Extinction Island 2

by catt dahman

  “Holy shit.”

  No one corrected Benny’s language because all of them felt the same, as they came out next to a somewhat mushy, muddy beach. The well- trampled beach was littered with pebbles and covered by the same kind of rocks that made the cave the humans had hidden in. Heavy footprints marked the muck that smelled of rotting fish and reptilian feces. A sharp, bitter reek was evident as the mud soured.

  Helen twisted her hair, trying to get the dirty water out so it would stop dribbling down her back.

  In the murky water of the lake, a ceratosaur swam, using its stout tail to propel itself across the surface while its head was half submerged as it searched for fish. In the creature’s wake, swam several smaller dinosaurs, mimicking the swimming motions and learning the fishing technique. Seeing them work together was amazing, but surreal, as if watching a movie.

  “We can stay in the trees and angle back to the beach. Stay together,” Scott warned. “Benny and Alex were right. The troodons have backed away from us.”

  “They fear the ceratosaurs,” Benny said.

  “I do, too,” Alex said.

  Davey took some gauze from Helen’s backpack to wrap Tyrese’s wounds. That the gauze had remained dry was shocking, but so far, small plastic bags worked to keep their belongings dry in their backpacks. In time, there would be none of those left.

  “Keep Ty, Benny, and Littleton in between us,” said Scott.

  “I can still kick ass, Scott,” Tyrese grumbled. As much as guilt ate at him, he was still brave and determined; something the rest admired. He held out his knife and looked around. “I feel bad for Shonna.”

  “You tried, Ty. I was impressed,” Benny said. He admired Tyrese’s dedication and bravery.

  Scott almost grinned as he watched his friend. He was stopped from his mirth as John Littleton stumbled and moaned when his ankle turned. “Don’t tell me about a sprained ankle. We don’t have time for that,” said Scott.

  “I wouldn’t dream of telling you,” Littleton scowled. He felt outside the group but noticed that Benny fit in perfectly.

  A roar echoed, and then there was a discordance of bellowing, squealing, thrashing, and cracking. The troodons ventured too close to the ceratosaurs’ territory, and the two packs fought over the food and the land.

  Several of the troodons, working together as a team and using their sickle-shaped back claws, could sometimes bring down a ceratosaur, but because that was so deadly to try, it wasn’t a common fight. They preferred to use their abilities to attack a plant-eater who couldn’t fight back as well.

  The ceratosaurus had the huge, sharp teeth that herbivores didn’t have, and they snapped bones and tore flesh, splashing the plants and trees with gore.

  The fight between the two packs broke out near the water, coloring the greyish water deep red and the mud maroon. The clashing of so many teeth and bones sent birds and small animals running, while trees were hit so hard that they fell to the waterline.

  “It sounds like a war,” Littleton said.

  “It is,” said Alex as he sucked in hot, humid air, trying to make the stitch in his side ease. The air was better than it had been at the small lake but was still sticky and thick.

  “I knew our plan would work,” Benny told them, “but I wish I could have seen the fight.”

  “No, you don’t because you’d wind up as part of the menu,” Helen told him, “and you can’t sneak back, so don’t even try. You need to learn to fight them if they attack before you run into the jungle. It’s fight or die around here.”

  “I’ll learn. How did you get over being amazed, Alex?” asked Benny.

  Alex looked startled but replied, “I’m still amazed when I see them. I never dreamed…well, no, that isn’t true, because we all dream things like this when we are young, but…”

  “We stopped seeing them as interesting and more like enemies. They’re nothing more than big snakes to me,” Tyrese said. “It’s getting late. Do we try to make a camp or push to get home?”

  “Are there dinos on the beach?” Littleton asked.

  Alex stopped and looked puzzled. “Many of them like the water, and we’ve been attacked on the beach. Do you just now understand all this?”

  “Actually, I don’t understand any of this. You’ve had a little longer to accept everything, but it’s new to me,” Littleton said as he glared at Alex. “Look, I’m trying to get everything in my head, but so far, you’ve told me, or I have seen that I am five years in the past, so I exist in two places. You have told me about steroid-enriched water that made kids feral, extra venomous snakes and…shock... dinosaurs.”

  “Sorry, dude, but we told you the facts,” Davey said.

  “We had to find it out for ourselves, so I guess we have sort of a bitterness,” Helen explained. “And, yes, there can be dinosaurs anywhere. We don’t want to be caught in the dark, though.”

  They were far to the opposite side of where they had explored before, and camp lay in between. Littleton traced the tree line down the sandy, white beach to the clear water of the ocean. If they were attacked from either direction, they knew that the other way was too far to run and of little value.

  “Will those at camp worry if we are out all night?” asked Benny.

  “Yeah, I imagine they are already worried, but they’ll wait until morning before starting a search party, I hope,” Scott said.

  “Do you think the rain is finished?” asked Helen.

  “If anything, it should be a clear night. No rainstorms,” answered Scott.

  “Good. I’d hate to reappear again, having already crashed on the beach twice,” said Littleton as he grimaced.

  Chapter 7:Sand and Bones

  Benny’s face lit up as he pointed to the line of trees that grew just at the edge of the sand, their roots struggling to find nutrients in the thin, dry soil. Vines reaching around with fingers of green snaked through the trees, trying to find the light. It was as if someone had drawn an imaginary line and the trees had to remain behind it.

  Entangled in the vines, but laying on the beach, was a pile of large old bones, twisted and scattered for over twenty yards in each direction and rising several dozen feet high in the middle.

  “Big bones.” John Littleton wasn’t impressed.

  “They’re huge bones,” Alex said. “We haven’t seen anything nearly this size.” Benny and he stared at the bones, looking side to side and above. With a common interest that chased away fear, they walked around the heap, touching various smooth yellowed surfaces and poking at specific features on the skulls, feet, and spines.

  Benny scampered under bones and posed to show his size as if he were being photographed. Alex nodded as he made mental notes of the sizes of the bones.

  “What do you think of this one, Benny? What do we have here? Can you tell?”

  Benny took the questions to be a test, but was unconcerned about passing because he knew the answers. He referred to the feet of the beast, showing everyone how the long forelegs ended in small hoof-like phalanges. While the huge creature walked mostly on his back legs, he also used his forelegs to walk as well as to feed on both low vegetation and the fruit from taller bushes and trees.

  The second point of interest to Benny was the skull of this animal: it was enormous, was shaped like a duck’s head, and had large, square teeth. Benny could have slept inside of it, and in fact, he figured he would since they had made camp there.

  He pointed to the teeth and said, “See how old they look? They’re so worn down and used up…had to be a very old creature. It was an herbivore and chewed his food, explaining the extreme wear over time.”

  “Plants wear out teeth?” asked Littleton.

  “Sure. It takes a lot of chewing to break down vines and branches and to chew fibrous leaves,” replied Benny.

  “I agree,” Alex said, and Benny nodded, “and the creature must have been about forty feet long and weighed four tons. Do you think it might have been an Edmontosaur?” Alex asked, but was al
most afraid Benny would show him up on dinosaur knowledge.

  “I think so. If not, it is just like one, or one of the relatives. I still think huge animals can’t be living here, for the most part, I mean. He may have been one of the last unless you’ve seen more?”

  “Nothing this size that looks like a duck,” Davey said, “but they ate plants, though. That’s good.”

  Benny shook his head and said, “It would be good, but look at this dinosaur that is wrapped up over him. He’s just as large, which makes no sense. I think both species died out together since ecosystems need both to balance.”

  Alex gestured to one of the neural spines on the vertebrae. The boney spine wasn’t long enough to suggest a spinosaurus, a very different kind of beast related to the allosaurus, only larger. The spine would have been impressive but not sail-like. “Those spines supported heavy muscles. This guy wasn’t just long, forty-five feet or so, he was heavy and powerful. In combat, he could best any of the rest we have seen.”

  “He was bigger than the Sarah-things?” Littleton asked.

  “Ceratosaurus. Yes. Bigger. And meaner,” Alex explained. As he spoke, he helped make camp along with the rest. Because they couldn’t get back to the main camp before dark, this was the safest place to camp: right inside the tangle of bones, safe within the maze of interlocking, heavy bones of the animals. “We say mean, but in reality, it’s only the survival of the fittest.”

  “That could be for humans, too. I’m not sure any humans can hope to survive alongside of dinosaurs. It isn’t natural,” Benny said.

  “I bet you were the smartest kid in your class, huh? You’re a sharp guy, Benny,” Helen said.

  Benny blushed, answering, “I don’t know. Maybe. I wasn’t very well liked. Kids never like the smart kids.”

  “I do,” Helen told him, “and is your sister smart like you are?”

  “Amy? Ha. She is average at best, but she’s pretty, so all the kids liked her. Go figure.”

  “She is pretty, but she’ll have to be smart and strong here. You have the advantage. Maybe you can show her.”

  “I’ll try, but, Helen, she’s dense at times.”

  Helen smirked and enjoyed the moment. Scott caught her eyes and smiled back; he liked seeing the rapport she had with Benny. Helen seemed to get along with almost everyone.

  Tyrese and Scott dug into the sand to make a place that was lower and one they could defend if necessary, and then they started a fire. While there wouldn’t be much water or more than a few scraps of food for the night, at least they would be safe. They hoped. Tyrese stopped his work for a second and asked, “How do you know these things?”

  Tyrese had never been one for books and had struggled in college; he admired those who knew things like Benny and Alex did.

  “The size is easy,” Benny said. “See those teeth? Huge and serrated. There isn’t a ridge in front of the eyes like an allosaur, and it has the big eye sockets, see? Allosaurus also have serrated teeth, but they looked very different.”

  “You went around comparing dinosaur teeth?” Davey asked. “That’s cool.”

  “You didn’t?” Benny grinned. “I’m serious, but the spines really give it away. Those and the back legs. Look at those bones.”

  “Big?” Helen asked.

  “Sure, but if we compared them, let’s just say that these would be much larger than most meat eaters,” said Benny.

  “Bigger than a T-Rex?” Tyrese asked. It was his favorite from the movies.

  Benny laughed. “Everyone always wants to compare everything to those. In size, allosaurus were similar, I guess. The T-Rex had seven or eight times the bite force of this guy.”

  Davey said that sounded less terrible to him, but Benny explained that the troodons and ceratosaurus also had a weaker bite force and killed in vicious ways. He didn’t know how to explain, so he said it was like deciding whether to be put in a cage with a starving lion, a starving leopard, or a starving catamount. “Each of those would tear you to shreds and eat you. Bite force isn’t as important if you’re being chewed on by a troodon, and they have better pack-hunting skills. It evens out.”

  “What do you think it was?” Alex asked. “The meat eater, I mean.”

  “Acrocanthosaurus, I’m guessing from the features, but Alex, that doesn’t fit, does it? All of these dinosaurs? They don’t fit,” Benny said, looking uncharacteristically troubled.

  “What does that mean?” Helen asked as they sat around the fire. She wished she had fish to eat, but was scared of their trying to go out into the water after having been so close to death earlier, and afraid the scent would draw predators. Instead, she ate the few fruits they had gathered.

  “Dinosaurs appeared millions of years apart. You’ve heard of Cretaceous and Jurassic? Triassic? Each of those times wasn’t just a few thousand years, but was made up of millions of years and subdivided. The dinosaurs we have found are scattered throughout the last millions and millions of years, and in the real world, whatever you call it, they would not have been around each other,” Alex said. “Is that what you mean, Benny?”

  “Yep. That and the ecosystem, as I said, but also, I’m guessing, like you are, at a few of the types, but we’re close on most, I think. Some of these may have been in Canada or some in Texas, and some may be European. The snakes are not usual, either. I’m saying that as far as location, it’s as if these things came from all over. There’s no general location for all of these things,” said Benny.

  “Huh?” asked Tyrese.

  Helen waved at Tyrese because she understood and needed a second to think. “They don’t all belong in any one time or place.”

  Alex nodded and said, “Exactly.”

  “The same as we don’t belong in your time,” Benny said. “We belong five years ago.

  These belong to a variation of millions of years ago.” He frowned as he tried to find the words he needed. He understood his feelings, but an explanation was far more difficult for him. “The time here is watery. Thin,” said Alex.

  “What does that mean?” Tyrese asked.

  Benny shrugged. “I don’t know, but maybe out there,” he said as he waved in the general direction of the ocean, “it could be a million years ago, or today, or a million years from now. All of us could be here, or all of us may be extinct.”

  Chapter 8: In the Daylight

  In the morning light, Alex and Benny studied the bones more carefully. Benny dug sand away in a specific area, scooping and kicking like a dog, as Alex prodded and poked at the sand, pulling loose shells, stones, and a few grey, arrowhead-shaped rocks that he set to the side. Pieces of rotten wood were added to a pile of material they collected.

  “Why are you doing that?” Littleton asked again. He thought that before when he asked, they said they wondered how the carnivore died, but he didn’t understand why it mattered. He picked up a rock that Alex threw into the pile Benny and Alex were making.

  Larger than Littleton’s hand, the stone looked flecked and was smooth where bits had been broken away. The end was pointed sharply enough that he pricked his finger as he pressed it. The sides weren’t sharp enough to give him a clean shave, but they were lethal enough to cut someone’s skin. He saw the rotten wood, and then he picked up long laces that were dried into strands.

  “At some point, the laces were maybe hide used to hold a spear tip onto the end of a spear. Wood. Spears. The leather broke free and became sun-bleached, ruined by the water and the years, and telling a story of how this big fellow died,” explained Benny.

  “It does?” Littleton asked.

  “Sure,” Benny said, “and the Edmontosaur was grazing here, and the Acrocanthosaur attacked him, but right before that or right at the same time, he was attacked by a different predator. Humans. You can see the nicks on the ribs. I guess he might have been wounded a while before coming here but not too long before. Maybe he was dying and the humans stabbed him here... can’t tell the time line.”

  “Before you ask, I
know this answer,” Scott said. “It wasn’t us. The people from the plane, Air Marshal Lynn’s group, didn’t hunt here. It’s possible the feral kids did this, but…”

  “But these bones have been here longer than that. I’d guess close to eight or ten years. That means there have been more people on the island, something we have suspected,” Alex said.

  “Seems with the wrecks, it should be populated by people running all over the place…like a Mexican resort.”

  Scott shook his head when Littleton said that. He took Helen’s hand as they walked, worried as always that there would come a time when he would not be standing in front of Helen during a dinosaur attack, or that he wouldn’t see a nest of snakes, or that something else would kill her. He didn’t know how to predict or prevent trouble.

  All through the night he sat, watching for shadows and listening for dinosaurs, terrified that all kinds would converge on the beach, hunting them. Scott feared seeing his friends dying and his being left alone more than he feared being devoured.

  “We’re an endangered species, Littleton,” Scott said. “There…look…home.”

  They hurried down the beach to meet the larger group at the shipwreck.

  “What happened? We’ve been worried about all of you,” said Kelly, as she and Stu met the group coming into camp. All of the rest stood close so they could find out where the group had been.

  “Where’s Dad?” Stu demanded.

  “More like where is everyone else? Are they coming separately? Why did you come from that side of the beach? Let me see those cuts,” Kelly took Tyrese by the arm and led him to the fire where she could check him over and clean his wounds. “Where is Sue and…”

  She stopped asking questions as she saw Tyrese wince, not from the pain of his cuts, but from her questions.

  “I asked where my father was,” Stu said.

  “I heard you. Give us a second. Let us get some water first and food; we’re hungry,” Scott responded.

  “He didn’t make it, Stu,” Tom said, understandingly.