The noise of thrashing in the foliage closed, getting louder and louder.
And then it broke cover.
And Franks fired.
And Bud fired.
And several more of his crew fired.
And when the firing stopped, everybody stared down at the man lying still on the ground, his torso a red, bloody mess.
Suzanna and Yates stared down at Kange’s body. Both were speechless, exhausted, in shock at seeing their guide gunned down.
‘He’s ... dead,’ Suzanna finally found herself say, as if the fact wasn’t obvious to everybody.
Despite the presence of a gang of armed men, she didn’t feel frightened, only angered and outraged. She ran at the ageing man in the baseball cap that had accosted her at her first visit to the excavation site.
‘You ... you murdering bas—’
He lowered his gun and slapped her around the face, causing her to tumble to the ground. ‘What the hell are you doing back here?’
Yates ran forward, but another of the armed men stepped forward, levelling his rifle at him.
‘You killed him,’ Suzanna said, looking up at the man, whom she half-remembered was called Franks.
‘How were we to know it was you and your dumb guide?’ He stepped forward and spoke quietly through his teeth. ‘Haven’t you forgotten what happened here? What we showed you yesterday? We thought you were that thing, coming back for more.’ He lowered his shotgun. ‘You were warned to stay away. What are you doing back here?’
‘We had no choice,’ Yates said, looking mournfully back at Kange. ‘It attacked our camp ... our colleagues ... they’re all dead.’
Franks’ face stiffened and one of his men, who managed the impressive feat of holding a rifle in both hands, while still clutching a beer bottle, stepped forward. ‘Who are they, and what’s this thing you are on about?’
Franks didn’t say anything, but while getting to her feet, Suzanna did. ‘Things!’
Franks squinted at her. ‘You mean there is more than one?’
‘There was at least three at our camp, judging by the tracks. There may be more than that.’
‘Three what?’ asked the man with the beer bottle.
‘Crocodiles,’ Franks said. ‘Big ‘uns. Killed Taylor and that boy Jackson.’
‘Jackson! I was told he was doing a survey somewhere,’ said another of Franks’ men. He was young and spoke with a British accent.
‘Guess we lied,’ Franks said. ‘The kid’s dead, so is Taylor, and if what she says is true, so are a number of other people.’
‘Then what the hell are we doing here?’ the one with the beer bottle said.
‘Cos, Bud, Mr Kruger wants this site dug, that’s why,’ Franks snapped. ‘And no crocodile is going to shut down this site.’
‘It isn’t a crocodile,’ Suzanna said, dusting herself off. ‘I’m sure of that. While crocs can and do attack on land, they do it alone, not in groups.’
‘Yeah, and what makes you an expert?’
‘My doctorate, that’s what. I grew up with crocs, spent years studying them, and I can tell you, it wasn’t crocodiles that attacked our camp.’
‘So what is it then?’ asked the one called Bud.
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Didn’t you see it?’ the young Brit asked.
She shook her head. ‘When we got back to camp yesterday, we found the place trashed and everybody missing, except the professor, but he had been ...’
‘Had been what?’ asked Bud.
‘Decapitated,’ said Yates. ‘Head bitten off.’
This caused a clamour among Franks’ men. The one called Bud being the most vocal of all.
‘I say we get back in the bird and get the hell out of here,’ he said.
‘I told you, nobody is going nowhere!’ Franks said. ‘We’ve got six hours left until sundown, so you best get digging.’
‘You can’t be serious,’ Yates said, stepping forward to appeal to him. ‘Haven’t you been listening? All our colleagues are dead, so is our guide. You have to take us back to your main camp so we can call help.’
Franks stepped forward menacingly, clutching the shotgun with one hand and prodding Yates in the chest with the fingers of the other.
‘I. Don’t. Have. To. Do. Anything!’ he said, before turning round to his crew. ‘Y’all better listen and listen good. We’re going nowhere until sundown. Mr Kruger ain’t gonna be pleased if we shut down and run off like a bunch of yellow-livers. When and only when you’ve finished your shift are we going to go back to camp. And tomorrow, we’re all coming back again. You understand? Crocodiles or no damned crocodiles.’
‘I told you, it’s not crocs that have been doing this,’ Suzanna said.
He spun round to face her, his eyes buzzing with anger. ‘I don’t give a damn what they are!’
‘Okay, okay. It’s your helicopter, we’re happy to wait,’ Yates said.
Franks laughed. ‘I don’t think you get it. I can’t take you or her anywhere, even if I wanted to, which I don’t.’ He pointed to the helicopter. ‘That bird seats six passengers, so there ain’t no room, see.’
‘You can’t just leave us here,’ Yates said.
‘Can’t I just.’ He chuckled. ‘I’ll do as I damn well please.’
‘If you leave us out here to die, that’s murder,’ Suzanna said. ‘But I guess you are well practised at that.’ She looked down at Kange’s body again.
‘It ain’t up to me. If Mr Kruger says I should come back and get y’all, I will, but I wouldn’t get your hopes up, you hardly hit it off yesterday, did you?’
He spun round again and stabbed his finger at his crew. ‘Right, get back to work, all of you!’
‘What about him,’ the young Brit asked, nodding to Kange’s body.
Franks looked down at the bloodied corpse. ‘What about him?’
‘We can’t just leave him there.’
Franks sniffed. ‘Why not? He ain’t our problem.’
‘It won’t take long before he starts to ... attract wildlife,’ insisted the Brit.
Franks thought for a moment then looked back at Yates and Suzanna. ‘Fine. If you two intend to hang around here, you can make yourselves useful. Bury him.’ He clicked his fingers at the Brit. ‘Go get them some shovels.’
‘So, you want us to hide the evidence of your murder?’ Suzanna said.
Franks rounded on her, his eyes bulging so much they threatened to pop from their sockets. ‘You better start being nice to me, missy. You have one hope, and only one hope, of getting out this jungle alive and that rests with me.’
The Brit returned with the shovels. ‘I’ll give them a hand.’
‘You won’t,’ Franks snapped, snatching the shovels from him. ‘You’ll get back to work.’ He tossed the shovels on the ground before Yates and Suzanna. ‘And if you two know what’s good for you, you’ll start digging.’
Chapter 9
‘Here.’ Yates passed Suzanna the last of their water.
She held up her hand, declining it. Both of them were thirsty, but she’d had more than her fair share already as they dug the hole.
‘Take it,’ he insisted. ‘You need it more than me.’
‘What makes you say that, because I’m a woman?’
‘No, but since I’ve not had the pleasure of your sharp tongue for the last ten minutes, I know you must be dehydrated.’
She let out a gentle laugh and relented, taking the canteen. ‘Sorry, I know I can be a hot-headed. I guess you must regret ever setting eyes on me.’
‘Of course not. If it wasn’t for you and your ... passion for conservation, we’d probably have been killed with the others.’
She smiled weakly, and took another swig before passing the canteen back. There was barely a mouthful left. Yates sloshed it around in the bottom.
‘Do you reckon they’ll let us have some of theirs?’ he said.
‘I doubt it, not while Adolf is standing guard
.’
They both glanced at Franks, who sat on one of the skis of his helicopter, as the others milled about the excavating machines. Thankfully, they were off at the moment. Every time they started them up the ground would shake and it was almost impossible to hear anything other than the monotonous droning.
‘They are not all bad,’ Yates said. ‘That British guy, Stephens I think his name is, seems all right.’
‘Probably just British politeness. He is still one of them. Good manners and a smile doesn’t excuse what he is doing out here.’
‘Like it or not, they are the only hope we have at getting out of here.’
She sniffed a laugh. ‘If they help us. You heard what Franks said.’
‘He was just trying to spook. Shooting a local worker is one thing, but I can’t see their boss leaving us out here to die. Word might get out.’
‘After what we have uncovered about them, leaving us to die might be the simplest way to silence us.’
‘Maybe, but I think they’re all a lot more worried about what’s happened here than they are letting on, even him.’ He nodded to Franks again, who clutched his shotgun close to his chest, his eyes glancing nervously left and right.
‘The way I see it, they need us ... or more accurately, you, as much as we need them.’ He looked back through the long grass where they buried Kange. ‘Whatever is creeping around out there, you’re the only person in a hundred miles that has any chance of identifying it.’
She stared into the grass, head shaking. ‘I wish I had your faith. I honestly haven’t a clue what it could be.’
‘You certain it isn’t a crocodile?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I suppose, with the stream being dead, they may have been forced onto land, but that doesn’t explain the tracks we saw.’
She went quiet for a moment.
‘There’s something else too.’
He looked askance at her. ‘What?’
‘The professor. Those bite barks. No crocodile could have made them.’
‘Then what?’
She didn’t have chance to speculate because the mining crew started the machinery again.
The noise vibrated across the ground. Birds in the surrounding trees took to the air. Dust around the excavator plumed into clouds while the workers tied neckerchiefs around their faces.
Soon, the dust thickened. It was choking and little was visible through the clouds. It even blocked out the sun, but it remained just as hot.
Both Yates and Suzanna kept as far from the machinery as possible, sitting crouched at the edge of the grass line, away from the worst of the dust, so were the only ones who saw what happened.
Yates saw them first. Suzanna knew something was wrong when he got to his feet and pointed.
‘Jesus!’
It took several seconds for Suzanna to comprehend what it was. Through the swirling clouds, behind where the men worked, it emerged slowly, its form hidden by eddies of dust.
Only when it went from a lumber to a run did Suzanna see it clearly. It was a lizard, unquestionably. Scales, head, tail, all familiar, but not the size. It stood well over a metre high and at least seven long. The tail was short and thick, and the legs muscular, like that of a bulldog, only they were sprawled out at the side, and when it ran, its body flexed and oscillated, its stomach inches above the ground.
Despite its clumsiness, it was quick. Even if the worker could have heard Yates and Suzanna screaming over the noise of the machinery, he wouldn’t have had time to react. The creature barrelled into him from behind, knocking the man’s hardhat from his head and clamping its mouth around his waist. It shook him like a dog with a ragdoll in its mouth, and only when it started dragging him backwards towards the long grass, did any of the others see it.
A gun flashed in the thick clouds of dust, and then another. The creature reared up, whether this was because it had been hit or it was some kind of defence posture, Suzanna didn’t know, but it showed just how big the animal was. Its snout rose above the clouds of dust, at least ten feet in the air, mouth open, eyes staring down at the panicked workers. It lingered like this for a second or two, before crashing back down to all fours and charging.
More shots were fired and Suzanna and Yates sprinted towards the helicopter.
Franks had wasted no time.
Suzanna doubted he’d even fired his shotgun. At the first sign of trouble, he’d hopped into his helicopter and got it running. He wasn’t going anywhere quickly, though. The engine needed time to get up to speed, which gave them a chance.
As the downdraft from the rotors kicked up more clouds of dust, Suzanna and Yates cut through it and clambered aboard, followed shortly by two Papuans. Seconds later, Bud emerged through the dust limping. He made it just in time, flopping on to the front seat next to Franks just as the chopper lifted off the ground.
‘What about Stephens?’ Bud shouted, one of his legs dangling through the open door. His dusty overalls were torn and blood soaked through the fabric.
‘He wasn’t quick enough,’ Franks shouted.
Below, the young Brit was racing through the dust, his arms waving frantically at the helicopter, his mouth opening and closing as he screamed and shouted. Slowly, his waving came to a stop as he realised the helicopter wasn’t waiting.
Then the creature pounced. It came out of the dust from behind Stephens and grabbed the young Brit around the waist with its jaws, tackling him to the ground like a pro rugby player.
‘No!’ Bud screamed.
He snatched the shotgun from Franks’ lap, and as the chopper yawed forward, he released a volley of shots, screaming oaths each time he pumped the action and fired. Below, Suzanna could see the creature’s body jerk as some of the shots hit him.
Bud continued screaming and firing even when they were out of range and the gun had emptied and his efforts produced nothing more than a click. Only when Yates leaned over the seat and placed a hand on the gun did Bud stop.
And then he passed out.
Chapter 10
If Suzanna thought the excavation site in the valley was an abhorrent assault on the natural world, she had no words to describe the sheer desolation of Alvaston Mining Corp’s main open pit mine. Cut into the jungle, the site stretched for miles. A barren, ravaged landscape, absent of trees, grasses or anything natural. A lifeless expanse of grey and brown dirt and dust, crisscrossed with makeshift tracks and roads where diggers and excavators and tractors and dumper trucks trundled along. Dotted about the site were great slagheaps of dirt, as well as pools of dirty water steaming under the unrelenting sun.
On the far side of this immense blot on the natural landscape, lay the miner’s camp, a small cluster of tents, huts and shanties, and a few jeeps sat amid a melee of people, all with the same white hardhats on their heads.
The strangest thing about the entire place was that nothing but jungle and scrubland surrounded it all. There were no trails or roads or tracks, meaning everything she could see, all the equipment and men and huts and vehicles must have been airlifted in. It would have taken months to set up, cost tens of millions. And for what? To rape one of the last untouched ecosystems on Earth.
It angered her, which helped dissipate the shock and fear she’d experienced on leaving the excavation site.
Death was something she’d not really experienced firsthand before. There was her father, of course, but she was young when he died and her mother had shielded her from the worst of his illness. One day he was there and the next he was gone, but seeing people she knew, and in the professor’s case a good friend, lying dead, or killed before her very eyes, had disturbed her. The shock of their deaths had almost overwhelmed her, but there was something else too. Something she didn’t expect. She felt guilty. She’d survived and they hadn't.
The others showed signs of shock too. Nobody had spoken in the short helicopter ride to the main camp, other than one of the Papuans who muttered incoherently to himself. Even the brutish Franks had nothing
to say.
Until they touched down, and he regained some of his bluster.
‘Right, Pocahontas and Tarzan. You wait here while I get Mr Kruger. Nobody move. Understand?’ He got out the chopper and slammed shut the door before running stooped under the winding down rotors.
As they waited for Kruger, Bud regained some consciousness, opening his eyes and muttering to himself. This prodded Yates to lean over the front seat, place his hand on the man’s forehead, before looking down at the wounded leg.
‘He’s lost a lot of blood and he’s burning up.’
As Yates peeled back the leg of the man’s overalls, Suzanna peered over the seat and wished she hadn’t. Bud’s leg was a mess. Half his calf was missing and what remained had been shredded. Sinew and tissue stuck to the cloth of his overalls and the white of his shinbone was visible.
How he’d managed to limp aboard the helicopter amazed her. He was either incredibly tough, or managed to escape on adrenalin and fear alone.
As Yates tended to Bud, Kruger appeared, pulling open the chopper door and peering down at the wounded miner. ‘Go get Loudon and a stretcher,’ he said, pointing to the two Papuans.
They nodded obediently and sidled past Yates and Suzanna before scurrying to do as they were told.
‘You two,’ Kruger said, in his clipped and pronounced South African accent. He pointed both his index and little finger of his right hand at them. ‘Come with me.’
Chapter 11
Kruger swirled the whiskey around his glass as he listened to Franks and the two researchers. He was struggling to believe what he was hearing.
‘This ... thing ... you still haven’t explained exactly what it was,’ he said. ‘You sure it wasn’t a crocodile?’
‘No way,’ Franks said. ‘But it was big, mean-looking too.’
‘Pah, you wouldn’t know a crocodile if it bit you in the ass, but what about you two? You’re scientists. You must have some idea?’
Yates shook his head. ‘I’m only a botanist, but even I know that was no crocodile.’
‘Then what was it?’ Kruger demanded to know.
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