Chapter 22: 2nd Extraction

  Here's my edit of Chapter 8 part 4. Note the changes.

  Hector fished two road flares from his kit, striking the first against the concrete wall with a violent scrape.

  Red fire bloomed.

  The cramped intersection changed instantly to hard shadows and sharp edges. Everything was painted in red light. The second flare sparked and caught. Hector tossed them one after the other down the side corridors like bowling balls.

  They clattered, rolled, and came to rest with a hiss.

  Clicking, shrieking, and hisses erupted from all around, then broke apart as the red glare flooded the tunnels.

  “Move,” JJ said.

  Little Bear went first, shotgun raised as he set a quick pace down the tunnel they came from. JJ and Loni helped Samuel between them.

  “I know it hurt, but we’re almost out of here,” She said to Samuel. “You’ll see Maria and Emilia again, then we’ll get you to that hospital.”

  Samuel nodded, face tight, one arm wrapped across his ribs. He kept pace, but the sweat pouring from his body told them it was costing him.

  Behind them, a chorus of distress from the small dinosaurs echoed down the tunnel.

  Hector followed behind. Periodically looking over his shoulder. He tossed another flare when the previous ones died. “Flares are buying us maybe thirty seconds each,” he warned. “I got three left.”

  “That’s plenty,” JJ said.

  Samuel’s breathing got rougher. Loni and JJ tightened their grip and half-dragged him along.

  “Almost there,” she said through her teeth.

  The corridor angled upward. Cold air hit them with the same metallic damp that had poured out of the stairwell earlier. The exit.

  Hector exhaled. “Thank God.”

  Little Bear reached the door they’d tied off. The vines were still wrapped around the handle and the pipe. He cut them with a quick slash of his knife and yanked the door.

  It groaned open.

  Fog spilled in.

  Little Bear took the first step out, scanning the slope. The ridge above was a smear of gray. The sounds changed immediately: wind in leaves, distant calls from the interior, the faint thrum of rotors somewhere out beyond the canopy.

  “Go,” JJ said.

  Little Bear moved, covering the left. JJ covered the right. Loni hauled Samuel up the incline, boots slipping on wet leaves. Hector stayed and brought up the rear, rifle tracking the tunnel mouth as it yawned behind them.

  The little bastards followed them out.

  They spewed out of the access entrance, moving left and right. Keeping their distance, but eagerly waiting for one moment of weakness to strike.

  JJ keyed his mic while moving. “J-2-zero, we’re topside, Popping smoke now.”

  The reply came quickly. “Copy.”

  Hector pulled the last smoke grenade from his vest, thumbed the pin, and held it until JJ gave a nod, then tossed it into the open.

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

  Red smoke billowed and tore sideways in the wind.

  The sound of the rotor swelled, no longer distant. It's a heavy presence pressing down on the canopy. Leaves flattened. Fog scattered. The Jayhawks strafed right.

  “Move it, Muldoon. The wind shear is picking up,” the pilot’s voice snapped.

  A cable dropped through the mist, whipping once before settling.

  JJ planted himself beside it and grabbed the line to steady it. “Loni, get him on.”

  Loni didn’t hesitate. She shoved Samuel toward the harness as it swung in.

  Samuel looked up, eyes wide. “I…I can’t…”

  “You can,” Loni cut in. “Arms through. Good. Hold still.”

  She clipped him in hard and checked the connection with two sharp tugs.

  Little Bear’s shotgun tracked the brush below them. “Movement,” he warned.

  JJ didn’t look away from Samuel until the harness was locked. Then his rifle snapped down the slope.

  Leaves shifted.

  A flicker of dark shapes then gone.

  “Hoist!” JJ yelled.

  The cable tightened. Samuel lurched upward, boots scraping the slope for a second before the lift took his weight. He rose into the rotor wash, spinning once, then stabilizing as the operator corrected.

  Below, the clicking turned to defiant shrieking.

  Hector keyed his radio. “J-2zeo light up the foliage.”

  “Copy that.” The machine gun mounted on the side roared to life as they lay down, suppressing fire along the line of brush.

  A bellow of rage erupted from the clearing as another of the Big Ones from earlier charged from the foliage, moving faster than anything that size had a right to.

  The sound echoed through the mist. JJ heard it before his eyes could find it. Leaves exploded outward. Ferns flattened. For half a heartbeat, all he saw was gray fog and whipping green, then the shape punched into view at the base of the slope.

  “Contact, at twelve o’clock!” Hector barked.

  “J-2-zero, shift fire left!” JJ snapped into his mic.

  Samuel was already rising, boots scraping the incline as the hoist took his weight. He gripped the line with both hands, knuckles white, eyes squeezed shut against the wind. The cable swayed, corrected, swayed again.

  “Don’t look down!” Loni shouted from below. “Just hold tight, you’ll be fine!”

  The Jayhawk’s door gun hammered again. Short, controlled bursts that tore through the brush. The small shadows that had been skittering and clicking near the access mouth scattered back, staying just outside the range of fire.

  The big one didn’t falter. It charged uphill, cutting across the slope to get under the cable’s swing.

  JJ’s fired at center mass. The Dinosaurs howled in pain as the bullets tore into their skin.

  Little bear aimed and fired; the shotgun blast punched into its flank. It howled and turned on a dime, ignoring Samuel and heading straight for them.

  JJ fired in a burst. The recoil kicked into his collarbone. The bullets soared through the air, tearing through flesh and muscle.

  “Keep it off the line!” JJ barked.

  Above them, Samuel’s harness reached the doorway height of the Jayhawk. The hoist operator grabbed him and yanked him in. Samuel vanished into the aircraft.

  The cable immediately began to drop again.

  The Dinosaur surged, one last time. Little Bear shot its leg, downing the creature.

  “Take it out now!” JJ shouted over the roar of the rotor. They shot round after round into the dinosaur's head and upper body till it stopped moving.

  “Muldoon,” the pilot’s voice cracked through JJ’s radio, strained. “Wind shear’s getting ugly. We gotta go now.”

  “Let’s go.”

  They hooked Loni up next and sent her up. Next was Hector, then Little Bear, and JJ was the last to be hoisted up into the fuselage.