Jurassic Island: A Prehistoric Thriller Read online

  "We're landing on a carrier vessel."

  "Like the Navy uses?"

  Joseph shrugged. "Again…friends in high places."

  Colt suddenly felt as if he were in some weird espionage movie and he wasn't sure if he liked it. But when the sedan pulled up in front of a small hangar and Colt saw Joseph's private plane, he got over it.

  Okay, he thought. This is pretty damned cool.

  He got out of the car with Joseph and walked over to where several others were gathered around in a small group. Colt didn't recognize any of them and as he neared them, he was reminded of the beers he'd had. While the buzz was certainly gone, he didn’t want his first impression to be of the guy that smelled like the bottom of a bottle.

  "Am I okay to go ahead and board?" he whispered to Joseph as they neared the group.

  "Don't you want to meet everyone else?"

  "On the plane," he said. "I sort of need to run to the restroom."

  "Yeah," Joseph said. "That's fine."

  Colt gave a small wave to the few people that had noticed him and then jogged for the plane to seem as if he was in a hurry. He went up the small attached staircase and walked into the plane. It was sleek, minimally furnished, and classy as hell.

  Taking it all in, a funny thing happened. He suddenly DID have to go to the bathroom. And it wasn't just to take a piss. His stomach was suddenly doing cartwheels as the reality of what he was getting involved in settled on his nerves.

  He looked around frantically and saw what he assumed was one of the pilots near the front of the plane.

  "Restroom?" Colt said quickly.

  Seeing that there was little time to spare, the pilot pointed to the back of the plane. "Last door on the left."

  Colt went in a hurry, rushing by two rows of leather seats and a table that was nicer than the one in his apartment. He found the bathroom and practically fell inside, closing the door behind him.

  When he started puking, it seemed impossible to stop. He did start to feel better, though. He could smell the booze coming out and realized that maybe it was a good thing that he had gotten sick. He stood up, wiped his mouth with a square of toilet paper he got from the roll on the wall, and took one last flush.

  He exited the bathroom only to find seven people scattered around the inside of the plane. He recognized most of their faces from the group outside of the plane. A few were giving him sympathetic looks while another—a woman of about thirty-five or so—looked a little disgusted. Behind them, Joseph stood frozen and gave a comical shrug.

  "You okay man?" one of the men from outside asked him. "I'm not going to lie, man…that was loud."

  "Yeah," Colt said. "Must’ve been something I ate.”

  Not the best way to return to my former glory, Colt thought as he sat down in the nearest chair, suddenly wishing that he would have just stayed at the bar.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Once he had managed to calm himself, Colt started to pay attention to the other people in the plane. Including himself, there were twelve people. It took him less than five minutes to figure out that only six or so of those people was of any importance. He could tell by the way they carried themselves. He dismissed those that he didn't see as being important right away. He even went so far as to try to figure out what these people did for a living (something he had gotten quite good at while traveling for his two television shows back in the day) but quickly gave up.

  He was tired. He needed a nap. He needed some food on his stomach. He was pretty sure he'd be spared a hangover from the night's earlier festivities, but his stomach was not feeling well at all.

  Just as he settled back in his seat, hoping to catch a cat-nap, someone plopped down in the seat next to him. With a sigh, Colt turned towards them and opened his eyes. Of the two women on the plane, of course it would be the red head that sat down next to him. His ex-wife had been a red head and he was fairly certain that most red heads on the planet were nothing more than trouble waiting to happen.

  "Hi," she said.

  He grinned and nodded.

  "I'm Leslie. Leslie O'Brien."

  "Hi, Leslie."

  "Not feeling too well, huh?" she asked.

  "That's an understatement," he said.

  "Do you not like flying?" she asked.

  Colt said nothing. She was pretty and seemed well-intentioned, but God he wished she'd shut up.

  "Well that was a dumb question, I guess," she said. "Of course you're okay with flying. I used to watch your show all of the time."

  "The good one or the shit one?" Colt asked.

  "Exploring the Shadows," she said.

  "So the good one."

  She gave him a perplexed look and then frowned. "Well, I just wanted to meet you. I'm a pretty big fan and it's going to be an honor working with you."

  "Just curious," Colt said. "What do you do? What talents do you have that got the attention of our esteemed Mr. Thornton?"

  She frowned again, making Colt wonder if it was her face's default expression. He wondered if she thought highly of herself and assumed that he would know who she was. He understood it. He got that same thing from time to time.

  "I'm a paleontology professor at NC State, Arizona State, and Yale. Joseph contacted me because I'm the go-to source for any educational material or television shows about dinosaurs. Your production company called on me quite a bit when Exploring the Shadows was still on the air."

  "So…dinosaurs?" Colt asked.

  "Yeah. That's me."

  "He expects there to be dinosaurs on this island?"

  Joseph appeared beside them, as if he had appeared out of thin air. Colt wondered if he had been sitting behind them and eavesdropping the entire time.

  "I'm not sure what to expect," he said. "I want to make sure I have all of my bases covered. But yes…in the small circles where Spectre Island is discussed, there is the train of thought that there could be dinosaurs there."

  Colt couldn't help but let out a chuckle. "Look, I believe in a lot of crazy things, but even I don't buy that."

  Leslie shrugged. "There's some merit to the idea," she said. "If this island has so far been undiscovered, there's no telling what lives there. Of course, I don't expect to find living, breathing dinosaurs, but there could be animals we have yet to discover."

  "Exactly," Joseph said. "And from the T-rex to the tea-cup poodle, Ms. O'Brien is a fount of knowledge."

  Colt nodded sympathetically as Joseph got to his feet and went elsewhere to bother some of his other hired hands.

  "So tell me, Leslie," Colt said. "Do you know any of these other people?"

  "I know a few in passing but not very well. That guy," she said, nodding towards a tall man that was speaking to a bored-looking Japanese man, "is Ken Houston. He's this really extreme outdoorsman that has written some articles for well-respected magazines. Rumor has it that he almost landed a TV deal with the Discovery Channel a few years back."

  "So he's a survivalist?" Colt asked.

  "I suppose. He nearly made the Guinness Book of World Records for surviving the longest in the Sahara desert or something like that."

  "I don't know if that's impressive or sad," Colt said.

  When Leslie laughed at this remark, Colt was surprised; he was being serious. Plus, he had decided that Leslie was only capable of frowning.

  "Anyone else?" Colt asked.

  "Well, I just met Harvey Ballinger," she said. "I had heard his name before but never met him."

  "Which one is he?"

  Leslie pointed to a very professional-looking, clean-shaven man that was furiously typing into a laptop. He was sitting by himself on the other side of the plane.

  "What's his story?" Colt asked.

  "He's a journalist that has worked for The New York Times, The Huffington Post, and a long list of others that he was more than happy to rattle off. His big claim to fame is that he digs up these controversial topics, picks them apart, and then assigns blame to places where most people would be scared t
o go."

  "So he's a trouble-maker then?"

  "Not necessarily. He's never wrong in his blame-placing. He just gets reckless. The media has painted him as this crazy journalist that takes on fringe topics. The media makes fun of him, but he brings in ratings. His segment on The Daily Show got like three million YouTube hits…which, again, he will be more than happy to tell you about."

  "Sounds like a fun group," Colt said.

  "Well, why are you here?" Leslie asked. "I guess you're the celebrity of the group, but did you come willingly?"

  "Yeah. Believe it or not, a washed up guy that used to be on TV to find Bigfoot isn't really rolling in money. Besides…I fully expect that the most we'll find out there is a forgotten sandbar. Maybe some nice conch shells. How about you? Are you a believer in Spectre Island?"

  "I don't know," she said. "I lean towards NO most of the time. There could easily be an island that comes and goes, swallowed up by the sea depending on water levels. But no…I don't anticipate finding anything of real importance."

  "You just backed Joseph up pretty convincingly," Colt pointed out.

  She shrugged and gave him a smile that made him remind himself that red heads were trouble. "I need the paycheck. I can tell him all sorts of things he wants to hear if the pay is right."

  Colt returned her smile and resumed his resting position, closing his eyes. "Stick with me, kid," he said sarcastically. "We're going to get along just fine."

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Joseph made the announcement that they would be landing in five minutes. They would be arriving at a private airstrip in Diego Suarez and from there, they'd be taking a pair of boats to what he fully believed was the much fabled Spectre Island.

  Murmurs of excitement spread through the plane and as Colt re-examined them all. He wondered how many of them genuinely shared Joseph's excitement and how many were there simply for a ludicrously large paycheck like him and Leslie O' Brien. Colt understood both mindsets and it was that understanding that made him truly realize for the first time just how extraordinary this little excursion was. As the plane started its descent, Colt began to feel a tickle of that old excitement race through him—the same excitement he had felt when he'd taken those first few expeditions for Exploring the Shadows.

  He'd missed that excitement and, in the drunken haze of the years that had followed the show's cancellation, Colt had started to wonder if that amazement and excitement was something that died in everyone around the age of thirty-five or so. It was good to know that his theory had been wrong and that the need for adventure could still thrive after it had been so badly bludgeoned by life.

  Most of those on the flight grew quiet as the plane neared the ground. In the air, they had all been vaguely removed from the reality of what they were doing. Maybe it had been the dark skies outside of the windows or the sense of not having solid ground beneath their feet. But now that they were heading back to the ground, the reality of it all was seeping in. Colt could see it on all of their faces.

  Colt watched the ground draw closer. According to Joseph, it was nearly 9:30 in the morning here in Diego Suarez. The morning light was faint but even through the plane's windows seemed crisper and more alive than any morning he'd seen in America lately.

  Colt heard the whir of the landing gear and then the squelch of the tires on pavement. There were a few whoas from the passengers and someone even clapped. Beside him, Leslie O'Brien seemed as grounded and carefree as he was. He was starting to like her quite a bit.

  Joseph made no grand gestures or speeches when the plane came to a stop. He waited for the pilot to come out of the cockpit with the okay to disembark and then led the way out. Colt fell into the line, just about in the halfway point. Leslie was behind him and the Japanese man in front of him. As they walked towards the door, Colt's right foot accidentally nudged the foot of the Japanese man. He turned to Colt and gave him an emotionless stare. After about three seconds of wordless eye contact, he then turned back around and continued filing out.

  "Any idea who that is?" Colt asked Leslie.

  "None," she said.

  "I do," said the man behind Leslie. It was Harvey Ballinger, the annoying reporter Leslie had filled him in on. "His name is Liu Hamasaki. The man is lethal. Rumor has it he used to be part of the Japanese Yakuza."

  "That seems…odd," Colt said.

  "Well, we're an odd group," Harvey said.

  "That's becoming painfully apparent," Colt replied.

  They all filed out of the plane, meeting in a loose little circle on the tarmac. Only, to call it tarmac was a bit of a stretch. The landing strip looked like nothing more than a badly paved road, the kind that Colt had ventured down in the American south while looking for evidence of Civil War ghosts. Two small buildings made primarily of concrete and scrap tin stood several hundred yards away. A few vehicles were parked in front of these buildings but other than that, there was nothing.

  Joseph found his way to the center of the group as the pilot started to bring their bags down to the pavement. "From here," Joseph said, "we'll take two Jeeps to a beach located eight miles away. There are boats waiting there. We'll take those boats directly to the island."

  "If the island is there," said the man that Leslie had pointed out as Ken Houston. He looked half asleep, but his eyes had a wild quality to them. As Colt studied him, he thought he did remember seeing him on TV. He had been something of a psycho, eating bugs out of fallen stumps and keeping warm inside the carcass of a leopard.

  "Yes, if the island is there," Joseph said. "I'm not going to separate you like children in school, so let's go ahead and file into the Jeeps as you like. Time's wasting."

  They followed Joseph up the tarmac to where they piled into two Jeeps that were waiting in front of the ramshackle little buildings. Two drivers were already waiting, making a total of fifteen people that would be crammed into the two Jeeps, heading into the surrounding remote region.

  With seven people in one Jeep and eight in the other, the ride was not easy going. Colt was jammed into the back of his Jeep, pressed against the rear wall. Ken Houston was pressed against him, and Leslie was crammed in the front with Liu Hamasaki. Leslie had told Colt the names of two others in the Jeep with him, but he had a hard time remembering their names as the Jeep bounced violently onto an unpaved road that carried them into a jungle thicker than any he had seen before. And that was saying a lot, as he had once trekked through the jungles of South America in search of a mythical beast that had turned out to be nothing more than a large turtle.

  Ten minutes into the drive, after Colt had hit his head on the roof of the Jeep twice, Ken Houston turned to him with a smile. "You know, I owe you a great deal of thanks," he said.

  "How's that?" Colt said.

  "The pitch for my show got rejected six times. But then Exploring the Shadows got huge and all of a sudden, networks were begging for us. Apparently, the American public enjoys seeing white guys stumbling through dangerous foreign places."

  Up front, Liu Hamasaki chuckled. Colt wasn't sure, but he thought he heard some ridicule in that laugh.

  "Thanks for the chit chat," Colt said. "But right now, let's keep it zipped, okay? I'd like to concentrate on not having my pelvis snap up through my ribs for right now."

  Another laugh sounded out from up front, this time from the driver. He looked around to Colt and, with a smile, gave a shrug.

  After another ten minutes of bumping through the forest to the sounds of the Jeep slowly coming undone, the driver brought the Jeep to a stop. They all piled out quickly and Colt walked as far away from the Jeep as he could. He looked around and saw that the Jeeps had brought them to a stretch of beach that would never have a problem with tourists. There was garbage and dead fish washed up on the shore. It smelled like what Colt assumed the dumpster behind a Red Lobster would smell like on a hot summer day. Two boats were tied up to a flimsy dock, both of which looked like they may have been recently salvaged from the bottom of the ocean.

>   The drivers spoke quietly with Joseph for a minute as he reached into one of his bags and handed them each an envelope. After that, the drivers set to unloading their bags from the back of the Jeep. Colt, of course, didn't have a bag. He'd come with Joseph directly from the bar with no time to prepare. Not that he'd have much to pack, anyway.

  Joseph waved them on towards the dock. They followed him as he laid out the next series of instructions for them.

  "One at a time on the dock, please," he said. "The drivers tell me that too much weight will likely make it collapse. File in how you wish into the boats. We're forty-two miles away from the location of Spectre Island, so it won't be too long of a trip. When we get there, the boats will anchor down and I'm told that the men driving the boats will give us ten hours."

  "What happens after ten hours?" Colt asked.

  "Things around here are odd," Joseph said. "The majority of locals do believe that Spectre Island exists. They are timid enough about driving out there, but they say it's madness to stay at night."

  "I'd agree to that," said one of the people that Colt had yet to meet. He was a tall man that looked like an animated scarecrow. He carried a single bag and what looked like a small toolbox. Probably a tech guy or something, Colt thought.

  Again, taking Joseph's lead, the twelve members of his crew followed him. They walked single file across the beach, taking turns heading onto the dock. Colt noticed that Joseph stood back by the side as they filed onto the dock, watching them go one by one onto the boats.

  The boats themselves were really nothing more than medium-sized fishing vessels. One of them had a patch along the side that dipped down under the water a bit. Colt opted to not load up on that one. He instead took the other one, a gray slab of a boat. It reminded him of the boat that most of JAWS had taken place on and that did nothing to ease his nerves.

  Leslie O'Brien filed onto his boat behind him. "You saw that patch job on the other one, too, huh?" she asked.

  "Yeah. I bet the name is painted on the other side and it says S.S. Minnow."