There was a chugging sound, and then a soft whine. All the dashboard lights came on. Then silence. Was the car working? She turned the wheel and it moved easily. So the power steering was on.
“Doc.”
“Yes, Sarah.”
“The car’s working. I’m coming back.”
“Okay,” he said. “Hurrv.”
She put it in drive, and felt the transmission engage. The car was unusually quiet, almost silent. Which was why she was able to hear the faint thumping of a distant helicopter.
Daylight
She was driving beneath a thick canopy of trees, back toward the village. She heard the sound of the helicopter build in intensity. Then it roared overhead, unseen through the foliage above. She had the window down, and was listening. It seemed to move off to her right, toward the south.
The radio clicked. “Sarah.”
“Yes, Doc.”
“Listen: we can’t communicate with the helicopter.”
“Okay,” she said. She understood what had to be done. “Where’s the landing site?”
“South. About a mile. There’s a clearing. Take the ridge road.”
She was coming up to the fork. She saw the ridge road going off to the right. “Okay,” she said. “I’m going.”
“Tell them to wait for us,” Thorne said. “Then come back and get us.”
“Everybody okay?” she said.
“Everybody’s fine,” Thorne said.
She followed the road, hearing a change in the sound of the helicopter. She realized it must he landing. The rotors continued, a low whirr, which meant the pilot wasn’t going to shut down.
The road curved off to the left. The sound of the helicopter was now a muted thumping. She accelerated, driving fast, careening around the corner. The road was still wet from the rains the night before. She wasn’t raising a cloud of dust behind her. There was nothing to tell anyone that she was here.
“Doc. How long will they wait?”
“I don’t know,” Thorne said, over the radio. “Can you see it?”
“Not yet,” she said.
Levine stared out the window. He looked at the lightening sky, through the trees. The streaks of red were gone. It was now a bright even blue. Daylight was definitely coming.
Daylight…
And then he put it together. He shivered as he realized. He went to the window on the opposite side, looked out toward the tennis court. He stared at the spot where the carnotauruses had been the night before. They were gone now.
Just as he feared.
“This is bad,” he said.
“It’s only just now eight,” Thorne said, glancing at his watch. “How long will it take her?” Levine said.
“I don’t know. Three or four minutes.”
“And then to get back?” Levine said.
“Another five minutes.”
“I hope we make it that long.” He was frowning unhappily.
“Why?” Thorne said. “We’re okay.”
“In a few minutes,” Levine said, “we’ll have direct sun shining down outside.”
“So what?” Thorne said.
The radio clicked. “Doc,” Sarah said. “I see it. I see the helicopter.”
Sarah came around a final curve and saw the landing site off to her left. The helicopter was there, blades spinning. She saw another junction in the road, with a narrow road leading left down a hill, into jungle, and then out to the clearing, She drove down it, descending a series of switchbacks, forcing her to go slow. She was now back in the jungle, beneath the canopy of trees. The ground leveled out, she splashed across a narrow stream, and accelerated forward.
Directly ahead there was a gap in the tree canopy, and sunlight on the clearing beyond. She saw the helicopter. Its rotors were beginning to spin faster – it was leaving! She saw the pilot behind the bubble, wearing dark glasses. The pilot checked his watch, shook his head to the copilot, and then began to lift off.
Sarah honked her horn, and drove madly forward. But she knew they could not hear her. Her car bounced and jolted. Thorne was saying, “What is it? Sarah! What’s happening?”
She drove forward, leaning out the window, yelling “Wait! Wait!” But the helicopter was already rising into the air, lifting up out of her view. The sound began to fade. By the time her car burst out of the jungle into the clearing, she saw the helicopter heading away, disappearing over the rocky rim of the island.