Several spiders ran into the anomaly, back to their own time. Abby dropped her torch and picks it up. As she straightens she sees something move at the back of the room.
"Guys." Abby says looking at something. Avery glances over to what Abby was looking at. A creature moved amongst old steel barrels. Nick and Stephen notice the creature as well.
Avery saw flashes of red and grey plating, loosely reflecting the light of their torches. It slinked behind the barrels on hundreds of red spindly legs.
"What is it?" Abby asked.
"I don't know." Stephen replied. The creature moved slowly in a tempered grace. They moved with the creature, careful not to scare it.
"It's not a spider." Nick said. The creature was bigger than the spiders and moved more cautiously. Avery wondered if perhaps this creature fed on the spiders.
They jumped back as the creature burst out from behind a set of metal bins. The creature was nine or ten feet long, with big red mandibles and armored plating like the scales on the underside of a snake. Each plating lay on top of the one behind, grey and brown with an outline of red. It reared up half of its body and stood taller than Stephen. A single red line ran along its head stopping three plates back.
Avery saw two small eyes on the front to its head above a pair of sharp pincers. She jumped out of the way as it lunged towards her, going into a somersault and coming up next to Stephen. Her gymnastics lessons from when she was younger kicking in.
Stephen hurried Avery and Abby back through the fence, but the creature had blocked Nick from the exit. He throws a box at it and it momentarily backs off.
"Cutter, what's going on?" She asks. She heard them yelling over the radio and needed to check up on them.
"There's another creature down here." Nick says through his com system, going through the hole in the fence. "But don't worry, we're coming out."
"Stephen, Stephen can you see it?" Nick asks looking around the underground bunker.
"No!" Stephen yells out. There is a strange noise, Stephen looks up to see the creature crawling above him on a long steel beam.
"Stephen!" Abby warns. Stephen pushes Abby out of harm's way and grabs a bucket, throwing it at the creature. It falls to the floor and shakes itself before walking forward unharmed. It back's Stephen, Abby and Avery into a corner. Nick whistles, attracting the attention of the creature.
"Go!" Nick shouts. The creature looks from Stephen to him.
"Nick!" Stephen and Avery shout not wanting to leave him alone with the creature.
"Go, go. Get them out of here!" Nick yells using Stephen's protective nature to push him to take the girls and leave.
"Come on!" Stephen shouts and moves to the door.
"No!" Avery shouts refusing to leave.
Stephen and Abby make it to the tunnel and close the door, Stephen dragging Avery with him. She kicked as he picked her up and dragged her back to the entrance of the tunnel.
"No! Stop, take me back!" She shouts as he drags her outside. When Stephen let go of her she tried to run back inside, but was soon caught by two soldiers.
She pulls away from their grasp and turned to Stephen. "Why did you leave him down there?" She hissed out.
"He told me to get you out, so I did." Stephen said.
Avery glared at him then looked back towards the entrance to the tunnel.
"You're not going back down there." Stephen told her.
"Fine." Avery huffed. She walked towards Claudia who was trying to reach Nick on the radio.
"Cutter? Come in." She called into the radio. There was no reply.
"All I'm getting is interference. Look." Claudia showed Stephen the crackling sound on the radio as they walked towards a metal gate. She spreads a map on the fence to show them the blueprints of the old underground. Claudia pointed on a spot on the map. "There's no other way out. This tunnel was blocked 30 years ago."
"What? Then why isn't he back here?" Abby asked exasperated.
"Look there is another tunnel leading off the bunker we we're in. There is no exit but he must have gone into it." Avery told them tracing a line along the map.
"Look, he's got to be trapped, okay? I'm going back in." Stephen said turning to walk back to the entrance to the tunnels.
"Hey, you're not going without me." Avery demanded about to follow.
"No-one goes anywhere until we know what we're dealing with." Claudia told them. They turned around and walked back to Claudia.
"He could be injured." Stephen said leaning against the gate.
Claudia sighed. "I don't want to leave him down there anymore than you do, but I'm not losing anyone else in this wild goose chase. We don't even know for sure where he is. Did you see what kind of creature it was?"
"It was some kind of centipede." Stephen told her.
"But huge!" Abby added.
"Any more? Like preferred habitat, behavioral patterns, strengths, weaknesses?"
"We don't know. No one does!" Abby yelled out starting to get stressed.
"Connor might. He's like a walking encyclopedia of this stuff. He probably has giant bug fridge magnets." Stephen said throwing an arm into the air. Avery could tell he was starting to get agitated, she was as well. The longer Nick was down there, the more likely he could be dying from a bite.
"Okay, I'll get him here." Claudia said. She handed Stephen the map and walked away to find Ryan.
"You go and distract Claudia. I'm going back in." Stephen said turning to Avery.
"Not without me." Avery demanded.
"No. I need you to distract Claudia." Stephen said leaving no room for argument.
"Okay, but be quick. He could have been bitten already." Avery said.
"Why are you going back down there?" Abby asked trying to stop him from leaving.
"I can't leave him in there." Stephen told her.
"You can't go down there without back up." Abby said.
"Watch me." He passed the map to Avery and turned to leave.
"Stephen." Abby called but he was already running back to the station.