side was falling out. This was not the way a HAWC should meet his end, brought down by something too small to even be seen by the naked eye. He masked the excruciating pain from Alex — if the boss saw he was badly wounded, he would feel obligated to help at a time he needed all his energy focused on getting them out. He unwound Aimee’s arm, thanked her and when she wasn’t looking he brought his clenched fist down hard onto his thigh. The new pain brought a flood of adrenaline and some clarity. Just a little more time, just a little more.
Alex could smell it now; the creature had been in here. This cave was not going to be a sanctuary and he only hoped that the beast was behind them. He didn’t relish the idea of having a giant carnivorous creature between him and their potential escape route. He looked back towards Aimee and Tank.
Alex’s unique senses detected a pressure change. There was danger approaching in the near dark, and this was not the place to be caught out. He quickly scanned left and right. Out of the mouth of the cave in the distance he could make out an enormous V-shaped wave pointed directly at them and closing fast across the sea. Something very big was coming at them at about eight knots under the water.
“Time to move, people. Now!”
There was a booming crash as something hit the shallow water like an aircraft carrier running aground. Everyone jumped and, as if on cue, the lights went out again. This time the noise continued as something gigantic was heaving itself up and out of the water with a sound like a hundred waterfalls. There were no guesses as to what its goal was or who it was after, and the continuing noise meant the lights were not going to come on any time soon.
Alex no longer had his night vision scope equipment and he no longer needed it. He turned to the source of the noise as images started to appear. He remembered the discussions and endless reports from the medical teams when his eyesight started to change. He knew normal human beings had a poor ability for night vision in near total darkness. In some animals, like dogs and cats, biological night vision is ten times more sensitive than in humans, and other animals can perceive heat and cold changes in thermal density. They could build up an image that is not quite seeing at all. The scientists had called it “sensing.”
The changes to Alex’s brain were again delivering to the limit of human physical capacity for light and heat vision sensitivity, and the images that were displayed to his brain were alarming indeed. A cold mountain was heaving itself from the warmer water and dragging itself up the beach with a scrunching squeal of crushed sand. It had just under a mile of open ground to reach them, but it confirmed to Alex why there was little large debris around and inside the mouth of the cave — this creature had been up and in here before, and this time the cave was large enough for it to follow them.
Torches flicked on in the cave and though Alex would have preferred the darkness, the team needed the light for comfort. With Alex leading the way, they all moved quickly back and along the side of the cave — all except Tank.
Alex turned to Aimee and yelled over the crushing of stone, “Keep ’em going.”
He took a few steps down towards Tank. “Move it soldier.” When there was no reply, Alex started to bound across the rocks just as Tank pinged him on his mike.
“I’m staying, sir. I can’t keep up and I’m too big even for you to carry for long. I can at least give you some more lead time — but you’ve gotta go now. Please don’t make me disobey an order.” There was a pause as Alex thought about how to respond before Tank pinged him again. “It’s been an honour serving with you.” The comm unit pinged one last time signalling the conversation had been terminated. In the distance, Alex saw Tank pull the device off his head and fling it away into the dark.
Alex could see the creature drawing closer. Trying to drag the giant soldier out against his will would be difficult, especially when he knew that what Tank had chosen to do was exactly what he would have decided to do in his position. Alex gave a half smile and spoke softly to the HAWC’s back.
“Good luck, soldier. It’s been my honour to have a man like you on my team.” He drew in a deep breath and shouted with all his strength, “Go HAWC!” It was his unit’s battle cry; and with that Alex turned and sprinted to catch up with the remaining team members.
Tank didn’t feel fear; Alex’s shout still reverberated around the cave and once again he felt strong. He had injected several CCs of pure adrenaline into his leg from his backpack med-kit and his body was drawing on its final energy reserves in anticipation of the coming combat. He alone had a night vision scope and, like Alex, could see the approaching leviathan and knew what that meant to the group. His whole upper body under his suit was strangely lumpy and his skin crawled to the touch. The side of his face near the wound was slack as the muscles had atrophied under the foreign bacterial attack. His strength had been leaving him and he knew it was only a matter of time before he needed to either lie down or be carried — neither was an option as far as he was concerned. He didn’t have a chance of winning this fight, but if he could give Alex a few more minutes’ head start, then he would have done his job.
He took his position against the side of the cave and filled his rifle with some of the liquefied propane. In one hand he held his lighter close to the end of the barrel and the other rested lightly on the trigger. Without taking his eyes from the advancing creature he whispered to himself, “See you soon, little brother.” He took careful aim at the large sticky eye now filling the cave mouth and simultaneously lit his flame and pulled the trigger.
The small team had stopped and were waiting for both HAWCs when Alex appeared out of the dark. “Let’s go.”
“Where’s Tank?” Monica was looking over Alex’s shoulder as she asked the question.
“He’s giving us a chance, Ms. Jennings. Let’s make it worthwhile.” Alex went to turn away but she stopped him.
“Will he be able to catch up to us? He was hurt.”
Alex just stared at her. It was Matt who spoke first. “Ah, shit. Tank, too? Shit, shit, shit.” Matt rubbed the back of his neck and walked away into the darkness shaking his head.
Monica was about to speak again when Alex cut her off.
“He knows what he’s doing, he’s—”
There was an explosive
Alex turned back down the cave, his face a mask of stone. He knew that the small war Tank had been waging had been decided; he could already sense the outcome. “Let’s go.”
Matt walked close to Monica, whispering to her continuously. After many minutes he was rewarded with a smile, then a small laugh. It was many more minutes before they noticed the difference in the cave. It was almost sterile compared to the scuttling and crawling abundance of life they had seen in the outer subterranean world. The dripping mosses and glistening lichen ferns had disappeared. Not only was the cave devoid of life but it was unexpectedly dry and smooth.
“No moisture; that could be a good sign — means we’re headed for a drier atmosphere and hopefully the surface.” Monica was determined to remain optimistic.
“Excellent, now if we can just keep up this sprint pace for the next eight hours or so, in the dark, and stay ahead of the monster chasing us, we’ll be just fine.” Matt kept a good-humoured lilt to his voice in between his ragged breaths. But he, like the others, knew that at any moment they could reach another choke or find that the end of the tunnel had long since been iced over.
Alex was also formulating alternatives in the event they got to an impassable blockage. His major concern at present was the lack of cover afforded by the worn, smooth cave. If they were run down by the giant creature now, he didn’t like their chances of surviving in a stand-up fight when their only firepower was what he carried and a couple of grenades.
The grinding, pulverising noise was continuing from the way they had come, which meant they were still being pursued. Up ahead there was a slight narrowing of the cave and Aimee turned to Alex. “It’s bottlenecking, it can’t pursue us if the cave gets any narrower.”
Alex didn’t get it. How could the creature have first attacked them in much smaller caves, or for that matter, have made it all the way to the surface to attack Aztlan when it was of such an enormous size. There was no way it could get that hard shell into smaller caves. “Ms. Jennings, please scout ahead and everyone continue with the pace as is. I’m just going back to check on our friend and perhaps see if I can slow him down a bit.”
“I’ll come with you.” Alex could see a look of alarm on Aimee’s face.
“Not this time. I can move at twice the speed of all of you, and I can rejoin you very quickly, but only by myself.” He moved nearer to Aimee, removed his cracked and dented helmet and wiped sweat from his forehead
