|
Carnosaur chapter summeries - Chapters 5 and 6
By Aragorn
CHAPTER 5
David and Jenny were waiting in their jeep, just up the road from where Penward’s men and Bodycombe had parked their vehicles, looking back with binoculars. They see Penward and Bodycombe rush back to a jeep, to where one of Penward’s men have a map out and points to something on it. Everyone except all the regular police officers, get into their vehicles and begin to drive away.
David and Jenny decide to follow them, but stay a bit behind first, allowing the vehicles to have passed them for a bit, first.
They follow the convoy down the highway, being passed by a helicopter in the air, going in the other direction, heading to the Penward Estate. Under it was a large board tied to the bottom of the copter, with some kind of tarp covering it, concealing what was on the board. David makes a comment about how they must already have the tiger and they missed all the excitement.
Before long, Jenny realizes where the convoy is going and she gets a shocked look. She tells David how the Smythe-Graves are good friends of her family. When they arrived, they had to park down the street, because Penward’s vehicles filled up and blocked the driveway.
They didn’t see a single person, but could hear voices coming from the backyard where the stable was. They go to the back and see that the center of attention seems to be the stable.
They approach the stable, but one of Bodycombe’s men, Ian Nolen, blocked their way and told them not to go in, no matter how much David pleaded. Jenny asked what happened and Ian explained that the tiger killed a women and a horse in there, and Jenny is shocked by the news.
Jenny asks about the kids and Ian explains that the boy was found, uninjured, and was now inside the house. Jenny says that there is also a little girl and Ian says that they haven’t found anybody else, but they did find a trail of blood leading up from the woods. He goes on to explain that they think the tiger attacked the pony there and then chased it up here, and that a group of Penward’s men were in the woods, searching for the rider of the pony.
Jenny is devastated that Fiona is probably dead as well, and Ian tells her that if she wants, she can go into the house and comfort the boy until someone comes to pick him up, since she’s a familiar face to him. She agrees to do it and takes off.
After she’s gone, David asks how the tiger was caught. Ian admits that he doesn’t know. He explains that Bodycombe is still trying to get the full story out of Penward. David looks over and sees Bodycombe yelling and shouting at Penward at the other end of the yard, but Penward keeps a straight face and doesn’t go above his normal calm voice.
Ian goes on to explain that all they know is that Penward’s men arrived in time to tranquilize the tiger before it killed the boy, but not before it got the mother. David make a comment about how they wasted no time in getting the tiger away from there. David once again gets the feeling that Penward is covering something up.
David looks over and see two men come out of the forest, carrying the body of Fiona. Ian states that there are now 6 victims and that they’ll have to shut Penward’s zoo down after this. David decides to go break the news to Jenny. As he walks across the yard, he hears the sounds of sirens heading in the direction of the house.
David walks in to find a police officer standing nearby with Jenny sitting next to the boy, who is drinking milk and is surprisingly very composed.
Simon asks when his mommy will be back and David realizes that the boy hasn’t yet grasped the situation. Jenny tells him that she doesn’t know, but his dad will be there soon. He asks where his sister is and Jenny looks at David, who closes his eyes and shakes his head. Jenny winces and tells Simon that she’s with his mommy.
Someone knocks on the door and the officer goes to let them in, knowing that it’s the ambulance. David asks Simon if he saw the Tiger, and Jenny gets mad at David for asking the question. David asks the boy if he minds, and the boy says no and then David says to Jenny that Simon doesn’t mind talking about the tiger, and then for Simon’s benefit he adds on ‘Plus he knows it was only make believe’.
This seems to infuriate Jenny and she threatens to never talk to him again if he doesn’t leave. David ignores her and asks Simon if he saw the tiger and Jenny gets to her feet and yells at David to get out. She starts pushing David out the door, and right before she slams the door in his face, Simon says he doesn’t mind talking about the tiger, but he knows it wasn’t a tiger, but a dinosaur.
An hour later David and jenny were heading back to town in Jenny’s jeep, and she is still furious at him for his questions. David tells her to ‘get real’. The boy wasn’t upset by the questions and if he had been, David wouldn’t have continued with them.
Jenny counters that by saying that by talking about it, he could have caused Simon to face reality before he was ready to. She then also adds that plus it was all for nothing, and David replies that he’s not so sure that it was.
Jenny reminds him that Simon said he saw a dinosaur, and David says that a giant tiger showing up in a backyard is fantastic enough that Simon wouldn’t have need to change it to a dinosaur in his mind, plus he seemed so calm and matter-of-fact about it. Jenny argues that he probably doesn’t even know what a dinosaur is, and that he just heard one being mentioned on TV or something. David then argues against that by saying that every little boy that age knows more about dinosaurs then most adults.
Jenny asks David if he believes Simon actually saw a dinosaur and David says that he believes that Simon believes he did, and that it was no Siberian Tiger and that Penward is definitely lying and covering something up. Jenny asks why Penward would do that and David states that that’s exactly what he wants to find out.
Jenny counties the argument by saying that Simon isn’t the only one fabricating stories. She states that David wants a big story so bad that he’s seeing one where there really isn’t. David states that it wasn’t his imagination that the prints were cleaned up back at the chicken farm, or that Penward’s men rushed the ‘tiger’ off before anyone else could see it.
Jenny finally gives in and admits that it does seem a bit odd, but the idea of Penward having a dinosaur is laughable. David explains that Penward is always financing expeditions around the world to bring him back dangerous, rare exotic animals. Maybe this time they brought back something, very rare.
Jenny laughs at him, saying that dinosaurs have been extinct for millions of years and the thought of them running around today is pure science-fiction. David states that he’s not saying that Penward has a dinosaur, just that he has a creature that resembles one. Jenny asks why he would be keeping it a secret and David suggests many theories that include Penward illegally smuggling it in, or stealing it from somewhere, or he just doesn’t want tons of news coverage on him.
Jenny admits that David is making it all sound logical, but ti seems so far-fetched, and they have no proof. David states that he’ll find the proof, even if he has to break into Penward’s zoo.
CHAPTER 6
2 weeks pass and during that time, every news crew in the country had been in Warchester and had since left. The story was still all over the news and the mayor of the town, Stanley Pitt (Jeremy’s father), stated that he would not rest until Penward is found guilty of manslaughter, however later that day dropped all charges and gave Penward a pat on the back for a job well done in capturing the tiger.
David and his friend Johnny MacGibbon, who is also a reporter for the same newspaper as David and Jenny, are in a local pub. David is complaining about Penward and how people like him who get away with everything, makes him sick. MacGibbon states that obviously someone was putting pressure on Stanley Pitt for him to have backed down suddenly. He goes on to say that if you’re rich, you can pretty much buy your way out of any crisis, in which David argues that that idea is stupid. MacGibbon tells David that he has a lot to learn, but its not just Penward’s money, but also his connections. MacGibbon then lists a bunch of examples of how far Penward’s connections really go. He then asks if David heard anything new about Penward’s zoo.
David states that Penward issued a statement saying that he’ll be increasing security around his zoo, putting a thicker wall on the outside and putting up electric fencing on the inside and that it would cost a fortune that would go towards whoever builds the fences and walls. MacGibbon tells David that Pitt’s security company is being paid to do it. He goes on to explain that there have been large cash deposits in the bank accounts of family members of the other victims, and since then, none have talked about the incidents. He also says how Bodycombe seems to have dropped his investigation as well.
David suggests that they work together and write a story on all this, blowing it all out of the water. He says that the important officials may be bought out, but the people of the town are still scared that another of his animals well get loose, no matter how many new fences he puts up. At the very least they could get his zoo closed down.
MacGibbon says to count him out, that going against Penward is suicide and he’s not going to waste his job on it. David is still convinced that the animal Penward had re-captured was not a Siberian Tiger, despite the fact that Penward revealed the dead body of one the day after it was supposedly re-captured.
David is mad that since the incident he hasn’t been able to sneak into Penward’s zoo, or even be aloud to join the other reporters that were invited there to see the tiger’s corpse.
David explains how he’s tried to contact the little boy that saw the creature, but he had been taken to another town and he couldn’t locate him. MacGibbon reminds David how their boss, Brownlowe had ordered them to leave the Penward case alone.
Jenny walks into the bar with Tony, the manager of the bank. David realizes that they’ve been seen together a lot in the past few days and that bothers him.
MacGibbon sees the look on David’s face and tells David that he’s making a mistake by letting her slip through his fingers and that it might not be too late to fix what he ended once before. David continues watching the pair, feeling jealous.
Jenny and David have hardly talked since the incidents and David knows that its mostly because of his questioning of the little boy, and partly because of as she called it ‘Outrageous conspiracies and theories.’
David sees jenny laugh at something that Tony says and David finishes his drink and tells MacGibbons that he has to run because he has an errand to run before he goes home.
Before long David was driving away from Warchester on the highway, heading for a pub called ‘The Phoenix Arms’, which was greatly used by Penward’s men on their time off.
3/26/2004 9:22:38 AM
Comment on this fan fiction!
|
|
|
