Sink: The Lost World (18 page)

The creatures’ skin
was as green as the vegetation surrounding them, their heads small compared to their body size, flat and arrow-shaped, ending in a rounded beak. A darker green pattern ran over the top of their heads and down the back of their spines to the tip of their tails like a port wine stain. They bent down to nip at the shoots of a wide-brimmed plant with their grazing teeth. Others stood up on their hind legs to get at the juicy leaves at the top of the trees, revealing their gargantuan size.

“Wow,” Aaron said.

None of them could think of a better word to describe the scene. The creatures looked CGI, they were so unreal.

Bryan worked some saliva into his mouth.

“What are these things?” he said.

“These are what they call iguanodons,” Zoe said. “The first dinosaur to be discovered and recorded, in fact.”

There was movement behind the great creatures, and more varieties of dinosaur than Zoe and Aaron could name emerged. There were parasaurolophus with the tall pipe-like protrusion on the top of their heads, and a small group of pachycephalosaurus with their thick domed craniums, and even an ankylosaurus with its clubbed tail. Bryan’s heart swelled, amazed at the variety of life that could exist below the Earth’s crust.

“I need to get closer and take some pictures,” Zoe said. “Here, hold my bag.”

“Zoe, wait,” Bryan said. “It could be dangerous.”

But she was already heading toward the giant creatures. The herd grazed silently, stripping the bushes clean of their leaves. A male iguanodon rose up onto his back legs and pushed against a tall tree with his front feet. The tree bent and snapped, crashing to the jungle floor. The iguanodon and his babies feasted on the juicy leaves.

A creature like that ought to be avoided at all costs, and there was Zoe, creeping up under a bush with her camera. She lay on the ground and snapped photographs through a small hole. He could imagine the words on her lips now: “This is amazing.”

He agreed with her – it was amazing – but he’d prefer to be in a safari jeep surrounded by highly-trained hunters armed with the latest in technology should anything kick off. Instead, they were exposed.

One of the creatures came close to Zoe’s location and sniffed at her with its nostrils – large enough for a man to put his fist inside. Zoe slowly raised her hand toward the great beast. She must have felt the hot air from its nostrils as she turned away from it. Zoe had a look of amazement on her face, like a child sat on the knee of Santa Claus at the local shopping center.

Then the animals stopped in their tracks. They all turned, necks arching toward the far side of the plain. The huge male iguanodon went up onto his hind legs and peered around at the vegetation around them, his senses heightened.

The hair on the back of Bryan’s neck stood up on end. He peered around at the foliage. It looked calm, but that only made Bryan all the more wary.

The giant male became completely still, and then lowered his head to the food again. Bryan too relaxed. A beast of that size presumably had senses far beyond what Bryan possessed. If he was relaxed, so should Bryan be. But he wasn’t, and just then, the edge of the foliage erupted, spilling forth a huge beast.

Bryan didn’t get a good look at it. All he saw was a mouthful of sharp teeth, small yellow eyes, and black claws on the end of powerful legs.

“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!” Bryan shouted.

The iguanodons were up on their feet in an instant, the babies
meh
ing pathetically as the adults wrapped their bodies around them and ushered them away. Bryan did the same with Aaron and Cassie, pulling them away. Zoe got to her feet and ran, racing behind Bryan.

The foliage behind them exploded beneath the weight of the huge beasts as they ran, panicked.

The T-Rex was a dirty brown color with a distinctive purple crest down its back, shaped like a flower in bloom. It took a step, and the whole world shook.

“Go, go, go, go, go!” Bryan shouted.

They ran, and the foliage broke and snapped behind them. Huge dinosaurs ran alongside them, bustling past. The ground shook as the trees hit the earth, and the family lost their footing and almost fell over. Birds hovered over the treetops, hissing and cawing at the dinosaurs trampling over their nests.

The iguanodons rushed past them, their bulky muscles slamming into the ground beside them. Zoe skidded to a halt and grabbed Cassie’s hand, leading her underneath the iguanodon’s legs.

The T-Rex leapt at the iguanodon and tore into its neck with its powerful jaws. The iguanodon honked in pain, stopped, and turned. But it wasn’t beaten yet. It folded its front fingers into fists, and extended the long blade-like bone protruding from its thumbs like a mugger with a knife. It held its arms in tight and leaned back on its tail like a boxing kangaroo. The T-Rex was hesitant, moving left to right, looking for an opening.

Meh!

A baby iguanodon cried from one side. At some point it had lost contact with its mother. The T-Rex looked from the baby to the fully-grown adult. It turned and ran after the baby iguanodon. The adult relaxed, turned, and took off into the jungle. She did not try to rescue the baby. It was too risky.

A triceratops squawked behind Bryan. It was coming straight for him. Bryan smacked into Zoe with his shoulder, knocking her into Cassie, sending them rolling down a sharp incline strewn with leaves. Then Bryan grabbed Aaron and pulled him aside.

The triceratops whined again, and smashed through a slim tree with its horns. It attempted to skid to a halt, but was going too fast, and ran straight into a swamp. It was only up to its knees, but was sticky, and despite the dinosaur’s huge muscles, it couldn’t pull itself free. It wailed. Bryan felt sorry for it. Each movement seemed to pull the dinosaur deeper into its clutches. The triceratops emitted a haunted groan. As it sank it took its last breath, and a large bubble popped on the surface, like the swamp had digested the young dinosaur and burped with relish.

The other dinosaurs were gone, no doubt to safer climes. The jungle was silent once more.

“Are you all right?” Bryan said to Aaron.

“I’m okay,” Aaron said, shaking with shock. “But where’s Mom? And Cassie?”

“Hopefully somewhere safe,” Bryan said. “Come on. Let’s go find them.”

Why Bryan had
slammed into Zoe and Cassie, knocking them down the side of the sharp incline, Zoe couldn’t fathom. He must have seen a danger she hadn’t. Or maybe he just thought it was funny. She wrapped her arms around Cassie.

“We need to find your father and Aaron,” Zoe said.

“What if we can’t?” Cassie said.

“Then we’ll head to the opposite side of the jungle, like we originally planned,” Zoe said. “I’m sure that’s where your father will head if he can’t find us either.”

Zoe began to scale the steep incline.

“Come on,” she said. “The last time I saw them they were up here. Cassie?”

Cassie stood frozen, not moving a muscle.

“Cassie, come on,” Zoe said.

Cassie let out a little squeak. Her whole body was shaking. Zoe walked down the incline and joined her. She froze, her heart in her throat.

Not five hundred yards away, standing there with blood around its broad lips was the T-Rex. Its small yellow eyes were fixed firmly on Cassie. Zoe’s legs felt weak, like they might collapse beneath her any moment. History’s greatest predator, and Cassie was having a staring competition with it.

The T-Rex stepped forward, and Zoe turned and ran, her hand clasping Cassie’s tight. The T-Rex growled at the back of its throat and its footsteps crashed, shaking the world, and their souls. The ground was level here, with broad leaves covering it like a carpet. The T-Rex was gaining. Zoe could hear its breath exhaling through its nostrils.

The T-Rex slammed through the trees, knocking them over like they were twigs. It growled, lowered its open jaws, opening them wide, exposing its giant tongue.

Zoe and Cassie screamed.

The T-Rex’s jaws slammed shut tight with a loud hollow snap, and its footsteps took it further on before it slowed to a stop and turned about, looking one way and then another for its missing prey.

Cassie sat wrapped in Zoe’s arms, her eyes shut tight. Zoe stared at the wall of the hole they had fallen through, terrified, refusing to look to see where the T-Rex was or what it was doing. They were huddled in the corner, knowing that at any moment the T-Rex could lower its nostrils and find them, and they would be trapped and defenseless.

The T-Rex’s footsteps slammed into the earth, getting louder and louder, each crash making Zoe and Cassie jump. Cassie whimpered. Zoe remained calm, though her heart was beating a mile a minute.

They had been flying
over the terrain for several hours, strafing over the canopy in undulating lines to cover every square inch, but so far they hadn’t come across anything.

“We’re running low on fuel,” the pilot said. “We’re going to need to turn back.”

“All right,” Rosetta said.

She was disappointed. She would have thought she would have seen something by now, but it was difficult to see much through the canopy, wide and broad like a second sky.

The helicopter turned sharply and headed back toward the fracking site, but as it did, something caught the corner of Rosetta’s eye. It was a dark blot on the landscape, at odds with the vibrant greens and yellows of the native plants and trees in the area.

“Wait,” Rosetta said. “Turn back. I saw something.”

She was not prone to outbursts, and so the pilot did not argue with her.

“Which direction?” the pilot said.

“That way,” Rosetta said, pointing. “South-southwest.”

She kept her eyes on the direction she could have sworn she had seen something. The helicopter arched around. Rosetta’s eyes scrubbed the forest. Where was it? But she couldn’t make anything unusual out. The canopy broke like waves across the breakers at a dock.

And then Rosetta’s breath caught. Her hand covered her mouth. Even the pilot, known for his unflusterability, sat up taller in his seat to look down at the huge crater spread out before them.

Hundreds of felled trees lay scattered like dominoes, the trunks and boughs bent over at an unnatural angle. The earth had been tossed up like a hastily-made salad, the brown of the soil overturned. It looked like a large bomb had gone off, except there were no burnt trees, no cinders or evidence of fire. Anyone walking along the ground would have thought it had been a landslide.

But from the air it was clear it could not possibly have been a landslide. The land did not slope down to this location, but was actually on a slight rise. It was a sinkhole. Bryan Angelo had sunk.

ROOOARRRRR!

The violent cry burst out over the jungle, made all the more terrifying by the fact it wasn’t far away. Birds took flight from a dozen locations and cawed and hacked at something too large to attack.

Bryan grabbed Aaron and pulled him behind the shelter of a rock. He peered over it, eyes moving left to right. Then he ducked back down again.

“Is it there?” Aaron said.

“No,” Bryan said. “But it’s close.”

“Where did they go?” Aaron said.

“I don’t know,” Bryan said.

His stomach twisted.

“Come on,” he said. “We have to find them.”

They retraced their steps, heading back the way they had come, both sets of eyes swiveling in their sockets. Their breaths and footsteps seemed loud in their ears. With the knowledge of dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures in the jungle, the place took on a sinister edge. It was no longer a land of wonder, but of fear.

“What if we don’t find them?” Aaron said.

“We will,” Bryan said.

“What if we don’t?” Aaron said.

“We will,” Bryan said.

But he hoped to God they were still in one piece when they did find them.

Even standing on
Zoe’s shoulders Cassie couldn’t reach the top. The trap had been made for creatures far larger than themselves. The walls of the pit were sheer, dug by hand. Cassie could make out the shovel marks from the tools that had been used. There would have been no escape for them if it hadn’t been for one fortunate twist of fate.

As the T-Rex had chased them it had knocked aside the trees, making them lean precariously over to one side. They hadn’t been so courteous as to fall into the hole for them, but the vines in their upper reaches hung low, down through the middle of the pit. They were in reach, should Cassie and Zoe be able to perform a trick worthy of a circus act. Currently, Zoe and Cassie stood facing the wall.

“I’m going to turn around now,” Zoe said.

She did so very slowly, making tiny shuffling movements. Cassie wobbled, waving her arms to keep balance. She leaned back against the dirt wall, focusing on the hanging vines. They were an imposing distance away. She reached out with one hand, keeping the other firmly on the wall, but she was nowhere near them.

“I’m going to take a step forward,” Zoe said.

“No,” Cassie said. “Don’t. I can’t do it.”

“You can do it,” Zoe said.

Sweat was already pouring down Zoe’s face, her body shaking under Cassie’s weight.

“I can’t,” Cassie said. “My balance isn’t good.”

“We’ll take it slow,” Zoe said. “Hey, relax. I’ll catch you if you fall. And we can try again.”

Cassie let out a deep breath.

“Okay,” she said.

“Ready?” Zoe said. “Here we go.”

She edged one foot forward, and then the other.

Cassie’s shoulders were still touching the dirt wall. She pushed herself off it onto her elbows, but standing up straight on the shoulders of a moving person was an impossible task.

“No!” Cassie said, leaning back. “I can’t! I’m never going to make it.”

“You can do this,” Zoe said. “You have to do it, otherwise we’re never going to get out of here.”

Cassie mumbled something to herself, something that sounded like a desperate plea.

“Wait,” she said. “I just had an idea. What if I kind of fall forward?”

“What?” Zoe said.

“You take a few steps forward,” Cassie said. “Then I’ll jump and grab the vine. You would only need to take a few steps.”

“You could fall and hurt yourself,” Zoe said.

“If I try and do it this way, by balancing, I’ll definitely hurt myself,” Cassie said.

“Your father wouldn’t be happy with this,” Zoe said.

“Well, he’s not here, is he?” Cassie said. “Please. Let’s try it. It’s our only chance.”

“Okay,” Zoe said uncertainly. “Ready?”

“Go,” Cassie said.

Zoe took a deep breath, Cassie’s weight forcing the air from her lungs. She took a step. She could already feel Cassie leaning forward, faster than Zoe was going. Zoe took two more hesitant steps and then felt Cassie bend her knees, preparing to spring. Zoe began to fall, lacking the strength to hold Cassie any longer. Cassie’s shoes pushed against her, forcing her to the ground.

Cassie sailed through the air. It wasn’t an impressive jump, but it was an accurate one. Her fingers snared the vines. They wrapped around her forearm and then tightened, drawing taut. They caught her weight and swung her up in an arc.

“Yes!” Zoe said.

Cassie swung toward the edge of the pit. She reached for it with her foot, but didn’t quite swing far enough. The vines swung in the opposite direction and this time she reached for the opposite side, but was even farther from making it.

“Swing!” Zoe said. “Swing back and forth! Build momentum!”

Cassie leaned back and forced her weight down, pushing the swing toward its apex. The tree leaned over dangerously, the trunk creaking under Cassie’s swaying weight. No matter how hard she swung, Cassie couldn’t seem to make the vines swing all the way to the other side. They were too short.

“I can’t do it,” Cassie said.

“It’s okay,” Zoe said. “How about you try to climb up the tree instead?”

Cassie looked up. It was a long climb, and climbing had never been her strong suit. Instead, she concentrated on swinging. She swung back and forth two more times. The branch groaned ominously, and at the apex of the swing, Cassie threw herself from the vines, and toward the edge of the pit. There was a snap behind her as the tree branch broke.

She had mistimed her jump, leaping too soon. Her stomach hit the pit’s edge. She bounced off it. She began to slide back into the hole. Her hands scrabbled at the grass, twigs, and roots. Anything! She twisted her wrist, locking it tight. The roots caught, and she jolted to a stop. She waited a moment, catching her breath. Her legs dangled inside the pit.

She pulled herself up, one arm after the other, shaking. Her arms were burning, feeling like they were going to fall off.

“Are you all right up there?” Zoe said.

“I’m… I’m fine,” Cassie said, regaining her breath.

When she was able, she got to her feet. She wrapped one end of a vine around a tree and tossed the other into the pit. Zoe climbed up and joined her.

“Well done,” Zoe said, slapping her on the shoulder. “Now we just have to find Aaron and your father. I say we head back the way we came. I’m sure that’s what your father will be doing. If we don’t find them, we should head for the cliff face on the other side of the jungle like we originally planned. We’ll meet your father and Aaron there.”

But Cassie wasn’t paying attention.

“Uh, Zoe,” she said. “We’ve got company.”

Zoe turned to find a group of short human-like figures. They had downy hair from head to foot, matching their dark eyes. Their arms were long and muscular, meant for climbing. Their legs were bandy and bow-legged, more ape than man. But there was an unmistakable intelligence in their eyes.

“They must have made this trap,” Zoe said in a low voice.

“Do you think they’re friendly?” Cassie said, not taking her eyes off them.

“If they’re capable of advanced forethought like making traps they must be intelligent,” Zoe said. “They might be able to help us.”

One of the apemen approached them. He had a shard of metal protruding from his head. It was embedded at an angle, catching the light and winking at them, like a feather behind an ear of a Native American Indian. He had intelligent eyes, Zoe thought. They were a deep chestnut brown and ran over Zoe and Cassie with curiosity. In her mind, Zoe associated him as the leader.

The leader sniffed them, cautiously, and then prodded them with his long fingers. His skin was thick, dark and creased, like an ape’s, his fur dirty and tangled with leaves and twigs.

“Hello,” Zoe said.

The leader grunted. He took Zoe’s hand and ran a thick sausage-like finger over it. He pulled on Cassie’s arm to bring her down to his level. He looked closely at her face and eyes, fingers investigating her soft skin and long hair.

“Zoe…” Cassie said.

“It’s okay,” Zoe said. “Just let him explore you. It’s his way of saying hello.”

The leader did the same to Zoe, probing her. Then he turned to the other apemen and grunted at them. They stepped forward and poked and probed. Zoe smiled. She was interacting with their ancient ancestors, a dream amongst anthropologists.

Then the creatures grabbed their arms and legs, and lifted them off their feet. Zoe and Cassie lost their smiles.

“I thought you said they were friendly?” Cassie said.

“I’m new here too,” Zoe said. “How should I know?”

Zoe and Cassie screamed as the apemen carried them up a tree.