This story was co-winner of the 2014 Tracy Island Writers Forum Halloween "Creature Feature" challenge.

Language and content warning.

Thank you to Samantha Winchester for the editing job on this.


LABYRINTH

"Despair set in and Theseus wondered if this was where his life would end, down in the dark, all alone, next to the stinking body." - 'Theseus and the Minotaur'

Chapter One

Slowly its eyelids opened.

Something had awakened it from its slumber. It inhaled deeply, taut brown leathery skin expanding and contracting as its lungs filled and emptied. Large golden eyes surveyed its nest of bones, tattered clothing, human hair and other remnants of its centuries of existence. With a low growl, it extended long arms and used them to push itself to its full height of nearly eight feet. Long legs with clawed feet supported a barrel-shaped body that was grotesquely disproportionate to its limbs. Its pectorals sagged, resembling the breasts of an elderly woman. Its pot-belly also hung low and it gurgled, revealing the creature's hunger.

It had been sleeping for four years and should have slept for one more, but now it had been disturbed. One thought as it moved through the darkness of the chamber: food. It needed to eat, and quickly, or the strength gained from years of inactivity would wane. It loved to eat. For unlike most wild animals and human beings, this creature's version of eating was as much sport as it was sustenance. The hunt was equally pleasurable to sinking forty long, jagged teeth into flesh and bone.

A sound from above.

It ceased all movement, turned its face upward and heightened its sense of hearing, closing its eyes to concentrate. Yes...yes, there it was again. A human voice. Male. Sounding strong. It would investigate this, and determine whether or not the owner of this voice would make a worthy adversary. Opening its eyes again, it produced a grimace of pleasure that tried hard to mimic a happy smile. Through the chamber it moved, out into the passageways it had been relegated to so very long ago. It would find its target, it would play the game and it would feast.


"Gordon, we'll need the Jackhammer at Reference AX-3. I need you to cut through the bedrock enough that we can send down a Mini Mole."

"FAB, Scott, I'll have Jack out there in two minutes."

Nodding, Scott turned his attention to the police chief and fire chief flanking his left and right, respectively.

"How are you going to get air to the victims?" the fire chief, Swanson, asked.

"Once Gordon gets through that two feet of bedrock, we'll send down a smaller, automated version of our Mole."

"I've heard about that piece of equipment," the police chief, last name of Ingalls, remarked. "Why can't you send the big one down?"

Scott shook his head as he studied the primary monitor at eye-level on his Mobile Control unit. "According to telemetry readings, the large sewage pipes that criss-cross this area are too tightly packed to accommodate her width," he replied. "Who the heck designed this, anyway?"

"I can answer that," a man who had to be at least in his seventies said as he approached the front of Mobile Control. "Name's Kipper."

"Didn't I throw you in the drunk tank last week?" Ingalls asked.

But Kipper ignored him, and because of what he'd said, he had Scott's full attention. "This here land was where the sons of Johann Dippel lived."

"Who?" Scott asked as he watched Gordon driving the Jackhammer vehicle to the spot where he was to drill some three hundred yards northwest of Mobile Control.

"You don't know the Dippel name, then?" Kipper asked. When Scott shook his head, the old man leaned on a knobby wooden cane, worn smooth over the years, and smiled, revealing nothing but gums...which explained why all his s's sounded like whistles. "Well, son, Johann Konrad Dippel was the mad scientist that there Mary Shelley based her Frankenstein on. In fact, he was born at Castle Frankenstein in Hesse, Germany. After he died in 1734 his experiments on humans and animals were carried on by his sons, Egon and Randalf. Their sons Dietrich, Bernd and Leopold relocated right here to Oklahoma."

"Commencing hammering," Gordon reported.

"FAB," Scott replied, eyeing the aged storyteller skeptically. As the rapid metal-on-stone bang and clang of the Jackhammer filled the air, he raised his voice. "Virgil, status."

"We're showing an extensive amount of free space underground with what few snapshots the scanner's giving us," Virgil reported. "Brains is trying to map it, but the bedrock's making it impossible for him to hold onto any readings for more than a couple seconds. He's recalibrating Two's sensors now in an attempt to compensate."

"FAB, tell him I want a report in five minutes."

"Will do," Virgil replied.

Scott looked back at Kipper. "So what's this Dippel family got to do with this fifteen square mile area?"

"Yon about two miles," Kipper replied loudly, nodding in the direction Scott's back was facing, "you'll find a building where they lived, worked and, it's said, tried to recreate their father's and grandfather's experiments." Off Scott's blank look, he elaborated, "On people, son. Hattie Littlefoot's the only one alive other than me who remembers the Dippels, and she swears they also got themselves into demon worship."

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Scott blinked instead. "And the multiple sewage pipes?"

"To carry the byproducts of their experiments below ground where nobody would ever find them, I guess." He leaned forward, face about ten inches from Scott's, and looked him in the eyes. "So nobody would ever know what they were really up to." He backed off, returning to his hunched standing position. "Each pipe was run deep down, but nobody knows where any of 'em empties out ta." He tapped his cane on the ten-inch-tall prairie grass. "Only people ever tried to find out what really happened here are trapped down there, now."

"You mean our victims," Scott clarified.

Kipper nodded. "Son, it's admirable what y'all are tryin' ta do here," he said, turning his head to look at the Jackhammer. "But I kin tell ya that yer wastin' yer time."

"Trying to save lives is never a waste of time."

"Give it a rest, Kipper," Ingalls interjected.

"I'll be back, I need to talk to my men, see if they have any ideas," Swanson announced. Scott nodded at the stocky man as he headed north toward where the fire trucks and other local rescue vehicles were parked half a mile away on Highway 60.

"Mark my words," Kipper warned, turning slowly and starting to hobble away. "If you Inter'nashnull Rescue boys stick around, somethin' bad's gonna happen."

Scott frowned.

"Don't pay any attention to him," Ingalls advised, moving into Scott's line of sight. "He's from the Osage Reservation southwest of here, and comes out long enough to get wasted, spook the locals and spout his garbage tales to anyone within earshot."

Ingalls' shoulder CB crackled to life. "Buddy, you got your ears on?"

"Sure thing, Wanda, come back."

"There's a big problem on the Reservation, Chief. Osage PD is asking for your assistance."

"Oh, hell, not again," Ingalls groused into his radio. He turned to look down at Scott. "Last time she sent me a call like this we wound up being held hostage by two drunkards for two days on that damn reservation."

Scott's eyebrows shot up.

"So if you'll excuse me, I have to be goin'. Just radio Dispatch to let Wanda know what's going on. She'll relay if you need me."

Nodding, Scott eyebrows slowly slid down his forehead to knit into a deep frown. It was odd that only the police chief had shown up for a call-out like this, where three people were said to be trapped underground. The best John had been able to determine from his sporadic radio contact with the victims was that they'd been exploring a series of maintenance tunnels along one of the sewage pipes and it'd caved in on one side, while the opposite direction was a dead end.

The presence of the fire chief and his one engine and one paramedic vehicle wasn't any more comfort than the lack of police on-scene. Swanson had said his trucks weren't made for off-roading, yet to Scott – who'd landed Thunderbird One quite successfully on the flat land, never mind it easily supporting the bulk of Thunderbird Two – his excuse sounded fishy.

And now both men had disappeared, seemingly legitimately. Kipper was still hobbling away, not moving very fast at all. Scott suddenly wondered if he'd walked all the way out here to their Ground Zero because he knew something was going on. But if so, how could he have known? Police scanner, maybe? For a reason he couldn't explain, a chill went up his spine and traveled right back down again at lightning speed.

"Mobile Control from Brains."

"Go ahead," Scott answered.

"Ah, Scott, there's, ah...there's simply nothing I can, ah, do with this equipment. It, ah, can't penetrate the bedrock long enough for the system to register shapes. I-I'm afraid I'm at a, ah, loss as to how to get any idea of the size, shape or, ah, location of, ah, any tunnels or other underground structures."

Scott's teeth ground together, his mind racing. "Okay, telemetry's able to pick up the pipes, but Two can't read structures. Why is that?"

"The, ah, pipes seem to be giving off some sort of, ah, electromagnetic signal," Brains replied, causing Scott's eyebrows to shoot up again. "We can, o-of course, assume that each pipe has a, ah, maintenance tunnel from what John, ah, picked up in his conversation with the, ah, victims. However, I-I've no way of knowing that for certain, nor if, ah, there are any other tunnels we might use to reach them."

"Damn," Scott swore softly. "Sounds like we might have to do this the hard way. Put Virgil on."

"I'm here, Scott. What's the plan?"

Mind working the problem, Scott soon had an idea. "Once the Mini Mole breaks through to the victims, I want you to get fresh O2 pumping down there and see if you can't get one of them to explain how they gained access. I want them to give us their exact route. We'll have to follow in their footsteps with oxyhydnite canisters and our portable drilling equipment, and go through the collapsed part of the tunnel to extricate them."

"FAB. You joining us on this one?"

Scott nodded, though he knew Virgil couldn't see him. "I'm going to pack up Mobile Control right now. Have Thunderbird Five hook the communicator on the Mini Mole to all our wristcoms. As soon as you have an entry point from the victims, we'll mobilize and every man will go down. In the meantime, I'm going to see if Swanson can spare anyone. I think we're going to need all the hands we can get."

"FAB, Scott."

Just as he heard the Jackhammer's symphony change from high-pitched ringing shots that ricocheted through the air to a dull thudding bass drum beat, Scott's radio came to life. "Gordon to Mobile Control. I've broken through the bedrock." The sudden silence as Gordon turned off the machine left Scott's ears ringing.

"FAB, Gordon. Return to Two's pod. Virgil, get the Mini Mole started down the hole Gordon created. Gordon, gather all our mobile excavation equipment and mount it on four hoverbikes. We're all going down."

"Alan's going to be mad that he missed all the fun."

Scott half-shrugged. "It's his turn on Five. John and Tin-Tin should be returning to Base within the next hour. I'm going to get him to start working this mapping problem with Brains, see if they can't finagle something between them to get our scanners through that rock."

"FAB."

Scott rose from his seat and turned around to step away from the Mobile Control unit. His eyes lit upon something he couldn't hope to identify. Frozen in disbelief, he saw its arm move too late to react.