“Doe… doesn’t it erupt every day?” Marissa said, still coughing and struggling for breath. “Like the others?”
“Not this one. We thought this one was asleep. I guess a meal of starjet surprise has given it a taste for destruction.”
Ash stared up at the smoke billowing from the volcano. He shrank back as purple bolts of lightning forked through the vigorously folding smoke.
“How long?” Ash said, panting. “How long till it goes?”
“It could smoke for a year then stop,” Reece said, “or it could go in the next few seconds. We’ll only know when it… well, you get it.”
“Then we need to leave,” Marissa said, scrabbling up and running. “Come on, follow me.”
“No, Marissa, wait!” Reece shouted.
Marissa stopped as her feet stuck in the mud. She managed to lift a foot. Ash noticed a stringy, oily substance had a hold of her. He stared at the substance, confused. Marissa appeared to be sinking. She screamed and pushed against the strange oily goo that was already at her knees.
“It’s got my hands,” she cried, trying to lift them from the stringy tar.
Ash sprang up and moved forwards, testing the dark ground with a foot before putting his whole weight down. Around him, it looked like the aftermath of a nuclear explosion. Everything was gray and black. Only a few dead tree stumps punctuated the barren landscape. The lava tube had spat them into the valley of the shadow of death. A meter from Marissa, his foot sank into the muck. Marissa was up to her collar now, screaming, pleading with Ash to help her.
“It’s a tar pit,” Reece called.
“Grab my legs,” Ash yelled, falling forwards.
His chest slapped the tar as Marissa took a deep breath and sank below the surface. He felt the warm treacly substance slide around his face and shoulders as he sank in after her. He felt Reece’s strong hands clasping his ankles. He found moving his arms in the thick tar incredibly draining. He already felt the need to inhale. He couldn’t have been more than half a meter deep, but the tar was so thick the pressure squeezed painfully into his eardrums. His lungs heaved as he forced his arms forwards, through the muck. He was going to inhale. He couldn’t stop himself. Then he felt Marissa’s hand. She gripped him tightly.
Lungs screaming, Ash kicked his legs and felt Reece tugging him backwards. The tar sucked at his sides. He was moving too slowly. He needed a breath. He could feel a dark cloudiness entering his thoughts. He desperately needed air. He didn’t know if he could keep hold of Marissa. A pulsing black void was beginning to devour his consciousness. He gripped Marissa as tight as he could, chest screaming with pain. Then, as the darkness won, his lungs gave up the fight.
A white flash. Pressure on his chest. Distant voices. Weightless. Drifting. Louder. Louder… LOUDER
“Wake up!” A swirling voice screamed.
Ash felt lips press against his. His lungs inflated. He opened his eyes and saw Marissa and Reece leaning over him. Marissa was covered in tar, smeared across her face and hair. She yelled excitedly and thrust her arms around Ash, lifting him from the floor.
“I love you, Ash,” she said, trembling. “I love you. You’re my guardian angel. You really are a hero. I’ll love you forever.”
“That was one hell of a thing, kid,” Reece said as Ash curled his arms around Marissa. “I don’t think I’ve ever met someone like you before. Mr Yamamoto was right about you, that’s for damn sure.”
Lightning flashed and Ash’s eyes bolted wide. He pointed skywards and yelled. Above them, circling in the rain, the sky was full of pterosaurs.
Rations
“T
here we go,” Becca said, surveying the rations of sandwiches and water they’d scavenged from Big Yellow. Rain lashed against the submersible chamber’s glass, which distorted the view of the world outside. “This should keep us going till morning.”
“Isn’t Reece coming back before then?” Harper asked.
“I don’t know,” Becca said, feigning a smile. “We’ve got to operate under the assumption we’re walking out of here, which we can’t do until morning. Let’s just eat and get some sleep. Don’t worry about what and how. Let me do that. There’s a viewing platform with a monorail just that way,” she said, pointing. “Either way, we’re getting out soon, okay, hon?”
“Don’t they need sleep too?” Marty said, nodding to the three armed guards patrolling the jungle outside. “Won’t they get sick in the rain?”
“They’re pretty tough,” Becca said. “They’re trained for this sort of thing.”
“I’m so tired,” Babs said, yawning. “I can barely keep my eyes open.”
“Me too,” Marty agreed. “I’m beat.”
“Eat something before you sleep,” Becca said, trying to supress a yawn of her own. “You need the energy.”
“All that chewing sounds exhausting,” Babs said, sighing, her heavy eyelids sagging shut.
“Just eat,” Becca said, chuckling. “Just a few bites, then you can sleep.”
“Okay,” Babs said softly.
Nowhere to Run
P anicking, Reece unloaded his pistol at the pterosaurs, who were circling lower with each pass, their wingtips leaving trails in the rain. Searching for somewhere to escape to, Ash stared towards the volcano. High on its flank, waterjets gushed from a series of lava tubes, into a tumultuous, frothing mass of water that curled around the volcano’s base like a moat. In the opposite direction, tar pits bubbled. A haze of fog obscured the far distance. He realized they’d made landfall on a small island made of silt and volcanic ash, sandwiched between alternate visions of hell. Lightning ripped across the heavens and torrential rain fell from the sky as though all the water in all the universe had been unleashed at once.
“Get away!” Reece roared, throwing the empty pistol into the sky at circling monsters. The weapon slapped uselessly into the tar and sank.
Marissa clasped her hands together and started praying. The pterosaurs flexed their talons and glared down on the trio. With the amount of smoke pouring from the volcano, Ash knew they’d not be taking them back to feed their young, who’d almost certainly drowned or burned to death. This time the feast would be for their own pleasure.
A loud noise, like angry wasps, reached out of the darkness.
“Mo, you’re a god!” Reece cheered.
“Drones,” Marissa yelled, pointing and jumping. “The drones are here!”
Ash watched four quadcopters triumphantly streak through the rain. They unleashed deep booming pulses of ultra-low frequency sound that made Ash’s chest vibrate. The pulses created visible cones in the falling rain. They attacked the circling pterosaurs, who started falling from the sky.
Before the creatures had a chance to orientate themselves, so their wings could catch the air, the drones blasted repeat attacks, sending the animals splatting into the tar, where they writhed furiously, their wings and beaks dripping with stringy, oily goo. Slowly, the blackness started to swallow them up.
A pterosaur dove from the sky, snatched a drone in its talons and crushed it like a cookie. Another angled its dive and flew alongside a second drone. The creature snapped its jaws and took a chunk out of the buzzing craft, which veered out of control and crashed into the water. The two surviving drones retreated. They flew in a wide arc, then angled for a fresh attack run, downing three more pterosaurs in one pass. The next pass downed another two. They were winning. Ash, Reece and Marissa cheered. They were actually winning. The remaining creatures shrieked and began retreating, the drones forcing them back and downing at least one more.
Ash looked on, feeling sick as the sinking pterosaurs fought against the tar, bleating terrified, shrill cries. Very soon, the only remaining sounds were the rain and the drones, which had returned and were hovering protectively above the bubbling tar. One of them descended and hovered in front of Reece, titling left and right. It buzzed away and returned. It repeated the bizarre dance two more times.
“I think it want
s us to follow,” Marissa said.
“I think you’re right,” Reece said. “Lead the way, Mo. You two good to go?”
“Nah, I think I’ll stay a while and work on my tan,” Ash replied.
“Let’s get to it then,” Reece said, chuckling. “I think we might actually do this. Things are looking up.”
“You mean you weren’t sure we’d make it?” Marissa said.
“Well, back in that volcano the odds weren’t great. We’re about evens now.”
“Just evens?”
“Believe me,” Reece said, moving off after the drone, “evens is a great place to be after where we were, really fricking great.”
One of the drones disappeared into the rain as the other led them through the tar pits, along thin muddy trails that weaved through the bubbling blackness. Ash’s legs ached and a deep, wretched tiredness was setting in now his adrenaline was fading.
“I’m not sure how much longer I can keep going,” Ash said. “I’m so tired. My legs are spent.”
“I’m dying too,” Marissa said. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt so exhausted. The mud’s so thick. Feels like we’ve been walking for weeks.”
“I know,” Reece said. “Just a little further. There’s a bunker about half a mile away, at the edge of the jungle. It’s probably got no supplies as it hasn’t been used in years, but it’s safe. There’s loads of them across the island. They were used by the engineers and construction crews who built this place, as refuges in case things got hairy. We’ll be safe in there for the night. We can rest without fear of attack. Not much further, another twenty minutes max.”
“Did they?” Ash asked.
“Did they what?”
“Get hairy? Did people get killed? Did Mr Yamamoto know how dangerous this place was?”
“We knew it was dangerous. We make a point of pressing home how dangerous it is to everyone that comes back here. Have the last time of your life or the best time. We say it to everyone first thing, so visitors don’t stray outside the boundaries. We genuinely thought we’d tamed it. For all intents and purposes, we genuinely believed we’d made it safe. I know it doesn’t sound realistic now, but we tested for years. Until today everything’s worked like clockwork. I know it doesn’t help, but Mr Yamamoto did everything possible to make the experience safe. We messed up. I’m sorry you’ve been put through this. It wasn’t what we wanted. It was supposed to be magical.”
“I’m not blaming him, or you,” Ash said. “We chose to come back here.”
“Thanks, kid, but we deserve some blame,” Reece said, sighing and shaking his head. “It’s my job to run this place and keep everyone safe. I’ve done a pretty lousy job so far.”
“I’d say you’ve done a pretty amazing job,” Marissa said as lightning flashed. “You got us out of a volcano, a volcano! That’s grade A hero stuff.”
“Thanks, but no. You should never have been in a volcano in the first place. Just saying that out loud sends chills through me,” he said, rubbing his forehead. “A fricking volcano, that’s crazy…”
“I wonder how the others are doing,” Reece said. “Things were pretty messy last time I saw them.”
“They’re safe with Becca protecting them,” Reece said. “She’s a survivor. Back on Earth she worked as a ranger in Kruger National Park. She fought off a lion once. A tourist got out of a jeep to take a picture and got attacked. Becca beat the damn thing up,” he said chuckling. “She got one hell of a war wound, but man that woman can survive. With her they’re as safe as anyone can be.”
The trio trudged on and after what felt like eons of walking, Ash spotted a concrete bunker a short distance away, at the edge of the jungle just as Reece had said. They were finally heading out of the mud and tar. From somewhere inside, a reserve of energy kicked in knowing that soon they’d be able to lie down and sleep.
“The bunker,” Ash said, pointing.
“Yeah, not much further,” Reece replied, unhooking his canteen, screwing off the lid and holding it out, trying to fill it with rain water.
The drone made an intermittent fuzzing sound, then dropped from the sky and plopped into the mud.
“The drone!” Marissa cried.
“It’s done its job,” Reece said. “We don’t need it anymore.”
“Just wondering, if Becca was a ranger, what did you do back at home?” Marissa asked as they made for the bunker.
“Me, ah, navy stuff. I spent a life on the move. Strange thing is, this place has been the first time I’ve stayed in one place for more than a few months in years. It almost feels like home.”
“Is that because of Becca?” Marissa said, slipping her hand into Reece’s. “She’s nice. You’d make a good couple.”
“Pah, I dunno, maybe,” Reece said, shaking his head. “I… uh… I…”
“She likes you,” Marissa continued. “It’s obvious. You like her too. I can tell.”
“I dunno,” he said chuckling. “Man, I feel like I’m in high school again. This is ridiculous. I’m a million miles from safety, talking about my love life with a kid. Now that really is nuts. I’m pretty sure she just sees me as a friend.”
“Nah, she definitely likes you,” Ash said. “It’s so obvious, man. Dude, really?”
“I dunno. I mean, I wouldn’t wanna… you think?”
“You should tell her how you feel,” Marissa said. “Don’t leave things until it’s too late. You’ll only regret it if you do. She won’t wait forever.”
“How are you all so mature?” Reece said, exhaling. “At your age I was as dumb as sticks. Maybe still am. Almost definitely am, come to think of it.”
“When you see her again, tell her,” Marissa said. “I think you’ll like the answer.”
“We’ll see. Let’s focus on getting you two out of here safe and in once piece first, okay?”
Ash and Marissa followed Reece to the bunker’s entrance, where Reece tugged on a heavy metal door which creaked open. The room inside was small and bare. There were only two tiny slits for windows, but it was warm and dry, and free from dinosaurs and bugs and monsters and everything else that wanted to kill them. A warm sense of relief doused Ash and he allowed his tiredness to envelop him.
“So tired,” he said slumping against a wall, yawning and sagging down. “So massively tired.”
“Rest up,” Reece said. “I’ll wake you both at sun-up. Good job today, guys.”
Until Dawn
B ecca stayed awake until the kids had fallen asleep. The rain seemed to be doing an excellent job of blocking the sounds of the feeding frenzy on the beach, which was only briefly audible when the rain slackened momentarily. Darkness had fallen and to her relief she hadn’t seen a dinosaur in hours. Perhaps the plesiosaur carcass had already been stripped bare. Thunder and lightning crackled and flashed. The jungle canopy swayed busily in the falling rain. The guards stood outside, alert and motionless, their rifles pointed towards the ground. They’d protect the group until dawn.
The rain pattering against the submersible chamber reminded Becca of camping trips with her parents when she was young. She’d always felt so secure, snuggled in a sleeping bag beside them. Nothing could hurt her with her dad around, not a bear or a wolf, nothing. The man had been her superhero, always at her side when she’d needed him. Even towards the end, when illness was stealing the life from his body, he’d put Becca and her mother first. He’d been an amazing man and father. The world had lost someone precious when he’d journeyed to the other side.
She hoped he was watching over her, keeping her safe. Even though he’d gone, she could still feel him, all around her, like his essence had become woven into the fabric of the universe, which wrapped around her in times of need like a protective blanket. Her freshly bandaged arm started to throb, so she injected more painkiller and curled up to sleep, thinking of her parents. She couldn’t wait to get back to Earth to see her mother and give her a hug.
“I love you,” she muttered, closing her eyes.
At some point in the night, Harper’s moaning woke Becca. She sat up and gently shook the boy, who was obviously experiencing a night terror. Harper mumbled and looked at her, but was soon sleeping again, albeit restlessly. Babs and Marty snored softly. Harper’s legs kicked and he cried out, making Marty stir.
“Shhh,” Becca reassured, gently rocking Harper. “Shhh, just sleep,” she whispered. “Poor kid. I’m so sorry I did this to you all. We should never have brought you here.”
Outside, lightning flashed. She noticed something moving in the foliage. Where were the guards? She leaned forwards as the lightning strobed. Horrified, she saw two of the men bound up in glistening tentacles. They were kicking their legs, being lifted into the trees. The third guard, who was a few meters away, span around and pointed his rifle, searching wildly as the men vanished upwards.
The vines behind the man moved. Sinewy, twisting arms reached out. She saw the surprise in the guard’s face as a tentacle curled around his neck. He released a brief burst of muffled gunfire, then flew upwards.
Becca shrieked and clapped a hand to her mouth. Harper stirred, but didn’t wake. Something squeaked against the glass beside her. She silently screamed and turned. A giant eye, within a pulsing greenish black blob was staring at her. Tentacles hooked around Big Yellow’s frame and the creature dragged itself across the glass, streaking slime. A beak emerged from the creature’s pulsing bulk and clicked against the glass. The animal obviously didn’t like the sensation as the beak withdrew. It reached out and curled multiple tentacles around nearby trees. It glared at Becca, then shot off, swinging through the trees at incredible speed.
“Reece, please, w… where are you?” Becca stuttered. “I need you.”
She clenched her shaking hands and stared up at the hatch, praying the creatures weren’t going to return and work out how to spin the valve handle. If one of them got inside, they’d be turned to soup. It would be a massacre.
Jurassic Earth Trilogy Box Set Page 18