Part Five: An Unfortunate Development

LEINIGEN & THE LAMBETH TREASURE

A Twitter adventure told in portions of 140 characters or less.

Part Five: An Unfortunate Development

I stepped into the main tunnel, my heart somewhere around my larynx and rising, my revolver ready to meet the spring of the hideous beast.

But no snarl met me; no lunge, roar or slaver. There was nothing there. I paused, staying in a crouch learnt on pampas, savannah and plain.

There was nothing. Not a sound. I rose from my haunches. Still nothing. I swept the raw brickwork with the shadow of my raised gun. Nothing.

 

I listened keenly, straining malleus, incus and stapes. My tympanic cavity could hear a bear breaking wind at ninety clicks. But – nothing.

‘These damned tunnels must be playing with my mind,’ I thought. But it would still pay to be careful. ‘Sam,’ I hissed. ‘Come out here.’

Phraxby’s voice quavered from his niche. ‘I don’t want to.’ ‘Sam, you ninny,’ I said. ‘Pull yourself togeth –‘ At a sound, I stopped.

It was the same dry, scaly scrabbling that we had heard coming down the tunnel. But now it came from directly below me. I looked down…

…and immediately jumped back! At my feet, looking up, squatted the most extraordinarily loathsome and outlandish creature I had ever seen!

It was humanoid. Ish. A foot tall. Orange-scaled. Its spine ran from its head into a long tail. Its legs, coiled, seemed well developed.

It gazed at me through wide yellow eyes, the pupils pulsing black raisins in loathsome custard. A reptilian tongue darted from its maw.

‘Sam,’ I hissed, not taking my eyes off the little beast. ‘Sam, get out here.’ ‘No,’ Sam said. ‘Phraxby!’ I said. The beast cocked its head.

‘Phraxby,’ I said. ‘Come here. I may not have found your supercrocodile, but I have something rather splendid for your specimen jar.'


Curiosity besting cowardice – as it always will – Sam stepped from his niche. The little beast looked from me to him, its tongue protruding.


'What d'you make of this?' I asked. 'Some sort of paleojurassic wotsit?' Sam goggled. Scientific prunes are apt to do that, I've found.


'Extraordinary,' Sam murmured. 'Quite extraordinary.' He squatted down and looked our little guest in its dreadful eye. 'Extraordinary.'

I suspected Sam would stay like this all night, poking the little brute and writing notes. He took off his glasses and put them back on.


'Yes, Sam,' I said, brusquely. 'Extraordinary. But what is it, eh? What precise kind, genus or species of blighter do we have here?'

'I have not the slightest idea,' said Sam, as the beast shifted on its haunches. Its legs seemed to possess huge strength. It looked at Sam.

And he looked back at it. 'Leinigen,' he said, 'd'you know, I think we have discovered a form of life quite unknown to classical science.'


That much was plain, but I didn't see how it would help our quest and I said so. Sam, irritated, snapped back. 'Just let me examine him!'


I itched to be off, but Sam had a flea in his ear. 'Perhaps this fellow is my Lambeth Treasure, eh?' he said. 'After all, he won't bite.'


I have no use for irony: such drawing-room notions are little good in the wild. Your Sioux or Thug, for example, rarely appreciates a quip.


Our little friend, however, did. As Sam looked away, and blinked owlishly up at me, it sprang and jabbed its darting tongue into his neck!

Time, in that awful way it has, seemed to slow down. As the cylindrical tube pierced his skin, Sam shrieked. Instinct bade me spring back.


I drew my gun, but if I shot the beast fastened to Sam's neck, I would shoot Sam too. 'Sam!' I roared. 'Leinigen!' he cried, turning white.


The beast... was... feeding. Sam writhed and blanched as the little thing sucked the blood from his body! 'Leinigen!' he cried. 'Leinigen!'


Had worse not been to come, the thought would wake me still. The thing on Sam's neck sucked and pulsed and as it pulsed it grew. And grew.


I roared, and leapt at is muscled and bulging form. The beast flicked its tail and sent me crashing into the tunnel wall! 'Sam!' I cried.

‘Leinigen…’ came Sam’s voice from behind the beast’s heaving back. Fading, behind a foul sucking noise, it came again. ‘Leinigen… Leinigen…’

‘Phraxby!’ I cried. ‘No!’ ‘Leinigen… Lei…’ Sam’s voice came no more. I lay, winded. The beast seemed to pause for breath, its back heaving

Then it stood, and turned. It was six-foot tall. Its eyes blazed not yellow, but red. Red with the very lifeblood of my friend, Sam Phraxby.

I looked at the beast. The beast looked at me. I shot it. It staggered, a hole in its side. Half-digested blood sloshed on to the floor.

The beast let out a dreadful cry… a low, rising, baleful moan. I raised my gun, but with a snarl the beast crouched and then sprang away.

It jumped fifty feet if it jumped an inch. I lay, astonished. The beast jumped again, with the same slow wind-up in its astonishing limbs. 

 

At a corner, a hundred feet from me, the Guardian of the Lambeth Treasure turned, its eyes red in the gloom. Again, hideously, it groaned.

And then it jumped away. Silence dripped from the walls. Sam’s dessicated corpse lay still. And I did something rather unusual. I fainted.