by C. G. Mosley
Quickly, he scanned the environment for something to use as a weapon. The footsteps drew closer and something in his gut told him that his opportunity was about to present itself. Instinctively, he grabbed a nearby chair. It was made of metal and plastic, but if the blow was landed right, it would do the job. He briskly moved to the space where he’d briefly become hidden by the opened door. Jonathon watched the knob begin to twist and readied the chair. The door swung open and as he prepared to unleash his fury, he saw something unexpected. A single open-toed shoe stepped into the room just enough for Jonathon to see it. The foot was feminine with toenails painted bright red. The woman on the other side of the opened door stood there for a moment before finally speaking.
“Jonathon?” she said meekly.
Jonathon recognized the voice and he couldn’t believe it. He dropped the chair and reached around the door in a single motion. He abruptly pulled Annie toward him and pushed the door shut quickly behind her.
“What are you doing here?” he asked gruffly.
“I was going to ask you the same thing,” she said with an innocent smile.
“Did you slide the note under the door?”
Annie squinted and her mouth opened slightly. “Note? What note?” she asked.
Jonathon shook his head, disappointed. “Never mind,” he said. “Annie, tell me what you’re doing here.”
“You’ll be mad,” she replied.
“Sweetheart, I’m already mad,” he said, trying not to sound annoyed.
“Well, first, I want you to know I just returned a couple of days ago for the first time since we were here all those years ago,” she explained.
“Great, so you’re here, Eric is here, Silas is here…it seems we’ve got a reunion of sorts going on.”
Annie looked surprised. “Silas is here?”
Jonathon could see she genuinely didn’t know. He decided to keep quiet about what had happened to Silas for the moment. “Maybe it’s best if you start explaining to me what the heck is going on and why you are here,” he said.
Annie nodded and took a deep breath. She thought a moment as she pondered what to say. “Okay, like I said, you’re going to be mad…but, I’ve been seeing Eric Gill for a few years now.”
Jonathon rolled his eyes. “You’ve got to be kidding me. That guy is a sleaze ball, Annie.”
She held up a dismissive hand and shot him a look of anger. “Don’t,” she snapped. “Just don’t even. I’ve not heard a peep out of you since everything went down here all those years ago. My uncle died in case you forgot. And yes, he was made from the scum of the earth, but I was the one that everyone in the family looked to for answers. Uncle Angus was always a black sheep in our family, and due to my shady association with him around the time of his untimely death, I too became an outcast. It certainly didn’t help matters when the family discovered he’d left everything to those two goons, Travis and Frank. But since they were dead also, he’d put Eric next in line.”
“That makes no sense; why would he leave his fortune in the hands of a pilot he’d only recently gotten to know?” Jonathon asked.
“Because of this island,” she replied. “This island full of dinosaurs and the fountain of youth. He wanted someone who knew of its existence; someone that would have unlimited resources to look for him if he turned up missing.”
“And the hierarchy eventually fell to Eric,” Jonathon said, shaking his head. “And I suppose he came looking for him?”
Annie nodded. “Very shortly after we returned and told him what happened, he made his way here, but discovered quickly what we already knew: Angus was most likely already dead.”
“Has Eric located the fountain?” Jonathon asked.
Annie shook her head. “No, he’s looked for it and can’t find it.” She paused. “He’s not all bad, Jonathon. When I was treated as an outcast, he saw that I was taken care of. He has been very caring toward me.”
Jonathon yawned, and although he knew Annie would take it as boredom, he was genuinely tired. “Yeah, well he hasn’t been telling people to shoot you, so forgive my reluctance to believe he’s just a big old pussycat.”
“Who tried to shoot you?” Annie asked.
“That thug that wears the hat with all the raptor claws around the band,” he replied. “He tried to shoot me after your boyfriend ordered him to.”
She lowered her head. “He wouldn’t do that. After all, you’re here and alive now.”
“Yeah, so how about telling me why I’m still alive?”
She looked at him, puzzled.
“Don’t play dumb with me,” Jonathon snapped at her. “Why did he send you in here?”
Annie sighed, then gave another slight smile. Jonathon wanted to be angry with her, but she was just too darn beautiful.
“He wanted me to find out what you knew about his operation,” she said, sounding defeated.
“You mean his black market dinosaur operation?”
She nodded. “He also wants me to find out what brought you here to begin with.”
“Ah, now we’re getting to the truth,” he said. “So he’s holding me here until I tell why I’m here.”
She nodded again.
“And then what will he do with me after I spill it?”
Annie shrugged. “He’ll let you go, I suppose.”
Jonathon turned to her and grabbed her by the shoulders. “Surely you don’t really believe that?”
She looked him in the eyes and seemed to ignore the question. “You mentioned Silas is here too?”
He held his eyes on her, doing his best to keep his composure. “Silas came here with me and my father to find the fountain one more time.”
Annie pulled away from him. “What? Why? You’re the one that was preaching to us about staying away from here!”
Jonathon nodded and held up his hands apologetically. “Yes, I did,” he said. “But that was before Lucy was diagnosed with cancer.”
Annie’s jaw fell open. “Oh no,” she muttered softly. “I’m so sorry.”
He read her expression and answered the question he knew was running through her mind.
“Yes, it’s bad,” he said. “It’s so bad that I became desperate enough to show up here so that I could retrieve the only way I knew to save her.”
There was long awkward silence. Finally, she repeated her earlier question.
“So where is Silas?” There was a slight crack in her voice.
Jonathon shook his head. “He didn’t make it.” He paused. “And neither did my dad.”
Annie’s lip quivered and he saw a tear roll down her cheek. She reached up and pulled him toward her. It was at that moment he was unable to hold back his emotions any longer. He cried, and after several minutes, he felt somewhat better.
“I hate this island,” Annie said after the long silence.
“Yeah, me too,” Jonathon said. He looked her in the eyes again. “I’ve got to get out of here, and you’ve got to get out of here.”
Annie nodded. “I can’t leave—at least not yet. But, I can get you out of here.”
Jonathon remembered the note that had been slid under the door. He retrieved it and showed it to Annie. “Do you have any idea who may have left this for me?”
She looked carefully at the writing. “No, I have no idea,” she said. “Eric has all of these people in his back pocket; I can’t imagine who would be bold enough to do something like this behind his back.”
“Okay, here is what we’re going to do,” Jonathon said. “You’re going to go tell Eric that Silas was determined to come here and get a tyrannosaur trophy and I came along in an attempt to stop him from doing it. Do not mention anything about the fountain. Agreed?”
She nodded in agreement.
“And you’re not going to let me out—not yet anyway.”
Annie was suddenly confused. “What? Why not? I can tell him you escaped. He’ll be furious with me, but I’ll smooth things out.”
Jonathon took a breath
and shook his head. “Annie, do you really think he hasn’t thought about the possibility of me overpowering you and escaping? I’m sure he’s got someone watching all of the exits. He trusts you, but he’s not stupid. Letting me out right this moment would be a mistake, and besides, I need to figure out who left me this note.”
Chapter 25
“If we’re going to do this, we do it quickly and we do it early tomorrow morning,” Charlie Nelson declared.
“I like the way you’re thinking,” Eric replied with glee. He glanced over at Hardcastle. “This one is full of spunk.”
Glenn Hardcastle nodded. “That she is,” he mumbled. “I’d like to see more of it.”
Charlie ignored the comment. Truthfully, she’d been scared out of her mind since she’d watched two men be taken under the water by a Titanoboa. She already wanted to leave, but she had a job to do—an important job to do. This was not a time for her to show weakness. She’d had her moment to cry privately and then forced herself to regroup pretty quickly. She took a deep breath and continued.
“The truth of the matter is that if these prehistoric crocs are anything like the crocodiles of today, and there is nothing to suggest they’re not, then these animals are mostly active during the early morning hours. What are we baiting it with?”
“Me and Dr. Cruz watched one of them chow down on an anatotitan a few days ago,” Hardcastle said. “They seem to be pretty plentiful on that end of the island, and it’s always been my experience you bait with whatever the animal typically feeds on.”
Charlie smiled. “I agree,” she replied. “But truthfully, a crocodile will pretty much eat anything you put in front of it. I just want to make sure you guys have something in mind.”
“Okay, we bait it, we get it to come out of the water to feed, and once we get a clear shot, we tranq it in the fleshy part of the belly,” Eric said.
“Sounds like a wonderful plan,” Charlie said. “I’m just wondering why you haven’t gotten it done already.”
“Well, there’s the matter of dragging the beast to the shoreline and then getting it on a barge,” Eric explained.
Charlie crossed her arms. “I’m assuming that’s why you have the large semi-truck I saw out there,” she said with a raised eyebrow.
“Yes, but in case you didn’t notice, we’ve sort of had a few setbacks during the last couple of days that has slowed progress,” he said, glancing across the table to Dave.
Dave hadn’t said much since he’d been brought back to camp. Eric had decided to give him some space while they finalized the plan to capture Sarcosuchus.
Charlie peered over a Dave and then back to Eric. “Well, you seem to have it all under control now.” She quickly changed the subject back to the prehistoric croc. “Okay, so if the barge is in the water, and you drag the animal to the beach with the semi, how are you supposed to get it on the barge?”
Eric glanced over at Hardcastle for an explanation.
“We’ve got an industrial-strength wench mounted to one end of the barge,” he explained. “We’ll just pull her on board with that.”
“Are you sure that the cable will be strong enough for that?” Charlie asked, clearly skeptical.
“We’re using very high-grade steel cable,” he replied. “I assure you we’ve got plenty of tensile strength to handle it.”
“Alright,” she said, convinced. “Okay, so you get it on the barge and…?”
“We’ve got a large ship with a crane,” Eric said, as he rose from his chair to retrieve a cup of coffee from the corner of the conference room.
“Wait, you want to put this animal on the ship?” Charlie asked.
“Yeah, something like that,” Hardcastle answered.
Charlie dropped her head back and laughed. She then leaned forward and dropped her face into her palms as if she were trying to hide her amusement.
“You can’t put this animal on the ship,” she finally said, deadly serious.
“And why not?” Eric asked, steaming cup of coffee in hand.
Charlie opened her mouth to speak, but Eric’s coffee mug caught her attention. “Is that a The Land Before Time coffee cup?”
Eric smiled and took a sip. “I love that movie,” he said. “I feel like I’m living it every day.”
Charlie gave a slow nod and stared up at the ceiling. She was beginning to wonder how these idiots had gotten away with their illegal operation for so long.
“Okay, Littlefoot…you can’t put an animal that large on the ship and risk the thing waking up. It would tear the ship apart. People would die.”
“We will tranquilize it with enough juice to keep it under for the entire trip,” Hardcastle said.
“Oh really?” she quipped. “And just how do you know how much to give it?”
Eric and Hardcastle looked at each other, neither saying a word.
“Just as I thought,” she said. “You’re guessing.”
“It’s an intelligent guess,” Eric rebutted.
“It’s still guessing,” she replied. “And it’s a dangerous matter to be guessing about.”
Eric bit his lip as he considered what she’d said. Charlie could see the wheels in his head turning.
“Look,” she said finally. “Is there some sort of reason why you’re afraid to just pull the animal on the barge?”
“Yeah,” Eric said. “We felt if we kept the animal close, we could monitor it, keep it sedated. If it wakes up on the barge, it’s going to get loose and disappear into the ocean.”
“And if it gets loose inside the ship, it’ll also get free and disappear into the ocean,” Charlie said. “And it’ll kill everyone on its way out the door.”
Eric nodded and looked over at Hardcastle. “She has a point.”
“What if someone sees it?” Hardcastle asked.
“Cover it with a tarpaulin,” Charlie replied. “How far are you going with it?”
Eric breathed deeply through his nose. “I can’t tell you that.”
“Are you taking it to the Great Valley?” She smirked at him, but he remained silent. “Come on…really?”
“Really,” he replied. “Sorry, but some things you’re better off not knowing.”
“So who is the buyer?”
He shook his head. “Can’t tell you.”
There was an awkward silence. Charlie ran her fingers through her short, blonde hair. “Fine,” she said finally. “But if it’s going to be a long trip, you better make sure someone can get to that barge and monitor the animal’s breathing every half hour.”
“We can do that,” he said.
“And you’re not sedating the juvenile tyrannosaur, correct?”
He shook his head. “Don’t see any reason to,” Eric said. “We’ll keep it caged.”
“Very well,” Charlie said. “It seems everything is settled. In the morning, let’s get this done.” She stood up from the table and briskly exited the room.
Eric, Dave, and Hardcastle remained, and they all looked at each other.
“I think I’m in love,” Hardcastle said finally.
Dave rolled his eyes but kept his thoughts to himself.
“You’re in love with every woman that comes to this island, Glenn,” Eric said, annoyed. “You leave her alone; I think she’s a keeper. She knows her stuff and seems to have more backbone than Cruz did.”
“More backbone?” Hardcastle asked. “Didn’t you see that gal crying when those two guys bought the farm in the river yesterday?”
“Give her a break,” Eric replied. “I don’t think she was banking on seeing people die her first day on the job. I think she rebounded nicely.”
Hardcastle nodded. “Yeah, kinda like Littlefoot did after his mom died.”
Chapter 26
Jonathon wasn’t totally sure if he could trust Annie or not. Although he desperately wanted to, he knew the smart thing for him to do was wait and see who the mysterious person was that slid the note under the door. So he did the only thing he could do at
the present time: He waited.
He wasn’t sure how much time had passed because he’d spent at least some of the time sleeping. He wasn’t sure how to feel about the fact that not one living soul had made any attempt to check on him since Annie had left. This could’ve been bad news. For all he knew, someone could’ve been listening in on their conversation and now Annie was paying for it. Or on the other hand, Annie could’ve done her part and told them what they wanted to hear which made him less than a threat now.
The concept of time was not totally lost on him. He knew he’d been in the room less than two days. He wasn’t sure how he knew it, but it was just something in his gut—maybe his internal clock. Since there were not any windows in the room, he didn’t have anything else to guide him. Perhaps his hunger, or lack of it, was another way that he knew. Since he’d eaten a bag of chips from the snack machine, he hadn’t felt the ache in his stomach for more food since. With little else to keep him busy, Jonathon’s thoughts again drifted to his father, Henry, and his friend, Silas. He lay on the couch in the corner of the room, he shut his eyes, and he wept quietly.
***
“So you’re telling me they came all the way back over here just so Silas Treadwell could shoot a tyrannosaur he could mount on his wall?”
Annie had sat down on the couch and removed her shoes. She began massaging her feet; they ached fiercely. “Yes,” she replied. “That’s exactly what he said. I didn’t believe it either, but he was very convincing.” She leaned back on the couch and her body sank into the soft cushions. She glanced over at Eric who was seated in a chair near the coffee table, his legs crossed. The expression on his face was not a comforting one. She wasn’t sure if he was buying the story or not.
