“Frank, come on out, buddy, we’re done for the day. Let’s get out of here,” Andy called, even though the microphone in his suit would have carried the voice directly to his friend’s ear.

Andy turned back to Tania and smiled. “Friends?”

She smiled and nodded.

“Buy you a drink later? We can toss around some ideas.” He flashed her a winning smile.

Matt groaned and was delighted to see Tania shake her head. “Rain check – got to get back.”

More of Frank’s grunts came over the radio, followed by the sound of his suit material rumpling violently.

“What the…?” Andy frowned. “Frank?” He took a step toward the hole. “He can’t hear me.”

Tania grabbed his arm. “You’re talking directly into a two-way radio – he can’t not hear you.”

They heard more grunting and then what sounded like a sob. “Shit.” Andy raced to the hole, disappearing inside fast.

“Wait!” Tania yelled after him. “Soldiers, at arms.”

Matt followed Andy, as Tania waited for Jackson and Miller.

In a few seconds Matt caught up to Andy and slid to a halt. The man just stood there, as if in a daze. Matt came up beside him and saw his face was pale, and his mouth slack.

“What is it? What did you see?” Matt looked around. “Where…?”

The end of the tunnel was empty – Frank was gone. The section of wall where the remains of Bill Anderson had been found looked…disturbed, and glistened as if coated in oil or slime.

“It…took him.” Andy’s words were barely audible.

“Huh? What did?” Matt shook the geologist.

Andy suddenly put a hand to his head, over the microphone at his ear. He moaned. Matt knew why; they could all hear Frank’s voice, not words, but strangulated grunts, struggling and more of the god-awful sobbing.

“Oh god, he’s in there…in there.” Andy lifted a shovel and started furiously digging. “Get him out, get him out.”

“Stop!” Matt yelled.

Almost immediately the soil above them collapsed.

*

Andy Bennet sat in a corner of a bustling meeting room with his head in his hands, still not understanding what had happened to his long-time friend and colleague. One minute the big man was right there, and the next he had been in the wall. He sat back. In the freakin wall…but still alive, and sounding like he was being dragged away. How can that even happen?

It can’t, it’s impossible, he thought. And impossible is what everyone kept saying. But he’d been there, he’d seen it, the thing that grabbed Frank, held him tight, and then pulled him struggling into the dirt. It couldn’t have been real. He must have been in shock, delusional, that was it.

Andy crushed his eyes shut as Frank’s struggling, frightened voice continued to torment him. He remembered the fragment of skull belonging to Bill Anderson, and his friend’s screams took on a horrifying dimension. He tried to blank them out.

He sat back, feeling nauseated. In the cave-in, they’d lost Jackson, and Matt Kearns and Miller had needed to pull both him and Captain Tania Kovitz to safety. The official report was that both men, Jackson and Frank, had been lost in the collapse – much easer to understand – much easier to believe.