Chess and Francis were just behind a few paces back, and then came Shawna and Nicolás, who was once again carrying much of the blonde merc’s pack. He didn’t care anymore, and frankly, right now he’d prefer one of the mercs to be hands-free rather than the kid.
Ben held up a hand and the team halted. A few moments back, the jungle had fallen silent and Ben half turned, pointed to his eyes, and then to the foliage. Every single one of them looked from one side to the other and then also overhead.
Ben looked for odd shapes, eyes, or anything unusual, but he knew that the things that hunted in this primordial place had evolved millions of years of natural camouflaging abilities that rendered them near invisible.
“You think we got company?” Drake whispered.
“Yep, and the jungle thinks so too,” Ben replied.
“Can’t see a damn thing,” Chess hissed. “You’ve stopped us in a freaking kill-box, Cartwright — walls all around. Keep moving until we find some open space.”
Ben turned to the pathway ahead. They’d been moving along some sort of animal track, but it was impossible to know if it opened out further along, and in fact, to him it looked to close in even more just up ahead of them.
“Captain Cartwright?” Francis’ deep voice sounded apprehensive and the big man was looking above them. “You think it might be those tinyboa monsters?”
“Don’t know,” Ben said. “But something is out there.”
“There’s nothing.” Chess eased forward, held the muzzle of his gun out, and used it to part the curtain of hanging vines in front of them. At about waist level, hanging just inside the dark green hole he had just opened, he exposed a boxy head with ruby red eyes and a weird grin full of needle teeth.
“Jesus.” He dropped the vines and went to aim his weapon as the jungle exploded around them.
“Troodon!” Helen yelled.
One of the small dinosaurs flew from the jungle to land on Chess’ front. Even though the big man was more than twice as heavy as the 100-pound creature, it knocked him backward. Other Troodon swarmed from the jungle walls, and a small group broke away and headed straight for Helen.
Perhaps it was the smell of blood, or due to her being a smaller target, but in the blink of an eye, they’d knocked her down and began to drag her away.
Drake lifted his gun and blew a hole in one of them, as the remaining few dragged the woman down the path. Drake sprinted after them, firing as he went.
Ben and Francis set off after them as well, as their world became filled with clicks, squeaks, and hissing, as well as yells of furious human beings and the blasts of shotguns.
Strangely, no Troodon followed them, and as Ben, Drake, and Francis closed in on Helen, and just as Ben raised his gun to fire, the creatures dragging the woman dropped her, peeled off left and right, and immediately vanished.
Drake was first to Helen who lay flat for a moment, her clothing shredded where they hung onto her. From well back now, they still heard Chess yelling, the booms of shotgun blasts and the hellish squeals of the Troodon making for a madhouse cacophony.
“Keep watch,” Ben said to the towering Francis, who immediately swung to scan the jungle while keeping his gun in tight at his shoulder. Ben knelt beside Drake and Helen. “How is she?”
“She’s okay.” Helen groaned and sat up. “I hate this damned place.” She grimaced as she pulled her tattered shirt closed and then checked a wound on her upper arm.
Drake quickly set to patching her up as the sounds from behind them gradually began to fade away.
“Let’s get back,” Ben said, trying to see back down the track.
He and Drake helped Helen along as Francis gave them cover. In just a few minutes, they rejoined a very bloody and battered Chess, plus Shawna breathing hard, bleeding from multiple wounds and looking like she just fell out of a moving car. Dead Troodon littered the ground everywhere. Ben counted about 10.
Shawna stared. “Hey.” Her brows knitted. “Where the fuck is Nicky?”
“What?” Ben spun to her. “He was here.”
“Ah, bullshit, man. I thought he went with you,” the brawny woman said.
“For fuck’s sake.” Ben ran a hand up through his hair. “Spread out.”
“They took him?” Shawna said softly. “They took my little Nicky?” She turned slowly and it told Ben they had no idea even which way they’d taken him.
Nicolás skidded and slid as he was dragged through the jungle. He felt like he had nails driven into his flesh as talons dug into his skin and leathery hands gripped him by the arms, clothing, hair, and legs.
He looked up, and one of them turned to stare down at him — large front-facing red eyes that belonged on the devil itself, set in an intelligent pebbled face that had black and white downy feathers starting at the neck. It grinned at him with blood covering its lips, and he couldn’t tell whether it looked more like a large bird or a lizard.
The two creatures continued to stare at each other, and Nicolás could see that between its eyes was a distinctive v-pattern of scales or horns that gave it a heavy-browed look and also made it seem like it was scowling at him.
But there was clear intelligence there, and he wondered if he might be able to communicate. He bounced as he was dragged over a rock, and it caused a talon to dig painfully deep in his arm.
“Stop!”
He tried to pull away and writhed hard, trying to at least slow them down a little.
“Stop, please.”
They were traveling so fast, he knew his friends would never be able to keep up, and soon, they’d never even be able to find him. What would happen then? he wondered.
As if in response, a set of jaws like a bear trap lunged at the side of his face and ripped his left ear completely away. The pain was excruciating and he didn’t need to look to know that his ear was greedily gobbled down.
He knew then what would happen to him.
“Please, no,” he begged insanely.
The things, the Troodon, Helen had called them, clicked and squealed excitedly to each other, and he was aware they were communicating.
They then burst through into a clearing, and Nicolás immediately recognized where he was — there were obliterated egg nests, fragments of shell, and glistening yolk everywhere.
“I didn’t do this,” he pleaded.
The Troodon pack started to nip at him, but a sound like a barking cough from one of them caused them to stop. He was then held as the largest creature leaned in close to sniff at him, especially where the blood ran down from the side of his mutilated face.
“It wasn’t me.”
He began to cry, as what he assumed was their pack leader brought its face even closer to his. It sniffed him, and the red eyes never blinked as they looked deep into his own eyes and began to examine him. It lifted one scaly, demonic-looking hand that had three fingers and another that acted like a thumb and hooked it into his shirtfront. It peeled downward, ripping it open and exposing his chest and stomach.
“I have food bars.” Nicolás began to urinate from fear and the smell seemed to excite the pack even more. He threw his head back. “Help.” He gulped air, feeling he was going to be sick. “He-eeelp!”
It was hopeless, he knew it, and he finally lowered his head. “I’m sorry.”