Inne had also been thrown off her feet, and disappeared and had slid down the hole. She was still holding on to her rifle and trying to climb up.
Dwemer quickly reached his arm to her, grabbing her by the arm and yanked her up, surely leaving a bruise. One of the scorpions was running up her back, it's tail raised, when Rob shot it off.
"Fucking 'Scorps got us before we got them. Where the hell is Sam and Caribe." Cursed Inne. "We got to go get em out."
But below them the tunnels vent was filled with dust and the rattled sounds of rad scorpions moving about.
____________
Of the two, Sam had falled the furthest, tumbing down a vent shaft over loose gravel. She finally stopped, sliding down on her ass when she had connected with an old elevator, her body getting knocked up against the metal frame.
She felt her body swing out over air and was dimly aware that below her the ground disappeared into the abysis of the elevator shaft. Instinctively she reached out and grabbed the elevator shaft's metal frame and swung out and around.
But in doing so she needed to use her arms which meant letting go of the motion sensor. Even as she swung around she could hear it banging on metal, once, twice and dimmingly a third time, as it disappeared down into the elevator shaft.
She tried to blink, but the dirt and dust had blinded her momentarily. SHe tried to wipe the dust away but here hands and body where now covered with silty dust, and it did little good. As her eyes cleared of tears she was only aware that she was in darkness, her eyes virtually useless.
But she could hear, and what she heard gave her no comfort. Rattling. Lots of it. More rad scorpions.
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Caribe had fallen first, dropping nearly 15 feet down through a narrow tunnel big enough for a man to crawl through, then further down, into a larger shaft, banging on a piece of wood. Imbalanced he fell hard, and when he finally stopped his head came down on a rock, the impact stunning him.
THere was no light. Whatever light he had been using near the entrance was now lost. The flare having disappeared down the hole. He reached for his knife and the spear but neither were close by.
He tried to move his leg, but it ached and he knew he had twisted it painfully. He tried to get up, but the pain was overwhelming. Slowly he began to crawl, backwards, crablike, back up from where he had come. But as he did so he felt his feet disappear into the soft dirt, his hands sink into the dust or slide on the loose gravel.
Then he felt a something sharp close around his foot and a pull in the other direction.
He kicked at it with his other foot, and for a moment he was loose. Now he tried to move more quickly from the unseen assailant. But the ground gave him no foundation, and then the creature againg closed it's claw on his foot and pulled him.
Caribe, without a solid grip, felt himself sliding. His mind clearing from the stun, he could hear the rattling of the rad scorpions nearby, closing. He tried to kick, but this time the creature held on, pulling Caribe into the darkness of the cave.
Desperate now Caribe grabbed at the sides of the cave, hoping to dig his fingers into some crack to hold on to. For moment he felt his fingers slip into a sliver in the sandstone, but then the creature jerked him back, and his grip slipped.
This is not the way I am to die, thought Caribe.
Then a light. He saw a white light passing over him. His eyes on the light, for a moment, then blindness.
Then a loud thunderous explosion. Another, then another. two hands grabbing his loose arm, pulling him loose. The claw now loose.
"Got him" Said Dwemer. Pulling back.
"Die you motherfuckas, Die." The sound of Melvin, and another loud, thunderous crack, of the .357.
"We'll cover ya ass." Inne. Then both her and Rob firing fast.
"He alive?" Asked Dwemer.
Caribe eyes slowly came to focus to the frame of Melvin's big white smiling teeth over his huge afro. "Hey, looks like NWA's got some breath left. Who's your brother now, nigga?"
