Crucible of a Species (32 page)

A chill ran down the corporal’s spine, what the hell is it doing there and how do they manage to move so quietly when they want to? Did it want us to hear it moving … A bolt of cold fear suddenly shot up the corporal’s spine. Tyree whipped around as he heard the clear melodious voice call out from the dense growth of the peninsula’s thicket behind him, “Iree’s a yerk! Iree’s a yerk!”

It hurt like hell
but Sgt Steve Martel held his breath for a few moments. It always seemed like the wrong thing to do but after releasing it with a throbbing gasp he could at least breathe again. It’s not fun having the wind knocked out of you under the best conditions; these were not the best of conditions.

Where’s that damn LED light?
He winced from the flash of new pain as he tried to twist around while groping across the bottom of the narrow tunnel. Small particles of dirt fell around his head and shoulders as they scraped the sides. Still, it wasn’t as much debris as the shower of rocks and pebbles raining down from the tunnel entrance behind him where the three tyrannosaurs were frantically digging like overgrown terriers after a rat. Unfortunately, he was the rat they were after and they expected to have him soon.

His left leg hurt, it didn’t feel broken. The absolute blackness of this damp hole in the ground was getting to him. He couldn’t hope to push ahead without the light. He had clearly seen the strong claws and sharp teeth of the homeowner when he first squeezed into this ready-made grave and it certainly hadn’t laid out the welcome mat. He had also noticed the sharp bend of a natural trap in the tunnel ahead and he knew the homeowner would be waiting for him there.

Shafts of pain shot through sore fingers as he groped through the loose soil.
The light has to be here, right in front.
His hand began shaking uncontrollably,
All right now, Martel. You’re gonna get out of this. Just calm down and …

A loud scraping interrupted his thought as the ground shifted, covering him to his waist. Cold, mind numbing panic rose inside but he bludgeoned it back down and tried to concentrate on finding his light. Frantically, he scratched through the loose dirt on the tunnel floor as a sinister, cartoon-like vision raced though his mind. He pictured the next swing of the tyrannosaur’s massive foot as it scrapped across the entrance of the hole in which he had taken refuge. He could see the forty-foot dinosaur gingerly reaching down, grabbing the boot and pulling ….
Stop it, Martel. Think of what you have to do. All I need is that goddamn little LED light.

Stiff fingers closed around a hard, metal cylinder and a shaft of artificial light flooded the tunnel.
There you are you little bugger.
He shook the cylinder a few times to knock dirt from the lens before putting the back of the case into his mouth.

Martel stretched out, dragging himself deeper into the ground through a hole barely wide enough for his shoulders. The tunnel leveled off and then began to rise before bending out of sight. Cautiously, he poked his head around the bend and saw a feathered tail whip around the next corner of the passageway ahead.
Thank God for this little light.

The marine pulled himself up and over the shelf on which the small dinosaur had been sitting. A small pit lay ahead, between him and the tunnel taken by the little dinosaur. Martel promptly slid head first into the pit, once again dropping his light. The sergeant twisted to pick up the LED and looked around. The tunnel opened, at least it was enough for him to get up off his stomach. Martel winced from the pain but he could get up on all four’s now. Ignoring the pain, Martel twisted back and listened. The tyrannosaurs at the tunnel entrance hadn’t given up but he needed to lay here just for a minute and take a breather.

Martel tried to spit some of the dirt out of his dry mouth
.
He groaned quietly as his leg reminded him of its injury. He then got up and once again started down the hole on sore hands and knees towards some unknown destination. Any destination as long as it was away from those monsters behind him.

The passage went on forever before opening into a small chamber filled with soft dry grass. He paused to stretch and shake some of the dirt and small stones from his hair. The chamber was almost large enough for him to sit up. One corner contained an unbelievable amount of shite,
Guess the homeowner never heard of personal hygiene. God, it stinks like ammonia.

As he pushed on, the sounds of digging behind him faded
… and the good news is, I haven’t seen the homeowner and therefore, I can still hope for another way out.
Then his heart sank as he noticed the tunnel ahead wasn’t sloping up to the surface. It was leading him down deeper into the earth.

He crawled on sore knees and hands until the narrow passage opened into another chamber, a small den that contained two possible exits. The imagination plays with a man in situations like this and Martel knew it. If he listened closely, he swore he could hear something crawling through the passage behind him. How could it be? There had been no other tunnel splits. He listened a little longer. Yes, there it was again. The thought of crawling in this tight tunnel with something coming up his backside frightened the marine as few things did.

Time to burn a few more bridges
, the sergeant thought as he twisted around to lie on his back and lift his legs. Martel kicked hard against the soft ground of the tunnel’s roof. The ground broke and then collapsed, nearly covering him in the process. He gagged and once again the LED light flew from his grasp.

Opening his other eye, the one he had consciously held closed to keep his night vision, he could see a faint glow rising from beneath the loose ground. Grabbing the light, Martel twisted to pull his right leg from under the newly fallen dirt. Ahead of him lay two tunnels, the question was, which one?

There wasn’t quite enough room here to lift his head but he could feel a difference in the air coming from the tunnel to the left. It felt damp, cool as if it ran to a water supply. Perhaps it was a way out or just maybe it ended in a flooded hole in the ground. He couldn’t even spit and the thought of water mesmerized the parched sergeant’s brain.

The burrow continued down, ever deeper into the ground. A moist coating soon grew slimy and covered the walls. “
I wonder
,” Martel thought as he turned the light off. The mold glowed orange in the darkness, enough that he could leave his LED off. Not for the first time, the sergeant wondered where this tunnel was leading and he prayed for a way out of it.

Doggedly the sergeant pushed onward, it grew so slippery he could slide down some sections. Mud and a slippery film covered his body but hope rose in his heart for he could hear the faint trickle of moving water up ahead. The sound grew, eventually filled the passageway with the soft music of an open stream peacefully moving over rocks. He was tired and thirsty. The sergeant’s mind registered the fact that echoes like this do not form within the confines of a tight earthen hole in the ground. Somewhere ahead of him was a cavern and perhaps a way out.

The gunk-covered passage gradually widened in an area where soft, muddy sand and sharp sticks covered the floor.
Was it debris from flooding?
He thought as he tried to shake some of the muck from his hands and scrape it off his face. Didn’t matter, he’d soon be out into the water channel and hopefully it was wider than this tunnel.

A snarling, rolling almost mammal-like sound carried from the narrow burrow behind him. He’d almost forgotten about it. His blockade hadn’t worked. It had dug through the barrier and he couldn’t turn to face it in the tight confines of this lousy hole in the ground. Martel had no choice, he had to push onward and hope for the best.

Free flowing waters were ahead; he prayed the tunnel would
w
iden enough to allow him to turn around and meet whatever was coming behind him. The slope had leveled off forcing him to crawl as fast as possible on all fours. Sticks, small rocks and sand dug into Martel’s bleeding knees as he scurried forward. Irrationally, he chided himself for the blood in the soil that would encourage whatever was behind him. Soon the trickle of the waters changed to a bold, rushing sound.

The passage ended abruptly, dropping Martel out onto a bed of smooth, very wet rocks. He broke out into a fit of coughing before he was able to turn his LED back on. Taking precious moments, he looked around. Ahead of the sergeant lay an open cavern with a low roof barely four-feet high. A black, swift moving stream flowed through it and off into the darkness extending downstream further than his light could penetrate.

The marine pulled back to the side, away from the tunnel aperture and pressed back against the slime-covered wall of the cave. He could hear something snuffling and grunting with the effort of crawling through the last sections of the passage.

A broad, fur-covered head popped out of the hole and immediately turned towards the light. It opened a mouth filled with the sharp white teeth of a carnivore as it screamed a challenge and charged. Martel took quick aim. The single discharge blinded him but the shot flew true to hit the bear-like beast in the chest, killing it instantly.

After a few moments, Martel swung over and stretched out, cautiously prodding it with his boot. It was definitely dead but his mind now focused on a fearful suspicion. Setting down his rifle, he had to use both arms to pull the animal from the tunnel so he could roll it onto its back. Yeah, no question about it, she definitely had mammalian glands. Looked kinda like a bear but not any he had ever seen. No question though, it was a mammal.

A terrible fear swelled within him, was it an ancestor of the human race? Regret and wonder flooded his tired brain, Guess that butterfly shit isn’t true. After all, I’m still here. If I killed the key to the evolution of humanity, wouldn’t I be gone right now? How did it even manage to get into this tunnel anyway? I didn’t see any other paths.

The sergeant resumed his examination of the cavern. There had to be a way out. Martel grabbed his Pulsar and shuffled down to the edge of the flowing waters. He knew the bed of the underground river would be too slippery to walk on so he tried to keep to the side of its channel.

The cavern and its underground river went on and on. Martel eventually lost track of time. One thing, he was no longer thirsty and now, for the first time since arriving on this planet, he was feeling chilled. He wondered how long his LED would hold out. He checked it, the fuel cell said it was good.

The cavern roof began to drop but the waters continued, pushing into a channel that was barely high enough for the swirling liquid. Martel sighed, this was the end of his easy passage. He listened for a minute. There was no clue of what lay ahead. He’d have to make a choice. He could retrace his route back to the split or get into the stream and continue onward. Maybe the three big dinosaurs had given up by now.

There’s no way I’m headin’ back into that tight, dirty hole in the ground,
Martel thought as he stuffed a piece of handkerchief down the muzzle of his Pulsar and carefully slid into the rapid flowing water. The waters were bone chilling. The cold hit him like a steel mallet, cramping his joints into painful immobility while snatching the breath from his lungs. Sheer willpower pushed him onward, eventually the marine’s body began to respond. He could breathe again but the slippery footing threatened to drag him down into the waters.

Pain turned to a numbed stiffness as he pushed onward ever aware that with each step forward, the water level continued to rise. He’d have to hold his breath. Martel ducked beneath the frigid waters, pushing with numb feet that couldn’t feel the rocks beneath them. Onward he shuffled through the blackness until his lungs were about to burst. He said a short prayer and lifted his face above the waters. It didn’t hit rock. The water had drawn down from the cavern roof and, if he tilted his head, he could gulp in great swaths of air. He didn’t notice its freshness; it was enough that he could free the pain in his lungs.

Martel stumbled forward, half carried by the rushing current and sustained by convulsive gulps of air until the cavern opened into a chamber whose walls sparkled with the light of day. The channel widened and he dragged himself over to a dry edge.

The sergeant’s heart soared as he looked about. A roaring sound filled the cavern, echoing off rocky walls. Lights danced across the walls as the passing waters refracted the sun’s rays entering from an open hole. Then it registered on his brain. Martel stared dumbfounded at a brightly lit curtain of light made by the swiftly falling water. He had never seen anything like it. Ahead of him, the underground river’s flow merged with the violent turbulence of falling water just the other side of the opening. The river actually flowed back out into the world through the backside of a waterfall. The breach in the rock appeared to be the only way out of this rocky chamber and there was only one way he would know for sure.

Martel took a few deep breaths, shouldered his rifle and felt a shiver rack through his body as he carefully slid back into the freezing waters. The pain in his joints seemed worse as the force of the flow pulled his sore body onward. He dug pain-wracked fingers into the bottom, clutching at the rocks as the current pulled him onward. He had to approach the edge slowly or the waters would carry him into the joining currents and over the rim of the flow. The wall of water ahead moved as though alive as it swept across the mouth of the channel. The world was just a few feet away but the water’s passage was so violent, how could he push through it? Where in hell would he end up?

Carefully he slid over to the edge of the waterfall’s opening with the river behind him pushing, ever urging him out over the edge. Swinging his feet around, the sergeant braced them against the slippery rocks. He was barely able to keep from being swept out of the tunnel as he dug bloody fingertips into the stones and slowly slid the side of his swollen face along the wall of cold, wet rocks until he could gaze out the opening.