Darwin's Quest: The Search for the Ultimate Survivor Read online

  “That’s one big fella,” put in Alfhid.

  “Do you think it sees us?” Joda obviously had the same concerns as I had.

  We looked at Mike. He seemed to think about it for a moment before answering. “Yea, it probably does. But I have to imagine that it’s a golem, not a biobeast.”

  Mike really got into the fan nicknames for all things Darwin’s Quest. While the Tehran Zoo had the contract to provide the natural animals for the show, DreamWorks had the contract for the constructs. Some, like the Hell Pig, probably, were flesh and blood animals which had been re-made into new forms. These were the “biobeasts.” Others were completely artificial robots with computer chips for brains. These were the “golems.” I normally just used the show’s official terminology of “constructs” for all of DreamWorks’ creations, but I could see I would need to use the nicknames here if I wanted the others to understand me.

  “And if it is, then I doubt it is programmed to bother us now. It already got one kill, after all. On the other hand, why tempt fate? Maybe we should finish here and get back.”

  “You heard him,” shouted Hamlin. “Take what you’ve got and let’s get out of here.”

  That sense of urgency probably caused the fall. As we wheeled about, Mike’s warning to be careful of our footing was forgotten. Speed seemed to be the driving factor even if the pterosaur was quite some distance away and hadn’t seemed to express any interest in us yet.

  As I spun around, the rocks shifted under me and I had to catch my balance. Joda was not as lucky. Just a little upslope from me, she fell and started sliding downhill. Julie automatically reached down to grab her, but Joda was moving too fast, and Julie went down with her right above me, taking me out as they slid. I fell hard and tried to stretch out, spreading my body as flat as I could. I was very, very aware of the cliff edge we were rapidly approaching.

  Julie seemed limp, not fighting to stop, but Joda was scrambling as the two of them slid together. I managed to reach out and grab the only thing I could, which was Joda’s short hair. But entangled with Julie, their combined weight tore her hair from my grasp.

  Getting flat seemed to work for me, or maybe it was my weight. I slowed to a stop, face first, about five meters from the edge. But that vantage point gave me the full view of Joda’s sorrowful expression, looking back up to me as they slid over the side.

  I lay there, frankly afraid to move. My telltale buzzed. I didn’t know if that was for one or two, but I didn’t see how either of them could have survived. It seemed ironic that the oldest of us had been taken out by the youngest. And with both gone at once, which one of them would go to the vote against Paul?

  I could hear shouting, and I slowly turned my head. Along the edge of the scree, about fifteen or twenty meters from me, the rest had gathered as were asking me if I was OK.

  “Yea, give me a moment,” I shouted back. I felt numb, not from the slide, but from the adrenaline rush of fear to the heart-stopping save. I slowly turned over on my back, looking up at the sky, catching my breath. Finally, I got up the energy to roll back onto my hands and knees and slowly make my way over to the edge of the scree where eager hands pulled me off and onto solid ground.

  “What happened?” Hamlin asked.

  I looked back over my shoulder to where they had gone over the edge. “Well, Joda fell, and Julie tried to save her. Then they took me out with them. I think Julie got knocked out, and I tried to grab Joda, but with them tangled all together, I couldn’t. And they went over the side.”

  I felt my hand getting wet and looked down to see blood dripping down my arm and across my hand to my fingers. Suddenly, I felt all the scrapes and gashes to which that little fall had gifted me.

  “So now we’ve got five dead castmates waiting for a vote? That’s got to be a record.” Josh was shaking his head as he said it.

  “Maybe October or Bernie’s already back at Haven by now,” said Ratt.

  “Maybe,” Lindadawn replied. “I guess we won’t know until we get back there.”

  “And with that, I suggest we start back. Mike, do you think we’ve got enough flint?” Mike nodded, so Hamlin continued. “Let me take point, and let’s get back before something else happens.”

  Ratt sidled up to me as we were getting ready to move out. “That was almost number two for you. Trying to beat Maria Acevedo’s record?”

  Maria had the record for the most deaths in Darwin’s Quest. She had been killed eight times in Season 12, but the voters kept bringing her back. She made it to the Final Two before losing out at the end.

  “If that gets me to the Final Two, sure. But if I do that, I’d better win,” I responded with what I hoped sounded like levity. I was still pretty shaken by my close call.

  She patted me on the back and moved out. I waited to let Borlinga follow, then fell in line. With one last glance up at the circling but still far-off pterosaur, I followed the file into the jungle. Wearily I trudged after Borlinga, staring at her intricate leggings instead of paying attention to any possible danger that could be creeping up on us. Between yesterday and today, five of us had been killed, and that put me two-and-a-half people closer to the reward. Three of us had died within the last hour, and as far as the game went, that was great. But it still somehow felt depressing.

  I didn’t notice that Borlinga had stopped, and I ran into her back, luckily not stabbing her with my spear. “What’s up?” I asked.

  She didn’t say anything, merely crowded ahead. I followed until I could see what had stopped our progress. Hamlin was up in the front, looking down at the ground. It took me a moment to realize that he was looking at Paul, right where we had left him.

  Ratt asked the obvious. “Why’s he still here? Shouldn’t he’ve been taken back to Production City by now? And where’s the St. Bernard?”

  Silence greeted her questions.

  “Um, maybe they had to get Joda and Julie first? Them being in the river and all,” offered Josh, without a sense of conviction.

  There were probably over a hundred St. Bernards on the Reservation, more than enough to get Julie and Joda and to take care of Paul at the same time. And Paul had died a good half-an-hour or more before Joda and Julie fell. I didn’t feel like pointing that out. The others undoubtedly realized that as well.

  Paul had passed out before he’d died, but his expression was a rictus of pain. It didn’t look natural, and it certainly didn’t look like he went easily.

  “What do we do now?” asked Ratt.

  Hamlin turned to look down at her where she crowded around his hip, using him as shield from Paul’s body. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, should we leave him here?”

  “Of course we should. They’ll come and recover him.” With that, he carefully stepped over Paul and started back down the trail. He was a good five meters or so away before the rest of us followed, each one of us slowly stepping over Paul before hurrying to catch up with the rest. We were actually pretty close to Haven, so it wasn’t long before we were crossing the bridge and back home.

  Chapter 10

  “Joda was right. The toilet stinks.” Alfhid came out of it, nose wrinkling in disgust.

  We sat by the firepit while Mike was leading us in flint knapping. Well, he was leading Borlinga and himself in it. I had broken two nodules down to small bits of gravel before I decided I didn’t want to ruin any more of them. Most of the rest of us had followed suit. So we were actually observing Mike and Borlinga knap the stones.

  We weren’t really relaxing, though. Neither Bernie nor October had returned yet. We were going on a full day now without our full compliment of players. And if this was part of our season’s twist, we sure couldn’t figure it out.

  “It’s just a simple crapper,” Josh said sourly. “What can go wrong with it?”

  “Well you go into it and tell me if it reminds you of a dozen roses then.” The tension was making us all little on edge.

  Josh just ignored her and put another piece of wo
od on the fire.

  “Try this,” said Mike, handing me my spear, in which he had jammed the fat end of a piece of flint into its hollow center, a somewhat pointy end protruding from the tip. Ratt had laboriously stripped a piece of vine into thinner pieces of, well string, I guessed you would call it, and Mike had used that to bind the flint in place. This was his second attempt. The first attempt had been to bind a sharp piece of flint to the side of Josh’s spear, but after Josh tried thrusting it about, the flint fell off. So I had Flint Spear 2.0. I stood up and jabbed it back and forth. It stayed in place. I moved over to the log bench, intending to stab it when Mike called out.

  “Stop! That flint is pretty brittle, and you’re probably going to snap it if you stab that.”

  I looked back at him. “Well, what good is it going to do me then, if I can’t stab with it?”

  “Well, if another T-Rex tries to take a bite out of you, maybe snapping a piece of flint off in him wouldn’t be such a bad idea?”

  I grunted. He was right. I was letting the mood get me pissy. I brought the tip of my spear to my forehead in a salute, only half in jest.

  Josh rolled his eyes. “If you two are done with your little love-fest, I’m going to get some more wood.” He got up and left the camp and out to the bridge. Darwin’s Quest made some things hard, but some things were easy. We had an abundance of vines and wood right outside the entrance to the camp on either side of the bridgehead. So we didn’t have to go into Indian Country as some other seasons’ casts had to do.

  I handed my spear to Hamlin who inspected it closely, finally grunting in approval. “You think you could make me one now?” he asked Mike.

  “Alfhid’s next, but sure, I can get you one after that.” He glanced over his shoulder to where Josh had walked out. I knew what he was thinking. As a member of Josh’s alliance, he probably should make Josh one before he made one for Hamlin. But Josh was being a pain lately, and I had the feeling that our alliances were not as solid and unbreakable as those from most other seasons.

  “At this moment, for you, I will make one.” Borlinga looked up from her knapping.

  Hamlin looked at her and shrugged. “Sure, thanks.”

  Josh came back into camp without any wood. “Guys, I think you need to see this.” He jerked his head toward the entrance.

  I looked at the others. Hamlin just shrugged and stood up to go see. The rest of us followed. We got to the bridgehead and looked around.

  “OK, Josh, just what do we have to see?”

  “Look down there, down where we walked today. And listen.”

  It was hard to hear over the roar of the water below, but I thought I could hear a growling and snarling in the distance. And if I looked closely, I could see some bushes thrashing.

  “Isn’t that about where we left Paul? And I’m betting that those ain’t no St. Bernards.”

  He was right. We walked down the trail in that direction, and that was about the right distance.

  What could be making that disturbance?

  All of us looked around again at each other. I clutched my new spear tighter.

  Hamlin watched the distance for a moment before turning around and starting back to camp.

  “Where you’re going?” challenged Josh.

  “Back to get something to eat.”

  “Don’t you think we need to do something?”

  “Like what, pray tell?” Hamlin stopped walking and looked back at Josh.

  “I don’t know. Maybe like go see what’s up?”

  “And what good will that do? Or did we get a Challenge that no one told me about?”

  “In case you haven’t noticed, things are a little fucked up around here right now. And I think we need to see what is going on. Or aren’t you brave enough to act on your own?”

  The rest of us looked on in surprise. Direct challenges like this were rare in the game. They had a habit of backfiring on the challenger. But Hamlin seemed to be considering it. Or rather, he was probably considering how this might look to the viewers. He probably wanted to tell Josh to take a flying leap into the River Beagle below us, but would he look like a coward if he backed down? And did the producers want to goad us into acting on our own? If they did, then it would be rather easy for Baako Silver to swing opinion one way or the other, and that would affect the voting.

  Hamlin chose to make it look like he didn’t care one way or the other. He shrugged, came back, and started crossing the bridge. By him taking the lead, it looked like he was back in charge. Josh scowled, obviously realizing that he had given some momentum back to Hamlin, but he hurried after, quickly followed by the rest of us.

  When we got to the other side, we decided that as I had the only Spear 2.0, I would take the point. I cautioned everyone to keep their distance in case we needed to make a speedy getaway. Spear point preceding me, I slowly moved down the trail. The more I thought about it, the more this seemed like a stupid idea. Facing a Challenge was one thing. We all signed on the dotted line for that. But to volunteer to face something, well that seemed downright stupid. But it was too late to back down by then.

  As we got further from the river, the noise ahead of us became clearer. And something, or somethings were up ahead of us making a racket. We could hear growls, whistles, and grunts, and they sounded pretty cantankerous. I slowed and became more tense. I initially was afraid that Mr. T-Rex had come back for a visit, but whatever these were, they weren’t that big. Big enough for problems, maybe, but not T-Rex big.

  I held up my hand to stop Josh in back of me. We were close now. I edged forward a bit and saw a flash of bright blue and yellow, like an Amazon macaw, but bigger than any macaw ever hatched. I moved up around the last bush and almost lost my lunch. There were three of them about fifteen meters ahead of me on the trail. Three bright blue and yellow dinosaurs, maybe raptors. They were about a meter and a half high at the hips, and maybe three meters long from head to tail. And they were fighting over the last remaining scraps of Paul.

  I slowly started backing up, my hand waving frantically in back of me for Josh and the rest to back up. I assume Josh was backing up as well because I didn’t run into him. I wasn’t about to look, though, as my eyes were glued to the trail ahead even though I was then out of sight of the carnivores.

  “What’s going on up there?” I think it was Ratt who shouted out.

  In front of me, the squalling ceased. I froze. I heard the sound of snuffing as three sets of lungs drew in the air. One of them let out a whistle, and I could hear the scrambling of clawed feet.

  I turned around. “Run!” I screamed and then proceeded to follow my own advice. I could hear them crashing behind us as we ran pell-mell down the trail. I expected them to be on me at any moment. I risked one look back and saw teeth coming my way, maybe ten meters behind me. I put on a burst of speed and got into the clearing. Lindadawn was already on the bridge, Hamlin and Josh in front of me. The others were already in Haven, and I didn’t stop to wonder how they got there so fast.

  I had already been killed by one dinosaur right there, and I was not going to get killed again. I bolted past the professional football player and pushed through the body builder to fall on top of him on the bridge, knocking both of us down and sending Lindadawn bouncing up in the air. She held on as I scrambled off Hamlin and lunged forward a few meters. I was launched up myself as Josh threw himself forward, landing on Hamlin. I held on, and as I came back down, I hazarded a glance back. At the end of the bridge, the three dinosaurs pushed each other, leaning out toward Josh and Hamlin. Their teeth snapped less than a meter from my castmates’ feet.

  “Come on!” I yelled. “Crawl forward!”

  Josh slid off Hamlin and crept forward to me. Hamlin, once Josh was off, crept forward as well and stopped to look back. The dinosaurs were mewling by then, like hungry alley cats. They leaned forward, pushing each other. One, braver than the rest, put one foot on the bottom rope, but the swaying made it quickly pull back. It shook its head, thick sali
va spraying.

  Lindadawn was low-crawling over the rest of the bridge where the others were shouting for us. I took one more look back at the dinosaurs, then decided to get off the damn bridge. I got up to my feet and started across when Josh and Hamlin started moving, bouncing me around.

  “Stop! Let me across, then one of you come next.” I glared at them. Both looked back at the still slavering dinosaurs, then looked back at me and nodded.

  “Just hurry your ass up!” shouted Josh.

  I went as quickly as I could, helping hands grabbing me as I made it to Haven proper. Josh was next. He stepped off the bridge, eyes wide with either excitement or fear. Or perhaps a little of both.

  Hamlin had been frozen on the bridge, his feet a scant two meters from Indian Country and the hungry dinosaurs. Once he saw Josh stepping off, he got up and almost ran across, jumping the last meter or so to dive onto Haven.

  We all stood there, watching the beasts. And all our thoughts were undoubtedly on the same vein.

  What the hell is going on?

  Chapter 11

  “So why were they eating Paul?” asked Ratt. “You’re sure that was Paul?”

  Both Josh and I nodded. “Yes, like I said, it was Paul. His clothes were still there, and his leg was still intact.” I shuddered at the gory memory.

  We were standing around the firepit, glancing up regularly to see if the three dinosaurs had made it over the bridge somehow.

  “But how could Paul have still been there? Why hadn’t the field team come and got him?” Ratt was asking the obvious. We were asking the same thing for ourselves.

  “And well, if he was eaten, can they resurrect him?” She looked at the rest of us, tears in her eyes.

  “No, I don’t think so,” answered Alfhid. She moved over to put her arms around her. Ratt buried her face in Alfhid’s side and broke into sobs.