Chapter 6: Moonlight stroll

  They waited until the moon had risen fully, a cold eye through the vine-choked skylights, before venturing from their makeshift shelter. Neither could sleep, so they decided to keep searching by moonlight.

  The Visitor Center didn’t feel safer by day, but it felt less haunted. At night, it pressed in on them; every wall seemed to hum with memory. Now, under pale silver light, the building lay still, rotting, and silent.

  They checked the control room first. Maria searched the desks. Drawers creaked. Most were empty or swollen shut from humidity. One drawer gave with a groan, revealing a stack of paper files half-fused from water damage. She peeled them apart slowly, careful not to tear what was left. The top sheet was brittle, a feeding log.

  Date: 6/8/93

  ? Velociraptor pen: 2 units of beef, 1 unit sedation protocol (cancelled)

  ? Note: Behavior is unusually aggressive. Containment sweep required. See incident memo 0442.

  She turned to Emilia, holding it up. “They had problems even before everything went bad.”

  Emilia looked over her shoulder. “You think those raptors are still alive?”

  “I don’t know,” Maria admitted. “If anything survived… it would probably be them.”

  Emilia didn’t argue. She just kept glancing over her shoulder.

  She was rifling through a cracked metal cabinet nearby. A rusted ring of keys clinked as she pulled them free from a hook inside. Next to them, wedged beneath a discolored clipboard, lay a faded staff ID badge, laminated, barely legible, the name worn away by years of damp. But the Jurassic Park logo was still visible, smiling and extinct.

  “We might open some locked rooms with these,” Emilia said. “Storage closets. Sublevels.”

  “Anything’s better than sitting still,” Maria replied.

  They ventured deeper into the admin wing. A door marked Supply, Authorized staff only, resisted at first, but the third key turned with a soft clunk. Inside, a narrow storage room opened like a tomb: dim, dust-laced air, sagging shelves, the sharp scent of old mildew.

  Blankets, a few threadbare uniforms. A cracked flashlight that flickered once, then died. A pair of walkie-talkies lay at the bottom of a plastic bin. Maria pulled one free and flipped the switch.

  Nothing.

  She tried the second one. The light blinked red. Then static hissed to life.

  They both froze.

  The static wavered. Then, briefly, something broke through.

  A voice, garbled. Warped by distance and interference. “…copy—unknown—north—location—status unknown—”

  Then silence.

  Maria stared at the radio. “That was a person.”

  Emilia took it from her, turning the dials. “Hello? Hello, we’re stranded on Isla Nublar. Can you hear us? Please respond. This is Emilia Hart and Maria Sullivan. Others are missing. Please respond.”

  Only static.

  “I don’t think it’s two-way,” Maria whispered. “Signals weak. Maybe one of those Longwave distress beacons?”

  Emilia lowered the radio. Her hands were shaking.

  “It means someone else is broadcasting,” Maria continued. “Somewhere.”

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Or it's someone like us.”

  Neither option was comforting.

  They returned to the control room. Maria spread the old park map out on the nearest desk. The tape edges had long since curled, and the ink had faded in places, but the layout was still clear: paddock zones, access roads, emergency routes.

  She traced one path with her finger, leading from the Visitor Center northward toward a service tunnel marked EVAC. A handwritten note in red ink beside it read: Maintenance Yard – Fuel Storage – Radio Tower Access.

  Emilia watched her silently.

  Maria sat back, rubbing her eyes. “We’re not getting rescued. If there’s any chance of getting a message out… We’ll have to move.”

  Outside, the jungle rustled again, something passing along the perimeter.

  Neither of them looked at the window. Neither notice.

  The night grew colder.

  Sometime past midnight, Maria stirred. She hadn’t truly fallen asleep, just drifted in and out of shallow awareness. Every creak of the walls, every brush of wind outside the window had her heart fluttering, nerves raw.

  Emilia lay beside her on the floor, wrapped in one of the faded blankets they’d found in storage. She wasn’t asleep either. Just still. Waiting. Listening.

  Then came the sound again. A scraping noise. Dry. Low. Something was brushing along the outer wall of the Visitor Center.

  Maria reached for the flashlight, thumb hovering over the switch, then stopped. No light. If she turned on the light, whatever was out there would notice. She just needed to stay quiet. She just needed to breathe. If whatever was out there knew exactly where they were, it would have gotten them already.

  Emilia sat up slowly, eyes wide. Her lips were trembling as she moved closer to Maria. The two women clung to each other. The sound came a third time. A soft scrape, followed by a weighty thump. Then another. Something was definitely circling the building.

  Neither of them spoke. Maria pressed herself tighter to Emilia. Her lungs stung from holding her breath. Emilia clung to her so tight she felt like a vice was crushing her. But neither woman made a sound.

  One… two… three slow steps. The sound drifted through the window. The steps were moving toward the corner of the building, trailing across the outer wall like it was feeling its way. Hunting, searching.

  The creature snorted, a wet sound. Silence followed the snort, that nerve-rattling silence. Maria’s grip tightened on the flashlight, but she didn’t dare turn it on. She could feel her own heart in her throat. Emilia clutched Maria tighter, mouth pressed tight, eyes locked on the window where the vines swayed slightly in the breeze, or was it the breeze?

  They waited again, blood roaring in their ears. The scraping started again, closer now. Slower. Then it stopped.

  They waited one heartbeat, then two. Slowly, Emilia rose, quietly, barefoot, and crept to the warped windowpane. She peered through a narrow break in the vines, careful not to disturb anything. Moonlight cast silver beams across the plaza. At first, she saw nothing. Then something moved.

  Low to the ground. It crossed between broken columns near the rotunda. The light barely touched it. Too fast to make out clearly, but the shape was wrong. Not human. Not a boar or a deer.

  Emilia ducked back.

  Maria looked at her, voice low. “What did you see?”

  “I don’t know,” she whispered. “It was too fast. I saw a long tail. It was big.”

  Maria’s mind ran through possibilities. She wished she had paid more attention in school. Some oversized reptile? But the footprints by the boat…

  “It didn’t linger,” Emilia said, almost apologizing. “It just… moved on.”

  “For now,” Maria said. She scrubbed a hand over her face. She held back tears of frustration and terror.

  They sat again, backs pressed to cold concrete, flashlight held between them like a candle they were too afraid to light. The jungle sounds had returned: bugs, birds, wind, but everything felt off, as if the island were afraid, too.

  Maria closed her eyes. Just to rest them. She didn’t think she could sleep. She mouthed a quiet prayer, not to be rescued, but to survive until the morning.