Subterrestrial

by McBride, Michael

  Payton held perfectly still and prayed his breathing didn’t give him away. He resisted the urge to cover his mouth and nose for fear the motion would attract its attention.

  Its movements were undeniably avian. The knees bent backward like all bipedal birds, increasing the length of its stride, while its front appendages remained tightly against its sides. They were more like arms than wings, thin twigs from which three clawed digits hung. The majority of their bulk was composed of broad protofeathers that hung nearly all the way to the ground when it lowered its head, extended its neck, and released a shrill cry.

  Skree!

  Payton cringed deeper into the shadows.

  Its mouth had opened wide enough to swallow a bowling ball. And its teeth . . . Jesus. Not only were they sharp, there were multiple rows protruding from its gums like a shark’s.

  A thumping sound overhead. Pebbles clattered down the rock and splashed into the rising water in front of him.

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

  The sound came from right on top of him, mere feet above his head.

  The creature in front of him arched its neck, which shivered when it replied in kind.

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

  The heavy feathers shook like the branches of a weeping willow in a windstorm.

  It cut the distance between them in half with one effortless stride and lowered its chin nearly to the ground. Both eyes faced forward, an evolutionary adaptation that allowed birds to utilize binocular vision while their reptile forebears could only see to the sides. Its vertical pupils had dilated to such an extent that its irises were mere parentheses around them.

  The rivulets draining from the ceiling widened to streams.

  Payton cautiously brought his knees underneath him. He couldn’t afford to let them get any closer. As little as he liked his odds in a footrace, he stood a better chance of surviving a confrontation in the open than pinned beneath the rock.

  Despite what he had just witnessed, he couldn’t help but appreciate the creature’s majesty. Here was an organism in an active state of evolution, one simultaneously arrested and fulfilled by its environment. Had it completed its migration and emerged from the tunnels into the world above, it likely would have continued its physical progression into a species of bird, but down here in the darkness, it was perfectly designed to remain perched upon the top of the food chain.

  The perfect apex predator.

  Whatever shifting of tectonic plates or volcanic activity was responsible for sealing these tunnels had not just preserved, but also altered the evolutionary future of every species trapped down there. How many had initially gone extinct? How had those that survived adapted? What had they looked like before? He could happily spend the rest of his life studying every organism from the amazing flora to the miraculous fauna, assuming the remainder of his life wasn’t measured in minutes.

  A roaring sound filled the cavern. The ground positively shook.

  The creature’s nostrils flared and it huffed onto the detritus. Its forked tongue shot out from between its scaled lips and quickly retracted.

  It wasn’t hunting him by sight alone.

  Payton tensed in preparation. Planted one palm on the ground and the other on the light switch on his helmet. Braced his heels against the stone.

  It turned toward him and flicked its tongue again. The pupils on both eyes constricted, then expanded.

  Payton looked squarely into its reptilian eyes and clicked on his headlamp.

  Skree!

  He lunged out from beneath the rock. Scrambled to his feet. Ran for the jungle and prayed there wasn’t a third one waiting for him.

  The creature from on top of the rock flashed across his peripheral vision as it leaped to the ground, striking the other one, which screeched and snapped at it.

  Ten feet.

  Five.

  What then, though? They were better equipped for speed through the dense brush.

  Skree!

  They were right behind him.

  He aimed for a wall of shrubs between two massive trees. He was nearly upon them when he saw primates darting almost invisibly through the canopy.

  Payton knew what he needed to do.

  He veered right and aimed straight for the nearest tree. Jumped when he was within range. Hit with his right foot and launched himself upward. Wrapped his arm around a thick bough and pulled up his legs.

  The creature struck where he’d just been. The impact with the trunk nearly knocked him off.

  The roaring became deafening. His ears popped. The entire world positively shook.

  The creatures turned in unison toward the source of the noise, and then they were gone.

  Boulders tore through the forest, hurled ahead of a wall of water that shredded everything in its path, uprooting shrubs and pulverizing trees. Entire sections of the roof broke loose and flattened the trees below them.

  Whaah!

  Payton pulled himself up onto the branch and braced himself against the trunk. Muddy water raced past beneath him, rising by the second. He caught a glimpse of a primate maybe ten feet above him through the maze of branches before it propelled itself into the shadows.

  Payton looked down one last time, took a deep breath, and climbed higher into the canopy.

  VI

  They were at the mercy of the ferocious current. It swirled and shifted and sent them careening through the caverns and tunnels, which blew past in unrecognizable blurs. Debris pounded them and raced past them on its way to clogging the narrow fissures through which they would soon enough be unable to pass.

  Calder had given up trying to navigate and simply did her best to hang on to Mitchell while keeping her bent legs downstream ahead of her to absorb the impact. Time accelerated, faster even than the water returning to the Bering Sea. She felt its passage as a tightening sensation in her chest. She’d been diving for longer than she could remember and had never once come close to drowning, yet she feared even her considerable skills wouldn’t be enough to save her.

  The loss of control terrified her. Not only were time and the current conspiring against them, if the tunnels were now completely submerged, they would have to contend with the fact that they were nearly four hundred vertical feet beneath the surface with no known passage through which to ascend. Most frightening of all was that she couldn’t see a blasted thing.

  She squeezed the flashlight in her palm as tightly as she could and buried her face into Mitchell’s shoulder. The way they clung to each other made their combined mass spin like a bullet through a barrel. The dizzying speed brought with it a vertiginous sensation, forcing her to close her eyes and pray she didn’t vomit inside her mask.

  Her feet struck solid ground. Her knees buckled. She crumpled against the unforgiving limestone. Mitchell slammed her from the side. Knocked the wind out of her.

  She gasped and squirmed out from beneath him. The current pushed against her so hard that she couldn’t fill her lungs, let alone raise her head.

  Beside her, a crevice barely two feet wide. All kinds of debris streaking through it. Boulders shattered and disappeared through the fissure, the edges of which crumbled before her very eyes. Tree trunks split and disintegrated as though they were no more substantial than bubbles.

  Calder desperately looked for another passage, but the sediment assailing them like buckshot made it impossible to see more than a few feet in any direction. They were going to have to go through the fissure. If they waited any longer, they risked the opening clogging with rubble.

  Mitchell knew it every bit as well as she did. She felt his heels against her side. Glanced over and saw him brace his back and extend his legs . . .

  The stone gave way beneath her. The current sucked her backward with so much force that she felt as though she were in free-fall. She was repeatedly bludgeoned from behind. A blow to her head. She saw stars and somersaulted from the crevice into a larger body of water, where she flipped uncontrollably unti
l her momentum waned enough for her to once more get her feet in front of her.

  For the briefest of moments she thought she’d been carried into the open ocean, but her hopes were crushed when she saw stalactites in her peripheral vision as she streaked past. She grabbed for one. It broke and again sent her tumbling. She managed to catch the next one and held onto it for dear life.

  A black streak to her right. She nearly didn’t recognize Mitchell in time.

  She grabbed for his arm and caught the strap of his backpack. Her shoulder likely would have been wrenched right out of the socket had the stalactite not given way first.

  They raced through the water amid a tangle of branches until Mitchell caught hold of a column.

  Her hand slipped from the strap.

  He reached back and latched onto her wrist before the current swept her into a fissure positively spiked with rocks.

  Calder caught a glimpse of his face when she wrapped the hand holding the flashlight around his waist. His mask had cracked and several inches of water sloshed over his chin. The entire right side of his face and the inside of the Plexiglas were spattered with blood. But she’d seen something else, too: a flash of recognition in his eyes. A spark of hope.

  His entire body tensed as he pulled their combined weight against the flow. He inched along the column, dragging them closer to what could either have been the ground or the roof for all she could tell.

  The current momentarily abated. An eddy swirled around her feet. His next exertion brought with it a change in the direction of the current, which drew her feet up over her head until she was nearly perpendicular to him. The sudden shift caught her by surprise. She lost her grip on Mitchell’s waist and rocketed feetfirst through a narrow chute. The walls tightened around her, then released. She sped backward so fast that she couldn’t tell she’d been propelled into a larger space until her feet breached the surface and hammered the roof of the cavern. By the time she righted herself and got her head above the choppy waves, there was barely a foot of air left, which vanished before she could even consider taking off her mask. She glanced at the digital readout on her tank before she was once again immersed.

  10:38.

  And counting.

  Calder flipped over, planted her feet against the ceiling, and pushed off, away from the flume of water.

  Mitchell knifed through the churning sediment and organic debris and similarly used the ceiling to redirect himself toward the center of the cavern, where they hovered long enough to gather their bearings.

  Although the flashlight could barely penetrate the murk, being able to distinguish up from down made all of the difference in the world.

  Mitchell made on okay sign with his hand.

  She responded by loosely closing her fist to make a circle and mouthed the words I’m okay.

  He nodded and glanced at the air tank on his hip. She could only see the pale green glow of the readout. The bubbles gushing from the cracked seal obscured the numbers.

  He twisted the tubing in an effort to reseal it. Pinched it between his fingers. Nothing he tried slowed the flow of bubbles.

  Mitchell looked into her eyes as his readout changed from green to red. For the first time, she saw fear in his eyes.

  She held both hands in front of her chest, her fingers curled slightly inward, the left higher than the right.

  Buddy breathe.

  He shook his head and pointed at his chest.

  She could have screamed in frustration.

  A grim expression of resolve chased the fear from his eyes. He swam away from her and deeper into the darkness, leaving her to hurriedly catch up with him before she lost him for good. A line of bubbles trailed from his hip. He must have only just broken the line. She caught up with him and shined the light ahead of them.

  The water eddying from the domed ceiling forced them downward to a point below the worst of the swirling sediment. The beam was barely strong enough to illuminate a flowstone formation, at the top of which was a narrow opening that inhaled sparkling dust in a vortex.

  Calder pointed and Mitchell again made the okay sign.

  The current increased as they neared until it sucked them inside the tunnel and fired them through a twisting passage. They contorted their bodies and guided themselves ever higher.

  The current was little more than a gentle nudge when they swam from the egress into another cavern, inside of which the sediment hung like a brownish-gold cloud. She shined the flashlight into his face and read the situation. She didn’t need to shine it onto his hip to know that there were no more bubbles rising from the dead tank.

  Calder made the sign to buddy breathe again. This time he reluctantly nodded.

  She took several slow, deep breaths to completely fill her lungs and disconnected her hose. He attached his and closed his eyes. The relief on his face was clearly evident. She peeked at the readout.

  7:46.

  That was the remainder of their lives if they didn’t find a way out soon.

  Air flowed into her mask again. She turned to see Mitchell holding his breath. The water inside his mask had risen nearly to his nose.

  There was no time to lose.

  Calder grabbed his hand and urged him through the cloud. The light barely provided a diffuse glow, and the sediment accumulated on her mask. Every second brought them closer to their last. Her chest tightened at the thought, and she had for force herself to relax, for all the good it did her. Acquiescing to the panic would only serve to burn through the oxygen faster.

  She disconnected her hose again and held still long enough for Mitchell to attach his. She couldn’t bear to make eye contact with him.

  The sediment swirled ahead of them, then became a cyclone that funneled upward through a chute in the ceiling that barely looked wide enough to accommodate her shoulders if she turned sideways.

  The current grew stronger as they neared until she could feel it dragging her forward and had to actively swim against it.

  There was no way Mitchell would be able to fit through there.

  She looked at him and saw the recognition in his eyes.

  A dark shape knifed through the cloud behind him.

  Calder screamed out the last of her air.

  TEN

  I

  Below Speranza Station

  Bering Sea

  Ten Miles Northwest of Wales, Alaska

  65°47′ N, 169°01′ W

  Nabahe climbed as fast as he could. The wave of water slammed into the escarpment to his left with a deafening crash and filled the air with spray. It was all he could do to hang onto the ledge as what felt like an entire river washed down over him. The muscles in his forearms trembled and his elbows threatened to give out. He wasn’t in any kind of physical shape to be pushing himself like this. Thyssen had been able to scale these walls like a spider and look how much good it had done him.

  The rising water grabbed at his feet. He barely pulled them up onto the ledge before an uprooted tree scraped across the limestone below him.

  “Give me your hand!” Hart screamed from above him.

  The air temperature plummeted with the influx of freezing water, raising his goosebumps even under the Thermoprene.

  He reached for her outstretched hand and retracted his arm when a spray of brine slapped him from the side. The smooth stone was already slick enough when it was dry; it was like trying to hold onto melting butter when it was wet. He steadied himself for another attempt and this time caught her wrist.

  Hart groaned with the strain. There was no way she was going to be able to pull him up on her own. At least she gave him the leverage he needed to get his feet to an outcropping just a little higher, from which he was able to crawl into the cave beside her.

  The entire back wall of the cavern was honeycombed with recesses. They’d blended into the shadows so well that at first he hadn’t seen them—not until he’d burst from the cover of the forest and the apes had launched themselves straight up the sheer escarpment and
disappeared into the darkness. He never would have made it even as high as the lowest tier had the leading wave not lifted him from his feet and thrown him against the limestone.

  Nabahe stood and smacked his head. He ducked again and switched on his headlamp. After so long in the dim violet light, the halogen beam temporarily blinded him.

  Water cleared the ledge and raced past their feet, toppling the stones that had been stacked across the orifice and sending them clattering deeper into the recess.

  “My God,” Hart said.

  “What—?” Nabahe started, but then he saw it.

  The walls of the cave stared back at him through the faces of generations of The Watchers, only they were unlike all of the others he’d seen. They weren’t designed to serve as signposts or warnings; they were meant to commemorate the lives of their deceased ancestors. Hands that had undoubtedly spent hours tracing those features in the flesh and had been able to work them perfectly into the soft stone lovingly recreated each rendition. Various shapes had been carved beside them in vertical lines.

  “It’s a written language,” Hart said.

  Another wave washed over the ledge. Hollowed gourds shattered against the rear wall, where potsherds accumulated against the stone.

  He grabbed Hart by the shoulders and bodily turned her away from the tableau. The upper canopy of a magnolia tree streaked toward the opening and lodged itself into the gap.

  Nabahe shoved through the branches as the water rose past his knees. A massive wave passed through the dense leaves and knocked him backward. By the time he found his footing again, he was pinned against the back wall.

  He shouted with the effort and slogged against the current through the waist-deep water. He leaned out onto a thick bough and managed to open a sliver of space.

  “Hurry!”

  Hart didn’t need to be told twice. She scurried through and climbed out of sight to the left. Nabahe was halfway to where she’d disappeared when he saw the stone outcroppings. The water responsible for shaping the flowstone had been painstakingly rerouted in such a way as to create staggered steps on the wall, almost like gours. Vines braided into ropes hung down the sheer face and whipped wildly when the rising water caught their distal ends.