One side of his goggles was cracked and the other side was useless. The tech began to spark and sizzle in spite of being submerged. Max yanked the goggles off, careful to disconnect the rebreather beforehand. He pulled a flashlight from his belt and flicked it on, sending a thin stream of light into the murk of the pool.
Silt and mud clouded the disturbed water, but Max was almost sure he saw a huge shape moving a few meters below him.
Without pause, Max dove. He pulled a knife from his belt and swam as hard and fast as he could with both hands occupied. Deeper and deeper he went, his ears popping slightly. He had no idea how a pool of water could be so deep in the middle of the Amazon jungle, but he wasn’t exactly about to question the geography. All he cared about was finding his brother.
Then killing one ginormous hell snake.
More movement, but from Max’s right. Max rolled his body and got the knife up in time as one of the smaller snakes struck at him. The blade jammed up to its hilt just under the snake’s chin. The snake’s mouth stayed open, Max’s blade sticking up inside its lower jaw.
Max let go of the flashlight, grabbed the top part of the snake’s jaw, and slammed it down. It took all of his strength, and a little help from the snake as its natural instinct to bite kicked in, but Max got that mouth closed and the blade pierced through the snake’s palate and into its brain.
The snake went limp. Max tried to get his knife loose, but it was a losing endeavor. He let go of the hilt, allowing the snake’s corpse to drift down into the darkness.
Minus a weapon and any form of illumination, Max made the only choice he could. He swam deeper. With his arms butterflying out in front of him, his legs kicking hard behind, he propelled himself into the depths of the pool.
THE PAIN WAS bad, very bad, but it would have been a lot worse if Shane hadn’t been wearing the compression suit. The suit was doing its job: keeping the intense pressure being exerted on his body externally from allowing his organs and bones to be crushed internally. Shane wasn’t a fan of Carlos, but at that moment he said a silent thank you.
Until he felt a rib give, and then he started cursing the tech’s name loudly.
“Dude!” Max’s voice rang out over the com. “I’m swimming blind! Keep shouting!”
Shane kept shouting as a second rib cracked.
Shane found he was having difficulty breathing. And it wasn’t because of the cracked, and cracking, ribs. The ginormous hell snake had its body wound around Shane and was tightening on his every exhale. It was typical constrictor behavior; something Gunnar had told the team before they set off on their nightmare mission. Another aspect of the snake’s base behavior was to clamp onto the head of its meal while it coiled and squeezed.
Shane was lucky that part, at least, hadn’t happened.
Then all luck ran out. The top half of Shane’s body was suddenly plunged inside the ginormous hell snake’s massive mouth. It slammed closed just below Shane’s shoulders, the constricting coils tightening severely. Shane screamed. Then, the coils loosened.
Shane didn’t have time to sigh with relief, mainly because his ribs were screeching in agony, but also because the only reason the coils were easing up was to make it easier for the snake to swallow him.
And send him down yet another dark, dank, nasty hole he didn’t want to be in.
“Dude!” Shane yelled, but only static answered.
MAX SLAPPED AT his belt and realized he still had a trick up his sleeve. He pulled free two glow sticks, cracked them one-handed, and tossed them out in front. They lit barely a few feet of the murky water, but those few feet were enough.
Max’s eyes widened then stung as silt and dirt scratched at his corneas.
There it was. The ginormous hell snake. Dead ahead.
Max glimpsed what might have been a boot, but he couldn’t be sure. He hoped he was mistaken, that it was a product of his stinging eyes, because that boot could only be Shane’s and it was being swallowed by the snake. Max had no knife, and no rifle, which meant no way of slicing the snake open to retrieve his brother. Max dove hard and fast anyway, kicking with all his strength for the snake.
Being an ex-Navy SEAL, Max improvised.
He reached the snake, grabbed a handful of its lip, and, using the grip as ballast, punched the creature in its right eye, over and over and over.
The snake thrashed in the water. It tried to get away from Max, but he held tight to the thing’s lip and continued pummeling the snake’s eye until it finally popped and milky blood poured from the crushed orb.
The snake opened its mouth wide and Max snatched his arm away, barely getting it out before the maw snapped shut. The snake swiped at him, opening its mouth again, but Max dove under the coils and swam until he was sure he was clear of its fangs. He stopped, spinning about.
The snake’s upper jaw slammed into his midsection like a freight train. Max was shoved through the water until his back hit solid earth. He coughed hard and tasted blood through the rebreather’s tendrils. Then the glow sticks’ meager light faded, plunging Max into darkness.
The snake slammed him against the earth once more. Something in the rebreather broke. River water started to fill his lungs, choking him.
Definitely broken, then.
Grabbing the snake’s top lip, Max flipped himself onto the creature’s head. He planted his boots and kicked off from the snake as hard as he could. His body launched upward, Max dug deep for all the strength his arms could muster. He swam and swam, his lungs becoming heavier with each stroke.
Far above, the pool’s surface beckoned. Max aimed for the flickering torchlight. He kicked. He paddled. Kicked, then paddled. His body was numb from exertion, but that didn’t stop Max. He’d been in worse situations.
When his head broke the surface, his first thought was to hope he didn’t catch an arrow to the eye. His second thought was that he should capture a spear from one of the tribespeople. His third thought was… what the hell just slammed into his boots?
Duh. Ginormous hell snake.
Launched into the air, Max’s body was ejected from the pool violently. He tumbled over the water and onto the shore, landing in a heap on top of several tribespeople who were still prostrating themselves at the altar of their ginormous hell snake god.
Before the cannibals could regroup, Max rolled off his human landing pad and staggered to his feet, throwing punches at anyone and everyone that came at him. He cracked jaws and broke cheekbones, before he was overwhelmed by the warriors’ greater numbers. They pressed him to the ground.
Max grabbed a leg and bit down hard on the bare flesh. Its owner screamed and jumped back, giving Max enough room to reach in and grab a different calf. He pulled, a second person falling as Max kicked wildly, his boots connecting with legs, with arms, heads and groins. He was a flurry of booted fury.
One of the tribespeople screamed. Whatever he’d shouted had an effect; all the tribesmen who’d been pummeling Max suddenly left him alone. They moved away fast.
“That can’t be good,” Max said around a bloody mouth of cracked teeth.
It wasn’t.
The ginormous hell snake was slithering out of the pool and headed straight for Max. The tribespeople shouted and ran, moving further into the cave, leaving Max alone with a nightmare bathed in torchlight.
The snake opened its mouth. This time, without the silt and murk of the water, Max got a clear look at the monster. Ginormous hell snake barely described the creature. Other than the mega sharks Team Grendel had fought, it was the largest single animal Max had ever seen in his life. It rose up, its body coiling back to strike.
“Well. This is how I go out,” Max said aloud.