“Yeah, I understand you like to wire explosives up to children.”
“No, not children, small babies and their mothers to be more precise. And being a businessman I am willing to negotiate a deal. I will say this in absolute assurance, I will kill every one of you if you do not do as I say. You will get us to that valley and that new doorway these rather strange people built and you will get us back home. I can start right now with this one,” he said as he once again cocked the .45 and aimed it at Anya.
The silence after the threat was palpable even over the rumbling of the erupting volcanoes. Sarah and the others watched as Carl remained silent as he stared straight ahead. They all became concerned when they saw a smile creep across his face. The Russians even became uneasy at the strangeness of this man’s reactions. Then the world once again froze in time. The ash seemed to fall slower and the earth shaking under their feet slowed as did their own heartbeats when Everett spoke.
“Jack, you have the most outrageous sense for the dramatic. What in the hell took you so long?”
The automatic fire opened up and tracers stitched the ground in front of Doshnikov and his four men. They jumped back as the glowing red tracers arched into the stockade from somewhere the men couldn’t or didn’t have the time to see as they dove for the soft, hot ash. As the bullets continued to fly, they stood and ran for the far wall of the stockade. A few tracers followed them with no malicious intent other than to scare the fools off.
Carl waited as the others willed their shock away. Walking toward them after only a minute the outlines of two men took shape. Everett laughed as did Ryan and Mendenhall when they recognized the large silhouette of Colonel Jack Collins.
“Piss-poor shooting if I may say so,” Carl said as he stepped forward, recognizing Henri Fabrbeaux.
Collins stopped and took in the surprised faces staring at him and the Frenchman.
“I was torn between who to shoot, these people or those Russian assholes.”
Jason, Sarah, Will, Virginia, and Anya looked at one another, not one of them knowing at what point to start the tale of what happened.
“But since we have a time machine to play with, I can shoot them anytime, I guess. Then go back and do it again, again, and again.”
The two men, and even Henri Farbeaux, shook hands while the others took a deep religious breath at their sudden reprieve and deliverance from the Russians.
Now their problems were narrowed down to a few things. Like finding their stolen power coupling and dodging every horror-story creature God could have thought up, until they left here in a reengineered doorway they weren’t quite sure would work.
Yes, Jack Collins had worries other than his anger at all of the new company in this Lion Country Safari family experience.
An hour later while sitting around a small fire Everett scarfed down some of Jack’s and Henri’s MREs, wishing many times instead that he was eating one of the complex’s masterful corned beef sandwiches from the departmental mess. They had briefed all parties on the predicament they found themselves in. Ryan found it shocking that the colonel didn’t chew his ass off anyway, but only nodded when briefed by Virginia. What that meant, Ryan wasn’t exactly sure.
“I don’t know which is hardest to believe, the fact that we find ourselves in the biggest jam we have ever been in, or the fact that we have prehistoric, out-of-time Velociraptors trying to outthink and outfight us.”
“What can you tell us, Carl?” Jack asked, leaning forward after finishing the first meal he had had since arriving two days before.
“Hell, after six months of trying to piece things together, I think I’ve only scratched the surface. I do think with all of us putting our heads together we can at least make some sense of this strange-ass continent.”
Everett waited as Will and Farbeaux returned from a thorough perimeter patrol. Henri unslung his M-4 and sat, shaking his head vigorously at the offered MRE. Instead he started eating a giant berry he had found on the patrol. Jack shook his head.
“We believe now that when the continents separated it took the existing animal life with it. This continent developed totally on its own seven hundred million years ago.” Virginia looked at Sarah and she nodded. “Dinosaurs evolved differently and many more of them may have survived extinction by that separation. Maybe not the larger dinosaurs, but the smaller, avian breeds we have come to know from the movies. Left alone they developed rudimentary tool-making capability. In essence they took up where their larger relatives left off, unabated. I suspect that this is a recent development, maybe a hundred thousand to two hundred thousand years. Eventually those small birdlike raptors will learn to make more sophisticated weapons.”
“I do not know about you, my American friends, but I think the spears alone are pretty damn sophisticated.” Farbeaux tossed the remaining large pit from the fruit away. “And how long did it take humans to think of throwing a rock to defend himself?” Henri said, putting a damper on things as usual. “No, there is more to this than mere evolution.”
“Perhaps so,” Everett said as he looked deeply into the fire. They all could see that the many months of isolation had taken its toll on their friend. “You asked earlier about humanoid life.” Everett ceased staring into the flames, stood, and turned to look up at the falling ash and then toward the red glow of Erebus three hundred miles distant. “I’ve found fields of bones. Early man, Neanderthal, Cro-Magnon, even the little species we know as Lucy, at least from what my limited education into those fields can tell me. Thousands upon thousands. Entire species of anything that could threaten those raptors.” He looked at his rescuers. “You also asked about the Romans, the Japanese, and Chinese soldiers. All dead, massacred to the man. Three modern armies, all taken down by those feathery little bastards. They nearly had me more than once until I figured out how to get around them.”
“Do you know anything about the migratory animals?” Anya asked.
“A little from my observations. It may be a yearly trek to get at the richer volcanic grasses near Erebus, I’m not sure. But the animal life that lives around the volcanoes permanently have decided it was time to get out of Dodge. Why one set goes one way, why the other goes a different direction has me stumped. I guess the large herds of mammoths and bison just don’t know anything other than that their migration they have been following for thousands and thousands of years is just too hard a habit to break.”
“That makes sense,” Sarah agreed.
“But one thing I did notice. There are millions upon millions of bones lining that game trail. I believe the raptors actually herd them, or at least take extreme advantage of the migration to kill and eat. There’s no end to the smarts of those ugly little bastards.”
Jack’s radio suddenly sprang to life. The sound, though loud, made Carl feel like he was part of the modern world again. It did no harm to the psyche of the others either.
“Colonel, Jenks here.”
Jack looked at Virginia and saw the relief in her face when she heard the gruff man’s voice.
“Collins,” he said into the radio. He had yet to inform the master chief they had found Everett and the others. Jenks wasn’t even aware that Virginia was there. Jack couldn’t wait to tell him and hear the cursing start to fly.
“Negative on any roost those damn things may have. We searched until we drained the batteries on both drones. We’re recharging now.”
“Good, Master Chief. Is Charlie close by?”
“Yeah, he’s right here.”
“We have Mr. Everett.”