by Shea, Hunter
Henrik didn’t hear him move away, but he did notice that Oscar had gone. He was sure he’d taken up a position where he could keep an eye on them and have their back should something go wrong. The man had had Henrik’s back more than once. He would never question his friend’s strategy.
Small monkeys chattered overhead, almost as if they were trying to give away their position. Henrik went rigid, tightening his hands around his rifle. The Orang Pendeks paid them no mind, so he followed suit.
Surya and his men stayed perfectly still, eyes never stopping from surveying their surroundings. Henrik just wished they weren’t behind him. If even the slightest, most benign action occurred, they would respond with a volley of fire. He and Austin and the Orang Pendeks were directly in that line of fire. Not good.
He motioned for Surya to come closer. Whispering, he said, “It’s best if you and your men fan out to either side. Stay in a full line of sight with one another, though.”
Surya nodded with the rapidity of a nervous bird. “Understood.”
The porters moved with extreme silence. Henrik breathed a sigh of relief.
Flies drank greedily from the back of their necks. He didn’t dare try to crush them with his hand. Making such a noise would not be advisable.
“This is getting ridiculous,” Austin said.
By Henrik’s estimation, they had been behind the wall for close to half an hour. During his time in Special Forces, he’d learned to stake a location out for days at a time if necessary.
Austin was a civilian in every sense of the word. Sure, he and his sister had survived a battle with the lake creatures at Loch Ness, but they were far from soldiers.
“Be patient,” he said as Austin managed to grab a mosquito and pinch it between his thumb and forefinger. An alarming amount of blood ran down his hand.
There wasn’t much longer to wait.
What appeared to be a family of Orang Pendeks – a female with brilliant red hair, a male with light orange hair and narrow shoulders, and two younger cryptids with almost blond hair, stepped into view. They walked as upright as any human and didn’t swing their arms like a primate. The tallest being the female was just over four feet tall. On closer inspection, the female had a slight deformity in her left hand, three of the fingers stunted, missing a knuckle or two.
The adults carried armfuls of thick palm fronds. The children, for they looked to be the human equivalent of seven-year-olds, ran around the adults in some form of play.
Henrik was knocked back on his heels. He pinched his eyes shut, trying to reconcile what he was seeing, and what he’d experienced with Lucille, Luke and Dragline, with the awful nightmare he’d experienced as a child, watching a race of savages tear his father into pieces before running back to their jungle lair.
Austin grabbed the back of his shirt. “They look…they look almost normal.”
“I know,” Henrik said, feeling the acid burn in his gut.
He prayed Surya and his men wouldn’t act rashly. So far, they stared at the Orang Pendek family with their mouths hanging open. He realized his own mouth was inviting flies to waltz right in.
“What should we do?” Austin asked.
Lucille, Luke and Dragline watched their brethren, but didn’t move a muscle to reveal themselves. There had to be a reason.
“Just…sit tight.”
He knew Austin was anxious to find Natalie and if he were alone, he’d probably rush headlong into Gadang Ur full of heroic intentions but destined for a terrible end.
Henrik flinched at the approach of a pair of massive Orang Pendek leading rhinos that were tethered to some kind of leash. The Orang Pendek family shrieked, the adults dropping the palm fronds.
They stared in rapt attention at the verbal exchange. They spoke with hard consonants that he was pretty sure could not be duplicated by the Homo sapien throat. The one with the rhinos sounded angry, authoritative. The family was clearly terrified.
Henrik kept one eye on the rhinos, who seemed content to simply stand around for the moment.
Suddenly, one of the Orang Pendeks grabbed a child and threw it. It landed on its back, tumbling to a stop not far from the wall. The female rushed to its side. Henrik ducked his head lower so he couldn’t be seen.
The male was brought to the ground, the rhinos pulled closer to stand over him.
Henrik now saw that there was something different about the male of the family. Aside from being of slight stature, the left half of its mouth drooped slightly. It appeared as if it had suffered something akin to a stroke at one time.
The female gathered the children in her arms, keeping her distance from the others. The male was thrown atop a rhino, dazed from a blow to the head that was delivered by one of his captor’s bare feet.
They watched them walk away.
Once they were out of sight, the female gathered as many palm fronds as she could, stood for a moment with her head down, back rising up and down with great sighs, then signaled with her head for the children to follow. They stayed so close to her legs, Henrik thought it amazing she didn’t trip over them.
And then all was empty and silent.
“What the hell did we just see?” Austin said, wiping the sweat from his face with a dirty bandana.
The three Orang Pendeks had turned to them as if to gauge their reaction. They then despairingly stood and stepped over the wall, following the direction of the shattered family.
Henrik closed his eyes, his head feeling so full it was about to burst. “I believe exactly what they wanted us to see. The question now is, what do they want us to do?”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Natalie backed away from the mess that had spilled from her stomach, grabbing the bone. The slime under her hand almost set her stomach off again.
There’s nothing left, she thought. So just grin and bear it.
It wasn’t until she’d gotten back on her feet that she realized she was no longer alone.
Two Orang Pendeks had made their way into the pit. Unlike the others, these didn’t look deformed or ill in any way.
One had a gray streak going down the center of its head. The other was stockier than most of the others she’d seen so far. When she looked at it, all of its muscles bunched up in a brief display of aggression.
Scratch that, it’s not stocky, just ripped like it came out of the gym. Shit.
Natalie reeled for a moment, wondering just how much she was expected to endure before the end mercifully came. Maybe that was the point. Clutching the bone, she still wasn’t ready to go down without a fight. Not yet.
“Step back.” She swung the thigh bone at them. It only made them break apart. Now there was one at her back and one in front. Natalie moved in a tight circle, not wanting to let the other out of her sight for more than a few seconds.
“I’ll brain you with this fucking thing,” she hissed, almost wanting one to make the first move. She willed every speck of strength she had left into her arms. When she struck, it was going to be a killing blow.
The Orang Pendeks clenched and unclenched their fists, shoulder squared, feet planted firmly. They definitely weren’t down here to play charades or chat about the weather. Natalie already knew how strong they were, despite their diminutive size. She also knew that the second she went to take one down, the other would be quick to exploit her diverted attention. Whether it would kill her or maim her was something she had to shove out of her thought process.
All that mattered was that she didn’t go down alone. One of them was definitely going with her. And if they met on ‘the other side’, she hoped she got a chance to do it again. And again. And again.
You’re really losing it, Nat, she thought. Fantasizing about beating an Orang Pendek in the afterlife is a sure sign. But man, it would be a satisfying eternity.
One of them grunted, startling her. She swiped the bone at it. The creature didn’t even flinch.
The one with the gray streak reached out to her. She just missed its finger
s with the thigh bone. It pulled its hand back, a dreadful look of amusement on its wrinkled face.
“Come on, ugly. Bet you’re not used to the things you throw down here fighting back. I’m not gonna make this easy.”
She made a quick turn to face the other one when it made a high barking sound. Its lips pulled back from its rotted teeth.
This one wasn’t waiting anymore.
Natalie pulled the bone back over her shoulder. She was going to swing for the fences, hoping the sweet spot of the bone found the soft spot of the beast’s skull. Gray Head would have to live with the fact that she’d dismissed it for now.
This is it!
The Orang Pendek roared, raising its arms and charging. Natalie dug her heels into the mud.
The cryptid’s head exploded into a pink and red mist, showering Natalie and the Orang Pendek that had been charging her from behind.
Momentarily stunned, and her senses reeling from the god-awful funk of the Orang Pendek’s juices, Natalie spun around to see that Gray Head had paused in mid attack. The other’s blood dripped off its fur.
Do it now! she screamed in her head.
Natalie drove the bone into the Orang Pendek’s open mouth. It ripped through the back of its head. The creature flailed for a few seconds at the bone before falling backwards, dead before it hit the muddy floor.
With her foot on its hairy chest, she yanked the bone free with a wet pop.
Then she looked around the pit.
“Oscar!”
Henrik’s war buddy lay on his belly just over the edge of the pit with his rifle.
“Funny seeing you here,” he called down to her.
Tears bubbled up, spilling over her eyelids. “Oh my God. Is my brother with you?”
The big man smiled. “He and Henrik and the others are on the other side of the city. I thought it best to scout things out on my own. Good thing, huh?”
Natalie’s body turned to mush. It was an effort to hold the heavy bone.
“Can you get me out of here?”
“Surya has the rope. I’ll have to double back and get it.”
Relief turned to a fear she hadn’t felt since she was a little girl having her first nightmares about her parents being killed before her eyes. “No, no, no, you can’t leave me here!”
Oscar looked to the dead dinosaur, then the pile of meat that was the deformed Orang Pendeks.
He then cast his gaze backward, making sure nothing had come up behind him.
“You’re right. It doesn’t look like that would be a very good idea.”
Oscar grabbed his gear and fell/slid down into the pit. His heavy body struck hard but he was able to roll, going with the momentum. Natalie collapsed into his arms.
“What the hell has been going on down here? Did you do all this?”
Before she could answer him, she asked, “Is Austin all right?”
“Aside from sick with worry about you, that gorilla you call a brother is fine.”
Natalie’s sighed, patting Oscar’s chest. “I’m sure they heard the shot you took.”
Oscar grimaced. “Maybe not. I used the silencer.”
Natalie sagged.
“But they will hear this.”
He fired a round into the air. The sound was deafening.
Oscar handed her an exceedingly heavy gun. “I think that’ll work better than that bone you’ve got there.” He looked at the grisly bone with a tinge of disgust. Natalie happily tossed it away.
“I didn’t have much choice.”
He pointed his rifle at dead Gray Head. “Looks like it did the job just fine.”
They both tensed when something screeched like a banshee overhead.
A flock of brightly colored creatures that looked part pterodactyl, part exotic bird, converged over the pit.
“Looks like they’re not the only ones that heard you,” Natalie said.
Oscar took to a knee in an upward firing position. “You ever go duck hunting?”
“No.”
He motioned for her to get behind him.
“Good. Because this isn’t going to be anything like duck hunting.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
When they heard the shot, even the Orang Pendeks stopped.
“I thought you said Oscar would have our backs,” Austin said.
Henrik shushed him with a wave of his hand. “I assume he went ahead to scope out the city.”
Surya and his men went on instant high alert, rifles at the ready. Henrik told the guide to settle the porters down.
Austin wanted to run toward the sound, not stand here like statues. Oscar may need help. Or maybe he found Natalie.
“I can’t wait,” he said, and started to jog off.
Henrik grabbed him by the back of his shirt. “You can’t go off by yourself.”
“Get off me!”
“You’ll only get yourself killed. You want to help Natalie? You have to stay alive first.”
Austin wanted to punch Henrik square in the face. He’d felt nothing but kinship and admiration for the man since the day they’d met at, of all things, a publisher’s convention. But right now, all bets were off if the man didn’t take his hands off him. Henrik might know some kind of judo shit that could take him down, but Austin was twice his size and capable of holding up to whatever he wanted to dish out.
Their standoff was interrupted when the Orang Pendeks dashed down the weed-choked street, Lucille throwing imploring looks at them.
“Should we follow?” Surya asked, his eyes as big and white as hard boiled eggs.
“You can if you want,” Austin said, shrugging from Henrik’s grasp.
The ground gave a familiar shake. Austin had felt it before, back at the camp just before the elephants came stampeding through. He spat, kicking at the high weeds.
“Goddammit.”
The warning trumpet of an elephant sounded too close for comfort.
Henrik stared Austin in the eye. “We will find Natalie. If she’s with Oscar, she’s in very good hands.”
Austin ground his teeth so hard, his jaw throbbed.
“Fine. Let’s go.”
They ran in the direction the Orang Pendeks had gone. The elephants were now in full chorus, though their current course seemed to be taking them away from the jungle beasts.
Ridwan had managed to get in the lead, whether out of fear or a desire to take point was unclear. As they turned a corner, revealing a row of dilapidated structures on either side of a long, narrow path, an arm shot out of one of the structures, grabbing Ridwan by the neck. He stopped dead in his tracks, dropping his rifle and pack. In an instant, he was gone, dragged into what appeared to be an ancient house, though nothing on the scale of modern homes. It had been the size of a teepee, though built of stone.
Henrik leapt into the darkness of the house, following Ridwan’s strangled cries. Austin was right behind him.
In just a few feet, the pitch gave way to gray light as there was no longer a roof.
Dragline still held Ridwan by the neck. The Orang Pendek didn’t look like he was letting go any time soon, which would prove fatal to the porter very soon.
“Shoot it,” Surya said.
Henrik smacked the guide’s rifle away.
“Look,” he said.
Austin took his eyes off their captured porter and finally took in their surroundings.
The house was filled with Orang Pendeks. There had to be at least a dozen. The cryptids stared at them in total silence. When Austin took a step forward, those nearest to him took a step back.
An elephant bellowed just outside the old house. Austin could feel its heavy footfalls as it lumbered down the street.
When it passed, Ridwan was set free, collapsing to the floor, hands at his throat. Hengki rushed to his side, saying something in rapid fire.
When does this crazy shit end? Austin thought, taking in the Orang Pendeks. He noticed that a few of them didn’t look well at all. There was one whose fur had come of
f in clumps, revealing oozing sores. Another, this one an adolescent at best, had a mouth split in half, the lower part of its face twisted.
“Is that a cleft pallet?” he asked Henrik.
“Possibly.”
They did their best to remain calm, the scent of fear and tension in the tight space overbearing.
A pair of Orang Pendeks inspected the bandage on Lucille’s arm, taking heavy sniffs and poking at it.
Austin dared to creep to the crumbling doorway. He took a quick peek outside, careful to remain in the shadows.
Four powerfully built Orang Pendeks walked down the tight street, looking like military or police on patrol. One of them slipped into a new depression in the soft earth where the elephant had walked. It chattered angrily, hurrying to catch up with the others who had paid it no mind.
“Holy crap, I get it,” Austin said.
He nearly jumped when Henrik said right next to him, “Get what?”
They moved back into the packed house. The Orang Pendeks were around the porters, gingerly touching them, fascinated by the new arrivals. Luke, Dragline and Lucille cooed like pigeons. Austin hoped whatever they were saying translated to, “These are the good guys. Be nice to them.”
Austin said, “It’s like that movie, Planet of the Apes.”
Henrik nodded. “I can see the correlation.”
“There’s the same kind of class system here. The ones we’ve been following, all of these,” he swept his arm over the crowd of Orang Pendeks, “they’re the lower class. Or as I’ll call them, the good guys. The ones with elephants, those are either the ruling class or the muscle for the ruling class. Like the gorillas and the orangutans in Planet of the Apes! Except we have a very big problem here.”
Henrik stifled a chuckle. “I can think of a thousand problems.”
“In the movie, you could easily see who was the bad ape and the good ape. They were different breeds and wore different uniforms. Out here, they all look the freaking same. Unless they have an elephant in tow. Then we know what we’re up against.”
Henrik stayed silent. Lucille came over to him, staring at his face. He gave her a quick look, then turned away.