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Jurassic Park: Remnants Part 1 Chapter 1
By The Host
J U R A S S I C P A R K: R E M N A N T S
PART ONE
T H E B I L L I O N A I R E S
THE MOUNTAIN PATH
It was hot. Really fucking hot.
Harold Keyser puffed along behind the group wondering what the hell he’d got himself into. One of those safari adventure tours, make you feel like you’re on Survivor, except you pay them and not the other way around. Up ahead an insufferable guide decked out in khakis and a Tilley hat, like some absurd Victorian explorer peeling back fronds to discover a lost city loaded with treasure or a mysterious valley filled with prehistoric beasts or a strange forest tribe of two-headed pygmies. The twinkle in the man’s eyes promised one adventure after another, the sort of old-fashioned swashbuckling you could only see these days in a Spielberg movie, and exciting journeys through primeval jungle. It had looked like the Thrill of a Lifetime; and anyway, Harold’s doctor said he needed the exercise. So after his wife nagged at him to sweep her away on a second honeymoon to Costa Rica, he had eventually caved. Who knows; maybe he could be an Indiana Jones himself? Maybe he’d find a forgotten diamond mine? Not that he’d need it.
Instead he had found only mosquitoes, big as his hammy fist he swore, and this fucking heat. And where was his wife? At the goddamned resort in San Jose working on her goddamned tan. May she burn! Harold Keyser thought, Burn all the way to hell.
Harold harrumphed, a cough at the back of his throat waiting to wrack his exhausted body, but he held it back. He pushed it down with a hearty swig from his water bottle and pressed on up the mountain with a sigh. He had left the hotel at six in the morning to make his way up this mountain – what was it, Cerro Matama-something-or-other? – and had reached the trailhead at seven thirty. They were waiting already; a group of maybe thirty tourists, most of them tanned young university students on their summer vacations. Wasn’t there some sort of biological preserve around here? Maybe some of them worked there. They were all, anyway, very experienced hikers, used to the heat and the bugs and the humidity and the creepers that snaked across the path here and there to trip less suspecting tourists. At the sight of them something told Harold he should turn back and give up, he’d never be able to keep up with these kids; but then something else told him his wife would be angry and his doctor would too and, besides, more than a few of the girls looked pretty good in their tight clothes, and it had been a long time since he’d been so readily accepted into so young a crowd. Sure, his money was an avenue into the hottest Manhattan clubs. But he was pushing sixty and looked old for his age, and the thought of entering a dark room filled with undulating bodies of lithe young girls terrified him. Here, though, it was different: open, not claustrophobic; the girls were dressed for sport, no sex; and the wife actually wanted him here.
So he’d started hiking, soon taking the rear. Which he didn’t mind at first – he could leer without being leered at. The girl just ahead of him, Jessica he thought, was a biology student of about twenty-three; nut-brown skin and thick blonde hair and a tight ass in tighter shorts, just the way he liked ‘em. But he’d fallen farther and farther behind, sometimes barely catching up with the group on their breaks. The safari leader had offered to send one of the more experienced hikers back to walk with Harold and act as a sort of rear guard. Harold boldly refused. He had, after all, to retain at least some of his dignity.
And now it was about two o’clock and he couldn’t see anyone ahead, not even Jessica, and it was getting harder and harder to go on. The jungle had been close about him from the beginning and seemed to be closer still, blocking all sunlight. Maybe it was claustrophobic here after all.
A bead of sweat stung Harold’s right eye. He cursed as he tried to rub it away, still trodding onward and upward. His right foot caught a thick root grown over the path and he suddenly stumbled forward with a thud.
Harold slowly sat himself up, panting. It was still hot. He was drenched in sweat. A fly buzzed up to him and he half-heartedly waved it away. Three more hours of hiking, at least, before camp. At least tomorrow it was all downhill.
He unscrewed the cap of his water bottle and took a long draught. Not much left, and he didn’t know how far it was to water. It was pretty stupid of him, and greedy. Wouldn’t it be ironic to dehydrate himself in this overwhelming humidity? And his wife back at the goddamn hotel working on her goddamn tan. He was a fool to agree to this, to let himself be swayed by young girls in tight pants. Was he a teenager again? Certainly not. As a teen he wouldn’t have been so horribly out of shape, not even he. As a teen he wouldn’t be sitting here in the middle of the path like a damn fool, his $300 cotton shorts covered in sweat and filth, willing himself to get up with no will whatsoever.
He sat there several moments and might have dozed off if that bloody fly hadn’t come back to munch on his left arm. With a grunt Harold picked himself up off the ground. He readjusted his backpack, put away his water bottle, and not without considerable grunting and harrumphing set on once again.
Ten minutes passed. His feet ached, his lungs burned, his body ached. His eyes screamed with the sting of sweat. He could barely see. Still he went on. There was now a queer determination at the back of his brain, a funny little voice that said Keep going even when his heart and his mind and his body said Stop! He’d show his wife, he’d show the doctor, he’d show that smarmy little tour guide, and he’d show Jessica: Harold Keyser wouldn’t be beaten by a mountain. Not the man that had pulled himself up by his bootstraps, supporting his brothers and sisters when his mother died forty years ago, working in demolition duty in a Kentucky mine, and look at him now! Object of every gold digger’s affection; bane of every shop rat’s existence. He was Harold Keyser and like his German namesake he would rule this mountain!
His head swam.
He came to with a start. The back of his head screamed bloody murder. His breath came in tattered gasps. He was staring straight up into a cloudless sky.
‘Jesus Christ,’ he said aloud. He looked at his watch: 2:30pm. He must have passed out but, if so, had only winked out a matter of minutes. Thank God for that. What was he thinking? He grabbed his water bottle but it was empty. The cap had fallen off and it had spilled in his tumble. Harold regarded the damp spot on the path with dismay and increasing alarm. He had to get something to drink.
Nothing doing. Not until he was farther along the path. The group must be resting soon (they hadn’t in two hours), and even with his blackout they couldn’t be too far ahead. He stood up again, slowly, and brushed himself off. He stopped suddenly when he heard a soft cooing come from somewhere to his right. It was an odd sound, one he hadn’t heard in this jungle before; but he was no zoologist. Probably some bird.
He dragged himself up the hill and around a sharp bend left in the path. Here it suddenly became much steeper, looping back on itself as it crawled up a steep bank. He inwardly groaned. But even as he began his ascent he could hear a sound like rushing water. Was it the wind, just the wind in the trees? Maybe. He cautiously pressed on, a little more optimistic than moments ago.
Harold followed the path back right, mounting the great bank, and all of a sudden the trees before him opened up and the sun beat down upon him. He could see that the bank was crowned with a wide grassy field. Perhaps the group had stopped there?
He reached the top of the bank. To his right it slid back down into the canopy of trees; somewhere below that was the spot on the trail where he had passed out. To the left the path leveled and then disappeared amongst tall grass. The field stretched out even further and wider than he had hoped to imagine. In the distance trees waved in the breeze below the peak of the mountain. He was higher up than he had thought.
Harold happily made his way into the field, struck now by a refreshing cool sea breeze. Somewhere behind him, he knew, was the Pacific Ocean. On the other side of the peak ahead was the Caribbean Sea. It almost seemed, he thought bemusedly, that Costa Rica was a rude imposter blocking the intercourse of these two great bodies of water.
Water, water, water – he could definitely hear it now, somewhere to his left, along the top of the bank. He came to the top of a small rise and saw below him a swiftly moving stream and, beyond that maybe a half-mile, the rest of his group. With great relief Harold waved a single hand towards the others; one of them (he couldn’t say who from this distance) waved back. He would soon be with them, but first thing’s last: he needed water or his parched tongue would strangle him.
Harold walked down to the stream and bent over with his water bottle to scoop up some of the fresh water, icy cold. His back ached and he worried that he might actually collapse under the weight of his backpack, but he didn’t. Instead he stood straight up and dropped a couple of purification tablets in. He shook the water and set his watch: five minutes to take effect. He could have dropped the neutralizer in as well, but with the choice of waiting an additional ten minutes or drinking water that tasted of iodine, he would choose the iodine.
He plunked down on the ground and shouldered out of his backpack, exhaling heavily and letting the breeze play with his hair. He then heard that cooing noise again, followed by a soft hoot. He sat up, intrigued. It didn’t sound like it came from anything large and dangerous. He knew there were some animals in the jungle that you shouldn’t play with, but this didn’t sound like one of them. It sounded cute and playful and cuddly. He thought he might get a picture of this strange hooting bird/lizard/whatever it might be for his stepdaughter. Even his wife might be interested to hear about it and to see it, although he highly doubted that.
There it was again! Definitely to his left, along the stream, towards the bank. He left his pack behind and decided to investigate. He still had two minutes before he could drink his water anyway, and he wasn’t moving on before then.
The trees were nearest him in this direction, even nearer than he though. He was almost under the eaves of the forest barely a moment after he’d left his resting place. The water was swifter here and louder, much louder; the land dipped toward the tiny stream so that it seemed to cleave its way through the ground toward the bank’s edge. Harold stayed on the more solid terrain above the brook, but he found that he had to carefully navigate around rocks and roots and mud.
Soon the mud and grass of the meadow blended into spongy moss. His watch timer went off. Harold paused, took a swig of water – it had a disgusting, bitter taste, but was rejuvenating nonetheless – and took his bearings. He was back in the jungle, though just barely. The stream was in a miniature canyon of sorts, three feet wide and maybe five feet deep, running swift and loud. He heard the twittering of birds and the scrabbling of tiny creatures in the underbrush. Then the cooing again. He was getting close.
What the hell.
Harold continued slowly forward, carefully placing his feet. He allowed himself to be distracted only a second, peering into the cleft of the stream below, when his foot hit a patch of slick mud and he comically dropped down. Three times in twenty minutes, he thought. Thank God my ass is flabby enough to break the fall. He snorted at his own wit.
The woods were thicker here; the river even faster; the ledge must be close. I ought to be getting back. Harold turned around as he picked himself up just as he heard a great crashing sound behind him and more hooting, much louder, much closer. He stumbled back down. This time he would not get up: the ground gave way beneath him.
Harold struggled to grab at anything – roots, stems, rocks, anything – but only came up with a handful of moss. He tumbled down into the stream below, hitting rocks on the way. He landed hard in the cold water. It was surprisingly deep. He struggled to get his head above water, and only in time to see that he was being drawn along the current of the stream. His head burned; his hands and clothes were torn. He tried desperately to stop his inexorable backwards movement but to no avail. Then he fell.
He fell free through the air with a scream, not knowing how far was down. Far too suddenly he hit ground. The back of his head struck a rock with searing pain; then suddenly he felt warm and dizzy. His legs were being pounded by water – there was a waterfall here, and a shallow pool. He had plummeted maybe ten feet, that’s all. But he had hit bottom hard. And he was disoriented to say the least.
Slowly he tried to turn himself around, get off his back and onto his hands and knees. It was easier said then done. With even a hint of movement his head swam. He saw stars. He felt sick to his stomach. He felt dizzy. Darkness seemed about to close in on him.
And then he was on his hands and knees, still in the water but right side up. He vomited, terrified by the sight of his lunch swirling in the pool with him. He tried to stand up, fell back down, and sat there a moment. Tentatively he reached back and felt the crown of his head. It was wet – of course, he’d just fallen in water! – but it was matted with something thicker than water. He looked at his fingers. Red. Suddenly he felt sick to his stomach again. He wanted to cry.
His whimper was met by another, both high-pitched and guttural. There was a thrashing sound ahead. He slowly looked up. There was a huge green monster in front of him. It cocked its head quizzically.
Harold almost laughed. I’m insane. Fucking insane. Of course that was it. He’d hit his head and he was delirious, and here he was imagining a giant green lizard thing in front of him, standing on two legs, twenty feet tall. Goddamn hilarious.
Despite himself he laughed.
The creature hooted in response and cocked its head the other way. Now Harold was struck with a sudden fear. What if this was real? But it couldn’t be.
He heard a faraway voice yell, ‘Harold!’, far away and atop the bank. He drew himself up, almost swooning, but his fear was now greater than his pain. A soft coo as he slowly backpedaled, gripping his throbbing head. He couldn’t take his eyes off of the green monster. It eyed him wickedly. The, suddenly, the monster’s eyes darted right, then forward again, and then a huge frill Harold hadn’t seen before opened like a Chinese fan from the monster’s neck, brightly colored, and Harold had never been so afraid in his life. The thing roared or sneered and Harold stumbled backward and then spun around back onto his knees but now facing the bank. Something hit him, some sort of goo, like tree sap but not as thick and so hot, so hot, burning now, and Harold screamed. He could hear the voices above him but not what they were saying, and the monster behind him but not what it was doing, and he could feel the burning in his legs and his side where the goo had hit him and in his lungs, and his throbbing head, and his throbbing heart. Harold hit dry land and half ran half stumbled on what might have been a sprained ankle along the base of the bank, now too scared to scream, and more of the goo stuff hit the back of his head. It made contact with his bloody scalp wound and Harold had never known pain like that before, like acid burning through hair and flesh and bone and brain; fireworks went off inside his head and he fell forward into the dirt gripping the back of his head and writhing in pain. He breathed in dust and coughed, hacked it out, and gulped, and then suddenly felt a crushing pain as something came down hard on his back. He knew the thing was on top of him. Now he could feel its breath on him. He cried. The last thing he heard, close by his ear, was a soft coo.
Please comment and tell me what you think!
-H
7/7/2003 10:06:49 PM
(Updated: 7/7/2003 10:07:27 PM)
(Updated: 7/7/2003 10:09:56 PM)
Comment on this fan fiction!
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