Zacharov had never felt such pain. His whole body burned. Lit by the flashlight now stuck in the oozing substance, he watched his Black-gloved hands melt. He closed his eyes when the ooze flowed over his face and screaming, prayed death came swiftly.
Jaroslav stumbled back firing when something fell on him and wrapped around his head. It burnt like acid. He screamed as his melting skin slithered from his skull. Forcing his finger from the trigger, he dragged the weapon through the clinging substance and turned it on himself. As he pulled the trigger, he said goodbye to his wife and son he would never see again.
Knocked away when Jaroslav barged into him, Verez stumbled clear of the black and tripped to the floor. Screams and weapon fire rolled him onto his back with his rifle ready to fire. His mouth dropped open when he saw the sheet of rubbery Black covering his comrades, their forms and stretching hands pushing at the pliable mass visible in the elastic cloak that liquified before his eyes and began flowing over them. Reluctant to fire for fear of hitting his comrades, he jumped to his feet and shouldered the rifle. When he rushed forward to pull his nearest comrade free, an arm of one of his comrades shot through the mass. He froze and watched in horror as the flesh slipped from the man’s fingers and hand and rolled back on itself when it travelled down the raised arm. The black flowed up the arm and pulled it back into its mass.
Verez, sickened and horrified, stepped back when a gooey piece of Black stretched towards him and formed into a sharp spike. Reaching for the rifle as he stumbled backwards, he screamed when the spike entered his stomach and continued though until it erupted in a spray of blood out his back. It rose up behind him and yanking him off his feet it curled around his face and pulled him into its mass.
When the screams and movements of its latest victims ended, EV1L began the absorption process, drawing in the humans’ nourishment like water to a dry sponge.
CHAPTER 12
Gateway to the Underworld
The helicopter pilot’s voice over the headset opened his tired passenger’s eyes that had drooped closed. “We’re here.” The pilot pointed at the large gash in the tundra they sped towards. “Hell’s Mouth.”
The passenger wiped the spittle of sleep-induced drool from his cheek as he stared at the cancerous growth that blighted the landscape, a vast area of permafrost. It was Mother Nature’s version of a flesh-eating disease whose cliff faces expanded ten meters or more each year farther into the surrounding tundra. The pilot flew around the tadpole-shaped gouge in the frozen earth, currently almost 0.6 miles (1km) long and 282ft (86m) across, and up to 328 (100m) feet deep. Some had labeled the deep pit the Gateway to the Underworld, others called it Hell’s Mouth. However, its actual and less ominous name was Batagaika crater.
Though some who misunderstood the phenomenon assigned its existence to otherworldly events, Batagaika crater was known as a megaslump, the largest of its kind and still growing. The trigger that led to the crater’s creation started in the 1960s when rapid deforestation caused the ground to be no longer shaded by trees in the warmer summer months. The sunlight then warmed the ground it hadn’t shone on for eons, melting the permafrost and turning it to mud that slumped to form the ever-expanding crater.
What may prove to be fatal for the current Siberian landscape was good news for scientists and paleontologists. Some parts of the exposed ground reached back two hundred thousand years to the time of long extinct creatures. Trapped in the steadily thawing permafrost were the fossilized remains of ancient forests, mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses, cave lions and other ice age giants that once roamed the area.
The passenger took in the inhospitable features of the crater’s floor and the steep hills and gullies that dropped away from precarious cliffs forming the sides. People working around the site looked up when the helicopter swooped overhead. He turned his gaze to movement on the cliff that filled the left-side window. A huge chunk of frozen tundra loosened by the thawing process slipped from the steep side and tumbled to the bottom, exposing another section of the past for the scientists and paleontologists to examine.
As the helicopter decreased its revs, the passenger directed his gaze upon the small group of brightly colored tents pitched on a flattish, raised peak of earth far from the treacherous sides of the pit. When the helicopter turned, hovered and then began its descent onto a flat ridge of ground, a man exited the largest of the tents whipped frantically by the rotor wash and approached the makeshift landing pad. After the helicopter had touched down and the pilot had killed the engine, the passenger slipped off his headset and climbed out.
The man approaching the helicopter smiled warmly at the disembarking passenger and held out a hand to the man ducking far lower than necessary to clear the slowing rotors. “Hello, Richard. You made it then?”
Richard grasped the man’s hand and shook. “Hello, brother.” He glanced around at the area encased on all sides by sheer, precarious cliffs that looked too unstable and dangerous to climb. “What arse-end of hell have you brought me to, David?”
David laughed. “It might not look like much, but we are making some amazing discoveries—treasures of the ice age. We’ve discovered remains of an ancient forest, frozen remains of a musk ox, mammoth, and a 4,400-year-old horse inside the crater, and there is much more down here waiting for us to find. The preservation of some of the frozen specimens is remarkable. Skin, muscle and perhaps even blood and viable DNA have been preserved.”
Richard had read about the fervour around a new buzzword that was a hot topic in some areas of the scientific community—de-extinction. “That might be of interest to someone keen to bring an extinct beast into the modern world, but I’m not one of them. I’ve faced enough monsters to last a lifetime.”
“Still the grumpy old sod you always were, Richard. I thought recent events might have mellowed the old you.”
“Nope, the opposite in fact. I’m more bitter and pissed off with the world than I ever was before.”
“That’s a shame,” said David sadly. He placed a hand on Richard’s shoulder. “Whatever your mood, it’s good to see you again.” He glanced at the pilot stepping down from the helicopter. “Hi, Lev, did you bring the supplies we requested?”
The pilot lit a cigarette and aimed a thumb at the helicopter. “All in the back.”
“Give us a hand to unload, Richard. All the others are out working the ground.”
After the supplies had been unloaded and stored in one of the tents, the helicopter lifted into the air and flew away.
Rubbing the base of his aching back, Richard glanced around the site. “Where’s this rock you think might be a meteorite you want me to examine?”
David pointed towards a section of crumbling cliff. “Over by the edge. It’s too large to move. Follow me. On the way I have something special to show you.”
Richard followed his brother along a path formed by the passing of many boot-clad feet. After scrambling over a large section of rough ground, they climbed a mound of hard-packed earth dotted with tufts of coarse grass. Richard gazed over at a group of people gathered under a canopy stretched across metal poles. David descended the mound and strode towards them with Richard following.
After David had introduced his brother to his team, he led Richard to the wide pit they were currently excavating and waited for him to gaze at the spectacular find.