“I know. Do you want to come back?”
“Not without a compelling reason. Inform me if one arises.” And his radio clicked off.
Harding stared at the screen, watching the Jeep. “That’s them, all right,” she said. “That’s your friend Dodgson.”
“He’s not my friend,” Malcolm said. He got up, wincing in pain from his leg. “Let’s go,” he said. “We have to stop these bastards. There’s no time to waste.”
Nest
The red Jeep Wrangler rolled softly to a stop. Directly ahead was a wall of dense foliage. But through it they could see sunlight, from the clearing beyond.
Dodgson sat quietly in the car, listening. King turned to him, about to speak, but Dodgson held up his hand, gesturing to him to be silent.
Then he heard it clearly—a low rumbling growl, almost a purr. It was coming from beyond the foliage ahead. It sounded like the biggest jungle cat he had ever heard. And intermittently, he felt a slight vibration, hardly anything, but enough to make the car keys clink against the steering column. As he felt that vibration, it slowly dawned on him: It’s walking.
Something very big. Walking.
Beside him, King was staring forward in astonishment; his mouth hung open. Dodgson glanced back at Baselton; the professor was gripping the seat with white fingers, as he listened to the sound.
A shadow moved across the ferns directly ahead. Judging by the shadow, the animal was twenty feet high, and forty feet long. It walked on its hind legs, and had a large body, a short neck, a very big head.
A tyrannosaur.
Dodgson hesitated, staring at the shadow. His heart was pounding in his chest. He considered going on to the next nest, but he was confident that the box would work here, too. He said, “Let’s get this over with. Give me the box.”
Baselton handed him the box, just as he had done before.
Dodgson said, “Charged?”
“Batteries are charged,” King said.
“Okay,” he said. “Here we go. Exactly the same as before. I’ll go first, you two follow, and bring the eggs back to the car. Ready?”
“Ready,” Baselton said.
King did not answer. He was still staring at the shadow. “What kind of a dinosaur is that?”
“That’s a tyrannosaurus.”
“Oh Jesus,” King said.
“A tyrannosaurus?” Baselton said.
“It doesn’t matter what it is,” Dodgson said irritably. “Just follow the plan, like before. Everybody ready?”
“Just a minute,” Baselton said.
King said, “What if it doesn’t work?”
“We already know it works,” Dodgson said.
“There’s a rather curious fact about tyrannosaurs that was recently reported,” Baselton said. “A paleontologist named Roxton did a study of the tyrannosaur braincase, and concluded that they have a brain not much different from a frog’s, although of course much bigger. The implication was their nervous systems were adapted to motion only. They can’t see you if you stand still. Stationary objects become invisible to them.”
“Are you sure about that?” King said.
Baselton said, “That was the report. And it makes perfect sense. One can’t forget that dinosaurs, for all their intimidating size, were actually rather primitive intellects. It’s quite logical that a tyrannosaur would have the mental equipment of a frog.”
“I don’t see why we’re rushing into this,” King said, nervously. He stared forward. “It’s much bigger than the other ones.”
“So what?” Dodgson said. “You heard what George said. It’s just a big frog. Let’s get it done. Get out of the fucking car. And don’t slam the doors.”
George Baselton had felt quite good and authoritative, recalling that obscure article from the journals. He had been in his accustomed role, dispensing information to people who lacked it. Now that he approached the nest, he was astonished to notice that his knees had begun to tremble. His legs felt like rubber. He had always thought that was a figure of speech. He was alarmed to realize it could be literally true. He bit his lip, and forced himself under control. He was not, he told himself, going to show fear. He was the master of this situation.
Dodgson was already moving ahead, holding the black box like a gun in his hand. Baselton glanced over at King, who was deathly pale and sweating. He looked on the verge of collapse; he moved forward slowly. Baselton walked alongside him. Making sure he was all right.
Up ahead, Dodgson gave a final glance back, waved to Baselton and King to catch up. He glared at both of them, and then he stepped through the foliage into the clearing.
Baselton saw the tyrannosaur. No—there were two! They stood on both sides of a mud mound, two adults, twenty feet high on their hind legs, powerful, dark red, with big vicious jaws. Like the maiasaurs, the animals stared at Dodgson for a moment, a dumb stare, as if amazed to see an intruder. And then the tyrannosaurs roared in fury. An incredible, bellowing, air-shaking roar.
Dodgson lifted the box, pointed it at the animals. Immediately, a continuous, high-pitched shriek filled the clearing.
The tyrannosaurs roared in response, and lowered their heads, extending their necks forward, snapping their jaws, preparing to attack. They were huge—and they were unaffected by the sound. They started to come around the mound, toward Dodgson. The earth shook as they moved.
“Oh fuck,” King said.
But Dodgson stayed cool. He twisted the dial. Baselton clapped his hands over his ears. The shriek became higher, louder, ear-splitting, incredibly painful. The response was immediate: the tyrannosaurs stepped back as if they had received a physical blow. They ducked their heads. They blinked their eyes rapidly. The sound seemed to vibrate in the air. They roared again, but weakly now, without conviction. A terrible screaming came from inside the mud nest.
Dodgson moved forward, pointing the box in the air, directly at the animals. The tyrannosaurs backed away, looking into the nest, then to Dodgson. They swung their heads back and forth rapidly, as if trying to clear their ears. Dodgson calmly adjusted the dial. The sound went higher. It was now excruciating.
Dodgson began to climb the mud mound of the nest. Baselton and King scrambled up, following him. Baselton found himself looking down into a nest with four mottled white eggs, and two young babies that looked for all the world like scrawny oversized turkeys. Anyway, some kind of gigantic baby birds.
The two tyrannosaurs were at the far end of the clearing, held away by the sound. Like the maiasaurs, they urinated in agitation. They stomped their feet. But they did not come closer.
Over the ear-splitting shriek of the box, Dodgson shouted, “Get the eggs!” In a daze, King stumbled down into the nest, grabbing the nearest egg. He fumbled it in his shaking hands; the egg flew into the air; he caught it again, and lurched back. He stepped on the leg of one of the babies, which screamed in fear and pain.
At this, the parents tried to come forward again, drawn by the infant’s cries. King hastily clambered out of the nest, ducked away through the foliage. Baselton watched him go.
“George!” Dodgson shouted, still aiming the box at the tyrannosaurs. “Get the other egg!”
Baselton turned to look at the adult tyrannosaurs, seeing their agitation and their anger, watching their jaws snap open and closed, and he had the sudden feeling that sound or no sound, these animals would not allow anyone to enter the nest again. King had been lucky but Baselton would not be lucky, he could feel it, and—
“George! Now!”
Baselton said, “I can’t!”
“You dumb fuck!” Holding the gun high, Dodgson began to climb down into the nest himself. But as he started, he twisted his body—and the battery plug pulled out of the box.
The sound abruptly died.
In the clearing, there was silence.
Baselton moaned.
The tyrannosaurs shook their heads a final time, and roared.
Baselton saw Dodgson go rigidly still, his body froze
n. Baselton also stood still. Somehow, he forced his body to stay where he was. He forced his knees to stop trembling. He held his breath.
And he waited.
On the far side of the clearing, the tyrannosaurs began to move toward him.
“What are they doing?” Arby cried, in the trailer. He was so close to the monitor his nose almost touched the screen. “Are they crazy? They’re just standing there.”
Beside him, Kelly said nothing. She watched the screen silently.
“Want to be out there now, Kel?” Arby said.
“Shut up,” Kelly said.
“No, they’re not crazy,” Malcolm said over the radio, as he stared at the dashboard monitor. The Explorer lurched down the trail, heading toward the eastern sector of the island. Thorne was driving. Sarah and Malcolm were in the back seat.
Sarah said, “He should be trying to put his sound machine together again. Are they really just going to stand there?”
“Yes,” Malcolm said.
“Why?”
“They are misinformed,” Malcolm said.
Dodgson
Dodgson watched the lead tyrannosaur come toward him. For such big animals, they were cautious. Only one of the two parents approached them, and although it paused to roar fiercely every few paces, it seemed oddly tentative, as if it was perplexed by the fact that the men were staying there. Or perhaps it could not see them. Perhaps he and Baselton had vanished from their view.
The other parent hung back, remaining toward the other side of the nest. Bobbing and ducking its head, agitated.
Agitated but not attacking.
Of course, the roars of the approaching dinosaur were terrifying, blood-chilling. Dodgson didn’t dare glance at Baselton, just a few yards away. Baselton was probably peeing in his pants right now. Just so he didn’t turn and run, Dodgson thought. If he ran, he was a dead man. If he stayed perfectly still, everything would be all right.
Standing stiffly, keeping his body rigid, Dodgson held the anodized box at waist level in his left hand, near his belt buckle. With his right hand, he slowly, ever so slowly, pulled up the disconnected power cord. In a few moments he would feel the end plug in his hands, and then he would slip it back into the box.
Meanwhile, he never took his eyes off the approaching tyrannosaur. He felt the ground shake beneath his feet. He heard the cries of the infant that King had stepped on. Those cries seemed to bother the parents, to arouse them.
No matter. Just a few seconds more, and he would have the plug back in the power pack. And then . . .
The tyrannosaur was very close now. Dodgson could smell the rotten odor of the carnivore. The animal roared, and he felt hot breath. It was standing right by Baselton. Dodgson turned his head fractionally, to watch.
Baselton stood entirely still. The tyrannosaur came close, and lowered his big head. He snorted at Baselton. He raised his head again, as if perplexed.
He really can’t see him, Dodgson thought.
The tyrannosaur bellowed, a ferocious sound. Somehow Baselton stayed unmoving. The tyrannosaur bent over, bringing his huge head down again. The jaws opened and closed. Baselton stared straight forward, not blinking. With huge flaring nostrils, the tyrannosaur smelled him, a long snuffling inhalation that fluttered Baselton’s trouser legs.
Then the tyrannosaur nudged Baselton tentatively with his snout. And in that moment Dodgson realized that the animal could see him after all, and then the tyrannosaur swung his head laterally, striking Baselton in the side and easily knocking him to the earth. Baselton yelled as the tyrannosaur’s big foot came down, pinning him to the ground. Baselton raised his arms and shouted “You son of a bitch!” just as the head came down, jaws wide, and closed on him. The movement was gentle, almost delicate, but in the next instant the head snapped high, tearing the body, and Dodgson heard a scream and saw something small and floppy hanging from the jaws, and realized it was Baselton’s arm. Baselton’s hand swung freely, the metal band of his wristwatch glinting beneath the tyrannosaur’s huge eye.
Baselton was screaming, a continuous undifferentiated sound, and hearing it, Dodgson broke into a dizzying sweat. Then he turned and ran, back toward the car, back toward safety, back toward anything.
He ran.
Kelly and Arby turned away from the monitor at the same moment. Kelly felt sick. She couldn’t watch. But through the radio they could still hear the tinny screams of the man lying on his back, while the tyrannosaur tore him apart.
“Turn it off,” Kelly said.
A moment later, the sound stopped.
Kelly sighed, let her shoulders drop. “Thank you,” she said.
“I didn’t do anything,” Arby said.
She glanced back at the screen, and quickly looked away again. The tyrannosaur was tearing at something red. She shivered.
It was silent in the trailer. Kelly heard the tick of electronic counters, and the thumping of the water pumps under the floor. Outside, there was the faint sound of wind rustling the tall grass. Kelly suddenly felt very alone, very isolated on this island.
“Arby,” she said, “what are we going to do?”
Arby didn’t answer her.
He bolted for the bathroom.
“I knew it,” Malcolm said, staring at the dashboard monitor. “I knew that would happen. They tried to steal eggs. Now look—the tyrannosaurs are leaving! Both of them!” He pushed the radio transmitter. “Arby. Kelly. Are you there?”
“We can’t talk,” Kelly said.
The Explorer continued down the hillside, toward the area of the tyrannosaur nest. Thorne gripped the wheel grimly as he drove. “What a damn mess.”
“Kelly. Are you listening? We can’t see what’s happening down there. The tyrannosaurs have left the nest! Kelly? What’s happening?”
Dodgson sprinted for the Jeep. The battery pack fell off his belt as he ran, but he didn’t care. Up ahead in the Jeep, he saw King waiting, tense and pale.
Dodgson got behind the wheel, started the engine. The tyrannosaurs roared.
“Where’s Baselton?” King asked.
“Didn’t make it,” Dodgson said.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean he fucking didn’t make it!” Dodgson yelled, and slammed the car into gear. The Jeep took off, bouncing up the hill. They heard the tyrannosaurs bellowing behind them.
King was holding the egg, looking back down the road. “Maybe we should get rid of this,” he said.
“Don’t you fucking dare!” Dodgson said.
King was rolling down the window. “Maybe he just wants the egg back.”
“No,” Dodgson said. “No!” He reached across the passenger seat, struggling with King as he drove. The trail was narrow, with deep ruts. The Jeep lurched forward.
Suddenly, one of the tyrannosaurs burst from the trees in the road ahead. The animal stood there, snarling, blocking the road.
“Oh Christ,” Dodgson said, slamming on the brakes. The car slid sickeningly in the muddy track, came to a stop.
The tyrannosaur lumbered toward them, bellowing.
“Turn around!” King screamed. “Turn around!”
But Dodgson didn’t turn around. He slammed the car into reverse, and started backing down the trail. He was driving fast, and the road was narrow.
“You’re crazy!” King said. “You’re going to kill us!”
Dodgson swung his arm, smacked King with his hand. “Shut the fuck up!” he shouted. It took all his attention to maneuver the car back down the winding trail. Even going as fast as he could, he was sure the tyrannosaur would be faster. It wasn’t going to work. They were in a fucking Jeep with a fucking cloth top, and they were going to get killed and—
“No!” King shouted.
Behind them, Dodgson saw the second tyrannosaur, charging up the road toward them. He looked forward, saw the first tyrannosaur bearing down on them. They were trapped.
He twisted the wheel in panic and the car ran off the road, crashing backward into dense
underbrush and surrounding trees, and he felt a jolting impact. Then the rear of the car dropped sickeningly, and he realized the back wheels were hanging over the edge of a hill. He gunned the engine frantically, but the wheels just spun in the air. It was hopeless. And slowly, the car sank backward, deeper into foliage so dense he could not see through it. But they were over the edge. Beside him, King was sobbing. He heard the tyrannosaurs roaring, very near now.
Dodgson flung open the car door, and jumped out into space. He plunged through the foliage, fell, hit a tree trunk, and tumbled down a steep jungle hill. Somewhere along the way he felt a sharp pain in his forehead, and saw stars for the brief moment before blackness enveloped him, and he lost consciousness.
Decision
They sat in the Explorer, on top of the ridge overlooking the jungle-covered east valley. The windows were down. They listened to the bellowing of the tyrannosaurs, as the huge animals crashed through the underbrush.
“They both left the nest,” Thorne said.
“Yeah. Those guys must have taken something.” Malcolm sighed.
They were silent a while, listening.
They heard a soft buzzing, and then Eddie pulled up alongside them, in the motorcycle. “I thought you might need help. Are you going to go down?”
Malcolm shook his head. “No, absolutely not. It’s too dangerous—we don’t know where they are.”
Sarah Harding said, “Why did Dodgson just stand there like that? That’s not the way to act around predators. You get caught around lions, you make a lot of noise, wave your hands, throw things at them. Try to scare them off. You don’t just stand there.”
“He probably read the wrong research paper,” Malcolm said, shaking his head. “There’s been a theory going around that tyrannosaurs can only see movement. A guy named Roxton made casts of rex braincases, and concluded that tyrannosaurs had the brain of a frog.”
The radio clicked. Levine said, “Roxton is an idiot. He doesn’t know enough anatomy to have sex with his wife. His paper was a joke.”
The Lost World Page 25