The landscape opened out. They came back into a broad valley, the grass silvery in the moonlight. Thorne looked around, trying to orient himself. Then he realized: they were back on the plain, but much farther to the south. They must still be on the same side of the river as the high hide. In that case, they ought to be able to make their way up onto the ridge road, somewhere to the left. That road would lead them back to the clearing, and the remaining trailer. And safety. He nudged Levine, pointed to the right. “Go there!”
Levine turned the car. Thorne clicked the radio. “Sarah.”
“Yes, Doc.”
“We’re going back to the trailer on the ridge road.”
“Okay,” Sarah said. “We’ll find you.”
Sarah looked back at Kelly. “Where’s the ridge road?”
“I think it’s that one up there,” Kelly said, pointing to the spine of the ridge, on the cliffs high above them.
“Okay,” Sarah said. She gunned the bike forward.
The Jeep rumbled across the plain, deep in silvery grass. They were moving fast. The raptors were no longer visible behind them. “Looks like we lost them,” Thorne said.
“Maybe,” Levine said. When he had pulled out of the streambed, he had seen several animals dart off to the left. They would now be hidden in the grass. He wasn’t sure they would give up so easily.
The Jeep was roaring toward the cliffs. Directly ahead he saw a curving switchback road, running up from the valley floor. That was the ridge road, he felt sure.
Now that the terrain was smoother, Thorne crawled back between the seats and crouched over the cage. He peered in through the bars at Arby, who was groaning softly.
Half the boy’s face was slick with blood, and his shirt was soaked. But his eyes were open, and he seemed to be moving his arms and legs.
Thorne leaned close to the bars. “Hey, son,” he said gently. “Can you hear me?”
Arby nodded, moaning.
“How you doing there?”
“Been better,” Arby said.
The Jeep ground onto the dirt road, and headed upward along the switchbacks. Levine felt a sense of relief as they moved higher, away from the valley. He was finally on the ridge road, and he was going to be safe.
He looked up, toward the crest. And then he saw the dark shapes in the moonlight, already at the top of the road, hopping up and down.
Raptors.
Waiting for him.
He pulled to a stop. “What do we do now?”
“Move over,” Thorne said grimly. “I’ll take it from here.”
At the Edge of Chaos
Thorne came up onto the ridge, and turned left, accelerating. The road stretched ahead in the moonlight, a narrow strip running between a rock wall to his left, and a sheer cliff falling away on the right. Twenty feet above him, on the ridge, he saw the raptors, leaping and snorting as they ran parallel to the Jeep.
Levine saw them too.
“What are we going to do?” he said.
Thorne shook his head. “Look in the tool kit. Look in the glove compartment. Get anything you can find.”
Levine bent over, fumbling in darkness. But Thorne knew they were in trouble. Their gun was gone. They were in a Jeep with a cloth top, and the raptors were all around them. He guessed he was probably about half a mile from the clearing, and the trailer.
Half a mile to go.
Thorne slowed as he came into the next curve, moving the car away from the plunging drop of the cliff. Rounding the curve, he saw a raptor crouched in the middle of the road, facing them, its head lowered menacingly. Thorne accelerated toward it. The raptor leapt up in the air, legs raised high. It landed on the hood of the car, claws squealing as they raked metal. It smashed against the windshield, the glass streaking spiderwebs. With the animal’s body lying against the windshield, Thorne couldn’t see anything. On this dangerous road, he slammed on the brakes.
“Hey!” Levine shouted, tumbling forward.
The raptor on the hood slid off to the side. Now Thorne could see again, and he stamped on the gas. Levine fell back again as the car moved forward. But three raptors were charging the car from the side.
One jumped onto the running board and locked its jaws on the side mirror. The animal’s glaring eye was close to Thorne’s face. He swung the wheel left, scraping the car along the rocky face of the road. Ten yards ahead a boulder protruded. He glanced at the raptor, which continued to hold on tenaciously, right to the moment when the boulder smashed into the side mirror, tearing it away. The raptor was gone.
The road widened a little. Thorne had more room to maneuver now. He felt a heavy thump, and looked up to see the canvas top sagging above his head. Claws slashed down by his ear, ripping through the canvas.
He swung the car right, then left again. The claws pulled out, but the animal was still up there, its body still indenting the cloth. Beside him, Levine produced a big hunting knife, and thrust it upward through the cloth. Immediately, another claw raked downward, slashing Levine’s hand. He yelled in pain, dropping the knife. Thorne bent over, reaching down to the floor for it.
In the rearview mirror, he saw two more raptors in the road behind him, chasing the Jeep. They were gaining on him.
But the road was broader now, and he accelerated. The raptor on the roof peered over the top, looking in through the broken windshield. Thorne held the knife in his fist and jabbed it straight up with full force, again and again. It didn’t seem to make any difference. As the road curved, he jerked the wheel right, then back, the whole Jeep tilting, and the raptor on the roof lost its grip and rolled backward off the top. It tore most of the canvas roof away as it went. The animal bounced on the ground and hit the two pursuing raptors. The impact knocked all three over the side; they fell snarling down the cliff face.
“That does it!” Levine shouted.
But a moment later, another raptor jumped down from the cliff and ran forward, only a few feet from the Jeep.
And lightly, almost easily, the raptor leapt up into the back of the Jeep.
In the passenger seat, Levine stared. The raptor was fully inside the Jeep, its head low, arms up, jaws wide, in an unmistakable attack posture. The raptor hissed at him.
Levine thought, It’s all over.
He was shocked: his entire body broke out in sweat, he felt dizzy, and he realized in a single instant there was nothing he could do, that he was moments from death. The creature hissed again, snapping its jaws, crouching to lunge—and then suddenly white foam appeared at the corners of its mouth, and its eyes rolled back. Foam bubbled out of its jaws. It began to twitch, its body going into spasms. It fell over on its side in the back of the car.
Behind them he now saw Sarah on the motorcycle, and Kelly holding the rifle. Thorne slowed, and Sarah pulled alongside them. She handed the key to Levine.
“For the cage!” she shouted.
Levine took it numbly, almost dropped it. He was in shock. Moving slowly. Dumbly. I nearly died, he thought.
“Get her gun!” Thorne said.
Levine looked off to the left, where more raptors were still racing along, parallel to the car. He counted six, but there were probably more. He tried to count again, his mind working slowly—
“Get the damned gun!”
Levine took the gun from Kelly, feeling the cold metal of the barrel in his hands.
But now the car sputtered, the engine coughing, dying, then coughing again. Jerking forward.
“What’s that?” he said, turning to Thorne.
“Trouble,” Thorne said. “We’re out of gas.”
Thorne popped the car into neutral, and it rolled forward, losing speed. Ahead was a slight rise, and beyond that, across a curve, he could see the road sloped down again. Sarah was on the motorcycle behind them, shaking her head.
Thorne realized his only hope was to make it over the rise. He said to Levine, “Unlock the cage. Get him out of there.” Levine was suddenly moving quickly, almost panicky, but crawled back,
and got the key in the lock. The cage creaked open. He helped Arby out.
Thorne watched the speedometer as the needle fell. They were going twenty-five miles an hour . . . then twenty . . . then fifteen. The raptors, running alongside, began to move closer, sensing the car was in trouble.
Fifteen miles an hour. Still falling.
“He’s out,” Levine said, from the back. He clanged the cage shut.
“Push the cage off,” Thorne said. The cage rolled off the back, bouncing down the hill.
Ten miles an hour.
The car seemed to be creeping.
And then they were over the rise, moving down the other side, gaining speed again. Twelve miles an hour. Fifteen. Twenty. He careened around the curves, trying not to touch the brakes.
Levine said, “We’ll never make it to the trailer!” He was screaming at the top of his lungs, eyes wide with fear.
“I know.” Thorne could see the trailer off to the left, but separated from them by a gentle rise in the road. They could not get there. But up ahead the road forked, sloping down to the right, toward the laboratory. And if he remembered correctly, that road was all downhill.
Thorne turned right, away from the trailer.
He saw the big roof of the laboratory, a flat expanse in the moonlight. He followed the road past the laboratory, down around the back, toward the worker village. He saw the manager’s house to the right, and the convenience store, with the gas pumps in front. Was there a chance they might still have gasoline?
“Look!” Levine said, pointing behind them. “Look! Look!” Thorne glanced over his shoulder and saw that the raptors were dropping back, giving up the chase. In the vicinity of the laboratory, they seemed to hesitate.
“They’re not following us any more!” Levine shouted.
“Yeah,” Thorne said. “But where’s Sarah?”
Behind them, Sarah’s motorcycle was nowhere to be seen.
Trailer
Sarah Harding twisted the handlebars, and the motorcycle shot forward over the low rise in the road ahead. She crested and came down again, heading toward the trailer. Behind her, four raptors snarled in pursuit. She accelerated, trying to get ahead of them, to gain precious yards. Because they were going to need it.
She leaned back, and shouted to Kelly, “Okay! This has to be fast!”
“What?” Kelly shouted.
“When we get to the trailer, you jump off and run in. Don’t wait for me. Understand?”
Kelly nodded, tensely.
“Whatever happens, don’t wait for me!”
“Okay.”
Harding roared up to the trailer, braked hard. The bike skidded on the wet grass, banged into the metal siding. But Kelly was already leaping off, scrambling up toward the door, going into the trailer. Sarah had wanted to get the bike inside, but she saw the raptors were very close, too close. She pushed the bike toward them and in a single motion stepped up and threw herself through the trailer door, landing on her back on the floor. She twisted her body around and kicked the door shut with her legs, just as the first of the raptors slammed against it.
Inside the dark trailer, she held the door shut as the animals pounded it repeatedly. She felt for a lock on the door, but couldn’t find one.
“Ian. Does this door lock?”
She heard Malcolm’s voice, dreamy in the darkness. “Life is a crystal,” he said.
“Ian. Try and pay attention.”
Then Kelly was alongside her, hands moving up and down. The raptors thumped against the door. After a moment she said, “It’s down here. By the floor.” Harding heard a metallic click, and stepped away.
Kelly reached out, took her hand. The raptors were pounding and snarling outside. “It’ll be okay,” Harding said reassuringly.
She went over to Malcolm, still lying on the bed. The raptors snapped and lunged at the window near his head, their claws raking the glass. Malcolm watched them calmly. “Noisy bastards, aren’t they?” By his side, the first-aid kit was open, a syringe on the cushion. He had probably injected himself again.
Through the windows, the animals stopped throwing themselves against the glass. She heard the sound of scraping metal, from over by the door, and then saw that the raptors were dragging the motorbike away from the trailer. They were hopping up and down on it in fury. It wouldn’t be long before they punctured the tires.
“Ian,” she said. “We have to do this fast.”
“I’m in no rush,” he said calmly.
She said, “What kind of weapons have you got here?”
“Weapons . . . oh . . . I don’t know. . . .” He sighed. “What do you want weapons for?”
“Ian, please.”
“You’re talking so fast,” he said. “You know, Sarah, you really ought to try to relax.”
In the darkened trailer, Kelly was frightened, but she was reassured at the no-nonsense way Sarah talked about weapons. And Kelly was beginning to see that Sarah didn’t let anything stop her, she just went and did it. This whole attitude of not letting other people stop you, of believing that you could do what you wanted, was something she found herself imitating.
Kelly listened to Dr. Malcolm’s voice and knew that he would be of no help. He was on drugs and he didn’t care. And Sarah didn’t know her way around the trailer. Kelly did; she had searched the trailer earlier, looking for food. And she seemed to remember . . .
In the darkness, she pulled open the drawers quickly. She squinted, trying to see. She was sure she remembered one drawer, low down, had contained a pack marked with a skull and crossbones. That pack might have some kind of weapons, she thought.
She heard Sarah say, “Ian: try and think.”
And she heard Dr. Malcolm say, “Oh, I have been, Sarah. I’ve had the most wonderful thoughts. You know, all those carcasses at the raptor site present a wonderful example of—”
“Not now, Ian.”
Kelly went through the drawers, leaving them open so she would know which ones she had already checked. She moved down the trailer, and then her hand touched rough canvas. She leaned forward. Yes, this was it.
Kelly pulled out a square canvas pack that was surprisingly heavy. She said, “Sarah. Look.”
Sarah Harding took the pack to the window, where moonlight shone in. She unzipped the pack and stared at the contents. The pack was divided into padded sections. She saw three square blocks made of some substance that felt rubbery. And there was a small silver cylinder, like a small oxygen bottle. “What is all this stuff?”
“We thought it was a good idea,” Malcolm said. “But now I’m not sure it was. The thing is that—”
“What is it?” she said, interrupting. She had to keep him focused. His mind was drifting.
“Nonlethals,” Malcolm said. “Alexander’s ragtime band. We wanted to have—”
“What’s this?” she said, holding up one of the blocks in front of his face.
“Area-dispersal smoke cube. What you do is—”
“Just smoke?” she said. “It just makes smoke?”
“Yes, but—”
“What’s this?” she said, raising the silver cylinder. It had writing on it.
“Cholinesterase bomb. Releases gas. Produces short-term paralysis when it goes off. Or so they say.”
“How short?”
“A few minutes, I think, but—”
“How does it work?” she said, turning it in her hand. There was a cap at the end, with a locking pin. She started to pull it off, to get a look at the mechanism.
“Don’t!” he said. “That’s how you do it. You pull the pin and throw. Goes off in three seconds.”
“Okay,” she said. Hastily, she packed up the medical kit, throwing the syringe inside, shutting the lid.
“What are you doing?” Malcolm said, alarmed.
“We’re getting out of here,” she said, as she moved to the door.
Malcolm sighed. “It’s so nice to have a man around the house,” he said.
The cyli
nder sailed high through the air, tumbling in the moonlight. The raptors were about five yards away, clustered around the bike. One of the animals looked up and saw the cylinder, which landed in the grass a few yards away.
Sarah stood by the door, waiting.
Nothing happened.
No explosion.
Nothing.
“Ian! It didn’t work.”
Curious, one raptor hopped over toward where the cylinder had landed in the grass. It ducked down, and when it raised its head, it held the cylinder glinting in its jaws.
She sighed. “It didn’t work.”
“Oh, never mind,” Malcolm said calmly.
The raptor shook its head, biting into the cylinder.
“What do we do now?” Kelly said.
There was a loud explosion, and a cloud of dense white smoke blasted outward across the clearing. The raptors disappeared in the cloud.
Harding closed the door quickly.
“Now what?” Kelly said.
With Malcolm leaning on her shoulder, they moved across the clearing in the night. The gas cloud had dissipated, several minutes before. The first raptor they found in the grass was lying on its side, eyes open, absolutely motionless. But it wasn’t dead: Harding could see the steady pulse in the neck. The animal was merely paralyzed. She said to Malcolm, “How long will it last?”
“Have no idea,” Malcolm said. “Much wind?”
“There’s no wind, Ian.”
“Then it should last a bit.”
They moved forward. Now the raptors lay all around them. They stepped around the bodies, smelling the rotten odor of carnivores. One of the animals lay across the bike. She eased Malcolm down to the ground, where he sat, sighing. After a moment, he began to sing: “I wish I was in the land of cotton, old times there are not forgotten, look away . . .”
Harding tugged at the motorcycle handlebars, trying to pull the bike from beneath the raptor. The animal was too heavy. Kelly said, “Let me,” and reached for the handlebars. Harding went forward. Without hesitating, she bent over and put her arms around the raptor’s neck, and pulled the head upward. She felt a wave of revulsion. Hot scaly skin scraped her arms and cheek. She grunted as she leaned back, raising the animal.