by Greig Beck
Time would tell, he knew. And that time began now. “Okay, let’s move it out.”
The group headed out along a natural trail, two abreast. Many of the soldiers used movement trackers and an array of other sensory equipment as they trekked. Loche moved up closer to Jane and Mike.
“Yell out if anything is worthwhile noting to us.”
“Don’t worry, we will,” Mike said and turned. “The problem is, we were some miles to the west of here, and even then we were on the run, so we were moving fast. Therefore, we didn’t have much time for sightseeing.”
“Understood,” Loche said. “But even impressions are valuable.”
“Here’s one impression,” Jane replied. “When we were in this area, we found it vacated of all animal life. We guessed later that it was because we were entering the domain of the Y’ha-nthlei; the deep, old ones…”
“The shell people?” Loche asked.
“That’s right,” she replied. “But now that they’re gone, I expected the wildlife to have repopulated the area.”
“And I’m betting that’s not a good thing?” Loche asked.
Jane looked at his face for a moment. “You read my notes about some of the flora and fauna we encountered, right?”
He nodded. “Yeah, don’t worry, I’m not going to underestimate anything.”
“Good.” She turned away. “Because we lost an entire team of professional soldiers and scientists to horrifying things that sometimes came out of nowhere. Everything we step on, brush against, eat or drink, should be regarded as potentially lethal.”
“Got it.” Loche smiled and then leaned a little closer. “We’ll just do our jobs and get the hell out. How’s that sound?”
“Sounds like what I signed up for,” she replied.
He saw she continued to watch him. “Something else?” he asked.
“Yeah…” Jane half smiled and shrugged. “I’m not really a hard ass. I’m just scared. For myself, for Mike, and everyone else. This place eats you up. I’ve seen it.”
“I know, and I know you have a right to be scared. But I want to thank you and Mike for coming. We need you, and it showed real courage,” Loche replied.
She sighed. “I don’t feel courageous.”
He nodded to his team. “My guys are courageous for coming, but that’s their job. However, you’re well beyond that for coming back when you know what horrors exist here.” He smiled down at her. “Remember what Mark Twain said: Courage is not the lack of fear. It is acting in spite of it.”
“You know Mark Twain?” She grinned.
He shrugged. “I think I read it on a beer coaster.” He winked.
She laughed softly. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He touched the brim of his cap and went to catch up with the leaders.
***
Jane had at first been watchful for everything and anything, with numerous small creatures frightened away from their approach, and only a few larger creatures that seemed to be bovine-like herbivores that stared at them with large and liquid-looking sets of eyes crowding hard and angular faces.
Then, after the hours began to accumulate, she felt the heat and humidity start to suck the energy from her muscles. She sipped at the already warm water in her canteen but knew she was losing more than she was consuming and her temples started to pound under her hat.
The travel would be over several days, but rather than have a long down-time for sleep—as there was no nighttime—they would march around the clock and take breaks every few hours for short bursts of rest and food. Already, Jane desperately wanted a rest but would rather fall down and die before she’d be the first one to call for it.
Thankfully, just twenty minutes later, it was Loche who pointed at a huge tree with spreading limbs that offered them some respite from the red, boiling heat from overhead.
“Croft, Angel, check it out,” Loche ordered and also ordered Albie to fly the drone over the top to ensure there was nothing lurking in the upper canopy.
The group waited while cradling their weapons as the two men trotted in and under the impressive, spreading limbs. There were no sounds of approach or escape from the limbs overhead, and in a few minutes, Croft came out of the tree’s shadow and gave them a thumbs up. Albie also gave the all-clear.
“We’ll take a rest break here for fifteen minutes,” Loche announced. “I want everyone to stay alert, and I want two people on perimeter watch just inside the shadow line.”
He picked two men, and the rest of them moved in under the tree. There was appreciated respite from the blasting heat from overhead, but the humidity never went away.
Croft pointed upward. “Anyone else want an apple?”
Everyone looked up to see some rounded red balls looking like Christmas decorations or candy apples higher up in the tree branches.
“I’m having one of those.” Croft pushed his gun over his shoulder.
“A word of warning,” Jane said. “Last mission, one of our people decided to taste something that smelled and looked like a giant strawberry. They nearly lost their tongue and lips.”
“You heard the lady, knucklehead,” Loche said.
“Thank you, boss.” Croft grinned.
The group settled down, and a few of the soldiers laid out straight, put their heads on the packs, and pushed their hats down over their eyes.
Jane was amazed to hear some of them begin to snore almost immediately. She guessed that years of training taught them to catch sleep anywhere and fast—recharge their batteries when they could.
She settled back on one elbow, and Mike smiled at her. “Penny for your thoughts.” He raised his eyebrows.
“Next holiday, I want us both to go somewhere cool, with snow, and ice-cold schnapps, and fondue, and…”
“…and bearskin rugs and a roaring log fire.” He wiped his brow. “Okay, maybe not the fire.” Mike lay back, still holding her hand. “We’ll get there.”
“I know, I know.” Jane lay back and glanced up at the dappled red light as it cascaded through the leaves. She could just make out the fist-sized fire engine red balls that really did look like juicy, crisp apples. And she would have loved to bite into a cool, crisp apple right now.
She closed her eyes. She doubted she’d be able to sleep with all the snoring. But in a few seconds, she had already drifted off.
***
In the tree directly above the group, one of the ripest-looking apples jiggled a little on the branch.
Then it bloomed open.
The exhalations from the people below had wafted up toward the red bulbs and excited them. But it wasn’t a fruit at all and if anyone looked closer at the bulb, they would have seen a tight mass of coiled thread-like organisms, some no thicker than a human hair.
They quested in the air, tasting it and searching the direction of the warm breaths. Finding it, one by one they disengaged from the bunch and began to drop down. Many would only find the ground and starve or be eaten by other minor predators.
Some might land upon a body, but it will find the external shell or skin was inaccessible to the tiny, weak worms.
But then others, the lucky ones, might land in or close to an open orifice.
***
Lawrie “Lozz” Williams always snored loudly, and with his mouth open. Most of the time his buddies would either nudge him in the ribs or if they were out on mission, threaten to shoot him.
This time, they simply gave him some space as they only had a few minutes down time, so many had learned to sleep anywhere, anytime, and even been trained to lay out in the open during thunderstorms, in snow, or up a tree.
Lozz never felt a thing when the hair-thin, blood-red worm floated down and landed on his upper lip.
Either end of the thing was pointed and either end could act as its head, as both had the tiny bundle of cells that controlled its senses, and either end had the tiny dot of a primitive eye on its tip.
It immediately found the source of the warm, wet exha
lations and slithered up to travel into his left nostril. Lawrie Williams snorted and slowly reached up to wipe the tickle in his nose.
Of the bundle of thread-like animals, only one in a thousand might find a suitable home. This one found Lawrie Williams.
***
Within fifteen minutes, Loche had them all on their feet again. Only Williams looked a little bleary-eyed. He groaned and pinched at the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger.
“You okay there, Lozz?” Croft asked.
“Yeah, yeah, just this damn heat-headache, I guess.” He squinted up at the red sky for a moment. “Yeah, gotta be the heat.”
“What heat?” Chuck Watts grinned as he brushed things like dried red hairs from his jacket. “I hadn’t noticed.”
“That’s because you need a brain to feel things.” Williams flipped him the bird, and then pulled his shaded glasses onto his face and his hat down lower.
The group got organized with the heavy weapons guys at point with the marksman, Croft. Then came Loche at front with the civilians, and Nina Masters with the rest of the squad at rear.
Albie, back in Abyss-1, still worked the drone and it was their constant companion hovering just above and ahead of them. Loche had authorised Albie’s updates to be sent to all their comms systems, so they were receiving real-time information about what threats or opportunities lay ahead.
Often, they had to skirt around areas where huge beasts seemed to lay in wait for an ambush or take cover as some sort of land leviathan with six column-like legs the size of redwoods made the ground jump as their footfalls thumped down. Then another time they had to wait as a pack of predators followed them, perhaps hoping to pick off some of the smaller beasts in the herd.
Albie did a great job of keeping them safe, but he also had to call for assistance as some sort of insectoid raptor came swooping out of the red sky to try and pick the drone out of the air. The thing was the size of a large dog with eight legs spread wide and membranous wings with chitinous talons poised—that was until the marksman, Croft, put a single round through the thing’s head.
He scored a direct hit with the high-caliber slug, but the flying oddity still winged away after delivering a stream of screeches that was probably a string of center-Earth obscenities that would have turned a Barbary pirate’s face red.
Loche slowed to walk beside Mike and Jane. “Looks like you were right about this place repopulating itself now that the Y’ha-nthlei have vanished.”
She nodded. “They captured everything and fed it to the great beast, Dagon. I saw it happen.”
“A nightmare.”
“Mike.” Matt Kearns caught up to them. “You said in your report that one of your group, the linguist, tried to communicate. It didn’t go well, right?”
“You could say that,” Mike scoffed. “They tore his tongue out and staked him out. I just hope he was already dead when they did it.”
“Horrible.” Matt nodded, thinking. “But that tells me they didn’t see him as a peer. But more an anomaly. They might have wanted to understand how he could talk, rather than understand what he was saying.”
“No shit,” Mike shot back.
“Mike, don’t misunderstand me,” Matt replied. “It means they have some sort of base intelligence but might have just been surprised by the talking mammal. After all, did you know that most people don’t think fish feel pain? They do, but they just can’t tell us they do.”
Jane scoffed. “For chrissakes, Matt, please tell me that you don’t still want to communicate with them?”
Matt shook his head. “I’m not misty-eyed on that potential. But modes of communication tell a lot about the logic patterns and thinking of a clan grouping. If we ever need to anticipate their strategy, it’d come in handy.”
There was murmuring from the group behind them, and Loche stopped them and turned. “Second lieutenant, all right back there?”
Nina Masters was staring up into Lawrie Williams’ face as he held his head and swayed on his feet.
She half turned. “Might have some heatstroke here, boss.”
“Take five. Croft, Angel, on guard.” Loche headed back down the line.
Jane could see that Williams’ face sweated profusely and his expression was one screwed in pain. Captain Loche came back to stare into his face before leading him to a rock and sitting him down.
“Something he ate?” Janus remarked.
“Unlikely.” Jane grabbed Mike’s arm. “Come on.”
Matt tagged along and the trio headed back to where Williams sat on the rock looking dazed with his mouth hanging open. Loche was down on one knee trying to talk to the young man, but he just sat there now, staring vacantly straight ahead.
Jane came closer. “Ask him did he eat or drink anything here.”
“I doubt that he—” Nina began.
“I know but ask him,” Jane cut in. “Infected water killed one of our previous team members in just a few hours. And another of our guys ate a berry that nearly killed him. Ask him.”
Loche nodded.
Nina exhaled through clamped teeth but turned back to look deep into the man’s face. “ Williams, did you eat or drink anything down here that was not part of your stores?”
The man just sat there, staring at nothing, and as Nina looked about to ask him again, a hair-thin trickle of blood ran from his nose down to his top lip.
Jane stared. No, it wasn’t a trickle of blood, as the thin line of red changed course and passed from his nose into his mouth.
“Did you see that?” Jane pointed.
Lawrie Williams rose to his feet.
“Easy there, big guy,” Nina said, trying to hold his arm, but he shrugged her off.
The man then walked stiff-legged, zombie-like, toward the trunk of the huge tree close to them.
“Hey, mister…” Loche began, but Lawrie Williams walked straight past the team and then when he got within a few feet of the large tree trunk, he reached out his arms and embraced it.
“What’s up with your soldier?” Janus asked Loche.
“Damned if I know.” Loche followed him, his jaw jutting. “Williams…”
Williams ignored him and leaned in real close to the tree. He then began to grind his forehead into the trunk. Then harder and harder.
“Stop him,” Jane said as she saw the skin on his forehead begin to abrade.
Loche turned to Chris Angel. “Angel, pull that man back a step.”
“Yes, sir.” Angel pushed his gun up over his shoulder, stepped forward, and placed his arms on Williams. “Come on, big guy, one step back.” He began to tug.
But the man held on tight, with his head now smacked in hard against the bark. As they all watched, Williams’ hair looked like it began to grow.
“What the hell’s that?” Angel released him, his hands up as though he had just touched something dirty.
Then they saw that the top of Williams’ head wasn’t growing longer hair, but instead something else was growing out of it. Something alive, that wasn’t Williams.
“What the fuck is going on?” Angel backed up.
Williams then began to grind both his head and face further onto, or into, the tree.
“Goddamnit, get hold of him!” Loche yelled. “Stop him.”
As several of the soldiers approached, Williams’ head grew, and expanded, and then even more rapidly, deflated. But in its place thousands, or millions, of red, thread-like worms burst from the top of his scalp.
“Fuck!” Croft exclaimed as the men fell back.
To the horror of the group, the man’s head emptied like a bag and the worms began to make their way up the trunk into the treetop. While Williams still clung to the bark, his fingers now hooked in deep, the entire top half of the man began to also be evacuated.
“What the hell is happening here?” Nina Masters yelled.
“Stay back,” Loche ordered.
Some of the crew had their guns up and were beginning to pan them around, as if looki
ng for some sort of adversary to take out their fear and anger on. Loche’s eyes were wide and his jaw set.
“Everyone get back,” he said. “Hold the line, people.”
Jane knew that he really meant hold your nerve, as the group of soldiers were horrified to the point of panic—even for hardened combat vets.
In another few seconds, Williams’ clothing sagged, his hands dropped from the tree, and the remnants of the escaping worms, probably in the millions, were moving up the trunk into the higher branches like a red river.
The group watched with eyes bulging and mouths hanging open, as many of the worms began to coalesce into groups, and in the next moments, they began to form into shapes, turning themselves into rounded masses like glistening Christmas decorations, or…
“Apples,” Croft said, his mouth tight in a fear rictus. “They were never fucking apples, they were balls of worms.”
Janus shook his head. “Did that asshole eat one?”
“I don’t think so,” Jane said. “Everyone get back. Get out from under this tree.”
The group did without hesitation.
“What just happened here?” Loche asked her.
“We took a rest under that tree that was hanging with these things. Somehow, Williams got infected,” she replied.
“More like infested,” Loche said. “They were parasites. I’ve never heard of something like this before.” He grimaced. “That poor sonofabitch.”
“It’s more common than you think,” Jane replied, her eyes still on the flattening pile of clothing.
Janus scoffed. “What? We don’t have crap like that topside.”
“We do,” Jane sighed. “Take the African horsehair worm. It emerges as a tiny thread-like worm from the edge of a pool of water or pond and is eaten by a grasshopper or cricket. But then the horsehair worm begins to develop inside the insect, growing huge and filling its body after it has ingested the organs. Then, when the worm is in its final stage of development, it needs to get back to the water so it makes the cricket search one out and go and drown itself—where the adult worm bursts free.”