CHAPTER 89
"Bryce, what is it?" Dianna could see the mix of worry and panic on his face.
Dr. Conners swallowed but couldn't conjure the words to speak.
Joan called from the back of the truck, "Dr. Conners, what the hell is the situation?"
Again he didn't answer. His mind was stuck on the fact that the truck wouldn't move and now there was a pack of eight triceratops rumbling toward them at top charge.
"Bryce!" Dianna shoved his arm from across the truck.
He turned to look at her through his night vision goggles.
Dianna asked with more conviction, "What's going on?"
Dr. Conners snapped out of his mental stall. "You're much happier not knowing." He turned and called to Hector, "Hector, push!"
Bryce pumped on the gas more forcefully than he ought to have, but the truck was crawling through the muck. His panic about the situation was getting the better of him, and he was feeding the engine more and more gas.
"Easy, amigo! Easy!" Hector yelled.
With a jerk the tires caught on gravel and dry dirt, and the pickup jumped forward. As soon as the truck was moving Dr. Conners kept steady on the gas. He didn't want to loose momentum. Hector lost hold of the rear bumper and fell face down in a pile of dung. In the brief moment that he was lying there he felt an undeniable quake in the earth. As he slipped and tripped to his feet he looked behind him to see massive horns rutting out of the dark.
"Oh shit." Hector bolted after the truck.
As he grabbed a hold of the bed liner he stumbled over another heap of droppings. He was holding on, but his feet were dragging behind him. Ms. Murdock reached out and pulled his arms while Hector's legs scrambled up into the bed. They both crawled over Robinson to the front where Dallas and Shelly were bunkered down.
The truck plummeted into a ditch and bounded back out with a shudder. The steering wheel snapped hard and Dr. Conners nearly lost control. He had to step on the breaks, and before he could get the vehicle up to speed it was swallowed by the group of stampeding triceratops.
There was one on either side and as they matched pace with the truck they took turns swiping their horned snouts against the side panels. The pickup rocked back and forth, its tires jolting off the ground on one side and then the other as it was repeatedly struck. Everyone inside the cab slammed heads or smacked against the doors or the dashboard. Those in the back bounced around so hard they nearly fell out of the bed.
Dianna yelled, "get us out of here, Bryce! Step on it!"
Dr. Conners could barely keep his feet on the pedals, let alone get a hold of the stick shift.
At that moment another triceratops came plowing under the rear of the truck with its snout and lifted the back tires off the ground. There was a plummet as the dinosaur nosed the vehicle forward and dropped it back to the dirt.
"Damn it, Bryce! Get us going!" Dianna screamed.
They were being rutted from the sides again, and the triceratops in the rear came in and smashed the back bumper straight on.
Dr. Conner's head snapped back against the seat and then slammed forward on the steering wheel. The night vision goggles flew off his head and tumbled across the dashboard.
"Kyra! Grab them!" he shouted as he wrestled to regain control of the vehicle.
She reached forward, but the goggles tumbled past the shattered windshield and rattled onto the hood. Kyra leaned out, but her fingers barely grazed them. There was another bump, and they slid back toward her. The goggles toppled right in her lap, and she thrust them back at her dad.
Dr. Conners stuffed them back over his head just in time to see the front leg of a brachiosaurus stomp in front of the truck. Most of the triceratops broke away to avoid the giraffe-like titan, but one of them rammed the pickup right into the tall herbivore.
Dr. Conners fought with the steering wheel, but it was no use. The truck sideswiped the ankles of the brachiosaurus with a tremendous wallop. As the vehicle struck and continued onward the smote herbivore's long towering neck swung forward while the beast let out a tragic cry. A second later the brachiosaurus was smashing to the ground like a cut redwood.
Just past the fallen brachiosaur the eight triceratops were crowding in on the truck again. Here and there Dr. Conners caught glimpses of velociraptors orchestrating the whole thing much the way sheep dogs would herd sheep. The hunters wove in and around the fearsome herbivores, using tactics that both strategically corralled the triceratops and kept the hunters themselves safe from gunfire.
There was a very small window before the triceratops would be rutting at the truck again. Shifting gears Dr. Conners pressed the gas and accelerated, pulling away from them. He shifted again as the pickup gained speed, but there was an issue. The engine was straining. Over the hood he saw clouds of white smoke starting to billow. His mind went right to a matter of minutes ago when a stegosaurus had struck the grill. Dr. Conner's eyes darted to the temperature gage. It was climbing through the red. Now he knew the radiator had been ruptured for certain. Judging by the sounds of the motor that wasn't the only thing wrong either, but he was in no position to sit and speculate.
Over the trees at the far side of the open fields was a glowing aura from the floodlights at the operations center. He could see a depression in the tree line where there was an entrance to an access road. Bryce steered the truck that way, doing what he could to keep ahead of the triceratops.
"Jesus."