Chapter 13 #2
Then the lights flickered out and from all around us we heard screeching and gleeful howling.
Dozens of eerie, soulless voices cheered in victory now that their path was clear toward us.
Kalani cursed loudly, swinging her own light sources around to search for the approaching ‘zombies’ as she called them.
There was no time for that though, we had only one option, find a way out but my optimistic thoughts from a moment ago weren’t so confident now.
Out? There might not be a way out. These creatures were trapped down here, and so were we.
***
Kalani
“Run!” Iave shouted. I’d heard many of his shouts before, from the sounds he made in battle to the way he shouted when he came.
This shout was very different, it held a note of genuine fear that I hadn’t even heard when we’d nearly drowned in the river that day we lost Naomi.
It was that note of fear that made my heart race as I pelted over the stone floors of the cavern with him.
Combat was fun for Iave; which I understood.
Under certain circumstances, I found it fun too.
This was no longer even remotely like that.
The creatures that chittered and howled in the dark as they chased us; were mindless with hunger and completely distorted freak mutants only barely resembling their Naga DNA.
I did not intend to freaking die and get eaten by these creeps. That felt too much like letting the UAR and their stupid fake death sentence win. I wanted to keep sticking it to them by living happily ever after with my own Naga mate, costing them the money they had intended to make by selling me.
As creatures chased me in the dark, my flashlight swaying as I kept it pointed at Iave’s broad shoulders just ahead of me, I knew.
This was what my life had been leading up to all this time.
To this male, and this future, and I’d lost and loved families along the way so that I could be ready for him, so I could understand him and love him for who he was.
We were just running in whatever direction Iave had chosen when the lights went out.
And we were running only because we knew that remaining stationary was like painting a bullseye on our backs.
I knew that meant we were going to run into resistance at some point, but I was starting to think we might avoid that when I only heard sounds coming from behind us.
Then a blur of sickly green threw itself between Iave and me, rearing up in the light I was pointing, skin curling with smoke.
It leaped toward me, heedless of the pain and I threw myself into a backward roll.
All I saw was the many bone-white claws as it reached for me.
Then fetid blood sprayed through the air when an ax embedded itself in the back of the creature’s head.
I didn’t pause to take stock of the situation or to catch my breath.
I was on my feet in seconds and racing past Iave as he yanked his weapon free from the downed Naga zombie.
Now I was in the lead, pelting along the hallway we were in and desperately hoping that this was the one that would lead to an exit.
Dread filled me when my beam of light started glinting off strands of something sticky clinging to the walls and ceiling.
Iave was right on my heels, and I was glad that he’d taken my advice to heart.
He’d gone straight for a head blow like I’d, half-jokingly, suggested earlier and it had worked.
I hoped the corpse would delay the others like it had last time but I had a feeling we were chased by too many of them for it to work for long.
Then the hallway opened up into one final room and I slid to a shocked stop at the sight.
Dead end, and what the fuck kind of dead end was this?
“Are you… Are you seeing this?” I asked Iave, but he wasn’t touching me and couldn’t understand.
With the sounds of our pursuers behind us, we had no choice but to step through the damaged doorway and into the room.
It was slightly warmer here, and humid too, with a pervasive rotting smell that filled every nook and cranny.
The air felt thick here; it almost felt like it clung to my skin, hooks that grabbed on and held me fast. Iave slithered closer as we entered the place and I swung my light around to illuminate what I could reach.
The tip of his tail lifted to curl around my hip as we moved into the room, my footsteps crunching on the hundreds of tiny bones that littered the floor.
This was their nesting place, we’d walked straight into their den, and it was possibly only this empty because they were all out there chasing us.
Strings of a strange sticky mixture of slime and web clung to every surface and some kind of bulbous shapes dotted the floor.
They varied in size and when I shone my light over a bigger one I stumbled back in shock.
Something darted through the egg-like shape, pressing a malevolent red eye against the membrane.
My foot crunched on something, and then my other foot sank into something soft and sticky.
I pointed my light down as I yanked my foot free and tried to get away from whatever disgusting mess that was.
An egg sack. Then something erupted from the hole my foot had punched into it, grabbing my ankle and holding on tight.
Iave roared, his tail around my hip yanking me across the floor. His ax came down right next to my foot, severing the clawed limb at the wrist. It spasmed open and pain flooded me, those inch-long claws had punctured my skin.
The metallic scent of my blood filled the air and I heard more howling, much closer this time.
We were screwed, they had a taste for my blood now, and they weren’t going to give up the chase.
The strange bulbous egg sacks around us were moving too; they roiled and malformed.
The scent of my blood was drawing them out and when I glanced down to check my foot, I realized with horror that the one that had attacked me was miniature-sized.
These fucking creepers could breed? Now that was horrifying.
Limping after Iave on my sore leg, I made sure to keep up and not give away how badly my ankle was injured.
I had to keep up, when those eggs opened, we’d be surrounded, and the rest of the horde was about to burst through the door.
Swinging my light in every direction, I fervently hoped to find another door, another tunnel, anything that could be a way out.
“There,” Iave growled, and then I was slung through the air when his tail tightened around my middle.
He had me in his arms in seconds, followed by a shocking burst of speed as he raced away.
My light caught what he’d pointed at, a section of the web and slime-covered wall that seemed to flutter on a breeze.
Given that they seemed to tunnel and cover their holes with this sticky stuff, I could only hope that that hid one such tunnel.
“The bones of the Sleara and Ayala had to come from somewhere, and it wasn’t from inside the Ancestral cave.
” Iave’s voice was pitched low and strained as he darted around misshapen egg sacks and the detritus of millions of small animals that these zombie creatures had consumed.
Then we were at the wall with the fluttering webs and he paused just enough to grab his ax with one hand.
He cradled me to his chest with his other, my body draped into the crook of his elbow.
He slashed through the webbing with a grunt while I had a perfect view of the nearest egg cracking open and a full-sized Naga zombie splattering to the ground with a shriek.
Beyond it, dozens of pale snakes slithered into the den, some not quite whole, or covered in gaping scratches and wounds from the claws of their own kind.
Wounds from fighting over the flesh of their downed kin.
“Got it, a tunnel,” Iave announced, and then we were racing again.
My leg was a throbbing, agonizing mess which meant that I was grateful I didn’t have to run and keep up.
Too bad I couldn’t lay down covering fire over his shoulder, the bow and arrow were too unwieldy for that.
My fingers were desperately wishing for my good old trusty laser rifle right now.
Not only was it destructive, it was a type of light so I was sure it would really do a number on these creeps.
The tunnel we were in was roughly circular and had a low ceiling.
Unlike for me, or a human man, that was no hindrance to Iave’s speed.
He just hunkered down and kept going, as at ease with his belly lower to the ground as he was being upright.
This wasn’t some tunnel dug by his ancestors either.
This was entirely dug by the clawed hands of the zombie Naga.
They’d painstakingly dug through stone and soil to make this passage and it went on for a long time, winding left and right as they sought to avoid dense stone.
Behind us, the creatures were following and I made sure to aim my lights back over Iave’s shoulder to ward them off. It worked before, I was going to make sure we kept them at bay as long as possible. Long enough to find out where this tunnel went and if it was the way out.
Iave was fast, not hindered by the sticky tendrils that covered its surface and I was struck by the thought that all this time, he’d adapted his speed to mine. “Why the fuck didn’t you pick me up sooner if you can go this freaking fast?” I demanded, and I was met by a grunted startled laugh.
“I figured you wouldn’t appreciate it. You do recall demanding you could walk earlier?
” he shot back. I had said that, what had to be days ago by now.
I had told him that I would walk myself, but that had been because of the lack of light.
This was life or death, I was not too prideful when it came to my own perseverance or his.
“I appreciate living more,” I bit out but that only caused him to laugh even more. Then I forgot about being carried or not, forgot about what was chasing us. There was light at the end of this tunnel, hazy purple sunlight. We had found the way out.