Dino Island: The Lost Girls Page 3

  I folded my arms and shifted awkwardly on my feet.

  “It’s true,” Jessica added, stepping toward Daisy. “He protected me from an attack.” She swallowed. “I was sure that I was going to die.”

  “Um,” I interjected, “I mean, it was luck, mostly, or instinct – I didn’t really have a plan. To be honest, I’m surprised it didn’t kill me.”

  “That’s even better,” Ling called out, moving in toward the group. “If your baseline instincts can protect us without a plan, then you’ll be even more capable once you have an idea of what we’re facing.” She stood, shoulder to shoulder, with the other three girls as they looked to me expectantly. “Right?”

  Character is defined by our reactions to moments that surprise the fuck out of us. Those seconds became suspended in time as my mind finally caught up with the situation unfolding around me.

  We were stranded, with no idea how we’d gotten there or how to get home. There were dinosaurs. And snakes. Our equipment was nearly nonexistent.

  I looked at each of the girls in turn.

  Ling had arrived with nothing but the clothes on her back. She wore a loose, flowing t-shirt over tight-fitting jeans. Her shoes might even be decent for running if it came to that.

  Sarah still had a backpack hanging off her shoulder, and I realized that we might be able to find something helpful inside it. She wasn’t dressed for the excursion, though. Her blouse and knee-length skirt were modest, but showcased her slender arms and legs. She had only black flats for shoes, which weren’t meant for strenuous work.

  Daisy’s ferocity would have to make up for a near complete lack of preparation. She had only a tank top, her very short shorts, and a pair of flip flops. I doubted that she could even fit a set of keys in her tiny pockets.

  And Jessica, of course, was clad in her cheerleading uniform. Though her shoes might be able to hold up for a bit, the shirt didn’t even cover her smooth, bronze midriff. Her skirt offered very little in the way of protection – which, of course, was the point of it.

  Then there was Chad. He wore sturdy jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, and boots. While his camera would likely be useless to us, he also had a backpack that held potential.

  I took all of this in, let out a sigh, and then my mind got to work.

  “Okay,” I announced, there’s nothing left to do but accept our situation and make a practical plan. Here are my-”

  I was interrupted by a roar loud enough to shift the sand beneath my feet. Everyone turned sharply around and stared at the line of trees down the beach.

  The ground thumped rhythmically. Each vibration brought with it a new layer of dread.

  These footsteps could only be produced by something enormous.

  Suddenly, the treetops rustled 200 feet away. My breath stopped; anything tall enough to reach that high must be gargantuan.

  I was right.

  Slowly, a long, slender, crocodilian head slid from the branches. Its mouth was agape, revealing dozens of long, sharp teeth. Its black and orange snout stretched out beneath yellow eyes that swiveled back and forth, finally turning to settle on us.

  The subsequent roar was the loudest noise I’d ever heard, rivaled only by the cracking of tree trunks as the dinosaur leapt onto the sand. It landed on hind legs that were bigger than me, reaching its smaller arms out aggressively. A tall, thin spine protruded from its back.

  Gandalf allowed himself one single ‘oh fuck’ moment – one where he was too petrified to move – before screaming at his companions to run from the Balrog. I did the same now, feeling dwarfed by the dinosaur that stood twelve feet high and easily fifty feet long.

  It swung its tail hard enough to splinter a tree. That was my cue.

  “Run!” I shouted, turning to sprint. “Into the jungle, we have no hope on the open beach!”

  My command snapped the five of them into action just as the dino kicked into a full sprint.

  “Come on!” I screamed at Ling, who was still behind me. “Run, run, run!”

  I turned around and raced toward the trees. I had no idea what I would do once I got there, but I knew that remaining on the beach would lead to immediate death.

  “We can make it!” I yelled. “Just a few more-”

  “NO!”

  Sarah faceplanted on the sand.

  THUD

  Chad kicked her in the ribs. She whimpered.

  “What the fuck are you doing?!” I screamed at him.

  He stared back at me with a mixture of fear and defiance. “If it’s distracted by one of us, the rest escape! You know it has to be this way!”

  I like to think of myself as a stoic. But in that moment, I felt nothing but pure rage.

  Several things happened at once.

  I dove to the sand so that I could lift Sarah by the shoulders, using my momentum to pull her upright. As I did so, Chad turned to sprint for the trees. Meanwhile, the pounding footsteps closed in on us with the speed of a truck.

  As I lifted Sarah’s slender frame, the strap from her backpack rose, caught around Chad’s ankle, and inadvertently pulled his leg out from under him. As Sarah and I stood, he fell onto the sand.

  Shit. I hated him right then, but I couldn’t leave anyone behind.

  “Run!” I screamed, pushing Sarah away and turning to reach for Chad.

  Too late. The dinosaur had closed with impossible speed, and was now upon us.

  Chapter Five

  TOC

  I stared up at the creature with reverential fear. It had to be five tons, but was so proportionally gigantic that it moved with athletic smoothness. The mouth, towering above us, was pure nightmare: its teeth looked like sixty daggers, each one designed to scrape the meat off my bones. Two missing teeth in the front made the entire visage look broken and sinister.

  And it was fucking fast. Before I could reach a hand out to Chad, the creature had him in its mouth.

  “H-help me!” Chad cried as the dino lifted him off the ground and slid his legs into its gullet.

  He screamed as the teeth closed around him. I stared in horror as Chad’s face blanched while the dino shook thick globs of drool from side to side.

  There was nothing I could do as it brought Chad far above my head. He glared down at me in shock and anger, and I could tell that he thought this was all my fault. He opened his mouth to scream, but the dinosaur closed its jaws too tight for Chad to make a sound. Slowly, his face disappeared between its lips, his arms still dangling outside of the dinosaur’s mouth. With a sickening crunch, the dino bit down and severed both of Chad’s arms before quickly slurping them up like loose spaghetti. Then the beast swallowed him whole. It struggled to slide him down its throat, moving its head from side to side to make the process easier.

  It was my only chance to escape.

  I turned and sprinted away as the dinosaur sucked down its meal.

  I closed within ten feet of the tree line. Five feet. Two feet.

  Then I leapt inside, leaves whipping in my face as I dodged over and under every branch at a full sprint. Within seconds, I had closed in on the girls, who were struggling to climb over a particularly thick fallen trunk.

  “Don’t wait! Run! Jump if you have to, just move!”

  Ling was pulling Sarah over the top as I took a flying leap and landed on the other side, grabbing Sarah and dragging her with me as I went.

  “Professor, what happened to Chad?” Jessica asked, shocked, as Sarah bounced to her feet.

  Before I could answer, I was interrupted by the smashing of trees behind me.

  “It’s coming after us, go, go, go!” I called.

  Within just a few steps, I was ahead of the entire group.

  My instincts fought amongst themselves. It was only by running that I could hope to survive, but I couldn’t leave anyone else behind. I had happened to be wearing jeans and running shoes, as I’d been training for a marathon.

  I decided that those arbitrary facts shouldn’t be the reason that I lived while someone else died.

  “Stop!” I screamed, turning around and holding out my arms.

  The four of them collided with me.

  “New plan! Hide beneath that crooked trunk, out of sight! All of you! Now!”

  There was no more time for explanation. Their survival depended on whether they trusted me, immediately and completely.

  As one, they turned and followed my command.

  “Don’t move!” I instructed as Daisy, the last of them, hid herself under the trunk.

  “What are you doing?” Ling cried as I turned around.

  “Just don’t move!” I shouted back.

  Then I picked up a baseball-sized rock, turned, and ran from them.

  crack crack CRACK CRACK

  I had hoped that it would take at least ten seconds for the dino to find us, but no such luck. I took a deep breath, pivoted, and screamed. “Your brain may be the size of a walnut, but you can at least figure out where this is coming from!”

  The long, thin, snout poked between two trunks, looked downward, and locked eyes with me.

  “Professor, no!” Daisy screamed.

  I calmed my nerves, focused on what had to be done, and heaved the heavy stone. It sailed through the air and cracked against the monster’s yellow eye.

  The scream was almost loud enough to knock me off my feet, but I held firm. “Run in the other direction!” I yelled to them, then spun around and sprinted like I was once again on my college track and field team.

  Chad had actually been right: if it’s distracted by one of us, the rest escape. I knew it had to be this way. Heart pounding, breath heaving, I ran, ducked, and vaulted my way through the thick, steamy foliage. The merciless thudding from behind me made it clear that the beast was not going to let me escape; my only hop
e was to draw it far enough away from the girls before it inevitably killed me. A distant part of my brain wondered how much it was going to hurt, but my analytical mind told me to focus on the task at hand.

  My only advantage was that the dense trunks prevented the dinosaur from running at full speed. Still, it was fast enough to race between the trees at a breakneck pace, simply knocking over the most inconvenient ones.

  It was much, much faster than me. I only had a few seconds before it overcame my head start.

  Still, I ran.

  Snap. Its jaws were just behind me.

  I ducked under a fallen branch. Half a second later, I heard that log burst into splinters.

  Rip. It bit a piece of my sleeve.

  As a final move to buy a few more seconds, I took a hard right turn, knowing it couldn’t change direction as fast as I could. A huge rock lay directly in front of me; I lowered myself as I ran, leapt up on my left leg, then pressed my right foot down on top of it to launch myself over to the other side.

  I sailed down.

  And down.

  And down.

  This, I suddenly realized, was the moment when I was going to find out just how much pain my body could experience.

  Chapter Six

  TOC

  The impact send one giant shock wave of pain through my body, and my lungs forgot how to work. For a moment, all I knew was agony.

  Then I realized that I was also underwater, pressing down on a muddy riverbed. Despite the pain, a distant voice told me that I had to get up for air. I moved dazedly around in the dark, turning over and moving my feet to press against the mud. I wanted desperately to breathe, but my paralyzed lungs were keeping me from inhaling. There was just enough control left in my arms to slowly press my hands against the riverbed. I pushed up.

  And slowly, the world got bright again.

  Air rushed into my lungs. I coughed. I would have collapsed if I were on dry ground, but the water kept me just upright enough for my head to stay above my shoulders. With agonizing slowness, I paddled to the nearby riverbank, staggering from side to side as I moved into shallower and shallower water. Once I finally emerged, I collapsed onto the ground.

  Well I’ll be dipped in shit and rolled in breadcrumbs, I thought. I’m alive.

  I was certain that the dino was going to dispense with me in the exact same way that it had finished off Chad, but it looked like I was getting a second chance.

  But I was too beaten up to move just yet. Instead, I took in my surroundings.

  I was lying at the bottom of a fifty-foot canyon, and had landed in about five feet of water. Enough to hurt like hell, but not enough to cause permanent damage. The canyon walls were steep dirt drop-offs with tangles of roots running through them like veins. The river split the middle of the canyon with dirt banks on either side. Above my head, the leafy canopy cast the entire ravine in a greenish hue. There was no sign of the dinosaur; the only sounds were the constant buzzing of mysterious insects, the babbling of the nearby stream, and my desperate gasping for air.

  I was trapped. But it wasn’t a tight space; I could walk through it; there was no reason to panic. I closed my eyes and breathed out deeply, slowly. This wasn’t a time for the claustrophobia to win.

  There was a way out. I just had to find it.

  I told myself that I was going to be calm, and that I would find at least one positive thing about my surroundings. Nodding, I opened my eyes.

  It was surreal, and it was beautiful. My body screamed for a moment’s rest, though, and my mind desperately wanted to take a few minutes to search for an explanation of just what the hell was going on.

  But I couldn’t wait. Not now, when the girls were unprotected and there was a hungry dinosaur on the loose. I just hoped that I had bought them enough time, and that they had followed my plan of running away while I created a diversion.

  Gingerly, I got to my feet and looked over my body. After a brief check, it turned out that I was sore as hell, and soaking wet to boot, but the fall had caused no serious injury. I had to move if I wanted to survive.

  I had a feeling I would be saying that to myself frequently in the near future.

  I looked upstream to the point where the canyon disappeared around a bend. I then turned to peer downstream, where the river also turned out of sight. There was no sign that the canyon would level out with the forest above in either direction, which presented a hell of a dilemma: which way to go? I couldn’t afford to waste a single minute, and the wrong path might set me hours off track. Hell, even the shortest path would leave me hopelessly lost. I’d have to pick my way back to this spot by hiking along the edge, and only then could I start searching for the girls.

  There had to be a better way, if only I could puzzle it out.

  I pressed my palms to my eyes and leaned against the canyon wall. Think.

  Thinking didn’t come easy when I was in pain, alone, soaking wet, and leaning against the world’s hardest roots.

  I opened my eyes and turned around.

  The roots poked out at semi-regular intervals all along the canyon wall. If I could climb them, and if I didn’t fall again, I just might be able to make it back to the top.

  I looked downstream, then upstream, then up.

  My subconscious mind realized that I’d doubt the wisdom of this move if I thought too long about it, and I was five feet off the ground before I realized the decision that I had made. “I can always go back,” I told myself as I inched higher, trembling arms latched to the roots in a death grip.

  I was halfway up when I realized that wasn’t true. I had no safe way to blindly pick my way down the canyon wall; I would either make it to the top, or fall in the attempt. I looked below my feet.

  I should not have looked below my feet. Heights appear to gain twice the distance when you’re on top looking down instead of vice versa. Suddenly the roots seemed very weak and slippery. My center of gravity hung wildly over the edge as I tried to steady myself. I just needed a minute to take a break and relax before climbing farther.

  But I couldn’t. My shoes clung to roots that protruded two inches from the dirt wall. I dug my fingers into the crumbly loam as I struggled for purchase.

  Panic set in.

  I regretted my choice to climb the wall as my heart thudded faster. I couldn’t catch my breath. My foot slipped as my fingers slid through the slick dirt.

  I mentally prepared myself to fall.

  Then I wondered what would happen to the girls without me.

  My grip strengthened of its own accord, and the panic turned into adrenaline-fueled strength. I grabbed the root above my head, my biceps burning as I pulled my body weight a few inches higher. Then I lifted my leg and dug the tip of my shoe into the hole my fingers had drilled. With an audible grunt, I heaved myself upward and reached for a distant root.