by Greig Beck
“Glad you could join us,” Michael said. “And if I do, I think that’d give this big guy a heart attack if an explosion went off at its heels.” He turned back to the forest. “And we need to save those last few sticks for whatever comes next.”
The group threw themselves flat as the massive beast passed underneath a huge limb whose cleaves scraped down its back and threatened to wipe them free as if they were crumbs from a tablecloth.
Slightly to their northeast was a huge cliff that ran toward them. But as the jungle was still thick, it was impossible to tell how far along it went and whether it was directly up ahead.
The cliff only looked to be a few hundred feet high and may or may not have been fatal for the thing they were riding. But it certainly would have been for them.
“There’s a drop coming up!” Michael yelled.
“Damn, yeah, of course,” Jane said. “This is why the things are nipping at the leviathan, but not attacking it just yet. It’s an old hunter’s trick—panic the bigger beasts into a stampede and run it into a dead-end…or off a cliff.” She turned. “We need to get off, now.”
“Good idea.” Michael dropped his pack and began pulling out his rope. “Time to leave, people.”
All the climbers had snap-hooks that they quickly fitted to the end of the eyelets on their ropes. The stainless-steel hooks were short and strong, and not meant as grappling hooks, but in this case, could be used as a weighted snag to swing around a branch, hook onto an extrusion or itself, and create a sturdy attachment.
“Ready?” Michael had his legs braced. He turned briefly and saw the forest beginning to open out. Soon there’d be no more trees, and then they were screwed.
Time was up.
“Let’s go.” He began to swing his rope and hook in ever-greater arcs. Michael picked a low-hanging branch and threw it at what he hoped was a suitable place on the limb.
As he hoped, it went over the limb, swung around it, and then hooked onto itself. Michael swung away from the massive beast to slam into the trunk. He clung there and turned back in time to see the others also swinging away.
Only Jane was left and she tossed her rope. He watched it sail toward a branch, but instead of looping around it, she had the misfortune of it hitting the actual limb and bouncing away. As the massive beast disappeared through the last of the trees, Michael saw her frantically reeling her rope back in for another attempt.
The last tree limbs closed around the beast, and Jane and the monstrous thing vanished. With it went the hopping, hissing, and nipping band of creatures that were in pursuit.
As Michael watched, he saw that Jane had been right; they darted forward to nip at the mighty column legs but didn’t seek to slow or stop it, only inflict enough torment to keep it moving forward.
The unseen massive leviathan rumbled off, trailing its herd of pursuers. But there had been no sign of Jane leaving the huge thing’s back.
“Where is everyone? Speak up!” Michael yelled.
“Yo,” Andy replied from about 50 feet along the newly smashed pathway.
“Over here, and with me is Maggie,” Wenton said casually from another tree limb.
Michael waited, but there was nothing back from Jane. He saw that the branches touched one another, so he could move through the lower canopy and stay up off the ground.
“Going after Jane,” he said.
“I’m coming,” Andy replied and quickly joined him on the same limb.
The pair tried to move as quickly as they could along the branches. Some were wide enough that they could run and others meant they had to edge sideways. Even though the forest was thinning, the size of the trees still meant most times the huge limbs overlapped each other, creating a long highway.
The pair crossed from one limb to the next, until they made the very last tree. Michael slowed as they moved out as far as their weight would allow, and it took them out to the precipice of the cliff edge to peer out.
“Shit,” Andy said. “It went over.”
The huge beast lay like a broken dirigible at the bottom of the cliff. The carnivores being lighter and more agile had scaled down the sheer wall and now swarmed over the prone giant, heading for the places where they could quickly bypass the impossibly thick armor plate, such as the mouth, eyes, and the rear where Michael assumed the anus was.
“Can you see her?” Michael asked.
Andy shook his head. “Don’t worry, she got off. She had to.”
Michael tried to guess if a person could survive the fall; he doubted it. “We have to get down there,” he said softly.
Andy turned to stare at him for a few moments. “Okay, but the carnivores are down there. All of them.”
Wenton and Maggie finally caught up. “Any sign?” Wenton asked.
“Nothing.” Andy kept his eyes on the huge fallen creature.
“We need to see if she survived. We need to be sure,” Michael said. “I’m going down.”
“Stupid plan, and suicidal,” Wenton declared.
Michael felt his anger rise. “We can wait until the predators leave.”
“Really? There’s a hundred tons of meat down there. How long do you think that’ll take to be eaten—a week? A month?” Wenton’s mouth was set in a line. “Forget it, Michael.”
“I can’t,” he said and turned away.
“Fine with me.” Wenton rolled his eyes.
Michael ignored him and began to plan a way down, trying to figure a route that was close to the fallen giant but would shield him from the carnivores.
“Wait, she’s not down there,” Maggie said. “Look.”
Michael spun to follow where she was pointing. In the last tree was a hook and rope. And the rope was still swinging.
“She made it out. Told you.” Andy grinned.
“Jane!” Michael edged toward the rope, followed by Andy, Wenton, and Maggie.
They had to cross firstly to one tree, and then the rope tree, and hurry along the limb.
“Jane!” Michael yelled again. He began to search the ground below that was still a considerable 80 feet down—about as high as a seven-story building.
“I can’t see her.” He began to panic.
Maggie screamed, and Michael spun to her. She was pointing into the branches above, her face a mask of pure terror.
Michael dreaded to look up but had to. He saw Jane, or at least her body from the chest down. The rest of her was being pulled into the mouth of some sort of revolting insect version of a monstrous snake.
Michael’s brain was short-circuiting as it tried to process what he was seeing—the thing was a mottled green to blend in with its jungle surroundings, and rings of plates overlapped all the way along its body to a tapering tail that it had coiled around the tree trunk. Its bulging eyes were like slitted glass buttons and moved independently of each other—one was focused on its meal, the other on Michael and the other new arrivals.
Jane’s arms were pressed to her sides, but her legs shivered and danced, and her hands flexed and opened as if she was trying to wriggle herself out from being swallowed alive.
Michael screamed and ran at the thing. He leaped, grabbing the snake around the neck, and only barely hanging on, as it was as round as a draft horse. Andy ran beneath it and grabbed Jane’s legs and hung on.
In another moment, Michael reached an arm into his bag and grabbed the bolt gun. His was the last they had, and it was preloaded with just two remaining caving bolts. He jammed the gun against the insect serpent’s body, careful to keep it away for where he thought Jane was inside its mouth.
The gun’s bolt exploded out and punched a hole in the scales and flesh of the creature. It reared up, taking Jane, Andy, and Michael with it.
“Let go, you bastard.” Michael had dug his fingers in underneath one of the plates and hung on, and in one smooth motion brought the gun around again and fired his last bolt.
This time, the bolt passed right through the beast, taking a double fist-sized chunk of armor plate
and flesh with it.
Either from pain, or shock, the snake vomited. From its mouth came Jane plus a rush of yellow bile. Andy grabbed her and stopped her falling to the ground.
Michael leaped free as the serpent slithered into the upper foliage, rattling branches in its haste to get away. In seconds, it had vanished.
They crowded around as Jane, covered in mucous, burst into tears and shook uncontrollably. She held out her arms to Michael and he took hold of her, wiping the slime from her face and hair and speaking softly to her.
Jane buried her face in the tattered remains of his shirt. He just heard her voice over the sobs.
“I want to go home.”
“I’ll get you there. I promise.” He held her for a while until she stopped shaking.
Michael knew that if there were one promise in this life he would die to keep, it would be this one.
Wenton edged out as far as he could to look down over the precipice. “I think we should go now.” He turned. “It’s getting a little carnivore-crowded down there.”
Michael looked into Jane’s face. “Can you walk?”
She nodded and gave him a watery smile. “Just…just stay close.”
*****
The group moved along the highway of enormous branches as they headed north for as far as their wooden highway could take them. But eventually, the boughs became too sparse for the foliage to have linked branches and they finally had to climb back down to the ground.
Even before they exited the trees, they could see the mountainous column rising up to the blood-red ceiling. There was no equivalent on the surface, and this immense geological formation was as alien as it was colossal, with conjured images of a primordial world where everything was on a scale apart from the world above.
Michael had no idea how far around it was, but it could easily have been 10 miles and it dominated everything else surrounding it.
“And that’s where your friend said the caves were…that took them home?” Wenton asked.
“Somewhere in that mountain, Katya Babikov said there was probably another gravity well.” Michael placed a hand over his eyes to shield them. Touching his forehead made the skin hurt, and for the first time he knew he, like all of them, were burned raw and peeling. He just prayed that the radiation hadn’t penetrated too deep.
Katya had been trapped down here a year, and they’d only been here a few months; he just hoped that made a difference. The irony of escaping these horrors to only die from a multitude of cancers on escaping would be too terrible to contemplate.
“Look up toward the middle of the mountain column,” Maggie said. “They look like airplanes.”
Sure enough, there were strangely formed flying objects landing and taking off from holes in the face of the mountain.
“More like giant bees, maybe?” Andy said.
“I hope so. If they’re bees, they’ll protect their hive, and if we don’t bother them, they’ll more than likely leave us alone.” Jane exhaled. “But if they’re wasps, they’re carnivorous, and they’ll attack us on sight. Then eat us.”
Wenton cursed softly. “And me without my bug spray.”
“First, we’ve got to cross this grassland plane, fast. And I’m betting the slowest thing in this underworld right now is us.” Michael looked along the flat landscape. “I don’t see anything out there.”
The group stared out at the grasslands. The plants looked spindly and only came to about knee height.
“Doesn’t look like there’s enough cover out there for a large predator,” Maggie observed.
“Unless they live in burrows like some sort of trapdoor spider,” Michael replied.
Wenton snorted. “Is nothing easy in this world?” He narrowed his eyes. “I estimate it’s about a mile, give or take.”
“Yup,” Michael replied. “And we can’t exactly wait for nightfall. Upside is, we can see any predator that comes at us. Downside is, there’s probably damn well nothing we could do about it.”
“We belly crawl,” Jane said. “It’ll take a long time, but most predators are triggered by speed and motion. The reduced profile and slower motion will make us less visible.”
Andy scoffed. “I did a trial boot camp when I was at high school. We had to do some extreme training and one of the exercises was to crawl over a rough field for about 500 feet. It tore our knees and elbows to shreds.”
“Well, what have you got?” Maggie demanded.
Andy looked back at the field bathed in the blaring red light. “I’ve got nothing better. I just want us to be aware of what some of the risks and drawbacks of our options are.”
“Anyone have any other ideas?” Michael asked.
He waited, looking along their faces. After another moment, a few shook their heads slowly. But none of them look convinced.
“Then let’s strap our hands and knees with whatever we have left and get started.” He grinned at them. “Think of it this way—home stretch.”
They sat and began to pull their packs apart and use the pieces to wind the tougher material around their elbows, hands, knees, and if there was any left over, their bellies.
Michael looked back out over the plane. “I can see some sort of rocky outcrop in the center. That’ll be our first goal. We make it to that and then assess our plan and progress. Okay?”
They nodded.
Michael crossed to Jane and took her hand. “We can do this.”
“I know we can,” she said as she wound a piece of canvas strap around her hand. She flexed it and looked up into his face. “Last roll of the dice?”
He chuckled softly. “Well, maybe a few more rolls to go. But I think this might be our last real challenge.”
She nodded. “We’ll make it.”
“One more thing.” He motioned her closer.
She leaned in, and he kissed her lips. He felt their dryness and was sure his felt the same. She grabbed his bearded chin and held it to her mouth, prolonging the kiss. It gave him a boost of happiness.
She pulled back, smiled, and shook her head. “Now you damn well better get me home, Mr. Monroe.”
“Promise.” He hugged her and he kissed her once more on the top of her head.
He smelled her hair and there was something unsettling about it. Then he remembered they had pulled her out of the mouth of some insectoid snake and it had vomited the contents of its stomach on her. His lips felt waxy and he wiped them with his forearm.
Michael took one last look around, searching for any movement anywhere. Other than the things hovering at the mid-point of the mountain, they seemed alone.
He got down on his knees and then belly. “Follow my trail in a line.” He began to crawl.
Michael quickly discovered they didn’t have the plane to themselves. There was all manner of smaller creatures, either hiding in the clumps of grasses or scuttling back and forth out of their path.
Some were like spiders on stilts, with long tails and bulbous eyes. Others looked like reptiles with extra legs and too many eyes. As one new type of thing shot past, he threw out a hand to grab it.
He examined it, turning it over as it hissed and squirmed. It opened its mouth, displaying a tongue like a pink leaf. Michael rolled on his side and held it up. “Hey, it’s a lizard. A real lizard.”
“Looks like a gecko.” Jane had crawled up beside him and took the small lizard from him. “It’s like I thought. On the surface world, the amphibians won the evolutionary race and beat the arthropods. The arthropods survived, just didn’t evolve as rapidly. Down here, it’s the opposite. The arthropods are this world’s rulers.” She smiled down at it. “Good to see you, and good luck, little guy.” She let the thing go.
“So, there could still be mammals?” he asked. “Maybe people do exist down here. In some form or other.” He lay back down on his belly. “Onward.”
They crawled, and slithered, and pulled themselves forward. Hours went by, and Michael tried to keep focused on their surroundings, trying to ignore the p
ain already flaring in his hands, hips, and every one of his joints.
His palms began to feel sticky and he knew it’d be either burst blisters or blood.
After four hours of agony, they made it to the rocky outcrop—halfway—and Michael slowly lifted himself up onto it to gaze out over the plane. There was still nothing. He turned to look up at their destination; the column mountain was a towering geological behemoth that filled their vision.
He could see where it punctured the molten core and wondered whether inside it was as hollow as he prayed—prayed—because he didn’t have the heart to tell the group that he had no idea if it was hollow and would contain another gravity well.
Katya never made it this far. She had turned back with her sister by now. What he was relying on was what she put in her notes from Georgy’s study of the ancient alchemist’s manuscript. From now on, they were in Arkady Saknussov’s long-dead hands.
And one thing he knew—Saknussov didn’t make it out either.
“See anything?” Andy crawled up beside him.
“All I see is that big-ass mountain thing,” Michael said and turned slowly. “But as for anything else, no.”
“That’s a good thing, I guess,” Andy replied. “Hey, do you think the column’s thickness will provide us with enough insulation from the molten heat as we pass through it?”
Michael looked up at the boiling redness of the liquid metal. It made his eyes hurt just looking at it. “Well, if it doesn’t, then it’ll all be over quickly.”
“It will. It did for Katya, right?” Maggie said.
Michael smiled flatly down at her. “She made it home.”
“I smell sulfur,” Jane said, who was sitting with her back to the rocks. “Might be some volcanic activity going on in there.”
“Yeah, I think so too.” Up close, Michael saw there were many, many cave openings, some huge and some little more than crawl holes. He had no idea which one they should choose.
“Hey look, a rabbit.” Maggie pointed to something watching them from the outside of a burrow about 10 feet from where they rested.
It was covered in fur, had large black liquid eyes, and stared intensely back at them.
“Hello,” Maggie said softly.