Jon Merz - Prey

He disappeared around another corner.

Julia waited.

Where had he gone? Why hadn’t he motioned her forward? She hoped he wasn’t making any more decisions she’d end up overruling. She didn’t want to piss him off too much. She didn’t want to hurt her chances of possibly having some sort of relationship with him when this whole crazy mess was at last behind them.

Mick didn’t reappear after five minutes and Julia felt the pit of her stomach start to ache. Where was he?

Wilkins tapped her on the shoulder but she only shrugged it off as if to say, “how the hell would I know?”

Darren exchanged glances with Nung. Nung glanced at Wilkins who shrugged just as Julia had.

What were they waiting for? What was going on around the corner.

After ten minutes, Julia couldn’t take it anymore. She looked at Wilkins and nodded once. That was all it took. Wilkins crawled past Nung and Darren and disappeared around the same corner.

Julia thought she heard something then. Nothing much, just a muffled sort of movement. Had Wilkins been attacked? No. He would have been able to squeeze of a shot at least. Taking him down wasn’t easy.

So what had happened?

Her stomach ached more than ever. Part of her desperately wanted to find the nearest rock and go relieve herself in the big way. But she couldn’t. Was this one of the joys of leadership? Was this what the pressure did to you? Did it squeeze all the worry and fear into a pulsing globe of hell and push it down into the depths of your bowels?

Sure felt that way.

Nifty, thought Julia. All the way at the bottom of the world and not a bottle of Imodium AD in sight.

Where the hell was Wilkins?

Just as she was about to crawl on ahead herself, she saw Mick come crawling back followed closely by Wilkins. Relief flooded her at the same rate as anger. She motioned for them both to come to her.

“What the hell was that all about? Why’d you disappear around the corner and what happened to you?”

Wilkins held up his hand. “Steady on boss. It’s cool. Mick just got himself something to watch, that’s all. And when I went around the corner, he had to make sure I didn’t do anything to alert it.”

“It?”

“One of the creatures,” said Mick. One of the ones looked like what attacked us back in the tunnel.”

“What was it doing?”

Mick shrugged. “I thought it might be eating the plants. But it wasn’t. Near as I can tell, it was standing guard.”

Julia frowned. “Standing guard?”

“Yeah. But then it moved on. So, maybe it was just hanging out. I don’t know.”

“Wonderful.”

Wilkins shook his head. “Damnedest things. Looks like some weird combination of reptile and…I don’t know what.”

“Reptile?”

“Yeah. Got them long tails, doesn’t it? I could see some spikes on it, too. Real nasty ones.”

Mick nodded. “He’s right. Whatever we do, we’ll have to be damned careful not to end up on the wrong side of those things. One swing and we’d be done for.”

“Tails with spikes?”

“And some kind of beaklike face,” said Wilkins. He shrugged. “I know Darren said these plants were from the Cretaceous period and all, but that thing actually looked a little bit like a dinosaur to me.”

“And to me,” said Mick. “A little bit.”

Julia felt like this was all happening to fast. Dinosaurs? In a jungle? In Antarctica? In a mountain? This had to be a bad dream.

“Well, what else did it look like?”

“What do you mean?”

Julia sighed. “You said part of it looked like a dinosaur. What did the other part look like?”

Mick frowned and glanced at Wilkins. “Uh…”

“I don’t know, boss. Had really long arms and legs though. Those seemed almost human.”

“You think it was a half-human half-dinosaur you just saw?” She almost grinned in spite of herself.

“I know it sounds weird,” said Mick.

“Sounds more than weird,” said Julia. “The only thing that keeps me believing you two is the fact that I saw something in the tunnel. And while the light wasn’t good, I did see a tail. We all did. So against my better judgment — which seems to have gone out the window — I will believe you.”

Wilkins heaved a sigh of relief. “Thanks.”

“So, where’d it go?”

“It left,” said Mick. “Walked off down the path.”

“Still keeping on the same route we are?”

“Yeah.”

“And you want to follow it?”

Mick shrugged. “Well, we don’t have much of a choice, do we? It might lead us to our people.”

Julia nodded. “All right. Pass the word to the others. We’ll follow this…thing and see where it takes us.”

“We’ll have to be damned quiet,” said Mick. “No stopping, no conversation. If it gets wind of us, hell will break loose.”

“Make sure everyone understand that,” said Julia. “I don’t want any cock-ups on this.”

Mick smiled. “You’re starting to talk like a boss now, you know that?”

“Am I?” Julia grinned. “I’m relieved.”

Mick frowned. “It was supposed to be a compliment.”

Julia nodded. “Save them for after this is all through. Then you can tell me how much you like my hair and my legs and anything else that you think will help your cause. For right now, let’s just get this done and then get the hell out of here.”

Mick looked at her a few seconds longer and then nodded. “Yeah. All right.”

The team got up and moved. Julia trailed behind Wilkins again.

They got about ten meters when someone tapped her on the shoulder. She wheeled around, her rifle already coming up, ready to shoot.

Darren held up his hands. “Wait!”

Julia sighed and lowered the gun. “What the hell is wrong?”

“Sorry,” said Darren. “But Nung just did the same thing to me.”

Nung nodded. “Just thought you should know.”

“Know what?”

“Kendall’s gone.”

“Where the hell did he go?”

Mick’s voice behind Julia spoke the same words she’d been about to. Kendall. Dammit!

Nung shrugged. “I didn’t hear any commotion behind us. I don’t think there were any creatures there.”

Wilkins cleared his throat. “You don’t suppose…”

“What?”

He sighed. “You think he might have just walked off?”

“On his own?” Julia found it tough to believe Kendall would simply abandon them. “I don’t know.”

“He’s felt from the start this should have been his mission anyway,” said Wilkins. “Maybe he thinks the time has come for him to prove it, if only to himself.”

“How? What’s he going to do on his own that we can’t do as a team?”

“I don’t know.”

Mick frowned. “We have to keep moving.”

Julia shook her head. Her team was growing smaller with every hour. And the thought of facing some type of strange dinosaur half-breed didn’t thrill her. It would have been tough enough with eight team members. Now they were down to five.

Not good odds.

She turned to Mick. “We need to figure out what the hell is going on here and soon. If we lose any more people, we’ll be committing suicide.”

He nodded. “Let’s go.”

They followed the path for another twenty minutes. In the distance, Julia thought she could hear the faint hum of machinery. Machines? In the mountain? Things were getting weirder by the minute.

Mick kept them moving slowly and stealthily toward the end of the path. It forked again twice, but Julia let Mick lead them as best his instinct could. He took them left once and then right.

They heard the low growl a split second before all hell broke loose.

Nung actually fired first, but the dinosaur had come at him through the palm shrubs. The M16 sounded like a continuous explosion as Nung’s rounds ripped through the air and into the green shrub.