The Monstrumologist (The Monstrumologist #1)(97)

“The ground here is very wet,” he observed. “And the walls weep. There must be an underground stream or river close by.”

He was right: There was a stream. It ran roughly perpendicular to the cave, twenty feet or so below us, and in the spring it swelled to nearly twice its normal size. Each season its swath widened, as the water cut and chewed its confining walls; every year the very floor upon which we stood became more saturated and unstable. The Anthropophagi had discovered it; it was their primary source for freshwater and why their young had no need to venture to the surface in search of that necessity. The path taken by Kearns and Warthrop led directly to a hollow by its banks, where the creatures went to drink and bathe-though they do not bathe in the way we think of bathing. They are not swimmers and are terrified of deep water, but they are compelled, like the raccoon, to wash the gore and offal from their long nails. They also enjoy (if “enjoy” might be used to describe it) sliding on their backs into the shallows, letting the water pour into their open mouths, and then spinning and twisting their bodies, chomping the frothing water like a crocodile in a death roll. The purpose of this odd ritual is not known, but might be, like the picking of one another’s teeth, part of their hygienic regimen.

It was to the protected banks of this subterranean stream that she had taken the one-year-old “toddler,” the youngest and most vulnerable of her brood. As the doctor had pointed out, her leaving its older siblings behind was exceedingly curious, but I suspect she had meant to return for them, or they, in their confusion and fear, had refused to follow her. Whatever the case, it was this sequestered youngster they found upon the final turn of their final descent, mewling and snarling at the edge of the life-giving water, unable to flee or defend itself. At that age Anthropophagi, like their prey of the same age, cannot walk with any efficiency. Kearns went right up to it and killed it with a single shot.

The shot echoed up to us, and Malachi stiffened at the sound, raising his rifle and turning toward the passage’s mouth. In the hollow below us the hunters waited, knowing she had to be hiding somewhere close, and certain she would come out.

And they were right; she did come out.

She had returned to fetch her other children. Kearns and the doctor had not encountered her on their way down because she had taken a different path, a path that ran directly beneath Malachi Stinnet’s feet.

Behind him the ground burst open in an explosion of water and mud. The floor gave way and he lost his balance, falling forward onto his knees, losing his rifle when he did, the canvas tote slipping from his shoulder as he caught himself from landing face-first in the mud. He slid backward in the muck toward the widening rent in the chamber floor, the expression in his beautiful eyes horribly familiar to me. I had seen it before, in the eyes of Erasmus Gray and in the eyes of my poor father: the grotesquely comical look of the doomed when their damnation is inescapably upon them.

His fingers cut furrows in the wet earth; his legs kicked helplessly. His ankles vanished into the swirling maelstrom in the middle of the muddy whirlpool behind him, and then something caught his boot and yanked him. In a trice he was sucked down to his knees.

He screamed my name. His body was spun round like a top, whipping his head about with such force I was certain he must have broken his neck. He was upright now, with only his writhing torso visible, stretching his arms beseechingly toward me as Erasmus had, as my father had, and this soundless supplication broke my paralysis. I lunged forward, reached for him. “Grab hold, Malachi! Grab hold!” He slapped my hand away and gestured violently toward the bag that lay beside me. He sank to his chest in the roiling surface, borne down by the same beast that had punched her fist through the chest of the navigator Burns aboard the Feronia, and blood gushed from his gaping mouth. She had rammed her claws into the small of his back and wrapped them around his spinal column, using it as a kind of handle to pull him down.

I had misread Malachi’s true desire, which had nothing to do with rescue. Unlike Erasmus and my father, Malachi did not want deliverance. He had never wanted it. It was too late for that.

Again he frantically jabbed his finger at the bag. I picked it up and flung it into his arms, and in mute dismay watched him pull out a grenade. He clutched it to his chest, hooked his finger through the pin, and then with bloodstained teeth Malachi Stinnet smiled triumphantly at me.

He closed his eyes; his head fell back; his expression was one of complete peace and acceptance. He disappeared by degrees, first his arms and chest, then his neck, until for the last time his eyes came open, staring into my mine, unblinking and unconcerned.

“For Elizabeth,” he whispered.

He vanished into the bloody froth. I threw myself backward, scrambling away from the spot as fast as I could. The earth heaved, the walls rocked, huge chunks of ceiling shook loose and came crashing down. The concussion of the subsequent blast sent me flying. My fall was broken by, of all things, the body of the juvenile that Malachi’s bullet had brought down. Draped over it, I lay stunned for a moment, ears ringing, drenched in water and mud, flecks of flesh and bits of bone. I sat up and rubbed my eyes, the harsh residue of the powder that hung in the air like a fine aerosol burning in the back of my throat. I looked toward the epicenter of the holocaust. The explosion had created a ten-foot crater, in the center of which bubbles lazily ascended to the rosy surface.

Where was the doctor? I turned to my right, peering through the smoky haze, searching for the opening. Had it collapsed? Were he and Kearns now trapped beneath tons of earth? Had the entire structure, weakened by water and ripped apart by the explosion, crashed down upon their heads, crushing them or, worse, burying them alive?