This Green Hell

THIRTY-SIX

Aimee kept one arm around Saqueo and held the other over her lower face. The stench in the dark, airless space was almost a living thing.

González had thrown them roughly to the ground as soon as they stepped through the doorway, and then moved back to slide a huge granite block across the opening. She shivered, remembering the ease with which he had moved the stone. She only knew one other man that might have been capable of performing such a feat, and he was now locked on the other side of the rock.

When González had secured the doorway, he had also shut out the last faint traces of light; the darkness was now absolute. Aimee held her breath and willed her heartbeat to slow. González had not returned to them, and she guessed he was waiting for Alex to try to enter. She had no doubt that he could see them; from time to time, she felt a chill run across her neck and knew he was casting his gaze in her direction.

Aimee had no weapons, bar one — her intellect. Perhaps she could reason with him, negotiate. Or at least slow him down and buy Alex some time.

‘Padre?’ Her voice sounded tiny, like that of the little girl who used to cry when her hair was pulled by the boy next door over twenty-five years ago. She tried again. ‘Padre? Are you there?’

The reply was a roar — so close and so agonisingly loud that she found herself screaming in terror and pain. A charnel-house odour washed over her — the hot breath of some carnivorous beast. She tried hard not to retch.

Beside her, she felt Saqueo tremble, and he pressed his face into her side. Please hurry, Alex, she wished into the darkness.

When Alex heard the roar and Aimee’s muffled scream, his vision blurred with fury. His lips drew back and he bared his teeth.

Sam turned and said something, but Alex didn’t hear. Everything around him had disappeared the moment Aimee had cried out. Once more, he placed his hands against the stone and pushed. Nothing. He ground his teeth and strained, the muscles across his back and shoulders screaming from the exertion. The stone moved a half-inch, but when he adjusted his grip, it grated back into place.

He’s pushing back — he knows I can open it. The realisation gave Alex a surge of confidence. I can get in, and then I will destroy you! he silently screamed.

Unexpectedly, a voice answered him. Yes, come. And we will consume you, as we will every living thing in this world.

Cold washed through Alex’s mind and rocked him momentarily. He took his hands off the stone and stared hard at its grey surface. He frowned and pushed his mind out once again. What are you?

A sound that could have been a grating laugh preceded the deep voice that replied. What are we?Or what is the shell you see? But of course, unlike others of your kind, you perceive more, don’t you? We should ask, what are you, Alex Hunter, child of science? Are you a man, or simply a creation of man?

Alex was stunned. How could the creature know these things about him?

The harsh voice ground out once more. This shell, this being, was once like you: afflicted by mortality. It believed in a god — something all powerful, all knowing and immortal. We are far older than your entire race, and have the power to consume your world. Are we not then those very gods?

We? That tiny word unsettled Alex more than anything else he had seen or heard. Are there more like you? he sent. Where are they?

The dry rasp came again. ‘More than you could count in a thousand lifetimes, Alex Hunter. The seed has waited patiently to rise up, and now it grows. It will be your extinction.

Alex frowned; Aimee had suggested that the bacteria that had devastated the men at the camp seemed to have been waiting for them to dig it up — waiting to rise up, the thing had said. Was the thing that used to be González somehow linked to the Hades Bug?

The idea reminded him of something he’d learned back in his earliest days in the Special Forces: they’d been warned not to build jungle shelters or bivouacs near certain types of trees as they were favoured by army ants. The thing Alex had found fascinating about the ants was the way they always sent out scouts, or advance guards, before invading a territory. The scouts were the heralds of a ravenous tide of destruction. Was the priest the herald of the Hades Bug’s army of cells? Or was he a product of them?

Suddenly, Alex thought the nuke was looking like a brilliant idea.

The voice leaked into his mind again, and he cleared his thoughts in case it was able to pick images from his brain.

We need all of you. Join me willingly; or flee now, before you become no more than a few scraps of new tissue on this rotting frame.

Alex closed his eyes, a smile forming at the corners of his lips. He had just learned two things: first, the creature had an ego and craved an audience; second, and more importantly, it didn’t want to confront him. For all its incredible strength, it had limitations; it knew fear.

He studied the edges of the slab; he wouldn’t be able to shift it while another force, one possibly stronger than he was, pushed back from the other side. He needed more leverage.

He lifted his hands from the stone. I’m coming in … to talk further.

There was a pause. Like the lamb may talk with the lion … Come, then.

Alex guessed the creature knew what he planned, but if it bought him one extra second, then good. He wedged his fingers into the small space where the hewn block didn’t quite sit flush with the stone doorframe, and heaved. There was a begrudging movement of the stone.

‘Sam. Shoulder to it,’ Alex ordered.

Sam’s contribution would only give him an extra few hundred pounds of thrust, but it should be enough to gain the advantage he needed. Alex thought again of Aimee’s scream, and heaved. Six inches of dark space opened up. Now he could set both hands to work. He sucked in a deep breath and ground his teeth together as he moved his arms apart — like Samson between the two pillars of the Philistine temple. Slowly, the massive stone block, and the creature holding it, gave way to the greater force.

‘Alex!’ came Aimee’s cry from within the darkened space.

The gap was little more than a foot wide but it was enough. Before Sam could stop him, Alex leapt through.