62
STALKER
The rain fell for the rest of the night and throughout the following day, worsening the conditions of the "road" they were using to plough through the jungle. The jungle floor was so steeped in mud that eventually the occupants of the jeep had to pause on a regular basis in order to clean the wheels of the crass that was accumulating there, or in order to push the jeep out of a shallow sinkhole into which it had fallen.
As they had previously planned, the six surviving members of Richley's survey team had taken to sleeping in shifts in order that there would always be somebody well rested behind the wheel. Though one might imagine that the tight quarters, bumpy ride and frequent pit-stops might be a deterrent to sleep, the events of the last few days had left the team members so drained that most drifted off into a deep and dreamless oblivion within minutes of having closed their eyelids. It helped that the day was very dark – the sun hadn't showed its face once all day, concealed behind the heavy rain clouds.
For food, they had eaten the rations that Ellis and the others had packed into the jeep after deciding to abandon the ruined trailer encampment, though all realized that they would have to stop and find to native flora to replenish their supplies soon enough. At the rate they were going, it could take four or five days to reach the plane, and they only had enough rations for another three, at best. Water, on the other hand, was abundant. Thanks in part to the remoteness of Isla Capula, the rainwater was clean enough to drink. They captured it in bottles and canteens whenever they were forced to stop.
Twice during the day they had paused for a more substantial amount of time, in order to tend to nature's demands and quickly look around for fruit or other edible vegetation, but without luck. The evening was already old when Ellis noted that the rain was subsiding. Soon it became little more than a drizzle, then tapered out entirely. Cascades still fell from the trees as the rainwater drained down through the foliage, but Ellis saw an opportunity for a brief respite without having to worry about catching a cold from the rainfall.
She slowed the jeep, glancing at the jungle that flanked them on both sides for an opening in which they could turn into. She finally found a likely spot, sheltered between two large-trunk trees. She had some problems turning, the mud clinging to the jeep even more without the momentum of their speed, but was eventually able to get the traction she needed as the wheels climbed over the network of tree roots that littered the jungle floor at this particular site. As she put the jeep into park, the engine humming contently, the others began to stir.
"Why have we stopped?" Richley asked. There were no more signs of the depression that had afflicted him yesterday. Throughout the day, he had been alert though somewhat more pensive than usual.
"The rain has stopped," Ellis explained. "I figured it would be a good opportunity for us to get outside and stretch out our limbs. Look for food, collect water, refill the gas tank, that kind of stuff."
Richley nodded his assent. Soon all had been awoken and had left the tight confines of the jeep. The ground was a network of hard roots stemming from the massive trees that rose up high above them. In between the lattice of roots the ground was as muddy as everywhere else, despite the heavy covering of the foliage. Rivulets of water cascaded down from the heights, forming puddles at the base of the trees. The team members set their bottles, canteens and cups under these flows of water, which began filling up rapidly.
After having stretched and relieved themselves if necessary, the six survivors gathered in a circle not far away from the jeep, using the protruding roots as seats, setting their cups of rainwater next to them. They had looked around briefly for food, but they couldn't recognize any of the surrounding wildlife as being edible (no one mentioned that Pietro Folker would have been able to make that assessment, had he been with them), and if the trees contained any edible fruits, they were out of reach.
The conversation bore on nothing specific, shifting easily from topic to topic, all aware that the pause needed to be brief. Everybody consciously avoided anything having to do with their current predicament, exchanging stories from the more normal parts of their lives back on the mainland, between expeditions or missions.
Ellis was just telling them about how a mix-up in communications had wound up with her accidentally taking a flight to San José, Costa Rica, rather than San José, California, where she had been supposed to go, when Benny reached over to his cup to take another drought. Just as he was glancing away from Ellis to look at the cup, he noticed a series of concentric circles spreading from the centre of the cup.
Frowning at the water, Benny watched as the same phenomenon repeated itself again, then again. Soon, Benny thought he could hear some kind of low, thumping sound accompanying each ripple in the water. Thump-ripple. Thump-ripple. Thump-ripple. Unbidden, a memory of the clearing rose to his mind, and he felt his flesh break out into goose bumps.
Thump-ripple. The cup, already precariously perched atop the root, fell over, spilling its contents.
"What was that?" Soles asked.
"Get down," Benny whispered. "I've seen this before, get down!"
Quickly, the six of them scrambled off their roots and lay flat against the ground, the cold mud moulding their features. Soon the thumping sound was impossible to miss, each of the regular beats sending vibrations through their beings. Then, beyond the small opening in the jungle into which they had turned, a large shadow could be seen moving through the jungle.
They held their breaths as the shadow moved past the opening in the jungle. Despite the darkness – even the moon was hidden behind the omnipresent clouds – they could make out a lumbering shape, large than a house, distinctly bipedal as one paw fell after another, causing the low rumble they had heard before. It stopped just in front of the opening, it's ovoid head swinging from side to side, sniffing the air.
The Rex – for the profile before them undoubtedly belonged to that mighty predator – remained in this position for several seemingly interminable seconds. The six humans lying on the muddy jungle floor didn't dare move, fearing that any motion might attack the attention of the massive hunter barely thirty meters away. Their hearts beat as if trying to burst from their rib cages. Then the Rex, growling low in his throat in irritation, began moving again, following the path through the jungle that the convoy of jeeps and trailers had cleared days ago.
The team members waited until the steps of the Rex had receded to little more than low rumblings before exhaling. The dinosaur's massive weight worked had their favour: his footsteps were so heavy that they could hear him coming, or going, as the case may be. It wasn't much in terms of security measures, but every little bit helped.
After another minute or so, by which time the footfalls of the Rex didn't even cause ripples in the water anymore, they felt comfortable enough to get to their feet.
"Oh, God," Soles said, falling onto a root. "Oh, wow. P.J., I thought you said that thing stuck to the clearing."
The hunter shrugged. "I said that's where we had seen it before. Doesn't mean it can't travel. In fact, that clearing is probably the best place to spot any dinosaur. In this morass, we could have passed within a hundred meters of that thing and not have noticed."
"There's a comforting thought," Alice said dryly.
"I don't get it," Ellis said. "Is it following us or something?"
"Doesn't fit," Benny said. "Why would it follow us? I'm sure there's plenty of larger prey out there that would make a much more satisfying meal."
"Maybe it isn't following us," P.J. commented. "I mentioned that by creating paths through the jungle when we drove through them with our jeeps, we may have created new trails for the animals to use. It might just be following the path."
"Maybe it's following our exhaust," Benny suggested. "We're probably the only gas-engine active on the island, and the exhaust has to create a pretty distinctive and unique smell."
"Doesn't make sense," Ellis said. "If it was following our exhaust, why wouldn't it have followed it that bit further and into the opening?"
"Oh, yeah. I hadn't thought of that."
"Why it's here isn't important," Richley said. "The fact is that it's here, and we have to avoid it. I think we should wait a few hours before we start again. I know it'll slow us down, but we have to make sure that thing doesn't hear us. I just hope that it doesn't suddenly decide to double back."
Richley looked around, assessing their surroundings. "I want to move the jeep further in. I don't want anything walking along that trail to spot something shiny and get curious. We'll take the opportunity to get some more shut-eye… but I want someone to stay awake and act as a sentinel in case that thing comes back."
P.J. raised his hand. "I'll do it."
"Thanks, P.J. If you start feeling tired, I want you to wake one of us up to take over for you."
"Don't worry."
"Good. Okay people, hit the sack."
63
ROADBLOCK
After several hours had passed without any sign of the Rex, P.J. decided it was time for them to start moving again and woke the others. Sullenly, they packed back into the jeep, pulled out of their small shelter within the trees and drove down the blazed path. They rode in silence; the exhaustion and irregular sleep patterns of the last few days taking its toll. Around sunrise – or what would have been sunrise if it hadn't been for the omnipresent cloud covering – the roiling storm broke again, unleashing a torrent of rain on the jeep. Nobody needed to be told that that, because of the noise of the engine and the rain, and because of their decreased visibility, if the Rex was still on or near the path, they wouldn't become aware of her until it was too late.
As yesterday, they had to pause at frequent intervals in order to free the jeep from a particularly sticky patch of muddy soil in which it had become mired. They usually used these inadvertent pit stops as an opportunity to switch the drivers around, to make sure that there was always somebody fresh and well rested – as well rested as could be, considering the circumstances – behind the wheel.
By some unspoken agreement, those who slept did so in the backseat, where they could use each other as headrests or for warmth, since the constant rain had chilled the usually tropical climate considerably. The person riding in the shotgun seat would stay awake, keeping the driver company or simply serving as another pair of eyes, scanning the path and the jungle for any of the island's inhabitants or other obstacles.
It was about one o'clock, according to their watches, when Benny took over driving and P.J. settled in as his co-pilot. The hunter had proven the most resilient of all of them during the last few days, apparently capable of grabbing all the sleep he needed in brief catnaps. The pair finally broke the silence that had pervaded the jeep since leaving their shelter the night before. They spoke in whispers out of respect for those resting in the backseat, but they needn't had bothered: the team members were so worn out that it would have taken far more than a whispered conversation to stir them from their slumber.
"There are still some things that I don't understand," P.J. said. The two of them had been talking about the Rex they had spotted last night. P.J. wanted to pump Benny for as much information as the biologist could remember regarding the massive predator. Unfortunately, bones betrayed little in terms of information on behavioural patterns, and that's all their encyclopaedia had contained.
"Yeah?" Benny stained to see out the forward windshield. The rain was falling faster than the windshield wipers could swab it off.
"Why did the Rex attack the big dinosaur, the sauropod? It sounds as if that sauropod thing pretty much wiped the floor with the Rex's behind."
Benny frowned, considering. "Well, we know that amongst most animals, behaviour is largely instinctual, rather than learned. And the animal's parents, or analogy thereof, often teaches what isn't genetically programmed. But if the animals on this island were cloned – as Ellis' description of InGen and the embryos they found back at the mountain suggests – then they didn't have any parents to teach them about this stuff. In fact, these animals probably had to rely on trial and error more than any other generation of animals before them." Benny shook his head. "They must have had an incredibly high die-off rate when they started experimenting with these things. That is, unless the InGen guys took care of the animals themselves, like at a zoo."
"Okay," P.J. conceded. "But what about genetic memory? That has to count for something."
"It does. From what we've seen, there's no question these animals are very good at what they do. They're adaptable, you have to give them that. It goes back to what I said about trial and error – an herbivorous dinosaur, which has just been released into the wild, has no clue what to eat and what not to eat. This is a completely new environment for it, one where racial memory about can't counsel it regarding food sources. For the carnivores, the problem is largely the same: animals from all geographic points and from time periods spanning millions of years. For the most part, these species are as new to each other as we are to them."
"So the Rex attacking the sauropod…"
"Trial and error hunting. It could take several generations before the animals adapt their hunting and defence patterns to the other species here. This ecosystem could take years to stabilize – if it ever does so. In a closed system like this, a slight imbalance can trigger a chain reaction fatal to the rest of the ecosystem. On the other hand, closed systems to tend to remain fairly stable, biologically speaking, barring climatic shifts of course. In fact–"
"Benny, look out!"
The biologist had been so caught up in his little homily that he didn't spot the dark green obstacle in their path until it was nearly too late. Knowing that he couldn't swerve to try and avoid the obstruction without sending the jeep into a possibly fatal collision with the massive trees lining the sides of the path, Benny pumped the brakes, hoping that they would stop in time. As Benny and P.J. involuntarily braced themselves against the back of their seats, the brakes squealed as they tried to lock the spinning wheels in place. In the thick, water-filled mud that covered the ground, the jeep kept on sliding forwards, carried by its momentum.
Then the jeep struck a rockier patch in the ground and came gliding to a halt on a thin sheath of mud. Ignoring the confused protests coming from the back seat, Benny let himself exhale the breath he had been holding and took a good look at the obstacle caught in the jeep's headlights.
It stared back.
With a start, Benny realized that the thing lying in their path was not a fallen tree or anything of a similarly inert nature, but one of the island's saurian inhabitants. The animal in question was at this moment pulling itself up to its feet, keeping a wary gaze on the jeep. In the illumination provided by the headlights, Benny could see that the creature's skin was an emerald green, with slashes of darker green running along its back – natural camouflage ideal for overgrown forests like this one.
As the creature stood, Benny had a flash of fear as he recognised the same basic bipedal build that the island's predators – from the Rex down to the Composognathus – but those fears were quickly assuaged when he saw the distinctive dome-shaped skull that allowed him to identify the beast as a Pachycephalosaurus, a herbivore. It rose to about a meter in height, eyeing the jeep from below the bony mass atop its head.
"What's wrong?" Soles asked from the backseat.
"This stupid dinosaur was taking a nap in the middle of the road," Benny replied, irritation lacing his voice. "Hey, you dumb dino! Get out of the way!"
To accentuate his point, Benny honked the jeep's horn. The creature cocked its head at the jeep, and then emitted a blaring sound that sounded surprisingly like the jeep's horn.
"Oops," Benny said, furrowing his brow.
"'Oops?' What 'oops'?" Soles said from the backseat, sounding quite concerned.
"I shouldn't have done that. I hope it didn't misinterpret –"
The helmet-headed dinosaur let out another bleat, and then ducked it's head so that they could see the top of its bony, rounded skull. Its back was flat and its tail raised, creating a horizontal plane running the entire length of its body. It then began pawing at the ground with its right leg.
"What's it doing?" Ellis asked.
"Oh, crap," Benny muttered. He simultaneous stomped his foot down on the pedal and snapped the gear shift into reverse, sending the jeep racing backwards with a jerk. A split-second later, the Pachycephalosaurus launched itself towards them on its powerfully built hind legs.
As the others in the jeep cried out warnings, Benny tried the steer the jeep in its mad rearward dash along the narrow road. He kept shifting his attention between the road behind them and the dinosaur running towards them. The Pachy was still running at them – pursuing them, in this case – keeping its head down and level with the rest of its spine to best absorb the eventual impact. Because of this, its head did remarkably little bobbing as it tried to keep pace with the backwards-driving jeep. Thankfully, not even the well-built Pachycephalosaurus could keep up with a jeep, even when the latter was trying to escape in reverse. Gradually the dinosaur was beginning to tire out and lose ground.
Then the jeep hit a patch of deep silt. With a sudden jerk, the jeep's speed was almost halved as the wheels sank into the muck. Benny barely had the time to try turn the wheel before the still-running Pachy slammed into them. The sound of an impact and crunching metal mingled with the cries of the jeep's occupants as the jeep was suddenly lifted, spun, pushed away and dropped again. It was over as fast as it had occurred, with only the slight bouncing of the chassis as a testament to the bone-jarring collision the jeep had just suffered.
"Is everybody okay?" Richley asked, doing a quick check-over on himself to make sure that all limbs were in working order.
"I'm okay," P.J. answered.
"Yeah, I'm alive," Soles said, brushing broken glass off of herself.
"Oh, man – does anybody know a good personal injuries lawyer? One that handles dinosaurs and incompetent drivers?" Alice moaned.
"Sorry," Benny apologized, wrenching his left leg free of a difficult position created when the metal on the driver's side had bulged inwards.
"Daria?" Richley asked, noticing that Ellis hadn't spoken yet.
"I'm here," she said. Ellis had been sitting closest to the driver's side window in the backseat, which had had exploded inwards under the impact. Ellis brought a hand to a spot on her forehead that throbbed sharply, and felt something wet and sticky there. "Uh – I think I've been hit."
"Hit by what?" Alice asked.
"Glass, I assume."
"Oh." Alice sounded sheepish, thinking she should have figured that one out for herself.
"How serious?" Richley asked.
"I'm not sure – I can't tell –"
"Hey, that things is still out there!" Soles cried out.
Indeed, in try to assess the impact of the collision, they had all forgotten about the dinosaur. At that moment, the Pachycephalosaurus rose back into view as it stood again, having collapsed after the unusually hard shock of the smash-up. It shook its head as if trying to clear its thoughts then seemed to notice the jeep again. It let out another challenging bleat.
"Play dead," Benny advised them, switching the engine off. "We want it to think that it's defeated us."
"That won't be especially hard," Alice cracked.
"You sure that it won't try and eat us?" Soles asked, sitting motionless and upright against the backseat.
"It's a herbivore," Benny said. "It poses no threat to us."
"Did you hit your head or something, Benny? It just rammed us!"
"That was different," the biologist said. Outside, the dinosaur was still examining the jeep, oblivious to the rain pattering down against its hide. "It thought that we were challenging it. We nearly smashed into it, and then had the bad luck of having a car horn that sounds remarkably like it does. It interpreted that as a challenge to a duel."
"A duel?" Alice said sceptically.
"I understand," P.J. said. "Like mountain goats. They ram each other to determine their position within the herd."
"Or for mating privileges," Benny added.
"I don't see any other of those things out there," Soles pointed out.
Benny shrugged. "It's an extinct ecosystem. Whose to say what's normal behaviour for these animals?"
Outside, the Pachycephalosaurus seemed to decide that whatever the jeep was, in no longer seemed to be doing anything of relevance to it. With a final, unreadable bleat, it turned tailed and began trotting away down the road. It proceeded with none of the certainty it had displayed while chasing them, with the legs often slipping off to the side.
"It looks tipsy," Alice remarked.
"Good," Soles said vindictively. "That should teach it not to ram into anymore cars."
"Can we get out now, Benny?" Richley asked. "I want to have a look at Daria's wound."
"Yeah, sure," Benny answered. Richley and P.J. opened their doors on the passenger side, letting Alice and Soles file out of the jeep. Benny tried to open his own door, but found it was stuck. He had to kick it a few times before it would open up.
Behind him, Richley had climbed back into the backseat, holding his arms out for Ellis to grasp them.
"I can do it myself," she said, brushing him aside. Ellis pushed herself along the backseat and out the jeep, keeping a hand on her forehead. When she stood up, however, she slipped and would have fallen if Richley had not caught her.
"Here, lie down," he said, lowering her to the jungle floor.
"No," she said. "Keep the wound elevated above the heart." She shifted herself so that she was leaning against the frame of the jeep. She tried to smile. "Didn't they teach you this stuff in exploration class?"
Richley managed a smile in return. "Folker and Calvin were our medics."
"Great," Ellis said. "Can you see if there's any skin hanging off?"
"Uh – hang on a minute." Richley reached over, fumbling around with something in the jeep before withdrawing a flashlight. Despite the fact that it was the middle of the afternoon, the omnipresent rain clouds blocked out the sun's light. "Okay," Richley said, flicking the flashlight at her forehead. "No hanging skin. It's just a cut."
"Good. We'll need a dressing."
"We have a first aid kit in the jeep. It'll probably have bandages," Alice offered.
"Yes, get me that, would you Alice?"
While the Richleys tended to Ellis' wound, cleaning up the blood and wrapping the bandage tightly around her head, Benny, Soles and P.J. had walked around to the front of the jeep to survey the damage that had been caused. In addition to the broken windows, a large portion of the jeep's head had been dented and bent inwards by the impact. Benny's last minute turn of the steering wheel meant that the jeep had taking the collision at an angle rather than head-on against the front, and as such the damage was largely on the front, left side of the vehicle.
"I don't know cars," Soles finally said. "How bad is it?"
"Don't know," Benny confessed. "I study what makes living things tick, not machines. If Carlson was here…"
"See if you can't pop the hood," P.J. said.
Benny returned to the front seat and after a bit of fumbling found the right switch, but glancing past the lattice of cracks on the windshield saw nothing occur outside.
"It must be stuck," P.J. said. "Help me get it open."
Together, the three of them wedged the fingers in the crack between the hood and the rest of the jeep, and then pulled upwards. After a protesting screech of metal, the hood gave and rose. Grabbing a flashlight off his belt, P.J. flicked it on and peered inside the guts of the jeep.
"Ouch – looks like a lot of bent stuff," Soles remarked.
"I can't see anything in this light and with this rain," P.J. complained. "I don't even know if the rain is damaging it further." P.J. dropped the hood so that it was almost closed. "Benny, see if you can't start the jeep."
"Sure." Benny reached into the jeep and turned the key. With a cough and a sputter, the engine hummed to life.
"Hey!" Alice protested, still tending to the reclining Ellis.
"Don't worry, we're not going anywhere," Benny cried back.
P.J. took another look inside the jeep. "Well, it seems to be working for now," he said, dropping the hood shut. "I think we should just take the opportunity and leave. We can stop and take a look at the engine again when there's more light and less rain."
"Sounds like a plan," Richley said from the jeep's side. Turning back to Ellis, he asked: "How are you feeling?"
"Better," she said. "But not even close to how good I'll feel when we reach the plane. We shouldn't delay here any longer than we have to." Slowly, in order to avoid a repeat of her previous dizzy spell, she pushed herself up against the side of the jeep.
Richley climbed into the backseat of the jeep, brushed some glass off of the seat next to the shattered window, then helped Ellis as she slid along the backseat next to him. Alice, still holding the first aid kit, moved in after her.
Benny moved towards the jeep, but felt a hand on his arm. He turned to see that the hand belonged to P.J.
"If it's all the same to you, I think I'd like to drive, Benny."
Benny glanced up to see Soles trying to suppress an impish smile as she slid into the shotgun seat. Feeling mildly annoyed – it wasn't his fault that the Pachycephalosaurus had decided to rest in the middle of the road, after all – Benny moved around the jeep to take the remaining spot on the backseat. With a certain amount of difficulty due to the inwards-bulging metal, P.J. sat down behind the wheel. Cautiously, he pressed down on the pedal. He was expecting the jeep to sputter and die, but the vehicle responded, beginning to glide slowly forwards through the silt. With a twist of the steering wheel, the jeep turned back onto the blazed path, and continued its journey towards the plane.