Chapters (42)
- BENEATH THE DARK ICE
- Table of Contents
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- Prologue
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Epilogue
- One
- Two
- Three
Silex reached the beach and looked back up to where his former team members were still stranded high on the rock face. He blinked a couple of times to remove the sweat from his eyes and also to clear his vision of what had to be a hellish hallucination. Reaching up out of the water was a tentacle whip as thick at the base as a redwood tree, but tapering at the tip to what looked to be a human body. The owner of the massive appendage was still hidden beneath the water but by its size the creature had to be enormous.
Silex looked back at his colleagues and giggled. “Can’t let that tricky Captain Hunter evade his fate this time, can we?”
He raised the handgun and fired at Alex twice, then turned to run along the sand.
The twin boom of the handgun was like thunder in the cave. This was no silent gas projectile being fired but a hard round with explosive chemical propulsion. Two things happened almost simultaneously—the creature snapped its lure away from the team on the cliff face, and the lights went out.
At first Silex could not see what was coming. The creature propelled itself so silently and smoothly along under the water that it would have been invisible even in the twilight of the glow-worms. He continued to run across the black sand in the dark, oblivious to the danger. The first he became aware of a change in his circumstances was when he suddenly became engulfed in a marine-ammonia smell that made his eyes water and his nasal passages sting. Slowly the lights winked on and with them a clearer image of what now stood before him—Tom Hendsen.
“No, no, no, you don’t want me; there are more people back there. I already wounded one for you, Tom. You know I hoped that one day we could work together. I always admired your work; your research was always impeccable.”
Silex slowly raised the gun until he had it pointed at the face of the figure.
“You know, you really should watch that Captain Hunter and that co-worker of yours. There’s something going on there.” Silex grinned and blood spotted his chin from his cracked lips. He double-gripped the gun and pulled the trigger.