Dinosaur Thunder (3 page)

Ignoring the brass knockers, Carson rapped on the front door with a knuckle. Marty Mills opened the door, wearing Levi’s and a long-sleeved denim shirt. He was clean-shaven, with dark hair trimmed neat, blue eyes, and a genuine smile that showed off his bright-white teeth.

“Hey, Fanny, the dinosaur guy’s here,” Marty called over his shoulder. “Thanks for coming.”

Marty Mills took Carson’s hand, shaking it and pulling him in at the same time. The entry was walnut hardwood. A staircase led to the second floor, a spacious living room opened to the right, and on the other side, a set of French doors led to a library.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Fanny Mills said as she came down the stairs. “We called the preserve, but they don’t have any rangers available. They put us on a list.”

Fanny Mills wore cargo shorts with a navy blue polo shirt. She was pretty—very pretty—with short black hair, large expressive brown eyes, and another smile full of bright-white teeth. Her face, arms, and legs were genuinely tan, not the spray-on fake tan that gave you the color without the cancer risk. Coming directly to Carson, Fanny took his hand, shook it, and then held it while she spoke to him sincerely.

“You’re not alone, are you? It’s too dangerous to do it alone. We won’t let you, will we, Marty?”

“No, of course not,” Marty said.

It took Carson a few seconds to realize the Millses were genuinely concerned about his safety. “Mr. and Mrs. Mills,” Carson began.

“Marty and Fanny,” Fanny said, finally releasing Carson’s hand after a final squeeze.

The squeeze gave Carson a warm rush.

“Look, I have been doing this for a long time. Let me take a look at what you’ve got, and if I need help I’ll call in one of my crew.”

“It’s a velociraptor,” Marty said.

“Probably more than one,” Fanny said, taking him by the arm. “They run in packs. Of course you would know that.”

“Velociraptors are illegal,” Carson assured them. “If it’s a carnivore, it’s more’n likely an oviraptor. They keep them in the ranges as scavengers to keep the range free of carcasses. The problem is that they keep escaping because the barriers are built for the big animals. If it is an oviraptor
,
there’s not much to worry about. Might eat your cat if you have one, but that’s about it.”

“I heard an oviraptor killed a baby in California,” Marty said.

“Urban myth,” Carson said. “Do you have a baby?”

“No, but we’re trying,” Fanny said, taking Carson’s arm, and leading him down the hall.

Fanny and Marty were uncomfortably open, Carson thought, but Carson liked them. The Millses took Carson down the hall to the biggest kitchen he had ever seen, with a breakfast bar and kitchen table. The back wall was glass, with more French doors that opened out to the pool deck. The tile floor in the kitchen was the same as the tile around the pool, so with the French doors open, the pool area and the kitchen would seem to be one large room. There was another set of stairs along one wall of the kitchen, and the Millses took Carson to the second floor and another large open space sprinkled with arcade games and a foosball table. A large wet bar sat against one wall, and another glass wall led out to the deck. Two pairs of binoculars sat on the bar. Marty picked them up, and Fanny led Carson onto the deck.

Fanny was unusually physical for a married woman, holding Carson’s arm, leaning against him, guiding him with a hand on his back. Carson enjoyed the contact, feeling it was somehow illicit. Carson also knew that if the plumber showed up later that day, Fanny would be just as attentive.

“Here you go,” Marty said, handing Carson one of the binoculars. “We saw the velociraptor down the valley by the old barn.”

Marty took the binoculars, following Marty’s point. The binoculars had image-stabilization technology, and the view through the lenses was as stable as looking out a window. Carson found the old barn. It was a half-collapsed structure that looked like a pile of weathered scrap wood.

“We saw it run from the tree line on the south into the barn,” Fanny said.

Carson studied the barn but saw nothing.

“We’ve seen it twice now,” Marty said. “Fanny saw it yesterday early in the morning, and I saw it last night.”

“Have you been to the barn?” Carson asked.

“No!” Fanny said emphatically. “Marty wanted to go, but I said, ‘Don’t even think about it.’ I told him, I said, ‘Marty, we need a professional,’ and so we called you.”

“Did you find me in the yellow pages, online, word of mouth?” Carson asked.

“Online.”

Carson made a mental note to drop his yellow pages advertising. Only one call in fifty was coming from print advertising.

They watched the barn for another couple of minutes.

“I’ll go take a look,” Carson said.

“Not alone?” Fanny said, touching his arm.

“No worries,” Carson said, feeling her genuine concern. “I’m a professional.”

The Millses followed him to his van. Carson loaded his tranquilizer rifle with a dosage for an animal the size of an ostrich, still expecting an
Oviraptor
. Putting on his camouflaged hunting vest, he put a pouch of darts in his shirt pocket, preloaded with a range of dosages.

“Those tranquilizer darts are a lot bigger than I thought,” Fanny said.

“They’re nothing like they show on TV,” Carson said. “Each dart is really a full-size syringe with an explosive charge on the end,” Carson explained as he put on his gear. “The rifle is CO
2
powered. I can adjust the power setting so I can shoot an animal from as close as two feet or as far as thirty yards without hurting it.”

Carson opened the rifle, extracting the dart.

“When the dart hits, this blue end compresses and this brass rod strikes the firing pin, setting off a charge. The explosion drives the plunger and injects the drug.”

“Cool,” Marty said.

“How long before the animal is sedated?” Fanny asked.

“Depends on the size of the animal. Too small an animal, and I could kill it with this dosage. Too big, and it won’t go down at all. If the dosage is right, it takes five to ten minutes for the animal to get manageable.”

“Five minutes with an angry velociraptor
,
” Marty said, whistling.

“It’s not a velociraptor,” Carson said.

“We’re going with you,” Fanny said.

“It can’t be a velociraptor or any of his bigger cousins,” Carson said. “Dinosaur rangers tag any predator, and besides, there aren’t any large predators in the Ocala preserve. If any of the scavengers they do keep start probing the fence line, they put them down. Predators just can’t get loose, let alone this far from a preserve.”

Carson snapped the bag with his throw net to the loop on his left side, checked the load in his pistol, and put it in his holster. Then he took the leash pole—an extendable aluminum pole with a wire loop on the end. With the loop over the head of the dinosaur, Carson could tighten the wire and keep the animal at bay with the pole.

“Aren’t you taking a rifle?” Fanny asked, pointing to the guns hanging on the wall of the van.

“I’ve never had to use one of those,” Carson said, closing the van door. “I’ll take a look in the barn and check the area for animal signs. Depending on what I find, I’ll either handle it or call in for help.” Carson pulled a phone from his vest pocket and showed it to them. “If I need help, it will cost more than the five-hundred-dollar minimum.”

“I would hope so,” Marty said.

The Millses walked with him to the edge of their carefully watered and trimmed lawn and then stood on the edge as he walked down the hill into the valley leading to the old barn.

Most of the former lettuce and tomato fields spread across the valley to the north. The pastures were to the south. Carson skirted two pastures green enough for Kentucky Thoroughbreds and then through the scrub growth beyond. Ahead to the south, Carson saw the original farmhouse, its windows and doors boarded. The barn sat a hundred yards behind the house. The barn was in bad shape, the end nearest Carson partially collapsed. The rest of the structure still stood but listed to the south, looking ready to fall at the slightest breeze. Given the regularity of hurricane winds in Florida, it was a miracle the structure still stood.

Carson slowed his pace, now choosing his footing to avoid sticks and dried leaves. Approaching the barn, Carson paused often, listening. With virtually no breeze, there was no downwind approach. Assuming the barn was as boarded up as the old house, Carson crept to the collapsed end. Part of the wall was gone, leaving a hole he would have to duck through. That was good, since only a medium-sized animal could get through the opening. He did not want to come face-to-face with triceratops with only a dart gun and a leash pole.

Waiting and listening, Carson heard nothing and saw nothing. Then he duck-walked through the opening, the tranquilizer rifle in one hand, and the leash pole in the other. Inside, he stood and moved right until he could stand with his back against a portion of the wall. Waiting for his eyes to fully adjust, soon Carson could make out details. The floor was dirt, giving the interior an earthy smell mixed with the stink of manure. Light leaked through cracks and joints, illuminating slivers of the interior but creating deep shadows too. Looking around, Carson found the interior disequilibrating, the slanted barn boards giving the illusion that the floor of the barn was tilted. There was little left in the barn except for a pile of blue plastic crates, a stack of hay bales, some circular saw blades hanging on the wall over a workbench, and a pair of snowshoes hanging from a ceiling beam. A set of dilapidated stairs led to a loft. Under the stairs was a pile of hay that looked out of place.

Alert for any movement, Carson walked to the hay pile. The mound was roughly circular and filled with a mix of straw, dried leaves, and dirt. Carson leaned the leash pole against the stairs, then squatted, digging into the mound. It was warm. Upon feeling an object, he pulled it out of the pile. It was a brown oblong egg. An egg like he had never seen before.

“Shit!” Carson said, shoving the egg back into the mound and standing, grip tight on the gun.

Sweeping the room with his tranquilizer rifle, he calmed down. The barn was empty, and even if the animal nesting in the barn was an
Oviraptor,
Carson could shoot it and fend it off long enough with the leash pole for the tranquilizer to take effect. He felt like an old woman for being so nervous. All the talk about a velociraptor by Fanny and Marty had put him on edge. Turning back to the nest, Carson studied it, trying to remember if he had ever seen an oviraptor nest before. Then he heard movement behind him.

Turning, Carson saw a velociraptor trot out of a dark corner of the barn. Spotting Carson by the nest, its head went low and its tail straight out. Hissing, it cocked its head back and forth, sizing up its target.

Velociraptors were small predators, this adult about the size of a German shepherd, but equipped with curved claws used to slash prey to ribbons. Carson was six feet tall and 190 pounds, just big enough to give the velociraptor pause, but not for long. Velociraptors could bring down prey several times its own size. Slowly raising his tranquilizer rifle, Carson backed up, making sure when he moved, he moved away from the nest. The velociraptor continued to hiss, watching Carson’s movements, sizing him up, plotting an attack. Fanny had been right when she said velociraptors hunted in packs. It also nested in pairs. Carson had to get out of there before the mate showed up.

In his peripheral vision, Carson saw the stairs. Guessing the barn doors were nailed shut, Carson backed up faster, never taking his eyes off the hissing velociraptor. Before he got to the bottom of the stairs, another velociraptor trotted out of the shadows of the collapsed wall. This velociraptor was larger, the size of a Rottweiler, and just as fearless. Assuming the attack posture, it was more impulsive than its partner. It charged.

Carson shot it in the chest. The rifle was set for a fifteen-yard shot, and at this range the hit and explosion of the dart surprised the velociraptor, knocking it out of its charge. Spinning, the velociraptor reached for the dart with its jaws and then clawed with a foot. Carson turned, took two steps, and climbed onto the stairs. The smaller velociraptor jumped onto the stairs just behind Carson. Carson threw his rifle. The velociraptor caught the rifle in its jaws and twisted its head, the rifle coming free, clattering down the stairs. Carson pulled his pistol and shot the velociraptor three times at near point-blank range. Squealing, it snapped at Carson and then twisted, clawing at its chest, falling off the stairs.

Taking the stairs two at a time, Carson reached the top. The clicking of claws alerted him, and he turned just in time to see the larger velociraptor jump into the loft, a hypodermic dart hanging from its chest. Carson fired twice but missed the moving target. Surprised by the crack of the gunshots, the velociraptor retreated toward a dark corner. Carson fired again, the shot splitting a barn board, releasing a sliver of sunlight. Carson looked around. The loft held ancient hay bales but nothing else. There were double doors. Carson ran to the doors, finding a bar holding them closed. After lifting it out of the brackets, Carson shoved, the doors swinging open on rusty hinges. The blast of sunlight blinded him. Blinking, he turned, seeing the velociraptor crouched in a corner. Blinking furiously, Carson fired again, then sat with his feet dangling, holstered his pistol, and then grasped the edge of the opening, lowered himself, hung for a second, and then dropped.

An ankle crumpled when he hit—sprained but not broken. Lying on his back, Carson saw the velociraptor leaning out the opening, estimating the drop. Then it turned, disappearing inside. Carson got to his feet, limping back the way he’d come. Pulling his pistol, he aimed it at the opening in the collapsed end of the barn. He was just past the opening when the velociraptor shot out of it. Carson turned to fire, but hitting a target as fast as a velociraptor with a pistol was almost impossible. Carson stumbled, turning, falling to his back, bringing the pistol up. The velociraptor jumped feetfirst, raking claws extended. Carson fired and at the same time Carson heard two almost simultaneous gunshots. The velociraptor was shredded midair, landing next to Carson, dead.