by Dan Decker
Was it a drone? A fallen satellite?
The smooth side had given no indication of propellers and the little I had uncovered made me think it was far bigger than a drone.
If it’s not something like that, how else did it get there? It’s in the middle of nowhere.
I would slip back when given a chance, the curiosity was too much to bear and I was looking for anything to distract myself from the zombies or dinosaurs, so I focused on this.
“I found a dead capybara,” Carmen said, her words cutting through my thoughts like a hot knife through butter. My head snapped over and I waited for more but that was all she had to say.
I opened my mouth, intending to ask a follow up question but thought better of it. What was Sharon going to think if she learned I’d seen capybaras that had exhibited zombielike behavior and had failed to report it?
I shook my head and forced down the question because I knew she would not have believed me anyway. Or her jealousy would get the better of her and she would ignore it. Carmen had explored the area immediately adjacent to mine. If I wanted to learn more, I could look for the body myself. She finished her report without saying another interesting word, as did the rest.
Sharon frowned once we were done. “I had hoped we would find more. We must keep looking. Report any strange tracks or droppings, make sure to take photos and collect samples. The lizard is likely ground dwelling but it is small enough we ought to examine trees. Go out and check them. There are more of these things around, I shall have a live specimen. We’ll come every day if we must.”
I hesitated, wondering if I should follow Carmen and ask her to show me the capybara body, but I was certain there would be sores.
Why verify something I knew?
Especially when I had another question to answer.
When we returned to camp I might ask Carmen if she had taken any photos to verify my analysis. Or if I could think of a way to discreetly ask if the creature had appeared sick, I might try that too.
Perhaps they were not zombies as I feared, but just almost dead.
Ten minutes later, I once again stood outside the cluster of trees. I waited, wondering if perhaps my take on Sharon had been wrong. If she suspected something, I did not want her to follow me into the thicket.
I gave up after several minutes. I only had an hour to learn as much as I could about the strange and unidentified object.
As I pushed through the undergrowth and looked down with fresh eyes, I knew with a certainty this was not naturally occurring. It was too smooth. The exposed side was perfect like it had been machined or cast.
Setting aside my machete, I pulled out my knife and jabbed it down point first several times with all my strength, not the cautious attempt I had made before. If it had been obsidian, I should have been able to do something to the surface.
The substance was unmarred.
I went to work digging with my machete and knife. It was time to unearth the find.
11
As the blade of my machete hit the object—still without damaging it in the slightest—I chuckled darkly, wondering what an archaeologist would make of my attempt to unearth it. There was much we did not know about the past. Maybe I had found an ancient artifact. If that proved true I could add an archaeological find as well as a biological discovery to my credentials.
This trip might just be the best decision I ever made.
In the back of my mind I knew I was not following proper scientific protocol, but I was driven to know more by a primal urge, similar to a thirsty man who had seen a mirage in the distance and who was not going to stop until he found water.
A fine scientist I make, I thought as I hacked into the ground and removed a chunk of moist earth. For once, it had not yet rained so it wasn’t as muddy as it could have been. My blade glanced off the side of the black object, ringing out as it did and leaving no damage at the point of contact.
The continued lack of harm only made me spin more theories. I stabbed the blade down and pulled it back, and did it again and again.
I was soon covered in sweat and had dug down almost a foot on one side, excavating an area that was about three feet long beside the object.
I had still not come to the end, what I had first taken for the edge turned out to just be my imagination. From what little I had revealed, the object appeared to be a sphere. I kept having to move my area of excavation further away from what I thought of as the middle. Everything I had exposed was still smooth. Using a tree as leverage for my feet, I pushed against it, hoping I might make it shift, but it did not budge.
I stabbed the blade into the earth and worked as hard as I could.
Ten minutes later I had dug down another six inches without the object showing any sign of ending. After a break to examine my handiwork, I cursed as I resumed my efforts, trying to move as fast as I could.
“What are you doing?”
I cringed when I recognized Sharon’s voice and shrugged while I went on digging, hoping she would just move on and leave me alone, a vain hope to be sure.
The vegetation moved as she stepped through. When her shadow fell over me, I looked up. The explanation I had been framing died on my lips. Her mouth was agape. Saying that I had found an interesting rock wasn’t going to fly.
“What is that thing?”
I stood. “At first I thought it was a rock or something, but it was far too—” I searched for the right word “—well-formed to be naturally occurring.”
“You were holding out.” She pointed a finger and then poked me in the chest. “I knew the moment you spoke, that is why I decided to check on you. You are a terrible liar. Never play poker.”
“You ever see anything like it?” I asked ignoring the accusation while thinking of the zombie capybaras and what might be happening to Sandy and Erik.
“No, never. This is surreal. First the mini dino and now this. Have we wandered into the land of the lost? UFOs and dinosaurs. Is bigfoot about to jump out so he can make an appearance too?”
UFOs, dinosaurs, and zombies.
She went to UFO far faster than me, and while I was tempted to go there with her, I knew it was likely explained by something closer to home.
“I was thinking a drone or a satellite.” I was about to suggest it could be an old car of some sort, but who was I kidding? There were no roads and what I had already uncovered proved that unlikely.
“Yes, of course.” Her eyes widened. “Perhaps.”
I resumed digging as she studied the object. I was starting to become uncomfortable, but assumed she had often fantasized about unearthing incredible things and was just letting her imagination get the best of her.
Underneath that driven exterior was a logical woman, it would come out sooner or later.
“How about you help me excavate? It really—” I was about to say that it helped take my mind off the zombie capybara babies, but changed course. “It tickles my mind. I must know what it is.”
“Yes, of course. The others are due back in a few minutes, I’ll bring them—” I felt a hand on my shoulder, her nails digging into my skin through my shirt. “What are you doing? Why are you digging with a machete? Put that down this instant. In fact, you’re hardly the right person to be doing this. That impatient attitude—”
I stopped her cold when I swung the machete into the object. My blade rang out but the specimen was fine.
“It is solid. Not even a scratch.”
“You step away this instant!”
I chuckled and went back to digging. “Bring the others, we’re going to need all the help we can get.”
12
Sharon left to round up the rest after several more admonitions to be careful. I ignored them all as I continued to dig, occasionally stopping to knock my machete against the object just to spite her. I hoped she could hear it from where she was. The excitement was starting to take hold and overpowered my fear and discretion, the last thing I should have been doing was trying to push Sharon�
�s buttons, but I did not care. Her observations of the potential import of this find matched my own, if not her conclusions.
I dared not hope I had indeed made another once-in-a-lifetime discovery.
After this I will be able to write my own check at Genizyz. I smiled. Maybe I’ll write a book. Working title: Dinos, UFOs, and Zombies in the Amazon. Yeah, I just might.
The more I worked the more I tried to tell myself it was the remnants of a fallen satellite but in the back of my mind I knew that did not make sense. It did not look like any satellite I had ever seen, but I did not know enough about such things. There was likely a logical explanation for this, but it was difficult to not get excited.
The tension was building to the point that I thought I was going to burst. It was good to have an all-consuming question that did not involve Sandy or Erik or impossible zombie rodents or prehistoric lizards.
It must have been watching for a few seconds at least, because when I felt odd and looked up, it did not blink or make any sudden movements.
It cocked its head to the side.
My mouth fell open as my fingers tightened around the handle of my machete. The excitement dissipated and I found myself thinking of a dream I had once had where I had been scared and unable to run.
It felt like that.
The little lizard’s big brother was right in front of me, looking over a snout with four nostrils.
It made a sound that reminded me of the chirping the smaller lizard had made, only louder and deeper.
And far more menacing.
13
“Hello.” Once the word was out of my mouth, I regretted it. I say hello, I thought, it jumps on me and slices my neck before gutting me like a fish and eating my entrails.
The creature’s eyes blinked as it sniffed, testing the air. I had never before read an expression on the face of an animal, but something about the way it gazed down at me told me it was just as curious about me as I was of it.
Was it afraid?
Its nostrils flared and its lips pulled back, showing sharp teeth.
Curiosity gives way to hunger, I thought in almost a detached way. Why yes, I would be good to eat and delicious too.
Our eyes locked onto one another. A staring contest of prey and predator. Though this guy could not have been more than three feet high, it was well positioned to attack me, particularly because it had a couple of feet on me from its perch.
Three feet? Might as well be ten. That thing scares the life out of me.
I was not without defense.
I held a machete. At eighteen inches long, it was better than my four-inch pocket knife. Could I strike before it tore out my neck?
Had it seen what I had done to its younger brother?
Could I get its jugular before it got mine?
It opened its mouth, muscles tightening, as if it were about to pounce. My instincts screamed to move the blade so it was in front of me, but I refrained because I feared it would be the provocation needed for it to pounce. Moving so slow that I felt like a sloth, I brought the machete up.
Its snout shot into the air and it sniffed.
At that same moment I heard a voice from behind.
Sharon.
The lizard hissed and was gone.
14
I almost collapsed from fear when Sharon pushed through the trees and stood above me. Adrenaline coursed through my body and I would have been shaking if I had not already been kneeling. It was the only time I had been happy to see her. I put a hand against the object to brace myself, hoping that nobody would notice. I was not going to inform the others of the encounter until I could do so without my voice shaking.
Maybe not even then.
“Vince has made a most interesting discovery,” Sharon said, nodding at the object. “Two in as many days. If he makes another, I get to claim it as my own.”
The others chuckled, but I did not join them. Somewhere in the back of my mind I realized I should have been grateful she at least recognized my involvement with the discovery of the lizard, but I was only happy to be breathing.
I inhaled sharply; it was an involuntary movement.
Somehow, I had forgotten to breathe while under threat from the creature. The sudden intake of breath caught the others off guard. I would have stood but I was not about to try with all of them watching.
“We have to go,” I said. My words came out a hoarse whisper. “It’s not good we’re here. We’re not prepared.”
“Nonsense,” Sharon said, motioning to Bill while rolling her eyes. “Unfold those shovels. We have an excavation to do.”
I thought of the dinosaur—what else could I call it?—which had come within seconds of killing me. If Sharon had not appeared at that exact moment, I would have been a goner for sure.
I wondered if I would have been like one of the capybaras, following the oversized lizard like a zombie.
How is Sandy? Erik?
As the others moved to follow Sharon’s orders, I considered what I could say to make her reconsider.
I doubted she would believe me if I claimed there was another lizard that was several times larger than the little guy we took home with us yesterday, especially after my attempt to hide my most recent discovery.
After I had composed myself I walked around to where the lizard had been perched, looking for tracks. If I had anything to show, I would tell her about what had happened.
There was nothing.
It was as if I had seen a ghost.
That was not a hallucination.
Not knowing what else to do, I grabbed a trowel—the larger folding spades were already claimed—and started to work at the top of the embedded object all the while checking over my shoulder to make sure the lizard did not return.
My curiosity about the full dimensions of this mysterious object was dampened, but not gone, I just hoped the creature would leave us alone as long as we were in sufficient numbers.
We were far larger than it and even if there were several around, I doubted they would bother us if we stayed in a group.
That little guy from yesterday did not seem to know what we were. The big one could make no sense of me either. If Sandy were here I would tell her, she would believe me.
When I tried to dig, my hand shook so bad it took me five tries before I was able to get the shovel past the grass and vines.
Thankfully, nobody seemed to notice.
It was almost half an hour before I calmed down. There was still a part of me that wondered if it had all been in my head since I had not been able to find tracks, but I knew deep down it had been real.
Eric could not have been attacked by the smaller lizard, the larger was tall enough to have skewered Eric’s leg.
An hour later we were all still digging when I spotted a seam on the side of the object.
Such was my mental state that I did not notice the discovery until I had unearthed almost six inches below the line. When it dawned on me that I was looking at an impossibly straight vertical line, I put down my shovel and rubbed my finger along the side.
At the top I wiped away dirt and found a connecting horizontal line. Feverishly, I continued to excavate along the seam, my curiosity getting the better of me and pushing out my fear of the lizard.
As I worked, my mind was awhirl with all the possibilities. When I had first stumbled on to this I had known it was man-made.
Now I had proof.
But how did this get all the way out here?
15
We returned to camp much later than we had the previous day. Despite my find of what now appeared to be a door in the buried object, I was anxious to check on Sandy and put as much distance between me and the dinosaur, so I traveled at the front of our party, something I had never done before.
This did not escape Sharon’s notice.
“Sandy is fine,” she said. “Those bites were small and will heal before you know it. She’ll be up and moving when we return.”
All I managed w
as a grunt in response. I considered telling her I thought Erik had been attacked by a larger version of the same creature but remained silent.
Sharon shook her head and pushed ahead, elbowing me out of the way as she did. It was a subtle thing. I was fairly certain it was something she did to further establish her dominance as leader of the group.
Perhaps she felt threatened because I had made several significant discoveries when all she’d found was an ugly moth.
I shook my head but kept my thoughts to myself. She could be the leader of the free world for all I cared, I just wanted Sandy to be okay.
When I thought of the baby capybaras I increased my speed until I was right behind Sharon.
The dig had gone well and while we had not yet unearthed the object, it looked as though we would find it was spherical all the way around. We had yet to fully uncover the seams but everyone agreed with my assessment that it could be a door.
“That’s quite the specimen you discovered back there,” Sharon said without turning around. She must have noticed how close I was because she spoke normally, assuming I would hear. “I’m going to request an extra helicopter on the day of our extraction just so we can take that thing with us. A truly rare find.”
“Uh huh.” I peered pass Sharon’s shoulder and was relieved when I saw the unnatural colored tents of our camp. I was ready to push past her, but she must have sensed what I was about because she increased her speed.
Shrugging, I followed her into camp. Mike and Jill were both where we had left them. Mike on his tablet and Jill reading a book.
“You’ll never guess what we—”
I cut Sharon off. “How is Sandy?”
Mike and Jill exchanged glances.
“Sandy?” Mike asked. “We thought she was with you.”
I did not respond as I went to Sandy’s tent and pawed at it in an attempt to get her attention, almost going so far as to open the zipper but stopping short of doing so.
“Are you in there?”
Sandy groaned but made no other response. By that time Mike, Jill, Harold, and Sharon had pulled up beside me.
