Jack slowly moved through the dense jungle. Cautious not to make too much noise in case a nearby animal would either want him for lunch or would be threatened by his presence. He swatted at the many mosquito's that annoyingly bit and buzzed around his head.
"Damn insects" he thought, "Why couldn't INGEN make these damn dinosaurs somewhere more comfortable than here, like the Mediterranean, instead of some god forsaken island where I can hardly see ten feet in front of me."
As he thought this, his foot hit a fallen tree limb causing him to fall and hit the ground with a heavy thud. He gave a loud groan as he looked around to make sure nothing tripped him or that something was about to jump on him.
He got up slowly and wiped the dirt from his pants and continued walking. Moments later a voice came over his earpiece, "Jack this is the boss how copy?".
"Yeah I copy, over." Jack responded.
"We've just received word from the choppers. They've found a good place to set down the equipment. Close to the center of the island in a large open clearing. It's near a waterfall so it should not be too hard to find.", the boss said.
"Roger that. Exactly how far inward are we talking about and what are my rules of engagement?", Jack questioned."
"Jack what do I look like to you, a fucking map? Just follow the noise of the helicopters. They'll be there for at least an hour setting down the equipment. And as for rules of engagement try not to shoot anything if you can help it."
"Copy that, continuing to head inland."
'Not shoot anything, huh? Then what the hell am I supposed to do use harsh language?' Jack thought to himself.
Jack made slow progressed through the dense jungle. Stopping several times when he heard some suspicious noises. Not to mention that he had no idea where he was or where he was going. For all he knew he was going the opposite direction, right into the jaws of a hungry carnivore.
The only clue that he was going in the right direction was the drumming noise of the choppers that seemed to slowly but surely grow louder. Although they didn't really grow that much. Jack estimated that he still had at least two to three miles, at least, left to hike.
He felt exposed walking through the jungle. There was no cover he could use to hide behind. He'd never faced anything that could find him just by smelling him. The heat didn't bother him as much, but the humidity was nearly unbearable. Being under the canopy was making him feel more sweaty than he liked.
To the animals he was probably a giant target just waiting to be picked off. Jack stopped and knelt down. He looked around because he hadn't really seen anything bigger than a bird so far. He kind of figured that he wouldn't see any of the bigger animals until he reached the center of the island where the fresh water would be, but something still seemed off.
He hadn't heard nor saw anything as he slowly turned his head to the left and right. He readied his rifle. Minutes passed but still nothing. He had barely lifted his left leg to start moving again when he heard a shuffling noise off to his right.
He turned, rifle at his shoulder ready to fire. Another shuffle sounded behind him. 'Damn, there's two of them.' He thought 'This is bad.' Jack heard the animals cackling either at him or too each other communicating on how there going to serve him up for lunch
The animals were getting closer to him. The noise of there footsteps getting louder. Both were circling him as if he were a wounded animal. Then suddenly, they stopped. Jack couldn't tell where they were or how close they were. This made him worry.
Suddenly one of the animals burst from a nearby bush. The animal was a herrerasaurus, the smaller and less intelligent cousin of the velociraptors. Jack tried to shoot the animal but it came up from behind him and before he turned all the way around, it pounced on him.
His finger pulled the trigger but fired at nothing, but luckily though he held his rifle under the snapping jaws of the animal that was on top of him pinning it against it's throat providing a barrier and enough time for jack to reach with his right hand to grab his K-Bar tactical knife.
He unsheathed the knife and started to quickly and repeatedly stab the dinosaur in the throat. Cutting all major veins causing the animal to quickly bleed out as jack threw it off of him. He had little time to rest however as the second herrerasaur grabbed his ankle, pulled him down and started dragging him several feet.
Jack had dropped his knife as he fell and he yelled at the pain. Jack rolled over as the animal was dragging him so he could see it and he started to kick it several times until finally it let go to catch it's self giving jack the time he need to crawl back to his knife, pick it up and get to his feet.
He faced the small animal as he readied himself for the next attack. The herrerasaur had it's claws raised and it's mouth open as it got ready to pounce on the now injured human. But suddenly the herrerasaur stopped all aggressive actions, sniffed the air several times and retreated back into the jungle.
Jack took this as a bad sign as only moments later he felt the ground start to shake. He grabbed his rifle slung it over his shoulder and started to limp to the biggest tree he could find. He struggled to climb the tree with his injured ankle but he pushed through the pain until he reached a safe distance. He glanced over at the body of the dead dinosaur as two carnotaurs came into view.
Jack sat himself upright against the tree with his feet on-top of a limb trying to make himself as small as possible and hoped they don't notice him.
The two big animals snapped at each other to see who would get to eat the animal before the bigger (and probably female) one ate it. The two big animals observed there surroundings and sniffed the air before lumbering off back into the jungle.
Jack let out a very heavy sigh of relief as the animals left. Then a voice came again into his earpiece.
"Jack, Jack this is the boss we heard a gunshot is everything alright, Jack answer me!"
"This is jack...I uhh... had a little run in with the natives... not the friendliest in the world I can tell you that much already." He said between breaths
"Oh that's a relief. Are you hurt?"
"Only a little. One of the little bastards dragged me a couple feet by my ankle. I have a first aid kit with me so I'll be able to put some pain reliever and some disinfectant on it. I won't know how bad it is until later. Right now I'm up in a tree about a three quarters of a mile ahead of your current position."
"Alright jack you just stay put were coming to get you."
"No no no, I'll only slow you guys down. You guys go on ahead to the equipment I'll catch up later. If I'm not there by tonight I'll be there in the morning. I'll sleep in a tree tonight if I have too."
"Alright jack if that's what you want. I'll expect to see you in the morning. Just because your the new guy doesn't mean you get the red shirt treatment or getting all this bravado to make a name for yourself."
"Thank you sir. Trust me, you'll see me there. And one more thing, these things can track like nothing else, so I'm gonna try and conceal myself as well as possible. That includes having radio silence. They can probably hear me talking from a hundred feet away and still know what I'm saying. If they can understand us that is"
"Roger, I can understand that, but I want you to report in hourly until sundown is that clear. Just so we know your still alive."
"Roger that, going silent."
Jack rested his head up against the tree and gave a small sigh of relief. 'If not for the dinosaurs this place would be pretty peaceful.' He thought
He took off his backpack and searched through it until he found the first aid kit. It wasn't large and only held a few items, mostly bandages and gauze, but it also had what jack needed for his wound.
He looked at his lower leg. The pant leg was nearly shredded off completely. He took his knife and cut away the loose hanging cloth.
There were several long but not very wide lacerations starting from his ankle to the middle of his leg. One cut was bleeding heavily to the point that the blood was starting to flow onto the tree limb and drip down to the ground.
"Ah shit, I hope that blood doesn't attract something bigger or a pack of something." Jack thought as he started to put bandages around the wounds.
"We better have a damn good doctor, hell I'd even take a veterinarian at this point. "Jack thought.
Jack breathed heavily after tightening the bandages around his leg. He sat uncomfortably in the tree for several minutes, listening to his surroundings becoming more weary of every sound.
After only hearing nothing but birds and small animals Jack decided that he would climb down the tree. Jack was about ten feet from the bottom of the tree when he lost his grip and slammed hard onto the ground. He landed mostly on his back, but because of his backpack the hit was slightly nulled. However his leg on the other hand slammed into one of the overgrown roots of the tree that was sticking up out of the ground.
Jack tried not to scream as he managed to close his mouth but still let out a long whimper of pain. He rolled himself over, pushed himself up and then leaned against the tree and hobbled on one foot.
As he started to walk he kept thinking to himself, 'Ok ok I can do this. As long as I don't step too hard or piss anything off I should be fine.'
He stepped slowly and carefully through the bushes.
His breaths were short and heavy but also slow and concentrated. Thirty minutes passed as Jack walked through the jungle. He started hearing the bellowing calls of the herbivores as he got closer inland.
Jack suddenly stopped and knelt down as he heard the shuffling of bushes in front of him. He held his rifle toward the unknown animal. His eyes narrowed, ready for anything that wanted to eat him.
Then the animal came into view. To jack's surprise it wasn't something that wanted to peel the flesh from his bones, nor was it big enough to. In fact, what came out of the bushes was a baby stegosaurus that had been separated from it's mother.
Jack sighed slightly as he lowered his rifle. The baby plant eater took notice to this and looked at jack with great curiosity. It slightly moved it's head to the side, much like most animals do, to get a better look at him.
It made several squawking and chirping noise before deciding to get closer to jack. Jack was astounded at the bravery of the little leaf eater as it came right up to him and starting smelling him much like any friendly dog would do.
Jack held out his hand and let the animal smell him as if signaling that it would be ok to touch him. He put his hand on top of it's head as it moved to try and look at it in a playful manner.
"Well you're not much of a threat are you little guy." Jack said, slightly chuckling. "Where's your mom, I'm sure she wouldn't like it if her little one was playing with a human."
The tiny animal gave Jack a very youthful look and a sad squawk before turning around to head back into the bushes to find his mother.
Jack thought that it was almost like the animal understood him and listened to what he said and to go find his mother.
Jack gave some thought to this as he thought about how much more interesting this place would be if it were true.
This thought was cut short however when he heard and felt the ground shake. "Oh please for the love of god, don't let that be what I think it is." Jack pleaded in his mind
He heard two different noise at this point. One behind him, which was what sounded like a very big animal, and the one in front of him. Which he assumed was the Stegosaurus herd. Which sounded like a battalion of trumpets and tuba's all playing at different times.
Jack jumped into a fallen log as the footsteps grew louder and closer. In moments the footsteps felt like earthquakes until they finally stopped.
The fallen log Jack was hiding in was big enough for him to crawl into, but if anything were to step on it he'd surely would be crushed under the massive weight of any animal. There was a hole in the top of the log small enough to see through with one eye, which Jack used to look at the massive animal that towered above him.
Standing almost as tall as a two story building the giant creature looked steadily around looking for prey. The animal had big and lengthy arms that made it seem like the animal could run on all four limbs if it really wanted too. It's total length was longer than a greyhound bus as it's tail, which was equally impressive stood as balance.
The most predominant feature on the animal was the massive sail, easily taller than Jack, that stood on it's back flashing an array of dark colors and shades. But even that didn't compare to it's head. Long and slender with a mouth full of razor sharp teeth.
There stood the spinosaurus. And he was hungry. The spino looked down at the log jack was in, nearly looking him dead on. The spino lowered it's self to all fours and smelt around the log. Jack knew if he was found out that it meant certain death. His heart started beating faster as the spino lifted his head.
Jack noticed that when the spino lifted it's head into the direction of the alerted stegos that he only had one eye. But there was no scarring around the eye like he was in a fight. No, it was almost like something was thrown or stabbed into it.
The animal gave a mighty roar toward the stegos who answered in kind which a thundering defiance. Jack could he the spino growling in his throat as if deciding if his next meal would be worth it.
Jack heard something peculiar. He looked out the other end of the log because he swore to himself that he could heard water flowing. He thought that if he could get to it then maybe he could follow it to the waterfall if he can get out if this situation.
The spino gave one more roar before deciding that this meal wasn't worth it and went off back into the jungle. Jack gave giant sigh of relief as he started to wiggle out from the log. He peeked his head out from the end of the log making sure that the spinosaurus was gone and that it was safe to come out.
He figured that the stream was about a hundred feet away so he started to walk toward the direction he heard it coming from.
Then, without warning, the herd of stego's started to stampede! Right toward Jack! Jack started to run as best he could with his gimpy leg but he wasn't fast enough as he found himself in the middle of it. He bobbed and weaved, and dodged and lodged until finally he was on the edge of the stamped.
Jack stumbled as he backed away from the stampede and looked off to where they were headed. Though it was to late as he looked to his right just in time to see a juvenile stegosaurus trip over a log. The animal tripped on it's right side sending it's tail which already had spines longer than a kitchen knife and as thick as a football, come swinging to the side like a mace and barely hitting jack in the left kidney area as he turned to jump out of the way.
The impact of the hit flung Jack in the air like a spinner. He landed on the ground with a heavy thud. Jack seemed to be in shock from the whole incident as he stared up at the canopy.
"OOOOH boy, today is just not my day." He groaned out loud, "Great now i have a gimpy leg and, MMMMMHHHHMMMMM!" He tried to finish his sentence but couldn't as he felt the area of impact.
Somehow, Jack managed to roll over and start to get up and walk. All the while ignoring the pain he was feeling as the adrenaline pumped through him. He was determined to get to the stream by any means necessary. The pain was immense as his vision started to twist and turn. His equilibrium was thrown off and he stumbled his way forward. Then after several seconds of agonizing pain he made it to the stream and fell onto the creek bed rocks.
He rolled himself over to look at the sky. Ready to accept that he was going to die. He didn't mind so much though, he had already answered for his sins and was ready for it. His mind, at the moment, was also hallucinating. He gazed up at the trees as the sunlight glowed across his face as an 'Angel' came down and slowly caressed his face.
"It's ok, I can help you.", Said the angel.
At that moment Jack had given in to the darkness and fell unconscious. The last thing that he felt before he passed out was the feeling of his body being dragged though the rocks.