Aegis Incursion (23 page)

Tegan peeked across the dirt road. “There’s an excavator on the other side,” she informed Mariah, “but no one’s in it.”

Mariah gave Tegan a small but urgent push. The girls tore over the last dirt road and slid in front of the green excavator. “So far so good,” Tegan whispered.

“Uh, might want to rethink that,” Mariah gasped, peeping around the machine. “Dude headed this way, looks like the driver of this machine!”

“Shoot!” Tegan tugged on Mariah’s arm, urging the other girl to follow her. They sidestepped around the excavator so they were on the right side of the machine when the worker was on the left. As soon as the driver was seated in the cab, the girls made a break for a stack of bricks a few feet away and dodged behind it. They peered around quickly, making sure no one had seen them. No one else was around, and the man in the excavator was driving away.

Not realizing she’d been holding her breath, Tegan wheezed. “Nearly there, ’Riah.”

Mariah barely seemed to hear her and pointed at a long, glassy teal building ahead of them. “What’s that?”

Tegan took a look at the partially-constructed edifice. “I saw a sign there earlier. It’s some kind of a hydroponic facility to grow food down here.”

To the girls’ left was a small gray building with a sign on the door that read ‘Water Treatment & Storage’. Tegan couldn’t help but grin. “The power plant must be nearby, which means our escape tunnel isn’t far either,” she said.

“Um . . . ” Mariah was looking over the bricks, toward the main tunnel. “Hate to be the bearer of bad news, Teegs, but I think Elvis is back in the building.”

“What?!”

“I just saw an orange Hummer come out of the tunnel.”

“For crying out loud—let’s go, then!”

They sprang up and sprinted around the concrete building. “There,” Tegan called out pointing ahead. “The hydro turbine!”

Just then, they saw two young men step out of the turbine building and pause to take a break. One of the workers removed his hardhat to reveal a head full of bright silver hair.

Tegan was furious and struggled to stay quiet. “Move already! We’re wasting time!”

The girls waited impatiently until the workers began walking away from the structure in the direction of the glass building. Tegan took hold of Mariah’s wrist. “Let’s go.”

Just as she spoke, an amplified voice boomed through the cavern over the construction noise, raucous and angry. “You’re in trouble now, you are!”

The girls stopped short and looked behind them. They saw no one, but they knew who the voice belonged to.

“
Elvis
,” Tegan mouthed, panic shooting up her sides.

A terrible roar suddenly reverberated through the site. Tegan felt goose bumps all over her skin. Beside her, Mariah had lost all the color in her face. “It
is
them,” she croaked. “Teegs, we need to go! We need to go! Now!”

Tegan would have remained rooted to the spot if her friend hadn’t given her a forceful shove. They turned around and came face-to-face with the silver-haired worker they’d seen earlier. He appeared to be of Asian descent, maybe two years older than them. The girls were deadlocked, trapped between two enemies.

The worker met both their gazes, then, with the tiniest and earnest of smiles, put a finger to his lips and stepped aside to let them pass. Mariah bolted ahead, hauling Tegan with her. Tegan looked behind her and watched the worker continue on his way as if nothing had happened.

The friends ran around the building that housed the hydroelectric power plant and followed the steel pipe that led into the small tunnel. Behind them, the sound of nasty snarling grew closer. There was definitely more than one of the creatures following the girls.

“You can’t escape them!” Elvis boomed. “The Marauders will tear you limb from limb! Stop now and I’ll pull them back!”

As terrified as the girls were, they weren’t about to negotiate with the man. Tegan ushered Mariah into the tunnel. “Right here! Go, go, go!”

The dark tunnel was barely five feet high and four feet wide, with the large pipe taking up most of the space. It was cooler and damper inside as well.

“You gotta move faster, ’Riah!” Tegan yelled as the sound of the beasts grew ever closer.

“I’m trying!” Mariah yelled back. “It’s getting steeper! And muddier!”

The two climbed the incline in a frenzy but kept slipping and falling in the mud. Now covered in filth, they dug their fingers into the ground and clawed upward. Another roar sounded. This time it filled up the entire tunnel.

“They’re inside!” Tegan shrieked. “
Move!
”

They made it to the ladder mounted to the wall of the vertical shaft overhead. Mariah, glad that the ground had leveled off, leapt to catch bottom rung of the ladder and scuttled up, Tegan following close behind. The heavy breathing of the beasts echoed toward them.

They were at the top of the twenty-foot shaft, with Mariah trying to push open the manhole cover, when Tegan heard a chilling growl below her. Slowly looking down, she found a sight that made her heart jump to her throat. She tried to scream but horror stifled her voice.

Glaring up at her from the bottom of the ladder were two massive black-furred creatures with muscular frames—the Marauders. A third beast joined them, coming from behind. Their demonic, sulfur-colored eyes reflected a manic thirst for murder from under heavy brows, and their elongated jaws gnashed, revealing curved, gleaming fangs over three inches long.

Tegan had seen these creatures before—all five of the friends had, at the battle atop the Ayen’et with the people of Dema-Ki, and more recently, in their nightmares. She whimpered. “Mariah, get that cover open . . . ”

“I’m trying, but the stupid thing’s stuck!”

Tegan pushed past the other girl, taking up half of the ladder while Mariah held onto the other half. Together, they pushed at the heavy steel cover with all their might, doing their best to ignore the monsters that leapt at them but kept sliding down the rungs.

“I—felt—it—move,” Tegan puffed. Sure enough, when the girls pushed a little more, the heavy cover popped open, showering them with dirt and dust. They ignored it and shoved the cover away. Mariah scrambled out first into the open air. She reached down to pull Tegan up but at that moment, one of the Marauders managed to get a grip halfway up the ladder. It leapt and grazed one of its paws along the back of Tegan’s calf, its blade-like claws tearing through her jeans. Tegan cried and twisted away before being helped up by Mariah.

Together, the girls dragged the manhole cover back into place just as the beast’s jaws came snapping through. There was a loud
clang
that resonated as the circular cover fell into place. Tegan stepped back, then winced and looked down at her leg through the torn jeans. Blood was seeping from a single slash. Thankfully, the wound wasn’t too deep.

Mariah was wiping the back of her dirty hands against her face. “Are you alright, Teegs?” she asked.

“I’ll be fine, don’t worry.”

“I’m shaking,” Mariah confessed. “I’m shaking and I can’t stop.”

Realizing she was trembling too, Tegan reached out and hugged her friend. Mariah wrapped her arms tightly around her friend in return and they drew on each other’s remaining strength and courage.

“Why do you think that worker let us go?” Mariah whispered.

“I don’t know,” Tegan murmured, gently rubbing her friend’s back. “But thank God he did. Come on.”

The girls took in their surroundings. They were facing a long, oval-shaped lake which Mariah thought seemed manmade. Above them, the sky was filled with stars except for a few scattered clouds. Neither girl bothered about it as they ran around the body of water. They rounded the lake but slowed when they reached a chain-link fence that stretched from the edge of the water to a gigantic waste-rock dump, blocking their path.

All at once, there was a chaotic outburst. Deep roars and barks erupted, but from where they couldn’t tell. There was frantic honking of vehicles and shouts, and someone yelled, “Get out of the way! The Marauders—they’re loose!”

W
ithout even glancing at each other, Tegan and Mariah ran toward the fence and scaled it just as the beasts came charging around the large waste-rock dump, hackles raised. They caught sight of the fleeing girls and gave chase, their dreadful braying splitting the night.

The girls jumped down onto the other side of the fence. “This way!” Tegan shouted. She ran toward a group of monolithic machines that were parked to the side of the waste dump.

“Teegs, what are you doing?” Mariah cried.

“Getting us a ride out of here!”

“On
that?
”

“Go big or go home! There’s nothing else here anyway!”

It wasn’t until they’d come to a halt in front of the machine that Tegan realized just how truly colossal it was. The yellow Caterpillar mining truck was the height of a two-story building and had ladders attached to the front and side. Tegan jumped onto one of the ladders and led the way up, leaving Mariah with no choice except to follow. Once they’d climbed onto the machine’s railed platform, Tegan ran toward the crew cab to test the door.

“It’s open!” she yelled as she slid into the driver’s seat. “Get in!”

“The keys?” Mariah yelled back, taking shotgun.

“Right here in the ignition, thank goodness!”

“They just leave it
in
the cab?”

“This must be a secure site. Buckle up!”

Mariah clicked in, nearly hyperventilating. “What are you doing? You can drive a car, not one of these! Oh, man, we’re toast! We’re like twenty feet off the ground!”

“Look, look! It’s all automatic! I can do this!” Tegan turned the key and a deep rumble came from the bowels of the giant vehicle and vibrated through the crew cab.

The beasts that were closing in on their position balked, taken aback by the roar of this new entity. With the precious few extra seconds, Tegan said a quick prayer, put the mining truck into drive, and stepped on the gas pedal.

A radio crackled, making both of them jump. Then Elvis’ voice came on:
“Elias, the two girls are driving one of the bloody monsters!”

Another man’s voice came over the radio.
“What are you talking about? I don’t see a thing on any of my monit—WHAT THE HELL?”

“Stop them, Elias!”

Tegan and Mariah listened, wide-eyed, with the machine plowing onward. Tegan was surprised at how responsive the massive truck was. She had fantastic visibility of everything around her as she skirted a gigantic open pit in the middle of the mining site. A huge sign dug into the ground read: ‘QMI—Restricted Area’.

They heard metallic
thunks
at the back of the mining truck. Mariah glanced at her side mirror as more reports sounded. “They’re shooting at us!”

Tegan checked her side mirror as well. “Ohmigosh, I did
not
sign up for this!”

A flash of bright lights caught her attention and she turned away from the mirror to eye the newcomer. She gasped.

Mariah leaned forward to look. “Oh, God!”

A gray pickup was hurtling toward them from the left side of their truck. Kicking up a storm of dust, its driver was obviously intent on cutting off their escape route. The smaller vehicle missed them narrowly and came to a stop about fifty feet in front of the mining truck, not giving Tegan enough time to swerve or stop. The men in the pickup must have realized that they had cut in too close. Wasting no time, they launched themselves out of the truck like rockets just as the thirteen-foot-high tires of the mining truck rolled over the gray vehicle, flattening it without even slowing. Tegan and Mariah both let out screams when they heard the vehicle crunch under their tires.

We could have killed those guys!
Tegan thought, feeling ill.

About half a mile ahead, she saw floodlights on tall poles marking the main entrance to the mining site. A large security post stood in the middle with boom gates on either side.

No problem for this thing,
she thought.

When she glanced into her side mirror, though, she realized they weren’t out of trouble yet. An orange Hummer was barreling toward them. Elvis leaned out of the passenger’s window with a shotgun in his hand.

To make matters worse, she saw the beasts—Marauders—tearing after the mining truck, closing the distance with each ten-foot bound. Mariah saw them coming, too. She let out a moan that quickly morphed into a scream.

The leading Marauder launched off the ground, then vanished from Tegan’s sight. “Where did it go? I can’t see it!”

“That’s not good,” Mariah muttered. “It’s on the truck!”

“How? That’s a good twenty feet off the ground!”

The Marauder’s head popped over the top edge of the front windshield. The girls screeched. It stared at them in a demented fervor, upside-down, then tried to descend onto the platform next to the crew cab. Tegan turned the wheel sharply, hoping to fling the creature off the truck. It worked—somewhat. The beast was thrown off balance but instead of falling off the truck, it bounced and crashed against the railing. The long razor-like claws on the creature’s massive paws caught a rail and it hung precariously on the side of the truck. The girls watched, speechless. The angry Marauder let out a deep roar that rose above the noise of the truck’s engine.

The radio crackled and the man Elias spoke.
“Alright, let’s see them go through
this
.”

Tegan goggled when she saw what he meant. A quarter of a mile ahead of them, a long white tanker truck had pulled in front of the guard post, blocking both boom gates. On its side, painted in large red letters, was a single word: FUEL.

“Tegan!” Mariah yelped.

“I see it!”

The Marauder was still hanging onto the railing and just when it seemed to be slipping off, hooked its other paws in place. It bunched its hindquarters, pulled itself onto the platform and approached the girls in the crew cab. Its long snout was wrinkled in a snarl and saliva dripped from its jaws. Fangs bared, it slammed against the door again and again. The girls screamed as the safety glass began to crack.

Through the frenzy, Tegan saw that the exit was fast approaching. A giant man jumped out of the fuel truck, looking smug. Despite still screaming at the attacking Marauder, Tegan had a brief flash of a memory. Horrified, she recalled where she’d last seen those features.
He’s supposed to be dead!