by Steve Cole
Soaked through and freezing, Adam turned and saw the shadow of the Pahalu drifting serenely away from them into the darkness. “Dad, don’t leave me!” he screamed.
Then the boat lurched again and threw Adam backward. He toppled from the deck and smashed into freezing salt water. Stunned, he accidentally swallowed, burning his nose and throat. He choked in the darkness, then felt something hard brush against him. Panicking, he pushed upward, broke the surface, gulped down air. One of the RIBs was bobbing ahead of him. Someone grabbed him by the neck of his T-shirt and hauled him into the crowded boat. More men were floundering in the water, arms windmilling, shouting in terror as massive fins scythed through the water close by. Adam saw some of them swimming desperately for the hunched shadow of the island in the far distance, saw the Hula Queen looming up beside them—or what was left of it.
Staring in awestruck horror, he watched as two of the enormous sea creatures rose from the water, tearing into the hull in a frenzy, ripping out wood and metal with serrated, saw-blade teeth.
Then a deep, creaking noise high above them warned of fresh danger. Adam saw a long, narrow shadow swing across the stars—one of the masts from the Hula Queen slowly toppling like a felled tree, ready to fall and crush them all. Desperately, he tried to dive from the boat, but others were trying to do the same, jostling and blocking his way. He lost his balance, fell back with a gasp. Men trampled him in the darkness. The RIB had become a death pit of bodies writhing in cold salt water.
You don’t know what my friends here can do, Chen had said so proudly.
They can die, thought Adam, all hope of escape gone now. He heard the grating roar of the sea monsters, the yawning creak of the falling timber. Then something hit him across the back of the head and black, unforgiving night descended.
7
FIRST SIGHTING
Adam jerked awake from the blackness of his sleep into strong, burning daylight. He was soaking wet. His head was pounding, and his lips felt cracked and swollen; he licked them and almost choked on the salty taste. He held very still, lying on his back on wet sand, concentrating on the hiss and lap of the sea in his ears.
A single question arrowed through his mind: Where’s Dad?
As the events of last night began to drip back into his memory, Adam dimly recalled someone hauling him out of the RIB as it scraped onto the shore. Exhausted after so many days’ sedation, he’d blacked out again soon after. Even now he just wanted to curl up and go back to the dark. He didn’t feel ready to face the truth of his situation.
I’m stranded. Me and the wildlife . . . and who else? Adam’s eyes snapped open, and he flinched from the harsh light.
He was lying on a beach maybe a hundred meters long, bookended by rocky outcrops. Looking up, he saw an unbroken line of palm trees, shielding the rest of the island from sight. He felt the top of his head and winced as he touched a huge bruise, its center etched with the wet crumble of a scab. His fingers came away bright red; he grimaced, but the injury didn’t seem too bad. That falling mast must have connected with other people before it got me, he realized.
So where was everyone? There were churned up tracks in the sand, leading to the tree line. Others must have survived, but where had the RIBs vanished to?
He pictured the sea monsters tearing apart the Hula Queen. Was his dad still safe on Chen’s other ship? Would he be trying to get to the island, to find Adam? Or since Chen had fallen into the sea, maybe the other crew would’ve cut their losses and just turned and left....
Adam stared out over the glittering turquoise sea that ranged before him. Debris from the Hula Queen bobbed on the gentle waves or lay strewn across the beach: pieces of timber, clothes, plastic boxes, a length of rope.
Then Adam realized there were bodies in the water too.
With a sick feeling, he waded out toward the nearest figure. It was floating facedown, the upper body tangled in a length of sail. Holding his breath, he pulled at the thick, sodden material. That drew the body toward him, and he retreated squeamishly. As he did so, the scrap of sail pulled loose and he recognized the gray cap floating just to the side of the head. It was Doug. Adam tried to turn the bloated body over. It seemed to weigh a ton. Water streamed from the man’s open mouth, and Adam almost retched. He felt tears ball in his throat. He’d hardly known Doug, and the memories weren’t exactly to be cherished. But to see the man dead, and to know how terrible his last moments must’ve been . . .
Anger swamped Adam, heightened by his rising despair. “Hope you’re happy, Agent Chen,” he muttered. “If you aren’t dead already.” He towed the lifeless body through the water to shore, then headed out again to ID the next body, dread weighing down every step. He saw another man floating on his back, his dead eyes baking in the sun.
Mechanically, Adam manhandled the body up onto the beach—he recognized him as one of the deckhands. Then he began to shake. The scale of his predicament was burning through him, hotter than the sun on his skin. He was stranded and alone on Raptor Island, completely cut off from the world outside. Whatever had trashed the Hula Queen would still be patrolling the waters. And surely Geneflow would know about the wreck by now? They were bound to come looking.
But even as he reflected on those dangers, the memory of the hideous red raptor creature calling for help spread through his head like blood through water. It was here, somewhere, with him and who knew what other horrors—all of them crowded together on a tiny speck in the sea.
Adam blinked away his tears and wiped snot from his top lip. He’d been caught in life-or-death situations before; there was no way he was going to give up now. And none of the wreckage in the water seemed to hail from the Pahalu, so that gave him hope. He stood up straight. First, he had to find his fellow survivors. Maybe Chen had been one of those who’d swum for it and found his way to shore. Maybe his radio had survived intact too. If they all stuck together, watched out for each other—
Suddenly a rustling, crashing noise carried from the dense tree line behind him. Adam turned, his heart lurching. There was no cover out here on the beach, nowhere to hide—
Thank God! It was the man from his crew who had fired the automatic rifle into the water. His clothes were in tatters, soaked dark with blood. His staring eyes were wild as he took in Adam and stopped running for a moment. But the crashing from the trees hadn’t stopped. The man turned in terror to look at whatever was coming after him—and a colorless jet of fluid burst from the undergrowth, catching him full in the face. The man screamed, an awful, high-pitched noise, and fell to his knees, clawing at his eyes.
“Help me!” he yelled as the skin on his face started bubbling with gruesome blisters. “I can’t see! I can’t see!”
The cries jolted Adam into action. He started to run over.
But then a monster pushed out from the foliage.
Adam skidded to a stop. Just fifty or so meters away there stood a massive, hulking creature, a few strides from the screaming man. Staring intently. Salivating.
A dinosaur.
Time slowed as the beast burned into Adam’s senses. It was different from the raptor in the video: bulkier, clay-gray, as tall and broad as two men. Its eyes were dark and narrowed. The snout was long like a crocodile’s, the jaws crammed with a wayward mess of ivory spikes that looked strong enough to tear through metal. Its thick, upright torso was balanced on stocky, muscular legs, and its long, ridged neck was balanced by an even longer tail, coiling and twitching as though it had a life of its own. Adam’s eyes flicked between the long, bladelike claws on the ends of the monster’s twitching fingers and the hooked talons curving up from its hind legs, and his skin crawled like it had places to go.
The monster sniffed and switched its attention from the fallen man to Adam. Adam felt sick. Zed had been a much larger beast and way more powerful, and yet there was something more unsettling about this monster. It might have been the way the traditional dinosaur form was roughed up with a shock of short, steel-gray feathers over th
e arms, shoulders and chest, knitting together into a kind of weird chain mail, like it had dressed to kill. Or the way it held itself so still, the drool pooling from its mouth the only movement—a deadly, decisive hunter, assessing its prey.
The man was still screaming in agony, his face blistered red and swollen. Adam wanted to help, but with the beast so close, he didn’t dare. The giant raptor began to sway on its hind legs, back and forth. It ground its monstrous, mismatched teeth together, a noise like nails scraping a chalkboard, while a low growl built in its throat. The man began crawling blindly forward on his knees through the sand, arms outstretched, making for the sea. With a howl, the monster behind him pounced, kicking up huge sprays of sand as it leaped forward, its thick neck stretching and its jaws swinging wide as it bore down on its helpless victim.
Adam turned, sick with fear, and the crunch and crack of splintering bone was like a starter’s pistol firing off his flight. He ran, panic-stricken, tearing over the wet sand toward the outcrop that marked the end of this little bay. He had no idea what lay on the other side, but there was no alternative.
He knew too that there would be nowhere to hide. The giant creature was slobbering over its kill, and it would come for him next. It had no need to rush. It could cover the same ground as Adam in a fraction of the time, and when it caught him . . .
Adam half climbed, half scrambled over the rocky outcrop, the surf slapping against his ankles, the sharp stone scraping his palms. On the other side, he found another empty stretch of beach, littered with clothes and debris from the wreck. No bodies here. Keep it that way, he thought, forcing himself to move faster.
As he jumped down onto the beach and started toward the trees, another of the hideous creatures crashed out from the dense vegetation. It was darker than the other, larger, its head scarred with thick scratches. Adam veered away as the giant raptor spat its own spray of colorless liquid meters through the air. Most of the acid missed, but a little splashed against his bare ankle and he shouted as he felt a surge of pain and heat. But adrenaline kept back the worst of the burn; his body urged him to focus only on his plight, on his flight, on getting away. There had to be somewhere on this island that was safe.
Or off this island . . .
Adam could hardly believe it. Drifting lazily into sight across the calm ocean was one of the RIBs, a vision in fluorescent orange, just fifty meters or so from shore. The Hula Queen’s name was printed on its side—the lapping waves must have coaxed it from the shore edge back out into the waters, or else perhaps it had washed in from the open sea.
Adam heard an earsplitting roar from the outcrop he’d just negotiated as the first raptor made its proximity known. I know how fast they can move on land, he thought. But how fast can they swim? He ran into the ocean, but the water soon slowed his steps, so he dived forward and started swimming for his life with his most powerful front crawl. There was a titanic splash behind him. The raptors were following. Could they swim? He had no idea.
But he guessed he would find out.
Breath catching in his throat, salt water burning his eyes, Adam quickened his stroke. If he could only get inside and get the outboard motor started . . .
He risked a backward glance. Big mistake. The creatures were gaining—their muscular legs powering them through the water. He tried to push himself harder, moaning with fear. Come on. Come on! The orange craft was so close.
But then suddenly, a throaty, aggressive whine spluttered and rose into the air. The motor, Adam realized, starting by itself . . . ?
“No!” he screamed with the last of his strength as his only hope began gliding away from him. “Come back!” The crashing in the water behind grew louder, more ferocious. Adam kept swimming, though he knew in his heart now it was hopeless. His arms were starting to cramp. A jet of burning acid spattered the water, a drop landing on his exposed shoulder. He cried out in pain. Flipping onto his back, he found that the two behemoths were almost on top of him, claws clacking, tails thrashing through the water, their jaws gaping open in grisly grins, pushing down toward him, ready to devour.
8
FINDING HARMONY
The triumphant roar of the raptors snatched all other sound away from Adam’s ears. His only warning that a signal flare had been fired was when an explosion of flame and red smoke detonated in the mouth of the nearest monster. The creature fell back, snarling, frothing and choking smoke. Its brother retreated in alarm, hooting and swinging its great, gray head.
“Get in!”
Adam turned at the shrill call and found the lifeboat had turned back toward him, a dark-skinned girl at the tiller. “Come on,” she urged him, waving the flare gun.
Whoever she was, she’d saved his life. New hope lending him strength, Adam forced himself to struggle on toward the boat.
Steering with one hand, the girl reached over the side with the other and took hold of his wrist, towing him away. While the injured raptor bit and snapped at the seawater to extinguish the smoke and fire in its throat, Adam saw the other raptor gnashing its overgrown teeth in frustration—eager to kill but afraid of the fire. It opened its jaws, and a loud, grating groan channeled from its throat.
Adam could have sobbed with relief as they powered out of range of the killers, moving westward until they’d left the stretch of beach behind. It felt so good to be just pulled along through the warm water, a passive passenger, the girl’s grip on his wrist strong and—
Then the moment of calm was lost as his rational side took hold in a clamor of questions. “Who are you? I thought this boat was empty. Where did you—?”
“Whoa, there.” She cut the engine and turned to him, offering him her other hand. “You’d better get inside. And then how about you try saying thank you?”
He gripped hold of her other hand as she helped him clamber over the side, and he splashed down onto the bloodstained wooden floor.
“Thanks,” he said with feeling. “You saved my life. I’m sorry I—”
“S’okay,” she said, her voice seasoned with a hard American twang. “Raptors are a good excuse for forgetting your manners. Shame that gun was only packing the one flare, or I’d have given both of them a smoking.” She paused. “I’m Harm.”
He looked at her blankly.
“Harm short for Harmony.” She rolled her eyes. “Sucks as a name, right? Harmony Collins.”
“I’m Adam.” He realized he was still hanging on to her hand so he shook it, screwing up his eyes against the sun’s glare. “I was on a ship that was attacked.”
“Last night, I know. Saw you go down.” She mimed a pair of binoculars to her eyes, then lowered them.
Adam’s relief took a smack to the guts as he was hit by sudden doubt. The girl looked half starved, a real survivor—but what if she was part of a trick, someone sent out by Geneflow to pick up any survivors? To pick up him specifically?
“There’ve been a few wrecks,” Harm went on. “Lucky for you, it seems to be the ships the monsters attack, not the people. Even luckier, the raptors didn’t sniff you out as soon as you washed up onshore.”
Adam sat up so the sun wasn’t in his eyes and he could see Harm-short-for-Harmony properly. She was a littler older than he was, the soft lines of her face hardened by experience, her skin darkened nearly black by the tropical sun. Her hair was long and clumsily braided, held off her forehead by a wide, grimy white band. She looked painfully thin; bony ribs poked from beneath her cropped sky-blue top and legs like sticks from her cutoff jeans. She wore a tatty white satchel on a strap over one shoulder, but it looked empty.
She shifted uncomfortably. “What’s the matter? You were expecting maybe Robinson Crusoe?”
“I’m sorry.” Adam realized he’d been staring. “I didn’t know anyone was in the lifeboat when I swam out to it.”
“That’s ’cause I didn’t want them to see me,” she explained. “I was looking for anything useful that washed in.”
“Glad that included me.”
“Not so sure it does, yet.”
Adam half smiled and looked around edgily, wondering what to do. As he did so, he saw a dark red figure standing on a cliff top; a smaller raptor, like the one in the video. As he tensed, it turned and bolted, vanishing from sight.
To tell others? Or to trail them more discreetly?
He looked out to sea. Oh, Dad, why aren’t you here?
As the boat bobbed over a wave, something rolled against Adam’s fingers. It was a half-full bottle of water, caked in sand. Thirsty after his ordeal, he automatically pulled off the top to swig from it.
But Harm snatched it from his grip. “Are you crazy?”
“What?” he asked. “I haven’t drunk anything since last night.”
“I haven’t drunk anything since lunchtime yesterday,” she informed him. “There’s no fresh water on this island. So this is like gold, got it? You can have a sip. Just one for now, ’kay?”
“Sure.” Adam gingerly took back the bottle and wet his lips. Harm took the bottle from him, hesitated, then took a tiny gulp. She closed her eyes and shook a little, savoring the taste. Then quickly she resealed the bottle and pushed it under her seat. “It’s going to be that much harder now,” said Harm, “picking up stuff from those beaches. Place will be crawling with raptors. And we need all the supplies we can get.”
“We?”
“My group.”
Adam raised his eyebrows. “Are there lots of you here?”
“Not anymore. We’re down to three—four, counting you.”
Adam shifted in his seat uneasily. “How long have you been here?”
“Three months.”
Three months? Adam tried to imagine a quarter of a year, trapped in a place where absolutely everything was set on killing you.
She fixed him with her dark eyes. “Your accent. Sounds like you came a long way. How many on your boat?”
“I’m not sure. Mostly American. I’m from the UK, though my dad’s from Chicago. . . .” He changed the subject. “You said your group. Are there other groups hiding out here?”