Subterranean

Ben stared at his empty hands. "What's the big deal? What's so bloody exciting about it anyway?"

Both women ignored him. "Are you sure?" Ashley asked. "Paleobiology was not a specialty of mine."

"Yes," Linda said. "Look here, at these striations. No modern mollusk has this conformation. And look at the chambering inside. Only one species has this unique shell. Definitely an ammonite."

Ashley leaned in closer. "But what's it doing here? Ammonites died out with the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous period. This is an old shell, but I don't believe it dates back sixty-five million years."

"Let me take a look," Ben said, lifting the shell. "Many caves have preserved fossils, protected from the weather. Maybe this shell is just well preserved."

Linda nodded. "Perhaps. But before the expedition, in preparation for the trip, I read up on Antarctica's wildlife. On Seymour Island not far from here, scientists discovered many ammonite fossils. Remains that dated later than the Cretaceous extinction."

"Cretaceous extinction?" Ben asked. "What're you talking about?"

Ashley answered, "About 65 million years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous period, a great cataclysm wiped out huge numbers of species, including the dinosaurs. Some researchers theorized a massive asteroid struck the earth at that time, blowing up clouds of dust that blocked the sun and chilled the planet."

"Right," Linda added. "And the paleontologists studying Antarctica now believe that Antarctica's polar vortex may have stirred the winds enough to keep the asteroid's sky-darkening particles clear of this area, sparing this continent the great extinction."

Ben interrupted. "That's all old history. So these snails survived longer than anyone thought. So what? I mean-"

"Linda!" Khalid called. He had wandered off and knelt by the edge of the pond. "Here's another shell." He reached into the water, immersing his arm almost to his shoulder. "I can't reach… wait, no… there… I got it." He pulled his drenched arm out, his hand clasped around a shell larger than the first one. He straightened up, holding the shell above his head like a trophy.

Ben shook his head. Showing off big-time, he thought. He opened his mouth to make a comment when suddenly, from the shell, a flurry of thrashing tentacles sprouted. Linda gasped.

The tentacles latched onto Khalid's arm.

Khalid tried to shove the squid off his arm, but it clung tenaciously. Tears welled at the corner of his eyes, and he grimaced with pain. "The damned thing is biting me." Rivulets of blood could be seen beginning to trail down his arm. Groaning, Khalid swung his arm, cracking the shell against the rock wall beside him-to no avail.

Ben pulled a knife from his belt. "Hold still!"

Khalid froze, then a spasm of agony contorted his face. "Just get the thing off," he said between clenched teeth.

Ben slipped the blade between tentacle and skin. It was a tight fit. The creature's appendages clamped tightly to the flesh of Khalid's arm. Ben sawed through the meat of one tentacle, and greenish black ooze spurted from the amputated end. The thing tightened its other appendages, eliciting a groan from Khalid.

The monster's strength was fierce. If it constricts much more, Ben thought, it'll crush bone. He cautiously worked the knife under a second tentacle and cut. This time the thing twitched and loosened. After slicing through two more appendages, the creature released Khalid's arm, dropped to the cave floor, wobbled, and sucked its remaining tentacles back into its shell.

Khalid dropped to his knees with a low moan, a hand clasped over the wound, blood seeping between his fingers.

Ben kept an eye on the shell, black ooze dripping from its opening. With a scowl, he swung a boot and kicked the shell in a high arc over the pond. With a splash, the creature sank from view.

Ashley yelled at him, "Why the hell did you do that? We could have studied it. My god, it's an extinct species."

Ben pointed to Khalid's bloody arm. "Extinct, my ass."

"He'll live," Major Villanueva said.

Ashley watched him apply the bandage to Khalid's arm with a piece of waterproof tape. The SEAL, with his advanced training as a field medic, had taken over as soon as they had arrived back at camp. After cleaning the wound, he treated Khalid with topical and systemic antibiotics.

"Can he continue on with us?" she asked.

Villanueva shrugged one shoulder. "Nothing more than a deep puncture to the muscle of the forearm and some bruising. He'll be fine."

She nodded and turned away. Good. She'd hate to lose a team member before they had reached uncharted territory. As she passed the campstove, Halloway offered her a bowl of lukewarm chili and beans in a tin pan. She accepted it with a curt word of thanks and settled onto her air mattress with the pan balanced in her lap.

Ben had already scraped his bowl clean and looked greedily toward her plate. "So how's Khalid's arm?" he asked.

"Fine. They shot him full of antibiotics and painkillers."

Ben set down his plate. "That was one bloody weird creature."

She shrugged and spoke around a mouthful of beans. "I was talking to Linda. She said their main food source was a type of prehistoric lobster, and these waters are teeming with crustaceans of various types. So I suppose, in this isolated environment, the squid survived on similar food."

"Makes you wonder."

"About what?"

He nodded across the camp, where Michaelson had disassembled his rifle into small metal parts and inspected and cleaned each item. "What else has survived down here?"

That night, Ben had the dream again. He was walking through the cavern of his childhood nightmares, full of columns that sprouted fruit-bearing limbs. Light suffused from all directions, and as he wandered through the grove, something seemed to be drawing him forward, calling to him.

"Hello," he hollered into the empty cavern. "Who's there?"

Drawn toward the north side of the cavern, he tried to follow the song of the invisible sirens, but the trees crowded closer, blocking his passage. Unable to squeeze between the columns any farther, he could only peer past the trunks.

The north face of the cavern glowed with a soft light, except for a single black hole in the wall. A small cave, like the dwellings found near Alpha Base.

"Is anyone there?" he called, his face pressed between two trunks.

No answer. He waited, pushing against the trunks as if he could shift the rocky columns. As he watched, someone crawled from the small cave, on wrinkled hands and gnarled knees. The old man stood into the light, dark face painted with yellow and red stripes, dressed in a loincloth. The figure waved him forward.