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Anne's Story
Chapter 2, Meeting Smith and Wesson
Hammond was wrong though, the dinosaurs didn't need his drug. I knew the implications. If these dinosaurs were still alive, others probably were also. So, if I didn't get squished by one of these monsters I was almost certainly going to be eaten by one.
After my initial meeting with Hammond's dinosaurs I needed a bath. The ground was swampy around the brachiosaurs and I was muddy. I hoped it was mud anyway. Nearby a small pool of water had formed at the bottom of the steep hill. I took a sip. The cool clean water tasted good. I undressed and went in. I cleaned my clothes as best I could and laid them on the hot rocks nearby.
It was noon and I was skinny dipping in a pool of fresh water on dinosaur island. Nearby two brachiosaurs were munching contentedly on the leaves of some trees. The awful stench was still around, but I had washed most of it off my clothes and they were drying in the sun. I walked out of the pool and stood, drying in the sun myself. My neck and back pain had faded to a dull ache, but my left arm still wouldn't do what it was told. As I got dressed I looked around for a way to get back up to the road. Beyond the pool was a steep hill, probably too steep for me to climb but it was my best bet. Going back past the droppings of the brachiosaur and through the hills didn't sound like a wonderful idea.
After dressing I set out for the hill. It was steep, but by walking slowly it was possible to climb it. Reaching the top I noticed that the road had turned into gravel. Large wooden beams and planks lay half buried in the boulders and gravel filling this area. It looked like a wooden roadway had once been built above this gravel pit.
Off the road was another truck. Hammond must have hired really terrible drivers to have this many accidents. The truck was in no better shape than the others. On the ground in front of it was another gun, covered with sand and slightly rusting, but in good shape. It had a full clip but I was already carrying two heavy pistols so I tossed it in the bed of the truck. There was a weathered baseball bat already there. I had seen one earlier on the ground but no balls or gloves. What did they need baseball bats for?
I followed the remains of the wooden roadway until it ended at an earthen wall. With both arms it would have been a cinch to pull myself up and over the wall but with only one I didn't even try. The roadway had probably been smashed by a hurricane and all that was left was a 5 yard long section held up by a pair of study beams. As I looked over the broken roadway I accidentally knocked over a large beam which came crashing down on the roadway. The roadway slowly tilted downward towards me. It stopped when it crunched into the ground, almost at a 45 degree angle. As I stooped down to check the planks I suddenly heard another crunching sound. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end as it took me a moment to realize that the sound hadn't come from the roadway.
A roar from behind spun me around. I started shooting, wildly, missing almost every shot. Something with yellow stripes, nasty razor sharp claws, and jaws full of long sharp teeth rushed at me. My eyes said lizard, my brain said tiger, and my hands didn't care either way they just pumped shot after shot into the thing. With a final lunge it jumped at me, jaws wide open, claws reaching out to rip me limb from limb. I fell backwards, to the ground, not seeing where my last bullet hit. My gun was empty. I kept pulling the trigger, hearing the gun making clicking noises, but not realizing what was wrong. It landed on the ground, hard, probably dead. A growl escaped its throat as I pulled the second gun from my waist. I didn't hear a single shot from the second revolver as I pumped every bullet in the thing's head. It stopped moving.
As I continued to click away on the second, now-empty, gun I noticed the manufacturer and just started laughing uncontrollably. I'm not much of a movie buff, but I couldn't help remembering Dirty Harry who, when asked by a thief "who's going to stop me", responded "Smith, Wesson, and me." My heart was racing as I backed up to the wall and looked around for other dinosaurs, pointing the gun and clicking in every direction. It gradually dawned on me that the gun was empty and I was defenseless. Fear gripped me as I dropped the Smith & Wesson handgun and ran back to the demolished truck for the Desert Eagle I had left there.
Looking back on it now, I was amazed that I didn't kill myself running back to the truck. I bounded over boulders in single leaps, ran through the sand and gravel like some crazed camel, and then jumped into the truck slamming into the cabin. The force of the impact knocked the wind out of me. Scrabbling for the Desert Eagle I caught it in a death grip as I lay there gasping for breath. My hands were slick with blood and I was covered in it. I couldn't tell whether it was mine or the tiger-lizard's. Minutes passed as I lay there trembling, wondering how many more of those things were out there. When my heart stopped pounding in my ears I listened intently for any movement, any sound that would indicate another dinosaur.
The wind blew gently through the trees, birds chirped all around, and in the distance I could hear & feel the brachiosaurs moving in their swamp. I was as safe as I could be, laying on my back and smelling of blood. I gripped the Eagle tighter as I jumped up and spun around, looking for something, anything to put a bullet in. The rocks didn't move, the ferns swayed in the light breeze, and I could see the carcass of the tiger lizard back at the tilted roadway. Nothing had come to feed yet, but I was taking no chances. I jumped from the truck and ran back to the pool. I didn't bother undressing this time, I just jumped right in.
The water turned red as I tried to wash the blood off. The tiger-lizard had given me a small cut on my calf, but the rest of the blood was from it. The brachiosaurs didn't like the smell of blood and moved away from me. I didn't much care for it either. I washed off what I could and then headed back to the truck I had seen at the first ravine. I knew it wasn't too far, but I went cautiously, watching out for anything hiding in the trees that covered the hills.
The truck looked unstable with its axles resting on a few large rocks. I grabbed the rifle and looked inside the cab for a radio. No radio, but I had expected that. Like the other guns, this rifle had some rust on it but was otherwise in good condition. It was fully loaded, which was a good thing, but it wouldn't be of any use if another one of those tiger-lizards got that close to me again. I slung it over my back and held the pistol as I went back. Along the way I avoided the pool, the brachiosaur droppings I had walked through would hopefully cover any blood smell still left on me. I headed up the steep hill, back to the roadway and the dead tiger-lizard.
I approached the corpse cautiously, making damn sure there was nothing nearby. It was dead. Its blood had cooled and soaked into the ground. If there had been predators nearby, they would have found it by now, so I was safe for a little while at least. I examined it intently, rolling it over on its belly to get a good look at the claws. I realized it was a raptor. Hammond had described raptors in his book and I remembered what he wrote:
Velociraptor - A small theropod native to China and Mongolia. Pack hunter, quite vicious, and quite intelligent.
When we were building Jurassic Park a two year old raptor escaped confinement. It killed two workmen and mauled a third before Muldoon tranquilized it. The third man died shortly thereafter. The computer system maintained constant surveillance of the island recording almost everything everywhere. Wu brought up the video files of the locations where the workmen were found to review what had happened. I turned off the screen after a few moments and left the room. Muldoon never saw the videos. I ordered Wu to erase them. I will never forget what I saw but I was convinced we could tame the raptors and put them on display.
I was mistaken.
This raptor was a lot bigger than me but still small. It probably wasn't fully grown. The idea that the dinosaurs might be breeding sent chills up my spine. A colony of raptors isn't something I could deal with, not with these pathetic weapons. Muldoon had the right idea - a fully automatic elephant rifle, or maybe a rocket launcher, yes, but a handgun and a rifle...never. I was lucky this time, next time I might not be. I needed to move faster, it was well past noon and I had no idea how far I still had to travel. If night fell I knew I had two chances of surviving through it - slim and none.
I tossed the rifle up onto the wall and then ran up the inclined roadway. Halfway to the top I jumped onto a small ledge running parallel to the roadway and even with the top of the wall. With the Eagle held out in front I cautiously moved over to the top of the wall and looked up at the road as it followed the hill. Nearby a small metal and cement cabinet was anchored into the ground. The door to the cabinet was gone, torn from its hinges. Inside lay another Desert Eagle. I grabbed the rifle and placed it on top of the cabinet, taking the second Eagle and stuffing it into my shorts.
I looked up the hill again, and then started up cautiously. I moved as quickly and as silently as I could. If anything bigger than a mouse moved within my sight it would have been dead. I kept well away from anything that could hide even a small raptor, trying to stay in the middle of the road. I wasn't going to be caught unprepared again, the next raptor would be facing a very angry and determined lady chanting "Smith, Wesson, and me!"
Last updated Sunday, April 22, 2001 12:27 AM