“Yeah, but does it say what this
“Nope. I think it’s just an old legend about one of the gods these Aztlans had. They probably had gods for everything — the sun, wind, rain, disease, harvesting, fire. There is definitely a race overlap here; some of these glyph symbols representing gods are the same in Mayan and these others are almost Olmec. Every time I think I’ve got it, I look at the next symbol and it skips away on me. But there is obviously a clue here that I just can’t draw out yet, it’s nearly…”
Matt turned to look at Mike and froze. Mike had his gun to his shoulder and was intently watching a figure glide towards him out of the darkness. Matt could feel the hair on his head rise as the soundless figure drifted towards them. “Lieutenant Johnson,” he said, “is that you?”
Alex sniffed; he was sure he could detect a faint ocean smell. Yes, definitely salt. He closed his eyes and for a brief moment was back on his favourite Australian beach with warm sun bathing his face, rather than cloistered in the dark beneath millions of tons of rock and ice.
The warm sun vanished with the sound of running feet. Alex heard someone returning from the south cave long before anyone else and he moved quickly into an intercept position. On seeing Alex moving with purpose, the other HAWCs immediately went into a flanking defence to his left and right.
Matt burst out of the black cave and rushed to Alex; his eyes were wide and rolling like a startled horse. It was clear the young man was frightened. Alex grabbed him by the shoulders and gave him a slight shake to focus him. Matt sucked in a few deep breaths and exhaled the words in a rush.
“It’s Mike, he’s being attacked by Johnson. He won’t let go of him.”
“Tank, with me.” Alex disappeared into the cave darkness like a wraith, moving at a speed no normal human could. He arrived in seconds to the sound of muffled grunts and boots skidding on dry stone. Mike was being dragged into the shadows, disappearing into the gloom, seemingly held tight in his missing comrade’s embrace.
Alex’s mind worked hard to understand what he was seeing. The figure holding Mike looked to Alex like his missing HAWC, however, there was no warmth emanating from the body and he was glistening like he was drenched in something wet or slimy. The Johnson thing’s face was expressionless; Alex thought it should have registered something just from the exertion of dragging a 200-pound man as if he was nothing more than a child.
Tank appeared beside Alex and on seeing his older brother in trouble, charged. He grabbed hold of Mike, and then Johnson, trying to drag them apart. Tank’s eyes watered from the stinging putrid stench as his hand became stuck to the figure and he too was pulled off his feet and dragged towards the cave depths. Alex watched as realisation dawned on Tank’s face — it wasn’t Johnson; it wasn’t even human.
Tank was a big man, and Alex didn’t think that anyone other than himself could have resisted the force of his attack. At that moment Alex saw the cord — a thick, fleshy umbilical tether protruding from Johnson’s back. The two men were being reeled in, like hooked fish on the end of a line.
Alex raised his gun and fired a continuous stream of ball bearing — sized compressed air projectiles that quickly cut through the cord. The air around them exploded with wet thrashing sounds and filled with the acrid smell of ammonia. Mike, Tank and the Johnson thing fell to the ground, and from deep within the bowels of the earth came a deep pounding and sloshing. The cord quickly withdrew, gushing a purple-black liquid as it disappeared into the cold depths of the cave.
“What the fuck was that!” yelled Tank as he lifted his brother away from the cave floor.
Mike was covered in a stinking jelly-like substance and had suffered deep lacerations and puncture wounds. The Johnson thing had released its sticky grip after being severed from the main creature and now lay deflating at their feet. In seconds it was nothing more than a six-foot long fleshy pad, almost colourless, with sucker protuberances. Lining the inside of the pad at the centre of the suckers were extendable tusks that accounted for Mike’s wounds. He hadn’t just been glued to the creature; he had been hooked to it as well.
Alex could feel his heart hammering in his chest; something horrendous lived in these caves and had been snatching people — the Hendsen party, Johnson, and it had tried to take Mike. He couldn’t imagine what the result would have been if it had attacked while everyone was here; he would have lost them all in a mad panic into half a dozen separate pitch-black caves. He sucked in a deep breath and helped the big HAWC pull his brother up off the cave floor.
“Tank, get him back to the medics, double time.”
It had not felt agony for countless generations. Its lifespan was measured in thousands of years, but it was not immortal; it could feel pain. Others of its kind had challenged it for dominance of its world and vicious fights were common. The deep cliffs and caves had echoed with the sound of the titans’ warring. Now its bleeding would attract the other giants; some creatures much like it, and some vastly different.
Its kind had encountered the warm bloods before and its deep racial memories had always shown them to be food; never had they been able to hurt it. There was no fear; it knew it would regenerate quickly in the warm, dark salty waters below the earth. However, its hunger was not yet sated, and now it felt something else it had not felt for centuries — anger.
Thirteen
Aimee was prodding the severed mass with one of Alex’s knives. “This is impossible; but I can see this is only a small piece of a much larger animal. There’s a terminal pad, dactylus and manus, carpal knobs and a partially severed stalk of a tentacle club. I think this is from a very large cephalopod-type creature.”
“Cephalopod? A squid? Is that what you’re telling us? We’re in a cave deep under the earth and we just got attacked by a freaking octopus! Dr. Weir, they don’t get that fucking big and they certainly don’t live on — or under — the land.”
Aimee looked up quickly at Silex, surprised by his fury and the way he had chosen to direct it at her. Before she could respond, Matt knelt down beside her and took the knife from her hand.
“I did my early thesis on aquatic deities and their influence on early cultures and you’d be amazed to know just how many races worshipped giant squid — or feared them. The Norse had their kraken, the Hawaiians their many-armed Kanaloa, the Babylonians had Dagon; there are dozens more. In their legends, they often came to shore and they were big. By the way, Dr. Silex, Babylon was hundreds of miles from any ocean.”
Aimee had kept her eyes on Silex who was flushed and breathing hard. She spoke directly to him as calmly as she could. “Adrian, I’m not sure it’s a cephalopod creature as we know it; but at least now the ammonium chloride makes sense — giant squid excrete the chemical and are literally filled with it.”
While Silex appeared to be on the verge of panic, Matt looked like a schoolboy who’d just been thrown a surprise party. “Hey, that’s right. I remember that from some of the cephalopod legends. The giant squid belongs to a group called ammoniacal squids. They have heavy concentrations of ammonia in their systems which gives them a few interesting little tricks. They can be neutrally buoyant and aren’t destroyed by the pressure depths. They also have a high resistance to freezing; and they are real smart… oh, and very aggressive. Ever seen that sketch of the French ship attacked by a kraken?”
“Oh, bullshit. It still doesn’t explain what it’s doing so far from the ocean.”
Aimee took the knife back from Matt’s hand and scraped the blade along the length of the pale mottled lump, collecting a jellied glob of its slime coating. She held the knife up for Silex to see. “I’ve been thinking about that; there is one little extra advantage of the ammonia chloride being suspended in a gel; it will stop this thing from drying out. I agree it needs water, but it looks to have adapted to be able to leave it when it wants.”
Alex took the knife back from Aimee, flicked the slime from the blade and resheathed it. “How was it able to copy us? That thing actually looked like Johnson before we severed it from the main creature.”
Aimee looked down again at the six-foot stump of flesh and shuddered. Though her scientific curiosity was aroused by the discovery, she felt uneasy and vulnerable at the thought that they had just rejoined a food chain that mankind hadn’t been part of for millions of years.
“This has got to be something that we’ve never seen before or at least has left no trace in the fossil record. I
