Hellbenders. James Axler

as he tried to focus hard on the crumpled package. He extended a finger and prodded delicately at the package. He then withdrew his hand and rubbed ruminatively at his fingertip with his other hand.

      “Now, that is interesting,” he mused softly. “I would not say that it was as recent as today or yesterday, but the remains of that self-heat are dryish but still with a residue of moisture. Enough to put it, in these hermetic conditions, as recently as a week.”

      “Company, then,” Ryan said simply. “They may not be around now, but they aren’t going to be far away. Form up and we’ll move out. Hopefully they’ll have scavenged and then gone, leaving us with at least the chance to take a shower, mebbe some fresh clothes and grab some sleep.”

      “When was the last time we got that lucky?” Mildred commented wryly.

      Ryan allowed himself the briefest flash of humor before shouldering the Steyr and unholstering his pistol.

      “Okay, people, you know the drill,” he said firmly as they fell into line behind him.

      Ryan punched in the 3-5-7 sec code, waiting as the door lifted. Behind him, the others readied themselves for action at any second.

      But the corridor beyond the door was still and empty. Ryan stepped out, covering both sides with the SIG-Sauer. He could see nothing along the hundred-yard stretch of corridor in each direction, one end terminating in an elevator, the other in a gently curving bend. He moved into a defensive position behind one of the concrete support pillars that helped to shore up the deep earthworks of the redoubt against the vast pressure of the earth above that bore down on the honeycombed structure.

      “Seems quiet,” he said softly, beckoning the others to join him. “Reckon we’ll be better off taking the tunnel and working our way up rather than try the elevator. Safer.”

      “Yeah, if there is anyone around, they’ll soon be on to us if we get it creaking into action,” Mildred concurred, looking at the elevator doors. “At least this way we can keep quiet.”

      “I don’t think we’ll need to,” Krysty said. “Whatever the problem is, it’s not people.”

      “Somehow, my dear Krysty, I find that not in the slightest whit reassuring,” Doc remarked as he peered toward the curve in the tunnel.

      “Stay close on triple-red, people.”

      They walked carefully along the corridor, rounding the bend in a formation that hugged the wall to keep as much cover as possible. As they did so, they all noticed the unearthly quiet of the redoubt.

      “Something’s not right,” Ryan said as they paused. “Look at this…” he continued, indicating a part of the wall that seemed to have been recently—and clumsily—repaired. It was a large, irregular circle, and seemed to have been filled in and then not finished properly. There was also an old girder, salvaged from some other part of the redoubt, used farther along their route to shore up yet another section of the wall. And on the floor, surrounding the rough work, were signs of recent habitation—a water canteen left behind, some self-heats and a pool of congealed oil that hadn’t yet fully soaked into the concrete floor.

      “Gotta be some people around to have done this—and fairly recently,” J.B. added. “So where are they?”

      As if in mocking answer to his question, the tunnel around them seemed to vibrate through its very center, growing more intense in a matter of seconds until the floor was shaking beneath their feet.

      “Dark night!” J.B. shouted as the wall of the tunnel in front of him began to disintegrate in a shower of powdered concrete.

      Chapter Two

      “Fireblast! What the hell is happening?” Ryan yelled as he tried to keep his feet. The vibration in the tunnel continued to shake the floors and walls, crumbling concrete dust and flaking plaster, a light rain of those materials making visibility suddenly difficult and even painful as the abrasive mist scratched at their eyes.

      In the confusion it was almost impossible for anyone in the group to tell exactly what was happening. One thing was for sure—they needed to regroup and stick close together. Without Ryan even having to give the command, Dean and J.B., who had wandered farthest from the formation, began to make their unsteady way back toward the others.

      “Surely we have not come this far to fall prey to something as simple and neutral as an earthquake,” Doc said, almost to himself.

      “Could have been worse—could have been floods,” Ryan replied, although Doc’s exclamation had required no answer.

      But it was Mildred who, in the flash of a second, knew what Doc meant. It crossed her mind, as it always did when they faced such problems, that they had taken and fought their way past so many man-made obstructions on their path, so many who would wish to chill them for no good reason, that it seemed as though the scales of justice were unfairly tipped for them to take their last bow at the mercy of the earth itself. Yet, given their location and the factors that had made the earth itself so unstable, was that not a man-made obstruction?

      This crossed her mind in the time it took her to move closer to the pack, finding herself beside Jak as J.B. and Dean closed in. Doc, Ryan and Krysty stood a few yards away.

      A crucial few yards.

      The earth rumbled around them. The stressed steel girders supporting the concrete pillars that had stood firm for so long against the outside pressure of rock began to sing and screech with the torsion that made them begin to bend within the concrete itself. The large gaps in the surrounding walls that had seemed hairline cracks a few minutes earlier began to assume the proportions of gaping maws. The hurried repair to the walls that they had passed a few yards back fell out with a loud bang, tumbling to the shaking floor and breaking into a myriad of pieces that danced across the unsteady surface.

      “Try to stay on your feet,” Ryan yelled above the noise. “Move toward the next level—mebbe it’s localized.”

      As an option, all the companions knew that it was grasping at nonexistent straws. The intensity of the vibration here was such that it was highly unlikely to have abated if they could make their way up the sloping tunnel to an upper level. The earth shifts, they knew from experience, were stronger the deeper you went, but this was too harsh to suddenly drop away in an ascent of less than a hundred feet.

      That was always assuming they could make any progress at all before the pressure of the shifting rocks caved in the redoubt tunnel. Every step forward seemed to take them three steps back as they tried to move on the unstable floor.

      J.B. led the way as he was nearest the ascending path. The inclines in the tunnel slopes were always relatively gentle, to allow the internal use of some maintenance vehicles, so the ascent by slope would be of necessity slower than by the elevator—useless in the current circumstances—or by the emergency stairwell, which they didn’t have time to find.

      Jak and Dean were at J.B.’s heels. Mildred hung back and stopped for a second to look behind, a vague awareness hitting her that she could hear or feel no one immediately to her rear. Krysty and Ryan were some way behind, helping Doc, who had lost his balance and crashed to the tunnel floor. Hoisting him with a hand under each of his arms, Ryan and Krysty had propelled him forward as he hit the upright, hoping to give him some impetus. Thus, Doc was coming toward Mildred at some speed. His balance still looked precarious, and Mildred took another step toward him in order to try to steady and assist him. Although she called him a mad old buzzard, and could be exasperated by his wandering mind at times, Mildred had a grudging liking for the older man—perhaps because he, like herself, represented an earlier age set adrift, and they were both strangers in this strange land.

      It was a step that was to prove decisive. Doc was a few yards from her, keeping his balance well, the intense concentration showing on his face. Mildred was focused on him, which may explain why neither of them noticed that the wall of the tunnel to one side was suddenly beginning to break up with a spiderweb pattern that resembled a cracking glass.