E-Book, Englisch, 304 Seiten
Lebbon Among the Living
1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-1-80336-595-4
Verlag: Titan Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
E-Book, Englisch, 304 Seiten
ISBN: 978-1-80336-595-4
Verlag: Titan Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
Tim Lebbon is the New York Times bestselling author of Eden, Coldbrook, The Silence, and the Relics trilogy. He has also written many successful movie novelizations and tie-ins for Alien and Firefly. Tim has won four British Fantasy Awards, a Bram Stoker Award, a Shocker, a Tombstone and been a finalist for the International Horror Guild and World Fantasy Awards. The Silence is now a gripping Netflix movie starring Stanley Tucci and Kiernan Shipka.
Autoren/Hrsg.
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ONE
Dean stared into a darkness that no human had entered for at least thirty thousand years. The shadows appeared solid, bearing mass and viscosity, rather than simply being an absence of light. It was as if they hunkered down in defiance of the long days and short nights experienced at this time of year on Hawkshead Island. They held the weight of history. Or maybe it was just the cold of the dawn playing tricks on his mind.
“Looks like a good place to tie on,” Lanna said. She pointed at a spur of rock to the left of the narrow fault in the ground as she shrugged a coiled rope from her shoulder.
“I’ll give you a hand,” Dean said.
“Hmm, promises.”
Dean rolled his eyes and glanced back over his shoulder at the Stallion. Emma was climbing down from the high cab, and she caught his eye and smiled. She didn’t smile like that very often. That caused Dean’s paranoia to kick in. Maybe it was quiet laughter. Maybe she’d heard Lanna creep into his tent the previous night. Not that it mattered. Lanna made no secret of their occasional trysts, passing jokes in front of the others without embarrassment. They’d slept together a few dozen times over the years, and Dean took her lead on what any of it meant. Just a bit of fun, she’d say. He definitely agreed with her that, yes, it was fun. But sometimes he’d find himself wishing it could be a little more. Today he’d planned to talk to Lanna about things, find out what their future might hold. Emma’s smile cooled that thought.
“How’re things, Wren?” Emma asked. Wren claimed he’d picked up the nickname on a South American expedition a decade ago, but Lanna said she’d heard it was what his mother used to call him. Six feet and four inches of gruffness and sharp edges: naming him after the UK’s smallest bird gave him a Little John vibe.
“Ready to rock and roll!” Wren said. He was at the Stallion’s open rear doors, prepping the four identical backpacks that they would wear down into the caves. Each one was loaded with tech and worth about ten grand.
“Hey!” Lanna said, punching Dean’s arm. “Dreamer!”
“I don’t dream,” Dean said.
“Sure you do. Everyone dreams.” She waved the rope at him, and he went to help her tie it around the rock spur. “You were mumbling in your sleep last night.”
“I needed a leak.”
“You were saying, ‘Just cut the line’. Something like that.”
“Huh.” A cool thump hit Dean’s stomach. Cold pulsed through him. Just cut the line. He grabbed the end of the rope and scrambled up and around the sharp rock. “You must’ve made me delirious. Raised my heart rate.”
“Raised something.” He caught her eye and he wondered yet again. Really? Just a bit of fun? But the moment to say something had come and gone. Maybe his lack of confidence meant he’d lost too many opportunities to make things more than they were.
They tied the rope around the rock, taking turns to hold on and lean back to test its strength, then threw the coiled end down into the impenetrable darkness of the narrow fracture that formed the cave mouth.
“Okay, come grab your packs, guys,” Emma said, and Dean and Lanna headed over to the parked Stallion, light from their head torches dancing before them. It was a large vehicle, the best that money could buy for an expedition like this, with six chunky-tyred wheels almost as tall as him, independent suspension rods as thick as his thigh, a sealed rear compartment with thick solar-panelled walls and roof, and reinforced windows, which would have slept four comfortably if it wasn’t so packed with kit, and an elevated cab where Emma usually drove and Wren rode shotgun. It was designed for the most inimical terrain, and they’d used it in places far worse than this.
Somehow, though, Hawkshead Island felt more desolate than anywhere Dean had ever been. He’d visited deforested regions of the Amazon on several occasions, the vast Siberian steppe, and a scattering of remote Antarctic islands exposed by melting ice, but this place sang of solitude and whistled with a constant gentle breeze that originated from unknown places, heading nowhere. The terrain was harsh and rocky, marshy and unpredictable, nurturing a dozen ways to kill them, but it wasn’t only that. Dean thought the feeling was more to do with his memories of being a child in Boston, when harsh winters and hot summers brought real distinguishable seasons. He’d loved it most when it snowed, especially those winters when a storm dumped thirty inches over a weekend, because that had meant a few days off school and endless fun outside with his friends. A fresh new world, a pristine landscape for a while. As the covering melted, revealing the old familiar ground underneath, his heart would sink back towards a less exciting normality.
Hawkshead Island had been smothered with snow all year round for millennia, but that was no longer the case. Large patches still remained, but wide swathes of landscape now showed through. Temperatures had risen, hovering above freezing for most of the year. This was a changing place, and the island’s desolation was painfully obvious.
They took turns shrugging on their caving helmets and packs, and letting Wren ensure they were all a perfect fit.
“You’re putting on weight,” he said as Dean shouldered his pack.
“Easy living,” Emma said.
Dean laughed. “Screw you.”
“Wren’s right,” Lanna said. “You are developing love handles.”
There was a moment’s uncomfortable silence. Then Lanna caught his eye, wriggled an eyebrow. Wren chuckled.
“Jesus, guys,” Dean said, smiling.
“Okay, gang, let’s hustle,” Emma said. Wren locked the Stallion—he called the vehicle his baby, and however remote their expedition he was always paranoid that someone would come along with the desire and know-how to hotwire a million-dollar piece of kit and steal it—and walked up the gentle slope towards their chosen cave. The Stallion’s big lamps were programmed to stay on for half an hour, lighting their approach and descent into the system. They had sent down a remote-controlled drone that Emma piloted with aplomb, and they’d zeroed in on these caverns as the most likely source of rare earth minerals.
After that, Dean had sent a simple, anonymous message with these coordinates. He didn’t know if Bethan had received them. He didn’t know if she would come, and when she might arrive. If she did, he had no idea how it might be between them. But whatever happened, he knew that in sending her that message he had taken a step away from this world that had never really been his.
What they sought was worth a fortune, and their small team was renowned for its success rate. In the right circles, at least. It wasn’t exactly legal, and the moral side was something that Dean used to put into a solid mental box and set to one side. Once, huddled in a one-person sleeping bag, sweat still sticking them together as their heartbeats and breathing started to slow down, he’d tried talking to Lanna about this. They were on a rocky South Atlantic island where penguins watched their every move and wind drove freezing rain against exposed skin like bullets. She’d laughed at him, then fallen quiet. He had fallen asleep waiting for her to say something profound.
“Follow me, I’ve got the map!” Wren said. He had a small screen attached to his wrist on which he could call up the virtual 3D map of the caverns made by the drone. It wouldn’t be a complete map, but it would show the general lie of the land. “A tight wriggle to start with, so feet first. Twist to the left, then it opens out. It’s a scramble down a steep slope to the first cavern big enough to stand in. Hold onto the rope all the way. I’ll guide you.”
“Don’t get stuck,” Dean said, and Wren grinned. He was a big man and had been on a fast track to semi-pro football when a shoulder injury finished his career. He was always the first of them to venture into narrow spaces. If he could make it, they all could.
Wren grabbed the rope, backed up to the narrow cave mouth, and eased his way in and down. As the darkness swallowed him, Dean experienced a twinge of claustrophobia. Am I really following him in there? he thought, and he frowned. He’d never felt like this before. He’d been caving since he was a kid, and it was usually heights that got to him more than enclosed spaces.
“Don’t wait up,” Wren said, and his face and upper body were swallowed by the darkness almost too soon, as if greedy shadows had closed him off from the rest of the world.
“Comms on,” Emma said, and they each tapped the communications unit curved over their right ear. It transmitted their voices through bone conduction, leaving their ears free to detect any localised dangers. They started calling their names so that the others could check that the systems were working.
“Wren?” Emma asked after a pause.
“Balrog,” Wren growled, and then he said, “Whoops!”
“What is it?” Dean asked.
“Slippery. Rocks oozing moisture. Muddy. Be careful on the way down. You can start heading in now.”
Dean stepped forward before Emma or Lanna could move, keen to get on with this. He didn’t like the unfamiliar nervousness, and knew that the best way to subdue it was to confront it head on. The more he thought about things, the more troubled he became. Just like his problem with Lanna.
“What is it, Dean?” Lanna asked.
“Huh?” Dean grabbed the rope and stood at the cave mouth, facing his two teammates.
“Dunno. I thought I heard you...
