“It stinks,” Hagel yelled.
Seizure my ass, Aimee thought, as her eyes watered from the reek of ammonia.
The trapped HAWC gritted his teeth, threw his head back, and screamed his agony in a sound that Aimee found truly frightening coming from a man who knew how to deal with pain in all its forms. Redman Hagel lunged forward to grab his other arm, just as another sharp tug dragged more of Parcellis into the fissure.
It was impossible, Aimee thought. He couldn’t possibly fit — his equipment alone made him many times the size of the opening in the stone.
Another yank, and more crunching of bone. Jennifer was screaming now. “He’s stuck on something.” She shook her head. “Its — got — hold of him.”
With another almighty tug, a crackle-crunch of material, and perhaps flesh ripping, the tough HAWC simply… folded in on himself.
Casey threw herself to the ground, getting underneath the deformed shape of Parcellis, and pointed her rifle into the crack.
“Fuck it — no shot, no shot!” She half turned. “Hold him; don’t you dare let him go. Hold hiiiim!”
Hagel and Jennifer still gripped Parcellis’s arms, and Aimee came to hang on as well. Blake reached past Hagel, and took hold of a forearm, now one of the last bits of the man still showing, besides his head.
Parcellis was silent now, the blood on his lips looked black against his ghastly white face. Aimee knew that no one of his size could fit into that crack without significant trauma — his own crushed body would suffocate him. There was a final tug, and then they were all jerked together to collide with the crack in the stone.
Impossibly, he was inside now, and Aimee saw his fear-filled, glazed eyes fix on her momentarily, before he was ripped away into the narrow darkness.
“Fuck you!” Casey screamed as she fired into the crack. Blake and Hagel joined in, the others not able to get close. The laser’s concentrated light beams fizzed as they burned stone, and anything else they could touch.
Aimee put a hand over her mouth and nose, as the lasers scorched the traces of blood and gore on the fissure’s inner walls. Deeper inside it took on a hellish orange hue, and the extra light showed them just how narrow the fissure was, and made it seem impossible for the large man to have disappeared. However, the bloody debris on the ground just inside was testament to how he was made to fit, and the immense forces that were brought to bear on his mutilated body.
“Rhino, cannon!” Casey yelled, and the big HAWC strode over the top of everyone, telescoping out his weapons, and jamming its end into the crack.
“Fire in the hole.” Rhino pulled the trigger, and immediately Aimee felt intense heat on her face and shut her eyes as the world flared white. She lifted an arm to ward off the burning, and held her breath from the stench. Water streamed from her screwed-shut eyes.
“Hold fire.” Casey’s head dropped to the cave floor. “He’s gone.” She exhaled long and slow, and then punched her armor-plated fist into the cave floor, once, twice, and a third time, sending chips of rock flying. She got slowly to her feet.
Aimee slid to the ground, sitting with her back to the wall. “Did you see anything?” She felt her stomach lurch, and old memories raced back at her in a tidal wave of horror. “Anything at all?” Aimee asked, but already knew.
“I don’t know, but we hit it. I know a protein burn when I smell it,” Casey said.
“No, I think that was bits of Parcellis we hit.” Jennifer shook her head, cringing.
“Maybe, and that’d be a good thing. But I know what human flesh smells like, and there was something else mixed within that burn.”
“Something had him. Something had hold of him, and was strong enough to fucking pull…” Dawkins looked from Casey to the hand-span wide crack in the wall. “Pull a grown man into that?”
“Do you think we hurt it?” Soong’s voice was tiny at the rear.
Casey shook her head. “Fucked if I know. Can’t have missed it though — filled the crack, top to bottom. How can it be that big? It’s freaking tiny in there.”
“No,” Aimee said, and turned away. “No, we didn’t hurt it. We simply educated it.” She sighed wearily. The burning odor of rock, sand, flesh, and the ammonia stink hung around them. She knew what that meant.
Casey stared at her for a second or two.
Jennifer stood back a few steps. “It was stuck to him… his back, and just reeled him in.” She looked up at them, grimacing. “I don’t understand how it could pull him in — the human body just wouldn’t fit; Big Ben couldn’t have dragged him in there, and he’s twice the size of that opening.”
Hagel pointed at Aimee’s face. “The briefing said this mimic predator could compress itself. But you said it was dead.” His finger waggled at her, his expression suspicious. “Well, at least we now know what happened to those other chinks.”
“Shut it, Hagel,” Casey barked.
“It’s picking us off, one at a time.” Rhino looked down at Aimee. “Dr. Weir, what do you mean, we educated it?”
Aimee winced. “This thing, it learns, and quickly.” She nodded to the dark cave. “We just… need to be away from here.”
Casey looked back at the crack in the wall, then to each of the HAWCs and the McMurdo team. Her eyes became alert. “Hey, where’s the Chinese chick?”
There was head turning, and furious movement, and Aimee felt a sickening lurch in her stomach.
“Yo.” Dawkins’s voice floated out of the dark. “She’s back here.”
Hagel snorted, his eyes wide. “Like where the fuck is she gonna go?” He looked up. “Leave her.”
“Last chance, Hagel,” Casey snapped at him.
“I don’t like this.” It was Blake, gun up, and pointing to the rear of the tunnel. “We’re sitting ducks.”
Aimee could feel the tension and fear. Her own body felt like the nerves in her hummed from being stretched to breaking point. She looked at Casey, trying to impart her urgency to the woman.
“Okay.” Casey exhaled, looking one last time back to the fissure in the wall, shining her light inside. She grimaced, and held up a hand. Aimee could see there was a boiling fury in her eyes.
There was just the constant drip of water from somewhere far away in the dark. After another second, the dripping stopped. Casey spun.
“Soldiers, let’s get the fuck out of here. Move it.” She pushed past Aimee to take the lead, and started to jog.
Aimee noticed she left her barrel light on.
CHAPTER 34
They pushed into a larger, open chamber, and Casey held up a hand, slowing out at front and moving her light around.
“Give me a perimeter, and check for movement.” The words came out through clamped teeth.
Big Ben Jackson looked in shock, and John Dawkins slid down a wall to sit with his hands over his face. But the HAWCs went to work, spreading out, jogging from one cave opening to the next, stopping and checking even the minutest fissures in the cavern walls. They each pointed barrel-lights in first, followed by sensors, checking the data, and then quickly moving on to the next.
Their professionalism impressed Aimee, and she relaxed a fraction, turning to Casey. The tough female HAWC leaned back against a wall, sucking in air, her face still furious. She was staring at the ground, mouthing silent obscenities. Aimee grimaced as she watched Casey suddenly bring a fist up to bang it hard against her forehead.
“Godfuckingdammitalltohell.” She bounced off the cave wall and turned her face to Aimee. “That was it, wasn’t it?”