Holes in the Ground (5 page)

“It could be some sort of evil unicorn. Maybe it eats people.”

“The unicorn eats hay, Mr. Dennison-Jones. It’s not tame, but compared to many of our residents it’s mostly harmless.”

“So why keep them a secret?”

“We can’t risk revealing them to the world. The founders of Deus Manus were devoted to God. They locked away anything they felt was intrinsically evil or came from hell. I’m not about to second-guess them. They lived during a time where creatures like this walked the earth. If our ancestors thought the imps and unicorns were dangerous, then so do I.”

“But there’s no records, no history.”

Kane shrugged his shoulders. “Like I said, Deus Manus was created by the world’s most powerful elite; people who not only wrote the history books, but dictated the very direction of civilization. Humanity matured knowing only what these men allowed it to.”

Sun bristled. “No one has that right. No one has the right to take ownership of history.”

“Yeah,” said Jerry. “Those Deus Anus blokes were bang out of order.”

Kane pursed his lips. “Like it or not, what we are tasked with here is more ancient and more important than anything else in existence. We are the keepers of humanity, and it is our calling to prevent the evil kept inside this hole in the ground from corrupting the modern world.”

“Fine, whatever you say,” Andy said. “It still doesn’t explain why you brought us here. Unless the unicorn speaks Manx.”

“This is just a prelude to prepare you for what you are about to see. The reason you are here is buried deep in subbasement 5. But first, we want you to meet our most recent guest. We think it’s someone you might recognise.”

Sun glanced anxiously at her husband, and saw he’d begun to sweat despite the cool temperature.

Kane motioned back towards the way they had come. Back towards the elevator. “Shall we head down?”

In the elevator, Kane reached into his pocket and brought out two navy blue disks. They looked like a pair of rubber bath plugs. “Take these,” he said. “They will allow you limited access to the LED control panels and other parts of the facility. Just press them to the thumb scanners. Your temporary four-digit codes are 1-2-3-4. If you need me, just access the intercom function on any of the screens.”

Andy and Sun took the rubber disks and pocketed them.

Jerry flapped his arms. “What, no love for the J-man?”

“Son, you shouldn’t even be here. Just consider yourself lucky to be a spectator.”

“I prefer the term ‘watcher’,” Jerry said. “Has a nice ring to it. Jeremy Preston is…
The Watcher.
”

“Call yourself whatever you wish, Mr. Preston. Just make sure that you stay out of trouble. Or you will be Jeremy Preston…
the departed.
”

Jerry rolled his eyes. “That was lame.”

“We’ll keep an eye on him,” Sun said, clapping the boy on the shoulder.

Still picking up strays,
Andy thought.

Kane sighed. “Yes, see that you do.”

The elevator stopped and the doors opened. Subbasement 5 was darker than the floors above. Unlike the rest of the facility, this area had not been recently refurbished. The walls were bare and cracked, with seams of mud pushing through from the surrounding earth. There were armed guards standing at the entrance. The uniforms they wore were not military, but more like black-ops, with pouches and utility belts in abundance. The insignia on their upper arm was a golden sword with clouds above it.

Andy tried to control his encroaching panic, but with each step his feet seemed heavier and his nerves shakier. He gripped Sun’s hand like she was dangling off the side of a cliff.

Kane glanced back over his shoulder. “What I want to show you is just down here. The cells up ahead are see-through. Six-inch bulletproof glass. It’s imperative that we can see what the guests are doing at all times. These are the really nasty ones.”

He marched ahead and stopped beside a pair of armed guards. He exchanged pleasantries with the two men while the rest of the group caught up. Andy peered into a cell as they passed it and stopped when he noticed movement. There were piles of hay on the floor, and one of them shifted as he stared.

Then something from the opposite side of the room scuttled towards the door and took Andy by surprise. He pulled back from the hatch and let out an involuntary yelp.

“You’re perfectly safe,” said Kane. “There are two females inside. The males fight when not kept alone. The main colony is in Moscow. These two were lent to us for scientific study. Their venom is quite toxic. It explodes living tissue.”

Andy leaned back up against the hatch and peered inside again. The creatures he saw inside were no different than harvestmen spiders—also known as daddy longlegs, except a hundred times as big. The two jet-black arachnids had oval bodies the size of an exercise ball, and their spindly legs spread out a span of three meters, each thick as a man’s wrist.

The hair on the back of Andy’s neck pricked up.

The two gigantic spiders moved toward the hatch, their mandibles chittering. Venom dripped from fangs the size of steak knives.

“Ugh, I hate spiders,” Jerry said, grimacing. “I read about a dude in Australia who was bitten by a funnel web. The tissue rotted straight off the bone.”

The partially desiccated corpse of a small pig was partially covered in webbing, and on the floor of the cell were bones.

“Sheep bones,” Sun guessed.

She would know. Sun had had a lot of experience with sheep.

“What I mean to show you is over here,” Kane said. “Please come and take a look.”

Here goes
, thought Andy.

He took a deep breath and peered through the glass. Cell 4 was nothing but a large white room with a stone bench, hay scattered around the floor.

“I don’t see anything. Did you bring me here just to see a bench?”

Kane cleared his throat. “Look up, Mr. Dennison-Jones.”

Andy craned his neck and glanced towards the room’s ceiling.

Behind him, Sun gasped. “Oh God.”

Jerry whistled in awe. “It’s that demon! He’s real!”

Andy glared at the batling in the cell. It was a mini version of the abomination he and Sun had faced off against years ago. The thing that had almost killed them both—and had succeeded in killing most of their colleagues. Its flesh was a muddy red color, matted with coarse fur. Its muscular arms bore talons, and its feet ended in goat-like hoofs.

Andy’s eyes narrowed at the creature. “Bub…”

“I understand that you have met before,” Kane said.

Andy nodded, not taking his eyes off the subject of his recurring nightmares. The demon hovered eight feet above the ground, the black, leathery wings sprouting from its back flapping as fast as Andy’s heartbeat. It had the same malevolent, sideways-blinking eyes as its creator, and gave off the same barnyard smell, even through the thick glass.

Andy cleared his throat and ground his teeth. Then he turned to face Kane. “You have to destroy it.”

“That’s unacceptable.”

“Why? This thing is pure evil. Keeping it alive is just inviting disaster.”

Kane fiddled with his shirt cuffs momentarily and then folded his arms across his narrow chest. “As I understand it, there are many more of these things out there. Better that we learn what we can from this one so that we may have a better chance of destroying them all.”

“How many others?” Andy asked.

“You’re not cleared for that information.”

“The President said I had full access.”

“I’ll ask him when I speak to him again.”

Andy returned his gaze to the batling. The batling glared right back at him. “You’re making a mistake.”

“No. No, he’s not.” It was Sun speaking. Andy was surprised she didn’t agree with him. “We need to be smart about this,” she said. “Killing one would achieve nothing with so many more out there. What’s more important is figuring out what these things are up to, and where to find the rest.”

Andy closed his eyes and wished to be somewhere else, anyplace else but here. But it would be burying his head in the sand to not admit that his wife was right.

“So what’s the plan?” he asked Kane. “What are you going to do with this thing?”

Kane shrugged. “Discover all we can. Ms. Dennison-Jones, you’re welcome to pick up where you left off at Samhain. Tackle the situation from a biological standpoint; study the creature’s physiology, et cetera. We also need you both to try and communicate with it. Use your knowledge of Bub to try and find out as much as possible about what these ‘batlings’ are planning.”

“What about me?” Jerry asked.

Kane glared at him. “You stay out of the way and try not to give me any reason to shoot you.”

Jerry swallowed. “I can do that.”

“But this creature isn’t the main reason you were brought here,” Kane said. “There is something else we want you to see. Or, more specifically, something that wants to see
you
.”

That raised goosebumps all over Andy’s body.

“Those aren’t air vents,” Sun said, pointing to large, square holes in the walls in between cells. They looked like chutes, and were large enough for a man to crawl into. “I hope they don’t lead outside.”

“They do not. I’m afraid we learned some difficult lessons after Samhain, Ms. Dennison-Jones. In case of an uncontainable security breach, the entire Spiral is rigged to fill with a quick-mix concrete. Anything alive down here will be fossilised within minutes of the concrete setting, while the floors above would remain unaffected. The elevator shaft would also be filled in and sealed.”

“Bub has been buried once before. It didn’t hold him.”

“The nearest Deus Manus facility is in Texas. They’d send a clean-up team to make sure nothing was left alive. But it is a moot point, because the cells are escape proof. Now follow me.”

Kane led them further down the corridor. They passed by a whole host of monstrosities along the way.

There was a hairy, snarling beast that looked a lot like the classical description of a werewolf. Its black fur was matted. It growled at them with canine teeth ten centimeters long.

A large, regal-looking creature that was equal parts eagle and lion. The front of its body was like a bird of prey, its hindquarters like that of a jungle cat—a griffon, if Andy knew his mythological creatures.

A dinosaur, similar to the velociraptors Jerry had mentioned, but taller and thicker and covered with red and orange feathers. The LED screen next to it said it was an
Achillobator.
It was standing still, swaying left to right, its plumed, striped tail swishing.

There was also a humanoid creature that could have passed for a man if not for its dislocated lower jaw and dagger-like teeth sticking out through the torn flesh of its cheeks. Its eyes were jet-black, with pupils so large that the whites were not at all visible. Its fingertips were barbed like fish hooks, and it glared at them with malice and utter hatred as they walked by its cell.

Really don’t want to be trapped in a room with that thing. Or any of these things.

Up ahead, the transparent cells were coming to an end. Another elevator punctuated the conclusion of the corridor. As Andy approached the final cell he glanced hesitantly inside, wondering what horror he would see next, but he was surprised to find a perfectly normal-looking, middle-aged man, sitting in a chair. The handsome male was dressed in tweed slacks, a fancy collared shirt, and a long grey overcoat. He watched Andy with bright eyes.

“And this is the reason we’ve called you here,” Kane said.

The man stood, walking slowly to the glass partition. He said, “Ayr Ain, t’ayns Niau, Caſherick dy rou dt’ennym, Di jig dty Reereeaght.”

It was the language of the Isle of Man. Manx. It was also very familiar.

Andy answered in kind, “Dt’aigney dy rou jeant er y Talloo myr t’ayns Niau, Cur dooin nyn Arran jiu as gagh laa.”

The man smiled, apparently pleased. In a thick Irish brogue he said, “Welcome to Project Monstrum, Andrew Dennison-Jones.”

General Kane stepped forward, eyes wide. “You speak English.”

“I speak many languages, General. Manx is an oldie but a goody, as they say. Did you know the last native speaker of Manx died in 1974? Languages, just like species, can go extinct if the situation warrants it.”

Andy studied the prisoner. The man had messy brown hair that fell down to his shoulders, and an umber carpet of stubble clung to his face.

“Quid est tibi nomen?” Andy asked.
What is your name?

“Ah, Latin. Another dead language, unless you count those cheeky religious bucks trying to keep it around. My friends call me
Lucas
. Thrilled to make your acquaintance, so I am.”

The way the man said ‘thrilled’ sounded like ‘trilled’.

“A pleasure,” said Andy. “So, what are you… in for?”

“We’re not sure,” Kane interrupted. “Lucas has the distinction of being unlike any of the other residents housed here.”

“Why’s that?” Sun asked.

“He’s here voluntarily. We never captured him. Seven days ago he just appeared inside this cell and has been here ever since. He doesn’t eat, he doesn’t sleep. He’s not even organic as far as our tests can find.”

Lucas continued to smile pleasantly.

Sun cleared her throat and took a second look at the man inside the cell. “Not organic. What do you mean?”

“I mean his blood tests contain no DNA, and his tissue samples are inconclusive. It’s almost like he isn’t a living creature.”

“Your definition of life is a tad limited, General.” He glanced at Sun. “How does modern science define life, Dr. Dennison-Jones?”

“It’s something structurally composed, which regulates its environment. It has a metabolism. It grows. It adapts. It reproduces. Responds to stimuli.”

“Can’t the same be true of fire? Or electro-magnetism? Or the earth itself? The bloody great stars in the sky, for that matter?”

“It has a consciousness,” Sun said.

“Do algae have consciousness?”

“Maybe they do.”

“And maybe the earth does as well. Perhaps you should be less concerned with defining life, and more concerned with what the world is trying to tell yee.”