Primordia 3: The Lost World—Re-Evolution

by Greig Beck

  “The time, the desmos; remember?” He began to drag her to the basement. But as she approached, she saw it was somehow different. The previous wooden door leading down the stairs was now a fortified sheet of steel set into reinforced concrete.

  “The what?” she asked.

  “Shush, they’ll hear us.” Zach looked past her, his eyes wide. “The sun’s down. They’ll be out now.”

  “The desmos? What are they?” She started to raise her voice as panic took hold.

  Zach put his finger to his lips, but looked past her, and his eyes widened even further. “Oh no, the bolt.”

  She turned. Beside the door was now a thick beam and two metal braces where it was supposed to slot on behind the door to hold it. He left her and sprinted toward it. On his way, he knocked her coffee cup from the table, where it hit the tiled floor and exploded into a hundred pieces. He froze from the loud noise, his hands up and teeth bared in a fearful grimace.

  Emma had never seen such fear on his face like this, and it broke her heart.

  “Zach?” She stepped toward him, just as one of the huge side windows blew inward with a massive spray of glass.

  And something came in with it.

  It hit the ground and immediately came upright. The thing was roughly man-shaped, but taller and thinner. However, not frail as it was covered in a dark, sinewy muscle, and when it turned to her, Emma felt her blood run cold.

  The head was rounded and the face flat with a large mouth and protruding fangs. There was no nose, just a triangular-shaped double slit that operated wetly as it sniffed the room. And above that nasal cavity were two huge black eyes. Though standing taller than a man, it used its long front arms for locomotion as its back legs looked almost comically stunted, and between the arms and legs was a thin membrane.

  It clicked, mewled, and squeaked as it sniffed and craned toward them. Emma had frozen in shock, but Zach broke the spell.

  “Run!” he yelled.

  Her muscles unlocked, and she headed to the front sitting room. Zach scurried away in a different direction, and the thing hopped and flapped leathery wings trying to get after her, but found the confines of the room hard to navigate. Still, it was fast and strong. Furniture was pushed aside as it skipped over some and bullocked other pieces out of its way.

  “Hey, hey.” Emma was frantic, trying to stay ahead of it, as well as consciously trying to lead it away from her son.

  Desmos, Zach had called them. Now she made the connection after seeing the monstrosity; she’d come across something like them before when she was cave climbing down in Brazil—Desmodontinae—the scientific name for a bat. And not just any bat, but the ones that drank blood; the vampire bat.

  She winced as she wedged herself in beside the broom closet. They were different than other bats in that, while bats mostly lost the ability to maneuver on land, vampire bats could walk, jump, and even run by using a unique, hopping gait, in which the forelimbs instead of the hind-limbs are recruited for locomotion, as the wing arms are much more powerful than the legs.

  This was the ability the bat thing was using now. She wracked her brain trying to remember more details—they had good vision, a sense of smell like a bloodhound, and one other thing, saliva that was an anticoagulant, so when they bit, the blood didn’t clot and continued to flow for them to drink.

  She heard the thing snuffling and smelled the acrid stink of it. Emma wedged herself in deeper and looked about for a weapon. She didn’t get it; vampire bats were tiny and usually no bigger than her thumb. But this creature was huge, standing about seven feet tall. The other horrifying fact she recalled as it closed in on where she concealed herself was they could eat nearly their entire weight in blood. She had no doubt that this beast could completely drain both her and Zach if it got the chance.

  Oh God—she had another horrifying thought—it probably wouldn’t be alone for long.

  Now she knew why the basement was fortified, and why there was a huge bolt for the front door and shutters on all the windows. Zach knew about them, but she didn’t. Whether she liked it or not, being immune to the changes going on around her was no advantage and would get her and Zach killed.

  Where was Zach?

  The creature was closing in on her, and she was at least thankful for that. Because if it wasn’t searching for her, it meant it was searching for her son.

  Emma needed a weapon, and the gun that Ben had left her was in its holster and hanging by the front door. She looked about; close by was the knife block. She carefully reached out and withdrew the largest carving knife she had, the one with the 14-inch stainless steel, laser-sharpened blade. She gripped it, hard.

  Emma had stayed in shape, continuing her rock-climbing routine, and the one thing she could count on was a grip-strength well beyond that of a normal person.

  She held her breath as the acrid fumes surrounding the thing grew stronger. She heard it sniffing along the floor, obviously tracking her footprints.

  She lifted her knife arm higher.

  “Hey!” Zach appeared in the doorway and threw something that shattered near the creature. He then darted away, and the monstrous bat immediately turned to follow. Emma launched herself from her hiding space and buried the blade between its bony shoulder blades. The knife sunk in a good four inches, but the bat turned and the hardened blade snapped in half, leaving its tip behind.

  It swept an arm back, knocking her off her feet, but she was up and sprinting hard while the thing skittered and jumped, trying to dislodge the piece of blade still in its back.

  Emma rounded the corner and saw Zach at the basement door, holding it half ajar—his teeth were bared and his eyes were as wide as she’d ever seen them. She could tell by the way his eyes moved from her to just behind her that the thing was bearing down on her.

  “Move!” she yelled.

  He stood aside and she dived. In a single motion, he slammed the door, just as a huge weight crashed against it.

  Emma rolled onto her back and placed her feet against the door. She didn’t really need to as the solid steel was designed to keep the monsters out—she just didn’t know it until then.

  She turned to face Zach, still breathing like a steam train. “Desmos, huh?”

  He nodded slowly. “Did you have one of your forget-about-things times again?”

  She nodded and smiled.

  He came and hugged her. “I’ll remember for you.”

  “Thank you.” She returned the hug, and then held him back so she could talk to him. “How did they get so big?”

  “They’ve always been that big.” He seemed to get it then. “Oh, you don’t know. Well, Mr. Abernathy, our science teacher, said they used to feed on big animals like the land whales, but…”

  “Land whales?” Emma lifted her head for a moment before easing it back down. “Save it for another time.”

  Zach nodded, “…they used to feed on big animals like the land whales, but when they all died out, they started looking for other things to eat.”

  “Like us.” She snorted softly.

  “Yeah.” He shrugged. “They can have the night, and we can have the day. Works out okay.” He waggled a finger at her, grinning. “As the saying goes: you’ll be able to sleep at night, as long as your windows and doors are locked nice and tight.”

  “That’s good advice.” She let her head rest on the concrete and knew then that this was not their world anymore. She shut her eyes and breathed deeply. “So what comes next?”

  CHAPTER 37

  South America, 52 miles from the Plateau—100 Million Years Ago

  2 days before Primordia

  Andy ran, hard, keeping his head down and arms pumping as he used his slim frame to dart, burrow, and dodge through animal tracks that were little more than tunnels bored through the tangled green maze of the jungle.

  Behind him, the predators closed in—a pack of them, theropods, Austroraptor probably—about 400 pounds each, covered in tiny, shimmering feathers that looked l
ike scales, and with their long hard snouts filled with razor teeth, they seemed like a cross between a bird and an upright alligator.

  They had flushed him out before he could find cover, and he prayed that the jungle stayed as closed in as it was because he knew that if he broke into open territory, he was as good as dead.

  Unfortunately, they were a large raptor species and big and strong enough to bullock their way after him, and their sense of smell meant there’d be no hiding behind any fallen logs.

  Andy had been trying to move as quickly as he could manage back to the plateau in time for the arrival of Primordia, and he stupidly had been breaking all his own rules for survival—travel by night, be quiet, invisible, silent as a ghost, and where possible, coat himself in mud or plant sap.

  Instead, he had taken to wearing strings of vines over himself like a homemade ghillie suit that had worked a treat to break up his outline and also cover his odor. Well, it usually worked.

  But he forgot that the raptors were smart, and learned quickly, and you could only fool them for so long before they worked out what was really happening. He recalled from his paleontological studies that they were probably as smart as dogs—he knew now that wasn’t true at all—they were far smarter than anyone realized, and he guessed he should have been thankful that at least this one species was wiped out during the great Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event or instead of humans, it would have been them as rulers of Earth if evolution had allowed them to progress.

  Andy paused for a split second at a fork in his green tunnel. It was long enough to hear that the lead pursuer could only have been 50 feet at most behind him. He chose, going left, the smaller tunnel, and he crouch-ran as he burrowed onward.

  Then to his horror, he broke cover into bright sunlight and had to sprint hard to cross a small clearing unusually devoid of any plants. Behind him, the Austroraptor broke through as well. Andy’s eyes were wide with panic, as he knew he had never been a sprint champion, and even though he had a head start, he was racing something as fast as a cheetah.

  Andy’s teeth were bared as he concentrated on the opposing wall of jungle, but he could already hear the hissing breath of the carnivore as it must have been craning forward, mouth open, to sink its row of razor teeth into his shoulder.

  And then he was falling.

  Beneath him, there was no more ground, and as Andy fell into space, his mind screamed: sinkhole, way too late, as he had already fallen through the thin layer of vines hiding the deep cavity in the earth.

  He wasn’t the only one, as he heard the massive raptor fall as well.

  Andy splashed down first into the pool of dark, fetid water, followed by the larger eruption as the creature fell in beside him.

  He came to the surface first, tasting brackish, stagnant water, and something sweet like corrupting flesh. He immediately thrashed to the slick rocky shore.

  From above, sunlight streamed down, throwing a halo of light onto the sunken pond. The raptor rose up as well, but was more stunned and confused, as its larger body had undoubtedly struck the bottom of the shallow basin of water.

  Andy seized the moment to clamber higher in the darkness and squeeze himself in between two boulders, trying to wedge himself in as far as the tiny gap would allow.

  The theropod stayed in the middle of the pond, tilting its head to look upward. It began to make a series of short barks, and from high above, it was answered. A number of boxy-looking reptilian heads craned to look down, but its pack could do nothing.

  You’re trapped like me, sucker, Andy thought as his eyes began to better adjust to the gloom.

  Andy quickly looked around to better understand his predicament: they were in some sort of sinkhole pocket. There was a pond of soupy water at its center, and the walls were slick and rising sheer for about 50 feet to then curve in toward a small opening at the top. Depressingly, Andy also saw that there were animal bones lumping the water and around the pond edge—this sinkhole had probably been trapping unwary beasts for thousands of years.

  Turning back to the roof, Andy saw what could have been vines hanging down. He might be able to climb out when the time was right—he looked back down at the pond and at the raptor standing at its center—and if he could survive long enough.

  Above, the raptor pack pulled back and then vanished. The lone creature stuck in the hole with him let out a long hiss that turned to a scream of frustration. It stomped around in the small pound for a few seconds, swung its head to look along the slick walls, and then stopped to stare into the crevice where Andy was hiding.

  Oh shit, he thought and stared back while trying to wedge himself in even tighter. He glanced up at the vines and knew he’d never make it.

  The box-like head began to swing slowly away, when a tiny voice floated up from the bag tied over his shoulder.

  “Is it gone?”

  Andy grimaced and clutched at the bag, squeezing the small pterosaur to silence it as the head swung back to them. The Austroraptor began to move out of the water, its head now craned forward and directly at him.

  Andy quickly looked up again, calculating, but no matter how many options his mind presented him, he knew the reality was there was no way he’d be able to clamber to and then up a vine quickly enough. Plus, the slick walls were impossible to scale, and from what he could make out in the darkness, the cavity they were in was pretty much the size of a double bedroom so he had nowhere else to go—he was royally screwed.

  The raptor took another step toward him, but then suddenly became motionless. It slowly turned its head to the side as if listening. Andy also froze, thinking that the thing was trying to get his bearings again—it had night vision like a cat, hearing far beyond his own, and a sense of smell like a bloodhound. It would eventually ferret him out, no matter how dark it was, or how well he concealed himself.

  But then it slowly turned away, and began to hunch over and hiss into the darkness. Behind the column of light streaming into the center of the sinkhole, Andy thought he heard another sound—a soft noise he could just make out that was like a typewriter’s keys being struck. He eased out a fraction, concentrating his senses.

  The raptor turned again, obviously aware of the sound and probably a smell that was beyond Andy’s senses to detect. Whatever it was, the raptor could hear and smell it, but hadn’t found the source yet.

  Then came the soft zizzing of water as if something was being poured into the stagnant pool.

  “I think we got company,” Andy whispered.

  The theropod stayed in the light with its mouth hanging open, small arms outstretched and shoulders hunched in an attack posture. Andy felt a chill run up his spine as he saw that the fearsome raptor had detected a threat that was even creeping it out.

  Then from the dank water behind the great beast, something began to rise up, higher and higher. It looked like a flattened pipe, and Andy at first thought it was a snake or the long neck of a creature, but that thought was dispelled as sharp legs began to unfurl all along the body, dozens and dozens of them, and then they stretched outward, as if they longed for an embrace.

  It continued to rise, nearly 10 feet and above the theropod. He recognized it now, a centipede, and in the sunlight, its head was a glossy, fire engine red and at its front, a formidable pair of pincers opened about two feet wide.

  Andy knew that right here in this land, in modern times, lived the Scolopendra gigantea, the largest centipede in the world…at that time. It grew to nearly 16 inches long, was venomous, and loved living in caves where it fed off bat colonies.

  But in the Cretaceous, there lived its ancestors, evolving from the mighty arthropleura, an eight-foot-long segmented insect of the Permian Period. Andy didn’t need to be told that this thing was a hunter and they had both fallen right into its killing ground.

  The theropod must have become aware of the centipede as it spun, but faster than it could react, the massive arthropod darted forward, fixing its wickedly sharp pincers into the Austroraptor�
��s neck and then its body wrapping around like segmented tape to then allow its sharp legs to hook into the flesh.

  The raptor screamed with a noise that made Andy want to cover his ears, and he wasn’t sure if the thing was injecting venom, or who would win, as he couldn’t look away.

  “Now, Andy, now, now!” a voice screamed at him from within his bag.

  Andy didn’t need to be told twice. If he didn’t get out, then he’d be the next thing being filled full of prehistoric venom and devoured slowly in this miasmic sinkhole.

  He ran along the pond edge and reached the first vine, grabbed it, and tugged.

  “Nope.”

  It broke free and fell down heavily to the cave floor. The sounds of battle continued and he quickly glanced back to the pond. He saw that another long and flattened body had risen up in the dark water.

  “Crap, there’s more.”

  He tried again.

  “Shit.”

  Same result, and the next as well. Andy started to feel giddy from fear and refused to look back to the water now, even though the sounds of thrashing had ended as the battle had been decided.

  He tried again and finally found one that supported his weight and began to clamber upward.

  He didn’t stop climbing, arm over arm, for once thanking his meager diet for shrinking his body weight. Nearing the surface, he felt the vine begin to stretch and then jiggle. He chanced another look back and to his horror saw the blood-red head of one of the massive centipedes coming up the vine after him.

  He whimpered and felt his hands and arms go weak from fear for a split second. In his mind, he could imagine the large pincers closing on his bony ankles and then dragging him back down into the darkness.

  Fear then gave him a shot of adrenaline-fueled energy that made him cover the last 15 or so feet in seconds. He poked his head above the surface, didn’t even bother looking for the raptor pack, rolled to the ground, got to his feet, and sprinted into the jungle.