by Shea, Hunter
“Ow. Hey!”
One of the males got his fingers tangled in her hair. When she tried to pull away, it only made it worse. She was surprised when it allowed her to touch its gnarled, arthritic fingers, carefully extracting her hair. When she was done, it pulled away, sniffing its finger.
“A little lesson,” she said. “It’s impolite to sniff your finger after touching a lady. And other things, too.”
In a flash, all of the Orang Pendeks stiffened, heads peering in the same direction. Before she could ask what they were looking at, they scattered, the adults carrying the smallest of the crowd, disappearing into the various homes down the street.
When Natalie saw what was coming, she very much wanted to join them.
“I don’t think your fat mouth is getting you out of this one.”
Doing her best not to piss herself, she stood her ground, praying that Austin and the rest of the team was close by…and heavily armed.
Chapter Twenty-Two
It took a while for Austin to get the porters to understand what needed to be done. He’d finally had to resort to going through Natalie’s pack and showing them one of her shirts. He gestured toward the depths of the jungle.
“We have to find my sister.”
Finally, Ridwan nodded, spatters of yesterday’s rain that constantly dripped from the canopy falling from his thick, bushy hair.
Austin sighed. “Thank Christ. Finally. Okay guys, you take the lead.”
They had armed themselves to the teeth, leaving plenty of weapons behind should Henrik, Oscar, Surya and the other two porters find their way back. Austin had been tempted to take everything, assuming that they were more than likely dino food or worse. But Ridwan, Hengki and Saharto had made it, and he was pretty sure they weren’t highly trained survivalists.
This was Henrik’s quest. He was alive, somewhere. He couldn’t have waited this long only to be taken down on the first night. Not Henrik. The man could find a way to live comfortably in the eye of a hurricane.
The foursome left the camp behind, Ridwan at the lead, the faded tour dates of the Korn concert T slipping through the dense foliage, his machete ringing like an unanswered phone.
Austin stayed close behind him, with Saharto and Hengki covering his back. Hengki needed a doctor, but there were no urgent care centers in this lost section of the rain forest. The man’s nut-brown skin paled with each passing minute, sweat running into his open cuts. They’d tried to patch him at the camp, but he’d made them stop the moment the first splash of peroxide was applied.
If he doesn’t get eaten or stomped, infection will get him.
Flies and other bugs he’d never seen before were feasting on the man’s wounds. They were also sure to be leaving some nasty maladies in their wake.
Amazingly, Ridwan found the matted down path where Natalie had been dragged. In a weird way, Austin hoped she had been taken by the Orang Pendeks and not a wild animal. At least there was some shred of rational thought in the cryptids. How else could they have domesticated those elephants and survived out here surrounded by prehistoric beasts? Everything else just saw them as a quick and easy meal.
Austin hefted the M16A1 assault rifle, complete with grenade launcher.
We won’t be that quick and easy next time around.
There was a loud thump to their rear. Saharto turned around and fired into the brush, just missing blowing off Hengki’s head. As it was, he fired dangerously close to the man’s right ear. The porter dropped his own weapon, hands clasped against the right side of his head, howling in pain. He sounded like a deaf cat caught in a doorjamb.
While Ridwan and Saharto came to his aid, Austin scanned the area.
Nothing.
It was probably a falling branch.
But they were all scared and wired tighter than piano strings.
“Is he all right?” Austin asked, hoping the intent in his voice was enough for them to translate.
Tears leaked from Hengki’s right eye. He kept tapping the side of his head. The other porters covered his left ear and spoke into his right. He shook his head repeatedly.
They helped him up and handed his rifle back to him. He had to sling it over his shoulder, as his right hand was plastered to his damaged ear.
“Can he hear?” he asked Ridwan. Saharto was devastated. It was hard for him to look Hengki in the eye.
Ridwan cupped his ear and spoke rapidly. Austin didn’t need Google Translate to know the man had lost all the hearing in that ear. Whether it was permanent or temporary was yet to be seen.
“Great,” Austin said, following the porter as they continued tracking Natalie. “Whoever the jungle can’t kill, we’ll pick off ourselves.”
The heat of the day ratcheted up considerably, the humidity making it hard to draw a breath. Austin felt as if his lungs were filling with scalding water. He loved a good, hard workout, but this was too much, even for him. The weight of the weapons didn’t make things any easier. He’d even taken a bag loaded with grenades from Hengki. The poor guy kept opening and closing his mouth, barking strange noises, testing his hearing.
They came to a partial clearing, the trodden line of high grass clearly visible, when Ridwan motioned for them to not only stop, but get down.
Austin went to his knees, his senses on high alert. They crab-walked to the safety of an enormous rock, its surface covered in green and red mold. Lifting his head above the crest of the rock, Austin looked down the sight of his rifle.
At first, he didn’t see a thing.
Then he heard it – a scuffling in the heavy verdure, just at the other end of the clearing, right where Natalie’s trail disappeared into the trees. This wasn’t a solitary animal. This was a pack.
But a pack of what?
Pressing his eye hard on the scope, he pivoted the rifle from left to right, searching for the first hint of what was to come. His finger inched from the trigger guard to the trigger.
Be cool. What if it’s those things and they have Natalie? You don’t want to shoot her by accident.
Austin was so out of his depth, it was ridiculous. He was a trained accountant who, thanks to a nice inheritance, never worked a hard day in his life. The moment a job had the hint of becoming a pain in the ass, he was gone. Sure, he and Natalie had dedicated their lives to avenging their parents’ deaths by finding and killing the Loch Ness Monster – or monsters, as they had recently discovered.
However, this was a whole other ball of psycho wax.
The rustling increased. Whatever was out there was close.
“Come on. You’re in our way,” Austin hissed between his teeth.
It was as if he’d said the magic words.
The grass parted and four reptilian heads poked through, their long snouts painted with red stripes.
Ridwan and Saharto popped up on either side of him, their rifles at the ready.
“Raptors?” Austin whispered.
Of course, no one had ever seen a live raptor in person before, no matter what any oddball prehistory theorists put out there on podcasts and websites. The bipedal creatures sniffed at the air, cautiously stepping into the clearing. They were each a head taller than Austin, with colorfully striped bodies that were sleek and powerful and designed for chasing down prey. Their thighs alone looked like they could power a locomotive.
All four turned to the rock Austin and the porters were hiding behind, their great nostrils expanding as they most assuredly caught their ripe, human scent.
“I think our B.O. just gave us away,” Austin said. Ridwan was stolid, Saharto’s arms trembled. He took a quick look at Hengki who sat with his back against the rock, lips moving soundlessly.
Four on four. Should be a fair fight.
One of the raptors let out a high-pitched warning peel. Austin bet it did that to scare the hell out of them and get them running for their lives.
It almost worked. Ridwan had to grab Saharto’s shirt to keep him from bolting.
When they remained
behind the rock, the other three joined the chorus. They were so hideously loud, Austin was sure they could be heard all the way to Vietnam.
Saharto took a quick shot and missed by a mile.
The raptors looked back at the shattered bark of the tree, then slowly turned to the rock.
Before Austin could come up with anything witty to say, they sprang into action, great jaws snapping at the air.
“Fire away!” Austin yelled, yanking the trigger back hard, bullets bleeding from the M16. Ridwan and Saharto did the same.
Angry red splotches broke out on the raptors’ flesh, but still they came, squealing so loud they cut through the din of the rifles.
Austin didn’t realize he was screaming at the top of his lungs until his throat started to burn. He sent a grenade their way but they passed it by. It exploded impotently twenty yards behind the advancing dinos.
Before he knew it, two of them had jumped onto the rock, knocking them on their asses.
Their faces were ragged and raw from the strafing they had taken. The third snuck around the rock, edging toward Hengki who could only sit and mumble to himself, clutching his rifle like a rosary.
Fuck, they were pissed. And there was no way to run. Not without being taken down, their spines ripped from their backs.
Ridwan regained his footing and took off, running toward the raptors, skirting the rock and blazing across the clearing. His insane maneuver confused the dinosaurs. They watched him run away. All of their actions were coordinated, very much the way birds flocked together in flight.
Hengki suddenly rose to his feet, jamming his rifle right underneath one of the raptor’s chins, sending a flurry of bullets through its head, taking the top of its skull off in an explosion of blood and brains.
Austin and Saharto broke from their temporary paralysis and fired away.
The two on the rock danced in a death spasm, the force of the firepower keeping them on their feet momentarily.
Neither of the men took notice of the fourth raptor as it snuck in the grass behind them.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The Orang Pendek ignored the blows Henrik delivered on its neck and head. It plowed into his midsection, pile driving him into the ground. Henrik lost every ounce of air in his lungs, his diaphragm going into convulsions.
The creature bared it broken, rotten teeth, rearing its arm back to smash the side of Henrik’s head.
In a flash, the Orang Pendek disappeared, its weight lifted from Henrik’s torso. He sat up, drawing short, shallow breaths, to see Oscar and the beast rolling around, each with their hands wrapped around the other’s neck. Surya and Yandi looked on in bleak terror.
All Henrik wanted to do was lie back and regain his full senses, but Oscar needed help now. The cryptid was getting the better of him. Henrik saw the man’s knife half-buried under some dead leaves. Grabbing it, he approached the grappling duo.
“Hurry!” Surya hissed. “I think there are more coming.”
The Orang Pendek saw his approach, let go of Oscar’s throat long enough to club him with both hands, knocking him out. Henrik went rigid. Oscar had a head as hard and thick as a wrecking ball.
The power it must have to render him unconscious like that! This isn’t going to be easy.
He gripped the blade in his right hand, trying to get the beast to lock eyes with him. The idea was to feint an attack with his eyes, swooping in with the knife in the other direction.
It wasn’t going for the bait. The Orang Pendek kept its eyes at his feet, paying careful attention to where he was stepping. It was a defensive tactic taught all around the world. Somehow, this creature instinctively knew what many spent years in training to learn.
Or had it been trained? Not by humans, no. But he had to learn to keep an open mind and not think of them as jungle savages, as much as he needed to in order to carry out his mission of revenge.
Henrik took a quick step forward to see how it would react. It moved back and to the left, shoulders hunched, hands curled into claws. He heard some thrashing about in the distant brush. Surya may be right. In which case, they were all in dire straits.
“You’re a cautious one,” Henrik said.
The Orang Pendek barked angrily in reply.
“I don’t suppose we can call a truce?”
Wishful thinking would get him nowhere.
A thought occurred to him.
It’s waiting for me to approach him. It knows it’ll have the better of me in hand to hand combat.
Despite having a two-foot height advantage, not to mention weight and reach, Henrik was sure the Orang Pendek would eat his lunch if he made the mistake of falling into its clutches.
Which left only one thing to do.
He hurled the big blade at the creature. The knife lodged in the soft part of its throat. Its eyes flew wide open, hands flailing. There was a loud whoosh of air, followed by spurts of blood that shot ten feet from the wounded beast. It dropped to its knees, collapsing face forward, burying the knife so deep, the tip protruded from the back of its neck.
Surya and Yandi nearly leaped with joy, throwing wary glances behind them where the sounds of something approaching were coming from.
Henrik knelt by Oscar, tapping his stubbled cheek. The big man’s eyes fluttered open. His hands immediately went to his head.
“What the hell hit me? Cinder blocks?”
“Thank God you’re all right. Those cinder blocks were the Orang Pendek’s less than sanitary hands, I’m afraid.”
Oscar scrambled to his feet. “Where the hell is it?”
Henrik pointed to the bleeding body. “We just learned we can’t do close combat.”
“I’ll be damned.” Oscar turned the Orang Pendek over with his boot, retrieving his knife, wiping it clean with some leaves. “How’d you do it?”
Henrik said, “I don’t think he was expecting me to throw it.”
“I bet not.”
“Uh, gentlemen,” Surya said.
Henrik and Oscar turned to him. Behind him were three Orang Pendeks, one of them a female judging by its small breasts. They had broken through the foliage and were staring at their fallen comrade.
“Don’t move,” Henrik said to Surya and Yandi.
“Crap,” Oscar muttered. He spun the blade in his hand, ready to launch it at the nearest beast. Henrik placed a hand on his chest, holding him back.
“Wait a moment,” he said. “Look at their body language. They’re not aggressive.”
Bristling, Oscar said, “That doesn’t mean they won’t attack us once they realize what you did to their little buddy.”
“Please, just humor me.”
“Your humor might get us killed.”
Henrik knew Oscar would hold his position and not throw the knife. They’d been through their share of precarious situations and had learned to trust the other’s instincts, sometimes more than their own.
The trio of Orang Pendeks cautiously approached the body. Surya and Yandi slowly stepped away from them as they walked past, sidling up to Henrik and Oscar.
“What are you waiting for?” Surya whispered.
Oscar motioned for him to zip his lip. The man smartly obeyed.
The female Orang Pendek crouched near the body, fingertips touching the wound in its neck. The blood had slowed to a trickle. She looked to Henrik and his men with something akin to relief in her expressive eyes. The glance stunned Henrik. It was like gazing into the eyes of a human.
She motioned for her companions to touch the wound as well. They did, sniffing their fingers, one of them licking at the blood.
All three walked slowly and with uneven gaits. One appeared to have a leg longer than the other. Even the shoulders of the female were uneven, the slight rise of a hump at the base of her neck.
They stared back at the startled humans for a moment, turned their heads and began trudging away.
“What the bloody hell?” Oscar mumbled.
The female stopped, looking back at them
.
“I think she wants us to follow,” Henrik said.
“And of course we’re going to do just that,” Oscar said.
“Of course.”
They started to walk toward the creatures.
“You white men are all crazy, I am sure,” Surya said. He and Yandi refused to follow. “They could be leading you into a trap!” he called after them.
“He could be right,” Oscar said.
Henrik shook his head, disturbing several flies that had settled on his scalp. “They could have easily killed us. They hardly need reinforcements. I don’t believe they mean us any harm.”
He knew how hypocritical it sounded, coming from him, the man who had gotten them all here to wipe out the Orang Pendeks. But this was an unexpected turn even he could not have foreseen. So he followed.
He heard Surya cry out, “Slow down!” He and Yandi hurried to make up for lost ground.
Surya caught up to them, huffing. “Maybe crazy is the only way to survive.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Natalie had seen a lot of strange shit in her life, but this was going to take home the blue ribbon, tiara and championship trophy.
At least she hoped it was. If anything stranger happened out here, she was pretty sure she’d just will her mind to call it quits.
She couldn’t tell if the gathering of Orang Pendeks were frightened away by the handful of Orang Pendeks making their way to her – they had a fierce look about them, like cons in a federal penitentiary – or the immense rhinos they had tethered like dogs walking in front of them.
I’m pretty freaked the fuck out by both! Natalie thought, so frightened she couldn’t move even if she wanted to.
The rhinos seemed remarkably docile, just like the ones she’d seen in the zoo, but she also knew they were very, very dangerous.
They can’t enjoy having leashes wrapped around their necks. An unhappy rhino can make for a very bad day.
The ‘leashes’ appeared to be made of thick, braided vines. One of the rhinos looked at her and snorted. She couldn’t tell if it was a warning or if it just got dust in its nose. She hoped for the latter.