Chapter 7: New plan

  Dawn didn’t really come. Not really. Isla Nublar, the island of clouds, lived up to its name. The sky was cloudy and grey. A thick fog covered the ground. A pervasive chill hung in the air. The jungle canopy seemed to swallow even more light. Inside the Visitor Center, it was dark, stale, and humid.

  Maria crouched on the floor of the upper office, pen scratching across the back of a faded brochure. The official park logo, in red and yellow, smiled at her from the corner.

  Notes. Timeline. Names. Directions. Anything.

  ? She wasn’t sure who it was for. Themselves or someone who might find them. Just something to do to keep from unraveling.

  She listed their names.

  Cassy Hargrove. Jake Blake, Sandra Carrington, Clark Adams, and Samuel Briggs. Last seen: Ridge Trail, 5:40 pm, Day One.

  She wrote the date. At least, she thought she had the date right. Hard to be sure anymore.

  She mapped their route through the building. Sketched the plaza. Marked the broken doors, the exits. Circled the storage room, the radio. Every scrap of info mattered now.

  Across the room, Emilia sat cross-legged on a wheeled office chair, flipping through the guidebook again. She didn’t say anything for a long time. Her hands were steady now. Calmer. But her eyes were distant.

  Finally, she broke the silence. “I don’t think they’re coming back.”

  Maria stopped writing. She closed her eyes tightly. Silent tears leaked from the corner of her eyes. Her best friend is gone. Probably eaten by whatever was stalking about last night.

  Emilia didn’t look at her. “If they made it off that trail, they’d have found us by now. Or screamed. Or left some sign.” Her voice quiet.

  A part of Maria wanted to argue. She wanted to say that they had to believe. But she knew better. “They’re not.” She breathed.

  “I’m sorry about Sandra. I know she was your BFF,” Emilia added, still not looking at her.

  Maria sucked in a shaky breath. “I’m sorry about Clarke. He was quiet but nice.”

  Emilia nodded, her lip trembled as moisture gathered in her eyes. She held it back, but she couldn’t control the way her shoulders shook.

  Maria turned back to her map. She tried to focus, tried to let Emilia mourn in peace.

  Then her eyes fell on something she hadn’t noticed before. A thin red line beneath the Visitor Center, faint, almost faded. It ran like a vein toward the northern cliffs. She leaned closer.

  Small red print read: EVAC ROUTE – Staff Sublevel Access – Tunnel C – Maintenance Yard

  Maria’s breath caught. She flipped to another section of the guidebook, cross-referencing the faded index. There it was again: Tunnel C, part of the emergency infrastructure. Not meant for tourists. Staff only.

  “Emilia,” she said, “there’s a tunnel system under the Visitor Center.”

  Emilia looked up, wiping her eyes. Emilia stood, crossed the room, and stared at the page. “You think it’s still accessible?”

  “Might be. Not like we have a better plan.” Maria tapped the page. ”This leads north. Toward something marked ‘maintenance yard.’” She slid her finger farther along the page. “There's a fuel storage and a radio tower.”

  Emilia exhaled slowly. “It’s not bad. I mean… better than staying here waiting to die.”

  Maria nodded, eyes still on the map. “If the tunnel hasn’t collapsed, we might follow it out. Maybe even find a working transmitter. Or at least higher ground.”

  A soft thump echoed below them.

  Both women froze. Another thump. Then silence. Then the unmistakable clatter of something falling. Far off, maybe near the main rotunda.

  Stolen story; please report.

  Maria turned off her flashlight. She didn’t move. Neither did Emilia.

  Outside, the jungle was starting to wake: birds, insects, the wind curling through trees. But inside, the center was still haunted. Still creaking and moaning. They waited and listened.

  They waited until the noise below stopped. Minutes passed. Then more. No other sounds came, just the occasional creak of settling concrete and the faint moan of the wind pushing through broken glass.

  When Maria finally moved, it was slow and deliberate. She slid the guidebook into her backpack, folded the brochure notes, and tucked them inside. Emilia stood silently, watching the stairwell like she expected something to rise out of it.

  “We go quiet,” Maria whispered. “Check the lobby. Then the sublevel. We don’t stop unless we must.”

  Emilia nodded. “Let’s just…not die.”

  They took the long hallway back toward the main rotunda. The air grew cooler the lower they moved. Everything felt damp. Maria swept her flashlight slowly, revealing hanging vines and slumped chairs, brittle ferns growing through cracks in the tiles.

  Then she saw it. Just inside the threshold of the lobby. A camera.

  Maria moved toward it carefully. It lay half-buried beneath collapsed drywall, its strap tangled around a broken display rack. The plastic casing was scratched but intact, the same handheld camcorder Samuel had been using.

  She knelt and picked it up, heart suddenly in her throat.

  “Please let it still work,” she muttered.

  She pressed the side panel. The battery light blinked red. Then, against all odds, the screen flickered to life.

  Emilia stepped closer, peering over her shoulder. “Does it have anything saved?”

  Maria clicked the playback button.

  The screen filled with static. Then an image: Samuel’s face grinning awkwardly into the lens, a blur of jungle behind him. “Okay, trail’s steeper than I thought, but we’re almost at the top. Clark says we’ll get a view of the whole island from here. I’m not holding my breath.”

  The shot shifted. Sandra laughing, Jake making faces, and Cassy complaining about the bugs. Everyone looked flushed, a little tired, but still alive.

  Then the camera jerked. Someone had turned. There was a sound, faint but sharp, a chuff followed by leaves rustling.

  “What was that?” someone asked off camera.

  The view tilted again. Now it pointed toward the trees. Nothing. Just green.

  Then Clark spoke. “Something moved.” The others stilled. The camera zoomed slightly, shakily. There was another sound, closer this time.

  Samuel whispered something. Cassy started to say, “Don’t...” Then came a scream, high and Sharp. As soon as it started, it was cut off.

  The camera jerked wildly. He was running, then it dropped. The last frame was sideways: a blur of motion, one of the others lunging back, and something else, just at the edge of the screen. A shape. A flash of movement. Then the screen went black.

  Maria stopped the video. Her hands were shaking.

  “That’s what we heard last night,” Emilia said. “When we were here… whatever that was, it was hunting them.”

  “They didn’t even have time to scream,” Maria whispered.

  Neither spoke for a moment. They had just accepted reality earlier, but knowing that they had been stalked by the monster that killed their friends. It was another shock to their systems.

  Emilia finally broke the silence. “Now we know for sure.” She nodded her head, eyes swimming. “Let’s go, Maria.”

  Maria nodded. She clasped Emilia’s hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Let’s find Tunnel C. Hopefully, the radio tower is still working.”

  They moved fast. Maria stuffed the camera in her bag and swept the flashlight toward the hallway to the staff levels. The signs were faded but still legible: Evac Access, Storage, Admin. Past that, another door marked: Sublevel Maintenance: Authorized Personnel Only.

  She held up the keys Emilia had found. “Let’s see if these are still good.”

  One of them turned with a metallic snap.

  The door creaked open, revealing a stairwell that vanished down into pitch black. A wave of cold air drifted up from the darkness. Both women shivered. Maria clicked the flashlight back on.

  “I guess we go down,” Emilia murmured.

  Maria swallowed hard. “Yeah. Stay close.”

  And together, they stepped into the dark.