CHAPTER 331
In the back of the group Thorne was seeing the pteranodons come down off the cliff sides as well. As he tailed the remaining two dune buggies he considered all the reinforced caging that surrounded him. It was obviously made to protect the driver and passenger from the enormous flying creatures that were rapidly approaching. This gave his mind a fair amount of ease, but he had seen just how easily a much larger dinosaur could throw one of the buggies about like a toy car, and that gave him less ease.
The terrain became winding with the flow of the river, and increasingly uneven as well. Thorne's little vehicle bounced and jarred, and he had to fight with the steering wheel. It was about that time that the first of the pteranodons swooped low enough that it came within a few feet of Thorne's dune buggy.
"Jesus! It's like a Cessna." Thorne couldn't help but recoil his neck despite the protective caging around him.
Ahead of him he saw other pteranodons taking dives at Ms. Murdock and Kyra. More and more fell from above, and they were becoming more aggressive.
There was a loud clang, and Thorne saw a set of claws hook through the cage roof of his vehicle for just a second and then retract. Moments later a beak slammed against the side of his buggy and there was a deafening screech.
Wings flapped by and then circled back to do it again. Although they couldn't pierce the caging Thorne was seeing how the pteranodons could make it really easy for him to run off course and crash. Then he'd be on foot and without any protection. He knew Ms. Murdock or anyone else for that matter, wasn't coming back for him either. He couldn't afford to wreck his vehicle.
As he thought this another shape dove at his vehicle, but it was not a pteranodon. This shape was bulkier, and it did not have wings. It wasn't flying. It was jumping.
"Oh shit!" Thorne did not have the time to react any further.
He felt a powerful force slam against his vehicle, and the dune buggy began to roll. Thorne saw the world around him spinning like he was in a washing machine on spin cycle. Over and over it went until it stopped.
It took a moment for Thorne to catch up with what had just happened, and he realized that he was upside down. With a groan he pushed the driver's door open. Undoing the five point harness he fell on his shoulder and face and then slumped out of the little vehicle.
Thorne was dizzy, but he stood. As soon as he was up a pteranodon beak swiped down at his head. He felt a sharp slash at his scalp as he fell against the crippled dune buggy. Blood dripped over his brow, down his nose, and into his mouth. Thorne spit and wiped it away. Keeping low he inspected the buggy with his eyes. Two of the tires were lacerated. He knew he was strong enough to upright the buggy, but it was a moot point. The vehicle wasn't going anywhere.
Two more pteranodons dove at him. One of them landed on the undercarriage of the dune buggy and started snapping at Thorne while wildly flapping its wings and shrieking. Thorne dove back in the vehicle. When he looked out again there were already two more pteranodons on the ground. They were crawling towards the door and hissing, but Thorne saw something beyond that. There was a man, and beside him was a utahraptor.
The blurring shape that had struck Thorne's dune buggy rushed back into his mind. It hadn't been a pteranodon. It was them. Then images of the fighting on the helicopter returned. Thorne recognized Vulture and Daniel.
"Oh shit," he said.