Steve frowned at her, and slowly said, "And you recognise this exotic concoction because..."
She put on a surprised look. "Hey, I was once a girl, who was, first, discovered, and then, second, vigorously entertained by her fair share of students who were, third, totally laundry-challenged. I wasn't always this innocent maiden you see before you. I recognise intensive rumpy-pumpy therapy when I smell it. Mind you, even in my less savoury episodes, the smell was never, ever this strong."
Steve was frowning again. "Hey, Peri, there's something funny about this place."
"Funny in what sense?"
"My head feels ... Fuzzy. I'm ... Sort of ... A little dizzy."
Peri reached out to him, tilted his face towards hers, and looked intently into his eyes. "Your pupils are the size of dinner plates." She glanced down at his crotch. "And someone looks pleased to see me. Come on, get outside and take some deep breaths."
"What's ... What's happening?"
"Out," she ordered and led him out by the hand. "Now you can let go of my hand. I mean it, let go."
Troy looked at Steve's eyes. "What's happening?" he asked.
"The VW camper reeks of some kind of aphrodisiac, and it's - well, let's just say Steve isn't immune, not even a little," she said. She pulled a couple of cotton wool balls from her pocket. "Here," she said to Troy. "Stuff cotton up your nose, and his too. I've got one for Gus as well."
"That was weird," said Steve, his voice slightly slurred.
"Is he going to be all right?" asked Troy. "Steve, are you okay? What was that, Peri?"
"I don't know what it is, but he didn't touch anything in there, and he sure as hell didn't shove anything in his mouth, so I assume the substance that affected him is scent based. Hence the cotton wool. There might well be more of it in the building. Look, Troy, have a scout around out here, see if there's any trace of the other two people, or any snakes or... anything."
Troy nodded and moved off, leaving Steve huffing deep breaths, shaking his head and looking spaced out.
Peri walked across to where Gus was holding back Amanda from the Aero. "Amanda," she said softly. "You don't want to go in there. It's Owain and Gilda, and there's nothing we can do for them. The other van's empty, no sign of Tori or the Professor."
"What happened?" Tori sounded remarkably calm. "Snakes?"
"No," said Peri. "Something else. Not natural causes, I'm sure of that. We couldn't see any obvious cause of death on Owain, but Gilda - well, she had a big chest wound."
"And there's no sign of Maxwell?"
"Probably inside the building," Peri confirmed. "We'll see in a minute."
Troy returned and joined them. "All clear," he said. He looked at Steve, saw that that he seemed to be disoriented, and turned back to Peri. "What now, boss?" he asked her.
"Now we check inside. You lead, I'll be right behind you."
Troy hesitated. "But Steve...," he began.
"Is not himself," said Peri. "Let's do this. Right or left?"
"I'll go right, you go left, and try not to shoot me," replied Troy.
"No promises," said Peri.
They moved to the chapel door, paused, flung it wide, and entered.
"Clear," came Troy's tense voice.
"Ditto", said Peri, more calmly than she felt. The others filed in behind her, Amanda helping Steve who was still disoriented.
The interior of the chapel was untidy. Clearly, someone had moved around cardboard boxes and sacks, which were now in stacks and piles on the floor near the door. At the far end, facing the door, was a knee-high brick structure that, on closer inspection, housed a flight of stone steps that led downwards. Cables ran from a diesel generator, purring away near the door, down into the earth where a faint glow was visible.
"Down?" asked Troy.
"Down," confirmed Peri.
Troy led the way.
Chapter 23
Beneath Anifail Island, North Wales, May 29 last year.
Troy descended the stone steps beneath the altar, with Peri close behind. The steps were worn and uneven, and Peri could hear Steve and Amanda stumbling behind her, but she herself kept her balance perfectly all the way down. As he approached the bottom, Troy picked up the pace so that he burst into the open space, C8 to his shoulder, swinging his aim around to assess targets. Peri moved quickly after him and split off to move in the opposite direction, the Sig-Sauer pistol in a two-handed grip at eye level. Troy barked out, "Nobody move! Keep your hands where I can see them!"
Peri looked around in astonishment. She was in an open space, lined with rusty iron sheets, with benches along two sides, interspersed with broken statues. The centre of the room contained a heap of rubble, that looked like a mix of shattered statuary, masonry, fallen rocks from the ceiling, and rusty iron plates. Facing her at the far end of the cave, there was a big iron double door and a startled blonde woman, carrying a large rock in two hands.
"Oh, thank god you've come," said the woman, letting the rock drop to the floor of the cave. "We've been so frightened! What's happened out there? It sounded like a war had started!""
"You must be Victoria Bandra," said Peri. "Where's Maxwell Coupar?"
"He's here," said the blonde, pointing down to her right. "He's sick - I don't know what happened to him. Who are you? How do you know - oh, Amanda, it's you!"
The woman's face twitched with swiftly changing emotions, before settling on a worried-looking smile for Amanda. Peri was sure her first brief reactions had been surprise and dismay.
Amanda got Steve sitting on a bench, and crossed the room to Maxwell. She gasped as she caught sight of him. Peri moved to join her, and saw why. The professor was lying on the floor of the cave, his tweed jacket folded under his head, and he looked terrible. He was unconscious, white-faced and soaked with sweat. His long hair was greasy and grey. Amanda's eyes narrowed at how thin he looked. She knelt beside him, and started patting his cheeks, talking to him in a soft, comforting tone. Troy knelt beside her and touched Maxwell's neck, feeling for a pulse.
Peri looked at Tori. "What happened?" she asked.
"He woke up this morning like that," she said. "I don't know what happened to him. He insisted on getting to work, but it was obvious to me that he wasn't right. I thought, well, a stomach bug, or maybe flu. Owain went out to find a pharmacist, but that was ages ago and he didn't come back. Can you help him?" The last question was directed to Troy.
"His pulse is weak," he said. "No obvious injuries. He needs a medic, Peri."
Peri glanced back at Tori, and noted that she was looking wide-eyed at Steve and Gus. Curiously, she was not paying attention to Maxwell, and Peri could have sworn that Tori and Tash were studiously avoiding eye contact with each other.
"What about the other member of your party?" asked Peri. "Where is she?"
"Owain was gone so long, she wanted to go and look for him. I tried to persuade her not to, but, Amanda, you know Gilda, she's very strong willed. She left, and she hasn't come back either."
Troy stood up, and turned his back on Tori. He looked at Peri and mouthed, "Liar." Then, aloud, he asked, "What now, boss?"
"We came to do a job," replied Peri, and inclined her head towards the barred door. "We need to get in there." She noted that Tori momentarily looked pleased with herself before schooling her expression back to one of concern.
"Maxwell needs medical help," said Amanda. "Steve too. That door can wait, surely."
"She's right," said Tori, a whiny note in her voice. "What's so important in there?"
Peri spoke quickly, before anyone else could answer. "That's none of your business. We're not discussing it." She shot a warning look at Amanda.
They were all startled to hear Maxwell try to speak. "Tori," he managed to say, lifting his head a little way.
Amanda bent down to him again. "What is it, Maxwell? What are you saying?"
"He's asking me to help him," said Tori, and she knelt beside him and placed the palm of her hand on his cheek.
Peri turned to Steve. "How are you doing, sailor? Are you compos mentis yet, or still one sausage short of a fry up?"
He groaned. "Did you have to mention a fry up? I'm more than a bit queasy, but at least my head stopped spinning." He stood and moved closer to the barred doors. "Right, Troy, let's see if we can shift the bar. You take that end."
"Let me help," said Tori, and she moved to the centre of the huge iron bar.
Troy counted to three, and he and Steve strained to lift the bar. Tori also had hands on the bar, but was not visibly straining - Peri assumed she was going through the motions for the sake of appearances - and the bar was lifted clear. They backed away from the door a couple of paces, and Peri called out, "Far enough, let it down."
Tori said, "Shouldn't we move it a bit further? The bar's obstructing the door, so it'll only open a couple of feet."
"That's deliberate," said Peri. "It's wide enough for a man to get in, but not so wide that anything big can get out."
"Right," said Steve. "Stand back, we'll get it open a bit so we see what's what."
Troy pointed at some lettering that had been exposed by removing the bar: 'θάνατος περιμένει εντός'. "What's that? Is that Greek?"
Tori glanced at it, and said, "Thanatos perimenei centos. Death waits within."
"Very cheerful," replied Troy.
Amanda suddenly stood up straight, and gave Tori an odd look. "Is that what Maxwell told you?"
Tori's eyes narrowed and she looked straight back at Amanda. "Oops," she said coolly. "From the look on your face, Maxwell doesn't speak Greek, does he. So silly little air-head Tori shouldn't know what that says, should she."
"What the fuck..." Peri started, but before she could go on, Amanda clenched her fist and smashed a punch into the middle of Tori's face with an audible crunch of bones and cartilage. Surprised, Tori rocked back against the door and slid down onto the floor of the cave. She laughed, breaking off to lick blood off her top lip.
"Oh, I bet that felt good," she laughed at Amanda. "I bet you enjoyed that! Got to give you credit, bitch, I wasn't ready for that one." She put her hands on the iron bar, and laboriously got up onto her knees.
"What the hell did you do to Maxwell?" Amanda demanded.
Amanda laughed again. "Not Owain? Not Gilda? You don't care about what I did to them, do you? Just Maxwell! Admit it, bitch, you're like his mummy, always fussing over him, getting him out of trouble, over and over, again and again. Well, I've well and truly fucked him, in every sense of the word, and you won't be saving his miserable ass this time."
Peri felt her stomach lurch and her vision blur; she knew something bad was happening. She stretched out towards Tori. The others were busy gawping at Tori, and were taken completely by surprise when she hooked both hands under the heavy iron bar and flipped it straight at Amanda. Steve and Troy had struggled to lift the huge mass of iron, yet the slight blonde had just tossed it like a twig. Peri managed to change the direction of her lunge, and seized Amanda by one wrist, yanking her to the side. The iron mass struck her a glancing blow, hard enough to send Amanda down in a heap on top of Peri.
Gus reacted by swinging his pistol round to aim at Tori and cracked off a snap shot. But Tori was moving impossibly fast, and the bullet went wide. He aimed again, this time leading her movement, but as his finger squeezed the trigger, Tash somehow tangled himself in the old man's legs and his second shot was high.
Tori laughed, throwing both arms wide, releasing a cloud of chemicals. At the same time, she sent out a mental shockwave that slammed into everyone else, throwing them back and filling their minds with excruciating pain. She looked at Tash, and said, "Thank you, father." Turning to the door, she grabbed its handles and heaved. The iron bar was no longer in place on the floor to block it, so the door swung wide. Tori grabbed Maxwell, pulled him to his feet, and propelled him into the open doorway.
***
Peri blinked away the blinding pain of Tori's mental flash-bang. She managed to get out from under Amanda, and tried to work out what was happening. She could see that Steve, Troy and Gus were down, she could hear Tori's footsteps behind her running up the stairs, and she was horrified to see Maxwell, blinking in confusion, standing in the doorway. Something sinuous and black whipped out of the darkness and wrapped itself round his torso.
She started to rise, but then her stomach lurched in that familiar way and her vision greyed out, forcing her back to her knees. She managed to say, "Look out!" But her premonition of danger had come too late; another long black tentacle shot out, this one having spines along its length and teeth at the end. It wrapped round Maxwell's legs, and Peri saw blood spurting as it the spines bit into him. Steve pushed past her, and grabbed at Maxwell's leg, swinging a combat knife at the spiny tentacle. The knife was razor sharp, and its seven-inch blade sliced right through. There was a spurt of black ichor, accompanied by a sharp hiss from within the cave. A three-foot length of tentacle writhed and fell away from Maxwell. It instantly started squirming across the cave towards Steve, who realised that he was looking at the creature they had christened the chain snake: black, lined with blade-like spines, its tip opening into a circular mouth full of sharp teeth. He stumbled backwards as it launched itself at his face, its maw gaping, but at the last moment it suddenly changed direction and flew past the tip of his nose, closely followed by Peri's foot, and then the rest of her landed on the ground in front of him. Steve realised that she had managed to knock it aside with a flying leap.
Gus stepped past him and his foot slammed down on the snake right behind its head, pinning it. He pointed his pistol down, and fired twice, catching it no more than an inch from his own foot, and splattering its head-end across the cave.
Troy had grabbed Maxwell's arm in both hands and was trying to heave him back out of the blackness. Another slender black appendage shot outward and wrapped around Maxwell's face, while another spiky tentacle appeared, hovered for a moment, and then made a grab for Troy's arms.
Amanda jumped straight at Troy's body, slamming her weight into him, so that their combined momentum carried him clear of the grasping limb. She turned and lunged towards Maxwell, but was horrified to see him being pulled into the inner cave, encircled by several tentacles, his face a picture of abject terror and hopelessness. He disappeared into the blackness.
"Flash bang," called out Steve. "One away!"
He turned away to avoid the effects of the shock grenade. As soon as it went off, he and Troy darted through the doors with assault rifles at the ready. Peri stepped through behind them and dropped to one knee, her pistol in the two-handed grip Troy had shown her. She looked all round, her gun muzzle tracking her view. She could now see that the cave was almost black, with a tiny sliver of light at its far end. Both Steve and Troy were using their night-vision monoculars, and moving steadily forward, one to her left and the other to her right, looking for their target. She began moving cautiously forward up the middle of the cave. She heard Gus enter behind her, and called out to him.
"Hang back by the door, Gus. If it doubles back past us, do not, whatever you do, let it get out of this cave. If you need to shut us in, just do it."
"Hey," came Troy's voice. "Do we get a vote in this?"
"No, mate, we don't," said Steve. "Peri, why don't you give Gus some back up?"
"Tired of my company already, boys?"
"I take it that's no." said Troy.
"Movement," said Peri. "Dead ahead. It crossed that little light, my right to left." It dawned on her now that the distant gleam must be a small hole in the cave wall, leading out to the cliff face where Chen had fallen. The creature must have been feeding tentacle tips - ch
ain snakes - out through that hole for days.
"I see it," said Steve. "I can't see Maxwell though."
"Oh fuck," came Troy's voice, from off to the right. "I just stepped in something squishy. I think it's part of Maxwell, but there's not a lot of him here."
"Assume he's gone," said Peri in a cold voice. "See if we can hurt this fucking thing."
"I have him," said Steve calmly, "Directly to my front, about ten o'clock from you, Peri."
"Got him," she replied.
The two marines opened fire with controlled, carefully aimed three-round bursts. The creature hissed and they could hear it moving in the darkness. Steve and Troy kept up a steady fire, but Peri had fewer bullets available to her, so she waited until the faint light was obscured by the beast's bulk, and emptied her pistol at it. When the light stayed obscured, she realised that meant it was moving straight down the middle of the cave, and started back-pedalling quickly, calling out, "It's in front of me and closing fast."
Peri ejected the magazine from the pistol but fumbled the replacement, and heard it skittering across the cave. "I've dropped the fucking reload," she shouted. "I'm getting out." She turned and started running.
Steve called out, "Flash bang. One away."
A couple of seconds later came the loud crack and bright light. The creature hissed and growled, and they caught a glimpse of something big retreating back up the cave. They ducked out through the doors and slammed them shut.
"I need a reload," said Peri. She accepted two spare pistol magazines and loaded one of them.
"I don't think we were hurting it," Steve said.
"Just annoying it," added Troy.
Island of Fog and Death: A sci-fi horror adventure Page 20