“Opening the ramp now,” Reece called. “Go whenever you’re ready.”
“We’re on it.”
The squeal of carabiners on rope quickly faded.
“We’re running out of rope,” Holloway said over Reece’s headset. “You need to get lower.”
“Hang on,” Reece replied, dropping the starjet through the sulphurous mist that was flooding into the cabin, making him cough. “God, they’ll choke in this stuff. Anything?”
“Nothing,” Holloway replied, “you need to get lower still.”
A huge shape unsettled the mist in front of Reece, which swirled back into the brief void. He heard a rattle of gunfire.
“Watch out for the kids!” Reece shouted. “Check that fire!”
“There’s two of them, seven o’clock,” Cotter screamed. “Pterosaurs!”
“On my three,” Holloway yelled, amidst further crackles of gunfire. “It’s coming at me, I can’t… Oh shi…”
The starjet suddenly veered sideways. Reece pulled hard on the controls, but the aircraft didn’t react, and began spinning wildly. He looked down and saw a pterosaur entangled in the rangers’ ropes. The massive beast writhed and flapped its wings, its desperation to escape only making its predicament worse, entangling it further. A hail of automatic gunfire riddled the pterosaur, which shrieked and struggled harder still. Reece saw the ground racing towards his men. The collision alarms began to wail.
“Pull up, pull up,” a disturbingly calm electronic voice repeated.
“Cut the ropes!” Reece cried, gritting his teeth, knowing his men were moments from being crushed. “Cut the ropes! Come on, go up, pull up you son of a…”
There was a brief impact and he heard a tremendous crunch, like cracking ice. Outside, Reece saw chunks of rock raining down beside the starjet.
“No, we broke the crust. Cotter, Holloway, can you hear me??” Reece called. “I need a coms check…”
The volcano’s walls raced past, flickering orange and yellow, dripping lava. He’d definitely fallen through the crust layer at the base of the caldera. If his men weren’t already dead, they would certainly be dying in the ferocious heat outside.
“No… Holloway, Cotter?” There was no response and the men’s lanterns showed no life signs. “God rest your souls …”
Inside the cabin temperature was rising disturbingly fast. The pterosaur’s shriek cut out mid blast. Reece smashed his hand into the console, engaging the mechanism to close the ramp as lateral control suddenly returned to him. He could feel the engines straining. The craft rattled, but was falling too fast, he couldn’t get lift. Below, a fiery cauldron of fire and fury bubbled.
The starjet splashed into the lava lake and plunged below the surface. All around him red, yellow, and amber lava oozed across the skin of the jet.
“You can handle this,” Reece said, pulling at the controls. “Come on, you’re designed to fly through a fricking star! You can do this. Come on… I know you can do it!”
But he knew that was hopeful thinking. Stars were gaseous and this was a lake of molten rock. He was sinking into the Earth’s mantle, where the pressures and forces were beyond comprehension. Suddenly, as he tugged the controls, he felt a slight pressure pushing him into his seat. It was impossible to tell by looking outside, but it definitely felt like the jet was gaining altitude. Suddenly, gloriously, the jet lifted above the surface of the lava lake, dripping fiery rain.
“Alright!” He yelled. “Yes, yes, yes!”
He could feel the engines straining through the rattling control column. The molten rock clinging to the outer skin was already solidifying, adding weight the jet couldn’t handle. Reece gurned and leaned back in his seat, trying to drag the control column as far back as possible. The orange light outside was turning black as the rock cooled. Engine two sputtered out. He thought he saw the crust layer zip past, so angled sideways. Engine one gave out. Then there was no more thrust. It was all up to the gods now. He gripped his seatbelt and waited for impact.
“Ramp!” He cried, punching the rear ramp control.
He heard a brief hiss from the ramp’s pistons before they failed. The solidifying lava wouldn’t allow the ramp to open any further. The jet slammed into the ground, skidding sideways. Reece gritted his teeth and gripped his harness. A harsh impact stopped the craft dead and his hands tore free. He sat panting, mentally checking his limbs for injury. Nothing. He slapped the harness release and found himself falling. He landed on his shoulder and scrabbled towards a crack of light at the back of the jet. As he reached the aisle between the passenger seats, the jet teetered, as though balanced on a fulcrum.
“That’s not good,” he said, stopping and holding his arms out to the sides. The teetering jet slipping ever further sideways. “Definitely time to de-ass the aircraft!”
He leaned forwards and scrambled towards the crack of light by the ramp. He leapt through the air, through the gap and out into the open, where he fell and dashed across the ground. Gasping, he glanced back at the starjet, framed by the glowing walls of the volcano. The craft was covered in black rock that had solidified into waterfall-like structures that were propping the craft aloft, like alien landing gear. One of the structures cracked and the craft toppled sideways, over the edge of the crust layer and down into the heart of the volcano.
“We’re over here!” A voice cried. “If you can hear us, we’re over here!”
“This way, over here,” a girl’s voice called. “They’re trying to eat us! They’re everywhere!”
“Nice one, Reece,” he said under his breath, pushing himself up. “Great work, really fricking brilliant. Way to save the day.” He reached for his radio on his belt, but couldn’t find it. “What! Oh this just gets better. Hold tight, I’m coming,” he shouted.
When it Rains
F eeling drops of water against his face, Reece held out a hand. Thunder crackled and pterosaurs shrieked from within the mist overhead. He removed his pistol from its holster. The rain was coming down harder by the second.
“This ash’ll turn to concrete. Means we’re screwed. Gotta find a way out. Can you hear me?” He yelled, wading through the grainy ash. “Shout if you can hear me.”
“Here… over here,” a pair of voices yelled.
Reece dodged a taloned claw as a pterosaur swooped down, out of the mist. Mentally plotting the creature’s trajectory as it disappeared, he aimed into the mist and fired two shots.
“This pea shooter’s not even gonna scratch ‘em.”
He headed towards the kids, thigh muscles aching in the ankle-deep volcanic ash, which was steaming and beginning to thicken as it mixed with the now torrential rain.
“With all this steam the fog’s gonna get worse. Might help us.”
To his left, a man-sized infant pterosaur launched out of the mist, mouth open and screeching, its claws and wings outstretched. Reluctantly, Reece shot it in the head. The animal’s lifeless body wheeled through the dirt.
“If it’s you or them, it’s gotta be you. I’m sorry, that’s the way it’s gotta be.”
Within minutes he’d downed another four infants. He felt disgusted, but knew he had no choice. He counted each shot he fired, so he wouldn’t get cornered and surprised with an empty magazine. He’d fired seven shots, so had nine remaining. A frantic voice at the back of his mind nagged him to save three bullets, just in case the group had no way out. A quick death would be far better than the gruesome, agonising variety of ways the pterosaurs could finish them off. The rain was bucketing down now, turning the volcanic ash to sticky mud. It hissed and boiled in patches where super-heated gasses were seeping through submerged fractures in the crust layer.
“This water’s adding a lot of extra weight,” he said nervously, trying not imagine what would happen if the crust cracked and everything on it fell into the bubbling magma chamber below.
Reece’s ankle brushed against a shell fragment. He immediately realized the pterosaurs must have been using the calde
ra as an incubator, to keep their eggs warm. The parents could use the added free time the incubator provided for hunting. The area was strewn with giant shells, some of them still unhatched and half buried. Reece whirled around, ready to fire as something shot out of the mist. He gasped and dropped the weapon to his side. Marissa flung her arms round him, breathing heavily and muttering feverishly.
“It’s okay,” Reece said, holding a hand to her head as Ash backed towards them. “It’s okay, I’ll get us out of here.”
“We’re trapped,” Ash shouted over the rain. “They’re everywhere and we’re on the menu.”
The rain was roaring now, falling as almost unbroken streams. Cloying gloom closed around the vulnerable trio. There was a crack of thunder, so loud it felt like all existence had been cleaved in two. Reece felt confident the situation qualified as being somewhere on the apocalyptically bad end of the brown scale. The sheer volume of falling water was making it impossible to hear the pterosaurs. They needed to find shelter, and quickly. A heavy thud told him something had landed nearby, but he had no idea of the direction. He fired a few shots in random directions. Lightning flashed, turning the mist and rain into bright white sheets. Reece blinked, spots floating across his vision.
“Six shots left,” he said, turning and scanning the kids for injuries. Marissa looked bruised but appeared otherwise okay. Ash bore similar injuries, except he also had gnarled knuckles and was bleeding from a small cut to his upper ear. “How’s that ear?”
“Huh?” Ash said, touching his ear and squinting at the blood that was instantly washed away by the rain. “Oh… fine, I think. I can’t feel anything, just my heart beating like a maniac.”
“They’re everywhere,” Marissa said, looking around as demonic wails cut through the rain. “It’s like we’re being haunted by evil, like Caipora, evil jungle spirits.”
Reece looked around, sensing the phantoms lurking beyond the edges of their vision. The pterosaurs’ senses were far keener than theirs. They’d be launching an attack any moment.
“Come on,” Reece said, “follow me, stay close. I think I can get us out of here.”
Marissa kept her fingers tucked over the rim of Reece’s belt as they moved. Ash followed close behind. They must have been going downhill as the volcanic ash was turning into a soupy swamp that sloshed around their waists. Reece fired into the rain, at a ghoulish, twisted shape that retreated.
“Three left,” Reece said as they reached the outer walls, stretching up and out of the caldera.
Ash looked up. Lightning forked across the sky, illuminating the rim of the volcano.
“It’s miles away,” Marissa said. “We can’t climb that. I can’t climb that!”
“Thank you,” Reece breathed. “You won’t have to,” he said, pointing to a series of dark, jagged holes at the base of the steep incline. “Lava tubes. That’s our escape route. We’re going through one of those.”
“A lava tube?” Marissa said, lightning flashing across her terrified face. The rain had flattened her hair to the sides of her face. “Lava? Shouldn’t we be trying to avoid lava?”
“It’s not what you think,” Reece said. “They’re hollow tunnels that lava once flowed through. They should lead us out. It’s like following the flow of water. It always leads downhill, away from the source. We’ll also be able to wait out the rain inside and hopefully, the pterosaurs’ll give up hunting us. It’s our best option, our only option.”
“Well come on then,” Marissa said, tugging at Reece’s hand. “Don’t just stand there talking about it. Hurry up.”
“Where do we go when we get out?” Ash asked. “If we get out.”
“There’s an abandoned helicopter a few miles from here,” Reece replied. “If we can make it, I can fly us back to base.”
Reece saw the light of hope glow across Ash’s face. He didn’t have the heart to tell the kid the reason the helicopter was abandoned was because Aleksi and Victor’s lanterns had shown they’d been killed right beside it only a few hours ago. He especially didn’t want to explain the reason they’d been killed was because the helicopter had landed in allosaurus territory, one of the largest and most lethal killing machines ever created by Mother Nature. They were basically crazed mountains of muscle, claws and teeth. They were also astoundingly intelligent, which was no surprise given the length of time they’d had to evolve, which put the two-hundred or so thousands years humans had been evolving, to shame.
Astonishingly, the rain’s ferocity increased as they made for the rocky hollow. The warm water was above their waists now. Reece helped Marissa up and into the largest of the lava tubes.
“Watch your hands on the rock,” he said. “It could be sharp.”
The cloth Ash had tied around his face was now gathered around his neck like a scarf. He slipped it over his head and, using his teeth, tore it in half. He then wrapped the halves around his hands and crawled into the hole.
“D’you want me to go in front of you?” He asked Marissa, who was crawling ahead of him.
“Please,” she said, nodding and flattening against the wall. “I know I didn’t seem very grateful earlier, but thanks for coming to get me. I’ll never forget it. No one’s ever done anything like that for me. It’s true what they say about you. You are a hero.”
“I don’t know about that,” Ash said, blushing and squeezing past. “Anyway, I haven’t done anything helpful yet. If anything you saved me when that baby pterosaur had me.”
“You do that a lot, don’t you,” she said, “putting yourself down. You shouldn’t. You should be proud of your strengths. Acknowledge them. They’re your gifts and you’ll waste them if you ignore them.”
“I guess so. I haven’t always been my best self. I’m just… kind of… just catching up I think. A late developer.”
“I think you’ve caught up already,” Marissa said, smiling warmly. “You’re too amazing to be bad.”
“Scootch up,” Reece said, scrabbling through the tunnel towards them. “Get about twenty or so meters in. Then we’ll take a break, catch our breath.”
No sooner had they moved a few meters into the lava tube, an adult pterosaur splashed down outside and stuck its beak into the hole. It snuffled and squawked, its jaw snapping, then withdrew and screeched into the storm.
“Why don’t you shoot it?” Marissa said, ringing water from her hair.
“I only shoot if I have to,” Reece replied. “I hate those things, but I hate killing them even more. They don’t deserve to die.”
“You wouldn’t be saying that if it was eating you alive,” Marissa said, “like what they did to that plesiosaur on the beach.”
“This is their world,” Reece said. “They’re just doing what they’re programmed to do, what their instincts tell them. They’re not killing out of greed or spite. They’re just trying to survive, just like us.”
“My throat hurts, it stings,” Ash said, gently squeezing his neck. “Feels sore, like tonsillitis almost.”
“It’s the sulphur,” Reece said, unhooking his canteen and handing it to Ash. “Drink some. It’ll pass. You too, Marissa. When we move we need to be as fresh and rested as possible.”
Ash drank, passed the canteen, then leaned back on the wall of the lava tube and closed his eyes. The walls weren’t sharp as Reece had said they might be. They were smooth. He’d never imagined rock could be so comfortable. No wonder Neanderthals lived in caves. In a world where everything wants to eat you, a damp hole in a rock was luxurious. He tried to stop thinking about tidal waves, monsters, volcanoes and aircraft crashes. Instead, he turned his thoughts to his little brother and his mum. They felt so far away. He desperately needed to see them again. He concentrated on their faces, picturing them in his mind as best he could.
Ash felt something brush his thigh. He looked down and noticed a trickle of water lapping against his suit. He looked towards the hole they’d entered through. Thunder clapped and lightning flashed, illuminating churning black rapids t
hat were licking over the rim of the lava tube.
“Reece,” Ash said, pointing. “The water’s coming in.”
“No,” Marissa whimpered. “I thought we were safe.”
“Deep breath,” Reece yelled. “Take a de…”
Water gushed towards them, foaming and sloshing up the tube walls. Marissa grabbed Ash as the water struck. Ash grappled for a handhold, but his fingertips simply brushed the smooth stone as the water picked him and carried him into the cramped dark tunnel. He had frightening visions of getting stuck and drowning as the tube narrowed.
Down and round he swirled, colliding with Marissa and Reece, who gasped and flailed for a surface that didn’t exist. Ash desperately fought for breath, gulping down air and water that made his lungs scream with pain. Down and up lost meaning. There was only round and round. Suddenly, the black walls disappeared and he found himself staring at a dark lake, which span out of view. He was falling. Then he saw the volcano, from which a huge column of smoke was rising. The volcano was replaced with Marissa, her eyes wild with shock, then Reece, arms spread like a skydiver, eyes frantic.
Warm wetness enveloped Ash as he plunged into the lake below the mountain. He breached the surface, gasping, splashing to stay afloat, water seeping into his survival suit. He inhaled an almighty breath that whistled down his windpipe. Reece and Marissa popped up beside him, coughing and spluttering.
“Swim for the bank,” Reece said, coughing. “Swim, hurry. This way,” he said, powering through the water in a front crawl. “Follow me.”
When they reached the lake’s muddy bank and hauled themselves out, no one could speak. They lay coughing, exhausted, trying to expel the water and volcanic ash from their lungs, watching dark smoke belch from the volcano, which glowed orange at its peak.
“Excellent,” Reece said, finally, sitting up. “Damn volcano’s woken up. That’s the last thing we need.”
Jurassic Earth Trilogy Box Set Page 17
