Amidst the falling dust (The Green and Pleasant Land) Read Online Free PDF Page B

From the darkness behind me I hear the sound of much writhing. I turn and squint against the blackness. Something huge sits there, I have seen but one part of this horror.
    I start to run again. I am getting good at running. As I pass I snatch the torch from the wall. I press my hands to my ears as the beast lets me know its anger. I am reminded of the undulating 'nooooo' of the cadavers I have heard before, but a thousand times louder and of a depth that could swallow cities whole.
    My lungs start working again, my legs pump as they have never done before. I am surprised there is still moisture left to sweat, but its presence is undeniable as it runs into my eyes and soaks my fatigues. Every now and then I turn and flash the light at my pursuer, this is a mistake I cannot help repeat such is my thrilling, morbid fascination. What looks like dozens of cadavers follow me, each and every one of them sits on the end of a tentacle, that leads back into the darkness, back to something else....
    Walls give way with a tumbling crash, pipes are snapped apart like matchsticks. The creatures strength is matched only by its desire to feed. Is it chasing me or guiding me? I know not but my ascent back to the world is by some murky fate far quicker than the slow escape down. I come upon a stairwell up which I am instantly racing. My feet pound against the metal, now and then I stumble, my shins accrue more bruises. Looking down I see them rising, thick slimy tentacles fill the stairwell behind me like a flood, at their tip the cadavers scream through sharp and rotting teeth.
    The sunlight blinds me as I stumble from the metal cellar like doors and out into the open. I am greeted shortly by gruff shouts and a blow to the head. Recovering eyes take in several sights. The smouldering wreckage of the Chinook with dozens of burned bodies around it. Many men in gas masks standing around the parade ground. Around fifteen of my fellow sailors are knelt upon the ground with their hands on their heads. Most are weeping as a gasmasked villain goes down the line and ends their coil with a single round to the back of the head.
    “We have to run” I gasp to the stranger who stands over me, looking down at my wretched form through impassive black lenses. “Your running days are over bitch” he muffles as he lifts his weapon. There is so much to be seen down the barrel of a gun, so much life that can fit into such a small dark space. My would be executioner is almost decapitated by one of the doors through which I excited as it flies from its hinges.
    A roaring mass of tentacle cadavers surges from the opening. The rumbling in the ground is a testament to the size and strength of the beast. Indeed even as its long arms unfurl through the opening the ground around the entrance begins to crack and splinter, such are the insufficiencies of its dimensions. Guns roar. The gas masks appear from many directions. The death sentences that were being carried out against my tearful fellows have ceased. Four of them get a reprieve.
    The cracks in the ground get bigger. The cadaver tentacles flay this way and that. Men are swiped aside, flung up high over the buildings by the force. Others are pinned to the floor and many mouths descend, rending and tearing. Blood sprays from the tentacles painting the concrete red. But still they flail, still they emerge, not only from the cellar doors but now from the large cracks which appear here and there. Bloodied and mangled cadavers punch through the floor and begin to hunt.
    I make it to my comrades and we start to run together. The gasmasks ignore us, they have bigger problems. The whole area feels like it is becoming unstable. As we race towards the edge of the parade ground I see movement between the buildings, in the buildings and curling up around them. Dozens, no hundreds of tentacles are rising up from all directions.
    Alleys are blocked, entrances burst open to reveal gaping maws and bloody saliva. I turn and see