Free Dead Five's Pass by Colin F. Barnes Page A

it was true. He killed the kid. The only thing he could do was radio Smith and get them all back to the station. At least the kid’s family could have the body back for a proper burial—unlike those poor bastards in the lake.
    Almost as if she were in his mind, Carise said, “We’ll have to come back for them. The kids in the lake, I mean. We can’t just leave them there to rot.”
    He knew she was right, but he wanted to come back for another reason: the thing under the mountain.
    Janis’s cousin Derry ran a small mining operation nearby. He doubted the creature would stand up to high explosives. And enough people had died at its will already.
    “Time to get you back to the station and have you checked out,” Marcel said, taking the radio from his chest pocket. “Smith, this is Marcel. Are you there? Over.”
    “I’m here, Marc. You ready to go?”
    “Yeah, quick as you can. Carise is hurt and we have…a passenger.”
    “Firing up the engines now, come on up.”
    * * *
    Marcel strapped Carise in; she still seemed distant as she stared at the body of the boy they identified as Michael Fillion, a grad student and member of the climbing forum. They also took the rest of the backpacks and managed to identify each one of the students.
    At the very least, once they had figured out what was going on, they could alert the authorities and let the parents know.
    Sitting back against the bulkhead of the helicopter, Marcel closed his eyes and tried to make sense of it all. Which of course he couldn’t. It was like his brain was too slow or too numb to piece together the information and the experience. Breaking his thoughts, Carise spoke.
    “I think I understand,” she said. “After the attack, the symbols didn’t seem so alien anymore…so strange. It’s a language. And the multipointed star shapes within those symbols are actually stars. All that in the chamber: it’s a star chart…constellations.
    “Whatever’s living in that mountain came from the stars—millions of years ago, perhaps hundreds of millions. And those five stones by the lake? I think they’re sacrifice stones. With their dished surface and carved channels, I think they’re used to feed it blood. That pool…it’s a feeding tank. That’s why those kids were in the bottom in that state.”
    “But how did they get—” And then Marcel realized. Given the drag marks and the disturbance in the dusty floor, it was probably Michael. “But how would those images and symbols turn an ordinary kid, or kids if you’re considering the girl, too, into deranged murderers?”
    “It’s a madness. I feel a little bit of it in me too.”
    Marcel’s spirit sank even further. Her deadpan tone full of sincerity and seriousness. Perhaps it was the cut, or the overexposure to the symbols, first back at the station, and now at the cave. But then hadn’t he also looked upon that ancient script? Was he too harboring a madness?
    “It has to die,” Carise said. “Before it rises.”
    Her eyes were glassy and staring. They twitched back and forth like rapid, waking REM.
    “I think I know a way,” Marcel said, wondering if she would end up like Michael, the girl, and the others. Wondered if he would have to… No, he wouldn’t go there.
    Not yet.
    * * *
    Frank and Marge rushed to the chopper the second it landed and helped Marcel and Carise out of the cabin. Frank and Marcel unlashed and carried Michael’s body into the station.
    “Dear lord, you okay, darlin’?” Marge said as she put a foil blanket around Carise and helped her into the station.
    “I’ve been better, Marge, but it’s not so bad…just a cut is all.” She realized then that the pain had almost completely gone and she could walk without much bother. The wound however had gone from freezing cold to a burning heat. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant, but when she inspected the wound once inside the station, the smell made her gag. The flesh around the cut had shriveled and blackened like a