Robert Walker - Zombie Eyes

Kendra and the others were spared the sight of the helpless, limbless creatures put up in storage in small cells oozing with the brown muck of the monster. Stroud knew that they could see the awkward shadows through the gauze and hear the awful babble of men without tongues, but he moved his party along, going ever deeper into the pit. There was only one way to help the suffering, only one way to save the city and the world from this terror.

"We've got to get into the ship itself," Stroud told the others.

"Easier said than done," replied Wiz. "Look."

They stared at the enormous, hideous creature guarding the only entry way open to them, the entrance they had once before used. The thing at the portal of rotten timbers had no visible or discernible face, but its limbs were long, hanging to its sides to what would be the knees on a man. It was bestial in appearance, much like a grizzly bear, save for the fact it had no snout, no eyes, and yet it seemed to be staring out at them from untold eyes as it sent a long, trailing feeler toward Leonard, who raced to get away from it, shouting and jumping.

"Use your weapons!" Stroud said, and they all began to fire on the beast, Kendra sending up a cloud of gas.

"This way, this way!" Leonard was shouting and rushing on, deeper into the pit.

"No! We stand and fight!" Stroud shouted, but Wiz bolted after Leonard, fearing for the man. Kendra felt the tentacle of the beast swipe by her face as she showered it with gas. A thousand screeching voices seemed to be coming from the creature as Stroud grabbed her and pushed her along the path Leonard and Wisnewski had taken.

"Out of here now!" he shouted through his comlink, and she obeyed without hesitation, following in Wiz's footsteps. Stroud, holding firm to the skull, raising it in the direction of the gas fog and the monster that was pursuing them, saw little creatures scampering about his feet and he kicked out at the hairy, sharp-toothed beasts, sending several flying and rolling off in balls of fur. A final one he crushed below his boot, hearing the explosion of its insides as he fired several more darts into the larger, heaving form in the fog.

"Come on, Abe! Now, away!" she shouted for him, and Stroud rushed to fulfill her request without looking back.

Stroud had wanted to take the ship by storm, to battle the first obstacle for the right to enter the ship at what appeared the easiest access. Yet the skull was strangely quiet, the light in it depressingly weak, and it was as if Esruad had abandoned him. Stroud was also disappointed in Wiz and Leonard. Only Kendra had stood her ground in the face of the horror that had approached them.

Kendra was kneeling over Leonard where he had dropped, his breathing too heavy. He'd taken in too much oxygen and was hyperventilating. Wiz stood over his friend, worried, offering words of encouragement and calm to Leonard. When he saw Stroud step from the shadows with the skull in his hands, Wisnewski said, "You shouldn't've forced Sam back here. You shouldn't've, Stroud."

Abe Stroud ignored the remark, catching his own breath, staring down the length of the maze that appeared to go on forever.

"Where's your friend in the skull now?" asked Wiz. "Where is Esruad?"

"Esssssss-rrrrrrrruuu-aaaaadd!" The walls of the labyrinth shook with the eerie voice of the evil here. It was the voice of Ubbrroxx. Stroud saw something moving along the passageway of the underground tunnel, just ahead. It was marshaling its army of horrors against them. The enemy knew every chamber and every underground passage intimately.

"What's holding them in check? What's keeping them from destroying us all now?" asked Stroud. "Only the skull, I assure you."

"If that is the case, we must guard it with our lives," said Kendra.

The moment Stroud stepped away from the others and into a circular room he became agitated. His eyes fell once more on the skull. Where was the so-called power; where was Esruad?

He looked back at where the others had remained and he saw that the walls were bleeding the brown slime substance all around them. "Get out of there! All of you! Now!"

Kendra saw the oozing chemical weapon of the creature as it dripped and spurted from the walls, burning a spot on Leonard's suit and his boot. She and Wiz helped Leonard to his feet and rushed him ahead, Stroud rejoining them to assist with a gob of earth that he smeared on the smoking substance on Leonard's suit and boot, rubbing it off, his own gloves left searing as a result.

Stroud had placed the skull in a pouch he'd slung over his own protective suit in order to free his hands. Kendra saw something burrowing from the earth at Stroud's side, and the ugly, wormy creature raised up out of the earth and snatched at the skull with disgustingly human hands, its eyes like those of a rat. Kendra instinctively screamed for fear, but seeing it reach for the skull, she also fired her dart gun, striking the odd creature a direct blow with the anti-serotonin drug. The creature burst into a fireball beside Stroud, and the odor from its burning brought others like it to the surface to scurry off in all directions from the four humans.

"What the hell're we doing down here! We've got to be crazy!" Kendra started shouting until Stroud grabbed hold of her and shook her hard.

"Get hold of yourself, Kendra! Get hold! We've got to keep our senses and our courage about us, all of us, Dr. Leonard, all of us."

"It's going to torment us and scratch at us and play with us like a handful of mice ... That's what we are to it," said Wiz, who was visibly shaking. "Just goddamned mice in its maze."

"We have to trust in our weapons, trust in ourselves, each other, and ... and Esruad."

"What else can we do? We can't go back the way we came," said Leonard, getting to his feet. "Outside we'd be fodder for those damned zombies. We'd end up like those poor devils in the cocoons, put up like pork waiting to be consumed. We've got to do as Stroud says now. We've got to see this thing through."

"Now you're talking, Dr. Leonard," said Stroud. "A few more minutes, people, and we're on our way."

"How is your suit?" asked Kendra, looking over the blemishes caused by the burning ooze from the walls. She found no rents, so far, but the chemical reaction might yet be eating its way through, she feared.

"We've got to find our way back toward the ship and we've got to find a way inside," said Stroud. "We've got to get to the heart of this darkness. We've got to face it down, and we've got to bring the skull to it under our own power."

"Tall order," commented Leonard "but we haven't any choice. Lead on."

"Are you sure, Abe?" asked Arthur Wisnewski. "Are you sure that it will make a difference? The skull, I mean."

No, he wasn't sure ... wasn't sure of anything, but he had known all his life that there were times when only an act of faith and courage could see a man through. Stroud rushed on, saying nothing in response to Wisnewski's question.

-15-

The tunnels dug out by the zombie army were intricate and complex, designed to confuse them, and they did a very fine job of it as they would enter one room to find themselves having gone around in circles. It was an underground maze meant to tease, and it was filled with the rank visions of Ubbrroxx's play, limbs and torsos of people who had been mercifully killed. It was obvious the creature offered its victims opportunities for escape, but that escape from here was impossible and futile.

"Which way is the ship?" asked Wiz. "Are you certain we're on the right path?"

"It's in that general direction, but so many false tunnels have been created, I can't say which cavern is best to follow."

Stroud felt like he was on a treadmill. They'd traveled already the distance of the ship and back again, and they seemed turned around.