The light was coming through a sizeable hole in that dip, a place where it seemed the earth had once started to split open and then stopped. The hole was about twenty feet wide, which was good. But it was no more than two feet tall. He could maybe squeeze through it, but it would be tough. But he knew that he had to try. He took his pack off and, after three tries, was able to throw it through the crack. He then dried his hands off on his shirt and jumped up, gripping onto the ledge of the hole.
He pulled himself up until his eyes were peering through the hole. He saw small strands of grass here and there, but there was mostly rock. More than that, there were the faintest traces of light. In that light, Colt saw something that he tried to blink away, something that he was almost too scared to accept.
Lowering himself back down and then readying himself for the exertion of what was coming, he jumped back up and pulled himself up again. It took five tries before he was able to not only pull himself up all the way, but angle his body so that he could slither through the opening. He bumped his head as he did it, exactly in the same spot he had struck it when falling into the water-logged chasm. He winced at this but didn't dare cry out. He wasn't about to alert the T-rex or any other predators of his location.
Once he had his arms out of the hole and could use the ground as leverage, he was able to pull the rest of his body out. When he was on the rock surface and out of the cavern and water, he lay there for a while, collecting his breath and his thoughts. He had thought he'd seen something in particular when he had pulled himself up to peek out that first time. The thing he had seen (or thought he had seen) had been directly in front of him, no more than ten feet away. Part of him was desperate to check it out but another part feared that it was just an illusion and he would lose his mind if he had only imagined it.
As he slowly got to his feet, Colt realized how tired he was. He'd had so much adrenaline and fear coursing through him over the last few hours that his body felt like it was starting to crash. He looked to the place ahead of him and saw that he had not been imagining things. He smiled and walked forward on shaky legs.
The rope they had used to come down here was hanging directly in front of him, about twenty feet off of the ground. The hole he had come through was along the wall that they had scaled down. It had looked up at an angle, allowing him to look slightly up the wall they had all descended down. Being so in awe of the forest waiting for them, no one had seen it. The hole blended into the rough surface of the wall so perfectly, hidden in plain sight.
Colt looked to the bodies around him, the crushed shapes of Harvey and Suzanne. It seemed like months ago that he had first met them and when he tried to shove everything that had happened to them in less than a day, it made Colt feel dizzy. He steadied himself against the wall, waiting for the dizzy spell to pass.
When he was centered, he looked to Harvey's body and knew that he was going to have to take the harness of off him. He did so, trying not to look at the wide dead eyes of the man that had been torn into by a flying creature that had no business still being in existence. He had to roll Harvey’s body over to fully remove the harness and when he finally had it free, he rolled Harvey back over out of respect.
While Colt was not nearly as experienced in rock climbing as Ken had been, he still knew his way around the equipment. He put the harness on and approached the wall, looking for the clips he had placed in the wall on the down. He found them easily enough. He grabbed the first one, pulled himself up, and started climbing upwards. His muscles were tired, his head was reeling, and he had a nearly impossible climb ahead of him.
He kept pulling himself up, already dreading the moment when he wouldn't have the clips. When that time came, he'd have to attach the rope to the harness, clip it all securely, and then climb the rope manually, using only the sides of the wall and the harness as support. As fatigued as he already was, he had no idea how he was going to be able to pull that off.
When he reached the last clip, he looked into the extremely thin light above him. He then turned back to the forest and, looking at it, felt what Joseph must have felt in his last moments: it really was a shame that they wouldn't be able to take any evidence back. Everything they had had died with Leslie and all of the pictures had been crushed with Ken.
Wearily, Colt took the rope and fastened it to the harness. He gave it several tugs as a test of its durability and felt that it was as good as it was going to get.
With that done, Colt gave the expanse of hidden forest a middle finger in salute and then started pulling himself up by the rope.
CHAPTER TWENTY- FOUR
He'd been climbing for nearly five minutes when the forest below and behind him seemed to erupt with life. The first commotion was an immense roar, not quite as ferocious as what he had heard from the T-rex, but menacing all the same. Following this roar, there was a flurry of activity and noises. As Colt looked back, he saw several large shapes breaking through the tops of the trees. He saw the familiar shape of a brontosaurus as well as the sloped heads of dinosaurs he couldn't name. Watching it all from a distance and knowing that he was safe up here (well, from walking dinosaurs, anyway), was beyond amazing. Knowing that no human being had ever seen such wonders made him feel powerful in an odd way…like nothing could touch him.
The pistol was tucked into the side of the harness and he knew that if one of the pterosaurs came after him in a repeat of their excursion below ground, the gun might not do the trick. But the gentle weight of Liu's katana at his back reassured him slightly.
When the commotion below him settled and there was only a cloud of dust to be seen, he started climbing again. Each time he set any sort of weight on his right foot, it let out a stinging pain. After a few more minutes, he almost stopped noticing it. The foot was going numb and although he knew that wasn't a good thing in the long run, it was actually helping him to climb a bit quicker.
Still, the physical labor of pulling himself up and clipping himself at his new height to the holster each time was exhausting. He looked down only a few times, observing the rope beneath him. The ground looked deceptively close but he had a feeling that he was at least three hundred feet up in the air. That was progress at least, but he had barely scratched the surface of the climb he had ahead of him.
He climbed until his arms were sore and the pain started to radiate out from his ankle again. When this happened, the only way he could rest was to simply lie back in the harness. He stayed as still as he could, not wanting to do any unnecessary rocking. He was thirsty beyond measure and his head was starting to ache miserably. He arched his back and shoulders as much as the harness would allow and then started climbing up again.
This time, he looked past the pain. He was determined that he was going to get out of this hole without stopping again even though he knew it would probably be impossible. Still, he fought past the pain and this time didn't stop until he had burns on his hands from climbing up the rope.
When he stopped this time, he looked back down to the forest and saw that it was mostly covered up in darkness. He looked ahead and saw that fuzzy sort of light, the promise of natural light, air, and life waiting above. He felt himself growing overwhelmed with the task at hand and did something he had done on the two other occasions when he had been out in nature due to his television shows and stuck in potentially hazardous situations: he distracted himself. He kept himself busy by angling his pack around to the front of the harness and looking through it. He smiled whimsically at the skull keyring flashlight and then fished through the useless filler materials that Joseph had no doubt hired someone to throw in there. There was a compass, a pocket knife, more rope, and…
Colt grinned when he saw the pair of gloves. They were cheap and unbelievably thick, but they'd come in handy with the climb. Wiping the blood off of his palms, Colt put the gloves on and resumed his climb.
Five minutes later, he heard a very muffled screech from below. He looked down and saw the shape of a pterosaur flying about thirty feet
below him. Colt went absolutely still, thinking of the gun in the harness, nudging him in the side. But as he watched the pterosaur, it simply circled a while below him, as if it was at play. After a few moments, it dove back down towards the forest, leaving Colt once again hanging by himself between two worlds.
He kept climbing. He climbed until his back was a knot of aching muscle and his shoulders felt torn to shreds. When he stopped again, he was weeping through the pain and his foot had swollen so large that his boot felt tight on his right leg.
He had no idea how long he had been climbing like this. Two hours? Maybe two and a half? He looked up and that source of natural light looked no closer. In fact, he was starting to wonder if it was an illusion, some cruel trick of his tired and overworked mind. For the first time, he thought about unsnapping the harness and falling. The pain would only last for a split second. He could just let go and die here like every other member of the expedition…like the soldier and his friends that had been buried in that makeshift graveyard.
That's when he saw something come plummeting down towards him. It came sailing straight down, making a motion in the dark air that he could make no sense of at first. It passed right by him, missing him by about six inches. When it passed, it seemed to still be there, hanging in the air just like the rope he was clinging to.
Like a man in a dream, Colt reached out and touched the object. It was soft and moved easily.
Another rope. Someone had thrown another rope down here and…
He opened his mouth before he knew what he was doing. He didn't think about the fact that his shouts might attract the pterosaur he'd seen earlier. All he knew was that there was someone on the topside and they could get him out of this hell.
"HELP!"
His voice sounded raspy and demon-like, but it carried weight and volume. Hearing it, he was snapped out of the fugue state of pain and automated climbing he had been in for the last few hours. He was once again a human being that was doing everything he could to survive.
"PLEASE! HELP ME!"
He looked up to the light and, very faintly, could see a shape moving up there. Actually, were there three? He thought so, but couldn't be sure. He then watched the rope beside him and saw it being jostled. After a while, it went rigid. Colt looked up and the world became hazy and dizzy. Still, he thought he saw something small coming down through that light.
Several minutes later, that soft light was replaced by a much harsher one…a light that made his heart surge.
Colt hung there, his body going limp in the harness, as a figure wearing a headlamp descended the second rope down towards him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Colt was pretty sure he passed out at some point. The few things he could remember after seeing the artificial light coming down towards him were streaks of conversation that really made no sense.
"Who the hell are you?" a man asked him.
"Colt McKinnon," he said. Then, nearly delirious, he added, "You might know me from TV, from such programs as Wheel of Fortune and Jackass." And then he'd started snickering.
"How long have you been here?" the man asked.
"A day? I don't know."
"Let's get you topside, what do you say?"
"After these messages," Colt said, and started to feel sleepy. He was vaguely aware of the man clipping their harnesses together. He then said something into a very small communications device. Colt barely heard it but he did feel a jerk in their joined lines as the rope was guided from the top of the hole and started to be pulled up.
Colt smiled and then closed his eyes. The last thing he heard before he went under was a static-laced voice coming from that man's little device. It was a female voice, saying: "Damn! He beat us here!"
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Someone that claimed to be a doctor was tending to the wound on the back of his head. They had given him some pain killers fifteen minutes ago and it seemed to be helping a bit. As she tended to him, the others that were with her looked at him like he was some weird exhibit. Come see the Spectre Island survivor! he thought, but didn't find it funny.
So far, Colt had counted twelve people, milling around the hole that he had been taken out of. Five of them were currently holding a perimeter around the hole, all armed with guns that looked like they could take down Godzilla. In the midst of these armed men and the others, Colt saw another woman that seemed reluctant to talk to him. The way the others spoke to her and enthusiastically listened, Colt assumed she was the boss of this operation.
Once the doctor was done with him, this woman approached him slowly. She sat on the same fallen log that Colt was on and wasted no time getting to the point.
"Did Joseph Thornton send you?" she asked.
"Sort of," Colt said. "I came with a big group. I don't remember how many. Sixteen maybe."
"Where is everyone else?" she asked.
"Dead."
Colt studied the woman for a moment, trying to figure out who she was. She was Japanese and was quite beautiful. She looked like the all-business sort and it started to click all at once.
"He said he had competition," Colt said. "Is that you?"
"You could say that," she said. "I'm Takako Sano. We had sort of a running competition on this place. It goes back a few generations in our family. I can't believe that bastard found Spectre Island before me."
Colt only shrugged.
"I know who you are," she said. "I'll never admit it to anyone else, but I was a fanatic for Exploring the Shadows."
"Thanks," he said, not caring much about her television preferences.
"How much did Thornton pay you?" Takao asked.
"A lot," Colt said. "Although, I doubt I'll see any of it now that he's dead."
She seemed to think about something for a moment and then peered over towards the hole that led down to the hidden prehistoric forest. "What's down there?" she asked.
Colt grinned weakly when he said, "Every childhood dream I ever had."
This seemed to please her but she stayed quiet.
"You sending your guys in?" he asked.
"Yeah. Thinking about it. And to be honest, you could be a huge help. If you go down with us, we’ll have someone that's already been there and—"
"No thanks," Colt said.
"I'll pay you ten percent more than what Thornton was paying you."
"No. Honestly, I'd just like to sleep. I'm tired as hell."
"Understandable," she said. "I'll have some of my guys escort you back to our boat. We're anchored on the east side of the island. We have some decent digs. Sleep all you want."
"Thanks," Colt said.
"Will you at least tell me everything you saw?"
"Sleep first," he said.
"Okay," she said, clearly not happy.
She motioned to two of them that were standing guard with guns. "Take this gentleman back to the boat. Give him cabin C and tell the driver to tend to his every need."
"Got it," one of the men said, stepping forward. "This way, please," he said to Colt.
Colt followed the man and looked back to Takako. "I'd double-think heading down there," he said. "It's brutal."
"I'm sure it is," she said. "But discovery usually is."
"Good one," Colt said.
Before he turned back towards the beach with Takako's two men, she called back to him.
"Are you currently open for employment options?"
"Depends on the employer and the task," Colt said.
"You'll have an interview waiting for you when you wake up," she said.
He gave her a weary thumbs up and then headed back to the beach.
As they passed through the overgrowth, one of the men gave him a curious look. "Forgive me for asking," he said, "but why do you look so familiar?"
"I don't know," Colt said, already feeling that proud side of himself dying on this island. "But I get that a lot."
The End
Read on for a free sample of Sea Raptor
ONE<
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Glenn Flynn wanted her, right the hell now!
Play it cool, man. Wait for your opening.
He wondered if he could wait much longer as the bikini-clad redhead bent over the cooler. Glenn ran his eyes up her smooth legs, stopping at her nice tight ass.
My God, she was hot!
“Yo, Glenn. Catch.”
Sara Monaghan tossed him a beer. Despite the gentle bobbing of the speedboat, he caught it.
“Woo-hoo! You got good hands,” Sara cheered.
“You don’t know just how good these hands are.” He waggled his eyebrows.
“Glenn.” Sara giggled and blushed. She took a swig of beer and turned on the MP3 player. A deep, thumping beat blared from the speakers. Sara lifted her arms and swung her hips.
Glenn didn’t think he could get any harder.
“Don’t just stand there,” she said. “We’re here to party. C’mon.”
Glenn recognized the look in Sara’s eyes. He’d seen it before in many of his other conquests. That inviting look.
His opening.
Sara cheered as they grinded against each other. Glenn ran a hand up and down her side. She gave him a seductive smile.
High school girls are so easy. It didn’t take much to impress them. He played football for Temple University. He came from a well-to-do family. His father had a sweet boat which he let him borrow whenever he wanted.
To a 17-year-old hottie, he was god-like.
When they finished dancing, Glenn drained the rest of his beer. The cool liquid felt good going down his throat, what with the blazing July sun beating down on him.
“How about some more?” Sara shook her empty can in front of him.
“Sure.” Glenn would have rather had her than another beer, but this next one would be Sara’s fourth. In his experience, the more booze a chick had in her, the harder it was for them to say no.
Jurassic Island: A Prehistoric Thriller Page 12
