attention. If somebody takes the other side of this dome, we’re in a good, defensible position. Let’s see what thing wicked this way comes.”
“Any progress on finding where the Gar might be?” Janea asked, taking out a bottle of water.
“Graham’s got a team coming up with lists of buyers in the area,” Randell said. “We figure it has to be cattle or pigs or something, from the description of how much this thing eats. There are several animal auctions in the area and they’ve gotten lists of all the purchases from them. So far, nothing’s standing out.”
“Who buys the animals?” Struletz asked.
“You want the short class on animal husbandry?” Randell asked with a chuckle. “My dad had a small farm. Cattle, it works like this. Farmer has a bunch of cows. The cows have babies, male and female. The females he keeps. The males he sells at auction. Other farmers, that don’t want to bother with breeding, buy the males and deball them. Those sit out on grass and feed up for a few years as steers. Feed-lots buy the steers and feed them up. Slaughterhouses buy the steers. From time to time the breeding farmer takes his bull to auction, sells it and gets a different one. Then he puts it to the cows, some of which are the daughters of the former bull. Which is why you’ve got to change bulls from time to time. So there’s some minor sales of cows when a farmer has too many or needs to raise cash, a few bulls change hands, but mostly it’s steers that get moved around. It’s all carefully tracked because of mad-cow and other stuff. So there’s plenty of records.”
“So what are you looking for?” Janea asked.
“Anomalies,” Randell said. “Farmers who are buying a lot of mature steers, mostly. Or a lot of cows. If you’re talking at least a head a day, that’s thirty head a month. Farmers don’t buy thirty head in a month. They don’t buy thirty calves a month, generally. Not in this area.”
“Be back,” Barb said, sliding off her perch and moving forward.
“Problems?” Attie asked.
“Just an idea,” Barb said.
She clambered down the passage to the next domed area, keeping a careful eye out in case any Old Ones had lingered, then paused at the next narrow section of the upper passage.
Juggling her pack out was a bit awkward, but she removed a spool of wire from it and then put it back on her back.
She used the wire first to attach one of her fragmentation grenades to the wall, then ran a section of wire across the passageway. Last, she straightened the cotter pin on the grenade, and then carefully tied the wire into the pin.
“Set a little present for our friends in case they come back,” Barb said as she settled back into her perch. “Grenade IED. Give us some warning that doesn’t involve Laz spitting and hissing.” She stroked the cat gratefully. “Thanks, Laz.”
“That’s the sort of thing I’m supposed to be thinking of,” Attie said. “Want me to set one to the rear?”
“Trail seemed to go this way,” Barb said. “The only thing to the rear is however Laz got in, and he got through presumably without running into any of them. Most of them should be to our front. Up to you, but it would just be a booby trap I’d have to get past. Not to mention Laz, who I don’t think understands tripwires.”
“Point,” Attie said. “We don’t have any movement yet.”
“Think I’m taking counsel of my fears?” Barb asked.
“No, ma’am,” Attie said. “Just pointing out that we’re in here to see if we can find the lair of this Gar thing. Which we’re not doing.”
“I’d like to see what responds to the fire,” Barb said. “Give it thirty minutes.”
She dropped her pack again and pulled out a ration bar.
“Besides, I’m hungry.”
She was on her third ration bar, and the thirty minutes were nearly up, when there was the crack and szting of a grenade going off down the passageway.
“Heads up!” she shouted, dropping her FLIR and going to IR.
She braced against the side, pointed at the narrow opening to the domed area, and waited. And waited.
“Just a scout?” Attie said.
“No,” Barb said a moment later. “Not just a scout!”
This time the things attacked from every level. They were pouring down the upper passage in a mass but more were clambering along the sides and the ground. There seemed to be hundreds.
“I’ve got ground,” Struletz said, taking a knee next to the standing master sergeant.
“Middle,” Attie said, triggering a burst into the mass coming down the passage.
“Top,” Barb said, firing into the mass. Targeting any one of the Old Ones was nearly impossible. The tentacled monstrosities were writhing into and across each other, and the small bodies were nearly impossible to make out between the FLIR and the way that they chaotically moved. Chopping them apart with. 45 was the only way to go.
“Take left,” Randell said, appearing to her side. “I’ll fire across to right.”
“Got it,” Barb said, retargeting to the left of the domed area. The Old Ones were soaking up the fire to get to the party, pouring through the opening on the far side of the dome.
She had nine magazines in ready pouches. She’d laid three of those out on the rocks, ready to hand. She ran through those in less than a minute, then scrabbled for more in her pouches.
The only thing that kept them alive was that the Old Ones were choked by the opening to the dome, the narrowness of the passage and the two shooters on the top. None of them even got across the domed area. But the entire area was covered in ichor and deliquescing Old Ones by the time she slid in her last magazine.
“We don’t have the ammo for this,” Attie said. “I’ve only got two hundred more rounds of forty-five.” With thirty rounds per magazine, that was only eight and a half mags. One more heavy firefight.
“We’ve reduced their numbers, at least,” Barb said, her face tight. “But you’re right. We don’t have any clue how many more of these things there are. We need to pull out and regroup. If we’re going to do it this way, we need more people and more ammo.”
“That means we have to go back in that damned mud,” Janea said. She’d been unhappily covering the back door alone during the fight.
“Would you rather be eaten?” Barb asked.
CHAPTER TEN
“This whole caving thing is throwing off my sense of time,” Barb said as she dragged her aching body out of the cave opening above the Boone house. It was nearly three in the morning and raining.
“Ah, clean water,” Janea said as she stood up gratefully. With the exception of the serpentine keyhole passage, the entire trip had been either crawling or on hands and knees. “I need a shower, a real meal and about two days’ sleep.”
“We’ve got all three available,” a voice above her said.
“Holy Freya!” Janea snapped, raising her weapon and triggering the light.
“Ouch,” the ghillie-covered man said, raising an arm to shield his eyes. “That smarts. Mind taking that light out of my eyes?”
“Who are you?” Barb asked, pointing her own light to the side.
“Just a passing stranger who wondered what might come out of the cave,” the man said. “We’ve basically taken over the neighborhood. You can get a shower, and a meal, down the hill. Oh, welcome back, by the way. Although I just lost some money.”
“Delta Force,” Graham said to the first question asked when the team found him. “They’ve sent in a full squadron and are covering this opening as well as a couple of others. There’s a battalion from the 82nd that’s setting up in Goin, a SEAL team on the way from the Little Creek, and the National Guard is in the process of fully clearing the area. We’ve taken residence of most of the houses in the neighborhood. There’s even another SC team here. You can head over to their house for showers and some rest. What happened? Did you find the Gar?”
