Image source: https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/en/view-image.php?image=331760&picture=mangrove-trees-in-thailand
Once again the vibes i get from the shooting locations we've seen for Jurassic World: Rebirth have inspired me to write my own little dino horror story.
This could possibly be set in the Hidden Fangs world, or maybe it's just it's own thing. I'll leave it up in the air.
Moving forward, I think I'm going to be naming these particular stories The Preserve.
Maybe these will turn into something cohesive one day, I don't know. For now, these are just random scenes I've thought up.
The last one was about a man who felt like he was being hunted in a field of tall grass, and then he fired blindly into the grass and killed some kind of small mammalian creature. When he fired, it scared off feathered dromaeosaurs that had been stalking him the whole time without him knowing.
This chapter uses a different perspective character, similar location except closer to the swamp.
Jason's eyes fluttered under the weight of drowsiness. His breakfast crawled up his throat with a sting and his head felt light, yet too heavy to lift.
Jason coughed, feeling the clump in his throat originating from deep in his stomach. His eyes burned open. Mud surrounded his boots and cargo pants. He was in a dense rainforest with a metal shed to his right, maybe big enough to fit a few forklifts.
His mouth was dry; it felt like most of the moisture in his body was dripping all over him in sweat.
Jason tried to move his arms, but his wrists wouldn’t separate from each other. Tree bark scratched the back of his head as he tried to stand. There was a thick rope holding him against the tree. That was when he realized his boots were bound together. The tight ropes around Jason’s hands made opening his fists impossible. That bastard Kilian, he thought.
He shoved his boots into the mud, pushing against the tree. His legs shivered as they tried to find their strength in the loose ground. The plan was to crawl his back up the tree until he was free of the rope. Maybe that would have been possible, if only he had solid soil to work with.
Jason stopped struggling and took a breather.
The weight in his throat made it hard to find his strength or focus. He swallowed, then slowly breathed in the moist, humid air. He exhaled twice as long, then kicked into the mud again. The bark ripped through his shirt and dug splinters into his skin, but he was gradually beginning to stand.
Something was approaching. Jason slipped, scratched against the tree, and splashed mud under his ass. There were heavy and distant footsteps. They were accompanied by splashing and dripping sounds like someone stepping out of a pond, but this was much larger than an average man.
The sound was coming from the tall grass straight ahead, near the shed. Jason took in another deep breath and waited. Whatever he was hearing was slowly getting closer. What must have been dozens of footsteps stepped out of sync from one another.
Jason looked down at his bound boots, wishing they were free. He glanced ahead into the tall grass, then back down. He tilted his head forward and kicked mud towards his face. Most of it hit his knees, but he kept kicking as quietly as he could. A thick glob of mud blinded his right eye. The grass ahead began to shuffle, he stopped kicking. Jason had no idea how effectively mud could mask his scent, but it was the best he could do. Maybe making all that noise had fucked his chances of surviving at all.
A head higher than his current eye level, a green snout full of crocodile teeth parted the tall grass. Jason shut his eyes and held his breath. His stomach bubbled and burned.
He prayed to God the creature would turn and walk right on past him. Jason never prayed. Not even that time the airbag in his SUV made his nose bleed, and the windshield shattered after he had rear-ended some redneck jackass’ GMC 3500.
He tried to hold his imagination at bay as the tree vibrated against his back. This creature was heavy, but probably not taller than the grass that shuffled all around him, unless it had been crawling. The tree vibrated harder and faster as the amount of creatures increased. They groaned with the power of heavy bellies and hissed like snakes about to strike. The threat of something lunging out of the grass and attacking Jason lingered in his mind. All he could do was stay still and hope they thought he was part of the tree.
Mud splashed against Jason’s leg. He let out a huff as it startled him. He held his breath tighter. It felt like big logs on legs were passing by him, shaking the ground and breathing heavily. If he opened his eyes now, he worried he’d scream upon seeing the full size of these things.
His nostrils burned with the all too familiar inevitability of throwing up. He swallowed louder than he meant to, but at least it prevented him from puking. The creatures hadn’t reacted to the sound. Maybe they couldn't hear past their own breathing.
His head became lighter than ever and his fists clenched on their own as his body screamed for him to breathe out. The presence of the creatures felt like it was decreasing. If only he could hold his breath long enough for them to be long gone. Something needed to change. He couldn't hold it in any longer, he was about to explode. Jason opened his left eye, the other had still been caked in mud. The tip of a spiky crocodile tail swung out of the grass to his left, and then disappeared into the green.
Nothing else sounded or looked to be anywhere near him except behind the tree.
What felt like over half an hour but was probably only a few minutes had passed.
Jason finally let himself breathe. What should have been a relieving breath of air was musty and wet. He blinked fast and finally got back the vision in his right eye.
Whatever those things were, they were far too tall to be crocodilians. Not extant ones anyway.
Jason wanted to get his breathing under control, but more than that he had to get the hell out of there. He slipped in the mud until he found a hard spot beneath—a tree root perhaps. He pushed against it and crawled up the tree with his back, pushing splinters into his skin. He had lost the tree root but planted himself firmly enough into the mud to push up. The ropes were over his thighs now, then down to his shins.
Jason realized that since his ankles were bound, he’d have to somehow get both legs out at the same time. He hopped in place until the ropes that had been around his shins were down to the ankles. He jumped onto the base of the tree, pointing his feet down so far they seemed liable to snap. Jason fell forward and crashed his face into the mud with a ringing in his ears. His plan to jump out of the rope and land on his feet failed before he could even try it.
Jason pulled up with his knees, came out of the mud puddle to firm ground, and stepped over his bound wrists to pull them to the front. Now he had to figure out how to get out of the other ropes. Chunky vomit poured out of his mouth. He dropped to his knees and let it run its course over the ground.
Next course of action would be to crawl away from this location before something picked up the smell of regurgitated eggs and toast.
Thanks for reading! My philosophy behind these is to make the horror not just about the animals, but the characters' own weaknesses, rivalries, and other obstacles that aren't hungry animals. I think dino horror (although the creatures in this chapter weren't dinosaurs) works best when it's not all about being chased by dinosaurs that you can clearly see that are screaming and roaring all the time. Real predators don't roar when they hunt, I don't think, they stalk and wait for the right moment to strike you when you don't know they're there.
The first JP film got this right for the most part, at least it did with the raptors.
Another thing that film did well was when it obscured the animals and left some scenes to the imagination. That's another thing I want to shoot for when writing about this sort of stuff. That's why you barely see the dromaeosaurs in the last chapter, and why you only see certain striking features of the crocs in this one: teeth and spiky tails.
I'm trying to practice using words carefully and effectively to make the readers feel the scene rather than necessarily understanding every little detail of it. A big problem I have right now is overexplaining, and using way too many words.
I don't currently have the next chapter for this planned. If I do another one, it'll come to me on its own. If you would like to see me do anymore, though, let me know and I'll try to come up with something. Maybe you could even recommend specific creatures you want me to write about.
The Preserve: Bound