Chapter 39: Descent

A guideline appeared in Chris's ARHUD, leading them off the road, through thick jungle underbrush, and into a ditch almost completely hidden by ferns. After sliding carefully into the ditch, they saw a cave at the end of a deep gully. The navigation line led them inside it. Through the gap was a cavern the size of an elevator, with a concrete floor and a solid steel door in front of them.

Chris tapped the panel, but it was unresponsive. "Okay, I'm gonna power it up." He pulled a small extendable cable out of his exo, pushing it into an indentation on the side if the panel. Almost instantly a hologram flickered to life. There was a brief loading bar, then a red NETWORK DISABLED warning came up. "Okay. Let's try a manual login. Jeff, do you have the hardware access code for this lock?"

"Standing by when you're ready."

"Go."

"Zero. Zero. Zero. One. Alpha. Delta. Seven. Five. November. Six. Foxtrot. Lima. Alpha. Echo." Chris tapped the keys as Jeff read them.

ADMINISTRATOR ACCESS GRANTED.

"Got it. Engaging hardware override."

The door clanked once and Chris pulled on the heavy manual release. It slowly creaked open, as thick as a submarine hatch.

He unplugged his exo and held the door open, peering beyond. The hallway beyond was silent and dark. "Jeff, it looks like we may lose comms in here. It's pretty far underground."

"Understood. We have some minor enemy action here. Be careful."

"We got this."

They entered the tunnel, and sure enough, their equipment lost network connectivity.

Sanchez pulled the heavy metal door shut. "Don't need something sneaking up behind us from the jungle," he said as he engaged the manual locks.

"We can still communicate on the local squad network," Hamilton commented as they pushed forward into the long, dark tunnel. "But we can't talk to anyone outside until we either get the facility comm relay working, or depart the premises. It's all underground from here on out."

Sanchez swept his rifle around the tunnel, and noticed the powerful light mounted on it did not penetrate very far into the thick blackness ahead. He tapped at it.. "What the hell is wrong with these things?"

"I don't think anything is wrong with them," Marky said. "Look. If I aim it nearby, it's perfectly bright. But when I aim down the hallway..." The beam reached out dimly, barely lifting the shadows looming ahead. "It seems the darkness is literally swallowing the light."

"My horn light doesn't work either," Emmy added, trying to cast a beam. "It's barely doing anything."

"This reminds me of a nightmare I had once." McAllister said softly. "What could even do such a thing?" He tried some settings on his ARHUD, then hurriedly switched back. "Jeez. The infrared night vision is even worse."

Emmy shook her head. "Unknown. I need more data. But, I would say it's fairly obvious that something isn't right in the physics of this place anymore."

Together they peered uneasily into the shadowy hall. No-one made a move to proceed.

Finally Chris grunted. "Well, I see everypony is just as eager to get jumped in the dark as I am, but we have a mission to accomplish. I'll take point."

Emmy stayed beside him. "Not without me you won't."

McAllister smirked as he stepped forward. "Follow the yellow brick road."

Emmy peered back at him. "It is a hallway, not a road. And it is neither brick nor yellow. I don't understand."

"It's from an old movie. It's a joke. Just, never mind."

"It's like being buried alive," Marky observed.

Hamilton frowned uncomfortably "Cheerful thought. Thanks for sharing. I feel much better about this now."

"Sorry."

"GPS doesn't work down here, either. No satellite or local nodes to track location. We have to use downloaded schematics." Sanchez pointed ahead. "We should reach a junction with a primary corridor in about two hundred yards."

The narrow hallway sloped down, and they followed it for some time, eventually ending in an ordinary metal door. Chris pulled on the latch and it opened easily, revealing a much larger and darker hallway beyond. They entered the hallway, and Chris let the door close, noticing the dimly lit EMERGENCY EXIT sign above it. There was a distant thrumming in the air, almost imperceptibly faint.

"Generators," Hamilton pointed at the floor. "Below us. This is a geothermal facility, built over a lava vent."

"How do you know so much about it?" McAllister asked, suspiciously.

"Well if you'd bother to actually look at the downloaded schematic in your ARHUD, it says it right there."

"Oh. Right."

They went down several flights of metal stairs, deeper into the oppressive darkness. The air felt dense, even though the ducts were still blowing fresh.

Deeper underground, they followed a concrete hallway for some distance, tracking their progress by numbered junctions and rooms. Eventually, Marky halted and motioned at them to stop. "Do you hear something?" he asked, his ears pricking around nervously. "I suddenly have a bad feeling."

"As do I," Emmy agreed. "I thought I heard something breathing."

"Maybe it's a ghost," McAllister said, chuckling. "Boooo! Or a zombie."

"Shut it, McAllister," Chris said, peering intently into the darkness ahead. "I hear something too, now."

The group quieted, playing their lights into the absorptive darkness.

A faint, ragged sigh came from the hallway ahead, as if a slice of wet, rotting bologna flapped against the face of a dying man. A horrible smell of death and rot drifted out of the darkness, and a shuffling sound reached their ears.

Emmy took a step backwards. "Uh, McAllister? When you said that about zombies..."

A horrific apparition suddenly emerged into the weak beam of their lights. A headless human form wearing a lab coat staggered toward them slowly and blindly. "Uggghhhblllloooooorrrrrrppppp," it bubbled, and they could see the ragged remains of a throat hanging in shreds from the neck hole of the torso, the exposed windpipe blowing the ribbons of skin aside slightly as the exhale completed.

Exclamations of horror came from the group.

"Guys, I don't think it can see us," Marky hissed. "Just stay out of its way."

As if on cue, two slimy stalks emerged from the neck, gooey eyes sliding to the tip like a snail. They waved about in the air obscenely, confused and moist, eliciting a new wave of disgusted outbursts from the friends.

Eventually the eyes locked onto them.

"Uuuurrvhwwwwwwweeeee!"

The whistle was excited and urgent. Faint answering hoots came from the distant darkness behind the monster.

This time when it rocked forward toward them with arms outstretched, there was no question that it was aware of their presence.

"Well at least it can't bite us," Marky said hopefully as they raised their weapons, painting green laser dots on the monster lurching towards them.

The thing stumbled slightly, and the entire stomach of the monster ripped open below the rib cage, dropping maggots and rotting organs onto the floor. The intestines unraveled and landed with a wet slap, dragging between its legs. A long, slimy trunk with a mouth at the end flopped out from somewhere above in the chest cavity and immediately began curling up in their direction. As it extended towards them and spread hungrily, they saw countless razor sharp teeth inside, rotating and dripping with slime.

"You were saying?" Chris growled as he squeezed the trigger, sending a stream of crystal-tipped bullets into the creature's chest. There was an odd noise like beating on a tin plate with a hammer.

It staggered a few steps back, the eye stalks instantly retracted into the body, and then monster kept lurching towards them.

"What the hell?"

They fired a volley together, then stepped to the side as the thing staggered right on past them. After continuing for several feet, grasping at thin air with its arms, it paused while the eye stalks reappeared and looked around in confusion. "Ugghweee? Oooorve!" Both eyes suddenly noticed them, and it started to turn.

"Shoot it again!"

They shot it in the back this time, and were rewarded with wet splats and squealing noises while the zombie fell forwards onto the floor. Green slime leaked out of the numerous bullet holes in its back as it lay still in a puddle of goo.

Chris took a step towards it. "McAllister, Sanchez, Hamilton, keep an eye out for other threats. Marky, help me check this thing out."

They crept up carefully on the downed monster. Chris kicked it, with no response. "Marky, can you roll this thing over?"

"Roger." Marky used his telekinesis to do so, and Chris played his light on it.

Emmy came between them and looked at it with equal parts curiosity and revulsion. "It's definitely a human corpse, with some kind of parasite inside."

"A parazombie?" Sanchez suggested helpfully from his position on lookout.

"Hmm. That seems an appropriate enough term. I wonder why shooting it in the chest didn't kill it, I imagine that is where the parasite in this, ah, parazombie, would be living."

"Let's cut it open and find out," Chris said.

"I'll do it," Marky offered. "Stand aside."

A saw blade came out of one of his pouches and floated down to the corpse's chest. Spinning it at high speed, Marky sawed through flesh and bone to open the chest cavity, then with a little mental effort, he cracked it wider. He performed the entire operation with telekinesis. Nobody wanted to actually touch the body.

As soon as the chest cavity was open, they could see a single plate of chitinous armor inside, thick and almost metallic in appearance. It was scored and streaked where it had deflected the numerous rounds launched at it. Underneath the heavy panel, the body of the snail-thing was punctured and ruined, the bullets fired from behind having taken the desired effect.

"Some kind of gastropod," Emmy said. She gagged on the nauseating stench, then spit on the floor. "Disgusting. I threw up in my mouth. Next time, try shooting there, below the rib cage, in the parasite's, ah, oral trunk, or whatever the hay it is. I don't think it can fully retract that. Or maybe the legs and kneecaps, that may slow it down. It looks like a combat knife inserted near the spine just below shoulder blade level may kill it as well. Of course shooting it in the back is the best way, if possible."

"Or maybe a plasma blade?" Chris suggested, tapping the device on his belt.

"That would probably work wonders," Emmy agreed.

Hooting and gurgling came out of the darkness again, closer this time.

Sanchez looked back at them. "Uh guys, you may want to cut this short. I think Stinky's buddies are coming to see why he's late for dinner."

"I've got a plan," McAllister said. "You got your music player handy, Sanchez?"

"Yeah, I got it. But why?"

"Give it to Emmy and Marky. Have them walk right in the center of the hallway, okay? Play something loud. Talk. Be noisy. Attract the parazombie's attention."

"And why the hell would we want to do that?" Marky asked.

"Because the rest of us will skirt along the edge of the hallway and cut them from behind while they go for you, that's why."

"Hmm. I could see that working. Okay, fine."

"I got your song all set up," Sanchez grinned. "Just press play."

***

Chris slid along the wall, his rifle hanging on its sling, the plasma blade gripped firmly in his hand, finger on the activation button. Out ahead in the hallway, he could here the horrible flapping and sighing noises of the parazombies as they wandered about. A short distance behind him, Sanchez crept with his blade at the ready too. On the other side of the hallway in the darkness, he knew McAllister and Hamilton were doing the same.

Marky began talking loudly, shining his horn as brightly as he could. "Oh man. Just walking along this hallway, in the dark. Can't see a hoof in front of my face."

Emmy joined in. "Just two ponies walking along. So delicious and vulnerable. I sure hope there's no zombies in here!"

The parazombies immediately began hooting at each other. Chris heard them shuffling forward eagerly, towards the two ponies down the hallway. Once it seemed they had all passed, he stepped out into the hallways and activated the plasma blade. Emmy had imbued this one for him, and the powerful green beam extended, humming and crackling with energy.

Marky hit the button on the music player.

"One! Nothing wrong with me. Two! Nothing wrong with me."

The four humans snuck up behind the shuffling zombies, and drew back to strike.

"Three! Something's got to give! NOW!"

They attacked, swinging the blades as fast as they could, a horde of unsuspecting parazombies shuffling in front of them, illuminated by the flickering glow of the multicolored energy weapons behind them. Pieces flew. Blood splattered. The smell of roasted rotting flesh filled the corridor.

"LET THE BODIES HIT THE FLOOR! LET THE BODIES HIT THE FLOOR!"

"Behind!" Hamilton yelled as they cut down the last of the zombies. Another wave approached, hands outstretched. The same trick wasn't going to work again. Chaos erupted.

Chris charged, his exo boosting his speed. Then he dropped down and slid between their legs, sweeping the blade in an arc, severing their limbs at the knees and dropping a number of the monsters to the ground where they flopped and crawled in confusion. McAllister ran at the wall and put his exo-shielded elbow out, jumping against it and scraping past the parazombies in a shower of sparks. He turned immediately and swung the blade, downing several before they could face him.

Hamilton and Sanchez stayed in front, chopping at limbs and dodging attacks.

Marky drew two saw blades from his gear and flew them into the fray, snicking off exposed eye stalks and blinding the parasites.

Emmy stayed back and watched the madness from a safe distance. "I'm just gonna wait this one out, you guys."

"LET THE BODIES HIT THE FLOOOOOOR!"

Marky switched off the music player.

"Good song indeed," Chris said, breathing heavily. "That went much better than expected."

"Let's just put some distance between ourselves and this mess," Emmy said, carefully not looking at the ghastly remains and trying not to breathe the nauseating odor of rotting flesh either. "I've had quite enough of this."

"I agree. Let's get the hell out of here."

The hallway was littered in limbs and soaked in blood behind them when they switched off their plasma blades and continued forward, eager to find fresh air.