Fight for Survival Read online

  Books in the Primeval series

  A RIP IN TIME

  DANGEROUS DIMENSION

  THE LOST PREDATOR

  FIGHT FOR SURVIVAL

  PUFFIN

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  puffinbooks.com

  First published 2008

  1

  Text copyright © Impossible Pictures, 2008

  Photographs copyright © Impossible Pictures, 2008

  Adapted by Alicia Brodersen

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  Except in the United States of America,

  this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not,

  by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated

  without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that

  in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition

  being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  978-0-14-191856-3

  It was coming to the end of a long, dull day at the Castle Cross shopping centre for Barry Somerville. The burly security guard had spent his shift catching a petty thief nicking crisps in the food court, cautioning three wannabe rappers for break-dancing inside the electronics store and wasted half the afternoon trying to find balls that had gone missing from the bowling alley.

  Barry sighed as he did his final round of the now empty complex. So much for the ‘So you think you’re James Bond?’ blurb on the job advert he’d read all those years ago. He’d been a guard at the shopping centre for nearly a decade, and he hadn’t been sent on a secret spy mission once.

  At least his shift was nearly over. Barry walked into the security office and nodded a greeting to Graham, a younger guard who was finishing off some paperwork. Pulling out a Thermos full of coffee from his locker, Barry settled in front of the CCTV monitors to check everything was in order. He was already thinking about the pizza he was going to pick up on his way home.

  Barry frowned as the image of the bowling alley flickered on to the screen. Calling Graham over, the two security guards watched as a ball came tumbling down one of the long, polished wooden laneways in the wrong direction. As the camera flicked to another section of the entertainment quarter, Barry put on his security belt and headed for the door. Even though it didn’t look like there was anyone down there, he had to check it out just the same. The ball couldn’t have come from just nowhere. Someone was clearly having a laugh.

  As Graham kept watch on the screens upstairs, Barry stepped into the deserted bowling alley. The harsh neon lights illuminated a dozen polished laneways, and the only noise was the gentle whirring of a slushie machine. Barry wondered if he could get away with grabbing a quick drink while he was down here. He could always pay for it tomorrow.

  The security guard’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of something slithering along the small corridor that ran the length of the alleyway, behind the pins. Without warning, the loud sound of wood splintering echoed around the centre. A snapped skittle landed at Barry’s feet.

  Annoyed, Barry walked down the laneway, crouching as he reached the end to inspect the remaining ninepins. From the harsh light in the alley above him, he could just discern the outline of someone squeezed into the shadows of the pin deck.

  ‘All right,’ Barry groaned, getting frustrated now. ‘Fun’s over!’

  The person didn’t move. Barry rolled his eyes – trust him to get a stupid kid wanting to play games at the end of his shift!

  ‘I need backup,’ the security guard said into his walkie-talkie, hoping to scare the youth into coming out. ‘We have an intruder.’

  Barry inched closer to the pin deck as he remembered the problems at the alley earlier today. Several players had reported that their balls had disappeared down the laneways, instead of coming back up through the electronic ball return like they were supposed to. The management had checked all their equipment but couldn’t find any faults with it. It was pretty obvious someone had been nicking them.

  Barry was becoming increasingly convinced he’d finally found the troublemakers.

  ‘Don’t make me come in there and get you!’ he shouted, inching closer to the pin deck.

  Barry made a quick lunge forward, trying to grab at the person in the shadows. But as he did, the figure moved. Barry grappled for his torch, shining it at the figure.

  He couldn’t believe what he saw.

  Whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t a human – it didn’t even look like any animal he knew, either. Instead, Barry could see what appeared to be a reptile of some sort, with a thick, leathery body, standing as tall as a human on its muscular hind legs. It had tiny, clawed arms protruding from halfway up its stomach, and a huge mouth filled with rows of sharp teeth.

  And it was coming straight for him.

  Barry screamed as the creature suddenly sprang from its hiding place in the shadows. Grabbing hold of the terrified guard’s arm, its teeth easily sliced through the thick security jacket as it quickly began pulling Barry back into the pin deck. Unable to get a grip on the shiny, polished floorboards or the gutter, the guard had no chance.

  Moments later, Graham arrived out of breath to find the bowling alley empty. The last thing he’d seen on the security screen was Barry crouching down, calling for backup.

  Graham’s eyes widened as a ball suddenly spat out of the pin deck at the opposite end of one of the laneways. As he walked over for a closer inspection, his mouth became dry with fright.

  Running behind the ball was a wet trail of red. As Graham squinted at the ball, he noticed that it was dark with blood. And Barry was nowhere to be seen.

  Although they’d never met each other, the lives of Professor Nick Cutter and Barry Somerville were about to become inextricably linked. Granted, Nick Cutter was not about to be killed by a vicious reptilian creature today, but his afternoon was turning out to be nearly as bad as Barry’s.

  In fact, standing in front of a glittering cluster of light, or an ‘anomaly’, in the Forest of Dean, Cutter was having the worst day of his life.

  He’d often called anomalies ‘ruptures in time’ – rips in the atmosphere. Since they had been appearing, prehistoric creatures had stumbled across them and blundered through from the past to the present, and it was up to Cutter and his team to contain the intruders and prevent havoc. But it also meant that humans could travel through these tears in time. As Cutter had done – he had just returned from the Permian era, which was 250 million years ago…

  But as Cutter had walked back into the present, here in the Forest of Dean, his world had turned on its head. And
right now, he was feeling completely bewildered and disorientated. This wasn’t the world he had left behind when he stepped through the anomaly into the Permian era just hours ago. Somehow, while he was gone, the woman he loved had been erased from history.

  It had begun as any other normal day – well, normal for Cutter, anyway. A palaeontologist from the Central Metropolitan University, he’d recently been studying the phenomenon of anomalies. Together with his lab assistant, Stephen Hart, graduate student Connor Temple and zoologist Abby Maitland, the small team had been discovering and exploring these unusual occurrences in areas across southern England.

  The anomalies had been appearing for several months now and were easily identifiable. Usually a few metres wide and several metres high, they hovered in the air like bright circles of light, crystal-like shards glowing from their edges.

  Occasionally, harmless creatures came through – like the playful dinosaur lizard Coelurosauravus, one of which Abby had adopted as a pet. Or the majestic flying Pteranodon, which had been safely returned to the past almost a week ago. But more often than not, the creatures were deadly predators who, if let loose on the modern world, would cause death and devastation. They already had a flock of flying Pterosaurs, who stripped the flesh off their victims in minutes, and a deadly giant centipede, which had nearly killed Stephen with its lethal bite.

  Apart from Nick and his team, there were only a handful of people who knew the whole truth about these strange happenings. The first was Helen Cutter – another palaeontologist and Nick Cutter’s estranged wife. They weren’t a couple any more. After all, Helen had chosen to disappear for eight years, hiding in the anomalies and exploring the wonders of the past. And while she was gone, Cutter gradually lost hope, finally coming to the conclusion she was dead. She’d only recently come back to the present because she was forced to. And even though Helen refused to tell them how, she was the only one who knew how to detect anomalies before they opened.

  Two other people who knew about the anomalies were James Lester, a government crony who worked for the prime minister, and Claudia Brown, a representative from the Home Office. They’d both been put in charge to keep an eye on the team and make sure reports of dinosaur appearances weren’t leaked to the general public.

  But a few days back, an even more sinister creature had arrived, one which none of them had been expecting – or even thought possible. It had come from an anomaly hidden in the Permian era that led not to the past, but to the future. After the discovery of the predator’s offspring and the death of the male adult creature, Cutter had been put in charge of returning the futuristic babies to their proper place in time.

  Earlier this afternoon, he and Helen and several soldiers from the SAS had stepped through an anomaly in the Forest of Dean and into the Permian era, carrying the crate containing the grotesque, squealing infants. But disaster had struck not long after they’d made camp – a female Future Predator had followed and attacked them, killing all the soldiers and their commanding officer Captain Ryan. If it hadn’t been for a hungry Gorgonopsid crushing the creature to death and eating its young, the Future Predator would have killed them too.

  Just minutes ago, Cutter and Helen had finally come back through the anomaly to tell everyone the dreadful news. Captain Ryan and all the SAS soldiers were dead. But as far as they knew, all the Future Predators and their babies had also perished. Cutter had quickly told his gathered team, Lester and the remaining SAS soldiers that no one should ever go through into the past again. But as always, Helen had other ideas. She’d tried to entice Stephen to come back with her to continue explorations in the Permian era and try to find the anomaly that led to the future. When Stephen refused, Helen had stormed off through the anomaly, furious.

  As the sun had begun to set, Cutter stood in the tranquil Forest of Dean, trying to make sense of it all. It had been a terrifying and bewildering afternoon. But he knew that at least he had Claudia to rely on. The two of them had become quite close, even sharing a kiss before Cutter had left just hours ago. Cutter had looked around trying to find her among the gathered faces, knowing that he could rely on her to make him feel better.

  But Claudia hadn’t been there. And when Cutter asked where she was, the rest of the group had shaken their heads, adamant that they didn’t know who he was talking about.

  And now… Cutter’s head spun with confusion. Even grabbing Claudia’s haughty boss, James Lester, and shouting into his smug face had done no good – even Connor backed up what Lester was saying! Cutter felt like he was going to be violently ill. Something they’d done in the past had affected the present and as a result, Claudia was missing. It was as if she’d never been born.

  Cutter whirled round to face the anomaly shining behind him, convinced the only way to find Claudia would be to go back through. The light had been glimmering brilliantly when he and Helen returned, but now it was beginning to fade. Cutter’s heart sank. The anomaly that had been open for months was about to close!

  Cutter lunged forward, throwing himself towards the light.

  ‘Don’t be stupid!’ Stephen shouted, grabbing hold of the professor’s arm and pulling him back. ‘You could be marooned there forever!’

  ‘I have to go!’ Cutter cried, trying desperately to loosen the lab technician’s grip. ‘I have to make things right!’

  But it was too late. As Cutter watched helplessly, the beams shimmered for one final second before dissolving into thin air. And any hope of finding Claudia had just disappeared with it.

  Lester had been watching Nick Cutter with a mix of fear, loathing and fascination. In his mid-thirties, with messy blond hair and wearing a dusty khaki jacket and jeans, Cutter wasn’t the typical image of a stuffy old professor. But after working with him over the course of the last few months, Lester was starting to suspect Cutter was unstable. And the fact that he had now come back through an anomaly ranting about someone that Lester had never even heard of going missing, made him even more certain. The man had clearly cracked.

  Lester’s thoughts were interrupted by his mobile phone ringing. He was being called to an urgent meeting at the office.

  ‘I think we’re done here, aren’t we?’ he asked briskly, brushing imaginary specks of dust from his lapels and striding off towards his car without waiting for an answer.

  Cutter rushed after him. He knew Lester despised him, but he had to make him understand. He just had to find Claudia.

  ‘Claudia Brown was in charge of the day-to-day anomaly operation,’ Cutter said urgently, grabbing a surprised Lester by the arm. ‘She’s been with us since the beginning!’

  ‘No,’ Lester said, shaking Cutter off like a particularly irritating fly. ‘That’s Leek.’

  Lester’s eyes narrowed as a wave of incomprehension swept over Cutter’s face. Was the professor deranged, or just being obstinate?

  ‘Oliver Leek,’ he added slowly, not hiding the fact that he thought Cutter was a fool. ‘You can’t have forgotten him. You saw him at the ARC this morning.’

  ‘The what?’ said Cutter, frowning.

  Lester sighed audibly as Abby came to stand beside them. She could tell Cutter wasn’t himself and wondered if the stress from the shocking events inside the Permian anomaly was getting to him. Maybe later she’d suggest he go home to get some rest.

  ‘The ARC…’ she explained helpfully, urging him to remember. ‘The Anomaly Research Centre.’

  ‘You mean the Home Office?’ Cutter replied. This was all getting too confusing. The Home Office was what they’d always used as their base when it came to discussing the anomalies. He’d never heard of the ARC before – it certainly hadn’t existed when he’d gone into the Forest of Dean this afternoon.

  Abby shook her head, trying to smile. Cutter could tell by her quizzical look that she thought he had concussion or something.

  ‘No,’ she said, her pretty face looking at him kindly. ‘We moved to a new place ages ago.’

  ‘Is he having a nervous breakdown
?’ Lester interrupted, curling his top lip and talking to no one in particular. ‘Only, I’ve got a meeting, so if someone could just call an ambulance.’

  ‘He’s fine,’ Abby said, taking hold of Cutter’s arm protectively. It wouldn’t do to let Lester think he had the upper hand. His stiff government protocol made things difficult enough for the team as it was.

  Lester stared at the two of them before rolling his eyes towards the sky. He’d really had enough of these simpletons and their dinosaur hoo-ha today. If Cutter was finally losing it, it wasn’t his problem. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to humour the professor a little bit.

  ‘This Claudia Brown,’ Lester said, getting into the back of his government car and feigning interest. ‘Was she anyone important, or just a member of the public?’

  Cutter fixed him with a steely glare. Unconcerned, Lester quickly shut his door and waved at the driver to leave.

  Little did Cutter know that it wouldn’t be long before he was able to see the Anomaly Research Centre for himself. The team had received a message – one of the operators at the ARC had intercepted an emergency call from a young security guard named Graham at the Castle Cross shopping mall. He’d been screaming about being attacked by ‘some kind of monster’ – the last radio communication anyone had had from him. The ARC thought it important enough to warrant a proper investigation.

  After driving there with Abby, Stephen and Connor, Cutter now stood on the top floor of the split-level centre, utterly transfixed. He’d never seen anything like it. Masses of high-tech equipment dotted the enormous room – a large electronic map of the UK loomed over a lower floor manned by dozens of surveillance and support staff, pinpointing areas of interest. Cutter recognized several dots on the map highlighting anomalies they’d discovered over the course of the last few months. The operation’s sheer size was a long way from the small meeting rooms they’d occupied at the Home Office.

  ‘Glad to see you’re back safe and well, Professor,’ said a man in an expensive business suit, sidling up to Cutter with familiarity. ‘But I gather your wife won’t be joining us?’