Tunnels 02, Deeper

fog reached just over her thighs. She waded to the front of the boat and, guiding it around, heaved it along behind her.
    Will turned his attention to the stretch of coast. They had indeed arrived in a bay, its two promontories jutting out to sea on either side. The slow-moving mist tumbled out from the creek, parted in places by peaks of jagged-looking rocks. He, Chester, and Cal stayed put while Elliott drew the boat behind her for a short distance. Then she ordered them to disembark, and, one after another, they clambered reluctantly out of the boat, taking their kit with them.
    The water was no more than three feet deep, although currents pulled powerfully against their legs. Taking care not to slip, they trod toward the rocky foreshore while Elliott tugged the boat up a small inlet to hide it. It made a hollow scraping sound as she dragged it ashore.
    Will and Chester splashed through the last of the shallows. "Shouldn't we help? She..." Chester was suggesting to Will, just as they both noticed a change in the foreshore. The noise from the boat seemed to bring about a muted rumble, although the cloak of mist prevented them from seeing its source. Cal, scrambling over the rocks some twenty paces ahead of them, had also realized something was up. All three of them stopped on the spot.
    The low rumble continued. There was a stirring and a movement, as if the rocks themselves were coming to life, and, all at once, scores of small lights glowed just above the misty blanket, flickering dimly like pairs of candle flames fanned by a draft.
    "Eyes!" Chester stuttered. "They're eyes!"
    He was right. They caught the light from Chester's and Cal's lanterns and reflected it back, just as surely as if they were deer in a car's beams. Looking through his headset, Will saw that what he'd assumed was the craggy rock formation of the promontories and the foreshore was much more: It was a living carpet, and in a fraction of a second the whole area was rife with activity.
    As the streaming mist parted, Will made out what appeared to be birds -- storks with long legs -- flexing open their wings. But they weren't birds; they were lizards, the likes of which Will had never seen before.
    "What do we do now?" Chester said, pulling closer to Will in his panic.
    "Will!" Cal called out, hovering uncertainly, then beginning to step backward into the water again.
    "Where's Elliott?" Chester asked urgently. They spotted her striding across the foreshore. Showing no concern whatsoever, she cut a furrow straight through the creatures. With a rubbery beating sound, they unfolded their wings and moved out of her way, making the most miserable wails, like young children crying out in terrible pain.
    "That's really spooky," Chester said, a little more at ease now that he saw that the creatures didn't seem to pose any danger.
    As their wings flapped, wafting aside the mist, Will observed that the creatures were angular and each had a single prehensile claw on its leading edge. Their bodies were bulbous, with tapering thoraxes and dumpy abdomens, and, like their wings, they had a gray sheen to them, similar to polished slate. Their heads were the shape of flattened cylinders with rounded ends, supported by spindly necks and their jaws, as they gaped open and shut again, were smooth and toothless.
    Elliott's passage through the flock disturbed the creatures so much that they began to take wing. But before they could lift off from the ground, they needed a running start -- a few strangely stiff and mechanical steps.
    In seconds the air was thick with the creatures, their wings beating and thrumming in an unbroken hum. The strange unsettling calls continued, spreading down the colony as if they were communicating their alarm to each other. Once all the creatures were airborne, they gathered into a single flock over the water. Entranced, Will watched them through the lens, a continually shifting orange smear that disappeared into the distance in a mass migration.
    "Get a move on!" Elliott shouted. "We don't have time for sightseeing." She waved impatiently to them to follow her up the foreshore.
    "Weren't they just wild? Wish I'd gotten a photo of them," Will babbled excitedly to Chester as they hurried to catch up with Elliott, who was making a beeline for the cavern wall.
    Chester didn't seem amused. "Yeah, right. How about if we made it into a postcard to send to the folks back home?" he snapped in a loud voice. "Wish you were here... having a