This Green Hell

FORTY

Aimee followed quickly, holding the burning torch and gauntlet before her. Even with the light from the flame, the room remained dark. It seemed to consume light. She felt a spongy mass under her feet, and could see the wall nearest her was stained a dark brown and pierced by hairy roots that looked like tentacles reaching for their prey. She shuddered at an old memory.

Alex was in the centre of the room, down on one knee, his head turning slowly. She saw that his eyes were half-closed — he was relying on a different type of vision.

‘I can’t …’ he said, turning to her and frowning. ‘It’s overwhelming.’

His face registered shock just before a howl tore through the small room. Aimee staggered at the sudden, overwhelming noise, and then everything went crazy.

The priest dropped from the roof like a giant spider, his mouth open in that terrible roar, and flung himself onto Alex, smothering him with his black robes. The creature’s sudden descent created a draught that made Aimee’s torch waver and dance; for one heart-stopping moment, she thought it was going out.

She raised her gauntlet, hesitating as the jumping light made the movements of the priest even more erratic. It was hard for her to tell where Alex was in the jumbled mass. Short bursts only — do not wait for me, he’d said. She gritted her teeth and made a fist.

At exactly that moment, the tangle unfolded and the priest held Alex up in front of him, one arm round his throat, the other exposing his chest and abdomen to the spray of spikes that was already on its way.

Alex felt the penetrations run from his waist to shoulder. What was left of his suit was tough, but not designed for protection against that sort of assault. The pain was hot at first, then cold, as his body recognised the frozen water penetrating his flesh and attempted to deal with the trauma.

Alex ignored the pain; his vital organs were undamaged and he knew his body had the recuperative capability to deal with the injuries. It responded with a severe jolt to his system and a resulting flush of chemicals that burst through him. He jerked backwards and reached behind his head to grab the priest by the robe, then pulled with all his strength. The creature hung on, its claws digging into Alex’s flesh.

Alex grunted with a last herculean effort and slammed backwards. The thing on his back was enormously powerful, but, like Alex, was encased in a human body and bound by the same skeletal and muscular limitations. He tore it over his shoulder, ripping free the black robes and slamming it into the wall. González stuck to the stones like an enormous dark growth, then grinned before dropping lightly to the floor. He straightened and opened his arms wide.

Alex heard Aimee gasp. The priest’s body was crisscrossed with weird veins and bulges, and his skin didn’t look right. It sagged in some places and was overly tight in others — as if a wrong-sized suit had been pulled too quickly over the frame.

González’s hands curled into claws and he crouched, ready to spring. Alex saw some of the ropy tendrils slide around under his skin and tighten, as though they were the strings of a giant marionette.

‘Now!’ Alex yelled.

He hoped Aimee understood his intent as he raised his arm and fired a stream of projectiles at the thing. From behind him, another stream shot out, hitting González in the neck and head before sliding up towards the roof and dying out.

Alex directed his spray at the priest’s shoulder, keeping it focused for as long as he could before González spun away … long enough to nearly sever the arm. González howled again and leapt towards the steps — and potential escape. He was fast, but he was also damaged, and had underestimated Alex.

Alex leapt too, colliding with the priest’s naked torso. He heard a satisfying crunch of cartilage as he slammed the body backwards onto the stone floor. When González got to his feet again, his arm was hanging loosely by his side. He snarled.

‘Hurts, doesn’t it?’ Alex said, and charged again.

He cannoned into the man, hurling him backwards into the far wall. Before the body even hit, Alex had his arm up, directing another deadly accurate stream at the thing’s leg. The thousands of high-speed spikes cut through the thigh, partially severing it.

González stuck to the wall again, but this time there was no grin. With a sickening, sticky sound, the limb fell away from his body. There was no spurt of blood; instead, strings of dark mucilaginous tendrils stretched from the severed leg back up to its ragged stump. Alex watched in horror and disgust as the threads tightened and began to reel in the limb.

Aimee directed another short burst at the man’s torso, the dark holes that appeared in his chest testifying to the hits. The priest grew still and silent. His bulging eyes swivelled to Aimee, one moving more slowly than the other. His mouth opened and he slurred, ‘I am sick, child. Please forgive me.’

‘He’s trying to buy himself time,’ Alex warned. ‘He’s—’

He didn’t need to finish. Aimee’s slim arm lifted again, wavering slightly from the strain.

‘Fuck forgiveness. This is for Francisco, you demon from hell.’

The spikes shot into the thing’s face, slicing flesh from its skull. Alex fired again too, cutting through the tendrils that were recovering the injured leg, then severing the other leg. González fell to the ground.

Alex walked over and placed his foot on the priest’s chest. There was no blood, despite the massive trauma. The skull, where it was exposed, was grey instead of white, like that of a skeleton you might see in a museum.

González reached up with his remaining arm and grabbed Alex’s ankle, but could get no leverage to throw the HAWC off. Alex felt the crushing strength that still remained in the man’s arm and lifted the gauntlet slowly, pointing it at González’s face.

The priest began to laugh, the words coming thickly from behind his gore-soaked beard. ‘Creature of the dirt, we will meet again.’

Alex smiled back. ‘I doubt that … your holiness.’

He fired at the other shoulder, severing the final limb. Still the hand continued to grip his ankle. He finished by cutting through the neck and kicking the misshapen head away to the far wall. The odour of the thing’s open flesh was vile.

‘Yuck.’ Aimee covered her mouth and nose.

Alex shook off the talon around his ankle and kicked the limbs away from the body. He pulled a small canister of liquid fuel from a pouch at his side and doused the torso, then stepped back and nodded to Aimee. She threw the flaming torch onto the carcass and stepped back too.

Alex waited mere seconds to make sure the corpse was fully alight before grabbing her arm and leading her up and out of the pit.

Behind them, in the shadows, the priest’s severed head lay in the dirt. One of its eyes swivelled to watch them go.