by Ian Woodhead
UPWORLD
Ian Woodhead
Copyright 2017 by Ian Woodhead
Prologue
South America 1968
Vincent Delano slammed his hand across his sweat-slicked mouth to stop the panicked shriek from blasting through the dense jungle. Oh God, one of those monsters had reached Frederico already! The blood, it had to be the blood. The sound of those terrible claws digging through the loose soil made him want to weep. Why had he gone to all the trouble of dropping him into that pit in the first place?
He peered around the edge of the towering black monolith and fearfully gazed back along the path that he had cut through the jungle while fleeing from his crime.
The last of his companions screamed out his last breath. The jungle around him had now fallen silent, as if they, like Vincent, didn’t want that vicious giant creature that shouldn’t even exist, to know that other prey still remained.
He forced hot jungle air into his burning lungs, while he listened to that thing tear into Frederico’s body. There was no need to panic now, Vincent could scale down the anxiety. After all, despite everything that this place had thrown at him, he was safe now. He had passed across the markers. That monster wouldn’t be following him in here.
They told Vincent that no jungle creature would enter the forbidden zone.
He opened his mouth and drew in a lungful of hot jungle air, while he pressed his body against the smooth stone in an attempt to stem the shakes that spread through his body. He almost dropped his revolver onto the stone floor.
Poor Frederico. He had been a good companion and colleague. His faithful servant did not deserve such a brutal death, that’s for sure. The man certainly didn’t deserve his master to turn on him and shoot the poor man in the foot.
He opened the chamber and peered through the five holes. One bullet left. If Vincent had been thinking straight, he would have just buried the machete into Frederico’s leg, instead of wasting valuable ammunition.
Vincent composed himself. Luckily, there was nobody left to witness him losing control. He snapped the gun shut. To think that, not two minutes ago, he was actually contemplating using that last bullet on himself. To think that he, the greatest explorer in the western world, had sunk so low to have even considered taking his own life. Vincent was almost ashamed of himself.
A terrible squawking sound burst from beyond the foliage. He swallowed hard. The monster was no longer alone. The others had joined it to share the food, just as he predicted.
“It was a great sacrifice you made, Frederico,” he whispered.
He crouched and pushed his hand into his tattered satchel and pulled out his treasured binoculars. It pleased him greatly that these had survived unscathed. Vincent had lost every member of his expedition to the monsters. They had picked them off one by one, just like that tribal elder had foreseen. Still, they could be replaced. His binoculars on the other hand? Vincent would had been heartbroken if anything had happened to these.
These had belonged to his grandfather. The old man told Vincent that he had ripped these from the neck of a German sniper. The dirty bastard had shot at the brave infantry captain and missed. The German had tried and failed to shoot again, but his grandfather was faster. Even while the battle raged on, with artillery shells raining down around them, the captain and climbed out of the trenches and charged the German’s position. He stood there, a prime target for the enemy machine gun emplacements. He took aim and shot the sniper in the head.
Vincent was so proud to come from a family line of heroes and could now state that he too was a hero, just like his grandfather. After all, there was nobody else on this planet who could say they had survived several vicious attacks from a flock of giant, nine-foot-tall, prehistoric flesh-eating birds.
He adjusted the settings while grinning at the noise of fighting reaching his ears. Good, while they were busy arguing over the remaining bloodied chunks of Frederico, it would give him a little more time to put some more distance between him and them.
He still wasn’t totally convinced that this so-called sacred area would keep them out. He should already be on his way, but Vincent still needed evidence. A couple of photographs would prove they really do exist.
The view showed him nothing but leaves. They were there, in the clearing, making enough noise to wake the dead, but neither of them was going to show their ugly faces anytime soon. Vincent then caught a glimpse of bright blue plumage through the greenery. He was almost tempted to move forward, right up to the wooden stake which marked the boundary and make some noise himself, but caution got the better of him.
Now that he knew they existed, Vincent could return, this time with a more experienced team; a group of men who actually knew what they were doing. He pushed the binoculars back into the satchel and stood, brushing off a couple of insects that were crawling up his dark green trousers.
So much for the forbidden zone stopping bugs.
“Stupid superstitious rubbish,” he murmured as he made his way back to the huge monolith. Vincent tapped his forefinger on the smooth surface. Obviously not all of what the local tribesmen had told him was based on superstition. Those guardians who’d just eaten his entire group had shown him that.
So, if the giant terror birds were real, then the fabled city of the First People must exist as well. Of course it existed, why else would these magnificent stones be here if it wasn’t true? Not that he needed any sub-human, dirty primitive to tell him something he already knew. Vincent had been searching for the First People for over twenty years. For over two decades, the scientific community scorned his work and laughed at his notions of an advanced culture that predated the Mesoamerican civilisations by thousands of years. Not that any of them laugh in front of him, they wouldn’t dare, the spineless fools. He would show those cretins; he would show all of them that he was right all along.
Vincent ran his fingers along the stone. This must mark its boundary. As far as he was concerned, its discovery, as well as all its secrets and treasure, was within his grasp. He was about to become the most famous man on the planet.
He slung the satchel over his shoulder, picked up his machete, and started the slow process of hacking through more of the undergrowth. Even over the sound of his razor-sharp blade slicing through the vegetation, the noise of the giant birds still bickering over their meal reached his ears. Considering the size of the things, he would have thought they would have finished off the servant by now.
Then again, they probably weren’t used to eating so much rich food in one day. As he cut through a vine as thick as his ankle, Vincent realised that if he was as cautious as he kept telling himself, all the other members of this expeditionary group might still be alive.
***
After three long days in this blasted oppressive hell hole, Vincent Delano’s patience had worn down to almost nothing. He sat in his cotton-covered chair, sipping the last of the single malt, while having to listen to those lazy idiots’ mumble under their breath about not eating since yesterday.
Vincent took out a strip of beef jerky and bit off the end. He’d never been with a more workshy bunch of bone-idle clowns in all his life. They were supposed to be taking down their tents in readiness to move out, but you could be sure that as custard is yellow, none of them would have gotten off their dead behinds to do anything but smoke. Vincent chewed on the meat. If they thought he was going to pay them for their shameful performance, then they had another thing coming. He wasn’t going to pay them anyway, not after the disgraceful way they have spoken to him. Granted, they had muttered the insults under their breath and in a different language, but that wasn’t the point. Vincent had excellent hearing. He was also fluent in over a dozen languages.
He would have confiscated their supplies if the gree
dy, thoughtless bastards hadn’t already ploughed their way through the dried fruit and bread he had generously given them. Wasn’t it convenient that those fools never ran out of tobacco? He wouldn’t be at all surprised if the servants hadn’t swapped some of their food supplies for native tobacco back at their last stop.
“God damn savages,” he said to himself.
Vincent had enough supplies to keep him going for another two days. After the single malt, the cigars, and jerky went, he would just have to radio for Desmond to bring the helicopter from the main base back on the edge of Manaus.
It wouldn’t come to that, this time. Vincent was sure the Gods would reward his persistence. All he wanted was some sign that he was at least heading in the right direction and on the right track. Was that really too much to ask for?
It was getting to the point where he was even beginning to doubt his own convictions. This was his seventh trip out into the middle of the Amazon in a decade. If Vincent didn’t come back with some tangible proof this time, it’s probable that the trust wouldn’t fund another trip, no matter how much he protested.
Vincent sighed loudly. He drained his glass before he stuck his head through the tent flap. All the servants suddenly made it look as though they had lots of work to do. Just as he suspected, they had only just started on taking down their tents. If he had his way, he would beat them all with a thin stick. Vincent wasn’t allowed to do that anymore. Still, his manic glare did give those layabouts something to think about.
The only one not pretending to work was his favourite servant, Frederico, and that’s because he sent him along to scout the area north of the campsite. Vincent’s one saving grace in this whole sordid affair had been a fortuitous encounter with a small tribe of natives two days ago. They, like many of the others in this area, had already been contaminated by western influences. This one even knew about Vincent’s hunt for the mythical First People. The chief even claimed to possess one of their skulls.
Those smarmy savages didn’t get the better of him, oh no. Vincent saw a con trick when he knew one. He ignored the protests from his servants and the objections from the elder, walking right up to the old man’s raised chair inside his hut and pulled the skull from its mountings.
After all the theatre, it turned out to be a skull belonging to some long-dead gorilla. Quite how the skull of an African primate ended up in the middle of the Amazon jungle was a question he’d posed to the tribal elder. Of course, it was at that point when the greasy little man suddenly decided that he’d forgotten how to speak. That little oversight was soon corrected when Vincent pushed the nuzzle of his revolver against the head of a pretty little girl, who just so happened to be one of the chief’s favourite daughters.
A torrent of insults spewed from the chief’s mouth, as well as a name, zona proibida, The Forbidden Zone. Vincent had almost laughed. How stupid did they think he was? That sounded like something straight from a crappy B movie. It wasn’t until he realised that the old man wasn’t putting it on. He knew genuine fear when he saw it. Also, wasn’t Vincent’s reaction very similar to how the rest of the scientific community treated him back home?
He finished off his beef jerky while watching the sun break through the jungle canopy. He had sent Frederico off to check it out, while he got the camp ready to move. He locked away his belongings, grabbed his satchel, and instructed the others to start disassembling his tent. He left the idiots and set off to find what was taking Frederico so long, hoping the other servants wouldn’t break any of his gear or steal any of his food.
Vincent found the servant an hour later, standing on the edge of the deep ravine, looking down into the valley below. Frederico didn’t answer any of Vincent’s calls. He didn’t even turn around. When he reached the motionless man, Vincent saw exactly why the servant was paralysed with fear. He had found the tribe’s zona proibida and the reason as to why this area of jungle terrified the natives.
Frederico was mumbling two words under his breath over and over: pássaros demoníaco. Demon birds.
Vincent had discovered a species of animal thought to have died out long before man had ever set foot on this continent. Streaking across the grasslands, a hundred foot below, were a dozen carnivorous flightless birds. The smallest one was easily a foot taller than him. They were running down a Pampas deer.
He sat down and watched in fascination as these magnificent creatures formed a horseshoe around the deer, boxing it in, before the animal in the middle let out an ear-piercing shriek. It charged forward and brought its massive head down, its heavy beak smashing into the deer’s spine.
In the distance, poking through the greenery, Vincent saw the remains of some kind of wide towers built from black stone. That alone warranted further investigation. He knew for a fact that there should be no Mesoamerican structures in this part of the region. At least, none recorded.
Vincent ordered the servant back to the camp and told him to bring the others, and their equipment. He couldn’t help grinning. After all those years, he had finally found the lost city of the First People. A race of legendary giant humanoid beings lost in the midst of time.
It took a couple of kicks to get Frederico moving. Once the servant had left him, Vincent settled down to watch the giant birds eat their kill.
***
Looking back, Vincent thought perhaps it might have been a better idea to wait for more back up, to have called for the helicopter. Entering this place with those incompetent fools had been asking for trouble. They never stood a chance against those feathered predators. None of them listened to his commands. If they had, then at least some of them might have lived.
Vincent wished a couple of those idiots hadn’t ended up inside those giant turkeys. It would have meant that they’d be the ones hacking through this bloody jungle. This was tiring work, certainly not something that an eminent archaeologist should be doing.
He cut through another thick vine and stopped to mop his brow. No, he couldn’t call for back-up, no way, not until he was absolutely sure that the lost city was here. Vincent knew there were spies amongst his people. He’d known that for years.
He had also suspected that The Trust already had prior knowledge of the giants long before he had become convinced of their existence. Why else would they so readily agree to his request for funding, over and over, despite his failures?
The Trust played the long game, and their patience had won out in the end. A find like this could even guarantee a place within the shadowy organisation’s inner council. That alone was worth having to go through watching those terror birds tear up his team. A place in The Trust’s inner council meant that he’d have unrestricted access to all of their libraries and the hidden museums. It’s even rumoured that their collections made the antiquities stashed away under Vatican City look like the contents of some poor child’s toy box.
Vincent Delano wasn’t the only fringe academic employed by the shadowy organisation. He personally knew of two other archaeologists currently seeking the same prize as him. They were the ones who would have inserted spies into his camp. If they found out exactly how close he was, those bastards would take over, only after making sure that he disappeared first.
His continued hacking rewarded Vincent with another small clearing. He pushed his way through the gap he’d created. He put the machete back in the shear and used his thumbs to massage the small of his back. This was no natural clearing. He rubbed the soul of his boot across the jungle floor and grinned one more time when his rubbing exposed grey stone.
He dropped to his knees and cleared away as much debris as he could, each wipe, showing Vincent more of the flat, smooth stone. His heart thudded against his ribs when his excavations uncovered something that wasn’t grey stone. He stopped his exertions and gazed down at the thin green vines which had grown around something that certainly wasn’t natural. His mouth dried up as he carefully unthreaded two strands of plant material, exposing more of the golden metal.
Vincent stopped
. He reached into his satchel and brought out his camera. This needed recording before excitement got the better of him. He stood and took a picture of the object’s surroundings before he knelt back down and took another picture of the half-uncovered object. Only then did he carefully remove the rest of the vegetation from his find.
He stared at it for a full minute before taking one more picture.
Vincent had found the first definite proof that the First People really did exist. He dug out his well-thumbed notepad and eagerly flipped to near the end of the book, searching for a drawing he’d sketched on one of the first digs just after the end of the war. There it was. The picture of what was claimed to be a harmonic blade. A device that the First People used to create their fabulous city.
He carefully picked it up and turned the golden artefact around. It was shaped like a knife. He guessed that most people would even believe that was what this was. He, on the other hand, knew better. Vincent compared the real thing to the drawing he had made all those years ago. It was almost exact. He held the device in his hand, unable to wrap his fingers around the thick cylindrical handle. It was easily as thick as the metal mug that Frederico used to use to drink that vile coffee of his. There was a diamond-shaped indentation on the base of the knife. That was where they used to push in the power source, a green crystal. According to what he’d read, when this blade was activated, it would cut through anything solid.
He wrapped the blade in some old cloth and placed it at the bottom of his satchel before standing. Did he have enough evidence to present to The Trust to ask for funding for another expedition? Vincent decided to press on, believing that as soon as the helicopter pilot saw those giant birds, the discovery would spread like wildfire. It’s highly likely that his enemies would get Trust funding meant for him before he even made it back.
Vincent slowly got to his feet. There wasn’t a chance that he would allow anyone else to steal this discovery away from him. He had put in too many years of hard work to allow that to happen. This belonged to him alone.