The Immortality Curse: A Matt Kearns Novel 3

by Greig Beck

  Khaled looked back to the ceiling. “Hurry up!”

  Abed giggled and turned to head back to the small building.

  “Get back here!” Khaled yelled, trying to keep his own panic in check as the man ignored him. Khaled lifted his face to the hole in the ceiling again just as more boulders dropped from the sky. They landed hard, some shattering into a thousand small, sharp projectiles, and others bouncing heavily like monstrous medicine balls capable of killing instantly.

  Zahil was just being pulled up to the rim, and Khaled cupped his hands around his mouth. “Hu-uuurry!” The man scrabbled now at the edge, nearly over. Khaled turned to Yasha. “We need to get Abed.”

  “No.” Yasha now had his flashlight pointed at the man disappearing in the darkness. “There’s something wrong with him. He’s different.”

  Khaled was torn, but glanced up to see Zahil finally disappear over the rim. “Merciful god”, he muttered. But then his breath caught as almost directly above them an entire section of the ceiling bent downward, hung momentarily, and then wrenched free. On the way down it separated into multiple deadly missiles, each weighing thousands of pounds.

  “Get down!” But he knew there was no shelter where they waited.

  It was like being carpet-bombed, as the stones, some the size of a man’s head, and some as big as hay bales thudded around them. The sound was near deafening and the vibrations loosened even more blocks overhead. Out to his left there was a huge impact, and he felt something wet splash his cheek and stick there.

  He wiped at it as he spun and saw that where Abed had been moments before, now there was just the remains of crushed flesh and clothing.

  Khaled has been through commando training himself, had been in death-dealing situations many times as a Saudi warrior and had nerves of steel. But right now he felt his own sanity slipping from naked fear. He tried to run across the rocks to reach his friend, but ever more stones thumped down, and the vicious assault forced him to retreat back under the halo of light, and the only section that didn’t have a rock ceiling over the top of them.

  He felt the heaviness in his soul at seeing his childhood friend obliterated, but mercifully the boulder hadn’t bounced away and after it had crushed him it remained embedded in place and spared them from seeing his face.

  A single arm still stuck out, its fingers hooked into claws of agony. And as Khaled wiped his eyes, he was horrified to see the fingers unfurl and then curl. Even though Abed’s face and chest was flattened to paste, his limbs refused to give up.

  Khaled felt light-headed and turned away. More stones fell – larger and faster now. Eventually the entire ceiling would come down, his men above would tumble in, and then they would all be buried alive.

  From the dark, the sound of something huge lumbering around them came again. Whatever it was, it pushed and threw large boulders out of the way and was coming back for them. Khaled remembered the gargoyle – impossible, his logical brain thought. But he knew now what it was: some sort of guardian that they had woken by disturbing Shem’s eternal sleep.

  He raised his eyes. Hurry, he prayed.

  Dust rained down, and he flashed his beam around the cavern, looking for any other safe haven while they waited. He touched on the small monastery. He was about to pull his beam away when the light glinted back from something on the steps at its front.

  At first he thought it was water pouring forth, surging and lapping and constantly changing in the angle of his light beam. Then he saw it for it was – a torrent, but not of liquid, instead of millions of the small thread-like worms that had been inside the body of Shem.

  They now surged toward him and Yasha.

  More boulders thumped down, making both men cringe with every impact. From above, the rope finally snaked back down. Khaled and Yasha got underneath it, their faces upturned to the light and their salvation.

  “We go together,” Khaled said.

  Yasha nodded, still looking up. He then turned his face to Khaled and grinned, but behind the bravado there was real fear in his eyes.

  “Keep looking to the rope, brother,” Khaled said, not wanting Yasha to see the horror creeping toward them. He knew the man’s sanity was on a knife-edge – as his was.

  He turned his flashlight back toward the monastery’s steps. The carpet of worms was spreading out, but it was hard to follow now, as it was disappearing into the cracks and fissures between the boulders. He couldn’t know whether the things were benign or not, but there was not a chance in hell he was going to let even a single one of them touch his skin.

  “Yes!” Yasha clapped his hands once as the rope finally came within reach.

  “Lash yourself in, quickly now.” Khaled bounded over rocks and joined his man, grabbing the end of the rope, and quickly throwing it around his waist, knotting it, and putting a loop around one wrist.

  “Pull up, now, now, now!”

  They were yanked up a few feet. Khaled snuck a quick look back and saw the worms gathering together, forming a pool below them. They seemed to hurry now, as if sensing their targets were escaping. It was obvious what they wanted – them.

  More worms poured forth from under the stone that had crushed Abed. Just like Shem, they were in him, he thought. Perhaps that was the reason for his friend’s strange behavior. He felt gorge rise in his throat and turned his face to the hole in the ceiling.

  “Pu-uuuulll!”

  They rose another few feet. The combined weight of himself and Yasha was challenging the three men hauling them up. The rope tugged and then jumped up another four feet. Khaled worried now that the edge of the rope would be pressing down hard against the jagged stone of the lip.

  They hung there for another few seconds. Come on, faster, he prayed, and chanced a look back down.

  Movement, but not the worms this time – something else, huge and cumbersome, moved into the light. Khaled lifted his gun and fired quickly three times. He knew he hit it, he thought all three times, but the thing shrugged the bullets off like they were nothing but bee stings. Huge yellow eyes fixed on him with such malevolence; he knew that it wanted to grind them into nothingness.

  He held his gun up and pointed right between the huge fist-sized yellow orbs. He noticed his hand shook, and he struggled to keep it steady. Below, just where they had been standing a few moments ago, the worms had coagulated into a single, large mass. The hair on Khaled’s head and neck rose as the worms climbed up on each other, creating a finger-like extension that stretched up toward them.

  “Hurry!”

  “What is it?” Yasha looked down and saw the glistening, now wrist-thick limb rising up toward them. “Gaagh!” He jerked his legs up beneath him, making the rope swing dangerously.

  “Be still, brother, keep looking up, just keep looking up.” Khaled tried to keep his voice calm, but felt the fear squeezing his throat. He saw the gargoyle begin to approach and he pointed his gun again, calming his breathing, and aimed at just one of the huge yellow orbs. He squeezed off a single shot and was delighted to see one of the glowing orbs close. The immediate hellish noise that followed confirmed the things could be hurt.

  They rose a little higher, and beside him Yasha crushed his eyes shut, and his lips moved in a silent, manic prayer. Khaled stared down as the tendril, now tree-trunk thick at its base but tapering to only finger width at the tip, reached ever higher. In the light thrown down from above, he saw that it shivered slightly as if excited anticipation ran through every living fiber that made up the biological mass. It was within a few feet of his boot now, and he carefully raised his own legs to match Yasha’s.

  It didn’t matter, the tendril rose, and they didn’t. I should cut myself loose, sacrifice myself, he thought. So at least one of us can survive. Khaled’s hand went down for his hunting knife, feeling the pommel. He unclipped the hilt strap.

  Just then they jerked, firstly back down a few inches, and then they were moving up fast. It was if they were on an express train, and they zoomed up the remainin
g fifty feet and were at the rim in only seconds more.

  The pair rolled free, and the first thing Khaled felt was the bite of snow on his face, and he quickly untied himself. He sat up, and then noticed the second thing – the hole was enormous now, and as they watched another huge chunk sank into the void below. Massive cracks appeared in the surface around it.

  Rizwan grabbed at his shoulder. “We need to get out of here.”

  He jumped to his feet, remembering they were standing on something that was like a giant bad tooth – a rim around a huge crater that had been artificially sealed over with stone.

  “Run!”

  The five men sprinted for the edge of the mountaintop that had a rock formation like a pair of huge sentinels – it was the closest area that had solid base underneath it.

  There came a brittle cracking sound followed by pops then booms as ground began to break apart, and then the entire top of the mountain fell in. The ancient monastery, the statues and stonework, and the hellish worms were buried beneath many million tons of rock and snow. If the mist had cleared, it would have seemed as if the mountain was erupting as huge clouds mushroomed into the air from its cone.

  The group fell to the ground, some lying flat and all gasping for breath. After a moment Rizwan started to laugh.

  “We’re alive.”

  “Not all of us,” Khaled snapped back at his man.

  Rizwan held up a hand, and touched his lips and forehead. “Peace be to our brothers, Abed and Hisham. Sorry.”

  Khaled sighed. “No, I’m sorry, brother.” He tried to smile, but still found it hard. “It is our lucky day. It could have been all of us buried.”

  “Or worse,” Yasha said. “This is a place of abominations.”

  Khaled nodded. “And perhaps that is why it was sealed away all those centuries ago.”

  Yasha leaned forward. “And God be praised, sealed away for good this time.”

  Rizwan pulled himself up to sit and rested his forearms on his knees. “But we still have no Ark.”

  “And no wellspring of youth. But now we have a reference to the Garden of Eden.” Khaled looked at his friend. “Akebu-Lan, in the kingdom of Bor-Nu.”

  “Do you think that truly is a place?” Rizwan drew in a cheek.

  “Maybe there was something like it once. It is all a puzzle, and like I said, we need an expert now.” He stood, stretched, and then groaned. “Getting too old for this.” Khaled dusted himself off. “And I think it is time I met with our elusive Professor Matthew Kearns.”

  Chapter 7

  Fort Severn, Hudson Bay, Northern Ontario, Canada

  Matt stared out the window of the Twin Otter turboprop plane. Though the propellers spun at around 3,000 rpms they were invisible and the sound muffled to a low whine by the reinforced skin of the fuselage.

  Normally, the Twin Otter could seat 19 passengers onboard, but today there was only he and Rachel. He still thought they needed more support, especially following the grenade attack, but she had assured him that they could use local manpower, and in the case of indigenous communities, he guessed she was right in that sometimes less was more.

  Rachel had organised an initial meeting with the Fort Severn policeman, a Nishnawbe-Aski officer by the name of Oscar Ojibwe. Just don’t expect the red carpet treatment, she had said.

  He felt a sudden squeeze on his knee – hard. Looking down he saw her hand moving away.

  “Still with me?” she smiled.

  “Sure, sure, wouldn’t want to be anywhere else,” he lied.

  “Except surfing?” She raised an eyebrow.

  “Well, yeah, there is that.” He returned her smile.

  She checked her watch, and then leaned toward their window. “We should be coming up on Fort Severn soon.”

  He looked out; below there was nothing but endless green with the occasional ribbon of water running through it. Even though it was relatively warm weather, the small, salmon-filled streams would be icy cold and their bleak, silver surfaces looked about as inviting as a dip in one of the moons of Mercury. He gripped the armrests, and felt his stomach tingle as the altitude fell away.

  “Going down,” he said softly.

  Fifteen minutes later the plane bumped down onto the packed earth runway, and Matt leaned forward to catch his first glimpse of the far-north Canadian town. There was a single flat building that could have been a scout hall, and a chain link fence, probably to keep the local moose from wandering across the extremely short runway. He couldn’t imagine what it must have been like trying to land a plane here in the depths of winter.

  The airplane came to the end of the runway and then turned 180 degrees to slowly power back toward the property. It was only then that Matt spotted the solitary figure leaning against the corner of the building.

  Rachel began to unbuckle her belt. “That’s our ride.”

  Matt squinted at the blocky figure.

  “Chief Constable,” she said and flipped her seat belt off. “The Nishnawbe-Aski Police Service has over a hundred Constables who act as the police force up here.”

  Matt was impressed. “That’s sounds a lot given how many people are up here.”

  “Are you serious?” Rachel scoffed. “Those hundred-odd guys are responsible for a jurisdiction the size of France. They might not get the number of drive-by shootings we see in the big smoke, but they’re kept pretty busy.”

  “And not to mention dealing with the odd FBI agent barging in on them.” He raised his chin.

  “And her trusty sidekick,” she retorted.

  Matt cocked an eyebrow. “I’m demoted to sidekick already?”

  “Yes, but I did say you were a trusty one.” She got to her feet. “C’mon, let’s meet Oscar. He’ll be our guide, taxi and font of local knowledge about all things local, so be nice.”

  “You know you said the same thing before I met with Eleanor van Helling, and guess which one of us walked away with a gift?” Matt stood.

  Rachel laughed, but then turned to look him in the eye. “Hey, did you bring it?”

  “Nah.” He shrugged. “The grenade attack destroyed it. It’s a piece of junk now. I just hope Eleanor doesn’t ever ask for it back.”

  “You’ll certainly lose your teacher’s pet status.” Rachel gave him a sympathetic smile. She nodded to the pilot as he came back through the plane, unlocked the door, pushed it open and then dropped the steps.

  Rachel was the first one down, with Matt following. He inhaled a cool dryness that tickled his nose. There was also a hint of fragrance he couldn’t place until he spotted the red dots of wild lingonberries clumped along the edge of the runway.

  “Constable Ojibwe.” Rachel waved.

  The man gave them an almost imperceptible nod, and then pushed off from the edge of the building. As they neared, they saw a battered blue pickup parked just around its corner. Rachel stuck out a hand, and the man grasped it, pressed, and released.

  Matt did the same, the skin on the man’s palm felt like it was made from old canvas stretched over hardwood. There was real strength in the grip. Now this is a guy who actually works for a living, he could hear his father say.

  “Howza flight?” His eyes flicked from Matt to Rachel.

  The man looked like he sounded – he had broad, strong features, a slight Native American epicanthic fold over each eye, and a well-tanned face. His thick black hair was swept back, and Matt guessed they were about the same age. But then again, who knew, as the guy worked outdoors, he could have really been a weather-beaten 20 year old.

  “The flight was good, easy.” Rachel swatted at a fly.

  “Do you need a place to rest up, grab a coffee, or sumthin?” Ojibwe waited.

  “Coffee’s always good, probably best if we grab one and talk for a while.” Rachel waved away even more of the insects.

  There was a whine at Matt’s ear, and it was only then that Matt noticed a small cloud gathering around his head. There was a stinging on his neck.

  “Ow.” He s
lapped a hand there, but there immediately came another sting on his check. “What the fuck?”

  Oscar grunted. “Blackfly. Pretty bad in summer. C’mon.” He turned to his pickup. Matt and Rachel followed, lugging their bags. Rachel turned momentarily to the plane and gave a thumbs-up. In the small cockpit window, the pilot touched the brim of his cap, and then the props started up, quickly increasing their rotation in preparation for his return flight.

  “Shit.” Matt slapped his neck again at another bite as the noise from the plane’s propellers drowned out everything else.

  The only one of them that seemed untroubled by insects was Oscar. He unlocked the pickup and they quickly clambered in.

  “Jesus.” Matt rubbed his ears and face. There were a few flies in the cabin that they quickly dispatched. Matt wiped his hands on his pants.

  “Why did I have the impression there’d be nothing but pristine water, clear air, and no damned flies? Especially ones that are determined to take big chunks out of you.” He lifted a hand still seeing smears of blood on the fingers – My blood or the fly’s? he wondered.

  “You come at a bad time.” Oscar shrugged. “Or a good time if you’re a blackfly. They’re only around for a few weeks, but in that time, all they do is eat and mate. Bit like college kids, huh, Professor?”

  “Except I’m stuck with the college kids for years not weeks.” Matt smiled. Oscar did not share his grin.

  The truck smelled like tobacco, old paper, and perspiration. Oscar turned on the wipers to smear away some of the bugs.

  “Any tips to avoid them?” Matt asked.

  Oscar grunted. “Don’t wear perfumes. I know how you city guys like that stuff – but so do the flies.” He turned back to the windscreen. “Also wear light-colored clothing, as the flies are usually attracted to moose and bear – both dark animals. Luckily, they’re only a problem during the day.”

  “Got it – avoid dark clothes during the day.” Rachel’s lip curled down. “Now if only someone had told me that before I left.”