They had walked all night, the tribesmen gliding silently, their footsteps barely making a sound, while Suzanna stumbled and crashed and tripped through the darkness, no idea where she was, where she was going, or what would happen to her when she got there.
They’d shown no violence towards her, other than a gentle prod forcing her onward, but she didn’t care. She deserved anything that was coming to her.
For the first time in her life, she realised something. Tanner had been right. She was a bitch, a cold, calculating, manipulative and arrogant woman who placed no value on human life. She had been solely responsible for his death. She might just as well have pulled the trigger herself.
Tanner may have represented everything she despised, but he was still a human being. He didn’t deserve to die like that. She gave him no chance. And what end did removing the bullets from his gun serve? The Megalania still died, but not by Tanner’s hand, by her own.
The irony wasn’t lost on her.
No, she couldn’t have cared less what happened to her, to the Megalania, to the whole damned country. Kruger and his ilk could uproot every tree, kill every animal and raze the entire jungle to ashes. She was done with Papua New Guinea, but as she trudged among the tribesmen, the first glimmer of daylight appearing through the canopy, she knew Papua New Guinea was not done with her.
How far they’d walked, she didn’t know. Her body had long since been running on autopilot, one foot in front of the other, hour after hour, mile after mile, stopping only occasionally when the tribesmen would thrust some rancid fruit in front of her face and make her drink the foul-tasting juice within.
She didn’t even know in what direction they walked. The forest had thickened, back to steamy, humid jungle, and while shafts of sunlight penetrated the canopy above, she couldn’t tell where in the sky the sun was.
They continued for another couple of hours and ended up emerging from the bush onto a rocky shelf overlooking a river. The tribesmen stood on the edge, like base jumpers ready to leap. She wondered if they were going to throw her off as some sort of sacrifice, but their attention was fixed below.
Suddenly, a reverberating boom raised all their heads. In the distance, plumes of smoke slowly rose above the hills on the other side of the ravine.
Blasting.
Suzanna realised that must have been Kruger’s mine. Chatter erupted among the group, the tribal chief arguing with several of his men, some pointing to the blasting in the distance, others below, others back the way they had come.
She wasn’t sure, but it appeared as though the chief wanted to take her back to Kruger, but the others were contesting the idea, and by the way the chieftain gestured and gesticulated, he was losing the argument.
She decided to take matters into her own hand.
As they argued among themselves, she slipped away. Creeping along the shelf, eyes glancing back at the debate going on among the chieftain and his men, she peered over the lip of the cliff for a way down.
Below, the river looked fast running and dirty, a nasty brownish colour, like weak tea. It looked crossable, though but not deep enough to accommodate a jump from the cliff, not at that height. Besides, around the river, sat dozens of boulders, smooth and rounded by erosion. She didn’t fancy landing on one of those.
Her only chance was to climb down.
It was steep and consisted of loose rock and gravel. Yet she had to try. Steeling another glance at the tribesmen, she lowered herself over the edge. At that moment, the chieftain spotted her and yelled something. His men cantered over to try and grab her but she scrambled down as fast as she could, loose stones and gravel cascading down below her feet, and avoided their clutching arms.
Then she slipped. Caught herself. Clung on as she got her footing. Slipped again and slid down the steep incline, only managing to stop her descent twenty feet from the bottom, legs dangling over the side, hand catching a ridge in the rock.
From this distance, she thought about dropping. It could cost her a broken ankle, but the risk was worth it. The mine was no more than a couple of miles away, and she’d crawl on her belly if she had to.
Dangling over the precipice, she braced herself for the fall, eyes peering down at the gravel and smooth boulders looking for the best place to land.
All the while, the tribesmen shouted down at her, gesticulating wildly. Yet something about their tone made her pause.
It wasn’t anger in their voices. It was something else, something universal and identifiable no matter what the language. Fear.
Some of them were pointing below. She glanced down and realised her mistake.
One of the smooth, grey boulders below unfurled a short, stout tale, revealing a flat, menacing snout. It raised its head, tongue flicking in and out tasting the wind. The moving boulder was followed by another and another and another... Megalania!
They varied in size, over a dozen of them, from twenty footers, large, bulking, to smaller, thinner juveniles, a herd, a family, waking up as the sun warmed their bodies and their energy returned, and above this pack of killers hung Suzanna, legs dangling over a precipice, fingers loosening their grip on the rocks.
One of the animals’ forked tongues smelled her presence. Getting onto its stocky legs, its head turned in her direction, its beady, black eyes staring at her and it lumbered over, standing beneath her and rearing up, halving the distance from her feet to its gaping mouth.
‘Help!’ she screamed, appealing to the tribesmen above her.
Some tried to clamber down the cliff face, but their efforts just sent down a cascade of loose stones and rock, which threatened to dislodge Suzanna’s already failing fingers. Others hurled their spears down at the waking leviathans, but they had little effect on the tough hides of the lizards from such a distance.
Another Meglania joined the one beneath Suzanna’s feet, snarling and hissing, eventually talking a bite out of its competition, causing a frenzy of retaliation. The two animals span in a ball, biting and hissing at each other, rolling and writhing around like dogs fighting over a bone—a bone that had just lost all strength in her fingers and dropped to the ground.
Suzanna heard a crack when she landed and a searing pain shot from her ankle up her leg. The two brawling Megalania hadn’t seen her fall, they were too occupied in ripping chunks out of each other, but several of the others beasts did.
Two smaller ones, half the size of the adults, but still a good ten feet from snout to tail, plodded towards her, heads snaking, tongues flicking in and out.
Suzanna tried to clamber to her feet but a bolt of intense pain caused her to fall back, screaming. This excited the two infant lizards, who quickened their pace, charging at her like two slavering dogs. She scrambled backwards, desperate, knowing she could not get far.
In despair, she started hurling stones and rocks as she backed away, one bouncing clean off one of the lizard’s nose, causing it to hiss in defiance and the other to take advantage of its distraction by snapping at its neck.
The two juveniles engaged in a brief scuffle, snapping and biting at each other, before seemingly realising they were letting the chance of a meal slip away.
Suzanna had wasted no time, scrambling to the water’s edge. By the time the two animals charged again, she was splashing in the shallows of the river. The riverbed disappeared beneath her only a few feet from the banks, and she found herself breaking into a swim, her ankle screaming in pain with each kick, mouth and nostrils filling with water.
Swimming came natural to Suzanna, as it did most Australians brought up by the beach, and even with a broken ankle, she broke into a rapid front crawl, aiming for the other side of the river. Yet as adept as she was in the water, she was no match for the two reptiles giving chase.
While short, their tails and flexible bodies gave the Megalania far more thrust in the water than Suzanna could manage. As she thrashed and scooped frantically at the water, ignoring the agony of her foot, the two reptiles closed. Worse, their departure spa
rked curiosity among the others in the herd, and as Suzanna stole a glance behind her, she saw several more grey shapes, much larger than her pursuers, slink into the water.
The other bank was too far, she’d knew she’d never make it before the grey denizens were on her, but the current was strengthening, sweeping her downstream, so she went with the flow.
Before long, it was all she could do to keep her head above the water. Around her, the dirty, brown water foamed and frothed, quickly turning to rapids that spun her in a maelstrom of currents. The raging waters masked her screams, but mouthfuls of water filled her lungs, choking and threatening to drown her.
Her disorientation meant she had no idea where the Megalania were, how many followed, or where the riverbanks were. She was just a piece of flotsam being carried along the current, helpless, slowly drowning.
And that was all she remembered.
Chapter 21
Acting like an alarm, the pain in her ankle awoke her with a throbbing, pulsing ache. Eyes flickering open, it took several seconds for Suzanna to focus on her surroundings. She was lying on mudflats next to the river, wet and trembling, from either cold or shock, her nerves hadn’t had time to decide which. Drying mud caked her body.
Another spasm of pain shot from her ankle, tempting her to scream. She needed to cough to expel her lungs of the rank water, but she did neither, something in her peripheral vision suggested any sound would be a bad idea.
She wasn’t alone.
As she lay shivering, large, dripping forms plodded around the flats next to her. She didn’t move, didn’t dare raise her head. She knew what they were.
At least five Megalania, possibly more, were probing the area, searching for her. Monitor lizards had keen vision, so she couldn’t understand how they didn’t see her. Perhaps it was the mud, camouflaging her. Perhaps it was her stillness—most monitors only had conical retinas, making it difficult to identify stationery objects.
She knew her concealment wouldn’t last long, though. She could see their forked tongues flicking at the air, tasting, smelling her. The filthy water and mud may have temporarily masked her scent, but under the intense Papuan sun, she was drying quickly. Soon her natural odour would reveal her location like a flashing beacon.
What could she do? She couldn’t run—her ankle made sure of that. Crawling was out of the question. The moment she moved, their primitive eyes would pinpoint her. And lying still meant an inevitable, slow and agonizing death. Savaged and ripped apart. Devoured by inches.
Already she could smell their fetid, rotting breath as they closed, hissing and panting like slavering dogs. She cursed her misfortune at having not drowned in the river. It wouldn’t have taken much, just a couple of deep underwater breaths, a few more mouthfuls of water.
The water she had swallowed was now desperate to evacuate from her lungs, and as much as she tried to stifle the urge, she couldn’t help but cough it up.
The convulsion turned several giant heads in her direction, tongues lapping at the air as they tried to isolate the source of noise. It would have taken them seconds to find her, if not for the succession of deafening booms that echoed above their heads, startling the Megalania and giving Suzanna a chance, albeit a small one, to slip away.
She was on her good foot and hopping up the mud flats and into the surrounding undergrowth at the second detonation. The explosions were close, meaning the open pit mine and help was within grasp. If only she could make it.
Each step sent stabs of excruciating pain up her leg, but she ignored it and adapted a limp and shuffle motion, dragging her injured foot behind her as she hobbled as fast as she could towards the sound of reverberating booms.
But she wasn’t the only one.
A quick glance over her shoulder told her the Megalania hadn’t given up on their lunch just yet. While she couldn’t see them, the undergrowth behind her rocked and rustled as the mighty animals crashed their way through it, following her scent like bloodhounds bounding after an escaped fugitive.
With each agonizing step, the sound of blasting closed. It sounded like artillery shells battering a battlefield, and she became aware of dust and a pungent, rotten egg stench.
Another stolen glance behind her, revealed a scaly grey form in the undergrowth, only yards behind her. Branches and fronds and overhanging strands of vegetation whipped across her face as she shambled through the bush, barely able to keep upright.
Another detonation sounded, this time much, much closer. Followed seconds later by another sound, a loud, roar like groan that reverberated unpleasantly, like giant fingers scratching at a chalkboard.
Accompanying it, the gruff hiss of her pursuers. A quick glance told her she had failed, the beast was on her, its menacing flat snout, overhung with crooked, serrated teeth was feet away from her now and it lumbered far faster than she shambled.
Then she was out of the undergrowth, bursting into the daylight and the flat, barren and parched landscape of the open pit mine and a new danger—a rotating wheel six feet in diameter, edged by steel teeth that gouged out the ground before her.
She almost ran straight into it, the machine’s cutting wheel spinning into the ground inches before her. Diving out the way, she hit the ground as dirt and rubble rained down on her. Hands desperately trying to protect herself, she rolled sideways away from the spinning terror, only to see another terror emerge from the bush.
One of the juvenile Megalania that had so doggedly pursued her from the cliff burst from the undergrowth, mouth slavering.
It charged straight into the spinning exactor blades.
It minced the Megalania like a piece of steak in a blender. Suzanna curled into a ball as chunks of blood, flesh and shredded skin sprayed off the blade peppering her and the ground in gore.
She lay cowering for several long seconds, drenched, soaked in blood, eyes closed tight, and then silence.
The vibrations and noise stopped, the machine’s spinning wheel came to a halt and she raised her head, opened her eyes and saw Yates, hardhat on his head, face contorted with a mixture of shock, surprise and horror.
‘Suzanna!’
He gaped at the blood soaked ground and the mangled Megalania lying a few feet away from her, huge chunks missing from its flanks, its head partly severed from its torso.
He reached down, offering her hand and pulled her up. ‘Where did you come from?’
‘Henry, run!’ she shouted.
Out from the undergrowth crashed two more Megalania. Not juveniles but fully-grown adults, twenty feet long, bulky bodies as large as a small car, mouths gaping like open suitcases but bristling with inch-long teeth not zippers.
She backed away, along the excavator’s caterpillar tracks hobbling, ignoring the agonies of her foot, but Yates just stood there gaping.
One of the beasts reared up, towering several feet above him, its black beady eyes staring down.
By the time Yates found his feet and turned to run, it was too late. The creature pounced like a kitten attacking a ball of wool, its front legs crashing down on Yates’ shoulders, flattening him to the ground as its jaws clamped down on the back of its head, tearing and ripping into it, decapitating the botanist.
The other animal wanted part of the action, but the Megalania with Yates’ severed head in its mouth, dropped its prize and snapped at the other beast, which decided rather than fight, it should find his own supper. Its eyes rested on Suzanna as she backed away to the rear of the excavator, terrified.
As three more Megalania crashed from out of the undergrowth, the animal trudged forward, intent on grabbing his meal before the others spotted it. It quickly went from an awkward waddle to a sprint, charging at Suzanna.
Even if her foot wasn’t badly injured, Suzanna would never have outrun it. She had nowhere to run. Around the excavator was nothing but churned up ground, an odd pile of rubble and a few local workers, most of whom had spotted the intruders and panicked, fleeing for their lives, shouting, screaming, warning ot
hers.
She only had one place to go.
As the creature’s snapping jaws lunged at her, she dived behind the tracks of the machine, and scrabbled underneath the chassis.
It wasn’t big for an industrial machine, perhaps the size of a pickup, with two caterpillar tracks supporting a cab and the single mechanical arm that held the spinning wheel. The Megalania shoved its snout underneath. The machine rocked as the beast tried to prize its shoulders underneath, its jaws snapping at Suzanna’s feet as she dragged them farther under the chassis.
Outside, she heard sickening screams as some of the other Megalania had found their own meals, terrified workers not quick enough to escape the carnivorous monsters. She accompanied their cries with her own fearful scream as the Megalania pushed harder under the excavator, raising it up, threatening to tip it over and reveal her like a chocolate in a box.
Its jaws were close to her feet and she backed as far away as she could, and then screamed again as another pair of jaws gnashed at her from the front of the excavator.
Chapter 22
‘One swallow doesn’t make a summer, Harry,’ Peter Henderson was saying, as Kruger sat, feet up on his desk, whiskey in his hand, satellite phone clamped to his ear.
‘I understand that, Pete,’ Kruger said, wafting his hand for Loudon to come in, who had tapped at the door with a tray of food. ‘I just wanted to let you know the figures for the last two days. We’ve turned the corner. I know it’s been a shaky start, but I have a really good feeling about this pit now.’
‘A couple of days hitting your quota doesn’t equal a turnaround,’ Henderson said, pausing. Kruger heard the crackle of a cigar over the phone, and then Henderson inhaled deeply. ‘I don’t know. Maybe I might be able to stall the board for a few—’
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