Subterrestrial

by McBride, Michael

  This was it. Three generations of searching and they’d finally found it . . .

  Agharta.

  Here was the proof that his grandfather hadn’t been crazy, that his father’s belief hadn’t been misplaced, that his own life’s work had not been in vain.

  Thyssen watched the boughs pass overhead, the leaves illuminated by the phlegmy sludge hanging from the upper canopy and the roof of the cavern.

  When he’d first seen the faces Nabahe posted on his website, he’d been skeptical, to say the least. He’d traveled to the Arizona desert to see them with his own eyes, and even then they’d required no small amount of imagination. As had many of the others. Not down there, though. The moment Mitchell led him across the river and showed him the faces carved into the columns, he’d known that he was on the brink of realizing his dreams. Yet even with the physical remains, he hadn’t genuinely believed that it was possible for anything to have survived in these caverns without light and food, not even when he’d flown halfway around the world in an effort to convince Hart and Payton to join him. The only one of them he’d truly believed he might need was Calder, who he figured would help them determine what kind of animal killed the sea lions, assuming he wasn’t right in his initial assessment that it had been the work of polar bears.

  Now, though, as he staggered through a biome miraculously preserved from a prehistoric time, he couldn’t help but believe that The Watchers, whose likeness adorned the passages into the Hollow Earth, were still down there in the darkness with them.

  Neither Nabahe nor Payton broke the reverential silence. Payton touched every leaf and fern frond and appeared on the verge of making some dramatic proclamation before he was distracted by yet another plant or shrub.

  Whaah!

  The scream came from the dense thicket directly ahead of them.

  They stood still and listened for a recurrence of the sound, yet all they heard was the sound of running water in the distance.

  Thyssen readjusted his grip on the detonator. He wouldn’t survive another confrontation, but at least there was a slim chance that the others might.

  They started forward slowly. Cautiously. Creeping through the foliage as quietly as possible, letting the branches slide from their wetsuits and placing each tread—

  Whaah!

  A dark shape tore through the vegetation, low to the ground and moving with startling speed. It burst from the bushes and barreled straight into Payton.

  Thyssen toppled sideways into Nabahe and nearly pressed the button. A branch scraped his cheek and pierced the burn wound on his ear. He opened his mouth to cry out and tasted dirt.

  The animal screamed and thrashed while Payton could only try to shield his face with his arms.

  “Stop it!”

  Hart shoved through the thicket and stood silhouetted against the purple glow.

  The frenzied screaming and thudding of fists striking flesh ceased and for the first time, Thyssen got a good look at the animal crouching on Payton’s abdomen. Its cranium was elongated and its beard was almost manlike. It was the face from the caves in the Baboquivari Mountains and the Argentinian Andes, The Watchers over the River Styx, the hypothetical link to the first forest ape to walk on two legs.

  Hart approached with her palms up and her eyes averted. She lowered herself to her knees and scooted closer.

  The primate watched her, its back heaving with each great breath. She rested her hands on the ground at Payton’s side.

  Whay-ahh!

  Hart flinched, but held her ground. She watched the beast from beneath her bangs.

  The animal huffed and looked at Payton. Blood dribbled from one nostril and from what looked like a bite mark on his cheek. It bared its teeth and raised its fists.

  “Look at me,” Hart whispered.

  The primate grunted and watched her from the corner of its eye. She slowly turned her hand over and brushed aside the leaves and twigs to reveal a patch of bare soil, then drew a triangular shape.

  Whaah!

  It seemed to deflate when it shrieked. It climbed down from on top of Payton and used the tip of its finger to draw a half circle beside the triangle.

  Hart again turned her hands over and waited for the animal to place his palms on hers. It appeared to be on the verge of climbing into her lap when it abruptly stiffened and looked at Thyssen, who scurried backward at the sight of its face.

  “It doesn’t have eyes!”

  Whay-ahh!

  It grabbed his bloody arm, leaned closer, and drew a deep inhalation. Its head snapped back toward the direction from which they’d come.

  A crashing sound from the trees behind them.

  Thyssen glanced down at the soaked bandages and then at the leaves of the shrubs that glistened with his blood.

  Skree!

  It exploded from the bushes and was upon him before he could even brace himself for impact.

  Searing pain in his neck.

  A crunch of cartilage and a whistle of air.

  He pressed the button on the detonator as he collapsed into a rapidly expanding pool of his own blood.

  IV

  The ground lurched underfoot. Chunks of limestone broke from the ceiling and rained down upon them. Impact with his shoulder drove Mitchell to his knees, but he struggled back to his feet. He was in big trouble and he knew it. The rope had helped stem the flow of blood and now that it was gone, there was nothing to hold it back. Despite pressing his palm to the wound, the blood sluiced through the gaps between his fingers at an alarming rate. If it had nicked an artery, he already would have bled out. While that thought comforted him, it certainly didn’t make it hurt any less. It felt like there was a fiery brand working its way deeper into his flesh, right down to the bone, bringing with it a tingling sensation that settled into his foot. Already his head was beginning to feel light and the ground refused to hold still.

  A fissure opened in the rock overhead with a resounding crack. Water trickled down the walls and reflected the flashlight beam. He didn’t even want to guess where it originated. The fact that it was already welling underfoot told him more than he needed to know.

  The clapping sounds of their strides became splashing as the water rose. The light abruptly dimmed when Calder blocked it with her body. The passage narrowed to a sliver through which she had to squeeze sideways.

  Mitchell stared at the crevice for several seconds before sliding his leg inside. The pressure on his shoulder and hip was instantaneous. His heart rate accelerated at the prospect of getting stuck.

  The shrill screams from the cavern behind them reached a crescendo.

  Mitchell closed his eyes and pushed himself deeper. He had to turn his face to the side. The pressure against his ribs made it impossible to take a breath deep enough to stave off the panic. He tried to clear his mind and focus on his training. Every diver knew that panic was his greatest enemy, and if he gave into it—even for a second—all was lost.

  He probed for imperfections on the rocks and used them to pull himself forward. Several times it took all of his strength to move a few scant inches, forcing him to contort his body and shove by any means that he could. The water rose past his ankles and to his shins. The current grew stronger with every step.

  His chest became lodged. He blew all of the air from his lungs and even then couldn’t seem to move.

  “Come on!” Calder shouted.

  Mitchell tried to respond, but couldn’t find the breath to speak.

  The tunnel terminated a mere three feet away, just out of reach. The sound of running water grew louder by the second.

  Calder leaned inside and grabbed his arm. Pulled. Jerked.

  He didn’t budge.

  The first sparkles of oxygen deprivation danced in his peripheral vision.

  “You have to help me!” Calder screamed.

  She bit the flashlight between her teeth, gripped his wrist, and set her feet. Pulled as hard as she could. He felt himself slide, if only a fraction of an inch.
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  Her grasp slipped and she splashed into the rising water.

  Skree!

  Calder’s eyes widened as she looked past him, toward the source of the sound.

  Mitchell couldn’t even turn his head.

  “Go,” he whispered with the last of his air.

  “We go together or not at all.”

  Calder again grabbed his wrist, raised one foot from the water, and planted it against the stone. She tightened her grip, braced her other foot on the opposite side of the crevice, and leaned backward over the water. The strain on Mitchell’s shoulder increased tenfold. He was certain the socket would give long before the stone.

  Skree!

  Calder screamed and drove with her legs. The light dropped into the water. The pain in his chest became unbearable. He heard as much as felt a rib crack, and then he was falling. He caught a glimpse of Calder’s silhouette before she vanished with a splash.

  Mitchell barely managed to take a breath before falling into the water.

  Movement and light from the corner of his eye.

  Calder stood from the water with the flashlight held high.

  The tips of the stalagmites breached the choppy waves. Geysers erupted from the walls and gushed down the flowstone. None of this water was supposed to be here.

  Within moments, it was past his knees and still rising.

  Skree!

  Calder took his hand and dragged him behind her. Water rose around their churning knees as they fought their way across the cavern, without any idea where they were going. All he knew was that if the water could get in here, then surely he and Calder could get out. He just prayed the passage was larger than the last and did his best to force the implications of the rising water from his mind. They needed to distance themselves from the creature before they could worry about the sheer quantity of returning seawater that could easily flood the entire network of tunnels.

  A thunderous crashing sound. The ceiling to their right disintegrated before their very eyes.

  Mitchell pulled Calder in the opposite direction as the avalanche cascaded around them. A wall of water exploded from the limestone, hurling the rocks ahead of it like steel pellets from a shotgun.

  It swept Calder from her feet and wrenched her hand from his. She vanished a heartbeat before his head struck the ground and the water buffeted him against the wall, pinning him to the stone while boulders ricocheted all around him.

  The force was so great he couldn’t move. And then the current shifted and flung him deeper into the cavern. He struck speleothems hard enough to shatter them. The sharp edges tore his wetsuit and lacerated his skin. He tried desperately to find Calder, but he couldn’t see a blasted thing through the raging water and the debris churning all around him. He could no longer tell up from down and could barely hold what little breath he had as he was bludgeoned against the ground and the walls.

  A rock the size of a bowling ball struck his shoulder and his right arm went numb. He instinctively cried out, but managed to close his mouth before inhaling his death.

  It was now or never. Either he surfaced or he drowned.

  His back struck the ground and his feet careened over his head. He used the momentum to right himself, then bent his knees and shoved off the moment his feet hit solid stone. He reached upward and felt his hand breach the surface. His inertia carried him backward. His hand once more submerged and his legs swung upward. He struck something solid and held on for everything he was worth. The current attempted to pry him loose as he struggled to invert himself, to get his head out of the water and his legs once more beneath him.

  He gasped the moment he felt air on his face and coughed out the brine.

  The feeling returned to his dead arm with the assault of pins and needles, but at least he was able to wrap it around the stalactite and steady his head above the waves.

  “Over here!”

  He barely heard Calder’s voice over the roar of the floodwaters. He turned and saw the faintest hint of light beneath the surface, maybe fifteen feet away. She clung to another stalactite, her chin raised at an awkward angle to keep her mouth out of the water.

  Mitchell gauged the direction of the current, took a deep breath, and pushed off. He reached Calder even more quickly than he’d expected and barely grabbed onto her in time. He wrapped his arms around the stalactite and spoke directly into her ear.

  “Are you all right?”

  A wave washed over her face.

  “I think so.”

  “We’re going to have to swim for it.”

  She looked as though she was about to argue, but reluctantly nodded. She leaned her head all the way back. Mitchell did the same. There couldn’t have been more than six inches of air trapped against the ceiling and it diminished by the second.

  “Hold onto me and don’t let go or we’ll never find each other again.”

  Mitchell slid his hand down her lower back to where her face mask was clipped to her hip. He unfastened it and raised it to her face. She lowered her chin and looked him directly in the eyes through the plastic shield as he affixed it to her head.

  “Don’t you dare let go,” she said.

  The water rose over his mouth and nose before he could respond. He hoped his eyes communicated his thoughts as he reached for her other hip and cranked on the air.

  Calder’s initial relief at the influx of air metamorphosed quickly into an expression of apprehension.

  Mitchell totally understood.

  He donned his own mask and dialed up the air.

  The countdown had officially begun.

  V

  Payton whirled and sprinted blindly through the jungle. He realized with a start that the warmth on his face, in his eyes, was Thyssen’s blood and wiped it away.

  He was only peripherally aware of Hart shoving through the bushes to his right. The sound of tearing flesh was replaced by high-pitched simian cries, above which he couldn’t even hear himself crashing through the forest. He blew past posts upon which hideous skulls had been staked. They were filled with teeth exactly like those he’d just watched slice through Thyssen’s throat. The mental image spurred him to run even faster.

  The racket in the canopy ceased.

  Skree!

  Payton imaged it was the same sound a field mouse heard before the talons of a hawk sunk into its flesh and lifted it into the sky. He hurdled buttress roots and ducked beneath vines. Shielded his face with his forearms and barreled through branches riddled with thorns. His foot snagged on something, and he hit the ground hard. Pushed himself back up and stumbled ahead.

  Nabahe blew past in his peripheral vision. Or at least he hoped it was Nabahe.

  Crashing sounds from behind him.

  He risked a glance back. Branches swayed violently in the wake of something cutting a clear swath through the underbrush.

  It was right behind him and closing fast.

  Payton turned and barely had time to shield his face. The impact with the bough sliced open his skin. He burst from the thicket, stumbled into a clearing, and lost his balance. A rock formation reminiscent of the prow of a cutter appeared as if from nowhere. He struck it squarely with his shoulder and his feet went out from under him. The saplings growing from the crevices dropped withered leaves onto him.

  He rolled over and the detritus clung to his wounds. It took every ounce of his remaining strength not to bellow in pain. If his collarbone wasn’t broken, then he didn’t want to imagine how badly it would hurt if it were.

  The trees marking his passage shivered back into place. There was no sign of movement behind them.

  Payton kicked his heels into the soil to propel himself backward.

  The ground shivered. Broken stalactites streaked from above. Droplets of water pattered the dead leaves, a prelude to the rivulets that poured from the earthen roof.

  He rolled onto his good side in an effort to stand, but froze when he saw the shrubs swaying. Something was back there. He could vaguely make out an ill-defin
ed shadow, near the ground, inching closer. Had the creature attempted to flank him or had one chased him into the waiting jaws of a second?

  Err-err-err-err-err-err-uhh-uhh-uhh-err.

  The sound came from the opposite side of the clearing.

  Behind him.

  He didn’t dare take his eyes off of the movement in front of him. He could hear the other one back there, moving stealthily through the trees with barely the rustling of leaves to betray its location.

  Payton scooted backward and into a shallow recess in the rock.

  If neither of them had been the one that attacked Thyssen, then it could still be back along the route he’d taken or even now it could be circling around to the far side of the clearing.

  He was trapped.

  Err-err-err-err-err-err-uhh-uhh-uhh-err.

  This time from the source of the motion.

  A fleeting glimpse of a pointed head and a long neck passing through the primitive fern trees.

  Err-err-err-err-err-err-uhh-uhh-uhh-err.

  The other one answered from behind him. They were communicating, coordinating their attack. Or were they trying to flush him from his hiding spot?

  A curtain of water drained from the stone ledge. The spattering sound nearly concealed the subtle sounds of his hunters moving through the forest. The ground trembled as though a freight train were bearing down on him.

  Payton held perfectly still and waited. Maybe they didn’t know he was there.

  A dark shape drew form from the shadows and stepped slowly out into the clearing. The branches slid silently from its flanks. It lifted each leg deliberately. Its long toes hung limply before extending when it planted them on the wet loam.

  Violet droplets rained from above and glowed faintly where they landed.

  The creature’s head bobbed when it moved. The comb on top of its head rose, rippled through the feathers along its neck, and settled into its back. They looked more like quills than feathers and hung heavily from its body like fur. Its tail was easily half of its overall length. It was flattened and widened at the distal end, like a paddle, from which long feathers radiated.