Z. Raptor (6 page)

“Can't you let Dad stay here on this boat too?” Adam pleaded. “You could talk to him on the radio if you need to.”

“I'm sorry, but I need him with me to ID whatever crazy science stuff they've got going down here.” Chen looked haunted, caught between the eerie red glow of the lanterns and the night. “I need to know what Geneflow is really doing. Josephs can snow me, but not your dad. He knows the score.”

Adam stared helplessly at the receding silhouette of the
Pahalu
and then back at Chen. “Why is it so important for you to know what Josephs is doing?”

“All
you
need to know is that when this is all over, I'll let you and your dad go free.” Chen looked out to the island, which was maybe a mile away now and growing steadily nearer. “I'm going to make things right here. Whatever it takes.”

He'd barely finished talking when a blow came from the other side of the boat—a sudden, violent jolt that sent everyone sprawling. Chen grabbed the rail as he fell and barely stopped himself from being flung over the side. A deep, splintering noise sounded in the darkness.

“We've hit something!” Doug shouted. “Could be we've run aground on a reef. . . .” He was already running to the other side of the boat. But the next jolt was even more extreme, slamming him to the deck as the boat listed sideways and lurched drunkenly through the waves.

A huge spray of water lashed down over the deck, and Adam slipped and fell, dragging Stone down with him to the wet wood. To his horror, he saw that the side of the boat had already dipped so low that water was gushing across the deck.

Stone put Adam's fears into words succinctly: “We're sinking!”

Chen had pressed the radio back to his lips. “Rich, we just struck something—coral, maybe. Keep the
Pahalu
well back. We'll evacuate in the RIBs and join you.” He shoved the radio into his pocket and shouted to his crew. “Brad, Doug, do what you can to hold her steady. The rest of you, into the RIBs, come on, move it! Stone, watch out for the kid.”

Adam helped Stone to his feet. “I'm starting to wish you hadn't woken me after all.” Two men pushed past them, vaulting the rail where Chen had come aboard, plunging down into the black water beside the orange RIB. Adam watched them scramble inside and bit his lip. “We have to do that?”

“We can use the ladder,” Stone said, leaning heavily on the rail. “I—I'll go first, show you it's safe.”

“Okay,” said Adam. He could see the two men were inside the boat now, urging Stone to join them. The old man wasn't moving, except for the trembling in his hands.

Then Adam saw why. “Agent Chen!” he yelled.

The water below was churning white as a dark shape—easily as long as two train cars—broke the surface maybe twenty meters from the RIB and the
Hula Queen
. “Oh . . . my . . . God . . .” He glimpsed a hideous reptilian head as large as a couch, sharp bestial features warped and twisted. Jutting sails of flesh that might have been fins stuck out from its glistening, gray-black body.

“What is that thing?” Stone hissed.

“It's heading straight for the boat.” Adam remembered how in New York he'd wished for Zed as a guard dog to keep people away. Had Geneflow followed the same line of reasoning—prehistoric security?

“Get away from here!” Chen yelled down to his men. “Go! Go!”

Too late. The sleek orange RIB and its horrified passengers were snatched away in a churning explosion of white foam.

“No!” Chen shouted, his voice cracking.

And then the massive creature burst up from the darkness and towered over the stricken
Hula Queen
. Adam held stock-still, unable even to breathe. The creature was no dinosaur. It resembled some colossal, longnecked sea serpent with gigantic, pointed jaws. Yellow slit eyes glowing, it spat bloody splinters of wood and orange plastic in all directions before crashing back down into the water.

Chen was already back on his radio. “Rich, turn tail, get the
Pahalu
out of here and stay on this frequency for word from me.” There was a brief squawk of protest and static. “No buts! Stay here and you'll be sunk like the
Hula
. There'll be nothing you can do to help.”

Stone clutched frantically at Chen's shirt. “What about us?”

Pulling free angrily, Chen pointed to where Doug and Brad were wrestling with a kind of steel cradle holding another of the fluorescent landing crafts. There was a roar of straining metal, and one end of the craft slipped on its chain, hurtling seaward. Then it jammed, the boat hanging at an angle above the water. Swearing, two more men grabbed at the other end of the cradle.

“Come on,” Chen told Adam and Stone, and ran over to lend his weight. But before he'd gotten halfway there, the ship shook again, a massive wave crashing down over the deck. The rush of water knocked the special agent over the side of the ship before he could even scream for help.

“Chen's overboard!” Doug shouted. “Life vest, someone!”

The radio's gone with him,
thought Adam helplessly.
My only link to Dad.
Spying the bulky orange vest hanging up across the deck, he realized he was closest and ran to fetch it, almost tripping over loose ropes as he went.

“Give me that.” Doug slipped and skidded across the pitching deck to grab the life vest from Adam, then staggered back to where Chen had fallen. “No sign.” He hurled it helplessly it into the darkness. “Chen!”

Adam pointed out two more vast shapes in the moonlit water, incoming like giant torpedoes. “There's more of those things coming!” he cried as the whole ship almost turned upside down with the force of the blow. Rails buckled, and the wooden floor split. Dr. Stone was catapulted into the darkness, his scream eclipsed by a ferocious roar from one of the monsters in the water.

“Come on, kid.” Doug gripped Adam by the arm and propelled him toward the RIB, knocked free of its cradle by the impact and slipping down into the water. Panic-stricken, some of the crewmen were jumping after it. One of them grabbed a rifle from a large wooden crate and fired down into the water, yelling over the blazing rattle of automatic gunfire.

“That's not helping!” Doug bawled in his face, wrestling the gun away. “Help me get the crate in the second RIB—we can give everyone weapons. . . .”

Soaked through and freezing, Adam turned and saw the shadow of the
Pahalu
drifting serenely away from them into the darkness. “Dad, don't leave me!” he screamed.

Then the boat lurched again and threw Adam backward. He toppled from the deck and smashed into freezing salt water. Stunned, he accidentally swallowed, burning his nose and throat. He choked in the darkness, then felt something hard brush against him. Panicking, he pushed upward, broke the surface, gulped down air. One of the RIBs was bobbing ahead of him. Someone grabbed him by the neck of his T-shirt and hauled him into the crowded boat. More men were floundering in the water, arms windmilling, shouting in terror as massive fins scythed through the water close by. Adam saw some of them swimming desperately for the hunched shadow of the island in the far distance, saw the
Hula Queen
looming up beside them—or what was left of it.

Staring in awestruck horror, he watched as two of the enormous sea creatures rose from the water, tearing into the hull in a frenzy, ripping out wood and metal with serrated, saw-blade teeth.

Then a deep, creaking noise high above them warned of fresh danger. Adam saw a long, narrow shadow swing across the stars—one of the masts from the
Hula Queen
slowly toppling like a felled tree, ready to fall and crush them all. Desperately, he tried to dive from the boat, but others were trying to do the same, jostling and blocking his way. He lost his balance, fell back with a gasp. Men trampled him in the darkness. The RIB had become a death pit of bodies writhing in cold salt water.

You don't know what my friends here can do,
Chen had said so proudly.

They can die,
thought Adam, all hope of escape gone now. He heard the grating roar of the sea monsters, the yawning creak of the falling timber. Then something hit him across the back of the head and black, unforgiving night descended.

A
dam jerked awake from the blackness of his sleep into strong, burning daylight. He was soaking wet. His head was pounding, and his lips felt cracked and swollen; he licked them and almost choked on the salty taste. He held very still, lying on his back on wet sand, concentrating on the hiss and lap of the sea in his ears.

A single question arrowed through his mind:
Where's Dad?

As the events of last night began to drip back into his memory, Adam dimly recalled someone hauling him out of the RIB as it scraped onto the shore. Exhausted after so many days' sedation, he'd blacked out again soon after. Even now he just wanted to curl up and go back to the dark. He didn't feel ready to face the truth of his situation.

I'm stranded. Me and the wildlife . . . and who else?
Adam's eyes snapped open, and he flinched from the harsh light.

He was lying on a beach maybe a hundred meters long, bookended by rocky outcrops. Looking up, he saw an unbroken line of palm trees, shielding the rest of the island from sight. He felt the top of his head and winced as he touched a huge bruise, its center etched with the wet crumble of a scab. His fingers came away bright red; he grimaced, but the injury didn't seem too bad.
That falling mast must have connected with other people before it got me
, he realized.

So where was everyone? There were churned up tracks in the sand, leading to the tree line. Others must have survived, but where had the RIBs vanished to?

He pictured the sea monsters tearing apart the
Hula Queen
. Was his dad still safe on Chen's other ship? Would he be trying to get to the island, to find Adam? Or since Chen had fallen into the sea, maybe the other crew would've cut their losses and just turned and left....

Adam stared out over the glittering turquoise sea that ranged before him. Debris from the
Hula Queen
bobbed on the gentle waves or lay strewn across the beach: pieces of timber, clothes, plastic boxes, a length of rope.

Then Adam realized there were bodies in the water too.

With a sick feeling, he waded out toward the nearest figure. It was floating facedown, the upper body tangled in a length of sail. Holding his breath, he pulled at the thick, sodden material. That drew the body toward him, and he retreated squeamishly. As he did so, the scrap of sail pulled loose and he recognized the gray cap floating just to the side of the head. It was Doug. Adam tried to turn the bloated body over. It seemed to weigh a ton. Water streamed from the man's open mouth, and Adam almost retched. He felt tears ball in his throat. He'd hardly known Doug, and the memories weren't exactly to be cherished. But to see the man dead, and to know how terrible his last moments must've been . . .

Anger swamped Adam, heightened by his rising despair. “Hope you're happy, Agent Chen,” he muttered. “If you aren't dead already.” He towed the lifeless body through the water to shore, then headed out again to ID the next body, dread weighing down every step. He saw another man floating on his back, his dead eyes baking in the sun.

Mechanically, Adam manhandled the body up onto the beach—he recognized him as one of the deckhands. Then he began to shake. The scale of his predicament was burning through him, hotter than the sun on his skin. He was stranded and alone on Raptor Island, completely cut off from the world outside. Whatever had trashed the
Hula Queen
would still be patrolling the waters. And surely Geneflow would know about the wreck by now? They were bound to come looking.

But even as he reflected on those dangers, the memory of the hideous red raptor creature calling for help spread through his head like blood through water. It was here, somewhere, with him and who knew what other horrors—all of them crowded together on a tiny speck in the sea.

Adam blinked away his tears and wiped snot from his top lip. He'd been caught in life-or-death situations before; there was no way he was going to give up now. And none of the wreckage in the water seemed to hail from the
Pahalu,
so that gave him hope. He stood up straight. First, he had to find his fellow survivors. Maybe Chen had been one of those who'd swum for it and found his way to shore. Maybe his radio had survived intact too. If they all stuck together, watched out for each other—

Suddenly a rustling, crashing noise carried from the dense tree line behind him. Adam turned, his heart lurching. There was no cover out here on the beach, nowhere to hide—

Thank God! It was the man from his crew who had fired the automatic rifle into the water. His clothes were in tatters, soaked dark with blood. His staring eyes were wild as he took in Adam and stopped running for a moment. But the crashing from the trees hadn't stopped. The man turned in terror to look at whatever was coming after him—and a colorless jet of fluid burst from the undergrowth, catching him full in the face. The man screamed, an awful, high-pitched noise, and fell to his knees, clawing at his eyes.

“Help me!” he yelled as the skin on his face started bubbling with gruesome blisters. “I can't see! I can't see!”

The cries jolted Adam into action. He started to run over.

But then a monster pushed out from the foliage.

Adam skidded to a stop. Just fifty or so meters away there stood a massive, hulking creature, a few strides from the screaming man. Staring intently. Salivating.

A dinosaur.

Time slowed as the beast burned into Adam's senses. It was different from the raptor in the video: bulkier, clay-gray, as tall and broad as two men. Its eyes were dark and narrowed. The snout was long like a crocodile's, the jaws crammed with a wayward mess of ivory spikes that looked strong enough to tear through metal. Its thick, upright torso was balanced on stocky, muscular legs, and its long, ridged neck was balanced by an even longer tail, coiling and twitching as though it had a life of its own. Adam's eyes flicked between the long, bladelike claws on the ends of the monster's twitching fingers and the hooked talons curving up from its hind legs, and his skin crawled like it had places to go.