“Where’re you going?” Lex said, suddenly alarmed.
Grant stepped through the door. It gave an electronic beep, and snapped shut behind him, on a spring.
Grant was plunged into total darkness. After a moment of surprise, he turned to the door and felt its damp surface. There was no knob, no latch. He turned to the walls on either side of the door, feeling for a switch, a control box, anything at all.…
There was nothing.
He was fighting panic when his fingers closed over a cold metal cylinder. He ran his hands over a swelling edge, a flat surface … a flashlight! He clicked it on, and the beam was surprisingly bright. He looked back at the door, but saw that it would not open. He would have to wait for the kids to unlock it. Meantime …
He started for the steps. They were damp and slippery with mold, and he went down carefully. Partway down the stairs, he heard a sniffing and the sound of claws scratching on concrete. He took out his dart pistol, and proceeded cautiously.
The steps bent around the corner, and as he shone his light, an odd reflection glinted back, and then, a moment later, he saw it: a car! It was an electric car, like a golf cart, and it faced a long tunnel that seemed to stretch away for miles. A bright red light glowed by the steering wheel of the car, so perhaps it was charged.
Grant heard the sniffing again, and he wheeled and saw a pale shape rise up toward him, leaping through the air, its jaws open, and without thinking Grant fired. The animal landed on him, knocking him down, and he rolled away in fright, his flashlight swinging wildly. But the animal didn’t get up, and he felt foolish when he saw it.
It was a velociraptor, but very young, less than a year old. It was about two feet tall, the size of a medium dog, and it lay on the ground, breathing shallowly, the dart sticking from beneath its jaw. There was probably too much anesthetic for its body weight, and Grant pulled the dart out quickly. The velociraptor looked at him with slightly glazed eyes.
Grant had a clear feeling of intelligence from this creature, a kind of softness which contrasted strangely with the menace he had felt from the adults in the pen. He stroked the head of the velociraptor, hoping to calm it. He looked down at the body, which was shivering slightly as the tranquilizer took hold. And then he saw it was a male.
A young juvenile, and a male. There was no question what he was seeing. This velociraptor had been bred in the wild.
Excited by this development, he hurried back up the stairs to the door. With his flashlight, he scanned the flat, featureless surface of the door, and the interior walls. As he ran his hands over the door, it slowly dawned on him that he was locked inside, and unable to open it, unless the kids had the presence of mind to open it for him. He could hear them, faintly, on the other side of the door.
“Dr. Grant!” Lex shouted, pounding the door. “Dr. Grant!”
“Take it easy,” Tim said. “He’ll be back.”
“But where did he go?”
“Listen, Dr. Grant knows what he’s doing,” Tim said. “He’ll be back in a minute.”
“He should come back now,” Lex said. She bunched her fists on her hips, pushed her elbows wide. She stamped her foot angrily.
And then, with a roar, the tyrannosaur’s head burst through the waterfall toward them.
Tim stared in horror as the big mouth gaped wide. Lex shrieked and threw herself on the ground. The head swung back and forth, and pulled out again. But Tim could see the shadow of the animal’s head on the sheet of falling water.
He pulled Lex deeper into the recess, just as the jaws burst through again, roaring, the thick tongue flicking in and out rapidly. Water sprayed in all directions from the head. Then it pulled out again.
Lex huddled next to Tim, shivering. “I hate him,” she said. She huddled back, but the recess was only a few feet deep, and crammed with machinery. There wasn’t any place for them to hide.
The head came through the water again, but slowly this time, and the jaw came to rest on the ground. The tyrannosaur snorted, flaring its nostrils, breathing the air. But the eyes were still outside the sheet of water.
Tim thought: He can’t see us. He knows we’re in here, but he can’t see through the water.
The tyrannosaur sniffed.
“What is he doing?” Lex said again.
“Sshhhh.”
With a low growl, the jaws slowly opened, and the tongue snaked out. It was thick and blue-black, with a little forked indentation at the tip. It was four feet long, and easily reached back to the far wall of the recess. The tongue slid with a rasping scrape over the filter cylinders. Tim and Lex pressed back against the pipes.
The tongue moved slowly to the left, then to the right, slapping wetly against the machinery. The tip curled around the pipes and valves, sensing them. Tim saw that the tongue had muscular movements, like an elephant’s trunk. The tongue drew back along the right side of the recess. It dragged against Lex’s legs.
“Eeww,” Lex said.
The tongue stopped. It curled, then began to rise like a snake up the side of her body—
“Don’t move,” Tim whispered.
… past her face, then up along Tim’s shoulder, and finally wrapping around his head. Tim squeezed his eyes shut as the slimy muscle covered his face. It was hot and wet and it stunk like urine.
Wrapped around him, the tongue began to drag him, very slowly, toward the open jaws.
“Timmy …”
Tim couldn’t answer; his mouth was covered by the flat black tongue. He could see, but he couldn’t talk. Lex tugged at his hand.
“Come on, Timmy!”
The tongue dragged him toward the snorting mouth. He felt the hot panting breath on his legs. Lex was tugging at him but she was no match for the muscular power that held him. Tim let go of her and pressed the tongue with both hands, trying to shove it over his head. He couldn’t move it. He dug his heels into the muddy ground but he was dragged forward anyway.
Lex had wrapped her arms around his waist and was pulling backward, shouting to him, but he was powerless to do anything. He was beginning to see stars. A kind of peacefulness overcame him, a sense of peaceful inevitability as he was dragged along.
“Timmy?”
And then suddenly the tongue relaxed, and uncoiled. Tim felt it slipping off his face. His body was covered in disgusting white foamy slime, and the tongue fell limply to the ground. The jaws slapped shut, biting down on the tongue. Dark blood gushed out, mixing with the mud. The nostrils still snorted in ragged breaths.
“What’s he doing?” Lex cried.
And then slowly, very slowly, the head began to slide backward, out of the recess, leaving a long scrape in the mud. And finally it disappeared entirely, and they could see only the silver sheet of falling water.
CONTROL
“Okay,” Arnold said, in the control room. “The rex is down.” He pushed back in his chair, and grinned as he lit a final cigarette and crumpled the pack. That did it: the final step in putting the park back in order. Now all they had to do was go out and move it.
“Son of a bitch,” Muldoon said, looking at the monitor. “I got him after all.” He turned to Gennaro. “It just took him an hour to feel it.”
Henry Wu frowned at the screen. “But he could drown, in that position.…”
“He won’t drown,” Muldoon said. “Never seen an animal that was harder to kill.”
“I think we have to go out and move him,” Arnold said.
“We will,” Muldoon said. He didn’t sound enthusiastic.
“That’s a valuable animal.”
“I know it’s a valuable animal,” Muldoon said.
Arnold turned to Gennaro. He couldn’t resist a moment of triumph. “I’d point out to you,” he said, “that the park is now completely back to normal. Whatever Malcolm’s mathematical model said was going to happen. We are completely under control again.”
Gennaro pointed to the screen behind Arnold’s head and said, “What’s that?”
Ar
nold turned. It was the system status box, in the upper corner of the screen. Ordinarily it was empty. Arnold was surprised to see that it was now blinking yellow: AUX PWR LOW. For a moment, he didn’t understand. Why should auxiliary power be low? They were running on main power, not auxiliary power. He thought perhaps it was just a routine status check on the auxiliary power, perhaps a check on the fuel tank levels or the battery charge.…
“Henry,” Arnold said to Wu. “Look at this.”
Wu said, “Why are you running on auxiliary power?”
“I’m not,” Arnold said.
“It looks like you are.”
“I can’t be.”
“Print the system status log,” Wu said. The log was a record of the system over the last few hours.
Arnold pressed a button, and they heard the hum of a printer in the corner. Wu walked over to it.
Arnold stared at the screen. The box now turned from flashing yellow to red, and the message now read: AUX PWR FAIL.
Numbers began to count backward from twenty.
“What the hell is going on?” Arnold said.
Cautiously, Tim moved a few yards out along the muddy path, into the sunshine. He peered around the waterfall, and saw the tyrannosaur lying on its side, floating in the pool of water below.
“I hope he’s dead,” Lex said.
Tim could see he wasn’t: the dinosaur’s chest was still moving, and one forearm twitched in spasms. But something was wrong with him. Then Tim saw the white canister sticking in the back of the head, by the indentation of the ear.
“He’s been shot with a dart,” Tim said.
“Good,” Lex said. “He practically ate us.”
Tim watched the labored breathing. He felt unexpectedly distressed to see the huge animal humbled like this. He didn’t want it to die. “It’s not his fault,” he said.
“Oh sure,” Lex said. “He practically ate us and it’s not his fault.”
“He’s a carnivore. He was just doing what he does.”
“You wouldn’t say that,” Lex said, “if you were in his stomach right now.”
Then the sound of the waterfall changed. From a deafening roar, it became softer, quieter. The thundering sheet of water thinned, became a trickle …
And stopped.
“Timmy. The waterfall stopped,” Lex said.
It was now just dripping like a tap that wasn’t completely turned off. The pool at the base of the waterfall was still. They stood near the top, in the cave-like indentation filled with machinery, looking down.
“Waterfalls aren’t supposed to stop,” Lex said.
Tim shook his head. “It must be the power.… Somebody turned off the power.” Behind them, all the pumps and filters were shutting down one after another, the lights blinking off, and the machinery becoming quiet. And then there was the thunk of a solenoid releasing, and the door marked MAINT 04 swung slowly open.
Grant stepped out, blinking in the light, and said, “Good work, kids. You got the door open.”
“We didn’t do anything,” Lex said.
“The power went out,” Tim said.
“Never mind that,” Grant said. “Come and see what I’ve found.”
Arnold stared in shock.
One after another, the monitors went black, and then the room lights went out, plunging the control room into darkness and confusion. Everyone started yelling at once. Muldoon opened the blinds and let light in, and Wu brought over the printout.
“Look at this,” Wu said.
Wu said, “You shut down at five-thirteen this morning, and when you started back up, you started with auxiliary power.”
“Jesus,” Arnold said. Apparently, main power had not been on since shutdown. When he powered back up, only the auxiliary power came on. Arnold was thinking that was strange, when he suddenly realized that that was normal. That was what was supposed to happen. It made perfect sense: the auxiliary generator fired up first, and it was used to turn on the main generator, because it took a heavy charge to start the main power generator. That was the way the system was designed.
But Arnold had never before had occasion to turn the main power off. And when the lights and screens came back on in the control room, it never occurred to him that main power hadn’t also been restored.
But it hadn’t, and all during the time since then, while they were looking for the rex, and doing one thing and another, the park had been running on auxiliary power. And that wasn’t a good idea. In fact, the implications were just beginning to hit him—
“What does this line mean?” Muldoon said, pointing to the list.
05:14:57 Warning: Fence Status [NB] Operative - Aux Power [AV09]
“It means a system status warning was sent to the monitors in the control room,” Arnold said. “Concerning the fences.”
“Did you see that warning?”
Arnold shook his head. “No. I must have been talking to you in the field. Anyway, no, I didn’t see it.”
“What does it mean, ‘Warning: Fence Status’?”
“Well, I didn’t know it at the time, but we were running on backup power,” Arnold said. “And backup doesn’t generate enough amperage to power the electrified fences, so they were automatically kept off.”
Muldoon scowled. “The electrified fences were off?”
“Yes.”
“All of them? Since five this morning? For the last five hours?”
“Yes.”
“Including the velociraptor fences?”
Arnold sighed. “Yes.”
“Jesus Christ,” Muldoon said. “Five hours. Those animals could be out.”
And then, from somewhere in the distance, they heard a scream. Muldoon began to talk very fast. He went around the room, handing out the portable radios.
“Mr. Arnold is going to the maintenance shed to turn on main power. Dr. Wu, stay in the control room. You’re the only other one who can work the computers. Mr. Hammond, go back to the lodge. Don’t argue with me. Go now. Lock the gates, and stay behind them until you hear from me. I’ll help Arnold deal with the raptors.” He turned to Gennaro. “Like to live dangerously again?”
“Not really,” Gennaro said. He was very pale.
“Fine. Then go with the others to the lodge.” Muldoon turned away. “That’s it, everybody. Now move.”
Hammond whined, “But what are you going to do to my animals?”
“That’s not really the question, Mr. Hammond,” Muldoon said. “The question is, what are they going to do to us?”
He went through the door, and hurried down the hall toward his office. Gennaro fell into step alongside him. “Change your mind?” Muldoon growled.
“You’ll need help,” Gennaro said.
“I might.” Muldoon went into the room marked ANIMAL SUPERVISOR, picked up the gray shoulder launcher, and unlocked a panel in the wall behind his desk. There were six cylinders and six canisters.
“The thing about these damn dinos,” Muldoon said, “is that they have distributed nervous systems. They don’t die fast, even with a direct hit to the brain. And they’re built solidly; thick ribs make a shot to the heart dicey, and they’re difficult to cripple in the legs or hindquarters. Slow bleeders, slow to die.” He was opening the cylinders one after another and dropping in the canisters. He tossed a thick webbed belt to Gennaro. “Put that on.”
Gennaro tightened the belt, and Muldoon passed him the shells. “About all we can hope to do is blow them apart. Unfortunately we’ve only got six shells here. There’s eight raptors in that fenced compound. Let’s go. Stay close. You have the shells.”
Muldoon went out and ran along the hallway, looking down over the balcony to the path leading toward the maintenance shed. Gennaro was puffing alongside him. They got to the ground floor and went out through the glass doors, and Muldoon stopped.
Arnold was standing with his back to the maintenance shed. Three raptors approached him. Arnold had picked up a stick, and he was waving it at them, shouting. The
raptors fanned out as they came closer, one staying in the center, the other two moving to each side. Coordinated. Smooth. Gennaro shivered.
Pack behavior.
Muldoon was already crouching, setting the launcher on his shoulder. “Load,” he said. Gennaro slipped the shell in the back of the launcher. There was an electric sizzle. Nothing happened. “Christ, you’ve got it in backward,” Muldoon said, tilting the barrel so the shell fell into Gennaro’s hands. Gennaro loaded again. The raptors were snarling at Arnold when the animal on the left simply exploded, the upper part of the torso flying into the air, blood spattering like a burst tomato on the walls of the building. The lower torso collapsed on the ground, the legs kicking in the air, the tail flopping.
“That’ll wake ’em up,” Muldoon said.
Arnold ran for the door of the maintenance shed. The velociraptors turned, and started toward Muldoon and Gennaro. They fanned out as they came closer. In the distance, somewhere near the lodge, he heard screams.
Gennaro said, “This could be a disaster.”
“Load,” Muldoon said.
Henry Wu heard the explosions and looked toward the door of the control room. He circled around the consoles, then paused. He wanted to go out, but he knew he should stay in the room. If Arnold was able to get the power back on—if only for a minute—then Wu could restart the main generator.
He had to stay in the room.
He heard someone screaming. It sounded like Muldoon.
Muldoon felt a wrenching pain in his ankle, tumbled down an embankment, and hit the ground running. Looking back, he saw Gennaro running in the other direction, into the forest. The raptors were ignoring Gennaro but pursuing Muldoon. They were now less than twenty yards away. Muldoon screamed at the top of his lungs as he ran, wondering vaguely where the hell he could go. Because he knew he had perhaps ten seconds before they got him.
Ten seconds.
Maybe less.
Ellie had to help Malcolm turn over as Harding jabbed the needle and injected morphine. Malcolm sighed and collapsed back. It seemed he was growing weaker by the minute. Over the radio, they heard tinny screaming, and muffled explosions coming from the visitor center.