Dark Island

by Matt James

  Then, why hasn’t it happened yet?

  Ian slowly looked east, toward the rising sun. After an eternity living beneath the surface, there was no way that it could see them all that well. It was probably blind and relying on its other predatory senses. It was then that Ian smelled it.

  Gasoline.

  It was everywhere, coating the ground around the helicopter. The scent, while mostly unpleasant, wasn’t a big deal to humans. People were used to it. Ian recalled that as an adult, he barely registered the smell of gasoline when he pumped it, but as a kid, the smell was god awful to him.

  The behemoth towering over them was acting like a nine-year-old Ian Hunt.

  It snorted its displeasure and backed its face out of the crushed aircraft’s rear hold. Taking one more deep breath, it backed away again. Then, it was out of his periphery entirely, disappearing behind him. Glancing at Mack, she softly shook her head.

  It was still there, just not directly on top of them anymore. If Ian was going to make his move, now was the time. He looked into Mack’s eyes and then shifted them to the front of the helicopter. Mack immediately shook her head, no. She didn’t want him to leave.

  “Truck,” Ian mouthed, keeping his words silent.

  Mack shook her head again.

  Still face-to-face with her, Ian gave Mack an apologetic look and carefully backed away. Mack was still clutching the front of his vest in her hand, though, but eventually relented and allowed him to leave. The only way to save her life and that of anyone else who got in the dragon’s way was to get to his four-door truck first. He needed what was stored in the bed.

  It was the only thing capable of killing the beast.

  On his hands and knees, Ian crawled forward, toward the haizina’s front legs. Once there, he paused his escape, needing to figure out a way to get it to move. Ian looked around and found a busted co-pilot’s helmet jammed in the footwell of the passenger side. He bit his lip and pulled, cringing when it popped free with an audible crunch.

  He slid his knife free, cut the cable attaching it to the dashboard, and readied it. Then, he heaved it out onto the dry terrain where it landed with a soft thump, found a decline, and kept rolling.

  The beast noticed.

  Unable to see its upper-half from where he was, Ian watched as the creature’s front legs pivoted and turned away from the helicopter. As it continued its pursuit of the new, undefined object, Ian leaned further and further out of the cockpit’s broken windshield. Once the haizina had completely turned away, Ian stood and hurried around to the rear of the aircraft, putting its thick body between him and the monstrosity.

  Ian spotted his truck a few hundred yards away off to the west. He grinned. They had almost landed directly on top of it. Ian was both grateful and disappointed. His luck had apparently not run out yet, which meant it was going to soon.

  Backing away from his refuge, he peered up and over the dismantled chopper, happy to see that the beast was still inspecting the helmet. The aircraft itself looked worse than Ian had initially thought. When it was struck from behind by the haizina, the machine’s tail and been snapped in two. The monster had obliterated it with the swipe of its claws.

  Geez…

  What happened next made Ian freeze. Instead of it noticing him, it looked up to the horizon and stepped toward it—toward humanity. As much as Ian wanted it to leave, he needed it to stay so he could finish it off.

  Ian Hunt, Dragon Slayer.

  If he wasn’t so focused, he would’ve rolled his eyes at the thought. Unfortunately, it was true. Now, his job—his mission—was to kill a one-hundred-foot prehistoric dino-croc-hybrid that may have been responsible for the eradication of an entire ancient civilization.

  Ian turned and ran for it, keeping his head low. He wasn’t sure why he did that since he was now in the open and easy to spot. He hoped to get far enough away from the creature that it would lose sight of him in the bright light.

  More than halfway there, Ian heard a shrill cry roll over the expanse of dirt and weedy grass. He slid to a stop and spun, seeing the beast also turn around. It just stood there, looking impossibly huge, and waited. A second scream got it moving. The only person it could belong to was that of the other woman in the rear hold of the helicopter. She had obviously regained consciousness.

  “Oh, shit.”

  Ian took a step back toward the aircraft but thought better of it. With nowhere to go and with nothing more than his combat knife, Ian was no match for the creature. He needed to get to his truck fast. Turning again, he hauled ass, pumping his arms as fast as he could, willing his legs to move just as speedily.

  This time, three voices cried out in fright, causing Ian to pause his escape again, stumbling as he did. He looked back and dreaded what he saw. The monster had its bloodied front leg propped up on the helicopter’s hull. Then, it leaned onto it more, further compromising the integrity of the already weakened frame. If the beast put all of its girth atop the aircraft, it would flatten it like a pancake.

  “Mack,” Ian said to himself.

  Reacting on instinct, Ian cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted as loud as he could. “Hey, shithead, over here!”

  The haizina looked up from the wreckage and quickly found Ian. Out in the open, and with a breeze to his back, Ian would be the easiest catch the creature ever had.

  He didn’t wait for it to happen.

  Ian ran for his truck.

  * * *

  Mack didn’t want to let go, but she knew she needed to. Ian was their only hope. She glanced to the side, seeing the unconscious couple sharing the rear hold with her. It was apparent that the pilot was dead since Ian had left him strapped into his seat.

  Watching Ian leave with the monster still out there was one of the hardest things she’d ever done.

  Ian wasn’t just some guy. He’d quickly become the guy.

  And he’s about to die…

  Thirty seconds after Ian left, Mack decided it was now or never. Her movements were slow and shaky. She reached across her waist, against gravity, and depressed the button on her left hip, bracing herself for the fall. The drop down was only a foot, but the sideways fall to the inner right-hand door of the rear cargo hold was hard and unforgiving nonetheless.

  “Ugh,” she groaned, wheezing when something jabbed into her ribs. Mack laid there for a moment as she caught her breath.

  Standing, she held her side and winced in pain. Lifting her hand, Mack saw blood. Whatever she had landed on had impaled her.

  “Damn,” she mumbled, seeing the splintered piece of door sticking up into the air. Its jagged tip was slathered in her blood. “Great… And now I have tetanus.” Either way, there wasn't much she could do about it right now. Regardless if she actually contracted the bacterial disease or not… Well, let’s just say it didn’t matter if she was dead.

  Rubbing her head, Mack hobbled over to the airborne couple. Like her, they’d been buckled in. Ian hadn’t been, however. Mack was shocked that he survived the wreck without sustaining a life-threatening injury of some kind.

  Unless he did?

  Mack couldn’t worry about what may or may not have happened, though. She needed to help the innocent couple here. They didn’t sign up for any of this. From the beginning, she and Ian knew what they were getting into—or, they had an idea of it. The dead pilot and his clients had saved her and Ian’s lives. The least she could do was return the favor to two-thirds of them.

  She took another look at the pilot. “Dammit.”

  Death was never an easy thing to process, especially when that person died while helping you live. Mack would look up the pilot’s family and thank them personally.

  “Wuh?”

  Mack turned, feeling her side pinch and seep further. The man had awoken, startled at the state of the helicopter. He was white, in his sixties, and sported a waterfalling combover. Unlike Mack, who’d only fallen a foot, the husband and wife combo had buckled in on the other side of the rear hold and were
suspended a good five feet off the ground. If Mack was any shorter, she wouldn’t have been able to reach their restraints.

  Mack knew the two were married because of their matching, gaudy wedding bands. Even the husband had an absurd number of diamonds inlaid in his. But unlike him, the wife was not in the second half of her life age-wise. She was Mack’s age, drop-dead gorgeous—although mostly plastic—and sported the biggest set of fake boobs she’d ever seen. Even now, hanging sideways, they fought gravity like a champ.

  “A trophy, for sure.”

  The older man beheld her with a bewildered look glued to his face. He was in shock and likely in pain. Mack was impressed that the old guy hadn’t succumbed to a heart attack. Then again, his lady-friend probably kept his ticker pumping hard…

  “Um, hi.” It’s all she could think to say.

  Carefully, Mack helped him down, sitting him up against the top of the aircraft that now doubled as its right side. Kneeling in front of him, she checked the well-dressed man over for injuries. Besides being a little shaken up, he looked to be okay.

  Now for the trophy…

  Getting her down wasn’t as easy. She’d yet to come to, and Mack was forced to take all her ragdoll-like weight. At least her husband was coherent enough to help.

  It wasn’t until Mack set her down that the real party started…

  The wife screamed bloody murder and Mack was too slow to cover her mouth before the beast outside their sanctuary heard her. Mack eventually did cover her mouth, almost suffocating her in the process.

  But it was too little too late.

  The haizina huffed and growled at the sound, pounding back toward them. Mack froze in place, keeping her hand over the thrashing lady’s lips, only loosening her grip enough for her to breath. Mack needed the woman to calm down before they were all killed.

  Raising her fist, Mack was ready to slug the wife in the face if it came to it. She never got the chance, though. Instead, the beast latched onto the helicopter and leaned into it, shoving its long, crocodilian snout into the wide-open cargo door.

  When it did, all three of the chopper’s occupants screamed in fright when it opened its mouth to consume them all. It’s hot, rank breath washed over them, adding another layer of terror to the already horrifying experience.

  “Hey, shithead, over here!”

  The voice was Ian’s, and it stopped the creature’s assault on the crumpled helicopter and its passengers. Mack and the couple were out of danger…for now.

  Unfortunately, Mack edged out of the aircraft and watched as the spirit of darkness turned on Ian because of his efforts.

  33

  Somehow Ian’s truck had been spared by the destruction of the cliff. The massive landslide that had occurred pushed his four-door a good distance from where he had originally parked it. Its front end was smushed, but luckily the engine looked to have been spared for the most part.

  He ground to a halt in front of the locked tailgate, digging into one of the front pockets on his vest as he did. Thankfully, the hardened material had held together, and his keys were still there. He swiftly unlocked the tonneau cover and dove for the black case nestled near the rear-right wheel.

  Inside was the only thing that would kill the creature. If it didn’t…

  Being a former SEAL, Ian had worked with explosives on quite a few occasions. Semtex, or plastic explosives, were actually very safe to handle. The movie industry made them seem less so, however. It was one of many blunders the movie business continually got wrong when it came to people in his line of work.

  My line of work. Ian hadn’t thought of himself in that way for quite some time.

  It only took him a few seconds to do what he needed. When done, he shut the lid of the black case, hefted it out of the truck bed, and slammed the rear cover shut.

  The beast was almost on him now. It was too low to the ground and too damn heavy to just “take flight.” It was unquestionably a glider and not a traditional flier. It used the higher elevation of the mountain to soar through the sky. Now, it was just a one-hundred-foot-long, long-legged croc, almost an exact duplicate to the Razanandrongobe.

  Watching it gallop on all fours was mesmerizing. It seemed to be moving in slow motion, but Ian knew that wasn’t true at all. The thing’s size made it look slower than it really was. It was, in actuality, moving at high speed.

  “Mother of God…”

  Ian fumbled with his keys, trying like mad to get the driver’s side door open. On the third attempt, he successfully slotted the key in its place, cranked it to the side, nearly breaking it in the process. He breathed a sigh of relief and refocused, forcing himself to calm. In his haste, if he had snapped the key, he’d be dead.

  So would Mack.

  He looked at the monster approaching him, laughing at the thought of him being calm. But he pulled himself together and leaped into the driver’s seat. Starting the truck, he flung open the case once more. Inside was enough Semtex to demolish his truck twice over. Snagging a small rectangular device, Ian held onto it with a death grip.

  He would have one shot. After that…

  Ian didn’t give himself an answer, shifting the truck into reverse and flooring the pedal. He blared the horn while aiming for the monster’s face. It was low to the ground, staring at him in his rear-view mirror. He hoped the fast-moving object would startle the beast, more than entice it.

  Luckily for Ian, he was right.

  It lifted its head and pounced into the air, giving Ian another look-see at its girthy underbelly. The haizina was well-fed, that was for sure.

  But the mammoth creature didn’t stay airborne for long. Its front legs landed first, then its hindquarters. Ian had just cleared the latter, before the long, thick tail met the ground and twitched sideways, slapping his 4,500 lb. vehicle like it weighed nothing.

  The right half of the truck crumpled inward as it was lifted off the ground, causing it, and Ian, to ride on just two wheels. Cringing, Ian waited for the vehicle to tip over completely, feeling it teeter that way. Thankfully, it didn’t, landing back on all fours.

  Glass covered the interior of the truck. Every single window, including parts of the front windshield, had either cracked or shattered. The right-hand doors were mashed too, never to open again. He knew it didn’t matter. Ian didn’t plan on the truck surviving what he was about to do next. But he knew that if the driver’s side got hit, he’d be trapped in a mechanized coffin.

  Except he wasn’t trapped.

  Ian jammed down the brake, sliding the truck backward as it fought to find purchase on the compacted dirt. Once it did, he took a breath and shifted into drive. The haizina dug its claws into the earth and spun around on Ian with incredible agility. It was the exact move Ian used to execute on his BMX bike back as a child. He’d lock the back wheel, put a foot down, and do a flawless one-eighty.

  Steam poured out of the truck’s hood, and something beneath it groaned in protest. The four-door was about to die. Ian needed to make his move while he still could. He looked in his rear-view mirror and saw Mack on her hands and knees, crawling out of the ruined helicopter. She was no doubt coming to check on him even though he told her to stay put.

  “Stubborn woman.”

  Ian grinned and stomped his foot on the gas. He would have to time it perfectly to get the needed result. He planned to leap from the moving vehicle and use it as an added “bonus.” The Semtex would shred the quickly deteriorating truck, igniting the fuel tank in the process. The four-door would act as the outer casing of his impromptu “monster-killing grenade.”

  I hope it’s enough.

  The only thing that could destroy his plan was if the creature was still unsure of the truck and didn’t go for it. Ian watched it open its massive jaws wide and then snap them shut with a thunderclap.

  That answered it. The haizina would cut the truck in half the next time it had the chance.

  The beast advanced, head down, eyes locked onto its next meal. It’s bottom jaw
scraped the terrain as it moved, intent on scooping up Ian and the metal candy wrapper he currently sat in. The creature was fooled once. It wasn’t going to happen again.

  Reflexively, Ian checked his mirrors, seeing no one or nothing. It was the first time he noticed that they were alone. The earthquake and subsequent landslide must’ve shut down the park indefinitely giving Ian and the monster a clear playing field.

  The world around him shook.

  “Fuck off!” He spat his words, seething with rage. Mother Earth didn’t want him to slay her greatest champion, apparently.

  He was close enough, but the tremors were making it difficult to keep the truck on course while still trying to open his door. Gritting his teeth, he tried anyway, knowing what he was about to do was going to hurt.

  Screw it, he thought. Ian was already in enough pain. How much more could a little tumble really hurt him?

  Ian dove to his left, gripping the remote trigger hard. Whatever happened to him, he needed to hold onto the device. He turned his shoulder into the ground and closed his eyes, trying to roll himself into a ball.

  It didn’t work.

  Like a bloodied Raggedy Andy doll, Ian flipped and flopped until he was on his back looking up into the morning sky. The air was clear, utterly devoid of cloud cover. The sandy shores on the smaller Madagascan island of Nosy Boraha would be full of beachgoers today. Perfect beach weather. He’d been there once before with Abigail. Ian’s favorite part was the pirate cemetery in…

  What was the place called?

  Momentarily losing himself, Ian tried desperately to recall the name of the tiny village. For the life of him, he couldn’t. Then again, it had been ten years since he had visited the area. Still, Ian prided himself on his memory, remembering the most useless things on a whim. Most of the time, it was precisely that, useless information. But some of the time, it really did help.