Hunter's Moon (Cretaceous Station Book 2)

by Terrence Zavecz

  ‘Ok, signal Alex to … what’s that?’ As he turned his eyes, four small animals walked through the underbrush from over the ridge. Their heads sported a brown crest that flowed down the light tan mottled markings on their bodies to end in a broad tail, broadly feathered in white and brown. They pecked around the leaves on the ground. Corey noticed that one of them always had its head up, watching the surroundings.’

  Frozen in place, Corey watched them move by with fascination. They walked like the grouse he remembered from home. They sang and whistled as they fed on the brush, scratching through the matt of dead leaves on the ground.

  Suddenly a dark shape moved from on the ridge behind them. It called a warbling, almost sweet whistle that ended with four sharp clicks when it spotted the feeding dinosaurs. He could see the smaller ones were nervous, they didn’t run right off. The dark shape moved from side-to-side, trolling and pushing them without charging in to try and catch them.

  Corey focused on the new intruder. It’s the right size and maybe shape! Yep moves like they do, let it get a little closer and I’ll bring the rifle around. The attacker gave off another four clicks and then moved directly at the four small dinosaurs feeding in front of Corey. They fled off in the other direction. He saw them disappear into the bush.

  A screech erupted and the brush suddenly shook. Then three of the dinos ran out into the small clearing clearly followed by a second attacker. He could clearly see now that these are not the Black Ghosts but they had driven the small dinos directly into a trap. Corey held his fire as it erupted less than twenty feet before him. The bigger dinosaur lunged and caught one of the fleeing dinos, it let out a screech like chalk grinding down a blackboard and then was abruptly quiet.

  The hunter picked itself off the ground with the dead dino in its mouth. It looked back into the brush it had just come from. A third large hunter, brightly covered in red and green plumage with a red crest emerged with a second small dinosaur in its mouth and was joined by the original raptor who had pushed the small ones into the trap.

  The hunters joined, one held a small brown dino in his mouth and the other now held its victim in its right paw. They turned and walked off into the woods, passing less than six feet from Corey who is still frozen in silence. Corey crouched in his cover, unmoving while one of the little brown bugs chewed a hole in his neck. Two minutes and nothing more happened so he flicked his hand back.

  He felt rather than saw Alex move along side of him. Alex came forward into his vision and gave him a warm smile and a wink as he passed by. ‘Ok, guess I passed that test.’ Corey thought as he watched Alex move silently up and into the brush ahead of them. He watched Alex as the soldier moved by him and then silently moved a hand to his neck to remove and crush a small bug.

  They moved further and further along the flat shoreline of the river. The start-and-stop movement has grown to be not only frustratingly slow but painful as tense muscles constantly switch from frozen stillness to a brief moment of controlled movement. Corey is fascinated by the hunting technique. It’s nothing like he ever experienced.

  He noticed early on that Alex didn’t exactly trail and track their quarry. Alex directed them up and through the brush, keeping off the trails and then crossing back over the path of the two dinosaurs. They moved ahead in relay, moving from covered brush to rock shadow with the sharp cries of the jungle always around them.

  Alex cut back in toward the worn trail and stopped for a few minutes. He didn’t motion them on but continued slowly moving about the clearing, looking all around. Then he raised his hand to motion them to freeze into their places. Then another signal, take cover!

  They shifted position instantly. Corey moved silently into a thick patch of high ferns clustered near the bottom of a palm. He looked back around him, the others were no long visible. Then the waiting began. He froze in place watching the world of strange animals move about them. The minutes passed as hours and Corey took to watching small, brightly colored animals glide above them from tree to tree as they passed before his range of vision. They seem to constantly sing and whistle in low, almost soothing tones as they gracefully rode the airwaves between branches.

  ‘Just what are they finding to eat up there?’ he asked himself quietly. Then he noticed they preferred to land on the limbs of a palm-like plant. It had clusters of seeds or fruit of some type near the top. They scraped the outer skin of the fruit and the juices bled down…

  A faint push, the sway and swish of a limb in the brush ahead interrupted his study. It was a quiet movement, the faintest brush of a limb. He stared at the forest before him, watching a slim dark green shape that his eyes couldn’t quite resolve push through the underbrush. It stopped.

  ‘Are my eyes playing tricks on me? No, if I watch very carefully I can see movement. It’s not the regular breathing of a pair of lungs pushing air in and out of the body. A ripple, yeah that’s it. A rippling down along its length. What the heck is …’

  It moved, or more descriptively flowed through the low brush. A cover so dense he couldn’t see the entire beast.

  The sudden, soft noise of something setting almost silently into the ground rose behind him. His heart leaped and seemed to skip a beat but his body stood still, frozen in the shadows. He couldn’t see it but he could hear the slow movement behind him grow closer and closer.

  A darkly mottled green wall of feathers suddenly entered his side vision. He didn’t dare even move his eyes. He could see the details of each strand, each extended vein of the feathers as they glistened in a deep, metallic green on a shaft that is a least a foot long. It is so close he could smell the dusty, almost musk-like fragrance of the down. The body extended as a green wall in his side vision, a small arm with long feathered strands is just visible above his head.

  The green apparition sat there unmoving and silent except for the low ripple feathers as it forced air through the air sacs in its boney frame. He could almost feel the warmth emanating from its body, the silent tension of its stance.

  His gaze identified a massive leg across the small clear area in front of him. It moved to set forward on its toes, ready to suddenly push some unseen, massive body forward like a runner setting his feet before the sprint. He realized they were sitting now in the center of an ambush. It wasn’t set for them but how is it they did not see the small party of human hunters?

  Corey’s nose began to tickle him. Unmoving, he held back the urge to purge it with a sneeze. The dust from the nearby wall of feathers and muscle tingled deeply up in his sinuses! ‘Oh God, I’m allergic to it!’

  A small trail of liquid abruptly ran down from his nose. He didn’t dare move, he fought every nerve and reaction in his body. He ignored the pounding of the heart in his chest that urged every fiber of him to flee or even more urgent, to sneeze.

  He consciously worked to calm his body. His heart slowed, unconsciously mimicking the regular rhythm of the warm wall of muscle rippling next to him. They waited together. His thoughts concentrated on the leg across the way. Irrationally he tried to see some outline in his brain, striving to prevent the image from slipping away, from fading unseen into the undergrowth before his eyes. He sits motionless, his senses awash with the warm, regular movement and scent of the breathing beast so close by his side. Pushing back the screaming thoughts in his brain, ‘My God, they’ve set up an ambush all around us. If we move we are dead! Who is it set up for? What will happen when the ambush is released?’

  The realization ripped into his mind, ‘It’s set up for the Black Ghosts! That’s why Alex stopped and moved around the trail like he did. He jockeyed us into position to wait for them and these guys have the same idea!’

  He then saw the feathered arm move out of the corner of his eye. Slowly it rose and a fingered claw extended. It slowly dug into its feathers, pushing and then pulling back into the rest position. His imagination could see a small cloud of dust spread through the air. Alex almost laughed with the absurd hysteria of the situation, ‘He had an itc
h and I’m suffering for it!’

  ‘Where are Tom and Alex? Are they even here anymore? These raptors haven’t seen them or we wouldn’t be frozen here like this. How long are we going to wait?’

  The bushes across the clearing suddenly erupted with movement. A large figure ran across the clearing. Corey felt the wall of muscle next to him tense and it shifted its foot down, bringing the wall of feathers even closer.

  The figure ran and then glided across the trail and out of sight. Nothing else in the area moved.

  ‘Guess I’m not the only nervous one here. Cheez, how long was he there, hiding in the bushes?’

  It shifted its foot again and Corey felt a massive weight move onto his own foot. His boot hardened instantly but the big raptor didn’t seem to notice. He stifled an almost giddy laugh that rose up deep from inside him. Every nerve in his body fought to stay motionless. ‘Cheeze, another half foot and he would have broken my leg or worse. What can go wrong next?’

  ‘If I swing around I can plug this guy point blank. Can’t be sure it’ll kill him though, the Python’s set only on a three. We were hunting Ghosts not something the size of a Hunter Recon!’

  ‘Shit, just how many are there. I can see two but …’

  A wild screech and scream filled the jungle before him. The bushes and even the trees in front shook with the commotion. He caught a glimpse of a black figure running ahead, moving in their direction. A portion of his mind noticed that the green wall of muscle next to him started shivering, shaking in anticipation.

  The black ghost ran to the edge of their clearing and then abruptly turned and launched itself into the air. A massive blue head appeared above the bushes and the airborne ghost shot forward through the air to meet it. The Ghost couldn’t help but strike its attacker who also missed its bite. The small dinosaur glanced off the side of the jaws as they clamped down on empty air. It shortly lost control and flew into the trunk of a nearby tree, losing its well aimed dive for the throat of the monster.

  The ghost fell to the ground and a massive foot raised to kick out at it. Corey unconsciously lifted his rifle just as the massive wall of muscle next to him shifted and lurched forward. Two monstrous green bodies appeared from the bushes and descended, leaping onto the point where the Black Ghost was falling. The Ghost twisted in mid-air and kicked off the side of a palm trunk, swinging around and out of harm’s way. A second black figure passed through his field of vision. Corey lifted his rifle to aim at the fleeing Black Ghost and a four-foot long green head swung toward his movement.

  Corey froze as he saw its gaze shift directly at him. He stood unmoving in the bush, hopefully still hidden. The massive green head suddenly flipped back as four monstrous green and brown figures took off down the train after their escaped quarry. It joined them and their cries of anger filled the area with sharp screeches mixed with an undulating growl that carried through the undergrowth like a bushel of ball bearings rolling around the bottom of a barrel.

  He suddenly realized that his back ached as did his shoulders and legs. He was beginning to get a headache. ‘Am I alone? Where are…’

  A figure moved out into the center of the clearing, ‘Ok, we missed them. Let’s move out of here and take a break where it’s a little safer.’

  Tom pushed out from a stand of six foot high ferns behind on Corey’s left, ‘I thought for sure he sat on your Corey! Come on, I gotta take a piss and I don’t wanna be around if those guys backtrack. So Corey, just how close were you to that fellow? Did he keep you nice and warm?’ Tom walked off without waiting for an answer, a big cheese eating grin on his face.

  ‘God, I’m beginning to get tired.’ Corey thought as he pushed off into the forest.

  * * * * *

  The Jensen Boat lifted in the air, rolled to the side and then settled with a splash. Anton turned back into the current and the bow of the boat vibrated and shook like they were passing over a submerged log. The bow of the boat starts to spin around and Anton guns the engine. The craft flew forward as Ed Saren looked back into their wake.

  ‘I don’t see a damn thing Anton.’ He called over the rush of the wind.

  ‘Well unless you want to lose it I’d suggest you pull your head back into the boat.’

  ‘But, what did we hit? There’s nothing in the water!’

  ‘We didn’t hit anything, it hit us.’

  David turned from scanning the shoreline. He looked as if nothing had happened, ‘That was a warning Ed. We passed through someone’s territory and it wanted us to move along. Just a little nudge.’

  ‘But what was it?’

  ‘I don’t know. I didn’t get a glimpse of it. Might have been a crocodile, there’s lot of them around and some are quite a bit larger than this boat. Hippo’s have been known to do this back in our timeframe but they won’t be along for a number of years to come. Guess it was just something that exists in the same ecological niche for this period protecting his area.’

  ‘Forget it and look at this. The shoreline is a lot more interesting. Look at how much it’s changed from …’

  A sound like someone dropping a rope into the water went off right next to the boat. David immediately turned, his reactions lifting the Python Rifle up to this shoulder. ‘Ed, pull back now! Right now!’

  A swirl in the water and something that looks like a black and copper colored tree-limb flew through the air and into the boat. Ed slapped at it in blind reaction. A mouth sparkling with white teeth opened as it flew toward his head. Its jaws are wide enough to swallow his head and Ed’s hand flew up in reaction pushing the bottom jaw up and away. David fires two single shots, the second shot took the six-inch thick body and cut it in two. A diamond shaped head spun around landing in the boat at Ed’s feet as the other half falls back into the river. Ed jumped back, almost landing in the water. He stares for a moment and then begins to reach down.

  ‘No! Don’t do that! Keep your hands back. It can still bite you even if it’s dead!’ David shouted, pushing Ed back so violently he tripped over one of the secured packages and fell to the floor. Ed rolled away from the rapid frantic movements of the snake across the base of the boat.

  David thrust the stock of his rifle down and pinned the head. Then he put his boot on it. The body flips, swinging around like a loose, high pressure water hose. The body gradually settled down and David reached down and threw it overboard.

  ‘Good thing the shot cauterized the wound or we would have had an even bigger mess here. That’s the last thing I expected to encounter here. It’s like we were back in the swamps of home but the players are a bit larger here.’

  Ed lifted himself and sat down. He was white and obviously shaken, ‘That was a snake! Did you see the size of it. It jumped into the boat! How did you know?’

  ‘Mostly reaction.’ David said as he wiped the floor of the boat, his rifle held carefully to the side. ‘The sound of it dropping into the water is what actually keyed me off. We used to run into water moccasins all the time when I was a kid. Nasty and aggressive things, they used to jump right out of the water and into our boat as we were fishing.’

  ‘But the size of it! Its thicker than my arm.’

  ‘Yeah, and most of it fell back into the stream after my shot split it. Look behind us!’

  Ed turned. The waters behind the boat are filled with a churning and thrashing like the feeding frenzy they had just passed through at the mouth of the river.

  ‘I never realized just how vicious this place was. This is my first time off base.’

  David turned to him with a smile, ‘I’d say this trip has been a little more eventful than the other three times I was here. Mostly you don’t want to be around anything wounded and bleeding. Yourself included.’

  Ed starts shaking a little, staring at the bottom of the boat. David frowned and looked forward. Anton was concentrating on driving. He turns his gaze back to the shoreline while a thought passes through his mind, ‘Change the subject.’

  ‘As I was saying, the la
ndscape has changed dramatically. Look at how the open fields of palm and palmetto have transformed into dense woodland of green, leafy trees. We must be getting near the area where the three boys are going to emerge.’

  Anton turned his head but kept an eye forward on the river as he drove. ‘Yeah, this is the general area. Why don’t you start broadcasting and see if we can make … what the hell was that. Look, over there!’

  A loud screech sounding like a cat caught in the bottom of a barrel with an amplification system carried through the air. The call rumbled with the hard metallic sounds of ball bearings rolling inside a metal pan. From their viewpoint at the river’s center, they could see the sides of the valley as they rose slightly to meet the far walls of the cliffs. The tops of a few trees shook and they could see leaves fly into the air. The air filled with more cries as birds and reptiles erupted from the area in fright.

  ‘Sounds like a catfight!’ Anton commented.

  Ed crawled over to the radio. He griped all the way, ‘Yeah, thirty foot cats! It’s just one thing after another around here. A guy can’t even enjoy a simple day on the river.’

  Anton growled, ‘I hope those boys aren’t anywhere near that ruckus!’

  Ed called back, ‘I picked up their carrier as soon as I turned the radio on. We did it.’

  ‘You gotta turn the antenna and watch the signal strength. Grab it with your hand and turn it damnit! You guys are too used to letting your tools do all the thinking.’

  ‘Patience Anton, he’ll get it.’ David said quietly as he watched the far shore.

  ‘Their carrier signal is there but I can’t seem to contact them. Hey, this works pretty slick. Oh no, guess I should have expected it, their signal comes right from where that ruckus went on.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t hear any shots.’ David commented. ‘I think we ought to head inland Anton.’