Sink: The Lost World (17 page)

“This is our fault,”
Aaron said. “They wouldn’t be like this if it wasn’t for us.”

“You give us too much credit,” Cassie said. “They’re adults. They can make their own decisions. Maybe they’re already married. They argue like it. I thought we were supposed to be the children?”

“I thought we were doing the best for them,” Aaron said. “But we can’t let them be miserable like this.”

“It will be better for them in the long run, you’ll see,” Cassie said.

Aaron shook his head, not convinced. He lay back on his bedding, a pile of dirty clothes from his backpack. He held the snow globe in his hands and kissed it, studying the thousands of tiny flakes inside.

“Your dad’s been gone seven years, hasn’t he?” Cassie said.

“How did you know that?” Aaron said.

“I overheard our parents talking about it,” Cassie said.

“Oh,” Aaron said. “I didn’t know Mom talked about it with anyone. Except me, I mean.”

“Maybe she didn’t,” Cassie said. “But now she has someone to talk about it with. It’s unlikely he’ll come back after all these years, you know.”

“You’re starting to sound like Mom,” Aaron said.

“I’m just saying,” Cassie said. “Maybe it’s time for you to move on.”

“Dad’s still alive out there somewhere, I know it,” Aaron said.

“Don’t you think he would have let you know if he was still alive?” Cassie said.

“He would try,” Aaron said. “Maybe he got detained or something. Or he’s a prisoner of war.”

“A prisoner?” Cassie said. “I wasn’t aware of a war in Alaska.”

“That doesn’t mean there can’t be one,” Aaron said. “A secret one, between tribes, or something. Dad could have been a spy. It could have all been a cover-up. He promised me he was going to come home. He never breaks his promises. Ever. Anyway, what do you know about it?”

Aaron said this in an aggressive tone.

“I know something about parents promising one thing and then doing another,” Cassie said. “I lied to you before. About my mother. She didn’t just disappear. She ran away. She left us.”

“What do you mean?” Aaron said.

“I mean, she took off,” Cassie said. “She was always doing it. ‘My own little adventures’ she called them. She wrote adventure books. To go find adventure, something exciting. She was a novelist and was always travelling around the world looking for inspiration. She would be gone for weeks – sometimes months – at a time. I used to like the idea of coming home from school to see if my mom would be there or not, and when she wasn’t, I would dream up fantasies about where she’d gone. She used to send me postcards telling me where she was.

“She was creative, my dad always said. Their brains are wired differently to the rest of us. Maybe she finally found what she was looking for and decided not to come back.”

Aaron shook his head.

“She had you and your dad to come back to,” he said. “I’m sure she would have come back to you if she could.”

“I’m not so sure,” Cassie said. “I used to think it was something I’d done, that I’d forced her to leave. The day before she ran away I broke a vase she bought in Japan. I glued it back together, but she noticed and went crazy at me. The next thing, she was gone.

“I thought if I got a new one she would come back. I saved up my allowance for ages. I even sold all my games, and asked just for money for my birthday and Christmas presents, and finally I had enough money and bought her a new one. I put it on the little stand and waited at the bottom of the stairs, watching the door. I waited and waited and waited, but she never came. I decided to do nothing. I wasn’t going to try to bring her back again, because she wasn’t going to come back.”

“Your dad wasn’t there for you?” Aaron said.

“He lost himself in his work,” Cassie said.

She shrugged.

“It was okay,” she said.

It clearly wasn’t okay, but Aaron didn’t push the issue.

“I can understand all that,” Aaron said, “but why do you hang out with Clint? He’s an asshole.”

“You’re right,” Cassie said with a smile. “He is.”

The admonition surprised Aaron.

“Then why hang out with him?” he said.

“Because sometimes knowing the right people can get you places,” Cassie said.

“Where does Clint get you?” Aaron said.

“Through him I get to meet all the rich people in school,” Cassie said. “Or, at least, their parents. Dad says half the battle in life is knowing the right people. Know lots of people and opportunities are easier to come by.”

“Don’t you want to be successful by yourself?” Aaron said.

“I will be,” Cassie said. “But it doesn’t hurt to make the right connections to make the journey easier. I’m going to work hard either way. I might as well meet people and call in favors when I need them.”

Aaron shook his head.

“You don’t agree with what I’m saying?” Cassie said.

“No,” Aaron said. “Life is about more than just using people.”

“Using people is what life is all about,” Cassie said. “Friends, teachers, family.”

She said the last word with a slight tremor in her voice.

“Your mother didn’t use you,” Aaron said.

“Yes, she did,” Cassie said. “I was a whinging, whining kid. I held her back. That was why she kept going on trips. She must have hated having to return home to me. That’s why it’s better to use people, and then toss them. Trim away the fat.”

“Is that what I am?” Aaron said. “Fat?”

He looked genuinely hurt.

“Aaron…” Cassie said.

“No, I’m glad I know,” Aaron said. “I wouldn’t want to make the mistake of thinking I was someone important to you. I’m disposable. I get it.”

They were silent a long moment.

“That’s no reason to use people,” Aaron said. “Or pick on them at school.”

“You were weird,” Cassie said.

“So?” Aaron said. “Aren’t we all a bit weird?”

“I’m not,” Cassie said.

“You are,” Aaron said. “You’re the caricature cheerleader who dates quarterbacks and says catchphrases.”

“I so am not!” Cassie said.

She caught her catchphrase and screwed up her face.

“My point is, why me?” Aaron said. “Of all the people, why did you have to pick on me? I never did anything to you.”

“It’s the way things are,” Cassie said. “The way things will always be. The strong pick on the weak because they are weak.”

“But we’re all the same,” Aaron said. “Our weaknesses only exist at school. After we graduate everything will change. Don’t you ever think about the things your friends say to people and how they affect them?”

Cassie shrugged.

“I thought you’d be used to it,” she said.

“I suppose I am,” Aaron said. “But not at the beginning. You can’t know what it’s like to have to go into a building or a room every day and know there’s going to be someone in there who might say something about you – the way you dress, or speak or smell or whatever. I used to love math, now I don’t even want to think about it. Because of your friends.”

“I’m sorry,” Cassie said. “I didn’t know I was having such a big impact on your life.”

“Well, you did,” Aaron said.

There was a pause.

“But you know, you’re not as weird as I thought,” Cassie said.

“No?” Aaron said.

“I mean, you are strange,” Cassie said. “You’re into things I don’t understand at all but… I don’t know. I guess you’re not a freak.”

“Thanks,” Aaron said. “I think. So, if I told your friends that we kissed…”

Cassie glared at him. Aaron held up his hands.

“I’m joking! I’m joking!” he said.

Bryan didn’t sleep
well that night. He dreamed of falling down a rabbit hole, deeper and deeper and deeper, heading toward a pinprick of light in the distance, but never quite getting there. When he woke up, he initially thought it had just been that: a dream. With his green surroundings and his aching back from a poor night of sleep, it was easy to believe he was still in the woods camping.

But then he spotted a lemur with blood-red eyes, hanging from the branch above, staring at him. It bent its head to one side in a caricature of curiosity.

They were up at first light, as the glow bugs coalesced, bunching up to form a tight ball of light on one side of the domed ceiling. The night soundtrack quietened but did not disappear, and remained there in the background.

They ate vegetables Zoe carefully selected from the foliage, and washed it down with some clean water from a flowing stream. They ate a lot, but were still hungry afterwards. It took the edge off their cravings. They put on their backpacks, now free of heavy rocks, and headed into the jungle.

“How much farther do you think we’ve got to go?” Cassie said.

“We did maybe half a day yesterday, so we’ve probably got a couple of days left yet,” Bryan said.

Cassie groaned. Aaron did too, but his was more of a yelp as he fell face-first to the ground. Zoe helped him to his feet.

“Are you all right?” she said.

“I’m fine,” Aaron said, dusting off his knees. “I just tripped on something.”

Zoe looked at the offending item. A horn protruded from beneath a bush. No doubt just a wayward branch. But Zoe knelt down and put her hand to it. She must have noticed something about it because next she lifted the bush up.

“Guys,” she said. “Come take a look at this.”

Bryan and Cassie exchanged a look and rolled their eyes. What was it this time? Endangered dirt? A rare rock? But they said nothing.

Zoe pulled the foliage back further. It caught on whatever was underneath, and when she finally managed to pull it back completely, they found themselves gawping at a giant skeleton.

“Is that a skull?” Bryan said.

“Yes,” Zoe said. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

Bryan could think of many words to describe it, but beautiful wasn’t one of them. Creepy, maybe. The yellowed bone had two large eye sockets, a pair of rounded humps on its forehead, and two long tusks jutting from the base of its skull.

“Is that an elephant?” Bryan said.

“It’s a mammuthus,” Zoe said. “A woolly mammoth.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it before,” Bryan said.

“I’m sure you have,” Zoe said. “In various natural history museums around the world. Strange that it should be here.”

“It’s strange
we’re
here,” Bryan said.

“No, I mean it’s not the right environment for them,” Zoe said. “The vegetation here, and the creatures we have seen, are all from a world long before these mammuthus were around.”

“What are you saying?” Bryan said.

“I think this place we’re in right now, this ecosystem, was formed shortly after the Earth was,” Zoe said. “Maybe even at the same time. Judging by the unusual plant vegetation, and the primordial soup we saw yesterday. Other creatures obviously came here much later. It was luck of the draw whether this ecosystem would be favored by them or not. Like this poor mammuthus. These creatures would not have stood a chance at survival. I mean, look at them. It’s hot and balmy in here, and these mammoths would have been covered in thick fur. They’re big and clumsy, and couldn’t go into the denser forest, losing out on a lot of food they might have otherwise have benefitted from. They’re more suited to the open plains. They didn’t stand a chance.”

“You think that’s how it died?” Bryan said. “It starved to death?”

“Probably,” Zoe said. “It couldn’t have been due to lack of breeding partners. Look, there are more here.”

Hidden amongst the foliage, wrapped and half-buried beneath the thick veins of vines, were half a dozen skeletons. Undergrowth grew out through the skulls and giant ribcages. A graveyard swallowed by the jungle.

Bryan noticed something about one of the ribcage bones. It’d snapped off and lay haphazard. He picked it up and placed it next to the ribcage bone it had snapped from. He held it the wrong way round. When he turned it over, it revealed a series of large holes on one side. Indentations, caused by a series of sharp objects. If Bryan didn’t know any better, he would have thought they were bite marks. But bite marks from a pair of jaws unimaginably large.

There was a honking noise, causing Bryan to start and drop the bone on the ground. The sound came again, first deep, and then higher pitched, like a band was warming up.

“What was that?” Aaron said.

“I have no idea,” Zoe said.

Zoe continued on through the jungle, heading toward the strange trumpeting sounds. The others followed in her wake, apprehensive, but intrigued. There was crashing and snapping, crunching like trees were being uprooted and thrown down. The ground shook beneath their feet. They slowed, crouching to keep their heads below the foliage’s crown.

Bryan’s mouth was dry. He couldn’t swallow. After what he had seen at the side of the watering hole he wasn’t sure he wanted to know what was causing the sounds.

“How about we just keep moving?” he said, trying to keep the tremor out of his voice.

“We should know what we’re up against while we’re here,” Zoe said. “You can never know too much about your environment. Right, Aaron?”

“Right,” Aaron said, though he didn’t look excited about knowing either.

“Uh, guys…” Cassie said. “I think you should step back a minute.”

“Why?” Zoe said.

They followed Cassie’s eye line. She was looking at their feet. They were standing in a meter-wide recess. Bryan jumped out of it like it was about to bite him.

“Oh my God,” Zoe said, realizing what it was. “Guys, do you know what we’re standing in?”

She couldn’t hide her childish glee.

“A puddle?” Aaron said.

“We’re standing in a dinosaur footprint!” Zoe said.

When Aaron and Bryan looked at it more closely they could make out the round curves of the toes.

“
Dinosaurs?
” Bryan said, disbelieving. “I thought they were long gone.”

“From the surface,” Zoe said. “But evidently not down here.”

Bryan peered at the jungle with new-found awareness.

“Listen, I saw Jurassic Park,” he said. “And all the sequels. I don’t much like the idea of being stuck in this jungle with them.”

“It’s all right,” Zoe said. “This footprint is of a plant eater. They’re harmless.”

Zoe looked at the kids and frowned.

“You don’t seem very surprised,” she said.

Cassie shrugged.

“There’s old plants here, so why not old animals?” she said.

“Leave it out,” Aaron said. “What is it with you and always wanting to keep secrets? The reason we’re not surprised is because we saw a small dinosaur yesterday at the waterhole.”

“You saw one?” Zoe said. “And you didn’t tell us?”

“We thought you had enough to worry about already,” Aaron said.

Zoe frowned, unable to hide her annoyance.

The branches above them shook. Leaves drifted down like snow. Bryan looked up and caught the long thick neck of a creature high up in the trees, munching away. The glow bugs in the sky were directly above him, blinding him. The shape was just a silhouette.

Zoe lifted up a giant fir leaf and looked out at what lay before her. Her shoulders fell and she became still. The others drew up beside her and peered out at a great plain through the narrow slit of their foliage window, out onto another world. A true lost world.