Overlord

32

Aston explored the bizarre subterranean city with Slater and Marla close by him, while Sol moved with Reid and Tate. Syed sat with Jen on a kind of bench carved from the rock beside one small house.

They found the far side of the habitation, the whole place maybe five hundred feet across and perhaps a thousand feet long. Completely empty now, long abandoned, even the buildings were empty of possessions or furnishings. Other than the bodies of the Russian soldiers near the entrance, the place was devoid of any signs of life beyond its construction. Several passages led away from the city, most of them small and dark. The biggest were the one they had entered by, and another one of a similar size directly opposite, on the far side of the city. It was a kind of Russian roulette deciding which to take, Aston mused. Maybe they could cautiously explore each one for a little while, map the place out, and then decide which way to go. If nothing else, this city and the numerous exits gave him hope there would be another way to the surface, if only they could find it.

“I don’t think there’s anything else to discover in here,” Aston said eventually. “It feels like this place was cleaned out a long time ago. Like, eons ago.”

“We should rest,” Sol said.

“I’ve lost all idea of what time of day or night it might be up there,” Marla said.

Sol looked at his watch. “Well, the actual time is mid-morning. But that’s a bit irrelevant now. We had our night interrupted at God knows what time. Other than a couple of hours rest before Dig attacked Jen, we’ve hardly slept in two days. We’re all exhausted, we have shelter here, so I say we take the chance to sleep.”

“Good idea,” Reid said. “But we do it in shifts, always two people on watch. I’ll take the first, then Tate can take the second. Who’ll stay up with me?”

“I will,” Marla said. “I’m too buzzed to rest right now anyway.”

“I don’t think we should rest in any of the dwellings though,” Slater said. “Feels like too easy a place to be trapped.”

Aston pointed over to their right. “There’s a kind of natural clearing over there. Some rougher ground, a little raised. Gives a good view all around.”

Reid nodded. “Sounds like a plan, let’s go.”

Before long they had established a small camp on the rocky clearing, finding places to lie that were the least uncomfortable given the circumstances. Reid sat on one side, looking back toward the tunnel they had entered by. Marla sat on the other side, her back to him, staring disconsolately off in the direction of the other largest way out.

Aston lay down with Slater close by, her back to him. He reached out, laid one hand on her shoulder. She patted his hand, but neither of them spoke. Syed and Jen settled not far away. Tate lay down right behind where Marla sat. Sol sat beside Reid, the two men talking in whispers. Aston thought how it might be nice to spend some time with Slater when they weren’t in mortal danger one day. First a dinosaur, now this. He vowed that once they got out of here, he would try to take Slater somewhere nice and safe. If she’d have him. Her breathing slowed and exhaustion crept over Aston like a tide. He closed his eyes.

Sudden, ear-shattering gunfire ripped him back from sleep seemingly moments later. Tate had rolled up onto one knee and was rapid-firing bursts left and right. Reid and Sol on the other side stood back to back, firing with apparent abandon.

“The bastards are everywhere!” Tate screamed, finding her feet and pushing Marla behind her.

Aston and Slater jumped up, helped Syed and Jen to their feet. Tate wasn’t lying, the entire huge cavern seemed to swarm with mantics, the soft green light reflecting off their shining carapaces. Clearly they were getting bolder in the light. Reid and Tate aimed for joints and eyes, dropping several. Sol’s fire was less accurate, but he helped to hold the creatures back briefly, then looked at his empty guns in despair. He backed behind Tate as Aston took his place, pumping rounds from Gates’s dropped rifle as best he could. Slater fired fast from her pistol, switched out the clip for the one Reid had given her, and emptied that. As she clicked empty, so did Aston. Panic started to thrum through him as he became convinced they were going to die here. Tate switched to her sidearm once her own rifle was spent.

“Get away from open ground!” Reid yelled. “We have to try to defend ourselves in a narrower passage, some place where they can’t surround us.” He ran, firing, clearing a path.

Aston questioned the wisdom of it, as they’d been surrounded in a tunnel before, but at this point anything seemed preferable to standing vulnerable in wide open ground.

As Reid moved, Sol kept pace beside him, Marla a step behind. After them came Slater and Syed. Aston helped Jen, staying close to Tate as she covered their rear, the whole group moving towards an exit tunnel on the far side. A blur of motion to their right made the group swerve like a school of frightened fish, but Sol Griffin wasn’t fast enough. With a howl of panic, he fell and the mantics swarmed over him.

“Move!” Tate screamed, pushing Aston and Jen forward, Sol already forgotten.

They ducked left and right, dodging the fast-moving mantics, then realized they’d moved aside from the others up ahead.

Aston looked across the gap between them. He was nearly at the mouth of one tunnel, but a swarm of chitinous creatures was between him and Slater. As Slater, Syed, and Marla were driven sideways towards the next tunnel around, Slater realized they had been separated, reached out to Aston. In the moment of pause, she didn’t see a mantic closing up behind her. Aston opened his mouth to shout, but Marla was already there. She pulled Slater violently to one side, saving her boss at the last instant, but it cost the sound engineer her life. The creature’s mandibles snapped shut and Marla’s head leaped from her neck, face wide in a pained expression of shock as blood fountained up below it.

“No!” Aston yelled, drowned out by Slater’s own scream, then Tate was hauling him and Jen towards the tunnel mouth.

Reid stepped up and pushed Slater and Syed into their tunnel, then turned back to hold off the advancing mantics. He fired three shots, then his gun fell silent. His face turned into a grimace of pure rage as he began laying punches left and right into the creatures’ multi-faceted eyes, but then they covered him and blood gouted up and sprayed the walls.

Slater and Syed were swallowed by the darkness of the passage as Tate pushed Aston into their own, screaming at them to “Run! Just fucking run!” and Aston, still hauling Jen Galicia with him, couldn’t help thinking they were going to run straight into more of the bloodthirsty creatures and what was the point anyway?

In darkness, they fled, Jen’s weight dragging down on Aston, but he refused to let her go. His mind was filled with images of death. Reid, Marla, Sol, all gone. Slater and Syed somewhere separated and he may never see them again.

“Jo…” he said, voice edged with the panic roiling in his gut.

He sucked in a huge breath. He’d be damned if he would collapse in the face of this, no matter how ridiculous the odds, no matter how deadly the enemy. He would go down fighting, howling his rage into the face of death. He redoubled his efforts, almost lifted Jen off her feet as he ran alongside Tate.

They came out into a large chamber and Aston actually laughed at the ridiculous lack of luck they had. At least it wasn’t mantics. “Hold it!” he shouted.

Tate raised her pistol, but Aston pushed the barrel down.

“Don’t bother. We’re surrounded.”