Cavern of the Blood Zombies (2011) (14 page)

The fingers and thumb on the hand were all the same length, its wrist was extremely thin, and it looked exactly as Panzi had described—intensely revolting. Fats made a gesture that warned me not to panic but I wasn’t afraid. I’d come across so many horrible things recently that I felt as though someone was playing a stupid prank on me. If anything I was pissed off and wanted to bite that disgusting little hand as hard as I could, but somehow logic and reasoning kept me from doing that.

Using Panzi’s gun, Fats poked at the hand in attempts to jar it from my shoulder. When the gun came close by, the hand grabbed it, coiled around it like a snake, and began to tug it away but Fats refused to let go. Anchoring himself with his big butt, he embarked upon a tug-of-war with that little hand.

I went to help him and he needed it. Although Fats was very strong, even with my assistance he could barely hold his own against this monstrous little thing. Although he was unable to join us in our struggle, Panzi drew back his arm and threw Fats his army knife.

Fats muttered an obscenity as he caught the knife and quickly cut a large chunk of green tissue from the hand, which released its grasp on the gun, flung itself into the darkness, and disappeared, writhing away from us like a snake. As soon as its force was withdrawn, Fats and I fell backward with our legs in the air.

Fats was on his feet in a second. He ran to see where the hand might have gone and found a deep, trenchlike crevice in the stone wall. He tried to squeeze in but the opening was too small for his bulk. Frustrated, he raised his fists and punched at the wall, which to our surprise, crumbled under the force of his bare hands.

“Look,” he cried, “there’s a large tunnel leading to a cave!”

We hurried over as Fats illuminated the place with his flashlight. Indeed, there was another pathway within that opening. The interior was very dark, and we had no idea where this tunnel would lead us. Who would ever suspect there was a tunnel hidden in such a dark spot along the wall? No wonder the corpse-eating bugs could come and go as swiftly as ghosts, I realized.

Panzi touched the opening and said, “Looks like this is a man-made tunnel. Could it have been dug for the corpse-eaters to move through?”

“You’re saying those damn bugs are in here?” Fats was just about to crawl into the tunnel but stopped when he heard Panzi’s next words, “Don’t worry. Earlier when Poker-face was taking care of my wounds for me, I wiped some of his blood onto my own hand. You see,” he pointed to a bloodstained spot on his palm, “You guys use a bit of spit and wipe some of this on your faces. It’s got to have some power.”

I could not help laughing. “You’re such a crook for God’s sake. He saved your life and then you stole his blood!”

Panzi smiled with embarrassment and said, “I don’t know why, but when I saw his blood dripping onto the ground, I had a feeling that it shouldn’t go to waste.”

Fats didn’t understand what we were talking about, and asked, “Why? Is this guy’s blood that powerful?”

We nodded, and told him about what had happened back in the carcass cave.

“I don’t know why this opening was put here,” Panzi told us, “but since we’re lost in this maze of tunnels, I guess it’s our only hope. Why don’t we go in and take a look?”

I stared at the opening. Only one person could go through it at a time, and it gave me the creeps. I did not feel good about going in, but if we didn’t take some sort of action, we were sure to die in this place so I nodded in agreement. Fats took off his belt and tied it to his leg, saying to Panzi, “You hold onto my belt and I’ll lead the way.”

Without saying another word, he crawled into the tunnel. Panzi clutched the belt and was pulled inside. I watched them disappear in the darkness, summoned all my courage, and followed them.

Fats slowly led the way. There were a few narrow spots he almost got stuck in and only made it through by holding his breath. Panzi was not only in pain as he was dragged along, but his face was directly in line with Fats’s ass. “You’d better not fart right now,” he muttered.

Fats was too short of breath to respond, and from his silence, I could tell he was exhausted. The three of us crawled like worms for heaven knows how long. Then Fats suddenly whispered, “I can see light!” He abruptly increased his speed, making Panzi cry “Take it easy!” as the faster pace jostled his wounds. But Fats continued to climb more and more swiftly, which—considering his size—was almost a miracle.

I could see the light myself; it grew brighter as we climbed. I told myself that we just might have lucked out; maybe we’d soon be back above ground.

Fats was already climbing up into the light and the minute he was out, I heard him yell, “Holy shit, where in the hell are we now?”

I carefully climbed out of the tunnel and found only a small ledge to stand on. It jutted out from a cliff that looked as though it was hundreds of feet high. Gusts of strong wind blew toward us and I had to cling to the wall of the cliff as I checked out our new surroundings.

Like Fats, I had no idea of where the hell we were now. On the side of the cliff was a gigantic natural cave roughly the size of a soccer field. It had a huge crack in its ceiling where just enough moonlight shone through to make the cavern’s outline visible.

I was standing near the cave wall to the west. There was nothing above or below me to support any climbing activity. I glanced around and discovered that surrounding us were many other cave openings, all closely packed together. It looked like there could be tens of thousands of them, making the area look as if it had been swept a few dozen times by many different high-caliber machine guns.

The most amazing thing was a gigantic, towering tree in the middle of the cave that was closest to me. It looked about ten stories high, and probably could not be encircled even if ten men stretched their arms around it. Covering it was a huge number of vines as thick as telephone poles, intertwined and crisscrossed, nearly engulfing everything they touched. Their tendrils hung down like weeping willow branches, some of them swinging in midair, some touching the ground. Other vines extended into the openings of the other caves and spread almost everywhere in my field of vision.

As I looked more closely, I could see many objects hanging from the tree’s branches. At first I thought they were fruit, but they were the wrong size and shape for that to be true. Hidden behind a thick, dense layer of vines, they swung as the wind blew.

There was a round stone veranda at the bottom of this cave, leading from a small piece of construction that looked like a worship platform. It stretched all the way to the branches of the mammoth tree, and at the other end I could dimly see another platform. On that had been placed a bed made out of jade, with what looked like a man lying upon it. But it was too far away, and since I could only faintly make out the outlines of what I saw, I dared not reach a conclusion.

Fats was very excited, shouting, “Shit, I’ve looked everywhere! This must be the main chamber of the Western Zhou dynasty tomb. It’s definitely the body of the Ruler of Dead Soldiers lying on top of that jade platform. What a wicked old bastard—a vulture who stole the nest of a dove. He robbed someone’s grave and then used that tomb for himself. On behalf of heaven, I’ll punish him today for his lack of professional ethics. He’ll suffer the fate of any dishonest grave robber!”

Obviously Fats was so upset he was able to overlook his own lack of professional ethics.

Panzi remarked, “You’d better not act too rashly and blindly. This Ruler is beyond anything we could expect to discover. I think there are traps waiting for us in this place. We’d better find a way to get up to the top of the cliff and climb to safe terrain before we do anything else.”

I raised my head to look up and was speechless. To climb to the cliff’s top would be a horrendous task— especially since we’d have to hang almost upside down as we climbed to safety. We weren’t Spiderman—how could we possibly do this?

I turned to ask Fats his opinion but half his body was already hanging off the cliff. Apparently he had not listened to a thing Panzi said. He was agile and swift, and there was no way I could stop him. In a few moments he was already about six feet down the cliff. He was near the opening of another cave and ready to keep going when a hand reached out of the opening and grabbed him by the leg.

Fats began to kick violently in hopes of dislodging the hand. Then from the cave came a man’s voice, “Don’t move! If you take one more step you’ll be dead.” It was the voice of Uncle Three, and exultantly I shouted, “Uncle Three, is it you?”

The man sounded surprised as he said, “Nephew. Where the hell did you go? You worried the shit out of me! Are you okay?”

It was indeed Uncle Three. I was relieved, and exclaimed, “I’m all right, but Panzi is wounded! It’s all because of this fat guy!” I stuck my head out, but the cave below was in the blind spot of the protruding ledge I was standing on. I could only see half of Fats’s leg, so I gave up. I could hear Fats yelling, “Comrade, could you please let go of my leg?”

Uncle Three cursed loudly, “Where the hell did you come from? God damn it, you better shut up and come down quickly. Be careful where you put your feet and don’t touch that vine.”

Fats cried, “Which one, do you mean this one?” as he pointed toward a tendril with his toes. Uncle Three screamed, “Don’t!” as the vine suddenly rose up into the air like a snake ready to strike, its end opening into the shape of a flower. It looked like a ghost’s hand as it waved in midair, following every motion that Fats made. As I watched I realized that the little green hand on my shoulder had actually been the end of a vine like this one.

Fats had the vine moving with him in unison, dancing with it in a teasing arabesque, like an Indian snake charmer playing with a cobra. He’s crazy, I thought, no wonder he’s all alone. If we let him stick with us, he’s going to get us all killed.

Uncle Three was furious, roaring, “I’m asking you, are you done yet? Do you know what you’re dealing with? Get down here right now!” But Fats was in trouble. The vine had wound around his leg like a boa constrictor and had nearly dragged him to the edge of the precipice.

Earlier, when we tussled with the smaller handlike vine for control of the pistol, not even Fats and I together could counter the force of just one of these plants. Now Fats was succumbing to the strength of the vine that had him captive, and I had to try to help him.

I began to look for a rock to throw but the shelf we stood upon was without any debris. As I scrabbled about searching for something to use as a missile, I felt the muscles in my leg tighten. Looking down, I cried out, “Shit!” A ghostly green hand had come out of nowhere and had wrapped itself around my leg.

I looked for something to hold onto, but it was too late. A strong force had already pulled me away from safety and my body was hurled into midair.

It felt like I had reached zero gravity. Neither my hands nor my feet could feel anything solid. Then I was flung heavily against the wall of the cliff—it was like being bludgeoned with solid rock. I could feel my heart’s blood rise in my throat and I almost vomited up my life. Then I felt the vine increase its force and begin to pull me downward. My hands flailed about but I could find nothing to hold—and then I was in free fall. I closed my eyes. I was finished. There was no way I could survive this.

Three or four other vines had noticed me and rolled toward me from the cliff. One of them was especially thick and wrapped itself around my waist. Hanging in midair, I was like a fried doughnut that had been twisted and wrapped around itself several times. Then the thick vine pulled with a sudden burst of force, my head landed on the cliff wall, and I was dragged along the rocks. I felt the vines pulling me downward as I collided with branches and stones. Not one part of my body escaped the impact of this violent ordeal. My eyes saw tiny pinpoints of light, my brain echoed with agony, and I almost lost consciousness.

When I hazily realized I was no longer moving, I felt extremely nauseated and dizzy. I wanted to open my eyes, but my vision was blurred as if a layer of gauze had covered my face. I took a few deep breaths and slowly gathered my strength as my vision gradually became clearer. I found I was hanging upside down on a branch of the mammoth tree. Below my head lay the stone platform with the mysterious corpse.

I looked again and was stupefied. On the platform lay not just one corpse, but also the body of a young woman beside it. Her corpse was covered with white cloth, her eyes were closed, her face was calm. She looked pretty and charming, with no sign of decay on her body. If I weren’t looking closely, I would have thought she was only sleeping. The male body next to her wore a bronze mask that was the face of a fox. Armor enclosed his entire body; both of his hands were placed on his chest; and in them was a box made of purple-enameled gold.

As I stared closely at the corpse in armor, I felt quite uneasy without knowing why. I looked closely at his head and saw through the eyeholes near the top of the mask, two green eyeballs staring at me.