by Greig Beck
He turned to the other two men. “Help grab some branches so we can make a fire.” He crouched to gather up his logs again. “Hurry now.”
*****
“We’re back…” Ben spoke softly. “…found a friend.”
They entered the cave and Bellakov stood in the entrance, looking over their faces. He nodded to Walt Koenig, with the man suddenly looking sullen in return.
Emma and Jenny got to their feet, their faces initially beaming, but then caught sight of Steve’s expression.
“Where’s… Daniel?” Jenny’s voice was small.
“And Andrea?” Emma took a couple of steps forward.
Steve continued to stare at the ground.
“No, no, no; not Dan and Andrea,” Emma agonized.
“Gone.” Steve wiped at his nose and still couldn’t meet their eyes.
“How… what happened?” Emma’s fists balled.
“We were attacked,” Bellakov said. “Lucky any of us are here.”
“But you are.” Emma’s chin jutted.
“Yep,” Bellakov replied, and Ben noticed the disbelieving look Koenig was giving him.
“How do you know they’re dead?” Emma persisted. “Did you…?”
“That’s enough.” Ben sighed. “This place killed them, not anyone here. Our job now is to make sure it doesn’t kill anyone else. There’s safety in numbers.”
Steve went and embraced both women, and just hung on for a while. Edward Barlow, who looked totally worn out, relaxed back into his avuncular self of old.
The logs were piled inside the ring of stones and in a few minutes the tinder caught, and then flames started to lick at the smaller sticks. Steve flicked off his cigarette lighter.
“Better than rubbing two sticks.” He sat back on his haunches, his face still haunted. “Does anyone even do that anymore?”
“Sure they do, and still do,” Ben said. “It’s not hard, but you’ve got to be prepared to lose a bit of skin off your palms. But if it’s the difference between being warm and dry or wet and cold, you make the effort.”
As the fire took hold, an orange glow filled the cave. An added bonus was that the smoke masked the odor of corruption from the animal carcass.
Edward Barlow pointed. “Is it a good idea to be in a cave that has the rancid odor of a dead animal?”
“No, it’s not,” Ben replied. “But it’s too big to drag outside. We might have to dissuade something from trying to take a look throughout the night – so we’ll be taking turns on guard duty.”
He looked at each of the group. “If anyone has any food bars, now is the time to share them around.” He noticed Barlow give Bellakov a furtive look and guessed there'd be no sharing of his goodies.
As the tongues of flame rose, the dark corners of the cave were pushed back. Emma first stared, and then got to her feet.
“What the…?”
She walked to one side of the cave where there was a flat wall and flicked on her flashlight, adding its luminance to the fire’s light.
“What is it?” Ben asked.
She turned. “You might want to see this.”
The group followed her to the side of the cave, and Ben had to ease past a jostling Koenig and Jenny.
She pointed. “Your ancestor reaches out to you.”
On the wall, scratched into the stone was writing. Ben came in closer and held up his own light. He then rubbed at some of the mineral excretions and algae that were masking some of the words. He began to read them.
“This is a lost world, and we are lost within it.”
Ben used his palm, faster now, to wipe more lichen from the letters.
“Time is running out. If we delay, we’ll be trapped here forever.”
The two sentences made his stomach flip, and he couldn’t imagine the horror for the two solitary men trapped here. He read the last line.
“They come at night. We know they’re watching. BBC. 1908.”
“BBC – Benjamin Bartholomew Cartwright,” Ben breathed.
“They come at night.” Koenig nodded. “And, they’re watching.” Koenig’s mouth twitched. “I’m thinking maybe we need two on guard duty.”
“Yeah, I’m thinking the same.” Ben turned away. “Baxter never made it off the plateau. But somehow Benjamin did.”
“Well, Ben the 1st is not giving away any clues today,” Steve observed.
“Maybe he hadn’t worked out how to escape yet,” Koenig mused.
“Good point.” Steve nodded. “So, tomorrow’s another day.” He looked up. “Who’s on first shift?”
“Emma, you okay?” He saw that the young woman was still distracted, and her eyes were rimmed.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” She walked a little closer to the words on the wall and reached up to touch them.
She didn’t look it, Ben thought. They were all being ground down.
“I can do the first shift of two hours. Then Jenny and Walt, followed by Steve and Janus.” Ben looked to Barlow. “Edward, you can do the last shift with me again.”
Emma spun, frowning. “That’s not fair, you doing two shifts.” She jerked a thumb at Bellakov. “Make him do two shifts.”
“It’s not a problem; I won’t be able to sleep anyway.” Ben shrugged. “Besides, if it wasn’t for me and that stupid notebook, you all wouldn’t even be here.”
“That’s not true,” Emma protested.
“Sadly, my dear, it is true,” Barlow added. “Mostly.”
Ben turned, his lips curled. “Except for you. If your men had done a better job stealing it from us in England, then you’d be here, and we wouldn’t. So you’re getting everything you deserve.” Ben grinned menacingly.
“Easy there, young man. It was just a poor attempt at humor.” Barlow returned Ben’s glare with a half-lidded disinterest.
The group cleared a space around the fire, threw some more logs on, and then settled down to try and get some sleep. Ben and Emma moved to sit beside the cave entrance.
Ben handed her his canteen. “Try not to look back at the fire, it’ll reduce your night vision ability.”
“Got it.” She took the canteen and sipped, and then handed it back. “I don’t trust Bellakov, or his gross little paymaster.”
He took the canteen. “Neither do I. But we need them. And once we’re all off this plateau, we never have to see their ugly mugs again.”
She nodded and then smiled, but it crumbled quickly. “What do you really think happened to Dan and Andrea?”
He looked back out at the darkness. “Steve said Dan was taken by something from the lake. He didn’t see what happened to Andrea. I trust Steve’s version.” He shrugged. “That’s all we can do.”
She was silent for many minutes, ruminating. “So, tomorrow…” she began, “… What’s the plan?”
He snorted softly. Frankly, he had no idea, but was determined to stay positive, if only for her.
“Priority one, we stay alive.” He held out his canteen again, but she declined. He sipped and then stared out into the darkness. “We’ve been up on this plateau for less than a day, and we’ve already lost four people. So tomorrow, we use what we’ve learned from those tragedies to be a little bit smarter.” He turned to her. “But bottom line, we need to find a way down, and maybe take some risks. Staying here is not an option.”
She nodded, but then glanced at him. “Your great, great grandfather said that time was running out, and that there was a risk they could be trapped up here forever. What did he mean by that?”
Ben sighed. He also remembered Benjamin saying this place could only be found or rather, seen, once every decade. Nothing made sense anymore. He shook his head.
“I don’t know exactly, Emm. But I have no intention of any of us being trapped up here for even one more minute, let alone forever.”
Behind them, Barlow began to snore softly. Ben scoffed. “Glad someone is comfortable. Don’t know how he does it.”
“I think I’m like you. I couldn’t
sleep even if I wanted to,” Emma said. “I just want to go home.” She leaned against him. “Get me home, Ben; just get me home.”
*****
The hours burned down just like the fire. The bodies tossed and turned, none of the group really falling into a fitful sleep. The two watching at the mouth of the cave also lapsed into a sense of lassitude, as the warmth of the night’s humidity coupled with the smell of wood smoke became comforting and entrancing.
Outside, there was the ever-present noise of a jungle – things moved, scurried, and far out from the cave, something died, probably brutally. But close to them, all seemed calm.
But from the depths of the cave, eyes watched – a few at first, then hundreds, and then thousands.
The surge finally came around 3:00 in the morning.
*****
“Ouch.”
Ben opened his eyes at the sound of Barlow’s voice. The man shifted his sleeping bulk and relaxed again.
The first thing he noticed was the fire had burned down to a soft red glow. The second thing he was aware of was the almond-like smell that Jenny had first detected when they entered the cave was now pervasive and strong enough for him to pick it out over the top of the carcass, and the smoke.
Ben sat up, all vestiges of sleep falling away, and he let his eyes travel over the cave’s interior. He saw the outline of Steve and Janus at the cave mouth, on their shift, and both doing their job staying focused on outside. Around the shrunken fire, there were the sleeping bodies of the group.
But now he was sure there was something else. Ben sat straighter and closed his eyes for a moment and concentrated – there it was; a small sound like dry leaves rustling, or perhaps very faint click-clacking like tiny knitting needles.
Barlow slapped at one fat leg and rolled over again, trying to get comfortable. The big man was the furthest inside the cave’s interior as Ben guessed he wanted everyone between him and the cave mouth for added protection. Bravery didn’t exactly flow like fire through this guy’s veins.
Barlow grunted and slapped at himself again, and then he sat up, or rather jerked upright, with his eyes as round as silver dollars. But it was his scream that made the hair on Ben’s head feel like it was standing on end.
Everyone was suddenly up and in a panic, and only then did Ben flick on his light and train it on the struggling man.
He wished he hadn’t.
Edward Barlow was in the middle of a glistening carpet of shells – insects – all about as long as a thumb.
“Jesus Christ.” Ben shot to his feet. The wave was coming from the depths of the cave, and the sea of bodies had first found Barlow. In just the time that Ben spent watching, they had swarmed over the man.
Barlow thrashed and rolled, his screams becoming choked as the bugs also poured into his open mouth.
Ben went to charge towards him, but Jenny ran at him, shouldering him away.
“Don’t. Back off.” She grabbed up one of the sticks beside the fire and used it to scoop a lot of the embers towards Barlow. The spray of red created a barrier that kept the insects back, but it did nothing to discourage them swarming over the man.
Barlow was now impossible to make out under the blanket of bugs, and he looked like nothing more than a man-sized pile of furiously moving tiny bodies.
Jenny brought another stick down on one of the bugs, and then snatched it up. She stared hard at it for a few seconds before yelping and flinging it away.
“Modificaputis, I think. A primitive form of cockroach.” She shook her hand.
Steve held his shotgun pointed at the swarm. He looked panicked. “They’re fucking cockroaches? They’re huge, and they’re goddamn eating him alive!”
“Don’t fire that shotgun in here,” Ben yelled.
“Backup,” Jenny said. “The prehistoric version were carnivorous hunters – see the long legs?”
As they watched the mound rose up, and a low moan emanated from the centre of the pile that was once Barlow.
“Oh God.” Emma put her hands to the sides of her head. “Make it stop.”
A single gunshot rang out, and the mound collapsed. Ben spun to see Janus Bellakov pointing his rifle. The two men locked eyes momentarily, and eventually Ben nodded – it was a merciful release.
The group backed away. The fire had shrunk to a point of it being too small to be effective anymore, and as they watched, a glistening bone extended from one side of the pile, to break loose and drop onto the swarming carpet of insect bodies. It was an arm, now picked clean. Even the natural fibers in the man’s clothing were being consumed.
“Who let the fire go out?” Ben asked.
“Doesn’t matter; it’s out,” Janus said. “Now we know what your fucking ancestor meant by they come at night.”
“They’re watching,” Jenny reminded them.
“Might have helped if he spelled it out just a little more, doncha think?” Bellakov sneered. “Well, we can’t stay here.”
“He’s right,” Jenny said. “These things won’t stop until all the meat is gone.” She gritted her teeth. “That’s what the smell was – the insects giving off their pheromones, signaling to each other.”
“Now we know why there wasn’t anything living in here,” Steve observed. “You come in here, you end up like that dead dinosaur…or Barlow. Poor sap.”
“Gather your things,” Ben said and turned to Jenny. “Will they follow us?”
Jenny looked back at the swarm. “I don’t know. They would certainly be jungle foragers. Might be like army ants.” She shrugged. “We just don’t know enough about them.”
“Maybe we should stay in the water for a while,” Emma said. “They can’t follow us there.”
“Stay out of the water,” Janus said.
“Huh?” Emma said, frowning.
Steve nodded. “Yeah, trust me, we don’t want to get too close to the lake.”
They edged to the cave mouth, and Ben turned to look at the Barlow mound of insects that was rapidly diminishing in size. From the side of the heap, something round and white rolled free – it was the man’s skull, minus the jawbone or any meat inside or out.
“Not how he envisaged things were going to turn out,” Walt Koenig said softly.
“Yeah, well, thanks for nothing, Barlow, you fat fuck.” Bellakov bared his teeth.
Steve scoffed. “Remind me to have you come and say something nice at my funeral.”
Ben checked his watch. “We’ve still at least an hour until daybreak.” He had no idea if being out in the darkness was better or worse now. But they had no choice now. He turned away.
“Let’s go – silent as we can.” Ben headed out first.
*****
“New plan?” Emma whispered.
Ben turned to her. “I was going to ask you the same thing.” He gave her a lopsided smile but doubted she could see him.
They moved quietly and quickly back the way they’d come. They were now out of food, shelter, and according to Benjamin’s notebook, they were running out of time to escape, before something occurred to make leaving impossible. Ben had no idea what that could be, but his ancestor had been right about everything so far, so he didn’t want to hang around to find out.
But the fact was, he had no idea what to do next, and no idea how to get off the plateau.
Except one.
Ben stopped, and Emma bumped into him. “We need to find that stream we came upon. I have an idea.”
“What is it – all good ideas are solid gold right now?” Steve asked.
Ben waved them on and spoke over his shoulder. “I said I had an idea; I didn’t say it was a good one.”
*****
“Clouds are thinning.” Bellakov craned his neck. “Thought I saw a glimpse of moon before.”
Ben also looked up at the ever-present cloud cover. Hopefully, dawn was rushing upon them, but for now, it was still all in darkness…or mostly.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Looks weird. A bit like a cyclone
the way it’s moving about up there, and we’re right in its eye.” He continued to stare and saw through a small opening in the dark clouds a corner of the moon begin to appear.
“What the…?”
Ben frowned; it was wrong, bigger somehow…like it was closer.
“Clouds swirling, but there’s no wind,” Bellakov observed.
“Huh?” Ben turned briefly to the man, and then when he glanced back at the sky, the clouds had closed again. “Damn.”
“I know what you’re thinking; a bit of good ole sunlight would be great. There’s just enough light and heat to turn this place into a freaking greenhouse. Just give me a few golden rays punching through.”
Ben sighed. “Yeah, I heard that.”
Bellakov walked up beside him, lowering his head and his voice. “You’re going for the plane, aren’t you?”
Ben looked at him, assessing, and then finally nodded. “Yep.”
“Mad bastard.” The mercenary snorted. “You know, even if you manage to get the engine out to lighten it for gliding, and the fuselage doesn’t just fall apart, there’s too many of us.” He watched Ben closely as he spoke.
Ben shrugged. “The Corsair Fighter has a 41-foot wingspan, and empty can take the weight.”
“The weight is one thing, but there’s too many bodies. Simply won’t all fit.” Bellakov shrugged. “I like the plan though.” He fell back a step. “I mean, what else we got?”
Emma sped up to walk beside him. “Are we going around in circles?”
“I don’t think so.” Ben turned to her. “We’re retracing our steps; we haven’t strayed too far off the trail we blazed.”
“It’s just that… um…” She grimaced and turned about. “We’ve been walking for hours. Added to that, the lake was huge, and the cave was in the side of a small mountain. I know Tepuis can be enormous, but this place is like an entire world up here.”
Ben had already thought about that, but what did it mean? he wondered.
“She’s right,” Jenny added. “The population, size, and diversity of species up here is usually only represented by a large land mass. I don’t get how these things can continue to survive, basically, on an island.”