by David Wood
“Far-fetched being the operative phrase,” Aston said, momentarily discomfited by mention of the Nazis. He remembered all too well what had happened the last time he crossed paths with a Nazi legend.
“Do you think this stone is the same stuff as the red flint?” Sol asked.
“I can’t say for certain,” Dig said. “Perhaps, but this has a different...feel to it. Almost as if it’s made of blood, the red is so deep.” He barked a laugh. “Don’t listen to me. My imagination runs wild sometimes.”
Aston half listened as he continued to examine the body, gently probing through the jacket pockets. He found a small notebook, a journal of some kind. He glanced up and saw the rest of the party looking at the strange stone knife, so he slipped the journal into his own pocket for later examination. He wasn’t sure what made him keep the discovery from the others, but he felt a need to take some kind of control of events as they unfolded in ever more confusing and concerning directions. He certainly didn’t buy the theory that one of this poor bastard’s friends carried a Stone Age knife and had used it to murderous effect. But he had no better theory at this stage that wasn’t entirely fanciful, and that made him decidedly uneasy.
He took the Dynamo lamp back from Dig and put that in his pocket too. They could perhaps date this guy with an internet search of that item when they got back topside. Slater waved Jeff aside, nodding towards the group still discussing the knife. As the cameraman moved to get footage of their conversation, she pulled Aston out of the cave and past the burly Reid and his two associates.
With some privacy afforded by distance from the others, she whispered, “Have you had any sort of... weird feeling?”
Aston suppressed a humorless laugh. “I haven’t not had a weird feeling since all this nonsense began.”
Slater smiled wryly. “Yeah, I hear that. But that’s not what I mean. I don’t mean in general, but right now. I just had a sense of being watched or followed or something.”
“You think we’re not alone down here?”
“I get that distinct impression,” she said.
The skin prickled on the back of Aston’s neck. “Is it because we found that fidget spinner thing, and the blood?” he asked.
Slater shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know. But we need to be careful. I’m convinced we haven’t been told everything about this place, maybe about stuff that happened here before. And Sol didn’t seem too bothered about what we found.”
“Maybe he thinks the guy just dropped it. And maybe he did. Perhaps we’re being paranoid.”
“It’s not paranoia when they’re really out to get you,” Slater said.
“Or when someone really is watching you?” Aston asked.
“Exactly.”
“Okay,” Sol said loudly, making them jump. The rest of the team had emerged from the side cave. “We need to keep exploring, as we can’t spend too much time distracted from the main purpose of our expedition.”
“What about that guy?” Dig asked.
Sol raised his hands. “I think it’s entirely possible several explorers got lost down here over the years, just like you said, Dig. We may well come across more unfortunate souls as we move on. Just like the frozen bodies on Everest, there’s not really much we can do about them.”
Syed still sat across the cave, recovering from her unexpected shock. “You can’t just leave him now we know he’s there,” she said.
“Well, we could. But we won’t,” Sol said. “I’ll have a couple of the security staff from Base come down here at some point and recover the remains. Or at least document them and try to inform any ancestors. And if we can recover him, we’ll keep him in safe storage and hand everything over to the right authorities.” He paused, thinking. Then, “I guess we’ll make sure we photograph the scene before we move him, too. But that’s not your concern, ladies and gents. We need to focus on our mission. If you’ve seen all you need to in here, we should press on. We need to find those crystalline greenium deposits and concentrate our efforts there.”
As people gathered their gear together, preparing to move on, Slater looked left and right, her brows knitted together. “Where is that idiot, Jeff?”
14
Jeff Gray stalked along the dark tunnel, all the while questioning his sanity. There couldn’t possibly be something down here. They were god knew how deep beneath Antarctica. It was just his imagination. Had to be. But what if it wasn’t?
Then he heard the sound again, that soft scuffing and subtle ticking that had caught his ear back in the previous cavern. But no matter how fast he moved, he couldn’t seem to catch up with whatever it was, always seemingly just ahead of him in the blackness. He had all his own lights off, moving by the glow from the cave behind, deeper in the dark. But now there was precious little light from his back, the murk almost palpable. He wanted to prove himself. Imagine if he filmed something else in these caves, then showed the footage to Jo Slater. Maybe she’d stop treating him with such disdain. He used to be a boss, for God’s sake. This job of running around like a lackey made him grind his teeth.
He paused to catch his breath, thinking about the wisdom of his love of burgers and ice creams. He had certainly grown in girth over the last couple of years, and was far from fit. There had been a time when he could have run five miles without thinking about it. Now he was lucky to walk five hundred yards without panting.
How far had he come? Too far to be safe on his own, that was almost certain. He wanted to turn on his camera light, bathe the passage in brightness, but also didn’t want to scare off whatever he had heard. He was torn between excitement to find something and fear of what it might be. Though he was out of shape, he was no coward. The discovery of the previous cavern, the remains of the explorer, and the blood red knife, had got him revved up for even greater discoveries. There was definitely more to the story here than a simple exploration in search of an energy source, he was certain of that. There were secrets to be revealed, and he had a feeling he might be able to cash in on a few of them if he played things right, as well as earn that respect from Slater that he was due.
When everyone had started organizing their gear, and Slater had been deep in quiet discussion with Aston, Jeff had felt superfluous. A pang of jealousy struck deep in his gut. He knew he stood little chance with a woman like her. Even though he was a bit out of shape and heavier than he would like, he was still a smart and good-looking guy. But he’d seen the way the others looked at him, like he was some bumbling fool. He had proved people wrong before and he would again. But over all of that, for some reason Slater’s closeness with Aston really stuck in his craw. He had tried to be friendly to Aston, tell him that Jo would forgive him, even though he hadn’t believed that for a moment. Aston had been a complete ass to Jo. And yet, there she was, touching his arm and confiding in him, thick as thieves. Maybe she had forgiven him after all, and that sucked.
Well, let it not be said that Jeff Gray would take that kind of ostracization lying down. While they were quietly sharing secrets, he had heard a sound and was certain he had caught a glimpse of movement in the main passageway leading off the glowing cavern. He had only intended to be a minute, not go far at all, but the sound remained so tantalizingly close. He would follow it a little more before he went back. It sounded small, not something to be too scared of, maybe a creature previously undiscovered that he could claim credit for. Maybe even name. He took a deep breath, his equilibrium regained, and moved on slowly. The silence seemed heavy, even the murmurs of conversation from behind lost to the distance now.
He strained his ears, desperate to hear whatever it was again, and had about given up, cursing his need to rest, when it came once more. A slow scrape, a drag of tail or foot maybe? And then that rapid, soft ticking, like a clock in the distance counting off seconds way too fast. He started forward again, then stopped, looked around, blind in the darkness. He realized the sound had come from behind him that time. Surely that was a trick of the close tunnel, a strange echo.
>
His heart rate increased, this time with nerves rather than exertion. He lifted the camera, his fingers feeling for the light mounted on top, then hovering over the button to switch it on. He turned a slow circle, listening hard. Then he remembered the camera had a night vision setting. If there was even a tiny amount of light here, it could make use of that, give him a view without needing his bright lamp. His fingers crept over the controls, familiar without needing to see them, and he slowly raised the camera to look through the viewfinder. The tunnel resolved in deep shades of green and black, barely better than blindness, but he picked out a few tiny details. He panned the lens slowly to the right. A soft blur of movement whipped past.
He gasped, moved the camera back again, but nothing was there. Then that soft scraping again, this time to his left. As he turned that way it came again, from his right. He stepped back, moved around, heard it on both sides at once. And then behind him. The dim view through the camera showed him nothing except a few stark edges of rock and occasional blurs of swift movement. Was he surrounded? And by what?
His stomach churned with fear, all thoughts of bravery and discovery fled. Suddenly wanting to see everything clearly, but terrified to look, he gave up all hope of having something to himself and turned tail for the cavern and the rest of the team. His feet slapped the rock, echoing loudly after the stillness of his slow search, every step a gunshot of noise. And the scuffling and ticking seemed to trail along behind him, always right on his tail, never quite catching up. A wail of fear escaped his lips as he gasped for breath and increased his pace. He hurtled headlong through the tunnel, running one hand along the rock beside him so he didn’t run right into it. Surely he should be back by now, or at least see the glow from the cavern of luminescent vines. A new panic gripped him. Had he turned himself around? Was he running away from his friends, further into subterranean depths and who knew what monstrous creatures?
If he stopped now, whatever pursued him would be on him in an instant. But he was slowing anyway, lungs burning, feeling like his heart was about to burst, and they hadn’t caught him yet. Were the things herding him? Were they deliberately holding back, driving him further into the darkness with some malevolent purpose?
“Oh my god, no!”
Jeff gave in to his fear, screamed out in desperation, calling for help. Unable to bear the darkness any longer, he slid the switch on the light above his camera. The tunnel leaped into view in stark contrasting tones of gray rock and black shadow. His legs, jelly from lack of oxygen and over-exertion, failed beneath him and he tripped and fell. He hit the rock on his knees and one palm, the other hand holding the camera high to protect it. The palm he had landed on flared into pain as the skin was scraped off by the rough ground, pain blossomed in his knees from the impact. He fell onto one side, rolled onto his butt, and swung the camera around to shine his light on whatever pursued him.
He screamed as his beam reflected back off shining, armor-like surfaces swarming up the tunnel. He saw an array of multi-faceted eyes, snapping mandibles like curved swords. For a moment, whatever the things were arched back, screeching shrilly as his light seemed to assault them, then one struck out, smashing the camera from his grasp. It hit the rock with a crack of glass and plastic, and the light broke. Everything fell into darkness once more. Jeff Gray felt his bladder release, had a moment to contemplate the horror of what he’d seen, then all thought fled as his body was shredded by dozens of tiny striking slashes, and sharp pain sliced through his flesh.
15
“Has anyone seen Jeff?” Aston scanned the cavern, trying to catch sight of the annoying cameraman. Funny, when you didn’t want him around he was omnipresent. But now he seemed to have vanished.
People stopped packing, looked around themselves.
“The cameraman?” Dig asked.
“Yeah,” Slater said. “Anyone see where he went?” She put her hands on her hips and let out an annoyed huff of breath.
“He was right beside me in the cave there, when we were looking at the body,” Marla said. “I didn’t see where he went when we came out.”
There was a general shaking of heads and murmuring, people looking to one another to confirm no one was wise to the man’s whereabouts.
“Well, he couldn’t have gone far,” Slater said. “It’s not like there’s far to go.”
“Plenty of caves and tunnels down here,” Larsen said.
“That way.”
Several heads turned to see who had spoken. Ronda Tate pointed to the dark tunnel mouth on the other side of the small stream.
“You’re sure?” Aston asked. She nodded. “Why didn’t you say something before?”
Tate shrugged. “I assumed he knew what he was doing.” The woman’s eyes were hard, her expression stark beneath brown hair so short it was almost a crew cut.
“You didn’t think to stop him? Or tell any of us?”
Tate smiled like she thought Aston was asking her to sprout wings and fly. “We’re here to protect you, not babysit you.”
Aston smirked. “But it was definitely that tunnel?”
“Yes. It’s the only one you haven’t checked yet anyway, and as he hasn’t come out I’m guessing it’s not another cave. Looks like it goes a fair way.” Tate looked down the tunnel, then back at the group. “He only kinda stuck his head in anyway, it didn’t look like he planned to leave. I didn’t realize until you brought it up that he wasn’t here. But he definitely didn’t come back past me.”
“Tate, we need to be more vigilant,” Reid said, giving his subordinate a hard look. “As it happens, we are here to babysit these people. From now on, I want everyone to stay together. Tate, Gates, if either of you sees anyone going off on their own, you call them back.”
Tate pressed her lips together, clearly embarrassed to have been so publicly scolded. She nodded sharply.
“Yes, sir,” Gates said, throwing a grimace of commiseration in Tate’s direction.
“You better go ahead and check,” Reid told Tate. “See if you can catch up to him.”
“Wait a minute,” Sol said. “It’s the direction I was going to suggest we go next anyway. Let’s all move on together and we can probably catch him up.”
Slater frowned, shook her head. “Why did he go off on his own? That idiot.” She looked over to Marla. “Did he seem okay to you?”
Marla shook her head. “As okay as you could expect, I guess. He’s a bit weird, after all.”
“Everyone ready?” Aston asked, trying to keep the annoyance from his voice. “We’d better find him before he gets in trouble.”
Packs and bags were hoisted into place and the group gathered near the stream. Reid sent Tate out in front, the rest of the group to follow, and he and Gates brought up the rear. They lit their head-mounted torches and entered the dark mouth of the tunnel.
The walls were rounded, the floor mostly flat and smooth. The ceiling of the passage arced above them, just beyond Aston’s reach. Even a little more than an arm’s length above his head, the place felt claustrophobic. They traveled a long way, several hundred yards by Aston’s estimation, and eventually came to a fork. The larger passage led off to the left, a smaller one to the right.
“I’m going to fire that idiot,” Slater said, for only Aston to hear. “I wanted to replace him before this job but there wasn’t time.”
“Hardly worth it at this stage. Not like you can hire a new cameraman right now. Just put up with him. He’s annoying, but he’s good at the job, right?”
“I suppose so, if I give him constant nudges to keep working.”
“I could do his job and mine just as well,” Marla said, with a cheeky grin. “For what it’s worth. Of course, I’d need the camera.”
Slater returned the young woman’s smile, but Aston saw the concern in her eyes.
“Which way?” Sol asked.
Aston shone his torch into the left-hand tunnel, then the right. Down the right side he saw something wet on the ground and took one st
ep forward. He glanced back and saw Slater, Marla, and Dig side by side just behind him, also looking at the wet patch. By Slater’s expression and Dig’s suddenly pale face and tight lips, he figured that they shared his opinion that it was blood. More from the same source as before, just beyond the door? The blood there that may or may not have belonged to the fidget spinner guard? This could be more of his. Or it could be new, maybe Jeff’s. Or it could have come from someone or something else entirely. Terry Reid moved up beside Aston, saw the blood on the floor, and gently pushed Aston’s hand aside, moving the beam of light away from it.
Aston frowned at him and the big man said, “Let’s not panic everyone.”
“Panic them? That was blood, right? You think it might be Jeff’s?”
“I don’t know what to think. It had to come from somewhere, but if that’s your cameraman’s blood, why isn’t there a trail?”
Slater frowned. “Maybe we’d find one if we went looking that way?”
“I didn’t see one leading away, did you?”
“I guess not.”
Sol, Larsen, and Syed had moved a little further down the left-hand tunnel and Sol called back to them. “More green glow this way.”
Aston and Reid shared a long look. Eventually Reid said, “Let’s just keep our eyes and ears open, okay?”
“Maybe you and your pals could go all up front now? You know, as you’ve got the guns.”
Terry grinned. “Sure.”
Slater looked from Aston to Reid and back again. She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, “Jeff! You up there?”
They all paused, listening hard as her voice echoed away. There was no reply.
“We should go look,” Slater said. “I know Jeff is an idiot, but we can’t ignore that blood or the fact that he may be up there. Maybe hurt.”
Reid nodded. “Gates, Tate.” The other two mercs came over. “I want you two to go up this passage, lights on, stay alert. The cameraman may have gone this way. Give it a few hundred yards, see what you find. If the way splits, you come back and tell me. If you find anything, you come back and tell me.”
