by catt dahman
Alex stalked away to the other side of the fire and told Joy he wanted to be alone so he could guard the camp like he was supposed to.
Helen slept next to Scott, and in her sleep, she rolled closer. He smiled.
Fish announced he wanted to help explore. “It is no accident we are here. Others have had the same fate. We must find out who owns this island: man or beast.”
Durango Jones, unable to hold thoughts and unsure how to get thoughts to words, nodded solemnly. For a fraction of a second, his head stopped pounding, and his mind cleared. We are meat, he thought. What he thought was unimportant.
Day three was coming.
Chapter 5: Day Three
Joe’s cooking helped fill everyone’s belly with a Louisiana-inspired fish stew, palms and fried squid, and coconut with crab. The group ate well, but the scavenging crew had no time to stay and visit: they had to gear up and set out again. They had two backpacks and make-shift knapsacks. It was the same team as before except Fish went along. Fish took over somewhat on the scavenging mission. The objective was to fill water bottles with fresh water as it was found and to look for signs of other people.
That left Amanda as crew member-in-charge-of-the-camp.
The group liked having Fish go with them because he was tall, strong, and smart. However, Joy was the weak link; she kind of worked hard and was one of the few who was unhurt, willing to go, and not needed at camp because she didn’t do well with fishing.
“Thanks, Joe, I’m stuffed.”
“And it is all fresh; I am glad to cook for you,” Joe told Scott. “These foods you brought me made the flavors. That coconut…very delicious.”
The group walked away from camp and showed Fish all they had seen before. They wanted to walk down the beach and search along the shore, but finding water seemed more important. If they had to travel far, the trips could be tiring and dangerous.
Tyrese pointed out to Fish where they had found the rusty knife and explained it again. Fish looked at the knife, but there was nothing else there to find or figure out. Fish carefully ran probing fingers through the moss and under the leaves, but there was nothing.
“I puked there,” Joy said, conversationally.
They walked to the creek and found the rotting hadrosaur, its body ruining all the water that rushed around it and past it, gurgling and lapping at the banks. They boiled the water they gathered, but the idea of drinking water that was filled with decay and feces was unnerving, and they didn’t want that on their hands or in the bottles.
“I thought scavengers would eat it,” Helen said.
Alex nodded and said, “They will. He was a big animal, and Big Brown pissed all over it to keep them away. In a few days or when it rains, they will finish him to the bone.”
“But the bones will remain, so we have to see them and remember. Yuk,” Joy said.
Nothing was at the creek drinking. So the group moved cautiously along the animal trail, following the creek. Sometimes the water almost vanished among large rocks, but then they saw it again. A trail branched off, and it caught their attention because several of the trees had been cut down, and they knew this because instead of tooth prints, they saw the cuts left by a knife or machete.
“Again, people have been here,” Alex told them.
“We can get water here. It’s clean. Let’s find out what’s down this trail,” Helen said.
“As long as it isn’t Big Brown, right Alex?” asked Joy.
Alex nodded at Joy, blushing. He wasn’t sure how he felt about her in the daylight. He was confused and deep in his own thoughts.
“How’s the arm?” Helen asked Tom. She saw him rubbing at it. He shrugged and turned away. “Hey,” she said as she clutched his shoulder and leaned closer.
“I didn’t let Kelly see and avoided her ‘cause she’ll worry.” I was too busy, so I hurried along. I think she’s out of antibiotics anyway.
He held out his arm, and Helen’s eyes went wide. The gauze was matted in spots with a yellow-green crust. Tom took some gauze out of his pocket; it wasn’t sterile anymore, but that hardly mattered, and he wrapped a few layers around his arm to hide the infection. Tom’s eyes were glassy with fever and worry. He wasn’t so much afraid for himself as he was terrified for Kelly. Who would care for her if something happened to him? That nagged at him continuously.
“Does your arm hurt much? Are you sore in your arm pit?”
“Yeah, both, but then I kind of rub my arm and mash it, and it…well…the infection comes out some. Hurts when I do, but I do it. I know that it isn’t good, but what can I do? She cleaned it. She gave me a shot. It’s one of those things I can’t do anything about. At least it’s draining. That’s got to be better than not draining, right?”
Helen nodded. She felt in her pocket, handed him a package of aspirins, and watched as he swallowed them.
While walking on the trail that wound through the trees, they found some sea grapes and mangoes to take back. When they came back down the path, they would gather them. Boulders marked the next trail split. On a whim, they went left because it looked the most used.
Three compsognathus were eating sea grapes while sitting on the trail, and they ran away, chattering and fussing at the humans. They were smaller than the ones before, and Alex said they looked like juveniles, maybe. Tyrese threw a rock, missing them as they ran.
The trees thickened, and the group saw a very small swampy area. It was a slimy, gooey mess that smelled rank, and black sludge and fungus lined the banks. Probably once it had been a clear pond of sorts but had since gone bad with animal droppings, rotting vegetation, and algae. That was what it smelled and looked like. It was a filthy pool, but the miasma of stink covered other scents as well. Some animals would be almost hidden in the stink.
To the other side of the pool was a more worn area with trampled moss and dirt in a small clearing. Undergrowth and vines were gone, and the trees were pushed away or uprooted and tossed into the swamp. Several creatures or something large must live in there; the smell of danger was there. The tactic worked well because nothing would want to be here for very long.
“Be careful about quicksand,” Fish warned. He watched the ground, wondering at all the dangers that lurked. Small, shiny-backed beetles raced around the grubby ground, darting among old broken brown twigs and leaves and working among the bits of bark. They weren’t common-looking bugs, but they were not monstrous either, yet the little bugs still made the people feel crawly and threatened. The beetles might be perfectly safe, but they brought a feeling of revulsion to Fish as he saw them.
“Those are icky bugs,” Joy said. That seemed to summarize them excellently. The bugs were but a small part, yet this whole place was bad. Everyone felt that.
Alex tilted his head and motioned everyone to stop.
He thought there was a circular area that was delineated by sticks and dead grass and immediately decided this was a nest. Whether it was active or old was another question. Scott and he decided to slide between rocks and trees and get a better look. Almost at once, Scott pointed to a big, stinky pile of feces, and they began to notice more piles around the circular area. They were fresh, a few hours old, maybe, and covered by loud blowflies.
Scott made a face and said, “Climb up so we can see without going closer.” They found foot and handholds and climbed the rocks on the opposite side of the circle across from the swamp.
From their vantage point far off the ground, they could see the nest, a huge one. Egg shells littered the nest, and Alex mentally began to put the large shells together so he could guess at a size of them. They had to be at least two feet long and almost half that wide.
Scott sucked in his next breath, and Alex wondered what was wrong.
He followed Scott’s gaze to one side. “Oh my, God. Those are human bones. Look at the two skulls.” Alex gagged. A lot of bones were there, probably those of smaller dinosaurs, but two skulls were tossed to the side as if Alex and Scott were meant to find them.
“A month? Two? Can you tell? They aren’t fresh as in a week or two, but they aren’t yellowed and mossy, either, like the other bones,” said Scott.
“A-month-old, I think. I’d have to hold them and see, but no way in hell am I going into that.” He did the math. “A month ago...maybe two…the babies hatched, and the parents fed them.” Alex gagged again. For some reason he thought of Joy and making love, and he became nauseated. How could he forget where he was and indulge in that last night when they were in danger of being the next meal for dinosaurs. One minute they were people and the next meat for monsters.
Alex knew he had to suppress his physical desire and stop any emotions he was beginning to feel for Joy, and he did have feelings, or he wouldn’t have had sex with her. Feelings had no place on this island. There was only survival.
“By now, the parents will be teaching them to hunt. That’s where they are: hunting,” said Alex.
“Where?”
“How the fuck would I know, Scott? What a stupid question,” Alex said as he rubbed his head, still sick.
“Okay. Fair enough. Can you guess…just guess what these are?” asked Scott.
Alex stared at the egg shells. They were huge. He ruled out the velociraptor because of the large size. “Maybe, Utahraptor. Or it’s one that is similar. Who knows if it’s a known species. Let’s say it is. They are big. Sorry. My head aches right now, and I feel sick. I shouldn’t have snapped at you and cursed. I feel so disgusted.”
“It’s fine.”
The Utahraptors were enormous. When fully grown, they measured twenty-five feet from snout to tail tip. People often knew what a velociraptor was and were terrified of them, but velociraptors only weighed about two hundred pounds. The Utahraptor weighed a half ton; they were the largest raptors of all.
And Alex knew something else about them, theory or not. He leaned down and asked, “T-Dog, can you and Fish get everyone up here on the rocks? You need to climb, and I mean right this second. Fast. Hurry.” His voice became louder. Had they gone back down the trail, they would have run into a hunting pack. There was nowhere to go but upward unless they wished to dig under the leaves with the bugs; it was a blind, dead-end alley.
What a brilliant hunting strategy. Alex admired the skill of the Utahraptors even as he feared them and hated them. The team was in so much danger, and the urgency was enough to almost suffocate Alex. No wonder he had felt so nauseated and then angry and irritable; at some level, he was aware as any prey would be.
Helen reached for a sturdy rock and started climbing immediately, knowing this was a serious situation.
Joy said she couldn’t climb and asked why they had to. She wasted a few seconds complaining and questioning why she had to climb rocks when there was nothing up there she wanted to see.
Alex wanted to reach down and slap her for taking so long to get moving. There was no time to explain everything he saw and felt in his sick, terrified bowels and stomach.
Tyrese wasn’t playing games, so he grabbed Joy, raised her above his head, and told her to grab a rock because he was letting go. She complained but clutched the rocks. He almost slammed her into the rocks as he got her going.
“I can’t; damn, T-Dog, I can’t climb with this arm,” Tom said, “so leave me. Go on.” Tom meant it. He didn’t want to slow them down, and he wasn’t sure if he could climb with his arm so messed up.
“I have broken fingers, but the man said climb, and that is what we will do. Move. Get going. I will help, you, Tom,” said Fish as he began to climb beside Tom, finding rocks that they both could use to climb. “That is how you do it. Keep moving. Up the rocks, we go.”
“Climb!” Scott yelled this time; he looked down with big eyes and kept looking at those climbing and then off behind them.
Heavy thuds made it clear that something big ran toward the humans. The Utahraptors were coming, and they squealed and shrieked their pleasure, hoping to terrify their prey into freezing in place. They didn’t need that, but it never hurt to have an easy kill. This close to the nest and with babies in the pack hunting, a fast kill was far more favorable to them than a long, violent battle would be.
Still urging the rest to hurry, Scott climbed down and helped Helen climb up the rest of the way, yanking her up as he went. He didn’t question where his strength was coming from. He was so scared that his heart hammered as if it would explode from his chest. He didn’t see the faces of those creatures attacking, but their happy roars were terrifying. They were excited about ripping into fresh meat.
Alex didn’t think but just climbed over to help Joy and Tom. “T-Dog, help Joy up.”
“You bet.” He yanked her over the rocks like a rag doll, scraping her flesh over the sharp, rough rocks. Blood spots smeared in patches, her skin scraped off, and she howled, but Tyrese never stopped. He kept pulling her upward, far past where Scott and Alex had watched the nest.
The screams of the excited animals and the screams of pain coming from Joy combined and filled the area.
“You’re hurting me.”
“Climb.” Alex didn’t let go of Joy.
Fish pushed Tom upward as Tom tried to find handholds, but one of Tom’s arms was weak and caused him pain. He wasn’t able to hold on and then use the arm before he lost the hold, groaning with pain. Green infection leaked through his bandage. He was frustrated with the weakness in his arm. The cacophony didn’t make him rush; it made him afraid to move any faster for fear he would lose his grip and fall among the raptors.
Tom was brave, always, but the screeches and roars made his already weak body feel wispy and unsubstantial. He didn’t know how to make his limbs work anymore.
The Utahraptors came as a full pack: the huge adults, the juveniles born a year earlier who had survived the hard conditions, and the little ones, the babies who were five feet tall. Each was streamlined, muscular, but built tightly. From foot to head, the adults were eight feet tall and were greyish green, grey, and beige. Each forearm ended with long, knife-like claws and long feathers that were birdlike but far too sparse, making them have hand-wings. Their mouths were birdlike as well, but they had impressive teeth since they were so large.
But their secret weapon, the trait they were known for, was on their back feet, a sickle-shaped, razor-sharp, twelve-inch-long claw. They could use that claw without moving the rest of their toes. Paleontologists knew it was a lethal weapon, but it was more frightening to see it on the animals.
Click, click, click went the claws on the rocks.
Tyrese popped one in the eye when the creature came too close, trying to climb. The eyeball popped out in a mess of goo, and the animal fell back to the ground. He roared back as he fell. Tyrese felt elated and sick.
“Go, Tyrese,” said Tom.
“We will be lucky, Tom. Keep climbing, and we will be there.”
Alex yanked at Tom, pulled him along, and they made progress.
“A little more. They can’t climb worth shit. Come on, Tom.”
Tom shook his head. Below, Fish had slapped Tom’s foot into a deep foot hole that would keep him safe until he found the next one. Tom was already mapping out the rest of the way with Alex, but Fish held his foot.
“Fish?”
“I have an unfortunate, unlucky situation, Tom Jones. When I let you go, I will have but one hand grasping the rocks,” Fish groaned and made another terrible noise.
Alex shifted and saw what was wrong.
A Utahraptor had one of Fish’s lower legs gripped tightly in his mouth but couldn’t budge his prey since Fish fought to stay away. Another of the monsters had snagged Fish’s other foot, and it was pulling; it had locked razor-like nails into Fish’s ankle.
“Gonna lose two feet, and we have no fire to stop the bleeding. This is not a good place, and I am unlucky today.”
“Fish, don’t let go,” Tom called down. He believed there had to be a way out of this, but he still cried softly as he understood the problem. Fish was like family to him.
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“Meh, he will climb up my body and get you. I think that is unacceptable. Letting go, and Alex, you yank his ass as far as you can. Do not let this be for nothing, yes?” The pain was far away for him as his body went into shock; he was indeed lucky in this way. His injuries already were so bad that the nerves were numbed. Fish knew he had no chance and was at peace. It wasn’t for nothing that he would die.
Alex gulped. He was a science geek. He was majoring in science and history and was no hero. Without hesitation, he called, “On three, friend, be at peace.”
“No,” Tom screamed, “not for me. I am sick anyway. No.”
“Two.” Alex ignored him and was on the second number before Tom could think of a way out of this. Alex understood.
Fish and Alex yelled at the same time, “Three.”
Fish removed his hand, Tom went flying upward as Alex yanked him.
“Fish?” Tom called.
“I can not hold on,” Fish replied.
The two creatures yanked again, and Fish fell right between them. One immediately sliced his gut open, and Fish screamed long and loud as his guts boiled from his belly. Another creature chomped into the intestines and ran, making the intestines stretch along like a rope. From the side, baby Utahraptors ran out and grabbed the goodies they wanted most.
One big creature pulled and yanked at Fish’s leg until he ripped it from the hip socket. Another tore away a hand, and the one after him took the entire arm. A small juvenile was clever and sneaky, so he waited for a slight body roll and then bit into Fish’s tender, lower back on the side, going for the kidney, a favorite treat. Fish still screamed.
He drew a breath and yelled, “We’re meat.”
It was the first contraction he had used since he was a small child with a mother that taught him at home and said contractions made a person sound ignorant and uneducated. Somehow, it didn’t matter. It was as close to cursing as Fish had ever come.
Those on the rocks moved away, refusing to watch anymore of the attack. Each wanted to kill all the monsters; they hated them. Fish stopped screaming when the rest of the humans got to the top of the rocks. They sank down in a circle and sat, staring at nothing.
