by SD Tanner
“Lexie, no!”
Jonesy pushed his way into the tunnel, forcing him forwards and Leon followed him. Lexie was at least fifteen feet ahead of them on a collision course with the critters, but before they could climb on top of her, she disappeared through the floor.
“Down!” Tank roared.
Dropping to floor and using his elbows and knees to crawl reminded him of his training when he’d first joined the army. Crawling on his belly under barbed wire wasn’t something he’d ever had to do for real, and this was the first time he was grateful their training had been so basic. Tank was firing rounds above his flattened body and he slipped headfirst into the hole Lexie had found. This one led to another tunnel, but he couldn’t see her.
“Lexie!” He called as Jonesy fell on top of him, closely followed by Leon. “Where’s Tank?”
By way of answer, Tank landed on Leon. “Here. Where’s Lex?”
“I dunno. She was gone when I got here.”
With the critters running at them from both ends of the corridor, and even more tumbling through the hole after them, there was no time to talk. Tank was firing into the hole they’d fallen through and he and Leon were shooting at the ones landing, whilst also taking pot shots down the corridor. His laser gun clicked empty, so he hammered it at the head of a critter rising from the ground next to him.
“Ark!” Lexie shouted.
“Where are you?”
“Underneath you.”
Ripping at the critter, he realized the ones running along the corridor were closing in on them. “Show me!”
About fifteen feet from his position, Lexie’s helmet appeared through a hole in the floor, and she grappled with the slippery sides trying to gain hold. Unable to get any traction in the goo, she slipped down again. “I can’t get back up.”
“Jonesy, go for the hole!”
Sliding past him, Jonesy dived, falling head first into it.
“Go, Ark! We’ll catch you up,” Leon roared.
With critters closing in above and next to them, he doubted he would ever see Tank or Leon again. He couldn’t leave Lexie, so there was no time to wish them luck. He’d promised she wouldn’t die alone and he’d meant it. Diving for the hole, he tumbled down to the next level.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: Dead zone (Hood)
After leaving the basement, he and Alice were running towards the pyramid at a steady clip. Critters were sprinting towards them and he raised his laser, ready to fire.
“What are they doing?” Alice asked, as she puffed beside him.
“What do you mean?”
“Their heading in all directions. Why aren’t they running towards us?”
Widening his vision, he realized she was right. Seeing two Navigators running towards the nest should have brought them all onto their position, but they were leaving and running wide.
“Central command, can you see this?”
It was Dom who replied and he said, “This is Dom and yeah.”
“What are they doing?”
“It looks like they’re leaving the nest.”
Critters were streaking past them as if they were intent on another mission. Reaching the foot of the pyramid, a cascade of blurry bodies were tumbling down, skidding against its muddy walls. There was no reason not to climb into the nest and puzzled at being ignored, he slid into the closest hole. After sliding down a short tunnel, he landed inside of a large chamber. Alice appeared by his side and they began looking for the next hole. Around them, critters were scrambling from the walls and some were launching themselves out of the hole they’d just fallen through. Others were taking flight and disappearing through the wide opening at the top of the pyramid.
His hellcat found a hole in the floor and disappeared with a startled squeak. Following her, he thudded onto the floor inside of the tunnel. More critters were running along the corridor, slamming into them and then finding their feet again, only to continue their mad flight.
“Why aren’t they attacking us?” Alice asked.
Another critter ran up the wall and scuttled along the ceiling above his head. “I dunno.” Regardless of what the critters were doing, they still had a mission to complete and he began sliding his feet around the floor, looking for the next exit. “Follow me if I fall through a hole.”
“I’m not losing you,” Alice replied.
Hearing the double-edged meaning in her words, he continued to slide his feet around the floor, while giving a sharp laugh. “I’ve guessed that.”
Sliding her feet around and bumping into the critters passing by her, she asked, “Is that a problem?”
“Given I have about thirty minutes to live, no.”
His foot slid across the floor and disappeared, taking the rest of him with it. Clamping his lips shut, he suppressed the startled cry that wanted to burst from his chest. The tunnel was lit with goo and he looked up at the hole he’d fallen through, hoping that Alice had seen him. Without warning, a pair of boots appeared heading towards his face and he dived away.
Once she’d landed, they stood back to back, warily watching the green blobs running towards them. “What if you live longer?”
Having already forgotten their previous conversation, he asked, “Than what?”
“Than thirty minutes. What will you do if you don’t die?”
Thinking it wasn’t an appropriate question considering their situation, he replied distractedly, “I dunno.”
Critters were still running past them and some were climbing into the hole they’d just fallen through. They were leaving the nest and he still didn’t understand why.
“Why don’t you know?”
Before he could answer, Alice slipped through another hole in the floor, and worrying she couldn’t take care of herself, he dived after her. Landing on something hard, he was surprised when the blank face of a critter stared into his visor. Only inches from his eyes, he pulled back in alarm and then grabbed it by its skinny throat. Alice had her gun drawn and ready to fire into the body of the critter.
“Don’t fire!”
Thrusting the critter away from him, it righted itself and used him as a ladder to scuttle through the hole above his head. The hard-clawed feet scraped against the top of his helmet and he resisted the urge to duck away.
“Why’d you let it go?”
These critters weren’t interested in them and he didn’t want to do anything that might get their attention. “I think we need to be stealthy.”
“What do you mean?”
“They’re not paying any attention to us. Providing we don’t do anything they notice, I think they’ll leave us alone.” Slowing his movements, he added, “Stay calm and let them pass you. Do not fire. Do not attack. Stay frosty.”
Following his instructions, Alice began steadily moving along the corridor, sliding her feet to find the next hole. When she disappeared, he moved to where she’d been standing and fell through the floor. They were gliding through a sea of critters and not one of them was paying any attention to what they were doing. It was strange, but the critters never did anything he expected. If they continued to ignore them, there was a good chance they’d make it to the bottom of the nest. After such a hopeless start, the opportunity to make them pay for the death of his entire battle team spurred him to stay calm.
As they slipped from one tunnel to the next, Alice continued to badger him. “So, what if we live? Are you gonna dump me?”
Given they expected to be on a suicide mission, having a future was the last thing he’d worried about. “I haven’t thought about it.”
To his surprise Alice sniffled, making him suspect she was crying. “I thought you liked me.”
He was saved answering her, by slipping down another hole. He hadn’t thought about a future with Alice. Perhaps late at night while she was sleeping in his arms he could imagine being with her for a long time, but no man thought straight after good sex and by morning the intensity of the emotion was always gone.
Finally, on
e of the holes led to a chamber where the walls were streaked with blood. Lying in a crumpled heap was a Navigator and he slid through the goo until he could kneel by his or her side. Rolling the body onto its back, the armor was torn and blood had seeped through all of the layers. More than one critter must have torn into the man and he was dead.
Kneeling on the other side of the body, Alice began to sob. He reached an arm across the corpse and patted her armored shoulder. “It’s the way it is for us.”
“What does that mean?” She wailed in horror.
“We’re all soldiers so we know this how it can end.”
Now clearly beyond her ability to cope, she sobbed loudly. “That could have been you. If you hadn’t been knocked out, then you’d be here and not him.”
Settling back on his haunches, he studied her bent head while she struggled to lift the man’s helmet from his face. He was enjoying his relationship with her, but where it was a moment in time for him, he hadn’t realized how much she cared.
“You’re serious about me,” he said sounding surprised.
Still sniffling, she finally managed to unclip the helmet and eased the lower mask away from the man’s face. “That just means you’re not serious about me.” Now her hands were free, she used them to punch him in the chest. “You’re an asshole!”
Her sudden movement caught him by surprise and he slipped backwards in the goo, landing on his rear. It seemed that although the critters didn’t want to kill him today, his hellcat might. Rising to her feet and standing over him, she stepped across the corpse, aiming a heavy boot at his leg. “I deserve better than that. You should care about me!”
Before her foot could land, he rolled away and couldn’t suppress the laughter bursting from his chest. They were making their way to a chamber where he planned to become a suicide bomber, and his hellcat was going to kick his ass all of the way there. Slipping in the goo, he scrambled to his feet and turned to face her, only just managing to block a blow that would have thrown him down again.
Catching her other arm as it was about to descend on his chest and unable to hide his amusement, he said, “Stop it and stay on point. All of this going to be irrelevant when we get to the bottom of this nest.”
Pulling her arm from his grasp, she asked petulantly, “Why don’t you like me?”
“I do, but this isn’t the time or the place.”
“Are you gonna dump me after this?”
“No, I’m gonna be dead.”
“And if you’re not?”
She wasn’t going to let it go, and seeing no reason why he’d ever need to fulfil his promise, he replied, “Then we’ll get married and you can have ten babies and get fat.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“No, I don’t. I don’t want ten kids.”
Before she could answer, the corpse sat up. Sliding past his hellcat, he dropped to his haunches again, flicking his helmet up as he did. “You’re alive?”
The Navigator’s voice was croaky, but he replied, “No, I’m a zombie, dumbass.”
“Can you walk?”
“I’m bleeding bad and I’m outta power.”
Taking spare packs from his pouches, he and Alice pulled out the spent cartridges and put in new ones. Putting his hand under the man’s arm, he hauled him to his feet. “What happened?”
“I dunno. There were so many of them I was pushed down. I dunno where Ally and Donna are.”
“Why’s there blood on the walls.”
“There were the people trapped inside of them.”
The Navigator turned out to be a guy called Mark. He was badly injured, yet insisted on completing the mission with them. Mark had joined him from another squad and he didn’t know him well, but having found one of his people he hoped he might find more. Now anxious to make his way to the bottom of the nest, he and Alice helped Mark down each level. The deeper they went the fewer critters they found, and he was starting to wonder if there was anything at the bottom.
Dropping into another tunnel, they found a crumpled body. This time it was a woman and she was definitely dead. The visor on her helmet had been smashed and a critter had torn away her face, leaving such a bloodied mess he wasn’t sure who he was looking at.
With his face hardening in anger, he waved Alice away. “Keep looking for the next hole.”
“What about her?”
“She’s gone.”
Deep inside of the nest, he found Ally. Aside from Mark and Alice, his entire battle team were dead. He was saddened to lose good men and women, yet he was also proud they’d gotten so close to fulfilling the mission without him. They might have lost their lives trying, but they’d stood their ground and he could only salute them before turning away to finish what they’d started. Moving at a steady pace, it took them an hour of falling down holes and sliding through gaps in walls to reach what he assumed might be the bottom of the nest. His hellcat and Mark were still in the tunnel above him, when he fell through the floor and landed inside of a large chamber. At one end was a huge critter, at least five times the size of a normal one. It was spider-shaped, only its head was much larger. Skulking in the far corner it didn’t appear to have noticed his arrival.
“Alice, stay up there with Mike.”
“Why? What have you found?”
“I think this is the end of the line.”
“I’m coming down.”
“Mark, stop her.”
“Roger that.”
Inside of the pack strapped to his chest was dynamite, already jury-rigged to explode. All he had to do was light the fuse by pulling the igniter and he and the creature would die together.
Hanging her head down through the hole, Alice asked, “What’s it doing?”
“Nothing.”
“You should come back up.”
“What? Why would I do that?”
“You could just throw the dynamite in and we can go,” she chirped merrily.
He’d been so focused on making it to the bottom of the nest, expecting die alongside the creature, it had never occurred to him that there might be another way. Now Alice had voiced it, his head reeled with the possibility that they could make it out alive. Although the creature seemed oblivious to his presence, to be confident it was dead, he would need to detonate the bomb closer to it.
“It’s too far away.”
“Come back up and we whistle it over…like a puppy.”
His hellcat didn’t seem to be taking their situation seriously. Death was literally only thirty feet from where he was standing stock still, unwilling to move a muscle.
“C’mon, Hood. Get back up here,” she said brightly.
Still unsure whether he could kill it from above, Mark’s voice came through his speaker. “She’s right, Hood. Don’t leave me with her.”
“Why? What’s wrong with me?” She squeaked, sounding outraged.
“You’re a whole lotta crazy.”
Mark’s blunt observation made his decision for him. His hellcat really was crazy and he loved her for it. If there was a chance that he could live then he was going to take it. Stepping back carefully, he reached his arms above his head. “Lift me up…slowly. No fast moves.”
Alice latched onto his forearms, and with the power of her hydraulics, he felt his feet gently lifting from the floor. When his head popped through the sticky goo, Mark was bracing himself against the soft wall of the tunnel and he was holding onto her boots. No doubt, Mark was opening his wounds and bleeding for the effort. Once they escaped, he’d owe the man a beer, and the thought that he might be alive to fulfil his unspoken promise made him smile.
Slithering onto the floor, he tugged the pack from his chest and pulled out the dynamite and the igniter. Taking the spare fuse and crimpers from the pack, he carefully removed the two-inch long fuse from the blasting cap on the dynamite. Using the crimpers to cut a foot long piece of fuse, he hoped that this would give him about thirty seconds delay before the explosion. Crimping the fuse into the blasting c
ap, he attached the igniter to the end of it.
Once the bomb was ready, Alice held onto his legs to stop him from sliding, and he hung his head and half of his torso through the hole. Ordering his computer to give him an outside communications channel, he whistled loudly. “Yo, dumbass!”
Seeming to be thoroughly distracted, the creature didn’t react so he shouted even more loudly, “Hey! Hey! Ugly fucker! I’ve got a present for you.”
Finally, the creature moved on its twenty enormous legs, and if the critters could feel anything then this one appeared to be offended. Instead of scuttling, it lumbered towards him, lurching its huge torso forward. Now standing, it was at least thirty feet tall and pushing itself along, its oversized head scraped against the ceiling of the chamber. With blank eyeballs as large as his fist, it moved surprisingly fast for such a clumsy looking beast. He couldn’t tell if it was looking at him, but it was certainly heading towards him. Hanging upside down and relying on Alice to keep hold of him, he pulled the ring on the igniter. To his relief, there was the distinctive pop of the shotgun primer as it lit the fuse. Quickly throwing the homemade bomb, it landed in front of the creature’s many clawed feet. All of its twenty legs stopped moving and appearing puzzled, the creature’s head rotated downwards to stare at the package before looking up again. Although he wanted to see it blown back to hell, he couldn’t afford to have his head inside of the chamber and he called, “Now! Now!”
In response to his order, his body slithered back inside of the hole and the three of them rolled away, sliding on the gooey floor. The kick of the explosion could be felt as well as heard and the walls around them buckled.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: Spawned (Ark)
Tank and Leon were no longer responding to his calls, but sliding down another hole he tried again. “Leon. Tank. Do you copy?” When there was no reply, he said plaintively, “C’mon, guys, quit screwing around.”
Neither Lexie nor Jonesy commented on his endless calling to them, and even he was beginning to wonder why he couldn’t let it go. The deeper they went into the nest the less critters there were, and those they saw ran past them, making their way through the holes in the ceiling.