The Last Hunter: Collected Edition (Antarktos Saga #1-5)

I laugh at my ridiculousness. I’m acting like an ape who discovered fire. I know this is from the outside world, and I know in my core that it is harmless, but something about it has me on edge. As I reach for it I think I would rather be facing down a dinosaur. My cowardice before a piece of paper makes me angry. I snatch it up and turn it around.

It’s an image. Two faces have been captured. A photograph, I think. A Polaroid. I can remember facts about the process of taking photos, of film and development, but nothing beyond that. No real memories. Just information. And the two people in the image are strangers to me.

There is a girl. Dark skin. Light hair. Her head is leaning on a boy’s shoulder, his hair as light as hers, though much straighter. And his skin is as white as hers is brown. Both are smiling. Happy. But the bared teeth make me feel like the pair want to eat me. Like they want to tear me apart.

I don’t like this image.

I turn it back over, unable to look at it again. I want to destroy it, but find myself unable to do so. I can fling it outside, I think. Let the wind take it away. I step toward the cave exit again and stop. It feels wrong for some reason. Despite my loathing of the image, my gut says it could be important later on.

So I save it.

Not on my person. That would be unbearable.

I find a thin crack and insert the picture. When it’s almost all the way in, I tap it with my finger and it disappears into the space. I peer in after it. I’ll need a stick or something thin to pry it out later on.

I stand back. No one will ever know it’s there. For a moment I wonder if I’ll remember where it is, but make a mental note on my map. If I need this image again, I’ll know where it is.

Until then I make a silent vow to avoid this tunnel and the photo that scares me more than being eaten alive.





24



I’ve adopted a new system of time. Who’s to say whether or not it coincides with the twenty-four hour days on the surface? I doubt it, but I have noticed I have regular periods of sleep followed by regular periods of being awake. I suppose I could count out the minutes and translate this into hours, but trying to force time underground to make sense in terms of the above-ground world will only distract me. So I judge days by my waking and sleeping now. But how long is a day really? For all I know it could be a week. It doesn’t matter anymore.

According to my new calendar, I’ve been on my own for a month. It’s been twenty days since I found and hid the photo. And in that time I have hunted and been hunted. I have killed and nearly been killed. But, as Ninnis taught me, I have survived.

I have a new weapon. At its core is a staff of very flexible wood. It’s old, and I’m not sure how it got down here, but it bends like a fishing pole, so it follows me through the tightest squeezes, but it’s rigid enough to make a good thrusting spear. At one end—the spear end—I have attached a sharpened bone from a dinosaur skeleton. I had hoped to use one of its teeth, but the skull was missing. On the other end—the mace end—is a baseball-sized stone. It’s not intimidating to look at, but it’s solid, and dense. I fashioned the weapon after realizing there are two types of creatures in the underground. Those that you need to stab. And those that you need to bludgeon.

In addition to the weapon, which I have dubbed Whipsnap, I now have a thirty-foot rope created from the skins of several different prey creatures. After skinning the creatures, I dried the skins and then cut them into thin strips, which I then braided together. The line can stretch and hold my weight, even after a deadfall. I learned this the hard way, but now I know.

I have stones for making fire. A collection of dried dung for fueling said fires. And a collection of sharpened bones I use to pry apart, fillet, skewer and otherwise dismantle my meals. I’m a regular subterranean butcher and chef rolled into one.

But I have yet to take down anything bigger than me.

That changes today.

Today is the day I overcome one of my lingering fears. Granted, it’s not the biggest specimen I’ve seen, but it’s a start.

My map of the underworld has expanded from three cubic miles to four miles deep and twelve square miles around. The territory is vast and overlaps in several places with the domain of the dinosaurs that I now call Crestosaurs. Cresty for short. Not very Latin sounding, I know, but it’s descriptive. The crest atop their heads ranges in size and color on the males. The most dominant have tall, bright red crests. The females have average-sized green colored crests. But the females are also much larger—up to thirty feet long—though they never stand fully upright. Even the biggest stands only fifteen feet high. They are lean, fast and move in packs.

But they hunt alone.

Like this one.