Stairway to Hell Page 3

  Mostyn continued, “Kemper, Baker, you two and I will be next. Beames, Zink, you two will follow. Jones, Slezak, you will follow Beames and Zink. Pettigrew and Grundseth, you two will be the rearguard. Any questions?”

  “How far are we going?” Slezak asked.

  “Until we get some answers,” Mostyn replied. “Any other questions?”

  Baker’s flash went off, a click sounded, and the flash went off again.

  Private First Class Patty Gibson asked, “If we see hostiles, do we shoot first?”

  “We don’t know, yet, for sure if these people are hostiles. The account from Binger indicated a fair amount of xenophobia. Consequently what we encountered earlier may have just been them protecting their turf, not an indication of actual hostility towards us. I don’t want to be in a position where we shoot our way in, only to have to shoot our way out again. If we see any of these subterranean inhabitants, I want to give them the benefit of the doubt. Shoot only on my command. Understood?”

  “Sure seemed hostile to me,” Kemper said.

  A look of exasperation flitted across Mostyn’s face. “Does everyone understand you only shoot on my command? That includes you, Dotty.”

  There was a chorus of nodding heads and verbal affirmations, including a nod from Dotty Kemper.

  “Are you people done examining that stonework?”

  “Yes,” Zink replied.

  Baker’s camera clicked, the flash brilliant in the gloom.

  “Alright then people, let’s go!”

  Down the stairs they went, which were wide enough to accommodate three people walking side by side. The combined illumination of their headlamps dispelled the gloom and they saw the stairway descend into the bowels of the earth.

  “The masonry here is quite interesting,” Zink commented. “The walls and stairs for the first thirty feet of our descent were made from basalt blocks. The builders then switched to limestone.”

  “Why?” Baker asked.

  “I’m thinking because basalt was more difficult to find than limestone or sandstone,” Zink explained. “I’m not a geologist, but ancient peoples tended to build with what they had on hand. This area of Oklahoma has plenty of limestone and sandstone that’s fairly easy to obtain. So if the building project was ordinary, they would use what was available.”

  “Very true,” Beames agreed. “For very special projects, they might import special stone.”

  “Agreed,” Zink said.

  “So why the basalt?” Kemper asked.

  “More durable than limestone that hasn’t been sealed against water,” Zink explained.

  “And they made the switch why?” Baker asked, snapping pictures of the grotesque figures in bas-relief decorating the walls. Unseemly monstrosities in various positions copulating with or eating humans. There were also images of human beings tortured by other humans and of humans in various coital positions.

  Zink answered, “I suppose they felt less chance of water damage this far down.”

  “I suppose that makes sense,” Baker replied, snapping more pictures.

  “These people are sick,” Kemper said. “Nothing but torture and fucking.”

  “What’s wrong with fucking?” Slezak asked.

  “Nothing,” Kemper replied, “unless it’s with one of those godawful looking creatures.” She stopped a moment to look at a human-sized frog copulating with a large-breasted woman. “Shit, that’s sick,” she muttered, and continued walking. After a moment, she added, “I suppose that’s what was going on in Agate Bay.”

  “Yep,” Mostyn affirmed.

  Kemper shuddered.

  Thirteen pairs of shoes and boots plodded on down the stairs. The pitch blackness finally fleeing before their lights. The deeper they went, the quieter everyone got until only the sound of shoes and boots on the stone was heard. In places, rivulets of water had eaten away the limestone blocks. Suddenly, the stairway ended and the limestone blocks gave way to carved natural rock. Mostyn ordered a halt.

  “Let’s take ten before continuing,” he said.

  Gibson and Tanner put their weapons down and sat on the rock floor. They took out their canteens and sipped water. Michelson set down the machine gun and leaned against the wall. Corporal Ellis made his way to the back of the group to talk with Pettigrew and Grundseth, who were leaning against the rock wall, drinking water.

  Zink took the opportunity to examine the rock face. Beames sat, drinking from her canteen. Jones and Slezak were leaning against the wall talking very quietly to each other. Kemper and Baker sat, while Mostyn went to the back of the formation and took a long look back up the stairs. The entrance was a tiny pinpoint of light.

  He turned around and asked, “Anyone have any idea how deep we are?”

  Zink turned from his examination of the rock and looked back at Mostyn. “Based on rate of descent and distance travelled, I’d guess we’re about seven, eight hundred feet below the surface.”

  Mostyn thanked him, and made his way back to the front of the formation, tagging Jones to join him. They walked about fifty feet ahead of the group.

  Jones observed, “I’m surprised it’s not stuffy down here.”

  “Yes, that is interesting.” Mostyn examined the wall. “No sign of any sort of torch.” He looked up at the rock which was about twelve feet above them. “No sign of soot on the ceiling, either.”

  “Odd. Don’t you think?”

  “I do, Jones, I do. They either don’t use torches, or haven’t been down this way often enough to leave marks.”

  “The stairs weren’t worn from heavy use, either.”

  “No, they weren’t.” Mostyn looked down the tunnel. “Wider, here, too. We could stand six across easy.” He took a final look around. “Okay, let’s join the others. And Jones?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Just remember, this is a mission. Not The Bachelor. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good.”

  They walked back to the rest of the team, where Mostyn told everyone they were moving out and to stay alert. The team walked on down the tunnel which had a slight descending grade to it and thereby gradually took them deeper into the earth.

  There were no bas-reliefs on the walls, although periodically a cartouche containing various figures and shapes had been carved into the rock. Slezak examined several and said that while they looked Egyptian, they weren’t. When Mostyn asked her if she could read the inscriptions, she replied she’d never seen anything like them before.

  Zink confirmed they appeared to be hieroglyphs from an unknown language, if they were indeed hieroglyphs; and Beames noted they weren’t from any Native peoples she was familiar with, ancient or modern.

  The team continued down the tunnel for about half a mile when it opened up into a very large chamber.

  “Form a circle around me, everybody, and I want you facing outward,” Mostyn called out. From the center of the circle, he was able to survey the lamplit chamber. He guessed the large room to be fifty feet in diameter and about forty feet high. Ninety degrees from the tunnel entrance, on both the left and right sides of the room, where large alcoves.

  In the alcove on the right was a statue of Cthulhu on a pedestal. His hunched winged-body and octopus head was carved out of some kind of iridescent green stone. The pedestal on which he sat was of some manner of black-colored rock.

  The alcove on the left contained a statue of Shub-Niggurath, the Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young. The figure carved in the black stone was of a goat’s head with a female face, a woman’s upper torso, with large pendulous breasts, and the arms of a woman and the legs of a goat. The pedestal on which the deity stood was the carven effigies of her myriad children.

  Beames muttered, “That thing is positively grotesque.”

  Zink, who was standing to her left, said, “Welcome to insanity.”

  Kemper, who was standing across from Cthulhu, said, “That stone makes this thing look alive.”

  Baker, o
n her right, added, “Be thankful it isn’t.”

  PFC Evan Tanner, to Baker’s right, his voice containing a slight tremolo, said, “What is this place? What are these, these things?"

  “That,” Mostyn answered, “is the great Cthulhu. Now he sleeps. Pray to whatever you deem sacred he never wakes.”

  Jones was looking up. He called out, “Boss, does that look like soot on the ceiling?”

  “Everyone look up,” Mostyn ordered. With the combined effect of their lamps, he confirmed Jones’s suspicion, as did Zink and Beames.

  “Can we take a break?” Slezak asked.

  “Take ten, people,” Mostyn said. “Jones, with me.”

  With Jones following, Mostyn entered the tunnel directly opposite of the one by which they’d entered the chamber. They walked about a hundred feet, Mostyn listening and studying the walls, floor, and ceiling.

  “What do you think, Boss?”

  “I don’t know, Jones. Seems, to me, highly unusual that our diaphanous guards should simply disappear. Why wouldn’t they want to stop our advance?”

  “Maybe they want us here?”

  “Yes, that’s what I’m thinking.”

  “Maybe we ought to go back. Get reinforcements.”

  “That’s one option. Although I only have two more MPs to draw from.”

  Jones started to speak and Mostyn held his hand up to silence him. After a moment, he asked, “You hear that?”

  “Yeah, it sounds like the slapping of bare feet on stone.”

  “I think company’s coming. C’mon!”

  Mostyn ran back to the chamber, Jones following. He burst into the room. “Everyone, back into the tunnel! We’ve got company!”

  In a mad scramble, soldiers and scientists rushed back the way they’d come. Mostyn called out, “Gibson, Tanner, Michelson, Ellis, you have the firepower. You’ll be in the mouth of the tunnel. Jones and I will be behind you. Pettigrew and Grundseth, you’re the rear guard. Listen up! If they attack and we can’t hold them, the rest of you retreat. Get the hell out of here and back to the surface. Tell Obermaier to seal the stairway. Now get down, everyone!”

  The team was in position in the tunnel and waited for whoever it was that was coming. They didn’t have long to wait. Shambling into the chamber was a horde of beings, for human would be too generous a term for them.

  Perhaps they’d once been human, but no human has two heads, or three legs, or five arms, or seven eyes. And no human has no head or the body of a four-legged animal. What was also apparent, was that they were ready for combat. In their hands were an array of spears, bows and arrows, swords, and maces.

  Slezak screamed and panicked, thrashing about in an attempt to flee. It took both Zink and Baker to get her under control.

  Mostyn, in a quiet voice said, “Tanner, get ready. Those, I’m guessing, are y’m-bhi. Think of them as being like zombies.”

  “Got it, sir,” Tanner answered, and got his flamethrower ready.

  To the group of beings in the chamber, Mostyn called out, “We mean no harm. I would like to speak to your leader.”

  There was no initial response, then after a few moments up came a bow with an arrow nocked to the string. Mostyn yelled, “Tanner, now!”

  There was a click and then a stream of fire shot out of the barrel of the flamethrower, cutting through the zombie-like creatures, and hitting the opposite wall. PFC Tanner swung the barrel and, in the ten seconds that the igniter cartridge was burning, he’d reduced the living dead to a pile of smoking and charred flesh. He emptied the burnt out cartridge and put in a fresh one.

  In a matter of moments, another hoard of the zombie-like creatures poured into the chamber and Tanner’s flamethrower spewed out another wall of fire that reduced the ambulatory dead to a pile of smoldering flesh and bones.

  “How many more of those things are there?” Corporal Ellis muttered.

  Tanner looked back. “I don’t know, Corporal, but I’m almost out of fuel.”

  “The spirits! The spirits!” Beames yelled.

  “Fire, Gibson! Fire!” Mostyn ordered.

  “Where? I don’t see anything.” Gibson’s voice was shaking.

  “Arc it!” Mostyn yelled.

  She flipped the switch, the sonic disruptor powered up, and she pulled the trigger as fast as she could, swinging the big weapon in an arc across the chamber.

  “Beames! Did she get them?” Mostyn asked.

  “They’re gone,” Beames replied.

  “Okay, people, let’s get out of here,” Mostyn commanded. “Back the way we came. And double-time it.”

  Thirteen people took off running back up the corridor. Suddenly Private First Class Pettigrew screamed, “They’re here!” And both she and PFC Grundseth opened fire.

  Mostyn pushed his way to what was now the front of the column. Seven bodies lay in the tunnel.

  “They just appeared out of nowhere,” Grundseth said.

  Mostyn heard behind him the whine of the sonic disruptor and the crack of a pistol. In front of him a half-dozen figures materialized and in a second they were cut down by Pettigrew and Grundseth.

  From the back of the column, came the whoosh of the flamethrower and then the whine of the disruptor.

  More figures materialized in front of the column and they were quickly cut down by Pettigrew and Grundseth.

  “Come on! Let’s move it!” Mostyn yelled, and took off at a run up the tunnel with Pettigrew, Grundseth, and the rest of his team following.

  Pistol and rifle fire came from behind and up ahead a large group suddenly materialized. Pettigrew and Grundseth emptied their magazines and still more people materialized in front of Mostyn’s team, blocking their retreat.

  Ellis shouted, “The flamethrower’s empty, there’s no more charge for the disruptor, and we have ghosts up our ass. Dozens of them!”

  Mostyn looked back and saw the partially de-materialized beings. They were clearly visible, but there was a filmy translucent quality about them. He turned around and saw the very large group of very physical men in front of him and then they were yelling and screaming as they charged.

  Grundseth and Pettigrew got their rifles reloaded, but not before the attackers were on them and they were quickly overpowered. Mostyn threw a punch and caught one of the attackers before he could use his club. He put his head down and barreled into a man, who went down. Mostyn was on top of him and grabbed his club, using it to block a slash from a sword.

  Suddenly there was only Mostyn, with half a dozen sword points mere inches from his chest.

  5

  Mostyn found himself, alone, in a simple room lying on a bed. He sat up, pushed the thin blanket aside, and swung his feet to the floor. He was naked.

  Hopefully his captors would provide him with clothes. He wondered why they hadn’t left him his own clothes. They were undoubtedly different than what the native inhabitants wore. They’d be just as good as prison garb.

  He let his eyes take in his environment. The walls, ceiling, and floor were of white stone. On the floor were thick rugs. The colors were mostly shades of red and blue, black, and off-white. The room contained the bed on which he sat, a small table and two chairs made of some manner of woody fibers, a sofa, an upholstered chair, and a wardrobe.

  There was a window covered with yellow curtains. He got up and walked to it. Pushing aside the curtains, he saw there was no glass in the window. The view was of a city. The buildings, he noticed, were also made of white stone and were not overly tall. Although a few looked to be more than ten stories high. Everything was bathed in a bluish light. His room was four floors up from ground level and below him was a street. It wasn’t exceptionally busy and the only traffic was pedestrian.

  Turning around, he noticed the door in the wall opposite him. It was probably locked, but he wouldn’t know unless he tried the handle. He walked over to it and it was indeed locked.

  “A wardrobe usually means clothes,” Mostyn said out loud, just to hear a voice. He walked to i
t and opened the doors. Hanging inside were three white robes. A pair of sandals were on the bottom of the unit.

  He took a robe off a peg and slipped it on. The hem fell to his ankles. The fabric felt like linen. He slipped on the sandals, which were made of some kind of leather.

  Next to the bed was a door. He crossed the room and turned the handle. The door opened to reveal a bathroom. There was a window, tub, commode, and sink.

  “They have running water,” he said to the stillness. “At least I won’t have to rely on a chamber pot.”

  He closed the door and crossed to the upholstered chair and sat. The last thing he remembered was looking at six sword tips ready to make shish kebab out of him, when a tall man walked up and threw a powder into his face. He couldn’t help but breathe some of it in and, when he did, he sneezed and that was that. The next thing he knew he was waking up in a strange room, obviously a prisoner.

  The question uppermost in his mind was what happened to his team members. Were they alive? If so, were they being held prisoner in similar rooms? And Dotty. Where was Dotty?

  His mind went back over the testimony of Howard Langley and his account of the supposed conquistador Pánfilo de Zamacona y Nuñez. If they were in the subterranean land of K’n-yan, and if Zamacona’s tale, via Langley, was even remotely true, things did not bode well for Mostyn and the members of his team. The best they could hope for was to die a natural death being the permanent guests of the K’n-yanians. The worst was a hideous death in an amphitheater providing entertainment for their captors.

  Mostyn sat in his brown study for some time until a shimmering in the air in front of the door aroused his attention. He watched three men materialize in front of him. They wore white robes. The one in the middle wore a gold circlet in the shape of leaves on a vine. He was unarmed. The other two men were armed with spears and swords. The man in the middle had an intelligent face. The two on either side of him looked like mannikins.

  Mostyn stood. In his mind appeared the question, “Are you the one called ‘Mostyn’?” He tried to form a picture of himself in his mind. The man across from him remained impassive. In succession, Mostyn nodded his head, said “Yes”, and said “Sí”.