Return To The Center Of The Earth

by Return To The Center Of The Earth (epub)

  “Don’t give up hope.” Mike reached out and laid a hand on her bony forearm.

  “Hope.” She looked up at him. “Did you see the big one?”

  He shook his head. “We came through the jungle… from the east.”

  “Then you have yet to behold a terrifying wonder. They brought us in along the waterfront. There, in the ocean, was a monster so big it was like a living mountain. It even froze the blood of our captain: a strong and experienced soldier.”

  “I think I saw it. I thought it was an island,” Harris said.

  “An island?” She laughed darkly. “I think it was their god.”

  Mike frowned, remembering back to the hidden vault in the cave city and the depiction in the artwork of the colossal creature rising over the landscape. Was this great creature the thing that they imagined? This Dagon, and its minions?

  “I have a bad feeling,” Katya whispered. “That it is to their god, have gone my friends.”

  Harris held onto the bars of the cage but turned to Mike. “What did she say?”

  Mike sat back. “She said that thing you thought was an island, is a living creature. And their god.” He turned and smiled with little humor. “And that she thinks her friends were given to it.”

  “Well then, guess what we’ve got to look forward to,” Ally spat.

  Harris began to chuckle. “This day ain’t getting any better is it?” He tested the bars but once again they held firm. “I’ll tell you one thing, I’ll fight to the death before I’ll allow these big shrimp to feed me to any damn god of theirs.”

  CHAPTER 28

  Dmitry grunted in pain as the rope around his neck was yanked down when Viktor, lashed in front, stumbled. In turn, Chekov, tied behind him, was also tugged forward, bumping into him.

  “Sorry, friend,” Chekov said.

  Dmitry just shook his head, too frightened to trust himself to speak. They were in a procession of all manner of creatures that made him feel was a parade of the damned. Beside, in front, and behind them, were madness-inducing creatures like long-legged spiders with intelligent eyes that rolled in fear. Mustard-yellow scuttling things with dozens of sharp legs, lizard-like creatures reminiscent of man-sized snapping dinosaurs, and even a few furred animals that might have been giant rodents that walked on their back legs and all trembled and held hands.

  They had been herded along a cobbled street in the nightmare city where everything was of an aberrant design, with some of the dwellings looking like they were excreted rather than built.

  The city’s denizens gathered to watch them pass, some throwing leaves on the ground before their procession as if in worship or exultation.

  “I think I see where we are going,” Chekov said from behind him.

  Dmitry nodded. “Yes, up there.”

  Their procession was exiting the city and moving up a long ramp that was constructed up high and also several hundred feet out over the water. Down below them the red water quickly went from shallows to mysterious depths, and in the sea, just a few hundred yards to their east, was a large grey lump of an island, totally devoid of vegetation.

  As they arrived at the top of the platform all the creatures’ tethers were tied to a central stake, with the animals radiating out like spokes. Some of them fought with their fellow captives, some whispered in strange tongues amongst each other, and some stood mute with heads down.

  Their crustacean captors began to depart, save for one, who went to the farthest edge of the platform and lifted a horn to its nightmarish mouth. It then blew a long, mournful note that drifted out across the water.

  The creature waited for a moment until an answering bellow was returned. It then quickly turned to scuttle back down the ramp, looking like a crab fleeing an oncoming wave.

  “What is happening?” Viktor asked in a hushed tone as he worked at the rope collar around his neck.

  “I think…” Dmitry felt the blood drain from his face as he stared. Chekov sunk to his knees behind him and began to pray and Viktor slowly began to back up, but there was nowhere to go and no slack in the rope at his neck.

  In front of them the island began to rise up.

  Dmitry felt his knees tremble. “I think… we are about to meet their god.”

  CHAPTER 29

  Jane belly-crawled to the top of the slope and slid under a shrub. She peered out the other side of the branches and then lifted her field glasses to her eyes.

  Her mouth dropped open and she lowered the glasses. “Holy shit.”

  It looked like an ancient city but she had to blink several times to try and make sense of its bizarre design. There were structures that reminded her more of intestines coiled, looped, and dripped onto the ground, rather than buildings.

  The structures also continued on into the water, and she saw some of the arthropod people simply walk the dry streets in their twitchy, scuttling manner, then enter the water, and continue on as if the changing environment and atmosphere was nothing to them.

  But the thing that drew her eyes was the enormous ramp, running from the end of the city, rising to a platform many stories high and leaning several hundred yards out above the water.

  Groups of beings that were lashed together like slaves were being herded up the ramp in a procession. It was a mind-bending sight as there were all manner of nightmarish creatures collected together of varying shape, size, and color.

  Jane stared and then quickly reached for her binoculars, and focused on one of the lead groups.

  “Oh, please no.” There were people there, humans, naked, and also roped together. She prayed it wasn’t Mike and the others.

  She fiddled with the focus and could just make out that there was no Ally or Nadia, and just three men, all large, and looked fit. It could have been her friends, except the men of her own group were Harris, Mike, and Alistair. And there was no way one of those big guys was Alistair.

  “The Russians,” she whispered. “Has to be.” For some reason she felt enormously relieved.

  All the captive beings and the people continued to be herded up the long ramp to a rounded platform at the top that hung out over the water. The arthropod people pushed the creatures up, forcing them in ever tighter. She guessed there must have been about fifty animals and people overall.

  Jane looked along the waterfront and her brows snapped together. Was that a boat? And a little further along a submarine?

  “What the hell?” She moved her glasses further along the shoreline and saw there was also a myriad of other craft. Some were wooden wrecks with masts still carrying the sagging remnants of ancient sails. But others looked new and had been carefully beached.

  She focused again, concentrating her focus, and saw there was an older style ship of iron. It was huge at probably five hundred feet long that still had its name visible on the side.

  “USS Cyclops. How, what, are you doing here?”

  Her vision of the ships was then blotted out. Something immense was rising from the water: huge, bigger than huge. The creature lifted hundreds of feet in the air. On its body, there clung many of the arthropod creatures, perhaps cleaning it, and servicing it. Its minions, she thought.

  The face was a monstrous combination of baleful red eyes and tentacles dangling below them like a beard that was constantly moving in a sinuous curling of anticipation. It used huge scaled arms to lift itself closer and then turned its vile gaze on the platform of bound creatures.

  Panic set in, and even from her distance she imagined the howls, screams and squeaks from all those alien mouths, plus in amongst it she imagined the shouts of fear from the men.

  Some of the captives became furious in their movements, but all were securely lashed in place with nowhere to go.

  But then the biological mountain shifted, and before any more of them could escape, the huge monstrosity lurched forward. The tentacled mass hiding its mouth flared open and flowed over the entire platform, enfolding the creatures, large, small, and human, and then drawing back to the head. />
  She knew what was happening; she’d seen cephalopod feed before. That tentacle mass was some sort of maw or beak, and those poor, damned creatures, and the Russians, had been pulled into it.

  She looked away, feeling her gorge rise.

  A part of her wanted to run then, far away, forget everything and just flee madly into the jungle. But she knew she never could. Not while Mike was down there somewhere.

  When she turned back the monster was beginning to sink below the sea’s surface again, perhaps to digest its meal, and the platform was scraped clean of anything living.

  Jane swallowed dryly and shifted her focus back to the city, carefully scanning its outer edges until she was rewarded by spotting what might be cages.

  Though she couldn’t make out Mike or her team, she bet that’s where they were. At least until next feeding time, she thought.

  She needed to get Mike out. But right now that was impossible with a knife and a handgun. She gritted her teeth and cursed. How often did they feed that monstrosity? she wondered. For something that size, she guessed it might be daily or every few hours.

  “Shit, shit, shit.” She needed a plan. She needed a diversion. And it would need to be a big one against something the size of a mountain. Then it came to her.

  Jane slid back out from under the bush, got to her feet and ran.

  *****

  In thirty minutes she was back with the Russian pulser device, plus had several guns strapped to her waist. She opened the device and looked at the switches: all in Russian.

  “I should have paid more attention.”

  She tried to remember Mike’s brief translations. “Uh, maybe, this one was direction, and these were strength and distance.” She moved the dials estimating the distance to the platform, calibrated it to only half-strength, and then aimed the device.

  Here goes nothing, she thought. She lifted the covered switch and pressed the button.

  Nothing happened.

  “Oh come on.” She aimed and pressed it again.

  Still nothing.

  “Maybe this one was distance and this was strength…” She recalibrated, aimed the device, and pressed the switch again.

  There was a hum and a tingling in her hands as she held the box with the barrel structure pointed. She watched open-mouthed, her eyes fixed on the ramp and platform, and then sure enough the structure began to become distorted and shimmer in the air.

  In the next second, it exploded into fragments.

  “Yeah.” She fist-pumped through clamped teeth.

  And the effect was everything she hoped as just like army ants that had their nest poked, the things boiled out of their houses and other structures, both on land and from under the red sea. They swarmed to the platform, everything else seemingly forgotten.

  “Now.” Jane left the pulser, got to her feet and sprinted for the cages.

  *****

  “What was that?” Mike sprang to his feet.

  The animals in the other cages were going berserk, and all the Y’ha-nthlei arthropod people scurried away, making an excited or nervous clicking-chittering sound.

  “An explosion maybe,” Ally said and turned to Nadia. “Could it be your Russian friends fighting back?”

  Nadia’s brows shot up and she clasped her hands together. “Maybe they got free.”

  Harris straightened. “Alistair didn’t have any grenades, so for now, all it is, is an opportunity.” He charged the gate door and kicked out at it. It held. He tried again.

  “Damn it,” he yelled and hopped away.

  Mike knew that even though Harris was a fit and formidable guy, without boots, a bare foot wasn’t a great battering ram.

  Harris then ran a hand around the edge of the gate, looking at the weakest point. “Little help here guys.” He backed up and lowered his shoulder. “Give me a little extra force and mass.”

  “Don’t bust something important, or you’ll be useless to us and as good as dead down here,” Mike said.

  Mike and Ally got behind him, and he counted down. When he got to one, the three of them ran at the locking side of the gate, Harris first.

  They piled into the gate, and Mike and Ally piled into Harris, without the door flinging open.

  It creaked, but held and they bounced back. Harris rubbed his shoulder, cursing even more.

  “Plan B?” Mike asked.

  “You got one?” Harris straightened and touched a hand to rub a red dent on his forehead.

  “I do now.” Mike grinned and rushed to the bars.

  Jane reached through to grab his hand. “Thank god you’re safe,” she gasped, still out of breath.

  “Was that you?” Harris asked. “The explosion?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, the Russian box. Works on short range as well.”

  “Brilliant.” Harris grinned.

  Ally pointed. “Jane, quick, there’s the keys; ours is the one closest to us.”

  Jane ran to the pole, took the huge key and placed it in the lock. It opened easily and Harris pushed the door wide open.

  “Where’s Alistair?” Jane asked.

  “They took him,” Mike replied.

  “Where?” Jane frowned. “Can we get him?”

  “Not now,” Harris replied. “We get outside the city and then plan our next move. Otherwise, they come back and we’ll all be back inside, you included.”

  “Shit,” Jane spat.

  “Hurry,” Ally said.

  Mike went back to the far corner of the cage and helped the old woman to her feet.

  Jane’s brows went up. “Katya.”

  The old woman smiled. “Another fool; that makes three of us.”

  “Indeed it does,” Jane said and turned. “Let’s go.”

  Mike lifted Katya in his arms, the old woman weighing next to nothing. They ran, all following Jane as she threaded her way back out of the city, up the slope and into the forest.

  Nadia caught up to her “Did you see my friends? The other Russians?” she asked.

  Jane didn’t look at the woman. “They’re dead.”

  “What?” Nadia grabbed at her. “You saw?”

  Jane faced her. “Yes, I’m sorry.”

  “How?” Nadia persisted.

  “Later.” Jane shrugged her off.

  It took them another twenty minutes to reach the bush that Jane had sheltered beneath.

  “What are we doing?” Ally asked. “Be a good idea to get some freaking clothes on for a start. Maybe a gun or two as well.”

  “Where was Alistair taken?” Jane asked.

  “We don’t know.” Harris grabbed the field glasses Jane had used before and trained them on the city. His eyes narrowed. “But given how those crab things are back at the cages, I’m betting they’ll be after us in a few minutes.”

  Mike placed a hand over his eyes. “The platform is gone. Is that your doing?”

  Jane nodded.

  “Well done.” Mike turned back. “That’s odd; the island has moved.”

  “That’s no island,” Jane said. “It’s some sort of giant creature. The arthropod people tend to it, feed it.”

  “Alistair called it Dagon,” Mike said and turned to Katya. “That’s their god, isn’t it?”

  “And my team went to meet it,” Katya said softly.

  “You said they fed it.” Nadia shut her eyes. “What did they feed it?”

  Jane sighed. “Sorry, Nadia.”

  “Oh no.” She sat down in the dirt, her pale body already reddening from the heat and radiation blasted down from the boiling ceiling.

  “That’s their god, huh?” Harris repeated. “The head of the snake.”

  “There’s something else,” Jane said. “Look… beyond the creature to the far shoreline.”

  Harris put the glasses back to his eyes. “Holy shit, there are ships there. And damn submarines.” He lowered the glasses for a moment. “Some of them are old, damn old. And some…”

  His mouth gaped open and he handed the glasses to Ally. “M
s Bennet, the big iron hulk, at two-o’clock.”

  Ally took the glasses and adjusted the focus wheel. “Does that say the USS Cyclops?”

  “Yes, I saw that as well,” Jane replied. “It’s one of ours, but I don’t recognize the name or shape.”

  Harris took the glasses back from Ally. “You would if you were alive about a hundred years ago. That’s the USS Cyclops, at the time the biggest ship in the US Navy. It vanished without a trace somewhere between the West Indies and Baltimore. Lost at sea, or rather vanished at sea to the end of World War One.”

  He shook his head and lowered the glasses. “She was, is, nearly 550 feet long, and when she disappeared she had a crew of 306 people. Her job was to assist in saving refugees.”

  Ally snorted softly. “Lost and now found. How the hell did it get here?” Ally asked. “How did they all get here?”

  “Want to hear a mad theory?” Jane asked.

  They turned to her and she nodded to the lump of the thing they thought was an island, and then the huge mountain column a few miles offshore. “Like we thought, that gravity well is a water well. And it’s a doorway between here and the surface world. But not dry land; instead, the world’s oceans.”

  “They were sucked into it?” Ally frowned. “Like in a vortex?”

  “That’s one theory,” Jane replied. “The other is that the massive creature we see there is passing back and forth between the surface world and then here at the world’s core. Maybe it has a taste for human flesh, and sometimes it decides to go and get it itself.”

  “That sonofabitch,” Harris spat from between his gritted teeth. “About two dozen large ships vanish from the world’s oceans every year. We don’t even find wreckage.”

  “How long has that thing been doing it? Some of those ships are old, centuries old,” Ally added.

  “Maybe even longer than we humans have been around,” Jane said. “It looked like the thing depicted on the wall in the hidden room at the crystal cave. And we thought that might have been abandoned for around twelve thousand years. For all we know that monster doesn’t have a lifespan as we know it.”