Day of the Predator

CHAPTER 28

65 million years BC, jungle

Liam saw it first: amid the relentless green and ochre of the jungle, it was an unmissable splash of bright crimson. He raised his hand, turned round and put a finger to his lips, shushing Lam and Jonah at the back who’d been chattering for the last five minutes about comicbooks.

They hushed immediately.

Whitmore stepped quietly forward and joined him. ‘What is it?’

Liam pointed through a thin veil of leaves. ‘Blood… lots of it, by the look of things.’

Whitmore swallowed and looked goggle-eyed again. ‘Oh boy,’ he whispered. ‘Oh boy. Oh boy.’

Franklyn joined them. Unlike Whitmore, his eyes lit up with joy. ‘Excellent!’ he gasped. ‘Looks like something made a kill.’

Whitmore swallowed. ‘That’s exactly what I’m worried about.’ He looked at Liam. ‘I suggest we quietly back up and — ’ But before Whitmore could finish Franklyn pushed his way forward through low sweeping fern fronds and into a small clearing.

‘Oh, this is so awesome! Come on!’ he called to them. ‘We must have frightened the predator off!’

Liam looked at the teacher and shrugged. ‘Well, I suppose if we’ve scared some dinosaur away, the last thing we ought to start doing now is look frightened ourselves. We’d better brass it out, right?’

By the look of Whitmore’s still goggling eyes, he’d have been much happier with the backing quietly away plan. Liam left him thinking it over as he stepped forward through the fern leaves and into the clearing.

Franklyn was squatting over the eviscerated ribcage of some large beast, wrinkling his nose at the fetid smell of shredded organs, pulled out and splayed across the jungle floor.

Liam felt something stir and roll queasily in his empty stomach. ‘Jay-zus, that’s disgusting.’

‘A recent kill by the look of it,’ said Franklyn, prodding the large carcass with his fingers. Shreds of tattered muscle tissue swayed from the ends of the ribs as the body rocked slightly. Lam, Jonah and Whitmore emerged behind Liam.

‘Oh, man, that’s totally gross!’ said Jonah, holding his nose at the pungent smell of death.

‘I really think we shouldn’t hang about here,’ said Whitmore. ‘Whatever did this might still be close by.’

Franklyn nodded and smiled. ‘Exactly! Maybe we’ll actually get a chance to see something!’

Liam looked around the dense foliage, wary that some large creature with very sharp claws and teeth might just be watching them now. ‘You know, I think Mr Whitmore’s got the right idea. Maybe we should probably back off.’

‘Look at these marks on the hide,’ said Franklyn, ignoring them. ‘The lacerations, lots of them, small ones, not large like a rex might do.’ He studied the ground. ‘See?’

Liam looked at where he was pointing and saw several three-pronged indentations across the ground. And then he spotted something long and curved like a fishhook on the ground. He stooped down and picked it up.

‘What’s that?’ asked Franklyn.

Liam shrugged. ‘Looks like some sort of claw.’

Franklyn couldn’t help himself. He snatched it out of Liam’s open palm.

‘Oh my God! That’s… that’s a claw, all right! Look, the serrated inner edge.’ He turned it over in his hand. ‘But it’s a weird shape, isn’t it, Mr Whitmore?’

Whitmore seemed more interested in leaving, but he quickly leaned over and inspected it more closely. ‘It’s certainly not the crescent shape you’d associate with a raptor or some other species of therapod.’

Franklyn grinned with excitement. ‘Maybe this is an unknown species?’

‘It’s possible,’ said Lam. ‘I mean, don’t they say something about we’ve only ever discovered the fossils of one per cent of the species that have ever lived on planet Earth?’

‘I really think we should leave,’ said Whitmore.

Liam nodded. He held out his hand. ‘May I have it back?’

Franklyn seemed reluctant to let it go. But after pulling a face he passed it to Liam. ‘Cool find,’ he uttered.

Liam smiled. ‘I’m sure you’ll come across another.’

‘Yeah, probably… whatever that belonged to is small. Probably pack hunters.’

‘Pack hunters?’ Jonah straightened up. ‘You know, I think Mr Whitmore’s right. Maybe we should go.’

‘Uh-huh,’ said Whitmore, smiling quickly, uncomfortably. Looking around the clearing. ‘Well, Franklyn, a fascinating find. We can all talk about it on the way back.’

‘Pack hunters?’ said Lam. ‘Like raptors? You said there weren’t raptors!’

‘These aren’t. Look at the footprints… there’d be indentations from their sickle toe. No, these are some other species, maybe not even therapods. Something entirely different.’ He stood up. ‘This is so cool!’

‘Yes, well…’ Liam looked at the others. ‘So now we know for sure we’re sharing this place with dinosaurs.’ He looked at the buffalo-sized carcass. ‘And now that we know there’s some bigger types we could hunt for food I think Mr Whitmore’s right — we ought to head back to the camp.’

Four heads bobbed enthusiastically.

Franklyn sighed. ‘OK.’

‘Right, then.’ Liam gestured down the path they’d beaten. ‘After you, gents.’ They filed quickly past him, Whitmore glancing awkwardly back over his shoulder as he stepped by. ‘Actually, I really wish we hadn’t spotted that,’ he said quietly, pulling a face.

Liam knew what he meant. The poor beast, whatever it had once been, looked like it hadn’t just been killed for meat. The organs splayed out on to the jungle floor, the intestines dangling from loops of vine… it was as if the creatures that had brought it down had frolicked and played with the grisly remains — a gory celebration of the kill. The idea of an animal species capable of celebrating seemed somewhat disconcerting. It hinted at ritual. It hinted at intelligence.

Maybe they’re just messy eaters?

In the gathering stillness, he thought he heard the softest click — like the tiniest twig snapping beneath impatient, shifting weight. He glanced back once more at the blood-splashed clearing and wondered if predators’ eyes were cautiously eyeing him in turn from the cover of the dense green foliage.

Yellow, unblinking eyes studied the curious creatures as they departed. Just a dozen yards away — no more than three or four strides from where the beast crouched — there were five of these pale creatures the like of which he had never seen before. They made odd noises, not a million miles away from the cranial bark he made when calling for the attention of the rest of the pack. And these odd creatures moved in a not dissimilar way: upright, on long, developed rear legs, but far more slowly, sluggishly.

The creature shifted position slightly, bobbing down lower to get a better look between the broad leaves of the fern he was hiding behind. These pale upright things, these new creatures… he wondered if this was the entirety of their pack, or whether there were more of them elsewhere.

They seemed harmless. They appeared to have no visible teeth, no slashing claws, nothing that signalled any danger about them at all. Nothing that identified them as potential rival predators.

Except… except — the creature could see this — these pale things were clever. They appeared to work co-operatively, sharing tasks. Just like his pack did. He watched in absolute stillness, his olive skin a perfect disguise among the varied greens of the jungle. He watched with intense eyes that faced forward, capable of binocular vision; capable of judging distance, range.

A predator’s advantage.

These strange newcomers, these new creatures, also had eyes that faced forward. Another reason to be so very wary of them. Perhaps they too were predators of some kind, unlike the docile plant-eaters, whose eyes on either side of their heads were designed to detect potential danger from two directions.

Yes… these things had predators’ eyes. And yet they appeared utterly defenceless, harmless and pitifully slow and clumsy in the way they moved around the clearing.

He cocked his head curiously. The long fishhook-shaped razor-sharp claws on its left front paw clacked together carelessly.

The last of the new creatures suddenly turned and looked back in his direction. It must have heard something, the snick of his claws. Incredibly the creature’s eyes looked directly at him — right at him — and yet seemed to see absolutely nothing. Its eyes panned slowly from left to right then finally it turned and headed off after the others.

The creature looked down at his claws: four of them, long and lethal, curled from the digits of one arm, three… and a broken stump

… from the other — damage caused many seasons ago fighting off a young male who had foolishly decided to challenge his leadership. The challenger had died, of course, and in a rage he had torn the body to ragged pieces in front of the rest of the pack as a lesson.

The claws usually grew back. The young female who’d lost her claw today during the kill, she would have a new one before a new moon. But his stump had never regrown a claw. A constant reminder that his days as leader were numbered by how long he remained effective.

Slowly and very lightly, Broken Claw stepped backwards, away from the fern leaves and further from the well-lit small clearing into jungle darkness. His powerful rear legs strong and agile — capable of incredible speed, but also able to move in almost complete silence.

A simple thought passed through his mind — a thought not made up of words, but ideas.

The new creatures must be watched.

Instinctively he sensed there was something terribly dangerous about them. Until he knew exactly what it was, until he knew how weak or dangerous they could be, the new creatures should be carefully observed, studied, until he was sure he had the measure of them and then… then, when these things were least prepared, when they were certain these pale creatures had no concealed powers, they would be attacked and feasted upon. And the pack could celebrate their dominance once more as the quiet killers of this world, decorating the jungle with their organs, painting their blood on their hides.

His sharp teeth snapped together softly, and he resolved that patience, for the moment, was the correct course of action.