Day of the Predator - Alex Scarrow [115]
If they’re gonna come for me … it’s gonna be right now.
Then as if on cue he thought he saw movement, some dark shape leaping through the undergrowth, moving from one hiding place to the next. Getting closer, but not quite ready to commit to leaping out into the open.
‘What is it?’ he grunted under his breath. ‘You scared of me? Is that it?’
That sounded good to him, fighting talk. For a fleeting moment there he almost didn’t feel completely terrified. But that soon passed as his eyes assured him something else had just shifted position one tree closer to him.
He finally felt the trunk under his foot wobble as Leonard presumably jumped off at the far side. He heard Whitmore’s voice over the din of tumbling water calling him over.
‘Coming!’ Liam shouted over his shoulder. Keeping his eyes on the jungle, he reversed on to the log, still not daring to turn his back on what he knew was in there and waiting for him to do just that.
Pull yourself together, Liam.
He dropped down to his hands and knees. Unwilling to turn his back on the jungle, he began bum-shuffling backwards, one hand still holding the spear half ready, in case he needed to defend himself at a moment’s notice.
After a minute’s slow progress, he finally felt a sharp splinter of wood scrape the inside of his thigh and realized he was now just before the fractured halfway point. Cool water rode up his dangling legs, soaking him to his thighs. As he shuffled to get past the jagged shards of the fractured trunk, he heard it crack and felt it lurch as it sagged lower into the river. Water suddenly rode up over his knees and over his lap, pummelling his gut and chest like an enraged boxer sensing the faltering resolve of an opponent.
Oh no … please, no.
Water. Drowning. Suddenly the fear of being snatched and torn apart by some vicious predator was matched by the idea of being snatched away by the river.
‘It’s going to break!’ shouted someone.
Liam could feel the trunk being buffeted and kicked by the strong current. It flexed, creaked and twisted under the punishing weight of energy slamming into it. He realized it wasn’t going to hold out much longer and a rising tide of panic compelled him to get off his backside and crawl. He struggled on to his hands and knees, now, finally, turning his back on the jungle he’d moments ago thought was hiding the most frightening thing in this world.
No … the most bloody frightening thing right now was this churning white monster roaring hungrily at him, doing its best to pull him off. He could see the others waiting for him at the far end of the bowing log, all frantically waving at him to get a move on.
‘All right … all right, I’m coming!’ he yelped. He began to crawl forward on hands and knees. One hand carefully placed after the other on the treacherously wet bark.
Come on, Liam, come on. You’re nearly there. He managed to make his way a yard closer to the bank, and even managed to flash the others a cavalier I’m gonna be just fine grin, when his hand found a slick patch of moss.
‘Uhh …’ was all he managed to gasp before his hand slipped round the side of the trunk and the unsupported weight of his body carried him over.
CHAPTER 63
65 million years BC, jungle
Suddenly he found himself spinning amid a roaring chaotic swirl of swiftly moving water. Instinctively he’d snatched a lungful of air as he’d gone under, his body doing the thinking for him while his mind shrieked uselessly with blind panic.
Drown! I’m gonna drown!
He knew it. His lungs were only going to buy him a half minute of life. His mind was all of a sudden back in the narrow confines of a corridor groaning with the sound of stressed bulkheads, flickering wall lamps and the distant roar of ice-cold seawater finding its way up from the deck below. The certain promise of death a mile down in the cold dark embrace of the ocean.
Oh no, no, no, no, not this! Not like this!
Then his head suddenly broke the surface. He flailed