'No! We stand and fight!' Stroud shouted, but Wiz bolted after Leonard, fearing for the man. Kendra felt the tentacle of the beast swipe by her face as she showered it with gas. A thousand screeching voices seemed to be coming from the creature as Stroud grabbed her and pushed her along the path Leonard and Wisnewski had taken.
'Out of here now!' he shouted through his comlink, and she obeyed without hesitation, following in Wiz's footsteps. Stroud, holding firm to the skull, raising it in the direction of the gas fog and the monster that was pursuing them, saw little creatures scampering about his feet and he kicked out at the hairy, sharp-toothed beasts, sending several flying and rolling off in balls of fur. A final one he crushed below his boot, hearing the explosion of its insides as he fired several more darts into the larger, heaving form in the fog.
'Come on, Abe! Now, away!' she shouted for him, and Stroud rushed to fulfill her request without looking back.
Stroud had wanted to take the ship by storm, to battle the first obstacle for the right to enter the ship at what appeared the easiest access. Yet the skull was strangely quiet, the light in it depressingly weak, and it was as if Esruad had abandoned him. Stroud was also disappointed in Wiz and Leonard. Only Kendra had stood her ground in the face of the horror that had approached them.
Kendra was kneeling over Leonard where he had dropped, his breathing too heavy. He'd taken in too much oxygen and was hyperventilating. Wiz stood over his friend, worried, offering words of encouragement and calm to Leonard. When he saw Stroud step from the shadows with the skull in his hands, Wisnewski said, 'You shouldn't've forced Sam back here. You shouldn't've, Stroud.'
Abe Stroud ignored the remark, catching his own breath, staring down the length of the maze that appeared to go on forever.
'Where's your friend in the skull now?' asked Wiz. 'Where is Esruad?'
'What's holding them in check? What's keeping them from destroying us all now?' asked Stroud. 'Only the skull, I assure you.'
'If that is the case, we must guard it with our lives,' said Kendra.
The moment Stroud stepped away from the others and into a circular room he became agitated. His eyes fell once more on the skull. Where was the so-called power; where was Esruad?
He looked back at where the others had remained and he saw that the walls were bleeding the brown slime substance all around them. 'Get out of there! All of you! Now!'
Kendra saw the oozing chemical weapon of the creature as it dripped and spurted from the walls, burning a spot on Leonard's suit and his boot. She and Wiz helped Leonard to his feet and rushed him ahead, Stroud rejoining them to assist with a gob of earth that he smeared on the smoking substance on Leonard's suit and boot, rubbing it off, his own gloves left searing as a result.
Stroud had placed the skull in a pouch he'd slung over his own protective suit in order to free his hands. Kendra saw something burrowing from the earth at Stroud's side, and the ugly, wormy creature raised up out of the earth and snatched at the skull with disgustingly human hands, its eyes like those of a rat. Kendra instinctively screamed for fear, but seeing it reach for the skull, she also fired her dart gun, striking the odd creature a direct blow with the anti-serotonin drug. The creature burst into a fireball beside Stroud, and the odor from its burning brought others like it to the surface to scurry off in all directions from the four humans.
'What the hell're we doing down here! We've got to be crazy!' Kendra started shouting until Stroud grabbed hold of her and shook her hard.
'Get hold of yourself, Kendra! Get hold! We've got to keep our senses and our courage about us, all of us, Dr. Leonard, all of us.'
'It's going to torment us and scratch at us and play with us like a handful of mice ... That's what we are to it,' said Wiz, who was visibly shaking. 'Just goddamned mice in its maze.'
'We have to trust in our weapons, trust in ourselves, each other, and ... and Esruad.'
'What else can we do? We can't go back the way we came,' said Leonard, getting to his feet. 'Outside we'd be fodder for those damned zombies. We'd end up like those poor devils in the cocoons, put up like pork waiting to be consumed. We've got to do as Stroud says now. We've got to see this thing through.'
'Now you're talking, Dr. Leonard,' said Stroud. 'A few more minutes, people, and we're on our way.'
'How is your suit?' asked Kendra, looking over the blemishes caused by the burning ooze from the walls. She found no rents, so far, but the chemical reaction might yet be eating its way through, she feared.
'We've got to find our way back toward the ship and we've got to find a way inside,' said Stroud. 'We've got to get to the heart of this darkness. We've got to face it down, and we've got to bring the skull to it under our own power.'
'Tall order,' commented Leonard 'but we haven't any choice. Lead on.'
'Are you sure, Abe?' asked Arthur Wisnewski. 'Are you sure that it will make a difference? The skull, I mean.'
No, he wasn't sure ... wasn't sure of anything, but he had known all his life that there were times when only an act of faith and courage could see a man through. Stroud rushed on, saying nothing in response to Wisnewski's question.
-15-
The tunnels dug out by the zombie army were intricate and complex, designed to confuse them, and they did a very fine job of it as they would enter one room to find themselves having gone around in circles. It was an underground maze meant to tease, and it was filled with the rank visions of Ubbrroxx's play, limbs and torsos of people who had been mercifully killed. It was obvious the creature offered its victims opportunities for escape, but that escape from here was impossible and futile.
'Which way is the ship?' asked Wiz. 'Are you certain we're on the right path?'
'It's in that general direction, but so many false tunnels have been created, I can't say which cavern is best to follow.'
Stroud felt like he was on a treadmill. They'd traveled already the distance of the ship and back again, and they seemed turned around.
'Let's take a break,' said Kendra, tired.
The others agreed. Stroud went into a separate chamber, saying he'd try to consult with the skull.
The others waited for what seemed an interminable amount of time, and growing impatient, Kendra wondered if Stroud had abandoned them. She wanted to call out for him, or go to him, but she recalled the last time she had disturbed him while he was commiserating with the skull--the soul of Esruad, he claimed.
Just as she got up to go find him, Kendra felt a tugging at her leg that toppled her and suddenly she was being held upside down from the ceiling by powerful hands. She screamed as the rootlike, ropy creature that pulled her toward a black hole overhead tightened its grip around her ankles. Wisnewski grabbed onto her, holding firm, shouting for Leonard to help.
Leonard, frozen with fear, stared at the tentacled rope that whipped out at them and threatened to take hold of Wiz and him as well. 'Look out!'
'Fire on it!'
Leonard whipped around the gas wand and fired from his canister just as one of the tarantula-like arms of the creature grabbed his own leg. He fired a dart into the hairy tentacle that held him.
Kendra had the presence of mind to do the same, as did Wiz.
The touch of the chemical repellents from their weapons continued to work, as there came a screeching cry of pain and death from the thing that'd crawled out of the roof and grabbed Kendra. Kendra was dropped, falling hard into Wiz. Leonard continued to fire, pouring on the gas now. The thing seemed to be coming apart before their eyes, parts of it falling away, other parts being dragged back up into a hole it had opened.
Stroud rushed into the foray, firing on the last remnants of the long-armed monster again and again as it disappeared into the darkness above them. He rushed to Kendra, helping her to her feet. She was whimpering and shaking, frightened to the bone.
'Where were you, dammit! Where were you?'
