Primordia 2: Return to the Lost World

by Greig Beck

  He sniffed deeper this time. It was a bit like cat’s piss, musky, old meat, and maybe something that smelled like old gym socks.

  Ajax clicked his fingers and Fergus turned to him. But his comrade in arms froze as he stared—but not at him—at something just past him.

  Ajax felt the hairs on his neck rise, and he spun around.

  “Contact!” Fergus yelled as Ajax threw himself to the side.

  Stopped on the steps leading down to them was a vision straight from Hell. The triangular head of the snake was as wide as a small car and filled the entire tunnel. Its unblinking eyes reflected the dying glow of the flare, making them dance like twin infernos.

  Both he and Fergus opened fire and piled dozens of rounds into it. Camilla screamed and just went to her knees. She grabbed the crucifix from around her throat and held it up as some sort of talisman. Helen fumbled with her handgun, finally getting off some shots that struck the walls and ceiling.

  The snake came down the steps like molten death. Its massive, muscular body seemed to be something from mythology and not of some flesh-borne world.

  Ajax ejected his magazine and jammed in another. His last. In the blink of time it took for the task, the snake was right in front of him.

  CHAPTER 33

  Emma watched the stream for many minutes, losing herself in the clear water as it burbled over stones and surged around fallen logs. Along each edge of the waterway were fronds, palms, vines hanging like bead curtains, and huge trunks reaching thick roots into the dark, compost-rich soil.

  The light was nearly gone now, but the edge of a huge moon was just starting to show through the tree canopy. It lit up the stream like a ribbon of silver. She knew if she followed the watercourse, it would take her to the plateau edge. She also knew that tracking along the streambed or its bank would mean she was under less cover, and it was exactly what she had warned the group to avoid.

  She wondered how they were getting on. Fine, she bet. They had Drake with them, plus a truckload of weaponry. She was the dumbass who headed off by herself.

  She sighed and looked up to the sky, spotting the huge lunar disc as it became visible—a hunter’s moon, Ben had called it once. She knew why. There were always nocturnal hunters, but a huge moon meant that the daytime hunters could double their chances of a kill by hunting on through a moonlit night.

  Speed or safety? That was her choice.

  She squinted as she continued to look upward. To the west, there was a tiny streak of silver—Primordia—the comet was starting to veer away from the Earth. Time was running out.

  Dammit, she thought; it had to be speed then. She was up against a wall and needed to find Ben or pick up his trail in the next few hours, and then leave more time to get back to that temple. She prayed that the team would be able to clear out the horrors that lived in there. And she doubled down on praying that it was a chute that took them all the way to the ground.

  She pulled the night scope from her pack and slid it over her head—it was as heavy as she remembered. She flicked it on and then turned her head slowly. She panned back and forth, and then craned her neck to look upward at the overhead branches. Thankfully, everywhere was all empty and all quiet.

  She checked her watch; 10 hours remaining—still doable, she hoped.

  Here goes nothing, she thought, and eased down the bank, her feet skidding in the mud. She sucked in a deep draft of humid air, and then set off.

  CHAPTER 34

  “Keep up,” Drake said over his shoulder before turning back to the tell-tale signs of passage on the ground—tiny flattened stems, indentations in the soil, and almost imperceptible grazes on rocks. It had to be Emma; no other thing living on this plateau would be this clumsy, unless it weighed several tons and didn’t give a shit.

  He looked briefly back at Andy again—the young scientist grinned in the near darkness. He wore his night vision goggles that made him look slightly robotic and geeky, and more than a little like a kid at a birthday party.

  “I hoped I’d get a chance to use these; I love them,” he whispered.

  “Fine,” Drake said. “They’re yours. Now stay close so you get home in one piece to enjoy them.”

  They had to clamber over some fallen tree trunks; the massive boughs were about five feet around, but sagging in the middle as they weren’t like real wood, but more like some sort of soft fibrous material, a little like that of the trunk of a tree fern.

  Drake slid down over one stump with Andy dropping softly beside him. The soldier held up a hand to halt, and then took off his glove. He crouched and placed his hand on the ground, and then half-turned his head and concentrated—he could feel it under his fingers then; the tremors.

  “Something big on the move.”

  “Coming this way?” Andy flipped the goggles up and stared into the darkness for a moment and then flipped them back down.

  Drake concentrated a little more and felt the tremors again, each a second or two apart; they were growing stronger, as if from the gait of an enormous beast.

  “Yeah.” He looked around. “We need to get under cover.”

  “Do you know what type it is?” Andy leaned closer.

  Drake snorted. “Listen, kid, my expertise in dinosaurs extends to watching Jurassic Park.” He grabbed Andy’s shoulder. “But that’s why you’re here, remember, Brains?”

  “Oh yeah.” Andy grinned and thumbed over his shoulder. “Those tree trunks; I think one was hollow.”

  Drake took one last look around. “Then that’s where we’re going. Lead on.”

  He followed as Andy turned and crouch-ran back the way they’d just come. They found the massive tree that had fallen and over time broken into pieces. A 15-foot section lay at a slight angle to the rest, and at one end, Drake could see what Andy had previously spotted—the trunk seemed to have a four-foot hollow section within its six-foot girth.

  As he quickly shone his light inside, he now felt the tremors beneath his feet. Whatever was coming was now pretty damned close.

  “In we go.” Drake folded himself in, with Andy sliding in next to him.

  “Tight squeeze,” Andy said, lying up against Drake.

  “Doesn’t mean we’re engaged,” Drake said.

  Andy chuckled.

  Drake elbowed him. “Quiet.”

  The footfalls were big enough and close enough now to be felt right through the tree trunk and their asses. Dust and debris rained down on top of them, and Drake also pulled his night scope, slipped it over his head, and flicked it on.

  Inside their hiding place, the trunk lit up in the usual phosphorescent green of the night vision. He saw there were a few weird-looking toadstools, mounds of leaf debris, and what could have been flat rocks like hubcaps, embedded inside the hollow trunk with them. Drake and Andy remained still and silent, as whatever moved around just outside came right up to where they were hiding.

  They heard deep sniffing as something huge inhaled droughts of air; it was either tracking them, or hopefully following the scent of something else entirely.

  Drake looked along the trunk and out into the darkness that was now lit green, just as a foot, like that of an ostrich except hundreds of times bigger, came down on a tree trunk segment right next to them. The soft and fibrous trunk compressed down almost flat, and Drake prayed the next foot didn’t come down on them.

  At worst, they’d get crushed immediately. At best, they’d have to make a run for it, and then one of them might get chased down and eaten alive. No, he thought, that one was the worst scenario.

  The snuffling came again from outside, but a little further away. Drake breathed out, and then sucked air deep into his lungs, conscious of his racing heart hammering on his ribs. On the next intake, he smelled something weird that he hadn’t noticed before—bitter almonds, and it was getting stronger.

  He turned and leaned in close to Andy. “What the hell is that?”

  “Not reptilian,” Andy said and looked down the length of the log. “Mor
e like…”

  Drake followed his gaze. Some of the things he had thought were flat stones embedded in the tree trunk’s inner walls, suddenly lifted up on eight pincer-like legs.

  Oh fuck no, Drake whispered, trying to slowly reach down to pull out his gun.

  “Holy shit; Pulmonoscorpius,” Andy whispered as he backed up and into Drake. “Don’t move a muscle,” he said, and kept backing up all the way past the soldier.

  “Thanks,” Drake said, pointing his gun.

  The thing was three feet long, and it lifted two claws before it that were larger than human hands. From behind it, a long, segmented tail extended and for now at least, the sting on its tip was straight-out flat.

  Drake stared—it was shiny, like hard plastic, and segmented like it had been assembled from different pieces. It turned toward the open end of the trunk and took a few steps, but then stopped. The sounds outside hadn’t quite abated, as whatever the monstrous thing was out there still poked around. The insectoid thing obviously changed its mind and turned. Toward them.

  It stopped again, seeming to balk at heading down toward the two men, and froze, watching, glossy eyes like dark buttons fixed on them.

  “Early scorpion,” Andy whispered as he peered around Drake.

  “Venomous?” Drake asked.

  “Probably. What’s the point of having a stinger without venom? Even if it’s not highly toxic, with the size of that guy, the amount it pumped into you would probably kill you anyway.” Andy nudged Drake’s arm that held the gun.

  “Don’t shoot; that big predator outside will react.”

  “Right, so I’ll just give that giant scorpion a good talking to.” Drake shook his head.

  The massive scorpion began to scuttle toward them, and it knew they were there as its tail went from straight-out behind it, to curling up and over its back.

  “Ah, shit. Not good,” Andy whispered.

  Even in the dark, Drake could see that its sting-tip was as large as an apple with a barb like a hypodermic syringe pointed straight at them. Drake knew at this range he couldn’t miss, but Andy was right; if he took out the scorpion, he might bring the thunder down from that big mother outside.

  Andy tapped his arm again. “Get your knife ready. Follow my lead.”

  Drake pulled his long hunting blade. Then Andy carefully moved to the other side of the log and lay one hand on the ground, palm up, and started to wiggle his middle finger. He continued to slide his other hand and arm along the inside of the trunk.

  With the glass-like eyes of the scorpion, it was impossible to tell if it sighted the wiggling finger, but its head moved a fraction.

  “Come on, just a nice worm for you. See, it’s wiggling, and ri-iiight here.”

  One of the giant scorpion’s legs rose and came forward, then another, and in an almost mechanical motion, it began to creep forward. The huge claws opened, intent on grasping and holding the moving finger so it could deploy its stinger.

  “Re-eeeady,” Andy breathed.

  The scorpion rushed forward, hunger overtaking any caution. Andy swept his other arm across and grabbed the foot-long tail just under the bulbous stinger. The massive claws reached up for Andy’s hand.

  “Now.”

  Drake swept his blade across, just under Andy’s hand, and severed the chitinous appendage. The massive scorpion went mad, scrambling and skittering. In another second, the thing vanished in a blur of thrashing legs out the other end of the log.

  Andy tossed the barb out after it. He turned with a big kid-like grin splitting his face.

  “And that, Sergeant Brawn, is why you need me.”

  CHAPTER 35

  The stream turned into a broad, shallow river, and then turned into a swamp.

  “That’s just great,” Emma seethed.

  There was no more riverbank, no path, just a lot of water that was probably shallow, but as it was ink-black, it could have been bottomless for all she knew. To add to the eerie setting, there was a mist hanging listlessly over the dark water. And its surface wasn’t still; there were ripples, pops of bubbles, and the signature V-waves on the top as things moved about in the depths.

  She’d seen enough of the lake to know that things took advantage of water, and the more water, the bigger the creatures were that made it their home.

  Emma flipped her goggles from light-enhance to amplify and immediately the green fluorescent landscape became enlarged. She turned slowly—there were mangrove-type roots up on stilts, numerous palms, ferns, fronds, and things that looked melted or rotted with decay. The humidity was all-encompassing, and everything was wet, dripping, and smelled of sulfur and methane.

  In amongst the trees, she could make out the massive column-like legs and rotund bodies of enormous creatures, their heads lost in the dark foliage canopies way overhead. They were near motionless, and the only sound came from the occasional gurgle of bellies and bursts of gas she assumed were dinosaur farts.

  She breathed a little easier, if not through her mouth. One of the things she’d learned was that if the plant-eaters rested easy, then predators probably weren’t close by. She turned, scanning the swamp, and then in the direction she needed to try and get to.

  “Maybe,” she whispered. Just over the other side of a stretch of water was what looked like dry ground.

  She crouched, scanning along the banks, and then the water, looking for places to cross.

  Dumb, dumb, and dumber, she thought. She’d done her homework and researched what she could potentially run into in this time period—and there was plenty to fear in the waterways, swamps, and generally boggy areas.

  There were the ancestors of massive eels, snakes, heavy-jawed fish, and the crocodiles. Monstrous things like the Deinonychus that reached 35 feet in length, and probably chowed down on other dinosaurs. She’d be a tasty morsel to something like that.

  But then again, those big plant-eaters wouldn’t be looking so chilled out if there was a 10-ton, 35-foot croc hanging around.

  She plotted her path—down to the water’s edge, and then leap to that first large flat stone, and then to the next. Finally to leap off and sprint the rest of the way—if it was as shallow as she hoped, she’d be over the other side in an instant. The key tactic was to stay out of the water as much as possible.

  Emma stood, wiped her hands on her pants, and walked down to the water’s edge and looked in—nothing. She had zero chance of seeing the bottom. She looked out to the first flat rock about 10 feet hence, and then backed up, five, 10, 20 feet.

  Emma exploded forward, sprinting, and then leaping from the water’s edge to the flat stone. She came down and tried to stick her landing, but oddly the stone sank a few inches.

  “Shit.” She kept her balance and leaped to the next, even larger one that had to be 10 feet around. This one had a slight upward curve and she landed easily, going into a crouch. But again, within seconds of her touching down, the entire rock moved.

  “What the fuck? Hey, stop that.” On one side, something lifted from the water. It was about two feet wide, and then the thing swiveled.

  “Jesus.” It was a head, a goddamn big head, with a long downward-curving beak. It glared and made a hoarse rattling noise deep in its throat. She remembered there was one more thing to look out for—giant freshwater turtles.

  “Oops, sorry, buddy.” She stood, arms out like a surfer, and then ran up its back to leap off, and land on another smaller one that also sunk—probably its young, she thought. But this time she kept going, clearing a few more and landing on the bank.

  She turned. The eyes of the turtles glowed like headlights, and she could imagine what they were thinking—what a rude little creature, they undoubtedly thought.

  Emma grinned and saluted them. “Thanks, guys.” She then turned back to her path and saw that the water was shallowing into puddles here, with a few remaining boggy areas.

  She began to jog to the jungle edge. Her feet sloshed, first to the ankles, and then to her calves. Then, her
feet sunk, deep, and she fell forward. Her hands struck the oily slickness, like porridge, and nothing to grab onto. It was all around her, and in the seconds it took her to realize where she was, she had already sunk to her waist.

  It hadn’t been a puddle at all. But just a thin veneer of water over quicksand, she thought with horror.

  She remembered what she needed to do: relax, try to lay flat, and float. However, her legs wouldn’t come up as the glutinous mass was low on water and high on silt, and the layer on top was brackish swamp-slime, and below that a sucking bog. It was more quickmud than quicksand.

  In seconds more, she was in it to her chest.

  “No, no…”

  Emma grimaced, and turned one way then the other. This is where I yell for help, she thought insanely.

  She looked for something, anything, she could use. She spotted a tapering log, just at one end of the pool she was in, and she reached out for it. Her fingers fell a foot short, and she stretched again, with little forward motion.

  She needed to be closer or she needed longer arms. As she wasn’t able to move back or forth, so, longer arms it was.

  She sunk a little more—now or never, she thought and reached down to undo her nylon clasp belt and pull it out of her belt loops.

  She wrapped one end around her hand and concentrated—the log had a skinny end and was hard to see clearly in the darkness.

  Emma pulled her smallest blade from her belt and stuck it right through the nylon webbing until it reached its hilt. She held up the miniature grappling hook and began to swing it back and forth a few times before launching it.

  “Shit.” She missed.

  And the motion caused her to sink another few inches. She grinned at the lunatic thought that popped into her head; she remembered the mysterious print from the museum with the weird indentations they thought might have been a human footprint.

  If they thought that was a mystery, then what would they make of a human skeleton dug out of some prehistoric petrified bog in 100 million years time? she wondered. I’ll be a sensation, she answered herself.