Disclaimer: John Hammond, InGen, Jurassic Park, Isla Nebular and Isla Sorna are all things that I have unconscionably stolen from Michael Crichton's novels Jurassic Park and The Lost World, as well as the movies of the same name. I have drawn on both forms of media (the books and the movies) for this story. It does not follow one or the other specifically… it is implied that John Hammond is still alive in this story, but I use dinosaur elements from the books… and a few that were in neither. None of the characters from Jurassic Park or Lost World, in either variation, appear in this story. Instead, I have chosen to plunk down a new set of characters on the island. The events described take place sometime between the Jurassic Park Incident and the San Diego Incident. Well, I guess that's all there is to say, except… enjoy the story.
Los Cinquo Muertes
Chapter 1: Survey
5
THE GANG'S ALL HERE
Two planes flew in tandem over the Pacific Ocean, glistening in the noon sun. Out of one of the portholes, Richley stared at the watery desert flying under him. Then he returned his gaze to the other plane. That plane carried everything that the team would need on this mission: provisions, fresh water, the jeeps and the trailers, the communications system, and half-a-dozen foldable shelters along with other various little tidbits that might be needed during the charting process. The other plane, the one he was in, carried the personnel. There was his team, eleven people (including his daughter, who by now had participated in enough expeditions to also be considered a veteran, even though she was only sixteen) who had been with Richley in most of his expeditions. Benny the biologist; P.J., an expert hunter; Ramanta Soles, team cartographer and (supposedly) cook; Peitro Folker, the botanist; Lorkon Carlson, the team's technologist. The other four were strong arms (or generalists, as they preferred to be called). Stanley, Peter, Calvin and John, while far from being dumb (there's no room for stupidity when in possibly hostile surroundings), and having some useful skills in the field, were clearly selected to be workhorses.
The soldiers were also onboard, all four of them. There were actually six soldiers on the plane, but the pilot and co-pilot would stay with the plane while the team would venture out into the island. The second plane would leave to get more supplies and return in about a week. Corporal Meiller, a no-nonsense man who had risen through the ranks a little faster than one might expect, led the military team.
Also present was the government attaché, one Daria Ellis. Richley and his team had met her at the San Diego air base, from where the planes had been launched. She was dressed in an informal one-piece jacket and skirt, which stopped shortly after her knees, with a white blouse and a tie (navy blue, like her jacket/skirt). Definitely not attire for exploring unknown territory. When Richley had pointed that out to her, she had replied in a brisk but casual tone that she would "change into a more suitable outfit once we had reached the destination".
Richley felt that in general, the team did not like her. When she had brought her suitcase on board, Peter Jaminson, P.J. to his friends, had asked her what she had brought in there, a make-up saloon? When Ellis replied that she had brought only the essentials, P.J. answered, "Like I said, a make-up saloon". P.J. was an expert hunter, and as such had saved the team from every animal there was. The only thing the team hadn't been saved of was his irascible attitude.
Richley left the window and returned to his seat. Then, to his neighbour, he said:
"How you holding up, Benny?"
"I keep saying to you, if man was meant to fly, he would have been born with a stronger stomach. Why couldn't we take the boat, man?" answered Benjamin Dougan, a.k.a. Benny.
"Because a boat would have taken too much time. Besides, you would have bored us to death naming every species of fish and bird we saw."
Benny was the team biologist, an expert on fauna throughout the world. His knowledge of animals and lichens gave him the ability to be able to survive in almost any environment, desert or jungle. The only environment Benny was uncomfortable in was in the airs.
"This is the Captain speaking," Linda Howshenski's voice came over the intercom. "Were about to encounter some turbulence, so make sure both you and any fragile equipment are strapped in."
The passengers barely had time to buckle-up when the plane started rocking.
"Ohhh, man," Benny whined.
"Relax, Benny," said Alice, sitting on the biologist's other side. "Think of it as a roller coaster ride."
Benny and Alice had been friends ever since Benny joined the team when he was seventeen, and Alice was eleven. Back then, Benny would call her "the Kid", a name which Alice had absolutly detested. In return, she started calling him Benny, instead of Benjamin (which he preferred) and the name had stuck with the rest of the team.
"Yeah, well, I hate roller coaster rides." Then the plane went down sharply, and Benny got up, holding his stomach, and muttered an apology as he raced towards the bathroom.
Once the rolling stopped, P.J. rose from his seat and sat down in Benny's next to Richley. Alice, who had never liked the hunter (male chauvinist pig), turned away and put on her Walkman.
"So, boss," he said in that soft hardened voice that only he could manage. "Do you got the wildlife specs on this island were visiting?"
"Right here." Richley bent down and picked up his bag. He protruded from the bag a copy of a report made on the island by the Costa Rican government. P.J. took it, and then flipped slowly through the sheets. Finally, he asked:
"How long ago was this report made?"
"In 1991. What do you think?"
"Shouldn't be a problem unless one of us is allergic to iguanas. This is going to be a pretty boring trip."
6
LANDING
Except for a very narrow beach and several grassy clearings, most of the island was jungle. Since the planes could not land on trees, the U.S. government had a group of Costa Rican workers go out to the island as soon as the project was green lighted. There, the workers had cleared out a section of the jungle near the beach and installed a temporary runway. These workers had just left recently, and their boat had neither the speed nor the radio that would have been needed to alert the authorities that five of their number had disappeared, victims of what the superstitious workers were now calling the Diablos En La Obscuridad. So the planes arrived at the island unaware of the dangers they might be facing.
As they neared the island, Richley accepted Captain Howshenski's offer to join them in the cockpit. Richley greeted Linda and her co-pilot, Darren Husser, and then peered through the cockpit window. The island was there all right, and he could catch another one of the five out of the corner of his eyes. A large (and thankfully now-inactive) volcano had formed it, and so a mountain that rose about 200 meters above sea level, with almost purplish sides, dominated the island landscape. The jungle seemed to take up almost everything else, from the foot of the mountain to the beaches. Though, Richley knew from old satellite photos, there were several large clearings near bodies of water that would serve as home base for the settlers. Speaking of clearings…
"Is that our runway?" Richley asked, pointing to a strip of grey that stood out like a blister against the green of the jungle and the sandy brown of the beach.
"Yep. No sign of the construction crew, though. Probably wanted to leave before we got here, so they wouldn't have to listen to us scream at them for doing such a shoddy job."
Richley frowned. "They did a bad job? It isn't safe to land?"
"Oh, it's safe to land, I'm sure. It's just a little shorter than expected, that's all. And now, sir, if you would please regain your seat…"
"Right." Richley answered, and was gone.
The cargo plane attempted to land first, as a precaution, though it proved to be unnecessary. At the end of the runway, the landed cargo plane turned into a clearing that had been made for just that purpose. Then the passenger plane set down on the runway with no problems other than the annoying chatter of Benny's teeth.
When Richley came out of the plane, he could practically smell the pure, fresh air, untouched by the industrial world's pollutants, mixed with the salty smell of the nearby ocean. Once at the bottom of the stairs, he threw his bag down and stretched, a method he found was a very good combatant against jetlag. Nearby, the runway turned into rough, freshly cleared ground, and near that, the sandy beach started.
Behind Richley, his daughter came down, eyes fixated on the roaring waves of the Pacific Ocean.
"Wow. A beach! I'm sorry I forgot to bring my bikini."
"You and me both," replied Benny, giddy to have returned to solid earth.
"Oh, shut up," Alice told him in a mock-reprisal tone of voice.
Pretty soon everyone had climbed down from the airplane, and was either stretching, enjoying the view, or pretending that they were rummaging through their bags for either their sunglasses or suntan lotion. Everyone? No. Richley noticed that the governmental attaché had not yet left the plane.
He climbed back onboard the plane but did not see her.
"Ms. Ellis?"
"Over here," came a muffled reply from the back of the plane. "I'm just changing, I'll be out in a second."
When, in fact, she did come out of the bathroom, it took all of Richley's self control not to laugh out loud. She no longer looked as if she was preparing for a conference in Washinton, but like she was preparing for Operation: Desert Storm. She was dressed in a faded brown coverall, with patches of green and dark brown all over the uniform. Her hair had been pulled into a bun at the back of her head. She was also wearing tall, black, military boots.
Richley's team, however, did not have the same self-control as he did. So when Ellis left the plane, she was greeted by laughter, hooting and hollering. Benny even gave her an exaggerated military salute, then grinned sheepishly as he realised he was standing next to one of the soldiers. Ellis' jaw set and her eyes hardened, but she did not make any sort of reply or comment. She just kept on walking towards the cargo plane, where the pilot and co-pilot had already started unloading equipment.
7
LUNCH GUEST
After the team had finished unpacking the jeeps, trailers and various scientific equipment, they all sat down to a delicious lunch of canned beans and frozen sausages, watered down by some nice 2000 Eau de Source (a very good vintage), all prepared by the extraordinary cooking skills of Ramanta Soles (the team cartographer). After lunch and the complaints that naturally followed, the team boarded the jeeps, attached the trailers who were now filled with the aforementioned equipment, and set off into the jungle.
However, while the group was having lunch, a curious animal came out of the woods. Being careful to steer clear from the noise the humans were making (it didn't recognize the humans, but it recognized noise), the animal wandered into the cargo plane. So when the cargo plane took off shortly after the charting team entered the jungle, it did so with a clandestine passenger roaming the back of the plane.
8
IN-FLIGHT DINNER
Barely half an hour after the plane left, the pilot turned the control over to the co-pilot to go tend to nature's needs. However, as soon as he closed the bathroom door, he heard a faint hooting sound, like a cross between a bird and an owl. He opened the door quickly, but didn't see anything that could have produced that sound. The pilot called out:
"Frank, was that you?"
"What was?" came the reply from the cockpit.
By then, the pilot though that he must of imagined the noise.
"Never mind."
But then he heard it again. It was not coming from the front of the plane, where Frank was, but from the recently emptied back. Slowly, his gun drawn, the pilot advanced into the rear.
The beast was there, no longer bothering to hide, standing in the middle of the storage area. The pilot was surprised that he hadn't seen it on his way to the bathroom. It stood a meter tall on two legs, with green, leathery skin and a pair of small forearms. Two crests in a V formation adorned the creature's head, and through the partly open mouth, the pilot could see a few rows of sharp teeth.
Recognising a carnivore if nothing else, the pilot brought his gun to bear on the beast, who in return simply cocked his head sideways like an inquiring puppy and went on looking at him, as if examining him.
"What are you?" the pilot asked the beast, even though he didn't expect a reply.
But, unfortunately for him, he got one. For you see, the animal had not eaten in some time and it had just determined that the pilot would make a good snack. From both sides of the neck area, a multi-coloured gill sprang into view. The pilot, startled, was not able to react before the hissing beast spit out a thick, sticky, black liquid onto his face. Blinded and burning from the liquid, the pilot screamed and fired several gunshots randomly. But none of the bullets came close to hitting the creature, which then jumped on his prey and, mercifully, started his meal with the neck.
Meanwhile, Frank Debner, the co-pilot, heard both the gunshots and the scream. Debner drew his weapon and called out his friend's name while rushing to the aft section of the plane. There he found the pilot serving as main course for the spitter-thing, who did not appreciate his meal being interrupted. Just as Debner, over his initial surprise, levelled his weapon, the beast spat again. Luckily for Debner, his army training made him move automatically when he saw something, anything, being shot at him. He avoided the liquid, which he heard hitting the floor behind him, and shot the beast several times. Debner was happy to find out that whatever it was, it wasn't bullet-proof. The spitter-thing died quickly of a whole clip shot into various parts of its body.
Shaken up by his encounter, Frank did the only natural thing for him: he returned to the cockpit, sat back down, and checked the instruments. It was then that he realised that the instruments weren't responding. Rushing back to the scene of the carnage, Frank inspected the floor where the spitter-thing's liquid had hit it. The liquid had, in fact, seeped through the floor and somehow clogged up (or burnt through, Frank though, no telling how acidic that stuff was) the delicate machinery that controlled the plane. In fact, if he remembered his plane schematics correctly, the fuel valve was under there. So that meant that the engines were not being fuelled, and henceforth not turning.
From looking out the window, he could tell that the plane was losing altitude fast. Debner grabbed a small, waterproof radio, an inflatable raft, a life jacket and a parachute. He gave one last look at the carcass of the spitter-thing (which he later found out was a Dilophosaurus) resting on his friend's body and debated whether he should do anything. Finally, he decided not to move the two cadavers, because a) they were already dead and b) there might be acid. Frank Debner jumped out of the doomed plane.
9
THE NATIVES ARE MISSING
Back on the island, the charting team was proceeding along at a slow and steady pace. The team was composed of four jeeps, with four passengers each. Each jeep had one of the three trailers attached to it, except for the first one, because that jeep did most of the bushwhacking and it was the drivers of that jeep (the four muscle men: Stanley, Peter, Calvin and John) who usually cleared any obstacle. The trailers themselves were cluttered with scientific equipment and the various odds and ends that the team would eventually need.
Richley, his daughter and P.J drove the second jeep, the first one with a trailer. The jeep had previously been occupied by Benny, who, as predicted, started getting carsick. The team, fed up with his whining, relocated him to the trailer they were pulling, where Benny found a small corner by the window where he could look out at the rushing plant life.
Carlson, with Ellis riding shotgun, drove the third jeep. In the backseat, both the passengers were looking at the scenery and concentrating hard: Soles was making a mental map, cataloguing the various turns and twists that the travelers had to take in order to avoid particularly dense areas of the jungle; whilst Folker tried his best to identify every species of plants he could see.
Corporal Meiller and his soldiers were in a jeep by themselves, of course.
The three remaining occupants of the second jeep drove in relative silence, Richley focussing on the newly formed road, P.J. staring out into the jungle and Alice listing to her Walkman. Finaly, P.J. told Richley:
"Hey, boss, have you noticed the lack of wildlife."
It was a statement, not a question, but Richley nodded an affirmative anyway and replied:
"It could be that, despite our best efforts, we're making too much noise and scaring the wildlife away. Or, it may be that they are there, but they blend in with the decor too well for us to see them. Also, it could be that this area is unfrequented by the locals. Still, there could be no more wildlife left on this island at all."
P.J. admitted these were possibilities, but did not seem convinced. And the team drove on…
10
GATHER 'ROUND THE CAMPFIRE
At around seven p.m., local time, the team stopped in what was, at best, an opening in the jungle. They put the trailers together in a semi-circle, and in the middle of that circle, they sat down to yet another of Soles' culinary delights. The conversation slowly drifted from the latest hit movie to the island.
"Well, the day after tomorrow, according to the satellite photos, we should reach a clearing. From there we can set up the radar pole and check out the rest of the island for at least 50 miles." Said Ramanta, the cartographer.
"I still think we should climb the mountain," said Pietro Folker, the team botanist and resident anti-tech. "From there we can look at the whole island without use of possibly unreliable technology."
"I'd trust my machinery before I would trust either your or my eyes. They can see a lot more than normal vision can, like, for example, infrared to track the animals on the island… if there are any that is. I still haven't seen as much as a lizard," replied Lorkon Carlson, the team technician. "Besides, if we try to go up there, we would have to abandon the trailers and soon after that the jeeps."
"So? It looks to me like a little exercise would do you good," Folker said uncharitably, loathing the idea of admitting that he was wrong.
Carlson immediately became red with anger and embarrassment. If there was something he hated more than anything, it was being made fun of because of his chubbiness. He rose and started towards Folker, who stood up to met the challenge.
"Hey!" exclaimed Richley, stepping between the two men. "Stop it you two or I'll put you in a trailer with Benny."
The threat caused both to return to their place grudgingly. Richley shook his head. Folker and Carlson were always fighting, not only because of their opposite jobs, but because of their opposite personalities. Folker was rash, and rarely thought before he acted. Carlson, on the contrary, was relatively timid, speaking out only when spoken to or when his machines were concerned. The only thing that they shared was a passion for exploration and a tendency at getting hot under the collar for no good reasons.
As Richley sat back down, Benny, next to him, murmured:
"That was a cheap shot."
"Hey, it worked, didn't it?"
11
ALICE MAKES A DISCOVERY
Alice was the only one not sitting in the circle. She didn't like the routine "chats around the fire" that the team held when they ate. No matter what the subject, the conversation would always turn towards work, and then Folker and Carlson would argue about methods of doing something until someone intervened. Besides, she wasn't especially fond of canned beans. So she sat in a corner near the forest edge, nursing a bag of chips that she had managed to smuggle on one of the trailers (her father was a real anti-junk food activist). She watched the whole confrontation, not hearing what it was about because she was wearing her Walkman.
Unknown to her, a small reptile, intrigued by the noise, had come out of the jungle barely a meter away from her. It slowly approached the strange beast in front of it, sniffed around, and located what looked like food.
After witnessing the fight, Alice turned back towards her bag of chips. She almost put her hand in before realising that the bag was moving. At first she though it was the wind, but she quickly dismissed that thought, not feeling any breeze on her skin. Once Alice turned off her Walkman, she could hear small squeaking sounds coming from the bag and the distinctive cracking of chips.
For an instant, Alice considered leaving the bag there and running towards the rest of the team. But her curiosity as to whatever was in the bag overcame the urge to run. Slowly, she approached her hands to the opening of the bag. Then, quickly, she grabbed it, sealing off the opening, and holding so the opening was on the top. Instantly, the thing in the bag started squealing even louder, and trashing about. But, to Alice's relief, the creature could not reach the opening.
Holding the chips away from her body, Alice jogged towards the team and called out to Benny:
"I got something! Quick, Benny, get a cage!"
Benny rose from the circle, as did everybody else, and ran towards one of the trailers to retrieve a cage. In less than a minute, by which time everybody was puzzling over what could be in the bag of chips, Benny returned with a small cage. He put it on a table and opened the top. Once over the cage, Alice simultaneously opened the bag and tuned it upside-down. The animal inside, unable to get a grasp in the slick bag of chips, fell straight into the cage.
Finally, everybody could get a good look at the creature. It was definitely reptilian, bipedal and small, with green-yellow skin. It bounced around the cage searching for a way out of the prison, squeaking like crazy. Finally, someone asked Benny in a hushed tone:
"What is it?"
And Benny, to everybody's shock, replied:
"I don't know."
12
GATHER 'ROUND THE CAGE
The five of them were gathered around the cage to make a decision on what to do, if anything, about the creature. There was Richley, the team leader, Ellis, the governmental attaché, Benny, the biologist, P.J., also an animal expert, if a different kind, and Alice, who justified her presence at the meeting by being the creature's discoverer. Corporal Meiller stood just off to the side, not participating in the conversation but making his presence known by hovering nearby. All the others had been sent away so as the ruling team would not be disturbed. The animal, so as to be still while they examined it, had been chloroformed. Benny had imbued a cotton ball with the liquid then dropped it through the bars.
"Its skin blends in ideally with the background, that's way we didn't see any of them before," said P.J.
"We have to find more," said Ellis. "If were going to establish a colony on this island, were going to have to know all about this animal: What it is, what their population is, where their territory is, and whether it's dangerous to humans."
"Dangerous? Are you kidding? It's cute!" chimed in Alice.
"It's obviously a predator," said P.J., lifting the beast's gums with a stick (he didn't want to run the risk of it waking up with a few finger in bite range) and revealing the little sharp teeth in the creature's mouth. "However, I don't think it can be dangerous to us."
"Think again," said Benny. "Look at these little bulges on the side of its mouth. Those are venom pockets. This thing is poisonous."
"How poisonous?" asked Richley, frowning at Alice for picking up the animal.
"I can't tell right away. I'd have to extract some of its venom and analyse it."
"Then do it. Meanwhile," Richley said to P.J. and Ellis, "Tell the rest of the team what we know about this thing and tell them that if they see any more, not to approach it unless they have suitable means to capture it."
He started to walk away, but then he turned back around and added with wry humour:
"Also, remind them that a bag of chips is not considered suitable means of capture."
And, with a smile on his face, he walked away.