A portion of the building shifted and fell. Rook franticly looked for a target within the movement, but saw nothing but bones.

Moving bones.

Some of which were moving … up.

Rook took a step back as he realized the truth. The building was moving. Whatever had attacked him wasn’t hiding behind the bones or inside the bones. It was under the bones.

Rook opened fire, unleashing seven quick rounds, filling the chamber with the sound of thunder. But the moving mass showed no reaction as it rose up, shedding a layer of ancient body fragments. As the bones fell away, a ten-foot tall stone figure remained, nearly featureless except for the head, which was made from the head of a Neanderthal statue. It lunged for him.

With no time to reload, Rook did the only thing he could.

Ran.

While the Desert Eagle packed a punch big enough to put down any man or beast with a single shot, his assault rifle had a 40mm grenade launcher that could put down a whale. Maybe even a stone giant.

Bones shattered as a strike just missed him, sending an explosion of bone fragments into the chamber. The shrapnel struck Rook’s back, embedding in his flak jacket and pushing him forward. He stumbled through the sea of ancient limbs, struggling back to the spot where he hoped he’d dropped his weapon. His eyes widened as he saw the barrel of his rifle protruding from the debris. He ran for it, but his foot rolled on a femur, toppling him forward.

The accidental movement saved his life as an enormous appendage swung over his prone body. While the creature recovered from its missed swing, Rook dove forward on his hands and knees. Reaching the M4, he took it up, wrapped his index finger around its second trigger—

—and held his fire.

Being only ten feet away, if he had pulled the trigger, he would have killed himself along with the monster. Crawling once again, he moved as far as he could before noticing the creature making progress. He rolled himself behind the remains of a bone wall and took aim.

The grenade launcher’s cough was followed by a massive explosion. Bones and rock fragments rained down for several seconds and the air filled with the smell of explosives and the dust of the dead.

Rook leaned up and found only a bone-filled crater where the monster had stood. Before he had a chance to savor his victory he noticed his body was shaking. Were his nerves really that fragile after not being in the field for a year? But it wasn’t he who was shaking. It was the chamber.

As he reloaded the grenade launcher he remembered the pulsating vibrations he’d felt before. Whatever was causing the shaking wasn’t getting closer, it was—

Boom!

The cavern wall exploded as a twelve-foot giant barreled through it. Rook ducked as stone shrapnel shot through the cavern fast enough to shatter bones, toppling some of the still standing structures. Rook stood and fought to see what was happening through the dust-filled air. A large shape, its form shrouded in the foul air, surged toward him. He couldn’t see the details of its body, but unlike the first, this one wasn’t made from stone. It was crystal. The same kind of crystal that hung above the city of Meru. The same kind of crystal that hung around Bishop’s neck. The healing stones had become a killing machine.