Bloodless

60

Wellstone, hiding behind the crypt at the entrance to the tomb’s lower level, was growing concerned. Moller and Betts, followed by a camera operator, had entered the tunnel, but because it seemed to both descend and make a turn, they were soon out of sight. There was no way he could get closer without revealing himself, so he had to be content with filming the crew that was left behind. That included the DP, who had refused to go in the tunnel — and no wonder, considering the foul mud that puddled its floor and the stench it emitted. But that was no impediment to Betts and Moller; they were like bloodhounds on a scent.

It looked like he wasn’t going to be able to record the final act of whatever it was Moller had planned. It clearly involved the phony camera, which Moller had been clutching as he went in. Wellstone already had enough footage to prove this was all a staged bit of hocus-pocus. But missing the chance to record the finale was annoying.

As he watched the three disappear around the curve of the tunnel, he paused, finger on the shutter release. Even if he wanted to document more, his second memory card was just about maxed out. As he crouched in his hiding place, he felt a mixture of emotions — excitement, disbelief, and fear. No: fear was too strong a word. He was growing uneasy. And no wonder. He couldn’t wait to get the hell out of this dark and desecrated vault. Maybe he already had enough footage. It wouldn’t be a disaster to get caught now, and possibly searched or even abused by that muscle-bound goon. Although, he had to admit, the guy was looking pretty sweaty and nervous at the moment. It was always the tough guys who cracked first.

He heard a muffled sound from the tunnel, like a wheezing bagpipe. He quickly readied his camera: maybe he’d get a chance for a decent shot after all. The noise was quickly followed by another, much louder — a scream and a powerful beating sound that shook the tomb. What was going on? But then his fear, which had spiked, settled as he understood: Moller’s show was beginning. He heard another scream. Now the DP at the mouth of the tunnel was backing up in fear. Suddenly, she turned and tore off her monitor and harness, while the rest of the crew scattered to a chorus of shouts and screams, running pell-mell for the steps.

What the hell?

At that moment a dark shape exploded out of the tunnel mouth with a great rush of foul air, so large that its leathery wings scraped the walls. It lit upon the scrambling muscleman, grabbing him and forcing him to the floor of the tomb with an unfolding of those monstrous wings.

Wellstone couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe; he felt exactly as if he were in a nightmare, his limbs paralyzed, his body frozen. The creature’s huge, rugose body was topped with a tiny head, which looked like a mosquito’s, with bulbous compound eyes. A tube covered in bristles protruded outward from the head, sliding in and out, its point stabbing spasmodically this way and that.

The creature held the muscleman in place with crablike, hairy pincers attached to bristly pads. The roving tube — spasming in and out — homed in on a spot on the man’s leg. Suddenly, it buried itself deep in the man’s upper thigh. As his awful screeching echoed through the tomb, there was a wet sucking sound, deep and rhythmic. The creature’s wings settled down over the body, covering it like a blanket, and the screaming abruptly ceased.

Seconds later — although time no longer mattered to Wellstone — the sucking noise stopped and the creature was up again, leaving the desiccated remains of the muscleman behind. With a burst of speed, it snatched another member of the crew, ripping her in two pieces as easily as twisting a loaf of bread, blood and viscera spewing out like a bursting tomato.

Wellstone’s vision grew obscured. After a moment, he realized it was his own hand, held out protectively before his face. Some atavistic impulse took over, his muscles relaxed, and he sank down behind the broken crypt, curling up like a fetus, trying to make no noise, motionless, his body on autopilot. He heard the screams, the heavy beating of those awful wings, the sounds of tearing meat, of alien suction; he smelled the humid, burning-rubber stench of rushing wind as it passed over him.

And then the beating faded; the sounds died away; there was silence. And absolute darkness.

Time passed.

Then Wellstone found that he was crawling on his hands and knees in the darkness, tears running from his eyes and snot from his nose. He encountered something wet and sticky and, with no guidance from himself, his body slipped around it. One hand found a worn stone step and, unbidden, his body pulled itself closer: up the step, then the next, then the next. A faint gleam of light now was visible above, and his body moved toward it.

Reaching the top, he saw a room and, past it, the open door of the mausoleum. The light he’d seen was beyond the ruined doors. He crawled toward the light, advancing one knee, then one hand, then one knee, moving slowly and without thought.

Finally he passed through the door. The light was on his right, shining brightly, and a machine to his left was pushing out a stream of fog. He could hear the thrum of a generator.

There was a woman here. Sitting cross-legged on the ground. A blond woman, splattered in blood, with her head buried in her hands. She looked up at him as he emerged from the tomb, her face a perfect blank. The blood on her face looked like ghastly red freckles.

She looked at him for a while, then she lowered her head into her hands again.

Now Wellstone’s body decided it could crawl no more. It was as if his agency had departed. He lay down next to the woman and curled up, once again in a fetal position, covering his head with his hands. Vaguely, he sensed that he was waiting, but for what, or whom, he could not say... any more than he could, or would, say anything else — ever again.