The Found World

by Hugo Navikov

  The place was a mystery. It seemed like a dream. A nightmare, but a damned weird one, that was for sure. At least in dreams, none of them could—

  “Gah! Aieeeeeeeee!”

  Brett had no idea what triggered it, but faster than Brett could react in his pensive state, one of the jackal-things made a direct run at the encampment and clamped its big jaws around the ankle of Todd the commando. The man screamed as his leg was pulled out from under him, he went down hard onto the ground, and was ripped away from them by the unbelievably fast cryptid, which sprinted away to the east. After a few seconds, they couldn’t hear Todd’s screams anymore, maybe because he was out of earshot, maybe because he was unconscious, maybe because he was dead.

  None of the other jackal-things followed the attacker. But they did move closer.

  Flattop was pale as a sheet at what had just happened to his comrade. “You sons of bitches!” he yelled at the top of his lungs, and he moved to bring up his AK-47 and end the lives of every last one of the creatures.

  But Crane smacked his hand down on the rifle and kept Flattop from lifting it at the animals. “That’ll attract more, soldier. Stand down.”

  For all his idiocy, Brett saw, Crane could be an effective commander. Brett hadn’t considered that the new pack of jackal-things was attracted by the gunfire that rang out when the first pack was shot down. He didn’t know what to do, and that bothered him since it happened to him so rarely in the field. On the one hand, it would be nice to have these suckers dead so they could get all the wasps carved out and get moving after the wendigos; but on the other, if they sound would attract even more, they’d be screwed thanks to the reduced speed and ability to see once the wasp husks were over their heads. They weren’t quick enough to get away from the lightning-fast creatures anyway, but at least they could try to have some kind of maneuverability. But in the hard shells looking only forward and the fact that they would need to coordinate their steps like they were in a two-person horse costume at a party meant that they would be completely at the mercy of the hungry cryptids. And they didn’t look like things that would show prey much mercy.

  “So we’re gonna wear these things like a canoe over our heads?” Crane asked, scraping out the last of the goo from inside the first dead wasp.

  “That’s the plan.” Brett picked up one of the commandos’ machetes and had the men position the wasp so its horrible face was accessible. Then he raised the machete and chopped right behind the creepy giant compound eyes. It went a third of the way through. Brett had to swing the big blade three more times to get it most of the way off, then sawed through the last bit of chitinous exoskeleton. The face came off and sank onto the dirt.

  “This is easily the most revolting thing I’ve ever experienced,” Lathrop said. He remained sitting inside the compound, where he had quickly retreated when the jackal-things carried off Todd the commando. He patted his brow with a handkerchief, although Brett had no idea why the Organization man, who had done nothing with the wasp or anything else, would be perspiring.

  “Just wait ’til you get inside,” Brett said with a laugh, then addressed everyone: “All right, guys, this is how this is going to work. You see that we have the shell of this thing, like the commander said, it’s like a overturned canoe. There are eight of us, and I think two people per shell would be a good compromise between mobility and efficiency. Each set of two will get under and inside the shell, and … Crane, would you help me demonstrate?”

  Crane stepped up and helped Brett pick up the hollowed-out wasp and lift it over their heads and down. The three-foot-deep carcass left most of their legs unprotected. Brett said loudly from inside the thing so everyone could hear, “If you come under attack, just crouch down, like this.” He and Crane bent their knees and crouched, which brought the wasp down to where the only part of their bodies visible were their feet in boots. “The plants won’t be able to get us as we walk by, and it seems like the other creatures really don’t like whatever these wasps are giving off. We can make good time by walking in step.”

  “What about holes for guns?” That was Flattop.

  “Or cameras?” That was Stefan.

  Brett hadn’t considered that, but improvised as best he could: “If you want to keep your weapon—or camera—at hand, you’ll have to be in the front of the wasp and point it out the face-hole.”

  Flattop looked fine with that; Stefan less so, but he was a trouper. “All for the glory of TMI.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” Ravi said, and drained the last of the water that Crane had given him. “I will also drink any water he happens to come across. How can plants and animals live with no water?”

  “I doubt they have no water,” Popcorn sniffed. “These plants and animals all seem to employ cellular structure and function exactly as their analogs in the world above. I would think that the vegetation accesses water underground—even this underground world has an underground, it can be safely assumed—and the animals and insects get it from some pools at the surface or just by eating one another.”

  Ravi stared. “Thanks, I feel so much better now.”

  “You are most welcome. Knowledge is power, after all!”

  Brett was still smiling at that when he and Crane lifted the heavy wasp shell off them and placed it back on the ground. “We need to get the rest of these carved out fast and get moving if we’re going to catch those things that stole Ellie and Natasha.”

  “For God’s sake, can we please stop calling her ‘Natasha’?” Lathrop whined.

  “Sure! What’s her real name, then?”

  “I don’t know, but I highly doubt it is ‘Natasha’ just because she has a Russian accent.”

  Brett meant it when he said, “How can you not know this woman’s name? Who is she anyway? She’s not with the Organization, or else you’d know her. Or she’d just be in charge here instead of you.”

  “As I told you and everyone else, Mister Russell, she is the vital element we need if this whole misadventure is going to produce the results that I and my employer seek. You truly have no need for any other information about this woman.”

  Brett thought for a moment and looked at Lathrop with narrowed eyes and an amused expression. “You don’t know who she is, do you? I don’t just mean her name—I mean the Organization is keeping you in the dark. You only know that your head is on the chopping block if we can’t retrieve the good doctor, and she is somehow vital to doing that. Correct?”

  Lathrop sighed and said, “Indeed, you are correct, Mister Russell. Are you happy now? Can we please get this whole circus caravan moving now?”

  “All right,” Brett said with great amusement and proceeded to prepare three more wasp carcasses for their pursuit and rescue mission-within-a-mission. Once those were done, the group split into four duos, the first in front and the second in back: Brett with Lathrop, Stefan (because of the camera) with Crane, Flattop with Ravi, and Leavitt with Popcorn.

  “I don’t see the wendigos anymore,” Brett said, making sure the wasp’s face-hole was turned so the others could hear him; once they were all pointing in the same direction, it would be very hard to hear anyone else not inside the same shell. “Maybe they’re lying down and resting, or maybe they just walked too far and are obscured by trees. Either way, we’re going after them—no Natasha, who I’m totally going to keep calling ‘Natasha,’ no mission. And Ellie because she’s Ellie, dammit.”

  “Right on,” Ravi said in a muffled bit of support.

  “Let’s move out.”

  They formed a single line, even though going side by side may have been a better choice in different circumstances. But going in single file, everyone could see if they were going in the same direction and at the same speed: Brett’s wasp in front, followed by Stefan’s, then Flattop, and finally Crane at the rear so he could spin around and shoot behind the line, if that became necessary.

  Brett was bothered that he could no longer see the wendigos. It wasn’t exactly worry, because he’d f
ound long before that worrying didn’t produce good results. Being bothered, annoyed, even outraged were all effective motivational emotions in Brett’s experience, whereas being worried was rarely about anything other than itself. But damn, he was seriously bothered, especially since he had once again lost track of time while they were working on the wasp carcasses. They had all been thirsty, and thank God the commandos brought a good amount of extra water, although it wasn’t really “extra,” since they carried it to drink themselves. However, although they were guns for hire, they didn’t seem to be bad people: they wanted everyone to make it. Brett found that highly commendable … and hoped no more of them got eaten in the line of duty.

  They marched for what felt like an hour, all of them sweating profusely. It warmed Brett’s heart to think of Lathrop right behind him getting dirty and sweaty and hopefully humiliated as they walked, but he also hoped Popcorn wasn’t going to throw up, pass out, or die from how hot it was inside the shells. So far, there had been no complaints, at least none that he could hear from the front of the line.

  That changed, however, as they entered an area more dense with trees that any they had walked through down there before. Even just looking straight ahead in order to find the best path through the acid-dripping foliage, Brett could see shapes between the trees and could hear heavy footfalls. There were things in this copse, big things. Although they were protected as far as they knew within their wasp shells, they also knew that new dangers abounded in this hostile land.

  But that was all a distraction, because at the exit from the wooded area stood three of the jackal-things, slavering with anticipation at the sight of prey moving through their hunting ground. Brett yelled as loud as he could, “Halt!” No one ran into him, so he assumed the wasp team directly behind him heard, and he could hear Stefan yell “Halt!” and then Flattop in the wasp behind Stefan follow suit.

  Brett led Lathrop in turning their wasp around so he could address the others, who formed a semi-circle around him as he spoke. “You guys see the jackals ahead? They’re standing between us and the treeless space we need to get across.”

  “Great,” Brett could hear Ravi mutter.

  “Yeah, I agree it’s non-optimal. But here we are. I think the wasp bodies will keep them from attacking us directly, but they could try to knock us over and then drag us away by our feet like poor Todd.”

  “If I had any water left, I’d pour some of it out for our dead homie,” Crane said, completely without irony.

  “Um, yeah, of course,” Brett said. “We all would. But what I’m saying is that we may get through them okay, but we may not and then we would be killed and eaten by six-legged dog-monsters.”

  “What are our options, Mister Russell?” That was Lathrop right behind him.

  The Organization man spoke inconsiderately quietly, so Brett was forced to repeat Lathrop’s question for the rest before he said, “I don’t really know if we have any options. If anyone has any suggestions …”

  Brett could hear Popcorn’s voice and almost smiled as he imagined him trying to politely raise his hand inside the wasp carcass over his head: “Couldn’t we just wait them out, see if they get discouraged and go away?”

  “The wendigos will be too far off then,” Lathrop said. “We must act swiftly.”

  “As distasteful as I find it, I agree with him on this. But I can’t decide for the group. I mean, I can, and maybe I should, but this could be a suicide run even if it’s the only way to get to Ellie. And Natasha. So let’s take a vote. As the head of this expedition, I reserve the right—”

  “I’m the head of this expedition, Mister Russell.”

  Brett sighed. “As the leader of this expedition, I reserve the right to veto the decision, but I need to know where my people are on this. All in favor of rushing the jackal-things, say ‘aye’—”

  “Aieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” came a scream from Popcorn as his and Leavitt’s wasp shell was knocked sideways and then thrown to the ground by a truck-sized bird that must have been perched on a high branch. Its skin shone gray and scaly—it wasn’t a bird.

  It was a goddamn pterodactyl.

  The dinosaur reached down with its long beak and stabbed up into wasp shell, running Leavitt right through the center of his body and sliding him out like a piece of shrimp plucked out of a Chinese takeout carton. Leavitt was already dead by the time the pterodactyl raised his body up and shook it hard, spraying all the other wasp carcasses with the commando’s blood and organs. Then it whipped the body into the air and caught it to slide right down its gullet like a waterfowl gulping down a tasty fish.

  An AK-47 poked out the front of Flattop and Ravi’s wasp and blasted out shot after shot at the beast, but the bullets barely seemed to register more than making the twenty-foot-tall lizard-bird twitch a little. Undaunted, it swept back down to pull Popcorn from the overturned wasp body, but before it could get to him, a Coke-sized black can flew toward the thing’s head in a long arc, almost as if whoever threw it was trying to have it take a few extra seconds.

  Which is how Crane meant to throw the concussion grenade. It came down at the back of the pterodactyl’s head just at the moment it exploded, neatly separating the creature’s skull from its spine. Its brain and body no longer being connected, the dinosaur wobbled and then fell to the ground with its tons of weight, missing Popcorn still prone inside the wasp shell by less than two feet.

  The rest of them cheered. It was a brilliant move on Crane’s part, Brett thought, once again seeing that book-knowledge and field-knowledge were not one and the same: with a regular grenade, Popcorn or any of them might have been hit with flying shrapnel. But by using the concussion grenade and timing it perfectly, Crane could kill the monster without endangering anyone else.

  “Well done,” Brett said, but even he didn’t know how well-done it was until he saw rashes of creatures, things that looked like nightmare versions of six- and eight-legged animals from the size of cats to the size of horses descend from the trees and immediately start feeding on the still-warm carrion that less than a minute earlier was going to kill every last human on the expedition. The dozen—dozens—of creatures that set upon the dead pterodactyl completely ignored Brett and his contingent … but that wouldn’t last.

  And the jackal-things hadn’t budged from the middle of their only path out of the woods.

  Popcorn had pulled himself out of his and the late Leavitt’s wasp husk and brushed some of the ichor and bits of cartilage from his red sweater. He looked at the feeding frenzy not ten feet away, then cast his gaze to the high treetops. “I’d venture that the tops of the trees aren’t acidic. There’s probably not going to be enough prey up there to make it worth the evolutionary expense, since anything they started to eat up there would just climb down or fall down onto the dirt, where that particular tree wouldn’t be able to get to them. So, perhaps, this strange bestiary simply waits up there until something tasty walks by.”

  Despite all of his time battling dangerous cryptids in woods, rainforests, and deserts, Brett had to suppress a shudder. They might have been that something tasty if the dinosaur hadn’t shown up.

  “And Commander Crane, thank you for coming to my aid.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Crane said, already staring at the jackal-things and no doubt wondering how he could take them out as well. “Now we got to get out of this place and get the giants that stole our women.”

  “Working on it,” Brett said, then addressed Popcorn: “Do you think you can manage that wasp shell on your own? We can’t afford to leave one behind, since we’ll need it when we bring Ellie back. And Natasha.”

  Popcorn looked at the heavy canoe-like wasp body dubiously. “I doubt it.”

  “Yeah, I can see that.” Everyone had laid their wasp shells down and were having a bit of fresh air since they were just standing there anyway. There were Brett and Lathrop, Stefan and Crane, Flattop and Ravi, and now Popcorn without the unfortunate Leavitt. “We don’t have enough command
os to go around now, though. What if we put Ravi with Stefan, and then Popcorn can go with Flattop? We’ll put Ravi and Stefan in the middle so they’re protected even though they don’t have a soldier with them. Okay, Crane, can you take Lathrop off my hands? I can manage the bug canoe by myself long enough to get to the wendigos—we’re going to need all four protective carcasses once we get our people back.”

  Crane could and did. Everyone moved to their respective bugs, Brett by himself in front, then Stefan with Ravi, Popcorn with Flattop, and finally Crane with Lathrop. The Organization man didn’t care for being at the more vulnerable end of the line, but Brett wasn’t overly concerned with what Lathrop wanted at this point. Crane was obviously a superior soldier; Brett didn’t think Lathrop was in any more danger, and possibly less, than any of the rest of them.

  Regardless of how much danger the man was or wasn’t in, however, he was still a huge pain in the ass. “What is the plan here, Mister Russell? Do you even have a plan, other than for us to don these disgusting corpses again and try to just run past the killer dingoes?”

  Brett thought for a moment, smiled, and said, “No, that’s pretty much the plan. If you have anything better in mind, please don’t hold back. We want to hear it.”

  “Oh, of course I don’t have anything better in mind, you muscle-bound circus freak. Let’s get on with it,” Lathrop snarled, and motioned for Crane to get the damned thing over their heads already.

  Somebody’s getting testy, Brett thought with amusement. For all he knew, Lathrop could give him information that was false; in fact, with the Organization, that was likely to be true. But seeing Lathrop having a really unpleasant time was a lot of payment in itself. He had taken the job thinking Lathrop was legit, but of course he knew there was always the possibility he was still working for the Organization, which turned out to be the case.