They went upstairs to search the bedrooms but found no additional items. Given the size of the rooms and the number of beds or sofas, Claire estimated that a dozen people at most could have been accommodated in the house. Wu but also most likely Ivan Preston, his right-hand man and boyfriend, a few other scientists and a guard or two to ensure their safety. If the team that worked there was larger, its other members were accommodated elsewhere, probably in one of the hotels in town in order to not arouse the suspicion of some of Site D's employees.
"Indoraptor…the Indian thief…what a stupid name," Owen said as they walked back to the front door.
Claire noticed that he had his phone in his hand.
"I just typed it into a search engine, just for fun, and it's a name that's already taken, for a kind of fictional small dragon created by some Kraut on DeviantArt," he added.
"You're aware that's the least of InGen's worries," she replied.
"In any case, you would sell toys with that name."
They closed the house's door as best they could and crossed the fallow garden.
"Stop, you remind me of all those unsold Jurassic World toys Mattel has on their hands," she told him. "To think that they would also have sold toys at the effigy of the Indominus…"
"Mattel, aren't they those who make Barbies?"
"Yes they are."
"I didn't recall that InGen had a partnership with them. I must admit that I was never interested in their plastic crap who filled the shelves of some shops in the park. I think they're overrated. The icing on the cake would have been the presence of Barbies in park uniforms... Barbie the shop clerk, Barbie the tour guide, Barbie the keeper, Barbie the geneticist, Barbie the veterinarian, Barbie the Camp Cretaceous monitor, Barbie the J-SEC officer…"
"And that wouldn't have been the worst. I know I was unofficially named Miss Isla Nublar the year I arrived, but by the gods, can you imagine Barbie dolls at my effigy? Help!"
They crossed the creek and continued south, but they did not take exactly the same path as on the outward trip, deviating further west. They realized this shortly after they finished climbing the slope when they ended up facing not the corrals adjoining the sauropods' night building, nor the two large grassy and open paddocks connected to the latter, but a densely vegetated enclosure delimited by a three meter high chain-link fence.
"Where are we?" Claire wondered. "We're not by the sauropods."
Not recognizing the paddock either, Owen listed in his head the other northern paddocks, all located in the large predators' area. First he crossed out the acrocanthosaurs', then those of the carnotaurs and of Boomer the metriacanthosaur, as the enclosure's interior and the fence's type didn't match. Only one remained, and when Owen remembered the identity of its occupants, his body tensed. He listened and they heard a fairly audible noise in the thickets. Then nothing. Owen looked around the paddock and grabbed Claire's wrist.
"Turn around, very slowly," he whispered to her. "We must move away."
They heard the noise again. It was definitely made by something quite large, which was moving slowly through the vegetation and coming towards them.
"Is that…?" she began.
"Yes."
As if to confirm their fear, the animal hidden in the vegetation hooted.
"Turn around!" he hissed.
They turned around but as they walked away with a brisk step, the animal leapt out of the thicket, the couple heard a rattling noise and a jet of black and viscous matter splashed against a trunk just inches from Claire's face. Dilophosaurus' spit.
"Duck!" Owen told her.
They ducked and started running but at that moment, they heard a second Dilophosaurus charging out of the vegetation in its enclosure and also spitting. Owen felt something wet crash down on his back, just below his collar. Instinctively, he wanted to wipe himself but he held back. He knew that if he touched the spit, his skin would quickly itch, like if he had touched acid. The couple continued to run in a bent position over a few additional meters and only stopped once they were out of reach of the dilophosaurs' spits. Frustrated, the predators let out a hoot that sounded disappointed.
"You're okay?" Owen asked his girlfriend while they caught their breath.
"I think I'm alright," she assured him. "I should return the question to your polo though."
Then they laughed, as if to release all the accumulated tension and adrenaline. Knowing where they were exactly, they headed southwest, continuing under the foliage for a good hundred meters, and finally stepped out of the woods just by the Titanosaurs' paddock.
"It's going to be a hassle to wash that," she noted a few minutes later.
"If someone asks, I'll pretend I went for a morning walk and fell in mud when I tried to approach one of the paddocks," he replied as he stood bent over and shirtless by a tap outside the sauropods barn, trying to wash off the spit on his polo shirt. "As simple as that."
Owen turned off the tap and looked down at his polo shirt. The spit was gone but a large dark stain remained. He held his polo shirt up to his nose and sniffed. The spit's acrid smell was still there.
He sighed and looked at the time on his watch: Almost half past seven.
"Okay, I should go," he said, putting his polo shirt back on. "I have to change and have my breakfast. I hope you've got something to eat?"
"Yeah, don't worry. We meet by the keepers' office. You remember your lines?"
"Yes. See you later!" He told her as he headed towards the hacienda, following the herbivore loop.
"See ya!"