The Cavern Read online

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Mia slowed, then turned onto a dirt road to Anastas’ property and the cave’s entrance. Dust rose in a plume behind as she accelerated again, weaving the ambulance around the largest potholes. Suddenly, a deafening blast ripped through the air. Startled by the unexpected noise, Mia flinched, reflexively gripping the steering wheel tighter to maintain control of the vehicle.

  “Jesus, what was that?” She glanced up through the windscreen, looking for storm clouds. “If that was thunder, I don’t know where it came from.”

  “No,’ said Jack, pointing at the horizon where a plume of dust was starting to rise into the blue sky. “It was an explosion.”

  Mia stared at the dust cloud, and felt her heart drop.

  “That’s Anastas’ land?”

  The old soldier nodded, his face grim. There was nothing more that needed saying. Mia swallowed, an uneasy feeling in her gut as she accelerated toward the plume. Within minutes they arrived at the site, Mia bouncing the ambulance over the verge and into the paddock before skidding to a stop behind the base-camp tent.

  Mia recognised the vehicles of the caving group, but there was an additional blue twin-cab ute that didn’t belong.

  “Is that Kaz’s ute?”

  “Yeah, she must be ‘round here somewhere.” Jack grabbed his rifle, opened the door and jumped out. He used the bulk of the ambulance for cover as he scanned the area before prowling over to the tent.

  Mia grabbed her medic bag from the back of the ambulance and followed, blue plastic gloves already on as she jogged to catch up. She met Jack at the entrance of the tent. His shoulders were slumped, rifle hanging from one hand.

  “We’re too late. No-one’s coming back out through that hole.”

  Jack looked two shades paler than he’d been in the ambulance as he regarded the site. Mia remembered that he came from a mining family, knew that all miners feared a cave-in more than anything else. She changed her focus from the barman to take in the disaster area. The explosion must have happened within the cave shaft itself. Where a neat vertical drop had been before, was now more crater than shaft, with soil continuing to trickle into the hole, expanding the diameter by the minute.

  “Not everyone would have been in the cave,” said Mia. “Surely they’d have left someone topside for safety reasons.”

  Jack dropped to one knee, examining the dirt before the tent. A wide smooth line started at the entrance and extended toward the cave mouth. Mia hung over his shoulder to see what had caught his interest.

  “Looks like something was dragged out of the tent,” she said.

  Jack picked up a small dust covered blob and rubbed it between his fingers. It left a red smear of blood. “Or someone,” he muttered.

  They both now stared into the depths of the tent. A pool of glutinous blood lay at the back wall, then smeared in a line to the entrance. Mia walked in for a closer look, stepping carefully around the blood stains. A phone with a cracked screen lay on the floor. She leant down and picked it up, moving it to the desk to avoid stepping on it accidently.

  “Geez, what the hell happened here? Why would someone attack a group of cavers?”

  “I’ll tell you, but you probably won’t believe me,” said Jack.

  “Try me. After the last six months living in this weird fucking town, I don’t think I’d be surprised by much.”

  A low rumbling sound interrupted Mia, and her gut lurched as the ground beneath her feet trembled. Outside, a car sized chunk of earth dropped without warning at the edge of the expanding sink hole. There was now less than five metres separating the tent from the shaft.

  “The story’s going to have to wait. If that hole gets much bigger, evidence about what happened here will be lost.” Mia picked up a bag in each hand. “Jack, we need to move all this stuff further back.”

  The barman gave one last look at the expanding shaft, then nodded and slung his rifle over his shoulder by its sling. “Okay. With any luck, they’ll be back to claim it.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Mia pulling up short, a flutter of hope sparking in her chest.

  “That cave system connects with a bunch of the mines around here. If they were far enough away from the blast site, they might have a chance of finding a way out. I did once, maybe they can too.”

  ***

  Sam focused on keeping his breathing slow as he kicked forward into the tunnel. After helping Ellie reach the surface earlier, he now had less than a third of his tank remaining to share with Max on the return journey. Not that he had great hope of a triumphant return. Sam knew that the chances of him bringing Ellie’s brother back alive were close to nil. Regardless of the bite wound, unless Max had regained his regulator, he’d already be dead and drowned by now.

  Despite his fear, a recess of his mind found dark humour at the situation. Here he was swimming toward a fanged beast, when mere hours before, it had required all his mental strength just to enter the water. Sam picked up his pace, limestone walls slipping by as he kicked furiously. Adrenaline flooded his system, erasing muscular fatigue and lending a fresh spurt of nervous energy.

  A streak of green now mingled with the dispersing haze of red from Max’s bleeding wounds. Sam remembered the strange eel had bled green as well, and he could only hope that it meant the beast was somehow wounded. Suddenly his torch picked up movement at the limit of its reach, causing Sam’s heart rate to surge.

  He’s alive!

  Max had managed to get his regulator back in his mouth and knife in hand, and had twisted around in the beast’s grip to fight back. Behind him yawned the black mouth of the tunnel they’d avoided earlier. Max punched his blade in short, sharp thrusts while the beast squirmed about him.

  Sam powered onwards, desperately trying to join the fight. Thirty metres away. Twenty. He was nearly there.

  Max fought on, but Sam could see that his attempts were losing force, his strength bleeding away from multiple bite wounds. The Miner’s Mother dodged another thrust, moving in the water with the ease of a fish, then darted in a hand to clasp Max’s wrist. It gave the limb a savage twist, snapping bones like kindling. Max’s eye’s bulged, his knife dropping from nerveless fingers as he screamed through his regulator.

  Ten metres away.

  Sam’s breathing was shallow and quick, heart rate sprinting. Now that its prey was disarmed, the creature’s attention flicked to Sam, teeth bared as it squinted into his torch light. It screamed a challenge, a stream of bubbles pouring from its throat before it clamped its jaws shut again. Sam committed to the attack, terror forming a wordless battle cry in his mind. Knife held in a murderous grip, he drew his arm back, ready to stab as soon as he was in reach.

  The beast spun, a fluid movement as the muscular tail swept out like a whip. Sam flung his arms out to stall his movement, slowing enough that the end of the tail just missed his face. Instead of attacking Sam, the Miner’s Mother took advantage of his halted momentum and charged down the other tunnel, dragging Max by his broken wrist.

  Two heart beats and it was gone.

  Sam swam to the tunnel’s entrance but Max and the creature were already out of sight. The passage descended steeply before curving to the right, blocking any further view. He had no idea how deep it went. If he dived too far, it wouldn’t just be a fanged beast out to kill him. Decompression sickness, or the bends, would do the job instead.

  As a paramedic on the east-coast of Australia, he’d transported divers suffering decompression sickness to hospital. Each had been in a particularly bad way, one had died. Normal scuba tanks use compressed air, a mixture of about 78 percent nitrogen and 22 percent oxygen. At depths with greater water pressure, nitrogen forms in blood and tissues. If the diver then ascends to lower pressure too quickly, they risked the nitrogen forming bubbles, much like opening a bottle of carbonated drink too quickly. Minor cases might leave the diver with a tingling sensation or joint pain, but more serious cases could result in ruptured blood vessels, heart attack or st
roke.

  To follow into unknown depths when his tanks were already severely depleted, was close to suicide. If Sam was to try again, he needed a different air mix and a better weapon with which to fight. The beast had disarmed Max with relative ease, its strength underwater a fearsome spectacle. Reluctantly, he turned and started swimming back for the surface, the prospect of telling Ellie of his failure a sick weight in his gut.

  ***

  Sam had barely left the water before Ellie clasped him in a bone cracking hug, burying red eyes and tear streaked face into his shoulder.

  “Thank God. I’d started to think I’d lost both of you. I never should have pushed you to go after him, it was crazy.”

  Sam returned the hug, the adrenaline aftermath leaving his muscles jittery and drained. “I saw him, babe. He had regulator in mouth, and tanks on his back. There’s still a chance he’s alive.”

  Ellie’s head jerked up as if yanked on a wire, eyes locking with his. “Don’t play with me, Sam, it’s not funny.”

  “I caught up to them, and I swear Max was fighting like a madman before it got the better of him again.”

  “But you’re sure he was still alive?”

  Sam nodded, his failure to rescue Max a sour taste in the back of his throat. “He got dragged down the other passage, the one that plunged deeper.” He showed her the air gauge of his tank. It had less than ten percent left. “If I’d managed to get him out and we needed to share my tank, we would have burned through that air in next to no time.”

  He paused, trying to find the right words. “I’m sorry, babe. If we can get our hands on replenished tanks with an air-mix for greater depths, I’ll be back down there in a heartbeat.”

  Ellie slumped in his arms. “No, it’s not worth the risk. Even if he managed to keep his regulator in, his tank would run out of air long before anyone could get to him,” said Ellie.

  A memory from the dive suddenly flashed like a lightbulb in his head. Bubbles streaming from the creature’s mouth as it screamed underwater. He grabbed her hand. “Maybe there’s still a chance. I think it breathes air like you and me. When it screamed at me underwater - bubbles came out, that wouldn’t have happened if it had gills like a fish. It must be like a crocodile or dolphin, able to swim underwater while holding its breath for long periods. If that’s the case, surely it would take him to another air lock, somewhere to store him?

  “It didn’t seem intent on feeding straight away. We just need to find that spot. Granted, it’s a long shot, but at least I know which tunnel he got taken down. I know where to start looking.”

  Ellie stared at him for a few moments, evidently weighing his words before giving an almost imperceptible nod. “Okay, but not on your own next time. Once we get new air tanks, I’ll be joining you.”

  Despite the dire position they were still in, Sam couldn’t help but feel a jolt of pride in the woman he’d chosen. In their position, most people would have crumpled into a foetal position and given up. But not her. Ellie was a fighter. If there was a one percent chance of survival, the other ninety-nine could go get fucked. They’d find a way out.

  He turned away from her, eyes searching the darkness as he shrugged out of his dive tank, harness and fins. “Which way do you want to try? I don’t see any bones around here from the owners of that broken torch, so they must have found a way out.”

  Ellie glanced at her compass, then pointed along the lake to the right. “If that mine we explored links into this cave system, it should be in that direction.”

  Both still wore their wet suits, however had ditched all other dive gear aside from their torches. Sam grimaced down at his feet. He had just a thin layer of material to protect his feet from here on.

  The two set off at a jog along the shore, feet leaving deep imprints, torch beams bouncing like frenetic disco lights. Time was critical. A grey rock face appeared out of the gloom as the cavern narrowed. As they neared the rock face, one section at the base appeared darker than the rest. Sam aimed his torch directly at the spot, and was rewarded when the beam displayed a rent in the stone. Ellie saw his find, and without breaking stride, angled straight for it.

  Sam sent out a silent prayer to whatever malevolent god was watching.

  Please, just please let this be a way out.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The Miner’s Mother emerged from the water silently, halogen green eyes blinking slowly in the darkness as rivulets of water ran down the black skin of her head. She took a deep breath, oxygen flooding her system like a drug after the expenditures of her underwater fight. The creature floated in a circlet of water two metres in diameter, surrounded by a low rim of rock. She raised her free hand and clicked the talons to gain an echolocation picture of her birthing chamber. It was relatively small, less than twenty by ten paces and accessible only by water. Finding nothing untoward, she climbed ashore, dragging her prize up behind. The human was limp, all fight having leaked away on the final approach to the chamber.

  She clasped the strange apparatus between his lips and pulled it out. In the dark, she was blind to the crimson that trickled from his mouth, his blood indistinguishable from water. After a dive of thirty metres, the passage had taken a sharp rise of 40 metres until emerging into the current chamber. A dive that she did with ease, but one that had given the human a severe case of decompression illness. She roughly tore the tank and harness off her prey, then hauled him onto a raised bed of rock. With one razor talon, she cut down the front of his suit, exposing the soft dark skin of his abdomen and chest, before repeating the procedure along the length of each limb.

  She stared at the man, his physical form as plain to her in the darkness as to a human in sunlight. She hooked a talon into the base of his chin, turning his head slowly one way then the other. The pride of a hunter warmed her chest. Not since she’d faced the two men who had killed her children decades before, had she been forced to fight quite so hard. Her shoulder ached mildly where the human’s knife had pierced her skin, but she was unconcerned. Her species recovered quickly. The wound had already stopped bleeding and partially knitted back together. It would be healed within hours.

  Yes, this human would be a worthy first meal for her new young. But first, she needed to ensure he could not pose them a threat. She needed him alive, but unable to run or fight back as her children fed.

  The Miner’s Mother rolled the man onto his side, then ran her talon gently down the middle of his back over his spine, searching for the right spot. Half way down the rear of his thorax, she stabbed her talon between two of the spinous processes up to her first knuckle. It was enough to rouse the man from his stupor. He screamed, body convulsing with agony. She clamped her other hand onto him, tail wrapping around his feet and holding him fast while she continued to work, uncaring for the pain she caused. The point of her talon scraped over bone until she found a gap between the vertebrae, and was able to shove forward again, severing the spinal cord.

  The man’s legs went limp and he screamed again, this time a sound of rage mixed with despair, a noise that sparked her hunger and provided a thrill of excitement. Saliva flooded her mouth, running in glutinous lines between her fangs as she flopped him back again. She leant down to the exposed skin of his abdomen and chest and inhaled his scent, tongue flicking, tasting. With a growl of frustration, she forced herself away. This kill was for her children, not her.

  The human punched her, his fist connecting with the side of her head. It didn’t hurt, but it did irritate. She stabbed down with force, driving two talons through the front of one shoulder, then the other to decimate the brachial nerve plexus and nerves controlling movement and sensation of his arms. Both upper limbs dropped insensate to the rock slab. Now the only body parts the human could move was his neck and jaws. She was happy to leave him the ability to scream. It would drive her children into a feeding frenzy.

  The Miner’s Mother turned away from the human as his cries of pain and fury subsided to shuddering sobs. At the rear of the c
hamber stood three birthing sacs. Each throbbed, wide blood vessels crisscrossing moist, partially transparent surfaces. When she had delivered them three months prior, they’d been no bigger than an apple, but under her close attendance they had grown and now reached to waist height. Within the sacs, echolocation revealed the sleek forms of her young. Lean bodies of muscle writhed inside their cocoons, and she could sense their readiness to enter her subterranean domain. At the top of each sac was an opening like the bud of a flower. Through this, she had fed her growing young, introducing them to the flavours of their future prey. Human, Sneirthyn, snake, rat, dog, and a range of other creatures that could be caught either underground, or within close proximity to the many different entrances to her territory.

  She hung over the top of one sac and regurgitated the partially digested flesh of her last kill. The meat would dissolve in the jelly surrounding the growing foetus and be absorbed. She repeated the process into the other two sacs, emptying her stomach completely. It would be the last time she did this before their true birth. Carefully, she carried each sac across to the rock table, arranging them around the human. She spreadeagled his limbs with rough flicks, then placed a sac under each arm, the third between his thighs.

  Now that her stomach was empty, her hunger re-doubled. She would need to hunt and eat again, chase down the other two humans and drink their fear as she lapped their blood. The human on the slab screamed at her again, forming words that she could somewhat understand after generations of feeding on miners and accepting blood tithes during her periods of relative fasting. ‘Fucking Bitch.’ That was what he’d said, eyes open and bulging with fury. She understood it was a term of hatred. With a spiteful flick of a finger, she punctured each globe with tip of a talon, giving the action no more thought than a child would give to squashing a bug.