Extinction Island 2

by catt dahman

“Pam. Idiot. She ran to the water for a bath…” Sue struggled to talk, and blood leaked from her mouth. “They got her, I think.”

  “Dinos?”

  “Yeah. Snakes gone?”

  “I think so,” Helen said. She looked up at the rest, “There’s nothing we can do, is there?”

  “Paralysis, blisters, and bleeding. People usually don’t have these kinds of reaction. I mean, usually when the vipers bite, the symptoms take longer to show, but these things bit them dozens of times, so I think maybe the snakes must have been a little different. Maybe the venom acts faster. Who knows, considering this crazy island?” asked Alex since he wasn’t sure. He was smart, he knew a lot of trivia, but he didn’t know everything, so he struggled to make sense of the situation. He wished he knew more.

  “Can’t we…” Bobby shook his head and knelt, taking Sue’s hand and speaking softly.

  Helen stood with the other four, giving Bobby and Sue privacy.

  As she watched the compys running around, she thought about how good the creatures tasted when cooked, kind of like chicken, or frog legs, but she never trusted them. “Why are they avoiding Sue and Durango?”

  “Venom. I guess the creatures don’t want to eat anything infused with the venom. Sue and Durango may be poisoned now...their skin and other places. I don’t know for sure about them. I’m guessing,” Alex said. “Where did the snakes go?”

  “Deeper into the trees. Under logs. They don’t want to be eaten by the compys. They usually avoid humans, so I think Sue and Durango must have stepped right into the nest, and the snakes reacted. Bastards,” said Alex as he shivered. “I hope the compys ate them…the snakes...I mean.”

  In a few minutes, Bobby, his face sad but composed, stood and said, “She’s gone. She did say the others ran away from the snakes.” Bobby was normally positive, but he looked troubled at losing someone to a new threat. He couldn’t keep up with all the dangers on the island. “She was ready to die. She was brave.”

  “All of them ran deeper into the jungle?” RJ asked.

  “Yes, except for Pam. She wasn’t here to be bitten. She had run to the spring. I guess the rest ran this way, and two were bitten. I suppose we can follow the trail through the greenery that they left,” Scott said. He was undecided and worried.

  Tyrese and Davey must have been very afraid for them to leave Durango and Sue. “I think if anyone else had been bitten, they wouldn’t have gone far.”

  Why did Tyrese and Davey run?

  “They would be dying or already dead, too. It isn’t like Tyrese and Davey to run away, but how could they fight snakes? Right?” Helen asked. She was thinking the same as Scott.

  Scott considered the situation and shivered. The others panicked when they walked into the nest of vipers, but Tyrese and Davey were almost fearless. For them to have left Sue, run away from Pam, and not saved her was confusing. He thought he was missing something vital.

  “Something feels wrong,” RJ said.

  “Besides snakes? I hate snakes,” Helen said. Scott reached for her hand and tried to give her a reassuring smile, but it became a grimace. “What is it?” she asked since she felt that Scott and Alex were a step ahead in thinking.

  Alex tilted his head and narrowed his eyes with admiration, balanced with fear and said, “We’re being hunted.”

  Chapter 4: Extreme Hunting

  Helen’s face drained of color as she asked, “What do you mean?”

  “I mean the compys aren’t here because they don’t want venomous flesh; they’re nervous. See how they keep running back and forth? Those snorts and roars that we heard toward the water sounded like bigger predators, but remember that I said I thought there could be two packs hunting. I still think that.”

  “Are we being watched, do you think?”

  “Maybe. Probably. I have a really bad feeling, and we need to get out of here,” Alex said. “They have to be a smaller predator, and remember, we’ve seen troodons.”

  “Those are the smart ones. They scare me,” Helen said.

  “Me, too. They are fast, smart, and sneaky, aren’t they? They work in perfect synchronization, something scientists have hypothesized about. They’re like the cheetahs of the dino world, I suppose.”

  “What should we do?”

  “I’m not sure. We’re moving away from their nest if they are troodons, farther away from camp and water, and farther from the rocks and cave. I don’t know where the rest ran, but we don’t have a choice since something big is behind us.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I mean that I think the troodons are close and are hunting us, but I think they are as nervous as the compys, because another bigger predator has come into this territory to hunt and has unbalanced everything.”

  “A lot bigger?”

  Alex nodded to Helen and said, “I think it’s a lot bigger, but the good news is that it will go back that way to its territory where it belongs.”

  “What’s the bad news?” Bobby asked.

  “It’s the same way Tyrese and the rest ran, and the way we are heading. The troodons are herding us in that direction.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they want us first. The other territory is like a wall they are backing us into, a dead end. Let’s just say that I think they are troodons. They are close, and they want us. Okay?”

  “Yeah, thanks, Alex, great news.”

  Bobby smiled kindly and said, “At least we know. That’s something, and we’re still alive. We have a chance.” He looked to Scott and Alex and said, “And you two can come up with good plans.”

  “I can come up with a plan, but it might not be very good,” Scott said.

  Alex took the lead, motioning the rest to follow. He stopped, and they ate from the trees, picking a fruit that Air Marshal Lynn’s group had lived on and called peachy tarts. As glucose hit her bloodstream from her having eaten some of the fruit, Helen looked a little stronger and seemed to be energized. They gathered the fruit to put in their packs.

  “I love these fruit,” Alex said.

  “One of the only good things we’ve found,” Scott agreed.

  “I’ve packed a lot for us,” Helen said.

  As they continued on, they noticed the ground was scratched up, looking as if a fight had ensued, and Scott pointed out blood streaks on a few leaves. The biggest carnivores hadn’t been there, but either the troodons had a violent fight among themselves, or else, the troodons and humans had a nasty, brutal battle.

  “Oh, Alex,” said Helen as she waved him over. In a slight depression in the ground lay a dinosaur, four feet long and partly covered with brush where it had fallen. The animal was bluish grey, its skin looked pebbled, and its vestiges of feathers never quite developed, but could have, and might, if evolution occurred.

  Covered in tiny feathers, its fuzzy forearms ended with dagger-like claws. The back legs were muscular with its toes tipped with regular claws. In the middle of the foot was a uniquely raised claw, common to most raptors. The head was large, indicating a big brain, and its eyesight was excellent. It wasn’t bottom-heavy. In fact, it looked as if it could run and maneuver easily.

  “It’s a kind of a troodon, I think. Maybe. It’s not a velociraptor because it’s too big. It’s nearly as tall as I am,” Alex said. “It may be something totally different, but troodon is as close as I can guess, based on his lizard head, back claws, and tail.”

  Bloodied, the creature had been stabbed and gouged repeatedly. Again, it was unusual for the compys not to scavenge this fresh meat, but Alex said he thought it was because the pack was still too close. “They’ll come for him, his own kind will. We’re just in the way right now, and they’re watching.”

  “Keep walking,” Scott said, “because I feel them watching. It’s creepy as hell.”

  A large fern with lacey, whitish fronds and pulpy stems exploded, sending bits of greenery into the air. Alex spun with his knife, and Scott jumped forward, but RJ rolled with a blue-grey beast on top of him.
The violent thrashing tore the greenery to shreds, and the animal was so fast that no one could find a way to stab it without hurting RJ. The man and beast rolled over rotten logs and against a fallen tree. The dinosaur slashed once, opening RJ’s stomach and chest.

  Helen screamed with horror as she saw the belly wound. It had happened so fast.

  “Run,” Scott ordered. Feeling pity and guilt, Scott didn’t want to leave RJ, but as he yelled, two other animals burst from the trees where they were hidden, snapping and tearing at RJ and fighting over the kill. Scott wanted to get the rest to safety and then help him, but it didn’t happen that way.

  One troodon bit into RJ’s stomach and yanked his intestines free, pulling a string with him as he retreated. The man screamed and shrieked until the noise became a high-pitched cacophony among the snapping and growls. If Scott went closer, one of the animals would use a back claw to rip him open. Scott wanted to vomit as guilt overwhelmed him.

  Scott grabbed Helen before she fell, having just tripped on a vine. Blindly they ran, following a trail that others had taken, but not knowing if it were a trap or a safe zone.

  Chapter 5: In the Maw

  “Helen, come here, or you’re dead. Hurry. ”

  While Helen ran with the rest to a rocky area, she heard her name and twisted to her left, wondering where the voice came from and whose voice it was.

  At the rocky area, grey boulders and stones stood covered with moss and were almost invisible against the ferns and trees, but the smashed plants led that way.

  More rocks lined a gully and led off into a cave-like trail where trees and bushes grew, leaning and forming a dark tunnel of over growth.

  During storms, the gully always filled with water, and sure enough, thunder and lightning were already rumbling and breaking up the sky.

  The sky wasn’t yellow tinted yet, as it often became on the island, but the storm was filled with heavy rain clouds, something common for the jungle. A light breeze cooled the air.

  Helen didn’t have time to look at the gully for very long because a hand reached out from the rocks and yanked her through a slash in the rocks, a crevice that was impossible to discern. She looked up at Tyrese who gripped her arm and pulled her inside the cave and behind him.

  She hardly had time to give him a whisper of thanks before she was at the back of the crevice and she had fallen on the damp ground. A soft body broke her fall.

  “Ouch, damn,” John Littleton complained. John pushed Helen, and Tyrese pushed her back, so she was tossed back and forth.

  “Stop it,” Helen screamed. Littleton wedged himself into a smaller area and gave her room to squat. She had bumped her head and winced as her scalp began stinging. She felt of her head with gentle fingers and found a small scrape that smarted, but it wasn’t serious.

  “Don’t push me. I cut my head,” she snapped at Littleton.

  “You startled me.”

  “Fine, but stop pushing.”

  Scott slid through the rocks a split second after Alex. It just happened that they were in that order. He turned to help Tyrese pull Bobby into the little cave but realized he was holding a hand and wrist that dripped blood. Scott’s yell was full of fury and the agony of frustration and defeat. “Come on. Dive in, Bobby.”

  “I…” Bobby moaned.

  One of the troodons rammed Bobby just as he tried to get inside the crevice and used its knife-like maw to snap his powerful jaws down on the exposed arm. Bobby screamed and spun, unsure where to run. He could have been saved, but a second troodon aggressively raced to the man and bit into his face, tearing away Bobby’s eyes and nose. Bobby gurgled a scream.

  Bobby took several steps the wrong way and collapsed, screaming in pain. The first troodon chomped down on Bobby’s neck, killing him instantly. The animals fought over this kill, ripping away chunks of flesh and tearing off arms and then legs. They snapped at one another as they ate Bobby. They dragged him away, still fighting.

  “No…Bobby? We have to do something…”

  “He’s gone, Scott. You know that. Good Lord, it’s as if he gave you the second you needed to be safe. Fine man, wasn’t he?” Tyrese watched the rain begin to fall, washing away blood as soon as it welled. “I can’t believe we lost him…this close to being safe…”

  Scott caught his breath and wiped his face, rubbing away sweat and tears of anger. He wasn’t sure that when people were heroic and died, if that action made them better or worse than those who escaped death.

  “What the hell? Tyrese, damn, are you okay?” asked Scott, as he ducked away from a spot above him that allowed rainwater to trickle down and fall on his back. “We were worried.”

  “I think so. Kind of.”

  “What happened?”

  “We screwed up. Everyone was too loud, and Pam ran to the water as if she was on vacation. There was nothing to worry about, but then some big thing got her, we think,” Tyrese said.

  Benny had a line between his eyes as he concentrated and explained in a calm voice, “The dinosaurs that got Pam…they were ceratosaurus, I believe. They have the horns on their heads and are not carnotaurus because of the size and shape of the upper body. They are smaller than an allosaurus, which is their natural enemy. I don’t think this island can support anything much larger than the ceratosaurus.”

  “Yeah, Sarah-saurs, and they are big,” Tyrese said, “and I’m so sorry about Bobby. He was a good person.”

  “Yeah, he was.” Despite his horror at losing Bobby, Scott was fascinated to hear about the large dinosaurs. He told Benny about the dinosaur they called Big Brown, a large predator with blue-tipped feathers. They had already killed the female of the species.

  Benny nodded and said, “I bet he is one of the last of his kind. A lake or big body of water is probably in that direction. Ceratosaurus like to swim and catch fish. I mean, that’s the theory. That is their hunting ground, but pretend the spring and creek are the center. The ceratosaurus came from the other way and hunted in the center of the spring.”

  “And they got Pam?”

  “We heard her scream, and we saw them, so we can assume so,” Littleton added. His eyes were enormous. “No one helped her.”

  “Did you?”

  “Well. No.”

  “We ran this way. We planned to go back down the trail to camp, but the other things were there. Those things,” Tyrese said.

  “A kind of troodon,” Benny supplied the information.

  “I knew it,” Alex told them, “and they have to be troodons. I am glad you know your stuff.”

  Benny smiled sadly and said, “Tyrese said the troodons have nests on the other side of the spring. Today, troodons and ceratosaurus decided to hunt in the same area, and unfortunately, we were right in the middle.”

  “You know a lot about them,” Scott said. “In fact, Alex said the same thing.”

  “I like those creatures, but I don’t care for them as much now that they are hunting us. I guess I hate some of them…those that kill people.

  I used to read about them, and Dad…Dad was so cool. He took us to all the dinosaur museums and let me take all the junior programs. I loved learning about them and thought about being a paleontologist,” said Benny as he sniffed. “I wish Dad could have seen them here.”

  “You could be the best in the field,” Scott said, “and I know you miss your father. I’m sorry, Benny.”

  “Me, too. I’ll be okay. Time heals, right?”

  “I hope so,” Scott said.

  Helen sat in the cramped space and looked at Shonna, who lay on the dirt; she brushed a large yellow-green spider away from Shonna’s hair. The bandage on Shonna’s arm was thick, having been neatly wrapped with gauze upon gauze, but still the wound leaked blood. “Did you do the medical work, Davey?”

  “Yeah, I tried.”

  “What happened to her? Not the snakes?” Helen was suddenly afraid Davey had removed Shonna’s arm because of a snakebite.

  “No, the troodons. Her hand is gone, and I
can’t stop the bleeding. They ripped it off her…horrible. Some of that blood is from a bite on her thigh, likely very deep. The back claw got her. Probably if the wound had been any deeper, she would have died right there. She’s in deep shock and hasn’t been conscious yet.”

  “Makes you wish you had your stash of dope?” Helen asked.

  “I wish that every day, actually. I need a fattie.”

  “Drug talk? Really? In front of a kid?”

  “It’s okay, Uncle John. I guess I’ve seen and heard worse. Marijuana does have some benefits.”

  “He’s not a kid. He’s a teenager and about to mature fast or die out here, so rethink that part,” Scott growled.

  “Scott…” Helen gulped and took a deep breath.

  “Enough,” said Littleton as he held his hand up.

  “That may be for the best that she hasn’t awakened,” Helen said. “I know you tried. Except for Kelly, you are the best with first aid, Davey.”

  “Nah, I’m not half as good as Kelly, and I don’t have anything to work with or the room to maneuver.” He caught that he had dropped his trademark way of speaking and added, “Dude.”

  Helen shook her head. She knew Davey wasn’t the stoner, the dumb person he pretended to be. He was smart, but he turned to his trademark slang when he grew nervous. She knew that he was frustrated with an inability to make Shonna well and that he feared trying but failing.

  Scott explained that they had found Durango and Sue, and had figured out vipers had killed them. Tyrese looked miserable and said he felt like a coward for running and leaving them, but he had wanted to save Benny, who was young. Tyrese’s face showed that he didn’t like making choices about who lived and who died. “Snakes. Damn things were crawling all over the place.”

  “Deadly snakes,” Alex agreed.

  “Bobby was with Sue when she passed. Stu and the rest are going to take the death of Durango hard. I can’t believe he’s dead. He was always so loud and strong…the central focus…bigger than life,” Scott said. “I wanted Durango to lead, and he would have if things hadn’t gone the way they did.”