David Gilman - The Devil's breath

The green light weakened to a barely luminous glow. The threshing calmed, though it still continued, and the hum subsided. The whole place suddenly became still. The whooshing tide no longer slapped the tunnel’s walls and the river became as fearsome as an English canal on a beautiful summer’s day.

Now he noticed for the first time how humid the cave was and he heard the splash of condensation dropping into the quiet water. He dare not stop and rest now. Not only was he afraid of falling asleep in that darkness, but he knew that unless he used this adrenaline to carry him onwards, sleep would seize up his muscles. He’d be as stiff as a board and would never manage to crawl through anything. No, the blades had to be confronted, because behind them must be a generator room and above that the fort … and in there, his father.

He was about to ease himself back into the pool when he sensed a movement in the water. Barely a ripple at first, then it became obvious. Like the effect of a stone being tossed into a pond, this undulation signaled something in the water. Something pushing the water ahead of itself, and it was coming towards him.

His eyes strained, peering into the cave, following the curve of the small beach as far as he could, but he saw nothing. Then the faint light caught a movement. Something slithered. Like a giant white slug. And then another. The water ripples increased. Whatever the creatures were, they had sought refuge further back from the noise and turmoil of the channeled water and, now that everything had fallen quiet, they had returned from the blackness and the depths.

He stared as hard as he could, straining to see what the creatures were. Only when he heard a heavier splash of another giant white slug entering the water did he realize what was coming towards him.

Albino crocodiles. Blind, never having seen daylight, the offspring of ordinary crocodiles swept down here who-knew-when. They had survived and bred, their bodies adapting to their dark environment, gradually losing their sight and color, living on carcasses washed down the tunnel.

They didn’t need to see; they could smell meat and they could sense movement of a distressed animal.

And Max was both.

Koga froze in fear as Max fell into the bottomless mouth of the monster, but he did not run in panic. Instead, he gripped the edge of the boulder and hunched down as the roaring spume soared upwards and splattered him as it fell back. He imagined the bile from the devil’s belly would spew Max out; that he would lie on the sand, flapping like a fish out of water. But Max did not appear, and when the surging water subsided!Koga bravely ran to the edge of the devil’s mouth.

Gazing down, all he could see was the last of the white water slipping down the monster’s gullet. And then nothing. Desolation squeezed his chest as he sank to his knees. His fear of the monster was pushed away by his anger, an emotion he was unused to and uncertain of. “Max!” he screamed. But his voice was taken by that frightening place and tossed back and forth like a morsel until it too disappeared.

He picked out the place that Max had shown him-the entrance to the tunnel-but there was no sign that Max had survived. There was no miracle, no smiling face that peered back at him and said something about the explosion of water being scary, or a near miss, or anything. Please, Max, say anything-say you are there; say you have changed into that bird which grips the rocks and pecks at the insects or the snake that slithers from under the rock . But there was only silence. And although there was no body to show that Max had died, he accepted that his friend must surely be dead-taken beneath the ground and devoured while the monster lay in wait for other victims.

!Koga had seen hunters gored by gemsbok, or crushed and ripped apart by lions, but this emptiness he felt was a strange experience. Once the anger subsided and his mind cleared, he stood and gazed at the place where the boy from a distant country had died.!Koga had no power to bring him back from that place, nor could he jump into the gorge and fight the monster with bow and arrow, or knife, or his hands. He was helpless, and he had failed to protect Max.

The boy and his father had given their lives trying to help!Koga’s people, so now he would take the paper with the lines on it that told where others had died, and find the girl van Reenen. He should wait for nightfall, so he could travel fast without needing to seek cover, but the time for waiting was over. He would run all day through the searing heat and risk everything. This time he would not fail.

Turning his back on what he believed to be Max’s grave, he began to run steadily towards the shimmering horizon, making sure he never looked back.

Mr. Slye did not like Skeleton Rock, for it reminded him of the time he had spent in prison in Mongolia, where he had survived on yak fat soup, yak fat gruel and yak fat tea, in an underground cavern of a cell so huge it echoed even when he breathed. There were no yaks in Namibia, but, as he descended into the darkened bowels of this huge fort with its sheer slabs of rock, its cavernous rooms and the depths of its foundations, other unpleasant memories were aroused.

Like a tear down a cheek, the glass-paneled lift slid noiselessly as the supporting cable guided it down the rails in the rock face. A barely audible ping, and then a gentle, almost loving whisper from the automatic voice told him he was at the lowest level. “Basement. Hydroelectric unit to the left, seismic recording instruments straight ahead and torture cells to the right. Have a nice day.”

Shaka Chang had transformed this place with high-tech usability, but privately Mr. Slye thought that the woman with the butterfly voice was just a bit too … nice was the only word he could think of. Nice . An awful word. A bald word without energy. Boring. And irritating. Not very nice, he supposed.

He followed the row of lights in the floor, similar to those used on an aircraft to show the way to the escape hatches in the unlikely event of the aircraft experiencing any technical difficulties. Such as crashing. But there were no escape hatches down here. This was where Mr. Chang sent you when he wanted you one step away from death. A place where no one would ever find you, where you could be easily forgotten.

Slye gave an involuntary shudder as he went further along the corridor. The air-filtering system functioned only in selected areas down here, and he could taste the seeping smell of river water that lay pooling in the hydroelectric chamber, waiting for the next surge to sweep it away. He pressed his hand against a palm-recognition panel and a glass doorway opened, giving him access to the next corridor. Once again the woman’s gentle voice oozingly announced his arrival: “Mr. Lucius Slye has entered the controlled area.”

A white-coated man, whose legs were so short that the white coat almost covered his feet, stepped into the corridor and nervously stroked his beard as he waited for Mr. Slye to reach him. Mr. Slye’s daily visit irritated Professor Doctor Illya Zhernastyn. Despite his best efforts and despite his ongoing reports to Mr. Chang, it was always this shadow of a man who was sent to speak to him and assess his patient’s condition. Patient, not prisoner. How ridiculous words could be sometimes. He was a doctor and the man in his care was being tortured. Nothing physical-no blood, no violence-only drugs. But these drugs could be as punishing as any severe beating. Chemicals that would seep into the cells, find hidden pathways into the brain, and alter consciousness as they mined for the truth.

Zhernastyn had never forgiven himself for the mistake he’d made thirty years ago. He was then the brightest star in the Russian medical firmament, a doctor who had sold nano-cellular secrets. He betrayed his profession and his country, all for the love of a woman who turned out to be an American spy. Had it not been for Mr. Chang, the Russians would have put him in a meat grinder and fed him to the dogs. He regretfully owed Shaka Chang his life, a life Zhernastyn believed had yet to reach its full potential-so Chang was a conduit to his own ambitions. Zhernastyn knew the influence Mr. Slye held, so he was always polite. “Comrade Slye. Welcome.”