CHAPTER 200

Rebirtha was licking her chops. She had finished consuming the velociraptor.

Dr. Conners had almost become relaxed beneath the tyrannosaur's gently swaying tail. She was rocking, almost as though to put herself to sleep. Bryce noted that the rex's breathing had become a calming ambiance of long steady waves akin to the rolling ocean. Dr. Conners noticed her knees were folding. Her belly was sinking, and the thick of her tail was about to thump down on his head. He side stepped out of the way just in time. With a controlled but heavy plump Rebirtha's weight struck the jungle floor, and her girth sagged like a nine tonne water balloon.

Bryce found himself in this awkward position of hiding far enough behind her thigh to not be seen without leaning against her tail. Peering past the wall of leg muscle Dr. Conners watched Rebirtha nestle her jaw into a lush fern bed. It was like watching a forty foot hound lay down for a nap. The tyrannosaur's eyes were drooping until they shut completely. Dr. Conners wasn't going to jump the gun though. He waited, and he waited some more. He stood there until he was certain the sound he was hearing thunder out of her chest was a snore of absolute content.

Bryce steadied his body so he could move in complete silence. One slow foot after the other he backed away from Rebirtha. With each increment that moved him further into the open he began to perspire more and more. He was unobscured now. If Rebirtha were to open her eyes she would surely see him.

Bryce took another step back and there was a snap under his boot. He had broken a thick twig. It was probably not as loud as he thought, but to him it sounded like a gunshot. Bryce went stiff. His eyes shot up to Rebirtha's face, and he watched her. The rex shifted her snout, but her eyes did not open. He waited another moment and then let out a quiet breath of relief. Lifting his foot off the twig Bryce made sure not to make any more noise with it.

Moving further away, Dr. Conners began to step behind one small tree, and then a shrub, and then another small tree. After many painstakingly slow maneuvers Bryce had a comfortable screen of foliage between him and the t-rex, enough so that he felt he could turn his back on her.

Bryce turned around and placed his hands on a sturdy tree trunk. Shifting his head he peered around the edge of it to scan the jungle beyond. He spotted a bit of movement, but he wasn't sure what it was. Shifting a few feet forward to the next tree trunk Bryce leaned against it and spied a little closer. Among the leaves and branches he saw a mass of scales. As his eyes sized up the beast Dr. Conners realized that he was looking at a creature that was roughly the size and proportions of Rebirtha. It was without doubt another large carnivore, and likely it was drawn here by the smell of blood from Rebirtha's snack.

It did not take Dr. Conners long to identify it. This was not spinosaurus. The head was too bulky and lacked crocodilian features. There was no sail on its back. This creature, he recognized as their previously unclassified theropod. Just a matter of days ago, before the shit really hit the fan, Dr. Wu had handed him a file describing a fossil that had been uncovered in Argentina that was a possible match for this dinosaur. The fossil specimen still had yet to be named.

Bryce hugged closer to the tree trunk. He didn't believe he had been seen, and he wanted to keep it that way.

The carnivore's head emerged from the foliage like it was coming out of a thick fog and looked in Bryce's direction. Bryce flattened himself against the tree trunk and held his breath. He still didn't think the carnivore saw him, but she was more or less looking right at him.

Although this dinosaur was a theropod of over forty feet in length, much like Rebirtha, there were many distinctions of varying degrees. The head alone bore a wealthy variety of differences from the tyrannosaur. There was a bumpy ridge of bone along either side of the snout that ran up to higher crests above the eyes. The structure of the skull overall was like an allosaurus on super steroids.

The carnivore squinted, and the scales around its eyes tightened, pulling the colors of tan and speckled greens and charcoal closer together. The animal further emerged, and Bryce was amazed at how silent it moved. As leaves and branches slipped off its bumpy hide not a sound was made that Dr. Conners could hear. Even as its feet stepped upon the jungle floor it was done with a delicacy that stirred nothing. Bryce figured the carnivore must be aware of Rebirtha's presence. It had to be the reason for all the caution. She was scoping the situation, seeing if there was an opportunity to steal a kill, but maintaining a low profile as not to induce conflict without being certain there was something to gain.

The carnivore's fore claws hung beneath her chest. Although the arms were proportionately small, like Rebirtha's, there were three talons on each hand, another distinction between the two species. Her torso stretched to its full breadth as the dinosaur inhaled. Higher dorsal spines on her vertebra gave her a thick ridge on her back that made her look even larger. She took a couple more steps forward and her tail slithered and lashed into the open with a quiet whip. She looked to her right and then to her left, then she faced Dr. Conner's direction again.

Bryce thought, "God, she's huge."

She was one dinosaur that Dianna hadn't thought of a name for yet. Apparently Gary had been calling her Humungosaurus, or something like that. Dr. Conners had heard a few people on the security team referring to her as Gigantor, and it caught on among them, but Dianna never liked the name.

Bryce realized that the carnivore was still looking his way, and it was not a passive glance but a fixation of interest. He thought, "what are you looking at, Gigantor?" Bryce was chuckling within at the ridiculous name, but he was beginning to feel a sense of alarm as well. What was she looking at, and why was she staring for so long?"

Bryce saw her nostrils open wide as she smelled the air. Gigantor took another few steps forward and sniffed again.

"Shit," Bryce thought. Had he really been found so easily?

Then again, the more he studied the dinosaur's eye line the more he noticed that it wasn't exactly on him. Gigantor's pupils were focused on a space just above him. The dinosaur approached and got so close that her jaw was nearly hanging over him. Bryce had an excellent view of the points of her teeth, and if he looked hard enough he could see the serrations on the back edges. Her nostrils were going again, and Bryce could hear the air drawing in and out of them.

"What the hell is she smelling?" he thought. If it wasn't him, then what?

Gigantor lurched forward and bumped the tree trunk Bryce was hugging with her snout. Dr. Conners expected to hear a wooden thump and the rustling of branches, but he didn't. There was a dull bump, and the tree trunk shifted in his arms. The stranger part of it was that the tree trunk proceeded to twitch. He felt it beneath his palms like a muscle engaging.

Dr. Conners inspected the bark with a very suspicious eye. He saw that the color was right, but the texture was off. Although the pigments before him were creating a very convincing illusion of bark-like cracks and crevices with impressive three dimensional depth he could see the scaly skin.

"God damn it," Bryce thought. "How could I have been so god damned careless?"

He was hugging the leg of a camouflaged carnotaurus. Now that Dr. Conners understood what it was he gathered a good perception of the size and proportions of the beast. This was not Hellfire or Two Face. This carnotaurus was abnormally large and bulky for her breed. Dianna had named her Bruce and affectionately called her Big Bad Bruce. It always made Dr. Conners chuckle that she gave her a masculine name, but he couldn't argue that it fit the carnotaur's personality very well. She was much more aggressive and dominated the other carnotaurs with an iron jaw. At feeding time she was always the first to eat. If it were any other way someone got their throat torn out. The other carnotaurs certainly had the scars to show for it, and they learned their lesson quick. This behavior, and the tendency for her to turn a devilish shade of red when she was angry earned her the nick name Brucifer, and the horns on her head and spikes on her hide only added to her hellish persona.

Brucifer remained still, but Dr. Conners could see that Gigantor wasn't buying the act. She could smell the carnotaurus and was noticing more and more that this was no tree. Gigantor thrust her nose at the carnotaurus again and barked. Below the belly of the carnotaur Bryce saw the abdomen swell with a breath.

"Mother of God," he thought. Something explosive and potentially very violent was about to happen, and Bryce was right in the middle of it.

Virtually microscopic specs of red were beginning to prickle up over Brucifer's skin, dots so small that Gigantor probably couldn't register them yet, but Bryce was close enough to see them. It was like watching Bruce Banner moments before he burst out of his shirt and became the Hulk.

Dr. Conners watched the chubby paddle like arms of Brucifer stiffen, and then the rest of her body proceeded to tone up muscle after muscle in a wave that took place in a fraction of a second.

Gigantor huffed and barked. Her feet stomped, and she lurched in to shove Brucifer once more, and this was the breaking point. The threshold of chaos had been breeched.

The hellish red pigment burst over Brucifer's skin, and she bellowed. Dr. Conners released his arms from her leg just as she raised it in the air to kick at Gigantor. Bryce tried to back out from under the carnotaurus, but he fumbled over the jungle terrain. As he stumbled backwards Brucifer's tail cracked him across the chest, and he flew several feet before tumbling into a mud puddle.

Dr. Conners lay face down clutching his ribs as he curled into a ball. Brucifer's sharp dermal armor had lacerated his skin. The wind was knocked out of him, and he felt like a rib had been cracked. Above him he heard a tumult of roars and stomping feet. They were getting closer. As much as his body was overwhelmed with pain he knew he had to move. When he uncoiled his body he was looking at the scaly underside of Gigantor's foot, dripping with mud and about to come down on him.

"Christ!"

Bryce rolled out of the way, and the foot crashed down beside him, rattling his body with a shock wave. He was between the dinosaur's legs and looking at her underbelly. His eyes moved to the head of the beast and he saw Brucifer in a defensive rage. Past Gigantor's thrashing lower jaw Dr. Conners watched the carnotaurus make a dazzling stand. While continuing to roar she flushed alternating waves of darker and brighter color up her body while her head became such a bold red that it seemed to glow. Brucifer was definitely a superior master of color changing by comparison to the other carnotaurs. Watching her display made Bryce feel dizzy and queasy to the point of wanting to throw up and pass out. Her rapid manipulation of changing shades and patterns was actually disorienting his brain, and he could see how it was having the same effect on Gigantor. The bigger carnivore was rocking her head and looking away. She began to moan and grumble.

"Fascinating," Dr. Conners thought as he watched the interaction unfold. Between Gigantor and Brucifer there should've been no contest. Gigantor was bigger, stronger, and could've easily overpowered the carnotaurus if not for her colorful skills.

Gigantor rocked back and forth and lowered her head. It seemed to Dr. Conners as though the situation was beginning to diffuse. He thought this might be a good time for him to make an unnoticed exit. Bryce got to his feet, still watching the two dinosaurs face off. They were beginning to back away from each other. "Yes," he thought. Now was a good time to go.

Bryce inched back. One foot moved and then the other. He was more carful now to feel the jungle floor beneath his boots. He did not want to step on a loud branch or anything of the like. So far, Brucifer was not noticing him, and Gigantor was still standing above him. The large carnivore had only taken slow baby steps away from the dazzling red carnotaurus. Bryce could tell she was having trouble admitting defeat. Her hesitation suddenly seemed to change, and she took a much broader step back. The trouble was that her heel was swinging right at Bryce.

"Shit!" Bryce was forced to make a haphazard maneuver, and he leapt aside. When his feet landed they were on something soft and unstable. In that instant an oviraptor burst up from the underbrush at his feet, and the tail threaded out from beneath his boots, sending him in a backwards fall. The oviraptor had been doing the same thing he was doing and was trying not to be seen. Like a deer in the woods, it had nestled down in the low foliage, relying on its plumage for camouflage, and simply hoping these carnivores would move on without noticing it.

As the oviraptor gobbled and clucked and sprinted away Dr. Conners collapsed against Gigantor's right shin, and without thinking he latched on to break his fall.

"God damned oviraptor!" Bryce hadn't even realized what he had grabbed onto until Gigantor lifted her foot in the air. He was standing on her thick, long, chicken-like toes, each one heftier than his shin. Dr. Conners didn't come to the reality of where his feet were until he began to rise.

"Oh shit." Bryce was three feet off the ground and looking down at the huge dinosaur foot he was propped on. He heard a low perplexed growl. He looked up. Gigantor had her head craned around and was looking at him as though he were a bug or piece of shit squashed to the bottom of her heel.

Dr. Conners was dumbfounded, and his expression did his feelings justice. Beyond Gigantor's increasingly scrutinizing eyes he saw Brucifer looking at the situation with her own level of perplexed query, almost as though she were confounded or even somehow insulted that Gigantor wasn't paying attention to her any more.

Dr. Conners didn't have time to wonder how this most irregular happenstance was going to play out. He could see that Brucifer was already taking action.

The carnivore's face squeezed into a wrinkled contortion of aggression, and in three bounds she had sunk her teeth into Gigantor's neck. Dr. Conners felt his body plunge and his bones jar as the foot he stood upon slammed to the earth. He fell on his back, feeling like he was concussed. Sitting up with a dizzy waver he saw that Brucifer was trying to make a run for it before Gigantor could get her bearings, but there was another shape in the jungle. It was a white shape, a large shape, a figure as huge as Gigantor. It was Rebirtha.

The tyrannosaurus rex came from behind Brucifer and grabbed the end of the carnotaur's tail in her teeth. Brucifer writhed and fell to the ground, and with a hosing of blood the tip of her tail tore off in Rebirtha's mouth. The carnotaur's skin went from red to black, and she rolled over and kicked Rebirtha across the jaw. The rex swayed backwards and spit out the chunk of tail. Her pristine white face was spattered with blood like the beginnings of a Jackson Pollock painting.

Brucifer got to her feet, and the black on her skin was flushed with red zebra stripes. She roared at Rebirtha, but the rex wasn't the only one she had to be concerned about. Gigantor was back in the conflict and bellowing furiously.

Rebirtha bellowed back at her as though to say, "back off. This is my prey."

Gigantor did not back away. She roared and growled with heightened aggression, and Brucifer was caught between the two larger predators looking like she was suffering a stroke of panic over the fact that she had so quickly become a meager morsel being fought over. The carnotaur's head swung from Rebirtha to Gigantor, and she roared to try and hold her own, but it had turned into a folly endeavor. Brucifer flushed more color into her skin, but Gigantor bit into her thigh before the carnotaur could dazzle her into a daze again. Brucifer's skin dropped back to a solid black as Gigantor tore into her flesh. Rebirtha came in from the other side and smashed her open teeth into Brucifer's shoulder. The collision was so strong that Gigantor was knocked off of the carnotaur's thigh. Rebirtha was like a bulldozer and kept shoving until Brucifer slammed into Gigantor, and they both fell over.

Dr. Conners was still sitting on the ground trying to figure out whether his brain had been reduced to putty or was still a solid and operational mass inside his head when he saw a wall of scaly flesh tumbling at him like a landslide. He dove out of the way, scarcely avoiding being flattened by Gigantor's back side. He was ill prepared when Brucifer came rolling off of Gigantor's belly and hurled at him even faster when the larger predator kicked the carnotaurus off of her. Dr. Conners stumbled, and tripped, and never quite fully got to his feet before he dove onto his face. A rush of wind swept over him as one of Brucifer's feet thrashed across his back so close that one of her hind talons ripped at his shirt. Dr. Conners felt a spray of warm liquid over his body. He was covered in blood. When he got up and looked behind him Brucifer was stomping to her feet and swaying in circles as she struggled to determine which direction to flee in. Meanwhile, the chopped end of her tail was continuing to hose Dr. Conners and the rest of the jungle with buckets of blood.

Bryce shielded his eyes from the spray and looked beyond the carnotaurus. Rebirtha had sunk her teeth into Gigantor's neck and was wrestling to keep her down. Gigantor was kicking her hind talons in a fury and wriggling her body to break the tyrannosaur's grip.

Brucifer realized she had an opportune moment to escape. Turning toward Dr. Conners she started to run.

"Christ!" Bryce floundered to a sprint as the carnotaurus barreled at him. He could not outrun her, but Brucifer wasn't after him. The most Dr. Conners was regarded was by a single passive lash of her teeth as the carnotaur's jaws swept over his head. It was enough to make Bryce duck, but then he was already beneath her belly and had bigger issues. Dr. Conners found himself contorting his body in ways he didn't think possible as Brucifer's hind talons thrust forward and swept by him on either side. By a miracle he made it through, but he couldn't clear her tail fast enough and was slapped to the ground in another gush of blood from her hemorrhaging stump.

"My God!" Dr. Conners stumbled to his feet again and turned to the other two carnivores. They had stopped wrestling and were both acknowledging the fact that Brucifer was getting away.

Gigantor tried to get up, but Rebirtha kicked her in the face and ran ahead. A moment later Gigantor had rolled to her feet and was catching up. Dr. Conners was standing in the path of two bus sized predators that were pushing and shoving each other to get ahead.

"You've gotta be kidding me." Dr. Conners turned and ran in Brucifer's wake, hearing the jungle crash and shake behind him.

Rebirtha and Gigantor were neck and neck and biting at each other's sides, though neither one was taking their focus off of Brucifer.

At the moment the carnotaurus had a good head start, but the terrain was rough and she was in a panic.

Rebirtha gained an upper hand when she shoved Gigantor into a tree, and she fell behind. Gigantor didn't give up though and was charging right at Rebirtha's heels.

Ahead of Dr. Conners, Brucifer was making a fatal misstep as she stumbled over a log in her path and fell to the ground. Meanwhile, Dr. Conners was being swallowed by Rebirtha's shadow. The rex bellowed over his head as her belly rocked and shuddered above him.

Again Bryce found himself dodging between the lethal hooks of a carnivorous dinosaur's hind talons. This time he was grazed in the ribs. He fell and held his side, but not for more than a second. He was barely up on his feet again as Gigantor's thunderous ankles came sweeping at him. Bryce flattened to the ground until they passed, and then he was up. He found himself still well beneath the thrashing tails of the two larger carnivores and getting a front row view of a gruesome battle to claim a piece of Brucifer for their own.

The carnotaurus was making feeble attempts to fend them off, but she could not overpower the two of them. Laying on her back she kicked at Gigantor's oncoming jaw, and with her horns she head butted Rebirtha. This gained her nothing. Gigantor bit onto her left ankle and began to tug. Rebirtha had taken hold of Brucifer's throat. Between the two larger carnivores the carnotaurus had become the rope in a game of tug-of-war between titans.

Gigantor had clamped onto the leg and was pulling with her full weight. Rebirtha's jaws were like a vice on Brucifer's throat and she heaved in the opposing direction with equal vigor.

Dr. Conners made an attempt to flee, but he was struck down by Gigantor's swinging tail. He rolled over and looked up. The entire conflict was shifting towards him. Brucifer was almost right above him. Rebirtha and Gigantor were pulling with such force that they had hoisted Brucifer from the ground, and the helpless carnotaurus was futilely scuffing the jungle floor with her one free foot. Above the huffs and growls of the two larger carnivores Brucifer let out a stunted cry. Her skin flushed with vibrant oranges, reds, and yellows like a burst of fire, then slowly shifted through cooler shades of blues and greens until she settled to a pure black. As Rebirtha and Gigantor heaved further in opposing directions there was one final rasp of high pitched air before Brucifer's mouth was just a silent gaping orifice, and her eyes were wide lifeless orbs.

Dr. Conners got to his feet as he heard a loud series of pops indicating the carnotaur's spine was coming apart in several places. Seeing a bulge in Brucifer's abdomen he knew the carnotaurus was about to come apart. Bryce turned to run, but it was already happening. Brucifer's gut perforated, and a flood of her abdominal contents burst from a growing seam that soon spanned the length of her torso. A flood of innards overtook Bryce, and an exceptionally large organ struck him in the back and knocked him to the ground.

Rebirtha and Gigantor continued to tug and growl at each other. Blood was gushing from Brucifer's dead mouth, and her torso continued to peel apart. In a sudden snap Rebirtha and Gigantor stumbled away from each other as the carnotaurus totally split in twain. Rebirtha had the head and the greater half of the torso in her possession. Gigantor had one leg and the tail. Rebirtha dropped her portion and stood on it with one foot. Hunching forward she let out a ferocious bellow at Gigantor. Gigantor hissed through her teeth that were still clamped around Brucifer's disembodied leg. She growled and slowly backed away from Rebirtha while dragging her prize with her.

Dr. Conners was struggling to get to his feet. He felt like there must have been two hundred pounds of entrails on his back. He reached, and crawled, and dragged himself from beneath the pile of guts, and then something happened that he did not expect. Someone grabbed his hand and pulled him from the mound of organs with a swift yank.

Bryce felt himself wobbling on his ankles, and a firm pair of palms took his shoulders to steady him. He saw a person coated in mud from head to toe as though they'd intentionally rolled around in a wet ditch to cover themselves. On top of the mud, vines had been wrapped and woven around their body, making them look like a swamp monster. So much mud covered their face that Dr. Conners could not make out any defining features, though he did recognize the voice when they said, "My God, Dr. Conners. You're a walking bullseye with all that blood on you."

Bryce squinted through the mud. "Ms. Murdock?"

"Come, let's get you cleaned up."

Bryce looked confused. Behind him he still heard Rebirtha and Gigantor in a declining conflict, growling, barking, and hissing at each other. When he turned to look he laid eyes on the aftermath of their carnage. Brucifer looked like she had been blown up from the inside by a bucket full of grenades. Rebirtha was still proudly defending her half of the prize, and Gigantor was fading into the jungle with Brucifer's leg and tail dragging from her mouth.

Joan was already walking away from Dr. Conners. "You'd better get a move on before one of them decides they want an hors d'oeuvre."

Bryce turned around and hurried after Ms. Murdock.