That and luck. "I hope Jerry finds a lake with a few crappies, or maybe a bass or two in it." Marie laughed. "Brian, if you're going to make a wish like that, wish for a few catfish." "Nope. Bass or crappies. Maybe a pike." Brian Carmichael sat up. "I grew up down by Kentucky Lake, eating catfish. Every Sunday afternoon we went to Grandma's for fried kitty-fish, cornbread and greens. I haven't found anyone who can make those bottom feeders taste like she did. So, I gave up on them." "Well, you've never tasted my old man's recipe. You get me the fish and I'll…" Marie's grin changed to a frown.
"Hulbert," she whispered. "We've got people." Rod sat up and looked south, the direction Marie was looking. It didn't take him long to see what she'd spotted in the distance. A dead fire, obviously made by people. When they went over to investigate, all they found was a broken arrow and a bead necklace. There was also a mix of tracks-human and animal-leading off into the woods. Blood. Another set of footprints going the same direction Bailey had gone. A second later, Jerry was back, waving for them to follow him. The three of them moved quick and quiet. "There's a corpse at the edge of the river, and I don't think it's very old," Bailey said, as soon as they were close enough for him to be heard without shouting. "The guy was killed by humans, but his body's been chewed up pretty bad by a scavenger of some sort. And by the looks of the blood trail, there could be others.
Human and scavenger." "Damn," Hulbert hissed. "Okay, we need to be careful, here. If there are people, we need to find them." When they reached the corpse, he knelt down to inspect it. "This guy was stabbed, with some sort of big knife. It's not a wound caused by any sort of animal, that's obvious. Okay." He straightened up. "I guess it's no longer an 'if.' We are not alone, and someone had to have done this." He glanced at the two men with him and then at the small brunette. "Remember, we don't know who the bad guy is." He waved at the corpse. "It could be him. He might have been killed by someone trying to defend himself. Or, he could have been a victim. He could have been robbed and then murdered. Hell, he could have been killed for the fun of it. We know that happens way too often. But it doesn't matter. He's dead and someone did it." Hulbert checked their ammo.
They had enough. But the body armor was back at the prison. You didn't need it when you were after anything but man. He considered going back to the prison for reinforcements and the proper gear but changed his mind. There were more than human prints in the mud and dirt. The animal tracking the people wouldn't wait until he got back. "Marie, haul the meat this way, then wait here. Stay out of sight, and don't make any noise. We'll check it out." The raptor-a large female weighting over a thousand pounds-stopped. The male that had joined her several days before also stopped. The two of them were inside the thick brush of tree ferns not far from the herd they had been tracking for the last half hour; their brown-red skin blended in with the brown-red of the dried ferns. The large female sniffed the air. The two of them stared at the lone iguanodon. The big plant-eater had been placidly feeding on the tender shoots of seedlings growing close to the rapidly flowing stream. While he grazed, his herd had moved downstream. He was young, not full-grown, and careless. A female iguanodon bawled to her calf. The three-year-old bull heard her and lifted his head. He looked around. He rose on his stocky hind legs and took a half dozen steps toward his herd. His nostrils flared. The cows were starting to bunch up, herding the yearling calves into their center. *** The three men lay hunkered down in the dried fern, watching and listening, afraid to breathe. The two predators-they reminded Rod of raptors, except they were reptiles and not birds-moved from the edge of the fern trees toward the herd of huge vegetarian reptiles.
The cows screeched a warning. Two adult bulls bellowed as the raptors raced past them, hunting the calf farthest from the herd. Their claws, three on each foot and one of them huge, cut through the calf's upper skin layers and gashed the muscle and nerve layers below. The calf, startled and bleeding, tried to run. The raptors pressed the attack.
One moved to the creature's left; the other worked its way to the right. Their claws sliced the prey's flesh, leaving behind long slashes that were inches deep. Over and over, they struck at the beast. Warm, red blood flowed from the gaping wounds. Rod understood the logic of their hunting tactics, although it was not what you'd see from most predators he was familiar with. They weren't going for a neck-crunching death bite. They were deliberately bleeding out their prey. The calf lunged awkwardly at the tormentors. They jumped back, and then pressed forward, hissing and screeching. The attack continued. Back and forth, over and over, the instincts and coordinated moves of the pack-hunter allowed the raptors to keep the adults of the iguanodon herd at bay without slowing the attack on the calf. They lunged toward their prey-rip, twist, turn-and then ran at the herd-force the creatures back-and then returned to the attack on the calf. More and more muscles and nerves were severed. More and more blood flowed. Blow by blow, the two raptors worked together, weakening the beast. It didn't take long for the great creature to fall to the ground, bleeding and dying. After it collapsed, the herd moved away and the raptors began tearing the flesh from the calf, consuming the meat while the pitiful creature was still alive. Rod pulled his cell phone from his pocket. "What are you doing? Those things don't work,"
Brian Carmichael whispered. "There's no satellites, no calling 9-1-1."
"Pictures," Hulbert hissed back, aiming and clicking his camera phone.
"We've got to warn everyone, and I don't even know what to call the damn things." "I do," Jerry Bailey said. "They're Spielberg's monsters. Velociraptors." Marie Keehn sat impatiently, waiting for Hulbert, Carmichael and Bailey to return. It had taken her over forty minutes to haul the four bundles of meat to the river's edge, and another ten minutes to scout the area. Now, three hours after sitting down on a fallen log, she was definitely getting spooked. She kept hearing something, over and over. It wasn't loud, and it wasn't continuous. It was just a soft sound that she felt she should recognize, but couldn't. Then the sound changed. It grew a little louder. It was a moan. She circled the area. Back and forth, holding her breath, hoping to hear it again. There it was. Soft. From…
She turned around, scanning the area. Yes. Behind the brush. She approached the area slowly and carefully. Behind the greenery was an opening. A cave. And inside the entrance, a… man, yes. Bloodied.
Broken. But alive. She used her steel, prison-issued whistle to let the others know she had found something, then squatted to get a better look. The man's chest rose and fell. His face was swollen and misshaped. This was not an injury from a fall; his hands were tied behind his back. The man had been beaten. He had also been shot. She could hear the guys coming and gave the whistle she wore around her neck a small puff, creating just enough sound to allow them to locate her. She didn't want to move the man without help. He didn't appear to be in imminent danger from his surroundings. And his injuries were extensive enough she could complicate them if she tried to move him into the sunlight. She leaned closer, trying to get a better look at him. The breeze momentarily changed direction. The hair on the back of her neck stood up, and her heart raced. She could smell wet fur.
"Marie!" Bailey yelled. "Don't move!" She froze, scanning as much of the area as she could without turning her head. Her rifle was on the ground. Her knife was on her belt. From somewhere to her left she felt, more than saw, movement. Hulbert was now in front of her. He was on one knee, his rifle raised. One second after that her ears rang from a loud boom. A big catlike thing lay on the ground less than two yards from her. Its head was the size of a bear. The body was stockier than that of any cat species she'd ever seen, but it was definitely some kind of cat. Its canines were enormous. "Shit." She stood up and looked at the giant "kitty" Hulbert had taken down with one shot. A head shot, right in the left eye. The kind of shot that only an expert marksman could pull off-and probably the only kind of shot that could have saved her. "Thanks." She blushed and picked up her gun. That was really stupid. She knew better than that. Her father and her brothers had taught her the rules long before the prison preached them to her.
You had to know what was going on around you. Know your environment.
Don't get sidetracked. Be aware and be alert. "I appreciate the help."
She gave Hulbert an apologetic grin and then nodded toward the cave's interior. "I guess I was messing with its dinner." She pointed toward the man lying just inside the opening to the small cave.
Chapter 14 Jenny Radford sat looking at the charts in front of her. It had been another long day. She should be in bed, but knew she wouldn't sleep if she didn't take care of the charting. Insomnia plagued her anytime she tried to leave something until the following day. She would just lie on the small cot twisting and squirming until she finally got up and did it. And today had been one of those days that left a dozen loose ends waiting to be tied up after everyone else had gone to their rooms for the night. The routine charting had been done, and now she was doing a journal entry. The journal was something she'd started more or less for herself. It was a recording of what happened in the infirmary, and everywhere else inside the prison. She was keeping track of the steps they were taking in an attempt to solve all their problems. It made it easier for her to stay upbeat if she could see the progress being made. Besides, if it were in writing, even the small successes wouldn't be overlooked. And so far, they were all small successes. No, not all. They now had water. That was a biggie. It was the biggest biggie, in fact. The infirmary was in the process of being cleaned. Really cleaned. Andy had sent over three prisoners to help out. It had been wonderful. The prisoners cleaned while Casey Fisher, the infirmary's permanent guard, watched. They worked about four hours. It wasn't a lot of time, but it had helped.
They had managed to get the actual work areas cleaned up and all the laundry aired out. Tomorrow she was going to have them start washing linens. They would have to do it by hand, but at least it would get done. Once the laundry was caught up, they could start on the deep cleaning. She sighed and stretched, trying to focus on the page in front of her. Each day's med pass took less and less time as the pills, elixirs, patches and powders ran out. In less than thirty days, there would be no med pass of any kind. That's when the workload would double. Andy had stayed out of the infirmary's business, for which she was grateful. Too many chiefs slowed things down. She smiled. Captain Andy Blacklock, with his newly sprouted beard and eyes that missed nothing, was the only bright spot in her life right now. Without him, the place would be unbearable. Their relationship, whatever it was, had been growing one day at a time. Short talks, short walks, and now, tonight, a short kiss. Well, it was more like a peck on the forehead, but it was a step. Even though she was alone, she smiled. She knew he was divorced. And that he had dated a little afterward. but nothing serious. And that was a good thing. If he was grieving for anyone left behind, it wasn't someone part of his day-to-day life. There was a lot of he-ing and she-ing going on right now between the guards. And rumor had it, between a few of the guards and the prisoners. She had been told that romantic liaisons between staff and prisoners happened, but it was rare. Sometimes it was a homosexual relationship; sometimes it was heterosexual. Regardless, it was never tolerated and it always ended with the C.O. or nurse being dismissed. That wouldn't happen this time. No one could get fired, but they could get transferred from one building or department to another. Jenny knew the reasoning behind those types of decisions, and approved of them. What she disapproved of was how nothing stayed confidential. How everyone knew everyone's business. And how nasty and crude the rumor mill could get. The need for affection was a normal reaction to stress. When a person came under the guns, he or she would reach out for someone who could make them feel safe. Does he make me feel safe? Her smile faded a little.
No, nothing could do that, under these circumstances. But Andy did make her feel warm, and cared for. And she needed that feeling. But she didn't know if she needed the other feeling. The one of her caring for him. And she was pretty sure that was what was happening. A little more each day, she was falling in love with Andy Blacklock and that scared her. But it didn't scare her enough to push him away, did it?
The smile returned and she picked up her pen. It was time to get back to work. Twenty minutes later she was reaching for the switch that would turn out the light when she heard a pounding on the glass doors separating the infirmary from the prison-yard. It was midnight. The pounding continued as she made her way down the hall to the entry area. Rod Hulbert, Marie Keehn, and Jerry Bailey were on the other side of the glass. She unlocked the double set of doors. The three of them carried in a man she didn't recognize. He had been hurt. And by the amount of blood on his clothes and the way his head drooped to the left, he was in bad shape. "You have a patient," Hulbert said. She gently turned the man's head so she could see his face. She knew before letting them in, he wasn't the fourth member of the hunting team. She had watched the team leave and knew Brian Carmichael was a black man with a bald head, a round, friendly face, and big brown eyes. "Where's Carmichael?" she asked. "And who is he? Prisoner or staff?" "Brian's helping the kitchen staff take care of the meat we brought in. This guy's not either one, prisoner or staff." Jenny stared at Hulbert for a moment. She then motioned them toward the examining room. The questions would have to wait. Jenny filled a metal bowl with water and grabbed a washrag and towel. She had to get the grime off his face. She needed to see how extensive his injuries were, and that was the only way she could see. The man flinched, but didn't cry out. "He's been beaten and shot," Marie said. "I don't think the bullet caught anything vital, but he's hurt pretty bad." Jenny nodded and set to work-a quick rinsing of his face and neck, a head-to-toe assessment, an I.V., oxygen-then she had the guards help her remove his outer clothing. Clothes had become too precious to waste by cutting them away. She then used blankets and straps to immobilize him. He had been shot once in the side. The wound was bad, but wouldn't kill him, unless it was already infected. In the freakish way that sometimes happened with gunshot wounds, the bullet had traveled around the flesh instead of passing through the body. It had come to lodge not far under the surface of the skin near his kidney, where it was easy to remove. There was a lot of tissue damage, but she didn't think any critical organs had been touched. His nose was broken. His left eye was swollen shut, but the eyeball itself looked to be okay.
She would know more once the swelling went down. He was bruised all over, even in the groin area. Some of the bruises were raised and hard. Most of them held a little heat. Neither of those were good signs. "Are you sure he isn't a prisoner?" she asked. But, deep down, she already knew the answer. Beneath the injuries, the man's physical appearance wasn't any different from that of any number of prisoners-or guards, for that matter. But he was wearing a necklace that no prisoner would have been allowed to keep in his possession. It was a wide, flat band with intricate carvings that wrapped around his neck much like a snake would wrap itself around the arm of its handler. An expensive-looking piece that appeared to be hand-tooled.
He also wore the strangest silver earrings she had ever seen. They were attached at the top of his ears, rather than the lobes. Marie shook her head. "We're sure. And he's not a C.O., either. He doesn't belong to us." Jenny stopped; her scalpel shook, then steadied. "Not one of ours," she whispered, and went back to work. For the next twenty minutes the room was silent except for an occasional moan from the man on the examination table. Jenny hoped he would live. His injuries were extensive: broken ribs, broken jaw, probable concussion, multiple contusions and bruising with a lot of soft tissue damage. He was going to have to be luckier than he had been or he would be gone by morning. Rod Hulbert moved so he could get a look at the spent bullet Jenny dropped into a small metal pan that sat on the portable tray she used to hold her equipment. "We found him about an eight-hour hike from here. He was by himself curled up inside a small cave. The place was filled with primitive tools and weapons, and looked like quite a few people lived in it, but he was the only one around. And he doesn't speak English. All he would say was something that sounded like Ka-nun-da-cla-ga." Jenny gave a sigh. No English. The word-or words-didn't sound like anything she had dealt with. "We thought at first he was saying who did this to him, but we're not so sure now. He looks half starved, and like he had been through quite a bit even before he was beaten and shot. He might be part Indian, but we're not even sure of that." "Could he be from town?" Jenny asked. "I don't think so. It's a small community, and someone who dressed this outlandishly would be someone you'd notice, and remember. He could be a drifter, or maybe one of the tourists. We get a lot of people through here. They want to walk part of the Trail of Tears. And a lot of them are Indian. Or at least part Indian." Marie held up one of the man's shoes. "This is the weirdest looking footwear I've ever seen.
There's no heel and no instep." She dropped the shoe to the floor and picked up the man's pants. "His pants button; they don't zip. And the material is thick and the weaving looks a little uneven. Look at the seams. These were hand sewn." Jenny had noticed the buttons when she stripped the man. They werereal buttons made out of shells, not plastic. She had also noticed the man wore no underwear. That wasn't unheard of. Even in this day and age, some men would go without them.
But the buttons, that was a new one for her. She took off the hospital gown she was using to protect her clothes and tossed the latex gloves into the sink. They would be washed, and then reused. The rules were simple, one pair of gloves per patient. Later, when the gloves ran out, they would have to reexamine how things were done. She didn't look at the patient; instead, she stared at the three members of the staff who had brought him in. "I guess we've done about all we can.
Now we just have to wait and see if the antibiotics can turn the corner for him." Hulbert was shaking his head slowly. He used a pencil to scoot the bullet around and around in the small metal container.
"This damn thing is weirder than his pants or his shoes. A lot weirder. Huge caliber, for one thing. How did a bullet this big stay in his body? It should have blown right through him, unless…" He shrugged. "Low velocity, I guess." He sat the pan down and pulled his small camera phone from his shirt pocket. "But that's nothing compared to what else we've seen." Andy groaned, then glanced at the clock.
He hadn't been asleep but two hours. "Yeah, give me a second. I'll be there!" he shouted at whoever was pounding on his door. He stumbled around the room trying to get dressed in the dim light filtering through the window. He slept with the curtains opened. The sun was his back-up alarm. But it wasn't up yet. All he had for light was the soft glow of the moon and a few thousand stars. "Who is it?" "Jenny." He opened the door. The two vertical worry lines situated between his eyebrows had deepened. "What's wrong?" "I'm sorry," Jenny said. She glanced down the empty hall toward the stairs that led to the prison's entry area. Andy slept in what had been the human resource office.
"You have to come see this," she whispered. "You really do have to see this now."
Chapter 15 "Okay, Rod." Andy slipped Hulbert's camera phone into his pocket. He would have Edelman take a look at the pictures and then maybe they'd know what they were up against. "We'll deal with Jurassic Park later. For now, let's see if we can figure out what happened to our mystery man. His injuries weren't caused by dinosaurs. Give it to me from the beginning. Don't leave anything out." "We weren't out more than six hours and had taken down two large animals." Rod looked at Jenny and smiled. "Marie got both of them. One buffalo or some sort, and something that's probably a giant sloth. Marie's amazing. The cooks are going to cuss her trying to figure out how to cook the stuff, but she's the best I've ever been out with. She has a real gift. That woman…" He shook his head, never losing his grin. Andy smiled absently. "Good. Then what happened?" "We were on our way back and ran across evidence of a battle, or an animal attack. We went to check it out. While we were gone, Marie found him." He motioned to the wounded man. "He was curled up inside a cave, moaning. Anyway, there he was, too weak to even stand. We got back just in time to stop an attack from some animal related to the cat family. I didn't get any pictures of it before we boned it out. We probably shouldn't have taken the hour a job like that takes, but I couldn't let any of the meat go to waste. Too many of our people could wind up going hungry if we don't have the right priorities. "Anyway, after we took care of the cat, we scoured the area looking for others, but didn't find anyone.
We backtracked about a mile, following what we believe was this guy's trail. There were plenty of footprints-not his-but definitely human.
After wasting what was left of daylight, we bedded down for the night, and then started home first thing this morning. With all the meat we were packing, and with him in such bad shape, the trip back took all day and part of the night. "You get a short distance from the prison and the world changes, Andy. It is nothing like home. And the plants and animals are nothing like home, although you do occasionally spot something familiar. We've got problems. And I don't mean the routine problems of finding enough to eat and ways to keep warm. That world out there is our biggest problem, and we had better get to know it pretty damn fast. We'll either know it, or it'll bite us in the ass.
It'll kill us all." "Can you find the spot you found him in?" Andy asked. Hulbert nodded. "I can also show you where those creatures in the pictures were." "Is there anything else you can tell me?" Hulbert shrugged. "I don't know. There's probably too much for now. Once you get away from the prison, the forest floor in a lot of places is as clear and clean as a mall floor. When there is ground cover, it's usually ferns of one kind or another. There are animals out there with infants the size of an elephant. There are insects the size of toy airplanes. And man, don't even go near the water. I've seen some birds, a lot of reptiles, and a fair number of mammals. But the plants and animals don't seem to mesh. It's like everything has been tossed into a pot together, and the heat's been turned up. It's just sitting there. Simmering. Waiting." "Thanks." Andy Blacklock picked up the two-way sitting on the nurse's desk. It was about two in the morning, but this couldn't wait. Jeff Edelman had to be wakened and Lieutenant Joe Schuler needed to be relieved from duty so he could attend the meeting that was going to take place within the next hour. Andy silently cursed their bad luck. Brian Carmichael had been sent to the kitchen as soon as they arrived at the prison. He had shown up with three exotic animals and without a gag order. That meant the rumor mill would be in full swing by sunup. If they wanted to prevent a panic they needed to know what they were facing. They needed to know what Spielberg's monsters were, and they needed to know what and who their houseguest was. As for the other department heads, they would be told about another meeting, one that would take place about nine, right after breakfast. Andy stood next to the cot and watched the man struggling to get loose from the straps that held him to the table.
Things werecompletely screwed up now. He had a prison full of felons he was trying to protect from themselves and from whatever it was outside the walls. He had around two hundred overworked, exhausted C.O.'s looking to him for answers. And now he had what? A war going on outside? Jenny was afraid the patient would try to pull the I.V. out of his arm so they had tied him down. The man's eyes were glazed and feverish. His dark skin managed to look pale and flushed even to Andy's untrained eye. The captain stared at the man's face. Here was someone who could tell them what was happening outside the walls. And the someone was in bad shape and apparently couldn't speak one word of English. "Is he going to make it?" the captain asked Jenny. "I don't know." "Ka-nun-da-cla-ga. Ka-nun-da-cla-ga," The man moaned. His voice was raspy and soft. almost inaudible. "Man, I wish I knew what he was saying." Jenny nodded. "When I moved into my apartment in town, the landlady made a point of telling me the area receives visitors from all over the world. If he is one of the tourists he could be talking just about any language. Whatever it is, it's not Spanish. I'm almost fluent in Portuguese and that's close enough that I'd recognize Spanish if I heard it." Andy shook his head. "No, you're right. I took four years of Spanish in high school. That's one I would recognize, even if I didn't understand the exact words." Jenny shrugged. "Well, what he's saying doesn't sound Arabic or Asian, either. That I would know. And I would bet he's not American." He looked at the man on the cot. "Why are you so sure he isn't American?" The nurse waved a hand at her patient. "He's somewhere around fifty, maybe older. And he was never given a smallpox vaccine. I checked his hips, arms and legs.
Anyone that old, if they had been born in this country, would have been given the vaccination, unless their religion forbade it. Also, he's had no dental work done. And believe me, he needs it. Those teeth have got to cause a lot of pain now and then. From that and the fact he doesn't seem to speak English, I'd guess he was a new immigrant.
And he had to come from a country that didn't have a comprehensive health program. He might even be an illegal alien." She raised a hand to stop Andy's complaints. "I know; that's not an accusation you want to make too readily, but look at him. He's starving. He's been beaten.
But he's not an addict. The damage to his nose is from the beating; the interior is not drug damaged. He has no track marks. His liver isn't distended, and neither are his intestines." "How does being beaten and starved make you an illegal alien?" "Andy, if someone starved you, beat you within an inch of your life, shot you, then left you for dead, you would go to the hospital. And you would press charges. You wouldn't be hiding in a hole in the ground. The only people who don't go to the police are those who can't. And since most dealers are users, he probably had other reasons to steer clear of the authorities." Andy looked at the man on the cot. "I guess you're right. I would call the cops. But I don't think this guy had a chance.
And I don't think it had anything to do with being afraid of the badge. My guess is, this happened after the Quiver." He handed Hulbert the pan with the spent bullet. "He was shot with a matchlock, you said." Hulbert nodded. "That's what I figure. I can't think of any other explanation for a bullet that big and that slow-moving. I'd bet he's Indian. Probably pretty close to full blood." Andy stared at Hulbert. "You're talking Native American, not an India Indian." He was wide-awake now. "Yeah, I am. And I'm thinking he'sextremely authentic.
And I have a hunch he has enemies just as authentic as he is." The captain stared at Hulbert, then at the man strapped to the examination table. "We can't jump to any conclusions. That bullet could have come from a replica. Or maybe an antique." Hulbert was shaking his head. "I thought of that. But not too many reenactors play around with matchlocks. They're usually interested in later historical periods.
Then you have the guy's clothes and all the things Jenny mentioned."
Andy pulled the clothes from the biohazard container, careful not to touch the blood. He turned them over and over in his hands, checking the seams and the buttons. "If these are part of a reenactment costume, they cost the guy a pretty penny. They're the most authentic looking things I've ever seen." "He doesn't look rich enough to be into that type of fun," Jenny said. "He looks like one of the homeless I used to care for when I worked on the coast." Marie entered the room, carrying a tray of sandwiches. "And if that's not a reenactment costume, and if he wasn't shot with a replica, where is the guy who did it?" Marie shrugged and then answered her own question. "We don't know." Now it was Jenny's turn to look surprised. "Oh." She looked at the man on the table and then at Andy. "It doesn't matter if that stuff is real or fake. Does it? We have people out there. Real people.
And they're armed and shooting." Hulbert shrugged. "Like I said, we've got problems. And if the animals are mixed up, jumbled up, the people are likely to be, too." Marie Keehn moved so she was standing next to Rod Hulbert. Her voice trembled slightly, "More than two thousand prisoners to feed and water, multiton dinosaurs to avoid, and to top it off, out of sync people using other out of sync people for punching bags and target practice. And we don't know why." Jenny hissed softly.
The captain and the lieutenant both nodded, their faces grim. Jeff Edelman stared at the pictures on the camera phone for a while, and then shut the phone off. "I want the best artist in the prison to copy this onto paper. The same thing for the jewelry our visitor is wearing." He looked at Hulbert. "The camera phone is a great way to record what's going on in the field, at least until the batteries wear out." "You're right," said Joe Schuler. "We'll go through all the cars on the lot and through the lockers. We'll gather up all the picture phones and have them placed in the armory. That way when we send people out for whatever reason, they can take one of the cameras with them. When they get back we can have the pictures transcribed to paper. If Hulbert had one in his car when the Quiver hit, I'm betting we'll get a couple dozen of the things." Hulbert nodded. "Andy, we might want to do a technology check. See who has what, and if it could be useful put it under lock and key." "No, wedon't want to do that,"
Andy said. "We don't want to confiscate anything. That includes the picture phones. Ask what's in everyone's lockers and lunch buckets.
Ask if people will donate their stuff, or loan it. But I don't want anything commandeered." "Nothing?" Edelman asked. "Nothing. Now, what can you tell me about Spielberg's monsters?" Edelman frowned. "The nickname Jerry Bailey gave these animals is more appropriate than you realize. The two large birdlike creatures doing the attacking are called Utahraptors. They are the jumbo-sized relatives of the velociraptor. While the velociraptor weighs around fifty pounds, their larger cousins will tip the scales at eight hundred to a thousand pounds. An amateur, Bob Gaston, found the first of this species in 1992. This was the same year work was being done on Spielberg's film, Jurassic Park. Spielberg hadn't liked the idea of his meanest creature being such a lightweight, so he wanted to cheat and make them larger. The technicians working on the film, of course, did it Spielberg's way. Bigger was better. Anyway, with the discovery of the Utahraptor, you would think the raptors in the movie would get a name change. It didn't happen. They left the name of the beasts velociraptor, but gave them the size of their Utahraptor cousins."
Hulbert shrugged. "Hollywood is not here. The animal killed by those things was not happy and neither were we. That was the scariest thing I ever saw in my life." "I bet." Jeff suppressed a yawn and then sighed. "Sorry, three hours a night, every night, it's not enough sleep for anyone." He yawned again, but this time didn't try to fight it. "You have to look at the whole picture. That stegosaurus that used the prison wall for a scratching post a couple of nights back was from the Jurassic period. The Utahraptors on that picture phone were from one hundred and twenty million years back. The animal the raptors ate, the iguanodon, was from the early Cretaceous period, which was around one hundred and forty-five million years before the modern era. The T-rex in Spielberg's movie was from the late Cretaceous period, around seventy million years ago." "I thought you said the tyrannosaurus was from the Jurassic period," Jenny said. "No, the book and movie was calledJurassic Park because it sounded good. Most of the animals it depicted were actually from the Cretaceous period, the same timeframe we seem to be dealing with. Much of the plant life a few miles out from the prison is also from that time period, but not all of it. Too much of it is unfamiliar to me, and a lot of what I recognize, I can't name. I can't remember what it's called." "I don't care about the name," Joe said. "I just want to know what is happening. Are we going to be dealing with the animals from that movie? Velociraptors and Tyrannosaurus Rex?" "Well, Jurassic Park depicted a theme park populated with dinosaurs built from found DNA left over from the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. The plants and animals inside the park were basically from the same period, but that doesn't mean they coexisted. Very few species last eighty million years, which is the length of time the Cretaceous period lasted. Or even eight million years, for that matter. The only time we know for sure two species coexisted, is when we find them together. All else is guesses. Good guesses based on a lot of facts, but they are still guesses. Jeff walked over to the dry erase board and began sketching a time line.
"Utahraptor was from approximately one hundred and twenty million years ago. They lasted about a million years, it's estimated. The iguanodon was from about one hundred and forty million years ago. No one knows how long they were around. But if you looked at the picture closely enough, you'd see a couple of other creatures in the background. There was what I think is an ornithocheirus flying above the trees and near the water's edge there was something that looked like a crocodile." "Crocodiles lived one hundred and twenty million years ago?" Jenny was surprised. "Yes, they did. They're one of only a handful of creatures with that type of longevity. I didn't see one in the picture, but turtles are another group that has managed to live that long without a lot of changes." "What's an ornithocheirus?"
Hulbert asked. "That was the creature flying above the trees." He looked at their faces and sighed. "It's a type of pterosaur. Also called pterodactyls." "So, we're one hundred and twenty million years in the past?" Andy asked. "That would be my guess." His grin had very little humor in it. "Give or take maybe fifty million years, you understand. "Are you telling us we're going to have to deal with brontosauruses and tyrannosauruses?" Joe Schuler asked. Jeff shrugged.
"Brontosauruses, as such, no The brontosaurus was a combination mistake and scam. The man who found it, Othniel Charles Marsh, popped a head of a camarasaurus onto the body of an adult apatosaurus and called it a brontosaurus. The men who proved this, James McIntosh from Wesleyan University and David Berman from the Carnegie Museum, figured the wrong head was done on purpose. But they also figured Marsh didn't know that the body was the adult version of a dinosaur Marsh found earlier. They believed Marsh assumed both skeletons were adults and were of different species. I guess we'll never know for sure. The mistake and scam took place in 1879, and wasn't discovered until 1970." "Jeff, we don't care what the creature is called, or what type of head it has. We just want to know what we have to deal with," Andy said. "Yeah. But it's important that you know that what you've been taught, or saw on television, may not be what you get." Edelman frowned, looking worried. "We're used to animals of a certain size, with a certain speed and strength. Predictable abilities. Predictable limitations. The animal we're talking about, whatever you call it, is unpredictable because we've never dealt with it. It wasn't a meat-eater, but who knows how placid or belligerent it was? And if it was-is-belligerent, then you're dealing with a creature the length of a northern blue whale. It doesn't weigh as much. It only weighs thirty tons, where the blue whale weighs about a hundred. But that doesn't make it any less dangerous, if it develops a peeve at us. "As for a tyrannosaurus, it could be here. I just don't know how likely it is.
According to ourlimited fossil records, they didn't show up until the end of the Cretaceous period. They could have coexisted with these other plants and animals, or they could have been separated by about sixty million years." He grinned again, every bit as humorlessly. "I guess the one bright spot is that we probably aren't near any seacoasts. The top marine predator nowadays is likely to be a mosasaur. That's a giant seagoing lizard that was probably the most dangerous animal that ever swam the seas." "So, you're telling us Cretaceous Park just became real," Marie Keehn whispered. No one else said anything. Jenny had gone back to the infirmary, Marie was asleep in the dorm set up for off-duty C. O's, and Hulbert had taken Bailey and Carmichael to the armory. He wanted something a little more deadly the next trip out. Joe Schuler, Andy Blacklock and Jeff Edelman were alone in the conference room. "Okay, Jeff. Spill it. There was something you weren't saying earlier. Say it now." Edelman laughed.
"You know, you say that like you think I should learn to talk up, but we both know you would rather I gave you bad news in private, or as close to it as I can manage." The captain smiled. "Maybe. What is it?"