before whispering to her, “I’ll be OK; they’ll need you to lead them.” Alex pulled his comm unit and headset from the helmet and stuffed it into a pocket. He dropped the helmet to the ground and disappeared into the dark like a wraith.
In the darkness Alex moved swiftly and lightly; he could hear and see almost everything around him, and what he couldn’t see, he could sense. The grinding was continuing and he needed to see how the creature was going to force its way through the first narrowing it was about to encounter. He also wanted to place one of his last grenades in its path and perhaps encourage it to change its mind and stop following them.
Alex blended back into a tiny alcove in the wall of the cave and watched the leviathan approach. He was astounded at how it laboriously pulled itself forward, dragging its giant shell behind it. It was colder than its surroundings and gave off a slight green glow. Its two tentacle clubs waved out in front of it like insect feelers probing the way ahead and maybe even tasting the air for chemical traces of the small humans it hoped to devour.
At the first junction, Alex could see that it was going to have trouble forcing its gigantic form into the slightly smaller cave. Though the cave itself was still large enough to drive a couple of eighteen-wheel rigs through, it was going to be an impossible squeeze for the giant cephalopod.
The two waving tentacle clubs were feeling the junction and assessing its size. The creature halted and seemed to be ruminating over its next step. Good, thought Alex, it’s too small, isn’t it? If it tried to drag its way into the smaller cave it may at the least slow down its progress so much that they could leave the creature long behind them.
Then there came a liquid sucking sound from the creature and Alex watched in dismay as the giant slowly pulled itself free from its shell. Mucous flooded down around it and Alex could smell sea salt, decayed meat and dozens of other unidentifiable odours that emanated from the beast’s soft body. Just like a hermit crab it could obviously move in and out of the shell at will — that explained how it was able to pursue them into smaller caves.
Now free from its shell, the creature gathered its smaller tentacles underneath it and lifted its mottled, bulbous frame upwards. It now looked more like a giant pulsating spider than a sea creature; freed from its shell it was much more agile and moved rapidly forward. Its speed had more than doubled and with its boneless body it could no doubt squeeze into very small crevices and would be able to send its attacking clubs forward to scoop his team out of the forward caves.
OK, at least it will be without its armour plating and should be more vulnerable. Alex planted his timed grenade pack on the cave floor and set it for just three minutes, then turned and sped into the dark after his small team. He doubted the grenade would do much more than cause the creature to hesitate for a minute — he needed more explosives to do any real damage to something that size, but decided to preserve his other charges for more strategic attacks or any demolition work that may be required.
A thousand feet farther into the cave Alex stopped and turned. The muffled explosion told him that his charge had gone off at the right time, perhaps even right underneath the creature and he hoped it would give them a few more minutes’ lead. Their pace was going to have to double now if they wanted to escape their pursuer, and Alex needed to devise some further ways of slowing or stopping the creature. He had the feeling that they would tire long before it did.
The creature could sense the movement of the tiny warm bloods far ahead, and also the presence of one of them close by. It could not yet see or hear the small creature, but knew it was near. As the giant pushed quickly forward, now free of its shell, the anticipation of the kill and of the feeding made it reckless; the detonation caught it right over the top of the grenade. The small but powerful explosion blew a ten-foot, thousand-pound chunk of flesh from the end of one of its muscular tentacles. It curled the tentacle stump and folded it close to its body. It registered pain but also knew that the wound was not lethal and it would regenerate quickly. It continued its advance but was more watchful for the small creature that waited by itself. This one was dangerous and needed to be taken first and quickly.
Twenty-four
Aimee’s legs were burning and fatigue was turning to nausea inside her. Matt and Monica were probably fitter than her but she could see their shoulders slumping and they hadn’t spoken for a while. Aimee knew physical fatigue wasn’t the only danger; it was the emotional exhaustion that set in after the adrenaline washed out of the muscles and brain.
“Let’s go, guys. I want to be lying on a beach somewhere by the weekend.” She sucked in a breath and smiled broadly at Matt as she overtook them on the slope.
“Go, Wonder Woman. Can you carry me?” Matt chuckled as he said it, but both he and Monica increased their pace to keep up with her.
Alex quickly caught up to the team; they had made good progress. The slope was increasing steadily and though this gave them all reason to feel they were heading in the right direction, it was proving much more exhausting than before.
Alex knew their bodies were tiring but with the creature in pursuit they couldn’t afford to rest for a moment. The cave was narrowing even more but was still easily big enough to accommodate fifty men walking shoulder to shoulder and the roof was nearly out of sight in the darkness. The cold blackness of the cave meant they had relied solely on their torches and helmet globes, and now these too were wearying and yellowing into the gloom.
For several more hours they climbed, before exhaustion demanded a break. Alex turned and listened intently. Far behind them he could just make out the sound of pursuit. His electronic movement sensors were useless in a twisting cave as the density and compression waves became distorted and muffled by the airflow and cave bends. He had to rely on his extraordinary senses alone and this was still proving difficult as the creature without its shell was almost silent and now much more cautious. Alex was also beginning to think that the thing chasing them was not just some oversized prehistoric brute but had an intelligence that enabled it to learn, plan and perhaps even try and trap them.
Monica pointed out the jumble of debris on the cave floor. It was the first sign that there had been geological movement in and around the cavern for many millennia.
“Please Lord, deliver us from dead ends.” Matt was trying to inject a little levity into their situation, but he could not have crafted better words to reflect how they all felt. The thought of having to backtrack gave them all a feeling of dread. Though they had not seen or heard from the creature for some time, they could pick up the vibes from Alex, and the way he kept stopping to stare into the darkness behind them let them know that they were far from safe.
The shards of fallen rock were growing in size, with some now the size of houses. It made the trip slower as they constantly had to zigzag in and around the debris. The slope had reached an angle of about twenty-five degrees and their thigh muscles were screaming for a break. Alex quietly but firmly urged them on; he could not let them stop until they found a spot that was concealed or at least defendable.
They were slowing and Alex decided he had to set another ambush for the creature. He needed to give them some more time. Just as he was about to disappear into the dark he heard Monica call. She had found a rift in the cave — a huge, jagged tear in the black wall with a hint of an earthen smell coming from within on the slight breeze.
Aimee used the deep earth sonar as Alex had taught her and came up with a reading of half a mile before it encountered a bend or obstruction. There was still a good deal of airflow originating from the narrow cleft so the odds were it wasn’t a dead end.
“Looks fairly new, maybe even under twenty thousand years — that’s just a few seconds on the geo-clock. This place must still be active to a degree and I can’t be sure it will be safe for us.” Monica was giving her professional speleological view of the dangers involved but they were not in any normal caving scenario.
Without a second thought, Alex just shouted one word. “In!”
Monica then Matt followed by Aimee entered the ten-foot-wide rift. Alex hung back for a few extra seconds and surveyed the entrance — it looked far too narrow for the creature to fold itself into, but without its shell or any
