VALLEY OF THE MONSTERS
By Sydney J. Bounds
The great ship came from the stars. It had been travelling for an immense length of time and the powerful engines were no longer in perfect condition. It came whispering down through banks of cloud. Below rotated a virgin; planet a large and densely forested continent set between blue-green oceans.
The ship sank unevenly towards an emergency landing in a partial clearing in the forest. At the last moment, one of the atomic engines faltered—and then exploded, carving an enormous valley in the forest and drenching the land with radiation.
No man observed the crash of the alien spaceship; mankind had yet to evolve on planet Earth . . .
Paul Hemmings looked down from the cabin of the Cessna at a blanket of green tree-tops and the steel-blue thread of a river running through the jungle. As the aircraft began to climb, he glanced questioningly at the pilot.
“There’s a storm brewing,” Dick Taverner said. “I’m trying to get above it.”
Paul looked at the sky. It appeared to have grown dark within the last few minutes; massive thunder-clouds filled the air like angry waves. The Cessna’s twin engines vibrated as Dick gave them full power.
“It’s going to get rough,” Dick said. “Fasten your seatbelt.”
Paul obeyed. A sudden squall lifted the plane and dropped it like a stone. At fifteen, with full confidence in his father’s personal pilot, he wasn’t scared. This was better than school. He was bored, studying to join his father’s business empire. Hemmings Senior was a tycoon, with an interest in a gold mine in South America, and Paul was on his way from Brasilia to the mine, deep in the interior.
The sky grew black as night and thunder rolled. Lightning stabbed the sky. The aircraft rocked to the violence of a tropical storm, still climbing.
“If your father wasn’t such a stickler for getting places on time, I’d turn back,” Dick said.
Paul grinned. “I’m enjoying it.”
“Well, keep an eye peeled for landmarks, just in case.”
Paul watched the ground. In a lightning flash, he saw a thread of river to the west.
Suddenly the plane shuddered and the cabin filled with dazzling light. One engine coughed and stopped. The Cessna began to drop, buffeted by storm winds.
Dick gripped the control column, pulling it back as the plane went lower. His face was grim. “See anything down there?”
“A river—what happened?”
“Engine struck by lightning. We’re going down and there’s not much I can do about it.”
Paul peered down through the window, seeing only blackness below except when lightning split the sky. The river was a long way off as the wind blew them further and further off course. He saw nothing but tree-tops, nothing but trees for miles and miles. There was no open ground at all.
The single engine shuddered as it tried to keep the plane aloft.
“Looks like we’ll have to walk out,” Dick said. “You sure of that river?”
“Yes.”
“Is your belt tight?”
“Yes.”
“Relax. We’ll hit any time now.”
The Cessna seemed to be carried along on the wind, like a leaf in a gale, over a sea of trees. Dick fought to keep her level.
Something snatched at the undercarriage and brought her nose down. Dick cut the ignition as the plane turned over and smashed down through a tangle of branches. The cabin window shattered. Metal snapped. They continued to fall.
Paul felt himself wrenched sideways as the plane gave a final lurch and came to rest at an angle. The branch of a tree jutted through the window and into the control panel.
Dick grinned crookedly. “Well, at least we both appear to be undamaged.” He joggled a switch. “Which is more than I can say for our radio.”
He unbuckled his seat-belt and looked out of the window. “We’ll have to climb down to ground level.” Suddenly, he sniffed the air. “And the sooner the better—I can smell petrol leaking.”
He opened a panel and took out the emergency kit; Very pistol, machete and compass. “O.K., let’s go.”
Paul took off his jacket and followed the pilot out on to a branch. He stared down at a tangle of green leaves; the ground was out of sight far below.
Dick found the main trunk and started down, lowering himself from branch to branch. Paul followed, clinging to the vines that grew about the immense tree-trunk. He was soon sweating in the hot, damp air and, long before he reached the bottom, his muscles ached.
High above them was an orange puff of flame as the Cessna caught fire and burnt out in the tree-top roof.
As they reached the ground the storm passed on and the air grew lighter. They rested for a while, then Dick looked at his compass.
“Which way to your river?”
“Due west.”
“That’s the way we’ll go then.”
The massive trees grew thickly together and were far taller than any trees Paul had seen before. Great clumps of vegetation grew between them, almost blocking their way. A green light filtered down. There was nothing to see except trees, and more trees.
They headed west for the river. Dick using the machete to cut away the worst of the undergrowth. Presently he came to a clearing, and paused, staring at the ground. There, in the earth, was the imprint of a foot. A naked, five-toed foot, the big toe widely separated from the others. It was huge, twice the size of Dick’s footprint as he stood beside it.
“Whoever made that I don’t want to meet,” he said quietly. “Keep a sharp look-out, Paul.”
They turned away from the monster print, forcing a way through a tangle of lianas. Mosquitoes buzzed in the air. Lush foliage formed a green wall through which the trees rose to the jungle roof.
Paul was about to suggest they stop for something to eat when Dick gripped his arm.
“Listen!”
The forest shook and a curious cry sounded. Somewhere ahead, leaves threshed about violently.
“We’ll go around that,” Dick said, leading off at a tangent.
The sound of monstrous conflict grew louder.
“In here.” Dick pulled Paul into thick undergrowth. “Quiet now. We’ll—”
Something lashed across the clearing; the coil of a mighty snake. Paul stared in disbelief; he’d heard of anacondas, but this must be the king of them all. The huge mottled body shifted, and coiled again. The snake was looped from the branches of a tree and reached as far as he could see. Struggling in the midst of the coils was a monkey—and Paul had no doubt he was seeing the maker of the footprint they had discovered earlier.
It was difficult to gauge its size through the shifting body of the monster snake, but he reckoned the monkey must be at least fifteen feet tall—taller even than the African gorilla. The creature struggled desperately to free itself of the tightening coils. Paul glimpsed dark fur and heard a howl of combined rage and pain.
Then the anaconda dropped more coils of its vast body from the tree, completely engulfing the monkey. Bones cracked as the pressure increased.
Dick pressed Paul’s shoulder, and jerked his head. Quietly, they slipped away through the brush, leaving the snake to its meal.
Paul gasped, “Everything’s so huge here—I feel like a pygmy.”
“This is unknown territory,” Dick said. “What worries me is that only radiation could cause this sort of giantism. And there shouldn’t be any radiation here.”
They pushed on through matted vegetation in a sticky heat, still heading towards the river. They saw weird fungi and the air was heavy with the scent of wild flowers.
As the undergrowth thinned out, Dick said, “We’ll rest here.”
They sat on a fallen branch and Dick opened the emergency rations. Insects swarmed about them as they ate and so they pressed on again.