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| Image Prompt "The Pit," from Iron Age Media |
I got a little too enthusiastic about this prompt and ended up plotting a three-part story that might end up at novella length.
However, the different parts are fairly self-contained, so here's a slightly reworked version of part of the second act, which works as its own action-packed short story. Enjoy!
Warrenton was the first vertical city on Sophra, a planet that had a clean oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, but one too thin at the surface for humans to breathe unassisted. The Vertical City Project was designed to take advantage of the cool, stable crust of the planet and create a haven for humanity deep below the surface. Ten kilometers below the surface, the air was thin but sufficient. Fifteen down, oxygen partial pressures were comparable to Earth at sea level. At twenty, the air was thicker and made physically demanding jobs, like mining, easier and more efficient.
The massive excavation project had just crossed the twenty kilometer mark a few weeks ago. The main shaft was about half a kilometer wide and ample ventilation and modern lighting technology made the deep underground just as healthy as a day in the sun on Earth.
However, today there was a problem. One of the three main ventilators failed, and the other two shut down only a few minutes later. The elevators stopped working, and the network of radio frequency repeaters that made communication possible through and around the caverns went down. The city managers scrambled to get things back online. Without ventilation, the air down at the bottom of the city would be breathable for around three hours. Citizens living deep underground all maintained twelve hour supplies of breathable air, but the clock was ticking.
The city managers decided to try to repair one of the ventilation shafts and the repeater network. The ventilator repair team, an eight-person group consisting of some of the city's most skilled engineers, would be preceded by a team of five of Warrenton's most experienced security officers. They made their way down the service shaft at a speed of fifty kilometers per hour on their specialized individual scaling tools, called climbers.
As they reached the bottom, they found patches of slime on the walls, evidence that the failure of the ventilators had something to do with some kind of animal or something. This kind of thing did happen occasionally, usually a clump of vermin, rats or whatever, finding its way into one of the turbines, but never all three of them at once.
The security team, led by Nelson Avery, was making their way around the tunnels at the bottom of the main shaft. Joris Alekna was second in command, an expert at mechanical engineering. Eileen Wyatt was the comms officer, currently busy scanning the different frequency bands for any connection to the main network. Alejandro Hunter was a crack shot with a minor in geology. Avery had just sent Gabriel Tanner up to meet with the repair team and bring them down to work on the busted turbine, since communications were still down.
They scouted the first hundred meters or so of the three tunnels that met under the ventilator shaft. Two led around the circumference of the city, and the third led straight toward the center of the main shaft. Aside from a few patches of that weird slime, they found no sign of any living thing larger than an earthworm, human or otherwise.
They went into the tunnel leading toward the center of the main shaft and walked the short distance there. The mining team was gone, but maybe they had already evacuated. There had been an emergency evacuation order over the city loudspeakers a while ago, and everyone ought to be making their way up on one of the big staircases that went all the way up to the surface.
Abruptly, Wyatt held up her hand and snapped her fingers twice, signaling that she had made contact with the surface. “Hold up,” Avery ordered. After a moment, the voice of the ventilator manager came through all of their communicators.
“Security team, do you read?”
“Loud and clear, sir,” Avery stated.
“Good. Looks like they got the repeaters back online. We're all working together on some solutions up here. I just checked with the mining manager and he hasn't heard anything from the mining team. He's still trying to get in touch with them. Also, the repair team is about halfway down. They've picked up Mr. Tanner and are continuing down.”
“Understood, we'll head back to the service point. We haven't found any other signs of the mining team.”
“Acknowledged. We'll try again over--”
The manager's voice cut out. Avery and Wyatt tried adjusting their communicators, trying to reconnect to the network and to connect using different frequencies, but they failed.
“Sir? It seems like the network is down again,” Wyatt observed.
“What? Damn. Back to the service point,” Avery ordered. “Keep your eyes open. I don't like this.”
They moved.
On the way back, they discovered a little cul-de-sac in the tunnel that they had missed on their first pass. There was a large patch of the slippery fluid around it, and it looked like it came from a deep cut in the wall. They were about to pass it by, but Avery stopped. “I don't recall seeing that cavity on the way through here,” he muttered. “Do any of you?”
He got three noes.
“Hunter, Alekna,” he ordered, “check out that cavity. We'll stand by and cover you.”
The two of them walked up to it slowly and carefully, shining their lights around it and inside as best they could. Nothing moved. Nothing made a sound but their boots. Hunter had a better angle, and peered in. “It looks like it's only a few meters deep,” he noted.
“Move in slowly with me, and we'll take a better look,” Alekna cautioned.
They inched toward it in silence. Finally, they got to it and Alekna played his light around the inside. “Looks like nothing, sir,” he said, right as his light passed over something. “No, wait... what is that?” He focused his light on it and leaned in a little to get a better look.
“Oh, shit,” he said suddenly, backing away.
“What? What is it?” asked Avery.
“Sir, you'd better see this,” Alekna advised.
Avery and Wyatt moved up, keeping a close eye on their surroundings. Avery leaned in with his light.
“Damn,” he growled.
Inside the little niche was a single human finger. From the ragged flesh at one end of it, it hadn't been a clean cut. Yet not a drop of blood was visible anywhere else around it.
Avery shuffled back from the hole in the wall. “Everyone, back to the service point. Stay in formation--three point, three-hundred sixty degree sweep, Wyatt in the center. Wyatt, I need you to keep trying to get that communicator working.”
Wyatt nodded and started fiddling with the controls of her communicator. Avery, Hunter, and Alekna all took positions around her and they started walking toward the service point.
They got there and climbed up onto the catwalk, which gave them an elevated position and better sight lines.
“Wyatt, the repair team should be in range for line-of-sight transmission. Give it a try,” said Avery.
“Yes, sir,” she replied. She pushed a couple of buttons, and spoke. “Repair team, repair team, this is security team. Do you read me?”
A few seconds later, they got a response. “Carolina Beck, repair team lead. What's your situation, security team?”
Wyatt gestured to Avery, and Avery sighed with relief before turning on his communicator. “This is Avery, security team lead. We have confirmed hostile biological presence down here. One casualty found.”
“Any current contacts?”
“Negative.”
“Stand by, security team. We have our orders. We're going to get down there and see if we can get the ventilator running, for as long as we can. It'll reset the clock for anyone still making their way up. We need to buy them time.”
“Understood,” replied Avery. “We'll keep an eye out down here. Are you in contact with the surface?”
“No. We lost contact with them several minutes ago and haven't been able to re-establish.”
“All right. We'll keep things warm down here for you. Get down as quick as you can.”
“Understood. We'll see if we can't push this elevator a bit harder.”
“All right. Keep us informed if your situation changes.”
“Acknowledged.”
The transmission ended.
“All right, you three. We've got a job to do. Keep your eyes and ears open, keep your weapons ready, and say something if you see anything--anything!--suspicious.”
Three “yes, sirs” rang out in unison.
They waited.
After a couple of minutes, there was a faint grinding sound from above. The repair team must be getting close, thought Alekna. As the elevator got closer, the sound from it got louder, and then something about the sound it was making changed, going from a relatively soft thrum to a much louder, clunkier sound.
“Security team, come in,” they all heard through their communicators.
Avery held up a finger, asking for silence. “Avery here. What's your situation?”
“We're having light mechanical problems here. We're about three Service Points up.”
“Probably that crap on the walls getting into their gears,” Alekna whispered to Avery.
“Understood, repair team,” said Avery. “There's some kind of organic material on the walls down here that interfered with our climbers. You may try clearing the stuff off of the contacts.”
“Acknowledged,” came the answer from above. A few seconds later, another transmission came down. “Security team, it looks like there's too much of the stuff around for us to clean it effectively. We're going to try to power through.”
“Understood. We'll expect you in the next few minutes. Avery, out.”
The sound from above got louder, and now they could hear echoes as it reverberated around the tunnels near them.
After a moment, Alekna thought he heard something else, something like the soft crinkling of paper. He could barely hear it over the noise of the elevator above. “Do you hear that?” he asked Hunter, who shook his head and shrugged. Then it got louder. “That! That raspy sound!” This time, Hunter nodded and cocked his head to the side, trying to figure out where it was coming from. They asked Wyatt and Avery to listen for it, too, and soon all four of them were listening to it as it got louder. Then, almost in unison, they realized where it was coming from.
It wasn't coming from the elevator above them.
It was coming from the tunnels below.
“Contact, below us!” Avery whispered into his communicator. All four of them took up positions on the catwalk to give themselves good views of the three tunnel mouths below. They crouched, rifles aimed down at the tunnels, and waited.
Something crawled out of one of the two tunnels that went around the circumference of the main shaft. It was charcoal-black, about the same color as the rocks down there. It crawled out of the tunnel along the ceiling on six fat gecko paws, but the rest of its body didn't resemble a lizard at all. Instead, it was smooth-skinned and featureless, like a newt. It had a large, bulbous head with twelve tentacle-like protuberances that wriggled about, tasting the air, and those tentacles were ringed around a large gaping mouth filled with flat, grinding teeth. It had three red compound eyes--one in front, and one on each side.
It took a few moments to sniff the air, then it turned its head toward Hunter.
“Drop it,” whispered Avery.
Four shots rang out, and the creature let out a shriek. However, it didn't die. It didn't drop from the wall and land on the ground. It didn't writhe in pain and run away.
It charged.
All four rifles let out short bursts of fire, and the creature stopped just as it slammed into the catwalk about where Hunter was crouching. The walkway bent upward with a horrendous creak, and Hunter dove away just in time. The creature fell to the ground this time, but that strange crinkling sound didn't stop. In fact, it was louder than ever.
Three more creatures crawled out of the tunnel and looked upward at them.
“Fire at will!” Avery yelled. Each of them picked the closest target and opened fire. They dropped one, then two, then the third. The third one managed to grab part of the catwalk with its tentacle mouth-parts and tore the steel grid open before they stopped it.
The crinkling sound stopped, and no more of the creatures emerged from the tunnels. All four of them had burned through about half a magazine, and took the opportunity to perform tactical reloads.
“Repair team, Avery here.”
“We read you.”
“Just encountered a group of--uh--animals down here. Hostile.”
“Understood, Avery. What do you recommend?”
“It seems likely that they were attracted by the sound of the elevator. Recommend you slow down and clean the contacts the rest of the way down. That clunking through the slime may have attracted them.”
They heard the elevator stop. The shaft was once again perfectly silent.
After a moment, they got a response from the repair team. “Understood, security. We'll clean the contacts on the way down. Can you maintain position?”
“Affirmative,” answered Avery. “We've expended only a little ammo, and we don't hear the creatures anymore. But let's not give them an excuse.”
“Understood. Expect a few more minutes' delay as we clear out the contacts and make our way down. Stand by.”
“Standing by.”
They waited. There was the sound of a few small climbers in action above them, extremely faint. Then, they heard the elevator again, and this time it was that quiet, low thrum again, even lower and quieter than before, probably because the elevator was going slower.
A few minutes later, the repair team sent them a progress report. “Passing Service Point 95.” Now the large, flat bottom of the elevator was clearly visible only a few hundred meters above them. Now they could hear the individual climbers clearly, and could see people cleaning the gunk off of the contacts on the walls. It was a laborious process, because all sixteen of the contacts needed cleaning, and there weren't sixteen people up there.
Ten minutes passed, then twenty. Now the big elevator had passed Service Point 96 and was almost halfway to them, only about a hundred meters away. Tanner had come down to reinforce their position. Wyatt was keeping in contact with the repair team. Avery was keeping an eye on everyone. Hunter and Alekna had climbed down and checked each of the three tunnels, one by one. They saw no signs of movement in any of them, and quickly climbed back up.
The open question in all of their minds was: how many of those things were there? Had they killed all of them? It seemed unlikely, considering how many problems they were having. There was still no word from the team working on the repeaters or from the surface.
Finally, the elevator reached them. It locked into the service point, level with the catwalk, and the eight-person repair team began to assess the situation.
One of them, a stocky woman in overalls with shoulder-length red hair, walked over to Avery and Alekna and introduced herself. “Carolina Beck, repair team lead,” she said, and they recognized her voice as the one they had been talking to over the communicator.
Avery put out his hand. “Nelson Avery, security.”
She grabbed his hand and shook. “Pleased to meet you. Can you give me a brief update on the situation?”
“Of course,” answered Avery.
They took her down to look at the corpses of the creatures.
“I've never seen anything like these,” she noted. “Of course, we stumble onto native fauna occasionally down here,” she explained. “Usually, just little stuff, and almost never in rocky strata like this. You haven't seen any more?”
“No,” Avery explained. “We haven't heard them, either. They make a distinct crackly sound when they move, so keep an ear out for that.”
“I'll let my team know,” she said. She walked over to where her team was still struggling with the access hatch.
“Do we have any way to secure those tunnel mouths?” Avery asked Alekna.
He shook his head. “Unfortunately, no. We didn't bring any explosives with high enough yield.”
Avery tilted his head toward where the repair team was working. “You think they did?”
“I guess it can't hurt to ask,” Alekna said, and they both walked over to the access hatch.
Right as they arrived, there was a clunk and a hiss, and the access hatch swung open. The people closest to the hatch fell backward, gagging. The body of the creature that had gummed up the turbine was decomposing rapidly, and the smell was incredibly foul, a mixture of rotten fish and manure.
After a moment, the eight-person team got inside and disconnected the destroyed turbine and carried it out of the air shaft. Now that it was out, they could examine it closely, and it seemed likely that it was the same type of creature as the ones that they had just shot dead.
“If they decompose that quickly, we should probably get those other four out of here,” remarked Alekna.
“Maybe push them into one of the tunnels?” asked Hunter.
They agreed to push them into the tunnel they had crawled out of. It might at least make a partial barricade.
The repair team spent nearly half an hour cleaning and examining the inside of the air shaft. Huge quantities of that weird mucus needed to be cleaned out. Finally, Beck judged the inside clean enough and they installed the new turbine. They closed the access hatch, and turned the ventilation system on.
It spun up with a hum, getting louder and louder. Then, they heard the next turbine up start, and it spun up, too. With ninety-six turbines between them and the surface, it would take some time for the whole system to start up, but after a while, they started to notice a light breeze of fresh air coming from the ventilation system and pushing toward the center of the main shaft.
It was working.
“If we can keep this running for thirty minutes, it will renew the whole volume of the air down here,” Beck explained to everyone over the communicator. “It'll give anyone still making their way up a three-hour reprieve, more or less.”
Alekna and Hunter had just finished moving the fourth creature's body into the tunnel, and they heard Beck's explanation, but also something else: that crinkling sound had returned. It was quiet, but it was definitely there.
“We may not have that long,” Alekna said on the group channel. He and Hunter retreated quickly up to the catwalk, and the security team took up positions again. There would probably be another wave from the same tunnel that the first four came from, but there was no telling for sure, so they positioned themselves so that each tunnel would have some coverage. The crinkling sound got louder.
The first thing they saw was a spray of debris from the tunnel where the four corpses had been put. “Contact, first tunnel!” yelled Tanner, and the five of them focused their attention there.
One of the creatures emerged from the mouth of the tunnel, and it had half of one of the corpses in its mouth.
“Open fire!” ordered Avery, and they hit the creature from five different directions. It twisted around and fell to the ground, but two more came out of the tunnel, both with more gruesome pieces of their fallen brethren in their mouths.
One of the two had three little legs sprouting out of its back, and the three little legs were moving, getting bigger with each second. When they shot it, it fell to the ground but those three legs kept moving. And growing. They shot at it more, and the extra three legs went limp.
“We can't hold them,” Avery muttered to himself. He keyed his communicator. “Repair team, start heading back up, now!” Avery yelled in between shots. The unarmed engineers got back onto their elevator and it started upward.
Now two of the creatures appeared from the tunnel leading toward the center of the main shaft. Everyone reloaded quickly, empty magazines clattering to the floor, and they continued to fire. One of the creatures charged at where Tanner was on the catwalk, and slammed into it before he could relocate. He tumbled along the metal catwalk and laid still for a second, dazed, but he got up quickly and took another firing position.
“There's no way we can hold this for half an hour,” Alekna advised. They had already expended about a sixth of their ammo, and more creatures kept appearing from below. One of them had three legs coming out of its back, and they watched in horror as those legs pulled outward and another whole creature basically climbed out of the first.
“They're assimilating organic material like crazy!” he yelled. One of the creatures charged and he jumped away just in time, tumbling on the metal catwalk.
“Everyone, prepare to retreat!” Avery ordered. “Climbers, ASAP!” But whenever one of them stopped shooting, the creatures homed in on them extremely quickly. Alekna happened to be near one of the contacts and got hooked up first, just in time to unload most of a magazine into one of the creatures before it reached him. He fired on another one as it ran toward Wyatt. She took too long to notice, and it reached her before she could get her climber attached.
She yelled as several of the mouth tentacles grabbed her and pulled her into the grinding mouth. The yell became a scream, then a gurgling shriek, and then she was silent. The creature that had eaten her sprouted three legs on its back, and they rapidly started to grow.
Avery fired on one of the creatures as Hunter got his climber hooked up, then Hunter returned the favor as Avery connected his. Then, all three of them fired on the creatures going after Tanner as he got his hooked up. The four of them started upward.
There was a horrible grinding sound, and Hunter's climber stopped.
They couldn't react fast enough. They were already all moving upward, and Hunter was too far away. He unloaded his rifle into two of the creatures, and a third one reached him before he could get his climber moving.
There was a scream, and a sickening crunch.
The three of them were now moving upward, faster than the elevator above them. They would reach it in just a few seconds.
There was a loud crunch and a series of thumps as the ventilator died again. Dozens of the dark gray creatures were climbing the walls of the maintenance shaft, leaving shiny trails of mucus wherever their feet touched.
Avery, Alekna, and Tanner kept shooting, but it wasn't doing much good. Every creature they dropped fed the ones behind it.
They paused as they reached the elevator with the repair team. Avery jumped off of his climber. “They're right behind us!” he yelled. Alekna and Tanner hopped onto the surface of the elevator and started shooting downwards. The more stable platform was easier to aim from, but every time they killed one of the creatures, two more would come from below, tear it in half, and continue the climb, eating the dead and sprouting replacements.
The repair team scrambled to increase the speed of the elevator, but there was only so much the hardware could do. “Ten percent! It's all we can get!” yelled Beck. “Can you keep them off of us?”
None of the three members of the security team stopped shooting long enough to answer. The creatures were still gaining on them.
However, one thing Avery noticed was that they were now above the highest bits of the slime. Maybe they'd be able to get a bit more speed now. Or...
“Alekna!” shouted Avery. “Our climbers are faster than this thing! Get up there and bring down reinforcements!”
“And leave you all down here?” Alekna shouted back. He was already fairly low on ammunition, and he knew the other two couldn't have much more in reserve. They had all been shooting almost continuously since they started up.
“That's an order!” Avery shouted in between shots. “Go!”
Joris Alekna cursed under his breath. He didn't want to do it, but he had to admit Avery had a point. However, before he hooked up his climber to one of the contacts, he dashed over to Tanner and handed him two full magazines. Then he slid two more across the floor to Avery. “Good luck, you two!” he shouted.
Hooking up his climber to a moving set of contacts was harder than when things were stationary, but he was well-trained. He managed to get it hooked up and moving at the same rate as the elevator, and then he mounted the climber and turned its speed up to its maximum setting. He lurched upward away from the elevator, and heard the gunshots continue until he couldn't. He wasn't sure whether he was out of earshot or whether they had just stopped.
Then, it was a twenty-minute trip upward in relative silence as he wondered whether they had escaped that wave of flesh... or not.
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