Robbie fired but missed as the thing arrowed its body and dove at Gaines, still hissing. It slammed into his face, knocking him backwards, wrapping its dark wings around his head. Its tail curled like a scorpion’s stinger and needled into Gaines’ throat, fast, stinging again and again.
Robbie swung the M4 down and tried to rake the creature off while Gaines flailed. He’d dropped his rifle, both hands pulling at the monster as the tail kept stinging, jabbing.
Robbie jammed the barrel under its lean body, pushed up and fired. The burst knocked the thing off Gaines’ face, leaving scraps of web and some sticky, whitish liquid behind, like it had cum on him. The monster’s wings fluttered and twitched all over, and it went still.
Gaines clapped his hands to his throat. Robbie could see the skin swelling beneath his fingers, going purple.
“The altar,” Gaines gasped, and then he was choking, neck puffing into infected lumps, inflating like a handful of water balloons. Dark threads of poison raced beneath the skin of his face, his eyes turning red and then drifting. The swellings went shiny and then split, blood pouring from the rupturing flesh. Gaines was dead before the first streams of blood hit the tunnel floor.
Washington was firing again.
Robbie scooped up Gaines’ M4 and turned. Another of the coiling eel monsters had come out of the chamber and was slithering towards them, limbs curling and flexing. It had to be six feet at its girth, but its tentacles stretched to the ceiling.
They both fired into it and dark fluids splashed, running down its limbs. Soundless, it came faster, coiling toward them like living, swirling smoke, like a bad fucking dream.
“Die, bitch!” Washington screamed, and emptied his mag, rounds stitching through the undulating monster’s dancing limbs, shredding them, chunks of greenish flesh hitting the rocks.
The thing stopped, collapsing. The gore smell was gagging, burnt meat and tangy metal. Washington was still trying to fire, finger white on the locked trigger.
“Take it,” Robbie said, holding out Gaines’ M4, looking back up the tunnel. Weird dead bodies and blood smoke, Gaines and purple shadows. Nothing moved.
The gator monster down in the room let out another guttural cry. Robbie could feel it more than he could hear it, his ears ringing too much for him to discern how close the army was getting. How many shots did he have left? Twelve? Nine?
The lights that ran the roof of the tunnel went out, flickering and then dying. There was only the ugly purple now to light their way, a venomous light that the shadows embraced, plunging the tunnel to near blackness.
“We gotta hurry!” Robbie called, and started running. Cursing, Washington ran after him. They steered around the mass of tentacles, Robbie in the lead, shooting glances back when he could, letting the slope carry him down. They had to get to the rock and have enough rounds to destroy it, that was what mattered. Maybe they could outrun whatever else had gotten out, but they had to close that door.
The purple hole bounced closer in front of them, flickering as dark shapes moved in front of the light source. As they stumbled downward, Robbie saw that the light was coming from the altar itself, the whole thing glowing like a black-light lamp.
A hulking creature tore out of the room and ran for them. It was built like an ape but was scaled with heavy spines running down its broad back, all of it a matte dun color. It let out a liquid shriek, a furious sound, from a head almost like a jackal’s, but with a shark’s dead black eyes, too big on its narrow, demonic face.
Robbie fired into its scaled chest, Washington coming in a beat later. Where the rounds hit the scales turned dark, but there was no blood and it was fast, too fast—
Robbie fell back a step and fired again, aiming for center mass and the thing leapt forward on thick, muscular legs, nearly halving the distance between them, landing on its overlong arms and bounding again, straight at Washington.
Robbie emptied his mag into the monster, but it tackled Washington and bit into the screaming soldier’s throat, clawing at the tunnel and at Washington’s body with its hands and feet, ripping grooves into the rock and through Washington’s side, gutting him as it shook its head. Its teeth tore away the front half of Washington’s throat. It raised its head to swallow and then clamped down again.
Washington had dropped Gaines’ M4. Robbie didn’t let himself think about it, he dropped his own empty rifle and stepped closer to the feeding demon to scoop up the weapon, the last weapon with rounds. He was close enough to the monster to hear the whistle of air through its slit nostrils, smell its musky, bitter scent.
He pointed the barrel at its head and fired into one shining black eye, two rounds slamming into its long skull, exiting in a blast of scales from the back of its head.
The thing collapsed onto Washington, shuddered, and died.
Robbie ran ahead. He could see the glowing altar clearly, see part of the hulking, monstrous gator-creature on the chamber’s east side, dark and crouched — and he could see Gaines’ door, finally, straight ahead of him. A massive hole had opened up where that big divot had been, where he’d put the lantern only minutes ago. The hole was ten feet across and ten high and utterly black, but the edges of it weren’t steady. They flickered and wavered like an old movie out of frame.
The monster roared, and turned toward Robbie just as he reached the broken rocks at the entrance. It had eight legs and a long, muscular body, like a big cat’s but heavy through the belly. The top of its head was almost bovine, horned and square, but instead of eyes there were a dozen random, empty-looking holes. Its jaw bulged outward like a hippo’s, and its bone-shaking cry revealed pointed, blood-stained teeth. There was no sign of the officers, only a slick of blood on the floor, and shreds of meat hanging from the creature’s lipless jaws.
Robbie ran into the room, firing at the monster as it stomped toward him, aiming for its fugly head. It roared again, shaking its giant, screaming face, and Robbie put three rounds into its big mouth.
The thing’s roar gurgled and it retreated a few steps, legs moving like a spider’s, shifting it quickly. It shook its head, watery dark blood streaming from its terrible mouth.
Howls emerged from the black of the flickering-edged hole, screams and shrieks and sounds he couldn’t understand, all of it close, echoing into the glowing room, loud enough now to hear even over his busted ears.
The altar.
Robbie aimed at the glowing purple rock and fired, rounds skipping across the top of the stone, small chips of stone flying.
The altar’s glow dimmed slightly. The portal flickered, and for a beat Robbie could see etched rock beneath it, but then it was back again, a yawning doorway to some black world of impossible monsters.
The creature started for him again, bellowing, blood dripping from its huge jaws, breath like carrion on a hot day.
Robbie dodged around the altar, fired again at the monster, getting two more rounds into its mouth. It swung away from him tripping sideways, stuttering another gurgling cry. It would have to be enough. They were coming; Robbie could feel the cold air rushing toward him through the door, smell the waves of stink, feel the ground trembling beneath his feet.
Robbie emptied the rest of the mag across the surface of the glowing stone. The rounds cracked the inscription, splinters of rock spinning off—
— and the stone split in half with a rending crunch that shook the chamber, just as the trigger locked out. Both jagged sides fell to the floor and the purple light died, leaving Robbie in the dark, and he felt a second of pure triumph—