By Susan Zell
Disclaimers and Notes: See Chapter One
Hidden
Part Four
Fear gave Ned sudden inspiration. He dragged an insensible Roxton over to a small grove of roots beside the stream. He hadn't noticed it till they were right on top of it. A portion of the tree's roots were out of the water, eroded away from the stream's constant pressure during a high flood period. It was damp but it would hide Roxton till Ned could lead the apemen on a merry chase. Then he would circle back. It would buy them the time he needed to take care of Roxton's injuries.
He sequestered the hunter into the small grove and covered him with some brush weaving them through the arching roots as best he could to conceal him.
"I'm coming back, Roxton," he assured the man. He wasn't sure if his friend could hear him or not, but Ned wanted the man to know he wasn't abandoning him. But Roxton gave no indication that he understood. He laid limp and shivering, eyes closed.
Reluctantly, Ned crawled out. The sounds of his pursuers were louder now. Gaining his feet, the journalist took off upstream, crawling out of the stream a few feet further up, leaving a trail a blind apeman could follow. He let out a shout to entice them so they wouldn't be looking too closely around them as they passed Roxton's hiding place.
Again the weight of responsibility fell upon his shoulders. It was up to him now to lead them away using every trick he could remember that Veronica and Roxton had taught him. He hoped he could live up to their expectations. Lives depended on it.
***
The beasts were close; their wild crashing through the brush was loud and terrifying as it roared in his ears. Ned ran along the stream for two miles and then veered abruptly off so they couldn't outflank him. He had seen such maneuvers often performed from his balloon vantage point while observing battles during the War. This would allow him to circle back towards the stream. He would come up behind them and then lose them again in the water. At least that was his strategy.
However, exhaustion had other plans. His legs were like lead and it was an effort to just pick them up constantly and move them forward. Common sense told him that he couldn't outrun them forever. Therefore, he had to outsmart them. He just prayed it wouldn't take too much effort.
His feet unexpectedly tangled in some vines and he fell hard. Something sharp scraped across his cheek leaving it bloody and burning. He lay dazed for an undeterminable amount of time, drifting towards a world that offered rest and peace.
And death.
He shoved himself back up, shaking his head to clear the fog, and gathered his legs beneath him, pulling the grasping vines roughly from his ankles in frustration. He had lost precise minutes; how much he didn't know. He took off again, shoving his misery aside. He had one thought: lose his pursuers.
The stream had to be somewhere ahead of him. He hoped he was heading in the right direction. With the way his luck was running, he'd find himself back at the apemen's camp before long. Then came the beautiful sound of the babbling water. It was like heaven and it gave Ned the strength he needed to press on. He gained the stream and stopped to drag a few handfuls of the liquid to his tortured throat. He gulped at it as quietly as he could.
A dark shape crossed the path in front of him and his hand paused halfway to his mouth, the water dribbling down through his frozen fingers, terror drilling at his chest.
It was the Silverback!
How the hell had the thing doubled back so fast? Had it predicted what he was trying to do? Ned tried to calm himself. Now wasn't the time to lose one's head. As far as he could tell, it didn't appear as if the Silverback had seen him yet.
He couldn't lead it back to Roxton now, and it wouldn't take long for the Silverback to find his scent and track him where he entered the stream. Scanning for more of the beast's brethren, he jerked his head wildly about, but to his relief there was no other apemen in the vicinity. For now at least.
He grabbed a pocketful of stones and jammed them in his pockets. A plan was forming. Desperate and pathetic in his mind, but with only precious seconds to formulate one, it was the best he could do. He had no interest in fighting this devil on his own as defenseless and outmatched as he was at the moment.
He crawled out of the water, so as not to make more noise and tried to get ahead of the beast before it came back to the stream looking for him. About twenty-five feet above where he last saw it, he jumped into the water with a splash and made a ferocious amount of noise as he ran upstream, hollering and splashing.
It took only moments before there was a crashing in the brush as the Silverback was alerted to his presence. Ned ran for his life, looking for the one thing that he knew would be his sole salvation. If he didn't find what he was looking for in the next few minutes, he was a dead man, for already the creature behind him was howling for the rest of its tribe.
With an elated shout, he spied what he needed: a thick tree limb hanging out over the stream. He leaped for it, his hands scraping raw on the gnarled bark as they grasped for a firm hold. He swung his legs up and over the limb.
He had done it! He hung there gasping, lying prone along its length. But he wasn't safe yet. He pushed himself up higher to where the foliage was denser and would hide him. He had only seconds. The sound of the pursing apemen was just around the bend.
The minute they appeared, Ned froze. Any movement or sound now would cause them to look up and his ruse would be over. They were masters of the treetops and there would be no way for him to win the fight on their terms.
Trying to quiet his heaving breath and praying that the sound of his strident heartbeat could not be heard in the still, hushed air, he hunched over in the leafy branches, watching the apemen, five of them, mill around beneath him. They were obviously puzzled. They no longer heard his splashing and yet they couldn't smell his scent on the stream banks either.
It wouldn't take long for them to figure out that if he wasn't in the water and he hadn't climbed out on the banks, he had to have gone elsewhere, like up. These apes weren't as stupid as he first alleged them to be. He knew they'd reason it out eventually, at least the leader if none of the others.
But for that, Ned had one more ploy left. He pulled out the handful of stones from his pocket, slowly and carefully. Then with teeth clenched, he threw them upstream, their falling mass striking the water in a raucous fashion. Every apemen's head jerked up and then they were off, racing toward the sound.
Ned threw a few more further on, using his arm now like he was on the baseball field. He could throw a hell of a distance, especially if his life depended on it. All those days at the park finally paid off. As soon as the apemen were gone, he lowered himself down quietly and snuck off downstream, keeping to the water where his scent was hidden. He hoped Roxton was still waiting for him and that nothing else, like a raptor, had discovered an easy meal.
***
The ballroom at his parent's estate would not stop spinning. It was making him ill. John Roxton put a hand out to the wall to try and stop it forcefully. But to no avail. He could feel the friction beneath his hand, and the heat that it generated. Suddenly he couldn't pull his hand away. The heat increased. The sleeve of his white dinner jacket caught fire.
Frantic now, he flung himself back and fell hard to the ground. He tried to remain calm even as the flames engulfed him.
Don't scream. You mustn't scream.
He tried to pat the flames out but they were searing his flesh. Reaching down to work on his legs, he noticed that one of them was missing. Then he screamed.
He jerked violently out of the nightmare and flailed for a moment in the damp brush. The agony in his leg told him it was just a dream. He clamped down on the scream in his throat and thankfully it came out only as weak, tortured sob.
His vision wasn't cooperating so he couldn't determine where he was. It was wet and cold though. His body shivered. Despite the dampness, he could feel a fever burning under his skin. The air around him smelled earthy and decaying. A small bog of some sort. He could feel the water from the stream lapping at his legs. But still it was better than the last place he had regained consciousness.
He kept blinking in an attempt to clear his vision. Eventually it helped and the tiny grove came into focus. He didn't remember getting here, but he chalked it up to Malone's handiwork. He had to give the lad credit. It wasn't a bad hiding spot in a pinch.
But where was Malone?
Most likely the journalist had tried to lead the pursuing apemen away. When he had lost consciousness, Malone had no choice but to abandon him and seek some way of throwing those bastards off their trail. He hoped the lad was all right. Unarmed and alone against a horde of some very angry apemen wasn't something the hunter wished on anyone, and he was in no shape to help Malone if things went poorly out there.
Shifting in the mud, he took stock of himself. What he found wasn't very good. Aside from the numerous welts and scratches, he gently prodded a large gash on the back of his head, sitting atop a rather sizable knot. That explained his vision problems and the queasiness he was experiencing. Each shallow breath made his chest ache and indicated that some of his ribs were either broken or cracked. And besides that, his hat was missing.
He was a mess.
His swollen leg however was the crowning glory. His ankle sat at an odd angle, well off from its normal position. Pulling apart his pants right above the boot, he could see the cut made by the impact of the rifle. Hissing harshly through clenched teeth, he examined the wound and was relieved to find that the bone had not pushed its way through the skin. He didn't think the gash needed stitching. It was more important to set the bone.
But not now. Instead he just settled for wrapping a tight bandage around the still oozing wound and washing away as much of the blood as he could. He was afraid something just as horrible as apemen would track it to him.
Eventually he flopped back, breathing roughly, sweat dotting his skin, the back of his dry throat convulsing as his nausea flared. Allowing himself to just lay there and readjust to his predicament, he tried to think of what needed to be done, but his brain was too consumed with pain to be of much help.
But the one thing it did register was movement just outside his hiding place. Fear and panic almost overruled his sense of logic. He'd be damned if he let himself fall back into the hands of the apemen, or into the jaws of a ravenous dinosaur. Trembling hands grabbed a stout rock and he waited with arm upraised, ready to bash in the skull of the first apeman or raptor to stick its head through.
To his surprise it was a bedraggled journalist.
"Malone!" he gasped, dropping the rock.
"Roxton!" Ned crawled into the grove with him. He eyed the rock. "That's no way to greet a friend."
The hunter managed the barest of smiles. "Sorry. You sounded like an apeman to me."
Lifting an eyebrow, Ned retorted, "I'll try not to take that personally."
Already weakened by just that small exchange, Roxton collapsed back against the roots of the tree they were hiding in. Ned didn't like the look of the man at all. He was pasty white and every bruise and gash stuck out in a vivid fashion against the pale skin.
"Did you lose them?"
"I think so. I left them heading in the opposite direction. How long it will take them to figure out they're going the wrong way…" Ned shrugged, busying himself with trying to gauge Roxton's injuries. He was startled when the man tried to gain his feet. "Whoa! Where are you going?"
"We're leaving. We want to be long gone from here when they double back."
"You can't go anywhere till I set that leg!"
"You set that leg and we're not going anywhere. I'll be out for the count for the next few hours. We'll be sitting ducks."
"We're both too exhausted to get far regardless."
"It'll be enough. Get me a stick to use as a crutch and get a branch with lots of foliage on it. We'll use it as a rake to cover our tracks. We'll go as far as we can and find ourselves a more defensible position. Then you can have at the leg. All right?"
It wasn't all right, but Ned really didn't know what else to do. There was too much logic in what Roxton was saying. Besides the grove was much too damp anyway to stay in. Roxton's eyes were glassy and bright showing the onset of a high fever. How the man was still able to think clearly at all amazed him. He knew it wouldn't last much longer.
Finally he nodded, agreeing with the hunter's plans. In truth, he was relieved that the man had taken some of the responsibility out of his hands. It was that much less weight he had to carry around on his shoulders. He handed Roxton his canteen and told him to fill it up while he scouted around for the other items.
It didn't take him long with all the debris around, and the beauty of it was that he didn't even have to leave the stream. There must have been a storm recently, which had brought down a great deal of branches. He was back at Roxton's side in just minutes, items in hand. He rummaged in his pack for a moment and pulled out Roxton's hat and set it rakishly on the hunter's head.
He shrugged. "I figured you'd want it."
Roxton offered a cocky smile. "Damn right." He adjusted the position slightly and then nodded. He was ready.
Together they exited the small haven that had saved their lives, and then with Ned taking on most of Roxton's weight again, they departed the stream, covering their tracks as they went.
***
Challenger and the others knew they were on dangerous ground. All but Marguerite had been here before and even she understood that they were entering an unholy place. It was a hellish abode where the apemen lived.
Veronica was in the lead and was bringing them to a safe vantage point, and Marguerite was sure the huntress used that term very loosely. Nothing was safe where apemen were concerned. The thought of Roxton in their clutches made the hand that gripped her heart squeeze. Her fingers constantly brushed her pistol strapped to her side. She would make the heathens pay in ways they had never imagined. She had made men scream before; so would these bastards.
A part of her wanted a fight, the part of her that she always kept in check for the most part, unless, of course, marauders or apemen were besieging them. It wasn't particularly lady like, but then she didn't quite classify herself as a lady either.
Right now, all she wanted was to find Roxton alive or there was going to be hell to pay. It was never wise to make Marguerite Krux mad.
Challenger's hand on her arm brought her silent ranting up short. Up ahead of them, Veronica was crouched low beside a boulder and looking over an escarpment. She motioned them up. They scuttled to her and gazed down.
Below them was a view into Dante's Inferno. New rivers of molten lava had cut through the field. Noxious fumes and plumes of scalding steam rose high in the air.
"What happened here?" Challenger hissed. It hadn't been this way when last he visited.
Veronica pointed out a large bleeding fissure. "It must have blown recently."
"Do you see Malone or Roxton anywhere?" Marguerite asked. Her nerves were frazzled as bad as her hair in all the steam and heat.
"No. I don't think they're here. I only see women and children." Veronica's voice held disbelief.
"Where are the males?" Summerlee inquired. "Isn't it rather odd that they're all missing?"
"Very," Challenger told him. He regarded the young woman beside him. "You're thinking what I'm thinking, aren't you, Veronica?"
She cast him a sober glance. "They're out hunting."
"Hunting what?" Marguerite hissed.
"Malone," she responded.
Marguerite paled at the thought. Then she cast in her own thought. "Roxton too. I think they both got away. Perhaps when this eruption happened they had their chance."
"Either that or they were caught in the magma," Summerlee pointed out. It seemed impossible that both men had survived this hell.
"No!" Veronica snapped out. "They're alive."
"I agree," Marguerite decided. She had no choice really. The other option wasn't acceptable yet. Not without proof.
"Well, there's only two ways out of this valley," Challenger said. "They didn't get out the way we came in, so that means they went south."
"That's deeper into the jungle and into cannibal country," Veronica noted bitterly.
"Then that's where we're going." Marguerite couldn't believe those words just came out of her mouth. The others looked over in surprise at her. "What?" she snapped. "We've already come this far."
Summerlee smiled warmly at her and patted her arm. "Bravo, my dear."
"Let's get out of here," Veronica said. It was already almost midday and they had a lot of ground to cover before they even picked up Roxton and Malone's trail, if they could. It was a big jungle. They would circle the camp and veer towards the southern canyon. With luck, they would pick up some sign of the two men.
***
Continued in Part Five