Jurassic World: Return to Isla Nublar – Chapter 36: A Way Out?
A/N: In this chapter, there are several major turning point in the story – Hammond gets an idea concerning how to locate the survivors, Stanley helps solve the mystery as to what happened at the Visitor Center, Halley Dodgson makes a startling discovery once she wakes up from slumber, an infamous predator makes yet another reappearance, and Grant and the rest of his group might be onto something! Please enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Jurassic Park except the very characters I've made up.
The Lexico helicopter flew over the jungles of Isla Nublar, heading toward the Visitor Center. Eric couldn't help but grin as it came into view. Now that's what I'm talkin' about! he thought. He, Kelly, Hammond, Malcolm, Sarah and the two dozen or so Lexico soldiers guarding the area watched as the helicopter gently landed on the ground in front of them (Stanley was searching the area for more clues as to what happened to the research group).
"You're going to be flying in that thing?" Malcolm asked Hammond.
"No, you and Sarah are," Hammond answered. "If we're going to have any chance of finding my grandchildren and the others, we've got to use every possible way of searching, and sparing no expense in the process."
"Um, can't I join the ground crew or something?"
"Kelly, Eric and Stanley – accompanied by soldiers – will be on ground patrol. Don't worry, everything's going to be fine."
Sarah laughed. "Lester knows about this, doesn't he?"
"No, not exactly, but I'm sure he won't be too upset. After all, he did put me in charge."
The pilot of the helicopter (named Seth Jason) exited the flying machine and walked toward Hammond. "Alright Hammond, the choppers ready. She's got fully loaded with fuel at the ship."
"Excellent. Have fun Sarah and Malcolm!"
Malcolm groaned as he, Sarah and the pilot boarded the helicopter. "I've got a bad feeling about this."
"Don't worry about it, we'll be fine," Sarah giggled. "You'll be quick at finding traces of the team in this baby."
The helicopter's blades began to hum as it lifted into the air. It increased its rate of climb into the sky and before long, Seth moved the joystick forward and the chopper was off, ready to begin its search for the Grant, Dr. Sorkin, Levine and the others.
"Bye Dad!" Kelly called before the chopper was out of sight. She turned to Hammond. "Think they'll be OK?"
"Who? Your parents?" Hammond scoffed. "Ha! Let me tell you something! I've never seen a pair more courageous when it comes to the possibility of facing dinosaurs, with the exception of Dr. Alan Grant and Eric Kirby! Your father won't admit how amazing he is during survival situations."
Kelly turned to Eric. "How did you survive eight weeks on Sorna anyway? I would have died of mere panic!"
"Well, it wasn't easy," Eric chortled, "but once I got survival mindset, I kept focused on doing just that: surviving."
"Hey guys!" Stanley called as he exited the research team's trailer. "I think I've pieced together all the evidence and come up with some conclusions!"
Hammond, Kelly and Eric eagerly joined him by the trailer.
"What did you find?" Kelly asked.
"Well, I've followed the tracks of the half of the research team that exited the Visitor Center all the way to the trailer. I think I know what happened."
Hammond beamed with hope. "Alright then, let's hear it, shall we?"
"Alright." Stanley cleared his throat and began his speech. "Theory one: the group exits the Visitor Center in a hurry. They race toward the trailer, but behind them is a ravenous pack of around half dozen dinosaurs – raptors based on the tracks. Most of them make it to the trailer safely, but one person falls onto the ground. However, he gets to his feet and meets the others in the trailer. One of the dinosaurs tries to break into the windshield but it is shot with a weapon – exactly what weapon, I'm not yet sure. Then they presume to kill off the rest of the attacking dinosaurs on spot and, since their windshield is already broken, they make their way into the forest to escape any dinosaurs that might be nearby. Leaving behind nothing . . . but a broken-in trailer."
The others stared at Stanley in confusion.
"Tiny problem," Eric started, "our missing team is made up mostly of a research group, not military men. Sure, we've got a few military men on the team, but from what I'm understanding, they're supposed to be using tranquilizer darts. They only were to use bullets as a last resort, and they didn't have enough to kill that many dinosaurs. Not too mention there's no bullet shells anywhere."
"Yeah, and where are the bodies of the dead dinosaurs?" Kelly asked. "Not to mention, there are also several tracks of the raptors running into the Visitor Center; more than half dozen of them by the looks of it."
Stanley understood the problems with his theory. "OK, good points. I didn't see those other tracks. Theory two: the group exits the Visitor Center chased by the half dozen raptors and one team member slips and barely escapes into the trailer. Then the dinosaurs attack the trailer in a full-on assault. They break in through the back window, but the group manages to escape out the front. They run back toward the Visitor Center chased by even more raptors from the jungle. The dinosaurs trap the group inside the Center and don't leave any evidence of a kill. Leaving behind nothing . . . but a broken-in trailer."
Hammond cleared his throat. "Um, when exactly did you loose your mind? There's no evidence of a kill in the Visitor Center, the soldiers looked through most of the building and found nothing. If dinosaurs killed all of the group, there'd be something left. "
"Hm, I've probably been thinking too hard. I'll try this again." Stanley walked toward the rear of the trailer and gasped. "Aha! I've found it! See here? The tracks of our research team head into the jungle! They might have escaped the raptors!"
"Excellent!" Hammond exclaimed. "Now you're talking! I knew there was something missing from this story."
Eric nodded and looked down at the raptor tracks. The two-toed footprints made him shiver with fear – even though it was well over a decade since he got trapped on Isla Sorna, he remembered the island – and its raptors – very well. The Velociraptors had been almost a constant threat to him and to this day, he would never forget their sinister-sounding calls or their nasty teeth.
This is when another thought struck him as he gazed at the prints – they looked quite different from raptor prints, even from the ones Sarah identified as raptor prints earlier. The toes were slightly more narrow and Eric theorized that the dinosaur would have been slightly smaller than a Velociraptor. Not much smaller, but definitely smaller.
He turned back toward the others and said, "These tracks heading out of and into the building, I don't think they're raptor tracks. They're from a slightly smaller dinosaur."
The others came over and winced.
"Not raptor?" Hammond asked. "Well, InGen never recreated another species of dromaeosaur, that I know of anyway."
"Wouldn't you know about all the species InGen cloned?" Stanley inquired.
Hammond shook his head. "I'm afraid not. Some dinosaur species we recreated remained unidentified, even to the scientists who recreated them. This might have been because they were simply not known to science at the time. If my memory serves correct, we recreated an extinct species of bird. It was called Microraptor, but the species wasn't named until after the 21st century dawned, so we never knew what it was."
All of a sudden, a jeep drove into the clearing around the Visitor Center. Inside was Lester, and he didn't appear to be in a happy mood.
"You're in for it now," Kelly whispered to Hammond.
Lester got out of the car, slammed the door shut and stomped over to Hammond. "What do you think you were doing?! You just sent a helicopter out there to conduct a search without my permission?"
"If I can re-jog your memory," Hammond stated, "you left me in charge."
"Yes, I did. And now I can see what a mistake that was. We're trying not to risk any more lives being lost! Remember what happened to the mercenaries InGen sent here to retrieve the Hardings, Dr. Sorkin and Nima Cruz back in '93? Their chopper was downed by a pterodactyl and–"
"Pterosaur, actually . . ." Eric's voice trailed off as Lester gave him "the look".
Lester continued. "As I was saying, it barely made it back up again as a tyrannosaur almost got hold of its survivors!"
"That team wasn't prepared with back-up," Hammond argued. "We've got back-up. Spared no expense, remember?"
Lester was about to continue the argument, but he thought better of it, realizing that the important thing now was to find their research team – and his wife. Before he could ask any questions though, Kelly asked one of her own.
"Did you find anything out about the prisoner from Biosyn?" she asked
"Yes, actually. He was here to retrieve Lewis Dodgson and the only other surviving member of the team."
"Dodgson's on the island?" Eric questioned in surprise.
"Yes, unfortunately. As we predicted, they placed the tracking beacon on our ship to find Nublar and retrieve dinosaurs eggs. They hoped to save the company from ruin by using the money they could obtain from the eggs. Now all we have to do is find Dodgson and this whole ordeal with Biosyn will be concluded."
"Good," Hammond said. "We should probably get onto our own search for the research team."
Halley opened her eyes and glanced at the sun above her. Wow! I'm surprised Dodgson let me sleep this long, she thought. She sat up and stretched her arms.
"Alright, Dodgson," she began, "let's get out of here." But she heard no reply. "Dodgson? Dodgson? Where did he go? Don't tell me he just left me here!"
She looked around before quickly climbing down the tree she was in. She scowled, "Drat! He did leave me here! What kind of a big brother is he? Just leaving his poor, helpless, little sister out here in the middle of nowhere! How dare he!"
Well, there was no use complaining about her situation; she knew the best chance she had to get out of here, was to actually get a move on. So seeing her backpack on the ground, she snatched it up and started walking. Where she was going, she hadn't the slightest idea.
"Let's see," she began, "if I wanted to get off this island, I'd have to go . . . to the coast! That chopper Dodgson sent for is not going to find me here! I might as well get to the coast and find a way off this crazy island."
She quickened her pace. As she walked, she suddenly found herself in a clearing, and just up ahead of her was a long concrete base for what appeared to be a lengthy electric fence. At least, it used to be electric. After years of no maintenance, the fence wires hung loosely and all Halley had to do to get through them was to merely push them out of the way.
"Must be one of the perimeter fences," she told herself. She made her way through the fence and continued, back into the jungle. "There's got to be a way out of here, somehow!"
"The coast has got to be coming soon! I'm getting tired just thinking about sitting here any longer!" Taylor complained. The sun was rising higher and higher into the morning sky – it was around 9:00 a.m. and the group was getting hot. Unfortunately, it would only get hotter as the day wore on.
Even Grant was waving his hat in front of his face to keep a cool breeze going. "Anything look familiar, Laura?"
Dr. Sorkin shook her head. "Unfortunately, it's not. Even when the park was in operation, I never rode a boat along this river."
"Oh great," Ryan stated. "We'll be out here till doom's day!"
"Look on the bright side guys. We're not going overland and we're not in the network tunnels. We also don't have to do any walking – or rowing since the current's strong enough to keep us going. I know it's hot, but we'll get there soon."
Silence was cast over the group for several minutes. They all wanted to get home so badly, yet even that seemed impossible.
Grant placed his hat over his head in such a way that it shielded his eyes from the sun. Well, if I ever get through this, I'll finally be able to get back to the dig site. Maybe the rest of the team's found out what species of pterosaur made those nests. I guess I'll have to wait and see until we get back . . . if we do get back. Seriously though, what could happen between here and the coast?
A loud splashing sound brought Grant out of his thoughts. He and the others looked up and saw a large dark shape moving through the water towards them from a several hundred yards away. It seemed strangely familiar to the group. Grant gasped. "Oh . . . my . . . gosh," he whispered.
"Please don't tell me that's a mosasaur," Ryan said.
But the shark-like tail fluke and lizard-head gave it away. The top portion of the creature's body appeared on the water's surface and the animal snorted out carbon dioxide before taking in a fresh breath of air. Then it cast its reptilian eyes on Grant's group's boat! It made a loud bellow and submerged below the water and started moving towards them with alarming speed!
"We've got to get to the riverbank!" Ryan yelled as he grabbed one of the boat's two oars. "Quick, everyone start paddling as fast as you can!"
Soldier #2 grabbed the other oar and joined Ryan in rowing. Grant, Dr. Sorkin, Taylor and soldier #1 started paddling with their own hands. Unfortunately, the creature was already on them and was approaching fast.
"Why couldn't InGen have left behind a motorboat or something?" soldier #1 asked.
"Never mind," Grant said. "Just keep rowing. If you don't want to be mosasaur food, we'd better row as fast as we can!"
Grant looked back at the mosasaur, and then at the riverbank – the river was pulling them in the carnivorous reptile's direction, so that wasn't helping. However, Grant noticed that ahead and to the left were a chain of rocks not too far down river, sticking out of the water's surface. If they could just pull the boat up against the rocks, they'd be able to get out of the boat and clamber onto land and escape the jaws of the King of the Deep.
"Hey guys!" Grant began. "See those rocks near the bank downriver? If we can reach those before the mosasaur reaches us, we should be able to climb out and onto dry land. The current's too strong to keep paddling like this."
"Grant's right," Dr. Sorkin agreed. "The current will keep pulling us further downriver where the mosasaur is."
So the group started paddling in that direction. Dr. Sorkin decided to check on the Tylosaurus' distance from them, but when she looked, it was nowhere to be seen. Where could it have gone? "Where's the mosasaur?" she asked in a rather suspicions tone. The others stopped rowing and scanned the area; it wasn't good that the mosasaur couldn't be seen, or otherwise they'd never know how close it was too them.
"Maybe it gave up?" soldier #1 suggested.
Deep in the depths of the river, fish scattered as the mosasaur swam amongst them. Still hungry, she watched the boat from below. Normally her kind doesn't swim up the river inland, but she hasn't had a fair time of hunting in the ocean. In fact, she doesn't normally even like swimming this far inland, as the river's only 90 feet deep at its maximum depth! She's used to the ocean's deepness, a deepness so extensive that she can swim far below to appear to be nothing but darkness to her prey. But beggars can't be choosers.
The mosasaur flicks her tongue inward and outward, tasting the scent of her prey. Since they spotted her, she figured her best attempt to catch them would be to swim out of their sight. But the shallowness of the river was something she'd never get used to. The brain of the humongous reptile thought through her situation – her prey seemed to be swimming toward a sequence of rocks near the riverbank. If they got anywhere close to those rocks, the water would be too shallow for her to make a good attack, so she had to attack as soon as possible.
Now certain of how she planned to attack, she started towards the surface, swishing her tail fluke from side to side like a shark. She made a low bellow as she began her attack on her prey . . .
"What kind of predator just leaves her prey sitting in the water like this?" Taylor questioned. "A real predator wouldn't quit the hunt until the job was done. I mean, come on! Where's its perseverance? Where's the suspense, wondering whether prey or predator will succeed in this battle of survival? How can the mighty 'T. rex of the Deep' just pull off a hunt like that? She wasn't even trying!"
"Uh, Taylor," Ryan began, "you do know that the prey is us, right?"
"Well, duh! I'm not that dumb."
Ryan rolled his eyes. This kid's insane. She actually wants the hunt to continue?
Grant scanned the water around them one more time before turning to the others and saying, "Let's just hurry up and get to–"
The boat was suddenly flipped out of the water by the mosasaur's snout and it flung up into the air! Its occupants screamed in fright as they splashed into the water as the boat upside-down near them. Without a word the group started swimming towards the riverbank.
Grant – who had lost his hat in the aquatic assault – fought the current as hard as he could. Something told me that mosasaur wasn't finished! That's exactly what it wanted us to do: catch us unaware!
"Get away from the boat!" Grant exclaimed. "Maybe the predator will go for the bigger target instead of us!"
Everyone obeyed and started swimming as fast as they could. Once again they were in the water trying to escape the jaws of death. As they got only 12 feet away from their capsized boat, the mosasaur attacked again from below and snapped the boat in her magnificent jaws. Being inflatable, it popped the instant she put pressure on the boat and she submerged under the water with her prize, shaking it violently like a dog shaking a rag doll!
It worked! Grant thought. The mosasaur went for the boat. Now all we have to do is reach the riverbank! The riverbank was only 15 feet away by now. If the group could get into shallow water, the mosasaur couldn't reach them so easily and they'd have a much better chance of escaping.
Meanwhile, the angry mosasaur suddenly realized she'd been fooled by the size of the object again into thinking it was meat – to her dismay, it was just plastic. She let the deflated boat loose and as it floated to the surface, she watched the humans swim for the riverbank. Maybe she could catch them before they reached it. She began swimming after them with great speed.
"Ha!" Ryan exclaimed as he and the others made it to the shallow water. "We're safe!"
But suddenly the great reptile's jaws exploded from the river and came toward them!
"Run for it!" Grant yelled. The group barely escaped the jaws of the mosasaur as they clamped shut on the edge of the riverbank.
Her prey now out of reach, she wriggled her lengthy body back into the deeper water. The mosasaur was quite discontent about this hunting spot; it turned out to be no better than the ocean. So she turned toward the direction of downriver and started swimming back toward the ocean – her real home.
Grant and the others sat on the riverbank, resting their tired bodies.
"Phew!" Dr. Sorkin started. "That was a close call."
Ryan looked over at her and said, "I thought you said there wasn't anything dangerous in this river!"
"No crocodilians is what I said, and mosasaurs were typically ocean-going reptiles. That must have been a rare occurrence for one to swim this far upriver."
Grant smiled. "Or maybe, we're not that far from the coast."
"That's another possibility. If that's the case, then our journey should be almost over."
Grant nodded. This is when he noticed a familiar object floating toward the riverbank.
"Your hat!" soldier #1 exclaimed. Since he was the closest to it, he got it out of the water, rung the water out as best he could and handed it back to its rightful owner.
"Well, that's the important thing," Grant said as he placed it on his head. As he looked at his group, he noticed Taylor wasn't with them – she'd walked several meters away and was now standing in front of a 10-foot-tall boulder. "We need to stay together, Taylor."
"Look what I found guys!" she exclaimed.
"This had better be good," Ryan groaned.
Ryan, Grant, Dr. Sorkin and the other two soldiers met Taylor by the boulder and gasped – the rock was actually the small mouth of a large tunnel – a cave!
"Do you think this leads to the coast?" Taylor inquired.
"You know, the northern part of the island has some coastal caves," Dr. Sorkin said. "I bet this cave might lead to the coast!"
Ryan snickered. "Nice try, Dr. Sorkin. I'm not going back underground. I for one don't want to go back down there and face a long, hard walk that could take hours and then eventually run into the raptors again. No thank you."
"But Ryan," Dr. Sorkin argued, "this cave could lead right to the coast!"
"We could still follow the river to the coast you know, just not swim in it."
"Guys . . ." Grant began, holding up his hands, "the last thing we need is another immature argument from you two. We need to reach a reasonable conclusion and then act upon it."
Before anyone could say anything, a bird-like trilling sound was heard from nearby. The group looked to the left of the boulder and saw a large theropod standing no more than 30 feet away from the group. It was unlike any theropod the group had ever seen alive – it was 16 feet tall, 26 feet long and had a large blue-colored beaked head covered in a fleshy horn and rooster-like growths above each eye. Its body was covered in blackish-gray fur-like fluff and possessed strong and muscular legs and arms, which bore quills.
The dinosaur bent down to the river and began to quench its thirst.
Dr. Sorkin winced. "It's a large oviraptorid," she said. "Only one oviraptorid gets that large: Gigantoraptor."
"InGen cloned those guys?" Grant asked in surprise. "Another creature not on their list"
"My thought exactly. I was never told they had any of these dinosaurs here; that just goes to show you how I was treated after I left Wu's laboratory."
"Is it dangerous, Doc?" Ryan asked.
"The diet of oviraptorids has been a matter of debate among paleontologists. Some say they were herbivorous, others believe they were carnivorous and ate eggs, others say it was more like an ostrich with an occasional taste for eggs, some believe it was an omnivore eating nuts, fruits, small creatures and things like that, and still others–"
"OK, I don't want to take my chances with a creature with legs like those. Let's go into the cave."
Dr. Sorkin grinned. "Nice choice."
Now in the cave, the group saw just how big the cave actually was. The ceiling must have been a good 50 feet above their heads at their highest point and the cave continued a long way in front of them. The cave was lit by skylights in the ceiling, making it easy for the sun's rays to reach the cave floor. Very shallow water covered the cave floor and the air smelled salty. This could only mean one thing and one thing only!
"Hey, hey, hey!" Ryan exclaimed in delight. "Maybe you were right, Doc! That smell's got to be coming from the ocean!"
"Hooray! We're finally get off this place!" Taylor yelled.
Grant chortled. "Well, we're not off the island yet. Let's just head further down this cave pathway and we'll be out of here before you know it!"
A/N: Well, I hope you all found this chapter enjoyable. Hope no one's getting bored of the mosasaur. If you haven't already, please be sure to check out my poll on my user profile page where you can vote which character in this story is your favorite! Bye for now!