Overlord

22

“Aston! Sam! Wake up!”

Aston blinked, dragged up from a deep, dreamless sleep. He was surprised at just how far under he had fallen. He must have been more exhausted than he realized. Slater sat beside him, head cocked to one side.

“Listen!”

He sat up straighter, wincing against stiff muscles, and strained to hear. A soft croaking sound came from the other side of a cluster of stalagmites. “That’s where Jen Galicia is lying,” he said, scrambling to his feet.

The croaks turned into pained coughs as Aston and Slater rounded the rocks and dropped to a crouch beside the biologist. She writhed weakly on the ground. Another commotion started on the far side of the cave, distant and muffled. Aston chose to ignore that for a moment.

“Are you okay?” Slater asked, helping Jen into a sitting position.

Jen gasped, her throat rasping. Slater grabbed a canteen and let the woman drink deeply. “O’Donnell,” Jen said at last, water dribbling off her chin. “He choked me. Tried to kill me!”

Aston was bemused. “What? Dig?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. He wanted information about the creatures, kept saying I had to tell him everything I knew. I was scared, so I told him about the shrine and the pictographs, but he tried to kill me anyway.”

“Wait,” Aston interrupted. “What pictographs?”

“Something I saw not far from here. I took photos, I found the whole thing pretty fascinating, but then the attack happened and I forgot all about it. It came back to me in a panic because I was desperate to come up with something, anything to tell him. To try to distract him.”

“Then what happened?” Slater asked.

“He choked me!” Tears breached her cheeks. “I thought I was going to die, I blacked out. I don’t why I’m still alive.”

Sol Griffin had approached from behind and made them jump when he spoke. “He’d have had to keep choking you for a good three minutes to actually kill you. Most people don’t know that. First you fall unconscious, but if the person stops throttling then, your body starts to breathe again. Thankfully he didn’t choke you long enough to cause brain damage, at least by the look of things.”

“Well, that might be useful knowledge at some future point,” Aston said sarcastically. “Meanwhile, what the hell is Dig up to?”

Sol shrugged. “Having heard this, I can only assume it was Dig who got Gates, too.”

“Got?” Slater said, aghast. “Is he dead?”

“No, sorry. Not dead. But hurt. I’m guessing Gates woke as Dig tried to sneak past, but O’Donnell belted him with something, right upside the head. Gates has a hell of a bruise, probably a mild concussion.”

“Do you think he’ll be okay?”

“He’s wobbly, but I’m sure it’s not the first time he’s been knocked out.” Sol grimaced. “I think he’ll rally soon enough, but not without a hell of a headache. He said he didn’t see who hit him and we were just trying to take account of everyone. Dig is indeed missing.”

“What the hell is he up to?” Aston asked again.

“Don’t know and don’t care,” Sol said, turning back to survey the cave. “Screw him. And screw this. We’re going back now. Jen, if you’re not strong enough yet to walk, we’ll take turns carrying you.”

Activity filled the cavern after Sol’s shouted order. Packs were organized, equipment put away. A hasty meal was eaten cold and then everyone gathered by the large pool. Larsen had already gone AWOL, now Dig had become strangely violent and gone who knew where. Aston looked around the small remaining group and wondered how safe they were. He and Slater were fit and strong, as was Marla Ward, though the young woman had the look of a rabbit about her, like she might bolt on her own for safety at any moment. Sol Griffin was a bear of a man. Terry Reid and Ronda Tate were badasses, as was Mike Gates notwithstanding the slight glaze currently in his eyes. Jahara Syed looked frightened, but she was smart. He assumed she would be fit and capable too. That just left Jen Galicia, still weak and unable to stand or walk without aid. Nine of them, one pretty much an invalid. He chewed his lower lip in frustration. If it was as simple as walking back the way they had come, it shouldn’t be too hard. They could take turns helping Jen and it would be a long slog, but nothing more. However, his gut told him nothing was going to be that simple.

“Before we start,” Aston said. “There’s something you all need to know.”

Sol frowned. “Go on.”

Aston pulled from his jacket the journal he and Slater had read. “I found this on the first body we encountered. You guys need to know what he reported in here.”

He didn’t read all the entries again, but summarized the contents to the increasingly uncomfortable group. Aston was pleased that they seemed to accept the presence of strange gray hominids, and of the creatures the Professor called mantics. Really, they didn’t have much choice but to take everything on face value at this stage.

“Sounds exactly like what attacked us,” Jen said quietly when he got to that bit.

“So I think we need to be prepared,” Aston said. “I think we’ve been lucky so far that we haven’t actually run into these things. Or perhaps they’re watching and biding their time. But Larsen is missing, Jeff Gray is missing. We’ve all seen the blood, right? Let’s stop pretending. We might not have faced a frontal assault, but I think we are under attack.”

“Then we treat it like so,” Terry Reid said. “Tate, you take point. Gates, you’re dizzy, but capable. Stay with the group. I’ll bring up the rear. We move as fast as we comfortably can, but we don’t rush. We stay quiet. We stay alert.” He looked to Sol Griffin. “All ready?”

Sol gave a nod and Ronda Tate moved ahead to take point as instructed. Her face was set in grim determination, and she had her assault rifle held loose but ready, not casually slung as it had been all along until now. Everyone was clearly on edge, not just Aston. They started to move out, heading down the long, twisting dark passage back to the next cavern, headlamps swinging left and right, striping the walls. Sol half-carried Jen, one beefy arm around her back. She walked unsteadily beside him, her face hard, eyes narrowed with the effort. Bruises were already beginning to show on her throat.

Aston ground his teeth. Damn that Digby O’Donnell. What had got into the man? Too many damned H. P. Lovecraft horror novels, no doubt. But was that really enough to send him over the edge? Aston wasn’t fool enough to think that a book could drive someone to murder, but it must have triggered something that led to Dig’s deadly actions. Big Terry Reid took their six, his dark face lost under the headlamp he kept dialed down low. His weapon was also held at ready, panning slowly back and forth as he moved.

Distinct tension rippled through the group. Aston couldn’t tell if it were due to fear of being attacked by the creatures they’d heard about or perhaps eagerness to pay O’Donnell back. Probably a bit of both. Maybe even fear that O’Donnell may attack them again.

Aston’s own tension surely included all of those things to some degree, but also more. He remained deeply concerned by what he’d learned, and what he hadn’t yet had the chance to ascertain. The mysterious hominids, the glyphs, the odd plant and mineral life, it all pointed to more questions than answers. And none of that even took into account the door he had found in the pool and the new cavern that led to.

It pained him to flee without having finished the job. Irrational as it might be, he wanted answers. He supposed they would answer a few questions in the lab when they got back topside, assuming they made it safely and with their samples intact. Perhaps another team… he shook his head ruefully. How ridiculous it was that he would even consider being part of another SynGreene team after they’d hidden the story of the previous one. He’d be a fool to have anything more to do with the company, despite his aching need for answers. Perhaps he would have to learn to live with the mystery. To hell with them. He’d collect his pay and return to a somewhat normal life, the burden of his debts to Chang completely lifted.

Yes, despite everything else, having that monkey off his back would make all this worthwhile, even if he spent the rest of his life wondering about the strangeness under the ice. That was the ticket. Buoyed by this thought, he picked up the pace, moving up right behind Tate, hoping to help the whole group move more easily. She glanced back at him, about to speak when he saw something ahead. He grabbed her forearm, motioning for quiet, and then pointed.

She squinted into the darkness. “What is it?”

Aston took a deep, trembling breath, his momentary elation deflating. He whispered, so as not to panic the group. “I think I spotted one of the mantics.”