Dr. Alan Grant's Arc

Chapter 4 of 11

The glass doors shut behind them and the noise of the island cut off. Grant stopped in the lobby and put his hand on the boy's shoulder. The girl still held the puppy tight against her chest. The woman in the pink shirt slid a bolt across the door. The gray-haired man leaned on his cane and watched Grant, not the door. Grant did not know either of them. He kept the children a step behind him. "Who are you," Grant said. It was not a question. The woman turned from the bolt. Up close he saw her face and knew her. Blonde hair pulled back, dirt on her collar, a cut above one eyebrow. Ellie Sattler. He had not seen her in this shirt, in this light, and for a second his brain had refused it. She said his name. She said the children's names. She said she had watched him cross the grass from the window and had counted three of them and run for the door. The man with the cane did not offer a name. He said one anyway. Malcolm. He said it flat, like a man handing over a receipt. His pant leg was cut open at the thigh and packed with a folded towel. Blood had come through the towel and dried. Grant looked at the leg and then at the cane and then at the door Malcolm was standing between him and. "He's with me," Ellie said. "He came in on the second tour car. The leg is from the fence, not from a bite. He has been helping me move furniture against the east doors for an hour." She pointed down a hall. Grant looked. A copier and two desks were shoved against a set of glass doors at the far end. The barricade was low. A raptor would come over it. Grant made the call. He crouched to the boy's height and told him Ellie was a friend, that the man with the cane was a friend too, and that they were going to help stack more things against the far doors. The girl set the puppy down on the tile. The puppy sat. Malcolm looked at the puppy and almost smiled and then did not. Ellie put a hand on the girl's back and steered her toward the desk chairs. Grant let her. He followed Malcolm down the hall to the east doors and saw what Ellie had not said from across the lobby. The lock plate on the doors was already scratched. Long, clean grooves at handle height. Not random. Tested. "They've been at this door," Grant said. "Twice since I've been standing here," Malcolm said. "They went away. I don't think they went far." Grant set his shoulder against the copier and pushed it tighter to the glass.