Slowly its eyelids opened.

Something had awakened it from its slumber. It inhaled deeply, taut brown leathery skin expanding and contracting as its lungs filled and emptied. Large golden eyes surveyed its nest of bones, tattered clothing, human hair and other remnants of its centuries of existence. With a low growl, it extended long arms and used them to push itself to its full height of nearly eight feet. Long legs with clawed feet supported a barrel-shaped body that was grotesquely disproportionate to its limbs. Its pectorals sagged, resembling the breasts of an elderly woman. Its pot-belly also hung low and it gurgled, revealing the creature's hunger.

It had been sleeping for four years and should have slept for one more, but now it had been disturbed. One thought as it moved through the darkness of the chamber: food. It needed to eat, and quickly, or the strength gained from years of inactivity would wane. It loved to eat. For unlike most wild animals and human beings, this creature's version of eating was as much sport as it was sustenance. The hunt was equally pleasurable to sinking forty long, jagged teeth into flesh and bone.

A sound from above.

It ceased all movement, turned its face upward and heightened its sense of hearing, closing its eyes to concentrate. Yes...yes, there it was again. A human voice. Male. Sounding strong. It would investigate this, and determine whether or not the owner of this voice would make a worthy adversary. Opening its eyes again, it produced a grimace of pleasure that tried hard to mimic a happy smile. Through the chamber it moved, out into the passageways it had been relegated to so very long ago. It would find its target, it would play the game and it would feast.

"Gordon, we'll need the Jackhammer at Reference AX-3. I need you to cut through the bedrock enough that we can send down a Mini Mole."

"FAB, Scott, I'll have Jack out there in two minutes."

Nodding, Scott turned his attention to the police chief and fire chief flanking his left and right, respectively.

"How are you going to get air to the victims?" the fire chief, Swanson, asked.

"Once Gordon gets through that two feet of bedrock, we'll send down a smaller, automated version of our Mole."

"I've heard about that piece of equipment," the police chief, last name of Ingalls, remarked. "Why can't you send the big one down?"

Scott shook his head as he studied the primary monitor at eye-level on his Mobile Control unit. "According to telemetry readings, the large sewage pipes that criss-cross this area are too tightly packed to accommodate her width," he replied. "Who the heck designed this, anyway?"

"I can answer that," a man who had to be at least in his seventies said as he approached the front of Mobile Control. "Name's Kipper."

"Didn't I throw you in the drunk tank last week?" Ingalls asked.

But Kipper ignored him, and because of what he'd said, he had Scott's full attention. "This here land was where the sons of Johann Dippel lived."

"Who?" Scott asked as he watched Gordon driving the Jackhammer vehicle to the spot where he was to drill some three hundred yards northwest of Mobile Control.

"You don't know the Dippel name, then?" Kipper asked. When Scott shook his head, the old man leaned on a knobby wooden cane, worn smooth over the years, and smiled, revealing nothing but gums...which explained why all his s's sounded like whistles. "Well, son, Johann Konrad Dippel was the mad scientist that there Mary Shelley based her Frankenstein on. In fact, he was born at Castle Frankenstein in Hesse, Germany. After he died in 1734 his experiments on humans and animals were carried on by his sons, Egon and Randalf. Their sons Dietrich, Bernd and Leopold relocated right here to Oklahoma."

"Commencing hammering," Gordon reported.

"FAB," Scott replied, eyeing the aged storyteller skeptically. As the rapid metal-on-stone bang and clang of the Jackhammer filled the air, he raised his voice. "Virgil, status."

"We're showing an extensive amount of free space underground with what few snapshots the scanner's giving us," Virgil reported. "Brains is trying to map it, but the bedrock's making it impossible for him to hold onto any readings for more than a couple seconds. He's recalibrating Two's sensors now in an attempt to compensate."

"FAB, tell him I want a report in five minutes."

"Will do," Virgil replied.

Scott looked back at Kipper. "So what's this Dippel family got to do with this fifteen square mile area?"

"Yon about two miles," Kipper replied loudly, nodding in the direction Scott's back was facing, "you'll find a building where they lived, worked and, it's said, tried to recreate their father's and grandfather's experiments." Off Scott's blank look, he elaborated, "On people, son. Hattie Littlefoot's the only one alive other than me who remembers the Dippels, and she swears they also got themselves into demon worship."

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Scott blinked instead. "And the multiple sewage pipes?"

"To carry the byproducts of their experiments below ground where nobody would ever find them, I guess." He leaned forward, face about ten inches from Scott's, and looked him in the eyes. "So nobody would ever know what they were really up to." He backed off, returning to his hunched standing position. "Each pipe was run deep down, but nobody knows where any of 'em empties out ta." He tapped his cane on the ten-inch-tall prairie grass. "Only people ever tried to find out what really happened here are trapped down there, now."

"You mean our victims," Scott clarified.

Kipper nodded. "Son, it's admirable what y'all are tryin' ta do here," he said, turning his head to look at the Jackhammer. "But I kin tell ya that yer wastin' yer time."

"Trying to save lives is never a waste of time."

"Give it a rest, Kipper," Ingalls interjected.

"I'll be back, I need to talk to my men, see if they have any ideas," Swanson announced. Scott nodded at the stocky man as he headed north toward where the fire trucks and other local rescue vehicles were parked half a mile away on Highway 60.

"Mark my words," Kipper warned, turning slowly and starting to hobble away. "If you Inter'nashnull Rescue boys stick around, somethin' bad's gonna happen."

Scott frowned.

"Don't pay any attention to him," Ingalls advised, moving into Scott's line of sight. "He's from the Osage Reservation southwest of here, and comes out long enough to get wasted, spook the locals and spout his garbage tales to anyone within earshot."

Ingalls' shoulder CB crackled to life. "Buddy, you got your ears on?"

"Sure thing, Wanda, come back."

"There's a big problem on the Reservation, Chief. Osage PD is asking for your assistance."

"Oh, hell, not again," Ingalls groused into his radio. He turned to look down at Scott. "Last time she sent me a call like this we wound up being held hostage by two drunkards for two days on that damn reservation."

Scott's eyebrows shot up.

"So if you'll excuse me, I have to be goin'. Just radio Dispatch to let Wanda know what's going on. She'll relay if you need me."

Nodding, Scott eyebrows slowly slid down his forehead to knit into a deep frown. It was odd that only the police chief had shown up for a call-out like this, where three people were said to be trapped underground. The best John had been able to determine from his sporadic radio contact with the victims was that they'd been exploring a series of maintenance tunnels along one of the sewage pipes and it'd caved in on one side, while the opposite direction was a dead end.

The presence of the fire chief and his one engine and one paramedic vehicle wasn't any more comfort than the lack of police on-scene. Swanson had said his trucks weren't made for off-roading, yet to Scott – who'd landed Thunderbird One quite successfully on the flat land, never mind it easily supporting the bulk of Thunderbird Two – his excuse sounded fishy.

And now both men had disappeared, seemingly legitimately. Kipper was still hobbling away, not moving very fast at all. Scott suddenly wondered if he'd walked all the way out here to their Ground Zero because he knew something was going on. But if so, how could he have known? Police scanner, maybe? For a reason he couldn't explain, a chill went up his spine and traveled right back down again at lightning speed.

"Mobile Control from Brains."

"Go ahead," Scott answered.

"Ah, Scott, there's, ah...there's simply nothing I can, ah, do with this equipment. It, ah, can't penetrate the bedrock long enough for the system to register shapes. I-I'm afraid I'm at a, ah, loss as to how to get any idea of the size, shape or, ah, location of, ah, any tunnels or other underground structures."

Scott's teeth ground together, his mind racing. "Okay, telemetry's able to pick up the pipes, but Two can't read structures. Why is that?"

"The, ah, pipes seem to be giving off some sort of, ah, electromagnetic signal," Brains replied, causing Scott's eyebrows to shoot up again. "We can, o-of course, assume that each pipe has a, ah, maintenance tunnel from what John, ah, picked up in his conversation with the, ah, victims. However, I-I've no way of knowing that for certain, nor if, ah, there are any other tunnels we might use to reach them."

"Damn," Scott swore softly. "Sounds like we might have to do this the hard way. Put Virgil on."

"I'm here, Scott. What's the plan?"

Mind working the problem, Scott soon had an idea. "Once the Mini Mole breaks through to the victims, I want you to get fresh O2 pumping down there and see if you can't get one of them to explain how they gained access. I want them to give us their exact route. We'll have to follow in their footsteps with oxyhydnite canisters and our portable drilling equipment, and go through the collapsed part of the tunnel to extricate them."

"FAB. You joining us on this one?"

Scott nodded, though he knew Virgil couldn't see him. "I'm going to pack up Mobile Control right now. Have Thunderbird Five hook the communicator on the Mini Mole to all our wristcoms. As soon as you have an entry point from the victims, we'll mobilize and every man will go down. In the meantime, I'm going to see if Swanson can spare anyone. I think we're going to need all the hands we can get."

"FAB, Scott."

Just as he heard the Jackhammer's symphony change from high-pitched ringing shots that ricocheted through the air to a dull thudding bass drum beat, Scott's radio came to life. "Gordon to Mobile Control. I've broken through the bedrock." The sudden silence as Gordon turned off the machine left Scott's ears ringing.

"FAB, Gordon. Return to Two's pod. Virgil, get the Mini Mole started down the hole Gordon created. Gordon, gather all our mobile excavation equipment and mount it on four hoverbikes. We're all going down."

"Alan's going to be mad that he missed all the fun."

Scott half-shrugged. "It's his turn on Five. John and Tin-Tin should be returning to Base within the next hour. I'm going to get him to start working this mapping problem with Brains, see if they can't finagle something between them to get our scanners through that rock."

"FAB."

Scott rose from his seat and turned around to step away from the Mobile Control unit. His eyes lit upon something he couldn't hope to identify. Frozen in disbelief, he saw its arm move too late to react.

Through the winding tunnels and passageways it ran with the speed of a stampeding wildebeest and the light-footedness of a house cat. The strangeness of being awake too soon multiplied upon reaching the one and only exit from its world to the Above, as it found the heavy wooden doors, horizontally placed at a thirty-degree angle, wide open. Normally, they were closed. Normally, there was an equally heavy wooden bar across the doors. But the bar had been sawed clean through and the doors left hanging open.

Moving cautiously up the concrete steps, it used its arm to shield its eyes from the glare of the sun. Such an annoyance, having to come Above during Sun time rather than Moon time. Yet its hunger propelled it forward in spite of the discomfort. There was upon the air the scent of more than one potential prey. Its senses all on full alert, it knew the closest target was to be found in the Further part of this land it belonged to. And so it set off in that direction and, presently, came close enough to be able to see the prey.

It was a human male seated at a device the creature did not recognize. The device was red with silver and many blinking lights. It couldn't help its curiosity over the function of such a machine, for it had not seen the likes of it since the last time those who had created it had brought it to the Place of Pain. The male it was watching had dark, somewhat wavy fur upon its head and wore clothing that was the color of the sky. It inhaled so deeply that its lungs expanded two-fold. Its mouth opened to allow more of the scent to enter and in those moments of careful consideration it knew this human was the challenge it sought. Strong. Virile. Capable. He would make a worthy adversary.

And so, after checking that no other human was near enough to see, it leapt forward just as the human stood and turned its way. The eyes of the human grew large and round and his jaw dropped upon seeing the creature. But this didn't faze it any, for all humans reacted to it the same way. With one long arm it sideswiped the human's head, and he fell to the grass unconscious. It was difficult for it to resist simply devouring the meal here, but it craved the game far too much and thus its nature won out and it didn't take a bite.

Not yet.

Instead, it lifted the human into its arms and began running back toward the structure which secreted the entrance to its home. It would have to determine how best to repair the doors so this prey could not escape that way. With that accomplished it would leave the prey deep within the bowels of its home and wait patiently in its nest for him to awaken.

Then, the game would begin.

Scott awoke with two distinct sensations vying for his attention. First, he was so cold that he was shivering. And second, he had a splitting headache.

He opened his eyes...or at least, thought he had. He blinked and blinked again to be sure that yes indeed he had opened them. Yet wherever he was, it was as black as if he'd kept his eyelids closed. Frowning, Scott called out, "Hello?" even as he tried to sit up, right hand coming up to the side of his head, hissing as his butt scraped rock.

His bare butt.

"What the hell?" he asked no one in particular. A touch of his left hand to his leg...his belly...his chest...and yes, he was buck naked. "What gives?"

But nobody answered him.

Using both hands, he slid his fingertips around the place he was sitting. It felt like rock, with some spots worn smooth as though years of running water or perhaps foot traffic had made it so. Then he clapped his right hand to his left wrist. It was bare...his watch was gone. "Damn," he swore softly.

He got himself into a crouch, and then slowly rose to be sure he didn't hit his head on anything. But even after reaching his full height of nearly six-foot-three and raising his arms straight overhead, he didn't encounter any sort of ceiling. He then extended his arms outward, perpendicular to his body, and turned in a slow circle. Still, he felt nothing. It was as if he'd been placed into some sort of nowhere, with only a smooth-and-rough rock floor to touch.

Scott's mind raced. The last thing he remembered was talking to Virgil from Mobile Control, and then rising to his feet to pack the unit up and transport it back to Thunderbird One. He'd had an entire plan worked out for the rescue and had communicated it to his team. But then what?

He could hear nothing. No dripping water, no footsteps, no voices. No hum and thrum of machinery. It was as though this place were a complete void, save for the floor and obviously oxygen, since he was still breathing. His head was pounding like a thousand tiny versions of their Jackhammer were beating the right side of his skull to a pulp from the inside.

Racking his brain for an explanation, he replayed the last few minutes of what he remembered. After the third time running through it, he saw himself standing up, backing away from his stool, and turning around. And then he gasped, for he remembered very clearly this time what he'd seen next.

It had been something he'd never laid eyes on before. Something he doubted any human being had ever witnessed. He could see the creature as clearly right now in his mind's eye as when he'd encountered it. The closest thing he could liken it to was a cross between an imp and a demon – things seen in those ridiculous B horror movies Gordon loved – only this abomination hadn't any wings. Its skin was brown and leather-like. Its eyes were huge and round and golden-colored. Its large mouth was filled with dozens of teeth that were serrated, only with less precision than knives. And it had, seemingly, grinned at him. Only that grin had been terrifying as saliva had dripped from several of the close-set oddly-shaped teeth. The creature had moved, raising its right arm, and that was all Scott could recall.

So...obviously, whatever the thing was had knocked him out, then what...disrobed him, removed his watch and left him naked someplace with no light? And someplace that was, Scott noted as his body gave a hard shiver, very cold. What the hell had it been and why had it done this?

He so needed someone here who understood this sci-fi-type crap because Scott had never been into monster movies or any sort of talk of things like demons. Is that what this thing was? A demon? Kyrano would know. But...Kyrano wasn't here.

"Hello?"

And neither was anyone else.

Without knowing what the thing was and without having a clue where he was, Scott's brain started veering off in multiple directions as to his best course of action. He shivered again, and then shivered even harder to the point where it made his teeth rattle.

A rock floor and cold enough to make him shiver. He had to be underground.

It was a start.

Was he underground there in Oklahoma where they'd been for the rescue? Or had the 'it' taken him somewhere else?

Scott hadn't a clue, and so in the absence of knowing for sure he made the assumption that he was somewhere underground on that Oklahoma land. What had that old man said? The land belonging to the Dippel family? Kipper's words suddenly came back to him as clear as day.

"Yon about two miles," Kipper replied, nodding in the direction Scott's back was facing, "you'll find a building where they lived, worked and, it's said, tried to recreate their father's and grandfather's experiments."

Scott shook his head as the memory continued.

"On people, son. Old Hattie Littlefoot's the only one alive other than me who remembers the Dippels, and she swears they also got themselves into demon worship."

Demon worship. And this thing he'd seen resembled a demon. At least, his own idea of what a demon looked like...it wasn't like he knew for sure. Kipper had said that the building was two miles behind Scott...and that was the direction he'd turned to face when he'd encountered the 'it.'

Experiments on people...demon worship...a building.

Now he had a working theory. Some creature either created or conjured up by the Dippels, lived down here...beneath that bedrock that even Two's powerful sensors couldn't penetrate. There was an underground labyrinth of some sort that included tunnels – where the victims were trapped – and the huge sewage pipes which Brains had indicated were giving off some sort of electromagnetic charge.

Scott sighed, putting both forefingers to his temples and rubbing them gently, trying in vain to ease his headache. This working theory of his was sounding more and more like a science fiction double feature from the 1950s. One more time he called out, "Hello?" But, as before, there was no response. There wasn't even an echo. That fact told him that this wasn't a cavernous place he was in.

He must be in the same tunnels the three victims had been exploring. And as such, there had to be a way out. Because 'it' had gotten him down here somehow, right? And the victims had gotten down here somehow, too. So...he had to start walking, start trying to find an exit.

Slowly putting one foot in front of the other, feeling the rock with his toes before putting his entire weight down...his arms straight out in front of him to feel for obstacles...he walked. Six steps later his hands hit something. He felt it up, down, left and right. It appeared to be a wall, also made of the same type of rock as the floor.

Question was, which way should he follow it along? To his left or to his right?

Not having any idea what the tunnel layout was, Scott literally had a fifty-fifty chance. Or, for all he knew, even less than that if he was somewhere that didn't directly lead back to the surface.

Circuitous thoughts were doing nothing but making his head throb even more, so he stopped twenty-questioning his every thought and made the decision to go left. Slowly...ever so slowly...he felt with his toes...put his weight on each foot...let his right hand trail along the wall...and did the only thing he could do: kept on going.

Gordon finished fastening the final buckle of the bright yellow ratchet strap on the hoverbike that would be used by Scott. He gave it a good yank, and then raised his left wrist to his face. "Gordon to Mobile Control."

When no answer was forthcoming, he walked to the open pod door and leaned out, looking to the right where Thunderbird One was parked about three hundred yards from Two. "Gordon to Scott, come in."

His brow furrowed as once again, his call went unanswered. "Virgil, you got a twenty on Scott?"

"No," Virgil replied against the backdrop of their Mini Mole drilling through the earth. There were a few seconds of silence and then, "I can see Mobile Control from here, but no sign of Scott."

"He said he was, ah, going to pack up Mobile Control," Brains interjected as approached Gordon from the interior of the pod.

"I know," Gordon replied. "Virg, how long 'til the Mini gets through?"

"Based on the readings from Thunderbird Five, I'd say a good fifteen minutes. She's on auto; I'm going to jog over to the MC unit and see if I can find Scott."

"FAB," Gordon replied. He turned to Brains. "What the hell?"

Brains half-shrugged. "I-I'll check Thunderbird One."

Gordon nodded. He turned back to look at the readied hoverbikes, fully loaded with the gear Scott had ordered, then walked down the pod's open flap. To his left, Virgil was more sprinting than he was jogging, in the direction of Mobile Control, which was nothing but a speck sticking above prairie grass from Gordon's position. He then looked the opposite direction, where Brains was just climbing up the ladder into One's cockpit.

"Ah, Gordon, Virgil? Scott's not in Thunderbird One," Brains announced over their wristcoms. Gordon watched him descend the ladder and key in One's lock-down code.

"I just made it to Mobile Control," came Virgil's winded report. "There's no sign of him. It doesn't look like he started packing up; everything's wide open and unlocked."

"It's not like Scott to leave MC without locking it down," Gordon commented. Brains joined him and shook his head in agreement.

"Hang on, I'm using the 'nocs to see if I can find him," Virgil said.

Several moments of tense silence passed, then he came back with, "Nothing. I see a couple of trees and that's it. Where the hell are the cops and firemen who were here with him?"

"I-I was going to ask the same thing," Brains noted.

"Virgil to Thunderbird Five," they heard him say.

"Thunderbird Five here," Alan replied.

"Give me a location on Scott," Virgil demanded.

"Scott? Okay, his...GPS shows...what the hell?"

"Where is he?" Gordon asked.

"According to this, he's just about two miles south of where I'm registering the Mobile Control unit."

"Two miles?" Virgil repeated. "What's there?"

"A structure," Alan replied. "From the size of it, I'd say it might be an industrial building. Maybe a warehouse?"

"Gordon, are the hoverbikes loaded?" Virgil asked.

"Yes, all four."

"Bring me one," Virgil ordered.

Gordon swallowed. He didn't like the sound of this. "What, you're going to look for him alone?"

"Well, someone needs to stay here and pump oxygen down to those survivors, and follow Scott's orders about finding out how they got into that tunnel in the first place."

"You're not going alone," Gordon said.

"Right," Virgil replied. "Brains, Gordon, bring two 'bikes. Brains, you'll stay with the Mini Mole. Establish communication with the victims, get the oxygen pumping. Find out how they got where they are and radio me with updates."

"FAB," Gordon and Brains replied in unison.

As the two men moved to mount the hoverbikes, they heard Virgil on the wristcom again. "Virgil to Scott. Come in, Scott."

Nothing.

"Shit," Virgil breathed. "Virgil to Base."

"Go ahead, son."

"Dad, Scott's not answering his comm. Gordon and I are going to investigate. Brains is going to stay with the victims."

Gordon glanced at his wristwatch as he started up his hoverbike. His father's placid face said nothing about how worried he was, but his voice sure did.

"Go carefully, boys. Alan, are there any other life signs in the vicinity of Scott's GPS?"

"No, Father. In fact, I'm not even registering Scott near the GPS."

"If that's true," Virgil rejoined, "then he's been incapacitated."

"But by whom?" Gordon asked. "There's nobody around here for miles."

"The police, the firefighters," Virgil countered.

"You think the local cops or firemen kidnapped him?" Gordon asked incredulously.

There was no response from Virgil. Jeff cut back in. "Boys, Alan's showing two faint heat signatures. The one closest to Scott's wristcom is a good five hundred yards west of it. The other is...Alan, would you recalibrate that, please, it's throwing an image that doesn't make sense."

"That's as calibrated as it gets. That's what Five's picking up, whether it makes sense or not."

"What is it?" Brains asked as he and Gordon created a waft of waving prairie grasses in the wake of their hoverbikes speeding toward Virgil's location.

"I couldn't tell you," Jeff said. "It doesn't look...well...human."

Gordon and Brains exchanged glances as they reached Virgil and slowed the 'bikes to a stop. He turned to look at them, every line of his body showing tension.

"All right, Gordon and I are going to head for the location of Scott's watch," Virgil said as he took control of the hoverbike Brains had driven. "Brains is going to stay with the Mini Mole and keep that going. Dad, we have what, two agents in this geographic area?"

"That's right," Jeff said, and everyone could hear him tapping keys in the background. "Looks like Number 82, a man by the name of Simon Davidson, is about fifty miles west. And then north, in Wichita, we've got Lisette Pierson. I'll get them there on the double."

"FAB," Virgil replied, then turned to look at Brains. "Carry out Scott's orders to the letter," he said as he started the hoverbike.

Brains nodded as Virgil tossed him the Mini Mole's remote control.

"All right, Gordon, let's go."

Brains looked at the readout on the remote, then back up at the retreating forms of the brothers. None of this made logical sense. And so, as he made his way back to where the Mini was drilling, he started letting his mind drift to the illogical.

Scott had reached a turning point...literally. Through careful exploration with his hands and feet, he'd determined that there was a branch of whatever sort of system of tunnels this was, to his right, and also that the current tunnel he was in kept going straight ahead. As used to having all the facts of a situation in hand as Scott was, right now he felt like he was completely helpless for an utter lack of them. Should he keep going straight ahead or take the branch to his right? There was no frame of reference to be had, and still there'd been nary a sound to even give him a steer in the right direction.

So there he stood feeling embarrassingly out of his depth and mad as a hornet. Not being in charge of whatever was happening was not a feeling he was familiar with. It was as he stood there contemplating how long it'd take him to go into hypothermia – and trying to keep his teeth from chattering – that at last there came an indication that he wasn't alone.

However, the sound he heard didn't make him feel better.

It was, for lack of a better analogy, a strange combination of the roar of a grizzly bear just as he's about to attack and a loud squeal like that of a distressed pig. The image of the gruesome creature he'd seen above ground came to the forefront of his mind. That had to be what'd made the sound...and it'd come from his right.

Self-preservation instincts made the decision to continue on straight, rather than heading toward the creature. He tried to move more quickly, but in view of the fact that he could very easily step into some sort of chasm or run smack-dab into a wall, he really wasn't moving very much faster than he had been to this point. Then the squeal-roar came again. This time it was closer. And that proximity made every hair on his body stand on end.

What the hell was that thing? What did it want from him? Why had it taken his clothes off and left him here? Could he be its next meal? The thought sent shivers up and down his spine that had nothing to do with the cold.

He continued on, his heart thumping in his chest as trembling limbs felt a blind man's way through an unknown world. The next squeal-roar was closer. The next, even closer. Then he heard the slap of feet on the floor behind him. It froze him in his tracks. He pivoted slowly to face the source of the sound, and that was when the entire world lit up like a blinding Christmas tree. He yelped in pain as the light bombarded his wide-open pupils, and squeezed his eyelids shut against the sudden onslaught, an arm rising to shield them. Slowly he blinked and blinked, allowing himself to get used to the light, finally pulling his arm away and getting eyes on his surroundings.

And on the 'it' that looked exactly as he'd remembered.

"Jesus," he breathed. It was probably a good two feet taller than him, and now had so much saliva dripping from its mouth that it reminded him of that flick Cujo Gordon had made them watch last Halloween. The rabid dog, salivating profusely as it tried to get at a woman and child in a car. Only this thing was no dog. It gave him another of its sickening grins, and in that moment instinct told Scott that his idea had been right: for this creature, Scott Tracy equaled food.

He whipped back around to look in the direction he'd been headed, only to see very clearly that it led to a dead end not four feet away. It was only a couple of feet back to the branch-off he'd discovered. The creature wasn't moving, as though it was waiting to see what Scott's move would be first. Scott went ahead and made that move, sprinting along the pale yellowish-beige stone floor, pushing himself off the same-colored stone wall for an extra burst of speed. He ran into the offshoot tunnel, taking note somewhere in the back of his mind that these tunnels were most definitely man-made. And realizing as he ran that overhead there were huge pipes...the same pipes Mobile Control had registered via telemetry readings.

And those pipes were glowing. They were what was providing light. Electromagnetic, Brains had said. Well, that explained part of it. However it was that it worked, somehow those pipes were able to generate light...which didn't make a whole lot of sense. Then again, neither did the fact that he was buck naked nor, if the slapping of feet was any indication, being chased by something straight out of a Friday night creature feature.

The tunnel turned to the right, and then zagged quickly to the left. He came to a T-intersection. Left? Right? Who cared, the thing was getting closer. He ran right. The tunnel zigged left. He ran straight. This time a four-way intersection. When he looked to the left, he blanched...for there, not three feet from him on the floor, was a pile of bleached-white bones topped by a human skull.

Oh, shit. Sometimes confirming you were right was not good.

"There," Virgil said as he pointed to what was basically a sloped basement door. His and Gordon's hoverbikes whirred to a stop a couple feet from it. Raising his watch to his face, Virgil said, "Brains, status."

"The, ah, Mini Mole should be through in about, ah, five minutes, Virgil," Brains replied. "Ah, John and Tin-Tin are working on calculations to recalibrate both Two's and Five's scanners for the, ah, bedrock."

"FAB. Al, give me a twenty on Scott's watch."

"Still in the same spot, Virg. Hasn't budged an inch. But the heat signatures are on the move, and in much closer proximity."

"Any, ah, idea what the, ah, second heat signature belongs to?"

"Not yet, Brains," Jeff broke in. "It's not matching anything in our database. Both our agents are on their way. Lisette's closest, her ETA is thirty minutes."

Virgil's face was grim as he dismounted. He met Gordon's eyes. "Take as much equipment as you can carry," he ordered. "We're going in."

"Have your weapons at the ready," Jeff advised.

"Will do, Father."

Virgil took a closer look at the basement doors. They were made of wood that was weathered gray, the boards cracked and splitting. He tried opening the right-side door, which was the only one with a handle. The metal was so rusted it left orange all over his palm, but the door didn't budge. Wiping his hand on his uniform pants, Virgil reached into the large basket on the back of his 'bike with the other hand and pulled out a yellow-handled camp axe. He gripped it tightly with both hands, swung it back, and then brought it down. With a loud crack it broke easily through the aged wood. When he pulled it out, most of the center of the door came with it. Yanking the wood off and tossing it to the side, Virgil took another whack at the door, this time at the center of the right-side panel. The axe head broke clean through, caving the doors inward slightly. This time when Virgil pulled the axe away, he threw it to the ground as well, bent forward and used brute force to pull the remains of the right door clear.

Shoulder-to-shoulder, Gordon and Virgil peered down into the blackness of whatever lay beyond the entrance. "Head lamps," Virgil said, and the two men moved to their 'bikes to grab hard hats with bright miner-type lights mounted on the front. Leaving their uniform hats hanging from the 'bike handlebars, they strapped the hats on, then hiked large packs containing everything from small jackhammers and pick axes to low-charge dynamite packs, food and water. "Laser pistols."

Gordon unholstered his weapon, switched it on and set it to low-pulse. Virgil did the same, and then both men re-holstered their guns.

"Ready?" Virgil asked. Gordon nodded. "Virgil to Base. We're going in."

"Be careful," came their father's voice.

"The Mini Mole is through," Brains reported just as Virgil took his first step down. At that moment, everyone heard the voices of the trapped people exclaiming at the site of the emerging piece of equipment.

"Alan, remove Gordon and I from the Mini Mole feed," Virgil said. "We don't know what we're walking into and I don't want any unnecessary noise while we're looking for Scott."

"FAB, feed blocked. Scott's really been on the move, Virgil, if that signature's him. He's zigzagging like he's in some kind of labyrinth down there. The other signature's hot on his tail." There was a moment of silence and then Alan added in a much softer voice, "Hurry."

Virgil nodded curtly, all business in spite of the fact that his gut was twisted into knots and his heart was trying out for the Olympic gymnastics team. "Entering now."

Carefully the brothers made their way into the depths of the earth, having no idea where they were going or what they were going to find once they got there.

The creature inhaled deeply, opening its mouth wide as the scent of human sweat permeated the air. Oh, how it loved the fear that marked that unique odor, for it could taste that as well as it could the flesh and bone when its teeth tore prey limb from limb. How delicious the iron-rich blood. How tasty the muscle and fat. What a delicacy all those squishy organs. Its favorite thing was to rip the human's heart away and swallow it whole while it was still beating. Oh, the feeling of the organ moving down its esophagus – an ecstasy paralleled only by agonizing anticipation.

This human was definitely worthy. He could move quickly, generating more and more excitement for it as he wove in and out of the creature's labyrinth. It knew every millimeter of the passageways that led to the center, where it had made its nest. And there was but one way out, which the human was moving further and further away from the more that he ran.

As it rounded a corner to surprise its prey from another connecting passage, it was drawn up short by a sound that shouldn't be in its underground home: human voices. Then footsteps. It looked above, focusing on the brightly-glowing pipe that hung just far enough off the floor for its head to clear the metal. It didn't know how its lights worked; it only knew how to turn them on and off from the room its nest was in. But whatever it was that made the pipes light up also carried sounds very clearly all the way to that nest, and to the furthest corners of the labyrinth.

The creature turned back the way it had come and listened carefully. There were two distinct voices, which told it that more humans must have entered its realm. This meant they had breached the one and only entrance and exit, which further meant it had to keep its intended prey from circling back toward that area. Once it had feasted upon the dark-headed male it would turn its attention to these new intruders. It made no difference if they caught up anyway, as the creature would easily make short work of their interference.

It heard the prey continue running and knew precisely where he was headed. Darting to the left and then immediately to the right into a long corridor, it sprinted on, once again locking onto the smell of the human's fear. Oh, this would be a very satisfying meal indeed.

"So that's why the pipes are electromagnetically charged!" Brains' exclamation echoed from both Gordon's and Virgil's watches. "They're used as light sources!"

"How is that possible?" Jeff had posed that question.

"They, ah, must've found a way to maintain the appearance of visible light on the, ah, EM spectrum!" the scientist responded excitedly, and then switched topics on a dime as was so often the case. "Virgil, Gordon, the victims confirmed their entry point was the same as yours. And they, ah, left those wooden doors open."

"This means," Gordon noted, "that someone secured them after those people entered."

"After Scott entered," Virgil corrected, "since we know he's down here, too."

Gordon nodded. "Probably whatever that other heat signature belongs to. Well," he continued as he flicked the head lamp on his hard hat off, "at least we can see."

"And what are you seeing, boys?" Jeff asked.

"Here, I'll turn on the remote camera." Virgil reached up until his fingertips were touching a small black camera device attached to the right side of his yellow and blue hard hat. "Getting the feed?"

"Coming through nice and clear," Jeff replied. "That all looks man-made."

"Sure does," Virgil acknowledged. "Hand-hewn rock."

Gordon turned in a complete circle, and then reached out and touched the wall in front of him. "Reminds me of what ancient ruins are made of, like at Giza or what we found at the bottom of Lake Anasta."

"Okay, Alan," Virgil said as he moved toward the only opening he could see, some distance to his and Gordon's left, "I need you steering me. Brains, find out whether the victims encountered any other living creatures on their way to where they're trapped."

"Creatures?" Jeff echoed.

"Well, from what you're telling us, whatever's down here chasing Scott isn't human."

"I didn't say that."

Gordon made a face as he followed Virgil into the passage leading away from the basement doors. "You didn't have to, Dad."

Jeff harrumphed as Brains broke through. "Fellas, they, ah, didn't hear anything, and the, ah, pipes weren't lit at any point in their journey. They, ah, believe there's a labyrinth o-of tunnels down there, a-and don't think they even made it to the center of the, ah, whole thing when the cave-in occurred."

"Alan, I want Scott's position relative to the victims'."

"Sure thing, Virg...we've got...let's see...okay, I've got a twenty on Brains standing directly above the victims. Scott's a good two miles east of his position, on the move eastward, roughly, considering how many times he's changing direction."

"And the other thing's still chasing him."

"Yes."

"Come on, Gordon, we've got to hurry. Pistols at the ready."

"FAB," Gordon replied, pulling his laser pistol out and flicking the safety off.

"Cut the radio traffic," Virgil said to no one in particular. "I don't want anyone alerted to our presence. Alan, use our directional code, vibration only."

"FAB. Listening out."

"That goes for Base," Jeff added.

One vibrational ping meant to go right. Two meant left. Three meant straight ahead. Four meant turn around and go back the way you'd come. Half of Virgil's attention stayed focused on his watch while the other half strained to hear something.

When at last he did, the combination roar-and-squeal stopped him in his tracks so fast that Gordon nearly ran into him. "Jesus fuck," Virgil breathed. "What the hell was that?"

"It sounded like what they did with Jaws in the movies when he was getting killed," Gordon whispered.

"Well, we're not underwater."

"And we're most definitely not dealing with a human," Gordon observed. He raised his watch to his face and continued quietly, "Johnny, tell me you've got something on these tunnels."

"Not yet," John replied just as quietly. "I'll ping you if we manage to get round that bedrock."

Virgil swallowed hard. What the actual fuck was down here with them? And would any of them survive whatever the hell it was?

Brains blinked as he watched the fire chief...Swanson, that was his name...approach. "How's it going?"

"Ah, well, i-it's not going good at all," Brains replied. He watched as Swanson frowned when three voices started babbling all at once through the speaker in his hand-held remote control device.

"Who's that?" Swanson asked.

"Those are the, ah, victims."

Swanson's eyebrows shot up to his hairline. "Where are they?"

"Still under, ah, ground."

"Can my men get to them?"

Brains narrowed his eyes. "Where are your men?"

Swanson hooked a thumb over his shoulder. "Back with the truck."

"I-If I say yes, does that, ah, mean, they'll come here?" Swallowing hard, the fire chief looked back toward the direction of his engine, and then turned around to face Brains again...although he didn't make eye contact. And while Brains wasn't stellar at what Gordon called 'mammal-to-mammal interaction,' he was well aware of what shifty eyes meant. "Ah, Chief?"

"No," Chief Swanson finally said, removing his hard helmet with one hand and scratching the top of his brown-haired head with the index finger of that same hand. He reseated the helmet and shook his head. "They're terrified of this property. Every one of 'em grew up around here and even though they've been threatened with everything from being arrested to losing their jobs, they won't leave Highway 60."

Frowning, Brains cocked his head even as the three victims' voices died down. "A-and why is that?"

Swanson's Adam's apple bobbed up and down twice before he replied. "Folks around here believe this land is cursed. I think Kipper's just got 'em all scared with his stupid stories."

"Kipper?"

"Old half-Indian from the res," Swanson explained, waving his hand toward the direction Brains' back was facing. "He hobbles into town, gets wasted. He even showed up when we were with your buddy Scott, over there," he continued, pointing now toward the ghostly silent Mobile Control unit. "Started in again about the damn Dippels and old Hattie Lightfoot."

Blinking again, Brains shook his head in confusion. And so Swanson regaled him with a shortened version of Kipper's standard fare, leaving Brains with a lot more questions than answers. In the end, all he could think of was the fact that eight grown men who faced danger every time they responded to a call for help, were refusing to step foot on a piece of prairie land due to superstition and fear. What the hell could have men such as that so afraid, that they couldn't even do their job?

"I've only been here five years," Swanson added, scratching the silver stubble along the line of his square jaw. "Came outta Tulsa. I've been hearing stories from bars to church hallways about this property," he continued with a nod toward the ground. "But I had no idea how seriously the locals took it until right now."

"Hey! Hey, we need some help!" came a man's high-pitched voice over the speaker.

Brains pressed a green button on the side of the remote. "What's happened?"

"Shane's gone unconscious!"

"I-is he injured?"

"Don't see anything. He just won't wake up!"

"A-all right, just hold on." Brains let go of the green button and looked at the chief. "I need your help. One of our own has gone missing. Our o-other two members have gone to, ah, search for him i-in the same place these people entered that led to where they, ah, are now."

"Wait, who went missing?" Swanson asked, eyes scanning the horizon.

"Scott."

Swanson's eyes widened and snapped back to lock onto Brains'. "The guy at your Mobile Control? The one I was talking to not thirty minutes ago?"

Brains nodded. "We, ah, have located his, ah, wristwatch, a-and two heat signatures below ground."

"One of 'em is Scott?"

Brains nodded. "We think so."

"Well, who's the other? One of these three guys?" Swanson asked, nodding down toward the Mini Mole's hole.

"We don't think so." Brains looked down at the remote. "I-in fact, we, ah...we don't know what it is."

"Oh, my God," Swanson said, eyes getting even larger as Brains looked back up at him. "It can't be."

"Can't be what?" Right before Brains' eyes, Chief Swanson's face lost all color, his jaw dropping slightly. "Chief?"

"I was in Charlie Brown's one night after work. Town bar," Swanson said. His eyes were focused some distance away, seemingly on nothing at all. "Kipper come in, downed three shots of Jack one after another and started in on the Dippels again like he always does."

Brains wanted to call Base, he wanted to call John, he wanted to get to Thunderbird Two's lab to try and figure another way down to the victims, he wanted to say to hell with the pipes and take the real Mole down to get those trapped victims. But something about Swanson's demeanor held him silently rooted to the spot, waiting for the older man to continue.

"It was the first time I'd ever heard about Wanumbra Nona."

"Come again?"

"Osage. Means something like 'to eat man.'"

Brains recalled seeing the strange heat signatures on Two's monitors. He knew Base and Five were listening in, and could bet everyone was already looking this up. "What is this, ah, Wanumbra?"

"Way Kipper describes it – and Lord knows I've heard him yap about it enough these last few years – is that it looks like a giant bat without wings. Lots of teeth that drip with blood and spit."

A man of science first and foremost, Brains' mind went every which way trying to cross-reference everything he'd ever read, seen or heard with Swanson's description. He came up empty. And so, as they had done before, his thoughts began straying to things he didn't know. "What is this creature?"

"That's all I know. Kipper and Hattie say it's been terrorizing these plains for centuries. That it wakes every five years, and men from the reservation disappear, sometimes as many as seven within the space of a week. Nobody ever hears from them again. In fact, the res has a disappearance rate six times the national average."

"A-and nobody's, ah, done anything about it?"

Swanson sighed. "One thing you'll learn if you stick around these parts long enough," he replied, "is that most people don't take Indians – ah, sorry, Native Americans – seriously anymore. Ingalls spends most of his time with the Osage. What with all the domestic violence, gunfights, fistfights and general drunkenness, people in town consider most of them more trouble than they're worth. Kipper's constant presence in town and all his b.s. doesn't help their opinions any."

"So nobody, ah, takes seriously the, ah, disappearance of so many men."

"I'm 'fraid not."

"Great," Brains breathed. "A-all right, ah, listen...head over toward Thunderbird Two, there, a-and give me a minute," he said, waving in the direction of Two. Swanson nodded and trudged away, still with the pallor of a man on his death bed. "Brains to, ah, Base."

"We heard all that," Jeff replied. "We can't find anything on this Wanumbra Nona. I want your take on it. Local legend that means nothing? Or something that's after my son?"

Brains swallowed hard as he took in the steely gray stare directed solely at him. "I think, ah, Mr. Tracy," he finally replied as his mind whirred and spun and calculated and postulated, "that at, ah, this point, we've no choice but to assume this Wanumbra is, ah, that other shape we're picking up."

"The shape that's chasing Scott," Tin-Tin chimed in from somewhere to the side.

Brains nodded.

Jeff scowled.

"Uh, guys?" came John's voice, soon followed by the man himself, who seemed a little wobbly in his first hour back on the planet. "I got a hit on a native languages site for the words Swanson used, but there's no mention of anything like what he described." Jeff opened his mouth to say something, but John didn't let him. "But I did find something on another site about the Dippels..." His voice trailed off as he stared at the small computer pad held flat on the palm of his hand.

"Well?" Jeff asked impatiently.

John eyed him, then turned to look at Brains up in John's own portrait on the wall opposite Jeff's desk. "According to the main website of a group called Real Monsters, Johann Dippel, his father and his sons, did once live here, just like Swanson told you. And not only that, they apparently performed experiments on both animals and human beings, and sacrificed those that didn't turn out so well, to a demon that the grandfather had been working with since his younger years in Germany."

"What, ah, kind of experiments?"

"The worst kind. The Dr. Moreau kind."

Brains swallowed. "Are you telling me what I, ah, think you're telling me?"

John nodded slowly, and then turned around to meet his father's eyes. "I know most people figure the Real Monsters group to be a bunch of conspiracy theory crackpots, Dad, but...well, see for yourself."

John laid his computer pad down on the desk in front of his father, then turned and held Brains' gaze as Jeff stared at the pad screen. "What the hell?"

Tearing his eyes away from the live feed, John looked back down at his dad. "Yeah."

"What?" Brains asked as Tin-Tin came around behind Jeff's shoulder. She peered at the pad screen and gasped, eyes widening to perfectly round saucers. "What?" Brains repeated, exasperated.

Jeff lifted the pad, turned it around and held it up. Brains used a small protrusion on the left side of his watch face to zoom in. What he saw on the pad screen made his blood run cold.

It was an artist's rendering of Osage Indian eyewitness accounts going back at least two hundred years. Brown leathery skin was stretched across bones so tightly it might snap at any second. Large, round golden eyes stared straight at him. Long legs with clawed feet supported a barrel-shaped body that was grotesquely disproportionate to its limbs. Its pectorals sagged, resembling the breasts of an elderly woman. Its pot-belly also hung low, but it was the thing's teeth that set his nerves on edge. There had to be thirty or forty of them, each one serrated like the edge of a steak knife, only looking much less sharp. Saliva and blood dripped from each and every fang. But what made it all the worse – and Brains could tell by looking at the others' faces that it'd dawned on them, too – was that the creature didn't so much resemble a creature, as it did a man who'd been...for lack of a better way to put it...combined with an animal of some sort. Or perhaps more than one animal.

"That's what Swanson said it looked like," Tin-Tin observed.

"It says the thing stands around eight feet in height," John said, taking the pad from his father's hands. "That would account for the shape and size of the heat signature chasing Scott."

Nobody knew what to say. It all seemed so impossible...and yet...what else did they have to go on?

"Dad!" came a shout from the portrait wall. "Dad!"

"Alan?"

"Dad, the thing's caught up to Scott! It's got him!"

Brains saw something then on Jeff Tracy's face that he'd never seen in all the years he'd known him: pure, unadulterated fear.

Scott was cornered. No matter how many angles he tried to calculate possible escape routes in, none of them came out with that actual conclusion.

The creature's claws were too long.

Its teeth were too large.

It was too nimble.

He trembled as it bore down on him. Scott had taken a passageway that led to a dead end, and no amount of pressing himself further against the wall was going to make it give.

It smiled.

It inhaled.

All they'd find of him would be a pile of bleached-white bones. The thought...the very idea of his brothers discovering that...worse yet, the creature going after them? "Not today," Scott ground out as he zeroed in on the tall, incongruous body shuffling ever nearer, as though it had all the time in the world to seize its prize.

There had to be a way out of this. Not because Scott was focused on saving his own skin, necessarily...but because if this thing took him, it'd go after them next. For as surely as he knew his own name, Scott knew that they'd be searching high and low to find him, and that meant they'd somehow find their way down here...wherever 'here' was.

And while they may have the advantage being armed where he was not, there was no way in hell he was just going to go down without a fight. He was Scott Tracy, after all. A field commander. A man who thought outside the box every damn time there were lives to be saved.

But above all that, he was a big brother.

Drool ran from jagged teeth like the thing had a faucet inside its mouth turned all the way on. Closer it came. Closer. Scott's eyes followed the spit as it slid down the creature's chest, wetting its skin and pooling on the floor between its legs. It stopped. Scott stared at the ever-growing pool of saliva. He eyed the rock floor. Eyed the space between the creature's legs. Judged the distance between rock and the monster's pelvis. Judged the width. Looked down at his body. Looked back up at the 'it.'

Made his decision.

With a guttural roar that echoed even against such porous rock walls, Scott pushed himself off the corner he'd been cowering in and launched forward, arms outstretched in a closed V shape that would've made Gordon's diver side proud. Time ground to a painful halt as Scott's chest, legs and...unfortunately...that part of him...hit the rock full-force, splashing into the foot-wide pool of spit. And just as he'd hoped, momentum and slick saliva kept his body moving forward, scraping skin and making him howl in pain as he slid right between the creature's legs and came to an excruciating stop two feet into the hallway behind it.

Shoving the pain down into the deepest recesses of his mind, Scott scrambled to his feet, sparing nothing but a second's glance back at the creature, who squeal-roared, its head thrown back like a leathery wolf crying to the Moon. As Time slammed full force back into reality, Scott pivoted and started running like he'd never run before.

He knew he'd just about taken his, uh...that...off, never mind the inches of skin he'd left on the floor. But he was alive. And that meant it was time to stop running. Time to stop being chased. Time to fight back.

Reaching a T-intersection, Scott looked left...right...then left again. Could that have been? No. Wait, there it was again! Yes! A voice! No...two voices! Elation was frightened away by sudden realization. Those weren't any two voices. Those were his brothers!

"No," Scott breathed, turning to look as the creature screamed its head off and its flat feet slapped against the rock. It was coming right for him and if Scott was reading its face right, it was royally pissed off.

He looked down below his waist, shocked to see he still was intact, but mortified by all the blood covering him from pecs to knees. Horror flipped to anger in the blink of an eye. He'd just been doing his job. He'd been there to help trapped people. To save lives where others couldn't. And this was how he was going to go out? A naked, bloody mass of human being lost in some idiot's idea of a sick and twisted labyrinth underground?

Scott shook his head as his eyes focused on the floor just inches into the left side of the long tunnel that stretched left and right. Another skeleton. He moved quickly to it. The bones were thin. He could see gnaw marks in them. One femur, propped oddly against the wall, caught his eye. It was bulbous at the bottom, but had been snapped off near the top, leaving the end of it pointed. He reached down, picked the femur up and swallowed back the bile that threatened to erupt from his throat.

He ran a good twenty yards further along the tunnel until it reached a right angle turn. There was nothing to be seen along that branch. He swiveled and stood his ground as the creature came barreling toward him. Holding the broken femur with both hands, Scott kept his eyes locked on his target and braced himself. He was either going to kill this nightmare...or die trying.

"Virgil! Get to him now!" The tone in their father's voice told him everything he needed...and didn't want...to know.

"But where is he?" Gordon asked, looking wildly ahead of them, behind them and to their right. A roaring, screeching, yowling squeal left his eyes suddenly looking more anime than real. Virgil would've poked fun if he hadn't been so –

"This way!" Virgil yelled, heading to their left. "Come on!"

– goddamn scared shitless.

Gordon was hot on his heels, both men panting and sweating in spite of the chill in the air. It cooled the moisture, plastering their undershirts and uniforms to their skin. The pant leg of Scott's uniform flapped from where Virgil had hastily zipped it into the top of his supply pack after they'd found it in a central chamber. Every now and then it thwapped Gordon in the face.

But neither man slowed. Because they'd both heard the creature's high-pitched cries, and then they'd heard something that'd made their blood curdle like spoiled milk. They'd heard their eldest brother scream.

Only one thought filled Virgil's mind now. One man's face overlaid the seemingly endless tunnel stretching so far off in the distance that even with the glowing overhead pipes, no twists or turns or walls seemed to stop it. He'd never run so hard, so fast, never in his entire life. Scott, his mind panted in and around the conscious awareness of labored breathing. Please, he begged silently, muscles straining, chest tightening at the thought of what they might find.

Base had explained about the creature...even shown them the drawing. Neither Virgil nor Gordon had believed it possible...and yet...the sounds they'd heard coming from these tunnels had seemed to fit the bill. More squealing roars. More searching.

And then the scream.

Scott! Inside he was crying out in desperation. Outside, he ran like his ass was on fire.

Like his brother's life depended on it.

He ran faster.

Virgil didn't dare holler. What if the very act of announcing themselves caused Scott's death? He would never be able to live with himself. And so they ran.

And ran.

And there was another screech...this from the monster.

Something that sounded like a war cry.

Virgil couldn't take it anymore. "Scott!" he yelled at the top of his lungs.

Gordon followed suit, shouting his brother's name.

They almost missed the branch to the left. Virgil skidded to a halt, he and Gordon backing up as one unit to look down that tunnel. What Virgil saw froze every cell in his body.

No...

"Oh, my God," he whispered.

Scott...

"Virgil?" Alan's voice sounded so small. So far away.

"Virgil, report!"

"Virg, do you see him?"

"Virgil!"

Or at least he thought he was.

Given the pain throbbing through every single solitary inch of his body, maybe not.

He groaned, tried to inhale, felt like an elephant was sitting on his chest and wound up coughing like a two-pack-a-day-for-fifty-years smoker. Shit.

Whatever was on him was heavy.

And warm.

And...wet?

Scott's eyes snapped open to find large golden orbs staring directly at him. He would later never admit to the slightly girly – no, no, it was masculine, just sort of girly sounding - "Eeep!" he let out. His arms were pinned between him and the beast, and the fact that it wasn't moving and hadn't yet chewed him up and spit out the bones, told Scott that he'd done it.

It was dead.

And Scott was...alive.

He coughed again.

But suffocating.

Through the haze of pain, lack of oxygen and general what-the-fuckery that was clouding his every thought, Scott got the idea he heard someone...someone familiar. And yet try as he might, he couldn't place who...what...where...wait, what?

All at once the weight was lifted from his chest. Like a man who'd spent the better part of twenty minutes trying not to drown, Scott rumbled out a wheezing gasp as his lungs filled with air. Scrabbling for purchase against a rock floor slick with blood, bodily fluids and copious amounts of saliva, all he felt were hands trying to grab him, capture him, take him...somehow the creature had survived! It was going to eat him, it was gonna –!

A sharp, stinging slap to his right cheek.

The thing slapped him? Of all the...Scott stopped struggling against the hands, realizing...realizing...they were soft...flesh...human. He blinked and blinked again as a face swam into focus. And there, in that moment where everything came crashing down upon him, came the understanding that not only had he killed the thing by shoving some hapless victim's femur right through its heart, but he was alive and in one piece. And so were his brothers.

"Virgil?" Scott croaked. Wave after wave of relief tore through him as bone-chilling cold settled in.

"Jesus, Scott," Virgil whispered, taking his brother into his arms.

Unable to muster up the strength to return the gesture, Scott clung to his brother's tunic bleeding...bruised...scraped...scratched...half-frozen and unable to process anything other than Virgil's name. And then he did what every good and proper field commander, alpha dog, Air Force captain and manly man would do under those circumstances.

He passed the fuck out.

"Its nest was where we found your uniform. It was completely intact, like the thing removed it carefully on purpose."

Scott shook his head. While he wasn't digging the bedside manner stuff, as he called it, he was so damn happy to be back on Tracy Island in one piece that he didn't fuss too much over the fact that Grandma, Tin-Tin, Brains, Kyrano, Jeff, Virgil, John and Gordon were all standing round him like it was a wake instead of a recovery. It wasn't lost on him that Alan was peering anxiously at him from the sick room's video panel on the wall opposite the bed, but Scott couldn't blame him after what he'd heard.

The entire family had spent the past hour explaining what had happened after he'd been cold-cocked by the monster, whose carcass had been hauled away by shady government types that even Lady Penelope hadn't been able to infiltrate. Only their accents had given them away as American...beyond that, not even Jeff Tracy's billions were getting him anywhere trying to find out more.

Virgil had ferried Scott to a hospital in Tulsa in Thunderbird Two while Gordon and Brains had found their way to the victims and managed to get through the rubble well enough to pull them all out. The local ambulance had taken it from there. All three had survived.

But no sooner had International Rescue completed the effort, with Gordon and Brains aboard Thunderbird One ready to lift off, than men in black suits – literally – had swarmed the scene. They'd tried to get One to remain where she was, but Gordon had said, "Screw that" and taken off, roaring away from the scene before any of those black helicopters he'd seen in so many movies could appear and try to shoot them down.

Brains was working overtime trying to explain not only what the creature had been, but what'd caused those pipes to light up without any electricity. So far, he'd come up empty...then again, it'd only been a week.

It had been the most painful and embarrassing, dare he think it for fear of jinxing himself, week of Scott's life.

Yes, he had raked up his front, from pecs to knees, and it hadn't been a pretty sight. Still wasn't, truth be told...not that he was showing anyone but his doctor, of course. But at least he was still fully functional. There was something to be said for that.

He'd just gotten home three hours ago, courtesy of his father's jet. In spite of how happy he was to be home and how eager he'd been after a week of being mostly out of it on painkillers in the hospital to hear what the hell had gone so wrong on that rescue, it was all he could do right there in that moment to keep his eyelids from drooping.

He wasn't doing a very good job of it.

"All right, everyone, let's leave Scott to get some rest," Grandma said, using her hands and her tiny frame to shoo all the six-foot-plus people out of the room. Well, except for Tin-Tin. At five-foot-four she didn't fit that bill, but she was doing the shooing right along with Grandma.

The lights dimmed as the last person exited the sick room. Or at least, Scott thought everyone had gone. And so when a jab of pain shot through his body just above his stomach area, thanks to the three broken ribs he'd sustained, he allowed himself to moan out loud.

A soft voice came from above him. "Hey."

His eyes snapped open and for half a second he was transported back to the moment when he'd seen this very same face before him...and what that had meant. He smiled weakly. "Hey."

"You need more meds?"

Scott shook his head slowly, allowing his eyes to close again. "I'll be all right. Just gimme a minute."

"You need more than a minute, Scott," Virgil countered. Scott heard the sounds of a chair being pulled near, and then a sigh as Virgil seated himself on it. "You scared the piss out of me."

Barking out a laugh that he instantly regretted, Scott had to breathe in and out a few times for the rib pain to ease up. "That thing scared the piss out of me," he finally said. He opened his eyes to find his brother leaning on the metal bed railing, looking right into his eyes.

"There was a lot of blood when we rolled it off you, but all we could see was its back. How'd you kill it?"

"Found a skeleton," Scott said, eyes closing again. "Had a snapped femur. Made a good knife." Virgil made a noncommittal sound in his throat, causing Scott to open his eyes again. "What?"

"You're lucky that thing's heart was in the same place ours are."

He nodded, but stopped after one time when the look on Virgil's face sunk in. He reached up and offered his hand. Virgil hesitated a moment, then took it as though they were about to arm wrestle. Eyes locked, Scott felt a lump form in his throat. If he hadn't been successful...if that creature's heart hadn't been on the left side of its chest...if he'd been a fraction of an inch, or a microsecond, off in his movements...what Virgil and Gordon would've seen...Scott squeezed his eyes shut. "I'm okay."

"Yeah," Virgil acknowledged with a squeeze of his hand. "I just wish we knew more about what that thing really was."

By the time he'd finished his sentence, Scott was asleep.

In spite of all the questions that would most likely never be answered, Virgil couldn't find it in himself to care. Because his brother...their field commander...the man who'd been like a second father to him and his brothers their whole lives...was still alive.

Out of the labyrinth he'd come, against all odds, against all understanding and logic. And while maybe Scott was dealing with the whole thing all right, Virgil wasn't sure he could say the same thing about himself. And so he concentrated on one thought over and over again as he sat there with Scott's hand in his, watching him sleep:

Scott. Was. Alive.

"Then, his hand brushed a piece of string and, with a whoop of delight, he knew he had found the thread which would lead him back out."

- 'Theseus and the Minotaur'

Quotes at the beginning and end are from a website called Myths and Legends E2BN.