Nerves were especially tense right now. The same thoughts kept getting mulled over in the minds of the group, who bobbed quite clueless on the never-ending carpet of ocean. What they had just experienced had been sheer luck, and nothing else.
Partially slumped over the controls, in both exhaustion and shock, David stared wide-eyed out at the horizon. Although out of his field of vision, he could sense that everyone else was doing a similar act.
It was inevitable however, that somebody would have to break the silence.
"Now that's what I would call luck", Boris called out, half-laughing, though he was still alarmed by what had just gone on.
"Too right", muttered another of the group, Peter, to be exact. David couldn't help but feel that this simple statement was a little, well, simple, for a professor.
"I don't believe in luck", put in someone else. The comment made heads turn.
Jo smiled, and then she spoke again.
"I believe in fate", her words sounded somewhat sweet to David, and it lifted him momentarily into a happier plain, and not one that consisted of an eternal blanket of blue rolling beneath him.
He smiled back at her.
On the horizon, the foreboding shape of Isla Nublar loomed into view.
As the flying-machine set back down onto the deck, the pilot could still feel the heat coming off of Roland. He was quick, and wise, to scurry away as soon as it was possible, leaving the man in the helicopter to continue fuming.
Climbing out of the machine, he came face to face to with Stan, whose face was also beset with a grim expression. He ducked away, and disappeared below deck even faster than he had exited his aircraft.
"I take it from the evasiveness of our pilot friend, and the fact that the cockpit interior is now covered in a layer of condensation, that you failed your objective", Stan spoke slow and slightly riled.
The presence of any irritation in Stan's voice was too much for Roland though.
"Then why don't you go out there and finish the job", he boomed back.
Stan flinched at this. He may have been in command of this show, but Roland was still the superior by physical standards, and was more than capable of 'putting him to rest'. Whether he would dare do such a thing was a different matter though. Whether he wished to find out, was yet another.
"You know I can't have them still out there; alive!" he instead, explained, his voice a lot softer than it had been before.
Fortunately Roland had also apparently cooled down by now, his face no longer red with the heat of hate. Though the projection of some of his veins, along his arms and on his neck, still indicated that he was still being fuelled by that powerful emotion.
"Have the 'Little Bird' re-supplied with ammunition", he gave a quick and simple order.
"Very good, my friend", Stan's reply showed that he was getting back his courage, "Should I send for the pilot…"
"No", the blunt answer cutting him off, "This time I will go out alone. I know how to fly these things. Have the firing systems connected to the main control column. And make it quick!"
Roland clambered out, stretched, and walked off towards the bridge, and where a certain girl was waiting for him. Stan gave a few signals to any crew members within the vicinity to start working. In moments, a couple were hauling out crates of ammo, along with tool kits and anything else that would be needed for the quick maintenance work on the helicopter. Soon, and very soon, the deadly machine would take to the air once more.
"How far now?" asked David. It was a question that everyone wanted to know. It was also one that no one really had an answer for.
"I can only hazard a guess, my friend", answered Boris, "But judging by the appearance of land over there, we must be close to our destination."
He gestured at the horizon.
"So, soon", he added.
Soon. A very broad term, which could have meant any amount of time, from a few seconds, to a few days even. From his statement, David could tell that the Russian obviously was unsure of how well, exactly, the hovercrafts would manage on their final leg of the trip. Fuel wasn't exactly in abundance, and the engine wasn't too trust-worthy either.
No, all they could do was bob there, and hope for the best. For now anyway. Perhaps the prevailing currents will be favourable, thought David, as he continued to rest on the controls. Fuel was low, and powering off to nowhere in particular was just going to get them all killed. No, time was needed to think this through.
After meeting his lover on the bridge, who had been overlooking his landing, to make sure everything was well no doubt, the two had made their way down into the darker belly of the ship, and to greet its even darker secret.
Entering a room overlooking the loading bay's pitch black interior, Roland flipped a switch. With a noisy crack, the electrical systems came to life, flooding the area with a dim, but adequate light. Below them, seated in a chair and tied firmly, was the young man known as Mike.
Fool, you bloody fool, thought Sarah. How could you have been so gullible?
"The final test subject", she said.
"And what fun this is going to be", she added, under her breath.
Roland did hear it though, and grimaced slightly, especially at the hint of ecstacy carried by her breath. He knew that his lover was quite a dark and sinister example of the female of the species, yet it was sometimes an unsettling fact to acknowledge. After all, he had always been brought up to believe that women were the caring ones, and it was he, and every other man that was the hunter. But Sarah? He could easily bring parallels up from the animal kingdom. The one he detested most was that of the Black Widow Spider, a tiny but lethal invertebrate that had the tendency to devour its mate during breeding.
Sarah approached a microphone, which stuck out of a console, and placed a hand on a lever. She prepared to start the test.
With his hands tightly bound to the point of cutting into his flesh, Mike sat in agony. He had barely come around, before he was hit by an intense wave of pain and discomfort. The strong and cruelly thin rope, despite cutting into him, was nothing compared to the feeling of horror and fear that currently engulfed him though. His gunshot wound throbbing and aching, he sat, restrained, and expectant but unprepared for the worst.
"Michael Quinn", a sinister and familiar feminine voice crackled out into the dark space above his head. The sudden noise made him lurch a little, though he didn't go far. Unbeknownst to him, the source of the sound originated a mere few metres above his head, shielded by a two-way mirror, and accompanied by the femme fatale who had ultimately caused Mike to arrive in his predicament.
"You should be honoured", the voice continued, in mocking tone, "You are to be part of a grand experiment."
Upon hearing these words, Mike could only expect the worst possible situation. He might have been gullible, but he wasn't that gullible. He gibbered a little at the silence that followed that statement. Perhaps it signalled the end? Though a following sentence about half a minute later indicated that whoever was behind the voice was merely playing with his subject; a means of psychological torture, keeping the victim 'on the edge' while they were expecting death.
"In case your wondering who this is…" it then said, but was followed up with, "Oh, now that would be a silly question wouldn't it?"
"You stupid little boy", it mocked, "I can't believe you fell for such a blatant trap. Didn't you ever suspect that anything odd was going on? I knew you had your naïve eyes on me from the start, and it's your fault for being so obvious. You're pathetic, and nothing more than a loser, falling for such a charade. You'll be no great loss to society; not like you'd have ever reproduced anyway."
Mike felt the tears begin to well in his ducts, something that couldn't be helped at all in a situation such as this one. A hard lump had been formed in his throat, and he spluttered a few half-strangled chokes of emotion. Those words bit deep, and down to the bone. Such cruelty, and he would never know why.
Her speech delivered, Sarah stood and watched the quivering life-form through the barrier that separated her form the cargo bay. She was aware that he couldn't see her, but she gave him a lethal smirk anyway.
Roland stood in the corner of the room, slightly revolted by her announcement a few seconds earlier, and his arms crossed. He knew what was going to happen next, and it was something he found a little nauseating. Shredding people in boats with a mini-gun on the other hand, was no problem. But this? He coughed to emphasise his trace of disgust.
Sarah paid no attention to it, and turned towards him, her eyes beaming, and obviously showing some form of excitement. He stared back at her.
"The fun part", she exclaimed, and she yanked down on the lever with a violent jerk. Roland cringed, and was just glad that he was standing as far away from the two-way mirror as possible. Sarah however, pressed herself against the glass, like a child does on their first trip to the zoo.
This time there was no follow up sentence, and those last words that Mike would hear burned into his soul. It was quite true; he had never had a girl-friend, and had always had the worst luck when it came to relationships. Now, it seemed, he was condemned for having merely tried. At that moment, he felt worse than scorned or hated; unloved.
A heavy rattling sound resonated within the bay, evidently belonging to a mechanism. Though he had no way of seeing what was making it, he guessed that it was probably a door of some kind.
The next sounds he heard made his spine freeze.
Again, the noises were heavy, with a clack against the metal floor of the hold. He also heard breathing, and he could tell that what was creating these sounds was very big.
A bright light suddenly flashed on overhead, firing a beam down over Mike's position. He was high-lighted by the fierce magnitude, which made his eyes hurt momentarily, before they adjusted, and he saw it, for the very first time.
"Metriacanthosaurus", that feminine voice triumphantly boomed out through the speaker.
Mike gazed up at it. At eight metres in length, and standing roughly four metres tall, it was smaller than the T-Rex he had always envisaged as a monster, but it was big enough. It was more slender as well, and had formidable arms rather than a pair of relatively small two-fingered limbs like the "King of the Lizards". And also, those jaws would definitely be able to bite a man in two, and swallow him that way, if not whole.
The creature's flanks were a sky blue in colour, and it was decorated in a tiger-like stripe pattern, of a very dark green, almost verging on black. Adorn its skull was a bumpy ridge, which ran along the top and centre of its snout. There were also ornate circular markings running along its eyes, but such a detail is left unappreciated at time like this.
Mike went to scream. A terrified howl strangled out, aided by the pain which coursed through his body. The creature reared back its head and let out its own roar then, a terrific raspy growl, not dissimilar to a chainsaw, before dealing a final and fatal blow that would end Mike's status as a living human being.
Mike braced himself as a pair of parted and powerful jaws rocketed towards him. He wouldn't feel much, and ended up passing out soon after, when those great teeth punctured his torso and a tremendous shaking motion caused critical damage to his internal organs.
The force snapped his bonds, and had him lifted up into the air, as the Metricanthosaur took a step back, its prey now in its grasp. As the bite force squeezed down on him, he coughed out his final lungful of air, a bloody mess, accompanied by some of his lungs, which splattered onto the floor.
Excited laughter was the last thing to be heard, as Mike faded out. Seconds after that, his body fell into two halves; his lower parts thumping onto the floor, while his head, torso and arms made their way down the gullet of the ravenous carnivore. For his sake, it was just as well he was no longer alive.
Pupils wide with arousal, Sarah stood gazing at the bloody spectacle before her. Pupils constricted in disgust, Roland remained in the corner of the room, gazing at her. Perhaps if he'd known exactly how twisted his lover had been, he may not have bothered in pursuing a relationship, though she did have something that made her attractive to him, since he wouldn't have dreamed of leaving her. It's not that he had a weak stomach for killing either; he had just been trying to massacre two vessels crowed with people after all, something he was going to try again soon as well. It was just that watching someone get killed and eaten by a creature that wasn't of this world just had that nauseating factor to it.
Watching her hand, he grimaced, as it slid down into her body and into her underclothes. She closed her eyes then, and a few moments later, gave a quiver. Roland was visibly repulsed by his lover's turn on.
"I think I better leave you to it", he exclaimed, not bothering to hide the disgust from his voice.
He left at that moment. Sarah stared after him, and smiled. He wasn't leaving for ever, and she knew it. She once again thrust her fingers into herself and savoured another moment. Below the Metriacanthosaur chewed on Mike's bloody carcass.
I must remember to give those workers praise, thought Roland, as he buzzed along in the small chopper a mere few feet above the waves. It wasn't particularly choppy, and he enjoyed the feeling gained from zipping along at ground, or in this case, sea level, watching the scenery flash past.
Not only had the engineers enhanced the weapons system in the two mini-guns so that it could be fired by the pilot, but they had also fine tuned the air-foils, so the craft now flew as stable as it ever had. It was particularly pleasant.
Definitely, he thought again, I will grant them a day's leave; splendid work, unlike that dolt of a pilot. Had it not been for the incompetence of that individual, he wouldn't have had to repeat this trip. But, as it turned out, he was enjoying this flight. It gave him a short while to himself, and also got him away from Sarah temporarily, whose actions during the experiment had disturbed him somewhat.
He decided to not think about that for now, choosing to stick to the task at hand. Scanning the ocean for the hovercrafts, he eventually found what he was looking for.
Tipping the rotors forward slightly, he accelerated in for the kill.
They all looked at the approaching craft, wide-eyed with horror. Critical moments lapsed, where they did nothing, but look on. They couldn't escape twice, could they? No one would know unless they tried. Hurriedly, David leapt to action, trying to start up the fan again. The ignition had been cut earlier, so as to save fuel while they thought out a plan. A bad idea, it would seem now.
The contraption was proving itself to be just as difficult as it had been during the first experience. Trying with all his hope and might, David could not get it to work. Swearing angrily, he simply gave up and looked back at the fast approaching helicopter, or a pocket gunship, which would probably be a more fitting description.
Time slowed, and an ambient hum filled his ears. The fiery flashes from the craft's mini-guns weren't nearly as impressive as the great white plumes that erupted out of the ocean's surface, drawing a deadly line towards the remaining hunter group.
All anyone did was watch. David thought he could hear screaming, but his ears didn't seem to be working properly. He watched the plumes trace their way towards the other hovercraft.
Those aboard did act however. Just before they were struck, Boris made sure that Karen followed him over, as he fell back off the craft in a bid to escape. Stan and Ethan scrambled off as well, as a curtain of lead quite literally ate the hovercraft. Had Hans not lost his footing, he would have probably escaped as well. But fate decided to claim another.
David himself fell back, the sudden shock of being submerged bringing him back to a full state of alertness. It had been a grim sight; the German now nothing more than a red and bloody paste.
He went to swim away from the craft, but then remembered Jo and the others. The rest had followed suit at once. He held out his hand so that Jo wouldn't be lost. If they weren't to live through this, then they would die as he felt right; together.
The miniature gunship had swung round now, preparing to dispense the rest of its ammo. Once again, vicious plumes appeared. But this time they weren't racing towards the vessel, oh no, they were aimed at the thrashing group of people in the water.
David saw this.
"Get under", he yelled. Breathing out sharply, he allowed his body to slip under, pulling Jo with him. Jim understood and did this too, just as the monstrous wall of metal thundered into his position.
But for Jack and Peter it was quite a different story. The latter never had a chance. He had been too slow to respond, and had therefore been reduced to a similar collection of red rags as Hans had.
Jack on the other hand, had almost made it. He'd never managed to sink deep enough, and was bisected by the stream of mini-gun rounds. It took him by surprise, the sudden loss of his lower half, and he quickly faded in a crimson cloud.
Emerging from the surface, David breathed in the biggest lungful of air he had ever managed. He had only been under for about half a minute or so, but it had seemed like a lifetime. The first thing his sense screamed at him was the helicopter, and whether it was still present. The sound of rotors was already fading. He had survived yet again, but for how long now, he couldn't tell.
They tried to regroup, but there were those who were missing, as well as dead. Jack, Hans and Peter were now fish-food, and two members gone, Ethan and Steve.
Karen and Boris paddled up along side. She looked particularly dazed by the experience, so the strong Russian had her in his arms, to make sure she wouldn't slip away too. David was in a likewise similar situation with Jo. Jim, just floated there; alone, and tired.
The ongoing tumble of the surf against the beach was the first thing that Steve noticed, as he came around. It had been a frightful experience, one that he had had the unfortunate luck of going through twice.
His situation had also got a lot worse.
Getting to his feet, he looked around. He was completely and utterly alone. Or so it seemed.
As a group, there was always a good chance of making it out alive. But when you were isolated, you had only your wits and self-determination to get you out. Sometimes that wasn't enough.
The fear coursing through him, accompanied by an overwhelming feeling of hopelessness, he was unable to think what to do, except walk. He did that, skirting the beach, hoping that it would allow his senses to sharpen after his ordeal and give him a plan of action.
He had been here before, and there had been a Visitor's Centre. If he could get there, it might give him a chance of survival. He'd have to evade the creatures of the island, and possibly even his own kind to. It was his only hope. He had no choice. Swallowing hard, against fear that made his legs turn to jelly, he set off.
Only a few hundred metres away, the confused Ethan awoke after and almost identical experience. He came to an almost identical conclusion as well, enveloped in almost identical fear of being alone in such a dangerous place. The docks, he decided. He knew about their existence from maps he had seen of the island. As long as this was Nublar, he may be able to make it to a vessel of some description. He set off along a different route.
They had been floating there for hours, bobbing helplessly. The wrecked hovercrafts had since been carried away by the currents, and so the group was left, huddled in a group in a bid to fight the cold from being in an ocean far too long. It was not just the temperature they had to battle with though, but the sharks.
Their first priority had been to get as far away from the rosette of carnage as possible, since the predators of the sea had almost immediately taken an interest in the new flavour of fish food that they had been gifted. Or perhaps it wasn't so new. It made Jo judder with fright, as she clung to David tightly, always looking down at her submerged lower half to make sure nothing was going to come and grab her.
That had dissipated by now though, and the initial frenzy had died down. Only a few late-comers remained, scavenging for left-overs. One had come a little too close to Jim, but hadn't bothered with the group as a whole. He hoped that it would stay that way.
No one really spoke. To do so was too much effort. David looked up at the sky. It was beginning to darken. Had they really been there so long? It had indeed felt like forever, but logic had reasoned that that wasn't possible. But for the sun to be setting meant that the feeling of being stuck out there for an eternity was perhaps no too far off.
David tried to drown his dismay at realising this by thinking about people across the world who had been in similar situations, being stuck out at sea for even longer than he had. Stupid, he thought, angry at himself. How is that a similar situation? They had been enjoying a cruise or some other comfort just before, not having just spent their past couple of days on an island of death!
There was nothing to do though. Perhaps this was it, and that the grim reaper had final caught up with them. God knows how long he's actually been on my heels, thought Jim, his mind swept with similar despair over the situation.
But then, out of the twilight came a sound, a kind of throaty chugging noise. They all knew what it was. The profile of a boat appeared. Its armament gave them a blatant hint about who owned it.
A bunch of surly men appeared on deck as the engine died down and the grey gun-boat came to a halt. Lines were thrown and the group eventually found themselves on deck, comforted by dry towels, but menaced by sub-machine guns.
No, it isn't the end, Jim thought again. Its just the beginning of the next chapter.
