The Vilcabamba Prophecy: A Nick Randall Novel (25 page)

The
scene in the cavern was utter chaos. Natives were firing arrows at the
soldiers, the soldiers returning fire at the natives. Sam, George, and Randall
were running in three different directions with mercenaries trying to shoot
them as well. The
action taking
place looked like a
Mad Magazine
interpretation of army
tactics gone awry. All the while, the clock ticked down toward Armageddon.

Of
the three, Sam was the first to reach her destination. She hoofed it up the
steps to
Yupanqui
, holding the medallion out to him
as she doubled over in exhaustion, unable to speak. The chief smiled, took the
medallion, and thanked her. She collapsed on the ground, her body thoroughly
expended with physical and emotional exhaustion.
Yupanqui’s
men surrounded her, creating a human shield. George arrived at the small
structure in the plaza and dove for cover from the gunfire. He landed
awkwardly, tweaking his wrist in the process. In spite of the imminent danger
to himself, his thoughts turned to Sam and her safety. He looked up at the
tablet room and did not see her. In a panic, he stood to search again for her
and saw someone lying on the ground at the chief’s feet. His heartbeat
quickened, worried that she might be injured or worse. His fear was quickly
allayed as he saw her rise to her feet, protected by the chief’s men.

Randall
was taking the worst of it. Running toward the soldiers seemed to have an
unnerving effect on them. Seeing him as a possible direct threat to their
safety, the mercenaries rewarded him with a hail of gunfire. To his amazement,
he had not been hit. Yet. His muscles screamed with pain as his
endorphin-fueled zigzagging pushed his body to its very limits.

Keeping
count as he ran, Randall determined that Sam should have had time to reach the
tribe and George should have made it to the shelter by now. He had pushed his
luck as far as it could go and he had no desire to see his journey end in this
manner. But he was running out of steam and there was no cover to be found. The
spray of bullets was becoming more intense – the soldiers only had one
target to concentrate on now, and unfortunately for Randall, it was
him
. It was only a matter of time before they adjusted fire
to hit him. Randall needed a plan. Quickly.

Sam
watched from up high as her father tried changing course away from the
mercenaries. He made a final zigzagging turn, a hornet’s nest of dust balls
kicking up all about him and then it happened. He fell to the ground and lay
motionless. They had finally gotten him. The soldiers ceased their fire at the
Professor and resumed full engagement with the tribesmen.

“Come
on, Dad, get up,
get
up!”

George,
oblivious to Randall’s predicament, came huffing and puffing up to the tablet
room, no worse for the wear. He sidled up next to Sam and put a hand on her
shoulder. “Thank God you’re alright. I thought you were hurt when I saw you
lying on the ground up here.” Sam was unresponsive, her attention fully rapt on
something happening in the plaza below. Turning to look, George discovered what
she was focused on.

Randall
was still motionless. From a distance, it was impossible to see the extent of
his wounds. Sam was overcome with a sense of helplessness. It couldn’t end this
way. It wasn’t fair.

“I’m
going to get him,” George said, starting down the steps to the open plaza.

Sam
grabbed his arm. “No, you’ll be killed, too!”

“I
can’t just leave him there! I have to do something.”

The
cavern began shaking violently again. The ground heaved as if a giant fist had
punched the earth from beneath their feet, sending Sam and George sprawling to
the ground. The shooting stopped and dust filled the air, obscuring Sam’s view
of her father. It also obscured the view of
Ackers
and his men.

Randall
realized it was now or never. As soon as the shaking subsided, he was up and
running. Playing possum had given him a chance to rest and he was determined to
use every ounce of energy left in him to make it to the tablet room. This time,
he didn’t zigzag
,
he ran straight
and fast
. The mercenaries, shaken by the
latest jolt from the earth, at
first failed to realize that their target wasn’t dead. The break in the
shooting didn’t last long though as several resumed their deadly sniping at
him.

“Look, look
George! He’s on his feet and running toward us! Come on, Dad, go!”

From their
vantage point, it almost looked like he was running in slow motion, his small
body flitting across the open ground.
Yupanqui
,
seeing the situation unfolding, directed his best archers to concentrate fire
on the soldiers who were firing on Randall. They watched as the muzzle flashes
went off and used them to mark their targets. Several of their arrows connected
and soldiers fell to the earth.

Randall was
nearing the end of the plaza. There was one block remaining between him and the
steps leading up to the tablet room and safety. He reached the intersection of
the last street and was greeted with a vicious full body blow. He dropped to
the ground, writhing in pain.
Ackers
had found him.

“Thought you
were going to make it? Well, you were wrong. Get up!”
Ackers
gritted through clenched teeth, picking up Randall like he was a bag of
feathers. Bracing his feet,
Ackers
flipped Randall
over his shoulder and slammed him back into the ground. Randall couldn’t
breathe, the wind knocked from his chest.
Ackers
grabbed Randall’s shirt and flung him against a nearby wall, his hand clenched
in rage around his throat.
Ackers
could feel
Randall’s Adam’s apple. He squeezed harder. The professor’s eyes were as large
as saucers, bugging out of his eye sockets from the pressure. Randall kicked
his feet in futility, trying to find
Ackers’s
abdomen, but had no luck. He dug his fingernails into the mercenary’s arm, and
warm red blood trickled down his forearm. The grip only grew stronger. Randall
could feel the asphyxiation now, his oxygen-deprived brain beginning to shut
down.
Ackers
released his grip and Randall fell to the
ground, choking for breath.

Ackers
staggered
backward, a hot searing pain in his upper right shoulder. An arrow had dug
deeply into his back causing him to release his grip in surprise. Randall
watched in disbelief as
Ackers
reached over his
shoulder, grabbed hold of the arrow, and wrenched it from his back with nothing
more than a slight grimace of pain. He lurched toward Randall and once again
stopped in his tracks. This time an arrow had gone straight through his left
bicep. Randall didn’t wait to see the response this time, he struggled to his
feet and began running again for the stairs. Upon reaching them, he leapt up
two at a time, never turning to see if
Ackers
was
pursuing him. He didn’t stop until he reached the top and collapsed at Sam’s
feet.

“
Ackers
… where is … he?”

“He ran back
down the street, holding his arm. Are you alright?” Sam asked as she and George
helped him back to his feet.

“Never better.”
Randall managed a smile. He glanced at his watch: twenty-six minutes left.

Yupanqui
came over and
placed a hand on his shoulder. “Thank you, my friend, for helping my people.”

Randall smiled.
“Thank you for helping us out of that mess!”

“Come, there
isn’t much time, we must get you all to safety.”

chapter
thirty-five

Dumond
picked himself up and checked for injuries. Shaken, but uninjured, he checked
the control panel: twenty-five minutes until eruption. Thanks to Randall’s
notes, he had discovered the escape pod rising directly from the center of the
power dome and how to operate it. Randall had undoubtedly been keeping this
piece of information from him, but once again, he had outsmarted his opponent.
Realizing that he had lost his chance to gain the power source, he would have
to be satisfied with his opponents being blown to bits when the volcano
erupted.

Dumond
entered the escape pod. In a matter
of minutes, he was safely on the surface above the volcano, calling for his
helicopter to pick him up. Oddly enough, another helicopter appeared from the
distance, one he did not recognize.

*
* * *

“Tom, you’ve got
to see this!” the pilot shouted over the helicopter engine’s roar.

“What
is it, Jesse?”

“This
guy just appeared out of nowhere on the slope of the hill. I don’t know where
the hell he came from.”

“Well
if he doesn’t get out of there soon, he’s going to be in some serious
deep-fried trouble. Take us closer, we’ve got to get him out of there.”

“You
sure about that, Tom? This thing looks like it’s ready to blow.”

“I
know, but we can’t just leave him there.”

Jesse
banked the Sikorsky toward the lone figure.

The helicopter
pilot made a beeline for the person on the mountainside. No one was sure how
much time they had before the volcano erupted, but it was safe to assume that
it would be sooner rather than later. When he had closed to within several
hundred yards of the mystery man, he caught a strange sight out of his
peripheral vision. Another helicopter appeared out of nowhere. “Tom, are you
aware of any other birds that are supposed to be in the area right now?”

“No, we’re the
only ones cleared to be in this airspace, why?”

“Take a look at
ten o’clock.”

Tom glanced up
and to the left.

“What the hell?
This airspace has been shut down, does that guy realize how close
Misti
is to going off?”

Gunfire raked
the airspace around the chopper. “Whoa! What’s that guy doing?”

“We’re not
sticking around to find out.” Jesse banked the Sikorsky hard to right, bringing
it around one hundred and eighty degrees in a matter of seconds. The g-forces
brought on by the sharp turn pushed Tom into his seat like a large stone had
just been tossed onto his lap. The gunfire abated and Tom looked back at the
lone figure on the ground. He didn’t stand a chance against the helicopter that
had just shot at them.

“Jesse, we need
to get on the horn to the local air traffic controllers and let them know
what’s going on.”

“Will do, I
just want to put a little more distance between us and that nut job in the
other chopper.”

* * * *

The fighting had ended as
Yupanqui’s
men had dispatched
Dumond’s
mercenaries. Still lying on the ground by the tablet room, Randall looked up to
see the smiling faces of his daughter and George. He rose to his feet as Sam
put an arm around him. “I thought I’d lost you, Dad.”

George came
forward and grabbed Randall’s hand, shaking it vigorously. “Glad you’re okay,
Dr. Randall. We were worried about you.”

“Thanks guys,
I’m okay, but I think it’s time for us to get out of this mountain.” Randall
looked at
Yupanqui
. “We’ll follow you, Chief.” The
leader of the tribe stood motionless for a moment, which seemed strange to
Randall. Then he noticed several figures a few feet in the distance, walking
toward them. Most of them were
Yupanqui’s
tribespeople
, but one was significantly taller. Randall
judged the height of the bigger one to be about six feet.
Obviously he’s not one of them
, he thought to himself.
Or, if he is, he’s someone pretty important.
Randall kept his eyes locked on the taller figure. The smaller ones stopped
walking, but the last one continued toward them, his pace quickening.

“Dad, who is
that? Why is one of them so much bigger than the rest?” Sam asked, unsure of
what she was seeing.

“I’m not sure,”
Randall replied as he stared at the tall figure slowly moving in his direction.
As the stranger approached, a distant glow of recognition struggled to the
surface of Randall’s subconscious, fighting its way through the murky depths of
his memories. He had seen the tall one before, but where?

Sam was the
first to recognize him. “Oh my God, it’s him! Dad, it’s him!”

Suddenly, as if
a searchlight had snapped on inside the darkness of his mind, Randall saw the
stranger and realized who it was. “Phil!”

Rarely was
Randall at a loss for words, but this was one of those occasions. The young
graduate student ran up to his mentor and gave him a monstrous hug, lifting him
up off the ground. “How are you, Dr. R?” Phil said, grinning like a Cheshire
cat.

“How … what … you’re
okay!” Randall stammered.

“I’m okay,
these nice folks helped me out.”

“But what
happened to you? We set you down on the floor and then the earthquake hit and
you disappeared! We looked all over and couldn’t find you!”

“To be honest,
it’s a bit foggy to me, too. I remember I was fading fast, slipping into and
out of consciousness. The last thing I remember, the earth was moving and then
things went black. When I woke up, I was in a really bright room, lying on a
table. At first, I thought you had gotten me to a hospital … but it didn’t look
like any hospital I’d ever seen. The funny thing is, I wasn’t scared. I guess I
was in pretty bad shape because I just passed out again, but then someone
patched me up. Look, I barely even have a scar!” Phil lifted his bloody shirt
to reveal only the faintest trace of where the bullet had pierced his chest.
“Next thing I know, I wake up with some of
Yupanqui’s
people staring down at me. Then they brought me back to the cavern. Pretty
weird, huh?”

“After what
we’ve been through, it just seems like par for the course, but it sure is great
to see you, son.” Randall squeezed his shoulder, thankful for a chance to see
his friend again. Wiping his eyes, he said, “We’d better get going; we don’t
have much time. Chief, which way is out?”

The group
followed
Yupanqui
, who led them down a previously
unseen tunnel. They walked in relative silence for a short distance.

“By the way,
Dr. R, where’s Mike?”

Randall stopped
immediately, the lump returning to his throat. Unable to look into his graduate
student’s eyes, he said, “Mike didn’t make it, Phil.”

Phil blinked
and hesitated before speaking again. “What do you mean?”

Randall
steadied himself. “I found him in
Dumond’s
compound.
He must have been brought there when
Dumond
found you
two in the tunnel. I was able to sneak into the compound and into the room
where he was being held, but a guard heard us talking and burst into the room
ready to shoot. I fought with him and his gun went off. The bullet hit Mike … I
couldn’t do anything to help him … he died in my arms.”

Phil remained
motionless.

“Phil,” Sam
said softly, touching his arm, “I’m really sorry. I know you two were close.”

Sam could see
that he was fighting back tears. Only an occasional sniffling noise broke the
deafening silence. Finally, he spoke. “I can’t believe he’s gone. He was like a
brother to me.” Now the tears began falling. Phil tried mopping them up with
the sleeve of his bloody shirt. “It’s not fair, I could have been the one who died,
but they saved me. Why did it have to be Mike?” Phil’s head began shaking back
in forth as if he was trying to get the image of his dying friend out of his
mind.

“I’m sorry
Phil, I …” was all Randall could say.

The group stood
in the same spot for some time while
Yupanqui
patiently waited. Finally George spoke.

“Guys, I got to
know Mike while we were in that room together and I know this is hard, but we
still need to find our way out of here. Mike thought of you as his family and
he would have wanted all of you to get home safely.”

Phil was the
first to respond. “You’re right. It’s bad enough losing Mike, I don’t know what
I would do if I lost you guys, too.” They walked along in silence, following
Chief
Yupanqui
to a fork in the tunnel.

“My friends, follow
this to the surface. I must return to my people, our time is at hand.” Randall
stared up the shaft that led to the surface. A faint but persistent glow shimmered
in the distance. Daylight.

“Thank you,
Chief, we’ll never forget you.” Randall shook his hand.

Yupanqui
looked
squarely into Randall’s eyes. “You will always be remembered by my people for
what you have done for us.” Looking at Sam now, he added, “You and your father
are heroes to my tribe.” With that,
Yupanqui
departed
from the group.

Randall started
up the angular tunnel, anxious to get Sam, Phil, and George to safety. He took
two steps and stopped. Something seemed to be calling him back into the main
cavern. Not quite a voice as much a sense of unfinished business. "You all
go on without me, I'll be a few minutes behind you."

"Is
everything okay?" Sam asked.

"Everything’s
fine, I'll only be a couple of minutes. You three get to the surface."
Randall turned away from them and walked back into the cavern to end the
possibility of discussion. Phil and George looked at Sam, who hesitated
momentarily but began walking up the tunnel. They followed after her.

Randall entered
the cavern and was greeted with an eerie silence. He sensed a presence but
never actually saw anyone or anything.

"I have so
many questions for you and there is so much my people could learn from you. But
you haven't returned to offer explanations, have you?"

Although no
words were uttered, Randall understood that the answer was an emphatic no.

"Then why
did you call me back?”

"When you
accessed our database, you learned about my people.
Our
history and our purpose on your planet.
You also discovered some
troubling information."

"They're
real aren't they? Who are they? Where are they from and why are they
here?"

"Our
understanding of them is limited, but their purpose here isn't peaceful."

"Can you
help us? What can I do if I encounter them?"

"When the
time comes, you will know."

Randall stood
in the middle of the tunnel, somewhat uneasy about the
conversation
taking
place inside of his mind, but his confusion was soon replaced by
a brief sense of profound serenity.

"Can you
tell me what they’re called?"

"We simply
call them The Others. More than this, I cannot tell you.”

Randall was
overwhelmed with a sense of wonderment and uncertainty.

“What should I
do next?"

There was no
reply. Randall stared into the shadows and caught a slight movement out of the
corner of his eye. Someone or something was walking towards him. He braced
himself for what would happen next.

The figure
moved slowly and deliberately, staying in the shadows. When it was finally
within arms distance of Randall, it stepped into the light.

Shock gripped
Randall as he stared into the face of Chief
Yupanqui
.

“It’s you,” he
said, a sense of bewilderment washing over him. “I just imagined the whole
experience of meeting your brethren,” Randall said, unsure what to think.

“In time, all
things will make sense to you,”
Yupanqui
said, a warm
smile on his face. He reached up and grasped Randall’s shoulder. “You are a
good man Randall. Watch over your family and appreciate each day with them.”