Author Notes

This is set after Jurassic Park 3 and alternates off the beaten path from there. Its premise is based on my long running frustration of the destruction of Alan and Ellie's relationship between the movies. It still gripes me to this day. This story is a sort of 'fix it' with hopefully a little explanation of how I think they could have got to that place.

I plotted this all out and started writing this ten years ago, lost it, then found it again. I'm posting it with the hopes it will encourage me to carry on with it!

Dedication : For Jorge and Michael Crichton. Now both among the stars

January 2004

The moon towered in the sky; an ever-present reality. So far away, yet within human reach. It was keeping guard over the gentle twinkle of the stars. Existences that had long ago died, but whose light refused to go out.

Jorge remembered sitting in his sister's room, looking at the map of the stars. As he glanced into the night sky now, he tried to recall the different star clusters. It was no good. To others they were individual and meaningful. To him they were just a bunch of lights, no more significant than when he looks up in the city sky back home and sees the flashing light of the last charter plane from the local airport.

"Hey! Quit dreaming!" a voice shouted, interrupting his thoughts. "We miss something and we'll both be fired. Then you'll have all the time in the world to gaze at the stars, especially when you can't make rent and have to sleep under them."

Jorge lowered the binoculars and brought his gaze down to look at his colleague. The older man was leaning against the fencing and barely paying attention to the job at hand himself. Bob was approaching late forties, though the man denied being any older than thirty eight. The calloused fingers and the fixed, wrinkled scowl around his eyes gave away a longer life, one spent scaling together ends meet. Bob had four kids by three different wives and he had worked hard to pay his dues. Though they were told that the workplace must be clutter free, Bob had decorated one of the corkboards with snapshots of ball games, school plays and birthday parties.

"Come on, Mayer! We've been here almost twenty four hours and seen nobody. Nothin' to report and I don't blame them. Who the hell would want to even come here? Just a load of greenery. Build a Burger King on the place, then I might be open to the idea of this tropical getaway."

"Don't you get it, kid?" Bob sighed, frustrated at his young cohort. "The reason we're being paid the big bucks is cause there's something on this island that someone is trying to hide or that someone wants. Either way, we gotta play by their instructions or we won't see a damn cent. So get back in the goddamn building!"

The younger man slowly scrambled to his feet and made his way inside the concrete hut which served as their base. It was cramped, with a set of bunk beds, a work desk with a CCTV monitor and a kitchenette. A small toilet was cornered off in one end of the room. There was not an inch of privacy in their lodgings, but Jorge had been brought up with seven brothers and sisters and was used to the lack of space. The two men entered inside the building and Jorge climbed up to his top bunk, while Bob resumed his position watching the monitor of the camera footage taken from outside.

The two men were part of a small security agency based in New York and had been chosen for this assignment by their employers. They were brought into the office, one by one and told that they were being taken to a secret location to provide security for a few days. Their agency explained that the company who hired them, Evercom, were looking to invest in a tropical resort for activity vacations. They wanted security on this resort as they wanted to check that they wouldn't be gazumped before they could finalise their offer. Evercom would be sending a team out to fully check the location met their standards in a week's time, but they needed a lookout team until that point. Jorge and Bob were offered ten times the rate of normal pay for the work, and while curious of this, both men were in such need of the money that they feared to question it in case they lost the assignment.

After collecting a few belongings, Jorge and Bob had been flown to Costa Rica, where they had been inducted by a man called Peter Evers, the representative of Evercom. Peter was a rotund man in his late forties and Jorge felt that his eyes matched those of the rats he saw on the city streets every day. He was suspicious looking, even while greeting the security men with a smirk and kind words. They had been given their packs containing satellite phones, flashlights and a list of instructions and were told that all other equipment they would need would be in their working house. Mr Evers had explained to them that they must follow instructions to the letter, otherwise they would be in breach of contract and not be paid for the time they had spent. With that, the suited man shook their hands and wished them well. Jorge could have sworn that the man wanted to tell them more, but instead he departed the airport.

The two men were then blindfolded by the helicopter pilot and guided into the aircraft. It had been explained to them that this would be the procedure before they had left New York. Evercom were very cautious and although they had both signed a non-disclosure agreement, they had accepted that the company was being extremely guarded about their investments. Once on the helicopter, and up and flying, Jorge regretted this part of the agreement, as nausea soon passed over him. He decided to close his blinkered eyes and try to sleep through the journey, in the hopes that this would wave off the airsickness.

Once they had landed, the two men had been immediately guided into their hut, where their blindfolds were then removed. They were instructed to read through their instruction manuals right away and stick to the rules. With that advice, the helicopter pilot took off and they were left alone in the cabin. As the pilot was shutting the door, Jorge could see many tropical trees outside and little else. They both opened up their manuals and started reading. The instructions were not complicated; they had to watch the CCTV monitor at all times and report any activity at all via their phones. The last part read; DO NOT LEAVE THE HUT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.

Laying in his bed now, Jorge was worried that he hadn't kept that rule. However, he was comforted by the fact that there would be no one around to report his misbehaviour. Only Bob knew and Jorge was certain that the older man would not report him, for fear of getting fired himself. Besides, the two men were friends and had bonded in only a few hours. It was crazy to think that they both should stay cooped up in the small space for their whole stay. All Jorge did was take the binoculars outside to look at the stars for a few minutes.

"Oh no!" Jorge muttered, sitting up suddenly. "Dammit!"

Bob swung round from looking at the monitor to see the young man abruptly sit up in bed. "What's wrong now? Can't sleep without a teddy bear?"

Jorge ignored the teasing by the other security guard and proceeded to clamber down the bunk bed. "No," he answered. "Those stupid binoculars, I've left them outside. If anyone from Evercom comes about, they're gonna know we were outside."

"We?" Bob questioned. "Na ah, my friend. I believe you were the one star gazing. You think I should be held responsible for you slacking off? We haven't been on the job a day yet and first chance you got you broke the rules!"

"I'm sorry, OK? I just never gotta see a place like this. In the city, there ain't no stars. I just wanted to see them, just once, just for a little while. I'll go back out and search out the binoculars. Swear to God, anyone finds out then you can pin the whole mess on me, 'kay?"

With that Jorge put on one of his heavy duty boots and started to look for where he had thrown the other one before climbing onto his bunk. Bob watched the boy trip over the shoelaces of the boot on his foot twice, before jumping up from his own chair and motioning to the young man to take his place by the monitor.

"Sit down Galileo, before you hurt yourself," he impatiently exclaimed. "I'll go out there and search out the binoculars. You watch the screen and try not to burn down the place while I'm outside, could you please?"

Jorge was slightly disgruntled that Bob had so little faith in him, but he took off his boot and made his way over to the swivel chair as the other man opened his knapsack, took out his flashlight and then opened the cabin door.

"Jesus, its dark out there, how am I gonna find this thing?" Bob complained. "They would have been better off providing us with night vision goggles rather than a buck fifty crappy flashlight."

Bob swung the door shut and headed into the dark night. Jorge swivelled around in the chair, like he used to when he was a kid. The older man wasn't there to admonish him or tease him for it, so he let himself have this little treat. He could see Bob on the monitor, shining the flashlight about as he searched for the binoculars. As he rotated for a sixth time on the chair, he saw a brown lace peeking out of the dark shadow under the bed. Jorge jumped up and crouched on his knees and peered underneath the bed. As he was about to reach to grab the lace, a large barrel of thunder rocked the room.

"Great, that's gonna put Bob in a chipper mood," Jorge muttered to himself. "He's not gonna be happy about having it piss down cats and dogs on him while searching for something I lost."

Just as Jorge was grabbing the lace, the thunder sounded again. And then again. This time it was making the contents of the hut shake violently. The rolls of thunder kept coming thicker and faster and Jorge staggered to his feet and over towards the monitor, which was vibrating on the desk. There was no sign of Bob on the screen, just the abandoned flashlight. Jorge was just ready to head for the door when a hand came in shot, followed by another. Bob was crawling his way back to the flashlight.

Suddenly, something else entered the frame. It looked to Jorge to be a set of claws of an animal. They were bigger than any animal that Jorge had ever seen though. They had reached out to Bob's back, skewered him and dragged him back out of shot. Jorge ran to his knapsack and pulled out the satellite phone and dialled the emergency number.

"Hello?" he called into the speaker, his voice shaking. "We need help…this is Jorge! My friend, he's been hurt…..I don't know….I don't know what by! It…it was big…where the hell are we? Where the hell did you put us?"

Author Notes

Things I know a little about: Temping, being a student, being a teacher, being a mentor.

Things I know very little about: Everything else.

Any errors in this story, please put down to creative license. I apologise if I've completely misrepresented your job, location or any other detail in the world around us.

This is a little bit of a slow burner, but promise Alan and Ellie will appear soon and will not leave!