by Rick Chesler
Chapter 26
Skylar pushed up to the next handhold, six inches above her fingertips. She dug her fingers in and leaned into the wall, holding on, knowing that to fall was to be consumed alive. Above her, Anita, who had the benefit of being harnessed and roped in, made a lateral move for a relatively wide ledge about six feet out to her left. She could have opted to go straight up by a more difficult reach, but she did not want to fall and so took the detour, after which would be an easy ascent to the summit.
Ethan leaned over the edge from above, urging on his fellow expedition members while trying not to spook them with the stress in his voice as he watched the mass of predators scramble up the rock toward them.
“Don’t look down, just keep climbing, you’ll be fine.”
But Skylar was not fine. She reached a tricky section of the wall where not being roped in was paralyzing her into inaction. “Anita, help!”
Anita looked down from her own precarious position, almost but not quite to the ledge she sought. “What?”
“I need a rope. Can you drop me one?”
“There’s a piton right next to you? Can’t you clip one on?”
Skylar shook her head while watching the advancing dino-lizards clatter their way up the face, ever closer to her. “I don’t have any, didn’t get a chance to get it out of my pack.”
Anita frowned and looked down at her waist belt, to which she had clipped extra ropes, carabiners, and a small pick-axe. “I’ll see what I can do. But if you can move, you should. Don’t wait for me.” She took one hand off the wall to reach down to her belt. While she was in the act of unclipping a coil of rope, one of the chicken-things fell from the top of the cliff onto Anita’s head.
She beat it away with the hand she had been using to get Skylar’s rope, her other hand still holding her to the cliff face, but the motion set her off balance and she teetered backwards. A shocked cry of surprise escaped her lips as she fell. Clipped in to a safety line about ten feet below her, she still faced a twenty-foot fall, upside-down and backwards. The back of her un-helmeted head struck the wall hard, level with Skylar but a few feet to the right.
The horde of avian dinosaurs was almost to both women now, but Skylar had decided on a calculated move and made a jump up to the hold she hadn’t wanted to try for unassisted. She made it, clutching the jagged sliver of rock like life itself, digging her toes into the rock face and leaning in.
This left Anita alone and still exposed at the level of the dinosaurs. She was groggy from the head concussion and slow to begin pulling herself up. But Ethan’s voice, yelling at the top of his lungs, brought her around.
“Pull up, Anita. Move! You’ve got to pull up, now!”
Anita strained her abdominal muscles to reach up for the safety line that had kept her from falling all the way to the base of the cliff. The fingers of her right hand had just clutched around the rope when the first of the reptiles got to her. She let go of her newly won rope, falling back to the rock upside-down again as the bird-like beasts rolled over her body. She swept the first few away, dropping them to the ground below where they skittered around, stunned but unharmed. Unrelenting masses soon replaced their missing ranks, however, and Anita was ravaged beyond help by the pint-sized predators.
She fought as long as she could, flashing on a sailing experience where a friend had died after being tangled in a rope and dragged overboard. After that, Anita had always carried a small, folding knife to cut lines. She pulled it from her waistband now and opened it one-handed with a motion she had practiced many times long ago. She hacked at a few of the primordial attackers with it before it was ripped away as if in a strong wind.
She screamed until her face was eaten off by tiny, razor sharp teeth while she dangled there, one of her eyeballs rolling down the cliff before being fought over by dueling dinosaurs. Her pitiful cries soon succumbed to the ravenous animals, choked off by the lizards’ ripping apart her mouth, consuming the features of her face.
Ethan forced himself to look away and shifted his attention from Anita to Skylar.
The geologist was still on the move, and the bulk of the predatory horde now stayed with Anita’s corpse, decomposing the flesh as if in a time-lapse photography movie of the sea eroding an island over the millennia. Skylar reached for another handhold, gripping it at the same instant as a lone individual latched onto her ankle. She pulled her leg back and dashed the creature’s tiny head into the rock face, caving it in until it sloughed off and fell into the seething crowd below, ingested along with Anita’s rapidly disappearing innards.
“Grab this, Skylar.” Ethan called down from the edge, not so far above, now. He dropped a length of rope down to her. It landed right next to her, but still she clung to the wall.
“Don’t look down. You’ve got some time, they’re below you now. Focus on the climb.” They both knew he meant, You’ve got some time, they’re eating Anita now.
Skylar took a deep breath and gripped the rope with one hand, testing it. When she saw that it held fast, she planted both feet flat against the wall and transferred her other hand to the rope as well.
Below her, a snapping sound echoed off the wall as the chicken-monsters bit through Anita’s safety rope. Then came a sickening thud as the mutilated corpse thudded onto the ground at the base of the cliff, bones cracking. Skylar blocked it out and pulled herself up by the rope. When she reached the edge, Ethan grabbed her by an arm and hauled her up and over.
“Good. You made it. Here’s your pack.” He handed her the backpack. She eyeballed the fasteners, checking to see if they were still closed. It made Ethan mad that she was so selfish as to be concerned about her personal belongings, whatever they were, when Anita had just been so horribly killed before their eyes. But he was in no mood to argue about it now, and even more… He didn’t like to admit it, but he’d rather have Skylar with him than no one to face whatever remaining Hell awaited him on this isle.
“I never opened it. We’ve got to trust each other now, Skylar. It’s just you and me.”
Chapter 27
The rain fell almost as soon as they made it onto the summit. It fell straight down, not driven by wind, and at least it was warm, tropical precipitation not likely to last long without the presence of a storm. Still, it reminded Ethan they were alone and exposed to the elements, with no hope of rescue anytime soon unless they could find that sat-phone.
He glanced at Skylar, who sat on the ground with her legs out in front of her, back resting against her pack, still breathing hard from the exhausting climb. “We should get going. Before…”
“I know.” She rose and put on her backpack, struggling to lift it long enough to slip an arm through the strap. Ethan eyed her suspiciously but said nothing. Right now, he didn’t care what was in that pack. Out of an expedition of eight, only two were still alive, and he was one of them. He intended to keep it that way, everything else be damned.
Skylar managed to get her pack on and they walked off toward the area where the original Slope Team had fallen through to the lake. It felt to Ethan, looking at it now, like that had been days or even weeks ago, even though it was only yesterday. The ground was spongy in spots, and mini-geysers of lava bubbled up in others.
“Over here.” Ethan pointed and picked up his pace as he recognized the swath of destruction from which he had barely escaped the first time he was here. “Keep your distance from the edge, it may not be stable ground around it.”
They skirted the edge of the collapsed ground, moving toward a rocky section traversed with deep cracks but which had not completely fallen away. “The crack the phone fell into is somewhere over here.” Ethan continued to lead the way, moving ahead of Skylar. Volcanic vapors mixed with the falling rain to reduce visibility. As they neared the target area, scratching sounds came from somewhere out of sight in the fog.
Skylar’s head swiveled instantly toward the disquieting noise. “Hear that? Oh God, they’re coming!” She sounded not quite like she was on t
he verge of tears, but the closest he’d heard her come to that, and it worried him. She’d always seemed so level-headed. The last thing he needed was for her to come undone now.
Ethan stopped moving and turned around. “Calm down, Skylar. We’re almost there. Stay focused and keep moving.”
She remained still for a few seconds more, head on a swivel as she searched for the source of the scrabbling. “It’s those little ones that killed Anita, I just know it. They followed us up here, Ethan!”
“We don’t know that, and even if it is, don’t do anything to provoke them. Be quiet!”
“Okay! Shut up before they hear us!”
Ethan narrowed his eyes at her for just a second before turning around and continuing toward the cluster of crevices where he last saw the phone. Skylar resumed walking as well. The scratching sound died away for a bit but then resumed, a little louder, though there was still nothing to see.
Up ahead, Ethan waved an arm in an energetic gesture, beckoning Skylar to hurry up and get to him. When she reached him, he was kneeling next to a crevice and pointing into it.
“Look,” he whispered, pointing down and to the left, where a glimmer of silver contrasted with the brownish rock.
“Is that it?” Skylar wiped the rain from her eyes as she gazed into the volcanic rip.
Ethan nodded. “It at least looks like it’s in one piece, too.” He studied the crack some more before shaking his head. “Not sure if I can get down in there, though. Awfully tight fit…”
Indeed, the crack was barely wide enough to allow a human to fit. Ethan was not overweight, but anybody would have a hard time slipping into the jagged rip, which extended for some ways below where the phone lay.
“I can fit.” Skylar shrugged out of her pack, then glanced up at Ethan as she set it down, aware she would have to leave it unattended while she went after the phone. Ethan, not wanting her to change her mind for this reason, whatever it was she was hiding in the pack, quickly looked away toward the perimeter, where the scratching sounds drew nearer.
“I’ll keep watch. You just get that phone.”
Skylar switched on her headlamp and descended into the hole. The crevice was narrow enough that she could place one hand and one leg on either side of it and ease herself down. She had to go slow, but she made steady progress toward the phone. At least down here, she was sheltered from the rain and couldn’t hear the incessant grating noise of the chicken-dinos running around.
The opening jogged left as she neared the phone, and that’s when Skylar glimpsed a view that took her breath away. Far below the rip, she could see the water of the lake. This crevice went all the way through the volcano’s slope, and then there was about fifty feet to the lake. Luckily, the phone had landed on an indentation of rock a few feet before it would have dropped all the way to the lake.
Skylar inched her body lower until she was within grasping range of the sat-phone. She wedged herself into position with her legs and then reached out and took the device.
#
Ethan saw the first dinosaur about five minutes after he left Skylar in the crevice. As he skirted the perimeter of the summit zone around the tapestry of cracks and crevices where the phone lay, one of the small avian reptiles hopped up onto an outcropping of lava rock and perched there. It cocked its head to one side and then emitted a series of clicks and chirps.
Ethan picked up a small piece of rock and side-armed it at what he thought of as a scout, though he had no idea if that was true. The simple creature scuttled out of the way and ran into the mist. A minute later, about a hundred of them appeared in its place. You were a scout, you little bastard! Not even close to as many as the mob that took down Anita, but a formidable presence nonetheless. Ethan threw a rock behind and to the right of them, hoping to send them off in that direction.
The tactic worked for a few of them, but most of the herd animals continued on their way toward the human. Ethan glanced over at Skylar but he didn’t see her; she hadn’t yet emerged from the hole. Right about now, he wished he was down there, too. He’d be safer there, from the looks of things. The pack of diminutive predators flocked back together after being interrupted by the rock. They turned toward him.
Ethan wasn’t sure if he could fight off this many of the creatures. Half as many, he thought he could deal with. But as it was…he was worried. All it would take was one misstep, a single slip-up, and… Images of Anita’s gruesome demise played inside his skull.
He steeled himself to fight, even going so far as to slip a small fixed blade hunting knife from its sheath, but he had no idea what he planned to actually do with it. He recalled how Anita had tried in vain to use a knife… The first sensations of panic were welling up inside him when the group of herd animals suddenly shifted direction, away from him. They trotted further down the volcanic slope, out of sight into the misty fog. Ethan breathed a sigh of relief, but knew he shouldn’t push his good luck windfall. The predators could return at any moment. He was about to call over to Skylar to see how she was doing when he felt the ground shake under his feet.
Ethan turned toward where he sensed the trembling originate. A small spire of rock toppled over. He began to worry they were having an aftershock from the earthquake, when a towering form emerged from lower down on the slope.
At first, the photographer mistook it for a collapsing section of mountain, so large was the shape. But as it continued its way up the outer slope, the figure registered in Ethan’s mind as something else entirely.
The elongated structure he had thought of as a dislodged boulder was attached to something else. As it rose higher up the slope, Ethan could see that he was looking not at any kind of geological process, but rather a head… A massive, gargantuan head attached to a body large enough to be proportional. Two tiny arms dangled from the front. Dull yellow structures interlaced inside the head. A black orb. All of these things registered fleetingly in Ethan’s mind before the two words that he knew identified what it was he was looking at materialized: Tyrannosaurus rex.
Seeing it also reconfirmed his earlier assumption that it was an allosaurus that had almost killed Anita down in the cavern. This beast was significantly larger, the forearms much shorter. Ethan Jones forced himself to face the nightmarish reality that he was staring at a living, breathing T. rex.
How can this be? He didn’t know why it should be more unbelievable for a T. rex to be roaming around this godforsaken rock than all of the other dinosaurs he’d encountered so far, but for some reason it was. And yet it was real as could be, climbing up the slope, all those millions of years’ worth of evolutionary instinct driving it right toward him. He dropped his knife and started to run. No kind of weapon he carried was going to defend him from this mega-beast. He would just have to lighten his load as much as possible and get away from it.
And when he could….snap some pictures. But not now. Now it was time to run.
#
Skylar clawed her way back to the top of the crevice, the sat-phone tucked safely in her pants pocket while she climbed. When she reached the opening, she didn’t climb all the way out right away, but instead looked around like a prairie dog with its head out of its burrow. Where were those horrible chicken dinosaurs? Where was Ethan?
Not seeing either, she climbed the rest of the way out of the hole up onto the relatively flat ground of the summit. Then she sat on a rock and pulled out the phone, turning it over in her hands, appraising its condition. It certainly looked beat up, with more than a few scrapes and scratches, but the screen was not cracked and the battery compartment was sealed. It didn’t appear to have gotten wet.
Moment of truth… She held down the device’s power button, holding her breath, praying silently it would do something. For a couple of long seconds, nothing happened, and she felt her heart sink to her stomach. Then the screen lit up. The word Yes! escaped her lips in a hiss as she watched the phone boot up. Now to wait for a signal…
She made sure the phone had an unobstructed
view of the sky and then looked around the summit while she waited for it to lock onto its satellites. Still no sign of either Ethan or the dinosaurs. She figured he was probably off taking pictures in his never-ending quest for a cover shot on National Geographic or whatever. Good for him. She just wanted to get off this hellish rock in one piece with her bag of diamonds. Then she’d retire in peace, no more schlepping around the globe, living out of campsites for months at a time. She’d paid her dues. These gems were her severance package, damn it.
The phone beeped, alerting her that it had acquired a signal and was ready to make and receive calls. Skylar opened the contacts and quickly activated the number for their U.N. handlers. She glanced around the summit again while listening to the phone ring on the other end. Still no activity. As she expected, the call went to a voicemail; being in the South Pacific, she knew New York was seventeen hours ahead, which would put it late at night there. The tone sounded, indicating the recording was on. She spoke into the phone in a hushed voice, looking around to make sure Ethan was not within earshot.
She talked rapidly, afraid the connection would somehow be lost due to some quirk of atmospherics or a technical glitch.
“This is Skylar Hanson from the United Nations Gaia Expedition to the newly formed island of Hunga Tonga- Ha'apai, in the South Pacific. The expedition has met with disaster. This island is very unstable, still subject to massive amounts of volcanic activity and earthquakes, but even worse than that…it’s somehow full of…full of monsters—dinosaurs, I think. I know it sounds crazy, but I am of sound mind and am the only surviving member of the expedition.”
She took one deep breath before continuing. ”Here is the official recommendation of the expedition: In order to avert a major world disaster should these dangerous creatures escape, as well as to eliminate an extremely hazardous physical environment while removing all possibility of warring over new land, proceed as follows… Deliver the ‘code red’ aerial bomb to destabilize the island and send it back into the sea—it’s far too dangerous to risk these monsters escaping, and the entire island is a geologically unstable biohazard. If upon arrival you don’t hear from me or see me atop the summit, blow it to Hell. Unlikely I will survive that long, anyway. Good luck all. Dr. Skylar Hanson, over and out.”