“This is the third tunnel,” Aston said.
“It’s a half loop.” The despair in Slater’s tone increased with each word. “Easily big enough for the bastard to fit right through.”
Aston frowned. “It’s okay. This gives me an idea, maybe.”
“You’d better think quickly! That thing could be back here any second.”
“Let’s go back and check the other way.”
They returned to the fork and took the narrower tunnel. It sloped gently upwards and narrowed further as it went. After about sixty feet, Aston looked back.
“Well, there’s no chance the monster can get up here, the way is far too small now.” He allowed himself a moment of quiet hope. “We can hide out from it, at least. Hopefully we can get a lot further up, just in case it does have a good sense of smell.”
“Do you think this is the way the Nazis used?”
“Must be. If the story is true and this is that cave, it’s the only option right?”
Slater glanced back. “I wonder where the supposed entrance to the Hollow Earth is? Remember Mo’s story?”
“Underwater, Mo said, so somewhere in the vertical shaft leading up here, I guess. If the story is to be believed. Or it might even in the long ocean shaft at the bottom.” He shook his head, amazed at the train of his thoughts. “But seriously, just because this may very well be the cave the Nazis found, that doesn’t mean there’s actually an entrance to the Hollow Earth here.”
Slater shrugged. “Sure. But the legend claims the way is guarded by a leviathan. Do you remember that part of Mo’s yarn? Doesn’t that add to the credibility of the tale?”
Aston paused. The caves, the beast, the legends. It was true that a lot of folklore was based in some kind of truth. Then again, the locals might have simply conflated the legend of the lake monster with the Hollow Earth tale. “Maybe,” he conceded eventually. “Perhaps there are more interesting underwater caverns around, even if they’re not actually access to some mythical other world. But I’ve no idea how people in days gone by would have found the entrance down there.”
Slater nodded. “I really wish now we’d taken the time to look for it. It would have made an interesting extra angle for the show.”
Aston cocked his head. Something had been bothering him, but no time had felt right for clearing the air. Right now, with the fear of death hanging over them, probably wasn’t the best time either, but if Slater was straying off-topic, so could he. If they were going to die, it would be nice if no doubts lay between them.
“Speaking of the show, what’s the real story behind your late-night walks? Holloway said you were uploading files?”
Slater’s shoulders sagged. “I was covering my ass in case Holloway screwed me over. I had a couple potential buyers for the material and I was uploading to my own cloud in case I turned to them in the future.”
“I thought you said you vetted Holloway thoroughly.”
Slater nodded. “I did, but when you’ve worked in the film and television industry as long as I have, you assume everyone’s out to give you the shaft.” She lowered her head, a solitary tear tracing a rivulet down her cheek. “I’m sorry, Sam.”
“What for?”
“Holloway was obviously paranoid. I can’t help but wonder if finding out what I was up to pushed him over the edge.”
Aston circled her shoulders with one arm and gave her a squeeze. “Don’t talk like that. The man was a nutter, and I don’t blame you for having a backup plan. And now, when we get out of here, you’ve got all that footage backed up and no Holloway to worry about, right?” He leaned over and kissed the top of her head. “Let’s go a little deeper. See if we can get out, or see how far in we can go to hide.”
They walked on, shining their lights left and right. The passage continued to rise gently. After another sixty feet or so, their flashlights glinted off a pile of white and red. They stopped and stared.
“What the hell is that?” Slater whispered.
Chapter 42
Aston let out a small laugh, as much from disbelief as anything. Several wooden crates were stacked in a pile on one side of the passage, each branded with the swastika and eagle symbol of the Third Reich. A large red and black flag bearing the same motif was draped over the boxes, tattered and threadbare with age. Leaning up against the boxes and the tunnel walls, and lying on the tunnel floor, were several skeletons in crumbling German military uniforms.
“Well, we have our proof that Old Mo’s story was true and this is definitely the cave in question.” He moved over to the pile of crates and ran a finger across the surface of the one closest to him. Three words were stamped on the front: SPRENGSTOFF DEUTSCHEN WEHRMACHT. He knew the last two words translated to ‘German Army’ and he could guess what the other meant. “Explosives.”
Slater stared at the bizarre scene before her. “This can’t be the entire German unit, so what happened to the others? They just left these men here to starve to death?”
“Who’s to say any of them survived? They might be part of the bone pile out in the lair. We know…” Something caught his eye.
“What?”
Aston pointed, at a loss for words. Another pile of bones stood off to one side, next to the black scorch marks of a small fire. A couple of daggers lay atop a neatly folded uniform. The skeleton itself was broken up, the arms and legs separated from the torso, and the larger bones cracked open.
“Did that one get undressed before he died?” Slater asked quietly.
Aston gritted his teeth as he took in the grisly scene. “I think maybe he didn’t undress himself.”
“The others undressed him? Why..?” She didn’t finish the question. After a moment she said, “They ate him?”
Aston shrugged. He knelt beside one of the uniformed corpses. It had a hole blown in the skull and a Luger pistol clutched in its bony fingers. “Whatever they did, this one couldn’t take it anymore.”
“Jesus Christ,” Slater said. “They couldn’t wait for their friends?”
“Assuming there were any friends to wait for. Maybe they figured the rest of their unit had already been killed. They probably reached a point at which it was every man for himself.”
“What, they didn’t realize the monster couldn’t fit through here?”
“I’ll bet it had them trapped. They probably held out as long as they could, waiting for help to come. Once they ran out of provisions, water in particular, they were done for.”
“I can’t imagine. But if they came in by land, why not leave the same way?”
“Wait here.” Aston jogged further up the tunnel. Sure enough, he soon came to a tumbled rock wall, the result of the explosives from Old Mo’s story, perhaps. A cursory inspection revealed scorch marks, tunnel walls scoured and pockmarked by flying debris, stone fragments covering the floor. Having a good idea of what happened, he returned to Slater.
“It’s a dead end up there. The tunnel is caved in, either deliberately or accidentally, but almost certainly from blasting.”
Slater frowned. “So what happened?”
“I reckon maybe the entire platoon was running from the monster after it snacked on a few of them. This must be the way to the surface, but perhaps they blew the tunnel behind them in an attempt to end the chase. The rest probably buried themselves and these guys here were the only few stragglers left, but were trapped on this side. Or maybe the others escaped and sacrificed this lot. Given Mo’s story told of no one ever making it out, I’m thinking maybe they really fucked up and brought the whole passage down on themselves. One idiot’s stray grenade could potentially do that. Either way, we can hide a little deeper in.”