Dino Island: The Lost Girls Read online

  I opened my mouth to speak.

  And that’s the last thing I remembered

  Chapter Two

  TOC

  I awoke face down in the dirt, surrounded by the sound of a thousand impossible insects, wondering what was crawling up my arm.

  I bolted upright to find a long, orange centipede inching its way past my elbow. It spanned the length of my entire forearm.

  My fists were swinging before I could process what was happening. With a sucking sound, I pulled the centipede from my skin and threw it into the grass, where it disappeared into a bush.

  I looked up at the sky through impossibly tall palm trees.

  What. The. Fuck.

  I struggled to remember what had led to my presence here as I shakily got to my feet. It came back to me slowly – Stringer’s office, the uncomfortable students, Melvin running off – and then it was entirely blank.

  The sound of waves drifted over from my left side, so I started picking my way through the undergrowth to see if a beach was nearby.

  That’s when a thick, heavy snake drifted over my foot. Adrenaline shot through me, and I ran.

  The snake tripped me, of course. I fell straight onto the ground, my face an inch from the dirt.

  That’s when I saw something impossible. “What the hell?” I whispered, picking it up from the ground.

  I stared at it, so shocked that I expected it to change shape at any second. But it remained clear as day, undeniable yet impossible.

  The snake rustled in the bushes, and I sprang to my feet. I moved to run.

  Then it appeared below me, forked tongue flicking from an impossibly large head.

  I stumbled, flailed my arms, and dropped the object. It landed right next to the snake’s body.

  Shit. I needed to pick it up again, but not until the snake had left. I backed away slowly, keeping my eyes focused on the black, scaly body below me.

  The scream changed everything. Echoing from deeper in the jungle, it was a wail of pure terror; chills danced up and down my spine like they were playing a piano.

  Someone was about to die.

  Time is only real in the way our minds accept it. “Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That’s relativity,” Einstein once explained. That was true here; I needed to run as fast as possible, both away from the peril in front of me and toward the danger causing such a scream. I’d spent four years competing in collegiate track and field enduring the same endless stretch of sideways time: my favorite event, the 800 meter run, was a pain-fueled crucible that tested each competitor’s ability to hold a near-sprint for almost two minutes. I channeled that experience now.

  Once you leave the starting line, everyone has to run like they’re prey.

  I launched forward. The snake twitched in response, but I was already flying.

  Right toward the scream.

  I quickly got lost as I ran around palm trunks and over tiny streams. Long, thin, reed-like plants whipped past me as I moved toward what I thought was the source of the cry.

  Another scream, this one closer now, proved that I was slightly off course. I adjusted and moved faster through the jungle.

  I didn’t have time to stop and consider just how little sense everything made.

  Right when I thought my heart couldn’t hammer any faster, a third scream, extremely loud and very close, came from my right. I spun, nearly fell again, and ran between two trees.

  I burst into a clearing and slammed to a halt.

  The day had just gotten a lot weirder.

  Jessica was backed up against a tree, arms held out in vain protection.

  Standing in front of her, emerging from a patch of thick, straight, bamboo, was the biggest feathered monster I had ever seen. It stood on two legs, taller even than I was, and had a body twice as long. Each foot sported a gargantuan, curved claw that looked vicious enough to split a Thanksgiving turkey from end to end. That was nothing, however, in comparison to the rows of jagged, white teeth. Its mouth opened hungrily as it stepped cautiously toward Jessica, who had nothing but her cheerleader outfit for protection.

  “Professor Swift! Help me!” she screamed upon seeing me.

  The creature opened its mouth and shrieked. A high-pitched, avian yelp raked across my eardrums.

  “Shit. Shit. Hey! Big Ugly, look at me!”

  It turned around and glared at me with predatory, beady, black eyes.

  “Double shit.”

  I don’t always understand how my body reacts before my mind can process information, because I’m usually very analytical. But I had ducked to the ground and grabbed a melon-sized rock before I understood what I was doing.

  Then it was upon me.

  CRACK

  I swung the rock directly onto its skull as it charged, the stinging reverberation numbing my hand. The momentum knocked me off balance, and I struggled to regain my footing. Head spinning and heart thudding, I lifted the rock for another attack.

  The creature groaned. Then it staggered, turned around, and plunged into the trees before falling down.

  It stayed there.

  Jessica leapt onto me, wrapping both legs around my waist as I nearly fell over. She buried her face into my neck and sobbed. “Thank you, Professor Swift.”

  I gently hugged her, then set her down. I squatted next to her as she let me go, and we both caught our breaths.

  She broke the silence first. “What was that?”

  I didn’t want to answer, but the lingering quiet meant that I would have to speak. “It’s… impossible,” I answered lamely.

  She brushed the wavy blonde hair from her face and stared me with wide, green eyes. “What are you saying?”

  I looked over at the dead animal. “It’s impossible, because I know exactly what it is.” I sighed. “That animal is a Utahraptor.” It sounded ridiculous coming out of my mouth.

  “Is – is that some kind of a giant bird?” she asked, bewildered.

  “No,” I responded, shaking my head. “It’s a dinosaur.

  Chapter Three

  TOC

  “Wait – what?”

  I ran my fingers through my hair. “I don’t understand – well – anything about what has happened since I woke up. But I’ve spent my professional life studying paleontology, and there’s no denying it – we were just attacked by a dinosaur.”

  She gawked at me. “What does this mean?”

  I stood. “It means that only two of the six people who were in that room are safe right now, and we have to find the other four.” I extended my hand, and she took it.

  Her grip was stronger than her gentle appearance led me to believe. “Which way?” she asked nervously.

  I held my breath and listened. Then I turned around. “I can faintly hear the ocean. We’ll be able to move easier on the sand. Let’s go.”

  We turned, stepping out of the clearing and back into the jungle. “Oh, and Jessica – be sure to watch out for dinosaurs. And snakes. And millipedes.”

  She squeezed my shoulder, and my heart beat faster. “Professor?” she whispered. “Just what the hell is going on?”

  I stopped walking. What was I supposed to do? Comfort her with a lie? Or be honest about the fact that I could only be certain things looked very, very bad?

  I swallowed. “There’s a saying that if you find yourself in Hell, keep on going. You just might get through before the Devil knows you’re there.” I stepped forward and resumed walking.

  “Professor,” she pressed again, more anxious this time, “do you believe in the Devil?”

  I thought of the impossible monster lying dead behind us, one I was sure could not have existed a few minutes prior. I considered another nagging thought that been running just below the surface, too horrible to say aloud: what if we had died in that room, and this was the eternal result awaiting us?

  “No,” I said quickly, “that can’t be real.”

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nbsp; I walked forward in silence, my analytical mind trying to untangle the impossible information presented to me.

  “Jessica, I had just woken up on the ground before hearing you scream. The last thing I remember is being in Professor Stringer’s lab. Do you know anything more?” I pressed as we weaved through the branches.

  “No,” she responded from behind me. “Professor Stringer had just locked us inside, and then I blacked out. The next thing I knew, I was lying in that clearing, and the – you said it was a Utahraptor?”

  “Yes,” I answered grimly as we picked our way toward the growing sounds of crashing waves.

  “I woke up to the sound of it moving through the trees. Then it saw me, and I could tell that it was going to… well, that’s when I started screaming.”

  “And no signs of anyone else?” I asked as I took her hands in mine and helped her climb over a slippery rock.

  “No,” Jessica answered as she landed on the ground.

  I consciously turned away from her chest as her body bounced. It wasn’t right to gawk, even now.

  “I think I can see the beach!” Jessica called, resting her hands on my shoulder.

  She was right. Just head, sparkling blue water lapped against white sand.

  “Perfect,” I answered, my voice low. “Let’s focus on being as quiet as possible. We don’t know who’s listening.”

  We picked our way through the last of the foliage, crossing a stark tree line and stepping onto sand that felt like powdered sugar.

  I stared in shock at the scene before us. The sea extended to the horizon with no islands or boats to break the calm blue water. To our left and our right, the strip of beach reached far into the distance in a long, unbroken line. About a hundred feet of sand sat between the jungle and the water.

  And that was it. We could see nothing else in the world.

  I glanced over at Jessica, who looked extremely out of place in her cheerleader outfit.

  Then I turned to stare at the beach. It would have been paradise under very different circumstances – such as if anything made sense.

  Then I remembered the item I’d found before hearing Jessica scream. That additional layer of impossibility on an already impossible situation.

  “Jessica, there’s something else as well, and I don’t know what it means, but I think that we should-”

  “I found them!” a voice rang through the trees behind us.

  We both spun around, my fists subconsciously balled up and ready to fight.

  The branches rustled.

  Then Ling and Sarah stepped onto the beach.

  “Y’all are alive!” Jessica cried before running to embrace them in a group hug.

  I stood awkwardly aside.

  Jessica pulled back and looked them up and down. “Are you hurt? I thought we lost you!”

  “We’re okay,” Ling answered. “Did everyone in that weird-ass lab just… appear in this jungle? Is that Professor Swift with you?”

  “We don’t know what’s going on!” Jessica moaned. “We woke up in the trees, and then a Utahraptor-”

  “What?!” Sarah cut her off, mouth agape.

  “It’s a kind of dinosaur!” Jessica answered, struggling for words.

  “I know what a Utahraptor is, Professor Swift is extremely – look, that just doesn’t make any sense!”

  “Does any of this make sense?” I asked carefully, taking a tentative step toward the girls. “I don’t know what’s happening, but Jessica’s right: we saw a dinosaur.”

  “He killed a dinosaur,” Jessica added, leaning in to the other two.

  Ling and Sarah looked at me in shock. “You… killed a Utahraptor?” Sarah asked quietly.

  Damn it, my face was turning red again. “Well – yes, I suppose, but that’s neither here nor there. Look, I’m glad we’re safe, but if everyone in that room was transported to this place, then we should try to find-”

  “Over there!” A voice carried from down the beach.

  The four of us turned to face its source.

  I finally relaxed some of the tension that had been knotted inside of me since waking up. Daisy and the photographer, whose name I’d never caught, were heading across the sand toward us. Or, more accurately, Daisy was attempting to stay out of the photographer’s reach as he kept trying to close in on her.

  The four of us hurried to meet the other two, our movements painfully slow as we ran across the soft sand.

  The three girls embraced Daisy while stealthily trying to avoid a grasping hug that the photographer wrapped around the entire group. I quietly moved in behind him, took his elbow, and peeled him away.

  He was reluctant to let go.

  “I didn’t catch your name,” I explained pleasantly enough.

  “Chad,” he snapped at me with a look of disgust. An awkward silence hung as he inched back toward the girls.

  “Your camera survived the trip!” I intervened, looking down at the object in his hand.

  He rolled his eyes at me. “Yeah, she and I were taking some shots when you interrupted us.”

  I folded my arms, recalling specifically that Daisy been trying to get away from him, but deciding not to say anything.

  “Can anyone tell me what the fuck is going on?” Daisy asked in a trembling voice. She looked like she’d been crying.

  “We don’t have an explanation that will make things any less confusing, if that’s what you’re asking,” Jessica responded sadly.

  “Wait. Weren’t you saying that the two of you fought a… dinosaur?” Ling asked Jessica.

  Daisy lurched back in surprise. “What? Okay, this needs to – nothing is making any sense!”

  I turned the analytical gears in my head as fast as they would go, but for the life of me, no words came to mind.

  Then Sarah took Daisy in a hug and held her tight. Daisy responded by wrapping her arms around Sarah’s waist. For a moment, they were still.

  Sometimes, silence is the best answer.

  Ling stepped away from the group, moving past me without making eye contact, then headed toward the water. Stopping near its edge, she turned quietly around and faced us.

  I peered back at her, then looked at each one in turn. Jessica gazed warily toward the jungle, Chad glared at Daisy, Daisy stared longingly at Sarah, and Sarah’s eyes were deadlocked on me.

  “So,” Ling called out to no one in particular, “what now?”

  Chapter Four

  TOC

  I loved the idea of being a professor long before I had acquired the title. The word meant that people had answers to questions in a world that often seemed to lack purpose or direction.

  Then I learned that being an adult frequently meant pretending to know what was going on for the simple goal of putting the collective burden on just one person.

  “I’ve known Professor Stringer for several years now,” I explained to the group. “He’s always claimed to be involved in earth-changing research, and he’s always been odd. I don’t know why he wanted us to come to his lab, but perhaps – as crazy as it seems – he’s unlocked access to the, well… the impossible.”

  Daisy took three feisty steps toward me. “Are you saying that another professor did this to us on purpose?”

  I took half a step back from her. “If the results defy all explanations, then we need to change our explanations,” I replied. “We have to find a way of describing things that wouldn’t have made sense before.”

  Daisy glared at me, fire in her eyes. “Why would he do this to us?”

  I ran my fingers through my hair and closed my eyes. “I’ll give you the most honest answer I have: I don’t know.”

  “Well that isn’t good enough!” She shrieked. “We don’t deserve to be here, and we’re getting ourselves out of this situation if no one else will. Right?”

  She stared around at the group. All of us but Chad looked back at her silently; he was busy flicking through the pictures he had taken, a growing look of surprise dawning on his face.
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  “Daisy, I don’t know what’s going on here, but Professor Swift is the best person to have with us right now,” Sarah explained gently. “If there really are – um – dinosaurs here, no one will be able to help us more than him.”