Dark Rising

THIRTY-SIX

Zach stood back against the inside wall, watching as Rocky gave O’Riordan a sip of water. O’Riordan grabbed the bottle, pulled off his helmet and poured some over his short red hair, mumbling something about a car crash as the water ran down his face.

‘What happened? How’d I get here?’ he said, shaking his head and flinging droplets to the dry cave floor.

Rocky took the water canister from him. ‘Ms Senesh and the boss ran defence for you. She stopped it skewering you, and then the boss distracted the… uh… thing to give us time to pull you out.’

O’Riordan rubbed his hands through his hair and looked around. ‘So where are they now?’

Rocky glanced at Sam who just gave a shrug.

‘Ahh, fuck it.’ O’Riordan closed his eyes and tilted his head back.

Rocky looked down at the cave floor, then quickly back up at Sam. ‘I think it was guarding this place,’ he said. ‘Maybe the Iranians were controlling it somehow? Or maybe it lives in the caves – like a dinosaur, or a demon. Hey, maybe there are more in here.’

‘Great. Let’s all go fucking insane as well,’ O’Riordan sneered, grabbing the water back from Rocky.

‘Dr Shomron,’ Sam said, and Zach jumped at the sound of his voice. ‘What the hell was that thing?’

Zach frowned – for a moment, he was having trouble remembering what he’d seen. It was as if his mind was trying to shut the image out. Slowly, however, the monster formed in his mind, but refused to be categorised.

‘I’ve no idea,’ he said. ‘I’m in physics and that’s outside my area of expertise. I really -’

‘Just have a fucking guess, genius. This is your shit-suckin’ stompin’ ground,’ O’Riordan said, glaring at him as he got slowly to his feet.

‘Um, ahh… I think, um… non-indigenous, I know that much. Mutation maybe? If they’ve been using high-energy radiation here then it’s possible there’s been some kind of corruption at the cellular and nucleic acid level.’ Zach put a knuckle to his lips and thought for a moment. ‘Unless…’

‘Contact.’ Sam whispered. He’d been peering through the hole looking for any sign of Alex or Adira. He pulled his sidearm and spoke quietly over his shoulder. ‘Soldiers, go to red.’

Rocky and Irish fanned out into a defensive position on either side of the hole in the wall. Zach felt his stomach lurch at the thought of the large creature pushing through the tunnel while they were trapped inside. He backed up until his shoulders touched the dry wall, his teeth locked in a grimace. He couldn’t stop his hands dancing at the ends of his arms, even when he held them up in front of himself.

‘Rocky, eyes out. Irish, with me,’ Sam ordered.

He leapt through the hole, quickly followed by O’Riordan. Zach tried to back up even further as he heard a sliding sound coming closer.

‘Heeey.’ Rocky placed his pistol back in its holster and leaned through the hole. When he stood again, Zach could see that he was supporting the upper half of an unconscious figure. The man’s helmet was off and, despite the dirt and dried blood, his face was clearly recognisable as the HAWC captain’s. Zach felt as if a giant sack of stones had been lifted from his shoulders. He stepped forward to help.

*

Adira bathed Alex’s face. Her movements were soft and she spent more time washing the dirt away from his forehead and cheeks than was probably necessary. Nice face, she thought.

‘I think you have many lives, Alex Hunter,’ she said as he opened his eyes.

Alex sprang to his feet and looked around. ‘Where is it?’

Sam grabbed him by the arms. ‘Easy, boss. Ms Senesh gave it an explosive kick up the ass and it ran out of the cave. Rocky and I went back to scout the skirmish zone; there’s nothing there now.’

Alex looked at Sam for a few seconds, then towards the hole. He seemed to be listening. He swung back around quickly. ‘We’re out of here – now. Sam, take ’em in.’

‘Roger that, boss. Rocky, take point. Dr Shomron, I want you with him to check for any further radiation traces. I’ll take left; Irish, take right. Let’s go, soldiers.’

Adira pulled one of her Baraks from its holster and let it hang by her side. She watched Alex as he walked back to the hole and swung his head through. Again he seemed to be listening. After a second he shook his head and pulled two metal boxes from his belt pocket. He typed some instructions into each, then stuck one to the outside and one to the inside of the hole.

‘It’s still out there isn’t it?’ she asked.

Alex looked at her. ‘Yeah, it’s close. We’ll just leave it a little surprise.’ He grinned and nodded at the little metal boxes. ‘Come on.’

The tunnel was like a tomb; not a drip, a rustle or even the hushed whisper of a breeze broke the silence. Out at point, Lagudi was moving forward quickly and carefully. Zach, on the other hand, seemed to find every single piece of fallen debris, mound of dust or broken rock shard. He had a small flashlight, but they mainly relied on Lagudi’s barrel-mounted torch for illumination. Though it had a powerful beam, it created a pipe of light that left much of the peripheral darkness untouched. After what they had encountered in the outer tunnel, that was way too much shadow for Zach’s liking.

They came across the skeletons about ten minutes along the tunnel – mummified cadavers scattered on the dusty floor, their parchment-like skin drawn back from gaping mouths. Yeerk, thought Zach. Skeletons always unsettled him. The tendons in the jaw shortened as the body decomposed, and in a dry atmosphere this process pulled the mouth wide, making them look as if they were screaming. Patches of long wispy hair were still attached to some of the skulls. Zach shivered and looked away. He knew that it was a myth that the hair and nails continued to grow after death; it was just that as the body dried and shrank, the hair seemed longer by comparison. Basically, dead was dead. But still… yeerk.

Rocky held up his hand. ‘Let’s wait for ’em.’

Zach nodded and jammed his hands into his pockets to keep them still. They didn’t have to wait long. In a few moments torchlight coloured the tunnel walls as the team approached.

Adira went down on one knee beside the closest skeleton. ‘Not old – no more than five years, I’d say, maybe even less.’

She went through its pockets and found a few hundred rials, a comb and what was once probably an apple wrapped in a handkerchief – a final meal never eaten. She moved quickly to the next, whose tattered jacket gave up a wallet. She checked its contents. ‘Faribez ibn Yousef – a student at Tehran University… hmm, one too many student protest rallies, I’d say. Head shot, ribs shattered from gunfire. These guys were executed.’

O’Riordan lit up the wall behind them – it was scarred by dozens of bullet impacts. ‘I’d say they were lined up and gunned down right here.’

Adira nodded. ‘I think they’re probably Iranian, maybe prisoners or dissidents who were made to work on the hidden facility and then disposed of when their work was completed – dead men don’t talk. A lot of people go missing in Iran for the most basic misdemeanours.’

‘Bad for them, but a good sign for us,’ Alex said. ‘Means we must be close. Rocky, continue on – fast and quiet.’

Zach noticed that as Alex moved them on, he kept looking back over his shoulder, squinting into the darkness.

The creature clung to the cave wall, compressing itself down so it looked like an enormous spiked barnacle, its heavily armour-plated back to the cave’s interior. The thunderous sound of the explosion had startled it. It had never felt an impact like it, or such searing heat.

It waited for the next attack. Hours passed before it extended its eyestalks again. No great creature stood waiting to deliver the killing blow. It scuttled down from the wall.

The small creatures had disappeared, their heat trails vanishing further into the tunnels.

There was no danger now; there was just the hunger.