by Tom Lewis
Keeping her head above water was her only goal at the moment, as the underground river whisked along over rapids, knocking her around. Then as she spun around again, she noticed light coming from up ahead.
***
The river carried her out of the tunnel, and into an enormous cavern. High above on the ceiling were those phosphorescent stones, casting a ghostly pall across the cavern. But at least there was light.
As the river flowed from the tunnel, it seemed to narrow and slow. Paige found herself having to struggle less with the current, and the rapids were gone. Her first thought was to get to the banks.
She glanced to her right, seeing the banks maybe ten feet away. She could do this, she thought, as she started paddling against the current, and slowly pulled towards the shore.
Then her feet felt the bottom. She was almost there, as she continued pushing the water aside with her hands, while trudging along the bottom with her feet.
She finally staggered onto the shore, and collapsed on her back. Still panting, and gasping for breath.
“Paige,” Chad hollered, as he and Drew sloshed out of the river, and collapsed next to her.
“No offense, Paige,” Drew panted, catching his breath, “but the next rescue mission, we come up with a plan that doesn’t include almost drowning.”
“Agreed,” she panted, and couldn’t help but grin. They really broke the mold when they made this guy.
She finally managed to gather enough energy to sit up, and take a look around this place they were in. It was definitely a cavern, as there didn’t seem to be any sort of design behind it, other than the glowing rocks in the ceiling. That meant this river was flowing somewhere on its own, and that somewhere was most likely the ocean. This could be their escape.
Then Drew’s voice came in a hushed whisper. “Everybody stay still.”
“What?” Paige whispered back, not daring to move a muscle.
“Just slowly lower yourself back to the ground.”
She and Chad both did this.
“Look across the river, but keep your head down,” Drew instructed.
Paige slowly turned, looking across the river. It took a second for her eyes to adjust, but then she noticed something - eggs. Hundreds of them, each about three feet tall, and roughly oval shaped.
“Eggs?” she whispered.
Then something moved. At first she couldn’t tell if it was just her eyes playing tricks on her. Then it moved again. Something was moving amongst the eggs, maybe sixty yards away from her.
“Do you see them?” Drew whispered.
“Yeah,” Chad replied. “What are they?”
“I think they’re them,” Drew responded.
And then Paige was seeing them. The reason she hadn’t spotted them at first, is they were almost camouflaged with the overall coloring of the cavern walls. They were these large spider-like creatures, about the size of a couch, with four legs, two crab-like pairs of pincers, and a long snail-like body and head, with stalks on top that seemed to be acting like “feelers,” or “sensors”.
“Ho-ly shit,” Paige exhaled in a whisper. “It is them.”
“And I’m pretty sure we’re in their nest,” Drew added.
“How many do you see?” Chad asked.
“I’m not sure,” responded Drew. “They’re hard to spot. Maybe twenty.”
Suddenly bullets whizzed past, ricocheting off the surrounding rocks.
“What the hell?” Chad exclaimed.
“Over there,” replied Paige, swinging around her rifle. “There’s guards by the river.”
The guys looked over, to where a dozen guards were splashing out of the river. Paige fired off a quick burst of shots, taking down two guards, and sending the others scrambling for cover. She then switched the selector switch from auto to semi-auto, aimed, and fired two more shots.
“We can’t stay here,” said Drew, looking around. “They’ll pin us down.”
Chad looked around with him. “The rocks over there,” he said, nodding to a row of thick stalagmites jutting up from the cavern’s floor.
“Go, you guys,” Paige hollered. “I’ll cover you.”
Paige started firing off shots at the general area where the soldiers had ducked. The boys sprang to their feet, and dashed off across the rugged cavern floor.
A guard rose, fired off a burst at the boys. Paige had him. She fired, nailing the guard in the head. That was three down.
The boys reached the stalagmites, and ducked behind them.
“Paige. Go!” Chad hollered, as he and Drew opened fire on the guards.
Paige sprang to her felt, and bolted towards the rocks. Several shots whizzed past, as she ducked behind the stalagmites with the boys.
“You okay,” Drew asked, as she caught her breath.
“Yeah,” she nodded.
“Where do you think that goes?” Chad asked, nodding towards what appeared to be an opening in the cavern wall. It was about twenty yards away, but from here it looked like a tunnel entrance.
“Oh, shit,” Drew exclaimed, “we need to figure out something fast.”
Paige and Chad followed his look - across the river, dozens of those Invaders were massing. Way more than they originally thought.
“Think they can swim?” asked Chad. But the question was soon answered, as those things plunged into the water, and scurried across it.
More shots came from the guards. Paige and her friends pulled back behind the stalagmites.
“Let’s try that opening,” suggested Chad. The others nodded.
“You guys go first,” said Drew. “I’ll cover.”
Drew leaned around the side of the stalagmite, and fired off a burst. It nailed three of the guards, who had been racing towards them.
Paige and Chad sprinted across the floor towards the opening, ducking through it just as several shots ricocheted off the wall around them.
“Drew, go!” Chad hollered, as he and Paige fired off bursts at the guards. Drew sprinted for the opening, ducking his head as several bullets whizzed past.
“Damn!” he exclaimed, leaning against the tunnel wall to catch his breath.
“You guys, get back,” Paige hollered, before firing a long burst into the tunnel’s ceiling, just inside the entrance. The rock splintered along deep cracks, then huge chunks came crashing down in a cloud of dust and rocks, completely blocking the entrance.
“Let’s go,” said Paige, already heading up the tunnel. “We’re not out of this yet.”
***
Paige and her friends crept through the tunnel, proceeding along in a single file. Paige was in front, followed by Chad, and then Drew.
There were a few of those phosphorescent stones along the ceiling, but there were large gaps between them, so the trio found themselves feeling their way in the dark through large sections of the tunnel.
At least the ground’s surface was smooth, so none of them had tripped yet, although Paige had collided with the walls several times already.
The tunnel seemed to be about ten feet wide, and there was plenty of head room for Drew and Chad to stand. Paige guessed it was used by the Invaders to come and go from their cavern nest, so most likely it ended somewhere on the surface above. She also noted that it was sloping upwards, towards what she hoped was the crater, and not the inside of that ominous temple.
“How we looking up there,” Drew asked from behind.
“I’m not sure, but I think I feel a breeze,” Paige responded, patting her palm across the wall as she felt her way along. Then she could feel the wall curving, as she followed it around a bend. Up ahead, maybe fifty yards in front of them, light seemed to be reflecting off the clammy surface.
“Hey, I think we’re almost there,” she said.
“Almost where,” asked Chad.
“We’re about to find out,” she replied.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The Games
The tunnel ended, in what appeared to be yet another series of wind
ing tunnels. The new tunnels were brighter than the one they were in, and at least some of that seemed to be from the blueish tint of moonlight reflecting down the damp rock walls. That meant they were close to the surface.
Paige and her friends hugged the wall of their tunnel, as they scanned the new tunnel it led into. The two tunnels joined at a crossing, with the new tunnel veering to the left and right. There were sounds coming from both directions, but they didn’t seem to be approaching.
“Thoughts,” asked Paige, turning to her friends.
“That way seems a little brighter,” whispered Drew, pointing in the direction heading to the left.
Paige and Chad nodded, and with their rifles in their hands, the three of them stole out from their tunnel and went left.
As they crept down the tunnel, keeping close to the wall, they found several openings to compartments or rooms about the size of her apartment. They cautiously peeked into each of these compartments to be sure they were empty, before proceeding on past it.
The noises were closer now, as they approached another bend in the tunnel.
Paige and her friends tip toed up to the bend, and peeked around it. Up ahead, maybe fifteen yards from her, was a small chamber packed with several dozen Shamblers. They were standing there idly, swaying back and forth, and it was that ambient noise Paige and her friends had heard.
And Paige noticed something else - moonlight was filling that chamber from the direction the Shamblers were facing.
Then something that sounded like a horn blew, followed by the sound of metal grinding against metal. The Shamblers began shuffling out of the chamber in the direction of the moonlight.
Paige and her friends waited until the last of the Shamblers was gone, and then they crept down the remaining length of the tunnel to the chamber.
It was the size of a classroom, carved of solid stone. The moonlight was sifting in through a heavy metal grill of thick bars which was grinding back down from the ceiling. Apparently the first sound she had heard was it grinding up into a deep groove in the ceiling to allow the Shamblers to pass beneath it.
Paige and her friends crept over to the grill, as it planted firmly back in the ground. Staring through the bars, they could see they were level with what looked like the floor of a massive outdoor arena which had been carved deep into the ground. The floor was maybe fifty yards across in diameter, with an eight foot high wall of solid rock surrounding it. Above that wall rose row after row of benches carved from the rock, continuing up to what Paige assumed was the crater floor.
The benches were filled with hundreds of the Invaders, all of them skittering to their places like enormous spiders scurrying across a wall.
It was then with horror that Paige realized what was happening - they were about to be witnesses to something these Invaders considered a sport. And it involved humans.
Those several dozen Shamblers stood idly in the center of the arena, and Paige regretted having ever coined that term. They were humans, like her, and were being controlled by the sadistic Invaders that Paige hated more at that moment than she ever thought it was possible to hate. Those things were Nero and the Romans, about to inflict some unimaginable cruelty on these helpless victims for the sake of their own sadistic pleasure.
Paige fingered the trigger on her rifle. She wanted so much to just open fire on those things. Even though it would get her killed, she needed to kill them. They couldn’t get away with this.
Then the piercing wail of a whistle blew, and the Shamblers, or Victims as Paige was now referring to them, all seemed to regain their cognizance. They were staring around the arena, scared and confused, surrounded by rows of those sadistic Invaders gleaming down at them.
Several of the women Victims screamed, as the men tried to comfort them. Paige could feel her heart breaking for them.
Then a gong clanged, and what Paige saw next she knew would haunt her the rest of her life.
Metal grills on the far side of the arena slowly ground open. Several of the victims started for the openings, hoping for an escape. Then the most terrifying howl Paige had ever heard echoed out from those openings, and across the arena.
Paige could see the same looks on her friends’ faces as she was feeling. It was something beyond scared shitless.
“What the hell was that?” Chad whispered.
But then he had his answer. A dozen of those hulking hybrids stormed from those openings and into the arena. On their hind legs they stood as tall as a bear, and Paige had no doubt they were stronger, as thick cords of muscle rippled across their enormous bodies.
Screams broke out in the arena, as the Victims clambered for the walls, scratching, and leaping, and frantically trying to escape. But they never had a chance. The hybrids were on them, mauling and ripping at them. Limbs were torn from bodies, and within seconds the arena’s floor looked like a slaughterhouse of carnage.
Paige turned away, sickened, as did her friends. There were no more cries, or screams coming from the arena. Every one of the Victims was dead.
Paige just stood there for a moment, hunched over, and just staring at the ground. So many emotions were flooding over her at that moment - a profound sadness, a numbness, a frustration, a helplessness, and an anger. And she knew that anger was the one she needed to focus on. The other emotions were forcing her to shut down in despair. She needed to feel that anger she had felt before the carnage, when she watched those slithering things looking down on her species with their sadistic contempt. That’s what would motivate her. And she was beginning to feel it.
Outside the gong clanged again.
Chad turned, looking back into the arena. “Those things are leaving,” he said.
Paige looked up, and that fire was back in her eyes. “Help me get this grill up,” she said to her partners, leaning down and tugging on it.
“We’re going out there?” Drew asked, tugging at the grill with her. Chad had also joined in.
“We’re killing those things,” she snarled, “and then we’re getting the hell out of here.”
The grill slowly groaned up. Apparently it was held down only by its weight, which they were discovering was considerable. The motors, or engines, or whatever, were only used to pull it up.
There was finally a large enough gap beneath it for them to slide through. “Hold it there,” she said, looking around the chamber for something to prop it up.
She hurried over to a large rock in the back corner of the chamber, then rolled it over beneath the bottom of the grill. The boys released the grill, and it held in place.
“Let’s kill them,” growled Paige, squatting down, and rolling beneath the grill. The boys followed.
Paige sprang to her feet, firing on full automatic into the stands. Bullets riddled through the Invaders, blowing off chunks, and splattering what was apparently their gooish black blood across the stands.
Paige and her friends raced for the wall. She leaped up, just managing to catch the top, then scrambled up and over it. Chad and Drew came over right behind her.
“That’s for Brad and Shelby, assholes!” she shouted, firing at the Invaders as they tumbled across each other trying to escape. “Remember them!” She let lose another burst!
“Paige!” Chad hollered. He and Drew were already racing up the stands, firing into the crowd as they went. Paige sprinted up after them, pausing halfway up to fire off more bursts.
The Invaders were trampling all over each other as they fled the bullets that were shredding them to pieces.
An Invader stood on the steps just ahead of Paige. She charged at it, ducked beneath its pincers, and clocked it in its mushy head with the butt of her rifle. She then fired off a burst into its ugly head, sending what she assumed were chunks of its brain splattering across the stands.
Paige and the boys bolted up the rest of the stands, when the loud gong clanged again.
“Go!” she hollered, as the bloodcurdling howls of the hybrids let them know they had a new enemy to deal with.
They bounded over the top row, and were now on the crater floor, sprinting across it as fast as possible.
Suddenly the entire crater lit up like daylight.
Shit, thought Paige, out in the open like this they were dead.
“Hey, guys, we gotta move,” hollered Drew, “they’re right behind us.”
Paige took a quick look around the crater walls as they raced across it. She finally spotted an outcropping of rocks. “Those rocks over there,” she said, pointing to them. “We can use those for cover.”
The three of them sprinted across the crater floor towards the rocks, finally reaching them after scrambling a dozen yards up the crater’s wall. They squeezed into the space behind the rocks, catching their breaths.
Paige turned back to the crater, just as the hybrids bounded out of the arena, and across the crater.
All three of them opened fire on the hybrids. They could see their bullets hitting, and even penetrating, but those things weren’t going down. All of that mass was just absorbing the rounds.
“I’m out,” said Drew, staring at his last empty magazine.
“Okay, Chad, stop,” instructed Paige. “You guys, close your eyes.”
“What’re you doing?” asked Chad, pulling his rifle back.
“I’m gonna see if I can night blind them,” replied Paige, looking around for the source of the light. She spotted it. It was one of those drones, hovering several hundred feet above the surface. Its bottom was acting like a flood light, illuminating this entire section of the crater.
She closed her left eye, giving the pupil several seconds to dilate, and using her right eye she targeted the drone. She fired, and hit it. The light went out in a spray of sparks, plunging the crater into darkness.
“Everyone go! Up the side of the crater!” Paige instructed. “It’s only gonna take a minute for their eyes to adjust.”
All three of them scrambled up the rugged crater wall as fast as they could. Paige’s petite size gave her the advantage over her bulkier friends, as she went up it like a squirrel.