“How are we going to get it to her?”
“I don’t know. Maybe push it out the door?”
“I don’t want them to step on it,” Sarah said.
“Who cares?” Malcolm said.
The tyrannosaur at the window made a series of soft grunts, followed by a long, menacing growl. It was the big female.
“Sarah—”
But she was already standing up, facing the tyrannosaur. She immediately began to speak, her voice soft, soothing. “It’s okay. . . . It’s all right now. . . . The baby is fine. . . . I’m just going to loosen these straps here. . . . You can watch me. . . .”
The head outside the window was so huge it filled the entire glass frame. Sarah saw the powerful muscles of the neck ripple beneath the skin. The jaws moved slightly. Her hands trembled as she undid the straps.
“That’s right. . . . Your baby is fine. . . . See, it’s just fine. . . .”
Crouched below at her feet, Malcolm whispered, “What are you doing?”
She did not change her soft, soothing tone. “I know it sounds crazy. . . . But it works with lions . . . sometimes. . . . There we are. . . . Your baby is free. . . .”
Sarah unwrapped the blanket, and took away the oxygen mask, all the while speaking calmly. “Now . . . all I have to do . . .” She lifted the baby up in her hands. “ . . . is get it to you. . . .”
Suddenly, the female’s head swung back, and smashed side-on into the glass, which shattered into a white spiderweb with a harsh crack. Sarah couldn’t see through it, but she saw a shadow move and then the second impact broke the glass free. Sarah dropped the baby on the tray and jumped back as the head crashed through, and pushed several feet into the trailer. Streams of blood ran down the adult’s snout, from the shards of glass. But after the initial violence it stopped, and became delicate in its movements. It sniffed the baby, starting at the head, moving slowly down the body. It sniffed the cast, too, and licked it briefly with its tongue. Finally, it rested its lower jaw lightly on the baby’s chest. It stayed that way for a long time, not moving. Only the eyes blinked slowly, staring at Sarah.
Malcolm, lying on the floor, saw blood dripping over the edge of the counter. He started to get up, but she pushed his head back down with her hand. She whispered, “Ssssh.”
“What’s happening?”
“It’s feeling the heartbeat.”
The tyrannosaur grunted, opened its mouth, and gently gripped the infant between its jaws. Then it moved slowly back, out through the broken glass, carrying the baby outside.
It set the baby on the ground, below their vision. It bent over, the head disappearing from view.
Malcolm whispered, “Did it wake up? Is the baby awake?”
“Ssssh!”
There was a repetitive slurping sound, coming from outside the trailer. It was interspersed with soft, guttural growls. Malcolm saw Sarah leaning forward, trying to see out the window. He whispered, “What’s happening?”
“She’s licking him. And pushing him with her snout.”
“And?”
“That’s all. She just keeps doing it.”
“What about the baby?”
“Nothing. It keeps rolling over, like it’s dead. How much morphine did we give him, the last time?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “How should I know?”
Malcolm remained on the floor, listening to the slurping and the growling. And finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he heard a soft high-pitched squeak.
“He’s waking up! Ian! The baby’s waking up!”
Malcolm crawled up on his knees, and looked out the window in time to see the adult carrying the baby in its jaws, walking away toward the perimeter of the clearing.
“What’s it doing?”
“I guess, taking it back.”
The second adult came into view, following the first. Malcolm and Sarah watched the two tyrannosaurs move away from the trailer, across the clearing.
Malcolm’s shoulders dropped. “That was close,” he said.
“Yes. That was close.” She sighed, and wiped blood from her forearm.
In the high hide, Thorne pressed the radio button. “Ian! Are you there? Ian!”
Kelly said, “Maybe they turned the radio off.”
A light rain began to fall, pattering on the metal roof of the shed. Levine was staring through his night-vision glasses toward the cliff. Lightning flashed, and Thorne said, “Can you see what the animals are doing?”
“I can,” Eddie said. “It looks . . . it looks like they’re going away.”
They all began to cheer.
Only Levine remained silent, watching through the glasses. Thorne turned to him. “Is that right, Richard? Is everything okay?”
“Actually, I think not,” Levine said. “I’m afraid we have made a serious error.”
Malcolm watched the retreating tyrannosaurs through the shattered glass window. Beside him, Sarah said nothing. She never took her eyes off the animals.
Rain started to fall; water dripped from the shards of glass. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and lightning cracked harshly down, illuminating the giant animals as they moved away.
At the nearest of the big trees, the adults stopped, and placed the baby on the ground.
“Why are they doing that?” Sarah said. “They should be going back to the nest.”
“I don’t know, maybe they’re—”
“Maybe the baby is dead,” she said.
But no, in the next flash of lightning they could see the baby moving. It was still alive. They could hear its high-pitched squeaking as one of the adults took the baby in its jaws, and gently placed it in a fork among the high branches of a tree.
“Oh no,” Sarah said, shaking her head. “This is wrong, Ian. This is all wrong.”
The female tyrannosaur remained with the baby for some moments, moving it, positioning it. Then the female turned, opened its jaws, and roared.
The male tyrannosaur roared in response.
And then both animals charged the trailer at full speed, racing across the clearing toward them.
“Oh, my God,” Sarah said.
“Brace yourself, Sarah!” Malcolm shouted. “It’s going to be bad!”
The impact was stunning, knocking them sideways through the air. Sarah screamed as she tumbled away. Malcolm hit his head and fell to the floor, seeing stars. Beneath him, the trailer rocked on its suspension, with a metallic scream. The tyrannosaurs roared, and slammed into it again.
He heard her shouting, “Ian! Ian!” and then the trailer crashed over onto its side. Malcolm turned away; glassware and lab equipment smashed all around him. When he looked up, everything was cockeyed. Directly above him was the broken window the tyrannosaur had smashed. Rain dripped through onto Malcolm’s face. Lightning flashed, and then he saw a big head peering down at him and snarling. He heard the harsh scratching of the tyrannosaurs’ claws on the metal side of the trailer, then the face disappeared. A moment later, he heard them bellowing as they pushed the trailer through the dirt.
He called “Sarah!” and he saw her, somewhere behind him, just as the world spun crazily again, and the trailer was upended with a crash. Now the trailer was lying on its roof; Malcolm started crawling along the ceiling, trying to reach Sarah. He looked up at the lab equipment, locked down on the lab benches, above his head. Liquid dripped onto him from a dozen sources. Something stung his shoulder. He heard a hiss, and realized it must be acid.
Somewhere in the darkness ahead, Sarah was groaning. Lightning flashed again, and Malcolm saw her, lying crumpled near the accordion junction that connected the two trailers. That junction was twisted almost shut, which must mean that the second trailer was still upright. It was crazy. Everything was crazy.
Outside, the tyrannosaurs roared, and he heard a muffled explosion. They were biting the tires. He thought: Too bad they don’t bite into the battery cable. That’d give them a real surprise.
Suddenly, the tyrannosa
urs slammed into the trailer again, knocking it laterally along the clearing. As soon as it stopped, they slammed again. The trailer lurched sideways.
By then he had reached Sarah. She threw her arms around him. “Ian,” she said. The whole left half of her face was dark. When the lightning flashed, he saw it was covered in blood.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said. With the back of her hand, she wiped blood out of her eye. “Can you see what it is?”
In another lightning flash, he saw the glint of a large chunk of glass, embedded near her hairline. He pulled it out, and pressed his hand against the sudden gush of blood. They were in the kitchen; he reached up toward the stove, and pulled down a dishtowel. He held it against her head, and watched the cloth darken.
“Does it hurt?”
“It’s okay.”