Flyers
A NOTE TO PARENTS:
This book is appropriate for ages 8 and up.
The Jurassic Park films are rated PG-13.
Consult
www.filmratings.com
for further information.
Special thanks to Cindy Chang of Universal Studios and to Alice Alfonsi, Lisa Findlay, Michael Wortzman, Artie Bennett, Jenny Golub, Christopher Shea, Stephanie Finnegan, and Colleen Fellingham of Random House for their work on this book.
CHAPTER 1
Alan Grant ran for his life through the jungles of Isla Sorna. The biggest super-predator of them all thundered after him. He heard the Spinosaurus aegypticus roar and looked back to see the dinosaur’s dark eyes glimmer with hunger and anticipation. The towering animal’s crocodile-like jaws snapped at empty air as the massive sail rising from its spine sliced through low-hanging vines. The ground shook and explosions of mud and muck rose with the sailback’s heavy strides.
SPINOSAURUS
The breathless scientist raced across a clearing, the bright tropical sun in his eyes. Ahead lay a high mountain wall cut in half by a narrow ravine. With renewed strength, he darted toward the divide.
Thin trees exploded and chunks of timber flew in every direction as the dinosaur burst from the jungle in pursuit of its prey. Alan raced on worriedly, scanning the ravine walls, looking for cave mouths where smaller predators might be hiding. Luckily, the walls were sheer. Nothing would leap out at him from either side of the ravine—but on the other hand, he would have no place to hide.
The footfalls behind him grew louder. The ravine was narrow, but not narrow enough to keep the predator from following.
The ground ahead dipped suddenly and Alan stumbled down a steep shelf. At the base, he found himself staring at a long flat stretch cut off at the far end by a twenty-foot-high wall of fallen boulders. Light peeked out from between the stones, and some of the gaps looked large enough for a human to squeeze between.
Rhhhh-ahhhhrrrr!
Alan risked a look back. The surprised Spino-saurus was tumbling down the sharp slide. Alan ran even faster. The Spinosaurus would need only a moment to recover its footing. Then the dinosaur would be on him!
The ground shuddered behind Alan as he lunged toward the wall of fallen stones. He spotted a decent-sized opening between the boulders and was about to climb into it when another explosive footfall rocked the ground and made the boulders shift.
The rocks smashed together, and the opening suddenly disappeared. If Alan had reached it a moment sooner and tried to climb through, he would have been crushed!
He turned to face the Spinosaurus. The dinosaur stood thirty feet away, watching Alan with what might have been delight.
Terror gripped Alan.
“All right, all right,” Alan whispered to himself. “Try and be steady here. You’ve studied this behavior before. You know what it’s doing—trying to scare you. Fear flavors the meat. Don’t give in.”
The Spinosaurus roared again and clicked its claws hungrily. Its mouth dripped with saliva.
“Right,” Alan said, spinning and leaping at the rocks, desperate to find a foothold, a handhold, some way to climb over or through the barrier.
With a final roar, the Spinosaurus charged!
Alan climbed. The boulders slid beneath him. The earth trembled with the dinosaur’s approach and the rocks slipped, sending Alan back to the ground. He spun and scrambled to his feet just in time to see the Spinosaurus’s huge head block out the world. Sharp teeth glinted and a terrible tongue wriggled as a cloud of foul-smelling breath made Alan choke and recoil.
Suddenly, chains rattled, and the dinosaur yelped in confusion. Its gaping maw was lifted up and away as the trap Alan and his team had laid for the super-predator was sprung.
“Hah,” Alan said weakly as he watched the huge nets raise the dinosaur off the ground. From the seemingly smooth walls of the ravine came metal arms with chains as thick as a man’s torso, and netting specially designed to hold the Spinosaurus.
In seconds, the raging dinosaur was secure. Alan tipped his hat to the dinosaur, who roared in frustration. Then he waited for the rest of his team to emerge from their hiding places.
Alan spent the day supervising the relocation of the captured Spinosaurus to an isolated area of Isla Sorna. As night fell, he returned to the Jurassic Park Ranger Station with Deborah Holland, his youthful-looking honey-blond security chief. Three men in dark suits were waiting.
Roger Hearne, the spokesman for the group, riffled through his briefcase. He withdrew a handful of files as he prepared to address Alan and Deborah in the conference room.
Alan leaned in close to Deborah’s ear and nodded toward Hearne. “A GQ model with an MBA. Perhaps the most threatening predator of all.”
“Want me to take him down with a tranquilizer dart?” Deborah asked.
“We’ll see,” said Alan.
Hearne cleared his throat and Alan leaned back and sighed. He’d been through enough meetings with representatives from the investment board that he felt he could recite their dialogue for them.
Hearne addressed a laundry list of concerns. Most notable, as always, was the lack of income this dinosaur preserve and research facility was generating. He ran through the costs for today’s “exercise,” as he called it, and discussed how he would have to hide the related expenditures under various “extraneous expenses” to keep even more investors from pulling their support.
“Mr. Hearne,” Alan said, “I’d like to point out that the super-predator we captured and relocated today had already single-handedly wiped out several other species of dinosaurs on this island. I know you’d like us to study the amazingly advanced immune systems of these genetically engineered animals. But before we can even think of devoting our time to potential income- generating operations, we must stabilize this out-of-balance ecology. Otherwise, there won’t be any dinosaurs left to study.”
Hearne frowned. “Why can’t these operations be handled at the same time?”
“Some are,” Alan said. He looked away and muttered, “Which you’d know if you bothered to read those files you people like to shuffle so much.”
“Pardon?” Hearne asked.
Deborah smiled. “He was just asking me if Cook was already fixing our dinners. It’s been a long day and we’re starved.”
Alan nodded, grateful for Deborah’s powers of diplomacy. “As I said, some operations are already under way, but results will not come overnight. Research takes time.”
“Time’s not an issue,” Hearne said. “Money is. For that reason, we’ve scheduled a group of goodwill appearances for you over the next few weeks to help remind the general public—
and
our skittish investment groups—of all the good work you’re doing out here and the potential benefit for us all. The research into dinosaur immune systems alone could yield a hundred million in new medicines.”
Hearne slid a file across the table to Alan. Grimacing, the scientist reviewed the enclosed documents.
“I’m not agreeing to go—” Alan started.
“Orlando, Florida? Oh, cool!” Deborah exclaimed, glancing at the pages over Alan’s shoulder.
“But not for this,” Alan said. “What’s next? I get to appear on the celebrity version of
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
”
Hearne smiled, breaking out a ballpoint to take notes. “Good idea. We could use the additional income. . . .”
CHAPTER 2
Eric Kirby couldn’t believe what he was looking at. He’d seen amazing things in his thirteen years, but nothing quite like this. He sat at the author signing table at Mysterious Galaxy, a bookstore in San Diego. Outside it looked as if an endless line of people had shown up just to see him!
“The line’s all the way around the block,” said one of the owners: a thin, bearded man with glasses, named Jeff. He wandered through the crowded store with his wife, Mary Elizabeth, helping to keep the lines orderly.
Eric shook his head in disbelief as he signed yet another book. His mother sat beside him. Amanda Kirby put her hand on her son’s shoulder.
“Did you hear that, honey?” Amanda asked.
Eric nodded, but he was too busy to answer. A whole family was gathered in front of his table, and every member wanted a signed copy of his book. His hand was actually starting to get sore and he was feeling light-headed with all the excitement and praise.
“So that’s Christy with a Y, Alex not Alec, Tommy, Bobby, and Jim,” Eric said. They all nodded happily.
To the youngest, Eric wrote, “Read and all your dreams will come true.”
More fans arrived. Questions poured in.
A ten-year-old girl asked what it was like to see Compsognathus up close. She loved the little chicken-sized dinosaurs. An eight-year-old boy with freckles wanted to know what a T. rex smelled like. A ton of teenagers asked about raptors. An elderly couple wondered if any pre- historic marine life had been replicated on Isla Sorna.
Eric had to keep it brief because of the long lines, but he did his best to answer all the questions. When he had been lost for eight weeks on Isla Sorna, the only place on the planet where dinosaurs existed, he never once thought his experiences would help him to become a celebrity. But after appearing on
Good Morning America,
Oprah,
and
60 Minutes,
he was having to come to terms with his new status.
“So when’s the next book out?” a young redhead wearing a University of California sweatshirt asked.
That one took Eric by surprise. Sure, his publisher had been after him for a sequel, but he hadn’t been asked by readers before.
“No sequels,” his mother said. “Dealing with those things once was plenty, thanks.”
Eric nodded. He actually did have more stories to tell, but he had promised Dr. Grant that he would not write about any of the research under way on the island.
Suddenly, a steady murmur moved through the crowd.
Jeff looked to the storefront window. “Something’s going on outside.”
A scream sliced through the crowd outside and the customers inside panicked.
Eric leaped onto the table so he could see over the window displays. A pale amber streak whipped down from above and seemed to attack someone on the street. Then a thing with a twenty-foot wingspan crashed through the heavy window and bowled over a display case.
It was a Pteranodon! One of the three that had flown from Isla Sorna when Eric had been airlifted from the island.
Screeee-eeeee!
Eric froze. He saw people hurling themselves through the broken window and more running wildly through the streets. Some snuck into the bagel shop or the chiropractor’s office next door, while others tried to reach their cars.
Two more Pteranodons circled outside. It was only a matter of time before one came down and snatched up a human with its talons, or tore at one with its long, sharp beak. Cars collided or went head to head as drivers veered off into opposing traffic to escape the flyers dive-bombing their windshields. Eric heard a screech of brakes and saw a Toyota run up the sidewalk and smash into a lamppost.
The Pteranodons shrieked in triumph, but then their tone changed. Their new cries were all too familiar to Eric. They had tired of games. Now they wanted to eat!
Eric had to do something. Everyone was staring at him. They wanted him to tell them what to do, how to survive. He couldn’t. Looking into the eyes of the predator who had burst into the store, he felt powerless. All he could think of was the moment he had run from a creature just like this, the way it had caught him, dragging him high into the air, exerting absolute control over him.
The booksellers hurled hardcovers at the flyer’s head, but were swept out of the way by the Pteranodon’s strong wings. Eric’s mother hauled him off the table and kicked it over, creating a barrier between them and the predator. But with a single leap it was over the table and on them.
This time, the scream came from Eric’s lips.
Eric bolted forward in his chair, desperately gasping in terror.
“Honey?” his mother asked. She sat next to him on the plane, her warm eyes filled with concern.
“I’m okay,” Eric said, reassuring himself as much as his mother. He looked down at his hands, which were
not
covered in scratches from whipping talons. He felt the chill of the air-conditioning vent from above, a coolness that was
not
from the flapping of terrible dark wings. The comforting scent of honey-roasted peanuts and coffee drifted to him. The slight vibration of the plane’s engines tingled in his feet. He looked out the window and saw only soft blue-white clouds.
“Were you dreaming about the island?” Amanda asked.
Eric shook his head. She saw the way he was looking out the window and her breath caught in her throat.
“Them,” she whispered.
Eric didn’t look at her. There had been reported sightings of the flyers in South America, Britain, Texas—even Japan. But no one really knew where the flyers had gone. Even with satellite technology and a host of other tracking methods, the low-flying, winged reptiles had evaded every attempt to locate them.
“They fixed the birdcage,” Amanda said. “Dr. Grant and his people, they fixed it. Once they track those things down, they’ll put ’em back where they belong and that’ll be the end of it. Everything can go back to normal.”
“Yep,” Eric said softly.
“Listen,” Amanda said. “This whole thing in Orlando . . . it’s not too late to call it off. We get off the plane; we get tickets back to Enid. I’ll tell the publisher you were feeling sick. I was feeling sick. Whatever. I don’t want you doing anything—”
“Are you Eric Kirby?”
Eric looked up suddenly. A kid a year or two younger than he stood in the aisle, a copy of Eric’s book in his hands. He brushed soft blond hair out of his eyes and shifted his weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other. His face was round, his eyes wide and trusting. His
RAPTORS RULE!
T-shirt was too big, his jeans even roomier.
Eric heard his mom let out an exhausted breath. He turned to the newcomer. “That’s me.”
“I can’t believe it!” the raptor-loving fan said. He held out his hand. “My name’s Josh.”
Eric shook his hand. “You liked the book?”
“I’ve read it, like, fifty times,” Josh said. “What you did was incredible! Oh, man, I’ve got some questions, some stuff that I didn’t see in the book. And—and I want you to sign it. Would you sign it?”
Amanda finally looked over. “Josh, honey, now’s not really a good time—”
“It’s okay,” Eric said. He remembered the first time he’d met Dr. Grant, after carrying the scientist’s book in his pocket for eight long weeks of dodging predators and trying to find a way home. The man had been gracious and kind, despite his own ordeal.
Now he knew why he was going through with the event in Orlando. There was no way he’d let people like this down.
Eric smiled. “I’m all yours, Josh. Ask away . . .”