The Extinction Trials

by S. M. Wilson

  She tried to squeeze back through into the cave, dragging him behind her. But she got stuck at the second boulder. Or more accurately, the heavy egg got stuck.

  They hadn’t considered the egg. They hadn’t considered its size. It was bigger than expected. Squeezing behind the second boulder, shielding the entrance to the cave, required a flat back against the rock, a sideways movement of the head and a sharp breath in.

  No one had thought about the egg.

  The teeth of the T-rex snapped at the side of the rocks. They moved. The huge colossal rocks guarding the entrance to the cave moved. Moved with the weight of the T-rex.

  It gave them the smallest breathing space – just enough for Storm to thrust the egg through into the cave and land next to it with a thud. But Lincoln was still stuck. He’d forgotten about the backpack. It was wedging him between the rocks.

  And the T-rex wasn’t finished. She moved faster than Lincoln could ever have imagined, faster than he could push himself through the rest of the gap, her teeth catching the backpack, snagging some of the material from his trousers and slicing through his skin.

  Her rancid breath warmed his neck. She jerked her head back with such a fury that Lincoln felt himself being dragged out. Leif and Kronar surged forward and grabbed hold of his arms, weighing him down as the sound of ripping cloth echoed through the cave.

  He fell inwards. Inwards to the safety of the cave, landing face first on the damp earth inside.

  He’d never felt anything so good.

  But it wasn’t over.

  “Move back,” yelled Storm. “It’s nudging the rock.”

  Then came the thing that nobody expected.

  A voice from the back of the caves. “You bloody young fools!”

  Lincoln jumped as Storm screamed right next to him. The T-rex was roaring in frustration outside and someone else was in the cave with them.

  Kronar said the words that everyone else was thinking. “Who are you?”

  A figure emerged from the blackness of the cave depths. He pointed at Storm’s red tunic. “How could you be so stupid, wearing bright colours near a T-rex? And you?” He spun around and pointed at Lincoln. “You led her right to the entrance. Are you crazy?”

  He didn’t look like anyone they’d ever seen before. Wild hair, shaggy with streaks of silver, and a beard that reached halfway down his chest. His clothes were rags. Rags that were clumsily stitched together. And on his feet?

  A brand new pair of sneakers.

  The T-rex roared again and the whole cave shook. It sounded as if she was scraping at the ground outside.

  “Get to the back,” shouted the stranger.

  “But what about the stone?” Kronar looked frantic.

  “What?” snapped the man. “Do you think you can hold it in place with your bare hands? Get back. If she can move the stone, she’ll still be too big to get inside. Just pray she can’t reach you with her jaws.”

  They gathered their belongings and ran to the back of the cave. Lincoln grabbed the egg, holding it between his hands – the cause of all this horror. It had better be worth it.

  At the back of the cave he leaned against the damp walls, the cool water penetrating his tunic and nipping his skin. His leg ached. He must be covered in scratches. He hadn’t even looked down yet. But the pain was reminding him that she’d managed to graze him with her rancid teeth.

  “Did you see?” he hissed.

  “See what?” asked Leif.

  “Galen,” he gasped. “The T-rex ate Galen’s arm.”

  “Galen is dead?” Storm was right in front of him. He could barely even see her. But he could feel the heat from her body. Smell the scent of her skin. He couldn’t even begin to explain his relief that she was okay, that she was right there beside him.

  “Yes,” he whispered. “Galen is dead.”

  He squeezed his eyes shut for a second as a wave of pain from his leg washed over him. They had next to no medical supplies. Three times his skin had been ripped by a dinosaur. His shoulder twice, and now his leg. He’d probably been exposed to a whole host of infections his body would have no armour against. He’d be dead before he made it home.

  Storm reached over and touched his wrist. “Take a deep breath. Your pulse is racing. You need to slow down.” She glanced over her shoulder into the darkness. “Let me deal with this.”

  None of this seemed real. He’d just seen his biggest rival’s arm ripped off like a leaf pulled from a tree. A T-rex was waiting outside for him. Furious about her stolen egg.

  And in here? In the darkness, was a complete stranger. Lincoln’s brain was racing just like his pulse. What on earth was that guy doing here?

  Storm pulled her hand away, turned towards the man and asked for the second time: “Who are you?”

  “Blaine.” A simple answer that told them nothing.

  Lincoln sucked in a deep breath. The T-rex had quietened for a second. “Blaine? What does that mean? How did you get here? Do you live here? Were you born here? Are there others here?” One question tumbled out after the other.

  Blaine. Something about it rang a bell. From his appearance – and from his smell – he’d been here a long time. But how long?

  Someone had actually survived on this continent living with dinosaurs? It seemed incredible. Were there others like him?

  Storm scrunched up her face. She reached over and touched Blaine’s arm. “How on earth did you get here? Were you a fisherman, did you get shipwrecked?”

  Blaine laughed. His laugh was strange – more like a cackle that echoed around the cave. “No, no, I’ve never been a fisherman.” He leaned forward and stared at her. “I was much too intelligent for that.”

  Lincoln shifted uncomfortably. The name Blaine definitely seemed familiar, but he just couldn’t place it. And the way he was looking at Storm was even more unsettling. A tiny hint of arrogance – something that he’d only ever seen before in certain people.

  Leif spoke up. “You came with the Finalists, right? And you got left behind. Everyone thought you were dead.”

  “Not everyone.” Kronar’s voice startled them. “That’s what the extra box was for. The one they left on the beach.” He struck a match that set a warm orange glow flickering around them. It showed instantly how pale they all were compared to Blaine and his dark skin.

  Lincoln could vaguely remember it. The large wooden crate that was unloaded and left sitting on the yellow sand untouched. He stared at the guy as tiny pieces of the puzzle started to fit together. He opened his mouth to say something else, then stopped.

  Blaine shifted.

  “It was you,” Storm gasped. “The graphite, the paper, the chock bars. The boat! It was you, wasn’t it?”

  Of course. He hadn’t thought much about it at the time – the missing items from everyone’s backpacks. He’d just assumed they’d misplaced stuff – not that anyone could actually have stolen it.

  But most importantly, the boat. They knew it hadn’t come from Earthasia. They just hadn’t figured on someone actually managing to survive amongst the dinosaurs.

  Blaine shrugged. “I suggest you settle down for the night. We won’t be able to leave here till first light. T-rexes hunt mainly at night, and you’ve annoyed this one too much for her to leave right now.”

  Lincoln slid down the wall, ignoring the pain in his shoulder. His legs were turning to jelly. They couldn’t take his weight any more. The enormity of how close he’d just come to dying was finally hitting home.

  Blaine pointed at his leg. “I’ll do something about that tomorrow. Open wounds are practically an alert system for dinosaurs. Nothing gets their attention like the smell of blood and flesh.”

  The match flickered out between them.

  It was going to be a long, long night.

  They finally crept out of the cave at the first light of dawn.

  Blaine had pulled some rags from his clothes and wrapped them around her bleeding feet and Lincoln’s wounds. He was adamant they had
to remain covered.

  He led them silently to the forest, weaving his way through the trees. It was strange. He had the calmest air around him. It silenced the questions that were clamouring around her brain.

  Storm walked slowly. Her feet were aching. She was aware that her heels and toes were bleeding and was dreading taking her boots back off. Maybe Blaine would have more than one pair of sneakers?

  They almost missed it – even though it was right in front of them.

  A house – or shack more like – built in the middle of the forest. It was much sturdier than she ever would have imagined, with three separate rooms, all constructed from thick tree branches and an intricate weave of broad, dark green leaves. It was almost invisible. Was there a chance they’d already walked past this in the forest? And the smell… it enveloped them as soon as they walked in. Thick, rich, evergreen – with something else she couldn’t quite place.

  Blaine pointed to a large basin in the corner. “Everyone, wash up there. I’ll take a look at those wounds. We need to disguise the smell before you move again.”

  Storm walked towards the room next door and let out a little gasp. There was a low-slung bunk on the floor – a bit like the ones they’d had at Camp – but the dark leaf walls were covered in paper. Every scrap of paper had drawings, numbers and graphs. All about the dinosaurs. Notes on how they lived, notes on their anatomy, their hunting skills, their nesting sites. Huge pieced-together maps of the whole area. It was so much more than they’d ever learned in school.

  Something else caught her eye. A tiny hand-drawn picture of a woman and two kids. The paper had yellowed slightly and the corners started to turn in.

  “How long have you been here?” she gasped.

  Blaine walked past her and picked up a pile of fresh green leaves in the corner of the room. “Eight – no, nine years.”

  She still couldn’t believe it. “How come you were left behind?”

  He lifted up the bottom of his tunic to reveal a huge scar running across his thigh. “I got injured.”

  It covered nearly the whole front of his thigh, the skin thinner and paler than the rest of him. She kneeled down, her hand automatically reaching out to touch it. “What happened?”

  “The T-rex.” He said it simply – as if it happened every day.

  Lincoln moved behind her, bending to look down too. He was horrified. “What did the T-rex do?”

  “Snapped my leg in half.”

  “And you survived? How?”

  It seemed incredible. The injury and blood loss should have proved fatal, and even if by some miracle he’d survived that, the infection should surely have killed him.

  “She attacked us while we were searching for new food. Her camouflage was much better than we’d been led to believe. If a deinosuchus hadn’t come out of the water to fight with her, I would have been dead.” He shook his head. “The rest of the Finalists scattered and I managed to drag myself back into the forest.”

  Kronar swallowed. “Deinosuchus?”

  Blaine nodded and fixed him with a hard stare. “Fifty-sectar long crocodilian. Lives in the loch. It will attack anything that comes too close to the lake edge.”

  For a few seconds no one spoke. The monster that had killed Rune finally had a name.

  Kronar’s voice couldn’t hide the terror. “You know about that m…monster?”

  Blaine gave him a wary glance. “I’ve been here nine years – of course.”

  Kronar shook his head, his eyes bright with tears. “But why on earth would you build a boat and go on a loch with that kind of monster living in it?”

  “Because I never usually have a problem. I have to fish on the loch to survive. I had to make a boat. I cross the loch quietly, I don’t leave any sign that I’m there.”

  The words hung in the air as Kronar’s legs crumpled under him and he put his hands over his face. The guilt of Rune’s death was still running deep.

  “How did you make it?” Storm was fascinated.

  Blaine held up his hands. “With these. And a few tools. It took a long time, months.”

  Lincoln moved forward. “How on earth did you survive the T-rex bite?”

  He held out his hands. “Everything you need to survive is in this forest. My wound was open, but I wrapped it in some of the leaves I found. They must have had medicinal properties.” He held one under Lincoln’s nose. “Smell. You must have noticed when you stepped inside. That strong evergreen smell – it disguises everything.”

  He walked over and touched the paper on the wall. “My leg took months to heal. I drank water that collected in the leaves of the forest. I ate food from the forest floor. I started to build a shelter.”

  Lincoln frowned and kneeled down next to the bunk. “But some of this is manufactured. How did you get it?”

  Blaine gave a sly smile. “By the time the ship pulled up the next year, I’d just started to walk again. They told me without question I couldn’t go home.”

  Storm was horrified. “Why on earth not?”

  “It’s simple. They don’t want people on Earthasia to know there’s any chance of survival here. They want everyone to think that we need to wipe the dinosaurs out first. Taking me home would have proved that it was possible to stay alive on Earthasia for a year at least. It’s not in their plans. Parliament had already decided that colonizing Piloria would be the next step for humans. But they wanted to do it on their terms. Which means destroying the dinosaurs.”

  His words were clear, but had a twisted edge. In a way, she almost understood why they hadn’t told anyone about Blaine. She didn’t think for a second that any normal person could survive here. It had been hard enough staying alive for a week.

  “You don’t want to go home?”

  “They won’t let me. I’ll never see Earthasia again.” He stared at one of the walls for a few seconds, then lowered his head. “Or the people on it.”

  Storm racked her brain. She couldn’t remember anything about him. She’d been so young when he’d gone to Piloria and she guessed he was just one of so many Finalists presumed dead. How sad. Did he have family? From the way he’d spoken those last few words, and the picture stuck to the wall, she guessed he did.

  From the corner of her eye she could see Lincoln, Leif and Kronar exchange glances. Maybe they remembered more than she did.

  Blaine took a deep breath and looked up again. “I’ve learned to work this to my advantage. Every year they come I trade with them. I give them information about the dinosaurs and about the land. They give me the things I request.” He pointed to the corner of the room. “They won’t give me what I really want, so I have to ask for material things. Sometimes it’s a bed, sometimes it’s clothes or sneakers. Mainly I ask for paper, graphite and matches. Most other things I make myself.”

  He gave a crazy kind of laugh. “There’s no point asking them for weapons. They haven’t found anything yet to fend off a dinosaur attack.”

  It made sense. She’d wondered how the Stipulators and Lorcan Field knew so much about Piloria. They’d always maintained that the only information they had was from the Finalists’ brief trips.

  “Come here,” he said to Storm and gestured for her to sit down. “Let’s see to your wounds.” She eased her feet out of her boots and peeled her socks off, wincing at the pain. He lifted a blanket that was covering a variety of open clay pots.

  “What’s in those?”

  He smiled and pointed. “The yellow one is a kind of gum, it sticks the papers to the leaves for me. The green is medicinal. It will help your wounds.” He lifted up the strong-smelling leaves. “It’s made from these.” He wrinkled his nose and gave a little smile. “It will disguise the smell of the wounds, and the smell of being human.”

  Storm shifted self-consciously. It wasn’t easy to get washed on Piloria. The splash in the ocean was virtually the only chance they’d had. Blaine worked quickly, cleaning off the blood and smothering her heels and toes in the green mush. She found a clean pa
ir of socks in her backpack and pulled them on.

  Lincoln sat precariously on the bunk next to her. As he peeled back the cloth it was clear the wound on his leg was gaping, and the one on his left shoulder was swollen and looked infected. Her abrasions and scrapes were minor in comparison.

  Lincoln flinched every time Blaine squeezed cool water over the wounds, then smothered his shoulders and leg with the green ointment. He put some more into a large leaf then tied the edges together to make a pouch. “Put it in your backpack. You’ll need it for the journey home.”

  He handed it to Lincoln, who gave him a rueful smile. “You think we’ll get home?”

  “Why not?” He gestured towards the T-rex egg, which was sitting in the corner of the room. He hadn’t seen the raptor egg – it was still hidden inside one of the backpacks. “What do you need that for? I thought the whole point of visiting Piloria for the last few years was to find new kinds of food.”

  Storm shifted uncomfortably on the bed. “This year it changed. It’s like you said – they want to wipe out the dinosaurs so we can take Piloria for ourselves.”

  “What new idea do they have this time? Last time they went for electrocution – and failed dismally.”

  “They what? Why didn’t we hear anything about that?” Leif expressed the surprise that filled them all.

  “Probably because it was a disaster.” Blaine was clearing up around them. He walked over to the doorway and looked outside for a few seconds.

  “You’re covered now, you should be safe.” He glanced at the egg again. “So what was the plan this time?”

  “DNA,” said Lincoln slowly.

  “DN-what?” Blaine’s brow wrinkled.

  “It’s supposed to be one of the building blocks of life. They’ve found it in humans and they want to find it in dinosaurs.”

  “But I don’t get it. What happens when they do? And why do they need an egg?”

  Storm sighed. “Because they think it will be simpler to get dinosaur DNA from an egg. Once they’ve got it…” She paused for a second. This still didn’t sit well with her. It didn’t matter how terrified she’d been of the T-rex and the raptors – it still felt fundamentally wrong. “Once they’ve got it, they think they’ll be able to find a way to get rid of the dinosaurs.” She held up her hands. “I’m not quite sure how: make a poison that will only affect some dinosaurs and not others, do something to stop them breeding, create a disease that will kill only them. They weren’t really specific.”