He knew that Collin would have money on hand for his journey to the coast, and the two of them would essentially be on roads traveled by very few people, if any at all. It would be easy to murder someone and dispose of the body and let the jungle quickly discard of the evidence. The insects, maggots, worms, and countless other rainforest creatures had a way of rendering a full grown man to nothing but bones in a short amount of time. The jungle never wasted anything. Everything was always being used and reused in one continuous never ending recycling process, and Jai loved that fact about the rainforest.
Jai let the thought hang in his mind before his back finally screamed loud and clear. It had had enough of the forced sitting along with the fact that he had to pee. He brought the Land Cruiser to a halt and quickly parked it. He then proceeded to step outside, down and onto an area of the jungle road that was surprisingly firm despite the squishy conditions he encountered earlier on his trip.
Instantly, his ears were greeted with the low but constant rhythmic groans of several tree frogs. Now with the vehicle off and no headlights, he was totally immersed in the full darkness of the jungle night. He found it both exhilarating and terrifying at the same time, and he decided it best not to move more than a step or two from the Land Cruiser.
Jai had always found the jungle to be a peaceful place as he unzipped his pants and began to relieve himself. It felt good. He had been needing to go for quite some time. His head tilted upwards, towards where he thought the groan of a few tree frogs were happily calling out.
He jumped, peeing on himself in the process. Something had startled him high up in the canopy, startled him to the very core. When he looked back up, whatever it was, had disappeared.
He wiped his eyes, and for the first time he realized just how tired he, in fact, was. He could have sworn that he saw a pair of huge black beady eyes staring down at him. It had been a brief encounter, the exchange lasting not more than a half a second at best, but it seemed so very real.
Jai shook his head, dismissing it all as nothing more than sleep deprivation. When it was all over, he planned on having some serious rest and relaxation. With thoughts of sleep and a better life in mind, he climbed back into the old Land Cruiser and continued on his way.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The sickening sound of the creature’s taloned feet touching down on the boardwalk behind Downs sent him moving at quite possibly the fastest pace of his life. He flew around the turn where he had seen Nat and the others disappear.
He kept moving though as he had no choice. Something behind him, an aberration that defied all logic, was chasing him. Finally up ahead on the far left, Downs saw part of an arm frantically waving him over. It looked like Nat’s arm. She had surprisingly disappeared beneath the boardwalk, and now she was somehow waving him on from beneath.
“Come on,” she yelled. “Come on. It’s on your heels. We can smell it. Hurry. Hurry.”
Downs slowed as he approached the partial arm still waving him in and crouched down, grabbing hold of her arm.
Downs ducked low to the ground and with the help of her guiding arm maneuvered his way beneath the railing.
For a moment, his eyes locked with the sheer heights at which they were, and he thought he was going to plummet to his death. He soon felt strong hands grasping his legs as Josiah pulled him through the side opening and down to the platform they were on. “Boy, am I glad to see you guys,” Downs said, finally standing to his feet, but barely at that, his head only able to clear by half a foot or so. Immediately Downs motioned for them to flip the headlamps off. They killed the lights.
An overwhelming stench began to float and seep down towards them in the darkness as the boards above vibrated with life, heralding the arrival of the creature in all its glory. Methodically all of them looked up, the darkness of the jungle was slowly materializing into bits and pieces of light.
The intense vibrations from up above finally began to settle down. Time itself seemed to stand still. The creature was just above them now, breathing slow yet powerful lumbering breaths. There was also that distinct odor again. Not being able to fully place it, it smelled like the rotting remains of road kill mixed with raw feces.
Definitely a carnivore, Downs thought. And most likely what big predators like t-rex would have smelled like. A big hot stinking mess.
Deep breaths wheezed in and out of its lungs. Then something glimmered in the early morning light. Slowly it was coming into focus that the creature appeared to have a reptilian gleam about its skin.
Downs saw Max adjust himself ever so slightly, and then the reasoning for him even moving in the first place came sliding down between the gaps in the boards above. With minimal visibility, they could, however, make out saliva as it dripped down from one of the openings. Downs watched as it made its way in one continuous stream down towards the floor.
Downs moved himself, making sure he stayed away from the clear gooey substance still coming down in copious amounts. He could now make out the head of the creature above. It was easily three feet in length and almost equally as long in width. The head was massive, to say the least, and the breath spewing from its mouth smelled downright putrid.
It took all of their will power not to wretch, and it was becoming abundantly clear that they were in the presence of something ancient and primordial. It was a relic that had somehow managed to survive in this isolated part of the world, something that might have harkened back to the age of the dinosaurs. It had most likely been stalking, hunting, and eating whatever it wanted for eons now.
The creature turned its head, its attention and gaze focused on something that caught its eyes back in the foliage. As it did so, a new trail of saliva dripped down from the cracks and to the very boards beneath them. Two drippy gooey saliva trails were now running in continuous downward motion, just as one might expect to see from a Komodo dragon.
With that the creature bounded off, propelling itself up and into the air, before disappearing into the green vegetation. The only reminder of it being there in the first place was the swaying back and forth of several branches that had absorbed the impact as it sent itself plunging full force into the rainforest.
“How could something that big just up and disappear?” Josiah asked, making sure to still be using his best library voice.
“Who’s to say it’s gone,” Max chimed back. “Could simply be toying with us, concealing itself just out yonder.”
The wretched smell had dissipated somewhat, and for that each and every one of them was thankful. The group now took in what seemed to be a catwalk, quite possibly used by the staff to perform routine maintenance on the boardwalk. At least that seemed to be the most logical thought.
Josiah spoke. “What are we dealing with here?”
All of them looked at Max who smiled. “Guys, this is something brand new to science. Beats me what the hell it is. One thing seems very clear though. It is toying with us. If it had wanted to kill us, it would have already done so.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
“Then you’re going to have to kill it,” Ridley Bells fired back at William Jamison.
Jamison’s eyes widened somewhat, confused a little by the rude and arrogant tone of the television mogul, but he appeared more intrigued by the way in which the statement had been delivered. Jamison liked and respected forthright people. You could say that he had a special affinity and place in his heart for them.
Jamison smiled before he was about to speak, but Ridley cut him off.
Ridley spoke. “With all this high powered weaponry available at our fingertips, we’d be foolish not to take advantage of it and knock off whatever those damn things are up there.”
Jamison smiled. “But what fun would that be?”
Ridley looked over at Frederick, as if waiting for some type of visual signal that the man sided with his reasoning. Frederick remained stone cold and showed no emotions.
Ridley threw his hands up in the air. “Don’t tell me you’re siding with
him on this?”
Frederick responded in his usual monotone voice. “I am not siding with anyone, Mr. Bells. I am a business man, nothing more, nothing less. I prefer to weigh all angles, taking everything into account, therefore leaving no stone unturned.”
“Great, just great,” Ridley let out. “I can’t believe you would even take this lunacy into consideration. The simple fact of you considering the bow and arrow scenario versus the option of blasting these creatures into oblivion is in itself an exercise in insanity.”
Jamison puffed his chest out, making himself seem as big as humanly possible. Whether to visually intimidate the others, or merely to remind himself that he was fully capable of taking the creature or creatures out with nothing more than his God given talents and a bow, he continued to puff his chest out.
Ridley shook his head and turned away. “I just don’t get it. This is lunacy, sheer and absolute lunacy. I simply just don’t get it.”
Jamison paid no attention to the television mogul, turning away and focusing all of his attention on the abundant assortment of bows that were perched before him. He felt like a kid in a candy store with so many to choose from. There were long bows, short bows, and cross bows. Each was no doubt strung to a different draw weight. Jamison picked up one of the bows and started to pull the string back ever so slightly. He knew that the draw weight had to be strung at around thirty five pounds or so, knowing full well that for truly big game such as an elk or moose, fifty pounds was the suggested draw weight. He needed something with that capability, if not more, to take down what he was attempting to take down.
Jamison put it back in place and took a step back, folding his arms and scrunching up his face in the process. Could he kill the creature and its young with such weaponry? And the fact that there was young more than likely indicated there would be an adult male and female creature, unless of course it reproduced asexually.
Primitive, he thought. The ultimate test of man versus beast.
Jamison liked the idea of taking these creatures out with such primitive weaponry so much so that the vision of him standing triumphantly with one foot smashed down over one of the adults was already reigning supreme in his head. He had already painted that picture as if it were something straight out of the pages of the magazine Solider of Fortune itself.
“This is insane,” Ridley whispered in Jamison’s ears. “Absolutely insane. We have all this at our disposal and your eyes only look to that crap.”
“Made up my mind long time ago, brother,” Jamison replied, almost as if he were in a trancelike state.
Ridley pulled away from him, shaking his head, and looked over at Frederick who moved towards them with his eyes on the bows as well.
Great, Ridley thought to himself. Just splendid. Now we have two loonies.
“How would we do it?” Frederick asked, grabbing hold of one of the crossbows.
Jamison chuckled a bit. “Very tactically and precisely. Must be no mistakes. Can’t afford to make a mistake when you only have a bow and a few arrows.”
Frederick looked back at Ridley, who still had the look of frustration plastered squarely across his face. Frederick then glanced back at Jamison, the big man intently focused on killing with his own skill instead of relying on a high-powered rifle with a scope.
Frederick took one more look at the bows and then back towards Jamison. Quietly and nonchalantly he stepped back towards Ridley and nodded to the television mogul.
Jamison noticed this out of the corner of his eyes and turned to glare at the two men who now seemed to be on opposite ends of the spectrum regarding how they should be protecting themselves. Frederick now stood confidently next to Ridley, signaling his wish to use high powered weaponry versus raw skill.
“Fine fellas,” Jamison said. “Nobody’s stopping you from using what you want, and the same goes for me. Nobody’s gonna stop me from takin’ down the ultimate predator using nothing but my own skills. Nobody.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Collin Fairbanks had settled on $40,000 in cash as the number that he would steal from John Corstine’s petty cash fund. For as long as he had known Corstine, he had found it an oddity that someone could refer to $100,000 as merely petty cash. One hundred thousand to Collin could quite possibly have been someone’s life savings. Both of his parents had passed away, but when they were alive they were rural farmers in Nebraska. The idea of $100,000 to them would have been representative of potentially an entire lifetime’s worth of money, a number that took years and years of grinding away to achieve.
So as Collin felt around in his right pocket and touched the $40,000, he knew that he had almost half of someone’s life savings, and, most importantly, he had acquired it in one tax free shot. The fact that it was cash was the best part of all. He patted it once again as he loved that feeling of cold hard cash. There was no feeling like it. No drug available on the market that could produce such a high for him. There simply was no substitute for the wonderfully warm spreading feeling he got when he touched money. He removed his hand from his pocket and patted at his pocket from the outside. He couldn’t get enough of it.
Collin looked down at his watch and began to work out his plan for high tailing off to Brazil and what he would consider to be the good life. At least he began to plant the necessary seeds in order to get him to the good life. Never one to get ahead of himself though, he was only focusing on the next step in that evolution, and that next step involved Jai Constantine.
The plan was simple enough, yet Collin did not want to take any chances with Corstine catching him. That fact alone added detail to the getaway. Collin had originally told Jai to meet him at the grand staircase entrance to the boardwalk, where Corstine housed two gas powered Jeeps below on the ground level of the jungle. Occasionally, in the early days during the construction phase of the boardwalk, he and Corstine would hop into one of those gas powered Jeeps and drive the road beneath the boardwalk that stretched the length of it to survey and make routine checks.
Collin thought about if he should have scheduled his pickup at the staircase to the boardwalk. He shook his head in disapproval. That would have been the easy way out, the sloppy solution, and, most importantly, it might have been the solution that allowed John Corstine to catch him red-handed in the act of stealing from him. He did not want that, did not want that in the least bit.
Collin had arranged for Jai Constantine to pick him up at approximately what was deemed the middle or dead center of the boardwalk. By his calculations Nat and the group should have already passed that midway point by now. By the time he got there, they would be long gone, but he hadn’t really been paying close attention to the cameras. He was simply making an educated guess at this point.
Once picked up and successfully down from the boardwalk, he and Jai would make their way to the airport through a rough yet drivable road that had been hacked and cut out of the jungle. He laughed quietly to himself at the fact that Corstine still had the issue of making that jungle road navigable for buses and other commercial vehicles. Corstine still had that hurdle to jump and overcome, and Collin knew it would indeed be a difficult one.
It had crossed Collin’s mind once or twice that he could simply commandeer one of Corstine’s gas powered Jeeps and drive himself out of the area, but once again it sounded too simple. Therefore, he dismissed it as nothing more than a badly devised plan.
Collin grabbed his Jansport backpack, stuffing a few random energy bars in it. Lastly, he grabbed several bottled waters and stuffed them inside as well.
He paused for a moment, pondering the idea of bottled water. It had always fascinated him how someone came up with the concept of people paying outrageous amounts of money for water. He shook his head. He’d have plenty of time to think up the next multi-million dollar idea once he settled in Brazil and had things up and running for which he had already worked and planned.
Collin took one last look at his surroundings, and with that he opened the sliding glass door and
made his way out onto the boardwalk.
Jai Constantine had driven for a solid hour in one long passage, the silence of the jungle road itself had been getting to him somewhat and the urge to pee had once again been tugging at his last nerve. His legs, back, and hamstrings ached beyond belief, and he would also use that time to do some much needed stretching. Jai figured with the money Collin Fairbanks was paying him, he would visit a nice chiropractor when it was all over, preferably one who worked on a white, pristine sandy beach.
For now he had drunk way too much water before departing on his journey, and he knew better than to do that, but his system had felt dehydrated and he was merely trying to quench his thirst.
His bladder throbbed with pain, and now he was paying the consequences for his water drinking binge earlier. Jai slowly brought the Land Cruiser to a halt in an area that was overgrown with vegetation in an almost seamless mat of growth. As he put the car in park, his eyes gravitated towards the thick mass of vines and branches above him. In fact, to say that things were overgrown was an understatement. It seemed as though the very canopy itself had been lowered all the way down to some fifteen feet above the forest floor. That was the height he estimated the thick matting of growth to be above him. Though he was tired of it, the rainforest never ceased to amaze him in the way it produced vegetation, the likes of which appeared to be on steroids.
A sliver of movement flashed in and out of view in a quick dash above him. Instantly Jai’s senses went on heightened alert as he continued to peer upwards at the thick matting of vegetation from the driver’s seat.
There was something up there, but whatever it was, was gone or had suddenly disappeared. The burning sensation in his bladder once again returned to the forefront of his mind. Jai reached for the handle to the door to let himself out, but just as he was about to do so an explosion of glass came bursting through the windshield, sending shards of glass as they came raining down onto the dashboard.
Prehistoric: (A Prehistoric Thriller) (Bick Downs Book 1) Page 10
