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

  Morning in the valley was much the same as every other day. The huge herd of lumbering duckbill dinosaurs were bedded down and grazing on the grass on the west side of the valley, blending into the waist-high brush with only the ridges on their backs and tails showing, accented by the light of the sunrise. A dull bellow from the south brought Jason’s attention to a huge ceratopsian making its way through the valley slowly wandering north. The lumbering beast paused to chomp down on the bushes around it. It was massive—the size of a small box truck—and its horns and colorful crest bobbed to the left and right as it fed while leading the rest of its herd.

  There was no sign of the mini-rexes—Jason couldn’t see the three of them trotting around anywhere in the visible valley. They must be bedded down in the woods somewhere, he thought.

  Feeling a dreadful sadness welling up inside of him, Jason eventually forced himself to look down at the remains of his duckbill in the grass at the edge of the valley not far from his tree...

  Two tiny raptors were still cavorting around the body, but it was evident that there was nothing left.

  "Not a goddamn thing..." Jason croaked through chapped lips.

  For a moment, he thought he’d cry again, but then he remembered that his Glock was down on the ground somewhere below him.

  With great pain and effort, Jason descended the scraggly tree after pulling in and putting away his paracord lifeline. He had slipped his cane into the tie-downs of his backpack before the hunt, so pulled it out now to use the hook to help him get down.

  Eventually, Jason's boots connected with the ground again. He winced at the pain in his knee and rubbed his raw palms together to remove the bark stuck in his skin.

  After a quick glance around scanning for predators, Jason looked around on the soft forest floor for his gun. He found it and stripped off the remaining few rounds from his backup mag to top off his carry magazine.

  "Seven," he said, feeling a black horror crawl over him. He went through a lot of ammo yesterday. He made sure that he counted what was left accurately then let the fear sink into him again. "Seven left..."

  The bullets hardly seemed to hurt the mini-rexes. It looked like he'd hit the bastards in the insanity of the moment, and those desperate shots had saved his life. But soon, Jason would be down to just his cane; maybe a spear.

  He holstered his firearm.

  As Jason slowly walked up to the dead duckbill, leaning on his cane to take the pressure off of his right leg, the remaining mini-raptors fled before him, and he looked down at the nearly-skeletal remains with a heavy heart.

  His stomach grumbled.

  Just then, Jason heard the screech of the wyvern echo across the valley. He crouched in surprise at that, and looked across the way to the apex predator’s cave.

  There it was. The dragon-like creature emerged from the darkness walking on the knuckles of its huge, bat-like wings, its head looking side to side on its spiky, serpentine neck. There were no cannibals below it; no offering. The wyvern simply crawled out of its lair, looked around, then took to the air with several powerful beats of its wings.

  Panic struck Jason for a moment when he thought that the mighty creature had seen him and was headed his way to snatch him up for a morning snack.

  Instead, when the wyvern launched itself up into the air, it climbed with its heavy wing strokes and its tail whipping behind it then departed to the south, flying away...

  Two things went through Jason’s head in that instant. One: he thought about going back home, to the spider cave. He could start over. He could find an easier animal to kill, then roast it on a fire, and have all three of his bases covered—water, shelter, and food. Two: Jason realized that his water and shelter needs were good to go, and he still needed food, but he might be able to figure out a way home—to real, actual home!

  The wyvern was gone. And Jason was there, just across the valley from the cave. Maybe if he could get inside and have some time to look around before the monster came back...

  Maybe he could get home...

  With that thought, Jason burst into a run, carrying his cane and taking a quick drink from his bite valve. His knee hurt a little with each step of his right leg but he ignored it, focusing on speeding across the valley before any predators saw him. He could see the wyvern’s cave up ahead. The dark mouth of the cavern bobbed up and down over the top of the tall grass he plowed through.

  When he heard a sudden howl from his right, Jason looked over and caught a glimpse of a cannibal running along with him through the nearby woods. The presence of the savages gave Jason a spike of adrenaline, but he tried to ignore them, and kept running.

  They wouldn’t follow him into the cave ... would they?

  Bursting out from the bushes into a more open area, Jason sprinted on, approaching what he now thought of as the sacrificial slab. He ran past two more cannibals who were milling around gathering wood in the area. As Jason approached the big, blood-spattered flat rock, he leapt over the stacks of branches and deadfall around its edges. His boots clacked on the slab itself as he continued up the slope, ignoring the cannibals who cried out at him from behind...

  Up the incline, using his cane to help get up the last steep bit, Jason found himself at the mouth of the familiar cave. Then, he plunged in darkness, stumbling through ridges and troughs of dried mud—probably long, deep marks in the ground made by the wyvern’s wings and body as it slithered back and forth through the tunnel in the dark.

  Jason stopped, his heart pounding and his breathing quick and fearful. He pulled out his flashlight before going on and immediately checked behind him to see if any savages were behind him. The cannibals didn’t follow him into the dark cave. He could hear them making noises and hopping around outside, out of sight.

  Following the long, sweeping tunnel that he knew would lead to the cavern of bones and rot, Jason continued. The terrible smell hit him a short ways inside, almost making Jason retch, but he covered his nose and mouth with the back of his hand, and moved on.

  In time, Jason was in the main chamber again, surrounded by scores of dinosaur remains in various states of decomposition. The stench of rotting meat, burned flesh, mud, and oily, snake-like odors hit him like a jackhammer, injecting itself into his nose and throat with each breath. Stumbling through the bones, Jason tried to make his way back to the weird place where he'd appeared the other day sprawling in the dirt and rot. His steps set off chain reactions of dim, blue ripples of electricity sparking through the strange crystals scattered and embedded throughout the cavern floor.

  "Is this it?" he asked, settling on a spot that seemed familiar in his memory. The area where he thought he'd fallen before was near the middle of the cavern. There was a small clearing in the bones of the ground—perhaps left that way from when he fell there in the first place.

  But there was nothing there.

  What was he supposed to do?!

  He needed a clue!

  Did he just need to think and dream really hard—to imagine that he could go back to Earth? Did he need to click his fucking heels together three times and say there’s no place like home?

  Jason dug into his pocket, past the golden nuggets in there, and fished out the original weird, piezoelectric crystal that had something to do with getting him here in the first place. The small stone came out—one among hundreds more just like it in and around the cavern floor—and he tapped it with his raw fingers, feeling the slight jolt as it created a vivid, blue spark inside. Jason made it spark again and again, just like he did at the movie theater and at home. Cloudy, blue energy expressions like ball lightning in the night sky rolled through the interior of the crystal, and Jason felt the electricity jump through his fingers with each zap.

  But nothing happened.

  He kicked a big bone and watched the similar crystals express their own blue lightning inside, chaining out to the other stones in the cave from where they were disturbed and moving out like ripples on a pond, all the way to the edges of the cav
ern...

  "This brought me here," Jason said, his voice echoing through the dank and stinking cave. He stared at the crystal and let his mind wander. "Now I need to go somewhere else..."

  Could it be that focusing somehow on the one piezoelectric crystal brought him to a source of many more? The wyvern's cave was full of them.

  It was a crazy idea, but it made sense in a crazy way...

  Then again, he thought, I'm in a fucking wyvern's cave. What's crazy anymore?

  Jason stuffed the crystal back into his pocket then felt around through his other pockets. He stared at the flashlight in his hand. He felt the straps of his backpacks, ran his hands over them, and thought about all of his stuff.

  Then, he pulled out his wallet, unzipped it, and yanked out a five dollar bill.

  Holding the folded money in his hand, Jason stared at the bill, rubbing it with his thumb. He tried to think about home...

  "I need more of these..." he muttered. "Give me more of these from home!"

  Jason focused, and thought about more money. He thought about the tray of crap on his dresser in his bedroom, and how there was probably a handful of small bills forgotten there among a plethora of change, receipts, and other junk sitting there right now...

  Nothing happened.

  With one last long look at the cash, Jason was starting to think that this whole thing was stupid. He had to get back to the spider cave before the wyvern returned. Maybe he could catch some mini-raptors with a basket-trap made from sticks and paracord, using spider carcasses as bait. Maybe—

  There was a sudden snap and a brilliant flash of light in front of him.

  "What?!" Jason exclaimed.

  Something had happened, and then it was gone.

  He froze, held the folded cash in front of him, and stared at it intensely—as intensely as he could—thinking about a pile of ones and fives and maybe a twenty sitting unorganized back on his bedroom dresser. He needed to get there—needed to find the source of more money; more American currency. It was the way home...

  There was a sudden fluttering sound like a flag whipping around in high wind. The inside of the cavern lit up with bright, orange light! Directly in front of Jason and his outstretched hand, a spinning fireball like a tiny star appeared in midair, blinding and fiery and loud. As quickly as the blink of an eye, the fireball unfolded into a spinning disc with a brilliant rim of spitting orange sparks, sputtering and flying off all over into the darkness of the cavern, just like the sparks cast off from a miter saw cutting through metal. The middle of the disc was like a shimmering pool of murky space—stars and all—and it rippled and bucked until if stretched open into a flat sheet of liquid glass. The disc—like a big and flat round window—smoothed and stabilized as the disc's edge swirled with a roaring sound like a Tesla coil spitting lightning, and its spinning rim tossed sparks and orange light off all around the cavern...

  A portal? Jason thought, eyes wide and mouth open. It was extremely loud.

  Inside the portal, in the window within the confines of the madly-spinning edge of sparks and brilliance, a scene materialized of ... Jason’s backyard! He saw the slope heading up from where he'd killed the giant spider. The hill was covered in snow all the way to the back of his house. The back door closed and the sky was grey with wintery clouds.

  "Yes!" Jason exclaimed. "Home!"

  Then it disappeared in a wink, collapsing in on itself in an instant. A single spark remained, snuffing out an instant later with a pop.

  No!

  "Shit!" Jason reached up and grabbed his hair in panic.

  The man doubled-down, holding out the cash again and trying hard to visualize...

  The portal fluttered open again with a snap like a crackle of electricity, and as the spinning orange brilliance expanded, Jason eventually beheld a view of the back of his house in the summertime, surrounded by the speeding swirl of sparks. The grass was green, and the sky was—

  There was a white flash and the scene changed.

  Now, Jason saw another view of his house—only, this one had an addition coming off of the back of the kitchen and one bedroom, extending the floor plan into the backyard...

  "What?!"

  Another white flash made spots in Jason’s vision, and he was left looking at the slope and his backyard again in the winter. A few inches of snow lay on the ground and his house was back to normal.

  That one, he thought. Hold it...

  Jason didn’t understand how he did it, but he tried to focus on keeping this frame still. There was a tickle inside of him, like flexing a new muscle. A grin spread over his face as it held the portal steady for a few seconds. But as soon as Jason made a move to approach the spinning rift, the scene flickered then shifted again with a bright flash.

  "Shit!" Jason cried, then he found himself looking at a similar sight. But now, there were two figures hovering in front of his window: a tall, skinny young man with a dark beard and a duster-style trench coat. He had a hard, lean face and a rifle slung across his back. The second man, also young, was a Native American with a severe face and long, black hair, dressed in a strange armor harness in a style that looked like a mix between science fiction and barbarian fantasy. Both were loaded up with guns and ammo. The two of them shimmered in the scene, and Jason could see the snow and his house appearing through them, like they were ghosts...

  The men from the movie theater! Jason thought. They were the weird-looking guys from work the other night, now standing hunched over in front of Jason’s portal. The ghostly figures both stared at Jason in apathetic confusion through the looking glass. The skinny guy with the beard had a scar over one side of his face and a big nose. He was messing around with some sort of tablet or device in his hands...

  There was another flash, and the portal changed scenes again to a winter night with his house looking totally normal, but the exterior paint was a different color.

  "Not it," Jason said.

  With the next flash, there was a brief and devastating scene of a horrific world of the same shapes with the same house, but the snow was black and glistening under a purple sky with boiling clouds. Jason's house appeared just like normal, but it was a raging bonfire, and tall, thin creatures with a grip of flailing tentacles for heads roamed the landscape, silhouetted against the nightmarish sky.

  Jason gasped and blinked.

  There was another flash, and the bizarre world was gone—thank God. Jason’s mind reeled, and he felt like he might see those two seconds repeat in bad dreams forever.

  The next scene was a normal one once again with his house as expected, still and quiet in a snowy night under a grey sky. The streetlamp in front of house bathed the road and the front yard with yellow light just like it always did. Snow drifted from left to right in an unfelt breeze. The swirling and sputtering sparks around the edge of the portal roared and crackled, waiting...

  "Holy shit," Jason said, shaking the nightmarish image of the last vision out of his head. The horrific scene lingered, seared into his mind.

  This is home, he thought. It had to be...

  Trying to keep the portal together in a way that Jason didn’t understand, flexing something small and weak and new inside him, the man carefully stepped forward, visualizing it being stable; unshakable.

  He felt his body pulled toward the portal. It was like a magnetic draw that started in that weird spot in his stomach that he'd felt on Friday night with Ben, then it spread over his entire body, drawing him to the swirling scene of his backyard...

  Smiling, Jason imagined his living room. He imagined life finally going back to normal...

  Jason stepped through.

  Chapter 24

  Riley crouched in front of the rift to the Wilderlands as the bright sunshine warmed the back of his neck and melted the snow around him.

  The rift was invisible, of course, but the solder knew that it was there.

  He held the OCS in his hands, and navigated through the data about Universe 312, trying to open the
rift. The soldier was pretty sure that he wouldn’t be able to—the Omniversal Cosmic Scanner was a powerful computer and sensor array with an internal conduit to the tenth dimension that Riley didn’t understand. But in his hands, it was only a scanner; just a fancy encyclopedia.

  Only a Jason Leaper could actually open rifts with the OCS—at least, without using a clunky portable gate like everyone else. Still, even with the portable gate they left back in the house, that big, fusion-core guzzling device wouldn’t be able to open an existing, permanent rift; it could only open new ones.

  Despite the unlikeliness of accomplishing anything, Riley toyed with the controls of the Omniversal Cosmic Scanner. He’d already managed to make the rift spark and sputter a few times, tearing open the mountain air to reveal that tear in space-time for just an instant here and there. He knew where the rift was—approximately—and knew where it led to, and where they wanted to go, but Riley just couldn’t get it open in a practical way. He couldn't manipulate it enough to make it stable, much less useable.

  Time dilation was tricky, and the soldier had no idea what was happening in the other universe, or if Jason 934 was even still alive. He had to hurry. If they couldn’t make this work, they’d have to use the portable gate to retrieve Jason 934 from the Wilderlands ... if he could even manage to program it. Most mercenary teams had scientists who trained for years to understand and control coordinates. And now, without a Jason Leaper, he and Gliath were just as limited as everyone else.

  Riley heard his companion’s soft footfalls crunching through the wet, crusty snow down the slope behind him.

  Gliath approached in his human form wearing all of the new gear over his shifting armor harness. The leopardwere’s face was wooden and his eyes were intense, but Riley knew that he was as casual as ever in that moment. Gliath was outfitted with the new Glock 21 they’d purchased, several extra mags, and the new big, black shotgun was strapped across his back. A bandoleer of shotgun shells crisscrossed the Krulax's chest. The old, stolen clothing he’d been wearing was now left in the house. If Gliath was a normal human, he'd be a bit cold standing there with so much of his tanned skin exposed to the sunny but crisp day.