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  SAVAGE JUNGLE

  LAIR OF THE ORANG PENDEK

  HUNTER SHEA

  Copyright 2017 by Hunter Shea

  For Mike. If all you need in this world is one true friend, I’m all set.

  NOW

  In The Deepest Sumatran Jungle…

  Natalie McQueen hacked her way to escape, the machete in one hand, a Heckler & Koch MP5 in the other, firing through the dense greenery with no particular target in mind. Her twin brother Austin, his shirt shredded, bulging muscles lacerated with seeping wounds, was right behind her.

  “Maybe this will do it,” he barked.

  She didn’t dare look back. To do so would mean she would lose momentum, and they didn’t have a second to spare.

  How the hell did I end up here?

  It would be too easy to pin it all on Austin. No, there was plenty of blame to go all around.

  Austin shouted, “Fire in the hole!”

  Several seconds later, there was a rib quaking blast. Hot wind pushed them forward, searing their backs. She didn’t dare stop slashing, keeping the way as clear as possible.

  Her brother’s FN P90, a gun that she first mistook for a Super Soaker, spat bullets in every direction. The thin bark of trees older than Kirk Douglas splintered and cracked, timber slicing in half, collapsing around them.

  Good, Natalie thought, her lungs burning, maybe it’ll squash some of those fuckers.

  Those fuckers were fast and strong and worst of all, relentless.

  But they weren’t bulletproof. Thank goodness for small favors.

  The Sumatran rain forest was a riot of noise, and not just from the grenade and Special Forces assault weapons. It seemed as if the entire jungle had been called together to wipe out the human interlopers.

  It was sheer bat crap insanity, and Natalie never would have believed it if she weren’t in it, running for her life.

  Something roared overhead where they couldn’t see through the lush canopy. Natalie couldn’t help instinctively ducking. Austin’s hand was on her back, urging her on.

  “What the hell was that?” she said, her machete singing as it cleaved a thick vine in two.

  “Do you really wanna know?” Austin replied.

  She fired her gun in the air, hoping she hit whatever was up there.

  “Not necessarily.”

  Was there no end to this jungle valley? It felt like they’d been running for hours, if not days. She didn’t know how much further she could push herself. She wasn’t the picture of physical perfection like her brother. That being said, she could hear him wheezing, too, so even Mr. Atlas had his limits.

  She wondered what became of Henrik and Oscar.

  And she also thought Gadang Ur could be five feet away from them and they might never even see it.

  The lost city of Gadang Ur.

  Sometimes, places are lost for a damn good reason. She could think of a thousand why Gadang Ur should have remained hidden from the eyes of man. Or, at the very least, this woman.

  Chopping a leaf the size of her torso out of her way, she came face-to-face with a glorious sun beaming on a clearing a couple of hundred feet in diameter. Her arms felt as mushy as warm tapioca. The moment she set the machete at her side, her entire left arm went numb.

  They leaped over a fallen log, dashing to the center of the clearing.

  “Hold up,” Austin said.

  Natalie stopped running, the veins and muscles in her legs pulsing. Austin was bent over, hands gripping his knees, sucking wind.

  “You hear anything?” he asked.

  She felt like throwing up. “Other than our breathing and the sound of my heart about to burst?”

  “Other than that.”

  She held her breath for a moment, taking a look around.

  “No. I don’t.”

  “Halle-freaking-lujah!”

  Natalie took the break to slap a fresh magazine in her gun and guzzle a long gulp from her canteen. She offered it to her brother.

  “Where’d they go?” he said, pouring some on his head.

  “There’s no way we got them all. I heard them all around us right before we broke through. It’s as if…”

  All her body wanted to do was collapse, but she couldn’t give in to it. Not yet.

  “It’s as if what?”

  The clearing was almost a perfect circle. High banyan and oak trees lined the perimeter like the outfield fence of a baseball stadium. The jungle was utterly silent. Even before the melee, the jungle was never silent.

  Natalie said, “It’s as if they’re afraid of this place.”

  “I don’t see much to be afraid of.”

  He was answered by the snapping of trees to their left. They turned on their heels, weapons drawn.

  Something big and deadly started to poke out from the tree line.

  “You had to jinx us,” she said, muscles tensing.

  They’d have to face whatever was coming their way. They were utterly exposed and too tired to make it back to the trees. Of course, maybe the creature wanted them to do just that – herd them to their doom.

  “How many grenades you got?”

  Austin said, “Three.”

  She hoped it was enough.

  An oak tree came crashing down.

  And they saw it.

  Austin muttered, “Oh man, oh man, oh man.”

  Natalie felt her will dissolve.

  She’d had the nagging feeling that they’d pushed their luck to the limits over the past several months. The luck fairy was coming to collect at the worst possible moment.

  “Christ on a cracker,” Natalie said, willing her arms to lift the impossibly heavy gun. “Remind me to say no next time anyone asks me for a favor.”

  THEN

  Chapter One

  “How is it that I’ve never come here before?” Natalie said. She reclined on a padded lounge chair, an icy Mai Tai in one hand, a trashy romance novel in the other. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. She didn’t know this particular shade of blue even existed.

  Austin, fresh from a dip in the salt and mineral water pool, toweled off as he stood over her, making sure most of the water slicked onto her back. “Could be because you’re too chickenshit to fly.”

  “But I could have driven here when I was in Scotland. Wasn’t the drive nice?”

  “I was bleeding too much and burning with infection to notice.”

  Here was Spa Hapimag in Bad Sulza, a small town near Weimar in Germany. They’d been living at the spa resort for the past six weeks, healing up after their near-death encounter at Loch Ness.

  Natalie and Austin’s thirst for revenge on the creatures that people had called the Loch Ness Monster had fueled their lives for over twenty years. That fuel had burned itself out with the last dying breath of the beasts that lurked in the world’s most famous lake. It made world news. Scientists, marine biologists and zoologists had descended on Scotland like locusts, all vying for a chance to study the remains of the sea animals that could also live on land for short periods of time. So far, they were none of the things that people had theorized the Loch Ness Monster to be. They were, as Austin and Natalie had speculated, something new, Mother Nature’s creation during a particularly rough bender.

  They had escaped the media flurry along with Henrik Kooper, former German Special Forces and current prepper for all things strange and terrible, to this wonderful spa. It was truly heaven on earth, which was much needed after the hell of Loch Ness.

  Henrik had connections, one of them being the owner of the spa. So far, Natalie hadn’t seen a single bill or been refused a thing, even if it was a massage at four in the morning. She never wanted to leave.

  Between the hot springs, pools, wonderful views, world-class food, limitless drinks and spect
acular concierge service, there was no reason to leave. At least until Henrik’s friend either gave them the boot or demanded they sing for their many suppers.

  I wouldn’t mind spending the rest of my life here, working this tab off.

  But when she saw Henrik Kooper striding toward them, dressed in loose tan slacks, a button down shirt open at the collar and holding a sheaf of paper, she knew what went up was about to come down.

  Austin said, “Hey there, stranger. Haven’t seen you since movie night.”

  The spa projected old movies on an outdoor screen every other night so they could sit under the stars while taking in the grandeur of yesteryear. The last one had been Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Natalie had always wanted to be Audrey Hepburn. There was a grace in the way she spoke and moved about that she would never come close to possessing. No, Natalie had to content herself with being the proverbial bull in a china shop. But it was nice to wish.

  Henrik had been AWOL for the better part of two days. She knew he was up to something.

  “Hello, McQueens,” Henrik said in his clipped German accent. “I think you’ve gotten as dark as your skin will allow.”

  He was right. Natalie and Austin had surpassed bronze about two weeks ago. Henrik, on the other hand, was still as pale as he’d been when they got here. She wondered if he bathed in sunblock. Or if he was a vampire. At this point, she was open to any possibility.

  “We’re in maintenance mode,” Natalie said, sitting up and taking a sip from her Mai Tai. “Whatcha got there?”

  Henrik beamed. “I just received all of the final paperwork for our trip. Everything is in place. I have a man on the ground in Indonesia who has been working very hard to gather a team and materials. He said all that’s missing now is us.”

  Natalie tipped her Mai Tai back, weathering a severe case of brain freeze as she emptied her glass.

  “When do we fly out?” Austin asked.

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” Natalie spluttered, Mai Tai dribbling down her chin.

  Austin laughed. “Still can’t hold your liquor.”

  “Bite me.”

  Henrik dragged a lounge chair so he could sit next to her. He had such kind eyes. She knew that underneath this almost perfect façade was a man with his own demons. He’d most certainly done some things in his past that would make her blanch.

  He took her hand in his and said, “I know that you’re terrified to fly. It’s why I’ve arranged a private plane to take us there. You’ll be fully sedated the moment we get on the plane. I promise, you’ll be asleep the entire time.”

  “Is the plane going to be hot pink like your van?” Austin said. Henrik drove to assist them in Loch Ness in a pink minivan with a rainbow painted on the side. It was his idea of camouflage, as the van was a rolling arsenal.

  “I don’t believe so. It’s a loaner from someone who owes a debt.”

  “Remind me not to get in hock with you,” Natalie said, then looked around and realized she’d been working for the company store since they got here. “Do we really have to go?”

  It wasn’t just the fear of flying or love of the resort that was making her stomach do back flips.

  “I’m afraid so. But, I won’t force you to come with me. That wouldn’t be fair. If you like, I can make arrangements for you to get back to the States.”

  Home.

  She didn’t have a residence in the U.S. anymore. All she had was an RV on Loch Ness, and she was never going back there. Most of her possessions had been left behind when they scooted out of town. She was most upset about losing her precious VW Bug, which she’d named Eileen.

  I wonder where you are now, Eileen? Are you stuck in impound? Did someone steal you?

  She shivered at the thought of Eileen being squashed in some junkyard.

  Taking a deep breath, she said, “I’m not backing out. You helped us and we promised to help you.”

  He beamed at her, patting her hand. “Thank you, Natalie.” Before her brother could horn in, he added, “And you too, Austin.”

  Austin made his pecs do a little jig, smiling when Natalie turned away in disgust. “I told you not to do that in front of me.”

  “I’m doing it in front of Henrik.”

  Rising from the lounge chair, Henrik said, “Don’t let me get in the way of enjoying your day. Make the best of it. We’ll meet in the dining room tomorrow at five a.m.”

  He walked away, giddy as a kid at Christmas.

  Watching his departure, Natalie said, “You think we’re really going to find a tribe of Orang Pendeks?”

  “I doubt it. But I am sure we’ll find a tropical disease or two.”

  Wonderful.

  Chapter Two

  It was impossible not to see the look of dread on Natalie’s face. Henrik Kooper felt awful breaking the news to her. He enjoyed this paradise just as much as she and her brother had, but they always knew it wasn’t going to last forever.

  He’d meant it when he said he would fly her back to the States, but over the past couple of months, he’d gotten to know Natalie McQueen quite well. She was no quitter. He’d scrubbed her back, helping her eradicate the creatures in Loch Ness. Now, as she had promised, she would scrub his and seek the tribe of Orang Pendek, who had drawn and quartered his father before his very eyes during a hunting expedition.

  Years of therapy, then a two year immersion in a Buddhist monastery where he began his mastery of meditation, allowed him to control when and where the images of that horrible day flashed back to him. Unlike Natalie, who had the same nightmare every night, waking up in a pool of sweat until they’d accomplished her goal for revenge, Henrik slumbered like the dead.

  But he never forgot what had been done to his father…to his family.

  His father was a celebrated big game hunter, a man’s man in a world that was rapidly becoming feminized. He was often traveling the globe, leading expeditions, showing other hunters how to track and kill some of the world’s most elusive and dangerous creatures. Henrik didn’t see much of him growing up, so when he did, their time together was precious.

  When asked if he and his mother would like to accompany his father on a hunting trip to Indonesia, Henrik whooped with joy. Just a child at the time, he’d long fantasized about trekking alongside his warrior father, learning at his feet.

  They’d journeyed into the Sumatran rain forest of Indonesia, navigating toward the lost city of Gadang Ur. At least, that’s what his father had gleaned after years of talking to natives, studying old texts and consulting various experts in the field. No modern man had ever set eyes on the fabled city, a jungle metropolis that had been abandoned and lost to time over a millennium ago.

  Henrik’s father wasn’t so much interested in the city as he was about the type of game that lived in the area. A most vicious breed of rhinoceros called the remote area home. His father promised the hunters with the party that they would take home a rhino before all was said and done, with a warning that all those who faced the beast might not make it back the same as they were when they entered the lavish forest. Henrik wondered if he meant there would be a mental change – a deeper appreciation for nature and the careful balance between predator and prey.

  Now, looking back, he knew his father was warning them that all may not survive. The rhinoceros can be an exceedingly aggressive, dangerous animal.

  They would never see a rhino, but death would come to the party anyway.

  One night, camped in a small clearing, there was a terrible commotion. At first, Henrik thought a warring tribe of rainforest natives had decided to plunder their camp. His father ran from their tent, rifle in hand.

  Against his mother’s wishes, Henrik left the tent as well.

  And was aghast by what he saw.

  Dozens of short, ocher-haired beings laid waste to the camp, smashing and tearing, howling and screeching.

  He didn’t know what they were. They appeared human, but they also bore a strong resemblance to apes or orangutans. E
xcept they walked perfectly upright, with broad shoulders and small heads.

  His father’s screams of agony shook him from the trance of viewing the indescribable.

  Several of the ape men had wrestled his father to the ground. Each one grabbed a limb and ran.

  Henrik would never forget the tearing sound his father’s limbs made as they separated from his body. His screams instantly cut off as blood poured from every rupture.

  Their awful deed done, the orange creatures gathered the pieces of his father and disappeared into the jungle, never to be seen again.

  The following days during their hellish trip back to civilization were a numb blur. All he could still remember of the trek with any clarity was his mother’s constant sobbing.

  He was to learn later that the short, orange creatures were the dreaded Orang Pendek, an Indonesian Bigfoot, though with many distinct differences from their more popular North American cousins. They were quite smaller than a Bigfoot of the American Northwest or the Yeti of Tibet. The people of Indonesia never, ever set out to find them. To the general public, they portrayed the Orang Pendek as gentle beings that shared and respected the forest. But deep down, they feared them as one would a killing force of nature. As one did not speak ill of the dead, so the inhabitants of the Sumatran rain forest did not utter negative words about their mysterious neighbors for fear of incurring their wrath.

  The Orang Pendek were fast and brutal and most of all, intelligent.

  Every course Henrik had taken in his life led him to this moment. All of the military experience and training to survive in any condition had prepared his body, mind and soul for his own expedition.

  It was by sheer chance he’d met Austin McQueen at a publishers convention, sharing one too many drinks, both men confiding how their lives had been forever altered by mythical beasts.

  As the Buddha once said, “I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act, but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act.”