The creature reacted quickly to Sanji's message, waving its good tentacle and spinning in an impossibly fluid, graceful circle, as if dancing, its whole body flashing bright yellow. Sanji stepped forward from the group, repeating the tentacle god's motion as best he could. No one said a word, just simply stared at the unfathomable scene.
The creature cavorted through a series of antics: it rushed up the side of the wall, amorphous body conforming to the wall's shape; it shot its good tentacle like a pseudopod and clung to the eight-foot ceiling; it pulsed with bright blues and greens to accompany the original yellow. The other two creatures remained down the hall, one frolicking along with Sanji. The other, the first creature they'd seen, wobbled from side to side, moving slowly, tentacles waving. The motion reminded Connell of something, something strangely human and familiar, but he couldn't tell what it was.
Sanji mimicked the lead tentacle god as best he could, already growing short of breath from the unexpected exertion. Lybrand leaned her head forward, as if moving a foot closer would give her some insight.
"I don't think that's language,” she said. “It's playing, like a child."
A flicker of movement caught their eye, high up on the wall, in the crack that had spawned the second two tentacle gods. Another tentacle slid through, but this one was bigger. Much bigger. Only the tip fit through the crack, the three-fingered end splitting and feeling around the inside edges of the tunnel like a trio of searching snakes.
Sanji's dance partner pulsed a bright purple, then ran up the wall and started tugging on one of the “fingers,” hanging and swinging from it as if it were a jungle vine.
"Veronica,” Connell said quietly. “What's on the other side of that wall?"
She held the map with shaking hands. “It looks like that wall is fairly thin, and there's another tunnel on the other side."
A deafening screech filled the tunnel, much louder and deeper than that made by the small tentacle god. It sounded as if a semi had locked up its brakes and skidded across an open highway. Everyone jumped at the horrid sound; the cacophonous bellowing seemed to shake the very ground.
The six humans stood stock-still. The thick, gray-and-black spotted tentacle finally found purchase on the smaller creature and pulled it quickly, but gently, into the crack. The crippled tentacle god squished into the crack like a purple dollop of goo, entering the wall as its boneless body conformed to the narrow, rocky crevice.
"Is there a connecting tunnel between this one and that one?” O'Doyle asked. His voice sounded urgent, aggressive yet full of dread.
"I don't see one,” Veronica said. Her eyes constantly flashed from the map back up to the wall.
The big, mottled tentacle again lolled through the crack, the three boneless fingers waving like the snake-hair of Medusa. Connell couldn't see the body through the narrow crack, and wasn't sure if he wanted to.
As the large tentacle-fingers waved about, the two small tentacle gods moved toward it. The first creature they'd seen moved slowly and in an unsure manner, guided by the other, which was graceful and quick. Both pulsed a warm purple, although the original's light looked fainter and thinner.
It was the uncoordinated walk that brought Connell's impressions into focus. Dimwitted, he thought, staring at the slowly moving original tentacle god. It's retarded or something.
"I don't like the looks of this,” O'Doyle said. “It seems like the adult is pulling the children away from danger."
The python-like tentacle first pulled the dimwitted creature through, then popped back out and grabbed the other. Neither creature fought, and in an instant they were gone, pulled through the crack like jiggling Jell-O.
"Did you see that fucking tentacle?” Lybrand said in a rushed voice. “It was huge. That thing must be ten feet tall."
Connell tried to imagine one of the three-foot tall creatures growing to monstrous size, but the picture wouldn't register in his brain.
"They have no bones,” Sanji said. “They go right through the wall, they have no bones."
The crack seemed like a mouth smiling at an inside joke to which Connell wasn't privy.
A repetitive click click click sound filled the narrow tunnel. Five headlamps snapped rigidly to attention, pointing back down the tunnel like a sweep of Broadway spots swinging toward center stage. As a group, they peeked around the green stalactite corner.
Brightly reflecting the headlamps sat a string of jerking silverbugs, convulsing in rhythm, snapping toward the ground with sickly speed and then slowly rising back up, only to snap down again. Lights played up the length of the tunnel — silverbugs stretched as far as the headlamp light traveled.
The lights didn't reveal just the silverbugs, but something else as well, something unrecognizable. All eyes tried to focus at the back of the tunnel, at the far end of the light's long but weak reach. The back of the tunnel seemed to move, to flow, to convulse.
O'Doyle hurriedly holstered his Beretta and in a flash whipped his H&K into firing position, bracing his legs as if to fight the impact of an oncoming train.
"Run!” he screamed over the clamoring silverbug sounds. “Get to the light, right now!"
Connell and the others paused for only a moment, for the briefest fraction of a second, until their eyes focused on the horror that swept down the tunnel like a wall of bile. They turned and sprinted for the light.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Randy Wright felt very much like a worm on a hook.
"Nothing. Keep scanning,” he shouted up the tunnel. He walked slowly, fear visible on his body as if his KoolSuit were woven from the emotion. He didn't like the way the ALs tracked his movements, adjusting themselves to keep their wedge-shaped protrusions pointed in his direction as he walked back and forth through the stone passage.
"It's probably a low frequency,” Angus said called back. “Better to travel through the tunnels that way.” He was still in the small cavern, where they had dissected the silverbug, tinkering with the radio and trying to find a way to scramble the machines’ signals.
"I don't really care about theory right now,” Randy said. “Just find it.” The ALs tracked his every step. While one AL fascinated him, more than twenty clinging to the walls and the ceiling sent a primitive survival urge tickling through his loins.
Suddenly the ALs’ behavior changed. Randy felt his skin bubble up with goosebumps as the machines rushed to form a straight line on the tunnel floor. They started to bob in a coordinated, herky-jerk fashion. Something about the movement looked insectlike… predatory. Randy fought a sudden urge to run.
"Angus, you'd better get that figured out quick. They're up to something and I don't like it."
Then, just as suddenly as they'd started bobbing, the ALs broke ranks and moved randomly, walking in circles and bumping into each other.
Randy screamed back up the tunnel to Angus. “That's it! That's screwing them up royally!"
"I knew it,” Angus shouted back. “Get over here."
Randy ran up the tunnel to where Angus sat with the dissected AL. A sharp crackling, hissing sound filled the air. Angus's walkie-talkie looked as if someone had smashed it, leaving wires exposed and circuit boards scattered about the sandy ground.
"Frequency is at 300 kilohertz,” Angus said smiling. “I just rigged the radio to broadcast rapidly alternating blasts of static and coding from our scrambling signal. It should really mess up their communication. What are they doing?"