Jurassic Earth Trilogy Box Set

by Logan T Stark

  The power cell buried beneath the starcom base meant the facility would still have electricity. She’d have lights, maybe even a warm shower. The prospect made her giddy with excitement.

  “I could wash my clothes!” She proclaimed suddenly. “Holy crap, yes. No more smelling like a dead skunk. Oh wow, clean clothes. Whatever happens, you’re having a wash. You stink.”

  Her mounting excitement released a second wind of energy as she came across the edge of the sequoia forest. In both directions, the hundred-meter coniferous trees had been completely felled by the volcanic explosion. There wasn’t a single one standing. They were lined up in perfectly parallel lines, all pointing away from the blast, covered with a layer of damp gray ash. Grubs and crawlies scuttled for cover as Becca passed towering root systems that had been wrenched from the soil.

  “At least you know where you can get food,” she said uneasily, thinking back to the centipede the eepees had given her. “Oh, please let there be food at starcoms. Please, oh, please. Food and a shower.”

  After another mile of wastelands, pitted with lava bomb craters and fallen trees, Becca encountered her first standing sequoia. The side facing the direction of the blast was badly burned, but the side facing away looked healthy and untouched, its bark a deep shade of brownish-red. Ten minutes later, she’d passed dozens more upright trees, with curled fern shoots sprouting around their bases, ready to unfurl their newly formed fronds when the sun returned. She prayed the eepees’ habitat would recover in the same way. She already dearly missed their fuzzy little faces. Tonight would feel empty without their rumbling, snoring little bodies at her side. She hoped the dark stranger didn’t decide to return in their stead.

  “You can’t look back, Becca. They know you loved them.”

  Half a mile later, the sounds of life entered the mix, whoops and wails from an ancient forest that was clawing its way back from the brink of annihilation. Becca felt like she was waking from a nightmare, like she’d travelled through the valley of the shadow of death and was walking back into the land of the living.

  For the next hour, she continually checked her compass as she trekked, wondering whether she’d somehow missed the monorail in the mist, whether she’d passed under it perhaps. She’d give it another hour then turn back. The snowy ash that had been muting her footfalls was thinning and pine needles crunched underfoot. She knew there’d be large predators in the sequoia forest, so chose her footing carefully so as not to attract attention. She hadn’t seen a single downed tree in a while, which meant this section of the island was outside the blast zone and she knew for a fact that allosaurs liked to hunt here.

  Then there was the new class of predator she’d encountered whilst escaping with the children. They’d named them cephalopods. They were a cross between spiders, octopuses and squid. They could shift at incredible speeds, were expert climbers and had razor sharp retractable beaks that extended from a ring of teeth on their undersides, which they used to snip prey into manageable chunks whilst ensnared in their powerful tentacles. They were one of the most lethal animals she’d ever heard of, in fact or fiction, and they were enormous. With their limbs fully extended, their spans were easily fifteen meters. From what little she understood, they hung with their tentacles spread between trees, so they’d bounce if they sensed vibrations, much like a spider’s web, except they were the web and the spider.

  There was no instance of land-dwelling cephalopods in the fossil record, so no one planning the Jurassic Earth experiment had developed countermeasures to guard against them. Their existence had come as a complete surprise. It was just another of a long line of mistakes they’d made coming back here, assuming they had a handle on the threats. They didn’t, and Becca was sure as the sky is blue that other nasty surprises were lurking across the planet, unknown things designed for lethality. On Jurassic Earth, you had to be big and savage or small and fast. There wasn’t much in-between as it tended to get gobbled.

  Eventually, thankfully, she came up against a strut holding the monorail track aloft, its cream plating patchy with dark green algae. The ladder leading to the tracks was so badly rusted it looked like something that had been salvaged from the bottom of the ocean, part of a wreck that had been submerged for decades. Rusty stains streaked from the bolts securing it to the strut. Becca gave the ladder a firm shake. Contrary to appearances, it seemed solid.

  “Probably best to move up there,” she said, looking up. “Better than down here. Less things to eat me.”

  At the top of the ladder, arms and legs burning again, Becca rolled into the meter wide gully through which the single rail fed. She lay for a moment and closed her eyes. She must have dozed off momentarily as she woke to see a little lizard licking her hand, probably for the salt in her sweat. It had thin winged membranes joining its front legs to its body, so looked like the flying dracosaur lizard, a distant relative of the Dallas lizard, which would eventually migrate into the sea to escape land predators, where in roughly sixty million years, it would grow to become the mighty Mosasaur, the largest and most dangerous aquatic creature to have ever existed. It seemed hard to imagine evolution could turn something so small into something so fearsome, but that seemed the way on Jurassic Earth.

  “Small and fast or big and fierce,” she said, causing the lizard to shoot up the gully wall and scuttle over the edge. She saw it jump and glide away, attaching itself to a nearby sequoia trunk.

  After a few long yawns, Becca pushed to her feet and got moving again, which wasn’t easy with the monorail’s centralising bracing joints blocking her path every few meters, which she was forced to clamber over. As the mist to her east darkened and the mist to her right glowed orange, she was beginning to fear she’d have to sleep tucked against the rail. Moving in the dark would be difficult and dangerous. She didn’t want to trip and fall over the edge, especially not now she’d come so far.

  A tree to her right splintered and cracked. She ducked and peered into the murky forest, crouching, heart galloping beneath her ribs. A sound like whale song drifted through the air, eerie and mournful, yet strangely beautiful in an unsettling kind of way.

  What she had imagined to be a sequoia trunk swayed oddly through the mist. Only as it drew closer could she see the enormous head of a diplodocus at the end of a long neck. The animal lethargically chewed on a mouthful of sequoia branches.

  “Hey there,” Becca said, smiling at the dinosaur. “Enjoying your dinner, that taste good?”

  The ground shook as a second diplodocus plodded alongside the first. It moaned musically, then reared onto its haunches, its long neck reaching through the mist to get at the sequoia’s lowest branches. It crashed to the ground with such force the monorail quaked and pine needles rained down, softly tinkling like the notes of an ancient forest lullaby.

  Becca dearly wished she could’ve stayed and watched the magnificent creatures for many more hours, but didn’t want to become stuck in the open overnight. For all the horrors this world had to offer, there were joys to match. Nevertheless, she had to continue. If the pterosaurs had infrared vision and there were more of them, she’d be easy pickings sleeping on the monorail, which was essentially a raised serving platter.

  She hurriedly moved on, feeling empowered by the encounter with the diplodocus, feeling overjoyed the island wasn’t completely dead or full of hellish lethality. As night drew closer, the forest began to wake around her, more so with each passing minute. Wild hollers, hoots and whistles permeated the swelling darkness, which wasn’t unusual for the equatorial island. Smaller animals generally sought shelter from the heat of the day and came out at night.

  Nightfall was upon her when she spotted a halo of light shining out of the mist ahead. The hazy silhouette of an up lit satellite dish began filling with detail as she drew closer.

  “It’s got power,” she breathed, sniffing back a sudden upwelling of emotion, a powerful torrent of hope and relief. “There’s a chance. Thank God, there’s a chance...”

&nb
sp; Red and Green lights blinked on the end of transmitter trusses thrusting from the center of the large dish. The facility was far bigger than the bunker she’d called home for the past month. A raised landing pad loomed behind it. The main building was comprised of several concrete chambers joined to a central hub, on which the satellite dish was seated. A yellow light illuminated a bulkhead style door to the main building, with a rusty looking circular valve handle.

  “Jackpot,” she said, wiping away a tear and chuckling. “You didn’t exactly get here as planned, but hell, you’re here and that’s all that matters. You fricking made it, Becks. You ate the elephant, the whole damn thing, signed, sealed, delivered, I win, I won, I fricking win!”

  She leaned over the monorail to search for the nearest strut to climb down. Her core tightened and she began trembling. She tried to calm herself and move as little as possible, breathing slow steady breaths. Fifty meters away, stretched between the monorail beside the starcom facility and a patch of sequoias was a cephalopod more massive than anything she’d seen before. This thing was disgustingly colossal, with tentacles the girth of an adult bull elephant’s legs.

  “You can’t be serious,” she breathed. “What the shit… I’m so damn close… It’s just right there…”

  She took some time to gather her thoughts. After the initial panic when her senses stabilized, a plan began forming. When she was ready, she carefully backtracked to the previous strut, taking great care not to step too harshly, which could cause vibrations that might wake the slumbering cephalopod. She then slowly descended to the forest floor and with equal care, inched from the strut, moving perpendicular to the tracks. Javelins of moonlight streamed from the forest canopy, silhouetting the outstretched monster. It appeared simultaneously terrifying and beautiful. That’s how she’d describe this place when she got home, terrifying and beautiful. There never seemed to be anything in-between on Jurassic Earth, nothing moderate.

  Swiftly and cautiously, she moved away from the tracks until the starcom facility was blocking the line of sight with the creature. She figured the building would act as a sound break, giving her more leeway the closer she approached. She moved agonisingly slowly, placing her feet as softly as possible, trying to pick out patches of soil between the carpet of crunching pine needles. Eventually, she came up against the door to the starcom facility’s main entrance, below a caged light. There, she waited for her moment, for her plan to come to fruition.

  An hour passed and nothing. The moon was rising higher in the sky and insects clinked and buzzed against the light fitting above her. An hour later and still nothing. She was on her knees now, leaning against the wall in the shadows beside the door, tiredness dragging her eyelids. Suddenly, involuntarily, she yawned and immediately clapped a hand to her mouth. In her mind the yawn was louder than a nuclear explosion. Her fears were founded. The monorail trembled and she shrank deeper into the shadows.

  The cephalopod appeared, clambering along the underside of the tracks like a monkey hanging from the underside of a branch. The giant silently slunk a few more meters then stopped. The colossal beast was hunting her. The games were afoot.

  Becca opened her mouth wide in an effort to breathe as quietly as possible. The cephalopod slipped its tentacles around the tracks and pulled its body close to disguise its outline. It waited patiently, unmoving. Another hour passed as Becca fought against her heavy eyelids, which kept drooping. At one point she almost toppled over. Eventually, at the edge of exhaustion, it happened.

  BEEP – BEEP

  BEEP – BEEP

  BEEP –BEEP

  On hearing Becca’s watch alarm, the cephalopod sprang into action and flipped onto the topside of the tracks, where it sprinted powerfully towards the source of the sound, the wristwatch Becca had planted by the strut she’d descended from hours earlier. Becca leapt for the door and heaved at the circular valve handle. The resulting metallic scrape was so loud it could have woken the dead in her own time, and the hairs on her arms stood on end. The handle only turned ninety degrees before sticking solid.

  She turned and saw the cephalopod leap from the rail tracks into the trees, where it began homing towards her like a charging bull, tree trunks shaking as it grappled and launched between them, pine needles raining. Becca heaved at the handle again. It wouldn’t budge. She strained with all her might… nothing!

  “PLEASE! COME ON!”

  In desperation, she hung from the handle, bouncing and using her weight to shift it. It suddenly loosened and span. She sprang up and speedily span the handle until the lock disengaged, the noise in the trees behind her was so loud if felt like an approaching landslide. With an almighty shove she shoulder-barged the door. It burst open and she tumbled inside, turning as she fell. Through the open door she saw the cephalopod spinning through the night, its tentacles at full stretch, its serrated beak emerging from a sloppy fleshy orifice. Becca sprang to her feet and lunged for the door, shoving it shut with all her might.

  The cephalopod hit the closing door with such force the door flew open, knocking Becca backwards across the concrete. Sharp pain stitched her wounded arm and she looked up to see a giant beak snapping through the doorframe, inches from her feet. She jumped up and scrambled behind the door in a wide arc, then slammed it shut. The cephalopod shrieked and its beak crunched. Again and again Becca slammed the heavy door, screaming and slamming. The beak withdrew and Becca shoved the heavy steel closed, slicing off the tip of a darting tentacle. She quickly span the valve and collapsed, hanging off it, praying the creature wasn’t intelligent enough to figure how the mechanism functioned.

  The cephalopod rammed the door for a good hour as Becca remained in place, hanging from the handle, sweat pouring, teeth gritted. The writhing tentacle segment in the room with her crept a whole meter across the floor, leaking gooey yellow blood for twenty minutes before it died.

  “When they come they need to bring back weapons,” she panted, her eyelids sagging. She closed her eyes and lay back. “This world is utterly insane.”

  Still Alive

  T he darkened room inside the starcom facility was lined with computer banks. They whirred and ticked as multi-colored lights blinked and flashed. Now Becca’s fear and adrenaline levels were simmering down, the sight appeared beautifully welcoming, like she’d come home for Christmas after a long and tiring journey. Let it Snow by Dean Martin began playing in her mind and she chuckled.

  “And the weather outside is frightful,” she sang softly, “and something something delightful. Do-be-do dooby-doo, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.”

  Cables fed from the whirring mainframe to two control stations, boasting large monitors topped with webcams, circled by dim illuminated rings. Pale green strip lights skirted low on the walls, similar to emergency aircraft lighting, only broken by three doorways and a pile of sheets in one corner, which made Becca hopeful there were beds in one of the adjoining rooms. Through one of the doors she spied a washer-dryer nestled between a wash basin with a dripping tap and rows of packed shelves. Some of the stacked boxes were labelled with the bold initials MRE, which she was pretty confident stood for meals-ready-to-eat, the kind the military used, which she knew were surprisingly tasty and full of essential nutrients. They’d keep her going for months.

  “Running water, food and electricity,” she said, laughing, releasing the door valve and massaging her wrist. “What a win. First, let’s stuff our face like a pig in truffle season, then we’ll have a wash. That thing’s not getting in. Let it snow, let it snow, let it…”

  “Did you die here too?” A coarse voice whispered.

  Becca swallowed hard and shrank against the door, her skin prickling, shivers squirming through her body like maggots. Impossibly, the pile of rags in the corner appeared to be moving.

  “You’re not real,” she said, beating the floor with a palm. “Not already, not again. I will not go mad. You will not go mad, Becca. Get a grip!”

  “Can you see me?” The entity
moaned. “I think I died here.”

  Becca unleashed a shuddering gasp as the rags slowly rose up, skeletal hands fumbling from within the folds. The spectre made a sound like a disturbed body sighing its last breath in a morgue, lungs gargling. The rags slowly slid from a head that couldn’t possibly be human. It’s face was sunken on one side, and the folds of a brain throbbed beneath a thin membrane of skin. It looked like melted wax had been dripped on a skinless, boneless person, leaving only one glittering eye visible.

  “You’re not real,” Becca repeated. “No, Becca, shake it off. It’s not real, you know it’s not real.”

  She tried to sink into the door as the thing loped from the shadows.

  “Can you see me?” The entity breathed.

  “Jezus, Jezus, yes I can fricking see you. What the hell are you?”

  “Becca?”

  “Oh please no, oh no, it knows my name.”

  Any moment now, Becca expected to wake on the floor of the control tower at the Jura base, a sea of nuclear fire devouring her skin. She suddenly understood she’d imagined everything. She’d not survived. That would have been impossible. The last few months hadn’t been real. There was no bunker. There had been no eepees. It had all been a figment of her imagination as the neurons of her brain fired their final charge as she slipped towards death.

  She felt a cold hand clasp her wrist. She screamed.

  “Can you see me?” A voice gargled. “Am I dead? Are we dead?”

  Becca cowered as the thing scurried across the room to one of the control stations. It rolled a chair aside and flicked a mouse on the desk, causing the mainframe to hum loudly. The monitors blazed blue and fluorescent strip lights across the ceiling flickered on.