JURASSIC PARK III

14 – Surviving the Odds

Billy's eye lids lazily fluttered open to see the evening skies overhead start to become swallowed by threatening storm clouds. Where was he? He forced his head over to the side to see Pet's motionless form laying nearby. He reached out to her and rested a hand on her shoulder. She was still feverish. "Hey...Nica." After no response, he gently shook her. "Nica, wake up."

She was unresponsive and it brought a level of concern to the man. He knew it wasn't uncommon for her to be unresponsive during severe episodes of her illness and tried to keep that forward in his mind. He refused to think anything else. He kept a close watch on her, looking to see if she was even breathing. Because she was face down in the sand, he couldn't tell.

Billy grunted and groaned as he forced himself to sit upright. He knew he should be in more pain than this and figured he had been given a pain reliever of a sort from the first aid kit. When he got to thinking about it, he noticed most of his more serious wounds bandaged up and the bleeding reduced quite a bit if not completely on others.

He reached out to the hybrid's motionless form again and shook her a little bit more firmly. "Veronica, come on, get up."

A whimper was all he got in response to. Even just a mere whimper was enough to greatly relieve the man. At least she wasn't dead. Wait a minute, he just felt of her and learned she was still feverish. If she was dead, she wouldn't be that warm to the touch. Way to go, dumb ass. The painkillers. He'd just blame it on the painkillers clouding his mind.

Pet rolled over to face the man. A fragile smile tugged at the corners of her chapped lips. "Hey. How do you feel?" Her voice was raspy and hoarse.

"Like shit," he weakly laughed. "You?"

"Much the same way," she groaned as she propped herself up using her uninjured elbow. "Although not exactly like you." An echo of thunder sounded in the overhead clouds. "We need to get away from the river."

Pet sat up the most she could, hoarsely barking at the aches and pains tearing through her body. She was extremely tempted to take a painkiller, but decided to save those for Billy. She had lived on the island before with no painkillers during an illness flareup. She was sure she could survive this time. In her moving, she tried her best to not flex her injured knuckles or gashed open elbow. It wouldn't surprise her if she fractured it seeing how painful it was to move if even a little.

Pet saw Billy try and get up and rested her bandaged hand on his shoulder. "Just stay there. The less you move the better. I had to stitch you up in some places that could tear open if not careful.

He could at least help her in some way. Billy shoved everything scattered about her backpack inside it and closed it up. Thankfully the contents were mostly dry, now, meaning less unnecessary weight to shoulder. He was about to retrieve his old shirts, but what was the point in keeping them? They were stained and ripped up. No sense in keeping them.

Pet looked at her injured hand and grimaced. If her elbow was fractured then the last thing she wanted to do was worsen it. Either way, this was going to hurt like hell. "I have an idea." She picked up the machete from where it laid in the sand and limped over to the here and there small trees poking up between the rocks and sand. She started hacking away at one of them some four to five inches wide and eight feet tall.

Billy was confused. "What are you doing?"

"Making," chop, "something," chop, "to carry," chop, "you on." Pet stopped to get her breath and coughed.

"You're sick, Nica. You can barely walk and you're going to try and carry me?"

The hybrid grumbled. "I can always make a raft and Viking funeral your ass down the river if you prefer that instead." She returned to chopping the tree and got halfway through it when she couldn't do it anymore. Her body was refusing to cooperate and to the sand she fell, unconscious.

Billy couldn't lie; he saw that coming and dropped his head. Great. What now? Should he try carrying her? He remembered her being not that heavy. No, that probably wouldn't be the best idea, seeing how the strain on him might possibly further injure him. Could he drag her, instead? Dragging her by her hands and or feet seemed too caveman like and barbaric. She just risked her life to save him, for God's sake. The most he could do was take it easy on her. She was sick, not to mention bruised up and scrapped up, pretty badly. Next came another concern; dinosaurs. Should they be found, what would he do? He was pretty positive yelling at it to go away wouldn't work. He'd need a weapon of a sort, like a spear or…the machete.

With that in mind, he mustered what strength he could and got to his feet. He picked up the machete and hoped to finish what the hybrid started by cutting down the leafy tree.


Night time was now blanketing the island as the trumpeting sounds of Brachiosaur could be heard in the far distance. One raptor. Two raptors. They emerged from the river bank's foliage in their following a familiar scent they had been tracking. But there was another scent in the area they got wind of. The strange one. That had been there. Three raptors. Four raptors with the arrival of the recovery pack's female. The first male chirped and squawked at her while she sniffed the air. The egg stealer had been there. She followed the scent she had picked up and over to a series of unrecognizable items laying in the dirt nearby.

They were Billy's discarded shirts and they reeked highly of his scent from his blood.

The raptors realized the egg stealer was injured and weak, knowing it'd be easy to take him out. There was another scent along with the egg stealer's. The strange one was with him, meaning a possible tricky encounter. A series of low-pitched chirps came from the female. The males understood. They recalled the strange one's edge of challenge when approached with another member of her pack, who too was an egg stealer. The raptors knew the two had to be their pack's alpha male and female and there was a certain level of respect to that. They remembered the strange one from times in the past. She'd stay clear of their territory and away from them and they her. On seldom occasions would she venture into their territory, but would soon leave without further confrontation. Then she was gone for a while.

And yet, this same strange one was back and allowing her pack to steal their young. The four raptors continued to chirp and squawk to the others. They had to find their eggs and in a final decision, pressed on in tracking down the scent they knew would lead them to injured one and the strange one.


Thunder rolled throughout the thickening cloud cover overhead. This kept Billy scared. When all was quiet, he could hear if something was coming up on him. Now with the sound of thunder, it was almost impossible to hear anything in the bushes. Paranoia was starting to set in. Was he being followed? He just knew he was being followed. He nor Pet no longer had the eggs in their presence so there was no incentive for the raptors to follow them, right? Everything was fine. They'd be fine. They just needed to push on. The coast couldn't be that far away. Could it?

Billy glanced down at the hybrid laying on the leafy sprigs of the medium sized tree he had cut down to an easier carrying length. He wished she was awake or at least lucid enough to ask for directions. He needed to take a break and debated on stopping for the night or continuing on. The painkiller he had been given was starting to wear off, now, as he became more aware of what wound was where.

He dragged the hybrid to the edge of the forest and river bank and gently laid the branch down. He then sat down beside her and felt of her face. Still feverish. He tried to lean against a tree, but the pain at his back was too much. So, he laid down, instead, and on a side not too uncomfortable to be on. He kept his watch on the heavily breathing woman and frowned. If only there was a way he could help her more.

He nudged her hoping to wake her. "Veronica?" She whimpered. "Wake up. I need your help for a quick minute."

Pet lazily opened her eyes and rolled her head to gaze on the shadowy form of her good friend. "The help you need I can't give you." Her voice was almost completely lost, now.

"Funny. I just need to know how much further until the coast."

"It's night time. I can't really see much of where we are."

"That doesn't help me, much."

Pet shallowly sighed. "Look at it this way…If you keep walking down stream, you'll eventually find the coast. All rivers naturally flow towards the ocean. Or so Robert says. I don't really care right now. I just want to go lay down in a hole and die."

Billy chuckled to himself. "Does that mean I get to Viking funeral you down the river, then?" It was enough to make the sick hybrid smile. They sat there, watching a strobe of lightning fill the night sky.

Pet looked over at her friend through heavy, half lidded eyes. "What happened to us?"

Billy was surprised by the question. Did she really forget? Maybe she bumped her head on a rock like she did her elbow during the frantic swim to safety and was suffering from slight memory loss. "We got our asses kicked by Pteranodons."

"Not that," she snarled. "I mean us…us! As in us, us. I thought we had something back then."

Ooohh! She meant back when they were dating. Really? She was worried about this now? "I got tired of Derek's bullshit every time I turned around. I thought it was just a game to get me to prove myself but after a while, I couldn't take it anymore. It's like everything I kept doing for you and them was never enough. It wore me out. I got tired of the bullying."

Pet felt around in the dark for Billy's arm and rested a feverish hand on it. "You're not the only one who gets tired of his shit."


Down the river the specimen transport barge traveled, everything dreadfully quiet around them. Chirping. No ringing. The satellite phone's ringer. Oh no. Last time the ringer was heard, it was in the gut of the Spinosaur.

Paul shut off the boat's engine to better hear the ringing. It was close and now loud enough to wake Amanda and Eric sleeping soundly against the other within the cage. Everyone got to their feet and cautiously approached the barge's side railing. A part of each of them knew the dinosaur would be there to personally greet them both, only to find...Was that poop? Large piles of fresh animal dung were ringing. Wait, how was it still ringing after being eaten and then digested through a dinosaur's gut?

Grant's eyes widened. There was still a chance to get out of this situation. "Find it before it stops ringing!"

The people jumped overboard and waded through the water to the riverbed. They traced the source of the ring to one of the large piles. "It's over here," announced Paul, kneeling beside one of the rancid piles.

Grant couldn't believe he was about to do this and grimaced in disgust, diving his hands in. If Pet were there, he could only imagine the unethical and poor taste in jokes and or puns she would have to say. How she knew Cooper was a shitty person, came into mind first. Or maybe he was thinking that. He felt something. Was that a watch? Paul was horrified. A femur? Amanda didn't want to ask. Aviator sunglasses. She tossed them aside and reached back into the warm, sloshing- Her hands hit a solid object.

She called out to the others. "I found it!" She extracted it from the pile, Grant quick to snatch it from her and answer it.

"Hello?" What? An advertisement? What the hell kind of shit was this? He looked at the source of the putrid smell before him, realizing what he had just thought. He had been hanging around Derek too long.

Movement from the brush ahead got Eric's attention, him seeing a rusty brown colored dinosaur come into view. "Look out!"

Grant and the Kirbys sat perfectly still, afraid of what the approaching dinosaur was about to do. It took one sniff of the three and groaned a growl, trudging back the way it came into the forest.

The three people were offended. Genuinely offended. A dinosaur didn't want to attack them. What did they do to deserve being shrugged off and ignored for the first time since crashing there? Paul furrowed his brow in thought and looked down at the dung pile. Oh.

He spoke. "Guess he thought we'd be a crappy meal."

Amanda sighed. "Really Paul?" The two people looked to the other, the man shrugging.

Grant wasn't sure to laugh or smack the man upside the head. "Come on, let's get back on the boat and get out of here. These piles are still fresh, meaning the dinosaur that made them is not that far off."

They climbed back on the boat and left, Grant working on trying to clean the phone.


A loud crack of thunder and a quick strobe of lightning shook Billy awake. He had inadvertently fallen asleep. What a great help he was. A dinosaur could've come up and attacked them and they'd never know until it was too late. Light pelts of rain started to dot his skin, him knowing it was about to get a lot worse.

Being under a tree would at least help in breaking some of the rainfall. Or so he thought. Within a matter of ten minutes, such was not the case. He sat there, completely drenched yet again, and sighed. He at least hoped the cool of the rain would help break the hybrid's fever. So Billy sat there, eyes closed and head leaned back to enjoy the relaxing cool of the rainwater against the heat of his irritated wounds.

A stick snapped somewhere behind him. Billy's eyes slowly opened and his grip around the machete's handle tighten. Something told him this was about to get bad. Heavy breathing. He knew that sound. Pet made that sound when angry. But this wasn't from the hybrid. This was from a raptor.

Subtle rustling in the bushes startled him. He could feel his heart racing and frantically pounding in his chest, now. Breathing was painful and felt like breathing through a coffee straw. His breath, however, caught in his chest when finding himself staring into the eyes of a raptor. Another followed the first and before Billy knew it, he and Pet were encircled by the encroaching predators.

Billy swung the machete out in front of him to keep the raptors at a distance while trying to shake the hybrid awake. "Wake up, Veronica. We've got company. Come on, wake up...do your little dino whoop ass trick." He wouldn't stop shaking her. The female approached the horrified man, hissing. "Get back!" Again, Billy sung the machete out and almost striking one of the males across its snout. "Back! Back! Go away!"

Pet slowly came to only to snap as awake as she was going to get at the sound of Billy yelling. There, standing around them was a small pack of raptors. The hybrid jerked herself off her leaf bed and tried to stand up but crumbled to her knees in the sand. She didn't blink her raptor eyed stare off the female, though, and hoarsely snarled her own warning screech.

A male approached the two, the female hissing a bark at it. The male obliged and recoiled a bit. The female dug her sickle claws into the sand and leaned in to sniff of the injured target. He was weak, but she sensed fierce aggression from him. He would fight if he had to. Her golden yellow eyes darted to the hybrid, poised for attack. The female had smelt that distinct odor of sickness before from other prey and knew to stay clear of it.

She snorted a hiss to the others and started to back away, but one of the males wasn't about to give up that easily. It went for the injured one, hissing and screeching. Billy swung out at it, the wind from the tip of the machete's blade breezing past the raptor's face. Again, the junior scientist swung out and had it not been for the dinosaur rearing its head back, it would've been a definite hit. Pet lunged at it, which made it further distance itself from the two egg stealers.

Again, and again the dinosaur tested the other's boundaries while the other two males listened to the female. A deep throat growl like hiss from the female finally halted the male's provoking Billy.

Other than an easily kill, the two people provided nothing for the raptors. They wanted their eggs. Not a meal that could make them sick. The female bolted back into the forest, two of the three males following suit. The third screeched a bark in protest before too, leaving the scene. Billy and Pet were alone, again, but that didn't mean they were about to let down their guard. They needed to get out of there. They both knew there was a good chance the raptors would return and didn't want to stick around for their next episode of bedside manners. Not quite feeling rested enough, but better than before, the two people continued onwards. Behind them was the tree section. As useful as it was, it was slowing them down. If it wasn't for dragging that thing, Billy could have been further ahead down the river bank than now.

Pet forced herself to stay awake. It was much too dangerous to just lay down and take a nap for a few days until the illness flareup passed over. For all she knew, Grant and the Kirbys could already be at the coast and looking for them.