Up a Tree (p.14)
The Doctor spun when he heard Amy scream.
He ran, Rory was already ahead of him. He could see Amy flailing, beyond a stand of ferns, her arms covered with quicksand.
"Hold on, Amy!" he yelled. Rory got there first, he stretched, but couldn't reach her. He lay down on his stomach and leaned out farther.
"Honeytrap!" Erik bellowed. Everyone else dropped what they were doing and fell into a well prepared drill. "Don't touch it, Rory!" the big man bellowed. "Keep your eyes closed, Amy," he ordered.
"It stings!" Amy half cried, half whimpered.
"Doctor!" Rory turned, demanding.
The Doctor ran and yanked the slat side off one of the caravan carts. He hauled it over and plopped it down beside Rory. The end plapped into the quicksand beside Amy.
The Doctor threw himself down on his knees on the end, anchoring it. "Don't struggle, Amy. Reach out with your left hand, there's boards right beside you." She was sunk shoulder deep in the gritty, tan colored mire, hair and face plastered with the goo. He could see tracks where she was crying under it, that was good, crying was good, it would keep the stuff out of her eyes.
She reached out, flailing. The other hunters had formed up around them now, all of them quivering with tension.
"That's right, Amy," Rory said encouragingly. "Just a little more to your left. That's it. You've got it. Hold on!"
He and the Doctor grabbed the slats at the other end and pulled. It was like trying to haul a car. The goop sucked at her, dragging at her, she huffed and whimpered, like she'd been kicked in the stomach, but she held on tight.
"Slow down, Rory," the Doctor whispered. "That's it Amy, hold on. Keep your eyes shut. We're going to pull you out a little at a time, slowly, so the vacuum doesn't rip you in half."
"What!" Rory yelled.
"Did I say that? I didn't say that," the Doctor whittered. He gave Rory a grimace. "Just hold on Amy, almost there."
Bill and Brian stepped forward, they grabbed her arms, and pulled her up the slats. The ooze released her with a sucking plop.
Amy fell forward. Rory jumped forward, but Janet was suddenly there. "Stand back, Rory," she shoved him back with a firm palm. "We know what to do."
Rory looked around, the other hunters hadn't been idle. There were two large blue barrels of water sitting behind them, and a pile of large, elephant ear leaves.
"Rory?" Amy quavered, eyes shut.
"It's okay, Amy, we're here, we're both here, the Doctor's right here with me."
"Doctor! It's stinging!" Amy pushed frantically at the gunk coating her arms and face.
"Amy," the Doctor said in a firm voice, "We're going to take care of it. Stop struggling. Keep your eyes closed. We need to scrape the stuff off you, everyone’s going to help, but they can’t if you keep struggling.”
Amy whimpered, but sat still, trembling. The Doctor nodded at Janet.
Janet, Bill, and Eula all grabbed leaves and started scraping the gunk off of her, careful not to touch it. It was gritty and tan, the way wood gets when it's decayed, not the color of the local mud.
Rory was practically jittering from foot to foot with the desire to help. But there was only so much space around Amy. Erik and the rest had formed a perimeter around them, guns up, keeping guard.
“Amy, tilt your head back,” the Doctor said. “We’re going to pour water over you to rinse the stuff off your face. Keep your mouth closed.” He nodded at Pickles, who was standing ready with a large bowl that he dipped into the barrels beside him.
The Doctor nudged Janet out of the way and knelt beside Amy. Amy tilted her head back. He could already see that her skin was red and raw. Eula squeezed out the last of the goop in her hair using one of the leaves.
Pickles carefully poured the water over Amy’s upturned face. The stuff was sticky, and didn’t want to rinse away. The Doctor took a leaf and gently scrubbed at her face until it let go. Pickles kept pouring, bowl after bowl, slowly sluicing it away. The Doctor massaged the water over her closed eyes, and back through her hair.
Amy whimpered. “I know it hurts,” the Doctor said softly, “But we’ve got to get it off.”
Finally, her hair and eyes were clear. “Open your eyes,” the Doctor said, throwing aside his leaf and watching carefully.
Amy blinked open red, bloodshot eyes. He examined them carefully. “Can you see me?” he asked.
She blinked, but nodded. “You’re a bit blurry.”
He smiled and cupped her cheeks. “That’ll pass,” he reassured her.
Amy looked down and wiggled, pushing at her soaking clothes. Every bit of her skin that they could see was red and angry looking. “It’s still on me!” Amy gave an itchy shriek, standing up and pushing at her clothes.
“Ah, your department, I think, Rory.” The Doctor stood up, and Rory jumped forward, grateful to finally be able to do something.
The Doctor turned his back while Rory, Bill and Janet helped divest Amy of her contaminated clothing. He walked over and inspected the quicksand pool, throwing glares at a couple of the guards who were watching Amy. They turned around, scanning the jungle.
Nelda dropped out of the tree beside him. She looked up at him, then started rummaging in the plants around the edge of the quicksand. She stripped off a handful of leaves from a plant that grew around the base of the tree by the pool and started chewing.
She ambled over to Amy.
Amy was now sitting naked, scrubbed pink on a dry patch of ground, out of the infected puddle her scrubbing had caused. Her clothes lay in a disintegrating heap a distance away. The boots had apparently protected her legs, they looked her normal pale complexion. But the rest of her was red and raw, like she’d been dipped in acid.
Nelda ambled up, studied her, then scooped up a handful of dirt and started smearing it on the newly clean, and red, skin of her thigh. “What? No Nelda,” Amy gently pushed away the Trelwins suedy hands, trying to brush the dirt off. The very air hurt on her clean skin, and the dirt was rough and gritty.
She still stung.
Janet tossed aside the towel she’d been drying Amy’s hair with. “She’s right,” Janet said, scooping up a handful of dirt and rubbing it on Amy’s raw arm. She grimace and shrugged when Amy looked at her in surprise. “Sorry, but the dirt helps neutralize the enzymes. It soothes and protects the skin while it heals.”
Pickles, who’d been standing aside handing out water and towels, nodded. He dug his heel into the dirt and swiveled a hole of loose dirt, he dribbled some clean water into it from the water barrels and stirred it with the toe of his boot until he had a thick slurry.
Amy grimaced. “But I just got clean!”
“She’s right, Amy,” Rory said, reaching for a handful. “Besides, you know mud packs are good for the skin.”
“Oh, don’t you start!” she complained as he slathered the mud over the back of her neck, which was especially raw. She shuddered, but only part in disgust at the slithery feel, mostly in relief as the stinging stopped and the burn seemed to leach away into the cool mud. She sighed with relief.
The others joined in, smearing the mud over her. Nelda took a green wad of masticated leaves out of her mouth and reached toward Amy’s face. Amy reared back. She turned her face away, Nelda’s hand followed it. ‘Whoa! Wait, what are you doing? Doctor, what is she doing?” she demanded, evading the Trelwin’s long arm.
“Nelda,” the Doctor said her name to draw her attention, then signed a question. The pale Trelwin put the leaves back in her mouth and signed an answer with both hands. The Doctor’s eyebrows rose and he held out a hand. Nelda put a pinch of the stuff in his palm.
He sniffed it, rubbed it between his fingers, then ran the sonic over it. “Huh!” He gave it back. Nelda turned back to Amy. “It’s okay, Amy. You need to put that on your eyes.”
“What, why?” Amy said, still looking at the Trelwin’s hand dubiously. “It’s full of Trelwin slobber!”
The Doctor smiled, his cheeks creasing. “It won’t hurt you. The leaves are an herb, like Eyebright, it will help your eyes. It’s okay.”
Dubiously, Amy let Nelda pat the green mass onto her eyes.
“Just lay back for about 20 minutes and let it work,” Janet said, as they finished covering her in mud. She helped Amy lay back. Rory draped the towel over her torso.
“Why do I feel like I’m being mummified?” Amy complained.
“Think of it as a spa day,” the Doctor said, grinning down at her, slathered in mud, green on her eyes, and a towel draped over her.
Amy grunted.
-----
Erik decided to set up camp. It was obvious Amy wasn’t going anywhere, and they were already a jump ahead with this cocoon stash. He sent a few men out to scout around and see if they could find any more cocoons nearby, and assigned everyone else camp chores.
The Doctor ended up helping pack the cocoons on the cart. Pickles and Brian started supper, and everyone else alternated guard duty, gathering firewood, and setting up tents and hammocks.
-----
“A carnivorous tree?” Amy stared at the Doctor. “I was almost eaten by a carnivorous tree?” she said sarcastically. She looked much better now, in the firelight, all the mud and herbs had been washed off. Long legged Janet had loaned her a pair of jeans. Eula, who was about her size, had loaned her a spare shirt. Her boots had survived and been cleaned. Her skin was only lightly pink now, and her eyes were much improved, they no longer looked like boiled eggs on steroids.
“Digested,” the Doctor corrected her. “The tree secretes digestive enzymes which forms a pool at its base that animals fall into. They’re slowly digested and the tree absorbs the nutrients.
“Jungle soil isn’t actually all that fertile,” he continued, ”despite all the plants. So any extra nutrients are welcome. I told you every world has its own dangers.”
“Ugh!” Amy said. “I preferred it in the tree. At least there all you had to worry about was falling to your death.”
Erik set a plate of food in front of her. “That seems to be the general consensus.”
-----
They were back on the trail the next morning, the tents and hammocks packed away, everyone alert and spread out to look for more cocoons. Amy watched where she put her feet this time, and it took her a while to get Rory to go off with his own group, but eventually everything settled down into routine.
Rory didn’t like leaving Amy by herself in this jungle, not after yesterday. He had been frightened more by Amy’s obvious terror than by what had actually happened. He wasn’t used to seeing Amy afraid, and it unsettled him in ways he didn’t expect.
He tried to shake off the feeling and pay attention. Brian and Shale weren’t talkative types, and scouting with them tended to be a bit monotonous, at least there was plenty to look at.
He tried not to think of Aaron, lying in some hospital room somewhere, comatose. He had far too much experience with coma patients to be sanguine about that. He hoped the Doctor knew what he was doing.
He shook those thoughts out of his head and paid attention to his surroundings. The track they were calling a trail this morning was off to his left, he could just see the carts floating along beyond the screen of trees. Shale was patrolling behind him, and Brian was a little farther in.
They’d already found one cocoon this morning. It seemed to put everyone in a good mood. The jungle was fascinating, if claustrophobic. He’d seen several more of the Trelwees, and something that looked like a delicate antlered deer, except it was eight feet tall at the shoulder and covered with the same suedy hide as everything else here.
Another of the puffball creatures had burst out of the bushes, wailing like a siren, flushed out accidentally by Brian. Rory’s heart had about exploded at the unexpected sound. It had scared off the big deer. And as it bounced away, Rory was near enough to tell that the puffy fur of the creature was actually some sort of feathers, fluffed out like a startled bird.
“What are those things?” Rory demanded, as he picked himself up from where he’d fallen backwards when the thing exploded across his path.
“Nuisances,” Shale said succinctly. He gave Rory a hand up and swung around to continue the search. None of the hunters let their guards down for an instant in the jungle.
It wasn’t until after lunch that he found out why.
-----
Amy scraped up the last of the beans on her plate and turned to Pickles with a smile. “You sir, are a genius. That was delicious! What do you put in those?” she asked, smiling winsomely at the cook.
“What she said,” the Doctor said, hair flopping over his forehead as he grinned and held out his plate. “Any chance of another helping?”
Pickles laughed at the Doctor’s flagrant mooching, he was already on his third helping. He spooned more beans onto the Doctor’s plate and watched with satisfaction as the Time Lord scraped them up with gusto.
Suddenly every hunter in the clearing was on his feet, guns raised, facing outward. The hairs on Amy’s body stood up at the abrupt transformation.
They were all still as statues, almost visibly trembling with strain. “Wha...?” She fell quiet as the Doctor grabbed her arm tightly. He was staring off into the forest, as tense as any of the hunters. Rory, beside him, was standing at rigid attention.
Everyone was staring at the far wall of the jungle. “Not a sound...” the Doctor whispered almost subvocally, the words more shapes on his lips than audible.
His grip was hurting her arm.
Something beyond the clearing moved. Something big. Amy’s breath stuttered in her throat. It was like the whole opposite wall of the forest moved. Shadowed patterns beyond the leaves and boles shifted.
One of the big deer suddenly bounded into the clearing. Something lashed sideways, knocking saplings over with a crash. There was a crunch and an agonized squeal.
Erik fired. With a “pfft” like a rocket launcher, something behind the trees lurched sideways. And exploded. Half a deer carcass flew over Amy’s head. Blood pattered down into the Doctor’s dish.
The ground shook as something landed.
There was a sheer, shocked silence.
The Doctor set his metal plate down with a clatter. “I think I’m done now.”
That seemed to break the spell. Sound leached back into the clearing as the hunters unfroze and checked the perimeter. More than one gun was cocked loudly.
“Right,” Erik said, lowering his oversized gun. Amy had thought it was just some macho statement. “Brian, see if we can salvage any of that deer, venison would be welcome. Everyone else, get cleaned up, we’re moving out.”
The Doctor was already standing beside him, vibrating with curiosity. Amy and Rory joined him, feeling the need to be close, it wasn’t necessarily safer around the Doctor, but when things got scary, it was the place to be.
Erik took one look at the Doctor’s face and nodded. “All right, but just a minute.” He led them over to the edge of the jungle. Gun still out. Janet and Silas had joined them, also alert and armed.
Erik took them around the upturned trees and ducked into the edge of the forest.
“Oh my God,” Rory said quietly.
Half the thing’s head had been blown away, it still had half the deer in what remained of its jaw, and it was thirty feet long from heavy shoulders to haunch, not even counting the powerful tail.
“It’s as big as a dinosaur!” Amy exclaimed, looking around uneasily, but her eyes were drawn inevitably back to the monster.
There was no other word for it. Patterned green and brown hide, striped like a tiger, pebbled skin, clawed feet, hundreds of pointy teeth lining a huge triangular jaw.
“More like a dragon,” the Doctor said, examining the heavy skull. It was as tall as he was. “A Komodo dragon to be precise.”
“But it was so silent! How could something that size be silent?” Amy demanded. There was something unsettling in that. Like it was cheating. Nothing that big should be able to sneak up on people.
“It’s a predator,” Erik said, shipping his rifle on his hip, the enlarged barrel pointing at the sky. “This isn’t a botanical park you know. Things get eaten here.”
The Doctor looked up from the bloody cavernous hole in the creatures head, it had taken off nearly half the skull. “Explosive shells?” he asked.
Erik nodded. “We have to. Regular bullets wouldn’t have any affect on something that size. It would be like throwing sand at it. Most of our ammunition would rip a human in half. Even then, we sometimes have to pepper the things to stop them.”
“I’d like to leave now,” Amy said, sounding sick.
The Doctor turned to look at her, he saw Rory’s face as well. “Yes, sorry, nothing to see here.” He hustled his Companions away.
Erik stared after them. “Biologists.”
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He ran, Rory was already ahead of him. He could see Amy flailing, beyond a stand of ferns, her arms covered with quicksand.
"Hold on, Amy!" he yelled. Rory got there first, he stretched, but couldn't reach her. He lay down on his stomach and leaned out farther.
"Honeytrap!" Erik bellowed. Everyone else dropped what they were doing and fell into a well prepared drill. "Don't touch it, Rory!" the big man bellowed. "Keep your eyes closed, Amy," he ordered.
"It stings!" Amy half cried, half whimpered.
"Doctor!" Rory turned, demanding.
The Doctor ran and yanked the slat side off one of the caravan carts. He hauled it over and plopped it down beside Rory. The end plapped into the quicksand beside Amy.
The Doctor threw himself down on his knees on the end, anchoring it. "Don't struggle, Amy. Reach out with your left hand, there's boards right beside you." She was sunk shoulder deep in the gritty, tan colored mire, hair and face plastered with the goo. He could see tracks where she was crying under it, that was good, crying was good, it would keep the stuff out of her eyes.
She reached out, flailing. The other hunters had formed up around them now, all of them quivering with tension.
"That's right, Amy," Rory said encouragingly. "Just a little more to your left. That's it. You've got it. Hold on!"
He and the Doctor grabbed the slats at the other end and pulled. It was like trying to haul a car. The goop sucked at her, dragging at her, she huffed and whimpered, like she'd been kicked in the stomach, but she held on tight.
"Slow down, Rory," the Doctor whispered. "That's it Amy, hold on. Keep your eyes shut. We're going to pull you out a little at a time, slowly, so the vacuum doesn't rip you in half."
"What!" Rory yelled.
"Did I say that? I didn't say that," the Doctor whittered. He gave Rory a grimace. "Just hold on Amy, almost there."
Bill and Brian stepped forward, they grabbed her arms, and pulled her up the slats. The ooze released her with a sucking plop.
Amy fell forward. Rory jumped forward, but Janet was suddenly there. "Stand back, Rory," she shoved him back with a firm palm. "We know what to do."
Rory looked around, the other hunters hadn't been idle. There were two large blue barrels of water sitting behind them, and a pile of large, elephant ear leaves.
"Rory?" Amy quavered, eyes shut.
"It's okay, Amy, we're here, we're both here, the Doctor's right here with me."
"Doctor! It's stinging!" Amy pushed frantically at the gunk coating her arms and face.
"Amy," the Doctor said in a firm voice, "We're going to take care of it. Stop struggling. Keep your eyes closed. We need to scrape the stuff off you, everyone’s going to help, but they can’t if you keep struggling.”
Amy whimpered, but sat still, trembling. The Doctor nodded at Janet.
Janet, Bill, and Eula all grabbed leaves and started scraping the gunk off of her, careful not to touch it. It was gritty and tan, the way wood gets when it's decayed, not the color of the local mud.
Rory was practically jittering from foot to foot with the desire to help. But there was only so much space around Amy. Erik and the rest had formed a perimeter around them, guns up, keeping guard.
“Amy, tilt your head back,” the Doctor said. “We’re going to pour water over you to rinse the stuff off your face. Keep your mouth closed.” He nodded at Pickles, who was standing ready with a large bowl that he dipped into the barrels beside him.
The Doctor nudged Janet out of the way and knelt beside Amy. Amy tilted her head back. He could already see that her skin was red and raw. Eula squeezed out the last of the goop in her hair using one of the leaves.
Pickles carefully poured the water over Amy’s upturned face. The stuff was sticky, and didn’t want to rinse away. The Doctor took a leaf and gently scrubbed at her face until it let go. Pickles kept pouring, bowl after bowl, slowly sluicing it away. The Doctor massaged the water over her closed eyes, and back through her hair.
Amy whimpered. “I know it hurts,” the Doctor said softly, “But we’ve got to get it off.”
Finally, her hair and eyes were clear. “Open your eyes,” the Doctor said, throwing aside his leaf and watching carefully.
Amy blinked open red, bloodshot eyes. He examined them carefully. “Can you see me?” he asked.
She blinked, but nodded. “You’re a bit blurry.”
He smiled and cupped her cheeks. “That’ll pass,” he reassured her.
Amy looked down and wiggled, pushing at her soaking clothes. Every bit of her skin that they could see was red and angry looking. “It’s still on me!” Amy gave an itchy shriek, standing up and pushing at her clothes.
“Ah, your department, I think, Rory.” The Doctor stood up, and Rory jumped forward, grateful to finally be able to do something.
The Doctor turned his back while Rory, Bill and Janet helped divest Amy of her contaminated clothing. He walked over and inspected the quicksand pool, throwing glares at a couple of the guards who were watching Amy. They turned around, scanning the jungle.
Nelda dropped out of the tree beside him. She looked up at him, then started rummaging in the plants around the edge of the quicksand. She stripped off a handful of leaves from a plant that grew around the base of the tree by the pool and started chewing.
She ambled over to Amy.
Amy was now sitting naked, scrubbed pink on a dry patch of ground, out of the infected puddle her scrubbing had caused. Her clothes lay in a disintegrating heap a distance away. The boots had apparently protected her legs, they looked her normal pale complexion. But the rest of her was red and raw, like she’d been dipped in acid.
Nelda ambled up, studied her, then scooped up a handful of dirt and started smearing it on the newly clean, and red, skin of her thigh. “What? No Nelda,” Amy gently pushed away the Trelwins suedy hands, trying to brush the dirt off. The very air hurt on her clean skin, and the dirt was rough and gritty.
She still stung.
Janet tossed aside the towel she’d been drying Amy’s hair with. “She’s right,” Janet said, scooping up a handful of dirt and rubbing it on Amy’s raw arm. She grimace and shrugged when Amy looked at her in surprise. “Sorry, but the dirt helps neutralize the enzymes. It soothes and protects the skin while it heals.”
Pickles, who’d been standing aside handing out water and towels, nodded. He dug his heel into the dirt and swiveled a hole of loose dirt, he dribbled some clean water into it from the water barrels and stirred it with the toe of his boot until he had a thick slurry.
Amy grimaced. “But I just got clean!”
“She’s right, Amy,” Rory said, reaching for a handful. “Besides, you know mud packs are good for the skin.”
“Oh, don’t you start!” she complained as he slathered the mud over the back of her neck, which was especially raw. She shuddered, but only part in disgust at the slithery feel, mostly in relief as the stinging stopped and the burn seemed to leach away into the cool mud. She sighed with relief.
The others joined in, smearing the mud over her. Nelda took a green wad of masticated leaves out of her mouth and reached toward Amy’s face. Amy reared back. She turned her face away, Nelda’s hand followed it. ‘Whoa! Wait, what are you doing? Doctor, what is she doing?” she demanded, evading the Trelwin’s long arm.
“Nelda,” the Doctor said her name to draw her attention, then signed a question. The pale Trelwin put the leaves back in her mouth and signed an answer with both hands. The Doctor’s eyebrows rose and he held out a hand. Nelda put a pinch of the stuff in his palm.
He sniffed it, rubbed it between his fingers, then ran the sonic over it. “Huh!” He gave it back. Nelda turned back to Amy. “It’s okay, Amy. You need to put that on your eyes.”
“What, why?” Amy said, still looking at the Trelwin’s hand dubiously. “It’s full of Trelwin slobber!”
The Doctor smiled, his cheeks creasing. “It won’t hurt you. The leaves are an herb, like Eyebright, it will help your eyes. It’s okay.”
Dubiously, Amy let Nelda pat the green mass onto her eyes.
“Just lay back for about 20 minutes and let it work,” Janet said, as they finished covering her in mud. She helped Amy lay back. Rory draped the towel over her torso.
“Why do I feel like I’m being mummified?” Amy complained.
“Think of it as a spa day,” the Doctor said, grinning down at her, slathered in mud, green on her eyes, and a towel draped over her.
Amy grunted.
-----
Erik decided to set up camp. It was obvious Amy wasn’t going anywhere, and they were already a jump ahead with this cocoon stash. He sent a few men out to scout around and see if they could find any more cocoons nearby, and assigned everyone else camp chores.
The Doctor ended up helping pack the cocoons on the cart. Pickles and Brian started supper, and everyone else alternated guard duty, gathering firewood, and setting up tents and hammocks.
-----
“A carnivorous tree?” Amy stared at the Doctor. “I was almost eaten by a carnivorous tree?” she said sarcastically. She looked much better now, in the firelight, all the mud and herbs had been washed off. Long legged Janet had loaned her a pair of jeans. Eula, who was about her size, had loaned her a spare shirt. Her boots had survived and been cleaned. Her skin was only lightly pink now, and her eyes were much improved, they no longer looked like boiled eggs on steroids.
“Digested,” the Doctor corrected her. “The tree secretes digestive enzymes which forms a pool at its base that animals fall into. They’re slowly digested and the tree absorbs the nutrients.
“Jungle soil isn’t actually all that fertile,” he continued, ”despite all the plants. So any extra nutrients are welcome. I told you every world has its own dangers.”
“Ugh!” Amy said. “I preferred it in the tree. At least there all you had to worry about was falling to your death.”
Erik set a plate of food in front of her. “That seems to be the general consensus.”
-----
They were back on the trail the next morning, the tents and hammocks packed away, everyone alert and spread out to look for more cocoons. Amy watched where she put her feet this time, and it took her a while to get Rory to go off with his own group, but eventually everything settled down into routine.
Rory didn’t like leaving Amy by herself in this jungle, not after yesterday. He had been frightened more by Amy’s obvious terror than by what had actually happened. He wasn’t used to seeing Amy afraid, and it unsettled him in ways he didn’t expect.
He tried to shake off the feeling and pay attention. Brian and Shale weren’t talkative types, and scouting with them tended to be a bit monotonous, at least there was plenty to look at.
He tried not to think of Aaron, lying in some hospital room somewhere, comatose. He had far too much experience with coma patients to be sanguine about that. He hoped the Doctor knew what he was doing.
He shook those thoughts out of his head and paid attention to his surroundings. The track they were calling a trail this morning was off to his left, he could just see the carts floating along beyond the screen of trees. Shale was patrolling behind him, and Brian was a little farther in.
They’d already found one cocoon this morning. It seemed to put everyone in a good mood. The jungle was fascinating, if claustrophobic. He’d seen several more of the Trelwees, and something that looked like a delicate antlered deer, except it was eight feet tall at the shoulder and covered with the same suedy hide as everything else here.
Another of the puffball creatures had burst out of the bushes, wailing like a siren, flushed out accidentally by Brian. Rory’s heart had about exploded at the unexpected sound. It had scared off the big deer. And as it bounced away, Rory was near enough to tell that the puffy fur of the creature was actually some sort of feathers, fluffed out like a startled bird.
“What are those things?” Rory demanded, as he picked himself up from where he’d fallen backwards when the thing exploded across his path.
“Nuisances,” Shale said succinctly. He gave Rory a hand up and swung around to continue the search. None of the hunters let their guards down for an instant in the jungle.
It wasn’t until after lunch that he found out why.
-----
Amy scraped up the last of the beans on her plate and turned to Pickles with a smile. “You sir, are a genius. That was delicious! What do you put in those?” she asked, smiling winsomely at the cook.
“What she said,” the Doctor said, hair flopping over his forehead as he grinned and held out his plate. “Any chance of another helping?”
Pickles laughed at the Doctor’s flagrant mooching, he was already on his third helping. He spooned more beans onto the Doctor’s plate and watched with satisfaction as the Time Lord scraped them up with gusto.
Suddenly every hunter in the clearing was on his feet, guns raised, facing outward. The hairs on Amy’s body stood up at the abrupt transformation.
They were all still as statues, almost visibly trembling with strain. “Wha...?” She fell quiet as the Doctor grabbed her arm tightly. He was staring off into the forest, as tense as any of the hunters. Rory, beside him, was standing at rigid attention.
Everyone was staring at the far wall of the jungle. “Not a sound...” the Doctor whispered almost subvocally, the words more shapes on his lips than audible.
His grip was hurting her arm.
Something beyond the clearing moved. Something big. Amy’s breath stuttered in her throat. It was like the whole opposite wall of the forest moved. Shadowed patterns beyond the leaves and boles shifted.
One of the big deer suddenly bounded into the clearing. Something lashed sideways, knocking saplings over with a crash. There was a crunch and an agonized squeal.
Erik fired. With a “pfft” like a rocket launcher, something behind the trees lurched sideways. And exploded. Half a deer carcass flew over Amy’s head. Blood pattered down into the Doctor’s dish.
The ground shook as something landed.
There was a sheer, shocked silence.
The Doctor set his metal plate down with a clatter. “I think I’m done now.”
That seemed to break the spell. Sound leached back into the clearing as the hunters unfroze and checked the perimeter. More than one gun was cocked loudly.
“Right,” Erik said, lowering his oversized gun. Amy had thought it was just some macho statement. “Brian, see if we can salvage any of that deer, venison would be welcome. Everyone else, get cleaned up, we’re moving out.”
The Doctor was already standing beside him, vibrating with curiosity. Amy and Rory joined him, feeling the need to be close, it wasn’t necessarily safer around the Doctor, but when things got scary, it was the place to be.
Erik took one look at the Doctor’s face and nodded. “All right, but just a minute.” He led them over to the edge of the jungle. Gun still out. Janet and Silas had joined them, also alert and armed.
Erik took them around the upturned trees and ducked into the edge of the forest.
“Oh my God,” Rory said quietly.
Half the thing’s head had been blown away, it still had half the deer in what remained of its jaw, and it was thirty feet long from heavy shoulders to haunch, not even counting the powerful tail.
“It’s as big as a dinosaur!” Amy exclaimed, looking around uneasily, but her eyes were drawn inevitably back to the monster.
There was no other word for it. Patterned green and brown hide, striped like a tiger, pebbled skin, clawed feet, hundreds of pointy teeth lining a huge triangular jaw.
“More like a dragon,” the Doctor said, examining the heavy skull. It was as tall as he was. “A Komodo dragon to be precise.”
“But it was so silent! How could something that size be silent?” Amy demanded. There was something unsettling in that. Like it was cheating. Nothing that big should be able to sneak up on people.
“It’s a predator,” Erik said, shipping his rifle on his hip, the enlarged barrel pointing at the sky. “This isn’t a botanical park you know. Things get eaten here.”
The Doctor looked up from the bloody cavernous hole in the creatures head, it had taken off nearly half the skull. “Explosive shells?” he asked.
Erik nodded. “We have to. Regular bullets wouldn’t have any affect on something that size. It would be like throwing sand at it. Most of our ammunition would rip a human in half. Even then, we sometimes have to pepper the things to stop them.”
“I’d like to leave now,” Amy said, sounding sick.
The Doctor turned to look at her, he saw Rory’s face as well. “Yes, sorry, nothing to see here.” He hustled his Companions away.
Erik stared after them. “Biologists.”
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