Luna (2015) by Rick Chesler

Author:Rick Chesler [Chesler, Rick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Horror, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Science Fiction, Alien Invasion, First Contact
Amazon: B014I5PH0K
Goodreads: 26174596
Publisher: Severed Press
Published: 2015-08-24T12:00:00+00:00

26 | Alive

“Suzette!” Blake shouted into his helmet transmitter while he stared into the subterranean lunar pit.

“Sounded like she said ‘help me,’” Caitlin said, also peering into the void. Only Asami looked behind them and along the tunnel they were in.

“Suzette, we heard you! Where are you?”

The marketing VP’s voice came again, but it was garbled and unintelligible. Sort of bubbly, like a person trying to talk underwater. They all waited a few seconds but no more transmissions came.

“I didn’t get any of that,” Caitlin stated.

“Me neither,” Asami seconded.

“She must be too deep into that pit for the radio signals to propagate normally. Probably down into the secondary cavity.” Blake turned away from the edge of the hole.

“At least we know she’s alive,” Caitlin said. “She must have found that equipment cache and been able to swap out her oh-two cylinder.”

“And hopefully the carbon dioxide scrubber,” Asami added.

Blake pointed to the climbing rope clipped to Asami’s spacesuit.

“Asami, let me use your gear. I’m going in after her.”

The selenologist hesitated, but only for a second.

“C’mon, Asami. Now, while there’s still a chance.”

“Here.” She gave him the gear and prepared the rope at her end so that she could belay him as he had done for her earlier. While they set up, they continued to call out for Suzette but didn’t hear her again. Then, just as Blake was about to descend into the cavernous hollow, a wrenching, haunting wail permeated their frequency.

Not words, though. Suzette, yes, but words?

“That’s the weirdest sounding scream I’ve ever heard,” Caitlin said.

“Shhhhh.” Blake halted, poised with his back to the open space below them, ready to drop inside. They listened some more and heard some indecipherable sounds, very strange sounding vocalizations, unidentifiable. And then, Suzette’s voice once more: “It hurts...so bad...help...” Her language degenerated into a babble of incoherent syllables.

Blake whipped his head around and eyed the pit below. The inner, deeper pit was still open. “You got me, Asami? I’m going.”

“Got you.” She tightened her grip on the rope and Blake rappelled down into the chamber, landing on the first level floor. He stood there a moment, this being his first trip into the hole and not exactly sure what to expect, especially with the creatures in the area. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, getting a feel for the ground, wondering if in fact it was real ground. It seemed to be.

“Looks like the pits are the spaces the creatures have left vacant, but the rest of the chamber floor is actually rock.”

“Copy that,” Asami returned. Communications established and as acclimated as he had time for to the new environment, Blake walked over to the end of the cavern, where the deep hole was.

He gazed down into it with trepidation, fearing that at any moment one of the life forms could come roaring up at him. But there was nothing, which was both good and bad. Good because there were no monsters lurking. But bad because, literally, he could see nothing. That black void seemed to be bottomless.

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