Marc Cerasini - AVP - Alien vs. Predator

Verheiden staggered around the room looking for a way out. Panic was taking hold, and the man was fast losing control. Verheiden paced around the tiny chamber like a trapped animal.

“What are those things? Did you see what they did to Bass and Stone? I hit that son of a bitch. Dead on. He didn’t stop. He didn’t slow down. He didn’t even flinch!”

His voice was echoing off the walls loud enough to drown out Connors’s yells from the adjacent chamber.

“Hey, Verheiden.”

Miller’s yell snapped the man back to reality. “What?”

“I’m no soldier, but I think you should calm down. We’re not dead yet.”

“Thanks, Professor,” Verheiden said, unimpressed.

“Actually, it’s Doctor. And you’re welcome.”

Verheiden rubbed his face with his callous hands. “We’re never going to get out of this place.”

“Don’t say that.”

Verheiden looked down at Miller, sitting on the floor. “Whatever you believe in, you should start praying to it… Doctor .”

“Hey,” called Miller. “You have children?”

A smile curled Verheiden’s mouth. “A son.”

“I have two,” Miller said brightly. “You know what that means? We don’t have the luxury of quitting. We’re going to make it out of here. You hear me? We are going to survive this if I have to drag you the whole way.”

Verheiden lifted his eyebrows in surprise. Since when did a Beaker have more guts than him?

Max yanked the strangely designed spear out of the wall and eased Bass’s bloody corpse to the floor. He tore the backpack from the dead man’s shoulders and tossed it aside.

Immediately, Weyland snatched the bag and ripped it open, to examine the weapon inside. “No damage,” he said thankfully.

Max looked up. “One of our men is dead.”

Weyland touched Stafford’s arm.

“I’m sorry,” he said in a tone of genuine regret.

“I need to know what this man died for.”

Weyland blinked, surprised. “He died trying to make history.”

“Whose?” Max demanded. “Yours?”

Lex turned her back on the two and squatted beside Sebastian. She strained to hear Connors’s voice again, but he had gone quiet—which was probably a bad thing, she decided.

Lex noticed Sebastian staring into the distance and fingering the Pepsi cap that still hung around his neck on a frayed leather strap. She lifted her hand and touched his. “Careful. That’s a valuable archaeological find.”

Sebastian managed a wan smile. “Nervous habit.”

“Can’t think why you’re nervous.”

Lex followed Sebastian’s eyes, and they both stared at the cold stone slab that trapped them.

“Imagine,” said Lex. “In a thousand years, I could be a valuable archaeological find.”

Suddenly the alarm on Sebastian’s digital watch went off—a harsh, unexpected sound in that tiny stone cell. He stood up and helped Lex to her feet.

“Don’t go writing yourself into the history books just yet,” he told her as he silenced the alarm.

“What’s that about?” She pointed to his watch.

Sebastian smiled. “Just a theory. Listen…”

In the distance there was an explosive sound, like rolling thunder. Then the familiar grating of stone against stone—far away, but coming closer.

Sebastian placed his ear against the wall. He listened for a long time as the sound continued.

“I hear it!” Lex said softly. “But what is it?”

“I think the mechanism of the pyramid is automated,” Sebastian explained, his ear still pressed against the stone. “I believe it reconfigures every ten minutes—the Aztec calendar was metric, you see? Based on multiples of ten.”

Suddenly Sebastian stepped away from the wall he’d been leaning against. Three seconds later, the stone door slid aside to reveal a brand-new passageway.

Lex was impressed. “Give the man a Nobel Prize.”

“I’d settle for a way out.”

Max jumped to his feet, weapon in hand. Now that they were free, he was impatient to move.

Weyland rose slowly and seemed to have trouble getting to his feet. Despite his increasing infirmity, the industrialist would not relinquish the backpack containing the mysterious weapons.

“Everyone ready?” Lex asked.

Max stared into the dark abyss. “Ready? I’m ready,” he replied. “But just where the hell are we going?”

“It’s a maze,” Sebastian declared loud enough to break the tension. “A labyrinth. We’re meant to wander through it. I’m sure this was built to trap its victims, and we’re bound to run into trouble. But all mazes have a way out—that’s the point. So let’s move before the walls come down and trap us again.”

With a final glance at Bass’s corpse, Stafford shouldered his MP-5 and took point. Lex and Sebastian watched him go. Weyland hobbled forward, leaning on his ice pole, the heavy oxygen tank weighing on his back.

From up ahead, they heard Max Stafford’s voice.

“The labyrinth awaits.”

Verheiden scrambled when the wall he was leaning against slid into the ceiling, opening a small, cramped crawlspace that had not been there before.

“What now?” the mercenary moaned.

Crouching down, Miller peered into the darkness. “We never went this way before.”

“Yeah, so what’s that mean… Doctor?”

Miller did not reply. Instead he raised his flashlight and traced the walls of the tunnel with it. The corridor went on for about twenty-five feet, then split abruptly in two. When Miller saw the fork in the road, he actually grinned.

“It would seem that we’re rats in a maze.”

Verheiden saw Miller’s expression and scoffed.

“Sorry,” the engineer said sheepishly. “But I really like puzzles.”

With Miller in the lead, they crawled inside.

They traveled for a few minutes. Then Miller heard a voice ahead of him in the confines of the narrow duct.

“Hello?” Connors cried. “Can you hear me?”

“Who is that?” Miller called. It was difficult to make out where the voice was coming from. Sound bounced all over the place inside the shaft.

“It’s Connors,” called the voice. “Where are you?” The sound echoed hollowly, and from far away.

Suddenly, the man began to scream, his chilling voice reverberating throughout the pitch-black duct.

“Connors!” bellowed Verheiden. He hurried forward, trying to catch up to Miller. But suddenly the floor opened under the mercenary and Verheiden plunged through a trapdoor.

With some difficulty, Miller managed to turn his body around in the tight shaft. He pounded on the floor Verheiden had fallen through, but he couldn’t even find a joint.

“Verheiden?” Miller called. “Can you hear me?”

The reply was faint and distant. “Miller… get me out of here.”

Miller looked around, trying to find a way into the trap. “Hold on!” he yelled. “I’ll figure a way to get to you….”

Verheiden had fallen into a small, restrictive tunnel too low to stand up in and too tight for his lanky, six-foot-plus frame to find much comfort.

Above his head he could hear Miller trying to find a way into his prison. He pushed on the ceiling a number of times, but if the door was still there, he couldn’t find it now. There were walls on three sides of him. The fourth side, however, wasn’t a wall: It was a cramped corridor stretching beyond his vision. But Verheiden had no intention of going down it alone. He intended to wait right there until Miller found a way to get him out.

Settling in for the long wait, Verheiden leaned against one of the walls, accidentally placing his hand into a pool of slime. Searching blindly for a surface on which to wipe his hand clean of the slime, he encountered a pile of dead skin, like the hide of a snake. More slime dotted the floor, and the mercenary couldn’t help but recoil.