Savage Island: A Dinosaur Thriller

by Alan Spencer

  Willy was howling in horror. Pierce shut him up with a scissor kick to the solar plexus. Willy flew backwards ten feet. Pierce had no idea how far they'd wrestled each other until he noticed the main building was at least thirty yards behind them. Willy crashed through the gate of a fenced in box, and when his body collided against the steel box inside, everything turned into explosions of electricity. Then a great plume of fire rocked the night. Pierce was thrown back by the burst of heat and the concussion of the blast. Willy was flailing in the box, being cooked alive by wild flames and branches of electricity.

  Pierce got back up and ran towards the building for cover. Somebody would notice the commotion, and quick.

  Luck was on his side. He had kicked Willy into what supplied power to their home base. Pierce saw what few lights from inside the building go dark. Henchmen were pouring out of the front of the building. The way they were reacting, they had never come upon this inconvenience before.

  Pierce formed a new plan and executed it.

  Call of the Raptor

  The velociraptor pawed at the earth, staying low and keeping its senses keen. The dinosaur had seen the man approach the fence with fearlessness. The raptor knew what happened to those who touched the fence. Zap! Instant death. That's why the dinosaur watched with interest as Pierce had dug into the earth with a bone and went underneath the fence to the other side unharmed.

  Curious, the raptor approached the hole. The creature watched the man cross to the other side of the fence with interest. Minutes passed, and the raptor stood there in indecision. Fear kept its actions at bay—but only for so long.

  The raptor could sense the electrified sound coming off of the fence. The vibrations bragged of doom. The raptor had seen its fellows dare to touch the fence, and come away with scorched skin.

  The raptor remained on the outskirts of the crude hole. It sniffed around, pawed at the ground with its razor claws, and remained indecisive.

  A great explosion erupted nearby. The raptor turned its head to the side and caught sight of the orange ball of flames. It heard those glorious screams of human pain. Screams of pain meant meat in its mouth and hot blood streaming down its face. The raptor, and its kind, feared the humans because they were the torturers. Through that fear, the raptor still craved the blood of its enemies. This was instinct, pure and carnal.

  The raptor's keen senses could hear it—or rather, didn't hear it. The buzz from the fences stopped. The raptor knew something had changed. The risk was worth the downfall, because the raptor craved the fresh blood of its enemies; to gnaw on their bones, to stop their hearts, and to rise up and be at the top of the food chain once again.

  The raptor threw its head back and unleashed a piercing call into the night. High pitched, crossed with an eagle and the guttural power of a dragon, the raptor's shriek touched all the ears of the dinosaurs on the island. Every prehistoric beast perked in the jungle.

  Dinosaurs pounded through the miles to reach the raptor and heed their wild urges. Every beast ran together, unified in a common cause to devour the humans. The harder they stomped, the more their fear vanished. The dinosaurs were no longer natural enemies. They were a team of bloodthirsty pillars of carnage.

  It wouldn't be long before the lone raptor would no longer stand alone outside the fence. When the island's population of dinosaurs arrived, those fences would be going down, and the feast would begin.

  Call of the Cannibal

  Bones were all that remained of Staff, Lords, and Berkley's bodies. Nothing had gone to waste. The cannibals devoured every scrap of flesh, slab of muscle, ounce of blood, and pound of internal organs. Some of their remains currently simmered in a great pot over the fire. The tribe had eaten well tonight. If it weren't for the occasional human that crossed their paths, they would have to survive on vegetation. They were much like the dinosaurs on this island; they much preferred meat.

  A feeling of intense sadness swept over the tribe as they surrounded the great pit of fire to reflect on their day. Meat was getting harder and harder to come by these days. Their dinosaur friends were attacking them more often. "Safe" was a rare feeling on this island.

  The tribe heard the raptor's shriek echo off every pocket of the island.

  They knew what that sound meant.

  Meat, and lots of it!

  Strung out, tired of being the weaker of the species, the tribe rose up from their positions around the fire. The cannibals worked fast to gather stone axes and bone hammers, and followed the sound of the raptor's shrieks. The horde of wild savage men and women marched forward, unleashing wild tribal calls, trying to match the much louder calls of the dinosaurs.

  The cannibals were fast approaching the perimeter gates.

  Dr. Prater's Assessment

  Joey stood in line to visit Dr. Prater. His fellow workers waited with him, standing in the cordoned line for however long it took for the doctor to see them. Joey was in line for thirty minutes, but it could've been three hours, and he wouldn't have noticed it. Susan Branch was on his mind, or rather, Mindy Kates.

  Mindy was Joey's wife before he was incarcerated for manslaughter. The details of his former life were vague to him after working on the island for so many years, but the one detail that did register: the memory of his wife, sweet Mindy. Susan was a dead ringer for Mindy. Susan had the same pale skin, supple thighs, breast size, striking red hair, and enticing green eyes as Mindy. Susan became Mindy in Joey's mind. Even Joey's second head agreed that Susan was his wife. Hangman had locked her up in the basement of this place, and what horrors his wife would endure down there quickly troubled Joey. He refused to let a man touch her, and yet Joey subserviently stayed in line to see the doctor. Helplessness prevented him from acting out any retaliation.

  Saggy-fleshed faces, multiple limbed people, and those with organs pumping life outside their bodies surrounded Joey. Why didn't he march down to the basement and overtake Stags? It was Stags's shift. Joey could overpower the guard. He didn't care if the man was double his size. Joey had two heads now, and he could outthink any enemy.

  Joey was sweating nervously just thinking about acting out his plan.

  "Joey, Dr. Prater is ready to see you now."

  The guard, Bellows, called his name. Joey couldn't overtake Bellows. The man clutched the electric prod in his right hand, and his left hand pointed at the door to Dr. Prater's office. If Joey dared to escape, it would be hundreds of volts of electricity entering his body. Joey had no chance.

  Joey said hello to Bellows and played along with the situation. He entered Dr. Prater's office. The odd tang of chemical preservative hit him first. If an outsider would've stepped into this room without any idea what this place was, they wouldn't assume it was a physician's office. They would think this was a mad scientist's study. Glass jars lined the shelves with preserved growths. Hideous cancers were big enough to own small eyes, lungs, and other organs, as if the organs themselves were trying to become their own person. In the larger aquariums, livers, spleens, hearts, and gallbladders swam about the water with tiny makeshift arms, legs, and eyes, and some, even with mouths that tried to talk.

  Dr. Prater was placing a tumor with a single eyeball into a jar of fresh preservative. The doctor didn't acknowledge Joey's entrance until Dr. Prater placed that jar on an empty spot on his shelf, and labeled it. When the man turned around, Dr. Prater gave Joey a once over with those astute, scientific eyes. Everything was a specimen to be dissected and conquered to the medical deviant.

  The doctor wiped his bloody hands on the front of his lab coat. He was always covered in random smears of blood. Dr. Prater was in his mid-sixties, his hair was a bold white, and his face was haggard with decades of morbid scrutiny.

  "I'm going to record our session," Dr. Prater said. He started a tape recorder slathered in countless shades of blood. "Today is very important, Joey. It's time to play with science."

  Joey's flesh crawled.

  Dr. Prater had been talking about this moment for
weeks.

  The doctor wanted to sever his second head.

  "I know you've enjoyed your friend on your shoulder." A wry laugh snuck out of the doctor. "He's the bug in your ear who gives you the smart things to say to your coworkers when they make fun of you. You've been in more fistfights because of your little friend. But that's not why I want to extract him from your body. I want to see if you'll grow a new head in its place. And if that happens, how many heads will grow out of your body? I love collecting growths from the human body. Imagine how many heads I could collect from your body, Joey.

  "This isn't a bad thing, Joey. I know he's your friend. Imagine the next head, Joey. They'll be just as friendly, and who knows, it could be a lady head that pops up next time. The possibilities are copious."

  Dr. Prater moved to the corner of the room where his table was located. Steel medical instruments were altered to become greater cutting tools. Scalpels were triple-bladed. Bone saws owned extra sets of jagged teeth. Pinch clamps were designed to dig into the skin like fish hooks. Dr. Prater enjoyed dissection, blood spilling, and recording the sounds his patients made during the process. The doctor was trying to decide which tool to use to cut off Joey's second head.

  "Now Joey, you still haven't answered my questions. Does the head think for itself? What does it tell you to do? Can it hear me? If it can, what is it saying to you now?"

  Joey's second head spoke in a monotone voice. It had no panic or insistence in its voice.

  Tell him you hear nothing.

  You only hear your own thoughts.

  "I hear nothing," Joey parroted. "Only my own thoughts."

  Dr. Prater played his fingers over the blade of a steel cleaver. "That doesn't sound like something you'd say, Joey. I've asked around about you. They say you're reading books now. You never read books before. The closest thing you get to reading is what it says on those sluts' backs when you fuck them. I'm not stupid, Joey. I've done my homework on you. The things you say to your fellow co-workers, they say you're talking like a man who has gone to college. We both know you're not that smart. Frankly, you're dumb as shit. So tell me, what does the head tell you to do? Last chance to fess up before I cut it off. I can keep it alive, Joey; I'll make the head talk, and tell me what I ask. I'll send electrodes through its brain until it speaks. Why won't it talk to me, Joey? Why, Joey, why?"

  Dr. Prater's face was set in a deep scowl. He wiped spittle from the edges of his mouth, and inadvertently smeared blood on his cheek.

  I only want the best for you, the head spoke to him in Joey's mind. They don't care about you, Joey. Who can truly care about you if they're not a part of you? You miss your wife. She's downstairs. We'll save her, and we'll all get off this island. This place is good for no one.

  "It's good for no one," Joey let it slip.

  "What was that, Joey? Did the head speak to you? Is that what it said, Joey." Dr. Prater slammed his arms against the table. Dozens of steel instruments clattered to the floor. "Tell me, tell me, tell me! Stop holding back! Nobody holds back anything from me!"

  You want to see your wife again, don't you? She'll love you unconditionally. Love knows no restrictions, Joey. Time, distance, mutation...the heart will always understand.

  We talked about what to do, Joey.

  Now's the time.

  "I'll tell you what the head says to me," Joey growled. "You really want to know?"

  "Yes," Dr. Prater begged. The man's eyes were wide and anticipating greatness. "Please, Joey. Tell me everything. Don't hold back a word."

  "It says you must be stopped!!!"

  Joey smashed his arms, elbows, and fists into the nearby aquariums. Dozens of glass tanks were shattered. Tumors, living organs, and oddities from the human body slithered onto the ground. They instantly attacked Dr. Prater, racing up his legs and sinking into his skin as if melting through. Dr. Prater buckled over in pain. Joey didn't stick around to watch what happened next. He stormed out of the door and faced Bellows.

  You can take him, Joey. Show him how strong you really are. You're not as weak as they always thought. You're so much stronger than they are. It's time they get a demonstration of your power.

  "Joey!" Bellows couldn't believe what he was hearing in Dr. Prater's office. "What did you do to Dr. Prater?"

  Joey didn't give Bellows a chance to use that electric prod in his hands. With a force unknown to Joey's experience, he reared back his fist and drove his knuckles into Bellows' face. Every bone caved in from the pressure. Bellows shit his pants. When Joey dislodged his fist, the man's face was no more. Joey shook off brains from his fingers as the guard's corpse toppled to the ground.

  Everybody in line stared gaping eyed at Joey.

  That's when the power went out.

  Joey cut through the room, weaving in the darkness between dumbfounded co-workers, exited the room, and headed right for the emergency stairway.

  His wife still needed to be saved.

  Breakout

  Lee Branch knew his time was limited. Once Susan, a beautiful woman, was thrown into the basement and into that degrading pleasure pad for the island's workers, she'd be raped, defiled, and abused. Lee had little time to save her.

  Dr. Prater had injected him with chemicals and pollutants from dozens of corporations. Greens, purples, oranges, reds, and yellows had entered his bloodstream. Globo Corps considered it his punishment for disturbing their affairs. They sure made one hell of a mistake. They went overboard with the contaminants. It had mutated, and turned him into a hideous abomination. This transformation also made him so much stronger and pissed off. He was always raging and ready to take it out on these assholes who ran the show.

  Lee played his hands down his exposed belly. All they gave him to wear was a pair of white pants made out of trash bag material. His skin was so melted, he couldn't wear normal clothes. It didn't matter. It wasn't his skin that mattered.

  What was inside him did.

  The waxen flesh over Lee's abdomen boiled. Lee's navel opened up and out came the long, thick, and so very powerful pink visceral snake. Lee's intestines wound out of his body with such speed and force, it punched through the steel door, and sent the barrier spinning into the guard who happened to be walking in front of it. The guard's face was a bloody mess, and his eyeballs were dancing in his head. Lee didn't give the bastard a chance to pick up his electric prod or recover. The end of his intestine, a circular mouthed suction hole, wrapped around the guard's head, sucked it off of his neck with a hundred bone breaking sounds, and then spit it out across the hallway. Those imprisoned in the cells cheered and hollered.

  Lee's intestines coiled back into his belly. The pink circular mouth stayed three inches out of his navel, poised to strike like a viper when a threat posed itself.

  He rushed to the main control panel. Lee was confused when the guards who normally stayed at the main station were missing. Something was happening elsewhere in the facility, and he could hear noises echo through the walls. The sounds were coming from outside.

  Lee grabbed the keys to the cell doors, and began unlocking the environmentalists from the rooms and torture chambers. Many were also affected by chemical exposure. Faces were melting, bodies were pulsating with cancers and tumors, but right now, they no longer cared. They saw Lee, and they knew they were saved. Fifty people were in the hallways now preparing to take on their captors, when the area went dark.

  Now Lee really knew something was going down.

  He kept freeing the prisoners the best he could without the lights on.

  Once he was finished, he navigated his way in the dark to locate the stairs leading to the basement level.

  Susan was still very much in danger.

  Hangman's Plan

  The workers on the island had grown lazy in their positions of power. What was happening rocked them out of their comfort zones. Hangman realized this as he watched the security camera feed of the man who had smashed Loomis over the head with a dinosaur bone, and tossed Willy into their
main power supply. After watching a nice electricity and fire show, everybody was on edge. The base was on limited auxiliary power. Hangman knew full power couldn't be restored until a crew from outside the island arrived to repair it.

  This day would come eventually, Hangman thought, standing over the console of security screens and watching things unfold. He viewed numerous security feeds. On one feed, Dr. Prater was writhing on the floor. His specimens latched onto his body, and were eating him alive. Another feed, Joey was overtaking Bellows. Then the goon was racing down the stairs to the basement floor. In a more interesting feed, Lee Branch was freeing the environmentalist prisoners from their cells.

  Hangman had lost track of the man who had killed his two workers outside.

  The bastard was slippery.

  The real problem was fast approaching from outside the gates.

  A breach in the fence, no doubt from the human intruder, caught the interest of a single raptor. Now cameras a mile out from the base caught sight of what had to be every dinosaur on the island. The dinosaur front was about to storm the gates. Those gates had no juice. The dinosaurs would smash through the barriers, and take them on.

  Why not add another problem, Hangman thought, to the already deep shit dilemma? From the opposite side of the island, the cannibals were coming at them with crude weapons in hand. Somehow, they knew the gates were down too. Call it nature's way of hitting the reset button, or perhaps Karma, or shit luck. Either way, they were about to have a serious war on their hands.