Extinction Island 2

by catt dahman

  “You need to come in and drink some water, and we’ll tell you,” Tyrese said.

  “Helen?” Scott called.

  Tyrese laid a hand on Scott’s shoulder and said, “Hey, we’ll explain, but it was earlier, maybe two hours ago. We waited for you because Davey kept saying he knew all of you were coming back and would be here in a few hours. We waited. We had to.”

  Scott asked, “Where is Helen? Amy and Kelly?” He repeated himself. He realized that Benny had already looked upset before he saw Alex was missing. What had happened?

  “Scott, Jody and Ricky…”

  “What did they do?” Scott’s voice rose. Mattie skittered away as if fearful he might harm her for being Jody’s mother. She dreaded hearing the answer. “What in the hell have they done now?”

  “They attacked a group at the spring. They got Helen, Amy, and Kelly. They stole them away. They have them,” said Tyrese, trying to remain calm, but his eyes looked panicked.

  Mattie expected a tirade. Tom was afraid Scott would kill Mattie, and Joy was kind of excited to think Scott was about to snap Mattie’s neck. Instead, Scott threw his head back and laughed crazily again.

  “Scott? Are you…” Tyrese didn’t know what to think.

  “Insane. I’m crazy. Who else would it be? Huh? Who else could it be? It’s always him! Always Jody.”

  Stu hissed, “I wanna kill him.” He knew Scott always tried to keep the peace and never wanted to hear that.

  To Stu’s shock, Scott stopped laughing and wiped his face as he grinned and said, “Really? I’m in. I intend to make him suffer a long time. Can you handle that?”

  Stu grinned back and said, “Just watch me.”

  Chapter 22: Home Camp While Scott’s Group Was Away

  “Stop moping. If you keep it up, I’m going to get depressed,” Kelly told Helen. She hated seeing the sadness when she had more on her mind than Helen’s drama.

  “I want Scott back. I can’t help it. I’m worried.”

  Kelly glared at Helen and said, “I’ve been worried. The last few weeks...yesterday…”

  The day before, everything was perfectly normal or as normal as life ever was on the island, and everyone was busy with chores and actually in good spirits. The only negative issues over the past few weeks were Helen’s gloominess and Tyrese’s commentary that he missed Scott and that he realized Scott was far more of a leader and they needed to accept that.

  “Please stop, Ty,” Kelly begged again.

  “If he comes back, he may get eaten,” Vera remarked. She sneered.

  A small issue had happened several days before when Vera teased Amy about something, and Helen had snapped at her. The issue was insignificant, and both Helen and Amy had forgotten the incidence; Vera held a grudge as she always did.

  Helen yelled at Vera, again telling her to shut up and act right, and that set off a vicious chain of events. Helen was particularly loud and verbally tough on Vera as she waved her arms and berated the girl. With no father left to keep Vera in check, her mother still injured, and Tom gone, Vera ran wild. Stu and Vaughn mostly ignored her behavior, causing her to act out for more attention.

  Vera lost her balance when her once-wounded leg gave out on her and she fell onto the sand. She wasn’t hurt, but as she fell, she landed partially on her little bird-like dinosaur, Angus, and broke his leg.

  “Is he okay? I’m sorry, Vera,” Helen backed down.

  “Leave us alone,” Vera yelled. She believed he could be healed and said she intended to nurse Angus back to health; she was furious with Helen for causing the situation.

  Stu hated the sound of the little animal crying and squealing in pain for hours and threatened to break Angus’ neck and end the chaos. That made Vera and Stu argue.

  “He’s a stupid animal,” Stu shouted.

  “So are you! Kiss my ass,” Vera told her brother. She scooped Angus up and went down the beach to sulk.

  Benny wondered about the little creature and attempted to talk to Vera about Angus, but she always waved him away and harangued Benny until he gave up.

  Angus was a baby, making him cute, but like a baby, he also liked being well fed with treats. He would have grown up with Vera, but what would have happened when he reached puberty and his adulthood was unknown. Right now, he was an injured baby, and he made plenty of noise that carried into the trees.

  A mother velociraptor heard his cries of pain and reacted, following the sounds to the beach. Angus wasn’t her baby, but her instinct made her think of him as hers. Her pack came with her.

  The very small pack contained only six creatures, and she was the alpha. All she knew was that the sounds came from one of her species that was crying with pain, and like any mother, she was highly aggressive and protective. She ran to the baby to claw and snap at Vera’s face, trying to get the baby free; she thought Vera was harming it.

  They protected the babies because those kept their species going. The alpha’s attack was lightning fast and brutal.

  Davey, Tyrese, and Stu ran to the velociraptors that were attacking Vera and slashed at them, clubbed them, and stabbed them with spears. The fight was over quickly, and the entire pack died as their blood stained the sand bright red. Stu stomped a foot down on Angus’ skull, not caring what Vera thought.

  Benny pointed and yelled, “I knew Angus was a bad sort of dinosaur. He was a raptor. A baby raptor.”

  “He’s a dead raptor now,” Stu said, wiping his boot on a log.

  “I tried to tell her,” Benny insisted.

  “Vera never listens,” Stu told Benny.

  Kelly and Helen grabbed Vera and carried her to the fire to lie down so they could examine her wounds. Vera’s face and hair were literally stripped away as if she had been scalped, and she had been cut deeply in several other places. She was left with bloody stumps where fingers once were. Kelly succeeded in cleaning a few of the gashes, but she couldn’t stand Vera’s screaming as she tried to clean the mess from Vera’s face, her skull showing in patches all overhead.

  “I need to clean the wounds, but she screams so much,” Kelly said. She sullenly told everyone that she was trying to help Vera, but Vera’s injuries were severe. Connie weakly tended her daughter, mostly crying over her and being of little medical help.

  Later, Kelly shared the medical problems with Stu as she had many times before. She explained how she tried to help and had done all she could think of. She made her skills seem both miraculous and ineffective at the same time, belittling herself for her failures. She tearfully asked him what he would do.

  In the morning, Vera was dead, smothered in her sleep during the night. They buried her at sea, as they had many others. Kelly squeezed Stu’s hand but didn’t say a word. He stoically comforted Vaughn and his mother and avoided looking at Kelly for several hours.

  Kelly did her job.

  Stu did his job.

  They had different roles, and all anyone could do was his best. Each had to do what seemed best for the group. At least Vera wasn’t screaming anymore.

  Kelly worked harder than ever and made Helen change her attitude through sheer determination and a lot of tough talking. There was no place for depression in the camp, and they had jobs to accomplish.

  Joe went back to creative cooking and taught Davey a lot. Davey also learned all Kelly could teach him, and he practiced with his spear constantly when he wasn’t working on building muscles the old-fashioned way, not with the steroid-rich water. He was always there with Tyrese or Stu, ready to fight if they were threatened.

  One day, Davey, feeling that Littleton was trying to get too close to Helen and feeling loyal to Scott, issued a few veiled threats, and to his shock, Littleton backed off, worried. Davey was pleased he had worked himself into a warrior.

  “You been in the bad water?” Tyrese asked.

  “Me? No way. Why? I know better,” said Davey.

  Tyrese looked flummoxed and said, “Davey, you have gotten buff. Do you not see it? Hell, you’re almost
as big as me and Stu.”

  “I am,” Davey asked, “and imagine that. I’ve been working out; that’s all, Ty. With Scott gone, I sure don’t want you to fight alone. I’ve got your back.”

  Tyrese smiled and said, “That’s good. You sure aren’t the same man you were before. You’re bad ass, man.”

  Davey grinned for an hour after that and never hesitated to help the other men. He had found his place; it wasn’t as a silly stoner. He was a fighter.

  The storms came, and they were fierce. For weeks, the group had to stay in the wreckage and eat smoked meat and canned foods while they whined and complained about being cooped up. Each longed for the sunshine and activities.

  “I wonder if Scott and the rest found shelter?” Helen asked.

  “I hope they did. Hey, the rains won’t last forever, right?” Davey said.

  Days later as the wind continued to hammer at the wreck and the rain continually came down in sheets, they wondered if the storms would last forever. When the skies turned yellow, a sense of dread overcame the group, and they huddled deeper within their damp blankets.

  Waves began to batter the wreckage, and several of the massive waves dislodged part of the yacht. With the wind’s help, the waves broke part of the yacht away and swept it out to sea.

  Kelly was a little relieved because the part swept away was where Connie was, still being tended in Kelly’s medical area. Connie’s wounds had started healing well, but then they became infected about the same time Vera died. Connie would have been fine after she fought down the mild infection, but her depression over Vera and her constant whining and complaining, along with Connie’s insufferable demands, wore on Kelly’s nerves. She had already hinted to Stu that Connie was causing the group to feel peevish and to act out.

  Stu hadn’t done anything yet, and Kelly never pushed, but she had hoped he would deal with his mother. Kelly knew that it was a touchy issue. She wasn’t sure what she wished for Stu to do, but anything was better than nothing.

  The waves sucked the section of wreckage into its clutches, swept it far out to sea, and dropped it to the bottom. Evidently, Connie went with it. At least she went quietly, or her screams were lost in the wailing winds. That was what everyone said and what Kelly decided had happened; if it were anything else, she didn’t want to know.

  The storms continued.

  Davey watched Kelly, and she felt his eyes on her often. “Stop staring at me all the time,” she said.

  “I’m only learning what to do from you in case I ever have to help with anything medical. I have before, you know,” Davey replied.

  “There’s nothing I’m teaching.”

  Davey shrugged as he said, “That doesn’t mean I don’t learn.”

  More parts of the yacht washed away, and holes appeared, allowing water to drip inside their home. They had to sleep and live closer. Slowly, the home that they felt was secure fell apart. It was another betrayal from the island.

  “Maybe this place will stay together a few more days. Maybe the storms will stop,” Tyrese said.

  “Too many maybes in that sentence,” Helen said, “and Scott is out there in this.”

  Tyrese nodded and said, “The storms may be lighter where he is, or maybe he found a good shelter. At least right now, as miserable as we are, we aren’t in the jungle, huh? I doubt he is, either.”

  Helen jumped and asked, “Did you hear that?”

  “I couldn’t miss it. There’s no telling what the storms are bringing in this time,” Tyrese said.

  Some days, the storms became wailing banshees that terrified the survivors with the howling wind, gigantic waves, and driving rain.

  Other days, the skies were grey, and the rain was mist that never let up. Because the wood was wet, there was no way to make and maintain a cooking fire, so the bland food came from cans.

  A few sunny days came some weeks after the storms had begun, enabling the group to set about reestablishing the camp and getting a fire going. Everyone saw the newcomers not long afterwards. The new people said they saw the smoke and followed it to the camp.

  “People,” said Helen.

  Helen looked at the newcomers and back at Tyrese. “They’re a mess, but they don’t look as if they’ve been here very long.”

  “You think the storms wrecked them?” asked Tyrese.

  “Yeah, why doesn’t that really surprise me any longer?” asked Helen.

  “I know,” Tyrese admitted, “hello, welcome to the island, and no, there is no help coming for you or even for us.”

  “We figured that,” a man said who was the commanding officer, a sergeant, in the Marine Corps. He shook hands all around and said, “I’m sorry if us coming here made you think help had arrived for you.”

  “I don’t have hope anymore,” Helen said honestly. “Besides, we could tell you looked less like help and more like survivors of some wreck.”

  “Exactly,” Sergeant White said. He explained that they had suffered a terrible shipwreck that swept them almost to the tree line a few days’ walk down the beach. “Luckily for us, it was the day the storms ended because we lost everything. People. Equipment. We washed up with nothing except our lives. The ship is gone.”

  “We have to explain about the creatures here…” Helen began.

  Sergeant White nodded calmly and said, “We’ve seen them and have dealt with a few as well. Dinosaurs, aren’t they? We were pretty shocked to see those bastards.”

  Sergeant White had lost a few people to the dinosaurs’ first attack on them and more of his platoon to the sea and wreckage, but he was pragmatic and accepted what he saw. He said they ate what they killed and had little more than the meat and a fire. “We’d like to join you.”

  “It’s very possible,” Tyrese said. He wanted to learn more about these people before he invited them to be a part of the camp, “We lost one of our people and half of the wreckage we live in.”

  “It’s better than we have,” Sarg said.

  Something about the way they were dressed looked different even if most were dressed in their fatigues. None of the people had guns, and even a few were dressed in civilian clothing.

  Benny studied them closely and asked one of the women how she was a Marine and had blue hair at the same time. He figured she was one of the Marines because she was dressed like Sarg.

  Her name was Rita, and she smiled a little, saying that the Corps allowed the blue hair as long as they were dressed correctly in their uniforms. She said she had lost her girlfriend in the wreck and took out her anger on the dinosaurs. “I love combat.”

  Benny’s jaw dropped as he said, “I don’t mean to be rude, but you are allowed to be openly gay? And women are in combat? Since when?”

  “Sure, and since the last few years,” Rita said.

  Benny asked her the date. The adults around him watched him as if he were crazy for asking a foolish question, so he knew something was very strange.

  It came as no real surprise that they were from a time thirty years in the future for most, and thirty-five years ahead of Benny’s group. The island had dropped the future onto the sand.

  “I can accept that we crashed and that there are dinosaurs. I see them, but you want me to accept that we are from another time? Like Twilight Zone stuff?” Rita asked.

  “I can’t make you believe it, but then I didn’t believe these people immediately when they said I was from their past. They knew my boat, the Violet Marie,” said Benny.

  “The Violet Marie? What was your yacht?” one of the women, Susan, asked Tyrese.

  Tyrese tilted his head and answered, “The Connie Louise.”

  Susan looked shocked. “I know them both. My, God, you vanished. You’re part of why we are on our mission. My studies are in maritime losses. We are out here…there…wherever…to find out what happened to people like you.”

  “You knew we were lost?” Tyrese asked.

  “Yes, we did. I’m sorry, but all of you have been declared: presumed dead, but n
o one knew how or why.”

  Tyrese grimaced and said, “Now, you know where we are, but you won’t find out why or how we are here. Same as you. Why and how did you get here? A big, yellow-colored storm. No answers. Same as us.”

  Susan looked at Rita and Sarg, bewildered but fascinated as well. She knew their story, but not how it ended. Knowing that this was the remains of the Connie Louise didn’t help at all in understanding.

  Stu talked and explained their theories and experiences, feeling like someone in Littleton’s group must have felt when speaking to someone in his own future. He explained well with help from the rest, and the new group listened, asked questions, and finally nodded.

  “Well, okay,” said Sergeant White.

  “You aren’t upset, Sergeant White?” Benny asked, interested in this new type of reaction.

  “We don’t like it. If there’s a way home, I hope we find it, but no mission is a hundred percent okay. We know any mission may be the one that we never return home from. It’s shit, but we accept the shit,” Sarg said as he sighed. “Our mission was to protect the scientists, historians, and theorists, but we failed. The ship went down.”

  “You couldn’t control that,” Susan said.

  “Why were you looking for us this long after we went missing?” Tyrese asked.

  “We aren’t the first to look. Many looked for you. You aren’t the only boat or aircraft to go missing. For years, people have searched and wondered. It looks like we’re the ones to find you.”

  Tyrese smiled at the sergeant. “Fat lot that does, right? Welcome anyway. Sorry, we have little to offer you.”

  Benny listened to them talk. Sarg was tough looking, polite, and likable, and so were his men: Trent, Jered, and a man they called Iowa. Rita was funny and buff and was like one of the men except for her short blue hair. Jana was a medic and a civilian, and she, Davey, and Kelly immediately began to talk about medicine as they told her about the steroid water and injuries they had treated.

  Susan was a quiet, young woman, younger than the others, and she and Vaughn made friends fast. For the first time, Vaughn relaxed, let go of his emotional pain, and enjoyed talking to someone and laughing again.