Extinction Island 2

by catt dahman

  “I saw part of it. It’s pretty much the same thing every day, isn’t it? And it’s huge. I paid attention, and I think we barely saw any of it. Watching the sun, I kept track, and we were still going north. Face the facts; this place is far bigger than we thought. Who knows what happens on the other parts,” Alex told them.

  “It’s just too much to think we can handle anything except our small part,” Scott agreed.

  “If we can handle even that. I don’t know if we have any control,” Alex said.

  “I could be dead in a dozen places,” Mattie added. She had been depressed for days.

  “I wish we didn’t know anything,” Harold said.

  Scott shrugged and said, “You knew I was looking for answers.”

  “Did you get the ones you wanted?”

  Scott looked at Alex and said, “Sure, we found a place to live, to be safer, and to be where there is food. We know others lived here for decades and survived. We understand much more. I can’t say I like it all, but at least we know.”

  “I don’t wanna know anything else,” Joy said.

  They found the remains of a fire just off an animal trail and then another. Both were several weeks old, cold, overgrown, and almost washed away. Scott wished this were something they hadn’t found and didn’t know about because it reminded him that there was a predator out in the jungle that was human.

  Scott and Alex walked ahead and examined the second campsite, motioning the others to stay back. The debris left at the old fire made both men worry. Alex identified several human bones: legs, rib cages, and arms. Scott and he gave the bones a cursory burial under some soil, branches, and old leaves.

  “What do you think?” asked Scott.

  Alex didn’t know what to tell Scott. He felt it was obvious that someone had cooked and eaten another human at the campsite. They didn’t know who did it, but had a reasonable idea. “I think they’re some sick sons of bitches.”

  Scott and Alex told the others what they found and tried to keep Mattie from sinking lower into her depression, but Mattie felt it had to be her son’s group. She wanted to find Jody, but also wished never to see him again. “I wish it was different.”

  Two days later, there was no way to avoid confronting reality. Scott almost shoved a spear into the boy who ran into their camp, but stopped him to ask questions instead, “Who the hell are you? Are you alone?”

  “Just us. We don’t mean no harm,” the boy said. “I’m Danny, and this is Marita, Mari. Please don’t kill us.”

  Scott wasn’t sure what to do. Alex looked torn between protecting themselves and showing mercy. He was also curious about the boy and girl. “Answer everything truthfully if you want to be spared.”

  “Okay. Anything, but don’t kill us.”

  Mattie jumped to her feet and approached the pair, and reaching out as if afraid they weren’t real. “Mari? Little Mari, and Danny, you look the same. So handsome.”

  Danny blinked. Tears filled his eyes as he fought to keep from crying with fear. “What is this shit? What kind of trick? We just wanted to find other people…”

  Scott had to work to keep them calm and get the group to ask only one question at a time and then wait for answers. Everyone wanted to talk at once, and the group was emotionally charged. “Settle down.”

  “But, Mattie?” Danny asked, his eyes hurt and shining with tears.

  Scott managed to find out that Danny and Mari were from Harold and Mattie’s plane and were a part of the group of children who left the plane. They remembered Mattie and were shocked to see her standing before them as if she had betrayed them.

  Danny and Mari had been with Jody’s group, but recently had left to go off alone, saying they couldn’t live with the way Jody ran the group. The couple had survived, as had Jody, after being attacked by Big Brown and the troodons, and were surprised to learn that Cindy had gone to the survivor’s beach camp and died there.

  “Cindy was really afraid of Jody,” Danny admitted. “We never got a good look at your camp, and we sure didn’t know Mattie was there. I can imagine Cindy trying to get away.”

  Mari never spoke, just crossed herself repeatedly and muttered. She was pale beneath her suntan and used her long, dark hair to cover her face, as she watched the group with real fear in her eyes. She looked at Harold and Mattie with terror.

  “I won’t hurt you,” Mattie told Mari.

  “You are a ghost.”

  Mattie remembered how she felt in the second version of her airplane and understood about ghosts and how it felt to be haunted. Mari was afraid of her and Harold. That was fine. Mattie was scared of herself and of what the island did and how it changed life, death, and reality.

  Scott knew his group considered revenge on the pair for being cannibals, but Mattie and Harold were somewhat sympathetic. Alex was as curious as Scott, who tried to calm Danny and Mari while he told them that they were safe, but Danny shivered with fear the whole time they talked.

  Back at home camp, there would be several who hated and feared Danny and Mari. It might be best to refuse to let them stay with Scott’s group.

  “Danny, I feel like we’re missing something here. Parts of this make no sense,” Scott said. “Tell me your story.”

  “I can’t explain it. It makes no sense. See, back a long time ago, we were at the cave with Jim, and we drank the water in the pool, but it wasn’t good water.”

  “No, it was full of natural steroids,” Alex said.

  Danny waved that off, saying, “That ain’t it. You’ll think I’m crazy, but something bad happened back then. Mattie, please don’t get too upset, but these dinosaurs come after us, and it was different back then.”

  Danny explained as best he could, stopping often to wipe sweat and tears and shaking as he talked.

  Jody and Ricky led the children as they left the main camp located in a cave. All of the children were aggressive, and Danny confirmed that the girls went through puberty rapidly, but he said that while they were wild and lawless, they never harmed a human.

  Scott encouraged him to continue. This wasn’t how Mattie had told the story. “We know your group…Jody and the rest…they killed people. They killed Lori.”

  “Let me go from the start,” Danny pled.

  “Please,” Scott said.

  One day, Danny said they decided that the group of children would meet with Jim, the leader of the adult group from the cave where they made their home and the other adults to try to find a common ground.

  The children wanted discipline again. Like children knowing they had been mischievous, these children prepared to be blamed and yelled at by their parents. They needed the adults.

  Meeting on neutral ground, the children and adults began to talk, and both sides immediately felt hopeful, but everything went to hell almost immediately when a pack of Utahraptors attacked, slaughtering almost everyone. In lowering their weapons for a peaceful meeting, the group had forgotten to be careful of an attack from dinosaurs.

  “I’m so sorry, Mattie, but Jody and Ricky were killed. Those asshole dinos took both back to their nest or territory, whatever it’s called. Took the remains, I mean.”

  “They died? But…”

  “The attack was huge. It was so sudden and big that no one could do anything. Most everyone was slaughtered,” said Danny as he wept. “My father was torn to pieces.”

  Mattie’s jaw dropped as she found the words to ask, “How can that be? Cindy said Jody and Ricky were alive, and Stu said Jodie and Ricky attacked Lori and killed her? We heard they were cannibals.”

  “We found the bones, Danny. We know what went on,” Scott told him. “Wasn’t that Jody?”

  “It was, and it wasn’t.”

  “Huh?” Scott asked.

  “I know all that,” said Danny again, as he thought the group would think he was crazy, but he continued. Most of those that the Utahraptors attacked were killed. Dozens. A few adults were injured badly, but Danny didn’t know what happened to them. Of
the children, a few were left alive but wounded, and Danny and Mari were the only two to escape.

  “Jody?”

  “He died, Mattie. I’m sorry. Later, those that ran with us…most of them with us died, and we…we had to leave them because we had to run away. We didn’t think we’d be welcomed at the plane with the Air Marshal.”

  Instead of going to the airplane, Danny and Mari made their way west.

  Eventually, only the pair was left alive because various packs of predators attacked and killed the remaining members of the group. “It was just us, and we were lonely. It hurt every day.”

  One day, they met a new group made up of young adults and teenagers who was camping around a small fire. They were relieved to find more humans.

  “It’s crazy, and we kind of went nuts because they’re at the fire, were Jody and Ricky! Just like they had never died. Mari, well, she ain’t talked much since then ‘cause it hit us so hard.

  She and I were struck dumb by it, and I guess I was hysterical a while. They were calm and let us rest. We didn’t know what to believe, and Jody had to do something. He took us to see this plane crash on the beach not far from here.”

  “We saw it. It’s your plane,” Scott said. “Although that’s confusing, right?”

  “Yeah, how can it be there and also be in the trees where I was? I remember only that I was in the trees in that crash, but I saw the wreck on the beach, too. Jody and Ricky told us that they were in that crash; the crash on the beach was all they remembered and not the other one,” said Danny.

  Alex nodded and added, “It’s insane. The people that were from the beach crash didn’t remember or know of the other crash where they died. Danny and Mari don’t know about the beach crash because in the beach one, they died. We only would have the memories of the one where we were alive. I mean that we wouldn’t have memories of any other scenario.”

  “Why?” asked Scott.

  Alex stared hard at Scott and said, “Because those are the rules here. We start over each time, and each experience is new. I don’t make the rules, but am just telling you what I think they are.”

  “We forget?” Scott asked.

  “We never are there. Not when it resets.”

  Danny went on without being asked, “Jody said that they watched the other people with them bury a bunch of us…me and Mari. Jody told us a terrible story about his mother…about you, Mattie.”

  Jody told Danny and Mari that his mother was injured badly in the crash and died. She had lost her arm and bled to death. “Jody saw her…you died. He couldn’t handle it. He was furious.”

  “My poor baby…”

  After that, Jody began leading the group, and many were killed in dinosaur attacks and by other things until a group of just young people was left. We didn’t know how to tell him that you were alive in another...” continued Danny.

  “Scenario?” Alex offered.

  “We didn’t know the words to use anyway.

  Jody was calm for a while, but he had already chosen the ways of the group. He didn’t act crazy, but he was always angry and always hungry. We did bad things because Jody said we should; he wasn’t right in the head. We went to spy a little on your camp and came back this way. We wandered and killed because Jody said we had to. We done been attacked so many times…”

  “By a big brown dinosaur and troodons?” asked Alex.

  “Yeah. Cindy and a bunch run off. We ran, too. Then Mari and I ran away again from Jody’s group because they…well…if one of us dies, they eat the person. He thinks that makes them not able to return, yanno? It’s the way he thinks. He don’t want people coming back,” Danny said as he violently shivered again.

  “That makes no sense. Eating people wouldn’t change the rules of physics here,” said Alex, insulted by Jody’s beliefs.

  “How is that possible? Maybe Jody wasn’t killed,” Mattie said.

  “He was, though. I saw it myself. Before, in the other way, he was a good person, Mattie, and he’d never have got us to do what we did. He wasn’t that way. He talked about you back then and said he was gonna visit you at the airplane.

  The other Jody, see this is crazy talk, but it’s the truth. I swear it is, but he wasn’t the same,” said Danny, not knowing how to explain this very well.

  “He was different in the new version?” Alex asked. “Jody was okay in the first scenario, but the water messed him up, yet, he was still okay. Then, he died, and I’m sorry, Mattie, but he did. Your version of him died.”

  Scott nodded and said, “Keep going.”

  “The storm brought a new plane wreck scenario. In the other one, Mattie and Harold died, and Jody became irrational. He became a monster because everything was altered. There were no caves, no steroid water, no mother, and none of the other stuff. It was different.”

  “What does that mean?” Mattie asked. “My son…”

  “It means that the Jody you knew never ate people or killed them. He wasn’t bad. In the other version, you died horribly, and it unhinged his mind. He became a bad person.”

  Mattie stared at Alex. “But he is still my child. My son.”

  “Yes, but he’s not the same,” said Alex and then asked Danny, “did you know they killed Lori?”

  “Yeah, it’s how they are. They got wilder and weirder every day. That’s why Cindy used the attack to run away. It’s why Mari and I ran away. If they had caught us, we’re dead.”

  Tom coughed to break the mood and said, “This has blown my mind. I thought I understood this like Alex explained, but…”

  “But it’s insane,” Joy added, “and it makes no sense.”

  “Imagine how we felt,” Danny said.

  “Do you feel better or worse, Mattie?” Scott asked gently.

  “I don’t know how I feel. Confused. Sad. What will we do now?”

  “I think we have to find them and deal with this. I know this is upsetting to you, and we don’t understand it either, but we have to face Jody. The new version.”

  Mattie nodded to Scott. She swallowed hard and had a desperate look in her eyes. She might nod and seem to agree, but in her head, she was trying to figure out how this could be fixed so she had her son back. As a mother, she couldn’t let him go.

  Four days later, they found Jody’s group in an unfortunate situation.

  Chapter 19:Battle

  Because they could hear the beginning of a battle somewhere ahead of them, Alex suggested that they skirt far around the sounds of dinosaurs roaring and stomping. Although they had backtracked toward the beach and stayed away from the deeper parts of the jungle, the animal path they were following ran directly into an area, a heavily populated section of the land.

  As quietly as possible, the group crept through the trees, trying to get to the beach where it might be safer. Mattie stopped and yanked her head back in the other direction as she listened. Beside her, Danny and Mari did the same.

  “That’s Jody!” Mattie whispered.

  “No, it isn’t,” Tom said, “so we need to keep going.”

  “I heard his voice. Didn’t you hear him, Danny?”

  Danny dropped his eyes. He didn’t want to go into a clearing where dinosaurs were already making horrible noises and preparing to fight. He was scared of the beasts. In addition, he sure didn’t want to go where Jody and Ricky were because they were sure to be angry that Danny and Mari ran away. Danny figured that one way or another, either the feral children or the dinosaurs would kill and eat him.

  “Danny?” asked Mattie.

  “I guess it was a dino squealing. It wasn’t him, Mattie.”

  From beyond the trees, a young man yelled, his words garbled, but Mattie knew it was Jody. “You little liar,” she told Danny.

  “He can’t win, no matter what, Mattie. Look…” Scott wasn’t sure exactly what he planned to say.

  He didn’t have to decide. Mattie suddenly slapped at Scott and dashed away down another trail, running as fast as she could. Scott felt her shirt slip
through his hands as he made a grab for her, and might have stopped her had she not slapped his hands.

  For a second, Scott didn’t move. Logic told him to take his group and leave the area because it was far too dangerous to try to save anyone from the warring animals.

  It was also a fact that he was less inclined to intercede, because to him, Jody was a feral beast in his own right, a cannibal, and a lost cause. Jody needed to be dealt with; in fact, Stu planned to hunt the children down and kill them anyway.

  Harold made a choice. Bravely, he ran after Mattie, yelling that he was going to help make sure she wasn’t injured.

  Scott thought that Harold was either very foolish or very brave and loyal. “Damnit. Okay. I’m going. Stay here if you want to be safe.” He couldn’t make the choice for the entire group. Following Mattie and Harold was a bad plan.

  Alex and Tom immediately joined Scott, and they ran with him as he followed Mattie. Behind them, Joy, Danny, and Mari followed.

  The clearing was total chaos. On one side roaring and raking clumps of brush, soil, and debris was Big Brown. His eyes rolled wildly with anger. Steaming, slimy foam fell from his jaws as he tossed his head; his huge teeth were blood- stained, making pink foam.

  On the other side, were a dozen troodons that darted forward while others flanked Big Brown, nipping and slashing. Their big, dagger-like claws made deep claw marks in Big Brown’s pebbled skin, but his hide was so thick and tough that none of the cuts were lethal.

  The pack roared back at the bigger animal. They were angry at being attacked in their territory and fearful of the bigger predator; their future had to be secured by winning the fight. Several of their kind lay on the ground, dead or dying.

  The ones who were injured screeched but were ignored, were nipped at by their pack-mates, or were smashed as Big Brown stomped at them. The bigger dinosaur tried to mash the troodons into the ground, and he slashed at them as he stepped on them.

  He knew they had to die and would be tasty.

  Mattie screamed as a troodon leaped onto Big Brown, trying to bite his neck while the troodon’s back legs frantically tore at his adversary. Big Brown swung to the side and sent the smaller creature flying through the air.