Jurassic Park^TM III Novelization (7 page)

The dinosaur cast the cage aside and came after him.

“That’s right, come on, ya big wussbag!” Paul hollered. With shaking hands, he climbed even higher.

Eric was afraid.

He’d stayed alive for eight weeks. Managed not to get eaten, or poisoned, or ripped apart. But what did that matter? Now he was facing something more frightening than drowning or being eaten.

He was about to see his own father torn apart by a ravenous predator.

“Dad!” Eric screamed.

Then he felt Alan’s hand grasping the back of his shirt. The scientist practically dragged Eric and his equally panicked mother to the shore.

Alan watched as his father climbed higher and higher up the crane arm, narrowly avoiding the Spinosaurus as it reached for him.

“All right, Dad!” Eric yelled. “Keep going!”

Enraged, the Spinosaurus clutched the steel lattice of the arm and rocked the unstable structure back and forth. Dangling fifty feet over the water, Paul was slung side to side.

“Run!” Paul shouted to his family. “Amanda, get Eric away!”

Eric looked to his mother, who seemed to have no idea how to make this impossible choice. Her husband—or her son?

Eric made the decision for her. “We’re staying. We’re gonna help Dad!”

The only question was how.

Alan spotted a shiny object among the debris from the boat. It was a flare gun, with spare flares attached to the handle.

Picking up the gun, Alan slammed a flare into it. He tried to aim for the dinosaur’s head, but the blasted thing was moving so fast he was sure he’d miss.

Then he sniffed the fuel that had spilled over the water and another idea came to him. He aimed the gun at the fuel slick and fired.

WHOOOOOSH!

The river ignited! The Spinosaurus roared as flames shot up around it. It flailed, slamming with incredible force into the crane arm. Then it fled, disappearing into the jungle on the far side of the river.

Alan and Eric watched in horror as Paul, still clinging to the toppling arm, rode it into the sea of fire below.

“Paul!” Amanda shouted.

“Dad!” Eric yelled. “DAD!”

Alan, Amanda, and Eric called for Paul, but the only sound was the crackling flames along the water.

“No,” Amanda said. “Oh, no. Please, please, no . . .”

“DAAAD!” Eric screamed. “DAAAD!”

Eric and Amanda’s anguished cries echoed in the night. Alan turned away.

“We should keep moving,” he said. “That thing could circle back.”

“No,” Eric said firmly. “No! We can’t leave Dad.”

Eric’s mother knelt down and faced him. “Let me tell you a few things about your dad, okay? He’s very, very clever, very, very brave, and he loves you very, very much.”

Eric blinked. His mother hadn’t said two nice words about his dad in months—maybe even
years.

“He loves
you,
too, you know?” Eric told his mother pointedly. It was time she realized that.

“Okay,” she agreed. “He loves
us
very, very much. And I know that right now more than anything, your dad would want to know that we’re safe. Okay?”

Eric nodded. But it was a sad nod. What was he going to do without his dad? He suddenly felt more lost and alone than he had in all the weeks he’d spent isolated on this island.

“We’re going to get out of this,” said Amanda, but tears were in her eyes, too. “Everything’s going to be all right, I promise.”

Suddenly, a sound came from behind them. A crunch of sand. Eric tensed.

Was it another predator?

“Listen to your mother,” a voice called from over Eric’s shoulder.

Eric turned. Out of the darkness stepped Paul Kirby.

Eric ran straight into his father’s arms.

“Good thing I’ve been swimming at the Y, huh?” Paul joked.

As tears spilled from Amanda’s eyes, she hugged her husband and her son as if she’d never again let them go.

CHAPTER 13

A
T DAWN
, A
LAN LED THE GROUP
in a hike along the river. They were exhausted, but trying to keep their spirits up.

“You remember when we went fishing last summer?” Paul asked his son. “And I was trying to put the boat in the water and the trailer sank? And then the tow truck came and tried to pull it out but got dragged in? And the truck driver threatened to knock your dad’s lights out? So I said I was the governor, and he believed me?”

“Yeah,” said Eric with a laugh.

“That was a fun day,” said Paul.

Amanda gazed at her laughing son and her smiling husband. “We should try fishing again,” she told them.

“You mean it?” asked Paul.

“I do. It’s worth another shot,” Amanda said, looking into her husband’s eyes. “Who knows? Things could turn out differently.”

Eric saw his mother take his father’s hand.
There’s my cue to take a hike,
Eric decided, seeing Alan take the same cue by moving ahead.
After all, a guy’s got to know when to give his parents some privacy.

Eric jogged to catch up with Alan.

“The lady you called, how do you know she can help us?” Eric asked the scientist.

“She’s one person I could always count on,” Alan said. “And she’s saved me more times than she realizes. I owe her everything.”

They walked together in silence, Alan considering his words.

“It strikes me now I never told her that,” Alan finally admitted.

“You should,” Eric said.

Alan nodded. “You’re right.”

A sound drifted their way. A low murmur. A soft, familiar rush and a lazy crashing of waves.

“Do you hear that?” Alan asked.

Eric nodded excitedly. “It’s the ocean.”

Alan called to the Kirbys and all four ran onward. Soon they emerged from the jungle into an area of thinner trees and sand. Rocky outcroppings dotted the landscape. The piercing cry of gulls rose over the gentle sounds of the surf.

Suddenly, Alan noticed a shadow fall over the group. He tensed as several other shadows joined it—thirty-foot shadows.

Cahhhhhrrrrrr!

A flock of Pteranodons had dropped from the sky and were now landing in front of Alan and the Kirbys. Several had auburn wings. One had gray wings and an orange-and-black-striped head. It was the Pteranodon that had snatched Eric up and taken him to its nest!

The giant reptile lurched nightmarishly toward Eric, but his mother stepped in front of him. The Pteranodon advanced on her in a blur. Before it could strike, Paul leaped onto the Pteranodon’s back, grabbing its pointed crest. He wrestled with the fierce predator to keep its stabbing beak away from his wife.

Flapping its wings and spinning without warning, the giant Pteranodon flung Paul to the sand. Other Pteranodons whipped their wings excitedly as they prepared to join the attack.

Alan looked for a tree branch, a rock, anything he could use for a weapon.

Suddenly, an alien but oddly familiar sound pierced the air. Then blurs of yipping, howling, furious motion raced in from every direction.

Raptors!

The Pteranodons shrieked in rage, as if they were meeting an ancient enemy last encountered 65 million years ago!

Eric saw two raptors move in front of the others. They were bigger, clearly the pack leaders. The alpha male had a smoky gray stripe that lined its entire body, right down to the tip of its tail. The alpha female had jagged diamond-shaped patterns running along its flank and rubylike scales dotting the depressions of its eye sockets.

The alpha male leaped into the air, bringing down the giant Pteranodon as it tried to escape.

Chaos erupted around Alan and the Kirbys.

A trio of Pteranodons swooped down and seized the alpha male raptor, lifting it! The giant Pteranodon fought its way free of the melee and rose into the sky, circling and cawing. The airborne combatants rose higher and soon dis-appeared over the tree line.

“This way!” Alan yelled. “Quick!”

He led the group away from the battle, toward a barren knoll. Eric could see blue water ahead. The edge of Isla Sorna was in sight. All that stood between them and the ocean was twenty feet of sand and—

Yip! Yip! HISSSSS-YIEEEEE!

A dozen raptors charged in and circled the group.

There was nowhere to run. Eric’s parents and Alan huddled around him, trying to protect him, but Eric knew it was no use. The raptors would shred them all in seconds.

Yet—the raptors didn’t attack.

Eric stared into the eyes of the closest raptor.
They want something from us,
Eric realized.

“The eggs,” Alan said. “They want the eggs. Otherwise we’d be dead already.”

With painstaking care, Alan eased the pack off his shoulder. He opened it, reached inside, and pulled out the camera bag. As he did, he spotted something else in the pack—the cast of the raptor resonating chamber. Days ago he’d put it in his pack and forgotten about it!

The circle of raptors broke ranks, and slowly the alpha female raptor approached. Closer and closer, she came. She circled the humans, raising and lowering her head as if with some grave purpose.

“Everyone, get down!” Alan said. “She’s challenging us!”

Eric and the others dropped to their knees.

The alpha female stopped before Eric’s mother. The dinosaur leaned forward, until it was inches away from Amanda’s face. The woman trembled.

“She thinks I did it,” Amanda said. “She thinks I stole the eggs!”

Paul tried to edge his way in front of his wife, but the alpha female raptor barked once and snarled at Paul.

“Give me the eggs,” Amanda said.

With extreme care, Alan handed the eggs to Amanda. She set them down in the sand.

The raptors became agitated. Some tensed, as if ready to launch into a killing frenzy. Others trembled and looked to one another for guidance.

Suddenly, an eerie sound filled the air.

Hrrrrrr-rreeeee!

Everyone turned to look at Alan, who held the cast of the raptor resonating chamber near his mouth. He was trying to communicate with the raptors!

With a deep, shaky breath, he blew through it once more, creating the same eerie pitch that he’d heard the raptors make.

Hrrrrrr-rreeeee! Hrrrrrr-rreeeee!

The alpha female studied Alan closely. How could this creature be making the sound of their tribe?

A single male raptor started forward. The alpha female barked a sharp command. Cowed, the male backed away, unwilling to challenge the authority of the alpha female.

Alan blew into the cast again. The raptors bayed in confusion.

This was a cry for help, Eric thought. A sign made only by a fellow raptor. He’d heard it many times in his eight weeks on the island.

The alpha female suddenly swung around toward the coast. All the raptors fell silent, as if they could hear something the humans could not.

Then the sound drifted in. A distant thrumming. The sound of the keepers, the makers, the humans who had raised and caged these animals.

The alpha female barked twice and quickly picked up one of the eggs. The male who had advanced before came forward and picked up the other one.

The circle of raptors broke. One by one the nervous predators leaped into the jungle—and were gone.

As Eric’s parents hugged their son close, Alan stood and let out a shaky sigh of relief.

Suddenly, a new sound pierced the air. A voice on a bullhorn. “Dr. Grant!”

“It’s coming from the ocean,” Alan said. He rushed over the rise, Eric and his parents right behind him.

Eric couldn’t believe what he was looking at. A man in a business suit stood in the sand.

“Dr. Grant?” the man asked through a bullhorn in his hand.

The battle-weary foursome charged out of the scrub, waving their arms and yelling.

“That bullhorn is a very bad idea!” Paul and Amanda told the man at once.

What they saw next stopped them in their tracks. Eric’s eyes widened.

A massive military presence sat off the coast. Eric counted half a dozen U.S. Navy warships. A helicopter gunship rested on the beach, rotors still turning.

“Whoa,” Eric said. Then he laughed as he saw his mother and father embrace, then kiss.

Eric walked beside Alan toward the military rescue party.

“Dr. Grant, that friend you called?” Eric said. “You have to thank her now. She sent the navy
and
the marines!”

“Bless you, Ellie,” Alan whispered.

Inside the chopper, Dr. Alan Grant experienced the shock of his life. A heavily bandaged figure lay upon a stretcher, his face turned toward the light streaming in from outside.

“Billy!” Alan cried.

Billy’s hand weakly rose. Alan rushed forward and clasped it.

“Glad to see you, Billy,” Alan said. His voice was choked with emotion. “You’re a good man. I’m so sorry this happened to you.”

Billy smiled. “Are you kidding?” he said hoarsely. “You know the kind of great stories I’ll be able to tell now? Hey, it was worth it. Oh, and one more thing . . . I saved your hat.”

Shaking his head, Alan smiled, seeing the battered fedora on the floor next to the stretcher. “Well, that’s the important thing, isn’t it?”

A medic eased Billy’s head back. The young man’s eyes fluttered and he drifted off to sleep.

“He’s lost a lot of blood, but he’s going to make it,” the medic said.

Alan nodded. He strapped himself in with the Kirbys and leaned back, relaxing for the first time in days as the chopper lifted into the air.

Eric sat nestled between his parents. He looked to Billy, then to Alan, who smiled and nodded.

Turning to the window, Eric looked out on the island, his mind filled with unanswerable questions. He had come here a boy filled with dreams of adventure. What he had experienced had changed him. Could he exist in the world outside again? Or would his dreams be filled with this island for the rest of his life?

Suddenly, the pilot shouted, “Hostile! Nine o’clock!”

The two military pilots in the cabin snapped to action as a Pteranodon dropped into view through the window. Eric gasped, startled at the sight of the reptile flying alongside them.

“One at three!” a marine said. He raised the barrel of his rifle and took careful aim.

“No!”
Alan yelled. He grabbed the rifle’s barrel and pointed it away. “They’re just flying in formation. They think we’re one of them.”

Eric watched as a third Pteranodon joined the other auburn-winged flyers, forming the point of a V. As horrifying as the creatures had been moments ago, they were suddenly beautiful again. Each of their giant wings beat a delicate rhythm unlike anything Eric could ever have imagined.

Soon the leader of the Pteranodons banked right, pulling away from the helicopter. The others followed it. Only—

They didn’t fly back to the island.

Eric watched as the Pteranodons sailed off. He spoke to Alan without shifting his gaze.

“Pteranodons in the Mesozoic could fly over oceans and go from one continent to another. Where do you think these are heading?”

“I don’t know. Maybe to find a new nesting ground,” Alan said. “It’s a whole new world for them.”

“I dare them to nest in Enid, Oklahoma,” Amanda said.

Paul looked over. He took his wife’s hand. “Let’s go home.”

Eric smiled. He had almost given up hope—even before the accident that stranded him on the island—that he would ever have a place to call home again.

Now he knew everything would be all right.

Alan looked up as the copilot handed him a pair of headsets.

“For you,” the copilot said.

Alan put them on, adjusting the microphone. He had to yell over the noise of the chopper.

“This is Grant,” Alan said.

“Alan?” Ellie asked. “Alan! Are you okay?”

“Ellie! Yes! I’m fine.” He was grinning like a schoolboy.

“I don’t believe you,” Ellie said. “You told me a paleontologist had no business being on that island.”

“I know.”

“So what were you doing?” Ellie asked.

Alan leaned back and allowed the golden sunlight to wash over him. “Evolving.”

He gazed out the window, taking in the primal beauty of the Pteranodons. They were flying northward, beside the sunrise.

It was a new dawn, a new beginning, and Alan Grant didn’t look away. He kept watching, even after the fluttering silhouettes dissolved in the shimmering light.