“You got it.” The pair waded ahead.
Ben then turned to Shawna. “Keep your eyes open. And don’t shoot anyone.”
In another hour, they finally managed to find the end of the swamp and Drake and Nicolás carried Helen up onto a dry bank.
“Keep watch,” Ben ordered the mercenaries.
The female merc’s jaws ground together for a second, but the three did as they were asked.
Drake opened her shirt, and Helen sucked in air. The lacerations were mainly in two half-moons on both sides of her body where the thing had grabbed hold of her.
“Take it off,” Ben asked.
“Huh?” Helen frowned through her pain.
“The shirt; its soaked in blood and I need to try and rinse it out.” He held out his hand.
“Oh.” She let Drake help her peel out of the red and brown-streaked top, and Drake then tossed it to Ben.
He went to the bank, took one last look out at the water, and then dipped it in, rinsing and wringing it several times to flush it out. It came out covered in fine silt, but at least much of the blood odor would be gone.
Ben dunked it one last time and held it out. He began to brush the slime from it and saw the wriggling creatures dotting it — they looked like tiny crustaceans, like isopods, and he hoped that they weren’t some sort of parasite, as there was no doubt they’d be in Helen’s wounds.
Give us a break, will you? he whispered. He shook the shirt hard, flicking them away.
When he got back, he saw that Drake was wiping out the wounds and squeezing iodine into them. Helen sucked air in and out quickly, as it must have stung like a bitch and probably felt like she was being seared.
“You do know that you’re the only person alive today who was bitten by a prehistoric salamander?” Ben half smiled as he handed her the cleaned shirt.
She started to chuckle, but then pressed a hand to her ribs. “Helen, meet Mr. Mastodonsaurus, and vice versa.” She reached out a hand to Drake. “Did I thank you for not letting me be the only person in history who was taken away to be eaten by a prehistoric salamander?”
He smiled as he worked on her. “Buy me a drink when we get home.”
She squeezed his arm. “You said that last time. Next thing I knew, you had me in bed.”
He shrugged. “What can I say, I’m pretty charming like that.”
Ben cleared his throat. “Nothing like being attacked by a monster to reignite the flame of love.” He looked above them. There was a small break in the tree canopy overhead. “Well, what do you know?” He could just make out the small eyebrow-like streak directly above them. “Primordia,” he whispered. “It’ll probably be at its closest point now.”
“Yep.” Drake followed his eyes. “And that means, it’ll be heading away soon.”
“Yeah.” Ben opened his pack and took out a squat pistol. He cracked it open and loaded a stout brass plug into it. He then aimed for the hole in the branches above them and fired. The plug streaked away and then high above them it exploded in a red star that began to settle slowly toward the earth.
“Time to let our prodigal son know we’re here.” He lowered his arm.
“Come on, Andy,” Helen breathed as she sat up. “Come home, little brother.”
The red flower bloomed high over his head. It seemed so strange, so incongruous, that something so modern could be appearing over a prehistoric jungle. Over his prehistoric jungle.
“Oh wow.” Andy smiled as he said the words. “She came.”
“Gluck.”
He shook his head. “Oh, you told me so, did you?”
Andy tried to plot where the flare had risen. Not that far, he guessed.
As the small red star fell back to Earth, the pale blue sky was left unmarked save for a small eyebrow streak just up and to the left. He continued to stare at the streak that was like a single artist’s brushstroke that seemed to hang there, locked in place. But he knew that the celestial body would be moving at hundreds of miles per second.
“That’s my sister’s ride — she just got dropped off.” He peeked into his bag. “You’ll like her.”
“I know I will; will she like me?”
“Of course she’ll like you.” He grinned and shut the bag.
Before he ventured further, he found a small area of mushy ground and took a few moments to lather on some more mud. He carefully coated every inch of his body, paying attention to his groin and under his arms and anywhere else that his scent was strongest. Though humans didn’t have scent glands, bacteria combined with sweat gave them a distinctive pungent odor. It was this odor that predators homed in on.
He faced the thick jungle, aiming himself toward where he suspected the flare was fired from, and then began to burrow in. He moved through hanging vines and under huge spiked cycad fronds, and also past rice-bubble-spotted tree trunks.
Up on the plateau, the climate was slightly cooler than in the valleys, but it was still damp and humid. It would have been easier going out in the clearings, but the chance of being spotted and run down was too great for the small benefit of drawing some clean air.
Andy estimated he had about a half mile to cover. Any normal place, it’d take him less than an hour. Here, it’d be more like 3 or 4 times that.
His lips moved silently as he burrowed on: “Silence is the key, silence is the key.” And then: “Because the bad things live up here.”
He got down on all fours to slither through a tunnel in the brush, and then slowed. Maybe the bad things are us, he thought, and felt like he’d been struck by a thunderbolt. We’re the bad things.
He crawled on for several more minutes before this time freezing as another thunderbolt struck him.
The Titanoboa fossils were only ever found deep in caves and mines of South America. And he had never encountered them once in his travels anywhere except here.
What if they were more rare than anyone really knew? What if these were the total breeding population that ever existed? What if these were the last?
And then: How many have we killed?
CHAPTER 47
The pair of three-fingered hands slowly pulled the foliage aside to watch the line of bipeds pass by. The pack leader knew they were clumsy, loud, and soft. But they had stingers that sounded like thunder and killed in a blink.
The Troodon pack leader made clicking sounds, and guttural coughs and squeaks, telegraphing the information to its pack. More heads poked through the green wall to watch.
Their hunting party was 20-strong, and they needed meat. They were always successful on their hunts and had many animals to choose from on the plateau. But this day, they had chosen to target the bipeds for another reason — revenge.
Their brood nests had been decimated just as the hatchlings were due to commence. Blood would be had, as well as meat.
The pack leader saw how the line of bipeds was strung out, and how they seemed to tend to the injured member of their group. It decided on a strategy and then pulled back to organize their attack.
Drake, Ben, and Helen led them out. Ben tried to watch everywhere at once as the jungle was thickening and turning into pathways that were more like green tunnels that bored through a near impenetrable green tangle.
Drake helped Helen who was full of painkillers and wrapped in bandages but was so far managing okay. Ben hated that there were blood spots on her shirt and it told him that her wounds were still leaking — open wounds meant blood and that meant the smell of a wounded animal wafting through the jungle to any hungry predators.