Day of the Predator - Alex Scarrow [49]
Becks’s eyes slowly swivelled and locked on the girl, but she said nothing. Her mind was very, very busy.
CHAPTER 28
65 million years BC, jungle
Liam saw it first: amid the relentless green and ochre of the jungle, it was an unmissable splash of bright crimson. He raised his hand, turned round and put a finger to his lips, shushing Lam and Jonah at the back who’d been chattering for the last five minutes about comicbooks.
They hushed immediately.
Whitmore stepped quietly forward and joined him. ‘What is it?’
Liam pointed through a thin veil of leaves. ‘Blood … lots of it, by the look of things.’
Whitmore swallowed and looked goggle-eyed again. ‘Oh boy,’ he whispered. ‘Oh boy. Oh boy.’
Franklyn joined them. Unlike Whitmore, his eyes lit up with joy. ‘Excellent!’ he gasped. ‘Looks like something made a kill.’
Whitmore swallowed. ‘That’s exactly what I’m worried about.’ He looked at Liam. ‘I suggest we quietly back up and –’ But before Whitmore could finish Franklyn pushed his way forward through low sweeping fern fronds and into a small clearing.
‘Oh, this is so awesome! Come on!’ he called to them. ‘We must have frightened the predator off!’
Liam looked at the teacher and shrugged. ‘Well, I suppose if we’ve scared some dinosaur away, the last thing we ought to start doing now is look frightened ourselves. We’d better brass it out, right?’
By the look of Whitmore’s still goggling eyes, he’d have been much happier with the backing quietly away plan. Liam left him thinking it over as he stepped forward through the fern leaves and into the clearing.
Franklyn was squatting over the eviscerated ribcage of some large beast, wrinkling his nose at the fetid smell of shredded organs, pulled out and splayed across the jungle floor.
Liam felt something stir and roll queasily in his empty stomach. ‘Jay-zus, that’s disgusting.’
‘A recent kill by the look of it,’ said Franklyn, prodding the large carcass with his fingers. Shreds of tattered muscle tissue swayed from the ends of the ribs as the body rocked slightly. Lam, Jonah and Whitmore emerged behind Liam.
‘Oh, man, that’s totally gross!’ said Jonah, holding his nose at the pungent smell of death.
‘I really think we shouldn’t hang about here,’ said Whitmore. ‘Whatever did this might still be close by.’
Franklyn nodded and smiled. ‘Exactly! Maybe we’ll actually get a chance to see something!’
Liam looked around the dense foliage, wary that some large creature with very sharp claws and teeth might just be watching them now. ‘You know, I think Mr Whitmore’s got the right idea. Maybe we should probably back off.’
‘Look at these marks on the hide,’ said Franklyn, ignoring them. ‘The lacerations, lots of them, small ones, not large like a rex might do.’ He studied the ground. ‘See?’
Liam looked at where he was pointing and saw several three-pronged indentations across the ground. And then he spotted something long and curved like a fishhook on the ground. He stooped down and picked it up.
‘What’s that?’ asked Franklyn.
Liam shrugged. ‘Looks like some sort of claw.’
Franklyn couldn’t help himself. He snatched it out of Liam’s open palm.
‘Oh my God! That’s … that’s a claw, all right! Look, the serrated inner edge.’ He turned it over in his hand. ‘But it’s a weird shape, isn’t it, Mr Whitmore?’
Whitmore seemed more interested in leaving, but he quickly leaned over and inspected it more closely. ‘It’s certainly not the crescent shape you’d associate with a raptor or some other species of therapod.’
Franklyn grinned with excitement. ‘Maybe this is an unknown species?’
‘It’s possible,’ said Lam. ‘I mean, don’t they say something about we’ve only ever discovered the fossils of one per cent of the species that have ever lived on planet Earth?’
‘I really think we should leave,’ said Whitmore.
Liam nodded. He held out his hand. ‘May I have it back?’
Franklyn seemed reluctant to let it go. But after pulling a face he passed it to Liam. ‘Cool find,’ he uttered.
Liam smiled. ‘I’m sure you’ll come across another.