Jurassic Island: A Prehistoric Thriller Page 4

  "Stop that," Liu said. "No shaking. You shake, you die."

  "Oh my God," Suzanne said slowly. She then kept repeating it, to the point where it was nearly a chant. "OhmyGodohmyGod…"

  "Rope," Liu said. "I need rope."

  "Here!" Leslie said, reaching into the bench and pulling out a small strand of old rotten rope.

  Liu looked to it, obviously dissatisfied. "No good. It will break."

  He looked around quickly and Colt was beyond impressed with his poise. Finally, he looked to Ken Houston. He picked up the gas can and handed it to him. Ken took it as if it were a bomb…which, Colt guessed, it sort of was in a way.

  "Come," he said, motioning Colt and Ken to the edge of the boat.

  Colt handed the flotation ring to Leslie and pointed out to the one man left swimming. He was about thirty yards away from the boat. The megalodon was fifty yards or so further back. It was a lost cause, Colt was sure of that. But they had to at least try.

  "Throw this out to him and then everyone pull as hard you can. We have to try to save him."

  Leslie took the ring and started unfurling the rope at once. By the time Colt had turned to join Liu and Ken, she was arching over the back, ready to throw the ring into the water.

  "Look," Liu said. "With no rope, this is dangerous."

  "It's not already?" Colt asked.

  Ignoring him completely, Liu went on. He brought the harpoon gun up, the point trained at the shark. "Ken, I need you to hold the gas can as still as you can, about two inches away from the tip of the harpoon. I'll count to three. Just before I get to three, let go of the can. Then Colt…like I said. Don't even wait a beat. Fire the flare as soon as the harpoon makes contact. Aim for the gas can."

  "Ah Jesus," Ken said. "This is insane."

  Behind them, Leslie, Joseph and Suzanne were screaming in encouragement and terror. They had started pulling the swimmer towards the boat and he was getting closer. But so was the megalodon.

  "It'll probably come up just a bit before it gets to us," Leslie screamed to them. "You won't have very long to pull this off!"

  "Ready?" Liu asked.

  "No," Ken said, but held the gas can up anyway. He held it as instructed, where it was barely off of the tip of the harpoon. When Liu brought the harpoon gun down a bit, Ken also moved the gas can. Colt saw right away that Liu was aiming in front of the shark, anticipating where it might come up out of the water a bit.

  Beside them, the swimmer was nearly to the edge of the boat. He was weeping his thanks and Colt worried that it might be premature. The shape of the shark shimmered through the water, now no more than twenty yards away.

  "We're running out of time," Harvey said, his voice high-pitched with fear.

  "Okay," Liu said. "One. Two…"

  The top of the megalodon's head breached the top of the water.

  A beat before Liu said "three," Ken released the gas can. Liu fired, the harpoon puncturing the gas can and sending Liu's shot about three inches to the right. Apparently, Liu had counted on this because the harpoon found its aim the moment the shark's eye was visible. It was an evil black circle surrounded by what looked to be impenetrable grey leather.

  It let out a roar as the harpoon landed, the noise nearly making Colt forget what he was supposed to be doing. Undaunted, the megalodon kept coming, its head coming further out of the water. If it had been after the swimmer before, it was no longer interested. Now it came charging for the boat.

  "Flare!" Liu screamed.

  Colt took aim and fired, the hissing of the flare escaping the gun like some weird music.

  He managed to strike the gas can just along the bottom and at first, he thought his efforts had been wasted. The shark closed in on them…ten feet…then five.

  Then there was an explosion and a roar of fire that came rushing towards the boat. Colt fell backwards, as did Liu and Ken. Beside them, someone screamed in pain. The boat was rocked with the explosion, the driver screaming in terror overhead.

  Colt scrambled to his feet as the boat shook, dreading that he might see the shark, still pissed and intent on destroying the boat.

  Instead, it was now twenty or so yards away, thrashing in the water. Its image grew darker and darker for a moment. Colt hoped this meant that it was retreating to calmer waters below.

  "That actually worked?" Harvey said, chuckling nervously. "Oh my God…I don't believe it." Colt thought that he could actually hear the cogs turning in Harvey’s head as he tried to figure out a way to properly write about this for an article that would surely get him boatloads (no pun intended) of cash.

  "Help!" someone screamed from the very back of the boat.

  Colt turned and saw that their troubles weren't quite over. There were flames dancing along the deck, some of which had consumed the leg of the man they had rescued. Joseph was trying to roll the man around, trying to put the fire out. Leslie was removing her shirt and then slapped at the man's leg, diminishing the flames.

  Colt ran to the same bench that the harpoon gun had come out of and was thankful to find a fire extinguisher. It was small and looked like it had come off of the Titanic, but it would do the trick.

  He dashed forward, spraying the flames along the man's legs and then directing the stream to the flames along the back of the boat. When it was under control, Colt dropped the extinguisher and sank down into a sitting position.

  His nerves were rattled and it was starting to sink in…all that they had seen in the last fifteen minutes or so, plus the fact that they had just now escaped death by performing one of the most dangerous stunts he'd ever been a part of.

  Colt noticed that Leslie was slowly putting her shirt back on and he didn't feel too guilty by catching a glimpse of the athletic bra beneath. With the shirt back on, slightly singed along the bottom, she looked back out to where to shark had last been seen.

  "I think it's gone," she said.

  Everyone was quiet, looking out to the ocean as if willing this to be true. They all remained quiet, smelling the charred back of the boat as the driver resumed course.

  After a few moments, Joseph broke the silence and asked: "Can we all agree that we just fought off a megalodon?" he asked.

  "I'd agree with that," Leslie said.

  "Yeah," Colt agreed.

  Ken, Liu, Suzanne and their newly rescued member with the burned leg said nothing.

  The next voice they heard was that of the driver, coming to the small door of his cabin and looking down on the group. He spoke directly to Joseph and whatever he said got Joseph to his feet.

  "What is it?" Ken asked. "What did he say?"

  "Land," Joseph answered with a smile. "Land, straight ahead."

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Colt quite simply did not believe his eyes. He'd heard hushed rumors of Spectre Island but had always dismissed it as one of the more ludicrous legends within the realm of the paranormal. It was one thing to believe that Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, or even a race of advanced shape-shifting reptilians existed. Those were living, breathing, containable things. But with Spectre Island, you were talking about an entire body of land.

  His eyes were locked in on the hazy shape of it from the moment Joseph had uttered the word "land." They had all run to the front of the boat, still anxious and waiting for the megalodon to maybe circle back and devour them. But once the island came into view, the terror was mostly forgotten by all of them. Even the sole survivor from the first boat—a wide-eyed African American man named Chris—seemed to momentarily forget about his burned leg long enough to stare at the island.

  It was relatively small as islands went. When they first set their eyes on it, Colt could see from one end to the other. But as they drew closer, it became nearly impossible to take it all in at once. The one thing that Colt could tell right away was that it had a lush heart; the fronds of tall trees protruded into the air in a thick array. There were no highlands, no mountains or hills of any kind that they could see from the boat. It looked like any other r
emote island within the Indian Ocean and when he saw the greens and the nearly white sandbar of its beaches, Colt again found himself missing the adventure and excitement of exploring new places.

  "How big is it?" Harvey asked as they remained huddled around one another at the front of the ship.

  "Based on the satellite images I've seen," Joseph said, "I'm getting experts that estimate it's no larger than two miles from north to south and maybe three and a half miles going east to west."

  "So this shouldn't be a long trip, then?" Suzanne asked.

  "I have no idea," Joseph said. "But based on what we've already seen without reaching the shore, I can only imagine what we'll find once we get there."

  Colt hadn't quite thought of that yet. It was a good point, though. They had just encountered a shark that had ruled the seas during prehistoric times and was thought to be currently extinct. There was no way it was just a coincidence that they had run into it within a mile or so of the shores of an island that might very well be Spectre Island.

  The driver slowed the boat as they reached the shore. Colt and Joseph leaped out first, helping to anchor the boat. Colt saw that Joseph's face was alight as he worked with the ropes, tying the boat down. He was looking all around, trying to take it all in like a kid during their first visit to Disney Land. With the boat secured, the driver lowered a small ladder from the front where the others came down into the ankle-deep water and the golden beach beyond.

  Liu and Ken had to help Chris down, his leg blistered and nearly pitch black around his knee. Once they had him down, they laid him in the sand and Leslie started looking him over. She was tearing the remnants of his charred pants leg away and was looking to Chris's charred flesh without much hope in her expression.

  "What, are you a doctor, too?" Colt asked.

  "No, but my mom was a trauma nurse," she answered. "I know how to deal with just about any injury by proxy. The woman was a well of information for household injuries."

  "How bad is it?" Chris asked.

  "It's pretty bad. We'll see what sort of first aid kit we have on the boat and see what we can do."

  Right away, Joseph was speaking with the driver. The driver nodded and ran back to the boat, climbing quickly up the ladder.

  "So," Suzanne said, looking out into the land beyond. "Where the hell are we?"

  "Spectre Island," Joseph said.

  "You know," Ken said. "I'm standing on the sand and looking out to all of that green, but I still don't believe it."

  Colt took a moment to look at the other eight people that he was sharing this moment with. All of them looked in awe, but a few, like Suzanne and Chris, looked to be scared as well. But Liu was neither of these things. Liu was all business as usual. He was looking out towards the rest of the island, taking it on not as someone that had come to sight-see, but as someone that was expecting danger around every corner and wanted to find it before it found him.

  Slowly, he pointed skyward and for the first time, Colt saw something very much like awe on his face. "Is that what I think it is?" he asked.

  Everyone looked up, mostly out of surprise from having heard Liu speak than anything else.

  "My God," Ken said.

  Beside him, Joseph made a sound like a chuckle.

  Colt saw the same thing everyone else was seeing, but he couldn’t believe it. He actually blinked his eyes in rapid succession just in case his eyes were playing tricks on him. But no…there was something very large in the sky. It was flying just in front of the area where the vegetation of the island began, so it was close enough to see without much obstruction.

  The wingspan was about twenty feet across and the head ended in a very telltale head that came to a point with what looked to be a very long and very sharp beak.

  "Is that a pterodactyl?" Harvey asked.

  "No," Leslie said, looking up and clearly distracted from tending to the man lying on the beach. "If anything, it's a pterosaur."

  "There's a difference?" Suzanne asked.

  "A huge one," Leslie said.

  "What's it matter?" Colt asked. "One way or another, it's a flying dinosaur, right?"

  "Technically," Leslie said, "pterosaurs are more closely related to crocodiles and birds than dinos—"

  "Fascinating," Colt said. "But you know what I meant."

  "Yes," she said.

  Colt looked over to Joseph, who was practically giddy with excitement. "Is this what you were expecting?" Colt asked. "An island with dinosaurs?"

  "As I said before, I didn't know what to expect," Joseph said. "But this…this is beyond my wildest dreams."

  "Before we get too excited," Leslie said, "we need to tend to this man's leg." Even as she said this, her eyes were back to the tree line, marveling over the creature with sheer admiration.

  "Dinosaurs," Ken said. "What the hell? Joseph, be straight with us. We know you're rich as all get out…are you punking us? Are there cameras somewhere recording our reactions?"

  "No," Joseph said. "I'm just as surprised as you are."

  "And I'm thrilled beyond belief," Leslie said. "But I need a first aid kit if I'm going to be able to do anything with this leg."

  Chris, the man with the burned leg, was also observing the pterosaur but his eyes were glazed with pain.

  "Of course," Joseph said. He gave instructions to the driver and, obedient as ever, the driver did as he was asked and headed back for the boat. He nearly tripped over his own feet as he went up the ladder, unable to take his eyes away from the impossible thing in the air.

  "So, should we be alarmed?" Ken asked.

  "What do you mean?" Joseph replied.

  "Well, we've been attacked by a type of shark that I always thought was made up, and if not made up, then certainly extinct. And now we're looking at a pterodactyl or whatever the hell that thing is. So…should we be alarmed by what else might be hiding out on this island?"

  Everyone was silent for a while as they watched the creature fly further away, finally dipping down behind the greenery that waited ahead for them. It had apparently come out to spy on what all the commotion was about and, not sure if these humans were a threat or not, had retreated to a more secure area of the island.

  "I don't know," Joseph finally answered. "But we'll find out soon enough."

  "You want to actually explore this place?" Suzanne asked.

  "Hell yes. And as part of all of your contracts, you will follow along with me. If anyone wants out, the boat is right there and you are welcome to sit on it and wait until all of the braver souls come back."

  "What about him?" Leslie asked, indicating Chris. "There's no way he can make it."

  "The hell I can't," Chris said, sitting up and wincing in pain. "Make me a crutch or whatever you have to do. I'm not passing this up."

  "Your leg is—" Leslie started, but was interrupted.

  "It hurts. It's ugly. I know. It's attached to me and I feel the pain. But I'm not lying on this beach while everyone else goes rummaging around Jurassic Park."

  The driver came back over, holding a medical kit that looked like an elementary school kid's lunchbox. He handed it to Leslie and when she opened it, she rolled her eyes.

  "This is it?" she asked the driver.

  The driver didn't need to understand English to sense her disappointment. He only shrugged and looked back out to the rest of the island.

  Colt watched as she sifted through the assortment of half-empty bottles of rubbing alcohol, dingy cotton swabs, and band-aids.

  "Well, go ahead and get ready to go on an expedition," she said. "With these supplies, I can’t do much for this leg."

  Everyone waited a beat and then the beach was alive with movement and activity as everyone went back onto the boat for their bags. In the midst of the commotion, Colt hunched down by Leslie, doing his best not to look as the gross state of Chris's leg.

  "Are you not worried about what we'll find here?" he asked.

  "A little, I guess," she said, as she applied alcohol to the bu
rn. She had torn the leg fabric away from the jeans, exposing the nasty blisters and charred flesh. “But I'm personally willing to risk my life for a discovery like this."

  "And the pay, too, right?" Colt said.

  Leslie only gave him a half-hearted smile as she looked back to the jungle ahead of them. His eyes followed hers and he wondered if he might a little insane. He's always suspected as much, given the sorts of things he had always searched for. But given their current situation, he figured he had to be crazy.

  Because for reasons he couldn't quite define, he was practically jumping out of his skin to start forging ahead into the wilderness in front of them.

  CHAPTER NINE

  They left the beach in a single file line that was made up of some of the most varied people Colt had ever been around. Joseph and Ken headed up the line, Ken acting like he had been here before and knew how to navigate the uncharted ground. Leslie walked behind them, flanked by Liu and Colt, whom both helped Chris manage to hobble along without falling on his face. He'd moan from time to time about the pain but the excitement of the moment seemed to be numbing it some. Harvey, Suzanne, and the driver brought up the rear.

  Colt felt fortunate that Chris was a light man. He probably weighed about one-sixty. On top of that, Liu seemed to be incredibly strong and took most of the weight. Colt didn't think it had been a wise idea to stick the one man that was skilled in combat with an injured man. His hands would best be used if they were freed up. But Colt had kept quiet; he wasn't calling the shots.

  There were nine of them in the line, but as they made their way towards the thicker greenery of the island, the group seemed much smaller. He looked up to Joseph on occasion, both motivated and sickened by the childlike wonderment on his face at everything they passed.

  Colt tried to take everything in, too. In terms of the plants and trees, the island looked like any other island he had ever been on. There wasn't the slightest hint that there could be any number of previously extinct animals hiding among them.

  Of course, there was Leslie just ahead of him to sort of ruin that illusion of normalcy. She stopped at least three times within their first ten minutes of walking to look at bugs she spied on the leaves of the plants they passed. She snapped countless pictures and had discussions with Joseph as to whether or not the bugs might be prehistoric or not.