Laid out below Audrey was a concerning scene. She could see the fires burning in two of the three entrances, but in front of the third was an overturned truck. She could see three creatures inside the compound itself. She absent mindedly wiped the mud from her hands on her pants so she could slide out her scope. It was a pointless act. She was still covered head to toe with now cracking mud.
She should have been able to leave the scientists locked safe in the compound for a week if she had to. But apparently a few hours was too long. Was it the second she left that they'd replaced the entry fire with a had argued from the beginning that they wanted an easier way in and out of the compound. They hated the pulley system that raised and lowered them outside the wall. And they hated even more how quickly and explosively the fire was lit if they had to bring a vehicle in or out. They had done the math on it, but even so they didn't trust that the vehicles wouldn't explode with them in it. So they'd put out the fire and blocked the entrance with a truck. Audrey couldn't convince them that many dinosaur species could have leapt over or crawled under a vehicle. But this one had been flipped. It was a show of the deinonychus' strength that they bothered to flip it. Or maybe that was the scientists. Maybe they listened - partially - maybe they set a charge under the truck and it was triggered when the first beast tried to enter. But a flipped truck would do nothing to stop the rest of the pride.
She watched the scene below feeling helpless. She was already dialling them, hoping she wouldn't reach them too late. She could see the plan being enacted below her. All the scientists would need to do to survive would be to keep the door closed. The building was built from two foot thick reinforced concrete, sub-steel doors and polnancom glass. Even the biggest spinosaurus couldn't break through that. Maybe an indominus rex might, but most people believed they didn't really exist. As two of the deinonychus attacked the glass and doors that faced the now open entrance, Audrey could tell they were going for effect. She watched as the third maneuvered herself into a position, lowering her body behind the upside down jeep, her eyes watching the side door keenly.
Answer the phone. Audrey dared not even whisper to herself. If the dinosaurs realised she was here, she would not survive the night.
"Audrey? Help us! Please!" a woman's voice answered. Maybe Karlina, the geologist.
"Do not open the door," Audrey hissed. "It's a trap." As if on cue, a face appeared at the circular window of the side door and looked out. The barrage at the front of the building increased. He got the message. Audrey thought to herself. He won't open the
The door opened a crack. The deinonychus watching stayed motionless. The 'attack' elsewhere continued. The door widened and a man inched out. He paused in the doorway, looking behind him. She heard a woman's voice yelling, "Shut the door now!" but he was too slow. The watching monster leapt from her shelter covering the distance in a stunning burst of speed. Using her front claws, she ripped at the door, buckling its hinges, the door akilter. The man had no time to run inside. Not that it would matter. Her jaws opened to grab him by the head before she threw him backwards into the yard. Her two companions jumped on him. There was no way he'd be attacking them from behind. Sickened, Audrey couldn't take her eyes away as they ripped his arm off, its fingers still tangled in the rifle he carried but hadn't thought to use.
The first dinosaur waited a moment, then entered, calling her companions to join her.
"Audrey! Are you there?" Karlina.
"Lock yourselves into a room. Any room. NOW!"
There was a trill below her, to the left. Audrey froze. The Ds had come to join the party. Carefully, she lowered her phone volume to mute and controlled her breathing, soft, shallow breaths. She was still covered in the mud which would offer some protection against their heat detecting pits. If she stayed quiet and motionless, they should move on - especially with live prey so close by. She tried really hard not to name the live prey and prayed instead that the remaining scientists had managed to lock themselves in a room.
Below her, one deinonychus stepped into view. Her mind ran through what she carried on her person. Her pack had been left in the car, so it was only those items that were tucked into her clothes. Protein bar, multitool, hunting knife, caps spray, bullets and rifle … nothing to scare them off. Even with D1 limping, she couldn't shoot them both dead before they killed her. Not without eyes on both of them anyway. And that didn't take into account that D3 was still around somewhere… As D1 moved forward, D2 stepped into view. They were cautious. They knew she was close by. She still couldn't take them both - she'd have to shift the barrel of the gun from one side of the branch to the other - way too slow! She heard a scream from deep within the building. It didn't end suddenly. That person was still alive at least.
The two beasts below moved forward. They were now both on the same side of the branch, but D2 was obscured by the leaves. Audrey's mind calculated. If she shot D1, D2 may run clear and she could shoot it too. The gun fire would probably draw the deinonychus out of the building. Then they would search for her and wait until she showed herself. She would be stuck up the tree indefinitely. If she did not shoot, they would join their companions in the building. There they would attack whatever room the scientists had locked themselves in. She was confident the door would hold. Either the deinonychus would get hungry and leave or with some luck backup might arrive. All rooms had an emergency kit and a lockable door. They should be able to out wait the dinosaurs, though it would be brutal for them listening to the barrage just on the other side of the door…
Audrey lowered her rifle and watched as the two dinosaurs entered the building. She was about to relax when she heard running footsteps as D3 ran beneath her tree and into the compound. She shuddered. If she'd shot D1 and even D2, then D3 would have gotten her. She waited a full minute before raising the volume of her phone and held it close to her ear.
"Karlina," she whispered. "Are you still there?"
"We're here," the woman sobbed.
"Does that mean you locked yourself into a room okay?"
"Yeah. We're in a supply room. But they know we're here."
"Listen, Karlina. You're going to be fine. They can't get through the door and I already called for backup. They're going to be a couple of hours still, but that door will hold. Who else is with you?"
"Tess and Diego."
"Great. You're going to be fine. You just have to wait it out."
"They got Jeffry."
"But you're safe. Just get comfortable. You're going to be there for a while."
Now that the trap was fully sprung and no-one was in immediate danger, Audrey relaxed into the branch to think. If Audrey herself was in that storeroom, she was certain she could convince them to stay put, but she had worked with enough city folk to know that scared people did stupid things. The overturned jeep was proof of that. She didn't think she could wait for the backup to arrive.
She had designed many of the safety features on this compound herself, she just had to put them to use. D3 remained outside the building. That meant Audrey would be limited to what she could since she had the compound wall between her and the buildings. She could try to sneak in through one of the human access doors, but she wasn't certain there wasn't at least one more deinonychus out here. It also wouldn't help her reach the buildings - the compound was deliberately left clear so that they would have good visibility before stepping out.
Three more of the deinonychus reappeared in the compound. Audrey had been expecting that. They wouldn't need all six of them inside trying to scare the door open. They would only get in each other's way. Two made for the open entry to the compound. "Gashes!" she hissed to herself. She was too slow. She should have expected that and been able to ignite the barrier fire as they passed. She opened the compound command centre on her phone and pulled up the ignition. She set that onto a tab so she could access it quickly should another dinosaur try to get in or out.
Now, to spring her own trap. She flicked to the sound system, located the speaker at the pit closest to her tree and accessed the deinonychus program. She found the cry of a baby in distress. Instantly, the sound of a young deinonychus resounded. All the adults reacted immediately. Those inside ran towards the wall nearest Audrey. Those outside split up. One ran one direction around the compound, the other went the longer way. Moments later, a deinonychus ran beneath Audrey's tree towards the recording. Its head swung back and forth trying to locate the infant. Then it yelped as the ground dropped from beneath it. Someone might eventually try to find a way to release it from the pit. But for now it was trapped. Audrey let the recording play on. The other deinonychus would be coming around the corner soon and would hopefully suffer the same fate. In the back of her mind, she thought the next time she designed a pit trap, she would find a way to reset the roof remotely so a second dinosaur could also be caught.
As she suspected, the next dinosaur came running around the corner, but slowed. The trapped creature was yapping warnings, and as the one on the surface approached, she could see the hole and avoided it. Raising her head, she made several barks pitched high to almost screeches. Audrey has never heard that call before. She could only guess that she had made them mad.
Inside the compound, one of the deinonychus, D3 she guessed, ran towards the entrance. Audrey swiped up the ignition screen, but just before D3 reached the entrance, it pulled up short. D1, easily identifiable by her limp, had barked. Apparently she gave the command to stop. Audrey lit it up anyway. Flames roared causing D3 to tumble backwards, but not injuring it badly. Now, there was just one deinonychus out here with Audrey and it was in her sites. It paced the edge of the pit. Laying carefully along a thick branch, she locked her arms still and lined up the shot. Even in constant movement, the backwards and forwards motion made Audrey confident she would hit her target even at 100 metres. The shot cracked loudly, followed by her next three. The first hit the dinosaur in the chest as did the next three. It toppled forward, its foot mistepping into the air of the hole and it dropped out of sight. Audrey bit her lip gently. She hated killing such a magnificent creature. But now she could focus on saving the people inside.
Shuffling back so she was supported by the trunk again, Audrey pulled up the display on her phone again. She found the heat sensors. She was pretty sure the big blob or heat must be the people, still with the door closed. That meant the bigger cooler signatures were the two deinonychus still inside. She called Karlina to be certain.
The geologist picked up on the first ring.
"How are you going?" Audrey was trying to be comforting, but instead Karlina just laughed hysterically.
"They're going to get in!" she sobbed through the laughs.
Audrey smothered her sigh. They were not going to last much longer. "You're doing great," she said instead. "There's only two inside now and they not even trying to get in. They're just trying to scare you."
"It's bloody well working!" A screech followed. Maybe claws against steel. Through the phone it gave Audrey goosebumps. It couldn't be pleasant right behind the door.
"You're doing fine," Audrey soothed. "Look, I'm coming up with a plan okay?" Karlina didn't respond, so she pushed on. "Look around the store room. Can you see any gas masks in there?" Mentally, Audrey was trying to remember if they put any in there. There were definitely some in the labs, the offices, the sleeping quarters and the rec spaces. She couldn't remember putting any in the storage rooms, unless they were still in storage.
She heard Karlina give muffled directions to her two companions then the low thuds as they moved things around them.
"Would they be in a special box?" Karlina sniffled.
"Maybe. If they are it would be marked. Otherwise they should be in an emergency kit."
More muffled sounds.
"We can't find them."
That's okay. That's okay. Let me keep thinking." She didn't hang up this time. Having them search the store room will have bought them a few extra minutes sanity while they were distracted from the monster behind the door, but they were too close to breaking for Audrey to hang up. She just murmured the occasional platitude while she flicked through the commands options for the compound. "What about earplugs? Do you all have them?" Between flash bangs and rifle fire, Audrey always had ear plugs on her person. And everyone who toured with her was told to do the same. People rarely did all they were told.
"I have mine," Karlina said. Then after a pause, "Diego found a box of them."
"Perfect." Audrey did sigh this time. This could work. "Put them in. You may want to cover your ears, as well. Okay. It's going to get really unpleasant in there."
Audrey turned on the sound. This time it was an irritating squeal. She watched the heat signatures of the dinosaurs carefully for a response. They had stopped moving back and forth towards the door a moment, then resumed their action. Audrey changed the frequency. She watched and changed it several times before she hit one that made the heat blurs stop their back and forth motion and start a more spasmodic one. That was close. She swiped up the sound as loud as it could go, and watched the display as the blur moved away from the corridor and then she watched them in real life as they burst back through the small opening of the doorway. They climbed over each other in their desperation to get out. The second the door was clear, Audrey sent the command to slam the emergency door shut. The four deinonychus were locked out of the building.
"Karlina?" she called. There was no response. She hung up the call and called again. This time, Karlina answered.
"Is it over?" she asked. "Are they gone?"
"They're out of the building."
Audrey had to listen to a minute of sobbing before Karlina was able to talk again. "Thank you, Audrey," she said when she could finally speak again. "You don't know what it was like in here." Audrey didn't correct her. Karlina wasn't to know that this was a fairly normal day for her… well, month anyway. "What do we do now?"
"You have two choices. You can wait for the rescue team, or you can take the escape tunnel out to an emergency bunker. That's probably where at least some of the rescue team will be coming from."
"There's an escape tunnel?"
"Of course." Everyone had been told where to find it and how to open it when they first arrived. "But there were several dinosaurs between you and it. You're going to have to open the door to get to it." The sigh that followed did not take Audrey by surprise. Now that the psychological effects of the dinosaurs pounding on the door were gone, they probably wouldn't open the door until there were people on the other side. Audrey could relate. She was going to check and see how far off the rescue team were and stay right in her tree until they came.
She left the call open while she checked her messages. She had ignored several that had come through while she had been dealing with everything else.
"The response team will be here in a couple of hours," she read aloud so that Karlina could hear too. She sent a message back to say that the danger was passed but would need help securing the facility. She looked down at the four dinosaurs below. They were the cleverest dinosaurs she had ever encountered. Pre-planning level clever. They may even put them down, but that wasn't Audrey's decision to make. She was, however, in charge of this location. It would have to be left fallow for a few years as it was clear that the animals had learnt the patterns of the humans here. It was almost due anyway. It was never wise to spend too long in a single location out here. Fixing or replacing the vehicles would be pretty expensive though - but at least she could charge the jeep to the scientists. Her thoughts scrolled idly as she flicked through her other messages. Until she read: "Babes lost in the woods." She sat up sharply. It was from Dr. Santos, which meant only one thing. Her day was just beginning.