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X-Factor Chapter 26
By drucifer67
Jurassic Park: X-Factor
Chapter 26
Alan awoke to sun glaring in long slanted strokes through the observation windows and to the sound of raptors calling.
They had barked to each other at varying intervals throughout the night, calling from every direction. He thought it odd that they would call almost continuously as they had done, but could think of no explanation.
The others were already awake, with the exception of Tim, who lay flat on stomach with his face buried in his pack.
"Good morning," Dr. Cross said softly.
He turned to see her sitting only a few feet away, with arms crossed atop her drawn-up knees. It was the sort of completely unselfconscious position one might expect from a girl in high school.
"Good morning," he replied. He waved a hand toward the windows, indicating the raptor calls echoing in the distance. "How long has that been going on?"
"They started again at sunrise," Lyndsey answered.
"I wonder what the hell they're up to?"
"Massing for an attack?"
Alan shook his head. "Doesn't make sense. They've called long enough to have every raptor on the island gathered here by now. Seems like overkill, having an entire extended pack involved in hunting a handful of humans."
Lyndsey nodded agreement. "True enough, I suppose."
"How big is the extended group, anyway? Any estimates?"
"Based on the data we've collected, there could be as many as seventy."
Alan nodded. "So they're surely not gathering together on our account."
"That leaves us without an explanation," Lyndsey said. "I'd rather make something up."
"That's bad science," Alan grinned.
"I'm not a scientist today. I'm a middle-aged broad who's scared to death."
Alan laughed and began to look around as if searching for something in the room.
"What?" Lyndsey asked.
"My hat," he said questioningly. "Have you seen it?"
"No," she answered, biting her bottom lip.
"You've always hated that hat, even back in college. You tossed it out the window, didn't you?"
"Please!" she said with mock indignation, swatting at him playfully. "I would never disrespect another person's property, no matter how much I hate it."
Alan stared at her doubtfully. "Well, then," he said at last, "I suppose I must have sent it to the cleaners while I was in a stupor yesterday."
"Dr. Grant!" Lex said excitedly. "Good morning!"
"Good morning, Lex," Alan replied.
"Has Dr. Cross told you the news?"
"News?"
"Yeah, you know," Lyndsey said, smiling, "previously unknown information. Like they have on CNN."
Alan cast her a quick, disdainful glance, then turned his attention back to Lex. "What's the news?"
"Rick contacted someone in Costa Rica last night."
Alan nearly jumped to his feet. "Who? When? When will they be here?"
"Easy, there, old timer," Lyndsey advised.
"There's a little bad news that goes with it," Rick added. "The InGen barge that brought us here has apparently been seized by the Costa Rican government. And the individual I talked to was none too happy to hear that there were people on Isla Sorna. We're probably going to spend some time in court once we get off the island."
Alan nodded rapidly. "I think it will be worth it. When can we expect them?"
"That's the other thing," Lex answered. "We lost the signal before we could ask them for the particulars. But Rick managed to transmit our coordinates, according to some charts he found in the radio room."
"So at least they know where we are," Rick added.
Alan looked around at the others. "Okay. We don't know when to expect help, but at least we know we can expect it."
"Things are looking up," Dr. Cross said, and pointed at a place just above Alan's head, near the computer workstations.
Looking up, he spotted his hat.
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They were in the middle of breakfast when the raptors arrived in force.
Tim noticed them through the window, racing toward the building in a great river of hungry flesh. There was no way of counting them all, but a good guess would have put their number at twenty.
"Shit," he said. All eloquence had drained out of him along with the color in his face.
"What is it?" Alan asked, knowing what the reply would be.
Tim was unable to answer at first, his throat constricted with terror. Finally, he squeaked out the one word that everyone else in the group was expecting and dreading:
"Raptors."
As if on cue, the first of the raptors struck the entry door with a bang. The door moved visibly on its hinges.
Alan got to his feet and brandished his rifle. "Get back!" he shouted, leading the others as far away from the door as possible.
He squeezed the trigger and the rifle bucked in his hands. A small hole appeared in the heavy door, and he found the squeal from the other side unbelievably satisfying.
The sounds of the raptors communicating outside the door were chilling. They grunted and hissed and howled, and Alan was certain they were formulating their plan of attack.
The door thumped again, shuddering violently in its frame. Then all was still.
After a moment, the door banged once more.
"They're smart," Rick said. "They're too damn smart."
"They're spacing out their attacks," Alan agreed. "So we won't know when to shoot."
Lex shuddered, a chill going up her back.
The raptors continued to charge the door, striking like battering rams against the heavy steel, and it was clear that the hinges would not hold up much longer.
Then, as suddenly as the attack had begun, it stopped.
The raptors called out, and Alan thought he might have heard something unusual in these calls. The sound resembled fear.
For several long, excruciatingly slow moments, there was silence. The raptors had either fled or had gone aside to regroup. Either way, the empty quiet they left in their wake was eerie.
Then, slowly building through the silence, Tim noticed a new sound. He wasn't certain, at first, what he was hearing, but as it grew closer, there could be no doubt.
"Hear that?" He asked, grinning.
"What?" Lex asked.
"Damn right I hear it!" Rick said ecstatically, leaping to his feet. "Come on, gather up, we're going to the roof!"
Alan heard it then, too, the unmistakable bass thump thump thump of rotors slicing the air.
"Is that a helicopter?" Lyndsey asked, her eyes suddenly alight.
"You win the prize, lady," Rick answered. He took Lex's hand on impulse and headed toward the stairs, which Don Markinson was already ascending two at a time.
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Rick stepped onto the roof, with Lex right behind him, just as the helicopter was settling onto the pad. Markinson, moving more quickly than he had since Rick had hired him, was already halfway to the landing area.
Rick motioned for Lex to go ahead, then turned to make sure Alan and the others made it to the roof safely.
Dr. Cross stepped onto the roof, then Dr. Grant. Tim came up last, watching behind him to make sure the raptors hadn't broken through and resumed pursuit.
Rick turned toward the helicopter, then froze.
Markinson stood ten feet or so from the chopper, his hands hanging limply at his sides. Lex was running toward the pad with her head down in an effort to shield her face from the wind generated by the spinning rotors. The helicopter pilot had stepped out of the cockpit and onto the pad.
He was pointing a pistol at Markinson.
They expected to be arrested and charged with violation of the Isla Sorna quarantine order, but this was too much.
Rick took his rifle in both hands and dropped to his belly on the gravel surface of the roof. Through the scope, the chopper pilot was the size of a bull elephant at this range, an easy target.
With his finger on the trigger, he hesitated.
Something about this whole scene was wrong, and he knew it. The group was here illegally, but the threat of deadly force was overkill.
He studied the pilot through the scope, deciding that if the bastard made a wrong move, he was history.
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Alan couldn't believe what he was seeing.
The chopper pilot had drawn a pistol and was pointing it at Don Markinson's chest.
Turning back, he saw that Rick had taken a prone position on the roof and was aiming at the pilot.
Tim was firing through the rooftop doorway toward the second floor, apparently fending off pursuers.
And the worst of it all was the thing that had landed on the roof.
It looked instantly familiar to him--after all, he had seen one in the forest two days earlier, but had dismissed it at the time as delusion.
Now he saw it for what it was--a product of InGen's horrible genetic mistakes.
For the most part, it could have passed for any velociraptor on the island, but one look at its back and upper forelimbs told a different story.
Two nodules of flesh protruded from its back on either side, like the dead, mutated raptor Tim had described to them before. From the protrusions grew a pair of large, leather-like wings that flapped loosely about the raptor's upper body. The tips of the wings were joined to the creature's wrists.
Alan, as well as many of his colleagues, had often postulated that many species of dinosaurs had developed the ability to fly through the course of evolution. The abomination he saw before him, though, was nothing like it should have been. Evolution had been cheated and truncated, and this creature had taken some unearthly shortcuts on its way up the food chain.
The bizarre animal hovered at the edge of the roof, flapping its foul wings violently in an effort to say aloft.
Then it turned its attention to Tim.
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Lyndsey Cross ran. She didn't consider herself athletic in the least, but she thought she was doing pretty well. Alan ran beside her, and from the way he was moving, it was hard to believe that he had ever been deathly sick just days before.
Then he stopped all at once, looking back toward the opening in the roof.
She stopped, too, but he motioned for her to keep moving. He raised his rifle, and then she saw the thing that had stopped him, the horrid winged biped that was menacing Tim.
As she watched, he aimed carefully squeezed the trigger.
The first shot missed the target entirely. The second either hit or came close, because the creature hissed and hesitated.
There was no third shot. Alan cast the empty rifle aside.
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The raptors had finally managed to break through to the second floor and were now fighting their way up the stairs. In the confined stairwell, they made easy targets, and Tim found he was almost enjoying picking them off like flies. He had killed two and was taking aim at the third when something caught his eye.
Just as he looked up, the mutated raptor swooped down on him, knocking him off balance. He went down hard, slamming into the rough gravel surface and skidding a few feet before coming to rest against the six-inch-high concrete border of the roof.
The raptor hovered for a moment, looking Tim over as if choosing the best place to sink its claws.
Tim stared at the raptor, his mind racing as he tried to concoct a way out of this deadly situation.
At last, the raptor shrieked and dove.
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Rick watched the situation on the chopper pad with keen interest. He wasn't sure what was happening there, but he was glad to see that Lex had stopped a few paces away from the tense, dangerous standoff.
Rick took his eyes away from the rifle's scope long enough to look back and see what was causing all the commotion behind him. There he saw Tim lying on his back, in imminent danger of attack from a …thing.
He gathered up his rifle and took aim just as the flying thing dove down on Tim. He brought the gun up quickly and squeezed the trigger.
It was only when nothing happened that he realized that in his haste to reach the roof, he had picked up the wrong weapon.
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Tim did the only thing he could think to do. As the raptor dove, he rolled to his left, onto his belly. He felt a sharp, burning sensation in his back, down near his waist, but he kept going, rolling over several times before finally coming to a stop.
The raptor, having only scratched its target, struck the loose gravel and slid. It fought for a moment to keep its balance, then once again took wing.
Tim watched helplessly, unable to get to his feet before the raptor returned. It took its hovering position again, and Tim was dreadfully certain that the thing wouldn't be fooled again so easily. In a panic, he turned his head first left then right, searching for a defensive weapon or a way out.
What he saw was Rick.
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Still carrying the damaged gun, Rick bolted across the roof, kicking up small bits of gravel as he sprinted. Tim's attacker had struck the roof and slipped, but had quickly recovered and was now taking to the air again.
Rick slipped on the gravel as he slid to a stop, and it took some effort not to overbalance and fall. When he finally came to a stop, his feet were apart and the rifle was slung back over his shoulder.
He looked like a ballplayer coming up to bat.
Without hesitation, he swung the rifle in a wide, high arc, missing Tim's attacker altogether. The move got the thing's attention, though, and that was enough.
The raptor withdrew a few feet, reassessing the situation. It looked from Tim to Rick and back as if deciding between them.
Tim seized the opportunity and fast-crawled to where his rifle had landed in the initial attack. He got to his knees and collected the rifle, then spun around quickly. He pointed the weapon wildly, taking no aim, and fired.
The raptor's upper thigh exploded in a gush of blood and meat. The thing climbed higher into the sky, shrieking in agony. It flew a short distance away from Rick, off the roof and out over the surrounding clearing.
Tim took the time to aim the second shot, placing a slug directly between the two deformed lumps of flesh from which the raptor's wings had sprouted.
The wings flapped once, then, twice, and then the flying abomination returned to the place where nature had intended it to be. It fell in eerie silence, disappearing from view alongside the building.
Tim could feel the burning sensation in his lower back as he went to Rick, who was just getting to his feet. Rick nodded affirmation that he was okay, then motioned that they should both get to the chopper.
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Ian Malcolm stepped off the helicopter and joined Will Bradford. "I ah, I take it this is the one?"
"This is the one," Bradford answered, still holding his gun on Markinson. "Looks a little different from his file photo, but this is the guy. I was just discussing how, if he'd hand over his backpack, I wouldn't have to kill him."
Markinson held his backpack in one hand, as if debating whether to hand it over or make a break for it.
Then, something in the distance caught Malcolm's eye, and he looked across the roof to see Tim lying flat on his back. Some sort of flying dinosaur hovered above him.
"TIM!" he screamed, but hesitated a moment before moving.
Bradford glanced away in the direction Malcolm was looking, toward Tim and Rick and the strange flying raptor.
A glance was all the opportunity Markinson needed. He swung his pack hard in a broad, sweeping arc, striking the side of Bradford's head and sending him sprawling.
Markinson leapt on Bradford, pinning him easily to the roof in his dazed state.
Their eyes locked, and the two men stared at each other for a long moment. At last, they both looked away simultaneously to Will's left--to the place where his pistol had come to rest.
Markinson drew his head back and slammed it down hard in the middle of Bradford's face, shattering his nose and sending up a great spray of blood. He rolled off of the wounded man and scooped up the pistol.
Ian stepped forward to intercept, but he was a bit too late. Markinson waved the pistol about wildly, pointing it at Malcolm and Bradford by turns.
"Okay, hotshot," Bradford said breathlessly, spitting blood. "Now what?"
Markinson looked at Bradford uncertainly.
"I've been through your file. You're no pilot. How you gonna get home?"
Markinson pointed the gun at Bradford. Ian could see the uncertainty in the man's eyes, and the gun in his hand was shaking perceptibly.
"You're going to fly me home," Markinson said, his voice faltering.
Will Bradford, his face a mess of blood, threw his head back and laughed.
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Rick noticed the deep gouge in Tim's lower back and stopped him. A flap of skin was hanging loose from the wound, but there was remarkably little blood. The raptor's claw hadn't gone very deep; most of the tissue it had cut through was fat.
Rick took Tim's rifle and motioned for him to go ahead to the helicopter.
Tim hesitated, but he accepted. He had been through enough.
Rick then turned to guard the rooftop exit while the others made their escape to the chopper.
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Tim met Lex halfway to the pad. They were running for the chopper at full speed when he saw Markinson, stupid Markinson, punch the helicopter pilot, getting them all into even more trouble with the authorities.
Then he saw Ian Malcolm.
He slowed a little as he stared in confusion. He couldn't figure why Dr. Malcolm had come with the Costa Rican rescue party. Something here didn't make sense.
Then he was distracted by movement off to his left, and froze altogether.
The flying creature that had attacked him was not one of a kind, he realized, as two more landed on the roof, cutting off Dr. Grant's escape.
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"You'll fly or you'll die," Markinson said menacingly. His voice was decisive now, and all indications of doubt and hesitation were gone. He knew he had the upper hand.
"Then shoot me, stupid," Will challenged. "You can stay here and live like Robinson Crusoe for the rest of your life. Either way, you're not leaving this island with that pack."
Markinson sneered. It was the angry, petulant expression of a child who had been teased to the breaking point by the bigger kids. He reached up with his thumb and deliberately drew back the pistol's hammer, cocking it with an audible click.
The sound broke Ian's hypnosis. He leapt at Markinson, his hands held high, pitching forward.
He thumped into Markinson, bringing them both down in a heap on the gravel surface. The gun discharged as they struck the roof. At the edge of his field of view, Ian saw Will Bradford collapse.
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