Earthcore, p.1
Earthcore, page 1
EARTHCORE
by Scott Sigler
Earthcore
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2017 by Empty Set Entertainment, LLC
www.emptyset.com
www.scottsigler.com
ISBN: 978-1-939366-89-4
Cover design by Scott E. Pond at Scott E. Pond Designs
Ebook design by Chris Casey
Published in the United States of America
By Empty Set Entertainment
DEDICATION:
For the Sigler Junkies — back to where it all started.
THANKS:
To the Secret Agents who made this book as accurate as it could be:
Dr. Joseph Albietz III, M.D.
Dr. Jeremy Ellis, Ph.D.
Chris Grall, U.S. Army Special Forces (Ret.)
J.P. Harvey, Colonel, U.S. Air Force (Ret.)
Dr. Phil Plait, Ph.D.
John Vizcarra
A B Kovacs
Also by Scott Sigler
Novels
Infected (Infected Trilogy Book I)
Contagious (Infected Trilogy Book II)
Ancestor
Nocturnal
Pandemic (Infected Trilogy Book III)
Earthcore
The Generations Trilogy:
Alive
Alight
Alone
The Galactic Football League Series (YA):
The Rookie
The Starter
The All-Pro
The MVP
The Champion
The Galactic Football League novellas (YA):
The Reporter
The Detective
Title Fight
The Color Series short story collections:
Blood is Red
Bones are White
Fire is Orange
Contents
Prologue
Book One: Opportunity
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Book Two: Camp
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Book Three: Funeral Mountain
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Book Four: The Tunnels
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Book Five: The Rocktopi
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Book Six: Exodus
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Epilogue
Bibliography
Prologue
March 15, 1942
Wilford Igoe Jr. wrapped his fingers around the pumpkin-shaped rock, moved it a half inch to the left, then waited to die.
He held his breath, listening for further grinding sounds, for the sound of settling rocks — the sounds of certain death.
No sounds came. He let out a long sigh of relieved tension.
“Just a little more, Will,” said his friend Samuel, who stood behind him in the cramped cave, watching for any signs of settling.
Will could only grunt in response. The light from Samuel’s mining helmet jittered from side to side, up and down, bouncing all over the rough gray rock that filled Will’s hands. Will’s own helmet lay behind him and to the right — he’d had to take it off to squeeze into the narrow crawl space among the cluster of ancient boulders.
The headlamps’ illumination was the first light this pitch-black place had known in decades, possibly centuries. Sunlight had never graced the interior of the cave, not this far into the zone of perpetual darkness.
“Stop moving that damn light, Samuel,” Will said, growling out the words. “If I move this rock the wrong way, we’re all goners.” Samuel’s light stopped bouncing, but only for a moment, then began flittering about again, following the excited movements of his head.
Will fought down his irritation and tried to concentrate, which wasn’t easy considering his position. He was wedged into the crawl space that he, Samuel and Douglas had made over the last three days. The space was part of a much larger tunnel that led steadily down into the mountain. Will’s head was at the low end of that incline, his body lying in powdery cave silt. It felt like going down a slide headfirst, although he wasn’t actually moving, especially if he couldn’t budge that boulder.
But removing the rock wasn’t the real problem. He had to move it right, he had to move it just so. The boulders surrounding him were remnants of an ancient cave-in. You couldn’t tell how these rocks had settled against one another. Move out a “linchpin” rock — even a tiny one — and sudden settling would crush anything lying below.
“Come on, Will,” Samuel said. His excited voice rang off the dead stone walls. “Try a little to the left.”
“Up yours, Anderson,” Will said. He wrestled with the chunk of limestone, his thick arms shaking with a combination of exhaustion and concerted effort.
Thousands of years ago this passage had housed a swiftly churning underground river. Now all that remained of the ancient stream was the tunnel itself and a floor of bone-dry silt, two inches thick and as fine as high-grade flour. That same silt coated Will’s sweaty skin.
Sweat dripped from his face, the inverted position making it seem as if it ran up his neck, up his cheeks and into his stinging eyes. Will heard his own labored breathing as he wrestled with the rock, which had already split open two of his knuckles. His breath sounded loud — not because of the claustrophobically confined space, but because there were no background sounds. A hundred yards into the cave and all sound ceased. Not even the insects made noise, although that far down the insects were strange indeed: blind crickets with fragile antennae twice as long as their body; tiny beetles that burrowed ceaselessly into the sand; and ghostly white, long-legged spiders that had never felt the faintest trickle of sun.
“Sam, keep that fucking light still!”
To Sam, the opportunity to take the cave deep into the rock layers — to travel through the mountain as if they were a blood cell in the circulatory system of the very stone itself — was like heaven on Earth. Sam couldn’t wait to get through this cave-in and continue exploring the tunnel. Will also wanted to know what lay beyond, but for the moment he didn’t give a good goddamn about the tunnel or geology or the fact that he had to piss like a racehorse. His world narrowed to his hands, his arms and the damn stubborn pumpkin-shaped boulder streaked with his blood.
“Try a little to the left,” Samuel said again.
“Yeah, thanks for the tip, Einstein,” Will said. But for lack of a better idea, he pushed it hard to the left — it slid a good two inches.
“Oh, shoot,” Samuel said. “Holy moley, it’s moving!”
“Almost got it.” He readjusted his grip, blistered hands searching for just the spot. He had it now. Oh, it wanted to fight him, but it was too late, he had that bastard of a rock and he wasn’t letting go.
Will felt the thud of footsteps approaching from up the tunnel. Douglas Nadia moved with all the grace of a drunken elephant. Will always wondered how someone so thin could make so much noise.
“Where have you been, Douglas?” Samuel asked. “We’ve been working on this boulder for the last twenty minutes.”
“What do you mean we?” Will said. He adjusted his body, wedging his hip against the tunnel wall to gain more leverage. He pushed again, felt his pumpkin-shaped enemy slide another inch. He listened for the sounds of settling rock.
Nothing.
“I did a little chiseling back up at the plateau,” Douglas said. His thick Texan drawl betrayed his excitement.
Samuel sounded immensely annoyed. “Douglas, please tell me you didn’t carve your name on the tunnel mouth.”
“Hell no,” Douglas said. “I carved all our names. Hey, you think we’ll find any more cave drawings or maybe another goofy knife, like last time?”
“Who cares about that?” Samuel asked. “Once we’re through, and if this tunnel continues to descend, I surmise we’ll drop below the next sedimentary layer within fifty feet or so. That will give us a real good look at this mountain’s composition.”
Douglas’s sharp laugh bounced off the rough, narrow walls. “You crack me up, Anderson. We’ve found some lost Injun tribe in here, maybe even with buried treasure, and all you can think of is geology. You’re a screwball.”
The two continued to babble, but Will tuned them out. The pumpkin-shaped rock didn’t block the passage completely, just enough to make it impossible to crawl around. If he created a bit more space, they could squeeze through and continue on.
They’d found the opening while researching Samuel’s PhD thesi s. The Wah Wah Mountains were only a three-hour drive from Brigham Young University and yet were a wild and obscure treasure of geological wonders. The thick limestone mountains seemed to rise straight out of southwestern Utah’s scrub-brush deserts.
Five months earlier, they’d been four thousand feet up the side of an unnamed peak when they discovered a small limestone plateau and a dark, cramped opening. The opening led into a slender tunnel that traveled down and in, well over one hundred yards into the mountain before dead-ending at the ancient cave-in. The tunnel wasn’t listed on any maps — as far as the trio knew, they were the first modern-day people to discover it.
They kept their find secret while they gathered enough supplies for a long exploration. Douglas had been key for that, somehow procuring a box of old dynamite. Will hadn’t been crazy about putting the stuff in the back of his ’32 Ford coupe, but Samuel’s enthusiasm had worn him down.
For the last three days they’d probed the cave-in, placing small charges to help break up the tightly packed rocks. Following each blast, they labored to clear loose stones. It had been three days of noisy, backbreaking work, but the intensive effort was all but forgotten as Will wrapped his arms around the pumpkin-shaped rock, adjusted his feet, and pushed. It resisted. He pushed harder, pulled until the muscles in his legs and arm screamed, until it felt like something was tearing along his left side.
Teeth gritted, breath held, Will dug deep and gave it one more bit of all that he had.
The stone moved a fraction of an inch, stuck, then finally slid loose with a horrible, grinding sound of protest. Will stopped, arms still wrapped around the rock like it was his lover.
He held his breath. He waited. They all waited, glancing upward, half expecting the suspended rockfall to give way and crush them all.
Nothing happened.
“Take that,” Will said, his voice an exhausted whisper. “Take that, you piece of shit.”
“Quit cursing,” Samuel said. “Hurry up and get out of there, will you?”
Will wanted to squeeze out of the opening, sit up, then wring Samuel’s neck, but he didn’t have the strength. He couldn’t even move. Samuel and Douglas each took an ankle and pulled, hauling Will out like a dead animal. His chin made a little trench in the silt.
Samuel rushed to the opening, laying flat and letting his light probe the newfound depths.
“How’s it look?” Douglas asked, leaning on Samuel’s shoulder and craning his head for a peek.
“Looks like a straight shot,” Samuel said. “As far as I can see — at least another fifty yards!”
Douglas let out a yelp of triumph. A hint of an echo came back from the as-yet-unexplored passage beyond.
Will rolled to his back. He tried to wipe sweat off his face, but he only managed to spread a little more wet silt across his skin.
Douglas slapped at Will’s thigh, “Get up, lazybones. Lookit Samuel — he’s already crawling in.”
Will remained on his back, breathing deeply, but turned his head to see Samuel’s skinny body wiggle through the narrow opening. Will thought it looked like the rocks were a giant stone mouth with pursed lips and Samuel was a piece of slurped spaghetti.
“You go on ahead,” Will said.
Douglas again whacked Will’s thigh. “Get up, rich boy.”
With effort, Will raised up on one elbow. “Doug, you hit me again and I swear I will murder you and leave your body here with the blind crickets.”
Samuel’s head popped back out. “Fellas, did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” Douglas and Will said together.
“That sound.” A lock of Samuel’s thin blond hair fell free from under his mining helmet, dangled on his high forehead. In the poor lighting, he looked like a talking guillotine victim perched on a wall of tan and red boulders.
“Sounded like sand blowing across the desert or something like that,” he said. “Didn’t you hear it?”
“No wind down here,” Douglas said. “Unless maybe there’s another opening?”
Will fell to his back again. He stared up at the ceiling of the limestone tunnel. Cracked rock, a few black marks left by small charges. His chest still heaved from the effort of moving that damn rock.
“Maybe,” Samuel said. “Could be a connecting tunnel further in, which would be swell. Come on, fellas, let’s see where this thing leads.”
“I think rich boy is staying here,” Douglas said, aiming a slap at Will’s thigh but pulling back at the last second, avoiding contact.
Will said nothing, merely raised his hand, extended his middle finger, then let the hand whump heavily back into dry silt.
Samuel’s head disappeared into the dark hole. Douglas followed him, headfirst, working his body through the confined opening.
Will lay motionless, eyes closed, listening to his friends’ excited laughter fade into nothingness. He’d catch up to the goldbrickers in a moment, he just needed to rest. The cave was so peaceful, so still. He’d close his eyes for a few minutes, relax in the motionless, timeless caverns. Just a catnap, perhaps, and then—
His eyes flew open, yet he remained deathly still. He’d heard the faintest echo of a noise, a noise that somehow didn’t belong. A faint clicking: the sound of metal tapping rock. And another sound, something he couldn’t put his finger on, and yet it stirred recollections of Chicago, his hometown.
He strained to grasp the noise again, as if by concentrating his hearing he could tear free the thick veil of silence enveloping the tunnel. Not moving, not breathing, not understanding the cause of his sudden fear, he listened.
And heard the noises again.
click-click, click, click-click
Metal on rock, followed by a hissing, breathy, scraping sound. He immediately understood why the noise made Samuel think of a sandstorm, but that analogy wasn’t quite right. Samuel had spent all twenty-two years of his life in the deserts of southern Utah. For Will, however, the sound brought back memories of Chicago’s powerful weather.
That sound: dry, windblown leaves and loose paper hissing across concrete streets and sidewalks. But unlike steady gusts of Chicago wind, the new sound ebbed and flowed with a jerky, stop-start feel. It reminded Will of another noise, a noise he’d learned to watch out for since he’d started hiking into the mountains with Samuel and Douglas some three years ago — the malignant shake of a rattlesnake’s warning.
Will fought down a creeping panic and a sudden, clutching stab of claustrophobia. His reaction to the strange noise was primitive, instinctive and raw.
He rolled to his knees. He reached out, found his helmet, put it on. He peered into the hole he’d labored so long to create. The helmet lamp’s light showed more ancient silt, more ancient stone. Maybe fifty yards in, the tunnel angled down, out of sight. He felt a strong urge to run, but his friends were in there.
Will stared into the tunnel, listening to the bone-dry hissing-rattling grow and swell — until another, more recognizable sound overwhelmed it — a man, screaming.
It billowed up from some unseen place far down the tunnel. Will knew it was Samuel, although he’d never before heard Samuel scream. A high, piercing noise, almost feminine, full of agony and terror that transcended either sex. The scream lasted only a few seconds, faded to a single, mournful moan, then ceased.
Will forced himself to remain rooted to the spot. He couldn’t summon the courage to cram himself into the narrow opening, to crawl deeper into the mountain’s belly, but he could keep himself from a cowardly flight while his friends remained in the tunnel.
He saw a bouncing light before he heard the rhythmic pounding of heavy footsteps and the strained breath of a man running for his life. It was Douglas, pounding hard and fast up the sandy incline, blood smearing his face and covering his chest as if someone had splashed him with a great bucket of gore. Douglas fell hard. His helmet rolled and bounced like a decapitated head, clattering off the cave wall. He scrambled to his feet and ran some more, each desperate step kicking up fine silt that arced in the air behind him.
His friend didn’t look like his friend anymore … he looked like an animal, panicked and desperate, fleeing something that wanted to catch him, bring him down, eat him alive.
Will turned, started to run, stopped himself. His chest and stomach tingled, a glassy feeling that pulled at him, told him to get the fuck out of there. No … he couldn’t leave his friends. Will forced himself back to the opening.
