This is an ongoing story about a lost world of hungry dinosaurs, sinister villains, and non-stop action. If you’re new to Hollow Earth Expedition, I suggest starting at the beginning.

Kate Boone dove to the floor as the bullets tore holes in the door and shattered the windows above her. Reggie kicked the door closed and then crouched down, carefully balancing his breakfast plate in his hands.

The men by the truck opened up with another burst of machinegun fire that almost cut the door in half. Wood splinters and glass shards rained down on them—and onto Reggie’s plate of food.

“Those guys aren’t kidding around this time!” he said, staring in horror at the mound of scrambled eggs now made inedible by the debris.

Dr. Scott stepped in from the kitchen, the mop still in his hands and a horrified look on his face. Kate sprang to her feet and ushered the doctor back the way he came.

“My research!” Dr. Scott yelled, pushing past her on his way to the stairs.

Reggie blocked the way with his husky frame “Sorry, doc. We gotta get out of this house before we end up looking like Swiss cheese.”

“Everybody out to the plane!” Kate ordered.

“Where’d Clem go?” Reggie asked. Nobody had an answer.

Kate dashed out the back door and over the open ground. The gunmen noticed her as she rounded the corner of the barn, and a hail of bullets kicked up the dust just behind her feet.

The airplane was parked behind the barn, but now the gunmen were watching that side of the house. Reggie knew he would never make it across the fifty yards of open, sun-blistered ground.

“Cover us!” Reggie called to Kate.

Kate must have heard him, because she popped back around the corner of the barn, taking aim with her one good eye.

By the truck, one of the two men scrambled to undo the ties to the cargo cover while the other fired the last three bullets from his sub-machinegun and then fluidly ejected the magazine. Kate’s Mauser pistol used rifle-grade ammunition, which gave her the advantage at this range. Her first shot kicked up a dust cloud at the man’s foot as he readied his new magazine and sprayed bullets in her direction. His shots fanned out uselessly; her next two shots found his chest and knocked him to the ground. The second man seized another gun from the truck bed, but Kate’s fire drove him under cover.

Reggie ran for it, hauling Dr. Scott behind him by the sleeve of his white lab coat.

Then the thing in the cargo bed knocked the canvas off itself with a huge steel hand. When Reggie saw what it was, he stumbled and fell to the dry ground.

It was all metal, pistons, and rivets, and it might have been mistaken for an armored car except that it walked upright on two stumpy legs that kicked up clouds of dust with each heavy step. Its blocky torso was armor-plated and adorned with a Swastika-and-dagger motif, and where it might have had a head it bore only a flat hatch a series of view-slits. Its arms were steel and iron girders bound by complicated joints that hissed and hummed as they moved. One of those arms ended in a crude fist, and the other bore a multi-barrel machinegun.

The huge gun swiveled to point directly at Reggie, its barrels spinning to life.

“Unbelievable,” Reggie coughed. “Where’s my camera when I need it?”

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Hollow Earth Expedition was created by Jeff Combos and is property of Exile Game Studio. For more Hollow Earth Expedition action, check out ExileGames.com

This is an ongoing story about a lost world of hungry dinosaurs, sinister villains, and non-stop action. If you’re new to Hollow Earth Expedition, I suggest starting at the beginning.

Reggie Sparks scooped Dr. Scott’s special scrambled eggs into his mouth. Strangely, the others didn’t seem quite so eager to try the neon-orange eggs produced by mutant, carnivorous chickens.

Reggie watched Clem and Kate Boone daintily push their food around on their plates without actually eating any. (Evidently, Reggie noted, Kate Boone was not such a daredevil when it came to her food.) They hadn’t eaten any of the fried “chicken” at dinner the night before, either.

It just means more for me, Reggie thought as he speared another link of chicken sausage from the serving plate. It did, after all, taste like chicken.

“So let me get this straight,” he said through his mouthful of food. “You scientists have a secret society?”

“I wouldn’t call it that,” Dr. Scott said, dabbing the corners of his mouth with his napkin. “It’s not secret so much as it is…esoteric. Think of us as a professional organization. Invitation only. We call ourselves the Order of Prometheus. Professor Scrumtumbler was a member—”

“Is a member,” Kate cut in. “We’re going to find him and bring him home safely.”

“Yeah, anyway,” Reggie pressed on. “What you’re saying, Dr. Scott, is that this is why the Nazis are after you. They’ve been kidnapping or bumping off the other scientists and your name was next on the roster with the Order of—whatchamacallit—of the Phoenix?”

“Order of Prometheus,” Dr. Scott corrected. “These events are being driven by an organization within the Nazi party, a very influential group that calls itself the Thule Society. They’ve dedicated themselves to giving Hitler a monopoly on both technological and occult knowledge.”

“I gotta tell you,” Reggie waved the half-eaten sausage at the end of his fork. “This would make a dynamite screenplay. Any other secret societies out there we should know about?”

Before Dr. Scott could answer, Clem reached out with the hand bearing the eye-in-triangle tattoo and knocked over the carafe of orange juice. Everyone beat a hasty retreat from the table before the rivers of juice found their laps. Only Reggie managed to rescue his plate so that he could keep eating.

While Dr. Scott went to retrieve a mop from the kitchen, Kate scooped her food back into the serving dishes.

“We need to decide what to do next,” she said. “We slowed them down in Nevada, but it’s only a matter of time before these Thule creeps catch up to us.”

“But Dr. Scott doesn’t want to leave his research,” Reggie said. “He said so last night—hey, is that a car coming up the road?”

Popping the last of his sausage into his mouth, Reggie moved to the front room and peered out the window. He saw a large cargo truck pull around in the lawn so its bumper faced the house. Two men in grey business suits hustled out of the cab to work at the straps holding the canvas cover onto something large and lumpy in the truck’s cargo area.

“Looks like the Thule goons found us,” Reggie said, spitting a few flakes of sausage as he spoke. “What do you want to bet we don’t want to find out what they’ve got in the back of that truck?”

Kate strode past him and flung open the door. As soon as she did, machinegun fire ripped into the house.

Don’t miss any of the pulse pounding action! Get all the episodes of this story delivered to your inbox each month by subscribing to my free ezine!

Hollow Earth Expedition was created by Jeff Combos and is property of Exile Game Studio. For more Hollow Earth Expedition action, check out ExileGames.com

This is an ongoing story about a lost world of hungry dinosaurs, sinister villains, and non-stop action. If you’re new to Hollow Earth Expedition, I suggest starting at the beginning.

“Our operation is systematic and thorough,” the Nazi lieutenant said, just a bit defensively. “It is only a matter of time before we find what we seek. We have no need for you.”

Maia leaned back in her chair, the picture of nonchalance. “I’ve excavated more tombs than the Egyptian Department of Antiquities, and I’m only half as corrupt. So here’s the deal: you give me free access—are you writing this down?—you give me free access to the under-city and I find the trinket you want. Oh, but I get to keep everything else I can carry out of there.”

The lieutenant rubbed his big chin while studying her expression. Perhaps he was searching for signs of doubt or deceit, or maybe he was just wondering how to get out of this interrogation with his pride intact.

“Commandant von Wartenburg,” he said in a low, serious tone. “He will not like this offer.”

“Not your problem,” Maia tapped the report form with her finger. “Your job is to pass along my offer. Here, let me see the report to make sure you’ve spelled everything correctly.”

The lieutenant snatched the paper away and finished it where she couldn’t see it. Rather petulant, she thought, but at least he finished the paperwork.

Evidently, some ambient effect of this region interfered with radio communication, so the Nazis had assembled a small pool of message-runner slaves who had been deemed too infirm for heavy labor. The lieutenant waved over one of them, a white-bearded man, who accepted the report timidly and limped to a platform connected to the zeppelin by long ropes. The wobbling platform was then winched up into the zeppelin’s belly fifty feet overhead. It was a painfully slow process, and the whole while the frightened old man clung like a frightened gecko to the shaking ropes.

The minutes dragged on while Maia waited for Commandant von Wartenburg to come to a decision. From the hushed tones with which the soldiers spoke of him, Maia was beginning to realize that the Commandant struck as much fear into his own soldiers as he did in his slaves. That was bad news: it meant he would drive a hard bargain.  The truth was, finding whatever specific trinket the Nazis were after would be like finding a needle in a dank, dark underground labyrinth. All she wanted was a free pass to snoop around under the city and pocket some long-buried gold, but maybe it wasn’t worth it. She had asked for a hundred percent of her findings, but if the commandant offered her anything less than forty, she would have to walk away.

A scream broke the still air and Maia turned in time to witness a man fall from the zeppelin. With a sickening thud, the figure smashed into the ground and lay still, and only then did Maia recognize the white-bearded slave.

Maia was the first person at the old man’s side, but his broken body was beyond saving. A moment later, the lantern-jawed lieutenant shoved her to the side, then fished a piece of paper out of the dead man’s satchel.

“What is it?” she asked breathlessly. “What happened?”

“It appears the commandant has given you his answer,” the lieutenant said, handing her the paper.

Maia saw that it was the same official report they had sent up to the zeppelin. A box at the bottom of the page bore the commandant’s orders, written in pristine handwriting:

SHE WILL FIND THE ITEM OR SHE WILL BE SHOT.

Don’t miss any of the pulse pounding action! Get all the episodes of this story delivered to your inbox each month by subscribing to my free ezine!

Hollow Earth Expedition was created by Jeff Combos and is property of Exile Game Studio. For more Hollow Earth Expedition action, check out ExileGames.com

This is an ongoing story about a lost world of hungry dinosaurs, sinister villains, and non-stop action. If you’re new to Hollow Earth Expedition, I suggest starting at the beginning.

The petty-minded sergeant who took Maia prisoner wanted to set her to work with the slaves, but in this instance the Nazi zeal for formal procedure worked to Maia’s advantage. With her modern weapons and khaki clothing—not to mention her ability to speak fluent German— she was clearly not one of the natives of this land. That meant she was to be passed up the chain of command until someone figured out what to do with her.

Now she sat in the shadow of the great zeppelin that hovered above the ancient city, filling out an official report that would soon be passed on to the commandant.

“What is your nationality,” demanded the lantern-jawed lieutenant as his stubby pencil hovered over a printed form.

“Kiowa,” Maia answered, and enjoyed watching his discomfort. She knew that the only things Nazis liked better than official paperwork was proving their superiority, and this lieutenant did not want to lower himself to admit he had never heard of the Kiowa nation. Nor was Maia inclined to explain, because she was sure the officer would shorten “Native American” to simply “American,” and that wasn’t entirely accurate.

“I know what your expedition is after,” Maia taunted. “I can help you get it.”

The lieutenant looked up at her, his heavy chin slightly slack. “We need no help from you.”

“Scheiss,” she stated flatly. She had always been a fast study with language, and an even faster study with foul language.

Maia stood and pointed to a crumbling dome amid a wide field that had been assiduously cleared of vines. By the arching entrance to the dome was a stack of sand-bags and three gray-clad soldiers stationed around a long, menacing machine gun.

“It’s obvious you have a prize there because you’ve gone to such trouble to defend it. You’ve got a big zeppelin, but even an airship of that size can’t carry more than, what, fifty crewmen? Maybe less after you load it up with all your gear? You’re stretched thin on an operation of this scale, and if you assign three of those men to a single station, it means you’re guarding something too big to move.”

“We have ample manpower,” the lieutenant sounded like he was reciting his response from memory. It was clearly the party line he had been repeating to the soldiers under his command.

“Relax, Fritz,” she waved dismissively. “I’m here to bargain, not start a war. We both know you found one thing, but you’re still looking for something else. Something specific. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be putting so much effort into excavating the rest of the under-city. Whatever it is you’re hunting, I’m the one who can take you to it—if you can meet my terms.”

Don’t miss any of the pulse pounding action! Get all the episodes of this story delivered to your inbox each month by subscribing to my free ezine!

Hollow Earth Expedition was created by Jeff Combos and is property of Exile Game Studio. For more Hollow Earth Expedition action, check out ExileGames.com

This is an ongoing story about a lost world of hungry dinosaurs, sinister villains, and non-stop action. If you’re new to Hollow Earth Expedition, I suggest starting at the beginning.

Thelonius, the speaking chimpanzee, led Professor Limefellow through the jungle while pestering him with questions.

“Is it true that the Outer World’s sun whizzes through the sky like a drunken bird?”

“No, no,” Limefellow tutted. “It proceeds in an orderly direction from East to West.”

“What is Eee-sta?” Thelonius asked. “What is Wes-ta?”

“It is pronounced—never mind. East is where the sun rises and West is where the sun goes at night, just before leaving the sky.”

“The sun leaves the sky?” Thenonius, horrified, stopped in the middle of the trail. “Where does it go? How does one see without its light?”

“Do you mean to tell me,” Limefellow asked, equally amazed, “that the sun here is always directly overhead? Have you have never seen the stars twinkling in a dark sky?”

Thelonius shook his head and silently contemplated the ramifications for a long time. The two began their hike again, proceeding along the left bank of a river that trickled out of a steep canyon.

“I have difficulty imagining a dark sky,” Thelonius finally said. “Your homeland is surely a strange and terrifying place. Oh—please be careful. That plant is carnivorous.”

Limefellow gave a wide birth to a bulbous green pod that gaped like an open mouth. He shuddered as he looked at it, imagining the fibrous lips closing around him.

“You simply don’t seem to be evolved to survive,” Thelonius observed. “I can deduce that your kind must have been bred as pets for your ape-men masters.”

“Pets?” Limefellow could feel his face reddening. “Let me tell you something about evolution, you ill-bred missing link. The science of phrenology clearly shows—”

Thelonius stopped the lecture by grabbing the lapel of Limefellow’s tweed jacket and pushing him behind a tree.

Limefellow brushed his hands away and exclaimed, “Get your filthy hands off me, you damned, dirty—”

“Quiet,” Thelonius whispered sharply. He placed a long, hairy finger against his lips to indicate the need for silence, and then pointed the same finger out at the canyon trail. Squinting, Limefellow could make out several figures approaching.

With the help of Thelonius, Limefellow ascended to the lowest branches of the tree and watched the procession passing on the far side of the river bank. There were four people: the one in the lead was Jack Steele, his khakis torn and his square face twisted into a scowl. Next to him walked Celeste, her blonde hair disheveled and her red dress looked rather the worse for wear. Limefellow was about to call out to them until he saw that the other two people in the group had rifles pointed to the backs of his friends. These men wore grey military uniforms and domed helmets emblazoned with swastikas.

“Nazis,” Limefellow whispered.

“Nah-Tzees?” Thelonius rolled the unfamiliar word around in his mouth. “May I presume these Nah-Tzees are your tribal enemies?”

Don’t miss any of the pulse pounding action! Get all the episodes of this story delivered to your inbox each month by subscribing to my free ezine!

Hollow Earth Expedition was created by Jeff Combos and is property of Exile Game Studio. For more Hollow Earth Expedition action, check out ExileGames.com

This is an ongoing story about a lost world of hungry dinosaurs, sinister villains, and non-stop action. If you’re new to Hollow Earth Expedition, I suggest starting at the beginning.

Professor Limefellow stared in amazement at the talking chimpanzee. “How is it that you can speak?” he asked

“I prefer to use my mouth and throat when forming words—is there some other way to do it?” The chimp-man’s domed lips curled up into a wry smirk. “Forgive my jest. My name is Thelonius, and I am very pleased to have discovered you.”

Thelonius performed a twisting dismount which landed him a few paces from Limefellow.  Standing on level ground, he revealed his posture to be almost as upright as that of a human being, although he stood a few inches shorter than the average man.

“But you—you’re an ape,” Limefellow stammered. “Apes cannot speak. You aren’t evolved.”

“You accuse me of being un-evolved?” The chimpanzee narrowed his mahogany eyes and pursed his brown lips. “I note, sir, that you have only two articulated thumbs. I have four.” To demonstrate this point, Theloinius snatched a small rock from the ground with his foot. He tossed it up and down repeatedly, catching it between his long, finger-like toes each time.

“Be that as it may,” the chimp-man went on. “You must tell me: do you come from the land where men speak Angle-ish?”

“Angle-ish?” Limefellow repeated. “Oh—English. Yes, it is my native tongue. But how did you came to speak this language?”

“When I was a pup,” Thelonius explained. “I met a hairless monkey from Angle-land. He taught me many things, and I have been searching for another like him ever since. Today, it seems, I have finally found one.”

As strange as the chimp-man appeared, Limefellow began to sense that he meant no harm. The professor had been clutching his briefcase defensively to his chest, but now he lowered his guard and wondered whether this primitive-looking fellow might be of some assistance.

“I came with a group,” Limefellow said. “Can you help me find them?”

“Others from the outer-world?” The chimp’s eyes lit up with very human excitement. “Of course I will help you find your group. The presence of others from the outer world would firmly establish my theories.”

“Your… theories?” Limefellow repeated cautiously.

“Indeed!” Thelonius exclaimed. “I have a theory that the world is a hollow stone sphere, and that a vibrant and technologically advanced society of ape-men lives upon its surface.”

Limefellow groaned. “You and your ‘theories’ remind me of a man named Scrumtumbler.”

“If I remind you of him,” Thelonius winked. “Then he must be a particularly handsome member of your species. Come—there was a recent commotion not far from here. Perhaps we will find the other members of your group in that direction.”

Don’t miss any of the pulse pounding action! Get all the episodes of this story delivered to your inbox each month by subscribing to my free ezine!

Hollow Earth Expedition was created by Jeff Combos and is property of Exile Game Studio. For more Hollow Earth Expedition action, check out ExileGames.com

This is an ongoing story about a lost world of hungry dinosaurs, sinister villains, and non-stop action. If you’re new to Hollow Earth Expedition, I suggest starting at the beginning.

Professor Limefellow measured the width of the footprint with his ruler, making a divot in the compressed soil to indicate the twelve-inch point. Moving the foot of the ruler to the divot, he measured out the next twelve inches, then the next. He carefully recorded the total size in his notebook and repeated the process for the length of the foot, as well as the dimensions of the three great toes.

It was the spoor of Tyrannosaurus rex, he had no doubt. Surely, the other members of the expedition would be thrilled—Limefellow felt confident that this was the most exciting thing that could possibly happen in the course of their expedition in this strange land. Furthermore, the size of the print and the depth of the impression suggested an animal half again as large as the fossil records indicated. Either the paleontology community had discovered mere pygmy versions of this dinosaur, or, as Limefellow suspected, its evolution had continued over the past sixty million years in this isolated wilderness, where the conditions favored vastly larger descendants. It might even be classified as a new species—perhaps he would name it Tyrannosaurus imperialis. No matter what name he picked, the grant money was sure to roll in.

Limefellow brushed the dust off his ruler and tucked it neatly back into its designated pocket within his briefcase. He stood, positioned his bolo hat on his head, and studied the trackless jungle surrounding him. Despite his revolutionary zoological discovery, he still needed to discover his way back to base-camp.

“You seem to be lost,” someone said from behind him.

Startled, Limefellow spun around but saw no one. He peered into the underbrush, but no one hid within. Instinctively, he clutched his briefcase to his chest and slowly backed towards a tree.

“Don’t be afraid,” the unseen person said again. The voice was throaty without being deep, and he spoke with the hint of an accent that Professor Limefellow, Doctor of Philology, could not quite place.

“Who are you?” Limefellow said. “Show yourself and declare your intentions.”

“I already have shown myself, but you ground-monkeys never bother to look up.”

Limefellow placed his hand on his hat and tilted his head back. There, above him, hung a chimpanzee, gripping a branch with his feet and dangling upside-down with as little effort as it took Limefellow to stand upright on the ground. Stranger still, this chimp wore clothes—coarse woven fibers that formed trousers, shirt, and vest. The reddish-brown hair of the chimp’s body was visible only at his wrists, ankles, on top of his shaggy head, and beneath his rounded chin. Strapped to his back were a satchel and a stocky firearm, and on his flat nose were clipped a pair of round spectacles.

“You and I have much to speak about,” said the chimp-man. “Unless, of course, your species has not yet evolved the power of language.”

Don’t miss any of the pulse pounding action! Get all the episodes of this story delivered to your inbox each month by subscribing to my free ezine!

Hollow Earth Expedition was created by Jeff Combos and is property of Exile Game Studio. For more Hollow Earth Expedition action, check out ExileGames.com

This is an ongoing story about a lost world of hungry dinosaurs, sinister villains, and non-stop action. If you’re new to Hollow Earth Expedition, I suggest starting at the beginning.

Jack and Celeste dashed deep into the jungle where the tyrannosaur’s pursuit was slowed by the massive trees. Even so, their head start soon dwindled to a few yards, then a few feet, and all the while the dinosaur’s booming footfalls shook the ground under their feet.

With no warning, the forest floor dropped away into a wide, vine-choked canyon. Jack skidded to a halt and thrust out his arm to keep Celeste, arms pinwheeling in search of balance, from plummeting down the thirty foot drop.

“It’s too far to jump,” she gasped. “What do we do?”

“Hold on,” Jack said, pulling her close with one hand while scooping up a thick vine with the other. He launched the two of them backwards over the ledge and watched as the tyrannosaur’s maw rushing down at them. They disappeared below the lip of the cliff just as the terrible jaws slammed closed onto the open air just above their heads.

Feet braced against the canyon wall, Jack strained to grip the vine while repelling downward. The beast dipped its head over the cliff edge and chomped at them twice. Finally, it roared down at them, but for all its noise and power it had no means to climb such a steep slope.

“We’re alive!” Celeste squealed when they reached the bottom of the ravine. She threw her arms around Jack’s neck to show her appreciation.

“Let’s not get unprofessional, here,” he said, pushing her away gently. “We’ve still got a job to do, and that means staying alive.”

With his compass still malfunctioning, Jack made his best guess as to which direction would bring them back to the drilling machine. The two set off along the stream that trickled through the canyon floor.

“Where are we, anyway?” Celeste said as they pushed through a dense cluster of foliage. “I mean, this whole region is positively crackers. I’ve never seen animals like that, not even in nature films. I’ve never seen people like that either.”

Jack broke off a branch to clear their way through the thicket. The truth was, he didn’t know where they were, either—he had travelled to the four corners of the globe, but this land and its inhabitants were like no place he had ever seen. On the other hand, it ran against his upbringing to admit that he was lost, especially to a woman.

Before Jack could figure out what to tell the actress, a clanking of a rifle bolt stopped them in their tracks. Twenty feet up the canyon trail, the two surviving Nazi soldiers stepped out from behind a curve in the cliff wall and called for surrender. These soldiers were a little worse for wear, but they had their rifles, which was more than Jack could say for himself.

“What now?” Celeste whispered.

“Put your hands in the air, Princess,” Jack held his own above his head. “Looks like we’re about to become prisoners of the Reich.”

Don’t miss any of the pulse pounding action! Get all the episodes of this story delivered to your inbox each month by subscribing to my free ezine!

Hollow Earth Expedition was created by Jeff Combos and is property of Exile Game Studio. For more Hollow Earth Expedition action, check out ExileGames.com

This is an ongoing story about a lost world of hungry dinosaurs, sinister villains, and non-stop action. If you’re new to Hollow Earth Expedition, I suggest starting at the beginning.

The rifle bucked into Jack’s shoulder and his field of vision was momentarily obscured by a cloud of white smoke. The charging dinosaur tipped forward as it hurtled towards him, its mouth opening as it approached the ground. With a thrill of victory, Jack thought he had hit the mark.

Then he saw the tyrannosaurs black eyes fixed on him and he realized that the huge mouth wasn’t heading for the ground because the creature was dead—it was heading for the ground because that’s where Jack stood, and Jack was about to become the next meal.

Not for the first time that day, Jack scolded himself for being a fool. One little bullet finding the beast’s brain inside the vault of rock-hard bone? Laughable. And now the rugged explorer would be inside the monster’s gullet before he could chamber another round.

It was Celeste who shoved Jack out of the way. The massive jaws slammed closed with enough force to pop his ears from the change in air pressure, but the actress had narrowly rescued Jack from his fate. He stumbled backwards and watched as the tyrannosaur stooped down for another try. He also saw the Nazi soldier seize Celeste by the wrist and attempt to haul her back towards the broken cages.

When Celeste screamed, it was a true ear-splitter. Jack wasn’t sure he had ever heard such a noise, but then the tyrannosaur abandoned its pursuit of Jack, wheeled towards the actress, and let out a roar that seemed to shake the jungle to its roots. Jack clapped his hands to his ears and saw that Celeste and the Nazi were doing the same, but it hardly mattered. They were caught in a flood of sound. It pounded into their ears, it rattled their bones, it liquefied their stomachs. A gust of carrion-scented breath pursued the roar, whipping Jack’s hair away from his forehead and forcing him to step backwards.

The tyrannosaur refilled its mighty lungs and then lunged for its prey. Now it was Jack’s turn to save Celeste’s life. He slammed himself bodily against her, lifting her off her feet to get her clear of the monster’s teeth. The Nazi was not so lucky: the tyrannosaur slammed its mouth around him and lifted its head up to swallow. Where the soldier had stood a moment before, now only a pair of bloody boots remained—one on its side, the other gently rocking in place.

Jack grabbed Celeste by the hand and pulled her into a run.

“No screaming!” Jack yelled to her. “I think that thing hates your screaming!”

The two dashed away into the underbrush, where Jack had hoped they might escape the notice of the tyrannosaur.

No such luck.

As they passed under a break in the canopy, a beam of sunlight struck Celeste’s red, sparkly dress and the monster’s head came around as surely as if they had been waving their arms to get its attention. Once again, the chase was on.

Don’t miss any of the pulse pounding action! Get all the episodes of this story delivered to your inbox each month by subscribing to my free ezine!

Hollow Earth Expedition was created by Jeff Combos and is property of Exile Game Studio. For more Hollow Earth Expedition action, check out ExileGames.com

This is an ongoing story about a lost world of hungry dinosaurs, sinister villains, and non-stop action. If you’re new to Hollow Earth Expedition, I suggest starting at the beginning.

Jack Steele peered down the barrel of his rifle at the three Nazi soldiers, each of whom peered down their own barrels back at him. The prisoners in the cages and even the giant who had been pulling the train of carts looked on in tense silence. All things considered, Jack was ready to admit that this hadn’t been one of his best plans.

A series of crashes and booms echoed out from the jungle. Jack might have assumed that it was a stream of boulders crashing down a rocky slope, but the noise was too rhythmic. Footsteps, Jack thought. Gigantic, running footsteps. And whatever was making the noise was almost on top of them.

Without lowering his rifle, Jack glanced up just as Celeste dashed out of the underbrush right towards him. Her face was flushed, her red dress was torn, and she was kicking up her heels as if the devil himself were on her tail.

“Celeste!” Jack shouted. Still keeping his finger on the trigger with onehand, he grabbed her arm with his other to stop her flight. “Celeste! What’s going on?”

She seemed too panicked to recognize him. “Big!” she cried frantically. “Big! Teeth! Big!”

It was only an instant before Jack got a look at what she meant. The ravenous king of the prehistoric jungle, the Tyrannosaurus rex, ripped through the foliage with the force of a run-away train. As it barreled down on them, its massive head glanced off a palm tree. The tree cracked and sagged over as if bowing before its king, but the tyrannosaur was not to be slowed.

The Nazi soldiers fired their rifles at the charging beast, but the shots resulted in nothing more than insignificant red specks on the wide landscape of its leathery skin. The tyrannosaur ignored the pitiful firearms but charged in to deliver it a violent kick to the train of wheeled cages, no doubt mistaking it for an animal. The cages and their screaming occupants flew thirty feet and crashed in a jumbled of broken wooden bars and scattered people.

The shaggy-bearded giant who had been pulling the wagons was pinned upside down, kicking his feet uselessly in the air while still anchored to his yoke by heavy chains. The prisoners who had not been too badly injured in the crash bolted from their captivity like frightened rabbits. Suddenly, the jungle floor teemed with running, wailing people, and the commotion set the tyrannosaur into a feeding frenzy.

“Let’s get out of here!” Celeste shouted as she pulled at Jack’s sleeve.

Jack didn’t budge. While everyone around him screamed and fled from the rampaging tyrannosaur, Jack stood his ground and took aim. He was no big game hunter, but he knew that the best way to stop a charging elephant was to aim right between its eyes, so he fixed his sights on the midpoint of the creature’s bumpy brow. He willed his breath to slow down and his hands to stay steady. Only then did he squeeze the trigger.

Don’t miss any of the pulse pounding action! Get all the episodes of this story delivered to your inbox each month by subscribing to my free ezine!

Hollow Earth Expedition was created by Jeff Combos and is property of Exile Game Studio. For more Hollow Earth Expedition action, check out ExileGames.com