by Matt James
Ian was trying to outpace one of the largest and fiercest creatures in history. Not only was the ancient beast deadly in the water, but it’s long legs, and thick shoulders and hips made it far more superior on land than its more “diminutive” relative. It moved more like lizard than a crocodile.
Ian had initially taken pot shots at the Razanandrongobe as he moved, ducking beneath low branches and leaping massive, gnarled roots. But when he made a quick mental log of his weaponry, he stopped and holstered his gun. The few bullets he had left wouldn’t be doing anything against anything as formidable as the drongo.
His only chance at survival was to outwit it, or more likely, get lucky and hope something else would come along and get the monster’s attention. Another large animal would be a perfect distraction, a deterrent Ian needed now more than ever.
A whip-like branch slashed across his face, opening yet another wound. This one stung like hell, dripping down his nose. The thin slit in his forehead felt like a wicked papercut, clean, albeit shallow. Still, cuts like that bled a lot.
This one included.
The blood ran into his mouth, and he unconsciously spat it out. Ducking under another thick branch, Ian bolted left, hoping the quick change in direction would slow the drongo. If he wasn’t breathing so heavily, Ian would’ve sighed. His plan didn’t work, hearing it promptly bash the same dense tree limb he had just dodged.
Once more a chorus of hoots began overhead, belonging to an animal he’d yet to actually see. The lemurs, if that’s what they were, seemed to inhabit every part of the subterranean world. They were the constant in everything going on. It also made sense that they’d be the primary food source for most of the carnivores. It was like a wildebeest was to a lion. For a food chain to stay intact and not collapse, prey would always have to outnumber their predators.
Ian’s ears rung after another deafening roar accosted him. He lost his footing for a moment and missed hopping over a low root. Catching it with his toe, he spilled forward, feeling the hot breath of the crocolizard envelope his neck and back. He waited for death, but it never came. He expected to be plucked from his fall like an egret would a bug from the front lawn.
Instead, oddly enough, he kept falling, deeper into…what? After everything he had witnessed, Ian couldn’t imagine where he was headed now. Gratefully, it seemed that the drongo wasn’t following him. It bellowed from somewhere above him, enraged at missing its opportunity at what should’ve been an easy meal. Ian knew he was fortunate when the ground fell out from beneath him.
Once more, he slammed into a sloping descent, only this one moved with him unlike the hard, conical rock from before. The earth shifted and slid as he continued further and further into another hollow beneath the hollow.
Seriously, how deep does this world go?
Finally, he came to a brutal stop, spilled forward. Unlike his tumble off the bird’s tapering perch, Ian braced for the impact and covered his head, also tucking his chin into his chest. Like a battered ball, he bowled through something hard—but it gave under the force of his arrival. Stopping a second later, he gazed up into the empty eye sockets of an absolutely massive creature.
The lighting, while dim, was still bright enough to see by. More of the glowing fungus grew here, spotting the landscape of… “Bones.” Most were covered in the algae.
He stood and turned in a complete three-sixty, seeing only bones wherever he looked. He was in a field of bodies, skeletons really. None had any skin or meat left. They looked ancient, even compared to the species he ‘d seen so far.
The one that had startled him looked like a classic T-Rex, except that its snout was a little more elongated. Its body was buried under a mountain of the dead, which was a shame. Seeing that he was alone—and alive—Ian would’ve really liked to have gotten a closer look at it. Everything about this place was new, something he’d be able to credit to Abigail for finding.
As far as Ian knew the Razanandrongobe “was” the Tyrannosaur of Madagascar in the Jurassic period, having teeth as large as the more famous carnivore. Whatever sat before him, wasn’t either of the beasts. Pulling out a small flashlight from his vest, Ian clicked it on and had a look around. If anything, the additional illumination made the scene less awful.
The area he was in now resembled a massive bowl. The mound he came rolling down met a vertical wall of stone that rose another thirty feet. What concerned him more than that was the fact that his “friend” chose not to pursue him. Either it was scared of something down here, or as Ian decided, there was no way out of the natural burial pit.
“Animals don’t bury one another…”
It was the first time he’d thought about people also populating this place. Did they coexist with the non-human cohabitants? No way, Ian thought, deciding on another hypothesis. He figured that they were probably killed off by the more dangerous predators.
“Were they even human?”
If this place was as old as it seemed—millions of years, in fact—then it was most likely some sort of primate or Neanderthal-type species, not man. The pit Ian stood in now almost guaranteed that there’d been some kind of higher-order being that had lived there at one point. It seemed to him that instead of letting the carcasses rot it place, the "people” who killed them brought them here to dispose of.
But where are the human remains?
Answer: There were none.
He shook the thought away. “Gotta try and get out of here first.”
He moved to the same hill of bones he had just slid down—a hill of smaller remains. Mounting them, he shambled up the incline, happy to see that it held his weight fine, only shifting a little as he stepped. Halfway up, he paused as the earth rumbled and a more substantial pile of the dead shifted and fell away like a landslide. Ian was smothered by death and taken off his feet. Bone after bone smacked and thumped his head and body. It was like a riptide, instead, pulling him further out to sea. He flopped like a fish out of water and gagged, choking on the dust of the deceased. He was covered in it too and as white as a ghost.
Ghost. His unwanted nickname rang true now. He was a ghost—and would soon become one if he didn’t figure out how to get out of—
“Oh.”
The miniature landslide uncovered the rest of the Rex-like dino. Most of it anyway. Still clutching his flashlight, he shined it on the body. Ian happily got to do what he wanted to do earlier. Stepping around the thing’s enormous skull, he saw that it had wings too. They were eerily similar to the raptors that had been hunting them.
“Except this one is a shit-ton bigger!” he said to himself, stunned. He glanced up into the shadows. “Are there more of you?” If this was an ancestral version of the dino-birds above, was there a mama raptor up there like this one or was the one in front of him an older, extinct species. It sort of reminded him of the drongo-croc too in a way.
“And who killed you?”
The existence of the creature also spurred yet another thought. This was most likely the real Roc—the oversized bird that Marco Polo described. This was the actual beast. Now, whether Polo truthfully saw one of these alive was another thing altogether. He may have just seen remains similar to these and fictionalized a story to bring back home to Italy. At the very least, though, he heard stores of its existence.
Or he really did see one flying nearby, destroying ships with giant boulders.
Regardless, the fact that such a creature lived on—in—this planet was as groundbreaking of a discovery as anything else they had witnessed so far. The only thing bigger would be to find one alive…
Do we want that, though?
If any of the creatures down here got out and populated, there would be a crisis of epic proportions. The only positive note on an escape like that was that Madagascar was an island, and a big one at that. In this modern era, mankind had modern weapons to address events like this one potential carried. The cavemen that called this place home would’ve only had spears and—
Ian dove
for the creature’s front claws, hoping it had the same proportions as its relatives above his head. Clearing off a small section of dog-sized bodies, Ian found what he was looking for. The Roc’s right hand was enormous, and it sported a set of wicked talons.
Each one of the curved blades were the size of Ian’s forearm. Looking into the dead animal’s empty eye sockets, he said a quiet apology for what he was about to do. Then, he raised his booted foot high off the ground and stomped as hard as he could. After three such strikes, the “fingernail” came free with a loud snap.
He set to work on the other two claws as well.
Once he had all three of them in his possession, he threw off his pack and pulled out a coil of rope. Using a series of nautical-inspired knots, he lashed all three of the talons to the end of the line, constructing, in essence, a crude grappling hook. Spinning it over his head, Ian was happy to see that it held together just fine. He also thought it would make a great weapon if the occasion called for it.
Before he attempted his escape, Ian also dislodged the claws from its left hand, keeping them loose. He wasn’t sure when he would have another opportunity to find another “weapon.” He was low on ammo…and on team members.
“Need to find the others.”
Scaling the dead animal’s skull like it belonged in a playground, Ian used its lower jaw to shove off, digging his hands into its hollowed-out eyes. He could see the thing staring at him in his mind’s eye, making the hair on his arms and neck stand on end. He’d never admit it aloud to anyone, but he would’ve loved to see the massive winged predator alive and in flight.
Huh? He thought, standing atop its head. Why haven’t we found any others like this one?
The only explanation he could come up with, besides that they just haven't, was this one had been a one-of-a-kind mutation of some sort. There have been “monsters” found in every species across the globe. One of the most recent was the enormous great white shark named Deep Blue. At approximately twenty-feet in length, she became an overnight sensation when filmed off the coast of Mexico in 2013.
“Are you one of those lone monsters?” Ian asked aloud, not really needing to hide his presence around the dead. He made his way across the Roc’s spine, hands out to his side like a horribly off-balanced tightrope walker. “Or are you something else entirely and not one of the raptors’ big brothers?”
The fact that it was long-since dead told Ian that he would probably never find out. Even without the standard decomposition caused by the aboveground elements, the Roc beneath him was very, very old. If he was a gambling man, he would’ve put a large wager on the “mutation” bet.
Which still begs the question: Are there any others like you?
He sure hoped there wasn’t. Wanting to see one alive and then, running into one… Those were two entirely different things.
Lifting the makeshift grappling hook, he slowly twirled it out to the side, double-checking his handiwork. Confirming that it still held together, he built up the speed, and let it fly. It soared overhead, disappearing above the ledge to freedom. Tugging on it, the clawed improvisation fell back to him, nearly skewering his foot.
“Shit.” He rubbed his neck. “This might take a while…”
19
After a dozen more tries and a break halfway through, Ian finally hooked something with his “grappling talons.” Grinning like an idiot, he used what little upper body strength he had left, and whatever crevices his boots found and began hauling himself skyward.
“Well…” he muttered between grunts, “not skyward…technically.”
Ian sucked in deep gulps of air, wincing as sweat found its way into all the wounds on his body. He’d done an admirable job of pushing aside the annoying pain, but the way his chest was flexed, especially now, it brought about an all-new wave of discomfort.
At fifteen feet up, he paused his ascent and shook each hand hard one at a time. When the pressure and strain in his knuckles somewhat subsided, he started his climb once more. The only reason he’d yet to fall was that his boots consistently had solid traction. His arms were almost done, though. He needed to hurry, but without causing himself to drop to the bones below.
That…would hurt…
He took a quick look-see between his legs and saw a bevy of pointed, tusk-like bones directly under him. If he did fall, he’d have to dodge them as best he could. It wouldn’t take much for him to turn into a man-sized shish kebab. Ian had also seen plenty of videos of morons getting gored by bulls while running away from them…for fun.
The edge of the pit was just out of reach, and his grip was faltering. Hands covered in sweat, Ian tried to hold onto the rope with one hand, feeling a blister rip and ooze beneath his left palm when he did. Between the sweat stinging the fresh wound and the coarse threading tearing at it, he almost let go. Thinking quickly, he looped the rope around his left wrist and released his burning hand. Now coiled around his thicker wrist, Ian was free of the sting and quickly wiped his right hand clean, drying it. Then, he switched hands and wrapped the rope around this other wrist, tending to the newest of many injuries.
“Dammit,” he mumbled, inspecting the open flap of skin. He carefully patted it dry on his pants and growled, grabbing the rope again. Next, with a half-grunt, half-groan Ian reached as high as he could, planted his feet into the uppermost foothold he could find, and pushed. Driving himself upward, he gratefully rolled onto solid ground.
He wasn’t alone…
There was something—someone—just inside the edge of his periphery.
“I start to wonder if I ever see you again, Ghost.”
Turning his head, he found Babo. How the guy tracked him down, Ian had no idea. The only thing he could figure was that Babo had continued in his general direction after he’d been plucked off the cliff face.
Two more things hit home as well. First, Ian didn’t hook onto anything. Babo was holding the other end of the rope in his thick hands. He had held Ian’s weight throughout his entire climb. There was nothing within reach of his grappling talons now that he saw it. If Babo hadn’t shown up when he did, Ian would’ve been stuck down there for—
He didn’t finish the thought.
The second thing that Ian noticed was that his friend was in worse shape than him. Babo’s Kevlar vest and t-shirt were missing, revealing a terribly lacerated body. His face was a mess, including a handmade eyepatch over his left eye. From ground-level, Ian could see that the resourceful Babo had used his shirt to make the bandage, tying it around the back of his head.
Moaning, Ian stood. “Your eye?”
Babo shook his head.
“Sorry, buddy.”
Babo shrugged his thick shoulders.
“What got you?” Ian was hoping to hear a bit of good news. Maybe Babo fell from the cliff and landed on his face?
“More raptors.”
That was exactly what Ian didn’t want to hear. He’d yet to see any of them since he’d been dropped from above. Regardless, Babo’s intel on the grounds surrounding them would no doubt prove invaluable.
He didn’t disappoint.
“They stay outside jungle. They no follow me in.”
Ian nodded. “Scared of the bigger teeth.”
Babo looked confused, but Ian quickly recounted his death-defying encounter with the flying Dorydevil and her hatchlings, as well as the “T-rex of Madagascar,” the lone Razanandrongobe behemoth.
“I hear something large, but not see it.” He shook his head. “Not good.”
Ian smiled. “You weren’t standing nose to snout with it. Nearly pissed myself.”
Babo actually smiled a little, which made Ian feel better. His partner had taken a beating, much worse than him, which until now, would’ve been hard to believe.
Ian felt like shit but was otherwise okay. Babo looked like hell and lost a fucking eye!
Distressed, Ian turned back toward the pit and visualized his beautiful wife. Would Abigail have wanted him to return to this place—
all in the name of fame and fortune? Did he jump the gun to accept this job for the wrong reasons?
Nash had known what he was doing. He was a pro, like Ian. Sometimes, when faced with potential danger, going in guns blazing was all that could be done. While technically responsible for the Brit’s life, it wouldn’t be on Ian’s conscious if the man died down here. Their military backgrounds had hardened the way they looked at one another. They had zero feelings toward one another.
But Babo…and Mack.
He and Babo had worked together for some time now. They trusted each other with their lives, but that didn’t mean they should be willing to give them up for one another. This wasn’t the navy. As a SEAL, Ian would’ve gladly given his life for the “greater good.” He was a broken-down pirate-for-hire now, not a soldier, but the feeling he had when serving was always there. It was there even before he enlisted. It would probably be there until the day he died.
“Which might not be too far off,” he mumbled to himself.
Then, there was Mackenzie Moore… He pushed the thought of the two of them away, not wanting to go down that road yet. At this point, Mack was his employer, and she needed to be rescued. That was it.
From where he was standing he could see the outline of the Roc below.
“Yo, Bob, come here.” He heard his friend’s large feet stomp forward. “Check this out.” He clicked on his flashlight. “I’d like you to meet the legend itself.”
From this height, they were able to get a full view of it. If Ian had to describe it in detail to someone, Ian would’ve said that it was, well, a dragon. Its long spine curved like a snake, melding with an impressive tail that was still half-buried in bones. Its hind legs were like the drongo’s but were covered by the dead.
“Is it raptor, bird, or croc?” Ian asked aloud, mostly to himself.
“Ancestor of all?” Babo replied.
Huh…
He looked up at the taller man. “I never thought of that. Maybe this thing was the last of its kind and the remaining species evolved into something else—a few somethings, really.”
