“Hey, you sonofabitch.” Ben ran at it, scooping up a fist-sized rock and launching it at the draft-horse thick body. It struck the metallic looking scales, hard, and simply bounced away.
Ben felt his stomach flip as he watched Emma struggle on the cliff edge. The thought of what she was trying to do made him feel giddy. She was a good climber, but the wind now brutally sucked up over the cliff edge, and her hair whipped around her face, making her eyes useless.
The snake was only a few dozen feet from her when Ben got to its tail, raised a boot, and stomped down hard — nothing. He chased it for a moment, and then grabbed on — it was like trying to stop a runaway Mack truck and his feet slid on the ground with the snake not even noticing his efforts.
Emma looked up. There was just her head, shoulders, and fingertips above the lip. For a brief moment, her eyes met Bens, and then she grabbed one of the vines and dropped from sight.
The snake’s head lunged forward, slamming down hard on the cliff edge, and continuing on, beginning to follow her over the edge. Its massively heavy, 70-foot-long body slid across the cliff edge, grinding and severing the vines.
“No-ooo!” Ben picked up a huge rock with both hands, strained every muscle in his body to raise it above his head, and then he slammed it down on the tail, hoping to stop the snake picking Emma off the cliff wall, or wherever she was perched.
The rock crunched down on the tail tip, denting the armored scales. He finally got its attention — the snake’s head jerked around to him.
Good, he thought.
And then: Oh, fuck no.
He started to run.
CHAPTER 35
Emma had seen the cave mouth about fifty feet down when she had leaned out over the plateau edge. The vines hanging down were thick, strong, and fibrous enough to provide good handholds — as a climber, she could do it easily. She bet Ben wouldn’t have any trouble either.
She bet her last dollar that if Ben’s ancestor went anywhere, it was into that damn cave.
She had to shut her eyes as a tornado of debris was now spinning around them. With her eyes pressed to slits, she looked down towards the jungle floor — it was blurred as though there was a veil of gauze hanging in front of it.
Emma went back to examining the cliff face — not just sheer, but leaning outwards, without even a handhold — even as an experienced climber, she knew that she’d only be able to scale down with the vine.
Over the screaming howl of the wind, she could just make out Ben yelling to her. She rolled over and got to her feet. Ben looked funny, weird, and his body was all hiked in agitation. She followed his gaze and felt the shock run from her toes to her scalp.
The snake was only fifty feet from her, and its head was pointed at her with that horrifying unblinking glare with an intensity that was almost hypnotizing.
“Ben?”
She gulped. Out in the open, there was nothing to hide the full horror of the beast — it towered over them, and its brown and green body emanated raw power. To the creature, they were like mice to a normal-sized snake. Emma remembered what had happened to Steve — the monstrous snake had grabbed him in its mouth and took off with the struggling man like he was nothing but a rag doll.
She heard Ben yell again, and from the corner of her eye saw him jumping up and down waving his arms. She knew exactly what he was trying to do.
“Stop that,” she screamed.
What was it Ben had told her only hours before? That it was attracted by movement — okay then, you big asshole, see if you can follow me.
“Ru-uuun!” She spun to the cliff edge and started to slide over. The effect was instantaneous — the snake came for her.
Seconds mattered, and instincts took over she dropped down on the vine hand-over-hand. She ended up about five feet out from the cliff and cave mouth, and she started to swing her legs back and forth, creating a pendulum effect. She realised she needed a few more swings to be able to launch herself into the cave just as a huge shadow loomed over her.
Time was up; one last swing and then she let go. She landed just on the very lip of the cave mouth — her arms pin-wheeled for a second or two, and she went into a crouch, rolling forward, just as the snake slammed against the cave entrance.
She turned, ripped out her pathetic-looking blade, and held it up. Emma backed further into the depths of the cave. If the snake decided to follow her, she was as good as dead.
The shadow passed over, but then the vines from out front all fell away as if they’d been cut.
“No.”
She ran to the cave mouth but skidded to a stop. She couldn’t bring herself to peer out in case the huge head was right there, waiting to snap her up. Her eyes began to fill up as she realised she was trapped inside, and Ben out.
Emma knelt and said a silent prayer, hoping he was safe. Outside the cave the wind became like a living thing, and it forced her backwards. She waited for many minutes, and then an hour, but the cave mouth now looked like a thick curtain had been thrown over it. Mist began to fill the cave, and everything outside became oily looking and distorted.
She was torn; with the vines gone, not even she could make it back up now. Should she wait and see if Ben returned? Or should she try and climb down, make it back to try and get help?
Emma struggled towards the mouth of the cave but had to hang onto the wall and claw her way to the edge. The maelstrom battered at her and threatened to pull her from her place of safety and fling her into the void. She held an arm up to her face and looked upwards — there seemed nothing there. Everything was now cloaked in a thick mist and it was like the entire world had gone away.
The sky, air, and ground boiled and spun and even the fillings in her teeth hurt. What the hell is going on? she wondered.
A battering gust blew her off her feet and ten feet back into the cave. It was then she knew she’d never be able to climb up, or Ben down to her. She could only pray that he could hold on until she returned with help. If anyone could survive, it was her Ben Cartwright.
She turned to the dark cave. It was full of fog, and at the back, a dark hole in its floor dropped into its belly. She stood at its edge and peered down; she had no light, no rope, and no choice. But she did have one driving thought: I’ll save you, Ben, she demanded of herself.
Emma eased herself over the edge.
CHAPTER 36
Primordia was gone from the 3rd planet. It was now on its way to the middle star where it would be grabbed by its gravitational forces and then flung back to begin its decade-long elliptical voyage around our solar system all over again.
The magnetic distortion on the eastern jungles of Venezuela had ceased, doorways closed and pathways erased. On the surface of the tabletop mountain, silence and stillness settled over the sparse grasses and fissured landscape.
The monsoon-like rains dried, and the clouds parted, then cleared. The wettest season was at an end, and once again, there would be 10 years of calm over a single jungle mountaintop in the depths of the Venezuelan Amazon jungle.
CHAPTER 37
Mateo snorted. “Well, seems you were right.”
“Hmm, of course, I usually am.” Santiago looked up from his screen. “About what?”
Mateo pointed. “The cloud has dissipated over the eastern jungle and the satellite can see the ground again. It was only temporary, just like you said.”