by catt dahman
“Brown got me, not long ago.”
Kelly nodded. That made sense. Big Brown scattered the camp that Cindy had been a part of, but the troodons were the ones that injured her so badly. It had to have been days before since Cindy had fought them, and Kelly wondered how a lone woman was able to get away from them. Big Brown had followed Cindy, maybe, but he was also patrolling his territory, and he had caught her not far from the beach.
“Why didn’t we hear anything?” Scott asked. It was exactly what Kelly had been about to ask.
“He mushed me. I done told you that.”
“You let him get that close? You didn’t scream? We didn’t hear him roaring like he does when he attacks.”
“He stepped on me and tried to kill me, okay. I was sneaking here,” said Cindy as she groaned again. “I was lying on my belly and watching you.”
“I knew it. She’s no better than the rest. She was spying,” Stu said, pointing at her and condemning her.
“Spying on what, Stu? On how we fish? On what we’re doing for chores? What is she spying on? Nothing. She was watching us. Right?”
“Whatever you think,” Stu said. He rolled his eyes and made a face.
“Were you coming here for help?” Scott asked as he turned back to Cindy.
“Yeah, look, they ain’t right: Jody and Ricky. They eat the dead, and that ain’t right.”
“You want them to eat people who are alive?” Alex asked.
“Idiot. No. Us. If one of us done dies, they eat us. They don’t care. They just eat us up even though they know us. That’s sick shit,” said Cindy as she groaned with pain.
“Well, welcome to how your type works, bitch. You didn’t care when it was you eating other people, huh? And raping and torturing?” Stu exploded.
Scott didn’t say anything. Stu was right about that. He conceded that.
“Did you know your people raped and killed Lori?” Kelly asked.
Cindy turned her face away from Stu but faced Kelly and said, “I didn’t do that. They did it. I wasn’t there.”
“Maybe you weren’t, but they did it. Have you and your group eaten other people?” Scott asked. “That’s hard for us to accept…cannibalism. It’s sick and cruel; do you get how we feel?”
Cindy spoke to Kelly instead. “We had to. There ain’t always other things, and the dinos eat us. It all comes around. Jody said it.”
“He did not. Jody was always a good person. He is good hearted. That water made all of you this way,” Mattie said.
“Water didn’t make them anyway, Mattie. They still had choices, and Cindy, we don’t eat people, and yet, we do fine. That’s no excuse,” Scott tried to appease everyone.
“We’re just trying to survive. That made us whatever way you think we are. It ain’t the water, I guess. It’s Jody. He’s crazy. He don’t care. Says we are meat, and sooner or later we all get eaten, so it may as well be us doing the eating.”
“How can you blame him for everything? Didn’t you have a voice?” Mattie was getting more upset.
“Sick bitch. Why’re we wasting time here? We should feed her to Big Brown,” Stu said.
Cindy’s eyes went large as she begged, “Don’t feed me to him. Is he your pet or something? You control them dinosaurs?”
Vera walked closer and had her pet dinosaur Angus on her shoulder. She stared at Cindy and acted as if she smelled something bad as she curled her upper lip and wrinkled her nose.
Stu used the opportunity. “Maybe we do. I want to know where your camp is, and I want to know if Jody and the rest are alive.”
Cindy pointed. “That ways. I don’t care anyway. I wanted to get away from them before they ate me. I’m glad all that happened with us scattering.”
Mattie pulled away as if she had been slapped and said, “That is not like my son.”
Scott looked at her calmly, “Mattie, Jody has been on his own a while, and the water sure as hell made the kids aggressive. He may have changed since you were around him. It sounds like he’s become feral.”
“And? He’s either killing people, or he’s dead and has been left out there in the jungle to rot. I have to find my son,” said Mattie as she shook her head. “This is horrible, but if he is alive, I have to talk to him.”
“You want him? Find him. I never wanna see those bastards again. They’ll eat me,” Cindy said.
Kelly checked Cindy’s fever again and wiped away infection that blossomed around a cut on the girl’s belly. “Because of the baby? Did you think you were going to die giving birth?”
“It hurt.”
“I know. Cindy, you had contractions and panicked, didn’t you? Was that why everyone was distracted? Then Big Brown came and then the troodons, and you ran to us.”
“Whose baby is it?” Stu asked.
Cindy rolled her eyes, “Who cares? It didn’t come out. I don’t care anymore.”
“The baby isn’t moving. I think you know that. Her fever is going up,” said Kelly as she gave them a glance and felt of Cindy’s forehead.
“I’m sick,” said Cindy.
“I know. You can sleep and rest here, though. No one here will hurt you. You have to rest, and everyone can calm down,” Kelly said.
Cindy gripped Kelly’s hand, “But you won’t eat me?”
Scott felt sick, too. “No matter what you’ve done and who you were with before, it doesn’t matter. We won’t eat you. Nothing will eat you, I promise.”
“I’m sorry,” said Cindy as she looked at Mattie and relaxed. “He ain’t right. Don’t go looking for him, Mattie. He’ll just hurt you if you go searching. Jody changed. He’s mean now.”
Mattie didn’t answer. She tightened her lips and wiped her eyes. No matter what Cindy said, Mattie wanted to see her son. She loved him. “I can’t accept that he isn’t still the son I know. There’s more to this…”
Disgusted, Stu walked away, and some of the rest watched Cindy, curious but afraid to ask anything more. Kelly said the girl wasn’t doing well and shouldn’t be questioned.
Away from her patient, Kelly explained that Cindy had been moving on pure adrenaline, trying to find a safe place to die; she somehow knew she wasn’t going to survive her injuries. “I think the fever began because the baby died and she didn’t deliver it. I don’t know if the injuries and infections were serious enough to kill her before, but I suspect they were. That is second. Big Brown broke some bones, and that is the third problem.”
“She should be dead three times over is what you mean?” Helen asked.
“Yes, she isn’t going to survive this,” said Kelly as she took deep breaths. It was the first time she had stopped fighting death, and it was new to her. She knew there was nothing she could do, and she had to admit it. “Maybe I can deal with the baby and the infection, but I can’t do much for the broken bones inside of her. They’re causing bleeding internally.”
“How is she alive and conscious?” Helen asked.
“Like I said, she’s running on adrenaline, but her body is being overwhelmed quickly. She wasn’t well fed or healthy before, and it’s catching up with her too rapidly to repair. She’s got too many strikes against her, honestly, and I can’t do much about this.”
“Then, you can’t. We understand that, Kelly,” Scott told her.
Cindy died by dawn, and as Scott had promised, they wrapped her and let her go into the ocean so that nothing would eat her. Stu made several comments about letting Big Brown have her, but he didn’t push his ideas.
Mattie paced the camp and frequently told Scott that sooner or later, they would have to go in search of her son and find him dead or find him alive and face him. She said they had to know if Jody were alive, and if so, she had to know what was going on in his mind.
They went back to daily chores and waited for Big Brown to attack again, but he stayed away, and everyone teased Davey about scaring the big dinosaur away from the beach. Davey carried his lucky spear wherever he went.
“You’re like a cage
d animal,” Helen said. The day after Cindy died, Helen watched Scott walking around camp aimlessly, stopping and staring into nothing and then walking again. He often whispered with Mattie and Harold, sometimes with Alex, and a few times, he and Tom walked together.
Scott shrugged and said, “I hate mysteries. I know there are no answers, but I still want to know what’s out there.”
“Dinosaurs.”
“I know that, smarty pants,” Scott winked at Benny.
“Snakes. Slugs.”
“Right. I seem to remember those as well,” said Scott.
Helen was amused, “Then, what is it you are looking for?”
“I have no idea. I guess I will know it if I find it. I want to know more about the airplane that crashed, who might be on the island with us, and what goes on over on the other side. We don’t even know how big this place is.” He paused. “I’d like to know if Mattie’s son and that group are still a danger or if they’re dead.”
“As for the size of the island, I can say one thing: it’s huge if it supports the creatures we’ve seen. Alex agrees,” Benny said.
“Every time anyone goes exploring, we lose people,” Helen reminded them.
“That’s why I’m going with only a few people. Wait, before you get angry, the kids need you, Helen. I’ll be fine and can move faster and easier with only a few people. That leaves more here to defend the camp.”
Helen’s eyes narrowed. He had obviously already planned his trip to explore the island and hadn’t told her until now. She understood his reasoning, but that didn’t make her any less afraid. “When are you going?”
“In a few minutes. I didn’t want to fight over this.”
“Wow. Okay. There isn’t much I can say,” said Helen.
“I have to know these things about this place. I need it. We have to know more if we expect to survive,” Scott said.
“Come home safely is all I ask,” said Helen, as she tried to talk around the lump that filled her throat.
She felt sick as she watched him walk away with the worst possible group: Alex who was increasingly afraid of his own shadow, Tom who had only one arm to fight with, and Mattie, who was bitter, but desperate to find her son. Harold was a good worker but a poor fighter, and the sixth member of the team was Joy, Tom’s girlfriend, who followed him blindly. Helen noticed that Kelly looked at Tom and Joy with sad eyes.
“I tried to talk sense into Scott,” Tyrese told Helen.
“It’s the way he thinks; he’s too curious for his own good, and I don’t think he feels it’ll work out very well for him.”
“He doesn’t?” said Tyrese.
“No, he took the people we can stand to lose, those who are worn out and tired. He doesn’t expect the search to go well. He can’t risk you or me this time, Ty,” said Helen as she turned away and refused to watch Scott and the other five walk into the jungle. She knew they wouldn’t be returning.
Chapter 15:Into the Unknown
Scott felt the odds were about fifty-one percent that he would be the cause of Helen’s death, and if he watched her die, he’d probably kill everyone else before drowning himself. That wasn’t good. On the other hand, he thought he might save her life, but gave that only a forty-nine percent probability. In asking Alex, one of the smartest men he knew, Scott was attempting to get another opinion on his musings.
“I think it’s more even, really, but that doesn’t say much either, because you might save us, or cause us to get killed, right? I’m not sure I like knowing my odds are half or less at surviving this trip or any trip with you,” replied Alex.
“You’ve got it all wrong. We had a lot with us when we met you people, and we are now down to two. I’m not a whiz at math, but isn’t that poor odds?” Mattie asked.
“I wasn’t to blame for Lynn or Lori or the others,” said Alex.
“We could debate that. I’m just trying to help,” Mattie said. “I know if you run into my kid, I’m all that may keep you alive. Besides, maybe we can bring them around and help them. I want my son back. I’m going to find Jody.”
“I’m going because of Mattie. Who else does she have except me?” Harold asked.
“Your son may attack us. Mattie, you probably won’t be able get through to him,” Scott said.
“I can try. At least I’ll have that: I tried.”
“I can’t deal with my mother’s constant suffering and Stu’s bossiness and Vera’s bitchiness right now,” Tom said as he readied himself to go, “and I’m tired of seeing the smug look Kelly wears all the time. She’s sleeping with Stu now.”
“Slut,” Joy said.
Alex snorted, remembering how Joy had slept her own way around the campfire, but he didn’t bring it up, saying only, “Scott may need me to identify a dino.”
“Littleton moons over Helen. What about him?” Mattie asked Scott.
“She can handle him. Maybe they belong together, but I doubt he’s her type.” As he turned to Tom, Scott told him, “Kelly is a good person, and you can’t keep holding a grudge.”
“Sure I can. I tried to forgive her, but I can’t. It isn’t just that she hacked off my arm because I get that: she did it to save me, but it’s more than that. I can’t wrap my mind around the fact that she betrayed me when she made the choice, but then she didn’t stand by it.”
“Huh?” Alex asked.
“She makes excuses and wants me to understand. If from the get-go, she had just said that she was the expert and made the decision, I could have dealt with it. She backtracked it and won’t own up to it. Same with Stu. She hated him and feared him a little maybe, and then she sleeps with him. Why?”
“She wants sex?” Alex laughed.
Tom smiled but shook his head and said, “No, she sleeps with him because she won’t stand up to him and own her actions. She does it to placate him. Same as she does me.”
Scott frowned. “Maybe she’s scared, Tom. You’re being a little rough on her.”
“Yeah?”
“I mean you fooled around with Joy first. You cheated on Kelly before she ever cut off your arm.”
“I remember it well. As soon as we got back, I was sick, almost crazy with infection, and you don’t know this, but I told her that I was afraid I was dying and wanted to come clean. Thing is, I didn’t die, did I? Hell hath no fury, Scott.”
“Oh hell, Tom! There is no way she did that as revenge.”
Tom shrugged at Scott and said, “Whatever you think, but I’m telling you, she did, and I’m also telling you that she and Stu are snakes of a feather.”
“Snakes don’t have feathers,” Joy said.
“Dinosaurs do, though,” Alex said.
They walked past the giant bones that were left in a pile on the beach, the ones that Alex and Benny had been so interested in. Alex took less interest and didn’t look at them except once as they passed by. With no one to talk to about them, they were less interesting.
They made camp on the beach two nights in a row, hoping the fire would keep them safe. They fished and ate some of the food they brought and found a large supply of coconuts for their water.
The empty coconuts shells caught the water from a short but plentiful rain shower the second evening and allowed the group to refill their bottles and canteens. More coconuts went onto the small sled they pulled. They carried extra food, a few tarps, blankets, cooking utensils, and more weapons on the little sled as well.
“That’s unusual,” Harold said, wiping his face. He stopped to look at boulders that stretched out into the ocean in one direction, as far into the jungle as he could see in the other direction. “Forty? Fifty feet tall?”
“I told you I was beginning to believe in giants,” Alex snickered. He led them up and down the boulders that they found first. “Look, we can suck in our guts and maybe get through that part there; see the shady area?”
“Why?” Joy frowned.
“Why not? That’s what we’re here to see, Joy, to find out what is in all the places we�
�ve never seen.” Tom took the lead and wiggled between two of the boulders, kicking sand, rubbing away loose dust, and pushing along.
The crack was only ten feet long, the width of the giant boulders, but Tom was scraped and scratched before he made it through. “Go slowly, Joy, suck it in, and raise yourself up to find wide places, and then go lower when you need to. Plan your moves.”
“I’m stuck!”
“Of course, you would be, Joy,” Scott muttered. He wasn’t very surprised to hear her calling for help.
Scott sighed and climbed into the crack behind Joy and pushed and poked her until she popped out the other side; she bled from scrapes and cursed.
Alex had to do the same for Harold who was stuck for several minutes, until Alex helped him dig a lower space in the sand so that Harold could drop lower and crawl through. Tom yanked at Harold with one arm.
Thin and small, Mattie made it through with ease. She grinned and showed off that she hadn’t even scratched herself while crawling through the boulders. She brushed sand off her legs.
Joy had already forgotten her cuts and bruises as she ran from spot to spot, squealing. “Oh my, God. Do you see all of this?”
“Is that an avocado, and pears? Figs. It’s a garden of fruits,” said Scott as he cheered happily. “You have to be kidding me. Did we hit the Garden of Eden? Figs! I have died and gone to Heaven.”
“Oh, that? Yeah, there is a variety of fruit, but it gets better. Growing over there is kale, and those are fiddlehead ferns; they are delicious, and there are nuts and root vegetables,” said Alex.
“Why?” Scott asked Alex.
Alex looked around and smiled, “Someone made a garden, cultivating it and making sure good food grew here. I mean nutritious but good-tasting food. It’s gone wild now, but it’s all edible.” It was a perfect spot because only the compys could get inside of the walled garden.
“Giants didn’t build it?” Scott teased. He popped berries into his mouth and peeled an orange. “How is it there are walls made of boulders?”
“I doubt it was a giant. I still have hope, but no, someone normal built it, I guess. Who knows? It looks like from the size of these trees that someone planted them to grow here long ago. Maybe fifty or more years ago? Longer probably,” said Alex as he laughed crazily at all the fresh food.