“I’m sorry,” Randall whispers.
A shot from somewhere to his left collapses the side of the entomologist’s head and hurls him outside the range of the light.
“There are too many of them!” Delta shouts.
A mutated rabbit clips Randall’s heel and he loses his already tenuous balance. The ground rushes to meet him. He lands with a snapping sound he hears as much as feels. One he knows means he won’t be getting back up again. His rifle clatters into a crevice beyond his reach.
Epsilon grips him around his chest, underneath his armpits, and attempts to drag him to his feet, but the fractured bones in his hip shift and produce pain beyond anything he’s ever imagined. He cries out in a voice filled with more anger than pain as Epsilon slings him over his shoulders.
“Put me down, goddammit!”
His subordinate ignores the order and blindly fires upon the creature blocking their way. The bullets impact squarely with the chest of a man in a HAZMAT suit, but barely serve to slow him down. His white teeth are a stark contrast to the blood flowing from his ruptured eyes. He bares them and gnashes at the air. Collides with Epsilon and sends Randall once more crashing to the ground.
Epsilon jams the barrel of his rifle underneath the man’s chin. A burst of compressed gas and the monster’s head jerks back. The contents of his skull splatter against the ceiling.
The woman scurries to Randall’s side. Her eyes are wide with terror and blood flows freely from lacerations on her cheek. He recognizes Dr. Rana Ratogue from the newscast that alerted him to location of the earthquakes and, later, from the intel provided by the Army when the USGS was unable to reach her.
“Clear a path!” she shouts at Epsilon. “I’ve got him.”
Epsilon bellows and charges into the darkness. Gamma rushes to catch up with him. Their lights converge on a skeletal man, whose deformed face quickly vanishes into an explosion of blood and bone.
“Someone answer me!” Omega says. “What in the name of God is going on down there?”
“Prepare for emergency extraction,” Randall says through teeth gritted in agony.
Rana grabs him by the wrist and drags him after them. Delta clasps his other arm and they cover the uneven ground at a much faster rate. Randall bites his lip to keep from crying out from the pain. It feels like his joint is made of shattered glass, which slices the muscles and tendons with even the slightest bump on the rocky earth.
Another man in a HAZMAT suit emerges from the darkness behind them. Delta fires repeatedly and drives him back into the darkness.
“There’s the cable!” Epsilon shouts through the speaker.
“Fire up that winch, Omega!” Gamma shouts. “We need to get out of here in a hurry!”
“They’re still coming!” Rana screams.
The creatures are little more than shadows passing through the darkness beyond the reach of their lights, but Randall can tell there are at least three of them, and they’re gaining ground in a hurry.
They abruptly stop and he turns to see Gamma holding the cable in one hand and his assault rifle in the other. The hole above him appears even smaller than before.
Randall grabs Rana by the sleeve and pulls her down to him. He unfastens his harness and slips it over his head.
“Take this,” he says. “It attaches to the cable that’ll take you back to the surface.”
“What about you?” she asks.
Randall smiles, but it’s not the kind meant for others.
“This is where the road ends for me.” He shoves the harness into her chest. “Now go!”
“Sir?” Delta says.
“Give me your weapon, soldier. I’ll make sure nothing follows you.”
“We can get medical attention topside—”
“These things have already proved they can climb up that chute. Someone needs to make sure they don’t do it again. Now get the hell out of here while you still can!”
Delta offers his weapon and salutes him.
Randall seats it against his shoulder and sights down the darkness.
RANA DONS THE harness and cinches it around her chest. One of the soldiers pushes her toward the cable dangling from the hole in the dome and clips her to it.
Sydney rushes into the light, her features contorted by what can only be described as rage. The old man with the broken hip shoots her squarely in the chest, lifting her from her feet. She lands on her back and sputters blood. Flips over and pushes herself to her hands and knees. Allows the fluid to drain from her mouth before starting to rise—
A second shot collapses her face inward, like a fist clenching.
Rana sobs and attempts to rush to her friend’s side, but the cable hauls her into the air. She can only watch as another soldier attaches himself to the cable below her and the old man and lone remaining able-bodied soldier fend off creatures stolen from her worst nightmares.
A malformed rabbit streaks across the ceiling toward her.
She barely recognizes the danger in time to swat it away, sending it plummeting to the ground. When she looks back up, she catches a glimpse of a humanoid monster scurrying across the earthen dome toward her.
“On the ceiling!” she shouts at the man below her.
He raises his rifle and fires a triple-burst into its spiny back. It loses its grip, but catches her arm as it falls.
Her shoulders and the back of her head meet with the sides of the orifice. The pressure threatens to snap her spine. She beats at the creature’s fingers until it lets go and she’s able to contort her upper body into the narrow chute.
“Get it off me!” the man below her shouts. The monster must have caught him on the way down, but there’s nothing she can do to help him. She can’t even lean her head far enough forward to see him.
“Don’t move!” Gamma shouts, and fires straight up between Epsilon’s thrashing feet.
Randall hears a steam-whistle scream, followed by the thump of the creature hitting the ground behind him. He can’t afford to turn around to make sure it’s dead, not if he has any hope of holding the monsters at bay. The moment they step into the light he’s already shooting, but he can tell they’re only testing him now. Learning from their mistakes. His best shots only serve to drive them back into the darkness and he has a finite number of bullets left. For all he knows, his next shot could very well be his last. He needs to give his men the largest possible head start and hope their suits protect them from what’s to come.
“Get out of here, Delta!” he shouts. “That’s an order!”
“Yes, sir,” Delta says, and Randall hears the clicking sound of the harness attaching to the cable. “Everyone will know what you did here.”
“I pray to God they don’t.”
Delta rises from the ground behind him and follows Gamma into the orifice.
A rabbit dashes across Randall’s useless leg. He resists taking the shot for fear of wasting the bullet.
“Better make this snappy, Omega,” he says. “I’m not going to be able to fend them off very much longer.”
A man in a HAZMAT suit appears in his peripheral vision and rushes straight at him. He pivots. Takes a fraction of a second to aim. Catches his attacker in the forehead. Knocks him backward, only to watch him rise to all fours. Everything above his right eyebrow is gone, and yet he still snaps his teeth.
Randall finishes him off with a shot between the eyes.
“How far up are they?” he asks.
“Nearing a hundred feet, sir,” Omega says. “The last of them should be entering the concrete casing.”