David Golemon - Event

The heat and humidity hit her immediately as her light searched for the area where the hole became a tunnel. She came to a stop with her partner on the opposite side and scanned the area with her helmet light. Then she snapped it off and lowered her night-vision goggles and the world became a greenish hue. She nodded and they continued the final few feet to the floor, landing softly and pulling the ropes from their rappelling rings. They both lowered to an assault crouch as they scanned the emptiness of the tunnel ahead of them. Sarah raised her goggles and turned her helmet light on and off twice, signaling it was safe for the next two to finish the drop and enter the hole. Sarah moved to the mouth of the tunnel as the rest of the team came down in twos. Sarah raised her XM8 and stepped into the blackness.

She moved twenty feet into the darkness before holding her hand up in a stop gesture. She removed her glove as the team assembled behind her and felt the wall. It was sticky, not to the point it made her fingers stick together, but it felt moist and tacky. The tunnel had a musky odor, like a lot of caves that host large bat populations, and some ammonia smell, but the humidity was the worst aspect thus far. Sarah replaced her glove and started forward.

Her team had only gone two hundred yards into the increasingly deepening tunnel when a Ranger, a young sergeant, started talking loudly and shaking his head. He slid down one of the shining walls, losing his weapon and placing his hands over his face, knocking his night-vision goggles from it.

Sarah turned and made her way back. The man was now screaming.

"What in the hell is going on?" she asked as she knelt before the young soldier.

"I gottta get outta here, the walls are closing in on me, I can't stand it!" he screamed.

Sarah reached out and grabbed his right arm and shook it. "Calm down, calm down," she said as she reached out and took his oxygen tank and unclipped the plastic mask and quickly placed it over his mouth. "Breathe, troop, breathe, easy, easy."

The sergeant started taking deep breaths, his eyes closing as he finally started calming.

"Anyone else?" she said loudly. "Come on, you're no good to us if you're going to freak out, so is anyone else claustrophobic?" she said, looking around.

The sergeant removed the oxygen mask and looked at Sarah with pleading eyes. "Sorry, sorry, I need someone to take me back," he said as he slammed the mask back over his mouth.

"I'm the one who's sorry, Sergeant, but I'm not going to spare a man walking you out of here. You get back the best way you can. The rest of you, let's go."

With that, the sergeant's eyes widened as Sarah abruptly turned and went back to the head of her team. The other Rangers and two Delta men didn't look back, but joined their team leader. The young sergeant scrambled to his feet and started back to the tunnel opening.

Sarah shook her head as she once again started forward into the dark and humidity of the tunnel. If the truth be known, she wanted nothing more than to follow the kid out of there.

As Collins hit the bottom of the hole, he was hit immediately by the heat. Everett landed easily on the opposite side. This tunnel was far smaller than the one Sarah was currently struggling in. It must be one of the offspring holes. They had to bend slightly to keep from scraping their heads on the rounded ceiling. Jack turned his night vision on and saw the small, sparkling elements of sand and dirt that made up the compressed walls. They were smooth and warm to the touch. Everett looked his way and shook his head.

"Goddamn, Jack, but it's blacker than a well digger's ass down there," he said as he brought his XM8 up, thinking it was too light to do any good, armor-piercing rounds or not.

Collins watched as the tunnel sloped down into nothingness. He looked at the ground and saw large marks gouged into the earth. He reached down and saw they were scrapes made by the passing of the animal. He was looking at what were claw marks. He shook his head and moved forward so Mendenhall, Ryan, and the rest of his team could crowd in. Then Everett stepped aside and allowed a master sergeant from Delta to take the lead. The Delta sergeant went forward, held his hand up, then slowly lowered it, indicating that they should follow.

Before long the team halted and Jack was asked to come forward. As he did, he nodded for Everett to follow. The Delta point man was kneeling and examining something on the floor of the tunnel. Jack looked down and immediately knew he was looking at an arm. It was severed at midfore-arm and had a watch that was still ticking off the seconds. As he looked up the tunnel, he could see a darker hue from his glasses as they were now able to follow the blood trail left by the animal and whatever victim the arm belonged to.

Jack nodded for the team to move on. The coppery odor of blood was becoming more apparent the deeper into the tunnel they progressed, but in their minds it had become even stronger with the finding of the arm. Jack stayed behind with Mendenhall for a moment and indicated he should go ahead and take a reading on his VDF. The sergeant shouldered his weapon, raised his goggles, and removed the steel probe from its clip on the box and slowly pushed the spearlike instrument into the compacted earth. He removed his hand and looked at the lit gauge. One of the needles pointed west, toward the center of town, while the other needle picked up minute vibrations coming from underground, which they could only assume were the animals as they dug.

"Looks like we're headed in the right direction, Major," Mendenhall said.

"Keep that thing on and check it every sixty feet or so, it'll make me feel better," Jack said as he patted Mendenhall on the shoulder.

Mendenhall quickly pulled the probe from the wall and decided to just let it dangle by its cord for quicker reach. Then he turned and hurried after the major, deciding the one with the VDF box should be in the middle of the team.

Group geologist Steve Hanson, Sarah's friend, led his team of fifteen soldiers through one of the small holes. They had found nothing significant since coming into this underground hell. He had called a stop at a junction where their smaller tunnel joined one that was far larger. Unlike any of the intersecting tunnels before, Steve investigated and found that the musky odor they had noticed in all the other small excavations had changed significantly. This stench was far sharper and made him wince. He placed his mask over his mouth and took three deep breaths and headed back to his men. Jackie Sanchez, an Event Group army sergeant, raised her night-vision goggles and asked if he was alright.

"Something's different here, you getting that smell?"

"Just what I'm getting off of you, that's bad," she said.

"That tunnel is far different than what we've seen. Any luck with the radio?"

"Nothing but intermittent chatter. "Other teams, I think, trying to get Site One."

"Doc, I'm picking up something here," a Ranger spec five said. He had his VDF probe stuck in the wall to his left. "Not strong, but it's steady, seems close, but can't say for sure."

The rest of Hanson's team started looking around. There were three holes besides the large one that Hanson had just investigated, plus the one they occupied, and one more that seemed too small for one of the animals. The Ranger removed the probe and stepped to the smaller hole that was right in the middle of the team. He placed it into the loose earth that had been pushed out into the larger tunnel. The gauge moved minutely and held steady. The red indicator light came on for the first time and stayed on.

"We definitely have something," he said, replacing the probe.

"Go to the end of the line and make sure we don't have something coming in behind us," Hanson said, as he brought his XM8 around and kept it pointed at the larger hole ahead.