The door opened again, and Jack came out. He handed something to Margie at her big desk, and then looked down and waved and saluted. Joshua grinned, and returned the salute, Hulk and all.
He held the man’s eyes. “When is Mommy coming back?”
Jack crouched and ruffled his hair. “Soon, I hope. She just has to finish some important work for us.”
Joshua continued to stare, reading the man. “You don’t know where they are, and you think they might be lost.”
Jack continued to smile, but inwardly he winced from the pain in his head that Joshua knew he was feeling. He could also sense that he was momentarily frightened. No, that wasn’t right. The man didn’t scare, but he sure didn’t like it.
Jack ruffled his hair again, and stood. “I promise you, Joshua, as soon as I hear something I’ll let you know. Mommy will be fine.” He turned then to Margie, a brief look passing between them, and then he was back in his office.
Joshua looked at Margie, and sensed the waves of sympathy rising from her. She thought Mommy was lost too.
He liked Margie. He smiled at her. “She’s fine.”
She was alive, he knew it, and so was his father. He couldn’t wait to meet him, to talk to him. Peter was nice, but Peter wasn’t like him. Where Alex Hunter was just like him.
He lifted the posable plastic figures in each hand. He turned to Hulk, and made words for him.
“Don’t worry, Mommy is happy and safe, and coming home soon.”
He nodded and grinned and lifted Iron Man. His smile fell away and he stared, his brows coming together. The words came again, but they weren’t his own this time.
“They won’t make it out alive. The thing, the monster, knows they are there now. It wants them… to eat them both.”
Joshua continued to stare, his eyes shining wet for a moment more as his teeth ground together.
“Joshua?” It might have been Margie’s voice.
He stared, unblinking, and his tiny fingers closed on the hard plastic figurine. Iron Man crushed into shards.
CHAPTER 54
Alex was the first one around and was immediately confronted by a wall of pale, hairless bodies. The lights illuminated the horde in a frozen glaring snapshot, and for a split second, even he was momentarily taken aback. The figures were powerfully built but smaller than normal, no more than four-and-a-half feet at their tallest, and their bodies were chalk white. In their hands were all manner of stabbing and cutting weapons.
But what had shocked Alex the most were their faces… or lack of faces. They were claylike, near featureless, with tendrils dangling from the middle of their heads. No mouth could be seen, and though they must have been startled by the sudden appearance of the tall humans and their blinding lights, not a word or sound was made.
Startled, they still came at Alex like a wave. Cutting and stabbing tools speared forth and chopped down. Alex felt numerous rents to his flesh, and despite his HAWC suit repelling most, he knew he’d still be running blood.
The muscular creatures displayed a sort of simian strength and agility, and at first Alex just pushed them back, or brushed them aside, but they kept coming in greater and greater numbers. He then threw them back into the darkness, and finally, the sheer numbers coupled with the ferocity meant he could not pull his punches anymore, so he exploded into them.
Alex grabbed an axe-like weapon from one creature, and his other hand clenched into a fist, as he threw himself at the writhing, furious mass. He cleaved heads and limbs, smashed bones, and crushed all before him as they came. Behind him, he heard the sound of his team, forcing back even more. The beings’ blood, warm and sticky, now coated the floor, ran from the walls, and also dripped from Alex and his soldiers.
As quick as it started, the humanoids ceased their attack and sped back down their dark corridor, dragging away their dead and injured, but leaving weapons behind. Alex took off after them, diving and grabbing at one of the fleeing creatures. He disarmed it, and held it up.
“Jesus Christ, what the hell are you?” He came back into the group holding the struggling thing up by the neck.
“What the fuck are they?” Casey’s mouth turned down in disgust.
Rhino stooped to lift one of the weapons that looked like an axe, crafted from heavy-toothed jawbone, then stopped to stare at the being. “Holy crap.”
“That’s not human,” Jackson said, taking the jawbone axe from Rhino and hefting it.
“Take it easy,” Cate said, peering around Rhino. “It might have been once.”
Alex held the wriggling thing by the neck, its feet up off the ground. “Maybe.” He lowered it and then grabbed the dangling tentacles on the face. He lifted.
“Like I thought, a mask.” He pulled it back.
Franks scoffed. “Oh yeah, like that’s any better.”
Alex frowned, looking at the thing that now stood listless as though resigned to its fate. “Aimee, Cate, I’d like your scientific expertise here.” He turned it towards them.
The being’s face could barely be called human, even protohuman. It was so pale, the skin was near transparent, and the entire head was egg-smooth. The nose was non-existent, being just two slits in the center of the face, but it was the eyes that were truly alien. They were the size of chicken eggs and black as oil, shiny, and more like those of a spider.
“Agh, deformed,” Yang said. “You should kill it.”
“Ho-leeey shit,” said Jackson.
“Dark adapted. I bet it sees in an entire range of spectrums,” Aimee said.
“Wow.” Cate ducked down to look into the eyes. She turned. “Get that light away. Aimee’s right, dark environment evolution. No wonder the light freaked them out; it’s got almost total pupil to sclera ratio.”
Rhino also bent lower as the thing wriggled again in Alex’s grip, now trying to reach around and bite his hand. He pointed, and the thing’s jaws snapped at his finger. He snatched his hand back. “What’s with that mouth?”
“Hold him, her, whatever,” Cate said. Alex gripped the thing tighter, and it calmed again in his hand, surrendering.
“Her, by the look of that chest,” Jackson said.
Cate carefully reached forward, gripping the chin and holding it tight. With her other hand she peeled the lips apart.
“Fuck me,” said Rhino. “What the hell are they for?”
The teeth in the small mouth looked to be just a single pair, one on the top jaw and one at the bottom. They were large triangular wedges growing from both gums, to scissor over one another.
“That’s not normal,” Cate said.
“No shit,” said Casey.
“No, I mean, it’s not natural, even for this female. I can see that the tongue and larynx look well formed — she should be able to talk. And by feeling the jawline and looking at the growth of the teeth at the gumline, I can tell it’s a female only just out of her teens. But the teeth themselves have been altered, perhaps filed, to be like this.”
“If it can talk, make it talk.” Yang leaned in close, his face twisted in disgust.
“It’s like a beak,” Alex said. “Same association for the mask — the ultimate worship — make yourself like your idol… or god.” He turned to Rhino. “Use the rope, bind her.”
“It’s like tattooing or scarification in primitive tribes,” Rhino said, taking hold of her and looping the rope around her wrists and neck.
“Easy,” Aimee said. “We humans do what we need to do to survive. The great Aztlan race collapsed and regressed. An ever-hungry god became their religion and their idol, and they in turn tried to become like it. So, they reverted back to something primordial to survive in this primordial place.”