Chapter 17 #2
I busied myself with lighting the fire we’d need later; far enough away from the extremely flammable tar.
Iave was spreading everything he could carry down across the clearing to make sure it properly burned when we lit that shit on fire.
He was especially going to make sure that they couldn’t escape back into the dug tunnel.
We wanted to make sure we got all of them.
The fire was lit and burning much sooner than Iave was done down below so I counted the woven baskets with tar we’d made.
They were seeping a little but we’d made sure to put them all down along the edge of the drop; so that wasn’t a problem.
There was a gap where Iave was climbing back out but we were counting on my newfound rifle to take care of any proficient climbers.
I didn’t expect there to be all that many, we’d taken care of those last time, but maybe there were more we hadn’t seen yet.
Casting my eyes up to the sky I noted with worry that the sun was starting to sink behind the mountains.
Soon, shadow would start to fill the hole and Iave would lose his safe window to be down there.
Checking his progress, I realized he’d spread the tar around already and ditched the bag.
Now he was using some branches to flick them through the lines on the ground, splattering the trees with many droplets of the thick tar.
He was being a perfectionist and I hoped he hurried the fuck up.
I was pretty sure I could see movement in the depths of the tunnel already.
Jogging away from the edge, I went for the carcass of the animal that Iave and I had hunted together earlier today.
Bait to get them to all come out and converge at a single point.
The creature was about the size of a deer with a soft, lavender pelt, and a double set of pronged horns on top of its horse-shaped head.
Iave had called it an Arazal and then he’d eyed my legs with admiration.
Though not nearly as big as a horse, and with dainty, thin legs, that thing was heavy as fuck. I strained and groaned as I pulled it across the purple grass to the edge of the rock at the spot where Iave had climbed down. When it was right on the edge I leaned over, “You ready for the bait?”
He lifted his head and gave me a nod, his long body slithering carefully around each patch of tar he’d left in the clearing.
I used my feet to kick the carcass over the edge, making sure to hold onto the rope with both hands as I did so; wouldn’t want to risk going over myself.
The body crashed to the pit floor with a ton of noise, but it didn’t need to be in one piece to work for our plan anyway.
When I leaned back out to see Iave’s progress I realized that shadow was starting to cross along the floor, it would not be long before it was going to be dark. There was definitely frantic movement in the tunnel, more and more pale, fleshy bodies piling together in their desire to hunt and eat.
“Hurry!” I yelled just as Iave finished positioning our bait, just a tad closer to us than the tunnel.
Close enough to be shot at from where I stood, but far enough away that Iave should be able to make a clean getaway, even if the shadow did reach the tunnel before he was out.
Right as I thought it, a cloud seemed to pass in front of the sun and shadows covered everything. Not quite fully dark, but very close.
The victorious shrieks and howls were familiar by now. They still felt like nails on a chalkboard and like the sounds of monsters in the dark. They even reminded me a little of the eerie sounds that peacocks made; something I only knew because of the one outing to a farm I’d experienced as a kid.
Pale shapes, some long and snake-like, some distorted and broken, raced from the opening.
They weren’t all that smart, drawn simply to the lure of fresh blood.
The first to reach the carcass of the animal Iave and I had hunted started feeding with grunts and groans.
Then the slower ones reached it too and fighting broke out, the shrieks rising in the dark.
I held my new laser rifle tightly in both hands, my eyes scanning for movement on the cliff wall below me.
How far had Iave managed to climb? They hadn’t noticed him yet, his dark scales making him blend against the stone.
As soon as I started lighting the place on fire, that cover would be gone.
There was a gamble there, how well did their eyes function in the light?
Searching near the tunnel opening, I tried to figure out if there were any stragglers still making their way outside. The damaged ones weren’t nearly as fast as the ones with a complete tail, and we had to make sure we got them all in one go.
My breath froze in my lungs when my eyes snagged on movement; big movement.
Then something even more curious happened; the feasting creatures all paused in their eating frenzy.
Many red eyes darting to the exit of the tunnel to stare.
What came out made me damn happy I’d waited because I instantly knew that this was what we had to kill.
A female shape, although that was hard to tell with how bloated some parts of her body were.
She was the same sickly white as the others, with a hint of green or yellow in places.
Her face was eerily pretty until she lowered her jaw to the same extreme gaping position as the others did.
Bony protrusions sprung from her skull like the spines of a lionfish.
It was like she was wearing a crown, and the other creatures treated her like that too.
Slithering out of the way so that she could reach the source of food unimpeded.
Saliva was dripping from her gaping jaw and her belly was large and rounded.
She looked pregnant but I didn’t think that was it, though maybe she was carrying eggs?
We’d seen the evidence of all kinds of egg-like shapes in that one room.
I had a feeling that a live birth would just end up with her spawn getting eaten.
When she reached the already partially devoured carcass, I expected her to devolve into a frenzied feeding just like the others had.
But her head lifted and her jaw snapped shut, her pretty features looking evil with the glowing set of red eyes.
They arrowed straight at me, our eyes meeting and a chill swept through me at the first glimmer of intelligence I saw in it.
Unlike the others, she wasn’t a brainless eating machine.
She had thoughts going on behind those evil eyes, and she’d seen me.
Then her eyes lowered from me to a point somewhere just below the center of the rock wall I stood on.
She’d spotted Iave. I raised my weapon in reflex to my shoulder, my cheek brushing the barrel as I sighted down it.
My finger brushed along the trigger as I squeezed my first shot off.
This weapon might not be the exact same as the laser rifle I’d trained and fought with for nearly ten years as a Marine, but some things were universal.
The blue-white ball of fire lanced from the weapon in a precise arc and hit her square in her protruding belly. She screeched, her body convulsing. In eerie synchrony, the whole horde of zombie Naga swarmed away from the carcass and rushed for the wall where Iave was making his climb.
The Queen doubled over, thin arms clutching around her belly, where black spread like a spiderweb across her pale skin.
She was trying to sidle back, to retreat and disappear into the caverns.
I didn’t hesitate for even a second. Exchanging the rifle for my bow and arrow, I stabbed the first arrow into the fire at my back.
The band of woven reeds just below the tip caught fire and I shot for the tunnel entrance and the abundance of tar that Iave had spread around it.
With a whoosh it lit on fire, washing the entire clearing with red and yellow light.
The Queen howled and now chaos ensued. Many of the pale shapes darted about, trying to rush away from the light, but it was spreading.
The tar was so viscous that it expanded like foam when ignited, spreading like wildfire across the clearing.
I lunched for the next prepared arrow, lit it, and aimed for the trees next. Anything at this point to make the conflagration as big as possible. Already, some bodies caught fire, screeching as they crackled and burned.
Iave wasn’t doing what he was supposed to.
He should be climbing up, escaping the fire and the claws, but he’d dropped back down and was swinging his ax like a madman.
His body was huge and shimmered like the night sky being chased by dawn.
Dozens of zombies swarmed him and he batted them away with his weapon as though they were flies.
I tossed the bow again and rushed for the baskets of tar we’d set up around the pit.
Knocking them over one after another was hard work and I was sweating and covered in smears by the time I’d done two-thirds of them.
Everything was burning below, the smears I’d created down the walls blazing to life when sparks hit them.
It was as bright as daylight in the pit, the creatures screeching and burning with no way out.
No, wait, there was movement near the tunnel, the hunched-over shape of the Queen as she clawed to the exit through the fire.
Tenacious, she knew what her way to survival was and I couldn’t let her escape.
I nearly tripped into the pit when I rushed back for my alien rifle, but then I was on my knees, the stock resting against my shoulder. A familiar position that calmed me. I exhaled hard through my nose, then held my breath as I aimed and fired.