RECOVERY
5 - Desperate Times, Desperate Measures
Dawn was just on the horizon and starting to brighten up the skies. Within the confines of her small shelter was Pet. The place wasn't that big, barely ten foot by five foot in measurements, and beneath a series of rocks in the foothills of one of the island's several mountains. Overlaying the entryway was a makeshift door crafted out of a piece of tent fabric she had salvaged from the island's supply stores. Inside the shelter were knick-knacks of a sort ranging from empty soda cans cut open to collect rainwater, as well as several others types of food cans containing animal fat and an oil created from the fat. In one corner was a first aid kit and next to it a gallon jug of clean water.
Sitting on the ground and shining brightly was a lamp fueled by the oil concoction the hybrid had been shown to make during a survival lesson taught to her by Muldoon. Kneeling in front of the light was the young woman, rummaging around through a tactical vest's pockets. She was rather proud of how the came to obtain the vest. A part of her was sure her recycled plan wouldn't work. How it played out some years ago on Isla Nublar when the first hunting team came for her had more favorable terrain to navigate. The desired result ended much the same, however. Instead of a T-Rex being lured to the location through the painful yells of the injured, it was that person's teammates.
Pet continued to rummage through the tactical garment's contents. Sitting next to her on her bed mat was the goggles. Granola bars, a small emergency med kit, and a flask was everything that greeted the searching woman. She tossed the med kit into the corner where she kept other medical supplies and studied the granola bar. She couldn't recall the last time she had had one and happily peeled it open. In three bites, it was devoured, and the wrapper tossed to the side.
Pet's raptor eyes fell on the rifle leaning against the rocky walls of her shelter, and she reached for it to examine it. She made sure the safety was on and ejected the magazine and cleared the chamber before doing anything else with it. She pushed the cleared round back into the magazine and set it aside. Now, to get down to business.
Morning came much too early for Muldoon and his men. Sleep didn't come easy for them as they spent the entire night in shifts watching over the camp. Not to mention the time change having a role in it. As the morning was beginning on the island, it would be the evening in Kenya. However, Muldoon had no issues sleeping that night, regardless of the time change. Tucked away beneath a limp hand was an empty flask, much to the dissatisfaction of his teammates. Was he going to be like this the whole time?
A couple of the men looked to Amadi for answers. The African sighed and shook his head. He kicked the feet of the snoozing man to wake him. At first, Muldoon refused to wake up, but after another harsh kick, he snapped awake and fumbled around for his rifle. "What? What is it?"
Paul shouldered his bag and answered. "It's morning. We need to get going if we're going to find your girl."
"Right," Muldoon huffed out and tried to recollect himself and his thoughts. He wasn't entirely awake, that or was hung over if not still somewhat drunk.
Muldoon stumbled around for footing and used the tree he'd been asleep next to for support in standing. He stretched out his back and listened to the many pops from his joints shifting. He wasn't as young and resilient as he used to be. Before, camping and sleeping on the ground wasn't a problem. Those were back in the days when he and Pet would go out for a day or two and camp just to get away from it all. Pet. The reason he was there. His remembering her and the sudden relapse of dread for her safety sobered him a little.
He shouldered his duffle bag he had used as a pillow the night before and picked up his rifle he had propped against a tree root. That's when he saw it; his flask. He must've dropped it at one point and knelt down to pick it up off the ground. When he twisted off the top for a quick morning wake up shot, he found it empty. He grumbled and shoved it back in his pocket. Knowing he still had a job to do, he charged through the anxiously awaiting group of people to continue their trek. He vaguely recognized the terrain and knew there to be a road a mile or less away. From there, by following the roads laid out throughout the island, navigating the ground would be much easier. That was also not taking into consideration what possible carnivore territories those paths went through.
Virgil chose not to sleep any that night as he was too much in a fit over the happenings that had occurred the night before. Before, he was hunting a target he knew to be extremely dangerous if within close range, but at a distance was nothing more than another piece of helpless prey. He scoffed to himself. Such was not the case, now. The target had a rifle and night vision goggles, which meant possible trouble. Seeing how he was one pair of goggles short, keeping an eye on everything would be a bit more difficult, now. It's not like it mattered in the first place, seeing how the hybrid had already ventured as close as she did to the camp before finally being detected.
He had to give it to hybrid for daring to come so close. Either she was that reckless or that cocky. Virgil stepped out of his tent and scanned the men's sleep deprived faces for one in particular. "Where the hell is that little shit, Derek?"
His piercing gaze settled on a man hastily feasting on an MRE. He had worked with this man before and knew he could at least rely on him to some extent. He was good with a gun and had decent long-range skills many a man would envy. At first glance, one wouldn't think so given his normal unshaved look and scraggly hair.
"Leon," Virgil barked, startling the man. "Where's the kid?"
The addressed man, Leon, swallowed his bite and answered. "On patrol duty." He pointed with a plastic fork south of the encampment.
The team alpha collected his shotgun and rifle and trod off in the direction he was pointed to. Virgil was roughly one hundred yards from the camp and sneered. There was no trace of the annoying bounty hunter anywhere. Had he met a similar fate as the last unfortunate bastard from the night before?
Virgil grumbled to himself, "Piece of-"
"Something I can help you with?"
Virgil spun around to find himself face to face with his least favorite team member. "The girl...what do you know about her?"
Derek shoved his hands in his pants pockets. "What is it you want to know?"
"I want to bait her...to make her have to come to me." The alpha's expression morphed into devious delight. "If I were to obtain a desirable piece of bait, say...Robert Muldoon?... Would she come for him?"
Anger, resentment, malice and the gut-wrenching desire to shoot the man right then and there flooded Derek's thoughts. He clenched his jaw and squared his eyes down on the team leader. "Oh yeah, she'd come for him. Good luck getting him, though. He might be a washed-up drunk, and a has been, but I can assure you he won't go down easy."
Virgil smiled beneath the day's old scruff starting to shadow his lower face. "Oh, that won't be a problem. Just need to put him at a disadvantage is all." He mockingly patted Derek on the shoulder and walked away, back towards the camp. Virgil could be heard yelling out, "Hey Leon, get your shit together. We're going on a little hunt."
Leon yelled back, "I thought we were already hunting! What the fuck are we hunting, now?"
"Robert Muldoon!"
Extra ammo magazines had been loaded and stashed within his tactical vest as Leon threw his gun over his shoulder. He watched Virgil load a fresh clip into his 30-06 and nodded in acknowledgment to the unspoken order both men mutually thought.
Virgil gave the men still present in the encampment a last look over. "I expect the Muldoon kid to wander off once I'm gone. Should he follow through, let him. Don't stop him." The team leader rested his scheming glare down on the unsuspecting individual pacing around his post in the distance. "He's either going to go looking for her or go looking for his dear uncle. The only reason I haven't killed him myself is exactly for this." He scoffed a laugh and cocked a half smile. His focus returned to Leon. "Let's go."
Leon followed the order and kept in close step to the other man. "How do you know where to go?"
"I don't, but I know how to make him come to us. It'll take at least a day or two for any real results." He reached into a pocket of his vest for a folded up map of the island and passed it to Leon. "I figured we go here." Virgil pointed to a spot on the map marked 'Meadow' and resumed in his explaining. "I suspect the other team is around this east coast, somewhere, seeing how the docks are just north of this eastern point. My source on the mainland told me he saw them load up by boat and head out shortly after landing. I think they got here sometime last night. Robert Muldoon won't stay in one spot for too long. He probably knows we're after the genetic fuck up, too, and will be in a hurry to cover as much ground possible. With that said, I wouldn't put it past him to have ventured further inland."
Leon snickered to himself. "What's the grand plan of things, then, boss? How do you plan on luring this loser to us?"
"Simple enough. Gunfire from the shotgun should roughly be heard from about two miles away. If my assumptions are correct, the others should be either just over or topping that ridge, there." Virgil pointed to an easterly line of high risen terrain that stretched roughly close to five-hundred to seven-hundred meters in height. "He's a bit of a paranoid person, Muldoon is, so when he hears gunfire, he's sure to come running to find out what's going on."
"I see, I see. Clever thinking, Mr. Reynolds." The two people didn't slow in their strides the further on the day went.
Derek abandoned his post and chose to take off into the jungle. His absence hadn't gone unnoticed, but just as they were ordered, Virgil's men didn't pursue. It's not like any of them cared what happened to the cocky twerp anyway. The remaining men began to take bets on whether or not he'd survive. After all, they'd all heard stories of what had happened at Jurassic Park as well as the latest occurrence that had taken place on that very island. An armed team from InGen had been dispatched, only to have a handful of misfits survive. And who would've thought at the end of it all, the man in charge of the expedition to get it in the end on his home soil.
The men laughed and continued to make light of the situation, refusing to believe the same thing could happen to them. After all, they were in control of the situation, right? They had plenty of guns, grenades, men patrolling the camp perimeter and a backup team waiting on the mainland should they be needed. Oh yeah, they were in control.
An hour and a half stretched on, which left Derek a sweaty and nervous mess in the jungle. Every sound he heard, regardless of how innocent it seemed, he jumped. He didn't trust anything around him. The rustling of bushes nearby followed by high pitched chirping caused him to nearly jump out of his skin. He quickly turned around, rifle in hands, and pointed to the noise's source.
Four small, curious dinosaurs sprung out of the ferns and into view. Derek took one look at the chicken-sized, squeaking dinosaurs and laughed. "What the hell are you little bastards supposed to be?" The dinosaurs chirped, squeaked and bobbed their heads up and down as they studied the much larger form. "Better watch it. I haven't had a good meal in a couple of days and never could pass up a good chicken dinner." One of the Compy got brave enough and scurried closer to the man, but Derek kicked at it. The dinosaur was quicker than the man and had run back into the bushes with the rest of its companions to hide. "I'm warning you," he stated and continued through the jungle.
Derek could hear the chirping behind him grow in intensity and every time he glanced back saw more had joined the first four. Ten, sixteen and now roughly twenty-five of the trilling creatures trailed behind the slightly annoyed adventurer.
When he stopped walking, as did the dinosaurs. Whenever he would keep walking, they would scamper to keep up. "Why do I feel like the Pied Piper all of a sudden?"
Up ahead was a clearing in the jungle and he slowed down, finally becoming uncomfortable with the number of followers he had acquired. In their bobbing of their heads, Derek had counted roughly thirty-something dino chickens. He knew they weren't following him out of friendliness and kicked a bunch of dirt in their direction. It managed to scatter a bunch of them back into the bushes for cover, but not all. He wanted to shoot at them to deter them from following; something, anything to chase them off. As far off as he was from the camp, would his shooting a few of these pests be heard?
He raised his gun to the chirping critters and was about to pull the trigger until the dinosaurs took off running. Was that all it took to scare them off? Or maybe, it wasn't him that scared him off. A haunting silence overcame the air. There were no crickets chirping and birds singing. Sudden unease rested its self on his shoulders as he realized he wasn't alone.
The man's chocolate brown eyes rolled in their sockets in the direction he heard footsteps come from. These steps sounded differently than the ankle biter dinosaurs for these were light and particular where they placed themselves. Usually, prowlers were keen on their footing when stalking their prey, hoping to be undetected whereas this whatever it was that was approaching him wanted to be known.
Derek could hear the pounding of his heart in his ears and feel his breath seize in his chest. The footsteps came to a stop only for heavy breathing to be heard next. He dreaded turning around for fear of what he would face. Flexing his partially sweaty grip around the stock of his Remington 750 rifle, he drew in a shaky breath and slowly turned. Not but eight feet away from where he stood was a pair of animalistic eyes set in a mud-caked face curtained by long, matted medium brown hair.
Derek mumbled under his breath, "Shit," and forced himself to remain calm.
The longer he stood there staring the unnerving hybrid in the eye, the more difficult staying calm was becoming. He had faced many different types of predatory animals and dangerous people with guns in his face before and held his cool well. Until now. This time, it was different. Her stare froze the blood in his veins and sent a streak of horror down his spine.
Derek slowly withdrew his hand away from the trigger and held it up. He licked his lips nervously. "It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you. I only want to help."
A sharp bark like snort erupted from the hybrid and she adjusted her poise as though preparing to attack the slightly older man in front of her. Still, ever so cautiously, Derek unfastened the shoulder strap from the rifle and prepared to lower it when the hybrid lunged at him. He raised his gun and used it to block the clawed hands from reaching his face just as he fell to the ground upon being pounced on.
He could feel her feet's sickle claws tear at his tactical vest and her clawed hands rip at his knuckles in an attempt to disarm him. He wasn't about to admit defeat nor let things end this way. The attacking hybrid released a high pitched shrill and dug a claw deeper into the vest to tear away the straps securing the zipper.
"Listen to me," Derek groaned out in his struggles. "He's here! Robert is here!" He could feel his grip unwillingly loosen around his rifle as it was ripped from his bloody knuckles. "They're going to kill him!" Another vest strap was ripped away. "You have to listen to me, Pet! They're going to kill Uncle Rob!" The desperate man took hold of one of Pet's hands to stop her from unzipping the vest, which was a big mistake. She bit into his forearm, causing him to scream in pain.
There was no fighting her off. He had underestimated her for she was not like any other person he had hunted down and taken out. She growled and broke away from her biting his arm to bite at the area between his neck and shoulder. Derek was momentarily paralyzed by the pain, and it took him a minute to come to his senses before acting in self-defense. He grabbed a handful of her hair with one hand while trying to reach for a knife tucked in his boot. Not happening.
The hybrid pulled away from the bite to grab his hand wrapped in her hair and dug her claws into his wrist. When his grip gave way, she pinned it down next to him using her sickle-clawed foot and reached for his other hand still trying to reach the knife. He had almost had it, too, had it not been for her grabbing his hand away. Another sharp jolt of pain took hold of him as she pressed a finger's claw into his arm's bite mark.
Derek laid there, bleeding and at the enraged hybrid's mercy. His glossing over brown eyes met hers, and he cried in plea. "Kill me if you will, but don't let them kill my uncle..." He panted and swallowed the knot in his throat, unable to fight off unconsciousness any longer.
The hybrid stared down at the passed-out man beneath her and snorted a bark. Should she decide to leave him, he'd die from either the eventual blood loss if left untreated or from the pack of Compies she knew to still be nearby. He'd suffer the same fate Dieter did, except this time, the Compy's prey wouldn't be conscious when ripped apart. Decisions, decisions. What to do?
