Keepers of the Lost City

34 Lost in the City

While Nina moved into the unknown darkness, Sam was asking the Hardings to reconsider.

“We cannot leave out father in there, Sam,” Cecil said, being genuine for once and not trying to impress Sam. “That is where he disappeared. Even if he is dead, which I am not deluding myself with, we still need to retrieve his body.”

“I understand that,” Sam said. “But wait for the authorities…”

Anaru sighed in frustration. “Mr. Cleave, I represent the authorities. Until you release that documentary you are shooting, nobody will give a shit about this rescue mission.”

Purdue came to stand close to Sam. “What do you suggest, old boy?”

“I don’t know,” Sam shrugged. “We need weapons against these things, if they are what we think.”

At the same time, the men heard two female screams coming from two different direction. Eyes stretched in astonishment and disbelief, as the men listened as it happened again.

“Jaysus,” Olden said. “That is Louisa.”

Sam looked towards the house and then to Purdue. “That is Nina!”

Purdue and Sam raced to Nina’s aid, slipping along the mud to get into the house. Purdue followed Sam’s lead into the narrow hallway that led to the main bedroom and into the grotesque little office. Stopping in his tracks, Sam tried to figure out what had happened, but another blood-curdling scream from Nina prompted both men to lift the trapdoor lid and falter their way down into the shaft.

“Nina!” they cried as Purdue pulled a portable search light from his vest pocket. With a click, the device lit up the interior of the ghastly maze they had stepped into. “Nina!” Sam yelled.

They were standing in a wet tunnel of sandstone-hosted ore, too silvery in color to be any derivative of gold. As Sam filmed the dripping walls, his high-definition lens picked up the minute carvings in the stone, similar to that of the Maori and Samoan sigils outside on the markers. Their boots kept getting tangled in old rusted barbwire and rotten rope.

“Nina! Where are you?” Sam called out in the damp vein of rock.

“Sam, do you know what this is?” Purdue gawked, running his long fingers along the rock. “My God, it is pitchblende.” Sam’s quizzical expression prompted an explanation. “Pitchblende is a type of uranium. That is why the Nazi’s kept the Lost City under wraps for their own gain. Concentrated uranium ore! All the plutonium their scientists could brew was down here.”

“Then what is that?” Sam asked, panning his camera across the floor and walls to capture the thick crescents of uranium deposits around a drop a few meters away. He used a flare to illuminate the deep chasm and found something peculiar against the opposing wall. It was a depiction of an enormous snake, worshiped by stick men. “Is that a cave drawing?”

Sam called out to Nina again. Sounds of movement directed them onward. They approached the edge along a lower barrel vault and found words etched in German at the foot of the colossal snake depiction.

“What does it say?” Sam asked, filming it from top to bottom.

Purdue looked at the etching, then at Sam. “It says ‘The Dire Serpent’, but I have no idea what it is made from.”

“Look!” Sam nudged Purdue, dropping his angle to zoom in on the maze below. “Fuck me! All those bodies are from different eras, just like the soldiers on the ship!”

“Oh my God,” Purdue gasped, as he laid eyes on endlessly winding streets and lanes inside the vast city under the eye of the strange German drawing. “More Nazi soldiers, miners, even older cadavers. Sam, they are all mummified. They are all mummified like the men killed on that ship, by genetically altered venom.”

“We have to get out of here now! Nina! Where are you?” Sam shouted into the darkness.

“I’m here!” her voice suddenly came back, but it sounded subdued. “I–I… oh, Christ, please… she’s got me!” Nina stammered through a choking throat. The two men abandoned the threatening piece of art that overlooked the Lost City below.

“Who has you?” Purdue bellowed, lunging forward into the pitch-blackness with Sam’s lens right next to him. “Keep filming, Sam.”

“Don’t you think helping you save Nina is a bit more important than filming?” Sam retorted. Deadly serious, Purdue’s head swung to face Sam. His eyes glimmered with controlled lunacy. “What am I paying you for, Sam? Keep filming. This is what you and I almost died for in Spain.”

“Unbe-fucking-lievable,” Sam cursed as he pointed the camera to where a violent scuffle directed him. “Go get her, Purdue. I’m right behind you.”

They could hear Nina’s throat rattle as she gasped for air. Over the wet floor, something enormous was shifting. Sam whispered to Purdue, “It has been a while since I have been this petrified.”

“I am with you on that one,” Purdue replied softly, his flaring light exploring the marked walls that glinted in the illumination. “Whatever it is, it must weigh a ton. Do you hear that?”

“Aye,” Sam panted, setting his camera down on the floor to aim down the corridor. He pulled his gun and proceeded with Purdue. He did not care of he got the shot or not. He cared about rescuing Nina.

“Holy shit!” Purdue bellowed at the sight of the thing they were pursuing. “Oh my God, Sam, are you getting this?”

Before them reared the rubbery muscle of a giant snake, coiled around the small frame of Nina Gould and choking the life from her. Unable to make a sound, she was trying to reach the Taser-like device Purdue had given her, but the snake wrapped around her arm to keep it away from her body.

From behind Purdue, he heard Sam say, “Cover your ears!” As he did so, a thunderous shot tore through the tunnel, drowning Nina’s scream. Sam’s bullets ripped through the snake’s mouth and eyes, forcing it to drop Nina. Struggling for air, she stumbled toward Purdue, who kept the place lit up for Sam’s assault. The snake had vanished into the darkness after Sam stopped shooting, but as Nina reached Purdue’s outstretched hand, the inevitable happened.

Appearing from the shadows, the massive grey serpent darted out, seizing Nina’s shoulder between its jaws. She let out a screeching wail of pain and terror as the thing planted its fangs into her flesh and injected her with venom.

“Oh my God!” Sally Cockran exclaimed from the crevice in which she had been cowering in since she came after Nina. “Ken left one of them in here?”

Nina fell to her knees and Sam quickly scooped her up in his arms. “S-s-am,” Nina stuttered. “Sally is going to kill us. Sally is… tell Purdue. She is bad news.”

“Sally?” Sam asked, unable to believe it. He heard a loud altercation just ahead, and another deafening gunshot rang. “Purdue?” Sam shouted. “Jesus, Purdue, Nina has been bitten!”

Nothing came from the darkness apart from Purdue’s groans. Shuffling ensued between where Sam was cradling a dying Nina and the vicinity of the snake. “Sally?” Sam called, still not too clear if Nina really meant what she said.

“Yes, dear Sam,” Sally answered reluctantly, sounding terrified.

“Keep still, alright?” he advised. “That thing seems to react to movement.”

“Sam. S-am,” Purdue whimpered.

“Aye?” Sam answered his friend. “Where is the light, Purdue?”

Again, Sam heard a shuffling in the hollow belly of the cavernous maze. Thinking it was the serpent, he pulled himself into a fold of rock to keep Nina out of harm’s way.

“Sa—,” Purdue cried one more time before another shot rang out, silencing him.

“Purdue? Did you get him?” Sam screamed.

Nina whispered in his ear, “I think that was Sally… shooting Purdue. Not Purdue shooting the snake. Jesus, Sam, I am in agony.”

“Hold on, love,” Sam consoled her, trying to sniff quietly to prevent her from hearing him weep. Purdue was silent, and, as long as Sam kept quiet, Sally would not locate him and Nina. Unfortunately, their stealth was costing both Sam’s friends their lives, each of their breaths like another grain of sand, falling through an hourglass.