The simple foray for water had turned into a complete disaster.
Sarah allowed Virginia to look at her arm once again and found the pain was becoming far less tolerable than before. It was declared that she would live to see the dawning of a new day. Then Virginia turned and looked at the face of one of the younger Russians who sat near the entrance and tried to get a makeshift dressing on a large gash that had been administered by the saber-toothed cat. The nuclear physicist eased herself over to the kid and raised her brows. The Russian lowered his weapon and nodded that it was okay. She started wrapping the torn sleeve dressing far better than he had.
“You know,” Virginia said as she smiled at the frightened Russian, “none of us have been inoculated for this little safari into Adventure Land. There’s no telling what diseases are floating around here just waiting to attach themselves to us.”
The four Russians who had been left behind by their boss exchanged looks of discomfort.
Sarah remembered laughing at Jack and the others as they had endured a series of shots that made their arms go numb from the puncture wounds. Now it looked like Jack would get the last laugh.
“As a matter of fact I would venture to guess that—”
The roar made their hearts freeze as something tore at their feeble enclosure from the outside. Sarah immediately thought the giant saber-toothed cat had tracked the Russians here through the smell of blood. But the roar of the beast outside was far more deep sounding, not a cat’s call at all — a roar that was unbelievably more terrifying than the enormous cat. The bass sound alone shook their eardrums as the animal tore at the branches enclosing their shelter. The eight-inch-long claws reached through and a fur-covered arm swiped at the men as the women were quick enough to duck away. One of the Russian guards was not quite so lucky. The long claws caught the man mid-torso as he attempted to dodge the knifelike weapons of the giant towering over them. The young Russian tried to stand but was knocked down by the body of the first as the top half of the man struck him and sent the kid reeling.
Sarah and Anya waited for Virginia as she fought to assist the kid she had just helped to his feet. As she did, the animal outside tore away a goodly percentage of the branches covering the small crevice. Anya and Sarah’s eyes widened when they saw the muzzle of the largest bear they had ever seen outside of a natural history museum. The cave bear swiped and roared at the intruders to its lair. The second and third Russians never stood a chance as they tried to squeeze past the women to get to the opening. The set of claws hit the first across the throat, sending his head flying half on, half off as he continued to fight for the doorway. The sight froze the second man as he saw his friend dispatched right before his eyes.
Sarah hurriedly reached for the running and headless man’s Glock nine millimeter but the headless man continued into the open and then finally collapsed into the collected ash of Erebus. The roar of the enormous cave bear shook the world around the women as the bear started to lower its spittle-filled muzzle toward the cowering Sarah, Anya, Virginia, and the only Russian guard who was left. All they could do was cower as the cave bear moved its fifteen-foot body far enough to block their only escape route.
They leaned as far away as they could as the giant roared with bloodlust. The prehistoric bear crashed into the enclosure and the world exploded with blood and fur.
Jenks finally got the second remote unit under control. The nightmare-sized condor discovered something far less maneuverable and vanished into the now-clearing skies after the wind had shifted the ash cloud. The master chief cursed and brought the drone to a much higher altitude. As he watched the monitor he saw the distant outline of the bird as it made its way to the south.
“Damn, Slim should have put a mini-gun on this damn thing,” Jenks hissed as he spun the remote 360 degrees to see if there were any more surprises waiting for his robotic viewing pleasure.
“Master Chief, you better look at this,” Charlie said.
Jenks placed his drone in a hover over the canopy as he leaned over and looked at what Ellenshaw was viewing on drone number one’s viewing screen.
“What in the hell is that?” he asked, knowing well that the cryptozoologist had no idea what it was they were seeing.
“Well, the telephoto lenses are at full capacity, maybe thirty-five miles or so, but they’re close enough that I can tell you beyond a doubt that not only are we seeing a large contingent of mammoths, but the largest herd of bison ever dreamed about in North America. Millions of them are flanking the mammoth families at the center. They seem to be migrating toward Erebus,” Charlie said, his excitement growing while his eyes took in the magnificent sight.
“You can see all of that?” Jenks asked, looking at the way Ellenshaw perched his glasses on his head as he closely viewed the scene on the monitor.
“Oh, yes. See how easily they move? This looks like a natural migration.” Charlie looked over at the master chief, who was staring at the monitor. He turned and gently lowered the cryptozoologist’s glasses to his eyes.
“My point being, Doc, if you can see all of that why can’t you see the dust clouds rising to either side of this mass migration?”
Ellenshaw looked closer at the monitor. He scowled as he saw what the former navy man was referring to, but not his point. He faced the master chief.
“There. About the middle of the pack and toward the front. Watch closely.”
Charlie finally saw the movement Jenks was seeing. Every few seconds a number of the bison would roam farther from the giant herd after smelling greener grass, and as they did they ventured closer to the valley walls where trees of prehistoric size lined the trail. At first he saw a shadow break quickly from the cover of the tree line and make straight for the wandering beasts until the animals stopped and were scared back into the fold. The same thing happened toward the front of the migratory animals. Another small, darkened shape shot from the trees as some young bison and even a small baby mammoth strayed too close from the herd and stopped and ran a very fast circle around the frightened animals until they too were turned back.
“Uh-oh,” Ellenshaw said under his breath as he reached out and pushed replay on the small screen.The high-definition scene rewound until the small creature had just burst from cover. It was one of the small raptors that had attacked them. As Charlie pushed the play feature, the camera began a live streaming of the migratory herd once more. He zoomed in on the line of giant trees that encompassed most of the ancient game trail. Then his heart froze as he saw the enemy of both man and animal — thousands of the brightly colored raptors were following both herds and that led Ellenshaw to believe the same thing was happening on the far side of the game trail also.
Jenks cursed something under his breath as he turned to his own monitor and saw that the second hovering drone had lost Colonel Collins and the Frenchman. The master chief knew any attempt at finding them would be a waste of battery time, and this new development had changed priorities, at least as far as the base camp was concerned.