Day of the Predator

CHAPTER 44

65 million years BC, jungle

Broken Claw could sense the new creature knew they were there; his nasal cavity picked out the faint smell of fear coming from it, a chemical cocktail of sweat and adrenaline, not so different from the large plant-eaters. The new creature had cleverly spotted their tracks. The new creature had finally realized it was being stalked.

Maybe now was the time to know a little more about these strange pale beasts. His soft bark ordered the others to remain where they were for now, out of sight. The new creature was holding one of those sticks-that-catch in one of its puffy pale hands. He’d watched one of these creatures fend off a giant sea-dweller yesterday with one of those sticks. So he eyed it warily as he stepped low under the sweeping fronds of a fern, under the branch from which the new creature had moments ago retrieved something bright and colourful and emerged over the rocky lip of ground to the small level clearing. That salty smell of fear grew suddenly much more powerful as the new creature turned slowly round to face him. Broken Claw rose from his crouching posture on all fours, up on to his hind legs, to stand fully erect.

It fears.

So close now, he could see the new creature more clearly: the eyes, curiously large, behind rounded shiny transparent discs. Its face, all loose pale flesh, unsculpted by muscle or sinew or bone carapace. It made noises with its mouth, noises that sounded so unlike all the other beasts in the river valley they called home. Noises, in fact, that didn’t sound too unlike the simple language of coughs, grunts and barks Broken Claw’s pack used.

Franklyn in turn studied the creature that had just emerged. It had a body shape he could best describe as halfway between one of the smaller therapod species, and… well, and a human. But incredibly thin, almost birdlike in its agility. A pair of long thin legs hinged backwards like a dog’s legs, meeting at a bony, very feminine-looking pelvis thrust acutely forward. A tiny waist beneath a protruding rib cage, a curved, knobbly spine that hunched over and ended with a delicate tapering neck supporting an elongated skull. Apart from the distinctive head, seen from a distance, and if one squinted a little, it could almost pass as a hominid — human-like.

‘Oh my… m-my God,’ he whispered.

It cocked its head, a head that fleetingly reminded Franklyn of a hot-dog sausage, long and bone-smooth, at one end a lipless mouth full of rows of lethal-looking teeth. Above the mouth were two holes that suggested a nasal cavity around which flesh puckered and pulled as it silently breathed, and above that two reptilian yellow eyes that seemed to sparkle with a keen intelligence. The thing’s skin was a dark olive green, that seemed to pale to an almost human pink colour around the vulnerable belly and pelvis.

The creature’s jaws snapped shut and opened again, and it made a whining noise that reminded him vaguely of the contented murmuring a baby made after a feed. It sounded almost human. And those curious, intelligent, eyes, studying him as intently as he was studying it.

It made another noise, grating, slightly deeper this time. Beyond the teeth, he could see a black tongue twitching and fluttering and curling, like a restless animal in a cage, experimenting with different shapes to produce different sounds.

Did it… did it just mimic me?

‘Hi,’ said Franklyn.

The long head tilted to one side, like a dog listening for its master’s voice. The mouth opened again, and the tongue rolled and curled. ‘ Ah-eeeee,’ was the noise that came out, lower in pitch now, lower than a baby and almost matching the timbre of Franklyn’s as yet unbroken voice.

He felt some of the terror replaced with the slightest flush of excitement.

It’s trying to communicate.

‘Hi, my name’s Franklyn,’ he said again, louder, bolder, slower.

That long head tilted over to the other side now, the gesture almost comical. One of its long arms, muscular, lean and ending with three digits that curled into lethal-looking long curved serrated blades, flexed in front of it.

Is that a hand signal?

Franklyn attempted to duplicate the gesture, bringing his short pudgy hand up before his face and curling his fingers in the same way. The creature snorted air out of its nostrils and clacked its teeth. He wondered if that was the creature laughing at his attempt.

Suddenly, he heard the crack of twigs, and the clatter of dislodged rocks; something coming down the slope above.

Becks leaped out of the foliage on to the ground between them, landing in a fight-ready and perfectly balanced stance. She spun round to face the reptilian hominid. ‘Run,’ she said calmly as she crouched ready for action, one of their crude jagged metal hatchets in one hand, a spear in the other.

Franklyn was frozen in place, unsure what to do. The creature had dropped down low, on to all fours, its elongated banana-like skull tilted back and resting flush in the spinal dip between two protruding shoulder blades. It hissed and barked and a swarm of others began to emerge over the lip of ground that sloped steeply down to the bay below.

‘ RUN! ’ screamed Liam, tumbling out of the foliage clumsily on to the ground beside Becks. ‘Run, for Jayzus sakes, RUN!!’ he shouted, getting up and readying his spear.

Franklyn’s moment of indecision passed as he took in the crawling carpet of dark olive bodies slowly, warily gliding on all fours across the clearing towards them like a deadly lava flow. He turned, grabbed a branch and pulled himself up the slope and into the jungle, panting with panic and effort as he and his yellow rucksack quickly disappeared through the thick green fronds.

‘ What? ’ hissed Liam. ‘Oh, sod this! I thought it was just the one of them!’

The creatures were spreading out around the clearing, attempting to flank them, encircle them.

‘Recommendation,’ Becks said, turning to look at him, ‘leave!’

Liam could hear the sound of footfalls from above — the others. He couldn’t tell if it was the sound of them coming down to help, or scrambling up the slope to get further away.

‘Uh… right, OK. You going to be… er… all right?’

Becks ignored his stammered question as she swivelled the hatchet in her right hand with the grace of a martial arts master. The yellow-eyed creatures had moved too quickly, encircling them so that Liam already had no choice but to stay. He backed up against her until their shoulders were touching.

‘Oh… boy… oh b-boy… I’m really n-not… uh, oh God…’

‘Stay close to me,’ Becks uttered over her shoulder.

‘S-sure… and w-what are y-you going to — ?’

Becks was already in motion. He glanced round to see her leap forward, swinging the spear like a baton. The sharp end punctured the flank of one of the hominids and with it still lodged between two ribs she effortlessly flicked it off its feet. Liam backed up, keeping his spear aimed at the creatures closing the gap in front of him.

Becks stepped forward again with the grace of a ballet dancer, the jagged hatchet flickering and flashing in the blur of movement. It caught the long clawed digits of one of the creatures and they spun in the air spraying droplets of blood in messy arcs.

In front of him, one of the creatures made a sudden lunge for Liam, hoping to catch him off guard as he backed up in Becks’s wake. He caught the movement in his peripheral vision and had only the time to swing the spear tip round towards it before he felt the impact rattle down the frail bamboo shaft.

He turned to see the creature’s deadly sickle-shaped claws flailing inches from his face and the teeth in its long skull snapping and grating and dripping spittle-strings of saliva. It was impaled on the bamboo, but so very far from incapacitated and quite enraged.

‘Oh Jay-zus! I got one skewered!’

Becks was busy.

He held on to the rattling spear as the creature thrashed and drummed and swung and slowly, eagerly pulled itself further down the shaft, thick gouts of its dark blood running on to his hands. ‘Help!’ he screamed.

He could see one of the other hominids lowering, coiling, ready to leap on to him, when the air was split with a child-like shriek from one of them. In an instant, the beat of a heart, the dark olive-coloured bodies snaked, scrambled and swarmed with incredible speed towards the lip of rocky ground and out of sight into the jungle slope below.

Gone. Just like that.

Except for the creature still struggling halfway down his spear. A sickle claw swiped across his upper arm, cutting through the material of his shirt and digging into his muscle with the ease of a butcher’s blade through tenderized beef.

‘ Gah! ’ Liam bellowed. ‘ Help me! ’

Becks was there in the blink of an eye and with a blur of movement swiped the hatchet across the creature’s elegant neck. It froze in shocked realization of its fate. The long head tilted for a moment like a cocked gesture of curiosity, then swung backwards on to its hunched spine, almost completely decapitated yet still attached to the body by a frayed strip of exposed pale pink tendon. It collapsed a second later, pulling the spear out of Liam’s trembling hands.

They both stared down at the tangle of lean grey-green limbs and bony protrusions, and the rhythmic jet of almost black spurting gobbets of blood across the floor of dried pine cones and needles. One of its legs still twitched and flexed; a post-mortem response.

Liam looked up at Becks. She had a spatter pattern of blood across her pale face and chest and her normally expressionless cool grey eyes were wide and wild. But that passed in an instant as artificial intelligence regained control of her face. She regarded him calmly.

‘Are you unharmed, Liam?’

Liam looked down at his bloody arm, cut deep, but nothing arterial going on there. He was vaguely aware that he was in a state of shock as he said, ‘Can I be put back on the Titanic, please?’