by David Lewman
Owen’s motorcycle roared in the near distance. Blue whipped her head toward the motorcycle’s headlight. She narrowed her eyes and raced off after it.
Barry exhaled. Still alive. For now…
Chapter Twenty-Three
From the control room, Lowery watched the raptors’ video feeds in horror. One of them was clearly devouring a soldier. “This what you guys had in mind?” he asked in a hoarse voice.
Hoskins didn’t answer. Lowery looked over his shoulder. Hoskins was gone, and the InGen contractors were clearing out, packing up their equipment.
“What’s going on?” Lowery asked.
“They said we have to evacuate,” Vivian answered. “There’s a boat.”
Lowery looked up at the screens, feeling a strong sense of responsibility for one of the first times in his life.
In the Genetics Lab, workers hurried to put their creations in emergency storage. Dr. Wu stood by an incubator full of unhatched eggs, watching as a robotic arm moved each egg into a temperature-controlled case. Behind him, lab workers archived frozen embryos.
“Everything must be accounted for,” he ordered. “I want all backup generators online.”
He walked to a door in the rear of the lab and scanned his palm on a lock. The door slid open, revealing a secret room, glowing blue. He went in and closed the door. His phone buzzed.
“Where have you been?” Wu said into his phone.
In a side office near the control room, Hoskins spoke into his phone. “Change of plans. Mission took a jog to the left. I need all the new assets off-site.”
Dr. Wu frowned. “The embryos are safe here. They can live up to eight weeks with the generators.”
Hoskins growled, “This park will be shut down by morning. Our little side project is about to get a shot in the arm. I don’t want a bunch of bankruptcy lawyers messing with something they don’t understand.”
Dr. Wu looked around him at the contents of the secret room. He felt trapped by the situation.
“I’ll take that as a ‘yes, sir,’ ” Hoskins said, hanging up.
Bursts of gunfire lit up the jungle. In the mobile veterinary unit, Zach leapt up and opened the window to the front seat.
“Is everybody dead?” Gray asked, terrified.
“No, everyone’s fine,” Claire said.
“Don’t lie to him,” Zach said.
“He’s scared,” Claire said. “It’s okay to lie when people are scared.”
Gray moved closer to the window. “I’m ready to go home now.”
“You will,” Claire told him. “Tomorrow you’ll be home. And your mother will never let you see me again. But we had this, right?”
THUNK. A soldier hit the windshield with his bleeding hand. “Run,” he gasped.
Claire fumbled for the keys. The wounded soldier limped around to the back of the vehicle and opened the rear door. But the boys saw something behind him in the dark. Something terrifying.
“Close the door! Close it!” Zach shouted.
ROOAAARRR! Charlie leapt out of the dark and dug her claws into the soldier’s back.
“Drive!” Zach yelled. “Go!”
Claire revved the engine and started to shift into gear, but—SMASH! Echo shattered the driver’s-side window with her talons and ripped the seat with her teeth as Claire whipped her head out of the way just in time. Claire floored the gas. Echo fell away. The boys watched through the open back doors as Echo rolled in the dust, stopping beside Charlie. The boys exhaled as the vehicle left the raptors behind.
But then the Velociraptors saw the red taillights speeding away from them. They got up and raced after the mobile veterinary unit.
Though Claire was driving as fast as she could through the rough terrain, the raptors soon caught up. The boys screamed as they saw the fierce dinosaurs through the swinging back doors. Claire swerved hard and managed to knock Echo away.
But Charlie was still coming, trying to jump through the doors in the back. Zach grabbed an electric spear. As the boys struggled to turn it on, Charlie leaped into the moving vehicle, piercing the metal with her claws.
“Turn it on!” Zach yelled.
“I don’t know how!” Gray screamed.
Hissing, Charlie reached for the boys. Zach found the blue button and pressed it. The tip crackled. The boys jabbed it into the raptor’s chest. TTZZZZHH! Charlie screeched at the shock and tumbled out the back, taking the spear with her.
“Did you see what we did?” Zach yelled triumphantly.
“I can’t wait to tell Mom!” Gray shouted.
“No!” Claire called back through the window. “You cannot tell your mom about that! Ever!”
VROOM! Owen sped up alongside Claire’s window. “We have to get indoors! Follow me!”
He raced ahead. Claire took off after him.
Charlie, still weak from the electric shock, got to her feet. Echo appeared from the dark, disoriented and angry. Blue emerged from the jungle and stepped to the front of the pack. She looked down the road at the distant taillights.
Blue raised her head and screeched. Charlie and Echo joined in.
Elsewhere in the jungle, the Indominus raised her head, listening. She roared in response and raced toward the three Velociraptors.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Lowery was alone in the control room when the phone rang. “Lowery, we’re coming to you,” Claire said. “Call in a helicopter.”
“I already did,” he said. “Just get here now.”
Claire and Owen drove to the visitors’ center, passing through the abandoned Main Street. They parked the vehicles and jumped out. With the two boys, they ran for the control room. But when they passed the Genetics Lab, they noticed shadows moving inside. “That’s odd,” Claire said. “They evacuated the lab.”
They entered the hidden laboratory, lit only by glowing walls of technology. They saw small cages and tanks holding experimental genetically modified creatures. A strangely muscular mouse. A monkey with bat wings. A fish with tiny clawed hands and feet.
“What is all this?” Claire said.
In the doorway behind them, Hoskins said, “I’m afraid that’s above your pay grade, hon.”
The four of them spun around to face Hoskins. “Where’s Henry?” Claire asked.
“Dr. Wu works for us,” Hoskins said. He motioned to InGen contractors, who rolled away a cold-storage unit on wheels. It was stacked with blood samples and embryos.
Looking at a monitor, Gray said, “That’s not a real dinosaur.” The screen showed a rotating 3-D model of a hybrid “Stegoceratops”—a mixture of Stegosaurus and Triceratops.
“No, it ain’t, kid,” Hoskins agreed.
The image on the screen changed. It showed a 3-D model of the Indominus rex.
Hoskins said, “Imagine that one, a fraction of its size, intelligent, deadly, able to hide from our most advanced military technology.”
SMASH! A rack of glass vials shattered in the main lab. Owen and Claire pressed the boys back against the wall. Hoskins froze, able to see something in the room that the others couldn’t see.
TICK. TICK. Claws tapped on the floor, approaching the door.
Echo peered around the corner, hissing.
Owen, Claire, and the boys hid in the shadows. The Velociraptor backed Hoskins up against a wall. “Easy, now,” he said. “Easy, boy.”
Echo hissed again. Without turning his gaze from the raptor, Hoskins called out, “Owen, what do I do? Owen!”
Owen covered Claire and the boys with his arm, keeping them still.
Hoskins stood up straight and held out his hand, trying to copy the gesture he’d seen Owen use to control the raptors. “There you go, boy. See? I’m on your side.”
Echo cocked her head, seeming to relax. She took another step closer.
“That’s right,” Hoskins said. “I’m on your side.”
RRRAAWWMMMP! Echo bit Hoskins’s hand off in one ferocious bite. Hoskins screamed, and Echo attacked.
&
nbsp; Owen, Claire, and the boys ducked behind a steel counter. When Echo’s tail knocked over a tower of animal cages, Owen saw an opportunity. The cages lay between Echo and the door. Owen grabbed Claire’s hand, and all four of them ran back into the main lab.
They passed through the lab and into the hallway. Claire pointed toward the elevator bank. “This way!”
SMASH! Charlie threw herself through the glass ahead of them. Shards of glass crunched beneath the raptors’ feet as Owen, Claire, Zach, and Gray spun around and ran back toward the visitors’ center.
Echo joined Charlie in the chase.
Chapter Twenty-Five
On the roof, InGen contractors finished loading the cold-storage containers into a helicopter’s cargo bay. They climbed into the chopper, where Dr. Wu was waiting anxiously. “Where’s Hoskins?” he asked.
“He didn’t make it,” one of the contractors answered.
Dr. Wu took in the news of Hoskins’s death. “But he left provisions? Our deal is still intact?”
“Don’t worry,” the contractor said. “You’ll be well taken care of.”
The chopper rose into the night sky above Isla Nublar.
In the visitors’ center, Owen, Claire, Zach, and Gray sprinted through the neo-paleontology display, trying to reach the front door. As he passed displays, Zach swiped his hands across screens, bringing up dinosaur holograms.
A trio of realistic Dilophosauruses appeared, roaring and spitting. The pursuing Velociraptors slid to a stop and took up attack positions. The holograms bought the four humans just enough time to escape through the front door.
They ran onto Main Street. ROAR! Blue lunged out of the dark, baring her teeth. Hissing, Echo emerged through a broken window in the visitors’ center—the same window the raptors had used to enter the building. Charlie followed close behind.
The three Velociraptors surrounded Owen, hissing aggressively. He and Claire held the boys close. Blue moved close to Owen, examining him as if she were deciding how to kill her prey. Their faces nearly touched.
“That’s how it is, huh?” Owen said.
Blue hissed. But she didn’t attack. Something deep inside her seemed to recognize Owen. He slowly raised his hand, letting Blue see it. “When she was born,” he said quietly, “she looked up at me, right into my eyes, like this.”
He raised his open hand higher. Blue recoiled. “Easy…easy…”
Owen reached out and removed her camera harness. She allowed it. There was a quiet moment between them.
THOOM! THOOM! The Indominus was coming.
“Owen…,” Claire said.
The Indominus roared in the distance, getting closer. Blue backed away. “No, no,” Owen said. “Stay with me. Come on, girl.”
Claire, Zach, and Gray looked at each other. What was happening?
THOOM. THOOM. The white-gray Indominus rex emerged from the dark, stomping down the middle of Main Street in the moonlight. Blue looked over her shoulder at her new alpha, then back at Owen.
The Indominus reached them. She roared behind Blue. She wanted Blue to attack.
But Blue whipped her head around and snapped protectively.
Anger surged through the Indominus. She reared up and swiped her long claw, throwing Blue aside. The Velociraptor slid across the ground, writhing and howling, deeply injured.
Charlie and Echo watched. They looked back at Owen, then up at the Indominus.
Which alpha would they choose?
Echo and Charlie moved back to Owen’s side. The raptors faced the Indominus in attack positions. Owen allowed himself a tiny smile, knowing he had them back. He slowly motioned toward a shiny steel merchandise booth stacked with hats, stuffed animals, and T. rex soda cups. “Get the boys inside.”
Claire slowly took Gray’s hand. Gray took Zach’s hand. “Ready?” Claire said. “And…now.”
They ran for the booth. The Indominus followed their movement, but Owen gave a sharp whistle—an attack signal to his raptors!
Charlie and Echo leapt onto the Indominus’s back, digging their teeth in. Owen ducked her swinging tail. Both raptors sunk their claws into the beast’s back.
Zach, Gray, and Claire vaulted over the counter into the booth.
Charlie screamed as the Indominus grabbed the raptor with her long, sharp teeth and flung her to the ground. Echo dug her claws in deeper, screeching in rage.
From the booth, Claire and the boys watched the battle. Gray mumbled to himself, calculating: “Seventy-eight…fifty-eight times two…a hundred ninety. We need more.”
“More what?” Claire asked.
“Teeth,” Gray said with great certainty. “We need more teeth.”
Claire took this in. Then she took a deep breath, grabbed a leather emergency pack from the wall, climbed out of the booth, and ran into the dark.
Blue and Charlie were down, leaving only Echo. A single raptor was no match for the Indominus. The massive dinosaur yanked Echo off her back, slammed her to the ground, and stomped her. She didn’t get up.
As the Indominus stretched to her full height, Owen raced across the street and dove into the booth. He put Zach and Gray protectively behind him and looked around for Claire. “Where is she?”
Gray pointed outside. Owen rose to look in the direction he was pointing. ROOAAARRR! The Indominus jammed its head into the booth, snapping its jaws inches above them, rippling their clothes with the wind from its roaring mouth!
Chapter Twenty-Six
In a dark alley running alongside Main Street, Claire approached the huge steel door of a massive paddock. She pulled out her phone. “Lowery! Lowery! Are you still there?”
Lowery answered the call in the empty control room. “Claire! Where are you?”
“I need you to open Paddock Nine.”
“Nine? Are you kidding?”
“Lowery, be a man and do something for once!”
Lowery looked hurt. “Why do you have to make it personal?” He turned to his keyboard, steeling himself. He typed, hesitated, and hit ENTER.
The massive steel door rose. Claire took a flare out of the emergency pouch and cracked it, lighting up the night.
BOOM. BOOM.
Footsteps thundered. Puddles rippled. When the beast in the paddock drew dangerously near, Claire turned and ran back toward Main Street, holding the shining flare out behind her.
The T. rex passed through the open door, chasing the light.
The Indominus thrust her head deeper into the steel booth, unable to get her jaws around Owen and the boys. Claire ran onto Main Street and threw the lit flare at the Indominus.
SMASH! The T. rex crashed onto Main Street, knocking over a dinosaur sculpture. The Indominus pulled its head out of the booth and turned to face the T. rex.
For a moment, the two colossal beasts stood at opposite ends of the street, staring. Then they roared and rushed at each other, grappling, snapping their jaws, flailing their claws, and whipping their tails.
Claire tried to get back to the merchandise booth, but a gigantic tail swept her aside. She fell, hurt. Owen ran out and picked her up. He carried her back to the booth, dodging the two titanic combatants, just barely making it back safely.
Suddenly Blue reappeared out of the dark. She latched her razor-sharp teeth onto the Indominus’s leg. As the Indominus turned its attention to Blue, the T. rex rose and slammed its head into the monster, which flew back into a concrete building, denting it. The Indominus fell onto the lagoon boardwalk with a thunderous crash. Blue and the T. rex roared together, united by an unnatural common enemy.
The Indominus struggled to her feet and roared back at them, lowering into a fighting stance. Suddenly—ROOAARRRWWRR! The Mosasaurus erupted out of the lagoon, clamped its huge jaws on the mighty Indominus rex, and dragged her into the water, deep below the surface.
The churning water slowly calmed. The Indominus did not emerge.
The T. rex snarled. It was weakened by injuries, but victorious. The T. rex and Blue looked at each
other, unsure whether to fight. The T. rex turned away, choosing not to. Blue gave Owen a farewell glance, then disappeared into the shadows.
The T. rex looked up at the moon and lumbered off into the night, free to roam the island.
Zach and Gray’s parents entered the school gym in Costa Rica. It had been set up as an evacuation center. They saw a thousand people wrapped in Red Cross blankets eating donated food on paper plates. They scanned the crowd, searching anxiously for their children.
Mom saw a face she recognized: Claire’s. Her sister was wrapped in a blanket.
Claire gave her sister a tearful smile, asking for forgiveness in a single look. She moved out of the way to reveal Zach and Gray seated on a cot. The parents ran to their sons.
They hugged Gray tight. Then they were completely surprised when their teenage son stepped forward and also hugged them, holding on.
Claire kept her distance, letting the family have its reunion. But then her sister walked over to her and pulled her close. Claire smiled through her tears, overwhelmed.
Through the sea of people, Claire spotted Owen in the doorway. He gave her a subtle tip of his cap. She hurried over to him.
“Looks like we’re off our island,” Claire said.
“Yeah, it does,” he agreed.
“So what do we do now?” she asked.
“Probably stick together, at first, for survival.”
She smiled, and they walked off together.
On Isla Nublar, Jurassic World was abandoned. It was a ghost town headed for extinction. A small flock of Pteranodons circled in the sky over the island.
On the roof of the visitors’ center, the T. rex stood on the helipad, overlooking its dying kingdom. The king of the dinosaurs stood its ground and roared, ready to take on anything the modern world threw at it.
