Chapter 12 -Info
I opened my eyes, slowly, but it was done. I felt rather nauseous but I knew that was because I had fainted. I tried to sit up, squinting in the bright light; my whole body was stiff. Not only my muscles were hurting, but also the gash across my back and my right arm were bandaged tightly. I couldn't really remember what had happened at first, so I so stupidly asked, "Where the heck am I?"
"This, my fine, injured … fellow, is my … home." Eric said, coming towards me. I opened my mouth to ask what had happened when he spoke again. "And you fainted just after we rescued you."
"We?" I asked in bewilderment. I felt really dumb, but I seriously didn't remember.
"Yeah, we," A voice said from my left. I turned and in the dim light cast from the lantern, I saw Hannah. Then, it all came flooding back and with a groan, I flopped back onto the bed, but quickly sat back up again as the gash on my back sent a searing pain up and down my spine.
"You took quite a beating," Eric said, sitting down next to me on the bed. "So we figured you deserved the bed … even though it was my turn."
I grinned and nodded.
"So, any idea what happened?" he asked.
"Not really," I said, feeling even more dumb. "I remember something jumping out of the bushes and landing on Jessie, then more things jumping out of the bushes. I don't know what they were though. And then Tina …"
"OH MY GOSH!" Hannah cried, gabbing my hand. "IS SHE OK? SHE ISN'T DEAD, IS SHE? WHAT HAPPENED TO HER, LANE!"
"Hush!" Eric said. "What did I tell you about being loud? You don't want to let any dinosaurs know where we're hiding! Otherwise they'll trap us in here and we'll run out of the nasty food that we have VERY quickly and have to pee in a tin can. Do you want that?"
I knew I blushed. His bluntness about the matter of peeing in a tin can was kind of embarrassing. Hannah and I both shook our heads and no one said anything for a bit.
"So, Lane," Eric said, breaking the silence. "Are you going to finish your story?"
"Uh, yeah," I said. "Well, as I said, Tina grabbed my arm and we started running. Something, as you could probably tell, slashed my back, but I kept on going. I lost track of Tina so – so I don't know if she's ok or not. But then I bumped into – into …"
"Me," Eric said. "Ok. Do you happen to know what the things were?"
I didn't really see the point in knowing this and as I didn't, I said so. Eric asked me if I could describe them, so I thought hard about it and finally came up with a mental image of the day before. It somehow seemed more vivid than when I had actually witnessed it happening.
"Well, um, they were about six feet tall … or so. Some of them were kind of white looking and the others had what almost looked like feathers on their heads. I'm sorry, but I think that's the best I can do. I'm no dinosaur expert or anything," I said.
"I think those were Raptors," Eric said, a shiver running down his spine. "The ones that looked almost white were the females and the ones with feathers on their heads would be the males."
"But, that doesn't make sense!" I exclaimed, turning to look him in the eye. "I mean, in class, I remember Mr. Polycarp saying that they were only two feet tall and weighed about 150 pounds. Those animals I saw were way too big!"
"Lane, I'm surprised!" Eric said teasingly. "You actually pay attention in class?"
I shrugged this off. "And besides, what's the deal with the feathers?"
"Well, I don't exactly know what the feathers are for," Eric said. "But I do know about the difference in size. You see, when Hammond created the dinosaurs, along with a team of highly trained professional DNA experts, he wanted to make the animals as realistic as possible. But when they made their first batch of Velociraptors, there seemed to be something wrong with them, so they started over.
"But before they started, someone suggested that they make them bigger for better viewing. Hammond didn't really like the idea, but decided it would be best for the customers, so he agreed. That's why they're bigger. Because they were genetically engineered to be that way for the purpose of viewing."
"So, when they first started making them, they were the right size and everything?"
"Oh yeah!" Eric said. I could tell that he liked talking about dinosaurs, even though he was scared to death about them.
"Two feet tall, 150 pounds. But they were all getting some sort of disease and getting REALLY sick. So they had to go through the DNA strand to see what the problem was."
"How do you know so much about this?" I asked. He was talking as though he had read it off a plaque he'd found the last time he had been here or something.
Eric smiled. "Before … uh, before I was here last time, I was sort of a dinosaur freak and …"
Both Hannah and I scoffed. He had got that right.
"Well, I guess I still am," he admitted sheepishly. "So, I would read all the books I could find on them. Plus, I went to all of the museum exhibits I could find. But my favorite books were those of Dr. Alan Grant, a paleontologist. He had been on the first island, Isla Nublar, sight A, to see if all the dinosaurs were right. That's when they had to abandon and all that because of the power failure. All the dinosaurs got out and reeked havoc. So he wrote a book about it. It's really interesting; you should pick it up sometime.
"Well, basically, he mentioned all that stuff in his book and I liked them so much I practically memorized them. I still remember them. Not word for word or anything, just, you know, the basic concept."
"I knew you were weird the first time I met you," I said, teasing. Eric smiled.
"Uh, listen," I said, feeling embarrassed. "I kind of have to … you know, answer the call of nature."
Eric blushed and cleared his throat. "Yeah, uh. I'll stand guard and, Han, you can help her because it's going to be hard with all the bandages and stuff."