by Shea, Hunter
The central city of Gadang Ur had to be close. The observatory, as he’d decided to refer to the place the Orang Pendek had taken him, would have been built nearby.
Of course, it could have been a prison. Or just the home of a misanthropic Sumatran. If an archaeologist had stumbled upon the ruins, he was sure they would have ascribed some religious or ceremonial purpose to the out of the way structure.
Taking a few deep breaths, Henrik rolled away from the tree, hurrying another ten feet away. He stopped, listened and looked for signs of anything having been alerted to his presence, then moved on to the next. It was exhausting, but until he felt a reasonable degree of safety, it was the only way to go. At one point, he found a flat rock with a fine edge. He sat behind a wide tree, using the rock to whittle the end of the branch into a sharp point. It was no assault rifle, but it would have to do.
A hot breeze shook the heavy leaves above him, trapped rainwater sprinkling down. The breeze also brought a musky odor, ripe as a rotting muskrat. Henrik clenched.
They’re close!
In North America, Bigfoot sightings were usually presaged by an ungodly smell, some so pungent, like the Southeastern skunk ape, that the odor alone was enough to get people to shove off, leaving the passing cryptid in peace. Henrik remembered the vile stench of the Orang Pendek when they’d invaded their camp. If hell had a fragrance, that would have been it.
He listened for any telltale signs of their moving close to his position. If this had been a drier climate, the litter on the forest floor would have been brittle, a perfect warning system. Not so out here, where everything was soaked through and through and pliable as putty.
Looking at his hastily made spear, he saw droplets of blood on the handle. The wound in his shoulder was leaking, which explained why his shirt was a writhing mass of flies. Their incessant buzzing made it hard to hear. He flicked them off with a swipe of the spear, but they only latched back on several seconds later.
Just put them out of your mind. Concentrate on the Orang Pendek.
Plink!
It sounded as if a rock had hit one of the trees to his right. He made sure to look to his left, wary of any tricks of misdirection. He was going to treat his jungle nemesis as he would any cunning man.
Poking his head out from behind the tree, he saw nothing but dense, endless forest. Of course, there were all kinds of shadows where anything could hide, but he wasn’t about to see for himself.
He nearly yelped in surprise when he felt the spear get ripped from his hands.
A gray haired Orang Pendek, just over four feet tall, its face a mass of ropy scars, seemed to grin at him as it tossed his weapon away. Neither of them made a sound for an interminable time, simply staring at one another, each one taking the full measure of the other.
Henrik knew he looked like a wounded animal. The Orang Pendek, though the older of its species, exuded a strength that said it could tear Henrik in half just with its hands. It was like looking into the eyes of a feral human, wizened from years of survival and self-preservation. Those coal eyes knew neither compassion nor pity.
Its thin upper lip curled, revealing a jagged incisor that looked to have been artificially sharpened. Its gaze leveled at Henrik’s throat. It knew this was a weak spot, the one place of attack that would assure a quick and certain victory. Henrik was well-schooled in martial arts and self defense, but in his weakened and wounded state, he worried that he’d be no match for the wild creature.
He locked his knees, assuming a defensive pose, hands at the ready.
The Orang Pendek’s long arms remained at its side, the head on its nonexistent neck leaning forward just a bit.
My, what big teeth you have, Henrik thought. Better not let them pierce me. If they don’t tear me apart outright, its fluids will surely flush my system with a deadly infection.
With a jarring roar, the Orang Pendek stepped up to his face.
Its eyes went wide, arms flailing.
Henrik raised his arms, ready to ward off its initial attack.
A geyser of blood splattered his chest.
It was then he noticed the thick blade carving a deep arc across the man ape’s fur covered throat. It thrashed for a moment before being thrown to the ground where it gurgled horribly, its hands clamped around its mortally wounded throat.
Oscar now stood before him, wiping the Bowie knife off on his pants.
He said, “That went exactly as planned. First time for everything.”
Henrik felt his smile stretch as far as his skin would allow.
“Your timing is impeccable.”
“I saw that bugger tracking you for the past ten minutes. I wanted to wait until his attentions were so focused on you, he’d never hear me coming. Sorry it took so long. You looked right about to crap yourself raw.”
Henrik clapped his hand on the side of his friend’s neck. “I’m sure I did. Thank you. Are the others close by?”
Oscar sighed. “Just Surya and Yandi. Deddy was with us but they got a hold of him last night. We followed them all the way to where they seem to live.”
“Is Deddy all right?”
“They…they did terrible things to him. Unspeakable. If I’d had a rifle, I would have put him out of his misery right then and there. Poor bastard.”
Henrik offered a quick, silent prayer for the porter.
“You said you followed them to where they live?”
At this, Oscar gave a grim grin. “Oh yes. You’re definitely going to want to see this. It’ll blow your fucking mind.”
Chapter Eighteen
Austin cried out for his sister until he was hoarse.
She was gone. And he was now utterly lost.
He knew the Orang Pendek had taken her, but he had no idea where. Somehow, he’d lost their tracks and was now so deep in the jungle, he could no longer pass through the thick vegetation. Thorny vines lashed his arms, neck and face. He didn’t have a machete, making it difficult to extricate himself.
Obviously, the Orang Pendek didn’t have machetes either, so they must have taken her on some kind of worn down trail.
“How the hell will I find it?”
He was angry, frustrated and terrified. Natalie was really all he had left as far as family went. Sure, there was their aunt and some cousins, but he and his sister had broken away from them as soon as their parents’ life insurance money came to them at eighteen.
Imagining all sorts of horrible things, he had to will himself to stop and clear his mind. It was only making him crazier, more irrational.
“Hey, you fucking monkeys, you forgot me!”
The one thing he was certain of was that there were no dinosaurs about. They were too big and even he was barely able to move about the dense overgrowth.
And where was the rest of their party? Only poor Bambang had been accounted for. Had they been scattered and lost, just like Austin?
Cupping his hands around his mouth, he shouted, “Hello! Can anybody hear me? Is anybody there? Hello!”
It didn’t matter who heard him – human or cryptid. In fact, he preferred to have the Orang Pendek show up. Maybe, if they took him as well, he’d be reunited with Nat and they could find a way out together.
Because he sure as hell wasn’t leaving this godforsaken jungle without her.
“Hello!”
Firing off a couple of rounds into the trees, he hoped he’d accidentally hit a lurking Orang Pendek.
When nothing happened, he spat onto the loamy floor.
Retracing his steps for a spell, he kept searching for any clues as to where Natalie had been dragged off. An experienced tracker could have probably found the trail. Austin was experienced in office politics and only recently, battling Loch Ness Monsters. Tracking down a sister captured by beasts of legend had surprisingly never been covered in college.
“Natalie, can you hear me?”
Austin knew it was useless. His eyes burned with tears, the first time he’d cried since his mother and father’s
funeral. And just like then, there was no body to mourn over.
“Cut the crap. You’re not mourning because she’s not dead. They want her for something. You just need to find her.”
All he could do was just keep walking. There wasn’t even a way to tell if he was going in circles. Everything looked the same – green, overgrown and mossy. One felled tree looked the same as another.
Something slithered across his feet. He froze, aware that there were more poisonous snakes out here, including the king cobra, than people on unemployment lines back in the States. That was a hell of a lot of creeping death to be on the lookout for.
He caught the tail end of a black snake before it disappeared under fallen leaves.
They had anti-venom at the camp, but it could have been on Mars for all he knew.
Don’t get bit. You can’t help Nat if you’re dead.
Austin paid closer attention to his surroundings, which helped get him out of his own head, insane with worry for his sister.
Why didn’t they take me, too? he wondered. It can’t be the guns. Natalie had one. Is it my size? Did they think she was easier prey? Whoa, what the hell did I just step in?
He’d gone from solid ground to being knee deep in foul smelling water. It was so dense, so murky, he couldn’t see a centimeter past the surface. And breaking that surface had released a cloud of gas so horrid, his eyes watered. Quickly backing out of the swamp, he tugged his shirt over his nose and mouth.
“Oh Jesus, that’s bad.”
The swamp was definitive proof that he had really gone off the trail. They hadn’t passed anything like it before they made camp. Nor had he seen or smelled the swamp when he was pursuing Natalie and her captors.
There was a deep throated grumble close by. He steadied his rifle, finger no longer on the trigger guard.
What was that?
It sounded a little like a lion. Or a tiger. Sumatran tigers, some of the rarest in the world, lived out here, but the odds of coming across one were phenomenal.
Then again, those odds were a far cry better than being chased down by Orang Pendeks on elephants. Or encountering dinosaurs!
“Okay, so maybe you are a tiger. If you come too close, your species is going to be even more endangered. I’m just saying.”
The last thing he’d want to do is kill a tiger, but it was survival of the fittest out here, and as long as he had bullets, he ‘d be near the top of the food chain.
Something splashed to his left. He sighted the rifle toward where he thought it came from.
And he saw it was no tiger.
A crocodile that would have made he Crocodile Hunter shit himself purple skulked around the swampy water, only the top portion of its long, reptilian body visible.
Think back to nature shows. Do they attack people outside of Florida? They’re fast, right? Really fast, but only for short periods of time. Am I supposed to play dead? No, that’s for bears. Do I make a lot of noise and scare it off?
Austin stared at the approaching croc.
It doesn’t look like any sound I make is going to scare that bastard.
The crocodile came to a stop, turning to its side, its one cold eye staring Austin down as if it could peer into his soul.
It gave another heavy bass rumble.
That’s when Austin noticed the colored fabric sticking out from between its vice-like jaws. It was blue and shredded like cheese.
“Is that…?”
He found a rock, took a deep breath, questioned his sanity, and hurled it at the crocodile. It plunked into the water behind it, sending up a plume of mud. The crocodile turned its head fast as a whip. It was enough to give Austin a better view of the fabric.
It had been a shirt. More specifically, a blue 1992 winter Olympics T-shirt. He could tell by the remaining colorful Olympic rings. It was also because he’d seen it before. On one of the porters, Hengki.
“This whole fucking place is out to kill us.”
Before he could reconsider, he shot the crocodile, aiming for its head, strafing it from one side to the other. The giant reptile thrashed in the water, releasing its hold on the shirt, bleeding copiously.
To his utter surprise, the sound of cheering men erupted from the swamp.
“What the hell?”
Three of the porters emerged from their hiding places, up to their waists in the swamp.
Relief washed through Austin when he saw one of them was a shirtless Hengki. He had a long gash running from his bicep to his wrist, but it wasn’t bleeding very badly and he seemed to be okay.
Anything above not being in a crocodile’s belly qualified as more than okay.
They ran around the dead croc, surrounding him and slapping at his back. They all spoke at once, a jumble of words that had no meaning to him.
“Man, am I glad to see you guys,” he said.
For a brief moment in the madness, they were all smiles and happiness. Ridwan motioned for Hengki and Saharto to settle down and he spoke directly and excitedly to Austin.
Austin shook his head. “Dude, I can’t understand a word you’re saying.” He gripped the man’s sinewy shoulders, stopping his monologue. “Look, do you think you guys can get us back to the camp?”
Ridwan looked back at him with utter incomprehension.
Doing his best to pantomime the setup of the camp, Austin said, “We need to get back to the camp and see if the others have made it there. Then we need to load up on every weapon we have and find my sister. You understand?”
Ridwan clapped once, then nodded. He turned his back and started walking. The others followed, motioning for him to do so as well.
Austin’s optimism elevated. These men know their way around the jungle. They could help him find Natalie.
Those Orang Pendeks would curse the day they ever laid a hand on her.
Chapter Nineteen
Natalie’s back felt as if it had been dragged repeatedly over a deli slicer. She was pretty sure she was bleeding and would require surgery on the discs of her neck and spine. Not to mention the repeated shots she’d taken to the base of her skull.
One good thing, she thought, I’m too damned woozy to be afraid. Just being able to think that was proof she’d endured her max for blows to the head.
The Orang Pendeks suddenly stopped, dropping her dead legs. Circulation had stopped a while ago. They could have ripped her feet off at the ankles and she wouldn’t have felt it.
Not that she’d want them to do that.
Natalie was a big ball of hurt. She just lay there for several minutes, appreciating the fact that her back was no longer scraping against every rock, twig and moldy detritus in the jungle.
The ape men stood with their backs to her, staring off to a place she couldn’t see.
Come on, Natalie, sit your ass up and at least see what it is that’s stopped them in their tracks.
Digging her elbows in the dirt, she pushed herself up, her back protesting every inch she moved until she wanted to cry out.
Her legs were still useless, twin strands of thick spaghetti that no longer felt attached to her body. They didn’t even look like her real legs. Something was off about their shape, as if her bones had turned to oatmeal.
“If you broke my legs, you dumb ass Magillas…” she said to the beasts, trailing off because she had no idea what she would do. Kicking their asses would be out of the question. They didn’t even react to her voice. In an instant, she had become completely inconsequential.
Looking beyond the hairy cryptids, she finally saw what had arrested all of their attention.
It was incredible!
And she was pretty sure hers were the first pair of human eyes to see it in a long, long, long time.
She was no expert like Henrik, but she knew with absolute certainty that the great expanse of vine and moss-covered structures in the valley below them was the fabled lost city of Gadang Ur.
“Holy crap-damn-moley.”
It must have been absolutely stunning i
n its heyday, because even now, in total disrepair, it was enough to take her breath away.
For some reason, she’d expected Gadang Ur to be a small cropping of structures centered around a multilayered ziggurat, the central seat of worship and power. Maybe she’d read too many Mesopotamian thrillers with dashing archaeologists.
With the jungle vegetation having century upon century to claim the city for its own, it was hard to tell how many buildings there were. Quick guess had to be a couple of hundred. There were hints of streets and byways all throughout the valley, connecting one building to another.
The structures themselves ranged from small, oblong to even circular buildings that must have been residences, to towering monoliths, their upper portions cracked and crumbling. She couldn’t help thinking they were ancient skyscrapers. Up and up they went. What kind of knowledge and manpower did they possess to build such things at a time when a nomadic life of hunting and gathering were the norm? Natalie’s mind reeled, overcome by the power that still emanated from the ghost city.
One of the Orang Pendeks grunted. The other gave a kind of bark in reply.
They turned back to her with impassive expressions on their old man faces.
She looked away from them, having no desire to be in a staring contest. She’d rather take in the crumbling majesty of Gadang Ur.
Focusing now on subtler details, she made a sharp yelp.
She was wrong. Gadang Ur was far from a ghost city.
Even though she was too far away to make out any detail, there were shapes moving about all throughout the city. Upright ants walked down streets, scrambled along the sides of the skyscrapers, slipping in and out of various buildings.
There was a distant trumpet blast. She looked to the west, where there was an enormous ring, almost like an amphitheater. Within the ring was a herd of elephants.
Next to it was another ring, or holding pen. There were more large, colorful beasts in that one, but she was damn sure they weren’t elephants. Austin would know. Or maybe not. The big quadrupeds skulking around looked like nothing from this world.
Something else caught her attention. Circling one of the tall buildings was a bird that was way too big to be a hawk or eagle. Hell, it would make a condor look like a parakeet. It made a high-pitched shriek before plummeting behind a building.