200 Minutes of Danger

  For Cassius, Egil, Larissa, Maximus, Wijen and the Captain.

  Giant Monster

  Ship Crash

  Rising Water

  Collision Course

  Fatal Error

  Undercover

  Paradox

  Off the Hook

  Several Things at Once

  Rising Water Remixed

  20:00

  ‘Something’s coming,’ Calo whispered, looking up at the leafy canopy.

  Maria followed his gaze. The thick foliage was like an umbrella, keeping the rain off their heads. The dirt beneath her boots was dry. She cleared her throat. ‘It was too big to climb trees.’

  ‘Silence, chica,’ Calo said, still peering upwards.

  The businessman hovered eagerly behind Calo. He was a foreigner, and his expensive hiking clothes looked brand new. Maria didn’t know his name—only the name of his company, Blackwell Holdings.

  19:15

  Maria listened. She couldn’t hear the sounds of the village anymore. They were too deep in the jungle. Hopefully they would be able to find their way back.

  ‘Is this where you saw the creature?’ the businessman asked quietly. His tone made it clear that he would blame her if he came home empty-handed.

  ‘I was standing right here,’ Maria said. ‘I saw it through that gap in the trees. It was on that hilltop, over there.’

  The two adults turned to look at the hilltop, green and silent.

  ‘The hill is far away,’ the businessman said. ‘How can you be certain?’

  ‘I told you. This thing was big.’

  18:45

  A cloud of birds exploded out of some bushes in the distance, screeching and flapping. The businessman flinched.

  ‘Just birds,’ Calo said.

  ‘But something startled them,’ the businessman said. ‘Let’s go.’

  Maria followed Calo, and the businessman followed her. Her sense of doom grew with every step. She shouldn’t have told anyone what she had seen. Her parents shouldn’t have taken the businessman’s money. He kept eyeing the jungle like it was a catalogue, or a menu. You shouldn’t watch out for things to eat in the jungle, she thought. You should watch out for things which might eat you.

  But she couldn’t back out now. The vice president of Verde was a friend of the businessman’s. Any disobedience would have consequences for her family.

  15:10

  Calo fell.

  The ground up ahead had looked solid, but it was just a carpet of duckweed floating on dark water. This was a lake, not a clearing.

  As Calo’s legs disappeared into the water, Maria caught his collar. He was too heavy, and pulled her off her feet, but she grabbed one of the vines dangling over the lake with her other hand. It was strong enough to hold them both up. The businessman stood back while Maria hauled Calo back onto dry land.

  14:30

  ‘Gracias,’ Calo wheezed.

  ‘You’re my guide,’ the businessman snapped. ‘What am I paying you for?’

  They were deep in uncharted territory. There was no way Calo could know every hazard on every animal trail. But he said, ‘I’m sorry, señor. It won’t happen again.’

  ‘It had better not. Find a way around.’

  Calo shook his feet, trying to dry them. ‘This way.’

  He led them towards the narrowest part of the lake, where there was a fallen tree. The trunk was thick and long—it must have been hundreds of years old when it fell, maybe thousands. The trunk stretched all the way to the opposite shore of the lake. It looked almost like it had been deliberately pushed over to make a bridge . . . except there was no animal strong enough to do that, and no way to get a bulldozer this far into the jungle.

  11:00

  ‘Will that take our weight?’ Maria asked.

  The businessman pointed at Calo. ‘You first.’

  Calo nodded, and climbed up onto the tree trunk. It didn’t appear to shift under him. He walked across it like a gymnast on the beam, his wet shoes squelching.

  10:40

  Maria was about to follow when the businessman pushed her aside. He clambered up and walked across the bridge, more carefully than Calo had. When he reached the opposite shore, Maria climbed up and followed. The trunk felt as solid as a concrete bridge, but she kept her eyes straight ahead, as if looking into the murky water would cause her to fall in.

  When she hopped down onto the opposite shore, she found the two men staring at the ground.

  09:50

  ‘What?’ she said.

  Calo stepped back so she could see. Maria’s eyes widened. There was a footprint in the dirt. Not human—the big toe was separated from the others, further back, almost like a thumb.

  The footprint was almost a metre long.

  ‘It’s real,’ the businessman breathed, his dark eyes wide and hungry.

  Maria had been wondering if she had imagined it—the enormous silhouette crouched on top of the hill, glimpsed between the trees. Now she knew for sure.

  ‘This footprint is at least two days old,’ Calo said. ‘The creature may have moved on.’

  ‘Gorillas are very territorial,’ the businessman said.

  ‘This is not a gorilla.’

  ‘No. But something startled those birds. It’s here.’

  They walked deeper into the jungle, following the direction of the footprint. Soon they found another one, half-concealed by a crumbled rock. A series of trampled ferns made something like a trail.

  08:10

  Then they rounded a bend, and saw the bones.

  They were stacked like kindling for a campfire. The skull perched on top was huge, with teeth as big as knives and eyeholes the size of rockmelons. A line of dirt had been drawn across its brow. A swirling pattern had been drawn in the dust around the pile.

  08:00

  The businessman groaned. ‘We’re too late. It’s dead.’

  ‘No,’ Calo said, before Maria could stop him. ‘This looks ceremonial.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Some animals have rituals. I think this might be the result of . . . well, a funeral.’

  The businessman looked eager. ‘So there might be more of these creatures.’

  Calo was examining the fragments. ‘Not much of this jungle is left unexplored. And this one was very old when it died, perhaps a year ago. A female, judging by the pelvis.’

  Maria had known Calo long enough never to lend him money, but she trusted him when it came to nature. When her abuelo caught malaria, it was Calo who helped Maria find a cinchona tree and powder its bark for medicine.

  ‘These bones have been undisturbed for a year?’ Maria asked.

  ‘Other animals must be smart enough to stay away,’ Calo said. ‘Or perhaps our target is maintaining the grave. Or both.’

  07:25

  The businessman approached, leaving boot prints in the spiral patterns. He reached for the skull.

  ‘Don’t touch her,’ Maria said, without thinking.

  The businessman glared at her, but dropped his hand. ‘A dead animal is useless to me,’ he said. ‘I need a live one for my research. Keep looking.’

  06:00

  They looked around until they found another giant footprint, and then followed the trail uphill.

  Maria nudged Calo. ‘Do animals really have funerals?’ She asked the question in Spanish, so the businessman wouldn’t understand.

  04:40

  ‘Some birds do. And gorillas certainly have culture. Groups of them—troops, they’re called—prepare food differently from one another. They have a sort of language, and they grieve for their dead. But I’ve never seen anything like this.’

  Maria was fascinated. She’d never seen a gorilla in the wild—they
came from Africa, not South America—but she’d been to the zoo in the city once, and seen one perched on a rock, munching leaves on an island in the middle of a moat.

  04:25

  ‘Are they as smart as humans?’ As she asked the question, Maria wondered how that could be measured. Her dog couldn’t read a book, but it was better than her at finding rats.

  ‘Smarter than some,’ Calo said, with a glance back at the businessman.

  Maria suppressed a laugh.

  There was a clear trail now. Something big had been climbing this hill regularly. The vegetation had been bludgeoned aside over the years.

  03:40

  Maria heard a click. When she looked back, she saw that the businessman was loading darts into a rifle.

  ‘You’re going to shoot it?’ she said, alarmed.

  ‘I already told you.’

  ‘I thought you meant with a camera!’

  ‘No. Once we find it, stay out of my way. The tranquilliser in these darts would kill a human.’

  Maria looked at Calo. He wouldn’t meet her gaze. He had known about this.

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ Maria said. ‘It’s huge—how will you take it anywhere?’

  ‘Depends where it goes down,’ the businessman said. ‘Hopefully airlifting. I have a helicopter standing by—though some of these trees may have to be cleared.’

  03:00

  Maria was about to argue with him, when she noticed a thick log lying across the trail up ahead. It would be hard to go around it. Both ends were engulfed by the shrubbery on either side of the trail.

  ‘Look,’ she said.

  ‘We can climb over that,’ the businessman said. ‘No big deal.’

  Nodding, Calo started walking towards it.

  ‘That’s not what I meant,’ Maria insisted. ‘If the animal uses this trail all the time, why would that log be there?’

  ‘You’re stalling,’ the businessman said.

  Calo was already climbing over the log.

  ‘Wait,’ Maria said. An animal smart enough to have a funeral is definitely smart enough to set a trap.

  Calo, perched atop the log, paused. ‘What?’

  And then the log lifted up into the air.

  02:20

  Maria screamed and the businessman shouted in alarm as the log rose up, dirt sliding off the sides. Calo clung to it, his eyes wide with panic.

  The creature emerged.

  It was huge. Twice the height of any gorilla. It held up the log like it was a baseball bat. Red eyes burned under shaggy brows. Muscles bulged under its silver-flecked fur as it lifted the log higher. A stumpy tail thumped the ground as the creature roared, exposing huge yellow fangs.

  02:05

  ‘Help me!’ Calo shrieked. He dangled from the log, at least five metres above the ground.

  The businessman raised the tranq gun and took aim at the giant.

  ‘No!’ Maria cried. If he shot the creature it would drop the log, and Calo could be crushed. She grabbed the barrel of the gun.

  02:00

  The businessman fired anyway. The shot went wide, and the dart thunked into a nearby tree.

  ‘Stupid girl!’ the businessman snarled at Maria.

  The monster hooted like an oncoming train and spun around, flinging the log into the distance with Calo still clinging to it. The log disappeared over the treetops, Calo’s scream fading away to nothing.

  01:55

  Maria backed away as the giant stomped towards her, shaking the ground beneath her feet. The businessman frantically tried to load another dart into his gun. The monster swung a gigantic fist at him and knocked him off the trail. He flew sideways into the jungle like a ragdoll.

  The giant looked over Maria’s shoulder at the footprints all around the stack of bones. Then it turned its furious gaze back to her.

  01:45

  Maria whirled around and ran back down the hill towards the bridge. The giant gave chase. Maria ran as fast as she could, but the creature was catching up. Its booming footsteps made the trees quiver around her.

  The fear felt like spiders crawling all over her brain, making it hard to think. Running straight down the hill was a bad idea. The monster’s legs were longer than her whole body. It would be faster than her.

  01:40

  Instead, she darted off the path, barging through waist-high shrubs. The gaps between the trees were narrow. She could fit, but the monster wouldn’t. She squeezed through a gap, trampling the undergrowth, her heart thudding against her ribs.

  There was a tearing, crashing sound behind her. Maria turned and saw that the creature hadn’t even slowed down. It shoved the trees aside with such force that the roots snapped and they toppled like bowling pins. The giant was unstoppable.

  Maria shouldn’t have told Calo she had seen it. She should be at home, in bed. Now she was going to die.

  She kept running, tears on her face. She had no plan. She was so panicked that she didn’t even realise where she was going until it was too late.

  01:30

  The lake was dead ahead, hidden under a cloak of leaves and algae. And because Maria had veered off the trail, this time there was no tree trunk to climb across. She was trapped between the water and the rampaging giant.

  She looked left and right. Nowhere to hide. The lake and penned her in, like—

  Maria suddenly remembered the moat which had surrounded the gorilla at the zoo. Gorillas couldn’t swim. Maybe the giant couldn’t, either.

  She looked around frantically. This far off the trail, the dense jungle crowded in, extending the canopy of branches and vines out over the lake. She couldn’t just wade across it either. The weeds and the muddy floor would slow her down, and the giant had long arms. It would reach out and pluck her from the water.

  01:15

  Instead she ran towards the edge of the lake and jumped. She sailed across the water for a second, arms flailing, and then grabbed one of the stiff vines hanging overhead.

  She expected to swing like Tarzan, but the vine was too tangled in tree branches to move very far. She reached for another vine, then another, climbing out over the still water like a kid on the monkey bars.

  Back on the shore, the giant stormed after her, hooting and bellowing. Maria swung forwards, desperate to get out of reach.

  01:05

  The giant stepped into the water, just as Calo had done earlier. It screamed with rage—it must not have realised there was water under the layer of leaves. It toppled into the lake with a splash that created a huge wave, big enough to wet Maria’s dangling feet.

  01:00

  Trying to save itself, the creature grabbed a fistful of vines in its enormous hand. With a popping, creaking sound, the vines snapped under the giant’s weight. The damage spread across the network of foliage, branches ripping and tree trunks cracking all around.

  Suddenly the vines Maria dangled from weren’t attached to anything. She screamed as she fell backwards into the lake.

  Sploosh. The water was pitch black, the carpet of leaves blocking out the sun. Maria thrashed around, her clothes suddenly heavy. Without the light, she couldn’t tell which way was up. The panic grew and grew.

  00:50

  Welcome to the jungle. Where even the water tries to eat you.

  Somehow she found the surface. She spat out the dirty water, took a quick gulp of air and turned around—

  The giant was right above her!

  Maria screamed, but the giant ignored her. Its panicked eyes were wide. Its feet must have been stuck deep in the mud of the lakebed.

  As it tried to free itself, one of its flailing arms came down towards Maria. It was like the sky was falling. She rolled aside just as the arm hit the lake and created a dark wave that washed her out of the creature’s reach.

  There was a sharp crack.

  00:40

  The giant stopped thrashing and sniffed the air suspiciously. A look of great sadness crossed its hairy face. It toppled over backwards and hit the water. Anot
her black wave rolled out, washing Maria further from the shore.

  The creature sank, but not far. It was close to the edge of the lake, and too big to submerge.

  Treading water, Maria spotted the businessman between the trees, lowering his tranq gun. His hiking clothes wore torn and muddy. His face was bruised and bleeding. But he was grinning.

  ‘Is Calo OK?’ Maria called.

  The businessman ignored this. He lifted a satellite phone to his ear.

  00:00

  ‘Send in the helicopters,’ he said. ‘And prep the container. I want to be on the first ship out of here.’

  20:00

  ‘Watch out!’ Quinn screamed.

  It was a dumb thing to yell. He and Yolandi were the only two people on the deck, and neither of them had any way of steering the cargo ship. He should have said, ‘Hang onto something!’ or ‘Get away from the edge!’

  Yolandi turned. ‘Watch out for wha—’

  19:55

  The hull shrieked, a deafening squeal of metal on metal. The deck lurched under Quinn, like a lift stopping too suddenly, and his feet slid out from under him. He hit the deck, bruising his elbow. His phone went flying out of his hand and skittered away. Yolandi crashed down next to him, landing on her satchel. Quinn heard her laptop crack inside.

  Thunder boomed somewhere. Quinn’s heavy breaths left condensation on the cold steel of the deck.

  Dad had told them not to come up here. Too dangerous without an adult, he’d said. But their cabin was so dull.

  This was supposed to be a fun way to spend the summer break. A few days on the boat to pick up Dad’s prototype, and a few days to get back. But there was nothing to do. They weren’t even allowed to use their phones in case someone figured out what Dad was transporting.

  This was the last day of the voyage, and they’d run out of games to play below decks. Quinn had thought it would be safe up here. It had never occurred to him that the Vanguard might actually crash.

  19:40