Malcolm sighed. “It’s so nice to have a man around the house,” he said.
The cylinder sailed high through the air, tumbling in the moonlight. The raptors were about five yards away, clustered around the bike. One of the animals looked up and saw the cylinder, which landed in the grass a few yards away.
Sarah stood by the door, waiting.
Nothing happened.
No explosion.
Nothing.
“Ian! It didn’t work.”
Curious, one raptor hopped over toward where the cylinder had landed in the grass. It ducked down, and when it raised its head, it held the cylinder glinting in its jaws.
She sighed. “It didn’t work.”
“Oh, never mind,” Malcolm said calmly.
The raptor shook its head, biting into the cylinder.
“What do we do now?” Kelly said.
There was a loud explosion, and a cloud of dense white smoke blasted outward across the clearing. The raptors disappeared in the cloud.
Harding closed the door quickly. “Now what?” Kelly said.
With Malcolm leaning on her shoulder, they moved across the clearing in the night. The gas cloud had dissipated, several minutes before. The first raptor they found in the grass was lying on its side, eyes open, absolutely motionless. But it wasn’t dead: Harding could see the steady pulse in the neck. The animal was merely paralyzed. She said to Malcolm, “How long will it last?”
“Have no idea,” Malcolm said. “Much wind?”
“There’s no wind, Ian.”
“Then it should last a bit.”
They moved forward. Now the raptors lay all around them. They stepped around the bodies, smelling the rotten odor of carnivores. One of the animals lay across the bike. She eased Malcolm down to the ground, where he sat, sighing. After a moment, he began to sing: “I wish in the land of cotton, old times there are not forgotten, look away…”
Harding tugged at the motorcycle handlebars, trying to pull the bike from beneath the raptor. The animal was too heavy. Kelly said, “Let me,” and reached for the handlebars. Harding went forward. Without hesitating, she bent over and put her arms around the raptor’s neck, and pulled the head upward. She felt a wave of revulsion. Hot scaly skin scraped her arms and cheek. She grunted as she leaned back, raising the animal.
“In Dixie land…duh-duh-duh-duh…to live and die in Dixie…”
She said to Kelly, “Got it?”
“Not yet,” Kelly said, pulling on the handlebars.
Harding’s face was inches from the velociraptor’s head and laws. The head flopped back and forth as she adjusted her grip. Close to her face, the open eye stared at her, unseeing. Harding tugged, trying to lift the animal higher.
“Almost… ” Kelly said.
Harding groaned, lifting.
The eye blinked.
Frightened, Harding dropped the animal. Kelly pulled the bike away. “Got it!”
“Away, away…away down south…in Dixie…”
Harding came around the raptor. Now the big leg twitched. The chest began to move.
“Let’s go,” she said. “Ian, behind me. Kelly, on the handlebars.”
“Away…away…a-way down south…”
“Let’s go,” Harding said, climbing on the bike. She kept her eyes on the raptor. The head gave a convulsive jerk. The eye blinked again. It was definitely waking up. “Let’s go, let’s go. Let’s go!”
Village
Sarah drove the motorcycle down the hill toward the worker village. Looking past Kelly, Sarah saw the Jeep parked at the store, not far from the gas pumps. She braked to a stop, and they all climbed off in the moonlight. Kelly opened the door to the store, and helped Malcolm inside. Sarah rolled the motorcycle into the store, and closed the door.
“Doc?” she said.
“We’re over here,” Thorne said. “With Arby.”
By the moonlight filtering in through the windows, she could see the store looked very much like an abandoned roadside convenience stand. There was a glass-walled refrigerator of soft drinks, the cans obscured by mold on the glass. A wire rack nearby held candy bars and Twinkies, the wrappers speckled green, crawling with larvae. In the adjacent magazine rack, the pages were curled, the headlines five years old.
To one side were rows of basic supplies: toothpaste, aspirin, suntan lotion, shampoo, combs and brushes. Alongside this were racks of clothing, tee shirts and shorts, socks, tennis rackets, bathing suits. And a few souvenirs: key chains, ashtrays, and drinking glasses.