CHAPTER 187
Flash and Laser charged the raptors. Their maws were wide and ready to chomp. Tomahawk and the rest of her pack shrieked and snarled, showing their claws and teeth. The juvenile tyrannosaurs picked up speed and barreled at them.
Bill and Gary, both still being pinned, could do nothing but lay and watch. The tyrannosaurs were so close now, and it didn't appear that anything could derail the feud that was about to explode in front of the two men.
At the moment where the predators were going to collide a set of four knobby tires swerved onto the scene and skidded sideways through the dirt. The vehicle that had come out of nowhere slammed into Laser, knocking her into Flash, and both tyrannosaurs fell over. With the engine still rumbling it sat in a dissipating cloud of dust. As the haze drifted aside Gary, Bill, and the surrounding dinosaurs got their first look at this newcomer.
The vehicle was a custom rover just like the two that had been used by the animal control team until they were destroyed a matter of days ago.
This one appeared to be some kind of prototype, as its surfaces were covered in gray primer paint, and its edges were marked with yellow and black caution stripes. Dents in its metal showed where various stress tests had been administered.
The rexes got to their feet and backed away, while the raptors stood in apprehension of the rover.
There was the sound of a door latch being pulled, and the driver's side swung open. A leg shot out, stomping a dark boot onto the ground, and the rest of the body followed. A lean and muscular man was now poised behind the cover of the door. His face was rough with several days worth of stubble, yet underneath of it Gary and Bill felt like they recognized him. Two large caliber revolvers emerged from his torso, their long silver barrels flashed upon a ray of sunlight as it cut through the canopy. The pistols were just like something out of a western as was the demeanor of the individual who held them.
The eyes of the raptors zeroed in on the weapons. The tyrannosaurs backed away. Three bullets left the chambers of the guns in a rapid burst. Following the gunfire all three velociraptors dropped dead with holes through their heads.
Tomahawk shifted with an unease that Gary had not witnessed in the utahraptors before. Gary was not sure why this surefire gun slinger had ceased to slay her, but he was now holstering one of his revolvers and reaching for something else. As he moved to make this exchange he kept the other gun fixed on Tomahawk. It almost seemed as though the man and the utahraptor were communicating with their eyes. There was an exchange, an analyzation, an understanding. They were reading each other. The man was on the cusp of revealing whatever it was from obscurity when the utahraptor dashed for the underbrush. Within seconds she was out of sight.
The man reversed his actions and tucked the mystery object back on his person in a place that was occluded by the door. He swept back into the vehicle as quickly as he had emerged, and the car door slammed shut.
Gary and Bill jumped to their feet. It was as though the man in the rover hadn't even regarded them. He was peeling away in a cloud of dust, circling around to head back down the stream as mysteriously as he had appeared.
"Hey!" Gary shouted.
"What the hell!" Bill yelled.
They both swung their arms and chased after the rover.
The vehicle slammed on its breaks. Gary and Bill stopped in their tracks. They stared at the idling rover and then looked at each other. After that they noted the three young rexes who were observing all this in a state of confoundedness and from a distance.
Another uncomfortable moment passed. The driver's door cracked open, and the back side of a face could scarcely be seen peering over a shoulder as it leaned out a hair.
The voice was unsettling at best. "Get in."