Subterranean (28 page)

“Maybe we've just been lucky.”

A tumble of loose rock down a tunnel to their right caused them both to jump.

Ben scrunched up his nose as if he smelled something foul. “I don't trust luck any more than these caves.”

She capped her own canteen after sipping just enough to flush the rock dust from her mouth. “Let's go.”

Ben set a faster pace, his shoulder muscles knotted with tension, his gun tight in his hand.

This constant waiting was getting to her also. What the hell was stalking them? And why wasn't it attacking? Her stomach churned with hot acid. She almost wished their pursuers would pounce. At least then she could fight . . . do something instead of running in fear.

For the next hour, they traversed numerous tunnels, some heading up, some heading down, some with smooth floors, some tumbled with boulders, some illuminated with fungus, some black as pitch.

Ben held his silver compass in his free hand. “We're heading in the wrong direction. Away from the base.”

“What choice do we have?” Hunger and the twisting passages were making Ashley dizzy. She had been nibbling dry rations as they moved, but she needed a meal. She found herself dreaming of a cheeseburger with an extra-large order of fries. And, of course, a Coca-cola. This warmed spit in her canteen failed to even moisten her mouth.

She tripped over a rock, dulled reflexes causing her to stumble to her knees. She tried to push herself up, but then her legs protested, muscles tired and strained. She collapsed back down with a sigh.

Ben returned to her and crouched down. “We can't stop now.”

“I know,” she said heavily. “Just need a minute, that's all.”

He sat next to her, resting a hand on her knee, squeezing her thigh reassuringly. “We'll get out of here.”

“Will we?” she whispered. What if they didn't make it out of here? She thought of her son, ensconced in the security of Alpha Base, and hung her head. At least Jason was safe. If something happened to her . . .

She gritted her teeth. To hell with that type of thinking! She
would
see her son again. She pictured his silly grin when something surprised him, the way his hair had a stubborn cowlick, causing it to stick out behind one ear. She pushed Ben's hand off her knee and stood up. Even if it meant wrestling every damned predator in this hellhole, she would see her son again. “C'mon,” she said, offering her hand to help Ben stand. “We've got to find a way home.”

“Sounds bloody fine to me.” Ben grinned one of his wide smiles, every tooth showing, then set off down the passage.

She tramped after him, determined now, ready to run miles if necessary. But after only a hundred yards, Ben stopped. He held a hand up in the air, his ear cocked.

She remained silent, straining to hear. But she heard nothing unusual. “Ben . . .? What is it?”

“A breeze.” He pointed to a side tunnel.

She stepped next to him. Now that he mentioned it, she could feel a slight wafting from the passageway, raising a few stray strands of her black hair. “What does it mean?”

“I think . . . it's the end of this maze.”

“Then let's go.” She headed out, taking the lead this time.

As they progressed, the passage narrowed with sudden knife-sharp turns, the breeze becoming stronger and stronger. The fungus on the walls had thinned as they followed the turns; eventually they were forced to click on their hand lanterns and helmet lamps.

After almost a mile of trekking, Ben spat, “Bloody hell.”

“What?”

“We've yet to cross a single side passage in this chute. It would be easy to get pinned down in here. No escape routes.”

She frowned and continued. Great. One more thing to worry about. But they were committed, with only one way to go: straight ahead.

As she worked around the next tight bend in the corridor, the roof lowered. Crouching, she continued. The breeze had become a wind, blowing hair about her face, whipping it behind her as if pointing for them to turn back. The rushing air whistled in her ears.

Ben poked her from behind. “Did you hear that?”

She twisted around. “What?”

“They're behind us now—and they're coming fast.”

She turned around, her lips drawn into tight lines. She increased the pace, crouching and running into the wind. She turned the next corner, and the passageway ended just yards ahead. Wind blew from a wormhole opening at the end of the tunnel. The first they had seen since entering the maze.

She ran forward, praying that this tunnel would lead up, toward home. She knelt beside the opening and pointed her lantern. The sight forced a groan from between her lips. It not only led downward, but at a frighteningly steep slope, deeper into the heart of the continent.

Ben leaned beside her. He already had his sled out and was releasing the catch to expand it. “Better hurry, Ash. They're about a hundred yards behind us.”

She pointed at the wormhole sullenly. “It heads down. Pretty far too, I'd say.”

“We can't go back.” He helped her unstrap her sled. “I have the sneaking suspicion that we've been herded to this place.”

“What?” She unhooked the catch to expand her sled.

A scrabble of rock echoed from behind them.

“No time,” Ben said. He waved to the hole. “Ladies first.” He pointed his gun to their back trail.

Ashley glanced at the black tunnel behind them, then at Ben. She took a deep breath and shoved into the wormhole on her sled. The steepness of the slope quickly accelerated her plummet. She braked with the heels of her gloved hands and toes of her boots, but succeeded only in slowing her pace slightly.

She heard Ben enter the wormhole behind her, his wheels whisking toward her.

“Hell!” he called to her. “It's like a slide. Let's see those bastards catch us now!”

By now, her rate of descent was such that it burned her hands to brake, even through her climbing gloves. And as they flew farther down the tube, the fungus began appearing in patches on the walls.

“We're in a big corkscrew!” yelled Ben. “Can you feel the centrifugal force?”

She did. Her board kept climbing higher on the walls as their speed increased and the tunnel's curves tightened. To try to brake now was impossible. During their flying descent, the fungus had grown thicker and thicker, its glow almost blinding now. The mold also made the walls slick so even the tips of her boots dragging across the floor failed to offer any significant braking.

She hoped the tunnel would level out before ending. Give them a chance to slow down. At this speed, she'd hate to be spewed out of the tunnel right into a slumbering stalagmite. She watched the tunnel ahead, praying for an easing of the slope.

No such luck. The tunnel exit appeared around the next bend. No time to brake. No time to slow down. Only time to cover her head with her arms and cringe.

She shot out of the tunnel, blasting into the next cavern. Blinded for a moment by the bright light, she jolted and bounced across the slightly rugged floor. When her eyes adjusted, she saw herself barreling toward a solid wall of yellow vegetation. Closing her eyes, she slammed into the thick stalks of growth. Her collision tumbled her from her board, but the field cushioned her fall as she rolled for several yards.

Once stopped, she pushed to her knees. She was almost up when Ben tumbled into her with a wild yell. She fell in a tangle of arms and legs.

“Well, that was different,” Ben said, speaking to her left knee.

She untangled herself and stood up with a groan. Bruised everywhere, she glanced around as Ben stood up. The field of yellow vegetation, like wheat, stood chest-high and spread for miles across the rolling cavern floor. Miles! She craned her neck around. The cavern was monstrous, dwarfing even Alpha Cavern. Almost like the Grand Canyon—but with a lid. The walls stretched hundreds of stories high. The roof, far overhead, glowed with thick fungus, some patches glowing as bright as sunlight. She glanced across the smooth yellow fields that undulated across the wide plain, broken only by tiny groves of spindly trees, like islands in a sea.

“I don't think we're in Kansas anymore,” Ashley said, with her mouth hanging open.

A rustle of vegetation drew her attention from the panorama around them. From several yards away, something was working through the field toward them, maneuvering around clusters of trees. Too low to be seen except for the wake of bending stalks, like a shark through water.

She glanced at Ben as she backed away. He pointed off to the left. Two more wakes arrowed toward them. She studied the field more closely, now noticing three other trails moving in their direction. Six in all.

She backed away, pulling Ben's sleeve. He didn't resist.

Almost tripping, she stepped from the field onto bare rock and stumbled back until she stood by the wormhole opening. Their sleds were lost somewhere in the field. Reaching for her pistol, her hand touched the empty holster. Damn, the gun must have been knocked away by her fall.

She turned to Ben. Thankfully, he had his pistol already gripped in his right hand.

“I lost mine,” she said between tight lips.

“That's all right. I lost my extra clips. And I've got only three shots left on this clip.”

She stared at the six trails inching slowly toward them. Not good. The nearest one was only ten yards away now. It had stopped and held its position. Waiting. Soon the others had drawn even with it.

“The wormhole?” she asked.

“Sounds good to me. Go on in.”

Their words seemed to jar the stalkers in the field. They rushed with lightning speed. With their sudden movement, Ashley froze crouched by the wormhole, like a deer in headlights. The six creatures burst through the wall of vegetation, then stopped in unison, hunkering on all fours, haunches raised, ready to spring, tails slashing.

They looked like a cross between a wolf and a lion. Amber-furred, a cowl of thick mane around their necks, huge eyes, slitted pupils, long jaws bristling with fierce teeth. A steady growl arose from the pack.

“Freeze,” Ben whispered. “No sudden moves.”

She wasn't about to move, still frozen in her crouch, her eyes glued to the six sets of unblinking eyes that stared at her. And she was willing to stay that way for as long as it took, until something shot from the wormhole and grabbed her ankle. A high-pitched scream burst from her throat.

“T
RY THE PADDLES
!” B
LAKELY CALLED ABOVE THE ROAR
of the approaching falls. He gave one final pull on the engine's starter cord. It sputtered and died. He watched as the current dragged the boat toward the precipice. It was impossible to determine from here how high the waterfall dropped. But the noise! The crescendo of rumbling water and rock suggested a deadly fall. He grabbed his paddle and scrambled to the side of the boat. He noticed Jason digging with his paddle on the other side.

“Harder, Jason, harder!” he called to the boy as he added his strength to fight the current, his shoulders burning with exertion.

“I'm trying! It's not working! We're not slowing down!”

Blakely darted a look behind them. The stern of the boat was at the edge of the falls. He watched as the current pushed the boat over the edge. “Grab on! Tight!” he hollered, and grabbed the strap handles on the pontoons while Jason did the same.

The boat seemed to hover at the edge of the waterfall, teetering. Blakely held his breath as the boat flipped over the edge. For a moment, walls of water encircled the boat as it plummeted. He watched the boat try to tumble on top of him. He opened his mouth to yell when the boat slammed into the bottom of the waterfall, both of them pressed to the floor of the boat, sprays of water flaring in jets around them. Luckily, they hadn't flipped.

Blakely raised his head. The waterfall was only about fifteen feet high. “I can't believe it. We—”

The boat tipped over a second waterfall. Blakely almost lost his grip in his surprise as the boat slipped over the edge, crashing downward. Even above the noise of the thundering water, the sound of a ripping pontoon was terrifyingly clear. Damn it! The boat smacked into the bottom of the falls and rapidly filled with water, the remaining trapped air in the damaged float barely keeping it above water.

He pulled Jason away from the sinking side so the boy could grip the intact pontoon's straps.

Jason stared back behind his shoulder. “Here comes another one!”

Before he could even glance behind to confirm the boy's panicked statement, the boat twisted over the edge of another fall. The sinking pontoon, acting like a drag, spun the boat. The uneven motion tumbled the boat over the falls, capsizing it into the surging water.

Just before Blakely plunged beneath the water, he saw Jason fly from the boat, his hands still reaching to regain his hold as he was launched from his seat. Then salty water surged around Blakely, swirling up his nose, triggering a fit of coughing, which only emptied his lungs of life-giving air. He clamped his mouth closed, his chest screaming in protest. He fought the current to free himself of the foundering boat. With a final push off the intact pontoon, he shoved himself away and into clear water. With the aid of his life jacket, he popped to the surface of the roiling waves.

Gasping air, he searched the waters. Before him crashed the series of three cataracts down which they had fallen. He twisted to see if any new falls threatened as the current pulled him away from the others. Luckily, that was the last of them. They had reached the bottom of the deep cavern. The current pushed him into a pond-sized eddy, where the waters swirled torpidly.

Treading water, he searched around him. The cavern glowed with wide patches of phosphorescent fungi. In the faint light, he spotted an orange object bobbing near the far shore. Jason. Blakely kicked vigorously, his boots heavy with water. Jason did not seem to be moving, just drifting in the eddy. The current threatened to pull the boy from the shoreline and back into the main flow.