|
Primal Prey: Chapter 12
By Strider_Aragorn
Chapter 12
Lights out
CF1, Area 52, January 2000
Laurel Daniels trembled in fear. She was sitting on her desk, facing the door, the only door out of CF1. She and the other eight people in the room just watched. Then came another bang. This time, the door rattled. The dinosaurs outside were getting closer. There were more than one, Laurel could hear different snorts and rumbles. That ruled out the tyrannosaur, and, naturally, the mamanchisaur. The metriacanthosaurs were docile unless provoked. That left the raptors and the dilophosaurs. Either one was deadly, the nine humans didn’t stand a chance. Laurel exhaled heavily.
It was lucky Dodgson had the blast doors installed. It meant that the animals outside couldn’t get in—yet. A few minutes ago, Laurel had heard someone outside on the radio. That person was now presumably dead. Apparently, when Y2K struck, the doors had automatically locked, the fences were shut down, and the dinosaurs escaped.
Laurel couldn’t get the image of the raptor looking up at the fence-light with one second to go before … Laurel couldn’t bring herself to think it. The security guard she knew would be dead.
She inhaled again. She felt stinging in her eyes as she fought back tears. Let them flow, she thought. It would be the last time she would ever cry. She would never live to be married, to have a family, to own a dog, to live in her own house … she shook herself mentally. She was going to live. She was a strong, twenty-five-year old blonde in good shape. She could outrun anything, she could beat anything, and she had more experience than these dinosaurs.
She wiped the tears from her face as the door rattled again. She sat up in her white lab coat. She looked at the walls. Well, she thought, at least if I die I’ll never have to look at these white walls again.
There was another bang. Suddenly someone exclaimed.
“Hey,” said Harold, one of the technicians, “There’s a stairwell here”
Shocked, Laurel jumped to her feet. “How’d you find it?” she asked.
“Someone’s comin’ up the stairs,” replied Harold.
“Harry, are you sure it’s a human?”
“Positive, Laurel. Man’s shoes by the sounds of it”
There was another bang. The door rattled violently. Then, a man appeared at the top of the stairs leading underground. It was Dodgson.
“Get the hell down here!” he ordered. The door banged. It smashed open. One wolf-sized brown animal tumbled through the doorway. Beyond the doorframe stood four Velociraptor.
“Now!” shrieked Dodgson. Everyone sprinted down the stairs after Dodgson. As they neared the end of the stairs, Laurel heard the raptors in pursuit. At the bottom of the stairs was a trap-door with a window on it. Dodgson jumped down and held it open for everyone as they flew down, then slammed it shut and spun the wheel on the door, locking it.
Laurel looked through the portal on the trapdoor. The lead raptor hit the door. As it got back up, the second one slammed into the first and knocked it down again. Laurel almost laughed. Then the first raptor got up and snarled up the stairs. Three answering calls came. Laurel, thinking the raptor was summoning more troops, was surprised when the two raptors on the stairs started quarrelling.
“They sent the others to find a way in,” said Dodgson softly. “They’re distracting us”
“There must be another way in, right?” asked Laurel, “I mean, how’d you get in?”
“Another door, disguised. It’s in the ground, big enough to fit a jeep in it. Through that was another door like that one,” he nodded at the trapdoor locking the raptors out. “I had it installed just in case something like this happened”
“Good call, boss,” said Harold.
“Is the other door locked?” asked Jake.
“Yes, I locked it on the way in”
Laurel surveyed her surroundings for the first time. They were in a low-roofed cavern with all sorts of big steel boxes. This must be used for junk, Laurel thought. Just then lights flicked on. Laurel checked her watch: 0:12. It didn’t take long for the computers to climb back onto their feet, she thought.
Outside, the raptors on the stair snorted and looked back up the steps. Then looked at each other, and made noises. It got everyone’s attention. They all watched the two raptors trying ducking and snarling, each noise louder than the last. Then there was a dull resounding thud from across the cavern. Laurel snapped her head around to see the other raptors standing at a door just like the trapdoor, only vertical.
The raptors roared, a terrible sound lost in time only to be released again, unleashed upon the world again. It was horrible; it was fury, frustration and wild naturalness. Somehow, it seemed right. The two raptors on the stairs stopped roaring. They curled their lips back, revealing teeth, then snarled ferociously, and began trying to smash the door down.
5/7/2003 4:58:19 AM
Comment on this fan fiction!
|
|
|
