Robert W. Walker (26 page)

"As before."

"But why?" asked Kendra, who had been debriefed by Stroud and the others on the details of their first encounter with the supernatural forces abounding in the ship.
Even this deterrent hadn't kept her back. A video recording the same information had been left with Commissioner Nathan in the event they did not return.

"Yes, Abe, why would it place obstacles in our way if it parted the zombies for us?"

"It wants the crystal and
Esruad
, but it wants them on its terms, and down here, it makes the terms. We must be prepared for anything."

"We are," said Wiz, hefting his dart gun, looking awkward doing so.

Kendra held firm to the wand of her gas jet and said, "I only pray this will be enough."

Stroud saw, as did Leonard and Wiz, that the corridor leading into the pit had widened considerably, dug out by the army of working zombies the evil had employed. Before them lay a network of crisscrossing and parallel tunnels, which ran, it appeared, completely around the ship, the walls dripping with dampness. It was a labyrinth of
darkness,
cell upon cell of stored carcasses placed in beehive fashion into the walls and covered over with a waxy gauze. Stroud handed the skull to Kendra, investigating one of the cells. There were five dead to a hive, except that they weren't completely dead. Most were maimed, parts ripped from them, some looking as if they'd been bitten near to death, others without
skin.
They were the victims of the monster that had grown bored with them, and so put aside for later. It was storing the bodies after feeding on them, putting them up with the help of the zombie servants. It would return to them later for a second and third feeding. In so doing, it sapped away their spirits, their souls, Stroud realized.

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.

"Let's take a break," said Kendra, tired.

The others agreed. Stroud went into a separate chamber, saying he'd try to consult with the skull.

The others waited for what seemed an interminable amount of time, and growing impatient, Kendra wondered if Stroud had abandoned them. She wanted to call out for him, or go to him, but she recalled the last time she had disturbed him while he was commiserating with the skull--the soul of
Esruad
, he claimed.

Just as she got up to go find him, Kendra felt a tugging at her leg that toppled her and suddenly she was being held upside down from the ceiling by powerful hands. She screamed as the
rootlike
, ropy creature that pulled her toward a black hole overhead tightened its grip around her ankles.
Wisnewski
grabbed onto her, holding firm, shouting for Leonard to help.

Leonard, frozen with fear, stared at the
tentacled
rope that whipped out at them and threatened to take hold of Wiz and him as well. "Look out!"

"Fire on it!"

Leonard whipped around the gas wand and fired from his canister just as one of the tarantula-like arms of the creature grabbed his own leg. He fired a dart into the hairy tentacle that held him.

Kendra had the presence of mind to do the same, as did Wiz.

The touch of the chemical repellents from their weapons continued to work, as there
came
a screeching cry of pain and death from the thing that'd crawled out of the roof and grabbed Kendra. Kendra was dropped, falling hard into Wiz. Leonard continued to fire, pouring on the gas now. The thing seemed to be coming apart before their eyes, parts of it falling away, other parts being dragged back up into a hole it had opened.

Stroud rushed into the
foray
, firing on the last remnants of the long-armed monster again and again as it disappeared into the darkness above them. He rushed to Kendra, helping her to her feet. She was whimpering and shaking, frightened to the bone.

"Where were you,
dammit
!
Where were you?"