Over the next few months, I’m serialising my entire science fiction novel, Glitch Mitchell and the Unseen Planet, here on the blog. I’ll be posting one chapter every Saturday morning, just like the old Flash Gordon serials that inspired the novel. Click HERE to read the first chapter – Gateway to the Stars. I’d love to hear what you think of the story in the comments below (all comments pass through a spam filter (that’s me) so don’t worry if they take a while to appear.)

CHAPTER FIVE

LAKE TERROR

Fleeing an encounter with a pair of metallic crab-like creatures, Glitch and Captain Anderson discover an underground waterfall and lake. While resting there, they’re visited by a rock creature that they christen Fido. As Glitch plays with the creature, he falls into the lake, but he is rescued by Fido.

Anderson stood near the edge of the lake, trying not to laugh. Glitch raised his eyebrows.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “You look like a bedraggled little dog.”

“I’m more of a cat person, and cats really don’t like water.”

Glitch reached out to Anderson, but as her fingers touched his, something cold and slick wrapped around his ankle. He dived forward, grabbing at Anderson’s hand. He’d almost gotten a hold of it when he was yanked back into the water.

Water swamped Glitch’s face again. It filled his nose and mouth as he was dragged under. Fighting down the panic that threatened to drown him, he pried at the thick, rubbery tentacle wrapped around his leg. His fingers slipped across the slick skin. He kicked, trying to swim upward.

His head broke the surface of the lake again, and he dragged a mouthful of air into his lungs. He thought he heard Anderson calling to him, but her voice was drowned out as the creature pulled him back beneath the water. It dragged him along the lake, toward the waterfall.

Again he tried to pry himself free, and this time his fingers found a way between his leg and the tentacle. But as he dug his fingers into the soft flesh, the creature tightened its grip. Glitch had visions of his foot popping off the end of his leg and pulled his hand back. His lungs were starting to burn. He tried to stretch upward, to poke his head into the air that was maddeningly close, but the buffeting of the water made it impossible.

The creature turned again, aiming for the middle of the lake. Stars burst across Glitch’s eyes as blackness seeped in at the edges of his vision. Glitch saw the waterfall a few feet ahead, and he wondered if the creature was going to bludgeon him against the wall behind it. Maybe that was its way of killing its food before eating it. He braced himself for the impact, hoping the lack of oxygen would make him black out before he slammed into the rock.

His head surfaced just as he hit the waterfall. Razor-sharp ribbons of water stung his face. He dragged in another breath, catching a mouthful of ice-cold water at the same time. Then he was past the cascading water and dragged through an uneven slot in the rock that stopped just above the waterline. He’d been lucky not to smash his skull on the way through.

The creature slowed. The tentacle around Glitch’s leg loosened then let go completely, leaving him treading water in total darkness.

It sounded as though he was in another cavern. He heard the water lapping against the walls around him, but there were none of the blue phosphorescent spheres to provide light. He could almost feel the walls closing in on him in the pitch black.

Glitch took a deep breath, trying to quell the claustrophobia growing inside him. He’d never been good with enclosed spaces. He closed his eyes then opened them again. That only made things worse. There was a splash to his right, and a moment later, something brushed against his thigh. He jerked away, his heart racing.

He had no idea how to get out of the cave. He could hear the waterfall, but the sound echoed off the walls, obscuring which direction it was coming from. He looked around, desperately trying to find the gap in the rock he’d been dragged through. Surely there was enough light in the other cave to give him some sort of idea of which direction to swim in?

Glitch groaned.

“Idiot,” he snapped, the sound bouncing around the cavern.

He reached down, searching for his flashlight and trying to remember whether it was attached to his belt or stuffed in his backpack. He’d almost given up when his fingers wrapped around the rubber body of the light. Clutching it tightly in one hand, he unclipped it with the other. Glitch took a breath as he lifted the flashlight above the surface and flicked the switch.

Nothing happened.

How could the Air Force’s waterproof flashlights not be waterproof? He cycled the switch on and off a couple of times, and the flashlight flickered to life.

He’d been right. He was in a cavern much smaller than the one containing the lake, but it was still high enough that his meager flashlight struggled to illuminate the ceiling. Where it did, the light glinted off the rock, reflected by thousands of tiny crystals that floated overhead like stars in the night sky. Like the rest of the tunnel system, the walls were chipped and scraped, and the overall shape of the room was too uniform for Glitch to believe it was anything other than man made. Or alien made.

There was another splash, and Glitch remembered where he was—treading water in a lake of indeterminate depth, filled with an indeterminate number of potentially lethal alien species. He swung his light around the edge of the lake and found a sloped beach leading out of the water. He kicked out toward it, his splashing echoing off the ceiling and fortunately drowning out the sound of any approaching life forms. He kept the flashlight in his hand, but after a few strokes, he turned it off. The erratic movement of the light cast disturbing shadows across the walls that made him even less comfortable with his predicament.

Something bumped his leg. He kicked harder. His arms and legs were tiring from the effort of the swim, but the beach was only a few feet away. It was indeed made of sand. Red sand but sand nonetheless. Ignoring the burning in his muscles, he kicked again. His hands touched something. Something slick. It slithered away from his fingers.

Glitch stopped swimming. He didn’t want to end up in the path of another of those creatures, but he was equally reluctant to stay in the water. As his feet drifted downward, they touched the bottom of the lake. Standing on tiptoe, he flicked on the flashlight and swept it across the water. The lake seemed empty. He walked toward the shore as quickly as he could, swinging the flashlight in front of him. The water grew shallow, and soon he was wading across the beach, water spraying from his arms and legs as he hurried toward the safety of dry land.

The beach ended in a ramp carved from the ever-present red rock. If there had been any doubts in Glitch’s mind that something other than nature had created this cavern, that ramp dispelled them. It curved smoothly away from the beach and wound up the wall, disappearing into the darkness. The ramp was basically smooth, but two thin tracks ran along the middle of it, the edges worn and chipped.

Something splashed in the pool, far enough away that Glitch felt safe to shine his flashlight across the water. Maybe he’d finally see what had dragged him here.

Instead, he saw Anderson gliding through the water toward him, her flashlight bobbing in the darkness. Glitch shouted to her, urging her on as he frantically scanned the cave for signs of the creatures. The thick black body of something sinister broke the surface a few feet away from Anderson. It curved through the water, turning toward her.

“Come on!” screamed Glitch, waving his flashlight above his head like an air traffic controller.

The panic in his voice must have gotten through to Anderson, because her flashlight dipped below the water as she ducked her head forward and pushed toward shore. Her light glowed beneath the lake, creating an eerie circle around Anderson as she swam. Glitch saw dark shadows flitting through the water near her, darting away from the light then drifting cautiously back toward Anderson again.

She was less than fifteen feet from shore when the black shape reappeared, looming up out of the water behind her. Glitch swung his flashlight upward, following the thick black body of the creature until the light reached its head. To the ten-year-old hiding inside Glitch, it looked like a really ugly dinosaur.

Two bulbous eyes, black and cold like a shark’s, stuck out of the sides of an elongated, pitted head. Its mouth was so wide, it seemed to split the creature’s head almost in two. Dozens of long, twisted teeth poked out of the sides of the split at weird angles.

Glitch aimed his flashlight at the creature’s head, trying desperately to buy Anderson some more time. It let out a hoarse cry, almost a growl, and reared backward away from the light. Glitch chased it with the beam, aiming it at the thing’s eyes in the hope that living so long in the darkness of the lake had left it unable to handle bright light. The creature thrashed and writhed as it fought to escape the light. Another black shape rose out of the water—its tail. The tail slapped back down on the surface of the pool, barely missing Anderson’s legs. The monster growled again.

Glitch glanced at the beach. Anderson was standing now, wading through water that barely reached her waist. A few seconds more and she’d be safe. He waved the flashlight frantically at the creature’s head, but this time, it ignored the light. Its mouth opened, revealing three more rows of disfigured teeth. A long black tongue probed the air, viscous gray goo dripping from its tip. It lunged toward the captain.

“Look out!” shouted Glitch.

Without looking back, Anderson dodged left, throwing herself sideways as the creature’s head slammed into the water where she’d just been standing. It whipped its head backward for another strike, but Anderson didn’t give it a second chance. She dragged herself through the water, staggering forward as she got to her feet and ran up the slope. A few seconds later, she was standing next to Glitch. The lake monster let out a frustrated bellow.

“Are you okay?” asked Anderson.

Glitch looked at her, eyebrows raised. “Me? Are you okay?”

Anderson grinned. “Couldn’t be better.”

Glitch studied her for a moment. She looked pale but barely out of breath, as though she’d been swimming lengths in her local pool rather than escaping from an alien water serpent with murderous intentions. She didn’t have her pack with her.

“I don’t suppose there’s any more of those Air Force backpacks lying around?”

Instinctively, Anderson reached toward her shoulder where her pack would have been. She grimaced. “No, sorry.”

He shook his head and pointed his flashlight toward the ramp. “That’s the only way out. Unless you want to go for another swim and get those packs.”

Anderson turned back toward the lake, feigning indecision. “No, I think we’ll stick to dry land for the time being.”

“In that case, after you.”

The ramp was wide enough for two of them, but the sheer drop into the pool meant Glitch was more comfortable following a few feet behind. A track had been cut into the wall just above waist height. Glitch slipped his hand into it, using it as a handrail for an extra layer of safety.

The ramp wound gradually around the pool a couple of times, taking them up so high, Glitch’s stomach became very uneasy if he happened to look over the edge. The crystals Glitch had seen in the ceiling peppered the wall as well. They looked like diamonds. Big diamonds. He wondered if Anderson would let him stop and pry out a few, but she seemed focused on the path, not the potentially unlimited wealth that lay just a few inches to her left.

They followed the ramp until they were almost at the ceiling, and Glitch could stretch up and touch the tips of some of the bigger crystals. If he had a knife, he could scrape away at the rock and free enough diamonds to keep him in soda for his lifetime.

Glitch was eyeing up a long crystal roughly as thick as his thumb when Anderson tapped his shoulder. “Look.”

The ramp leveled off and continued twenty or thirty feet ahead of them, cutting through the wall to form a tunnel. At the end of the tunnel sat a gateway exactly like the one they’d used to get there. The same coffin-shaped metal surrounded the same shimmering, glistening mirror-like surface. Could that be a way home?

Without a word, they hurried toward the gateway.

Glitch picked up a rock from the floor. The gateway was set into the wall, just as the others had been, and its mirrored surface shifted and twisted as they approached. It looked eager for them to step into its liquid embrace. Glitch pulled his arm back, ready to throw the rock into the gateway.

“Wait,” said Anderson. “What if there’s someone on the other side? Do we really want to introduce ourselves to an alien race by throwing rocks at them?”

Glitch froze. She had a point. He let the rock drop to the floor.

“I’ll go first,” said Anderson.

Before Glitch could answer, she moved forward, took a deep breath, and stepped into the gateway. Glitch took what he hoped was his last look at the alien world around him, clipped his flashlight to his belt, then followed her.

The journey through the gateway was shorter and less intense this time. Glitch felt himself being dragged forward as light exploded around him. An icy chill seeped into his bones, then he was through.

A wave of dizziness hit Glitch as he stepped out of the other side of the gateway and into a brightly lit room. The harsh glare was so strong he had to shield his eyes. He stood there, wavering slightly, as his stomach caught up with the rest of his body and his eyes adjusted to the light.

“Are you okay?” said Anderson.

Her voice was quiet, as though she was standing at the other end of a long corridor, but when Glitch could finally open his eyes, she was standing right next to him. He blinked a couple of times, shuddered, and nodded.

They were standing in a rectangular room—some sort of lab. It was dominated by a device that looked a lot like a giant metal hamster ball that hung above a metal disk. Two large posts stood on either side of the ball, a silver sphere on top of each one.

Every few seconds, electrical energy danced up the posts and around the spheres, occasionally leaping across to the hamster ball. A console covered with switches, dials, meters, and digital displays sat near the device. Its lights flashed green and red, and the needles on the meters flickered left and right as the electricity climbed the poles.

As it moved, the energy made a sharp crackling sound. The whole scene reminded Glitch of the set of an old black-and-white horror movie. He half expected Colin Clive to come wandering out and declare that “it” was alive.

Then he saw the figure lying within the metal cage—Doctor Zheng.

Anderson ran toward her. “Doctor!”

The doctor didn’t respond. Fingers of blue-white lightning jumped from the poles to the cage again. Doctor Zheng convulsed and let out a cry. At least she was alive.

Anderson pointed at the console. “Find a way to shut it down!”

Glitch stared at the console. There were dozens of switches and dials marked with various combinations of lines and curves, none of which meant anything to him. Some of the switches were up, some were down, and there was no discernible pattern. There was no big red stop button, no giant lever that could be pulled down to disable the machine.

But one dial was bigger than the others, and it was turned all the way to the right. Assuming the controls followed the same logic as they would on Earth, it might be the power setting. Not daring to think too hard, Glitch grabbed the dial and spun it to the left.

Electricity leapt from the posts again, and the smell of burning metal filled the air.

Doctor Zheng screamed.

Join me here next Saturday for the next thrilling instalment…

THE CAGE OF DOOM

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[Glitch Mitchell and the Unseen Planet – Chapter Five – Lake Terror by Philip Harris first appeared on Solitary Mindset on 11th June 2016]