STERLING

 

Wednesday January 15 - 0320 MST

Ten minutes until Turbocharger activates

 

The first clue I got that we'd reached the Hole was the stench. It already had its own unique aroma. A mix of the rich, earthy scent of million-year-old bedrock diluted with the musty odor of hundred-year-old poured concrete that had decayed under the corrupting influence of C-Watch. But something else was in the air with it. It was that week old fish market stink that followed many exos over into our world. That could have been the leg monster we killed, or it could have come from something else.

Particulates of that worn out concrete hung in the air like little stars that glowed under the light of our hand-helds. It diminished the already anemic light that was our only way of seeing without power in C-Watch. That probably explained why everything always appeared washed out and lacking color whenever I was down in the depths of this place. But a part of me always feared it was something else. The things we kept in C-Watch exerted some unnatural force on their surroundings. I would never admit it to my colleagues, but deep down I knew that this strange aura is what drained the color out of the air. It was as if even light was afraid to venture into the heart of C-Watch.

Morgan waggled the muzzle of his M4 so that the attached light danced over the entrance to the Hole. "There it is."

Sharks shook his head. "This place hasn't changed a lick. Still scares the shit outta me."

Ahead of us was the big, four-way intersection that was the entrance to the deepest part of the Underground. We were standing in the only way in and out, while the other passages were dead ends to several vaults. If there was a source to all the things clawing their way out of C-Watch it would be in one of these three tunnels.

I waved my own light over the little bunker built at the center of the intersection. "Check the door."

Besides the veil of dust motes hanging in the air I saw several somethings reflecting my flashlight's light. Scattered all over the smooth floor were hundreds of spent brass cartridges glowing in the light like a pirate's hoard of gold. Jacob picked one of them up and studied it silently. He hadn't said a word this entire time, like the rest of us, he was probably too preoccupied with morbid thoughts to think of something to say.

Morgan did as he was told, but Doctor Johnson and Sharks did their own thing. Each one took up position watching a side of the bunker for any exos that might be thinking about ambushing us. They both worked like machines, programmed by a life of hard won lessons in surviving combat.

"It's locked, sir."

The sole doorway into and out of the bunker was a solid chunk of alloyed steel with hinges as thick as baseball bats. It had come that way constructed into the mammoth granite bricks that were the facade of the bunker. The Underground's original builders had planned for the worst when they built this place. Those bricks were absolutely massive with each one large enough that it would destroy a car if dropped on one and they were angled inward giving the little building the appearance of a pyramid. To me it looked more like the armor of a tank, angled to make it harder to penetrate. Whatever the reason, the polished and smooth fortress walls were needed to protect the guards I sent down here daily to watch for any escaping horrors.

One bright side to the construction was that the heavy door could not be locked from the outside. Someone inside had to take the time to spin and engage the archaic locking mechanism. If it was locked then someone was in there. If there was a reason for my hopes to raise, that was it.

I opened the phone box beside the door and grabbed the handset which auto-dialed the interior phone. The walls were so thick that shouting couldn't be heard and I doubted they would hear my fist pounding on the vault door.

As the ancient phone buzzed away I saw Morgan run a gloved hand over deep grooves in the granite right where they met up with the door. "Sir, these weren't here the last time I was down here. They're fresh."

A part of me reeled and tried to find any other explanation than what my eyes were seeing. The truth was too frightening to even comprehend and a pretty lie was far easier to swallow. But in the end I had to face the harsh reality that I was looking at claw marks and they had come from something much larger than the thing we had shot in the corridor.

"Hello?" I jumped at the crackling sound of a human voice on the other end of the line. Getting lost in my thoughts I had forgotten about it. But I was also halfway convinced that no one would be left alive in there. Strangely, the voice sounded more frightened than me, but then again he probably wasn't sure what had picked up the phone.

I calmed myself before replying, whoever it was didn't need to hear me panicking. "This is Colonel Sterling. Who am I speaking with?"

There was a long exhale like he'd been holding his breath for a long time. "Oh God, sir. I can't tell you what a relief it is to hear another person's voice. It's Hamilton, sir."

I let out my own relieved sigh. "I'm glad to hear you too. Is it just you in there?"

"There's more, sir. But before I open the door I need to authenticate. My apologies, but it's policy. We need to be sure. My number is four."

I wasn't miffed in the least bit by his adherence to procedure. In fact, I wrote this one. There were simply too many nasty things stored in C-Watch that were intelligent and liked to play mind games with its victims before killing them. And I didn't need my people opening up doors blindly to let them in simply because they sounded human on a crackly phone line.

In this case we had a daily number briefed at the beginning of the duty day. Then we could authenticate by giving a sign that would be another number, with the countersign being the difference. Today's number was seven which meant I had to respond with the difference of… "Three."

It was simple, but it would keep any outsiders from spoofing us. Unless of course they could read minds. God, did I hope we never ran across any mind readers.

A few seconds later we heard thick bolts clanging within the vault door and massive gears being spun. Then the thick door swung open coming to a halt with a thud when it reached the limits of its hinges.

The first thing that hit me was the odor of a dozen sweaty men that had been trapped inside a space meant for a fire team of four over a period of several hours. It wasn't exactly spacious in normal circumstances. But with Hamilton's group packed in there it was claustrophobic. There wasn't even room to sit for most of them. They'd simply stood shoulder-to-shoulder for hours waiting on rescue.

Captain Hamilton stared wide-eyed at me like he couldn't believe I was real. "Sir, you shouldn't have come here."

"Nonsense." I shook my head at him. "Gather up your gear, we're getting—"

My words were cut short by a rumbling growl so deep and inhuman it almost sounded like the walls were having indigestion. Whatever plan I had cooked up for us was immediately replaced by one terrifying thought: We had been found.

"What was that?" Jacob said. It was the first I'd heard from him in several minutes.

Every head turned toward the corridor off to our left. That was the Nineties corridor. There was some really bad stuff hidden away that way.

"You need to get inside." Hamilton's face had gone a shade paler as he frantically waved us inside. "Now."

Morgan, Sharks, and Jacob were in by the time something poked its terrible head around the corner. Again my brain raced to compare it to something familiar but there just wasn't anything to match. At first I thought it was an alligator of massive proportions, but as it pushed more of its gigantic body around the edge of the bunker I saw its body was more like a gorilla's but sized like an elephant. And if that wasn't enough to make my mind trip over itself the tusks growing out of its snout did. One grew upward like a rhino's and another came out of the chin reminding me of a saber tooth tiger's overbite. But what I remember most of all was its black eyes like those of a great white shark. They were the same color as its leathery hide and they studied us with the curiosity of a restaurant patron looking over the menu.

As Jacob forced himself inside I saw there was no more room left for the rest of us. I tried shoving against the mass of humanity packed into the little room but all I got was enough space to close the door behind me. As my heart raced and instincts screamed at me to slam the door shut and make us safe from the terror in the hall I desperately wanted to pull the vault door shut and spin the locks.

Then I saw the faces of Doctor Johnson and Airman Brighton locked in shocked horror on the thing that would end their lives once I slammed the door shut. When I looked at Brighton's face I didn't actually see her face. I saw Adam's face looking down upon me in judgment for breaking my promise to protect her. Shutting the damned door would have saved me and let me live a few years longer, but every day would be haunted by the fate I would have inflicted on Brighton and Johnson. Maybe it was stupid of me, but I couldn't see myself living with that guilt.

In a rush of a misjudgment I did the unthinkable and grabbed a handful of Brighton's flak vest. Then I shoved her into the tiny space I should have kept for myself and pushed the vault door shut. Before it slammed home I said "Lock the door and wait for help." But I wasn't sure how much of that they actually got.

Then it was just me and Johnson alone in the dark with the nightmare beast.

I don't know how many times I fired my rifle at it but I know none of the shots hurt it. After that I just remember Johnson pulling me and shouting out one word.

"Run."