Extinction Island

by catt dahman

  “What, did you see those things?” Alex asked. The creatures were too fast, and it was close to dark, so he couldn’t be sure what he saw. His heart raced.

  “I saw, but….” said Sue.

  “This may be lucky if we can eat them or unlucky if they are not good to eat or hard to catch,” Fish said in his usual ways of logic, “but these, I have never seen the likes of.”

  “Here is the dead one. They didn’t eat him. Let’s take it back to the fire to look at, but Alex….” Sue held the body of the dead creature.

  “I know,” Alex answered.

  “Feathers. Good eye, Scott. Colors just as you said, Helen. Size right.”

  “Well, Sue, are they not lizards but rather some type of bird?” Did I make a mistake?

  “No.”

  “Okay, so I was right, and they are lizards and not birds,” Scott said as he nodded, but Sue frowned. “What?”

  “Still wrong,” said Sue as she looked at Alex, “and I am one hundred percent sure. No doubt.”

  Alex grinned. “I know. Me, too. It is definitely one, well one of many.”

  “One what?” Helen asked.

  “Compsognathes, or a micro compy if these are adults.”

  “Huh? I’ve never heard of commasoathuses?” said Fish looking and sounding confused.

  “Easy terms. It is one of the smallest dinosaurs to live that we know of,” Sue said as she grinned, holding the carcass. There could have been much smaller ones. It’s what we know, though, and it is definitely one. They look like lizards and chickens but are dinosaurs. Living dinosaurs, it seems.”

  “I thought dinosaurs died a million years ago.”

  “Sixty-five million years ago. Someone forgot to tell these guys that,” added Alex as he shrugged.

  “Then, I hope it’s not like mice and rats and bats in the barn,” Fish said sagely. “When you have one, you have the rest, so I hope that because these are here, the little dinos, that the rest are not…not the big ones. That would be unfortunate. Very.”

  Sue’s jaw dropped as she looked at Alex.

  What if?

  Chapter Three: Night

  “Why don’t they come?”

  “Shut up.”

  Helen sighed. She heard the same two lines every fifteen minutes. “Joy, no one knows we are here. We need to accept that. Please.”

  “Why doesn’t someone do something?” asked Joy.

  Amanda spoke, “I’m injured, but I’m not down for the count. Look, Helen is right. No one is coming, maybe not for a long time. Asking for help over and over isn’t going to bring help. We have to face reality and do what we can. Stop asking, and do something positive. All of us have to do something.”

  “We have a nurse. We’re doing well just because of that. We have a fire, and we’re alive. I know this isn’t what we expected, and I am sorry…” Tom’s voice drifted away. He felt guilty, “but that is something we have done. We are trying, Joy, I promise.”

  “It isn’t your fault,” Helen said. She looked around their camp. They had plenty of water and soda, but that wouldn’t last more than a few days; they were lucky to find that much. Joe, the ship’s cook, had thrown together a dinner of assorted ingredients, but the galley’s supplies had sunk, they thought, and food would be a problem soon. By the next day, everyone would be hungry.

  Towels and sheets were drying all over the beach, so they had those, and they had found clothing that was drying, but not everyone had shoes, and few other shoes had been located. It was a crazy thing: they found a lot of some things and none of others. Cloth draped the wreckage, making it a terrible ghost.

  Most of the injured were as comfortable as possible, but Brian was in poor condition and getting worse by the hour. Kelly said his stomach and bowels were perforated, so he was dying slowly, and he was becoming septic. She said his feet were so badly damaged that they needed to be removed, but he wouldn’t survive what was required. She knew his blood pressure was far too low. No one knew what to say when Kelly reported that; it was a mild blessing that Brian was unconscious.

  How Fish had cut off the captain’s arm was something no one asked about, but everyone thought of. Kelly said the emergency procedure was perfect, considering the circumstances and added that she couldn’t have done as well. They knew what he used and the general idea, but the sheer audacity and guts that the procedure took made everyone look at Fish with new respect. And maybe some fear. “How is he?” Helen asked her.

  “Fish did a good job, you know. There is no sign of infection, and the bleeding is almost zero. I wish I could give him an IV to replace the blood loss, but he’s strong and all right for now.”

  “Kelly, you need some rest.”

  Kelly smiled wanly and said, “I can’t. I feel helpless. I need more supplies. I need a clean place for these people.”

  Tom shook his head at Helen and shrugged. He had seen the dark circles beneath Kelly’s eyes, forming like bruises. She was exhausted mentally and physically, but she felt she had to watch every patient carefully although there was little she could do. “Kelly, without you, half of these people would be in critical condition. Please, relax.”

  “What was that?” Vera demanded. Her voice was above normal tone but slightly under a scream.

  Tom turned to his younger sister and asked, “What?”

  Vera pointed. She had been resting with her head in her dad’s lap. He was very quiet and patted her face often, and she found that comforting.

  As the rest of the survivors did things around the camp or sat and complained, she watched the tree line for no reason other than that she was tired of watching the ocean. She kept hoping that she would see help arriving. Instead, she saw something strange. What it was defied her reasoning, and she wasn’t overly-imaginative, so she didn’t know what else to do besides ask the others if they saw it.

  “There was a shadow up there. Some animal,” said Vera.

  “Maybe it’s help,” answered Kelly.

  “It wasn’t a person.” Vera gritted her teeth as Kelly came to check her leg. It infuriated her that Kelly thought she was feverish and hallucinating; she wished she hadn’t said anything. Lying there, she had to listen to Kelly mumbling while working. “That hurts!” She brushed Kelly’s hands away.

  “I don’t mean it to hurt, Vera, but I’m making sure it’s clean and not infected. The stitches look good. You aren’t bleeding anymore.”

  “Your stitches hurt. I can’t believe anyone gave you a medical license.”

  “Knock it off, Vera. You’re lucky Kelly is a nurse and could help, or you’d still be bleeding.” Tom said. “If you aren’t making it up or seeing things, what is it you saw?”

  He had long ago washed his hands of his stepmother Connie and his sister Vera, deciding both were as shallow and selfish as any two people could be. Their snobby behavior irritated him. Stu was the same, and while he was Tom’s full blood brother, Stu was as rude and vapid as Connie and Vera. Tom wondered if his own mother had somehow gotten Connie’s children instead after he was born.

  “I’m not making it up, you idiot. I saw a dark shape, and it moved fast up there.” Vera was angry. Why did everyone always think she was being overly dramatic? “All of you are stupid and blind if you can’t see the...whatever...over there.”

  Stu berated her for scaring everyone, and there was a chatter that built; some were afraid, and others called it a cheap ploy for attention. Vera began wailing loudly, and arguments broke out.

  “What do you think?” Tom asked Scott. He missed his mother right then and wished she were there to slap Stu and Vera for acting this way. Only Vaughn, the youngest brother, was helpful.

  “I have no idea. She’s your sister. Would she lie?”

  Tom laughed, “Definitely, but she may have seen something. I don’t know what to believe.”

  “Look,” Alex called out. He had been watching the trees, wondering if there were anything moving around while the rest argued. He saw the shadow twice. On the
third time, he pointed it out. “Vera is telling the truth, so everyone be quiet.”

  Whatever it was, it wasn’t alone. Several shapes were moving around, and they were bigger than a man upright, but not something he could figure out. What moved like these shapes did? They darted and lumbered, staying at the edge of darkness and shadows so that they were not clearly observable.

  “Are they people?” someone asked.

  “No,” Alex said, “not people. They are bigger than people.” He stopped talking as a roar came from the trees and was followed by odd high-pitched barks and low whines. Alex always watched the nature shows on television, but he was blank when trying to figure out what would make those noises.

  “Is it a leopard or a bear?”

  “A bear on the beach?” Stu asked, “Joy, you are not very bright, huh?”

  “Then, what is it? What makes that kind of noise?” she yelped as the roar echoed again.

  Several reached for pieces of wood or metal bars that littered the beach. It was scary to hear the roar on an empty beach. In the dark.

  “Be still,” Alex warned, “I don’t know….”

  “Oh, shit,” Tom said. He summarized what all of them were feeling and thinking.

  The moon highlighted the top and back of the creature and showed a long tail. It wasn’t a clear view, but it was enough to show all of them that whatever it was, it wasn’t what they had expected in their wildest dreams. It could have been described as a large lizard or a skinned bird, but it was very large.

  Around it, sand was flying as if a storm had appeared. It was impossible to see much as the sand obscured the view, jetting up as high as a dozen feet and around the area for several yards.

  “That’s where we buried Rob, Hooter, and Jordan,” Scott said. In case anyone didn’t make that connection, he wanted to remind them.

  All around people covered their ears and cried out. The creatures were digging up the bodies, and the sounds they made were clear about what they were doing with the corpses. Bones snapped. A glutinous, wet smacking filled the night, and sounds like peeling off duct tape made it clear that something was up there in the shadows, feeding on the dead.

  “Oh, hell, no,” Tyrese said as he stood. He brandished a long section of metal.

  Alex held out a hand and said, “Don’t. Whatever they are, you don’t want to go up there and get in the way of their feeding. They’ll turn on you.”

  “But,” Tyrese paused. He wanted to run over and beat them away from the bodies, but Alex made sense. Animals could be ferocious when eating, “what can we do?”

  “Hope that there is enough food?” Stu asked with a smirk.

  “You’re an ass, Stu,” Wanda said.

  “You’re a stupid Goth-whore. One-armed Wanda.”

  “That’s it. I can’t take your little snide remarks another second,” said Wanda as she stood and ran down the beach to be alone. The animals scared her, but Stu’s remarks were too much. She only went a little ways before she stopped. She heard a heavy thumping on the sand and froze, her instincts taking over.

  “Wanda!” Tyrese called to her.

  Her arm throbbed with severe pain that a little rum had not abated. She was dizzy with pain, blood loss, and the remnants of shock. Be still, Kelly had said, but Kelly wasn’t as tired of hearing Stu’s remarks. While she had lain wrapped in a sheet in a bed of sand, Stu had said things to her.

  It was bad enough that sand had irritated her as it crept in, that her torn arm ached, and that Kelly fussed over her, saying that there was worry of infection. Wanda knew that her arm was far more ruined than stitches and cream could fix and she needed real medical help as soon as possible. She knew that she was in serious danger. More than that, Wanda knew that she couldn’t stand the pain much longer and was at the point of just screaming and crying.

  Her last straw was when Stu asked her how she was going to work, being one-armed in her Goth-look. Before that, he waxed on and on about how Fish removed the captain’s arm, making Wanda cringe with fear.

  She stopped in her tracks, feeling she was being watched before she even heard the thrum of heavy footfalls beside her. She smelled a terrible odor; it reminded her of when she was young and had a pet turtle. When his water was very dirty, it had a vicious reptilian scent that was like body odor, but more pungent and dirtier. Over that was a layer of scent that was reminiscent of rotting meat and fish. The smell alone terrified her.

  “Wanda, don’t move.”

  She didn’t. She couldn’t unless she fell to her knees. She was making a keening noise that she couldn’t stop.

  “Be quiet,” Tyrese told her. He stood close with Tom, Scott, Fish, and Alex. The others held make-shift weapons, except for Alex, who stared with his jaw hanging open.

  “Tyrese!” Wanda wanted him to save her. In the moonlight, he looked like a super hero, an avenging angel ready to do battle, or a huge wrestler. Tom was strong, and so were the rest. They could help her. She needed them to save her, now, she thought.

  “I don’t…okay, stand straight up, and try to look bigger,” Alex said.

  “How can she?” Scott asked. He advanced.

  In the moonlight, the purple hues of the skin were pinkish yellow; the flesh was pebbled and thick. The beast stood a little more than seven feet tall, was ropey with heavy muscles, and moved with stingy, compact motions. That was an illusion that it was slow because if and when it attacked, it would be a blur of action. It was perfectly designed to work in the shadows of the night where it could hunt in an almost elegant way.

  The cadavers the creatures dug up were easy food, but they didn’t mind fighting for living flesh either. The beast sniffed Wanda, figuring out what kind of a threat she might be. It smelled blood and terror. The other figures didn’t concern it. It wanted food now.

  Some might say it was lizard-like, and it was, yet it was far more than that. That was the general shape, but paleontologists had their research wrong. Troodon wasn’t a skinny little version of the saurus group. It was very muscular and heavy, not fat, but solidly built. His tail balanced him, but it wasn’t a long tapering whip; it was extremely thick at the base and shorter than the fossils indicated.

  Its forelegs were not short but were long enough that it could easily walk on all fours, but the forelegs were used as hands that had nimble fingers, ending in sharp, thick claws, long and deadly. Its big, fat back feet were enormous and sturdy and had smaller, but equally as thick and sharp, claws.

  Alex was scared but also fascinated by this creature and thought it was the equivalent of a defensive tackle on a football team. He had never imagined troodons could be this formidable, but he knew that was what it was. It looked different from what people drew to illustrate them, but some things, Alex just knew.

  Wanda went silent as she stared at the animal.

  The creature sniffed, snorted, and cocked his head.

  The head was elongated as expected; the skull research was correct. It had a very expressive set of eyes that shifted with every sound it heard. It sniffed at the human and showed a set of impressive teeth, something unexpected since his kind didn’t get this big of a set of teeth until they were older adults.

  Alex understood that fossils hadn’t done this thing justice. How would anyone know that the bones found were the young troodons? Alex almost smiled as realized that knowing this would change everything paleontologists believed. It was the find of a life time if he survived.

  “Wanda, slowly step backwards away from him.”

  “Uh huh,” she whispered. Her head swam with dizzying pain. She wanted to run but was too woozy to do that.

  “Be ready. If he is alone, he’ll let her go, I think. I dunno. All we know about dinosaurs is blown. They’re nothing like….” Alex muttered as he thought.

  “Dino…what?” Tom said, “no way.”

  In a rush, heavy footfalls surrounded them, and another three troodons appeared next to the first. They were curious but had already learned that humans wer
e tasty. Dead ones. It was possible that live ones were even better. Yet they hesitated because as bright as they were, they knew that some creatures were dangerous even if these only smelled like fear.

  “Alex?” called Wanda.

  “I have nothing.”

  “Try,” she begged.

  “Back away; look big. We can either try to show force and risk making them angry and aggressive, or we stay back and make them think we are weak and are prey. Neither is a good choice, guys.”

  With no warning, the first troodon snaked its head forward and clamped onto Wanda’s bandaged arm. Simultaneously, as was its nature, it grabbed her with its dexterous, clawed hands.

  Wanda screamed. The choice was made.

  People, back in the camp who watched, also screamed and grabbed sticks or hid behind others. A few covered their eyes or ears. They knew what was coming.

  The pain was so overwhelming that Wanda’s body collapsed limply as she screamed over and over, but the troodon was strong enough to hold her up in place with its hands and teeth. It just clamped down harder.

  Scott and Fish tried to hit the animal, but the other three hissed and snapped at them. Attacking, Tom and Tyrese advanced. They managed to land only a few blows as they dodged claws and teeth; those hits only angered the creatures instead of hurting them. In seconds, the animals learned to avoid the weapons aimed at them and advanced quickly. Tyrese fell as one nipped his head, barely missing getting a grip that would have crushed his skull if he had been allowed to chomp down with full force.

  Alex helped Tyrese to his feet and waved his arms, trying to distract the troodons.

  Wanda’s arm tore away with a meaty, wet sound that sent blood jetting. If she had been in pain before, this surpassed it because her nerves didn’t go numb with shock. She felt each nerve ending as it shrieked. She fell and rolled, unable to do anything but lie on the sand and scream.