CHAPTER 7
The three ATVs ventured into the jungle foliage, winding their way beneath the dense canopy. Among the shadows of leaves and vines hanging off tree limbs Seth heard the cry and chatters of a hundred coelophysis. The slender agile bipeds approached from the right flank and fell in line with the four-wheelers. Soon they were surrounded on all sides.
"This happens almost every time." Kyra said over the noise. "Its like they wanna race or something."
Seth watched the coelophysis run alongside the ATVs. They reminded him a whole lot of great blue herons, right down to the colors. They weren't much larger either. Many of them he noticed were eating on the go. They snapped their long toothed jaws at a wide variety of prey including dragonflies, snakes, lizards, and small rodents.
"Keep your hands and fingers close to you." Kyra warned. "They aren't really dangerous, but they do like to bite."
Seth had already noticed at time or two that when some of the coelophysis got close enough they would nip at anything remotely protruding from the four-wheelers.
Ten minutes passed riding among the coelophysis before Kyra said, "We're close."
Seth saw that the trees were growing thin, and the ground was getting mushy. Through the parting jungle he spotted other dinosaurs. There were at least two kinds to be sure. They were big. On average twenty-five to thirty some feet in length, sometimes a bit more. To Seth their heads looked very goose-like. Both kinds had flat rounded beaks and dull brown eyes that had the same docile gaze of a cow. Their locomotion was unique. At times they walked on their hind legs alone. At others they moved on all fours.
Seth noticed a deep breathy reverberation in the air, like the combination of a tuba and a didgeridoo.
"Parasaurolophus." Kyra pointed to one of the animals. "They make that sound with the big red tube on their head."
Seth looked where she was pointing. The creature indeed had a six-foot long tube-like crest arching off the back of its skull.
"Weird." Seth said.
He noticed the other strange attribute this animal had was a large hump above its shoulders. It made Seth think of buffalo and camels, but these creatures were otherwise not like that at all.
"What are those there?" Seth pointed to the other kind of dinosaur.
"Corythosaurus." Kyra answered.
They were very similar to the parasaurolophus, but their crest was more like a tall rounded mohawk on their forehead.
The ATVs rolled into a swampy clearing with rotten tree stumps standing in shallow water. There were a few parasaurolophus wading in the mire while others grazed among the trees. The teens stopped at the water's edge and the fleeting coelophysis continued along the swamp's left bank.
"Hey watch this, Seth." Dallas jumped off his four-wheeler and picked up a smooth flat stone. With a flick of his wrist he skipped it across the bog.
In unison all the parasaurolophus in the mire followed the stone with a turn of their head. Dallas picked up another small rock and did it again. Likewise the red crested herbivores followed it with their eyes another time.
Dallas chuckled. "What a bunch of lemmings. They'll do that all day." He turned to Seth. "So I'm figurin' you're about fifteen like the rest of us."
"Just turned." Seth replied as he observed the dinosaurs roaming about them.
"Well then I'm also figurin' your parents are divorced just like all the rest of ours." Dallas threw another stone at the water. He didn't skip it this time. It just hit with a plunk.
"What makes you say that?" Seth became quieter.
Before Dallas could answer, Shelly cut in. "You know Mr. Hammond? He's the head of this whole company, INGEN. They built everything here and cloned all the dinosaurs to." Shelly reared her arm back and threw a rock at the water herself. "Well, his daughter is getting a divorce, and he's got grandkids from her. I guess that makes him have a soft spot for kids like us." She chucked another stone. "When our non-custodial parents told us they had accepted high paying careers in Costa Rica we all thought they were out of the picture for good. Next thing you know we all got plane tickets in the mail from this big shot CEO named John Hammond offering us the summer vacation of a life time."
Dallas cut back in. "So what's your story stranger?" He looked at Seth with a raised eyebrow.
Seth recalled the plane tickets vividly. He'd been living with his aunt in Rhode Island. He remembered her calling up the stairs through his closed bedroom door where he'd been sulking for weeks.
"Seth!" Her small voice had trailed through the air. "You have a letter from your mother."
He could still feel the paper between his fingers as he distained the idea of going anywhere. Then he thought to the plane flights and the helicopter ride in. It had been dark. The moonlit silhouettes of the island's mountain ridges were all he could see, nothing more. At the time he'd been vastly unexcited, mostly depressed, and now he didn't know what to think.
Seth climbed off the back of Kyra's four-wheeler and stared out over the bog. Dozens of dragonflies zipped around his face like tiny jet planes. Blankly he gazed right through them.
"My dad was killed in an automobile accident." He said it in a flat disconnected monotone.
The others in the group shifted uncomfortably, but nobody spoke.
After a while of staring out into space Seth finally said, "It happened over a year ago. Forget about it."
From behind he felt Kyra's hand gently settle on his shoulder.
Finding the words to speak, Dallas became apologetic. "Seth... I didn't mean to strike a sore nerve, man. I was just—"
Seth cut him off. "I said forget about it."
No one in the group knew how to continue the conversation. They were all relieved when Seth finally said, "So what else is there to see on this side of the fence?"
Dallas' face lit up almost immediately. "Rebirtha." He said with a grin.
"Rebirtha?" Seth repeated.
"Yeah." Dallas' grin got wider. "I think you ought to meet Rebirtha."