[COPY] Back Door Dodge – Containment Protocol-Part 18
When you’re going through hell... Fiction, 2000 words, 10-minute read.
Last time, Pinsky met a new friend, the hadrosaur he’ll be riding to the mountain of the gods. He calls her Tiffany. A name she happens to share with sergeant Mulroney’s ex-strpper ex-wife. Time for them to get the show on the road.
The rest of the Containment Protocol story can be found here: https://raytabler.substack.com/s/rays-serial-fiction
Back Door Dodge – Containment Protocol-Part 18
By Ray Tabler
Booker could overlook the fact that he was essentially trapped within the bowl of an active volcano, as long as he was in Bedrock proper. Some unknown, random accident of geology shielded the place from most of the effects of the incandescent, liquid rock just below the surface. Perhaps a massive, insulating plug of mineral protected the tribe’s home. If one ignored the occasional rumbling of the ground, the numerous hot springs, and the pillars of smoke rising from other volcanoes beyond the caldera walls, it was possible to pretend that the place was simply a lush oasis.
Entering the tunnel mouth, mounted atop a domesticated dinosaur, embarking upon a high-risk excursion of his own initiation, Booker couldn’t help but question the choices which had brought him here. Not that he would’ve done anything different, given the chance to hit rewind. A review of the events since plowing through the trans-dimensional gate from Earth offered no obvious alternative paths. None that Booker could see, anyway. But then, that’s the trouble with hindsight. It doesn’t come into focus until it’s way too late to turn back.
Like most, if not all, the penetrations in Bedrock’s caldera wall, this tunnel started off as a lava tube. In some past geological age, magma poured through some weak seam between adjoining masses of landscape. To relieve the incredible pressure farther down in the crust, compressed, molten rock squirted up like God was squeezing toothpaste from a tube half a continent in size. Following the path of least resistance the magma twisted and turned, finally vomiting forth into the open air, semantically transforming into lava upon reaching the surface.
Then, the lava emptied out of the tube, spreading and cooling to the solid, stolid substance we call stone. With the shedding of a few thousand degrees of temperature, volcanic rock crystalizes to the point we can employ it to build our homes, pave our roads, fill our museums. We can pretend stone is simply another material for us to exploit, ignoring that once it lived a life of voracious, all-consuming fire.
Perhaps Booker’s thoughts didn’t delve as deep as that on this occasion. But the rumbling, and the heat emanating from the walls of the tunnel unsettled the ape which still crouches at the base of our brains.
“Wow! Sure stinks in here.” Pinsky commented, his voice strangely loud in the calm silence of the tunnel.
“Sulfur.” Booker explained. “Must be a lot of sulfur in the lava around here.”
“Lava?” Pinsky looked at the walls and ceiling, eyes darting a bit frantic.
“Lava probably formed this tube.” Muñoz entered the conversation. “Don’t worry, though. That must’ve been hundreds, thousands, maybe millions of years ago.”
No sooner were those words out of Muñoz’s mouth than the line of swahldets rounded a sharp turn. Up ahead, molten lava oozed out of a fissure in the wall, low down on the left-hand side of the tunnel. The foot-wide, glowing, bubbling, slow-motion flow disappeared into a long crack in the floor. A hellish, red radiance beckoned from the crack.
“Millions of years ago?” Pinsky gulped.
“Huh, guess I’m wrong about that.” Muñoz shrugged.
The locals didn’t pay much attention to the lava flow. Skirting around it as if it were a stalled car on a busy highway, they led the soldiers on down the tunnel. Booker felt the furnace heat radiating off the lava as his mount padded by. The tunnel was plenty wide enough to allow safe passage, with a circular cross-section, perhaps twenty yards in diameter. At least those were the dimensions at that point. The tunnel, having been constructed by mother nature, didn’t follow a constant blueprint. She shifted, this way and that, up and down, widening to echoing caverns, narrowing so much that the swahldets had to squeeze through single file. The general trend was down, farther into the earth. The general conditions were hotter, dustier, and more sulfurous. At least lighting wasn’t an issue. Glowing volcanic vents and miscellaneous, scattered lava falls provided adequate red- and yellow-tinted illumination.
Presently, they came to a gorge, cutting diagonally across their path. Zunta turned his beast to the right, and led the group along a wide ledge that bordered the chasm. Booker stood in his stirrups, to get a better view of the foot of the subterranean canyon. A broad river of molten lava ran along the bottom of the gap, a hundred feet below. The flowing lava, moving with the viscosity of thick mud, cast a demonic, orange light onto the scene. Or was this technically magma? By either name, the luminous, liquid rock was just as hot. Far above, a thin ribbon of blue sky was just discernable through the sulfurous smoke rising from the lava.
After a few hundred yards of traveling along the ledge above the molten river, they came to a bridge. It was a wooden construction, pegged and lashed together with rough-hewn dowels and crudely-twined rope. Both walls bulged out to project over the chasm and its fiery river below. The wooden span took advantage of the natural narrowing, only having to reach across about a hundred feet of empty air. All in all, the reduced length to traverse didn’t ease Booker’s concern much.
“We’re going across that?” Pinsky found it a bit difficult to control his breathing and tone of voice.
“Looks like that’s the plan.” Booker eyed the bridge, not feeling nearly as confident as he tried to sound.
Zunta slid off of his Swahldet, and spoke to Muñoz, who translated. “He says that long ago, the hero Jopla tied himself to an arrow, and held onto a rope. His companion shot the arrow from a giant bow, sending Jopla over to the other side. Jopla secured the rope over there. And that’s how they started building the bridge.”
“He had himself shot over on an arrow?” Pinsky was understandably skeptical
“That’s what the legend says.” Muñoz pondered the physics for a moment. “It was probably a bigger than average arrow.”
Zunta led his swahldet up the near side of the bridge, and slowly started to cross. He wove back and forth from one railing to the other, testing the roadbed with a probing, moccasin-shod foot every yard or so. His swahldet followed, with apparent unconcern. The bridge groaned ominously under the dinosaur’s weight, but held. Most of the way across, a stray chunk of rock, about the size of a football, must’ve fallen from the walls above. It rested near one side. Zunta absently rolled the stone over the edge with a foot. Booker watched the rock tumble all the way to the lava flow, a hundred feet below. The errant stone impacted the lava, sat for a long instant on the surface, before lazily submerging with a gust of smoke and sparks.
“Shit! That’s what’ll happen to us if the thing collapses.” Pinsky gulped.
“Nah.” Olmer corrected. “You’re not near as dense as that rock. You’ll just float on top of the lava, and fry.”
“Oh, I feel so much better.” Pinsky snapped. “That’s twice today I’ve had to worry about being burned to a crisp.”
“Happy to help.” Olmer smiled. Although, he felt nervous about the bridge himself.
By then, Zunta was on the far side. He beckoned the rest to follow, apparently satisfied at the bridge’s integrity by his inspection. One by one, they did. Not bothering to dismount. Up close, the wood of the bridge looked old, cracked from age and constant exposure to dry, hot gasses. The whole structure creaked, and swayed alarmingly under the weight of the dinos. Pinsky held his breath the entire time he and Tiffany were on the bridge. Truth be told, Booker, Muñoz, Olmer, and the other soldiers did too.
“I hope that the craziest part of this trip.” Pinsky muttered.
Strangely enough, it seemed like that might be the case. The tunnel leveled out, at least don’t delving any deeper, and presumably closer to more lava. The glowing vents and lava upwellings grew farther and farther apart. So much so that there were long stretches of semidarkness, lit only by the distant glow of the last vent, and the next lava spring up ahead.
Then they came to a barrier. A lattice of thick, wooden beams blocked the tunnel ahead, reaching side to side and floor to ceiling. Netting, similar to that which kept pterodactyl out of Bedrock was woven into the obstruction.
Zunta steered his beast up close to a side tunnel, and called into the gloomy mouth of the opening. Presently, there was a rustling sound from the cave. An old man shuffled out, scratching his side and rubbing his eyes. The old man yawned, blinking sleepily at the group before him. Zunta barked at the gate keeper. The old man responded, obviously annoyed at having his nap interrupted. The two sniped at each other verbally for a couple of minutes.
This could’ve been simply a good-natured exchange, the result of a a curmudgeon, saddled with a job which suits his solitary character. But Booker picked up an underlying tension and hostility. The old man didn’t like Zunta. And the feeling was evidently mutual. Politics, Bedrock style. Concentrated, set in stone, and personal. Booker wondered if the beef between the two was the result of something one or the other had done. Or, maybe it was some family vendetta, stretching back generations.
With a final, snide mutter, the old man shuffled over to the barrier and worked a crude latch. Grunting and scowling he pushed a large gate open. The wooden door pivoted on old hinges, squealing, creaking, and sticking intermittently. When the gate was open wide, the gatekeeper bowed and swept an arm forward in mock courtesy.
Zunta silently rode through, not bothering to acknowledge the old man. The gate was big enough for a Swahldet on all fours to pass through. Although riders had to lean forward over his saddle horn. One by one, the rest followed.
Bunzo was the last rider through the barrier. No one else witnessed the sly nod he favored the old man with. No one else saw the vengeful grin the old man wore as he closed the barrier again.
The tunnel sloped up from there, and straightened. At the end of the long climb, a tiny circle of daylight promised an end of the subterranean passage. The old lava tube rejoined the surface world through a gentle, grassy slope, with tall trees scattered here and there. Booker twisted about in his saddle, seeking to orient himself. Behind loomed the bulk of Bedrock caldera’s the outer wall. He judged the lava tube emptied out a half mile beyond the dinoweed barrier. To the front the river, of water, not lava, looped around in a broad bend. Beyond the water, was a confused jumble of wooded slopes, dividing into several canyons. To the left and right, groups of klesuf, triceratops, grazed peacefully on convenient vegetation. None of the klesuf was closer than a quarter mile away.
Zunta spoke over his shoulder.
“Zunta says there’s a place to ford the river at the foot of the slope. Just follow him.”
Zunta led off. His four companions ranged out to either side of the line of riders, acting to ward off any klesuf who might wander nearer. At the water’s edge, they turned left and headed for a muddy, well-trodden flat spot on the bank. Apparently the klesuf used the ford as well. Confidently, Zunta led the group into the water, which reached to the Swahldets’ bellies.
Pinsky hesitated. The muddy, brown water was anything but clear. It flowed past sluggishly, eddies swirling enigmatically.
“C’mon, Pinsky. You’re holding up the line.” Olmer complained.
“Alright.” Pinsky shook his head. “No way this can be worse than that nightmare bridge over a freakin’ volcano.” He urged Tiffany into the shallows.
They were halfway across the ford when the crocodiles attacked.
END.
Tune in next time for Part 19 – Crocodile Tears.
Find the rest of the Containment Protocol tale here: https://raytabler.substack.com/s/rays-serial-fiction
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