Excavation

“If worse comes to worst,” Norman said, “I also have a strobe flash on my camera as a last resort.”

“Then let’s head out,” Sam said. “I’ll take the lead. Norman’s with me. We’ll need his meter to guide us. Maggie, can you manage both your torch and the flashlight?”

She nodded.

“Then you follow us with Denal. Ralph will guard our rear. We’ll cut through town first. We know there’s no exit behind us… so our best bet is to move forward.” Sam stared at the others. No one voiced any objections to his plan. “Let’s go.”

The team set off. The avenues between the necropolis’s tombs were wide enough for them to cluster together. Norman walked to one side of Sam, reading his meter, shielding the unit from the torchlight with his body. Maggie marched on Sam’s other side, her flashlight pointed forward. Denal kept to Maggie’s hip. Only Ralph did as Sam had instructed earlier. He hung back and watched their rear.

As they tackled the maze of streets, heading toward the distant wall of the cavern, Maggie’s earlier assessment proved only somewhat valid. The cacophony of howls did die down. The creatures were clearly shaken by the shifting firelight—but unfortunately not as completely as they had hoped. Cries and grunts still echoed around them, and even worse, the calls sounded closer.

Suddenly a huge blast of rifle fire exploded behind them. Sam spun around, heart in his throat, his Winchester ready at his shoulder. Ralph stood a couple yards back, the barrel of his rifle smoking.

“Damn!” Sam yelled, his ears still ringing from the blast. “Did you see something?”

Ralph shook his head and scowled at the shadowed necropolis. “Just a warning shot. If the fire didn’t completely scare ‘em, I thought the rifle might get their attention.”

“Jesus, you nearly gave me a heart attack!” Maggie exclaimed. “Warn us before you do that again.”

Ralph glanced back, his face growing sheepish. “Sorry. I just needed to do something. Those cries were crawling up my spine.”

Norman picked himself up from the stony floor where he had ducked. “Do that again, and you’re gonna owe me a new pair of undershorts.”

Denal still stood by Maggie. “Listen,” he said. “It quiet now.”

With the ringing in his ears fading, Sam realized the boy was right. If nothing else, Ralph’s rash act had subdued the howling. The cavern grew deathly still.

“Maybe that scared them away,” Norman said hopefully, dusting off the seat of his pants.

“Don’t count on it,” Sam said. “Let’s go.”

The team continued into the maze of avenues and streets. Whoever had laid out the necropolis hadn’t been much of a municipal planner, Sam decided. There was not a straight thoroughfare to be found, and many of the streets ended blindly. Their progress, as Sam judged by their proximity to the central golden statue, was slow, a snail’s creep, requiring plenty of backtracking and stops to consult the light meter.

“We’re gonna get ourselves lost in here,” Norman complained at one point, hunched over the meter, cupping its aperture against the torchlight.

“There’s got to be a way out,” Sam argued.

The group grew more and more nervous—not because of any howling or signs of the creatures, but because the quiet had begun to chafe nerves. Without any clue to the beasts’ whereabouts, every shifting shadow or scrape of rock made Sam twitch. Though no one said anything, they all knew the creatures were still out there, some primeval instinct that warned of hidden predators. The feeling of eyes staring at them, the sense of something breathing in the darkness.

As they continued, the silence pressed heavier. No one spoke anymore; even Norman’s complaints died away. Sam glanced to the heights around them, wishing the howling would start again. Anything was better than this damnable quiet.

A growled scream sounded from overhead. Maggie stabbed her light to the roof of a neighboring tomb. Pale faces stared back at them. Huge black eyes reflected the light; lips pulled back in a keening cry, slashing teeth exposed.

“Back!” Sam screamed, shoving Denal and Maggie behind him.

Then the beasts leaped, heaving over the roof’s edge toward them.

Ralph’s rifle blasted. One of the misshapen creatures twisted in midair. Blood plumed out from its wounded neck. It spun and crashed to the stone floor, rolling and howling.

Sam herded the others back, retreating down the street. He sighted down the Winchester’s long barrel. One of the creatures rose up from where it crouched on the street. Sam got his first good look at one of the beasts. It was as pale and hairless as the one spotted earlier, but this one was skinnier, emaciated. Each rib could be seen through the stretched skin. Even its limbs were just long bone and pale sinew, almost stretched like taffy. But it was its face that gave Sam pause. It was slightly muzzled like a bear, with teeth that seemed all fangs. Clearly a carnivore. But even more disconcerting were the huge black eyes. Sam sensed a rudimentary intelligence in its gaze: curiosity mixed with fury. A lethal combination.

But Sam recognized caution, too. The emaciated creature glanced back at its wounded companion, still writhing on the ground. When it turned around, its black eyes had narrowed into wary slits.

It hissed at Sam. Then in a flash of long pale limbs, it vanished down a side street, moving too fast for the eye to follow. Sam could not even shift his rifle sight in time. It was a blurred white ghost.

Damn, it moved fast.

Other of its brethren roiled from every opening, crawling from black windows, creeping from narrow doorways. As they moved, Sam noted subtle differences among them. Some were smaller, dwarfish models of the one he had just studied. Others were thicker-bodied. Some even bore what looked like vestigial wings sprouting from where the scapulas would be on a human. The only clear constants among them were the penetrating, hungry black eyes and the translucent skin.

“Sam… on your left!” Maggie called.

He spun. One creature, a squat brute bearing a huge brick above its head, raced toward them atop bowlegged limbs.

Sam had a heartbeat to aim. Instinct from years of pheasant and duck hunting served him well now. He sighted his target and squeezed the trigger. The bullet hit the beast square in the chest; the force of the collision stopped the creature’s rush. It tripped to one knee, skidding slightly. Blood, black as oil against white skin, spilled down its bare chest. The stone brick toppled from its fingers, followed quickly by the bulk of the beast.