The Extinct (2 page)

“Dr. Said?” she said.

“Yes.”

She held out her hand. It was soft and lotioned. “Nancy Larson.”

“Nice to meet you. Sit down, please.”

She sat down and placed her purse on the table. Namdi noticed there was a box of tissues and, tucked away underneath, a small handgun.

“What can I do for you, Mrs. Larson?”

“Phillip told me you were an expert on the animals in Andhra Pradesh. That you help governments catch animals that start attacking people.”

“I have in the past, yes.”

She pulled out a photo and slid it across the table. It was her and a thin, white male in shorts and a tank-top standing next to a jeep.

“This is my husband, Davis. He went missing thirty-six days ago.”

“Where?”

“We were near the coast. I was driving that jeep in the picture. We had come for a picture safari. Davis used to love hunting but I got him off of that. I told him it was cruel and that taking a good picture was just as hard as taking a good shot. I don’t think he ever believed me, but he did it anyway.” Nancy took out a tissue from her purse and held it in her hands, twirling the thin paper over and over again. “We saw . . . something. It was fur that went along some bushes next to the jeep. Davis wanted a photo so we stopped. He thought it might be a wildebeest or something.

“We were speaking about the World Cup that was coming up soon and he was waiting for his photo. I turned to get some water. I just looked away for a second. When I turned back . . . he was gone. No sounds. He was just gone. I yelled for him and ran around looking for him, even though the hairs on my neck were standing up. I felt like that was an evil place. I still do. But I saw these next to the jeep.”

Nancy pulled out more photos. Namdi took them and held them up. They were prints in the soft dirt. Paws. In one photo, Nancy put her hand next to the paw. Smart girl, he thought. Without perspective, no one would’ve believed it.

“These prints—” Namdi began.

“Are huge. I know. I’ve shown them to other people too. They said they had to be a hoax.”

“Are these the only photos you have?”

“No, I have a few more. But I was only there five or ten minutes before I sped to the police station. We searched for three days. We didn’t even find a shred of clothing. It’s like the earth swallowed him.”

“Mrs. Larson, I’m going to be honest with you because I do not want to give you false hope. There is little chance that he could survive for more than a month on the plains without food or water. Have you considered that maybe he ran away and he planned this?”

“Ran away? He didn’t run away. We had a good marriage. And if he wanted to leave he had better opportunities than that.”

Namdi placed the photographs down. “Mrs. Larson, what is it you’d like me to do?”

“Find out what happened to him. It’s the not knowing that’s killing me. I just need to know what happened. Could a rogue tiger or something have done this?”

“Possibly. When an animal sees how easy prey human beings are, it will only hunt human beings. These are very dangerous animals. The only way to stop them is to kill them. But I’ve never heard of a case like this. It may have been bandits or militia and the prints are distortions due to the weather.”

“Will you help me?”

Namdi saw tears in her eyes and watched as she tore the tissue to shreds in her hands, the pieces flaking down across her lap and onto the floor. He remembered a similar reaction in his mother when the army had informed them that his father would not be coming home.

“All right, Mrs. Larson. I will look into it.”

*****

As the sun set and baked the sky a soft orange and pink, Namdi Said sat at his desk and reviewed all the photos Mrs. Davis Larson had taken the day her husband went missing. The paw prints were the most interesting of course, but there was something else. On the side of the passenger seat, indented into the fabric, were punctures arched in a semi-circle. There was little fabric torn away. Namdi thought that whatever punctured them would have to be as sharp as razors to not tear anything away.

He pressed a button on his phone. “Ms. Thorpe?”

“Yes, doctor?”

“Call the police and the Department of Wildlife please. Get me the files for every missing person and potential animal attack on the plains for the last six months. Start with around Hyderabad and work your way out. Nothing in the cities, just the plains.”

“Yes, sir. It may take me some time, sir.”

“That is fine. Thank you.”

Namdi threw the photos down and leaned back in his seat. He didn’t like this case. If Nancy was telling an accurate account, her husband was taken in total silence in broad daylight with another person nearby. Tigers and panthers had killed and kidnapped before, but never so brazenly. Something was different.

He noticed for the first time that the hair on his neck was standing up.

CHAPTER

4

Blood coated Thomas’s hands.

He sat near the fire, watching the flames flicker in darkness; whiskey from a flask kept in his breast pocket. This far inland from the coast Andhra Pradesh had little light pollution; the sky blanketed in the sparkle of stars; moon a bright slit in the blackness over lush plains.

Thomas glanced at the other men around the fire; faces worn and tired, small droplets of black darkening their clothes as if it had rained blood. Robert Mason. Not a hunter. Scared and maybe a little dangerous because of his fear. James Holden sat poking a stick into the fire, watching the crimson embers dance in the flames.

The hunt had gone well. They’d followed a herd of elephants for more than four days before the bull separated himself from the rest and they could begin taking shots. The Andhra Pradeshn Park Authorities kept close tabs on all hunters, especially those with British and American passports. Not unwarranted considering the history of colonialism and abuse suffered at the hands of the crown. Rape and genocide and slavery. The people here had no trust for white men; even those that paid handsomely.

If they had killed a cow, or worse, a calf, they would have had to spend the rest of their funds bribing their way out of a prison sentence.

Mason spit in the fire and said, “I’m going to miss these nights. The grass has a sweet smell to it here I haven’t found anywhere else.”

“Like cow shit with sugar on it,” James Holden said. He looked out over a herd of Sambar deer, a dark roving mass in the pale light of the moon. “Good hunt though. Thought Thomas’d drop the rifle and run when that bull charged.”

“That’s the best time to shoot,” Thomas said. “Granted they’re more impervious to pain, but they face you squarely and you can have an excellent target if you know what to look for. Asian elephants here hold their necks at a forty five degree angle so it makes it harder. But an African elephant keeps it horizontal so when they charge, you have a direct shot into the brain. I remember—”

A noise echoed through the night. It seemed to come from the east and they turned toward it. Nothing they could see except tall grass and weeds.

Thomas was the expert of the group but also happened to be the drunkest right now and didn’t feel like chasing sounds in the dark. “There are tigers,” Thomas said, a hint of pleasure in his voice as he saw the looks of his companions. “I wouldn’t worry though; I’ve led tours through this region for thirty years and they haven’t killed a tourist in, oh, a good ten.”

More noises in the dark, closer this time. They seemingly came from the darkness itself as there was little else to hide behind.

“Sounds like laughing,” James said.

“There’s no people here,” Thomas said, putting down his flask and gulping coffee out of a tin cup before picking up his rifle. He slung it over his shoulder and began walking toward the noise, leaving his boots behind and opting to go barefoot.

The dirt and grass was warm under his feet; fire a warm glow in the distance behind him. Their kill lay like a boulder up ahead; the blood congealed in a thick gelatin around the carcass. Thomas kneeled and checked the rifle; chambered. He held it up in front of him, the shoulder rest tucked firmly against the crook between his chest and arm.

Except for the symphony of crickets that increased in volume as he came away from the fire, there was little noise. No laughing; hooves in the distance. Thomas strained to hear, exploring with his eyes like they could pick up subtle noises that his ears could not. As if his hearing needed to adjust to the darkness as much as his sight, he began to hear something. A slow, rhythmic breathing. Deep; a pant.

It was an animal.

From the depth of the breathing, large. Rifle up to firing position and looking down the sight, the barrel firmly aimed at the breathing. Coming from the carcass? Maybe the bull isn’t dead? But the moonlight illuminated the carcass enough that he could see the great belly of the elephant which would have been rising and falling if it were alive.

Light behind the carcass. Yellow orbs reflecting the moon with confident fierceness bred by constant struggle. Figure behind the orbs takes shape: thick head, robust body and short legs. A tigress.

Growling, preparing to defend her scavenged meal. Thomas takes aim, the barrel pointed squarely at her face, waiting for her to lunge. Wait until she moved; she might retreat. It’d be better if she retreated.

The beast turned its head west, toward the camp. Thomas could see the muscles bulge underneath her fur, even with the moon as his only candle. The tigress let out a soft whine and then turned away from the carcass, building to a slow gallop; disappearing into the night.

Thomas exhaled; he hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath but now his lungs ached. Would he have been able to hit his target, a moving target, at night?

Thomas stood and wiped at the dirt on his knee. Fingers tingled as blood returned to them; wave of calm washed over him as he looked up to the moon, as if the light could warm his face like sunshine.

A roar.

Bassed so heavily Thomas felt it in his feet, rising from the ground. It was like the plains themselves had roared; the sound coming from all directions. It filled the air and echoed across the valley.

As he tried to reign in his thoughts, he realized there was another sound. They were screams.

Thomas sprinted through the grass toward the fire, the sounds of screams echoing in his head. Then silence. He stopped, panting. Heart pounding in his ears as adrenaline coursed through him like fire. He started running again until he was near the camp; no one there, a spilled flask of whiskey lying in the dirt, blood spattered across it. Their tents were torn to shreds; supplies smashed into the ground. Logs had been knocked out of the fire and the smoldering wood was cooling in the night air.

Thomas crept past the fire, not breeching the limit of illumination less than a few meters away. Couldn’t see anything aside from the tall grass though his senses were more attuned from fear. The fire dying. Taking a few paces back to stand next to it. Listening to his own breath as sweat rolled down his forehead.

There were eyes in the darkness. Not the circular yellow of the tigress; pinpoints of red. Small flames hanging above the ground. The eyes were affixed on him and he couldn’t move. His muscles were heavy and tight; a conscious effort to relax them.

Another roar ripped through the night followed by what sounded like laughter. He could hear the deep pant of the beast’s breathing and the slow thumping of an immense heart. Few paces back and the red eyes grow tighter, small slits nearly invisible in the night; a low growl.

Thomas knew he had two options: shoot or run. He was too close to get off more than one shot. One shot in the dark at a quick moving animal. He thought about standing still; not giving ground as sometimes worked with the big cats. Although predators could smell the sweat of fear and hear the increased beating of their prey’s heart, nothing triggered their savage instincts more than fleeing prey. They were meant to chase rather than just be fed.

His mind was blank, no thoughts able to penetrate the cloud of anxiety and fear. A bare instinct of survival bubbled up in his gut, and he ran.

The wind was against his face as he focused on keeping his balance on the uneven ground. Periphery of his vision blurred until he could only see what was in front him; a vague impression that he didn’t have a clear run ahead. He didn’t need to look behind him; he felt the enormous animal’s paws hitting the ground; sound of heavy breathing closing in on him. Thomas sprinted for the elephant carcass as he felt hot breath against the skin of his neck. He bounded over the bull’s carcass, hoping to lure the predator to the stink of meat and blood and away from him. His foot caught on the rough hide and then a white flash, his jaw absorbing most of the impact as he hit the ground.

Dazed and on his back, the blood begins to seep out of his mouth. The animal behind him slows.

A shot crackled through the air and Thomas looked toward the fire. James stood with a rifle in one arm, his clothes torn and stained black. His other arm was nearly severed at the shoulder; pouring blood into dry earth. He tossed the rifle to the ground and pulled a .45 caliber Desert Eagle handgun from his waist.

The animal turned and ran for him. As Thomas lost consciousness the last things that reached his ears were gunshots and screams, and the wet sounds of an animal feeding.

CHAPTER

5

Eric Holden looked over his dorm room and decided it wouldn’t be worth cleaning. Empty pizza boxes, beer cans, clothes, papers, and magazines were piled on the floor. Even if he did clean it his roommate Jason would just dirty it again in a matter of days; he had an uncanny ability to find something organized and mess it up. Eric didn’t even think he did it consciously. But you couldn’t blame Jason; both his parents were psychiatrists. Who knows what they filled his head with when he was a kid.