by RR Haywood
The irritation Safa felt at the lack of protocols soon passes. The feel of the sun is gorgeous. The view is amazing. The air is so thick and clean. She breathes in a deep lungful and almost feels giddy for a second. Ben said there was more oxygen here but then Roland said they had been medicated. She watches Harry scoping the wildlife down in the plains then glances over to Ben and smiles at the look of rapture on his face. He seems so different again. Like he’s come alive and can’t move his head fast enough to take everything in.
She motions for Harry to walk down the side of the bunker to join Ben and she stares down as mesmerised as he at the commanding view, which no person ever born could ever tire of seeing. Safa was right. Ben’s mind opens completely. Thoughts whirl and spin through his brain as he tries to gain perspective and context.
‘Up?’ Ben blinks back to the now and looks at Harry motioning up the bank that rises behind the bunker.
‘We should,’ Safa says, turning her back on the valley to stare up at the bank. How can she do that? How can anyone turn away from that sight? ‘Ben?’ she calls.
‘Coming,’ he mutters.
This time Harry takes the lead and threads a staggered route up the steep bank. Within minutes, Ben is breathing hard with sweat beading on his face.
‘Moss,’ Harry says from up front.
‘What?’ Safa asks. The big man comes to a stop and points over at a collection of rocks and ferns.
‘Moss,’ Harry says again.
‘Okay,’ Safa says slowly.
He looks at her then at Ben. ‘Moss grows on the northern side. That way’s north,’ he says, pointing back towards the bunker.
‘Oh right,’ Safa says casually with the corners of her mouth twitching.
‘What?’ Harry asks.
‘Nothing,’ she says lightly. ‘Good skills.’
‘Hmmm,’ Harry grumbles, giving her a thoughtful glance before walking on a few steps then stopping again. ‘What?’ he asks her.
‘Northern hemisphere,’ she says with a smile. ‘Moss grows on the north in the northern hemisphere and it’s not always accurate.’
‘I don’t think that’s right either,’ Ben calls forward. ‘I read it somewhere that it’s got something to do with moisture and the sun?’
‘That’s north,’ Harry says, pointing again.
‘Okay, Mountain Man,’ Safa says. ‘Lead on.’
They carry on ascending to the top of the bank and come to a stop again at the sudden view opening out. A clearing several hundred metres wide and long bordered by a fluctuating treeline that bulges out in places but recedes in others. It’s just like the valley floor too, with swampy patches of gloopy-looking water here and there and big boulders, rocks and stones littered between the horsetails and fern grasses.
‘Look at those.’ Safa points down to a group of plants that look like tropical houseplants of the type you’d expect to see in Mediterranean hotel foyers. Long, spiky-looking branches that are actually soft to the touch and bushy too, with leaves and stems of almost perfectly identical length and size. In the middle there are weird seed fruit things that look like pine cones with overlapping Roman armour except they look softer and even edible.
‘Flowers,’ Harry says, giving voice to the things he sees. They look round, spotting flashes of colour amidst the sea of greens and browns. Whites, reds and all manner of shades in-between. Yellows and purples of things that look like roses and sunflowers and magnolias but clearly are not any of those things. They have cup shapes with petals fanning round to entice insects to pollinate and feast. Some are tubular like trumpets, others are more straight or like the rose formation of concentric circles of petals growing tight together.
They get that jarring sensation again. Safa looks at a broad-headed flowering plant, with her brain trying to interpret the sight as a sunflower. But it isn’t a sunflower. She doesn’t know what it is. Ben doesn’t recognise any of the flowers either, but he can see evolution in action. That thing will become a sunflower. That will be a rose, but not yet, and not for millions of years either.
The static vision is one thing, but the smells, sounds and feel of the place are an altogether different set of sensations. The heat is close, like a jungle, and the air is filled with thousands of noises of insects buzzing and chirping and other creatures squawking and crying out.
They follow Harry picking a route towards the trees and spot beetles climbing up plant stems and more shoving their faces into the sticky pollen. Small flying insects are everywhere too. Wasp-type things with yellow and black bodies but bigger and much tougher-looking. For a second Ben thinks they must be what bees come from until he actually sees bees and mutters in shock. They’re bloody huge things. Much bigger than any bee he has ever seen, with legs like saddlebags weighed down with pollen and broad wings that vibrate as they hover to lift or sink towards the flowers. On sight of the creatures Safa draws her pistol, holding it down at her side. Her thumb resting on the safety switch as she tracks and follows the huge bees buzzing through the air. Harry just watches. He served in jungles across the world and although seeing new creatures is amazing, it does not hold the same shock for him as it does for the other two. Mind you, they didn’t have dinosaurs in Africa. Big bugs, but no dinosaurs.
Things scuttle between rocks and plants and are gone from sight before they can turn and lock their eyes on them. They see a column of ants marching along that sends a shiver down Ben’s spine. Each one must be over two inches in length, some look bigger and thicker with bulging back ends. They look nasty too, like they would cause damage if they bit you, and there’s hundreds of them just in that snapshot of a glance.
A splash of water makes them all look round in time to see a small thing flying up and away towards the treeline and it’s at that point that they gain a sense of the scale of the trees standing sentinel on that line.
Ben recognised the cypress trees, but the ones forming the forest are much bigger and must be standing at over fifty metres in height easily. Some look like sycamores or the London plane trees he and Safa are so used to seeing in parks and open spaces. Thick, dense trunks sweeping up to the enormous branches, which stretch out in decreasing size from the bottom to the top with dense green foliage. Conifer-type things too, but again they get that jarring sensation of expecting to see one thing but actually looking at something different.
The closer they get, the more the scale of the trees increases. They have huge gaps between them, forming lanes and avenues threading round the trunks. The noise gets louder too. The clearing is like the quiet section and the forest is the main attraction, where everything that can make noise lives.
Screeches and squawks from everywhere. Branches rustling with scampering noises of things chasing and things being chased. A burst of activity and the sound of twigs snapping bring them to a halt as they listen to the death screams of some creature being chomped.
A thing flies into view. Like a bee with broad stripes, but these are red and black instead of yellow and black. The size of a rugby ball with wings the length of Harry’s arms, but it moves like a bee, buzzing towards the nearest flower and hovering above as though scenting to see what’s on offer.
It glides away and the noise increases to a pitch like an electric drill that revs louder as it rises and reduces when it sinks down towards the next flower. They watch mesmerised as it drops to land lightly in the middle of the blossoming flower, which hardly moves from the weight bearing down. A big head stuffs face first into the middle and as the buzzing noise dies down so they hear a sucking that’s like a dog cleaning itself. Suck squelch swallow. Suck squelch swallow. Then the buzzing increases as the engine pitches to give lift and it soars up freshly drunk on pollen to zigzag along in the air.
A screech rips the air apart, making them duck down. Safa and Harry both raise their weapons. The rugby ball bee pays no heed as the treetops explode with leaves bursting up and twigs falling down.
The three get ready to flee for the bunker as a dr
umming noise that’s fast and furious comes from the foliage high up in the tops of the trees. Wood splinters and branches snap as a black object breaks free, soaring up on wings that beat furiously to gain height, and even from this distance they can see the immense size of the thing. It flies up as though desperate to be away from the trees as another beast of the same ilk explodes out in a shower of broken foliage that drops away as it soars to catch the first.
With enough height gained, the first creature flips in the air to point down and torpedo drops at an angle away from the one chasing it. The wings open wide and long like the sails on a yacht that catch the thermals. The second creature immediately copies until they’re side by side, soaring playfully on vast appendages that seem solid yet transparent and the closest thing to a dragon’s wings they can possibly imagine.
Undoubtedly the creatures see the people, for as one they adjust aim and glide lower through the sky, heading straight in their direction, but they’re so entranced that they don’t run or burst away, but stand staring with mouths hanging open. The creatures have long curved beaks and legs with vicious-looking talons clear against the sky and what looks like a long body coated in both feathers and scales: a seamless, beautifully woven tapestry.
The creatures swoop down, letting the warm air do the work as they drop closer, and only at the last second do the three realise the danger and burst away in all directions as the flying things glide powerfully overhead and down into a steeper dive towards the valley floor.
Ben runs to the edge to watch them drop with laughter coming from his mouth at the sight of them in mid-air tumbling and rolling for a few seconds before gliding away in opposite directions then coming back together in what can only be a mating ritual of airborne dance.
‘Ben!’ Harry shouts in warning. Ben spins round and locks his two eyes on the hundreds presented by the rugby ball bee as it flies towards him. He spots Harry and Safa going wide to the sides with weapons aimed.
‘Don’t shoot it,’ he calls out softly, taking in every detail of the hairy legs, the bulging saddle bags and the wings beating faster than the eye can see. How it gains flight at such a size is beyond his imagination, but then his mind is constrained by the world in which he lived, and this world is not his world.
It slows down, the buzzing becoming deeper as though it’s changing gear to hold stationary, assessing, scenting, smelling, seeing and then deciding that it doesn’t want whatever pollen Ben might have and round it turns, moving almost lazily to Harry and Safa, who get the star treatment next, and then it’s done. They are not interesting. They are not food, therefore they are dismissed.
A black cloud of reverberating wings suddenly bursts from the ground with a sound like angry whispering that builds to an all-out screaming of beating wings, deafening and thunderous. With no scale at first they simply watch, then the size of the insects hits home. Dragonflies with a double-layered wingspan of over a foot and bodies even longer and there are hundreds of them swarming up and around like a school of fish gathering together and moving almost as one organism. They move closer and yet more rise to join the rest, gradually gaining height so as to evade the three figures coming towards them.
The insects swarm round, their heads dropping and lifting and moving so fast but never colliding into each other. They are thick enough to be substantial but light enough to be easily recognised as insects, with blues and reds glinting from their bodies and faint rainbows showing in their wings, like washed-out butterflies.
There’s no threat here. None of them feel in danger but in awe at the life in this place and they stare up into the black cloud as if in prayer, then stagger back in shock at seeing one of the flying beasts they saw bursting from the trees go slamming through the insects with its mouth open, snapping left and right. One dragonfly is snatched from the air with a quick rag of the creature’s head and the insect is swallowed. The second creature, having gone higher and further out to catch those bursting away, glides down as well, snapping to the sides until it snags a dragonfly for lunch.
The three stand watching. Rooted to the spot as the two creatures soar higher then spread their wings to turn lazily in the air before they commence the next torpedo run back down through the now crazily humming cloud of insects.
Screeches come from the flying creatures. A sound of excitement, of pure thrill mingled with a calling out. They stay together this time, dropping rapidly until they hit the outer edges of the swarm and only then do their wings open to lift them up, into and through the dragonflies that get snagged and gulped down time and again. Ben realises that already the presence of humans has caused an effect that otherwise may not have happened. If not for them, these two flying animals may not have enjoyed this meal and in turn so the insects may have rested hidden in the long-stemmed grass through the heat of the day.
The swarm goes for the trees as the only obvious point of cover and the predators give chase, swooping and rising to bank sharply for another run through.
They go slower this time, advancing step by step towards the treeline as the power of curiosity overcomes common sense. They should stay in the open near to the bunker so they can turn and run if they need. Except they aren’t those types of people. Ben just witnessed life and death with flying dinosaurs dominating this place as they snacked on giant insects that died to give life that died to give life and forever on it will go. That humans have conscious thought is the one thing that separates them from everything else, but that conscious thought has wrought more damage than all of the combined life that went before them. Ben sags on the spot with a crushing weight pushing him down. Sweat pouring down his face. Whatever happens in twenty-one eleven is probably deserved. Fuck it, I’m amazed we got that far.
‘Is that a caterpillar?’ Safa asks in simple curiosity. Ben and Harry glance over, expecting to see something big and grotesque, and they’re not disappointed to see a big, grotesque, hairy, bulging, striped thing stuck on the side of a tree. Over a metre long and with a body as thick as one of Harry’s legs. ‘I’m allergic to caterpillars,’ she says conversationally. ‘I get a rash.’
‘You’ll get more than a rash from that thing,’ Ben says in a voice that also sounds entirely too normal and disconnected from the weirdness he still feels inside.
‘Big, isn’t it?’ she says, staring round in what must be the most awesome understatement ever made.
‘Noisy,’ Harry remarks. ‘Malaya in forty-one . . . that was noisy too.’
‘Bit further?’ Safa asks them both. Harry nods. Ben shrugs, almost fatalistic in mood.
They stop talking as an armoured thing waddles from the undergrowth. Like an armadillo crossed with an anteater and bred with a tank, but it doesn’t pay them the slightest attention. They turn constantly at the sounds of motion around them. Ben jerking nervously, Harry and Safa both calm and assured. They move on, stopping every few steps to stare and gawp at something else, like the thickness of the vines climbing the trees and the oversized ferns and other flora abundant everywhere the sun can penetrate.
Butterflies too. Bigger than they are used to, but not as big as the caterpillar they saw, which makes Ben think it wasn’t a pre-metamorphosis caterpillar at all.
‘Head back,’ Harry says, breaking the reverie. He stretches his back out, looking up at the canopy. ‘I can normally tell the time of day, but getting nowt here . . .’ he trails off quietly.
‘What’s that?’ Ben asks, pointing off to the right to some black things hovering in the air and juddering with a movement that’s frantic and panicked in a way he recognises but can’t seem to understand.
‘Don’t know,’ Safa says, walking towards the objects. ‘What are they?’
A dozen or so of them seemingly vibrate in mid-air in the space between two trees. The three stay side by side watching until a subtle but distinctive sound brings them to a stop.
‘That was a step,’ Safa mouths, turning slowly to look at Harry, who nods and holds a hand up, signalling them to be qui
et.
‘Could have been anything.’ The words leave Ben’s mouth with the air from his lungs vibrating through his voice box, which creates the sound and formation of words that are projected across the distance and used by whatever is behind them to mask another step being taken. Silence again and they hold position with Harry inching slowly round to stare behind.
‘Anything?’ Safa whispers. Another shuffling step is taken as she speaks.
Movement catches Ben’s eye. Sunlight glinting off something that dazzles for a split second. He turns to see rays of lights penetrating the canopy, glinting on the golden strands of a web that hold the objects he thought were caught in mid-air, and as he sees the web so he grasps the shape of the insects and makes out a dozen or more dragonflies caught and trapped. Another step is taken in the undergrowth. The tension mounts. A screech overhead and tiny scuttling sounds of insects moving with claws scraping rough on the tree bark and the dragonflies buzzing in panic at being trapped. Everything feels so close now.
Movement again, but this time from a spider that abseils down on a strand of web to hang with eight segmented, sharply angled legs hanging in perfect symmetry from a bulbous body the size of a closed fist.
A grunt from Harry, who takes an involuntary step back at seeing the spider dangling near the web. His knuckles turn white on the rifle and a look of pure hatred morphs his normally genial face. Another step from the undergrowth as Safa catches sight of the spider. They turn about. Scanning and peering into the shadows all around. Scuttling from a bush nearby and they lock eyes on the undergrowth as the new noise joins the steps being taken and all the time the dragonflies buzz with increasing pitch while frantically fighting to get free from the sticky strands.