by C. G. Mosley
Jonathon watched the carnage and breathed a sigh of relief as he realized and accepted that he wasn’t going to die just yet.
“Buddy, you alright?” he heard Silas’s panicked voice ask.
He stood up and dusted the sand off his pants. “I’m alright,” he said. “They clearly lost interest in me. Guess I didn’t look very appetizing.”
The three of them stood silently and watched the two dinosaurs quickly devour the Gallimimus. When they began to polish off a few bones, Annie turned and threw up in the nearby brush.
“That’s disgusting,” she said, heaving. “Can we please leave?”
Jonathon patted her on the back as she continued to kneel over the bushes, coughing and gagging. “Let’s go,” he said smiling.
Chapter 17:
Jonathon led Silas and Annie along the bank of the stream with care. Each step he took made soft contact with the ground and the others followed his example. The soft dirt along the edges of the stream made the task easy. Jonathon did what he learned very quickly was vital to survival on the island. He listened. Fortunately, the only sounds he heard was the frequent cascades in the stream, and the pleasant soft sounds of the ocean breeze flowing effortlessly through the trees and bushes nearby. A lot of insects buzzed about the stream, more than they’d encountered anywhere else on the island thus far. He suspected they were some form of mosquito, but he couldn’t be sure. They were tiny and very annoying, but he paid them little attention. It’s not the bugs that can kill you, he thought.
He glanced back at Annie and expected to see her in a miserable state. He was pleasantly surprised to see that she was in much better spirits than she was earlier. Apparently, her behavior hours earlier was, at least in part, a direct result of the stress they’d all endured. It’s not every day that a person wakes up with a hangover, sees real live dinosaurs, is taken hostage at gun point, then tied to a tree and left for the dinosaurs to eat. Those were all the things Annie had experienced, and mentally, she was overloaded. That was the nice way to put it. Most people would just say she went nutty for a little while.
“It can’t be much farther,” Jonathon said in almost a whisper, trying to keep their spirits up.
Annie smiled in response; Silas remained serious and just as focused as Jonathon. They approached a slight bend in the stream, and as they rounded the corner, another surprising sight laid across the stream.
“What in the world is that thing?” Silas asked, scratching his head.
Jonathon cautiously approached the large tan-colored dinosaur. It appeared to be dead.
“It’s a sauropod, not totally sure which kind though,” he whispered. “I can’t believe there are sauropods here too.”
Silas could hear the wonder in the paleontologist’s voice and then he visibly saw it when he noticed a smile crack Jonathon’s face. “This thing’s got to be thirty-five or forty feet long,” he said. “What do sauropods eat?”
Jonathon’s smile widened. It was becoming quite amusing that the common first question when they encountered new dinosaurs was: “What do they eat?”
“If I had to guess, I’d say this is a Saltasaurus. All of the dinosaurs here seem to be from the Cretaceous Period.” He paused a moment and turned to look at Silas and Annie. “But to answer your question, it’s an herbivore. Furthermore, it’s dead so we don’t have to worry.” Suddenly, a look of panic and fear simultaneously spread over Annie and Silas’s faces. They weren’t looking at him anymore, they were looking past him. Behind him.
“Do we have to worry about that one?” Annie asked, pointing.
Jonathon spun around on his heel and once again jerked the knife out of its sheath. He immediately recognized the new dinosaur standing atop the belly of the Saltasaurus. Dromaeosaurus. He had been on a dig in Montana once and had personally helped extract a large chunk of rock containing a nearly complete fossilized skeleton of Dromaeosaurus. The animal was relatively small, about the size of a wolf. It had a lot of blue-and-red feathers on it; its arms almost looked like wings except for the claws on the end of each arm. There were more feathers on the Dromaeosaurus than any other dinosaur he’d seen on the island. The legs looked powerful, and he quickly remembered that this was an animal known for its quickness. It was about six feet long, and as the animal hissed at him, he caught sight of a mouthful of dagger-like teeth. Hunks of flesh, dripping with blood hung from the animal’s lower jaw.
“Yeah, we gotta worry about this one,” Jonathon said. He felt his pulse quicken. “I think we interrupted his lunch.”
“Well, what do we do?” Silas asked, as Annie darted behind him.
“We’re going to slowly walk backward,” Jonathon said, doing his best to sound calm. He immediately began taking steps back, and Silas and Annie did the same.
The animal hissed loudly again and began thrashing its tail back and forth like an angry cat.
“Are you sure we should keep moving?” Silas asked.
Jonathon felt sweat trickle into his eye and burn, but he resisted the urge to raise an arm and wipe it away. “We don’t have a choice, Silas,” he answered through clenched teeth. “I mean, if you’d rather s—”
Jonathon’s words were cut off abruptly as the dinosaur unexpectedly lunged off the dead Saltasaurus and crashed into him. He fell on his back and let out a yelp as the animal dug its claws into his stomach. Dromaeosaurus possessed a sharp ‘sickle’ claw on each foot similar to the ones found on a Velociraptor. He felt the sickle claw dig deeper into his flesh and cringed as he thought of his insides spilling out of his belly and onto the ground. Fortunately, he still clutched the large hunting knife and he drove it hard in between the dinosaur’s ribs. Dromaeosaurus let out a shrill sound of utter pain and instantly released its grip. As it retreated away from him, he pulled the knife out and hot, sticky blood poured out over his arm. The animal ran away and disappeared into the jungle wailing the whole way.
Silas and Annie rushed over to Jonathon and knelt over him. Annie began sobbing again, expecting the worst.
“Are you alright?” Her already swollen and reddened eyes barely produced tears.
The truth was he wasn’t sure if he was alright or not. He sat up and tore open his top shirt, buttons flying everywhere. The white undershirt was all red around the bottom. He frantically pulled the shirt up and examined his wounds.
“Hold still,” Silas said calmly as he retrieved a white handkerchief from a cargo pocket on his shorts. He took the cloth and slowly wiped away blood from one of the wounds. “It’s only punctures,” he said. “Can’t tell how deep though.”
“I don’t think it’s too deep,” Jonathon grunted. He took the shirt he ripped off and applied direct pressure to the wound on his right side. Annie quickly took off her over shirt and did the same on his left side.
“It stings a little, but I’m fine.”
“If you didn’t have that knife, you’d be in big trouble right now,” Silas said. He threw the now red hanky aside and began washing his bloody hands off in the stream.
Jonathon breathed a sigh of relief as it became more and more apparent he was going to be alright. “Thanks for the concern, guys,” he said thoughtfully.
“You’re our ticket out of here. Of course we’re concerned for your safety,” Silas answered with a wink.
Jonathon used the blood-soaked shirts as a temporary bandage to keep the dirt and insects out of his wounds. Annie helped him back on his feet, and they continued along the stream without further incident. When they finally arrived at the beach, Jonathon took a deep breath of fresh Atlantic air. It was refreshing and seemed to give him a much-needed boost of energy. The wall of mist was still present several hundred yards into the water.
“Where is the ship? I don’t see the ship,” Annie said, cupping a hand over her eyes.
There wasn’t a lot of sunlight, but it was still much brighter on the beach than it had been under the canopy of the jungle.
“The ship is up the beach, not as far as you pr
obably think,” Jonathon said assuringly. “Right now, I’m more interested in that,” he said, pointing in the direction of a large black shipping container planted solidly in the sand.
“That’s gotta be the container Angus was looking for,” Silas said.
Jonathon nodded. “The ATVs have got to be in there.”
The three of them rushed over to the container. Jonathon arrived first and frowned when he saw a large shiny padlock on the door. Frustrated, he grabbed the lock and slammed it against the door.
“A four-wheeler would be extremely useful out here. We could get Annie to the ship quickly and I’d be able to find Lucy much faster than I could on foot.”
“Well, just hold on a minute,” Silas replied. He padded back across the beach searching the ground, and then he knelt down and dug up a large rock. “Maybe we can break it off,” he said as he returned.
Jonathon gave him a skeptical glance, but said nothing.
Silas raised the rock high above his head. “Stand back!” He drove the rock forcefully against the lock and the metal container clanged loudly with the impact. The sound literally echoed across the beach. The lock received a minor scuff, but still remained very much intact. Silas gave it another blow and then another. The lock held. Again, he struck the lock and again the sound of clanging metal echoed loudly across the beach and into the jungle.
“This isn’t working,” Jonathon said. He scanned the area to see if any curious dinosaurs were coming to investigate the noise.
Silas seemed to ignore him and he hit the lock again, determined to break it loose.
“It’s not working,” he repeated. “Stop before all the racket leads that tyrannosaur back over to us.”
Silas frowned. “Sorry, I tried,” he said, panting.
Jonathon gave him a pat on the back. “I know; you gave it a good try. Now let’s get out of here, I suddenly don’t feel very safe here anymore. The sooner we find the ship, the better.”
Jonathon led them back near the tree line so they could at least remain partially hidden in the shadows as they walked. He felt some concern about walking so closely to the tree line. A dinosaur could easily sneak up on them within the shroud of the jungle, but he felt much safer there than he would out on the open beach for the tyrannosaur to easily spot them. After about ten minutes of walking, they finally spotted the silhouette of Bethany, the mist serving as an eerie backdrop behind her. Thankfully, the small boat still rested where they’d last seen it on the edge of the beach. Annie jumped in the boat while Silas and Jonathon hurriedly shoved off from the beach. Then they too jumped into the boat. Jonathon fell awkwardly into the boat and the wounds on his belly quickly reminded him of they were still there. He winced as the sharp pain tore across him and he placed a firm hand on his right side desperately trying to ease the pain. Silas started the engine and steered the boat toward the ship and the ladder that hung over her hull. As they drew close, Annie began to shout at the captain out of pure jubilation. Jonathon felt some weight off of his shoulders when he realized he’d gotten her back in one piece. But no sooner had a small sense of relief set in, it was quickly replaced with a very uneasy feeling. As he peered up at the ship looming ahead of them, something felt wrong.
“Where are they?” Annie asked. “Can’t they hear me?”
“Maybe they’re busy,” Silas said.
Annie crossed her arms nervously. “Doing what? The ship hasn’t moved since we left it this morning.”
As the boat drifted to the ladder, Jonathon clenched his teeth and forced himself to get up. The pain in his belly was getting worse, but he had to ignore it.
“You two wait here a minute,” he said. “I’m going to climb aboard and make sure it’s safe first.” He turned to grab a rung on the ladder when Silas tugged his arm away.
“You’re a stubborn man, has anyone ever told you that?” he asked. “You’re already hurt. Sit back down, I’ll climb up and check it out.”
Jonathon shook his head. “No, Silas. I appreciate it, but I’ll take care of it.”
Silas stared at him without blinking. A stern disapproving look spread across his wrinkled face.
Jonathon smiled, trying to lighten the tension. “More than likely they’re just asleep or something. I’m sure it’s no big deal. But just to be on the safe side, I’m going to go have a look first. You need to stay here with Annie. If something was to happen down here, I probably wouldn’t be much good busted up the way that I am. She’ll be safer with you.”
Silas took the bush hat off of his head and raked his fingers through his blond hair. “I still think I should go,” he snorted. “Just hurry up!”
“I will,” Jonathon answered back, and then quickly ascended up the ladder.
When he reached the deck, he immediately began shouting out for Captain Blackstone and Denny. Neither one of them responded and a sick feeling began to overcome him. He decided to check the bridge, and on the way there, he noticed a dark, almost black, streak of some sort of liquid across the steel surface of the deck. He took his right foot and rubbed the toe of his shoe near the edge of the thick liquid. The spot he disturbed thinned out and suddenly displayed a reddish tint. Jonathon gasped and took a step back as his initial suspicion was confirmed. It was blood. He forced himself to follow the thick trail of blood along the deck until he found himself behind a large wooden crate. What he found there made him grimace and that response was followed by gagging. There was very little left of Denny’s midsection. His rib cage remained, bits of purple and pink strips of meat hung from the bone. There was practically nothing beyond that. In fact, his midsection was so hollowed out it was easy to see the bones in Denny’s back including his spinal column. Jonathon noticed injuries to the young man’s arms and especially his fingers. He winced as he realized the poor guy was alive when he was being eaten. He literally fought for his life and lost. Perhaps the most horrifying part of the grisly scene was the part of Denny’s body that had seemingly remained untouched: his head. The expression on his face gave Jonathon a very unsettling vision of his last moment of life. His mouth was gaped open, a scream of pain and terror no doubt spilled from it. His eyes were wide, so wide in fact that they almost didn’t look real. His last moment was one of sheer agony. Jonathon grabbed his stomach and fell to his knees. The urge to throw up was overwhelming, but somehow he fought it off. Get on your feet, he thought as a sudden revelation occurred to him. Whatever did this to Denny may still be on board.
He sprang to his feet and whipped his head around to look behind him. Fortunately, nothing was there. He called out to Captain Blackstone again. There was still no response.
“You alright up there?” Silas’s muffled voice shouted from down below, port side.
“Yes,” he answered, trying his best to sound calm. “Don’t come up here.”
He closed his eyes for a second trying to figure out what to do. As he thought, a loud shrill pierced through the sky above him. He glanced up and saw the silhouette of a large flying reptile swooping toward him. The massive pterosaur had a wingspan of nearly thirty feet. He stumbled backwards, surprised and terrified at the same time. He landed on his bottom and scrambled to regain his footing. The pterosaur released another bone-chilling shrill and glided at him with lightning speed. He felt a gust of wind as the large animal thrust its wings back and forth just before it touched down. Jonathon failed to get on his feet and decided to roll out of the way instead. The move was successful, but there was no time to breathe a sigh of relief. The huge reptile suddenly drew its head backward, and then thrust its long, slender beak forward like a spear straight at him. He jumped back again, barely missing the attack. The pterosaur locked its beady eyes on him and wasted no time going after him again. The animal opened its beak and clamped down on his leg, tugging him backward. Jonathon reached down and scrambled to get his knife. The pterosaur had no teeth, but the edges of the beak were still razor sharp. He felt his calf muscle slice open; fortunately, he was too frightened to feel the pa
in. The beak tugged at him again, forcing him to fall onto his back. He watched, terrified, as the reptile loomed over him, drawing its head back yet again. He imagined Silas finding his body in much the same way he discovered Denny’s. He knew the pterosaur was about to thrust its hungry beak into his belly if he didn’t react quickly. The animal’s head fell forward and Jonathon met it swiftly with his knife straight through the bottom of the reptile’s skull. He closed his eyes and held the knife firmly in place a long moment to make sure the job was done. The animal shook for a brief moment, and then fell limp. Blood flowed heavily over his hand and down his arm, soaking his shirt sleeve along the way. The blade had penetrated all the way through and the tip of the blade protruded out of the top of the skull. It was a brief struggle to work the knife back out of the animal’s head, and as soon as he did, he returned to his feet and looked to the sky yet again. His jaw dropped as he saw three more pterosaurs circling above. He instantly crouched down and placed his back against the crate where he’d found Denny. Suddenly, he thought of Silas and Annie.
“Silas, get that boat back to shore,” he shouted.
“Not without you, get down here,” he yelled back.
“If I go down there, those birds may chase me and kill us all. It’s not worth the chance. Get back to the island, I’ll figure something out.”