Up From The Deep Vaughn Jackson (book club suggestions TXT) 📖

frills along her neck bristled and flared, flexing as she moved. At full height she reigned a good twenty meters above Vornax, looking down at him with reptilian interest.

“Thayer,” he hissed again, waving for the man to come towards him.

The soldier slowly turned his head and looked at Brannigan. His eyes were unfocused and darted between the monsters and the captain. Brannigan had seen this look before, and it never meant anything good.

The sounds coming from the creatures now were different, like they were cooing at each other, if a coo could sound as loud as a train whistle. Mating, Brannigan thought. He looked past Thayer to where Chaplin still lay belly down on the elevator platform.

The private caught his eye and mouthed, “Plan?”

Brannigan shook his head.

And then Thayer screamed and opened fire. The cooing quickly turned to shrieks of rage and indignation as the two monsters turned to regard what Brannigan thought must look like an ant screaming and spitting at them. Vornax was the first to react, rearing back with an ear-splitting scream before exhaling what could only be described as a pyroclastic cloud at the man. Thayer didn’t stand a chance. Brannigan barely had time to affix his gas mask and pray he wouldn’t be burnt as well. The heat around him grew nearly unbearable and for a split second he thought that he would meet his end, but then the heat vanished as quickly as it started. With a mighty beat of Vornax’s wings, the ash cloud cleared, and from behind his hiding spot, Brannigan could see Thayer, flash-fried like the bodies he’d read about in Pompeii. He looked up, and pulled quickly back into cover. Vornax was now scanning the area, as if expecting another Thayer to appear ready to be ushered into the same fate. Inkanyamba warbled, and Vornax responded, his heavy footsteps lumbering back towards her.

Brannigan took a deep breath and used the opportunity, sprinting from cover and towards the elevator platform. He heard Inkanyamba roar; she’d seen him. He dove on to the elevator platform just as a flash of white light obliterated the wall he’d used for cover. The hairs all over his body stood on end as he slammed the button. The elevator began its slow descent back down the shaft. He watched as Hicks emerged from his hiding cell, sprinting towards them with all his might. It wasn’t enough. Inkanyamba’s head snapped down like a whip and caught him in her mouth. Hicks screamed a sharp piercing sound before the monster swallowed him whole.

Chaplin gasped.

Inkanyamba turned to regard the descending elevator. Her slitted eyes fixed on the two of them as the platform disappeared from her line of sight. She roared triumphantly, and Vornax joined her with his own hyena cackle.

“Time for a bad idea,” Brannigan said, pulling the explosive detonator from his utility belt. “Bye, bitch.” The explosion came instantaneously, rocking the platform and snapping the support cables in the process. The last thing Brannigan saw before plunging into the dark of the elevator shaft was Inkanyamba snapping her head around with a roar to see what had happened. He couldn’t help but smirk.

“You know,” Chaplin shouted, “this is me plummeting to my probable death too many times in such a short period.”

“Not gonna die this time either,” Brannigan said over the cacophony of explosions and roars from overhead. “Still gonna suck. We got about one hundred and fifty meters of elevator shaft. Pull the cord on your pack and pretend we’re base jumping.”

Chaplin groaned and pulled the cord. As the parachute opened, Brannigan rushed past before opening his own. The whiplash made him want to puke, and he was sure he heard something in his neck crack. He watched as the elevator platform sped down below them. A few seconds later, he heard it crash into the bottom. A cloud of dust rose up to greet them. Brannigan focused on keeping his parachute away from the sides of the elevator shaft. He had to be precise, or all that jagged metal at the bottom would become an intimate part of his body. Finally, the ground was close enough that he angled his descent and grabbed onto an exposed pipe on the wall, hooking on with a clip attached to his belt. He cut his chute and climbed down the last few feet, dropping down into the room they’d left earlier. Behind him, Chaplin landed with a thud, rattling some rusty metal and eliciting a whining creak from the elevator’s remains.

“You good?” Brannigan called over.

“Aside from the tetanus? I’ll live,” Chaplin replied. “We do have another problem though.”

“The bugs.”

“How do you propose we get back through that tunnel?”

“On the way in, they didn’t grow agitated until Thayer shot at them.”

“And we just detonated an unholy amount of nitro over the top of their heads,” Chaplin said grimly.

“Bugs either scatter or swarm, right?” Brannigan said, making sure his rifle was fully loaded.

“I suppose that’s a fair generalization of their behavior,” Chaplin said.

“A few small threats with guns, the swarm, and attack and defend…” He trailed off. “Point is, an earthquake probably set them running.”

“One can hope.”

“What else are we going to do, wait to see if the island comes crashing down on top of us?” Brannigan made some final adjustments to his gear and jerked a thumb at the door. “Saddle up.”

#

The tunnel was quiet save for the rumblings of the creatures overhead. Death throes, Brannigan hoped, though something in the pit of his stomach told him it wouldn’t be that easy. Beneath his boots the ground squelched, damp from the water now trickling in from above and from the residue left behind by the giant isopods.

“Captain,” Chaplin whispered, “look.” He pointed at a cluster of large spherical objects lining the sides of the tunnel. “What are they?”

Brannigan leaned in. The spheres were lined, like an armadillo curled into a ball. “These, I think, are our insect friends,” he said. He looked down the tunnel, the creatures were curled