Titanoboa (21 page)

39

The trucks arrived
, and Mark only woke because someone shook him. He opened his eyes and roused Millard. The men were walking into camp. Mark climbed out of the truck and stood for a moment, orienting himself. He felt groggy and weak, the pain from his injuries beginning to throb again. The first stop back in civilization would have to be the hospital.

Millard stumbled out and onto his back. He groaned, still half asleep
. Mark helped him to his feet, and they followed the rest of the men back into the thicket of tents. But something was different.

No conversations, no music, nothing. The wind through the ten
ts, shaking the electric lamps, debris fluttering on the ground… but no people.

The rest of the men, roughly
fifty of them, were debating what to do. Mark didn’t understand what the problem was until he happened to look into one of the tents. Something on the floor appeared at first like a ball, or perhaps crumpled-up clothing, but with streaks of red on the side. He took a step closer. A human head, severed from the body with the ragged flesh of the neck hanging off the bottom.

Mark backed away slowly. He didn’t have the strength to react properly. Didn’t have the inclination to spend any energy thinking about what
it meant or what could’ve happened. He just wanted to get Riki and get out of there as quickly as possible.

The men were talking loudly, and
the volume was increasing. It continued for a few moments before the argument turned to shouting and then, seemingly out of nowhere, men began to run. Mark heard a sound he would never forget, a hiss so loud and long it vibrated his bones, as if the earth itself were blowing air through some great cavern.

The snake slithered between the tents expertly, shooting one way then another, rounding the posts as though it were an obstacle
course it’d gone through a hundred times. It was much faster than the men, much faster than any man Mark had ever seen. A blur of movement rocketing through the camp as though it required no effort to move.

Mark couldn’t take his eyes off it as it slithered into a crowd of men
, and they screamed one horrible shriek in unison as they realized someone was going to die.

A
s that snake targeted its prey, another came from the opposite side. It wrapped itself around one of the men so quickly, his legs were still kicking as the serpent raised him into the air. The man screamed only for a moment before the coils wrapped around him, and no part of him was visible anymore.

“They’re attacking in unison,” Millard mumbled. “They’re
working together. Snakes don’t do that.”

“What the hell ar
e they?”

“I don’t know.”

Another hiss from another direction, and another, and another. The snakes were pouring in from all sides. Mark and Millard hadn’t gone far enough in to be part of the trap, and they both instinctively backed away. The two men broke into a run back to the truck.

Seven
trucks had carried all the men back, and all seven were there, but no drivers. Mark checked the first truck for keys but didn’t find any. He ran from one to the next, but none of them had keys. The drivers had taken the keys with them.

The screams were at fever pitch now. Mark looked back
and saw an ocean of slithering flesh. Blackness was surging into the group of men. The snakes left them only one route of escape, and the men took it. But as they did so, more of the animals seized them from dark corners. A trap perfectly laid and executed.

“Come on,” Mark shouted. At first
, Mark wasn’t sure where they were going to run, but there were only two places: up the road to try walking back to the city, or hiding in the jungle. The road seemed too exposed, at least for now. They would be out in the open and, having seen how quickly those serpents moved, he had no doubt one could be on them in a few seconds.

They dashed for
the thicket of trees.

Mark couldn’t tell how long he ran. Everything hurt, and the pain dulled his reasoning and memory. All he could focus on was the pain. The acid in his legs burnt as though
they had been skinned and had rubbing alcohol poured over them. His lungs felt as though they were about to explode, and his mind was a numb, blank canvas of fear and confusion.

The shrubbery scraped his skin, but he barely felt it. It was like the sensation of being
anesthetized then having the doctor tug on his flesh. He knew something was happening but couldn’t exactly say what.

Millard was doing better. Fear had given him strength
, and he was running far ahead, so far that Mark couldn’t see him anymore. Just heard his boots crunching the dead foliage and his body sliding past the shrubs and bushes.

The darkness was enveloping, welcoming. He wanted to crawl into as dark a place as he could find and not move. To lie there for days on end and just be left to himself. Away from the jungle and Steven and the whole damn
ed world.

A
realization came to him then, though he hadn’t put it into words. Not until he came to a small clearing did his conscious mind realize what his unconscious had picked up a while ago. He couldn’t hear Millard anymore.

“Craig!” he shout
ed.

No response. Nothing but the wind of a storm still off shore. The wind was making the trees shake as though they were reaching for him. They sway
ed toward him then relaxed before their long, gnarled arms reached for him again.

Mark snapped
his head to the right as he heard a scream. A pleading, horrible scream. A man’s voice, begging and infantile. The voice of someone in the clutches of something greater than himself, shown something he wasn’t meant to see.

Sprinting toward the voice, Mark shouted, “Craig!”

Through the trees and a rough patch of bamboo stalks was another clearing. He didn’t know Millard well enough to care for him, but the thought of being out here alone in the dark was unbearable. As he thought it, he felt guilty and ran even harder.

Another scream, cut short.

Mark came upon the small clearing and thought it was empty other than the trees, but one of the great black masses in his peripheral vision was not a tree at all.

The animal was upright, standing about ten feet high, most of its body coiled on the ground beneath it. In its mouth was the body of Craig Millard.
The serpent lifted its head with the body in it and opened its mouth, allowing gravity to do the work. The body slid down its massive gorge and disappeared into black. The snake closed its mouth, motionless a moment, as though enjoying its meal, then the head tilted forward and the eyes fixed on Mark. In the dim light of the moon, it could almost be beautiful. Its sheer size made it appear like something not from this planet or time, something that had traveled from somewhere else to make its presence known. But in that beauty was pure horror. The lidless eyes, black and soulless, that held Mark, took him in as though he were nothing more than raw meat. The body that had begun to uncoil in anticipation of a chase, and worst of all, the horrible tongue that whipped out as though taunting him to get away.

Mark didn’t wait for it to move first, didn’t try to conceal his presence in any way. He simply turned and ran. Fear had completely taken over now
, and he became painfully cognizant of the full impact of his predicament. He was lost in the dark with something that lived in it.

The serpent regurgitated Millard’s body. Mark glanced over his shoulder just in time to see the wet, lumpy mass flop to the ground as the snake uncoiled completely and shot after him like a torpedo through the sea.

Mark pumped his legs. He dashed between the trees and the shrubs like an expert but couldn’t really see them. He avoided masses of black; other than that, he could do nothing but run. His legs were throbbing with pain, and his lower back sent a radiating heat through his hips. He pushed through the pain and kept pushing his legs. He wouldn’t look behind him, but somehow he knew it wasn’t far. He could feel it.

The camp was nearly empty. Most of the men were gone, and the few remaining were running around like wild chickens. Mark made it only about thirty or forty feet in before the serpent whipped around and appeared in front of him like some apparition. The snake reared up, reaching over
fifteen feet, maybe more. It let out a hiss that sent shivers through Mark, the sound resonating deep in his bones. Some ancestral warning sound buried deep in his DNA.

A truck rumbled to life
, and the tires kicked up wads of dirt as it raced for the road back to the city. The snake’s head whipped around, catching the lights of the truck, the movement, and the vibrations in the ground. Mark stood perfectly still.

The snake rocketed after the truck.

Mark sprinted back into the jungle, but he had nothing left. No strength, no heart, no will. Only the dim awareness that he was still alive, and had to keep it that way for as long as he could, remained.

He collapsed onto the ground, heaving and panting, knowing
that was as far as he was going to get.

40

The sound of carnage was not something Mark had ever thought he’d hear again. He had heard gunshots most of his adult life, even a shootout in the street by two rival gangs, something that sounded like he was in the middle of a war. He’d seen dead bodies in gutters and slumped over their cars’ steering wheels. He’d seen young housewives butchered and dumped in the canyons surrounding L.A. as though they were refuse, and he thought he’d gotten away from it all. That this island had been his sanctuary, and all of that would slowly fade into the background then go away.

It hadn’t gone away. It was right behind him. The screams of dying men, gunshots, the panicked scatter of men that knew they were going to die. Mark listened to it all but didn’t have the strength to do anything about it. Even to save
himself.

He rolled to his back, about the only thing his body allow
ed him to do, and waited for the inevitable.

A
blur of memories followed. He remembered the day his daughter was born, the happiest day of his life. He remembered taking her home from the hospital and the smell of her that only parents of newborn babies knew. Her first words, her first steps, none of which Mark actually saw but had to watch later on his wife’s phone.

The bad memories came to him
, too. The slow, painful separation of him and his wife. Both of them seeing what was coming but unable to avoid it. Mark wished he had been better able to discuss what he was feeling and how they could fix it. But neither of them had the words, and the relationship continued to sink so far that they eventually weren’t speaking with each other. And then there was nothing left but the divorce.

Mark remembered his mother, too. Sometimes she cook
ed, not often but sometimes, and she’d let him help. Put in a pinch of that and a dash of this. Turn the oven on, get the drinks out of the fridge. It had meant nothing to her, just a distraction for her son so he wouldn’t plop down in front of the TV, but those few moments alone with her took the place of the deep conversations they had never had. The ones that taught him about love and life, about death and women and joy. They never had those ones, never even came close, but they had their cooking.

H
e hadn’t thought about all the memories stored away in four years. The island life had been so joyful and calm that reminiscing about times past wasn’t necessary. He had no need to move on from the pain of the past, because just living here soothed the ache.

“Mark!”

He opened his eyes, unaware that he had even closed them. Stars, planets, and distant galaxies draped the sky. A speckled and shimmering blanket covering the earth. It astounded him for a moment before he felt hands on him. He pulled away, his gut instinct to fight even though he had accepted his death. But the hands were soft and gentle. His gaze drifted up and caught a milk-white face in the gloom. Riki.

“I thought you were…” He didn’t want to think about that anymore. Not with her right there.

“You need to get up, Mark. Get up right now.”

“I can’t. You go. Run as far and as fast as you can. Go.”

“No.” She slung his arm over her shoulders. “Stand up! You are not going to die here. We are not going to die here, you hear me?”

She didn’t have the strength to lift him, but she sure as hell was trying.
Her body flexed and strained under his weight. Slowly, he began pushing with his legs, and before he knew what was happening, he was on his feet and moving through the jungle again.

His steps
were calm and measured, light. The more he moved, the more his strength and will returned to him. He would live. He would live for his daughter, he would live for this island, and he would live for
her
.

“Stop,” Mark said, “Wait.”

Riki slowed, and Mark looked her in the eyes. He was no more than a few inches from her face. The urge to kiss her came over him, and he chuckled. Even here, on the brink of death, surrounded by blood and gore, the male urge toward the female was still the strongest thing he felt.

He took a step back. “We’ll never make it. Not through this jungle. We have to get one of those trucks.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. They don’t have keys in them.”

“I saw keys. A lot of them. In the administration tent. I think the drivers brought the keys there and left them for the next shift.”

“You stay here. I’ll run back.”

“No way. You’ll never make it alone. We both go.”

Mark didn’t have the strength to fight her.

From the edge of the tree line, they could see the entirety of the site. It appeared like some prisoner of war camp. Men were huddled in small groups, slowly taken out by shadows. Far enough away that he could see exactly what was happening, he knew it was no random encounter. The animals weren’t coming into contact with humans because people had disrupted their natural environment or even because they were hungry. It was an attack. An orchestrated, planned attack.

“How can they do something like this?”
Riki gasped.

“Craig thought they might’ve evolved intelligence. Part of intelligence is working in groups, having social bonds. These aren’t snakes anymore. These are something new.”

The administration tent was perhaps three hundred feet away from the tree line. Even if he could sprint all the way there, it would take too long. Any number of the serpents would see him, and they’d be on him in a flash.

Mark scanned the other tents. About a hundred feet away, maybe less, was the supply tent. They
kept rifles in the supply tent.

“We can’t both make it to the administrative tent,” Mark said. “We got one shot. I’m going to divert their attention. When they converge on me, you make a run for the keys. Don’t look back
, and don’t worry about me. You just get those keys and get to the truck. I’ll meet you there, but don’t wait for me. You get there first, you take off.”

“No, there has to be another way.”

“There’s not. And you’re faster than me. It has to be you. The supply tent’s right there. If I can hold ’em off and surprise ’em, I might be able to sneak away under the back. “It’s the only way, Riki.”

She nodded slo
wly, her gaze on the grass. Melancholy darkened her face, and Mark felt the same way, as if this would be the last time they saw each other, but he refused to show it. He had to portray to her that he was confident about this. That he wasn’t just sacrificing himself for her.

“Ready?”

She swallowed. “I guess.”

Mark slipped out of the bushes and dashed with everything he had toward the supply tent. The wind was in his face, the hot, wet jungle air swallowing him up
as if he’d run inside a steaming cavern. His legs wobbled several times, his knees jerking slightly from nearly giving out, but he didn’t stop. He pushed harder. Ignoring the searing pain, clearly from a damaged nerve somewhere in his lower back. Ignoring the pounding in his head that told him he was possibly bleeding internally. Ignoring the icy fear that gripped his guts as if being smashed in a vice.

Fifty feet away now.

Acid rose in his throat. His legs were on fire. A short ache slashed through both sides of his ribs, and he didn’t know what it was. He imagined bits of fragmented bones loose inside his body. Cutting at everything soft, releasing cupfuls of blood into his body cavity.

Thirty feet away.

He ran a little farther, his legs slowing in response to the pain in his lungs. Then he shouted, “You fucking slimy bastards, come get me! I’m right here. Hey, hey, I’m right here!”

Nothing happened at first. Then, slowly
, some of the snakes leisurely turned, curious as to what was pounding against the ground. Snakes didn’t have ears, but he had heard they sensed things through their jaws. So he kept screaming, coupling it with jumping up and down to vibrate the ground as much as he could.

Unhurriedly, the snakes turned
to him and slid toward the supply tent.

Several were coming in from the north, one from the south, and the rest from the east. All were homing in on him
as if they had sonar. Converging to a single point.

The supply tent was ten
feet away. Mark felt like he was going to pass out. A nearly comical memory hit him just then. Running the mile in fifth grade. He wasn’t the fittest child, and the mile had nearly killed him. Anyone who ran over nine minutes was required to try again, and Mark certainly would not be one of those people. So he sprinted as fast as he could, vomited his school lunch, and then had to lie on the grass nearly fifteen minutes to recover.

He had that same sick feeling now. Only this time, he forced himself to keep going.

Jumping through the flaps of the tent, Mark saw a wooden table with papers and clipboards on it. Probably used by the supply clerk to log what people were taking. He leapt over the desk, stumbled to the back of the tent, and grabbed the first rifle he saw. Something that looked like it belonged in a modern war.

The rifle was already loaded. He wondered if they left them that way when he noticed the blood spatter on the barrel. Someone else had already had his idea
but hadn’t survived to tell him about it.

Mark lifted the rifle just as the first serpent poked his head into the flaps of the tent. He lifted the weapon, aimed quickly, and squeezed the trigger. He fired three rounds. The head was so big he hit on all three, the pop of the rifle fire momentarily deafening him. One round
entered the serpent’s mouth, and it shrieked like a dying cat and pulled out of the tent.

Mark scoured the back of the tent for any
way out. There was none. He’d have to cut his way out. He quickly went through several supply bins until he wrapped his hand around a large hunting knife. Just as he was about to cut a flap of tent away, he saw trembling in the canvas up near the wooden beams. The supply tent was like the administration tent, something set up to be here a long time.

The wooden beams creaked as though bearing the weight of something heavy. Mark’s
gaze turned upward, and he froze. The thing was climbing higher on the roof, searching for a way in. Another noise overtook it from the opposite side of the roof. They were coming in from the top.

Mark slashed a huge gap in the tent just as the wooden beams crumbled like matchsticks under the weight of the enormous animals. The entire thing collapsed
, and something heavy fell on him. It felt like a metal beam falling from a skyscraper, nearly crushing him. If it had just fallen a little higher onto his chest instead of his stomach, he’d be dead.

Then the mass
slipped off him.

Mark rolled over and crawled on his stomach. He could see nothing in front of him.
He heard a series of loud hisses and shrieks. Wrapped in darkness, he thought that was what hell must sound like.

He continued crawling until he was nearly out from under the canvas. The edge was up about six inches
, and he could see outside. Two of the gargantuan serpents lay just next to the collapsed tent. They were surveying the carnage, their tongues darting in and out of their mouths so fast he could barely see them.

One lifted
its head and arched low then high. The other looped around it, coiling over the neck. The other one shrieked and nipped at it; it uncoiled and faced the creature. Both let out sounds Mark had never heard and would never forget. Something akin to human screams, but not quite.

The snakes
twisted around, slithering over the canvas. Mark continued to crawl, holding the rifle, his only anchor in the chaos. He got free of the canvas and continued to creep off to the side, glancing once over his shoulder. About half a dozen snakes gathered over the collapsed tent, writhing in a curled heap of black flesh and scales.

Mark was on his feet and running to the trucks.
From the corner of tents, the trucks were lined up about a hundred feet away. Behind him, one of the snakes shrieked as it shot after him, sliding over the ground as though hovering above it. Mark wasn’t going to make it.