Jon Merz - Prey

The half-breed beaklike face snapped at Nung. Nung staggered back and loosed another volley from his gun.

Another shout and Wilkins began firing at another one of the creatures who had come streaking at them for the left. Wilkins’ bullets found their mark and splanged into the scaly chest of the dinosaur. Bright red blood exploded and the creature dropped.

More growls.

More shouts.

More gunfire.

Mick was firing one shot at a time at two more creatures charging them from the front. Julia saw that Nung had managed to bring down his attacker.

Darren had shot one of the creatures that had attempted to come at them from behind.

Julia hadn’t fired a single shot.

“Look out!”

She wheeled and saw the needle-sharp teeth snap at her neck. She leaned back and brought the barrel of the gun up. Her finger squeezed the trigger and the gun kicked. The sudden noise made her wince.

The dinosaur leaned back avoiding the bullets.

Two more shots exploded close by and the rounds tore through the leaves close to Julia. She spun and saw Mick aiming at the creature that had just attacked her.

Then it was over.

Nung sat down, clutching his right arm. It was bright red with his own blood. His face had contorted in pain. Wilkins rushed to him and examined the wound.

Mick prodded one of the dead dinosaur half-breeds with his gun. He looked at Julia. “What the hell?”

She came over. The corpse resembled part of a dinosaur. So, it was true. But the arms and legs looked…humanoid. And the eyes. Julia shook her head. So pitch black. Big, dilated pupils with hardly any lids.

The back of the head was elongated and almost flattened.

Darren came over. “Looks like a Camptosaurus.”

“A what?”

“Type of dinosaur. Plant eater, though. I can’t imagine them being interested in eating us.”

“Says you,” Nung grunted. Wilkins was busy slapping a pressure dressing on the wound. Nung frowned. “Damn thing tried to rip my arm clean off.”

“You’re lucky you were able to get those rounds off,” said Wilkins.

Nung sniffed. “Yeah, lucky me.”

Mick turned back to the corpse. “What about the arms and legs, though? Nothing prehistoric about them.”

Darren leaned down. “No. No there isn’t. Weird stuff. Looks like it’s part dinosaur and well,” he sighed, “part something else.”

“Human?”

He shrugged. “Humanoid perhaps.”

“Nifty,” said Julia. “What the hell are we on to here?”

Mick shook his head. “I don’t know. But we’ve got a bigger problem right now.”

“What’s that?”

“All that gunfire. It was loud. Shouting. Screeching? It’s probably alerted everyone or everything close by that we’re here.”

“Which would mean?”

“We’re going to have a lot more company than I’d be comfortable with in a very quick time. We need to find some shelter in here and watch what happens. I don’t want us moving around when they send reinforcements. We’d get slaughtered.”

“Where can we hide in here?”

Mick pointed. “They used the shrubs to attack us. I say we use them to hide in.”

“You don’t think they’d look there?”

“Not much choice, Julia. It’s either that or we stay here and fight.” He frowned. “And die.”

Julia nodded. “Everyone into the shrubs. Now!”

They scrambled off the main path. The leaves enveloped them. Julia found a place to squat and felt her butt touch the soft earth. She hadn’t realized how much she’d been sweating during the battle. Now her clothes felt hot. Sticky. She wanted to go to the bathroom again, too.

She could see the others crouching in the undergrowth. At least they’d all managed to find bushes close together.

Mick kept the barrel of his gun aimed out toward the path.

Julia eyed him. Thank God for his presence. Whoever the hell he is.

Movement sounded close by.

Footsteps.

More growls.

Julia’s throat felt tight. Her stomach ached.

She saw the feet go past her hiding spot. Inches away from her nose. She clutched the M16 and felt how slippery the grip had become.

On the path she could see there were maybe ten of the dinosaur creatures. They examined the scene carefully, but didn’t touch their fallen comrades.

What’s going on? Julia wanted to know. Part of her wanted to go out there and approach them. Some stupid sense of curiosity she supposed.

She felt Mick’s hand on her arm. How had he gotten so close?

He pointed.

Julia looked.

More feet.

But different.

Another creature?

She could see the legs were incredibly thin. She could hear the growls and chirps coming from the dinocreatures. But she heard nothing in return communication.

Her head swam with images she didn’t recognize. Pictures played across her mind. She could see the dinocreatures hauling away the dead to some unknown area of this cavern.

She opened her eyes.

The dinocreatures were stooped over their fallen comrades, collecting the bodies and trucking them away. The other set of feet turned and walked the opposite way.

What had just happened?

Mick pointed at the second set of feet.

Julia shook her head. They couldn’t do it quietly. Not now. Not with those things running around already pissed off that we killed some of their friends.

But Mick wanted to follow the second figure.

His face implored her.

She frowned and then finally nodded. She held up ten fingers — ten minutes before he had to come back.

The rest of them would wait.

Was it safe here?

Julia didn’t know. She didn’t think what Mick was doing was safe either, but he was hard to control. Besides, as reluctant as she was to admit it, they needed some reliable information about these…things.

And Mick was the one best suited to finding out what was happening. He could move quieter than anyone else. He had the training after all.

Julia just hoped he’d come back.

Because she couldn’t stand losing another member of her team.

Especially Mick.

While Julia sat there waiting for Mick, she tried to reason out what had happened to her head when it had suddenly filled with all sorts of images. And then she’d opened her eyes and seen the dinocreatures doing exactly what the images had shown.

Had she somehow stumbled onto a form of telepathy? Was that how they communicated? She didn’t think the dinocreatures could be capable of it, especially considering they still chirped and growled. That seemed to be their favorite means of communicating.

But what about the second set of feet Mick had seen? She hadn’t heard anything from them. Nor had she seen a tail.

Two races of creatures down here? She felt like she was in the land that time forgot or some other adventure story. It didn’t make sense, after all. How could science explain an entire ecosystem contained within a mountain in the middle of one the coldest places on earth?

Was she missing something? Undoubtedly. They all were.

She hoped Mick would report back and say he’d found something.

She glanced around and saw Wilkins sweating under the canopy of leaves he’d found for himself. She couldn’t see Nung or Darren but could hear someone breathing heavily.

She realized how labored her own breathing had become, especially since the introduction of so much stress over the creatures.

Another balmy breeze sifted through the leaves, bending them and adding more noise to their area. For the first time, Julia also heard the whine of insects. A mosquito landed near her face and she brushed it away without thinking.

Bugs, too?

She shook her head and wondered how much National Geographic would pay for a scoop like this: Shangri-La at the bottom of the world.