horrors. Suddenly a dark shape flashed into the frame. A blurred black silhouette skittered across the passage, but then the picture jerked hard as Rudy turned away and stopped filming.
“Rewind it,” Jack said.
They rewound and paused the footage, advancing it frame by frame as the shape moved into view. But it was too hazy to discern any details.
Rudy was still breathing heavily. “I think they were some sort of arthropods, but I couldn’t tell how big they were.”
“Look.” Ben rubbed his eyes. “I hate to remind you guys that we still need to find a way out of this cave. Let’s take a few minutes to eat something; then we should get moving.”
It was shortly before noon when they broke out packages of beef jerky and protein bars. Jack hadn’t thought about food until now and was surprised at how hungry he was. And thirsty.
“Careful with your water,” Ben warned as Jack chugged his bottle. “We need to ration it until we get out of here.”
They had each brought along a pair of one-liter bottles, which would last them the rest of the day, but if it took any longer to find another exit, they’d be in trouble.
There were still patches of the glowing slime nestled in various nooks and crannies of the passage, though considerably less dense than it had been in the tunnel below. They had to proceed on hands and knees through the mud and puddles. The passage wound and zigzagged through the darkness for several dozen yards until Ben stopped them again.
“You guys might want to have a look at this.”
Jack inched forward and saw something that looked like a crescent-shaped melon rind wedged between some rocks. And as he looked closer, he spotted several more scattered along the passageway as though someone had just enjoyed a picnic of melons and left the garbage strewn about the tunnel.
Jack picked up one of the pieces and turned it over in the light. He held it up for Rudy to film. Its curved outer surface was smooth and black; the interior dripped with gelatinous yellow goop.
“What do you think it is?” Jack asked.
Rudy wrinkled his nose. “It smells terrible, but I’d say by the size and shape… it looks like it belonged to one of our millipede friends.”
“Uck,” Jack grunted. “What happened to it?”
“I’m not sure, but I think this guy met with a pretty unpleasant end.” Rudy pointed out the other pieces. “There are segments of its body all over the tunnel. I’d say this one was, um… torn to pieces.”
Jack just stared at him. Rudy’s face was pale. Ben didn’t look well either. Jack sifted through more of the pieces and found fragments of the dark-red leg segments and a bit of an antenna.
“Okay, so—” Ben rubbed his eyes—“these millipedes feed on the slime. And now there’s something else down here that’s feeding on the millipedes.”
“Yeah,” Rudy grunted. “It’s called a food chain. We just haven’t come across the predator yet.”
“You think it was those things that were making the clicking sounds?” Jack said.
Rudy shrugged. “I’m as much in the dark as you guys.”
Ben’s lips tightened. “Well, whatever it was, it managed to tear this giant millipede apart.”
“That’s one possibility.” Jack tried to offer another, less-alarming hypothesis. “Of course, we don’t know if this millipede was even alive when it got eaten. It could be that whatever did this is just a scavenger. You know, feeding off carrion.”
“C’mon, Jack,” Rudy said. “Scavengers don’t tear a carcass apart like this. I mean, it looks like this guy put up a bit of a fight.”
Jack surveyed the tunnel. Rudy was right; the segments and legs were cracked and separated, strewn about the passage.
Rudy went on. “This looks more like a predatory kill. Maybe multiple predators, operating with a pack mentality. Or like a feeding frenzy.”
“A feeding frenzy,” Ben repeated and shook his head. “That’s great.” He shifted the leather sheath around his waist and started crawling forward again. “Let’s just find a way out before we run into one of them.”
They crawled through the tight, damp passage, sometimes having to squeeze through sections barely eighteen inches wide. Jack was covered in mud and started feeling a chill in his arms and feet. But mostly he struggled to keep his mind off the thought of an unknown predator lurking somewhere in the tunnels.
Ben stopped and dimmed his light. Jack could see a dark shape moving between the rocks up ahead. His heart raced.
Ben whispered over his shoulder, “It’s more millipedes. Two of them.”
Jack and Rudy crept closer. Two of the creatures milled lazily in the passage, munching on a small patch of the slime. One appeared to be an adult, roughly four feet long, with a juvenile maybe half its size.
The two animals scurried off in the glare of Ben’s flashlight, disappearing into a small side tunnel. Ben led on, and soon they emerged into a larger open area. Jack sighed in relief. His back and legs ached from crawling through the narrow passage, and he was glad now to stand straight again.
They inspected their new surroundings and found themselves at the bottom of a deep shaft. A steady trickle of water cascaded down from somewhere above them.
Rudy was filming up the length of the shaft with the night-vision setting. “This place is huge. I can’t even see the top.”
The other side of the shaft opened to a narrow passage that seemed to twist and turn on an angle downward like a very narrow canyon.
Ben shone his light into the mouth of the tunnel. “Looks like we go this way.”
They proceeded along the passage slowly. The water trickling from above snaked along the ground in tiny rivers as if leading them on, deeper into the mountain. They’d traveled for less than five minutes when Ben stopped again.
“I see light up ahead.”
“A way out?” Rudy said.
Ben looked closer and shook his head. “Don’t think so. I don’t feel any wind.”
They moved forward, and soon Jack could see the light as well. It grew brighter with each twist in the passage until finally the tunnel opened.
Ben stood still and Rudy drew up beside him. “Wow.”
Jack stood, openmouthed, staring at the sight in front of him.
“Whoa” was all he could think of to say.
Chapter 08
They stood at the mouth of an enormous cavern, easily the largest chamber they had encountered so far. Jack tried to estimate the dimensions and guessed it to be nearly three hundred feet across. Like a huge, domed amphitheater rising to a height of a hundred feet or more. Frothy springs peppered the floor and bizarre rock formations rose up across the chamber. Fat, gnarled stalagmites twisted upward from the ground; long, slender stalactites reached down from above. A few met in the middle to form statuesque pillars around the edges of the great hall.
And the glowing slime was everywhere. It grew in dense, foaming patches around the pools. Winding tendrils spread out through the cavern, creeping up the columns and walls toward the ceiling.
Jack could see several of the millipedes munching lazily on the slime like cattle out in a meadow. And there were other creatures as well. Fat, round beetles the size of overturned coffee cups marched across the cavern in a little tea-set caravan.
The light was mesmerizing. Almost dizzying.
Jack found his voice first. “It’s like Las Vegas.”
Rudy switched on his camera and began filming. “This is incredible.”
Jack was grimy and sore, but he and Rudy spent the next several minutes traversing the chamber end to
