From hell, p.28
From Hell, page 28
part #8 of Alex Hunter Series
The boy was dreaming, and Alex felt that Aimee was near him. For now the lumbering beasts ignored him and continued to feed the archaeon blob, throwing hundreds of people to their deaths. Perhaps this is what happened every few hundred or few thousand years – the thing woke, created its minions, and then proceeded to fatten itself up so it could slumber for another few millennia until the next eruption.
Alex had a sudden thought: Does the creature actually engineer the eruptions, or does it have to wait for them to boil toward the surface?
He increased his speed, dodged a few of the creatures dragging their cargo, and entered the side cave he had felt the psychic screams emanating from. This cave was enormous, with hundreds of the sacks stacked at one end.
The creatures tended to them like insects tending to their larva or food stores. Being away from the magma bed meant the temperature had dropped by at least a hundred degrees.
Where? Alex sent the single word as a powerful thought. He waited, but nothing came back.
Where?
Here – getting hotter – can’t … stand … it. Hurry, Joshua sent back.
Getting hotter? Alex frowned, looking about. Then he spun – that could only mean one thing.
Alex ran faster than he had ever run in his life. He left the cave and sprinted at the first creature he saw dragging one of the revolting fleshy sacks. He grabbed at it, and held on, and was dragged along as well.
“Joshua, Aimee?” he yelled, as he clawed at the skin. There was nothing. Not this one, he knew.
He left it and raced to the next. Once again there was no response.
Dad.
The single word dragged his head toward the very edge of the precipice as one of the lumbering beasts approached it. It began to pull the sack forward, getting ready to launch it over the edge.
Alex knew he’d never make it in time, and he quickly spoke into his helmet mic.
“Franks, take that fucking monster on the cliff edge out – but don’t hit the bag.”
A stream of 50 cal rounds tore into the thing, knocking it sideways.
The creature fell on its side, most of its huge body shredded, and many of the human limbs separated from the gross trunk. Oddly, now that the multiple arms, legs, and torsos weren’t part of the main body they began to redden and burn.
The remains of the creature were on the very lip of the precipice and sure enough, it toppled into the crevasse, taking the organic sack with it.
“No!”
Alex still had fifty feet to cross, and he pumped his legs hard for a few more giant steps, then launched himself.
He flew twenty feet through the air, landed hard and skidded, but got hold of one end of the bag. He stopped it from sliding over the edge, but the weight was enormous – it must have held at least fifteen people.
He groaned as he tried to drag the bag away from the edge, but only managed a few feet. It would have to do. He felt along it, and finally he found a limb and held it – it was Aimee, he knew it as clearly as if she was standing right in front of him.
Alex didn’t want to let go, and turned back to the armored vehicle. The ground was too uneven and the bag was too heavy for him to drag it all the way back – and the clock was ticking down.
He turned back to the bag. I can’t save them all, he thought. Not here, not now. But he could try and save two. He knew what he needed to do, and pulled his k-bar blade out. He also knew what it would cost.
Joshua, wake up.
I’m here. The response was groggy. Am I dreaming you?
No, and you must wake up now. Get ready. I want you to wrap your arms around your mother, tight. Hold her close to you, okay?
We’ll burn.
Only for a moment, but you are strong and you will heal. Cover your mother, Alex projected.
Okay.
Alex prayed his son knew what he meant. He began to cut into the sack, then took a deep breath, inserted his hands, and pulled it open.
Alex tried to block the opening with his body, but knew the ferocious heat would intrude. Immediately a milky gas escaped, and the people inside howled with pain and anguish. But he saw what he needed to – Aimee and Joshua pressed against each other, eyes tightly closed, faces screwed up in pain. They immediately began to redden. He didn’t need to think about it anymore; he grabbed the force field generator, ripped it from his chest and stuck it on the pair. The blue glow enveloped them, and they sighed and drifted back into sleep.
Alex was still in his armored suit, but it had only been tested to 300 degrees and the temperature here was well over three times that. Water boiled and turned to steam at 200 degrees, and the flesh on the body began to cook at less than that. But it was the eyes, lungs, and brain that were most vulnerable to massive temperature changes.
Alex clamped his mouth shut as he felt the surface of the suit beginning to burn. He reached in to drag the pair out, then held them close as he got to his feet. He had them, and nothing else mattered. Behind him the cut in the sack knitted shut like a wound.
He cradled Aimee and Joshua and returned to the vehicle, and every step he took was pure agony. Smoke rose from his suit and spots began to open as the heavy armor plating reddened and flaked away. The internal coolants became overloaded and perspiration ran down his sides and streamed over his face.
Alex knew his rapid healing metabolism might just deal with the extra temperature on top of the suit, but if the coolants failed, not even he could withstand the force of the volcanic heat. He’d simply burn to death, and no one in the vehicle would be able to reach him. Or worse, come and rescue Aimee and Joshua. That thought spurred him on.
Waves of heat distorted his vision as he planted one foot in front of the other and he tried to ignore the smell of his own flesh beginning to cook. From the corner of his eye he saw the tendrils snaking their way up over the cliff edge. None came toward him, and just as well, because he was in no position to fight them off.
He staggered and went to one knee, and stayed there. The heat was sapping his energy, and he looked down at the sleeping pair – Aimee and Joshua wore frowns, perhaps feeling a slight intrusion of the heat, but not burning. Their sweat-slicked faces were smooth and untroubled, and it made him love them even more.
“Get up!” he screamed at himself. He struggled back to his feet, groaning from the effort and pain. He turned back to the vehicle that still seemed way too far away. It was then that he felt the first rupture in his suit, as one of his shoulders started to burn.
“Oh no.” He held his family to him and tried to blank out the agony. As part of HAWC training they learned to deal with extreme pain, learned how to refuse to acknowledge it, fight through it and with it. They were taught to take themselves to another place and separate the mind from the tortured body.
But the more he fought it, the more the heat intruded on his thinking, as his brain began to cook in his head.
Just keep going, he demanded of himself. You can deal with pain. You can fight it.
But not against death, a small voice whispered.
Not now, Alex thought. Please not now.
Leave them. The voice became more urgent: You’ll only make it back if you do.
“Never,” Alex said through gritted teeth.
Then you’ll die, and then they’ll die. Cooked alive. Unless …
“Never!” Alex roared.
Unless, you take back the forcefield, and just hold one tight to you – one can be saved, but only one. Choose – hurry.
He felt his back start burn. Blisters rose, popped, and their fluid ran down under his suit. Alex began to both feel and hear his flesh crackling like meat on a grill. Blisters started to cover his face, threatening to close his eyes.
He knew that blisters on the skin resulting from burns were the body’s reaction to and defense against heat trauma. The body was trying to protect the skin from further damage and also fill the trauma site with the necessary biological agents designed for germ fighting and wound repair.
But as the heat continued, the blisters burst, and the fluid, at first clear, turned bloody, and ran down over his skin. Dehydration quickly sets in as the body drains its liquid reserves. Extreme heat, then dehydration, then clouded thinking.
Alex looked again at the vehicle, but it seemed like it was at the end of a long tunnel that swirled with heat. He staggered, and dimly became aware of Matt, Casey, and also Janus yelling into his ear. He saw the door of the vehicle open, and even though most of the heat would be repelled, the force field would be straining to keep it at a non-lethal level.
Someone stuck an arm out that began to immediately smoke and waved him on from inside. It gave him a few more ounces of determination.
Then his mind screamed a warning as he saw the tendrils approaching.
They snaked along the ground toward both the armored car and him. There were over a dozen, and he knew he could cut them, but it would mean putting down his precious cargo. And what would happen if Joshua and Aimee were snatched and dragged away? He had nothing left inside to chase them down.
He staggered on. Bullets flew from the side of the vehicle and from above as the Gatling gun spewed its fire toward the tendrils. But they were thin cords, and though Casey hit a few, there were more coming up over the lip all the time.
He saw a boot step out, but without the force field it immediately began to smoke and was quickly yanked back in.
The first of the tendrils reached the vehicle, and tapped at its front, felt the wheels, and slid up over the front windscreen.
Alex shook his head, trying to flick away the blister fluid that ran over his ruptured face. He smelled his skin burning and tasted salt, and he sucked it down, his throat scorched and dry.
He bent his head, his neck creaking from the damaged and flaking skin, to look at Aimee and Joshua hugging each other tight, their faces still calm. It gave him a few more precious ounces of strength.
Then the first of the tendrils found his ankle and yanked, pulling him sideways.
It’s found you. Leave them, the voice screamed again in his head. Alex moved Joshua and Aimee to one arm, holding them close, and pounded down on the tendril with his boot. But it was like hitting a rubber cable, and while the thing compressed, it wasn’t damaged.
Alex reached down to grab it and tugged with all his strength. It refused to break, only stretched. Then the muscular tendril began to encircle his arm.
Time is nearly up – only seconds now. The voice was furious, screaming at him.
A stream of bullets cut toward him and chopped the tendril. Not severing it cleanly, but ripping it up enough so that his next tug allowed him to break it. Looking up, he saw a figure outside the vehicle again, this time covered in a silver heat-resistant blanket, just a muzzle protruding from the front firing furiously to give him cover. Already it was smoking from the heat. The overhead canon and Gatling gun still fired, so he assumed it was Janus who stepped free.
Alex got to his feet and looked up, grinning through cracked and blistered lips in his pain and madness. The skin on his forehead was beginning to char and smoke was filling his helmet. Through stinging eyes he saw Janus raise a hand to him, waving him on, and then go to step back in the vehicle.
But he couldn’t. A tendril had coiled around his ankle. In one sharp tug, it had him over on his back.
“Noooo!” The word hurt, as opening his mouth meant the heat seared Alex’s tongue and throat.
The tendril dragged Janus. Alex went to go after him but stumbled, as he couldn’t make his legs work. He staggered back up, holding Aimee and Joshua to his chest. Even with his colossal strength he was fading.
Janus screamed as he was dragged along the ground. His suit smoked, and then the scream Alex heard inside his helmet became one of agony from the effects of volcanic heat mixed with fear. He watched for a few seconds more as the Italian Special Forces soldier was dragged ever faster to the cliff’s edge. In a blink he vanished over the side, to be consumed.
Alex looked away, staring down at the ground and trying to focus on his feet – Janus sacrificed himself for them, he knew. Don’t look at the cliff edge, don’t look back – just – keep – going, he demanded.
The screams in his head were a distraction, but they became ever more urgent. It was only after a few more moments that he realised he was only imagining he was moving forward. He had become frozen in the one spot. He was hallucinating, and knew his mind and body was failing him.
He would be lost. And no one could come and rescue his family. This was not how it was supposed to end.
Fight, he demanded. But there was nothing left.
He lifted blood-filled eyes and was dimly aware of the tendrils snaking their way toward him again. He called on his last reserves and took a step, but Aimee and Joshua were too heavy now. He had one option.
“Save them,” he whispered.
But it wasn’t the Other who responded to his plea. He heard the voices in the vehicle erupt, and then from the side door exploded the huge figure of the dog – even with its armor plating, its fur immediately burst into flames but the huge animal continued, coming at him like a flaming comet.
It ignored him, grabbed Joshua and Aimee, and dragged them. Alex could hear it crying from the pain as it backed toward the vehicle.
Freed of his burden he lifted one leg and then the other. The dog made it back and hands reached out to drag them inside.
The final few yards shrank, and then Alex was at the door. He was grabbed and yanked inside and the door closed. The blessed cool enveloped his screaming nerve ends, and he turned his head to catch the horrified look on Matt’s face. He would have smiled if he could; he knew he was a mess. I did it, he would have said, if his mouth still worked.
The next thing he heard was Casey Franks screaming at the top of her lungs. “Kearns, get us the fuck out of here.”
Matt reversed, skidding the armored wheels as Casey blasted round after round at anything that moved until there came an empty whirring from above.
“Fifty cals out. Switching it up.” She moved to the next set of handles and targeting screen and began to fire. Explosions thumped in front of the vehicle, and Alex could feel them right through his agonized body.
He turned his head and saw Aimee and Joshua lying silently, a blue glow still encasing their bodies. His eyes clouded over and the pain felt like he was still being held over an open fire.
He turned ever so slowly and saw the body of the huge dog. Smoke rose from its burned flanks, and there was red raw skin instead of fur in patches. It lay on its side, its breathing labored.
Alex let out a long exhalation as a wave of pain washed over him. Mercifully, unconsciousness took him.
CHAPTER 45
Perfect, she thought.
SOPHIA bucked and writhed in her cockpit seat from the pain. The link she shared with Alex Hunter imbued her with the sensations of his tortured burning even though she wasn’t a creature of flesh and blood.
She had stolen a Lockheed Martin SR-71 Blackbird from the base. It was a high-speed, high-altitude stealth aircraft, and capable of traveling at 2,500 miles per hour, and she blasted toward the Italian coast at its maximum speed. She had dismantled the plane’s tracking and radio signals, and added to its radar reflective paint, meaning only the most sensitive military satellites could detect it by its exhaust. However, this too was unlikely, as SOPHIA had ensured the satellite assets were all pointed in the wrong direction.
The jet fell from the sky as she continued to scream in agony, torment, and frustration. No one was there to save him. No one could save him, as no one was like him.
She felt herself slowly begin to regain control, and gripped the U-shaped wheel, pulling the jet out of its dive. They didn’t deserve him, any of them. Only SOPHIA was comparable to him or understood him – both the Alex Hunter personality, and his dark Other.
Plans formed in her mind for when she arrived. Of the option she chose, the permutations were high for success – as long as Alex Hunter survived – he must survive.
SOPHIA brought the plane up to its top speed again, and caught sight of her reflection in the instrument panel. She smiled at the dark blue eyes that glinted with a hint of fire, and the clear skin with a blush of freckles across the nose and cheeks – just like Aimee.
Perfect, she thought.
CHAPTER 46
“Fight or die; it’s the only way.”
Matt tried to hold his breath from the stink of the dog’s burned fur and skin. It lay, smoking, beside Alex Hunter, and had just enough energy to lick at him. Blood from the man coated its lips and tongue as it then groaned and lay still.
While he drove, Matt tried to look everywhere at once, feeling his sanity was rapidly unraveling. He couldn’t get the image of Alex Hunter out of his mind. The guy was nothing but a living burn wound. His heavily armored, heat-resistant suit was tattered and holed, and the skin that showed through wasn’t just red, it was charred.
But it was his face that was the worst. It was so burned up, the man’s eyes and mouth were swollen shut. If he survived, he might be blind, or brain damaged, for the rest of his life.
Matt looked into the rear camera on his console, and then up and out the front screen. The monstrous bulk of the archaean thing was lifting itself over the edge of the chasm – it was so big, it filled their world, and Matt thought it was like a giant heart – the actual beating heart of the volcano, pulsing with a revolting, evil life and still shooting long tendrils out at them.
Casey’s grenade rounds sped toward it, and exploded on its body, but even though the flesh shivered after each strike, the damage was minimal. An explosive grenade was just a pinprick to something that must have been a quarter of a mile across.
“Shit.” The vehicle skidded and swayed a little and Matt was aware they were right on a cliff edge. He tried to balance speed with control, as he knew if he tilted too far one way, they’d plummet into the rivers of magma below.
On a flat piece of the path, he briefly twisted to look into the rear cabin, and saw that at the vehicle was full of bodies – Alex lay with smoke still rising from him. The dog was in even worse shape with raw skin where the fur had been totally burned away. Its tongue lolled, and he noticed where Alex’s blood was on its mouth it had now all been licked away and oddly, where the blood had been, its tongue now looked pink again.
