14
Haymitch pressed his foot on the pedal and the vehicle lurched forward, tires screeching angrily. The truck raced ahead but it was not going fast enough for Haymitch's liking. It was difficult to when there was a triceratops at the back, weighing the vehicle down.
His eyes flickered to the rear view mirror to see Finn patting the dinosaur comfortingly. Johanna was alert, gun held tight in her hand while Annie was just glad to see the park disappearing behind them.
"Can't you go faster?" Effie asked, glancing out of the window every so often to check for danger.
"I could if you didn't drag that damn dinosaur along with - "
"Oh, not that argument again," she pinched her lips. "You have Echo at the back with Finn."
Haymitch smirked at the use of the raptor's name as he reached out to squeeze her knee.
"We'll get there," he assured her.
He made sure to drive as far away from the roaming tyrannosaurus as possible. It wasn't such a difficult feat to accomplish since the tyrannosaurus didn't appear to be in a hurry to go anywhere. It was leisurely basking in its newfound freedom.
Once in a while, it would give off a loud, massive roar as if to remind any living beings nearby the kind of fearsome beast that it was. Each time it roared, Haymitch spied movements from his peripheral vision; some much smaller dinosaurs running as far away from the tyrannosaurus as possible.
Lumbering in the distance was a lone brontosaurus. Haymitch drove right between its legs and under its belly which resulted in a very surprise gasp from Finn.
"That was so cool!" Finn tapped on the window separating them.
The woods separating Twelve from Jurassic World started to thin out, and soon, Haymitch saw a glimpse of the familiar outline of District Twelve.
"Still got your gun on you?" Haymitch asked.
"Yes," Effie nodded and patted the holster.
"Johanna, you ready? Keep your eyes open for raptors... or any other animals that might have made it here," Haymitch raised his voice to be heard.
When the truck came to a stop, Johanna jumped out of it and took point with her gun raised protectively in front of her. Effie helped the others out and with Finn's assistance, cajoled Baby Bop down from the truck. Echo was perched on Baby Bop's frill.
"They became friends," Finn smiled proudly at Effie.
"An unlikely friendship has blossomed!" Effie gushed, indulging him. "Just like your Uncle Haymitch and I, a long time ago..."
XxX
District Twelve was a ghost town.
The district was silent and gave off an eerie vibe. Plumes of smoke rose up in the sky and there was a putrid stench in the air.
There was no one around which Haymitch took as a good sign. It would mean that they had gotten out. Or they could all be dead, whispered a treacherous voice.
"Where's the army? I thought you activated the military, Effie?" Annie asked, looking around and taking her surroundings in. "Could it be that - "
An explosion went off. The group flinched and huddled together near the truck. When Haymitch looked up, he saw bits and pieces of flesh up in the air.
"The army's definitely here and I think they just blew up some dinosaurs," Johanna remarked with far too much glee.
Effie remained frozen, her face a mask of disbelief. "They're using explosives? A little bit over the top, isn't it?"
"Cloning extinct animals for entertainment - a little bit over the top, isn't it?" Johanna mimicked and mocked her. "We've got to find them."
Haymitch was just about to suggest the same so he gestured them all to start moving, warning them to be careful. Instead of giving him any assurance, the military's presence was adding to his worry. He was now worrying about the dinosaurs and the military accidentally blowing them to pieces.
The further into Twelve they went, the more destruction they came across. In retrospect, it was not too bad compared to what Haymitch had returned to after the Capitol bombed the district. Still, it was unsettling to see blood splattered on the walls and the corpses of dead animals on the streets.
"What is it with Twelve's luck, huh," Johanna muttered under her breath and glanced at Effie out of the corner of her eyes, "to be the district closest to the main park?"
Effie refused to rise to the bait since she had nothing to do with choosing the location of the park. It was unfortunate, if anything, not deliberate.
"Aunt Effie," Finn's hand shot out to touch her arm, stopping her in her tracks. Baby Bop bumped against her back. "Look at that man - what's wrong with him? He's all... big. He looks weird."
It was clear from where Haymitch was standing that the man was dead. Taking a hold of his arm, Annie steered Finn away as the three other adults approached the body.
The stench was strong. It was not the smell of a decomposing body but a mixture of the blood and the yellow glob covering many areas on the man's torso.
Effie covered her mouth, forcing the bile down her throat when she saw the state the body was in.
"Oh shit," Haymitch stared.
"What the fuck happened to him? I've never seen…." Johanna trailed off. Despite the smell, Johanna squatted next to the corpse. She examined the body curiously and prodded it with a long branch she found on the ground.
With steady hand, Johanna carefully scraped the yellow substance off his skin with the thin branch, especially around his face which had bloated up, blotched with blue and black. What horrified Effie beyond belief was the gaping hole in his stomach.
"Somethin' ate him," Haymitch remarked, gesturing to the strewn intestines. His own hand was resting on his stomach, right at the place where Effie knew the scar from the axe wound was.
"Yeah, something was having a good feast. See here," Johanna pointed to the teeth marks all over the man's body.
"Oh! Dilophosaurus," Effie gasped now that she suddenly remembered about the existence of those animals.
Johanna didn't even bat an eyelash. She merely craned her neck upwards to look at Effie. "What's that now?"
"It's a breed of dinosaurs… Carnivores as you would expect. They're smaller than the velociraptors but also hunt in packs. They're never alone. They… They are venomous and they spit the venom out," Effie gestured to the man's face, "to decapitate their victims and paralyse them. Then they… they…," she swallowed.
"Attack their victims," Johanna finished what Effie couldn't. "You know something, Trinket? I'm not going to even bother asking why your park has such lethal monsters in it."
"So Plutarch thought having dinosaurs with venom would attract more visitors?" Haymitch arched an eyebrow.
Effie inhaled deeply. She knew they did not mean it that way but she could not dispel the feeling that they were partly blaming her for it. Perhaps they were right to. Perhaps she should have put her foot down when the carnivores were being sent to the park and more carnivorous species were being cloned but she didn't and now people were dead because of it.
"Dr. Wu manipulated one of the dilophosaurus' genes," she explained as she slowly began to recall the discussion she heard between Plutarch and Dr. Wu at the lab during one of her rounds.
"What for? To make them bigger? Give them more teeth so they look scarier? Change the colour of their skin so they'll look more attractive?" Haymitch scoffed.
"No, it wasn't for aesthetic purposes. It was practical – to eat carcass. They were supposed to function the way vultures and flies do. The MGI wanted to emulate that trait into a single species. They were designed to eat everything; dead animals which died in the park from various reasons and to eat dungs. The park needed something to handle waste control and this seemed to be the brilliant solution. You have absolutely no idea how much waste dinosaurs produce each day.
"Backfired, again," Johanna snorted.
"And the venom? That was designed into them too?" Haymitch asked. His voice was heavily laced with derision. It was spoken in a tone which conveyed just how stupid he thought the whole plan was.
"No," Effie shook her head. "No."
"Dilophosaurus spits venom!" Finn chimed in when he picked up bits and pieces of their conversation from where he was standing with his mother. "And then they kill their prey afterwards. We've got dilophosaurus here?"
"Oh, is that what those nasty buggers are called?" a voice asked.
All of them turned to find a soldier in black uniform walking slowly towards them. There was a collective sigh of relief to know that the army was still here.
"Whatever its name, it's best if you all leave this district right now until it's declared safe. If you're here, I'm guessing you didn't make it for the evacuation from the park?"
"No, we missed it," Effie spoke, taking a step forward which gave him a clear view of what had partially been hidden before. It was enough for the soldier to raise his gun.
He aimed directly to Effie's right.
"Oh, no! No, no, no!" There was a sudden flash of movement and Effie was now suddenly standing protectively in front of Baby Bop, arms raised and spread open. "This one is very tame and is not a danger to you or to me."
"Step away from it," the soldier ordered. "We've been ordered to shoot all dinosaurs on sight. Now step away."
"Haymitch," Effie hissed. "Do something."
"Actually, really tame," Finn spoke up instead. "See," he went to the triceratops and stroked its horn lovingly. "This one, too."
Finn extended his arm and Echo hopped on it. It tilted its head at the soldier and then at Finn who let Echo move from his arm to cling on Haymitch's sleeve. Haymitch plucked the raptor to keep it in his pocket, out of the soldier's sight.
The soldier watched their every move, frowning deeply. Then he dipped his head to speak to the radiophone attached to his vest on his chest.
"Soldier Hawthorne, we have a situation."
The last chapter of Raptors is currently being written! Raptors is supposed to end in three chapters but since I have a habit of cutting long chapters into two (like this chapter for instance!) then I'd say that Raptors should end in the next five chapters :)))
I'll post the next chapter this weekend! So see you in the next one in which Haymitch meets the dilophosaurus and run into some trouble. In the meantime, please leave a review!
I've also made a a gifset for this story during Hayffie Week, you can find it on my tumblr under Raptors.