“I’m running low,” McCally shouted. “Stepping out.”
Banks was close to having the same issue himself. And the snakes kept coming, now having to push their way through and over the dead piling in the doorway. The noise in the enclosed space pounded and rang, vibrating through every bone in his body, the earplugs doing little to lessen the impact. His headphone buzzed, and the chopper pilot shouted. It was only one phrase, but it was enough to get Banks smiling.
“Fire in the hole.”
“Everybody down,” Banks shouted. He threw himself to the floor and was pleased to see that Buller at least had enough good sense to join them. At almost the same moment, the snakes piled beyond the doorway were blown to chunks of flesh, bone, and gore as the twin Gatling guns of the chopper made a strafing run along the causeway outside.
“Stay down. Coming back ‘round,” the pilot said at Banks’ ear. The floor shook, not earthquake this time but four explosions, almost simultaneous, and the doorway lit up in a brilliant flare of white, then yellow then red.
The sound echoed and rang for seconds afterward, then everything fell quiet save for the slightly distant sound of the chopper rotors. Banks’ headset buzzed again.
“All clear, Captain,” the pilot said. “For now, at least.”
Banks stood, somewhat groggy from the assault of sound and vibration. He put two bullets in the head of a snake on the doorway that was still squirming, trying to get at him, then stepped over it, and out into a scene of carnage.
Dead snakes, or at least the few remaining pieces of them, lay strewn and scattered the length of the causeway. The main concentration of blasted flesh was around the doorway he’d left, but oozing, stinking, remains stretched from where Banks stood all the way to the steps of the pyramid. The stench was worse than anything he’d ever experienced, the tang of hot vinegar and oil setting his guts rolling and tumbling. When Hynd offered him a cigarette, he accepted it gratefully and let the smoke mask the worst of it.
“I don’t think any of these buggers will be changing back again,” Hynd said laconically.
“They’re going to be in a hell of a mess if they do,” Banks agreed.
The chopper made a pass overhead and Banks gave the pilot a wave of thanks.
“No problem, Captain,” the pilot said at his ear. “We are glad to be of help. Shall we come and get you?”
“Give me two minutes to check all’s clear,” Banks replied.
Banks had the squad make a tour of the causeway, checking that all of the snakes were indeed destroyed, although, given the carnage, it was obvious that the job had already been done.
“So, is the site secure enough for you yet?” Buller said, his sarcasm all too clear.
“Aye, it is,” Banks said. “We’ll be fucking off now. It’s all yours. We’ll take the lead chopper, and you can wait with the backup for your team to get here.”
“Wait. We didn’t bring any provisions. What will I eat?”
“Snake?” Banks said, and turned away before the temptation to punch the man really did get too much to bear.
He was about to call down the chopper to evacuate the squad when McCally called from the doorway where the dead snakes were already starting to rot down under the full heat of the day. The flesh bubbled and seethed, a disgusting hybrid mixture of snakeskin and human tissue, gray and red and black and oozing. Banks was glad he still had the cigarette at hand as he walked over.
“There’s something happening inside, Cap. You need to see this. It’s really fucking weird.”
“Weirder than fucking giant snake people who live in a pyramid?”
“You tell me, boss.”
Banks followed the corporal back into the cubical room. The walls appeared to be melting, the carvings losing their definition, turning smooth as the gold slid, like an over-application of fresh paint, down the walls in drips that became runnels that became rivulets. The two of them had to stand back as it started to drip from the ceiling. He hadn’t taken note of it before, but the floor was slightly concave, running to a small, almost unnoticeable hole in the center. The melted gold found its way down toward it, and a glowing river ran away to somewhere underground.
And the process was definitely accelerating.
- 21 -
“Out here, Cap,” Wiggins shouted. “What the fuck is this shite now?”
Out to one side of the building, the private had picked up one of the fallen gold tiles. What was left of it now ran through his fingers, dripping toward the ground.
“I only wanted a wee souvenir,” Wiggins said, as the last of the gold dripped and ran off his little finger. He showed Banks his hands. They were completely clean.
“It’s the same over here, Cap,” Hynd called out from the other side of the causeway. “It’s all running away, heading off somewhere under us.”
“It’s some fucking weird chemical reaction to those bloody bombs you dropped. It must be. If we lose this find, it’s your fucking fault. The seam. We need to check the seam,” Buller said and started to walk toward the cliff track. Wiggins stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.
“No fucking way,” the private said. “Besides, you didn’t ask nicely.”
“And we’re going nowhere except back to the chopper until we know what the fuck is going on here,” Banks added. He pressed his headset.
“Come and get us,” he said.
“I will be right there, Captain,” came the reply from the chopper. It swooped in at the other end of the causeway from the pyramid. Banks was watching its approach when the ground beneath him took a lurch, a bigger tremor even than the one they’d faced on the cliff path. The remains of the building nearest them collapsed in on itself as the whole causeway rippled from one end to the other, a wave almost a foot high traveling up the whole length toward the pyramid steps. When the wave hit, the pyramid fell in. The whole structure fell away with a roar and crash of falling masonry, tumbling backward off the ridge and down the cliff, joining the cascade of the waterfall in a fall into the river far below.
The chopper closed in on them but the ground was still bucking and heaving; there was no chance of it making a touchdown. The cabin door slid open, and the co-pilot stood there, letting down a short rope ladder.
“S-Squad, we are leaving,” Banks shouted to make himself heard above the din of the chopper’s rotors. “Wiggo, get the wanker onto that bird, one way or another. Don’t take no for an answer.”
He was looking at the chopper, so he didn’t see the start of what happened next. He only had the sarge’s shocked gaze to tell him that there was still more trouble incoming.
He turned to see a huge hole in the hill where the pyramid had been seconds before. The sides, a melee of tumbling worked stone, tree roots, and loose dirt, kept falling inward. The causeway trembled and shook again, almost knocking Banks off his feet, and partially turning him around in the process. The whole ridge on the hilltop bucked and heaved again, and another of the squat buildings tumbled into ruin.
“Wiggo,” he shouted, seeing that Buller still hadn’t moved. “I told you. Get that fucker into the chopper. We’re leaving.”
The private finally moved, dragging a still complaining Buller under the whirling rotors toward the door and the hanging ladder. Even then Buller turned back, tried to push away, shouting something that Banks didn’t hear. Wiggins put a quick end to it by knocking the man hard on the back of the head with the butt of his weapon, then helping the co-pilot to haul a now slumped and sluggish Buller up and into the cabin. Wiggins turned and gave Banks a thumbs-up.