Primordia 2: Return to the Lost World

by Greig Beck

  She reeled her belt in, and once again swung it back and forth a few times, and then this time gave it more slack. The belt and its blade hook slapped down on the log end, hooking it.

  The log was immediately whipped away with an angry hiss like a steam train. Emma froze.

  Then the diamond-shaped head emerged from between the fern fronds about 30 feet away.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

  The snake was big by modern standards, but smaller than the monsters she had seen on the plateau. The head was a foot across, and she bet its body was as thick as her waist, and given where the head just appeared, would have been 30 feet long if it was an inch. Small, she knew, but easily big enough to make a meal out of her.

  Emma stuck a hand down into the mud and fumbled for her SIG Sauer handgun. She lifted it free from the glutinous mess she was stuck in, aimed, and pulled the trigger—there was a grinding sensation, but nothing happened. She pulled again and again with the same result.

  The guns were extremely reliable, but she guessed they drew the line at being gummed up with gritty silt.

  She dropped the gun, and instead grabbed at her longest blade, drew it, and held it up. The 10-inch metal tooth was a feeble defense against something this size, but it was all she had.

  She knew the snake would have hundreds of backward-curving teeth in two rows that were used for gripping. If it got hold of her, she’d never get herself free from the mouth.

  She knew what to expect—it would rear up and then lunge, using its muscled body to strike out, hit her hard, and bite down, embedding its teeth in her flesh. Her knife would probably never even penetrate the armored scales. The one chance she had was to stick her knife into the softer palate—inside its open mouth.

  Emma could have wept; the odds of her pulling that off were about zero.

  Stay focused and stay alive. She tried to think through its attack, how it would come, and what she would do.

  She bared her teeth. One thing’s for sure—she’d die fighting. Emma raised the knife. She knew how to use it.

  The snake glided forward, but instead of coiling itself back, loading its muscles for the impact strike as she expected, when it got to the edge of her scum-covered pool, it simply slid in below the surface.

  “Oh, no, no, no.”

  It was going to come at her from below.

  Emma became frantic and swiveled one way then the other. Her screwing back and forth forced her lower into the slimy water.

  The snake entered the pool and for all she knew was right below her now. No, she bet it’d do one thing first…and it did. The huge head rose a few inches from the water, sighting her, before easing back down.

  Fuck it, she thought.

  “Help!”

  She tried to swim backward but was stuck in place.

  “He-eeelp!”

  She lowered her head and shoulder into the water and sliced the knife back and forth. Emma couldn’t resist the urge to open her eyes, but the gritty blackness did nothing but fill her eyes with slime and grit. Coming back up, she screamed again.

  “Goddamn it!” Frustration boiled over.

  “Emma!”

  She spun, her stinging eyes held wide.

  “Help me…snake…in water.” She sputtered a little. “Stay back…quicksand.”

  Drake edged forward, with Andy holding onto him from behind by his belt. The soldier had his rifle pulled back tight into his shoulder. He fired several rounds into the water—spraying one side, then the next.

  Andy let Drake go and quickly ripped a length of rope free from his pack and tossed the loop to her. She grabbed it, feeling her groin tingle at the thought of the snake still being down there.

  As the pair of men began to haul her out, Emma felt something touch her thigh and she kicked at it, feeling the scaled resistance of its muscular body. She jerked her leg away and in another second, she was sliding backward in the mud.

  Drake came and crouched beside her, and she clung to him, feeling her emotions boil over. She kept her face buried into his shirt for several more moments before using it to wipe the grime from her face and out of her eyes.

  “Thank you.” She leaned back and gave him a crooked smile. “I’m having a real bad day. How about you?”

  *****

  The massive Giganotosaurus lifted its head, listened for a moment more, and then sniffed deeply. The cry of a distressed animal was irresistible to it.

  The cry came again, longer this time, and not far away. It sniffed again, inhaling the breeze as it tried to pick up the spoor trail.

  The huge 30-ton body turned, its tail flattening ferns, tree trunks, and palms as it tracked the sound. The darkness didn’t bother it, and in fact, as well as having a highly developed sense of smell and excellent hearing, it had nocturnal vision.

  The sound had been close, and the huge hunter lowered its head and stiffened its thick tail out arrow-straight behind it as it pushed through the thick jungle growth. It was a massive battering ram of muscle and teeth and could run at 30 miles per hour if needed.

  It picked up the trail and moved further up toward the center of the plateau.

  *****

  Ben’s head shot up, and he froze, listening.

  Then the cry came again, longer this time. Could it be?

  “Emma?”

  Ben’s eyes widened in both shock and exuberance. He hoped and prayed she would come, knew she would come, but hearing her voice, any voice, was still a shocking sound after 10 long years.

  It had to be her; who else would or could it be?

  And she was close.

  And she was in trouble.

  It took all his willpower to stop himself going madly crashing through the jungle. He’d found out too many times that predators were always there, always waiting. Even the plant-eaters, the great cows of the prehistoric times, were so huge that he could be crushed underfoot, gored by a horned head, or obliterated by one swing of a clubbed tail. This was not a place for soft mammals, and wouldn’t be for many, many millions of years.

  Slow down, slow down, he kept repeating, trying to turn it into a mantra to ensure he stayed alive. His chest still burned and felt tight from the scabbing. Plus, breathing was a minute-by-minute agony, but all of it was forgotten as Ben burrowed and darted around a forest of dawn redwoods, massive trees that vanished into the darkness hundreds of feet above him and had trunks easily 20 feet around.

  Thorned cycads, spread wide like massive starfish, and from some lower branches and ferns hung things that looked like huge wasp nests.

  Ben slowed as he passed underneath a particularly large and angry-looking one, and recognized them as not insect nests at all, but instead some sort of fungal parasite that showered spores when they were disturbed. He guessed the objective was that if an animal brushed past them, they’d end up covered in the fungal spores and then it would lumber off, taking the seed of a new generation of fungus with it, so they could propagate over a larger area.

  The problem for Ben—and one he’d found out the hard way—was if the spores touched human skin, they generated an angry immune response of a blistered rash, itching, and then weeping sores for weeks afterwards. And if they got in your eyes, forget about seeing anything for a while.

  He then moved through a stand of hanging vines and bamboo-like stems, so closely packed he had to squeeze through sideways.

  In the center of the thicket, he paused and cocked his head, listening some more. Ben desperately wanted Emma to call again, or give some sign, but he also wanted her to shut up. A noise in the dark attracted the hunters in an instant. And even in darkness, there was no hiding from most of them.

  He swallowed down a small ball of tension in his gut, because he knew up here, there was one predator that could see in the dark, knew which way you went from a single handprint on a tree trunk, and could also see your body heat flaring like a beacon in the darkness.

  They were all at risk. And now that Ben was totally disarmed, he was mor
e vulnerable than ever. And then.

  “Goddamn it!”

  Ben heard her again, very close now. He gave in to his impatience and worry for her, and his limbs took on a will of their own. He barged through the jungle toward her voice.

  *****

  Drake looked over Emma’s weapons; he ejected the magazine, popped out a few rounds, and then sighed.

  “All I can salvage is the ammunition. The gun needs to be broken down and cleaned. That grit and silt has jammed everything up.” He handed it to her.

  Emma took the handgun back and reholstered it. “Yeah, well, that’s not going to happen, is it?”

  He chuckled. “Not as bad as it sounds; we find some clean water and I can break it down and rinse it out real quick. I’ll also need to eject and repack the rounds, but it’d all be done in maybe ten minutes.”

  She half-smiled. “When we find some clean water, and when we have better light, and when we have a spare ten minutes.” Her smiled widened. “The sand in our hourglass is running down, Drake.”

  He nodded. “Yep.” He tilted his head, looking at her. “We came to find and help you. So what do you want to do?”

  She checked her watch and blew air from between pressed lips. “We surely can’t be far from the clearing edge now. We give it another couple of hours, and then…”

  “And then we decide what comes next,” Drake answered. “And we make that decision clinically, and without emotion, right, Emma?” He stared hard at her.

  She turned back to the jungle, spotting Andy examining something on the lower branches of a massive tree. He smiled as he picked something from one of the limbs. At least he’s enjoying himself, she thought.

  She turned back to Drake. “Yeah, sure, another couple of hours. Then we decide what comes next.”

  *****

  Andy collected a few strange insects with horns on their heads, or had multiple legs, but claws on the end of each limb, like they were test models in some sort of evolutionary game that Mother Nature was playing. He tucked them into tubes or bags, sealing each. He couldn’t wait to compare notes with Helen when they caught up with them.

  He held one up, admiring it. Andy knew he could spend months, years, a lifetime here, investigating plants, animals and species never before seen. Evolution was a game, and it rolled the dice on creativity sometimes. Added to that, fossilization was just as much a crapshoot. Even the most optimistic experts knew that the further back in time you went, the lower the chance a species makes it into the fossil record.

  Andy sighed; there were exotic things here that no one had seen, would see even as a fossil, and perhaps could even imagine in their wildest dreams.

  While Drake and Emma talked, he guessed he had a few more minutes, so he lifted his search to the lower branches. He was about to turn away from one hanging limb, when he spotted the bulbous papery-looking sack hanging from the branch.

  Drake had warned him about using his flashlight, so he flipped his night vision down over his eyes. The first thing he noticed was that the papery-looking sack was cold, meaning it wasn’t an insect hive, or at least an occupied one. Even though bugs themselves were room temperature, a group moving together generated a lot of heat, and a hive would have been warm.

  There was a hole in its bottom, and he doubted it was a fruit, as it seemed to just be attached to the limb as opposed to growing from it. As it wasn’t part of the tree, then maybe it was some sort of parasite? he wondered.

  Andy ducked down, but the flaring green night goggles didn’t help. He looked over his shoulder at the still-talking pair. One or two seconds of real light couldn’t hurt, he thought.

  He lifted his goggles away from his face and pulled out his slim flashlight and moved in closer. He still wore gloves and so had no qualms about touching the thing.

  He reached out for it and flicked on his light just as he grabbed the bulbous sack and lifted it toward himself, planning on shining his light inside the hole.

  Immediately, there was a reaction—the sack compressed and exhaled exactly like a lung with a sound like an old man wheezing. The particle dust or whatever it was blew outward with some force and covered Andy’s mouth, nose, and both of his eyes.

  Then the excruciating pain set in.

  “Jesus…” He dropped his light and backed away. “Ouch, ouch.” He rubbed at them, shaking his head. “Drake.”

  In a second, he felt a strong hand on his arm. “What happened?”

  “Thing on the tree, farted on me. Spores, I think.” He grimaced. “It’s in my eyes. Stings like hell.”

  “Stay still,” Emma said.

  Andy felt hands on his head, tilting it back.

  “Open your eyes,” she said forcefully.

  He did as he was told. He could see nothing, but felt warm water being poured over his face. He immediately felt relief from the pain, but his vision stayed blurred.

  “How’s that?” she asked.

  “Better.” He blinked. “But still can’t see a damn thing.” He cleared his throat and spat. “Must have been like some sort of puffball fungus. Covered me.”

  “Anyone else remember being told not to touch anything?” Drake said with little humor.

  Andy still hung onto him. “Yeah, but I’m a scientist. I know what I’m doing.”

  Drake chuckled. “Yeah, I can see that now. But in reality, you’re now disabled, in a prehistoric jungle, at night. Great timing, son.”

  “Leave me,” Andy said, feeling dumb and resentful at the same time. “Pick me up me on the way back.”

  Emma shrugged. “Okay…”

  “No.” Drake cut across Emma, glaring at her. “How long would he, or you, stay alive in this jungle if you were blind?”

  Emma just crossed her arms and looked at him from under her brows. Drake turned to Andy. “Take off your belt.”

  “Huh? Why?” the paleontologist asked.

  “Do it, quickly,” Drake said. “I’m going to have to put you on a lead. When I say duck, you duck. When I say left or right, you do as I say. You’ll need to use senses besides your eyes until your vision comes back. Got it?”

  “Sure, sure,” Andy said, still feeling guilty for putting this extra burden on Drake, but relieved he wasn’t staying behind.

  Drake took the belt and looped one end around the back of his own belt. The other end he tied around Andy’s wrist.

  “There.” He turned to Emma. “Okay, let’s do this. In two hours, if we don’t find anything, we head back.”

  “Two hours.” Emma simply turned away, moving in the direction she expected was the plateau edge, and Ben.

  *****

  Emma felt her anger and impatience begging to burn within her. She had the germ of a feeling that kept trying to grow within her about going home with no Ben. The comet, Primordia, would leave, the wettest season would end, and the portal, gateway, or whatever it was, would close again for another 10 years.

  Did she have the drive to try again in another decade? Would Ben even be alive? Was he even alive now?

  Fuck it, she spat into the darkness.

  They had to cross over a fissure in the landscape. It was only about seven feet wide, but a good 20 deep and it narrowed at the bottom. Hopefully, there was a fallen tree over it for them to ease across.

  They reentered another stand of ancient pine trees, and she accidentally kicked a cone the size of a small football, the heavy seedpod hurting her toes and then lifting off and bouncing away. It threw up twigs as it bounced, and then settled. But after it had stopped, instead of silence returning, there came the soft crack of a branch. But about 50 feet further in.

  Emma raised an arm and held her position. Then she felt a hand alight on her shoulder. “We got a problem.” Drake kept his voice soft and calm.

  Emma froze, just letting her eyes move over the primordial landscape. The clouds opened a little, throwing down a few more slivers of moonlight, and the black-on-blackness of the night jungle forest was illuminated enough to make out shapes
.

  There were endless trunks of the massive primitive pines, standing thick and mighty and seeming to reach the sky. But in amongst them, there was another shape—just as mighty—but this one had a large boxy head the size of an SUV, an upright stance, and colossal legs of raw power.

  Emma felt her stomach flip. The creature also seemed frozen, and if she wasn’t where she was, she might have believed it was some sort of giant mockup, and they were at a fun park looking at a Disney model.

  But it was real, and the only reason it was rooted to the spot, was that perhaps their non-movement had meant its eyesight built for tracking moving prey had temporarily lost them.

  “What is it?” Andy whispered from behind them.

  Without turning, Drake gently shushed him, and then leaned ever so gently back toward Emma.

  “We can’t outrun that monster over open ground. If it attacks, we need to get somewhere it can’t follow.”

  “Yep,” she whispered back. By the look of the carnivore’s size, it must have been the Giganotosaurus that they had seen previously. It was larger than a T-rex and one of the biggest theropod carnivores to have ever lived.

  Emma tried to keep her eyes on the massive beast while talking to both men. “Remember that crack in the ground we passed over a while back? Think we can make it?”

  “Maybe deep enough. And we’ll damn well die trying,” Drake said. “We’re gonna have to run for it. I’ll let Andy know the plan.”

  She heard him whispering, and then she saw the massive creature take a careful step. The way it eased its foot forward, bird-like, and then placed it gently down in front of it, it told her it was beginning its stalking…of them.

  “It knows we’re here,” she said. Emma looked at the coiled power of the thing and started to doubt they could stay in front of it.

  “On the count of three, we’re gonna go for it,” Drake said.

  “Wait,” she said. “Need a diversion.” She reached for one of her flares and held it for a moment in her hand.