CHAPTER 53

Page moved cautiously through the jungle. The screams were near by, but she could still not see who they were coming from or what the danger was. Her shotgun was off her shoulder and in her hands. Sweat matted her hair. A few locks fell in her face. She brushed them aside. The foliage was thick and she constantly had to shift the angle of her feet to place them between crossing branches and tangling roots. The lighting was changing. She sensed there was a clearing ahead. In her mind she counted her steps toward it. The screaming continued.

As Page proceeded she began to get the feeling that something wasn't right. There was something odd about the scream and she couldn't quite place it. There was an inclination to stop, but the clearing was right there. She had only to push aside the palm fronds with her hand.

Beyond the leaves she saw a shape. She couldn't make it out through the slits in the greenery. With a brush of her hand Page pushed aside the palm branches and saw for the first time the velociraptor that was screaming like a human.

Watching the hunter with its silvery-white neck feathers frilled up as it shrieked, Page didn't comprehend at first what she was looking at. She couldn't wrap her head around its meaning. Then the significance dawned on her like a rush of adrenaline. The raptor had tricked her. It had learned how to mimic the sound of a human in distress in order to lure her into a trap, and it worked.

"You son of a bitch." Page gripped her shotgun.

The silver neck raptor stood and stared. It didn't blink. It didn't move. Page felt compelled to shoot it, but she heard the purr of another raptor behind her, and her finger let off the trigger. Her muscles tensed. She spun around and pointed her barrel off into the jungle, but there were no other raptors in sight. The foliage was still. She heard another purr at her back and spun again. The clearing was empty now. The silver neck had vanished.

Page didn't know how to react. Her eyes darted all around the clearing. She heard more purrs. There were some to her right and some to her left and others in front and back of her. They moved around the clearing, changing location rapidly. The sounds were disorienting. She couldn't tell how many raptors were out there or exactly know where they were at any given time. The foliage was stirring. Quick footsteps moved through the underbrush. These sounds were no easier to decipher, but it did seem as though they were closing in on her.

Something inside Page snapped, and she ran. Her frantic footsteps carried her back the way she had come. Beyond the jungle she heard the helicopter thumping away in the village. She felt in her panic that her heart was drumming just as fast. The foliage lashed at her body as she ran. Low obstacles snared her ankles. Page tripped and landed on her elbows. Her gun tumbled out of her hands. She snatched it back up and kept running. By the way they were stinging, she knew both forearms had been skinned.

A raptor flashed across her path. She had barely seen it. Within a split second the hunter was out of sight again. Page stopped. She heard a noise behind her and saw another flash of a raptor.

"Shit." She pressed her back against a tree. She knew she was trapped.

As she held her shotgun close to her chest she could feel blood trickling off her elbows. Her body shook. She felt an overwhelming urge to cry but didn't. Page heard more purrs, more stirring in the jungle. The raptors were closing in again. She buried every impulse of fear, swallowed every tear, and choked down a lump in her throat.

Page fired off a shot in the air and ran screaming. As she ran she unloaded every shell in the gun. When it was spent she flung the weapon like a boomerang through the trees and drew two pistols from her belt. She continued firing shots through the jungle and screaming at the top of her lungs.

Among the foliage Page was beginning to see glimpses of the backs of the cabins. She was nearing the village. In another moment her pistols were empty. She tossed them to the ground. There were no more weapons. She had nothing left but to run.

All around her the raptors were vocalizing. Page could tell they were communicating, coordinating their efforts. She could hear them tracking her down, closing in, zipping through the jungle with brilliant organization. She knew her chances were slim. All she could do was keep running.

Page sprinted out of the jungle and into a cleanly mowed clearing that separated the cabins from the trees. The nearest lodge was still over sixty feet away. She didn't look to her left or her right. Nor did she glance behind her. If a raptor was that close to running her down she didn't want to know it now. Page simply kept her eyes fixed on the back door to the cabin.

In her head she estimated the remaining distance, "forty feet, thirty feet, twenty…" and then the wind was knocked out of her.

Her world flipped sideways, and the next thing she saw was blades of grass. She gasped for air and tried to crawl, but a heavy foot pinned her spine. Page's elbows buckled and her cheek pressed into the finely groomed lawn. The velociraptor's claws could not penetrate her Kevlar vest, but it did not take the hunter long to formulate an alternative to spilling her guts.

Page felt another foot press into the side of her neck, its prehensile toes curling around her bare throat. The large killer claw rested over her windpipe, its razor edge and dagger point feeling sharp on her skin. With a sudden jerk her blood poured out over the green lawn. She coughed. She gurgled. She blacked out. As the world faded the last thing she saw was a silvery-white feather gently settle on the tips of the grass blades in front of her nose. Then everything went dark.