by Greig Beck
*****
They pulled back from the site of the massacre and rejoined the group. Drake told them what they had found and showed them the broken spear tip.
Fergus picked it up. “Was a Ka-bar—high-carbon, non-reflective black blade, with epoxy powder-coat; it’s why it survived with only a little rusting.” He looked at Drake. “Yeah, it’d be his.”
“He got attacked, put up a fight, but…” Ajax shrugged. “…it went bad.”
“But you said there were no bodies.” Fergus’ forehead creased. “Come on, we know Ben Cartwright; that guy could take down an elephant with his bare hands. He would have gutted at least one of them. Where were they?”
“Two things,” Drake said with resignation. “Maybe the Ben we knew could have. But maybe not the Ben Cartwright that’s been trapped here for ten years. It’d wear any man down.”
“Bullshit,” Emma spat. “Half a Ben would have been enough to fend them off.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Drake responded. “But there is one other answer to why there’s no bodies. These things eat their own; all meat is good meat here; nothing is wasted.”
“Then we’re done here,” Ajax said.
Fergus grimaced. “Gotta agree. I think the evidence points to the fact he put up a fight but didn’t win this one.”
“Bullshit,” Emma spat. “Until I see the body, I’ll never believe it.” Emma folded her arms.
Helen stepped in front of her. “There’ll never be a body, Emma. Even if it wasn’t a big predator, these creatures even consume bones; you know that.”
“Sorry, Emma, but she’s right,” Andy said, but wouldn’t meet her eyes for a moment. He finally looked up. “For what it’s worth, I vote we stay a little longer. Just to be sure.”
Thank you, she mouthed.
“I see what you’re doin’,” Ajax sneered. “He’s only saying that ‘cause he wants to do more looking around to satisfy his egghead curiosity.”
“Egghead?” Andy’s brows shot up.
Ajax grinned back at him. “Well, the vote is in and the ayes have it. We go home.”
“Fuck you, fuck all of you. I’m not leaving here until I find some proof he’s dead. Until then, he’s still alive.” Emma bared her teeth.
“That’s your decis…hey, wait a minute.” Ajax scowled. “If you don’t come back, we don’t get paid.”
She rounded on the big soldier and couldn’t help tears of frustration welling in her eyes. “The money is already in your account, you chicken shit. I transferred it the day we left.”
Ajax’s anger flared, and he went to step forward, but Drake reached out one big arm across the man’s chest. Ajax gripped his wrist, hard. The younger man glared at Drake, and the older soldier returned the gaze with unflinching confidence.
“Listen up. We’re all tired, all on edge, and all a little beat up. We take a few minutes to rest our feet, have something to eat and drink, and then plan our next move.” Drake pushed Ajax in the chest, making him back up a step. “Agreed?” He looked at each of them, and then faced Ajax dead on. He raised his voice a few decibels. “Agreed?”
“I guess,” Ajax grumbled.
The others nodded, or simply sighed, shrugged, and waited for the next move. Drake found them a patch of ground that was hidden and less sodden than the rest. They sat, chewed hard protein bars, and sipped water that was as warm as blood, while they all became lost in their own thoughts.
Emma tried to think through what she would do if the group decided to leave. She was resolute, and it only took her a few seconds to choose a course of action; she would stay and continue to search. She hadn’t waited all this time, and come all this way, to give up so quickly.
She turned to look at the team. Fergus, Ajax, and Drake were in a huddle and talking quietly. Andy and Helen had finished eating and now examined something they had found interesting in the soil. Camilla seemed withdrawn, pale, and stared at the ground between her feet, while Juan lay back, shivering slightly. He was fevered, and she knew that if anyone needed to bug out, it was him.
The Venezuelan cameraman lay flat on the ground, eyes screwed shut, and looked to have passed out. Needs his rest more than any other, she thought. His arm was wrapped in new bandages, but already she could see the seep and swelling; it looked damned bad. The last time Helen had rebandaged him, they all got a whiff of the sweet smell of corruption. Without a doubt, either the pterodon had a bacteria-laden bite, or there had to have been some sort of venom at work.
Emma had read about the bite of the Komodo dragon that was so laden with bacteria, wounds festered quickly, and could result in blood poisoning and toxic shock in hours.
She rubbed her eyes. Maybe Ben was dead. And maybe it was time to get the hell out. She sighed deeply.
They’d already lost one good man when Brocke was taken. Juan was getting sicker, and she knew what everyone was thinking; now was the time to cut and run. It’d be so easy to do.
Her problem was, she just didn’t feel that Ben was gone. For some insane reason, or some sixth sense, something was telling her he was still alive. She knew he was one of the most resourceful and tough men she knew. She smiled dreamily; they say love is blind. But she knew it was also deaf, dumb, and sometimes, just plain stupid.
That’s me. She sat straighter. And I’m not ready to go yet, she thought determinedly. Her only decision was whether she, in good conscience, should try and keep the team with her or send them home.
She’d been here before, and lived through it, just. But how long would she survive by herself? she wondered. And how long would the group survive without her, the only person here with any experience in this place?
She looked across to them—Ajax noticed her looking and nodded with a smirk. Andy and Helen continued to place things in tiny sample bags, and Camilla still looked like she was suffering from post-traumatic stress.
But it was Juan that worried her—she wanted him gone. The guy would be an anchor soon, doing nothing but slowing them down. She hated herself for being so mercenary. But I’m different now, she knew.
She narrowed her eyes as she stared at him. The man was still lying flat out, but oddly his body jerked and jumped as though he was having a restless sleep…very restless. He had to be bone tired, and his fever would have sapped any remaining energy, but the ground he was on was muddy and damp and can’t have been that comfortable.
As she continued to watch, she saw that the soil under him seemed to have been churned, no, was churning. Then to her horror, something eased up from the earth, just below his thigh, at first looking like a long rubbery penis before two long pincer-like limbs opened from the end and clamped onto his flesh, dug deep, and then tugged the muscle downward toward the soil.
“Juan?” Her mouth worked as she stared, her eyes now wide.
Another revolting pipe came up from the soil, affixed to the man with its pincers, and started to burrow into his flesh.
“Juan! Get him up, get him up!” Her voice was loud enough to snap everyone’s head around, to first her, then to the cameraman. Even Camilla was roused from her zombie-like trance.
Drake and Fergus were at the man in an instant and each grabbed an arm and tugged—but he wouldn’t budge. Both the Special Forces guys were hugely muscled, and though Juan was overweight, they still would have outweighed him by 20 pounds each.
They tugged again and heaved. The man came forward, and Camilla screamed. Like hoses, there were several blood-red pipes extruding from his body. Emma’s first thought was his organs had somehow spilled from his back.
“Jesus; there’s something stuck to him!” Fergus yelled.
Then she saw those two hooks, or claws, or teeth, or whatever the hell they were hanging on, so the thing’s head could remain attached and eat at his flesh like a lamprey.
And then the nightmare began—the grotesque worms fought back and tried to drag Juan back down. They wanted him close to the ground so they could continue their feast in private.
Ajax leaped forward and unloaded a dozen rounds into the soil underneath him. Immediately, the worms disengaged and snapped back below the earth like a man slurps up strands of spaghetti. Fergus and Drake quickly dragged Juan away, but his head lolled forward loosely onto his chest.
“Lay him down,” Helen said. “On his stomach.”
“What the hell were they?” Emma demanded.
The men laid Juan down and ripped open his shirt. There were circular holes in his body and several on his wounded arm that probably attracted the revolting things in the first place.
“They were feeding off him,” Emma observed. “They’re below us.” She turned in time to see a rubbery head emerge from the soil where there was a splash of the Venezuelan man’s blood. “There.” The pincers opened, and the head was exposed—the thing was little more than a mouth on the end of a long muscular pipe.
Ajax fired again, and the thing vanished.
“If I had to guess, Websteroprion armstrongi, from the polychaete family, I think.” Andy stared, his eyes going from the soil to Juan’s wounds.
“They’re a very ancient species of giant bristle worm, what’ve been around since the Paleozoic, 500 million years, give or take. They were scavengers, but because of their size, we think they could have been opportunistic hunters.”
“Well, consider that fucking theory confirmed,” Ajax spat.
“Yes, yes,” Andy said distractedly. “Fossil records had them at ten feet long. But they could have grown bigger. We’ve found evidence of them from oceans to swamps—basically, places like this.”
Helen looked up at them. Her hands were red to the wrists, and she had patches of bandage over a dozen places on his back, arms, and legs. The man groaned and his eyes were rolled back.
“He’s lost a lot of blood. Too much blood,” she agonized.
“He’s fucked,” Ajax said.
“Don’t say that.” Camilla glared at the young soldier, but her eyes now looked haunted and dark shadows circled them.
Ajax just smirked. “Oh, okay, he’s fine. My bad.”
Drake rested on his haunches beside Helen and rubbed both hands up over his face He exhaled. “Chances?”
She wiped her hands. “Without a transfusion? Plus, his body was already weakened from whatever infection he got from the pterodon bite?” She shook her head. “One, maybe two out of ten if he gets care in the next twenty-four hours. Zero out of ten if he doesn’t.”
Ajax laughed. “Darling, do you remember where we are? Even if we got him down off this prehistoric hell, somehow, we’re still smack in the center of the biggest jungle on the planet.”
“Lighten up.” Drake glared up at his man before turning back to Helen, and then fixing his eyes on Camilla. “I don’t like his chances, but don’t worry, no one is going to get left behind.”
Camilla pressed her hands together. “Thank you.”
Emma walked a few paces away, letting her mind run. She turned. “Drake, got a minute?”
He stood, brushed his hands off, and joined her. “What’s up?”
Emma faced away from the group. “The blood.”
He sighed. “Yeah, yeah, I know.”
She faced him. “No, you don’t. Maybe you’re starting to get it, but blood draws the hunters. And there are things here from your worst nightmares.”
“I know what you’re saying, what you want, and I won’t do it.” He looked at her from under lowered brows. “If it was you injured like that, would you want me to dump your ass?”
She didn’t blink. “Yes.” She walked in even closer to him. “Juan’s already dead. We drag his blood-soaked body with us, and he will cause more of us to die with him.” She motioned back to the group. “Look.”
Drake turned for a moment before facing her again. He folded his arms.
She continued to stare hard at the Special Forces soldier. “Which ones are you willing to sacrifice? Because I’ll tell you right now, one or more of them will be killed, probably badly, if we bring him with us. Like Ajax said; he’s fucked.”
Drake shook his head, baring his teeth. “You are one ice cold bitch, lady.”
“No, I’m someone willing to put the group over the individual.” She stood her ground.
“We’re leaving,” he said evenly.
She nodded. “I know you are. I won’t try and stop you.”
He exhaled and ran a hand up through his hair. “Jesus, Emma. Come on. You know in your heart that Ben can’t possibly be alive. Don’t goddamn sacrifice yourself.”
“That’s not my plan. I’m just going to do what I came here to do. What I’ve waited ten years to do.” She grabbed his wide shoulders and stared into his eyes. “And in my heart, I know he’s alive. I have zero doubt of that.”
“You’re crazy brave, or just plain crazy.” He hugged her, stood back, and gave her a small salute. “Good luck, and may God walk with you.” He turned and rejoined the group.
PART 3 – THE PAST IS THE FUTURE
“Any truth is better than indefinite doubt” – Arthur Conan Doyle
CHAPTER 30
Emma watched them go with a feeling of resignation and relief. And for the first time, she felt something else that she loathed: self-doubt.
Fergus drew the short straw and had the near comatose Juan hanging from his side. Andy was on the other side, but the soldier basically carried the weight, and Andy was just there for balance.
Their plan was to head back to the temple, and maybe fight their way in, or hope they could somehow evict the occupants. She really hoped they were successful, and not just for the wellbeing of her colleagues. But also because when she found Ben, that’s where she’d be heading, and if time was short, she wanted to be able to make their way straight to the base of the tepui before the doorway snapped shut again.
Emma walked a few paces toward the edge of the clearing and stared in the direction of the plateau edge. She inhaled, smelling the damp green, the sap, rotting earth, and leaf detritus. There was also the oddly sweet smell of weird blooms, and a unique muskiness she knew came from dinosaur shit.
She checked her sidearm and took a sip from her canteen. Emma took a look at her watch, an old wind-up analog Seiko with a crystal face and demagnetized steel casing that she knew would keep running no matter what the comet threw at them.
It was 5pm; time was growing short. She was now alone, but knew in her heart that this was how it was always going to end up. She gritted her teeth and headed in.
*****
Drake led them through the dense jungle, retracing their steps where they could, and making detours around areas that sounded occupied.
Once they came across a gargantuan creature that was like a giant hippopotamus, except it had a longer neck and a small head. On its back was a row of large triangular plates that moved and changed angles like solar panels to catch rays of sun. A twig snapped and the thing froze. The plates on its back turned from an iridescent green to a drab khaki, and it melted back into the jungle.
Drake was about to lead them on, but Helen reached out a hand. “Wait. Get down.”
They squatted, staying under cover, and in just another few moments, they heard something treading heavily, and a huge intake of air as a creature sniffed deeply. Then from the jungle came a beast from their nightmares.
On two colossal legs, the thing materialized from between the giant jungle tree trunks. Two almost-deformed-looking front arms were held stiffly forward and its body was a deep orange with black stripes on its back. But the colors broke up its shape in the dappled light.
Its massive clawed feet eased it forward, slowly, as it was obviously stalking. It was attempting to be silent, even though the monstrous beast must have weighed in at about 15 tons.
“Giganotosaurus,” Helen breathed.
The monster lowered its head and inhaled again, this time directly over the place where the plant-eater had occupied only moments before. It picked up the trail and slid into the jungle, following the big vegetari
an.
Drake didn’t even realize he was holding his breath until his lungs began to burn. They waited another full five minutes until the sounds of the jungle returned.
“Jesus.” He turned, looking back the way they’d come. Never in his life had he cut and run on anyone or anything. But he’d just dropped Emma on her butt, while they held most of the firepower. He felt like a complete asshole.
“Okay,” Helen said.
Drake stayed low and called everyone in. “New plan.”
“Say what?” Ajax scowled.
“Going back for Emma,” he said matter-of-factly.
“No, we’re not,” Ajax shot back.
“I know you’re not; you’re to continue on to the temple. Clear it out. You can either give us another six hours, or not, your choice. Either way, you’re to get everyone down and out of here.”
“Bullshit, man.” Ajax paced away for a few steps and then spun back. “No, no, no, you’re not going either.” He looked panicked. “We need your firepower.”
Drake shook his head. “You’ll be fine.” He turned to Fergus. “You’re in command.”
“You’re not fucking listening. You’re staying.” Ajax’s voice was suddenly dead calm.
“Shut it and get back in line, soldier,” Drake said over his shoulder.
“Don’t make me do this, Drake.” Ajax’s voice now had a menacing edge.
Drake turned slowly to see the big man holding his sidearm loosely in his hand. Drake came to his feet. “What do you think you’re doing?”
To the side, he saw Fergus look like he was about to charge in, and Drake held up a hand to him. He turned back to Ajax.
“Not a good time to be losing it, son.”
“It’s not me that’s losing it, sir.” Ajax’s eyes were wide. “We all stay together. Mission is over, you know that. Priority now is getting us home.” He lowered his brow. “Anything else is command negligence in the field.”
“I see.” He nodded toward Ajax’s weapon. “Put the gun down before you hurt yourself.”
