Subterrestrial

by McBride, Michael

  Ten feet and closing.

  Skree!

  They weren’t going to make it.

  The water rose past her ankles, slowing her progress. It was all she could do to remain upright. Her head still swam from the aftereffects of nearly drowning, and a profound level of fatigue had settled over her body like a lead drape.

  Whaah!

  Five feet.

  The tunnel was so high up. Too high. There was no way on this planet she’d be able to reach it.

  Payton jumped before he hit the wall, braced his right foot against the limestone, and launched himself upward. He caught the ledge and pulled himself up to his elbows.

  Alpha screamed and pulled on him as he scrabbled up the wall into the hole.

  Payton was a good eight inches taller than she was and he’d barely made it. What hope did she have, especially in her weakened physical state?

  His light dimmed dramatically. The darkness rushed in from all sides and she caught one last glimpse of the wall before she jumped toward the dimly lit hole.

  Her right foot struck the slick stone, but not with the traction she expected. It slipped and she slammed into the rock. Her hands slapped a good foot below the lip. Payton’s beam streaked out from the orifice and shined directly down into her eyes. He caught her by the left wrist and she swung sideways along the wall.

  “Use your feet!”

  Wheet!

  Payton clasped her forearm with both hands and pulled so hard she feared her shoulder would dislocate. She raised her knees and planted her feet against the escarpment.

  Crack!

  The creature struck where her legs had just been. She lost traction and her feet hung mere inches above where it scrambled to right itself.

  It whipped its head around on its serpentine neck, and its eyes locked onto hers. The pupils narrowed to slits and its scaled lips peeled back from rows of interlocking teeth.

  Hart screamed and looked up at Payton.

  “Pull me up! Pull me up!”

  She grabbed onto him with her right hand and planted her feet against the wall.

  He shouted with the effort. She rose several inches.

  Skree!

  She planted her feet as firmly as she could and propelled herself upward.

  The creature struck at her and missed its desired target, but the crown of its head struck her ankle and knocked her sideways, robbing her of her momentum.

  Payton pulled her up to the ledge even as she was certain she was going to fall right back into the water.

  She braced her elbows and kicked at the limestone. He freed his right hand and grabbed her by a tear in the back of her wetsuit. Dragged her into the narrow tube beside him until her entire torso was safely inside.

  “Keep going,” he said. “I’ll be right behind you.”

  Skree!

  The creature hurled itself against the stone below her. Over and over. Striking the smooth rock just as she and Payton had. Its claws carved deep gouges into the soft stone but were unable to secure purchase.

  Hart squeezed past Payton and crawled into the pitch black. She felt hands on her cheeks, then fur on her face. Alpha drew her to his chest and hooted softly into her ear.

  “Okay, okay. I’m all right.”

  He spun and bounded ahead of her. She followed on her hands and knees. Payton’s light shined past her and cast her shadow onto Alpha’s back before he scurried beyond the light’s range. His traveling calls spurred her onward toward where more screeches and high hoots echoed from the darkness, defining the size of another cavern, only there was something odd about the intonation.

  Freezing water raced past her legs and bit into the bare flesh on her hands, spurring her to crawl even faster. If the water had risen to the mouth of the cave, then the creature could easily reach it, too.

  Skree!

  The shrill cry was deafening in the confines. It was right behind them and better equipped to handle the rising water, which only served to slow them down as it rose to her elbows, then to her chest. The current shoved her forward and slammed her into a pile of jagged stones, like a wave upon breakers.

  Payton’s light flashed her in the eyes a heartbeat before he collided with her.

  “It’s right behind me!” he shouted.

  Skree!

  Hart climbed out from beneath him and up the pile of debris. Payton’s light swung frantically behind her, illuminating sporadic swatches of rubble all around her and throwing her shadow up into the darkness. At first she thought it was granite, but even granite wasn’t this smooth, nor was its coloration such a uniform shade of gray. It wasn’t until she saw the sharp lengths of rebar protruding from it that she realized what it was.

  Concrete.

  They had to be near the surface.

  The riot of simian screams grew louder as she crawled over a rugged section of fractured concrete and tumbled to the ground. It was smooth and rounded and obviously manufactured.

  Payton crawled from the hole behind her. His light reflected off the siding on the bed of a toppled heavy hauler. The trailer was on its side, its cargo of boulders spilled out and blocking their way. Its tires stood at odd angles from the broken axles.

  The water fired upward from the rubble and splashed down around them. It ran like a river over the rocks and into the distance.

  A roar behind her.

  She and Payton both looked in that direction. A veritable wall of water sped toward them through the remains of the tunnel.

  A shadow reared up in front of it, the comb of feathers along its head and neck standing fully erect. It lowered its head and with a flash of teeth screamed its intentions.

  Skree!

  Hart whirled and sprinted in the opposite direction. Even if they could outrun the water and the creature, there was nowhere to go.

  Whay-ahh!

  She looked up and saw Alpha’s silhouette on top of the trailer.

  “Up there!” she shouted and ran toward the back of the heavy hauler. She climbed onto the side rail of the ladder bolted to the back and scurried up onto the side, where Alpha slapped his hands against the metal with a resounding clang-clang-clang.

  The wall of water struck the overturned trailer at the same time as Payton. His light swung away from her and for a second she feared the current would whisk him away, until his headlamp rose over the bed and he crawled onto the trailer.

  A loud thud as something slammed into the tailgate behind him.

  Whay-ahh!

  Alpha jerked on her arm to get her moving. He bounded ahead of her and stopped at the end of the trailer, where the cab had been turned sideways and wedged with its bumper pointed up at the rounded ceiling. He leaped across the gap, swung from the frame of the broken driver’s side window, and bounced from the open hood up onto the grill.

  Skree!

  A blur of feathers behind Payton, streaking straight toward them.

  The water lifted the entire bed and the trailer slid underneath them with a scream of shearing metal.

  Hart jumped for the cab and barely hung on to the door when it swung open. The hinges made buckling sounds but held long enough for her to scurry up onto the hood, which rested against the shattered windshield. She used the engine block to climb toward where Alpha screeched down at her. He grabbed her by the wrists and pulled her up onto the grill, where she saw the reason for his excitement.

  There was a narrow chute directly above her, through which she saw the faintest hint of light at the far end. Severed conduits dangled from either side of a ladder, which ran straight up the middle. It extended from the ventilation shaft to a point mere feet above her head. The frightened cries of primates echoed from the chute, growing more distant by the second.

  The cab slid. She watched in horror as the ladder moved away from her. Water rumbled over the trailer and slammed into the semi, filling the cab even as Payton hauled himself up behind her.

  “Keep going!” he shouted.

  The creature struck the door right be
low him. Its claws punctured the siding with loud popping sounds.

  Hart leaped for the lowest rung and grabbed it. Her arms trembled and nearly gave out. She was too close to fail now. Her entire body shook as she pulled herself upward one rung, then another. And another. Until her right foot found purchase and she was able to hug the ladder to her chest and rest her arms.

  The cab skidded across the concrete below her. Payton jumped for the ladder before it was too late.

  Alpha jumped and caught Payton’s leg as the water dragged the truck out from under him. Water splashed up the shaft and nearly dragged both of them back down with it.

  Payton shouted with the strain. He pulled them both slowly above the rising water, one painful rung at a time. Alpha grabbed the ladder the moment it was within his reach. Without his added weight, Payton climbed easily toward Hart.

  Wheelp!

  Alpha screamed up at them. He wrapped both arms around the ladder. The terror in his voice was palpable.

  “Come on!”

  He screeched again and nearly lost his grip. The raging water was past his waist and rising by the second.

  “We can’t leave him!” Hart screamed. She swung around the side of the ladder and climbed down past Payton.

  “What are you doing?”

  The water was to Alpha’s chin and nearing the roof of the tunnel. Why wasn’t he climbing?

  “Take my hand!”

  She wrapped her legs around the rail and reached down toward where he fought against the current. He extended his arm. Their fingertips grazed, but he had to grab the rung again before he was dragged under.

  “Just a little farther!”

  He tried again. His entire body lurched downward, and he again clung to the ladder with both arms. His head momentarily submerged.

  “You have to try again! Please!”

  Pleese!

  The world seemed to spin around her.

  He’d spoken. Alpha had spoken. There was no doubt in her mind.

  Hart lowered herself into the water and yanked on his arm. It was as though the water itself held onto his legs.

  She screamed and pulled with everything she had left.

  Alpha’s chest rose from the water, followed by a fan of feathers and a serpentine neck. The creature snapped its jaws and sank its teeth deeper into Alpha’s macerated hip.

  He screamed and looked directly at her.

  In that fleeting moment, Hart was certain she felt his stare meet hers.

  The creature thrashed.

  Alpha’s hand slipped from her grasp and he vanished beneath the waves.

  Hart screamed and let go of the rail, but Payton caught her around the chest before she could go in after Alpha.

  She cried and beat her fists against his back as he pulled her to him and steadied her against the ladder.

  III

  Calder sped through the water, low to the ground. Scalding heat burbled from the geothermal fissures. Never in her life had she moved so fast. She performed the butterfly stroke, her arms pulling her, her body and legs undulating rapidly up and down like a dolphin. There was no room for anything else and even then she scraped her fingers and toes. Jagged rocks tore into the meat of her shoulders.

  The creature was gaining on her. She could feel it.

  Her light illuminated a rocky ledge through the bubbles and diffused into the open water beyond it.

  She forced herself to move even faster. She blew past the ledge and into another flooded cavern. There was no time to gather her bearings. She needed to pick a direction and pray it led her to safety.

  The walls were covered with the kind of red sludge she associated with deep-sea hydrothermal vents, thermophilic bacteria capable of producing oxygen as a byproduct of breaking down toxic substances. Her beam swept across a seamless mat as she desperately sought a means of escape.

  She didn’t look back. Her only hope was that the creature wouldn’t attack her for fear of damaging the egg sac, but she had no doubt it would take advantage of any opportunity she inadvertently presented.

  The cavern walls converged ahead of her. She feared she was swimming into a dead end until she saw a tunnel to her right and veered toward it.

  Her light cast shadows against the uneven walls and spotlighted the debris flowing toward her on the current, which grew stronger as the tunnel narrowed.

  Movement from the corner of her eye.

  She nearly lost her momentum trying to dodge what at first looked like a sea snake. It whipped across her mask and she recognized it for what it truly was.

  A climbing rope.

  Calder altered her course and swam upward toward the mouth of a narrow orifice and the origin of the rope the others must have left behind. She swam past where it was anchored and wended through the tunnels against the current, which abated when she spurted into a larger cavern.

  She’d barely been able to fit through the egress. Surely it would at least serve to slow the creature down.

  She risked a glance back. Her light reflected off its sharp teeth as it screamed. Bubbles erupted from its jaws as it kicked and scratched and fought its way through the tunnel.

  A jolt of adrenaline propelled her forward.

  Nothing looked familiar. Every tunnel looked the same. Every flowstone formation and column, every cluster of stalactites and stalagmites, every speleothem and gour. She was going to die down here and there was nothing she could do—

  A tall, jagged pinnacle jutted upward into the cavern. The sharp end was brighter in color where it had recently broken. It was the limestone bridge that had collapsed underneath them.

  She knew exactly where she was, yet, simultaneously, just how far she was from the only known way out.

  Calder retraced their route in her mind. Veered right, toward the low-roofed cavern filled with columns, where they had first heard the creature. She swam between and around them. Looked back only long enough to see the dark shape hurtling through the water, shattering the limestone formations in its way.

  She screamed and focused on the sheer escarpment ahead of her. Panic set in as the circle of her beam shrank smaller and smaller against it.

  Up!

  She remembered just in time to raise her arms and kick higher. Aimed for the dark chute. It was all coming back to her. She’d rehearsed their passage countless times before events had spiraled out of control.

  She battled the current up the chimney and barely saw the antler-like shadows cast by the helictites in time to keep from impaling herself on the sharp formations. She twisted her torso, braced her feet against the stone, and launched herself into the cavern Mitchell had called the Vale of Mourning, where they’d found the carcasses of the sea lions.

  The entire cavern was filled with water now, save for what looked like a sliver of air near the ceiling. The flooding had absorbed the river. All that was left of it was a rocky trench far below her. She recognized the ledge encircling the cavern and followed it toward where they’d crawled from the tunnel—

  A man’s face. Pale and bloated. He wore a pilot’s helmet and black fatigues. His torso jerked back and forth before tumbling through the water, away from his lower body.

  She caught a flash of eyeshine from the creature tearing at his exposed viscera. Another appeared from the darkness behind it, where a skeletal rib cage rested on the ledge amid floating gobs of waterlogged flesh.

  There was no way she was getting past them.

  They whipped their tails and streaked toward her, their feathers standing sharply from their heads and necks.

  Calder screamed into the mask. Stopped swimming. Attempted to reverse her course. The water churned around her as she turned and saw the one that had been chasing her struggling to pull itself from the small orifice. It burst from the hole and slammed into the helictites. A crimson cloud blossomed from its flank, where limestone shards protruded from its side. A reflection from its good eye, and it launched itself toward her with a flick of its mighty tail.

  Calder
refused to die like this. Not now. Not when she was so close.

  She remembered what Mitchell had said when they entered the cavern.

  We’ve identified five egresses from this cavern, but so far we’ve only explored two of them. Both were dead ends.

  The third led into the hellish maze deeper underground, while the fourth branched away from it to the right.

  That left only one.

  It’s near where we swam ashore. Where the stream goes back underground. Even I’m not crazy enough to risk going down there with that current and fifteen minutes worth of air.

  Calder jackknifed and kicked down toward the bottom as fast as she could. If she could just reach—

  There! A dark hole. Nearly concealed by boulders smoothed by eons of running water. It was twenty feet away but might as well have been a mile given how fast they were closing in on her.

  She looked back.

  The creature with the burned face altered directions and kicked with its long legs, releasing a rush of blood from its side. It extended its neck and opened its jaws—

  The other two struck it at full speed. One sank its teeth into the creature’s blackened neck and wrenched it violently from side to side, while the other latched onto its vestigial wing and slashed at its belly with its sharp talons, eviscerating it with an expulsion of blood that turned them to silhouettes in the murky red haze.

  Calder swam for the opening. If they were anything like sharks, their feeding frenzy would only last so long. She needed to be as far away as possible when the bloodlust faded and they resumed control of their faculties.

  She wended through the darkness until the rocky corridor widened and spit her out into the tunnel where the River Styx once flowed. The stalactites passed overhead, followed in short measure by the holes in the walls where she’d initially examined the skeletal remains. She should have recognized right then and there what awaited them below. It had been staring her right in the face. There was a reason the creatures had remained hidden for so long. Humans had never been meant to find them. She and the others had been blinded by professional curiosity and fueled by ego. And it had cost them their lives.