Thrilled to Death

by James Byron Huggins

  Adler stared. “You will never break the security code, Mrs. Connor. You merely boast. Your government’s most revered security agency instituted it to prohibit unauthorized use of this system.”

  “Oh, I’ll break it, Mister Adler,” Beth answered. “And I just wanted you to know something. Your secrets are finished. Forever. And you’re finished. Because when I break that code the entire world is going to know what’s been going on down here. And I mean that; the entire world.”

  “I believe,” Adler replied slowly, eyes hazing with menace, “that you should be more careful in your actions, Mrs. Connor. You may place yourself in grave danger.”

  Beth laughed, stepping even closer.

  “Do you pray, Mr. Adler?”

  Stunned, Adler began, “I ... Yes ... Of course I pray, Mrs. Connor. All good men pray for—”

  “Then you’d better pray that nothing happens to my child or my husband,” Beth said, coldly holding Adler’s gaze. “Because if Connor or Jordan is hurt, the only thing you’ll need to be afraid of is me. And believe me, Mr. Adler; you’d better be very, very afraid.”

  ***

  Thor stared at the darkness a long time before he realized he was awake.

  Floating in darkness, yes ...

  No ... not floating …

  Cold, black stone.

  He was lying on black stone, cold surrounding him. He didn’t realize for a long time that he was alive, then it came to him at once, a falling, white-black fear, nothing, then a solidifying awareness that made him conscious of the cold night, of air.

  Cautiously Thor moved his left arm, testing. Yes, he could still move. He had survived. And he felt cautiously, trying to register if his back had been broken. But everything seemed intact.

  He felt splintered wood beside him, matchstick edges of a rifle stock. It was his weapon, but Thor couldn’t think of it now.

  In pain, he sat up, gently touching a wound on his head, crusted with blood. With a deep breath he gazed about the dark, remembering what had happened.

  He had fallen as far as twenty feet before he struck a sloping rock. But the bruising impact slowed him briefly and he had managed a wild, tearing hold on the outcrop before rebounding painfully from something else, perhaps a steel beam, to fall another ten feet until finally slamming with mind-numbing force upon the shaft floor.

  Thor realized he was cold, possibly in shallow shock. And he had no idea how long he had lain unconscious, bleeding and beaten. But he decided, with a cautious testing, that no bones were broken. He wearily let it fall away, useless now. Then he felt the battle-ax at his back.

  Stiffly, Thor shrugged off his cloak, slipping the battle-ax’s strap from his shoulders. Even in the dark, he knew by the perfectly balanced weight that the ancient weapon had survived the terrific fall. Then he rolled, rising unsteadily to his feet, leaving the ax on the stones. And he stood for a moment, swaying, dizzy, sensing ... something.

  A stillness of air.

  Blindly Thor reached out and instantly his hand touched ... cold ... cold steel. As smooth as glass. Teeth clenched, Thor smiled.

  Yes!

  It was the entrance of the cavern. He spread his arms, measuring the dimension of the massive steel portal, but the colossal vault was even wider than his enormous reach, stretching into the dark.

  Thor stepped back and cautiously reached down, lifting the battle-ax to sling it over a shoulder, fighting off dizziness. Then he slowly angled left, stepping carefully to avoid stones, following Blankenship’s instructions toward the ventilation tunnel.

  Down here, Thor knew, or felt somehow, he had entered a strange and different world – a hated world ruled by the absence of hated light as powerfully as the world above was ruled by its presence.

  But he had no time for such thoughts. He turned his mind from them, concentrating on what he had to do. With six cautious steps, he had reached the edge of the steel door. He didn’t search for his flashlight. He knew it could not have survived the fall. So he gently waved his hands in the air, feeling, finding the air current, then closing his hands toward the wall until he touched the slated ventilation grate.

  Yes, the current.

  It was there.

  Warm, dark air.

  Thor smiled at his success and then his smile faded, his face setting in grim determination. His teeth clenched tight as his fingers curled inward through the thick rebar-grate, locking like talons. Then his huge, solid shoulders pulled hard against the steel.

  Nothing.

  The steel was immovable. Buried in six inches of granite.

  A mountain, deep in stone.

  A moment more Thor stood, feeling the ice-cold steel in his grip, its power mocking him, destroying him. Yes, he knew, all his life had brought him to this hour. All that he had ever loved and honored. All that he had ever lost, and all that he had ever defended.

  “No,” he whispered. “No ... No ...”

  He would not be stopped.

  With a dark frown Thor leaned forward, locking an iron grip on the thick steel bars that left no blood in his hands. Then his hold tightened even more, grinding the steel into his flesh until his fingers cracked with pressure. And his titanic shoulders expanded, herculean arms tensing and bending to prepare the full measure of a strength he had never used. His heart beat faster and faster until he felt his heartbeat there in his hands, in the steel.

  Thor bent his head, teeth clenched, eyes tight.

  “No,” he whispered. “Almighty God, you are my strength. And I trust my life … to YOU!”

  With a roar he surged back.

  Steel was ripped from stone.

  ***

  Connor finished rewiring the exit door that would allow them to escape the Command Cavern. He glanced up as Chesterton approached.

  “You finished with that, Connor?”

  “It’s finished,” Connor replied, rising to gaze across the cavern where Barley and a handful of soldiers were rigging a formidable load of C-4, dynamite, claymore mines, and other incendiary devices. “Is that enough of a charge to blow that thing to pieces?”

  “It’d better be,” Chesterton grimaced, “‘cause it’s all we’ve got. And once we blow it, this cavern is going to be superheated to about thirty thousand degrees for about ten seconds before the roof comes down. So we won’t be getting back in here for supplies.”

  “Are you taking everything you can carry? Just in case?”

  “Yeah,” Chesterton confirmed, handing Connor a rifle. With a short pause, Connor took it. He knew it was an M-16 with a grenade launcher attached to the lower part of the barrel. It was what they called an M-203.

  “Do you know how to use that?”

  Without waiting for an answer Chesterton handed Connor an ammo belt with a dozen 50-round clips and another shoulder belt with a large number of antipersonnel grenades that could be fired from the grenade launcher.

  “Yeah,” Connor replied steadily. “I’ve fired a few rounds through one.”

  “Well this ain’t no plinking contest, Connor. If that thing comes through that door, you just need to remember one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “When in doubt, empty the clip. Ammo is cheap. Your life isn’t.”

  “Yeah, I guess that—”

  A thunderous collision struck the vault of Alpha Corridor, and Chesterton immediately spun, leveling his rifle. At the door, soldiers scurried back, shocked by the terrific impact, and Connor saw that Barley alone stood his ground, slamming detonators into the C-4 as fast as he could move.

  “Barley!” Chesterton screamed. “Get out of there!”

  “Ten seconds!” the lieutenant shouted. He ran to a high load of dynamite and quickly adjusted a detonator. Connor ran up to Chesterton, who was screaming to the rest of the scrambling soldiers. “Get that other vault open so we c
an retreat! Do it now!”

  A second impact, but deeper, continued like a prolonged nuclear blast, quaking the vault beside Barley. Connor glanced up as stalactites broke away from the ceiling, falling like spears.

  “Look out!” he yelled, leaping to the side to avoid a two-ton impact of a calcite column. He rolled to his feet to see Barley working feverishly to finish the explosive charges.

  Again a sharp impact struck the vault, and then another explosive blast and another impact, and Connor realized suddenly what was happening. The beast had finally pinpointed a specific weakness in the vault, a single section that it was attacking to overcome the portal. A hissing could be heard in the wall. Connor whirled to see Frank staring at the vault.

  “What’s that sound?” Connor asked.

  “It’s nitrogen,” Frank replied, holding his place. “Leviathan has ruptured the nitrogen lines to freeze the steel bracketing!” Then the scientist’s face brightened. “Of course! Of course that’s what it would do!”

  “What?” Connor yelled. “What would it do?”

  “It’s not attacking the vault at all! It’s attacking the nitrogen lines! The lines rupture and spray across the steel freezing the steel bracketing that holds the vault in place! After that Leviathan can easily shatter the steel brackets because the steel will be brittle as ice! Then it’s just going to knock the door into this cavern!” Connor heard a savage rending of metal in the wall above the vault.

  “Barley!” Chesterton bellowed. “Get out of there! That’s a direct order! Get out of there now!”

  Breathless and fatigued the muscular man looked up. “One more second, Colonel, and I can—”

  “NO! Forget it! Move! Move! Move!”

  In an explosion of rock and nitrogen gas, a monstrous foreleg blasted open a gaping hole twenty feet high on the wall, far above the fire door. A roar thundered through the dark orb as Leviathan’s powerful limb, skin gleaming like black metal-leather, savaged the hole even farther—shattering the steel like wood, reaching in farther to pull back again, shredding the metal with black claws. Chesterton ran toward Barley who stuck an entire handful of detonators into a brick of C-4.

  In a colossal display of unstoppable strength Leviathan slammed both forelegs through the hole, one after the other. Connor and Frank backed up. Then Leviathan tore at the ruptured space for the length of the entire vault before it jerked both forelegs back through.

  Silence.

  Frank staggered. “Get ready!”

  A runaway freight train hit the vault, and what remained of the foundation surrendered to the force, the door bending outward from the top just as Chesterton reached Barley and roughly grabbed the lieutenant by the arm, dragging him to his feet.

  Barley wildly hurled the remaining detonators pell-mell onto the dynamite and was instantly running with Chesterton across the cavern. They covered a hundred yards when an even more powerful impact struck the door and in a painful rending of metal and earth the vault was defeated, falling like a wall into the Command Center.

  A sonic boom sounded in the cavern, dust rising. And although neither Chesterton nor Barley turned to look back, Connor knew from their expressions that they sensed death behind them, close and closing.

  “Get out of here!” Chesterton screamed as he neared, waving his hands. “We’re gonna blow it! We’re gonna blow it!”

  Leviathan stood in the open tunnel and for the first time Connor truly saw it.

  Rising almost sixteen feet high on its hind legs, the Dragon advanced into the cavern, standing like a bear, the thick body muscular and heavily armored, reptilian in aspect but beyond that, older than that. Its forelegs were long and bat-like and ended in claws that gleamed like black bowie knives. And its thick, green-black armor covered its entire form, the scales large and tight, bending easily with its movements and completely unscarred by the earlier combat. The neck was long, tapering to a wicked head that opened sharply, unhinging jaws as white and layered as a shark’s.

  Leviathan’s dragon-eyes, green and glowing, scanned the cavern for the briefest moment before centering on them and focusing with malevolent, hateful intelligence.

  Connor saw the thick, powerful tail whip around, almost fifteen feet of it, to smash into the wall. The tail’s tapered end easily sliced off a section of steel plating and the Dragon lowered its head, unleashing a deafening roar that thundered across the expanse of the cavern, crashing over them with physical force.

  At the roar Chesterton spun violently toward the Dragon, running backward and wildly firing his rifle as if the beast were on top of him. Then the Army colonel spun back again, his face vivid with fear, screaming and waving frantically. “Get out of here you fools! Barley! Blow it!”

  Barley ignored the order and grabbed Chesterton’s shoulder, dragging the colonel toward the door. Then with a shriek Leviathan raised its head to unleash a wide, waving stream of liquid fire that blazed upward at the ceiling, blasting the dome of the cavern into a cloud of flame, igniting the stone, raining ...

  Enraged and ignoring the holocaust, Barley turned, screaming, “Get out of here, Connor!”

  Connor obeyed instantly, throwing himself low under the door and leaping beyond it, breathless and off balance. He couldn’t find his stance in the chaos, the fear, and the confusion, and stumbled away. But concerned for Chesterton and Barley, he managed to cast a wild glance back to see the colonel shoved through the narrow space beneath the door, thrown by two powerful hands that handled him as easily as they would handle a child.

  Dazed, Chesterton staggered up with a painful cry and fell to the side. His arm was on fire, and he had lost his M-16. Understanding instantly what was about to happen, Connor angrily threw his rifle to the side and reached out, grabbing Chesterton to jerk him away from the door.

  Then Connor heard rifle fire and a defiant human cry on the other side of the vault, challenged by a bestial roar that trembled the earth. And to Connor’s amazement, Barley was rolling beneath the door, leaping effectively clear to aim a small black box at the gap.

  He frantically pressed a button.

  Connor felt a blinding sharp roar fill his head as a shock wave blasted a path beneath the half-raised vault and then there was only white flame, liquid fire, and pain that continued in a volcanic eruption to bring down the light and the darkness together.

  Chapter 18

  Connor thought for a moment that he was dead, but adrenaline and fear brought him back to hateful life. Then he felt something approaching, something ... monstrous.

  A shattering impact struck the vault door beside them.

  Instantly a handful of survivors moaned, rolled, staggered noisily to their feet. Connor blinked at the dim emergency lights, and then he realized that the shock wave had ruptured the power lines in this end of the tunnel. Reorienting with a violent effort, he felt himself for wounds, found none. He felt for Chesterton and found the colonel lying to his side. Fired by strength and fear, Connor shook him hard. Heard someone shouting.

  It was Barley, bellowing.

  “Connor!”

  “Yeah!”

  “Get Colonel Chesterton! I’m going ahead to open the vault at the far end of this passageway! We’ve got to get some distance on this thing! Get everybody that’s still alive and follow me! You got it?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I got it! Just go!”

  Barley’s tall dark shadow disappeared down the corridor as Leviathan hit the vault again. A fiendishly long foreleg, talons gleaming black-red, snaked under the open fire door, reaching, scraping. But all of them were too far back from the portal.

  “Chesterton!” Connor lifted the colonel to a sitting position. “Get it together! That thing’s still alive!”

  Another superheated blast hit the vault, and Connor saw liquid fire dripping to the narrowly-raised space of the vault door. Dust and darkness stirred at the beast’s shuffling and Co
nnor saw a long, clawed foot against the flaming stones. He spun back around.

  “Chesterton! Come on, man! Get it together!”

  With a groan Chesterton seemed to come around. In the dim light created by Leviathan’s continuing, flaming attack, Connor saw the colonel lift a hand to his bloodied head. “Oh man,” he mumbled. “Oh, god, that rolling in the dirt stuff is harder than you think when your arm is really on fire … It really is.”

  Connor felt his teeth clench in vivid fear. There was no time left for compassion. Connor began dragging the wounded colonel to his feet. “Come on, Chesterton. Get on your feet! That thing’s coming through the wall in less than a minute!”

  “Barley ...” he gasped. “Where’s Barley ...”

  “He’s alive,” Connor answered, staggering down the hallway, finding uncertain footing on the fallen rock. He whirled back suddenly. “Frank! Where are you?”

  “I’m here!” an unsteady voice answered.

  “Come on, Doctor! We’ve got to move to the far end of this corridor.”

  Frank leaned his hand against the wall as he moved. “Yeah, I know.”

  At the exit of the Command Cavern, Leviathan continued its attack, relentless and raging. Connor knew the beast’s blast-furnace flame and the strategically placed physical blows against the fire door would soon tear the structure from its moorings.

  But in moments the survivors had recovered, gathering speed. They gained steadiness as they went forward, and then they were running, following the wide, twisting corridor for a half mile to come to the vault-sealed end that led into the Matrix, a cavern named for the spiraling columns of limestone and calcite that rose titanically from the 200,000-square-foot floor comprised of granite and calcite cave pearls. It was used primarily for storing heavy equipment, spare steel plating and additional ventilation ducts.

  Connor was grateful that the lights in this end of the passageway were still functioning. They glared fluorescent white in the calcite-dust atmosphere raised from the trembling attack on the fire door, now far behind him. As he reached the end of the passageway he saw that Barley had already removed the control cover plate on the vault, rewiring the circuit. Familiar now with the routine, a half dozen soldiers began working the hydraulic pump, raising the door two feet and then three so they could enter the cavern.