Infinity Squad (29 page)

"Blue-Wave says do not go into the caves."

Why not? What's in there?

"In the caves lives a... lives a..." I could feel him fumbling with the images, like a child with a limited vocabulary. "It is hard to explain."

"Sir. We've spotted the first cave system," Ann-Marie radioed. "There seems to be a-"

"Now not Butcher," I interrupted.

"What?" I heard her say as I was concentrating, very hard.
What lives in those caves, Two-Spot?

"A... bad idea lives there. Do not go in. Very bad idea that will spread, Blue Wave says."

And that was all.

"Can I make my report now, sir?"

I sighed. "Go ahead, Butcher."

"The path you've been following. It bypasses the first cave system and goes to the second. Right into the second, sir."

"Then that's where we'll go," Hector said. "This trail has to be a Hell-Spider one- look at how wide apart the two footpaths are!"

I racked my brain, but there was no way I could refuse. The caves didn't connect, and my stated mission was to close with Spiders and kill them. I couldn't turn down this intelligence, not after everyone back at base had just heard it.

I sighed. "Very well. We approach the second cave system- slowly. Butcher and Juan, stay hidden and observe the entrance. Zazlu, pull close and get the thrower ready. Everyone else- fingers OFF your fucking triggers. Don't fire until I give the order or
I'll
cut
your
balls off."

I looked just like any other cave entrance. With a well-worn spider path leading right up to it. We had watched it for thirty minutes as the Immortals got more and more fidgety but nothing came in or out.

I had a hard time explaining to Green-Shell-Two-Spot which cave we were looking at, but after he sent it to Blue-Wave, the answer was definite. "NO! That is the worst one, Bunches of Trees! Do not go in!"

"What are we going to do, sit here and pick our ass all day?" Hector said, standing up. "Let's go."

"Sit
down
, Lieutenant," I said, giving him my best Look. "We'll go when I say we're ready."

I saw Hector's jaw tightening when we heard a calm, slightly Spanish-accented voice in our ears. "You are ready now, Lieutenant Forrest. We have you on satellite. Assault the cave, that is a direct order from General Oakley."

Fucking bureaucrats.

I sent Juan in first, then Samson, and gave Juan specific non-verbal instructions to throw Samson in the way of anything dangerous they saw. Anything.

We covered the entrance from the bushes, getting mobbed by flies, but after thirty seconds, Juan said, "Looks clear."

I took the rest of us in, leaving Lesko and two other Immortals at the entrance with orders to report if ANYTHING showed up. They couldn't fuck that up, right?

The entrance room was typical cave. Dark, wet, slippery. We turned on our headlamps.

"I guess we have to go in deeper," I sighed.

"That's what she-"

"Shut up Juan."

The second room was even darker and more slippery. But at least it was cooler. There was a type of seaweedy thing hanging off some parts of the ceiling. Zaz, Juan, Butcher and I gave it a wide berth as we passed, but the Immortals just brushed it away as they stepped through it.

"Everyone, keep your eyes wide open," I said as we entered the third room. "There's something not right here- I can
sense
it."

My guys nodded or said "Yes sir," in such away that I could tell they knew. I had just relayed a warning from the spiders.

"OOOhhh, you can
sense
it," Hector said, watching us creep through the room like it was haunted. "How the fuck did you posers beat us in killing spiders?" he laughed, pushing through another hanging seaweedy thing. "I bet you don't even kill them. I bet you just wait for them to die of natural causes and take their skulls."

See, the trick is to not over-react, because then they know you're guilty. The play here is to go with it.

"That's exactly what we do Hector," I said. "We talk to the spiders and they tell us where grandma eight-legs is buried, and we go dig them up and no one can tell the skulls are a year old."

"That's why the monster we hung after the monsoon was still warm to the touch and dripping blood," Zazlu added, creeping around a hanging weed. "Because we're grave robbers."

"I bet you guys hadn't ever seen a spider head that big before," Juan said.

"We've seen big enough," Samson sneered. "The wave we held off when your Lieutenant Ridley bought it would make you shit your pants."

"Bitch, I've killed shit that would eat your wave whole!"

"Juan, enough," I said. "Let's move on. And Samson's right. When we found what was left of him near Ridley's body, Samson's corpse
had
shit its pants."

We went on that way for a while, the squads sniping back and forth as we stepped through one dank, dripping cave room after another. There was a room that was knee-deep in water, then one with

five ways out of it and then a big one to the left and then a small one to the left... look, to keep it all straight, I’d have to draw you a map.

Which is exactly what Butcher was doing on the notepad strapped to her thigh. As was I, but in a less detailed way. Because I also had to keep watching for Samson behind me, how the other Immortals were acting, and keep worrying about the green lights we were losing on our buffering bands. We had started with four at the cave mouth and were now down to three.

It was somewhere in that span that Hector brushed through one of the hanging seaweed things and a white slug the size of a cut fingernail dropped off onto his neck. It must have burrowed into his warm, sweaty skin immediately, because none of us noticed it. But I'm sure that's when it happened.

The deeper in we went, the more hanging things there were to avoid and the more cave muck there was on the floor. The floor started to slope down away from us, like we were hiking down the side of a funnel. As the turns got more complex and the footing more treacherous, I started to worry about getting back out at all. The point where I cross-checked my map with Butcher's and found two important errors while standing calf-deep in cave muck is when I called it.

"All right, this is obviously a bust. Let's go back," I said, turning around.

Hector stopped scratching his neck and didn’t follow us. “What, we’re giving up?”

“Yes. There’s obviously nothing here.”

“Pussy,” he said. “This is exactly what Hughes said you guys were doing- always turning back before you actually met any spiders.”

I glanced up to see we only had two green lights. “Look-“

“We’re a squad and a half,” Samson sneered. “You guys brought back all those skulls with just four of you! What are you suddenly afraid of?”

I looked at Zazlu, who agreed with his eyes. We couldn’t turn back without raising questions.

I tried raising the young spider or Blue Wave again, but got nothing.

“Fine,” I sighed.

The next room was sloped even more severely and we had to hold on to the walls to keep from slipping. The cave muck was a maddening mix of slippery under your feet and viscous around your ankles, making it exhausting to slog through. My legs were starting to get rubbery.

“Look, we haven’t even seen a single sign of spiders yet-“ I began.

“We saw that huge trail leading to this cave,” Samson said. “It took a lot of spiders to make that.”

“Exactly,” Hector agreed, eagerly perched at the entrance to the next room, a low hole we had to duck into. “Now come on!”

“Hold on!” I yelled, just before he would have entered. On a hunch, I turned off my headlamp. "Butcher, how many green lights do I have?"

She swallowed. "Zero, sir. Red light only. How about me?" She flipped off her lamp so the glare didn’t hide the lights.

"Zero for you too, Lieutenant. Looks like this cave blocks radio signals, huh?"

She nodded, and when I turned to Samson, I had to grin. His clone face was as pale white as it could get, looking at the single red light showing on everyone’s bands. We had prepared for this since Ridley, aware of the possibility that each death might be our last. They hadn't.

I couldn’t help it. "Shit just got real, huh, Samson? Don’t you want to keep exploring? Maybe there's a whole Hell-Spider NEST up ahead!"

He threw Hector a look that I knew well. A Second Lieutenant warning his CO that this was a bad idea. A look no First Lieutenant would ignore.

“Come on!” Hector repeated. “That doesn’t matter!”

“Hector,” I said, “if you want to go through that hole, go ahead.”

“Fine.” And he was gone.

We heard the noise of some sliding and then, “See! It’s fine!” I kept looking at that inclined hole, knowing it wasn’t right. “Come on!” he said.

“Alright Hector, come on back.”

“No! You’ve got to see this!” he yelled from the darkness. “It explains the spider trail outside! Now it all makes sense!”

I frowned, but motioned to Ann-Marie. “Butcher, you’re the most sure-footed. Take a look. But be careful.”

She nodded. “Sir.” Then started lowering herself in. She went feet first, then rifle, then torso, and as soon as I saw her fingers release their grip on this room, she yelled.

“SHIT SHIT-“ and there was a splash.

“Zazlu! Hold me!” I yelled, going headfirst through myself. Zaz grabbed my belt as I dove in and kept me from falling into same the waist-deep pond of cave muck Butcher was struggling in. I reached for her. “Butcher- take my hand!”

She tried to walk and it was too thick, and she tried to swim and it was too thin, just like quicksand. Her struggles caused waves to ripple out through the muck, and then all of a sudden white slugs started raining down around her. I looked up and the entire ceiling was covered with hanging seaweed.

“Butcher! Come on!” I yelled. “Hector- help her!”

“Just a little further!” Hector laughed, letting the slugs fall on him without a care as he explored something deeper in the room.

“Zaz! Let go! And Flamethrowers!”

When he let go of my belt I slid into the muck face first and started slapping the slugs off of Ann-Marie. I didn’t know what they were then, but I didn’t care. Zazlu opened up with a jet of fire and toasted the seaweed hanging above us, stopping the white rain.

“Did I get them all? Do you see any more?” I asked, brushing her hair, shoulders and chest frantically.

She was doing the same to me. “I think so.”

“Let’s get out of here!” I said, and my foot kicked up against something heavy that I instantly recognized. A Hell-Spider corpse, buried in the muck. I picked Butcher up by the waist and placed her standing on its back.

Butcher could reach Zazlu’s hand from there and got pulled up and out. I did the same and Juan pulled me out. I turned back.

“Hector! Come back! That’s an order!”

“Fine, whatever,” he laughed, brushing slugs off him. Against my instincts, I pulled him back to the room we were in.

“Everyone, turn around!” I ordered. “Butcher! Check your lower body for slugs!”

“You too sir,” she said, and we both dropped our fatigues and made sure nothing was crawling up our legs or boots. “I’m clean,” she said a minute later, finishing wiping the muck off her.

I shook out my pants and put them on again. “Me too. Alright, you guys can turn arou-“ I looked up to see half the Immortals grinning at the show Ann-Marie had just put on. “Hector! Control your men!”

“Perks of the job, Forrest,” he laughed. “Now if you’re done playing doctor we’ve got to go back in there and figure out what killed all those spiders.”

“We know what killed them,” Zazlu said, his face as red with anger as mine. “They fell into that shit and couldn’t get out again. Just like Lieutenant Butcher almost did because of you!”

“We were fine. We can climb. We have hands,” he said, flashing his fingers at us. “Now come on, we’ve got to see-“

“See nothing! We’re done here,” I snapped, then looked at Ann-Marie’s muck covered fatigues. The map on her thigh was ruined. Mine was barely legible. I started picturing the long climb out of the cave, uphill for most of it, with many wrong turns, the slick floor fighting us the whole way…and I just felt exhausted. With every breath, I felt like it would be better to just stay here. I fell to one knee.

Zazlu tapped my shoulder with his elbow. “Come on, sir. We’ve got to move.”

“I know, but just a minute…”

“Now.”

“Right.” I forced myself up and started pointing. “Butcher, lead us out. Zazlu, burn every seaweed we come across. Juan-“

“Immortal Squad, with me!” Hector said. “We’re killing us some hiding spiders!”