“We’re a long way from the Warthog’s entrance point,” Chief said. “If we’re lucky enough to make it to that location, the odds might be even worse trying to cross the mountains. Those mountains have kept mankind out of Patagonia for centuries.”
“There’s that major river we’re going to have to cross too. The drone’s video showed us there was every imaginable dinosaur at that one location it circled. If there’s that much life all up and down the river, I don’t know how we can make it across alive,” Natasha said.
“We have no choice. We’re going to have to cross the river at some point, unless we head west from here, and hope to find a suitable passage between the mountains,” Coop said. “But even if we make it out the west side, there’s no camp for us to take refuge. There’s no civilization to the west for miles and miles. If we’re going to try to leave, we at least have go somewhere close to where we can find people.”
“The Mule. It has a satellite phone on board. If the nuclear engine is still good, we can call for help,” Suge said.
“Yeah, but not only that. That far south is where Hawkins and Prescott crossed over on foot. An earthquake opened a path big enough for them to make it through. I know they left their cold gear somewhere this side of the mountains, because they wouldn’t have carried it with them on their expedition to the cave. If worse comes to worst, and the Mule’s phone doesn’t work, a couple of us can use the cold gear to cross over and get help,” Coop said.
“As far as a plan goes, I think this is about as good as it gets,” Chief said, stepping away from Susan, and slightly away from the group. With a hand on one hip, and the other pointing in the general direction of the others, he said, “People. For this thing to work, we’re going to have to be disciplined. We need to keep the same order as before. Coop will be in charge. I’m still head of security, and the rest of my Redwater guys know their duties. Alex, we’ll need you as a consultant. But I want you to know, I’ve got my eye on you. The past may be the past, and it looks like we all have a new lease on life. Just stay in line, and there won’t be any problems.”
If Alex had an issue with the warning, his lowered gaze to the ground hid it. He nodded slightly.
“Natasha and Susan. You may not have the physical strength to hold your own out here, but you two are just as important as the rest of us,” Chief said. “Just be there to help any way you can when needed. That’ll offer our best chances for survival.”
Before Coop could utter another word, the vortex lights went into overdrive. Emerging from the swirling mist, an infant T-rex around the size of a Great Dane waddled out.
“Looks like we got company,” Suge said.
The theropod acted as if in autopilot and ignored the group. It walked away from the vortex and headed south.
“Motherfucker,” Meat said, his mouth then fell slightly open.
“What?” Coop said.
“The T-rex. Did you see that? Meat asked.
“I saw it, but what are you talking about?” Coop asked.
“I saw it!” Natasha said. “The ears. They were deformed. Just like the T-rex that attacked me, Logan, and Meat.” A micro flash of anger showed on her face as she gritted her teeth. “Logan…” she said almost in a growl.
“That little bastard stopped our chances of getting back to the Warthog. I outsmarted it and took it over the edge of the cliff, but not before pulling the pins on two grenades and going over with it,” Meat said.
“The time vortex brought it back to life from infancy. I think we’re getting an idea how the process works here,” Coop said.
“Is there a chance an older—and I mean bigger and more of a threat dinosaur—could come through that thing and attack us?” Susan asked.
“Can’t say for sure, but I doubt it. We should leave as soon as we can, though. But first, we might want to take advantage and put a little protein in our stomachs,” Coop said.
Heads nodded, and a few voices mingled in agreement.
“Well, what are we waiting for? Our dinner is walkin’ away from us,” Caveman said. The man looked about and picked up a stone too big to carry with one hand and sped off for the kill.
Chapter 3
“We made it!” Matt King, Associate Professor at Southwest University and colleague of Alex Klasse, cried out. He still had his hands braced against the Warthog’s dash in expectance of the worst. The nuclear powered engine purred at an idle, showing no sign of stress from the All-Terrain Tracked Carrier’s journey of careening through the narrow passageway leading through the mountains from the Lost World of Patagonia.
Ben Wilson, one of Alex Klasse’s students, was in the driver’s seat. He leaned his body forward but still clutched the steering wheel in a death grip. “That was one furious ride. I don’t know how we made it. That earthquake brought a shit-ton of stuff down on us. There were times I couldn’t even see. I figured it was better to keep moving and have a chance than stop and be buried under rock.”
“You figured right,” Logan Sandler said, another of Alex’s students. He had been strapped in the back of the Warthog and kept a watchful eye on the rear camera. Now he was up and standing behind his two friends in the cab. “That took a lot of courage to maintain control. I’m not so sure I could have kept my cool the whole way.”
“Yeah. What he said.” Matt finally let his arms fall in his lap, leaned back, and sighed deeply. “I was so freaked out, I caught myself repeating the Our Father prayer. It’s been years—I was a kid since I remember praying that. I guess when it comes down to life and death, we find out what we truly believe. I didn’t realize I still defaulted to a belief in God.” Matt turned his gaze toward Ben. “What about you? What do you do for inspiration?”
Ben thought a minute, lowered his head, bit his bottom lip, and then said, “I…I have a confession to make. It’s a little embarrassing, so bear with me a second.” He held up a hand and then brought his gaze up. “As you know, I’m a big X-Men fan. And The Beast is my adopted totem. But whenever I face a challenge, I try to push everything else in my mind aside, and ask, What would Nick Fury do?”
“You ass!” Logan slapped Ben’s shoulder. “Matt’s sharing an emotional moment, and you go back to your wisecracking self. Can’t you ever be serious?”
“Lighten up, Francis. I am serious. Nick Fury is one cool dude. Especially now that he’s black. He has to think his way out of messes, because he doesn’t have superpowers. Some people say I look like a younger version of Samuel L. Jackson,” Ben said.
“Really, I’d have said you favor Laurence Fishburne better,” Logan said, and then suppressed a smile.
“Yeah, well, that doesn’t surprise me. You white people get the two confused all the time,” Ben said. “I expected a little keener eye from a gay man.”
“What? You think we’re born with some discerning queer eye that makes us special over heteros?” Logan put a hand on his hip and held out a limp wrist with the other. He slowly turned the hand upward to Ben’s face, extending his middle finger in a display of defiance.
“Really, you two. We almost die, and you’re cutting up. We might be alive, but our problems aren’t over. We’re still trapped here until help arrives and…” Matt looked away, “and there’re the others. The others we lost back there.”
The sadness in Matt’s voice was palpable. Logan knew Natasha’s death would weigh on his friend’s soul. His mind drifted back to the day before when he, Natasha, and Meat were by the cliff about to change direction and head to the Warthog, which was only minutes away. Meat had proved himself to be a hero, luring the deformed T-rex to the cliff’s edge, and using the grenades and the weight of the theropod to send the two some sixty feet downward as the ground gave way beneath them. Logan doubted that Meat would have made that sacrifice if Natasha hadn’t been there. It was obvious she had captured the large man’s fancy to some degree.
What Logan did next came from some dark place deep inside he didn’t know existed. Thinking back now, it seemed lik
e someone else took control of his body and pushed Natasha over the edge of the cliff as they looked at Meat’s twisted body by the riverbed. Logan’s jealously had gone supernova when Natasha wished aloud for Matt’s comfort. Who did that girl think she was? She had been in an illicit relationship with Alex, and then after his death, what? Just move on to the next guy waiting in line? She had evaded Matt’s advances for the most part, but really put him on his ass after Susan Klasse died. There was no reason for Alex and Natasha to keep their relationship a secret then.
But that wasn’t fair. Not after Logan spent all that time getting closer to Matt. Their relationship had entered a new level. Logan had so hoped that Matt would see him in a different way than before. To see him as something more than a friend. Logan wanted to be there for Matt. To care for him. He wanted Matt to fall in love with the person Logan was inside. Once that happened, then he hoped to push aside the stigma of social norms and for the two to become true soulmates. That couldn’t happen if Natasha had returned with him to the Warthog.
The memory was clear. Logan had his arms wrapped around Natasha as she cried over Meat’s death. He was mired, too, in sorrow, but when she said Matt, I need Matt, a switch flipped in his head, and he knew what he had to do. A devious ruse emerged, and when he told her he saw Meat moving below, she spun around to see. One small push to the small of her back sent her screaming over the edge.
“You know guys, I feel guilty I wasn’t out there with you when the pack of Troodons attacked,” Ben said. “I mean, it just wasn’t right I got a pass.”
“You’re feeling survivor guilt. A lot of soldiers returning from war who have lost men in their platoon feel that way. I have a cousin going through a lot of that since he got back from Afghanistan,” Matt said. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Ben. There were too many of those man-eating lizards. You would have died too. Besides, your ankle. You think you could have taken on the Troodons by whacking them with your crutches? Trust me, there was more automatic gunfire, grenades flying through the air, and RPGs exploding than you can imagine.”
“I’m not saying I could have beaten them. Just maybe…” Ben shook his head. “Just maybe I could have been there to save someone. You survived in the tree, Matt. If I had been up there with you and Alex, maybe I would have been close enough to hold onto him before he fell. If I could have saved one life, it would have been the least that I could have done.”
Matt’s eyes widened, and he quickly turned his gaze away from Ben.
Logan couldn’t help but notice. It was possible Matt was feeling a bit of survivor guilt too. After all, Matt and Alex had taken refuge in a tree during the attack, as commanded by Chief. Alex had been frantic, calling for Natasha, and trying his best to see if she was still alive. And then Alex fell to the ground, and the Troodons were on him in an instant. Strange, though; Logan remembered the two in the tree, and they weren’t all that far apart. If Matt had seen Alex start to fall and had made an attempt to save him, then that was a secret that Matt had kept to himself. But what if Matt did see Alex about to fall and intentionally did nothing? That way Matt could have had Natasha all to himself. This was the first time that possibility had crossed Logan’s mind.
“That’s just so weird that Alex fell like that. You’d think he’d have been holding on for dear life,” Ben said.
“Uh, yeah, well…” Matt raised his hands in the air. “There was a lot of commotion, you know. Guns rattling, explosions, and unnerving cries as men were eaten alive. I…I guess Alex was trying to get a better view of Natasha through the tree limbs to make sure she was all right. He got careless, slipped. There…there was nothing I could have done to save him,” Matt said, his tone defensive.
Logan noticed the strange shift in demeanor. Matt sounded at best unsure. Something had Logan suspecting Matt was hiding something. Something that held his friend in fear.
“Hey, man. I’m not saying that. I’m sure you would have if possible. But had I been up there, we all would have been closer. Maybe I could have grabbed an arm when he slipped and kept him from falling,” Ben said.
“Guys, please. We have to stop beating ourselves up over this. I know how you feel. It was by sheer luck when that T-rex charged I wasn’t taken over the side with Natasha and Meat.” That had been Logan’s version of the event, and the only version anyone else needed to know. “Matt was in the tree with Alex. Alex fell, Matt didn’t. Ben, you twisted your ankle and couldn’t go on the expedition. That was by chance too. We all are here right now by chance. So rather than questioning the why of it all, we should just accept this blessing, and move forward in our lives.” He placed a hand on one shoulder of each.
“Yeah. You’re right. The camp’s only a couple of miles from here. I don’t know if the rescue party’s arrived or not,” Ben said. He placed the Warthog in gear and started forward.
“Matt, we haven’t called Ace Corp since before we started crossing the mountain range. Why don’t you let them know we made it?” Logan asked.
“Sure. Give them time to line up the mariachi band and dancing girls,” Ben said.
“I guess we need to give them a heads up even if help hasn’t arrived. Might move things faster if they know we’re alive,” Matt said. He picked up his satellite phone and pushed a hotkey. It rang twice before someone picked up on the other end. He pushed the phone to speaker.
“Olá,” a male voice came through.
“This is Matt King. I’m here to report the Warthog’s made it over the mountain range, and me, Sandler, and Wilson are safe. We’re about ten minutes away from camp.”
“Hold,” the voice said in English.
A few seconds later, a different voice came over the speaker, “This is Captain Diaz.”
“Diaz, we’ve been reporting to Waterman from Ace Corp for the last few days. Are you aware of our situation?” Matt said.
“Yes, Mr. King. My crew and I arrived at the campsite just a few hours ago. We are fully informed of the situation,” Diaz said. He had a slight foreign accent, but spoke clearer English than most Americans in the U.S.
Matt turned to his friends and lifted a thumb into the air. “You don’t know how glad we are to hear this. Keep a light on. We’ll be there in minutes.”
“We will be waiting. There is someone very special that wants to meet you,” Diaz said, and the called ended.
“I wonder who wants to meet us?” Matt said. “I wonder who that Captain Diaz is too. He was definitely foreign. All the Redwater bunch were from the U.S. I hope the Chilean officials didn’t get wind of our expedition and now their military is involved.”
“Man, I hope that didn’t happen,” Ben said. “Can you imagine the red tape we’ll have to go through before we get to go home?”
“You mean if we get to go home. I don’t like this. You know how these third world governments can act. They might want to charge us with some type of crime—hold us here for months or longer until someone gives them enough bribe money to bail us out. I sure hope a representative from Ace Corp is here to cover our asses and not leave us here holding the bag,” Logan said.
“That’s some imagination you have there, Logan,” Ben said. “Hang on, the camp’s just around the turn.” The Warthog tracked to the east, and the area opened up to the campsite. “Looks like they were expecting us.”
The fog of early morning still hung above the ground. A tandem rotor Chinook set off to the side, and personnel were in the process of unloading supplies. Six military members dressed in black waited next to an aging man in a well-fitted business suit. His hands gripped either side of his lapel, and he had a huge cigar stuck in one corner of his mouth as he puffed away. Behind the camp, two bulldozers set unmanned.
“What do you think about that?” Ben asked.
“I hope the guy in the suit is from Ace Corp. I don’t like the look of those mercenaries,” Logan said.
“Well, if you’re still worried we could go to jail, I could just open up on the whole bunch with the Warthog’s
gun. We could fly the Chinook out of here,” Ben said.
“Really? Is that what Nick Fury would do? You couldn’t fly a Chinook anyway,” Logan said, doing his best to match Ben’s B.S.
“I could figure it out…eventually,” Ben said.
“You two, stop. This is serious. Let me do the talking at first. Let’s be calm and not confuse the situation. I’m only going to give brief answers. Let’s not embellish the story. Only go with what we know,” Matt said.
“What the hell? It’s not our fault the mission is a bust,” Ben said.
“No, it’s not our fault, and we aren’t going to give them any reason to think it is. We’re a long way from home, and there’s no American Embassy here to protect our rights. Ace Corp put up a lot of money for this expedition. When money’s involved, things can really get serious. Life and death serious, if you catch my drift.”
“You’re right, Matt. Leave it to you to think of the best way to handle a situation. It’s one of the many reasons I admire you so much,” Logan said, finding it difficult to hold back from expressing deeper feeling toward the associate professor.
Ben brought the Warthog in slowly and parked the massive vehicle parallel to the receiving entourage.
“Let me go first. I’ll get the ladder,” Logan said. He unhooked the short step ladder from a wall and opened the Warthog’s door. His heart beat faster in his chest, more from the uncertainty of the situation than the physical exertion. After stepping on the tracks, being careful not to slip on any of the caked-in mud, he placed the ladder on the ground, and stepped from the tracks down to the ground.
Matt’s head popped out the door, and he stepped onto the tracks and moved to the side.
Ben’s crutches lowered to the tracks, and he maneuvered his feet down next. With a supporting hand from Matt, he took the ladder down, and stood next to Logan.
Lost World II: Savage Patagonia Page 3
