They had to keep stopping for Darren who would break ranks and examine every new plant he saw, exclaiming about how rare it was.
“Darren!” Julia said it for what felt like the millionth time. “We have to keep moving.”
Wilkins whispered something in Darren’s ear, which made the young man’s face go pale. He stood, grabbed his rifle and hurried back into the line.
Julia grabbed Wilkins. “What did you say to him?”
Wilkins’ face was stone. “I told him that if he brought down any heat on us from those creatures, I’d kill him myself.”
He turned and continued walking. Julia watched him go and wondered what was happening to her team.
Mick called a halt a few minutes later and they formed up. Mick kept his voice low and soft, but audible at the same time.
“The path forks up ahead.”
Worried expressions bloomed on the faces of the team. Nung cleared his throat. “Please tell me you aren’t going to suggest we split up.”
Mick shrugged. “It’d save a lot of time if we did. We could cover more ground and possibly locate our missing people even faster.”
“And we could blunder into an ambush and get killed off a lot easier if there are less of us to fight,” said Darren. “No thanks.”
Mick glanced at Julia. “It’s your decision.”
Julia looked at her team. She could feel their stares. She could tell they were scared. And she knew that she’d have to go against Mick on this on.
“We stay together,” she said finally.
Mick nodded. “Fair enough. Left or right?”
“Sorry?”
“Which way do you want to go? The path goes in one of two directions.”
Julia shrugged. “How about left?”
“Sounds good.” Mick stood and grabbed his rifle If he was upset that Julia had overruled his motion to split the team, he didn’t show it.
Nung wandered past. “Thanks, boss.”
“Forget it.”
She trailed behind, wondering what they’d managed to get themselves into.
Mick led them left and they walked another couple of hundred yards when his fist shot into the sky and they all crouched low and off the main trail. Mick got down on his hands and knees and slow-crawled ahead.
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!”