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“A dinosaur!” shouted
Steiner. “What the hell’s
a dinosaur?”
“An extinct species of animal,” replied Katie, “supposed to
have died out several million years
ago.”
“It looks alive enough to me,” said Amy, “and I don’t
think it’s friendly.”
“You are right,” chimed in Jia
Li. “I think it thinks we
are supper!”
The monstrous head was attached to an equally monstrous
body. It surveyed them almost
casually. Perhaps it was a bit
perplexed by their strange appearance, or confused by the fact that they
had not run away. Very few animals
stayed around when a tyrannosaurus rex was in their
presence.
“Damned thing must weigh more than an elephant,” said
Steiner. “Get under the
fig tree, its roots will give us some
shelter.”
Cautiously, the party backed toward the tree, moving slowly so as not to
excite the gigantic predator that faced
them. They were almost there
when the tyrannosaurus charged.
All four of the adventurers fired almost
simultaneously. At point blank
range, they could not miss and they were all excellent marksmen in any
case. Their bullets crashed into
the skull of the immense creature shattering bone and splattering
flesh. The tyrannosaur let out
a terrible roaring scream that almost deafened them, and then, streaming
blood from its wounds it wheeled about and crashed off through the
forest.
“Thank God it ran,” said Steiner, “I don’t know if we
could have stopped it.”
“No,” agreed Katie, “I hope it doesn’t have any
friends.”
“Let’s get a fire going,” said
Amy. “It will help keep
away the bugs and might discourage any
predators.”
“Right,” agreed Katie, “And it might get cool
tonight.”
They set up camp beneath the roots of the giant
fig. There was enough dry wood
around to create a huge blaze.
Somehow the size of the fire seemed to reassure
them. All around them were the
sounds of the night forest. Every
member of the party noticed that the sounds were unlike anything they had
ever heard before in
“Do you have any idea of where we came down?” Steiner asked Katie.
“Our last heading put us about a 100 miles
northwest of where we found our way to the lost city of the
Ullabomba. Other than that I
haven’t the faintest idea where we
are. It is obvious that the region
encompassing the Lost World is much bigger than we previously
understood.”
“That’s not good,” said
Amy. “If the rest of the
forest is anything like this region it will be awfully difficult for us to
get out of here.”
“I don’t think we have much choice,” said
Steiner. We have to make our
way to the area where your expedition set up last
time.”
The conversation continued for quite some time while the adventurers discussed
their plans for getting back to
civilization. Only Jia Li remained
silent. The beautiful oriental
was not much for participating in conversation, preferring to let her companions
work out the details of any plan.
She would go along with whatever decision they reached and give it
her full support. Not that she
lacked leadership qualities; she simply could not see any point in dividing
the command. She knew that in
the environment she was in Katie and Steiner were probably better suited
to make decisions, as was Amy who had grown up in South
Africa. If the party had been
in
They spent the night under the giant fig.
They had decided that in the morning they would head in the direction
of the airstrip that they had used on their first journey to the Lost
World. They had no illusions
about the difficulty of the journey.
Although their destination might not be far as the crow flew, it was
over extremely difficult terrain, and through dense rainforest and
jungle. They would be fighting
wild animals, insects, tropical heat and disease, and possibly hostile
humans. Their equipment was almost
negligible, which would force them to live off the
land. Their chances were not
good, but they had little choice.
It was very unlikely that anyone would search for them, and even if
a search party was sent out, the chances of being found were about
zero.
They got underway early the next morning.
All of them were quite famished, but no one
complained. They would have to
forage as they moved. The rainforest
had to be full of wildlife in order to sustain a monster as large as a
tyrannosaurus. If they kept their
eyes open they should be able to find
something. Of course, they would
have to be careful not to get eaten
themselves. Who knew what sort
of strange creatures they might encounter?
They trudged steadily southeast. It
was not easy going. As they had
surmised, trying to walk through the dense forest was almost
impossible. They had to make
frequent detours around giant trees and dense tangles of
vegetation.
About an hour into their trek, Amy, who was moving ahead, spotted a not too
subtle movement in the foliage ahead of
her. Unslinging her rifle, she
signaled to the others to follow her with
caution.
Moving as quietly as possible, they pushed
ahead. They soon saw that they
needn’t have worried about caution.
Directly ahead of them were several huge
animals. They were making so
much noise that the party of adventurers had no difficulty in approaching
them. The animals resembled giant
lizards. They stood erect on
their haunches, ripping off branches with their smaller forearms and stuffing
the vegetation into their mouths.
As the party of adventurers approached, the heads of the giants swiveled
in their direction. They showed
no fear. Probably they had never
seen humans before and did not identify them as a
threat.
“What are these?” asked
Steiner.
“I’m not sure,” replied Katie, but I think they may be a form
of dinosaur called a hadrosaur.
They only eat vegetation, but I think they are so big that they
don’t consider us a
threat.”
“Probably
right,” said Amy.
“But what about the little
ones?” She pointed
to a smaller ducked-billed dinosaur feeding alongside the
giants. Even this specimen was
over ten feet long.
“I think we could handle that,” said
Katie. “I don’t like
the idea of shooting an infant, but we have to
eat.”
“What about the parents,” asked
Steiner.
“Won’t they
object?”
“Probably,” replied Katie, “but maybe we can drive them
off.”
“Alright,” said Amy, “get
ready.”
She raised her rifle and took aim.
POW! The small dinosaur gave a leap and
then dropped in a heap.
Immediately, the other duck-billed leviathans moved toward the fallen infant,
forming a sort of defensive circle about
it.
Amy felt a little guilty about shooting the little duckbill, despite the
fact that it probably weighed about ten times as much as she did, but Katie
was right. They had to have food
and shooting one of the larger duckbills was out of the
question. “Alright,”
she said, “let’s see if we can drive the adults
off.” She raised her rifle
again.
The party fired into the adults.
They did not have much hope of killing the huge animals, but the bullets
might sting them enough to drive them
off. The hadrosaurs roared in
anger. They sounded something
like giant cows. Instead of
retreating, however, the giant herbivores charged toward
them. The adventurers scattered
in every direction, hoping to confuse the stampeding
giants.
Their tactic worked. The hadrosaurs
milled about in confusion. They
lacked the fixedness of purpose that predators
had. In a few seconds they gave
up the pursuit.
Jia Li's flight had taken her quite a distance from the
others. As the sound of the rampaging
plant eaters diminished, she stopped and looked around
her. She was unharmed, but quite
alone. “I better get back
to the rest of the expedition,” she
thought.
Suddenly, she detected a slight movement in the
foliage. She turned toward the
sound. Then there was another
sound behind her. And then another
to the side. Something was moving
in the forest about her and whatever it was appeared to be closing
in.
Jia Li readied herself for action.
It came soon enough. From
the undergrowth about her appeared several dozen dark-skinned
men. But they were no ordinary
men. Not a single one was over
four feet in height and they were rudely dressed in simple cotton robes or
animal skins. Their small stature,
however, did not mean that they presented no danger. Each of them was armed
with a spear longer than he was tall.
Sheer strength of numbers made them a severe
danger.
The diminutive warriors closed in all her from all
sides. Jia Li wasted no
time. Leveling her rifle she
fired several rounds in rapid succession.
Each bullet found its mark, dropping a warrior with each
shot. One bullet even took out
two of the warriors, the bullet passing through the first and striking the
man behind him. Her salvo had
the desired effect. With cries
of alarm the tiny warriors disappeared into the forest as fast as they had
shown themselves.
Jia Li remained on guard. Had
the enemy retreated or merely gone into
hiding? Slowly she moved through
the forest toward where she had last seen her
friends. She expected to see
them at any moment. No doubt
they had heard the sound of her shots and would be coming to
investigate.
There was another low rustling in the bush around
her. Surely those tiny savages
were not coming back? Suddenly,
in front of her she saw the movement of several pint-size
bodies. She swung her rifle to
the ready position. But the attack,
when it came, did not originate in front of
her. Instead it came from the
side and behind.
Jia Li detected the assault as it
materialized. A spear was thrown
from the foliage to her right. With
lightning-like reflexes, she swept her arm through the air, deflecting the
missile before it struck her. Then
another came from behind. She
deflected this one as well.
Few people could have intercepted these missiles, but Jia Li was highly
proficient in Chinese martial arts.
Years of training had given her reflexes that were far beyond the
ordinary. Missile after missile
was directed toward her, but she dodged or blocked each projectile with
ease. Fortunately, her adversaries
directed only one spear at a time in her
direction. Even as she blocked
them, Jia Li wondered at this. She
also wondered why each spear was thrown so
low. Not a single missile was
aimed above thigh level. Then
it came to her. This was not
an assault on her life; the pygmies wanted to take her
alive. The spears were meant
to disable, not kill her.
The missile attack also served another
purpose. It prevented her from
shooting at her enemies, and they were closing in on her slowly but
surely. Eventually they were
close enough that she could almost touch
them. Then they rushed her all
at once.
If the tiny aggressors expected to overwhelm her by sheer numbers, they got
a horrible shock. In close combat,
Jia Li was even more deadly than she was with her
rifle. She whirled on her enemies
with incredible speed, her arms and legs striking in all
directions. Each blow was delivered
with precision and force. Her
dark-skinned attackers fell around her in
heaps. And then the attack
ended. She was alone again, except
for the bodies of unconscious and moaning warriors.
Jia Li moved on. Where were the
others? Surely they had heard
the commotion, the shots. Then
there was a noise behind her again.
The little people were back again.
Had they not had enough? She
turned, her rifle at the
ready. From the foliage behind
her half a dozen black figures emerged.
She shook her head. One
thing was certain, these tiny warriors were persistent.
Most attackers would have given
up by now.
This time they did not rush forward, but came at her with
caution. Jia Li prepared to
shoot. She did not want to kill
any more of these brave little people, but they were giving her no
choice.
She leveled her rifle. And then
the net dropped over her. She
was caught completely off guard.
The entangling folds of the net were drawn about her, pinning her
arms. In desperation she fired
through the netting, trying to scare off her captors, but her shots went
wild. She dropped the rifle and
tried to pull the mesh from her body, but she was already too tightly
tangled. More than a dozen hands
wound the net tightly about her body, ensnaring her so completely that she
could not move. Then she was
lifted from the ground. Completely
helpless, the Chinese heroine was hurried away into the forest.
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