Chapter 6 The Truce
As Jason, Nick, and Eric went down the passageway in search of Joey, they soon came to a hole in the temple's hallway walls that lead into sand caverns and entered into them. Wanting to make sure they were prepared, Eric spoke to Jason and Nick.
"I don't need to tell you how to do your job, but-" Eric began to say.
"But you're gonna anyway." Nick groaned, not wanting to be given an overbearing lecture by Eric on how to do his job.
"Check your weapons, check ammunition, and check again. Pay attention to detail. Carelessness will get you killed." Eric said.
The three did a quick check of their weapons and ammo before moving any further.
"And check your corners." Eric suddenly said. "We don't want to run into an ambush by the Iraqis."
"Or into one of those monsters." Nick and Jason thought to themselves, wishing Eric had believed them earlier.
As they walked down the caverns, Nick looked to Jason.
"You still hear Joey?" Nick asked.
Jason turned on his radio, asking Joey to respond, even Eric did, but of course, neither got a response and kept moving forward. As they did, they heard more distant groaning that sounded like Joey's voice, spooking and worrying all three of them.
"This fucking place." Nick said, not liking that sound.
"We should've never come here." Jason said in general.
As the three rounded the corner, they came across a marine helmet, an earpiece, and some glasses, Joey's glasses and there was some blood around them. Joey's body wasn't anywhere near them, which could be a sign that Joey was alive, that or his body was somewhere else. Either way, this wasn't a good sight.
"He's in bad shape. We gotta move fast." Jason said.
"You were with Lance Corporal Gomez, right? What actually happened to him" Eric asked Nick.
"He died. Whatever's out there now, it sure as shit ain't Joey." Nick said.
"Well, in battle, these things are often difficult to judge." Eric said.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Nick asked defensively.
"You could've been mistaken, Sergeant." Eric explained.
"I know what I saw." Nick said annoyed.
Nick then took out Joey's cross and showed it to Eric and Jason.
"My God." Eric said, looking down at the cross. "We just have to hope he's still alive. We've lost enough today."
Nick nodded in agreement.
"I'm sorry, sir. About Rachel." Nick said, going easy on Eric for once.
"Is that so? Kolchek told me you people called her 'The Queen Bitch.'" Eric said, bitterly.
"Not by me. I knew her better than that." Nick said.
The three continued forward, Jason coming to Nick's side.
"Good job for not wishing any harm or anything on the Colonel this time Nick." Jason complemented.
"No real big reason to this time." Nick said. "Just don't expect us to get together to watch the major leagues anytime soon. Right now, we just need to stay focused and watch each other's backs."
The trio passed fissure, Eric assuming the tremors must've opened them up and informing there were more back at the temple. They came into in another big chamber of the caverns, one with sunlight shining through and a few stray columns and there was a large pool of blood as they entered, but weather it was Joey's or not, they didn't know.
"Something really fucking nasty went down here." Nick said.
Nick went over to the pillars and noticed another tablets like the one he saw earlier after he first encountered one of those creatures, it seemed to be a man surrendering to his opponent and there was a piece of paper. Nick picked it up and read it.
"October 23rd, 1946. The catacombs beneath the temple are heaped with human bones. Aline has worked sacrificial digs in El Castillo, but even she hasn't seen death on this scale before. The Akkadians killed thousands in the name of their Gods: most ritually decapitated, but others crudely slain and dumped in charnel pits, as though the slaughter had spiraled out of control. What plague or cataclysm demanded such a price? So much blood spilled and for what? Whatever happened here, millennia ago, is a secret waiting to be discovered.
7th of December, 1946. Our finds have been so spectacular. I couldn't resist breaking out the champagne. As I entered the survey tent to pour a glass for Mary, I realized something was awry; she'd found Bradshaw's crate of dynamite. I tried to calm her, but she worked up a full head of steam, sounding off about the risks of using explosives at a dig site. She was right, of course. I feel terrible for hiding it from her. Just then, Crow arrived and picked up the dynamite. When Mary ordered him to put it down, he looked her boldly in the eye and said they'd found something below."
Jason noticed Nick read.
"Hey, Sergeant Kay. Search for our wounded brother now, study later." Jason said.
"What are you reading there?" Eric asked, walking over to Nick.
"Just this guy talking about his wife finding dynamite that he and this lady named Bradshaw kept secret from her." Nick said.
"Bradshaw?" Eric exclaimed.
Eric took the note from Nick's hands and read it.
"This, this is another note to Hodgson's journal." Eric realized.
"Hog's son, who?" Nick asked.
"Hodgson. Rachel and I found another page to his journal earlier. He and his wife Mary were hired by Lady Bradshaw, this antiquarian, to lead this expedition to a dig site that was apparently the tomb of Alexander the Great." Eric explained.
Jason recognized the name 'Alexander the Great' and stepped up.
"Wait a second, I found one of those to." Jason said.
"You did? Where?" Eric asked.
"In the room where the trip wire was." Jason said.
"What did it say?" Eric asked.
"I didn't bother to remember really. All I remember is something about this Alexander the Great fella, some other guy named Crow, and another named Norren-Sim or something." Jason said.
"Do you still have it?" Eric asked.
"Nope, why?" Jason asked.
"Because what Nick said is right; something bad did happen down here. Rachel and I listened to this old tape recording and it sounded like Hodgson and his expedition got into a bad situation that made him want to seal this place away for good. The pillars back at the temple were rigged to be blown up. There could be more pages of his journal somewhere and they can probably help us figure out what exactly happened here." Eric explained.
Jason and Nick shared a glance, each guessing what it was that happened to Hodgson's expedition.
"Hodgson mentions something being found below." Eric said.
"So, what, this an olden days multi storied building or a hotel or something?" Jason asked.
"I don't know what it could be. I should check the Caelus files when we get back to the temple." Eric said.
"Very well, Colonel, but for now, let's find Joey. The longer we stand around, the more trouble that boy can get into." Jason urged.
Eric agreed and the three resumed their search. As they searched, they heard more grunting and shouting from what they assumed to be Joey.
"He's close." Jason said.
"This is so fucked up!" Nick said, not liking whatever it was they were hearing.
"Be quiet!" Eric hissed.
"We're walking into a trap." Nick said.
"Don't let this place mess with your head." Jason said.
"He's right, we have to find Corporal Gomez or his body." Eric agreed.
The trio came upon a fork in their path and choose to go left, down a dark tunnel. As they entered, Eric looked back when he thought he saw something rush behind them. He didn't see or hear anything and shrugged it off. The short passage they went down turned out to be a dead end and they turned back and go down the path to the right. As Nick turned around, he spotted something on the ground.
"Guys look, it's a med kit." Nick said.
"Good find Nicky, might be useful later." Jason complemented.
Jason and Eric each tried to make contact to any callsigns as they went down the right, but there were no responses. The three of them were all starting to think they were the only ones left alive, the rest getting killed by the Iraqis or those monsters from earlier. The right path eventually led into a large open area with sunlight shining down and there were some pillars and rocks for cover. They saw a dark figure, that sounded like it was screaming in some sort of pain, go down another tunnel.
"Joey, that you!" Nick called to the figure, gaining hope for a moment that he'd been wrong in Joey being dead for a moment.
Nick tried to rush towards the figure, but Eric stopped him and gestured towards the open area of the cavern.
"This is the perfect place for an ambush. Let's keep it slow and tight." Eric suggested.
"No, double-time! Joey needs us now! We gotta hurry!" Jason said, wanting to get to Joey as fast as possible.
"He's right. Advance with caution." Nick supported Eric.
Eric, Jason, and Nick advanced slowly, keeping an eye out for any danger. Nick held up his hand for Eric and Jason to stop when he spotted the barrel of a rifle behind some rocks. Without warning, Nick opened fire on the Iraqi soldier, managing to get him in the shoulder, giving him, Eric, and Jason enough time to get to cover and continue firing. As they fired at him, Nick saw the Iraqi throw something at them.
"Grenade!" Nick shouted.
Nick ran for safety down another tunnel, the explosion of the grenade causing rocks to fall behind him, blocking him off from Jason and Eric.
"Damn it! Fucking oorah." Nick cursed before turning on his radio to contact Jason or Eric. "This is Mailman Three to Mailman Two-One Actual! Come in, Lieutenant. Over. Mailman Three to Dropkick! Colonel, are you there? Over."
Of course, none of them responded, which meant Nick was on his own to find them. Much to Nick's horror, he heard the clicking sound of those creatures somewhere down the tunnel, behind him.
"Oh no." Nick gasped as he turned around, rifle raised.
Having no other choice, but to go towards the sound, Nick slowly moved forward, that clicking sound growing closer and closer with each step. Nick eventually came to a small drop, quietly jumping down so as not to make the clicking creature, where ever it was aware of him. Nick hid behind a large pillar of stone, listening for more clicking, but heard none. Nick thought for a second, he was in the clear, until suddenly he felt a hand suddenly covered his mouth and when it did, Nick's only thought was.
"I'm fucking dead!"
After the truck fell on top of the bat creature, Salim tried to look for a way out of the chamber he was in. He couldn't climb over the truck into the hallway where he ran from the creature, there were no other passageways for him to follow that weren't blocked, and he wasn't sure if he could make a jump over to the broken stairs. He found a long plank of wood that he could use to walk across the gap, back onto the stairs, but it broke when he tested it to see if it could handle his weight.
"Oh, for God's sake! I should have said 'No! You fight your own damn war.'" Salim said sarcastically to himself.
Salim turned and walked around the small temple room he was in.
"There has to be some other way out of here… There has to be!" Salim said.
Salim looked towards the fallen truck, thinking he might as well try to move it out of the way of the passage as it was the only other way out. As he walked towards the truck, he suddenly felt his boot kick something. Salim looked down and saw that it was a wallet. Curious, he picked it up and flipped it open and saw it contained a picture of Dar with a women and the two seemed… happy.
"Dar?" Salim questioned, seeing the picture.
Salim assumed the women in the photo must have been Dar's wife, which was a surprise to him, never knowing his captain to be a married man. Salim closed the wallet and put it in his pocket for safe keeping for the time being. Salim grabbed onto a board from the truck and moved it away, revealing the dead creatures arm, it's skin a dark grey and it's fingers extremely longs, ending in vicious black talons. Salim took a moment to breath and assure himself it was dead, no creature able to survive a truck falling on them. Salim pulled away a branch and lifted up a metal sheet, revealing the creature's head, which had some type of pink gills on it.
Salim didn't know what this creature was, it looked like a bat, but it wasn't a bat. Salim began to reach for the creature to drag it from under the truck, but then the creature suddenly sprung back to life with it's terrifying screech and swiped it's claws it him. Salim barley managed to dodge the creature's claws and ran for the stairs. The creature was getting up, it seeming to be strong enough the lift the truck off itself, which Salim was barely able to believe. Seeing that there was no time to hesitate, Salim risked the jump back up onto the stairs.
He was just able to make it and pull himself up as the creature got itself out from under the truck. Salim ran to the top of the stairs and looked to see the creature at the bottom. He took out the gun he grabbed earlier and fired at the creature, emptying the clip, but the creature didn't seem to take any damage. Salim threw the empty pistol at the creature, which just bounced harmlessly of it and made it angrier. The creature lunged at Salim, who dodged to the side against some rocks.
Salim tried to climb them to get away from the creature, but it grabbed onto his leg, trying to pull him back down. Salim tried to pull his leg free from the creature's grasp and climb higher and as he did, the creature's arm hit the sunlight shining in from the hole above them and was set alight with fire, causing it to screech in pain. Seeing this, Salim jumped down from the rocks, ran back down the broken stairs and jumped into the lower part of the temple. Salim looked around for something, anything to defend himself with as the creature began to chase after him. Salim noticed a long piece of metal sticking out from the truck that could work as some sort of stake.
He grabbed the piece of metal and turned towards the creature.
"Come on! Let's see what you're made of!" Salim shouted, challenging the creature.
Salim swung the creature down across the head as it lunged for him. The creature seemed barley phased as it and Salim circled each other, Salim with the stake at the ready. The creature tried to pounce, Salim stabbed the sharp end of his metal stake into the center of the creature's chest. Salim was sent to the ground and the creature, still alive continued to try and grab at Salim until it's struggling became weak and died for real this time. Salim, very shaken up, but alive, stood back up and looked down at the creature, then his metal stake.
Salim questioned how something like this piece of metal was able to kill the creature while a truck falling on it didn't. The only thing Salim knew for sure was that he didn't feel right to call whatever he had just killed an animal. This creature, it was some sort of ungodly monster and not even that, it was more like a demon from the deepest pits of Hell itself. Suddenly, Salim heard the sound of radio chatter and voices and it wasn't his fellow Iraqi soldiers, it was the Americans. Salim quickly hid behind the truck and watched as three American soldiers entered the temple.
Salim and the Americans heard the clicking of another creature from somewhere. The Americans tried to spread out and search for the creature but were suddenly swooped by it. The creature picking one of them up in its talons and dropping them from a fatal height. The Americans didn't stand a chance as they were slaughtered, and Salim couldn't do anything to help them. Not wanting to stick around where these bat creatures were, Salim quickly made his way down the hallway and through the doors from earlier.
There was nowhere for him to go, other than a hole in the ground. Salim dropped down and made his way through the cave and as he did, he noticed an odd stone on the ground. He picked it up and saw that it was a depiction of people seeming to pray to the sky, but where Salim assumed some jewel should have been to represent the sun, there was just a hole. Salim looked on the back on the stone and saw a label saying 'R19' tapped to it. Salim placed it back down and continued down the tunnel, however, he soon heard a the clicking of another one of those bat creatures.
He peeked out from behind a wall of stone and saw it crawling towards the body of a dead soldier. Salim got out of sight and stayed hidden, waiting for the creature to go away, occasionally peeking to see if it was still there, but it just wouldn't go away. Eventually, Salim heard what sounded like gunfire and an explosion from somewhere not too far off. Salim wondered if it was his fellow Iraqi soldiers and the Americans fighting each other or if it was one or the other fighting the creatures or all three fighting each other. If it was the first or last scenario, Salim thought it was foolish, they may have been enemies, but now both sides, whether they knew it or not, were facing a common enemy in these bat creatures and they had to put aside their grievances and stand together as one if anyone wanted to make it back to the surface alive and not end up like that dead soldier the creature was feasting on.
Salim took another glance from where he was hiding and saw an American soldier and he was about to run into the bat creature. Salim quickly, but carefully got down from where he was hiding and snuck up to the American soldier. Salim covered the soldier's mouth and shushed him to be quiet and spoke to him in English.
"Over there, there is a demon." Salim whispered so the creature didn't hear him. "We can get through this. But only together. They react to sound, like bats. They hear you, they hunt you. I've seen their weakness. They burn in sunlight. Like any living being, they can be killed. A stake through the heart. Your bullets will only slow them down. Even a truck falling on them just makes them angry. We do this together, okay?"
The American soldier nodded and Salim took his hand away from his mouth.
"I have seen the demon tear apart an entire squad of soldiers, so we must be careful. We have to go around, you move into a flanking position and get it's attention, I'll do the rest." Salim instructed.
"I'm ready, let's do it." the American soldier said.
Salim and the American soldier split up, sneaking around the creature from opposite sides. It was slow and tense and they had to climb up and drop down on some small ledges and do so quietly, but they were able to make it around behind the creature unnoticed. Salim looked to the American and nodded. The American raised his rifle and shot at the creature, which turned and screeched at him. Before the creature could even try to charge the American, Salim ran up from behind it and drove his metal stake into it's back, pinning it to the ground.
Salim was struggling to drive the point of the stake all the way into the creature's heart, but the American came over and helped him kill the creature. The American looked at the creature, having seen them before, but not this up close.
"I've seen ugly in my life, but never that ugly." the American said. "What the fuck are we up against? Those things are everywhere!"
"Never before have I ever seen anything… so vicious. What do you think those things are?" Salim asked.
"You know what, I don't know. I didn't think to ask. How about you?" the American asked.
Salim had no clue what these creatures were either until he suddenly thought back to Zain's mythology book that he found in his room. He remembered how it talked about the souls of the dead being led underground to the underworld. They were in a Sumerian temple and were underground and this creature was more demon than animal, it all seemed to make sense.
"Do you believe in demons?" Salim asked.
"If you'd asked me that before, I'd of laughed in your face." the American said.
"But now? In Sumerian myth, they say the souls of the dead went deep underground to the House of Ashes, where they lived on dust and plagued by the demons of the underworld." Salim said explained.
"I can't even begin to comprehend that." the American replied.
"Like you, I also never believed, but look around you. Look where we are! Look what we have seen…" Salim said, glancing at the demon they had just killed. "We are trapped in a Sumerian temple."
Salim than thought about his son back home and the angry message he had left his neighbor after he found the goods Zain had stolen. With how dangerous these demons were, Salim knew there was a very slim chance he'd make it out of here alive and if he didn't than the last thing Zain would hear from him was how angry he was with him and that was something Salim couldn't handle.
"I, I shouldn't be here. I, I should be home… with my son." Salim rambled.
"I hear you. Family is everything." the American sympathized.
"I should've never come here." Salim said regrettably. "It's his birthday today."
"Oh, man. You really shouldn't be here." the American gasped. "How old?"
"Old enough to think he's a man when he's only still a boy. He just turned 18." Salim said.
"Wow. Big day. Big day." the American laughed. "Well, let me tell you, best present you can give him is to make sure you get home today."
"It's the only thing keeping me going." Salim said.
"Well, if we're in Hell, I guess you should at least know my name. Nick Kay. Sergeant." the American introduced, holding out his hand.
"Salim Othman. Lieutenant. Iraqi army." Salim introduced back, shaking the Nick's hand.
Salim slid his metal stake into the band of his uniform's gear and pick up the pistol from the dead soldier the bat demon had been feasting on.
"Thank you, brother." Salim said to the dead soldier in Arabic.
Suddenly, from Nick's radio came Jason's voice, asking how he was.
"Solid copy, L.T. I see your light. Keep moving forward. I'm just ahead. Over." Nick responded to the radio.
"I'm coming to get you." Jason replied back.
Instinctively, Salim raised his gun, knowing it wasn't safe for him to be around more Americans, who wanted him dead. He looked towards where the lights were coming from and behind him to see a pillar of stone. He could hide behind that pillar and slip away unnoticed until Nick and his companion left. However, Salim knew he couldn't make it on his own for too long down here and maybe if he surrendered to the Americans, he could convince them to have all of them survive this whole ordeal together.
"Your friends better not do anything dumb." Salim said, still keeping ready to defend himself if he was forced to.
"Listen. You gotta trust me. They won't hurt you." Nick assured, thinking along the same lines as Salim.
Salim could tell that Nick himself wasn't sure of that, but Salim took his chances and stayed put, raising his hands to show he wasn't a threat. He just hoped that we wouldn't regret this. Jason and Eric soon arrived and when they saw Salim, they immediately raised their weapons.
"Drop your weapon! Now!" Eric ordered.
"And down on the fucking floor!" Jason said.
Salim grabbed back onto his pistol and pointed it at Eric and Jason.
"Stop pointing your guns at me!" Salim said.
Nick stayed out of the line of fire, but still spread his arms out towards Eric and Jason and Salim.
"All right! Everyone take a fucking second. He's not a hostile!" Nick tried to defuse.
"I don't want to hurt you!" Salim said.
"Your uniform tells me something different!" Jason argued.
"You'll make a mistake you're gonna regret soldier, put your gun down now!" Eric demanded Salim.
"No! You lower yours first." Salim tried to calmly reason.
"Drop your weapon or we will fire! Are you hearing me, drop your weapon now!" Eric demanded.
Salim still wouldn't drop his weapon and Jason was on the verge of just shooting the Iraqi himself.
"Drop your weapon before we fucking drop you!" Jason demanded as a last warning.
Salim was starting to get shaky at how tense things were getting, starting to regret not hiding.
"I didn't come this far to die by a trigger happy American!" Salim stated, about to pull the trigger.
Before he could though, Salim stopped himself from letting things unnecessarily escalate further to the next level.
"Okay! Enough!" Salim said, raising his hands. "There's no point in fighting. Not anymore."
"I ought to put one through your fucking skull." Jason said aggressively.
"It won't change anything. I'd still be in this Hell." Salim rationalized.
"Don't tempt me." Jason replied before looking over to Nick. "We're heading back to the temple. Tie him up… If he tries anything, put him down."
Nick didn't argue and went over to Salim, disarming him binding his hands behind his back.
"After all we've been through… Thanks a lot!" Salim said sarcastically.
As Nick bound Salim's hands, Eric noticed the creature they had killed. He went over to it and saw that it wasn't a normal animal.
"My god. You were right." Eric admitted. "The Hell is this thing?"
"Makes your anus pucker, don't it?" Jason said, before looking to Nick and Salim. "Hey, you two boys do this together?"
"Of course, we did! We fought it together and we won" Salim said, hoping the Americans would realize they needed to continue to do so.
"Jason. We need to talk about this guy." Nick said, trying to support Salim.
"Not now. This plan is a bust! Whatever the Hell happened to Joey, he's gone and there are fuck knows how many of those things out there. I say we pull back to the temple and regroup." Jason said.
"I think that's the best plan I've heard all day." Nick agreed.
"Kolchek's right, the temple is the safest place we can be down here." Eric agreed.
Eric than looked at the creature.
"And we're bringing this… thing with us so that I can study it and figure out what exactly it is and what we're up against." Eric said.
"Yes, Colonel." Jason said.
Eric took the lead in leading the others back to the temple while Nick led Salim forward and Jason dragged the creature with them.
Meanwhile, over 200 feet below, there laid a body, not a dead body, an alive, yet unconscious one. The person suddenly woke up, not knowing where they were.
"Where the fuck am I?" they thought.
They tried to rub something wet away from their eyes, but when they looked, they saw that their hands were red… with blood. It was then that they finally realized the air was clotted with the horrible stench of blood and death. They looked down and saw they were laying on a large pile of bloody bones, human bones.
"What the Hell?" the person thought.
The person looked out in front of them and saw they were in a chasm filled with a lake of blood. There were even more piles of bones and debris and there were patches of fire everywhere. It was a truly horrific sight, like what someone would think Hell looks like.
"Where am I? What the fuck is this place? What the fuck have I dropped myself into? Is this… Hell?" the person thought. "Oh my God, it has to be. This is Hell. I've fallen into Hell. I've fallen into fucking Hell!"