by Ahimsa Kerp
And it was damnably hot. Baruna and Doctor Gomez were ahead of them, stripping off their warm winter clothes. The two of them glanced at the men, and Stuart could see tears in Gomez’s eyes.
“No sign of Dean?” she asked.
Stuart crossed over to her, taking her hand. “He’s gone. I’m sorry,”
She smiled then, through her tears.
“What’s so funny?”
“You Canadians,” she said. “Always apologizing for things that aren’t your fault.”
Stuart thought about how he had delayed the group not once but twice, and wondered if things might have gone differently if he had taken fewer photos. Those were uncomfortable thoughts though, and he shoved them deep down, where he’d never have to look at them again. Besides, those photos would make him a lot of money.
“Where are we?” Keshav asked. He took off his winter clothing too. “I’m not being funny, but it’s as hot as the Punjab in here.”
“It must be a volcanic chamber,” Doctor Harper said. “It makes the most sense.”
“Nothing about this makes any sense at all,” Stuart said. “And there are hieroglyphics or cuneiform on the wall back there.”
“Wall?” Baruna asked, frowning. Doctor Gomez looked back that way and for the first time they realized the truth: they were sealed in here, trapped.
“How did?” Doctor Gomez began.
“Nothing makes sense,” Stuart interrupted. “And wherever we are, there are others here too. Look.”
Behind them all, a narrow set of stone stairs led down into the darkness.
“Should we go down there?” Keshav asked.
“We can’t stay here forever,” Stuart said.
“But we don’t know what’s down there. Up here it’s safe, at least,” Doctor Gomez said. “We need time to process what happened out there.”
“We’re going to have to go down there sooner or later,” Stuart argued. “Might as well go now, while there is light, and before we get too hungry.”
“The rest of us should probably stay together,” Keshav said.
“That makes sense. I will go alone,” Stuart said. “I won’t go far,” he added, forestalling the coming objections. “Just down the stairs and a quick explore of the surrounding territory. The second I see anyone, I’ll ask them for help. Or run away, if they look scary,” he added. It seemed the least he could do after his delays on the ice.
“That might be the best idea,” Doctor Gomez said. “If only Dean were here. He had the pistol.”
“I’ve never shot a gun anyway,” Stuart told her. “But I’ll be fine.” Only later did he realize, that of course, she meant that Dean would have gone to explore.
***
The stairs didn’t take forever, but his knees were wobbling and his legs shaking when he finally reached the bottom. At first it had been a simple stairway, impossibly unsupported, and surrounded by darkness. Gradually there was life; insects (big insects), ferns growing through cracks in the stairs, strange colorful flowers and stalks with strange yellow growth on their top. It was really hot now, 35°C or more, and near one hundred percent humidity. Stuart stripped to his boxers and a smart wool t-shirt that was damp with perspiration.
“I never really thought about how those Journey to the Center of the Earth stories really went close to the center of the Earth,” he said to himself. “Of course, it’s hot as balls down here, so much closer to the Earth’s core.” It did not seem even a little strange to be talking to himself.
Here, at the bottom, was a sight he’d never expected to see, not in a thousand years. The sky was a soft purple; his sister Sophie would know the exact name of the shade, something like amethyst or smooth lilac, or whatever ridiculous names for colors they were using. And “sky” was the correct term. This far down, there was no indication of being in a cave at all. No sign of a roof, or walls, or stalactites and stalagmites. It was a world-sized chamber.
The stairs came to an abrupt stop in a great plain. The grass was thick and three meters tall. Dotted in the grass, arranged in nearly a perfect circle reminiscent of Stonehenge, were huge statues. Stuart wandered closer to one, pushing through the thick grass. His camera was reflexively in his hand.
The statue looked exactly like a Moai, one of the Easter Island statues. Stuart frowned and snapped half-a-dozen photos. He didn’t bother taking the tripod out of his backpack, but these statues needed documentation. The mysterious Polynesian statues arranged like the mysterious Celtic statues was an entirely new discovery. This wasn’t just number one blogger stuff, this was National Geographic, BBC, Al Jazeera. To have discovered this, he would be world-famous.
Such were his thoughts as he walked to the base of the statues and pulled his tripod from his backpack. It was his secondary tripod and only a meter tall when elevated. Still it would have to do; he’d left his good one on the ship.
A low roar rumbled through the plains. A primal terror filled Stuart as he realized how vulnerable he was. He gazed at the grass, comprehending that it provided perfect cover for any attacker. Was it moving? His heart beat faster, but the grass did not move again.
Stuart grabbed his camera, slipping the loop around his neck. He glanced up at the Moai. The stone looked worn and crumbly, and the nose was only three or so meters up. He could almost jump to it.
A low growl from far too close made the hair on the back of his neck rise. And I thought that was just an expression. Had he time to think about it, he would have died there. But his body took over. He leapt, his left foot hitting his tripod, and from there he sprang up as high as he could. His legs were muscled from years of skating and skiing, and he could feel them tighten as he jumped
And then came the hard part. His hands closed around the nose of the huge Moai. It was indeed crumbly enough that he could find purchase. His camera banged against the stone, and he winced, sliding it to his side. He slowly climbed up, inching his stomach over the edge of the nose. It protruded far enough out that, if he dug in, he could rest there.
It was not comfortable. His muscles would weaken, and he would have to drop. But not yet. For below him, on the plain he had just left, strode a nightmare.
It was an ugly brute. Tawny skin like a lion, mottled like a jackal, but big and hulking. A Mohawk that stretched from head to tail. And that snout! Ridiculously long, but broad, and with large sharp teeth poking out in all directions. The strangest thing was its feet. Instead of the massive paws you’d expect, it had sturdy hooves.
Above all, it was big. A lion as big as a bear is how Stuart described it to himself. But that was underselling it. He had grown up seeing polar bears in the Assiniboine Park Zoo. If, like a bear, it could stand up on hind legs, it could have reached them. This animal was terrestrial though. Two legs bad, four legs good! Stuart thought with wild relief.
It looked up at him, black eyes ringed with white fur. The expression was not one of hunger, or rage, but of interest. The same way Stuart himself presumably looked while trying to scrape the last remnants of peanut butter out of the jar.
The creature padded over to his tripod. It sniffed it, a little hesitantly.
“Do your worst!” he called down to it. “It’s carbon fiber!” This was the stuff that survivalist nuts recommended wearing when the zombie apocalypse happened. It was not cheap.
The spotted monster opened its mouth, and Stuart saw for the first time how many teeth it had, how sharp they were.
It wrapped its mouth around the tripod and crunched down. The tripod splintered, severed in half by the mighty bite. The animal was not happy with the taste, and it turned and stared again at Stuart.
“My, what sharp teeth you have,” Stuart said, quietly and with more than a little awe. His muscles ached now, and his fingers grew sore from holding his weight. He thought about sliding down and trying to land on the animal. There was no guarantee he could even hit it, and supposing he did, he would simply bounce off that bulk, and then be prone. Supper for the animal.
The thing sat patiently down on its haunches, watching Stuart all the while. That motherfucking thing is just waiting for me to come down. He knows the buffet table will be refilled soon. It was a chilling feeling.
Maybe only ten minutes had gone by. Perhaps an hour. Stuart’s arm muscles were visibly trembling, and thrice he’d had to scramble back up the nose.
The monstrous creature remained watching him, armed with the jaws of a nightmare, and the patience of a saint. Suddenly, though, it looked up sharply, head jerking to the left. Its nostrils flared.
A three meter tall bird sped into the clearing. It had little wings on the side, and a huge hooked beak reminiscent of an eagle. The lion-like monster snarled and jumped up, but it was far too slow. The bird reached down with its beak and tore a huge hole into the other beast's spine.
The bear sized lion roared in pain and frustration, flashing its fangs at the bird.
The bird, in turn, stretched its neck impossibly, turning it almost ninety degrees and biting into the right shoulder of the roaring animal.
The four legged monster screamed again, and now pain was overwhelming anger. It lunged at the bird, for it was taller and broader, and unquestionably stronger.
Stuart reached for his camera and almost slipped. His body slid down the stone nose, and he had to grab on solidly. The friction bloodied his hands. Both hands, goddammit. I need both hands. Stuart felt nearly as frustrated as he had upon the ice.
There had never been a better time in all of his life to take a photo, and if he tried, he’d fall to almost certain death.
Chapter 7
I can’t stop shaking. My laptop is still on the boat, so I am writing in my moleskin journal. Thanks Dad! I didn’t think I would use it, but he insisted. When is the last time I wrote by hand? I’m sitting on the world’s longest staircase, and I just need to take a break. My legs ache with every step up, and I keep looking over my shoulder, to make sure I’m not being followed.
If I were to tell you what I had just seen, you would call me a liar, or a madman. Hidden here, beneath this Antarctic cave, is a boundless jungle. The kind that dinosaurs once roamed, it would seem. Sweltering heat, huge bugs, grass as tall as two men. But there are no dinosaurs here.
At first I discovered something unheard of in human history. Easter Island statues arranged in a circle, a conflux of England and Easter Island. What does that mean? Surely this is something that will be studied for years. Lifetimes. If we ever get out of here to tell the story.
This can be huge for my career. I have become more than a travel blogger and am now an adventurer, a discoverer like Robert Bylot, or Survivorman.
But the statues are not the end of my discoveries. I was hunted, stalked, by a massive, fearsome creature. Through luck and my natural athleticism, I was able to climb one of the statues, but it simply sat and waited for me. I have no doubt I would be in the belly of that beast if another, equally terrifying creature hadn’t come along. A huge bird, like an ostrich with a massive razor sharp beak, attacked the other animal.
I’m still shaking.
It’s hard to write with a body that won’t stay still. The bird pecked the monster apart. Tore him up and dragged his body away. I dared wait no longer, and I slid to the ground and sprinted back to the staircase.
I felt eyes on me the entire time. Even now, as I scrawl into this notebook, I keep peering down the stairs. If something came up here, I’d be toast. I’ve climbed up an half-an-hour or so, and I seem safe. Now what will the others say when I tell them what I have seen?
I have sat here long enough. My sweat is cooling, and I can barely remain awake. There’s no rest here. I must press on and tell the others what I have seen.
Chapter 8
“I am familiar with the creatures you’re describing,” Doctor Gomez said. “The Andrewsarchus and a Phorusrhacids, better known as the terror bird. But you must be mistaken. Andrewsarchus has been extinct for, you know, something like forty-five million years. Terror birds for at least two-and-a-half million years. What’s more, terror birds are now thought to have been vegetarian. There’s no way it could kill a full sized Andrewsarchus, even if it wanted to.”
“It happened,” Stuart said. He’d arrived back at the top of the stairs not long ago to find them stripped down to t-shirts and short shorts. Immediately his story had spilled out. As he’d expected, his words had generated dubious enthusiasm, and outright skepticism. “Why would I lie about something like this?”
“Well then you’re stoned or drunk,” she said. “I am positive that no such creature still exists. Maybe you saw, I don’t know, an emu or an ostrich. Otherwise, what you have said is impossible.”
“I know what a terror bird is,” Keshav said. “But what is the Andrewsarchus?”
“Well, I don’t know what Stuart claims to have seen. And Andrewsarchus has been dead for far, far longer than humans have even existed. But it was an apex predator, the largest carnivorous mammal that ever lived. This is a creature that evolution created into a killer; far more dangerous than, say, a Tyrannosaur or Allosaurus.”
“Stronger than a T-Rex?” Stuart asked, not able to hide his surprise.
“If estimates are correct,” Doctor Gomez said. Her voice had taken on a professorial tone. “Andrewsarchus was eleven feet long, six feet tall, weighed over fifteen hundred kilograms. That’s twice the weight of your average rhino, to put it into perspective. Its skull was over a meter long, and it had a bite more powerful than a crocodile.”
Keshav whistled in appreciation.
“You should see what it did to my tripod,” Stuart said.
“What? Why do you have a tripod with you?”
He avoided the question with the tried-and-true method of staring at his shoes. A few moments later, the paleontologist continued.
“It was too large, too effective a predator. It killed too many species, and thus died out itself. Eventually, Smilodon, much smaller, rose to fill its niche.” Her voice had taken on a serious tone, but now she smiled. “A lot of that is conjecture, mind you. They’ve only found one skull and some bone fragments. The guy who found it was kind of an Indiana Jones: Roy Chapman Andrews. They named it after him, but if you were to name it based on what it deserved to be called, give it a true name.” She paused, thinking. “Interitusbestias, something like that?”
“What does that translate to?” Baruna asked. She had been watching the exchange with a carefully neutral expression.
“The beast of death and destruction.”
***
They walked down the stairs together. Stuart wanted to rest, but Baruna had pointed out that the ship was still stuck on the ice. Captain Kugeon and the others were still waiting for help. The sooner they escaped from this cave, the sooner they could try to fix those problems. And so they pressed on, heading down into the tropical cave. Stuart was so tired that he didn’t feel pain or tiredness or anything but pure numbness.
Before they’d left, Stuart had shown them the pictures of the statues. He hadn’t taken any of them from afar, but the ones he had temporarily quelled Doctor Gomez’s skepticism. She had merely frowned, making a small “hmmm” noise. Since then, for the walk down, she had not said anything to him again. Baruna walked beside her, and they spoke quietly to one another.
Keshav questioned him about the details of his adventure over and over again. He, for one, seemed not to doubt Stuart for a second. He was especially interested in the details of the creatures.
“Terror birds, eh? They used to be bloody frightening in Runescape.”
Stuart had never played that game, and told him so. “Did they kill you?”
Keshav laughed. “No, not at all mate. They were mounts for gnomes, and quite peaceful. But they looked shit scary.”
“I see.”
“All my mates thought I was taking the piss. But I had a phobia. Not a good way to get known when you’re new to the school, to the city. Luckily my mates were geeks too. We bonded over games like that.”
> “Where are you from?’ Stuart asked, having the vague feeling that he might already have asked back on the ship. He didn’t have the poncy accent of someone from London, but that was all he could tell.
“I’m a Wulfrunian,” Keshav said with a cheeky grin.
“Come again?” Stuart asked.
“Wulfrunian,” the pumpkin-colored turban-wearing man said again, more slowly. “Can you guess where I’m from?”
“No idea,” Stuart said. His knowledge of UK geography was limited to London, Yorkshire, and Scotland. “Bath?” he said, remembering at the last minute another famous place.
“Wolverhampton,” Keshav said, a hint of disappointment in his voice.
“Not sure if I’ve heard of that,” Stuart said.
“And you, part of the Commonwealth?” Keshav asked. He glanced behind him, as though asking for help from the ladies, but they were several steps back, out of earshot. “It’s close to Birmingham. You know our footie team? The Wolves?”
Stuart frowned slightly in denial.
“You must know our music scene? Mighty Lemon Drops? Babylon Zoo?”
Stuart shook his head helplessly. He actually wanted to help the poor fellow out, but none of it was even vaguely familiar.
“Ever hear of Cornershop? You must have!” Keshav said, with a new breath of inspiration.
“Yeah, okay, I do know them. Nineties one-hit wonder. ‘Something Something Forty-Five!’ Right?”
Keshav looked hurt. “‘Brimful of Asha.’ But that whole album was good. It’s not like they’re Chumbawumba.”
Stuart chuckled. “We had our own one-hit wonder in Winnipeg in the nineties. Remember the Crash Test Dummies?”
Keshav surprised him by humming deeply. Stuart joined him on the chorus. They sang nineties songs all the way down to the bottom, ending in a rousing rendition of “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”