Дэвид Уоллес - Island of Fog and Death

“Right,” said Steve. “Stand back, we’ll get it open a bit so we see what’s what.”

Troy pointed at some lettering that had been exposed by removing the bar: ‘ θάνατος περιμένει εντός ’. “What’s that? Is that Greek?”

Tori glanced at it, and said, “ Thanatos perimenei centos. Death waits within.”

“Very cheerful,” replied Troy.

Amanda suddenly stood up straight, and gave Tori an odd look. “Is that what Maxwell told you?”

Tori’s eyes narrowed and she looked straight back at Amanda. “Oops,” she said coolly. “From the look on your face, Maxwell doesn’t speak Greek, does he. So silly little air-head Tori shouldn’t know what that says, should she.”

“What the fuck…” Peri started, but before she could go on, Amanda clenched her fist and smashed a punch into the middle of Tori’s face with an audible crunch of bones and cartilage. Surprised, Tori rocked back against the door and slid down onto the floor of the cave. She laughed, breaking off to lick blood off her top lip.

“Oh, I bet that felt good,” she laughed at Amanda. “I bet you enjoyed that! Got to give you credit, bitch, I wasn’t ready for that one.” She put her hands on the iron bar, and laboriously got up onto her knees.

“What the hell did you do to Maxwell?” Amanda demanded.

Amanda laughed again. “Not Owain? Not Gilda? You don’t care about what I did to them , do you? Just Maxwell! Admit it, bitch, you’re like his mummy, always fussing over him, getting him out of trouble, over and over, again and again. Well, I’ve well and truly fucked him, in every sense of the word, and you won’t be saving his miserable ass this time.”

Peri felt her stomach lurch and her vision blur; she knew something bad was happening. She stretched out towards Tori. The others were busy gawping at Tori, and were taken completely by surprise when she hooked both hands under the heavy iron bar and flipped it straight at Amanda. Steve and Troy had struggled to lift the huge mass of iron, yet the slight blonde had just tossed it like a twig. Peri managed to change the direction of her lunge, and seized Amanda by one wrist, yanking her to the side. The iron mass struck her a glancing blow, hard enough to send Amanda down in a heap on top of Peri.

Gus reacted by swinging his pistol round to aim at Tori and cracked off a snap shot. But Tori was moving impossibly fast, and the bullet went wide. He aimed again, this time leading her movement, but as his finger squeezed the trigger, Tash somehow tangled himself in the old man’s legs and his second shot was high.

Tori laughed, throwing both arms wide, releasing a cloud of chemicals. At the same time, she sent out a mental shockwave that slammed into everyone else, throwing them back and filling their minds with excruciating pain. She looked at Tash, and said, “Thank you, father.” Turning to the door, she grabbed its handles and heaved. The iron bar was no longer in place on the floor to block it, so the door swung wide. Tori grabbed Maxwell, pulled him to his feet, and propelled him into the open doorway.

Peri blinked away the blinding pain of Tori’s mental flash-bang. She managed to get out from under Amanda, and tried to work out what was happening. She could see that Steve, Troy and Gus were down, she could hear Tori’s footsteps behind her running up the stairs, and she was horrified to see Maxwell, blinking in confusion, standing in the doorway. Something sinuous and black whipped out of the darkness and wrapped itself round his torso.

She started to rise, but then her stomach lurched in that familiar way and her vision greyed out, forcing her back to her knees. She managed to say, “Look out!” But her premonition of danger had come too late; another long black tentacle shot out, this one having spines along its length and teeth at the end. It wrapped round Maxwell’s legs, and Peri saw blood spurting as it the spines bit into him. Steve pushed past her, and grabbed at Maxwell’s leg, swinging a combat knife at the spiny tentacle. The knife was razor sharp, and its seven-inch blade sliced right through. There was a spurt of black ichor, accompanied by a sharp hiss from within the cave. A three-foot length of tentacle writhed and fell away from Maxwell. It instantly started squirming across the cave towards Steve, who realised that he was looking at the creature they had christened the chain snake: black, lined with blade-like spines, its tip opening into a circular mouth full of sharp teeth. He stumbled backwards as it launched itself at his face, its maw gaping, but at the last moment it suddenly changed direction and flew past the tip of his nose, closely followed by Peri’s foot, and then the rest of her landed on the ground in front of him. Steve realised that she had managed to knock it aside with a flying leap.

Gus stepped past him and his foot slammed down on the snake right behind its head, pinning it. He pointed his pistol down, and fired twice, catching it no more than an inch from his own foot, and splattering its head-end across the cave.

Troy had grabbed Maxwell’s arm in both hands and was trying to heave him back out of the blackness. Another slender black appendage shot outward and wrapped around Maxwell’s face, while another spiky tentacle appeared, hovered for a moment, and then made a grab for Troy’s arms.

Amanda jumped straight at Troy’s body, slamming her weight into him, so that their combined momentum carried him clear of the grasping limb. She turned and lunged towards Maxwell, but was horrified to see him being pulled into the inner cave, encircled by several tentacles, his face a picture of abject terror and hopelessness. He disappeared into the blackness.

“Flash bang,” called out Steve. “One away!”

He turned away to avoid the effects of the shock grenade. As soon as it went off, he and Troy darted through the doors with assault rifles at the ready. Peri stepped through behind them and dropped to one knee, her pistol in the two-handed grip Troy had shown her. She looked all round, her gun muzzle tracking her view. She could now see that the cave was almost black, with a tiny sliver of light at its far end. Both Steve and Troy were using their night-vision monoculars, and moving steadily forward, one to her left and the other to her right, looking for their target. She began moving cautiously forward up the middle of the cave. She heard Gus enter behind her, and called out to him.

“Hang back by the door, Gus. If it doubles back past us, do not, whatever you do, let it get out of this cave. If you need to shut us in, just do it.”

“Hey,” came Troy’s voice. “Do we get a vote in this?”

“No, mate, we don’t,” said Steve. “Peri, why don’t you give Gus some back up?”

“Tired of my company already, boys?”

“I take it that’s no.” said Troy.

“Movement,” said Peri. “Dead ahead. It crossed that little light, my right to left.” It dawned on her now that the distant gleam must be a small hole in the cave wall, leading out to the cliff face where Chen had fallen. The creature must have been feeding tentacle tips – chain snakes – out through that hole for days.

“I see it,” said Steve. “I can’t see Maxwell though.”

“Oh fuck,” came Troy’s voice, from off to the right. “I just stepped in something squishy. I think it’s part of Maxwell, but there’s not a lot of him here.”

“Assume he’s gone,” said Peri in a cold voice. “See if we can hurt this fucking thing.”

“I have him,” said Steve calmly, “Directly to my front, about ten o’clock from you, Peri.”

“Got him,” she replied.

The two marines opened fire with controlled, carefully aimed three-round bursts. The creature hissed and they could hear it moving in the darkness. Steve and Troy kept up a steady fire, but Peri had fewer bullets available to her, so she waited until the faint light was obscured by the beast’s bulk, and emptied her pistol at it. When the light stayed obscured, she realised that meant it was moving straight down the middle of the cave, and started back-pedalling quickly, calling out, “It’s in front of me and closing fast.”