She looked across to them — Ajax noticed her looking and nodded with a smirk. Andy and Helen continued to place things in tiny sample bags, and Camilla still looked like she was suffering from post-traumatic stress.
But it was Juan that worried her — she wanted him gone. The guy would be an anchor soon, doing nothing but slowing them down. She hated herself for being so mercenary. But I’m different now, she knew.
She narrowed her eyes as she stared at him. The man was still lying flat out, but oddly his body jerked and jumped as though he was having a restless sleep… very restless. He had to be bone tired, and his fever would have sapped any remaining energy, but the ground he was on was muddy and damp and can’t have been that comfortable.
As she continued to watch, she saw that the soil under him seemed to have been churned, no, was churning. Then to her horror, something eased up from the earth, just below his thigh, at first looking like a long rubbery penis before two long pincer-like limbs opened from the end and clamped onto his flesh, dug deep, and then tugged the muscle downward toward the soil.
“Juan?” Her mouth worked as she stared, her eyes now wide.
Another revolting pipe came up from the soil, affixed to the man with its pincers, and started to burrow into his flesh.
“Juan! Get him up, get him up!” Her voice was loud enough to snap everyone’s head around, to first her, then to the cameraman. Even Camilla was roused from her zombie-like trance.
Drake and Fergus were at the man in an instant and each grabbed an arm and tugged — but he wouldn’t budge. Both the Special Forces guys were hugely muscled, and though Juan was overweight, they still would have outweighed him by 20 pounds each.
They tugged again and heaved. The man came forward, and Camilla screamed. Like hoses, there were several blood-red pipes extruding from his body. Emma’s first thought was his organs had somehow spilled from his back.
“Jesus; there’s something stuck to him!” Fergus yelled.
Then she saw those two hooks, or claws, or teeth, or whatever the hell they were hanging on, so the thing’s head could remain attached and eat at his flesh like a lamprey.
And then the nightmare began — the grotesque worms fought back and tried to drag Juan back down. They wanted him close to the ground so they could continue their feast in private.
Ajax leaped forward and unloaded a dozen rounds into the soil underneath him. Immediately, the worms disengaged and snapped back below the earth like a man slurps up strands of spaghetti. Fergus and Drake quickly dragged Juan away, but his head lolled forward loosely onto his chest.
“Lay him down,” Helen said. “On his stomach.”
“What the hell were they?” Emma demanded.
The men laid Juan down and ripped open his shirt. There were circular holes in his body and several on his wounded arm that probably attracted the revolting things in the first place.
“They were feeding off him,” Emma observed. “They’re below us.” She turned in time to see a rubbery head emerge from the soil where there was a splash of the Venezuelan man’s blood. “There.” The pincers opened, and the head was exposed — the thing was little more than a mouth on the end of a long muscular pipe.
Ajax fired again, and the thing vanished.
“If I had to guess, Websteroprion armstrongi, from the polychaete family, I think.” Andy stared, his eyes going from the soil to Juan’s wounds.
“They’re a very ancient species of giant bristle worm, what’ve been around since the Paleozoic, 500 million years, give or take. They were scavengers, but because of their size, we think they could have been opportunistic hunters.”
“Well, consider that fucking theory confirmed,” Ajax spat.
“Yes, yes,” Andy said distractedly. “Fossil records had them at ten feet long. But they could have grown bigger. We’ve found evidence of them from oceans to swamps — basically, places like this.”
Helen looked up at them. Her hands were red to the wrists, and she had patches of bandage over a dozen places on his back, arms, and legs. The man groaned and his eyes were rolled back.
“He’s lost a lot of blood. Too much blood,” she agonized.
“He’s fucked,” Ajax said.
“Don’t say that.” Camilla glared at the young soldier, but her eyes now looked haunted and dark shadows circled them.
Ajax just smirked. “Oh, okay, he’s fine. My bad.”
Drake rested on his haunches beside Helen and rubbed both hands up over his face He exhaled. “Chances?”
She wiped her hands. “Without a transfusion? Plus, his body was already weakened from whatever infection he got from the pterodon bite?” She shook her head. “One, maybe two out of ten if he gets care in the next twenty-four hours. Zero out of ten if he doesn’t.”
Ajax laughed. “Darling, do you remember where we are? Even if we got him down off this prehistoric hell, somehow, we’re still smack in the center of the biggest jungle on the planet.”
“Lighten up.” Drake glared up at his man before turning back to Helen, and then fixing his eyes on Camilla. “I don’t like his chances, but don’t worry, no one is going to get left behind.”
Camilla pressed her hands together. “Thank you.”
Emma walked a few paces away, letting her mind run. She turned. “Drake, got a minute?”
He stood, brushed his hands off, and joined her. “What’s up?”
Emma faced away from the group. “The blood.”
He sighed. “Yeah, yeah, I know.”
She faced him. “No, you don’t. Maybe you’re starting to get it, but blood draws the hunters. And there are things here from your worst nightmares.”
“I know what you’re saying, what you want, and I won’t do it.” He looked at her from under lowered brows. “If it was you injured like that, would you want me to dump your ass?”
She didn’t blink. “Yes.” She walked in even closer to him. “Juan’s already dead. We drag his blood-soaked body with us, and he will cause more of us to die with him.” She motioned back to the group. “Look.”
Drake turned for a moment before facing her again. He folded his arms.
She continued to stare hard at the Special Forces soldier. “Which ones are you willing to sacrifice? Because I’ll tell you right now, one or more of them will be killed, probably badly, if we bring him with us. Like Ajax said; he’s fucked.”
Drake shook his head, baring his teeth. “You are one ice cold bitch, lady.”
“No, I’m someone willing to put the group over the individual.” She stood her ground.
“We’re leaving,” he said evenly.
She nodded. “I know you are. I won’t try and stop you.”
He exhaled and ran a hand up through his hair. “Jesus, Emma. Come on. You know in your heart that Ben can’t possibly be alive. Don’t goddamn sacrifice yourself.”
“That’s not my plan. I’m just going to do what I came here to do. What I’ve waited ten years to do.” She grabbed his wide shoulders and stared into his eyes. “And in my heart, I know he’s alive. I have zero doubt of that.”
“You’re crazy brave, or just plain crazy.” He hugged her, stood back, and gave her a small salute. “Good luck, and may God walk with you.” He turned and rejoined the group.
PART 3 — THE PAST IS THE FUTURE
“Any truth is better than indefinite doubt”
CHAPTER 30
Emma watched them go with a feeling of resignation and relief. And for the first time, she felt something else that she loathed: self-doubt.
Fergus drew the short straw and had the near comatose Juan hanging from his side. Andy was on the other side, but the soldier basically carried the weight, and Andy was just there for balance.
Their plan was to head back to the temple, and maybe fight their way in, or hope they could somehow evict the occupants. She really hoped they were successful, and not just for the wellbeing of her colleagues. But also because when she found Ben, that’s where she’d be heading, and if time was short, she wanted to be able to make their way straight to the base of the tepui before the doorway snapped shut again.
Emma walked a few paces toward the edge of the clearing and stared in the direction of the plateau edge. She inhaled, smelling the damp green, the sap, rotting earth, and leaf detritus. There was also the oddly sweet smell of weird blooms, and a unique muskiness she knew came from dinosaur shit.
She checked her sidearm and took a sip from her canteen. Emma took a look at her watch, an old wind-up analog Seiko with a crystal face and demagnetized steel casing that she knew would keep running no matter what the comet threw at them.
It was 5pm; time was growing short. She was now alone, but knew in her heart that this was how it was always going to end up. She gritted her teeth and headed in.