“In Dixie land . . . duh-duh-duh-duh . . . to live and die in Dixie . . .”
She said to Kelly, “Got it?”
“Not yet,” Kelly said, pulling on the handlebars.
Harding’s face was inches from the velociraptor’s head and jaws. The head flopped back and forth as she adjusted her grip. Close to her face, the open eye stared at her, unseeing. Harding tugged, trying to lift the animal higher.
“Almost . . .” Kelly said.
Harding groaned, lifting.
The eye blinked.
Frightened, Harding dropped the animal. Kelly pulled the bike away. “Got it!”
“Away, away . . . away down south . . . in Dixie . . .”
Harding came around the raptor. Now the big leg twitched. The chest began to move.
“Let’s go,” she said. “Ian, behind me. Kelly, on the handlebars.”
“Away . . . away . . . away down south . . .”
“Let’s go,” Harding said, climbing on the bike. She kept her eyes on the raptor. The head gave a convulsive jerk. The eye blinked again. It was definitely waking up. “Let’s go, let’s go. Let’s go!”
Village
Sarah drove the motorcycle down the hill toward the worker village. Looking past Kelly, Sarah saw the Jeep parked at the store, not far from the gas pumps. She braked to a stop, and they all climbed off in the moonlight. Kelly opened the door to the store, and helped Malcolm inside. Sarah rolled the motorcycle into the store, and closed the door.
“Doc?” she said.
“We’re over here,” Thorne said. “With Arby.”
By the moonlight filtering in through the windows, she could see the store looked very much like an abandoned roadside convenience stand. There was a glass-walled refrigerator of soft drinks, the cans obscured by mold on the glass. A wire rack nearby held candy bars and Twinkies, the wrappers speckled green, crawling with larvae. In the adjacent magazine rack, the pages were curled, the headlines five years old.
To one side were rows of basic supplies: toothpaste, aspirin, suntan lotion, shampoo, combs and brushes. Alongside this were racks of clothing, tee shirts and shorts, socks, tennis rackets, bathing suits. And a few souvenirs: key chains, ashtrays, and drinking glasses.
In the center of the room was a little island with a computer cash register, a microwave, and a coffee maker. The microwave door hung wide; some animal had made a nest inside. The coffee maker was cracked, and laced with cobwebs.
“What a mess,” Malcolm said.
“Looks fine to me,” Sarah Harding said. The windows were all barred. The walls seemed solid enough. The canned goods would still be edible. She saw a sign that said “Restrooms,” so maybe there was plumbing, too. They should be safe here, at least for a while.
She helped Malcolm to lie down on the floor. Then she went over to where Thorne and Levine were working on Arby. “I brought the first-aid kit,” she said. “How is he?”
“Pretty bruised,” Thorne said. “Some gashes. But nothing broken. Head looks bad.”
“Everything hurts,” Arby said. “Even my mouth.”
“Somebody see if there’s a light,” she said. “Let me look, Arby. Okay, you’re missing a couple of teeth, that’s why. But that can be fixed. The cut on your head isn’t so bad.” She swabbed it clean with gauze, turned to Thorne. “How long until the helicopter comes?”
Thorne looked at his watch. “Two hours.”
“And where does it land?”
“The pad is several miles from here.”
Working on Arby, she nodded. “Okay. So we have two hours to get to the pad.”
Kelly said, “How can we do that? The car’s out of gas.”
“Don’t worry,” Sarah said. “We’ll figure something out. It’s going to be fine.”
“You always say that,” Kelly said.
“Because it’s always true,” Sarah said. “Okay, Arby, I need you to help now. I’m going to sit you up, and get your shirt off. . . .”
* * *
Thorne moved off to one side with Levine. Levine was wild-eyed, his body moving in a twitchy way. The drive in the Jeep seemed to have finished him off. “What is she talking about?” he said. “We’re trapped here. Trapped!” There was hysteria in his voice. “We can’t go anywhere. We can’t do anything. I’m telling you, we’re all going to d—”
“Keep it down,” Thorne said, grabbing his arm, leaning close. “Don’t upset the kids.”
“What difference does it make?” Levine said. “They’re going to find out sooner or—Ow! Take it easy.”
Thorne was squeezing his arm hard. He leaned close to Levine. “You’re too old to act like an asshole,” he said quietly. “Now, pull yourself together, Richard. Are you listening to me, Richard?”
Levine nodded.
“Good. Now, Richard, I’m going to go outside, and see if the pumps work.”
“They can’t possibly work,” Levine said. “Not after five years. I’m telling you, it’s a waste of—”
“Richard,” Thorne said. “We have to check the pumps.”
There was a pause. The two men looked at each other.
“You mean you’re going outside?” Levine said.
“Yes.”
Levine frowned. Another pause.
Crouched over Arby, Sarah said, “Where are the lights, guys?”
“Just a minute,” Thorne said to her. He leaned close to Levine. “Okay?”
“Okay,” Levine said, taking a breath.
Thorne went to the front door, opened it, and stepped out into darkness. Levine closed the door behind him. Thorne heard a click as the door locked.
He immediately turned, and rapped softly. Levine opened the door a few inches, peering out.
“For Christ’s sake,” Thorne whispered. “Don’t lock it!”
“But I just thought—”
“Don’t lock the damn door!”
“Okay, okay. I’m sorry.”
“For Christ’s sake,” Thorne said.
He closed the door again, and turned to face the night.
Around him, the worker village was silent. He heard only the steady drone of cicadas in the darkness. It seemed almost too quiet, he thought. But perhaps it was just the contrast from the snarling raptors. Thorne stood with his back to the door for a long time, staring out at the clearing. He saw nothing.
Finally he walked over to the Jeep, opened the side door, and fumbled in the dark for the radio. His hand touched it; it had slid under the passenger seat. He pulled it out and carried it back to the store, knocked on the door.
Levine opened it, said, “It’s not lock—”
“Here.” Thorne handed him the radio, closed the door again.
Again, he paused, watching. Around him, the compound was silent. The moon was full. The air was still.
He moved forward and peered closely at the gas pumps. The handle of the nearest one was rusted, and draped with spiderwebs. He pulled the nozzle up, and flicked the latch. Nothing happened. He squeezed the nozzle handle. No liquid came out. He tapped the glass window on the pump that showed the number of gallons, and the glass fell out in his hand. Inside, a spider scurried across the metal numerals.
There was no gas.
They had to find gas, or they’d never get to the helicopter. He frowned at the pumps, thinking. They were simple, the kind of very reliable pumps you found at a remote construction site. And that made sense, because after all, this was an island.
He paused.
This was an island. That meant everything came in by plane, or boat. Most times, probably by boat. Small boats, where supplies were offloaded by hand. Which meant . . .
He bent over, examining the base of the pump in the moonlight. Just as he thought, there were no buried gas tanks. He saw a thick black PVC pipe running at an angle just under the ground. He could see the direction the pipe was going—around the side of the store.
Thorne followed it, moving cautiously in the moonlight. He paused for a moment
to listen, then moved on.
He came around to the side and saw just what he expected to see: fifty-gallon metal drums, ranged along the side wall. There were three of them, connected by a series of black hoses. That made sense. All the gasoline on the island would have had to come here in drums.
He tapped the drums softly with a knuckle. They were hollow. He lifted one, hoping to hear the slosh of liquid at the bottom. They needed only a gallon or two—
Nothing.
The drums were empty.
But surely, he thought, there must be more than three drums. He did a quick calculation in his head. A lab this large would have had a half-dozen support vehicles, maybe more. Even if they were fuel-efficient, they’d burn thirty or forty gallons a week. To be safe, the company would have stored at least two months’ supply, perhaps six months’ supply.
That meant ten to thirty drums. And steel drums were heavy, so they probably stored them close by. Probably just a few yards . . .
He turned slowly, looking. The moonlight was bright, and he could see well.
Beyond the store, there was an open space, and then clumps of tall rhododendron bushes which had overgrown the path leading to the tennis court. Above the bushes, the chain-link fence was laced with creeping vines. To the left was the first of the worker cottages. He could see only the dark roof. To the right of the court, nearer the store, there was thick foliage, although he saw a gap—
A path.
He moved forward, leaving the store behind. Approaching the dark gap in the bushes he saw a vertical line, and realized it was the edge of an open wooden door. There was a shed, back in the foliage. The other door was closed. As he came closer, he saw a rusted metal sign, with flaking red lettering. The letters were black in the moonlight.
PRECAUCION
NON FUMARE
INFLAMMABLE
He paused, listening. He heard the raptors snarling in the distance, but they seemed far away, back up on the hill. For some reason they still had not approached the village.
Thorne waited, heart pounding, staring forward at the dark entrance to the shed. At last he decided it wasn’t going to get any easier. They needed gas. He moved forward.
The path to the shed was wet from the night’s rain, but the shed was dry inside. His eyes adjusted. It was a small place, perhaps twelve by twelve. In the dim light he saw a dozen rusted drums, standing on end. Three or four more, on their sides. Thorne touched them all quickly, one after another. They were light: empty.
Every one, empty.
Feeling defeated, Thorne moved back toward the entrance to the shed. He paused for a moment, staring out at the moonlit night. And then, as he waited, he heard the unmistakable sound of breathing.
Inside the store, Levine moved from window to window, trying to follow Thorne’s progress. His body was jumpy with tension. What was Thorne doing? He had gone so far from the store. It was very unwise. Levine kept glancing at the front door, wishing he could lock it. He felt so unsafe with the door unlocked.
Now Thorne had gone off into the bushes, disappearing entirely from view. And he had been gone a long time. At least a minute or two.
Levine stared out the window, and bit his lip. He heard the distant snarl of the raptors, and realized that they had remained up at the entrance to the laboratory. They hadn’t followed the vehicles down, even now. Why not? he wondered. The question was welcome in his mind. Calming, almost soothing. A question to answer. Why had the raptors stayed up at the laboratory?
All kinds of explanations occurred to him. The raptors had an atavistic fear of the laboratory, the place of their birth. They remembered the cages and didn’t want to be captured again. But he suspected the most likely explanation was also the simplest—that the area around the laboratory was some other animal’s territory, it was scent-marked and demarcated and defended, and the raptors were reluctant to enter it. Even the tyrannosaur, he remembered now, had gone through the territory quickly, without stopping.
But whose territory?
Levine stared out the window impatiently, as he waited.
“What about the lights?” Sarah called, from across the room. “I need light here.”
“In a minute,” Levine said.
At the entrance to the shed, Thorne stood silently, listening.
He heard soft, snorting exhalations, like a quiet horse. A large animal, waiting. The sound was coming from somewhere to his right. Thorne looked over, slowly.
He saw nothing at all. Moonlight shone brightly over the worker village. He saw the store, the gas pumps, the dark shape of the Jeep. Looking to his right, he saw an open space, and clumps of rhododendron bushes. The tennis court beyond.
Nothing else.
He stared, listening hard.
The soft snorting continued. Hardly louder than a faint breeze. But there was no breeze: the trees and bushes were not moving.
Or were they?
Thorne had the sense that something was wrong. Something right before his eyes, something that he could see but couldn’t see. With the effort of staring, he began to think his eyes were playing tricks on him. He thought he detected a slight movement in the bushes to the right. The pattern of the leaves seemed to shift in the moonlight. Shift, and stabilize again.
But he wasn’t sure.
Thorne stared forward, straining. And as he looked he began to think that it wasn’t the bushes that had caught his eye, but rather the chain-link fence. For most of its length, the fence was overgrown with an irregular tangle of vines, but in a few places the regular diamond pattern of links was visible. And there was something strange about that pattern. The fence seemed to be moving, rippling.
Thorne watched carefully. Maybe it is moving, he thought. Maybe there’s an animal inside the fence, pushing against it, making it move. But that didn’t seem quite right.
It was something else. . . .
Suddenly, lights came on inside the store. They shone through the barred windows, casting a geometric pattern of dark shadows across the open clearing, and onto the bushes by the tennis court. And for a moment—just a moment—Thorne saw that the bushes beside the tennis court were oddly shaped, and that they were actually two dinosaurs, seven feet tall, standing side by side, staring right at him.
Their bodies seemed to be covered in a patchwork pattern of light and dark that made them blend in perfectly with leaves behind them, and even with the fence of the tennis court. Thorne was confused. Their concealment had been perfect—too perfect—until the lights from the store windows had shone out and caught them in the sudden bright glare.
Thorne watched, holding his breath. And then he realized that the leafy light-and-dark pattern went only partway up their bodies, to mid-thorax. Above that, the animals had a kind of diamond-shaped crisscross pattern that matched the fence.
And as Thorne stared, the complex patterns on their bodies faded, the animals turned a chalky white, and then a series of vertical striped shadows began to appear, which exactly matched the shadows cast by the windows.
And before his eyes, the two dinosaurs disappeared from view again. Squinting, with concentrated effort, he could just barely distinguish the outlines of their bodies. He would never have been able to see them at all, had he not already known they were there.
They were chameleons. But with a power of mimicry unlike any chameleon Thorne had ever seen.
Slowly, he backed away into the shed, moving deeper into darkness.
“My God!” Levine exclaimed, staring out the window.
“Sorry,” Harding said. “But I had to turn on the lights. That boy needs help. I can’t do it in the dark.”
Levine did not answer her. He was staring out the window, trying to comprehend what he had just seen. He now realized what he had glimpsed the day Diego was killed. That brief momentary sense that something was wrong. Levine now knew what it was. But it was quite beyond anything that was known among terrestrial animals and—
“What is it?” she said, standing alongs
ide him at the window. “Is it Thorne?”
“Look,” Levine said.
She stared out through the bars. “At the bushes? What? What am I supposed to—”
“Look,” he said.
She watched for a moment longer, then shook her head. “I’m sorry.”
“Start at the bottom of the bushes,” Levine told her. “Then let your eyes move up very slowly. . . . Just look . . . and you’ll see the outline.”
He heard her sigh. “I’m sorry.”
“Then turn out the lights again,” he said. “And you’ll see.”
She turned the lights out, and for a moment Levine saw the two animals in sharp relief, their bodies pale white with vertical stripes in the moonlight. Almost immediately, the pattern started to fade.
Harding came back, pushed in alongside him, and this time she saw the animals instantly. Just as Levine knew she would.
“No shit,” she said. “There are two of them?”
“Yes. Side by side.”
“And . . . is the pattern fading?”
“Yes. It’s fading.” As they watched, the striped pattern on their skins was replaced by the leafy pattern of the rhododendrons behind them. Once again, the two dinosaurs blended into invisibility. But such complex patterning implied that their epidermal layers were arranged in a manner similar to the chromatophores of marine invertebrates. The subtlety of shading, the rapidity of the changes all suggested—
Harding frowned. “What are they?” she asked.
“Chameleons of unparalleled skill, obviously. Although I’m not sure one is entirely justified in referring to them as chameleons, since technically chameleons have only the ability—”
“What are they?” Sarah said impatiently.
“Actually, I’d say they’re Carnotaurus sastrei. Type specimen’s from Patagonia. Three meters in height, with distinctive heads—you notice the short, bulldog snouts, and the pair of large horns above the eyes? Almost like wings—”