Chapter 2: Vestiges

"What was it like working there?" Sam asked.

The woman besides her shrugged "It was okay, for the most part. Once you got over the initial shock of seeing dinosaurs and all that, it became your average zoo work. You go in every day, check the animals, make sure they are well fed, look for any problems and so on…"

The two remained silent for a bit, watching as the men finished preparing the boat. Ahead of them, two young men were busy bringing boxes down the lower deck of the relatively small vessel. It was the kind of thing a small wealthy family might use in a long holiday sail the Caribbean or the west coast. Not ideal, but it was big enough for the whole crew of 6 (albeit with some cramped spaces) and the things they needed, which consisted mostly of weapons, ammunition and some scouting equipment.

"Rose… what do you think about those two?" She kept her voice low and just nodded in their general direction.

"What about them?"

Sighing, Sam gestured vaguely. "Don't you think they look a bit… young to be playing security?"

Once again, the woman shrugged. "I don't know. Anderson trusts them. Isn't that enough?" The man Rose referred to was seen as the unofficial "leader" of their little expedition. He was older than all of them and seemed both intelligent and resourceful. He was the one who first contacted each of them with the idea of going to the island.

Sam nodded. Who was she to judge? "Where is he anyway?"

"Oh, he went pick some stuff with Peter. He said we would be leaving as soon as they made it back."

-x-

The herd of brachiosaurus grazed lazily on the open field. "Fucking idiot…" Samantha couldn't see any predators from her binoculars, but one can never be too sure. "Letting a raptor live right after it tried to kill me, what the fuck was I thinking". It hadn't taken long for regret to set in, realizing she would now have to be even more careful than before.

She scanned the edges of the herd for any possible trouble. So far, there were only more and more brachiosaurus moving around. Obviously, that didn't make it perfectly safe, because even a slow herbivore of that size could still kill her if it saw Samantha as a threat. The girl had decided to climb a fairly tall tree, next to the road she had been following, and wait until most of them were a safe distance away.

The hustling of leaves behind her almost made her fall off the branch she was sitting. She whippet her head around to find a bird sitting on a branch next to her. With a sigh of relief, she went back to watch.

Judging by the sun, it had probably been a couple of hours since she left the raptors. Ever since, Sam was jumping at every sudden noise near her. "Good job Sam, letting the stubborn fucker who hunted you for two days and tried to kill you alive because…" She couldn't even remember the reason "For what? Couldn't bear to shoot him like that? What would your father say?" She kept scolding herself.

Tired of looking at the dinosaur herd, she lowered her binoculars and grabbed her map. From what she could tell, the rest of the journey to the research center and the labs would take most of the afternoon. With some luck, she would get there before the night. "If I have to spend another night on a tree branch, I'll just kill myself…". The first night spent alone had been both scary and uncomfortable. The frequent rain and mosquitos, in particular, had ensured she didn't have a single hour of decent sleep.

"Well, better not waste more time" With a grunt, she climbed down the tree and went to the road. With her path cleared of the herd, she picked her pace and moved on.

True to her expectations, she arrived near the labs just before sunset. Once again looking through her binoculars, Samantha took her time analyzing the decaying buildings, already taken over by plants. They almost reminded her of a post-apocalyptical movie set. In a sense, it was indeed the ruins from an apocalypse, but restricted to a small chain of islands. While humanity was unaffected by what had happened here 20 years earlier, the Jurassic Park disaster had indeed eliminated human presence on these islands.

It wouldn't be surprising if these ruins were being used by small and medium sized dinosaurs, forcing Sam to be extra careful and take longer than she would've liked clearing it.

With the incoming night fast approaching, the woman crept forward through the tall grass, and jumped inside the old lab through a long-broken window. Like most buildings in the island, the lab was built almost like a bunker and had few windows, meaning little to no illumination inside, especially at the current time.

The darkness was almost overwhelming, and Samantha was forced to reach for her flashlight and use its limited battery. The first thing the light revealed was a room filled with broken chairs and tables, with a large counter directly ahead of her. This was the cafeteria, most likely. She ventured further, illuminating the corners of the room with one hand, and keeping her shotgun close with the other. Amongst the constant noises from the jungle, the dripping sound of water from the earlier rains and the wind coming from the outside, it took her a while to concentrate on any sounds that could alert her to the presence of dinosaurs. Finding nothing for the moment, she approached the nearest open door and continued to explore the laboratories.

At first, it was more of the same. Old and destroyed furniture, a few collapsed walls, the occasional tree branch invading the building, and some bugs wondering here and there. It all changed when she arrived and the labs proper, the place where the scientific "magic" had brought extinct creatures (or at least beings as close as possible to those extinct creatures) back to life. "Jesus, this place must've been amazing…" Sam muttered to herself. Even though she abhors the clearly unethical research that had been made here, a small, younger part of her mind couldn't help but to be seduced by the idea. Just how amazing would it be to stare at a living specimen of all those fossils she had seen inside museums as a kid? When she was younger, she had dreamed of working at a place like this.

"Bastards, I'm stuck on this shithole because of their greed and hubris" she reminded herself. As seductive as it was, the consequences of their unrestricted research had come back to bite them in the ass. Even if the park had succeeded, what then? It would've been just another business enterprise hoping profit from the exploitation of these animals. Even worse, considering they were artificial creations, which likely placed them on a loophole of animal welfare and rights legislation.

As she lowered her flashlight, thinking about ethics behind this, the light reflected something silver and shiny on the floor. There was something behind a counter. Taking a couple of steps forward, she was surprised to find bones, human ones.

It was a partially complete human skeleton, missing one hand and a femur. Sam kneeled down slightly, noticing bits of clothing still stuck to it. Based on the remains, she figured it must've been some researcher. Just below the ribcage, there was a small glint of metal, which she scooped in her hands and took a closer look.

It was an old name tag. "Dr. Crichton? Well, well, what an unlucky guy. Your employers couldn't even bother to rescue your body, could them?" After the disaster, Ingen had claimed to have sent rescue teams to look for any missing personnel, but the tag on her hands proved otherwise. If they had indeed sent people here, it wasn't to search for missing workers.

Leaving the metal tag on her pockets, she stood up and looked around with a new objective. If Ingen had sent people here, maybe they were looking for important files and research data? This posed a problem for her.

Getting closer to the old cabinets and office tables, she curiously opened a few drawers, finding a multitude of old papers. Most of it was, unsurprisingly, unreadable after 20 years of decay, but she could still get some information out of it. The first pages were generic daily reports and common info about staff, work schedules and personal notes, nothing important. However, a few of them were detailed descriptions on experiments and research on the dinosaurs, just what she was looking for (before being abandoned on the island, that is). The files were incomplete and falling apart, but maybe if she looked around…

"No!" her mind screamed at her. "Stop it, you didn't come here to continue on that fool's quest, you're here to find shelter for the night, that's it."

She lowered the papers and looked around. "Sigh… what am I doing" There was no point in this. The people Sam came with might be dead for all she knew and even if they weren't, their contact was probably long gone by now.

They had come here in hopes of finding any leftover data about Ingen's research. Their contact had assured them most of the facilities had been left untouched since the evacuation, turning them into hidden treasures of sensitive information. Many corporations would pay millions of dollars for even a fraction of information regarding the genetic experimentation and technology used to create the dinosaurs, and that's exactly what Samantha and the people she came with were counting on. Their plan was to grab any piece of data still lingering about and then sell it on the black market. It was illegal, yes, but she didn't care much about hurting a company like Ingen.

A few moments of quiet thinking made her realize something was amiss. It wasn't just her who was quiet. An eerie feeling began to form on her stomach, and she slowly turned around towards the open door.

The distinct sound of claws on the concrete floor and a dark shape moving on her peripheral vision was all the warning she needed. The memory of a raptor jumping on her screamed panic in her mind, and Samantha hauled her shotgun around to take aim.

Her aim was suddenly blocked by a black gooey mass impacting her arms and weapon, throwing her aim away and making her close her eyes by instinct. "Shit!" Sam stumbled back and crashed against the office table she had been previously inspecting.

By instinct, she half jumped, half stumbled behind the table to put something between her and her attacker, and then opened her eyes to see what she was against. What greeted her, partially covered by shadows as daylight became scarce, was a bit smaller than the raptor that had attacked her earlier that day. The colorful frill around its head was the distinct mark of a dilophosaurus.

"Wait, if that's a dilo…" She looked down in horror and realized the black goo on her arms and shotgun was poison. There was nothing she could do however, as the dilophosaurus reared its head to spit more poison at her, much like a snake would.

Recognizing the distinct movement, Sam quickly lowered herself, just in time for another ball of poison goo to fly past the spot her head had been and impact against the wall behind her.

Once again, she took aim at the dinosaur. The dilo, for his part, realized he had missed the target, and began to advance on her. Praying to every deity that the poison coating her shotgun didn't cause a malfunction, Samantha placed her iron sights on the center of mass of the dinosaur and pulled the trigger.

Inside a relatively cramped room, the blast from the shotgun sent her ears ringing, and the girl recoiled in pain and gripped her head with both arms. The dilo, on the other hand, now sported a massive hole in his chest with a torrent of blood flowing outwards. Within a few seconds, the dinosaur collapsed in shock and his body quickly shut down from the massive wound.

As the pain subsided, Sam stood up and looked at the dilo, confirming it was dead. Just as her hearing began to return, there was a massive crash to her left. Another dilophosaurus burst through the door she had come from.

A single spent shell flew out as she pumped her shotgun once. The moment she turned to aim at the new threat a blob of poison smashed against her shoulder. "Shit!" the sudden impact made her pull the trigger before she could take aim, and so a pile of old papers besides the dinosaur exploded into bits.

Screaming every curse she knew, Samantha jumped over the dead dilo and rushed to the door he had come from, just in time to avoid the charge of the second dilo. What greeted her was a long and dark corridor.

Sam knew she couldn't outrun the dinosaur, but she had to put some distance between them to load a new shell and scrape some of the poison off of her. Before coming to the island, she had studied every file she could get on the dinosaurs that inhabited the place. There wasn't much on the dilos, for they were some of the last dinosaurs to be created before the disaster, so there hasn't been much time to study them. What she knew is that their poison was powerful and induced paralysis on its victims.

The end of the corridor was blocked by a half collapsing wooden door. There was an animalistic cry behind her as the dilophosaurus approached at full speed. Samantha pumped her shotgun once again and aimed the weapon in the general direction of the incoming dinosaur.

Her arms were shaking with adrenaline. She was tired and it was almost pitch black inside the enclosed space of the corridor. Nevertheless, she pulled the trigger in hopes of a decent shot. Not like there was much space to miss, right?

The brightness from the blast briefly revealed the dilophosaurus in its full glory, with its head lowered, frills spread and claws at the ready to tear her flesh.

In her panic to get away from the dinosaur, Sam smashed her back against the old door, which gave away immediately. Losing her balance, she fell along with the door on the next room and, driven by instinct alone, scrambled to get away from the path the dilo was taking. Less than a second after she moved, the dilophosaurus landed right on the spot she previously occupied. Like Sam, the dinosaur wasn't very graceful, falling headfirst and giving Sam precious time to act.

With one hand supporting her, she swung her right leg around and kicked the dinosaur in the lower jaw, making it scream in pain. This gave her the opening she needed to run.

Minutes passed, and the girl reached the main hall of the building, an area covered in broken glass from the large windows that surrounded it and pieces of decaying furniture. Supporting herself in a nearby reception desk, she tried to think of her next move, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to focus. Her eyes were becoming heavy, and her shotgun and backpack felt like they were made of solid concrete.

A dripping sound drew her eyes downwards, and she saw the black drops of poison falling from her arms and weapon. "It's the poison…" she realized with growing dread; it must be seeping into her through her skin. She tried, with little to no success, to wipe it off her, but it had already gotten on most of her shirt and pants. The only way to get rid of it would be after full bath and new clothes, neither of which she could do now.

The ticking sound of claws against the concrete alerted her of the dilo getting close. Ignoring her growing numbness, she stood up and readied herself for another fight. There was a sound to her right, and Sam swung her weapon to meet it, finding nothing.

A few seconds went by, and there was something behind her. Once again, the girl turned, once again seeing nothing.

This continued to happen. She would hear something, turn, and then find nothing. The dinosaur knew the poison was taking effect, it knew it only had to wait until she was weak enough to become an easy kill.

"I can't stay here; I need to find somewhere easy to defend" There were few options. Parts of the building had collapsed, blocking her from many areas. The corridor and the lab she was previously staying were by now completely engulfed in darkness, as the night had finally arrived. Her eyes settled on the stairs leading to the second floor. Maybe from there she would have more light from the moon and a smaller space to defend.

Her line of thought was broken by the sounds of claws getting closer, right behind her. In one swift move, she turned around and fired. The blast hit just a few feet away from a shadowy figure hiding in the darkness, which then quickly moved out of sight. The dilo was getting bolder. There was no time to waste. She let go of the reception table and took a tentative step onwards.

The numbness on her legs got her by surprise. She stumbled a few times while trying to walk towards the stairs, unable to properly balance herself. A glance behind her revealed the dilophosaurus stalking towards her with claws outstretched. Each step forward required immense concentration. Sam could barely hold the shotgun against her chest.

One step forward and she used a broken coffee table to balance herself. The dilo was halfway towards her.

Five more steps and she almost crashed against a wall, using both arms to stop herself. Her knees were not responding very well, and breathing was becoming difficult. The dilo was standing still, watching her intently.

Three more steps using the wall to support herself and Sam had almost reached the stairs. However, she was beginning to doubt if she had the strength left to climb the steps.

Pausing for a second, she saw the dilo moving towards her again. Despite her growing panic and fear, her heart was strangely slow. Hands shaking, she lifted her shotgun a bit and tried to pump the action. What had been an almost instinctive action, now required her full attention. The pump felt stiff on her weak hands and the sweat wasn't helping.

After what felt like an eternity, she managed to eject the spent cartridge and load a new one. Using all her strength and concentration, she placed her shaky aim at the now snarling dilophosaurus and pulled the trigger.

Her shot only grazed the dinosaur. The monster recoiled in pain for a small moment, and then let out an angry snarl. In one fluid motion it jumped at her, with claws and teeth ready to kill her.

Sam's legs were too weak and numb from the poison to do any graceful movements. She more or less threw herself on the stairs to her left, landing with a quiet grunt and fumbling with her shotgun. There was only one shell left, and she knew it.

Her previous anger and fear had given away to sheer desperation. Tears began to stream down her eyes and mix with cold sweat as she desperately tried to work on the dirty weapon. "Please, I don't want to die!" she thought. Her hands were numb and the poison coating her weapon made it slippery.

The dilo had crashed headfirst against the wall Samantha had been previously supporting herself against. This gave the woman a few seconds of grace.

The first time she tried to pump the shotgun her hand slipped from the action. Meanwhile, the dilophosaurus recovered.

One more desperate attempt and she managed to eject the empty shell. The dilo was now almost on top of her, less than five feet away.

As she aimed her shotgun at the center of mass, a powerful lighting lit up the sky and highlighted the imposing figure of the dilo ready to kill her.

The blast of her weapon was almost hidden by the thunder above. Just as darkness once again enveloped the room, the dilo fell on top of her.

The angry eyes of it were a few centimeters from her face. Its claws were pressing against her sides, ready to rip her insides and spill her guts.

Sam's breath was frozen as she stared at it through tear filled eyes, waiting for the inevitable pain of it attacking her. But then she took notice of a warm liquid spreading along her breasts and tummy. She looked down and saw a massive gaping hole on the dilo's chest. Her final shot had been right on target.

She slowly let out the breath she had been holding. This was it, the dilo was dead and she was saved. With some effort, Sam tried to wiggle herself from beneath the corpse, but her legs weren't moving. "It's the poison…" She realized. With a small shove, she pushed the dilo head away, but still couldn't move. "Dammit, I have to get out of these clothes and clean myself…"

Her eyes were heavy. After these briefs, but intense minutes of fighting for her life, Samantha felt exhausted. What few parts of her arms and legs were not affected by the poison were instead aching in pain and exertion. Her body screamed at her to rest.

"Maybe… if I wait for a few minutes, just to get my strength back," Her muddled mind argued.

"Yeah, maybe if I close my eyes and rest… there are no more dilos anyway…" A small part of her mind screamed at her to keep going, saying it was a mistake. But it was a losing battle.

Sam's eyes slowly closed, her grip on her weapon slacked, and she quickly succumbed to sleep. Just before a new figure approached her.