Jason laughed, although she thought he still sounded a little strung out. Still smiling to herself, Sarah began a search of the area again while Trish logged the surroundings on her computer. Back in the zone, Sarah quickly noticed a dark shadow near the centre of the floor. The scans hadn’t shown this feature up, which was strange. As she approached, she saw it was a hole, framed by a ragged edge hewn out of the rock; it measured about eight feet long. The rest of what was clearly a single chamber lay empty and lacked any other obvious features.
‘What’s that?’ Trish said, coming up to stand beside Sarah.
‘A big deep black hole by the look of it,’ Jason said, as he too came alongside to peer down into it. ‘I can just see the bottom if I focus the beam.’
He was right; Sarah could just make it out as he stretched out to highlight it with his torch.
‘How far down would you say that was, seventy feet?’ she asked them.
‘Give or take,’ Trish said.
Sarah weighed up their options. ‘We’ll need a rope.’
‘You’re not going down there, are you?’ Trish said in concern. ‘It could be dangerous.’
Sarah looked at her friend and raised her eyebrows in surprise. ‘Trish, I’ve spent a fortune getting here, we’ve spent weeks to get to this point and, last but no means least, we’re in the immediate path of the largest asteroid to hit the planet in sixty-five million years; a little more danger ain’t gonna make much difference.’
‘Good points, I’ll go get it,’ Trish said, and zoomed off back down the tunnel.
‘Nothing like being reminded you’re about to be squished by a multi-trillion tonne space rock to motivate you,’ Jason said wryly, as he watched Trish go.
A short while later, with Trish having returned, it wasn’t long before Sarah slowly descended into the earth, supported by Jason and Trish above. Fortunately the width of the hole was narrow enough that she could brace herself on the way down; this meant Trish and Jason didn’t have to take her full weight on the descent.
Light in hand, she could see the bottom drawing ever closer. ‘You’re going to have to take my full weight now,’ she said, her voice still muffled slightly by her mask. ‘I’m dropping down into another chamber of some kind.’
The rope tightened as Jason and Trish took the strain, and the rock face on either side disappeared as Sarah entered the larger void. Dangling on the end of the rope, her feet finally touched down onto a surface strewn with loose rock.
‘I’m down!’ she called up to them.
‘Leave the rope attached,’ Trish shouted back. ‘You don’t know what’s down there.’
‘Will do,’ she replied. It was sound advice; it might be dangerous already, but there was no need to increase the risk even further.
Sarah had been expecting to find herself in cramped quarters, but shining the torch around she saw she stood in the middle of a substantial cavern, by the look of it a natural formation. The cave walls loomed at the edges of the torchlight. Large boulders had fallen down randomly, standing tall and immobile on the floor like sentries guarding a forbidden temple.
Sarah fed out some more of the rope still attached to her small waist harness to enable her to move with more freedom.
She walked past a particularly large rock, caressing its surface with a hand as she went, her fingers brushing off small particles of rock and dust which cascaded to the ground.
Switching to a wider beam, she increased the torch’s power output and was greeted with a fabulous sight. Twenty feet away, two stone pillars stood either side of a massive stone plinth of a circular design. Approaching it, her excitement peaked as she caught sight of the glint of metal. Taking the torch, she extended its small built-in tripod, positioning it on the floor, and then turned on her head torch. On closer inspection the stonework was smooth and well crafted, yet disappointingly lacking any kind of detailing.
Unable to see on top of the circular plinth due to its height, Sarah stepped back a few paces and then ran and jumped up, placing her hands on the flat surface above and hauling herself upwards and onto her knees. The sudden movement sent more dust swirling and dancing around her in the ice-blue glow of the torchlight that now bathed the area.
As the dust settled, it became clear what she’d glimpsed moments before. In the centre of the platform sat a large metallic ovoid canister, much like the one in Turkey, but with a couple of differences, the main one being it had a deep dark red hue.
‘Oh, my God,’ she said, unable to believe her luck. Taking out her computer, she took some video.
‘Are you okay, Sarah?!’ Trish called out, her voice sounding distant.
Sarah looked back over her shoulder. ‘Yes, I’m fine!’
Trish’s interruption made Sarah remember time was still a scarce commodity; she couldn’t afford to stand and gawp. Rolling the artefact onto its side with a dull thud, she lugged it back to the bottom of the shaft.
Not wanting to stand underneath as Trish and Jason hauled it up, Sarah had time for a quick sweep of the rest of the cave. It consisted of various natural features, but the one that caught her eye was a large mass of debris that had collapsed in from the ceiling. Her light revealed a deep black void hidden behind the fallen rock. On approach, Sarah noticed a carved stone column still stood on one side of the opening. This was no natural formation; it was a purpose built tunnel.
Now free of the rope, Sarah’s instinct was to investigate so she climbed up the rubble pile and pushed her way through a tight gap, sending small rocks and gravel clattering and slithering down the slope behind her.
Inside, the tunnel petered out after thirty yards, completely sealed by another huge landslip. As she was about to turn back something caught her eye. Clambering over a couple of the larger boulders she dropped down between them into a small clearing. Almost beneath her feet the unmistakable forms of bone protruded through a layer of loose sediment. Bending down, she lifted her mask and blew hard at the surfaces. Dirt parted and a thick dust eddied upwards, uncovering a small group of bones, not animal but humanoid. Her heart beat faster.
The bones appeared odd, thin and elongated. She touched one and moved her hand along its length. It was a bone from an arm, a humerus. Standing up and adjusting her head torch, she withdrew her computer to take some in situ photos. As always, she had a ten pound coin to hand to add scale to the image.
After visually analysing them further she deduced the remains belonged to a single individual, probably taller than seven feet but nowhere near the size of the bones they’d found previously. Also, there was no skull, only bones from one arm, a hand and some other fragments. Sarah surveyed the scene and wondered if this creature – whoever, or whatever, it was – had been killed by the falling rocks during an earthquake. It seemed a likely scenario considering the precarious nature of the surrounding terrain.
Returning to the present, she had to remind herself she wasn’t dreaming. She couldn’t believe it, not only had she found a canister but bones, too. These remains might even be from another monster-sized species of hominid, she thought, perhaps a relative of Homo gigantis, or a sub species. It was incredible, was her luck changing? At the moment it is, she told herself, giddy with sweet success. With her spirits soaring, she carefully collected up the bones and deposited them into her rucksack.
As she squeezed back out into the main chamber, her bag, now fuller, caught on one of the rocks above. Twisting to help it through, her shoulder dislodged a piece of crumbling earth, which in turn shifted the rocks around her. Without warning a large stone directly above dropped a few inches, smashing the light on her head and plunging her into darkness. As her eyes adjusted to the faint light emanating from her larger torch, which rested beneath the shaft some way away, Sarah could tell she had a problem before even looking. Her leg was trapped.
‘Shit,’ she said, struggling to free herself. The rock wouldn’t budge; she was held tight. ‘Fucking hell!’ she said, a sense of panic upon her. She leaned back, bracing her free foot
against another boulder, and pushed with all her might, grunting in exertion. Held fast, she paused as Jason called out to her, his voice faint.
‘Sarah, where are you? The rope’s ready for you!’
Sarah didn’t reply; taking a few deep breaths, she gathered herself. Lifting her foot up higher, she sought and found better purchase with her hands, then pushed out with as much strength as she could muster. She cried out as she strained every sinew, fought with every breath, and then – suddenly – she was free and tumbling backwards, before landing heavily on one side and bruising a shoulder.
In pain, but awash with relief, Sarah scrambled to her feet and checked the bag to make sure the bones hadn’t been damaged in the fall. Thankfully they seemed to be okay.
Moving back to the shaft, she looked up to see the small silhouettes of Trish and Jason above. ‘I’m here,’ she said, as she picked up the torch and hooked herself onto the waiting rope, ‘lift me up, already!’
Once Sarah was safely back up top, the three friends turned their attention to their discoveries. To Sarah, the ancient metallic relic looked smaller than the previous one from the Turkish plains; in fact, she thought, that’s probably why I was able to lug it about so easily.
‘This is friggin’ unbelievable,’ Jason said, tentatively touching the canister. ‘This might be one of the oldest objects ever unearthed; we could sell this for hundreds of thousands, maybe even hundreds of millions!’
Trish snorted. ‘And who’s going to buy it, the British Museum? Gimme a break, they wouldn’t believe us when we told them where we found it, or our theories behind it. Besides, those bastards who mugged us before would probably do so again, but this time they’d make sure we didn’t find anything else. We’d end up being buried, to be unearthed thousands of years later, I can hear it now “—three mysterious bodies were found today; according to archaeologists, they are a twenty-first century people who met with a brutal and violent end.”’
Jason looked crestfallen as his dreams of riches turned to dust. ‘It’s a nice colour, though,’ he said somewhat lamely to Sarah. ‘Wasn’t the other one silver?’
‘Yeah, this one is a little smaller too.’
‘I like it,’ Jason said, perking himself up again, ‘it looks like a giant Easter egg.’
Trish looked at Sarah and rolled her eyes heavenward. Sarah smiled at her friend’s expression, and then, remembering she had something else to show them, pulled off her backpack and removed a couple of the bones.
‘Seriously, I can’t believe this,’ Trish said after Sarah had explained her new find to them. ‘More bones, incredible.’
‘It’s a shame we can’t dig about further down there,’ Jason said.
Sarah packed the bones away again. ‘I don’t think we’d find too much. Besides, let’s not get greedy, we’ve got a haul better than we could have wished for. Not as good as back in Turkey, but a very close second, don’t you think?’
‘It’s certainly paid off,’ Trish said, giving Sarah a congratulatory hug.
‘Group hug!’ Jason said, joining in by squeezing them both together.
Trish struggled against his grasp. ‘Ow, geroff, you big oaf!’
After some more banter and the patting of backs they made their way out into the fresh air. Sarah checked her phone. Six days left until impact. She looked anxiously up at the sky; perhaps this is how an ant feels, she thought, when a human’s foot slowly descends on it from above. A tiny speck about to be obliterated; it wasn’t a pleasant feeling.
‘Let’s get the fuck out of here,’ Trish said as she saw ‘six days’ displayed on Sarah’s phone.
‘Hell, yes,’ Jason agreed fervently, also looking skyward.
Packing everything up as best they could, Sarah was torn as to whether to leave the ultrasonic excavation machine behind. It was very expensive to just dump, but time was now of the absolute essence and the struggle they’d face to get it back to the vehicle was not worth risking their lives for. Also, it would be hard to sell or cost a ridiculous amount to ship with them out of Gabon. No, it’s dead weight, she told herself. It’s done the job and we have our reward. It’s getting left behind, end of.
In short order they leapt in the pickup and drove, bumping and skidding across the bush, heading back to the abandoned landing strip they had come in on. Having dropped off all their gear, Sarah and Jason then went to return the pickup to its owner, leaving Trish behind to guard their possessions. As they pulled up the man came out to meet them.
‘That was bad timing,’ he said as they got out.
‘How so?’ Jason asked him.
‘Your plane’s been and gone.’
‘What?!’ Sarah said in shocked disbelief. ‘What are you talking about? It’s supposed to be coming in and waiting until tomorrow!’
‘Well, they came and they went. I told them you hadn’t got back yet and they didn’t seem to care. I’m sorry.’
Sarah felt physically sick. They had to catch that plane. They had to get out of the country or they’d be killed in the blast. She doubted a car could escape the devastation zone in time, especially considering fuel pumps would be dry and one tank would not get them far enough away.
‘Oh, my God.’ Jason held his head in despair. ‘We’re fucked, we are truly fucked!’
‘You’re welcome to stay with me,’ the man said, trying to comfort them.
‘What, to wait to die?’ Jason said. ‘Thanks, but no thanks, old timer.’
Sarah slumped to the floor. ‘What are we going to do?’
The old man, seeing her discomfort, disappeared inside and came back out with a glass of water, which she accepted numbly without a word.
A minute of silence passed before he said, ‘I might be able to help you.’
Sarah and Jason looked up at him with a fearful expectancy.
‘I was only staying as I’ve lived in this house all my life. I’m old and if I’m going to die I wanted it to be here, but seeing as you folks are in trouble I can probably help you get to safety.’
‘How?’ Sarah said. ‘You won’t have enough fuel in your car and the distance is too great.’
‘I didn’t say I’d drive you out of here, did I?’ he said with a smile.
They looked at him in confusion.
‘We’ll fly out,’ he said.
‘You can fly?’ Jason asked him.
‘Of course, I’ve been flying since before you’d even drawn breath as a babe.’
‘You’re forgetting one thing,’ said Sarah, ‘a plane?’
‘Ah.’ The man tapped the side of his nose and disappeared back into his house.
‘What does that mean?’ Jason asked Sarah, who shrugged. ‘I think he’s lost the plot, the silly old—’
Jason clammed up as the man came back with a coat and small bag in hand.
‘Shall we get going, then?’ he said with a grin.
♦
‘What’s going on?’ Trish asked when they arrived back with the old man in tow.
‘Change of plan,’ Sarah said.
‘What? Why?’
‘Looks like we missed our flight,’ Jason said. ‘Those idiots came on the wrong day or got cold feet or something.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Frank here told us. Frank, Trish. Trish, Frank,’ Sarah said by way of introduction
‘So what are we going to do?’ Trish said, looking terrified.
‘Don’t worry, miss,’ Frank told her. ‘Old Frank’s here to save the day. Or your bacon,’ he added jovially, his chuckles quickly turning to wheezing, followed by uncontrollable coughing.
Trish didn’t look reassured and looked to Sarah, pleadingly.
‘He knows a place where they left some planes before the evacuation. We should be able to fuel them up and get the hell out of Dodge.’
‘Should!?’
‘Will,’ Sarah said quickly. She and Jason had thought they were as good as dead, but this lifeline had buoyed them considerably. Trish, however,
was going from thinking they were getting picked up safely to may be getting flown out, a big difference in perspective. Jason took her to one side, speaking to her in low comforting tones while Sarah helped Frank put their kit back into the pickup.
It took them half a day to get to the small private airfield Frank had told them about. When they arrived it was deserted, much like everywhere else they had passed on the way. They entered a hangar and Frank selected one of the planes. Sarah and Jason then went about siphoning out fuel from the other aircraft, after getting instructions from Frank, while Trish helped the old man get their kit on board.
A few hours later they’d managed to fill up the plane’s tanks. It wasn’t a jet, but a small twin-engined propeller passenger plane used for excursions and parachute diving. Supposedly they needed to stop off once to refuel and then they could make it to Gabon and meet up with their taxi driver on schedule. The plan seemed okay, apart from the refuelling, which sounded more than a little dodgy to Sarah. There were no guarantees they’d find extra fuel on the way up. Still, what other choice did they have? None.
As the plane taxied out of the hangar, Sarah looked up out of the cockpit window. A bright object too big to be a star or planet flickered in the sky high above. The meteor had finally arrived and they were leaving in the nick of time. We cut this way too close, she thought, but then remembered their prizes, nestling at the back of the plane, and knew it had been worth it.
♦
They slept fitfully during the first leg of the flight. Touching down in the south of Angola, they refuelled, thankfully with little problem, once again siphoning out gasoline from abandoned light aircraft. During the next leg, Sarah decided it was an opportune time to investigate the red casket, which turned out to be harder to lever open than the one she’d found on the Turkish plains, as she didn’t have the finer chisels to hand; however, after some pounding and brute force from Jason they managed to prise off the lid. Once again a handle presented itself inside and it pulled out smoothly with the same satisfying suction release.
Anticipation building, they peered inside.
Revelations Page 16