“She’s licking him. And pushing him with her snout.”
“And?”
“That’s all. She just keeps doing it.”
“What about the baby?”
“Nothing. It keeps rolling over, like it’s dead. How much morphine did we give him, the last time?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “How should I know?”
Malcolm remained on the floor, listening to the slurping and the growling. And finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he heard a soft high-pitched squeak.
“He’s waking up! Ian! The baby’s waking up!”
Malcolm crawled up on his knees, and looked out the window in time to see the adult carrying the baby in its jaws, walking away toward the perimeter of the clearing.
“What’s it doing?”
“I guess, taking it back.”
The second adult came into view, following the first. Malcolm and Sarah watched the two tyrannosaurs move away from the trailer, across the clearing.
Malcolm’s shoulders dropped. “That was close,” he said.
“Yes. That was close.” She sighed, and wiped blood from her forearm.
In the high hide, Thorne pressed the radio button. “Ian! Are you there? Ian!”
Kelly said, “Maybe they turned the radio off.”
A light rain began to fall, pattering on the metal roof of the shed. Levine was staring through his night-vision glasses toward the cliff. Lightning flashed, and Thorne said, “Can you see what the animals are doing?”
“I can,” Eddie said. “It looks…it looks like they’re going away.” They all began to cheer.
Only Levine remained silent, watching through the glasses. Thorne turned to him. “Is that right, Richard? Is everything okay?”
Actually, I think not,” Levine said. “I’m afraid we have made a serious error.
Malcolm watched the retreating tyrannosaurs through the shattered glass window. Beside him, Sarah said nothing. She never took her eyes off the animals.
Rain started to fall; water dripped from the shards of lass. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and lightning cracked harshly down, illuminating, the giant animals as they moved away.
At the nearest of the big trees, the adults stopped, and placed the baby on the ground.
“Why are they doing that?” Sarah said. “They should be going back to the nest.”
“I don’t know, maybe they’re – ”
“Maybe the baby is dead,” she said.
But no, in the next flash of lightning they could see the baby moving. It was still alive. They could hear its high-pitched squeaking as one of the adults took the baby in its laws, and gently placed it in a fork among the high branches of a tree.
“Oh no,” Sarah said, shaking her head. “This is wrong Ian. This is all wrong.”
The female tyrannosaur remained with the baby for some moments, moving it, positioning it. Then the female turned, opened its jaws, and roared.
The male tyrannosaur roared in response.
And then both animals charged the trailer at full speed, racing across the clearing toward them.
“Oh, my God,” Sarah said.
“Brace yourself, Sarah!” Malcolm shouted. “It’s going to be bad!”
The impact was stunning, knocking them sideways through the air. Sarah screamed as she tumbled away. Malcolm hit his head and fell to the floor, seeing stars. Beneath him, the trailer rocked on its suspension, with a metallic scream. The tyrannosaurs roared, and slammed into it again.
He heard her shouting, “Ian! Ian!” and then the trailer crashed over onto its side. Malcolm turned away; glassware and lab equipment smashed all around him. When he looked up, everything was cockeyed. Directly above him was the broken window the tyrannosaur had smashed. Rain dripped through onto Malcolm’s face. Lightning flashed, and then he saw a big head peering down at him and snarling. He heard the harsh scratching of the tyrannosaurs’ claws on the metal side of the trailer, then the face disappeared. A moment later, he heard them bellowing as they pushed the trailer through the dirt.
He called “Sarah!” and he saw her, somewhere behind him, just as the world spun crazily again, and the trailer was upended with a crash. Now the trailer was lying on its roof; Malcolm started crawling along the ceiling, trying to reach Sarah. He looked up at the lab equipment, locked down on the lab benches, above his head. Liquid dripped onto him from a dozen sources. Something stung his shoulder. He heard a hiss, and realized it must be acid.