Andy ducked down, but the flaring green night goggles didn’t help. He looked over his shoulder at the still-talking pair. One or two seconds of real light couldn’t hurt, he thought.
He lifted his goggles away from his face and pulled out his slim flashlight and moved in closer. He still wore gloves and so had no qualms about touching the thing.
He reached out for it and flicked on his light just as he grabbed the bulbous sack and lifted it toward himself, planning on shining his light inside the hole.
Immediately, there was a reaction — the sack compressed and exhaled exactly like a lung with a sound like an old man wheezing. The particle dust or whatever it was blew outward with some force and covered Andy’s mouth, nose, and both of his eyes.
Then the excruciating pain set in.
“Jesus… ” He dropped his light and backed away. “Ouch, ouch.” He rubbed at them, shaking his head. “Drake.”
In a second, he felt a strong hand on his arm. “What happened?”
“Thing on the tree, farted on me. Spores, I think.” He grimaced. “It’s in my eyes. Stings like hell.”
“Stay still,” Emma said.
Andy felt hands on his head, tilting it back.
“Open your eyes,” she said forcefully.
He did as he was told. He could see nothing, but felt warm water being poured over his face. He immediately felt relief from the pain, but his vision stayed blurred.
“How’s that?” she asked.
“Better.” He blinked. “But still can’t see a damn thing.” He cleared his throat and spat. “Must have been like some sort of puffball fungus. Covered me.”
“Anyone else remember being told not to touch anything?” Drake said with little humor.
Andy still hung onto him. “Yeah, but I’m a scientist. I know what I’m doing.”
Drake chuckled. “Yeah, I can see that now. But in reality, you’re now disabled, in a prehistoric jungle, at night. Great timing, son.”
“Leave me,” Andy said, feeling dumb and resentful at the same time. “Pick me up me on the way back.”
Emma shrugged. “Okay… ”
“No.” Drake cut across Emma, glaring at her. “How long would he, or you, stay alive in this jungle if you were blind?”
Emma just crossed her arms and looked at him from under her brows. Drake turned to Andy. “Take off your belt.”
“Huh? Why?” the paleontologist asked.
“Do it, quickly,” Drake said. “I’m going to have to put you on a lead. When I say duck, you duck. When I say left or right, you do as I say. You’ll need to use senses besides your eyes until your vision comes back. Got it?”
“Sure, sure,” Andy said, still feeling guilty for putting this extra burden on Drake, but relieved he wasn’t staying behind.
Drake took the belt and looped one end around the back of his own belt. The other end he tied around Andy’s wrist.
“There.” He turned to Emma. “Okay, let’s do this. In two hours, if we don’t find anything, we head back.”
“Two hours.” Emma simply turned away, moving in the direction she expected was the plateau edge, and Ben.
Emma felt her anger and impatience begging to burn within her. She had the germ of a feeling that kept trying to grow within her about going home with no Ben. The comet, Primordia, would leave, the wettest season would end, and the portal, gateway, or whatever it was, would close again for another 10 years.
Did she have the drive to try again in another decade? Would Ben even be alive? Was he even alive now?
Fuck it, she spat into the darkness.
They had to cross over a fissure in the landscape. It was only about seven feet wide, but a good 20 deep and it narrowed at the bottom. Hopefully, there was a fallen tree over it for them to ease across.
They reentered another stand of ancient pine trees, and she accidentally kicked a cone the size of a small football, the heavy seedpod hurting her toes and then lifting off and bouncing away. It threw up twigs as it bounced, and then settled. But after it had stopped, instead of silence returning, there came the soft crack of a branch. But about 50 feet further in.
Emma raised an arm and held her position. Then she felt a hand alight on her shoulder. “We got a problem.” Drake kept his voice soft and calm.
Emma froze, just letting her eyes move over the primordial landscape. The clouds opened a little, throwing down a few more slivers of moonlight, and the black-on-blackness of the night jungle forest was illuminated enough to make out shapes.
There were endless trunks of the massive primitive pines, standing thick and mighty and seeming to reach the sky. But in amongst them, there was another shape — just as mighty — but this one had a large boxy head the size of an SUV, an upright stance, and colossal legs of raw power.
Emma felt her stomach flip. The creature also seemed frozen, and if she wasn’t where she was, she might have believed it was some sort of giant mockup, and they were at a fun park looking at a Disney model.
But it was real, and the only reason it was rooted to the spot, was that perhaps their non-movement had meant its eyesight built for tracking moving prey had temporarily lost them.
“What is it?” Andy whispered from behind them.
Without turning, Drake gently shushed him, and then leaned ever so gently back toward Emma.
“We can’t outrun that monster over open ground. If it attacks, we need to get somewhere it can’t follow.”
“Yep,” she whispered back. By the look of the carnivore’s size, it must have been the Giganotosaurus that they had seen previously. It was larger than a T-rex and one of the biggest theropod carnivores to have ever lived.
Emma tried to keep her eyes on the massive beast while talking to both men. “Remember that crack in the ground we passed over a while back? Think we can make it?”
“Maybe deep enough. And we’ll damn well die trying,” Drake said. “We’re gonna have to run for it. I’ll let Andy know the plan.”
She heard him whispering, and then she saw the massive creature take a careful step. The way it eased its foot forward, bird-like, and then placed it gently down in front of it, it told her it was beginning its stalking… of them.
“It knows we’re here,” she said. Emma looked at the coiled power of the thing and started to doubt they could stay in front of it.
“On the count of three, we’re gonna go for it,” Drake said.
“Wait,” she said. “Need a diversion.” She reached for one of her flares and held it for a moment in her hand.
“Now count.”
Drake began. “3, 2… ”
She punched the flare down on her thigh, and it immediately turned their jungle a brilliant red. The Giganotosaurus bellowed, and the sound was a physical force that battered their senses and made Emma’s heart race. It charged, and the ground shook beneath them.
“1!” Drake grabbed Andy and they ran for their lives.
Emma tossed the flare at the thing as it bore down on them. She didn’t wait to see if it struck, but the sound of trees being pushed aside, thumping footfalls, and thunderous roars, ceased for a moment. Even if the flare only gave them seconds, it might just be enough.
She ran almost blindly, praying she was heading back to the crack in the Earth. She also hoped it was as deep as she first thought. Up ahead and just to her right, she could just make out Drake dragging Andy along, trying to guide the young scientist around, over, and under obstacles. He fell, and Drake roughly dragged him back to his feet.
Behind her, the ground-shaking pursuit started again. The flare was still burning as the glow still emanated from behind her, but it had obviously lost the attention of the huge meat-eater.