Viand
part 1
"Oh shell, my aching head," Mikey said as he sat up. "Did anyone get the number of the bus that hit us?"
"Whatever it was, I owe it a beat down," Raph snarled, rising up on his knees. He waited until his head stopped reeling before attempting to stand.
Leo was on his feet already, leaning against a wall for support. It wasn't very solid, but it was stable enough to hold him until his balance returned.
"Don, are you okay?" Leo asked.
"Yeah, I'm good," Don answered as he waited for his double vision to clear. He was lying in a puddle and when the smell finally registered, he pushed himself into a sitting position quickly. "Yuck," he said, sniffing at his arm.
"What is this stuff?" Mikey asked, gaining his feet. "It smells rank."
"Yeah, kinda like ya' do when ya' forget your deodorant," Raph said with a grin.
Mikey gave Raph a dirty look. "Leo, Raph said I stink," Mikey said in protest. "Do I stink?"
"Raph, stop picking on Mikey," Leo said, only half paying attention.
"We all of us stink right now," Don said as he stood up. "Where did the rancid water come from?"
"Where did the little lights come from?" Mikey asked, looking around them.
The walls and ceiling were dotted with tiny lights. They weren't extremely bright, but they did provide enough light to see by.
"This sure as hell ain't where we were when whatever that thing was sucker punched us," Raph said.
"No we aren't," Leo agreed. He took a few steps and realized the ground had the same springy texture as the walls. "It appears that thing dragged us somewhere, maybe to its home."
"This doesn't look like anyplace in the sewers or underground tunnels that I've ever seen," Don said, reaching out to gingerly touch one of the lights. It was attached to a short cylindrical rod that was embedded in the wall. "Cold light, maybe white phosphorous, but that's very unusual."
"Drool over it later Einstein," Raph said. "Let's figure out where we are and get moving."
A loud buzzing sound suddenly reached them, growing in volume with each passing second. They all turned, weapons jumping into their hands as if they had a life of their own. It was Mikey who spotted the source of the odd sound first.
"Get moving is right!" Mikey yelled. "What the shell is that?"
Crawling all along the walls, floor, and ceiling were blobs of fleshy pink creatures, none over two feet in length, some considerably smaller. They covered every visible bit of the surface out of sheer numbers, some of the faster ones even flowing over their brethren.
One of the creatures leaped straight at Leo who cleanly sliced it in half in mid-air. The two pieces fell to the ground; then quivered for a second just before the wounds closed over themselves. The blob was moving again almost as soon as the injury healed; only now there were two of them.
"Run!" Leo ordered.
No one argued the point. Moving as fast as they could, the brothers put distance between themselves and the slower moving blobs. The springy floor beneath their feet hampered their movements until they adjusted their balance to accommodate it.
In a few minutes the tunnel they were in changed appearance, the walls a deeper shade of gray with nodules of pink and green dotted along the surface. When Mikey stepped on one, it burst open and a viscous yellow substance oozed out of it.
"Oh gross!" Mikey yelped in disgust, stopping to wipe his foot on the ground to get rid of the ooze that had gotten on him.
"Mikey!" Don shouted, urging his brother to keep running.
"No, no, wait," Leo called as he also stopped.
When the others turned to look at him he held up a hand to ask for silence. A minute passed and they realized the buzzing sound was gone.
"Did we lose 'em?" Raph asked.
"How could we?" Don asked; the question rhetorical. "We didn't make any turns; we've been running straight forward because there isn't anywhere else to go. They quit chasing us."
"Okay, so here's the big money question," Mikey said. "Why?"
Don glanced around them, his gaze falling on the nodule that Mikey had broken.
"Maybe they don't want to touch those things," Don said, pointing at the nodule.
"I don't wanna touch those things," Mikey said. "That stuff is sticky and stinky and way yucky and . . . ."
"We get the idea shell for brains," Raph growled. "What the fuck were those things that were chasing us?"
Don shook his head. "I have no idea," he said. "We didn't go all that deeply underground when we were following that beast. It must have transported us to a subterranean level while we were unconscious; someplace similar to where we encountered Sydney."
"And why would it do that?" Mikey asked suspiciously. "Maybe, possibly, so that we could be, oh I don't know, food for its babies?"
"Could be," Don answered, seemingly more fascinated by the prospect than frightened of it.
"I really hate when he does that," Mikey groaned.
"We need to find a way out of here and back to the surface," Leo said matter-of-factly. "Remember when we were underground the first time? Quarry told us 'we've learned to either live off the land or it lives off us'. I think everything down here operates on that premise and that they're probably territorial."
"This just keeps getting better and better," Raph said grumpily. "How do we get out of here when we don't even know where here is?"
"Logically, if we were taken further underground, then we need to start climbing back up. Since we can't go back that way," Leo said, pointing behind them, "then we need to go forward. There has to be an opening somewhere to a higher level; when we find it we climb."
"I vote for that," Mikey said quickly. "Hey, Donny, you gonna join us or keep mooning over the nasty puss?"
"Huh, what?" Don blinked a few times as though coming out of a trance. "Yeah, sure, sounds like a plan."
Leo's brow furrowed as he looked at his genius brother. Don's mind seemed far away and that wasn't a good thing considering they all needed to stay sharp.
"Don?" Leo asked.
"I'm with you," Don said. "Something's bugging me but I'll figure it out."
"Just so long as you stay focused on the danger, Donny," Leo reminded him. When Don nodded, Leo said, "Let's not use our flashlights unless we really need them; the batteries won't last long. Maybe if we start moving into an area that isn't lit up by these glow sticks, we can cut a few of them off the walls and carry them with us."
The ground suddenly shook under their feet and Raph stepped sideways to keep from falling. His foot hit the edge of a nodule and it popped, spilling the yellow ooze onto the ground.
Jumping away quickly, Raph avoided stepping in the stuff and then the ground stopped shaking.
"That's probably why those blobs wouldn't come in here," Don said. "These things pop rather easily and I'll bet that stuff is sticky enough to trap them."
"Can we please leave this giant zit forest?" Raph asked. "If I had anything in my stomach right now I'd probably hurl."
"There's another good reason to get home fast," Mikey said with a grin. "Raph's hungry and you know how grumpy he gets when he doesn't eat."
"Shut up, Mikey," Raph said, mostly from habit rather than anger.
"Let's go," Leo said, taking the lead as they moved out.
They couldn't walk as fast as they would have liked to; the ground was covered in nodules and none of the brothers wanted to step on one. Other than a periodic low rumbling noise, it was deathly quiet.
Before long the nodules began to thin out and then they disappeared altogether. The tunnel they were in started to narrow, until they all had to bend over to walk.
Raph finally decided to voice the concern that he was sure the others shared. "What do we do if we hit a dead end?"
"We turn around and go back," Leo said grimly. "We try to find a way out in the other direction."
"Back ta where those blobs were?" Raph asked incredulously.
"They weren't there when we first woke up," Leo said. "Maybe they were asleep or they all gather in another spot. Maybe it was our voices that drew them to us. It stands to reason that if going in this direction took us out of their territory, then going far enough on the other side will take us away from them too."
"Yeah, and maybe we'll run into something a lot worse," Raph said darkly. "Maybe if I pinch myself I'll wake up from this bad dream. That's a shitload of maybes without answers."
"Dudes," Mikey said, interrupting them.
He had gotten in front of his brothers and was the first to step out of the narrowing tunnel into a more cavernous space. The area was still lit by the tiny lights, but the walls and ceiling were also broken by numerous brown tubers.
"Plant roots mean we're close to the surface, don't they?" Mikey asked. "It sure didn't seem like we were going up."
His brothers stopped next to him and looked around. The ground was fairly smooth with only a few pock marks and although the rest of the cavern glistened slightly, there was no hint of moisture underfoot.
"If those are tree roots, which I'd have to assume they are given the size, then I don't think this room would be quite so dry," Don said warily.
"Well it must be safe bro', otherwise those rats would be making a run for it," Mikey said.
Ahead of them the brothers saw a small group of rodents spread out and scavenging in the area.
Raph laughed. "Never thought I'd believe that seeing rats would be a good sign," he said.
Leo didn't say anything, he just started walking. Behind him, the other three could see that something was making the eldest twitchy, but they couldn't imagine what it was. Knowing how sharp Leo's senses were, they remained quiet.
They were nearly halfway across the cavern when one of the rats squealed. Coming to a fast stop, Leo spun on his heel, his hand sweeping up to grasp a katana.
The little creature seemed to be tangled in some roots and Leo released a sigh of relief. Just before he let go of his weapon though, the roots curled inwards, dragging the helpless rat along with them.
"Guys," Leo said, backing to the center of the cavern.
His brothers joined him, their weapons out as Leo unsheathed his swords. In another second the air was filled with the shrieks of the rats as tendrils shot out of the walls and snatched the rodents from the ground.
"Holy crap!" Raph yelled as a tendril darted down from the ceiling and wrapped itself around his arm.
Pulling against it, Raph discovered the thing had a rubbery texture and was much stronger than it looked. Jabbing at it with his sai was ineffective, he succeeded in puncturing it but that didn't make it relinquish its grip.
Leo swung around and sliced the tendril in two. The part that was attached to the ceiling snapped away from them and the other half dropped off Raph's arm. When it hit the ground it flopped around for a couple of seconds and then lay still.
Mikey ducked just as another tendril made a grab for him and Don rolled to the side to avoid a second one. As he was coming back to his feet, he noticed that the rats that had been caught were slowly dissolving against the walls where they were tightly bound.
"That's not water on the walls, that's acid!" Don yelled.
Twisting, ducking, and diving to stay away from the tendrils that were now a constant barrage, the brothers tried to avoid being caught. Mikey and Don used their weapons like baseball bats, hitting the tendrils that came near them. Fortunately, the tendrils seemed to react to pain and withdrew back into the walls and ceiling once hit.
That wasn't much of a consolation though, since there were thousands of tendrils starting to unfurl around them. Even if they could move fast enough to dodge them all, they certainly weren't going to have the energy to keep doing that for long.
"Time for an exit oh fearless one," Raph called out as he stuck his sai through a tendril and pinned it to the ground.
"Keep moving forward!" Leo shouted. "There's another opening on the other end!"
"Go, go, go!" Mikey yelled, shoving Don towards what he hoped was a safe exit.
Raph ducked behind the tendril that he'd trapped as another swung out from the wall towards him. Reaching down, he snatched up his sai and watched as the injured tendril sprang upward and slammed into the oncoming one.
Something whizzed past his head and he ducked as Leo swung his katana to slice an attacking tendril. The floor around the oldest brother was littered with chopped up tendrils, many of them still twitching.
"Follow Mikey and Don!" Leo ordered.
Raph started running in a zigzag pattern, suddenly feeling like a football player headed for the end zone. He felt a tendril slide off his carapace and nearly tripped when another made a grab for his ankle.
Risking a backwards glance, he saw that Leo was right behind him, moving with the speed that made him the fastest of the four. The Turtle leader was still swinging his swords, cutting his way through a forest of tendrils.
"Hurry, guys!" Mikey yelled from the cavern opening.
Raph saw Don, who was just in front of him, reach down and scoop up a piece of tendril. Then the purple banded genius dove past Mikey, who backed up to make room for Raph.
Leo reached them a second later. "Keep going," he urged, his back to them as he kept his eyes directed towards the cavern.
They were in another narrow tunnel, this one sporting fewer lights and with a much spongier feel to it. After a few feet the ground started to shake as it had done before, the tremor quite a bit stronger. All of them were thrown off balance, bouncing off of the walls though they kept moving.
"Damn it!" Raph cursed. "This looks just like the last tunnel; we could be going in circles for all we know. How the fuck do we get out of here?"
The ground stopped shaking just as suddenly as it started. "Maybe we should mark the walls with something; you know, leave a trail? Like in 'Hansel and Gretel'," Mikey said.
"What the shell good would that do us?" Raph snapped.
Leo interrupted him to ask, "Don, does any of this look familiar from the last few times we were in the underground? Can you tell where we might be?"
"Oh yeah Fearless, I'm sure we all walked past a bunch of murderous tentacles the last time we were down here and Don's the only one who can remember it," Raph said sarcastically.
Don was staring at the tendril he'd picked up, turning it over and over in his hands. His brothers were looking at him expectantly and even Raph bit off further caustic remarks when he saw the look on Don's face.
"Hey, Donny," Mikey said softly. "Dude, do you know where we are?"
When Don looked up, his eyes were wide, the whites standing out in the semi-darkness. "I think we're inside that thing we were chasing. I think it swallowed us while we were unconscious," he told them in a horrified voice.
A moment of petrified silence was broken as Mikey asked, "He's kidding right? Right?"
"I don't think he's kidding, Mikey," Leo said, his voice low.
"We got eaten?" Mikey squeaked, his hands clenching together in front of his chest.
"Just be happy it swallowed us without chewing," Don said, his tone calmer now that he'd shared his thoughts.
"I'm not happy, Donatello. I mean, I'm happy it didn't bite, but I'm totally not happy we got turned into tasty morsels," Mikey said.
A low rumble had them all looking around and then the ground moved again. When it stopped, they heard a new sound coming towards them from the direction of the cavern, a gurgling noise that was faintly distasteful.
"Freak out later, bro'," Raph said, grabbing the tails on Mikey's mask and yanking him around. "Those things ain't giving up on trying ta chomp on us."
"Digest us," Don corrected as they all started walking fast.
The noise grew louder and it was directly behind them.
"Explain it later, Brainiac," Raph said as he looked back. "Right now ya' need ta run!"
TBC….
