K-Rex: A Prehistoric Thriller

by L. Z. Hunter

  “Shh,” Powell said. He attempted combing a finger through her hair. It wasn’t simple. Dried mud made it nearly impossible. Instead, he petted the top of her head. “Shh. You are worrying too much about things that we can’t change.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” she said.

  “If they left without us, the plan is still the same. Find a boat, follow the river until we reach a city. We just have to get out of the jungle, and away from the raptors, because apparently, we’ve agitated them,” he said.

  She laughed.

  “That’s funny?”

  She nodded. “Yes. It is.”

  He hugged her head to his chest. The night had just started. If his dreams were nightmare free, he’d close his eyes. He was too afraid to risk it, though. So instead he stayed awake.

  Chapter 19

  Powell guessed it was either the village shaman or a witch doctor that made a ceremony out of starting leaves on fire and then fanning the smoke over his and Claire’s bodies. The shaman chanted while he circled them. The smoke was thick and burned Powell’s throat.

  “This will tell the K-Rex that you are one of us,” the tribal leader explained.

  “It will keep us safe?” Claire said.

  “That question is not mine to answer. It will tell the K-Rex that you both are one of us. Whether he wants to eat you or not is up to him,” the tribal leader said. He smiled, but there was nothing comforting about the gesture. “You are welcome to stay with us for as long as you would like.”

  It was a tempting offer. Powell glanced at Claire. She was looking at him. She didn’t indicate a preference, but seemed to want him to decide. How long could they stay in a village in the Congo? Eventually they would have to leave. Or, eventually, someone would come looking for them.

  The offer was tempting indeed. Powell held out his hand. “Thank you for your hospitality, for the water, and for the directions, but we are going to make it to the river.” The leader had given each of them each a waterskin filled with what the natives considered clean drinking water—Powell refused to think about the parasites waiting to be ingested—and just a little food in a sack. “You have been very generous.”

  The tribal leader shook Powell’s hand. “I wish both you luck and best wishes.”

  Powell put a hand on Claire’s shoulder and turned her around. They started walking toward the edge of the village, but stopped when they heard two little voices calling out after them.

  They faced the villagers. Both Mangeni and Nafula ran toward them, arms opened wide. The four of them hugged. Powell was surprised at how the goodbye hit him. He’d barely spoken to the kids. He knew it was guilt that guided him. He wondered if Gary Brunson was aware of the ages of the laborers, or if he was, did he even care?

  Powell looked over the faces of the villagers. He expected to see Ruh and was disappointed when he could not find him in the small gathered crowd.

  “Come on,” he said to Claire, “let’s not waste any daylight.”

  # # #

  “You understand where we’re going?” Claire said.

  The tribal leader’s directions weren’t so much on a map as they were a finger point. He’d said, “Go this way, and you will reach the river. Whether you stumble a little left, or stumble a little right, you will reach the river.”

  “We go this way,” Powell said, and pointed.

  “Come, come,” a man said behind them.

  Powell spun around with his rifle raised. “Ruh!”

  Ruhakana waved for them to follow him. He ran past them, and on ahead, looking back only once to shout, “Come, come!”

  “Their leader isn’t going to like this,” Claire said.

  Powell shrugged. “Too late to worry about it now!”

  Without the young girls to look after, they were able to run more swiftly, more quickly. It almost felt freeing. And besides, they hadn’t seen a velociraptor since yesterday. The sun was rising in what appeared a cloudless sky. They might even make it the day without too much rain.

  The heat hung on. With everything else going in their favor, Powell wasn’t going to let some stifling hot air spoil the growing list of positives.

  He jumped over roots and cut left around a tree. His boots were tied tight. He wasn’t going to let snakes and spiders work their way into his mind. Not today.

  Ruh was fast. He almost floated over the brush. It was difficult keeping up, but Powell was up to the challenge. They had to be making good time. He wasn’t sure how long they had been running. Twice they had stopped to sip some water.

  “What are we going to do if we don’t make it to the river by morning?” Claire said, after lowering the waterskin from her mouth and brushing her forearm across her lips.

  Powell looked around. “I was wondering about that myself. We can’t think that way. We have to make it to the river before nightfall. I think at the pace Ruh’s set, we should be okay.”

  At the mention of his name, Ruh smiled at them.

  Powell felt so inept. He wished they could communicate. When he got back to the states, he thought about learning some other languages. Even with the six years of Spanish he took during high school and college, he still didn’t feel comfortable doing more than ordering cheese and nachos with a margarita.

  Ruh pressed his hand over his mouth.

  Claire laughed. “What is he doing?”

  Powell shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  Ruh’s eyes opened wider. He removed his hand, and then clapped it over his mouth again, nodding at them.

  “I wish I knew what—”

  Powell grabbed Claire’s arm, silencing her. He whispered, “He’s telling us to shut up. Something must be out there.”

  Chapter 20

  Powell let himself believe too many times that everything was going to be all right. It might have been a simple mind trick that kept his body from shutting down. He needed a way out of la-la land. The fact that a velociraptor was stalking them helped speed up the process of change.

  He held onto the rifle with both hands, ready to fire at anything that moved. Three hundred and sixty degrees was a lot of area to cover by himself. He was the only one with the rifle. Claire had her handgun, but there were only a few bullets left. Powell looked at Ruh for direction, because he sure as shit hadn’t heard a single sound. He wasn’t surprised. His make-believe world probably blocked out any unwanted noises.

  Ruh pointed.

  The raptor was behind them. At least it wasn’t blocking their path forward, the way toward the river.

  “The smoke, it will keep the dinosaurs away?” Claire said. Her lips quivered.

  “We’re fine,” Powell said. “Shhh.”

  “Should we run?”

  Running made so much sense. It was the easiest thing to do. Those things were fast. Deadly, and fast. There was no way to outrun them. If they tried taking off, it would bear down on them in seconds.

  Branches snapped. That Powell heard.

  Ruh waved his arms around to get their attention. When Powell noticed, Ruh pointed up.

  It was the best first option. “Climb the tree, Claire.”

  “What?”

  “Come on, let’s go. Up, up.” Powell stood by a trunk. He laced his hands together.

  More branches were crunched under the weight of what had to be a raptor.

  And then more. Claire stared off in that direction.

  “Claire! Let’s go!” He leaned forward, hands out, so she could step into them for a boost upward. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Ruh scaling a tree like a fucking squirrel. “Claire!”

  She snapped back. Her lips were drawn down in a frown, eyes tearing up. “Louis,” she said.

  “Get over here. Climb, climb!”

  Claire stepped into Powell’s hands. She set her hands onto the back of his head for balance. He counted off three and bounced her up several feet. She reached for branches and pulled herself up, her feet searching for traction on the bark.

  The so
unds got closer. More frequent. Without seeing it, Powell thought it sounded like the raptor was now running at them.

  “Give me your hand,” Claire said.

  The siren of the raptor’s roar killed the silence inside the forest.

  “Keep climbing. Get as high up as Ruh,” Powell said. “Go!”

  He jumped then, his hand grasping onto a branch. It cracked and broke off from the rest of the tree. Powell hadn’t expected it. He fell. It wasn’t far, but he wasn’t ready. He crashed onto his back.

  “Get up!” Claire yelled.

  Powell looked to his left.

  The beast ran at him. That was motivation. Powell rolled onto his knees, got to his feet and was running in one, or nearly one, fluid motion. His eyes searched for more low branches. There had to be a tree he could climb.

  The raptor let out another roar. It made Powell think of old movies, as if the roar was a battle cry. A trumpet signalling the start of war.

  He watched the ground while he ran and kept his footing as best he could. Best he could tell, he was still headed in the right direction, toward the river, but away from Claire and Ruh. He chanced a look back.

  There were two raptors. Two. They ran at him side by side. Powell thought his heart stopped beating. It felt like it swelled inside his chest and would soon explode.

  And then, bam!

  He was falling, had tripped over a snaking vine. He went down hard. He thought his elbow cracked. It had crashed onto a rock. The throbbing that shot up his arm to his shoulder and down to his fingertips made him suspect he’d shattered bone. His whole arm tingled. He had no clue how such a spot could be nicknamed the funny bone, except that he almost found himself giggling from the pain. Shit—was that why?

  The two raptors bumped into each other. It wasn’t a clumsy move. The motion seemed almost human, sophomoric. When they each roared, Powell imagined them like two fat drunk guys who hadn’t eaten in days and were stepping up to a buffet of their favorite foods.

  Powell was lying on the rifle. He struggled rolling around, hands behind his back, and on the shoulder strap.

  He wasn’t going to make it. They were steps away.

  Louis Powell did the only thing he could do. He closed his eyes, and prayed the end was fast and painless! Had no idea what it was like to die. He wasn’t sure if he believed in Heaven or Hell. He said a prayer, regardless, and hoped if there was a God that the Big Man was listening. He knew the only way he’d survive the raptors attack was by a miracle. And everyone knew miracles didn’t happen.

  Chapter 21

  Gunfire exploded from all around. Bullets whipped through the air. Powell heard the hiss of them passing close to his face. Rounds of ammo slammed into the velociraptors. Blood and brain matter sprayed from holes in prehistoric skulls. Both raptors crashed forward. Powell threw his hands up, ignoring the pain that radiated through his right arm.

  The crushing weight of the raptors on top of him made it impossible to move. He thought ribs might snap under the weight. He strained, wiggling left and right, using the heel of his boots to push in the mud. If the ground had been hard, it might be easier squeezing out from under the beasts. Right now, he thought he might actually be sinking into a suffocating grave.

  “Hold on, man. Hang in there. You hurt?” John Marksman stood above him.

  Miracles. “I’m okay. I broke my arm. Maybe a rib.”

  Marksman grunted out a laugh. “You’re breathing, brother. That’s what counts right now.”

  “You two gonna kiss, or wanna give me a hand pushing one of these bad boys off of him,” Ian Ross said.

  # # #

  “I hate long hellos more than I hate long goodbyes,” Ross said. “We have maybe an hour of daylight left. That’s it.”

  Marksman spoke to Ruh.

  Ruh nodded when Marksman finished. He stepped forward and hugged Powell and Claire.

  “I told him to go home,” Marksman said. “We’ll either make it to the river or we won’t. No sense endangering the boy. Kid was far braver than I could have imagined. I barely said hello to any of them at the pit. They were just dumb natives to me. I didn’t look at them as people. Is that shallow or what?”

  Powell used Ian’s bandana to create a makeshift sling for his right arm. He gave Claire the rifle. Marksman showed her how to use it. Armed, and ready, they began cutting a way through the forest.

  They worked themselves into a pretty good pace. They stayed single file. Marksman on point, Ian in the back of the line. No spot in the order was safer than the other. Marksman made it clear that the gunshots fired would attract more raptors. They had to keep moving, and move fast.

  “They’re trackers,” Marksman had said. “Seems like once they pick up our scent, they can find us anywhere.”

  Powell had told them about the shaman at the village.

  “Mumbo jumbo,” was what Ian called the ceremony.

  It seemed to work protecting the village. Maybe the dinosaurs didn’t like the odor of that particular burning leaf. There was no point arguing, or even discussing any of it at the moment. They had a goal; a target.

  Reaching the river was obtainable.

  Powell breathed in and out, short, shallow breaths. Every time his foot hit the ground, pain radiated inside his chest and sprayed through his arm. Ignoring the pain was not an option, working through it was the only thing he could do.

  They ran faster, and faster, as if Marksman could actually see a light at the end of the tunnel.

  Powell clung onto hope, again. He hoped he wasn’t foolish for doing so. He hoped the four of them would make it alive out of the Congo.

  The river must be close.

  The river—

  The long guttural growling and screeching roar echoed throughout the valley they’d descended into. The ear splitting sounds echoed off of trees and rocks. Like the last few times, he couldn’t pinpoint where the velociraptor was, or if there was more than one calling out.

  “It’s there!” Marksman was shouting. “The river! It’s right ahead!”

  The backpack felt like bricks in a bag over Powell’s back. He pressed a hand against his side. It was a shooting pain. He remembered getting the same thing when he ran distance on the track around the football field at the high school. He was cramping up. Now was not the time.

  Powell’s hands felt naked without the rifle in his grip. He was defenseless.

  He heard gunshots ring out from behind him. Ian must have the raptors in his sight. Powell was almost bent forward running. His side ached. He did not stop, but actually ran a little faster.

  Ian was letting out roars of his own as he fired the rifle. He sounded more like a lion, as if he thought he was king of the jungle.

  He might have been in some jungles. Not in this one.

  Powell saw it. The river was brown. It could have been fast flowing mud. It didn’t matter. That would still be a better alternative to trudging their way over an unbeaten path in the middle of nowhere.

  But where was a boat?

  They still had to find a boat.

  Marksman stopped on the river bank. He turned and fired his assault rifle. He waved Claire forward, encouraging her not to stop. “Go,” he said, “Go, jump!”

  Jump?

  Claire plunged into the river.

  Powell couldn’t see her any longer. The current looked powerful. Could she even swim?

  “Move it, Powell! Move it!” Marksman was shouting over the din of steady machine gun fire. “Into the river!”

  Powell didn’t hear shots from behind any longer.

  He did hear the unmistakable sound of branches snapping and cracking and splintering.

  Was Ian dead? Had the raptors gotten him?

  Powell made it just feet from the river bank. Marksman looked like he was shooting to take off Powell’s head. Powell even threw up an arm. It was a useless gesture. It just seemed better than having his face blown clean off.

  “Into the river!”

  Powell didn�
��t need to be told twice.

  He heard jaws snap just behind his head as his feet left the ground and he was in the air.

  The rushing water was cool. He sank like a rock. He could hear the bubbles racing toward the surface all around him. He swam with them using his arms and kicking his legs.

  When his head breached, he looked around for signs of…anything. He was turned around. He didn’t know left from right. East from West. He couldn’t find Marksman on the bank. He let the current carry him while he scanned the water for Claire.

  He ignored the sick feeling in his stomach that anacondas and crocodiles were below and about to eat him feet first. It couldn’t be like jumping from the fire into the frying pan, or could it?

  He saw a boat. He didn’t believe it, but there it was. The small dock it was tied to held one other surprise. Claire was by the pillar in the water. She held onto it with both hands. She had to be exhausted. Fighting the current would spend too much energy. He swam with the current toward Claire.

  A smile spread across her face when she saw him.

  He reached the dock and grabbed onto the pillar beside her. “Holy shit,” was what he said.

  “Now what?”

  “We borrow this boat,” Powell said.

  “Where’s Ian, and John?”

  “Let’s get in the boat. Climb up my back onto the dock,” Powell said.

  She looked like she might resist the command, but wordlessly climbed his back. She stayed on her belly and reached down with her hand. She helped lift him out of the water.

  “Get in the boat, I’ll untie her,” Powell said.

  “Louis,” she said.

  “What?”

  The fear lit behind her eyes was a tell. Powell turned around.

  A raptor ran at them from across a small clearing. Nothing but open space, and it was headed right for them.

  “Get in the boat,” Powell said, pulling at the ropes. The knots were fucking tight. He had no idea how they were tied. Were they like Navy knots? In the Congo? Using mostly one hand wasn’t helping.