by Tom Pawlik
Rudy took his clothes and quietly began changing as Jack inspected the rest of the chamber. It was larger than he had first thought, more than a hundred feet across with a high, arched ceiling. Ben was already moving around the perimeter, shining the beam along the jagged black walls. The pool they had emerged from flowed out down a shallow trough along the floor of the chamber and disappeared again into a side tunnel. That tunnel seemed to be the only way out of the chamber.
Ben pointed his light down the passage. “Looks like we follow the stream.”
Ten minutes later, they had repacked their gear and were headed off down the side passage. Before long, Jack began to smell something. A sharp, pungent odor.
“Ugh, what is that?”
“Sulfur,” Ben said. “This whole part of the country is very geologically active. A lot of hot springs and geysers and stuff. We’re pretty close to Yellowstone.”
They walked down the tunnel for several minutes and emerged again in a chamber even larger than the previous one. Jack could tell it was warmer here than in the tunnel. And he was thankful for that, but the smell of sulfur was stronger as well.
The chamber was uneven, with several side passages and large boulders scattered throughout. Twisting white stalagmites rose from the floor along with various other rock formations, which gave the cavern a crowded and cluttered appearance. And the most curious thing was that everything seemed to be covered with a pale, glossy substance. It was spongy, fibrous, and slick, and it shrouded the entire room.
They’d just begun moving through the chamber when Ben stopped and pointed his light at the floor, where a large puddle of water frothed and bubbled. “It’s a hot spring,” he said. “Some kind of hydrothermal vent.”
Jack drew up beside him and cast his light across the steaming pool, gurgling beneath a layer of thick foam. He swept his light forward and found a second pool a few yards ahead. In fact, the more he scanned the cavern, the more he found.
He noticed Rudy crouching down, video camera in hand, filming the slimy substance covering the rocks. It looked like his fear had gone—at least temporarily—and now the biologist in him seemed to be taking over. “D’you guys see this?”
Jack turned his attention to the spongy material as well. It was a light color, appearing nearly white in the glow of their lights. “What is it?”
“It looks organic,” Rudy said. “Like some kind of bacterial slime.”
“It’s everywhere,” Ben said, shining his light across the walls. He shook his head. “I’ve heard of bacteria growing inside caves. But not like this.”
“How does anything even survive this far underground?” Jack said.
“Bacteria are very adaptable,” Rudy said. “Some strains can grow in total darkness. Even in toxic waste. Whatever this stuff is, it’s obviously adapted to the dark. And it looks like it’s adapted pretty well.”
“That’s cool,” Jack said.
Rudy nodded. “It’s pretty incredible, actually. We used to think all organisms needed sunlight to exist until we started exploring the bottom of the ocean and found complex ecosystems thousands of feet deep thriving around thermal vents where no sunlight ever reaches. So instead of the sun, these organisms get energy from the heat and chemicals coming up from those vents.”
“Makes sense.” Ben seemed to catch on. “Probably why this stuff seems to be growing more around the hot springs.”
“Exactly.” Rudy nodded. “The heat and water—maybe sulfur dioxide or hydrogen sulfide. I mean, I’m just guessing here. But this . . . this is incredible.” He turned to Jack with a slight smile. “This could be a whole new microorganism.”
Jack grinned back at him. “Aren’t you glad you came along now?”
Rudy continued filming, but after a minute he stopped. “Hey, guys, do me a favor and shut off your lights.”
“What?”
“Just shut off your lights for a second. I want to see something.”
They snapped their flashlights off, and darkness fell around them like a blanket. Jack could almost feel it draping over him. They stood in silence for a few moments until Rudy spoke up.
“Do you guys see what I’m seeing?”
As Jack’s eyes adjusted, he saw that the entire chamber glowed with a pale light that seemed to come from all around them. It had been nearly imperceptible in the glow of their flashlights.
A sinewy network of glowing tendrils shrouded the cave floor and walls. Jack could even make out Rudy and Ben in the light.
“Whoa,” Ben whispered.
“Glow-in-the-dark slime?” Jack quipped.
“Bioluminescence,” Rudy said. “This stuff just keeps getting more impressive.”
The light was nearly hypnotic as Jack found himself staring at the substance. For a moment he felt oddly detached, like he was far off somewhere, watching himself from the outside.
Then he shook himself out of his trance. This discovery—as awesome as it was—didn’t change the fact that they were still lost. More than that, he had yet to find evidence of the N’watu. Despite their circumstances, he needed to find some answers. He wasn’t about to leave these caves empty-handed. “So which passage do we take?”
Ben stood, hands on hips, surveying their surroundings. After a minute he pointed up ahead. “That looks like a way out.”
The fibrous growth clung to the floor and crawled up the walls like a network of glowing veins and arteries. Ahead of them appeared to be a small opening, as if the luminous tendrils had grown around the mouth of another tunnel.
They found a tunnel about five feet wide, though less than four feet high. The slime continued far down the passage but became less dense the farther they got from the springs.
They found they could navigate the passage by the light of the microorganisms alone. It reminded Jack of a carnival fun house he’d been to once as a kid where the trail was marked by phosphorescent paint on the floors.
“This is a little psychedelic,” he said.
Ben stopped abruptly and held up a hand. Jack and Rudy froze in their tracks.
“What is it?” Rudy whispered.
“Something’s moving up ahead.”
Jack drew up beside Ben, who was pointing down the passage. He saw an elongated black shape detach itself from the wall and glide across the ground maybe twenty feet away. It almost seemed like a hallucination—just a long shadow that flitted across the glowing veins on the cave floor.
In the dim light, Jack saw Ben slowly remove his flashlight and point at the switch. “Watch your eyes,” Ben whispered.
Jack winced as the light flicked on, and he felt Ben move away quickly. In the commotion, Jack found himself momentarily stunned, surprised by how bright it seemed. He shielded his eyes and spotted Ben ahead of him, shining the flashlight around the passage. Then Jack felt Rudy brush past him and heard their voices elevated in excitement.
“Did you see it? Did you see that thing?” Ben was saying.
“I—I didn’t get a good look.”
“It was huge!”
“What was it?” Jack stumbled up to where they were standing.
Ben climbed onto a jagged rock formation along the side of the tunnel and shone his light into the cracks behind it. “I don’t know. It was . . . like a centipede or something. But I mean, the thing was huge!”
“A centipede?”
Rudy shook his head. “I don’t see anything.”
“It crawled back behind this rock,” Ben said.
Jack crouched beside the rock to inspect the opening. It was far too narrow to crawl through—not that he would’ve gone into it even if it were big enough.
“Shut your lamps off,” he said. “Whatever it is, it’s obviously trying to avoid the light. Let’s wait a minute and see if it comes back.”
Ben switched off the light again, and in several seconds Jack’s eyes readjusted to the lower luminosity inside the tunnel. They moved away from the wall and waited.
Jack bit his cheek absently.
He’d only seen a shadowy shape with no real detail. But it was far too big to be a centipede.
He felt a tap on his shoulder. Ben motioned for him to keep quiet, then pointed at something moving farther down the tunnel. Jack spotted a second shadow as it crept out from the side and paused in the middle of the passage.
Jack inched closer. It was definitely some type of elongated creature—as Ben had described. And it was enormous—he estimated its length at roughly five feet. He also heard a gentle scraping sound, like a mouse scurrying across linoleum.
Ben pulled a bandanna out of his pocket and wrapped it over the lens of his flashlight. Pointing it away from the creature, he flipped it on. Jack could see the light was dimmed considerably but still bright enough to illuminate the area around them. Then Ben turned the light toward the animal in front of them.
Jack suppressed a gasp. “Whoa.”
The creature had a solid black body five or six inches thick that looked more like a section of segmented industrial tubing than a living animal. It didn’t flee but instead turned toward the light, lifting the front portion of its body. Its legs—dozens of red, fingerlike claws—wriggled in the air, and a pair of long antennae snaked forward from its bulbous head. It had no eyes that Jack could see, and only a small, horizontal opening for a mouth that munched on a glowing wad of the yellow slime.
Its antennae groped about in the air as if trying to determine where the light was coming from. Then after a moment it settled down and resumed feeding.
Jack whispered, “What is it?”
Rudy had his video camera rolling again. “It looks like some kind of . . . millipede. A very large millipede.”
“Yeah, but how’d it get this big?” Jack said.
Rudy shook his head as if at a loss for words. “I have no idea.”
“It looks like it’s eating the slime. Do you think it has some kind of supernutrients or something?”
“Possibly.” Rudy seemed mesmerized by the creature. “There . . . there are some pretty big insect specimens in the fossil record—centipedes and dragonflies. But there’s no record of anything this big living today. This thing shouldn’t be alive at all.”
“Why not?”
“Well, there’s not enough oxygen, for one thing,” Rudy said. “The oxygen levels in the atmosphere were a lot higher in the past. But they’re too low today to support the respiration of an insect this size—especially at this elevation. And on top of all that, we’re underground, where the oxygen content is even lower.”
“Right.” Jack gestured toward the millipede. “But there it is.”
Rudy rubbed his eyes. “Y’know, we might only be seeing the tip of the iceberg. There could be a whole separate ecosystem thriving down here, completely cut off from the rest of the world for ages.”
Jack noticed the millipede raise its head and turn toward them, wiggling its antennae. Then it beat a hasty, zigzag retreat down the tunnel and disappeared behind another rock.
“Where’s he going?” Jack said.
Ben snorted. “Maybe he got tired of listening to you guys yak.”
But Jack wasn’t quite so amused. He flicked on his light and swept it around the passage but saw no trace of the millipede. They stood in silence for a moment. Jack could hear the faint echo of water dripping somewhere off in the darkness. Then something caught Jack’s attention. Another sound. Faint, almost imperceptible at first. But within a few seconds he could hear it clearly.
A sharp tapping sound echoed in the tunnel, like someone knocking two rocks together. Jack couldn’t tell which direction it was coming from.
Only that it was getting closer.
Chapter 07
They stood in the tunnel listening to the tapping noise getting louder. Jack felt himself holding his breath.
At length Ben said, “I don’t mean to be a killjoy or anything, but maybe that millipede knows something we don’t.”
“I agree,” Jack said, gesturing to the passage ahead. “Let’s keep going.”
They made their way up the passage in the direction the millipede had departed. Soon the tunnel began to narrow sharply and eventually came to a dead end. Jack could tell that the bizarre sound was coming from behind them, which gave little comfort since they now appeared to be trapped.
“Okay,” Rudy said, “anybody have any other ideas?”
Ben was busy inspecting the walls of the passage. “Just keep your shirt on. Let’s see if there’s another way out of here.”
“It’s still getting closer,” Jack said. He could hear the click-clack sounds more distinctly now, but they weren’t just getting louder; they had multiplied, like several people were off in the dark tapping rocks together.
Ben had apparently realized the same thing. “I think there’s more than one thing making that noise.” He pointed his light up at the ceiling of the tunnel. “Here! I think I found an opening.”
With that, he climbed up the wall and disappeared into a small hole above them.
Meanwhile the tapping grew more intense.
Rudy aimed his camera back down the passage. “I gotta tell you, I’m starting to get a little creeped out here.”
After several seconds Ben’s voice came from above them. “I found another tunnel.”
Jack peered up into the shaft. It was a nearly vertical passage with jagged walls, not even three feet at its widest point, but he could see Ben’s flashlight shining down over a ledge about fifteen feet up.
“It’s a bit of a climb.” Ben’s voice echoed down the shaft.
“No kidding.” Jack shouldered his pack. He wondered how Rudy would manage if his claustrophobia began to kick in again. “It looks a little tight.”
Rudy spun suddenly and pushed Jack up into the passage. “We don’t have time to think about it.”
“What’s wrong? Did you see something?”
“Just get moving.” Rudy’s voice was tense.
Jack groped around the passage for a handhold. Sharp outcroppings on the rough surface gouged his hands, but at last he was able to pull himself higher into the tunnel. He could feel Rudy beneath him, pushing hard against his feet.
“Hurry up!”
Jack pulled himself higher up the shaft, ignoring the pain of rocks scraping his hands and arms.
Beneath him, Rudy’s voice grew more urgent. “C’mon, keep going!” He gave another thrust against Jack’s feet.
Jack groped around blindly, pulling himself up foot by foot. His heart pounded as he wrestled his fear both of getting stuck and of whatever was in the tunnel beneath them.
Then his hand reached up but felt only a smooth section of cold rock with no ledge or outcropping. Nothing with which to pull himself up. And Rudy was still pushing against his feet, shoving him higher into the tunnel, pinning his other arm against his side.
“Hold on,” Jack said. “I’m stuck.”
“Keep moving!”
Jack struggled to twist his body free, but it was no use—he couldn’t pull or push himself any higher. His heart thrashed inside his rib cage like a wild beast ready to burst out. “I’m stuck!”
Then he felt warm flesh clamp down around his uplifted hand, and he was yanked up through the passage until at last the rock seemed to open around him, freeing his other arm.
Ben pulled Jack into the tunnel, where he rolled onto his back, gasping for breath. A moment later Ben helped Rudy scramble up out of the hole as well.
The sounds drew closer, echoing up the shaft. Click-clack-click-click-click-clack. Ben switched off his light, and the three of them lay in complete darkness. The noise grew louder until it sounded like the source was right at the bottom of the shaft. Jack held his breath and waited, measuring the time by counting his pulse as it throbbed in his ears. Then the sounds began to grow fainter again, and within minutes they disappeared altogether.
Jack fought to calm himself and slow his heart rate. “What was it? What did you see?”
Rudy sat up, shaking his head. “I’m not sure.
I saw something moving . . . back up the tunnel. I don’t know what it was. But there was definitely more than one.”
“What did they look like? Did you get anything on video?”
When there was no response, Jack flipped on his flashlight. Rudy’s face was white in the glare, and his eyes seemed distant and unblinking, staring into the darkness.
“Rudy.”
Rudy started as if snapping out of a trance. “I . . . I don’t know what they looked like. I just . . . I didn’t get a good look at them, and I didn’t exactly want to stick around for one.”
Rudy played back the video recording. With the night-vision setting, the amplified glow of the slime showed up as bright patches of pale-green veins running over the floor and up the sides of the passage. They were lit so brightly that the rest of the detail was fuzzy and out of focus. It looked like some kind of crazy, neon house of horrors. Suddenly a dark shape flashed into the frame. A blurred black silhouette skittered across the passage, but then the picture jerked hard as Rudy turned away and stopped filming.
“Rewind it,” Jack said.
They rewound and paused the footage, advancing it frame by frame as the shape moved into view. But it was too hazy to discern any details.
Rudy was still breathing heavily. “I think they were some sort of arthropods, but I couldn’t tell how big they were.”
“Look.” Ben rubbed his eyes. “I hate to remind you guys that we still need to find a way out of this cave. Let’s take a few minutes to eat something; then we should get moving.”
It was shortly before noon when they broke out packages of beef jerky and protein bars. Jack hadn’t thought about food until now and was surprised at how hungry he was. And thirsty.
“Careful with your water,” Ben warned as Jack chugged his bottle. “We need to ration it until we get out of here.”
They had each brought along a pair of one-liter bottles, which would last them the rest of the day, but if it took any longer to find another exit, they’d be in trouble.
There were still patches of the glowing slime nestled in various nooks and crannies of the passage, though considerably less dense than it had been in the tunnel below. They had to proceed on hands and knees through the mud and puddles. The passage wound and zigzagged through the darkness for several dozen yards until Ben stopped them again.