dall twisted in
it to strike frantically down through the darkness at whatever thing
of horror held them, his clenched fist met but the cold smooth skin
of some big, soft-bodied creature!

Down--down--remorselessly they were being drawn farther into the black
depths of the tunnel by the great thing crawling down below them.
Again and again the two twisted and struck, but could not shake its
hold. In sheer exhaustion they ceased to struggle, dragged helplessly
farther down.

Was it minutes or hours, Randall wondered afterward, of that horrible
progress downward, that passed before they glimpsed light beneath? A
feeble glow, hardly discernible, it was, and as they went lower still
he saw that it was caused by the tunnel passing through a strata of
radio-active rock that gave off the faint light. In that light they
glimpsed for the first time the horror dragging them downward.

It was a huge worm creature! A thing like a giant angleworm, three
feet or more in thickness and thrice that in length, its great body
soft and cold and worm-like. From the end nearest them projected two
long tentacles with which it had gripped the two men and was dragging
them down the tunnel after it! Randall glimpsed a mouth-aperture in
the tentacled end of the worm body also, and two scarlike marks above
it, placed like eyes, although eyes the monstrous thing had not.

* * * * *

But a moment they glimpsed it and then were in darkness again as the
tunnel passed through the radio-active strata and lower. The horror of
that moment's glimpse, though, made them strike out in blind
repulsion, but relentlessly the creature dragged them after it.

"God!" It was Lanier's panting cry as they were dragged on. "This worm
monster--we're hundreds of feet below the surface!"

Randall sought to reply, but his voice choked. The air about them was
close and damp, with an overpowering earthy smell. He felt
consciousness leaving him.

A gleam of soft light--they were passing more radio-active patches. He
felt the wild convulsive struggles of Lanier against the thing; and
then suddenly the tunnel ended, debouched into a far-stretching,
low-ceilinged cavity. It was feebly illuminated by radio-active
patches here and there in walls and ceiling, and as the monster that
held them halted on entering the cavity, Randall and Lanier lay in its
grip and stared across the weird place with intensified horror.

For it was swarming with