Kraken Rising

CHAPTER 39

Comrade Liu Yandong continued to work his way along the dark river bank. He silently prayed that there were no more crossings necessary, as he didn’t think his nerves could bear it. The pressure, the darkness, and the lack of food — he hoped — were all making his stomach jump and twist. The cave stream had gotten wider, and in turn the shoreline had shrunk. In addition, the water appeared to be slowing. It could only mean one thing — an obstruction.

Liu rounded the bend and his shoulders slumped. It was as he suspected. The river cave ended with a wall of tumbled rocks, totally blocking any further progress. He moved his flashlight over the wall; some of the boulders were no more than the size of a bread loaf, but others were car sized. There was no army on earth that could shift them without moving equipment. He approached the stones and looked up. The barrier went all the way to the ceiling, not even leaving a gap at the top, and the rocks were slime coated, and in some places looked welded together from the countless ages they had rested upon one another. This was an ancient fall.

He breathed out his frustration and waited, knowing that Captain Yang was a man who often shot the messenger. He grimaced as he felt his stomach roil again, and then felt the pain drop lower, to force pressure on his bowels. He needed to shit… now.

Liu looked around quickly. The rest of the squad was still a few hundred feet back — he had time. There were a few small places close to the cave walls and he strode into one, already loosening his belt. He dug a small hole in the dark sand, switched off his light and squatted over it.

There was no explosive gas as he expected, but instead a thick stream that fell heavily to the sand. As well, there was little stink, more just an odor he had experienced once when he had been on his father’s farm. His father had slaughtered a pig, and the air had filled with a hot, coppery, offal smell.

His anus itched madly afterwards, and as he had no paper, he had no choice but to pull his pants back up, grimacing at the unpleasant wetness between his cheeks.

He looked back down the cave, and only just made out the glow of the approaching group. They’d be around the bend soon. Liu tightened his belt, his gut feeling slightly better, and went to step away when a tiny sound caused him to pause. A sticky wetness, a movement like dying fish flip-flopping in a puddle. He turned back, knowing where the sound was coming from, and with a rising sense of fear, he lifted his flashlight and flicked it on, pointing it down at where he had moved his bowels.

“Ah no, no, no.” Liu backed up, feeling his stomach contents threaten to explode up and over his lips. The brown red mush puddle was a mass of glossy black threads, some no thicker than hair, but others pencil thick. The things were shiny, eyeless, but coiling and twisting, sliding through his feces as if searching for the warm flesh that they had just been expelled from.

“Eeyaa!” He looked back down the cave tunnel and saw the outline of his squad now appearing. His first instinct was to tell his leader, Captain Yang, but he remembered how he had dealt with Han Biao. Infected, was all Yang said, treating the man like a dog, and calmly putting a bullet in his brain.

His throat tickled now, and the crawling coiled within him from the back of his nose and inner ears right down to feet. Infected, infected, infected.

He made a soft mewling in his throat, knowing that he now had limited choices. Getting out was not his concern anymore, but all his life he had abided by a code of honor. He would not go out like a dog.

He hated them, then. The things inside him that had invaded his body and had won the battle without him even knowing there was a fight. Anger and frustration energized him. He wanted to kill them all… and he would.

He dropped his pack, quickly searching for the small tin of cooking kerosene. He found it, and then fumbled again in his kit, finding his second item. He straightened.

Liu crushed his eyes shut, held an image of his parents standing there, waving, proud of him for attaining his rank in the Special Forces.

No, he would not die like a dog. He would die like a true soldier. He held the image of his parents as he unscrewed the tin’s lid, and in a single motion, brought it to his lips and drained the liquid.

He grimaced as the scalding chemical made its way down his throat and into his belly, stripping the lining as it went. Before he lost his nerve, he opened his mouth, held the lighter to his lips and spun the wheel.

“Stay back.” Yang held up a hand. His men stopped their forward rush immediately. All eyes were on the bucking body, flames shooting from the wide-open mouth and nose. The orange and blue tongues had leaked down over the neck and across the head, and the short-cropped hair of Liu Yandong had singed away, adding to the oily smoke rising to collect under the cave ceiling.

Yang walked forward alone, his flashlight in one hand and revolver in the other. He saw the puddle of squirming excrement, and also the frying worms that exited the dead man’s mouth to curl up on the dark sand.

He grunted and holstered his weapon. He clicked his fingers and pointed at two of his soldiers. “Bury that, it will suffocate us if it burns much more.” He half turned and then looked back.

The men rushed forward to kick the black sand over the body, extinguishing the flames within a dark mound. Yang sauntered towards the cave wall of tumbled boulders, Liu Yandong already forgotten. He put his hands on his hips, surveying the blockage, before turning.

“Professor.”

“That man,” — Shenjung looked panicked — “those men, something infected them, from the water. It must be avoided.”

“And how do we do that? Fly across it?” Yang’s gaze turned quizzical. “Are you sick?”

“Huh? I am not,” Shenjung replied, feeling his torso.

Yang shrugged. “No, you’re not, and neither am I. Han Biao died because his wounds got infected. Liu, because he drank from the stream, when he was warned not to.”

“Liu committed suicide. Horrible.”

“Horrible?” Yang exhaled evenly through his nose. “No, brave. He was a true PLA warrior in his soul. We never surrender, we fight on, past fear, past pain, past all adversity.” He half turned, raising his voice. “Liu chose to fight his inner demons — to the end.” He raised a fist, lifting his voice. “When we face adversity, when we come to a barrier, we do not tremble or wail. We show them that we are harder, stronger… even than stone.”

Yang had his fist still in the air, and held his smile. In the darkest corners of his mind, he wondered if he became infected, whether he would end himself like Liu, or whether he would run screaming into the darkness. In that instant, he resolved that his men would never know. While he remained brave, or at least looked it, then they would hold together as well.

A demonstration of his resolve then. He looked from the men to the tumble of huge boulders, and then pointed. “Blow it up.”

“What? No!” Shenjung Xing waved his hands. “This is not a good idea. The blast could bring the entire cave down on us.”

There was silence as the soldiers’ eyes slid from the scientist back to their captain.

Yang stayed calm. “And what would you have us do, Professor? Go back to… where? Maybe wait here until we all have a belly full of worms? Or perhaps simply sit down here and wait until the wall erodes away by itself?” He scoffed.

“There must be another way. The risks…” Shenjung pleaded.

“Yes, the risks. There are always risks. And men like us are not afraid to face them, so men like you can sleep safe at night.” He turned and clicked his fingers. “Proceed.” Yang started to walk quickly back down the dark cave. When he and Shenjung were a hundred paces back, he stopped and turned.

His soldiers scrambled over the tumbled boulders, planting fragmentation grenades into crevices at a strategic position of the wall. They turned, waiting.

Yang nodded, and the men danced from grenade to grenade pulling the pins and then scrambling down, having mere seconds to try and get to safety. Yang backed everyone around the corner.

The explosion was near deafening in the enclosed space, and the shock wave thumped past the men who were crowded in close to the wall of the tunnel. The monstrous echo was like a titanic drumbeat pulsing away down the cave. They waited, no one moving. Seconds passed, and the echoes had now fallen away to silence.

Yang was first out, waving a hand in front of himself to try and dispel the floating rock dust. He coughed. There was the sound of rocks falling into water, but the air was so choked with dust that visibility was down to a few feet.

“Hold.” Yang knew the dust would settle soon. He turned to the stream and lifted his flashlight. Through the gritty mist he could see its black sinuous surface was no more like an oily sheet of glass, but was now moving, and fast. He smiled, open, I win, he thought.

He was about to order the men forward, when he paused. There was a creaking sound, like the splintering of wooden boards. He stepped out, holding up his light. The air was clearing, but he still couldn’t make out the end of the tunnel. He turned, sighted on one of his men, and then motioned with his head. “Go and look.”

The young soldier nodded once and sprinted forward. He was soon swallowed in the foggy dust. Yang waited.

“Clear.” The voice floated back. “More tunnel, sir.”

Yang looked at Shenjung, feeling both relieved and vindicated. The professor was frowning as he looked at the stream. The water sizzled, popped, and jumped and he stared hard at its surface. At first he assumed it was something underneath pushing upwards, but the more the air cleared, the more he saw that instead, it was something dropping down from above. He lifted his flashlight beam to the ceiling of the cave. A dark crack had opened, no, was still opening, and unzipping down the length of the tunnel.

Shenjung pointed at the ceiling, and Yang screamed a single word. “Run!”

He turned and sprinted towards the newly cleared cave end with Shenjung and his men following him instantly. They clambered over the broken stones, and the water, now free, jumped and swirled as it kept pace with them. There came a huge splash from behind them, and some of his men yelled with fear. Yang didn’t turn, knowing it was probably a rock falling from the ceiling. There came more pounding splashes, then the roar of a giant and the sound of boiling, rushing liquid.

Yang leapt over another boulder, sprinting hard. There must have been another cave stream directly over this one. The explosion had ruptured its bottom, and the streams were about to merge — right on top of them. He put his head down and ran harder.

The growing roar was a living thing that shook the cave around them. The water was an oncoming train, and its speed was about the same. They never had any hope of outrunning it.

Seconds later, Yang and his men were like rats in a drain, snatched up and flushed away in the current. They tumbled down a dark pipe towards a destination that was out of their control.

The water boiled around Yang, pummeling him, throwing him from cave wall to ceiling and then to floor. He tried to keep his eyes and mouth jammed tight, praying that none of the horrifying worms would find their way inside him.

In the inky black water, he struck another body, hard. He went to snatch at it but it was already gone, and in the next instant a massive surge threw him so violently into a cave wall, that he was momentarily stunned.

His lungs were going into spasms, and involuntarily, he opened his mouth wide to drag in a huge breath of air. But instead, the gritty coldness that surged down his throat and into his lungs brought him back instantly. He screamed out the last air in his lungs, and spewed the bile in his gut along with the water. The next thing he knew he was falling through space — falling, falling.

It is over, he thought, just before the impact.