Tom Pawlik - Beckon

Vale’s eyes flicked to the three other men in the room, then back to Jack. “Do you have any clue what kind of secrets such an ancient culture might hold? And what we can learn from them?”

“Oh? Like offering human sacrifices?”

Vale leveled his gaze at Jack. “You say that with such vitriol and judgment. But is our modern, civilized society any better? How many innocent lives have we surface dwellers taken in the name of progress or security? Or just plain convenience?”

“So I assume you know about their bone pit.”

“I’ve never actually been that deep into the cave,” Vale said. “But I don’t presume to judge their religious practices.”

“ Religious? They’ve been practicing ritual human sacrifices for years. And I’m guessing you’ve either known about it or have been directly complicit in the act.”

Vale laughed and shook his head. “I don’t think you have a clue what’s going on here.”

“I think I’ve seen enough.”

Vale nodded to his men. “Excellent; then let’s see how much you know.”

Carson yanked Jack backward, and they followed Vale down a corridor off the main room. Browne and Henderson brought up the rear. They turned down a narrow side hall, where Vale led them through another door and descended a flight of stairs.

They arrived in a dimly lit basement, where Jack found himself in a narrow concrete-block corridor with three metal doors: one on each side of the hall and a third at the far end. Vale opened the door on the right and ushered Jack into a large room lined with cabinets and shelving units and lit by two rows of cold fluorescent lights. Situated throughout the room were several long tables, each one cluttered with a variety of laboratory equipment.

At the far end of the room was a pair of enormous glass terraria, five or six feet in length. Vale strode to the first terrarium and tapped on the glass. “Have you fed them yet today?”

Henderson cleared his throat. “Uh… no. I figured you might want to do that yourself.”

Vale waved Jack over for a better look, and after a sharp nudge from Carson, Jack complied. He could see that the bottoms of both tanks were covered with a layer of mud, pebbles, and small rocks. On one side of each tank was a large pile of leaves and sticks. Jack could see the leaves jittering as Vale tapped the glass.

“Bring me a rat, please.”

Henderson went over to one of the shelving units along the wall. It was packed with rows of wire cages. And each cage contained one or more of a variety of rodents: rats, mice, guinea pigs, and even a few rabbits.

He retrieved a white rat by the scruff of its neck and handed it to Vale. Vale flipped open a small plastic hatch in the cover and dropped the rat into the terrarium.

The rodent sat there for a moment, its whiskers twittering as it inspected its new surroundings.

Suddenly the leaves shook as something emerged from under the pile. Jack let out a yelp and jumped backward.

Vale grinned. “You’ve seen this before, yes?”

Jack’s throat was dry. “Yes.”

The armored arachnid was a miniature version of the monsters Jack had seen inside the caves. It was only six or eight inches across but had the same dark coloration on its top and a pale-gray underside. It reared back, raising its saber-like forelegs in the same menacing pose that Jack had seen before. Its two palps slapped together in rapid bursts, creating a soft but all-too-familiar clicking sound that sent chills down Jack’s spine. And while this spider was much smaller, it looked no less fierce under the brighter lights. A moment later three more had appeared from under the leaves.

Vale leaned close to the glass as the creatures pounced on the hapless rat, overwhelming it. Fangs punctured fur and skin. Claws dug deep into its flesh, twisting and yanking the limbs in various directions, and their tiny jaws tore off bits of tissue while the rat squealed and writhed. Jack grimaced as he watched the horrid spectacle.

Thankfully, the rat was dead within seconds, and the spiders began systematically dismembering its corpse.

No, Jack thought, it was hardly systematic. It was a frenzied, monstrous attack like he had seen in the caves. Vicious and chaotic. One of the spiders clutched a hind leg with its fangs and forelegs and spun its body to twist off the limb much like a crocodile would do to an antelope. The others tore into the carcass with their claws, gnawing flesh off bone. A flurry of blood and fur spattered the glass. Jack had never witnessed anything so brutal in his life.

He noticed Browne and even Carson kept their distance from the terraria.

But Vale seemed positively giddy and grinned at Jack. “The N’watu call them kiracs. It’s derived from their word for terror . Aptly named, wouldn’t you say?”

Henderson sounded less enthusiastic. “We believe they live in a colony structure with dozens or even hundreds of male hunters serving a single queen.”

Vale leaned close to the glass, pointing at the carnage. “See… the males—the warriors—they’ll eat anything. Bugs, birds, reptiles, mammals… even each other.”

Then he straightened up and moved to the second terrarium. “But the female, the queen… now, she’s more discriminating in her tastes. She’s far more… refined .” He tapped the glass.

Jack’s eyes widened at what he saw.

The queen kirac crept out from under the sticks and leaves, revealing her gnarled, armored bulk inch by inch. She was at least three times the size of the males and completely black with yellow spots dotting the top of her jagged shell. She moved slowly and deliberately… menacingly… clicking her palps in search of prey.

Vale motioned for Henderson to bring him another rodent. A guinea pig this time. Vale held it by the scruff of its neck outside the glass. The queen seemed to ignore it completely, though the guinea pig wriggled and twitched at the sight of the kirac, struggling to free itself from Vale’s grasp.

“See, the queen doesn’t eat flesh,” Vale said. “She only drinks the blood. But here’s the thing: it has to be a living victim.”

He lifted the lid and dropped the guinea pig into the cage. The queen turned, clicking her palps in short flurries. She seemed to locate her target quickly. The rodent scrambled away, instinctively backing up to the glass. Its nose and whiskers twitched furiously as it rose up against the glass in search of an exit.

The queen crept closer with slow, menacing strides. She first backed the guinea pig into the corner and then quickly moved in for the kill. The rodent jerked and struggled in a futile attempt to flee, but the queen clutched it with her massive forelegs. Jack could see the agitated animal growing increasingly desperate as the queen closed her legs around it, pulling it tightly into her embrace. It kicked against the rocks but couldn’t free itself from her bony grasp.

Vale had a look of pride as if watching his prize hunting dog corner a fox. “And she doesn’t poison it, either. She overpowers it, holds it tightly, and sucks out all of its blood.”

Jack saw the queen sink her long fangs into the throat of the guinea pig. The animal’s sides pulsed with each frantic breath but gradually slowed and within a minute had stopped altogether.

After another minute, the queen slowly loosened her grasp and moved off toward her lair, leaving the rodent’s corpse lying in the mud.

Henderson lifted the lid and picked up the limp guinea pig with a pair of tongs. Then he dropped it into the first terrarium, where the ravenous males dispatched the carcass with the same speed and ferocity as they had the rat.

Jack swallowed back his nausea. “So she lives off the blood?”

“It’s more than just blood. We think there’s something else.” Vale glanced at Henderson, who seemed to take his cue.