by JE Gurley
“Before you fall in love with the muggies, Doctor Means,” Duchamps called out, “we’re getting the hell out of here before more of them come at us, and we don’t have time to carry back souvenirs. We bring back our dead. I don’t intend to leave my men behind as snacks for these bastards.”
Alan’s respect for Duchamps went up a notch. He seemed cold, but he cared for his men as much as Alan cared for his.
“I’ll help carry a man,” he volunteered.
“Thank you, Mister Hoffman,” Duchamps replied, “but my men can handle it. You and I can best serve by keeping our weapons ready.”
Duchamps handed him one of the R4 rifles and accepted back his pistol. The rifle was sticky from the previous owner’s blood. Disgusted, Alan wiped the blood off on his pants leg.
Moving as fast as they could with each of the three remaining guards carrying the additional burden of a dead comrade across his shoulders, they rushed back to the Cerberus tunnel. The guards kept furtively glancing behind them. Feeding off their fear, Alan increased his pace.
When they arrived back at the Cerberus, Alan thought their troubles were over. To his dismay, Bill informed him that the two men that Duchamps had left to guard the tunnel were gone.
“Gone?” Alan asked. “You mean they ran away.”
“No, something attacked them, something different from the bugs that attacked you. It was … like a host of shadows, undefined, almost a liquid the way it moved, but …” Bill hesitated.
“But what?” Alan urged.
“I don’t know. There was something in the shadows, something deadly.”
Alan swore. Bill was an engineer, detail oriented and not prone to exaggeration; and yet, he sounded mystified by what he had witnessed. “Christ! What have we stumbled into down here?” He turned to Duchamps. “Your two guards are gone.”
Duchamps misunderstood and exploded. “Bloody bastard slacker!” he yelled. “Damn Bekker. I told him to keep watch. I will kill his sorry ass.”
“You’re too late,” Alan said. “He’s already dead. There are other creatures out there now, bigger than the insects that attacked us.”
Duchamps’ jaw dropped. His Adam’s apple bobbed several times before responding, “Bloody hell. We’re almost out of ammunition. If we try to run, those bugs could easily catch up with us in the mineshafts. Now you tell me there is a … whatever took Bekker and Khosa running around. We can’t allow them out of this lava tube. There are eight-hundred kilometers of tunnels in the mine. We would never get them all.”
“We could block the tunnel with the Cerberus, I suppose,” Alan suggested, “once we’re gone. For now, we can certainly make use of the camera and lights. I’ll have Trace turn the Cerberus downslope toward the scorpion creatures following us.”
Eve paid no attention to their discussion. She knelt on the ground examining two small patches of whitish powder standing out in stark contrast against the darker rock. She picked up a piece of metal and held it out to Alan. He puzzled why her face had gone pale. He glanced at the metal, and then took it from her trembling hand to examine it more closely. He recognized it as the remains of a brass belt buckle.
“Can … can this be your friend?” she asked, pointing to the powder. Her voice quavered in fear and with the realization that she was looking at the remains of a human being reduced to ash.
Alan’s gut clenched with dread. He turned the buckle over in his hand and shook his head. Relief swept over him. “No. This is like the one the other guards are wearing.”
“Now we know what happened to the two guards. A methane explosion?” she asked, her tone expressing her doubt.
“A methane explosion isn’t hot enough to reduce bones to powder, much less melt brass. That takes a temperature of at least 900 degrees Celsius, over 1600 degrees Fahrenheit.” He held the buckle to his nose and sniffed it. “This isn’t melted. It’s partially digested, as if it’s been soaked in acid.”
She nodded at the ashen remains of the two guards. “And this is not ash. It is pulverized bone.” She shivered. “What kind of creature could do that?”
Before he could venture a guess, one of the guards yelled, “They’re coming.”
Too soon, Alan thought. Too damned soon.
“What do we do?” Duchamps asked.
That Duchamps had turned to him for advice spoke of the urgency of the situation. “Dig in. Have your men pile rocks together – over there.” He pointed to an area near the wall beside a pile of fallen rocks. “I have a plan.”
Duchamps stared at him, his face stern. “I certainly hope you know what you’re doing.”
Alan focused on the Cerberus. “Trace, move the Cerberus forty degrees downslope. Be quick about it.”
The big machine groaned, as its treads spun it into position. Alan silently urged it to move faster. The guards, catching his panic, hurriedly piled boulders to form a low barricade against the lava tube wall a few meters distant from the pile of rocks, forming a low, three-side enclosure. Alan grabbed one of the guards to help him remove a section of the metal skirting protecting the Cerberus’ tracks. The crimped upper edge of each three-meter-long pieces of metal slipped over a metal bar for easy assembly. Thank you, Bill, for suggesting the timesaving design. Carefully avoiding the moving treads, they unhooked the skirt and began dragging it toward the low wall. A second guard saw them struggling with the heavy metal skirt and rushed to help. He directed the guards to push one edge of the metal sheet up against the tube wall and lay it across the space between the pile of rocks and the wall they were building, creating a shallow bunker.
When they were finished, he yelled, “Everyone, crawl inside.” Into his headset, he said, “Trace, fire up the turbine and the laser array.”
They hesitated. He didn’t have time to explain what he had in mind. He grabbed Eve’s arm and shoved her toward the makeshift bunker. “Go,” he said. She crawled inside without protest.
“Do it!” Duchamps shouted. His men complied.
Alan waited while they squeezed into the small space. The insect sounds grew louder than the rumbling of the Cerberus’ treads. “Hurry,” he urged, kneeling in front of the opening. Eve reached out and pulled him inside. He fell on top of her, scrambling out of Duchamps’ way as the security chief crawled in behind him.
“Those things can dig us out, you know,” Duchamps told him.
Alan nodded and began pushing rocks into the opening.
“What about the bodies?”
“There’s no room for the dead,” Alan said.
Now, it was Duchamps’ turn to nod. “The living come first.” He began adding rocks to Alan’s pile.
“Trace,” Alan called over the headset radio, “fire the lasers on full spread for fifteen seconds.”
Duchamps looked at Alan as if he thought he was insane. “We’re in the line of fire.”
The laser array began to spin. “Help me seal the entrance,” Alan said.
Duchamps worked frantically, shoving rocks into the gap between metal skirt and the floor of the lava tube.
“Everyone down,” Alan warned, shouting over the whine of the turbine and spinning laser array.
Eve crawled over him and rested her head on his chest. He covered her with his arms and prayed his plan would work. The pulse laser could reach temperatures of 10000C in seconds. He hoped a short burst would be sufficient to kill the insects without frying him and his companions as well. The heat, when it finally washed over the lava tube, raised the temperature forty degrees Fahrenheit within seconds. The metal skirting above them quickly heated and buckled. Heat radiated down from it like the inside of an oven broiler. The air he sucked into his lungs instantly sucked the moisture from his throat, making swallowing difficult. His lips parched and the soft skin of his cheeks blistered. The acrid stench of singed hair and the burnt smell of scorched clothing mingled with the flinty odor of superheated rock. He cringed at the mad hissing of the creatures caught by the full blast of the laser. Popping sounds punct
uated the hissing. There’s my Fourth of July firecrackers, Alan thought.
After fifteen seconds, the laser array shut down. The turbine slowed; then stopped. Except for the pinging as the metal skirt cooled, a deep silence filled the lava tube. Deeming it safe to dig out, he pushed the rocks away with his hands, searing the tips of his fingers. The air was too hot to breath, but a blanket of heavier, moist, cooler air rushed down the tunnel to push it away. He faced the breeze for a moment before surveying the scene of carnage.
The laser had cremated dozens of insects, popping open their carapaces like popcorn. Their black bodies had turned a sickening cream color, like a broiled lobster changing color. The overwhelming stench of burned flesh filled the air. Steam and smoke rose from the nearly cremated remains of Duchamps’ dead guards. Wisps of smoke curled up from their charred clothing. Alan felt a twinge of guilt at their grisly condition, but comforted himself knowing the dead felt no pain.
“Your plan worked,” Duchamps said, as he crawled out and scanned the area for live bugs. “I admit I thought you were going to kill us all.”
Alan smiled. “I hoped it would work. No one has ever been as close to that much unleashed power.” He rubbed his arm where the heat had vaporized the hair as neatly as a razor. “I wasn’t certain we could survive it.”
Duchamps kicked one of the dead insects. It crumbled to powder. “That should keep them away for a while.”
“I certainly hope so.” He was more worried about the ebony shadow creatures Bill had reported, one that could turn human beings into piles of pulverized bone.
Duchamps’ men followed Eve from the bunker. She stumbled toward Alan, eyes unfocused, still in shock from the intense heat. One of the guards nursed a badly blistered arm, but most of their wounds were minor. Alan brushed his scorched fingertips across his blistered lips, flinching from the sharp pain. His cheeks felt as if he had shaved with a hot poker. But I’m alive, he reminded himself, as he looked at the three corpses.
The additional security team Duchamps had requested arrived as they tended to their wounds. Alan would have traded the Cerberus for a tube of Blistex and a bottle of Aloe Vera lotion. Within fifteen minutes, the security team had placed the corpses and the more seriously wounded guard on stretchers and transported them from the lava tube. Alan watched them file out the opening, taking stock of their efforts to find Vince. So far, Duchamps had lost four security personnel to the creatures, and three were missing and presumed dead. Vince was gone. Alan no longer doubted he was dead. How many more?
Back in the tunnel the Cerberus had bored, he called Trace. “Trace, back the Cerberus into the tunnel.”
Trace expertly maneuvered the vehicle until it stopped just inside tunnel. Alan and the two remaining guards removed two more skirts from the machine and placed them upright against the opening.
“Now, move it forward, slowly.”
The machine inched into place, pushing the quarter-inch metal plates flush against the edges of the tunnel, effectively sealing it.
“That should keep the creatures out,” he said to Eve, who had hovered around him since the attack.
“We have to come back down here to study those creatures,” she told him. “They are a remarkable find.”
In spite of her harrowing ordeal, Eve’s shock had worn off quickly. Her adrenaline was pumping, and she was bursting with professional curiosity. Soot smeared her right cheek, and the heat had melted part of her nylon jumpsuit, blistered her arm, and singed the ends of her hair. She ignored these in her excitement over the creatures. Alan decided she needed a dose of reality.
“Eve, ten people are dead. These creatures are deadly. Unique or not, I’d blast the whole damned tunnel to seal it shut and call it a good day’s work, but I’m sure Verkhoen will want his diamonds. Talk to him about coming back. I’m leaving. I’ve lost one good friend already. The Cerberus has proven itself. Now, I’m going home to help my father manufacture them.”
He didn’t tell her he was frightened down to his boots. The creatures acted with too much intelligence in the manner in which they stalked and attacked their prey. Sealed in the lava tube for 300 million years, evolution had ample time to play its tricks on them, a long time to hone their hunting skills.
Eve turned away from him, disillusioned. “I thought your scientific curiosity might have been aroused.”
Her disappointment bothered him for reasons he couldn’t quite explain, but he was out of his league and knew it. “Curiosity killed the cat. I’m an engineer, not a biologist. Certainly not a paleo-xenologist or whoever the hell studies these things. I develop, build, and sell mining equipment, not fight giant prehistoric insects. If you will excuse me, I have to go inform Vince’s parents that I killed their only son.”
He didn’t turn around to witness her reaction to his statement. She was a good woman, but too caught up in the excitement of discovery. If things had been different, maybe. He mentally slapped himself in the face. Enough of that. Let Van Gotts handle everything. As soon as they could pull back the Cerberus, he and his crew were out of there.
* * * *
When he arrived at the Shack, Trace and Bill were relieved to see him.
“Great job, boss. You made it back alive,” Trace called out after embracing Alan in a bear hug that nearly crushed his ribs. He held his arms out to his side to avoid hitting his blistered fingertips.
“You saved our skin with the Cerberus,” Alan acknowledged. Without warning, his legs became wobbly and gave out beneath him. He lurched backwards and collapsed in one of the rolling desk chairs. It skidded across the room, banging into the wall.
“Wow,” he said, shaking his head to clear the cobwebs. “I guess it’s all just hitting home.”
He had never faced danger in such a personal manner. There had always been the possibility of cave-ins, industrial accidents, even his recent near miss with the ore truck, but nothing in which he felt lucky to be alive afterwards.
“It was your idea,” Trace said, retrieving a bottle of cold water from the refrigerator and handing it to Alan. “I wasn’t sure what you had in mind at first.”
Alan twisted off the top, wincing at the pain in his fingertips, and downed most of it in one gulp. His felt a slight sting, as the bottle touched his blistered lips. His hand trembled when he raised it to take another sip, sloshing the water. He set it down before the others noticed. “Is the Cerberus still blocking the tunnel?”
Bill checked his monitor. “Nothing bigger than a rat can squeeze around it.”
Alan’s sharp laugh was bitter. “I’m not afraid of rats.”
He stared at Bill for a moment. He had never seen the insouciant engineer look so dejected. Though often taciturn, he had never been withdrawn. Alan wondered if he still blamed himself for not keeping track of Vince.
“It’s not your fault,” he said. “No one could have predicted what happened.”
Bill glanced at him, his eyes on the brink of tearing up; then turned his gaze back to the screen though there was nothing to look at.
“Hell, no, Bill,” Trace added. “Once he saw that hole, Vince wasn’t going to miss an opportunity to look for Pellucidar. It was … what do you call it? Synchronicity, that’s it.” He grew more somber. “What about Vince?”
Alan shook his head. “Not a sign of him.”
“Could he still be alive, hiding from those bugs, maybe?”
Alan considered the question for a moment. It was a wonderful hope, one that he wanted to embrace, but after having seen the bugs in action, he knew the odds were against it. He shook his head and watched the faint glimmer of hope in Trace’s eyes extinguish, as if he had snuffed it out like spitting on a candle wick. “I don’t think so. Those things are everywhere.”
Trace nodded and sat down in his chair. He sat in silence for a minute or two with his eyes closed, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his fingers. Finally, he said, “Your father wants you to call him as soon as you can.”
Alan grabbed Trac
e’s shoulder and squeezed it gently. “I will, after I take a shower. Try to get things organized here. We’ll leave the AT10 here as Van Gotts’ first purchase.” The bitter thought, it’s not the only thing we’ll be leaving behind, rolled through his mind. I can’t even bring back Vince’s body for his parents to bury. “If he balks, I’ll give him a nice, fat, used-Cerberus discount to sweeten the deal. I want to be out of here by tomorrow morning. We’re going home.”
“None too soon for me,” Trace whispered. He stood and began to yank files from the filing cabinet, tossing them in an untidy pile on the desk. He stopped and stood over the mess of graphs and printout strewn over the desktop, staring down at them. “I’ll miss him.”
Alan suspected Trace felt he was alive only because Vince had gone into the mine first. He was suffering from survivor’s guilt, just as Bill suffered from false guilt. Alan felt a touch of it himself, but they had no time to dwell on it.
“We all will, Trace. Vince was our friend. Now, take the files and the laptops. Leave everything else for Verkhoen’s engineers. If they have questions, they can call me long distance.” He handed Trace Vince’s laptop. “Put this one with the others.”
Trace handles the laptop as if it were a holy relic. He stared at the black leather case with Vince’s initials emblazoned in gold, rubbing his fingertips over the letters. “I’ll handle it,” he said.
“Bill,” Alan said, “download all the video files from the Cerberus and the security cameras to Dad’s computer back in Nevada.”
He finished his water. His hand no longer shook. He didn’t know if the water had replenished his dehydrated body, or if his decision to leave South Africa had hardened his resolve. Either way, he felt better. Sometimes one just has to accept failures and move on. I’m getting good at that, he thought bitterly. He tossed the empty water bottle at the garbage can and missed. He cursed and stormed out of the trailer.