Threshold

by Jeremy Robinson

  Run, run, run!

  The upward sloping tunnel made King’s acceleration much slower than he would have preferred. If the sandfish pack hadn’t snapped and fought for position as they gave chase, King wouldn’t have made it ten feet.

  They entered the tunnel behind him like a wave of flesh, roiling up onto the wall before settling back to the tunnel floor. As they ran, their clawed feet arched wide, occasionally slashing their neighbor’s side or limbs. But the pain and smell of blood in the air only added to their frenzy.

  King glanced back and again considered using a grenade. He might be buried alive with them. As they gained, he decided that being crushed to death was preferable to being devoured. Once he was out of the tight confines of the tunnel, he would toss one of his three grenades. That is, if he made it out of the tunnel.

  With the nearest sandfish nearly upon him, King took aim with his pistol and fired four shots. Three out of four struck the beast. It collapsed in a heap, stumbling those behind it and allowing King to gain some much needed distance. As he neared the tunnel exit, King pulled the pin on his grenade and dropped it, letting it roll down the tunnel floor.

  King exited the tunnel, stepped to the side, and covered his ears. The explosion blasted from the mouth of the tunnel like a cannon. Grenade, stone, and flesh confetti shot out.

  As the dust settled, King turned his light down the tunnel and saw that the ceiling had caved in, filling the void with sand. Before he turned away, King saw the sand move. It shook from within. A small avalanche rolled down the side. And then, as though squeezed out of a pore, one of the sandfish slid out of the wall of sand and continued its pursuit undeterred. Three more quickly followed.

  King overturned tables as he ran toward the next set of steps, hoping they would slow the monsters. He eyed the circle of statues, expecting them to reach out for him as well. But they remained immobile. As he started up the stairs he heard the tables shatter beneath the weight of his pursuers.

  With his light and eyes forward, King couldn’t see the sandfish behind him, but he could hear their claws clacking against the stone steps.

  The stairwell opened up to the atrium and he realized he had no plan of escape, only a one-way chase. As he entered the atrium, movement to his right caught his attention. He dove forward and crouched into a roll.

  A moment later the nearest sandfish leaped from the tunnel, its jaws open, ready to engulf King’s head. But the beast never made it. What looked like a long serrated spear stabbed the lizard through its head and pinned it to the floor. The sandfish twitched madly for a moment and then lay still.

  What the fuck? King thought. He followed the spear up expecting to see someone standing above him, but the weapon’s source blended into the stone wall. A second lizard, fueled by bloodlust exited the tunnel. With a quickness King didn’t think possible, a second spear shot through the sandfish’s skull. Again, the spear appeared to have come from a living wall. For a moment King thought he might be witnessing some kind of golem.

  Then it moved and he saw the awful truth. The creature was speckled brown, perfectly camouflaged for the brown stone found throughout the region. Standing still, it had been all but invisible against the wall.

  This was the presence he had detected before: a ten-foot-long, nearly eight-foot-tall praying mantis—a desert mantis to be exact.

  It turned its triangle head toward him. The tilt of the head looked freakish, rotating almost a full three hundred degrees. Its two oval eyes, impossible to escape, honed in on him. He could feel the thing analyzing him. Its head twitched to alternating angles. Then its gaze rolled back toward the tunnel. The remaining two sandfish had arrived, and they were still hungry.

  As the mantis flung one of the impaled sandfish away, a second oversized lizard clamped down on its leg. But the giant insect showed no reaction. It simply shook off the impaled lizard, took aim, and pierced the skull of the newcomer while it was still clamped down on its foreleg.

  The fourth sandfish had eyes only for King. It charged beneath the praying mantis, intent on capturing its prize even while the massive insect turned its brethren into shish kabob. But it wasn’t the only one with eyes on King. It was swatted to the side by a second mantis. The sandfish toppled and rolled, smashing into a far wall. The impact seemed to knock some sense into the lizard. It righted itself and took off running down one of the side tunnels.

  The mantis swiveled its head toward King. He could see the tension in its dangerous forelimbs building for a strike. The strike of a mantis was one of the quickest, most violent acts in the natural world. Quicker than the human eye could perceive, the limbs could snap out and ensnare pray between its femur and tibia, both of which were lined with needle-sharp spikes. To a human, those small spikes are normally an insignificant threat. Right now, the smallest were three-inch-long blades. The longest matched King’s seven-inch KA-BAR knife. If just one of those arms caught him, he’d be pierced upward of twenty times, perhaps even lopped in two. He had no intention of letting that happen.

  Not wanting to miss, King took aim at the creature’s chest and fired a single round. It made no sound, but took a step back. Its limbs twitched for a moment. Its head spun around, back and forth, as though looking for the source of its pain. Not finding anything and having fully regained its composure, it turned its head back to King.

  But he was already up and running.

  Its head snapped up and quickly caught sight of him.

  He jumped into the central pool and ran across to the other side. He snuck a glance over his shoulder and saw the mantis giving a kind of slow-motion pursuit. The giant insect rocked back and forth with each step, as though tentative. He also noticed the second mantis had left the dead lizards and had joined in the dancelike pursuit.

  King wondered if this was really the fastest an oversized mantis could move. Then decided against it. What they were doing couldn’t even be considered pursuit. They knew something he didn’t. He found out exactly what that was when he turned around. Standing above him on the staircase was a third mantis, its forelimbs hunched up high as though in prayer.

  King made a preemptive dive to the side. Had he waited for the mantis to attack, he wouldn’t have even registered its strike until his body had been turned into a pincushion. Even with his fast action he didn’t fully escape the attack. The strike hit the rubber of his boot and nearly snapped his leg from the impact. It threw off his jump as well. He landed in a heap on the stairs, striking an elbow and knee hard.

  But he didn’t let the pain slow him. The mantis was already retracting its forelimbs for a second strike. King took aim, this time for the head, and fired off three rounds. Each found its mark, entering the insect’s bulbous right eye and passing through the head. But the first two missed the tiny brain. Even with one eye destroyed and two holes in its head, all its vital functions remained intact. If not for the third round, which pierced the small brain, the creature would have continued happily. With its control center destroyed, the mantis twitched madly, falling down the stairs.

  Once the danger of being struck by one of the shaking limbs passed, King wasted no time launching himself back up the stairs. This time, the two remaining mantises gave chase in earnest. He could hear the rapid-fire clicking of their limbs on the stone floor, and a barely perceivable squeaking, like mice.

  Are they communicating? King wondered, but pushed the thought from his mind and focused on escape. The only spot he knew was close to the surface was where he fell in. But climbing back into the sand and out of the ruins would be impossible.

  Unless I open it up. As his plan began to come together, he looked down and saw two snapping sets of beaklike mandibles rising up behind him. Both mantises had quickly closed the distance and were poised to strike. He jumped up, narrowly avoiding a dual amputation. The loud crack of mantis forelimbs on stone stairs sounded like gunshots. When he came down he wasted no time and jumped again, this time out and away from the insects.

  King entered
the long tunnel and broke into a sprint, keeping his eyes on the ceiling, looking for the crack that sucked him in and deposited him in this hellhole.

  He saw it ahead.

  After holstering his weapon, he took out a second grenade and prepared to pull the pin. His timing would have to be precise, and his luck monumental.

  Twenty feet from the fissure, he pulled the pin.

  As he passed beneath the crack, he leaped up as high as he could, shoved his fist into a sandy hole in the rock filled gap and deposited the grenade inside. After landing he ran for another thirty feet and then stopped.

  He turned around and raised his light. The tunnel behind him was alive with movement. The mantises were still giving chase, though more slowly as they had to actually duck to fit into this tunnel. If the two mantises passed the fissure before the grenade detonated …

  But they didn’t.

  The grenade exploded with a deafening boom. King fell to one knee, dropping his flashlight and clasping his hands to his ears. He opened his eyes to see a cloud of dust and sand swirling in the tunnel. But it was the brightness that held his attention. It was like looking through a blizzard, but he could see a portion of the far ceiling had fallen in at an angle, spilling its sand into the tunnel. It formed a convenient exit ramp.

  Then sand began to fall from his side of the tunnel. The ceiling shifted. The roof over his head was coming down as well and if it didn’t crush him outright, it would trap him on this side of the tunnel.

  He ran for the exit.

  The tunnel ceiling tilted under the weight of the earth it held, dumping a curtain of sand that blocked out the sun. King dove through the wall of falling sand and landed in sunlight.

  The tunnel ceiling collapsed behind him, dropping down at an angle and spilling its sand around his legs. After kicking free from the sand, King crawled up the rise and caught his breath at the top. Sitting atop the hill he could see the base across the river. There were no running troops. No action at all. His battle beneath the sands had gone undetected.

  Then the sand within the newly form pit shifted. A mound rose up and shifted toward him. A second followed.

  The mantises had found a way through.

  King stood and ran, headed downhill toward the river.

  “Bowers! Start the engine!”

  He saw Bowers stand up, his head appearing over the sand like a groundhog. He gaped at what he saw: King running down the hill with two giant insects emerging from the sand behind him. The cigarette in the man’s mouth fell free as one of the mantises swiveled its head in his direction, locking its hungry eyes on him.

  SIXTY-NINE

  Location Unknown

  FIONA’S JOINTS THROBBED as she pulled herself off the floor. In fact, her whole body had begun to ache. But she heard voices again and needed to know what was happening. She was the next guinea pig in line and wanted to be prepared for whatever might come.

  The deep voice returned. As did the wet voice. And a whimpering. Whoever they were experimenting on this time was not as strong-willed as the last. She could hear belt buckles being cinched tight, which brought the occasional high-pitched squeal, but not a word or protest.

  “Cainan, are we recording?” the deep voice asked.

  “Not yet, Alpha,” replied a new voice that sounded nearly identical to the first. Was he talking to himself? Or were there really two people? Alpha, the man with the deep voice who had been there all along, and Cainan, whose voice was so similar. Then there was the one with the wet voice. He had yet to speak, but always seemed to be at Alpha’s side.

  “Recording,” Cainan said.

  There was a shifting of light in front of the tunnel as someone walked past. Fiona strained to see, but her view was blocked by the narrow hallway.

  There was no warning from Alpha, he simply launched into the strange language, speaking slowly, carefully enunciating. “Arzu Turan. Vish tracidor vim calee. Filash vor der wash. Vilad forsh.”

  No one spoke or moved for ten seconds. During that time, Fiona repeated the words in her head, over and over, committing them to memory.

  Then someone asked, “Did it work?”

  “Remove the tape,” Alpha said.

  The woman’s mouth was taped shut, Fiona thought. That’s why she hadn’t complained.

  There was a sharp tear, but still no complaint from the woman.

  “How are you feeling?” Alpha asked.

  “Blessed,” the woman replied, her voice as heavily accented as the man killed earlier. If they were capturing locals, then she was being held someplace in the Middle East.

  “Blessed?” Alpha said, his voice tinged with humor “How so?”

  “To be in your presence.”

  “And who am I?”

  “The Lord God.”

  Fiona couldn’t see the man, but she knew he must be smiling.

  “I am.”

  “My God, it worked,” said a farther-off voice that didn’t belong to Alpha or Cainan. How many of them were there?

  “Was there ever any doubt?” Alpha replied. “Play back the recording.”

  After a moment, a tinny version of Alpha’s voice repeated the phrase. “Arzu Turan. Vish tracidor vim calee. Filash vor der wash. Vilad forsh.”

  Fiona followed along, making sure she had the phrase memorized correctly, but her train of thought was interrupted by a shrill scream, followed by a stream of curses in a language she couldn’t understand. Whatever had been done to the woman had been undone when the phrase was repeated.

  The woman’s screams became frantic and high-pitched, her voice angry and then desperate. A gunshot blasted, echoing in the tunnels.

  Fiona fell back, clutching her ears.

  The woman was dead. Silence followed.

  Fiona fought against her tears, picked up a stone, and crawled to the side wall of her cell. As her emotions sapped the last of her energy, she began scratching at the wall with the stone.

  SEVENTY

  Babylon, Iraq

  BACK IN THE open air, King was more in his element, but the oversized mantises showed no signs of being slowed by the sand. They not only skittered quickly over it, but they now moved in silence.

  The loose sand of the desert shifted beneath King with every step, slowing him. But his course was straight and his legs fast. The river lay ahead, and the small black boat that would carry him across—if Bowers got his shit together and started it.

  As though he’d seen the annoyance on King’s face, Bowers turned the key on the boat and it started with a roar. But he’d failed to notice that half the craft was still beached.

  “Throw it in reverse,” King shouted. “Get it off the beach!”

  Bowers responded quickly, putting the boat in reverse and slowly giving it gas. As the propeller blades dug into the river water faster and faster it became clear that it wasn’t going to be enough to get the craft in the water.

  As Bowers stood to get out of the boat, King leaped over a mound of sand separating river from desert. He landed behind Bowers.

  “I’ll push!” he shouted before throwing his weight into the front of the boat. King’s shove and the still churning propeller launched the boat into the river. King jumped onto the front of the boat, swung himself around the mounted machine gun, and stood behind it. Already looking for targets, he wrapped his finger around the trigger of the belt-fed M240 machine gun.

  “Just keep it in reverse,” King said. They would reach the far side of the river a little slower, but moving in reverse would allow him to use the mantises for target practice.

  As the insects emerged over the rise at the river’s edge, King opened fire. The rounds fired like bursts of thunder, perking up the ears of soldiers all around Camp Alpha. While gunfire wasn’t uncommon in the surrounding territories, it was relatively unheard of on base.

  When the first round struck, a burst of guts shot out of the mantis’s side, but it moved quickly, darting backward and down. King strafed to the side, striking the insect onl
y once more before it and its partner disappeared from sight.

  They reached the base-side dock a moment later. But Bowers didn’t stop. He plowed the boat into the shoreline. The engine grinded as it chewed up sand. Neither man felt concern for the craft. They left it beached, jumping onto the shore and pounding up the incline that led to the base.

  They paused ten feet from the water, looking back at the far shore.

  “What the fuck were those things?” Bowers asked, his chest heaving more from adrenaline than actual physical exertion.

  “Exactly what they looked like,” King said. “Giant mantises.”

  “Okay. Seriously. Giant mantises?” Bowers shook his head, confused and excited.

  King nodded as he scanned the far shore. “I think we’re in the clear.”

  Bowers laughed. King turned to find him running up the hill toward base despite no sign of the mantises. “Bad news, buddy,” he said. “Mantises can fly.”

  A string of curses filled King’s mind as a buzzing sound rolled over the river. The mantises shot up over the Euphrates and honed in on his position, barreling toward him like kamikaze pilots.

  King’s mind raced for solutions. To their right were the main facilities of the base. Lots of buildings to get lost in. Lots of guns to fight back. And Bishop and Knight were somewhere in that direction. But the soldiers there had no experience dealing with this kind of freakish problem and there would likely be a lot of casualties, from the mandibles of the mantises and from panicked friendly fire. No good, King thought.

  He needed Chess Team support, minus the regular soldiers.

  The ruins.

  Queen and Alexander were there, both armed with XM25s. The mazelike ruins would provide ample hiding spots and bottlenecks to make a stand. Of course, the brown stone would also make perfect camouflage for the mantises. But there was no choice. And no time.