JURASSIC PARK III
8 – Not the Four Seasons
Striding through the outside ruins of the facility was like a nightmarish walk through a ghost town. It was even enough to make the hairs on Pet's arms and back of the neck stand on end and she didn't spook too easily. Perhaps it was the bountiful supply of memories she had from her teenage years and the fact that she was back that haunted her. Her right hand subconsciously went to the three claw mark scars on her left shoulder blade. This was where she obtained them, challenging a raptor over a claim of the territory.
Billy looked around at the long since abandoned vehicles and the sign reading InGen. "You used to work here?"
Pet nodded. "Yeah. Robert and I used to regular trips, here, quite a bit back in the day."
Everyone went into the central building and began looking around. Paul yelled, "Eric!" He just knew his son was in this place and no one could tell him otherwise.
Amanda bit out, "Paul, don't!"
Pet hissed a snort in her passing by the man and flexed her hands' grip around the shoulder straps of her backpack. "Haven't you learned, by now, what yelling out loud tends to do? Or shall I go get that bullhorn, instead?"
Grant glowered at the woman. "Knock it off, Veronica."
But Paul wasn't listening. His eyes were set on a new target; a phone sitting on the semi-circle shaped front desk. Everyone traced his eyes to it, Pet laughing to herself. "For crying out loud. Seriously?"
Amanda ignored the hybrid. "What the hell." She stepped over to it to pick it up. Dead.
"What did you expect? A dial tone? This place has been abandoned for almost a decade." Pet scoffed a laugh. "Shits broke."
She walked off and towards a hall way she remembered all too well. It felt almost like yesterday that she was walking these halls when brand new. She could still remember the smell of the paint drying on the walls. A series of vending machines lined against a wall greeted everyone's view, reminding them of when the last time they ate was.
Paul started shifting around in his pocket, pleased for the first time to hear change rattle back. Just not the type of change he was wanting. Nickels, dimes, a couple of pennies and some crumbled up dollar bills filled the palm of his hand. "Who's got some change? It only takes quarters."
Pet buried her face in Grant's shoulder. "Tell me this clown is joking."
Grant could've given himself a concussion from face palming at the situation. Billy knew better and instead, chose to break the glass of one of the machines by kicking it the hardest he could. All he had to do was take that sudden urge to hit Paul and assert that to a nice, good kick instead. Now to reap the rewards of years old melted candy and stale chips.
Pet got excited. "Oh, oh can you grab me a bag of those peanut M&Ms?" Suddenly aware of how childish and girly she sounded, she brought her hands to her mouth. "They were always my favorite," she squeaked through her fingers.
Billy smiled and reached for the requested bag. He then went to his friends and distributed what he had gathered, leaving Paul standing and staring at the machine in disbelief. Pet ripped open the bag and giggled to herself. Grant cocked a smile. "You do know those will probably taste nothing like they should."
"Eh, I don't care. I've eaten worse."
"I don't want to know." He then gestured down the hallway. "You know this place better than anyone else, here, so lead the way."
Pet popped a couple pieces of old candy in her mouth and grimaced at the bad taste. "Ugh."
Swallowing for the sake of needing something on her stomach, the hybrid went down the hallway. It opened up to a large, gymnasium sized laboratory looking more like a warehouse than anything. Catwalks wove overhead of the floor level, where large vats and other equipment resided. Pet stood there by the railing, rolling a bite of candy around in her mouth.
A prominent memory played out in her head as though happening all over again. A juvenile Gallimimus had gotten loose and was running amok through the lab, Muldoon yelling for scientists to move. That memory was quickly replaced by sadness and she hung her head low. Grant proceeded down the stairwell, followed by Amanda and the rest of the group. After a few moments, Pet joined.
Amanda reached for a cracked shell still laying in an incubator. "This is how you make dinosaurs?"
"No," Grant solemnly answered. "This is how you play God." His eyes met Pet's, the hybrid snorting in annoyance.
A flash from Billy's camera highlighted a small, dinosaur specimen floating in a vat filled with a murky, blue water. Pet clenched her jaw in anger and balled her fists at her side. So many things about that scene bothered her. Not just because it was a baby dinosaur dead because of man, but because she knew she was created much the same way. And it sickened her.
Her eyes started to glaze over and a single tear streamed down her dirt splotched face. Grant saw this and closed the distance between them. "Nica? Are you alright?"
For some reason, frequenting this exact same building all those years ago didn't have the same impact it did on her at that moment. "I was created much the same way as that baby dino, Alan." She met his sympathetic eyes and hissed another snort.
He drew her in for a comforting hug and kissed her on the top of her head. "I'm sorry, we shouldn't have come in here."
"No, it's fine." Pet wiped at her eyes. "It was worth investigating, should the boy have been here." She gave the man an attempted smile. "I'll be fine."
"Let's just hurry up and get out of-" Amanda screaming stopped Grant in mid-sentence, everyone stopping in what they were doing to see what was wrong.
Something was trying to attack Amanda. Pet's eyes widened. "Shit, it's a raptor!"
Grant bellowed, "RUN!"
Pet drug the man behind her. "This way! This way!" The five people followed her and into what looked to be an animal kennel.
Down a couple turns and to a dead end they came, Paul trying a cage's lock. "It's locked!"
Billy blurted, "Some idea this was."
"Shove it," Pet chided.
It was Grant's turn to grab a hold of Pet when shoving her into a pen. "This way, this way! Go, go!" Udesky and Paul joined the other two in one pen while Billy and Amanda went to another.
They tried to close the gate only to fail when the raptor pushed it open. It was taking everything Billy and Amanda had to keep the gate closed as much as they were. Had it not been for the wet and slippery floor, it would've been a lot better to get the traction needed to not slide backwards in their efforts.
Pet broke out of Grant's grasp to go help the other two, but he wasn't about to be stopped that easily. He wrapped his arms around her upper body, growling into her ear, "I'm not going to let you go that easily, Veronica!"
"I can help them, Alan! Let me go!" She snorted and shrieked, but he still wasn't letting go.
Udesky called out, "Hey, over here!" He began rattling the pen's caging, hoping to get the attention of the attacking dinosaur.
That's when the raptor stopped its clawing at the pen cell door to look upwards to an opening that would lead straight to its prey. Amanda yelled, "Push! Push!" Between her and Billy, they were able to push the door and latch it against another cell's caging, thus trapping the raptor.
It didn't take long for the frantic people to flee the scene, Grant pausing in his running to observe the desperately squawking raptor. Pet ran up to him. "Alan, what are you doing? Come on!"
"My God. He's calling for help."
"We're going to be calling for help, too, if you don't move your ass!"
Paul joined the hybrid to help urge the scientist. "Come on!"
Grant knew the hybrid was right and allowed himself to be drug away from his observing. They exited the pens and retraced their steps back outside in record time. They went into a section of the jungle, soon coming out the other side and into a field.
Grant yelled to the others, "Into the herd!"
Parasaurolophus and Corythosaurus of different sizes became startled at the intruding group, causing a chain reaction resulting in an eventual stampede. Because this didn't bring back memories to Grant when running through a startled pack of Gallimimus.
Pet snorted and yelled out to Grant. "So, help me if you make one comment about these bastards flocking, I'll beat your ass!"
Everyone was trying their best to not get trampled, Billy losing his footing and falling to the ground. He didn't take much time getting back up, though. He quickly realized he had dropped his camera bag and debated on going back for it, but knew doing so would probably result in getting ran over by a dinosaur or attacked by a raptor. Little did he know, his mentor found the treasured item amongst the grass and picked it up.
Pet exclaimed, "We need to get to higher ground!"
Grant frenetically looked around to see the field surrounded by trees. "Get to the trees!" He and Pet went one way while the others ran a little further ahead, none of which intending to split up.
Paul, Amanda and Billy managed to get to safe ground in a tree, Udesky not so fortunate. In trying to find the others and follow, he found himself face to face with a raptor. His painful cries echoed the air and landed on Pet's distant ears.
Her and Grant had managed to stay close together, but where were the rest? "That was Udesky!" Pet briefly stopped running, but the man's tight grip around her wrist tugged her to follow. "It sounded like it came from over there! Maybe that's where the others are!"
Grant nodded in agreement. "Come on! We need to stay together!" The two bounded through the tall shrubbery and thigh high grass before Pet stopped them both. She grabbed the man by his back pack and yanked him to the ground. "What the-"
The hybrid's clawed hand over the man's mouth seized his words. "Shhh..." She gestured with her hand to stay low and poked her head up enough to see one raptor approach another. Grant eyes met the hybrid's as she mouthed, "You're welcome."
The two raptors barking and squawking got the man's attention and he returned his watch back onto the animals. One was a male and the other a female, him wonder if these were the alpha male and female of the pack. "What are you saying? What are you looking for?" He kept his eyes on the raptors when questioning the woman lying next to him in the grass. "Nica? Can you tell what's going on?"
"Yeah. They're pissed."
"Is this because of the nest? You said they wouldn't follow us without provocation."
"I think they're following us because of me." Both people looked to the other in dread. "They probably smelt the traces of raptor in me at the nest and thought it was another raptor from outside the pack hunting their eggs."
"Son of a bitch."
Pet grimaced in extreme sympathy. "I'm sorry Alan, I-"
The raptors ran off and in seeing an opportunity to get out of there, Grant grabbed the hybrid off the ground. They scampered behind a tree, the man studying the hybrid. "The screams sounded from that direction, right?" Pet nodded. "Then that's the direction we're going to run in."
"Okay."
Grant stood up, with the intentions of running as soon as everything looked clear, only to find it wasn't. A raptor had found them from either their scent or them talking. Pet jerked Grant back and stood in front of him as though to shield him and protect him against the raptor. She knew this was probably going to end badly, but she didn't care.
The two people started backing up to put distance between them and the raptor, Pet hoping it didn't call for others to join. If it was just that one, she could probably fight it off though it'd been a while since she done something of the sort.
Footsteps running towards them caused Grant's head to jerk over to the side. "Veronica..."
"I know." There was a growl to Pet's voice that slightly unnerved the scientist
They troubled people continued to back up, but another hissing growl from behind them stopped them in their tracks. Grant spun around to find a third raptor. The man spoke low to the hybrid. "Please tell me you have a plan to get us out of this."
"They're challenging us." A raptor hissed a growl at her and Pet returned the action by hissing her own screech.
That was when a fourth raptor arrived. This one was a female. "Veronica..."
Pet glanced over her shoulder to see the female and grabbed Grant's arm to pull him closer to her as she tried to protect him the best she could. But at this moment, judging by the pitch in the four raptors' squawking, there was no getting out of this alive.
The hybrid was genuinely afraid and the raptors could sense that. One of the males stepped closer to her, but Pet screeched out and lunged forward just a bit to startle it. The female hissed a bark and the male stepped back from the others.
Grant was scared out of his damn mind at that point and yet here he was, fascinated at the interaction between the woman and the raptors. He questioned to her. "What's going on?"
"It's just as I suspected. They smelled us at the nest and followed us. More like, followed me because of what I am." She barked a growl at another male approaching them. "So now they're challenging us."
A sound from off to the side hit Pet's sense of hearing before a canister spewing smoke landed a couple feet shy of where she and Grant were standing. A smoke grenade and with tear gas no less. But who the hell tossed a smoke grenade? It had to be the others. Billy and the Kirbys. Paul must've found and salvaged some from the aircraft wreckage and had them in his backpack. Finally, the son of a bitch did something right. A second and third can joined the first, filling the air with thick white smoke.
It stung Pet's eyes and burned her throat. She coughed out, "Cover your mouth," as she tried to do the same. She screeched out and squeezed her eyes shut.
As for Grant, he couldn't stop coughing and tried to see if the raptors had fled the area. Of course, trying to see anything behind eyes full of tears made things difficult, too. A hand took hold of his and he felt himself be drug off and out of the smoke-filled area. He wasn't sure where he was being drug off to, but at that moment didn't really care. As long as it was away from the raptors and the tear gas. He trusted the hybrid's judgment on where to flee to.
But wait, that wasn't Pet. Grant could barely make out any definition of the figure pulling him along. He pulled his hand away from the other, still running ahead. He was being left behind, now and he coughed out to the other, "Wait!" He trudged after the figure, inadvertently tripping over a tree limb and crashing to the ground.
"Come on," the figure stated when hastily pulling him back to his feet.
Grant heard the voice and easily identified it as belonging to a boy. A boy? Eric? Eric Kirby? He survived?! The man had to be quite honest with himself, he didn't think the boy still alive. He was back to being drug off.
Grant choked out, "Wait...where's Veronica?"
"We have to keep moving. The raptors could come back. We have to get to safety."
"Veronica?" After all the times he had yelled at the Kirbys for shouting and possibly drawing unwanted visitation from a dinosaur, now he was doing it. He was understanding the importance of finding that loved one. "Veronica!"
Pet stumbled through the shrubbery of the forest floor, eyes watering and nose running. She had taken off her shirt, leaving her in her sports bra, and was using it to keep her face covered. It provided at least a little protection, but it still burned to breathe. She wasn't sure where she was going. For all she knew, she was stumbling into a pack of raptors waiting for her and Grant.
The hybrid stopped in her tracks, eyes wide in realization. "Alan?" She frantically started looking around her in hopes of the man nearby. But he wasn't. Everything in the woman locked up. Her heart skipped a beat and a sickening feeling settled into her stomach. She thought he was behind her. She just knew he was behind her. "Alan?" Having no choice, she ran back in the direction she had just come from, the smoke from the grenades starting to dissipate.
The lingering smoke still burned, though not as bad, and she was at least able to focus on the area a little bit better. That was, when she wasn't crying in both fear and from the residual gas stinging her eyes. He was nowhere, nowhere in the area at all. No traces of him, nothing. As much as he wanted to leave the scene in exchange for fresh air, she wouldn't leave. She had to calm herself and think. She couldn't think with all the stressors weighing down on her.
Pet began to recall what Muldoon had trained her when undergoing one of his trainings. She remembered one of them being with tear gas and what to do to overcome being incapacitated by it. The training was torturous, but as he explained and stressed, something necessary should gas grenades need to be used for any dire situation at the zoo. She closed her eyes, more like squeezed them shut, to give her a moment to recover from the stinging.
In her gathering her composure, she could almost hear her best friend and guardian's voice recalling the instructions. "Remain calm. Keep a steady mind. Remain focused. What is it you're wanting to do? What or who are you trying to find? A way out? A certain person? Maybe an animal to help contain it. Know this and remember it. To hell with the pain. Ignore it. Your pain now, could mean their gain later. A person's life could be on the line and you're weak and crying over 'it hurts'."
Pet screeched out in rage and slammed a clawed hand on the ground. She opened her eyes and looked around, forcing them open despite the agonizing burn of the gas tearing at them. As she tried to keep her eyes mostly open, she would squeeze them in a brief blink to refocus. Footprints were next to her hand. She recognized hers and what was safely assumed as Grant's. But there was a third. They were smaller.
Pet hoarsely barked. The foot prints were messy. The owner was in a hurry. She scurried over to the smaller prints, looking as though a child's, and noticed how Grant's went in the same direction. Someone had grabbed him. A child. Eric? Pet's head snapped upwards into the forest growth where the prints disappeared and took off running in the direction they led. Her running was more like stumbling. She tried to smell the air for traces of a person's scent, but couldn't smell a damn thing. Every inhalation she took burned her nasal cavity, throat and lungs. Because this just didn't completely suck! She kept sniffing the air, coughing every time. She had to find him.
