“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.