Slater shrugged and looked around. “Just hurry. It could come back any moment.”
Aston carefully wedged charges and dynamite into cracks in the wall of the tunnel, as high as he could reach. Once he’d got several sticks in place, he checked the lead-wires from each and began delicately trailing them back. “We have to hope this stuff is all still operational,” he said, as much to himself as Slater. “There’s no reason it shouldn’t be, but it’s pretty old.”
Slater cast her light around the tunnel again. “Are you close to being finished? I’m going to go get our gear, and I’d really like for you to be ready when she comes back.”
Aston gathered the lead-wires together and twisted them into a thin rope, attached them to the detonator wire, and began unfurling it from the wooden spool. He moved along as quickly as he could, not wanting to pull the wires loose from the explosive charges. As he emerged from the tunnel, Slater put their gear down beside the box they’d carried out.
Somewhere in the distance, a huge splash and fleshy slaps on cold rock echoed and the main lair flared into brightness from the sensor-camera’s lights.
Aston’s stomach turned to ice and he stood as still as the rock around them. The sounds grew louder, the slap and drag of something massive and wet. Slater’s panicked breathing hissed in his ear.
“She’s here.” Slater’s voice was scarcely audible over the pounding of his heart.
“I’m not ready yet,” Aston said in a frantic whisper.
“How long do you need?”
Aston broke free from the paralysis of fear. “Just a few moments. I have to get this attached to the detonator.” He pointed to the big plunger.
“Do it,” she said. “And you’d better be ready.”
Without waiting for an answer, she snatched the Luger from his belt and dashed away across the cave.
“Slater, get back here. Jo!”
No reply.
Aston gritted his teeth. Damn, but she was a brave woman. As he crouched to connect the detonator, she screamed. No bullets, though. Did she not know to release the safety? Hell, she was American. She probably had a pistol in her bassinet.
Wincing, refusing to believe she was caught yet, he focused on the job in hand.
“This way, you bitch!” Slater yelled, her voice echoing starkly off the rock.
A huge silhouette moved in the darkness beyond the reach of the camera light. Slater’s headlamp flicked back and forth at the far end of the tunnel, then it strafed across the mighty, pale gray hide of the monster, shined off a row of glistening teeth. The confines of the cavern only served to emphasize the beast’s enormity. Aston winced. It was already so close to her! Desperately struggling against his shaking hands, he fumbled the wire into the detonator.
“Come and get me!” Slater yelled and her light danced hectically as she ran for the far opening. She fired off a single round from the Luger, the sharp report echoing. The beast emitted a low rumble but didn’t move. Slater fired again.
That got its attention. The creature slapped and bashed as it dragged its bulk across the cavern floor. It plowed through the piles of bones, crunching them like matchsticks.
“I hope you’re ready, Sam!” Slater yelled. He heard her bare feet slapping the rock as she ran.
The monster dove into the tunnel right behind her and she cried out again. It moved quicker than he would have ever dreamed possible, virtually running on its powerfully muscled fins, the snap of its mighty teeth echoing like gunshots. Its long tail whipped and swished as it vanished from sight.
Aston tried to attach the second charge wire, but his fingers shook so violently that he couldn’t even get it close. His head still pounded with concussion, his vision crossed and blurred. “Come on, you useless prick!” he hissed to himself. “No time for this!”
“Aston!” Slater howled and her light appeared in the darkness ahead. “It’s right behind me!” Two more gunshots rang out.
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, gripped his hands into fists. “You can do this,” he whispered.
Opening his eyes, he took the wire and wound it in as Slater burst from the tunnel and slid around the wall beside him.
“Aston, blow it!” she cried.
He drew the plunger up and slammed it down.
Nothing happened.
The monster’s progress echoed down the passage, fat, wet slaps, sounding like it was right on top of them.
“What the fuck?” Aston said. He’d done everything right, he was sure of it.
He drew the detonator up and slammed it down once more, and the tunnel burst into noise and light and dust and crashing rock. Substrate blasted out of the entrance beside them as it collapsed and smashed into the side wall of the cavern, cracks and echoing booms following the ear-ringing explosion of the dynamite itself. Rock rained from the cave ceiling and battered them. Aston grabbed Slater and tried to crouch over her, shield her with his body as the repercussions of the massive explosion rippled again and again. It would be so unfair if their plan had worked only to bring the entire cave system crashing down to crush them. Maybe he’d used too much dynamite. Rocks battered his back and shoulders and he covered his head with his arms, crying out against the hurt and the fear of being buried alive.
The booms echoed away leaving only the rattle and hiss of smaller rocks tumbling and sliding over each other, then silence.
Aston raised his head, shined his torch around. The back of the lair was an entirely new shape, but the front of the cave and the water beyond looked the same as it ever had. The sensor light on the camera all the way across the cavern blinked off.
The wall they sheltered against had fallen in and cracked into great slabs of dark stone. Aston allowed himself a small laugh. Everything was still. Slater rose from her crouch and added her flashlight to his, her face dawning in a smile as her terror began to lift.
“Did it work?” she asked, barely above a whisper.
“I think so,” Aston said, his own voice quiet lest they disturb some fragile rock pile.
Slater hugged him and he planted a kiss on her lips. “My hero.”
The rock beside them shifted.
They jumped back, eyes wide. It shifted again. Not sliding down or collapsing, but rising, as if something massive were trying to shrug beneath it.
“No way,” Aston breathed.
“We have to go!” Slater said.
They snatched up their dive gear and readied themselves to flee. As the rocks shifted again and again behind them, crunching and cracking as they fell and reshaped, Aston and Slater pulled on tanks and masks. Without a word, they ran for the water. The LED sensor light on the camera burst into brightness again as they jumped into the icy water and hauled on their fins. The last thing Aston saw before he submerged was the great, gray spiny back of the beast pushing up out of the rock fall.
Chapter 44
They hit the water and kicked hard. As they passed the camera they had set earlier, light exploded around them casting everything in bright white and stark shadows. Aston caught Slater’s eye and pointed down, then at his chest. He mimed pulling and throwing a grenade. He hoped she understood — get to the bottom then blow the shaft, trapping the monster above.
Slater gave him a double thumbs-up and they kicked away again. Aston had never swum so hard in his life. All the fatigue from the day’s exertion dissolved in this desperate flight to safety.
He glanced back up into the pool of light high above them and his heart sank. The water burst into bubbles and swirls as the mighty beast hit the surface and dove. They were barely halfway down the vertical shaft and it was already coming, its maw split open to reveal a forest of shining teeth.