The Weird Company (24 page)

Confused, I ran my hand over my head and made yet another discovery. My scalp and indeed the rest of my body was covered with a fine stubble. It seemed that a significant amount of growth had occurred while I slept. Apparently, whatever had caused the loss of all my hair, some chemical exposure or physical trauma, did not cause any permanent damage.

I spent the next four hours navigating a dark, seemingly endless tunnel. The time I spent in that shaft and the things that occurred are meaningless in comparison to the events that transpired once I emerged from it, so I will not bother to describe them in any significant detail. Though it should be plain that after spending such a long time in the dark and barren corridors it was a welcome relief when I finally emerged into yet another massive underground chamber, I immediately noticed that the chamber I had come to was significantly unlike the two I had previously explored. Instantly my senses were assaulted by a cacophony of sound that flooded the room and made my teeth ache. It was a rhythmic crashing sound like waves of steel crashing against a shore of glass, horrendous in its nature and bone-shaking in its intensity. With each pounding crescendo I cringed and instinctively covered my head, which served me well as each beat was followed by a heated gust of wind that carried with it a grey sticky ash and such a stench that would put an abattoir to shame.

The source of these violent sounds and noxious bursts was not readily apparent to me, for unlike the prior chambers which were devoid of features save for the pits and the phosphorescent fungi, this one was filled with great mounds of grey rock and ash that towered over me like hills, nearly reaching the ceiling itself. Fearful, but driven by an overwhelming sense of scientific curiosity, I removed my pack and cautiously secreted it underneath a small pile of rubble, concealing it completely from casual view. I then climbed slowly and carefully to the top of one of the great mounds. Several times I lost my footing and either slid backwards down the mound, or found myself in a patch of fine loose material not unlike quicksand.

Reaching the summit, I found myself suddenly in close vicinity to one of the many phosphorescent clumps that served to light the great cavernous halls, and I examined it in detail. It was as I suspected a type of fungi but not one with which I was familiar, and it exhibited features that were wholly unlike those normally associated with that kingdom. A large globular growth almost a yard in diameter, the fungi appeared strikingly similar to an inverted street lamp. Not surprisingly, the thing was evenly divided into five panes of semitransparent material that appeared to have the consistency of amber or dried maple syrup, but paper thin. These panes were held in place by a thick organic green latticework. Through the panes I could make out a bulbous cluster which was the source of the strange cool light, a light to which I was strangely attracted, nearly mesmerized.

Forcefully tearing my attention away from the organic lantern, I turned to look out over the vast chamber. My position on top of the debris pile augmented by a plethora of the luminescent growths gave me a nearly unobstructed view of the artificially constructed cavern, and again I wished that it hadn’t, for the sight which was revealed to me set my heart racing and my mind reeling. To describe the thing as inhumanly monstrous would not begin to explain the nature of it, for it was beyond anything I had seen before. Where the pit-thing could be portrayed as protoplasmic and bearing a superficial resemblance to a hyperbolic slime mold or amoeba, this creature was simply alien, bearing no resemblance, not even an exaggerated one, to any earthly creature. It was an abomination pure and simple, a hideous affront to the laws of nature as well as of physics. I do not have the words to give the thing a proper description, and I apologize for lacking those skills, but in the interest of science I shall try.

The main mass of the creature was a fluid darkness larger than a subway car. It had no true shape or boundary, but I could discern in the darkness of its bulk great masses of flowing currents and roiling boils that would seem to churn up and explode out into nothingness. The heaving, turbulent darkness was surrounded by a green, wispy haze that clung like fog on a mountain top. Between the two components of the creature there was no clear division and as I watched, volumes of the fog would seem to condense all at once into inky blackness, while in other areas the darkness would suddenly sublimate into a mass of the thick verdigris mist.

The hulking mass was, as I have noted, an inky blackness, but at the same time it was inexplicably translucent, like a fine piece of smoky quartz or volcanic glass. This property, this transparent darkness, made my eyes ache as I watched it flow and change and move. Its primary method of locomotion appeared to be similar to amoeboid motion, moving the bulk of its mass forward in a wave front that more or less crashed like a wave. This was not its only method of travel, however, for it also produced from itself a myriad of appendages of all shapes and vast sizes that would seem to supplement its forward motion. A phalanx of jointed appendages not unlike those of a grasshopper pushed it onward, while a pair of rough-hewn arms with great circular suckers clasped onto the floor before the thing and dragged the hulking entity about. Tentacles, arms and legs came into existence and dissolved as needed, as did other specialized organs including a multitude of feelers, visual receptors, a trumpet-like organ I assumed was analogous to an ear, and a moist fan of tendrils that I gathered was designed to provide a sense of smell.

Along with these appendages and organs, the creature appeared to have created a set of features that seemed specific to the task at hand, namely carving this chamber into the standard pentagonal shape. The front of the monstrosity had been transformed into twin huge jaw-like shovels lined with massive and wicked picks. The creature would literally bite into the wall of raw rock and then swallow the resulting chunk of boulder-sized stone. Seconds later, a huge tube-like orifice on the creature’s anterior end would suddenly swell up and belch out a cloud of grey sediment onto the floor, forming the mounds that were scattered about the chamber, and the clouds of sticky ash that were driven into fearful gusts by the forceful expulsion.

Witnessing the presence of this creature, its actions, its size, its very existence, I became momentarily dumbstruck, and in that instant I lost my footing and slid from the top of the mounded debris, tumbling head first through the coarse gravel. My fall initiated a minor avalanche and my landing on the hard floor was accompanied by the sound of pebbles and rocks skittering, clattering and echoing through the chamber. I lay stunned for a moment surrounded by a sudden, relative silence. At first I thought I had suffered some sort of neurological trauma, for the pounding sound of the beast chewing through the rock had ceased to fill my ears. That delusion vanished as a new sound wormed its way toward me. I grabbed my supplies and blindly dashed across the floor, pursued by the sound of colossal limbs rushing after me. Hot breath blasted from behind me, whipping my body forward in terror. How I reached the safety of the tunnel, I did not understand, but I did, and I was again free to explore the dark labyrinth.

A few hours later, and several turns through the darkness, the horror of my encounter was supplanted by a wondrous new discovery. The latest chamber that I emerged into was a virtual paradise compared to those prior. The dominant feature was a large, roughly circular pond or small lake around which a lush garden of sedges, shrubs, bushes and small trees grew. Light in this chamber was provided by the same fungi that were present in the other chambers, but whereas previously the ceilings were dominated by a small number of specimens, the roof of this chamber was covered with thousands of such growths, so densely packed that in some areas the ceiling stone itself could no longer be discerned. Besides the fungi and plants, there was a myriad of small and primitive animal life darting about the chamber including a great diversity of beetles clumsily flying through the air on clunky, thick, veined wings, but neither was there any lack of swarming ants. Spiders, scorpions and centipedes were also represented, as well as invertebrates I could not readily recognize or classify. A great grasshopper-like thing came to roost on my hand, an event that apparently I was accustomed to, as I did not panic, but I soon discovered this was no ordinary orthopteran. While my initial attention was drawn to the ornately crested head and a colorful thorax, it was only when it prepared to leap that I noticed it bore not six legs but seven, having not a pair of femura modified for jumping but rather an asymmetrical set. Stunned, I watched as the thing deftly sprang away from me into the brush and toward the central pond. The miniature lake was cool and clear and teeming with life, including things akin to shrimp and crayfish. Algae and a leafy submergent macrophyte dominated the floor of the pool which was composed of a thick layer of loosely consolidated sand and rock. There was no evidence of larger predators: no tracks were evident and I heard no calls.

I thought perhaps to capture several of the shrimp-like creatures and cook them up for a warm meal. I waded into the pond and, using the shovel from my kit, slowly herded a few of the creatures into the shallows, then deftly slipped the blade under them and flipped the crustaceans onto the bank. Removed from their natural habitat, they flipped up into the air in random directions, trying to get back into the water. Satisfied with the clutch that I had captured, I stumbled my way out of the pond, losing my footing and sliding face first into the bank. I recovered, wiping the wet grit from my eyes and face. Bending down to gather up my fresh lunch, I found that it had vanished. I searched the grass and the nearby shrubs, but to no avail. I concluded that the things must have escaped back to the pond while I had stumbled out of it.

Frustrated, I stepped back into the water and again corralled a few of the creatures into the shallows and launched them onto the bank. This time I kept my eye on the creatures as they struggled to survive. They flipped into the air a few times, and then flopped weakly against the ground before settling down and resolving themselves to a few last twitches. As their pathetic twitching slowed, I reached out for them but withdrew my hand in fear. The five translucent grey decapods began to quiver again, more violently, where they lay on the grass and then slowly began to melt. Enthralled, I watched as the things sagged and then, not unlike hot wax, flowed into the moss without a trace. Cautiously, I reached out to touch the place where they had been, but nothing at all remained. I tore at the thin vegetation, scraping the clumps of tiny plants from the ground and tossing them violently into the air, heedless of where they might fall. My tantrum revealed nothing but the ubiquitous grey rock forming the walls and floors of the chambers and tunnels. Overwrought, I fell back and screamed in anguish.

My cry was countered by a tremendous roar, as if a titan had stirred. So loud was it that I could not identify where exactly it had come from. The trees and shrubs shook, small creatures dashed about in obvious fear, and in the distance one of the fungal lanterns shook loose from the ceiling and crashed through the canopy into the underbrush. The sound trailed off, fading to a deep grumble, then to a low hum, until finally only a faint trace of a vibration remained. In the meantime the small glade had grown deathly still and silent.

I scrambled to my feet and frantically grabbed my supplies. With my head down I was oblivious of anything beyond my narrow field of vision, but as I rose up and swung my backpack on I was shocked to discover the small glade-like area vanishing before my very eyes. Trees and shrubs were melting, forming huge pools of viscous fluid that flowed slowly back to the pond in the center of the chamber. The insects and other small life forms, suddenly deprived of cover, were swarming, forming thick banks of darkness that would hover in swirling banks of shadow that would suddenly coalesce and then collapse into a rain of gelatin.

I ran, ran as fast as I could toward the next tunnel while beneath my feet the mossy landscape dissolved. With each step forward, the ersatz ecosystem vanished. Like a tide going out, the glade and all its inhabitants flowed away from the outer walls, draining away, leaving only the cold, bare rock in its place. I ran, and the thick fluid splashed about me, covering my legs and then streaming off, as if contact with my very being was repulsive to it. As I reached the tunnel I paused, terrified by what was occurring behind me, by the noises, the horrible, tearing, wrenching noises, and fearful of embarking once more into the dark. An idea bubbled to the surface of my mind, and I suddenly understood the failure of Lot’s wife to avert her gaze, for I, too, looked back upon the devastation and destruction laying waste to the garden, and I heartily wish that I had not.

The great thing that rose up out of the central pit, that metamorphic mass from which all life in the chamber had collapsed and merged again, it towered like a titanic polyp, blindly craning about, searching, reaching out with monstrous tentacles to capture those stray spawnings that had not yet been reclaimed. At first I thought the devastation to be the result of some horrific biochemical process, perhaps a type of organic acid, spewed about, digesting everything for the monstrosity to feed upon, but as I watched in rapt horror, I knew that was not the case. For this thing, this gelatinous mass, was yet another form of the thing in the pit, one capable of more than simple replication of organs and appendages. This thing was even more advanced than the other, for as I watched the creature devour the once tranquil glade, I saw that beyond it, half-hidden by its own shadow, a new glade was taking form; trees and shrubs, animals of fantastic shape, all these were spewing forth, tearing themselves from the central mass, desperate to fill the void left behind. This metamorphic monstrosity was able to divide itself up into a myriad of component creatures and imitate them closely. It had created an entire habitat of plants and animals, nearly perfect to the casual observer, flawed only in its inability to mimic a single process, that which creates the leaf litter and other materials that form the detritus covering the forest floor. A simple process inherent in every form of life known to science, this thing could not mimic it for the simple fact that its creations did not die and rot but were only reabsorbed. This terrified me to the core. One might then suppose that the thing in its changing forms must be immortal, but instead I grew to suspect that it was all some sort of organic machine, using a process similar to cellular regeneration but improved tremendously. The things cannot die, for they are not truly alive, at least not as we humans define it. With these horrific thoughts rambling through my head, I plunged headlong into the dark, winding labyrinth, and away from the monstrous form that had deceived me.