Santiago reached up to pull the battered notebook from his shelf once again. He leaned back and tossed it onto the young meteorologist’s desk.
“Make a note, sign it, and then in ten years’ time, it might be you telling a younger version of yourself that the effects are limited, temporary, and nothing to be concerned about.”
Mateo smiled and grabbed the book, flipping open its pages. “Weird though.”
“Yes it is, was. We haven’t solved all of our world’s mysteries just yet.” Santiago smiled. “It’s what makes the place so interesting.”
CHAPTER 38
It was three weeks later that Emmaline Jane Wilson was carried out of the Amazon jungle — alone, near death, and fevered. It made worldwide headlines; the mystery of the missing Cartwright party had been solved, they had said.
Emma’s initial version of events was dismissed as nothing but hallucinations brought on by jungle fever, dehydration, and perhaps an impact to her head — she had certainly been in a terrible physical state when she was found.
All other members of the team were presumed dead. Ben’s mother, Cynthia, flew down to meet her, and had listened intently to every word. Instead of dismissing her story, Cynthia had used her considerable wealth to hire a team of soldiers and a helicopter, and formulated a plan to head back in to find her lost son.
Cynthia had remarked that the jungle had consumed one Cartwright over a hundred years ago, and she wouldn’t let it take another.
Emma was still weak, but wouldn’t let the older woman go without her. She had the location and an idea of where they needed to go. It took a full day of flying before they even found the original river, and then more navigating at a low altitude, literally on the treetops, so they could follow the glimmer of the hidden river to where it sunk into the ground.
Then they slowed as she pointed out their long climb up to the massive tabletop mountain. Oddly, there was no cloud, and the sun shone bright, warm, and clear — it all seemed so different.
“There.” She pointed, leaning from the helicopter door so far one of the soldiers had to grab her arm and hang on. The chopper started to lift towards the plateau top, higher and higher.
Emma felt her heart galloping like a horse in her chest and her hands curled into fists. Please be there, please be there, she silently repeated, just her lips moving.
The helicopter came abreast of the plateau top and she put a hand to cup her ear, and then moved the small microphone bead at her mouth. “Not too close; there are giant…”
Things, up here, she was going to say, but the words wouldn’t come.
The chopper hung in the sky like a giant dragonfly, and she snatched up the binoculars and put them to her eyes. Her forehead creased, deeply.
The plateau top had a few scrubby trees, grasses, and was pocked with caves and fissures. There was a large body of water at its center, but it looked more like a shallow pond than the inland sea she remembered.
Where was the massive jungle? Where were the tree trunks that towered into a cloud-filled sky, and the tangled vines, fleshy fern fronds, and the goddamn primordial jungle? And where were the boiling clouds and thick fog that intertwined over and through everything? She looked up; the sky was blue and clear.
Emma felt a coil begin to tighten in her stomach and she could feel the weight of Cynthia’s stare. She grasped the small bead-like mic at her mouth to speak to the local pilot.
“This plateau… it was covered in clouds, and…” She looked at her wristwatch; it still worked. “…and the entire area was magnetic or something.”
He looked confused for a moment and began to shake his head, when he seemed to suddenly recollect something. He put his hand to the mic.
“I think, yes, but is only sometime.” He shrugged. “Very rare.”
“What; rare? What does that mean?” Emma turned to Cynthia who looked perplexed and extremely anxious.
“Where is he?” Cynthia looked back at the empty plateau top. “There’s nothing.”
Emma grimaced and turned back to the pilot. “What does that mean?”
The pilot looked to his copilot and they spoke rapidly in Spanish for a few seconds before they came to an agreement.
“Every ten years.” He bobbed his head. “About, I think.”
Emma felt lightheaded and a little nauseous. “I don’t understand, I don’t understand.”
The pilot went on. “Very strange and unique to this area. Big electrical storm, I think, just here, make electronics not work. Very rare, but we need to avoid when happening. Visibility very bad, dangerous, everyone stays away for a few days, a week.” He bobbed his head. “Then all goes away.”
Emma stared with glassy eyes. Her mind felt like it was short-circuiting and refused to process the information. The pilot half turned again.
“Been happening forever. Pemon call it karutu salu — time of lizard.”
His copilot shook his head and the pair argued for a moment. The pilot shrugged.
“Andreas says lizard is not right — more like time of snake.”
“And then it goes away… for ten years.” Emma frowned. “No, no, no, not true.” Every ten years — every ten years — every ten years.
But she knew it was true. It was just like it said in the notebook. She put her hands to each side of her head. “Not true.” She barely heard Cynthia yelling her name.
Ben, she thought. My poor Ben, trapped there for ten years. My Ben.
She slumped, feeling giddy, but then her jaws clenched tight. I’ll be back, I promise, Ben, she thought, in ten years.
Emma fell to the floor of the helicopter and everything went dark.
EPILOGUE
Benjamin Cartwright ran like never before in his life. Damp green fronds slapped at him and elastic vines tried to lasso every part of his body. But he barged, burrowed, and sprinted as if the devil was after him.
Because it was.
The thing that followed him was like a river of muscled flesh that pushed trees from its path, and its carnivore’s breath was like a steam train huffing and hissing as it bore down on him. He whimpered, pivoting at a boulder and changing direction. The hissing-roar came then, making leathery-winged avian creatures take flight from the canopy overhead, and making him shiver in his ragged, sweat-soaked clothing.
Cartwright accelerated, and immediately there was a breeze on his face as the jungle opened out. He skidded to a stop at the cliff edge. His shoulders slumped.
Where he had expected to see the plateau edge falling away to a thick jungle canopy over a thousand feet below, there was now an unrecognizable vista stretching to the horizon — it was a jungle valley, primordial, and large long-necked beasts ambled amongst the towering trunks. In the air, leathery-winged Pteranodons glided on warm thermals.
The haze, the clouds, the hurricane-like winds, the oily distortion that had been in the air were all gone.
Emma was gone, everything was gone — no, that wasn’t right; it just hadn’t happened yet.
His eyes began to water as a creeping realization sunk in. Where they’d been wasn’t a hidden plateau at all, but instead they had all stepped through a hidden doorway, reaching back millions of years. They’d stepped through, and unfortunately for him, the door had closed before he could escape.