Chapter 15

All six of the new castaways were visiting Florida from a college sponsored by a religious denomination in central Missouri. They had just happened to get together and pool their resources to rent the boat for a day on the ocean. One of the men, Jason Abercrombie, claimed to have some experience with ocean sailing, so he was the one who officially rented the boat. In fact, he lied to the rental people by telling them that the group only expected to cruise up and down the Intracoastal Waterway. They loaded up with fuel and food and took off for a day exploring the Gulf Stream and the Bermuda Triangle, not really having any notion of what they were getting into, but being certain that God would protect such upright and righteous people as themselves.

As had happened to everybody else, they had been hit by the six waterspouts and conveyed back in time to the same spot as the cutter had reached. Amber Whitcomb, Jason's fiancée, had fainted when they came to a stop, so she was lying on the deck. Suzy Jones and Amy Hartly were trying to revive her, while barely able to remain conscious themselves. Jack Smith and Henry Abbot were also in a state of mild shock and staring around in utter dismay. Jason was sitting at the wheel, frozen in disbelief.

Jack spotted the sign and lit the signal fire. At any moment, they expected somebody to drive up in Jeeps to take them back to civilization. When they had waited an hour, they began to get impatient, so they got off the boat and wandered around. They investigated what was left of the other boats, so they knew that humans had to be visiting the place. Surely, the signal fire would be spotted, and a response team would be sent.

They ate a light supper and spent an uncomfortable night sleeping aboard the boat, the women below deck where they would be safe from the prying eyes of the men, and the men on deck where they could not annoy the women. The next morning, they ate the rest of their food and began walking around. Again, they became very impatient, since such privileged people as they were never had to wait for anything, except Christmas.

That's when the T. Rex showed up. He saw the movement around the boat, so he ambled over to investigate, on the off chance that a little snack might be present. The humans saw the dinosaur and panicked. However, they did all run down to the small cabin. The T. Rex looked like he was about to figure out how to get to them when they heard the loud explosion. Without giving proper thought to the consequences, they all rushed on deck to see what had happened.

That was when they saw the strange group of people cautiously approaching the T. Rex. Amber nearly fainted again, and the five others gasped in consternation when they saw that the people were all nude, though Amy did note that one of the men appeared to be well endowed between his legs. That was the time at which she remembered her strict training and closed her eyes.

The strangers came closer to the boat and addressed the people on the boat in English. There wasn't room on the boat, so the six new castaways climbed down and introduced themselves to the others. After only a few minutes of conversation, the rescuers offered to take the new people into their group, what they called the "colony." This, obviously, required careful consideration by the newcomers.

Amber began their private conversation with the statement, "These people are obviously pagan, except that they have no religious affiliation at all. We must consider the effect that close association with them will have on our souls."

Jason offered, "Amber has brought up the point that has bothered me from the first time I laid eyes on them. No God-fearing Christian is going to run around naked. I, for one, want nothing to do with them!"

Henry commented, "I heard from one of them that they have niggers and chinks in their colony, and afford them equality with the White people. That is just not acceptable to me."

Suzy offered her opinion, "The have such loose morals. They want every woman to sleep with every man, and she must bear a child by each one. And one of those men is a nigger. My Christian upbringing just wouldn't let me do that sort of nasty thing."

Amy said, "But what will we do if we don't join them. You all saw that horrible beast. How can we keep safe with dinosaurs wandering around?"

Jack had the final argument, "God will protect us! He has brought us here to civilize this heathen country, and we shall prevail! If we join them, it will be like Pastor Johnson always says, 'We would be giving in to the Devil!' We must stand firm for the Lord in our moment of trial! If the Lord protected Daniel from the lions, surely He will protect us from the dinosaurs!"

That was a compelling argument, so the six refused the invitation to join the colony. John shook his head in baffled disbelief and told them how to find the colony if they changed their minds. To keep this from being a wasted trip, John's group picked up a couple more of the bronze cannons before returning home.

Amy staggered up to the cave five days later, looking like she had been through a food blender. She ran to John and said, "Take me in, please. I beg of you. I barely escaped with my life. Everybody else is dead. They were eaten by those horrible beasts. I don't know how I escaped. Please take me in. I'll do anything. I'll whore for you. I'll slave for you. Just let me stay. I can't take any more of those horrible animals."

Martha took Amy to the infirmary to see if she had any injuries that needed immediate medical treatment. She had been leaving a trail of blood, so there was a good chance that she would be followed by one or more carnivores. Sure enough, about half an hour later, six velociraptors showed up, following the bloody trail.

Everybody ran for the cave entrance and up the steps. The door was slammed and barred, so there was no chance of the raptors getting in. There was a hunting party due in shortly, and we would have to do something to eliminate the raptors or chase them away before that happened. We took up our crossbows with the explosive warheads and opened the firing loopholes in the doors.

That was enough to attract the attention of the raptors, and they charged the steps. We worked in relays, Jean and I were the best shots with the crossbows, but Jean was away with the hunting party, so I paired with John. We shot at the raptors and were handed another loaded and cocked crossbow so that we could maintain a high rate of fire. We had practiced this sort of thing and could get off about six to eight aimed shots per minute for as long as the ammunition held out.

We aimed for the chest of the raptor if it was facing us, or we aimed for the side of the raptor just in front of the hip joint if it was in profile. The animals moved around quite a bit, and they were fast, so it was hard to score on every shot. However, their movements tend to be predictable once you have some experience, so we hit more often that you might expect, even at extreme range.

John scored the first hit, but it did not kill the raptor. I put an explosive bolt into its chest when it stopped to lick its wound. One down, five to go. I got the second hit, high on a raptor's chest and blew its head off. Only one bolt required for that one, but it was damned close when I finally scored the hit. The explosion rattled the door.

We were getting about 30% hit rate, something that I thought must be too good to last, and, dammit, I was right. The remaining four raptors ran around quite a bit which made it almost impossible to hit one at a range of over 25 yards. John suggested that we were wasting explosive warheads at the rate we were going, so he proposed that he fire normal bolts with flint tips. We had a lot more of that ammunition than we did of the explosive warheads, so they could be wasted more cheaply.

Anyway, his idea was that he shoot the regular bolts. Any raptors he could hit with his bolt would be slowed down, and I could have a much better chance of hitting the wounded raptor with an explosive bolt. That sounded good to me, so I agreed to try it.

The regular bolts flew faster and more precisely because they were much lighter in weight. John had much better luck with them, and I was able to kill the wounded dinosaurs with a much higher rate of kill. Conserving ammunition was a great idea. We would have to do this every time we could. We wiped out the rest of the raptors within a reasonable time, but now we had the problem of removing the carcasses before they attracted more carnivores.