Ghosts In The Jungle

[Temple Faire]

The following takes place 15 months after the Cascade

 

 

Jerry Baker sat at the dinner table across from his young pretty wife, Karen. Even after a rough day like today just looking at her lifted him higher. He had fallen in love with her the minute he had seen her in High School almost tens years before and he couldn't image living a single day with out her. As they ate dinner and made banal small talk she kept smiling at him. Finally he couldn't hold it in anymore.

“Honey is something wrong ?”

Her laughter is like chimes in the wind

“No silly nothings wrong, except your going to be a father....”

Her eyes snapped open as she shook herself out of the dream which wasn't hers, she blew air through her nostrils forcefully making a warning sound which caused the male at the front of the square cave to look back at her. He looked as she tasted the air with her tongue, he took in the other male lying wounded bleeding, dying, the prey lying motionless behind the female, at his own wounds bleeding weakening him. He snapped his jaws and hissed at her, she shifted her position placing herself between him and the bait.

The female raptor, larger than both males and unhurt, opened her jaws and hissed long at her brother the male hissing at her. Her glance took in her other brother bleeding from wounds the mammals had made with their piercing stings. The dying raptor lay on its side still bleeding from the bullet holes in it's chest, bubbles of blood erupting from its nostrils as it wheezed trying to get air into it's punctured lungs. Her brother will die, her other brother also wounded and weakened may die as well. She couldn't allow that not yet she needed him to kill the other mammal the dangerous one, the one she could taste in her head.

With a deft move her leg snapped out, her hind claw ripping the dying raptors throat out it shuddered as it died. The other male came to it's feet a growl starting in it's throat but the female tilted its head and the growl died in the males throat.

She knew the male needed food, it wanted the mammal since that was the only food here and it knew it was too weak to hunt. She looked at her brother and at the dead raptor she tilted her head again, raptors don't eat their own kind, never. Her head moved again the male looked at the carcass on the floor back at her back at the meat then it moved to gorge itself on the food lying there waiting.

Her brother fed, but the effort to make him eat had tired her. She went back to the side of the strange cave to where the water dripped from a protrusion in the roof of the cave and collected in a pool where the flat odd ground had broken and collapsed. As she bent to drink she paused to look at the raptor looking back at her. She looked at her reflection and unlike either of her brothers or any of the others in her clutch, recognized it as herself. The mammal moved, she extended a claw and scratched it paralyzing it again with her poison. She needed the bait mammal to bring the other here then she could finish this and return to her mother triumphant.

 

Jerry Baker sat at the dinner table across from his young pretty wife, Karen. Even after a rough day like today just looking at her lifted him higher. He had fallen in love with her the minute he had seen her in High School almost tens years before and he couldn't image living a single day with out her. As they ate dinner and made banal small talk she kept smiling at him. Finally he couldn't hold it in anymore.

“Honey is something wrong ?”

Her laughter is like chimes in the wind

“No silly nothings wrong, except your going to be a father....”

 

Temple's eyes snapped open at the flutter on the edge of her mind. The ghosts were restless.

With effort Temple shoved the memories of Jerry back into the vault, that dark corner of her mind where she tried to keep the ghosts locked away. She didn't have time for them now, she had felt it again that mental twinge, alien and menacing, that left a bitter salty taste in her head. It wasn't like anything she had ever felt before, not since she had become a telepath, among other things, after the cascade.

She had first felt the twinge right before the attack but before she could even think about it the battle had started and the chaos had taken her. Just thinking about it triggered the flashback...

They had left the LZ almost and hour ago making their way on foot into the ruined city that had once been home to some 13,000 people before the cascade. None of them had gotten out. Their target was the Los Alamos Labs, attempts had been made to destroy the buildings by air, and cruise missile but the jungle overgrowth had been too thick and the results indeterminate. It had been decided to send in a recon team to asses the actually site so a determination could be made on how to proceed.

This was Temple's first filed mission. Everyone thought she was too young, she was only sixteen and not even a member of the armed forces, but she had volunteered and she had unique abilities they wanted to utilize. After her “rescue” following the cascade they had moved her to a safe place to evaluate her and the dozen or so other people who had transformed during the event. While a couple of other had a telepathic ability none of them had it to the extent that she did. In fact thy still didn't know that she could read their minds without their knowing and that she could recall everything. They also didn't know about the ghosts. The Telepathy was nice they thought but what they really wanted from her was her ability to step. teleportation was her shining gift, so for no one else had developed that ability or if they had they weren't sharing it. So they wanted her for that. And that was ok she wanted to kill dinosaurs. She trained and she fought for the right to serve. In the end they gave in and so she found herself here after 15 months of training walking with six special forces troops into a jungle straight out of Jurassic park.

They had seen a few dinos of the plant eating kind and none of them had paid the slightest attention to them, still a mile from their target Hanks the troop on point signaled everyone dropped into their guard position, with weapons pointing out. Temple was in the middle of the circle, they hadn't given her a big gun all she had was a single pistol even thought she was actually a better shot than any of them. She left it in its holster. While she had been linked to the unit the whole time she had pushed the links into the back of her mind but now she felt the need to strengthening the links just in case they need her to step them out. She did a quiet scan of everyone getting positions and a read on them and that was when she felt the unknown mind.

It wasn't human that much she knew immediately. She didn't read a thought it was too fast for that, but it wasn't a normal animal either. She had experimented and while she could sense an animals brain there was no mind there no sense of self. This was a mind. This knew that it was!

That's when they attacked. Eight raptors came out as if set in an ambush for the troopers,they were fast and deadly. The troopers had been alerted by Hanks and opened fire. And Temple was overwhelmed. She had her visual and sensory input feeding everything into her brain etching itself into her memory for ever. After ward she would be able to give a complete description of every move and position during the battle with zero percent error. But she was also getting the sensory input from each trooper she was linked too as well as their thoughts she was experiencing the battle from their POV. It was too much her brains was overloading. She remembers a thought an image of Lt. Perkins shouting orders, commanding. Two of the eight raptors were down when they all shifted attention to the Lt. Another raptor was cut down as the remaining five got to the Lt. He screamed as they tore into him, but he wasn't alone she was there with him to the end.

It was only Lt. Perkins' screams that had brought her out and focused her on her job. There had been nothing she could do for him other than stay with him as he died adding his ghost to the others. Then she had grabbed the two nearest troopers and stepped them back to the secure evac area. As she had stepped into the LZ she was already screaming for evac and medics then, without pause she stepped back and grabbed Carter and Delgado. Before she stepped them back she had linked to Hanks and held it so she could step right back for him. No more than ten seconds from her first step had passed and she was back for Hanks. And he was gone. She scanned and found him but his mind was blank like it was in a fog she couldn't get an indication of where he was but he was alive. With no hesitation she grabbed the body of the Lt., noticing that another raptor was dead, Lt. Perkins combat knife protruding from it's eye, and stepped back to the LZ.

She didn't stop she dropped him right there and strode over to the pile of weapons and ammo that the medics had taken from the wounded grabbed a carbine and several packs of ammo.

The officer in charge of the evac planes. Shouted at her over the turbines spooling up.

“Ms. Faire, what are you doing we have to go”

She answered him telepathically

<Go, Hanks is still alive. We don't leave anyone behind. I'll bring us back to base when I find him.>

 

Then She stepped back.

That had been hours ago. Temple hadn't found any sign of Hanks except his rifle, she had found where he had used a grenade and gun fire to kill two more raptors. But nothing else. According to the classes she had taken the Raptors were hunters, they would have fed in place they don't scavenge and they don't pack food for a rainy day. If Hanks was dead his body or what was left of it should have been here or nearby. She had searched but found nothing. Her mind scans had given her some hope . Even if she couldn't link she felt him, and that meant he was within her range. Now she didn't know how far she could feel a mind without a link but it couldn't be that far. She had found a place to rest, had stayed out of the ruined buildings and climbed a tree. By then the adrenaline had left her body and the crushing weight had come in.

The ghosts had come then as she knew they would each in it's own way blaming her for what had happened to them. First to show up today was the freshest, Lt. Daniel Perkins, US Army. He hadn't wanted some stupid teenager with superpowers on his team, but the brass had insisted. He didn't want his team to have to carry her in a dangerous situation. Maybe he was right. She had frozen as soon as the shit hit the fan. She had argued with him in her head told him she hadn't frozen that it had been sensory overload something she hadn't been ready to deal with but she would now.

It was weird arguing with the ghosts. One part of her knew they were just memories and that she was really arguing with herself using those memories as a medium. Or was she. What if when they were linked as they died they passed what ever made them them into her. What if they really were ghosts. The thought chilled her to the bone. Whatever the truth of it was they still had each come, one at a time, telling her that she was going to get them all killed again if she didn't go back now. Samantha was last standing there like she always was whole and dressed for school.

“Your not real, go away.”

“Of course I'm real, stupid, we all are. As real as you, as this jungle that used to be a city, as those raptors.” Samantha walked closer to Temple and Temple shied away as she caught the smell of her sister the silly perfume she used to wear. “Why are you doing this Temp? Why get your self killed for some guy you don't even know?”

“Because, Sam, they took him just like they took you, I didn't save you and I didn't leave you behind. I wont leave him. I won't leave anyone.”

“She wont stop either, Temp. She tasted your mind during the fight, she wont stop until your dead. He's just bait.

“I know.”

Temple knew now that there had been nine raptors, the eight that had attacked, and one more directing them, a female. A female that was a telepath. Like her. That realization chilled her blood. They weren't just wild animals at least not all of them. And If there was one there would be more. She knew she should abandon this crazy idea of rescuing Hanks. Report back what she knew. But in reality what did she know all she had was the slight touch of the alien mind and the coordination of the attack and that she thought it had taken one of the men to use as bait. She needed more. She needed the raptor. And she needed to find Hanks. We don't leave anyone behind. Temple looked down from her vantage point above where Hank's had been when he was taken. She could see where they had dragged him off, she probably could have followed the trail but that's what it wants. No, she thought, I need a plan.

The mammal hadn't come. The bait lay there paralyzed by the poison but she could still taste its mind and if she tried she could taste the mammal as well. But it hadn't come for it. The Female paced the square cave tail thrashing with annoyance. Her brother growing agitated with her pacing hissed at her, she spun on him giving voice to her frustration and whipping his mind at the same time. The smaller male shrunk from the two pronged warning of the female. She tasted his fear which further annoyed her. And worse she tasted mothers annoyance at her and at how long it was taking. Angering mother was not good. She spun again and looked at the bait. It had come for the others but not this one. She moved close the the bait sniffed it, tasted its mind all foggy with nothing she could recognize as a thought. She prodded it with her foot. The male stirred and she hissed at him again until he stilled. She was leery of tasting the mammals mind it was alien and confusing. But she had to know.

Chaos! Sharp piercing bangs! Her brothers attacking and ripping the mammals. Quiet Hunt silence. The bait in the jungle waiting. The same place again and again without the bait. Different positions. Different angles. Confusion. The mammal is lost confused. It keeps going back and forth from where the bait was to where it's alpha was killed.

The female hisses and clicks it's teeth and the male stands tense, ready to hunt. There is no room for error the female tilts her head eye half closed and pushes herself into the male.

He bounds out of the ruined building and streaks through the jungle the prey unaware, his sister with him guiding him. Moving swiftly yet silently the perfect hunting machine covers the distance from their mammal constructed cave to the site of the earlier ambush. The hunter, now a strange conglomeration of the unintelligent male and the telepathic female, slows as the first scent of old blood comes to his nostrils. His tongue flicks and he sniffs, trying to catch the scent of he mammal, but all that comes to him is a confusion of blood and earth. Keeping her hold on the male she reaches out tasting with her mind...

Chaos! Sharp piercing bangs! Her brothers attacking and ripping the mammals. Quiet Hunt silence. The bait in the jungle waiting. The same place again and again without the bait. Different positions. Different angles. Confusion. The mammal is lost confused. It keeps going back and forth from where the bait was to where it's alpha was killed. It is lost without the alpha it searches for direction where the alpha died, the agony the mammal feels at the loss of the alpha is overwhelming. There! She sees it through the males eyes it kneels where the alpha mammal and her brothers died. LEAP! She screams into the males mind and he shoots forward powerful legs propelling him at the small mammal kneeling in the dirt and blood, his jaws wide ready to taste the blood of this prey...

“Temp, stupid, your about to become Dino kibble if you don't step”

Temple listens to he sister and steps to where Lt Perkins stands waiting for her in the tree beside the trigger she had tapped there under his direction earlier.

“Wait for it Faire.”

The male Raptor's jaws snap shut, not on soft flesh, but on empty air. The female is stunned, the males confusion overwhelms her momentarily as he spins looking for the Prey which isn't there.

“Now Faire, Now!” Perkins hisses into her mind and she clicks the detonator. The sounds is loud and the blast sends the tree she is in whipping back and forth so violently she drops the detonator and wraps her arms around the trunk. The clearing below is wreathed in fire and smoke as the six claymore mines she had rescued from the dropped packs and assembled under direction of Lt. Perkins ghost send their 4200 steel pellets crossfire into the killing zone turning the raptor to ground meat.

The female screams in her mind and in the ruined building/cave she feels the pellets rip her last brother to pieces feels him die...feels death herself. She thrashes in agony as the feedback rips her mind the mental pain bleeds into anger then rage. The mammal still lives! She throws her mind out seeking with the full force of her power and meets the mammals mind their thoughts slam into each other intertwine barriers drop and pure thought overcomes all.

Invader/Killer/Murderer/Destroyer

Temple Thought <Why are you doing this Why are you here>

Neeth thought <you destroy our hunting grounds Poison our Jungles and plains>

Temple and Neeth Thought <You are Invaders>

Neeth Thought <You killed my Brothers>

Temple Thought <you killed my family first>

Neeth Thought <Neeth will kill you will rip your flesh and feast on you! Neeth Is Coming for YOU!>

Temple Thought < No need I'm already here.>

The raptor scents the mammal and the blood and the oil all at once and starts to spin when the bullets tear into its back blowing its spine away. The female raptor falls to the floor thrashing as it dies. Her brief life flashes thru her mind from the moment she hatched, the first touch of mothers mind, her brothers, thru all the days of her life, to the deaths of her brothers leaving her alone in her failure to kill the mammal to this moment, the moment of her death.

But she was not alone.

 

AFTERMATH

The two men sat on the bench watching the planes taxiing, one was John Gaalf newly appointed director of the CRRD, the other was Antoine Fische a doctor of physics in the CRRD's employ. Both of them enjoyed watching the planes. Fische tapped the secure tablet sitting on the bench between them.

“Do you believe her, John?”

Gaalf shrugged.

“Lot of strange things since the cascade hell I see men fly and shoot lasers from theirs eye and we have dinosaurs roaming around free. It's a new world.” He picks up the tablet and looks briefly at the picture of the young girl. “The dinosaur experts say it isn't possible that they don't have the nervous system to support such a thing. Would have been nice to have been able to examine the body.”

Fische take a hard candy from his pocket unwraps it, puts it on his tongue and puts the wrapper neatly folded into his jacket pocket.

“About the girl, Dr. rose is diagnosing schizophrenia and wants to take her to a safe zone for treatment. She says the ghosts as the girl calls them are just manifestations of her illness. I'm not really sure why you wanted me to read the file frankly.”

“Because your my expert on Dimensional physics. She say the raptor, Neeth, she says that's it's name, called us invaders. I sit possible?”

Fische look off across the field.

“We haven't confirmed the existence of alternate dimensions, you know that john. But having said that it is a plausible explanation I suppose.”

Gaalf looks at his friend and nods understanding his reticence to commit.

“Well it's a colorful story anyway.”

“What are you going to do with the girl?” asked the scientist.

John Gaalf newly appointed Director of the CRRD powered off the tablet and stood up.

“She's an asset Antoine, with a perfect storm of abilities which are so far unique and very useful. And like all assets We use them until they are no longer useful, then we replace them.”