Jack decided that he did not like Austin Findley. After they had discussed the main points of the deal, they had spent the majority of the night arguing over the small details. Austin had seemed offended at every issue, and wanted to change every detail of each point they discussed. Jack was sure the man was trying to squeeze his tribe for everything they were worth. Part of the problem was that the doctor easily had fifteen years of experience on Jack, and clearly looked down on the younger man. He had belittled the twine they brought, even though the plant fiber that the Roaring Falls Tribe had made their twine from was better suited for it, and longer than the short jungle ferns the Deep Water Tribe was forced to use. The man also seemed to have a distaste for the dinosaurs and had done his best to downplay their importance and utility in negotiation. It was infuriating, and they would have come to blows at least twice if Soren hadn’t stepped in to defuse the situation. At the end of the negotiation Jack was mentally drained and took great joy in the look on Austin’s face when he had refused to budge on making the “trade deal” official then and there. He had thought, and never bothered to confirm until several hours into the negotiation-turned-argument, that Jack was the leader of the tribe. They had managed to secure a general alliance and promises for trade and support in addition for as much medical knowledge as Shelby could absorb until they left. All they had to do was kill a predator.

  They spent the rest of the night in much nicer company. Jess had stayed out of the negotiations, leaving and returning an hour later to provide everyone with water and some fish. Then she left again, only to ambush Jack as soon as he was done and ask if she could pet Tilly. He had declined until the alliance was official so there was no chance the Sabertooth would accidentally kill her. She brought them all to the fire and they spent another hour chatting and meeting the other folk in the tribe. The majority of them were from Florida. Some of them were from the area around Tampa, while the rest were from a mix of other random counties. They had all been traveling to Tampa when the world ended, and most of them had gotten along with each other very well.

  There was a young man and his girlfriend who spoke with a thick Cajun accent that Jack was far too tired to try and decipher, but they seemed nice. Clara made friends with a handful of the women, and Soren got into a thirty minute discussion with another young man about Poke?mon and their favorite shows from earth.

  Sleep was slow to come to Jack as he laid his head down beside Clara. The Deep Water tribe didn’t have a spare tent for their guests, but Jack was starting to get used to sleeping outdoors and without a comfortable bed. He did miss his bed and Tilly made for a solid replacement for his pillow, though the smell of blood never seemed to truly fade from her claws and teeth. He had watched her test the water, but had been too tired to try and clean the big kitty, especially with Nessie lurking nearby. Jess was very proud of the name for what had turned out to be a juvenile Elasmosaurus. Despite having room to grow, she was already nearly twenty five feet long with needle sharp teeth. The women in the tribe had used one of her teeth for their own sewing attempts, and had far more luck with it than the Roaring Falls tribe had with the Nomingia teeth. They were on the list of things to trade for. Unfortunately, the surprisingly friendly marine reptile was not like a shark and her teeth did not fall out and regrow regularly. They would have to find another one to hunt, or more likely find other predators that ate fish and hunt them.

  Soren had decided to sleep near Shelby inside the camp, but Jack and Clara had felt safer with the dinosaurs. Thrasher snored softly in front of them, and the Golden Girls all bedded down beside each other in a circle with their bellies on the inside. It reminded Jack of how wagon trains in the old west would circle to provide cover to their passengers, or at least how the cartoons he had watched portrayed it. He thought there may have been some saying about circling wagons but he was too tired to remember.

  Tilly was warm, Clara was warm, and the night was pleasant. The layers of mud and grime from their travel kept most of the bugs off. Jack had gone nose blind to the smell of sweat days ago. He watched the stars for a while. All of them were new. He could imagine a giant shield covering the world like the aliens had described, turning this world into a nature preserve for the cosmic miracle that was Earth. Jack’s eyes grew heavy and he eventually fell asleep.

  He awoke the next morning with Clara’s head laying on his lap. She had slid off Tilly at some point and used him as a pillow. Tilly huffed for him to get up and he blinked the sleep out of his eyes as he yawned and sat up. Tilly immediately got up and trotted off to catch herself breakfast. It was a bit later than he had wanted to sleep in, but after the huge hike the day before, and all of the other stresses from the past two weeks, he knew he needed every minute of sleep that he could get.

  It was easy enough to move Clara off him and stand up. She yawned and started to wake up. Jack stretched and grabbed his water bottle, taking a sip before putting it down beside Clara and going to check on the dinosaurs. He started to pet Thrasher as the lazy Parasaur pretended to stay asleep, causing a smile to form on Jack’s lips.

  “Sleep well?” Clara asked as she sat up.

  “Took a while to get there, but I did. The stars here are something else. Once life calms down some I'll have to study them.” He responded.

  “How do you do that? Just look up at them each night and memorize their location? Or do you have to draw them?” She asked. That question made Jack blink.

  “You know, I’m not actually sure. I know people back in ancient Egyptian times studied them. And even before them, some cultures built their temples and tombs to let in the light on the equinox, but I don’t remember learning how they actually did all that.” He scratched his head as he thought about it.

  “Well, maybe wait until we have a way to make paper before you get too invested in that.” Clara said, standing up and joining him beside Thrasher. “Any plans for how we are going to kill the Baryonyx?”

  “Honestly? I haven’t thought about it at all. Austin took all of my patience last night. We could try setting a trap? Or just go try and hunt it down and rely on stealth and Tilly to kill it.” Jack said as he finally got Thrasher to lift his head and start waking up.

  “Last time when we had the entire tribe with us, two people died, and we only drove it off. Now there are only three of us and a Sabertooth. I don’t like our odds in a straight fight.” She said.

  “Last time we had just arrived, we were using barely sharpened sticks, and were all in shock from the end of the world. I think we will do better today. I am tempted to try and figure out a trap, but honestly I don’t know how to make anything that would even slow down something that size. Mattock is the hunting expert. We know it likes humans, but I think it's more interested in easy meals because its injuries don’t let it catch fish. Even if we used human blood to try and lure it in, we would just attract everything in the jungle that eats meat.” Jack explained his thoughts slowly as he had them.

  “So we try to track it? Attack while it is resting or distracted? Maybe find its nest or lair or whatever and ambush it there?” Clara asked.

  “That works for me. At the end of the day, I suspect we will find it or it will find us, and it will come down to a fight. It's injured and we have gotten better at fighting. It should be doable.” Jack shrugged. Tilly was back with a Compy in her mouth.

  “Should we even bring Thrasher and the Chungs?” She had moved closer to the three armored herbivores and was petting one of them. All three were being friendly with her so he wasn’t sure if it was Rose or not.

  “Yes. They are our biggest advantage. Even if they won’t be stealthy. We can’t really leave them here anyway.” Jack grabbed his water bottle and finished off what was left.

  “Did the alliance become official?” Clara asked, gesturing to the bracelet.

  Jack checked the alliance tab. And nodded.

  “They are listed, alongside the bullet points of what we agreed to last night. But even so, those two aren't tamed, so I don’t want to leave them alone. We are still responsible for them and if they hurt someone things could get tense.” Jack gestured to the still sleeping dinosaurs.

  Before they could chat further, Soren and Jess left the wall and joined them. Soren was looking much better, the bags under his eyes all but gone. Jess was nearly vibrating with excitement, and her Microraptor sat on her shoulder making a chirping noise at Tilly as the big cat watched them approach.

  “Morning.” Both Jack and Soren greeted each other. Jess waved but her eyes were only for Tilly.

  “Can I pet her now? Austin said the alliance worked, and Soren was able to pet Aurora here.” Jess said, and her Microraptor chirped in excitement at her name.

  Soren nodded to Jack, and Jack shrugged in return.

  “Go for it.” He gestured at Tilly and rubbed her head. The big cat was absorbed in her meal, but still pushed against his hand to deepen the rubs.

  Jess came up beside her and softly ran her hands down Tilly’s back. When she started to purr, the excited young woman started to give harder scratches where the Sabertooth seemed to like them. She made cooing sounds, and muttered something about Tilly being a good kitty under her breath.

  “Any issues last night?” Soren asked.

  “Nope, it was nice and warm.” Jack said. He caught Clara blushing faintly as Soren raised his eyebrows. Jack shook his head at his friend.

  “Ready to go kill a superpredator?” He asked, getting them back on track.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  “Do we have a plan for this?” Soren’s smirk fell off his face as he became serious.

  “Try and track it back to its nest. Ambush it when it comes back. We will probably be out all day.” Jack said, raising his club onto his shoulder.

  “Shall we get going then?” Jess asked.

  “Are you coming with us? Should we wait for anyone else?” Clara found her voice to ask.

  “I’m the only one with the balls to come fight with you. Nemesis has everyone scared shitless. But I just want to see it dead.” Jess answered, and Aurora chirped.

  “If we need to be stealthy, we shouldn’t bring the Chungs. They aren’t tamed, and won’t sit quietly near a predator’s nest.” Soren said.

  “I can get some of the men to watch them and make sure they don’t wander off. We have plenty of old farts who would love nothing more than to hang out and watch the grass grow all day.” Jess offered.

  Jack weighed his options. The Chung’s could be a massive asset in the battle, but so would the element of surprise. The Baryonix had tried to ambush them twice when they encountered it on the first day, and after doing some hunting Jack knew that the best way to win this fight would be to strike first. He trusted Jess, and at the end of the day he would rather risk some dinos he didn’t know instead of putting his own people’s lives in the hands of the Deep Water tribe any more than he already was. If his test was to kill Nemesis, Austin’s would be to keep Shelby and the Chung’s safe while he did it.

  “Lets leave them here.” He said.

  The group finished their preparations, Jess got two fishermen to keep an eye on the Golden Girls, then joined them with her makeshift bow. Clara made sure their water was full and that her stone spear was ready. Soren and Jack both sharpened their wooden spears. Jack was tempted to postpone for the day and have Clara show them how to make more of the stone spearheads. But every day they delayed was another day Gordon could be dying.

  When everyone was ready, they took off into the jungle. Tilly and Thrasher seemed right at home in the dense vegetation, and Aurora appeared to be happy on Jess’s shoulder. Thrasher was in front with Soren and the big dino pushed through the thick foliage and cleared a path for the rest of them. Tilly was just gone, making no noise as she stalked around them. The last several days of this had started to make Jack comfortable knowing the death kitty was somewhere around him. If he couldn’t see her, no one else would either.

  They walked through the jungle for thirty minutes before they came across a game trail. They hadn't seen anything of note other than some colorful birds in the treetops. Thrasher hadn't been loud, which was surprising to Jack, but the jungle was just too thick to truly move quietly. The task of finding Nemesis suddenly felt monumental. They could wander the jungle for days and not find anything. Or they could just get lost. The trees were too thick to see the mountains, and there was no stream to follow to stay on track. He could use the map function to orient himself, but it would be best to save that for when they needed to head back to the lake.

  Soren and Clara started to examine the tracks on the game trail, with Jess looking over their shoulders and asking questions. Jack took a look at the muddy tracks and couldn’t make out a single thing about them. There were too many and they all blended together. But his friends and tribe members seemed to have an idea of what they were looking at.

  “I have no clue what most of these are.” Soren said, and Jack sighed to himself.

  “But, this one here, looks about the right size and has the right number of toes with claws that dug in here.” He continued.

  “Any idea how fresh it is?” Jess asked.

  Soren rocked his head from side to side slowly.

  “Ehhh. Somewhat. It looks like this trail gets a lot of traffic. So they can’t be more than two days old. Probably.” He stood up.

  “Looks like he went that way.” Clara pointed down the trail. Jack couldn’t tell what direction it was, and he supposed it didn’t matter.

  “Should we follow it? Or work backwards and look for a nest?” Jess asked.

  “The tracks are old, and we don’t know how fast he moves through the jungle. We could be miles behind him. I say we try to find the nest, and set up an ambush there.” Jack said.

  They all stood up, nodding. They trusted him, and it warmed his heart. He took a breath and started to lead them down the trail, his eyes scanning the woods on each side of the path. He carried his spear in his hands and his club on his back. He caught sight of Tilly on his right several times, stalking through the dense underbrush.

  The sounds of several large animals moving through the forest came from ahead of them, and Jack led them off the path to avoid them. As the group moved closer they saw a handful of Parasaurs. Five males that looked to be slightly younger than Thrasher. Soren started to pet him, and they took a wide detour to avoid any issues.

  “I thought they were one of the friendlier dinos?” Jess asked, picking up on the tension in the Roaring Falls members as they held their spears tight.

  “We watched Thrasher fight a thirty foot long crocodile and come out without a scratch. Those are all young bull Parasaurs, just like him. We have no idea how they will react to each other, and if they start a fight we don’t want to be in the middle of it. One swipe of a tail can break our legs. And if we are stepped on, we are dead. Herbivores can be just as dangerous if not more so than the carnivores.” Soren said.

  “The crock wasn’t thirty feet. And he didn’t fight it alone.” Clara said.

  “He did a lot of work in that fight.” Soren defended his exaggeration.

  Thrasher huffed out a sharp breath as if agreeing with him.

  “Still. I don’t think he could have killed the croc on his own.” Clara pushed.

  “Talk when we stop to camp. Don’t rile Thrasher or the others up.” Jack lightly scolded. He had been watching the other dinos and could tell they were on edge. One of them had scratch marks down the left side of its back leg and he thought the wound looked infected.

  “I think we are in the right area. Keep your noses open. I can’t imagine that the nest will smell very good.” Jack said as the group of Parasaurs finally stopped paying Thrasher any mind.

  They followed the path through the jungle for roughly four hours and were on high alert the entire time. Sweat dripped down their faces as noon rolled around. They had to stop every hour to rest and drink water. They rationed it as much as they could, and looked for more sources of clean water as they traveled. The game path eventually crossed a small stream of fast moving water. They drained their water bottle and filled it with the stream water, but didn’t risk drinking from it until they could boil it. They found large spiders and ants, killing a few and avoiding them where they could. The spiders were so large that they couldn’t hide well, and were easy for Jack to crush with his club.

  When the jungle path opened up into a small meadow they stopped. Tilly came out of the woods with another Compy in her mouth and laid down to eat. They made a small fire and boiled their water before drinking it and backtracking to refill the waterbottle again. They were quiet, most of the chatter had stopped when Jack had killed the first spider. Everyone was on high alert, and they were getting tired. They ate some fish, courtesy of Jess, then were back on the hunt. Clara found more tracks that matched the size and shape of a Baryonyx, and they followed them backwards.

  They followed the steam uphill for another two hours, slowly climbing up the shallow slope. The terrain gradually turned from the soft mud to harder dirt and stone. The tacks became more difficult to follow, until they lost them completely. They stopped and spread out, walking in a large circle around where the last clear track was. Jack was starting to give up hope when Tilly started to bristle. He got low and drew his spear, moving as quietly as he could towards the Sabertooth.

  “See anything girl?” He whispered, petting her softly.

  She started to stalk forward around a large tree trunk. Jack followed, he tried to move silently, but wasn’t nearly as stealthy as Tilly. She circled the tree and moved behind a boulder, then further to another tree. Jack listened. He couldn’t hear anything, but when he stopped and focused, he caught the smell of rotting meat on the wind.

  Tilly led Jack to the edge of a scree field. The first time the vegetation had cleared out since the meadow below. Five hundred feet of loose stones had tumbled down the mountainside, and had made a steep enough hill that nothing could grow. At the bottom, there was a pile of sticks and moss. It looked like a burn pile and was well hidden. If not for the smell of death rolling off it, they never would have found it. He just hoped that it belonged to the right dinosaur.

  “Good girl. Let's go get the others.” He pet Tilly and pulled her back into the woods. They moved quietly to where the group had split up. Thrasher and Clara were there, and Soren and Jess joined them a few minutes later.

  “I think I found the nest. It's at the bottom of a scree field about ten minutes that way.” Jack pointed.

  “Why would a Baryonyx live so far from water?” Soren asked. “Don’t they eat fish?”

  “How close are we to the lake?” Jess asked. They all shrugged. They had gotten turned around in the jungle.

  “Let's use the map to see where we are.” Clara suggested. “We are going to wait to see if we have the right nest anyway, might as well know what direction to head when we are done or if we need to run.”

  Jack nodded and pulled up the map. They had walked in a big circle, moving into the jungle and around the base of the mountain, but they had stayed within a mile or two of the lake shore the entire time. Now they were just under a mile from its northern edge. Surprisingly close to where Jack and the others had arrived on Kittis.

  They all looked at the map and got their orientation. They could make it back to the Deep Water tribe in a few hours if they jogged. Jess was very interested in their map, and Jack realized too late that she could see all the areas that they had uncovered. The river valley and the location of the Roaring Falls camp. He supposed it didn’t matter, but kicked himself for being careless.

  They walked up to the scree field and set up a small camp where they could watch the nest. Soren kept Thrasher back in the treeline, laying down and resting. He watched their backs to make sure nothing would come up on them. The rest of them kept their eyes on the nest and the surrounding trees. Tension was high as they gripped their spears, mentally preparing for the predator to jump out at any minute.

  It turned out that stakeouts were nothing like the TV shows. The next four hours were extremely boring. After half an hour the tension lessened and after an hour passed they started to get bored. They had nothing to do, and didn’t want to risk speaking to draw attention from the creatures of the jungle. After three hours, Jack couldn’t keep his attention on the woods. They took turns, spending half an hour napping or tending to the animals, then swapping who was watching each side. Jack and Clara took the first naps, then Soren and Jess. Night was starting to fall and the jungle noise was starting to change.

  Jack was about to suggest they move camp further from the nest and make a fire, send Tilly to get some meat and cook fresh dinner, when Clara waved her hand and got everyone's attention. She pointed down the hill, where a Baryonix had returned to the nest.