by Greig Beck
PRIMORDIA II
Return to the Lost World
www.severedpress.com
COPYRIGHT GREIG BECK 2018
“One must wait till it comes.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World
From the Research Notes of Emmaline Jane Wilson
It’s only a tiny comet.
It’s called P/2018-YG874, designate name: Primordia, and probably came out of the Oort cloud a hundred million years ago, give or take a few million.
Since then, this astral speck of mostly iron had been traveling in an elliptical orbit around our solar system. It would approach our Earth, pass by it, and then head back to the inner star where it was grabbed again and then flung outward for yet another cycle around us. It was a decade-long yo-yo game that has been going on for millions of years and would go on for millions more.
The Primordia apparition, meaning when it was visible to the naked eye, was unremarkable, except for one thing—scientists say the comet’s nuclei has a significant concentration of iron and other rare minerals. But what they don’t know is that this composition creates a unique magnetic distortion on the surrounding solar geography.
In its slow pass by Earth, the comet came closest to South America, directly over a vast tabletop mountain in Venezuela. It was only observable for a few days, but in that time, strange distortions occurred on the mountaintop—things became rearranged, reordered; pathways were created and doorways opened.
It also caused localized monsoonal weather patterns that had been known by the indigenous tribes for millennia as the wettest season. It was also known that for this brief period, the area became home to gods and monsters, and should be avoided. Those who ventured there never came back.
I know this to be true. Except for one thing: sometimes people can come back.
PROLOGUE
He froze, listening to the stealthy sounds outside the cave. He sat for many minutes in the near darkness with just the dying embers of his fire giving the walls a hellish red glow.
After five more minutes of silence, he exhaled long and slow and went back to sharpening a stick by slowly grinding it against a rough stone. His knife, now rusty, was lashed to the end of a long, straight branch, making a spear—his only weapon, and his only protection.
He paused to look again at the cave entrance. Was that the soft sound of claws raking against the rock—seeking, testing, investigating? The entrance had been sealed over, as it was every night. But the creatures that hunted in the dark were more than powerful enough to force their way in.
Hiding, becoming invisible, and avoiding some parts of the jungle was the only way to survive. Nearly every night, the sounds of death and killing went on out there—but he knew, as long as they stayed out there, he was safe in here.
He looked through long strands of greasy hair up at the walls. He had spent days, weeks, covering the inside with mud, sealing over every crack, fissure, and pockmark, to make sure there were no ways into his refuge, no matter how small. He knew things came creeping at night, not just big things, but tiny, hungry things, and sleep was when he was the most vulnerable.
He shifted a little, feeling the mud flake on his body. He had also coated himself in the silky clay to create a barrier against biting insects and also to mask his scent from the beasts that had senses of smell hundreds of times more sensitive than his own.
His eyes ran along the walls. On one were hundreds upon hundreds of marks—four strokes, crossed diagonally by a single stroke, over and over, as he counted down the days. So far, they totaled to 2,920—nearly 3,000 long, lonely, and terrifying days he had been here. But there were still many more to go until his chance of escape would arrive.
His eyes shifted to the other wall—there, he had drawn an image of a memory now eight years gone by—it was his motivation and his waking dream; Ricky’s, a rib joint, complete with sign overhead, large windows, and people inside sitting at a horseshoe booth. One of the people he had carefully drawn in detail, a girl, looking out at him.
Benjamin Cartwright’s eyes began to water as he remembered. His dry lips moved. “Don’t forget me, Emma,” he whispered. “Don’t forg—”
His words caught in his throat as the sniffing came from right outside. Then the cave entrance exploded inward and the monstrous thing reached in for him.
PART 1 – FOOTSTEPS FROM THE PAST
“Life is infinitely stranger than anything the mind could invent” – Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World
CHAPTER 01
Venezuela, the Deep Amazon, Unmapped Tabletop Mountain
Emma crouched and picked up a handful of scree. She looked at the weather-blasted fragments, rolling them in her palm for a few seconds before letting them drop.
She rested her forearms on her haunches and slowly turned her head, blowing air through her pressed lips. This place, this tabletop mountain, or tepui, in the middle of nowhere, wasn’t on any map and wasn’t explored.
And why would it be? she thought. It was like the surface of another planet—riven with crevices, a few small pools of water, stunted trees, and some hardy grasses.
She continued to scan it, looking for something, anything, some sign that indicated there was something here now, or there had been something here in the past. As she watched, a small striped skink clambered out from under a flat stone in pursuit of some sort of gnat. She watched it dart forward, ruby-red gimlet eyes and jerking movements as the tiny reptile hunted down its prey with ruthless efficiency.
After another moment, she turned away. There was nothing here now, no secrets revealed. When the wettest season came, and it would as it had been doing perhaps for thousands or millions of years, then anything that was here was buried, hidden, or maybe even destroyed. And what existed 100 million years in the past became reality, just in this one place in the world.
What was lost would be found again. She placed a hand against the sun-warmed stone. “Are you there, Ben?”
She waited, letting her fingers trail over the ancient rock’s surface. But she knew there would be no answer, and maybe not for another two years until the time was right.
There was just an eerie silence on the plateau. Perhaps there were ghosts here, but they wouldn’t speak to her. Not yet.
Behind her, a huge helicopter waited. The pilot watched on, but was paid handsomely for stripping down his long-distance helicopter, loading in spare fuel tanks, and also for his discretion.
She bet she knew what he was thinking. Probably the same as everyone else that had heard her tale—jungle fever, hallucinations, post-traumatic stress disorder, fakery—and dozens of other accusations that had been thrown at her.
But she knew different, and she looked up into the azure sky. One day soon, the eyebrow-like streak would appear, heralding the return of Comet P/2018-YG874, designate name, Primordia. It would first bring an aurora borealis effect in the upper atmosphere, and then its powerful magnetic field would distort time and space on the planet’s surface. A doorway would be opened, right here, and she’d be waiting for it.
Emma Wilson stood and turned, circling her finger in the air. The pilot immediately started engines and the huge rotor blades began to turn.
She was finished here, for now. But before going home, she had one more thing to do.
CHAPTER 02
Venezuela, Caracas, Museum of Sciences
Emma alighted from the taxicab and stood out in front of the striking building and admired the magnificent sculptures and ornate stonework of the great artist and sculptor, Francisco Narvaez.
She looked along the magnificent edifice of the museum, one of the country’s oldest. It was dubbed the Museum of Natural Scien
ces when it first opened, but the name was eventually shortened to Museo de Ciencias—the Museum of the Sciences—to reflect the broadening of its scope over the years. It didn’t matter what they now called it; like most places of public learning, they were dying, yet more victims of the fast-paced age of Internet learning.
Emma had come to this museum for one reason. Though it housed some of the country’s best collections in archaeology, anthropology, paleontology, and herpetology, there was only one thing she wanted to see.
Emma walked up the front steps toward the huge doors, seeing the ghostly apparition of her reflection doing the same in the glass panels. The polished glass was like a mirror, and she saw her familiar features staring back—the luminous green eyes, brown hair that shone with red highlights in the sunlight, and she knew there were still a few freckles smattering her upturned nose and cheeks.
But as she got closer, the ghost became clearer, and so did reality. She paused, staring for a moment. There was a streak of silver hair at her forehead that she didn’t bother masking, and at the corner of each of her green eyes, fine lines came about from squinting into the sun, plus a line between them, creating a permanent vertical frown, perhaps from worry. The face was older, wiser, and as some even said, haunted.
So be it, she thought as she blinked it away and pushed in through the huge doors, feeling immediate relief from the Venezuelan heat. She inhaled the odors of old wood and paper, floor wax, and something that might have been preserving fluid.
The rapid clip of shoes on marble turned her head, and she smiled and waved to a small, middle-aged man with perfectly groomed swept-back silver hair, wearing an immaculate three-piece suit. She took his outstretched hand, pressing firmly. She needed to win him over, and quickly.
“Greetings, Ms. Wilson, greetings.” The man beamed up at her. “Your travels were comfortable?”
She nodded. “Yes, thank you, Señor Alvarez. You look just like your pictures: handsome.”
The man beamed and also blushed a little. He continued to shake her hand for several more seconds as he smiled like a schoolboy. He finally shrugged.
“Ah, but I need new profile pictures.” He pointed at his head. “My hair is now fully grey.”
“Suits you.” Emma looked around. “Beautiful museum. Thank you for taking the time to see me.”
He turned, grasping her elbow and raising one arm to point to a corridor leading into the depths of the building. “Fact is, we are very quiet these times.” His lips turned down. “The young people of today, impatient, get their information, and perhaps their view of history, from the Internet.” He sighed.
“I know; their loss,” Emma replied.
The pair walked on in silence for a few more minutes with just the sound of their heels on the polished floor, and the occasional squeak of heavy wooden doors as they pushed through them.
Alvarez wasn’t kidding, Emma noticed, that they seemed to have the place to themselves. The man walked with his hands in his pockets and half-turned.
“You have been to our country before? The Amazon?”
“Yes, eight years ago.” She grunted softly. “Eight years, three weeks, and two days ago.”
Alverez’s brows shot up. “You seem to remember it very well?”
Emma’s eyes darkened. “It left…an impression.”
The man watched her face for a moment and then made a small noise in his chest. “Sometimes it is not a good experience for some people.”
He walked on for a few moments more, and obviously decided to fill the quietude with a little more small talk.
“Did you know the Amazon is still the world’s largest tropical rainforest?”
She smiled and nodded. “I did know that.”
He returned the smile. “Well then, did you know that the previous estimate of our magnificent jungle being 55 million years old has now been pushed back even further than anyone first thought? There are large tracts in the deepest parts of the jungle that may have existed for up to 100 million years.”
Her grin widened. “I even knew that too.”
“You have done your homework, Ms. Wilson; I salute you.” Alverez bowed his head slightly. “And now I can see why you are one of the few people in the world to even know about our artifact.” He stopped before a locked door, and then reached into a pocket to rummage for a moment before producing a large set of keys. “But exactly, how did you learn of it?”
Emma felt a tingle of excitement as she waited. “I heard about it from Professor Michael Gibson of Ohio University. He wasn’t sure if it was even real. He thought it might have been just a story.”
“Excellent archeology professor; I know of him.” He put the key in the lock, but paused to study her. “A long way to come for something that is certainly real, but is as confusing as it is confounding.”
“Curiosity.” She kept her eyes on the door.
“Killed the cat, yes?” He grinned up at her.
“It’s killed more than that,” she responded flatly.
His brows drew together momentarily. “Quite so.” Alverez then turned back to the door, unlocking it and pushing it open. He flicked on lights in a large room filled with exhibits that had most likely been stored or were yet to be classified.
Emma’s eyes were immediately drawn to a large cabinet against a far wall, and he flicked on a small spotlight that shone down on a bank of solid-looking drawers with brass handles.
She had to stop herself from racing ahead of the man and calmly walked at his side as they crossed the room. Alverez reached for one of the largest drawers and slid it open. Emma felt her heart begin to pound.
“La huella de Dios,” Alvarez said, almost reverently.
Emma whispered the translation, “The footprint of God.”
She stared at the object; it was a shard of stone, roughly two feet long and one foot wide, and at one edge, there was what looked like a portion of a human footprint with the toes pushed in hard. At the other end of the stone shard was a three-toed print of some sort of dinosaur. From the way the prints were pressed in, it looked like the human was running, the other creature in pursuit. Emma closed her eyes for a moment and felt moisture at the corner of each.
“The matrix rock is dated at around 100 million years old, the late Cretaceous Period. The last one of the Mesozoic Era.” He turned to her. “The great age of the dinosaurs.”
Emma continued to stare, her eyes blurring. “Do you think…?” She sniffed and quickly wiped a sleeve across her eyes.
Alverez nodded. “Impossible, I know. But the rock has been scientifically carbon dated. But there were no humans then. Many experts believe it is the distorted print of some sort of as yet unidentified animal. And others that it is proof that God walked our land to admire his creation.” He shrugged and grinned again. “This is why we call it the Surama mystery, named after a place that is a tiny dot on the map in the center of the Amazon.” He chuckled. “Who would believe it anyway?”
“Do you think… I can touch it?” She turned to him, hoping her flirting would now pay off.
“What?” He seemed confused, perhaps by the audacity of her request.
“It’s important.” She stared into his eyes.
His frown deepened. “But why? What would you…?”
“Please,” she urged. “It’s important to me.”
Alverez’s jaws worked, as he seemed to mull the request over. “Señorita Wilson, you must be very careful, and do not lift the stone free.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Quickly then.” He watched her closely.
Emma raised her hand, fingers outstretched, and edged them toward the dark stone. She touched its coolness, and ran them into the slight depressions, feeling the pads of the foot, the toes.
“It was found over a hundred years ago in the mouth of a river after heavy rain. It was washed out of the dark lands of the deepest Amazon.” Alvarez watched her as she ran her fingers over the footprint, almost lovingly. “Who, or what, made those prints has been lo
ng gone for 100 million years.”
“Not for me they’re not,” she whispered. She snatched her hand back and turned on her heel.
“Huh? You are finished?” Alverez straightened as he watched her leave. “Ah, perhaps we could talk, have coffee, or…”
Emma turned briefly as she got to the door. “Thank you very much, Señor Alverez, but I have much to do and very little time left.”
She walked out front and skipped down the steps, her mind working overtime as she thought through what she needed to do. Rather than grab a taxi immediately, Emma walked down the street, turning down avenues with her mind somewhere else, some time and place long, long ago.
She imagined Ben in that dark primordial jungle, running for his life as he was pursued. For all she knew, that race for survival had happened right here, where she stood now.
The last time, they were just a group of dumb kids who had no idea what they were up against. And they had all paid dearly, most with their lives. But this time, she’d be ready; she’d gather a team with appropriate expertise, and she’d need firepower. She had a lot to do, and she’d left everything to the last minute. But her determination to be there when the wettest season returned burned within her as brightly as the day she had scaled down from that hellish place and then watched as it vanished.
Personnel, logistics, timeframes, and finances all ran through her mind, and she paid little attention to anything else. Without thinking, she found herself in a less-salubrious area of the city. The veneer of respect was extremely thin in Venezuela, and when tough times hit, some people hit back. In this place, she wasn’t just a woman or even a human being anymore; instead, she was a target.
As she passed an alleyway, she was grabbed around the throat and a small-caliber handgun jammed into her cheek. Emma would have cursed her stupidity, but her throat was already constricted.