Return To Primordial Island, Rick Poldark [top non fiction books of all time .TXT] 📗

Hiu. For all we know, he could be dead already. Or maybe he succeeded. Who knows?” She started to walk.

Mary fell in next to Susan, and they both headed south, clinging to the riverbank.

“Why are we headed south?” asked Mary.

“That’s where Hiu wanted us to go. He said there would be a habitable area for the tribe.”

“How do we know when we find it?”

“Good question,” said Susan. “When we meet up with Jason, maybe he’ll have an idea.”

*

Jason dashed through the tangles and underbrush, scraping his shins and forearms. He heard thrashing from behind him as the lizard men pursued him in earnest. He zig-zagged, attempting to throw them off his trail. However, the rustling of flora appeared to fan out behind him, keeping pace with his changes in direction.

The jungle terrain all looked the same in the monochromatic moonlight, and he had to be careful not to get turned around. He began to arc towards the south, giving his reptilian pursuers a wide berth. The left flank of their skirmish line nearly caught up with him, so he widened the arc. Although the immediate threat was the team of lizard men, he was wary of the potential presence of predator dinosaurs ambling about in the dark. He didn’t want to be blind-sided.

Just as that thought had occurred to him, he skidded to a stop in the dirt before running headlong into a herd of large shadows milling about in a clearing. About twenty to twenty-five feet long with curved backs and short, fat tails, the creatures stirred at his sudden appearance. In the moonlight, Jason noticed rows of knobs serving as armor on their backs. One turned and groaned at him, its skull wide with two horns jutting backward and a beak for a mouth.

“Whoa there,” said Jason, noticing its alarm at his sudden arrival. He placed his hands up in front of him, palms out. “Easy, girl. Easy.”

He caught a sudden movement in the periphery of his vision and dodged just as a massive bulbous knob at the end of a tail swung at him, narrowly missing him. He rolled away on the ground and sprung back up to standing.

The herd of ankylosaurus shifted, reorienting themselves to deal with this pest. Jason backed away as several lizard men burst into the clearing behind him, pointing the sharp ends of their spears at him.

“Oh, hell.” The bigger threat now behind him, he dashed forward into the herd with such speed, they were not able to react in time. The lizard men bolted after him. The ankylosaurus swung their wrecking ball tails, missing Jason but catching a couple of his pursuers, knocking them to the ground.

The ankylosaurus shifted about on their feet, kicking up dirt, colliding with each other in the process. Jason deftly changed direction, darting through openings between armored backs and under tail swings. He was nearly crushed between two massive bodies in the shuffle.

He glanced over his shoulder in time to see one of the lizard men being crunched between two ankylosaurs turning in opposite directions, only to then be trampled underfoot. Jason ran the gauntlet, narrowly evading trample himself, only to run right into two lizard men who had apparently circumvented the herd altogether.

They thrust spear tips at him. Jason wielded his hunting knife, parrying and side-stepping, as he didn’t want to re-enter the confused herd at his back. Within a few moves, the lizard men had him surrounded, and he cursed under his breath.

Past the lizard men, Jason thought he saw the small silhouette of a child step out of the underbrush and into the clearing. He figured it was one of the Umazoa tribe, or perhaps a member of another tribe. The child stepped right past the lizard men without being noticed and stood in front of Jason.

The hunter gasped as he recognized the face looking up at him in the moonlight. “Joey? Is that you?”

The lizard men flared their dewlaps, hissing at him and snapping their jaws as he spoke. They didn’t appear to notice the small humanoid child who had entered the circle.

‘It’s me,’ said a wordless voice in his mind. ‘I missed you, Jason.’

Jason shook his head, tears welling up in his eyes, blurring his vision. “No. It’s not real.” He wiped his eyes with the back of his forearm. “You’re not real. You’re dead.”

‘Are these monsters bothering you, Jason?’

The lizard men closed in, moving slowly and with great caution.

“They don’t see you,” said Jason. “Why don’t they see you?”

‘They’re getting closer,’ said Joey. ‘Do you want me to help?’

“Yes,” said Jason, desperate. “Yes, help me.”

The lizard men traded confused looks.

Joey’s eyes began to glow like hot coals in the darkness. He raised his hands, palms facing up, until they were shoulder height. The lizard men thrust their spears at Jason, but Joey quickly dropped his hands. The lizard men fell with Joey’s hands, landing in the dirt in heaps, lifeless.

Joey’s eyes dimmed back to their original state. ‘There you go, Jason. They won’t bother you anymore.’

Jason looked around at the lifeless lizard men. “Wh-what did you do?”

The apparition of Joey cocked its head sideways. ‘I took care of them.’

“You…you killed them. How?”

‘Remember, the Temple of the Simian King, Jason. You must bring Peter there.’ Joey started to back away into the underbrush.

Jason stepped forward after him. “No! Where are you going?”

‘We will be together soon,’ said Joey. ‘At the Temple of the Simian King. Don’t forget. I will see you there. Then we can be together again. I have so much to show you.’

Jason took another step forward, reaching out for his brother, but the apparition evaporated in the night air like fog, leaving Jason to question if he ever really saw what he thought he saw.

One thought reignited in his mind, playing