Temple

by Matthew Reilly

  A woman’s voice came over the speakers, speaking rapidly in German.

  Race translated for the others: “See if you can get in touch with headquarters. Tell them we’ve arrived at the temple, and that we have encountered and subdued members of the United States Army. Awaiting instructions—”

  Then the woman on the speakers said something else.

  “—Was ist mit dem anderen amerikanischen Team? Wo sind die jetzt?”

  What the hell? Race thought.

  Das anderen amerikanischen Team?

  At first he thought he mustn’t have heard her right.

  But he had. He was sure of it.

  But that just didn’t make—

  Race frowned inwardly and didn’t translate the sentence for the others.

  On the screen, ropes were being looped around the boulder in the portal.

  “Alles klar, macht Euch fertig—”

  “All right. Get ready.”

  The men on the screen lifted the ropes.

  “Zieht an!”

  “And . . . heave!”

  Up on the tower top, the ropes went taut and the boulder lodged in the portal slowly began to move, grinding loudly against the stone floor of the doorway.

  Eight German commandos were pulling on the ropes, hauling the giant boulder from its four-hundred-year-old resting place.

  Slowly—very slowly—the boulder came away from the portal, revealing an inky black interior.

  Once it was clear, Gunther Kolb stepped forward, peered down into the darkened interior of the temple.

  He saw a set of wide stone stairs descending into the darkness beneath him, into the belly of the great subterranean structure.

  “All right,” he said in German. “Entry team. Your turn.”

  In the Humvee, Race turned to Lauren.

  “They’re going in.”

  Up on the tower top, five fully loaded German commandos stepped forward. The entry team.

  Led by a wiry young captain named Kurt von Dirksen, they met Kolb at the entrance to the temple, guns in hand.

  “Keep it simple,” Kolb said to the young captain. “Find that idol and then get the hell—”

  At that moment, without warning, a series of sharp whistling noises cut through the air all around them.

  Thwat-thwat-thwat-thwat-thwat-thwat!

  And then—smack!—something long and sharp lodged itself in a clump of moss on the wall of the temple right next to Kolb’s head!

  Kolb stared at the object in amazement.

  It was an arrow.

  Voices began to shout out from the Humvee’s little television screen as a hailstorm of arrows rained down on the German troops gathered around the temple.

  “Was zum Teufel!”

  “Duckt Euch! Duckt Euch!”

  “What’s going on?” Lauren said, leaning forward from the backseat.

  Race turned to her, amazed. “It looks like they’re being attacked.”

  The deafening roar of submachine-gun fire engulfed the tower top once again as the German commandos raised their MP-5s and Steyr-AUGs and fired hard.

  They all stood around the temple’s open portal, facing outward, aiming up at the source of the lethal arrows—the rim of the massive crater.

  From the cover of the portal’s walls, Gunther Kolb peered up into the darkness, searching for his enemy.

  And he saw them.

  Saw a collection of shadowy figures gathered up on the rim of the canyon.

  There were maybe fifty of them in total—thin human shapes loosing a barrage of primitive wooden arrows at the German commandos on the tower top.

  What the hell—? Kolb thought

  Race listened in stunned amazement to the German voices coming in over the little television’s speakers.

  “Temple team! What’s going on up there?”

  “We’re under attack! I repeat, we are under attack!”

  “Who is attacking you?”

  “They look like Indians! Repeat. Indians. Natives. They’re firing down on us from the upper rim of the crater! But we seem to be pushing them back—wait. No, wait a minute. They’re pulling back. They’re pulling back.”

  A moment later, the roar of automatic gunfire ceased and there was a long silence.

  Nothing.

  More silence.

  The Germans on the screen looked cautiously around themselves, their guns smoking.

  In the Humvee, Race exchanged a look with Chambers.

  “A tribe of natives in the area,” Race said.

  Gunther Kolb was shouting orders.

  “Horgen! Veil! Take a squad up there and form a perimeter around the rim of the crater!” He turned to face von Dirksen and his entry team. “All right, Captain. You may enter the temple.”

  The five members of the entry team gathered in front of the open portal.

  It yawned before them, dark and menacing.

  Captain von Dirksen stepped cautiously forward—gun in hand—and stood at the threshold of the portal, at the top of the set of wide stone steps that led down into the bowels of the temple.

  “All right,” he said formally into his throat mike as he took his first step downward. “I can see some stone stairs in front of me. Descending—”

  “—the stairs now—” von Dirksen’s voice said over the Humvee’s speakers.

  Race stared intently at the image of the five commandos as they walked slowly into the portal until finally the last soldier’s head disappeared below the floorline and he saw nothing but the empty stone doorway.

  “Captain, report,” Kolb’s voice said inside Kurt von Dirksen’s headset as the young German captain reached the bottom of the damp stone steps, the beam of his flashlight slicing through the darkness.

  He was now standing in a narrow stone-walled tunnel. It stretched away from him, bending around and down to the right in a smooth curve. It sloped steeply downward, spiraling down into the gloom of the temple’s core. Small indented alcoves lined its walls.

  “We’ve reached the base of the stairs,” he said. “I see a curved tunnel ahead of me. Moving toward it”

  The entry team spaced themselves out as they began to move cautiously down the steeply graded tunnel. The beams of their flashlights played over its glistening wet walls. An echoing, dripping sound could be heard from somewhere deep within the temple.

  Von Dirksen said, “Team, this is One. Call in.” The rest of the entry team responded quickly:

  “This is Two.”

  “Three.”

  “Four.”

  “Five.”

  They ventured further down the tunnel.

  Race and the others watched the Humvee’s television screen in tense silence, listened to the hushed voices of the German entry team. Race translated.

  “—so wet in here, water everywhere—”

  “—stay sharp. Watch your step—”

  Just then, a loud burst of static screeched out from the television’s speakers.

  “What was that?” von Dirksen said quickly. “Team, call in.”

  “This is Two.”

  “Three.”

  “Four.”

  And then nothing.

  Race waited expectantly for the final soldier to call in. But his call never came.

  No “Five.”

  Inside the temple, von Dirksen spun around.

  “Friedrich,” he hissed as he walked back up the passageway, past the others.

  They had come a short way down the steep spiraling tunnel and now they stood in pitch darkness, the only light the beams of their flashlights.

  Behind them, up the slope, they could see a wash of blue moonlight bending around the tunnel’s gentle curve, indicating the way back to the surface.

  Von Dirksen peered back up the tunnel.

  “Friedrich!” he whispered into the darkness. “Friedrich! Where are you?”

  At that moment, von Dirksen heard a loud whump from somewhere behind him.

  He spun.

  And
now saw only two of his men standing behind him. The third was nowhere to be seen.

  Von Dirksen turned back to face the entrance and was about to say something into his microphone when suddenly he saw an unusually large shadow slink around the bend in the tunnel above him and, in that instant, he completely lost the ability to speak.

  It was silhouetted by the moonlight behind it.

  And it looked absolutely terrifying.

  The soft blue light of the moon glistened off its muscly black flanks. The beam of von Dirksen’s flashlight glinted off its long razor-sharp teeth.

  The German captain just stared at the creature before him in stunned silence:

  It was huge.

  And then suddenly it was joined by a second, identical creature, stepping out from behind it.

  They must have been hiding inside the alcoves, von Dirksen thought.

  Lying in wait. Waiting for him and his men to walk past them, so that they could now cut off their retreat.

  And then in a flash the first creature pounced. Von Dirksen never had a chance. It moved incredibly fast for an animal of its size and in a second its slashing jaws filled his field of vision and in that moment all Kurt von Dirksen could do was scream.

  Shouts and screams burst out from the television’s speakers.

  Race and the others stared at the screen in horror.

  The screams of the last three members of the entry team being attacked echoed across the airwaves. Briefly, Race heard gunfire, but it only lasted for a second before abruptly both it and the screaming cut off together and there was silence.

  Long silence.

  Race stared at the television screen, at the picture of the open mouth of the temple.

  “Von Dirksen, Friedrich, Nielson. Report.”

  There was no reply from the men inside the temple.

  Race swapped a glance with Lauren.

  And then suddenly a new voice came in over the speakers.

  It was a breathless voice, panting and afraid.

  “Sir! This is Nielson! Repeat, this is Nielson! Oh God . . . God help us. Get out of here, sir! Get out of here while you still—”

  Smack!

  It sounded like a collision of some sort.

  Like the sound of something big slamming into the man named Nielson.

  Sounds of a scuffle ensued and then, abruptly, Race heard a blood-curdling scream and then—over the scream—he heard another, infinitely more terrifying, sound.

  It was a roar—an ungodly roar—loud and deep like that of a lion.

  Only fuller, more resonant, fiercer.

  Race’s eyes flashed back to the television screen and suddenly he froze.

  He saw it.

  Saw it emerge from the shadowy darkness of the portal.

  And as he watched the giant black creature step out from the mouth of the temple, Race felt a deep sickness in the pit of his stomach.

  Because he knew then, in that moment, that despite all their technology, all their guns, and all of their selfish desires to find a new and fantastic power source, the men on that rock tower had just violated a far, far simpler rule of human evolution.

  Some doors are meant to remain unopened.

  Gunther Kolb and the other dozen or so Germans on the tower top just stared at the animal standing in the portal in awe.

  It was magnificent.

  It was fully five feet tall, even while standing on all four legs, and it was completely black in color, jet-black from head to toe.

  It looked like a jaguar of some sort.

  A giant black jaguar.

  The massive cat’s eyes glinted yellow in the moonlight, and with its furrowed angry brows, hunched muscular shoulders and dagger-like teeth, it truly looked like the Devil incarnate.

  And then, abruptly, the soft blue moonlight that illuminated the temple’s portal was replaced by a harsh strobelike flash of lightning and in the deafening crash of thunder that followed, the great animal roared.

  It might as well have been a signal.

  Because at that moment—at that precise moment—over a dozen other giant black cats burst forth from the darkness of the temple and attacked the Germans on the tower top.

  Despite the fact that they were armed with assault rifles and submachine-guns, the members of the German expedition never stood a chance.

  The cats were too fast Too agile. Too powerful. They slammed into the stunned crowd of soldiers and scientists with shocking ferocity—bowling them over, leaping onto them, mauling them alive.

  A few of the soldiers managed to get some shots off and one of the cats went crashing to the ground, spasming violently.

  But it didn’t matter, the other cats barely seemed to notice the bullets whizzing around them and within seconds they were all over those soldiers too—tearing into their flesh, biting into their throats, suffocating them with their powerful clamplike jaws.

  Hideous screams filled the night air.

  General Gunther Kolb ran.

  Wet fern fronds slapped hard against his face as he hurried down the stone stairway that led back to the suspension bridge.

  If he could just make it to the bridge, he thought, and untie it from the buttresses on the far side, then the cats would be trapped on the rock tower.

  Kolb bolted down the wet stone slabs, the sound of his own breathing loud in his ears, the sound of something large crashing through the foliage behind him even louder. More fern fronds smacked against his face, but he didn’t care. He was almost—

  There!

  He saw it.

  The rope bridge!

  He even saw a few of his men bouncing across its length, fleeing from the carnage on the tower top.

  Kolb flew down the last few steps and ran out onto the ledge.

  He’d made it!

  It was then that a tremendous weight thudded into him from behind and the German general went sprawling forward.

  He landed hard—face-first—on the cold wet surface of the ledge. He scratched about desperately with his hands, trying to get to his feet again when suddenly a giant black paw slammed down hard on his wrist, pinning it to the ground.

  Kolb looked up in horror.

  It was one of the cats.

  It was standing on top of him!

  The demonic black cat peered down at him intently, curiously examining this strange little creature that had foolishly attempted to outrun it

  Kolb stared fearfully up into its evil yellow eyes. And then with a loud blood-curdling roar, the big animal’s head came rushing down at him and Kolb shut his eyes and waited for the end.

  Down in the village, there was silence.

  The twelve German commandos gathered around the monitor just stared at each other in astonishment

  On their screen, they saw their comrades up on the tower top running about in every direction. Occasionally, they would see one of them dash across the screen and open fire with an MP-5 only to be violently smacked out of the frame a second later by a large feline shape.

  “Hasseldorf, Krieger,” the sergeant named Dietrich said sharply. “Dismantle the western log-bridge.” Two of the German soldiers immediately broke out of the circle.

  Dietrich turned to face his young radio operator. “Have you been able to get through to anyone up there?”

  “I’m getting through, sir, but no one’s answering,” the radio man said.

  “Keep trying”

  Through the rain-spattered windows of the Humvee, Race was watching Dietrich and the German commandos assembled around their monitor when suddenly he heard a shout

  He snapped around instantly.

  And saw one of the German commandos from the tower top come charging out from the riverside path.

  The commando was waving his arms wildly, yelling, “Schnell, zum Flugzeug! Schnell, zum Flugzeug! Sie kommen!”

  He was shouting: “Get to the plane! Get to the plane! They’re coming!”

  Just then a flare of lightning illuminated the path behind the runn
ing man and Race caught a glimpse of something bounding along the path behind him.

  “Oh, my God . . .”

  It was one of the giant cat-like creatures—just like the one he had seen stepping out of the temple only minutes earlier.

  But the image he had seen on the Humvee’s tiny television screen hadn’t done the creature justice at all.

  It was absolutely terrifying.

  It ran with its head held low and its pointed ears pinned back, its powerful muscular shoulders driving it forward after its fleeing human prey.

  It moved beautifully, with fluid feline grace—that striking combination of balance, power and speed common to cats the world over.

  The German commando was running hard but there was no way he was going to outrun the massive animal behind him. He tried to swerve as he ran, to dodge in behind some trees next to the path. But the cat was too agile. It looked like a cheetah in full flight—its powerful legs adjusting perfectly as it ran, copying the movements of its prey, ducking to the left, veering to the right, keeping its center of gravity low, never once losing its footing.

  It loomed above the hapless German, got closer and closer, and then, when it was near enough, the great cat leapt forward and—

  Abruptly, the lightning flash vanished and the path was plunged into complete darkness.

  Darkness.

  Silence.

  And Race heard a scream.

  Then suddenly another flash of lightning lit up the river-bank, and as he registered the image before him, Race felt his blood run completely cold.

  The immense black cat was standing astride the body of the commando, its massive head bent over the fallen man’s neck area. Abruptly, the cat jerked its jaws upward and with a sickening ripping sound, wrenched the dead commando’s throat clear from his body.

  And in another glaring flash of lightning, the giant black cat roared in triumph.

  For a whole minute, no one in the Humvee said anything.

  Walter Chambers broke the silence. “We are in so much trouble.”

  And he was right. For at that moment, at that terrible moment, all of the other black cats burst out from the foliage near the riverbank and attacked every living thing in sight.