Beside him, there was a small shrub with simple bell-like flowers, and within them a few insects that looked like flies moved from flower bell to flower bell. He’d seen them before, and after his time in the primordial jungle, he had researched them when he got home — he had learned they were primitive bees, and he remembered Helen telling him that insects had been around longer than most other creatures on earth, but bees evolved around the Cretaceous in response to the flowering plants.
If you build it, they will come. He smiled as he continued to watch the tiny bees. Who came first? he wondered. You for the flowers, or the flowers for you?
Ben sighed. Evolution was crafty. It watched and then acted — if something was beneficial to the survival of a species then it was grabbed, amplified, and replicated. And if it wasn’t, well, nature was also brutally fast in her rejection.
Unless something intervened to accelerate or hinder that rejection, he thought, and continued to watch the bees. These tiny creatures had proved to be enormously important to the modern world, and for all he knew, this very hive was one of the keystone species. If it was wiped out when it was supposed to survive, then potentially everything changes.
He continued to stare. A small change today can change our tomorrow. A small change 100 million years ago can change everything, he thought.
Can’t let that happen, he resolved and slowly stood. “Because that’s why we’re here,” he said to the small bees.
Chess watched the group from upon high. Time was moving on, and frankly, he couldn’t give a shit whether they found this Andy guy or not. Either way, he got paid.
Shitty luck about Buster and the kid, but he was damned sure it wasn’t going to happen to him.
His lips turned up in a cruel smile. If he had to take bets on who would be next, he’d give short odds to it being the wounded woman, Helen. He bet by now she must smell like fresh meat with all those cuts all over her body. It was the reason he never walked too close to her.
Chess rubbed his chin, watching them. Or maybe it’d be Francis, or even Drake or Ben, as all three of them seemed willing to jump into the fire if they felt it was needed. Heroes die first, ladies and gentlemen. He grinned down at them.
His eyes settled on Ben. He’d love to see that asshole buy it. And if he didn’t think it would cause him a problem getting his money, he’d gut him when no one was looking and leave him to bleed out in this godforsaken shit hole.
Just a little longer, he thought. You can hold it in until then, Chessy Boy.
Chess then carefully reached into a pocket and pulled out a small string bag of tobacco. Papers and a few striking matches were also tucked inside. He kept an eye on Drake and Ben Cartwright as he bet they’d blow a gasket if they saw him lighting up.
He snorted. He did say light ‘em if you got ‘em, and no one complained, so…
He rolled the small cigarette, twisted the edges, and stuck it in his mouth. By the time they smelled it, if they smelled it, he’d have stubbed it out — just a couple of red-hot draws, and he’d be all good.
He lit the match between his thumb and fingernail and held it to the end. It glowed orange, and he sucked in the sweet smoke. He let it drift out from between his lips.
“Ah-hhh.”
He dragged on the slim cigarette again, hard, taking the smoke in deep and feeling the burn all the way down to the bottom of his lungs. He hissed the smoke out, trying to spread it, and then pinched off the glowing tip and flicked it away — no mess, no trouble, and no one was the wiser.
That was better, he thought, and drew the string tight on the tobacco bag, then began swinging it around his finger. Chess sniffed — the smoke had already dissipated, but… he lifted his chin to sniff again. There was something new, something that smelled a little like cat’s piss.
His brows came together and he first sniffed under one of his arms. Then he turned. The small bag of tobacco stopped spinning in his finger as he stared into the face of the devil himself. Right behind him hung a four-foot-wide diamond-shaped head, with two large glassy eyes on each side. The scales were a mix of brown and green and looked like heavy armor plating, but it was impossible to tell exactly how big it was, as the snake trailed away into the trees well beyond his vision.
“Gah.” His brain tried to initiate a call for help, but his tongue and lips refused to translate it into anything coherent as cold fear short-circuited his lower face.
Those eyes; they hypnotized him, held him frozen as the monster stared deep inside him to the bottom of his soul. The tiny bag fell from his hand.
Then it struck.
Ben sniffed, smelling the cigarette smoke. That asshole, he thought as his anger began to rise. He turned to where Chess had been perched, about to tear the guy a new one for smoking, but saw that the rock he had been on was now empty.
“Hey.” He turned about. “Shawna, where’d Chess go?”
The female merc lifted her head from her reverie and looked quickly up at the rock perch and then shrugged. “Probably takin’ a leak.”
“Jesus wept.” Ben seethed. Nobody, but nobody, was supposed to be going anywhere by themselves without telling anyone.
“Ben.”
He turned. Helen was now back on her feet and standing with Drake. She waved him closer.
“That smell,” she said, and her face was bleached of color.
“Yeah, that asshole Chess was probably smoking. Might be okay, as the smell of burning shouldn’t… ”
“No, no, not that,” Helen said. She sniffed again. “Like the smell of the reptile room.”
Just the woman saying it made Ben’s heart rate kick up a notch. “Oh shit.” He spun, gun up. “Heads up, people, I think we got company.” Ben backed up.
“Wazzup?” Shawna, sensing the alert, leapt to her feet and also pulled her rifle from over her shoulder.
Francis planted trunk-like legs and swept his gun barrel over the foliage. “I got nothin’ here.”
“Holy fuck, in the trees.” Shawna’s eyes were so wide they threatened to pop the eyeballs from her head.
Ben looked to where she was pointing, and at first saw nothing but thick leaves, branches, and the wider tree canopy, so effectively had the monster concealed itself.
It was the jungle boots that he found first. Just up and to the left, a massive snake hung in the boughs of the tree. Sticking from its maw were two legs, and horrifyingly, they watched the legs kick, showing their owner was still alive. Then, the peristaltic motions of its throat drew them down into the gullet. Ben didn’t need to be a genius to know whose legs they were.
“There’s another one,” Drake said from behind him.
Sure enough, staying still as a statue, another snake hung in the trees. Its weight even caused the titanic boughs to bend downward. If they could spot two, how many more were there? Ben wondered.
It was too late for Chess, but he’d be damned if they’d lose anyone else. Fight or die, it was all they had. He racked his gun.
“Take ‘em down.”
Gunfire erupted from rifles, shotguns, and even Helen’s handgun. Then came the thunderous booms as Drake and Ben had now racked in the explosive Raufoss rounds. Helen had her teeth gritted, held her handgun in a two-handed grip, and fired continually up into the trees.