Hunter's Moon (Cretaceous Station Book 2)

by Terrence Zavecz

  The black ghosts had selected an entry to the herd’s slumber area midway between the sentinels. The sentinels would have ignored such small creatures passing through their midst anyway. The humans moved with the careful, slow pace of their quarry. The humans are more intent on following than catching the black ghosts at this point.

  A sudden movement off to their left and a mountain of flesh rose not more than fifteen feet away from them. It snuffled and stood to shake its body. A head with a massive beak swung around toward the humans and began chomping at the thinly feathered skin around its rib cage with a hard-beaked nose. Then satisfied, it stomped noisily on the earth as it swung in a circle and fell to the ground.

  The humans, frozen in their, positions waited silently. Three and then eight eternal minutes passed before they could hear the slow and peaceful rush of air coursing through the lungs of the once again slumbering creature. Alex moved forward, followed silently by the rest of the party.

  Alex could hear movement in the grass before him. They are strange, sporadic movements unlike the careful padding of their quarry. He lifted his right foot to place it down along the edge of a grassy clump and the mount erupts. Wing-like appendages fly out, the creature screams as it runs off across the grassland. Screaming staccato calls mixed with meat-grinder like growls fill the air as it zigs and then zags across the field to just as abruptly settle again in silence several hundred feet away.

  Alex’s heart pounds, should they run? His body says run but his mind holds it immobile. Slowly the night sounds return. The commotion hadn’t disturbed the sentries much less the sleeping mountains of flesh all around them.

  Corey can’t see his feet as he walks in the waist high grass. Step-by-step he first lifts his foot and then carefully carries it forward. Trying to silently follow in Alex’s exact footsteps, he moves his foot forward feeling for the edges of the next high clump of grass. What lives in the dark, damp areas below these grassy clumps? Thoughts of spiders and strange snakes with even stranger legs lay in the back of his mind. Are any of them poisonous? How big can they be? What happens if we trip over one of them?

  Faint webs along the sides of their path catch the moonlight to glisten and sparkle in imitation of the starry fields above them. His mind knows they are spider webs catching the heavy dew of the evening. Alex, stalking silently ahead of him, must be pushing through them constantly.

  Alex suddenly stops and motions them forward.

  ‘It’s a stream, watch it, it comes up on you fast.’ Corey could not even see the water until he stood on its edge. The rift in the grass before them is only five feet wide. The dark waters rapidly pass carrying bits of grass, sticks and white foam that seems to glow in the moonlight. The speed of the debris passing before them and the silence of their passage suggest that the calm water channel is deep.

  ‘I can’t see any tracks or trail on the other side. They must have turned down stream since the water isn’t muddy, oh there, look. You can see prints in the soft bottom. Here, give me some support.’ Alex steps down into the stream. The water rises up above his knees and then his foot sinks another six inches into the soft loam lying on the bed of the stream. ‘Oh shit, I hope they aren’t still in the stream. They’ll see the mud we stir up for sure. Well, can’t be helped. Come on.’

  Corey rests his hand on Alex’s shoulder and steps down into the dark swirling waters. The mud pulls against his boot and the frigid groundwater chills his legs. Oddly enough, the thing that bothers him the most is he can no longer see the field, their heads are so low they are now below the tufts of the grass and palm scrub around them.

  Alex begins to move downstream slowly as Corey provides support for Tom as he climbs down into the waters. He finds it hard moving his feet. The mud pulls at each step and there are clumps of grass in the mud. The sweet herbal smell of the field now mixes with a rotting fragrance rising from the disturbed mud below. They move in a tunnel of water and grass with only the stars above them; blind to anything in the surrounding fields. The stream twists sharply as it meanders across the open grassland. Slippery, moss covered rocks cover a portion of the stream here making it difficult to cross without falling. Unconsciously, Corey’s hand reaches out to grab an overhanging branch but he stops before touching it. That would be a sure giveaway.

  Something heavy plops into the water just under the branch. His mind wonders if they have snapping turtles in the Cretaceous or maybe it’s even something worse!

  Alex moves to the edge of the stream and motions them over. ‘They went out here. See the edge of the bank?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so!’ Tom has walked downstream a bit and calls over the net. ‘Look over here, there’s another path on the shoulder of the stream and this big rock is on edge. No, they went out and then returned.’

  ‘A ruse? Well, we knew they are smart. Come on, good spotting.’

  They follow the stream, slipping on the rocks and trying to move quietly. It’s difficult tracking passage in a waterway. Bottom debris and mud from your passage will hide any of the subtle tracks below the surface. Waters rush by their legs making what sounds like an ungodly amount of noise as it trickles by. Bend after bend they pass and then Alex stops and stares into the waters for a few moments. Corey and Tom freeze in place as he walks back and forth and then stops to slowly shuffle over toward a bend in the streambed with a large rotting palm log lying across it.

  The log stretches from the dark waters into the pale moonlight of the bank. Grass and branches form around it, trapping piles of moonlit white foam that swirls along the face of the log, passing from tiny whirlpool to whirlpool. The other end of the log rests on top of a small prominence of the dry land. Alex extends his hand and freezes at the sound of a large body pushing through the brush above him.

  As they stand silently in the rushing waters, a dark form emerges through the thick brush at the stream’s edge, towering above their heads. Its foot on the bank not more than three feet away from Alex’s head. A loud snort fills the air around them and the shadowed mass crashes down into the water beside Alex. A beaked mouth opens and a thick red tongue lashes in and out for a minute and then pulls back. Three horns swing around narrowly missing the man as it lowers its head again into the stream for a second sip of the cooling water. Then water splashes across the stream and the head is gone. A rustle of weeds up on the shore marks the dinosaurs retreat back into the brush.

  Corey moved over to Alex. The man is standing there unmoving even though the threat is gone.

  ‘Cheeze Corey, I thought for sure he was going to cross the stream right over me. Let me tell you, I don’t think all that brown stuff floating downstream is mud! Hang on for a second, I gotta get my mind set again. Gotta focus on the mission.’

  Corey looks back, Tom is standing in the center of the stream. His hand is over his mouth and he’s shaking convulsively. Corey calls over the net, ‘You ok?’

  Tom looks up at Corey and waves, ‘Yeah fine, oh shit! Trying not to laugh out loud. Aw, that hurts!’

  Alex stands upright, pulling on the grassy edge and trying to look over the tops of the grass. ‘I think he’s gone.’ Then without turning his head, ‘You remember this Tom, payback is coming.’

  Corey’s startled by Alex’s low words but then he can see the smile on his face. ‘Ok, not a problem.’

  Alex calls them in with a hand motion toward the log. The stream flows under and behind the log, sinking down under a dark overhang in the bank before curving out back into the streambed. ‘I lost their trail and was trying to pick it back up when our big friend decided to take a drink. When I ducked down to hide, I saw these tracks. They went back in there.’

  Corey looked closely. The waters washed around the log and under the embankment, swirling in a backwash that he could just see in the low light. Most of the stream continued on its path but a small tributary leads out under the bank. The faint sound of water falling against rocks comes from inside the dark hole.

  ‘It’s black in
there. How are we gonna follow them without lights?’

  ‘We’ll have to use the helmet amplifiers but I think we’ll chance the infrared. Your helmet enhancements will let us see inside even with no external lighting but we don’t know what we are walking into. We’ve still got two problems then. First of all, we know they can see infrared. The only question is, if we tune the lamps into the deep infrared, will they still see it? I’m guessing not. Second, look at the Hive Tab net metrics. We’re already losing the signal out here. We go in there and we’re back to hand signals and the short range communicators.’

  ‘You don’t wanna quit do you?’ Tom asked.

  ‘No, just want to let you guys know the situation. Let’s go.’

  Corey moves to the log and positions his rifle over it, scanning into the narrow watery entrance to the tunnel.

  Alex places a small cover over the tip of his rifle and bends low into the water to crawl under the log. He shuffles into the deep, watery hole cut out of the bank by the swirling creek. Moving in a low frog-crawl through the waters, they rise up to his chin, his helmet just clearing the log above. Now on the other side, Alex stands and faces in to cover the tunnel, ‘Ok Corey, you’re next. Watch as you pass under the log. There’s a couple of sticks in there, you don’t want to get tangled in them with this swift current.’

  Corey stoops and slides into the water hole, slowly the cold waters rising over his chest restrict his muscles and take his breath away. It’s very dark as he pushes under with one hand feeling in front of him. He pushes at the dirty clumps of foam in the water before his face when something snags on his shirt. He feels his alarm rising, but then recalls Alex’s words; it’s nothing but a stick. He pushes ahead a few feet and the muddy bottom changes into fine gravel softly crunching beneath he boots. Teeth chattering, he stands slowly and removes the cover from his rifle bore.

  Corey looks around him and notices a hand signal from Alex. In response, he slides over to the edge of the tree, watching back downstream as Tom dips under the waters.

  Tom emerges and Corey can see him give a sly wink to Alex. Alex then motions them forward into the hard darkness embracing them. As the fast moving current pushes into the undercut stream bank, they have just enough room to stoop. A portion of the waters ahead travel under the bank, cutting a clear hole large enough for them to squeeze through if they crawl on hands and knees. Corey’s boots and hand sinks into the soft gravel, straining as he pushes into the hole and trying to hold the tip of his rifle up. A few feet and the passage opens so that he can frog-walk through an entrance that is covered in a wet, slippery clay.

  Onward they push deeper into the down slope of the small underground stream. His boots slip in the wet clay as he tries to brace himself on the fine sandy loam of the walls. Roots tangle from the walls and roof of the cavern. Deeper in, some very strange roots curl through the roof with knurled bulbs of softer tissue forming along their length. The root systems stop as they continue downward following the soft trickle of the stream. The trickle is soon replaced by the louder sound of rushing of water over stones. The tunnel continues down at an uncomfortable slope and then slowly opens. The three men crawl ahead, slipping occasionally on the loose stones, still not able to stand easily. Leg muscles cramp in their effort to push down deeper into the earth without slipping or making noise.

  They find that they can finally stand at the bottom even if it’s only a stooped position. They travel several hundred feet through the narrow tunnel when it suddenly begins to open into a wider room with a high ceiling. Alex motions, ‘Split up and examine the walls for exits. Keep alert, they may be in here!’

  They split up to cover the walls. The small cavern is about fifteen feet wide and forty feet long. Alex indicates that he can’t see the ceiling but some loose stones at the tunnel entrance have been pushed to the side by the recent tread of a foot. The wet clay at the stream entrance behind them poured out in a fan across the floor of the room with the only exit being the one taken by the narrow water at the other end. Soft sandstone has replaced the clay in the walls. The small streambed covers only a portion of the cavern floor as it winds down deeper into the darkness.

  The going is easy for a few hundred feet and then the ceiling drops. They are crawling on their hands and knees again, following the stream that grows larger and faster as they go. Deeper they plunge into the darkness, barely able to see the sides of the walls in their electronically enhanced vision. Then they hear the sound of fast moving water. The sound grows stronger and the cave opens into a thin, tall chamber sloped and formed between a massive rounded boulder and the soft sandstone walls of the cavern.

  The team continues to push ahead, bending to swing around and beneath the boulder. They are barely able to squeeze between the massive rock and the wall. More and more boulders appear around them with the stream flowing tortuously beneath the field of stacked rocks. Alex motions, ‘Pull back! We have to detour slightly and then try to swing back.’ The stream noisily pushes ahead through a route much too small to follow.

  ‘There’s even more groundwater joining the stream in here. The flow wasn’t this strong back there. Ok, we’re still on track, there’s a footprint in the soft sand and, look here, someone brushed against the wall.’ Alex whispers as they take a short break.

  ‘That’s going to be quite a challenge going back up.’ Tom comments.

  ‘Yeah, maybe we’ll get lucky and find another way out. I can’t figure out what’s going on here. These boulders are all pushed and piled as though some glacier rounded and stacked them. I thought the ice ages have yet to come around here.’

  Corey commented, ‘Not quite true. Except for our last several million years, most of the earth’s timeline has been warm with very few glaciations. However, it did have a rather short lived ice age at the end of the Jurassic period and a few other times I recall but that would be about a hundred million years ago. These may be part of an ancient glacial moraine.’

  ‘Ok, but right now we gotta keep pushing. I hope these things are all settled in place. I’d hate to think of what would happen to us if they shifted.’ Alex raises his rifle and twists slightly to swing around the boulder. It’s difficult to see anything more than a few feet ahead. The boulders are stacked around them as though they were at the bottom of a box of huge marbles. At he passed around one of the boulders Corey thought he could see a few stars peaking through between the rocks perched high above his head. Boulder to boulder they crawl, pushing forward but always trying to follow the stream.

  They slide around one last boulder and Alex quickly turns his hand into an upturned fist. Corey and Tom freeze in mid-step at the sudden signal. Up ahead, through a narrow slit between two massive boulders Alex can now clearly see the stars in the sky above. From here within the darkness of the cave, the brightness of the night sky almost hurts his night sensitive eyes. The stream flows out from between their feet to wind around one last massive rock ahead of them and onto a flat rock surface. Lit by the moon, the waters form a bright silvery ribbon flowing across the stone and then disappear into velvet black nothingness beyond.

  Alex stands frozen in his crouched position, feet spread broadly straddling the narrow stream. He listens for a few minutes. No sounds are there except for the trickle of water over the stones. Nothing moves outside on the rock except the flowing white ribbon of water cascading across the stones.

  He signals for them to stay in place and moves forward on muscles once again beginning to cramp. Every sorely strained muscle in Alex’s body begins crying out for movement and release as he crawls slowly forward. Approaching the edge of the opening will be difficult. Hundreds of very large boulders are stacked into this pile forming the “cave”. There is no single clear opening, just a long narrow tunnel formed by two twenty foot or so wide boulders. The cleavage before him forms a narrow but tall and tilted path with no cover leading out into the open.

  Alex slides down as quietly as he can to lay on the edge of the stream. He then b
egins to pull himself under the rounded slope at the base of the boulder, slowing approaching the opening. He stops after each forward movement to listen and watch ahead. Pushing forward, avoiding even the smallest disturbance in the stream that would send a wash of mud and stones outside alerting the black ghosts. That is, if they are still there.

  Slowly he moves out, consciously displacing small sticks, webs and insects before him until he can see down across the rock escarpment. It appears to be a flat rock surface running along the foot of a sheer cliff of fallen boulders. No. Further up he can see solid rock cliffs. The stream behind them must travel down a narrow crevasse that, in past times, was filled in with these massive boulders.

  Looking in the other direction is a bit more surprising. The rock surface is strewn with bones and decaying carcasses. Beyond the narrow rock shelf before him is a valley full with trees, many of them deciduous or leaf-bearing. It’s difficult to tell in the moonlight but they seem to be at least a dozen feet higher than the nearest tall trees.

  They are here! One is actually sitting on the rock and picking at a bloodied carcass before him. The other is standing with his back to the stream. They are about forty feet away, too close for comfort.

  Alex pushes back slowly into the rock cavern. His helmet transmitted the scene to the others. Corey begins crawling ahead but Tom stops him, shaking his head “no!”. Tom grabs his blouse, pulling Corey back into the slightly wider tunnel section, and silently crawls around Corey. Corey watches as Tom moves to the other side of the stream and begins a slow, silent pull out onto the rock shelf.

  Tom edges out onto the opposite side of the stream from Alex and looks around, slowly raising his rifle. Alex raises his hand and motions with his fingers, one, two …

  One black ghost suddenly lifts its head and calls an alarm. With amazing agility they climb up the boulders over them before Alex and Tom can exit their narrow tunnel. Tom and Alex move out to the smooth rock ledge, searching up the cliff for the dinosaurs. Suddenly, one appears above them and jumps down at Tom. Tom swings to the side just as Corey exits the tunnel. The dinosaur lands on Tom only to be blindsided by Corey. They sprawl off and the black ghost is up and running down along the ledge and around the corner shielded by the cliff.