Bloodless

59

Pavel seemed willing to go into the back tunnel in the tomb with Betts and Moller. Gannon gave him the go-ahead, hugely relieved that she didn’t have to follow. She set up lights at the entrance to the tunnel, but they didn’t penetrate the darkness beyond very well, because the tunnel took a gradual turn to the right. She decided it didn’t matter: the Steadicam had a light on it and that would be enough for Pavel to get his footage. The main thing was that she wanted them to hurry up and get the footage and then get the hell out. She hoped to God that Moller wasn’t going to linger.

Through her monitor, she watched what Pavel was shooting. Moller was walking forward slowly, in the front, by himself. He had laid aside the dowsing stick and was now proceeding with the Percipience Camera alone, ready to take pictures of the spiritual turbulence. The uneven clay walls of the tunnel, scored and scarred as if by a rake, flashed in and out of sight as they were caught by the Steadicam’s illumination. It occurred to her that it looked like a gigantic burrow. This was unbelievably dramatic and frightening — even terrifying. She was frightened. At the same time, she told herself this was killer footage. Betts and Moller and their producers were going to make a fortune, and it would surely drive her own career forward, even into feature film territory. Being a director of horror movies had been her life’s ambition ever since she saw the gorgeous original version of The Haunting as a little girl.

She was a little sorry Pavel was using the Steadicam; it didn’t quite offer the handheld effect she thought would be perfect. But it was too late to change now. If Betts insisted on a second take, she’d swap out the Steadicam for Craig’s shoulder rig — but this was one scene she prayed would get done in a single take. She was encouraged to see that Betts and Moller were up to their ankles in mud, and she doubted if even those two would want to do it again. Moller should just take his damn pictures of spectral disturbances or whatever and then they could get the hell out. God, she was looking forward to getting a breath of fresh air; it was like being under a foul, moist blanket. The smell of burnt rubber was now being overlaid with the stink of a locker room... or something even worse.

She shook this away and focused on her harness monitor. What the hell were those little glowing spots?

“Two, see if you can zoom in on some of those glowing spots when you get closer,” she said into the headset.

“No problemo,” came the answer.

Moller proceeded slowly down the tunnel, his shoes making an audible sucking sound with every step. He stopped, raised his camera, took a picture, and another. Then he continued with great care, raising each foot and placing it ahead. As he made the gradual turn in the tunnel, a sprinkling of the glowing splotches came into view.

“Pavel, tighten on those spots, please,” she said.

The camera zoomed in on the cluster.

“What the hell is that?” Gannon said, more to herself than anyone else. They looked like dripping blobs of goo, or maybe fungal growths, a sort of dirty greenish color, grading to a blue in the interior.

Pavel had just finished getting some good, close footage of the nasty sludge, or whatever it was, when there came a grunt of surprise from Moller. The Steadicam swung around and Gannon could see Moller raising his camera to photograph ahead into the murky darkness. Gannon could see something in front of him, a looming shape. For a moment she was horrified, and then she realized it must be some awful trick Betts had set up in advance: two large, slitted, bloodred eyes, glowing in the dark. What the fuck? No wonder Betts had been so eager to go down the tunnel, to encounter this mockup or dummy. This was too much. He should have warned them. Boss or not, she was going to have his balls for breakfast.

The eyes blinked — double sets of lids, the inner horizontal, the outer vertical. The dim crimson orbs vanished, then reappeared. With a sound like the rustling of dead leaves, the eyes approached.

“What the fuck?” Pavel said. The Steadicam swung on its mount, then grew level again, as he began to back up.

Even from her position at the mouth of the tunnel, Gannon felt a movement of warm, stinking air across her face. A sound followed, a wheezing hiss like a torn bellows being compressed. A shape materialized into the light of the camera.

Gannon stared in her monitor. No way was this some mechanical contraption rigged up by Betts. This was real.

Pavel continued to back up, slowly, one step at a time.

“Jesus,” murmured Gannon. “Oh, Jesus...”

She could see, through the monitor, that Moller was still standing a few paces ahead, frozen in place. But it lasted only a second. Moller spun around, dropping the camera, an expression of unadulterated horror on his face, his eyes literally protruding from his skull. He opened his mouth and a scream tore through the mephitic air; a hideous, gargling, wet scream as he tried to run, the muck tripping him up. He went down out of the camera’s field of vision, the great dark thing covering his back. Betts, ten feet behind Moller, whirled in an effort to get away — but he, too, lost his balance in the mud, falling forward while grunting like a terrified sow. Pavel also turned and ran, the Steadicam swinging wildly on its harness.

With a gasp of fear, Gannon stumbled backward, trying frantically to unbuckle the monitor from its harness, desperate to rid herself of the deadweight. Everyone around her was scrambling to get away, dumping their equipment, and turning to flee — as a great gust of dank, oily air issued from the mouth of the tunnel and a huge shape came beating out, rushing toward them, demon wings spreading like a cape, voices screaming in terror and agony.