by catt dahman
After the first night spent in the cave, they were forced to put off leaving as a storm blew in, beginning normally enough with thunder, lightning, and rain, but becoming worse and more ominous over the next twenty-four hours. The yellow mist covered the ocean and tinted the clouds, while the wind wailed and whistled through the cave system, sounding ghostly. Everyone wondered what the storm might bring to the beach and feared seeing wreckage.
The group was glad for their supplies and unwilling to venture out into the bad weather. They hoped the storm would pass, but it lingered. Sometimes it seemed normal for a long time, but it always turned strange again. The sky always looked yellowish when the storm increased in intensity.
Joy moaned that she thought the storm might last forever, but Tom kept saying that he felt the island had frequent storms and that this was most likely the rainy season, so they would just have to wait it out. Having often sailed on the yacht with his father, Tom was accustomed to times in the tropics when storm seasons raged for weeks at a time, but they always tried to avoid those times.
Mattie stayed wrapped in a blanket that never lost the damp feeling even though she sat next to the fire. The air was always chilly and wet.
“At least we have food, right?” Alex said.
“And it won’t rain forever,” Scott said, hoping that was true.
At times, he stood at the mouth of the cave and listened to the wind and thought he heard louder crashes from far away. He said he felt the storm wouldn’t cause the biggest predators to slow down because they were hungry and needed to hunt for food. The activities of the carnivores kept the prey from getting too complacent.
More than once they saw blazing fires that dimmed quickly with the rain, but Alex said that they were the fires from plane crashes in the jungle or on a nearby beach.
“It’s active right now, isn’t it?” Alex asked.
“The weather?” asked Tom.
“The island,” Alex told him, “it’s been loading up for over a month now. The storms have been worse and closer together.”
“Storm season,” Tom added.
“Yeah, but here, that means something else, doesn’t it?” asked Alex as he began to ration their food, hoping that they wouldn’t be stuck in the cave forever even if it were safe from most of the dinosaurs.
A few unfortunate compys tried to take shelter in the cave, and Scott and Alex pegged them with rocks, adding their meat to the rations.
“Even the animals hate these storms,” Mattie said. She ate her portion of the compsognathus meat and thought of broiled chicken; it tasted good, but she was tired of the cave and endless boredom. All there was to do was sleep.
After the first week, a sense of depression swept over them since they had to remain inside the cave. Scott worried about their mental state as much as he hated the chill and dampness.
Living in a cave was not pleasant, and he wondered why Mattie’s husband and son had chosen it over staying with their airplane. It felt like Scott and his friends were already becoming less advanced the longer they remained.
“You aren’t a caveman,” Alex said.
“How’d you know what I was thinking?” Scott asked, surprised. He was sharpening a spear tip and imagined doing that every night by the light of the fire.
“I can see your face and the way you keep looking at the rocks. I feel the same way. Because we were excited about food and are now depressed over the storms, we are reactionary.”
“I feel like I’m devolving,” said Scott.
“Maybe we all are,” Alex said.
“Does the wind sound weaker?” Joy asked. It was the same question they had asked dozens of times.
“Maybe.” Scott thought that this time the storm was less violent, but he had been fooled days before. “You hate being out there on the run. You hate being cooped up. It’s one of the other. Relax.”
“I hate being stuck here,” Joy said. She felt like complaining about everything; it was something to do, at least. She knew it aggravated Tom, but she couldn’t stop herself. She wasn’t smart like Alex or strong like Tom and Scott. Harold and Mattie were quiet and depressing, so Joy entertained herself by whining.
She didn’t explain that she hated the storms and that the rain was holding them hostage. She hated the cave’s dampness, the bugs that crawled around the cave, the dirtiness that was always there, the booming thunder, and the fact that there might be more ships and planes wrecking.
The next day was calmer, the yellow faded from the sea and sky, and the day after that was clear. It would be a while before everything dried out. The storms might return, but the group could not stand to stay inside the cave another day, they had to find fresh food, and they had to be active again. They craved the sounds of the ocean and the chance to wash themselves.
Joy let the sun warm her face and reveled in the warmth. “It feels so good out here in the light.”
They fished and gathered fruit but returned to the cliffs to spend the night in a new cave, and as they traveled this section of the island, they wondered how long the cliffs and caves would last before there was no longer shelter. They hated being trapped in the caves by the storms, but liked sleeping in them at night so they were safe. They had both mind-sets.
“We’ve been lucky. We keep finding places to stay when we need them. Maybe our luck will hold,” Scott said. “I wouldn’t mind having caves as shelter, but it feels wrong to stay in them for very long.”
“We’re never satisfied, are we?” Tom mused. “I think it’s because we just want to be back home.”
“Home is gone. We’re not going back. Home’s gone,” replied Scott.
“Scott, you sound like Stu,” Joy protested. “I know he’s your brother, Tom, but he’s an ass most times.”
“I can’t argue that. Scott is right, though. Home is gone,” Tom said. He put his arm around Joy and let her sniffle for a while.
Mattie and Harold looked uncomfortable.
“We’ve been lucky that there are fewer predators here. There’s nothing for them along the cliffs, but that doesn’t mean they don’t look for food,” said Alex as he watched the trees.
Mattie jumped as a flock of birds burst from the trees and a roar echoed. She was tired of combing through trash on the beach, as she stepped over an old ship’s rotten mast.
She hated retreating to the caves at night, but the thought of being out in the open was terrifying after becoming used to the safety the cliffs offered. She stopped to kick the piece of rotten wood, hating the truths of a bent reality that it represented.
“There’s something in the trees,” Alex said.
“There always is,” Joy shrugged as she told him that. Her head snapped around as another roar sounded, and this closer one scared her. She moved closer to Tom. “Not again.”
“Always again. They never stop trying to get a free meal,” Mattie said.
“We aren’t free,” Joy said nervously.
“What are they?” Harold asked.
“How could Alex know?” Scott responded.
“I know this; it’s big,” Alex snapped. They kept asking him what was stomping and roaring behind them but hidden by trees and rocks. He couldn’t see what kind of dinosaur was stalking them, only that there were several of them and that they were large predators, which moved along the same trail as the humans.
“Cliffs or the wreck?” Scott asked. He didn’t know if they could make it to a cave before the big creatures got to the beach, but wreckage from some plane was closer, and they could fight from there if attacked.
“The plane…” Mattie ran towards it.
A large section of the middle of a jetliner was dented and crumpled in spots, but mostly intact. One end of the middle was sealed like a tin can, and the other end was flush against the face of the cliff.
Unfortunately, other parts of the plane were torn away. One wing was sheared away and stood tip-up in the ocean, a few dozen yards off the beach. The nose section was separated and smashed
into the base of the cliffs, and the tail section was missing.
Scott was concerned about the animals that were stalking them, but he felt something new. Curiosity returned to him, and there was a familiarity he couldn’t place.
Along with all the mysterious planes and ships that they had found crashed on the island, this was just another one of the many mysteries and losses, but this wreckage seemed different.
Harold ran and then stopped in his tracks, scaring the rest. He slid to his knees and leaned over to vomit. Mattie stopped running and stood next to Harold as she stared at the airplane, her head tilted as she tried to breathe through her own nausea and shock. Her skin looked waxy.
“That plane…” said Harold.
“Yeah, it’s ours,” Mattie said as she gave Harold help so he could stand, and then they walked closer, ready to find a way to use the wreckage as a hiding spot or as a fortress.
Scott rubbed his jaw and sorted out the image he stared at. A ladder made of ropes and branches and held in place by the sand that nested around the plane led to the opened door.
Because the wreck carved out a depression in the beach when the plane plowed in as some sort of landing, the doorway wasn’t as high above the surface of the beach as it would have been on tarmac.
“Go. Climb,” Alex ordered.
Behind them, a pair of ceratosaurs lumbered onto the beach, roaring and stomping. They were nervous about the airplane, which kept them from rushing at the human prey, but the pair refused to hang back for long because they were hungry. The pair of dinosaurs made a decision and ran. They moved faster than the humans could, but the hungry carnivores were too late.
Once everyone was up the ladder and in the airplane, Alex yanked the door closed.
One of the ceratosaurs raked its nasal horn across the underbelly of the airplane, making a high-pitched whine as bone and metal met.
Another one bumped the plane several times, trying to frighten the prey into running, but inside, the humans slid to the floor and waited. There was no way to get to the humans unless the creatures tore apart the metal of the airplane.
“Can they get in?” Joy asked.
“I hope not. I doubt it,” Alex said.
Joy jumped up and slammed one of the plastic coverings over the window as she saw a dinosaur’s eye looking inside. She hated being watched, so she curled up against Tom once she was sure the creatures couldn’t see her anymore.
“Ceratosaurs. They’ll get bored and wander away, I think. They probably have a nest in the jungle close to a pond hidden by the trees. They can hunt better closer to their homes. They’ll leave.”
“Why are they here bothering us?” Tom asked.
“Because of the storm,” Alex said, “their scent trails are all screwed up, so they’re looking for anything they can hunt and eat.”
The animals sniffed around curiously and looked for opportunities to feed. A strong scent of death was there, but it was diminished because of the recent rains, and the dinosaurs lost interest rapidly. After the pair of ceratosaurs finished bumping the plane and exploring, the roars stopped.
Mattie stayed in place a while, sitting by Scott, but then she got up and began to look around as if searching the interior of the plane for something. She ran her fingers over the stamped seat numbers and took hesitant steps. Several times she paused and looked confused, but then moved again.
Harold followed behind her.
Scott understood that the airplane seemed familiar. He watched Mattie and Harold, and then he looked at Alex who nodded to him.
“What am I missing?” Tom asked.
“We’ve been here before. Not here exactly, but kind of here. It’s like the Violet Marie. It was beached, and we saw it, touched it, and stood right there with the wreckage, and then Littleton and his people showed up along with a different…”
“Scenario,” Alex supplied the word.
“Right. We don’t know what the first scenario entailed, but in the one we saw, Littleton, Jade, Amy, and Benny survived, and we found them. I suspect that may mean that they didn’t make it the...well…other time.”
“Because even if this is a crazy island, we can’t be two places at once because then we would have a real paradox. It doesn’t work even in the weirdest, shittiest scenarios,” Alex said.
“I still don’t get it,” said Tom, as he looked from Scott and Alex to Harold and Mattie, “and what are they doing?”
“Tom, we saw two versions of what might have happened to the Violet Marie. I guess there may be a hundred variations or a thousand. In some cases, I bet the boat didn’t wash up at all. I think that maybe the boat has been in the storm a thousand times over ten thousand or millions of years. Millions. That explains the dinosaurs’ timeline.”
Tom nodded but didn’t understand. He wondered what Scott thought about all of this, but never had he been fond of science fiction, and now it seemed to Tom that he was right in the middle of a sci-fi movie or book. He didn’t like this because it felt unrealistic to him. It was easier to nod and wonder than seriously try to make sense of everything. He didn’t understand Scott and Alex’s need to explain.
Alex drew an imaginary line on the floor. He said that was how most people considered time. He pointed and said that was where they were in time now. Then, he drew an imaginary square above the line and used his finger to touch several spots within the square. “This is more of what we have been thinking. Each spot is us in time, but at different times. Follow?”
“That makes sense. Okay,” said Tom as he frowned. It did make sense in a strange way.
Alex drew the square again a few inches above the one he pretended to draw on the floor.
He repeated that several more times, going higher and sometimes drawing more to one side or the other. He mimed his actions and made them dramatic, as he said, “Those spots are us in time, but in other scenarios. Do you see? It’s a cube with layers. They all overlap, and the overlapped point is the island. The storm.”
“I think I’m following what you’re saying. Like the Cyclops. Scenarios. In some versions, they crashed here or there. It’s a cube. Dimensions, right?” Tom asked. He was curious as the explanation began to make sense to him. He viewed this as almost a mathematical issue and smiled.
“We have a winner!” Scott said. He was glad Alex showed them because he understood a little more, not that he understood everything about the situation. “Alex, you get this more than we do. What is out here?” He indicated a spot far from the cube by pointing far away in the air.
“Home?” Tom asked.
“I don’t know,” said Alex, chuckling, “but wow, Scott, way to blow my physics lessons.
Seriously, I don’t know. I don’t know if we can meet ourselves. I just know there are rules, but we don’t know these rules because they are done to us. We don’t have to know them or understand them, but we have to follow them. We’re locked into them, I mean.”
“Locked?” Tom asked.
Alex thought and then said, “I mean there is gravity. Some people understand the physics of gravity, but even if we don’t, we don’t float up in the air, right? We are locked into the rules even if we never study them.”
Scott looked over to where Mattie and Harold walked, both leaning over and looking at seat numbers and muttering to one another as they talked. They stopped again.
“Harold, oh, I was sitting right here. Jody was beside me. Here. I feel like I’m seeing a ghost.”
“No ghosts, but Mattie, did you bleed that much? Look at these stains. Was it Jody? These seats are covered.”
Mattie was confused. She looked back at the others and shook her head. “I don’t understand. I wasn’t hurt except for a few bruises and cuts. I didn’t bleed this much, and neither did Jody.”
“There are no bodies,” said Alex as he stood looking around again. “This crash is bad, but someone lived, and he removed the bodies. Maybe even buried them?”
“But the blood…” Mattie said, breaking
off to rub her head.
“In this scenario, you or Jody were very badly hurt, Mattie. It’s possible that you died. That’s what we’ve been talking about. Various outcomes.”
“I died, Scott? Is that it? My, God, I feel dizzy.”
Harold reached out an arm to help hold Mattie on her feet.
“That’s kind of normal when we try to resolve thinking about infinity and things that are beyond our comprehension,” said Alex as he suggested they leave the airplane because it was now safe to go outside and because Mattie was pale and sick.
“What about you, Harold? Should we look for your seat, or do you prefer not to know?” Tom asked.
Harold sniffed and rubbed his eyes. He was overwhelmed but pointed and said, “See how the tail is ripped off? What do you think became of those folks?”
“Oh, no question. Those poor bastards all died. Torn apart. Why?” Tom asked.
Alex made a squeaking sound, and his eyes were huge.
“What?” Tom was flummoxed.
Harold stared at the sand as they walked. In a second, he spoke softly, “I was one of those poor bastards, Tom. I was in the tail section.”
Chapter 18: Predators
“Now what, Scott?” Alex asked.
They walked for days, nervously camping in groves of trees after they left the caves and beach behind. The island curved around to the left, and they followed that for a few days and then angled into the trees when they saw that the beach never changed. There was sand, water, and occasionally the remains of old ship wrecks and big bones.
After a half day of walking in the jungle by using animal paths, they grew tired of the constant threat of attacks and the wet trees that caught moisture and rained it down on them, even when the days were cloudless. It was far too hot and damp within the interior of the island.
“I whined about the cold cave. I wish it wasn’t so hot,” Joy said, wiping sweat from her face and trying to catch her breath.
“We can go back toward the beach, use the caves there, and backtrack, I suppose,” Scott suggested.
“I thought you wanted to see the whole island or find answers,” Tom said.