Lost Island Rampage

by Gustavo Bondoni

  “Too many to go.” It was the Colonel’s voice. The man joined them as if he’d just materialized out of the jungle. Had he been an enemy, Sked knew, they would all be dead. “We won’t be able to push through that many. They’re strong for their weight.”

  Sked studied him. The Colonel was covered in blood, black in the dim light. Bleeding gashes scored his chest, but he didn’t seem overly troubled by the injuries. His jaw was tight, and it didn’t take a genius to guess what he was thinking: his wife was out there.

  “Did you see where everyone went?” Sked said.

  “No. They scattered when the creatures came.”

  “So what now?”

  The Colonel hesitated, but when he spoke, he did so with a dull voice. “We need to head north. That’s where we’ll find survivors. There’s no way we can mount a rescue operation in these woods in the dark.”

  “All right.”

  They headed north, moving through the underbrush about five yards from the path, trying to stay in the shadows.

  “No good,” the Colonel whispered after a few minutes of that. “We’re losing so much time and making so much noise that we’re not gaining anything by not being on the path.”

  Sked pushed a branch out of his face. “Yeah. And we’re also wasting a ton of battery life just trying to keep ourselves from tripping over the bushes.”

  The group stepped back onto the path, watching for enemies, human or animal. Nothing appeared, so they made their way up the path with the Colonel in the lead, shooting down the path at an accelerated clip. Though the big man made no sound, he also made little effort to allow them to keep up. He’d likely die before admitting it, but Sked guessed he was desperate to know where his wife was, whether she was alive.

  Crazy Eddie scrambled into position directly behind the Englishman while Sked let Akane lead a whimpering Ania ahead of him. He brought up the rear, knowing if they got separated from the Colonel, it would be up to him to bring them home.

  He had the compass, but he wouldn’t be surprised if the old officer at the helm could find his way on the winding path in the dark by dead reckoning.

  The moon shone through the trees, bright enough that, by staying on the well-trod sand, they could move without using the cell phones or flashlights to show the way. They were also moving relatively quietly.

  “Careful here,” the Colonel’s voice came from the front of the line. “Casualty.”

  Seconds later, Crazy Eddie cursed.

  The Triad guy who wasn’t Harold lay in the path, very much dead. Sked expected him to have been bled to death by their dinosaur pals, but that wasn’t the case. An arrow protruded from his neck, straight up into the air.

  Ania yelped at the sight, but other than that, gave no sign of life. She was keeping up with the group, but Sked watched her shuffling steps and suspected that she was too weak to keep it up much longer. The woman wouldn’t have made it this far without leaning on Akane.

  He stepped in and supported the weight of Ania’s free shoulder. Akane gave him a surprised glance that promised questions if they made it out, but he simply said: “We need to get moving. You’re slowing us down. Come on.”

  They pushed through the undergrowth and found themselves on the beach. The moon reflecting on the water was almost as good as daylight.

  “Try to stay low. We’ll be silhouetted against that,” Sked whispered to Akane.

  She chuckled. “That’s not going to be easy.”

  “Just leave me,” Ania whispered. “I’m slowing you down.”

  It was the first time Sked had heard her speak. Her accent seemed more German than Polish, which was where he’d pegged her as being from, considering her name. Interesting, but not unexpected. The kind of people that captured women for the sex trade were particularly fond of grabbing people who didn’t quite belong. Children of migrants were an old favorite, and the Polish girls scattered over Europe with no safety net were popular in Asian and Middle-Eastern markets.

  “Absolutely not,” Akane said.

  “I’ll carry you if I have to,” Sked replied.

  With those words, Ania broke down and began to cry, but she redoubled her effort, as if trying to justify his concern.

  “There’s the lifeboat,” Akane said.

  A few yards ahead on the beach, the Colonel had stopped dead. They could see their objective up in front, but none of their companions had made it there yet. Though they’d been at the back of the line, they were the first to arrive at the lifeboat.

  “I just hope this one isn’t full of arrows as well,” Sked said.

  When they reached the lifeboat, it had obviously been disturbed, but appeared to be otherwise undamaged and seemingly seaworthy.

  The Colonel motioned to the sand behind the boat. “Stay here. If the rest of the group arrives before I get back, leave without me. Understood?”

  No one answered.

  “Understood?”

  Sked nodded.

  And with that, the Colonel ran across the beach and disappeared back into the woods.

  ***

  When the dinosaurs hit, Cora dove to one side, sheltered behind a tree, and grabbed anyone who ran into range in the blind panic. To her relief, Lai was one of her catches. Mary and the cook landed a few moments later.

  It took all her training to keep from rushing blindly into the trees when the sound of someone being torn to pieces by the dinosaurs reached her through the night. Normally, she would have ignored all the tactical advice about knowing the numbers and the terrain before rushing in, but this time, the training held.

  She’d just spotted one of the natives.

  It was just a glimpse, only for a second as he crossed a moonlit gap between the trees. He’d disappeared from sight immediately but she knew better than to question what she’d seen. There was at least one native out there.

  And if she’d seen one, there would be a dozen under cover, using their intimate knowledge of woods they’d roamed since prehistoric times to remain hidden from even trained interlopers.

  So she stood perfectly still, in the dark, just watching and listening, barely breathing. Lai and the rest took her lead, either because they were smarter than she expected or because they were scared completely shitless.

  She knew the shock would only hold them motionless for so long, so she reinforced the message by catching each of their eyes and putting her finger over her lips, receiving a nod from each in turn.

  Cora held them in place for five minutes, each goddamned second lasting an eternity. She heard movement in the trees, screams, grunts and screeches in the distance. But with no way to understand who was a friend in need of help and who was an enemy just waiting for a clear shot with an arrow, she had to stay where she was, hating every second of it. The grinding of her teeth sounded loud in her head, but she had no capacity to stop herself. Not moving was as far as her self-control took her; to ask for more would have been inhuman.

  Only when both her senses and her instincts told her that the coast was clear did she turn to her companions and whisper, “Follow me.”

  “Where are we going?” Lai said.

  She knew what he was asking. He wanted to know if they would be charging off to ambush the dinosaurs and the islanders and save whoever could be saved. He probably wanted to do just that. “To the lifeboat,” she replied through teeth she still couldn’t quite unclench.

  Lai nodded, the gesture just visible in the dim light. He didn’t like it any more than she did, but he wasn’t going to argue the point.

  Not that Cora was about to let him. The only thing she’d succeeded at thus far was keeping Lai alive. That would change over her dead body.

  “This way,” she whispered.

  They headed away from the path, at right angles to their original trajectory and then, after walking for a minute or so, turned back the way they’d been moving. That would take them in the same direction the path went, but it should allow them to avoid the three-way fight brewing back wher
e they’d come from.

  The going was hard enough that Cora almost led them back to the path, but then she heard the sounds of… something… approaching from that direction. So instead of being able to return to the course of least resistance, they pushed further into the tangle.

  The maneuver did nothing to throw off their pursuers. Whatever was out there appeared to be matching them step for step.

  She held up a hand and her tiny, ragged band stopped behind her—almost like real soldiers. But the rustling in the night kept up.

  “Move!” she said. No point in being quiet anymore. Someone or something knew they were out there. Cora grabbed Lai’s wrist and tugged him at high speed through the trees, trying to bear the main brunt of the whipping leaves herself. The objective wasn’t to outrun whatever was chasing them. Instead, she wanted to open up a few dozen yards of distance while the element of surprise was on their side, then choose a place to make a stand and shoot it out.

  As if echoing her thoughts, the crack of a gunshot sounded off in the distance. It was too far off to have anything to do with their own predicament, but she instinctively turned her head in the direction of the sound.

  That proved a mistake.

  A large, white object on the ground sent her tumbling into the weeds with Lai flying over her and the cook and Mary only managing to stop in time.

  “Oh my God,” Mary said. “It’s the Colonel’s wife! Oh… I think she’s dead.”

  Cora spared the body a glance, and it was more than enough. She was full of arrows.

  That told her exactly who was following. It was the natives… and she’d led her team right into the place they were waiting for her.

  Another failure.

  Cora nearly gave up then and there, but then remembered her life, growing up in the barrio and everything she’d had to go through to reach the place where she was. She’d never given up. She didn’t even think she was capable of giving up.

  More gunfire in the distance told her others weren’t giving up either. She stood and hauled Lai to his feet, too.

  She selected a pair of trees growing together for cover and, still dragging her employer, she hunkered behind them. They seemed to be correctly angled to allow her to face the people coming for her. She had little hope of surviving… but she would take some of them to hell with her. Her pistol felt right in her hand.

  The first native charged in, and she shot him in the head. It was a silly thing to do, but she was pissed, and he was stupid, running in the light, so she risked the low-percentage shot.

  Then she hid behind the tree as an arrow thunked into the trunk.

  “Screw you!” Cora yelled. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Mary and the cook were hiding behind the next tree over. How they’d gotten there was beyond her: she’d lost track.

  She broke cover to fire, but couldn’t get a clean shot.

  Nevertheless, the movement saved her life. An arrow impaled the tree where her neck had been just a moment before.

  It had come from behind them.

  Cora turned to confront the new threat, already aware that they were dead. Surrounded, outnumbered soldiers didn’t come home.

  The five islanders facing her, arrows already drawn, knew it as well as she did. They didn’t crow, just studied her for a moment. She would be dead before she raised her gun.

  A shot exploded from the left and the nearest of the natives fell. The rest scattered, spooked, to be replaced by a large figure in white.

  The Colonel, panting like an overworked horse, glared at the woods where the natives had scattered. Then he turned to Cora.

  “Where is she?”

  Cora just shook her head. “Behind us. She didn’t make it.”

  The Colonel nodded. “Where?”

  “Ten meters down our trail.”

  “Thank you. I’ll hold this place. Get to the lifeboat. You’re almost there. Straight the way I came.”

  “I’ll…”

  “Don’t argue with me. Go now.”

  “Yes, sir.” This time, she did salute before grabbing Lai again and thundering into the trees.

  Behind her, she heard another gunshot. And another.

  The lifeboat sat on the beach precisely where the Colonel had said it would be. Four faces looked out from behind the boat, and she felt gratitude that someone else had survived.

  Another shot rang out from where the Colonel had been as they reached the boat.

  Another fired while they began to drag it into the water.

  Then two more.

  And then nothing. The jungle was silent, almost as if it was empty.

  Cora knew better.

  “Do you think anyone else is coming?” Sked asked

  “I doubt it. It’s a mess in there,” Cora replied.

  “Eight of us?”

  “Yeah.”

  “All right. Let’s get the hell out of here.” They began to push it back into the sea.

  Chapter 16

  It’s a good thing the waves aren’t very big, Cora reflected, because Akane never seemed to have heard of the basic principle of pointing the ship’s nose into the breakers. It took them nearly five minutes, buffeted from the side, to push the lifeboat to where they could climb aboard and row.

  There were only four oars in there. Lai, Cora, Sked and Crazy Eddie grabbed one each. After three pulls, Mary yelled.

  “Wait! Someone’s coming out of the forest!”.

  They stopped rowing and turned to look. At first, all Cora saw was a group of natives… but then she saw that the natives were actually running after two figures already waist deep in the water.

  “Turn us around!” she called to Akane.

  The subsequent maneuver would never be taught at any of the great military colleges. At one point, the current was pushing the boat away from the desperate swimmers faster than they could advance.

  But in the end, they managed to drag a panting and spluttering Harold aboard. He fist-bumped Eddie as the crew rowed towards the black dot that marked the position of the other survivor. His head bobbed up and down in the water about fifty yards from the lifeboat.

  “Come on!” Cora shouted. “Pull like men, you pussies.”

  For a moment, just one single second, she was a Marine again, working as part of a team to help a comrade in trouble. All the problems, and the questioning, the failures of the past few days were forgotten as she pulled with body and soul.

  Mary and Harold, not on the oars, dragged the wet man aboard. He collapsed onto the floor of the boat and hyperventilated for thirty seconds before pushing himself to his hands and knees.

  Cora was too preoccupied rowing the hell away from the shore and the natives to check on him. The important part was that he was out of the water.

  Besides, there were more important things to consider. As she watched the beach recede, it became very clear that the only thing that saved them was that the islanders seemed unwilling to wade further than about knee-deep into the water, and they hadn’t shot any of their arrows. Perhaps they only shot them when they were certain they could recover them later. Maybe they thought the sea would finish off the interlopers.

  Which meant they knew about the monsters.

  Finally, after rowing forever, she felt safe enough to take her eyes off the beach and contemplate the man they’d saved.

  She let out a guffaw, a sound of pure delight and… relief? “It figures,” she said as Doctor Pendalai looked up at her. “I’m starting to wish we’d had you around back in my days in the service. It’s always nice to have at least one soldier in your platoon who just can’t be killed. Not by monsters and not by bad guys. I would have sent you on every suicide detail ever, secure in the knowledge that you’d come back.”

  The doctor grinned, but there was more relief than humor in the look. “I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to make it this time. My arms are still weak from yesterday.” He pulled himself onto one of the empty seats. “And I can’t really say I’m delighted to be her
e. Last time I was on one of these, it got chomped by a huge dinosaur thing.”

  “We can throw you back,” Akane said.

  Another smile. “Thanks, but I think I’ll risk it for now.”

  “Okay. Just let us know. The rowers would thank you for lightening the load.”

  Cora scanned the water, looking for any signs of the monster in the moonlight. She pushed the question of what she felt for the doctor, why she’d been so happy to see him, off to one side. For now, she would simply write it off as admiration for a person she respected, combined with the emotional stress of the last few days.

  Because a middle-aged Indian doctor definitely wasn’t the kind of guy she would ever fall for.

  “Does anyone still have their compass?” she asked. Her own had been smashed when she dove for cover in the initial dinosaur charge.

  “Here,” Sked said.

  “All right. Does anyone know which way we need to go?”

  “East,” the doctor replied. “As true as we can keep it, and we’ll hit Andaman. We really can’t miss. It’s only about ten kilometers and the island is quite long, stretching north and south. We should actually be fine, unless…”

  His voice trailed off. There was no need to clarify the ‘unless’. Everyone knew what he was referring to, except for Ania, who looked unsure about what was happening. She just sat on the floor beside Akane’s pilot chair, one hand on the hacker’s thigh, as if the human contact between them was the only thing that kept Ania believing that she had actually woken from her nightmare.

  “That’s a long row,” Eddie said.

  “You want to turn on the engine? Doc says that’s what caused the monster to hit us last time,” Akane interjected.

  “Then you row and I’ll steer. Shouldn’t these things have emergency beacons? I mean, if you’re shipwrecked, you’d want to tell as many people as possible, right?”

  “Except,” the doctor said, “that I’m not sure the monster can’t hear them. When we went out in the other lifeboat, we were attacked just after we turned it on.”