by Stuart Clark
Each team member then picked up a helmet off the rack, a circular open-faced type with three tiny built-in cameras mounted on its top, two facing forward and the other facing back. They then made their way back toward the exit hatch. The helmet was the only piece of equipment that Kate was given.
They returned to their respective cabins to pick up their body armor and quad-sys guns before reconvening outside. As Wyatt spoke the team fidgeted, making last minute adjustments to their equipment.
“We’ll move in standard formation,” Wyatt said. “Single file. We’ll have to mix it up a bit due to the personnel we have. I’ll take point, followed by Alex, then Kit, Chris, Bobby, Kate, Par, and Byron’s the tail man for now. Any problems?” There were no replies. “Okay. Seeing as this is all new territory to us, we’ll head off in that direction.” Wyatt pointed at the nearest clump of trees. It was as good a place as any to start.
Wyatt turned and walked away, the others falling in behind him as instructed.
* * * * *
The forest was dense so progress was very slow. Any advantage they hoped to gain from stealth was lost; the sounds of eight people walking through such dense foliage could be heard at a distance of well over two hundred yards. No one spoke, there was no need to add more noise to that which they were already making.
Kate swept her eyes from one side to the next and then back again, searching through the trees for something that moved, something alive. Her conversation with Bobby had excited her and now she wanted that experience. To be the first to see something alien.
The others in the team all scanned the trees in similar fashion, looking for something that they could trap. Their first “bag” of the day. But unlike Kate, in the back of their minds, they knew that this scanning served another purpose. To identify sources of danger. And, unlike Kate, not only did they scan from left to right, they also lifted their heads and searched the tree tops. Danger could come from any direction.
Wyatt stopped the team. “Take on some water,” he said, “Even with the cover it’s damn hot and I don’t want any of you laid up after a day with dehydration.” The others, all grateful for the rest, pulled out their hip flasks and took long swigs. Chris propped himself up against a nearby tree, and closed his eyes. He was unfit and certainly not used to the level of exertion that was being demanded of him now. He took a deep breath in through his nose, then frowned. He took another breath, smaller this time, and his nose wrinkled in disgust.
“Can you smell that?”
The rest of the team all sniffed the air. “Smell what?” Byron asked.
Chris sniffed again, “That!” he exclaimed, as if it were obvious. “Something around here smells real bad.”
“Yeah, I smell it,” said Par.
“Me too,” said Bobby.
Wyatt could smell it too, now. It was a smell he was all too familiar with. The smell of decay. Death smelt the same everywhere. “Let’s check it out, shall we?” he asked. “Follow your nose, Chris. Byron, you shadow him.”
Wyatt knew that where there was a carcass there were likely to be carrion feeders. They were not always the nicest creatures to capture, and not always the friendliest, but they were animals all the same. If they were feeding it was probably the easiest way to locate and capture such animals.
Chris stood and set off in a new direction, his exhaustion forgotten, his mind set on the new task. Byron flanked him closely and the others all followed. As they walked the smell on the air became stronger until all of them were pulling faces of distaste or holding their hands up to their noses and mouths. When it seemed the smell could get no worse they happened upon its source.
There in front of them stood a large tree shrouded in vine-like tendrils. The sinuous extensions of the plant fell from branches clumped together at its top and descended right to the ground, ending in small loops on the forest floor. Through this umbrella of growth the team could see the cause of the stench. Around the tree’s base was a collar of spikes about six feet high, and impaled on these were a number of animals in varying states of decay. A legion of insects buzzed and flew around the rotting mass, sometimes landing to feed on the juices which oozed from the carcasses and left red and green streaks on the trunk.
It was a disgusting sight and Kate had to hold her mouth and look away to prevent herself from being physically sick. She noticed, with a little relief, that she was not the only one. Nearby, Alex was parting with the breakfast he had eaten not three hours earlier.
Wyatt was puzzled. There were no carrion feeders as he’d suspected and with such a readily available food source, this was unusual. He could not believe that there simply were no opportunistic carnivores around. If such an animal could get away with stealing a kill off something else or eating leftovers then it would. It was much easier than hunting down a meal itself. Something was wrong.
Chris carefully approached the tree, navigating his way through the first couple of vines without touching them. It could have been the movement of air Chris had left in his wake, or her eyes could have been playing tricks on her, but Bobby was sure she had seen them move. No, there it was again. More definite this time, a twitch. The vine had definitely moved.
She scanned the others’ faces for some confirmation. It seemed, though, as if none of the others had noticed.
There was one more layer of vines obscuring Chris’ view. He lifted his hands together, as if in prayer, and pushed them forward to part the tendrils in front of him. It was exactly at this instant that Wyatt figured it out and Bobby realized, with horror, exactly what she was looking at.
“No!” she cried, just as Chris began to part the vines with his hands.
Chris turned, and saw Bobby already running toward him. At the same time, the vine next to him began to be rapidly retracted skyward. He looked up to see where it was going, and then quickly looked down to see his foot planted firmly in the center of its coiled end.
“Shit!” he said. He knew he didn’t have time to move.
The coil caught around his shin and there was a sound like a whip crack as the vine tightened. As he was hauled off his feet he made a desperate lunge for Bobby who dived toward him with her hand outstretched. By some miracle they connected, grasping each others’ wrists, but Chris was already swinging towards the spines and Bobby, now face down in the dirt, was being dragged with him.
She scrambled furiously, spinning on her backside to plant her feet, only to find herself face down in the dirt again, carried forward by Chris’ momentum. She tried again, this time grabbing Chris’ rucksack strap with her other hand and leaning right back so she was almost horizontal. Her heels dug into the mud, but it was soft and offered no solid foothold to stop their calamitous swing.
“Come on. Come on!” she begged through gritted teeth. She could see Chris’ eyes widening in fear. He too was praying that she had it in her to stop both of them.
Bobby’s heels were gouging out two trenches and sinking deeper with each passing instant. She closed her eyes and prayed. If her and Chris’ expedition were to end here, she didn’t want to see the end coming and she wanted to die praying.
She heard Chris cry out, but it was not a scream of pain, more an utter of surprise. She opened her eyes. They had stopped!
“Are…are you okay?” she asked.
“I think so,” Chris said. “Thank you. You…you saved my life.” He gave a weak laugh. He was already going into shock.
Bobby nodded acknowledgement of his gratitude. “It’s okay,” she said seriously, They stayed there for a second catching their breath, Chris inverted three feet above the ground, and Bobby flat on her back in the dirt. The pair of them connected by their white-knuckle grip.
“Any time you guys want to get us out of here, feel free,” Bobby shouted at the others who, until now, had watched the whole drama unfold in front of them. It had all happened so fast that if it had not been for Bobby, Chris would certainly be dead.
Byron and Wyatt both pulled their guns out of the
ir holsters. “Flamethrower?” Byron suggested.
Wyatt nodded his agreement.
The two men grabbed hold of the barrels of their guns and rotated them until the flamethrower attachment clicked into place. They then walked towards the tree with the weapons pointed skyward and fired at the vines. Each weapon shot a twenty-foot plume of flame skyward, a few tendrils being severed in two by the intense heat. Instantly, the vines all around the plant were retracted, being withdrawn into the leaves and branches high above. With the way cleared the two men approached their friends.
Byron took hold of Chris, supporting his weight, and then said to Bobby, “You can let go of him now.”
“Oh, thanks,” she said sarcastically, “My hero.” She picked herself up off the ground and did her best to clean herself up but her clothes were caked in mud. Taking a last look at Chris, hanging upside down in Byron’s arms, she turned and walked back to the others.
Wyatt unbuckled the large knife at his left hip and, removing it, began hacking at the vine still wrapped around Chris’ leg.
It took four or five attempts to cut through the slender limb, and when it finally gave Chris landed head first in a heap in the dirt. Wyatt and Byron helped him to his feet and the three of them hurriedly vacated the area.
“Come on, let’s get out of here,” Byron said.
As they walked away, they looked back and watched as the green tendrils slowly dropped back into place. The trap was set for the next unwary animal.
They walked until they could no longer detect the smell on the air that had almost brought disaster to their small group. Wyatt then called a halt again. He turned to them, “So what have we learned today?” he said.
“What the hell was that thing?” Chris asked, totally disregarding Wyatt’s question.
“Carnivorous plant,” Bobby said very matter-of-factly.
“Carnivorous plant!”
“Yep. You heard me right the first time.”
“Well it sure as hell ain’t no common or garden fly trap,” Chris joked.
“No,” Bobby said flatly. She looked at him, “But then, you aren’t a fly.” Chris’ smile evaporated very quickly.
“Well, excuse me, ladies and gentlemen,” Wyatt’s anger was surfacing. “In case you hadn’t noticed, one person in our team almost got themselves killed and it could have been two people. Now we shouldn’t be getting in that situation in the first place. Chris, what you did was just downright stupid. Don’t ever, ever, go investigating something without my say-so.”
“But you told me to find what was causing the smell,”
“Yeah, I told you to go find it, that was all. You don’t go checking something out that you know nothing about. Got it?”
“But…”
“Got it?”
“Yes, sir!” Chris snapped.
“And if you don’t already know it, that applies to everyone,” Wyatt said, his eyes flitting to each team member. “Now, let’s move. We’ve got work to do here.”
* * * * *
Later that day, Wyatt called a different marching order. Kit took point, with Par bringing up the rear. Alex, Chris and Kate were again in the middle, interspersed by Bobby, Wyatt and Byron. Wyatt had called the line so that he could walk behind Chris. He caught up with the youngster, whose initial reaction was to speed up, thinking his fatigue had slowed him.
“Hey, kid, no. Come back. I want to talk to you,”
Chris let Wyatt pull up alongside him again.
“Now, kid, I’m not going to apologize for yelling at you earlier. What you did was pretty dumb, you realize that, don’t you?” Chris nodded. “What I wanted to say to you is that we only have one medic, and that’s you, and we want it to stay that way. If you get yourself prematurely extinct, then we’ll have to call all this off and there will be a lot of unhappy people if we do that. Understand?” Again, Chris nodded. “What I’m trying to say is…don’t get yourself dead. You’re no good to us in a bag.”
Wyatt gave Chris a friendly pat on the head and then fell into step behind him again.
* * * * *
Their first real catch came in the early afternoon. Kit called a halt to the team and crouched down, examining the earth in front of him. Wyatt came up alongside him, “What is it?”
“Tracks. Look,” Kit said pointing. “Whate’er it is, it’s four–legged, and by the size of those prints I’d say we’re looking at somethin’ between one and two kilos in weight.”
“They look pretty fresh too,” Wyatt commented, “Probably made in the last fifteen minutes, I’d say.”
Kit nodded his agreement.
“Lead on,” Wyatt said, “You spotted it. It’s your take.”
They followed the trail for nearly forty-five minutes. Every so often Kit would stop and crouch, examining the earth to re-assess the tracks. At one point, they came across a pile of freshly laid droppings which Kit estimated, and Wyatt agreed, had been excreted within the last five minutes. It was obvious they were catching up with whatever it was that was making the tracks.
Abruptly, the trail stopped next to a small bush, where it was joined by many others.
“What’s the situation, here?” Wyatt asked Kit who was crouched again, examining the footprints.
“We got numerous trails, but they don’t lead nowhere, just end here.” Kit replied.
Wyatt crouched to examine the prints himself.
“D’ya think there’s more than one animal?” Kit asked.
“I doubt it. I’ve never heard of two or more adult animals occupying a home for any great length of time. These prints are all similar, all the same size, which say to me that there’s only one animal and which would also suggest there are no young. Look, there’s one…two…three trails leading away from here and one…two…three…four coming back. The source is here…somewhere.” Wyatt stood, his hands on his hips. He wiped the sweat from his brow while taking a cursory glance around and then he said to no one in particular, “Clear this bush away, our animal’s under here.”
Par and Byron obliged, hacking back the bush until all that remained of it was an inch-high collection of stems. In the center of these was a hole in the ground, about eight inches in diameter.
“Our quarry’s in there,” Wyatt said, stating the obvious.
“Yeah, I got it,” Kit said taking off his rucksack. He pulled a metal shaft of about a foot in length from one of the side pockets and undid the quick-release clip at one of its, ends enabling three more foot-long segments to slide out, which Kit then screwed into place. The fourth and final segment had a hook-like clip on the end.
He then opened up his rucksack and pulled out six square metal grates, of which he clipped together five to form five sides of a cuboid cage, clipping this, via a handle on the top side, onto the hook at the end of the newly assembled pole. He unholstered his gun and, unbuttoning the top pocket on his jacket, pulled out a small cylinder which he loaded into the grenade barrel on his weapon. When he was ready, he struggled to his feet, gun in one hand, pole with attached cage in the other.
“Stand back,” he said.
He stepped up to the hole, aiming his weapon at it, and, with a hollow pop, fired the cylinder into it. Returning his gun to its holster, he quickly stepped back. He placed the cage over the burrow using the pole and then they all stood and waited, watching.
After a few seconds, tiny wisps of smoke could be seen emerging from the cavity. This rapidly became a stream, until eventually, great clouds of smoke billowed from the hole. Suddenly something shot out of the den, straight into the waiting cage.
Kit bent down to pick up the sixth grate and cautiously approached, sliding it into place under the animal which was frantically trying to escape the cage it found itself in, desperate to flee the choking smoke. With the cage complete, Kit unclipped the handle and held the cage aloft so they could all see exactly what it was they had captured.
It was like a rodent, but the strangest thing about it was that it had no fur at all
, just skin banded brown and gray. It had a feral face, a long pointed snout tipped with an explosion of whiskers, and two pointed ears folded back flat against its head. Its hind legs were big and muscular, ending in large flat feet, and sometimes it would stand upright on these, lifting the two tiny forelimbs off the cage floor to examine the cage roof, looking for a gap or hole that it could exploit as a potential escape route.
Kit lifted the cage up to the level of his face and took a close look at it. “You’re weird, man,” he said, “Really weird.”
The creature, oblivious to the insult, hissed and spat at him.
Kit rubbed the saliva off his face and then spat back at it. Wyatt pulled a face of distaste. He wondered which of the pair was more of an animal.
* * * * *
Their first day had proved to be quite successful. As dusk began to fall and the team headed back to the ship a quick mental tally told Wyatt that they had caught somewhere in the region of sixty-seven insects, five rodents, or what they assumed to be rodents, one larger animal, so far categorized as a mammal, and two particularly repugnant amphibians. Not bad for a team of only eight, or if you looked at it in real terms, probably a team of four and three quarters.
As they walked through the forest, Kate, carrying a cage in each hand, once again found herself trailing Bobby. “Why do you take such risks?” She asked.
“What do you mean?” Bobby replied frowning.
“Well, I mean, why do you physically trap the animals? It means you have to get so close to them, and if you don’t know what they’re like then some of them could be really dangerous. Why don’t you just use a tranquilizer dart? You can fire it from a safe distance with no risk to yourself at all.”
