by Inmon, Shawn
He pulled the P226 Scorpion Emperor .40 caliber pistol down. With 12-round mags, it would be the right combination of reliability, capacity, and stopping power.
Gonna be a quick recon. Poke my head in, then right back home.
Alex also grabbed his Armalite AR-10 16” Tactical Rifle, chambered in .308 Winchester. With 25-round mags, it would make a formidable primary weapon.
He loaded four mags for each and slipped them into his pack, along with his flashlight, hundred-mile-an-hour tape and a few other essentials.
Most people might have felt a little over-prepared and foolish, but Alex had been trained to be prepared for any eventuality.
He went to his closet and put on his cargo pants and medium-weight jacket. He had his light pack on his back, canteen hooked to his belt, pistol holstered at his side and rifle slung over his shoulder.
Do I need all this stuff to just poke my head through the door, then step back out? No. I’d rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it.
Alex jogged lightly down the stairs to the basement and glanced in the far corner, where the stacks of bricks showed he hadn’t been hallucinating earlier.
One minute. In and out. If it really is something, I’ll have a better idea what’s there, and I can be fully prepared to go in again tomorrow. If I want to, of course.
Alex smiled. He knew he was kidding himself. He had spent his whole life looking for adventure. If one was waiting for him in his own house, he was going to explore it.
He stepped between the bricks and glanced at the top of the pile. When he had taken down the second wall, the bricks facing him had been spotless. He had been in enough of a hurry that he hadn’t bothered to look at the back side of them.
Now that he did, he noticed something odd. There were long grooves etched into the back side of the brick. He kneeled easily beside the pile and plucked a few more of the bricks up to examine. They all had the same markings.
He shucked off his rifle and pack and laid half a dozen of the bricks face down on the floor. It was a simple puzzle to put together and when he did, it made an unsettling picture. When the bricks were rearranged as they had been in the wall, Alex could see that the grooves were long claw marks, made by something with three sharp nails.
Alex stood and looked at the utter blackness of the door and the slight shimmering around the edges.
Those claw marks weren’t made by anything human. Did something come in that door and find nothing but the brick wall? Was it clawing to get in?
He examined the claw marks more closely. His own hand, even spread wide, was too small to have made those marks. He tried to imagine what could have.
Bear? I would likely see four claw marks then, though. Can’t think of anything with three claws that would have the strength to do this.
A DIFFERENT MAN, WITH a different set of drives and goals, might have let this discovery put them off. Many men might have set about rebuilding that wall before whatever made those marks decided to come back and introduce itself in a forceful way.
Alex just stood up, shouldered his rifle and pack, and stepped into the darkness where the brick wall had stood.
The ocean air greeted him once again. He filled his lungs and held his breath for thirty seconds to see if there were any deleterious effects from the air.
He let the breath out with a whoosh. No dizziness. No nausea.
He reached a hand out to touch the inky blackness of the door. Although there appeared to be something there, his hand met nothing. As he reached further into the space, Alex was disconcerted to see his hand disappear completely.
He immediately pulled it back. It was still just his hand.
Spooking myself.
Alex let a grin of anticipation spread across his face and stepped into the darkness.
Chapter Three
Kragdon-ah
And darkness there was.
Alex had anticipated stepping through the deep darkness of the door into—some unknown something.
Instead, there was an inky blackness deeper than anything he’d ever seen.
He reached his hand out, fumbling for something solid. His fingers wiggled and grasped but touched nothing.
The hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stood straight up. He quietly tapped his finger against his rifle just so there would be some sensory input in the void.
His ears picked up the sound, but it was more distant than it should have been—as though he tapped against the rifle’s stock and found it wrapped in cotton.
He grabbed his flashlight off his belt and clicked it on. The beam emanated forth but disappeared after just a few inches.
“Shit,” Alex muttered. Like the tap against the rifle, the sound of his own voice reached his ears, but sounded distant, like a third-generation echo.
His head swirled and he felt a sense of movement, but his feet were planted solidly.
With a start, he realized he was going to pass out. Instinctively, he tried to step forward and fell face-first, unconscious.
An unknown time later, he opened his eyes.
Alex realized he was face down in ground made up of tiny black rocks.
Alex tried to push quickly to his feet but only made it as far as his knees before he threw up. A ribbon of thick vomit choked him and sent him into paroxysms of coughing, trying to clear his throat.
His eyes watered. He coughed and spit, then turned and sat hard on his butt, wiping his hands across his eyes to clear them.
The sound of waves pounded in his ears. Small droplets of spray landed on his face.
He looked around. The black-pebbled sand stretched as far as he could see both left and right. An outcropping of rock pushed out into a body of water.
He managed to find his feet without further sickness and looked around him.
His jaw fell open and he closed his eyes hard before opening them again.
“What the...” Alex didn’t complete the sentence. No word came to mind that was sufficient to convey what was in front of him.
How could all this be on the other side of the wall in my basement? It’s impossible.
The water tossed and frothed near the shore. As the waves rolled in and out, they jangled the tiny rocks and they sounded like a giant rattle. Further out, it was steel-gray and choppy, each wave crested white. The water extended as far as he could see before it disappeared over the horizon.
Alex looked up at the sky. In his memory, he’d been outside just a few minutes earlier and the sun had been shining. Now, there was nothing but clouds and an eerie, yellowish light spread across the sky.
Aside from some faraway birds over the ocean, there was no sign of life.
Alex kneeled and picked up a handful of the dense sand, letting it trickle between his fingers, listening to the tinkling sound it made as it fell.
He remembered the door and whirled around. It was still there, a shimmering blackness standing alone on the beach. Beyond the door, dunes rose and fell, speckled by shoots of tall grass that swayed slightly in the wind.
Alex walked toward the surf, stopping just before the waves touched his boots. He drew a deep breath and the ocean air filled his lungs, pure and clean.
“Okay. There’s something here,” he said aloud. “I don’t know what I was expecting, but certainly not this. This all feels too real.” He glanced out over the water. The birds were closer than they had been a few moments earlier.
“I need to go home. I’ll come back and explore soon, but I’ve got to get home. I can’t miss Amy’s party.”
He inhaled a lungful of the pristine air and glanced left and right, deciding which direction he would set out when he returned.
He was snapped out of his reverie by a harsh, penetrating noise from above. He had paid no real attention to the approaching birds, but the sound from above focused his attention.
They weren’t birds.
Alex had no idea what they were. One thing he did know was that the approaching creatures were f
ast.
He took one long look at them to freeze their image in his mind. A large heavy head that hung slightly lower than the body. Wide wings that beat hard to keep the creatures airborne. Small legs that ended in three-toed feet with dangerous-looking claws. And they were big. His first guess was that their wingspan was at least seven or eight feet.
Alex didn’t wait to get a closer look. He whirled on his heel and sprinted back toward the shimmering door, his boots pounding against the black sand.
After the initial war cry, the onrushing creatures had silenced themselves, but the sound of leathery wings beating against the air made a terrible sound.
Alex was slowed slightly by the sand, which buried his boots with each sprinting step. If not for that, he would have likely made it back to the door.
Instead, the leading creature crashed against Alex’s back, its razor-sharp claws digging through the backpack and inching toward his neck.
It wasn’t as heavy as it had looked, but it still had enough impact to knock Alex face-first into the hard-packed sand.
No twenty-first century human had ever been trained to face a situation like this, but Alex had been indoctrinated to react to the situation at hand. As he fell, he pulled the Sig P226 from its holster.
He shrugged his shoulders mightily while lashing out with his left hand, which dislodged the beast. It stood on its two small legs and stepped toward Alex, as awkward on the ground as it had been powerful in the air.
Alex pulled the trigger three times in less than a second. All three hollow points found a home—the first two in the thing’s breast, the third through the drooping, colossal head. The body flew six feet backward and landed in the sand, now missing most of its head.
ALEX DIDN’T HAVE A moment to savor his victory. A dark, roiling cloud of the beasts was not far behind the first and they circled around him, their cries filling the sky.
The first two to drop out of the sky landed beside the dead creature and began tearing at it with strong, sharp beaks.
The next three attacked, aiming at Alex’s head. He dropped to one knee so the first one sailed just above him and landed in a heap on the sand. He took his shooter’s posture and put his next shot between the eyes of the second beast.
The third had just enough time to change trajectory and hit Alex mid-chest, clawing and shredding his jacket, spreading half of his mags across the sand. Dreadfully close, the thing smelled like saltwater and decaying flesh. Its head looked like a vulture, and its wings beat at him. Its claws made short work of his jacket and shirt, and one clawed foot ripped into the flesh of his chest.
Its head rose up for a mighty blow and Alex split it neatly in two with another shot. He tossed the thing off him and saw that there were dozens more of the winged monstrosities circling over his head. Two more dove at him from behind the black, shimmering door, herding him toward the water.
He unslung his rifle, took aim, and blew them out of the air, pinwheeling gracelessly to the sand. They were immediately replaced by two more, heedless of the fate of those who had already fallen.
Alex ran, looking desperately for cover—any cover—but the beach was wide and open.
More of the creatures dive-bombed him, but he was learning their patterns, and managed to avoid being hit and knocked down.
Alex sprinted full out, zigzagging along the shore and working his way back toward the dunes. Finally, he spotted a massive log resting at the edge of a rise. His heart skipped a beat when he saw that one end of it had been hollowed out.
He juked left, then ran straight toward the log, first tossing his rifle, then throwing himself headlong into the hollowed portion.
Immediately the thud of the predators sounded on the sand outside of the log.
Alex wriggled himself further into the log, but his boots remained outside.
The first creature waddled over, raised its head and delivered a sharp jab with its beak, striking the sole of his left boot. It didn’t penetrate to skin, but it was obvious it wouldn’t take many more strikes to do so.
Alex pulled himself deeper in, simultaneously turning on his back and sighting his pistol down the length of his body. He turned his feet outward to give him a good firing angle and fired as the beast dropped its head for another slash at his boots.
The creature flopped over backwards, its leathery wings flapping spasmodically.
Immediately, two more of the creatures fell on the first and began devouring it.
No honor among thieves or nightmare creatures, eh?
Alex repeated this process twice more. The sand outside the log looked like a scene from a horror movie—covered in grayish blood and a mound of half-devoured creatures.
Alex grabbed another magazine from the front pocket of his pants, slammed it home, and took out three more of the winged predators. He took a mental inventory of the bullets he had for his pistol and tried to count how many of the winged beasts he had seen approaching him. He didn’t like the way the math came out.
After he had killed another ten of the creatures, the pile of carcasses grew high enough that the remaining vulture creatures could not see him. They pecked and clawed at the heap of fallen comrades, then one by one, flew off.
Alex reached inside his jacket and his fingers came away sticky with his blood.
I need to deal with that, but I think I’ll do that back home. If this is the welcoming committee, I’m not sure I want to see what the rest of this place has to offer.
He started to wriggle out of the log when he stopped cold.
A large human hand waved at him from the open end of the log.
Chapter Four
Hobbled
The hand withdrew and Alex was left in a world of uncertainty.
He was head-first in the log, so coming out was going to be awkward and leave him exposed to danger. He didn’t know the intentions of the person attached to that hand, so he didn’t want to do that. At the same time, there wasn’t room in the log to turn around and even if he pulled his feet in, he was still vulnerable to a slash attack.
A deep voice reached Alex’s ears.
“Kuntat! Ama danten fenken tol.”
Auntie Em, I’m not in Kansas anymore. Or Oregon, for that matter.
Even though he knew it was a long shot that he would be understood, Alex said, “Okay, okay, I’m coming out. I mean you no harm.”
Alex wiggled out feet-first, a tingling of nerves spreading along his body as his lower half was exposed to attack. He was blinded by his position and wriggled as fast as he could.
As his shoulders popped out of the log, many hands grabbed him, pulled him the rest of the way and stood him upright.
Alex took in their number and strength, considering his options. He hadn’t put a new mag in and knew he was down to only two shots. Also, although the men did not look friendly, they were not attacking him and beyond knives and spears, they were not armed.
Am I capable of unslinging my rifle and shooting them? They haven’t done anything to me. But, they could just be confident because they have me outnumbered and surrounded.
Alex holstered his pistol and raised his hand in a gesture of peace.
He was surrounded by a dozen men, all of whom were at least half a head taller than his own 6’2”.
The man directly in front of him had dark skin, brown eyes, and long hair that hung nearly to his waist. Alex judged him to be nearly seven feet tall. He was well muscled, but lean, with the build of an athlete. He had an old scar that started above his left eye and ran across his cheek. His left eye was clouded over.
The others around him were similar in build and skin color.
The scarred man stared at Alex and said, “Camin pa tol?”
Alex shrugged and said, “Sorry. Whatever it is you’re speaking; I don’t understand.” Alex had at least a few words of Spanish, Arabic, and Farsi, but whatever this language was, it didn’t resemble any of those.
Alex shook his head from side to side, then shrugged his shou
lders, knowing the risk that either of those gestures could be the equivalent of “up yours” in whatever culture he had come face to face with.
Most of the men wore loose shirts and pants made from what looked like spun cotton. They all wore belts slung low on their hips with a knife stuck in a sheath or a club dangling from a leather cord.
The man who had spoken reached for Alex’s pistol.
Alex moved half a step back, grabbed the bigger man’s wrist using a pressure point and turned the hand away.
Like lightning, the scarred man’s other hand struck out toward Alex’s head. Alex was prepared for that, slid to the left, grabbed the man’s other wrist and turned, flipping him to the ground. The man sprang lightly back to his feet almost before he hit the ground and half a dozen other men smothered Alex.
This wasn’t like the movies, where a single man was able to take on a dozen others because they politely waited their turn to attack. These men moved as one. They were strong, fast, and didn’t hesitate. They all carried weapons but did not draw them. Instead, they simply used their superior numbers and strength to overwhelm Alex, driving him first to his knees, then onto his face. Two of the tall men put their knees on Alex’s back. Another put a heavy foot on the back of his head, pushing him deeper into the sand.
A moment later, he had been stripped of his pistol, rifle, and shredded backpack. He was forcibly rolled over onto his back and many hands searched him, retrieving his compass, flashlight, ammunition, canteen and both knives.
When he was stripped of everything but his clothing, one of the men opened Alex’s coat and shirt and pushed it away from his wounds. He said, “Mamor tenk hason di,” and two of the men who had subdued Alex stepped forward to hold his clothes away from his wounds.