Dr. Alan Grant's Arc

Chapter 11 of 11

Grant ran left down the corridor with the girl in his arms. Ellie came behind him with the boy. Malcolm limped last, one hand on the wall, cane striking tile. The bellow of the horned animal rolled from the lobby behind them, wet and huge in the speakers. Grant counted doors. The service exit sign glowed at the far end. Forty feet. Thirty. He heard the recording loop back to its start and knew the clip was short. When it ended the lobby would go quiet, and two raptors would smell the corridor and come. He reached the service door and shoved the bar. It opened onto a concrete pad behind the building. Night air. Diesel smell. A cargo container sat on the pad with its doors half open, corrugated sides streaked with rust. A staging bin for park supplies. Grant saw it and made his decision in one breath. The car lot was too far. The trees were too far. The container was ten steps. "Inside," he said. He set the girl down and pushed her toward the container. Ellie went with the boy. Malcolm dragged himself over the lip and collapsed against the back wall. Grant hauled the first door shut, then the second, and caught the interior latch with his fingers before the bolt fell. He held the doors closed from inside and pressed his ear to the seam. The lobby speakers cut off mid-bellow. Silence rolled through the building and out the open service door behind them. Grant held his breath. For three seconds there was nothing. Then a claw scraped concrete. One raptor. Then a second set, lighter, circling. They had followed the scent through the corridor and out onto the pad. Grant felt the girl's hand grip his belt. He did not move. The puppy inside his jacket stayed still, as if it understood. A snout pushed the container door. The steel shifted an inch against Grant's palms. He braced his boots on the floor ribs and held. The raptor pushed again, harder, testing. Grant heard the wet click of its jaw working. He remembered his own paper. They test doors. They find the weak ones. This door had no lock he could reach. Something enormous moved on the pad. The ground took the weight of it through the container floor, into Grant's knees. A low chest sound, not a roar, a warning. The raptor at the door froze. Grant heard it scrabble backward. Then both raptors broke and ran. A heavier tread followed them, three strides, four, and the sounds moved off around the side of the building and were gone. Grant kept his hands on the doors a long time before he let go. He turned to the others in the dark of the container. "We wait," he said. "Until it moves off for good. Then we find a vehicle." The girl nodded against his side. Outside, somewhere past the loading pad, the tyrannosaur was hunting again.