"Recalculating," the robotic female voice from the GPS said as Owen drove down a small back road somewhere out in the boonies of what was East Tennessee. Owen hated it. He couldn't find his way around there to save his life and he always prided himself with a wonderful sense of direction. It was a shame that even his GPS was like "fuck this". He'd go into a turn and his GPS would give out on him. He'd come up on the road he was supposed to turn on and his GPS would give out on him. He swore if he ever heard the word "recalculating" again he'd shoot the person who said it.
He sighed when he came to a stop at the end of the road. This was the road he was supposed to be on. He had passed it. He turned his truck around with a little difficulty then started back down the road. He looked at each mailbox he passed and only half of them had street numbers. He started counting down the numbers until he came to the right spot and pulled off to the side and groaned. The address consisted of three driveways that met at the bottom of the hill. The two on the sides led up two very steep hills with two imaculate houses at the top while the one in the center led up into the hills and disappeared. The drive way that cut up to the right had a huge cook out going on. People were playing corn hole, someone was grilling out, there was people hanging around everywhere. He hoped that was the place he was looking for.
He reached back into his back seat and picked up an manila folder and opened it. Inside was a dossier of a woman named Geraldine Bennett. She was a highly decorated marine with a military bloodline dating back to the Revolutionary War. After serving nearly ten years, she got a purple heart and left the service only to move to East Tennessee to become an animal behavioralist working for the Knoxville Zoo. Her commute to work had to have been over an hour considering where she lived.
"Recalculating!" he heard someone yell from the cook out going on above him. That would be the person he was going to hit. He drove up the hill so at least he could figure out where the hell he needed to go. He seen a couple people walking around to meet him around back. The house in itself looked more like a hotel than anything with windows absolutely everywhere. He noticed a concrete pathway leading all the way around the house to a parking lot out back. It was filled wtih many different cars and it looke like one would have to play musical cars just to get out. He watched as a woman and a man approached the car both with beers in the hand.
"Who are you trying to find?" the woman asked. She wore a dark blue tank top with a pair of boot cut jeans that were tucked away in a pair of knee high dark brown boots. She had hair down to her waist that was a light brown and deep blue eyes that pierced right through him. The man walking with her stood a good six foot seven and was very lanky. He wore a white tank top and light blue jeans with holes all over them he had blonde hair and blue eyes.
"I'm looking for Geraldine Bennett. Do you know her?" The two exchanged looks with each other. The woman looked back to Owen and took a drink of her beer.
"Only people that call me Geraldine are government workers. That being the case, nothing government is allowed on my hill. Throw your car in reverse and find your way out of here."
"I'm not with the government," he said. Geraldine wrapped an arm around her stomach. The man beside her sat his beer down on a car.
"Then who are you?"
"Owen Grady." The mood shifted instantly.
"Oh yes, Mr. Grady. I know about you. Navy right?" Owen felt it was safe to get out of his car so he did.
"Yeah that's right." She hummed.
"I'm Gerry, this is my brother, Bub. Come on out front and grab a beer. Hamburgers and hotdogs are on the grill." Gerry and Bub turned to lead the way around front. Gerry looked back at him over her shoulder. "So, why would an ex Navy man want training from an animal behavioralist?" she asked.
"Let's just say that I've fallen into a highly rewarding job, but I need some training for it first."
"What zoo are you going into?"
"That's classified." Gerry scoffed glancing back at him.
"Spoken like a true government lacky."
"I'm not a government lacky," he defended. He couldn't tell her that he was supposed to be studying pack hunter habits so he could raise a pack of velocirapters that was for sure. Not to mention that he was looking for someone to come with him to help out with the Raptors. She would think he was crazy. Hell, when they approached him about the job, he nearly cried he laughed at them so hard. When they showed him footage of dinosaurs that had already been hatched and put into their paddocks, he thought it was some type of CGI. Then they showed him an actual baby dinosaur and every part of him was giddy. His inner child went nuts. Hell yes he wanted to raise his own baby dinosaurs. Velociraptors? Even better!
"So, why are they sending you to me, Mr. Grady? Training Dolphins not a good enough reference? They're some of the greatest pack hunters on the planet? Why send you to a small zoo like mine to watch Red Wolves?"
"It's Owen, and how did you know I trained Dolphins?" Gerry gave him a flat look.
"I was in the marines doing real military work, Mr. Grady, not playing around with fish." Owen frowned clearly offended by her remark. Gerry gave him a smug look after deciding that she had touched a nerve so easily.
"For one, they're not fish. They're mammals. And two, if you keep calling me Mr. Grady, I'm calling you Geraldine, Geraldine." She and Bub started laughing. Bub patted Owen shoulder hard.
"Chill out, Owen, my sister is just a brat. You get used to it."
"And he's an ass hole. You get used to that, too." Bub shoved her and she shoved back as they turned the corner leaving Owen behind them wondering what the hell just happened. Then he grinned. These were his kind of people. He followed them over to the crowd of people hanging around doing random things. The game of corn hole had ended and instead there was two men fighting in the center of the corn hole shutes. Gerry sighed crossing her arms.
"Again? What happened this time?"
"Nate pelted Kacey in the nuts with a bag." Bub, Gerry, an Owen groaned together. Gerry turned to Owen.
"Beer's in the cooler. Food should be getting done here soon." Everyone started laughing as Kacey and Nate began rolling down the hill including the two rolling. Once they had settled their differences, they came back up the hill. Kacey picked up his beer and Nate went to sit down and pulled out his phone. Nate stood nearly as tall as Bub while Kacey was a couple inches shorter, but had girth to him that Bub and Nate didn't. Kacey didn't have the same fine, light hair that Bub and Nate had either. Instead he had a long, thick, curly mess down to his shoulders.
"This is my brother, that little punk over there is my nephew Nate, Bub's son. Right ovver there is Bub's beautiful wife, Christine." Owen nodded his head towards the woman. Christine stood about 5'8 had curly black hair, and was a little heavy set. She had a smile that lit up the room, but there was a small glint in her eye to say she was a force to be reckoned with when she was angry. "That over there is my sister Beth and her boyfriend Matt." Beth was about the same hieght as Gerry with long dark hair. Matt stood a little taller than Kacey, but shorter than Bub. He had a beer gut and a dumb look in his eyes. Owen knew this man was not to be liked. "Guys this is Owen Grady, a government lacky."
"I'm not a government lacky."
"You know the only people who say things like that are government lackeys," Kacey said sipping at his beer. Owen frowned. These people really didn't trust the government at all. Part of him wondered why considering there was a long line of military officials in their bloodline. It was really none of his business even though the curiosity was killing him.
"Let's play some corn hole, Gerry!" Nate suddenly said jumping up. Gerry nodded.
"Where's our teams?" Beth raised her hand and Gerry looked at Owen. "Do you know how to play?"
"I haven't played in forever, but yes."
"Cool, you're on Nate's team." Nate grumbled.
"Sure, give me the noob!"
"Well, I sure as hell don't want him on my team!" Gerry hissed putting her hands on her hips.
"Me neither," Beth said even though her voice was barely above a whisper. Nate huffed standing next to Beth on their side. Owen and Gerry stood with each other on the opposite so they could talk.
"So, you never answered my question, Owen." Owen tossed the first bag. It flew across, but missed the corn hole all together. He huffed in disappointment.
"And what question is that?" Gerry tossed her bag and it landed just far enough on the corn hole to count as a point.
"Why me?"
"You're the best in your field when it comes to predatory behavior. I need the best to teach me."
"And what is animal is it that you'll be studying that requires my expertise?" Owen tossed his bag and kept his mouth shut. He glanced at her to see that she was grinning at him.
"It's one of the greatest predators in the history of all predators." Gerry seemed to think about this for a moment before tossing her bag.
"It's not a zoo of people is it?" Owen laughed tossing his bag.
"No, not quite." Gerry seemed to contimplate a little more on the situation before she gave up and started picking up bean bags to throw back across the way. The food was done and everyone just found random spots to sit down and munch down on their food and drink their drinks. Nate talked Gerry's ear off talking away about the latest video game sinsation. Gerry talked away with him discussing things that Owen quite frankly didn't understand. He tried to keep up with most video games, but it got to the point to where they were advancing more than he could keep up with. Not that he wasn't good at them, they was just not enough time in the day to sit down and really enjoy them to the extent that most people did.
"I don't understand something about this whole "training" ordeal, Owen," Kacey pipped up next to him. Kacey didn't look him in the eye. Instead he watched his food in a way that if he didn't, the food would come back to life and get away. Owen frowned not liking his approach. He wasn't sure about Kacey too much. He just gave off a different type of vibe. Maybe he was friendly in the end, but there was also some type of underlying vibe that he was giving off that seemed... unstable. Kacey took a bite of burger, then brushed a hand off on his jeans to brush away the food left behind then grabbed his beer to wash it down. "You're here to get some pointers from my sister on the animal behavior of the red wolves that she takes care of at the zoo. To learn how they hunt. How they interact."
"What are you getting at?" Owen asked his guard going up. He wasn't too sure where this was going.
"I just don't understand how you're going to do this considering the wolves were born and raised in captivity. There's no hunter's instinct there. No need for it when your food gets handed to you every day. Kinda hard to study something that isn't even there." Owen grinned and sipped his beer.
"Good to know you guys aren't morons." Kacey scoffed finally looking at him.