Chapter 10# The Enemy of My Enemy
After retreating away from the Americans, Salim and Dar descended further into the temple. They eventually came to a chamber with another generator. Salim looked at Dar and saw that he had bits of hot glass and cuts all across his face from when Nick shot the light Dar had been standing near. Salim had Dar sit down and began to clean his wounds and as he did, they heard what sounded like an explosion come from somewhere above them, dust falling from the chamber's ceiling.
"Americans! So predictable. When in doubt, plant a bomb!" Dar said.
Dar grimaced in pain as Salim wiped another one of his cuts with disinfectant.
"I beg you, shut up and stop squirming!" Salim said, not wanting Dar to give away their position to anyone or anything.
Dar stayed quiet as Salim finished cleaning his wounds.
"All done. It makes you look like a real war hero!" Salim said, trying to lighten the mood a little.
"Yes! A war hero. My scars will tell a story." Dar agreed.
"We're going to need all the heroes we can get if we're to live through this." Salim said.
Suddenly, Salim and Dar heard what sounded like footsteps and they were getting closer. Knowing it was the Americans, both men hid and waited for them. The one Salim knew as Nick entered first; Dar moved out from behind the pillar and aimed his rifle at him, demanding that he dropped his weapon. Nick aimed his own rifle at Dar in response and Salim immediately aimed his pistol at Nick to stop him.
"In English!" Dar commanded Salim.
"Hello again." Salim greeted Nick. "My friend is not happy."
"Yeah, I can see that." Nick responded, not taking his eyes off Dar.
"What happened up there?" Salim asked, wanting to know what that explosion he and Dar heard a few moments ago was.
Before Nick could even attempt to answer, a women covered in blood came from out of the shadows and aimed her gun at Salim, Dar aiming his rifle at her in response.
"Your friend is a little to jumpy for my liking. It's making me nervous." Nick said.
"Lowering your weapon might… help alleviate some of the tension." Salim tried to reason.
"A bullet in his head if he doesn't do as we say!" Dar threatened.
"That would be a very bad idea." Rachel spoke in Arabic.
"You're in no position to be arguing." Dar said, thinking he and Salim had the upper hand.
Suddenly, Jason came up behind Dar and Eric came out of the shadows, next to Rachel, both aiming their guns at him. Seeing this, Nick sharply turned around, aiming his rifle at Salim, who raised his hands. The Americans had the upper hand now, but Dar still wouldn't lower his rifle.
"Make a move, I fucking dare you." Jason threatened.
Salim spoke up in hopes of keeping things from getting ugly.
"I feel like our uniforms are getting in the way of what could be a beautiful relationship." Salim said nervously.
"Don't be a fool!" Dar said.
"Shut up!" Jason demanded. "I say we drill these sorry looking motherfuckers. What'd you think, Colonel?"
"What are you saying?" Dar questioned.
"Make the call, Colonel." Nick said.
Eric eyed both Salim and Dar; they were both enemy soldiers and as far as he knew and saw, they were dangerous or at least Dar was and he was the one who nearly got him and Rachel killed on the cliff. Salim seemed to be the more level headed one, but he had still helped Dar when he attacked them earlier even if he didn't fire any bullets. Because of all that, Eric had the right mind to tie both of them up, not wanting to be constantly looking over his shoulder, worrying about them as well as the vampires. However, thinking back to what they had just faced back up in the temple, it was far more rational for them to work together, they had to if any of them wanted to survive this.
"We need their help." Eric said.
Hearing that, Jason shook his head, thinking it was a mistake to side with the Salim and Dar since they were Iraqi soldiers and that made them just as much their enemies as the vampires were in his mind.
"They're the enemy, Nicky!" Jason said, trying to look to him for support.
"We have to help each other. It's the only way." Salim rationalized.
The screech of the vampires suddenly came from where the Americans came from and from the sounds of it, they were close.
"It's them!" Salim shouted.
Salim looked to the other side of the chamber, to a door behind Jason that lead down further into the temple.
"We must get this door open." Salim stressed.
Salim rushed over to the door and began trying to push it open.
"Why are you standing there? Help!" Salim shouted towards everyone.
Nick began to move towards the door to help Salim, but Jason, with his rifle still trained on Dar, tried to stop him.
"Don't even think about it." Jason said, thinking he and Eric were making a mistake.
Nick looked towards Jason, not understanding how he could be so stubborn after what they had just faced. Weather they could trust Salim and Dar or not, they had to take the risk and work with them if they wanted to survive.
"Fuck, Jason! The enemy of our enemy is our friend." Nick reasoned, moving past Jason. "Move! Come on man."
Nick helped Salim push on the door that still refused to budge.
"Dammit! Help them! I'll cover the corridor." Eric told Rachel.
Eric aimed towards the corridor to shoot any vampires that came their way while Rachel ran to help Salim and Nick, but even with the three of them, the door still wouldn't budge. Jason glanced back and forth towards Salim, Nick, and Rachel and Dar. The vampires were getting closer and closer by the second and with how small the chamber they were in was, it wouldn't be too difficult for the vampires to overrun and slaughter them. Shaking his head, thinking her was crazy, Jason stopped aiming his rifle at Dar and helped the three push the door open. When the doors were open, they all rushed through and closed them, coming into a new chamber.
The chamber had statues of humans with the bodies of what looked like lions and broken scorpion tails and holding spears, there were also more statues of Pazuzu. All around the chamber were human skeletons and carved into the walls were holes with even more human bones and there was old stains of blood on a stone dais in the middle of a chamber. This place looked like it was once a sacrificial chamber.
"This looks like the worst place in the Goddamn world." Jason said.
Suddenly, creeping out from one of the carved holes in the wall came a vampire. Soon enough, they were all surrounded by at least a dozen or so vampire, all screeching at them, eager for the kill. A vampire jumped from out of one of the holes in the wall and screeched at them. Jason began firing his rifle at the vampire, which caused to clumsily fly off into another part of the chamber. It was than that the fire fight began, everyone firing their rifles and pistols all around at the vampire, attempting to fend them off so they could escape the assault. A vampire pouched on Jason from the side and dragged him kicking and screaming down a corridor.
"Jason!" Nick shouted.
Nick attempted to ran after his friend, but as he tried to run down the corridor, from around the corner came a shadowy, humanoid figure.
"Who… who's there. Who's there?" Nick demanded in a shaky voice, spooked by the suddenly appearance of a humanoid figure, not knowing what it was.
Back in the battle with the vampires, Eric braced himself against a statue as he shot at the vampires. Salim and Dar got back to back, hoping staying together would give them a better chance to survive, but a vampire rushed them. Salim was pushed to the ground by the vampire, which scurried off to somewhere else in the chamber. Dar continued to shoot at the vampires, not noticing one sneaking up behind him until it was too late.
"Dar!" Salim shouted in warning to his captain.
Dar turned around and as he did, the vampire rammed it's clawed hands into his body and lifted him up off the ground, his blood leaking onto the vampire's face.
"The demons… you were right!" Dar shouted.
Salim got up, pulled out the iron car rod stake and stabbed it into the vampire's back, killing it. Dar fell to the ground, bleeding to death from where the creature's claws pierced him. Salim grabbed his dying captain's rifle and shot at several vampires trying to approach him. The woman who was covered in blood was tackled to the ground by one and it was trying to bite at her neck. Salim looked towards her and raised his rifle to save her, but as he did, another vampire was leaping through the air towards him.
Salim quickly shot the vampire attacking the woman, saving her. Salim tried to jump out of the way of the vampire that was leaping towards him, but it kicked him to the ground. It pinned him there with it's hind legs, deeply cutting into his chest with it's talons. Salim shot the vampire off him with Dar's rifle before it could do any more severe damage. Back with Nick, the humanoid figure slowly began making it's way out of the shadows of the corridor, coming into the light.
The figure was human or at least it used to be. The figure had thin horns poking out from it's forehead and two elongated fangs like Joey had earlier when he attacked them. The figure was also wearing leather armor and an old rusted helmet and it had an aspostiche beard, making this human, turned vampire look like he was a warrior from ancient times. The ancient vampire hissed and screeched at Nick as it approached him. As it got closer, Nick pulled out Joey's crucifix and held it towards the ancient vampire, thinking it would somehow stop it.
The humanoid vampire stopped and stared in confusion at the crucifix. Nick thought for a second that the crucifix worked until the ancient vampire slapped his arm away and slammed his head against the wall. Dazed, the vampire grabbed Nick by the neck and began strangling him. Nick tried to break away, but the vampire despite it's frail looking appearance, had a very strong, seemingly unbreakable grip. As this was happening, Eric was running past and noticed.
"What the Hell?" Eric exclaimed.
"Help me." Nick managed to choke out.
Eric pulled out his UV wand and shined it towards the vampire. Unlike all the other vampires, this one didn't catch on fire immediately due to the thousands of years of dust and dirt covering it. With it's incredible strength, the vampire threw Nick at Eric, both men colliding with each other. Salim ran to Nick and helped him up, both men beginning to retreat out of the sacrificial chamber. Eric tried to follow after them, but the ancient vampire grabbed him by the head with both hands and began trying to crush it. Nick looked towards Rachel, who saw Eric being attacked.
"Rachel. Stay close!" Nick said.
Rachel looked towards Nick and back at Eric, two normal vampires beginning to surround Eric and the humanoid vampire.
"He's gone! We have to move, now!" Nick said, thinking there was no chance of saving Eric. "Let's go!"
"Not without Eric" Rachel said.
Rachel ran to Eric's rescue, shooting one of the normal vampires, making it scurry off. The second vampire tried to attack Rachel, but she grabbed Eric's UV wand, which he had dropped and shone it at the vampire. Rachel got close to the vampire attacking Eric and shone the light at it, causing it to drop Eric and back away.
"Come with me." Rachel said, pulling Eric back onto his feet.
The two ran towards another corridor, the humanoid vampire following them. It looked towards one of the statues holding a spear and tore it from it's stone hands. Rachel heard the stone break and looked back. The vampire threw the spear at Rachel to impale her, but Rachel rolled out of the way and into a vampire, which grabbed her and bit her neck.
"Rachel!" Nick screamed.
Nick ran towards Rachel, but a vampire grabbed and threw him against the wall, knocking him out as he fell into a pile of bones. As Eric ran down the corridor he and Rachel were running towards, he noticed that the UV wand was starting to flicker due to the damage it had received from being dropped multiple times. A vampire lunged at Salim, causing him to drop Dar's rifle. Salim hit the vampire across the face with his stake and ran down another corridor. Dar was crawling on the ground, slowly bleeding out. A vampire grabbed him by the leg and dragged him into a group of several other vampires, where they all began to feast on him.
Meanwhile, in another corridor somewhere far from the sacrificial chamber, as he was dragged off, Jason managed to get out his combat knife. He stabbed the creature in the chest, right in the heart, causing it to collapse on him. Jason dragged himself out from under the vampire and stood up, looking down at it.
"Teach you to mess with a marine." he said, breathing heavily.
Jason spat on the vampire's corpse and tried to make his way back to the others. Jason didn't hear anymore gunfire, so either that meant they had managed to drive off or escape the vampires or the vampires slaughtered them all; Jason prayed to God that it was either one of the formers, he knew he wouldn't last long on his own without the others. Jason found it difficult finding his way back, the vampire had dragged him far and every passageway looked the same. The struggle he had with that vampire that grabbed him had been a rough one and honestly, Jason was worried that the fight had gotten him turned around and instead of getting closer to the others, he was just moving further away them.
"God, what have I gotten into?" Jason sighed in frustration.
Jason turned down another corridor, one that had a spotlight shining down it and he saw a figure far down the hall. Not knowing if it was a person or a vampire, Jason raised his rifle.
"Whoever's there, identify yourself!" Jason demanded the figure.
The figure walked forward with their hands raised, it was Salim.
"I come in peace." Salim said.
"Don't you fucking move!" Jason warned, keeping his rifle raised.
Salim did as Jason said, not wanting to give Jason any reason to shoot.
"All this shit… it's on you. If you people hadn't ambushed us, none of this would've happened!" Jason aggressively accused.
"I don't mean you any harm. I swear." Salim tried to defuse.
"No shit. I'm the one holding the gun." Jason said.
Jason scanned around Salim, trying to spot Dar if he was there.
"Are you alone? Did anyone else make it?" Jason questioned, wanting to know if Salim was alone and if the others were alright.
"It all happened too fast. I think it's just you and me." Salim said, not knowing if the other Americans were alive or not.
"Just you and me, huh? Well, that's just fucking great!" Jason said, fearing the worst for Nick, Rachel, and Eric.
Jason looked at Salim, preferring to be with anybody else. However, even if it was an Iraqi soldier, Jason appreciated that it was another human he ran into instead of another vampire.
"Honestly, I'm just glad to see a human face." Jason admitted.
"Me too." Salim agreed. "You're friend said 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend.' That is not always true, but if we both want to live, we must fight as one. The sword and the shield."
"Bit too wordy for my liking." Jason said, still seeming skeptical, but thought teaming up with Salim was better than going it alone. "But I'm in."
Jason lowered his rifle, much to Salim's relief. The two continued down the corridor, having to jump down some destroyed stairs to continue.
"If I think for one second, you're trying to cross me, best believe me, the following second you're dead." Jason warned.
"I kill vampires, you think I'm afraid of a jarhead?" Salim questioned.
"Vampires? Nick said the same thing earlier after he found this note." Jason said.
"And do you believe his assumption?" Salim asked.
Jason didn't know what these creatures were, exposing them to sunlight and a stake to the heart to kill them, having a bat-like appearance, and seeming to drain people of their blood filled the check lists for vampires, but they couldn't be vampires, there was no such thing.
"Not possible." Jason said, not knowing what else to say.
"My father once told me if something looks like shit and smells like shit, you don't have to taste it to know that it's shit." Salim stated.
Jason couldn't help but let out a small laugh at that.
"Believe me, they're vampires. We must work together to defeat them." Salim said.
"Yeah, it's beginning to look like that." Jason said.
"They say keep your friends close, but your enemy closer, but this is something else." Salim said.
"They also say desperate times call for desperate measures." Jason said.
In the middle of the corridor, there were two paths to the left and right, the left passage being blocked by rubble. Salim and Jason went down the right passage to inspect where it led to. The right path lead into a small chamber, which seemed to lead to into some other chamber, but it was blocked by more debris. There was also a stone table with about a dozen human skulls all piled on top of each other.
"Many people died here." Salim stated.
"Have your people always been like this?" Jason questioned.
"It doesn't matter what our ancestors did. It was a different time. The only thing that matters is our actions today." Salim said.
"So, you think the U.S. is the big invader? That we're the barbarians?! Why do your people hate us so much?" Jason questioned.
"I don't hate anybody. Is that okay with you?" Salim replied.
"I'll get back to you." Jason said.
Jason walked over to the blocked off entry way into the adjacent chamber and peeked the through the gaps to see where it led to and if there were any vampires they should expect to run into. He spotted a few tables and what looked like jail cells, Jason thought it looked like some sort of medieval prison block. On one of the tables, Jason spotted what looked like a bundle of dynamite.
"The Hell would explorers be doing with dynamite?" Jason wondered.
Suddenly, the face of a vampire came into Jason's view.
"Fuck! We're not alone down here." Jason informed.
"We should move now." Salim suggested.
Jason and Salim walked back into the main corridor and continued forward, keeping an eye out for that vampire. They came upon two doors, one blocked by a fallen pillar, and the door didn't look like ones they could push open. The doors, more akin to gates that had to be held up by one while the other crawled to the other side. Jason and Salim lifted the gate, Jason urging Salim to go first. When he was through, Jason dropped the door unable to hold it any long. Some large loose stones fell towards Jason from the impact of the door and he jumped out of the way.
"Are you okay?" Salim asked for the other side, hearing the impact and some dust falling in front of him.
"What do you think?!" Jason replied. "It's blocked. I got to find another way around."
Salim looked towards the other gate, he could lift it up if he got the stones blocking it out of the way.
"The other gate, I think there's a way through. I just need to clear it from my side." Salim informed Jason.
"Do it quick, those things could be anywhere." Jason said.
Salim began to clear away the stones blocking the door, as he did, he tried to start conversation with Jason to take his mind off this place and the vampires and hopefully clear up any tension between them.
"Tell me what your home is like?" Salim asked.
"Home. Where'd do I start? No money, no work, no future. Kids killing each other for a fucking nickel. Rich getting richer, poor getting poorer, that's home. For me at least." Jason explained.
"It's becoming like that everywhere it seems." Salim empathized.
"Well, all said and done, I'd rather be there than stuck here in this Hell." Jason said.
"Me and you both." Salim agreed.
Salim finished clearing the way for him to hold the gate up, urging Jason to go.
"Thanks." Jason said as he got on the other side.
As Jason and Salim made their way into another chamber, they noticed a tablet on the wall.
"These people, their craftsmanship, it's simple, yet fascinating." Salim said.
"Well, they're no Leonardo, Michelangelo, or van Gogh, but I'll admit, it's not the worst I've seen." Jason said.
Salim saw that the tablet depicted two men fighting back-to-back against two lions and a lioness.
"Two men, fighting to survive against superior predators." Salim said.
"Please, not one more fucking philosophical preach about comradery." Jason said, thinking Salim was about to go into another speech of how they needed to work together.
"I wasn't going to, but it is true. Like those lions, these creatures are superior to us in strength and ferocity. So, we must fight as one to conquer them." Salim said.
"I'm not here to make friends." Jason stated firmly.
"We don't have to be friends, but we can be allies." Salim replied.
"That's something I can get on-board with." Jason said.
Jason and Salim left the tablet behind and entered the next chamber, with a well in the middle and a stone alter in front of it. Salim picked up a tablet on the alter, which depicted what looked like a sacrificial ritual on it and on the back was labeled 'R23.'
"What's the first thing you're gonna do when we get outta here?" Jason suddenly asked.
"Hold my son." Salim said. "How about you? What'll you do?"
"I'll probably just go for a drink." Jason said.
Jason and Salim walked around the alter and around the well, but as they did, Jason noticed something on the ground. He told Salim to wait up and picked up another page of Randolph Hodgson's journal.
"What is that?" Salim asked.
"A journal from a guy named Randolph Hodgson, the leader of the explorers studying this place. Eric asked us to hold onto these if we found any more of them." Jason explained. "If he's still alive, I think he'd appreciate us doing so."
"What's it say?" Salim asked.
"31st December. Mary is dead. I sat with her in her final moments, telling her how sorry I was. Sorry for accepting Bradshaw's offer. For ever coming to this hell-forsaken place. For placing my vanity above our love. When Mary spoke about 'the end of everything' I knew she sensed death coming. With her last words, she made me swear to bury this place.
9PM. Something unholy has happened. As I sat with my wife, I noticed something in her hand; Lady Bradshaw's brooch. She must have pulled it from her shirt when she grabbed at her. Turning it over, I noticed that it looked like one of the creatures we exhumed from the cocoons. Were these the demons Mary had spoken about? Had Bradshaw known all along what we'd find down here? Then, Mary's corpse moved. It was not my wife – it was something inhuman! It leapt at me and only the bars of the cell spared me from it's fury." Jason read.
"Oh, I doubt the rest of them survived." Salim said somberly.
"Yeah, me to." Jason said.
"This Lady Bradshaw, Hodgson mentioned, do you think she actually knew about the vampires down here?" Salim asked.
Jason looked at Hodgson's drawing of Lady Bradshaw's brooch and sure enough it looked eerily similar to the vampires.
"The radio your friend shot earlier was sabotaged and Hodgson had his suspicions that a guy Bradshaw insisted they bring on the expedition despite him having a bad reputation did it. A guy named van Huyten or something. If I had to bet, it seems like they were both in on it, but for what, I don't know." Jason said. "Hodgson also mentioned his wife turning into something inhuman and attacking him. Sounds like what happened to Joey."
"Who's Joey?" Salim asked, recognizing the name, having heard Jason and his friends mention him a few times before.
"A friend of mine your people shot dead or at least Nick said he was. He must have fallen down here and the vampires infected him. He attacked us and we were forced to kill him." Jason said, sadly remembering the young marine.
"I'm sorry." Salim empathized.
"Yeah, me to. He was scared of going into battle, he always felt comfortable sitting behind a desk doing boring paper and computer work. He even had a bad feeling about coming here to begin with." Jason explained. "We should have listened to him."
"Well, the best thing you can do for him and the others is do whatever you must to get out of this place alive." Salim said.
Jason nodded in agreement and was about to put the journal page away until he noticed something at the bottom of it. He looked and saw it was the same effigy they found in the shepherd's huts, a line with a large x near the top and a smaller one near the bottom; it looked similar to the symbol on Bradshaw's brooch.
"Son of a bitch! Look at this." Jason said, showing Salim the effigy drawing. "I saw this same symbol in those shepherd huts. They had a bunch of them hanging from a wall like a fucking shrine."
"Then that must mean they knew what was down here." Salim realized.
"And I'll bet they worship them to and kidnap people and throw them down here to them like it's feeding a dog. We've been getting reports of people gone missing." Jason said, angrily gripping the journal page in his hand.
Jason thought back to the shepherd that ran from him just before they fell underground.
"I should have put a hole in that cultist's fucking skull!" Jason declared.
Salim watched as Jason seethed with rage at the shepherds, not blaming him for his anger towards them. When they got out of here alive, if they got out, something would have to be to bring those vampire cultists or whatever they exactly were to justice, but survival was the main focus first.
"Come, it's not safe to stay in one place here for too long." Salim said.
Jason agreed with Salim and pocketed the journal page. They walked over to the doors on the other side of the temple. As they made their way over, Jason looked towards Salim. Salim didn't act like what he expected an Iraqi soldier to act, he seemed more like a normal guy, level headed, a reluctant soldier almost.
"You seem like you got your head screwed on, so I gotta ask, what the Hell made you sign up with Saddam?" Jason asked curiously.
"For us, we had no choice." Salim said simply. "Your friend Nick… I like him. He was good to me."
"Circumstance. Any other day he'd put one between your eyes." Jason said.
Jason and Salim began trying to push the doors open and as they did, Salim glanced over at Jason's hat, noticing the 'Remember 9/11' initials on it and the two rectangles beside them.
"What is that meaning of those markings on your hat?" Salim asked.
"It's to honor the dead. It's the reason I fight." Jason said.
"It's as good a reason as any." Salim said.
"It's a damn good reason. The only reason!" Jason replied defensively, thinking Salim was mocking him.
"I have no grievance with you." Salim said, noticing Jason's tone.
"Then maybe you need to switch on the news." Jason replied, thinking Salim was ignorant about why this war came to be.
"Listen. There was a man once who built his house on the banks of a river. When the floods came, his wall washed away. When the droughts came, the water dried up and the man was thirsty." Salim suddenly said.
Jason looked at Salim, confused as to why he was telling this story and what it's meaning was.
"All day, the insects bit this man's flesh. Yet each night, he says to his wife 'we have all the fish we can eat!'" Salim said, finishing his story. "Your people chose this war, Jason."
"I think you need to give your mouth some rest." Jason said.
Jason went back to trying to push the door open, Salim following suite. The door was finally starting to open, but they suddenly heard a vampire clicking from behind them. They looked to see the vampire Jason spotted earlier climbing from out of the well in the middle of the room. Jason turned and shot at the vampire with his rifle while Salim pushed the door open. The vampire screeched and rushed, ramming into them, the force being strong enough to push the doors wide open and sending both men to the ground.
Jason lost his grip on his rifle and it skidded across the ground, far out of reach. The vampire swiped at Salim with it's claws, but he rolled out of the way, but the creature leaped on top of him. Before the creature could do any damage, Jason pulled out his combat knife and began to repeatedly stab the vampire in the back. The vampire sharply turned around, swiping with it's claws, but Jason jumped back, stumbling and falling back down to the ground. The vampire jumped on him and attempted to bite at Jason's neck, but held the creature back, struggling to do so.
Salim got back to his feet and rushed at the vampire with his stake and jammed it into the vampire's back. It was difficult with how much it was struggling, but Salim was able to run the stake through the vampire's heart and out through it's chest, the point coming within inches of Jason's face. Salim removed his stake from the vampire's body and Jason shoved it off him. Jason got up and retrieved his rifle. He and Salim stood there for a moment, staring at the vampire, the sight of even a dead being enough to make their blood run cold.
"I say we get the fuck outta here." Jason said, not wanting to stick around and risk running into any of the dead vampire's friends.
They walked down the short hallway and came into a room, which appeared to have a few sarcophagi in it. There was a doorway on the other side that was covered by iron bars and some rubble, but there was just enough room for them to squeeze through. They walked over to the door, but as they did, Salim suddenly felt the ground disappear under he feet and he began to fall. Jason grabbed Salim by the collar of his uniform and pulled him back to safety. Jason turned on the flashlight on his rifle, which revealed the hole in the ground Salim and nearly fallen down and it wasn't the only was as there were several other holes in the ground throughout the room. Carefully watching each step they took, Salim and Jason made their way to the half blocked door and slipped through.
"Thanks, for back there." Salim said.
"Don't mention it." Jason said.
Salim looked at where they had slipped into, it was the room Jason and seen earlier before spotting the vampire they killed. In the room, there were cells and tables with medical document and equipment, the archeologists must have made this room a medical bay. Jason walked up to one of the tables and picked up the bundle of dynamite he had spotted and others.
"This could come in handy." Jason said.
Salim wasn't so sure about how safe the dynamite was as it was over half a century old and so there was no telling if it was still good or not.
"If you want to stick sixty-year-old explosives in your bag be my guest." Salim said.
"Those weapons are close, right?" Jason suddenly asked.
"Every time you say something smart you follow it with something dumb." Salim sighed.
Salim turned right and gasped, jumping back by what he saw. On the other side of one of the cells was a body. Salim walked forward and inspected the body, it was one of the explorers and the body was of a woman. Salim thought back to the journal note Jason and found earlier and something it had said.
"It leapt at me and only the bars of the cell spared me from it's fury." Salim recited.
"What you going on about?" Jason asked.
"The page you found earlier, it said her corpse moved and turned into something inhuman and attacked him and you said something similar happened to your friend, Joey." Salim said.
Jason was didn't know what Salim was getting at until looked at the body in the cell and took time to think about it.
"Shit." Jason said, realizing what Salim was getting at. "Your telling me that that's…"
"Mary Hodgson." Salim said. "If what happened to your friend, happened to her, Randolph Hodgson must have soon realized he had to put her down. Poor women, the fate that befell her is one no one deserves to suffer."
"Amen to that brother." Jason agreed.
Salim got up away from the corpse and investigated the rest of the medical bay, starting with the cell next to Mary's. Inside it, he found another of piece of paper.
"Hay, it looks like another one of those papers your friend wanted you to collect." Salim said.
"What's it say?" Jason asked.
"The camp is in uproar. Workers are missing and Lady Bradshaw has returned to the city deep below. No-one knows why, but I can guess. She yearns for the same fate that befell Mary. She wants to be one of them.
1st January, 1947. 1 A.M. The saboteur has struck again, sealing us in here. We are hopelessly trapped with those things. All around us, they shriek from the darkness. Crow has set up his machinegun, pointed towards the catacombs. Mary was right. We cannot fight that which does not live. There is only one option now: bring the whole damned temple down on them, even if it means bringing it down on our own heads. They cannot be allowed out of here." Salim read.
"Well, I say it's safe to assume his plan to blow this place to Kingdom Come didn't work." Jason said.
"Unfortunately." Salim replied.
"The pillars back in the temple had dynamite strapped to them, but they detonator looked like it was sabotaged, no doubt by the saboteur. Three guesses who and on whose orders." Jason said.
Salim gave the paper to Jason, slipping the journal page into his pocket with the other one. They continued looking around the medical tables, Jason finding a picture of a statue of Pazuzu and on the back were autopsy notes. The notes saying that an excessive amount of blood with a high density of adrenaline was found in the stomach of a creature.
"No way." Jason said, reding the notes.
"What is it?" Salim asked.
"Whatever these things are, they feed on blood." Jason said.
"Vampires." Salim pointed out.
"Not just blood though, adrenaline. They want their prey scared before they make the kill." Jason said.
"They're doing a good job then." Salim said. "And take a look at this."
Salim threw Jason and clipboard he found, Jason caught it and read it. It was medical notes on Mary, saying that she had a dangerously high temperature and pulse, over 101F/170bpm with an obvious sweating sickness and that she was mostly unconscious, but occasionally woke up screaming, and her saline was low. What caught Jason's eye however, was the notes saying that they had detected movement under the skin of Mary's abdomen, around the location of the adrenal glands, possibly a parasitic organism. Randolph Hodgson suggested exploratory surgery, but the doctors feared that Mary wouldn't survive such an operation.
"Good Lord Jesus, God, this is fucking unbelievable." Jason said, shaking his head, not wanting to believe any of this.
"Do you want to hear a joke?" Salim asked, wanting to lighten the mood.
"Nope." Jason said.
Jason set the clipboard down and he and Salim walked over to a door of mental bars to get out of this room, but Salim noticed a box hidden in the corner of the room. He checked the box, but found nothing useful or of interest apart from a black onyx, which he assumed use to be part of that holed stone he found after witnessing a vampire killing the American soldiers. He left it in the box and returned to Jason's side, looking through the iron barred door, which lead to more caverns. Before they went down, Jason bent down and drew an arrow pointing towards the caverns with the initials 'JK' written next to it as sign for the others if they were still alive and came this way.
"You think they're still alive? That's hopeful." Salim said, having his doubts of Eric, Rachel, and Nick's survival.
"Hope is all we got left." Jason said.
They opened the door and entered the caverns. They eventually came to a point where they had to get out some rope to descend further. They entered into a cavern with a waterfall, it was a beautiful sight in a place so full of death. Jason noticed Salim walking up to the waterfall and pulling something out of his pocket. He walked over and saw that it was a wallet with a picture inside it, a picture of a woman.
"That your wife?" Jason asked.
Salim moved his thumb off a section of the picture, showing Dar's face.
"It's funny how you can know someone for years and never really know them." Salim lamented. "I had no idea my captain was married."
"That the asshole you were with earlier?" Jason questioned.
"He didn't make it." Salim revealed mournfully.
Ever since Dar came knocking on Salim's door this day, he had been stubborn, arrogant, and reckless, but Salim knew another side of Dar, a side that was a good man deep down even if he had trouble showing it most of the time.
"Works for me. One less bad guy to deal with." Jason said.
"A time will come when you'll deeply regret this manner." Salim said calmly, not looking at Jason.
"I don't carry regrets." Jason stated.
"Most people are good. You just have to realize that before they're gone." Salim said.
Salim then threw the wallet into the waterfall and he and Jason moved on. They followed the caves until they came to an area that seemed to give off a faint otherworldly green glow. Investigating, they came across a large hole in the ground where the green glow was coming from. There was a winch and an elevator that descended down into the hole, which Jason remembered Hodgson mention building in one of his journal pages.
"Well, this place is a jack in the box." Jason said.
Salim looked over the wooden railing into the hole, which was so deep that he couldn't make out the bottom, the green mist didn't help either.
"Allah…" Salim spoke softly.
"What do you make of it?" Jason asked.
"It's like nothing I've ever seen." Salim said.
"You see that elevator cable? The explorers must have gone down." Jason said, walking up to the elevator.
"I don't think they made it back up." Salim said.
Jason looked up at the winch, which still looked functional. When he said so, Salim looked to Jason, knowing what he was thinking and it wasn't just crazy, it was suicide. Jason wanted to ride the elevator down into the hole, which Salim just knew was the vampire's lair.
"No!" Salim said.
"No?" Jason questioned.
"We are not going down there! The archeologists didn't make it out." Salim stated. "What does that tell you?"
"We're not archeologists?" Jason replied.
"Our world is up there," Salim said, pointing upward and then down into the hole. "Not down below."
"Well, there's an army of monsters between us and the world above." Jason argued.
Speak of the devil, Jason and Salim heard screeching from where they had just come from and raised their weapons.
"They're close. Fire it up." Jason said, gesturing towards the elevator.
"You crazy?! If those vampires come from anywhere, it's down there. You really want to fight them in their own home?" Salim questioned.
"It's what I've been doing since I set foot in this country." Jason stated. "Get that elevator working!"
Seeing no point in arguing, Salim rushed over to the generator operating the winch and pulled the cord, starting it up and bringing up the elevator. When the elevator arrived, Jason flipped the switch and the elevator began to descend into a whole new world below. Jason readied his rifle, ready to hit these vampires where it hurt.
Sorry for the long wait on this one, I've just been a little caught up with some other things and writing out the next few chapters and am almost done with the story. Something to clarify, that ancient humanoid vampire that attacks Nick and Eric, that's Balathu from the prologue chapter, who was turned into a vampire. In the game depending on your choice in the prologue, either Balathu or Kurum will come back as a vampire. Everyone is scattered it seems. Is Rachel alright or not, she's seemed to have survived everything thus far. Nick was thrown against the wall pretty hard there, let's hope nothing unfortunate has befallen him, those taken by the abyss seldom live to tell the tale. Eric is off doing who knows what. As for Jason and Salim - sworn enemies who can't seem to bury the hatchet, unless that hatchet is buried in a back. Well, you all will just have to keep reading to find out the answears to those questions and any others you might have. Until next time, but until than have a good day and God bless.