CHAPTER 8

The spinosaurus enclosure straddled a small creek that fed into the valley river. It had been dammed off to flood a low laying area large enough for the sixty-foot long beast to swim in. Dr. Dianna Johnson waited patiently in the submerged observation tunnel for the amphibious dinosaur to make an appearance. She stared through the reinforced glass, passed the thick metal cage of bars, and into the murky water. There she watched snakehead fish, gars, and alligators sift themselves through the green haze in the absence of the spinosaurus.

To her left Dianna heard the squeak of wet rubber boots on the floor. It was followed by a haunting chuckle that echoed through the glass tunnel. "Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water…" A chilling voice trailed off.

Dianna turned to see Gary Stevens walking toward her. He was thoroughly waterproofed in rubber overalls, boots, gloves, and a snug pair of round goggles.

"Cut the Jaws crap Gary." Dianna rolled her eyes and smiled.

Gary was a tall thin man in his thirties with a scruffy boney face and short bed-head hair. He lurched over to Dianna and then straightened up his back.

"There's your girl." He pointed with a thick rubber jacketed index finger. His whole body squeaked as he moved.

Dianna looked back into the green murk. She was surprised to find herself face-to-face with the spinosaurus. It had snuck up on her.

The beast's eight-foot crocodilian jaws seemed suspended in the water. Its green and gray scaled skin was not unlike that of the alligators around it. Slowly the spinosaur's teeth cracked apart and then interlocked once more, releasing tiny bubbles as they did it. Its nostrils flared and contracted gurgling more bubbles into the water. The dinosaur tilted her head to observe Dianna with a speckled green eye. Its pupil shifted several times with minute ticks. Dianna felt as though her whole body was under delicate scrutiny. It made her strangely uncomfortable.

"How are her feeding habits lately?" She eventually broke the silence in the tunnel.

"They've been normal for weeks." Gary answered.

Dianna nodded and quickly jotted some notes down on a clipboard. "And her stool?"

Gary stretched his goggles away from his face and raised an eyebrow. "Regular." He knew what was coming next.

"I'd like to check her droppings myself." Dianna glanced up from her notepad in the midst of writing.

Gary let out a heavy sigh. "Dianna she hasn't been symptomatic in weeks."

"And." Dr. Johnson cut him off with a raise of her pen. "And I'd like to do a full workup."

"Dianna it was just a little summer cold and a mild case of the runs, and now its over." Gary protested. "Not every sniffle or runny heap of crap equates to a genetic defect or an inability to cope with our modern ecosystem. They're animals. Sometimes they just get sick."

Dianna refused to skip a beat and continued smoothly on. "Temperature, heart beat, blood pressure, lungs… Check the eyes, check the ears, check the nose, check the throat." She rattled on.

"Ok Dr. Johnson." Gary let out another deep sigh.

"I'll make up a sedative." Dianna finally sounded like she was done, but she wasn't. "It seems like we're a bit low on alligators in there."

"Yeah… She went on a gator binge after her throat cleared up." Gary said.

"Interesting." Dianna jotted down some more notes.

There was a sudden shudder of metal, and both Dianna and Gary snapped their heads towards the glass. With a thrash of her teeth the spinosaurus unclenched the metal caging from between her jaws and turned to swim away.

Gary swiped a hand through his unkempt hair. "I don't care how much they've ensured me that cage will hold up. It scares the pants off me every time she does that."

"You and me both." Dianna agreed.

They stood in silence watching the spinosaur depart. They observed as all sixty-feet of its girth slowly drifted by: Its meaty neck, its muscular torso with the six-foot tall fin arching high off its back, the beast's thick thighs, and lastly its gator-like tail. The spinosaurus did another quarter turn away from the glass and swam out into the open. As it torqued its body, kicked its scaly clawed hind feet, and slithered its tail the dinosaur moved like an alligator/penguin hybrid.

There was a sudden noise at the end of the tunnel. A moment later Dr. Bryce Conners came running down the stairs into the observation tunnel.

"Dianna! We need your help in the nursery immediately!" He was almost shouting. "There's a problem with the adolescent velociraptors."