Never underestimate anyone, Collin would always think to himself. You never know what type of cards that special someone has up his or her sleeves.
Corstine had taught Collin a very important lesson, but the teacher failed to pay close attention to the pupil. Now the pupil was about to make the teacher pay in a very big way.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The silence lasted for all but thirty seconds as the familiar sounds of the jungle crept back in. Without warning, that was shattered by something hurled in the dark at Downs and the group. Immediately Downs knew there were watchful eyes fixed upon them and flicked his headlamp on once again, the others following his lead.
Rising up like an angry swarm of bees, the overwhelming smell of something dead stung deeply in their nostrils. As Downs moved his head, his light penetrating through the darkness, he could see something, something huge and elongated. Spanning roughly eighteen feet and laid out before them was a reticulated python, or at least what was left of it. Downs knew it right away to be just that, as no other snake in Indonesia could match a retic pound for pound in terms of length. Downs bent down, although part of him wanted to pull back, never having been the biggest fan of snakes to begin with, but what lay before him was a true gargantuan in every sense of the word.
Max was already on it though, coming immediately to the conclusion that the thing was dead. As the zoologist approached closer, he could see deep gouge marks that had been inflicted upon the python’s massive siding, deep penetrating wounds as if something had raked the living hell out of the huge snake, scraping and shredding it on both sides. The snake was as wide as a small tree trunk. Max lifted the heavy tail up and let it flop back to the ground, the heavy thunk on the boardwalk reinforcing just how truly massive the snake was.
“What the hell’s going on here?” Josiah muttered, his eyes matching the equally wide eyes of the others. “Dead animals and pieces of the human body being flung from every corner of this jungle. Either there’s one really angry and large monkey playing games with us, or I don’t know what to think. It’s just all too much.”
They were barely even able to digest Josiah’s words when the sounds of breaking and snapping branches came rushing towards them again. The forest was being bent, twisted, battered, broken, and beaten into submission.
William Jamison lowered his huge body and ducked into the small shelter that Frederick and Ridley had escaped into only moments prior.
“Damn good thing I’m still in tip top shape,” Jamison said as he hurried inside. Frederick let the door down on top of them, sealing them inside from below with the latch. Had it not been for their headlamps still going full bore, they would have been immersed in total darkness.
The pitter patter of movement could be heard directly above them, but for the moment they were safe. The suffocating crowded conditions inside were all engulfing. Jamison put his hand above his head, realizing that the ceiling above his head was only three inches at best, meaning their tight and confined compartment was only seven feet tall.
The dangling and blackened light bulb that hung down over them reminded Jamison of his grandmother’s basement. There was a similar light bulb that hung down over one of the cars. He had never liked that setting for that particular reason, and he didn’t like what he was currently seeing.
Like the kind of place where your life would end, Jamison thought grimly to himself.
There were very few things in this world that scared William Jamison, but one of them was the idea of being in a tight and confined space, especially one that was accompanied by black, dingy, piece of crap light bulbs. He would manage and conquer it though, he always did. Just for shits and giggles, Jamison pulled the chain attached to the light bulb. He rolled his eyes, seeing the act immediately to be a stupid one. Obviously, it didn’t work. Why would anything work down below when basically nothing was working up above.
“Not much workin’ here on Corstine’s boardwalk,” Jamison said with an air of disgust, as if he were a man who had already made up his mind.
The light exuding forth from Jamison’s headlamp managed to capture the terrified expression of Ridley Bells. The television entrepreneur seemed as if he had encountered the devil himself. Suddenly Ridley’s eyes shot up towards the boardwalk. “What’s at work up there?”
Jamison pulled out a half-smoked, unlit Cuban cigar from his back pocket and stuffed it firmly between his teeth, a habit that he had been known to do from time to time. He didn’t necessarily enjoy smoking them, but he certainly enjoyed chewing them. “Not our problem.”
Ridley seemed enraged as he stepped forward towards the big man. “Not our problem. Not our freaking problem. Are you completely insane? Of course, it’s our problem. It’s very much our problem. We’re trapped inside a shithole of a storage compartment, and you have the nerve to tell me it’s not our problem. I surely as hell don’t see who else’s problem it would be.”
Jamison pulled the unlit cigar from his mouth and grinned down at the man who stood before him. He then shone the light back on Frederick who was crowded almost cowardly in a corner behind him. “Not exactly the two I’d like to be holed away with in a bunker, smack dab in the middle of a war, but we’ll have to make do. We always do.”
Frederick turned away from the others, hardly even understanding the comment as he stared at the wall, stared at all four corners for that matter. “Um, this appears to be some type of ammunition and weaponry storage bin.”
Clearly, Jamison thought to himself, trying to focus on something other than the claustrophobic conditions.
Basic rudimentary shelving held dozens and dozens of weapons and high-powered assault rifles as they lined all four of the walls surrounding the men. Everywhere they looked they were surrounded by instruments of death.
Jamison considered himself to be a hunter in life, and for some odd reason he believed in the notion that he had been a hunter in a previous life as well. He held to the belief that hunting was a spiritual endeavor which should only be done using the skill and expertise of the hunter, preferentially with bow and arrow. This was the way it all started, the way that it should be.
Ridley reached up and grabbed one of the high-powered assault rifles and took it down from its perch. He ran his hand along it and examined the thing as if he were a kid who had just discovered his father’s gun.
“Quit playin’ around,” Jamison said, grabbing the barrel of the rifle and ripping it out of Ridley’s hand as if it were a toothpick.
“At least the safety’s on,” Jamison remarked as he carefully placed the rifle back in its position on the shelf.
“Apparently, Corstine’s got a few secrets regarding this place,” Frederick said. “And by the looks of it, this place might have some type of infestation problem with whatever it was that attacked us from above.”
Jamison strained his ears for a second. Nothing. Whatever these creatures were had apparently left the area, at least for the time being.
Or they’re waitin’ to pounce the minute we open up and come back out, Jamison thought.
“Well, fellas,” Jamison said. “Seems pretty clear why construction on this little side project of Corstine’s came to a halt. There’s something runnin’ around up there. Something that shouldn’t exist.”
“That coupled with the death of the Indonesian,” Ridley added.
“Death?” Jamison asked, slightly confused.
Ridley returned a befuddled look to him. “You didn’t know. A man died here a few weeks ago. A worker, to be exact. Reports said he was hunted down by some type of creature or beast. Something that defies all logic.”
Frederick gave a half ass smile, though it reflected someone scared shitless rather than smiling. “We’re in trouble here. What’s the plan?”
“The plan,” Jamison said with a wide grin, his attention focusing towards five huge bows housed in the far corner. “The plan is we’re gonna hunt down whatever it is that produced those little shits up there. Whatever it is th
at severed that Komodo dragon in two like it was nothing. That’s what we’re going after. And those five bows will help us do just that. That’s the plan, fellas.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Downs had always been a man who believed in the unbelievable, believed in the everyday miracle, believed in things that defied explanation, but what he saw before him defied every logic thought pattern that the human brain possessed. He turned to witness an explosion of branches, leaves, and vegetation as an enormous being let itself down from the canopy and crashed down hard onto the boardwalk. The explosion mixed with the potential energy sent a coursing vibration that rippled through the structure.
As they ran, Downs was taking in the entire scene for the first time, clear and unobstructed. The whole creature looked like a horrific science experiment gone wrong. Its forest green reptilian skin provided a base, and it had several large red and brown swirls of coloring on its back and sides. It sported a thin yet spiky row of hair that ran atop its back, up and onto the neck and head, giving it a Mohawk appearance. Its skin was beady and reptilian, it had talons that hinted towards a lineage from the raptor family, and it possessed a plush prehensile tale that screamed primate in nature. It must have stood close to nine feet tall when resting on its four manhole-sized feet, each foot equipped with three basketball-sized suction cups. The creature possessed a head that any ancient prehistoric animal would have run from. The head was a solid three feet in length and was lined with row upon row of sharp and serrated shark-like teeth, teeth designed to deliver a devastating bite.
The foul smelling breath of the creature instantly rose up as saliva dripped from its serrated teeth. In a moment in which time itself appeared to stand still, the creature seemed to be taking in the entire scene, observing the humans as they fled. Downs paused as well, before several voices cut in, causing him to snap back to reality.
“Come on,” Nat shouted, from a bend up ahead. “Come on.”
With that Downs took off running as Nat disappeared out of sight around a corner.
Collin Fairbanks entered the numbers 7, 13, 27, and 31 into the safe. He had done this before, although it had been some time. On his second try, he managed to nail it.
He was in.
The safe housed what John Corstine commonly referred to as the petty cash fund. The funny thing was there was $100,000 dollars in there, $100,000 that was supposed to be used for small knick-knack purchases. This served as a convenience because the Indonesians commonly did not accept credit cards and happily accepted American currency.
Collin held a stack of $5,000 up closely to his nose and breathed it in as if it were the very pages of a book. He loved the smell of money, and that was why he was going about on a personal quest to acquire more of it. By his own admission, he wanted to go about acquiring as much of it as was humanly possible.
The money that he intended to steal from Corstine was going to change his life. It wouldn’t make him set and free for life. He would still have to work, but it was going to give him one hell of a head start on his quest to working solely for himself. Collin had already sketched out the details pretty meticulously what he planned to do with the money. Ever since his early teens, he had wanted to get into real estate investing, and Corstine’s money was going to help him do just that.
Collin was going to start anew in Brazil, Sao Paulo to be exact. In a country and city so big, he would blend right in. He hoped the masses would swallow him up and he’d never be heard from again, at least not by the authorities and all involved in Corstine’s endeavors.
His proposed realty empire would be set up as such, courtesy of a business model from a guy who his sister had once dated. He would start modestly and purchase a small apartment building, three to five units to be exact. However, he Collin Fairbanks, would not be purchasing the building himself. His company that he would start would officially be purchasing the building and the apartment would be held in the company name. Furthering that model would be the small property management company that he planned to set up. This company would be responsible for managing the day-to-day aspects of the building itself as well as handling the monthly cash flow statements. When he needed to visit the building or future buildings he planned to purchase, he would simply introduce himself as the property manager instead of the building owner.
It all made sense to him, perfect sense indeed, and he wondered why more weren’t following these proposed strategies.
Their problem, not mine.
His hand reached further into the safe and grabbed another stack of $5,000, bringing him firmly back to the present and out of la la land. He smelled the stack of crisp bills once more.
That smell never gets old.
In his right hand he now held $10,000 dollars in cash. He knew that Corstine’s safe housed $100,000 dollars. At least that’s the amount that should have been in there, give or take a few thousand. He wanted to have cold hard cash on him for his journey out of Indonesia and to Sao Paolo.
Collin grabbed six more stacks of bills, bringing the total in his hand to a cool $40,000 dollars. This left $60,000 in the safe. Odd as it sounded, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a few pens and put them beneath the other stacks of bills in the safe. He propped up the bills on top of the pens, angling the money in such a way that it seemed as if the existing bills were still there. Not that it really mattered anyway, but he wondered hard for a moment why he wasn’t stealing all of it, concluding that $40,000 in cash was more than enough. He had never even seen Corstine go into the safe, and even on day one of the job when Corstine alerted him to the existence of the safe, the real estate tycoon had to search through countless sets of papers just to find the combination.
Collin paused for a moment as the overwhelming urge to steal all the money from the safe radiated powerfully through his body. He stood there for another few seconds poised deeply in thought. Corstine would never know the money was gone, would never know and would never miss it. There was simply too much on his plate, and Collin knew it.
Despite this he shook his head. No. Forty grand was more than enough. Besides he had bigger fish to fry, more importantly $1.1 million. With that Collin Fairbanks closed the safe and was off to the next leg of his journey.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Jai Constantine had been driving for nearly two hours in the dark of the night. The rain soaked jungle road was still a sloshy mess at best as a result of an earlier heavy rainstorm. The darkness was all encompassing around him, except for the two front headlights of the beat up old Land Cruiser that illuminated the jungle road ahead. Things had gone from bad to worse, and what had once been a trail of sorts was now resembling a waterlogged mess, with the soil fully saturated and not able to hold any more water. The conditions were almost non-navigable, but still the vehicle trudged on.
The beat up black Land Cruiser had no stereo. It had been stolen years ago. Jai figured that the poor kids who most likely stole and hawked it had in some small way improved their meager existence. He was perfectly fine with that. As a result Jai had been forced to listen to the rhythmic sound of the vehicle vibrating and making its way along the makeshift dirt road.
“Dear Christos,” Jai muttered to himself, barely managing a sharper than expected turn and nearly averting crashing into a large branch that extended out and over the road. The Land Cruiser spit mud out everywhere as the tires scrambled to gain traction. They finally regained their hold of the road and allowed Jai to continue on his way. He had driven these jungle roads before, but the monsoon rain that had swept through the area a few days prior had left everything almost impassable.
Jai was 75% Indonesian mixed with 25% Dutch, although he wanted to acknowledge himself more with the Dutch than the Indonesians. He was sick of being a so-called jungle boy, sick of the brutal heat and humidity mixed with deplorable living conditions. He wanted out desperately, and believed he had figured out a plan, or at least sketched a rough outline of one.
His plan was to take the
money that Collin Fairbanks was offering him, $9,000 in cold hard cash, for a ride to the coastal airport. From there he would personally hightail his way to Madrid where he had a good friend. There he would live rent free for awhile as he pursued a new career and life. He could put some money into savings while treating himself to a nice little holiday with the rest of the leftover money.
He thought long and hard about that plan, about the proposed $9,000. He already had $4,500 in the glove compartment to his right, with the other $4,500 to come once the journey with Collin was complete. Slowly, he took his foot off the gas and carefully reached over to the passenger side glove compartment. He opened it, letting it crash down, before finally returning both hands to the steering wheel.
He glanced over and saw the stack of American currency, smiling pleasantly to himself. $9,000 was more than he could save in quite a few years of work. In fact he was so tired at the moment that he couldn’t even do the necessary calculations to determine how many years that in fact was. Yet he knew that it added up to many, many years of work.
His eyes made their way from the glove compartment back to the muddy jungle road, and he drove for about five minutes or so before his eyes made their way back to the glove compartment. Several inches to the right of the stack of $4,500 was a sleek 9mm handgun.
Plan “dos” as he had been playfully referring to it. Plan “dos.” The thought swirled back and forth in his head.
Jai knew that Collin had money, although he obviously had not pinpointed it down to an actual direct number. He knew the assistant had money, nonetheless. How much remained to be seen, but his mind had been toying with it for several days now. The notion of doing away with Collin Fairbanks entirely, wiping him from existence on this earth, in the damn middle of this nowhere jungle, appealed greatly to him.
Prehistoric: (A Prehistoric Thriller) (Bick Downs Book 1) Page 9
