The Cavern Read online

  “I think this is the same cavern me and Dean faced off against the pack of smaller ones.”

  “We found a crushed torch and old handgun down the far end of the beach. Were they yours?”

  “More than likely.” Jack hung the SLR over his shoulder by its sling, then went back into the tunnel.

  Sam joined him and picked up an air tank and harness, hoisting it on to one shoulder. Ellie and Mia were already loaded up. Both looked exhausted, sweat cutting trails over dust coated faces. Sam knew he looked the same, and it was little wonder. They’d pushed hard, casting aside caution to reach the underground lake as quickly as possible. Both he and Ellie would be relying on adrenaline to power their muscles during the dive, because after the last twenty-four hours, he was all but spent.

  “All good?” asked Mia.

  Sam’s jaw clenched at the wording. For Christ’s sake, it would never be ‘all good’ ever again. He forced himself to nod. “For the moment. Time to crack on while we can.”

  It wasn’t long before Sam stood thigh deep in the water, wearing fins and wet suit. He felt about as safe as he would in a crocodile infested river of Australia’s far north, waiting for teeth to close about a limb and wrench him under the surface into a death roll. He swallowed and pushed the thought aside, itching at the seal about his neck. His suit had been torn, so he was wearing Aaron’s spare one for this dive. The fit was close enough to be serviceable, but it still rode up uncomfortably in his groin and pinched at the shoulders. The air tank on his back was filled with Nitrox. Instead of the usual 21% oxygen and 78% nitrogen, the Nitrox tank on his back had a blend of 36% oxygen and nitrogen, which Ellie had chosen to decrease the risk of decompression sickness if they were forced to dive deeper on their search for Max.

  Sam glanced at the spear gun in his hand, already loaded with a viciously barbed steel spear. Jack’s advice had been to the point. “It’s straight forward enough. Point and shoot. If you miss, there’s a line attached to draw it back in and reload, but my advice would be – don’t miss.” He didn’t know whether to laugh or swear. ‘Don’t miss’. That advice was about as useful as being told ‘don’t die.’

  Sam looked back to shore where Mia and Jack would be waiting for them to return. While he and Ellie had been getting into the wet suits and preparing for the dive, the old soldier had prepared for battle. Under his direction, Mia had helped move their remaining gear and weapons back to the rear of the cavern. Jack had found a small depression in the wall which once backed into, narrowed the direction from which they could be attacked to a ninety degree arc at their front. The old soldier had given each of them a thirty second run down on how to use the hand guns and rifle, the sort of tutorial Sam hoped wouldn’t be forgotten in the first rush of adrenaline when the beasts attacked. There was no ‘if’ in his mind regarding a fight. He could feel it in his bones, they would have contact with the Miner’s Mother before the day was out, and it wouldn’t be friendly.

  Ellie waded out to join him. Her face was pale, eyes holding a feverish quality as she scanned the water.

  “Are you ready for this?” he asked.

  “No.” Ellie’s tone was matter of fact.

  Sam knew exactly what she meant. There was no point talking about it further, or trying to come up with a plan of attack. They had no idea what they were swimming into, and would have to play it by ear. Instinctively, his grip tightened about the speargun’s stock.

  A series of distinctive echolocation clicks sounded, the noise bouncing off the walls of the chamber. Jesus, she’s here with us now. Sam’s heard jerked towards the shore again, searching the shadows for the creature.

  “What are you waiting for?” shouted Jack. “Get moving while you have the chance. If the bitch is here, it means your route should be clear. Go!”

  Ellie didn’t need to be told twice, the water churning about her thighs as she made for deeper water. Sam felt sick as he dragged his mask down and bit onto his regulator. Leaving Mia and Jack to face the Miner’s Mother alone felt wrong, and yet he knew the sense of the old soldier’s words. His first duty was to Ellie and her brother. If they didn’t at least try and find the man, then everything would have been for nought.

  Sam dived and kicked hard to catch up to Ellie, the water blocking a scream of anguish from the shore.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Max’s breath came in shallow pants, his chest constricted with terror. He was totally helpless. Paralysed and blind. Despite his terror, he emitted a strangled laugh fit for an asylum. It had only been the day before leaving that he’d taught his class about the South American Spider Wasp. The kids had listened in morbid fascination as he explained about the insect who hunted spiders to feed its larvae. Instead of killing the spider outright, it paralysed the larger arachnid with venom, before dragging it into a ready-made nest. Once in place, the wasp would lay eggs on the spider’s abdomen, then close the nest shut. On hatching, the wasp larvae consumed the spider alive. And now here he was, spider bait for a different sort of nightmare.

  The sac beneath his right armpit convulsed, the side against his chest pushing out, expanding until a needle tipped claw broke through the surface. Warm liquid trickled from the hole, then the talon turned up, slicing a rent in the side of the sac with the sound of tearing fabric. The trickle turned into a flood of rancid fluid that splashed across his chest and abdomen, bringing with it the fetid smell of rotting meat.

  A narrow, slimy arm reached across his waist, then claws dug into his skin, using his flesh for purchase as the creature drew itself out of the egg sac and onto his chest. Needle-tipped talons punctured his skin as it turned about on top of his chest, a snuffling sound as it sampled the chamber’s air. Foul breath gusted into his face and Max could sense that its mouth was now only centimetres from his own.

  It screamed, a high-pitched metallic sound from an alien landscape. It turned position again on his chest, and then searing agony bloomed in his right bicep as razor-sharp teeth tore into his flesh.

  He tried to move, thrashing his head and neck, but the rest of his body refused to join in. He was going to be eaten alive, and the best he could hope for was to bleed out quickly.

  As the beast’s teeth sawed into the tender flesh of his armpit, Max screamed.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “Don’t be shy now,” muttered Jack under his breath. “Come on out and give me one clean shot, that’s all I ask.”

  He scanned the chamber, SLR jammed into his shoulder with both eyes open over the sights. The lights he’d set up around their camp bathed the near parts of the cave in hash detail, however, the far corners of the cavern were still hidden, draped in gloom that his eyes couldn’t penetrate no matter how he strained. In his peripheral vision, Sam and Ellie’s dive lights faded to nothing as they entered the flooded passage. He silently wished the two luck. After so many years out of the armed forces, he’d valued the company of people who willingly placed their life at risk to save a mate.

  A roll of clicks sounded again, louder than the last set. Jack concentrated, struggling to work out the origin of the noise. The cave played with sound, bouncing it off myriad surfaces, tricking the ear into thinking it came from everywhere and nowhere at once. Jack scanned the shadows again, before grimacing in irritation and dropping the rifle from his shoulder.

  He knew it was out there, watching them. Planning how to attack, feeling out his defences and weighing up risk with the intelligence of a true hunter. Jack recognised the feeling. Hated it just as much as the last time he experienced it as a young soldier, sent into the jungle with little more than the weapons he could carry and the trust of his mates to keep him alive. And this time he couldn’t even call in an air-strike.

  A low wail pierced the silence, sending a shiver up his spine. The sound carried a depth of emotion that twisted his gut. A wordless cry of pain, despair and loneliness, all twisted into a female voice.

  “Bloody hell, there’s someone else down here,” said Mia. Her fa
ce was bone white, eyes wide.

  Jack swallowed on a throat gone dry, forced calm to his external features that didn’t match his racing heart. “Ignore it. It’s just the creature playing with us.”

  Mia scowled at his response, her jaw firming. “What if it’s not? We know Frida’s down here somewhere on her own. If she’s found another way through without having to dive, we need to get to her before the beast.”

  A wail echoed about the cavern before dying into a wordless sob. The sound tore at Jack’s resolve. If Mia was right, he needed to act quickly.

  “Come on, Jack. You said the Miner’s Mother could change its appearance, but no one said it mimicked sound. It’s Frida, I know it.”

  The old soldier grimaced, hating the thought of giving up his defensive position. Once they left their small cavity in the wall, they’d be open to attack from all directions again.

  “Where do you think it came from?”

  Mia pointed along the wall to the left, the opposite direction to which they’d entered the cavern. “That way, I think.”

  “Okay. You stay here while I check it out.”

  “Fuck that, I’m coming with you. Better to have two sets of eyes than one.”

  Jack bit his lip. Another gun in a confrontation would help, but only if she didn’t shoot him instead by accident. He gave a stiff nod of acceptance. “I’ll lead, you keep an eye behind us. And for god’s sake, keep your finger outside the trigger guard until you’re ready to shoot.”

  A scream echoed once again, this time of someone in agony. He’d heard that type of cry before, from a gut-shot mate stuck behind enemy lines. Decades might have passed, but some memories refused to dim with time. He hadn’t left that mate behind, had waded through a jungle slick with blood to get him back, and he wouldn’t fail this time either.

  Jack set off at a jog along the rear wall of the cavern, ignoring the spikes of pain at every step from his arthritic knees. The light from his head torch bobbed on the ground, illuminating a discreet area in stark contrast to pitch black around. His breath was loud in his ears and he could hear Mia close behind. Another scream tore through the air. The paramedic had been right, the sound was definitely coming from ahead.

  His light suddenly fell on brown hair, and Jack skidded to a stop, leaving a good ten paces between them. The woman was stuck in a rockfall. It appeared that there had been a tunnel leading out of the cavern, but much of the ceiling had caved in, leaving a small gap at the upper left side. Enough space for a child to squeeze by, or maybe a slim adult. Frida had tried, and was now wedged, with only her head, shoulders and arms poking through.

  As his light fell on her, Frida’s head flicked up, eyes squinting into the beam. Her hair was slicked back and tight against her scalp in a pony tail, face pale beneath a layer of grime and dust. Blood trickled from the hairline at her left temple and smeared across the left cheek. She stretched out an arm towards him in a gesture that begged him to come closer.

  “Frida, my name’s Mia. I’m a paramedic here to help you. Are you injured?”

  Jack put out an arm to restrain her as Mia went to step past him and reach the woman.

  “Wait a second.” Jack focused upon the woman, scanning his torch over the parts of her body that he could see, looking for imperfections and signs that it was a carefully rendered camouflage. “Frida? How did you make it here when the others had to dive?”

  The woman looked up at his words, but didn’t answer, instead releasing another scream.

  “She needs help, Jack, not a bloody interrogation.”

  Mia pulled out of his grip, holstered her Glock and closed the distance to the woman. To get to her, she had to climb up the start of the rock fall, using both hands to steady herself. The woman had stopped moaning, now watched her through slitted eyelids.

  Jack felt like he had an eel in his gut, nerves squirming as he turned on his heel to search the shadows behind. Something wasn’t sitting right, his base instinct screaming that they were about to be attacked. As Mia got closer, he switched his attention back to the woman at the top of the rockfall. Allowing his rifle to hang by its sling, he changed weapon to the handgun, holding a torch in his other hand. Jack shone the beam up, his breath catching as he saw an anomaly.

  The woman had held her hands closed in tight fists the whole time, but now that the paramedic was almost within arm’s reach, she unclenched one hand, displaying unnaturally long thin fingers, each tipped with an inch of razor sharp talon.

  “Get down! That’s not Frida, it’s the beast!”

  At the soldier’s words, the Miner’s Mother abandoned attempt at camouflage. The woman’s face rippled as if made of wax, nose flattening, head morphing into the beast’s usual skull shape. Its eyes finally opened properly, vertical elliptical pupils constricted in the force of Jack’s torch beam. It hissed, jaw opening to display needle like teeth, and lunged out to grab hold of her.

  Mia screamed and jerked away. One of her heels caught on a rock and she tumbled backward, arms flailing. Jack lunged forward, but he was out of reach. Unprotected by a helmet, the back of Mia’s skull crunched against rock with a sickening thud, knocking her unconscious.

  Jack fired at the beast as he rushed to Mia’s side, his aim spoiled as he stumbled over the rock strewn floor. Two bullets sparked off rock to the right of the creature’s head, and it ducked back out of sight. Mia’s torch smashed in her fall, and now there was only light from Jack’s head torch and his smaller hand held one. He kneeled by her side, keeping his pistol aimed up at the point where he’d last seen the Miner’s Mother, feeling for a pulse under the angle of her jaw. He breathed a short sigh of relief as he felt a flicker under his fingertips. She was alive.

  For now.

  He needed to get her back to his small redoubt where he’d have a better chance of defending her and himself. Jack grabbed hold of the collar behind her neck, and dragged her back a few metres. Mia’s head lolled to the side in an odd position, but there was little he could do about it. He needed a weapon in one hand, knowing they could be attacked at any moment.

  A metallic growl came from the hole above the rock slide. Jack eased his charge to the ground and took aim at the black void, finger on the trigger as he willed the creature to show itself.

  “Come on, you bitch. Let’s finish this.”

  Talons clicked together, but unlike the previous occurrences, Jack had no trouble differentiating where the sound came from. Because this time it came from directly behind.

  Shit. There’s fucking two of them. His gut dropped as he realised he’d walked into an ambush.

  A smell of decay assaulted his nose, breath laden with the stench of half rotted flesh gusting over his shoulder. It was close enough to kiss. Checkmate. He was trapped. If he turned, the beast behind the rockfall would rush him, and if he kept his current aim, he’d be missing half his neck within seconds.

  But that wasn’t really the choice at hand. The only outcome Jack could control, was whether he fought back or curled his tail between his legs like a coward. And that was no choice at all. Behind his wrinkled face, the grey hair and joints nobbled by arthritis, still lived a true warrior. If fate was to make this his last fight, then he’d make damn sure it was a good one.

  “Mia, time to wake up,” muttered Jack.

  He squeezed off a single shot at the gap above the rock fall, then tried to spin on his heel to attack the creature behind. Half way around, his wrist smashed into a slimy grip. His head torch illuminated the beast as it leant forward and screamed, a demonic shriek battering his ear drums as it crunched the radius and ulna of his wrist with a savage twist. His face was spattered with stinking bubbles of spit as his pistol dropped from nerveless fingers. He waited for it to finish the job, but for some reason it paused, waiting.

  A growl sounded above the rock fall, and Jack snapped his head around waiting for the second beast to emerge. His wrist burned, the shards of bone grinding against each other with every movement. He bit hard on his
lip, refusing to give voice to his agony. Jack pulled his knife from his belt sheath, the handle feeling odd in his non-dominant hand.

  “Come on, you bitch. Let’s finish this!”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Sam focused on keeping his breathing slow and regular, turning his attention inward to stop freaking out. After taking the downward sloping passage at the fork where he’d seen Max fight the creature, they found themselves in a tunnel going straight down, no wider than two shoulder widths. Even if he’d wanted to back track, there was no room to turn, no option but to continue. Sam kept an eye on his depth gauge, becoming gradually more apprehensive the further they went. Even with the Nitrox mix, there was only so far they could dive without increasing the chance of experiencing the bends. At thirty metres of depth, the tunnel had suddenly curved upwards again, taking a u-bend straight up.

  Ellie charged ahead, her flippers a blur as she drove onwards. Sam wanted to be in front, to be the first to make contact if they were to run into the creature so that he could keep her safe. But the tunnel was so narrow, there was no way to safely pass.

  He glanced at his gauge. Twenty metres. Ten.

  Above must be an air chamber or they were about to hit a dead end. He brought his spear gun up, aiming forward in readiness. Near the end of the tunnel, it fanned outwards to two metres diameter. Ellie’s upward momentum stalled as she breached the surface, and Sam continued, angling into the gap beside her. Suddenly his head was in clear air and he brought his spear gun up, scanning about quickly, expecting to be attacked at any moment. Both treaded water in a circular opening to a small limestone cavern. From the water, his view of the cavern’s entirety was restricted by a hump of rock near the water’s edge. All he could see was the ceiling above.