PREVIOUS CHAPTER
The pit was cool and dark and bottomless. There was no trace of the ant or the spider. Perhaps the ant still fled, somewhere far below, the spider trailing frothing ribbons of drool a few feet behind.
The firepower we’d unloaded on the surface had not gone unnoticed. Furious screeches and cries barraged us as we sank through the soupy gloom. Our headlamps painted rolling ovals of light against the walls and the tangled brown skeleton below.
I began to wonder how long we’d look before giving up. Depending on his trajectory, Zip could have tumbled through the gaps and landed hundreds of feet deep.
Even the thought of giving up on Zip provoked a whiplash of guilt within me. What kind of friend was I? And yet, if he’d fallen far enough, there wouldn’t be any point in finding him. It didn’t make sense for us to die too, did it?
Li hissed to get my attention. She’d found Zip’s body on a ledge protruding from one of the earthy walls. I willed him to move, to turn and look up at us, give a toothy grin, but his body remained still, curled to face the wall.
I heard a rustle and saw something hairy and fearsome clambering up from the depths. It was hard to make it out through the tangled structure that separated us. I saw dense, matted fur and long gray fingers with multiple joints. Those fingers, thicker than telephone poles, were dexterous, snaking around trunks and outcroppings as the beast hauled itself upward.
“Go!” shouted Li, planting both feet against me and exploding away. We swung away from each other, me flying toward the side of the chasm where Zip lay, and I flicked the grapple gun to allow more line to flow, plummeting diagonally downward. I gave myself enough slack to land on the ledge before I ran out of line, but the edge gave way beneath my feet, sending clods of dirt and half-decayed wood spiraling down while I scrabbled for purchase.
Zip remained inert as I clambered up and reached his side. Dozens of hand-sized insects leapt off his body, fleeing my headlamp. There was no time to examine him for signs of life. I bent at the knees, hooked his belt to my line, and hefted him over my shoulder.
Below, the creature unleashed a guttural roar, and I nearly stumbled off the edge. It was an enormous ape, with dull, broad black eyes, and a cavernous mouth that hung open as it sucked in a roomful of air with each breath.
I tripped a button on the grapple gun at my waist and began to ascend. A spider crawled out from under Zip’s shirt and onto my neck, leaping away before I could bring my hand around to swat it. The sensation of legs prickling my neck remained.
The SCAR crashed and spat. I snapped my head upward. Li, twenty feet above me and ascending quickly, sprayed at a swarm of giant flies that burrowed out of the opposite wall. The flies were translucent, like rice paper, with bright red compound eyes. One of the flies leapt into space and clasped itself around Li’s legs, proboscis preparing to plunge into her stomach--
Calmly, almost casually, Li jammed the barrel of the SCAR against the insect’s skull and fired. The fly’s head exploded, drenching her in fluid as the jittering limbs released her. I watched the segmented body fall past. The ape snagged it out of the air and tossed it down its gullet without pause.
The ape’s grunts and roars combined with the buzzing of the flies and the throaty voice of the SCAR to form a clobbering wall of sound. I fired wild shots at the swirling flies as the surface neared. The insects seemed reluctant to pounce, but greedy enough that they didn’t want to leave us alone, even as more of them crumpled under the flood of hot lead and tumbled out of the air. When Li vanished up and over the edge, the cloud of flies spilled out into the dim light above. Then my line whizzed me up and over, and Li helped me to my feet. We unhooked ourselves from the grapple guns — no time to unwind the hooks from the outcropping we’d wrapped them around — and blitzed across the clearing, past the obelisk, toward the spider web. Zip bounced, heavy and limp, on my shoulder.
A fly, knocked out of the air by one of its fellows, thudded into me. I struck out, feeling delicate exoskeleton crunch beneath my fist. My hand came away soaking wet.
Behind us, the ape fought through the aperture in the floor, bellowing, and lumbered close behind.
We slid under the spider web and ran hard, slamming the balls of our feet against the ground and powering forward. With no grapple guns to carry us into the branches, we had to try and find another kind of cover. The flies above and behind whapped like baseballs against the web, tangling themselves in the thick silk. I glanced back and saw what looked like hundreds of the fat insects trapped, roiling, and then the ape bulled full-speed into them, tearing a path with its ferocious hands.
The ape’s incisors gleamed as it roared, wrenching the web away from its face to fix its hideous eyes upon us. The web, lumpy with helpless flies, trailed after it like a wedding dress, dragging along the ground and collecting undergrowth.
A third spider, larger than the previous two, fell out of the trees and blocked our way. We cut left, but the spider wasn’t interested in us. Furious at destruction of its web, it leapt toward the ape, wrapping its legs around the beast’s hulking arm and plunging its fangs into the thick, muscular shoulder.
The ape spun, sending the cape of fly-filled spider web whipping through the trees. I tackled Li as the web passed a few inches above us. As we clambered to our feet, the ape yanked the spider off its arm and spiked it into the ground with a gut-wrenching cry. Then, looming tall, the ape spread its hands apart--
A thunderclap slammed our eardrums as the flat, merciless hands of the ape closed on the spider’s swollen abdomen, which popped like a kickball in a trash compactor. Orange-red juices spurted everywhere, even reaching us as we scrambled thirty feet away, spattering our necks with foul-smelling drops. The ape set to work tearing the legs off the deflated abdomen, stuffing them into its mouth as the spider screamed and writhed. A descending gray fist silenced it, crushing the head and stilling the twitching pincers.
Li and I reached the place where our hooks were secured and hastened to free them. Moments later we were soaring up to safety and the sweet smell of clean canopy air.
We swung away from tree to tree, until finally we reached a place where the forest was quiet, and then we laid Zip down on a broad branch and found that his breath was still coming, calm and slow and strong, through his dry, cracked lips.
NEXT CHAPTER
The pit was cool and dark and bottomless. There was no trace of the ant or the spider. Perhaps the ant still fled, somewhere far below, the spider trailing frothing ribbons of drool a few feet behind.
The firepower we’d unloaded on the surface had not gone unnoticed. Furious screeches and cries barraged us as we sank through the soupy gloom. Our headlamps painted rolling ovals of light against the walls and the tangled brown skeleton below.
I began to wonder how long we’d look before giving up. Depending on his trajectory, Zip could have tumbled through the gaps and landed hundreds of feet deep.
Even the thought of giving up on Zip provoked a whiplash of guilt within me. What kind of friend was I? And yet, if he’d fallen far enough, there wouldn’t be any point in finding him. It didn’t make sense for us to die too, did it?
Li hissed to get my attention. She’d found Zip’s body on a ledge protruding from one of the earthy walls. I willed him to move, to turn and look up at us, give a toothy grin, but his body remained still, curled to face the wall.
I heard a rustle and saw something hairy and fearsome clambering up from the depths. It was hard to make it out through the tangled structure that separated us. I saw dense, matted fur and long gray fingers with multiple joints. Those fingers, thicker than telephone poles, were dexterous, snaking around trunks and outcroppings as the beast hauled itself upward.
“Go!” shouted Li, planting both feet against me and exploding away. We swung away from each other, me flying toward the side of the chasm where Zip lay, and I flicked the grapple gun to allow more line to flow, plummeting diagonally downward. I gave myself enough slack to land on the ledge before I ran out of line, but the edge gave way beneath my feet, sending clods of dirt and half-decayed wood spiraling down while I scrabbled for purchase.
Zip remained inert as I clambered up and reached his side. Dozens of hand-sized insects leapt off his body, fleeing my headlamp. There was no time to examine him for signs of life. I bent at the knees, hooked his belt to my line, and hefted him over my shoulder.
Below, the creature unleashed a guttural roar, and I nearly stumbled off the edge. It was an enormous ape, with dull, broad black eyes, and a cavernous mouth that hung open as it sucked in a roomful of air with each breath.
I tripped a button on the grapple gun at my waist and began to ascend. A spider crawled out from under Zip’s shirt and onto my neck, leaping away before I could bring my hand around to swat it. The sensation of legs prickling my neck remained.
The SCAR crashed and spat. I snapped my head upward. Li, twenty feet above me and ascending quickly, sprayed at a swarm of giant flies that burrowed out of the opposite wall. The flies were translucent, like rice paper, with bright red compound eyes. One of the flies leapt into space and clasped itself around Li’s legs, proboscis preparing to plunge into her stomach--
Calmly, almost casually, Li jammed the barrel of the SCAR against the insect’s skull and fired. The fly’s head exploded, drenching her in fluid as the jittering limbs released her. I watched the segmented body fall past. The ape snagged it out of the air and tossed it down its gullet without pause.
The ape’s grunts and roars combined with the buzzing of the flies and the throaty voice of the SCAR to form a clobbering wall of sound. I fired wild shots at the swirling flies as the surface neared. The insects seemed reluctant to pounce, but greedy enough that they didn’t want to leave us alone, even as more of them crumpled under the flood of hot lead and tumbled out of the air. When Li vanished up and over the edge, the cloud of flies spilled out into the dim light above. Then my line whizzed me up and over, and Li helped me to my feet. We unhooked ourselves from the grapple guns — no time to unwind the hooks from the outcropping we’d wrapped them around — and blitzed across the clearing, past the obelisk, toward the spider web. Zip bounced, heavy and limp, on my shoulder.
A fly, knocked out of the air by one of its fellows, thudded into me. I struck out, feeling delicate exoskeleton crunch beneath my fist. My hand came away soaking wet.
Behind us, the ape fought through the aperture in the floor, bellowing, and lumbered close behind.
We slid under the spider web and ran hard, slamming the balls of our feet against the ground and powering forward. With no grapple guns to carry us into the branches, we had to try and find another kind of cover. The flies above and behind whapped like baseballs against the web, tangling themselves in the thick silk. I glanced back and saw what looked like hundreds of the fat insects trapped, roiling, and then the ape bulled full-speed into them, tearing a path with its ferocious hands.
The ape’s incisors gleamed as it roared, wrenching the web away from its face to fix its hideous eyes upon us. The web, lumpy with helpless flies, trailed after it like a wedding dress, dragging along the ground and collecting undergrowth.
A third spider, larger than the previous two, fell out of the trees and blocked our way. We cut left, but the spider wasn’t interested in us. Furious at destruction of its web, it leapt toward the ape, wrapping its legs around the beast’s hulking arm and plunging its fangs into the thick, muscular shoulder.
The ape spun, sending the cape of fly-filled spider web whipping through the trees. I tackled Li as the web passed a few inches above us. As we clambered to our feet, the ape yanked the spider off its arm and spiked it into the ground with a gut-wrenching cry. Then, looming tall, the ape spread its hands apart--
A thunderclap slammed our eardrums as the flat, merciless hands of the ape closed on the spider’s swollen abdomen, which popped like a kickball in a trash compactor. Orange-red juices spurted everywhere, even reaching us as we scrambled thirty feet away, spattering our necks with foul-smelling drops. The ape set to work tearing the legs off the deflated abdomen, stuffing them into its mouth as the spider screamed and writhed. A descending gray fist silenced it, crushing the head and stilling the twitching pincers.
Li and I reached the place where our hooks were secured and hastened to free them. Moments later we were soaring up to safety and the sweet smell of clean canopy air.
We swung away from tree to tree, until finally we reached a place where the forest was quiet, and then we laid Zip down on a broad branch and found that his breath was still coming, calm and slow and strong, through his dry, cracked lips.
NEXT CHAPTER