Grady Family Cabin
It was past midnight when Claire heard the creaking downstairs. Ever since they'd found the Reserve completely ransacked that morning and Maisie went missing the night before she'd not slept a wink. Franklin had come over earlier and he and Owen had eventually dozed off, so Claire had put them both in the main bed, but she'd remained squatted down on the top of the staircase with a baseball bat in one hand. The ceiling light above her was on, but the ones downstairs were all off.
She'd very nearly nodded off herself before she'd heard the creaking. When she heard it her head instantly pricked up and her grip tightened on the handle of the bat, slowly getting to her feet. She was barefoot and tread lightly on each step, trying to make sure none of them creaked too loudly when she went down them. Claire reached the bottom of the steps and froze as she saw the white light of the fridge being cast onto the living room floor.
"Huh..." Claire put the baseball bat onto the floor as she saw the silhouette of the figure that was kneeling in front of the opened fridge. She was at first overcome with relief and joy, wiping her eye with the back of her hand "I gotta say, sweetheart... I had a feeling you'd be coming back to us..."
The figure silently froze when Claire spoke, and she could tell that the head behind the fridge door had turned to face the direction of her voice.
Claire was so nearly tempted to go over and give what seemed to be Maisie a hug, but she decided against it. She figured it wouldn't be appropriate yet considering why Maisie had run off. "Listen honey, I... I'm sorry... about everything... alright, it... it wasn't your fault, but we can work through this... and I... I don't know if you saw the Reserve, but... but we'll work through that too..."
The figure remained silent, but Claire could hear them grabbing something off the top shelf of the fridge. "Ugh... Maisie, I know you can hear me."
"Hmm... Maisie...?" the female voice spoke as the shadowed figure stood up and closed the fridge door, with Claire immediately noticing that the figure's shadow was too tall and humanoid to be her adopted daughter. "How sweet. You know, on the way here I was actually wondering if you'd given it a name."
Claire stood still for a moment, slowly making her way over to the lamp next to the couch as the shadowed figure grabbed the magnet bottle opener off of the fridge and used it to pop off the lid on the beer she was holding.
"Oh, I hope you don't mind if I... help myself? You see, I've had a long and... awfully stressful couple of days and we all need refreshment every now and then. Guinness would have been preferable, obviously, but it seems, based on the contents of that fridge, that you're apparently more of a Heineken family..."
As soon as she switched on the light Claire straightened up with the bat out and ready to use again. Karla wasn't visibly threatened by this at all, merely scoffing as she said "relax darling, I'm not here to start a fight... and if you want one, at least let me finish my drink first..."
Claire didn't budge from her battle-ready stance, taking a few steps back as Karla casually walked around the back of the couch and slouched down onto it with her booted feet up on the coffee table. Her crossbow hung loosely from her belt and in one hand she was playfully twirling a small arrow, clearly trying to send a message.
"So... Claire Dearing Grady... I reckon that it's about time we met in person, don't you?"
"How did you get in here?"
"That's for me to know and for you to not bother asking about... hmm... I must say, you do have a lovely little home here... not quite what I'm used to..." Karla chuckled a bit as she took a swig of the bottle. She looked at Claire again, rolling her eyes as she said "oh don't be so uptight... come on, sit down..."
ZZZZZZIP! She nonchalantly pulled the trigger on the crossbow, letting it fire a dart that flew straight into the couch that faced the one where she sat. Claire looked at her for with a brow raised a few seconds, before Karla pointed her finger at the couch she had just shot, apparently motioning her to sit down there.
"Relax, darling. If I were here to kill you I'd have come prepared."
Claire was still intense, but she obliged to the request, sitting upright on the couch with the a leg on either side of the arrow and the bat positioned a few inches away on the floor. She remained straightforward in tone as she slowly spoke. "Karla... why are you here?"
"Alright, I see no need to treat you like an imbecile so I'll just set things straight." Karla lurched forwards with a grin on her face. "I'm here for your little... deformity... you know... the girl."
Claire went wide-eyed as Karla said this, clenching her fist a little as her eyes darted towards the baseball bat. Karla knew what she was thinking, so she kept her hand hovered over the handle of the crossbow on her belt just to send a subtle yet clear warning.
"Tempting as it is, though, I'm under strict contract to not harm her in any way, shape or form. See, I'm working for an old friend of yours that would like to take a look at her. The usual stuff. Experimentation, classifying species, and all that jazz. He's promised me a very reasonable pay, so out of all my clients this is one that I simply can't let down in this situation."
If she had not been frozen in shock, the internal rage brought on by this threat was nearly prompting Claire to reach for the baseball bat again, but she remained still as Karla leaned closer towards her so that their faces were just over six inches apart.
"You're going to give her to me, Claire." her voice was almost like a whisper, or the hiss of a serpent. "And the rest of them too."
"Never." Claire spat back in the most determined tone of voice she could muster. Karla was not deterred, almost pouting in deadpan annoyance as she pulled away from Claire and pinched the bridge of her nose.
"Why am I not surprised? Pft... well, I suppose if you don't intend to be patronised I'll take the liberty of giving you some much-needed constructive criticism."
She lazily pulled herself off of the couch as she took the crossbow off her belt, playfully twirling it in one hand and holding her bottle in the other as she walked around the back of the couch. "This little... um, what did you call it now... um... reserve? Yes? Right, this reserve, this... this dinosaur sanctuary thing, your... your Jurassic Utopia, it's... simply put, it's just not going to work... it never will."
Karla rolled her eyes again as she looked up on the wall, taking a silent moment to realise who the men in the painting actually were. The creators of all of this, Hammond and Lockwood. She scoffed in a tone that almost seemed to imply disgust, before turning back to Claire as she took another swig of her drink.
"I mean... you want our children to grow up in a world where these beasts still live amongst us, that's what you said, isn't it? But as what exactly, I can't really put my finger on. Pets? Equals? Ha ha... you want to give them the vote too?"
"They're living animals. And they deserve to live free, away from people like you and Mills."
"Oh, live free? Hmm... is that was that big fenced reserve outside is for? You self-righteous tree-huggers can question my methods all you want, but I'm a dinosaur hunter, and I know I am, I'm nothing if not honest. You lot on the other hand, well... there's a very thin line between being a so-called protector and being a captor. Which end of the spectrum do you reckon you fell under before another one of your dinosaur apologists stole them all from you, Claire?"
Claire went wide-eyed as Karla said this, prompting the latter to raise an amused eyebrow. "Oh... oh I see, you didn't know... well, if you thought I was the one that took them all, I'm afraid you were sadly mistaken. See, all I bother to take from my hunts are the heads and a few other things I can stuff... nice for memorabilia, sentimental value, all that shit."
Karla leaned into the back of the couch with her arms crossed. "Ever since those two old fools decided to play god with their science kits, history has proven to us time and time again that dinosaurs cannot coexist with us. The meteor hit them for a reason, Claire, and the natural order must be restored to what it once was."
"Oh yeah? And who's gonna do that? You?" Claire noticed Karla's attempt at a sincere face drop into an almost lifeless plain face, clearly implying that Claire had touched a nerve. "You can lie to yourself and all your little followers, Sealy, but I know what you are, and why you're doing this."
"Hmm... do you now?"
"Course I do. Your father loved these dinosaurs, and all animals." Claire chuckled almost mockingly. "Much more than he ever loved you."
Karla's grip was clearly tightening on the bottle she was holding and her eye was twitching, so Claire was clearly getting through to her. "No one ever gave a shit what you did til you brought back that lion's head, so you kept killing, and killing... the dinosaurs are just a bigger and tougher target. You say you wanna save humanity, but I know you just wanna be remembered as a new meteor. The one who hunted dinosaurs back to extinction."
It took a few seconds for Karla to respond to this, but eventually her smug grin came back as she stood up again. "What can I say? There's worse ways to be remembered... the woman who saved mankind from it's own mistakes has quite the ring to it in the history books... much better than the fools that tried to convince humanity that dinosaurs were just misunderstood and caused countless deaths trying to prove it... and the girl, well... that's a whole other problem in itself, isn't it?"
Claire didn't respond to this, so Karla now knew that she was now touching a nerve. "Who'd have thought we'd see such a perversion of nature so utterly disgusting that even Hammond would want nothing to do with it... and that was before she grew the scales... and what if she's... compatible... with humans, eh? What if she decides to breed with one of ours... imagine the freakish offspring, and imagine them breeding... and the vicious cycle continuing... and on and on and on, until... no... no, if I don't nip this in the bud, you and that girl would be the end of human civilisation as we know it..."
Claire was starting to pant a bit as she clenched her fingers onto the armrest of the couch, having an instinct that Karla's speech was coming to an end.
"And I'm afraid that's something..." Karla's mouth curled into a small smirk as she loaded the arrow into her crossbow, obviously intending to use it now. "...that I cannot allow."
CLICK-CLICK!
Karla's eyes widened as she heard the sound of the gun being cocked and loaded on her right. She and Claire both turned their heads slowly towards the bottom of the stairs, where Owen was standing with his old hunting rifle aimed straight at Karla. Franklin was behind the former Marine holding a golf club like a ninja with a katana sword.
"Are we interrupting?" Owen snarked with a brow raised, Karla merely scoffing as she lowered the crossbow.
"Not at all... in fact, things were just starting to get a bit boring." she looked at Claire as the latter got to her feet and grabbed the bat again.
"Franklin, call the police..." Claire looked to the boy, and he nodded as he dropped the golf club and walked around the back of the couch to grab the main house phone, muttering a few frustrated curse words to himself as he fumbled it around in his hands.
"Police, eh?" Karla remained casual and care-free as she looked at each of them. "What use do you think they'll be?"
"The sheer nerve of you disgusts me..." Claire pointed the bat directly at Karla's unamused face as she said this. "You kill because it's fun, you want to wipe out the dinosuars to feed your own bloated, spoiled brat of an ego, and now you come into our home and threaten our daughter's life..."
Karla scoffed and put a hand on her hip as she finished the rest of her drink. "You know Claire, calling what I'm doing a threat is undermining it a bit. Because it implies that I don't intend to carry it out."
"You'll never have Maisie!" Owen spat in an almost venomous tone which took Karla a little off guard, but she quickly regained her composure and stood up straight again as she turned to Clair, who now had a confident grin on her face as she continued pointing the bat.
"We have, we can and we will protect our child, and all of our dinosaurs, against far worse than the likes of you, Karla Sealy..." she said proudly and defiantly. "You and your hunters are nothing more than a sign of the times. Out of date. Dying out. Endangered."
Karla's eye twitched a little at this, and her grip loosened a little on the crossbow as she let it flop back down from her belt. A little smirk grew on her face as she looked at the arrow she'd fired into the couch, which Franklin was now standing behind as he dialled the number into the phone.
"Well, I can't say that I don't admire your determination, Claire..." Karla put the bottle down and fished her phone out of her pocket, Owen going wide-eyed as he saw the button on her screen. "But I'm afraid you're mistaken... you've never seen anything worse than me..."
"Claire, look out!" Owen darted over to tackle Claire aside, causing them both to fall behind the coffee table as Karla pressed the button. "FRANKLIN!"
BOOM!
The explosion erupted from the couch into a bright firework of sparks and flames that shot out in all directions, with Franklin letting out an ear-piercing shriek as it completely consumed him. Karla took a few steps back, proud of her work as the sparks stuck to the plaster ceiling and onto the wooden floor and caused miniature fires to start from them as they grew and spread at a rapid pace.
Owen held his shirt over his mouth and his hand over Claire's to keep the smoke out as they clambered to their feet, huddling close together as chunks and beams from the ceiling started to fall around them. Possible avenues of escape were starting to get closed up and blocked by the flames as the entire house started to fall apart.
Karla went around the back of the exploded couch, which was still belting out thick black smoke as she grabbed the golf club Franklin had been holding and swung it into one of the glass windows with a swift, sharp SMASH!
Using the butt of the club to clear away any of the remaining shards of the frame, she dialled her phone and spoke into it. "All wrapped up here, Adaku... finish up over there, will you dear?"
The smoke of the couch cleared away just long enough to show the Gradys what was behind it as they both went wide-eyed. Claire forced a muffled scream through Owen's hand at the sight of the charred, lifeless skeleton that was now standing where Franklin once was, which crumbled to dust a few seconds later as a beam fell on top of it.
"You can't keep them from me, Claire." Karla's voice echoed through the ravenous flames as they both turned to face it, her silhouette almost taking the form of a towering, hellish demon as she walked backwards and disappeared into the fire. "If you stand in my way I will not hesitate to kill every single one of you, and the girl. It's your choice."
Claire was frozen for a good few seconds after Karla disappeared, before Owen grabbed his wife and pulled her to her feet. "Claire come on, we gotta get outta here!"
They both continued covering their faces as Owen wrapped Claire in his arms to protect her from the flames. Owen kicked the front door down and they ran out of the doorway just before the beams falling from the porch were able to block it completely, narrowly escaping the cabin as the flames now spread to the outside as well.
Franklin was dead, Karla was gone and all that remained to show she was there was a collapsing inferno once known as the Grady Cabin, with the husband and wife sitting exhausted on the grass watching it blaze violently in the middle of the night.
"Claire... what do we do?" Owen asked.
"I... I don't know..."