Alex Scarrow - Day of the Predator

‘Uh?’

‘A forensic expert matched the print pattern to the Nike brand last year.’

‘And no one else knows?’

He laughed. ‘Of course not. The boys who originally discovered the artefact… well — ’ he glanced at her — ‘our methods were a little uncivilized back then.’

‘Killed?’

‘Hmmm… vanished… is the term I think we prefer. And, of course, it turned out a few years later that some other local rockhound had found fossilized human footprints the previous summer… so again there was need for some damage limitation.’

‘ Vanished too?’

He shook his head. ‘News of the human footsteps got to the local newspapers before it could be contained. We simply discredited the story. Easily done, the same old boy swore blind his dead mother lived in the attic and came down once a year to bake his birthday cake.’ He snorted. ‘Complete loon by all accounts. Anyway, go look it up sometime. I’m sure it’s on some conspiracy website somewhere: “Humans Walked with Dinosaurs — Dinosaur Valley, Texas”.’

She looked down at the message again. ‘So, you know exactly how old the fossil is?’

He shook his head. ‘No, not exactly. Of course not. It’s identified as coming from a seam of sedimentary rock that pre-dates the end of the Cretaceous period. What they call the K-T boundary. That’s as precise as we can be, I’m afraid. Geology works in aeons and ages, not months or years.’

He gestured at the piece of paper. ‘The numbers… I presume the numbers contain specific information that would help you retrieve your friend?’

She could deny that, but it was quite obviously the information Liam would have put down there. ‘I hope so,’ she said.

‘But unfortunately it’s encoded,’ he said. ‘Now, the secret service boys who pre-dated my little club’s involvement in this matter identified this pretty quickly as some sort of book code. See? The numbers follow the page, line, word structure. And about a decade ago, we managed to secure some very expensive time on the Defence Department’s mainframe and ran every single book in the Library of Congress through it.’ He splayed his hands tiredly. ‘We got diddly squat for all our troubles, of course. Which leads me to think, as I sit here with you now, that that was a big waste of time as this probably is a book that hasn’t even been published yet. How about that?’

Maddy shook her head. ‘I… I don’t know. I really don’t.’

She glanced at the last words of the message. ‘Key is “Magic”.’ She looked up at Cartwright. ‘That’s the clue, right? But I just… I just don’t know… If that really is a clue to a book, I wouldn’t know which one.’

‘What about your colleague?’

‘Sal?’ She sat up and groaned with the effort. ‘Is she OK? Where is she?’

‘Oh, she’s just fine,’ he said, waving his hands dismissively. ‘And she’s nearby. Maybe it’s time I had a chat with her.’

‘You won’t hurt her?’

He looked sternly at her as he reached for the piece of paper, got off the stool and picked his jacket up off the cabinet.

‘Because, see, if… uh… if that’s what you’re planning to do,’ Maddy continued, ‘then don’t b-bother.’

‘Oh, let me guess, because the pair of you are heroes and neither one of you is going to talk, huh?’

‘Because — ’ she shook her head and laughed nervously — ‘because there’s really no need. Neither of us are heroes. We’ll talk, OK? Just promise me you won’t hurt us.’

65 million years BC, jungle

Kelly struggled up the steep incline, cursing under his breath as low-hanging thorned vines scratched at his face. Ahead he could hear the others pushing their way noisily uphill, the snapping of branches and vines, the clatter of dislodged rocks and soil rolling downhill.

‘Leonard? Edward?’ he called out.

‘Here,’ gasped Edward.

‘Come on, you need to pick it up… we’re lagging behind the others.’

Their sweat-drenched faces emerged through a curtain of waxy leaves. ‘I’m exhausted,’ gasped Howard. ‘My leg…’ He failed to finish his words between ragged puffs of air. He dropped uncomfortably to his knees on to an uneven bed of dried cones, twigs and jagged rocks.

‘It’s slowing him down,’ said Edward. ‘His ankle.’

‘I know, I know, but we can’t let the others get too far ahead.’

Around their campfire last night the discussion had turned to why those creatures hadn’t attacked them again, instead choosing to discreetly follow them at a distance. The conclusion they’d come to was that they were playing a tactical game, waiting for the group to become spread out enough to be able to pick them off one at a time. This morning as they’d made their way across the rest of the plain towards the last stretch of the journey, down into the jungle valley, they’d been almost comically bunched up.

But now, hacking their way through dense foliage, the group was getting dangerously strung out.

‘Come on, Edward, help me get him up.’

It was then that Kelly caught a glimpse through a gap in the leaves of some dark form fifty yards below them.

‘Oh Jesus,’ he hissed. ‘I saw something back there!’

‘What?’

‘Just… just… there’s no one else behind us, is there?’

Edward shook his head.

Kelly saw it again, a dark form hurrying between the trunks of two trees, then dropping down out of sight. ‘Oh my God! They’re down there!’

Howard was on his feet again.

‘Go! Go!’ snapped Kelly. ‘I’ll watch our backs!’

Edward and Howard stumbled forward again, Kelly reversing uphill, keeping his eyes on the downhill as he fumbled his way after them. Again, he saw it. Closer now, the flicker of dark olive skin, leaping between the gaps in the leaves. More than one of them, and moving so terrifyingly quietly. More worryingly… they didn’t seem to care that they were being seen.

Oh no.

Now they were in the jungle they were closing the gap.

I’m not going to outrun them.

He realized he stood a far better chance squaring up to them, perhaps even skewering one of them on the end of his spear. Maybe another kill would buy them another day of caution, enough time to get back over that river to the camp.

‘Come on,’ he hissed. ‘I know you’re down there!’

He heard Edward calling down. ‘Mr Kelly?’

‘Go!’ he shouted. ‘I’m just coming!’

The sound of the two boys’ clumsy staggering slowly receded from him until all he could hear was the occasional snap of a branch echoing off the tall stout trunks of the canopy trees.

‘Come on!’ he whispered again. He was surprised that it wasn’t abject terror he was feeling right now, but anger. Rage. He wanted to grab one of those scrawny things and rip its ridiculous marrow-shaped head off. His throat filled with a dry laugh.

Who do you think you are — Tarzan?

A far cry from his normal life: PR guy, meeting and greeting visitors with his cheesy tanned smile and his nice linen suit and expensive polo shirt. Right now, standing legs apart in trousers ripped off at the knees to make shorts, bare-chested, revealing a pale torso tufted with silver-grey hair and drooping man-boobs that spoke of a lapsed gym membership… right now he felt like that commando character in the film his sons liked, the one with the alien with a crab face and dreadlocks.

Oh yeah, he was ready for them.

‘Come on… you want some of me? Then COME ON!’

As if in answer, in the stillness of the jungle around him, he heard a soft, high-pitched voice.

‘… Come… on…’

Then ahead of him, as if it had appeared like the Cheshire Cat, only yellow eyes first instead of a big grin, there stood one of the creatures, a dozen yards downhill of him, cocking its head and studying him intently.