Jurassic Portal

by Robert Turnbull Jr.

  “Looks like dried blood on the cable, I’ll bet one of those fuckin’ divers hit it…got the wheels free.” He raised his body from the handles and told Coi to pump them forward past the broken cables. After moving a few feet Jack dropped to the basket and with a panicked look grasped his handle and shouted “PUMP! The damned cable is unraveling!”

  It seemed like they had just gotten a few feet when there was sort of a bounce and a twanging sound. Still pumping like a madman Jack looked back over his shoulder and saw the strands twisting and another snapped to join the unraveling.

  In one swift move Jack stopped pumping, shoved the cable lock back in place and gripped the copper bar tightly and jammed it between the second and third wheel.

  “Lie on the floor and wrap those tie downs around your wrists.”

  “Why! What’s…?”

  “JUST DO IT!”

  Coi hit the floor and wrapped one of the woven plant straps around her wrist and reached for another…the basket lurched and bounced.

  It seemed as if they just hung in space not moving, and then rapidly began the drop. At first Coi flew off the floor and was suspended in midair attached only by the strap around her wrist, then as she watched Jack tightly wrapped one arm around the handles at the pivot and with his other hand jammed the copper rod back into the third wheel and his feet flew outward as the basket tumbled downward.

  There was a bone jarring stop as the basket locking device and copper bar locked the basket to the cable. Then came a sharp crash as they hit the side of the cliff and Coi looked up to see they were dangling barely ten yards from the top of the other side.

  “Jack! We’re almost to…”

  The basket began to rapidly slide backward and down toward the jungle below, the locks had partially failed.

  Jack still straddling the handles, legs wrapped around the basket supports, he pressed all his weight against the copper rod that was now starting to glow a cherry red on the end in the wheel. Struggling to keep his position Jack ripped open his shirt, twisted it against his hand, and reached down to grasp the cable that they were speeding along. He tried to pull it upward, but it was too heavy and all he managed to do was but a tiny bend in it…but they began to slow.

  Nearly falling off, he managed to pull the rod out of the third wheel and shoved it into the end bogie wheel as once again it glowed cherry red within seconds. Jack leaned against the rod and winced at the heat as he once again pulled the broken side of the cable upward.

  There was a god awful squawl as the slight bend in the cable forced the rod tighter into the wheel. It seemed that the basket was beginning to slow as they neared the break in the cable. The closer they came to the end, the lighter the remaining bit of cable was, and the more Jack could raise it.

  The basket did a hard bounce as Jack managed to lift the remaining cable straight up into the air and leaned back from the glowing copper rod.

  “Holy shit…” he looked at Coi clinging to the basket “it actually worked…we stopped!”

  “What?” Coi asked as she managed to lower herself to the far end of the dangling basket.

  “The copper rod just welded itself to the bronze wheels. All I have to do is wrap this cable around…” he held out the six feet of remaining cable and slowly wrapped it several times around the top part of what they were dangling from, and then shoved it through a space in the wheel support, it was locked into place...their fall had been stopped.

  Jack slowly lowered himself off the wheel support to the lower end of the basket and next to Coi.

  “Jesus we’re lucky.” he looked up…and then down. They had dropped nearly to the chasm floor and below them was about twenty yards of air between them and the rocks and jungle debris below. To the west slightly was a huge boulder that they might had hit had Jack not stopped their swinging fall. Smaller boulders led down to the rock strewn valley floor.

  “Maybe we can drop down?” Coi asked.

  “Probably, I’ll lower you as far as I can. I’ll swing you over to that high boulder and you can pick your way down to the ground after you land. Just be careful baby and you’ll be ok.”

  “What are you going to do Jack? Those rocks below us look really hard.” Coi said with a wry grin “I’d hate to see my baby all busted up because we have a really long walk out to the sea to get out of this chasm.”

  As he prepared to swing Coi to the ledge Jack nodded back the other way.

  “And that way?”

  “About twenty miles of dinosaur infested jungle.”

  Jack swung Coi back and forth a few times “The sea it is.” he said with a worried half-grin and let her go. Coi who was facing the boulders landed feet first and did a roll that a tumbler would have been proud of. She stood and dusted off her tight gray dinosaur buckskin jumpsuit that Jack loved so much.

  She turned to her love and proudly grinned “Ok, it’s your turn.” she shouted after giving a quick look for danger. Even though they were on the floor of a wide chasm, Coi knew it help danger at every turn.

  Jack began to get into a position to slide off the end of the basket to swing over to the ledge and slowly lowered himself to a hanging position. He glanced at the sharp rocks below, sighed, and began kicking his legs out. After several tries the basket was swinging back and forth; each swing brought him closer to Coi’s bus-sized boulder.

  He almost jumped but he was facing the wrong way, so he gave one last kick outward and twisted his body. The basket started turning and he could see Coi as the basket swung outward.

  “Now if it will just stay facing this direction I can…”

  There was that horrible feeling of being suspended again and he felt the sudden pop as somewhere above the aged cable snapped again. Jack only had seconds to scramble up to the bottom of the dropping basket or the full weight of the basket, the pulley system, and the swinging weight would slam down on top of him. He twisted around and pulled his weight up…and the basket rolled toward him.

  All Jack could see was the cable hurtling toward him from above, and as it spun, the green jungle and one very large tree heading straight for him…after that things went black!

  Chapter 18.

  Jack’s eyes fluttered open and at first he thought he saw an angel, but the fog in his head lifted and knew it was Coi. Tears streamed down her cheeks and her face was red from sobbing. The second thing he became aware of was the fact that behind her he saw only shadows, dark ones.

  “Jesus! How long have I been out? What time is it?”

  Coi smiled nervously “Hours Jack. You came around a couple of times, but…” she glanced around “we had to find shelter for the night.” As he sat he looked down the sloping chasm to where Coi was pointing.

  “The part of that mesa you see above the cove is that which we call number 5.” She looked nervously around “It is the area that the cavemen live on and around in caves. Jan’s people called them Cro-Magnon? I think…anyhow they are unpredictable and it is best that we stay clear of them.”

  Jack struggle a bit, but with Coi’s help managed to get to his feet and she headed them toward the cliff face closest to them as it was the farthest from mesa 5. Inching along the shale like debris rather than head into the dense jungle beyond the debris, they could see the chasm open into a spectacular vista and as the ground sloped slightly downward, the vast sea could be seen about five or six miles away. The mesa of the cave dwellers could also be seen.

  No one of the other civilizations had tried contacting the Cro-Magnons that lived in the many caves in the mesa faces, rather than on the somewhat barren top. Without any springs, it was far easier for them to exist in the caves closer to the ground, and the shallow river that had made its appearance and flowed along the floor of the chasm as it ran around the many boulders that had fallen over the ages from the cliff faces on either side.

  Coi and Jack spent the night huddled in a large crack in the cliff face that was barely wide enough for them to crouch and yet it was shelter enough to stay out o
f any wandering raptor’s reach. Huddled to the rear and with a large log wedged tightly in place both slept a fitful sleep and at first light, some rather tasty Acrotholus jerky as Jack did not want to risk a fire.

  Once the sun was up high enough to penetrate the tallest of the trees, Jack kicked the log from its rocky roost and it clattered to the stones.

  “Jesus,” Jack muttered “if that freakin’ fall hadn’t screwed up my scope I could check out more ground.” he looked at this cracked and now un-adjustable scope in dismay “What I can see through the cracks, it appears to be clear, however things are slightly distorted...I could be wrong.”

  Their first priority was heading to the small shallow river and filling the canteens they carried. This was critical as Jack’s friends had donated enough for them to each carry two, and in this heat he knew they’d be needing them both refilled; the intense heat sucked the moisture from their bodies at an alarming rate the day before.

  Once filled they slowly headed downriver staying near the far west side of the chasm. They had hopes of avoiding the ‘grunts’ as Coi’s people called them.

  There had been no trade in several decades, but the Mayan accounts said they made no attempt to communicate other than grunt. Any and all trades were mostly done using a few hand signs. The ever present mistrust and lack of any potentially useful goods on the grunts part, caused trade to slowly taper off until it just stopped.

  Now and then Mayans and the grunts would see one another in the jungle, but always kept their distance. Coi also knew the guards would run for help, but not come into the grunt realm…they would have to make it to the sea and most likely to the pirate’s cove on their own.

  Several piercing screams sounded the alarm that raptors were in the area and by the sound of it hunting. This made Jack extremely nervous because Coi was just as nervous as he, and she knew raptors.

  “We stick tight to the cliffs and watch the jungle.” Coi muttered softly “There are several large boulders a bit farther down, see?”

  Jack took a quick glance knowing that even with their backs gliding inches from the cliff face, the jungle was close enough for a raptor to take a run at them and hit them in less than thirty seconds.

  Jack had eyed his rifle and it looked ok, but secretly wondered if the barrel had bend on impact. A .308 slug jamming in the barrel would not be a good thing, but he didn’t want Coi to know his worries.

  “Ok baby, head over to those series of boulders near the cliff face. You watch the jungle to the south, and I’ll watch the area across from us and behind us.” Coi nodded and once again they crept along the rocky wall.

  Now directly across from the Cro-Magnon mesa about three quarters of a mile away, they could see the series of caves that wrapped around the cliffs and out of sight to the south…but no sign of the occupants.

  Coi slapped the first boulder with her hand as and she groped blindly feeling her way along it, while constantly watching the jungle for any signs of what could be their demise; a hairy arm shot out of a dark crevasse and grasped her around the waist as the other covered her mouth…and Jack didn’t see.

  Coi twisted and kicked a rock, and as Jack spun to see what the commotion was…the arm around her waist dropped her to the ground and shot past her face and pointed to the other side of the huge boulder. Coi stood quickly and waved her hands frantically as Jack raised his rifle.

  Coi gently placed her hand on the grunts hand and pulled it down as she whispered “Don’t shoot.”

  Jack stepped close to the boulder as the caveman slowly moved out of the shadows and curved his arm around the boulder. Jack nodded and hugged the huge rock as he slid carefully around and looked just past the jungle’s fringe.

  Standing on a high part of ground and just this side of the shallow river was a raptor, and it was looking for prey. Jack raised his rifle, then paused.

  “Tell your friend there to cover his ears.”

  Coi motioned for him to cover his ears and when he didn’t understand she took both his hands and clamped them over his ears. He started to remove them, but Coi did the same with hers and he followed suit with an uncertain look upon his dusty face. She motioned for him to crouch and as she did, he followed suit.

  The raptor was now in stalking mode as Jack figured that it had picked up their scent, but wasn’t quite sure where it came from as of yet.

  The caveman gave a muffled grunt as the raptor twisted its head toward them and its unblinking yellow eye focused in on the three trying to squeeze into the small crevasse in the cliff face.

  Jack squeezed the trigger and the raptor jerked backward as a fine red mist filled the air behind it and the caveman screamed at the sound, pushed past both, and sprinted toward the river. He never glanced at the dead raptor as he passed it and before long he was in the ankle deep water heading for home.

  “Well,” Jack laughed “that old boy is gonna have some tale to tell his…”

  “JACK!” Coi shouted and pointed to the caveman that had stopped her from walking out into the view of certain death.

  The grunt saw another raptor burst from the jungle’s edge on the other side and sprint straight for him. He looked to the cliffs where his people watched in horror as they poked their heads out of the dark caves. He looked back to the couple that he had saved and repaid him by bringing thunder. It was clear that he didn’t understand. He looked at the raptor as he stumbled backward…and fell into the water. Struggling to get to his feet he froze; the grunt was transfixed on the speeding raptor that was squealing and squawking with every step.

  The grunt raised a large river rock and prepared to toss it…

  “BANG!” the raptor fell and made a tremendous splash as it slid to a stop feet from the grunt. The grunt looked at the raptor and raised the rock, and then slowly lowered it once he realized that it was dead. He looked at the pair and then back to the raptor.

  Coi shouted at the grunt and when he looked at her, she patted Jack’s rifle, and made like she was sighting it and scanned the jungle. She pointed at the grunt, the raptor, and then at the caves…his home. With her fingers she made running motions and showed him that Jack would cover him as he headed home…and the strangest thing happened, the grunt held the back of his hand up to his forehead. With a quick spin he sprinted toward the wall of caves, ledges, and branch and vine ladders.

  He no sooner hit the other bank when a third raptor burst from the jungle fringe and Jack dropped it on the run. The grunt never looked back until he hit the crude wooden and vine ladder that led up to the first huge ledge.

  Coi grinned “Not bad for a broken scope.”

  “Well baby, looks like they’ll really be afraid of us now.” he grinned as he sighted along the fringes one last time and then lowered the rifle. They moved around the series of boulders and were just about ready to move down an incline. Jack noticed a wide split in the cliffs that appeared to lead upward. It wasn’t too far, and was wide enough for them to get through. Apparently at some time in the past the entire cliff face had cracked and fallen in to form a rocky path up.

  There was several loud shouts and they turned to see what the ruckus was all about, only to see their hairy friend and several others jumping up and down. Two quick looks around and neither saw any danger so they looked at the caves.

  Grunt was waving his arms over his head and then pointed toward the split in the wall and then using both arms waved them toward the beach still over three miles away.

  “My love, I believe that the grunt does not want us to go through the pass.” Coi looked confident and Jack ceded to her instincts.”

  He waved at the one Coi called Grunt and motioned that they would go to the sea. Grunt once again brought his hand to his forehead…and following Coi’s lead they both returned the sign of what they figured was gratitude.

  Grunt shouted something that didn’t appear to be anything other than a farewell. Coi and Jack waved and headed toward the ocean.

  The cliffs turned off to the west and aw
ay from the river. As they passed the rift that Jack had hoped would that would have led them back up, he looked through his cracked scope, and then handed the rifle over to Coi; they saw the floor littered with bones of all sizes.

  Even through the cracks and the blur, this was not a place for them to be and Jack wondered that had they wandered close to the rift, if they too would have joined the bones bleaching in the sun. Whatever they had been steered away from, it appeared to be its hunting grounds or home…and some of the bones were huge.

  “Yeah…a walk along the ocean sounds really good to me at this point.” Jack gently hugged Coi and then went back to carrying his rifle at the ready.

  “With all those bones back there my love,” she smiled sweetly at him, removed his hand from around her and put it on his rifle “I think that I too would prefer that you hug your rifle with both hands.” and with that Jack shoved a couple of more rounds to replace the ones that he had spent earlier…and prayed that they would never find out what created that pile of bones; a few of them were those of adult tyrannosaurus rexes. Whatever took them down, Jack didn’t care to meet.

  Chapter 19.

  The sound of the surf was soothing, but Jack and Coi both knew better then to be lulled into a false sense of security. There had been some ancient reports of creatures coming out of the sea to attack parties of fishermen or explorers, but none were ever confirmed. On the other hand, why take chances? They walked well away from the water as Coi explained that this ocean was really a sea of fresh water. That there were tales of monstrous creatures that swam there, but none had been seen in decades; yet only the bravest went out in crude boats or rafts and tried fishing…some never returned. Fishing, using nets during the day left people open to wandering land beasts. So fishing was normally not done on a regular basis as being exposed in this world was not a great idea…and that is exactly what Coi and Jack were.

  As they strolled along the wide beach Jack was surprised that there were no dinosaur tracks. Understandably there was no cover for the smaller ones and there was no vegetation visible above the waters.