Jurassic World: Return to Isla Nublar – Chapter 20: Attack of the Raptors pt. 2
A/N: Welcome to Chapter 20 everyone! I'm really glad to see how everyone's enjoying the story so far. Originally, content from Chapter 19 and 20 were going to be in one chapter, but I figured that since it was so long, that they'd better be split into two. And another thing about Chapter 20 is . . . be warned, there's a great possibility that something other than raptors is stalking the Visitor Center . . .
Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Jurassic Park except the very characters I've made up.
The alpha female Velociraptor slowly entered the Living Fossils exhibition room with her mate behind her. Ever so quietly, they walked to the center of the room. Grant, Dr. Sorkin and Taylor held their breaths as they watched the dinosaurs inching ever closer.
This is too much for me, Grant thought, but we aren't dead yet. Let's see if we can somehow escape the raptors without becoming a new side-dish.
Grant looked around the room and suddenly noticed a small pile of dried, crusty goop on the floor a foot away from him. He reached over and sniffed it.
"What is that stuff?" Taylor whispered.
Dr. Sorkin winced. "Looks sort of like animal droppings."
"Yeah, smells like it too," Grant agreed with a wince on his face. "But I don't think this is the time to discuss that sort of thing . . . unless we're not wanting to survive."
"You're right, you're right . . . let's try going by that desk over there to the right. Maybe we could try getting back through the 'Staff Only' door by hiding behind the desks." As you'll recall, there were five large desks in the room, and aside from the one in the room's center (behind the dry aquarium), they were aligned sideways about a meter or so from the aquarium's against the wall. It might work . . .
Quietly but quickly, the three humans slipped their way from behind the desk in the center of the room to the first one they came into contact with on their right. The female raptor looked up in surprise, flushed out her neck quills and cawed.
Uh oh! Dr. Sorkin thought. I think she saw something. We'd better keep moving. She ushered to the other two to follow her lead and they crouched just below the top of the desks where the raptors would be able to see them.
But the female raptor already saw a movement around that area called to her mate and they began approaching the same desk Grant and the others were behind.
BANG! The male Velociraptor continued to bang against the freezer door with his head, but it would not budge. He snarled in frustration when the female began to give it a try. Why wouldn't it open?
From inside, Tim, Kailey and Lex stood in almost complete darkness – save the light that came from the crack on the wall.
"We're going to be stuck in here a while unless those raptors leave the kitchen," Lex told her brother and Kailey. "This wasn't how I expected to spend my first night back on the island."
Tim slightly chuckled. "Isn't it somewhat funny that before, we had trapped the dinosaur in here. Now they've done the same to us!"
"Ha, ha," Lex said dryly. "You're hilarious."
Another bang was heard from the other side of the door. "Don't those things ever give up?" Kailey asked.
"Sure, when they're bored," Tim answered. He turned to Kailey. He noticed that she seemed really beside herself with fear. "Hey, sorry you have to be here," Tim said in a more serious tone, attempting to comfort her. "I know this is a little more than you bargained for when you first learned that you were coming to the island."
Kailey nodded. "Way more than I bargained for," she agreed.
"Don't worry, we'll get out of here, promise."
Just then, the three of them heard a creek from the crack on the wall. They stood motionless, not sure what they should do next. Oh great, Lex thought. Maybe that was the wind . . .?
But much to her dismay, the creaking continued and the crack widened . . . then suddenly it opened and as the moon's light shined through it, they saw that that "crack" had really been a door that wasn't closed all the way! And that wasn't the only surprise – Richard Levine entered through the doorway.
"Levine!" Lex exclaimed. "We were so worried about you! Come here!" Lex and Levine briefly embraced.
After they released, Levine said, "Whatever you do, never try outrunning one of those raptors!"
"Whatever happened to you?" Kailey asked with delight. "We've been in the freezer ever since the raptors were on our tails!"
"Well, after all the raptors tore after me, I soon found myself being pursued by only one of them. Then I ran outside and jumped into the pool–"
"They have a pool here too?" Tim interrupted.
"Apparently. So after I jumped into the pool, the dinosaur started coming after me again. That's when I escaped the pool and ran toward the Cretaceous Cafe. For some strange reason, the dinosaur seemed to give up chase. Then instead of running into the restaurant from the patio, I ran around the back of the patio because I heard some noise coming from the freezer and that's when I got here (the door to the freezer that Levine entered led to the patio). How long have you guys been hanging out in the freezer? Don't tell me you didn't see this big door the whole time!"
Tim, Kailey and Lex looked at each other, not exactly wanting to give an answer. It had been so dark, and they were so focused on the Velociraptors that they didn't even investigate that "crack in the wall".
Lex thought she heard a noise and looked back. She gasped when she saw the doorknob to the freezer move.
"Hey guys," she began, "I hate to break up the moment, but we've got company!"
Looking towards the door, the three others nearly panicked as the female raptor opened the door by pulling it towards herself with her fingers and she entered the freezer, followed by both her mate and the male raptor that was chasing Levine before. Three of them snarled lowly and began approaching.
"Follow me guys!" Levine told the others as he led them out of the freezer and onto the restaurant patio. The raptors roared ferociously and started the chase.
Dr. Sorkin was on all fours as they reached the opposite end of the desk. They only had to cross another gap, crawl along the side of the desk that was hugging the wall and race to the exit door, perhaps locking the animals in this room. She peered around the corner of the desk . . . and saw nothing. She turned back to Grant and Taylor.
"Anything?" Grant asked quietly.
Dr. Sorkin shook her head. But just as she turned to face the direction they were supposed to go, a loud roar entered her ears – the head of the male Velociraptor was staring right at them! Dr. Sorkin gasped and leaped back in surprise; they had been caught!
"Run the other way!" Grant yelled as the three humans got up and darted for the other side of the room, opposite of the direction they needed to go. The male raptor began to make bird-like calls to alert his mate and the two raptors began approach their prey, slowly and cautiously; now the humans were trapped. Grant could see the tension in each of the dinosaurs' every breath, drool dribbled from their jaws lined with deadly teeth. Their hand claws were poised ready for the kill. The pupils of the alpha raptor were keeping their target locked onto the humans. As she approached, she released a loud snarl.
Grant brought Dr. Sorkin and Taylor behind him and they found themselves cornered against the wall at the back of the room.
"I knew it!" Taylor exclaimed. "We're all going to die! I told you!"
"It's not over yet, Taylor," Dr. Sorkin told her.
Grant was thinking fast, but he wasn't sure how they could escape such an obvious defeat. Dr. Sorkin looked to her left and saw a light-switch on the wall. This gave her an idea – perhaps, if the light still worked, she could use it to temporarily distract the raptors so that they could do . . . something, she wasn't sure quite what yet. But the raptors weren't the only ones in for a surprise . . .
CLICK! The light went on, and the sounds of loud screeching was heard. Both the raptors and the humans looked up in surprise to see dozens of small animals clinging to the ceiling of the room. Dr. Sorkin and Grant were especially amazed, as they'd never seen such bizarre creatures – based on their appearance, they weren't dinosaurs, but pterosaurs that bore great resemblance to the Pteranodons Dr. Sorkin was familiar with, but much smaller, only the size of a small bird with a 12-inch wingspan. They clung to the ceiling surrounding the skylights using their sharp-clawed wings and they had large heads with equally large eyes and a mouth full of sharp teeth.
I don't ever remember InGen cloning these guys! Dr. Sorkin thought. The small pterosaurs suddenly began to make loud screeching sounds as they leaped off the ceiling and started to fly around the room like a swarm of bats. The Velociraptors cawed loudly and darted out of the room through the exit door.
"What are these things?" Taylor asked with fright.
"Some species of pterosaur, but other than that I've no idea!" Grant answered. One of the animals zoomed toward Grant's arm and before he could dodge, it sunk its teeth into his arm where a small cut that had been covered with a band-aid and taking a tiny, almost-surgical bite (all while in mid-flight) before darting out of arm-shot, all within a few mere milliseconds. "Ah!" Grant exclaimed as he looked closely at his wound that was now bleeding again.
"What happened?" Dr. Sorkin asked.
"That pterosaur bit me!"
Dr. Sorkin frowned when she noticed the pterosaurs flying around the room in a frenzy seemed to be getting increasingly more and more anxious and began zooming in toward the humans.
"AH!" Taylor screamed as one of the pterosaurs also bit into her arm, too.
"We've got to get out of here! Fast!"
With haste, the humans ducked down low to avoid getting bitten as the animal swarm descended. Quickly Grant grabbed a nearby fire extinguisher and facing the hose toward the approaching creatures, blew a blast of sodium bicarbonate at the animals. They quickly made a U-turn and headed toward the opposite side of the room, but they'd be back in another few seconds.
Grant turned toward one of the nearby aquariums on the wall, busted the door open, hustled himself and the others inside before slamming the plexiglass door just before the animals began banging their heads against the window, trying to get inside.
As if raptors weren't bad enough, Grant thought to himself.
Levine, Tim, Kailey and Lex tried to escape the raptors by running across the patio, back into the Cretaceous Cafe and into the main rotunda.
Lex risked a look back to see the three Velociraptors were right behind them. Levine's group came to a stop.
"Which way should we go?" Kailey asked.
"I'm not sure," Levine said. He only had several seconds to make a decision. Let's see, if we climb the bungee cord, we'll loose time because we have to climb up one at a time. It also probably isn't the best idea to run outside because then we'll be extremely easy pickings. So perhaps we should go down the hall where I was before. He figured that that was the best choice. "This way guys!" he said.
No sooner had they begun running down the hall did the raptor trio reach the area. Letting out ferocious growls, they continued the pursuit of their prey. It began getting darker as they ran down the hallway trying to escape the dinosaurs. Just then, the raptors stopped dead in their tracks and looked nervously around the room. One of the females stuck her snout into the air and took a brief moment to sniff the air before letting out a caw. With haste, they turned tails and ran back out into the rotunda and out of the Visitor Center . . .
Levine glanced back and stopped.
"What? Why are we stopping?" Lex asked.
"No need to run if there's nothing to run from," Levine responded. The others looked back just in time to see the raptors exit the building.
"What's up with them?" Kailey asked.
But before anyone could answer, a loud, haunting, guttural screeching noise resembling that of an elk was heard further down the hall. A chill went down everyone's spine – that definitely wasn't Velociraptor!
"W-w-w-what . . . was that?" Levine asked Tim and Lex. The siblings could only shrug. Despite having been on the island before, they'd never heard anything like that!
Just then, several yards down the hall, two yellowish-white glowing eyes appeared (glowing much brighter than those of the Velociraptors). Levine gasped. Yikes! Whatever that is, it sure doesn't look friendly!
Then the strange creature the eyes belonged to snarled lowly as two more pairs of glowing eyes appeared.
"What are those things?!" Lex whispered as she and the others slowly backed out of the hall and into the main rotunda.
"Don't know," Tim began as he grabbed hold of Kailey's arm, "but they're not friendly . . ." It was too dark to make much of the dinosaurs out, but based on what could be seen in the dark, these animals walked on their hind legs and were raptor-like in general shape, but their eyes glowed in the dark much brighter than those of the raptors. They emitted mysterious and eerie clicking noises as they watched the humans from the corners.
Levine frowned. "You know, it will be nice to continue our study if we can ever get past our first night," he said.
A/N: Well, once again, this scene stretched WAY longer than I expected! I would have made this chapter a little longer, but I figured that this was the best stopping point. In the next chapter, not only will I reveal the classification of both of the new mysterious species of killer reptiles, but I think we'll also check on Dodgson's progress on his rather nefarious mission. When I was writing the last chapter, I needed somewhere for Dr. Sorkin, Grant and Taylor to go to escape the Velociraptors and run into the pterosaurs, so I spent a great deal of time thinking what else the Visitor Center might have that would be considered a tourist attraction when a living fossil exhibit came to mind. By the way, what's your opinion on the new pterosaurs that Grant's group runs into? Please let me know via comments! Anyway, please be sure to check out Chapter 21 when it's up. I can't wait to publish it so you all can read it! See you then!