“I vote not taking the one on the other side of the pit of dragons,” Arnett said.
“No, I’ll take that one,” Brannigan said. “Jet take the left, Arnett the right.”
“And me?” Raymond asked. “The remaining one?”
“No, you stay here,” Brannigan said. “With your back you shouldn’t even be on this mission let alone trying to outrun monsters. I’ll take two tunnels.”
Raymond began to protest, but Brannigan cut him off.
“I don’t want to hear it. You’ve been clutching at your back almost the entire time we’ve been down here. Stay here. Keep watch. Radio if things go to shit.”
Arnett put a gentle hand on Raymond’s shoulder. “He’s got a point, man. If your back goes out on you with one of those things on your tail…”
“I would most certainly end up dead.” Raymond frowned. “Yes, I get it.” He pulled back the hammer on his revolver. “I’ll watch your backs.”
Brannigan nodded. “I’m going to try and get as many of those things clustered in the center of the room as possible before lobbing my glue bombs and hoping they do their job right.”
“How are you gonna do that?”
Brannigan pulled something off the body armor of the drowned man. He held up the speaker for all of them to see. “Whale call,” he said. “Now, everyone go in my pack and get your bombs.”
When the three others had explosives in hand, Brannigan set his own two explosives to the side and pulled out his homemade glue bombs.
“Here goes,” he said. He pressed the button on the speaker and hurled it into the center of the chamber. Within seconds, the sonorous cry of the blue whale filled the room. The demons perked up once more and stampeded to the center of the room, thrashing and gnashing at the sound whose source they could not find. Brannigan primed his first glue bomb, depressing a button and pulling a pin. He chucked the grey metal container into the tangle of reptilian bodies. As soon as the first was out of his hand he repeated with the second, and then the third one, aiming them so that they landed in the center and near the edges of the crowd. The sound was less of an explosion, and more like the sound of a boulder being dropped into a lake. It happened three times in quick succession. The creatures howled in confused panic as the sticky grey matter coated their skin and dried almost instantly. A few near the edge had avoided the majority of the blast and wheeled around to charge Brannigan. From his crouched position, he fired two bursts in quick succession, piercing straight through the eye of one creature. Raymond stabilized his revolver on his opposite arm and fired twice. The first took down a second creature, but the second shot glanced off the horned skull of another.
“Got any more grenades?” Arnett asked.
“Should be at least one,” Brannigan shouted, opening fire again. The bullets caught the creature in the mouth mid-shriek. Its jaws snapped shut, and it skidded to a stop.
Arnett rummaged around and pulled the last grenade from Brannigan’s pouch. He waited for one of the creatures to let out its blood-curdling screech before lobbing the grenade into its mouth. The creature swallowed in surprise, and then exploded, showering scaled chunks of flesh all over the chamber.
The last creature leapt towards them, landing on Jet and toppling him to the ground. The sound of his ribs cracking echoed in the tunnel. His scream came out as a rasp, the damaged bone having punctured his lung. He willed his arms up and jammed the barrel of his rifle into the creature’s mouth and unloaded his entire clip. The creature wheezed out a weak roar before slumping down on top of the man, dead. It took the combined efforts of Brannigan, Arnett, and a now strained Raymond to force the carcass off of Jet, who climbed gingerly to his feet. He attempted to take a deep breath but gasped in pain before breaking down into a coughing fit that spewed blood into the sludge water below. Brannigan sat him up against the tunnel wall.
“You rest here, soldier,” he said. “Take short, shallow breaths, and try not to move too much.” He turned to Raymond and handed him Jet’s explosive. “You get your wish. Take Jet’s tunnel.”
“How long until those bastards are free?” Arnett asked.
“No clue; better hurry,” Brannigan said, scooping up his two explosives and bolting towards his first tunnel. As he passed the cluster of concreted creatures, he could already hear the sounds of their violent struggle beginning to weaken the concrete. As he entered the tunnel to the retaining wall, he heard the first of the detonations from his compatriots followed by what sounded like a cave in, signaling that one of the exit tunnels had been sealed.
The retaining wall stood a whole two heads above him in height and was made entirely of concrete. A few meters past that was a forged steel grate that let water in and kept things out. Or in, he thought.
The wall had just been resealed to repair damage done by erosion from the ocean tides. He almost felt bad undoing all the construction team’s hard work. The feeling didn’t last long as he stuck the explosive to the wall. “Just making more jobs,” he mumbled to himself. “On to the next one.” His return sprint was punctuated by the second detonation. Good, he thought, now get back to cover you two.
He emerged from the tunnel to see the creatures cracking the concrete. They weren’t free yet, but they’d be out soon, and they would not be happy. His next tunnel was close. He slid to a stop
