The Buried Cities by James Frey

Author:James Frey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2017-04-12T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 8

Ariadne

I don’t know what is in the water with us, but I know that it’s large.

“Some kind of fish, I think,” I tell Boone.

“Fish?” he says. “Inside a mountain?”

“I’ve seen all kinds of things in the caves in Crete.”

“Well, I don’t want to wait around to find out what it is,” he says. “Let’s get out of here.”

“And go where?” I say. “We have no idea how large this lake is.”

“Is there any sign of the others?” he asks.

In answer, there is splashing to our right. Someone is swimming. I’m guessing it’s the other man, the one Boone called Hicks, as Cassandra would never make so much noise. I still don’t know who he is, and would like to ask Boone about him, but there are more pressing matters.

“The tower the bridges are attached to is over there,” I say. “Maybe we could at least get out of the water.”

It’s as much of a plan as I have at the moment. I wish I knew where Cassandra was, as my bet is that she’s more dangerous than anything lurking in the water. “Do you know what happened to my sister?” I ask Boone.

“Last time I saw her, she was trying to kill me,” he says. “She got her hands on at least one of the knives.”

“That’s one knife too many,” I say as we begin to swim.

We don’t get very far before I feel something pass by my leg.

“I think we need to swim faster,” Boone says, and I know he’s felt it as well.

We increase our pace. The stone tower that is our goal is not far ahead. Then I again feel something beneath me. This time I receive a hard bump, as if whatever it is has hit me with its head. I’m lifted from the water a little bit. I think of dolphins, and how they investigate objects with their snouts. But I’m sure this is no dolphin.

“What the hell?” Boone says.

I look over in time to see him thrown into the air. He rises at least two meters, then splashes down again. As he does, I see something white slithering just above the water. Before I can make out exactly what it is, it sinks below the surface again.

“I really wish we had one of those knives,” Boone says, treading water beside me.

I am about to tell him to keep swimming when a scream issues from the darkness, accompanied by frenzied thrashing. Something is attacking Hicks, and it’s happening just out of our sight. All my instincts tell me to swim away from it, but I can’t.

“We can’t let it get him,” I tell Boone. “We need his part of the key.”

I start swimming. Boone is right beside me, matching me stroke for stroke. We follow the screams. I try not to think about what might be attacking him.

I find out soon enough. Suddenly the screams are cut off. As Boone and I pause, looking around, the water right in front of us erupts like a geyser.

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