Primeval Abroad
Chapter Seven
Puffing and panting, Rex flapped the last few feet of his journey, the island of Santa Cruz was almost directly below him now.
He was exhausted, yesterday, he had flown alongside the Temple's plane to Ecuador for twelve, long hours. He'd been completely shattered by the time they had arrived at Quito airport. Then he had spent an uncomfortable journey on top of a taxi which had taken them along a bumpy road to the coastal city of Manta. After that he had spent the night on the roof of the holiday inn, constantly being woken up by curious vampire bats. The next morning, still feeling washed out, he had followed the Temples to a helipad. Much to his dismay, he was unable to get inside the helicopter in time and had been forced to fly alongside it for the past hour and a half, even though his wings felt so weak he felt like they might drop off at any minute. But everytime he had felt that, he had forced himself to continue onwards, lest he fall into the sea and drown.
Finally though, he had arrived at Santa Cruz. Frigate birds, albatrosses and blue footed boobies soared around him, staring at the flying lizard as they passed him.
Below him, Rex saw the Temples exiting the helicopter and heading for the boardwalk. Tired from flying, Rex let his wings give way and plummeted out of the sky directly on to the sand next to the boardwalk. Abby heard the thump and turned in that direction.
"Rex" gurgled Nick as he saw him.
"Rex" gasped Abby, "Oh my God, what are you doing here? You look exhausted!"
Rex chirped the chirp of a lizard who has earned a holiday with his owners. It was a long and exhausting flight but he had made it.
* * * * * *
After handing Rex over to Connor, Abby and Nick took a look at the island paradise they had landed on. It was almost exactly as Abby remembered it. The sky was full of noisy sea birds, brightly coloured crabs scuttled along the beach and in the distance, Abby and Nick thought they could see a gang of marine iguanas diving for seaweed, only to surface ten minutes later and swim back to their volcanic rocks. But there was one thing that was different to when Abby had last come here, there seemed to be an enormous amount of people, crowding the boardwalks and creating long qeues for the tour boats.
"Excuse me" said Abby to a nearby tour guide with a clipboard. He turned around and adressed her.
"Ah, you are Mrs. Temple si?"
"Yes, that's me" said Abby, "This is my son Nick, and over there is my husband Connor. That's our lizard he's holding by the way, we didn't steal one from here."
"Well I'm glad to here that, senorita" said the tour guide. "My name is Pedro, I will be your tour guide during your stay here at the Galapogos islands."
"I see" said Abby. "But before we get on our boat Pedro, could you please tell me why so many people are qeuing up to get on the tour boats. It's just that last time I came here there weren't nearly as many people here."
Pedro sighed and looked around before answering Abby's question.
"These people, they Americano, and British like you. Some come to see Galapogos islands themselves. Others, they come to see..." He lowered his voice before continuing. "They come to see the Santa Cruz sea serpent."
"Santa Cruz sea serpent?" said Abby quizzically.
"Si senorita" said Pedro solemnly. "They no want to see Galapogos, they want only photos to show folk back home." He looked at his watch, "I should be getting on the boat. I see you later, Mrs. Temple."
"What's going on?" asked Connor as he came up to Abby. Abby turned around with a solemn look on her face.
"I think there's an anomaly here, Connor!"
* * * * * *
Half an hour later, the Temples found themselves on a tour boat jam packed with brash, noisy tourists like the ones Pedro had described. Rex was fast asleep around Abby's neck, Nick meanwhile was asleep in the little baby harness Abby carried on her back, jet lag was taking its effect on him.
"Ok folks" said Pedro over the microphone. "If you look to the right side of the boat, you will see a colony of californian sea lions, these are common on all the Galapogos islands."
Some of the tourists headed over to Abby and Connor's side of the boat, the rest remained on the other side, scanning the water for the so-called sea serpent.
Meanwhile, Abby and Connor both gazed out at the sea lions, watching as the adults lounged on the rocks while the pups and few mothers frolicked in the waves that were crashing against the coastline. Suddenly, one of the mother sea lions surfaced and barked with agitation, then along with her pup, she headed back to the rocks. She was followed by the rest of the sea lions. Soon they were all on dry land, except for one pup who seemed to be having trouble keeping up.
Soon, Abby saw the reason for the sea lion's agitation swim out from under the boat. A large hammerhead shark was heading straight for the lone pup, every sweep of its powerful tail bringing it closer and closer. In a matter of minutes the pup would be its.
Just before the shark could grab the sea lion though, the water around it exploded, sending a tidal wave of white foam onto Abby, Connor and the rest of the tourists on that side of the boat. By the time Abby and Connor had rubbed the water out of their eyes, the rest of the tourists had come over to their side and the cameras were flashing like mad. The reason being soon became obvious to them.
Sticking out of the water was a long, sinous, bluish-green body. Further up it on either side was a wide, translucent, fish like fin. Further up still was the creature's most terrifying feature. It had a head similar to a sea snake's, with yellow, slits-for-pupils eyes and a mouth filled withfangs the length of carving knives. On either side of its head was a green, feathery gill. In its mouth, writhing to get away, was the shark.
For a moment, the Santa Cruz sea serpent swayed slowly from side to side, then suddenly it seemed to notice the wriggling shark it had just caught. It bit down twice and the shark went limp. Then, as quickly as it had appeared, the sea serpent dived back down into the depths. For a moment, there was silence, then a great uproar went up as tourists cheered.
However, Abby and Connor were not cheering. Instead, they were looking at each other with looks of horror on their faces. Their worst nightmare had come true, the future anomaly was here at the Galapogos!