Dinosaur Thunder (40 page)

She found Torino in a large clearing, grazing as if nothing had happened.

“I wish I had your memory,” Conyers said.

Taking the reins, she hopped to Torino’s side and then stopped. Her bad knee would not support her weight in the stirrup. Hanging on to the reins, Conyers limped to the other side and tried mounting from the right side, confusing Torino, who turned when she tried to mount. Falling from the stirrup, she landed on her rump, her left knee slapping the ground, and she gasped, stifling a scream. Letting the pain pass, she screwed up her courage, stood again, and talked to Torino as she tried mounting again.

“Easy boy,” Conyers said. “Just let me get into the saddle from this side one time.”

Confused, the horse began rotating again, looking to see what she was doing. Then she heard commotion in the trees. Fearing the
T. rex,
she held the saddle horn and leaned, looking under Torino’s neck. Weller was there, leading the column of refugees. Waving her arms, Conyers hobbled across the clearing, making shushing sounds and leading Torino.

“There’s that police girl!” Crazy shouted, waving his machete in greeting.

“Quiet!” Conyers replied as loudly as she dared.

“What?” Crazy hollered, Weller putting a hand on his shoulder and whispering something to him.

Then as one, the column froze, eyes wide. Conyers turned to see the head of the
T. rex
poking between two trees. Then it bellowed satisfaction. It had found its prey

48

Cousins

Imprinting
is a process where right after hatching, newborn animals attach to their mother—well, usually their mother. Actually, chicks will imprint on anything that moves or makes noise. I’ve see baby ducks swimming after a man they think is their father. Since birds descended from dinosaurs, we know that dinosaurs imprinted, just like birds do today.

—Carmen Wynooski, Senior Dinosaur Ranger

Sixty-five Million Years Ago
Unknown Place

The fires flushed hidden creatures from the forest. Pterosaurs took to the air, disappearing into the murk. Small bipeds and quadrupeds ran past, oblivious of Nick and his group. Larger quadrupeds crashed through the forest. The earthquake, disorienting Earth-ring, and now fire put the herbivores in flight mode.

Ejecta continued to fall randomly, most of it nothing more than a distant boom. The size of the bolides reassured Nick, reasoning that the smallest mass would travel the farthest. Still, Nick stood by his guess of a couple of hours before the blast wave hit them. In the meantime, the spreading fires were the bigger danger.

Landmarks were disappearing, either burned or obscured by smoke. Fleeing dinosaurs crisscrossed trails, and the falling ash accumulated like snow. Snead, at the front, moved quickly, with a preternatural sense of direction, the others following blindly in faith. Jeanette’s velociraptors were strangely vigilant, hissing and snapping at unseen dangers in the gloom. A sudden squeal in the distance, followed by snarling and a roar, told Nick at least one predator was in attack mode. The velociraptors ran a few feet off the trail, heads low, tails straight, oriented toward the distant fight.

Jeanette stopped for her velociraptors, Elizabeth, Nick, and Kelton, the marine taking up the rear, also stopping. Nick had his hands on his knees, breathing deeply. He felt like he was running a marathon he’d never trained for.

“Keep moving,” Kelton said gently to Jeanette, careful not to touch her.

Do, riding in Jeanette’s pack, eyed Kelton, jaws open slightly, showing razor-sharp teeth. Jeanette lifted the straps on her pack, relieving the weight on her shoulders. In addition to Do, Jeanette carried a rifle. Elizabeth had dropped her pack but kept her rifle. Nick realized he had been carrying nothing but a pistol, while Jeanette carried a rifle and a velociraptor on her back. Yet Nick was the most tired.

“I am joining a gym,” Nick said, wiping sweat and ash from his face.

“We’re joining a gym,” Elizabeth said, smiling, helping Nick clean gray mush from his brow.

“Ma’am,” Kelton said gently to Jeanette, “would your raptor let me carry him?”

Jeanette stood tall, arching her back, accentuating her voluptuous figure. She smiled at the kindness, revealing a small gap in her teeth. Covered in sweat and ash like everyone else, Jeanette somehow managed to make it look sexy.

“That’s kind of you,” Jeanette said. “But I don’t think Do would like it.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Kelton said. “We need to keep moving.”

A distant boom, and a bright flash startled everyone.

“That was a big one,” Elizabeth said.

Nick realized Snead, John, and Carson had disappeared through the trees and gloom.

“Let me lead until we catch up,” Kelton said, taking the point.

Then they were moving again, jogging, coughing, and wiping the mix of ash and sweat that dripped into their eyes. Like Snead, Kelton set a pace designed to keep the group together. After a few minutes, Nick began to wonder if they had taken a wrong turn, since they did not catch the group in front. Then they heard gunfire.

“Stay here!” Kelton shouted, and then took off at full speed.

Nick, Elizabeth, and Jeanette paused, breathing deeply and looking at one another, and then at the dark forest all around them.

“The hell with waiting,” Elizabeth said.

Nick and Jeanette silently agreed, and they ran toward the gunfire. A few seconds later, the gunfire ended. Then they found the others, Snead on the ground, bleeding from a badly mauled leg, and John dumping the contents of a plastic first aid kit. Carson was holding the injured marine’s rifle, jerking it around to point at Nick and the others when they came out of the gloom.

“Don’t shoot!” Nick said.

Carson went back to pointing the rifle randomly at shadows. Lying nearby was the body of a velociraptor. Jeanette’s flock trotted to the body, hissing and sniffing. Do struggled in his pack, trying to join his brothers and sister. Ignoring Do, Jeanette squatted, helping John bandage the young marine’s leg. John ripped open two large gauze bandages pretreated with antibiotics and painkillers. Snead grimaced when John applied the first bandage, wrapping it tight with rolls of self-sealing gauze. By the time John applied the second bandage, Snead merely flinched, the painkiller from the first bandage already being absorbed.

“My leg’s going numb,” Snead said with relief.

Looking at the depth of the wounds, Nick wondered about what the bandages had been saturated with.

“Give him three of these,” John said, handing Jeanette a small plastic bottle.

Jeanette scooted to Snead’s head, lifting it and then resting it in her lap, leaning over his face to protect him from falling ash. Do looked over Jeanette’s shoulder at the bloody leg, his tongue slithering in and out. Jeanette shook out three pills, gently pushed one in Snead’s mouth, and then lifted his head to drink from her water bottle. The side of the marine’s face pressed against Jeanette’s bosom as she helped him. She repeated the process twice more.

“I feel better,” Snead said when she finished.

“I bet you do,” Nick said softly.

Elizabeth elbowed him in the side.

“It was a pack of their cousins,” John explained, indicating Jeanette’s velociraptors as he gathered up the remaining first aid supplies. “We crossed paths, and a fight started.”

Nick inched closer to the velociraptor carcass, Jeanette’s flock still surrounding it, sniffing and nudging it.

“Have they ever encountered another velociraptor?” Nick asked.

“No,” Jeanette said, gently lifting Snead’s head from her lap and then putting it down.

“Could I have another drink?” Snead asked.

Jeanette handed her water bottle to Snead, who was visibly disappointed.

“Maybe you better get them away from the carcass,” Nick suggested.

“They’re just curious,” Jeanette said.

“He’s afraid they may be choosing sides,” Carson said. “Let’s shoot them before they figure out they’re not human.”

Carson aimed at Jeanette’s flock, which still surrounded the dead adult velociraptor.

“Carson!” Jeanette said, shocked. “They saved my life. No one is going to shoot them.”

Jeanette’s rifle slipped from her shoulder. Seeing the move, Carson swung his rifle away from the velociraptors and toward Jeanette.

“Easy, everyone,” John said, stepping between the couple. “We’re almost out of here. It can’t be more than another half mile or so.”

“Just a klick,” Snead said, pulling at the bandages. “These are too tight.”

“Leave them alone,” John said.

“Look at the velociraptors,” Carson said, his rifle now aimed back at the flock.

Heads down, tails straight, the velociraptors were focused on the shadows of the trees. Ash fell like snow, making it even more difficult to penetrate the forest. Slowly, everyone but Snead raised a rifle, pointing where the velociraptors were focused.

Four velociraptors appeared from the shadows, heads low, in attack mode. Spreading out, they came slowly, puzzled by the scene ahead. The lead velociraptor kept glancing at Jeanette’s flock. Twice the size of Jeanette’s velociraptors, these were experienced hunters, driven to the point of madness by the holocaust around them.

“Nick and Elizabeth, take the one on the left, Jeanette the next, I’ll take the one in the lead, and Kelton and Carson, you take the one on the end. Nobody shoots until I do.”

Nick aimed his pistol, knowing the velociraptor had little to fear from him. Elizabeth’s rifle packed more punch, but Elizabeth was no marksman. Jeanette had trouble steadying her rifle, Do, struggling to get out of the pack, ruining her aim. John seemed confident of getting the lead velociraptor, and Kelton and Carson might get the raptor on the end.

“Re, Me, Fa, So, La, Ti,” Jeanette sang. “Come,” she said, singing their names again.

Jeanette’s velociraptors stayed where they were, ignoring Jeanette’s call.

“They ever do that before?” Nick asked Elizabeth softly.

“No,” Elizabeth said, worried.

Holding their position, the pack of velociraptors studied the humans and the velociraptor chicks surrounding their dead mate.

“Re, Me, Fa, So, La, Ti,” Jeanette sang again.

Jeanette’s velociraptors ignored her call.

“We can’t just stand here,” Carson said, a distant boom serving as an exclamation point.

“Don’t move,” John repeated. “Kelton, Carson, you may have to cover the velociraptor chicks.”

“They won’t hurt you,” Jeanette insisted. “Re, Me, Fa, So, La, Ti.”

The stalemate continued until a small bolide struck somewhere behind the adult pack, and they jumped, triggering an attack. With no defined source for their fear, the velociraptors focused on the humans, as if killing them would end the horror their world had become.

The humans opened fire, but velociraptors leapt when attacking, and the humans fired wildly, trying to hit the moving targets. John wounded the lead raptor, but could not stop its momentum, and John stumbled back, firing his big bore rifle again. Holding his fire, Nick tried to track his raptor as it leapt once, and then twice. Then, midleap, a smaller velociraptor met it, claws extended, just missing the neck of the big raptor and raking its side. The impact from one of Jeanette’s raptors knocked the big one off stride, saving Nick’s life. Now there was a melee, with raptors fighting one another, clawing, leaping, jumping in and out of the fray. John’s wounded velociraptor died first. Already bleeding from a chest wound, one of the raptor chicks managed to slash its throat, the big raptor bleeding out in seconds.

Carson fired indiscriminately, until Jeanette tackled him, his rifle flying from his hands.

“You shot Fa!” Jeanette screamed, pummeling his back.

Rolling over, Carson kicked Jeanette in the stomach and then the face, Jeanette curling into a ball. With a screech, Do wriggled violently, getting out of Jeanette’s pack, crawled over Jeanette’s shoulder, and then charged Carson. Grabbing the rifle, Carson brought it up just in time, shooting Do. The raptor’s momentum carried it into Carson, but the little raptor was dead. Wiping blood from her nose, Jeanette crawled to Do, cradling the velociraptor, crying, even as the fight continued.

John and Kelton resorted to bursts of automatic fire over the heads of the tangle of velociraptors, the big ones finally turning tail and retreating, leaving another dead one behind. The skirmish was over. Three of Jeanette’s velociraptors were dead. Carson had shot two, and little Ti was killed by one of the adult velociraptors. Another of Jeanette’s flock lay badly injured, struggling to get up. The remaining three were on guard, eyes fixed on where the adult raptors had retreated. Like the velociraptors, John and Kelton stood guard, watching for another attack. Elizabeth moved to Jeanette, comforting her while Nick carefully approached the wounded velociraptor.

Nick did not know its name, but it hissed when he came near. Moving slowly, Nick knelt, seeing a gash that cut deep into a thigh.

“John, have you got another of those bandages?” Nick asked.

John took Snead’s pack, dumped it, and came up with another bandage. Nick peeled off the protective coating, revealing the pretreated side of the bandage and the adhesive edges.

“Nick, are you crazy?” Elizabeth asked softly from where she held Jeanette.

Very slowly, Nick leaned over the velociraptor, placing the bandage over the gash and pressing down. The raptor snapped, Nick jerking back to save his fingers. Waiting a few seconds, the velociraptor seemed to settle down, and Nick reached in again, the raptor watching his every move. Gently, Nick pressed the adhesive edges to the raptor’s skin. He finished with his fingers intact.

Jeanette was up, now mourning the loss of Ti, Fa, and Do, and then checking Nick’s work on Me.

“Thank you for what you did for Me, Nick,” Jeanette said, hugging him.

Nick accepted the hug, but broke it as quickly as politeness would allow, checking Elizabeth’s expression to see how she took it—she took it well.

Jeanette then moved to La, Re, and So, who were all injured, but not badly. Elizabeth had dumped the dog food with her pack, so the velociraptors licked their wounds by the light of an approaching forest fire.