Cartwright jumped as a hand alighted on his shoulder.
“Goddamit, Baxter, creeping up on me.” He shrugged it off and turned an indignant glare on his friend.
Douglas Baxter chuckled. “So, you step over giant spiders, alligators, poisonous vines, and sucking bogs, but it’s my hand that makes you jumpy?”
Cartwright grinned and pushed his notebook back into the pouch. “Yeah, well, if it wasn’t raining, after eight weeks without a bath, I should have smelled you creeping up on me.”
“Who needs a bath?” Baxter snorted. “And the only reason we can’t smell each other is because of that stink.”
Cartwright’s face became serious as he looked back out to the jungle. “Some sort of big animal, I guess. Dead leopard, maybe? You tell me, you’re the hunter.”
Baxter straightened and also scanned the dripping jungle. He was the archetypical outdoor’s man and adventurer. He was also a renowned game hunter on several continents, and from a wealthy family — it was his family’s money that was financing their expedition — a grand adventure not to be missed, he had called it.
Baxter sniffed deeply. “Can’t place it, but doesn’t smell like game.” He inhaled again. “More like dead fish.”
Cartwright turned back to the jungle. “Yeah, maybe.” It did smell a little like the ammonia corruption of something washed up on a beach at low tide. He looked over his shoulder. “Pemon won’t be with us much longer.”
Baxter crossed his arms, cradling his Springfield rifle, and glanced over his shoulder to the huddled group of natives. “Yeah, I think you’re right; surprised they hung on this long. My friend, if they turn back, we’re gonna have to make a call on it.” He turned about. “Without our supplies, it’s going to be a long trek back… with little food. There’s no damn game.” He nosed towards the jungle. “Other than whatever that stink is from.”
Cartwright sighed. “According to the maps, we should have found something by now.” He turned about. “We’ll try for another few miles, and see how much longer they stay with us.”
“Works for me.” He shouldered his rifle. “Lead on, sir.”
In another 30 minutes of burrowing through the wet, green caves, the smell had become so strong that the very air around them felt like it was coating them in rank oil. Cartwright started to think it might have been some sort of mass death area, like an elephant’s graveyard or the like. It only made him more interested and determined.
He pushed through the curtain of vines and froze. His second guess was that the thing was of such a great size that it produced the massive amounts of rotten gas. And this turned out to be the correct one, as framed in the green tunnel, the thing was revealed.
The creature was, or had been, enormous. It was a small mountain of decaying, mottled flesh. There were clouds of furious black flies crawling over and swarming around the beast, and Cartwright had to shut his lips tight to keep them out. For several more seconds, all he could do was stare.
“Well, holy hell,” Baxter scoffed.
“Hell is right,” Cartwright replied softly.
Curved ribs as thick as tree trunks poked through torn flesh, a long tail trailed away into the ferns, but there were spikes showing from the grasses where it finished. The legs ended in stumps, with three horn-like nails on each and every one of them bigger than his fist.
“Some type of dinosaurian,” Cartwright breathed. He followed the long neck to where it ended in a head that at first seemed equine, but was five times its size, and lined with ridged, flat teeth.
Eager to see more, he pulled the vine curtain back a little further. He now saw there were gouges in the great beast’s side and how the ribs that poked through hadn’t just burst through the skin but looked raked out, as if by huge talons. The thing was a monster, but it had been attacked by something even more ferocious and formidable.
“Attacked and killed,” Cartwright said. “But what would attack that? What could?”
“By the look of those gouges in its flanks, I’d say something bigger and meaner — a carnivore, a hunter. And not sure about that being what killed it; look at the impact crater it’s lying in, and also the neck.” Baxter now held his gun ready in his hands. “It’s broken.”
Cartwright looked heavenwards, but there was nothing but thick cloud above them. “Perhaps it was running away, running for its life, and then fell… from where?”
“You did say we should have found something by now, right?” Baxter grinned. “Then we must be close.”
Huge flies picked at Cartwright’s lips and he held a hand over his mouth and nose. “The stink — can barely breathe.”
He and Baxter turned at the sound of a commotion behind him and expected to see the Pemon preparing to leave. But instead, their leader, a wiry young warrior by the name of Inxthca, was busy issuing rapid orders. His men scurried away, digging out dry tinder and wood.
“Hey, don’t do that.” Cartwright held out an arm.
They ignored him and began to cover the great beast over. Inxthca then called for the firestones to be struck — shards of chert and pyrite that gave a spark and then a flame.
The small warrior drew closer to the pair and spoke rapidly. Cartwright could only speak a little of their language, but he got the gist of it.
“He’s telling us, no; warning us not to go on. This was the place of bad gods, something called the Boraro.”
Baxter snorted. “Then we’re very much at the right place.”
They spun as a horrifying noise from within the flames turned their heads. From the swollen belly of the beast, something burst free, screeching its pain from within the fire. It was a vision straight from hell. Coiling and hissing, the enormous diamond-shaped head split open to reveal fang-lined jaws.
Baxter raised his gun, sighting at the thing. From high above them, as if in answer, came a roaring hiss that shook the very trees around them. The Pemon jabbered and began to drop their packages.
Cartwright spun to them. “Wait!” He knew what would happen.
It was too late. They fled.
Baxter watched them vanish for a moment and then turned back to the flames, thankfully, seeing the hideous thing also consumed.
“What manner of place is this?”
“One of gods and monsters.” Cartwright stared at the fire and grimaced. “Was that thing one of its young?”
“Didn’t look like the dead animal. Might have been scavenging on it… or in it.” Baxter shrugged. “We should get moving.”
“Yes.” Cartwright hurriedly pulled out his notebook and started to scribble in it. “Just… want to… make some notes. Describe the thing.”
“Well, hurry it up.” He looked down at the leather-bound book, with the hand-drawn maps and notes tucked into it. “What are you going to do with all that stuff anyway?”
Cartwright half smiled but kept writing. “I have a friend I correspond with. A famous author actually, a Brit named Arthur Conan Doyle.”
Baxter’s mouth turned down. “Never heard of him.”
Cartwright looked up. “He wrote Sherlock Holmes.”
“Nope.” Baxter just shrugged. “Don’t read that much these days. Action is what I’m interested in.”
Cartwright nodded. “Yeah, well, that reading thing is not for everyone, I guess.” He finished with his notes and shut the soft leather cover, sliding a string over it to keep it closed. He then pushed it into a leather satchel at his side.