The Deep by Cutter Nick

Author:Cutter, Nick [Cutter, Nick]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Gallery Books
Published: 2015-01-12T16:00:00+00:00

THEY STEPPED into the tight passageway.

Luke shut the hatch behind him, and his ears popped. He immediately became aware of the oxygen quality: stale and cool, not unlike the ancient air in a subterranean cave.

They inched through the diseased trickle of light. The walls hugged their bodies lovingly; the metal seemed to breathe as they moved forward.

“How far do we go?” he asked.

Al grunted. “I dunno. I’ve never been in here.”

Luke could barely see his fingers in front of his face. The walls brushed his hips; the passage was tapering ahead of them but also, as he sensed it, behind them. He could almost hear the tunnel issuing sly snaps and crunches as it crimped, the steel folding like onionskin.

The air tasted horrible. Not just stale—infused with the taste of dead things. They could’ve been in the mouth of some enormous monster, picking their way along teeth hung with rotted meat. Adrenaline twined up from Luke’s feet; it crawled into his chest and forced his breath out in harsh, plosive pops.

“Fuckin’—what the . . . ?” Al said.

“What is it?” said Luke.

“Dead end.”

Spiders crawled over the dome of his skull as a skittish panic rushed over him—an unaccountable fear that reminded him of being a child in Iowa, walking down a lonely country road at night as headlights bloomed over the curve of the earth behind him, conjuring an uneasiness that would linger until the car had passed, the red embers of its taillights dimming around a curve.

“It’s not a cave-in,” Al said. “The wall is sheer.” Her feet shuffled. “There’s space at the bottom. Back up, will you?”

The walls pushed at Luke’s spine—an adoring suction like the mouth of a hungry lover. He managed to clear enough space for Al to get down on all fours.

“There’s something down here,” Al said, knocking her fist around. “Same as a crawl-through, really, but it feels even smaller . . . an access chute, I’d say. Could be that the air passes through a series of filters or what-the-fuck above the chute. I don’t remember the schematics.”

“Can we get through it?”

“We’ll have to wriggle—and pray there’s no grate at the other end—but yeah . . . it’s doable. It’s the only way into the purification room.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah. That I do remember from the schematics.”

“And there’s absolutely no other . . . ?”

“Doc, hey. Not trying to be an asshole here, but this is it. No alternative.”

“Okay.” Luke vented a shaky breath. “Fine. Fine.”

“I’d let you stay here, but I may need help,” she said. “My hand’s fucked.”

Luke exhaled heavily. “Go on. I’ll follow.”

Al’s body bumped into the tube. Her elbows and knees made no noise at all—it was as if she were crawling through a hole carved into a mountainside.

“You coming, Luke?”

He knelt. His knees and feet were pressed tightly together, the knobs of his anklebones touching. It felt as though the tunnel behind him was no longer an O, but had been crimped into a V: a pair of jaws closing by degrees, forcing him forward if he didn’t want to be crushed.

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