Flyers

by Scott Ciencin

  The hula hoop dropped down over the angry adolescent Pteranodon’s head, pinning its great wings to its sides. It tried to launch itself forward, wobbled, and fell with a shriek to the sidewalk.

  Within seconds, the hoop restraining the adolescent was ready to break. It wouldn’t hold the creature for long.

  “Run!” Alan hollered. He checked over his shoulder and spun quickly, scouting for any safe haven. The heat was terrible, the sun harsh and glaring. Sweat poured off him as he sprinted toward the entrance to a large building housing the Earthquake attraction.

  Manly ran with him, coolly shooting his every move with the camera.

  Alan heard screams and saw more people being herded toward the side of the lagoon, while others were dropped in from above. Boats lined the harbor, and many people were swimming toward them and grabbing hold to stay afloat.

  “My dad!” the boy with Eric yelled. “We’ve got to find my dad!”

  He was about to break from the group when Eric grabbed his arm and hauled him inside the attraction with the others. A full-grown flyer came racing toward them, hissing as they got inside and slammed the double doors in the creature’s angry face.

  CHAPTER 9

  The adolescent Pteranodon stalked from one end of the boat to the other. His wings bore two silver streaks like lightning. He hissed and snapped at the frightened Keepers clinging to the craft. They screamed and darted into the water in terror.

  Lightning’s stomach rumbled. Feeding time had been so long ago, and he was hungry. He gave a pleading look to his mother, who circled overhead. She raised her beak and soared off. He knew how things were and that should have been enough: they didn’t know how long they would be in this place, and the food would have to last.

  YOUNG PTERANODON

  All he wanted was a nibble. A morsel. The innards of one or two screaming Keepers would do. He’d make them small ones, even . . .

  He looked down at the prey. The Keepers were frightened, confused, and angry. They didn’t like their new position. Lightning couldn’t have cared less. The Keepers were just meat to him. And he needed a little snack. . . .

  He caught the gaze of his brother Spike. Trip looked over, too. A few discreet signals passed between them. Spike and Trip suddenly kicked up a ruckus, drawing the attention of their parents and giving Lightning time enough to launch himself at one of the Keepers in the lagoon. He chose a young one, a plump little morsel.

  Cahhhrrrr!

  The great cry startled Lightning so badly that he missed his target, slapped the water, and took to the air with shuddering wings. His father dove down and screamed in his face. Trip’s clumsy display and Spike’s angry hopping and squawking hadn’t been enough of a diversion. Fire spat at all three of his sons. He wanted them gone until nightfall. Out of his sight.

  Lightning looked to his mother, who would not return his gaze.

  He had just wanted to grab a snack! He exchanged looks with the embarrassed Trip and the always seething Spike.

  They’d miss all the fun if the elders changed their minds and started feasting early.

  Unless, of course, they made some fun of their own.

  CHAPTER 10

  Eric helped Alan, his mother, and the reporter to barricade the door. He took in the great theater lobby with its sepia-toned photographs of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

  “There could be other ways in,” Eric said. “We have to make this place secure.”

  Josh nodded at a podium. “The tour guide usually stands there and tells everyone they’re gonna be extras in a disaster movie. We’d be running around for our lives. I think we could do that—what do you think

  PTERANODON

  Eric noticed the reporter recording Josh’s frightened, desperate statement. He nudged Alan, who led the protesting reporter away from the lad.

  “We’re good,” Amanda said. “The doors are secure.”

  “Anyone have a phone?” Alan asked. “No? We need to find one. Look for an office.”

  Josh pointed at the three doors across from them. “We’ll have to go through there to start with.”

  Everyone followed as Josh led them through the closest door. The next room was long and narrow, with a projection screen facing them. A film with Charlton Heston was playing. Behind the screen, crimson curtains stretched down to the floor. Ducking under the curtains, the group entered a movie set with an escalator that rose against a blue backdrop and let out into nothing, and a three-story-high facade of a large building’s destroyed stairwell.

  Josh pointed at doors that led to “employees only” corridors. The hum and thrum of machinery dully echoed through the walls. The group walked through several corridors until Alan stopped to look at something tacked to the wall.

  “It’s a map,” Alan said. “All the backstage routes are here.” He traced a circuitous route on the map. “If we get to here and go down this way, we’d only have to be on the boardwalk for a short stretch; then we can get into this Italian restaurant. Plenty of food and water. Everything we’d need, probably for as long as it takes. First aid is close to there, too.”

  They kept going, still looking for an office with a phone as they made their way toward Alan’s chosen destination.

  “You know a lot about this place,” Eric said.

  Josh shrugged. “I’ve been here every summer the last three years running. Probably drives my dad crazy. He’s not like your dad, though. He’s cool.”

  Eric was taken aback, but he said nothing, reminding himself of all Josh was going through right now. “So why’d you come again?”

  “To meet you.”

  A sound came from around the far corner. It might have been footsteps.

  “Everyone—quiet!” Alan hissed.

  Only Josh moved forward. “Dad?”

  The sound came again.

  “Dad!” Josh yelled.

  Amanda grabbed him and clamped her hand over his mouth. “Not a good idea.”

  But it was too late. An adolescent flyer that stood as tall as Alan rounded the turn and stalked into view. His beet-red wings fluttered and he hissed at the humans. Alan snatched the map off the wall as the group turned and ran.

  Cawwwrrrhhh!

  The flyer raced after them, his wings scraping along both sides of the narrow corridor. Alan had no time to check the map as he led the group from one corridor to another; he hoped against hope that he was taking them in the right direction.

  At the far end of the corridor, Alan saw a door. The echoing mechanical sounds intensified, and the walls seemed to vibrate.

  “Wait!” Josh called. “Dr. Grant, not there!”

  But there was nowhere else to go. Alan shoved the door open and almost stumbled as he ran onto a narrow ledge on one side of a subway tunnel. The ledge shuddered and the ceiling shattered. An empty subway car to his right surged upward as one ahead of it tilted dramatically and sank.

  The others followed Alan as he pointed to another door at the far end of the ledge. The noise was deafening, and he gasped as the roof caved in on the opposite side. A propane tanker truck bulleted toward the stalled tram and was stopped by a steel beam. The impaled truck burst into flame as the small group raced on, the flames licking the area just behind them, narrowly avoiding the flyer hot in pursuit.

  They passed stairs where a flood of water came rushing down. Eric slipped and the flyer soared at him. Amanda grabbed her son, just as the wall of water slammed into the creature. Then they made their escape out the opposite door!

  Wet shoes sliding, the group raced down the corridor.

  “This is it!” Alan yelled gleefully. “Those doors up ahead are the rear entrances of the gift shops down the street.”

  “This is fantastic!” Manly said, focusing his camera as the soaked flyer burst through the door behind them.

  They raced down the narrow hallway, the flyer gaining on them. Eric knew they weren’t going to be able to reach the corridor’s end, a scant hundred feet away. He grabbed at a door to
his left and nearly cried out with relief when it opened.

  “This way, come on!” Eric yelled.

  “No, no, no!” Josh hollered. “The next one. The next one!”

  Eric saw the door up ahead but had no idea if it would be locked.

  He went for it.

  “Eric!” his mother yelled. He felt her desperate grab for the back of his shirt.

  The door twenty feet ahead was open. Eric darted in, the others right behind him. The flyer slammed against the door as Alan tried to close it. He shoved with all his weight, but it wasn’t enough. Amanda and Manly joined him, pushing hard, but it was just a matter of time before the Pteranodon pushed the door open and burst through. It screeched wildly.

  “Ponchos,” Josh yelled, racing for the shop’s far wall. “Rain ponchos!”

  The store they had entered sold baseball bats for engraving. Eric snatched up bats and passed them to Alan, Manly, and Amanda while Josh tore open the bags containing ponchos.

  Eric heard his mother scream as the flyer shoved the door open wide, sending her and the two men stumbling back.

  Josh tossed Eric a handful of opened ponchos with one hand and simultaneously dropped a poncho over the flyer’s head with the other. The Pteranodon launched itself dead ahead in its fury, and Eric yanked Josh out of its way.

  The flyer collided with a display and went down in a tangle of clothing and memorabilia. Eric tossed the remaining ponchos over the flyer’s head. Blinded and stunned, it sank to the floor in submission.

  They stared, chests heaving, at the fallen creature for several long moments of silence.

  “That was fun,” Eric said.

  “Fun?” Josh gave him a strange “you’re weird” sort of look. “Uh . . . sure.”

  Eric swallowed uneasily. The rush of adrenaline was something he’d missed since spending those eight weeks outwitting the dinosaurs on Isla Sorna. But Josh wouldn’t understand that. Then again, who would? Outsmarting huge creatures that wanted to eat you was not exactly part of the average kid’s daily routine.

  Manly spoke up. “What if we . . . I dunno . . . took the flyer with us?”

  Alan grimaced. “Always looking for the angle, aren’t you? The next story, nothing else. ‘Fearless Reporter Captures Fierce Pteranodon, Countless Lives Saved!’ That should get you on 60 Minutes, don’t you think?”

  Manly looked away.

  “We should tie him up or something,” Amanda said. She reached for the flyer and its beak swiveled her way sharply, ripping through the ponchos. Then it sagged. It was still disoriented, but any minute it could become a major threat again.

  “We move,” Alan said. “Now.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Alan led the silent, fearful group into the sunlight. They had picked up baseball bats from the shop and walked quickly and quietly down the boardwalk, staying as close to the buildings as possible. Some flyers circled silently, while others maintained their careful watch over their prey in the lagoon.

  Suddenly, Josh stopped.

  “My dad,” he whispered as he stepped out of the buildings’ shadows. “I can see my dad in the lagoon!”

  Eric quieted the boy, grabbing his arm and steering him back to the shadows.

  “We can’t just leave him,” Josh whispered. “Come on, Eric. What do we do?”

  “Whatever Dr. Grant says,” Eric said.

  “Come on,” Alan urged. The scientist knew that a Pteranodon’s greatest asset was its incredibly sharp vision, not its sense of smell or hearing. But they were not dealing with creatures from the Dinosaur Age, over sixty-five million years ago. These had been created by InGen’s genetic engineers. They were larger and heavier, and—unlike the Pteranodons of the Mesozoic—these flyers had teeth in their beaks.

  The group stopped at the end of the block, hugging the building. They had to cross two dozen feet of open space to reach the Italian restaurant, and no one knew if the doors would be open. Others might have taken refuge there already and locked the place down tight.

  Alan knew he had to create some kind of distraction so the others could make the dangerous crossing, but there was nothing he could use to draw the attention of the flyers—except himself.

  He was about to step into the light and race the opposite way, yelling and screaming, when Eric silently broke away and raced across the gap. He reached cover just as a flyer turned his way.

  Flattened against the shadowed wall, Eric remained still. When the flyer looked away again, Eric tried the door. It was unlocked! With a wave, he signaled the group to come on over.

  Because the others had seen how Eric had safely crossed the gap, they were less afraid to follow. They waited until the Pteranodon was distracted and looking elsewhere. Then they braved the gap after him.

  They darted inside the restaurant and bolted the door behind them.

  Alan surveyed the empty restaurant’s wide glass windows and shook his head. “This place isn’t safe. Everyone, let’s get what we can and move on to the first-aid station.”

  Eric took two steps.

  “Except for you, young man,” Alan said. “What you did just then—”

  “No, let me,” Amanda said. “Eric, what were you thinking? You could have gotten caught! That was crazy.”

  “Actually,” Alan said, “I was going to mention it was incredibly brave. Thank you.”

  Amanda growled. “Encourage him. Perfect.”

  Josh stared at Eric with open admiration—for all of two seconds. Then the boy’s expression darkened. “You knew I’d follow you.”

  “I was just—”

  “Yeah, okay, whatever,” Josh said. “We’re safe, and my dad’s not. You’re a survivor all right.”

  Nearby, Manly grinned as he captured the scene with his digital camera.

  In the kitchen, they found bottled water, sandwich meats, bread, and plenty of seafood. Eric pulled down a pair of large coolers and loaded them up with shrimp, scallops, and grouper packed with ice.

  His mother stared at him, frowning.

  “They like fish,” Eric explained.

  “So you want to draw them to us?” Amanda asked.

  “They won’t smell anything through the coolers,” Eric said. “We might need it later.”

  “Or we might get a taste for seafood,” Manly said.

  At the first-aid station they found more supplies, but not what Alan had been hoping for.

  “There’s an animal show here,” Alan said. “They must keep tranquilizer darts and knockout meds for emergencies.”

  “The show’s on the other side of the lagoon,” Josh said, his voice trembling. “I’m not seeing any of that stuff here.”

  Amanda found a phone in the station. She glued herself to it, trying and failing to get an outside line, then attempting to raise on-site security. The busy signals were interspersed with her snarls of frustration. Finding a working line was vital! Her cell phone would have come in handy at the moment, but too late she realized that she’d left it on the floor of the Jaws boat ride.

  “Hey, you!” she called to the reporter.

  “Manly,” he told Amanda.

  “Uh . . . right. Sure you are. Not that I care how manly you are. What I want to know is whether you might have somehow forgotten you were carrying a cell phone.”

  “Lady, my name is Manly. Manly Wilks, and my cell phone is in my car.”

  Alan watched the exchange and shook his head. “Don’t look at me, Mrs. Kirby. My laptop, which Mr. Wilks here managed to destroy, was the extent of my rendezvous with twenty-first-century technology.”

  While the adults discussed the phone situation, Eric looked around for Josh. He noticed the boy sitting in a corner, his head down. Eric went to him.

  “Y’know, when I was stranded on Isla Sorna,” Eric said, “I had to get myself through it—even when I was certain no one would rescue me for a long time.”

  “How’d you do it?” asked Josh.

  “I had to believe it would be okay—that everything
would turn out just fine. Can you do that, too, Josh? Can you imagine your dad and everyone else down there getting out of this just fine? Same for all of us. Can you?”

  Josh hesitated, then nodded. Still, there was something like betrayal in his eyes. Or maybe Eric was just being paranoid. Eric looked up to find Alan watching them from across the room. The scientist motioned Eric over.

  Alan spoke very softly. “Eric, I just want you to know, about yesterday . . .”

  Eric waited.

  “I may have been a little cranky.” Alan took off his hat and fingered the brim. “You were wrong, but you didn’t deserve to be treated so shabbily. That’s all.”

  Grinning, Eric said, “Maybe you can make it up to me on my next visit to the island.”

  “You never give up, do you?” Alan asked with a slight smile.

  “Never.”

  On the other side of the first-aid station, Amanda hung up the phone and raised the map she had been studying. “This phone is useless. But I’ve got another idea. Come here.”

  The group gathered around her. Amanda pointed out a small communications backup room on the map. It was in the very building where they were, which also housed the Kongfrontation ride.

  “If we head there, we should be able to reach the outside world,” she said. “Short-wave radio, satellite, PA systems—all that stuff, I’d wager.”

  “A working computer,” Manly said. He looked at Alan. “Sorry about wrecking your laptop.”

  “It was that or my head, right?” Alan said.

  Manly nodded. “Yeah. Then what kind of quotes could you give me?”

  CHAPTER 12

  Armed and supplied, the group entered a dimly lit employees-only hallway that branched within the large building and allowed them to travel in safety. Thumps and hums told them the ride in this building was still going, too.

  Alan and Eric traveled far ahead of the others.

  “So what else is bothering you?” Alan asked.