Author’s Note:
For those of you who haven’t read any of the Journey Of St. Laurent before: You are now reading an online serial pulp novel. If you didn’t start at the beginning, you may want to do so. Chapter 1: Down By The Bay. This serial is the sequel to my first novel,Oasis.
42: Belly of the Beast
At least, that’s what it felt like. There was a blinding flash of light and teeth-rattling “Boom!” followed by a rage of smaller, sharper booms. I imagine it was like being on the inside of a nuclear reactor core.
I didn’t think, I just snapped my eyes shut, collapsed to my knees and covered my ears. Somewhere along the way down I dropped the flashlight and the pistol.
The noises roared louder. The tunnel around us shook and dislodged a shower of dirt and debris. The hellish fury only lasted a few seconds, then it was gone and replaced with silence.
Actually, no, there couldn’t have been silence. I could still feel the pulsing of whatever was making the weird throbbing sound, so noise must have continued. All I knew for certain was that the explosions had stopped. I just couldn’t hear anything beyond that because of how loud my ears were ringing.
I opened my eyes as soon as a could. They ached from the brightness of the flash. Fuzzy white spots clouded my vision. I kept blinking into the darkness until the spots started to fade.
The red light from around the corner still shone, but it wasn’t enough to see anything clearly.
I groped around and found the flashlight. The little light clicked on. It was a piece of crap, sure, but it was way better than no flashlight at all.
Where’s London? I turned around and caught site of her. She sat with her back to the mine wall with her shotgun on her lap.
I looked her up and down for obvious signs of trauma. There weren’t any: no blood or limbs with extra bends, just dirt from head to foot. She squinted up at me and gave me a half smile with a weak thumbs up.
Once I saw that London was in no immediate danger, I glanced down at myself. No gaping holes, bones poking out, or missing parts. Well, that’s a small win, anyway.
Next up was to check up on how Rhett had fared. He was gone. As in, I couldn’t see him. What is he up to?
I found my pistol then eased on forward and peeked around the corner.
The dust was still thick in the air. Through it I could make out some kind of opening, maybe a door. The red light and a warm breeze spewed out from it. I couldn’t get a good look at everything, but I could make out the silhouettes of two figures standing face to face with guns lowered. One of them was big enough to be Rhett. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but they looked like they were about to duke it out.
The ringing in my ears subsided and the voices raised. Within a minute, I could understand the argument.
The one that wasn’t Rhett spoke. “…we came in, we wired the entrance with explosives. I’ve got the radio trigger. If anything goes wrong, I’m going to blow it. You have to get out of here before that happens.”
Rhett pointed toward the hole and the red light. “I told you. That’s the only way I’m going now.”
“I can’t let you do that. It could jeopardize the op.”
“Screw your op. We have something more important to do.”
“More important than sealing the mine entrances for good?”
Something brushed by me in the darkness. A moment later I could see the curvy form of London’s backside heading toward the entrance.
Rhett and the soldier turned as she got closer and spoke at the same time. “Where do you think you’re going?”
With her free hand she flipped them the bird. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure the aliens heard that explosion. I’m not waiting around to see who they send to check it out.”
The two men just watched her walk on by.
She swaggered over the jagged edge of the hole into the alien base.
Well, while they’re just standing there… I hustled by the dumbfounded soldiers to join her.
“Don’t shoot us in the back, buddy.” Rhett turned on his heels and followed me.
I reached the newly blasted entrance and waited a moment. I started on a journey I don’t know how many hundreds of miles ago and now here I am finally stepping into the lion’s den. One way or the other, I was certain my journey was going to end there in that base.
I stepped through the hole. There were metal shavings, glass shards, and puddles of a musky liquid all over the floor inside, as well as the bodies of two aliens.
On one side of the tunnel the wall was lined with bizarre pods. They were about seven feet long, a foot and a half high and perhaps two feet deep. The main body of the pods appeared to be made with glass and filled with some kind of bubbling liquid. Most of them also contained some kind of large shadowy blob. The ends of the tubes were metallic and squared off so they could be stacked. A series of tubes and wires connected the pods.
The other wall was mostly rock, with occasional patches of metal, probably closing off other unused tunnels. The floor had been evened and smoothed. The ceiling, not so much. It was just as rough as the day it was first drilled.
The hall was lit by tiny strips of who-knows-what stuck to the ceiling. They looked like a cross between duct tape and glow sticks. About two inches wide, six inches long, and paper thin, they produced a light much brighter than a glow stick, but still not enough to make the hallway feel terribly well lit.
The vibrations I had heard and felt before were very prominent now. It felt like the strange machinery and the tunnel itself were breathing together. More or less, it felt like I had just been eaten alive by the alien base.
Downright unsettling.
I caught up with London in a heartbeat. Rhett was only a step or two behind me.
Her eyes were wide and darted about. “What is this place? At least it’s warmer in here.”
Rhett shined the light on his gun at one of the pods. All we saw was reflection. He pulled the flashlight from its rail on his gun, walked up to a pod, and placed it directly on the glass.
Instantly the inside became visible.
I recoiled. Inside the pod was a three foot long alien.
Rhett pulled the flashlight away. “They’re, uh, growing an army.”
We jogged away from the breach for several minutes. Ten, twenty, maybe even more corridors branched out from the one we ran down. All of them had a wall of pods against one side. In these corridors, however, the pods were oriented with the long side jutting out into the corridor. I wasn’t counting well enough to do the math, but it was clear that there were thousands upon thousands of little aliens growing in the mine. We also passed a few rock doorways that led into what must have been storage rooms for the original miners.
Up ahead the main corridor veered sharply to the right. As we approached the corner, shouting and a fair bit clanking sounds echoed down the hall.
Rhett raised his gun a bit higher and increased his pace.
I looked over at London. “Why would they be yelling?”
“How would I know? You should ask Captain Soldierpants up there.”
I didn’t draw my gun just yet. I was doing good just to keep up while lugging that pack around.
We rounded the corner and saw the other soldiers, four in all, maybe sixty or seventy feet down. They were frantically pulling down pods and restacking them to use as cover. One of them glanced back and saw us approaching.
He pointed to a doorway just ahead of us and shouted for us to get in the cave.
Over the crashing and the shouting, a new noise arose. It was a deep whirring sound, very similar to the UFOs I had heard, and it was getting closer.
The three of us made a dash for the room the soldier had pointed out.
I gasped and panted through the doorway just as a new round of shooting started.
Chapter 43 is here! Keep Reading.
