Fragment

10:42 P.M.

“Come on, Barry! You’ve got a live feed from Henders Island all ready to go, damn it!”

Peach heard Barry reply through her phone’s receiver: “I don’t want another slaughter on TV!”

In the background they could hear Dante’s narration as he pointed the camera across the crevasse. “A few feet to go here on the crux-What the hell?”

The other wall was only about twenty feet away. The dark trilobite-like creatures seemed to be congregating into a mass directly across from Dante.

“That doesn’t look good,” Peach told Cynthea.

“I don’t like the look of these things, man,” came Dante’s voice. “Ow! They’re comin’ at me from all directions now-I can’t hang around here longer, man. I’m going for it.”

“OK, we’re cutting in live in five seconds,” Barry said. “So get ready, Cynthea, damn you, you fucking bitch!”

“I could marry you, Barry!”

“OK,” Dante grunted. “I am almost to the top of Henders Island…”

“We’ve got a live shot coming from Henders Island as one of the crew of SeaLife, without our permission or authorization, is about to reach the top of the island’s cliff, and broadcast the first images of the island’s interior,” Cynthea narrated. “What do you see, Dante?”

“Damn it-those things have teeth, I think. Uh, fuck, I’m just getting up the last bit here, hang on.” The camera swept across pale rock illuminated by night vision as they heard his grunts and hard breathing.

“Keep talking, sweetie, keep talking!” Cynthea coaxed. “Don’t swear, though, honey!”

Dante reached a grasping hand up over the lip and hauled himself to the top of the cliff. His muscles trembled with exhaustion, and he lay still on his back for a moment, breathing and giving thanks. He had made it.

He raised himself to his feet.

“Oh shit!”

One of the giant tigers flashing orange-and-pink stripes sat in front of him. The thing was the size of a tractor.

As Dante spun and dove back into the crevasse, he saw a luminous figure, on the opposite side of the crevasse, jump in the air and spread out four arms in an X.

“Oh shiiiiit!” Dante heard it screech, in a warbled imitation of his own voice.

“We’re cutting this off, Cynthea!” yelled Barry. “Are you crazy?” she screamed.

The rope yanked on his harness as it belayed inside the gri-gri and tightened the cam driven into the ledge.

He dangled and spun, head downward, on the rope. A cloud of bugs circled him, chased by leaping gliders.

He righted himself and climbed the rope, drawing his body up under the ledge.

Above him, the tiger-spider suddenly loomed over the edge, blocking the moonlight. He saw it reach two long black spikes down into the crack and hook his rope. It pulled Dante up like a fish caught on a dropline.

As its jaws peeled open, revealing dark appendages, he smelled the sour stench of its breath and felt a splatter of stinging drool on his face. The rope lunged upward as the beast yanked it with two arms, and its head stretched down over the rocky edge on an elastic neck. He felt its hot breath and his heart pounded as the creature screamed a sound he never imagined could come from a living thing.

Dante heard the taunting voice of the other animal, from somewhere above on the cliff: “Oh shiiiiiit!” it echoed.

He knew that with one more pull of the rope he would be inside the monster’s mouth. Dante chose to die another way.

“Bye, guys,” he said, and he unclipped.

The creature screamed like a hoarse siren, its voice receding away from him as he fell.

The last thing they saw on-screen was the camera eye tumbling through the chasm as the scream of the beast faded-the transmission fizzled on impact with the ground.

“Cynthea, Christ! What are you doing to me?” Barry yelled.

“Oh God,” Cynthea screeched. “When did you cut it?”

“Not soon e-fucking-nough!”