Prehistoric: (A Prehistoric Thriller) (Bick Downs Book 1)

by Michael Esola

  Come on, Bick, time is ticking, the voice shouted at him again. You’re wasting precious time. Precious time is ticking. You need to get moving. Act quickly. Act swiftly. Time is ticking. Tick. Tick. Tick.

  Downs nodded in agreement with himself, and although it seemed odd to be doing so, he still did it anyway, further solidifying what he already knew. It was time to start making preparations for what needed to be done. He needed to lure as many of them as he could to the nest for an all out feeding frenzy, a WWE Wrestlemania spectacular. A royal rumble, carnage that would simply implore more carnage until finally everything had wiped everything else from existence.

  As Downs took steps away from the buzzing and rotting little creature, he could already see the entire scene playing out in spectacular cinematic detail in his head. There would be biting, scratching, clawing, tearing, gouging, gorging, disemboweling, and a host of other unspeakable acts of cannibalism, all while hopefully allowing him just enough of a window of opportunity to climb his way back up to the boardwalk. Then it would be up to him entirely what he did once he was up there.

  Downs made his way carefully out to the far corner of the nest, towards where he had entered and where a gathering of twigs and branches lay in a pile. When he got there, he craned his neck and looked up towards the boardwalk, towards where Jamison had shimmied his way up one of the trees. He wondered if Jamison had made it, and then stopped wondering all together, realizing full well that Jamison was a survivor and would do whatever it took to get off the boardwalk alive.

  Downs looked up once more and realized he must have been some forty feet from getting back up and onto the boardwalk. He debated for a second whether he should just shimmy his way up, although his bruised ribs would be having a say as well. They still hurt like hell, but if he wanted to, he believed he could, right there and then, he could have done just as Jamison had done. Downs had learned over the years though to trust his sheer gut instinct. It had led him to correct decisions time and time again. He knew that he’d be a sitting duck if he tried to climb his way up and out right now, and with his bruised ribs he’d be less than 100% all while hanging in a precariously vulnerable position. He needed to give himself the gift of time, but more importantly the gift of distraction.

  Downs backed away and had a look at the pile of limbs and small branches, trying to find anything and everything that could be used. The minute he threw back the first of the small branches, several large spiders and beetles were flushed from their hiding places and sent scurrying madly in all directions.

  He continued to dig through the pile, and the further down he dug, he could see that things were becoming progressively bigger. Downs pulled out a branch that must have been seven feet long by his own estimates, and he stowed it at his feet. Shooting pain gripped him all of a sudden, and he had to take a moment before continuing on, hunching over as he winced in pain.

  He continued rummaging and was just about down to the bottom of the pile, having removed a branch that must have been damn near ten feet in length, far too large and awkward for him to use, but he figured he’d pull it out anyway. With great pain he lifted the branch and managed to let it drop towards where the other one lay. Practically at the bottom of the pile now he continued on, removing vines, branches, fronds, leaves, and nuts that had most likely been scattered and redistributed by the local bird inhabitants. Then at the bottom he saw them, something which took him rather swiftly by surprise.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN

  Jamison dove hard to his side and rolled end-over-end, scrambling upright and quickly to his feet, and immediately sprinting for the opposite side as the body of the massive creature slammed hard into the railing. The creature managed to hold itself upright just enough to prevent from falling and toppling over the side of the boardwalk as it roared in anger.

  Meanwhile Jamison had arrived safely on the other end. Quickly he butted himself up tight to the railing and looked back. The vegetation behind where the creature stood was sparse, with no overhanging limbs or branches and no trees in close proximity, giving it a quite open and airy feeling, a far cry from the thick vegetative growth that they had encountered earlier on the boardwalk. It was the perfect place for what he knew needed to be done.

  The creature stared down at him with its mouth agape for a moment, giving Jamison a brief second to see that several planks making up the railing behind the creature had been loosened by the jarring impact. His eyes widened. Quickly he reached back, knowing full well it would be a useless effort, but he did so anyway while releasing an arrow that cut through the air. He had hoped the arrow would pierce the tough almost crocodilian-like hide of the creature, but it bounced off the shoulder blade and ricocheted over the edge.

  The shot had done nothing as the creature roared. Instead of firing another useless arrow, Jamison knew he had one chance, and once chance only to execute the opportunity currently presenting itself. He could see that the creature was mounting its second charge as it roared again and lunged itself in his direction. Jamison took up the challenge, vocalizing his own battle cry of a roar as he raced towards the beast screaming like a madman, or a man who was staring into the oversized bulbous eyes of death itself.

  With his athletic skills and physical prowess on full display, Jamison faked as if he was going to go airborne. The creature seeing this, responded immediately, and propelled itself up and into the air roaring. At the last second Jamison stopped his body from leaving the ground, ducking low as the huge beast sailed over him.

  Jamison made a beeline straight for the broken planks of the railing that he had spotted moments earlier. Wasting no time he let go of the bow and dropped his large hands down onto part of the broken plank and heaved with all his might. When the damn thing did not budge and pull apart as he had predicted, he began to panic as this time he heard the creature come landing down successfully on its four manhole-sized feet.

  “Shit,” he breathed, knowing full well that he had his back to the creature and lay completely exposed.

  Then with one great final exertion of effort, the planks gave way, leaving him with one the size of a fully grown man. Jamison immediately swiveled to face the creature, gripping it like a baseball bat and acting as if he were a lion tamer about to tame the great wild beast as he raised the plank in defiance above his head.

  The creature let out another roar from where it stood, but Jamison’s attention was on the area just beyond the huge beast, the railing area from which he had come. Jamison felt the powerful muscles in his arms and legs twinge with anticipation. Part of him was terrified while the other half pulsed with adrenaline.

  The creature wasted little time as it charged straight for him. Jamison managed to kick the bow out of the way as he gave up pursuit as well, wielding the large plank now as if it were an axe. He bounded with big and commanding steps towards the creature; his speed mixed with the huge plank seeming like his aim was to decapitate the creature with one swing.

  The creature went airborne and so did Jamison this time, but just as the two were about to meet mid-air, Jamison managed to go out and to the side of the beast. With everything he had, he brought the plank cracking down upon the creature’s massive head, using every last ounce of his almost superhuman-like strength. The encounter had happened in a blur of a second, and Jamison lost control of the plank as both he and it crashed back down to the boardwalk.

  In a stunned and dazed sense of confusion, Jamison tried to retrieve the plank while behind him the creature continued to roar. He found it odd that he had dropped the large plank in the first place, but as he swiveled to his side, the bottom part of his left eye caught the horror of why he had dropped the plank in the first place. In a strange out-of-body experience, his eyes widened with both terror and disbelief at what he was seeing. His left arm was gone, taken just beneath the shoulder blade.

  Feeling no pain though, bleeding, and in absolute shock, Jamison gripped down on the plank with his right hand and hoisted the thing above his head.
He turned and faced the creature, just in time to watch as the thing threw its head back. Jamison caught the tail end of his left index finger as it went down the creature’s throat along with the rest of his arm. Then with another roar, the creature’s eyes locked onto what remained of William Jamison.

  The large man still possessed an incredible amount of strength as he maintained the plank above his head using only his right arm. Jamison was running out of both options and time. Realizing he needed to get into position on the opposite side of the boardwalk, this time it was he who took the aggressive route. Blasting a roar as loud as his vocal chords would allow, he charged the creature.

  The creature, taken aback for a split second at the bravado and courage shown by the human, sprung into action as well. It bounded towards Jamison. This time though Jamison did not propel himself up and into the air. Like a boxer entering the ring looking for the knockout punch, Jamison came out swinging.

  He wielded the plank with impressive power as he attempted to send it smashing down onto the head of the creature once more. As man and beast met in spectacular fashion in the middle of the boardwalk, Jamison struck the creature square in the head with the plank, and was just about to pivot and head for his intended positioning when he felt a deep penetrating slash. His brain screamed for him to get to where he deemed he needed to be. It was his only option, to try and fake the creature out into jumping off the boardwalk, into an area where there was no vegetation and it would plummet to its death.

  Jamison let the plank drop to the ground, pushed off of the massive beast with his right arm, and immediately began sprinting towards the area where he had broken the plank free earlier. It wasn’t until he had taken half a dozen steps or so that he came to the horrifying realization that he was not sprinting at all, rather he was hobbling at best. He stopped for a moment of stark confusion. Bleeding, delirious, and limbless he had lost sight of the creature momentarily, but he could still smell it. Jamison punched and shouted at the air with his right arm as he thought he saw the huge creature take a swipe at him. When he realized it was nothing but his own imagination, he forced himself to keep backing up until he had reached the broken railing.

  He could now feel the partially broken railing at his backside. Then his eyes locked in on the creature as his brain registered seeing the backside of it. Like a lion circling its kill, the creature made a wide turn before finally coming around and focusing its eyes back on its intended victim.

  Jamison managed to crane his neck to the side. He could see the openness of the area and knew there were no trees or limbs for quite some distance. Beyond the railing it was a sharp drop all the way down to the forest floor. His mind was failing him fast, but it still believed he could fake the creature out one last time and send it plummeting to its untimely death.

  Jamison muttered quietly to himself as he spat blood. “Wait. Wait. Wait.”

  Just before Jamison saw the creature mounting another attack, he started to lose it. With his right hand he frantically tried to remove a large reddish pink snake that was coming straight for his stomach. Jamison grabbed at the thing, but as he did so, the snake fell away from him and plopped down onto the ground. Horror embraced him as he looked down and saw that his stomach had been ripped wide open, and the snake was actually his small intestine that had spilled forth onto the boardwalk.

  Jamison had lost track of time as the seconds warped into minutes, and the minutes themselves seemed as long as a mini life age. His mind was reeling, absolutely reeling and spinning with sheer delusion as he took in the sight of his intestines hanging out of him and lying at his feet. He felt dizzy, couldn’t tell left from right, up from down, real from what was not real. William Jamison looked up just in time to see a great shadowy figure materialize into a mouthful of oversized teeth as the creature’s jaws came plunging down over him, sending him forever into eternal darkness.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT

  John Corstine and his son Jeremiah had been been running for about a quarter of a mile, when Corstine saw up ahead on the far right what he knew would be there all along. Rising up from the boardwalk was by anyone’s estimations a lookout tower, potentially for an armed guard to stand watch. Corstine had liked the design feature of such a structure rising thirty feet or so above the boardwalk, with the intended plan of resurrecting another eleven or so over the entire length of the boardwalk at a later time and date. He knew damn well though that they would most likely never hold an armed guard. He had once joked to the early investors that instead of guards atop the towers, he would line and decorate them with potted plants and flowers. A statement, that caused quite a bit of commotion amongst investors at the time, citing potential mismanagement of funds.

  Corstine ran to the base of the narrow tower, knowing that the door which led inside should have been locked. That would be no problem though because he had made a thin duplicate copy of the key some time ago and slid it neatly into his wallet. As he got closer though, he realized that the key would not be necessary; the door had been left slightly ajar.

  He slowed himself a bit, emphasizing every bit the word “caution.” Jeremiah was now at his back, and quickly the young and athletic son switched his positions, pushing himself in front of his father and scooting Corstine behind him as both of them slowly approached the door to the tower.

  The smell of raw feces and blood immediately assaulted their nostrils as Jeremiah paused at the door, which was no more than a few inches open. Although Corstine still had his pistol, he cursed quietly to himself for not taking Collin Fairbanks up on his offer to stock each tower with a fully loaded assault rifle, which would be locked away securely of course. Corstine wondered for a moment where in the hell his bloody assistant was, although the thought was quickly washed away by the foul odor which was getting worse by the second.

  Quietly and unassumingly Jeremiah nudged the door open ever so gently, waiting a few extra seconds after it had fully come to a stop before peering his head around. The smell of feces and blood was far worse now that Jeremiah’s head and neck were in the tightly confined area, just slightly bigger than a typical elevator. Slowly Jeremiah brought the rest of his body around and was now standing with two feet firmly planted in the tower, the only light shining in from the open door.

  “Scoot over son,” Corstine said, as he moved in.

  Blood stains streaked the four walls that surrounded them, each wall no more than an arm’s length away from where they both stood huddled together. Corstine’s eyes looked upwards, taking in more of the blood strewn scene. He could tell there appeared to have been a great struggle.

  Jeremiah crept a few inches closer towards the wall when suddenly his father let out a deep and resounding gasp. Jeremiah’s own gaze shot up to where his father’s attention had gone. Jeremiah held his father with one arm as he stared upward.

  Up at the top of the landing to the spiral staircase, the part that led out to the small observation deck just outside, hung a fully grown dead Komodo dragon. Jeremiah shook his head, still maintaining his father in his grasp as he appeared to still be lightheaded. He wondered how in the hell what they were both staring at was even possible. Upon first glance Jeremiah noticed deep gouging lacerations to the side of the animal.

  The face of the Komodo dragon had been beaten and smashed in, almost beyond recognition. There were also deep gouging lacerations around the thick and muscular neck as well, capped off finally by the fact that a huge chunk had been bitten and taken from its stomach region, as if a shark had chomped right through it. All in all it looked very much like the once fearsome land predator had been put through the meat grinder and spit back out again.

  “Dad, you good?” Jeremiah asked, turning his father round and looking him square in the eyes.

  For the first time ever, or at least the first time that Jeremiah could ever recall, his father was scared shitless. By the glazed-over look that was now in his father’s eyes, Jeremiah could tell that he was completely and utterly terrified.
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  “Dad,” Jeremiah said, shaking him once more.

  Corstine slowly came to, but his words, barely audible at that, were no more than a mumble.

  “I’m sorry,” Corstine said, as he let go of his son’s embrace. Sliding down to the ground, he began to sob hysterically. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  Jeremiah took one last look at the hanging monster above before bending down to his father’s level. Corstine was doing his best to wipe away the tears but they just kept coming forward, spewing forth like a small trickling stream.

  “I should have known better,” Corstine sobbed. “I knew there was something out here, something up here, but I ignored the warnings of the locals. I should have heeded their warnings.”

  Jeremiah looked up at the Komodo dragon once more, his eyes intensely focused on the huge chunk that was missing, knowing full well what did it, and also knowing full well the seriousness of the situation in which they found themselves.

  “Dad, you can’t hold yourself entirely responsible. This is something almost beyond the realm of modern day science as a whole, almost other worldly. I’m no scientist, but I think it’s fair to say nothing like this has existed for quite some time. This is a remnant, a super predator, a freak of evolution,” Jeremiah said while gripping his father by the shoulders.

  Corstine looked up at him, his eyes reddened by the tears. “But I knew, or at least I had a damn good idea, and still I proceeded on. Still I proceeded on.”