Z. Raptor (7 page)

The monster sniffed and switched its attention from the fallen man to Adam. Adam felt sick. Zed had been a much larger beast and way more powerful, and yet there was something more unsettling about this monster. It might have been the way the traditional dinosaur form was roughed up with a shock of short, steel-gray feathers over the arms, shoulders and chest, knitting together into a kind of weird chain mail, like it had dressed to kill. Or the way it held itself so still, the drool pooling from its mouth the only movement—a deadly, decisive hunter, assessing its prey.

The man was still screaming in agony, his face blistered red and swollen. Adam wanted to help, but with the beast so close, he didn't dare. The giant raptor began to sway on its hind legs, back and forth. It ground its monstrous, mismatched teeth together, a noise like nails scraping a chalkboard, while a low growl built in its throat. The man began crawling blindly forward on his knees through the sand, arms outstretched, making for the sea. With a howl, the monster behind him pounced, kicking up huge sprays of sand as it leaped forward, its thick neck stretching and its jaws swinging wide as it bore down on its helpless victim.

Adam turned, sick with fear, and the crunch and crack of splintering bone was like a starter's pistol firing off his flight. He ran, panic-stricken, tearing over the wet sand toward the outcrop that marked the end of this little bay. He had no idea what lay on the other side, but there was no alternative.

He knew too that there would be nowhere to hide. The giant creature was slobbering over its kill, and it would come for him next. It had no need to rush. It could cover the same ground as Adam in a fraction of the time, and when it caught him . . .

Adam half climbed, half scrambled over the rocky outcrop, the surf slapping against his ankles, the sharp stone scraping his palms. On the other side, he found another empty stretch of beach, littered with clothes and debris from the wreck. No bodies here.
Keep it that way,
he thought, forcing himself to move faster.

As he jumped down onto the beach and started toward the trees, another of the hideous creatures crashed out from the dense vegetation. It was darker than the other, larger, its head scarred with thick scratches. Adam veered away as the giant raptor spat its own spray of colorless liquid meters through the air. Most of the acid missed, but a little splashed against his bare ankle and he shouted as he felt a surge of pain and heat. But adrenaline kept back the worst of the burn; his body urged him to focus only on his plight, on his
flight,
on getting away. There had to be somewhere on this island that was safe.

Or
off
this island
. . .

Adam could hardly believe it. Drifting lazily into sight across the calm ocean was one of the RIBs, a vision in fluorescent orange, just fifty meters or so from shore. The
Hula Queen
's name was printed on its side—the lapping waves must have coaxed it from the shore edge back out into the waters, or else perhaps it had washed in from the open sea.

Adam heard an earsplitting roar from the outcrop he'd just negotiated as the first raptor made its proximity known.
I know how fast they can move on land,
he thought
. But how fast can they swim?
He ran into the ocean, but the water soon slowed his steps, so he dived forward and started swimming for his life with his most powerful front crawl. There was a titanic splash behind him. The raptors were following. Could they swim? He had no idea.

But he guessed he would find out.

Breath catching in his throat, salt water burning his eyes, Adam quickened his stroke. If he could only get inside and get the outboard motor started . . .

He risked a backward glance. Big mistake. The creatures were gaining—their muscular legs powering them through the water. He tried to push himself harder, moaning with fear.
Come on. Come on!
The orange craft was so close.

But then suddenly, a throaty, aggressive whine spluttered and rose into the air.
The motor,
Adam realized,
starting by itself . . . ?

“No!” he screamed with the last of his strength as his only hope began gliding away from him. “Come back!” The crashing in the water behind grew louder, more ferocious. Adam kept swimming, though he knew in his heart now it was hopeless. His arms were starting to cramp. A jet of burning acid spattered the water, a drop landing on his exposed shoulder. He cried out in pain. Flipping onto his back, he found that the two behemoths were almost on top of him, claws clacking, tails thrashing through the water, their jaws gaping open in grisly grins, pushing down toward him, ready to devour.

T
he triumphant roar of the raptors snatched all other sound away from Adam's ears. His only warning that a signal flare had been fired was when an explosion of flame and red smoke detonated in the mouth of the nearest monster. The creature fell back, snarling, frothing and choking smoke. Its brother retreated in alarm, hooting and swinging its great, gray head.

“Get in!”

Adam turned at the shrill call and found the lifeboat had turned back toward him, a dark-skinned girl at the tiller. “Come on,” she urged him, waving the flare gun.

Whoever she was, she'd saved his life. New hope lending him strength, Adam forced himself to struggle on toward the boat.

Steering with one hand, the girl reached over the side with the other and took hold of his wrist, towing him away. While the injured raptor bit and snapped at the seawater to extinguish the smoke and fire in its throat, Adam saw the other raptor gnashing its overgrown teeth in frustration—eager to kill but afraid of the fire. It opened its jaws, and a loud, grating groan channeled from its throat.

Adam could have sobbed with relief as they powered out of range of the killers, moving westward until they'd left the stretch of beach behind. It felt so good to be just pulled along through the warm water, a passive passenger, the girl's grip on his wrist strong and—

Then the moment of calm was lost as his rational side took hold in a clamor of questions. “Who are you? I thought this boat was empty. Where did you—?”

“Whoa, there.” She cut the engine and turned to him, offering him her other hand. “You'd better get inside. And then how about you try saying thank you?”

He gripped hold of her other hand as she helped him clamber over the side, and he splashed down onto the bloodstained wooden floor.

“Thanks,” he said with feeling. “You saved my life. I'm sorry I—”

“S'okay,” she said, her voice seasoned with a hard American twang. “Raptors are a good excuse for forgetting your manners. Shame that gun was only packing the one flare, or I'd have given both of them a smoking.” She paused. “I'm Harm.”

He looked at her blankly.

“Harm short for Harmony.” She rolled her eyes. “Sucks as a name, right? Harmony Collins.”

“I'm Adam.” He realized he was still hanging on to her hand so he shook it, screwing up his eyes against the sun's glare. “I was on a ship that was attacked.”

“Last night, I know. Saw you go down.” She mimed a pair of binoculars to her eyes, then lowered them.

Adam's relief took a smack to the guts as he was hit by sudden doubt. The girl looked half starved, a real survivor—but what if she was part of a trick, someone sent out by Geneflow to pick up any survivors? To pick up him specifically?

“There've been a few wrecks,” Harm went on. “Lucky for you, it seems to be the ships the monsters attack, not the people. Even luckier, the raptors didn't sniff you out as soon as you washed up onshore.”

Adam sat up so the sun wasn't in his eyes and he could see Harm-short-for-Harmony properly. She was a littler older than he was, the soft lines of her face hardened by experience, her skin darkened nearly black by the tropical sun. Her hair was long and clumsily braided, held off her forehead by a wide, grimy white band. She looked painfully thin; bony ribs poked from beneath her cropped sky-blue top and legs like sticks from her cutoff jeans. She wore a tatty white satchel on a strap over one shoulder, but it looked empty.

She shifted uncomfortably. “What's the matter? You were expecting maybe Robinson Crusoe?”

“I'm sorry.” Adam realized he'd been staring. “I didn't know anyone was in the lifeboat when I swam out to it.”

“That's 'cause I didn't want them to see me,” she explained. “I was looking for anything useful that washed in.”

“Glad that included me.”

“Not so sure it does, yet.”

Adam half smiled and looked around edgily, wondering what to do. As he did so, he saw a dark red figure standing on a cliff top; a smaller raptor, like the one in the video. As he tensed, it turned and bolted, vanishing from sight.

To tell others? Or to trail them more discreetly?

He looked out to sea.
Oh, Dad, why aren't you here?

As the boat bobbed over a wave, something rolled against Adam's fingers. It was a half-full bottle of water, caked in sand. Thirsty after his ordeal, he automatically pulled off the top to swig from it.

But Harm snatched it from his grip. “Are you crazy?”

“What?” he asked. “I haven't drunk anything since last night.”

“I haven't drunk anything since lunchtime yesterday,” she informed him. “There's no fresh water on this island. So this is like gold, got it? You can have a sip. Just one for now, 'kay?”

“Sure.” Adam gingerly took back the bottle and wet his lips. Harm took the bottle from him, hesitated, then took a tiny gulp. She closed her eyes and shook a little, savoring the taste. Then quickly she resealed the bottle and pushed it under her seat. “It's going to be that much harder now,” said Harm, “picking up stuff from those beaches. Place will be crawling with raptors. And we need all the supplies we can get.”

“We?”

“My group.”

Adam raised his eyebrows. “Are there lots of you here?”

“Not anymore. We're down to three—four, counting you.”

Adam shifted in his seat uneasily. “How long have you been here?”

“Three months.”

Three months? Adam tried to imagine a quarter of a year, trapped in a place where absolutely everything was set on killing you.

She fixed him with her dark eyes. “Your accent. Sounds like you came a long way. How many on your boat?”

“I'm not sure. Mostly American. I'm from the UK, though my dad's from Chicago. . . .” He changed the subject. “You said your group. Are there other groups hiding out here?”

“Some, maybe.”

“You don't know?”

Harm looked at him oddly. “No. Hiding is the name of the game here. A smaller crowd attracts less attention from the raptors, makes you harder to hunt.” She weighed the oar in her hands. “'Cause round here, you never know what's going to be coming after you.”

Suddenly she brought the oar down hard on the side of the boat, missing Adam's fingers by millimeters. He snatched his hand away, stared at her. “What the—?”

She leaned forward aggressively. “You just got here last night, you get chased by two king-sized dinosaurs about to chow down on your butt and when I save you, all you wanna know is how many people on the island. Are you a spy or something, working for them?”

“No!” Adam protested. “No way!” Harm swung the oar again. The flat side hit his acid-burned shoulder, and he cried out in pain. “I didn't talk about the dinosaurs because I probably know more about them than you do. And how do I know you're not working for Geneflow?”

Harm stared. “You know about them?”

“Too much,” Adam told her shakily. “I know they're turning dinosaurs into living weapons. I'm only here now because of the video begging for help to come here.”

She held the oar still raised. “Video?”

“It was made by a woman called Lisa—and a Z. raptor.”

Adam was gratified by the startled reaction on Harm's gaunt face.

“So Loner wasn't lying,” she said. “He really did know how to get word outside.”

“You know Lisa?”

“She's part of the group,” said Harm. “It was her camera they used to shoot the movie. She's been like a mom to me.”

“And what about Loner?”

“We haven't seen him for days.” Harm looked troubled. “I guess he could be dead. He was always afraid the other raptors would find out he's been helping the humans.”

“Why has he helped you?”

She shrugged. “He says we're all outsiders. We need to stick together. And without his protection . . .”

“It's possible there's a little more protection coming,” said Adam. “On that ship there was an FBI agent, a doctor, a whole bunch of hunters and hard men—”

“FBI?” Harm's eyes grew wider. “And hunters? So there were weapons onboard?”

“A whole crateful. But I don't know what happened to them. I saw footprints on the shore. I think some of the men may have made it. Unless the raptors got them.”

Harm hardly seemed to be listening any longer, though at least she put down her oar. “If we could only get our hands on real weapons . . .”

“How many people does Geneflow have here?” asked Adam.

“I don't know. We never see them. Only Loner's seen inside their base. It's hidden away underneath the military ruins—ruins in the middle of the Vel camp.”

“Vel?”

“Velociraptor, I mean. Like Loner.” She rubbed her eyes. “There's two kinds of raptor here on the island, and they hate each other's guts. Vels are smaller and fast. Brutes are big and dumb—they're the ones who were chasing you. Killers.”