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Island of Chaos - Chapter Three
By Nick Van Owen
PARK
Two weeks after Merrick's conference meeting with Hammond he took a trip down to his park saying that he wanted to make sure everything was Okay.
As the helicopter carrying Merrick landed, a visitor jeep drove up to pick him up.
" Where to sir?" the driver asked as he slowed down to turn on one of three roads.
" Uh, bring me to the control centre," Merrick replied looking at his laptop checking his stocks.
The jeep arrived at the control centre, a three story building with powerful computers running the parks systems.
Jeremy walked up the concrete steps leading to the doorway. Inside was a huge room with three monitors, a computer, phone, and several buttons.
" All systems are online sir," said Michael Johnston, a black man from Florida; he had been working with computers since he was 23. " There’s only one problem."
" What’s that?" asked Merrick looking at a monitor.
" One juvenile stegosaurus is sick," Mike said. " Do you want me to send Jackson to it?"
" Of course, each dinosaur costs half a million dollars to create; we can’t afford to lose an animal!" Merrick replied. " I want a team out in the stegosaurus paddock right now and I’m going with them!"
The red and grey Jeep sped through the foliage, carrying veterinarian “Jaws” Jackson, Merrick, a French man named Pierre and “ Harpoon” Harrison, the animal handler. Merrick looked at his Global Tracking System (GTS). " Where are the animals?" he asked.
" Over there," Harrison told him pointing into the jungle. The jeep emerged into a small field where a large greenish-brown animal laid on its side wheezing. It was a very large animal with a long row of bony triangular plates, and on its tail were four, long, sharp spikes. Its head was small with a little beak and it usually walked on all fours.
" When’s the cage coming?" Merrick asked looking at the animal.
" When we tranquilize the Stegosaurus," Harrison answered, " Now let’s go!" The four got out of the jeep carrying tranquilizer guns.
THOOM! One of the darts went into the Stegosaurus’ neck, knocking it unconscious in a few seconds. Harrison grabbed a radio and spoke into it, " Hey Turner, you there? Ok, the Stegosaurus is ready, get over here now with the restraint cage!"
Ten minutes later Two Humvees appeared, one carried an enormous cage on a trailer behind it. Two men jumped out of the truck and took a crane attached onto the second Hummer over to the dinosaur and put it into the whale stretcher hooked to the crane. The crane lifted the dinosaur into the cage. Turner closed the cage top and got into the Humvee. Pierre got into the cage along with the Stegosaur to give it a dose of an anaesthetic in case it woke up during the drive to the veterinarian clinic. Turner then turned the Hummer on and started to drive to the clinic.
" We aren’t following the original path we came," Merrick said to Jackson while they drove in the jeep along with Harrison.
" Well, the clinic is in the other direction... through the carnotaurus paddock," Jackson said, his last words sounding a little regretful.
" The carnotaurus?" Merrick asked, puzzled, " What kind of dinosaur is that?"
" A carnivore, six metres high, nine metres long, walks on its hind legs, and it has two horns above its eyes, and smaller ones along its back," Turner replied. " Look out for one, they’re an amazing site to see, frightening though and also quite dangerous, but also amazing."
" What will we do if we come across one?"
" Run," Harrison told him. " Have you seen any animal attacks?"
" No, but I saw the mauled bodies of those four photographers a month ago," Merrick answered, " What attacked them again? Velociraptor or something, I think."
" Yeah, velociraptor or raptor, whichever you prefer. They’re probably the most intelligent and dangerous animals on this island," Harrison told him.
Merrick sat back and looked at the humvee. " Do we have a picture of the carnotaurus?"
" Yeah, in the back there’s a binder with illustrations," Jackson replied. Merrick reached back and grabbed a black binder with the Jurassic Park logo on it. He flipped through the pages and found it. The picture showed the dinosaur chasing a bird-like creature. The carnotaur had reddish skin with black stripes. It looked familiar to him, he wondered what it reminded him of... a demon. Suddenly the Jeep stopped and Merrick looked up to see Turner opening a gate that led into the carnotaur paddock. He swore to himself and thought: I never should have gone with them.
Jackson closed the gate after the two vehicles got into the paddock. I’m in Hell, I got to get out of this place, Merrick thought.
The two vehicles followed a dirt path through the jungle, Merrick looked from side to side looking for the carnotaur, but he was unsuccessful. He then saw the exit only a km away. Maybe nothing will happen, he thought.
Suddenly a large monster emerged from the foliage, knocking over the cage with Pierre and the stegosaurus just as he was about to give it another dose of anaesthetic. The stegosaurus was starting to wake up. The cage was on its side and Pierre lay under the stegosaurus’ head. He looked at his left arm; there was a strange pain in it. He noticed the anaesthetic syringe sticking out of his arm. CRASH! The monster’s head crashed through the cage bars, its jaws clenched a chunk of the stego’s flesh and tore it from the body. The stegosaurus’ head fell limp onto Pierre’s lap as its blood trickled down its body onto Pierre’s leg.
“ Oh my god, the carnotaur!” Merrick yelled. “ We’ve got to help him!”
“Get the guns!” Turner yelled.
Harrison reached for the shotgun in the back and got out of the Jeep. Merrick, Turner and Jackson followed.
The two men in the hummer stayed behind watching the carnotaur with the vehicle’s side mirrors.
Turner took a rocket launcher from the humvee and caught up to Jackson and Harrison.
“Are you going to shoot it?” asked Merrick.
“Hell yeah,” Turner replied, “you want to live don’t you?”
Pierre had to think fast if he wanted to survive. He thought if he timed his moves perfectly he would make it out without a scratch.
The carnotaur bent down and bit into the stegosaurus again. It lifted its head out, Pierre decided to go now. He crawled along the side of the cage towards the opening, cautiously looking at the carnotaur coming back down; he’d have to wait a little longer.
Turner walked around the vehicles, behind the dinosaur and into the woods. He needed to stay camouflaged if he was going to kill the carnotaur.
The head came down again. It was now only four feet away from Pierre. It took another bite and went up again. Pierre crawled onto the stegosaurus and up to the opening in the cage. His hand felt the bloody wound; he jerked it away with disgust. He stood through the opening glancing up at the carnotaur swallowing the ragged flesh of the stegosaurus. He gripped a bar and hoisted himself out of the cage and then crawled down it. The carnotaur growled, Pierre stopped, frozen with fear. Pierre looked up at it; it was staring right at him. “Merde,” he muttered. He jumped off the cage and onto the ground falling on his stomach. The carnotaur lunged at him, its jaw opened and teeth exposed. Pierre scrambled to his feet but the snout of the dinosaur hit him knocking him back to the ground. It bit into Pierre’s right leg and lifted him into the air.
Pierre screamed in pain. He hoped that a miracle would occur and save him. The carnotaur carried him into the woods.
“Damn it!” Turner murmured under his breath. “Guys, follow me!” Jackson, Merrick and Harrison ran into the woods with Turner following the carnotaur.
They stopped next to a clearing remaining two feet in the jungle. They peered through the foliage, there were two carnotaurs hovering over a nest of four baby carnotaurs and three eggs. One of the adults were a mixture of red and orange with two small horns emerging above its eyes, with black stripes along its back, probably the female, Merrick thought. The infants were relatively similar with stubs instead of horns. The male was different though, it was greyish-black with red stripes, its horns were large and it was a couple feet taller than the female, and a little larger.
“Stay here,” Turner said, “I’m going to go around to the other side, Harrison, you stay here.”
“Sure,” Harrison replied.
“You’re going to kill it, right?” Merrick asked pointing to the female, it was holding Pierre.
“Yes,” Turner said. Merrick flinched at that word. “You want it dead don’t you?” Turner paused, eyeing Merrick, “Or would you rather a dinosaur live than your fellow man?”
Merrick stood silent for a moment. “Kill it.”
“That’s what I thought,” Turner said walking away.
“Damn,” muttered Merrick.
The male carnotaur bit into Pierre’s left leg. Pierre screamed in pain as the dinosaurs played tug-o-war with him.
His right leg was suddenly torn from his torso in a bloody mess; the male won the game. Blood dripped into the nest, the babies yelped with delight as they lapped the puddles of blood up. The female swallowed the severed leg, Pierre felt like he was going to pass out. He felt himself being lowered towards the nest, a baby nipped at his fingers, he was surprised at how it was able to draw blood, suddenly a second one nipped at his fingers severing two off. He screamed in pain. Suddenly he realized he would be killed and eaten by the infants so he relaxed as best he could despite his injuries. The male’s head abruptly snapped upwards, Pierre felt his leg break, the dinosaur’s head swung around and faced the foliage puzzled, and Pierre started to drift into a sleep. Suddenly he heard a gunshot and snapped back to reality. He looked up at his leg as it suddenly disappeared in a cloud of blood along with the carnotaur’s head. Pierre dropped to the ground next to the nest and fell unconscious. The female, startled ran into the woods leaving the infants.
“What the hell are you doing?” Merrick yelled out to Turner. “I wanted you to kill it, not obliterate it!”
“I killed it didn’t I?” Turner questioned coming out of the woods with the rocket launcher. “And what else is a rocket going to do? Besides, look at its foot.”
They all bent down and inspected the headless carcass’ feet; flies had begun to buzz around it. Each dinosaur on the island had a tag number on its foot, the female had JP 26 on its foot. The male had nothing on its feet.
“So what does this mean?” Merrick asked.
“There are dinosaurs on this island that we don’t know about. This carnotaur is one of them,” Jackson said. Jurassic Park let the dinosaurs breed in the wild to save money but they had to tag the dinosaurs daily to keep a record of how many there were.
“Why didn’t the sensors pick it up?” Merrick asked.
“They only sense the computer chip in the tag.”
“What about the video cameras?”
“We must have always thought it was tagged.”
“Well pay more attention next time. Get a list of all the species and how many there are of them by this Sunday.”
“Why this Sunday?”
“The park opens next Sunday, the tourists will want to know that kind of information,” Merrick said. “And take all the eggs to the hatchery by Saturday.” He turned and walked towards the vehicles.
The remaining three turned to Pierre’s legless corpse; the infant carnotaurs were chewing on his flesh.
“Leave him, there’s nothing more we can do,” Turner said. The three turned and went back to the jeeps.
2/28/2002 4:10:41 PM
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