by Mark Swaine
“No thank you. Why did you have the last chargehand removed?” asks Wang.
“There are many treasures to be found in the cave systems should one look hard enough. The rules are quite simple; any riches found are to be shared with the group. The last chargehand attempted to conceal his findings, not very well I might add. I witnessed an opportunity to better my situation so I took it,” says Wenyi without remorse.
“What did you do?” asks Wang.
“I informed the Major of his theft and claimed his post,” smirks Wenyi.
“You mean to say you sabotaged him. One might brand your actions dishonourable my friend,” says Wang, upset by his friend's revelation.
“One might not care less when you have three mouths to feed,” replies Wenyi, sternly.
“You mean to say that if you found an item of value down here, you would not keep it for yourself?” says Wang.
“Of course not,” replies Wenyi truthfully.
“We have just passed the twentieth torch marker, we will stop now to eat. Did you remember your food today? I have extra noodles and spicy meatballs, are you hungry?” asks Wenyi.
Wang looks into the river of churning faecal matter and belches whilst holding his mouth at the thought of any kind of sustenance. Wenyi smiles and shakes his head again then shouts out a loud echoing yell to inform his colleagues to stop for break. The crews of workers gather together and eat with their legs dangling over the overhanging wooden walkways. Wenyi's company is small, for the majority of his workers preferred the company of their more loyal and trustworthy colleagues who desire no social ties with the two faced rat, Wenyi. Wenyi pole vaults over to Wang's side and takes a seat beside him. Throwing down his food in great mouthfuls, he looks strangely at Wang sitting in a frightened frozen state as a large rat clambers upon his leg. Wenyi rolls his eyes at the cute and greasy rodent sniffing his elbow and playing with the fabric of his slacks with its front claws. Wang jolts slightly as the rodent brushes its long twitching whiskers against the hairs on his forearm. Wenyi eventually takes pity on his friend and tosses a meatball down the walkway then watches the rat scurry after it. After the large crew of sewer workers had fed, they continue further downstream, and were making steady progress in reducing the influx of waste.
The river of human muck flows freely and Wang's attitude was improving vastly as his nose adjusts to the pungent odour of waste rising from the river. Wenyi double takes as he looks between the gaps of the walkway beneath. He discreetly peers closer at something lodged in the wall of the bank, something valuable looking. Wenyi cunningly orders Wang to continue on ahead, and as his colleague disappears out of sight he looks around suspiciously. Wenyi lowers himself down from the walkway and swings across the underhang to grab the cave wall. Clinging to the edge of the steep, bank face he reaches hard for a pair of matching swords only inches within his grip. With his lips locked underneath his mask and sweat dripping from his chin, he stretches his arm and fingers as far as they'll reach. Wenyi's foot slips as he's alerted to a high pitched unearthly screeching echoing from down the tunnel. As his foot slips, Wenyi freefalls momentarily. With his fingers still gripping to its hold, he swings across and hooks his foot into the leather belt of the scabbards. Hanging freely, he raises his foot and grips the swords by the leather strap adjoining them together. Wenyi climbs in a hurry back above the platform before somebody discovers his breach of policy. After his paranoia subsides he marvels at the ancient and unique blades, which if restored could hold great value if sold to the right person. Wenyi looks around, checking that he isn’t being watched, then craftily straps the twin blades to his back underneath his long overcloak. Wenyi dashes ahead to catch up with Wang and finds him standing motionless and looking further down the tunnel.
“What is the matter now?” asks Wenyi shouting to the adjacent side.
“Shh,” says Wang quietly, “did you not hear that? Before, that noise, like a screaming,” says Wang, nervously.
“I thought that was you,” replies Wenyi.
“That was not me,” replies Wang.
“Perhaps it was a ghost, coming to get you,” replies Wenyi, jestingly.
“Don’t say that!” shouts Wang, nervously.
“Calm down my friend, it was probably just a rat caught in a geyser,” assures Wenyi, patiently.
“That was not a rat, was too big to be a rat,” says Wang.
“Past the sixtieth marker there are rats as big as you and I. 'Tis why we do not venture beyond eighty without an armed escort,” informs Wenyi. “Let's leave, we must regroup with the others in the adjacent tunnel,” continues Wenyi.
Wang reluctantly turns back while Wenyi curiously stares on, for he too agrees that the scream was a little strange. Wenyi ridicules himself then turns away, but he stops in his stroll as his guts tell him something is amiss. The bad feeling in his gut can only be described as cannibalistic butterflies eating away at the insides of the pit of stomach. Wenyi continues apprehensively further down the tunnel and around a quiet, dimly lit turn. There in the darkness, only the sound of dripping water breaks the dead silence. Wenyi's eyes adjust to the distant wall mounted torch lights and peers closer with the need to step forward as he watches the wall mounted torches being blotted out by darkness. Under his feet, he feels the platforms vibrate, and he listens to a faint sound. A sound described to him by his grandfather who'd spent his entire life working in the sewers. But Wenyi paid no attention to lore, or old wives tales, but he cannot ignore the distant echoes of screeching, nor the detailed coincidence. Wenyi had heard screeching rats before, and he wasn't lying or exaggerating when he told Wang about the human sized rats, but he had yet to lay eyes on one. This sound is new to Wenyi and unsettling to the ears, and as the vibrating beneath his feet grows only stronger, he calls for the whole team to regroup. The workers arrive promptly, also sensing something awry.
“Where are the others? Six of you are missing,” says Wenyi, taking a head count.
“They went on ahead,” says Guowei, a long bearded man.
“What! Why?! How far ahead?” grills Wenyi.
“The thirtieth marker,” replies the old man.
“Thirtieth marker! What are they doing all the way up there?” shouts Wenyi. “Wait here, I will retrieve them myself. They can explain their misconduct to the Jade captain later,” says Wenyi.
“Wenyi, the noise is growing louder; why is the walkway shaking?” asks Wang nervously.
“I do not know. Gather the gear. We are finished for the day,” says Wenyi strictly.
The teams on both sides of the platforms stare forward into the coming darkness as Wenyi storms off down the tunnel. ‘Tis not only his responsibility for his missing workers that begs him forward, but curiosity also. As the curious workers anxiously and quickly pack their gear, they glance nervously in the direction of the unsettling noise. Wenyi nervously turns the corner of the tunnel again whilst hailing the names of his missing workers. Continuing down a rickety ramp that hugs the high cave wall, he steps carefully as the juddering planks gently bang together in their loosened hold of squeaking screws and bolts. Wenyi looks down at the river of mud and appears confused as it begins to swell and rise. As the distant echoes of screeching grow ever louder, Wenyi can almost make out secondary screams overlapping the high squeals. Wenyi soon realises that the screams are human, and as the river of mud begins to rise and break the banks of the walkways, he backtracks slowly up the ramp. As the torches are doused more quickly, he sees something in the approaching darkness in one final flicker of light ten markers ahead. Wenyi had never realised until now, that light could hold such discomfort. It was usually in the light, when all is right with the world.
In the light, his thoughts not contain such things as evil and forces not of this world. In the light, everything is normal. But as the darkness draws ever near, the nearest torch marker sheds light on a high wet writhing wall of fur, teeth and half moon claws. Wenyi's face is aghast with latent horror as the tunnel f
ills with rats scurrying atop the slope of mud, clambering atop each other in a surging rush. Wenyi looks further back and sees the entire cavity of the cave filling with rats like a pressurised geyser reaching for the surface. In the surge of greasy rodents, Wenyi sees arms and legs toppling within the greasy furred mess. Some of the limbs were attached to half eaten bodies rolling lazily within the hot bed of filth. Flopping heads rise between the grey and brown sheets with their faces chewed through to the bone. Some of the heads pull apart from the chewed meat of their necks and roll freely with runaway rats that hold on for one final gnaw. Wenyi's backward walk slowly turns into a sprint as he notices rats twice the size of him scurrying upside down atop the cavern roof. Wang and the other men nervously await Wenyi's return and hear his indistinct muffled voice shouting something from far around the turn.
“RRRRUUUN!!!! Everybody to the surface. Drop your gear, run, just run, run for your lives,” bellows Wenyi bounding around the corner whilst ripping of his mask.
Suddenly the cavern begins to shake and rumble, loosening stones and dust from the cavern ceiling. All at once the geysers and gas channels explode from all sides, unleashing a blazing blast of flaming rats. Wang jolts on the spot, unsure of what to do as he watches the hissing cylindrical explosions exit multiple ducts and impact upon the adjacent cave walls. Where would he run to, for he dare not brave a path through the fire, until that is, he sees the ramped formation of rats pushing forward. Wang's legs are like jelly as he attempts to outrun a steaming duct not far up ahead. He speeds up and prepares to outrun the blast but recoils onto his backside as a diagonal burst of blue and orange flame cuts of his path. Wenyi, on the other side of the river disregards everybody but himself and continues his onward sprint. He had to get back to his wife, he needs to get back to his daughters, but more than anything, he just wants to get as far away from this nightmare as possible, at all costs. He sees the light shining from the surface onto the cave wall around a wide corner, but his sprint slows to a stop as he listens to the faint cries of panic behind him. Wenyi's face toughens and he takes a step forward before cursing himself and turning back for Wang and the others. On his way back, he sees some of them heading toward him as they make for the cave entrance ropes. Others are not so lucky in their mad fleeing rush and flail around with their bodies half alight as they run into the paths of flaming geysers. Wenyi runs faster, eventually finding Wang and the remaining others where he had left them.
Trapped between two blazing geysers refusing to cease, they have nowhere else to go.
“Wenyi we're trapped!” yells Wang, looking at the rodents heaving forward no less than fifty feet away.
“Cross over!” yells Wenyi, cupping his mouth into a funnel. “Use your paddles!” shouts Wenyi, grabbing one with two hands whilst making a half-arsed imitation of a pole vault. “Do it now!” screams Wenyi.
Wang's feeble instinct for survival fails to kick in, but the others needn't be told a second time as each one of them takes a short run up to leap over the river. Holding on tightly to their long paddles, they thrust their legs and weight forward and allow their poles to carry their weight in a dropping swing to the other side. Wang, feeling alone and scared, takes his pole and prepares to jump. After witnessing his colleagues accomplish the jump, he is ready to try it himself. Wang takes some deep huffing breathes, runs and takes the giant leap whilst clasping hard on the long wooden pole. Wang's paddle takes him high into the air and Wenyi leans over the edge ready to catch him as Wang's face of determination turns into a confident and determined smile. But as Wang reaches the middle of its journey, his pole becomes perfectly balanced upright in the middle of the channel. With his arms and legs wrapped around the pole Wang shrieks in panic as he watches the gushing rats tower above him only fifteen feet away. Wenyi notices that the mounds of moving rats are no longer a greasy colour of black and brown, but a deeper colour of slippery dark red. Wenyi watches enormous sized rats pushing to the front whilst eating the smaller ones in a desperate bid to evade whatever was drawing them from their colonies. Their teeth are the size of slim, stone tablets, their pliable whiskers are like coiled strips of razor thin steel and their claws are curved and slice into everything they climb upon. As the rats overwhelm the river and the base of Wang's pole, Wenyi quickly grasps his own paddle and hooks it across Wang's vertical stick. Wenyi tugs hard to unbalance Wang's paddle and Wang suddenly veers toward him in a freefalling arch.
Wenyi catches him by his shoulder and they both tear for the exit. In the course of their flame dodging evasion, they notice that many of the workers had either jumped or fallen into the river of waste. Maybe it was their best hope of dousing the flames writhing around their bodies, or perhaps they had simply panicked and lost their footing. One of the workers caked in raw sewage had managed to climb the wall as they find him clinging onto the platform edge. Burned, bloodied and covered in waste, his hand reaches up for anyone who may be passing. Wenyi and Wang see the man faintly gasping for help, but Wenyi notices that they are almost adjacent to the thousands of rats looking for an exit point.
“It’s Guowei!” shouts Wang.
“There’s no time!” shouts Wenyi.
“Yes there is, he can make it!” replies Wang.
Wenyi, having no time to argue, reaches down for Guowei being scoured and devoured by a thousand passing nibbles. As they attempt to release him from the passing wave of tiny teeth, the savage rodents use Guowei as bridge to swarm Wenyi and Wang. Wenyi and Wang curse and shout fiercely as the critters begin tearing into their arms, necks and shoulders. The two teens frantically rip them from their bodies and fling them against the cave wall with many bloody splats as they heave Guowei's body from the river. But Guowei's face is now motionless, and as they lift his entire body onto the platform, they see that his entire lower body has been stripped of its flesh, leaving only strands of meat dangling of his skeletal legs. As a rat emerges from Guowei's mouth, Wang and Wenyi recoil in panic into a rushing sprint. Eventually they catch up to the others who have already begun to scale the ropes to the undeniable safety of the sun kissed surface above. Much to their plight, their safe destination holds just as much favour to the wild and equally petrified rodents. The smaller rats coerced by the surge behind them are given little choice but to go with the flow along the main channel, but the larger beasts sense their immediate escape as they sense a way out above. Wenyi and Wang hurry up the steeply ramped walkway and notice two free ropes.
“I cannot make that jump Wenyi,” says Wang fretfully,
“Yes you can, we jump together. Ready?” says Wenyi.
Wang takes a flying leap of the platform with his arms outreached, and in mid-flight he wraps his fingers around a rope. Wang, swinging back and forth looks over to the platform and sees Wenyi waving over seven survivors being pursued by huge rodents. Wenyi forcibly guides them to the ropes and unsheathes the two ancient Dao swords criss-crossed under his back. Wenyi defends the platform to allow their escape and all but Wang ascend to the surface. Even though each of them were savagely wounded by the rodent's infecting bites, by sheer fight for survival they climb that rope like a race to the top. Back on the platform, the rats bound toward Wenyi, and only his fatal well timed strikes of clumsy hacking and stabbing protects him. Wenyi commands Wang, still hanging to his rope, to get to the surface as those up top begin reeling in the ropes.
“Wenyi, let’s go!” shouts Wang.
The unskilled swordsman sheathes the swords into his scabbards and leaps onto the line. In their steady rapid climb to the surface, Wenyi and Wang feel themselves out of harm’s way as they look up at the sunlight.
“Wenyi,” grunts Wang with a strained smile.
“Just climb Wang,” replies Wenyi,
“I caught the right rope,” says Wang exhaling a laugh.
“Now is not the time my friend,” says Wenyi, laughing with a sense of relief.
The massive long rats climb the embankment and bound along the walkways toward the ropes. T
heir sheer numbers foil their escape as they overcrowd each other’s pursuit of the surface, and one by one they fall from the cave roof. Others determinedly retry their attempt at freedom and leap for the ropes. Tangling and gnawing with their human competition, chaos ensues as the rats attack those in their path, and one by one the workers slip from their grip and drop to the platform and river below. Suddenly Wenyi feels a tug on his line, and with the extra weight shifting the rope to and fro, he momentarily loses his grip. Wenyi looks at Wang in sudden fright as feels he feels heavy long gusts of bad breath up his back. Wenyi makes desperate attempts to reach the whipping and unstable rope above him as the rat’s weight throws him from side to side, but as seconds pass, he feels his entire body being engulfed in oily warm hair. Wenyi feels the soft underbelly of the rat against his buttocks and sees a pink twitching nose the size of his arm rise past his shoulder. Saturated in human waste, blood and grease, the lubricated rat begins to falter in its climb and digs its claws into something solid enough to hold its weight. Wenyi screams to the skies as he feels something sharp digging and dragging into his waist, and in a panting panic he looks over his shoulder and sees it. He smells its rotten breath in his face from the corner of its mouth. He feels its whiskers sliding across his neck and watches its one black eye stare into both of his. Without a further second’s warning the rat takes a hearty bite of its obstacle and Wenyi slides further down the rope as he loses control of his senses. As he screams wildly, he feels both sets of its top and lower, green and yellow incisors force their way through his shoulder to connect with a heavy clunk. Taking the rat's huge weight, he concentrates only on holding the rope as the parasite tries to shake him loose.