CHAPTER 192
Daniel reached for one of the revolvers at his hip like a cowboy in a shoot out. The gun came up, but it didn't fire. A raptor's roar that sounded behind Daniel caused him to turn the other way. Daniel did not see the hunter, but he did see the spooked herd of stegosaurus and ankylosaurus that were rumbling in his direction.
At the open door of the rover Gary and Bill saw two velociraptors come into view. Their eyes were set on Daniel. They hissed past the vehicle and began to taunt the herd. By the sounds coming from the jungle there were several more velociraptors. Daniel and the herbivores were being surrounded.
The herd digressed into confusion. Daniel watched as the large scaly masses closed in on him, their meaty bodies colliding together as they recoiled from the velociraptors.
In the rover Gary climbed over into the driver's seat.
"What are you doing?" Bill said.
"Getting us to the airstrip."
"We can't just leave Daniel here."
"The hell we can't! The guy is insane, and I don't know what he's up to, and I don't care." Gary reached to close the door, but he did not see the oncoming pachycephalosaurus that had been mingling with the herd.
"Look out!" Bill shouted.
The door slammed with a crash that fractured the glass in the window, and Gary went flying back into the passenger seat. The dome-headed dinosaur reared back and glared at Bill through the cracks in the window. Scuffing its two feet through the dirt like a bull preparing to charge it snorted and sneered. With an explosive punch the pachycephalosaurus slammed its head into the door again, and the window was rendered into a spiderweb of splits.
The force was so strong that Bill toppled over in his seat. "Holy Christ!" He climbed over the seat backs to get to Gary. "Are you alright?"
Gary appeared to be unconscious. Bill squinted through the broken window and saw that the pachycephalosaurus was leaving. Turning his head to the windshield it looked like things were only getting worse for Daniel.
As an ankylosaurus smashed against a stegosaurus the sharp osteoderms on the side of its armored back sliced into the ribs of the plated dinosaur. With a bellow the stegosaurus angled its hips and swung its spiked tail. With a loud clack they skimmed off the ankylosaur's armor. Antagonizing the swing of a tail club from the ankylosaurus the tank of a dinosaur unleashed a full wallop that arched in Daniel's direction.
He dropped to the ground as the bulbous mass of bone brushed the air above him and plunged into the chest of the stegosaurus. There was a crack of bones and the stegosaurus fell over onto another ankylosaurus that in turn shoved it away and administered its own flogging.
Daniel could not get up as he still had a tail club swinging over him. He could not move, as there were other herd members tromping in circles around him. He tried to crawl, but the thick feet of a stegosaurus went crashing in front of his face. He rolled away and tried another direction, but he had then somehow ended up under the belly of an agitated ankylosaurus. Shifting and squirming he tried to escape the volatile confines of the animal's four stomping feet, but it proved a treacherous task.
In the midst of him making another attempt to roll out from beneath the ankylosaurus without having any part of him crushed something grabbed his ankles and dragged him out the opposite way. No longer was he looking at the underbelly of an ankylosaurus. Now he saw the jungle canopy and the face of the velociraptor that was dragging him further away.
This episode did not last long though, as a tail club swept the raptor away and flung its body against a tree. Daniel jumped to his feet but kept low. He was still surrounded by dangerous herbivores that were ready to strike at the slightest of threats. Beyond them he spotted raptors moving about with every intention of nurturing the chaos in order to bring him down. Through the jagged ridges of stegosaurus plates, lashing tail spikes, and rotund bodies of armor there was one set of eyes that stood out from the rest.
Daniel locked stares with this hunter. "Hello, Tomahawk. You have it out for me, girl?" Leaning away from another swinging tail club he perked up his revolver. "May the best beast win."