Chapter Sixteen

MIA FELT TREMENDOUS PAIN as she tried to sit up. She knew she had survived the raptor attack but was terrified to look at the damage it had done. Dios mía. It hurts. Kelly was already kneeling over her, rummaging through his military pouches for something.

She tried to prop herself up on her elbows and winced at the shooting pain. "How bad is it?" she asked through clenched teeth and eyes.

Kelly didn't respond, save for a grunt of some sort. He finally fished out a small medic pack, ripped it open and dumped the contents on Mia's legs. His voice was matter of fact. "You gotta lay down."

She ignored him, slowly opening her eyes to peek at the wounds. Her first thought was that it was not as bad as she feared. Kelly had her shirt pulled up to her chest and pulled her belt down. Seems pretty clean. He must have wiped away some blood already. There was a large gash in her left hip, at the top of the bone. This must have been from the sickle claw on one of the raptor's feet. She looked at her other side – and there was the other claw's gash. It was further up her midsection, which worried her.

She glanced back over at her hip and was surprised at the amount of blood pooling out of it. Maybe it was as bad as she feared.

"Down." Kelly said sternly as he gently pushed her shoulder. Mia let herself fall on her back, staring up at the canopy of trees and the birds flying between them.

"Where are they?" she asked, her voice sounded detached.

Kelly began to push on Mia's abdomen, checking each quadrant. "The dinosaurs or my guys?" He watched her intently for any signs of pain as he worked his way around.

"Either."

He glanced at the jungle around him. He couldn't hear the dinosaurs screeching anymore, couldn't hear Mathews' firing his weapon. "They all went north, I think." He finished prodding her stomach. "Good news. I don't think there's much internal damage."

"Then why am I bleeding?" She almost sounded like a toddler asking why the sky is blue.

"Because a fucking dinosaur attacked you, smartass." He wiped the blood off her hip again with his sleeve and put a large square of gauze on it. He unwrapped a roll of bandage and started to feed it underneath her, wrapping the gauze in place.

"That's really tight."

"Yeah," he sighed, "that's the idea." As he finished, he checked the wound on her midsection. It didn't look as bad. As best as he could figure - as the two sickle claws dug in – the dinosaur's right foot hooked into her pelvis and the left foot had basically carved a filet off her abdomen. The gash was not nearly as deep, and it looked like the dinosaur had lost its footing, flaying the skin and fat with the claws. He unwrapped another roll of bandages and gauze and quickly wrapped her up again. "How you doing? You with me?"

Mia blinked a few times. She felt cold and sweaty and her mind felt foggy. She tried to come back into the present. "Yeah," she nodded, "Yeah, I'm here."

"Good. We gotta go."

Davies and Mathews kept running even after they stopped hearing the raptors behind them. They had run through an access gate attached to one of the tall electric fences and into some stupid dinosaur's enclosure. It was a wide field, with mountains in the distance, and it took some time to cross it. Now the sparse hills started to give way to a coastal swamp-like environment, and their pace slowed as they started to reach ankle-deep mud and soft earth. The dinosaurs that had been chasing them seemed to be gone now – vanishing like mirages. The two men trudged on. "We gotta be close to the shore, right?" Mathews broke the silence. "Gettin' all swampy and shit. That means water nearby, right?"

Davies grunted a 'yes.' He would have given anything to be sitting in the back of a boat at that moment. His arm felt like it was on fire – the pain clouded his thinking, and he knew his fever was getting worse. The heat and humidity of the tropics was only accelerating his sickness – and the adrenaline and sprinting was making his muscles tremor. He was nearly shaking uncontrollably. He scanned the horizon, praying for the signs of a vehicle or one of those gates in the electric fences – something that meant at least a sliver of safety.

Instead, the two men spotted a tall electric fence – but the amber lights atop the fenceposts were no longer lit, and the thin electrified cable was broken and splayed across the ground – the whole opening in the fence spanning maybe forty feet. Mathews instinctively looked behind him, looking for the raptors in the jungle. "What do you think?"

Davies peered into the swamp on the other side of the fence. "Water means boats, right?"

"Right." The two men made their way across the border and into the swamp.

Kelly helped Mia up, and though she gritted her teeth at the pain, she could actually stand on her own. He felt a little impressed. She was either incredibly stubborn or the adrenaline was killing a lot of the pain – or both. "Let's get you to the docks. Then I'll go find those idiots."

"No," Mia protested. "We shouldn't stay split up for very long. I'm fine…" She took a breath. She knew she was in shock, and if the adrenaline wore off – she might not be able to keep moving. But she also knew everyone had a better chance of survival as a group. "…I think. Really."

Kelly chuckled at her perseverance. "Have it your way, tiger." He was suddenly struck with a revelation. "Hey, can I have my gun back?" He felt the tiniest pang of guilt as he took advantage of Mia's clouded mental state.

"Oh… yeah." She slipped the heavy rifle off herself and handed it to Kelly. He traded her the tranquilizer gun and darts; which Mia was thankful was much lighter. She ejected the CO2 canister near the barrel and inserted a fresh one, loading a dart into the chamber.

Kelly ejected the magazine from the CAR-15 and loaded a new one from his vest, racking the bolt. It felt good to have a proper firearm again. It felt comfortable. The two made their way north as quickly as they could.

Davies and Mathews made their way further into the swamp – the mud was reaching halfway up their calves now. Mathews wondered if he should be worried about leeches – and then laughed to himself as he figured that was the least of his problems. He was hoping there would be a river or a stream – manmade, with a sharp edge they could follow. It started to become apparent that there was going to be no such luck. Instead, the swampland turned gradually into a large sort of pond – lilies and cattails dotting the mostly stagnant waters with dense trees and vines touching the surface. He knew as soon as they could find the direction of the current, they could find the coastline.

Davies wasn't sure if his mind was playing tricks on him or not. He swore he could see some sort of building – maybe a hundred yards away or so. It looked like it had some sort of camouflage on it. "You see that?" he managed to croak out.

"Huh?" Mathews stopped walking to try to get a better look. "I'll be damned."

The two men quickened their pace as much as they could through the murky waters. It was maddening - like trying to run in slow motion. As they inched closer, the water line inched higher. Now they were up to their waists in water – floating plant-life began to conceal the depths of the water – creating an otherwise beautiful tarp of bright green. Now they could see another electric fence on the other side of the small building – a large concrete base providing a buffer area between the water and the fence wire.

They were up to their chests, blindly stepping on branches and rocks at the bottom of the swamp. The croaks and calls of dozens of species of frogs sounded like nails on a chalkboard to the two men. They were at the end of their patience. With every step forward, the wildlife seemed to feel more oppressive. Even the innocuous call of crickets now carried memories of terror and dread. They would never be able to hear a frog, see a jungle plant, or take a vacation anywhere near the equator without being reminded of the terror and violence of Isla Nublar.

Davies could finally get a better view of the building they were heading toward. He tried to quicken his pace as the details became clearer. It was a concrete building with stenciled numbers on the sides. There looked like lights and signs on each face of the structure – and draped over the roof was a camouflage net. He could make out a door with a red sign:

RESTRICTED

AREA

NO ADMITTANCE

RANGER

OUTPOST 05

Now Davies was running at a full sprint through the water. We made it! He could see a small dock on the other side of the building – and the boat.

It was a Starcraft Islander: a 19-foot boat with an outboard motor and a small crew cabin in the bow. It was the same tan-grey color as the Jeeps, with the same diagonal red stripe – the windshield area was replaced with a lightbar, mounted searchlight, loudspeaker, and whip antenna to one side.

"Dude, we're there!" Davies stopped concentrating on keeping his arms above the water and started to swim instead of running through the water. With every stroke, his arm stung with pain, but he didn't care anymore. Soon he could get it treated at a medical facility. He didn't need to be as careful with it anymore.

Mathews was struggling to run, nearly twenty or thirty feet behind Davies. "Hey, wait up!" He didn't want to swim – he wanted to keep his rifle above the water. Not that water would make it inoperable – but it might cause a jam at the most inopportune moment.

He heard a splash and spun his attention to his left. There was a small ripple in the water radiating from where he heard the noise, and as he stopped to watch intently – he didn't see any more movement. "Hey man, keep your arms above the water!"

Davies could barely hear him over the splashing. "Huh?"

"Your bite, dude! Keep your arms above the water!"

Davies looked back at Mathews and then forward to the Ranger outpost. He was only fifteen feet away from it or so. "We're almost –"

Mathews saw a large, dark, narrow shape burst from the water and grab Davies' arm. He yelped in pain, and the water near him churned and splashed wildly for a short moment before becoming eerily still. Davies was still screaming – he was still there – but his entire left arm was missing. It took Mathews a moment to process – one second, Davies was fine, and the next second he was an amputee. Holy shit.

Mathews fired his rifle into the water. He knew it wasn't going to do any harm – the kinetic energy of the bullets would be significantly reduced once they breached the water – but he had to do something.

He fired all thirty shots, dropped the magazine, and loaded a new one – taking a moment to study the surface of the water. Davies was screaming still, but Mathews couldn't really understand what he was saying. He readied his rifle again…

In less than a second, Davies disappeared under the water. There was no dramatic billow of red water, no bobbing up and down and splashing. Whatever dinosaur it was had grabbed him by the legs and simply yanked him underneath the water, and that was that.

"Fuck!" Mathews started shooting in the water as he ran and flanked the area where his friend just vanished. He wanted to reach the dock – the safety of land – but didn't want to run directly in front of whatever had taken Davies. He ejected the empty magazine and loaded a new one and kept firing to give himself cover as he staggered onto the concrete dock.

Once he was fully standing – two feet firmly planted on the ground – he glanced at the boat. Trying to keep an eye on the water, he looked at the door to the building as well. He was glad there was no keypad or electronic entry. The metal door had just a single doorknob, and directly above the door was a security camera. The idea of being on InGen's security tapes slightly amused him. He opened the door one handed and held his rifle up – clearing it the way he was trained to in the military.

The shed was mostly empty. There were some wooden shelves that contained various tools and maintenance equipment and stacked along the back wall was a row of four gas canisters. He quickly slung his rifle to his back and grabbed two canisters at a time, carefully loading them into the Ranger boat.

He grabbed the last two and decided to toss them into the boat from the doorway. One landed on the floor of the vehicle, and the other bounced on one of the passenger seats before falling out the side of the boat and hitting the water with a splash.

Mathews rushed over, laying prone on the concrete dock to try to get a look. "Ah, shit!"

He briefly thought about trying to retrieve it. "Whatever."

As he prepared to lift himself up, he spotted some slight movement in the murky waters.