CHAPTER 105

Seth glanced away from the TV screen as his thumbs worked the buttons on the Super Nintendo controller. "With your shaved head you look like a convict in that jumpsuit."

Kyra glanced back at him as she drummed her own controller. "You look like a dork with that face."

"You look like a bigger dork just because."

"Your come backs are lame."

"Your come backs are lamer."

Kyra tossed down her controller and groaned, "we've been doing this all day. I'm so bored I could eat my own face."

The game was still going. Kyra hadn't bothered to hit pause.

"Hey," Seth said.

"Well, don't you want to do something else?"

"There is nothing else. We've already roamed all the halls a dozen times, and we're not allowed to leave the building."

Kyra's voice got low. She peered over at Shelly who was asleep on the other couch. "Let's get out of here for a little bit."

Seth looked confused.

"Outside." Kyra specified emphatically.

"Are you crazy?"

"I can't take being trapped in here any more, Seth. Come on. It'll be just for a few minutes. It's not like we're leaving the perimeter or anything. Nobody'll ever notice we're gone." She was already exiting the room.

"Kyra, no. Kyra, how are we even going to get out without being seen?"

"I saw a back door in the kitchen. Come on."

Seth followed with great hesitation. They crossed the dark cafeteria and made their way past a serving counter and through the stainless steel appliances of a small kitchen. Down a hallway and beyond a walk-in freezer was indeed a door to the outside. Kyra opened it with a quiet shove and they both exited.

"Kyra," Seth whispered. "Kyra, we shouldn't go too far."

A long balcony stretched along the back of the building and overlooked the triassic swamp. There were tables and chairs set up so the staff could eat lunch outside. A curving glass wall stretched away from Kyra and Seth, dividing the shadowy cafeteria they had just exited from the exterior.

Kyra pointed up. Seth saw a surveillance camera mounted directly above them. She waved him in the opposite direction of its lens, and they took a metal staircase to the level below.

"See, it's fine." Kyra led them along a path that followed the circumference of the swamp. "We'll just do one lap and go back."

"Hey, look." Seth was peering down the steep dirt slopes that confined the swamp. He had spotted several large shadows moving just below the water's surface.

Three of the animals came up for air. Their big unblinking frog-like eyes shined with a slimy sheen. Each amphibian was ten feet long and looked like a big slippery alligator with a dull flat head and no scales. Opening their mouths they let out a deep belching croak.

"Cool," Kyra said.

They kept walking and rounded a bend near a portion of the perimeter fence. They had begun to curve back toward the building when Kyra stopped.

Seth said, "What is it?"

Kyra didn't answer. She was stiff as a board and staring through the fence.

Seth followed her eyes into the jungle. It didn't take him long to find what she was looking at. Just beyond the buzzing electrical wires was a pair of velociraptors. They had been dragging what looked like the corpse of a coelophysis, but had dropped it and were now staring back at Kyra and Seth.

Seth was trying to get words to come to his lips, but he found himself somewhat paralyzed as the two raptors eyed him up with glowing eyes in the night. With some effort he managed to breath out the words, "w-what do we do? Should we get someone… Kyra?"

Kyra didn't respond. She inched forward, looking strangely curious.

"Are you nuts?" Seth grabbed her arm. "Let's get out of here."

"They're on the other side of the fence, Seth. Just calm down."

The pair of velociraptors backed away a little and seemed now to be examining the electrified fence from top to bottom. They regarded Seth and Kyra one more time, and then slipped out of sight. For a brief time a stirring of foliage was heard. Then silence followed.

Seth applied more pressure to Kyra's arm. "Haven't you seen enough?"

"Hold on." Kyra neared the fence. She inspected the dead coelophysis for a moment, but there wasn't much to it. It's throat and stomach had been lacerated, but nothing was surprising about that. "Why did they leave it here?"

"I don't know. Please, let's get out of here."

"Hold it." Kyra squinted into the woods further. "There's more of them. A lot more." She could see at least a dozen dead coelophysis along the jungle floor. "What are they doing that for?"

"Kyra, come on."

"Just a minute, Seth. Jeez. We're on the other side of the fence. It's not like they can get us here."

"Well, we shouldn't be out here in the first place."

Kyra put a hand right in his face. There was something else in the jungle. "What is that?"

Seth spotted it too. Before either could answer their minds became frozen with shock. Two naked human bodies hung upside down in the trees. Their skin was pale with long slices across the abdomen. The faces were locked in horrific agony.

Seth and Kyra gasped as they backed away from the fence. There was a noise behind them, but they didn't have time to turn around. They each let out a scream as something snatched their shoulders in a firm grasp.

"I told you not to leave the building!" Dr. Conners barked.

Kyra threw her arms around him. She was crying.

Seth saw his mom charging up the path and his tongue was tied. Oddly he didn't know what to think or feel about any of what he just saw. He just didn't want to face his mother's wrath for the second time in two days. He was relieved when Dr. Conners promptly cut his mom off before she could even start.

"Dianna, take them inside now."

She saw him looking off beyond the fence and knew better than to question it. She waved her hand at Kyra and Seth, beckoning them back up the pathway. "Come on you two. Right now." Dianna pulled Kyra from Dr. Conner's side.

She was still teary eyed but not crying anymore. "Dad, what's going on out here?"

"You just need to go right now, Kyra." Bryce nodded his daughter away. "I'll be right behind you."

Dianna tugged at Kyra's hand and retreated up the path, snagging Seth's arm along the way.

Dr. Conners gazed upon the forest floor and ran his fingers through his hair. The perimeter was starting to look more and more like the set of a horror film. As morbid a behavior as it seemed the human bodies made sense to him, but he found the coelophysis carcasses perplexing. What were they stockpiling them for? Dr. Conners breathed heavily. "What in God's name are they doing?"