The Complete 3-Book Islands That Time Forgot Trilogy: Dinosaur Island, Ape Island, Snake Island

by K. T. Tomb

  “But what if Allah and the Christian God are not the same? I am a jealous God, the Bible says. I turned away from Christ, and now I must be destroyed!” John threw himself into his hands again. Mandeep raised his eyebrows at Rajeev over the prostate man’s head in a gesture that passed responsibility for speaking next to the Hindu, who shrugged in his calm manner and placed a gentle hand on John’s shuddering shoulder. “I don’t know much about either of your gods, and even I don’t know all of my own. But I will tell you a story that my wife tells my children when they are feeling like everything is too much.” Rajeev cleared his throat, and John raised his head with red eyes from the sand.

  “One day there was a great king of the gods, by the name of Indra. This great king had defeated a demon, and desired a great palace to be built. The problem was that no matter how grand the carpenter made his palace, it was never big and grand enough. This made the carpenter very grim, as he was also an immortal and would never be done building the palace if Indra had his way. Down the carpenter went to see Brahma, the creator god. As you might know, Brahma sits on his lotus, which is the symbol of all divinity and power and grows from the navel of Vishnu, the sleeping god who dreams the whole universe, and tells him of his plight.” Rajeev spread his hands out wide, clearly copying the movements his wife would make to her little children. “Brahma kneels down to Vishnu and whispers in his ear. The next morning, Vishnu goes in disguise to Indra’s palace and says to the Indra, ‘I have heard that you are building a palace like no Indra ever has.’ To which the Indra says, quite naturally, ‘What do you mean? I am the only Indra!’ And Vishnu laughs. He says, ‘I see all the Indras before you, you come and go. Remember Vishnu sleeps in the cosmic sea, and the lotus of the universe grows from his navel, and on the lotus sits Brahma. Brahma opens his eyes, and a world appears, he closes his eyes, and a world dies. Each world has an Indra, and imagine that’s just one world, what about all the countless galaxies and worlds beyond. There is no great sage in your court that could count them all.’ And just then, so it goes, a column of ants march through the palace, and Vishnu laughs. The Indra is already greatly shocked, and now this stranger is laughing. ‘What does this mean?’ says the Indra. ‘All these ants,’ says Vishnu, ‘are all Indras from a past life. They rise up, kill a demon, build a palace, and then return as the lowest thing.’ Vishnu leaves, and the Indra is totally depressed. He thought he was the biggest thing, the great king, when in fact he is not the whole deal at all! He stops building his palace, lets the carpenter go, and retires to meditate at the feet of Vishnu, asleep in the sea of the universe. Well, this is no good either; the kingdom falls into disrepair and Indra’s wife is neglected. His wife, she is unhappy, and the priest of the gods comes to her aid. The priest says to Indra, ‘Now you listen here. You are in a position of the King of the gods, which is a very great thing, You are a manifestation of the mystery of Brahma in the field of time, and this is not a privilege to throw away lightly. Appreciate this, and deal with life as you really are.’ And the kingdom was saved.” Rajeev sat down again, as he had stood up to act out the dramatic parts of his story. Mandeep clapped.

  “I have to say, my friend; I have not heard this story. It is a good one, I understand it,” he said.

  “I’m not sure I do,” said John. “I am not a king, or a god. I cannot slay demons, or build palaces or anything.”

  “I think this is the problem with Christians,” Rajeev said. “You always take things so literally.”

  John thought about these words, and thanked his crewmates—no, his friends, he realized. He still didn’t understand the story of Indra, but he felt that he might one day. He rolled over and tried to get some sleep, looking up at the stars, the beautiful, wondrous cosmos that Hindus said was the sea in which Vishnu slept, that the Christians and Muslims said was heaven, and what the scientific men said were stars like the sun, emotionless, burning elements in the void. As he drifted off to sleep, he was sure that the messages of the holy texts were slowly beginning to reveal themselves to him. Maybe he wasn’t being punished by a vengeful god at all, and it would be arrogant to think so. How could he be so important, a tiny man on a speck of dust in the impossibly huge heavens, that God himself should smite him? But if he was also like Indra, not a god, but a manifestation of the universe itself, slowly understanding itself, what should he do? Who would guide him now, if no one could tell him what to do to save his life, if not his soul?

  The blackness of the universe enveloped him, and he slept.

  Chapter Nine

  “Rama entered a long room filled with thousands of people. The bow was so heavy it took no less than five thousand exceptionally strong men to bring the bow and its casing into the room. Several princes who had tried to lift the bow looked on as Rama approached the weapon. Rama looked at Shiva's bow. First he touched it. It was beautiful. Then with no effort whatsoever, he hoisted the bow from its casing and started to string it. As he did so, the bow snapped in two and fell to the palace floor. First there was disbelief, then everyone stood and chanted, "Rama. Rama."

  —Ramayana

  ***

  What lies ahead

  Dawn broke under a thick cloud cover, moving at speed from the east. Broiling clouds heavy with rain illuminated themselves with leaping arcs of electric fire, thunder rolling in its wake. The Nannie Dee rolled and pitched at sea, a helpless passenger on waves that crested high over the rocky outcrops near to which it was anchored. The crew hurried to pack up the camp—not that there was much of it to pack following the devastating dinosaur attack—and the weather reminded John of being out at sea, fleeing the Chinese pirates into the storm that had brought him here. Whether it was the vicissitudes of fate or the acts of malevolent gods that brought him here mattered little and less now. Captain Sykes clapped John on the shoulders jovially, which was a gesture that John met with a forced half smile. It seemed impossible that any man could possibly be happy under these circumstances, and then John realized that, of course, Captain Sykes must surely be the most downcast of them all, in his heart. He had lost half of his crew and there was limited chance that any of them at all would survive. It was a mark of his good captaincy that he did not let dismay well out of his gut and up his throat to take root on his lips and in his eyes; even when all knew the truth, he must be as a rock. Pikeham, in contrast to the stoic seafaring veteran, reminded John of a mouse encountering a cobra as he looked toward the trees and the mountain beyond which was their destination. The man visibly shook with fright, stress, exhaustion or a combination of all three. His clothes were now filthy, as all the crews’ were, covered in both dinosaur blood and human and general detritus, but the effect seemed worse on his fine suit as the doctor bundled his few remaining belongings in a knapsack.

  “Looks like that fellow could use some o’ t’supplies, lad.” John turned in surprise. Captain Sykes was standing at his left shoulder and, like himself, had been regarding the woes of Dr. Pikeham.

  “The supplies, Cap’n? I don’t understand what you mean,” John said.

  “Supplies lad, from t’Nannie Dee. ‘member what’s in ‘er belly? Part o’t’reason you’re on the ship in t’first place is ‘cause of that stuff. I figured an ex-military man might be useful if there was… Well, if there was trouble amongst the crew over it,” Sykes said. John looked at him blankly for a moment, then he remembered the reason the ship was bound for China in the first place. He looked back out to sea, with the ship rocking queasily under the building waves.

  “Don’t reckon we’ll ever get to China now, between thee and me. If we get out of this with our hides, we’re heading right back to Mangalore, full sails.” Sykes was looking out to his ship as well, stroking his mustache. Suddenly, John was hit by an idea. It was suicide, that much he knew, but if it worked...

  “Cap’n, permission to row back to the ship,” he said.

  “John, I thought better of ye, I need you with me—”

  John waved his hand, disregarding protocol w
hen talking to his betters and ignoring the surprised and stern look in his captain’s eyes.

  “I’m not a coward, sir. I think the opium in the stores of the ship may be the difference between life and death, and I know just how to use it, if you give me leave to retrieve some. We won’t need much but I am sure our very survival depends on it.”

  Sykes granted the request and, to his credit in John’s eyes, placed enough trust in him not to question him further. John ran back down the beach and recruited Mandeep and Rajeev to his temporary crew, and the three shipmates fought the storm waves in the smaller of the rowboats brought ashore by the crew. The waves made for slow going, like climbing hills using only their hands, but soon enough, Mandeep was leading them on board the Nannie Dee. John was nearly overcome with the urge to stay aboard forever, refuse all counsel to return to land and wait for death by starvation. Anything would surely be better than braving the teeth from hell itself on land. He took a grip of himself and followed Mandeep below decks where there were dozens of crates, and not a little water from the storm brewing outside. Rats scurried from their path as the three men used iron crows and a light shovel to pry one of the crates open. Rajeev pulled several bricks of the black gold free from the packing straw and put them in a sack. When there was enough, around ten pounds by John’s ken, he slung the roped sack on his shoulder. The men staggered and stumbled as the boat pitched, finding their way back to the rope ladder to the rowboat and this time, were aided by the quick moving waves, flying as fast as a horse over the sea.

  John was still unsure if his plan would work as the three of them used knives to further butcher the carcass of the giant dinosaur that had attacked them the night before. Cutting inch-thick pieces of meat free, John and Rajeev wrapped the fist-sized chunks of opium Mandeep was breaking off from the larger bricks. The meat was still moist and bloody, so the gory packages sealed themselves together quite well and soon, there were two dozen wrapped packages of opium about the size of a small cannon ball each lying on the sand.

  “Alright John, that’s all of the opium, apart from a few crumbs. What do we do with these things now?” Rajeev was washing the blood from his hands in the sea as he spoke.

  “Now, we climb a mountain, find a way off this island, and hope we don’t have to use these things at all. Help me tie these up with some stems of that bracken over there, and let’s find an oilskin to put them in. We need to keep them as fresh and appetizing as possible,” John said.

  “Appetizing?” Mandeep said. “John, opium is not edible, definitely not in these quantities, and it would surely render us unable to climb into a bed, let alone that mountain. When we cook them, the fumes will lay us all low, and no mistake.”

  “Mandeep my friend, these treats are not for the crew, nor any man. We are undoubtedly going to have guests for dinner when we move, and I would certainly rather that we were not served up like bully beef and biscuits,” John said with a hard smile through his beard. Rajeev returned, stripping leaves from the pliable bracken stems and they quickly secured the meat parcels to prevent them from opening as the meat dried. Once stowed safely in the oilskin, John led them back to Captain Sykes, who now had seemingly given in to his temptation to inquire about John’s idea. With a diagram drawn in the sand showing the tree line, the plain and the mountain sketched crudely, John explained his plan.

  “Preposterous! You’ll get us all killed, you bally fool!” Pikeham’s eyes were wild, the reasoned demeanor of his scientific nature having evidently deserted him. “You don’t know what these creatures will behave like to make assumptions like this. Captain Sykes, I implore you to ignore this man, and let us just cast off. Surely we can just sail west until we reach India?” Pikeham looked imploringly at Sykes, but his quivering lip brought him no favor.

  “Without an idea of where we are, Pikeham, we will be sailing blind. We have no stars to take measurements, and the compass will be bloody useless if we have no bearing. We need to know if this is an island or land mass, and perchance, we can see something I recognize from up there. I’ve sailed these seas since before you got your pen and ink. That being said, you do have a point. John, how do you know what these creatures will do when they smell this meat? What’s to stop them from having us for an appetizer?” Pikeham said.

  John shook his head. “Remember when we went searching,” his mouth became dry at the thought for the men they had lost and he cleared his throat, “for the men who didn’t make it back. We saw the three-horned beast, and it was hunted by the two legged ones? They were not a pistol shot away from us, and we are surely an easier meal. Did you ever see an eagle take a goat in the field? I have seen this. The eagle flies high above, and makes a choice. A young or old goat will be easier to take, but the goats in their prime are better; they have the best meat, and an already dead goat is best of all. It’s not a case of what is easy to kill if you have a family to feed. It’s about what will get you the most food. These creatures aren’t so different from birds, I think. The two legged ones at least.”

  Pikeham snorted. “Did you ever see an eagle that ran, and was eight feet tall with a mouth full of teeth? I know about biology, boy. This is folly.” He turned from the group and walked away, but only a few paces. He was still under instructions from Sykes to climb a mountain, after all.

  “Alright lad,” said the captain. “If you’re right about this, we’re probably as dead as if you’re wrong. You do what you need to do when we’re underway.” Sykes shouted final instructions to the crew working on the new mast a dozen yards away. “You lads have that done by morning, storm or no, and the devil take you if you don’t. Let’s get this done and get home. If we’re not back by midday tomorrow, you sail alone! God be with us all!”

  With that, the party of explorers with the sulking Pikeham in tow made once more into the trees, beyond which lay horrors and their only salvation.

  Chapter Ten

  “The king rose to his feet and declared, "Sita has found her spouse! Send a messenger to Ayodhya informing them of the wedding of Rama to my daughter, Sita." The wedding ceremony was held in the palace. As part of this ceremony, the worship of the sacred fire began. The holiest sages recited mantras, prayers.”

  —Ramayana

  ***

  Hell

  As the party set out for the mountain and pushed further inland, they were pleasantly surprised to find that the weather seemed to become far more clement. The already warm temperature began to soar as soon as they had entered the tree line and became tropical in a matter of minutes. Whereas the beach had been rain swept, no liquid fell from the canopy of tall trees onto their heads, although the air was thick with moisture, making it hard for John to draw breath, lugging an oil skin with a weight of meat on his back as he was.

  “What do you make of this, Dr. Pikeham?” John said, gesturing with his free hand to indicate the sweating jungle.

  “This is peculiar, granted,” said the doctor, “but not surprising when one considers that we have seen a great many strange things on this island. I would imagine that when these creatures lived, the climate of the Earth would have been much different to ours. As to why the rain has stopped when we saw the storm not a dozen leagues from the island, I could not say.” They trudged on, Sykes and Mandeep at the fore of the group hacking down vegetation. After an hour, they had to halt. Blocking their path was the largest dinosaur they had yet encountered, bigger than the three-horned herbivore, bigger than the giant predator that had attacked them at the beach. The beast was as large as the Nannie Dee herself. The brush was so thick, they had gotten within fifty yards of the beast. The gigantic torso was supported by four legs as thick as trees, a long tail held out for balance fifty feet in length. It held it aloft through some feat of strength or sheer good design, like a bridge of Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

  “See how it moves the tail,” Pikeham said in a whisper, although it was unlikely the great animal would have heard him. He sounded almost reverential. “If I ever make it back alive
to report to Mr. Darwin, I will surely be able to tell him that his ideas on evolution are completely incorrect! As I have told him many a time— ” His words were cut off by Sykes placing his hand over the doctor’s mouth. No one spoke, the only noises were coming from the great dinosaur, whose neck stretched up into the tree line to where its head was hidden from view. Leaves rained down in a shower from the treetops as it fed on the deciduous trees. Sykes’ eyes were darting around at ground level.

  “What is it Cap’n?” Mandeep said in a hushed voice. Sykes waved him away, and pointed at John, and then at the bag he was carrying. John understood the silent instruction and dropped to one knee, opening the sack and withdrawing three wrapped balls of meat. He gave one each to Rajeev and Mandeep who, as seamen, had developed strong arms that would be good for tossing the packages a far distance. John looked at Sykes, who had released Pikeham and now pointed over to a gap between two trees in the dense forest. John at first did not see what he was supposed to be looking at, but then he cottoned on. There was some animal there, hidden in the main by the trees, but moving toward the giant dinosaur which was now to their port-side, as they were looking. John made ready to throw, and lined up with Mandeep and Rajeev. He gave his instructions in Hindi so both could understand.

  “When it sees us, we will have one chance. Ready?” They nodded, and primed their arms like catapults so that the arcs of their meaty projectiles would be high and far. The hidden dinosaur moved, and John hissed the order to make ready. They were just about to launch when Pikeham yelled. “No!” he shouted, startling them and all the human eyes turned to the doctor. Rajeev nearly dropped his meat and fumbled to catch it.