"James Rollins - Subterranean" - читать интересную книгу автора (Romeyn Henry)

The tentacles latched onto Khalid's arm.

Khalid tried to shove the squid off his arm, but it clung tenaciously. Tears welled at the corner of his
eyes, and he grimaced with pain. "The damned thing is biting me." Rivulets of blood could be seen
beginning to trail down his arm. Groaning, Khalid swung his arm, cracking the shell against the rock wall
beside himтАФto no avail.

Ben pulled a knife from his belt. "Hold still!"

Khalid froze, then a spasm of agony contorted his face. "Just get the thing off," he said between clenched
teeth.

Ben slipped the blade between tentacle and skin. It was a tight fit. The creature's appendages clamped
tightly to the flesh of Khalid's arm. Ben sawed through the meat of one tentacle, and greenish black ooze
spurted from the amputated end. The thing tightened its other appendages, eliciting a groan from Khalid.

The monster's strength was fierce. If it constricts much more, Ben thought, it'll crush bone. He cautiously
worked the knife under a second tentacle and cut. This time the thing twitched and loosened. After slicing
through two more appendages, the creature released Khalid's arm, dropped to the cave floor, wobbled,
and sucked its remaining tentacles back into its shell.

Khalid dropped to his knees with a low moan, a hand clasped over the wound, blood seeping between
his fingers.

Ben kept an eye on the shell, black ooze dripping from its opening. With a scowl, he swung a boot and
kicked the shell in a high arc over the pond. With a splash, the creature sank from view.

Ashley yelled at him, "Why the hell did you do that? We could have studied it. My god, it's an extinct
species."

Ben pointed to Khalid's bloody arm. "Extinct, my ass."

"He'll live," Major Villanueva said.

Ashley watched him apply the bandage to Khalid's arm with a piece of waterproof tape. The SEAL,
with his advanced training as a field medic, had taken over as soon as they had arrived back at camp.
After cleaning the wound, he treated Khalid with topical and systemic antibiotics.

"Can he continue on with us?" she asked.

Villanueva shrugged one shoulder. "Nothing more than a deep puncture to the muscle of the forearm and
some bruising. He'll be fine."
She nodded and turned away. Good. She'd hate to lose a team member before they had reached
uncharted territory. As she passed the campstove, Halloway offered her a bowl of lukewarm chili and
beans in a tin pan. She accepted it with a curt word of thanks and settled onto her air mattress with the
pan balanced in her lap.

Ben had already scraped his bowl clean and looked greedily toward her plate. "So how's Khalid's arm?"
he asked.