Chapter 12 #3
Not willing to watch as Iave checked them out, I turned my back and surveyed the rest of what remained of the cafeteria.
I briefly eyed the remains of the kitchen, metal rusted and dented, scratch marks decorating any part of the place that might have held food.
The doorway into this place was still a black hole with no sign of movement but when I glanced at the oddly stacked pile of metal tables and chairs in one corner my skin broke out in goosebumps.
Was that a tendril of something similar to a spiderweb dangling from one piece?
Did they have some type of arachnid on Iave’s planet?
I really hoped not, but this was probably just dust, wasn’t it?
I had a sinking feeling that it was in fact not dust; especially when I spotted another tendril, and then another.
It looked too moist to be spiderweb or dust. What was it?
I’d seen enough horror movies to know that approaching that pile of debris was when a person got snatched up by some monster hiding beneath it.
So I stayed put and just raised my bow, pointing my arrow at the rat’s nest of broken, metal furniture.
I was going to watch that thing and the exit and make sure nothing attacked us while Iave was busy foraging stuff for his friends.
When his tail slipped from my wrist when he moved further into the meat locker, I tried to ignore the sense of disquiet that filled me at the loss.
Now we couldn’t understand each other, but more than that, I wouldn’t know if something went wrong unless he made a noise when he was in trouble.
Uneasily, I glanced over my shoulder and caught a glimpse of him as he carefully bent over each prone form.
It looked to me like he was quietly paying his respects, his head bent, his movements slow and steady.
The unpleasant smell that permeated this area was still unexplained as well and that was starting to niggle at the back of my brain.
Those mummies back there wouldn’t be the cause of the smell, they smelled of nothing more than dust at this point.
So what was causing it? My eyes lingered again on the pile of broken furniture, its metal frames unchanged by the passage of time.
“Are you almost done?” I whispered over my shoulder even though I knew he wouldn’t understand my words, I hoped my tone conveyed my feelings.
It felt like someone was watching me, or something, and that feeling was only growing stronger the more time passed.
I didn’t even want to risk glancing back at Iave; my eyes starting to burn from lack of blinking.
I nearly jumped out of my skin when a hand suddenly curled around my middle from behind. I jabbed my elbow back in reflex and Iave made a lovely ‘oomph’ kind of noise when I managed to hit him square in his solar plexus. I guess that was the same on Naga anatomy, which was good to know.
“Oops,” I said but Iave wasn’t bothered, when I ripped my eyes from the nest to look at him over my shoulder he was grinning widely.
His arms slipped further around my middle, hauling me tightly against his body until I was touching him from my ankles to the crown of my head.
He buried his face into my curls and inhaled deeply.
“I can take it, my Goddess,” he rumbled, and I shivered at the sound of his deep rumble so close to my ear.
I felt like it was sort of sinful how much I loved it when he called me that, his Goddess.
I wasn’t a Goddess, I wasn’t the type you put up on a pedestal like that.
I was Kalani the Tough, the one who looked after everyone else but that nobody really noticed.
“Are you done in there? We should leave,” I said, and I pointed at the pile of furniture and odd wisps of not-spiderweb. Nothing had changed when I glanced away to look at Iave a moment ago but I still couldn’t shake the feeling that we were being watched.
Iave at least took my worry seriously, his eyes lingering on the pile and noticing the strands of weird stuff like I had.
He curled his lips and bared the sharp set of fangs in his upper jaw, “Yesss. Let’s get out of here.
” We were moving immediately, one of his arms staying around my waist while the other hand freed his ax from its leather strap.
We both kept a watchful eye on the pile as we bee-lined directly for the exit, another round of backtracking ahead of us. Nothing moved and I was almost starting to think I was imagining it when we got to the door without any issue.
With an unholy hissing noise something barreled at us from the opposite direction.
Iave shoved me away and I went stumbling into the hallway, the light from my belt wildly swinging and illuminating what went on behind me in flashes.
Iave’s light had clattered away, spinning and rattling until it came to a stop near the nest of broken furniture, illuminating what was inside it.
Twisted, broken skeletal remains of dozens of tiny critters; alien versions of rats and birds.
Righting myself with a hand against the doorpost, I focused my light on the moving, writhing fight at the center of the room. Iave’s battle roar filled the cafeteria but it was the sinister, much quieter hissing that ran like an undercurrent beneath it that really got my attention.
There were three pale shapes, as long as Iave but without any scales.
Their skins were varying shades of white and sickly green, while their hands bore bone-white claws as long as my underarm.
I saw flashes of distended maws and red eyes in distorted skulls, shaped with ridges and much more oblong than Iave’s mostly human-shaped head.
I shifted the alien flashlight to the hand holding my bow, angling it so that it aligned with the arrow when I lined that up.
I was going to shoot one of those bastards, but I had to make sure I didn’t hit Iave.
Much harder than I wanted it to be, considering how quickly they were all moving.
And where the fuck had they come from? If it wasn’t from the pile of furniture. ..
As I searched for my opening to fire a shot, I found my answer.
A hole in the far wall that had previously been obscured by a fine mesh of the same spiderweb-like fibers that clung to the rat’s nest. Damn it, that had been perfectly camouflaged against the pale stone walls in this room. How had I missed that?
Then I saw my chance and I didn’t hesitate, firing my shot with single-minded determination. I was going to help Iave extract himself, and then the two of us were going to book it out of here as fast as we could.