A Dawn of Mammals Collection

by Lou Cadle

  Then the problem would be using the pond but avoiding the terror crane. She needed more information on that. When did it hunt? Did it always travel the same direction? Where was its nest? What she needed to do, in fact, was spy on the terror crane.

  Chapter 23

  They all went to the lake together first. They needed drinking water after the morning’s work. It was a hot day, the rain had stopped after only a couple hours, and the rain on the leaves had all evaporated. It was still unbearably humid, as it was every minute of every day here—and terribly hot. Humans hadn’t evolved in such a climate, and it was not pleasant to live in it.

  Dixie was limping steadily now, and Hannah suspected it was real, that she’d put too much weight on the injury for too long this morning. They went slowly for her sake, and Jodi took the time to hunt for her caveman—or cavewoman—club.

  Nari teased her about it. “So you’re going to clunk a guy on the head and drag him off by his hair, is that it?”

  “Ha,” Jodi said. “Yeah, to my cave. And I’ll make him hunt for me while I lie back on a pile of hides and eat grapes.”

  “And weave yourself a garland of flowers,” Nari said.

  Zach said, in a stage whisper, “Mr. O’Brien, aren’t girls weird?”

  “And wonderful,” he said. “Tender as a spring leaf, as capricious as the wind, stronger than time. And more.”

  Zach said, “Is that a poem?”

  “I suppose it is now, thank you for saying,” Bob said.

  They walked in silence for a time, perhaps everyone thinking about that. Hannah was, certainly, thinking about how little time there was for poetry, or music, or any art. She wondered how long it had taken humans to get organized enough about their survival skills to bother with any of that.

  Then Zach said, “I’m sorry, Mr. O’Brien, but I can only think of your wife back in shop class, this one day when she was picking up this box of scrap iron. It weighed a ton. The ‘tender’ thing just doesn’t register when I think of that.”

  “They have many layers, Zach,” Bob said, and his voice was sadder.

  A moment later, Jodi said, “That’s it!” She laughed.

  Hannah turned and saw her holding a chunk of wood.

  “Look, it even has the knot. All I need to do is get rid of this part, under it, and it’s a perfect club.”

  “Look out, guys,” Nari said. “Jodi’s in town. Prepare to be dragged off by your hair.”

  It reminded Hannah once again that she needed to have a private talk with the girls about sex, and not getting pregnant. On her mental list it went. She needed to pull out pencil and paper later and make herself another list.

  They came out of the trees at the beach just in time to see Claire yank up her fishing line. A silvery fish sailed up, flew over her shoulder, and sailed four feet behind her, landing with a thump.

  “Wow,” said Zach. “Impressive.”

  Garreth was on net duty. He said, “Yeah, she’s really got it now. Look at the pile of fish.”

  Claire went to the flopping fish, pulled it up by the tail, and swung it down, knocking its head against a rock. It quit moving.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Hannah caught Nari’s flinch at that. She moved to the girl’s side and said, “It’s more humane to kill them than to let them suffocate out of the water.”

  Nari nodded, but she looked unhappy. She wasn’t converting to meat-eating with any enthusiasm. Maybe in time she would.

  Rex said, “We caught another crocogator. In the net.”

  Ted was pulling in the net’s weighted bottom. “Big one too. We had to stop and repair the net.”

  “Is everyone okay?” she asked.

  “It bit through the net and got away, so yeah,” Rex said.

  “Okay, I’ve got the net,” Ted said. He deftly pinned the net’s lower end in place. Garreth got his end a moment later. Rex was taking care of the top of the net with Laina.

  “Anyone filtering water?” Bob said.

  “Every time we get a break,” said Rex. “Go ahead and drink. We’ve had some already.”

  “Good,” Hannah said. “Everybody, drink up.” She walked over to Claire. “Knife working okay to clean the fish?”

  “Yeah, thanks for it. It’s much easier than cleaning them with the dental picks. And you don’t have to tell me. I won’t lose it, I promise. I know it’s the only knife we’ll have.”

  “I knew you knew that,” she said. “I really need to find a hone soon.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A fine-grained stone to sharpen it. We use it so much, it’s getting dull.”

  Claire gutted the fish and added the guts to a pile at the far end of the beach, just under the shade of the trees. “We decided not to toss them in until we’re done. We don’t want to attract a predator like the crocogator.”

  “Good thinking.”

  The girl went to rinse the gutted fish in the lake and walked back into the trees to add it to a pile of other gutted fish. They had put them on a bed of ferns, and Claire put the fish on the pile and covered it with another fern frond from a pile they’d collected and had ready. “We should take these back and cook them before they spoil. Even in the shade, covered like this, it’s too hot to let them sit much longer.”

  “You’re right,” Hannah said. “I’ll take them back in a second, once I’ve had some water.” She wandered back up to the high bank and drank as she watched as Ted and Garreth threw fish either back in the lake or back up the bank to Laina, who carried them to Claire for cleaning.

  Ted said, “We’re getting so many, we can be choosy. We keep only the big ones.”

  Claire said, “Toss this one back in too, please, Laina. She’s pregnant.”

  Bob said, “Wow, you really are choosy.”

  Claire said, “They won’t keep beyond two meals. And we have enough, so why not use responsible fishing practices when we can?”

  “Maybe the roe is yummy,” Bob said. “Like caviar.”

  “Isn’t caviar yummy because it is salted?” Hannah said.

  “I actually find it disgusting myself, salt or not,” he said.

  “Never had any,” Hannah admitted.

  “Ouch!” Claire said. She was standing by the guts pile.

  “Damn it,” Laina added. She was over there too, holding the fish she was supposed to toss back. She dropped it and stamped her foot.

  Hannah walked quickly over to see what had gone wrong now. Bob followed just behind her.

  The girls were acting weird, hopping around, twisting. Laina began slapping at herself. Hannah saw the pile of fish guts moving.

  As she neared the girls, she saw that motion came from the whole pile of fish guts because it was crawling with insects. Some had found Claire and Laina. And from the looks of it, the bugs were biting them.

  Chapter 24

  Hannah went over to Laina, the closest, and helped her swat at the insects. They were ants, big ones, and she already had a couple dozen on her, legs and arms both. Laina’s slaps at herself were becoming more and more frenetic.

  “Here, be still. Let me help.” Hannah reached for one of the plump bugs and plucked it off Laina’s shirt. But before she could squeeze it to death, the thing had already turned its head and bitten her finger. She yipped. The suckers really did hurt! She used her fingernails to cut the thing in half and dropped it. Then she tried brushing at Laina.

  Problem was, these were tenacious little buggers. They clung tightly when touched, and the instant her arm moved to try for a moving one, that one froze while the last one crawled to a new spot. Laina was twitching at every bite and cursing.

  So were Claire and—shockingly—Bob. He never cursed in front of the kids.

  “Ow!” Hannah said, as she was bitten just above her sock. A line of ants had broken off and were coming at her. “We need to get away from these fish guts,” she said.

  She caught motion out of the corner of her eye. It was Garreth, running this way.

&nb
sp; “No, stay back!” she said. “And someone check the cleaned fish and—shit!” she finished, stomping her foot. Ants were crawling up her leg, inside her pants. She left Laina to fend for herself and jumped back, away from the line of ants, and sat on the beach, wriggling around, trying to smash the ants on the back of her calf by pressing her weight against them.

  One bit a very tender spot at the back of her thigh and she yelped again. She didn’t like the way this was headed—not at all. She reached down and yanked at the laces to her boots, pulled them off, and ripped her pants off. An ant was coming around her thigh, headed for the elastic of her panties, and she flicked at it. It didn’t allow itself to be flicked. She pinched it and flung it off.

  Reaching both hands around her thigh, she tried to scrape several off at once. They had found her other leg too. Movement ahead of her made her glance up, and she was horrified to see an entire army of them marching out of the trees in a swarm as big as a pig—a meat-eating, million-legged pig with a hundred thousand pairs of biting mandibles.

  Bob said, “The water. It’s our only chance.”

  “But the predators!” she said, slapping at more ants. She scuttled backward on her butt, trying to put more distance between her and the swarm. But it was hopeless, here it came, like a single creature. It was coming too fast. “You’re right,” she said. “Claire, Laina, into the lake.”

  Laina was so involved in trying to fight off the ants, she hadn’t seemed to have heard. Hannah jumped up, grabbed the girl’s arm and hauled her toward the water. Having her arms engaged in that and keeping her own balance, she had to quit slapping at the ants, and the rate of bites increased.

  It hurt.

  Hannah splashed into the warm lake water, gave Laina a final yank to propel her ahead, and sat on the muddy bottom. The little devils were still clinging to her, but the biting stopped within seconds. She had no idea why. She didn’t care why, just felt grateful that it had stopped. She felt her legs, starting at her panty line, and began plucking them off one by one. She suspected a couple got their heads yanked off, their mandibles still being attached to her. Good. Yank all their heads off, the little shits. The swarm had stopped at water’s edge. It was doubling back, returning to the fish guts.

  She yelled at the others, some watching in horror, some moving too close to the swarm, “I want you all back! Stay far away from them.”

  Ted said, “What about the crocogator?”

  “One disaster at a time,” she said. “You guys, whoever isn’t fishing, get the cleaned fish back to the camp before the ants find them.”

  Ted said, “I’m staying.”

  Garreth said, “Me too. You might need help.”

  “Don’t argue!” she yelled. “Get those fish and go, before the ants find them or you.” Under the water she kept removing ants. There were some floating around her now, so she scooted into deeper water. She looked around and saw Bob and Claire. But no Laina. “Where is she?” she said, fearing the worst, remembering the way the little horse had gotten pulled down by a predator.

  Just then, Laina’s head popped up.

  Hannah’s body sagged in relief. “Laina, you okay?”

  “Bit all to pieces, but yeah. I’m going under again. Just a second.” Her head disappeared.

  Hannah turned back to look at the bank. Most of the kids were carrying fish away, the boys having stripped their shirts and using those as slings to carry them. Ted and Garreth stayed where they were, and Rex was still fussing with gathering the net into a neat bundle. “You three,” she began, but she gave it up. She couldn’t force obedience, and certainly not from here, and Rex was legitimately busy at something important. “Stay the heck away from the ants,” she said.

  “We will,” said Garreth.

  “And run up and tell the guys with the fish to go ahead and cook them now, so they don’t spoil in the heat.”

  Ted turned to do that, disappearing briefly into the trees.

  Hannah continued to pluck the ants off one by one. She smoothed her hands over her legs, which in five weeks without shaving had reverted to their natural fuzzy state. A few ants clung to the hairs like lifelines. Several were still at her ankles, so she plucked those off and then turned to help Laina, who had been covered with them.

  “I think I have my arms done,” the girl said. “I really need to strip to get the rest. They got under my clothes.” She glanced nervously at Garreth, Rex, and Ted, who had just stepped back out of the trees. Ted picked up a pair of spears and handed one to Garreth.

  Hannah said to Laina, “It’s muddy water. They can’t see a thing from up there. Go on and take your shirt off first. We’ll get you de-bugged up top, and then you can put it back on and take your jeans off.” When Laina had taken her shirt off, Hannah tied it in a knot around her own arm, so it wouldn’t go drifting off, and twirled her finger, indicating that Laina should face away from her. “I’ll get your back. You get your front.”

  An ant was crawling on Laina’s hair. Hannah plucked it off and snapped it off her finger and into the lake and then started to clear Laina’s back of the ants.

  Bob said, “I think I’m clear, but I’m afraid I can’t help Claire the way you are.”

  Hannah glanced up to see him looking decidedly uncomfortable about the thought. Made sense, the rules about touching students at a high school were probably strict, and violating them could land you in jail. She wished they could throw all that useless stuff aside now, as it was not applicable. But then she caught sight of Claire’s blush and realized that Bob was right. The rules did still apply. “Get out of the water, Bob, to safety. But over by the bank, away from the ants, please.”

  “Absolutely,” Bob said. “I’d just as soon never get bitten by one of those again.”

  Garreth said, “Why haven’t we seen them before?”

  Hannah had no idea. Then something clicked for her. “In a way, I think we have. Remember the horse bones, Ted?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Oh. Right. You’re saying they ate the flesh off the horse?”

  Hannah felt a shudder run through Laina. “Yeah, I’m afraid so. It probably died of natural causes, and they found it and stripped the flesh.”

  “How do we protect ourselves against them?” said Bob. “In the future?” He was nearly to the lip of dirt under the bank.

  Rex said, “Maybe the smoke from the fire keeps them away. Is that possible?”

  It could be, but the fire wasn’t going all the time. Of course, when they were at the camp, that’s when it was lit, producing smoke or heat. Maybe it was an insect repellant of sorts. They had been lucky that the food they’d been cooking hadn’t drawn them.

  Ted said, “They’re going away, I think. The ants.”

  Bob shouted at the same time. The water around him splashed, and he yelled again, with pain. “I’m bit!” he said.

  Chapter 25

  Garreth said, “Mr. O’Brien!” and he took two steps and leapt off the bank, down into the water.

  “No!” Hannah said, turning, holding up a hand, as if that could prevent him.

  But Ted was jumping too, his spear point down, thrusting it into the water.

  Garreth swatted at the water at Bob’s feet.

  Bob yelled, “It has me.”

  Hannah said. “Pull him out. Just pull him out!”

  “Should we get out too?” Claire said.

  “The ants will start biting again,” Laina said. “I don’t want to.”

  Neither choice was good. Ants, or crocogator? Had she not seen the perfectly cleaned bones of the horse, and had she not felt the bites of the ants, the choice would have been easy.

  Garreth was hauling Bob up onto the bank. Bob got one foot up, and as he pulled the other, she could see one of the aquatic predators—crocogator or something else—was attached to his calf, just over his ankle. It wasn’t letting go.

  As he tried to pull that leg onto the shore, the predator thrashed. Blood welled.

  Ted took his spear two-
handed and slammed it down on the creature’s head. The spear snapped in two. He reached down and grabbed the creature by the tail, losing it, then grabbing again, with both hands. He snatched it mid-body and lifted. The slick animal slid through his hands and he caught it only when the rear legs hit his hand.

  Ted grabbed the legs and pulled backward. The predator reptile was a small one, a little over two feet long. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t hurting Bob. The man made another pained noise.

  Garreth let go of Bob’s arm and took his spear in hand. Stopping to aim, he brought the spear down. His aim was good. It hit the creature in the eye. It jerked back, and Bob was free.

  “Girls, get closer to the shore,” Hannah said. “Just in case it comes this way.”

  The reptile slid below the surface.

  “How will we know?” Claire said. “It takes you from underneath. You can’t see it coming.” She began wading back in to shore, still plucking at ants.

  Hannah used her nails to scrape down Laina’s back. “Nearly clear. Here’s your shirt.” She held it for the girl as she struggled to get her arms into the wet sleeves. “Good enough. Let’s move in.”

  She turned to see what was happening over there. All three of the guys were out of the water. Bob was sitting on the little lip of dirt under the bank.

  “Get up top,” she said.

  “I can’t stand.”

  “He’s bleeding bad, Hannah,” Ted said.

  At the same time, Garreth stripped off his shirt. He kneeled and used it to bind the wound.

  Hannah and the girls were in shallow water now.

  Laina said, “I can’t stand it,” and sat down in the mud. “I can’t take one more ant bite.”

  Hannah said, “Get Bob up on the bank, and then bring your spear here, Garreth.” She’d stand guard over the girls as they scraped off the last of the biting ants. She might not be as lucky—or as skilled—as Garreth had been with her aim, but she’d do her damnedest to keep the girls from being bitten by the reptile too.