Sink: The Lost World (19 page)

A scream. A pair of them.
Bryan and Aaron’s ears pricked up. They ran toward them, vaulting over hedges and ducking under low boughs.

“Woah!” Bryan said, skidding to a halt.

He was perched on the edge of a deep square hole. He waved his arms to keep himself from falling in. Aaron came barreling through the undergrowth. He didn’t seem to notice the trap. Bryan grabbed Aaron’s T-shirt. He hung over the side, looking down into the pit. Bryan pulled him back. Aaron landed on his backside.

“Thanks,” he said.

“You’re welcome,” Bryan said.

“Do you think they fell into the trap?” Aaron said.

“I don’t know,” Bryan said. “Maybe.”

“They screamed,” Aaron said. “Where are they now?”

Bryan squinted at something on the other side of the trap.

“What’s that?” he said.

He headed around the trap and knelt down. There were footprints in the shape of shoe soles, clearly Zoe and Cassie’s boots. And surrounding them, dozens of bare feet.

“There must be a human tribe here somewhere,” Aaron said.

“A tribe?” Bryan said.

He thought back to the footprint he and Zoe had discovered beside the lake.

“You would have thought we’d have seen something of them though, wouldn’t you?” Aaron said.

Bryan wet his lips.

“Well, actually, we have,” he said. “Your mother and I didn’t want to worry you and Cassie, but at the lake we washed in yesterday we found a human-like footprint.”

Aaron came to a stop.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” he said.

“We didn’t want to scare you,” Bryan said.

Aaron frowned, shaking his head with obvious annoyance. Then he shrugged his shoulders. He smiled.

“You didn’t want to scare us, and we didn’t want to scare you about the dinosaurs,” he said. “I suppose we’re all just a bunch of scaredy cats.”

Bryan chuckled.

“I suppose we are,” he said. “But with dinosaurs running around, and acid lakes to contend with, I suppose we’ve got good reason to be.”

“Are these like the footprints you saw around the lake?” Aaron said.

“I think so,” Bryan said. “They must be. How many types of human could be here?”

They followed the prints, but they only led to a nearby tree.

“Where did they go?” Aaron said.

“I’d say they went up this tree,” Bryan said.

They both peered up it, expecting a treehouse or some other abode, but nothing was there.

“Now what?” Bryan said.

Aaron crouched down to poke at some fallen leaves and broken twigs.

“I think they carried them away,” he said.

“Carried them?” Bryan said. “Carried them where?”

“That’s what we have to go figure out,” Aaron said. “Come on.”

They took off at a jog
, following the trail of falling leaves. They stopped and went back on themselves several times until Aaron was certain they were heading in the right direction. To Bryan it looked like a random collection of foliage, but to Aaron they told a story.

There was a honk from their right, and when they went to look what it was, found a herd of grazing dinosaurs. Maybe it was the same group as before. They had their heads down, munching.

They pressed on, the jungle unspooling before them, winding around giant trees and brightly colored flowers. Just when Bryan was about to give up and say they should head back to the trap, Aaron pulled a bush apart.

Before them was a settlement, a large village of furry inhabitants. The caves were ordered in a geometric pattern. Small mouse-like holes ran along the bottom of the cliff, and above them, approximately ten feet higher, were more holes. It looked like a block of Swiss cheese. Figures moved in and out of the caves like ants on an anthill.

A good number of the females carried babies, more like chimps, in their arms, playing with them, feeding them. A group of males hammered at flint, making it sharp and pointy. Others affixed them to long straight shafts of wood that other apemen were shaving from tree trunks. Bryan recognized what he was looking at. A factory processing line. They were making weapons.

There was hooting and growling as a group of apemen entered the village.

Bryan’s heart rose into his throat. He recognized two of the figures immediately. They were being pushed along and cajoled by the village population. Bryan stood up, exposing himself to the apemen if they were to turn in his direction.

“Get down!” Aaron hissed.

“Your mother and Cassie need our help,” Bryan said.

“We’re not going to help them by getting ourselves captured!” Aaron said.

Bryan hesitated before sitting back down. Aaron peered out at the village. No one appeared to have noticed Bryan.

The apemen tossed Zoe and Cassie into one of the caves. A grated door slid down and slammed into place.

“We need to come up with an idea of how to rescue them,” Bryan said. “Some way of springing them free from the village without any of the apemen knowing.”

“My dad would know what to do,” Aaron said.

“Unfortunately he’s not here,” Bryan said. “It’s just you and me. We could cause a distraction, then run in and break them free. But it would need to be something big to keep them all busy.”

The words froze on his tongue, his eyes glazing over with thought.

“You’ve got an idea?” Aaron said.

“Part of one,” Bryan said. “But we’ll have to wait until nightfall before we can execute it effectively.”

“What do we do until then?” Aaron said.

“We wait,” Bryan said.

Their cold leathery hands
gripped tight and made red marks on Cassie and Zoe’s soft skin. Their rough fur made them itch. The foliage slapped them across the face, leaving dark welts. Disorientated and out of breath, they were tossed to the ground before a large gang of apemen. They screamed and yelled, flashing out and smacking Zoe and Cassie across the body and legs. Their escorts halfheartedly kept the aggressors at bay before tossing Zoe and Cassie into a cell. The grated door slammed into place.

The apemen and women became quiet almost immediately, and returned to their previous chores, hobbling on awkward bowed legs.

Zoe hugged Cassie close.

“Are you all right?” she said.

“I’ve been better,” Cassie said.

She smiled, causing her to flinch. She had a cut across one cheek. Zoe unshouldered her backpack and took out some water. She began to clean Cassie’s face.

“I’m sorry for all this,” Zoe said. “If I hadn’t been determined to take photos, the stampede wouldn’t have happened, we wouldn’t have gotten split up, and we wouldn’t be here.”

“It’s not your fault,” Cassie said.

She hissed between her teeth as Zoe dabbed at her face.

“During all this we never really got to talk, did we?” Cassie said.

“With your face swollen like this, I don’t think you’ll be able to,” Zoe said.

“I’ll be all right,” Cassie said. “How did you and Dad meet?”

“Are you sure you’re going to listen to me this time?” Zoe said. “Last time you asked me that question you were busy painting your face with food.”

“Sorry about that,” Cassie said.

“I can understand why it’s difficult for you to see your father getting close to another woman,” Zoe said. “I get it. But you should get to know me a little. I’m not so bad.”

Cassie shrugged.

“We met at work,” Zoe said. “Your father needed research done on a series of potential new fracking sites. I was called in.”

“Did you get on well right away?” Cassie said.

“No,” Zoe said. “He represented the Man. I was determined for us not to get on well. It was a business relationship.”

“When did you start liking him?” Cassie said.

“When he started opening up to me,” Zoe said. “When he dropped his persona and showed me who he really was.”

Cassie nodded, intrigued.

“I’ve heard about your mother from your father,” Zoe said. “She was an amazing lady, going on all those trips by herself. I’m not sure I have the courage to do that. But you can talk to me, if you want. About womanly things – things you might not want to speak with your father about.”

“I’ve got nothing to say,” Cassie said.

“The offer’s there,” Zoe said.

She patted Cassie’s face dry and added cream to her skin.

“I suppose there’s one thing,” Cassie said. “There’s this boy I like. Clint. But I don’t know if he really cares about me.”

“Oh dear, boy trouble,” Zoe said.

“Do you know much about it?” Cassie said.

“I think every woman knows a little about it,” Zoe said. “We all make mistakes when we’re young. But that’s the fun part of life. Don’t tell your dad I said that.”

Cassie smiled.

“Make mistakes,” Zoe said. “Just do your best not to make great big ones that you have to live with for the rest of your life. Go out with this boy, take it easy, and if you find you don’t like him, dump him and move on.”

“It’s not as easy as that,” Cassie said.

“Why isn’t it?” Zoe said. “You’re the woman. You’re the one in control. Never forget that. You only lose some control later when you decide to take the next step with a man. Then you share control, but you never surrender it. Those relationships where the man is in control are doomed to fail, and long in the past, thank God. Men were always the hunter-gatherers, not the decision makers. It was the women who made all the decisions.”

Cassie nodded to the apemen outside.

“Like them?” she said.

“No, not like them,” Zoe said.

“My mom was in control at home,” Cassie said.

“You see?” Zoe said. “It was the same in our house, though Aaron formed a stronger connection to his father than to me. You know, Aaron will probably kill me for telling you this, but he used to sit on the curb outside every night waiting for his father to return. It still makes me sad to think about that. A little boy waiting for his father to come home, only he never would. Then he has a chance to have a new father – yours – but he does everything he can to prevent it.”

“A lot of that is my fault,” Cassie said.

“Aaron’s old enough to make his own decisions,” Zoe said. “It was never just you. I never meant to replace your mother, you know. I just wanted to be a part of your life.”

Cassie didn’t say anything. The moment was charged. And yet she felt comfortable in Zoe’s presence, in a way she never was with her own mother or father.

“I was always lonely when Mom was away,” Cassie said. “Dad was busy at work. And though he tried to get back early to be with me, something always cropped up. Dad works hard for our benefit, I know. But I wish he could have been with me more when I was alone.”

“That’s not an excuse not to spend more time with you,” Zoe said. “He should know that. Especially when he’s the only parent.”

“The worst thing is not knowing,” Cassie said. “Not knowing if she was still alive or not, not knowing if she was safe. It’s so easy to fall over or get in trouble, and not be able to get back up.”

“Aaron feels the same about his father,” Zoe said. “He still believes he’s out there somewhere.”

“But you don’t think he is?” Cassie said.

“No,” Zoe said. “He’s gone and he’s never coming back.”

“I sometimes saw a tall woman, a shopper in a supermarket, or someone outside the school gates, with tawny brown hair, and I would think maybe… Maybe if she turns around it will be my mom,” Cassie said. “But it never was. Dad never saw anyone else for a long time. At least, I thought he didn’t. I thought he was going to end up being alone forever. I didn’t mind that he was seeing someone else, someone new. Actually, I was glad of it. But I didn’t like not being a part of his decision. I’m a part of his life too.”

“You are a part of it,” Zoe said. “The biggest part. If we couldn’t work things out with you kids on this trip we wouldn’t have continued with the relationship. We pretended to think we would have, but we both know the truth. It would have ended. It has ended.”

Cassie reached into her bag and took something out. It was a book.

“I keep one of her books with me at all times,” Cassie said.

“Can I take a look?” Zoe said.

The book was beaten, creased and worn, the pages a wonderful shade of yellow-brown. The front cover showed an image of a mother and daughter standing on the edge of a giant hole in the ground.

“It’s my favorite of my mom’s books,” Cassie said. “I always thought it would be me and her there, like on the front cover, on an adventure together.”

“Is it a sinkhole?” Zoe said.

“No,” Cassie said. “But it does look like one. It’s a post-apocalyptic novel, where a meteorite crashes into the earth and they have to work together to piece the world back together again.”

“Sounds exciting,” Zoe said.

“It is,” Cassie said. “I must have read it a dozen times. Mom would have loved this place. She would have loved all the dinosaurs, the jungle and even those monster apemen. I thought one day she might take me with her on one of her adventures. But that was just a pipe dream. The
reason she went on her trips was to get away from me. To explore and do something exciting. She got itchy feet, Dad said. And when she came back she was always super excited. She brought the energy home, but after a few days, she would be sad again. I don’t think she ever wanted me. Not really. That’s why she ran away.”

“Don’t think like that,” Zoe said. “Of course she never felt that way.”

“Then why did she run away?” Cassie said.

“You don’t know what happened to her,” Zoe said. “She might have fallen over, hit her head and lost all her memories. It’s rare, but it happens.”

“She’s famous,” Cassie said. “Someone would have recognized her from one of the pictures in her books. She was on TV sometimes. Someone would have known who she was. I spent years looking for her online, sending out messages, asking if someone recognized her, but no one ever did.”

Zoe placed her hand on Cassie’s shoulder.

“Well, I’m not going anywhere,” she said. “Except out of this cell, if I get the chance.”

Outside, the apemen leader lay down with a pair of females picking through his fur. He dozed in the evening sun. One kept looking up at the metal shard protruding from his head. She reached up, hesitated, and then touched it. The leader’s eyes flashed open and he smacked the apeman aside, sending her sprawling across the ground. He beat her again and again. She screamed, but the other apemen only watched, keeping their eyes firmly fixed on their activities.

“So much for my theory that they must be smart peaceful creatures,” Zoe said.

“The good news is, the shard is killing him,” a voice said.

Zoe and Cassie shot to their feet and shuffled back, peering into the darkness. They picked up rocks from the floor.

A figure stepped from the shadows.