Immortal

by Dean Crawford

  Ethan whirled to see Lopez ramming the wicked bayonet of her rifle straight into the chest of a screaming soldier. He shouted her name and tossed his pistol in a graceful arc toward her. Lopez whirled and caught the pistol before diving for cover behind scattered rocks and opening fire on their attackers.

  Ethan dashed back into the cave, struggling to see as he plunged into the darkness.

  70

  Jeb Oppenheimer cackled to himself as he clambered awkwardly over endless jagged rocks in the darkness, his way lit only by the solid-gold lighter he held like a lantern in front of him, a white handkerchief wrapped around it to protect his fingers from the heat. The interior of the cave was low, forcing him to stoop in order to move forward. But he could smell a breeze that drifted into his face from somewhere ahead in the impenetrable blackness, cool air touched with the scent of damp but also of something else, an almost clinical smell that he could not identify but which seemed somehow familiar.

  The noise of fighting behind him had faded, the complex turns and twists in the cave deadening all sound. Drops of water plopped in fat drips into puddles on the ground, seeping through the bedrock from hilltops hundreds of feet above his head. The thought of millions of tons of solid rock bearing down upon the chamber from above sent a wriggle of fear twisting through his gullet but he pushed on, driven by the knowledge of what resided somewhere deep within these prehistoric caves.

  Ahead, the weakly flickering flame of his lighter reflected off something embedded in the rocks that glittered like pearls. Oppenheimer slowed as the low ceiling of the tunnel rose and he squeezed through a narrow vertical cleft in the rocks into a chamber filled with a shimmering pool of crystalline water so clear that the light of his flame illuminated the floor perhaps twenty feet beneath the surface.

  But that was not what drew his eyes and caught the breath in his throat.

  Above his head, immense crystals like giant geometric tree trunks were lodged at angles to span the width of the chamber above the shimmering water. Like giant causeways made of translucent glass, they criss-crossed above the water and sparkled in the weak light of the flame as though encrusted with jewels.

  ‘Gypsum,’ Oppenheimer gasped, recognizing the immaculate nature of what was otherwise a nondescript mineral.

  But here it possessed a purity the likes of which he’d never seen. He began easing his way into the cave, staring in awe at the crystals and the flickering water. The strange scent he’d detected earlier tainted the air around him, and he recognized it as ammonia. A flickering motion on the cavernous ceiling caught his eye, and he looked up to see bats roosting in their thousands above him, their wings fluttering as they clung to their rocky domain. As they did so, he saw an occasional droplet of fluid fall from the heights, dropping into the water with a tiny splash and ripple, the cause of the endless shimmering of the surface.

  Slowly, placing his feet near the edge of the pool, Oppenheimer peered over the edge. There, deep below the surface, he watched the tiny droplets fall through the beautifully clear water to join a bizarrely colored deposit deep beneath the surface, a kaleidoscopic multitude of fungi and mosses. Oppenheimer guessed that the droppings in the water must clear overnight when the bats were out hunting, settling on the bottom of the pool. In the reflection from the surface of the water that illuminated his wrinkled face, Oppenheimer saw his own smile beaming back at him like a shimmering ghost as a disembodied voice echoed through the cave around him.

  ‘It’s guano.’

  He whirled to see Lillian Cruz watching him from the entrance to the chamber. Oppenheimer regarded her for a moment and then decided that she was no threat to him as he turned back to the water.

  ‘The guano has ammonia in it,’ he said, almost to himself.

  Lillian stepped into the chamber, gesturing to the water. ‘It also has high levels of phosphorus and nitrogen,’ she said. ‘Along with ammonia it contains uric, oxalic, phosphoric and carbonic acids, various earth salts and nitrates.’

  Jeb Oppenheimer’s mind was working overtime as he nodded to himself, gesturing to the giant gypsum crystals soaring above the chamber.

  ‘The gypsum and sulfur crystals mean speleogenesis: cave forming by sulfuric acid dissolution,’ Oppenheimer said. ‘The limestone cavern would have formed from the bottom up, in contrast to the normal top-down carbonic acid dissolution mechanism of cave formation. Sulfuric acid, derived from hydrogen sulfide, would have migrated from nearby oil deposits.’

  ‘The cave then floods over time with water draining through fissures from the ground above, creating these pools,’ Lillian added.

  Oppenheimer nodded eagerly, gesturing up at the crystals with his cane. ‘The water falls,’ he said, ‘hitting the crystals and sometimes taking with it bacteria that were encased within the crystals when they formed millions of years ago, bacteria like Bacillus permians.’

  Lillian nodded.

  ‘The bacteria fall into the water and mix with the guano at the bottom. Phosphorus in guano is an essential plant macronutrient,’ she said, ‘that’s why it’s used so heavily in fertilizers. The guano, laden with the bacteria, are kept in solution by the water in the pool. The bacteria, provided with a nutrient source by the guano, are reanimated and come into contact with all manner of mosses, fungi and bottom-feeding invertebrates.’

  Oppenheimer’s laugh rattled out in the chamber, echoing back and forth around them as he spoke.

  ‘Some insect and invertebrate species are semi-aquatic, and others live on the surface. They consume the bacteria-laden guano, and are likewise consumed by the bats that hunt them!’ Slowly he turned to face Lillian, his wrinkled features alive now as finally, after so many years, he realized that he had found something that had existed in folklore for millennia. ‘The bats carry the bacteria, giving them their unusually long lifespans. They also process the bacteria through their gut and excrete many of them back into the water, or spill blood through injury into the pool.’

  Lillian nodded, and despite the fact that he knew she hated him, she smiled.

  ‘Which over time ladens the water with the very fluids the bats have ingested, alive with a form of Bacillus permians that has evolved within these caves to live symbiotically within mammals.’

  ‘But what was the fuel?’ Oppenheimer struggled to understand. ‘What metabolism was required to sustain them for such long periods inside human beings?’

  Lillian no longer held the truth back from Oppenheimer. In fact, she appeared to enjoy revealing to him what she had learned. ‘Iron, from the hemoglobin in blood,’ she replied. ‘Anyone who carries the infection will suffer from anemia if iron supplements are not provided in their diet.’

  Oppenheimer looked at her pleadingly, like a child who has misbehaved yet yearns desperately for one last chance.

  ‘But how could it have made the transition to humans through a single encounter?’

  Lillian regarded the old man for a long moment before replying.

  ‘Cross-species communication is possible in bacteria through something known as quorom sensing. The bacteria use it to coordinate gene expression via the density of their population. If there’s enough of them present in a biological species, the genes are activated and any infection shows symptoms.’

  ‘My God,’ Oppenheimer exclaimed. ‘Like the bioluminescent luciferase in fish that glow underwater, produced by Virbio fischeri. The gene cannot be expressed by a single cell, only when the population is large enough does the production of luciferase begin.’

  ‘The bacteria’s ability to express the gene is only activated when enough are consumed by the host species,’ Lillian confirmed.

  Oppenheimer gasped, touching his head with one hand.

  ‘The only people who have ever been down here long enough to consume enough of the bacteria to activate them were those Civil War soldiers. Which means that they must have got their infection from . . .’

  Oppenheimer stared at the beautiful waters at his feet as Lillian took a few pa
ces forward to join him. Her voice, soft as it was, carried throughout the cavern and into Oppenheimer’s ears with the words he had once believed he would never hear.

  ‘This is the water,’ she said quietly. ‘This is the elixir, the real fountain of youth. Ellison Thorne and his men drank the water here while they waited for the Confederate army to pass them by in 1862. They did not age from that day onward.’

  Oppenheimer, his eyes alight with joy, let his cane fall onto the rocks beside him as he got down on his knees, tears dripping from his face to ripple into the water.

  ‘And this is our ticket out of here,’ he whispered to his own reflection. ‘They dare not shoot us, if we’re uninjured and already carrying the infection.’

  Slowly, he lowered his lips and they finally touched the surface. It was icy cold, clear, finer than the most expensive wine he had ever tasted. It surged through him as though he were forcing ice cubes down his throat, filled him with a tingling sensation as though his very nerve endings were sparking electricity onto the charged air in the chamber.

  Finally, Oppenheimer stopped drinking and turned as he knelt beside the water, looking up at Lillian Cruz. He smiled broadly, just in time to see Lillian’s features melt into an expression of pure hatred as she lunged down and grabbed the back of his head and plunged it beneath the surface. As the freezing water swallowed his head, Oppenheimer heard Lillian’s voice shouting at him above the bubbles and splashes as he fought for his life.

  ‘You wanted to be here so much? Now you can damned well stay here!’

  Oppenheimer’s ruined lungs ached, his aged heart thumped in his emaciated chest and his eyes bulged as he fought the urge to breathe. The clear view of the bottom of the pool swirled and starred as his vision faded. He was losing consciousness when he saw Lillian’s hand plunge into the water beside his head, holding a small plastic container that held what looked like a ball of iron surrounded by flesh. Water from the pool filled the container, and then it vanished again as a black cloud descended over his vision. He heard a faint voice from somewhere on the periphery of his consciousness.

  ‘Get off of him!’

  Suddenly the immovable weight of Lillian’s body vanished, and Oppenheimer lurched upright and out of the water. He sucked a huge volume of air into his lungs. His vision returned as he sagged backwards onto the damp rocks just in time to see Saffron hurl Lillian Cruz to one side.

  Ethan burst into the chamber just in time to see Lillian Cruz staggering to her feet, water pouring from her arms. Oppenheimer sat in a drenched huddle beside the pool, Saffron standing protectively over him.

  ‘We’ve got to get out of here!’ Ethan yelled, grabbing Lillian and propelling her out of the chamber. ‘Get to the surface!!’

  Lillian glared at Jeb Oppenheimer and Saffron, but she obeyed and dashed out of the chamber. Ethan turned to Saffron.

  ‘It’s time to go,’ he said.

  ‘I’m not leaving him here,’ Saffron shot back.

  ‘Fine!’ Ethan shouted, losing patience. ‘Let’s just get out of here!’

  Jeb Oppenheimer struggled to his feet.

  ‘I’m not leaving without samples,’ he insisted, gesturing at the huge crystals with his cane. ‘Help me get them before we leave.’

  Ethan almost laughed.

  ‘Like hell,’ he said, and grabbed Saffron’s arm. ‘Come on, let’s go.’

  Ethan had almost turned his back when he heard the sound of a gun’s mechanism being cocked. He turned to see the old man holding a small, snub-nosed pistol in his right hand. Ethan froze as Oppenheimer smiled grimly.

  ‘I never leave home without one,’ he said. ‘Now, get up there and get me some of those crystals or I’ll put a bullet in you.’

  Ethan stared in disbelief as Oppenheimer walked away from the pool and positioned himself between the chamber exit and Ethan and Saffron.

  ‘Are you really that insane?’ Ethan demanded. ‘We could be buried alive in here at any moment.’

  ‘Best hurry then!’ Oppenheimer cackled, gesturing with the pistol. ‘Move!’

  Ethan shook his head.

  ‘No. You’ll never be able to climb up there on your own, so without me you’re screwed.’

  Oppenheimer’s face wrinkled up on itself in furious defiance.

  ‘Not quite.’

  Oppenheimer shifted his aim and before Ethan could even register what he was about to do, he fired a single shot that rang out deafeningly loud in the chamber. Saffron cried out as the bullet thumped into her belly and out through her side, ricocheting off nearby rocks and zipping away into the chamber.

  71

  Ethan lunged forwards and caught Saffron as she toppled sideways from the impact, her eyes wide with shock and disbelief and her face suddenly pale. He lowered her down as gently as he could, pushing fist-sized rocks out of her way before setting her down. He let his hand fall on one of the rocks as he spoke to her.

  ‘Don’t panic,’ he said desperately. ‘Keep your heartbeat as slow as you can, so you don’t bleed too quickly.’

  ‘It’s a stomach wound,’ Oppenheimer cackled, moving closer. ‘She’ll leak the contents of her gut into her bloodstream and die from blood poisoning. You’ve got about five minutes before it’ll be too late to save her.’

  Ethan let go of Saffron’s body and turned to glare at Oppenheimer. For a moment he considered simply doing what the old man said, but suddenly he was overcome with an intense desire to deny the old bastard what he wanted once and for all.

  ‘Go to hell,’ he uttered. ‘I’d sooner die.’

  Oppenheimer glared at Ethan.

  ‘Get up there and collect those crystals or I swear I’ll shoot you where you stand.’

  ‘Do it,’ Ethan said. ‘You’ll never get them, not from me and not from Saffron. You’re finished, Jeb, totally finished. At least let Saffron live even if you kill me.’

  Oppenheimer turned slightly and pointed the pistol at Saffron again.

  ‘Do it, you cretin, or I’ll shave another few minutes off her life.’

  Ethan looked down at Saffron, who stared up at him through her pain and shook her head vigorously. Ethan looked back up at the crystals and then turned, swinging his arm to hurl the rock in his hand up into the cavernous vault of the chamber. The rock smashed into the ceiling above and instantaneously the giant flock of bats screeched in unison, spilling from the chamber’s roof in a screaming black avalanche of wings and teeth. Ethan ducked down as the bats raced past in a thick black fog and blasted into Jeb Oppenheimer as they raced for the cavern exit. Ethan heard the old man curse and drop his cane as the bats slammed into him, the pistol firing a wild shot in Ethan’s direction.

  Ethan launched himself forward and crashed into Oppenheimer, pinning the pistol between them as they smashed into the rocks. Oppenheimer gagged in agony as sharp stones stabbed through his dirtied suit and punctured his skin, flecks of saliva and mucus spilling from his mouth as he cursed and scratched at Ethan’s face with his nails. Ethan pulled away from the attack, keeping hold of Oppenheimer’s gun and twisting it from his grasp. The old man cried out in fury, reaching down to one foot with his free hand. Ethan glimpsed a small knife that Oppenheimer grabbed from a sheath at his ankle and whipped around toward Ethan’s flank. Ethan reached out for the blade but he couldn’t move quickly enough to block the blow. Something grated against his ribs and vibrated through his flesh as the blade plunged hilt deep into his side with a dull thud. He jerked away from the blade and rolled off the old man as he grabbed the blade’s handle. Oppenheimer scrambled to his feet, the pistol still in his grasp as he aimed it between Ethan’s eyes and glowered down at him as his chest heaved for breath.

  ‘Nice knowing you,’ Oppenheimer cackled, and squeezed the trigger.

  ‘Grandpa!’

  Ethan glanced behind Oppenheimer, to see Saffron on her feet and looming behind Jeb. The old man whirled in surprise, just in time for Saffron to catch his gun wrist in her left hand and twist it violently upon
itself. Saffron’s shrill scream of anguish echoed through the chamber as she yanked Oppenheimer’s arm down and brought her knee up into his elbow. A crack like the snapping of a twig echoed through the cavern as Oppenheimer’s arm broke mid-joint, the pistol clattering to the rocks at his feet.

  Ethan, pain searing his body, watched as Saffron glared down at her grandfather as she held him by his broken arm.

  ‘My grandmother would have hated what you’ve become,’ she hissed at him.

  Oppenheimer, his voice tight with agony and fear, pleaded with her.

  ‘This is worth it, Saffy,’ he croaked. ‘Every step of this journey, it’s worth it.’

  Saffron twisted his arm harder, provoking a squeal of pain.

  ‘Not for me.’

  Saffron drove her knee into Oppenheimer’s gut. The old man’s eyes bulged as a blast of foul air spilled from his lips. Saffron spun on her heel and pulled hard, hauling his wiry body over her shoulder. Jeb Oppenheimer screamed in pain as he was flipped over her body and plunged backwards into the pool, Saffron’s weakened legs buckling as she fell on top of him and clasped her hands around his throat.

  Ethan dragged himself up onto his elbow to see the old man thrashing hopelessly in the water, his white suit weighing him down and his broken arm useless by his side as he sank below the surface in Saffron’s furious grasp. Above the thrashing water of her grandfather’s desperate death throes he could hear Saffron crying, and then the water fell still beneath her, expanding ripples drifting out toward the distant reaches of the chamber. Saffron stared down at the roiling surface of the water and cradled her bleeding stomach. Ethan struggled over the pain in his side, and clambered up the rock face beside him to regain his feet and limp across to her. He looked down into the pool, where Jeb Oppenheimer sank slowly away to sprawl motionless on the bottom, staring up with wide, lifeless eyes.