|
Muldoon's Vengeance
By Dino-dave
Hey Guys. I recently dug up this fanfic I wrote about 2 years ago. It still stands as my favourite fanfic.
MULDOONS VENGEANCE
The pale morning light filtered through the blinds of Michael Stephens’ office. It fell on his desk and highlighted the narrow rivers of sweat running down his face. He sat up and began nervously fidgeting with the pen on his desk. Opposite him a tall dark man clothed in khaki shorts and waistcoat sat in the shadows.
‘Uh.., Uh..’ Stephens’ stuttered, clicking his pen erratically.
The man leaned out of the darkness. Stephens could instantly see three prominent scars that ran along his face diagonally.
‘My god….’ Stephens felt as if he was going to be sick.
‘The name’s Muldoon. I’ve been searching for you’ He spoke his words like velvet flowing out of a robot ‘You’re a very dangerous man.’
‘Uh…, Uh…I.., Uh’
‘But you don’t look it.’ He slowly placed his eagle like hands on the desk. His dark brown eyes cut through the wall of light and stared right into Stephens’.
‘I.., I…’ Stephens quivered.
‘You hear my side of the story first, eh?’
Stephens nodded.
‘Clever Girl’
The other female snapped back her grin to gape at him as she compressed her back limbs and jumped feet first at Muldoon’s chest. Muldoon screamed with penetrating volume to tell others near him that the raptors were loose and hunting. He felt the retractable claws scraping on his bullet proof vest as he whipped his knife from it’s holster. The female’s eyes flicked back and forth, trying to work out why she wasn’t already standing in a wet, warm mass of pain. The female jumped back, flinging herself six metres clear of Muldoon. She started screaming and hissing at him, trying to provoke him to run away, so that she could have a go at tearing his back. Muldoon stood his ground, holding the knife firmly in his hand. He twisted and turned the blade, trying to reflect the sunlight in to the raptor’s eyes.
The other raptor to the right started to bolt towards him, tightening the muscles for an attack. Muldoon waited for the precise moment to jump. The raptor lunged and saw that Muldoon had leapt in the air already, so she raised her altitude to catch him. In a split second Muldoon dropped and ducked, the raptor just sailing above his head. He had her. The raptor crumpled behind him. He turned and sank the blade straight into the animal’s spine, hearing the crack squish was a triumph. Now there was just the clever one. Muldoon turned, withdrawing his knife from the animal’s back. The intelligent female had gone. Muldoon heard rustling in the distance, then silence.
On his way back to the compound, Muldoon was wondering whether Ellie had turned the power back on, when his thoughts were interrupted by the monotonous thudding of a helicopter. It resonated through the jungle.
‘Dammit!’ Muldoon knew Hammond and his friends had gone. He wandered into the control room, lights on. He was glad he had power. He noticed the smashed window and the step ladder lying awkwardly over Nedry’s computer. Muldoon walked up to one of the working computers and wished Arnold was there. He didn’t have a clue about computers. He tried one of the phones. The line was dead. He would have to find a small boat at the docks and try to get home from there.
Muldoon stumbled down to the bunker to gather supplies. He was gazing at the empty clinical table where Malcom had lay when he noticed a stack of files in the corner of the room. Hammond must have left them behind. In his curiousity he walked over to the files and began sifting through page after page of confidential documents, eyes glazed over as he consumed the information blazing on the page. His lips went dry. Sweat streamed from his forehead. He could not believe what he was reading. Muldoon tore out the last page of the files with the heading ‘SUMMARY’, scooped up a rifle with seven rounds in it and left the bunker.
He heard the crunch of the T-Rex roaming the lush rainforests of Jurassic Park as he inspected the Visitors’ Centre. He studied the splintered remains of the building and saw the bodies of two female raptors, neither of them the intelligent one. He estimated the distance to the docks to be about five miles, so he took refreshments from the Visitors Centres’ bar and then headed on towards the docks.
Muldoon was two miles down the dirt track when he noticed a faint squeaking in the foliage. He was familiar with those noises. He paced up to the undergrowth and pulled back a large shrub to reveal a family of small brown green lizards. Compsognathus. Muldoon followed the edge of the bushes until he came across the remains of large man who had been consumed by several different species of dinosaur. Muldoon noted the tar-like substance splattered over the man’s shirt. Muldoon tilted his head to look at the man and realised the pale plump head was Nedry’s. The compys in the bush were feasting on his arm. Muldoon watched as the compys gorged themselves with little chunks of Nedry like featherless birds. Then they scattered. The compys hurried across the dirt track and disappeared in to the foliage.
Muldoon stood in the thick silence, waiting for something to happen. He heard the rustling of the bushes to his left. He raised his rifle and waited, trying to still his heartbeat. A loud hooting erupted from the bush in front of him. He watched as the green leaves parted and the crested dilophosaurus hopped out into the open. It’s eyes rolled in their sockets, quietly studying this human before it. Muldoon tried not to make eye contact, he knew dilophosaurus felt threatened by eye contact and would spit at his eyes, obviously what had happened to Nedry. The dilophosaurus hooted, waving it’s tail gracefully. Muldoon tried to sneak away, slowly backing off along the dirt track..
Suddenly the dilophosaur fanned a brightly coloured frill and forced air from it’s gut up through it’s venom glands to make a wet roar. Muldoon froze. The call echoed through the hollow jungle, startling birds several kilometres away. Then the dilophosaur stopped screaming. It’s eyes twitched and focused on a soft hooting permeating through the leaves. The dilophosaur lowered it’s rattling frill as another dilophosaur emerged from the foliage. The visitor crept up to it’s twin and they made eye contact simultaneously. Both raised their fans the moment their yellow eyes clicked, and they snapped at each other like bickering dogs. The contestant made a bite for the dilophosaur’s neck.
Muldoon sprinted down the track. After running for thirty metres Muldoon caught a glimpse of a vehicle slanted above a small waterfall. On closer inspection Muldoon found keys in the ignition and smears of blood on the driver’s seat. A crumpled laminated ID card lay on the passenger’s seat.
‘Nedry.’
Muldoon slotted his rifle into the gap between the driver’s seat and the door and ignited the engine. As he reversed onto the track Muldoon noticed the dilophosaurs fighting in his rear view mirror. The first had been wounded, a fragment of it’s torn frill hung limply from it’s neck. Muldoon put his foot on the gas. The jeep stuttered as the wounded dilophosaur collapsed.
As Muldoon glanced at the fuel gauge he heard a thunderous crash to the rear of the car. In the time it had taken him to check the gauge a juvenile rex had snapped out of the jungle, crushed the winning dilophosaur and scooped up the other in it’s mouth of knives. Muldoon heard it’s spine buckle under the weight of the rex’s jaws. The rex gulped the dead animal and drooled over it’s next victim. Under it’s foot the dilophosaur screamed for mercy before having it’s upper body dislocated from it’s crushed legs and tail. Muldoon stamped on the gas, the car suffocating from lack of oil. The juvenile let out a pre-pubescent roar and trundled back into the jungle, dragging pieces of the dilophosaur under it’s foot. Muldoon released the strain on the gas and let out a labourious sigh. The jeep sputtered steadily down the track, away from the steaming remnants of two dilophosaurs.
Michael Stephens sat in what seemed like a stifling heat. He wiped his oily face and placed his broken pen on the table. A scraping noise echoed from the corridor outside Stephens’ office. Stephens sank into his chair, eyes widening. Muldoon creased his face into a grin as he watched him squirm.
‘Listen, I didn’t…, I mean I..’ Stephens glanced at the exit. Muldoon could see he wanted to leave.
‘I haven’t finished my story yet.’ So he went on.
‘Blast!’ The car’s exhaust was raw. It hacked and coughed to a halt two miles from the docks. Muldoon got out of the car and felt the waves of heat reflected off the ground dust scald his face. He felt his blood bubbling under his skin, his lungs searing with the dry heat of the air. As he gripped the rifle brown blobs formed before his eyes, joining together and rippling like reflections in water. The blobs grouped together and formed a lumbering animal moving through the fog of heat.
Muldoon shaded his eyes and watched as a fully grown T-Rex rumbled along the dirt track, sniffing the air for the presence of meat. Standing in the wobbling heat, Muldoon wondered whether the rex was blind, with it’s sight depending on movement. It was getting close now. Muldoon could see it’s dilated pupil sliding robotically in it’s socket. It moved closer, lowering it’s head. The rex’s head was parallel with him now, it was staring right at Muldoon, who held it’s gaze not with fear, but with respect. He knew this animal. The markings around it’s nostrils told him it was their first female rex. She paused, the tendons in her thighs flexing hesitantly. Her eyelids squeezed together, the protective film rolling back smoothly over her glassy eyeballs. She sniffed the air and waited for Muldoon to make a mistake. Muldoon held his breath. The rex grunted and impatiently swung her boulder of a head into Muldoon’s stomach. He fell back, the immense thrust causing a gust of warm air to brush over him. The rex’s pupils swirled to a pin prick, a furious gaze focusing on Muldoon, trying to steady himself.
‘Clever Girl’
Muldoon scrambled onto the dirt track, the rex spinning under her own tail to follow the small morsel sprinting away from her. Muldoon stopped running a healthy distance from the rex, slid the rifle out from under his armpit and took aim. He did not want to kill the girl, he just wanted to slow her down so that he could make it safely to the docks. The rex inhaled and let out a foghorn of a roar. Muldoon aimed at the animal’s thigh, where it would get lodged in the fat and heal over. Muldoon squeezed the trigger. The gun jammed. Muldoon swore and snapped the rifle open The shell was jammed in the barrel, there was nothing he could do. The rex bellowed and charged at Muldoon. She swung open her jaws to receive the meal. Muldoon shut his eyes and accepted his grim fate.
An earth shaking clap heralded the arrival of the juvenile rex, who had burst out of the foliage and collided head on with the adult female. She toppled over and began sliding down the embankment. Her foot hooked the juvenile’s ankle, who had began snapping at Muldoon. The juvenile rex smacked into the earth and left a tear in the mud as it’s unconscious head flopped over the embankment. Muldoon stared wide eyed as the two super predators rolled down the hill and plunged into the green veil of the jungle.
Muldoon continued down the parched dirt track, shaken by his brush with death. He tried to repair the rifle as he walked, using pieces of branch to unclog the shell lodged in the barrel. As he finished unblocking the gun he heard the soft hiss of water lapping the shore. He rounded a corner and sighed thankfully at the sight of the docks. Several boats were moored next to the rickety wooden piers that lined the small cove. Some had onboard radios, but the batteries had been drained. He checked the fuel supplies of each, and filled the best boat he could find with the fuel from the others using cartons he found on the pier. He hoped he had enough fuel to make it close to the shore so that the tide would drag the boat in. Muldoon leaned his rifle against the rim of the boat and made one last journey around the boats to gather supplies.
As he was circling rope around his arm he heard an unpleasant noise trickle out of the jungle. Muldoon carefully placed the rope on the pier and started to run back to retrieve his rifle. A slender animal snarled out the trees, eyes trained on Muldoon scampering along the bay. Muldoon recognised the animal as the intelligent raptor that had deserted her partner near the compound. He stopped, noticing that the raptor would cross his path before he could reach his rifle. The raptor screamed in disappointment and began to stalk him. She lengthened her neck and straightened her legs to challenge Muldoon. He crouched and backed off onto a pier. From a gap between two small vessels he could see his boat three piers away from him. He could swim it.
The raptor clicked and hissed as she stepped onto the pier, eyes flashing with intelligence. She bowed her head and coiled her legs like spring, preparing to pounce. Muldoon jumped as she did to try and trick the animal, but this time the raptor did not change altitude, she just sailed on her current trajectory. Even if Muldoon ducked suddenly now he would still be unable to avoid the animal. Muldoon landed and braced himself. The raptor’s feet impacted his chest and the two cartwheeled along the pier. They unfolded at the end of the pier, the raptor firmly pinning Muldoon.
The raptor adjusted itself so that her feet held Muldoon down while her forelimbs were free to scratch Muldoon’s face. She had learnt from their last encounter that scoring the chest was pointless. The raptor raised it’s three bony fingers high into the air and brought it’s razor sharp talons down diagonally across Muldoon’s face. Muldoon screamed in pain as blood welled up in the gashes and dribbled down his cheeks. He lifted a leg and wedged it into the underside of the animal. With all his frustration he kicked the raptor up and back over his head. She soared for several metres before disappearing into a round splash of foam. Muldoon heard the raptor squeal as she tried to swim in the shallow water.
Muldoon took the opportunity and rolled off the edge of the pier into the water. He watched as his blood clouded the water around him. Muldoon leaned forward and began to tear through the water, swimming as fast as he could. He could see his boat next to the pier was less than twenty metres away from him. The raptor began kicking the water energetically and gradually moved. She growled as she gained speed and began paddling towards Muldoon. Muldoon turned five metres away from the pier and saw the bobbing head just above the surface of the water quickly approaching him. Muldoon flung his arms over his head and desperately swam for the pier. The raptor was less than a metre away from his legs as he eased himself onto the wooden pier. Suddenly the plank buckled and snapped and Muldoon’s legs sank into the water. The raptor clapped her jaws around Muldoon’s leg. He screamed in agony and reached for his rifle resting on the rim of his boat. He could feel the blood streaming round his ankles as he clasped his fingers round the weapon. He pulled it from the boat and slammed the butt of the gun into the animal’s head. She squealed and sank into the blood stained water. Muldoon sighed with relief and tended to his wounds.
That sigh echoed in Michael Stephens’ office. Muldoon leaned back into the shadows. Stephens could see two brown eyes glaring at him from the darkness.
‘I suppose you want to know what I found…’ Muldoon said. His tone was harsh and commanding. ‘In the bunker…in that file’
‘Y,..Yes actually.’ Stephens finished his first sentence in Muldoon’s presence.
‘I had always wondered how Hammond actually got that park up and running. I mean I’d heard he’d made millions through being a successful entrepreneur but a park like that must have cost billions. Don’t you agree?’
Stephens nodded slowly.
‘I found a sheet describing a so-called ‘Site B’. Apparently there is another island not far from Nublar that is the home to dinosaurs before they are ready to be shipped over to the main attraction. Hammond had certainly kept a secret there!’ Muldoon chuckled. ‘But then I returned to the question I yearned to know the answer to. Where on earth had Hammond got the funding for both of these islands?’
‘I flicked through the pages of this file and came to a page titled ‘SUMMARY’. On it were the records of money transferred to John’s bank account from The United States Government.’
Stephens looked away.
‘I also found a page detailing The United States’ Military involvement in transporting the dinosaurs across to the island. All this time I was asking myself ‘Why would The United States Government be interested in a theme park like this?’’ Muldoon scorned at Stephens.
‘And it was only when I came across a page about the selective cloning of certain vicious dinosaurs that I realised. You were testing weapons.’
Stephens sat up ‘Now you listen here…’
‘You used the mirage of a theme park to get people to go to your phoney island. That’s why you bred herbivores. Just to convince people the island was a theme park. That explains why the herbivores were so weak and had such short lifespans. You hadn’t concentrated on making the herbivores accurate or healthy, you only made sure that the predators were effective in killing people.’
‘What you are saying…’ Stephens stuttered.
‘That’s why the raptors I looked after were so intelligent and ruthless. They were killing machines’ Muldoons’ eyes burnt through the darkness with intense anger. He produced a creased piece of paper from his pocket. He unfolded it and smoothed it out on the desk. At the bottom was a signature with the words ‘Michael Stephens : Jurassic Park Project Chairman’. Below it were his phone numbers and addresses. ‘You were in charge.’
Michael Stephens collapsed into his chair. He had enough of excuses. He knew Muldoon was right.
‘We invited scientists, experts like Alan Grant to come to the island to see how well intelligent people who knew about dinosaurs would cope. We knew there were dinosaur experts in other countries, we wanted to see whether knowing about the animals would be an effective defence against those beasts.’ Stephens explained. ‘We had a mock up disaster ready and waiting for them when they returned from the tour. When Nedry stepped in, we didn’t need to create a disaster. We let the chaos continue and studied the animals’ behaviour through the security cameras.’
Muldoon felt his anger brewing like a storm, but he contained it. ‘I can’t believe someone like Hammond would have agreed to the deaths of so many people’ Muldoon said, shaking his head.
‘Oh Hammond didn’t know people were going to die. But we thought he would desert the place as soon as the dinosaurs got out. That’s why we sent his grandchildren onto the island, so that he would have stay there until he got them back.’ Stephens was impressed with the level of thinking that had gone into making Jurassic Park a well oiled death trap.
Muldoon stood up, sickened by the presence of this man ‘People I loved, friends died on that island.’
‘We had to test those animals, they could have proved to be an effective weapon.’ Stephens said.
‘So you’re not even going to use them as a weapon?!’ Muldoon roared.
‘They failed. People escaped. Many people.’ Stephens said coolly.
Muldoon leaned on Stephens’ desk and stared right into his eyes. ‘You make the handful who survived sound like a bad thing. All of those people; gifted people, experts in their fields died for no reason. And you sit here thinking that you have the right to order the execution of all those people, just because of your damned curiousity?!’
‘There are men in this world who might kill us!!’
Muldoon walked to the door and reached for the handle. He turned to stare coldly at the murderer sitting at his desk ‘Yes there are. Men like you.’
The door slammed firmly.
Stephens sat in silence for a moment, then chuckled. He reached for his cell phone next to his computer and realised it had gone. He looked up at the shadow outside his door. He stood up to call Muldoon back into his office when he realised the shadow at his door was not human. The handle turned, the door slowly swung open and an intelligent female raptor gracefully wandered into the room. As the animal drowsily walked into the room Stephens noticed a large bruise on her head where the butt of a rifle had knocked her unconscious. Stephens dropped his hankerchief as the realisation hit him. He was going to be a victim of his own weapon.
5/15/2004 12:14:13 PM
Comment on this fan fiction!
|
|
|
