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X-Factor Chapter 22
By drucifer67
Lyndsey Cross sat down beside Alan Grant, looking him over with concern. His skin had become pale and colorless, like the husk of a cadaver. His eyes seemed deeper and darker than usual as they slowly sunk into the hollows of his skull. It didn't take a genius to see that Death was knocking at Dr. Alan Grant's door.
"How are you feeling?" she asked, even though the answer was obvious simply from the look on his face. What she wanted most was to break the tension between the two of them--tension that she had created. She felt a little ashamed at her standoffish, spiteful behavior.
Alan looked at her, his expression saying what his words did not: How the hell do you think I'm feeling?
"Anything I can do?" She added, trying a little harder to chip away the wall of ice her behavior--and years and distance--had built between them.
"Hire someone to shoot me."
She was thrown off track by the comment, and more so by the tone of his voice. He sounded completely serious, as if he were discussing a realistic option.
"It's not that bad," she soothed. "We'll get you out of here."
"In a bag, most likely," he retorted. "I can feel what's happening. I'm getting worse by the hour. It's a terrible idea to go through the valley on my account."
"We're not doing it just for you," Cross argued. "It was a group decision, based on the facts at hand. Don't flatter yourself quite so much, Doctor."
"I think from now on the rest of you need to stop considering my interests altogether."
"Nonsense. The antibiotics are going to begin to do their work--"
"Those antibiotics are only going to prolong the inevitable."
Lyndsey leaned close to him, for a split-second reliving a moment of some long-ago summer night. "You're not going to die," she whispered.
"What makes you so sure?" Alan responded. His voice was soft, as if he may have been touched by memories of his own.
"You're too damned stubborn to die," Dr. Cross smiled, and Alan couldn't help but smile with her.
"Besides," she went on, "if anything happened to you, I wouldn't have anyone to get me riled up and fighting mad."
"We haven't seen each other in years, Lyndsey," Alan countered. "I'm sure in that time you've had plenty of people who got you riled up and fighting mad."
Lyndsey sat back a bit, a shocked expression on her face. "Are you saying I'm too high-strung? Too quick to anger?"
"I'm saying it's been a long time," Alan said softly, sidestepping a potential disagreement with unusual deftness. "It seems natural that someone would have rubbed you the wrong way during all the years since I last saw you."
"You're right," she said gently. "It has been a long time."
Alan smiled weakly, secretly proud of his clever misdirection.
Lyndsey leaned closer. "That's another reason you can't die. We have a lot of catching up to do."
Alan nodded. "Plus you need me around."
"Do I?" she asked mockingly, her eyebrows raised.
"Of course," Alan nodded. "You need someone to treat like dirt."
"Well," Lyndsey said matter-of-factly, "there's always Rick. Although he's not nearly so handsome as you are."
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"Tell me something," Rick asked Lex suddenly, shattering the silence of the valley. The group had been afoot for just over two hours, and they were nearing the lowest point before beginning the gradual climb up the other side.
"Shoot," Lex said offhandedly.
"You had your mother on the phone yesterday, getting your grandfather's number. Why didn't you tell her what's going on, let her handle things from her end?"
"What could she have done?"
"She could have called Hammond, for one thing," Rick explained. "And I don't imagine she would have had the problems we're having with phone batteries."
Lex shrugged uncomfortably. "I…don't know. It didn't occur to me, I guess."
"She has always had a real problem asking Mom for anything," Tim cut in.
"That has nothing to do with--"
"You've got to be kidding," Rick said in disbelief. "We could have InGen's helicopters on the way right now if she didn't have issues with her mother? Is that what you're telling me?"
"No," Lex said emphatically. "He's wrong. I'm not that stupid."
"So you just didn't think of it," Tim said. "That's pretty stupid in itself."
Lex turned on Tim so quickly that he took another two steps before he realized she was swinging at him. The sound of her hand against Tim's cheek was like a gunshot in the stillness of the valley.
Rick stepped between them quickly. "Easy, easy, hold on now," he said gently.
"I came out here to save your sorry ass, Tim Murphy," Lex shrieked. "You could show a little gratitude!"
"You're doing such a fine job of it," Tim shouted back. "If it weren't for Rick and Dr. Grant--"
Lex lunged at him again, but Rick easily held her back. Alan, Lindsey, and Markinson had stopped walking and were watching the drama unfold. "Lex," Dr. Cross said softly.
"What?" Lex shouted.
"We appreciate what you're doing here, more than you will ever know. Tim's been under an incredible strain since Dr. Reilly was killed, and even more so since the helicopters didn't show up for the rendezvous."
Lex turned to look at Tim. "You need to watch what you say," she warned. "I didn't realize how little time we had left with the phone batteries, for starters, and it's not like Mom needed the strain of knowing we're both here now, rather than just you. It was bad enough when you didn't come back on time."
"Your mother's not well, Tim," Alan said, startling them both.
Tim turned to Alan. "Not well how?"
"Not well," Lex answered, "as in, she's been going through some kind of breakdown since you left to come here. Not well as in it got ten times worse when you weren't back home on schedule."
Lex turned to Alan, who looked incredibly frail and gaunt. His time was growing shorter, and it was the thought of Alan's predicament that brought the whole issue into focus for her. No matter what Tim or anyone else said or did, no matter how easy it was to fall back into the childish bickering that had so long been her role, she had a more important job to do. She was grown, and if there was ever a time to be mature, this was the time.
At last she turned back to Tim. He was looking away at Dr. Grant, too, and the expression on his face was eerily familiar to Lex. It was the expression she had felt on her own face just a moment before. Tim turned to his sister, and they stared at blankly at each other for a moment.
"I'm sorry," they said in unison.
"Christ, what a soap opera," Rick muttered.
"Shut up, Rick," Dr. Cross said softly.
Rick held his hands up and backed away from the Murphy siblings, leaving them to their own awkward moment.
"I hope you're not expecting a hug," Tim said.
"Hug me and I'll kick your ass," Lex laughed. She turned and resumed walking.
After a moment, Tim followed, sprinting to catch up. "Oh, come on, I was kidding, gimme a hug," he said, smiling.
It was good to be antagonizing his sister again.
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Alan Grant had never felt so tired. He felt as if he had been awake for days without rest, and someone had thrown in a good beating for good measure. He began to find himself snapping back from the edge of consciousness, with no real memory of the moments before. It was as if he was sleepwalking.
He had suffered some delusions, as well, and had experienced more than one hallucination. Earlier, at the lowest point in the valley, he had seen movement in the bushes to his right. Looking down, he immediately identified Greg Diamond, a student he had dismissed from a Montana dig site and who had later physically attacked him. Diamond was crouching in the bushes, grinning up at Grant and whispering, "I'm gonna get you, asshole!"
Alan, knowing it was his imagination, kicked at the bushes anyway.
Now he was watching movement in the forest to his left, perhaps fifty yards distant. It was hard to see clearly through the thick jungle cover, but he was pretty sure this was no figment of his imagination. He was pretty sure he was watching the quick, agile movements of a velociraptor.
He stopped and studied it, his heart racing, wondering whether he was seeing the deadliest predator on earth or a side effect of the poisons in his system.
Then he saw the slender, thick-skinned wings growing from the raptor's back, and sighed. He was relieved, partly because the raptor wasn't real, and partly because he hadn't called the others' attention to the phantom. He wasn't ready for them to know how badly his mind was being twisted.
He decided it would be best to look down at his feet. He lumbered along, near stumbling, watching the greenery rush by beneath his sodden, well-worn boots. His thoughts drifted off to better times, long ago and far away.
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Tim was the first to spot the tower in the distance. He pointed it out to the others, who stopped to look at the strange steel finger pointing skyward from the treetops. The tower was twisted severely out of shape, skewed off to the right by wind and storm or by the gargantuan inhabitants of Isla Sorna.
"That's the building, on the far side of the valley," Tim explained. "That radio tower is beside the building."
"Good," Rick said. "Now we only have to pray like hell there's a radio to go with it."
Tim was just about to remark that they had come through the dreaded Valley of the Shadow in one piece when he was interrupted by a peculiar cooing sound in the forest.
The noise reminded Lex of the pigeons that sometimes roosted outside her apartment window. She turned, half-expecting to see a handful of fat, oily birds waiting to be shooed away. Instead, she saw something that made her scream in shock.
The dinosaur stood on its hind legs, perhaps a foot shorter than Lex, with a long, thin neck, narrow forelimbs, and two odd crests on the top of its head. It trilled again, and Lex realized it sounded less like a pigeon than she had first thought.
"Dilophosaur!" Tim shouted. "Go! Run! Toward the building!"
Lex turned and bolted in the direction Tim was pointing. Rick, not sure why such a small dinosaur should be so terrifying, reached up for his rifle.
"No, Rick!" Dr. Cross warned. "Get moving! Now!"
Rick stood still, uncertain, then turned to catch up with Lex.
"They spit venom," Tim explained, running along beside him. "It's a neurotoxin. Paralyzes their prey."
"Nice," Rick said, already short of breath.
Tim turned to make sure Alan was keeping up. He was right behind, with Dr. Cross helping to hold him up. As Tim watched, Markinson dashed ahead of Grant and Cross, making no move to stop and help.
Tim circled around and took up position on Grant's side opposite Dr. Cross. He took Alan's arm, looped it limply across his own shoulders, and hoisted him up, taking some of the weight off of Cross.
The dilophosaur bounded after them, trilling and cooing.
"Faster, Tim," Lyndsey Cross said breathlessly.
Tim picked up the pace without a sound. He didn't want to waste any energy on a response, not even as much as a nod.
They were going slightly uphill, exacerbating the problem of Grant's helpless, dead weight.
Tim focused all his effort on hauling Alan Grant away from the small predator. He became so involved in the process of getting Grant out of harm's way that he didn't see his sister coming toward him.
She almost collided with them in her haste, and Tim realized she was near panic, pointing at the trail ahead where Rick stood, his rifle off his shoulder, watching something in the thick growth that was out of Tim's field of view.
Then came the all-too-familiar sound that Tim and the rest of Dr. Reilly's team had come to fear, the unearthly, triumphant shriek of a velociraptor moving in for the kill.
Rick dashed back a few steps and turned, slipping his rifle easily up to his shoulder and taking aim.
Then Tim and Lyndsey could see the velociraptors as well. There were three, and they all snapped their attention to Rick, the nearest target. Markinson was further from the group, off to Tim's right. He had stopped and was now lying prone on the ground.
The dilophosaur caught up to the group. With a horrid hiss, it began to strut around the small group as if searching for the exact person it hoped to eat.
The raptors stepped forward, snapping and growling and calling out for help.
Rick raised his rifle and placed the end of the barrel within a couple of inches of the smallest of the three raptors. Without hesitation, he squeezed the trigger.
The other two raptors howled their disapproval as the small predator went down.
The pursuing dilophosaur entered the fray then, sending Lex diving for cover.
The three remaining dinosaurs slowly circled the small cluster of humans cowering between them. The dilophosaur hissed at the raptors, as if to warn them that they were infringing on its hunting rights.
The raptors hissed in response, standing their ground.
The dilophosaur paused, blinking for a moment, then opened its jaw wide. It hissed and rattled, extending a thin, colorful frill from its neck.
The raptors hesitated.
A glut of thick, bluish-black substance issued from the dilophosaur's mouth and struck the lead raptor with a sickly wet sound.
The lead raptor threw its head back and shrieked to the sky, a sound of rage and agony and fear. The second raptor leapt forward without hesitation, bringing its great hind legs down in the dilophosaur's midsection. The smaller animal bleated weakly and thumped to the ground, its intestines spilling onto the lush jungle growth.
Rick took Lex by the hand and sprinted away toward the building. Markinson got to his feet and fell in with Tim and Lyndsey, who resumed the task of helping Alan keep his feet and keep pace.
The lead raptor rolled on the ground, still shrieking, pawing at its face with its forearms. The second raptor, satisfied that its smaller competitor was no longer a threat, turned to follow the group of humans.
Tim lost his footing and went down on one knee, spilling his half of Alan Grant's weight onto the forest floor. Alan went down hard. Lyndsey Cross looked back helplessly as the raptor rocketed toward them.
She was too stunned to react when it shot right past her.
Tim got to his feet quickly, helping Dr. Cross get Alan back to his feet and moving again. Ahead, the raptor was closing in on Rick. It seemed oblivious to everyone else.
Tim got his shoulder under Alan's arm on the right, and Lyndsey did the same on the left. They got underway again, loping along with the dying man between. Tim scooped up Alan's hat and put it back in its rightful place.
"Thanks, John," Alan said, punch-drunk and half-conscious.
Markinson stayed a few paces back, keeping the three of them between himself and the marauding predator.
Ahead, out of view, the raptor shrieked, then Lex screamed.
Tim let his half of the burden slump down as he broke free. He raced ahead, trying to get a look at what was happening to his sister.
Then the raptor began to issue the short, abrupt barks Tim knew so well. It had realized it couldn't take the humans down without help.
Tim sprinted through the growth, uncertain what might lie ahead. He was certain that he would find Lex dead, with the raptor standing over her body and looking back at him mockingly. Off to the side, a disemboweled Rick would be issuing his dying declaration.
Instead, Tim found something much more surprising.
The last raptor was standing still, its tail moving from side to side in short, measured strokes. A few feet ahead of the predator, Lex stood behind Rick, who had turned his rifle around and was threatening the carnivore with the weapon butt-first. He waved the rifle back and forth, occasionally thumping the raptor's snout in the process.
Tim slipped his own rifle off his shoulder and raised the scope to his eye. Under magnification, the back of the dinosaur's head looked as big as a sofa at this distance. He couldn't miss.
Suddenly the sound came again of a raptor calling for help--but this time it was behind Tim and off to his left.
The velociraptor in the rifle's scope broke off its menacing standoff with Rick and darted away into the forest.
The dinosaur disappeared into the dense growth. The forest fell silent again, but Rick held his position for several moments, with the rifle butt waving shakily in the air in front of him.
"Hey," Tim called as he approached, "that thing works better if you point it the other way."
Rick slowly lowered his rifle. "Ammo," he said, breathless and terrified. "Thought I checked it at lunch."
He looked at the rifle stupidly, as if he had never seen one before, then dropped it on the ground. He sank to his knees, overwhelmed by the tension of the preceding minutes.
Lex knelt beside him, holding him awkwardly, speaking soothingly into his ear.
Tim came to Rick and put a hand on his shoulder. "It's alright, now," he said gently. "But we have to get moving. They'll be back, and there will be a lot more of them."
Lyndsey Cross and Don Markinson came into view, with Alan Grant hanging limply between them. "Tim! Lex!" Cross called. "I think he's lost consciousness!"
Tim took over for Dr. Cross, and he and Markinson dragged the incoherent Grant through the tall grass as the group continued their trek across the last hundred yards or so of their journey through the valley.
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3/31/2003 5:55:57 PM
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