by Rich Handley
Caetus growled and turned to face the darkness. “We must round up our horses and restore the camp.”
Verus pointed into the night. “Captain!” Glowing eyes flickered and then vanished.
“Another!” Bovarius pointed to the other side.
“Will the creatures fear the torches enough for us to return to camp?” Zaius asked.
“No.” Caetus aimed his rifle and fired at something Zaius couldn’t see.
“Perhaps we should spread the torches out, create a larger perimeter of light we can defend?”
“No. They attack individuals too far away from the group. The only safety is in numbers.” Caetus fired again. “And we don’t have many numbers.”
* * *
The darkness was closing in. The gorilla soldiers formed an outward-facing protective circle.
“Our torches won’t last much longer. We have to do something.” Karah squeezed Zaius’ arm. “Before it’s too late.”
The sounds of the squealing injured horse in the cavern below had them on edge as much as the monsters in the dark. “Captain Caetus,” Zaius called to the gorilla’s back. The captain didn’t answer. His bravado had faded as their ammunition ran low, and after he ordered his soldiers not to fire unless attacked, he hadn’t spoken a word.
Zaius raised his voice so all could hear him. “We need to go down into the hole. Our torches won’t last until daylight. The cavern will offer some protection.”
The end of the gorilla’s rifle barrel continuously swept back and forth at the darkness, but Caetus didn’t respond.
Turning to the remaining members of his expedition, Zaius tried to sound confident. “We lost the ropes back at the camp, but if we go one at a time and carefully slide down, we should be all right.”
“I’ll go first,” Karah volunteered. “I’ve done it before. I know what to expect.”
“Be careful. You might land on the horse.” Or Cassius, Zaius thought.
“We cannot all go down there.” The odd, hushed tone of Caetus’ voice disturbed Zaius. He had never heard a gorilla speak so quietly. “If we all go down, who will help us back up? And if we divide our numbers, those things will attack.”
Zaius lowered his voice and moved closer to Caetus. “And if we stay here? The torches won’t last much longer. If we go down, we can save them, use one at a time. We can defend the entrance until the sun comes up.”
The captain still hadn’t turned from facing the ominous darkness beyond the dwindling torch perimeter. “What if they don’t leave with daylight?”
“Then we will have gained time, regardless. Maybe down in the cavern we’ll find relics from the old civilization with which we can defend ourselves. Or maybe just clubs.” He huffed a breath, hoping to sound brave. “We won’t die without fighting.”
Caetus grunted, conceding the point. “Verus, you go down first. Take a torch. Slide on your backside, feet first. Let’s hope it is not even worse down there.”
With a last fading cry, the fallen horse finally fell silent.
* * *
The weight of the rifle in Zaius’ hands gave him no comfort as he stood at the edge of the pit. He had fired weapons before, but did not like them. They were a brutish, gorilla sort of weapon. He would rather know more about the enemy in the dark, so he could plan, prepare, and negate the danger. You are smarter than they are, Doctor Tullius had said. Was that true of the bird-things, too?
“Your turn, Zaius.” Caetus didn’t dare look away from the darkness. “Get down into the cavern.” The glint of predatory eyes in the night had increased. They moved closer, growing bolder as the scientists slipped into the pit below, leaving a smaller and smaller group of defenders above.
“No—there are too few of us left up here. We should all go, together, at the same time,” Zaius countered. “Or those creatures will attack the last ones.” Other than Zaius and Captain Caetus, only Bovarius and Avilius remained. They had four torches left and four rifles, and very little ammunition. “With the extra light below, we should be able to see well enough to avoid each other as we fall.”
Golden eyes flashed in the night, and Caetus tracked them with his rifle. The eyes backed off, as if they understood the weapons.
Loose rocks falling from the cliff face above made Zaius look up in alarm. “They are up there, too. Do you think they are intelligent enough—?”
A large rock thumped into the dirt next to Zaius, just missing him. Bovarius and Avilius jumped, whirling to face whatever might be attacking them from above. Behind them, taking advantage of the distraction, one of the sleek shadows darted in to strike. Caetus roared and turned, firing his rifle at it, which opened his flank to yet another attack.
Though he could barely aim with shaking hands, Zaius shot the lizard that came in behind Caetus. In the light from the muzzle flash, Zaius saw it change direction and come for him. He fired his weapon again, missed, then something slammed into him. He cried out as claws ripped through his clothing, tore at his skin, and he tumbled backward, flailing.
Then he was falling.
He had one glimpse of the creature thrashing in the air above him, then he landed hard on the body of the horse. He felt the animal’s ribcage snap beneath him.
The lizard slammed to the cavern floor close by, landing on its side. It writhed its head from side to side, snapping toothy jaws. Zaius tried to cry out, but with the wind knocked out of him, he couldn’t make a sound. From above, three gorillas struggling with another lizard creature toppled down to land on top of him.
* * *
Zaius awoke to warm sunlight on his face, blindingly bright. He blinked away the glare and sat up. A jagged sharp pain in his side made him gasp, and he tenderly touched his ribs. Broken, at least two. His cinnamon hair was matted with dried blood, and multiple gashes stung. Zaius found himself still on top of the dead horse. A monstrous lizard creature lay dead next to him, its skull shattered.
In the shaft of sunlight streaming in from above, he could see that the cavern was indeed a building’s interior. More blood covered the floor. As he sat up, struggling to focus his vision, Zaius spotted Avilius and Bovarius, both dead, horribly shredded by claws and teeth. Footprints and a blood trail wandered off into the gloom through piles of debris. Some of the prints belonged to apes. Others were bird-like.
Zaius grunted in pain as he attempted to stand. His knee would not bear weight. He found a discarded rifle and used it as a crutch so he could struggle to his feet.
“Karah! Caetus!” His voice echoed back, without any other response. The gun gave him little hope. None of the gorillas would have left a weapon behind on purpose. Maybe there were no bullets left. “Hello? Anyone?”
He realized his voice might attract one of the reptilian predators.
A harsh whisper from the darkness sent a chill down his spine. “Some still live.”
Zaius whirled but saw nothing. “Who’s there?”
“They thought you dead, but your heat signature did not fade.” Sharp consonants clicked as the whisperer spoke. “I would have offered help, but they are armed and frightened. I dare not approach.”
The voice did not sound like that of an ape. “You do not intend to use the weapon against me? Will you put it aside?”
“At this moment, it is holding me upright,” Zaius answered, fighting back the pain from his broken ribs. He didn’t think he could sound intimidating. “As to whether I use it against you, that depends on how much of a threat you pose.”
A large, hulking figure approached the edge of the shadows, still remaining unseen. It was definitely not an ape.
Zaius caught his breath, forced himself not to show any reaction. He tried to make his voice strong. “Do you know where my companions are? Can you take me to them?”
The figure turned its head, as if to consider. In the murk, he could see that the elongated shape was similar to that of the dead lizard monster. Definitely not an ape! The creature was hairless and covered with leathery skin. Although t
he head was shaped like the attackers from above, it did not appear to have teeth.
“Can you walk?” it asked. “I fear you will not be able to outrun the lacerators.” The figure gestured toward the dead creature on the cavern floor. “An old term used for the ornithischians. Derived from the taxonomic family Lacertilia. The humor, I am afraid, was lost on me. The creatures are not actually related to Lacertilia at all.”
Zaius frowned at words he did not recognize. “You are intelligent. A… scientist?” Could this creature be part of the civilization Zaius had come to investigate?
“I am a seeker of Truth and Knowledge.” The creature paused. “Are you in more pain? I see distress upon your features.”
“Not pain.” Zaius shook his head. “Confusion.”
The figure shuffled forward, barely into the light. Its face was smooth, not quite reptilian. As it spoke, Zaius saw nictitating membranes flash over its golden eyes.
“If you can walk, it would behoove us to move quickly. Two lacerators remain above and they are desperate to kill—so desperate, they even brave the bright sun above. I cannot imagine how they will react when they find their kin dead.”
* * *
Since Zaius had never imagined any sort of creature other than an ape being capable of speech, he found the talking lizard creature a frightening, even surreal experience. The long-faced being walked upright like an ape but moved with the fluidity of a snake, leading Zaius deeper into the ruins and away from the shaft of sunlight. When it opened its jaws and spoke, the experience was as bizarre as if a feral human had suddenly uttered words!
“I apologize for my incessant nattering,” the creature said. “I have not spoken to anyone for a very long time. I surmise, by the way you look at me, you have never seen my kind before.” It glanced over its shoulder at Zaius with a quick, twitchy movement full of deadly efficiency.
“I have never heard of your kind. Apes rarely venture into the Forbidden Zone.” Zaius limped along, resting his weight on the useless rifle, but it was too short. The creature skirted debris piles that appeared to be bones from an unimaginably enormous beast. Zaius wished he could examine them as a scientist, but at least he realized that one of the rib bones would serve as a far more satisfactory walking stick. He pulled the long bone from the collapsed skeleton, tested it by rapping it on the stone floor, and hobbled on, feeling the sharp-glass pain of his broken ribs with each step.
“And there are few of us left,” the creature said. “Only five, that I know of.” It turned its head. “I am called Parth. Another jest I did not understand. Somehow related to the experiments I was used for. Parthenogenesis—the ability to reproduce asexually. I was fortunate. Some of my brethren were studied for regeneration.” Parth’s smooth stride faltered at the thought. “Forced propagation seems a smaller agony than enduring repeated amputations for the sake of science. My people were created, abandoned, and left with a destroyed world.”
Zaius wrinkled his nose in skepticism and curiosity. “Created? Who created you?” He realized the Defender of the Faith would very much want to speak with this creature.
Parth’s nictitating membranes slid over its eyes, then wiped back. “The scientists, of course. From the ancient times. They made us intelligent, and they considered it humane to explain what they were going to do to their specimens.” Air huffed through the creature’s narrow nostrils. “Eventually, I was one of a dozen studied to determine if brumation could be extended into suspended animation, tests that were under way as part of a long-term space program. But they never sent any of my siblings off into space. Apparently, something went wrong, and my species never went farther than here… deep underground.” With clawed hands, Parth gestured to the buried building around them.
“I knew of the uprising of your kind, long ago, but when my siblings and I finally awakened after centuries of sleep, we found the radioactive devastation aboveground. We thought the world had ended, and we were baffled. What caused all the destruction?” The sauroid held unnaturally still while waiting for an answer.
Zaius stepped carefully as he gathered his thoughts. The uprising of his kind? What caused the destruction? “The Forbidden Zone has been deadly to simiankind for twelve hundred years.”
“Twelve hundred years?” Parth remained motionless. “Simiankind? What about mankind? Are the humans all dead?”
“Of course not. They breed wild in the forests. We have to chase them out of our crop fields like vermin. Were they failed experiments from your creators, too?”
Parth cocked its head curiously before moving on. It seemed to find the answer amusing. They passed podiums and darkened display cases spaced along the wall, all of which reminded Zaius of the cultural museum in Ape City. “What is this place? What did the ancient race use it for?”
“It is the American Museum of Natural History.”
Zaius didn’t know the meaning of “American,” but now he understood the words “Truth” and “Knowledge” engraved in the stone slabs outside the ruins. This was a museum! He could not have hoped to discover a better treasure trove for his expedition. As they moved along at a slow pace, with Zaius leaning heavily on his rib-bone cane, he tried to see some of the exhibits, but the deep gloom was oppressive.
Although Parth darted ahead, Zaius stumbled on loose rubble on the floor, which he didn’t see. He gasped in pain, reeled, tried to keep from falling over. The creature returned to him. “My apologies. I forgot that your kind cannot see very well in the dark. It has been a long time since I walked with another. Wait here.”
Parth skittered off into the gloom, and Zaius was left alone with his thoughts and fears. He wondered where the other apes had gone, how many others had survived, if Karah was all right. And he wondered about the strange being. Parth said that he and his kind had been experimented upon. Had apes once known these creatures? Tested and probed them, as was done with humans today?
From the darkness at the far end of the room, he heard repeated clicking sounds before a startlingly bright beam of light pierced the room. “Finally, one that works.” Parth returned, light in hand. “So many things no longer function. The deterioration rate does not seem to be consistent. I have had difficulty estimating the passage of time.” The creature handed the marvelous cold light to Zaius. “Twelve hundred years?”
In wonder, Zaius turned the small metal cylinder in his palm. He aimed the focused beam at the creature and got an even clearer look at it. Then distant thumping caught their attention. Even Parth seemed alarmed. “I fear the lacerators have found a way down. We must hurry.”
Zaius panicked, fumbling with the cylinder, but could not understand the mechanism enough to turn off the light. Parth put a clawed hand over Zaius’ hairy one. “Leave the light on. Darkness is a disadvantage only to you. The illumination will help guide you.” The creature moved closer to his side and helped support his weight. “It would be wise for us to hurry.” Parth’s naked body was cool and smooth, with sinewy muscles under the loose skin.
The beam of light bobbed drunkenly ahead, illuminating many fascinating but confusing things. Parth led them to a set of stairs, which created an agonizing obstacle for Zaius with his broken ribs, but they worked their way slowly down, one step at a time, landing after landing. Above and behind, they heard infrequent thumping sounds that must have been the lacerators. Parth seemed to be growing more uneasy.
“Where are my companions? You said you would take me there.”
“Not far. Some of them are injured.”
Finally, they emerged into a large room filled with humming machinery and blinking control panels. “I awoke here ten years ago,” Parth said. “Four of my siblings were already dead, due to malfunctions in the apparatus. Five remain in hibernation.” The creature pointed to a row of oblong containers, some throbbing with a faint glow, while others were in obvious disrepair. “I have been monitoring them. Do you understand this type of equipment? You are an ape scientist—can you help me revive them?”
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p; Zaius ran his fingers over the smooth surfaces, amazed and intimidated. The craftsmanship was well past anything he would have ever imagined possible. “This is beyond my comprehension.”
Parth continued to chatter, as though desperate for any kind of conversation. “I hope to learn how to awaken them one day.” He flinched at another thump that came from the stairwell several floors above. “We must hurry if we are to reach your companions before the lacerators do.” The reptilian creature glided among the tables, then hesitated before it picked up two metal canisters from a rack. It pointed to a far door. “That way.”
Zaius led, trying to hurry with painstaking steps, his light beam sparkling off metal surfaces. Passing through a narrow hallway, they emerged into a much larger chamber that echoed with shadows. He swung the beam of light, stopping in astonishment when the illumination revealed a giant reptilian monster, its jaws filled with teeth as long as his arm, its upraised arms disproportionately small on its body. It towered high over Zaius, twice the size of the other lacerators—this one could swallow an ape whole!
Zaius dropped the light and reeled back, colliding with Parth, then falling to the floor in an explosion of pain from his broken ribs.
Parth caught him, with a loud urgent whisper close to his head. “Stop—it is not alive! Just a skeleton, for display.”
The stark shadows and bright spots of illumination from the rolling light cylinder on the floor revealed that the giant reptile was indeed just a skeleton, preserved and mounted. Zaius panted, trying to understand what he saw. “This is a museum,” he said to himself, comprehending. “A skeleton, mounted for study. But, by the Lawgiver, what a monster!”
Retrieving the dropped light cylinder, Zaius pointed it upward to reveal the skull and spine overhead, the enormous legs, the long tail. The huge reptilian skeleton was mounted on a platform, and at its side he found another startling discovery—a skeleton placed for scale comparison. A human skeleton.
