Tunnels 02, Deeper

the thick rubber of the suit had been slashed to get the orbs out. He shivered. It brought home the full horror of what the Styx were capable of. "Butchers," he mumbled to himself.
    "Will," Elliott said suddenly, breaking into his thoughts. She wasn't looking at the bodies now, but glancing up and down the wide tunnel, as if all her senses were straining.
    "What is it?" Will asked.
    "Hide!" she hissed at him in a strangled whisper.
    That was all. He looked at her, not knowing what she meant. She was standing by the last of the renegades' carcasses on the opposite side of the tunnel. She moved so fleetingly that Will could barely keep track of her through his scope. She found a depression in the ground, a small pit, and, tucking the rifle into her body, rolled deftly into it, facedown. Will couldn't see her anymore. She was completely hidden from sight.
    He looked rapidly around, desperately seeking a similar hole in the tunnel floor. He couldn't see one. Where could he go? He had to find a hiding place. But where? He ran this way and that, slipping behind the row of Coprolite bodies on his side of the tunnel. No good! The ground was level -- it even rose in a slight incline toward the wall.
    Hearing a sound, he froze.
    A dog's bark.
    A stalker!
    He couldn't tell where it was coming from.
    He was totally exposed.

     

26

    The abomination of a dog, the stalker, made the most horrific snorting noises and low, snarling grunts as it pulled on its leash. Its handler was one of four Limiters strolling down the middle of the tunnel. He was struggling to keep the beast under control.
    On their heads the Styx soldiers wore dull black skullcaps, and their faces were obscured by large, insectlike goggles and leathery breathing masks. A peculiar camouflage of dun- and sand-colored rectangles patterned their ankle-length coats, and the equipment on their belts and in their knapsacks rattled slightly with each stride. It was clear they weren't on active duty -- they weren't expecting anyone else to be in the area.
    They came to a halt between the two lines of dead bodies, the dog handler hissing an unintelligible command to his animal. It growled and immediately sat on its haunches, still snorting in short, angry bursts as its head craned forward to sample the rancid odor of the rotting corpses. A gush of gluey saliva leaked from its maw, as if it found the stench appetizing.
    The Limiters' voices were nasal and reedy, their words clipped and mostly incomprehensible. Then one began to cackle, a vicious, strident laugh, and was joined by the others, until they sounded like a herd of distorted hyenas. They were evidently gloating over their victims.
    Will dared not to breathe, not just because of the most appalling smell he'd ever encountered, but because he was petrified the soldiers might hear him.
    As the Limiters had closed in, he'd been forced to hide in the only place he could think of.
    He was clinging grimly to one of the stakes, directly behind a dead Coprolite. In a blind panic, he'd jumped up, pushing his arm into the gap between the Coprolite's body and the rough timber of the stake. And, as he'd tried to hold on, his feet had scrabbled ineffectually against the stake until the toe cap of his boot had come across the tip of a large nail. Fortunately for Will, it protruded an inch or so through the back of the wood, and at least it gave him some sort of foothold.
    But this alone wasn't enough to keep him aloft -- as the Limiters approached, he'd needed to find something for his left hand to grip. Desperately feeling around, his fingers came across a gash in the Coprolite's dust suit, just by the shoulder blade. He forced his fingers in, into the thick, rubbery material, touching something damp and soft inside. It yielded as his fingers pushed against it -- it was mushy.
    His fingers were sinking into the rotted flesh of the Coprolite's body.
    Will knew there was not time to find an alternative handhold. Don't think! Don't think about it! tore through his mind.
    But the stench from the Coprolite's body seemed to intensify, hitting him with the force of a kick in the head.
    Oh God!
    If it had been strong before, it was simply unbearable now. His fingers had parted the inch-thick rubber suit and opened the gash in it more widely, releasing the foulest of gases from inside. The stench flooded out. Will wanted to drop to the ground and run -- it was more than he could endure. It was the reek of warm, putrid meat from the