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  “Cari? What’s happening?” Marcel yelled up with a panic in his voice.

  Her throat closed and she was unable to respond.

  Another black thing flew by, this time buffeting its wings into her ribs, sending her swinging on the line.

  She lost her grip on the descender and slid down the rope. The heat built up on her glove before burning through to her skin. She took a heavy hit in the face, snapping her head back, forcing her to let go of the rope. She fell through the air, her arms groping at nothingness.

  Her stomach lurched as gravity took her and pulled her into the darkness, her screams echoing up into the cavern.

  14

  For a brief moment, Marcel thought Carise would pass him by and crash into the void below, but with one arm on the rope, and the other outstretched, he managed to cradle her fall into his body, crashing them both to the ledge. His legs dangled off into nothingness and he started to slip. “Cari, grab the line,” he shouted. “Quick!”

  She thrust out an arm and managed to halt their slide. They sat there on the sliver of rock, their backs to the wall. Her eyes were wide and wet, and she shook with fear.

  “What the hell happened up there?” he said, but she just fidgeted and pushed herself as far back into the nook as she could.

  “There’s something out there. They flew into me, cut me.”

  Marcel turned his light down to prevent from blinding her and checked her face. She was right. A shallow slice had arced across her right cheek. Blood smeared her face.

  “A bat?” he asked, but regretted when she gave him a disdainful look.

  “Far bigger. I don’t know what they were, but they’re out there.”

  “Did you see them?”

  “No, they were too quick, or too dark, I don’t know, I panicked.” She breathed out a shaky breath and closed her eyes.

  The thoughts of that night with the kid were no doubt playing on her mind again. He worried this might be the case: that once they got down to it, she’d let the nerves and anxiety get to her. He put his arm around her shoulder and pulled in tightly and gave her a few minutes of silence to calm down.

  When her breathing slowed, he let her go and stood up. Pins and needles and cramps blighted his legs and he paced back and forth to get the blood flowing again. It was then that he saw the rope juddering, and then swinging.

  He moved to the edge of the nook, grabbed hold of the rope and looked up while turning his head-mounted flashlight up to maximum.

  Nothing.

  Another pull on the rope.

  He looked down, and there he saw something pale and twisted poking out from a pile of dark rocks. It was an arm, and it appeared twisted in an entirely wrong direction.

  “Cari, there’s someone down there, I can see their arm. They’re trapped or something, they’re tugging on the rope.”

  “Wait,” she said.

  He didn’t wait, and was soon hooked on the rope and descending down towards the surface, which, he could tell as he got closer, wasn’t as far as he first through from the ledge, but in the utter blackness, he hadn’t seen it from their position.

  The descent didn’t take long, and as he landed onto the smooth rocky surface among huge, angular stones, he saw the arm farther along the ground, holding on to the excess section of rope. Carise was already passing down the backpacks before he had chance to ask her, and when he took them off the line, she was already on it and rappelling at great speed.

  Jumping out of the way, he grabbed her by the waist and softened her fall. This time she landed securely on her feet.

  “There…” He pointed with his head and illuminated the arm poking out from between large rocks. They hurried over and saw that there was a body of a person lying just beyond the rocks. Its fingers twitched around the rope before letting go. A rasping voice choked out, “eurglp.” And again, and again, and soon the entire cavern erupted into a din of similar sounds. It wasn’t “help” at all, but a hideous mockery.

  Marcel bent lower to look through the rocks to get a better look at the body, but as he pushed his face forward, the pale body suddenly shifted and rushed through the crevice, smashing him and Carise aside. And then it was on his chest, claws digging into his ribs, and a distorted humanlike face snapped at his as Marcel squirmed under its weight. “What the…!” he shouted. “Cari!”

  The thing’s hands, now curled into birdlike claws, grabbed his head and cracked it onto the stone surface, rattling his head inside his hard hat and knocking off his mounted flashlight. Marcel bucked frantically and the thing fell to the side. He swung a fist and caught it in the head, knocking it to the ground, all the while the cavern continued to fill with the squawks of humanlike yelps.

  Scrambling up, he quickly kicked the creature and felt something snap in its body. Carise stood, rushed over, shined her flashlight on it. He picked his up and investigated. Its skin was semitranslucent but seemed to shift shades under the light, almost to the point where it seemed invisible.

  “It’s like a chameleon,” he shouted over the din, before ducking in time as another winged creature dive-bombed him, and then those dark things were all round them, scratching with claws, buffeting with wings. Carise caught one that flew straight for her and she slammed it to the ground. It resembled the other creature, but slightly smaller and black as pitch.

  “Shit!” Carise said.

  The flying creatures had arms and faces like people. But their black eyes were totally without pupils or detail. They were mostly hairless apart from their furry wings, which stretched from their elbows to their waist like oversized flying foxes. In some ways it was a hideous mockery of a person, and a bat, with seemingly randomly chosen features from various other animals thrown in for good measure.

  “The fucker lured us here,” he said, backing away from its still form.

  “We should get to cover,” Carise said, her voice now hoarse from the shouting required to be heard over the cries of the other creatures.

  Beyond the rocks where they first encountered the creature, a shade of gray emitted from around a corner. Now that they had spent time in the gloom, Marcel began to make out the subtle changes, and guessed with the flow of air, and the stench accompanying it, that it was the location of a tunnel.

  Under the assault of the flying creatures, they grabbed their packs and squeezed through the cracks in the rocks and headed across yet more smooth stone until they reached a round opening. On its surface were more conical striations like something had cork-screwed through the rock.

  Cool air came from within the tunnel, and something else…a low hum. Along with the rotten smell, a sound that resembled a distant engine purred. Grabbing Carise’s hand, he ducked under yet more flying attacks and entered the tunnel—ten meters in circumference and perfectly round. It was like an underground train tunnel, but carved right into the mountain.

  Thankfully the winged creatures didn’t follow them into the tunnel. Marcel wasn’t sure if that was a good thing, but for now at least they weren’t under attack.

  “Wait,” Carise said. She fished inside her pack and pulled out a couple of glow sticks. She broke them, activating the light-emitting gas inside, and placed one at the tunnel entrance and another by the location of the rope. “Just in case.”

  “Good point.”

  “Well, it seems like there’s no survivors here after all. Only one thing left to do.” Carise looked down at the bandolier of Tovex explosive cartridges and then at Marcel.

  He looked at her, and then off into the tunnel. All the time that far-off hum grew louder and continued to vibrate through the rock as if some ancient dragon was waking from its slumber.

  Carise nodded and wiped the blood from her face.

  * * *

  “It’s never-ending,” Carise said. They’d been walking through the tunnel for at least thirty minutes. They followed it round bends and straights and now she had no real idea which way they were pointing. Her digital compass couldn’t decide either.
r />   “But do you feel it?” Marcel said, his voice barely a whisper. “The vibrations beneath our feet. The hum? It’s growing stronger.”

  “And it’s colder,” she added. Caves often got warmer the farther you moved inside and the humidity would often reach 100%, but she coughed through a dry throat and realized just how dry it was down there.

  “How many glow sticks do you have?”

  Carise checked her pockets. “Thirty or so.”

  “Use them sparingly, this could go on forever. Who knows how far this beast has dug itself.”

  They walked for another fifteen minutes when the tunnel branched into a definite T-junction.

  “Which way?” Marcel muttered. He placed his head to the walls of the tunnel.

  “What are you doing? Carise asked.

  “Trying to figure out which direction that rumble is coming from.”

  “Any luck?”

  He shook his head. “Before you have any crazy ideas, we’re not splitting up.”

  “I wasn’t going to suggest that. I was going to suggest we go left.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I don’t know. I just do.”

  She didn’t want to tell him that her ankle wound continued to itch as if something was living within the decaying tissue and bridging a connection between her and the beast, but that insidious seed in her mind had started to grow rapidly during their time in the tunnel; to the point where she felt as if she were just a puppet to the great creature. Was she just leading them to their doom? Or would she still be able to exert enough free will when the time came? She held the Tovex bandolier with her left hand, reminding herself of what needed to be done.

  They pressed on.

  * * *

  The tunnel was shrinking in diameter. After a few minutes of trekking down the left-hand path, it was at least half the size, with just a few meters above and beside them. The conical striations smoothed out, leaving a perfectly featureless surface. The ground, however, looked disturbed, pitted with rows and rows of tiny holes. Beyond and in the impenetrable gloom, they heard a clicking sound.

  Carise halted and grabbed Marcel’s arm. “You hear that, right?” she asked, hoping it was just in her head.

  “I hear it.”

  Her skin crawled, a creeping cold seeped up through her bones.

  “Slowly,” Carise said. She continued forward, with Marcel at her side, almost on tiptoes, trying to be as quiet as possible. The clicking-chattering sound seemed to be moving away from them, and without realizing it, she found herself speeding up, trying to catch up with it.

  “Hold up,” Marcel warned and pulled her back. “What’s the rush?”

  “Sorry,” she said, “I just got a little carried away. It’s this place; gives me the creeps.”

  It was then they felt the tunnel shudder and oscillate. And above that a human voice, sounding entirely inhuman, but the sound coming from it reminded Carise of that eerie guttural noise that came from the girl and Michael.

  She whispered into Marcel’s ear, “We must be close.”

  “That’s what I was afraid of,” he said, and flashed a forced, worried grin.

  Carise lead the way and they continued to round a long, shallow bend until the corporeal murk gave way to lighter darknesses; such was the depth of the blackness that even the shallowest gray seemed like a beam of brightest sunshine.

  The voice echoed and boomed as it continued to spit odd-sounding consonants and unrecognizable vowels that featured in no language Carise had ever heard. It was a biting and grim sound, an ancient sound, a sound so thick with intentions and malevolence that she couldn’t imagine it coming from a person. But she had heard it before, and she knew instinctively it was the language of the old one, of that cyclopean horror from the void of space.

  The seed in her mind started to sprout numerous tendrils, each black root navigating its way through her brain, changing her thought patterns, making those hideous words make sense in some subconscious way.

  “They’re summoning it,” she said to Marcel, her voice still a whisper and full of dread. “I don’t know how”—which was a lie—“but I’m starting to understand, starting to see. We have to stop them before—”

  A gargantuan subterranean rumble reverberated up through the foundations of the mountain. Cracks appeared in the tunnel walls, and a crevice opened up beneath them.

  She grabbed for Marcel as she jumped to a solid section of the floor, but he was too slow to react and fell backward into the V-shaped chasm, wedging his legs between the rocks.

  “I’m stuck,” he said through a pained grimace.

  Carise reached out and grabbed his hands and tried to pull him up, but started to slip down the widening gap. The Tovex bandolier slipped off his shoulder and fell into the gloom. “Let go,” he told her.

  “Are you crazy?” She continued to pull.

  “Trust me. Just grab the straps on my backpack.”

  Carise leapt across the chasm so she was standing at his back, and did as she was told, getting a firm grip of the shoulder straps before he could slip down into the void for good.

  “I’m going to push myself back,” he said. “I want you to pull until I can get my legs up.”

  She understood what he planned to do: wedge his back against one side while walking his legs up the other and thus up and out of the crevice. But already her strength was waning.

  “On three. Ready?” he said.

  “Not really, but we don’t have much choice.”

  “Right. One… Two… Three… Pull!”

  He pushed backward with his legs, and Carise held her breath and gritted her teeth as she took up the slack and pulled up and backward on the pack straps. His back hit the rock and his feet scrambled on the smooth surface opposite.

  “Shit, shit, shit,” Marcel said, as he failed to gain any grip and he slipped farther down the split. Carise’s arms were shaking with effort now as she planted her feet firmly and wide on the solid surface and tried to hold his weight, but the straps were too narrow and hurt her hands. They began to slip against the burns caused by her fall earlier and she stifled a scream.

  “Quick,” she whimpered, “I…can’t…”

  The straps slipped loose from her hands and Marcel fell into the darkness.

  15

  She watched in horror as Marcel sunk down into the hole, his feet scrabbling for purchase on one side, and his backpack slipping down the rock on the other.

  “Carise!” he called up, surprisingly calm. “Get a rope down here.”

  She was already on it. Shrugging her pack off, she reached in and pulled out a nylon rope. She wrapped it around her body a number of times and secured it with a carabiner on her belt before throwing it down into the chasm. The rope hit Marcel; he reached out, grabbed it with gloved hands.

  His falling weight dragged her across the surface until she fell on her ass, all the while she tried to grip the rope as best she could, given the burns and wounds in her palms.

  It didn’t help. He continued to drop and she slid across, heading for the split in the rock.

  “Hold on,” she shouted as her legs dangled over into the chasm, but as he dropped a few more centimeters, she managed to stop the descent by wedging her legs against the lip on the other side of the gap. The rope twanged taught and she felt it dig into her back as she took his weight.

  “I can’t get a grip,” he said. “There’s no way you can lift me out.”

  The rock shuddered again, and this time cracks appeared in the ceiling and walls of the tunnel. The voice she heard earlier boomed ever louder and she dreaded to think what was coming up from the depths. Hell, she knew what was coming up from the depths, and that scared her even more.

  Frantically she considered her options. There were none that she liked: stay where she was and eventually drop Marcel and get crushed by falling rocks, or let him go and make a run for it. Either way she was doomed.

  “How long’s the rope?” Marcel shouted up
.

  “Fifty meters,” she replied.

  “I can see a light down here, I think it’s another chamber. Lower me down. It’s the only way.”

  “But what if there’s nothing there? What if—”

  “We have no other choice! Just do it.”

  She let go of the rope and allowed her body to take the weight while she adjusted the carabiner on her belt that enabled her to feed the rope down a few meters at a time. With each drop the rope slid around her waist, cutting into her clothing and skin.

  “There’s definitely a chamber down there,” Marcel said as he continued to stretch his legs across the void and walk himself down the rock with his weight supported by the rope.

  Eventually the end of the rope fell from the backpack, and she gripped it and fed it slower.

  “I’m nearly out,” she called down. He looked much smaller now. His hard hat and light a small dot among a void of darkness.

  “Okay, I’m letting go, I can jump from here,” he said, his voice now small and swallowed by the rock.

  Her guts felt like they crawled with eels as she fed the rope bit-by-bit until it unraveled from around her waist. She grabbed the end and it became slack. Marcel shuffled farther a few meters and then he simply fell, disappearing into the gloom.

  She wanted to throw up, such was the dread that rose within her. She held her breath and waited, hoping he had made it. A long minute ticked by and still she heard nothing. Her fear that he had fallen to his death paralyzed her. She’d rather be buried beneath the rocks than risk leaving him.

  The shuddering of the mountain continued, and, beyond the gap in the tunnel, the sound of clicking and chattering sliced through the low rumble. A shiver broke out as she realized what the sound was.

  A slithering, tentacled limb slowly traversed through the tunnel ahead of her, its many rows of hard, chitinous hooks propelling it forward and giving it the look of a huge, clammy millipede. It swayed from one side to the next as it moved closer. It was as if it were tasting the ground, searching…hunting.