Monsters In The Clouds

by Russell James

  Katsoros passed by with Hobart in tow. “Mr. Hobart will be accompanying us to retrieve any samples the group might come across, instead of Dr. Dixit.”

  Once she was out of earshot, Grant said, “That seals the deal. Dixit is a cowardly jackass.”

  “And there’s your third animal descriptor,” Janaina said. “I’m beginning to second guess buying your book when we get back.”

  Grant ignored the barb. “I could accept Dixit not going with us to the sacrifice area, so he could set up his gear. But this is a long hike, and we are likely to find signs of dinosaurs if there are any out there to find. Scientific curiosity alone should compel him to go.”

  “You are taking this personally for some reason.”

  “That kid Hobart’s in over his head. And I’ve seen too many overworked assistants. Hell, I was one. Hate to see them taken advantage of.”

  “Don’t let your reaction keep you, and the rest of us, from getting the job done.”

  Janaina walked off. Grant mulled her warning, then dismissed it.

  ***

  Half an hour later, Katsoros again took the lead as the group headed out into the jungle. McCabe followed with a wary eye on the rainforest around them. Hobart bumbled along in the center with a wad of sample bags in his backpack. Grant and Janaina took up the rear.

  The high canopy blocked most daylight and left the ground clear enough that they didn’t have to bushwhack their way through like Grant had from the Bobcat crash site. That was a blessing but the twilight lighting didn’t put Grant at ease.

  “Still no dinosaurs yet,” Janaina said. “Disappointed?”

  “The scientist is disappointed,” Grant said. “The man is thrilled that nothing has tried to eat us. Anything make you think any people have been here other than at that sacrifice site?”

  “No, but we likely wouldn’t see anything. The local tribes, how you say, leave a light footprint. Here the double meaning for ‘footprint’ is true. You have to stumble into a village to find them.”

  Grant wanted to keep their conversation going. He found the jungle’s silence unnerving. Considering that they were here in search of wildlife, it was bizarre that they hadn’t been entertained by any birdsong, or been annoyed by the buzz of flying bugs. He’d been to desert excavation sites with more animals.

  Just over two hours into the trip, a sharp smell like kerosene filled the air. The unnatural scent cut through the earthy jungle aroma like a knife.

  “Ugh, what is that?” Janaina said.

  “Aviation fuel,” McCabe said. “We’re close.”

  He checked the direction of the breeze and angled the group off to the right. Soon the charcoal-scent of burned wood joined the kerosene’s tang. Ash coated the earth where the ground cover had burned away in a flash fire. Ahead lay the wreckage of their plane.

  The pilot might have put the aircraft down on flat ground, but it hadn’t made a difference. The plane had plunged through the jungle canopy at a low angle and shaved away treetops on the way down. The wings had snapped off and lay twisted at each side of the crash scene. The fuselage lay further ahead, nose half-buried in the dirt, tail stabilizers sheared off and missing. The rear cargo ramp was gone and the tail of the aircraft faced them like the opening to a cave.

  “Even if the pilot survived,” Grant said, “the bird strike definitely killed the copilot. His corpse will still be in the cockpit.”

  “I’ll check it out up front,” McCabe said, “and grab the radio. All of you scour the rest of the plane for anything useful.”

  McCabe shouldered his rifle and led the group to the plane. The repulsive stench of death grew as they got closer, as if exhaled from the wreck’s dark, open maw.

  They stepped inside and McCabe went to the cockpit. Katsoros began to search through containers jumbled against the left bulkhead. A red-and-white first aid kit hung on the right bulkhead. A slash across the center exposed puffy white insulation. Janaina popped it off the wall pins and unzipped it for inspection. Hobart paused outside the plane, seemingly entranced by the jungle around him.

  Grant made his way to the cockpit. Whether out of respect for the pilot who gave them all a chance to bail out, or whether by some need for personal closure, he wasn’t sure.

  McCabe stood behind the copilot’s seat. The shattered windshield left the cockpit open to the outside. The place was a shambles, with dials and control switches missing, navigation manuals shredded and strewn about.

  The copilot was there as Grant remembered him, decapitated, but the body was bloodier and more bloated than before. He hoped the captain had survived and made it out alive, but a glance to the right dashed those hopes. The pilot’s body sat in the chair, still strapped in, both hands still at the controls.

  “You said there was a bird strike?” McCabe said.

  Grant pointed at the shattered left cockpit window. “Right through there.”

  McCabe scooped an animal off the ground. “What kind of a bird do you call this?”

  With a grip on each wing he spread the creature out in front of Grant. Leathery skin covered bat-like wings that spread almost a meter wide. Two short, muscular legs hung down from its rectangular body. A long, pointed bill stuck out in front and a crest that nearly duplicated it ran along the back of its head.

  Grant couldn’t hide his excitement. “That is a pterosaur.”

  Katsoros stepped up behind him. “A what?”

  “A flying reptile from the Cretaceous period,” Grant said. “Extinct. Until now.”

  Grant reached out to touch it. McCabe tossed it at him in frustration. Grant caught it under the wings with both hands.

  “You mean the plane was downed by these little flying dinosaurs?”

  “They’re carnivores, likely pack hunters. The big lumbering plane probably looked like an easy meal. They’d never seen one before.”

  Grant examined the pterosaur in detail, amazed to be holding this link to an era millions of years ago, somehow completely glossing over the fact that it almost got him killed.

  “Damn,” Katsoros said. She sounded more annoyed than stunned. “Hobart! Get in here for some samples.”

  Thudding footsteps along the aircraft floor announced Hobart’s approach. He stuck his head in the cabin. “You found something?”

  Grant smiled. “It isn’t poo, but maybe you can do something with it.”

  Grant held out the dead pterosaur. Hobart made a girlish shriek and shied away.

  “But dinosaur feces, that’s okay?” Grant said.

  “No, I’m fine, you just startled me, that’s all.” Hobart took a deep breath, as if summoning some composure. He put on a latex glove, grabbed the pterosaur by the neck, and then retreated to the rear of the aircraft.

  “So psyched he’s on our team,” Grant said.

  “Funny, that’s what I said about you,” McCabe said.

  Grant stepped out of the cockpit to avoid escalating the verbal battle. He hopped out of the back of the plane. Janaina dropped down beside him.

  “Ai, meu Deus! That was an actual dinosaur, wasn’t it?”

  “As near as I can tell.”

  “I have to admit, I thought finding dinosaurs was fantasy nonsense.”

  “After the disappointment at the sacrifice site, a pterosaur is more than I expected. I’m daring to hope we may even see an actual apatosaurus.”

  “Can we encounter that one without it trying to kill us?”

  “It’s an herbivore. The odds are in our favor.”

  Katsoros joined them with a dark canvas messenger bag slung across her chest.

  “You trampled through the jungle for a bag?” Janaina said.

  “It has all the expedition records and permits.”

  “Super duper,” Grant said. “We need something to get the night’s fire going.”

  Katsoros’s face went red in anger. “Why don’t you add some value here and tell me about these birds that crashed the plane.”

  “Flying reptiles. The accepted
theory is that that they flocked like birds, hunted in a swarm.”

  “So are they going to swoop out of the trees on us on the way back?”

  “No, they don’t do trees. They don’t have perching feet like a bird. They have lizard feet. They likely walked along the ground on all fours, wings swept back and up. Likely lived in burrows or between rocks.”

  “So how did they fly?” Janaina asked.

  “The theory is they climbed up to a high point and jumped.”

  “In a group, and then took down airplanes?” Katsoros said.

  “It does look like that theory may need to be revised,” Grant said.

  Chapter Ten

  McCabe jumped out of the back of the aircraft and landed beside the group. He held a radio he’d pulled from the console between the cockpit seats. One of the pilot’s headsets hung around his neck. “I can rig this up. It won’t broadcast all the way back to São Paulo, but it’ll reach the rescue plane when it gets here. I’ll make damn sure they find us.”

  “We don’t want to miss that ride,” Katsoros said.

  “We need to get away from this plane.” McCabe looked at the sinking sun. “Those bodies are an easy food source and I don’t want to find out what kind of nocturnal creatures they attract.”

  Katsoros pulled out the map. “We walked in an arc to get here. We can get back quicker in a straight line.”

  McCabe looked over her shoulder. “Terrain looks rougher, but it might be faster if we hump it. Shoot an azimuth and let’s do it.” He handed the radio to Janaina. “Here you go.”

  Janaina took the radio. She underestimated the weight and almost dropped it. “How did I get to carry this?”

  “Because I’m carrying this.” McCabe unslung the rifle from his shoulder.

  Janaina stuffed the radio into her backpack.

  Grant suddenly felt defenseless. Carnivorous dinosaurs stalked the jungle. He climbed back into the plane in search of a weapon. He grabbed a small red crash ax from the bulkhead under where Janaina had removed the first aid kit. It didn’t have weight or range, but the pterosaurs were relatively small.

  The broken remnant of one of the struts from the missing cargo door hung from the bulkhead. Grant slipped the ax into his belt, grabbed the strut with both hands, and pulled. The shattered mounting bracket squealed and then snapped with a crack. The steel shaft stretched a bit longer than a baseball bat and felt twice as heavy.

  “Batter up, pterosaur,” he said to himself.

  He realized the irony of discovering an amazing extinct species, then minutes later trying to figure out a way to kill the first one that approached him. He looked around and didn’t find anything else that might be of defensive value. He jumped back out of the plane and handed the ax to Janaina.

  “Just in case,” he said.

  “I will wish only to use it for making firewood,” Janaina said. She slipped it into her belt.

  Hobart returned with the pterosaur sealed in a big Ziploc bag. He slid it into his backpack. “Any other samples in the cockpit?”

  “Bits and pieces,” Katsoros said. “Likely contaminated with human DNA. You have the best of them.”

  McCabe checked his watch. “Let’s roll.”

  Katsoros took out her compass and sighted a tree along the return azimuth. “Ready.” She set out for the edge of the crash site. The others followed.

  ***

  The route back to the camp may have been more direct, but it proved far less passable. The ground rose and fell like waves in a rough sea. The jungle was far denser, a sea of waist-high ferns under a low canopy of close-packed palms. Thorn-like spikes coated the palms’ lower trunks. The group left an open trail of crushed ferns behind them. With any breeze blocked, the air enveloped Grant in a thick, humid blanket. In minutes, sweat drenched him.

  The group walked in silence with Katsoros and her compass in the lead. She stopped every few hundred steps to check their course. McCabe had remained on high alert, his finger never off his rifle’s trigger guard. Hobart kept cringing and adjusting the straps of his pack against the weight or the pterosaur. Ziploc bag or not, Grant swore he could smell the stink of the thing as he followed in Hobart’s wake.

  Ferns rustled off to the right. Grant spun to look that way, but everything was still.

  Ferns rustled again, this time to the left. Louder.

  “Did you hear that?” Janaina said.

  “I wish I hadn’t,” Grant answered.

  Behind and to the left, what looked like a reddish shark fin broke above the tops of the ferns. A second one appeared a quarter meter beside it. In tandem, they alternated in a little forward-pause-forward dance in parallel with the group’s path. Ferns snapped in sync with the motion.

  “There’s something out there.” Hobart practically shrieked the warning.

  Two more fins surfaced to the right. Then another set.

  “Let’s go,” McCabe said. “Double-time it!”

  Katsoros broke into a jog. McCabe took the rear as everyone tried to keep up with Katsoros. He leveled his rifle at the ocean of ferns behind them. Two more sets of fins rose on the left.

  McCabe paused and aimed. He fired and the rifle’s three-round burst echoed between the trees. Bullets clipped fern tops like an invisible scythe. A high-pitched shriek pierced the air and an explosion of blood blossomed above the ferns. The fins disintegrated.

  A sharp, hawk-like scream sounded from the other sets of fins. They tore through the ferns, zeroing in on the group.

  Grant’s heart pounded hard. He gripped the door strut so tightly that his hands turned white. Katsoros sprinted and he struggled to keep up.

  Behind them, a set of fins broke through onto the group’s trodden path. It was a pterosaur, charging on all fours, wings tucked up in the air creating the illusion of fins. Its head swept back at an almost impossible angle, bill pointing straight out like a jousting knight’s lance, head crest tucked between its pumping wings. Eyes burned a fiery red on each side of the bill, laser-locked on the retreating humans.

  McCabe fired behind him as he ran. The rounds clipped one wing and shattered the top joint. The pterosaur wailed and collapsed to that side and spun into the ferns.

  The other pterosaurs leapt into the air. The jungle was too confined for flight, but each managed a single, accelerative beat of its wings toward the group. Two dove on Janaina, attacking from both sides. The third made a beeline for Katsoros.

  The weight of the pterosaurs drove Janaina screaming to the ground. Hobart tripped and fell face first into the ferns. The other pterosaur clamped its leg talons on the crown of Katsoros’ head. With a snap of its head it drove its bill into her left shoulder.

  Another pterosaur burst from the ferns behind them. With two flaps of its wings, it rose to the canopy, then dove for McCabe with an ear-splitting shriek of fury.

  McCabe snapped his rifle to his shoulder and fired. The pterosaur exploded in a cloud of red mist. Its wings continued forwards and dropped at either side of his feet.

  Katsoros dropped to her knees with a panicked wail. She grabbed the pterosaur legs where the talons gripped her skull. She pulled but they didn’t budge.

  McCabe ran to Katsoros. He raised the rifle and drove the butt against the pterosaur’s head. Its bill shattered as its neck snapped. The dinosaur went limp and toppled into the ferns.

  Grant skidded to a stop beside Janaina. Screaming, face down on the ground, she’d covered her head with her arms. The two pterosaurs gripped her backpack as they pecked at her shoulders.

  Grant aimed the jagged end of the strut at one pterosaur and plunged it into its body. The shaft pierced the creature’s skin with the sound of tearing leather. Blood gushed from the wound. The pterosaur let loose and sprang from Janaina’s back. It scampered away through the ferns.

  The second pterosaur swept back one wing and struck Grant square in the face. His glasses sliced a gash in the bridge of his nose and everything went white. He stumbled backwards and dropped on his
butt. The pterosaur ripped Janaina’s pack from her back and darted into the tiny forest of ferns. The dragged backpack left a flattened trail.

  Grant rolled Janaina over. She shook like she was being electrocuted. Her eyes were wide with panic. Grant shook her by the shoulders.

  “Janaina! They’re gone. It’s okay now.” He looked Janaina’s quivering body over. “Are you hurt?”

  Janaina seemed to pause to do a mental self-diagnostic. “No… I’m… I’m okay.”

  Next to them, Hobart rolled up from the ferns, looking dazed.

  McCabe dropped the magazine from his rifle, counted the rounds, and slapped it back into place. He looked down at Hobart then went over to Katsoros. He winced as he inspected the tip of the bill that protruded from her shoulder. Katsoros pressed her hands against her wounded head as blood seeped between her fingers.

  “Oh my God… oh my God… oh my God,” she whispered to herself.

  McCabe knelt beside her and checked the stub of the bill in her shoulder.

  “That’s not in deep,” he said.

  “Could have fooled me,” she said.

  “Christ knows where that thing has been,” he said. “I’m going to pull it out to minimize the chance for infection.”

  Katsoros sighed and closed her eyes. “Okay. Let me—”

  Lightning fast, McCabe gripped her shoulder with his left hand and yanked the bill out with his right. Katsoros bit back a scream.

  “All done,” he said. He pulled a medical compress pack from his cargo pants and tore open the plastic pouch. He unfolded it and pressed it against her wound from under her shirt. “Keep the pressure on there until it stops bleeding. We’ll clean it up good when we get back to camp.”

  McCabe made a sling for Katsoros’s arm from her scarf.

  “What kind of bird attacks from the ground like that?” Hobart said.

  “One that was still half-terrestrial,” Grant answered. “Pterosaurs are an evolutionary step toward birds. In the confines of the jungle floor, they switched tactics. Scientists theorized about this ability based on the musculature. I’d be excited about the discovery if it hadn’t turned into a near-fatal experience.”