The Lost Tribe

By Les May

A young girl's body is found in the woods in modern America. A man confesses to her murder. The body has all the hallmarks of a ritual killing. It is covered in strange markings that can only be seen under ultra violet light.
It is also dated to over 20 thousand years old, to a time when no one lived in America.
How did the young girl get there? Via Atlantis? A legend thousands of years old or did she come by boat? Is she an alien? Or from a more advanced culture?
Was she part of a fabled Lost Tribe that lived in America thousands of years ago?
Overweight nearly thirty something pathologist Ms Star Carr teams up with Mr Vere Boxgrove the English anthropologist to solve the mystery of the girl who should not have been in America. It is a story of a people and of an idea that would not die, a people trying to survive and a love that was lost long ago.
Her death was brutal and savage but was she killed to save her? Save her people? Did she volunteer for it, accept her fate? Or was something more sinister at work?
Her story begins over sixty million years ago, the time of the dinosaurs when all the world was a solid land mass. Early humans evolved. Raped into existence, they rise on a wave of incest, drug taking and cannibalism. Star and Vere come to realize the girl was special, chosen even and it is a brilliant flash of inspiration by the pathologists that solves the mystery of the girl from 20 thousand years ago, the girl who should not have been in America.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Les May
• Release date: Jun 20, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224736249

Les May

Les May is a writer working in many genres and is based in England.

Book preview

THE LOST TRIBE

Les May

Copyright 2024 Les May Smashwords Edition

PART ONE

'Give me a timeline here,' she demanded.

'OK, 65 million years ago the dinosaurs died out, they left an ecological niche,' he replied.

'And we filled it?'

A quick nod, 'eventually but first small rat like animals came along. They gave birth to live young, their sweat glands gave milk and they spent longer raising their offspring. Think raccoons, gophers, squirrels, small burrowing animals that also climbed trees.'

'So we're descended from a load of skunks?' she asked incredulously.

'You could say that, rats too,' he answered with a smile. 'Eventually they evolved in to primates, small monkey type creatures.'

'When did this happen?'

'About thirty million years ago.'

'It took that long?' she asked. 'So much time.'

'We had time on our side.'

'Then what?'

'After about 20 million years the australopithecines evolved.'

'Australopithecines?'

'Literally southern apes, because their remains were found in southern Africa.'

'The ratty skunky creatures had evolved?'

'And they'd learned to walk upright. Lost their tails, a more varied diet and bigger brains. Bipeds.'

'So what did the australopithecines do? Besides walking upright?'

'They gave birth to modern humans, well,' he checked himself, 'almost modern humans. This was about 3 million years ago.'

'So why? Why give birth to nearly modern humans, the australopithecines had been doing OK for millions of years, why change? What was the impetus?'

'Africa dried out, they traveled, seeking water and food, they interbred. The different species came together. And had sex.'

'And then we came along?'

'Not quite, first there were proto humans, Homo Erectus was one, that was the branch of the human family we're probably descended from.'

'What sort of people were they?'

'Recognizably human, the australopithecines were more animal than human, Homo Erectus was on the way to becoming us.'

'And they spread all over the world?'

'After they'd exterminated their parents.'

'They were rebels?'

'Big time rebels. They were also oversexed drug using cannibals.'

'But they took over?'

'The known world yes, it happened about three million years ago, they left Africa, the Middle East or Anatolia, wherever they evolved and took over the world. And from them came humans. Neanderthals, Cro-Magnons, then Homo Sapiens Sapiens.'

'Me and you?'

'We came along less than a million years ago.'

'And this dead girl is from 20 000 years ago,' she mused.

'Time wise, the blink of eye, the blink of an eye.........' he added.

THE GIRL

She was naked.

She was over thirteen suns old and one hundred moons from the place of her birth. She was much changed spiritually and physically. There was no refinement. She was shorn of excess. Her hair had been cut away. Her hair, so fine and soft and long was now no more than a pelt. She knew with every act she was becoming less than human.

The animal in her was awakening.

Her spirit was becoming alive.

It was all for them, for the others. So that they may live and prosper in this new land.

Her love was dead, taken from her by cruel nature and she cared nothing for this life anymore. To live it without her beloved would be impossible. They promised so much, gave so much. But it was more than that. It was recorded in the steps they had taken, in the bones they read and the pictures they painted.

The shamans dreamed their dreams, the virgins whispered their secrets and the hunters howled and chased. All led to this moment. She would be exalted among them, her name chanted and sung, her sacrifice spoken of around the campfires for generation unto generation.

She had walked on the road of rods laid side by side from their settlement to the edge of the mire. The womb of mother earth. Her journey had begun before midnight and would end at dawn. The elders accompanied her, family members and friends. They would walk away from this place. She would not.

She was full. Sated - and at dawn she would be even more satisfied. Their torches flicked and flared but offered no warmth. They shone briefly but all knew, what shines a shadow also casts.

Mist wreathing, soon it would be dawn and her life would end. Her journey. It was chosen. Layer upon layer, the light the dark, the clear and the clouded, layer upon layer they moved over one another. Like a star streaking over the heavens her trajectory had been measured. It came to this time.

This place.

It was a meeting place, portentous. It was where she was brought to. Where she was meant to be and where she would remain.

For eternity.

For many days before she had been anointed. The juice from hard erect plants had been rubbed into her skin by many hands. Inside and out they had anointed her thus. The reason was that very juice on her skin would burn and blister in the sun's rays. It was all part of her journey. Through the dark to the light. Other hands had painted her, deft finger strokes and gentle breaths upon her fair skin. Puffs of paint on her skin, paint of many colors.

It had been a journey she would wish on no one. She was changed. She had been blessed. She was the one. Chosen. But also aware.

She was meant to be here.

And this was a special place.

It too was chosen.

The energy, the power, all those channels converged here. Fires from the heart of the earth flared briefly, strange blue flames that did not burn but cleansed. They knew of them, danced with them even but did not understand them.

The waters here did not flow but stayed, reflecting the sky in its tumult and mirroring the people. The earth, the air, the flames and the water, the symbols of their very being like the four points of the compass.

She would endure and others would bear witness. So be it.

Her long walk through the night would end soon as the shadows grew, the voices became faint and the laughter faded away. This death was a celebration of life.

They walked her deeper and deeper into the forest till the trees became more sparse and stunted, the ground underfoot wet and soft. She held her head high and did not fear what was to befall her. Two tree trunks stood each side of the path like ghostly sentinels. She stopped and stood between them. A deep breath and her well-muscled frame quivered with excitement. She was where she was meant to be. There was no going back. She had crossed the line. They prodded her forward and now she was on a small promontory. Rough rock hard under her bare feet. Her head was still high and her eyes bright, her mind clear. Her time was coming. Would she scream? She did not know but it would never be enough to wake Mother Earth from its slumber.

So be it.

Her time had come.

Beneath her was the mire.

That was the reason they were all here.

She did not scream as her arms were held out so she made the shape of a cross. Nor did she scream when two cuts were made each side of her navel. The blood trickled down and mingled with her soft fair pubic hair. Her thighs, their pallor, their strength would soon give out.

Good and bad, this place was a place of punishment but also atonement. Votive offerings and sacrifices too. She would be just one more to be consumed by the dark burning water. The very life of the earth and her people.

She knew there would be no afterward, but her spirit would forever be in this place. It would go back and forth. A presence, a moment in time held for all eternity.

The sun rose, weak and lost in the sky above. She ached for its power, its life giving warming rays but they were no more. Nor was her love but soon they would be together again.

She felt the cord around her neck and tilted her head back. The garrotte bit into her youth and her sexuality. The stick was placed in it and it began to turn. Her young supple skin closed around it. Her small pert breasts rose and fell and thrust to the heavens as she fought what was to come. Hard hard nipples jutted out and she felt a moistness between her legs. Before breath left her young frame she screamed and screamed.

Then something happened.

Her screams faded.

All was silence.

She was looking down on herself from on high. She no longer felt any pain. She was at peace. She saw the flint, sharp and silver flash across her neck and the blood flow.

She watched as they flung her into the mire. The cold embraced her, its acid fingertips drawing her in deeper. She looked at herself lying face down and stout branches were laid over her.

She was aware she had stopped breathing.

I am.

And I always will be.

Then the vision faded.

The end.

THE PATHOLOGIST

Murder one.

It always set the heart racing.

It was just past dawn when she'd finally reached the deposition site stroke murder scene up the main drag running out of the town of Lindo. Murders were rare in her back yard, a homicide or so a year, family affairs normally, That was her normal roster of the dead. The rest of the time she was kept busy with overdoses and suicides, a dead drunk driver once a month, teens usually, and a handful of unexplained deaths. The usual mixed bag any patho in any small town faced. But this could be the big one, the one that made her reputation. She liked a challenge, that was one of the reasons she was here in the first place.

It was a tired town in a tired place as if the people there had exhausted their environment. Life expectancy was low, in some areas less than fifty years old as the rust belt claimed more victims. People who couldn't escape. Some did though, via the bottle or the bullet. Some areas had wealth, the rest didn't - most just got by.

She'd got the call from the local police department nearly an hour ago. A deer hunter had come across some human remains. He'd gone back to his vehicle, phoned it in and waited for the police then led them to the body. She was impressed, he didn't contaminate the site either. Thank god for cop shows on TV.

The borders of the main drag were dominated by gorse and sorrel. Birch trees grew in the waterlogged acid soil. Aspen, with its brilliant cluster of scarlet berries formed dense thickets. Hazel and hemlock too. Few people wanted to farm such an area anyway - treacherous bogs and sink-holes of foul cloying mud crisscrossed and pock marked the place. Some of the flatter areas had been drained in the almost four centuries of settlement to produce rich dairy pasture, but the rest of the land with its degraded unyielding soils were left to rot and fester.

She could see the police vehicles on the side of the blacktop, their sirens silent but lights still strobing in the early morning mist. The eight and ten wheelers rumbled past spraying everything on each side of the road and skittering the debris and dead branches. It had been a hell of a storm last night, it hit both the county and Lindo. She slewed the SUV to a halt on the wet verge and sat for a moment taking in the scene. A dip at the side of the road, trees, sparse and diseased, dirty earth and patchy yellowed grass. An interstate highway wasteland. That was where the dead girl was. A dump and run killer. Good case, lots of scenarios for a newly qualified ambitious pathologist to prove her worth.

Action babe, shift your chubby ass! she whispered to herself, grabbed her rucksack and got out. She got booted and suited - the white HAZMAT suit too small for her fleshy frame, then after tucking her reddish blonde hair under a net then capping it and pulling on her boots she was ready for action. Face shield last. Now she looked like a pathologist, not an overweight college girl.

After flashing her credentials at the bored uniforms she was waved through. She was the only pathologist they had. It was the only murder they had too. She corrected herself. Suspected murder. She dipped under the police tape, did a sliding scramble down the banking and then she was there alone in the woods with the body.

It was female, long and white and slim and on its back. The legs stretched out balletic and straight, thighs firm and ankles slim. The belly was flat, the breasts high and pert. The face though, that stopped her in her tracks.

She just stared at it.

It was calm and peaceful, as if sleeping or resting. It looked like the young woman could wake any second, smile and ask for a coke. Then she would shake the detritus of deposition site of her and skip away to live another day.

The face. Contorted in pain, twisted in hate, frozen in fear - she'd seen them all but this girl was calm in death as if it was a pleasant experience.

A good face, memorable, wide set eyes, always appealing, a slightly undershot jaw. Her hair was blonde, short and tufted. The head was well shaped, slightly too large for the body almost. She pulled her eyes away from its beauty which seemed to transfix even in death. She had work to do.

'Hello young lady. Let's see if we can put a name to that pretty little face of yours shall we?' she said cheerfully bending over the remains in the wasted wood below the main drag. 'Looks as if you'd had a rough time of it recently? Let's see what we can do about it shall we?'

She crouched down beside her new best friend and looked but there wasn't much to see.

The victim was laid out on her back. Naturally, not posed, not crucified or fucked. Just lying there. As if to be dead in the middle of nowhere was normal. She was tangled up in the weeds and detritus of the forest floor. She reckoned she'd been placed in a shallow grave or even dumped under some bushes and left. Looking back she didn't think she'd been thrown from a moving vehicle. She was dead when she got here. When that was she didn't know but hopefully the corpse would talk a bit.

There was a whole cadaver, white, blonde. Female for sure. Not much to go on but it was a start.

The skin was pale pearly white but strangely mottled. Gray splotches and streaks. Natural or something else? Pockmarked by the soil she thought but she'd check. The body seemed complete, nothing was missing. In a world where a spot of blood meant twenty to life there was plenty here to work with.

Her skull was the same patchy mottled gray. It was well shaped, very well shaped, the bones had fused and there was no evidence of any sharp or blunt trauma there. The hair was almost golden, but short and fine, despite its matting.

No obvious injuries, could it be a suicide? A hiker, death from exposure? A naked hiker? She knew people shed their clothes when they were cold, stripped off as the body was so cold it did not send the right signals, so maybe it wasn't murder? She got lost then lay down and died?

Big sigh.

She stood up and looked around, bracing her legs on the slight slope. Beyond the police cordon and the still bored uniforms guarding it there was just nature. It smelt, brackish standing water and half decayed plants. Wet wood and slime, mosses and vines.

One of the uniform's radios crackled, the morgue truck was on its way. She would direct them, they'd take the body and what was under it and around it. Miss nothing. 360 degree look around then crouching again, first impressions were over. She was young white and pretty but what else?

No visible tattoos, no make up, no jewelry, no ear or nose piercing's. She shone her small penlight into the mouth. Teeth good, perfect, white and even. Upper and lower. No brace no bridge, no fillings, just perfect white teeth, a toothpaste adverts dream. Rough guess at her age at demise? Early to mid teens? This girl in life was more than pretty, she was a real eye catcher, yep, more than pretty. But then the pretty ones are the ones who usually get killed. Ugliness gets a long life and its reward in heaven.

Without touching it she could see through the empty eye sockets into her skull. She said a silent thank you. The brain case was writhing. It was alive. She opened her rucksack and took out her tool kit. From it she took a sterile pair of long handled surgical tweezers. Holding her breath and steadying her hand she took some of the brain matter out and carefully examined it. She paid great attention to the attached larvae, the worms and grubs living in the dead head.

They were all maybe a week old. It told her the time of death. It was a strong indicator, one you couldn't ignore. Maggots are the best friend anyone in forensics can have she thought as she watched a particularly bloated one munch its way through what was left of the dead girl's frontal lobe.

They tell a tale out of all proportion to their size. What they do tell you is the time that has elapsed since death. The maggots get in the body through flies. Almost as soon as she was murdered the flies would have found her. A fly could sense a cadaver within an hour of death. It will lay its eggs in the easy to get at orifices, the nose, ears, eyes and other accessible parts.

The maggots will hatch, feed on the flesh, grow, shed their skins, grow some more, shed again and when they've got enough nutrients from the body they'll leave it, head for the soil and pupate. A fly will emerge and the cycle will begin all over again. If you know the age of the maggot you know when the fly laid its eggs. And the remains were no more than six or seven days old. OK, she could have been kept in a freezer for a year or an air tight bag where the flies couldn't get at her but at least this was a beginning.

She made a note to have the remains photographed in 3D back in her autopsy suite so an artist's impression could be made from her to jog people's memories. She also needed some of her DNA. And her fingerprints. If they could get a good likeness from the 3D images she was hopeful someone would come forward and they could formally identify her. Maybe someone had reported her missing; she may be an illegal immigrant, or even from someplace else. There were no clothes and no ID, no bag and no rucksack. Just a body in a forest.

In the middle of nowhere but a body that looked pleased to be there.

She was a mystery in death as much in life but she was hopeful they'd begin to get some answers now. But was it murder? Had she tried to escape through the forest, got trapped or caught, panicked or was she injured even? That was what she wanted the remains to tells her. Shallow grave or hiding place? Accidental or deliberate?

She ran gloved fingertips over her still beautiful frame. Then stopped. A small cut on her belly. Odd. At the side of her belly button. She stared and frowned. Very odd. Another one of the other side. Precise, clean edges, before or after death? It corresponded to where her ovaries were. Any significance? A serial killer's marks. They weren't natural that was for sure. They matched, they