The boy was yelling again. ‘
Alex knew only a little Spanish, and by the time he’d registered the words,
The female razorback had obviously regained consciousness and had come in search of its mate, leaping down into the sinkhole. Now it joined the battle, and Alex found himself sandwiched between two stinking pigs, both determined to rip him to pieces and probably devour the remains.
The female’s massive teeth clamped around his upper arm and started to grind together. Alex yelled as pain burst through his body in a red-hot wave. He had to let go of the male or the flesh would be ripped from the bone of his arm. His body was on fire: his arm burned, and his ribs were agonising bands across his back. But nothing was as intense as the inferno of rage that consumed his brain.
He yelled into the male boar’s face and, with a massive burst of strength, twisted his hand sideways, snapping off its deadly tusk and swinging it up and into its eye. Any thought of sparing the creatures’ lives had evaporated the moment the rage had taken him.
The male screamed in pain and threw its head up and away. It gave Alex enough time to swing his free elbow around and into the side of the female’s snout, stunning it long enough for him to pull his arm free and turn to grab its head. In one motion, he swung the 350-pound beast around and brought its body down on the back of the male. The weight of the female, combined with massive G-forces, flattened the male boar into the water.
Alex leapt at it, pulled his knife from the male’s shoulder, and used the hilt like a club as he punched down with all his strength onto the centre of its skull. The deep crunch bounced off the walls of the cave and the massive animal didn’t pull its head up out of the water again.
Still, Alex continued to rain blows down on the broken skull until the head was a flattened mat of coarse hair, shattered bone and gore. The limestone smell of the cave was replaced by the coppery scent of blood.
The female hobbled over to one side of the underground chamber, its frame bruised and battered after the encounter with Alex.
For Alex, a red haze blurred everything. He turned to the smaller animal, the black blade still in his hand, and felt a mix of triumph and exhilaration at the thought of delivering it the same fortune as its mate. The boar turned and faced the wall, standing quietly — probably not wanting to see the alpha predator that was about to bring its death.
Alex gripped the blade harder.
He lifted the blade; he would bring it down in the centre of its head. Penetrate the skull and brain in a single powerful blow. No, that was too quick, he wanted the beast to feel pain. He would disembowel it first.
The boar grunted and lowered its blunt snout even further.
Alex took another step closer to the animal.
The red haze engulfed him. Images flashed through his mind like a movie projector stuck on high speed.
Over and over again the voice roared in his head. Alex felt outside of himself, a spectator watching from a back row as squeals and screams bounced around the walls. Fists rose and fell time and again. Like machines, blurring with speed and ferocity. The warm, coppery scent intoxicated him, but then came the more disgusting odours of freshly torn flesh, viscera, and opened bowels.
The squeals stopped but the screams continued. Alex blinked as blood stung his eyes. The screaming was coming from behind him, not from the boar. He looked down: the beast was barely recognisable. Its limbs and flesh were rent, but not by a blade…more as though it had been torn apart.
Alex looked down at his hands: they were soaked in blood. He could see grazes and cuts crisscrossing the skin the gloves didn’t cover.
‘No!’
He screamed the word aloud, feeling a shock wave pass through his body as he rebelled against his subconscious. The chaotic storm of impulses in his mind started to calm and his breathing slowed. He knew he should feel revolted by what he had done. Instead, he felt a sated glow deep inside that troubled him.
Chaco slid down from the stalagmite, but when Alex looked at the boy he flinched and wouldn’t come any closer.
‘I’m okay now,’ Alex said, holding out his hand and motioning the boy nearer.
Instead, Chaco moved to the cave opening and looked upwards, then quickly back at Alex, fear on his ashen face. Then he called out his brother’s name, his voice watery and tremulous.
Alex glanced down and caught sight of his reflection in the still water around his legs. He grimaced at the mask of blood and gore that stared back at him. He kneeled down and washed his face and chest, and rubbed the mess from his gloves. He got to his feet and stood for a few moments, staring into the darkness. What were the military doctors doing to him in his medical sessions? Why was he becoming more like this — enjoying the blood and the death, even revelling in it? He would speak to Hammerson, and to the doctors, Graham and Marshal, when he got back. This time, they would answer him, or else.
‘Sam, are you reading me?’
Alex’s communication was immediately picked up by his second-in-command at the surface.
‘We’re at the edge of the clearing, boss. Been here for a while, wondering how to get you back up to us. Captain Garmadia’s warned us not to get too close to the edge of the hole as it may collapse the entire area on top of you. What’s going on down there? We’ve heard plenty of shouting and squealing. I hope you aren’t anywhere near those giant bacon trucks that went after the boys.’ Sam paused for a moment, then said more quietly, ‘Are you okay in the cave, boss?’
Alex smiled grimly in the dark. Sam was only a few years older than Alex but acted more like a big brother some times. He knew of Alex’s distaste for dark caves following his Antarctic mission beneath the ice; Alex had been one of a few survivors but ended up with deep psychological scars that still woke him up in sweats and violent rages. Aimee Weir had also survived — Alex often wondered what her burden was.
‘Yep, I’m fine, Uncle. The pigs are…gone.’ Alex looked at the mountains of flesh bleeding into the water.
‘Kid okay?’ Sam knew about Alex’s rages too; how, when they took him over, it could be extremely dangerous for anyone close by.
Alex looked at Chaco, who stood silent and still like a small ghost at the rear of the cave. ‘Yeah, he’s fine too. Just reckons it’s time to leave…like me.’
‘How you want to do it?’ Sam asked. ‘As I said, the captain here gets real jittery if we step out into the clearing.’
Alex looked up to the cave ceiling. ‘How much rope have you got? We’re about twenty feet down under a lip of weak limestone — some areas more solid than others. You’ll need to stay well clear — at least forty back.’
‘We’ve only got about forty feet of rope overall. We need to tie it off to one of these tree trunks, or sink a ground anchor, then run it across the open space and drop it down to you — I reckon we need about sixty at least. I could crawl across and try to anchor it a bit closer to the edge, but that’s about it.’
‘No, stay clear; the roof’s already raining down on us in some areas.’
Alex heard Sam check with the CDC scientists for more rope. The reply wasn’t promising. Then he heard Garmadia’s voice speaking Spanish, probably to Saqueo.
‘Hold for five, boss,’ Sam said. ‘Garmadia has an idea.’
While he waited, Alex held his hands up under the column of light pouring into the cave. Where they had been cut and battered moments ago, they were now streaked with pink scars. He grunted to himself and looked at the boy. Chaco was shivering in the dark, his thin arms wrapped around himself.
After another moment, Sam came back online. ‘Seems this jungle is a toolbox as well as a lunchbox for the locals. Saqueo has brought some vines that look like intertwined horsehair, and plenty strong too. Should give us an
