I'm back! It's been a couple weeks since I've updated, but I hit a bit of writer's block, and I was on vacation. But I'm back now! Also, I've got three chapters of prequel posted now, so feel free to check that out!
Echo leapt out of the jungle, right at Emily and Lizzy, plowing them both over and dragging her six inch long, sickle shaped claw along Emily's calf. The park survivor was unable to keep from screaming in pain as she hit the ground, losing her grip on her rifle. Echo skidded to a halt beyond them with a screech.
Emily could barely register Lizzy scrambling back to her feet, and slowly laying her rifle on the ground. Images of a silverly metal kitchen were flashing through her mind as the assistant raptor trainer softly said, "Hey Echo."
The raptor screeched, and Emily flinched back, heart hammering in her chest. Lizzy stepped between Emily and Echo, "You know you're not supposed to attack us."
Echo screeched again, tilting her head, eyes glinting in the dark.
"Echo, quit that."
The raptor tilted her head, tittering.
"Eyes on me." Lizzy's voice was calm, and she held one hand out to the side, in a manner exactly like Owen. Emily was shaking, and she could feel her own blood running down her leg.
Echo screeched once more, but it was friendlier almost.
"Good girl," The raptor stepped forward, and Lizzy slowly moved her hand out in front of her, palm open, "You know who I am."
Echo stepped forward, and Lizzy matched her, palm almost touching Echo's face now.
But a motorcycle engine revved back the direction they'd come. Echo's head shot away, toward the sound. And the raptor shot off with one last screech, following the retreating engine noise.
Emily could feel her heart racing, and her breathing quickening, not from blood loss, but from terror. She could practically see the silvery metal kitchen and feel the cold freezer door against her back.
"Hey, you better not be going into shock." Lizzy snapped her fingers in front of Emily's face. The raptor trainer tugged off her sweatshirt.
Emily sucked in a breath, shaking her head. Lizzy just used her sweatshirt to make the best bandage she could around Emily's calf. The raptor trainer sat back on her heels, glancing around the jungle, "Right, lets go see if we can find our four-wheeler and get out of here."
Emily nodded, "The raptors should be gone, right?"
"Yeah, they'll have followed Owen." Lizzy stood, and offered Emily a hand.
The park survivor took it, letting Lizzy pull her to her feet, and then take most of Emily's weight. They slowly made their way through the jungle, Emily's leg throbbing. And Emily tried not to look too closely at the shadows, or the mutilated bodies littering the ground, evidence of the rampage of the raptors.
The four-wheeler lurched to a halt, and Lizzy jumped off, offering Emily a hand. Ahead of them, Owen was hurriedly opening the doors to the truck, letting out Zach and Gray. Briana had her gun raised, covering them all as Claire jumped out of the driver's seat of the truck.
Emily accepted Lizzy's hand, gingerly getting off the four-wheeler. She carefully tested her leg. It hurt like hell, but she could probably manage to jog at the least. "I can manage."
Lizzy nodded, and they all mounted the steps to the Innovation Center, nearly running. Emily suspected that everyone would've been running if she could've kept up. The automatic doors slid open, letting them in. The paleontologist could see numerous educational videos still playing on the various screens scattered about the large room.
"Control room!" Claire gestured straight across the room, "That way!"
They all followed her lead, Briana and Owen bringing up the rear with their rifles, Lizzy up front with hers and Emily and Claire with the kids in the middle. Emily glanced up at the statue of John Hammond as she jogged past it. So much for fulfilling his dream.
They turned a corner, reaching the long, lab lined hallway. One of the doors was open, and they all stopped running, right as Emily's eyes landed on an open panel of the back wall of the lab. She'd dropped off research numerous times at this lab, but she'd never seen that panel open.
"They evacuated the lab…" Claire sounded surprised, and Emily was too. But at least if they'd evacuated the labs, then Sam was safe.
"Of course, they did. InGen can't risk losing their assets…" Briana said, her deadpan rivaling Emily's.
Emily just limped into the lab, eyes scanning the room. There wasn't a single egg left in the incubators she walked past, nor a single vial of DNA. Even the clipboards didn't have any notes on them.
The paleontologist pushed the panel open wider, and she could tell the others were following her by the click of Claire's heels on the floor.
Emily's first thought when she stepped through the panel was, "What the hell?" The second was something along the lines of, "This must be Wu's lab."
Zach and Gray slipped past her, both of them approaching a vertical set of tanks, all of them containing some sort of creature. Lizzy stopped in front of a two headed snake, eyes wide. Emily stopped in front of a spine, suspended in liquid with wires attached to it. Or, at least she thought they were wires.
There was a clink from the other side of the lab, and a hiss of air being released. Emily jumped a little and Claire gasped quietly. Two men had a large, metal crate labeled InGen open. And they were filling it with what Emily assumed to be vials of DNA. The park survivor noticed several more men behind them, packing up more components of this secret lab.
Briana slung her gun over her shoulder, loudly asking the men, "What are you doing?"
"I'm afraid that's above your pay grade honey." Hoskins strolled into view, looking smug.
Emily gripped the top of a chair for some support, "You look rather smug for someone who just got majority of his men killed."
"The raptors did that, not me."
"But you set them- you know what, never mind…" Emily didn't finish her sentence. Hoskins wasn't worth her time.
Claire shot Emily a look that convened exactly what Emily had just thought, but addressed Hoskins, "Where's Henry?"
"Dr. Wu works for us." Hoskins kept strolling toward them, hands on his hips.
Lizzy rolled her eyes from beside Emily, "Big surprise there."
Gray poked his head out from behind Owen, "That's not a real dinosaur." His eyes were on a monitor, displaying what Emily was sure would haunt her nightmares.
The Indominus Rex.
"No, it ain't kid." Hoskins stopped walking, "But somebody's gotta make sure this company has a future."
Emily was contemplating giving Hoskins another bruise to match the one she could see forming on his cheek.
But Hoskins wasn't done, "Imagine, that one. Fraction of the size, deadly, intelligent. Able to hide from the most advanced military technology. A living weapon unlike anything we've ever seen."
Owen was shifting his weight back and forth. Emily clench her hand, like InGen could ever pull that off without a certain group of people getting involved.
"You see," Hoskins began walking toward them, "millions of years of evolution, what'd we learn?"
Emily crossed her arms, "That InGen can't control itself when it comes to making killing machines?"
Hoskins glared at her, "Nature is the gift- oh shi-!"
Delta leapt through the wide open panel with a screech, her eyes on Hoskins. Briana pulled Emily back behind her and Owen. And Emily made sure the kids and Claire were behind her.
But Delta was only focused on Hoskins, who swore loudly, "Shit!" The raptor began backing him up toward a glass case.
Hoskins began to raise a hand, "Easy, easy!" He backed into the glass case, "Easy boy. Easy! Hey, hey, we're, we're on the same side, right? Right?" Hoskins raised his hand up all the way, and Delta followed it with her whole head.
"Easy, easy. I'm on your side."
Delta tilted her head a little, unnervingly silent.
Emily looked away.
There was a loud, wet crunch, followed by a scream of pure terror and pain from Hoskins.
Owen started pushing them all out of the room, and Emily glanced over her shoulder once, right as blood splattered all up the glass case.
They burst out into the hallway, Claire correcting the boys when they ran the wrong direction. But Delta busted through the glass in front of them, and Emily backpedaled, pulling Zach and Gray back the other direction.
They raced past Hammond's statue again, adrenaline dulling Emily's throbbing leg. It was honestly the only reason why she was on her feet. Gray reached out and turned on a Dilophosaurus hologram as they ran past, and Emily called ahead to him, "Not bad kid!"
Lizzy and Owen pushed the double doors open, and they raced down the steps. But they'd only just made it to the bottom when Blue jumped down in front of them, screeching loudly. Gray latched on to Emily's arm, huddling close to her. The paleontologist looped an arm around him, keeping herself between him and the raptor.
Delta screeched behind them, having pushed her way through the doors. Emily pushed Gray and Zach into the middle of the group. Delta began to advance, pushing them closer to Blue. And Echo hissed loudly to their left.
Lizzy and Briana had their guns raised, but Owen kept his by his side as the raptors herded them closer together.
"That's how it is huh." Owen's voice was steady and calm. He dropped his gun as Blue stepped toward him.
Lizzy murmured, eyes on Echo, "Be careful Owen."
Blue growled softly at Owen as the raptor trainer began to raise his hand. Emily shifted her gaze back to Delta, in case she got any ideas. Blue snapped her jaws at Owen, who softly said, "Easy."
He kept moving his hand toward Blue's face, and the camera still attached there, "Easy." Owen slowly and carefully reached up and unclipped the camera rig, letting it fall to the ground, "That's it."
Emily could see Owen smiling at Blue, who looked calmly right back at him. But the moment of peace didn't last long, because, with a loud roar, the Indominus Rex stepped out onto Main Street.
Blue whipped around, and all of the raptor's gazes snapped to the monster stalking toward them, ground shaking with ever step it took.
Emily pushed Gray behind her, and his grip tightened. To her surprise, Zach was inching closer to her as well. Briana raised her gun, leveling it at the Indominus. It roared loudly, eyes on Blue.
Blue turned her head to look back at Owen with a soft noise Emily had never heard before. The beta then tittered at Owen in an almost friendly manner. Owen smirked as Blue whipped back around, and defiantly screeched at the Indominus.
The Indominus roared, and Gray's hands left Emily's arm to cover his ears. With one swipe of its massive front limb, the Indominus swept Blue aside and into the side of a building. The beta didn't get up again.
The monster turned its gaze back to them, growling lowly in its throat. But Delta screeched angrily at it, followed by Echo. Owen glanced at each of the raptors, backing up. He whistled, and the raptors attacked, leaping on the Indominus and tearing at her with their claws and teeth.
The Indominus turned its back on them, trying to dislodge its attackers, and Emily ran, pulling the kids with her. Claire led them straight to a kiosk, and vaulted the counter, helping the kids and Emily over it. Lizzy stopped outside the kiosk, firing her gun on the Indominus. Owen and Brian were doing the same, crouched behind a faux amber display.
Emily crouched behind the counter with Claire, the kids across from them. Gray was huddled against his brother, mumbling something under his breath. The Indominus roared every so often, followed by a raptor screeching, and the sound of gunshots. Lizzy jumped over the counter, discarding her rifle, "I'm out of ammo."
Claire shifted around so she could peer over the counter, watching the battle.
"We need more." Gray piped up.
Claire breathlessly said, "More what?"
"Teeth. We need more teeth."
Claire stared at her nephew for a moment, then stood, pulling a walkie talkie off its rack. And the moment the park operations manager grabbed a red flare from the emergency kit, Emily knew exactly what she was thinking.
The park survivor pushed herself to her feet, "Let me do it."
"Dr. Grant, you're injured."
Emily smirked just a little, "And you're wearing heels."
Claire paused, still holding both the flare and the walkie talkie. Emily just held out her hand for the flare, waiting for Claire to decide. Claire deliberated for a moment longer, and then placed the flare in Emily's hand, passing her the walkie talkie.
Emily clipped the walkie talkie onto her blood and mud splattered shorts, gripping the flare tightly.
"Good luck." Claire looked nervous.
Lizzy spoke up, "Yeah, try not to die."
Emily took a deep breath and vaulted the counter, calling back over her shoulder, "I'll do my best!"
Oh no, another cliffhanger! Sorry, not sorry. Feel free to leave a review, they really do help with motivation (plus, you don't even need an account).