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“I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna kick your teeth so far down your throat that you’ll be able to chew your own ass out for pissing me off.”

                The Undertaker, Smackdown

                I’m not sure why, but I run with my fingers along the side of the bio-dome. Maybe it’s the momentary memory of running my fingers through fences when I was a kid. Maybe it’s to keep track of where the damn thing is. Maybe it’s for any number of reasons. But I do it. And the smooth surface seems just a touch too cold for my taste. Like it’s exempt from the hot sky that’s surrounds us from horizon to . . . whatever.

                As I run, I don’t really even notice the mound until Patrick starts to stop. The big guy in the gray and black uniform skids to a halt, his big military boots kicking up a small cloud of smoke. He glances back behind us, then scans quickly around the horizon. “See it?” He asks, his eyes aiming behind his gun.

                “No.” Slate says, her machine gun leading her eye.

                Patrick barely gives her answer a thought. He breaks away from us and rushes over to the small hump in the ground. He starts to push the sand and dirt off of it, his sweat dripping into his eyes. “Go help him.” Slate says to me, still vigilant.

                I glance at her, then rush to the hump. It’s no bigger than maybe a big tire. But it’s almost invisible against the ground. If I hadn’t been looking for it, I might have tripped over it and still not noticed.

                I drop down onto my knees and start to push dirt off. Patrick takes the other side and we both push more dirt and sand. “Have you been down in these?” I ask as I shove sand.

                “No.” He says, pushing.

                “Hurry!” Slate calls.

                “Bullets aren’t going to kill that thing, are they?” He asks. I look over at him and he glances at me. “Will they?”

                I just keep pushing.

                Another three scrapes and I see metal. I push more dirt out of the way and find the familiar off-blue color of the access panel. “Got it!” I shout. Patrick looks over at me, then starts to push more dirt. Infrenzied by the discovery, he starts to push even harder.

                “Got it!”

                We all turn as Slate fires a rapid barrage of shots. But behind me is the mouth. It seems to grin, its black line of a presence barely visible. But it swoops in at us, its gaping maw open wide. I throw myself out of the way and Patrick does the same. We both turn back around, but we can’t see it.

                “What are we going to do?” I ask.

                “Dig!” Patrick yells. He starts to push more dirt. I move to dig as well, only out of the corner of my eye noticing the distortion. I see the sunlight along his outline shifting like heat waves.

                On my knees, I grab Patrick’s shoulder and throw him to the ground. Just as I do, the giant mouth swoops through, its teeth snapping where my arm had been. The force of its presence throws my arm away and I spin to the ground. I look up.

                The access hatch is about half exposed.

                “How many rounds have you got?” Patrick asks, checking the clip on his pistol.

                “Sixteen.” Slate says from behind us. I look back at her, but she just motions with her head. “Keep digging, Sam.”

                I push my hands into the dirt, but the older dirt is heavier. It’s harder to move.

                “When it comes back again,” I hear Patrick say to Slate, halfway between her and me. “Fire straight into its mouth. Try to fire up. If it’s like an animal, then we should be able to hit its brain.”

                “It’s not going to work.” I whisper to myself, pushing more dirt. I can see the handle. Just a little more. How deep did they bury this damn thing?”

                And then I hear gunfire.

                I turn back around to see Slate and Patrick shooting right over me, their bullets passing just inches from my head. I duck down, covering my head. They both scatter away, the three of us turning back. “Did it just coast through the bio-dome wall?” Patrick asks.

                “Did you just shoot over my head!” I yell at him.

                He looks back at me, then back to where the monster had apparently disappeared. “Sorry.” He mutters.

                “Have you got it?” Slate yells.

                “Yeah, but . . .” I call.

                “But nothing. Open the damn thing!” She shouts.

                “I can’t!” I yell back, pissed. “The thing’s got a damn lock!”

                Patrick turns back and he rushes over. And he sees it. I point at the small candy bar-sized piece of metal with a phone-like dial pad on it. “Do you know the combination?” I ask.

                “Yeah.” He says confidently. He holds the pistol to the lock.

                I dive out of the way just as he shoots. “Problem solved.” He says, reaching down and grabbing the access hole.

                And I see the distortion.

                “Patrick!” Slate screams.

                He hits the dirt just as the mouth opens just behind him. He rolls on the ground, but this time, the mouth isn’t moving. Its gaping mouth opens wide, its flailing tongue slapping the ground down beneath at Patrick. The military man steadies his pistol and fires straight up, just inside the teeth. But the bullet disappears into the darkness behind the teeth.

                The tongue smacks down at him, slapping him the face and chest like a wet towel. The blow knocks him into the ground, a cloud of dirt and sand spitting out from around him. Slate comes around in front, leveling the machine gun at the monster. She pulls the trigger.

           And          Teeth          Down          The          Of          Gun
                   The             Close           On          Barrel     The

                Slate jerks back with the remaining half of the gun as the mouth disappears, then reappears, the metal fragments it had just bit off gone. The mouth opens up wide again, its forearm-long teeth flaring out like tendrils. I grab Slate and just fall back as the mouth passes over us.

                “Guys!” I hear Patrick shout. I look up and he’s over the access hatch, trying to breathe through his bloody nose. “Come on!” He braces himself against the ground and throws his weight against the heavy cover up to shove it open so that it falls with resounding permanency onto the ground. With a slide, he drops down inside the whole.

                I grab Slate up and we crawl towards the hole. I look around as Slate grabs the sides of the hole and dives in, head first. I see the mouth just a few feet from me. It opens up wide, its teeth flaring and its tongue slapping against the edges of its existence. I turn back to the hole and grab the sides. With a fast yank, I throw myself inside, into the darkness.

                I land hard, collapsing down on the metal flooring with Slate and Patrick. We both look up to see the mouth over the hole, its flailing tongue hysterical ready to attack us.

                The hair on the back of my neck stands up.

                Then we hear a stamp.

                And as if without any effort at all, we see the access hole’s cover lifted back over the hole.

With the sound of an explosion, the cover slams down onto the hole, sealing us in.

And the darkness surrounds us.

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