We’re so fucking crazy....They’re gonna lock us up...

Hey everyone, HAU has been down but there has been a blip of life. I have finally glued my ass the seat and I'm here to tell you that HAU is putting out an anthology. Rot In Pieces (Rotten Pieces) is coming this autumn. We hope so, but we need submissions the only guideline?

Depravity. We want depravity and sex. We want stories that would NEVER find their way into normal magazines or Anthologies. We will be ranking our stories. Those with horror elements but are as frightening as seeing Psycho for the 100th time and knowing Mrs. Bates is decayed and in the rocking chair... if we see it coming you'll get a 1 day Decomp ranking. If we are completely disgusted and yet enthralled, if you give us a car accident with a ribcage hanging out of the gas tank, something we cannot look away from, you my friend will get a 1 year Decomp. Our highest ranking and you'll be toward the back of the book.

We are ranking by: 1 Day Decomp, 1 Week Decomp, 1 Month Decomp, 1 Year Decomp and our most depraved story will get the highest ranking, Limestone Burial. But that honor will go to only one. Give us your best and we'll give you such exposure. People will know HAU authors are fucked in the head and will terrify you to the very end, and if not we'll gross you out to the point you'll continue reading with vomit bags firmly strapped to your chin.

We are shooting for a 300 page book. CreateSpace will be doing the paperback, and Lulu will be doing the Special Edition Hardcover. There are secrets about the SEH, but they will be revealed in due time.

So come on everyone! Submit!

Sincerely,

Matt and Brian

P.S. We would like to do an Audiobook version if at all possible, if you can submit a story and it gets accepted and then can record a reading of it and send it to us, you'll be exclusively invited to return for our next anthology, or some other form of gratitude. We'll negotiate.

We're also looking for a cover artist to obviously do the cover. We'd like different covers for each. Or even just a special cover for the SEH, but we'll work with you. Problem still is, we're flat broke, all the money from the 2 issues is going into buying better packages for the Paperback and hopefully the Audiobook.

Hope to hear from people soon. I'm always here.

-Matt

8:25 PM - 5 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

January Issue...

Hey everyone,

January's Issue is in stores right now, I am surprised as how quickly it's shooting up the list it has nearly surpassed December's Issue. So come on everyone, buy more, this is really a great issue!

We're currently filling February and March's Issues so if you are holding back now is the time to submit. We have a great cover artist working on our February Issue and believe me it'll shock and amaze. His name is Tom Straub, and his work is truly amazing.

So buy more January and December Issues! HAU needs the support!

Matthew and Brian

9:45 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Midnight tonight, A new year, a New Issue.

Well, it's completed. We have January's issue ready and will be available for sale at midnight tonight. We have stories from Scott A. Johnson, along with an ad for his works on the backcover, Jeremiah Coe, Michael S. Pelton, Marie Aldwell and a few more.

This issue may be even better than the previous one. I suggest you go out and buy a few.

Also, due to the fact that I just can, I lowered the Ebook prices. The magazine can be purchased for $1.99 as an ebook, and there isn't a price increase on the print version. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I enjoyed piecing it together. I couldn't have done it without the contributors.

Enjoy, Beloved Readers,

Matthew

4:42 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

The next issue...
Category: Writing and Poetry

Well hello, contributors, readers and fans,

When the December issue came out on the 10th, I figured we'd take a small break and release an issue every other month. Well, due to the deluge of submissions we now have another issue on it's way. Instead of a February issue being next, we have January. The cover is still in the works right now, but everything else is roaring right along.

We'll be featuring Scott A. Johnson, Michael Pelton, Bonnie Poole, and a few others.

It is one amazing issue, I really must say. But, due to the size we're now over the original 80 pages and have delved into 100+ pages. The magazine had to take a small pay hike. It's now $7.99, but the e-Book is still for sale at $2.99 We won't be changing that, because almost all of that goes straight into the company, and back into the issues.

There are so many slots open for future issues, so please send those stories, artwork, comics, etc. We'd love to see pieces from everyone, and more pieces from our past contributors.

Also, we are open to submissions as of January 1st, 2008 to the HAU compendium Rot In Pieces... (Rotten Pieces), we want your sickest stories and by mid-year to end of 2008 we'l be releasing the very first HAU master volume of the most delusional nightmares, sickest erotic daydreams, and outlandish journeys into the brink of madness. We're hoping to fill such a volume out over 2008 and make HAU a group worth watching. We'll be releasing said book in 3 editions. Special Edition Hardcover (which we will pay for an artist to design the cover) a Trade Paperback (Another cover designed by an artist) and an e-Book. With how everything is projected. Judging by the pieces we have received over the last couple of issues, this group would have little trouble to fill 400+ pages.

But after speaking with a few people, the projected prices are subject to change. We found that a hardcover book 400 pages, Would be $25 with about $2 going to HAU for each copy sold. The T.P. would sell for $14.99 and the e-Book would sell for a cool $8.99, but as I spoke before everything is subject to change. I will keep you updated.

Send those pieces!

Thank you,

HAU

5:50 PM - 3 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

HAU’s New Website

http://horrorauthorsunited.webs.com/

Above is the new website for HAU. It is currently under construction, so please bear with us as we set it up. Also, for some reason, HAU's hyperlink is not working in bulletins and even on the front page of HAU. I am starting to believe MySpace truly sucks.

Until it's all repaired, hopefully people will come here and snag the link.

Matthew

8:37 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

The time has come... HAU has gone to the presses!
Current mood: awake
Category: Writing and Poetry

Well, it has been years in the making but Horror Authors United has finally gone to the presses. I just set it up for purchase over at Lulu.com. The print version is for sale at $6.99 for the slim edition. The E-Book version is $2.99 and you won't have to wait for the mail to come.

I left the E-Book in there so people who still are a fan of the E-Version could still get it.

As was said before by Brian, before he left me in charge, all money made goes into the magazine and hopefully we can one day be a pay magazine with real editors.

Now that the December/January issue is out, I give myself a week to rest and then we'll get cracking on the February issue. It is not themed, so we are open to all submissions, we could really use some artists submitting this time around. You can check out Horror Authors United for the guidelines.

We could use someone to submit a new cover for February's issue, and any others if at all possible.

So, buy a copy, buy two and rush delivery so you can give them away for Christmas, they make great gifts. Also, we are thinking about branching out to make some merchandise (Buttons, Post Cards, Posters, etc.) So HAU is going to be holding a contest for the best Logo and also the Best Horror Graphic, your piece will be featured both on the back cover of the next issue, and will be part of our merchandise line. Meanwhile, the Logo will become HAU's official Logo. This was built by the fans, so in the fans hands it will remain.

Send all submissions to horrorauthorsunited@hotmail.com.

I hope you all enjoy the new magazine, and leave some ratings on Lulu.

Thank you,

Matthew and Brian

7:33 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Developments at HAU!!!
Current mood: imaginative
Category: Goals, Plans, Hopes

Greetings all you twisted lil' freaks,

I know it's been some time since we've communicated, but there's been a reason for that. I've been hard at work on my second book, "The Glorious & The Wretched" and it's finally in the editing stage. I haven't been able to dedicate the time that I should to this site, which makes me even MORE pleased to announce that from here on out I'll have help.

Matthew J. Leverton is a young, rising Horror Author from the U.S. East Coast. He'll now have full access to this site and be able to hopefully make things run a little bit smoother. That's not to say he'll be spending all his time here; oh no! Matt has been hard at work on a super-secret project that I'm thrilled to finally bring to light...

Issue 1 of HORROR AUTHORS UNITED magazine!!!

Going to print here in a ridiculous short amount of time, it will feature some of the greatest new Horror Authors in the industry, some of whom we've even managed to feature here on the site. Coming in at over 80 pages, it will cost you only $6.99 and be available through online markets. (We'll get more information to you as soon as the mag is out.) You'll be able to curl up in the darkness with tales by...

Sarah Kelderman
Jeremiah Coe
Saranna DeWylde
Tiffany Raynes
Matthew J. Leverton
Brian Fatah Steele
Jack McCallum
Ken Gordhamer

All money from the magazine will go back into the HAU account to produce further issues in the hope of bringing even BIGGER, BETTER installments in the future. We here at HAU believe in the genre and what it can do. We hope all of you will continue to leave comments here on our board, promoting your work and continue to find new & innovative ways to broaden the industry.

Thanks again to everyone who has supported us...

Brian & Matt

12:05 AM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

"Flawed" by Jack McCallum
Category: Writing and Poetry

The teeth were the size of bananas. Small bananas.

I know that is a ludicrous analogy, but I want you to be able to picture the moment clearly.

Doctor Wakeman was sitting by one of the windows in the ruined laboratory, using daylight filtering down through the trees to compose his notes.

The others were using that daylight to explore the damage done to the laboratory, and I was writing this account of what happened to us on my laptop.

I am certain none of these writings will survive to be found. Ink scribbles on paper and data on a disk drive dependant on a dying battery will not endure sixty-five millions years of environmental changes and geologic upheavals.

The jaws crashed through what little double-glazed glass remained in the window.

The teeth were five to six inches long, with the same girth and curvature as a banana. Most of the teeth came to rounded points. Some of them were shattered into clusters of sharp points like a fistful of steak knives.

The experiment had been flawed.

*

On paper it was simple, and so earth-shaking it was considered nonsense by those who received press releases. I was only one of two visitors who showed up on the appointed day. Not because I thought that Edmund Wakeman had put his doctorate in physics to good use and built a 'time displacement chamber,' as stated in the glossy single-page press release, but because I thought I had a good human-interest story to work on. Genuine eccentrics are few and far between, lost in a sea of poseurs with carefully crafted quirks.

Wakeman had sprouts of gray hair growing out of his ears, his wrinkled shirt had a dirty collar, and there was what looked like a pee stain on one leg of his tan trousers. Wakeman wasn't looking for fame in a camera lens. Insane or not, his dedication to his own work was complete. Everything else, including personal grooming, came second.

I had driven my car into the Alberta foothills only a few hours ago. The Rockies loomed over the gray concrete slabs that made up Wakeman's laboratory.

The old man had been teaching at the University of Calgary for a quarter century. He was one of those characters you read about in Popular Mechanics or Time Magazine, always espousing some grand theory, always on the verge of some magnificent breakthrough.

Doctor Wakeman had come close to fame so many times that he was now considered a boy who cried wolf in the world of physics.

*

Everyone scattered. Ted Banner ran into Jill Yashita and they stumbled on an overturned chair. Marti Jefferson ran by me so fast she was a blur. The Russian, Oleg Ivanova, backed away from the row of windows. Thomas Haynes simply stared in disbelief from the far side of the room. He was clutching his bible. Haynes had been against the event that brought us here from the very beginning. Despite objections based purely on faith, I had to admit he made the right call. The kid, James Ogilvy, let out a yelp of either terror or laughter. He pointed at Haynes bible and shouted, "Revision time!"

I only took a few steps back. I knew I was safe for the moment.

Doctor Wakeman was the first course on this hot-blooded menu.

The teeth were set into massive jaws. Exhaled breath filled the room as a roar came out of that nightmarish mouth. Jill vomited all over Ted's pant legs. I couldn't blame her.

The jaws closed and I saw a row of those huge teeth sink into Wakeman's forearm. They must have passed between the radius and the ulna. The bones were forced apart. Blood welled and something popped in Wakeman's wrist. Only then did he scream. A length of bloody bone ripped through skin and muscle. I could hear viscera tearing.

Wakeman looked me in the eye, just for a moment, and then he was pulled through the window.

*

When I showed up at his lab I was the only credentialed member of the media in attendance. I wasn't surprised. Newspapers and TV need flash and pizzazz these days to draw eyes away from computer screens. Doctor Wakeman was just a soft-spoken old man in an ugly plaid shirt.

Ted Banner, Jill Yashita, and Marti Jefferson were grad students assisting the Doctor. Oleg Ivanova was on some kind of government sponsored information exchange program. James Ogilvy was a very sharp kid, riding a fast track through school. He was only seventeen, but he was right in there with the others, aligning the grid. I didn't know much about Haynes. He had introduced himself as a writer doing a feature for the Christian Science Monitor, but since he showed up with a bible tucked under one arm I was quite sure he was more a right-wing soldier or spy for Christ and the Church than an unbiased observer.

Introductions were made, and Haynes and I took seats a few feet away from a double row of sturdy worktables in Wakeman's laboratory.

I took a few pictures with my digital camera and made a note on my laptop to ask about the interconnected components of the tables, a profusion of wires and humming boxes surrounding a glass and metal mesh cube about one meter high. All I really recognized were the many laptops used by the students as they followed Wakeman's instructions.

Wakeman said little. As stated in his press release, he was going to create a "plasma displacement chamber" and "reach into the past and grab whatever I can."

When I asked if he had done this previously he showed me a few rock samples and half of a broad, wilted leaf, explaining that the previous incarnation of the chamber had been quite small.

I asked him what powered the chamber and he said, "A plasma grid, of course."

Young Ogilvy saw the blank look on my face and pointed to a squat black metal box in one end of the room. "That's a self-contained mini-reactor, and it generates a plasma field that we can manipulate like a knife. If you think of time as something malleable, you'll see how we are able to cut a slice out of the past and retrieve it for study. Our cube will be filled with whatever the plasma grid encounters. Rocks or dirt, atmospheric dust and pollen, hopefully an insect or two and some more plants."

Marti Jefferson laughed and said, "Yeah, maybe even a slice of a living creature if a hadrosaur happens to walk by nice and slow at the right time."

For the first time I noticed she was wearing a t-shirt that read 'Gravity is every man's dream: She sucks and swallows.'

Raising his head from behind a rat's nest of wires and cables on the far side of the table, Ted Banner grinned in agreement. "Wouldn't a tender Edmontosaurus steak just kick ass?"

Jill Yashita frowned and shook her head. James Ogilvy let out a high-pitched laugh, reminding me he was just a kid. Wakeman snapped his fingers, and his students returned their concentration to the grid.

"Doctor," I asked, "Are you saying you can control what period of the past this plasma grid... visits?"

"Within reason," Wakeman replied, reaching into a high framework holding a maze of circuit boards. There was an abrupt buzzing sound and Wakeman pulled his hand back. "We are targeting the late Cretaceous. It was the time of the dinosaurs, of course, but also the time of many insects and birds, and bees as well, busily pollinating a profusion of flowering plants. Quite a hectic time, indeed."

The Doctor stuck the reddened end of one finger in his mouth.

*

"Not good," Ivanova said, his accent heavy. "I said it before. Not good, to take a seat near the window."

We could hear something huge and agile moving in the jungle outside. The entire room we were in was canted on an angle, and we could feel deep vibrations in the broken floor.

I went to the window. I couldn't help myself. I was a writer. More than that, I was an observer.

Haynes followed. So did Ivanova.

A few yards away was a tremendous clawed foot, and a leg with muscles as big as sandbags. The leathery skin had a sheen to it that displayed subtle changes in color as it moved.

"This color of the skin..." Ivanova said, raising his head and looking upward. "Most beautiful. Most unexpected."

"That's a dinosaur," Haynes said. "A tyrannosaurus. My Lord."

I'd seen things like just like this in dozens of movies, clutching a container of popcorn in a cozy seat. Seeing and hearing and smelling the real thing was almost more than I could bear.

My heart was racing and my lips felt numb. I wondered if I was going into shock.

Wakeman was screaming, high-pitched shrieks that were almost unbearable. His forearm was still caught on the teeth of the tyrannosaurus rex, and his body flopped and flipped on the end of the dislocated limb. The great lizard was raising and lowering its head, trying to shake Wakeman free. The small forelimbs swiped at the Doctor, tearing away his shirt and gouging his flesh, but they were too weak to dislodge him.

Haynes crossed himself.

*

The Doctor continued to tweak wires, moving between glowing laptop displays of his creation and the hard reality of the device.

"Assuming that this device works at all," Haynes said, speaking up for the first time, "And accepting your confidence in that miniature nuclear reactor in the corner, how do we know your grid will not retrieve some bacteria or virus to which humanity has no immunity? After all, according to your science, at this stage of the Earth's development only the smallest primate ancestors were scurrying about. I can't imagine the University endorsing something so fraught with risk."

I glanced at Haynes, feeling ashamed by my own poor judgment of the man. I had expected him to start thumping his bible and crying blasphemy.

I waited for Wakeman to blow him off with some blather regarding the strict observation of highest possible standards of safety.

The Doctor grinned at Haynes. "Most astute, my friend. Yes, there is a danger. Yes, the University is funding this work. And yes, we are in an isolated building at the foot of the mountains for a reason. If something goes wrong, it will be contained. If someone tries to spy on us from the outside, and you would be shocked at the lows to which my fellow academics will sink, we are protected by a state of the art electronic web built into this structure, one that makes eavesdropping by any means an impossible task. One does not explore a new frontier without risk, wouldn't you agree?"

Before I could even reply the Doctor said, "We are ready to begin."

For the first time I really noticed the heavy concrete blocks under a fresh coat of paint, the reinforced and sealed windows, the air circulation system out of the ceiling.

"This is wrong," Haynes said. "The hand of man is not the hand of God. Only His perfection can shape the world. Whenever men try, they fail. Doctor, do not do this."

Wakeman frowned. "I don't play by the rules of any mythological being. I play by the rules of Physics. No reasonable man of science will let baseless beliefs in a so-called supreme being steer him in his quest for knowledge."

Wrong, I thought, as Haynes spoke up.

"Einstein said science without religion is lame."

"Complete his quote, if you please," Wakeman said, with growing irritation. "Religion without science is blind."

Haynes smiled, but his eyes were dark. "Einstein also said that technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal."

Wakeman sighed. "If you feel at risk you are free to leave. No one is holding you here against your will."

Haynes crossed his arms. "I am here to observe."

The Doctor gave a curt nod. Young Ogilvy handed out shaded goggles, and everyone slipped them on.

"There will be a flash inside the grid," Wakeman said. "And we will reach back in time and steal a piece of another world."

Switches were flicked and dials were turned. The lights dimmed overhead and a low hum filled my head as if the bones of my skull were vibrating.

Wakeman raised and arm and said, "Ready..."

My mind filled with images of the old black and white Frankenstein movie, and I cursed quietly.

"Now!" Wakeman lowered his arm and struck a single key on a keyboard in front of him.

*

The tyrannosaur began swinging Wakeman up and down, opening its mouth wide every time Wakeman rose up into the air.

"Such coordination," Ivanova said. "Such intelligence."

Doctor Wakeman rose up into the air one final time, his arm tore free, and the jaws snapped shut on his torso. There was an explosion of blood as the tyrannosaur began to chew, and I lowered my eyes.

Muscles in the towering leg quivered. Runnels of blood ran across that nearly iridescent skin. Something heavy fell into the undergrowth. Poking out from behind the thick stem of a tall fern was a loafer, a foot, and most of a leg.

"Oh my fuck," Marti whispered.

As the T-rex chewed and swallowed it turned away from us. Its back was seething with crawling insects, and it moved in a cloud of flies and wasps. A small furred creature that looked like a cross between a possum and a monkey scurried up along the dinosaur's back and perched there, holding itself in place with three feet like tiny hands. Its tail stuck up in the air like a question mark. With its free hand it collected writhing grubs and little shiny beetles, stuffing them into its mouth until its cheeks bulged.

There was a hollow hooting cry from somewhere in the distance, and the tyrannosaur quickly moved away. The little mammal leaped onto a tree branch and disappeared.

"Bigger prey than us," Ivanova said with a grim smile.

When the jungle was quiet I went back to my seat, a heavy plastic packing crate, and continued writing on my laptop.

*

My first thought was that Doctor Wakeman's device had blown us all to hell.

In retrospect, that would have been preferable.

I had been watching the glass and wire cube for the flash of light, waiting to see if this device really would scoop something from the past. Instead, I was dazzled by a burst of white light that filled the windows and appeared to blaze through seams in the floor, walls and ceiling.

Every one of us was knocked off our feet. The floor dropped out from under us, thick stone slabs fracturing, as the entire building seemed to settle on a slight grade. One wall of the laboratory collapsed and revealed a wall of tree trunks. Most of the windows shattered and almost every light went out, from the big fluorescents overhead to the many colored displays in front of me. Aside from daylight filtering down through the trees and seeping through the windows on the far side of the room, the only lights I saw were tiny green and amber power indicators on a few of the laptops in the room, mine included.

When the structure around us stopped settling, we realized that the quiet of the lab had been replaced by a thousand different sounds, most if them small and soft.

Insects buzzed and chirped. There were tiny pipe-like hoots from high in the trees, and further off we heard a deeper hooting call.

"That sounds like a didgeridoo," Marti said, delicately probing a bleeding scratch on her forehead with her fingertips.

"Or somebody with an oboe stuffed up their ass," Ted replied. "Hey, anybody see my glasses anywhere?"

Jill handed Ted his glasses. They were scratched, the wire frames bent, but he could still see. "Thank fuck for space-age plastics, eh?"

Marti let out a hiss. "You little bitch!" She swatted at a bug perched on her arm. An ugly red welt was already forming. "Whatever that was, it had a hell of a bite."

The kid looked scared shitless.

"Hey, Ogilvy," I said. "You okay?"

He nodded, looked at the trees beyond the fallen wall, and took his dell phone out of his pocket.

"No signal," he said.

"Of course there's no signal," Doctor Wakeman said. "There won't be any cell phones in the world for sixty-five million years."

*

There was a cacophony of screams and shouts and curses. Jill was the most reserved.

The Doctor didn't lose his composure when I asked him what went wrong. He didn't react when Haynes said something about God punishing us for our over-reaching pride and referenced the Tower of Babel. He didn't say a thing when Ogilvy asked if we were going to die, and when Marti said that we were all 'toast.'

"Well," Ted said. "This little experiment sure as shit went tits-up."

Only then did Wakeman react. "What did you say?"

Ivanova was watching a pair of beetles crawl up a tree trunk. "He said the test was a failure."

"A failure?" Wakeman's face reddened. "It was no failure," he roared. "If anything the device worked too well!"

No one said a thing.

"Don't you see? Instead of retrieving a piece of the past inside the grid, the grid itself somehow expanded beyond the containment cube, perhaps using profusion of wires and fiber optic cables encircling that laboratory. In any case, time displacement was achieved. The laboratory and everything in it have been sent back to the late cretaceous period. We should be celebrating."

The Doctor picked up a pad of paper and a pen and went to one of the windows. He righted a toppled chair, sat down, and began to write.

"My friend," Ivanova said, his voice a harsh rumble. "To sit by the broken window, I think it is not advisable."

The Doctor ignored him.

His students began sorting through the mess of equipment thrown onto the floor.

"Wherever we are," Jill said softly, "We need a few essentials. Light. Food. Water. And if anyone smokes, matches or a lighter might come in handy.

Doctor Wakeman ignored everyone, furiously writing on the pad of paper.

That was when I saw the teeth outside the window.

*

After the incident with Doctor Wakeman, I was outside, with Ivanova and Haynes.

The air was very warm and moist.

We cautiously made our way to a clearing in the trees, and before us was a body of water that reached to the horizon.

There were four little dinosaurs nearby, darting their slender heads into a dark green bush. They looked like plucked chickens. Chickens with tiny arms and greenish skin. Chickens with tiny teeth. Trying to evade their attacks was another of the small mammals with a tail like a
question mark. The little mammal chattered. It had huge eyes.

I kicked out at the little dinosaurs and they scattered into the undergrowth.

The long-tailed whatever-it-was looked me in the eye a moment, and then literally high-tailed it for the nearest tree.

I looked at the endless body of water again, and then I looked over my shoulder. Through gaps in the thick growth of towering trees I could see the jagged peaks of mountains.

"Where the hell are we?"

"We are where we began," Ivanova said. "At the foot of the Rocky Mountains. And that..." he said with a broad gesture. "That is the Western Interior Seaway. It reaches from the Arctic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. We are in the past, and the tyrannosaurus tells me that we are in the Cretaceous period. Sixty-five million years ago, is now."

"It is beautiful," Haynes said. He sounded calm.

I glanced down at the bible Haynes was still carrying. "Doesn't all of this contradict what's written in that book?" I was trying to sound cool, trying not to let my mind wander. I was afraid I'd go mad if I didn't keep a tight grip.

"I'm not a fanatic," Haynes said. "It isn't God's fault I have to readjust my understanding of His works."

"It is glorious, this world," Ivanova said. "But I think we will not survive long. We are merely defenseless meat."

"You don't think we can start the human race right here, Oleg?" My heart was hammering in my chest, and I was straining to keep my tone light. "We have three women and plenty of men. Wouldn't that give us enough diversity to get the ball rolling?"

Ivanova looked me up and down and gave me a roguish smile. "Which one of us would you choose?"

The thought of seeing any of these guys naked was more disturbing than the thought of being eaten by a big lizard.

I blew him a kiss and said, "I'll let you know when the time comes."

The Russian laughed, and we all stood quietly, looking at the sea.

Haynes spoke softly. "If God intends this to be Eden and us to be Adams and Eves... He has gone a little over the top with the serpents."

I was so tense that my laughter exploded out of my chest.

"So," I said, "Can we live here? Somehow?"

The laboratory was in ruins and it was more than likely that Doctor Wakeman was soaking in digestive juices right about now, so there was no going back.

"If we could survive," the Russian said, squinting up into the sky. "We may spawn one generation, or two, but I think even those children would die off. Eventually. Only the smallest mammals now living will survive to... to become us."

"And it would interfere with God's plan," Haynes said. "I do not take the bible literally. I am willing to believe in evolution, but I still believe that it is the will of God guiding the ascent of man, not mere chance."

"What is that sound?" I had been aware of it for a minute or more, the faraway roar of jet passing overhead.

"We are about to see if the hand of God will protect us, or if we play no part of His plan," Ivanova said.

Something came over the mountains, far up in the sky, a bright and massive object leaving a roiling trail of smoke or steam behind it, something so vast the ground shook with its passage and our ears rang with its roar.

"Our timing, it is spectacular," the Russian cried. For the first time he looked horribly distressed.

The others came running up behind us, stopping dead when they saw the object in the sky. It was descending as it crossed the great sea.

Young Ogilvy's lips moved. I couldn't hear him, but I could read his lips easily enough. "No."

Jill reached for the boy and started crying. They hugged each other.

Marti and Ted reached out for each other without dropping their eyes from the sky and held each other's hands.

I had to shout to be heard. "What is that?"

The noise diminished a little.

"The K-T Extinction," Ted replied. "The biggest show on Earth."

Ivanova reached out and put a large, gentle hand on my shoulder.

"An asteroid, its orbit flawed, falling to Earth. This is the most likely cause for the demise of the dinosaurs. A rock the size of a modern city. It struck the Yucatan Peninsula. It hit this world with such strength that debris was blown back into space. There were earthquakes. Hurricanes. Wildfires."

All of us drew together and watched the fiery ball disappear over the horizon.

Ivanova's hand on my shoulder was reassuring. "Dust and ash filled the atmosphere. Blocked the sun. Created what we would call nuclear winter. Plants died. Large plant eaters died. Beasts like the tyrannosaurus died, because their meat was no more. The weather changed, and most of the cold-blooded reptiles died off. Only the smallest mammals survived the cold to come. "

I thought of the little creature with the curled tail, hiding somewhere in the trees.

I wished it the best of luck.

We huddled together, waiting.

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"Into The Deep" by Jack McCallum
Category: Writing and Poetry

~I have set the world's greatest treasure herein and enclosed it behind portals protected by the Gods; For they know my struggle to protect this treasure from thieves and vandals and lesser men has been ordained by the Most High, and we all follow the will of Ra.~



A beetle trundled across parched earth intent on some unknowable task when it was plucked from the ground by a kestrel. As the bird carried the beetle aloft, beak crushed shell and the beetle was no more.

Alexander saw a shadow glide by his feet and looked up. All he saw was the sun, but he heard a flutter of wings and a faint but distinct crackling sound before Sturnman announced it was time for a toast.

"East of Luxor, north of the Kharga Oasis!"

Otto Sturnman reached into a bag at his feet and held up a dark bundle. He unrolled a strip of thick felt, and held up a bottle of scotch.

"Champagne would be more appropriate, but this thirty-year old single malt will do."

Sturnman grinned, his face flushed with excitement. He looked younger and more vital than his sixty years.

He cracked the seal on the bottle and retrieved heavy lead crystal shot glasses from pockets in the felt wrap.

"To those first cryptic directions, given to me in December of 1989!"

Sturnman faced no moral quandaries and had no illusions about what he did for a living. He was a tomb raider. He was at the top of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities watch list, and Dr. Mamdouh Mohamed Eldamaty, the current General Director of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, was quoted as saying that while he would never encourage anyone to engage in of acts of violence against Strunman, "If a gust of wind or fate or one of the Gods of the Pharaohs were to roll a great stone over the man I would not shed any tears."

He filled the glasses of the others on his team; Millot, Gelbman, Torrey, Antonini, and McAlister.

It was just after the fall of the Berlin wall that Sturnman met an impoverished East German scholar with a manuscript Sturnman would have killed to have in his possession. The manuscript mentioned the possible location of a tomb most Egyptologists conceded would never be found. He purchased it for three thousand American dollars. Six months ago another archeological opportunist had offered him six million dollars for it, and Sturnman denied ever having seen the manuscript.

"Since that time, we have all worked tirelessly, following long-lost leads and trails which took us back through the centuries, to this place."

Six men raised their glasses in the desert wastes of Egypt. They were standing on the edge of a dome of weathered limestone.

"To making history!" Sturnman said.

Jules Millot thought of the hidden structures below them, vaults and chambers unseen for thousands of years. As an archeological engineer he was less interested in amassing wealth than discovering the secrets of one of the great architectural pioneers of ancient Egypt.

"To the crafters of stone, and their master," Milliot said. "I long to see his final works."

"To tales lost to the ages," Edgar R. Gelbman said. His specialty was phonograms, hieroglyphics that represented sounds. Sturnman was quite accomplished in reading and interpreting the meaning behind ideograms, the simple picture signs present in every Egyptian tomb, but he needed Gelbman's expertise in sounding out the names of people and places found in virgin tombs.

Torrey flashed a wolfish smile. "To becoming as rich as Richard fucking Branson!"

Herbert George Torrey was the grandson of an old Scottish Baron who had recently passed away, leaving a dilapidated castle and five hundred acres of land in Ayrshire to George. The young man who had been educated at Eton and lived in London enraged the local Scots who loved the wild, undeveloped acreage by immediately selling the land to a European agricultural development corporation. Since the land was in one of Scotland's most fertile areas, young George made a small fortune. And he wanted more. He was one of Sturnman's financiers, and David was well aware that Sturnman put up with the young man only because of the money.

Dante Antonini was a geologist who had known Millot for many years. They had worked together on many digs in Europe, Antonini inspecting the sites for any risk of collapse or flooding before joining Millot in admiring ancient stonecraft. He always got on well with any local laborers, since he saw himself as a digger, just like them.

Alexander McAlister looked at the blond liquid in his glass and wished he was holding this wee dram at the Sheep Heid Inn back in Edinburgh, sitting and listening to the good natured arguments of the pub regulars. Of course, his local wasn't the quiet pub it used to be, and on any given night it could be full of tourists these days.

Alex was an authority on Senemut, the master builder who created Djeser-Djeseru, 'the Sublime of the Sublimes,' the empty Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut across the Nile from the city of Luxor, and many other grand constructs still standing today. Senemut was an architectural genius who placed tombs beyond long filled-in shafts and behind hidden doors. Alex did not take lightly the old warnings from Senemut, and he was wary of entering the tomb.

Fifty feet below them was a pristine staircase that rose to an ornate entrance which had been blocked by capstones until the day before. Once the stairway had been uncovered and the capstones hammered down and removed, another staircase had been revealed, this one descending down into darkness.

Sturnman was certain there was a tomb down there, carved into the limestone over thirty four hundred years ago. He was sure it was the tomb of Senemut, an engineer and master architect who lived during the 18th dynasty of ancient Egypt, and the tomb of the lady pharaoh he loved.

"Below us is a tomb lost to the ages," Sturnman said. "It is a tomb that should never have been found. I am convinced it is the final resting place of Senemut, and if I am correct in assuming that he was not only steward to a great queen but also her lover, and that he would care for the great queen Hatshepset in death as he did in life, then I believe her remains, and all of her riches, lie somewhere below our feet."

All of the men were as dusty and tired as the lowliest laborer working the site below them. Most of them had been following Sturnman's dream for more than a decade now, and it seemed they had finally found what the archeological community swore had never existed; the tomb of a woman almost erased from history for having the unimaginable gall to rule Egypt as Pharaoh.

"To our fellowship," Sturnman said, "And the riches of a lost empire, and the genius who hid them away from history for so long."

The men drank.

In a short while they would follow the stairway down into the tomb. They had radios and flashlights and glow sticks. They had metal tools and explosives. They had GPS units and hand held ground-penetrating radar.

Senemut had hidden this place well, but no matter how deep he had dug his final resting place or how clever he tried to cover his tracks, these six men would uncover his secrets.

They were some of the best Egyptologists in Europe, known for embracing unorthodox ideas, and taking risks. They would ignore the naysayers, and reap the rewards. They would ignore the physical risks of entering an ancient and possibly fragile matrix of rock that could collapse on them at any moment. And they would ignore the superstitions of most of the local laborers they had hired to move sand and stone. On the capstone they had blown to pieces and dragged out of the way had been a warning, hieroglyphics carved into the stone and containing a few flecks of ancient sand-blasted paint. As the warning referred to the world's greatest treasure, most of them were willing to risk exploring what lay below.

"Not even Senemut can stop us now," Sturnman said.

They would gather their tools and equipment and go, and not even another warning placed beyond the destroyed capstone could stop them, a message carved into the polished marble floor around 1450 BC.

'Be a man of intellect and common sense,' read a translation of the warning written on a sheet of paper now folded into one of Sturnman's pockets. 'Enjoy the sun and the wind and return to the waters of the Nile. Leave this dry and lonely place. I have built a tomb, and there is room enough for all who would trespass. Leave this place and live like a man and sing and laugh. Enter the world I have made, and you will scream like a trapped hare before you are crushed underfoot like a beetle.'

Soon the six authorities on ancient Egypt, and ten skilled laborers, were walking up the stairs, grit crunching under their boots. The local men were able to overcome their superstitions when enticed by American cash placed in their hands by Sturnman, with the promise of more to come.

Sturnman gave his accomplices a final nod as they reached the broad floor beyond which were stairs leading down into darkness. All of their archeological specialties had brought them to this moment, their knowledge of geology and engineering and languages and the people on ancient Egypt. Sturnman stepped over an engraved piece of stone, part of the shattered warning he believed came from Senemut, and crossed the hieroglyphs carved into the polished floor. The others followed him.

"And so we go," Sturnman said. "Into the Deep."

*

The party moved down the stairs slowly, lead by Dante Antonini, Jules Milliot, and two laborers, older men who knew aged stone even if they did not have the education of the Italian and the Frenchmen.

There were forty stairs, at least twenty feet wide, all of them carved from the raw rock of the Earth and polished to a smooth gloss now hazy with a layer of dust which had not been disturbed in centuries. The effort to build the staircase alone, in a time of copper chisels and drills and granite hammers, left most of the party silent with awe.

Hearing the excited whispers of Dante and Jules as they descended, George Torry rolled his eyes and muttered quietly.

"It's just a row of stairs, you sorry bastards."

George glanced to one side and saw the Scot was almost trembling.

"Chin up, my good man. We'll soon be rich, and you can go back to the safety of picking thistles out of your kilt."

"I hope so," Alex replied. "But I wouldn't take Senemut's warning lightly, George. Even though he built great tombs for himself and Hatshepsut, his love, their bodies were never found, leading some to believe they were placed it the tomb of tombs, something constructed and disguised with such cleverness it remains hidden to this day."

"Which is why we are here, my ginger friend," Torrey said, grasping Alex's arm and giving it a shake. "Think of all the riches, never found, never pillaged, just waiting for us."

"Aye," the Scot said, "But why did Senemut's warning mention 'lesser men?' He mentioned thieves and those who would deface tombs and statuary and inscriptions, which is exactly what happened after he and Hatshepsut died, but what could he mean by lesser men?"

At the bottom of the stairs was a corridor twenty feet wide and fifteen feet high.

Jules squatted and took a few quick measurements. "We have a ten degree upward grade," he called to the others."

"Upward?" George Torrey asked.

"And there is another inscription," Dante said. "A big one."

The men gathered at the base of the stairs. They all trained their flashlights down the corridor, but the light did not seem to penetrate the gloom.

The warning carved into the floor of the corridor was the biggest any of them had ever seen. Most of the glyphs were the size of an open hand. Beyond the warning were rows of lines etched into the floor, converging to a point a few feet away where a large circle had been etched into the smooth limestone.

Sturnman and Edgar Gelbman squatted and studied the hieroglyphics etched into the floor. In a moment they had a translation.

~Step back and thrive. Step forward and your fate is set in stone.~

"What is that glyph?" Sturnman asked, pointing to the line and circle symbol that appeared to be set apart from the warning.

Gelbman shrugged as they both stood up. "It's not a phonic. It must be an individualized pictogram. A ball radiating lines such as this usually indicates the sun."

They heard a crackling, sloshing sound, and then ducked as a green glow stick was tossed over their heads. The stick traveled about thirty feet, then bounced off of nothing and clattered to the floor inches from the ball carved into the limestone.

"George," Alexander said, "If you throw one more thing without permission of the group I will strangle you."

"Oh fuck off," Torrey said. "I just wanted to see what was there."

"Les Anglais," Jules said, shaking his head in wonder.

Dante aimed his flashlight at the nothingness the glow stick had hit. "My friend, you could bring down this entire construct on our heads. Please, be careful."

"That means use your goddamned head," Sturnman growled.

"All lights ahead," Dante said. "On my light."

They trained their flashlights on the same spot and one by one they realized what they were seeing.

"It's a wall," Torrey said. "A dead end."

"If it is a dead end," Alex asked, "Why has it been painted black?"

"You see?" Torrey said, smug again. "If I hadn't revealed that wall one of us would have walked head on into it and received a nasty surprise, and a broken nose to boot."

"I'd rather be tits up with a fractured skull than buried alive," Alexander said.

Most of the men took a moment to slip off their backpacks and set them by the stairs as they sipped water from canteens. They began to discuss how they should approach the black wall.

"Oh for God's sake," Torrey snapped. He looked at the laborers and pointed at a younger man. "You," he said, digging a coin out of his pocket. "American silver eagle! Worth many American dollars!"

Torrey gave the coin a gentle underhand throw and it rolled away from the group, coming to a stop against the black wall.

"Go on, you gippo bastard," Torrey said.

The young Egyptian overcame his fear and raced after the coin.

Gelbman was nearly bowled over "What the devil—"

Strurnman released a bullish roar, "NO, YOU FOOL!"

It was too late. The young laborer ran along the radiating lines, and the moment he set foot on the circle etched into the floor and paused there, reaching down toward a glint of silver.

There was the dry, hollow sound of grinding stone, and then a huge limestone block as wide as the corridor dropped from the high ceiling and crushed the young laborer.

The block was so heavy it was flush with the floor, despite the human form now trapped under it.

Most of the Egyptian laborers turned and ran back up the stairs. Only two young men remained with the Europeans.

The etched ball was now hidden from sight but blood began trickling out from under the limestone block, running along the radiating lines in the floor.

"Jesus Christ," Alex said.

Torrey had nothing to say now, his eyes wide with horror.

"Listen," Jules said.

They all held their breaths.

Deep in the rock around them, the grinding sounds continued.

Alex turned away, half dragging George with him. "We have to go. Now. NOW!"

"You are walking away from a fortune," Sturnman whispered harshly.

"I can't spend shite when I'm dead," the Scot replied.

Alexander took two long strides away from the others and toward the stairs, and then something made him rear back.

A wall dropped out of the ceiling between the stairs and the Scot. It slammed into the floor with such force that his cheek was peppered with limestone fragments.

Dante shouted a warning and the others backed away from the limestone block. Two massive plugs of stone slid out of the block on what appeared to be a burst of pressurized air. Once free they slid across the floor as the men danced out of their way, grains of sand popping and snapping underneath them.

The stone plugs stopped a few feet short of the wall.

Sturnman moved alongside Alexander and studied the wall.

"Solid bronze," he said. "Incredible."

"No," Alexander said. "What's incredible is that our packs are behind that wall."

His enter body was shaking. One more step and he would have been sliced in half. "Gi'us a hand. It's got my boot."

He leaned on Sturnman and pulled his right foot away from the wall. An eighth on an inch of rubber parted from the toe of his heavy work boot and he was free.

"Well," Sturnman said. "We aren't getting out that way."

With the plugs gone, the limestone block now held two arched entrances six feet high and three wide, doorways to whatever lay beyond.

"The lady or the tiger," Gelbman said, stepping forward. He raised his light. At the top of each arch was a glyph representing one of the gods. "That is Bastet on the left," he said, indicating a figure with the body of a woman and the head of a cat. "And on the right, the woman with the elaborate headdress is Seshat."

Dante was looking from the arches to the large plugs of stone with a mixture of amazement and appreciation. "So we have to choose?"

"It would appear so," Sturnman said.

"Well, what do the inscriptions mean?" Torrey asked. "There must be more written there, after all, Senemut has already proven himself to be a loquacious fellow."

"Seshat was the Goddess of writing and measurements," Edgar said. "And scribes."

Without another word, he entered Seshat's arch.

The others waited.

Gelbman's voice came back to them, a wavering echo. "There are stairs leading up and to the right," he called. "I must be beyond the black wall."

Jules and Dante looked at each other. Jules shrugged.

"My first discipline was engineering," the Frenchman said. "If I had to have a goddess, it would be a goddess of Measurements."

George Torrey pointed at the engraving of Bastet. "What was that cat woman's bailiwick?"

"Joy, music, and dance," Sturnman replied. "And she symbolized the moon and its role in making women fertile."

"That's my girl," Torrey said, taking a step toward the left-hand arch.

Edgar spoke up, his voice filled with dark amusement. "Some believe the name Bastet means 'devouring woman.'"

"Well she sounds like a randy little thing," George said, although he seemed to be unsure of himself and forcing his bravado. He slowed to a stop.

"Bastet was represented as a cat," Sturnman said, "because it could be argued that cats saved the riches of the kingdom. Cats ate the mice which were destroying the grain held in silos, grain which kept every Egyptian alive, slaves, pharaohs, and everyone in between."

"Yes, but the thing about cats," Alexander said, thinking of the nasty old tom that ruled his mother's sitting room, "Is that they protected the kingdom by viciously killing the threat to the riches you spoke of with tooth and claw, and not a trace of pity."

"For fuck sake," Torrey whispered.

Dante gestured at the bronze wall. "We could wait here, no? Wait for those who escaped to bring back help."

"Now there's a sound suggestion," Torrey said. "Good man!"

Sand began pouring from the ceiling like rain.

Flashlights turned upward revealed nothing, just shifting curtains of golden sand.

Sturnman clapped his hands together and asked, "Which path, gentlemen?"

Dante, Jules, George and Alex looked from one door to the other.

The sand was already up to their ankles, and the air was filled with a dust that made them choke and retch.

The two remaining laborers stood side by side and began to pray.

The sand began pouring down on them at an even faster rate and all of them staggered under its weight.

Jules, the engineer, walked into the right-hand arch, and after a moment Dante followed him.

"Bloody Christ," Torrey said, grabbing fistfuls of the Scot's shirt and shaking the man. "What do we do McAlistar? The gippos are praying to Mohammad and this sand is up to my fucking knees, so what do we do?"

Alex looked to one side and saw Sturnman watching him like a hawk.

Sturnman was smiling.

One of the laborers broke and ran through the right-hand arch, the arch of Seshat.

"It's obvious that the sensible, logical, and safe thing to do," Alex said over the constant hiss of falling sand, "would be to follow the right-hand arch. But no one has ever found the bodies of Hatshepsut or Senemut..."

"And we have searched all of the most obvious, sensible and logical locations," Sturnman bellowed. "Yes!"

He planted a hand against the backs of the Englishman and the Scot and shoved them toward the left-hand arch of Bastet. Then he grabbed the remaining laborer by the wrist and dragged the frightened man through the arch and up a short row of stairs as the sand continued to pile up behind them.

*

Edgar Gelbman was listening to his radio, hearing nothing but white noise. He looked back the way they had come and saw that the sand had finally stopped creeping up the stairs. He hoped the others had made it into the Bastet arch, otherwise they were very likely buried alive.

Jules was running his hands along the smooth walls of the corridor they were in. Following Edgar he and Dante had gone up a stairway that curved to the right, and now there was a dark corridor before them. "What do you hear?"

Edgar gave the Frenchman a shrug. "Nothing. These VLF radios are supposed to be able to transmit for a limited distance through stone, but I hear nothing."

They had done a quick inventory of their possessions since all of them had lost their packs. They had one radio, three canteens, three flashlights, some glow sticks, and a few simple tools.

Dante walked ahead of Jules, his flashlight sweeping across the floor. "There is a shaft over here!"

Edgar looked at the laborer who had followed them, now standing at the top of the stairs as if afraid to go further. "What is your name, boy?"

"I am Ali," the young man said.

"Très originale," Jules muttered as they all approached the shaft at the end of the corridor.

The shaft dropped away from them at a steep angle.

The bottom of the shaft was lined with alabaster, and the lightly dusted marble was so smooth that their breath sent rills of dust sliding down into darkness.

"Merde," Jules said. "You expect us to walk on this?"

"Unless you want to dig through thousands of pounds of sand," Edgar replied, "and batter down a wall of solid bronze, I don't see how we have a choice.

Dante held up a glow stick. "Should I?"

The others nodded. He twisted the stick and shook it, and when the chemicals inside began to glow he dropped it into the shaft. It slid out of sight, leaving a shrinking ball of green light in its wake.

The light winked out when the glow was very small, and very far away.

The archeological engineer and the geologist could only stare at each other.

"This tunnel is very long," Dante said. "We had better hope that if we slip and begin to slide, there is soft sand at the bottom."

They all took a moment to ignite some glowsticks with metal rings attached to them. They clipped the sticks onto their belts and backpacks.

Dante kicked as much dust off of the soles of his boots as he could, and then he stepped onto the smooth marble surface.

Jules followed close behind, walking as if the marble bottom of the shaft were thin glass that might shatter under him at any moment.

Edgar stood on the rim of the shaft and happened to look down. There was a strip of tarnished brass there. He bent and licked his fingers and wiped off some of the grime, revealing a long row of tiny glyphs. He tried to translate them, but they were nonsense, just odd groupings of herons and beetles and hawks. Just when he thought it was starting to make sense, he heard Jules left out a little grunt.

The Frenchman slipped and fell flat. He simultaneously kicked Dante's feet, and grabbed at Edgar.

Dante vomited a string of profanities in Italian as fell on his ass and began to slide on the smooth marble.

Edgar felt Jules grab his wrist. "Damn you," he said, as he spun around and clawed at the rim of the shaft. "Stop flailing about!"

Jules was desperately trying to get to his feet, but he lost his grip and slid out of sight.

A moment later the strip of brass popped out of the gap between the limestone floor of the corridor and the polished marble of the shaft, and Edgar was dropping into darkness.

Ali had no tools, and a single glow stick. He had left everything behind. He sat on the edge of the shaft and slipped off his boots, tying the laces together and tossing them over one shoulder. He shook the glow stick, setting one sweat dampened foot on the steep angle of the marble shaft, and then the other. Then he stood in the near dark and watched three balls of light drop away from him.

*

"Water, flashlights, pocket tools, glow sticks, and a useless radio," Sturnman said, taking stock.

They had gone up the stairs away from the sand, entered a corridor that veered off to the left, and then they took a long and narrow staircase downward.

"My fucking knees," George hissed as they continued to descend. "How many stairs did this Semenhut build?"

"Senemut," Alexander replied. He was in the lead, his flashlight showing nothing but more stairs. "These could go on forever. Senemut had all the slaves in Egypt at his disposal. He could build whatever his mind imagined."

The laborer with them followed quietly, at a distance.

They walked on, stopping once to rest their legs, and then continued downward until Alex told them the end was in sight.

"Oh my sweet backstabbing Christ," George Torrey said, his voice a soft moan.

When they reached the last stair Torrey sat down and put his head in his hands.

Alex fought down a growing feeling of claustrophobia.

The laborer stood and watched the Europeans.

Sturnman looked ahead, his brow creased in thought.

There were two more arches.

*

The sliding descent of Dante, Jules and Edgar was silent save for the occasional squeak when one of them tried to use his hands to slow down.

Dante leaned the hard way that they were moving too fast for that to work. Something snapped in his left wrist and he let out a shriek.

"Look," Jules called, "On either side!"

There appeared to be carved wooden rods projecting out from the walls in clusters aligned in straight rows along the length of the shaft. Edgar caught glimpses of polished animal forms grouped in varying numbers.

Jules reached for a pair of wooden herons, grabbed them, and stopped his slide.

Edgar reached out to him with one hand, still clutching the tarnished metal strip in the other and, and gaped in shock as Jules moved out of the way, letting Edgar slide by.

"Bastard!"

"Sorry, mon ami," Jules called from behind. "These old things might only be strong enough to support one!"

Edgar rolled onto his stomach, still sliding, and watched Jules stand up in the light of the glow sticks.

There was a metallic creaking sound and a long curved blade shaped like a scythe sprang out from the wall and cut the Frenchman in half at the waist.

Edgar turned away, knowing that somewhere above him the bisected Frenchman was sliding after him.

Ahead of Edgar, Dante had seen the wooden projections as well. There must have been thousands of them. Cradling his injured wrist, he reached out and grabbed a group of at least a half-dozen rods with beetles carved into the wood. The moment his descent abruptly stopped, he heard a grinding sound.

Edgar was only a few dozen feet ahead of the Italian when what looked like a hundred slender bronze spears lanced out from the walls and pierced Dante's body from both sides. The spears withdrew and a lifeless Dante slid on ahead of Edgar.

By the light of the glow sticks Edgar studied the bronze strip he was still holding. He shook his head, realizing what the message was.

"Equations!" he shouted into the darkness. "Simple mathematical equations!"

Among the herons and hawks and beetles was a sequence with nine herons, a squiggle, five herons, and a space. Hoping that the squiggle implied a minus sign, he began frantically looking for the projections he needed to grab, and then he saw them. Four herons.

Edgar grabbed the wooden projections and came to a dead stop.

This had to be right, he thought. The only other alternative would have been adding the five and the nine and looking for a cluster of fourteen herons.

"And that," he said, struggling to his feet, "would be ridic—"

He only had time for a glimpse of what was coming. It was a massive block of dark granite sliding down the shaft. The block had grooves on either side, and the carved wooden projections were disappearing into those groves.

The block, pushing two halves of Jules ahead of it, struck Edgar so hard his skull split apart.

The massive granite block continued its descent, pushing three dead men and three glowing green sticks down into the darkness.

At the top of the shaft, Ali had let time pass and watched the green light of the glow stick begin to fade. He had no idea what to do, so he had prayed.

He had nearly lost his footing when the entire shaft shook violently as a block of stone had fallen from the ceiling a few feet down the shaft from him. At the same time a bronze door had closed off the top of the shaft, and another door had opened as a slab of limestone swung away from him. As the massive block had slid rapidly away from him, Ali had carefully walked across the shaft and stepped beyond the limestone slab. As the light from his glow stick faded away, he saw stairs leading upward, and far away, the hazy light of day.

Thanking Allah for his good fortune, Ali began a slow climb.

*

Over one arch was Seth, the beast-headed God of chaos and confusion. Over the other was Sobek.

"I don't know what that thing is," Torrey said, pointing at the depiction of Seth, "But that other fellow has crocodile jaws, and that can't be a good sign."

Inside of each arch was a short and apparently empty corridor.

Sturnman raised empty hands and said, "I agree. I don't have a clue how to proceed. We need to apply the scientific method."

Alex watched the older man walk to the stairs and grab the wrist of the laborer whose name he did not know.

"Let's go then," Sturnman said, dragging the man toward Sobek's arch.

Alex stepped forward, but before he could speak Torrey grabbed him from behind.

"Sorry, mate," Torrey said, "But old Otto has the right idea. Survival of the fittest and all that."

Sturnman pushed the struggling laborer into the corridor and the entire thing instantly closed like the jaws of a crocodile, the roof dropping and the floor rising.

They heard a snippet of a scream and a horrific wet crunch, and then the floor sank and the roof rose and the corridor was as it had been before.

"Well that's an unappealing sight," George Torrey said, eyeing the soupy mess spreading across the floor and dripping from the ceiling.

"Yes," Sturnman said, "But what fascinates me is this. Would Senemut be clever enough to use this as a distraction? To scare us away from using the arch of Sobek once its only trap had been sprung it is now safe?"

Torrey gave Alex a shove toward the arch, and Sturnman backhanded the Scot, driving him to his knees.

"Not him, you buffoon," Sturnman said, stepping behind Torrey. He planted a raised foot against the Englishman's posterior and gave a mighty shove.

George staggered forward under the arch and screamed, "You fucking bast—"

The floor rose up and the roof came down. There was a terrible crunch. One of Torrey's legs and one of his arms was still outside the arch, and they flopped to the ground in front of Alexander.

"That's actually a little disappointing," Sturnman said. Leaving Alex behind, he entered the arch bearing Seth's mark.

Alex knew he had no choice now but to follow.

They walked.

They walked by the light of glow sticks and Sturnman's flashlight.

The floor sloped down, but not dramatically.

"How long do you think we've been walking?" Sturnman called over one shoulder. He sounded full of good cheer. "Twenty minutes? Thirty?"

Alexander was still in shock, and it took all his concentration to keep walking. "Go fuck yourself, you scatty cunt."

They heard their own footsteps echoing ahead of them just before they stepped through a narrow doorway into a great chamber hewn from the rock. There were two raised blocks of granite in the center of the open space, and shelves along the walls.

"Damn it," Sturnman whispered. "I thought this would have been it..."

Alexander sat down against one wall and caught his breath.

Sturnman walked back and forth along three walls, tapping the limestone with the butt of his flashlight.

"There has to be more. A hollow, a hidden panel."

Alexander stood and looked back the way they had come. He went to the end of the gently sloping corridor and got down on his hands and knees. To one side of the doorway was a tiny hole drilled into the limestone.

He patted down his pockets, realizing he had dropped his flashlight somewhere, and pulled out a Swiss Army knife. He extended the screwdriver and pushed it into the hole. He turned it one way, and then the other.

There was a minute click.

Rock slid to one side, and part of the corridor floor they had just crossed slid away.

"More stairs," the Scot said with a weary laugh.

Sturnman rushed past him and down into the dark.

When Alexander went down the stairs, ten of them, he saw two more arches, with doors of ancient dry wood.

"This must be it," Sturnman said, licking his lips. "One final choice."

Alexander looked above the arches. There was a single series of pictograms over each one.

The door on the left bore the sign of Ra among the glyphs, the sun god, the God of gods.

The door on the right was under the sign of Osiris, the god of the dead, the final judge in the afterlife.

Sturnman read the hieroglyphs beside the sign of Ra.

"Beyond is your greatest treasure."

Sturnman then read the inscription over the door under Osiris.

"Beyond lies my greatest treasure."

Among the glyphs over the Osiris arch Alex saw the sign of Senemut. Realizing he might have only one chance to act, he ran through the door bearing the sign of Ra, the old wood falling to pieces the moment he touched it.

Sturnman screamed some obscenity, but it was cut off by a slab of stone that fell from the ceiling and blocked the way back.

Walking forward and shaking his last glow stick, Alex looked up and saw a very long flight of stairs.

*

"I have it at last, old Senemut," Sturnman said. "Your greatest treasure."

He stepped through the door and instantly fell down a dark shaft, shattering his right leg when he hit bottom.

His bulb of his flashlight shattered as well, but he had plenty of glow sticks left. He ignited a stick and raised it up, and saw a sarcophagus in the center of a small musty chamber.

Sturnman limped across the floor and used the last of his strength to shove aside the heavy granite cover of the sarcophagus. It shattered on the floor.

Inside were the mummified remains of a woman. There was a bronze amulet around her neck, and nothing else. No riches, no gold, no jewels.

Sturnman lowered the glow stick so he could read the inscription engraved on discolored face of the amulet.

~My greatest treasure. My love. My Queen. Hatshepsut.~

"No," Sturnman said, slumping against the sarcophagus.

*

His glow stick was fading by the time Alexander reached the top of the long staircase. He had stopped to rest a number of times, but his rests were brief. He was afraid of losing his light.

There was a slab of stone in the shape of a door blocking the stairs.

In an alcove, propped up on a small circular dais was a mummified man.

For a moment Alexander thought it was Sturnman come for him at last, and he nearly fell down the stairs.

"Damn it, Alex," he said.

The mummified man was wearing a bronze medallion, and one arm was raised in the direction of the door.

Alexander stepped onto the dais to read the medallion, his light dying out, and as he strained to read the single symbol engraved on it the dais shifted underfoot and the slab blocking the stairway slid away.

The medallion seemed to burn as sunlight struck its face, and Alex saw that the symbol on it was an ankh, the Egyptian symbol for life.

Alex stepped out into blinding sunlight and saw that he was near the top of the dome where six men had toasted their good fortune not long ago.

Looking back at the mummified man, Alex said, "Rest in peace, Senemut," and then he walked away.

*

The next day, Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities sealed access to the lost tomb of Senemut and Hatshepsut.


-


A note on character names


Otto Sturnman: In the famous novel, Professor Otto Lindenbrock leads an expedition on a Journey to the Center of the Earth

Jules Millot: Jules Verne wrote Journey to the Center of the Earth.

Edgar R. Gelbman: Edgar Rice Burroughs, the creator of Tarzan, also wrote the Pellucidar series, set in a land at the earth's core.

Herbert George Torrey: H.G. Wells wrote The Time Machine, in which a time traveler in a distant future enters the underground lair of the cannibalistic Morlocks.

Dante Antonini: In The Divine Comedy Dante Alighieri describes a descent into Purgatory.

Alexander McAlister: Alexander is the name of the time traveler in the 2002 movie version of the H.G. Wells story. George is the name of the traveler in the 1960 film version, based on the story by Herbert George Wells and created by producer director George Pal.

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"Long Days" by Jack McCallum
Category: Writing and Poetry

On maps of ancient Earth there were blank spaces, unexplored territories. These areas were often filled in by superstition and fear, cryptic warnings about terrible beasts inhabiting those places. The notion that many ancient maps contained the phrase 'here be dragons' is a myth. There are very few actual maps bearing those words, but there are many warnings about beasts just as curious or frightening to sailors and explorers of a young Earth.

We came to this distant star seeking a new home, an Eden.

We found dragons.

~

We found them on the great plain above the rift. They had been moving west like a herd of cattle, and now they stood silently, covered in dust.

It was night, and we were exploring above the rift in the beams thrown by our wrist and helmet lights. Mosquito-like bugs filled the air, searching our suits for exposed skin, attracted by our heat. We called them buggers. Their non-toxic bites stung and itched. Down in the rift buggers were seldom seen, and we could walk around in zip-up cottons. Up here we wore our patrol suits, and just as well, otherwise we would have been eaten alive.

Small jetbirds perched on unmoving horned heads and scaled backs while sucking in breaths that would be released with a loud razzing sound as the little things took to the night air on leathery wings. Jetbirds ate buggers like a kid ate popped corn. That made jetbirds our friends.

We had set down weeks ago, three days ago by the rotation of this new world, which was one and a half-times the size of Earth. The planet turned on its axis slower than we would be accustomed to as we had maintained Earth's day-night cycle aboard ship, and each day and night lasted three Earth days. They were long days and long nights.

While others continued settling into the calm depths of the rift, we were exploring. We had gone fifty kilometers up and down the rift, and this was our first climb up to the vast plains we had seen briefly as we had made our descent from space. We took pictures and bagged small plants and scooped up soil in plastic jars.

Greenfield raised a gloved hand and rapped on the head of one of the beasts.

"Solid as rock," he said, shouldering his rifle and pulling on the two long horns on the snout of the leading beast. "These things look like they are a thousand years old. Probably petrified."

There were thirty-six of the creatures in this group. Most were hunkered down, heads tucked in. The creature in the lead had its head cocked upward.

They were big. As big as horses, with rounded humps on their backs.

There appeared to be several other groups of the creatures on the plain, but further away it was hard to discern them from jumbles of rock and mounds of earth as everything was covered in fine gray dust.

With the heel of one boot I dug at the soil nurturing foot-high grassy blades. The blades danced and as the dust fell away I saw that they were a vivid green. They looked tough, almost leathery. I angled my wrist light down. In a few seconds I had a hole ten centimeters deep.

"The dirt is soft," I said.

Greenfield gave me a sneer. "So? What's your point, little girl?"

"The point is this," Burgundy said, "Wouldn't these things have sunk into this soft earth if they were standing here for any period of time?"

"Oh sure," Greenfield said. "These things just arrived yesterday. You fuck—"

"Enough," Ballisteros said. His voice was like the rumble of an engine. "We've done our sweep. There's nothing up here. Back to the ship."

Burgundy looked from me to Ballisteros. "With all due respect sir, I don't think a short radar sweep is a guarantee that there isn't any indigenous—"

"That's an order, Burgundy. We head back down now. You and Shiina can cover the rear in case anything tries to sneak up on us."

"Yeah, Lefty," Greenfield laughed. "With you shooting one-handed and Shiina trying to shoot straight without getting her tits in the way the two of you just might hit a moving target. Or you could just call for help."

I took a deep breath and stood tall, my breasts clearly outlined by my impact suit, which could be as hard as steel upon impact but was now as supple as latex.

"Don't worry, Greenfield. I'll be sure to keep these out of your way."

Greenfield raised his rifle and fired between Burgundy and me. The depleted uranium shell hit the left horn on the snout of the leading creature. The horn shattered.

"Knock it off," Ballisteros roared.

"Dead as shit," Greenfield muttered.

As our eight-man squad headed back to the trail leading down into the rift, I picked up a fragment of shattered horn and tucked it into one flap pocket.

~

We named this new world Bliss. Actually, the Turners named this world. The Far Corps squad laughed and jeered when it was announced ship-wide.

The Turners had been the single largest religious denomination back on Earth for over a hundred years when there was a backlash against them. Most of them were genuinely good people, but as their movement grew, so did their power base and socio-political influence. It was inevitable that they would be hated instead of admired. It's human nature.

The backlash happened in the time of my grandmother. By the time I was born, the Turners had put three ships in Earth orbit. They were looking for places to start over, free of religious persecution. Places where they didn't have to defend themselves. They were looking for Edens.

The Turners followed selective teachings of Jesus Christ. Their core belief was simple. When faced with antagonism and violence, turn the other cheek. That made for a peaceful and admirable society, but it set them apart from the rest of humanity.

And while they were peaceful, they weren't stupid. Back on Earth they took their beatings with a stoicism some admired and some condemned as crazy. When the Turner ships set off in search of new worlds, they took along mercenaries, most of whom where selected from the Far Corps, soldiers who had fought in the Lunar Civil War and had been in skirmishes on Io station and darkside Mercury.

The Turners did not fight. Nothing in their religion prohibited others from defending them, however. The mercenaries were along for the ride just in case they were needed. They were all grateful to be doing something productive.

I was born aboard the Hopeful, four years into the three-decade journey. I was schooled with Turners, who ran out the doors when the end bell rang and went home to chores or worked in the gardens or laboratories. I went home to chores as well. Cleaning rifles. Throwing knives. Hands-on combat.

"Turners can be sweet and good," my teacher said. "But sweet and good doesn't last long alone. They need muscle and steel and a heart that can be as cold as ice when the need arises."

Teacher taught me well. She had been drummed out of the Far Corps because she had restraint issues. When all hell broke lose, she was the one you wanted nearby, but in times of peace she might break your spine over one knee for some innocent comment taken the wrong way. Teacher knew the Turners were giving her one last chance.

She fractured one of my legs twice, broke a total of seven bones in both arms, broke my nose and my cheek, and gave me the thin white scar that bisected my left nipple.

When teacher was fifty years old she caught a cancer and died. She was buried in space with full Far Corps honors and sent on her way to the voices of a Turner choir. When the ceremony ended and I was alone in the quarters I shared with her, I was able to mourn my teacher as my mother.

~

Bliss was one of five Earth-like planets circling a distant star almost identical to our sun.

During our journey to Bliss, forty-five Turners died and thirty-eight were born. Three mercenaries died. I was the only replacement.

Turner scientists did all the scans they could from space, but that only told us so much. The day-night cycle on Bliss would take a lot of getting used to if we decided to stay, but the gravity was just slightly less that of Earth, and the atmosphere was a perfect match, if not cleaner. As we watched from orbit we saw that there were hellacious dust storms that kicked up at dusk, and cleansing rains at dawn, but there were deeps rifts in the great plains of the northern hemisphere that seemed to be sheltered from the storms and held deciduous forests, which would hopefully support anything we wanted to grow there. After studying the temperatures in the southern hemisphere we realized that winters would be mild on this world.

The air and soil could have been full of deadly microbes, or there could be savage primitives down there. The only way to know for sure was to set down and explore. That's why Far Corps mercenaries like me were on board. Just in case.

A shuttle went down and collected samples. The samples indicated that this world could support us.

The Turners decided to set down in one of the rifts for a single day-night cycle. The Corps would stand alert and go on recons while Turners sampled everything they could. After that, we would know if this world would welcome us.

After the Hopeful entered the atmosphere she switched from her fusion drive to jet engines, and extended her massive wings.

The sun was setting beyond the rift we were headed for, and the clouds around the ship were pink and gold.

I was looking forward to the smell of a wood fire.

A flock of wayward birds made this world our home, for better or worse. The birds were the size of condors. One moment we were dropping down through cloud cover at twelve thousand meters, and then the ship was jolted as five of eight engine intakes were filled with bird carcasses. Three engines exploded, two stalled, and the Hopeful dropped toward the rift like a stone fitted with wings.

It all happened so fast there was no ship-wide alarm raised, no time for warnings.

Our pilots were very good. We lost part of a wing and our communications tower to one jagged side of the rift, and hit and bounced and hit and tore a trench in the ground.

Of two hundred and six Turners and thirty Far Corpsmen, there were only nineteen deaths.

After realizing that the Hopeful would never again be airborne, we spent three day and night cycles exploring the rift we were in. We were lucky. The rift was hundreds of kilometers long and fifty klicks across. There was a river running along the bottom of the rift, perhaps the remainder of the flow that had carved this rift into the rock of millions of years.

The high ground above the river was forest, with small open plots where we could one day plant gardens. The Turners had livestock, but they weren't meat eaters. They ate milk and eggs and cheese, but no flesh. Along with breeding livestock and hundreds of frozen embryos they had seeds and transplantable gardens in the ship that could one day become orchards and fields providing all the food they needed.

Which is why my squad of Corpsmen went up onto the plains after many Earth days of staying by the safety of the ship. Damage assessments had been made and what little dust that filtered down from the twilight storms above had been cleaned away. With the coming of another long night the Turners had finally decided to send us out on a short exploratory recon, to observe and photograph and collect soil and plant samples. If we were lucky we could plant hardy crops that could survive the dust and rainstorm cycles that occurred on what we were already calling topside.

~

We had been away from the Hopeful for two Earth days of continuous night. Once back down in the rift we left our samples with the science division in the ship and then went to our quarters outside. The Corps had tents not far from the squat ruin of the Hopeful. It was cool at night, but it felt good to breathe fresh air and bathe in the river.

I went to the tent I shared with Burgundy and changed into layered cotton zips. He acted busy, but I knew he was watching by the bluish light of our lamps. It was a cool, clear night. I in turn watched Burgundy change clothes with one arm and admired his skill. Even though he was nearly twice my age he was a handsome, capable man. He had lost a limb in the battle of Venus Station. He must have been just a boy then.

All of the Far Corps mercenaries hired by the Turners were unfit for Corps service but still had a lot to offer. Sergeant Ballisteros was missing an eye. Greenfield had gotten his cock and balls sheared off by a laser at some time in the past. I assumed that was why he treated women like trash. Members of our squad had prosthetic legs and strap-on kidneys and titanium skulls.

We could still point and shoot better than any Turner, though.

I was intact, and I was here because I was an accident. Or so my teacher told me. I like to think she lied, and my mother really wanted me.

It was impossible to avoid seeing Burgundy's erect penis as he stripped down. I often looked in the mirror and wondered what it was about me that made that made me arouse most of the men and one or two women in the squad.

He saw me looking down at that jutting horn of flesh and gave me a 'what are you gonna do?' shrug.

I hadn't realized how awful recycled water tasted until I drank from a river for the very first time. I gave Burgundy sex, and asked him if he wouldn't mind filling up our big plastic water jugs at the river. Mother had always told me I was pretty, and as my teacher she said there was nothing wrong with giving sex for favors from time to time. When he left the tent I remembered the horn fragment in the flap pocket of my suit.

I found the fragment and returned to the Hopeful, looking up at the stars and realizing the night cycle would be ending soon. Up on the plain the first light of dawn was probably visible on the horizon, and the scudding clouds carrying the rainstorms that came with it.

A younger Turner scientist named Orem was overseeing work on many of the biological specimens collected, bugs and birds and the only mammal found so far, a ferocious little marsupial that looked like a tiny grizzly bear.

Orem was looking into a microscope when I entered his lab. He stood and gave me a little bow, a courtesy reserved for ladies, not mercenaries. Orem had a soft prettiness that made him the mockery of men like no-balls Greenfield, but the scientist had a gentle way about him, and an inquisitive nature I found appealing. Mercenaries asked very few questions before they started shooting. When I had returned from my first upriver recon in the rift me had asked me a hundred questions, his eyes glowing with fascination as I described the rift valley beyond the ship. He had complained that the Turner elders had declared him too valuable to set foot outside the Hopeful until we knew it was safe.

"Nao," he said. "I welcome you."

"Got something here," I said. I held up the dusty gray horn fragment.

He took it and examined it closely, turning it over and over.

"Incredible," he said. "Is it bone?"

I told him what we had found up on the plain.

"Even though they looked long dead," I said, "This one with the shattered horn bothered me. He was looking at the sky, but he didn't look like a dumb animal. He looked more like a cat than a mouse. There was something bird-like about his eyes. Like a hawk I saw in a library film about Earth animals. Like a hunter."

Orem washed the fragment with a bottle of sterile solution. Under the layer of dust the horn was blue-black, like the steel of an old handgun in a museum.

The tip was very sharp.

I took a seat and watched Orem. He was my age, maybe a year older. He turned the fragment this way and that, examined it under a light, poked inside the shattered end, and frowned the whole while.

I must have dozed off while he was looking at some of the pictures of soft, dusty shapes we had downloaded from our helmet cameras, something I never did on patrol, and then Orem gave me a gentle shake.

I nearly laughed when he asked, "Are you sure this was dead?"

"Greenfield shot that horn off of the creature's head," I said. "It didn't move at all."

Orem thought about that a moment, then said, "Come with me."

He led me outside the ship. As we stepped outside I saw him glance around nervously, clutching the horn fragment in one fist.

"It's perfectly safe," I said. "I'll protect you."

Orem scowled at that, and I imagined his masculine nature was butting up against his Turner disciplines.

Upriver we could see the glow of Far Corps lamps inside of tents, and campfires outside of them.

I saw a line of figures moving up the path to the plain above.

"Another patrol?"

Orem nodded. "The elders want more samples."

"I should be with them."

Orem looked almost embarrassed when he said, "I told the elders you were assisting me."

When he saw the look on my face he took a step back. "You were sleeping."

I looked again. I thought one of the tiny figures was missing an arm.

"Some of my squad are going out again?"

"As far as I know this recon is volunteer. That one armed fellow is going, yes."

Just as light began to brighten the sky over the rift, it grew dark very fast.

"Squall," I said, shoving Orem under the cover of a rent in the Hopeful's hull.

Water poured down. The air was so humid it was like breathing through a wet cloth. The river turned white and the earth looked at if it were being struck by invisible bullets.

After a few minutes the rain moved on. Now we were in for three days of sunny autumnal skies.

Rills of brownish water streamed into the rift.

"That dust in the rainwater is actually soil," Orem said. "It washes off of the plains and flows down here, where it accumulates and creates fertile soil. That's why we have such lush forests along the river, and why the plains are almost barren. I bet parts of those ledges on the edge of the rift are holding thousands of kilos of old dust."

I stepped outside and turned my face to the sun. It felt good after such a long night. I saw Corpsmen squatting and brewing coffee rations over campfires. Fresh brewed river water coffee was the best. Further up the rift wall I saw the distant recon patrol moving up and out of sight.

Gravel crunched behind me and I turned to see Orem holding up one hand, shielding his pale face from the sun. I laughed, and then felt alarmed.

"You cut your hand on that damned horn."

"There's no need for such vulgar language," he said with a smile, gently mocking the strict morality of Turner elders. He lowered his hand and inspected it closely. After a moment he said, "My hands are fine."

He was much paler now, and his eyes were wide, confused and a little scared.

"Well where is the blood coming from?" I asked.

Orem held up the horn fragment.

The shattered end looked like a broken bone, moist and red inside. A ruby-red drop of blood fell to the ground.

"Come with me," he said, his face now dark and stern.

He grabbed my hand and moved quickly, almost dragging me down the corridor. I found this rough handling unexpected, and appealing.

Back in Orem's laboratory he fiddled with a hand-held light source while a machine analyzed a drop of blood.

"I'm going to mimic the light of our new sun," he said.

He had set the fragment on the table. Under the standard ship lighting it looked dead and dry.

Orem moved the filtered light over the fragment, and it seemed to come alive.

"Its biophotonic," he said. He looked at a monitor and read the results of the blood analysis. "Carnivorous reptilian."

"What does that mean?"

"This horn contains cells that absorb light and..." he shrugged. "Convert it to energy, I suppose. And if the creature it came from had those cells all over its body, it could conceivably be dormant during the long nights and during the long days..."

"What?"

"I imagine it would awaken quite hungry."

~

I ran down corridors painted a soothing gray, running hunched over along the wall of one segment that had been twisted and crumpled during the crash. Alongside the shuttle docking bay and a line of storage bays was the Far Corps com room. Our old quarters were here as well, segregated from the general population during the flight. It made sense. We could be a rough bunch.

I thought of the creature I had taken the horn fragment from. I had begun thinking of it as Shatterhorn in my mind. Teacher taught me that. Name your enemies even in the heat of battle, and you won't loose track of them. A dozen faceless men were harder to account for than Fat Man and Bleeding Shoulder and Cracked Faceplate.

I thought of Shatterhorn. There had been something so unsettling about the way his head was cocked at the end of that long neck, those avian eyes turned up to the sky. Shatterhorn was no dumb animal. He had known what was coming.

Fifteen Far Corpsmen were standing in the orange glow of central com. I hadn't seen these men and women ever look this tense, not even when we came in for a crash landing. Twenty-three of us had survived the crash.

"What's happening?"

Most of them looked at me and looked away, since many of them saw me as a child. I had been born when they were in their prime, and now they were well into middle age.

Ballisteros was sitting at the com. He wasn't wearing his prosthetic lens. He said it gave him headaches. In the harsh orange glow of the com his missing eye was a ragged crater of scar tissue in a face twisted with frustrated rage. He looked like he could go mano-a-mano with the Turner's all-powerful God.

I edged closer. "Sergeant?"

He was holding an earpiece to one ear. With his free hand he held a finger to his lips, shushing me. Until then, I never would have imagined him capable of such a gentle gesture.

I looked up at the single large monitor on one wall. It was divided into eight segments, some of them already dark. Other feeds from the helmet cams topside showed flashes of sunlight and arms and legs and blue steel blurs.

Another picture went dark. The cameras were cheap things, and usually the first thing to go in a patrol suit.

Ballisteros closed his one good eye and lowered his head. Then he reached up and yanked the earpiece jack out of the com console. The speakers set high on each wall erupted with noise.

There was a mixed roar that was high-pitched and rumbling.

"Fuck!" somebody said.

"What was that?"

"Sounds like a lion trying to imitate a pig."

Ballisteros released a rumble of his own. "Quiet, people."

We Far Corpsmen shut our mouths.

And listened to what came out of the speakers.

"...falling back, falling back..."

A jumble of voices were fading in and out. Shouts, mutters, screams, and roars.

"We're falling back, Sarge." That was Burgundy. The picture from his cam was rolling and distorted. He sounded like he was still in control, but when he wasn't speaking his breath came very fast, faster than when he had been on top of me, not so long ago.

I could hear the quick put-put-put of rifles firing on semi-auto. It was such a little sound, I thought, knowing the devastation those depleted uranium shells could cause.

"Falling back, falling— Ruvier! Your back!"

There was another squeal and rumble and a man screamed.

"Muthafucka muthafucka muthafucka!" That was Barone. Each curse was punctuated by a gunshot. Barone had lost most of h