Cthulhu Deep Down Under Volume 2

by Various Authors

  And that was how the plan worked. They drove down the side of the pit in two Hart Ridge Corp vehicles, escorted by the police. The detectors identified the main contaminant as hydrogen sulphide, with sulphur dioxide and some organics mixed in.

  “Have these idiots hit a volcano, or something?” Tina muttered.

  They drove down until they reached the safe work limit for hydrogen sulphide of ten parts per million. It wasn’t rocket science. Ken simply held the four-head detector out the window and waited for it to alarm.

  Then they suited up with twin air cylinders, did buddy checks of their teammate’s equipment, and prepared to walk. They were halfway down the pit, the haze thin above them, a roiling cloud below, and the far side invisible.

  “Like lemmings to the…dunno. Where’s the cliff? Where’s the ocean?” Jack said.

  “Idiot.” Tina punched him on the arm. This was the first time they’d worked together. Always the brotherhood, even if a few of them were sisters. Ken felt a little left out, even though he’d been with NFR for seven years.

  “It’s not a cliff, but you can jump off it if you like,” Ken pointed to the edge of the road.

  “I wonder if that’s quicker?” said Jack.

  “Any miners trying to get out would most likely have used the exit road, automatically. That’s why the police drove down this way looking for them. If we go over the edge, the next road down will be the access road, not the exit. Besides, take a close look at that scree. Do you really want to slide down it in an FE suit? You’ll be exposed in seconds.”

  “You’re no fun, Science Dude.”

  They donned their facemasks, sealed their suits and began walking.

  The mist thickened about them, until they could see only a couple of dozen metres in any direction. There was a vague yellowing tint to the greyness in the air, and they all had to constantly wipe a fine dust from their visors. The exit road disappeared into the mist behind them. The road had a very slight curve, like the curve of the horizon over the ocean when you looked at it from the height of a cliff. Above, the light was better, but the blue of the sky had disappeared.

  Ken and Tina walked beside Jack. Ray followed close behind and to one side of Jack, as though he didn’t want to talk. The rough-edged mine tailings, graded flat and rolled into the semblance of a road, scrunched dry and hard under their boots. There were well-defined wheel ruts several metres apart where the mining trucks had compacted the surface. The only colours were grey and brown, the walls of the pit blending into the dull white of the sky above.

  “How’d it get so dark so quick?” said Jack, looking up, his voice distorted by his facemask and internal amplifier.

  Ken used his ring finger and pressed the radio push-to-talk button in the glove of his suit. “What’s LEL?”

  “3.2%,” said Tina, who carried the four-head detector.

  Ken pressed the PTT button again. “Edging up. Something is flammable down here.”

  “But hydrogen sulphide is flammable,” noted Ray.

  “The Suit’s got you, Ken,” said Jack.

  “No he hasn’t,” said Ken, turning towards Ray so that he could see him through his visor. “The explosive limit is way, way above the concentrations we’re getting. There’s something else.”

  “Might be methane from that coal seam we walked through.”

  “Methane’s lighter than air. It would rise and dissipate, and there was no sign of it at the rim.”

  “They hit the coal seam decades ago,” said Tina. “The methane should be long gone.”

  “Hydrocarbon though. There’s cubic kilometres of it down here. Can’t be anything else.”

  The conversation wasn’t as spontaneous as it would have been without the portable radios. Only one person could speak at a time, and they had to finish before the radios allowed the next person to transmit, but this was still the kind of banter Ken loved. They sounded like a bunch of geeks walking into a volcano, daring the worst.

  He checked the detectors he held. “Sulphur is edging up now, too. Also showing on the flame spectrophotometer.”

  “You sure somebody didn’t just fart?”

  Ken could imagine Harding trying to explain that one to the police. The spectrophotometer simply showed the presence of sulphur but not the actual chemical compound that contained the sulphur. Sulphur was in most nerve gases, but it was also in garlic and chili. The spectrophotometer couldn’t tell if the Russians or the CIA were trying to gas you, or you were simply downwind of the toilet block in a Mexican restaurant.

  “Bugger. LEL has hit 5%.”

  “Got it.” Sarah’s voice crackled in their ears.

  “And, like you said, hydrogen sulphide is flammable.”

  “So are farts. Into the valley of gas strode the brave six hundred, er, four…”

  The darkness came so gradually that they didn’t notice until it was nearly complete, and they were walking in a still gloom their eyes could barely penetrate.

  Ken sweated under the PVC chemical suit. It was like a loose fitting, heavy duty raincoat, but one which started above his helmet with a large hood and visor assembly. It was closed by a zip which started near his neck and ran down one side under the armpit and then across to his groin and down the inside of one leg to his knee. The gloves were built in, moulded to the suit, as were the boots. Even the zip was gas tight.

  The soup they were walking through couldn’t get in, but similarly there was no way for the heat his body was generating to get out, except for the tiny, one-way, exhalation valve where his waste air exited. He even wore his helmet and breathing apparatus under the suit.

  The ground levelled out under their feet.

  “Hey, we’re at the bottom.”

  “Don’t believe it.”

  Hardy joined the radio chatter. “You’re probably on one of the staging pads. There’ll be another eight of them ahead of you on the way down.”

  Shit, they weren’t even scratching the surface of the pit. That’s when it really hit Ken, the size of the place, the pointlessness of it all.

  “We need a submarine to get to the bottom of this.”

  Jack took over, now businesslike. “My air is almost down a third, check your gauges, people,” he said. “Ray, do your stuff, this might be a point that people were trying to reach on the way out, or the way in. If they drove with the windows up and no air circulation, there’s a chance the police crew got this far on the way in. Tina, SD, we explore this pad. Dude, take as many readings as you can get. Tina will help. And be careful everybody, somewhere here there’s an edge, and we don’t know where it is. Tina, leave your strobe light here at the start of the rise. We don’t want to get turned around in this soup. Five minutes, and we go back up.”

  Ken started taking readings and making notes. He watched the torches flashing in the darkness as Jack and Tina quartered the staging area. The outside temperature was thirty-two degrees Celsius.

  Then he slipped and fell to one knee. “Bugger!” He pressed the PTT button again. “Careful people, it’s slippery.”

  Harding joined the discussion. “What’s slippery?”

  “The surface down here. Maybe they tried to settle the dust or something.”

  “That would have been yesterday. Shouldn’t be anything in this heat. Wait…” A moment later, “The mine management says no.”

  Ken rubbed his boot against the ground. It didn’t feel wet so much as slimy, like mud on a rock at the beach. “Maybe it’s groundwater. We’re a long way in.”

  The darkness, the goop in the air, the featureless, muddy, rocky surface reminded him of nighttime scuba diving. He half expected to smell the ocean.

  “Got them. Oh shit!” It was Tina.

  Ken looked around, saw a torch flashing, and trudged towards it.

  The police car had parts of four bodies in it. One body sat behind the steering wheel, a police revolver in its hand. Two starred holes showed where bullets had punched out through the windscreen. Ken couldn’t tell t
he gender of the corpse. Bones showed through its sunken flesh; its left arm was missing.

  A thin layer of dust covered everything.

  “Does hydrogen sulphide have narcotic properties?” Tina asked calmly.

  Jack turned away and stepped a pace from the car. “Harding, we have the police car. We have four, repeat, four bodies, one of them in a police— ”

  Jack jerked, spun around, and slipped. “Shit, I thought I saw something. Bugger! Suit, what the fuck you up to? We stick together!”

  Ken saw The Suit’s torch flashing in the distance.

  “There’s more here,” said Ray. “There’s a body stuck in the door of a dump truck. Looks like he was trying to climb out…fuck! Something moved in the cabin.”

  Ken looked more closely into the police car. Both missing police sat in the front seat, their flesh so rotted that they were barely recognisable as male and female. Two other bodies sat in the rear, huddled together as though hugging. Ken couldn’t tear his eyes away from the ruined flesh. It didn’t look rotted, as if dissolved away by chemicals. It looked like it had been sucked, or eaten, off the bones.

  Tina pushed him aside, reached under the dash and grabbed a Taser. She pulled a revolver from the ruined hands of one of the dead cops and pushed it at Ken.

  “Something’s moving out here!” Ken couldn’t tell who that was. Thankfully they released their PTT button and freed the channel.

  “Get out! Get out!” That was Harding. Ken heard an argument in the background. Harding wanted to drive into the pit. The police inspector from Ceduna—the Incident Controller—wouldn’t let her. Then the channel was free.

  Shit, they were on their own. Harding and Ahmed couldn’t drive in, not with the potentially explosive atmosphere, and it would take them almost a half hour to walk in, and then what could they do? The police were just as helpless. They didn’t have the equipment.

  Ken looked at the revolver. He could hold it, but couldn’t even get a gloved finger through the trigger guard.

  Tina shoved him away from the police car, pushed her visor up against his, and shouted, no radio, her voice distorted. “Use your pinky. Shove a pen in and use that. Anything!”

  “Help. Red. Red. Red.”

  “Who was that? Roll call!” shouted Harding.

  “Ken here.”

  “Tina here. Jack?” shouted Tina.

  “Ray here. Jack was checking the body on the dump truck. Something dragged him through the window.” The Suit’s voice was cold, unemotional, unsurprised.

  Tina pushed Ray back against a giant tyre, his FE suit hood thudding back against the rubber. “You know what’s happening here, don’t you?” She shouted, her visor against his, not bothering with the radio.

  Ray didn’t answer.

  Jack’s radio remained silent.

  “Okay people, we’re getting out. Re-form at the strobe,” Tina, this time using her radio.

  They ran, slipping and sliding on the surface, until the flashing green light was in front of them.

  Tina grabbed Ken’s hand and pulled. “Keep together. Let’s go!”

  She pulled ahead.

  “Wait!” said the Suit.

  “We’re going, now!” Tina turned and punched him on the shoulder, shouting, again, no radio. “I don’t give a fuck who you are, you’re mine until we get out of here. Now move!”

  Ken felt it then, too. He pressed the PTT button; Harding had to hear this. “Tina, stop! You left the strobe when we hit the flat coming down. Feel the slope under your toes.” Now, the strobe pointed the way down into the pit.

  “Something moved the light!” said Ray, also over the radio. The Suit was brandishing a machine pistol, which Ken didn’t think he had found in the police car. “Plan B, straight up the slope, up the scree, until we’re out of this goop. It’s better for our air, too!”

  “Fuck!” Tina jerked her foot from side to side. It was held by a wide, flat tentacle which slowly lifted from the slimy surface. It was wide and flat. It didn’t have suckers, it had feelers. Ken could see them palpitating, flowing in the gas and dust like a millipede’s legs. Muscles flexed under the surface as it settled against the thick PVC of Tina’s suit.

  Ray saw the tentacle too and ran, scrambling, up the slope.

  Ken grabbed Tina, pulled her hard. It was like a tug of war with a football team, and the only person going to lose was Tina.

  Another tentacle quested forwards, waving from side to side in the air. Ken shoved his little finger through the trigger guard of the revolver, held it with both hands, aimed and fired. The tentacle flinched, then quested towards them, drawn by the gunshot. Tina aimed the Taser at the tentacle holding her leg, and fired. The darts shot out and buried themselves in the tentacle. It flexed straight, knocking them both off their feet, and quivered in the air, colours madly flashing across its surface.

  Tina grabbed Ken. Together they scrambled up the slope after Ray, two steps forward, one step back, sliding in the scree.

  “Don’t fall over, for fuck’s sake!”

  Rocks tumbled down the slope towards them.

  “Go right!”

  Then they saw Ray. Another tentacle had him. He calmly fired the machine pistol into it, kept firing until the gun was empty, then hacked at it with a knife. The tentacle held, dragging him down the slope. Ken saw the back of his suit tear open. Another tentacle joined the first, the feelers driving under the skin of his suit, encircling him.

  Ken fired. No reaction. The tentacles had their prey.

  Then Ray removed the face piece of his respirator, and with it his radio microphone. He looked at them and shouted. “Go! Tell them, the Hart Ridge CEO, they must act, now. Go!…Fuck but this stinks of the ocean!”

  Ray stood, and drove one arm into his tattered suit, withdrawing another machine pistol and a grenade. He shouted, “Aaieh Shoggoth!” waved his arms, and ran into the tentacles, firing until the gun was empty.

  Beyond him, Ken saw a looming darkness. He grabbed Tina’s hand and dragged her up the hill.

  Behind them, an explosion boomed.

  A short time later

  It had taken six hours for Ken to get back to Canberra. With him was Sarah Harding. The helicopter had whisked them back to Ceduna where they had boarded a government jet.

  It took Ken most of the trip to come to terms with the actions of Ray, The Suit. Ray had bolted up the side of the pit, seemingly like a coward, anxious to escape. Then he had quite obviously sacrificed himself to ensure Tina and Ken could escape. It rankled, but the man had simply acted to ensure he could get his information out. When that was no longer possible, he had acted to ensure Ken and Tina could get out with whatever information they carried. Ken found himself wishing for the impossible, to know what Ray would have said had he been with them now.

  “The only thing left to deal with is…” Livings looked up as Ken and Harding entered the boardroom.

  Jon Hart, Hart Ridge Corp’s CEO, was present, as was his lawyer. Also present were the Minister’s department head —the Minister could never be present at something like this herself —Deputy Commissioner Livings and three anonymous men in brown and grey suits who could have been cousins of Ray. Two of them guarded the door; the other stood in a corner and surveyed the entire room.

  Ken looked more closely. The one in the corner was a woman. Her suit bulged where it shouldn’t. He almost laughed —equality only went so far. The men’s suits were tailored to hide weapons, but they hadn’t bothered tailoring the clothing for their female agent. Whoever ‘they’ were. He felt reassured at the armed presence.

  The meeting was heated, and had obviously been in progress for some time.

  “Good. You’re here. Ken, the hazmat—”

  Ken interrupted Livings. “It’s more than just a hazmat, sir. Something’s alive in there!”

  “Ken, you will have time to write a full report later today, and I look forward to reading it, but for the moment I’d like you to concern yourself with the hazmat. Wha
t’s the best way to deal with the hazmat in that pit?”

  Ken looked sharply about the room. The Minister’s department head smiled and nodded encouragingly. Jon Hart looked ready to sue everybody.

  “I’ve had enough of this madness,” said Hart, moving to get up. One of the suited men from the door moved to stand behind his chair, and he subsided.

  “You all know what’s in that pit, don’t you. What’s going on?”

  Nobody spoke.

  Ken looked about the table. He collected his thoughts and spoke.

  “You’ve got a huge pit full of flammable, heavier-than-air, toxic gas. Hydrogen sulphide burns to form sulphur dioxide and water. All the organics in there, they’re heavier-than-air as well, so I’m guessing propane and butane…Did you strike oil, Mr Hart? There’s meant to be some in the Bight, if you go deep enough. They burn to form carbon dioxide and water. Turn off the groundwater pumps, and there will be even more water. Sulphur dioxide dissolves in water to form sulphurous acid. Now, you want my advice, you’re going to have to listen to this next bit.

  “There’s something in that pit that kills people, and nobody knows what it is. The whole thing is on a scale even the military would have problems investigating, and even the military may have problems dealing with what we saw down there. Everybody we know about in the pit is dead. There. I’ve said it.”

  “Yes. Your suggestion?” The Deputy Commissioner was calm, too calm.

  “Throw in a match,” said Ken. “Burn it all. The combustion products have less climate change potential than the precursors. The acid is contained in the pit where it can be neutralised later. That deals with the hazmat. But initially the entire pit will be lined with sulphurous acid. That and the fire should deal with…everything else. And I’ll stand on the sidelines and cheer.”

  Jon Hart’s skin went grey. He began shouting incoherent guttural sounds in no language that Ken had ever heard. Then his shoulders hunched and his suit bulged as if it could no longer contain him. Was this what a heart attack looked like? Beside him, Hart’s lawyer looked concerned for a moment, then his skin also turned grey.

  “Clear the room!” shouted the department head.