Another scream boomed out from overhead but was lost amid a rolling peal of thunder.
“Shit, a doorway to Hell, you said?” Shawna looked up toward the top of the plateau where the purple-black clouds were spinning like the center of a small hurricane.
“Consider it an echo,” Ben said. “From a long, long time ago.” He turned to her. “What, you thought I was making it all up?”
Shawna hiked her shoulders and then turned back to the plateau.
“Okay, let’s go.” Ben led them on.
The ground now sloped upward, and the jungle opened out a little. The trees began to look more alien, exactly as Ben remembered — possibly hybridized from the seed drift from above, or for all he knew now, entire new species that had evolved through their messing around in the past.
Several more times, the light had blinked out, and each time it stayed dark for a little longer. After one of the times, Chess had yanked him harshly back, and Ben spun to find the lead mercenary putting a finger to his lips and then pointing to a place just up ahead of them.
“Cryptis,” he whispered. “Bad news.”
What? Ben mouthed as Drake and Helen bunched up behind him. He spotted movement and squinted to see through the falling rain. Some sort of creature fossicked on the ground, sinuous and many-legged. It was covered in chitinous scales, and looked like a three-foot centipede, but had long back legs like a grasshopper. But it was out front that the nightmare really began — pincers longer than his fingers and blood red.
“Poisonous,” Chess said softly. “And very fucking aggressive.” He tugged on Ben again. “And there’s usually more in the nest. We go around.”
Ben nodded and backed up, thankful the falling rain was masking their retreat.
After another half hour, they reached the base of the plateau and Ben finally pointed to a small open space.
“We do an equipment check. Anything we don’t need we leave here. From now on, we travel fast and light.”
The group set to dropping packs and arming up — weapons were slung on bodies and placed in sheaths, holsters, and pouches. Food was only a single canteen and a few protein bars.
Drake, Ben, and the mercenaries were like drilled machines as they went over their gear. Helen carefully added and removed items, and Nicolás frowned as he checked much of his equipment pile.
“It’s dead.” Nicolás held out a small black box. “This ionization meter; it was fully charged when I left, but it’s telling me that the battery is now fully drained.”
“You heard that bit about magnetic interference, right?” Drake kept reloading his now lighter pack. “Like an EMP wave — knocks everything out and will stay out for the next 24 hours.”
“He’s right,” Ben said. “So leave it here, as it won’t miraculously start working if you lug it all the way to the top.”
“But… ” Nicolás shook his head. “I need it.”
Ben stopped what he was doing. “No, you need working equipment. You don’t need dead weight. I cannot impress on you the need to be able to travel fast, silently, and lightly as can be.” He stared. “Doing otherwise will get you dead.”
“Or worse, maybe get us dead,” Drake added.
Ben sat with his back to a tree and pushed his hat forward to give him some cover from the warm rain. “And now, smoke ‘em if you got em.” He pulled out one of his protein bars and ripped open the foil cover.
High above them came a long bellow that continued on for several seconds before being abruptly cut off. Ben chewed mechanically, knowing exactly what it was: the world of tooth and claw was waking up — and it was hungry.
CHAPTER 36
Emma froze, coffee cup gripped in one hand, as the lights went out, leaving her in a blackness that was deeper than the void of space. She wasn’t even sure if she breathed, but this one seemed to go on and on, and by the time she tried to bring her senses to bear on it, it was over.
When the light came back, the first thing she did was race to the window. The sun was getting ready to go down and evening’s dusk was only about an hour away when the blackout had occurred. Nothing had changed about the sunset. But that was about all that was the same.
Her back straightened as she stared. The rolling, dry plains and weird herds of savannah-like beasts that were there only minutes ago were now gone. In their place were colossal trees that each spread over hundreds of feet. They could have been fig trees except for the massive branches hung with basketball-sized fruits like blaring red melons.
Birds swooped from branch to branch; and further in, she could just make out movement at their bases and in their canopies. But the twilight shadows were too deep for her to see clearly what was in there.
The one thing she had learned was that with every change, there came potential new dangers. It was like evolution was trying out different things, showing them all the paths it could have taken with minuscule adjustments along the way. And because she was outside of the changes, she had no idea, no education, nor life experience on how to deal with them.
She picked up the phone. Her neighbors Frank and Allie were good sources of information, so she called them.
The phone rang out, which was strange given the time. They were a few years older than she and Ben and given it was midweek, she doubted they had a dinner date.
She hung up and dialed them again — same result. Emma put the phone down slowly as she continued to stare out the large window toward the massive tree forest. Should she go visit them? She’d been meaning to try and patch things up ever since Ben had been over there demanding their dog back — that she now knew never existed.
She’d spoken to them a few times, but though cordial, there had been strain between their households now. Might be a good idea to get Zach and herself out of the house for an hour or two anyway. She had been going crazy being stuck at home doing nothing but worrying about Ben, and every minute now seemed an eternity. She craved activity, and she knew that Zach needed it as well.
“Zach,” she called. “We’re going for a drive.”
“Aww, why?” From somewhere deeper in the house.
She smiled. Here we go again, she thought and grabbed her coat and the car keys and headed for the door, pausing at the bottom of the steps.
“Come on, Zachy, we’re just going to visit Frank and Allie next door.”
The groan managed to contain every atom of indignation a six-year-old boy could muster, and she smiled as she put her coffee cup down on the edge of the table and went to pull open the front door. She was immediately assailed by the new odors of spoiling fruit, plant sap, and rich forest soil.
She exhaled long and slow as she stared — rolling English countryside green hills, to Serengeti plains, and now some sort of giant tree forest. The evolutionary changes are rolling forward faster and faster, she thought. It reminded her of those multiple drawings done on the edge of paper, each one slightly different, and when you flicked through them, it made them move faster and faster. It seemed that evolution was in a hurry and speeding to catch up. But to what?
She heard Zach rumble on the steps — but from down in the basement, not from his room upstairs.
“Mum, are you mad?” he asked, his features twisted. “Shut the door.”
“What?” Emma frowned.
He pointed past her, his eyes wide. “Shut the door, shut the door.”
Emma was confused to the point of inaction, and her son ran to her, grabbed her arm, dragging her back inside, and then gently closed the door.
“We shouldn’t even be up here now. You know that.” He pointed to the window. “Aw, Mom, you haven’t even closed the shutters.”