My name is Fernando Alvarez, dealing with weird is my job, and right now I`m on my way to a place called Mountain Home.

　　Mountain Home was a gold rush city turned tourist town. A vacation destination. It was on the California side of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, nestled in and hugged by its ridges. With the neighboring snow topped Sierras, and a tall fence of sequoia trees, it had the appearance of pure rustic wilderness. All this mind you, while still being no more than twenty minutes away from the nearest city, and while still within California`s temperate, all summer climate.

　　I got an eyeful of it on the way in. It looked like a nice town.

　　It blipped onto my employer`s weirdness radar about a week ago due to a string of sudden disappearances. A woman takes a phone call outside, but never comes back in. A man steps outside a sandwich shop while having lunch and is never seen again. A group of friends loses their buddy after he stops to tie his shoe, and when they look back, he`s gone. You get the idea.

　　Outside the possibility of just vanishing into smoke, like I said, nice town.

　　It was surprising then, that it had so many potholes. Really bad, really deep, potholes.

　　Upon entering the city limits, the wheel of my car dipped into a particularly nasty one, rocking the chassis so hard I nearly lost control. The shakeup was bad enough that I threw up my emergency lights and pulled over.

　　The frame was scratched, but the wheel turned out to be fine, just a little gross. The water from the pothole must have been something special, because it left a slick looking, almost glossy looking substance on my wheel. Eugh.

　　I continued my drive into town. I was meeting with a detective named Jessica Cheyka as part of a joint investigation between my people and the Mountain Home police department. The police department was at the 6th avenue shopping plaza, the unofficial center of the town.

　　I tried pulling into the police station, but it was cordoned off. A perimeter of yellow tape had been placed around the entire parking lot. An anxious looking police officer posted at the parking lot entrance approached my car.

　　"Sir, we`re going to have to ask that you turn your vehicle around. The station parking lot is currently under investigation, and the scene of a crime. If you need to enter the station, please do so via the plaza sidewalk. Thank you."

　　"I`m Fernando Alvarez, my people contacted your town about a joint investigation."

　　"Oh, you`re that guy. Go right on in then, just avoid the center of the lot, and find a space on the perimeter. Check yourself in with an officer at the front desk."

　　He smacked the hood of my car and sent me in.

　　The man at the front was doughy police officer. I let him know who I was, and that I was carrying a concealed firearm underneath my jacket. He checked some things off a computer screen and gave me a temporary badge so people at the station could identify me.

　　The anxious looking officer came inside.

　　"You`re here to meet Jessica right?"

　　"Yeah, I`m supposed to meet with detective Cheyka. Is she here?"

　　"You just missed her."

　　"And I`m guessing she isn`t just out working on the case."

　　"Nope. You might want to grab a cup of coffee before we start."

　　He was probably right.

　　The station had a fancy coffee machine. I punched the button for a plain black coffee, but instead of coffee I got an empty cup and the smell of burnt beans.

　　"It`s busted," said the anxious officer. "Thing`s connected to the town`s water supply, and the town`s been experiencing outages. The cooler over there does hot water though, and there should be a jar of instant in the cupboard."

　　"Thanks, um&"

　　"Paul Stevens, Officer Paul Stevens. It`s a pleasure to meet you Mr. Alvarez, sorry I didn`t introduce myself earlier in the lot. It`s just uh&You`re not gonna believe what I have to show you."

　　This man didn`t know what I was ready to believe.

　　Officer Paul led me to the station`s security room. Feeds from cameras all over the station were displayed on the monitors. He played a recording for me on one of them. The time on the recording was just one hour before I arrived.

　　A camera panned between the police station entrance, and the parking lot exit. A determined looking woman in her early thirties exited the station, and started walking toward a muscle car in the center of the lot. She arrives at the vehicle, and exits the frame as the camera pans to look at the parking lot exit. When the camera pans back a second later, she`s gone.

　　"She just vanishes," said Paul, "into thin air, right in front of the station."

　　"Just like the other cases. No one saw anything?"

　　"Nope. The station`s right next to the plaza entrance, if there was anything to see someone would have said something. We looked for witnesses, and combed over the scene, but nothing."

　　"Mind if I take a look outside?"

　　"Be my guest."

　　The police had finished their examination of the crime scene, but the parking lot was still cordoned off.

　　Detective Cheyka had been walking to her car. She was standing right behind it when the camera panned away. The area looked clean, except for one of the town`s trademark potholes. I noticed a familiar sheen to the water in the pothole. It was almost glossy.

　　I knelt down and pulled out my flashlight. I dipped the tip of the handle into water. It came out with a slightly viscous, syrupy tail. The water covering the top of the pothole wasn`t water, it was some kind of mucus.

　　"We`ve always had a problem with potholes in this town."

　　"Always?"

　　"Long as I`ve been here. Feels like the city covers one up, and another pops up in its place."

　　"Hmm& was this always here?" This spot would have been blocked by the rear of the car on the recording.

　　"What, you think she fell in?" said Paul, joking.

　　I threw him back a smile.

　　"Wait, you don`t actually think she fell in right?" the laughter was gone.

　　I got up and looked for something to toss in. I found a fallen branch, and stabbed it into the pothole. It felt like driving a fork into a thick pudding. It sank rapidly, and smoothly, into the ground.

　　"I don`t think she fell in," I said, "I think something dragged her under."

　　"What?" said Paul, who was understandably flabbergasted.

　　I knelt back down, and scooped up more of the viscous substance with my flashlight.

　　"Come check this out," I said, "it`s not water. It`s some kind of mucus, or saliva. It`s definitely organic, which means creature."

　　Paul knelt down, and scooped some of the mucus with his police baton. Paul`s face went a little green.

　　"Somethings been eating the town`s people? Christ!"

　　"I`m not ruling it out, but somehow I don`t think that`s the case."

　　"How do you figure?"

　　"The pothole, when I stabbed it, the dirt felt strange. I don`t think the mucus is drool leftover from a kill. I think something used its saliva to work the dirt, almost like a trap."

　　"So this thing is just taking people?"

　　"Can`t say until we find out more. For all we know, Cheyka was targeted directly. If this thing really did set a trap, then it`s awfully convenient that it snagged the one person in town that might have been aware of its presence. Was there any connection between Cheyka, or any of the other victims?"

　　"Wasn`t my case, Cheyka would have been the one to ask."

　　"Did she ever talk about the case with you?"

　　"No, she was pretty tight lipped about this one."

　　"If she came to a similar conclusion as me, then that might explain why. Can`t have people doubting your sanity mid case. She wouldn`t have wanted to come out with this kind of hypothesis without hard evidence. It`s all conjecture though, this might still just be a random attack."

　　"Right," said Paul, questioning his own sanity.

　　"Do you know what Cheyka was coming out for? Did anyone talk to her before she left the station?"

　　"I did. She was meeting with someone, but she was going to clear some files from her car first. She didn`t say who she was meeting with."

　　Cheyka`s muscle car had two large boxes in the back seat. They were old, and yellowed. The documents inside were also similarly aged. Looking at those files might also confirm if Cheyka was onto something.

　　"I`m gonna need to take a look at those files," I said.

　　"You`ll have to wait for a locksmith then, that was Jessica`s personal vehicle. We don`t have a spare key."

　　"No need."

　　I whipped out a set of picks and started fiddling with the car door. I had it open in a matter of seconds, a feat which earned me a raised eyebrow from officer Paul. I threw him back an embarrassed smile. I don`t regularly work with, or even within, the law. Lock picking had become second nature to me.

　　We took the boxes inside the station, where Paul offered me the use of Cheyka`s desk. He also offered to help me look through the mountain of old documents, an offer I didn`t refuse. Looking through the old documents alone would have taken me ages. We also found a business card on Cheyka`s desk. It had the contact information for someone named Allan Royce.

　　I called the number while Paul got started looking over the documents. The world`s most exhausted sounding man answered the phone.

　　"Hello? You`ve reached Allan Royce, A.K.A the guy who`s busy saving the town right now. How can I help you?" Heavy machinery could be heard, and the phone receiver was covered so that Royce could yell something to someone. I waited for the yelling to stop.

　　"Hello, Mr. Royce, I`m Fernando Alvarez. I was meant to be working with detective Cheyka on a slew of missing persons cases, I`m sure you`ve heard of them. Thing is She`s gone M.I.A and now I`m following some leads she left behind. I was wondering-"

　　"Wait, something happened to Jessica?"

　　"Yes, detective Cheyka has joined the growing list of missing persons. Like I was saying, I found your card on her desk. We know she was meant to be meeting with someone this morning, would that have been you?"

　　"We were supposed to-" he was interrupted again. He covered the receiver again, and yelled what sounded like a string of expletives to someone. "Sorry, yes. We were supposed to meet this morning, she had some questions about the water project I`m on."

　　"Would you be able to meet with me instead?"

　　"I`d love to, but right now I`m busy getting this project started. Every moment this thing doesn`t get going is increasing the risk of the town going completely without water. This morning was all I had, but listen. I was planning on coming into town to grab food later, I can meet with you then, is that okay?"

　　"Sure."

　　"That`s great, I`ll meet you at 6th avenue coffee, it`s a cafe in the plaza. I`ll be there around five p.m. Sound good?"

　　"Sounds good Mr. Royce, tha-"

　　He hung up.

　　"So?" asked Paul.

　　"Looks like I`m meeting with this Royce guy later. Cheyka wanted to question him, so I will too."

　　"I`ll go with you."

　　"Great. Any idea what we`re looking at with these documents?"

　　"Just looks like old ledgers so far. Records from companies in the town`s gold rush era."

　　"Fun."

　　I started working on my own half of the documents. Unlike Paul`s half, mine were mostly municipal documents, town records that kept track of Mountain Home`s history. The oldest papers were actually photocopies of even older papers documenting the establishment of the town. Nothing really popped out at us, it all seemed par for the course of a gold rush era town.

　　As far as the documents went: gold was discovered in the nearby mountainside, and soon after a town was established. A couple years later the town experiences a massive decline in the population, probably due to the gold drying up, and it struggles for a bit before pivoting to a vacation destination. There wasn`t anything that you couldn`t guess from looking at the town now.

　　There had to be a reason Cheyka wanted these documents though. So we kept combing through them. It wasn`t until we decided to cross examine them that we saw the hole in the story we thought these papers were telling. The company ledgers mention signs of larger and larger deposits in the mountain. Then most of the ledgers just abruptly end. There`s no mention of the gold mines drying up, so why did they stop digging?

　　A closer look at the census data in the municipal records reveals that at first, only the population of mining workers declined. It was a sudden drop in miners, followed by a larger drop in the general population. Recorded deaths don`t go up, but presumed deaths do. These people were going missing.

　　People vanished then, just as they did now, and it started in the mines.

　　"Holy shit," said Paul.

　　"Yeah," I said, reclining in my chair. We`d been combing over old papers for hours by that point. Our five p.m meeting with Royce was only a little ways away. "That still leaves us at square one though. If this thing, or things, were living in the mines, and didn`t want to be disturbed, what`s got them riled up now? This town hasn`t been a mining town for almost two centuries."

　　"We`ve managed to piss whatever it is off again, that`s for sure."

　　I agreed. This thing felt slighted, and we were seeing its retribution.

　　We left early for the cafe, mostly to get some time to stretch. My back was killing me after hours craned over those documents, and Paul felt the same way. We chose seats on the outside to enjoy some fresh air. Allan Royce arrived a little later. He looked just as exhausted as he had sounded over the phone.

　　Allan Royce sat down after ordering his meal, and a coffee. It was late, the sun was already setting, and he was drinking coffee. He probably meant to go back to work after this. Considering the options were overtime or a local drought, I understood why. Still, the man looked worn. He was wearing what once had been a fine fitting, and well tailored suit. Now it was just a record of his exhaustion. The tie was loose, and his blazer and vest were both unbuttoned. His entire suit was covered in dirt.

　　"Thank you for meeting with us Mr. Royce."

　　"The pleasure`s all mine. It`s nice to have an excuse to get away from the work site. Eating by itself felt like a luxury given the circumstances."

　　"Sorry to have to move you along so quickly then, but do you know exactly what about your project that Cheyka wanted to ask about?"

　　"Right down to business," he said, wiping a bit of his meal off with a napkin. "Jessica wanted to talk to me about my predecessor, Tim Smith. Tim was the first person to go missing in town. He was the chief engineer on the town`s water restoration project before I was. He went missing a little under a month ago. The rest of the disappearances followed soon after from what I hear."

　　"Do you know what about your predecessor she was looking to find?"

　　"If I had to guess, it would have to be about the water project itself. I didn`t know Tim Smith personally. I was hired onto the project by the town after he went missing. I tell you it was hell of a thing taking over. Tim`s disappearance must`ve spooked the first crew, because I got a bunch of no call no shows when I started trying to get everything back on track. I had to call in a new company and everything."The author`s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

　　Sounds more like a crew that went missing. Me and Paul shared a look.

　　"The entire previous crew went missing?"

　　Royce hadn`t even considered it. The question dazed him.

　　"Er& yes, I suppose you could say it like that. You don`t think- but that many people- no&"

　　I think I understood why Cheyka wanted to talk with Royce. I`d have to go back to the station to confirm, but it was possible each individual had a connection to the water project. Question is, what does our monster have against that?

　　"Back to the water project," I said. "What can you tell us?"

　　"Er& the water project, yes. Before I came along, it started with finding an alternate source of water. Most rural towns source their water from the ground by digging large wells. Mountain Home is unique, in that they source it from runoff that comes down from the Sierra`s. Tim`s plan was to create a ground water source, but that plan was dropped quickly."

　　"Why`s that?"

　　"Whoever built the septic system didn`t imagine a time when the mountain water would become unreliable, so instead of leeching the sewage properly, it was allowed to contaminate the local groundwater. The project never even broke ground."

　　Never even broke ground? So the water project didn`t disturb, or wouldn`t have disturbed, something that lived underground. How did the water project fit into the picture then?

　　"If that part of the project never broke ground, then what are you working on now?"

　　"Tim decided to start the arduous task of redirecting water channels. The mountain runoff had become unreliable, but the water was still there. The new plan made use of the old mining tunnels to save on costs. Of course then he vanished, and left me to get the project going again. We`ve only just started."

　　The mines.

　　Almost in unison, me and Paul got up from our chairs and told Royce "You have to get your people off that Mountain, now!"

　　I only saw Royce`s confused expression for an instant, because just then all the lights in the plaza went out.

　　"What in the hell?" said Royce.

　　It was a moonless night, and all was pitch black. Little white lights popped into existence in the darkness. Everyone was bringing out their phone lights. Royce included.

　　There was a sizable crowd in the plaza. A bewildered murmuring started to take over the air. A couple people even started laughing about it. Then the laughing stopped, and the bewilderment turned to panic.

　　"Does anyone know what happened to James?"

　　"Carl!"

　　"Delilah!"

　　"My husband! Something`s happened to my husband!"

　　"Did someone see that?" yelled a woman on the opposite side of the plaza.

　　The silence that followed was worse than the panic from before. Half the lights flashed into one corner of the plaza opposite our cafe. I couldn`t see what everyone was looking at, but there were a few cries of fear, and then pandemonium.

　　The gathered masses in the plaza started running from something. The plaza was a scattering of white lights and screaming. Terrorfied faces could be made out in brief flashes of light.

　　Whatever had been taking people was no longer caring about subtly. This was a full on assault. I felt the ground rumble beneath me, but it didn`t break to drag me down. It passed underneath me, and toward one of the stragglers in the panicked crowd. A little girl. Unable to keep space with the panicked crowd, she had chosen instead to huddle against a parked car.

　　I knew what I was going to do even before I did it, but I cursed myself all the same. The ground opened up beneath the little girl and I jumped in after her.

　　The ground swallowed me. Falling through felt strange, not unlike falling through jello. The mucus had changed the composition of the dirt. I could feel the earth trying to compress me as I fell. It was unpleasant, but not painful.

　　When I came out the other side I landed on something`s head, and tumbled to the ground. I tried to take out my pistol but my hand was still slick with mucus, and it tumbled away from me.

　　I could see that I was in a small chamber. The girl`s phone had landed in a corner and was illuminating the chamber.

　　The massive silhouette of something approached me. It was the size of a bear, with proportions to match. When it came into the light, I could make out a face with especially tiny or possibly vestigial eyes. Its mouth opened wide to show off two sets of sword sized teeth, one set at the top and bottom.

　　I rolled away just in time to avoid the swipe of its paws. It lunged at me again, and again, until I stumbled backwards and fell on my back. I tried backing further away, but I was cornered, my head crashing into the wall behind me. I was done for.

　　Three muzzle flashes lit up the small cave, and three shots tore through the silhouette. Two exited as large wounds in its midsection, and one more took out a quarter of its skull.

　　The creature folded to the ground.

　　Opposite me, was the little girl I`d jumped in after. She was trembling, still holding my gun, tears streaming down her eyes.

　　"Nice shot kid," I said, standing up. "Where`d you learn to shoot?"

　　In my experience it was best to keep people talking when they were going through shock, which this girl likely was. Children especially took cues from adults on how to react to a given situation. A casual attitude and simple direction could keep her from freezing up.

　　"My dad taught me how to shoot," she said, through jittering teeth, and eyes full of tears.

　　"Good on yer dad," I said. I reached out with my palm, "put the gun in my hand and we can get moving. We need to find a way out of here."

　　She complied.

　　With my gun out of the trembling child`s hands, I took a deep breath.

　　"You might want to look away."

　　I turned on my flashlight and flashed it over at the creature. I hadn`t gotten a proper look at the thing.

　　I know it was dead, but still, it looked sickly somehow. There was a yellow sort of pallor beneath its skin. I`d never seen something like this before, but it looked unwell. Did this little girl just take out the monster, or were there more of these things?

　　"It looks like a naked mole rat," said the kid. She had elected not to look away.

　　"Huh, know anything about naked mole rats?"

　　"Yeah," she scrunched up her face, holding back tears. She was trying to keep herself calm. "They`re eu& eusocial, I read it in a book."

　　"Like ants?"

　　"Yeah."

　　So there are more of these things. Fun.

　　"Do they have a queen and everything?"

　　"Yeah, she`s bigger too," of course, "but it`s not like an ant queen. The mole rat queen has to bully other rats so they listen to her."

　　"This just keeps getting more fun er&" she looked at me funny. "That was sarcasm. By the way, what`s your name kid?"

　　"Emily."

　　"Alright Emily, you`re doing great so far, but we need to get moving if we want to get out of here, think you can walk?"

　　She nodded, and took a couple tentative steps.

　　I checked out the tunnel outside our small chamber. The tunnel was huge in comparison. If the mole rat queen regularly toured her kingdom to beat the other rats into submission, then it only made sense to have the tunnels be extra large. How much the size was to accommodate the queen, and how much was to give her elbow room I didn`t know. She had to be massive either way, more than three times as big as the rat that dragged me and the girl under.

　　I started taking me and the kid down the tunnel. She was still a little teary eyed, but otherwise she was doing pretty well, given the circumstances. The plan was to navigate the tunnels back to the mountain, and into the mines. I was sure these tunnels were connected. From the mines we`d be able to find our way out. Hopefully anyways.

　　The tunnels were eerily quiet. I would have thought that we would hear more digging, or screaming. They had to be dragging more people down here, at least that`s what it looked like when we were up top. It`s also possible that we managed to kill one of their few soldiers, and a mole rat colony did have soldier and worker rats. At least according to the kid they did.

　　We were walking around for a while, when I saw it. Another giant mole rat was peeking at us from around the corner. I froze. Emily stopped right beside me. The mole rat was standing perfectly still. It was waiting for us to get just close enough to swipe at.

　　Movement.

　　Something sprang out from around the corner. I reflexively readied a shot, and almost fired, but managed to get the better of myself. From around the corner sprang none other than detective Jessica Cheyka. I couldn`t believe it.

　　"Hello?" she said, hands in front of her face. She`d been down here for hours, the light was probably blinding for her.

　　The ceiling was too high to reflect the light from, so I angled my flashlight at a wall.

　　"Detective Cheyka?"

　　"Yes, who are you?" She was slowly adjusting to the light, lowering her arms.

　　"I`m Fernando Alvarez. We were supposed to investigate the missing persons cases together until you were added to the list. I can`t believe you`re actually here."

　　"I could say the same to you," she blinked the last of the light blindness from her eyes. "Is that a kid?"

　　"That`s Emily, say hi to the nice police officer Emily."

　　"Hi."

　　I explained my situation with Emily, our theory about the mole rat colony, and my barebones escape plan. She caught me up to speed with her situation down here.

　　Turns out she managed to take out the rat that dragged her down here too. That was the mole rat I thought was peeking at us from around the corner. We also weren`t the first people she`d heard get dragged down here. A horde of the big mole rats came crawling out of the tunnels and dragged a bunch of people down. Me and Emily happened to be the last, as far as she could tell. We were also the only ones to get away.

　　"I`ve been running around in circles," she said, "but I`ve been marking the tunnels at every turn. If you`re right, then we should be able to find a way to mines by taking new paths. Eventually."

　　"Eventually&"

　　"There`s one more thing, I`ve seen the worker rats. They`re smaller, and docile. I`ve run into them a couple times. They`ve ignored me every time."

　　"Huh."

　　We followed Cheyka`s marked tunnels until we found a new pathway. We followed the new path for a while, when I started to hear water. Cheyka and Emily also noticed it.

　　We followed the sound all the way to a large open chamber. It was teeming with worker rats. They were as Cheyka had described. Still unsettlingly large, but I had a foot on the tallest of them. Cheyka started moving ahead of us. Emily didn`t want to go in, and I shared her trepidation, but Cheyka insisted that everything would be fine.

　　Me and Emily entered the cave slowly, freezing at the first worker rat that crossed our path. It tilted its head in our direction, and sniffed at the air. It paused like that for a second before ignoring us and going back to its task. It was carrying a potato. A very large potato at that. It was the size of a watermelon.

　　I flashed my light around the room. It was some kind of farm. Shallow troughs of water were running down the length of the cave. I also noticed the sickly pallor on the workers that I saw in the soldier rat Emily killed.

　　"Hey, Cheyka."

　　"What?"

　　"Is it just me or do the mole rats look sick?"

　　I flashed my light at them.

　　"Now that you mention it," she said, "they do."

　　"I met with Royce in your stead. He told me that the goudwater around the town`s been contaminated by the septic system. What if the sudden aggression from these things is because they blame us for contaminating the water?"

　　"It would mean they see us as pests," she said pragmatically. It didn`t really change things for her.

　　If they did see us as pests, then what happened at the plaza was the start of an extermination.

　　We crossed the cave. Emily had to hold my hand for courage. She was scared the worker rats would pick her up and take her away if she wasn`t holding on to me.

　　We navigated the tunnels for a good while after that. I don`t know how much time passed, but eventually we made it to a tunnel that had the remnants of a mining cart track. We`d made it. It still didn`t mean we were home free, but it was enough to hope.

　　We had to pass a lone worker rat to officially enter the mines. Cheyka was the first to go. Even after crossing a cave full of them, I was still a little anxious about casually passing one of these things.

　　The worker rat gave us all a sniff, and tilted its head, just like the other worker rats.

　　Intruder.

　　"..."

　　"Did you hear-" Cheyka started to say.

　　INTRUDER.

　　Cheyka stared at me, wide eyed. We`d all heard it.

　　I tossed Cheyka my flashlight, and told Emily to hop on my back. The worker rats hadn`t been ignoring us, we just weren`t their problem to deal with. Now we were in the mines though, and probably much closer to their actual colony. Now we were a threat.

　　"Run! Follow the old mine tracks!"

　　"Which way?"

　　"Doesn`t matter, we`ll have to gamble and hope it leads to a way out. If we don`t run now we`re toast for sure."

　　She started her mad dash, and I followed.

　　We hadn`t seen the queen yet, but the tunnel we were in now showed evidence of something large having passed through. The tracks here were crushed, bent out of shape. Mining carts were either embedded into the wall or crushed into the ground.

　　We kept running, it was do or die right now. Emily tightened her grip on me, evidently something had spooked her. It was hard to tell what. Cheyka had my flashlight, and it was hard to make out finer details in the bobbing light. I saw the shriveled silhouettes come into focus a little later.

　　Worker rats were lying scattered on the ground. They all had that sickly yellow color to their skin, only deeper. I couldn`t help but feel sorry for them. The further down we ran, the more of them we saw piled up along the walls.

　　We started to see a light at the end of the tunnel. Instinctually we picked up the pace, and for a moment I thought we were home free. Something wasn`t right though. I didn`t know how long we`d been down here, but I was sure it still had to be nighttime. We also hadn`t gone up any sort of shaft or incline, meaning we were definitely still well underground. I slowed my pace, that wasn`t daylight.

　　Cheyka kept running up ahead before I could say anything. I was still processing it all. As I suspected, the light wasn`t coming from the outside, but instead another chamber. The mouth of the chamber looked mole rat made. Cheyka stood still at the entrance.

　　I caught up to her. The light was coming from a myriad of dropped cell phones with their flashlights still on. This chamber was housing half the town. They were all held against the wall with a glossy looking cement of some kind. Another trick the mole rats could pull with their saliva.

　　Finding all these people was startling, but it wasn`t what made me and Cheyka stand stock still. It was the queen.

　　She was massive, and wormlike in her grandeur. Her frightening form sprang out from the dark corners of the chamber, and coiled around its walls so that she could fit inside. Her attention wasn`t on us however. The queen`s focus was on a man bound to the wall. The poor bastard was writhing in his bindings, trying desperately to get away. She was doing something to him with her mind. His body went slack against the bindings.

　　Now her attention was on us.

　　INTRUDERS.

　　"I definitely heard it that time," said Cheyka, "that thing spoke in my head!"

　　Emily tightened her arms around me.

　　The queen must have figured I was the easier target since I had Emily on my back. She lunged at me with her gigantic incisors, her worm-like head crashing into the ground where I had been standing. I barely rolled away in time, losing Emily in the process.

　　"Emily!"

　　"I`m okay!"

　　Emily crawled away into a shadow, and pressed herself into the wall, trying to make herself small. She could have stood under a spotlight for all the good it would do her, these things didn`t rely on sight to see.

　　VERMIN.

　　The queen`s head came crashing down on me again. I wasn`t fast enough this time. I felt her incisors pierce my skin, but I felt her recoil just as soon as she did.

　　Cheyka had managed to get a few shots in just as the queen had struck me, causing her to snap back in pain. The queen waved her head around with her elongated neck, trying to shake off the pain.

　　INTRUDERS.

　　The queen retreated into the darker recesses of the ceiling above. The ambient light in the chamber was too weak to reach. So the queen vanished into a lightless void.

　　INTRUDERS.

　　"Fernando, look!" said Cheyka.

　　Just outside the chamber, the barely visible Silhouettes of mole rat soldiers were coming into view. I couldn`t be sure how many there were, but I didn`t think we had enough bullets to deal with them all. Still, we couldn`t let them advance any closer. The queen had retreated for now, but once her soldiers started to surround us, we would be easy pickings.

　　I started firing, and so did Cheyka. It was hard to tell, but it looked like we were picking them off just fine. There was no end to them though. The moment one fell, it just revealed another silhouette behind it, and we were running out of bullets. I was halfway through my second, and last, magazine when I started to feel that all hope was lost.

　　INTRUDERS! INTRUDERS!

　　The queen was filling our heads with her voice all the meanwhile. It was the psychic equivalent of an all frequencies emergency signal. Anything with a brain could have picked it up.

　　INTRUDERS! INTRUDERS! INTRUDERS!

　　The signal was more panicked now. Was it possible we were actually taking out the colony? Fat chance. It had to be something else, and it was. I heard a man`s voice echo from down the tunnel. I could just barely make it out between gunshots.

　　It was officer Paul!

　　"This way!" said Paul, his voice coming from the other end of the tunnel.

　　It wasn`t just Paul, I could hear a riled up mob with him. The human calvary had arrived, and not a moment too soon. I was down to my last couple bullets.

　　The mole rats that had been encroaching on us turned around. They had a new problem to deal with.

　　That left me and Cheyka with the queen.

　　The battle field inside the queen`s chamber had changed. Her earlier attacks had displaced some of the phones that were providing light. It was now a chamber filled with dark corners.

　　The queen finally showed her ugly head, snaking her way down the walls of the cave. Oddly enough she was sticking to the shadows. She recoiled at the light, but it wasn`t really the light she was avoiding. It was our attention. It was like she could sense our notice of her. She moved from shadow to shadow, finding new cover, even when I couldn`t directly see her. She knew I knew where she was, and that wouldn`t do.

　　Cheyka tried to keep the flashlight on her, but the queen was quick, and nimble for her size. It probably helped that she could sense where Cheyka might think to throw the light.

　　The queen did find a spot to hide in. Me and Cheyka had completely lost sight of her, but the chamber wasn`t so large that the queen could hide forever, and I don`t think that was her plan. She was readying for a cautious strike. Cheyka`s earlier shots had done some real damage. The queen was on her last legs, and she knew it.

　　It was a standoff. Cheyka and I only had enough bullets left for a single shot, maybe two. The queen would be vulnerable the moment she lunged at either one of us, but taking the first out would make taking the other one child`s play.

　　Despite the fighting happening outside the chamber, a tense quiet settled inside of it.

　　Movement. Like lighting.

　　The queen`s jaws were wrapped Cheyka`s torso. Her gun had fired fruitlessly into nothing, but now the queen was out in the open. I fired my last shot. In the low light I could just barely see Cheyka`s form fall limply to the ground, the queen`s head falling beside her. I had landed the killing blow.

　　I went to Cheyka`s side. She was fine, at least she could walk.

　　THE QUEEN IS DEAD, LONG LIVE THE QUEEN!

　　From far away chambers and tunnels, a cacophony of screeching mole rats could be heard.

　　"They`re fighting each other," said Emily, meekly. She`d been staying hunkered down, and quiet for the whole of the encounter with the queen. She was trembling with adrenaline again, eyes wet with tears, speaking through clenched teeth. "Whe- When a queen dies, the girls fight to be the next queen."

　　In other words, we had just been granted a window to escape.

　　Outside, the melee between the mole rats and the humans had finished as well.

　　"Jessica!" said Paul, entering the chamber.

　　Some people from the mob that came with him splintered into small groups to try and free the people that were being held inside the queen`s chamber.

　　"Thank god you`re okay," said Paul.

　　"We almost weren`t," I replied.

　　"What is that thing?"

　　"Mole rat queen. How`d you guys get down here so fast?"

　　Paul wasn`t even phased by the existence of a mole rat queen. He was really rolling with the punches now.

　　"It was Royce. He took a guess based on where all the mountain water kept getting redirected."

　　"And the mob?"

　　"Some we found down here, but most everyone was already fighting those things up top. They were out in the open almost as soon as you jumped into that hole. It looks like you guys had a helluva fight down here, but up top was no joke. These things were organized. I mean& they took out the power."

　　"I think I know how they got that done too. The queen did something to one of the guys in here. I think the queen was able to interrogate his mind somehow. We can talk about it later, once you get those people off the wall we gotta vamos. We have reason to believe that the colony is in total disarray picking out a new queen."

　　"What if there`s more people down here?"

　　"I`ve been running around these tunnels since I was dragged down here," said Cheyka, "this is everyone. Everything after this section is just a maze, and farmland."

　　It was enough to convince Paul. In the headcount afterwards, it had been everyone. Unfortunately, the crew from the first water project was never found.

　　I called my people after we got out of there, and made my final report. They were going to work with the town to avoid further problems with the mole rats. When asked for my opinion on a solution, I asked that they find a way to leave the mole rats with a stream of clean water for their crops. I was in the business of dealing with weird, not genocide. My people said they would take it into consideration.

　　We were able to get Emily back to her parents safe and sound. She`d been a brave little bug in those tunnels, and I was happy to tell her dad about how she saved my life.

　　That concluded my joint investigation with Mountain Home P.D, but I still spent some time with Paul and Jessica while waiting for my next assignment. Paul was glad to be done with the ordeal, but Cheyka admitted, after a few drinks, that she found the whole thing sort of exciting. She asked me if I could put in a good word for her with my people. I told her I would, she handled herself well down there.

　　Another case closed.