Forgotten Love: An Action-Packed Adventure Romance (The Forgotten Chronicles) (8 page)

The earth moved.

It took Theo a moment to realize it really was moving. Shaking. Trembling.

"The grave..." Gillian said.

"What?" he asked, irritated. The world hated him, that's what it was.

Gillian was looking in horror at one of the burial outlines.

Theo followed her gaze and could see the vibrations in the earth shaking the shaking the rocks out of their formation....

"No way," he muttered, transfixed as the individual rocks rolled in every direction as the ground began to rise there. As something began pushing its way up through. He kicked one of the rocks aside when it rolled toward them.

"Oh, damn," Gillian, swore. "So help me, Theodore Cutro, if we get attacked by centuries old zombie Vikings I am never speaking to you again."

The chamber began to fill with the echoing sounds of a low bass rumble. The two of them stepped backward over the line of stone markers, out of this stone ship and across the stone markers of another.

The earth split. The loose dirt in the stone ship puckered and swelled upward and then rent open in a long line.

"Run." Theo said.

"What?"

"Run!" He grabbed her hand and dragged her away from there, deeper into the field of burial mounds and stone ships. He didn't know where this cavern led. But it led away from where they were.

"Theo, what's going on?" She stumbled alongside him, the flashlight strapped onto his wrist bouncing and casting more shadows than light.

"Something's coming," he said.

"What? What's coming?"

"Something that's attracted to heat, or vibration, or something..." He remembered the rest of what Gillian had translated. "A serpent."

The shaking quieted, and then ended. The ground settled.

They stopped. Turning back to the village, Theo saw absolutely nothing. His flashlight played along the long, thin hole. Nothing. They stared at each other, waiting for something else to happen. Nothing did. Silence had returned.

Theo held his breath. Gillian's hand held his tightly. She was trembling.

"I don't like this," she whispered.

"Which part?"

"The part where we're waiting to die."

"I think we're fine here. It can't possibly move through solid or—"

The ground heaved so hard under their feet that both of them were thrown to their hands and knees. The thunderous echoes of rocks shaking in their foundations were deafening. Dust rained down on them from the ceiling, from high above in the darkness.

They looked back into to village and saw that through the hole in the graveyard long, thick green tentacles writhed. They spread out along the ground, searching, twisting. They wrapped themselves around the marker stones as they came to each one, and then finding them uninteresting, uncoiled themselves and moved away.

"My God," said Gillian. "The place is full of snakes!"

He couldn't get an accurate count of how many there were, but each one was at least thirty feet long already, and still coming. Odd—creatures that lived underground often had no eyes because they aren't needed in complete darkness, but these things had no features at all. No ear holes, no mouths... then he noticed the little leaves and the fine root hairs growing from each. The things were vines. Or the questing tendrils of a plant.

But they acted like they were independently alive. Alive, and searching for something.

Searching for them, he realized. Searching for the living flesh that had warmed the earth enough to draw their attention.

"Gillian. Do not move." He said each word slowly, with quiet emphasis.

She looked at him, her eyes wide and staring, sweat beading down her face.

"I'm scared too, but I think they are drawn to vibration and heat."

They watched several of the tentacles streaking in their direction. If any one of those things touched them, sensed their warmth, they probably wouldn't stand a chance. But at the same time, vibrations on the ground were probably how this thing...hunted.

Thing? Things? Was it several plants, or were all these independent tendrils part of one single organism?

She whimpered and he could feel her shaking as she pressed closer to him. "What the hell kind of snakes are those? They have no eyes, no mouth..."

"They aren't snakes. They,
it
, is a plant."

"A plant? The one from the legend?" She was ready to bolt. He had to keep her calm.

"I don't know about that, but it's a plant. See the tiny leaves?"

"What the hell kind of plant moves like that? "

"One that we've just discovered. That's another bonus for us."

"Not if is drags us into a digestive pit like a Venus Fly Trap..." Gillian took a single step backward.

The nearest tendrils snaked closer to them. She was probably right about this being a carnivorous plant. Why else would it be hunting them like this?

"Don't move, Gillian. It's okay. I've got you. We'll be fine. See how it's slowing down? I think it's getting cold. Plants don't like the cold. Under the ground it's got heat and warmth in the soil. Maybe even the warm air from the vents keeps it warm, too. Now that the ice melted, it's got the warmth of the sun. But in here, further away, it's cold. It's got no reason to come this way. It will go away soon. I promise, Gillian. Gillian? Can you hear me? Come on now."

Her foot lifted, like she was going to take another step, then gently settled back down. "I hear you, Theo," she said in a shaky voice, almost too quiet for him to make out.

Those words allowed him to finally relax. He had reached through to her in time, before she gave into her fear and her admittedly reasonable desire to run away. She trusted him to get them through this. Watching the hungry exploration of the plant monster, he hoped that her trust would be justified.

Nothing had ever prepared him for something like this.

The vines or tendrils or whatever they were stopped. All of them, all at once. Theo had just enough time to wonder what they were doing before they snaked their way back into the hole, bumping and gliding over each other.

"It's the cold," he explained to her. "The metabolism of the plant responds to heat for the same reason every plant responds to the light of the sun, the warmth of summer. The cold slows it down to a near hibernative state. I wouldn't be surprised if that thing had been sleeping under the ground down here since before the Norsemen came."

"That's impossible," Gillian said, shivering and pressing her body against him from behind.

"No, it's really not. There was a case where a Judean date palm was revived after being dormant for two thousand years, and it still grew. There's a Quaking Aspen tree system that keeps sprouting up new trees from the same underground roots, and it's estimated to be 80,000 years old. It's not beyond the realm of possibility that this plant here is something similar."

He felt the beads of sweat running down the back of his own neck. So this was the monster that local legend talked about. Not a serpent, but a giant, hungry plant locked under the surface of Greenland. The Norsemen who had fled the surface so many centuries ago when the weather turned on them had thought they would be safe down here. They'd been wrong. The monster had covered them in blood. It had killed them all. And it was still here, still thriving, and still looking for anything that moved and breathed.

"Anyway, didn't see that in the brochure, did you?" he said, trying to lighten the mood.

Gillian laughed nervously. She let go of his hand and slumped heavily against the wall of the tunnel.

"Gillian, wait," he called to her, reaching out to grab her arm.

Too late.

Tendrils shot out again from their hole, running along the ground, all of them thrusting in the direction of Theo and Gillian. Vibration. It was drawn to vibration. Crafty beast!

No time to admire the thing. No time for anything but one thought. "Run!" he shouted.

She was at his side again in an instant as they both ran away from the plant monster, away from the burial mounds, away from the village that time had forgotten. They ran into the dark recesses deeper into the cave.

They ran for their lives.

Chapter 10

THE WALLS BEGAN
getting closer, and closer, as the place narrowed down.

"Please don't be a dead end, please don't be a dead end," he kept repeating to himself. Their packs were back in the ruins of the village, left behind in their mad dash to save their lives. They had nothing to defend themselves with.

Soon the walls were close enough to touch on either side. The ceiling had lowered itself as well, to a few feet above their heads. And closing.

"Tell me there's a plan here!" Gillian begged him. There was no need to keep their voices down now. Not after they'd been discovered.

Theo risked a look over his shoulder. The vines or roots or whatever they were had filled the remaining area of the floor behind them, and they were still coming. How long were these things?

One flicked at his heel and he picked up his pace. Long enough, obviously.

Gillian's feet went out from under her. She unbalanced Theo, her hand still firmly in his, and he almost went down with her. "Up, up, up!" he urged, pulling on her arm.

She slipped and fell to her knees again. The tunnel was slick and wet. And warmer.

Theo could hear a hiss coming from the direction in which they were running. They must have somehow circled round and come to the air vents again.

Pain ripped through his right ankle and the world smacked him in the face.

He was disoriented and wondering why the chamber was moving. Gillian grabbed for his arms. Her fingers slipped through his.

Damn. The plant had him. It had wrapped around his ankle while he was getting Gillian up, and now it had him. It was dragging him back toward the stone ships. Back toward the hole and God alone knew what.

He did not want to find out what.

The tendril that gripped his ankle was tight but slow. Gillian tried to get close to him but other questing tendrils of thick plant-life were after her, too, and she was fighting to save her own life. He had to get it off by himself.

Flopping to his back, he unlaced and then kicked off both boots, and then undid the button and zipper of his pants and hiked them down to his knees, off his free leg, and then as the thing continued to drag him backward on his ass, he pulled his other leg free by sliding his pants off. The plant arm tightened its grip around the cuff of his pants and pulled them away from him. He was fine with that. He'd rather be freezing then dead.

Avoiding the other tendrils that still searched around him, he made it back to Gillian.

"This is the second time you've taken your pants off in front of me. Are you trying to tell me something?" she joked. They were both too scared and freaked out to find it funny.

"Come on!" The chamber with the air vents had holes in the roof where the steam escaped. They might be able to climb through... It was a long shot, but considering the plants were about to grab them, they had to chance it.

Now there's a phrase he never expected to hear himself say.

"Come on, we need to keep moving," he said to her.

She answered with, "Eeeeek!"

He turned in time to see Gillian being dragged back down the corridor, dozens of tendrils wrapping around and cocooning her.

Without a weapon or a clue as to how he could help, Theo ran after her, only dimly aware that he was being followed.

He was able to catch up with her quickly because tendrils also enveloped him and dragged him along, hastening their reunion. Considering the speed at which they were traveling, Theo was amazed that they weren't being battered bloody against the walls of the tunnel, but the tendrils wrapped around them served as a cushion. Tight enough that he couldn't move his arms or legs, but loose enough that he could breathe comfortably. The plant must like to digest its meat alive...

The movement slowed as soon as they were out of the corridor and back into the village. The plant moved them closer together, keeping them upright and facing each other, making Theo think of a pair of action figures in the hands of a small child.

Gillian's eyes were closed, her face was pale, but she seemed to be breathing.

"Gillian... are you ok?" he asked.

She didn't speak, but her eyes opened and they told him everything. That was the stupidest fucking question anyone had ever asked her.

The hissing sound grew louder, reminding Theo of the sense of being followed. He turned his head and looked back toward the tunnel.

From it, a massive grey and black snake was slithering into the village.

Gillian screamed and the plant clutched them closer together.

The snake was so large that Theo could hardly imagine that it fit through the seven foot diameter tunnel, but there it was, Nidhogg, the serpent of Minik's legend.

Gillian made the connection at the same time, and kept repeating, "Nid, Nid, Nid..."

Theo wanted to comfort her, to reassure her, but kept silent to avoid saying the second stupidest fucking thing anyone had ever said to her.

Nidhogg was not silent. Its entire length out of the tunnel now, it raised the upper half of its body high into the air, opened its mouth wide—an impressive extension of about fourteen feet—and hissed, showing off six foot long, gleaming white fangs each as thick as a man at their base that curved into needle-sharp tips that aimed backwards toward a blood-red gullet. True to many troglofaunal species, it had no eyes. True to many snakes it did not need them for its primary sensory organ was its skin and its tongue. Nidhogg's tongue was at least twenty feet long, red and moist, it flicked in and out of it's mouth tasting the air and searching for more molecules of Theo and Gillian. It zeroed in on them and the snake's reared back again, preparing to strike.

The plant clutched them tighter together again, so much that their faces were almost touching. More tendrils grew, forming a protective barrier between them and the snake...

Nidhogg struck.

And the plant deflected the monster with a tendril that matched it in size, knocking the snake across several village buildings, annihilating them.