was in flux. The earth seemed solid and immutable, but in fact during ground movement could be very malleable and even elastic—it bent, twisted, folded, and broke like glass when it wanted to.

  A deep tremor also opened huge wounds, and then sewed them shut when it had a mind to. And that’s exactly what began to happen—the walls started to close in.