by Rick Chesler
“I’m a geologist, Ethan, so while I appreciate you trying to make me feel better, I —”
Suddenly, George was pulled underwater in a swift and violent motion. The water roiled and then an object of some kind was seen breaking the water’s surface.
“What is that?” Richard gasped, halting his forward progress to tread water.
Ethan, being an experienced nature photographer, had an idea, but not one that made him feel any better. “Some type of creature, mate. I don’t know what kind, but that looked like a flipper or fin.”
“Great, we have a shark in here?”
Before Ethan could answer, an enormous dark mass arced up out of the water—an animal in a breaching dive. To Ethan, it looked sort of like a whale, except it had four flippers instead of two, and it had a neck, a long, thin neck…at the end of which was a head with sharp teeth that had George Meyer, the geologist, clenched between the jaws. The man screamed wordlessly as he was taken into the air for the final time. Then the animal dove underwater with its prey and disappeared.
Richard shifted his light from the position where the creature had dived to the shoreline, sweeping it across the rockscape, seeking the closest point of escape.
“Let’s go!” Forgoing stealth in favor of top speed, Richard launched into a flurry of windmilling arms and kicking legs, propelling himself toward the rocks. Ethan kept his light trained on the spot where he last saw the creature, his mind’s eye picturing it launching itself out of the crater lake…and he was a kid again, looking at those dinosaur books… I know this one…plesiosaur! But attaching a name to the beast didn’t provide additional comfort. In fact, the opposite proved to be true, since he knew that plesiosaurs were formidable marine predators.
Ethan stopped looking for George and his plesiosaur and struck out after Richard and the shoreline. It seemed impossibly far away when being chased by a primordial monster, but he told himself that if the dinosaur wanted to take him, it was going to take him regardless of his actions in the water. The only thing he could do was to get out as fast as possible so that he wasn’t around when the creature finished swallowing George. What if it decided that wasn’t half bad and went looking for more?
Ethan stopped swimming when Richard aimed his light back at him, waving the beam back and forth. “I see a ledge I think we can get up on over there.” He jiggled the light beam off to their left. Ethan moved off in that direction, expecting to feel a powerful set of jaws tugging at his legs at any moment. But he reached Richard without that happening, and the professional explorer surprised him by handing him his torch.
“Hold this, will you, and aim it up there so I can get out. Then I’ll pull you up.”
Ethan hesitated for a split second. Wonder what he’d say if I said I would go first? But he didn’t want to prolong his stay in the lake a microsecond more than was necessary, plus the ledge was a couple of feet of razor sharp lava rock above their heads and wouldn’t be all that easy to climb out on. Ethan wouldn’t mind being pulled out, at the cost of being second. He took the light. Richard eyed him hard for a moment, then nodded and turned around.
“Right here,” he said, pointing. “Shine it right here.”
Ethan complied, and the Brit began to climb. He made it about three feet up and was stretching an arm out onto level ground when he suddenly fell back, splashing into the water next to Ethan. He cried out in pain, and Ethan’s first thought was that somehow the plesiosaur had struck Richard instead of him, even though Richard had been mostly out of the water until one second ago. But then Richard let loose a string of oaths and shrugged out of his pack.
“That was stupid, I should have known to take my pack off first. Also, let me don my climbing gloves. This stuff is like trying to climb a wall of razor blades.”
Ethan shined the light as the explorer unzipped a side pouch on his bag and took from it a pair of gloves. He put them on and shoved the pack over to Ethan. “Just hold it there until I get up, and then I’ll pull it up, okay?”
Ethan nodded. He had already removed his own pack and so now floated with two of them while shining the light. But the extra work paid off, as this time Richard scaled the ledge without incident, hauling himself out and taking a brief look around. Then he turned back to Ethan, extending a hand. He pulled up first his backpack, then Ethan’s. The photographer had to admit that as pompous as the explorer was, he was quick and efficient in his movements once he selected the proper gear. He was not leaving Ethan to dangle in the water a second longer than necessary.
“You’re going to have to brace your feet against the side—there’s a little cutout—there, yes. Now get a good grip…” He held out a hand and Ethan held on.
“Up you go…” Richard pulled, and Ethan was able to take a couple of vertical steps up until he could step up onto the horizontal ledge. He eyed the explorer in the misty, dim light.
“Thanks.”
Richard nodded, then aimed his light behind them. “Now then, where are we?”
Chapter 11
Ethan finished changing into dry clothes and then shouldered his pack. Richard had done the same, and now he took the two-way radio to the edge of the shelf. He spoke into it, trying to raise the Boat Team, but no response came. Ethan shook his head as he played his beam out across the lake.
“I don’t see any sign of the boat, either. I wonder if that plesiosaur got them, too?”
“Even if it got them, I doubt it would eat the entire raft, too. And even shredded, those rafts float, there would be some sign of things floating around somewhere.”
Ethan shrugged. “So what do you think happened to them?”
“They must have found a passage into a cave. That would also explain why we can’t make radio contact. And remember, we saw that life vest floating down here before we landed. It probably came from the Tongan party, and they came by boat, so it’s possible that there is a passage to the outside from the lake.”
“I guess we’ll have a look around, then. If we can’t find the rest of the team, then maybe we can find a way topside, which we’re going to have to do anyway at some point.”
Richard agreed, and the two men walked back along the narrow ledge—perhaps twenty feet or so—to where it met the volcano’s internal wall, which was solid with no opening of any kind. They began making their way around the perimeter of the roughly circular lake by walking along the ledge, counter-clockwise. Ethan walked lakeside, sweeping his beam across the water in search of any sign of the Boat Team, while Richard patrolled the wall, looking for dry passages that led off the shelf.
They picked along in this way until Richard called out that he had found something. “Over here. Looks like a cave.”
Ethan joined him at the rear of the shelf, and the two men shone their lights inside a cleft in the rock that was perhaps head high and ten feet wide.
“Looks like it might jog to the right, back there.” Richard waved the light back and forth to illuminate the far end of the cave.
“Let’s check it out.” Ethan stepped inside, had a brief look around in the main chamber, and then walked to the rear of the cave. To his right was a cul-de-sac, dead-ending about thirty feet further inside. Richard added his beam to the back wall, scanning it left to right until he froze it in place.
“See that?” A pile of something—sticks maybe, or rocks—lay in a heap at the rear of the cul-de-sac.
Ethan and Richard moved to the rear of the chamber. Ethan froze in mid-step when he got close enough to identify what he was looking at on the cave floor. “Those are bones.”
Richard nodded, walking right up to the pile and kneeling in front of it so as to get a better look. “Human bones, at that.”
Ethan took his point-and-shoot camera from his vest only to find it was soaking wet and now useless. He opened his pack and then dumped the non-working camera inside in case what pictures he had already taken could be retrieved later.
“Should have just used this one all along,” he thought, takin
g out a waterproof camera meant for scuba diving. He didn’t know if diving would be necessary on this trip, but in his experience, it paid to be prepared. To that end, he’d brought along a compact scuba rig. It took up precious space and weight in his pack, but he was glad he had it, if nothing else for the underwater camera that went with it. He’d already lost two cameras on this trip. He needed something rugged that would hold up to the elements here. Then he chided himself for being so petty. At you haven’t lost your life, like Kai and George. He pictured Kai being tail-slammed by the ankylosaurus and George being consumed in the jaws of the plesiosaur.
Ethan clicked off a few pictures of the bones, the camera’s flash dazzlingly bright in the cave lit only by two flashlights. He lowered his camera and studied the bones with his naked eyes. “Do you think…?”
“They’re pretty recent. No meat, though, and many are cracked in half or totally pulverized. Like something massive just went to town on them.”
“Right, like a dinosaur or dinosaurs. But do you think these are from more of the Tongans in the landing party?”
Richard grabbed a bone and used it as a stick to topple part of the pile, exposing more facets of the remaining bones. “It would have to be confirmed by an anthropologist, I would think. I can say with certainty that these are human bones. Look at the skull there. But I am definitely not qualified to tell one race apart from another.”
“The skull is weirdly clean, though, for recent bones, isn’t it? No skin or flesh of any kind.” Ethan snapped some more shots of the newly uncovered bones and skulls.
Richard looked around the cave, at the walls, which were solid lava rock, with a couple of large rocks in one corner. He placed a hand on the nearest wall. “Still warm. We’re standing in a magma chamber formed by hot lava. It’s quite possible that the bones were submerged in lava for a time, which would remove all traces of flesh.”
Ethan was about to reply when one of the rocks against the wall began to crack apart on its own. At first, he thought the cave was collapsing, but as he watched, he understood that only the one rock was being affected. It happened so fast that neither man had time to run. One second they were looking at the rock, and the next, it had burst open, releasing a head-high reptile.
The lizard was thin and spry, very agile even right out of its cocoon.
Richard froze stock still. Ethan wasn’t sure if he was trying out some motion-vision trick on the beast’s eyes or if he just didn’t know what to do, but either way, Ethan sensed that the outcome wouldn’t be good. A little voice in Ethan’s head couldn’t resist telling him what he was looking at: Velociraptor.
Another dinosaur. Fast. Meat-eater. Thought to hunt in packs…before he could recall more facts, the reborn lizard began tentatively snapping its jaws, as if awakening after a very long time and reacquainting itself with its basic functions.
Chapter 12
Skylar withdrew her hand from the big jewel-laced rock just as it split in half. She stepped back—in surprise, not fear. Did she not know her own strength with the rock hammer? As a professional geologist, using that tool was second nature to her. She was certain she hadn’t struck the specimen too hard or at a structural weak point. So then what was happening? Did the mineral possess some unique lattice structure that caused it to fracture easily?
Joystna, Lara, and Anita were crowded around the rock behind her to see what was inside the strange boulder that had been spit from the lake by a geyser. The two halves fell to the cave floor, leaving a dust-covered form in between them. At first, Skylar mistook it for part of the rock.
But then it started to move.
Anita screamed. Joystna backed up, putting distance between herself and the strange spectacle playing out before them. Lara simply turned around and fled as fast as she could toward the rear wall of the cave.
Leaving Skylar face to face with an adult pterodactyl.
The bird-like lizard stamped its feet and squawked once, a hideous screeching noise. The sound awoke Skylar to the fact that this was absolutely not part of a rock. The pterodactyl pecked at Skylar, its hard beak jabbing at the geologist’s forearm, drawing blood. She yelled incoherently, a wordless reaction to the primeval assault.
Then the ptero lunged at Skylar again, putting its whole body into it this time, enveloping her with its leathery wings while batting at her head with its two-foot-long beak. Still holding the rock hammer, Skylar brought it up as hard as she could, but one of the creature’s wings restricted her movement. Still, the metal head struck the animal in the side of its neck, eliciting a sharp squawk accompanied by a jumping motion that took the ptero off of her.
It landed a few feet away on flat ground, in the midst of the four dumbstruck women. The ptero turned in little jumping circles, hopping slightly while turning its body in mid-air so as to give itself a 360-degree view of its new surroundings. Millions of years of evolution, awakening. Even after a slumber of eons, the animal’s genes knew what to do. It began to strike out in exploratory pseudo-flights, hopping high into the air while flapping its wings before landing back on the ground and pushing off again.
On one of these hops, it flew out over Lara, who had reached the end of the lava shelf with nowhere to go other than the lake. The ptero body slammed her, hitting her sideways with its wing. She teetered and then splashed into the lake while the flying reptile wheeled back for another pass across the ledge. Fortunately for Lara, the edge of the shelf was not high up from the lake at this point, and so she was able to scramble up and out of the water, though not without an assortment of deep cuts and severe scrapes. She hunkered down on the edge of the shelf while the winged dinosaur continued to rampage on the ledge.
The ptero bumped against the cave wall and then corrected with a howl, turning out toward the lake while flying about six feet above the ledge. Anita ducked as the predator passed over her head, and Skylar threw a hunk of its cocoon rock at it, hitting it in the side.
The ptero turned to the right after being struck, passing back over the ledge, where Joystna stood, hopping back and forth from leg to leg as if unable to make up her mind in which direction to go. The ptero suffered no such indecision, however, and barreled towards her, mouth agape.
From Skylar’s vantage point at the cracked rock the beast had hatched from, it looked as though a model airplane or something powered was on a collision course with the doctor. Skylar hefted another chunk of rock to use as a defensive missile, but she was too late. The pterodactyl closed its beak around Joystna’s neck and continued to fly along the back wall of the ledge, dragging the doctor with it.
Choking and gasping sounds issued from Joystna’s throat while the creature carried her along, her feet dragging across the rough lava rock, ankles tearing apart on the spiky surface. Lara ducked as the creature passed over her. She grabbed Joystna’s legs and the three of them—communications specialist, doctor, and pterodactyl—were dragged to the ground at speed. But Lara couldn’t hold on when her thigh struck a jagged lava protrusion, and the ptero peddled its legs over the ground while still dragging its prey.
Skylar hurled another rock at the winged marauder. It bounced off the monster’s thick hide, knocking into Joystna on its way to the ground. Skylar picked up another projectile and put her arm back to throw, but then halted. Something was wrong. Joystna. She was still now, unmoving, legs no longer pedaling to seek purchase, and her head… Skylar choked back rising bile as she saw the sick angle at which the physician’s neck now lay in the beak of the beast.
Then the pterodactyl took to the air again, Joystna still in its terrible grip, this time not stopping when it got to the edge of the lava shelf, but continuing to fly out over the lake. It banked into a turn while continuing to rise, circling as it flew ever higher, toward the distant circle of light at the roof of the volcano. When it reached a lofty height above the lake, out of sight from the ledge, the ptero emitted a shriek that echoed across the water.
Then the three remaining members of Boat Team saw Joys
tna’s body plummet down from out of sight above, falling until she landed on the lava shelf on the opposite side of the lake, the crack of the medical doctor’s bones echoing in the hollow volcano.
Chapter 13
“What the hell is that thing?” Richard rasped. Before him, on the floor of the cave, stood a bipedal lizard with a mouthful of razor sharp teeth and unblinking black eyes devoid of personality.
“I think it’s a…uh…a velociraptor.” Ethan raised his camera and snapped off a shot of the freak of nature, careful to keep his movements slow and unthreatening, though he’d have to take his chances with the flash. Hopefully, that would have an intimidating effect, if anything.
“A vel—isn’t that a dinosaur?” The explorer’s voice was shrill.
“Yeah, Richard. Isn’t that what it looks like? “
For once, Ethan thought, the Brit had no snarky retort. The photographer’s silent gloating was cut short, however, when the raptor thrust its head out at Richard. It snapped its jaws where the geologist’s face had been one second earlier. Then, without waiting to further assess the capabilities of its prey, the dinosaur jumped to one side, lashing out with a leg and slamming its clawed foot squarely into Ethan’s chest.
The impact sent him reeling backwards into the cave wall. His shirt tore as the raptor pulled its foot back and the claws ripped through the fabric. The reptile pecked at Ethan’s face, and he reeled back, just out of reach. Then, its attention span seemingly at its limit for any single task, the velociraptor spun and leaped across the breadth of the cave in a single bound, landing on Richard again.
“Help me, Ethan!” Richard bellowed as the beast sunk its teeth into his exposed side. Richard tried reaching down to his pack, which he’d taken off and set on the ground when they’d reached the cave, where he had a machete in a sheath tucked into some webbing on the outside. But the animal knocked him to the ground before he could reach it and began ravaging the man, biting into him and tossing its head back and forth with blinding speed.