The walls converged in front of me and met at a tall hallway. The light I followed came from farther down the hall. I stepped over the threshold and the lights above me snapped on blinding me.
“Ah shit!” The sudden onrush of light felt like a blow to my brain. I staggered to the side and caught myself against the wall. “What the hell is this place?”
A warmth passed through my eyes and my vision corrected itself much faster than the standard wait for the eyes to adjust. The hallway was the same gray stone as above. It could have been the same hallway if not for the fall.
“Miranda? Can you hear me now?” And still nothing.
I carried on, because I had little other options available. The hallway was long. I mean trek through the Sahara on a Monday morning after a really good weekend of bar hopping in Egypt, long. Boredom was quick to settle in so I went back to the whole walking meditation thing.
I began to feel a little dizzy as I walked. To battle it I stepped up my meditation walking with my eyes half closed and barely paying attention to my surroundings. My balance only degraded and before long I was stumbling like a drunken idiot. Almost like I had spent the weekend getting drunk in Egypt. Wait, is Egypt a dry country? I was going to have to look that up.
I looked over at my hand and saw little bitty hairs sticking out of my pores. Then I saw the stone beneath and the fine detail of the grain of it. Who knew stone had grain? As I changed the focus of my eyes at will the dizzy sensation lessened until it was gone.
I willed my vision to return to normal, and it did. Then I wanted to zoom in like I was and it did. I spent a few minutes zooming in and out of stuff around me, which was mostly stone and the clothes I wore. Fabrics and rocks get real boring real fast.
Something roared and I froze.
The sound came from ahead but with the endless hall in the way I couldn’t see what it was. I zoomed in and just saw more hallway, but I did see the floor and ceiling slanted down which obscured my view of the far end. That revelation almost made me want to start running to get to the end faster. Then the roar came again and I was filled with an urge to run the other way. I turned around and the lights behind me started shutting off one section at a time.
“Well that’s not good,” I said. “Walk in the dark and let whatever that is sneak up on me, or walk in the light and see it coming?” I let out a sigh. “Yeah, time to get going.”
I turned to face the direction of the roar and started running. Whatever this was it kept me from my wolf, and that I couldn’t have. If it meant kicking the shit out of the minotaur in this Greek labyrinth want to be then so be it.
I reached the end of the hall a few minutes later and sure enough there was a damn minotaur waiting for me. Only it was mechanical. It’s body was a gold colored metal divided up into segments that shifted as it moved. Steam hissed out from joints at random intervals and locations and I caught a glimpse of spinning gears between the shifting plates. The real issue was the large metal horns sticking out of it’s metal bovine head.
The clockwork monster reared back and let loose another roar. As it did a gout of flame and steam shot up from it’s back, because I didn’t have enough to worry about. I raised my hands up, palms out to show that I was unarmed.
“Look, I don’t have any beef with you, no pun intended. You let me by and we call it good. Maybe I invite you over for some wheat grass tea or something. What do you say?” I asked.
The mechanical beast lowered its head and charged. It was crazy fast. I jumped to the side but it ate up the twenty feet between us in the blink of an eye. One of its gold colored horns scrapped along my rib cage tearing a gash in my flesh. I grunted in pain as I rolled and sprung back up to my feet.
“That wasn’t nice,”I said. “Last chance. Stand down or I’ll have to get serious.” Those were not words I would have spoken before and I didn't know where they came from, but I meant them.
The minotaur charged again with more success. It’s horn tore into my shoulder and it pinned me to the wall. I screamed in pain and kicked the monster. My feet bounced off the mechanical body doing no damage.
The minotaur pulled back from the wall taking me along for the ride. I screamed and grunted at the pain its movements caused. The beast shook its head and sent me flying. I landed on my injured shoulder causing a fresh wave of pain to overcome my senses. It hurt so much all I could do was lay there writhing in agony.
The ground shook as the beast stomped one of its metal cloven hooves on the floor. If this thing was anything like its bovine cousins then I was in trouble. From the little I knew of cows the stomp was usually followed by a charge. Then again it could have been misinformation spread by inaccuracies in the media, but if the creators of the thing thought it was normal behavior it didn’t matter.
I pushed myself up to my knees and focused on my breathing. Fire flooded my body and I let a whimper escape me. I gritted my teeth and kept my focus on thinking of nothing. The fire raged on but I felt the flesh becoming whole once more. There was also another new development that I was sure came about from the accelerated healing, I was getting really tired.
The machine bull-man stood to its full height. Red lights blazed in its eyes then a beam shot out and hit me in the chest. I flinched back but there was no pain or heat. I looked down to see the beams get wider. One turned at ninety degrees and the other remained horizontal. The beams moved up and down as well as side to side. The thing was scanning me.
“Think you could have bought me dinner first?” I asked. It didn’t respond.
After a few minutes the beams stopped then shut off. There were a series of whirs and clicks that came from the monster. Then another gout of steam and flame shot up from it’s back. When the steam stopped there was another clicking sound and the horns fell off. Long metal tendrils unspooled from the holes left by the horns which whipped and writhed. Its clunky arms fell off and hit the ground with a loud thunk. A cluster of metal tentacles fell from each shoulder and lashed at the ground scoring the stone.
The beast let loose another roar then the large chest and back plates fell off. The resulting ring of metal on stone hurt my ears and started an instant headache. The remaining plates shifted to cover the exposed machinery. Then the front half of its face fell off and another mass of smaller tentacles writhed out of the rest of its head. The once Minotaur machine now looked like Lovecraft and a blacksmith had a baby.
Chapter 11
The thought of being screwed ran through my mind a couple times after Tabitha trapped me and grabbed Miranda. Now I was certain that I was screwed.
The tentacle laden machine monster let out a roar. From where the sound came I couldn’t tell since it’s mouth lay at it’s feet. It shot a flame out of it’s back ten feet up and I felt the heat of it singed my eyebrows.
“This is just fucking great,” I said. The monster answered with a roar that was half bestial and half nails on a chalkboard.
While it bellowed I took a moment to take stock of the situation. Trapped in a subterranean maze, check. Face to face with a mechanical nightmare that looked like Cthulhu had sex with a man-bear-pig and had a baby, check. Fucked beyond belief? Yup.
The thing took a lumbering step forward. As it’s foot settled it seemed to lose its balance for a moment and I thought it was going to face plant. It’s weight settled on its forward leg halting the fall. It righted itself and took another more sure step. There went my hope for an easy and comical win.
“Alright, big boy,” I said as I puffed out my chest and stepped forward. “Lets see what you got. Bring it, bitch!” I gave it the old Bruce Lee come hither with my right hand.
My mistake was stepping closer when I issued my challenge. Doing so placed me in range even though I was ten feet away. Three tentacles lashed out and hit my chest at the same time. Three lines of fire consumed me so completely with pain that I didn’t know I had gone airborne until my back slammed against the wall.
Air exploded from my lungs then I fell to t
he floor and pain erupted from my shoulder and temple. I lasted long enough for one hit. Technically three as there were three tentacles, but you get my point. That one strike took me down and I didn’t even get to glare at the damn thing let alone hit back. That had to change.
I rolled away from the wall enough to put my hand on the floor. With a lot of effort I pushed up and put my other hand down. As I pushed myself up I looked over in time to see a tentacle headed for my face.
I heaved with my arms pushing myself up and off the ground by a good four feet. Tentacles whipped passed under me with a crack. My feet touched down and I crouched into an easy landing. For a split second I marveled at my own strength. Then I jumped to dodge another tentacle strike. No matter what I couldn't let it land another hit.
The monstrosity took another cumbersome step as it tried hitting me again. I dodged to the side making the three tentacle strike miss my face by a hair. And it took another step. I began to see the problem with remaining on the defensive. As it got closer I was going to run out of room to dodge. The tentacles would eventually take up all the space and turn me into minced Terry. I wasn’t crazy about that outcome.
As I watched death get closer I noticed it left gaps on the corners of the floor and ceiling. Seeing how the ceiling was a good fifteen feet up I didn’t see that as an option, but the space on the ground level was viable. Kind of. The opening wasn’t very big and getting through would be tenuous.
I stepped toward the creature and felt a stabbing pain in my chest. Or three really as the lashes it gave me roared back to life when I moved. In all the excitement I forgot about them. Good thing they were eager to remind me. The weird thing though was that the intensity of the pain had lessened and as I stood there thinking about the wounds they began to itch.
The hitching quickly overtook the pain and threatened to drive me mad. There was a moment when I was tempted to run headlong into the tentacle shredder just to making the itching stop. That silliness was cut short by a tentacle whizzing by my face. In my moment of inattention the beast had gotten much closer.
“I guess it's now or never,” I said. Then I dove to the left and rolled when I hit the ground. A tentacle grazed my back sending a wave of pain through me as a new wound was torn open. I sprang to my feet with my back arched in the wrong direction. I reached back trying to feel the wound as if that would help and came away with a hand full of blood. I walked away from the monster with my arms behind me trying to “walk it off” as my old gym teacher used to say. It didn’t help.
Time helped, but a lot less of it than should have. A few seconds after coming to me feet the pain lessened. The blood running down my back stopped a second after that. Three more seconds and the itching was back. It didn’t take a genius to understand that whatever I was I was now able to heal crazy fast. I had to wonder what that was doing to my metabolism though. Was I burning through calories I didn’t even have to spare?
A roar from the monster pulled my focus back to where it needed to be, the clear and present danger. Somehow I had to stop this thing and hope a door opened like beating a dungeon boss in a video game. Because so far the way forward was a solid wall and the way back also became a solid wall when I wasn’t looking. I backed up to the wall where I entered and ran my hand along where I thought the door should be. I didn’t feel a seam or anything to mark where the door had been, just solid rock.
With the door confirmed MIA I slid along the wall to the corner. There was a dark smear marking my travels to the corner in blood. By the looks of it you would think I was going to fall unconscious, but I felt fine. I felt so good I thought it was time I brought the pain to old tin pants.
I ran forward and jumped. My feet connected with it’s chest and I kicked out. The machine rocked back a step. Several tentacles woven together to make one big tentacle hit my chest and slammed me to the ground. I rolled right. Tentacle after tentacle hit the floor in my wake sending chips of stone flying everywhere. I reached the wall face down so I sprung up and ran. A tentacle nicked my leg but my forward movement kept it from landing a solid hit. The sharp point of th tip did bite into my skin, though.
I ran back to the wall using my hands to stop myself before my nose acted as a brake. As I spun around to face my opponent I felt the back of my leg to see what the damage was. Just a scratch that I felt closing. Talk about a weird feeling. It was like having your finger in the fly of your pants while it was being zipped. This shit was going to take a while to get used to.
If anything the failed drop kick proved that it could be knocked down given enough force. I figured a better angle might also help. I ran at the thing and dropped into a slide. My feet hit the machine’s feet with a loud crunch.
The beast fell forward threatening to land on me. I rolled back and one of its legs kicked out. It clipped my ribs and sent me spinning through the air. The room filled with a loud boom before I hit the wall. My impact was the second crunch I heard in the last few minutes.
I pushed myself up to all fours and saw the reason for the loud boom. Most of the tentacles protruding from its shoulders were stabbed into the stone walls. The beast machine’s feet touched down on the floor and the tentacle pulled free of the wall with a grinding scraping noise.
A growl rose up in my throat. “You are in my way,” I snarled. “I will get back to my wolf if I have to go through you to do it.”
A deep roar left me as I charged forward. Tentacles lashed out at me. I dodged left and right, jumped and ducked. A few managed to graze me. I got to within arms reach of the monster and slammed my fist into its chest. A loud ring like a gong being struck echoed in the room. I felt the crunch in my hand as multiple bones broke but the ringing drowned out the actual sound. Pain rippled down my arm but I ignored it.
I swung with my left hand. Before my fist made contact several tentacles wrapped around my wrist and arm stopping my assault. The small joints of the segmented metal pinched the skin of my arm creating a new uncomfortable sensation. Then the rest of the tentacles surrounded me.
I pulled my injured hand to my chest where it became trapped. Tentacles encircled my legs and torso. More joined the first few to grab my left arm. Then I was hoisted up into the air.
I squirmed and writhed trying in vain to get free. The metal coils tightened as I moved which restricted my movements. That didn’t stop me from trying. The tentacles around my torso squeezed from the bottom up which pushed my arm up and out of the coils. I sucked in a lung full of air using the space that my arm once occupied. The coils tightly once more taking up the slack.
The air was forced from me and no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t get more than a shallow breath in. Dots began to float around my vision as well as a darkness around the edges that slowly crept in. If I didn’t find a way out of that situation I knew I was done for.
“I don’t know if you can hear me, Miranda, but I might not make it out,” I thought to my wolf. There was no reply. “If you can hear me, just know that I’m grateful for the short time we had. In the few days I’ve known you I felt more alive than I ever have. Thank you for that.”
My vision narrowed to almost a pinprick. I couldn’t feel anything other than a tingling sensation as the blood was cut off from all of my extremities. I often watched nature shows as a kid and always found the stuff about predators to be fascinating. One thing I could never understand was how the prey would eventually just seem to give up. Like they knew fate ordained this for them and it was time to let go. But I understood it then. It wasn’t that I wanted to stop fighting and I imagine they didn’t want to stop either. It was the lack of ability to affect the situation.
Then two things happened at the same time. First, there was a light, a beacon in the darkness, only it turned out to be a literal light. The monster shot another tongue of flame from it’s back. The second thing may have been imagined or might not have, either way it was what I needed. It was Miranda’s voice in my head. “Don’t be grateful, just get your ass back to me!” The voi
ce was almost a whispered and the roar of the flame almost drowned it out.
The flame! I thought.
With my free arm I did the only thing could I reached behind the monster and slammed my hand into the exhaust port, or that is what I figured it to be. I was betting my life that the flame was an expulsion of excess heat and that the heat remaining trapped would shut the fucker down. Turns out I also anteed up with my hand and arm.
Pain so hot it felt like ice lanced up my arm to the elbow. From the it lessened slightly to just a searing heat all the way up to my shoulder.
I screamed!
There was no manly deep voiced scream you see in action flicks. I let loose a high pitched wail that tore at my throat. I was in so much pain I hadn’t noticed at the time that I could breath, or that the tentacles were shifting to get the obstruction free of the port. The last thing I knew before the blessing of unconsciousness found me was a sensation of sliding down a slick and cool surface.
Chapter 12
I don’t know how long I was out, but I do know that I was alive. The pain I felt everywhere was a good indication, or so I assumed. Before I managed to peel my eyes open I considered the possibility of being in hell.
To my great relief I was in the stone room. Though it hurt a lot I managed to turn my head left and right to see what fresh pile of shit I landed in. The first thing I saw was the wall and a dark passage open where smooth stone had been. There was also several spots that looked to have stone gouged out, which was weird since all the walls had been smooth. Whatever happened I was free to get out of there. That was good.
Then I looked left and saw the reason for the damage to the wall and the door now being open. The monster had fallen over with its head toward me. It lay a few inches away indicating how close I came to being crushed. All of its tentacles lay lifeless on the ground spread out around it and me. Its back was the source of the damage to the walls. Its back was now a crater and bits of metal and rainbow colored slag lay everywhere.
Shiftless: Tuatha Series Book 1 Page 7