Leviathan (25 page)

The battle-ax was almost torn from his hands as the fan wrenched the handle to the side and Thor shouted, holding a tight grip and driving the handle in farther, at an angle, up and through the mesh on the far side of the spinning blades. The fan engine screamed to spin the blades, and Thor released one hand from the ax handle. Shouting, he brought his left hand back and slammed it against the fan motor, smashing the heel of his palm on the motor, but it didn't move and the engine strained to spin the blades.

Grimacing in pain, Thor could smell the engine overheating, pulling with incredible force against the ax handle. The ax handle
was moving inexorably through the aluminum mesh, tearing, shredding, surrendering to the power of the engine.

Thor saw what would happen if the ax handle came loose from the far side; the double-sided bla
de on his side would spin uncontrollably in the confined space of the shaft to slice him into pieces. He cursed in rage, hitting the engine motor savagely with his open hand, driving forward, all his weight into the vicious blow.

It did not move.

Again and again he pounded, howling, pushing on the frame. He brought his hand back even farther, seeing the bloody black smear on the engine frame, and he struck it again and again, exhausted now, sweating and unable to breathe in the dank air but still it did not give and with a bellowing roar Thor saw a red rage and imagined his death here in this infernal shaft and he struck the fan to break his bones or shatter the bolts and the top of the foundation tore away, the fan frame leaning out.

Thor felt no relief, allowed no respite. Caught in his rage he hit it again, numb to the pain, and again, driving the frame out. Suddenly the ax shuddered in the iron grip of his right hand, almost tearing loose, the fan blades beginning to break free. Then Thor saw a narrow white line coming from the torn section of wall, snaking into the engine and with a hated curse he reached out, fiercely tearing the wire from the motor.

The fan engine died but Thor was in a black berserk rage and he hit the fan again with his palm, grasping it solidly as his hand smashed against it. He pushed with all the strength of his arm and shoulder, roaring and pushing harder still with his scrambling legs to drive it out and the frame tore cleanly out of the concrete wall, falling down and away to carry the aluminum mesh with it in a long, continuous crash.

Snarling at the pain in his hand, Thor tossed the battle-ax ahead of him and crawled quickly out of the shaft grasping the edge as he passed it to lower himself to the ground.

Panting, still angry from the rage required for the effort, Thor reached down and immediately hefted the ax again, to stand. When he turned toward the cavern he was met by the sight of a lone man, a young man. It was apparently one of the scientists.

Wide-eyed, hands clasped, the man stared.

He was the cavern's only occupant.

Towering eight feet above the cavern floor, Thor steadily approached the man. Thor's ice-green eyes blazed with pain and his red hair and beard dripped with dark sweat. His white bearskin was blackened by the crawl through the shaft and blood fell heavily from his left hand as he held the gigantic battle-ax in the other.

Finally he stood over the man, frowning down.

The young man trembled before Thor's colossal, mythic aspect. And Thor knew that the paling scientist would have fled if he could have only found the strength.

“Who are you?” the young man whispered.

Thor gazed down, smiled.

“No one you should fear.”

* * *

“Oh no,” whispered Chesterton, backing up.

“
Don't move!” Frank said tensely.

Blinking sweat, Connor froze in place. He felt his face cold and wet, the skin on his back crawling. Not just because the beast stood before them. It was because the growl that came from the depths of the darkness was more than bestial; it was supernatural
and hateful.

The growl continued a long moment before it descended to a horrible, trembling threat. And then with a quickness that made Connor almost leap back, Frank took a solid step forward, boldly making a stand in the middle of the tunnel.

The scientist stared dead center at the ominous shadow.

Connor watched
in absolute horror as Frank raised clenched fists to his sides, staring at Leviathan with no aspect of fear whatsoever. The scientist held the defiant, weaponless position as if he would never move, as if he could kill the beast with a glance. Connor was shocked almost as much by the suicidal stand as the beast crouching in the darkness less than three hundred feet away.

Leviathan's growl, angry and suspicious, rumbled from the blackened section of the passag
eway. Then Connor stiffened his trembling knees and somehow managed to speak: “Frank!
What are you
doing
!”

The scientist
’s reply was shockingly loud.

“
It doesn't understand!” he shouted.

Chesterton jumped.

“Frank!” the colonel hissed through clenched teeth. “Are you insane! It will
kill you
!”

“
It doesn't understand!” Frank yelled and took a very small step forward. “It doesn't understand how one man would come against it without a weapon! It suspects a trap! That's how it's programmed to think!”

Frank held his fists at his sides, glaring utterly without fear. Then in a challenging movement that caused Connor to curse out loud
the scientist pointed dramatically at the floor.

With a volcanic growl Leviathan retreated a
single step.

“
God in Heaven help us,” Chesterton whispered, closing his eyes. His sweating fist trembled on the .45.

“
Back up!” Frank yelled. “Connor, set that trap! Fast!”

Connor and Chesterton stepped back without thinking. But even as they moved, the creature responded, clearly understanding retreat. It leaped forward from the darkness, covering a hundred feet with a bound. Growling more angrily, Leviathan crouched long and low in the tunnel, tail sweeping left and right, balancing the gigantic dragon form.

A green-black horror in the full light, the Dragon lowered its massive reptilian head toward Frank and roared, causing a shock wave that reverberated along the tunnel, quaking the walls.

Chalky white dust fell from the ceiling, and overhead lights trembled, swinging. But Frank continued to glare, defiant and challenging, pointing theatrically to the floor. He held an aspect that promised sure and swift doom if Leviathan took another step forward.

Leviathan growled gutturally, head tilting. Its vengeful eyes glowed brighter, like light. Connor was mesmerized by the standoff but somehow managed to take another cautious step until he had backed around the tunnel door.

Shocked, he looked down to see the steel walkway near his feet, and he suddenly remembered. He was actually startled to find the 100,000-volt line still in his fist. A panicked breath escaped him. He had completely forgotten the line during the standoff, and
he was lucky that he hadn't grounded it to himself by touching the bare copper ending. Chesterton backed around the corner, lifting a trembling hand to his face.

“
He can't hold it there,” Chesterton whispered. “In another second it's going to figure out that he’s bluffing.”

Connor didn't bother to reply.

Angrily scattering cold sweat from his eyes, he bent to study the walkway. He saw that the soldiers had done a good job. They had separated a small section right in front of the vault, and the middle section appeared to be completely insulated from the ground with thick sheets of plywood, two-by-fours, and fiberglass paneling. But still, Connor wasn't sure whether it was enough insulation. He worried that the current would still be able to leap through the wood to ground out without the beast stepping on it. This entire stunt was wildly dangerous, he knew, but it was all he had.

Connor searched, saw a clear path of escape to the right, far from the middle section of the walkway. He saw that the rest of the platoon was working feverishly at the far door, attempting to rewire it as Connor had taught them. They hadn't yet begun to raise the portal, but Connor knew he couldn't wait for that. He was certain that Frank couldn't hold the beast much longer.

Breathing deeply, Connor leaned his head cautiously around the corner to see with alarm that the creature had taken another step forward. And yet somehow, perhaps still shaken by Frank's ultimately defiant stand, it remained uncertain whether to attack. It lowered its head close to the floor, searching, studying even as it never took its eyes off Frank, who still stood in the center of the passage.

“
Frank!” Connor hissed. “Come on!”

“
It's going to charge when I move!” the scientist yelled.

“
All right,” Connor said quietly. “When you come through this door, make a sharp right. Run as fast as you can and do not touch the steel walkway! Do you understand?”

Frank shifted his weight.
“Yes.”

Connor looked at Chesterton.
“You ready?”

“
I've
been
ready.”

“
All right, Frank!” Connor yelled. “Run!”

Almost immediately Frank rounded the portal but darkness was following fast
with a terrifying roar and thunderous strides. Connor didn't even look back as Frank passed him and then he threw the cable out, the copper hitting the walkway with a spark to glow a split second before melding solidly to the metal. Then Connor was also running, three steps behind the scientist and he felt rather than saw the monstrosity that paused in the doorway, casually watching their frantic retreat.

Connor cast a wild glance back to see Leviathan's jaws
three feet behind him, the dragon-head curiously stretched around the corner on a long, green-black neck no more than six feet above the cavern floor. And fear gave way to something else as Connor saw it eye to eye.

Leviathan stared into him—a scaly black visage with dark eyes glaring hatefully. Its snakelike head was led by a sharp black horn that rose from its nose like a rhinoceros. Its face was hideously wedged, a serpent's head, a demon's head with white-fanged jaws reaching back behind glowing eyes to unhinge deeply and more deeply.

Gaping.

Smoldering.

Laughing.

* * *

Chapter 19

Connor heard someone screaming.

Realized it was him.

He didn't take time to think about it.

Running full-out
Connor rounded the far end of the steel paneling, so amazed that he wasn’t dead that he didn’t even feel the amazement. As he cleared the edge of the walkway he spun back to face the beast, staring at the gigantic bulk of the Dragon as it poised cautiously in the doorway of the cavern.

Amazingly, Leviathan had not moved, was watching their retreat with casual unconcern. It simply stared at them, not even bothering to charge. But Connor knew that, with its phenomenal speed, Leviathan was confident that it could close the gap between them in the blink of an eye.

They were easy prey.

The creature half-raised its head, staring at the soldiers on the other side of the chamber working with frantic shouts at the vault. They labored over the hydraulic pump to raise the door a few feet. Leviathan seemed to be contemplating which group to kill first.

Fairly flying across the chamber, Connor weaved a path between white stalagmites with a pattern that would have won him a first string place at halfback on any NFL team in America.

“
Frank!” he shouted as he pulled alongside scientist. “What's it doing!”

“
I-don’t-know-I’m-running
!”

Connor cast a glance to the exit vault. It was raised two feet above the floor. It was enough. But the three of them were still over fifty yards from the portal, and maybe a hundred yards from Leviathan.

As they had almost reached the vault Connor and Frank spun together, staring back without any breath left within them. Then, somehow, Connor whispered, “What's that thing going to do if we try for the door?”

Without hesitation Frank replied.
“It'll come after us
really fast
!” He took some quick breaths. “But it won't use flame because it's decided that there's not a trap! It's going to conserve the gel for an actual threat like another tank or something like that.”

Connor took another step back, eyes locked on the beast. Leviathan instantly shifted, head swinging monstrously toward him. The tail swept around, curling to the side, flicking. Then it growled
and took a single, cautious step into the cavern.

Glancing down nervously, Connor saw that one of the Dragon's clawed hind
feet was placed close beside the steel. “Get ready,” he whispered, taking a hard breath. “I don't know what's going to happen when it hits that thing. This might kill all of us.”

Obviously t
ired of the game, Chesterton raised his .45.

“
Maybe it needs a little incentive.”

Instantly Leviathan reacted, roaring wildly as Chesterton fired, and then the platoon had followed his lead, five rifles blazing at the exit. Connor heard roaring and saw Leviathan's huge
hind foot rising, settling toward the steel and he raised his forearm across his face as –

WHITE
!

A volcanic white bolt of deafening light struck like lightning spiraling upward through the beast from one leg and down the other to ground into the floor with an eruption that blasted steel plating, rock, and equi
pment across the entire expanse of the cavern.

Connor didn't know he'd been knocked against the wall until he felt himself on the ground, a heat wave roaring over him. The shock that hit him felt like a superheated wind
.

A
ir shattered with a sonic boom.

Fire, fire ...

Blinded and stunned, Connor rolled, covering his head as dust and rock ricocheted off the wall at his back. He was pelted by cave pearls as if he'd been shot. Somehow it registered to him that a narrow section of steel plating had spun over his head, wickedly slicing a chunk of limestone from the wall.

Dirt cascaded over him.

For a moment Connor felt as if he'd been thrown into an uncovered grave with a night sky thundering over him, electric with wrath, sealing his doom. He didn't know what had happened to Leviathan, could hear nothing but his own painful moaning, electric air surging.

The static atmosphere vibrated with the power that had been unleashed, and instantly the entire chamber was forty degrees hotter than it had been. It was something that had happened so quickly there was never a palpable change; it was simply there, white-hot air in the white light. Red emergency lights filled the cavern.

Unable to comprehend anything but mind-numbing pain, Connor concentrated angrily. He glimpsed Chesterton lying beside him on the ground, jerking and twitching. Then he realized that Frank was lying almost on top of him. Weakly, Connor pushed the half-conscious scientist off to get a better look at the cavern, searching, to hear a vengeful...

Roaring ...

Connor focused and saw ...

Leviathan
was thrashing wildly, bellowing in rage and slashing at the air, at everything. It rolled uncontrollably in a dark, distant section of the cavern and Connor squinted, peering through the misty red haze. With effort his vision seemed to center and he understood that the power cable had blasted the six-ton Dragon almost 300-feet across the cavern, slamming it into a titanic limestone slope.

Wounded, Leviathan howled in agony, fighting the current as if it were still
being attacking by the electrical blast. And Connor stared, mesmerized, as it screamed and slashed spasmodically, unable to control itself. Fiendishly, again and again, it struck at everything that touched it – the steel, the wall, even the cavern floor itself, enraged and lost in rage, striking, striking ...

Steel and ventilation ducts were scattered by the rending
blows. Chunks of limestone were ripped from the slope by the diamond-hard claws. Calcite columns were shattered by the tail. In moments a cloud of dark red dust rose into the air, shrouding the beast, moving across the cavern like a death-fog.

Gasping for breath, Connor staggered up. Trying angrily to concentrate, he glanced down
and saw that Chesterton had ceased moving. Then there was a painful, moaning cry and Connor turned to see Frank rising to his feet. The scientist grimaced, holding his chest.

“
It's hurt!” he gasped, coughing, staring as the beast pounded hatefully against the cavern floor, striking savagely at everything that continued to touch it. “You actually hurt it!”

Connor clenched his teeth in pain, dizzy, and grabbed the scientist by the shoulder, pulling him across his body. It took him a second to find his voice because his throat was tight, constricted.
“Go for the door, Frank. We've got to get out of here.”

Frank staggered unsteadily past him. Then, feeling a strange numbness in his own body, Connor knelt. He placed a knee between Chesterton's thighs, barely noticing the razor sharp edges of the gypsum floor. He pulled on one of the colonel's arms, struggling to lift him into a fireman's carry. After a groaning moment of mean labor he succeeded, grimacing and rising unsteadily under Chesterton's surprising weight. But as he stood
, Connor turned, blinking sweat from his eyes, to glance at Leviathan.

Fear.

It had ceased twitching.

A tired, labored breath lifted its gigantic chest and a long foreleg snaked across its body, clutching the cavern floor. With a growl it
pulled itself over, the long tail whistling around to terrifically strike a stack of ventilation shafts. A low groan like a wounded man coming to angry and painful consciousness rumbled from the apocalyptic atmosphere.

No time.

Connor spun, moving as fast as his strength allowed, careful to avoid everything metal. He didn't know if any current still flowed from the lost power line but he took no chances. When he reached the exit vault, everyone else had already gone through. Afraid, irrationally, that they had panicked and left him behind, Connor shouted, lowering Chesterton to the ground. But instantly a half dozen hands reached back to pull the colonel through the door. Connor heard Barley bellowing at him to hurry.

Hearing a low growl, Connor whirled to see that Leviathan stood on its
hind feet, head rising on the long neck. It took an unsteady step forward, staring dead at Connor, and Connor saw that one of the beast's forelegs was somehow damaged – broken or dislocated.

Leviathan held the shattered appendage low but kept its other foreleg high like a praying mantis poised to strike. Its tail shifted quickly to steady its balance. Hate-filled green eyes narrowed in the gloom, focusing on Connor with an aspect of pure vengeance as if it understood that
he
was responsible for its pain.

Fangs separated in a shriek.

In a single breath Connor had fallen, rolling under the door so that he surprised even himself with the perfect agility of his move. When he came up on the other side the rest of the platoon was moving. Fast.

Faint and losing strength, Connor staggered after them. He was so soaked with sweat and grime that he no longer noticed it, but his clothes seemed heavier than they had ever been in his life. He didn't even know if he had been hurt but he didn't care. He could still move, and that was enough. He felt different, somehow, but he was too numbed by the concussion of the blast to have any real sensation. As he reached the end of the passageway, he saw that Frank had rewired the door. Apparently, Connor recognized dimly, nearly everyone had learned now how to
rewire the vault.

The surviving soldiers quickly worked the pump, raising the portal a few feet. But there was no pounding on the vault behind them, no attacks against the door leading from the Matrix. But no one asked any questions, made any sounds of relief.

Taking turns carrying Chesterton until the colonel finally regained an unsteady consciousness, they went on, raising each fire door no more than three feet above the ground to slide wearily beneath, always leaving the titanium portals raised.

In a silent, ghostly line of soldiers they went from one cavern to the next, on and on, leaving a white, grave
-like cloud of dust as they put as much distance as they could between themselves and the Dragon.

* * *

Beth heard a loud hissing, the sound of metal grating against metal, and she glanced up. Her eyes burned so badly that she had trouble focusing, but she saw a dust-covered group of soldiers crawling beneath a narrowly raised door. Then she was on her feet, staring, holding Jordan's hand.

Sleepy, the four-year-old rubbed an eye with the back of his hand.

A slender figure came under the door, blackened, smeared with white chalk. The sleeve of one arm was charred, the skin reddened as if from a severe sunburn. He stood, moving toward her.

“Connor!” she cried, running forward. Behind her Jordan was screaming, “Daddy! Daaaaaddy!”

Connor smiled as they
approached, reaching out. He embraced her, and one second later a small figure collided with their legs. Connor smiled, reaching down to lift Jordan from the ground. And from Jordan's joyous face, it was clear that now, yes, everything was all right. Whatever had been wrong was no more; it was all right, now, Daddy was here, was here.

Connor kissed him and Beth focused more on his face, feeling an immediate and alarming concern. She saw a frightening fatigue, a bone weariness that made his face skeletal beneath the burned skin. His hair was plastered back with sweat. His eyes were sunken
and ringed beneath with dark half-circles.

She gave him a compassionate look, and he returned it, shaking his head gently.
“No,” he whispered, holding Jordan tight in his arm. “We have to get out of here.”

Staggering, Chesterton was beside them. Beth was almost shocked at the colonel's ravaged aspect. A severe burn marked one
side of his face, the sleeve on his right arm was black and charred and his green fatigues were black with sweat. His usually austere, severe countenance was slack and weak. He placed a red-burned hand limply on Connor's shoulder, speaking in a soft voice.

“
We've got to meet,” he said quietly.

Connor turned his head.
“I know.”

“
I'm going to get some water,” Chesterton continued. “You need to get some, too. Dehydration is going to kill us even if that thing doesn't.” Without another word he turned, walking without strength toward the Housing Complex. Barley shadowed him, as if he were afraid the battle-beaten colonel wouldn't make the short journey.

Beth saw Adler, Tolvanos,
and Blake standing in the doorway of the complex. They were staring numbly, as if none of them were eager to approach Chesterton.

“
Are you all right?” Connor asked, touching her face.

She placed her hand over his.
“Yeah, I'm all right. I was just so worried. We didn't know.”

“
I know. We're just going to rest a moment and then we'll get out of here. We're too tired to go any farther right now. We'd never make it to the surface.”

“
I know.”

Jordan raised his head, staring at Connor with disturbingly intense seriousness. His eyes were wide.
“Is the monster dead?” he asked. Connor shot Beth a glance, but with a short shake of her head she closed her eyes: No, I couldn't prevent it.