Trailer
Sarah Harding twisted the handlebars, and the motorcycle shot forward over the low rise in the road ahead. She crested and came down again, heading toward the trailer. Behind her, four raptors snarled in pursuit. She accelerated, trying to get ahead of them, to gain precious yards. Because they were going to need it.
She leaned back, and shouted to Kelly, “Okay! This has to be fast!”
“What?” Kelly shouted.
“When we get to the trailer, you jump off and run in. Don’t wait for me. Understand?”
Kelly nodded, tensely.
“Whatever happens, don’t wait for me!”
“Okay.”
Harding roared up to the trailer, braked hard. The bike skidded on the wet grass, banged into the metal siding. But Kelly was already leaping off, scrambling up toward the door, going into the trailer. Sarah had wanted to get the bike inside, but she saw the raptors were very close, too close. She pushed the bike toward them and in a single motion stepped up and threw herself through the trailer door, landing on her back on the floor. She twisted her body around and kicked the door shut with her legs, just as the first of the raptors slammed against it.
Inside the dark trailer, she held the door shut as the animals pounded it repeatedly. She felt for a lock on the door, but couldn’t find one.
“Ian. Does this door lock?”
She heard Malcolm’s voice, dreamy in the darkness. “Life is a crystal,” he said.
“Ian. Try and pay attention.”
Then Kelly was alongside her, hands moving up and down. The raptors thumped against the door. After a moment she said, “It’s down here. By the floor.” Harding heard a metallic click, and stepped away.
Kelly reached out, took her hand. The raptors were pounding and snarling outside. “It’ll be okay,” Harding said reassuringly.
She went over to Malcolm, still lying on the bed. The raptors snapped and lunged at the window near his head, their claws raking the glass. Malcolm watched them calmly. “Noisy bastards, aren’t they?” By his side, the first-aid kit was open, a syringe on the cushion. He had probably injected himself again.
Through the windows, the animals stopped throwing themselves against the glass. She heard the sound of scraping metal, from over by the door, and then saw that the raptors were dragging the motorbike away from the trailer. They were hopping up and down on it in fury. It wouldn’t be long before they punctured the tires.
“Ian,” she said. “We have to do this fast.”
“I’m in no rush,” he said calmly.
She said, “What kind of weapons have you got here?”
“Weapons . . . oh . . . I don’t know. . . .” He sighed. “What do you want weapons for?”
“Ian, please.”
“You’re talking so fast,” he said. “You know, Sarah, you really ought to try to relax.”
In the darkened trailer, Kelly was frightened, but she was reassured at the no-nonsense way Sarah talked about weapons. And Kelly was beginning to see that Sarah didn’t let anything stop her, she just went and did it. This whole attitude of not letting other people stop you, of believing that you could do what you wanted, was something she found herself imitating.
Kelly listened to Dr. Malcolm’s voice and knew that he would be of no help. He was on drugs and he didn’t care. And Sarah didn’t know her way around the trailer. Kelly did; she had searched the trailer earlier, looking for food. And she seemed to remember . . .
In the darkness, she pulled open the drawers quickly. She squinted, trying to see. She was sure she remembered one drawer, low down, had contained a pack marked with a skull and crossbones. That pack might have some kind of weapons, she thought.
She heard Sarah say, “Ian: try and think.”
And she heard Dr. Malcolm say, “Oh, I have been, Sarah. I’ve had the most wonderful thoughts. You know, all those carcasses at the raptor site present a wonderful example of—”
“Not now, Ian.”
Kelly went through the drawers, leaving them open so she would know which ones she had already checked. She moved down the trailer, and then her hand touched rough canvas. She leaned forward. Yes, this was it.
Kelly pulled out a square canvas pack that was surprisingly heavy. She said, “Sarah. Look.”
Sarah Harding took the pack to the window, where moonlight shone in. She unzipped the pack and stared at the contents. The pack was divided into padded sections. She saw three square blocks made of some substance that felt rubbery. And there was a small silver cylinder, like a small oxygen bottle. “What is all this stuff?”
“We thought it was a good idea,” Malcolm said. “But now I’m not sure it was. The thing is that—”
“What is it?” she said, interrupting. She had to keep him focused. His mind was drifting.
“Nonlethals,” Malcolm said. “Alexander’s ragtime band. We wanted to have—”
“What’s this?” she said, holding up one of the blocks in front of his face.
“Area-dispersal smoke cube. What you do is—”
“Just smoke?” she said. “It just makes smoke?”
“Yes, but—”
“What’s this?” she said, raising the silver cylinder. It had writing on it.
“Cholinesterase bomb. Releases gas. Produces short-term paralysis when it goes off. Or so they say.”
“How short?”
“A few minutes, I think, but—”
“How does it work?” she said, turning it in her hand. There was a cap at the end, with a locking pin. She started to pull it off, to get a look at the mechanism.
“Don’t!” he said. “That’s how you do it. You pull the pin and throw. Goes off in three seconds.”
“Okay,” she said. Hastily, she packed up the medical kit, throwing the syringe inside, shutting the lid.
“What are you doing?” Malcolm said, alarmed.
“We’re getting out of here,” she said, as she moved to the door.
Malcolm sighed. “It’s so nice to have a man around the house,” he said.
The cyli
nder sailed high through the air, tumbling in the moonlight. The raptors were about five yards away, clustered around the bike. One of the animals looked up and saw the cylinder, which landed in the grass a few yards away.
Sarah stood by the door, waiting.
Nothing happened.
No explosion.
Nothing.
“Ian! It didn’t work.”
Curious, one raptor hopped over toward where the cylinder had landed in the grass. It ducked down, and when it raised its head, it held the cylinder glinting in its jaws.
She sighed. “It didn’t work.”
“Oh, never mind,” Malcolm said calmly.
The raptor shook its head, biting into the cylinder.
“What do we do now?” Kelly said.
There was a loud explosion, and a cloud of dense white smoke blasted outward across the clearing. The raptors disappeared in the cloud.
Harding closed the door quickly.
“Now what?” Kelly said.
With Malcolm leaning on her shoulder, they moved across the clearing in the night. The gas cloud had dissipated, several minutes before. The first raptor they found in the grass was lying on its side, eyes open, absolutely motionless. But it wasn’t dead: Harding could see the steady pulse in the neck. The animal was merely paralyzed. She said to Malcolm, “How long will it last?”
“Have no idea,” Malcolm said. “Much wind?”
“There’s no wind, Ian.”
“Then it should last a bit.”
They moved forward. Now the raptors lay all around them. They stepped around the bodies, smelling the rotten odor of carnivores. One of the animals lay across the bike. She eased Malcolm down to the ground, where he sat, sighing. After a moment, he began to sing: “I wish I was in the land of cotton, old times there are not forgotten, look away . . .”
Harding tugged at the motorcycle handlebars, trying to pull the bike from beneath the raptor. The animal was too heavy. Kelly said, “Let me,” and reached for the handlebars. Harding went forward. Without hesitating, she bent over and put her arms around the raptor’s neck, and pulled the head upward. She felt a wave of revulsion. Hot scaly skin scraped her arms and cheek. She grunted as she leaned back, raising the animal.