by WW Mortensen
Owen craned his head about. “What is this place, anyway?”
“Some sort of natural cave system.”
“It seems big.”
“It’s part of the nest.”
Owen shook his head. “Fuck this, man. You know, the second we get out of here, out of this goddamned jungle, the first thing I’m gonna do is pack up my shit and move back into the biggest goddamned city I can find. I’m done with this.”
Sanchez gave a half-smile. “The first thing? I thought you’d be hitting the surf.”
“Okay then. The second thing I’m gonna do…” Owen coughed again. “What about you?”
“Sleep, for about two days straight.”
Owen chuckled, clearly relishing the thought, and Sanchez patted his companion on the back. “I am sure we will both get our wish, amigo, but we should save our energy for now, eh?” He glanced dizzily at the silk-lined tunnel before them, stretching into the blackness. “We are almost done here, but we may yet need our strength.”
72
Rebecca emerged from the hole, lifted by Luis and Costa.
“You hurt?” Oliveira asked.
“No,” she answered, scrambling to her feet. She was certain her twisted ankle wouldn’t be a hindrance.
“Good.” Oliveira nodded at the sphere as it intensified, the air crackling with electricity. “So, what in God’s name do you suppose this is?”
Rebecca brushed herself off and looked urgently about. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. What’s the latest with that signal?”
Oliveira looked at her. “Asensi’s on it. If there is something you should tell me—”
“No, there’s nothing. We need to find Ed and get out of here.”
Asensi, who had been studying the small receiver in his hand, nodded at Oliveira and pointed to the funnel torn into the cavern’s ceiling. The signal was coming from the level above. It was too dark to see what lay up there, beyond the funnel, but Rebecca presumed it was the pyramid’s interior. By her reckoning, the chamber housing the sphere was essentially a subterranean vault, and the pyramid had been built over the top of it. The signal, therefore, was coming from somewhere within the pyramid itself.
Clearly sensing her desire to get moving—and perhaps reminded of the reason they were here—Oliveira snapped his fingers at his men and gestured to the hole in the ceiling.
Rebecca followed his gaze.
Time to climb the funnel.
• • •
The hole torn into the ceiling above their heads was eight or nine yards across. From this opening, the sloping sides of the funnel rose through dirt and rock for about forty feet, widening like a cone to a much broader opening above. The sides of the funnel were covered in silk.
Aiming high, Luis fired his grappling hook into the funnel, and it soared up and over the funnel’s upper lip, where it found purchase. The rope trailed down the slope. The men hoisted Asensi into the hole and he hauled himself up the incline, his hands straining on the knotted nylon.
“This heat is incredible,” Asensi said.
Oliveira urged him on. “Just climb.”
Reaching the top, Asensi pulled himself over the ledge and disappeared.
Oliveira called up to him. “What do you see?”
No answer.
Rebecca glanced nervously at Oliveira, who turned and cupped his hands to his mouth. Slightly louder this time, he said, “Asensi! WHAT DO YOU SEE?”
Finally, Asensi’s voice floated down to them, but it sounded distant, soft, as though he daren’t raise it higher than a whisper.
“I do not know, Sandros,” he said, clearly on edge. “It… it is hard to describe.”
73
Rebecca was third up, behind Costa, and like him, saw what had so stunned Asensi.
“Oh my…” she whispered. “We’ve got to find Ed. Now.”
• • •
As suspected, they were inside the pyramid.
The huge, domed chamber was cloaked in darkness, the high-point of the ceiling easily out of range of the NVGs. At the edges, however, where the ceiling was closer to the ground, it was possible to infer the dome’s dimensions, and that was what had startled Rebecca.
It was huge, like an inverted version of the silken funnel from which they’d just emerged, though on a far greater scale. Above them, gargantuan sheets of dry-silk swept to the edges of the chamber like the canopy above a bed, the web emanating from an unseen, central point high above them. Rebecca was reminded of the interior of a huge circus tent.
It was deathly quiet. In fact, it felt deserted.
Oliveira was the last of them to reach the top. He crossed himself. “Meu Deus…”
Rebecca turned from him and drew a ragged, heaving breath. The chamber smelled thickly pungent. The air was still and heavy with moisture.
Oliveira spun, called softly to his men. “He is in here somewhere. Find him. Quietly.”
As Oliveira’s men dispersed, Rebecca panned her head about. The room was circular at the base. She noted absently how the huge bricks of the stone floor extended from the chamber’s curved wall right up to the funnel mouth they’d just exited. The funnel itself hadn’t been disturbed—the floor had been placed deliberately around it. As she’d guessed, the people of Intihuasi had been aware of the object in the chamber below them—
Rebecca tensed. A peculiar sensation slid over her—not dissimilar to the smothery claustrophobia that had overcome her in the burrow earlier—and her skin crawled. The feeling seemed almost tangible, as though something was tugging at her… urging her. Not physically, more a suggestion or an insistence, maybe a kind of vague, mental intrusion, but she felt compelled to—
“Senhorita…!”
Rebecca snapped out of it, sensed… a release. She glanced at Oliveira, who beckoned her. Disoriented, she moved to cross the floor, but as she did, something squished beneath her foot, almost causing her to slip. She lifted her boot. It was covered in a slimy, wet substance. She noticed more of the stuff on the floor around her—
Guanates.
Excrement.
“What the—”
A hand shot from nowhere to clamp over Rebecca’s open mouth.
“Shh,” Oliveira whispered, pulling her close. He spoke directly in her ear, his voice low, barely audible. “This is the heart of the nest, is it not?”
Rebecca nodded, thinking it to be, but…
“Then why have they not yet come for us, eh?” Oliveira asked. Slowly, he released her, pistol now in hand, head craning about. “It is too quiet. And just then, it was as though—”
“Sandros!” It was Asensi, on the far side of the chamber, gesturing vigorously. Before him stood the shadowy outline of a narrow doorway, unhindered by silk. “Come! This is the way!”
Oliveira pulled Rebecca forward, weapon tightly gripped.
Rebecca was still unscrambling her thoughts. “Just then—what were you about to say?” she asked Oliveira.
“Forget it,” he whispered. “Let us get out of here.”
• • •
Beyond the opening was a set of stone steps which they took to with haste, desperate to leave the chamber behind. Rebecca scaled them unsteadily, still bothered by Oliveira’s words, still reeling from all she’d seen and felt. Oliveira was right: where were the spiders? Why hadn’t they attacked? And just now… had something been inside her head?
Rebecca spun, half-sensing a gaze upon her. Other than Oliveira and his men, trailing behind, she saw nothing.
Get it together…
She shook her head and kept moving. They had to find Ed, and they were closer now than ever. Focusing on her feet and the steps before her, Rebecca climbed quickly, urgently, following Asensi, who in turn followed the signal. Seemingly, Ed had been removed to a section adjoining the central nest, which wasn’t surprising. There’d be multiple chambers in a colony like this, all with different uses.
The stairs ended. At the top was a narrow landing. Off to the left,
a silk-enshrouded passageway rose into deeper blackness. To the right was an open doorway.
Asensi stopped before the opening, receiver in hand. Enthusiastically, he turned, nodding. “This is it. He’s in here.”
They’d found him!
Unable to control herself, her heart pounding in anticipation, Rebecca pushed to the front earnestly, past Asensi—
—only to be quickly driven back.
The stench was horrendous.
“Oh, God…” she said and gagged, recoiling. “No…”
She knew the smell, and immediately, her hopes of finding Ed alive dissolved.
It was the smell of death, and the room reeked of it.
• • •
No…
Tears clouded her eyes and Rebecca wavered where she stood as Asensi and Costa—covering their noses with the backs of their free hands—moved past her, cracking chemlights. Preparing for the worst, she removed her NVGs as a soft, phosphorescent glow bloomed around her.
The light didn’t reveal the source of the stench. What she did see, however, momentarily threw her.
The room, heavily enshrouded in silk, was large and rectangular, its sides running for about twenty feet, the rear wall perhaps thirty.
The floor-space within was filled with gold.
The trove shone through drapes of silk and centuries of dust, glittering in the light—mounds of jewellery, bowls, ceremonial masks, and tiny statuettes shaped like moai. Some of the items were inlaid with jade and silver and other precious gems and metals. It must have been worth a fortune.
The legends were true…
Like excited children, Luis and Costa rushed for the nearest cache and began stuffing their packs.
Oliveira didn’t stop them. Hand to his nose, he said, “Asensi?”
“Yes, Sandros, the signal—over there.”
But Rebecca had already sighted the slumped, motionless form through the silk, sitting on the ground beyond one of the far mounds of treasure.
Ed…
She burst into a run, tears streaming down her cheeks.
Ed’s arms and legs were splayed apart, each stretched to their limit and firmly secured with silk. His torso was cocooned, and so too was his face, as though he’d been mummified.
Falling to her knees beside him, Rebecca pulled at the silk, her heart drumming so hard she feared it would burst from her chest.
God… please let him be okay…
She tore at the strands on his face, exposing his eyes and nose. He didn’t react. He was pale, bloodless.
Lifeless.
Please, no…
Finally, she managed to free one of his arms and take hold of his wrist. Her hands uncontrollably.
There was a pulse.
Faint, but a pulse! Rebecca’s heart leapt.
Yes!
“Ed!” She didn’t mean to raise her voice but couldn’t help herself. Madly, she tore again at the silk.
Oliveira shoved her aside, sending her sprawling. From the ground, Rebecca shot him a bewildered glance.
Oliveira seized Ed by the shoulders and shook him. “What did you see in there?”
“What the hell are you doing?” Rebecca cried, rising.
Oliveira ignored her and moved to within an inch of Ed’s unresponsive visage. “What was inside the plane? Tell me what you saw!”
Oliveira had lost it. Rebecca sprang to her haunches and leapt at him, hands outstretched. “Leave him alone!” She pushed Oliveira as he had her, but he was like a slab of granite and the hit had little physical effect. Regardless, he released Ed, and did so without retaliation.
Blinking slowly, Oliveira stood and glanced over his shoulder. Dropping beside Ed, wrapping him in a hug, Rebecca was sufficiently shocked by Oliveira’s strange behaviour to turn and follow his gaze. Behind them, Luis, Asensi and Costa were still stuffing their packs, and Oliveira’s gaze shot past the men, to the right of the open doorway through which they’d entered. There, a large stone disc with raised teeth around its edge—much like a cog—sat flush against the wall in semi-darkness. Rebecca presumed the disc to be a door of some kind. Beneath it, set into the floor, was a line of grooves: clearly, a track over which it could slide.
Suddenly, Rebecca felt uncomfortable with her back to the opening, as Oliveira seemed to be.
“Asensi, Luis,” Oliveira said, jutting his chin at the door. As the two men moved to slide the large disc into place, sealing the room, Oliveira turned back to Rebecca. “The package—has he got it?”
“Please—help me get him out.”
Together, they worked to pull Ed free of the silk. At last he fell forward limply, collapsing into Rebecca’s chest. She caught him, and he moaned softly.
Trembling, Rebecca whispered, “Ed, it’s me. I’m here.” She was crying freely again, unable to rein in the surging waves of relief and elation. It was all she could do but hold him.
She wanted desperately for him to return the embrace.
Like before, Oliveira was impatient. While Rebecca continued to rock Ed in a close hug, Oliveira wrenched at the remnants of swathing-silk and rifled through the pouches of Ed’s vest. Soon enough he seized upon an object and straightened, prize in hand.
For an instant, Oliveira stood there, silently contemplating the small cloth bundle, weighing it in his hands. Rebecca saw through watery eyes that the package was a bag of some kind, folded over on itself, the drawstring wound tightly top to bottom, and then back laterally. For a moment, even she was taken by it, drawn by its mystery, and she opened her mouth, a thousand questions on her lips.
Asensi’s voice interrupted her. “Listen! Hear that?”
She turned with the rest of the group. One of the others said, “What?”
“That sound.”
A hush fell over the room, and Rebecca soon heard the sound for herself, jarringly out of place.
Beeping.
A high-pitched, beeping sound: faint, intermittent… and electronic.
Oliveira grasped Rebecca by the arm. “Come.”
Rebecca winced. “What?” She still clung to Ed—who remained barely conscious and unaware—but Oliveira urged her to stand.
“Come,” he said again.
Rebecca resisted, but Oliveira was too strong. He tightened his grip, causing her to grimace, and she had no option but to ease Ed gently against the wall and comply. As soon as she was back on her feet, Oliveira shoved her forward and ordered the group to hunt for the source of the sound. Reluctantly, Rebecca snatched up one of the green-glowing chemlights and used it to disperse the last of the shadows.
Almost immediately, a voice called out: “Over here!”
Hesitant to stray far from Ed, Rebecca turned to the voice, her gaze drawn to a mound of bowls and cups in one of the room’s silk-enshrouded rear corners. There she saw Luis, and in front of him, an opening previously out of range of the chemlights.
A low doorway.
“Here… I need more light,” Luis said. He held the chemlight before him and brushed back a thin veil of silk. “Looks like there’s another room back here… the sound is coming from in there.” He moved to squeeze through the opening, but Oliveira caught him by the arm.
“No,” Oliveira said, and jutted his chin at Ed. “I am not finished with him. I need him awake.”
Obediently, Luis crossed the floor to where Ed was slumped. Rebecca felt Oliveira’s hand on her wrist.
This time she didn’t resist. Glancing at Ed one last time, she stooped as Oliveira dragged her through the low doorway.
• • •
The stench was worse back here.
Rebecca had grown used to it, but now it hit her again, harder than before. She gagged and covered her nose and mouth with her shirt, but there was no escaping it. The smell seemed to worm its way in through her pores, burrowing into her body.
Again, more chemlights. Repelled, the darkness took residence beyond the glow like a vile, watchful beast. Rebecca noted this new chamber was smaller than th
e room from which they’d come—different in shape, too. For one, the ceiling was much lower, and the opposite wall was angled slightly. But the space was just as silk-enshrouded.
The beeping sound was close.
Trailing Oliveira, Rebecca stepped cautiously into the mass of fibrous threads, anxious at what she might find. Her muscles trembled with foreboding, the chemlight shaking in her hand. She wanted to return to Ed.
Directly in front of her, towards the ceiling, weak sunlight speared through a crack in the sloping rear wall, tree roots prying the stone apart like searching fingers. Rebecca guessed the room was at one of the far edges of the pyramid—
She stopped as something squelched softly underfoot.
Slowly, she lifted her boot, but it wasn’t what she’d been expecting. The boot came away with a soft sucking sound, a red, gooey substance hanging in strands from the heel. Repulsed, Rebecca wiped it against the floor, at the same time kneeling for a closer look at the large sticky puddle beneath her feet, a good square metre in size. It looked like…
There was something else.
Tiny. Gold. Rebecca poked her finger at it.
A cross: a tiny, gold crucifix.
She knew what that meant, and with her breath catching sharply in her throat, she turned to her right, holding the chemlight before her as the sound of buzzing flies came to her ears.
He was virtually unrecognizable.
Though still vaguely human in shape, the corpse was little more than a desiccated, bloodied husk. As Rebecca brought the chemlight to bear, a cloud of flies dispersed into the air, some disappearing through the crack in the stone wall above. She waved the rest away, biting back bile at the sight of the fat, white maggots squirming over the corpse’s exterior. While disfigured beyond recognition, Rebecca knew by the presence of the gold cross whose body it was. Sobbing, she looked down at what was left of Enrique, almost entirely consumed within the surrounding folds of silk.
Dear God, what a terrible way to go.
Except for that which had seeped out around him, Enrique had been sucked dry. His skin had become little more than a loose bag for his bones.