The Valley of Tooth & Claw Read online

  THE VALLEY OF TOOTH & CLAW

  Chris McInally

  www.severedpress.com

  Copyright 2019 by Chris McInally

  DEDICATION

  This yin is fur oor wee jimmy, Connor.

  Love Mum & Dad

  (Translation: ‘This one is for our little man, Connor.’)

  PROLOGUE

  Gunfire, harsh and sporadic, punctuated the darkness; the unmistakable staccato rhythm shattering the night’s otherwise calm façade. Myriad weapons blazed to life in a flurry of yellow-orange bursts, bullets proceeding to zip through the humid air! The resulting storm saw a host of debris scatter to the wind as volley after volley of piping-hot metal shredded the undergrowth caught in its path. Added to this were the panicked cries of men which only magnified the already hellish din permeating the area… as too did the monstrous shrieks of their assailants; ungodly screeches that seemed to meet somewhere between a bird of prey and some kind of serpent.

  Caught in the midst of this chaos, Mateo Hernandez cut through the jungle like a bat out of Hades, his normally tan complexion reddened by the effort of his unexpected retreat. Sweat gushed from the fleeing man’s pores, the salty liquid streaming in rivulets down his terrified features. Vines and branches whipped at his plump and youthful face, lashing out like demons’ claws as he stole through the suffocating collection of foliage.

  Heart pounding almost out of control, Mateo’s dark eyes, wide with terror, searched the shadowy world for some way out of his bloody nightmare. All the while, to his aft, the gunfire and screams continued unabated, the hectic reprise near-deafening. Mateo’s thoughts momentarily switched to that of his wife and two children back in Chile. But not for long. The maddening cacophony to his rear very quickly redirected his thoughts back to the here and now.

  Stay focused! he told himself, chest heaving and lungs burning.

  Grounded in the present once more, Mateo’s mind struggled to process that which he had witnessed mere minutes before. That being said, Mr. Hernandez wasn’t sure he could even call himself a witness to any of it. After all, the man really only caught glimpses of his group’s ambushers. On top of that, the sight of those monsters˗ fleeting as it was˗ ultimately proved enough to send him to flight. In his mind’s eye, the scaled, reptilian forms of his assailants seemed to emerge effortlessly from the dark ether, their long, tapered tails whipping frenetically behind them. Without warning, the ravenous creatures shed the jungle like an old skin, descending upon Mateo and the other workers with a deadly array of sickle-shaped claws and razor-sharp fangs! Most terrifying of all, he remembered how the beasts’ yellow-green cat-like eyes seemed to shine amidst the gloom, haunting in their primal intensity.

  In the end, the company’s small band of hired guns proved no match for the devilish things which called this jungle home. With the speed and efficiency of cheetahs, the marauders dispatched the guards in twos and threes, before then turning on the unarmed workers scattering throughout the small encampment.

  Demons… Mateo thought to himself. Only demons could move like that.

  Pressing further into the darkened rainforest, the gunfire behind him gradually began to dwindle… as did the bloodcurdling cries of his unfortunate colleagues. Although, they never fully died away. Ultimately, the horrid mixture of these sounds became a kind of macabre soundtrack to his panicked retreat. If only for a second, Mateo felt his anxiety lessen on account of the reduced noise. The young man prayed he had somehow managed to put enough distance between himself and his group’s attackers. Yet, something in Mateo told him this was unlikely. Still, he could hope.

  Out of breath, he panted desperately for air, eventually slowing to a jog. His overalls were soaked with sweat now. Before long, Mateo was engaged in a rushed walk as he tried to get his bearings; an almost impossible task in this world of midnight. It was then Mateo realized that the bush around him was simply too quiet. There were no birds or insects in attendance, at least that he could hear, anyway.

  Perhaps the gunfire frightened them? he pondered the peculiar silence for a moment.

  Whatever the cause of the deathly quiet, it unsettled the young man to no end. The hairs rose along the back of his neck, a chill tracing the petrified man’s spine. Fear quickly returning, Hernandez’s eyes scanned the gloomy scene warily, terrified by the mere thought of what might lurk out there in the inky blackness… never mind the reality of what actually existed there.

  An eerie coalescence of silhouettes and shadows blanketed the scene around Mateo. As a result, it was almost impossible to decipher anything of any real significance. What’s more, the man wasn’t even sure he was headed in the right direction. As such, landmarks had little meaning. The way Hernandez saw it, the further he got from the gunfire and screams, the better. Or so he hoped anyway.

  Lost and wandering, Mateo found himself muttering a prayer when a noise˗ one that belonged to neither bird nor bug˗ unexpectedly sounded somewhere behind him! At least that’s where he thought it came from. Sound travelled in peculiar ways in the jungle. Startled to attention, Hernandez’s heartrate spiked as he tried to both listen and make sense of what it belonged to.

  Thump-thump-thump-thump! The man’s ears twitched like a hare’s, the noise growing louder with each beat.

  Footsteps! Mateo quickly realized. Coming in fast!

  Instinct told him that the footsteps were too heavy to belong to even the biggest of men. As this frightening realization sank in, Mr. Hernandez felt his panic increase ten-fold, his pulse skyrocketing.

  They’ve found me… those things have found me! He shuddered at the thought.

  Sadly, he was right. Although the poor man couldn’t see it just yet, Mateo’s pursuer was closing on him˗ and with ease. Crashing through the jungle, the dexterous animal bounded over felled trees and ducked beneath low-lying branches. Next came a shriek like nothing the Chilean had ever heard before. Ear-piercing and laced with hunger, the utter savagery of the cry was undeniable. And it was reserved entirely for him! Of that, Hernandez was convinced.

  Chilled to his core, poor Mateo voided his bladder then. In that moment he was reduced to a frightened child. The adult˗ the father; the protector of, and the provider for, his family˗ was gone. Vanished in an instant. Still, he didn’t stop moving. Rather, the man’s terror quickly translated to reinvigoration.

  Taking off once more, albeit soaked in a combination of piss and sweat, Mateo pressed on into the night, determined he would survive; that he would make it through this awful night of blood-soaked carnage. His motivation was simple: he wanted to return home to his loving family; Maria and the boys, Javier and Tomas. After all, Hernandez only accepted this job offer because of them. Providing them with a better life was the sole reason he was here in this leafy, Godforsaken shithole in the first place. Which ultimately begged the question: what kind of life would they have without him?

  #

  Hot on the heels of its prey, the monster zeroed in on its quarry with a ruthless efficiency; its agile movements seemingly discordant with a creature of its size. In truth however, the animal and its kind, large as they may have been, were built not only for the kill but the chase too; their species molded by millions of years of evolution and thus finely attuned to their environment.

  Nostrils flaring at the end of its elongated cranium, the hunter inhaled its would-be victim’s scent, eager to put an end to this hunt. Held aloft on two powerful legs, the excited creature hurtled onwards, salivate dripping over its craggy lips. The end was nigh, of that it was sure. In fact, the monster could practically taste it.

  #

  Something in Mateo (a foolish sense of curiosity perhaps) made him sneak a look at the bipedal horror trai
ling after him. Needless to say, the young man immediately wished he hadn’t. What he found waiting for him could only be described as terror incarnate.

  Bathed in moonlight˗ for only a second˗ he discovered a maw full of yellow, dagger-like teeth, alongside a pink, serpentine tongue dripping with spittle. Worst of all, it was waiting just for him. Added to this terrifying mien were the creature’s flexed talons, poised to strike!

  “Jesucristo!” Hernandez gasped.

  Too terrified to look for more than a second, Mateo snapped his neck back around. To his horror, Hernandez barely had time to decipher the second scale-laden figure waiting for him. Jaws cranked wide, the second monster barreled into Mateo, forcing him to the ground in a bloodied frenzy of slashing claws and gnashing teeth!

  Knocked clean off his feet, the poor man landed with a bone-jarring thud! amidst the detritus, the last of the air torn from his already weary lungs! Winded now, stars danced before Mateo’s eyes, his world spinning horribly all the while. Pain filtered through the man’s abused body, coming in one huge, incapacitating surge. It was several seconds before Hernandez realized he had been disemboweled, the excruciating pain somehow managing to take him off-guard when his system finally registered it.

  It was over, Mateo understood as he lay there, writhing helplessly like a newborn without its mother. Then again, he never stood a chance. Not against these… demons. None of his crew did. If truth be told, Hernandez was lucky to last as long as he did.

  Thus, Mateo’s agonized screams came to fill the night. They reverberated throughout the rainforest for miles as the two frenzied beasts continued to eviscerate him. Using a combination of their curved teeth and claws, they gorged on his supple flesh, working vigorously to expose the precious organs buried beneath. In between the man’s pained screeching, Mateo thought of his wife and kids back home. Their loving faces would be the last thing his broken mind was able to conjure before the darkness finally claimed him.

  CHAPTER 1

  Peruvian-Brazilian border.

  Present day.

  Transfixed by the majesty of the tropical arras before her, Professor Kate Miller watched with wide, almost childish eyes as a veil-like mist encroached from the south-west. Rolling off the nearby mountaintops, the vaporous formation inched over the rich green tapestry of watchman-like trees and densely knitted shrubbery below, moving in on it like some kind of airborne tidal wave.

  Miller’s reflection beamed back at her from behind a sheet of darkly tinted glass. Despite the dulled surface of the SUV’s window, Kate’s wine-red lips and smooth ivory skin stood out against it. Her medium-length cut of brunette hair however, pulled into a neat ponytail, was a little harder to decipher, hidden as it was under a black, no-name-brand, service station-bought baseball cap.

  “I just can’t get over how beautiful it all is,” the professor told her fellow passengers, the woman’s voice soft as silk. “I’ve never travelled to this corner of the world before, y’know,” she quickly added.

  No one replied to Kate’s comments. Needless to say, their apparent lack of enthusiasm was disappointing, at least for Miller anyway. It really was all just so beautiful. Could they not see that? Still, Professor Miller ignored them, just as they had ignored her. And so, unfazed, she went back to inspecting the gorgeous landscape in a matter of moments.

  Bright and attentive, the woman’s deep and dark hazel eyes scoured the emerald jungle yonder, tracing each dip and rise in the undulating terrain curiously. Framed on both sides by dark, angular mountains, the rainforest canopy seemed to stretch into infinity. Indeed, with such a view laid out before them someone could easily be forgiven for thinking the jungle went on forever. Even so, as beautiful as it was, Professor Miller found there was something different about it this time around.

  Well that wasn’t true. Rather, there was something different about Kate. Or perhaps it could better be explained as there was something different within Kate. The vibrant scene managed to conjure a hollow feeling deep in the geography professor’s gut. Instead of the sense of wonder she had experienced before, this time a pang of guilt swept over Professor Miller, working to gnaw away at her conscience. Or was it her soul? In the end, one or the other, the woman knew exactly why she felt the way she did.

  Hired by the notorious multi-national, Slaine Industries, the thirty-three-year-old was an agricultural geographer and perhaps the most important person on this expedition. Or so she had been led to believe. Miller’s importance derived directly from her expertise with just the kind of project Slaine Industries was proposing for the region. In fact, it was Kate who would decide if the land Slaine Industries had procured from the Brazilian Government was adequate for the company’s ambitious, albeit controversial, plans. More specifically, Slaine Industries wished to build a series of cattle ranches˗ perhaps better described as super-farms˗ intended for large-scale beef production. The proposed site of this operation was deep in the heart of Brazil’s Vale do Javari.

  At over 85,000 km², Javari Valley, nestled on the periphery of Brazil’s Amazonas State, possessing a total area larger than that of Austria. Largely unexplored to boot, it is very much a world unto itself. A lost world, one might say. Yet, despite the valley’s impressive size, the fact remained that more of the already dwindling Amazon Rainforest would have to be cleared for the ambitious project to be realized. This would need to be done, not only to properly connect Javari Valley to the outside world, but to ensure adequate pasturage for the influx of hundreds of thousands of head of cattle.

  This operation by itself may not seem all that bad. However, it was part of a larger (and quite regrettable) trend currently taking place throughout South America, particularly around the Brazilian portion of the Amazon Rainforest. Sadly, approximately 80% of the deforestation already experienced across the Amazon region was directly linked to the cattle sector. Here lay the woman’s dilemma.

  Unsurprisingly, Kate still wasn’t sure how she felt about the whole situation. Ethically, that is. Her emotions were of course conflicted. By helping Daniel Slaine and his multi-billion-dollar company to ‘open up’ this section of rainforest, Kate’s decision in large part would be responsible for the resulting loss of habitat that would inevitably occur. In the same breath, the construction of said farms ultimately had the potential to feed millions of men, women and children the world over. In an attempt to assuage her guilty conscience, Professor Miller told herself (that in this particular case) it was all about choosing the lesser of two evils. Kate simply hoped she had chosen right. Still, some choice.

  Perhaps as was to be expected, the Brazilian Government’s decision to permit the company access to the supposedly federally protected Amazonas State had attracted much scrutiny and criticism, both domestically and internationally. After all, the region was home to over a dozen indigenous tribes, and their right to exist as well as maintain their way of life, was supposed to be protected by the nation’s Constitution. How the Brazilian Administration had managed to circumvent their own Constitution, Professor Miller wasn’t entirely sure. Then again, the answer probably wasn’t that difficult to nail down for a learned academic like herself. Experience had taught Kate that, in the end, money always talks. Everyone has a price... politicians especially. No one needs a doctorate to know that much.

  Am I just as bad though? a timid voice asked in the back of her mind.

  Shifting uncomfortably in her seat, Kate’s ponderings were pushed to one side as her physical discomfort became a more pressing concern. Unaccustomed to the South American climate, the humid conditions were getting the better of her. And despite the use of her vehicle’s air-conditioning, small beads of sweat dotted Professor Miller’s skin. What’s more, the woman’s full-bodied cheeks remained somewhat flushed.

  “Phew.” Turning away from the window, Kate waved a hand fan-like in front of her face. “This heat is really something, ain’t it?” Her Texan drawl revealed itself for the briefest of moments, only for it to disappear just as quickly.
Her father had spent a small fortune on her elocution lessons, after all. Best not to let them go to waste.

  For a second time, no one else inside the SUV said anything by way of reply to her. Secretly, Kate hoped their lack of acknowledgement wasn’t anything personal. She also had to remind herself that it had been the better part of an hour since their five-strong cavalcade of Chevrolet Suburbans ground to a halt just shy of the border. Like her, the others were probably just a little frustrated and eager to be on their way again.

  Even seated as she was inside the third vehicle in their five-strong caravan, Professor Miller could still make out the border checkpoint from where she was, aided by the smooth curve of the mountain road. Not that it looked much like a border to be honest. Especially one separating two sovereign nations. In fact, there was very little in the way to suggest that it was an area of any real geopolitical importance. Save of course for the large red-and-white striped boom-gate and adjoining guard-post. Even then, it wasn’t much.

  From what Kate understood, Elias Campbell was working out some of the finer details with the Peruvian Army guardsman stationed at the border crossing. The broad-shouldered Campbell was the expedition’s head of security, and (if the rumors were true) a former Special Air Service commander in the British Armed Forces. For a fleeting second, the Scotsman’s features crossed Kate’s mind. They had met at the expedition briefing back in Iquitos. Personally, she thought Elias was a good-looking man, in a rugged sort of way, with his cool blue eyes, lush strawberry-blonde hair and a lightly freckled face lined with ginger stubble. She also remembered the pallid scar that cut through his left eyebrow, which she felt lent him some degree of mystery. Professor Miller reminded herself to ask him how he got it, if she got the chance.