CHAPTER 32
Robinson and Chathem pressed themselves against the tree as Rebirtha banked away from them. The forest trembled as the rex stomped by.
"What the hell is she doing?" Chathem watched Joan sprint off beyond the tyrannosaur.
"You can ask her when we get to the chopper. Come on, Chathem. Let's go!" Robinson tugged at his shoulder and then bolted for the shed. Behind him Chathem started running a moment later.
A small way north of them Joan was fleeing from Rebirtha. White smoke trailed behind her in wafting clouds as the flare spit red fire past her face. At every glance over her shoulder the rex was a little closer. Joan was beginning to think she had slightly underestimated the tyrant's speed. She wanted to fire off a rubber slug at the carnivore, but she felt that moment had already expired. With a swift lunge of her feet Joan maneuvered behind a tree and cut east again. She heard the tyrannosaur fumbling at her heels and hoped the redirection would slow the rex down a bit. The one thing Joan knew she had at her disposal was her agility. Rebirtha was much too big and heavy to jog betwixt the redwoods like she could. Using this to her advantage she zigged and zagged in tight turns around one tree trunk and the next. With each sharp adjustment she made she could hear the dinosaur's foot falls stuttering.
Joan looked over her shoulder again. Rebirtha was a bit farther back. Seizing the moment she chucked the flare, planted her feet, raised her shotgun, and pulled the trigger. There was a loud click but nothing more. She pulled the trigger again. The gun was totally silent now. The weapon had jammed.
"Damn!" Joan threw the shotgun to the ground. Rebirtha was barreling at her with an open maw. She burst into a run again, but the tyrant was even closer than before. Joan's eyes darted around. She needed to take cover quick.
Nestled in a bed of ferns ahead of her was a hollow redwood log lying on its side. She made a dash for it as fast as she could run and dove in head first. As she squirmed her way further in, she heard a terrible crunch at her feet and tucked her legs tight. The log trembled as the end of it was splintered. Through a gaping bite Joan saw chunks of bark falling, and Rebirtha's teeth loomed just above. The tyrannosaur pressed her nostrils into the log and flared them with a breath. There was snorting and grunting, and a foul odor wafted from the rex's gullet. Rebirtha took the log in her teeth and threw it. Joan hurled through the air, able to see nothing around her but a blur. The log shuddered once as it hit the ground and again as it smashed into the side of a tree.
Joan was stunned. Her head was spinning. From outside the log she heard Rebirtha's heavy footsteps approach. She shook her head to clear her vision. Through one open end of the log she saw the tyrannosaur's little arms dangling from her robust chest and beyond that the rex's big feet. The carnivore's tail swooshed far behind it all, and Rebirtha's body slightly rocked with it. The tyrant nudged the log with her snout and it rolled twenty feet. As Joan shook off another spell of dizziness the log quaked. The wood all around her groaned and creaked, and a crack split open above her legs. She tucked herself into a ball quickly as the top of the log depressed inward. No sooner did she do that than Rebirtha's taloned foot came crushing down.
Joan had scarcely the space to conceal herself any more. The log was half the length it started out at. Rebirtha chomped another hunk out and Joan's legs were totally exposed. She couldn't afford to stay there any longer. As Rebirtha spit shreds of bark from her teeth Joan bolted for the shed.
It didn't take Rebirtha more than a few seconds to wage a pursuit. The foot stomps, the roaring, the tremendous breaths all heaved at Joan's back like a nightmare that wouldn't go away.
"Move your feet, Joan." That's all she kept telling herself. "Move your feet."