Hell's Gate(67)

The officer lay down on his belly. “Where are you?” he whispered, as much to himself as to MacCready. Now he could see the entire floor of the subchamber clearly, but there was still no sign of the American.

Could he be—

The colonel’s brain registered a new source of movement, this time out of the corner of one eye. Now he swung the lantern back to the level of his head, illuminating the roof of the subchamber. Without the hulking sergeant anchoring his feet, Wolff was unable to attain MacCready’s panoramic view, but what he saw was clear enough. Something resembling a wave was rippling across the ceiling—a wave of teeth and reflecting eyes, advancing toward him.

Wolff jumped to his feet but even as he backed away, his eyes remained focused on the hole.

click, click, CLICK, CLICK

The Nazi officer turned and sprinted down the corridor, lantern in one hand, Luger in the other.

Behind him, the clicking grew louder.


The past ninety seconds had seemed longer than any hour to MacCready. He was lying facedown, trying to catch the breath he had lost diving onto the stone ledge. The landing was as soft as he had hoped for, which was a good thing and a bad thing. The good thing: His neck wasn’t broken. The bad thing: His dive had been cushioned by two feet of living bat guano, and now the plethora of cave-dwelling species—spiders, roaches, maggots—who called the place “home” were eagerly probing their unexpected but welcome new food source.

One of the troglodytes had already scurried through a tear in the leg of his field pants, but before the intruder could head too far north, MacCready swatted at his thigh. He experienced a small measure of relief at the crunch of a chitinous arthropod body.

Golden cave roach, he told himself. That’s gonna leave a stain.

He felt a pinch on his uncovered wrist and another on his cheek. Pseudoscorpion? A sudden frenzy of tiny jointed legs spread across his back, and something the size of a walnut muscled its way past the ineffectual barrier of his shirt collar. Cave crab, definitely, he confirmed. MacCready had decided that the only way to keep a grip on his composure was to take a mental inventory of the creatures that were now beginning to eat him alive. Nevertheless, he hoped that the living membrane of “cave bugs” would blanket him completely enough, and fast enough.

MacCready also concentrated on keeping his mouth and eyes closed, as a tide of grateful hunters swarmed over his shoulders, neck, and head, staking thousands of tiny claims.

He could not see the glow of Wolff’s lantern from above, but he could hear a muffled voice.

Can he see me? MacCready wondered, trying to concentrate on something else and coming up with a question. What could be worse than this?

It took a second or two of thought but the best he could come up with was rabies. Foaming at the mouth, dementia, and the destruction of my central nervous system.

Yeah, rabies would be bad. Even worse than this, he thought, until it occurred to him that simply breathing the air in an infected bat cave could transmit the very same virus he’d just conjured up as an “even worse-case scenario.”

Keep it together. Think of something else, he told himself. And so he did—sort of.

I wonder if there have been any studies on rabies transmission through inhalation?

Probably not, he concluded, and he pictured himself assigning that particular project to Major Hendry. But then, as insect claws tried to pry open one of his eyelids, he realized that it was too late—the study was going on right now, and he was the lab rat.

MacCready’s mind had just shifted focus again—how long would it take these things to reduce me to a skeleton?—when something large landed on his back.

The creature hissed and shook itself violently, and he could feel sharp claws, even through the layer of arthropods that had gathered there to dine.

Then the pissed-off whatever-the-f*ck-it-was hopped off.

Yes, rabies is starting to look like a plan, MacCready thought.


Colonel Wolff rounded a bend and slid to a halt near the end of the stone corridor. Sergeant Schr?dinger had nearly made it to the cave entrance but now his body lay thrashing a few meters inside the antechamber.

Wolff bolted toward him and got off two shots from his pistol, but not before the creatures gathered around the sergeant had scrabbled away, disappearing into cracks and crevices like shadows before the sun.

They were feeding on him, he thought, vaulting over the dying man’s head.

There was a flash of movement to his right and Wolff fired again. This time he heard the unmistakable impact of a bullet on flesh. There was a screech, and he glimpsed one of the beasts spinning wildly on the ground.

Wolff ran on, inhaling the scent of gasoline. He could see the cave entrance now, fifteen meters ahead. His men were spread across the opening.

A vibration ran through his body—strange but not unpleasant, he thought briefly.

“Don’t shoot!” he shouted.

Ten meters to go.

There’s no need to run, an inner voice told him. And he had to admit that the pinging sensation was actually quite pleasant.

He both felt and heard a leathery flutter from above and behind.

Three meters.

Slow down, son, the inner voice urged.

Just ahead, he could see Corporal Kessler bending down—a mime lifting an invisible curtain, in reality the lower edge of a thin net that had been strung across the cave entrance.

STOP!