Verheiden scrambled when the wall he was leaning against slid into the ceiling, opening a small, cramped crawlspace that had not been there before.
“What now?” the mercenary moaned.
Crouching down, Miller peered into the darkness. “We never went this way before.”
“Yeah, so what’s that mean… Doctor?”
Miller did not reply. Instead he raised his flashlight and traced the walls of the tunnel with it. The corridor went on for about twenty-five feet, then split abruptly in two. When Miller saw the fork in the road, he actually grinned.
“It would seem that we’re rats in a maze.”
Verheiden saw Miller’s expression and scoffed.
“Sorry,” the engineer said sheepishly. “But I really like puzzles.”
With Miller in the lead, they crawled inside.
They traveled for a few minutes. Then Miller heard a voice ahead of him in the confines of the narrow duct.
“Hello?” Connors cried. “Can you hear me?”
“Who is that?” Miller called. It was difficult to make out where the voice was coming from. Sound bounced all over the place inside the shaft.
“It’s Connors,” called the voice. “Where are you?” The sound echoed hollowly, and from far away.
Suddenly, the man began to scream, his chilling voice reverberating throughout the pitch-black duct.
“Connors!” bellowed Verheiden. He hurried forward, trying to catch up to Miller. But suddenly the floor opened under the mercenary and Verheiden plunged through a trapdoor.
With some difficulty, Miller managed to turn his body around in the tight shaft. He pounded on the floor Verheiden had fallen through, but he couldn’t even find a joint.
“Verheiden?” Miller called. “Can you hear me?”
The reply was faint and distant. “Miller… get me out of here.”
Miller looked around, trying to find a way into the trap. “Hold on!” he yelled. “I’ll figure a way to get to you….”
Verheiden had fallen into a small, restrictive tunnel too low to stand up in and too tight for his lanky, six-foot-plus frame to find much comfort.
Above his head he could hear Miller trying to find a way into his prison. He pushed on the ceiling a number of times, but if the door was still there, he couldn’t find it now. There were walls on three sides of him. The fourth side, however, wasn’t a wall: It was a cramped corridor stretching beyond his vision. But Verheiden had no intention of going down it alone. He intended to wait right there until Miller found a way to get him out.
Settling in for the long wait, Verheiden leaned against one of the walls, accidentally placing his hand into a pool of slime. Searching blindly for a surface on which to wipe his hand clean of the slime, he encountered a pile of dead skin, like the hide of a snake. More slime dotted the floor, and the mercenary couldn’t help but recoil.
Suddenly, he heard a scraping sound echoing down the corridor. He took a few steps forward and shone his flashlight into the dark. Fearing a force moving toward him, he stumbled backwards, toward the wall.
Unfortunately, something more harrowing was waiting there to greet him.
From the chamber above Verheiden, Miller could hear screams and the sound of ripping flesh. He feared the man was dead.
Lex, Sebastian, and Weyland made their way through the forbidding underground maze, Max Stafford, his machine gun ready, leading them forward.
“Keep up, people. Keep it tight.”
When they reached a fork in the corridor, they halted. Lex consulted her digital compass, then gazed into the darkness, deciding which way to proceed.
Max caught her arm. “Do you even know where you’re going?”
“If we stay on this bearing we should keep going up. If we can do that, we’ll make it to an entrance… eventually.”
Lex noticed that Weyland seemed to bend under the weight of his backpack. She touched his shoulder.
“Leave it,” she said. “It can only slow us down.”
Weyland shrugged her off. “Too much has been lost to walk away with nothing.”
Lex blocked him, eyes imploring.
“No,” spat Weyland. “Unknown alloys, alien technology—the value of this find is immense.”
“The device belongs to those creatures. Perhaps we should just give it back.”
Weyland shook his head, eyes defiant.
Lex tried again. “Whatever is going on here, we have no part in it.”
“This is my find,” Weyland cried. “And I’m not leaving it.”
They locked eyes, but it was Lex who finally relented.
“Then give it to me,” she insisted.
She took the pack from his shoulders and placed it on her own. Then she curled her arm around Weyland and helped him walk.
“I’ll tell Max you need a rest,” she whispered.
Weyland shook his head. “Let’s get out of here first.”
They walked for a time, then Max halted the group. His eyes squinted into the shadows ahead. Finally, he raised his flashlight—just as a Predator emerged from the darkness.
“Move!” Sebastian cried.
Everyone scattered—everyone but Max Stafford, who dropped to one knee directly in the path of the creature and opened up with his machine gun. In the narrow, confined space the noise was deafening, the bursts blinding. This time Lex averted her eyes to preserve her night vision, and Sebastian—despite the exploding chaos—managed to spot the Predator’s thick-muscled arm as it materialized out of thin air.
In the half-second that the arm was visible, Sebastian observed a device shaped like an abstract sculpture of a turtle shell strapped to the monster’s wrist.
Max Stafford, blinded by his own muzzle blast, never saw the creature’s arm or the unusual device on his wrist. All Max saw was a metallic net hurtling at his face.
The steel mesh struck him before he had a chance to react. It met his body with such force that he was catapulted backwards. The machine gun flew from his hands as Stafford struggled against the steel cocoon that enveloped him. But the more he fought, the tighter the net became. He tumbled to the ground and thrashed there, helpless as a caught fish.
Like razors, the steel threads bit into his clothing—then his flesh.
Stafford’s cries of naked torment cut Weyland like a knife. With a moan of agony that mirrored Stafford’s, he dropped to his knees at Max’s side and clawed at the metal web.
“We’ll get you out of there!”
The piercing threads lacerated Weyland’s hands until they were slippery with blood. Yet he would not give up. The cocoon tightened, and Max’s howls intensified as the mesh chewed deeper into muscle and bone.
“Back off!” Sebastian cried.
He grabbed Weyland’s shoulders and dragged the man away from the sight. Then Sebastian drew his survival knife and cut the net—or tried to. But the thread literally severed the knife, and its broken titanium steel blade rattled to the floor.
“Stay back!” Weyland croaked, leaning against a wall. “That damned trap gets tighter every time you touch it.”
Blood pooled on the flagstones as red, raw agony sapped Stafford’s consciousness. Fighting to stay alert and alive, he forced his eyes open, to see a blur appear behind Sebastian’s right shoulder—a second Predator.
His lips writhed soundlessly before words finally came.
“Lookout—”
But the hoarse whisper came too late.
As the other Predator uncloaked between Sebastian and Weyland, it kicked its powerful leg. The clawed foot hit Weyland like a jackhammer, dashing him to the ground.
Visible now, the second Predator grabbed Sebastian by the throat and lifted him off the floor. Sebastian kicked once, slamming his boot into the creature’s belly, but the blow had no effect.
Arm extended, its helpless prey struggling in its grip, the creature threw its head back and unleashed a guttural roar. Sebastian pounded the monster’s fist with his own until, annoyed, the Predator slammed him against the stone wall.
Sebastian’s head lolled, and his arms dangled like empty sleeves.
Still clutching the stunned human, the Predator raised a long, barbed spear. With his other hand he braced himself to administer the fatal blow to the man still ensnared in the net.
Lex, back against the wall, cast about for a way to rescue her comrades. In the wavering light she saw Stafford’s MP-5 and lunged for it.
But the Predator was faster. A shimmering shape crossed the corridor and slammed an armored boot down on the machine gun, crushing it.
Then the Predator swatted Lex aside with the back of its hand.
She struck the wall and slid to the hard floor. Immediately, she tried to rise, but the Predator administered a kick that sent her spinning back against the stone. Blood spurted from her nose and the room spun. Swallowing the pain and her own blood, she quickly rolled aside, narrowly avoiding a second savage kick.
The Predator roared and chased her.
Meanwhile, held fast in the ever-tightening web, Stafford shared a look with Charles Weyland, who leaned against the wall only a few feet away from his faithful assistant. Weyland was winded, helpless, with blood seeping from his hands and wrists.
“I’m sorry…” he sobbed.
Stafford’s eyes—red-rimmed and pain-ravaged—were resigned as the Predator drove the spear through the net, through Max Stafford’s heart, and into the hard stone floor beneath him. A red tide flowed outward, and Stafford twitched once. Then it was over.
Through tears of pain, Lex watched Max die.
“Oh, God,” she cried.
Her eyes darted, seeking a way out. Then Lex spied Sebastian still hanging limply in the second Predator’s grip. She called his name.
Sebastian’s eyes fluttered, so she knew he was still alive, if barely. Seeing him there and Max slaughtered on the floor filled Lex with a cold, helpless fury. With a defiant shriek, she reeled to her feet, searching for something, anything to use against the monsters. She wanted nothing more than to lash out, to hurt them, butcher them—the way they’d murdered the members of her party.
Then cruel fingers encircled her head and forced it back to expose her tender throat. The reptilian stink of the invisible Predator curled her nostrils, and Lex heard a metallic snick as twin curved blades slid out of their sheath and touched her throat.
The creature’s arm and face were visible now, though the rest was still cloaked in a shivering blur. It was as if some hunter’s ethic compelled this race of warriors to reveal themselves to their prey at the point of climax.
Her head was wrenched from side to side, yet Lex saw the monster staring at her through slits in its expressionless mask. Snarling, the warrior drew its arm back for the killing stroke.
Powerless in its grip, she refused to struggle any longer, or to look away. Death held no terror for Alexa Woods. She would face it squarely, eyes open.
The woman’s fearlessness disconcerted the Predator. The creature actually hesitated for a moment—long enough for a black shape to drop from the ceiling and for its razor-sharp tail to plunge through the Predator’s reptilian flesh.
Suddenly the hand that held Lex convulsed. Then the fingers parted, releasing her. She stepped back as bright fingers of raw energy crackled across the Predator’s torso. The monster twitched and flung its arms wide.
Flattening herself against the wall, Lex heard the crunch of snapping bone and a wet gurgle. Then a black, barbed spike burst through the Predator’s chest in a torrent of phosphorescent gore.
Lex whimpered as the hot, steaming liquid spattered across her cheek, but still she could not turn away.
Unbelievably, the Predator was now helpless in the grip of a destructive force more savage than itself. Limbs flailing, wailing madly, the hunter was hauled upward, disappearing in the shadows.
Lex heard bestial sounds, and the ripping of meat and bone. Sparks rained from above, followed by a deluge of gore. In the intermittent flashes Lex observed a black, insectlike shape curling in the arches, its long, clawed arms tearing at the beleaguered Predator.
With a final crunch of bone, the Predator died, its corpse dangling limply on the barbed tip of its killer’s tail. Gouts of flesh and streams of reptilian blood plopped onto the flagstones, steaming in the frigid air.
The second Predator spied the black obscenity as it dropped to the ground and crouched on two spindly legs. Tossing Sebastian aside, the Predator assumed a fighting stance, an undulating rumble gurgling in its throat.
The Alien whipped its bony tail around, dislodging the dead warrior and hurling its battered carcass into a dank corner. Legs spread wide, clawed arms raised, the Alien kicked Max Stafford’s bundled corpse aside as if it were clearing the arena. Slime oozing from its lipless mouth, the Alien bobbed its shiny, elongated head and thrashed its tail from side to side as it issued a sibilant challenge. Finally, its toothy mouth opened and the black beast spit at the Predator in angry defiance.
Only dimly, Sebastian had felt the crushing grip relent, and he’d slid down the wall. He would have remained there, too, except for the strong hands that encircled his waist and hauled him to safety.
Sebastian looked up to see Lex standing over him, her face stained with an eerie green phosphorescence, like some strange, futuristic war paint. Then he heard hissing and an angry roar. Rolling onto his side, Sebastian watched two demons out of hell squaring off for a duel.