With his remaining strength, Michael turned his chin up and called out her name, which poured from his throat in a raspy gargle that died inches from his face. He took a deep breath and called her name again, this time his voice filled her ears. She turned toward him, her eyes wide.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“The canteen,” he said.
She scanned the surrounding area. “Where?”
His head reeled as his surroundings faded again. He took a deep breath and belted out, “Finn.”
She turned and crawled toward Finn’s body. The canteen remained near the surface as she wobbled and made her way over to Finn. The canteen sank as she grabbed the strap. She threw it around her neck, and then reached down again into the debris, pushing her arm in up to her shoulder. She lifted an object up and slipped it into her jacket pocket.
“Michael, where are you?” she yelled.
“Here.” His fingers slid over the tip of the cow’s horn still poking through his shoulder.
“I’m coming for you,” she said.
The flashlight that had sunk below the surface earlier now churned up close to him. A wave of debris isolated him, and the free-flowing flashlight threw shadows at the ceiling that twirled like a kaleidoscope.
The Leviathan’s body pushed up against his feet, lifting him as he stepped up onto something below the surface. Most likely a corpse. His foot rippled down across a ribcage, stopping at a softer part of the body that squished like remnants of wadded up clothing. He took a deep breath and lifted himself, the burning in his legs sent jolts of fire coursing through every muscle. At some point his legs just wouldn’t work anymore. He was healthy, but how could he have prepared for something like this?
He poked his head up into the open air as Rebecca passed her flashlight over his location. Below his chin the stiff and dried remains of what looked like a large rodent lay with its jaws open wide, and its claws stretched out ahead as if frozen in a permanent attack pose.
He gripped the fur of a dog. Pain stabbed at his fingers as he pulled up. The dog had most likely been someone’s pet by the collar and nametag around its neck. Had it found the tunnels on its own and doomed itself as it explored beyond the safety of home? Maybe it had followed its owner’s scent into the tunnels and gotten lost? Or had it found its owner stiff and cold among the other corpses and refused to leave his side?
The cage of death trapping him shifted away, but the cow’s horn impaled through his chest prevented him from crawling to Rebecca. Her voice drifted into his ears. Within the murky chatter around him, the clanking of his canteen sparked him to heave forward a few inches. The dog’s ribcage cracked as he shifted his weight onto it.
“Rebecca,” he said. Light flashed into his eyes. She was still several yards away. The face of his mom and dad formed in the shadows in front of him, their eyes bright and calm. He wanted to hang on to that moment and forget everything else. He wanted to go back and undo the moment when he had looked down at the cellphone he had cradled so preciously between his legs.
“Michael.” Rebecca had crawled within ten feet of him, but the Leviathan rose below her, cascading the debris off the side of its body. She tumbled onto her side as a wave of bones threatened to bury her alive. The canteen clanked beneath her. She clawed herself up to the surface again only to have everything shift beneath her legs and sink back down.
“Michael,” she repeated. She sank back and pulled the canteen from her shoulder. Launching it with both hands, she grunted and hurled it up, her body straining and collapsing forward as the canteen flew toward him, crashing down into the pile within arm’s reach. The crash knocked up dust and small fragments of dirt into his face. He struggled and stretched his arms toward the strap that had snagged around the lower jaw of a small cow. The canteen slipped lower between the gaps in the pile as it swayed and flowed just out of reach.
He slipped his foot into an opening deep below the surface and pushed himself up. Jolts of pain shot through his arms as his muscles spasmed and stabbed at him deep below his skin. He hoisted himself over a headless human ribcage and gripped the strap, yanking it toward him until it was within reach.
He gripped the side of the canteen with his left hand and cradled it against his chest as he unscrewed the cap and leaned back, letting the heavy black liquid drench the wound where the cow’s horn had penetrated. It chilled his skin as it sloshed down his clothes until the cold melted away, and fire filled his chest. His eyes flared open as the familiar tingling from the black liquid transformed into intense pain as if a million tiny doctors were operating on him with scalpels.
He leaned forward and pulled against the cow’s horn. He nearly blacked out as it slipped out of his chest and fell down into the pile. He passed his fingers into the hole and encountered living flesh nudging his fingers away as if the tiny doctors within the wound were ordering him out of the operating room. The flesh in the wound vibrated and wiggled like strands of worms and hair as it stitched his organs and muscles together. The black liquid absorbed into the wound and sizzled over his flesh like the time he had touched the exposed wiring of an electrical cord. It jolted him straight to the bone.
The pain subsided around his wound and then through his body as if he’d swallowed a powerful pain pill. His right arm came alive again, although the warmth took longer to return. He sealed the canteen again and slung the strap around his head as he pushed himself further above the pocket entrapping him. The flashlight lay between him and Rebecca, still rotating below the surface and throwing its light up around the room. Enough light to see his surroundings.
He made his way across the shifting pile toward Rebecca, digging within the debris to retrieve the flashlight along the way. She met him halfway. Although the strength he’d received from the black liquid hadn’t brought him back to normal, it had helped immensely. Maybe if he poured the black liquid over his entire body he’d return to his regular health.
When he reached Rebecca, he laid his arm across hers, and she threw herself into him.
She pulled back. “I found something for you.” She dug into her jacket pocket, and before she pulled the item out, the faint red glow gave it away. It was the medallion that had fallen with Pastor John earlier, but the glow had diminished, despite being surrounded by bessies. She placed it in his hands.
“Guess where I found it,” she asked with a smirk. “It was stuck below Finn’s jacket. It almost slipped away.”
“Lucky you found it,” Michael said.
Rebecca gasped and her fingers touched her parted lips. “Oh, my God. Joey!” She spun around toward where the Leviathan had thrown Joey across the room.
Michael handed her the flashlight, although the medallion cast subtle red light across the debris of corpses. Joey lay lifeless only feet from the edge of the pile. The handle of his sword protruded up only feet from his body where he had impaled what looked like a mound of brown grass. He faced down, and beyond him, a black creature scurried from the light.
He’d taken two steps toward Joey when the debris exploded upward and flipped them on their backs. Michael clutched the medallion as the canteen whipped up and slammed across his jaw. Rebecca screamed. He stood up and pulled her out from under a deer carcass that had rolled across her leg.
The Leviathan’s monstrous head whipped up, and its full torso emerged. The medallion’s red light burst as bright as a thousand suns. The light was thick and blinding. The beast’s arms shuddered and clawed at the air. Its body writhed and groaned like a harpooned whale. Smoke steamed off its flesh. It convulsed, flinging carcasses and heaps of corpses across the room. A wave of debris surged toward the ceiling at the far side of the room where they had seen Joey, and then his body slid down the avalanche, staying near the surface. The Leviathan’s insect arms clawed at the debris as it backed and crawled away. Its face of eyes swiveled toward them, and the red light flared in the reflection. It shook, and its fleshy lips quivered and stretched before a guttural moan bellowed from
its throat like a chorus of a thousand tortured elephants. It retreated from them into the darkness.
Michael and Rebecca crawled away toward the opposite edge, now without the snaking arms of the bessies to hold them back and without the paralyzing swirl of death below their feet. As they reached the edge of the pit, the ground rumbled again as the Leviathan erupted from its feeding pit. Pebbles rained from the ceiling and dust kicked up all around them. Its massive body, the size of a school bus, pounded up from the pit toward the low, wide collapsed hole in the wall at the far end of the room. They slogged away from the bodies and stood on solid ground again. Rebecca crawled on her hands and knees toward the exit and then collapsed, but Michael wrenched her forward.
“Don’t stop,” Michael said.
Bits of dirt and sweat threatened to slip between his lips. He spit and went to wipe his mouth, but couldn’t find a clean area on his arm.
Rebecca stood and they plodded forward.
The black creatures hid in the shadows beyond the reach of the red light. Their arms stuck out along the edges, betraying their location. The Leviathan twisted like a dying earthworm on the sidewalk after a morning rain. It curled and convulsed, blasting its body from side to side, as it struggled toward its escape route. A deafening roar exploded from its mouth with every stride.
Michael lifted the medallion above his head, clasping it between frozen fingers, and led Rebecca around the edge of the pit straight toward the Leviathan. It rumbled away and let out an earth-shaking groan like a small earthquake. More dust and dirt sprinkled down. Michael moved forward, the strength in his legs slowly returning, but not fast enough. He would have charged at the beast with all guns blazing, but instead lumbered toward it with Rebecca leaning into him.
The Leviathan stopped at the collapsed hole and squashed itself down, compressing its body and squeezing its head through first. It bellowed again as Michael approached and the black creatures cowering in the corners scrambled from the darkness toward their queen. As he approached it, the medallion’s red glow fired up to a harsh crimson. Hisses and clicks from the black creatures reverberated across the room in a deafening tone as if they were standing at the bottom of a waterfall. The teeth along the underside of their arms crackled like a hundred tap dancers as they sped across the walls and the ceiling toward their queen. The smoke rolling off their skin left a trail behind them as they scurried into the hole along with the demon queen. Some creatures circled the entrance as if to guard it. Their limbs quivered and their flesh blistered and crackled until they fled too.
The hole swallowed up the Leviathan like bread dough forced through a roller, its spider-like arms flailing and stabbing at the edges of the entrance for leverage as it lumbered ahead. Michael labored toward it, holding the medallion out in front of him. Every muscle in his body ached, and a constant sharp headache nauseated him.
The darkness within the hole swallowed the queen. The remaining creatures scrambled past them, whipping their tentacles at them in a fury of nightmarish hisses as they passed. The piercing red glare flooded into their escape hole, lighting up the Leviathan’s flesh until it sank back farther. It writhed as it faded from his view.
“Die!” he yelled.
A low moan roared from the hole, and a tornado of air swept around them. The queen and her minions were gone. A black void remained. Michael stumbled as the ground exploded with a thunderous earthquake.
35
The earthquake threw them to the ground, and the medallion broke from his grip, clanking as it skidded over the stone tiles toward the debris field and lodged itself in a crack near the edge. Pebbles and loose stones rained from the ceiling as a cloud of dust rose, obscuring the room. The brilliant red blaze faded to a faint glow. Michael stood and wobbled over to Rebecca. She nursed her elbow as he helped her up. She still gripped the flashlight in her hand, and it soon became their only source of light.
“Do you see Joey?” Michael asked.
They searched for him among the debris.
“Joey,” Rebecca called out. No answer.
Michael stepped to the edge of the pit and retrieved the medallion. The ruby stone had gone dark. An object within the pile caught his eye. Finn’s backpack was trapped between a white dog and a set of antlers only a few feet from him. He stepped out onto a cluster of intertwined skeletons and wrestled it free. Dried blood stained the side of the pack that had rested against Finn’s back and streaked down to the bottom. He unzipped the top and peered inside. A machete poked out and further down Michael found bottles of water, snacks, and flashlights. Blood stains or not, the supplies inside were priceless. Michael removed a flashlight and slung Finn’s pack onto his back as he made his way over to Rebecca.
“Joey!” Rebecca yelled again.
A voice moaned, and a moment later they spotted him at the far side of the pit. He had lifted one leg up over the edge and was clawing at the stone surface for a grip. The sword he’d found earlier lay at his side. They hurried to him and lifted him up and out. The three of them paused as Joey caught his breath.
“I’m having a terrible day.” Joey scraped his sword on the ground as he picked it up. They checked him over for wounds, but found nothing too serious.
“I’m sure it’s dead,” Michael said. “Let’s go find my grandpa and Audrey.”
They struggled over to the exit side stairway with their arms around each other, Rebecca in the middle. Their flashlights cut through the air as they ascended the steps.
Michael ran his fingers over his wound and the hole had almost sealed up. His flesh throbbed and tingled as the hole repaired itself. Not even a scab or a scar remained. The debris had torn his clothes, but he’d never wear any of them again anyway. A small price to pay for a miracle. The blood and Dunamis streaking down his clothes had dried.
Rebecca tightened her grip around his waist. “I’m not sure I can make it up these stairs.”
“Your mom’s waiting for you,” Michael said.
She stepped faster.
Joey lagged a few steps behind, huffing aloud with each step. Their footsteps echoed in the stairway, and the ground shook again with a mild aftershock. Dust rose again, and Joey coughed.
The shaking stopped, but debris covered every step they took. The dust settled as they went up the stairs toward a doorway he hoped would lead them straight to his grandfather.
“I wouldn’t make a great mountain climber.” Rebecca gasped for every breath as they approached the top step.
Joey coughed again. “That dust.”
At the top of the stairs, Michael looked back down, and in the distance, the faint outline of the edge of the bone pit churned his stomach. He never wanted to go down there again. He turned to face the darkness before them and started down the hallway following the map’s directions. He pushed away thoughts of leaving the tunnels without them. They had made so many sacrifices.
Michael stepped faster, and the canteen sloshed at his side. If they killed the Leviathan, then the smaller black creatures would die off without their queen. Just get out of there and get life back to normal. Was normal even possible anymore?
The tunnels cut to the right and seemed to extend forever. The destination was just up ahead.
“You okay?” Rebecca shined her flashlight in Joey’s face. She held onto his arm, watching him.
He shook his head. “I don’t feel so good.”
Dust filled the hallway like a morning fog.
“Keep moving,” Rebecca said.
They hurried ahead until their flashlights caught sight of a large opening. Michael hoped Finn’s map was right.
A stench caught Michael’s nose as they approached the end of the hallway. At least this odor was unmistakably human. He winced as he approached the open doorway, but his heart quickened. His eyes locked onto the blackness within the doorway.
Moving at half speed, they stealthily distributed whatever weapons remained in Finn’s backpack. A machete, a hunting knife, and a pistol. Michael took the
pistol and checked the chamber for rounds. Loaded and ready to fire. He slipped it into his jacket pocket and paused. The barrel lined up with his groin. He flipped on the safety switch and offered Joey the machete.
Rebecca accepted the hunting knife. As he slipped Finn’s backpack over his shoulder again, whining sounds, like those of an injured dog, came from the doorway.
Michael glanced at Rebecca. Her mouth had dropped open. “Do you think that’s–”
The whining sounds transformed into a low moaning, a woman’s voice. Rebecca peered around the corner, and then jumped forward past Joey into the room.
“Mom!” she called. She lowered her hunting knife. If evil waited for them on the other side of the door, it would have swallowed her up.
Michael and Joey stood ready for battle as they entered the room. Rebecca lit up each face. Six people lay on the ground. They had been spaced out randomly and were trapped in the same black gelatin-like wrapping they’d seen during the earlier horrors with the Leviathan. They were swaddled like newborns, except their heads and feet extended from the ends. The color had drained from their faces as if a creature had already feasted on them. Their jaws gaped open with a sliver of white showing between their eyelids.
Rebecca locked onto one face, and she bolted forward. Her hunting knife dropped and clanged across the stone floor. She wrapped her arms around a figure.
“Mom.” She sobbed, and they swayed. “I found you. I found you.”
The woman’s face contorted and her body trembled. Rebecca clawed at the black covering. She peeled away the layers like an orange. “Don’t you worry, Mom. I’ll get you out of here.”
Shadows Rising Page 24