Julio thought of this and all the possibilities that awaited him as he kept a steady pace up the tunnel. He reached the point where he’d almost given up dragging his brother when he heard something.
He paused.
He listened.
From the direction he’d escaped came the faint sounds of what sounded like laughing.
Like the horrid sounds of hyenas.
And the chattering of castanets.
The laughter and the clapping increased in pitch.
The noises grew louder.
And closer.
Julio broke into a run. He ran as fast as he could. His lungs were burning. His muscles unable to keep up with this drive. He ran as fast as he could for as long as he could then more.
He coughed.
His body fought for air.
Yet he continued running.
The garage door came into view, giving him a sudden burst of hope that filled his lungs and sped his legs.
He ran forward and slammed into the barricade.
It didn’t budge.
He banged the wood with closed fists and screamed for it to be opened.
“Open door!” he cried. “It’s Julio. Open door!”
He heard the peals of laughter from before
Whoops.
Howling.
The repetitive clapping of ivory.
Julio turned from the sounds echoing through the tunnel and returned to banging on the barricade.
“Open door!” Julio screamed. “Open the door.”
42.
Juan waved his hand to José who was repeating the same message ad nauseam over the radio.
“Cut that shit!” Juan commanded. He took the cigarette from his mouth and tossed it to the ground. He raised his AK-47 to the barrier and stepped back. José, Arturo, and the three other armed men in the barn watched Juan’s actions then mirrored them exactly until an army of pistols and rifles were leveled at the heavy wooden structure.
“What?” José whispered.
“Banging,” Juan explained in near silence. “Something’s banging on the door.”
José turned his ear to the structure. “I don’t hear….”
The makeshift door exploded outward in a shower of splinters and nails, dust and debris. Julio’s bloody, faceless body fell forward into the barn and a swarm of white animals leapt forward. The men screamed in disbelief and fired into the horde.
The cave dwellers pounced upon the men and tore at faces, bit fingers from hands, and pulled ears from heads. Men were knocked about and ended up shooting into one another. Juan accidentally strafed José’s body with a half a dozen shots, zipping him from chest to groin. José’s body was riveted and danced in spasm then fell to the ground. The sudden shock to his body caused José to fire his AR-15 upward at full auto. Bullets pierced the metal roof and shattered lights. Glass showered down onto the men then fell to the ground only to be painted with the sprayed blood of men and animals.
Arturo fired into the cyclone of violence as he backed away and toward the exit. He unloaded his AK until empty, dropped it, then pulled his 9mm and kept the barrage going as he backed into the hallway. He emptied his pistol into the body of the advancing beast before him and the animal collapsed in death at his feet. Arturo dropped his clip, slammed in another, put one last bullet into the monkey’s head, and continued backing down the hall. He came to a door and banged on it while still facing forward.
“Open up, boss!” Arturo commanded. “We’re leaving.”
The door opened and Miguel pulled Arturo into the room. Arturo slammed the door shut, put his pistol into his waistband, and took the AK-47 that his boss was holding onto for dear life from him. Arturo then kicked the folding conference table over and positioned it in front of the door.
“What the hell is going on out there?!” Miguel demanded.
Arturo went to the far wall behind his boss’s desk and unleashed 20 rounds in a horseshoe pattern into and through the exterior wall. Ancient wood splintered outward and the office reverberated in gunfire and in the echo of gunfire. Arturo turned back to face Miguel then jutted his chin in the direction of the corner.
“Boss, the gun.”
Miguel nodded then grabbed a second AK-47 from the standing gun rack adjacent to his desk.
The office door shuddered, and Miguel turned to Arturo in search of strength and question. “What’s out there?!”
“Chongos,” Arturo answered in a calm voice. “Lots and lots of pissed off Chongos.”
Arturo turned back to the wall before him and kicked the shattered boards outward, revealing the darkness of the desert beyond.
The office door shuddered once more and the table that leaned against it fell to the ground. The sounds of howls and screams of anger and excitement grew in volume and permeated through the flimsy door.
“It’ll hold ‘til I get the car,” Arturo promised.
Miguel nodded then fell into sudden shock at the site before him.
A blur of white shot through the newly created opening in the wall and onto the back of Arturo’s head. The beast reached around and thrust its claws into Arturo’s eyes. Arturo screamed from the deepest well of his being. He dropped his rifle, reached up, and grabbed the violence perched upon him. The cave dweller screamed in seeming delight and pulled Arturo’s eyesight from his skull. Arturo pulled a fixed blade knife from his belt and swung wildly above his head in search of purchase.
The animal launched itself off Arturo to Miguel. Miguel raised his rifle and unleashed a torrent of gunfire in responsive panic. The spray went wild with his nervousness and two bullets caught Arturo in the neck. Arturo dropped to his knees in a geyser of arterial spray, painting his surroundings crimson red. The raging animal pounced on my Miguel’s chest and knocked him to the ground. Miguel instinctively thrust his arms out to block the creature but was too slow. The animal bit down on Miguel’s nose then jerked the severed appendage free and spit it aside. Miguel’s howls of pain and fear only seemed to fuel the papio onward and into a further frenzy of attack.
The animal slashed Miguel’s face open with its claws.
Facial muscles were split in half.
Into thirds.
Bone snapped then collapsed.
Blood pooled, running in every direction and into each new cleave.
Pain surged through Miguel’s body, overwhelming his nervous system and his ability to react with emotion or speech.
The animal continued strafing Miguel’s face until his eyes dissected into useless slices of collagen fibers.
Miguel’s last conscious thought was that of the blissful realization that he didn’t have to watch his own death.
43.
Taylor led his team back across the cavern and through the passage to the bank of the subterranean lake.
“It’s like déjà vu all over again,” Nickerson exclaimed as he panned the cave through night vision goggles.
“Zip it, smartass,” Hunter commanded across the darkness.
Taylor ignored Nickerson and Hunter’s cross talk and surveyed the scene before him for a second time.
He studied the lake and its shore, the cave ceiling and its walls. He inventoried ridges of karst and rimstone and made note of the temperature and heavy humidity. He visually measured how far the remains of fallen man and beast lay from the shore and the depth of the footsteps and claw marks that surrounded them. He counted four passages that were large enough to serve as entrances to the caverns, as well as exits from the underworld. Taylor led the team around the lake to the first passage. He studied it through thermal goggles and found some signs of usage. The second and third passages showed sign as well. But the fourth was by far the most widely used. It held the trickle of a stream and was littered with prints of caked mud, shed fur, discarded bone, and foodstuff. It smelled of musk and putrid urine.