by Pete Rawlik
Witnessing the presence of this creature, its actions, its size, its very existence, I became momentarily dumbstruck, and in that instant I lost my footing and slid from the top of the mounded debris, tumbling head first through the coarse gravel. My fall initiated a minor avalanche and my landing on the hard floor was accompanied by the sound of pebbles and rocks skittering, clattering and echoing through the chamber. I lay stunned for a moment surrounded by a sudden, relative silence. At first I thought I had suffered some sort of neurological trauma, for the pounding sound of the beast chewing through the rock had ceased to fill my ears. That delusion vanished as a new sound wormed its way toward me. I grabbed my supplies and blindly dashed across the floor, pursued by the sound of colossal limbs rushing after me. Hot breath blasted from behind me, whipping my body forward in terror. How I reached the safety of the tunnel, I did not understand, but I did, and I was again free to explore the dark labyrinth.
A few hours later, and several turns through the darkness, the horror of my encounter was supplanted by a wondrous new discovery. The latest chamber that I emerged into was a virtual paradise compared to those prior. The dominant feature was a large, roughly circular pond or small lake around which a lush garden of sedges, shrubs, bushes and small trees grew. Light in this chamber was provided by the same fungi that were present in the other chambers, but whereas previously the ceilings were dominated by a small number of specimens, the roof of this chamber was covered with thousands of such growths, so densely packed that in some areas the ceiling stone itself could no longer be discerned. Besides the fungi and plants, there was a myriad of small and primitive animal life darting about the chamber including a great diversity of beetles clumsily flying through the air on clunky, thick, veined wings, but neither was there any lack of swarming ants. Spiders, scorpions and centipedes were also represented, as well as invertebrates I could not readily recognize or classify. A great grasshopper-like thing came to roost on my hand, an event that apparently I was accustomed to, as I did not panic, but I soon discovered this was no ordinary orthopteran. While my initial attention was drawn to the ornately crested head and a colorful thorax, it was only when it prepared to leap that I noticed it bore not six legs but seven, having not a pair of femura modified for jumping but rather an asymmetrical set. Stunned, I watched as the thing deftly sprang away from me into the brush and toward the central pond. The miniature lake was cool and clear and teeming with life, including things akin to shrimp and crayfish. Algae and a leafy submergent macrophyte dominated the floor of the pool which was composed of a thick layer of loosely consolidated sand and rock. There was no evidence of larger predators: no tracks were evident and I heard no calls.
I thought perhaps to capture several of the shrimp-like creatures and cook them up for a warm meal. I waded into the pond and, using the shovel from my kit, slowly herded a few of the creatures into the shallows, then deftly slipped the blade under them and flipped the crustaceans onto the bank. Removed from their natural habitat, they flipped up into the air in random directions, trying to get back into the water. Satisfied with the clutch that I had captured, I stumbled my way out of the pond, losing my footing and sliding face first into the bank. I recovered, wiping the wet grit from my eyes and face. Bending down to gather up my fresh lunch, I found that it had vanished. I searched the grass and the nearby shrubs, but to no avail. I concluded that the things must have escaped back to the pond while I had stumbled out of it.
Frustrated, I stepped back into the water and again corralled a few of the creatures into the shallows and launched them onto the bank. This time I kept my eye on the creatures as they struggled to survive. They flipped into the air a few times, and then flopped weakly against the ground before settling down and resolving themselves to a few last twitches. As their pathetic twitching slowed, I reached out for them but withdrew my hand in fear. The five translucent grey decapods began to quiver again, more violently, where they lay on the grass and then slowly began to melt. Enthralled, I watched as the things sagged and then, not unlike hot wax, flowed into the moss without a trace. Cautiously, I reached out to touch the place where they had been, but nothing at all remained. I tore at the thin vegetation, scraping the clumps of tiny plants from the ground and tossing them violently into the air, heedless of where they might fall. My tantrum revealed nothing but the ubiquitous grey rock forming the walls and floors of the chambers and tunnels. Overwrought, I fell back and screamed in anguish.
My cry was countered by a tremendous roar, as if a titan had stirred. So loud was it that I could not identify where exactly it had come from. The trees and shrubs shook, small creatures dashed about in obvious fear, and in the distance one of the fungal lanterns shook loose from the ceiling and crashed through the canopy into the underbrush. The sound trailed off, fading to a deep grumble, then to a low hum, until finally only a faint trace of a vibration remained. In the meantime the small glade had grown deathly still and silent.
I scrambled to my feet and frantically grabbed my supplies. With my head down I was oblivious of anything beyond my narrow field of vision, but as I rose up and swung my backpack on I was shocked to discover the small glade-like area vanishing before my very eyes. Trees and shrubs were melting, forming huge pools of viscous fluid that flowed slowly back to the pond in the center of the chamber. The insects and other small life forms, suddenly deprived of cover, were swarming, forming thick banks of darkness that would hover in swirling banks of shadow that would suddenly coalesce and then collapse into a rain of gelatin.
I ran, ran as fast as I could toward the next tunnel while beneath my feet the mossy landscape dissolved. With each step forward, the ersatz ecosystem vanished. Like a tide going out, the glade and all its inhabitants flowed away from the outer walls, draining away, leaving only the cold, bare rock in its place. I ran, and the thick fluid splashed about me, covering my legs and then streaming off, as if contact with my very being was repulsive to it. As I reached the tunnel I paused, terrified by what was occurring behind me, by the noises, the horrible, tearing, wrenching noises, and fearful of embarking once more into the dark. An idea bubbled to the surface of my mind, and I suddenly understood the failure of Lot’s wife to avert her gaze, for I, too, looked back upon the devastation and destruction laying waste to the garden, and I heartily wish that I had not.
The great thing that rose up out of the central pit, that metamorphic mass from which all life in the chamber had collapsed and merged again, it towered like a titanic polyp, blindly craning about, searching, reaching out with monstrous tentacles to capture those stray spawnings that had not yet been reclaimed. At first I thought the devastation to be the result of some horrific biochemical process, perhaps a type of organic acid, spewed about, digesting everything for the monstrosity to feed upon, but as I watched in rapt horror, I knew that was not the case. For this thing, this gelatinous mass, was yet another form of the thing in the pit, one capable of more than simple replication of organs and appendages. This thing was even more advanced than the other, for as I watched the creature devour the once tranquil glade, I saw that beyond it, half-hidden by its own shadow, a new glade was taking form; trees and shrubs, animals of fantastic shape, all these were spewing forth, tearing themselves from the central mass, desperate to fill the void left behind. This metamorphic monstrosity was able to divide itself up into a myriad of component creatures and imitate them closely. It had created an entire habitat of plants and animals, nearly perfect to the casual observer, flawed only in its inability to mimic a single process, that which creates the leaf litter and other materials that form the detritus covering the forest floor. A simple process inherent in every form of life known to science, this thing could not mimic it for the simple fact that its creations did not die and rot but were only reabsorbed. This terrified me to the core. One might then suppose that the thing in its changing forms must be immortal, but instead I grew to suspect that it was all some sort of organic machine, using a process similar to cellular regener
ation but improved tremendously. The things cannot die, for they are not truly alive, at least not as we humans define it. With these horrific thoughts rambling through my head, I plunged headlong into the dark, winding labyrinth, and away from the monstrous form that had deceived me.
I ran until I collapsed from exhaustion. I was driven to put as much distance between myself and the monstrous landscape as possible. Somewhere along the way my legs gave out and I fell in a heap against a tunnel wall. When I awoke, my watch told me that I had been out for two days! I did not think it possible that I had slept so long, but the growth of hair on my head and my face suggested that this was the truth. After waking, I ate a small tin of meat. My supplies were still in good shape; I was eating and drinking much less than I thought I would need to. Indeed, I could not recall the last time I was actually hungry or thirsty.
After my repast, I tried to gain my bearings. I was briefly concerned that during my unexpected rest I might have gotten turned around and would therefore return to the chamber I had left. Thankfully, my electric light revealed a feature that I knew I had not passed before. In front of me was a great spiraled ramp, like the core of a conch, leading up into the ceiling. I followed it up, glad to be out of the labyrinth of tunnels.
The ramp emerged on one side of a vast cavern wholly unlike the chambers I had previously discovered. This one was more natural in shape, the dominant feature of the three-to-four-acre cave being a shallow pool dotted with small islands of rocky fragments and boulders. There was life in the water, small fish and some minute snails, both apparently feeding off of a slimy mold or bacteria that grew on the bottom. I suspected that in the deeper pools there were larger animals, perhaps in significant numbers. It seemed a necessity to support the predators that basked on the shores of the subterranean lake. They were penguins of a sort, monstrously large, and albino. I counted eight of them, and at five feet tall they posed some threat to me, for they were fast and their beaks are more than six inches long. But, lucky for me, uncounted generations in the dark had rendered them eyeless, and I with my two good eyes and electric lantern held a serious advantage. One of them wandered away from the rest, and I killed it to make sure it was real and not some sham crafted by the protoplasmic thing I had escaped. Oddly, I found the dead bird, and the rest of the flock, relatives perhaps of the extinct Anthropornis, comforting. Even in this monstrous form they represented a kind of recognizable normalcy, following established rules of biology and behavior. More so, they reinforced my belief that I must indeed be somewhere in Antarctica.
The new cavern was significantly colder than the chambers and tunnels I had left behind, and was fringed with small sheets of ice. Clusters of icicles hung down from the ceiling. Thankfully, the cold weather gear that I carried kept me warm. The pool itself was warmer than the surrounding air and seemed to contain a significant amount of sulfur. It was fed by a small stream that led off into one of several rough passages. I suspected that the source of the stream was a geyser or similar volcanic feature. I was tempted to try to find the source, but the passages were too narrow for even my lithe frame to explore. There were other, larger passages from which a haunting but welcome sound of wind emanated. I desperately wanted to dash down one of those tunnels, but for some reason I decided to stay amid the colony of mutant birds.
Following the shoreline, I found myself forced to work around to the dryer side of a particularly large boulder. In doing so, I startled a rather large penguin at least five and a half feet tall, and incredibly rotund, possibly topping out at over two hundred pounds. It screeched at me in anger and then scrambled away, diving onto its belly and using its arms as paddles to glide across the rocky ground. The whole event would have been comical had it not been for what the thing had left behind. There on the ground lay the remains of a smaller penguin from the head, upper torso and single wing that remained. Of the other wing, lower torso and legs I could find no trace, neither of flesh, feather or bone. Logically, I assumed that the victim had been killed some time before and then been subject to slow consumption, decay hampered by the cold. But that possibility was negated by what happened next, for the head of the dismembered bird suddenly reared up! The beak opened and closed as if trying to call out. In that moment, I was grateful that the thing lacked the ability to move air through its throat, for I am not sure I could have shouldered the burden of its miserable cries. I used the heel of my boot to put the thing out of its misery.
Given the desolation of the place, I was not surprised that the penguins, or at least one of them, had turned to cannibalism. What I did find amazing was that one could attack and devour another, flesh and bone included, before the victim had even expired. The speed at which such an event must occur, coupled with the strength needed to rend such an animal into digestible pieces, was truly frightening, and I realized that I must be on constant guard against attack. Towards this end I decided to fully explore the cave and all of its environs. Starting at the entranceway to the spiraling ramp, I worked my way clockwise around the lake, exploring the rocky strip that ran between the rim of the lake and the cavern walls. There was little to see. The terrain was uneven and covered with a loose gravel of black rock, peppered with larger rocks and the occasional boulder. The cavern walls were made of the same black stone and were equally uneven. In places large clusters of boulders formed plateaus six to eight feet off the ground. These, I noted, would make perfect places to rest and remain out of reach of the penguins.
Continuing on my way, I passed several fissures in the wall which had been worn smooth by millennia of trickling rivulets of water. The water was cold but clear with a heavy mineral taste. I took a few moments at one of the streams to wash the dirt and dust away. I gasped as the frigid water ran over my body. The mutant birds all turned to stare at me with blind eyes as I struggled to bathe. It was an unnerving sight, and I was happy when the flock finally went back to ignoring me.
As I reached the far side of the lake, I noticed an object that was neither the color nor the shape of the surrounding rocks. It was a sledge of supplies, cold weather gear, tinned food, lamps, clothing, a heater, a stove, a clutch of bamboo stocks, and several barrels of kerosene. There were footprints around it, boots all the same size. It was the first evidence of human life I had seen, and it sent my heart pounding. The sledge was pointed toward the mouth of a large cave from which a flickering pinprick of light could be seen. It couldn’t be more than a mile away. I grabbed a few supplies from the sledge and began to move down the tunnel, but then I stopped dead in my tracks, and the things in my arms tumbled and clattered against the rocky terrain.
In front of me stood the obese penguin that I had caught devouring one of its own. It was moving toward me, as if staring at me with those empty, eyeless sockets. I moved quietly to the left, and the monster bird mirrored me. I moved again, but again the mutant countered. I reached back slowly and pulled a bamboo stock from the sledge. The beast cocked its head and opened its mouth, revealing double rows of sharp, thorn-like teeth. Spittle dripped from those horrid fangs, and where it fell onto the rocks it hissed and sputtered like acid, and I finally understood how the thing had devoured the other penguin so quickly. Then as I watched, it shuddered. The sides of its head split open and two large black eyes shoved themselves up out of the skull and twisted back and forth in the rough sockets. It looked at me now with real eyes, saw the metal-tipped stick and screeched like some great raptor.
I stumbled backwards and landed against the sledge. The creature lunged forward. I swung the stock forward, and the bird’s fat belly slid over it and was slowly impaled. Though the basket was not present, the hooks used to attach it were, and it was these metallic spikes that tore into the bird’s spine and kept it from moving forward. The thing struggled to reach me, snapping and thrashing about violently, but to no avail. I pushed myself back and at the same time reached for another stock. The pinned beast shuddered once more and I paused, entranced by the horror that was unfolding before me. The monstrous
ly fanged beak split apart and peeled back, ripping the flesh off the skull. The exposed throat swelled and a frightful thing that bore some resemblance to the mouth parts of a squid shot out at me. Reflexively, I thrust the stock forward and into the center of the gnashing parts, driving them back into the main body of the thing. It wailed and squirmed, desperate to release itself from the two shafts that held it in place. The flesh elongated, stretched and then pulled apart, and two replaced the single beast that had confronted me moments before. They slid about and slowly worked their way off of my makeshift spears. Thinking quickly, I grabbed one of the lamps, undid the fuel cap and poured kerosene over the two squirming masses. I hastily struck a match and tossed it into the fuel. The flames engulfed the things, and they squealed in agony, their limbs flailing about. The smoke turned black and acrid, and whatever the monstrous penguin degenerated into, I could not precisely discern. It was a pulpy, protoplasmic thing that writhed within those flames, another thing that was not what it appeared to be, and I was glad to put some distance between myself and the smoldering masses that remained.
I crashed through that rocky tunnel, heading blindly toward that distant glow. Instinctively I knew that the light was neither a lantern nor some strange assemblage of fungi. The color was all wrong, the white glow soft and inviting. I drove myself forward at breakneck speed, tripping over rocks and climbing over boulders. The rock floor covered with gravel gave way to a landscape of scattered stones, and then an obstacle course of boulder fragments. In the end I was scrambling over boulders larger than me. They peppered the ground that led up to a rough wall that filled the entire passageway. Only a single opening, maybe four feet in diameter, provided a break in the blockage, and from this the light emanated. But it wasn’t only the light that poured from that hole. With it came a terrifying wind, a blasting jet that surged icily into the tunnel and carried with it stinging, biting crystals of ice.