by Nate Granzow
"You make it sound as though you've committed a crime," Austin said.
"It feels that way, a bit."
Austin's eyes narrowed as he looked away, jaw set. "May I ask why you see it that way?" he asked.
Olivia swallowed uncomfortably, but took on a resolute expression.
"You and my husband could be best friends, you know? You're cut from the same cloth: rugged and handsome, sure, but proud. Detached. Unreliable. Not the kind of person I need in my life right now."
Austin grabbed the healthiest-looking Taxus bromelieaceae plant by the base and unearthed it with a firm tug. Wrapping the torn fabric around the ball of roots, he unscrewed his canteen and soaked the base of the plant with water before gingerly placing it inside his bag.
"Maybe I made a mistake about you, too." Austin mumbled. "Suddenly you're just like all the others, looking for a man who fits their list of qualifications. I'm sorry I didn't meet the criteria." Placing the wrapped seedlings in his bag, Austin closed the flap and secured it tightly. "We'd better get back to the others."
Olivia checked herself before she apologized. She hadn't meant to hurt Austin, or be so frank about her feelings. But it needed to be said. In a small way, she felt relieved that she'd stuck to her principles. She was starting fresh. This time would be different.
She followed the Englishman down the narrow concrete hallway, Austin holding a dying glow stick in front of them to guide their steps. The echoes of the rest of the expedition sounded faintly from the depths of the compound, but were nearly drowned out by the rattles and bangs of the hekura as they forced their way through the vent system overhead. The sound of their movement was punctuated with sharp coughs and whistles.
They were getting closer.
Olivia stopped. "They're communicating," she said, staring at the vent in the concrete ceiling. "Those vocalizations…they're collaborating, working together to determine our location."
"They've nearly succeeded," Austin said. As if to affirm his forewarning, the first of the hekura dropped from the ceiling and hurled the steel vent cover down the passageway. Austin dropped the glow stick as he leapt back around the corner, narrowly avoiding being struck by the flying projectile. He dared not reach for the light for fear of being seen.
Glancing around the corner, Austin could only make out the beast's faint outline in the low light as it raised its head and sniffed the air. The pilot gently placed his hand on Olivia's shoulder, motioning for her to stay still and quiet.
The hekura hissed, raising itself from a quadruped stance to a bipedal one as it stepped toward them, its strides long, slinking as it approached the glow stick. The beast's muscular torso swayed left to right with each step, its jaws unhinging to reveal an elongated venous tongue slithering between rows of jagged teeth.
Austin's hand sought Olivia's, which she gave readily in spite of her resolutions a moment before. He squeezed firmly, pushing himself flat against the wall as the creature neared. The smell reached them first: the sour decay, the putrefaction of rancid meat emanating from its jaws. They could hear the beast respire in short, staccato inhalations. Rapid, in sync with their racing heartbeats. The beast snorted as it reached a clawed hand toward the light near Austin's foot. Gripping the Webley's Bakelite grips resolutely, the Englishman gritted his teeth. The hekura cocked its head and sneered.
TWENTY-NINE
Austin's finger coaxed the Webley's trigger back to the verge of releasing the hammer. Its muzzle hovered only a foot from the creature's skull. Before Austin could fire, another hekura called out from deeper within the compound. The beast near them turned and barked a reply, clamping down on the glow stick before loping down the hallway toward the noise.
Austin turned to Olivia and exhaled the breath he'd held for half a minute.
"That was bloody close," he whispered, removing his finger from the trigger guard.
"Closer than I'm comfortable with," she agreed, cautiously feeling her way along the hallway and gesturing for him to follow. As Austin moved to join her, the toe of his boot caught a jagged crack in the concrete floor, and he fell. Though he caught himself in a push-up position, nose inches from the floor, his shoulder holster slapped against the concrete. A moment of stillness followed. And then, an ear-shattering scream and the loping sound of massive hands and feet slapping the concrete floor.
"Run," Austin mumbled as he leapt to his feet.
Sprinting along the winding corridor, the sound of the approaching hekura growing louder, Austin and Olivia spotted a faint glow coming from the last room at the end of the hallway. Jeremy peeked around the doorway, his face bathed in neon. Austin saw his friend's eyes widening as he and Olivia approached, and could feel, even amidst the pounding of his feet as he sprinted, the tremors of the hekura chasing them down.
This would be close.
No more had Olivia and Austin passed into the room before Clayton and Jeremy threw their body weight against the heavily riveted steel door, locking them in. The concussion of the hekura slamming into the access happened so quickly following the door's closure, it sounded like a metallic heartbeat. Clang, bang.
The clawing and thumping of the hekura against the solidly anchored hatchway lasted only seconds. Then, silence. Why had they relented so quickly?
Clayton and Jeremy eased away from their positions, distrusting their good fortune.
"Where the hell did you two go? Didn't you hear those things coming?" Christian asked as he hovered over a steel drainage grate in the room's center.
"Oh we heard them. Even got to see one up close. But we had to get the plant samples," Austin said, breathing heavily as he looked around the cramped, windowless space. A crusty generator the size of a compact car stood against a wall, a veil of spider webs covering any gaps between the machine and the concrete.
"Why bother?" the intern asked bitterly. "Hygeia didn't exactly go well out of their way to get us back," he said, looking at Clayton disapprovingly. "Why bring the plant back at all?"
"It's not about the company. If this plant turns out to be a cure for cancer, we owe it to humankind to bring it back for study," Olivia said, fingers kneading the hem of her shirt.
"Yeah, well forgive me for not sharing your concern," he replied, making no effort to mask the acrimony in his voice. "I could give a shit about the rest of humanity right now."
Olivia stared at him. She wanted to think it was only because of the looming danger that he'd become so objectionable. But was it the stress making him difficult, or had it only revealed his true character? In either regard, she was growing to like him less and less.
"What are our options?" Austin asked, stepping around Henri and staring at the grate in the floor. The room's small dimensions made it feel especially crowded. Beads of sweat trickled down everyone's faces and necks.
"This is the only other way out we could find, and I'm not even sure that this will lead us outside," Clayton said, eying the darkness below.
"I'm really not a fan of crawling further into the ground than we are now. I wanna die with sunshine on my face, not ankle-deep in sewage," Jeremy said.
Dropping his glow stick through the grate's slats, Austin nodded his head as it revealed a concrete passage six feet in diameter.
"I'm feeling like a gambling man today. Let's try it. Not as though we have many other choices," he said as he knelt and wrapped his fingers around the heavy grate. "Lend me a hand, gents."
They slid the heavy plate over, the metal screeching against the concrete. The hekura replied to the sound with more whistles and high-pitched laughter, just outside the door. They hadn't gone far. It was as if they'd silently waited outside the door, listening. Perhaps waiting for the expedition to try leaving the room, thinking the danger had gone.
Frighteningly clever.
Austin dropped into the tunnel, the others following. Clayton, last in line, paused, and then returned to slide the grate back in place behind them.
It probably wouldn't slow the hekura down m
uch if they managed to get through the room's door, but every inch of steel he could put between them and their pursuers, he'd take full advantage of.
They began slowly trudging through the compound's maintenance tunnel, a channel lined with rusted water pipes and bundles of wire inside oxidized conduit. Clayton walked with a sideways gait, repeatedly looking over his shoulder, listening intently for any sign that the hekura had followed them into the passageway.
"It reeks in here."
"Very observant, Christian. You should become a scientist when you grow up," Jeremy mocked, his boots slushing through the rancid slurry.
"Do we even know if this leads outside?"
"It’s got to lead somewhere, and frankly, anywhere away from that pond life is where I want to be," Austin said, his coarse baritone echoing in the narrow passageway.
The crew stopped at a divergence in the tunnel system, a fork where the tunnel widened and split away toward the north, east, and south.
"Which way do we go?" Olivia asked as she strained to see further down the second passageway. Walking a short way into the pipe, she waved her glow stick around before returning.
"Your guess is as good as mine," Jeremy said.
The sound of rushing water, soft at first, whooshed toward them from the depths of the tunnel.
"Did someone flush?" Christian asked jokingly.
As the noise grew in volume, they realized it wasn't water, but rather the pattering of millions of scurrying legs. In the faint glow, roiling waves of ants, each one six inches long and shock white, encircled them.
"Run, goddammit!" Clayton boomed, throwing the bewildered Olivia and Christian into the eastbound tunnel and following as they beat a hasty escape.
Withdrawing a flare from his vest, Clayton popped the cap, dragged it across the flare's tip, and pointed the igniting flame away from him toward the oncoming onslaught. The waves of ants recoiled from the blinding orange light, taking to the tunnel walls and ceiling. Hurling the torch at the creatures, Clayton suddenly collapsed to a knee and cried out in agony. Reaching over his shoulder, he ripped the pincers of an ant from his skin and slammed the creature against the tunnel wall, smashing it with his foot as he wiped away a burning secretion on his hand. The ant shrieked as its outer shell was crushed, its fluid insides trickling into the water. Pushing his hand beneath the sewage, Clayton scrubbed the acid from his skin. Scrambling away from the sea of bodies—still roiling over one another hungrily on the other side of the flare's light—the expedition fled.
After running for several hundred yards, the team slowed. The echo of sloshing water waned, replaced by the sound of their hungrily gasping for air.
"Do we have everyone here?" Clayton asked, massaging the still-burning bite mark on his back.
"Where's Austin?" Jeremy asked.
"Or Henri?" whispered Olivia.
"They must have gone down the other tunnel," Christian said, leaning against the wall as his chest rose and fell. "I'm not going back for them."
*******
Austin trudged behind Henri, rolling his backpack to the other shoulder and checking behind them with the anxiousness of a lottery winner walking a dark alley alone.
"These tunnels are interminable," the older man grumbled. "A real labyrinth."
"They're bound to end eventually, Doctor. I just hope we find the end before those ants find us."
"Indeed. The little buggers looked to be a form of Dinoponera…" His lips silently chased the rest of the name as his eyes narrowed. "Oh damn it all. Anyway, one of the larger species of ant in the world."
Austin stopped walking, waiting until Henri turned around to face him. The warm layer of fog in the tunnel condensed on the bill of the pilot's cap, the larger drops rolling down to the edges. Holding the light between them to illuminate their faces, the Brit said, "Doctor, that's the third time you've had trouble recollecting a species' name. Now, admittedly, it takes a powerful mind to retain all that Latin, but Olivia says you're the best zoologist around. It seems rather out of character for you to forget such a crucial element of your field of study. And the clumsiness—that's not all you, is it?"
The Frenchman looked to his feet, swirling the toe of his sopping-wet boot in the murky water until it created a small eddy. "It's that obvious, is it? I have noticed I seem to be slipping a bit. Old age, you know. Getting old is hell."
Austin didn't move, his expression deadpan.
The doctor cleared his throat uncomfortably. "That, or it could be Parkinson's. My father suffered from it, and so did his father. Postural instability and cognitive struggles are not uncommon symptoms."
Softening, Austin said, "I'm sorry, Doctor."
Henri shrugged. "It is what it is. I only hope I've not been too big a burden on this excursion."
"No more than anyone else," Austin replied gloomily as they resumed walking.
"Hopefully you've changed your perspective on us scientists," Henri said.
Austin thought of Olivia. The more he'd considered what she'd said to him in the outpost's laboratory, the more he was inclined to agree with her perspective. It wasn't her fault that he wasn't what she'd been looking for in a partner. Olivia was just being honest. In retrospect, he actually found her honesty and transparency refreshing. "Yeah, I suppose you could say my opinion's changed a bit."
Wheeling around suddenly, Henri gripped the back of Austin's neck with one hand, sliding a short knife blade from his pocket and holding it just above the pilot's stomach. The two men, locked in struggle, slammed against the tunnel wall.
Between gritted teeth, Henri said, "I know how Olivia feels about you, Mr. Stewart. But she's in a vulnerable state, and the wrong kind of man could hurt her very deeply right now. I also know that rough men like you can't be reasoned with; they only understand physicality and violence. I'm not a violent man," Henri said, shoving the tip of the knife through the pilot's shirt and against the skin of his ribs. Austin gasped and winced, his hands gripping the researcher's wrist. To offset the pilot's superior strength, the researcher leaned in, using his body weight to keep the blade in place.
Austin wanted to explain to the researcher that Olivia had pushed him away, and that the older man's concern was unnecessary. But the pilot didn't dare a breath.
"But so help me," the Frenchman whispered, "if you hurt her, I'll kill you more viciously than those beasts behind us ever could."
Austin stood perfectly still, watching the Frenchman's eyes in the soft light for any sign of humor or compassion. There was none.
"After all," Henri stepped back, pulling the knife away. "I'm an old man. I haven't got much longer in this world, anyway. I'd happily throw my last few years away in prison if it meant avenging Olivia's honor."
THIRTY
Olivia and Jeremy walked side by side, following the sharp white LED glow of Clayton's weapon light outlining Christian and the mercenary further ahead. Exhaustion was setting in. The adrenaline rush they'd experienced when running from the hekura had been followed by a wave of extreme fatigue. That, in tandem with sleep and nourishment deprivation had all of them dragging their feet.
"You and Austin seem to be getting along well," Jeremy murmured slyly in Spanish, breaking the silence that had hung over the group since they'd parted ways with Henri and Austin.
"He's a good man," Olivia responded in English. Though she imagined Jeremy was only trying to be discreet, she felt it was rude to speak in a language only the two of them could understand. "Rough on the outside, but it's easy to see that he's a caring person."
"He's like my brother," Jeremy said. "But he's always been pretty emotionally detached, even with me. He smokes too much, doesn't sleep enough, and doesn't get out to be around people except to drink at the bar. I worry about him sometimes."
Olivia felt the tears coming as she remembered Austin's cancer diagnosis. "I'm beginning to understand why he behaves the way he does," she said softly.
"Well, with the plane crash and all, I understand, too. He
feels responsible for Javiar's and Leo's death," Jeremy said. "But honestly, he was like this before, too."
"Well, that, and his cancer. I can understand why he wouldn't be able to sleep and wouldn't want to socialize after being given such a damning diagnosis."
"What are you talking about?" Jeremy asked, stepping back from her. She held a hand over her mouth as the tears came unchecked. She choked, "Oh my god. Please tell me you knew. I'm such an idiot. I'm so sorry, Jeremy."
Christian and Clayton returned to see what Olivia was crying about.
"You mean…that bastard," Jeremy's voice quavered as his hands balled into tight fists. "My best friend, told a woman he just met his most important news before telling me?"
"I'm so sorry," she sobbed as she held her hands over her eyes and leaned against the tunnel wall. Exhausted, her stomach ached with hunger, sewage lapped against her ankles, and rabid, carnivorous jungle creatures followed, hot on their trail. It couldn't get much worse.
Jeremy's mouth hung open as he stared into the darkness, waves of shock, rage, and grief waging a pitched battle inside him. Suddenly, he shouted, "You're lying!" Grabbing Olivia's shoulders and shaking her, he continued screaming, "You're fucking lying!" She rocked limply under his grip.
Sloshing toward them and slinging his rifle over his shoulder, Clayton pried the two apart, planting a hand against Jeremy's chest and shoving him away from the sobbing researcher.
"The hell, man? Leave her alone."
Jeremy rushed headlong at the mercenary, swinging his fists into the man's tactical vest. Clayton, more irritated by the blows than injured, shoved the Brazilian headlong into the sewage.
"You need to cool the fuck off, bro."
"I'm not your bro, asshole." Jeremy spat, wiping the sewage from his face. "And what the fuck do you care if I'm yelling at her? You came here to kill all of us."
"What?" Olivia asked before groaning and once again burying her head in her hands. Things had just gotten worse.