CHAPTER 209

The allosaurus lunged upward and snapped at Dr. Johnson's feet. She was low enough that when the carnivore jumped hard it strummed the cable her boots were propped on with its teeth. The allosaur thrust itself again with a roar, this time catching her boots with a grazing tooth edge. Dianna's feet slipped from the wire and she dangled by her fingers. This was a perfect opportunity for the allosaur to get her. The predator lunged again and snapped its jaws, but Dianna pulled her knees up just in time to avoid having her ankles chomped on. Dr. Johnson propped herself securely back on the wires and considered climbing higher, but she did not want the allosaurus to become disinterested. Looking for Seth and Kyra she found that they were just making it to the bottom of the fence.

As Seth planted his feet on the ground he heard the allosaurus roar, and he looked at his mom.

Kyra grabbed his arm. "Come on, Seth. She told us to go."

Seth pulled his eyes away from watching the allosaur bite and claw at his mom, and he nodded at Kyra. Together they sprinted for the runway.

Not a hundred feet from the fence Kyra saw Seth tumble to the ground out of the corner of her eye. Stopping herself, she doubled back and crouched next to him.

"Seth, what happened? What's wrong?"

He was doubled over, burying his head into his hands and knees. His palms and fingers were digging into his face with white knuckles. He did not answer. When Kyra made an attempt to pry his limbs apart and lift him to his feet he only locked down harder.

Hearing the continued buzzing of the twin prop at the head of the runway Kyra became more vehement and shook him. "Seth! What is it?"

Finally he screamed, "it burns!"

"What?"

"My face! My eyes! They burn!"

Kyra bent down further and examined his face as well as she could. That's when she saw a sticky green slime oozing out from under his hands.

Her head snapped up in a panic. She saw the runway spread out ahead of them with a significant amount of open grassy field between them yet. Stretching far to her left was the end of the runway, and to the far right was the head of the airstrip where the plane was idling. The aircraft was out of her view yet though, because directly to her right in the grassy opening along the runway was a collection of construction and excavating equipment that occluded the plane. The stagnant heavy machinery was left over from when INGEN was originally doing construction on the island. The equipment had been parked in storage along the runway for years, and now stood sun faded, dust covered, and overgrown.

Out from behind a large rubber tire loader Kyra spotted a slender carnivore. The ten foot long creature was slinking out from the shadow of the car-sized shovel at the front of the machine. It looked like a small dragon, something very ancient and unfamiliar. It paused and stared at Kyra with curiosity. Its head tilted to one side on its long skinny neck. The animal trilled and hooted in a seemingly harmless way, though when Kyra reached to pull Seth farther away from the dinosaur it became agitated.

A V shaped crest that ran the length of the top of its skull flushed bright with colors of red, yellow, white and green, creating a vibrant pattern. The more time went on the more it turned to a solid red. The rest of the animal's dark green body stiffened, and a drape of long loose skin that hung around its neck like a skirt began to rattle. On and off, the creature shook these loose folds of skin, sounding just like a rattle snake. It stepped forward on two legs bearing feet with aggressive talons that curled into the dirt angrily. Moving closer to Seth the dinosaur whipped its tail and hissed quietly. When Kyra made another attempt to reach for Seth the creature rattled harder and more sustained. Its mouth opened wide and it hissed louder.

Kyra paused and the creature calmed down. It continued to move forward until it was just a few feet from Seth. All the while it kept lightly rattling the folds of skin around its neck.

There was no doubt this dinosaur wanted to eat Seth. It had poisoned him by spitting an incapacitating venom into his eyes. Kyra knew if she did not act now it was going to devour him.

She lunged forward and grabbed Seth's shoulders, pulling him as hard as she could. "Come on!" she yelled.

Kyra had expected Seth to pull himself together in light of the danger and put forth some kind of an effort, though this was not the case. His limbs were limp, his body a dead weight as she heaved him. As a result Kyra stumbled onto her back, and he fell on top of her.

Kyra heard a shriek and a terrible guttural sound. When she looked up the folds of skin that hung around the dinosaur's throat had spread outward like an umbrella to create a menacing frill, the scalloped edges of which rattled fiercely with bright colors. Kyra knew what was about to happen, and she turned away. In the same instant she felt a warm sticky goo smack the back of her shoulder.

The dinosaur grabbed Seth by the legs and began pulling him away.

"No!" Kyra jumped up and snatched his arms. "No!"

At the perimeter fence Dr. Johnson heard Kyra yelling and looked to see her in a tug-of-war over Seth's limp body. She identified the dinosaur at once. "Dilophosaurus. Shit." When she looked back at the allosaurus she realized she was no longer its center of attention. The allosaur had noticed Seth and Kyra's predicament as well.

"Hey!" Dianna yelled.

Her efforts were without yield. The allosaur was headed after the easier meal.