by Greig Beck
The thing squeaked and lifted a little more. She wiggled her fingers at it. And it lifted some more, and then some more and more. The front half still looked like a rabbit, but its belly had padded segments, dozens of them, and small furry arms all the way down and along the sides of a long body.
“Oh gross. It’s a freaking nightmare,” Andy said and stuck his tongue out.
“Yes, this is what a mad scientist would create if he managed to mix rabbit and caterpillar DNA.” Wenton’s mouth turned down. “However, as the front half looks a little like a rabbit, I might be tempted to eat it if we can catch it.”
There came a sound like clicking on the slight breeze, and Michael cocked his head to listen for a moment. “Anyone else hear that? Like knitting needles.”
“Like what?” Andy asked.
“Forget it.” Michael continued to listen.
They waited, concentrating. Once again, the sound was repeated. This time, they got a direction and all turned back to where they had exited the forest.
Standing at its very edge was a group of about a dozen creatures hunched over with distended abdomens and long, spiked legs like those of a spider.
They must have been eight feet in length and from time to time, they lifted up on their back legs as if to taste the air. Held out in front of them were its front legs but looked like they ended in grasping hands.
“We’re being tracked,” Michael said softly and began to ease himself down below the spindly plant level. “Let’s get behind the rock.”
They all moved around the other side and watched as the pack of creatures hesitated, as if unsure of the direction the people had taken. They continued to lift up, looking a little like someone had grafted a human front half to a spider back half. The things clicked and rattled, as they obviously shared some sort of communication.
“I don’t think they’re herbivores,” Jane observed. “Some sort of pack predator.”
They noticed that their little rabbit caterpillar friend had vanished.
“The rabbipillar knows it’s a threat. Not a good sign,” Wenton said.
“No shit. I know it’s a threat as well,” Andy replied.
“What’s the plan?” Wenton said.
“We move fast. We can’t afford to be caught out in the open by those things.”
Andy narrowed his eyes. “I think they know we’re in here, but don’t know exactly where just yet.”
“Good. Stay low and follow me,” Michael said. He turned to speak over his shoulder. “This is gonna hurt, but no choice.”
He increased his speed. And he was right; it damned hurt as every joint, plus his forearms, knees, and now belly was becoming scraped raw.
Every hundred yards he’d stop and lift his head a little to look back. On the third time he did it, he saw the creatures had entered the grassy plane and were coming quickly—not running, yet, but still moving at around three times the speed the people were moving.
“Are they coming?” Jane asked.
“Don’t worry about it. Just keep going.” Michael tried to ignore that crawling feeling he was getting on the back of his neck as he knew the pack of predators was bearing down on them.
In another hundred yards, he looked back again—the things had crossed half the grassland between the forest and them already.
From a distance, his imagination had painted them as being centaur-like, but now, closer, he could see the gargoyle faces of creatures, and Jane had been right; they were definitely predatorial. There were multiple forward-facing eyes set high on a polished black forehead, and no nose, but two palps on either side of a mouth carrying vicious-looking fangs.
Michael thought that if you merged a human being with a black widow spider, you might get some idea of the nightmare these things had stepped out of.
There was no doubt they were getting run down and soon they’d need to decide whether they would chance making a run for the caves. The options were to stay low and hope the creatures somehow missed them—which he knew was unlikely—or get to their feet and run. Which he knew would be suicide as well—the long legs of the predators told of an ability to generate huge speeds, and he had once read that if a spider were as big as a person, it would be able to generate speeds of 140 miles per hour.
After another hundred yards, Michael had another quick look back—they were so close, he knew they’d be overtaken in the next few minutes. He turned to the column mountain—it was also close now, and he could see the welcoming darkness of the caves.
Even if the predators followed them there, they might have a chance of defending their position in a cave, instead of being caught out in the open.
Above them, the huge insect things hovered, hanging in the sky or landing and entering their own caves higher up.
They only needed another few hundred yards, but it was still too far.
“We need a diversion,” Michael said. “No choice.” He began to get to his hands and knees.
Jane launched herself at him and grabbed his arm. “Don’t you freaking dare, Michael James Monroe.”
“There’s no other option,” he said. “I can draw them off.”
Jane clung on tighter. “No, you will not…”
“Let him go. He’s right,” Wenton said softly and turned to Michael. “Thank you, Michael. We admire your courage.”
“You bastard, Harry,” Maggie seethed. “Why don’t you do it?”
Wenton shrugged. “I have a sore leg.”
“All the more reason it should be you—predators love the old and sick,” Andy growled.
Wenton looked up over the top of the grasses. “They’re nearly on us.” He rummaged in his pocket and pulled out a small object and handed it over. “Last quarter-stick, Michael—I’d been saving it. Perhaps it’ll help somehow.”
“Thank you.” Michael half-smiled and took the tiny stick of dynamite. “Not going to be enough to stop them, or maybe even slow them down. But it might just scare the shit out of them.”
“I’m coming,” Jane said.
Michael squeezed her hand. “Hey, I have no intention of dying. When I go, you guys continue your quick crawl. Hopefully, you’ll have a big enough lead to get in the caves.”
“And you?” Andy asked.
Michael chuckled. “I used to be the school sprint champ. I’ll be there before you.” He looked up and over the grass. The creatures were only a few hundred feet from them and coming fast. They’d be on them in the next few minutes.
Michael sucked in a deep breath. He got to his feet and sprinted hard out to the side.
*****
Michael ran hard, one eye on where he was placing his feet and the other on the predator pack. As soon as he revealed himself and started his run, he saw all their flat faces turn toward him. And then they began to follow. Like all predators, they found a fleeing animal impossible to resist.
They made their odd clicking and rattling sound as they came, the noises growing in amplification as their excitement grew.
In a few more seconds, Michael didn’t want to look back and see how close they were, but he only wanted to put as much distance between himself and his team so they wouldn’t be noticed as they escaped.
He still gripped the half-stick of dynamite. Truth was, he knew it’d be more an annoyance to them than anything else, but there was no reason for him to die still holding onto it. He reached into his pocket, pulled out one of his last pieces of equipment—his lighter—and steadied himself for a second or two to light it. It flared and fizzed, quickly burning down.
Michael turned to throw it and felt a near electric shock of horror at how close the things were. He tossed the half-stick literally into the face of the lead creature, and then dove.
The explosion was enormously loud and even though only a quarter-stick, the percussive wave slammed Michael’s eardrums and threw a wave of heat over him. He immediately turned and sat up.
The lead creature was missing half its head and its spasmodic movements made it look
like it was short-circuiting. It finally fell on its side, its legs still running as though trying to carry out the damaged brain’s last instructions.
But the other dozen creatures were unharmed and quickly refocused on the main game—Michael.
“Ah, shit.”
Michael stood stock-still, staring back into their liquid-black eyes, and knew he had nothing left.
Fight or flight? he wondered. He pulled his knife from its scabbard. The thing was, his tank was empty and he was sick of running.
“Fight it is then.”
The deep zumm filled the air. It tickled his ears and vibrated right through his body to his bones. The huge spider-like beings crouched and their clicking became rapid and agitated. Collectively, they turned to stare, but not at Michael—at something behind and above him.
He spun, seeing the massive bodies bearing down on them like a squadron of winged torpedoes. The blast, though small, had roused the denizens of the hive above. Michael threw himself to the ground and began to crawl away.
Jane had suggested if they were bees, they would only protect their hive. But if they were something like wasps, then as far as they were concerned, the intrusion was a declaration of war—with the loser being dinner.
The monstrous wasps drew closer and Michael saw they looked more like floating dragons with broad, ribbed wings, powerful arms with long-taloned, finger-like claws on each, and where he had thought the spider-creatures had horrifying faces, these things were another level of terrifying altogether.
The sedan-sized dragon-wasps landed hard on the spiders, crushing them to the ground. Many tried to flee, and fast as they were, they were no match for the ferocity of the flying killers. The clicks and rattling noises became squeals of panic and pain as black spider limbs were cut or torn free and their bodies were efficiently dismembered and then decapitated.
The bulk of the remaining corpse, the fleshy torso and abdomen, was then flown back to the hive to be stored in the larder for later consumption. In another moment, it was over, and the giant wasps had departed, leaving a killing-field stained with ichor and still-twitching limbs.
Michael stayed down, resting his head on his forearms for a moment. “Holy crap,” he whispered. He lifted his head, feeling like he had more lives than Felix the Cat.
He looked toward the column mountain and saw his friends climbing up to enter the mouth of the largest cave. One person—Jane, he bet—stood outside, waiting for him.
“I’m coming. Hell yeah, I’m coming.” He began to crawl.
*****
It took Michael another half-hour to slither to the mouth of the cave, and when he finally arrived, he found he had little energy to even climb to his feet.
Jane came down the rocks to grab him under one arm and help him at least struggle to a crouching position to then hobble into the shade of the massive cave.
Wenton saluted. “You’re welcome.”
“What?” Michael frowned.
“The dynamite,” he said. “Saved your ass.”
“Oh yeah, piece of cake.” Michael scoffed and shook his head. “Your turn next time, Harry.”
Andy came and hugged him. “Thank God. I gotta tell you, I thought you were as good as dead.”
“Yeah, me too.” Michael finally straightened and began to look around. “Are we in the right place?”
“We don’t know.” Maggie smiled. “Another good reason that you made it. Now you can help us work that out.”
“There’s a slight problem.” He sighed. “Katya never actually said. She never made it this far.” He walked slowly into the cavernous opening, rubbing a bearded chin. He spun back to them. “But Saknussov might have. Panirovochnyye sukhari—the Russian words for breadcrumbs. Katya did say that they continued to follow Saknussov’s breadcrumbs.”
Andy clapped his hands together. “That has to mean his markings, right? He left his marks for us to follow.”
“We just have to find them, and we’ll be going home.” Wenton beamed. “We’ll be famous.”
“I’ll settle for just a cold beer and a hotdog,” Jane sighed.
“I’ll join you in that,” Michael replied.
“Burger and coke. Plus fries…and a hotdog as well.” Andy grinned.
“Poached lobster with butternut squash, from Eleven Madison Avenue in New York.” Wenton inhaled with his eyes shut as though savoring the aroma of the food. He opened one eye. “They have three Michelin stars this year, you know.”
“Maggie?” Andy asked. “What are you going to have first?”
She laughed. “A damn long bath.”
“Amen to that.” Andy lifted his arm and sniffed loudly. He screwed his nose up.
“Then let’s see if we can find if Saknussov left us his Panirovochnyye sukhari,” Jane said.
The group spread out, and after 20 minutes, they hadn’t found anything that remotely looked like a mark made by a human hand. They met again in the center of the cave.
“There are a lot of smaller caves leading off from this cavern. What do we do?” Andy asked. “Split up?”
“Not a chance,” Jane said. “I’ve seen what happens in that movie.”
“There’s a problem—does anyone have any flashlights? I lost mine on the island,” Michael said.
“That’s certainly going to make locating any sort of small chisel marks in the dark difficult. Not to mention blundering around in a cave.” Wenton raised his eyebrows. “Burning torches?”
“Made from what?” Maggie asked. “Those grasslands we just crossed had nothing remotely looking like a tree branch or even a stick. And I for one am not going back to the forest to gather some wood.”
“We burn our shirts, our shoes, and whatever else we need to burn,” Wenton replied forcefully.
Michael walked away a few steps, trying to think. “We need more than that. Remember, even if we find the gravity well to take us up through the mantle, we’ll still need to climb out through the upper crust, and it took us over a week to scale down. We’ll have exhausted all our combustible fuel long before then.”
“Somehow, Katya did it,” Andy replied.
“I know, but I don’t know how.” Michael turned. “Anyway, step one, we get some rest, and then we can search as much as we can in these labyrinths. If need be, we can go back to the forest to collect some wood.” He shrugged. “It’s all I got.” He yawned. “And frankly, I’m dead on my feet.”
They sat for a while, and Andy and Maggie lay back with arms thrown over their eyes. Wenton went and sat looking out at the plane, and Jane and Michael talked softly, neither able to drop off to sleep.
“What are our chances?” she asked.
“No light, no food, very little water, and we still haven’t found the right pathway to the surface. If I was a betting man, I’d say the odds were well against us.” He smiled and turned. “But inside, I think we’ve done the hard yards now. I think what we seek is close by. I just know it. So, I’m feeling pretty good.”
“Me too.” She reached out to squeeze his forearm.
He continued to watch her. “You know, for someone who was nearly eaten alive by some sort of monster snake-insect, you look damn good.”
“Oh yeah.” She grinned. “You sure know how to show a girl a good time, Mr. Monroe.” She kept her hand on his arm. And she kept it there as he drifted off.
His sleep was absolute, and there were no dreams, just a switching off and switching back on as if he had stepped into a time machine and projected himself two hours into the future.
Michael opened his eyes and felt thirsty, hungry, but enormously better from the rest. Jane’s hand was still on his arm, and he carefully sat up.
She sighed, smacked her lips, and then spoke without opening her eyes. “I had the strangest dream. I dreamed you and I were at the center of the Earth.”
He leaned closer to her. “Do you want the good or bad news?” He laughed softly.
Jane opened her eyes. “Oh God, it’s real.” She smiled and
sat up with a groan.
He took her hand and got to his feet. “Time to get to work. Besides, I can almost taste that beer and hotdog.” He helped her up.
The pair walked toward the rear of the cave and stopped to shut their eyes for a few moments. Being away from the red light from outside meant they needed the light receptors in their eyes to adjust to the darker interior.
They proceeded again, and then when they were around a hundred feet in, the darkness went from twilight, to gloom, and then to them only being able to just make out shapes in the darkness.
“There are more passages.” He felt along the wall. “Can’t tell which is worthwhile or not.” He stood at the entrance of one cave and inhaled, testing the scent and feeling for any air movement on his sweat-slicked cheeks. But there was nothing.
He moved across the rock face to the next cave, a smaller one, and this time he caught a hint of an odor like rising bread. Also, he felt a slight breath of coolness on his cheeks.
“Is it my imagination, or…?” Jane turned to him.
He could make out her face as there was a slight blue glow coming from deep inside the cave. His hands trailed on the cold stone and his fingers fell into three grooves carved in the rock.
“Wait a minute. Feel this.” He grabbed her hand and stuck them on the rock. “That’s not natural.”
She smiled, her teeth shining in both the darkness and a grimy face. “The three marks of Saknussov—his breadcrumbs. This must be it.” She turned back to the cave. “And there’s light in there.” She started to head in.
“Wait.” He grabbed her. “Slow down, will you? Jeez, getting eaten by a giant snake thing didn’t teach you anything?”
She turned. “Yes, that you’ll always come rescue me.” She went into the passage.
Michael scoffed and followed her in, down the tunnel that looked like it had once been bigger, but at one point in its history, the roof had collapsed, filling it with debris and partially narrowing the corridor.
She looked up. “Doesn’t look all that stable.”
“Let’s hope for no more tremors while we’re down here.”
They continued on and in a few more minutes, the narrow tunnel opened out into a huge cathedral-sized cavern.