The Prize: Book One (25 page)

CHAPTER - TWENTY THREE:   Two for Dinner

              Penn managed to take one last deep breath before a jelly like mass coved his face.  Almost immediately, it began to irritate his skin, then burn slightly.  Stomach acid!  Panic started to overwhelm him as the wall muscles of the creatures contracted, the throat barbs bit into his legs and back, pushing him deeper inside.  Gritting his teeth against the pain, he forced his panic down; flashing back to the day he'd plunged through the pantana into the black sinking mud below.  Much like this.  He could hardly move in the glutinous mass, but thankfully, it wasn't deep and he could feel the root mass above him and managed to hack a way through, and stick his head out so he could breath.  After that, his friends pulled him out, laughing themselves silly.  The thought calmed him a little and, with an effort, he gripped the knives in each hand and stabbed sideways.  Not unexpectedly, the points bounced off the tough skin of the throat.  Penn contracted his stomach muscles, and stabbed again, stars starting to pinwheel behind his eye from lack of oxygen as his muscles went into overdrive.  Again and again, he stabbed until at last one knife point found its way between the muscle and through the outer skin.

Almost sobbing in relief, he jerked the knife upwards just as the walls contracted again.  The movement aided the blade to slice a long gash through the tough skin.  Turning the blade, he sawed sideways through muscle and soft cartilage of the creature's ribs.  The worm thrashed, throwing him from side to side, as he redoubled his desperate bid for escape.  Another contraction, but this time it moved him to a position where he could move his legs.  He wiggled and kicked until he had his legs free in the opening, but barbs dug into his back, holding him in place, unable to free upper body.   As the black spots in his eye turned to star bursts, he felt something grab the back of his pants, jerking him backward, the barbs tearing his skin.  For a panicky moment he thought another worm had latching onto him, until he realized Ellis was trying to pull him out.  At last, the creature's muscles relaxed, and, like a pit in a squeezed orange, he popped out into the welcoming mud.  Penn gasped for air as he used the scum leaden water to wash the burning goo off his face.

“Penn!  Will you get your ass up here and help!”  Ellis yelling in panic as she slashed at another worm.  Penn groaned and shook his head.

“Don't get your freaking panties in a knot.”  He snarled, struggling to his feet.

Worms of all sizes surrounded them.  Penn began to think the girl raped to death by the plant had gotten off way too easy.  By the look of it, they were going to end up as a pile of worm shit.  Penn stumbled his way back onto the islet, chopping and slashing as he went.  For a while, they stood back to back, desperately fighting for their lives.  Worm after worm attacked Ellis as he fought to protect her until he realized the worms weren't going after him.  It took a moment to understand why.  He was now covered in worm blood.  Seeing a small worm coming toward them, Penn waited to strike, slicing cleanly through the whole body just behind the head as the worm moved passed him.  The moment he did, he grabbed the thrashing body and covered Ellis with the stinking yellowy blood spurting from the severed arteries.  Ellis squealed in protest as she wiped the filthy stuff out of her eyes, spitting and gagging from the blood that entered her mouth.

“PENN!  You fucking maniac!  What the hell are you doing?”

Almost magically, the creatures hesitated, their heads waving back and forth, seeking their prey.  Slowly, one by one they disappeared back beneath the mud, and within a few moments it was as if they were never there.  All that remained were the dead, or dying worms.  Ellis slumped to the wet ground, sobbing from exhaustion and relief as she wiped her face clean.

“Oh God!”  She breathed.  “Thank Christ, that's over.”  Penn let out a long sigh, and tossing the dead worm he was still holding aside, slumping down beside her, shaking like a leaf as post battle shock set in.  He’d never felt more feared in his life than at that moment, but not for himself, but for the Sub-Major.  That said more about his feeling for her than he wanted to examine.

“Thanks,” he breathed, “for pulling me out of the worm.”  He sat there, breathing heavily for a moment waiting to the adrenaline rush to pass.

“I couldn't leave without you, could I?”  Ellis answered with a shaky laugh.  ”But why the hell did you have to spray me with that gunk!  Shit!  I can still taste it,” she said, turning her head to spit of to the side.

“Had to, to cover your scent.  That was what attracted them.”

“In that case, I'm glad you did.  Thanks.”

For a moment, she leaned against him, saying more in that motion than she could in words.  In all, they sat there for ten minutes before Penn carefully peeled off his shirt.  Ellis winced when she saw his back, immediately reaching into her pack for a med kit.  She used the spray liberally over his back to clean and seal the wounds, hearing Penn hiss as the solution flush, and cleaned out any debris, and toxin before hardening.

“Thanks,” he said, giving her a reassuring smile.  He carefully redressed, and retrieving their packs they starting off again.  He'd doctor the cuts on his legs later when he got the chance, if there was a later that is.

“If you're right, and this place is conjuring up things we want, or fear, where the hell did the worms come from?”  Ellis asked after a while.  Penn shrugged.

”Who knows, maybe one of us thought about rotten corpses or graveyards.”

“Well, it wasn't me,” Ellis snorted.  ”I for one do not think about things like that.”

“You sure?”  Ellis looked at him, and smiled slightly.

“Well, maybe once in a while.”

“Apparently it doesn't take much to trigger a response from whatever is controlling this place, so be careful of what you think about.”  Ellis thumped him on the arm.

“Me!  It’s not just me here.  What about you?”

“I have my thoughts under perfect control.”

“Yeah, I just bet you do, but then again, men do have a one track mind when it comes to getting into a girl's pants.”

“I wasn't…  I didn't…”  Penn spluttered in guilty outrage.

“Yeah, in a pig's eye.”  Ellis grinned at him.

Penn attempted to keep them walking, or sloshing along, in a reasonably straight line, hoping they were actually getting somewhere.  At first, he just wanted to get as far away from the island as he could in case more worms showed up.  He had no way of knowing how long the worm blood would cover their scent.  Twenty minutes later, they were out of sight of the island, and hopefully the detection range of the worms.  Soon after that, they climbed out onto high ground and thankfully, a wall came into view.  This in turn led them to opening, and after scraping off as much of the muck as they could, and applying burn cream to Penn's face and hands, they carried on.  At no time did Penn mention turning back.  He waited until they reached a more lighted area, and some clean water before stopping to wash off the worm blood, and the filth.  Much as Ellis hated to admit it, they give up any hope of connecting up with the others.  Each group was now on its own to make their way to the Prize.  Somewhere in this maze there had to be a control room that controlled the gravitational effect, or so she hoped.  That was her anchor, her one hope of even going home again.

The inside of the pyramid made little sense, sometimes they had a roof over their heads, at other times, what looked like open sky, but had to be an illusion.  There was just one way to go, from chamber to chamber with no way of going back.  On most occasions there was no back, just a blank wall, or the chamber stretching away into the distance.  Water was no problem, as they found indoor streams issuing from the rock, and sometimes river that just suddenly vanished into the ground.  Soon after the worm chamber, they entered a smallish room, smallish at least compared to some of the other rooms, or chambers.  And took time to strip down to wash themselves, and their clothes clean off the putrid filth and get rid of the stench.  It also gave Penn the opportunity to doctor the deep puncture wounds in his legs in private, and swallow a couple of pain pills without Ellis seeing.  It wasn't some misplaced macho pride that made him cove up how painful the wounds were, but her fervent hope they were getting somewhere.

Penn knew better.   Without know how, he knew the pyramid was testing them, for what, or why he couldn't say.  But until the tests were concluded, they be fighting their way through this madhouse for a long time, or until they were dead.  On face value, that was a distinct possibility.  Penn dressed in his wet, but clean BDU, feeling a lot better now the painkillers had kicked in.  Slipping into his body harness, he automatically checked all three knives, finding the edges, sharp and clean.  Again, they had saved his life, so he treated them with a lot of respect.

"Penn!  Over here."  Looking around over the low growing shrubbery, Pen saw Ellis beckoning him from an opening in a wall.  "This could be the way out."  She added as he walked up.

Grabbing his pack, he walked over and entered the room.  He should have known better, but Ellis distracted him for a moment.  As they entered another chamber, the doorway behind them quickly closed, plunging them into complete darkness.

“Oh Shit!  Not again.”

CHAPTER - TWENTY FOUR: 

              “Damn it!”  Penn swore as he'd just managed to get a quick glimpse inside the room, or cave in front of them.  Penn put his arm out to stop Ellis from moving, pushing her until they both had their backs to the wall.  Even that quick glance before the portal closed was enough to tell him that this place was another trap.

“Shit,” Ellis muttered, “doesn't this place every run out of obstacles?”

“I have the feeling that's the point.”

“But why?  What's
is
the point?”

“To protect the control room, or this prize, whatever that is, I suppose.  We'll know that when we get to wherever this leads.”

“Now what do we do?” she whispered in his ear, her soft breath caressing his neck. 

No matter what he did to his eyes, he couldn't see a thing, not even an infrared signature.  This place was about as black as a bottom of a coal mine at midnight, on a moonless night.  Penn heard Ellis fumbling around in her pack, guessing she was looking for another flare.  He was right.

“Close your eye.”  She said popping the flare.

Ellis threw it as far as she could, but instead of landing on a floor, it vanished into a pit.  In the vanishing light, they both saw what they faced.  They could see the other side, some hundred yards from where they stood.

“Is that what I think is it?”  Ellis asked.

“Yeah.  It's a maze.”

It was a maze, but one where they were standing on top of the walls with a drop of unknown depth on either side.  Between then and the far wall lay a series of narrow ledges, or pathways, and the way the flare vanished down the pit, and slowing fading from sight before hitting bottom gave them some idea of how deep the drop off was.  With no residual glow from the flare, it meant the pit was very deep.  With a sharp crack, Ellis popped another flare, but the resulting light was a disappointment.  It was as if the place was deliberately sucking up the light, and even holding it over her head they could barely see a couple of feet in front of them.  With no way back, they had to go forward, and with Penn in the lead they edged sideways along the ledge with their backpacks scraping the wall.  The flare didn’t last long enough for them to make any real progress and soon died, plunging them back into the darkness just as they reached the end of the ledge.  The wall turned sharply to the right, but with no ledge to follow, the dying flare showed them they had a choice of three branching pathways, rather like walking along the top of a two foot wide wall.  With light, it would be nerve-wracking to say the least, but in total darkness there was the added challenge of balance.  Without something for the eye to fix on, human's lost the sense of a fixed horizon, and prone to losing their balance.

“Oh shit!”  Ellis muttered.  ”Penn, do you have any flares in your pack?  I can't reach mine.”

“I do.  But they are way down inside, and I don't fancy you digging around in there.  This just isn't the place to do that right now.”