When Drake reached the halfway mark, Pi, who had continued along the path into the jungle on the other side, began bleating. The rapid-fire, high-pitched staccato call from the goat sounded like nothing Hawkins had ever heard before, but apparently Bray had.
“It’s a warning call!” Bray shouted. “The goats on the farm did that when a fox or coyote came near. Get out of the water!”
Drake heeded the warning and focused on crossing the remainder of the river. To his credit, he didn’t panic or move too fast. A misstep would send him into the water.
Joliet stabbed a finger to the river beyond Drake. “Oh my God, what is that?”
Hawkins saw an impossibly large shape slipping through the water. It glided toward Drake with little effort. He took aim with his rifle, but didn’t fire.
“Shoot it!” Bray shouted.
Drake turned to look and slowed as he did.
“Shoot!” Bray repeated.
“Bullets don’t penetrate water,” Hawkins said in a stern voice. “Have to wait for it to surface. Captain, move your ass!”
With a burst of speed, the shape closed in.
Drake discarded his previous caution and ran through the shin-deep water.
Tracking the creature’s swift passage through the water, Hawkins could see it would reach Drake before he made it to the shore. Seeing just one option available to him, Hawkins lowered the rifle—
—and dropped it to the ground.
24.
As the rifle fell to the ground at Hawkins’s feet, he twisted around and snatched the speargun from Joliet’s hand. She had already begun to take aim, but he couldn’t risk her missing the shot. Unlike the rifle, there would only be time to get off a single shot. They had replacement spears, but reloading was time consuming and cumbersome. And while he could squeeze off ten shots with the rifle in just as many seconds, water did a remarkable job stopping bullets. The speargun, on the other hand, was designed to slip through water with ease.
Looking down the length of the speargun, Hawkins took aim at the submerged creature surging toward Drake. Only a few feet separated the pair.
He fired.
With a puff of compressed air, the spear shot away. The three-foot-long metal rod passed beneath Drake’s arm as he ran. It found the water a fraction of a second later and pierced the surface like no bullet could. There was a snapping sound as the sharp tip of the spear struck the creature’s midsection—and ricocheted away toward the opposite bank.
Realizing that neither spear nor bullet would stop the creature in time, Hawkins discarded the weapon and lunged toward Drake. He reached out his hands, intending to yank Drake forward and hopefully out of reach.
He glanced down and saw the large shape in the water had stopped moving forward. But then a reptilian snout broke the surface. Green-skin-rimmed nostrils snapped open as the creature took a breath. Hawkins felt Drake’s fingers reach his and began wrapping his hands around the other man’s wrists.
Water exploded as the creature rose up and revealed itself. A crocodile. He wasn’t sure exactly what species of croc, but it was easily eighteen feet long and would have no trouble devouring a man. Hawkins saw the long mouth lined with thumb-size teeth snap open. But still, the apex predator didn’t move in to strike.
Is it just trying to scare us out of its territory?
The question was just a flash in his mind, answered nearly at the same moment he thought it. The flesh at the back of the croc’s throat, where its tongue should have been, expanded. Rolls of undulating muscle unfurled in a flash. At first, Hawkins thought the croc was regurgitating a meal, but then he saw it move. Two long, squid tentacles unfurled from the croc’s mouth, slipping out of cavities at the back of its mouth. As they emerged, the limbs began twisting and shaking like wounded snakes. At the center of the throat, Hawkins saw that where the croc’s esophagus should be there was a beak. Loud clicks came from the croc’s mouth as the beak repeatedly opened and snapped closed.
Another chimera. This one a vile perversion of nature.
The twin tentacles shook with tension and then sprang from the reptile’s mouth. Part of Hawkins’s mind registered seeing the flesh stretch out toward Drake, but then he had his arms locked with Drake’s and yanked.
A loud slap filled the air as Hawkins pulled Drake beyond the waterline. The two men began to fall back but stopped halfway to the ground. Hawkins looked into Drake’s eyes and for the first time saw fear. Then he saw why. Drake’s right leg was being lifted off the ground. There was a tug and Hawkins was pulled upright.
Hawkins looked over Drake’s shoulder. The croc sat in the river, its yellow eyes locked on Drake. Two long, pale tentacles as thick as Hawkins’s forearm stretched between the crocodile’s mouth and Drake’s leg. The two tentacle clubs were stuck to Drake’s calf. And if they were anything like actual squid tentacles, they’d have buried rows of sharp hooks into the meat of Drake’s leg.
And then, it pulled.
Hard.