As the cacophony of gunfire from the KA-52 ceased, the radio hissed into life.
"...leaving in three minutes!" It was the lieutenant's voice. "Ground Cleanse commencing eight minutes after that. You do not want to be here when the MiGs arrive."
Oh Jesus, they're going to blast the hole to hell!
Budanov crouched and ran closer to the wound in the land, tied the rope around a sturdy tree, and wondered just what the fuck he was doing as he threw the coiled mass over the edge and started to abseil into the darkness.
He descended nearly a hundred feet before he paused on a ledge, taking advantage of the glow from far below. From his pack he drew a couple of pitons and hammered one into the rock face as quickly as possible. Tying it off, he set his heels at the corner of the ledge and prepared to drop deeper. The seconds were ticking by in his head. How long since he’d heard the transmission? How many minutes remaining before MIGs started bombing the shit out of this hole in the frozen heart of the world?
The smell of methane lingered and he wondered if he was being slowly poisoned to death. Funny way to go, with bombs on the way.
To hell with it, he thought, and kicked off the ledge, shooting downward at reckless speed.
As he swung toward the wall again, boots shoving off for another rapid descent, he heard gunshots echoing up to him from below. He kicked off again, glanced down into the darkness… only it wasn’t truly dark at all. Far below, a pale white glow rippled and undulated like a strange ocean. Closer, on the opposite wall, the same glow shifted and crawled and slid along the rock, and now he saw them on his side as well. Slowing his descent, Budanov's breath caught in his throat.
He hung on the rope and saw the glowing, many tendriled-creatures coming for him, racing up the rock wall of the hole. He shot a single glance skyward, calculated how long it would take him to reach the top from here, and realized he would be dead soon. In reality, Budanov had known this from the moment he had snatched the coils of rope and run for the methane-cored hole, but now he truly understood what he had done.
Down was his only chance.
“Captain!” he screamed. “Kristina! Vasnev!”
Budanov kicked away from the wall and let the rope slide through his hands, nearly in free-fall. He rocketed downward, and the tumblers raced up at him. All of his choices had been made, now. From this point onward, there were only consequences.
Demidov slid backward, the jagged rock floor of the tunnel snagging at her pants. The blood of two tumblers cast a ghostly pale illumination in the tunnel mouth. The pistol was warm in her hand as she waited, heart pounding. One of the tumblers she’d killed had fallen backward off the ledge but the other lay twitching just a few feet from the soles of her boots. She dug her heel into the rock and shoved backward again, gaining a few more inches of distance from the dead thing and the ledge beyond it.
It hissed as it bled. That might’ve been the sound of it dying or just the noise of its warm blood staining the cool rock floor of the tunnel, like the ticking of a car engine after it’s been shut down. She whispered small prayers, her voice echoing in that cramped space, and she listened for Yelagin’s return. How would they get back to the surface? If they kept themselves alive long enough, help might come, but what about Vasily and his science team? The hard little bitch she thought of as her conscience told her the man she loved had to be dead, but Demidov wouldn’t listen. She told herself Vasily had to be alive.
Though maybe it would have been better if she could imagine him dead. If she could imagine he no longer needed her, that she could simply surrender to fate, give herself over to the death that even now crawled toward her.
The dead tumbler twitched and Demidov jerked backward, taking aim. She blinked, staring as she realized it was not the dead thing that moved but a new arrival. Behind the cooling, dimming corpse, another tumbler had crept over the ledge and slithered toward her, camouflaged behind its dead brother. They were getting sneaky now, and that terrified her more than anything.
They weren’t just cruel, they were clever.
“I see you,” she whispered.
It froze, as if it understood.
Demidov lifted the gun, still clutching the grenade in her left hand. The tumbler whipped to the right, raced along the wall and then onto the ceiling, clinging to the bare rock. Tendrils whipped toward her face and Demidov back-pedaled hard, sliding backward along the tunnel as she pulled the trigger. Bullets pinged and cracked and ricocheted off the walls, sending shards of rock flying. Two caught the tumbler at its core, splashing luminescent blood across the tunnel floor. Tendrils snagged her ankles from above, others tangled in her hair, and she screamed as one of them curled around her left hand – where she held the grenade.
Should have pulled the pin. Should have just thrown it. Should have—
She shot it again, center mass. Three more bullets and the gun clicked empty.
The tumbler dangled from the ceiling, its tendrils still sticking to the rock overhead. Demidov tried to catch her breath, to calm her thundering heart. Setting the grenade into the cloth nest of the crotch of her pants, she patted her pockets and checked her belt. Still had her knife, but she needed ammunition… and found it. One magazine. She ejected the spent one and jammed the fresh magazine home.
Something moved out on the ledge, slithering, rolling.
Demidov didn’t even look up at it. She knew. They weren’t coming one a time anymore.
Gun still in her right hand, she snatched up the grenade again, pulled the pin with her teeth and held on tightly. The second she let it go, the countdown would begin.
Taking a breath, she looked up.
The tumbler dangling from the ceiling dropped to the floor of the tunnel, dead, just as the others rushed in. She saw two, then realized there were three, maybe even four, their glowing tendrils churning together and filling the tunnel mouth. Demidov fired half a dozen shots, bullets punching through the roiling mass, but she knew her time had come.
She dropped the grenade, turned, and bolted to her feet.
Bent over, she hurtled down the tunnel, firing blindly back the way she’d come. The countdown ticked by in her head as she ran. In the dimming light offered by the blood soaked into her clothing, she saw the tunnel turning and followed it around a corner. The ceiling dropped and the walls closed in and she feared that she'd found a dead end, except there was no sign of—
“Kristina!” she screamed. “Take cover, if you’re here! Take—“
The grenade blew, the sound funneling toward her, pounding her eardrums as the blast threw her forward. She crashed to the floor, skidding along rough stone as bits of the ceiling showered down onto her, dust and rock chips. A crack splintered across the stone overhead and she stared up at it, lying there bruised and bloody, and waited for it to fall.
Nothing.
She took a dust-laden breath and realized she was alive. She'd dropped the gun when the grenade blew her off her feet. She looked around, ears pounding, but in that near darkness the weapon was lost.
She heard footfalls coming her way, reached for her knife, realized that the tumblers had no feet. The narrow beam of Yelagin’s flashlight appeared, along with the remaining glow of the tumblers’ blood on the woman’s uniform.
“You’re alive!” Yelagin said, more in relief than surprise. She didn’t want to be alone, and Demidov didn’t blame her.
“Seems we both are,” Demidov said, sitting up and brushing dust off her clothes. “For all the good it will do us. We’ll starve to death in here, if we don’t suffocate first.”