Jurassic Park^TM III Novelization Page 3

  After reaching a safe-looking spot, Alan stopped. Grabbing the front of Paul Kirby’s shirt, Alan slammed him against a tree.

  “Why did you bring us here?” Alan asked. “The truth.”

  Udesky took a step forward, but Alan held him back with a look. He was tired of games. He wanted answers.

  Amanda spoke up. “Our son is on this island. We need your help to find him.”

  Still crushed against the tree, Paul pulled a photograph from the pocket of his shorts.

  “This is him,” Paul said. “Eric. He’s thirteen. He’s just about the greatest kid in the world.”

  Alan let go of Paul and took the photo. It was a school-portrait-style photo of a young, dark-haired boy with bright, intelligent eyes and a fun-loving smile.

  “He’s with a man named Ben Hildebrand,” Amanda said.

  Billy raised an eyebrow in curiosity. “Who’s that?”

  “Her new boyfriend,” Paul said sourly.

  “A friend,” Amanda said quickly. “We were vacationing. Eric wanted to see this island and the dinosaurs, so Ben found a guy who would take them parasailing. Dino-Soar. I mean, it sounded fun, harmless. But they never came back.”

  “We called everyone, did everything we could,” Paul said. “No one will help us. The guy at the U.S. Embassy said we should ‘accept the inevitable.’ You believe that?”

  “So you hired these mercenaries,” Alan said.

  “We prefer ‘recovery specialists’,” Udesky said brusquely. “We do overseas custody issues and—”

  Alan had no interest in hearing the mercenary rattle off his résumé. He interrupted the man without taking his gaze off Paul.

  “You duped us into coming here,” Alan said.

  “We needed somebody who knew the lay of the land,” Paul tried to explain. “Somebody who’d been to this island before.”

  Alan stared at Paul in utter disbelief. “I have never been to this island!”

  “Sure you have,” Paul said. “You wrote that book. . . .”

  Billy cleared his throat. “That was Isla Nublar. This is Isla Sorna. The second island.”

  In a low voice, Paul said to Udesky, “I didn’t know there were two islands.”

  Amanda moved toward Alan. “But, Dr. Grant, you survived dinosaurs before. You saved those kids.”

  Alan could hardly find the words to get through to these people. This was lunacy!

  “A few of us survived,” Alan said. “A lot more died. And we were better prepared and better armed.”

  Alan sighed heavily. He looked into Amanda’s face. Then Paul’s. He could see how desperate they were.

  For a moment, Alan tried to put himself in their shoes. If he and Ellie had remained together, if Charlie had been his son, he might have gone to any lengths to save him.

  “How many days have they been missing?” Alan asked.

  A look passed between Amanda and Paul.

  Paul straightened up. “Eight weeks.”

  For a moment, Alan was speechless. Then he glanced at Billy, who appeared equally stunned. Eight weeks in this place? thought Alan in horror. It may as well have been eight years.

  Alan turned back to the boy’s parents. Hope that their son was alive was clearly the one thing keeping them going. Unfortunately, it was keeping them going in a direction that was likely to get them all killed.

  “After what you’ve seen today, do you really think your son could be alive?” Alan asked as gently as he could manage.

  Amanda’s eyes grew wide. “He’s smart, Dr. Grant. And he knows so much about dinosaurs.”

  Before anyone else could speak, Alan put his hand out to silence them. He could not listen to any more of this.

  “No,” Alan said. “I’m sorry, but no. We’ll salvage what we can from the plane. Then we head for the coast. There may be a boat left, something to get us off the island.”

  Paul reacted fiercely. “Dr. Grant, we’re not leaving without our son.”

  “You can stick with us, or you can go look for him,” Alan said. “Either way, you’re probably not getting out of here alive.”

  Alan turned toward the plane, and Billy followed him.

  “What do we do?” Paul asked the others.

  “Well, I think we should start searching for your boy,” Udesky said.

  “Which way?” Paul asked.

  The mercenary hesitated, then cleared his throat. “In the direction that Dr. Grant is going.”

  CHAPTER 5

  THE FIVE SURVIVORS moved quickly and quietly through the wreckage of the plane, looking to salvage anything useful.

  Billy found his camera bag, with the camera intact. Alan found a backpack. Amanda located her suitcase and went behind the plane to change into clothes better suited for the jungle.

  Paul changed with her, and Amanda noticed how much trimmer her husband looked.

  “How much weight have you lost?” she asked him.

  “Twenty, twenty-five pounds,” said Paul, clearly happy she’d noticed. “I’ve been swimming at the Y.”

  “You hate to swim,” said Amanda.

  “People change,” said Paul meaningfully. Then he added softly, “You look good.”

  “So do you,” said Amanda. She made brief eye contact with her husband, but then looked away.

  Around the other side of the plane, Billy had begun taking photographs of a giant footprint left in the mud by the dinosaur who had attacked the plane.

  “Obviously a superpredator,” said Billy.

  Alan nodded, mentally running through a list of dinosaurs that would have left a similar footprint.

  “Suchomimus. That snout,” suggested Billy.

  “They never got that big,” pointed out Alan.

  “Baryonyx?” asked Billy.

  “Not with that sail,” said Alan. “Spinosaurus aegypticus.”

  “I don’t remember that on InGen’s list,” Billy said.

  “That’s because it wasn’t on their list,” Alan said. “Who knows what else they were up to?”

  Alan and Billy watched Paul suspiciously as the man struggled with his backpack like an amateur.

  “So, Mr. Kirby, tell me,” Billy said. “When you climbed K2, did you base-camp at twenty-five or thirty thousand feet?”

  “Thirty thousand, I think,” Paul said. “Closer to the top.”

  “About a thousand feet above it, actually,” Billy said as he moved closer to the man. “Most mountain climbers remember how tall the mountains were.”

  Paul couldn’t hide his guilty expression.

  “There is no Kirby Enterprises, is there?” Alan asked.

  “There is,” Paul said quickly. “I own a place called Kirby Paint and Tile Plus. We’re out in the Westgate Shopping Center in Enid, Oklahoma.”

  Billy shook his head. “I don’t suppose that check you wrote us is any good.”

  Udesky’s gaze narrowed. “He paid us half up front. Cash.”

  “Mortgaged everything I had to do it,” Paul said. “Even the store. And if we make it off this island with my son, I swear I’ll make good on the money I owe you. I don’t care if it takes me the rest of my life.”

  Alan and the mercenary exchanged an unhappy glance.

  “However long that is,” Udesky said.

  As Alan led the group through the jungle, a shimmering spot of color in the trees caught his eye.

  A parasail chute!

  Alan allowed Udesky and Billy to climb up and investigate. They found a young adult life vest—and an adult skeleton.

  “Ben,” Amanda said quietly.

  They found Ben’s camcorder, but the footage didn’t offer any clues to the mystery of what had happened to Eric—or Ben.

  “Take the chute,” Alan said. “We can use it to signal a plane from the coast.”

  Tears welled in Amanda’s eyes. “No! Our baby’s out there,” she said. “He’s out there and we’ve got to find him!”

  She ran into the jungle. Paul and Udesky went after her.
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br />   Alan looked to Billy. “You know there’s no chance. Logically, that is.”

  “Hey, don’t go accusing me of being logical,” Billy said as he finished putting the parasail into his backpack.

  Alan nodded and followed the others, Billy at his side.

  They found Amanda, Paul, and Udesky gathered around a large dinosaur nest. Within the nest, Alan saw twelve large eggs laid in a spiral.

  He identified the species in a horrified instant.

  “Raptors,” Alan said.

  CHAPTER 6

  ALAN BLASTED THROUGH THE FOREST, the rest of his party struggling to keep up with him. He knew they could not slow down.

  “What’s a raptor?” Amanda asked.

  “They’re not that big,” Udesky said. “Nothing like that thing with the sail.”

  “If we come across one, we might live,” Alan said.

  Paul looked relieved. “Well, that’s good.”

  “But you never come across just one,” Alan pointed out.

  Amanda stopped suddenly. “Where’s Billy?”

  Studying the trees around them, Alan looked for some sign of his assistant. Raptors could take down their prey quietly and all too efficiently.

  “Billy!” Alan cried automatically. “Billy!”

  “I thought we weren’t supposed to yell,” whispered Amanda.

  “Here!”

  A few branches rustled and Billy appeared.

  “I got some great pictures of the nest,” Billy said excitedly. “This proves raptors raised their young in colonies! This speaks to a larger social structure—”

  Alan cut him off. “This is not the time to have a paleontological discussion about the social patterns of raptors!”

  “But I thought we might collaborate on a paper—” Billy said.

  “Right, the first rule of academics,” said Alan in disgust. “Publish . . . or perish.”

  Turning away in fury, Alan hoped his assistant got the message.

  Hours later, the party came across the outer reaches of the vast InGen compound. No raptors had appeared. It seemed they were safe—for the moment.

  The overgrown parking lot was littered with abandoned vehicles. Some lay on their sides, while others had been flipped over.

  Well, Alan thought, we’re not going to be driving to the coast.

  Alan felt troubled as he looked through a partially caved-in windshield.

  It looks like a giant head-butted the glass, he thought.

  Alan guided the group up to the front door of an enormous building. As he approached, he thought he saw catlike movements out of the corner of his eye on the high ridge overlooking the complex. But when he looked that way, he saw nothing.

  Nerves, Alan decided. I’m jumping at shadows. At least, I hope they’re just shadows.

  Inside the building, the once opulent corporate lobby was now in the process of being reclaimed by the jungle. Roots and ivy poked through the floor and walls. In the waiting room, the cushions of the sofas and chairs had been gnawed and pulled apart. Dusty coffee mugs and filled ashtrays sat on the tables.

  Alan glanced at the nearby water cooler and saw that the water had turned brackish. He looked up at the sound of flapping and spotted birds nesting in the rafters. It left him with an eerie, haunted feeling.

  “Eric!” Amanda called.

  “Son, are you here?” Paul shouted.

  Nothing.

  Alan watched with interest as Amanda picked up the phone at the reception desk, but it was dead, as he expected.

  “Omigosh, food!” Paul said as he pointed to a pair of vending machines standing at the end of the long, vine-covered hallway. Frantically, he started pulling change out of his pockets.

  “Let’s see,” said Paul. “I’ve got about a dollar seventy-five. How about you guys?”

  Billy watched this with a frown, then simply smashed in the windows of the two machines with his boot.

  Paul sighed, glancing apologetically at Amanda. “Guess you can take the man out of civilization, but . . .” Paul’s voice trailed off and he simply shrugged.

  “We can eat later,” Alan said after Billy handed out the candy and snacks. “We need to look for weapons and communications equipment.”

  “We have to make this place secure,” Udesky added.

  Alan and Billy led the group as they explored the rest of the building. Alan pushed through a set of doors and found himself in a cavernous hatching facility.

  Much of the equipment was the same as what Alan had seen on the first island, Isla Nublar, but the sheer size of what confronted him now dwarfed the facilities on the other island.

  As Alan walked down the ramp and onto the floor, he glanced at the incredible array of technology and noticed an enormous freezer whose plugs had been pulled years ago. Empty incubators and tanks of formaldehyde with dinosaur fetuses and body parts surrounded the freezer. Machines with intricate tubing and swing arms stood beside conveyor belts crisscrossing the room at different levels.

  Amanda turned to Alan. “This is how you make dinosaurs?”

  “This is how you play God,” Alan said sourly.

  Alan watched as Billy looked around the lab. He could tell the young man was impressed.

  “Okay if I take pictures?” Billy asked.

  Alan nodded. Amanda walked past the dinosaurs in formaldehyde and stopped.

  “This tank has a sign on it,” she said. “Raptors.”

  She peered into the eyes of the raptor head that seemed to be floating inside—then she screamed. A live raptor lunged at her from behind the tank.

  The dinosaur’s snapping maw was filled with a razor-sharp collection of broken, mashed, and jagged teeth. The creature’s powerful three-fingered hands slashed wildly, while the retractable crescent-shaped hooks on its feet clicked and scraped at the floor.

  “Aaaghhh!” Amanda cried.

  The raptor’s spittle splashed her face. But the predator couldn’t press its body between the closely spaced tanks to reach her.

  “Amanda!” Paul called.

  “Back out! Move!” ordered Alan. He led the group through the lab, hoping to get them to safety before the raptor found a way between the tanks.

  The group raced down the hallway, checking doors for possible escape routes or hiding places. When the raptor rounded the corner twenty feet behind them, Paul ducked into a nearby door. Alan raced inside with the others and slammed the door closed. But its lock was electrical. Useless!

  Alan led the group down a long aisle between rows of oversized steel cages with open doors. Clearly, the cages had once been used for holding young dinosaurs, like some sort of dinosaur kennel.

  Suddenly, the raptor burst into the room and leaped for the closest prey—Billy and Udesky! The pair flew into the nearest cage and slammed the door shut in the predator’s angry, hissing face.

  Alan, Paul, and Amanda ran to another cage. Alan grabbed the door and yanked. The loud screech of its rusty hinges drew the predator’s attention.

  Before Alan could close the door completely, the raptor slammed into it with explosive force, smashing the door past the lock and into the cage.

  The group was forced up against one of the cage’s chain-link walls, trapped in a small triangle of space by the advancing door. The angry raptor clawed and hissed at them through the door. Then its head began to dart around as it searched for another way to reach its prey.

  Alan followed the raptor’s gaze up to the wide-open top of the small triangular space. With a shriek of triumph, the raptor’s powerful form leaped at the chain-link door and started to climb.

  Amanda was the fastest to react. Grabbing hold of the door, she yelled, “Push!”

  Paul and Alan joined her in shoving hard against the caved-in steel door. The door scraped along the floor, hardly budging at first. Then it suddenly swung back, right through the cage’s opening, with the raptor still clinging to it.

  Hrrrr-reeeeee!

  As the door slammed into the opposite wall, th
e raptor lost its grip and fell into the small space. Amanda instantly slid the door’s bolt into place, trapping it there—this time the door reached up to the ceiling.

  Alan knew the raptor would find a way out, but he wasn’t hanging around to find out how long it would take! After racing to the end of the room, he hauled open the heavy exit door. Paul, Amanda, Billy, and Udesky were right behind him.

  Hrrrr-reeeeee! cried the raptor as it fought to free itself. The raptor growled and snarled as it launched itself against the door, but it held.

  Hrrrr-reeeeee!

  “That sound,” Billy said.

  Alan nodded. It was the same sound Billy had made with the raptor resonating chamber.

  “I think he’s calling for help,” Alan said.

  Alan led the group out the rear of the lab building and into an equipment yard. He could still hear the raptor’s call as he guided the group toward the tree line.

  From the jungle, the call was answered. Raptor cries quickly surrounded them. The raptors were talking to each other!

  Alan couldn’t believe it. His theory on raptor communication had been proven correct. Unfortunately, the proof had come at the worst possible time!

  Ahead, a herd of frightened hadrosaurs responded to the raptor howls by fleeing across the equipment yard. Dozens of raptors burst from the jungle and ran after them.

  “Head for the trees!” Alan yelled to the others.

  Another raptor call came from behind. Alan turned to see the raptor they had trapped standing near the lab’s open rear door.

  Bolting ahead, Alan swiftly studied the way the raptors organized themselves. A large raptor, probably an alpha male, led the group into a hunting formation. The sight gave Alan an idea.

  “This way,” Alan said.

  He led Billy and the others into the midst of the stampeding hadrosaur herd.

  “Stay together!” Alan called. “Stay—”

  It was useless. In seconds, the group was split up in the chaos. Alan looked back again.

  His plan had failed. The raptors were ignoring the hadrosaurs. They were only interested in the humans.

  This makes no sense, Alan thought. If all they want is fresh food, why not attack the hadrosaurs?

  As Alan darted to escape being run down by the crazed hadrosaurs, he saw Billy fall. He gasped. Had a raptor pulled Billy down? Trying not to panic, Alan moved through the blurred mass of dinosaurs. He found Billy’s camera bag and snatched it up. The strap had either broken on its own—or been cut by a razor-sharp raptor claw.