Sergeant Stumpy wagged his stump of a tail and ran. They all followed him.
"This isn't the way," Kemi whispered, walking with her blanket wrapped around her shoulders. "We must go deeper to find the heart."
But the dog was racing forward, and Addy was racing after him. Reluctantly, the others followed. Stumpy took them down a tunnel away from the tracks and toward a doorway. There he scratched the door and sniffed underneath it, pawing as if trying to crawl through.
Marco and Elvis raised their guns, ready to fire into the room while Addy kicked open the door. They burst inside . . . and froze.
"My god," Addy whispered. "Oh god. Oh god."
Elvis actually fell to his knees, and his eyes dampened. His voice shook. "Holy shit."
Marco stared, speechless for a long moment. "It's . . . beautiful."
It was a kitchen. A kitchen stocked with food. Real food. Not Spam in cans. Not battle rations. Not gray glop from powder mixed with water. On shelves stood cans of corn, peas, green beans, mushrooms. Jars of preserves stood on another shelf—blueberry, strawberry, apple jam. Freezers held real meat—steaks, ground beef, chicken wings—still frozen and good to eat. There were bags of flour, dry pasta, breadcrumbs, rice. This was Earth food. It looked better than anything Marco had eaten since joining the HDF several months ago.
Marco wanted to keep traveling the mines, to find the heart, to get off this rock, but his belly grumbled. He had eaten nothing but battle rations since delving underground three days ago. All the soldiers turned toward Ben-Ari.
"Ma'am," Addy said, "Stumpy really wants a break."
"I need some corn!" Elvis said, salivating, eying the cans.
"I think I see a box of mac and cheese!" Addy said.
"Crackers with jam!" said Lailani, licking her lips.
Before Lieutenant Ben-Ari could reply, Sergeant Singh marched to the cabinets, spun toward the other troops, and crossed his arms. "Nobody is eating corn from a can, mac and cheese, or crackers with jam." The turbaned warrior scowled.
"But, but—" they all began.
"Enough!" rumbled the bearded sergeant. He gripped the curved knife that hung from his belt, the traditional weapon of Sikh warriors. "You will not eat these things. Because I'm cooking."
They cheered as Lieutenant Ben-Ari sighed.
"All right!" the officer said. "So long as two soldiers are always guarding the door. And Stumpy doesn't count."
Outside that door lurked horrors worthy of hell, a host of alien monsters, twisted, tortured beings, a nightmarish realm of death and evil. Yet here, for a brief hour, the soldiers filled this little nook with comfort. Lailani found candles in a cupboard, and she lit them across the kitchen, letting the soldiers turn off their flashlights. Elvis sat on a chair, legs stretched out, and sang a rockabilly medley, and Addy soon joined him. Singh hummed along as he cooked, boiling water, defrosting chicken, then frying it in breadcrumbs and flour, heating the stove from a gas canister. The sergeant opened cans of tomatoes, peas, and chickpeas, added spices, tasted, nodded, spiced some more. He boiled rice in a pot, and he even baked dessert, mixing flour with powdered milk, oil, chocolate powder, and sugar, topping his cake with blueberry jam. The scents filled the kitchen, and Stumpy went so wild Singh kept having to toss him snacks.
Finally the feast was prepared. Singh set the table, and they all sat down—dusty, bloody, covered in cuts and bruises, still wearing their helmets and holding their guns, their souls shattered, but all hungry. They hungered for food but more so for normalcy, for companionship, for a respite from the horror and grief and loss.
"It looks wonderful, Commander," Marco said to Singh.
"I helped." Addy beamed.
Singh smiled. The sergeant had removed his helmet, revealing his army green turban. His Khanda amulet, symbol of his faith, shone around his chest. "Before we eat, may I say a prayer?"
"I think we need prayers in a place like this," Ben-Ari said softly.
They all held hands around the table—even Osiris, who sat with them despite needing no sustenance. Singh lowered his head, closed his eyes, and sang softly in a foreign tongue. Marco couldn't understand the words, but he imagined that it was a prayer for peace, for deliverance from evil, for holiness in darkness.
When finally the prayer was over, Ben-Ari said, "Would you mind if I add a prayer of my own?"
The lieutenant pulled an amulet out from her shirt, revealing a Star of David, and she too sang a prayer in a foreign tongue, and Marco could not understand these words either, but they comforted him. There was goodness to these words. There was hope and love. Marco was not religious, and he didn't know if any gods listened, but one thing he believed in—the goodness inside of Singh, inside of Ben-Ari.
"May I?" Lailani said next, and she too prayed, eyes closed, then crossed herself and nodded, and her eyes were damp. She wasn't the only one. Everyone seemed in awe, sensing if not holiness then companionship, a sense of peace even here in Hell.
Addy spoke in a soft voice. "Sergeant Singh prayed a Sikh prayer. Ben-Ari prayed a Jewish one, and Lailani a Catholic one. May I add my own holy words?" Addy stood up and cleared her throat. "Rub a dub dub, thanks for the grub. Yay God!"
They all groaned, and Elvis pelted her with an empty can.
"Show some respect!" Elvis said. "The prayer goes: Good bread, good meat, good God, let's eat!"
This elicited more groans.
"Let's eat," Marco agreed.
They ate.
The meal was delicious, the meat surprisingly savory for something found thawing in a mine freezer, the sauce rich and creamy. Outside—just outside the door a few feet away—spread a realm of horror, and even as they dined, they could hear the scum scuttling and clattering outside. They talked and laughed loud enough to mask the sound. Osiris told bad jokes, and they laughed, only encouraging the android to tell more.
"Sergeant," Marco said, looking at Singh, "where did you learn to cook like this?"
"Back home," Singh replied. "For my wife and daughter."
"Pics or it didn't happen," Elvis said.
Singh pulled a tattered photograph from his wallet. It showed a smiling woman in a sari holding a toddler.
"They're beautiful," Marco said, then frowned. "But Sergeant . . . when did you have time? We're all drafted at eighteen. Were you a teenager when you got married? Is that part of your culture?"
Singh shook his head, smiling. "No, I wasn't a teenager. I got married at twenty-three, only joined the military at twenty-six. I'm thirty now."
"Joined at twenty-six!" Addy gasped. "How the fuck did you avoid this shithole for eight years after turning eighteen?" She whistled. "You must have been damn good at hiding."
Singh's smile grew sad. "If you consider lying in a hospital bed hiding." They all fell silent at this, and Singh continued in a low voice. "I got cancer only a few months before I was to be drafted. I was seventeen and terrified I was going to die. It took two years to beat the disease. Once I was cured, well . . . they let me off the hook. Said I didn't need to join the HDF at all. So I spent a while working in a meat factory, packaging pastramis and hot dogs—and yes, even Spam. Got married. Had a kid. And then when my daughter turned three—this was four years ago—I walked up to the nearest military base and told them I wanted to serve."
"You what?" Elvis gasped and looked ready to faint. He began choking on his food, and Addy had to slap him on the back and dislodge a bite.
"I'm inclined to share Elvis's sentiment," Marco said. "If you were off the hook, you could have avoided all this, Sergeant. You could be cooking for your family now."
Singh smiled. "I am cooking for my family now."
"Aww, he's a lot sweeter when he's not yelling at us," Addy said.
"I never particularly enjoyed yelling at anyone," Singh said. "It was part of my job at Fort Djemila. To train you. To prepare you for battle. You see, back home, I lost too many friends. I saw too much death. I couldn't bear to watch my daughter grow up in such a
world, a world terrorized by the scum. I knew I had to do my part. So I enlisted. I fought. I taught. Now I fight again. With a new family. I've been in the military for four years now, and in one more year I'll go home to my beautiful wife, to my beautiful daughter, and I'll know that I made the world a little safer for them."
"I still think you're mental," Elvis said. "With all due respect, Commander."
Singh nodded. "I probably am, but who isn't in this army?"
Volunteering. Marco could barely wrap his mind around it. He had been drafted. If he had refused to join, he'd have spent years in a prison cell. He hated it here. He hated every moment of it. He could barely imagine what it took to walk up to a military base, to have that medical pass, to toss it aside, to join the fight—with a wife and child, no less.
"Sergeant," Marco said, "forgive my language, but you've got balls."
Addy gasped. "The poet cursed! The poet cursed!"
"Balls isn't cursing," Marco said.
"For you it is!" Addy hopped up and down in her seat. "Oh dear, oh boy, I think we've finally corrupted him."
"I volunteered too," Lailani said quietly.
They all turned to look at her. Elvis pointed his spoon at the little soldier.
"You're mental. You're all mental."
Lailani shook her head. "No I'm not. Well, I am. But not because I joined the army. My life before . . ." She lowered her head. "It wasn't a life. It wasn't much better than these tunnels. I spent some nights sleeping by the train tracks in the slums of Manila, one eye open, watching for thieves and rapists. Some nights I slept behind brothels, waking whenever a man grabbed me. I spent days in alleyways behind fast food restaurants, rummaging in garbage bins for chicken bones, and I'd pick off the little bits of meat still left, fry them up, close my eyes and force them down, often puking it all out later because it was rancid." She looked at her plate of food. "A meal like this? Hell. Even Spam back at basic was a feast for me." She looked at Singh. "Your daughter is very lucky, Sergeant. My mother was a child prostitute who starved to death when I was ten. I still don't know who my father was, just some story that he was an American soldier, but he could just as well have been a homeless drunkard who paid my mother with drugs. So yes, I'm a bit mental. I love the army. I love it here. I have food. I have shelter. And more importantly, I have a family here." She looked at them all. "I have people who I love."
Marco, who sat beside her, placed a hand on her shoulder. Addy, who sat at Lailani's other side, gave her a hug and kissed her cheek.
"We love you too, Tiny," Addy said.
Marco turned to look at Kemi. She sat at his other side, gazing at him, eyes soft. Marco reached under the table and held her hand. She let him hold it. She leaned her cheek against his shoulder, and her curls brushed his cheek.
Singh sliced the cake and handed out the pieces. They all tucked in, other than Elvis. He lowered his head, staring at the dessert.
"I just wish the others could be here with us," Elvis said. "The rest of our family. Beast. Caveman. Sheriff. Diaz. Hell, I even miss Pinky and the Chihuahua. We lost so many. It feels so empty."
They all paused from eating. Singh rose from his seat, found a bottle of grape juice in a cupboard, and poured the drink into Styrofoam cups.
"To family lost," the sergeant said, raising his cup.
"To Beast!" said Elvis. "To Caveman. To Sheriff. To Diaz. To Captain Petty. To everyone we lost. We will remember them always. We will fight for them always."
They drank, and as the sweet juice slid down Marco's throat, he wondered how many more friends he would lose in this war—and how long he himself would live.
Ben-Ari raised her glass a second time. "To life!" she said.
"To life!" they all repeated. Here in this hive of death. Here, the last survivors of a massacre. Here, in a burning cosmos, humanity rising from devastation—to life!
When their cups were empty, they stared at the door. With the conversation at a lull, they heard the creatures moving through the mine.
"We're close," Kemi said, eyes closed. "I saw it so many times. I feel it. Pulsing. Calling to us. The heart."
Marco walked toward the door. "Then let's go get it."
None of them wanted to leave this sanctuary. They wanted to sleep, to laugh, to remember, to eat another meal, not to return to the nightmare so soon.
Let's be done with this, Marco thought. Enough of this place of death. To life. To life.
He opened the door, and they returned into the labyrinth.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The tunnels grew so narrow that they had to walk stooped, then crawl. The burrows sloped downward, twisting, stinking. Kemi crawled at the lead, and Marco followed, his gun strapped to his back, banging against the ceiling. Sometimes the tunnel was so narrow he could barely squeeze through. As they crawled here, eight soldiers, Marco felt as if he were a scum himself, a burrowing insect, traversing the hive. At times the tunnels forked, but Kemi always knew to choose the right path. There were no more rails here, no sign of humanity. No miners had carved these tunnels.
Scum tunnels, Marco thought.
"Kemi, are you sure you know the way?" he asked.
Crawling before him, Kemi looked over her shoulder. "I saw these tunnels. All of them. They are branded in my mind. I traveled these paths ten thousand times in the bodies of ten thousand creatures. I know the way." She resumed crawling.
They headed deeper, the tunnel so steep at times Marco fought to slow himself down, to cling to the walls, to avoid sliding headfirst into Kemi. The stench of the scum was everywhere, their claw marks in the walls. Sometimes they passed burrows that led into chambers full of stinking piles of scum waste, bloated sacks of honey, and even corpses of dead scum slowly being dismembered by living creatures. Each chamber served a purpose—scum latrines, scum larders, scum crematoriums. The scum themselves here in the deep were different than the warriors, smaller, many no larger than dogs, arthropods with long hooks and feelers, some with claws made for digging rather than fighting. Here toiled the workers, the servants, the slaves, carving pathways and chambers, tending to the young, consuming the old.
The soldiers crawled onward, avoiding the arthropods, conserving their ammo. Marco was down to a single magazine—only sixty rounds—and three grenades. A few of his comrades had only thirty or twenty rounds left. Once those were spent, it would be down to bayonets—woefully inadequate against even dead scum propped onto poles, let alone the living beasts. To make things worse, their flashlights were running out of juice. Every hour, the light was dimmer, and Marco's flashlight was soon flickering, and he had to keep tapping it to keep its light on.
"Are we there yet?" Addy asked, crawling behind Marco. She reached up, grabbed the seat of his pants, and tugged. "Are we there yet, are we there yet, are we—"
He kicked her shoulder. "Shut up or no dinner at Chuck E. Cheese's."
Addy grabbed his ankle. "Please, Daddy, please please please—"
A hissing rose from ahead.
Addy released him, and Marco reached for his knife.
"Kemi?" he whispered.
She froze ahead of him. "Scum!" she whispered. "Wait. No. They're smaller. They're here." She flattened herself onto her stomach. "Down!"
In the light of his flashlight, Marco could see them in the tunnel ahead. Elongated, gray creatures sprouting whiskers, more like silverfish than centipedes. They reminded Marco of the catfish he used to catch with his grandfather. He had been crawling on hands and knees, but now Marco flattened himself onto his stomach. The creatures scuttled forward, clinging to the ceiling, their many legs long and feathery, brushing his back. Each creature was as large as him, very flat, their bodies soft and covered in fuzz. A hundred or more passed above, hissing all the while, sounding almost like humans whispering. Marco wasn't sure what their purpose was in the hive, but thankfully, they soon passed by and vanished into the distance.
"Useless buggers," Addy said, twisting her head to watch the last one
vanish behind them. "Must be the scrawny nerds of the scum world. Hey, Marco, maybe they're writing novels too!"
"Almost as funny as an Osiris joke," Marco said, then resumed crawling after Kemi.
They kept crawling, deeper and deeper. They passed by one chamber that was protected by a translucent sheet like a window. Through this window, Marco saw a mountain of scum maggots all writhing and bustling in a pile. Older scum—nurses without sharp claws—were rolling balls of dung from a deeper chamber, breaking up the foul spheres, and feeding chunks to the maggots. The little creatures fed with gusto on their parents' waste.
"Ugh, poop-eaters!" Addy gagged, peering through the translucent curtain.
"Like some animals on Earth," Marco said. "It's how naked mole rats feed their young."
"Well, after exterminating the scum, we can exterminate naked mole rats," Addy said.
Marco looked around him and scraped his fingernails against the ceiling. "You know, Addy, there's some binding mortar here, holding these tunnels together. It looks a lot like what the baby scum are eating."
Addy turned green. "I need my gas mask."
"Come on, everyone." Kemi looked over her shoulder at them. "Hurry up and follow. We're close. Very close now. We'll be there in moments."
Marco dared to feel a glimmer of hope. They had found no survivors underground, discounting the wretched hybrids, but they would soon find the azoth heart. They would soon be able to repair the Miyari. They would soon blast off this moon and nuke the damn thing from orbit.
As they crawled through the darkness, Marco's flashlight gave a last flicker, then finally died. Kemi's was still working, and Marco followed the soft light. Behind him, Addy's flashlight was giving its last flickers too. When he looked past her, he could see the others—Ben-Ari, Singh, Osiris, beyond them mere shadows, their lights fading. They crawled onward, moving faster now. Marco didn't know how they'd have enough light and ammo to flee the mines—it had taken days to crawl this far deep—but they would have to cross that bridge once they got to it.
The air grew warmer, then hot, then sweltering. A sickly sweet aroma of honey and blood filled the air, the smell of overripe fruit and rotting meat in a forgotten feast under the sun. An orange glow filled the tunnel, turning yellow and brighter as they crawled onward. The air seemed to pulse, caressing Marco with damp waves, and dust vibrated on the ground. Marco felt like a parasite crawling through the veins of a beast toward its pulsing heart.
Earth Lost (Earthrise Book 2) Page 18
