Jurassic War

Twelve

Dawson watched the headlights of a transport cut through the jungle. The beams bobbed and darted into the distance, as though the vehicle backed away. A pause, then the truck jostled ahead, moving slowly over the desolate lane, and then the lights disappeared from view.

Ominous yellow orbs inched forward from the trees and shrubs, tilting from side to side as if inspecting the American defensive line.

Some marines rose to standing positions, stretching out their backs after a long battle in the cramped fighting holes. They seemed oblivious to a possible threat. Dawson wanted to call to them, warn of the danger, but he couldn’t think of what to say. He didn’t know what exactly lurked in the jungle.

Don’t they see the creatures? He wondered.

He’d told Staff Sergeant Williams about the lizard with the large teeth. Maybe he would alert them.

When the grinding from the truck engine dissipated, the creatures stepped from the leafy tree line onto the sandy beach. They stood a few feet tall, moving forward, birdlike, with heads twitching back and forth, and tails outstretched, frozen in position. Sharp fangs protruded from snarling muzzles.

Now, he recognized them from schoolbooks: Procompsognathus.

Dawson scanned for Staff Sergeant Williams. His superior leaned against a fighting hole, with his helmet off and neck resting on the berm, looking away from the encroaching creatures. Without any means for Williams to spot the beasts approaching from his rear, Dawson again considered calling out a warning.

Suddenly, the dinosaurs broke into a trot, making a move toward their prey.

All of them stood about three feet tall, and ran swiftly across the beachhead towards the Raiders, who focused on their weapons, unawares.

Dawson shook his head, unable to explain the threat. Instead, he raised his rifle and fired at the Procompsognathus in the lead. The dinosaur staggered but kept advancing. Aggressive. Simultaneously, a shot rang out from the jungle. A Sanpachi rifle blast.

Raiders moved into action. Everyone hunkered down in their fighting holes, as the chambering of rounds echoed across the dark beach. Dawson fired again, striking the same beast, then the wounded dinosaur lost its footing and fell, chin first into the sand.

A fusillade of automatic machinegun fire riddled the tree line. Grenades exploded, hurling sand and appendages into the air. The cacophony rung Dawson’s ears. Dinosaurs yowled in pain. Some dropped dead, and others writhed in the sand, while a wave of fierce beasts continued to mark their pursuit towards awaiting spoils.

Some marines focused their firing on the jungle, probably thinking the Japanese had returned to the fight. Approaching creatures were obscured by the darkness and smoke. Most of the rounds flew over the heads of charging dinosaurs, riddling leaves to no avail.

Dawson continued to target dinosaurs in the front, taking them down one at a time. But the creatures were fast and soon reached the forward positions. Marines screamed in fear and surprise. Small arms fire ignited the darkness. Now, pistol and rifle fire blasted in a sundry of directions, no longer trained at the tree line. A bullet whizzed past Dawson’s right ear.

Ferocious eyes and menacing teeth shone in the glimmering light. Snarling and tearing resounded from the front lines. And the omnipresent cries of pain and agony lent to confusion and hysteria among the troops. Everyone appeared slow to register the actual threat.

A dark streak gushed into the air as a dinosaur found purchase on a marine’s jugular vein. Dawson crawled from his hole, intent on joining the fray, with many already in hand-to-claw combat against the ravenous beasts. But something knocked him back into the foxhole. A set of menacing eyes peered down at him, and the thing twitched its foot, resting on the berm.

Massive claws protruded from its limbs, and the foot glimmered with sanguine fluid. Dawson’s chest ached from striations the creature had gouged through his shirt. The damn thing had trounced him back into the fighting hole with a swift kick. Now, it meant to tear him to shreds and feast upon the remains.

The dinosaur eyed him for a moment, as though sizing him up before lunging for a kill strike to the neck. Dawson’s rifle lay to his left, where it had fallen after the blow.

He contemplated the timing to reach for the Garand compared with the distance from the dinosaur. It would pounce as soon as he moved, and the creature would be upon him, making the rifle ineffective, except to ward off the beast by gripping the stock like a staff.

Sensing the fight instinct rising to the surface, the dinosaur bared its mouth, full of sharp teeth. Bits of bloodied uniform were stuck between them. It snarled. Dawson gulped and wondered how he could outmatch the creature that had already killed a fierce commando. He reached for his stiletto shaped fighting knife, crafted from a version used by the British marines.

The movement caused the dinosaur to leap into the fighting hole.

Its long muzzle shot towards his neck with lightning speed. Dawson shifted right, and the creature bit into his left shoulder. Tasting fabric, it reeled back and hissed, tongue oscillating.

He latched onto the handle of the fighting knife and yanked it from the sheath. The dinosaur lunged in attack. Dawson pressed his heels into the earth and slid upward.

The creature bit a scrap of flesh loose from his upper chest.

Dawson plunged the blade into its side. The dinosaur pulled back, screeched and snapped, then lunged at him.

He yanked the knife free and sent it home again.

Yowling, the creature wasn’t dismayed, and assailed him, ravenously chomping at his chest and arms. He sunk the knife into the thick hide, repeatedly to no avail, then drove his knee upward, shoving the creature from its offensive perch.

The effort exposed the dinosaur’s underbelly.

Dawson shoved the blade into its viscera, plunging it deep inside the creature, and his fist clutched the knife tightly and penetrated the intestinal cavity. Warm blood and body fluids encased his hand.

Caterwauling in misery, the dinosaur jumped back, and scrambled from the hole. It staggered, then turned back to set upon him again. Dawson instinctively reached for his rifle, slid it to his shoulder. He fired a round into the dinosaur’s throat.

A gurgle emitted from the hole as it tried to hiss and advance upon him.

He fired two more shots, digging into its chest. Another wail resounded from the dinosaur as it careened over the sandy berm toward him.

Dawson pulled the trigger. Click.

Tossing the rifle aside, he snatched up the knife and lunged from the hole, driving a shoulder under its chin, and embracing the creature in a bear hug. It toppled over and flailed with its hind legs, scratching and cleaving at his midsection.

He rolled off the dinosaur and rose to his knees. Reaching out with his left hand, Dawson grabbed it by the neck, squeezing with all his might. The creature thrashed in panic, with its body rippling over the sand. But the head remained still, pinned to the earth. He made a quick thrust into its eye, stabbing into the creature’s brain.

A single moan crept out with its last dying breath.

Dawson fell into the sand beside the slain beast and inhaled deeply, trying to regain his breath and recover from the conflict. He feared another Procompsognathus would happen upon the scene and make short work of him. Somehow, he couldn’t catch his breath, and could not budge from his position. All motor functioning was lost. Paralysis.

Sounds of gunfire blasted on the beach all around him, a muffled sound that no longer resonated as loud battlefield eruptions, but rather a surreal event unfolding in the landing zone.

Dawson drifted into a state of apoplexy. As he slipped into blackness, he contemplated whether the dinosaur had gotten the better of him, possibly inflicting a mortal wound.

An explosion brought Dawson to his senses. He sat up with ears ringing as flames wafted from the jungle. Dead bodies and dinosaur carcasses were strewn across the beach from the intense battle. Aerial machineguns strafed the tree line and tore into the underbrush.

The enemy command had called in air support, and likely reinforcements.

Another pass, and two Japanese zeros lit up the jungle with the same result. Bombs whistled into the underbrush and exploded, and enemy planes riddled the dense jungle to smithereens. Nothing in the vegetation could survive.

Dawson wondered if any marine scouts had ventured inland. He scanned the beachhead for members of Able Company and spotted a few marines he knew from the unit, and he figured the conflict with the dinosaurs had delayed plans to move into the interior. The planes flew off. He crept forward on hands and knees, trying to find Staff Sergeant Williams for an update.

“They’ve missed us altogether,” Mudhole said, grinning.

“Maybe they’re not trying to hit us.” Dawson took a seated position.

“You think there could be more of those… things?”

“We don’t know what’s on this island.” Dawson shrugged. “The British set up a remote outpost on the other side of the atoll years ago, but they didn’t spend much time here. Probably never explored the interior.”

“Well, the Japanese developed it more. They wouldn’t have done that if any more of those things were crawling around the island.”

Dawson considered the comment. Mudhole was trying to sound hopeful, but his tone didn’t reveal much conviction. He couldn’t be sure about anything. Looking around for the rest of his unit, he took a swig of water from his canteen.

He broke off in the middle of a sip, coughing uncontrollably.

Collins lay on the beach, torn apart, and barely recognizable. The sand was saturated in his blood, like oil had leaked from an old car.

A marine on the beach caught him glancing at the body. Bishop sat with his legs dangling in a fighting hole, checking over his Browning, with an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth. He lifted his chin, acknowledging Dawson with a sullen look in his eyes.

Bishop shrugged, suggesting there was nothing that could have been done. The Raiders had taken a lot of casualties, just not from the enemy they’d expected to encounter.

Another buzz from airplane engines reverberated off the ocean.

The Raiders would be sitting ducks if they remained on the beachhead. Dawson spotted Staff Sergeant Williams huddled with the commanding officer. The situation looked grim. He figured if they headed into the interior, they would encounter the rest of the Japanese garrison and possibly more dinosaurs. And the rubber boats would be left for the planes to riddle with bullets, hampering any return to the submarines.

Remaining on the beachhead would make them vulnerable to aerial attack. But heading back into the water wouldn’t be much better. The boats couldn’t get past the heavy surf. Dawson figured the Raiders would move forward with the mission and head into the interior.

The buzz of approaching fighters grew louder. And it sounded like a squadron.

Dawson crept closer to the command post and picked up some of the planning. Lieutenant Colonel Carson’s voice boomed over the others. He solicited input from the officers, and the staff noncommissioned officers stood by ready to provide feedback. Carson mentioned surrender, while others felt aborting the mission as a better option. Captain Roosevelt commented that the black rubber boats would make difficult moving targets, as compared to sitting waiting to get attacked on the beachhead. Everyone else wanted to push into the interior, figuring the way forward to completing the mission was open.

Carson had grown up in New England, the son of a Congregational Church minister. He’d run away from home to join the Army and fight in the Great War, then later he switched over to the Marine Corps and earned a commission as an officer. After being assigned to China for several years, he returned stateside to develop the first United States special operations unit.

The Raiders were established as commandos to function like their British counterparts and the Chinese guerillas. He did away with officer and noncommission officer messes and had all the commandos eat together, and he allowed everyone from the top down with an opportunity to provide input. Partly a New England town hall method and part communist egalitarianism, some senior enlisted marines disfavored the approach. Now, the staff noncommissioned officers stood watching the decision-making process with apparent frowns on their faces. They clearly preferred the simpler approach of taking orders and following through with an assignment.

Dawson had been indoctrinated by the marines to always step forward, advance on the battlefield, and close-width and destroy the enemy. Surrender was not part of the Marine Corps creed, unless it was absolutely necessary. At this point, the enemy wasn’t anywhere in sight, and conditions upon surrender were not necessarily going to be favorable. There had already been rumors of the enemy violating the Geneva Convention regulations for prisoners of war. The thought of giving up was a dismal prospect.

Every available option left Dawson with an unsettling feeling in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t want to surrender, and he hoped they would move into action soon. Anything was better than standing around waiting.