The Wyvern in the Wilderlands: Planeswalking Monster Hunters for Hire (Sci-fi Multiverse Adventure Survival / Weird Fantasy) (Monster Hunting for Fun and ... Hunters and Mythical Monsters) Book 1)

by Eddie Patin

  The sun was hot and Jason took another sip from his CamelBak. After two difficult pulls of water, he found that the bladder was finally empty and he couldn’t draw any more out of it.

  "Damn," he said. "Good timing, anyway..."

  From the crook area, Jason would be able to keep his back to the ridge—the crevice there was a little like an eroded cliff—and he'd look out over the creek. He saw that if he climbed a little higher, he could probably look out over the valley as well. Maybe from higher up the slope, Jason would even be able to see the wyvern’s cave...?

  Gathering up some deadfall while kicking dry branches off of fallen trees with his good leg, Jason gathered up wood and kindling from the surrounding forest. Back at the crook, he quickly set to making a small fire with his cigarette lighter. Jason didn’t actually smoke, but he always made sure to carry a lighter anyway in case he ever needed fire. Shit—it was a good thing he had.

  Finally enjoying a moment of peace, Jason sat on the flat floor of the crook, shading his neck and head with a massive leaf he cut from one of the unknown bushes with his pocket knife. He boiled the water in his coffee cup. Once the water in the metal mug started bubbling and rolling, Jason let it boil for quite a while before removing the hot cup from his little fire and letting it cool down.

  For the moment, the forest was nice. His little fire crackled and his cup bubbled. He could hear the creek running below him, and a constant wind blew through the trees, making leaves and pine boughs rustle.

  Large ants and strange bugs explored the dirt and grass beyond his boots. He tried to ignore the insects that were ten times bigger than they should have been. Jason watched the pterosaurs and other flying dinosaurs soar on thermals in the blue sky until thick clouds suddenly rolled in from the west and the flyers disappeared. Small dinosaurs and bird-creatures eventually began frolicking and hunting all around him, emerging after he'd been quiet for a long time.

  Jason was so thirsty and so hungry, but he knew that he'd have water soon. Then, he’d repeat the process over and over again until his pack's bladder was full...

  Just then, rumbling thunder sounded in the air, and Jason realized that the sky had darkened with an oncoming storm.

  "Damn it..."

  Rain started in thick and heavy, immediately dousing Jason’s fire and plastering all of his clothes to his body. The rain was warm and fat; not very refreshing. It was an annoyance.

  This won’t do, Jason thought, looking up into the balmy downpour and squinting his eyes against the heavy drops.

  When his water cup was cool enough to touch, Jason opened his CamelBak and pulled out his fleece knit cap to act as a filter. "I won’t be needing this anytime soon," he said, pouring the water from the cup into the fleece hat over the bladder's opening. He used the hat as a filter to catch all of the stream shit in between.

  There was nowhere Jason could go. He certainly couldn’t sleep through rain like this, exposed in the crook. He needed some cover of some kind. Maybe he could lash together lots of those big, fat leaves onto a wooden frame or something...

  Jason stood, wincing at the stabbing pain in his knee when he did. He leaned against his cane and massaged his leg.

  Hoping that the predators would be taking shelter during the heavy rain, Jason left the crook to search for something that he could use to protect himself and his fire from the weather...

  Chapter 16

  The rain poured down in sheets, roaring and drowning out all of the sounds of the forest. Jason stumbled through the warm, wet mess, trying hard to keep breathing without choking on the constant onslaught of water slamming against his face.

  He was soaked to the bone, and his knee hurt like hell.

  The prehistoric world, previously alive all around him with near-constant movement and trills and caws—little, moving shapes of small creatures and raptors hopping and flying around in the foliage and treetops—was now smothered by the downpour. All Jason could hear was the undulating roar of the storm and the splattering of water on his face and against his ears.

  Using his cane to keep from slipping, trying to ignore the stabbing agony in his right knee, Jason carefully hiked out from the crook in the hill. Squinting against the heavy rain, he looked for darker places of thick forest near the same elevation. One thing was for sure—he didn’t want to stumble down the hill toward the creek and be eaten by a giant crocodile!

  The ridge continued rising around the top of the crook, leading to more highlands and copses of woods. Jason set his focus on a dark cloud of pines and other trees to the north of him.

  He had to find some of those huge, flat leaves; had to figure out a way to protect himself from the rain. Not just to protect himself—Jason could stand to huddle up in rain like this for a while, as long as he didn’t have to sleep—but he surely wouldn’t be able to boil any more water to drink in a downpour like this.

  And even though the sky was now a huge grey slate full of the storm and dense rainfall, he knew that it was sometime in the afternoon. Night would fall sooner or later...

  If this world is real, Jason thought. The jury was still out on that.

  It sure felt real.

  Carefully making his way along the side of the hill toward the darker area of forest up north, Jason leaned on his cane against the slope, trying to ease the pain on his knee.

  Despite the extreme wetness of the storm around him, he felt a sudden dry thirst and paused to drink some of the boiled water from his CamelBak. After a few sips, Jason was tempted to open his mouth to the sky for more, but decided against it. The man was pretty sure that rainwater was safe to drink, but would water from this sky be free of bacteria and pathogens? He really didn't know.

  A flurry of dark motion up ahead caught Jason’s eye.

  As the rain roared in his ears and splattered against his eyes and face, Jason peered ahead, using one hand to block the downpour from his vision...

  There was more movement—long, speedy dark shapes rushing past at the edge of the trees.

  Fear welled up inside Jason.

  Raptors? he thought. Running around in the rain?

  The man paused, standing still on the hillside as the rain tore at him and his knee twinged. He thought about heading back to try another direction, but for a moment, he was stuck ... watching...

  The sudden slapping of incoming footsteps on the right brought with it a burst of adrenaline, and Jason reactively switch his cane to his left hand so he could reach for his gun. One of the primitives suddenly appeared, running down at him through the rain from uphill. The cannibal rushed up frantic and loud, pounding its feet on the ground until it was within ten feet or so of Jason, then it paused, arms spread, holding a stone club of some kind in its right fist...

  "What the hell?!" Jason exclaimed, turning toward the strange man.

  But it wasn’t a man. These primitives—these cannibals—were definitely not men!

  Through the grey sheets of rain, Jason saw that this man-like creature—as tall as he was and dressed in a loincloth of dark skin with a chest decorated with necklaces of bones—was skinny and lithe with skin that was dusky; almost a brownish-grey. The cannibal's body was bumpy and accented with ridges, and the glistening rain on its skin made the savage appear to be covered in fine scales. Jason saw the creature’s flat face and slight snout; he saw its reptilian eyes staring at him wide-open.

  Then, the cannibal expelled a huff and turned, running away back up the hill.

  Another scaly man suddenly appeared on Jason’s left, running along the hill in the same path he had been taking toward the forest. This one was unarmed and rushed up in the same way with frantic, haphazard steps through the rocky grass until it was just out of Jason’s reach. The creature paused, regarding him with a face that was a lot like a human’s but also different enough to send a shiver up the man’s spine. The cannibal grunted and let out a hooting sound, circling Jason up the hill for a moment, then it ran away into the sleety distance.

  The sce
ne of the cannibals eating their comrade outside the wyvern’s cave flashed through Jason’s mind. Once the wyvern had torn apart that primitive who came too close to its meal, the others had mobbed it immediately, dismembering the poor creature with their savage tools and eating it raw right then and there...

  More footsteps quickly approached from behind and Jason spun around just in time to see a third primitive sprinting in at him through the rain. This one didn’t stop, and as it rushed in, raising one of its scaly arms high in the air, Jason felt fear flood through him as he tried to turn and pull his Glock...

  The creature hit Jason in the shoulder with its raised fist.

  In the rush of the moment, Jason didn’t really feel any pain from the strike, but the cannibal knocked him down to the ground. Rain pelted his face and neck. As he pulled his pistol from its holster on his right hip, Jason caught sight of another primitive running in from uphill...

  They would eat him right away if they overpowered him. He knew it. Jason would die on this hill in the rain, having his arms and legs cut off with stone tools, feeling these creatures tear through his skin with their teeth...

  As the assaulting cannibal loomed, Jason squinted against the powerful rain and produced his pistol in his right hand. He aimed quickly before the savage came in for the kill, and shot it in the stomach.

  The loud pop of the Glock was muffled some by the storm. The cannibal reacted immediately, clawing at his stomach with one hand like a wild animal. It bared sharp, little teeth at him and turned to run. Jason heard the others hooting and hollering, and as he jumped back to his feet, struggling against the slick grass, Jason saw several primitives run away.

  The man stood, leaning on his cane, and looked down at the pistol in his hand.

  Down one more round, he thought, his heart pounding, his senses smothered by the heavy rain.

  The cannibals didn’t return. After Jason made that big, scary boom, the three or four skirmishing with him in the rain had run for the distant forest, eventually disappearing into the dim, glistening woods.

  "Shit," Jason muttered to himself, shielding his eyes from the deluge. He holstered his gun and moved on.

  As he stood, closer to the dark woods, unsure as to whether or not it was safe to approach with those cannibals deeper in the same forest, something big and white caught Jason's attention up the hill.

  Peering up the slope, he could barely make out what looked like large, bleached bones.

  Jason grimaced against the pain in his knee, leaned on his cane, and climbed the hill. The heavy rain continued, drowning out all sounds around him. Water cascaded down the hill over the thick grasses and shrubs and chunks of granite, and Jason took care not to slip. Eventually, he reached an open area of grass just downhill from some trees and looked upon the remains of a gigantic dinosaur. It was hard to tell—the bones were mostly just huge, sweeping ribs, vertebrae, and thick, odd shapes that must have composed shoulders or hip bones. But the thing that interested the man most was the big, white shape that had caught his eye from down the hill.

  A huge flap of dinosaur skin—bleached and leathery from age and sitting in the sun—was draped across a large section of ribs. It was a weathered piece of rawhide the size of a bedsheet.

  "Perfect!" Jason exclaimed, stumbling up to the bones and leather. He pulled on the sheet and eventually used his pocketknife to sever its fibrous attachments to the remains here and there, then rolled up his prize as best he could.

  Later, Jason was sitting inside the crook again, patiently working at lighting another fire. All of the wood and grasses and other kindling were wet, and the ground where he tried to build the fire was muddy, but now, he had shelter at least.

  The rain was still steady and heavy.

  After Jason had returned to his hidey-hole with the dinosaur hide, he'd roamed the immediate area, collecting longer pieces of deadfall and sticks. He worked hard against the downpour to create a shift—a canopy shelter of the most basic sort—using the hide, wood, and some of his paracord. Now the rain roared all around him, and it beat on the stretched hide above his head loudly, but Jason was out of the rain.

  The thick, grey sky was now turning dark, and the man knew that he was missing the sunset because of the storm. He needed to get the fire going, not only to dry off and feel a lot better about his new life, but to hopefully ward off any wildlife that would seek to make a meal out of him during the night...

  Jason worked almost mindlessly. His thoughts were back home. He imagined playing a survival game on his X-Box, crafting and building, and seriously wondered whether or not any of this was even real.

  As he struggled with his cigarette lighter to get the kindling burning, Jason felt a steadily growing sense of dread. It used a lot of the lighter's fuel, but the fire was eventually lit. A clench of grass smoldered and singed, then the smallest twigs were burning. Eventually, he had a real fire, and Jason kept it growing and dried out his fuel at the edges of the flames before throwing more sticks in.

  The rain continued, pouring hard, and Jason stared at the flames, unable to see into the dark, stormy night past the fire. At times, he heard the ghostly noises of cannibals vocalizing out there, out on the hills nearby.

  "This is a bad dream," he said to himself above the noise of the storm. "It's a bad dream, and I'll just hang out here until I wake up."

  Even if this was a nightmare, Jason didn't want to feel the fear and pain of being torn apart by dinosaurs before he woke up. He'd stay here. This little crook was all he needed. He had shelter and fire. In the morning, he'd get more water.

  He could wait—wait to wake up.

  He wanted to be back home again. He wanted to hang out with Tom, Amanda, and Ben and fill his hours with comforting things. Jason imagined putting on a movie with a cold bottle of Laughing Lab and settling down into his favorite chair. Zelda would hop up onto his lap and expect him to pet her...

  In time, sipping at water and wishing that he had food, Jason realized that his clothes were finally dry. He also realized that this was the first relatively quiet moment he’d had ever since arriving in the wyvern’s cave on this weird, terrible world.

  The man took off his pack and started going through his pockets, laying out all of his possessions onto a patch of dry ground next to the fire to take inventory.

  Sure, this wasn't real, but why not?

  He had his CamelBak pack with its water bladder. It was a damned good thing that he’d decided to wear it yesterday. He had his Glock 26 with an extra magazine and its holster. He had his wristwatch, which he promptly set to six o’clock. There was no way to know what time it actually was here, but if felt like about six with the sun being down for a little while. Jason figured that he might not ever look at his watch again, but if he did, he’d at least want to know the approximate time. At least that would tell him when the sun would be going down. Jason had his Benchmade pocketknife, which had already come in handy. There was the little compass on his pack. He had a decent flashlight but no extra batteries, as well as his cellphone, which was now turned off. Jason had lots and lots of paracord, some Band-Aids, and a small roll of toilet paper in his pack. He had his big metal coffee cup with sling, sunglasses, cigarette lighter, and his cold weather gear: jacket, fleece hat, gloves, and long underwear.

  The man took the time to count his ammo. Between what rounds he had in his 15-round backup mag and the shorter mag in the gun—and the round in the chamber—there was a total of twenty-two 9mm rounds remaining. Only using one or two shots here and there wasn’t bad, but Jason knew that he could burn through all of those in a hurry if he wasn’t careful.

  Twenty-two rounds of ammo available in the whole world, he thought, and that feeling of dread welled up inside him again.

  "It's okay," he said. "It's not real. We're just playing a game..."

  Now that he had a moment of peace, Jason took the time to change out of his extra layers. While he was at it, he paused to inspect the bite on his leg from the raptor y
esterday. Back when that little shit bit him, Jason had felt the creature’s mouth mostly get caught up in his cargo pocket, but he did feel the sting of some of those tiny teeth cut through.

  He had Band-Aids but he didn’t have any sort of antibiotic or antiseptic.

  The bite would definitely get infected. And if Jason couldn’t make it home soon, he might actually die from even a little dinosaur’s bite.

  If this is real, he thought, his stomach fluttering with unease.

  As Jason looked over the wound, shining his flashlight at the pale skin of his thigh, he saw that the injury wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be. Still, there were some purple marks and punctured skin that wept tiny amounts of blood and fluid, and almost the whole thing was scabbed over.

  "Damn," he said to himself. With his bite valve, Jason poured a little water onto the wound and covered a tiny hole that was still open with a Band-Aid. He then clothed himself again.

  If the dinosaurs or the cannibals didn’t kill him, his injuries would.

  Assuming that Jason was actually in another world or another time, he had to get home. But how?

  Eventually, Jason put all of his stuff back together and packed up his bag and the clothing he wasn’t wearing to be a little more streamlined. Adding more wood to the fire, he listened to the sounds of the torrential rains around him, then lay down near the flames and drifted to sleep...

  Don't worry, he thought. It's not real anyway.

  "Maybe I'll wake up at home..."

  There was a crash and a clatter, and Jason was jolted out of a deep sleep by the shelter’s deadfall pillars and wooden beams colliding with his face and shoulders. If it wasn’t already pitch black outside, Jason would have seen stars from the blow, and his head throbbed with pain and confusion.

  Jumping to his feet, Jason struggled against the sheet of hide that constricted him, and he fought to be free in the darkness. The rain had stopped, and as Jason’s muddled mind settled in on his crisp and murky surroundings, he heard the trills and chirps of raptors all around him.