by S. M. Wilson
“They don’t have a clue. In one hundred years’ time they’ll still be working on the same useless idea. The Stipulators are fools. The scientists are even worse.”
She sucked in a breath. No one ever said those things out loud. No one spoke out against the Stipulators. No one interfered with the scientists’ work.
But Blaine could say what he wanted. They’d left him behind on Piloria. They probably came back every year hoping he was dead.
He threw up his hands. “They know nothing. Not all dinosaurs are a danger. Not all dinosaurs will attack humans.” He pointed to the egg. “I might like it better if the T-rexes weren’t around, but the Stipulators would never stop there. They have delusions of grandeur.” He swept his hand in front of his body. “They will wipe out everything. All of Piloria’s living creatures. Have they even stopped to think that might be why we have problems growing crops on Earthasia? That we can’t survive alone? No. Because they can’t see a bigger picture. They don’t understand how the world around them fits together.” He let out a grunt and walked away. “They only see themselves!”
Blaine started pacing, tension emanating from him. No one spoke for the next few minutes, guessing it was best to let him blow off steam. He was muttering, “This is my home, not theirs.”
Storm pressed her lips together. Blaine thought the same as she did – that the Stipulators would wipe out all dinosaurs, not just the ones they collected eggs from. But from the looks of the others, it wouldn’t be wise to agree. She swallowed and stared at her feet. The doubts and suspicions that had been coiled in her stomach since the beginning had grown exponentially since she’d got here. Should she have trusted her instincts from the start, been brave and refused to help collect the eggs? She’d come to Piloria to discover the truth, and she’d done that – but she’d gone along with the Stipulators’ horrible plan not knowing what else to do. Should she have stuck it out, tried to survive alone, until she could go home and tell everyone what she’d found?
But Blaine wasn’t finished. “The hadrosaurids are the most nurturing creatures on the continent. The tiny head, tiny brain theory? Rubbish. I’ve seen them supporting smaller sauropods. I’ve seen them foraging for food and giving it to the creatures that can’t reach.”
Storm held her breath. She couldn’t speak as she was struggling to process what he was saying.
Leif stood up, visibly uncomfortable and wanting to change the subject. “How long do we have to get back to the beach?”
“Less than twenty-four hours,” Blaine answered sharply.
“How do you know that?” Lincoln asked.
“I usually try and stay hidden for the whole time the Finalists are here, so I’m on a countdown from the second you arrive.”
“Don’t you meet with the Stipulators?”
“Only if I have to. I give them a list of what I want for the following year and hand them the notes and drawings I’ve made since their last trip. They leave the box for me, and I empty it once all the Finalists have left the beach.”
Storm smiled. “Sneakers.”
Blaine lifted his eyebrows. “Shoes are a lot more difficult to make than you’d think.”
Lincoln shook his head. “Don’t you miss company? Don’t you want to speak to the others?”
“Not really,” he said simply. “Too much noise with you all here. I prefer the peace and quiet.”
Storm looked around the humble dwelling. He’d managed to make a sort of home here – even if he did miss his family. And his comments had struck a chord with her. More than she could admit to anyone.
From the second she’d arrived on Piloria, she’d sensed the wonder of the place. But it was clear that Blaine didn’t want to share it – he wanted rid of them. How would he feel if the Stipulators’ plan worked and people moved to live on Piloria with him?
Blaine was outside foraging for more leaves for their trip home. Lincoln silently waved Storm over to where he, Leif and Kronar were sitting on the floor.
“Do you recognize him?” he whispered.
She frowned. “Blaine? No, why? I mean, he was a Finalist, so I guess I might have heard his name at some point, but there’s been so many of them…”
Kronar shook his head. “Think again. Blaine wasn’t a traditional kind of Finalist.”
“What do you mean?” She had no idea what they were talking about.
Kronar turned towards her. “Blaine. Blaine Thredell. Don’t you remember who he was?”
She shook her head. “I guess I was too young when he left to remember anything about him.”
Lincoln cut in, “It was him, wasn’t it? He was the one?”
Leif glanced towards him and nodded. “It was definitely him. No wonder they won’t let him come home. Surviving the dinosaurs is only a tiny part of it.”
She looked at the three faces around her. What on earth was going on? She folded her arms across her chest. “Spit it out, guys.”
Lincoln pressed his lips together. “Blaine Thredell was the Stipulator they discovered had a family. He wasn’t a Finalist in the usual sense. He was more or less flung onto the boat. They sent him here to die.”
Storm’s heart skipped a beat. “What?” She shook her head. “I thought that was only a rumour. I’d heard people talk about it happening. But I wasn’t sure it was really true.”
Lincoln pointed outside, where they could see their host still collecting leaves. “Well, it’s true. You just met him. That was Blaine.”
She stared back in wonder. “Poor, poor guy. Here all alone, for all these years.”
Leif frowned. “I wonder why he doesn’t even try to get back? He has family – that’s why he’s here. He must want to see them again.”
Something clicked in her brain. “Do you think they won’t tell him about his family? He said they wouldn’t give him what he really wanted.”
Lincoln bristled next to her. “We’ve no idea what kind of things they’ve said to him. We don’t even know where his family are – or if they’re still alive. But we all know the Stipulators are capable of anything.” He looked back over at Blaine. “One guy, alone on a continent of dinosaurs. I wouldn’t ever want to be him.”
They walked back through the forest. Every footstep hurt. But this time she wasn’t scared. This time she could admire its beauty. Blaine was in tune with the dinosaurs, he would know what precautions to take. This was the first time since she’d arrived that she felt at ease.
The journey back was much shorter due to Blaine’s familiarity with the terrain. But where it ended shocked them all.
“You can’t be serious. Why on earth are we here? I don’t think I can do this.” Kronar’s face paled, his breath quickened.
Storm was surprised too. The last place she’d expected him to take them was to the loch. Blaine was dragging the boat out of the bushes. Even the sight of it made her feel nauseous.
He picked up a set of oars and eyed them with distaste. “You managed to lose a pair of my oars. Have you any idea how long it took me to make those?”
Lincoln crossed over to him. “There must be another way. A quicker way to get to the beach. We can’t go across that loch again. Not now we know what lies beneath.”
Blaine smiled. A twisted kind of smile. “There’s no other way to get back in time.” He pointed across the vast loch. “You can walk if you want, but to cover that distance? It will take you the best part of two days. You won’t make it.”
Silence.
Everyone was frantically searching their brains for another answer.
“I can’t. I just can’t,” said Kronar.
Blaine was pushing the boat to the edge of the loch. “Well, you can’t stay with me. I don’t want company.” There was no mistaking his tone. “What other option do you have?” It wasn’t really a question. There was a sinister edge to his voice. Something they hadn’t heard before. She’d thought he was joking before when he said he wanted rid of them – too much noise. Now, it seemed he really meant it
.
Leif’s reaction was instant. He hauled Kronar by the shoulder. “Get in the boat.”
But Lincoln turned back to Blaine. He seemed more cautious. “Tell us how to get across the loch safely.” He took both sets of oars from Blaine’s hands. The time for niceties had gone.
Blaine tilted his head to one side. “Go slowly, go steadily. No noise. You hardly want to make a ripple on the water. Your wounds are covered. There shouldn’t be any odours to alert him to your presence.” He started to walk away. “Pull the boat out of the water on the other side…if you get there.”
He gave them one last glance and disappeared into the trees.
“Did that just happen?” Storm was beginning to feel it was all just some bad dream.
Lincoln stood at her shoulder. “I guess being alone for nine years is bound to make anyone strange. Maybe he could only keep it together for so long. We’ve only been with him since last night. We don’t know what’s normal for him.”
“I just hope normal for him isn’t sacrificing Finalists to the dinosaurs.” She couldn’t stop the words coming out. This felt creepy.
Lincoln seemed more determined. “He had a chance to do that with the T-rex. Let’s just get out of here as quickly as we can.”
There it was again. Whenever there was the tiniest danger he might reveal any doubts, any vulnerability, Lincoln hid behind practicalities. Maybe that was his coping mechanism.
“Come on, guys.” She sighed. “You heard the man, quietly and steadily.” She climbed into the boat, reluctant to put her feet anywhere near the water for fear of releasing the scent of blood into the loch. She held out her hand towards Kronar and took his trembling arm as he jumped across.
“Sit at the back of the boat,” she whispered. “The rest of us will row. Close your eyes and think of something else.”
Kronar nodded and gathered the remaining backpacks around him, clutching them to him as if they had some kind of magical power to save him.
Lincoln and Leif took a place at either side of the boat, dipping their oars gently into the water. Lincoln gave a silent count of one, two, three and they stroked out across the loch. Storm was holding her breath, praying that nothing would rise up from the depths.
She could hear a stilling in the air around them. Wasn’t that what happened just prior to an attack? She almost didn’t want to breathe. Didn’t want to disturb the eerie atmosphere.
A giant red dragonfly buzzed past, its wingspan as long as her arm. Her natural reaction was to shush it. But she resisted and watched it fly across the still water.
Was that a ripple? Her throat was instantly dry. But the last thing she was going to do right now was ask Kronar for her backpack to wrestle around for her water bottle.
Lincoln and Leif were powering across the water, their oars so in tune that they made the minimum disturbance on the loch. All they could hear was the strokes on the water. The silence and pace seemed to increase the tension. Every second Storm was just waiting for something to happen.
Kronar had finally managed to open his eyes and was scanning the water frantically.
Lincoln was totally focused, sweat dripping down his face. Storm nudged his leg and pointed to the oars, silently offering to take a turn. But he shook his head. They’d developed their rhythm now and didn’t want anything to break the pace.
Time seemed to hang above them. They were crossing the loch much faster than they had the last time. But last time they hadn’t been so full of fear. Last time they’d been at the start of their adventure. This was different. This time they were just hoping to reach the other side and get to the beach.
As the pace continued Storm started to feel a little more relaxed. She could see the transporter in the distance. It hadn’t been trampled by some dinosaur. It hadn’t been stolen by any of the other Finalists. It was there. Waiting to take them back to safety.
Fixating on it seemed like the best idea right now. It gave her focus. Made her feel as if the end was in sight.
She stared at the backpacks Kronar was clutching. Two eggs. That was all they had.
Two eggs and one dead teammate.
She had no idea how the others had got on. The only other team they’d come across was Galen’s. There had been a few signs of other teams – but nothing positive.
She stared up at the sun. A few hours must have passed. The edge of the loch was in sight – even if it was still a long way away.
It seemed an age before they neared the shore. Lincoln and Leif were red-faced and sweating. They’d rowed for almost four hours, with only a few short breaks where Storm had taken a turn. Every muscle in their bodies must ache.
There had been no sign of anything in the loch. No fishes swimming close to the surface – no sign of the plesiosaurs. It was almost as if the deinosuchus attack had been a figment of their imagination.
Then it happened. A rustle. A squawk. A whole cluster of giant dragonflies took to the skies above the forest near the loch. Seconds later the rancid stench of the T-rex flooded through the air.
She burst through the trees towards them. Tipping back her head and roaring.
They couldn’t speak, silenced by shock.
She was far away from her nest now, far away from the swamp area she favoured. But far too close to them – only two hundred sectars away.
“She’s hunting us,” breathed Storm. Horror filled her. They’d travelled for a whole day, they’d spent the last few hours crossing the loch. They’d covered their wounds. Disguised the smell of their flesh and blood. She shouldn’t have been able to find them. Dinosaurs weren’t supposed to be this intelligent.
Yet here she was. Foaming at the mouth, spitting mad, her head and tail thrashing wildly from side to side. One sweep of her powerful tail felled a small tree as her deafening roar echoed around the loch.
She thundered towards the shore. Lincoln and Leif were panicking, scrambling to pull their oars from the water, but unable to stop the momentum of the boat carrying them forward. Kronar was still hunched in the back of the boat. What little colour he’d had in his face drained away completely.
There was a flash of green. Dark, crocodilian green.
The deinosuchus must have been resting beneath the rippling water at the edge of the loch, waiting for prey. Not caring what the prey was – T-rex or human.
If they’d reached the edge of the loch first, it would have gone for human.
Its jaws were even wider than they remembered, the yellow teeth clamping around the neck of the T-rex with terrifying speed and a sickening crunch. The T-rex thrashed and whipped her tail from side to side. But the jaws held firm. The deinosuchus’ short webbed feet didn’t slip on the muddy bank – it tightened its grip around the T-rex, then slowly and deliberately dragged her backwards into the water.
“Get ashore, get ashore now. They’re too busy fighting to notice us.”
The smell was horrific; between the rotting remains in the T-rex’s teeth and the septic stench from the deinosuchus, the air around them was poisonous. The boat ground ashore on the shingles of the loch. Lincoln didn’t hesitate, he jumped out straight away and made a grab for a backpack. Stormchaser was right behind him, leaping onto the grass and picking up another pack. Leif was next, while Kronar seemed rooted to the floor of the boat, staring at the epic struggle happening right next to them.
“Move!” shouted Lincoln. He was ready to start running towards the transporter. Ready to get away from all this.
Storm was torn. It would only take a few seconds to jump back and pull Kronar from the boat, but all her instincts were telling her to run as far and as fast as she could.
“Kronar!” she hissed.
He jolted, then panicked, his feet tripping over themselves as he tried to leap from the boat. He landed in water that was rapidly changing colour with the blood that oozed from the T-rex’s neck.
He struggled upright. But the T-rex was fighting for her life. Trying to free herself from the deadly jaws of the deinos
uchus as it pulled harder to drag her underwater, trying to drown her. The T-rex’s powerful tail thrashed madly, flailing this way and that – whipping Kronar from his unsteady feet and sending him flying ten sectars through the air.
It happened in the blink of an eye. No time to react. No time to stop it.
He landed with a sickening crunch in a crumpled heap on the ground.
Storm ran to him. She’d heard the bones snap as he landed. One leg was twisted, one arm thrown back; the side of his chest had slammed into the hard ground.
There was the tiniest noise as Kronar rolled onto his back.
Leif ran over and grabbed hold of Kronar’s arm. “Come on, let’s go.” He hadn’t heard what Storm had.
But Storm knew instantly that Kronar couldn’t get up. His chest crackled, he wheezed. His pale face was turning blue. Lincoln dropped to his knees next to him, grabbing his other arm. “Kronar, can you get up? Can you move?”
But the frail human body was no match for the sheer muscle mass of a powerful T-rex tail. Leif fell down beside him. “No, Kronar. Get up. Get up now. We’re nearly there.” He pulled at his friend’s clothes as his voice started to break.
“I think he’s broken his leg.” Storm’s eyes scanned Kronar’s body as she tried to fight back the tears. “Maybe his shoulder and” – she held her hand above his chest, too scared to actually touch – “possibly some of his ribs.”
Leif and Lincoln exchanged anxious glances. The blue tinge around Kronar’s face was changing again, darkening.
Kronar was struggling to talk. He couldn’t catch any air. His breath was stalling, and seconds later, blood-filled bubbles spilled from his mouth. His face contorted. “Family,” he wheezed to Leif as the last breath left his body. Then his muscles relaxed and his eyes rolled.