Thrilled to Death

by James Byron Huggins

  After Connor connected the cable to the seventh steel strand and backed away from the edge of the bridge, he took great pains to conceal the charged electrical line, and then he was finished.

  Exhausted, but finished.

  He backed up to the vault door, collapsing.

  Thor was resting on one knee, loosely holding the M-79. His battle-ax was slung across his back, and he had a long look of hard hunting patience. So calm was he that Connor could almost picture him waiting in the quiet woods for a moose or elk to stray across his path.

  Barley was beside him, cradling the M-203, a grenade locked in the launcher. He had also inserted a fresh clip into the weapon, fifty rounds. And one of their last LAW rockets was laid to his side.

  “Got any more painkillers, Barley?’’ Connor whispered wearily.

  Barley smiled, then he reached into his front shirt pocket and pulled out a small bottle of pills, tossing it. Connor took three of them, swallowing them without water before tossing the bottle back.

  “Thanks,” he mumbled.

  “Any time, Connor. When I’m in combat I eat ‘em like M&Ms.”

  Connor nodded with a curt laugh and Barley rubbed his face, clearly weary, fading to the fatigue, just like the rest of them.

  “This is definitely ungood,” the lieutenant began. “And I’ll tell you the truth, Thor. I’m not sure if I would have come down here.” He paused. “I mean, I would’ve called for reinforcements or somethin’, but I don’t think I would have just jumped out of a tree with a knife between my teeth like you did. That’s wild, man.”

  Casting an easy glance, Thor laughed.

  Barley waited before continuing. “So why’d you do it, Thor? I mean, if you don’t mind me asking. ‘Cause I still haven’t figured it out.”

  Thor’s gaze remained locked on the far side of Bridgestone. “And what would you rather I have done, Lieutenant?” he answered slowly. “Would you rather that I was on the surface calling for reinforcements? Or would you rather have me in this cavern standing beside you?”

  “I’d rather have you right here,” Barley replied without hesitation.

  “Then that is why I am here.” Thor smiled.

  Silence.

  “Well, I like that,” Barley said, watching the tunnel. “But this is definitely ugly, partner. This is as ugly as it gets.”

  “No.” Thor shook his head, frowning. “There are worse things. There are worse things than fighting. Or dying.”

  Barley stared. “What?”

  “Not having anything worth fighting to keep.”

  Connor leaned his head back, closing his eyes.

  “Yeah, I agree with that.” Barley nodded, rubbing a forearm across his eyes. “I’ve always agreed with that. The worst thing ain’t fighting. It’s not having anything worth fighting to defend.”

  “Every man must face the Dragon once in his life,” Thor rumbled. “It is the moment when he finds what is truly dear to him.” He paused. “For some, the Dragon is disease. It is cancer or diabetes or any cruel pestilence that destroys his life and causes him to face his true love. For some, the Dragon is the death of what they love most in the world. The death of a child, a father, or a mother.”

  Thor’s aspect darkened, somber and sadder. “But when the Dragon comes, a man knows with all his heart what he loves most of all. He knows, for perhaps the first time in his life, what he has valued most of all. And it is then that he must come to peace with it, make amends with it, and heal his wounds. And that is the destiny of us all. For me, as well as you.”

  Barley stared a moment. “I’m not sure I understand all that, Thor. But I got the part about fighting.”

  Thor laughed. “It is enough.”

  “So what is your Dragon, Thor?”

  With a sudden frown Thor replied, “I know what I value most of all, Lieutenant. And I know what I hate.”

  Barley was poised. “And what do you hate?”

  “I hate what is before me,” Thor replied. “I hate cruelty. I hate evil. I hate those who would destroy the lives of the innocent and the weak. I hate those who take the lives of children to feed their lusts.”

  “And so what is your Dragon?”

  Thor frowned. “I have met my Dragon.”

  Connor opened his eyes and stared across the chasm. He thought he had heard something, but there was nothing there. Around them were only the red emergency lights. Rerouting the 100,000-volt line had caused another current break. And Connor figured power would be out all the way to the Housing Cavern.

  Thor spoke, “Connor, what will happen when the Dragon touches the cable?”

  Connor squinted. He was certain that he heard something. “The shock will probably throw it backward,” he replied. “That’s generally how it works. But when you’re dealing with currents this fast, you can only predict so much. There’s a point where electricity is just going to do what it’s going to do. It might knock it straight back or it might blow it straight up into the air so that it lands on top of us.” He paused. “Did either of you hear anything?”

  Barley looked up alertly, his hand shifting on the M-203. “No,” he responded. “Did you?”

  “It is there.” Thor nodded. “It has been there for some time.”

  Connor stiffened, almost standing.

  “No,” Thor said sternly. “It is merely watching us.”

  Quick, adrenalized breaths lifted Connor’s chest. He took hard pulls of the thick air but felt light-headed, faint. Glaring across the gorge, it took all of his control not to leap to his feet and begin firing the M-203. He turned his head to risk a narrow glance at Thor.

  “Are you sure?” he whispered.

  Thor nodded, chewing a corner of his mustache. “It has been there since before we began speaking. It is studying the bridge.”

  “Where?” said Barley, eyes wide. “I don’t see it.”

  “It is there,” Thor growled. “It is deep in the tunnel. It seems to know how far we can see. But we have the advantage. We will wait for it to approach.”

  “How can you see it?”

  “The darkness is deeper where it stands.”

  Connor shifted. “That thing moves fast.” His hand was sweating, tight on the M-203. “Real fast.”

  Immediately Frank ran up the bridge. His voice was urgent. “Hey Connor! GEO just told me Leviathan has stopped feeding to reconstitute itself and it’s circling to come across the—”

  “We know!” Connor hissed, cutting him off. “Tell Chesterton to take everybody to the Housing Cavern. But do it quietly! Tell him to guard Beth and Jordan with his life! We’re going to make a stand right here!”

  Instantly the scientist was gone and a second later Connor heard them shuffling on the other side of the broken vault, moving away from the door. Thor was holding a steady aim into Tungsten Passage and Barley had followed his lead, lowering the barrel of the M-203. Slowly, at Thor’s gesture, they rose to their feet.

  As if vomited from Darkness, Leviathan leaped into the red light.

  Instantly it was at the mouth of the tunnel, staring at them over the long bridge, a monstrous black nightmare of fantastic armor and distended fangs. Even from a distance its malicious green eyes appeared to smolder. The long tail swished back and forth for balance, steadying the colossal form. It crouched on all fours, moving with silent steps. But at the end of the bridge it paused, unhinging the fanged mouth even more deeply to growl. The ominous tone crawled across the bridge, making the rock vibrate.

  Connor frowned, his finger tightening on the trigger.

  “Steady,” Thor whispered, raising the muzzle of the grenade launcher. “Steady on. Let it come.”

  Leviathan lowered its head, studying the steel cable that Connor had strung across the bridge. Clearly it was suspicious. Connor saw the Dragon’s eyes narrow. He could almost see the pup
ils intensifying, glowing brighter.

  Its hind legs tensed.

  “Look out!” Connor shouted.

  Wildly they dove down and away, Thor and Connor leaping to one side with Barley to the other and then Leviathan sent a blast of flame down the bridge. The holocaust of flame swallowed the entire length of Bridgestone, igniting everything.

  Connor gained his footing and ducked his head frantically back around to see the steel walkway on fire. Even the cables were burning, and he hoped desperately that the electrified cable could just endure.

  Then Leviathan shrieked and whirled, slashing its tail across the first five cables, shattering the concrete columns with a scattered blast into the gorge. With a quick spin it came around again, knowing that the cables could not hurt it and Connor saw the hind legs tense again.

  “It’s coming!” he yelled, and then the Dragon had leaped into the air, landing with a roar on the steel walkway.

  And the seventh cable.

  The white eruption blasted steel into the air and knocked Connor back against the broken vault but he somehow glimpsed a howling Leviathan spread titanically against the darkness, hanging in the air, falling. It descended with shattered sections of the walkway and Thor roared, falling to one knee as he fired the M-79 from the hip.

  Connor also fired Chesterton’s M-203, rising wildly with the recoil of the grenade blast. Both grenades hit simultaneously with a blazing twin-concussion that somersaulted the Dragon in the air and then Barley also opened up, rising and firing continuously as the beast lashed out, claws savagely striking a section of Bridgestone.

  Swung by its momentum, Leviathan disappeared beneath the stone expanse for a spellbinding, spectacular moment before swinging back out again, holding on with a single foreleg, its tail trailing in a long, deadly arc through the air.

  It shook violently, trying to reorient itself from the electrical shock and the grenades and Connor saw that the beast was recovering far more quickly this time. The air was alive with a reptilian roar, an almost liquid scream that contained immeasurable wrath, ageless rage.

  Leviathan’s claws sunk in the stone, grinding.

  “It’s climbing!” Connor shouted, running forward as he shoved another grenade into the chute. But Thor had already seen and was beside him, running onto the bridge. In six giant strides the Norseman was on the burning section where Leviathan clung tenaciously to the edge. The beast saw his approach, and the serpent-like head lashed viciously over the rim to strike a wild blow.

  Like lightning, Thor’s forearm lashed out to smash the Dragon’s head aside, and the Norseman staggered back from the collision, falling. Then Thor snatched up a section of steel plating, twisting it desperately in front of himself like a shield.

  Leviathan’s fangs snapped shut on the plate, and for a spellbinding moment, it was a fantastic, raging struggle of titanic strength—the Dragon shrieking, Thor roaring. Then Leviathan savagely tore the shield from Thor’s hand to hurl it into the darkness.

  Bellowing, Thor scrambled back. Connor saw everything in a white, breathless moment, knowing without thinking he couldn’t hit the beast in the head or neck without killing Thor. And with the unbelievable mind speed that comes to men in situations of sure and certain death Connor instantly swung the aim of the grenade launcher, centering ...

  Clawed foreleg on the stone.

  With an angry shout he pulled the trigger.

  Blinding explosion!

  Connor felt like he’d been hit by a tidal wave, a wall of fire that knocked him to the far side of Bridgestone. He didn’t even realize he was standing on steel until he collided with the shattered railing, too confused and shaken to be thankful that the electrical line was dead. Deafened, stunned, he grappled furiously with the superheated steel, scalding his hand, not caring. He held on to the rail, regaining balance.

  In smoke and flame Leviathan fell back, claws torn from the stone by the blast. It hovered for a single, haunting moment in midair, as if it had wings, before a long foreleg lashed out at the last possible moment to snare a shattered section of the walkway.

  At the impact a far section of the walkway was torn violently from place, ripped from its moorings by the Dragon’s great weight. And like a man swinging out on a rope, Leviathan descended toward the opposite side of the gorge where it struck the wall in a thudding impact. Then the section of the walkway was completely hauled from the bridge, dragged from the stone to disappear into the depths of the gorge.

  A long, wounded roar echoed in the smoke-filled air and Connor stared, shaken. His ears were ringing painfully before he saw Barley rolling on the ground, groaning. The lieutenant had been wounded by the point-blank blast. His flak jacket was smoking, flaming with embers.

  Instantly Thor rose and turned, wordlessly moving to the lieutenant to beat out the flames with his bare hands. Dazed, Connor wiped a hand across his forehead, found a bloody smear. He ignored it.

  It seemed incredible that Thor had not been killed, though he had stood only forty feet from the explosion. And then, after the Norseman finished beating out the flames on Barley’s flak jacket, he turned stoically to Connor.

  Unsteadily Connor focused on the deep cut across Thor’s brow, blood streaming. He saw that the bearskin cloak was also smoldering, blackened by flames, and other cuts laced the giant’s face, neck, and hands. Thor’s face glistened, black with blood, but he revealed no pain.

  Connor blinked at the sight and then he caught something infinitely stoic and composed within his friend as if Thor were enduring this and knew somehow that he would endure far, far more before this was over. And his heart was set like the heart of a mountain to endure, to endure to the end.

  Two hundred feet below them, on the opposite wall of the gorge, they could almost see the Dragon’s titanic image, clinging desperately to the rock. It was trying to climb the cliff. Then there arose a raging cry, a scream that ascended from the darkness and congealed around the bridge as if to capture them with fear.

  Grimly Thor broke open the M-79 and slid another grenade into the launcher. He snapped it shut, gazing sternly into the darkness below them. He looked like he would never retreat another step.

  Barley staggered to his knees. Shocked by the blast, he seemed to be on the verge of collapsing. He gasped, “Nothing can kill that thing! It’s climbing! It’s climbing out of the gorge! Frank was right, he was right. It can’t die.”

  “It will die,” Thor said, lifting the wounded lieutenant to his feet. “It will die even if I have to choke it with my bones.”

  “Come on.” Connor backed up from the edge. “That thing is tracking us by heat. Like a pit viper or something. We’ve got to lay some tracks around this part of the cave to confuse it. To slow it down. Then we’ll make a run for the Housing Cavern.”

  Thor scowled. “Do you have a plan?”

  Angry and heated, Connor shook his head. “That thing has got to be weakening, Thor. So it’s going to have to feed again. But it’s already eaten everybody down here but us.” He focused on Barley. “Where do they keep the food for that thing?”

  “In a freezer near G-2.”

  Connor knew the section. “Can you get to the freezer and blow it? Can you destroy this thing’s food supply?”

  “Yeah,” Barley nodded, staring narrowly. “Do you think destroying the food supply will kill it?”

  “Well, it’s going to starve it,” Connor replied, glancing again into the gorge. “And if it’s starving, then it’s going to be weaker than it is right now. We’ll have an advantage.”

  Thor was before him. “What is your plan, my friend?”

  With a frown Connor turned away. “Starve it. Burn it. Kill it any way I can.” He hesitated, gathering. “All right, this is what we’re going to do. Thor and I are going to lay a ton of tracks on this side of the gorge to confuse it. Barley, you get down to G-2 and blow the freezer. Make
sure there’s nothing left for that thing to eat. Then meet us in the corridor that leads to the Housing Cavern in thirty minutes. Thirty minutes! No more!”

  “And then?” Thor asked.

  “And then we’ll take this thing apart,” Connor rasped, standing straight.

  ***

  Frank tried to close his mind to the sounds of pain that surrounded him. Jordan was crying, hungry and thirsty, and Beth was trying to give him some apple juice and bread. Chesterton was stalking back and forth across the floor, regaining a remarkable level of nervous strength. But he was worried, anxious, disturbed. He tried to raise Barley again and again on the A-unit, but received nothing. Nothing but static.

  Sitting at a computer terminal, Frank accessed GEO.

  He typed: HOW MUCH TIME BEFORE DETONATION?

  Response: FOUR HOURS, ELEVEN MINUTES.

  Frank leaned back, wiping his face. Mind racing, he knew what he had to do. He had to find a path, any path at all, to access GEO’s Logic Core. If he could only circumvent the lockout, he knew he stood a chance. A slim chance, to be sure. But still a chance. And yet with the initiation of the countdown, GEO had closed all paths to the Core. He couldn’t use normal channels to reach it. He couldn’t use a terminal or even voice control.

  He continued to stare at the screen.

  There had to be a way.

  Pausing, Frank felt the sweat cold on his face, his hands, and arms. His back was chilled at the touch of his wet shirt. He typed another command, desperate and feeling desperate: GEO, I AM ADVISING YOU OF A COMPUTER ERROR. LEVIATHAN HAS NOT ESCAPED. LEVIATHAN IS STILL IN THE CONTAINMENT CAVERN. THE TRACKING DEVICE IS NONFUNCTIONAL. IT IS NECESSARY TO DEACTIVATE FAIL-SAFE UNTIL TRACKING DEVICE IS REPAIRED.