"Hurry up Kev, I want to go ride a dinosaur!" Nazz yelled. Kevin was quite a ways behind her, dragged down my the mountain of Nazz's stuff he was carrying.
"Could you slow down a little Nazz?" Kevin begged. "This stuff is heavy". Nazz laughed to herself. Not far from her, Rolf, accompanied by a group of kids, were sitting down at a nearby outside restaurant enjoying a quick meal before they continued their trip around the park.
"Boy Jimmy!" Rolf yelled excitedly when he saw Jimmy and Sarah approaching his table.
"Sorry we're late Rolf. We stopped at the candy store. I just had to get some Jujubes". Rolf's face went blank for a moment.
" Jujubes"? Rolf jumped on top of the table. "Rolf must have the Jujubes"! He leaped over Jimmy and Sarah, pushing his way through all he passed on the way.
"I forgot how crazy Rolf got about Jujubes." Jonny laughed.
"Whoa, watch it due!" Nazz yelled as Rolf sped past her. Nearby Lee and May were resting at a bench, taking sips of soda.
"Buncha idiots." Lee snarled. "Come on May. We're ganna go win me a giant stuffed T-Rex".
On the other side of the park the Ed boys were in attendance for a feeding show of the park's Mosasaur. A very large pool at at the center of a huge stadium filled to the brim with park visitors housed the creature. The feeding shows were amongst the parks most popular features. A long rope dangled a large piece of meat above the water. The meat seemed to be the size of a cow, and was raised seemingly 25 feet above the water.
"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome, to our feeding show! You're in for quite the show today, as we feed our Mosasaur, Bruce. Mosasaur were apex predators during the late Cretaceous period. The largest fossil specimen ever found was 57 feet long! Bruce isn't quite that big, but not far from it"! The women held her radio up to her ear and smiled. "Alright everyone, here he comes"! The crowd waited in silence, and without warning the water shot up and reviled Bruce, an enormous beast who took the dangling meat in one swift bite before returning to the water. The entire stadium got drenched in water. The people, all soaking wet, cheered like madmen at the spectacle. Eddy nearly lost his mind screaming and hollering, and Ed was viciously shaking Edd. "How was that!" the crowd erupted in even louder cheer. "Please join us at three for the feeding of our Rex's, I promise it'll be a great time. Thank you for coming"!
Marie, Tim, and Samuel were still in the Rex viewing room. Marie was still completely enamored by watching them and even started making some quick sketches of the mother while she was resting. Samuel was preparing the Rex's next meal while Tim was examining samples of the Rex's blood to make sure they were healthy.
'Ring ring'
Tim and Samuel both heard a really high pitched ring. And then again.
"Tim, do you hear that too"?
"I do. Marie, can you hear that high pitched ring"? A few seconds pass. "Marie?" Tim went over and nudged her.
"Huh, oh, sorry. What were you saying"?
"Did you hear that high pitched ringing a second ago"?
"High pitched ringing? Oh, that was probably my phone. It has one of those high rings that adults aren't supposed to be able to hear. I use it to text in school". The phone went off again. All three of them took immediate notice of the baby Rex, that seemed to be aware of the noise. It got up from laying beside it's mother.
"Samuel, how is it hearing that, This room is supposed to be completely soundproof".
"You got me, Tim". The little Rex was sniffing in the area of the windows. It had no way to see them, but somehow it managed to hear Marie's phone. It didn't take long before the mother took notice of her son and started making her way to the window. Marie shut her phone off, terrified that somehow it would lead to her getting eaten.
The mother, Bessy, had her nose nearly plastered up against the window, just smelling, like her son, Chomper. Marie loved the idea of getting to observe the animals this close, but that was only because she thought they had no way of knowing she was there. She was completely frozen by fear.
"Don't worry Marie. There's no way even a Rex could break through this room." Tim tried to assure her.
"Yeah. That's what you said about them hearing us". After a couple fear soaked seconds the cry of an animal could be heard nearby. Both Rex's immediately stopped paying attention to the windows and went off in search for it. "What was that?" Marie asked, confused.
"It's feeding time." Samuel said. "No predator wants to be fed, they want to hunt. So instead of just throwing their food in the enclosure we use speakers placed all around the area and play the sounds of wounded animals. That will draw the Rex's out from wherever they are. We also have a mechanical rail system on the ceiling. We use it to hold a meat dummy and make it move around, the Rex's chase it. It's the best way for us to ensure thy get exercise".
"There's a large open area in the center of the enclosure that we use when feeding them. That way the visitors of the park can see them run around and hunt. The glass we use here, indestructible, soundproof (mostly), one way, that's surrounding the entire enclosure so people can look down, but the Rex's will never know they're there".
"You're in for a treat Marie. Seeing Bessy run around is an amazing sight. Something that big moving nearly 20 mile an hour is crazy".
"Samuel, do you wan to move the the other viewing room"?
"Sounds good. Ready Marie"?
"There's more of these rooms?" she asked.
"Of course. If this was the only one then Samuel and the other caretakers wouldn't be able to keep a good eye on the animals". With that the three made their way to the next room to see the hunt in action.
"Move over Lumpy, I can't see"!
"That's because you're so short, Eddy." Ed retorted. Edd chuckled at the random moments of intellect and wit Ed would have. Eddy found nothing about his remarks funny and tried pushing him out of the way. Obviously, to no avail.
"Hiya Double D". Edd turned and greeted Nazz.
"Hello Nazz. Enjoying the park so far"?
"Yeah man, it's pretty Rad". Nazz ran off to find a spot to watch the show. Slowly following her was Kevin, now holding even more of Nazz's belongings then before.
"Kevin, do you need some assistance?" Edd offered.
"No. I...I got this." he replied, sluggishly making his way over to where Nazz had stopped. Edd noticed Rolf, who was carrying what looked like a 5 pound bag of candy, Jonny, Jimmy and Sarah, even Lee and May standing not far from him. Seems like all the kids wanted to see the Rex feeding.
A voice came on over speakers placed all around the Rex enclosure.
"Welcome all, to the feeding of the Rex's". The audience cheered. "The Rex's are fierce hunters and you'll get to watch them first hand in just a moment. Right now we're playing the sound of a wounded animal all throughout their enclosure to lure them out to the open where our rail system will be moving around a meat dummy for them to catch. The dome encasing the enclosure is soundproof, but the speakers I'm speaking from will let you listen to the action as it unfolds"! Once the announcer stopped speaking there was a calm for about a minute. Then the sound of very loud thumping could be heard from the speakers. The meat dummy the announcer talked about made it's first appearance, zipping through the large opening in the center of the enclosure. The baby Rex, Chomper made his debut following the dummy. A lot of the people in attendance oohed and awed at the, admittedly cute, baby Rex. Their breath was taken away in the next split second when Bessy leap through the foliage and chased down the dummy. The crowd's thunderous applause could be heard from anywhere on the island as the mamma Rex chased down her prey. However her hunt soon would come to an end. Thuds, like the ones from Bessy were happening again, but this time, much louder. She stopped, and the crowd went silent, confused on her behavior. A third Rex burst through, letting out a massive roar, so loud it shot out all the speakers the audience was using to listen. Bessy slowly backed away from the new Rex, Tyrant.
"Oh my god." Marie stuttered out. "You guys weren't kidding. He's enormous".
"This is peculiar. Tyrant isn't usually one to claim territory like this. He's normally submissive of Bessy". The visitors all looked on as Tyrant made short work of catching the food and began eating it. Little chomper ran over to his father, who lowered his head and nuzzled his son before sharing his catch with him. Bessy, went back to her nest. Tyrant let out another monstrous roar that came out as loud crackling static over the broken speakers.
"Do she really not get anything to eat now"?
"Of course she does Marie." Samuel explained. "There are several 'food domes' as we call them, in he enclosure. Places we can safely put food in for her. One of the workers is probably filling it right now. Nothing to be concerned about.
"His helicopter is landing Bryce". Professor Bryce was pacing in a frantic fashion, vigorously biting her red colored nails down to the stubs.
"There's a dead animal, and now a dead park worker. This, this is crazy Ray. What is he going to say, what are we going to do? There could be something out there! We need to lock down the area"!
"Bryce, relax. This is a crazy situation but we need to stay level headed about it. Henry will have a plan for this. He thought of everything when the park was built. Everything will be alright. Come on, let's go up and meet him". A quick flight of stairs and they were met with a man in his late thirty's of Asian decent. Ray extended his hand. "Hello doctor Wu. A pleasure to see you, I only wish the circumstances weren't so unfortunate".
"Ray, we've known each other 10 years you can call me Henry. Professor Bryce, a pleasure to finally meet you in person. I hate to rush things but would you mind showing me to the bodies"?
"Of course Doctor". Ray and Bryce had both the bodies moved to the examining room of the building. Normally used to study samples of blood, skin, dung, anything to get accurate data of the dinosaurs. "Here they are. The dinosaur body seems to be almost a week old while the...the human specimen is only about two days old". Henry grabbed a mask and gloves and started examining both bodies, starting with the fresher one. After a few minutes Henry removed his mask and pointed to the man's rip cage.
"His rips. Four of them are broken and all of them have deep scratch marks on them. The force that would take." he paused. "It had to be a dinosaur".
"But how could it be?" Bryce interjected. "No carnivores other then the Rex's are on the island. Besides the Mosasaur. No other dinosaur has the ability to do damage like that".
"I'm afraid I may know the answer to this problem Professor." Henry said, examining the other body.
"What are you talking about Henry"? The doctor removed his gloves and sat on a nearby chair, wiping his forehead of the sweat that was begin to trickle down.
"This park was opened two years ago. The research for creating these animals has been going on for decades. Before the park was up and running there were several laboratories set up over the island to work on making them. Once we had perfected everything Mr. Hammond began construction of the park. He gave us the list of dinosaurs he wanted to feature in the park".
"Yes, and what does any of this have to do with the bodies"?
"The list contained a few more specimen then are currently at the park. The first habitat built was for the Rex's. After we had produced the Rex we began work on more carnivores. I didn't think it was a good idea but Hammond insisted".
"What did you make"?
"Raptors. Among other things. Hammond was obsessed with the Raptors. There were two of them. It's always been theorized that raptors were intelligent but we could never have guessed just how smart they were. After a few months they were almost the size of a full grown man. They were deadly. We had to use the Rex enclosure to house the Rex and the other carnivores. Steel fences were all that separated them while the other habitats were being constructed. We thought that would be enough. The Raptors found a way out of their area and killed the Rex and a few of the others before a larger Dilophosaurus managed to kill one of them. Soon after a construction incident allowed several of the animals to escape into the forest of the island. When we went out to find them all we came across the raptor, dead. It had bite and claw marks across it's body so we knew it had been attacked by another of the animals. When we examined some of it's blood we retrieved a few days prior we came across the fact that the raptor was pregnant. I had always feared that it was only able to be killed because it was weak from laying it's eggs and they could still be out there somewhere. It seemed so unlikely that after an initial search I just forgot about it".
"Alright. So you're suggesting that years ago a raptor got out and laid eggs that survived this long and found a way here and are killing people"?
"That's exactly what I'm suggesting Professor. I know it sounds unlikely, but what else makes sense here"?
"Henry, is there a chance that if the raptor did lay eggs, that the others could have as well"?
"No Ray, none of the other animals were pregnant at the time of the escape. It could only be the raptors".
"So what should we do?" Bryce was shaking like a leaf.
"The park was built to be separate from the rest of the island, the gate connecting this area to the park is the only way into it from anywhere on the island. The gate is only opened when someone comes in or out of here. I think it's safe to assume the raptor is still in this area based on it's recent kills. We'll keep the gate locked at all times, set up traps, bait it with food. We need to catch it as quick as we can.
"Should we evacuate the park"?
"No. People at a dinosaur park getting evacuated. They'd panic and think a Rex was out to eat them. The raptor is without a doubt still in this area so there's no need to get that drastic. To catch this thing we'll need all the tranquilizer guns we can get and anyone experienced with a gun. The knock out gas you use for the Rex's, we'll need as much as you can spare. We need to do this quick and quiet".