Hellbenders

by James Axler

  Jak suddenly opened his blood-red orbs, the fire in them burning strong now that he had recovered from the effects of the jump. He shook his head almost imperceptibly.

  Ryan, satisfied that there was little danger, but still prepared for any action, tensed his steel-coiled muscles and eased through the door. He had the Steyr up and searching, but the area appeared to be clean. At Ryan’s command, his companions left the chamber and filed through the anteroom and into the comp control room.

  “No signs of life in here,” Ryan began, “but what about outside, lover?”

  Krysty pursed her lips. “Something, but not right around here. We need to keep it triple red, though.”

  J.B. and Jak both looked up at the ceiling together.

  “Sec cameras?” the Armorer asked.

  “Uh-huh,” Jak grunted in reply. “Never know.”

  As they both looked around, they could see the old vid cameras, but noticed that the winking red lights that usually indicated a working camera were extinguished on all.

  “That’s good,” J.B. commented. “No one’s gonna be expecting us.”

  “I wouldn’t bet on that,” Dean said softly.

  “Why?” J.B. asked, looking over to where Dean had wandered. The youth was near the exit door to the unit, hunkered down and examining something on the floor.

  “Take a look at this,” Dean said, picking an object off the floor and carrying it over to the rest of the group.

  “A self-heat,” Mildred said as she got a better glimpse of the object.

  It was, indeed, a self-heat. Most redoubts had large supplies of these vacuum-packed foods, sealed in such a way that unwrapping them triggered a reaction in the packaging that heated the food within. They usually tasted terrible, but were always good to plunder from the redoubts as they were manufactured with the preDark sec forces in mind, and so had an emphasis on nutritional and energy value over actual taste. They were invaluable. During their time together, the companions had become all too familiar with the self-heats.

  “More than just that,” Dean replied. “Take a look at it…a close look.”

  Doc leaned forward, squinting as he tried to focus hard on the crumpled package. He extended a finger and prodded delicately at the package. He then withdrew his hand and rubbed ruminatively at his fingertip with his other hand.

  “Now, that is interesting,” he mused softly. “I would not say that it was as recent as today or yesterday, but the remains of that self-heat are dryish but still with a residue of moisture. Enough to put it, in these hermetic conditions, as recently as a week.”

  “Company, then,” Ryan said simply. “They may not be around now, but they aren’t going to be far away. Form up and we’ll move out. Hopefully they’ll have scavenged and then gone, leaving us with at least the chance to take a shower, mebbe some fresh clothes and grab some sleep.”

  “When was the last time we got that lucky?” Mildred commented wryly.

  Ryan allowed himself the briefest flash of humor before shouldering the Steyr and unholstering his pistol.

  “Okay, people, you know the drill,” he said firmly as they fell into line behind him.

  Ryan punched in the 3-5-7 sec code, waiting as the door lifted. Behind him, the others readied themselves for action at any second.

  But the corridor beyond the door was still and empty. Ryan stepped out, covering both sides with the SIG-Sauer. He could see nothing along the hundred-yard stretch of corridor in each direction, one end terminating in an elevator, the other in a gently curving bend. He moved into a defensive position behind one of the concrete support pillars that helped to shore up the deep earthworks of the redoubt against the vast pressure of the earth above that bore down on the honeycombed structure.

  “Seems quiet,” he said softly, beckoning the others to join him. “Reckon we’ll be better off taking the tunnel and working our way up rather than try the elevator. Safer.”

  “Yeah, if there is anyone around, they’ll soon be on to us if we get it creaking into action,” Mildred concurred, looking at the elevator doors. “At least this way we can keep quiet.”

  “I don’t think we’ll need to,” Krysty said. “Whatever the problem is, it’s not people.”

  “Somehow, my dear Krysty, I find that not in the slightest whit reassuring,” Doc remarked as he peered toward the curve in the tunnel.

  “Stay close on triple-red, people.”

  They walked carefully along the corridor, rounding the bend in a formation that hugged the wall to keep as much cover as possible. As they did so, they all noticed the unearthly quiet of the redoubt.

  “Something’s not right,” Ryan said as they paused. “Look at this…” he continued, indicating a part of the wall that seemed to have been recently—and clumsily—repaired. It was a large, irregular circle, and seemed to have been filled in and then not finished properly. There was also an old girder, salvaged from some other part of the redoubt, used farther along their route to shore up yet another section of the wall. And on the floor, surrounding the rough work, were signs of recent habitation—a water canteen left behind, some self-heats and a pool of congealed oil that hadn’t yet fully soaked into the concrete floor.

  “Gotta be some people around to have done this—and fairly recently,” J.B. added. “So where are they?”

  As if in mocking answer to his question, the tunnel around them seemed to vibrate through its very center, growing more intense in a matter of seconds until the floor was shaking beneath their feet.

  “Dark night!” J.B. shouted as the wall of the tunnel in front of him began to disintegrate in a shower of powdered concrete.

  Chapter Two

  “Fireblast! What the hell is happening?” Ryan yelled as he tried to keep his feet. The vibration in the tunnel continued to shake the floors and walls, crumbling concrete dust and flaking plaster, a light rain of those materials making visibility suddenly difficult and even painful as the abrasive mist scratched at their eyes.

  In the confusion it was almost impossible for anyone in the group to tell exactly what was happening. One thing was for sure—they needed to regroup and stick close together. Without Ryan even having to give the command, Dean and J.B., who had wandered farthest from the formation, began to make their unsteady way back toward the others.

  “Surely we have not come this far to fall prey to something as simple and neutral as an earthquake,” Doc said, almost to himself.

  “Could have been worse—could have been floods,” Ryan replied, although Doc’s exclamation had required no answer.

  But it was Mildred who, in the flash of a second, knew what Doc meant. It crossed her mind, as it always did when they faced such problems, that they had taken and fought their way past so many man-made obstructions on their path, so many who would wish to chill them for no good reason, that it seemed as though the scales of justice were unfairly tipped for them to take their last bow at the mercy of the earth itself. Yet, given their location and the factors that had made the earth itself so unstable, was that not a man-made obstruction?

  This crossed her mind in the time it took her to move closer to the pack, finding herself beside Jak as J.B. and Dean closed in. Doc, Ryan and Krysty stood a few yards away.

  A crucial few yards.

  The earth rumbled around them. The stressed steel girders supporting the concrete pillars that had stood firm for so long against the outside pressure of rock began to sing and screech with the torsion that made them begin to bend within the concrete itself. The large gaps in the surrounding walls that had seemed hairline cracks a few minutes earlier began to assume the proportions of gaping maws. The hurried repair to the walls that they had passed a few yards back fell out with a loud bang, tumbling to the shaking floor and breaking into a myriad of pieces that danced across the unsteady surface.

  “Try to stay on your feet,” Ryan yelled above the noise. “Move toward the next level—mebbe it’s localized.”

  As an option, all the companions kn
ew that it was grasping at nonexistent straws. The intensity of the vibration here was such that it was highly unlikely to have abated if they could make their way up the sloping tunnel to an upper level. The earth shifts, they knew from experience, were stronger the deeper you went, but this was too harsh to suddenly drop away in an ascent of less than a hundred feet.

  That was always assuming they could make any progress at all before the pressure of the shifting rocks caved in the redoubt tunnel. Every step forward seemed to take them three steps back as they tried to move on the unstable floor.

  J.B. led the way as he was nearest the ascending path. The inclines in the tunnel slopes were always relatively gentle, to allow the internal use of some maintenance vehicles, so the ascent by slope would be of necessity slower than by the elevator—useless in the current circumstances—or by the emergency stairwell, which they didn’t have time to find.

  Jak and Dean were at J.B.’s heels. Mildred hung back and stopped for a second to look behind, a vague awareness hitting her that she could hear or feel no one immediately to her rear. Krysty and Ryan were some way behind, helping Doc, who had lost his balance and crashed to the tunnel floor. Hoisting him with a hand under each of his arms, Ryan and Krysty had propelled him forward as he hit the upright, hoping to give him some impetus. Thus, Doc was coming toward Mildred at some speed. His balance still looked precarious, and Mildred took another step toward him in order to try to steady and assist him. Although she called him a mad old buzzard, and could be exasperated by his wandering mind at times, Mildred had a grudging liking for the older man—perhaps because he, like herself, represented an earlier age set adrift, and they were both strangers in this strange land.

  It was a step that was to prove decisive. Doc was a few yards from her, keeping his balance well, the intense concentration showing on his face. Mildred was focused on him, which may explain why neither of them noticed that the wall of the tunnel to one side was suddenly beginning to break up with a spiderweb pattern that resembled a cracking glass.

  Mildred felt a sudden rush of air almost simultaneously with the hail of tiny concrete shards that sailed across the breadth of the tunnel, completely obscuring Doc from view. Where a moment before she had a clear view of the old man as he ran stumblingly toward her, she now saw nothing but gray and darkness. Some of the shards that flew out from the main cluster hit her on the head and upper body. She felt a numbing blow on her face and stinging on her hands. There was no pain, but her eyes filled with blood from what she figured was a superficial scalp wound. The problem was, with the dust and concrete rain, the blood was now making it almost impossible for her to see. Her torso had been protected by her fatigue jacket, for which she was grateful. She had felt the concrete chips rip at her clothing, but they had caused no pain.

  At least she was still conscious. She moved her arm to wipe the blood from her eyes and realized that everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. Hell, she was even thinking in slow motion…a cold wave of nausea and fear swept through her gut as she realized that the blow to her head had affected her more than she had thought, and that she was now lying on the floor of the tunnel, mildly concussed but enough to slow her actions to a possibly fatal degree. The tunnel was vibrating much less, as though the pressure had been released by the sudden explosion.

  And then the mist cleared for a moment as she wiped her eyes, and she thought that the blow had to have rendered her mad, as well as concussed.

  For Doc Tanner, too, the sudden hail of concrete had come as something of a shock. One moment he had been moving toward the good Dr. Wyeth, who was holding out a hand to help him maintain his equilibrium, as well as his momentum; the next moment a force much greater than his own had hit him full in the body, arresting his forward motion and flinging him back, as though he had run straight into a wall. He felt rather than saw the hail of concrete that passed before him, stray shards like an abrasive rain that showered over his face and body, plucking at his clothes and breaking the skin of his face and hands in several places. The wind knocked solidly from his body, Doc collapsed to the ground. He hadn’t been quite as near the point of impact as Mildred, and so wasn’t as concussed. Nonetheless, time did seem to run a little slower than he had expected as he tried to gather his thoughts and marshal his actions. For instance, he had noticed that the tunnel had ceased to shake.

  When he looked up and saw what had made the impact, and what had caused the cessation of the vibrations, he truly believed for one second that he had lost all possession of his senses.

  For the thing that both Mildred and Doc saw from their prone positions was quite unlike anything that either of them had seen during their travels—or hoped that they would ever see.

  It was moving quite slowly, which was hardly surprising given the size and construction of the creature. It was immense in size, possibly fifteen feet in diameter, and with a pale and almost translucent flesh that seemed to move independently in every part. The smell of the oozing mucus that covered and moisturized every part of the flesh was intense within the tunnel, filling their nostrils with its stench even though one breath had made both, independently, decide to try to breathe as little as possible while it was crossing the floor.

  The giant mutie creature, from the shape that was just about discernible, and from the length that could only be estimated, as part of it was still concealed in the wall, seemed to be some kind of earth- or sandworm. In the glistening ooze that covered the pale flesh, large ring segments could just about be distinguished, and it had no features at the front of its body, just an open maw with teeth that were double rowed around the almost perfect circle of its mouth, seemingly made of matter little harder than the flesh.

  Not that either Mildred or Doc wished to discover the truth of this. Both were still, partly from shock and their injuries, and partly from the sudden numbing fear of encountering something so alien.

  The mutie creature had obviously been burrowing through the earth, and the tunnel of the redoubt was just a tunnel that crossed its path at one point. Now the huge hole that had been badly repaired back along the tunnel was explained. The casts of the giant worm also accounted for some of the material used to block the hole that had seemed to be unidentifiable: whoever had repaired the hole had used some of the cast to help block the gap and seal it. Who that could be was a question for another time. For now, the only thing that mattered was the giant worm before them.

  The sudden and violent vibration of the tunnel was now explained—a localized disturbance caused by the approach and passing of the worm as it ate its way through the earth and rock. That would explain why the tunnel and the mat-trans chamber were still in one piece, and it would account for why this level was deserted even though there were general signs of habitation. If the appearances by the worms were of any frequency, it would perhaps be much safer to stay at a higher level of the redoubt.

  And no surprise. As the worm turned its front end, showing its teeth and maw, it was an awesome and appalling sight. It seemed to have no eyes, but had to surely have some kind of sensory equipment. If so, could it detect their presence, and did it see them as a threat?

  Standing back behind Doc, Ryan and Krysty had instinctively raised the blasters they held. On the other side, Dean, Jak and J.B. had done likewise. It was a tense waiting game. Would the worm attack, or would it just move on, sensing no threat to itself?

  The stench grew overpowering in the suddenly cramped confines of the tunnel. The odor also carried with it the heat of the giant, elongated body. The worm was partially in the tunnel and partially in the hole in the wall, leaving them with little idea as to its actual length. The flabby, pulpy body had just flopped down from the hole in the wall as the burrowing creature had hit empty air, the flesh plopping heavily to the concrete floor. The oozing mucus would leave a trail in the creature’s wake, and as it was currently static, the clear, viscous fluid spread out from beneath it toward Mildred on one side and Doc on the other.

  J.B. and
Jak held their fire, the Armorer drawing in his breath as he watched the creature turn what had to pass for its head, eerily soundless for something of that size. C’mon, move, you bastard, he urged silently, hoping that it wouldn’t notice Mildred as she lay there, still a little dazed.

  Seeing the creature move its front end her way, and still not being fully in control of her faculties, Mildred did the one thing that, under any other circumstance, she wouldn’t: she scrabbled backward, trying to escape from the mutie’s maw. If she had been one hundred percent her usual self, Mildred would have figured that to move would draw attention to herself, whereas to stay still would hopefully mean that the sightless creature wouldn’t notice her presence.

  But Mildred was still dazed and concussed, and a deep-rooted fear instinct took over. She didn’t even scramble to her feet. Lifting herself on her arms from behind, and taking purchase on the floor with her heels, she scuttled backward crablike.

  The noise and movement seemed to attract the attention of the giant mutie, even though it was impossible to tell how it could have noticed. The front end and maw moved downward and toward Mildred. With no eyes, it was impossible to tell whether this was a threatening, or merely a curious, gesture. But one thing was for sure—it was too close to be comfortable with it.

  Instinct took over in Dean. He raised his Browning Hi-Power blaster and snapped off two shots toward the mutie’s maw. The slugs hit home, thudding into the viscous mass of the creature with a sickeningly slushy sound that was audible after the crack of the blaster shots. The creature obviously felt the impact in some way, however its central nervous system—assuming it actually had one—worked. It reared into the air so that it took up the whole of the tunnel, its foremost extremity brushing against the roof of the concrete construction.