#tropical storm nicholas

[safarigirlsp]

Maneater

Maneater

Commander Mills x Lawyer Reader

Word Count: 37.5k

Warnings: NSFW. Smut. Violence. Blood. Gore. Graphic Dinosaur Violence. Enemies to Lovers. Idiots in Love. Sexism in Survival Situations. Hot Toxic Masculinity. Character Crossovers. The Commander Mills Jurassic Park AU that had to happen.

AO3 Link

Author’s Note: Mixing two of my favorites together for a fun AU -- Commander Mills and Jurassic Park! I hope everyone else has as much fun reading as I did writing! Mills is named Nicholas in my canon. As usual, edits by the wonderful @kyloremus!​

Gale-force wind whipped around you and pelting rain as warm as blood stung your face as soon as you reluctantly exited the plane and walked down the rain-slick steps to the tarmac of the tiny airport of Drake Bay. Even considering the wind chill, the temperature was in the nineties, and the air was so pregnant with humidity that it was like walking through a storming sauna. The sky above churned angry shades of black and carbon, looking like monochrome ice cream in a blender. It was early afternoon, but the position of the sun was impossible to tell in the gray storming gloom.

Only two aircraft were parked on the neglected, potholed tarmac. One was the plane that had freighted you, a puddle jumper that looked as though it hadn’t been serviced since the eighties, its interior perfumed with the smell of cigarette smoke and body odor. It had been the only charter who would risk flying you out from San Jose in this weather, and you were its sole passenger. After being enclosed in the turbulent coffin and breathing its pervasive fragrance for the duration of your last-minute charter flight, the tropical storm that greeted you was quite literally a breath of fresh air.

Even if it did rip your palm hat off your head the moment you tried to look around for your contact.

Cursing angrily, you wiped your hair back from your eyes as the wind blew it wildly around your face and the rain immediately wetted it to your scalp. The hat rolled away on its brim like a spinning wheel across the black pavement. It was stopped when it collided with the leg of a large man who you hadn’t noticed through the sleeting storm until he stooped to retrieve your errant hat. He was very tall, well over six feet, with impressively broad shoulders and a dominating chest. He wore khaki pants that looked vaguely military and a forest-green linen safari-style shirt, both darkened by the rain, and a cocky smirk framed by a black van dyke as he approached you. Long coal-black hair blew haphazardly around his handsome angular face and although his eyes were slanted against the rain, you could see their vibrant honeyed color.

“Welcome to Drake Bay,” he shouted above the din of the storm with sarcastic levity as he handed you back your hat. His voice was deep and richly masculine. He shook your hand firmly, all but drowning your hand in his enormous paw. “It’s only a hop, skip, and a jump from here to Isla Nublar.”

Without bandying further pleasantries, he picked up your bags and turned back to the only other aircraft on the tarmac. A Sikorsky Black Hawk helicopter with a sleek gray and black paint job almost blended into the storm itself. An emblem was blazoned on its side that read Think Ahead in stylized print. Its flexible blades bobbed in the wind as it waited for its pilot. Opening its sliding door, your escort brusquely tossed your bags inside and then offered you his hand to assist you. You ignored his hand and helped yourself inside the black beast. Any difficulty you had loading you blamed on the slick wet metal. You seated yourself in the co-pilot chair and fastened your seat harness as you heard the door close behind you.

“You must be Commander Mills,” you stated when the large man slid into the pilot’s chair.

“I must be,” he agreed with another smirk. “You can call me Nick. You must be the bloodsucking lawyer.”

“I’m glad to hear my reputation precedes me.” You assumed he was teasing and smirked right back at him. “I was told you’d be the man flying me to Isla Nublar, but I’m unclear why. You’re Head of Security for the Park. Don’t you have better things to do?”

“I am and I do.” Mills nodded as he flipped various switches and started the helicopter. He pulled a thick cigar from his pocket and put it unlit between his teeth. “I’m also the only man dumb enough to pick you up. The pilot on staff refused to fly in this weather.”

“Is it even safe to fly in this?” You had to shout above the howling wind and sound of the helicopter.

“Nope.” He shook a lock of damp hair out of his face. “But don’t worry. I’m that good.”

You had tried to force the thought of the dangers of flying in such a storm from your mind, and you were sure the bastard knew it by the way his eyes glittered when he saw you stiffen. You looked out through the rain-streaked windshield at the palm trees that whipped violently in the storm, some bent nearly to seventy-degree angles. The wind howled outside the cockpit like a wounded animal, shearing right down to your nerves. You were the last to arrive as it was, and neither you nor your employer wanted to risk further delay. You should have missed this storm entirely, but flight after flight had been canceled and delayed on your long journey from home. Now here you were, eighteen hours later than the rest of the party and caught in a veritable hurricane with a grinning jackass. Wonderful.

As Mills went through all the pre-flight checks and warmed the engine, you surreptitiously studied him. His brows were knotted with concentration and his jaw clenched as he shifted the cigar around between his teeth. Even knowing nothing about the man, you knew he had to be damn good at his job. More likely than not, one of the best in the world. Your mutual employer and head of Think Ahead Industries hired only the best of the best and was intolerant of mistakes and foibles. He put his billions to good use in that regard. He spared no expense with personnel and equipment.

The park to which you were headed was to be the supreme testament to that. Called simply 65, the park would soon be marketed as “An adventure 65 million years in the making.” Decades of science, paired with good old-fashioned sweat and blood had finally yielded what would surely be a fine return on the investment of millions. Populated with genuine living, breathing, cognizant dinosaurs, or rather, clones of dinosaurs, 65 was scheduled to open next year as the world’s first and only dinosaur adventure park and ecological preserve. It was all housed on a two-hundred-thousand acre private island that was one of the seventy-some islands in Costa Rica.

Along with a team of experts, all the finest in their fields, you were to have an entire week in the park and a private tour to ensure everything in 65 was ready for its first paying customer. As General Counsel for Think Ahead Industries, your endorsement was needed for the board to approve their owner and CEO’s grand vision. Your task was to assess the potential liability -- which would be staggering, but the question remained as to what degree of staggering -- and to evaluate the other members of the team as to their viability and credibility as expert witnesses in the event of a lawsuit in the future.

“Hold onto your ass.” Mills gruffly roused you from your thoughts, bringing your consciousness back to the stormy present. With a lurch like a bucking horse, Mills lifted the helicopter off the ground and into the blustering wind. His knuckles were white on the steering yoke and his jaw was set as the helicopter rose into the churning clouds, but he betrayed no other nervous tells. He engaged you to distract you more than he cared about your answers. “Is this your first time in a helicopter?”

“It is,” you laughed nervously. “Can you believe I was looking forward to it?”

“Sorry I couldn’t be gentler for your first time,” Mills quipped. He knew that anger would override most other emotions and was a good cure for nerves. He was rewarded by the sight of it flashing in your eyes. It made you shockingly more beautiful. He would have to do it again when he could afford to give you more attention, just to be sure that lovely effect wasn’t a fluke.

The world around you turned into swirling darkness as you climbed in the helicopter. Though it was midday, the sky was devoid of light, save for the frequent flashes of lightning that burst far too close outside the cockpit. Each report of thunder shuddered the helicopter, making it feel like nothing more than a toy inside the harrowing storm. Your teeth chattered from turbulence, and you could feel the vibration in your bones until surely the helicopter had to break apart from the stress.

Holding the yoke tight, Mills’ muscled arms shook from his wrists to his shoulders like a fifties housewife using a vibration belt on her hips. He glared out of the windshield, intently focused as the helicopter pitched and yawed.

“You served in the military for over a decade?” you asked despite knowing the answer to make conversation and distract yourself.

“Long enough to get several bars on my chest,” he grunted. He ground on the butt of the cigar, absently shifting it from one side of his mouth to the other.

“And then you built a private security company that earned a world renown reputation within another decade. Impressive.” You smiled in the hope of dispelling some of your nerves as the helicopter lurched. You had read somewhere that the act of smiling triggered the release of endorphins. It was probably horseshit.

Mills grumbled something noncommittal and didn’t look over at you.

“D’Alencon must have paid you well to take you away from that company to ride herd on a prehistoric animal preserve.” You turned to look at Mills, wanting to look anywhere other than outside at the whirling storm.

“It’s hard to turn down seven figures a year,” Mills responded gruffly as the helicopter lurched and slew sideways.

“D’Alencon pays his people well. He always gets the best.” You smiled again, including yourself in your statement. “I personally advised him of that.”

“Look, lady,” Mills growled around his cigar, his frown deep as he manned the bucking yoke. “You may not have noticed, but this is a bit of a dicey situation that I’m trying to navigate here. Save the interrogation until I get you to the island alive.”

“Don’t worry,” you replied tartly, your icy glare searing into his stern profile. “I won’t attempt to interrogate you further. I see no reason for us to speak again.”

Mills bit back the retort on his tongue, saying nothing to anger you further. He released a long breath out of his nose and chewed on his cigar, trying to calm his nerves as he focused on keeping the helicopter airborne. He had to focus so intently on flying that he couldn’t even give you a nasty side-eye.

With your nerves on edge, the flight seemed much longer than it actually was. Each jolt of the helicopter and whine of its rotor sent a fresh burst of adrenaline into your bloodstream, and you tasted blood on your tongue before you realized that you had worried a hole into your lip. A particularly rough buck of turbulence dropped the helicopter one-hundred feet in less than a second, sending your stomach floating up into your throat. Even more disconcerting was Mills chomping down on his cigar with a grunt like he had been punched in the gut.

“C’mon, baby,” Mills crooned to the shuddering helicopter in a husky bedroom drawl. Another violent gust of wind sent the helicopter canting sideways. Instead of fighting inertia, Mills leaned into it, banking the helicopter with the wind. The controllers jumped less wildly and the helicopter stabilized, earning relieved praise from Mills, “That’s my girl.”

Lightning burst outside the windshield, seeming mere yards away but the helicopter soldiered on bravely.

“Just like a woman.” Mills grinned around his cigar, his attention focused ahead, and you didn’t know if he spoke to you or to himself. “She’s a temperamental bitch but she responds to flattery.”

You glared at him, but didn’t dignify him with a response beyond an irritated sigh. Although the storm boiled around you, blinding you to your orientation and bearing, you could feel you were losing altitude. You felt the helicopter slow and vibrate, as if it were going into a stall from the vicious turbulence. Mills’ frown deepened, looking now more worried than angry or focused. The yoke bucked and vibrated despite his strong grip and the helicopter dropped downward again with a sickening lurch.

“What the hell’s happening?” you asked, surprised by the shrill note of fear in your own voice.

“We’re going down. Fast,” Mills answered and took a deep breath through his nose as if gearing up for something terrible. The helicopter lost more altitude, the gray and black swirling clouds rushing up outside the windshield.

“Can’t you stop it?” you shouted at him, grabbing your harness in a death grip as though it would do you any good when you crashed.

“We’ll stop soon e-fucking-nough, alright.” Mills fought the controls, and it looked as though he was losing the battle to hold them steady.

A scream welled up in your throat but it was pointless to release it. The world outside was all whirling clouds and thunder, and inside the cockpit was filled with the rattle of metal and the whine of rotors. Suddenly, you burst out of the bottom of the storm and the world lightened. Rain still blew in a torrent, but outside now were shades of vibrant green and vegetation whipping in the wind. Green mountainsides rose up around you on all sides and you realized you were descending into a steep valley.

The descent was rough and bucking, but controlled. You looked outside the window and saw a black helipad below you, perfectly centered beneath the helicopter. Mills was landing the helicopter with all the expertise that he had cockily boasted.

“You bastard,” you accused venomously. “You were fucking with me.”

“Nah, if I were really fucking with you, you’d be smiling right now.” Mills smirked. “Even when the weather’s clear, we have to drop pretty fast because of the wind shear.”

You only glared at him, too furious for words and, at present, too flustered to articulate them eloquently enough to tear him apart the way he deserved. The helicopter touched down almost delicately and the howl of the rotors slowed to a healthy purr. A Hummer H1 with the 65 park logo waited patiently for you near the helipad. There was no driver, you noted angrily, meaning Mills would continue as your chauffeur into the park.

“C’mon, lighten up,” he teased, secretly savoring the scalding look you gave him. It aroused a hot flush inside him, a challenge he wanted to answer.

“In my line of work, we call that intentional infliction of emotional distress.” You roughly unbuckled your harness and threw it off your shoulders. “And it’s actionable.”

“Don’t get your panties in a twist.” Mills plucked the cigar from his lips, frowning as he examined its chewed and battered end.

“With a sexual harassment cherry on top,” you quipped, crossing your arms over your chest. “Do you take pride in being a dick? Or just in waving yours around?”

“Oh sure, I can’t talk about your panties but you can insult my dick.” He huffed a laugh at you, which was more infuriating than any of his obnoxious jeers. “Isn’t talking about my dick sexual harassment, too?”

“Sue me.” You gave him a frigid smile of your own.

Mills rolled his eyes and pushed by you through the cockpit so he could open the hatch for both of you to exit back out into the pelting rain.

“I don’t get so much as a ‘thank you’ or a ‘well done, Commander?’” he taunted as you moved by him on your way out of the helicopter. “Not many men could have flown through this storm and then stuck that landing.”

“I trust you’re capable of getting my bags as well,” you dismissed him and stalked to the waiting Hummer, keeping your posture very straight and rigid despite the rain.

Mills smiled as he watched you walk, very much enjoying the sight of your ass in your prim gait. He was having a great time. He knew that provoking your ire would become a favored recreation.

*******************************************************************************************

Rain poured down as heavily as the stream from a shower head, hiding your view of the park behind its watery veil. Mills drove too fast for the slippery conditions, in your opinion, the Hummer sliding around muddy turns and bouncing roughly over dips and swells. It was a long drive through the park from the helipad to the five-star resort and visitor’s center, made longer by the irritable silence you maintained between yourself and Commander Jackass.

The entrance to the resort was grand and columned, looking as though it should be equipped with an army of valets and bellhops, which it soon would be. As it was now, the only occupants were the most essential park personnel and the guests invited by the owner for this preliminary assessment. The owner himself, Pierre D’Alencon, waited outside on the steps to greet you. He wore a pale linen suit and a wide smile. He was tall, tan, and relatively fit for a man in his fifties. His foppishly cut golden blonde hair gave him a youthful air that when paired with his ebullient personality made him difficult for many women to resist. His billions didn’t hurt him with the ladies either.

“They say rain on your wedding day is good luck,” D’Alencon spoke with a light French accent as he descended the steps to meet you when you exited the Hummer. He carried a large umbrella that he propped over your head. “Do you think it bodes the same for christening my park?”

“I certainly feel lucky to be alive after that flight,” you replied, only half-joking.

“Do I hear that you are in need of a strong man to comfort you?” he teased, stooping to kiss you in lieu of a handshake, the large umbrella drooping low over your head. You turned your face, offering him your cheek only. D’Alencon was a relentless and aggressive flirt, and had been since your first introduction. He was harmless enough, and for what he was paying you, you were happy to overlook some innocuous trespasses. When he straightened, he rested his hand on your back and told you, “You were in fine hands with Commander Mills. He’s one of my best men.” D’Alencon then addressed Mills with the same friendly smile, “Do be good enough to see that my lawyer’s bags find their way to her room. She is on the top floor in the suite of rooms I keep reserved for myself and for my most esteemed guests.”

Still at the Hummer, Mills watched you from behind, watched D’Alencon lean in to kiss you. The umbrella hid the act itself, which was just as well, because Mills damn sure had no interest in watching his boss salivate all over the woman who had so quickly exerted a magnetic pull over him. Now, it all made sense why D’Alencon had made such a big deal about getting his lawyer here today without further delay, and why the lawyer he hired looked like that. Mills ground his teeth when D’Alencon straightened and placed his hand on the small of your back in that universally proprietary male gesture to lead you into the resort. With one fell swoop, D’Alencon had waltzed away with the girl and designated Mills as the bellhop. And because D’Alencon was his boss, his very well-paying boss, Mills couldn’t say a damn thing about it.

To hell with them, Mills thought to himself with a scowl as he fished the same cigar out of his pocket and chomped down on the abused butt. He aggressively hefted your bags from the Hummer. To hell with her.

*******************************************************************************************

After changing into drier and nicer clothes, D’Alencon led you to a dinner that was already underway. Although there was not time for a proper tour of the sprawling facility before, he was insistent that you allow him the privilege later in the evening.

Like any other upscale resort, 65 was equipped with several private dining rooms intended for the upper echelon of guests or for events like weddings. Instead of the common cafeteria, dinner was served to D’Alencon’s guests in one such room. It had the look of a museum hall with dinosaur fossils on display along the bamboo-paneled walls. It was a tough call whether the open-mouthed velociraptor skull mounted on a pedestal was more impressive or the fully intact archaeopteryx skeleton complete with a few fossilized tail feathers on display in a shadow box frame. At the end of the room was a triceratops skull as large as a Volkswagen Beetle displayed like a big game hunter’s prize trophy.

Seated along the walnut dining table were D’Alencon’s other guests, the experts he had hired to evaluate the park. The sound of amiable conversation filled the room along with the aroma of food so enticing it made you remember you had not eaten since before your flight from Miami to San Jose. Part of D’Alencon’s skeleton crew was a gourmet chef he had plucked from what he considered the finest restaurant in Paris. “A taste of home,” he remarked. “Even when I am on the other side of the globe there is simply no reason to dine like a barbarian.”

D’Alencon made introductions as he led you to the seat adjacent his at the head of the table. Mills had the seat opposite you – with every other seat spoken for, he had no choice. He rose out of habit when you approached and seemed to immediately regret his impulsive courtesy when D’Alencon pulled your chair out for you and seated you as though you belonged to him.

The table was populated with an elite albeit eclectic group of guests. D’Alencon had selected the best and most preeminent in their respective fields to assess his park. He was a man who wanted honest truths as opposed to sugared platitudes. No successful businessman operating in the upper strata as he did could afford otherwise. He wanted smart, capable people who had the balls to say their piece.

The guests had resumed the conversations you had interrupted with your arrival, some of them quite heated, which was to be expected. The rest of the party already had a full day to get to know one another and with a cursory look at the table, it was easy to see the alliances that had already begun to form. None seemed eager to engage in pleasantries with the bloodsucking lawyer, which was a natural human response to your presence. Looking at each professional in turn, you made your own quick assessment.

A whining intonation chimed in your ears. The source was a tall, thin man with obnoxiously red hair. The mathematician, Dr. Armitage Hux, was the most educated man in the room, holding almost as many degrees as a good hand of poker had cards. His specialty was chaos theory, which was a much fancier and snobbier branch of risk assessment. When it came to assessing risk, his was the opinion that mattered most. In addition to holding various chairs, he also held the prestigious position of being the on-call expert for Lloyd’s of London when they needed to insure the rarest and strangest items, items that had no comparable counterparts on Earth. From Gene Simmons’ tongue to a reward payable upon capture of the Loch Ness monster to Tom Jones’ chest hair, if a thing exists and a deep pocket is interested, Lloyd’s will insure it. This was fortunate for D’Alencon, because a prehistoric nature preserve fell under this strange milieu. According to underwriter lore, Stanley Kubrick had purchased a policy to ensure the projected profits on his film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, in the event that extraterrestrial life was discovered before its release. Surely, Lloyd’s would ensure a park and a few dinosaurs.

“You deal in the most concrete terms imaginable. So concrete as to be utterly fossilized,” Hux snarked nasally to the man seated beside him. He was engaged in a good-natured debate with Dr. Ron Stallworth, the paleontologist. “You only have to decipher history and piece together puzzles using concrete and existing pieces. My job is to predict the unpredictable and foresee the unforeseeable.” Hux puffed his frail chest with self-importance. “That’s why the world is full of paleontologists, but only a handful of respected men in my field.”

“You could have fooled me,” Stallworth laughed and flashed a brilliantly white smile. “Here I thought it was because paleontology is more popular with the ladies. That’s why I went that route. Math classes weren’t exactly filled with hotties.”

Dr. Stallworth was a handsome Black man of average size but with the decidedly athletic build of a former sports player. He glanced down the table at the only woman other than yourself and, when seeing her engaged in another conversation, he turned to you for support. “You had what, about twenty years of school to get your degree? Are the pretty girls turned on by math, or a more hands on approach?”

“Oh, when I talk with the girls, it’s never the size of a man’s brain that dominates our conversation,” you laughed, encouraged by the sight of Hux’s sour frown. Looking at him, you figured it wouldn’t have mattered much what field he went into, he had no hope of being a hit with the ladies.

“Speaking of hands on, have you seen it yet? Have you been out in the park?” you asked, leaning forward with interest.

“A little, yeah,” Stallworth answered. “Commander Mills took Hux and I out with him on his early morning rounds of the park yesterday before the storm blew in.”

“Even that abbreviated dawn patrol was quite enough to see all I needed to,” Hux added, looking at D’Alencon instead of you. “I’ve never seen such a deathtrap waiting to snap closed on its victims. You should keep this as a hobby, Pierre. You have the money to do it. But you can’t start letting the misbehaving, unmanaged public in here, you simply can’t.”

“As you can see, the tour went well,” Mills intoned in his deep voice, smirking at Hux. Clearly, there was already some dick waving afoot.

“I think it’s incredible,” Stallworth said with unveiled awe. “I’m not saying I disagree with Hux on the inherent danger, but I’m also saying that I would sign away every right I have to be here. I’d throw in my eyeteeth as a tip!”

“It really is remarkable,” the woman added from down the table. She was the paleobotanist, Dr. Nicole Barber. You assumed she regretted getting her doctorate under her married name since she was newly divorced from Mr. Barber and in the midst of a custody battle. She was superfluous as an expert on this special tour – there was really no need for an opinion from a paleobotanist. However, the team D’Alencon had assembled was otherwise male and in the modern climate of political correctness, it looked bad to have a panel of men rendering an opinion without female input on any given thing.

Perhaps Barber was aware of her own redundancy, because she instantly appeared to you to be trying just a margin too hard to assert herself at the table. She also ignored your presence. She was pretty in a common way, with boyishly short blonde hair and intentionally frumpy mannish attire that was meant to undermine a woman’s femininity and seen as chic in some circles. You recognized it as a mechanism some insecure women used to present themselves as an intellectual to be taken seriously without relying on their feminine charms. The higher evolved female predator used all the weapons at her disposal and minimized none of them. Nothing was better to unnerve a man than the trifecta of sharp stilettos, pointed nails, and a razor wit.

“I was so sorry to miss the tour this morning,” Barber continued, directing her attention to Mills. Her tone took on a softer lilt and she leaned forward with her elbows on the table, pressing her average breasts together. It was now obvious why she was trying so hard, even before she added, “Maybe I could meet you early tomorrow morning and you could give me a private tour.”

Mills regarded her silently for a brief moment, the way he would watch someone else’s dog recalcitrantly chew on their furniture with no authority to stop it. He then pointedly turned his attention to Stallworth. “Just wait until we get to feed old Lizzy.”

“I do wish you wouldn’t give my beauties such demeaning nicknames,” D’Alencon sighed with no real malice, catching your eye and shaking his head in exaggerated exasperation.

“She gets a heifer every evening,” Mills continued with a macabre relish, ignoring D’Alencon. “She’s a big girl. A T-Rex could probably eat a whole herd of them, but she needs to maintain her fighting weight to look pretty for the guests. I’ll take you out to watch sometime this week if you want a real show.”

“Dear god, between the T-Rex and Mills here, the food bill alone will knock me back down into the pauperis millions,” Pierre laughed, gesturing with his fork at the mountainous helping on Mills’ plate.

“Wait,” you laughed now, looking between Mills and D’Alencon, teasing him, “Surely, you’re not saying that you keep your T-Rex perpetually hungry? We need to have a good talk about things you should never say in front of the chaotician.”

“A cow?” Barber asked, clutching her fist at her collar. “You don’t mean that you butcher animals on site?”

“Nah, we don’t butcher anything.” Mills finally gave her a crumb of the attention she desired. “Most of the carnivorous dinos don’t like eating dead meat. They’re born predators, not scavengers. They have to kill their own meat or they won’t touch it. They’re finicky, just like most women.” He grinned at her obvious discomfort with the subject. “Not a fan of steak taretare, huh?”

“I happen to be a vegan,” Barber asserted as though stating a tenet of her religion.

“That’s the second time I’ve heard you sniping about women,” you quipped to Mills with a frosty grin of your own. “First the helicopter, now the dinosaurs. Am I sensing some insecurity on the lady front?”

“Insecurity?” Mills laughed at you, the cocky bastard. “I’m fresh out of insecurity when it comes to the ladies, darling. It’s simple. It’s common knowledge that all machines are women -- nothing else on Earth is as temperamental as a woman and anything that drives, sails, or flies. As for the dinos, you must not have read the brochure. They are all female.”

You cocked an eyebrow at Mills when he added, “Better soak up all the testosterone you can now because outside of this room, you won’t find a drop anywhere else in the park.”

“All the dinosaurs we clone are female,” D’Alencon explained. “Females are inherently less aggressive than males, which is the paramount concern. Plus, an all female population ensures there is no unauthorized breeding in the park.” D’Alencon laughed at his own wit before looking at you and adding, “Not among the dinosaurs, at any rate.”

“I think it’s a good idea,” Stallworth added, heading off some word of caution from Hux. “Females are less aggressive, especially without young to protect, and less territorial, too.”

“Yeah, you try to ride herd on an entire island populated with nothing but females,” Mills huffed and took a drink of the nearly black stout beer in front of him. “They don’t prepare you for that in the Air Force.” He jerked a thumb at you. “And females are less aggressive? Have you seen this one?”

“Lucky girls,” Barber simpered, again eyeing Mills like a five-course meal.

For the first time since you joined dinner, she looked at you. Barber locked her green eyes with yours in a silent challenge that only the two of you as women understood. She was waving a flag in your face and staking her claim on Mills at the same time. You had no reason to care at all, no reason to respond to her shot across the bow. You had no interest in Mills. The man was a walking offense to gentlemen the world over. Still, Barber’s overture sparked a rebellious urge in you. It had to be your competitive nature, that same red streak of passion that had driven you to the top in your chosen cantankerous profession. It was not Mills himself, it couldn’t be. He was attractive, no doubt. Objectively, very attractive, if one buys into the whole tall, dark, and handsome business. Other attractive men were interested in you, there was no novelty there. Other attractive men who were not pompous, rude, and seemed to enjoy provoking you…

Suddenly, you smiled wryly to yourself at the realization that Mills had gotten to you. He had wheedled his way under your skin, the bastard. With that epiphany, the only acceptable course of action was to return the favor in full force. Game set and match.

“Well, I’m actually the man in charge of feeding the animals,” said a man at the far end of the table. He was seated next to Barber, picking his teeth and taking turns slathering her then you with his greasy gaze. He was squatly built with all the shape of a muscled toad. He sported a truly unfortunate haircut that looked as though he had given it to himself with a butcher knife in the dark. His eyes were beady and his jaw belligerently set. He spoke with a brash accent that was vaguely European but difficult to place. He was dressed in typical safari guide style, as portrayed in bad movies and stereotypes anyway, with short mid-thigh-length khaki shorts and hiking boots.

Jean Carroughes was the only person at the table not possessed of degrees, accolades, or extrinsic measures of accomplishment. He was the game warden for 65, hired for his extensive background in big game hunting. He had guided safaris in Africa and hunts in Australia for most of his fifty-some years, and he was the best in the business for hunting creatures that will hunt a man back. Just as Mills was head of security over the humans inside the park, Carroughes was charged with seeing that the animals were properly controlled. And if a dinosaur were to get loose from her enclosure, it was Carroughes’ job to hunt her down and bring her back or put her down.

“If either of you want a real show,” Carroughes addressed you and Barber, staring at each of your tits instead of your faces. “I can take you to watch the raptors hunt. We have a pack of three of them. Let me tell you, a pride of lions in Africa is a yawn fest compared to them.”

“Not a fucking chance,” Mills growled across the table. “You’re not taking anyone at this table within striking distance of those bitches.”

“Poor Mills has been afraid of the raptors since day one,” Carroughes scoffed. It made you smirk, not because of the odious game warden but from the enjoyment of watching Mills bristle.

“I’m in charge of making sure none of the guests gets their ass chewed off. My orders trump anything from a Steve Irwin wannabe in hot pants.” Mills grinned dangerously at the other man, inviting an escalation.

“Enough, children,” D’Alencon said with the first hint of actual exasperation. “One would think the dinosaurs would be the biggest stressors in the park.” He then smiled and addressed the table. “Of course, raptors will be on the tour you are all given, but it will be done in a way that meets with all of our rigid safety standards.”

Carroughes puffed with satisfaction in another toadlike affectation. Mills clenched his jaw and glowered.

“Question,” Hux said, redundantly and obnoxiously raising his hand. “Why exactly did you choose to include a pack of vicious carnivores in your park? You had the power of God, the ability to bring to life only the animals you wanted. You didn’t think it wise to have forgone the elite killers for your menagerie?”

“Money,” you responded for D’Alencon. “Danger and sensationalism are where the marketing and the money is. Do you go to the zoo to see the water buffalo or the lions and the tigers?”

“I rather enjoy the penguins, myself,” Hux replied seriously.

“You should be ashamed that comment doesn’t surprise me at all,” you laughed as Stallworth nodded his head in agreement.

“A bored woman looking for excitement could find better and cheaper ways to amuse herself,” Mills quipped with a wolfish flash of his teeth.

“Certainly cheaper.” You let your eyes burn into his for a moment. “I never said that I was looking for excitement, Commander. I’m not bored in my life and I’m sorry to inform you that I don’t do cheap, so you would be ill-equipped to amuse me. The average paying customer, however, is another matter.”

“What ever could possibly go wrong in a park filled with monsters and run by egotistical bickering men,” Hux pondered, letting his sarcasm drip from every word.

Before more snark could be fired, D’Alencon’s phone chimed to life. He pulled it from his pocket, looking at it only momentarily before clapping his hands together excitedly and rising from the table.

“I have a special treat for all of you!” he announced, as excited as a kid on Christmas morning. He then addressed you directly, “I’m sure you’ll find this worth braving the storm so you could be here in time this evening.”

Mills stood in tandem with you, looking just as confused as everyone else. Without another word, D’Alencon strode from the dining room, motioning for everyone to follow him. Barber flitted toward Mills, looking for an excuse to single him out. Serving both his efforts to avoid her and another agenda, Mills fell into step beside you as you followed closely behind your eccentric host through a long hallway and several steel security doors requiring a badge and fingerprint scan to enter.

“And here I thought your firm doubled as an escort service, being as how the boss was so adamant about having you here tonight,” Mills said in a perfectly conversational tone, glancing sideways to watch you go rigid with anger. “I guess he had other plans all along.”

“It’s a good thing you’re not paid to think, Commander.” You glared ahead, not giving him the dignity of your full attention. “You should stick to flexing your muscles and leave the thinking to men above your pay grade.”

Behind you, the sounds of Carroughes’ nauseous overtures and Barber’s encouraging simpers could be heard. A squeegee-like sound emanated from Carroughes with every step – it might have been the sound of new boots on tile, but you elected to think it was the sound of his jellied thighs rubbing together below the cuffs of his little shorts. Stallworth debated Hux on his developing theory that raptors were inherently more dangerous than t-rex due to their classification as pack animals, because it was a commonly known statistical principle that greater numbers equate to greater chaos.

“You’re no longer needed this evening, Commander,” D’Alencon commented over his shoulder with a private chuckle. “You’re welcome, of course, but I assume you want the evening to yourself instead of – how did you put it? ‘Wrangling a herd of overpaid goobers who couldn’t survive in the wild.’”

“As head of security, it’s my job to fall on my sword and draw the lawyer’s attention away from the more tender meat back there.” Mills jerked his chin in the direction of the experts who trailed behind. “She’ll eat them alive faster than any dinosaur in the park.”

“Ah yes, I see.” Still grinning at some internal humor, D’Alencon reached a laboratory door blazoned with a warning in shocking orange block print. The door opened with a friendly electronic beep and a hiss of air.

Several technicians in stark white lab coats flitted around the bright white room. A series of terrariums filled the lab and several large cylindrical incubators. One incubator was open and presided over by an attentive technician. D’Alencon inserted himself between Mills and you to take your arm. He led you to the incubator, ensuring you were closer than the rest of the group and positioned to see inside.

On a bed of mossy vegetation was a cluster of four ovaline eggs, each the size and shape of a large potato. Even as you watched, the eggs shook and rolled from the creatures moving inside them. They were hatching, the shells cracking and breaking apart as the new lives within began to break free. No one in the group was immune from the excitement of seeing a new family of dinosaurs come into the world. Even Mills, pushed his way past Hux to stand on the opposite side of you from D’Alencon.

“I’ve been here for the hatching of every dinosaur on the island,” D’Alencon said proudly. “They imprint on whomever they see first in the world.” He looked at you with a smile as one of the eggs broke open and a little green snout the size of an adult iguana poked through. “These are raptors, one of my favorite dinosaurs. I thought I’d name one after you.”

“Fitting.” Mills huffed a laugh before you could answer. “Name one bloodthirsty maneater after another.”

“I agree.” You glared at him, then you crooned in the soft voice you used for pets and babies as you leaned in toward the hatching raptor, “And I’d be flattered.”

Its tiny clawed fingers pushed away a piece of shell from its face and it stared up at you, cocking its head sideways in an avian manner. You slowly reached to the raptor and delicately plucked another piece of shell away from its body, still sticky with egg residue. Before you pulled your hand away, the raptor reached out and clutched your finger with its hand the way an infant would a parent.

“I’ll be damned,” Mills said and laughed again, this time softer, almost warmly. At the sound of Mills’ resonant voice, the baby raptor’s yellow slitted eyes turned to him. It held him fixed and its eyelids narrowed, a pure predator from its first breath. It hissed aggressively at Mills and clutched your finger tighter, which pleased you deeply.

“Wait,” Stallworth spoke to D’Alencon. “I thought you said you already had raptors.”

“I do,” D’Alencon replied happily. “I started with a pack of five, but the alpha female killed two of her sisters. There are currently three adults in the park.”

“These are some of the most vicious and most intelligent predators the world has ever known.” Stallworth looked uneasily at Hux, now sharing some of his trepidation. “And you want seven of them in your park?”

“Don’t turn into a wet blanket, Dr. Stallworth,” D’Alencon sighed. “I was just beginning to like you.”

“Where do you raise the little monsters?” Hux asked snidely.

“We have a nursery, naturally.” D’Alencon answered impatiently.

“A nursery?” Barber squeaked excitedly from the other side of the incubator.

“That gives me a great idea!” Carroughes said, standing beside Barber. He grazed her ass with his hand, taking the advantage when it could be seen as accidental if his touch was unwanted. She didn’t seem to mind.

“No, no, we’ll have no ideas from you.” D’Alencon shook his head. “Those always end terribly.”

“I can take the women on a tour of the nursery,” Carroughes continued undaunted. “Women would love that. We can go at night and it wouldn’t interfere with the rest of the tour.”

“Absolutely fucking not,” Mills cut stridently across him. “That sector is still causing glitches in the rest of the park when all its operations are running.”

“Yes, the nursery is off limits, I’m afraid,” D’Alencon told Carroughes sternly, then addressed the rest of the group. “Not to worry, that is one of the safest areas of the park. Everything in the nursery is too small to hurt anyone.” He softened his voice when he spoke to you and Barber. “I had planned for that to be part of the tour, but it has such a heavy voltage load that during storms it can trip a few breakers.” He grinned at you. “That will give you a reason to come back when we are closer to completion.”

Carroughes leaned close to Barber, intending to flirt in a whisper but failing, “Stick with me, and I can show you things you’ll never read about in the brochure.”

You wrinkled your nose in distaste before you could stop yourself. Mills saw your reaction and smirked. He held out his enormous hand and wiggled his pinky finger. “Some of the monstrosities in the park are disappointingly small.”

You laughed despite yourself along with Stallworth and D’Alencon. Carroughes flushed an indignant cranberry, a vein pulsing angrily in his forehead.

“And this is why we will stick to the tour as planned,” “D’Alencon added. “So there are no unpleasant surprises, big or small!”

*******************************************************************************************

Earlier than the rest of the group, whose tour was set to begin mid-morning like the throngs of soon-to-be park customers, you had other business to conduct and matters to survey with D’Alencon. When the first tint of navy streaked through the inky black sky, you were dressed chicly and walking down the vacant hallways of the resort to meet D’Alencon for coffee. He was to brief you on the park’s emergency protocols in case of disaster, something he didn’t intend to burden his other guests with unless asked directly. From hurricanes to earthquakes to power outages to dinosaur attacks, 65 had protocols in place for all foreseen eventualities. Many of these required a full staff and not just the present skeleton crew, but the procedures could be reviewed regardless.

As you walked toward the appointed room for coffee, you were startled by a voice sounding near your ear from behind.

“I’ve had a change of plans this morning,” D’Alencon told you and laughed when you jumped in surprise.

“A park full of dinosaurs and the first scare I get is from a blonde buffoon!” you exclaimed, mostly teasing. At least a good start in the morning got the blood pumping even faster than caffeine.

“Let’s detour through the gym. It’s quite impressive, if I do say so myself. I spared no expense.” D’Alencon put his hand on your back and led you along beside him.

“Is this your way of telling me I need to work out?” you teased. “Better tread carefully.”

“Nothing of the sort!” His free hand flew to cover his heart in contrition, he then flagrantly eyed your figure. “Perfection cannot be improved upon.”

“Do you need me to assess your liability from a guest dropping a weight on their foot?” you raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“I’m used to significantly more stimulus than a remote island can offer, even one populated with my extraordinary pets,” D’Alencon explained. “I was hopeful that some highly stimulating diversion might develop between us, but alas, I see that my desire is one-sided.” Before you could offer some trite placation, he continued over you with a shrug. “C’est la vie. It’s for the best. Had I been able to get you into bed, I could never had respected your judgment again.”

“So, where does the gym come in?” You smiled, relieved at his lighthearted mien.

“I play the game of love the way more boring men play chess or poker. I’ve seen both of your tells, and now I intend to call your bluffs.” D’Alencon smirked to himself. “My own brand of entertainment here on this isolated island.”

“Both of our tells?” you asked, your suspicions rising. “Mine and whose tells?”

“Who better to take you through the park’s failsafes and security protocols than my head of security?” D’Alencon’s smirk widened into a grin.

“Mills?” You stopped mid-stride, turning to flash an aggravated glare. D’Alencon pushed you ahead with his hand at your back as you continued vehemently, “I’d really rather not. You can’t expect me to deal with him before coffee. He’s obscene, rude -- a complete bastard.”

Just as you finished your tirade, D’Alencon steered you through two open double doors, the entrance to 65’s gymnasium. Your protest died on your tongue at the sight of the remarkable gym that sprawled across a space the size of a banquet hall and rose two stories. One wall of the gym was almost entirely windows, allowing people lifting weights or running on treadmills to look out over the park. Occasionally, the long neck of a brachiosaurus could be seen rising high above the jungle like a living periscope.

You involuntarily sucked in a breath when your eyes immediately fixed upon the gym’s sole occupant.

Mills lay on his back on a bench, hefting a free bar weighted with five twenty-five pound plates on each side. He wore black pants and a gray tank, his powerful arms on full display. Focused on keeping the form of his bench press and the two-hundred-fifty pounds of free weight over his chest, he didn’t notice you. He exhaled through gritted teeth when he pushed the bar out to full extension and inhaled as he lowered it again until the bar nearly brushed against his chest. You had entered in the middle of his set, and you counted seven reps as you watched. The last three were hard for him, his arms starting to quiver and the thick muscles standing out in rippling ridges.

Mills re-racked the bar and sat up on the bench. Still unaware of your presence, he reached for a towel to wipe the sweat off his face and neck, then ran a hand through his long hair to smooth it back into place. His muscles were swollen from lifting, pumped up with the increase of blood and expansion of tissue, making his arms powerfully defined and his chest thick, pillowy, and deeply clefted. His impressive body glistened with a sheen of sweat that also made his tank contour the planes it covered. You took in the sight of him like a starving woman eyeing a five-course meal, unable to tear your eyes away.

“Yes, yes,” D’Alencon quipped to you. “Obscene, rude, a complete bastard. Nothing to like there at all.” He patted your back sarcastically, like a man does a teammate. He stepped into the gym with you at his side and hailed Mills before he reclined for his next set. “Is this always the way you start your mornings, Commander?”

“I like to start the day by getting my blood pumping,” Mills replied, wiping his face again more thoroughly now that he had company. Although he talked to D’Alencon, his gaze settled on you. He stood from the bench and walked to you until he stood close. He winked at you, the cocky bastard.

“As do I,” D’Alencon agreed. “However, I could suggest more enjoyable ways of doing so if you ever want a new routine.”

“Does that even work for lawyers?” Mills asked sarcastically. “Can heartless creatures get the blood pumping without the requisite equipment?”

“Pity, you’ll never know what gets my blood pumping.” You smiled cruelly.

“Does the sunlight bother you?” Mills gestured toward the expansive windows and the brightening dawn outside. “Or is it just silver and garlic?”

“That’s blood sucking vampires,” you teased. “They’re at best distant cousins of bloodthirsty lawyers. They’re much less vicious.”

“Actually, I am feeling a bit under the weather this morning,” D’Alencon told Mills, somehow managing to make his pathetic excuse seem genuine. You assumed it was from decades of practice lying to women. “I wonder if you would be good enough to show her the park’s safety protocols and contingencies? A bit of a private tour before the group gets out into the park in a few hours.”

“This is because I have experience keeping insurgents in line, isn’t it?” Mills kept his eyes on you, smirking at the way you bristled. “Makes sense. All my counter-terrorism training might come in handy in dealing with a lawyer.”

“I, too, am fortunate to have had so many past dealings with criminals and perverts.” You smiled at him venomously. “Although even they had better manners.”

“What a superb start! Finding common ground already as criminals and terrorists!” D’Alencon slapped Mills’ arm. “I’ve no doubt you’re both in fine hands.”

Without giving either of you a chance to protest, D’Alencon abruptly took his leave, stranding you alone with the Commander. The sky was lightening outside the gym windows, turning soft and pink in the predawn and you wondered how long you would be forced to endure his grating company. Mills chewed his lip as he regarded you in what could have been contemplation or lewdness, you weren’t sure which.

Still looking at you in that quizzical way, Mills resumed his routine. He retrieved a thick leather weight belt and secured it around his waist. He stepped up onto an elevated block positioned beneath a pullup bar and then hooked a chain with two twenty-five-pound plates attached to his weight belt.

“I don’t think Pierre intended for me to see the park out of the gym windows,” you said impatiently. “The sooner we head out, the sooner I can be done with you. Let’s get on with it.”

“Like what you see?” He flexed his chest with his question. “Feel free to enjoy the show.” Mills flashed you a cocky grin, knowing well how good he looked. “I only have one more set. Unless you’d like me to do more for your viewing pleasure.”

You rolled your eyes, but couldn’t manage to keep from watching Mills when he jumped up to grab the pullup bar in a wide-handed grip. He grunted with effort as he hoisted himself up, touching the back of his neck to the bar with every rep. He did twenty-five reps, the muscles in his back and arms tensing and straining, his breathing growing thicker with each one. It made you wonder if he would sound the same while exerting himself in other ways. He dropped back to the block and took a minute to catch his breath, then hopped up to take the bar again. This time, his grip was reversed and he pulled himself up in chin-ups, touching his throat to the bar with each rep. He did twenty-five more, working his biceps and chest, then lowered himself back to the block. His arms, chest, and back were even more pumped when he finished and unbuckled the weight belt.

“Ready when you are, counselor,” Mills said as he hopped off the block and walked to you. He hooked a thumb in the waistband of his sweats and a bead of sweat ran down the deep cleft in the center of his chest.

“You’re distasteful enough without having to smell you.” You eyed him judgmentally but realized that he still smelled quite clean, and it was almost unnerving being so close to him like this. “I’ll wait while you shower and put your tits away.”

“Sure. I wouldn’t want to distract you from the dinos.” Mills ran a hand through his sweaty hair and headed for the showers.

*******************************************************************************************

Seated in the same Hummer Mills had used to chauffeur you to the resort, you again bumped down narrow muddy roads through the grounds of 65. Rain still drizzled lightly, but it was no longer pelting so hard that it obscured your surroundings. The park was a tropical paradise with lush jungle packed so tightly it looked as though one would need a machete to force through it. Trees with trunks of elephantine thickness, exposed knotted roots, and draped vines – a veritable playground for Tarzan – towered over an endless green sea. The terrain was mountainous with steep slopes and narrow valleys with the occasional grassy meadow nestled between them. You had yet to see a living dinosaur other than the baby raptors.

A matrix of paved and well-maintained roads traversed the park, each with a metal rail running down their center resembling a single railroad track. But still Mills drove you down what appeared to be service roads, unpaved and rough.

“Is this special treatment just for me?” you asked after a particularly rough bump that sent a spray of muddy water across the windshield. “Or do you just like punishment in all its forms?”

“I fucking must! I somehow got myself saddled with you.” Mills smirked and gunned the Hummer a little faster, making it bounce even more. “I’m trying to give you a good show. Those were my orders, right? I’ll admit I could put on a better show in a variety of other settings.” He winked at you and almost laughed when you crossed your arms over your chest in aggravation. “The main roads are for the tourists and they run between the paddocks, outside the fences. These service roads go through the dino paddocks. I might be able to drive you right up close and personal to a few dinos. Most are pretty docile and used to me driving around. The triceratops still charge at the Hummer now and then, so I’ll avoid those girls today.”

“What’s with the metal rail running down the center of the main roads?” you asked as you looked out of the rain-streaked window, more enthused now.

“For the guest tours, the vehicles are electric and run along that track like a ride at Disneyland. The vehicles are otherwise inoperable. It prevents hijacking and joyriding.” Mills, too, scanned the terrain, on the lookout for animals.

“What happens to the vehicles on the tracks if the electricity goes out?” you asked as a bolt of lightning cracked through the ceiling of gray clouds.

“Hasn’t Pierre assured you that it’s impossible for all the electricity in the park to fail?” Mills asked sarcastically. “If there’s a power outage, any vehicle that runs on a track will be dead where it sits.”

“At least, unlike Disneyland, if the ride dies, you can’t fly off the rails of a rollercoaster.” What you didn’t say was that you were now thankful that Mills had taken you out in an independent vehicle, free of the electric track.

“Yeah, but also unlike Disneyland, if Pirates of the Caribbean malfunctions or breaks down, the pirates can’t eat the tourists,” Mills gave a cynical laugh.

Mills had another quip on his tongue, but he stopped short, slamming hard on the breaks, throwing you forward in your seat roughly. Mills’ right arm shot across your chest, pressing against your breasts as though he were employing it as a makeshift seat belt. But his arm wasn’t to secure you, he was pointing out of the passenger window. “Look, there. About thirty yards out in the bush.”

Ignoring the press of his firm forearm against your flesh for the moment, you looked out of the window in the direction he pointed. You saw nothing but rain and endless green. You thought it might be a ruse for the bastard to cop a feel, and were prepared to round on him viciously when a small movement caught your eye. Rainwater slid down a surface that looked like a smooth rock or an ostrich egg, out of place amid the jungle foliage. Then the egg moved when the dinosaur turned its head, nervous at the vehicle that had stopped to watch it. It was the domed head of a pachycephalosaurus, a relatively small, kangaroo sized bipedal dinosaur. It was colored in muted greens similar to a crocodile. It looked at you a second more before turning and bounding away into the deeper jungle. Another pachycephalosaurus you had not even seen turned to follow it, both disappearing instantly into the vegetation.

How in the hell Mills had seen the dinosaur while looking ahead through the windshield and driving through the rain was astonishing. Even after the pair of dinosaurs had vanished, Mills’ arm lingered across your breasts. Until you pointedly pushed his arm away and turned to him with a searing glare. Even then, he withdrew his arm slowly, letting it slide lewdly over your skin while he only smirked at you. You thought of striking him. You would have been justified and, furthermore, there wasn’t a damn thing Mills could do about it. But your body betrayed you and you felt the stirrings of arousal deep inside you, forcing you to turn back away from Mills to look out of the window once again so that he could not read any evidence of your reaction in your face.

Mills continued driving you through the park, through two enormous gates of reinforced metal and layers of electric fence wire. The gates opened when Mills entered a code on a keypad, fully electric, and separated the paddocks between incompatible species. Soon, you came to a looming enclosure that looked like some kind of alien compound.

“I figured you’d want to see the raptors,” Mills informed you as he pulled to a stop outside a hulking building and fence. “You can see what maneaters looked like 65 million years ago before your particular breed came along.”

Fifteen-foot-high electric fence with cement bedding formed the raptor enclosure. Unlike the other paddocks you had seen so far, the raptors were fenced in triplicate with trenches between each row of fence that looked like something out of a World War One battlefield. Also, unique from the other fences, an added topline of electrified razor wire ran along the tops of each fence.

The viewing center for the raptors was housed in an attached concrete blockhouse. There were no doors or access points between the viewing center and the paddock, only a twenty-foot viewing window of bulletproof glass, also in triplicate.

“I don’t think King Kong could get out of here,” you commented as you followed Mills up a set of concrete stairs into the viewing center.

“King Kong couldn’t,” Mills said as he opened a thick metal door with a keypad. “For these girls, I think it’s only a matter of time before they figure out how.”

Inside the viewing center, it was air-conditioned and just as plush as the resort. It was even complete with a deli that was currently unmanned and unstocked. Mills led you to the expansive bulletproof viewing window and pulled a cigar from his pocket. He sarcastically offered it to you first before placing it between his lips. He retrieved a lighter with a gunmetal finish and lit the tip of the cigar, taking a few deep puffs until its tip was glowing.

“There’s no smoking in here,” you told him derisively. “Smoking’s not allowed in any of the park buildings.”

“You’re right.” He plucked the cigar from his lips, blew a perfect ring of smoke in your direction, and examined its tip.

“You could get fired for that,” you said, turning your attention away from him to look out of the window into the jungle of the raptor enclosure.

“Nah, more like chewed out.” Mills leaned one shoulder against the glass and looked at you with his smartass grin. “I’ve been chewed out before.”

“When do the raptors show up?” you asked, looking out at the jungle before you. As thick as the foliage was, it had obviously been thinned to allow some visibility.

“Oh, they’re already here.” Mills grinned mirthlessly without looking outside, his gaze fixed on you. “I bet they’ve been listening to us talk since we walked through the door.”

“They can hear through this glass?” you asked skeptically.

“They can hear and smell better than any drug dog.” Mills looked out of the window now, something catching his eye. “They can run at cheetah speed out in the open. Early on, Pierre had a zoologist who studied them and figured they were smarter than dolphins. Problem solving smart. He thought they were trainable, and even tried his hand at it.”

“Why isn’t he here now?” You still looked outside, seeing nothing.

“He’s enjoying a big payoff from Pierre and a long vacation.” Mills smirked around his cigar. “I’m sure it will take him a while to get used to life with one arm. He got away lucky, too.”

You finally looked at Mills with a raised eyebrow. “Pierre never said anything about that to me.”

“I’m sure he didn’t,” Mills laughed sardonically.

“Do the raptors have handlers?” you asked, watching eagerly for them to appear. “Are they familiar with anyone?”

“They’re as used to me as anyone. There’s even a mutual respect of sorts between us, but I wouldn’t call us friends.” He drummed his knuckles on the glass then crossed his arms over his thick chest and waited.

As if on Mills’ command a raptor stepped into view in an opening about twelve feet outside the glass. She was about five and a half feet tall at the head, colored in shades of green and brown that blended with her surroundings. Aside from the vicious hooked claw on each of her feet, she didn’t look overly fearsome. She walked slowly, bobbing her head like a bird with her movements. Although the raptor looked as though she was casually strolling her enclosure, her viper green eye was focused on the glass window, right at you.

“Is she alone?” you asked, watching the raptor seemingly wander around the small clearing while remaining in full view.

“Nope. That’s the omega of the group, the runt.” Mills, too, watched outside the window now. He looked beyond the raptor into the jungle beyond. “Watch close.”

You strained your eyes, trying to penetrate through the suffocating green, but unable to see anything other than the single raptor in the clearing.

Mills knocked on the glass again and the raptor froze broadside, her eye zeroing in on Mills. Immediately, a small quick movement caught your eye, like the flutter of a bird’s wing. It came from beyond the raptor in the thicker brush further out. It was the head of another raptor that had jerked to look at Mills when he hit the glass. This one was darker, almost a forest green. The head looked straight at Mills, motionless again, save for its eyes. This one had an entirely different countenance, like that of a prowling wolf. The first raptor still paced back and forth in the clearing casually, broadside to you and not looking directly at you head on.

“There’s the beta,” Mills said, still looking around the patch of jungle intensely. “But where’s my big girl?”

Finally, Mills’ eyes focused on a spot off to the side and he grinned. You tried to force your eyes to see what he saw, but you could distinguish nothing but green leaves over green. Mills stood square to the glass and took the cigar from his lips. He held the bright glowing tip near the glass and moved it back and forth in broad deliberate sweeps.

After several passes with the cigar, you saw her. Far off to the side at the furthest end of the jungle that could be seen out of the window, you saw the barest movement, like a leaf moving on a slight breeze. It was a tawney snout that slowly followed the movements of Mill’s cigar in its arc from left to right and back. Instinctively, you moved closer to Mills, as if he could protect you from the sinister creature if the glass didn’t separate you.

Mills kept up the motion with his cigar for several long moments. Like a cat baited by a laser, the third raptor, the alpha, took a tentative step toward the clearing, then another. She stopped just outside the clearing, half-in half-out of the foliage, unwilling to fully expose herself. She was enormous, standing nearly as tall as Mills at her crown. She was colored like a muted tiger with a tawney body and faint brunette stripes. Her golden eyes locked on you and Mills, and you could see both the ferocity and the high intelligence gleaming in them.

You hadn’t realized you were holding your breath, so visceral was your reaction to this apex predator. Looking at her, there was no doubt that this was one of the finest killing machines the world had ever spawned. This creature was no domesticated pet or docile zoo animal, this was a pure predator that would hunt and kill anything not protected by bulletproof glass, steel, and electric fence.

Mills returned the cigar to his mouth and puffed deeply. Following the movement of the glowing cigar, the raptor focused on Mills and narrowed her eyes. She reacted as though she knew she had been fooled and lured out into the open. She hissed angrily and shot back into the jungle, vanishing instantly. The other two followed her, the omega in the open moving with remarkable speed.

“Was the first raptor a decoy?” you asked in disbelief.

“Sure was,” Mills replied gruffly. “She was trying to lure us out so the others could attack us for the kill. They were hunting us.”

“Jesus.” You realized your hands were shaking slightly at your sides. Mills saw it and a brief look of concern flashed across his features. You crossed your arms over your chest, stopping them from shaking, and heading off any obnoxious comfort Mills was inclined to offer.

*******************************************************************************************

The quick, cursory pre-tour D’Alencon had thrust upon Mills to give you was running longer than anticipated. Much longer. That was just fine, D’Alencon didn’t mind his commander and lawyer taking some time alone to bite each other’s heads off. However, it left the rest of the group loitering after breakfast, anxious to get out into the park to see it for themselves. D’Alencon tasked Carroughes with taking them out in one of the other 65 Hummers.

Carroughes drove the Hummer mostly with his knee. Bare beneath his shorts, his damp skin stuck effectively to the leather steering wheel. He had positioned Barber in the passenger seat and the other two scientists in the back seat. Carroughes tried to ignore Hux and Stallworth, but they just wouldn’t shut the fuck up for five minutes.

“I can tell you’re just itching to get out there and see and touch something amazing,” Carroughes said to Barber. He was trying his best to be charming. Women like men who are charming. “Maybe in more ways than just being out in the park.”

“It’s like watching a gorilla mating ritual at a second-rate zoo,” Stallworth snickered to Hux.

“At least then the glass spares one from experiencing the accompanying smells,” Hux sneered, glaring at the back of Carroughes’ head. Hux had not yet experienced the full effect of Carroughes’ mullet, and he found he couldn’t tear his eyes away.

“How does it feel to be the most beautiful woman on the island?” Carroughes said to Barber. She smiled politely, giving him hope.

“Well, in all fairness, I had a fifty-fifty chance since there’s only two women here,” Barber added.

“Hey, even if Mills can’t take his eyes off that fancy lawyer, I think you’re a lot prettier.” Carroughes smiled, not unlike an ape in a zoo.

Stallworth shook his head and exchanged a look with Hux, who was smirking.

“Do you know when Mills will be back?” Barber asked hopefully. “I thought he was going to join us on the tour?”

“Forget Mills,” Carroughes snorted, louder than he intended. “Do women even buy into his kind of macho shit?”

“Tall, dark, and handsome,” Hux speculated to Stallworth, miming a swoon. “What woman would want a man like that?”

“Yeah, I mean, I guess Mills is attractive in a manly, old-fashioned, bodice-ripping sort of way,” Stallworth added. “But what woman would prefer that over the trendy hairdo and mind-blowing conversation you bring to the table, Jean?”

Barber rolled her eyes at all of them but turned to look out of her window so her derision went unseen. She was a confident and educated woman, even if she knew she was outclassed by that bitch lawyer. She knew that she could use Carroughes. She could at least get to see some sights the other men couldn’t as long as he was trying to get into her pants. Maybe, if she played into Carroughes’ advances a little, she might strike a competitive chord with Mills and make some headway there. Mills seemed like the competitive alpha male sort.

Carroughes correctly assumed that Mills was showing the lawyer the most dangerous animals. Or what Mills considered the most dangerous anyway – Carroughes never understood why the big bad ex-military commander thought the raptors were so dangerous. They were some of the smaller and wimpier dinosaurs in 65, Carroughes thought. The biggest raptor in the park was only a little over six feet tall at the head and weighed around three-hundred pounds. She had a bad temper, but she was still a midget compared to most of the rest of the animals in the park, the real dinosaurs.

The relentless rain had made a lot of the lowlands muddy and a chore to drive through. Carroughes wanted to take the group to see the swamps and the lagoons, and the dinosaurs that inhabited those areas – the hadrosaurs, Parasaurolophus, and dilophosaurs. Instead of soldiering through swamp mud, Carroughes opted for a high point in the park that was well-suited to seeing some of its largest inhabitants. He liked that even though he was surrounded by geniuses and scientists, they were now all on his turf and he had the edge. He really wanted to put the moves on Barber, but the two dickhead scientists in the back seat kept making stupid little jokes and laughing, literally behind his back. Carroughes glared at them through the rearview mirror with irritation but, like a pair of recalcitrant teenagers, that just egged them on.

The road Carroughes took was another service road, one that wove through the inside of the park, inside the various animal enclosures. He drove up along a muddy road with a series of switchbacks to the top of a high, flat-topped ridge. It overlooked a savannah-esq grassy plane, and small herds of large grazing dinosaurs could be seen in the distance. Carroughes killed the engine, draped his arm over the back of Barber’s seat, and waited.

“Can we get any closer than a mile?” Stallworth asked, squinting to try to bring the far-off stegosaurs and gallimimus into focus. Never mind that a T-Rex actually lived closer in time to an iPhone than to a stegosaurus, they all shared Isla Nublar

“I bet Mills would drive us right up to them,” Hux wheedled, trying to get a rise out of Carroughes.

Carroughes tried to think of something witty to say, but these things always came hard for him. Before he could reply, exactly what he had anticipated happened. The head of a giant Brachiosaurus, the tallest and largest of the dinosaurs in the park, raised its head from where it had been grazing just down from the peak of the ridge and turned to look curiously at the Hummer. The animal’s nose was no more than a car-length away from the Hummer, close enough to see the wrinkles in its skin and watch its nostrils constrict when it inhaled the scent of the vehicle.

Everyone inside the Hummer jumped from the surprise of the monstrously large head that appeared seemingly out of nowhere, raised up on its thirty-foot neck. Everyone except Carroughes, who had hoped for this very occurrence. He took the advantage to slither his arm down behind Barber’s back and pull her closer to him. The Brachiosaurus leaned in closer and sniffed the Hummer with the gentle curiosity of a dairy cow. They were docile animals and had no natural predators at any point in history. Even a T-Rex or a Spinosaurus could be killed by a swipe of their tail across the neck, and both predator and prey animals instinctively knew it.

“We get to see a live Brachiosaurus and watch Casanova in action,” Stallworth commented to Hux as they watched the animal in awe.

“Educational, really. Watching the primitive behaviors of two distinct animals,” Hux joked. “Don’t you agree, Stallworth?”

The Brachiosaur made a sound through its nostrils like an elephant trumpeting and two other enormous heads rose up above the ridgeline to stare at the Hummer and its occupants. Barber was on the literal edge of her seat, fixated and staring out of the glass of the passenger window like a kid at the zoo. Carroughes smiled gleefully. There was no fucking way he wouldn’t get into her pants tonight.

*******************************************************************************************

“It’s really amazing what you’ve done here, Pierre,” you said genuinely as you walked with him and Mills through the halls of the resort. You had returned long after dark after spending the day out with Mills touring the park. You had enjoyed a wonderful dinner with the group followed by drinks and pleasant conversation, and were now retiring for the night, walking alongside Mills and D’Alencon. “I still can’t believe you’ve actually done it.”

“Through great wealth, all things are possible,” D’Alencon laughed. “I knew you’d approve. The board members worry for no reason at all. It’s the only way they can find to justify their existence.”

“It’s wondrous. Everything you’ve created here is a marvel, but I don’t see how it can sustain without serious accidents and mishaps. If that’s what you want to call it when a guest gets maimed or eaten,” you said with a reluctant shrug. “Most of the animals are so large that even if they’re not aggressive, they’re going to step on or stampede over some unlucky people at some point. There’s a famous legal case on tort liability from an elephant stampeding over a midget in a circus after the elephant was spooked by a teacup poodle. Seriously. Not to mention the aggressive animals like the raptors. Those things scared the hell out of me even from behind bulletproof glass.”

“I hope you’re not letting Mills bring you down to his level of gloom and doom,” D’Alencon sighed theatrically.

“Speaking of gloom and doom, this is one hell of a storm that’s brewing.” Mills looked out of a window at the dark, stormy sky. “Dinosaurs are dangerous enough without fighting hurricane conditions on top of it. We should postpone this VIP tour until it blows over.”

“We’re in the tropics, Nick,” D’Alencon replied, unconcerned. “Tropical storms are a part of life. Do you think I’d close the park because of a little rain when it has twenty-thousand paying guests?”

“I think when it has twenty-thousand paying guests, you’ll have a full staff of over five hundred instead of a skeleton crew of ten.” Mills’ voice was almost drowned out by a blast of thunder. “And half of that skeleton crew are cooks, maids, and lab techs.”

“Really, Commander, if you’re afraid of a little rain…” you sarcastically emphasized his title and then let your voice trail away into a challenge.

Mills puffed his chest in response to your barb and an angry blush crept up his thick neck. It was very satisfying to watch. He gave you an equally sarcastic salute. “I’ll see you bright and early, counselor, and we’ll see who’s afraid of what by the end of this little tour.”

*******************************************************************************************

Alcohol had always been Carroughes’ friend when it came to women. He had used it tonight, shots and shots of it, to ply Barber into submission. Once she was inebriated enough to find Carroughes suitably appealing for an evening – or even for a few thrilling minutes – his mission was nearly accomplished.

Everyone else had retired to their rooms for the evening. The longest holdouts had been D’Alencon, Mills, and that bitchy and unreasonably picky lawyer, who had stayed up late arguing about topic and after boring topic. But that was fine, really. It had given Carroughes extra time to get Barber drunk and pliant. Once he had gotten her to switch from wine to tequila, it wasn’t long before she was slurring her words and leaning against him promisingly.

“You’re beautiful,” Carroughes told Barber. Women liked bullshit like that. “I would launch a thousand ships at your face.”

“Are you trying to say I’m as beautiful as Helen of Troy?” Barber laughed and grabbed his hand as they left the dining room. Carroughes didn’t know Helen or Troy, but Barber seemed happy. She even added, “You’re cute.”

Carroughes wanted to make it simple, to follow her back to her room and use her to get off a couple times. She probably wouldn’t ever remember if he didn’t bother with much foreplay and if she didn’t cum herself. It was just the level of drunkenness he preferred in women; drunk enough to be easy and also forgetful, but not drunk enough to black out. He tried to steer her in the direction of the elevators that led to the guest rooms when they staggered out of the dining room together, but she kept ragging on him to show her the nursery.

“Like you promised,” Barber slurred, leaning against him. “I want to see the babies.”

‘You’re gonna reward me for this, right?” Carroughes asked, changing course toward the nursey. Women were such a pain in the fucking ass.

The three areas of 65 that required the highest clearance were the embryo storage freezer, the hatchery, and the nursery. Carroughes didn’t have very high clearance. His role was as a glorified tour guide, a character to give the paying customers some entertainment and add safari flavor. However, he wasn’t stupid – just like his mom had always assured him. Carroughes had paid close enough attention to some of the eggheads in recent weeks to know there was a glitch in the nursey’s electric system. D’Alencon had thrown a screaming fit when that sector hadn’t been repaired and in first-rate working order before his experts arrived, but the squirming technicians assured him that it would be done within the next week.

Most of the secure areas of the park were programmed to lock down in the event of a power outage or a tripped breaker. Things like the raptor enclosure and the T-Rex paddock, the embryo storage, the armory, even the computer command center were programmed to lock down completely, so nothing dangerous could escape or alternatively reach the most sensitive areas. But the nursery was the complete opposite. Baby dinosaurs were surprisingly frail creatures, or perhaps it was just their cloned contemporaries. They had to be kept very warm and in high humidity, and they had to be fed every three hours. D’Alencon had lost multitudes of the little shits before his veterinarians had figured out how to walk the tightrope of keeping them alive. Also, baby dinosaurs did not present a danger to anyone. Most of them didn’t even have teeth for a few weeks, even the carnivores. The herbivores were fed vitamin rich vegetable mush and the carnivores organic canned cat food, which, after months of trial and error, had proven a favorite. They reminded Carroughes of baby birds – ugly, squawking, and entirely dependent on their handlers.

In the event of a power outage or electrical problem, the nursery was programmed to unlock so that technicians could still tend to the young animals and prevent a mass death that could otherwise occur very swiftly.

Carroughes even knew where the breaker box was for the nursery. While Barber staggered against Carroughes, he fumbled with a hidden wall panel to expose an ordinary breaker box. Each sector in the park had a breaker box, even the highest technology couldn’t get around that. Carroughes studied the breakers, each had a corresponding number beside that meant shit to him. He selected one at random and flicked it off. Just as he thought it would, the lock on the nursery door slid open when the system detected the glitch.

Carroughes opened the door, took Barber’s purse and wedged it in the jam so the door couldn’t close fully again, and reset the breaker. No harm done, he thought. With the minimal staff, a quick breaker short probably wouldn’t even be noticed until the computer geeks ran their weekly diagnostics.

For some reason, it was unusually dim inside the nursery. The nursery was usually lit with intensely bright bulbs that mimicked sunlight. He wanted Barber to be able to see some of the little bastards and get that out of the way so he could get what he wanted out of the evening. He also damn sure didn’t want to step on one. That would be a lot harder to explain than a tripped breaker. Leaving Barber alone for a moment, he rushed back outside and flipped a few breakers off then back on, trying to get the room at full power. On the fourth breaker, the room looked noticeably brighter.

All the computer degrees in the world weren’t a substitute for common sense, he thought proudly to himself as he rejoined Barber.

It only took a few minutes for Barber to see several species of baby dinosaur, all of whom were relatively friendly since they were used to being fed by humans. A baby raptor and a baby hadrosaur wandered up to her, looking at her expectantly for food. They would be enemies as adults and on opposite ends of the food chain, but they were as friendly as a puppy and kitten now. The knee-high raptor held a rag in its tiny three-fingered hands like a toddler with a favorite blanket, gumming it occasionally and kneading it with its claws. Carroughes had overheard D’Alencon talking to his head geneticist about how if he could engineer miniature raptors that, given their high intelligence, they could be declawed and marketed as very expensive exotic pets.

Carroughes figured Barber had seen enough and that he had fulfilled his end of their bargain. He also figured she wouldn’t remember much of this tomorrow anyway. Carroughes maneuvered her away from the juvenile dinosaurs and pushed her face against the wall, hiked up her skirt, fished his little dick out of his pants, and unceremoniously drove it into her. She moaned perfunctorily as he rutted into her like a zoo animal. She bumped her ass back against him and moaned Mills name, too drunk to be embarrassed that it was the wrong name. It only took him a few sloppy thrusts and porcine grunts before he emptied himself inside her. He didn’t offer to do more for her, or to help clean his own filth off of her. He only yanked her skirt back down while his spend dripped down her thighs. She was too drunk to care about that either.

Leading Barber by the arm and supporting most of her drunken weight, he dragged her out of the nursery back toward her room. He was careful to retrieve her purse from the door jam so the door would close properly. He had been careful not to damage anything or cause any harm to the nursery. He had been in and out fast, just like he had with Barber. He smiled at the thought.

Neither Carroughes nor Barber noticed the flash of light from the ceiling of the nursery as one of the huge lights burst from an electrical surge. They didn’t notice the nursery door unlocking itself again, either. In the event of a power outage or electrical problem, the nursery was the one door that was programmed to unlock.

*******************************************************************************************

It was gray and drizzling rain on the second morning of your stay in 65. The rain hadn’t stopped since your helicopter flight to the island, rivulets of water ran alongside the roads and puddles were scattered across the muddy ground. You stood with the rest of the group outside under the expansive awning of the resort, waiting for your VIP tour to begin. Mills leaned against one of the great pillars that supported the awning, watching you in that predatory way of his that telegraphed loud and clear that you were being hunted.

Two Hummer H1s awaited the group. They were painted in the same black and gray scheme as the helicopter with the 65 logo was blazoned on the hoods. They were park tour vehicles that ran solely along the electric track and were otherwise inoperable, the same vehicles that would transport endless guests on countless tours when 65 opened.

“Morning, gorgeous,” Mills said to you as you walked by him toward the Hummers. His voice was deep and he looked annoyingly good in a tight khaki long-sleeved henley.

You lifted your chin higher as you strutted past him, otherwise ignoring him entirely.

With exaggerated self-importance, Carroughes strutted to the lead car, his inner thighs jiggling below the cuffs of his shorts like a middle-aged woman. Opening the driver’s door, he turned to sneak a glance at you to see if you were following him, knocking his hat off on the door frame in the process as he climbed inside.

Mills lingered back from the Hummers, watching the group members allocate themselves between the two vehicles. He was pleased to see you take the front passenger seat of the back Hummer, deliberately steering clear of Carroughes. He was so focused on you that he almost jumped when he felt a thin hand land on his arm.

“Our chariot awaits,’ Barber simpered with a vapid smile as she uninvitedly looped her arm through his. “Care to escort me?”

Mills grinned politely, although a trained eye would have seen that it was more of a grimace. He dutifully walked Barber to the Hummers. He caught your eye and was delighted to see you watching him with some sour emotion, before you very pointedly turned your attention to the men in the backseat of your Hummer, Stallworth and Hux.

At the passenger door to the lead Hummer, Mills opened the door for Barber like a gentleman. She held his hand as she stepped inside, making a point of sticking her ass out as much as possible. She kept her hold on him as long as she could – until Mills closed the door in her face with a smirk. Turning on his heel, he walked back to the rear Hummer and took the driver’s seat for himself.

“Miss me?” he asked you as he slid behind the redundant, inoperable steering wheel.

“I don’t think you’re needed with us today,” you told him coolly, ice flashing in your eyes and your frigid smile. “As head of security, shouldn’t you be somewhere seeing to security, perhaps?”

“That’s exactly what I’m doing is seeing to your security. How could I do that remotely from behind a screen?” He winked at you and saw you bristle, precisely the reaction he wanted. “I prefer the hands-on approach.”

“So, what is your role today, Commander Mills?” Hux asked from the backseat, leaning forward eager to join the conversation. “I should know the security pitfalls if I’m assessing risk.”

“I’m just along for public relations today.” He looked at you with a smartass grin. “To keep morale high.”

“You? Morale? Am I the only one who now feels a sense of impending doom?” Hux teased, catching your eye.

The Hummers rolled forward, silent and smooth on their electric tracks. Each was fitted with a console screen in the dash and one in the backs of each headrest for the backseat passengers. These consoles displayed information about where they were in the park and about the dinosaurs. They could also be used to communicate with a function similar to facetime.

Thunder boomed and rain slashed across the road in front of you. The video console in the Hummer sizzled with static and winked off and then back on. The electrical glitch went unnoticed by all the passengers whose attention was focused eagerly outside, on the lookout for dinosaurs.

*******************************************************************************************

Pierre D’Alencon sat in the room affectionately dubbed Starfleet Command. The term was given by the men D’Alencon in turn called his Nerd Herd, the team of computer engineers and programmers who oversaw every essential function of the park. The park was now operating with a skeleton crew of essential personnel only, and the usual nerd herd of twenty-five was currently cut down to one man.

65’s chief computer engineer was a man who preferred to be called the Conductor. D’Alencon could hardly blame him. Wallowitz was a mouthful and didn’t have the same ring to it. He was a scrawny waif of a man, smaller in height and weight than the average woman. He was also the youngest man to earn a PhD from MIT and then became the youngest man to be recruited by NASA. However, a gig at NASA didn’t impress women as much as the Conductor had hoped, especially when he couldn’t even talk about most of what he did. With his astronomically high IQ, it was easy for him to recognize that it was money that made a man of his diminutive size palatable to women. And D’Alencon paid much better than NASA.

Similar to a NASA command center, the room called Starfleet Command had a wall of screens the size of a small movie theater. Rows of workstations filled the room, enough for twenty-five employees, with two monitors each. Now, the entire park was manned only by the Conductor who was alone in the room save for the park’s owner.

D'Alencon reclined in an office chair in front of a vacant monitor that was connected via live video and audio feed to the two Hummers that were currently touring the park with his guests. He could see and hear everything that transpired in each vehicle, but they could only see and hear him when he activated his screen and unmuted his mic. D’Alencon fiddled with his phone, scrolling through endless vapidity in the form of one app or another, and returning messages from various women in his rotation. He tried to open a picture message of what looked like a pair of magnificent tits on a blonde he was set to meet next week, but it wouldn’t load. The phone was slow now, tropical storms always affected reception out on his isolated island.

“I’m getting some notifications from a few systems in the nursery,” the Conductor said, his bright blue eyes darting between three different monitors.

“Anything essential?” D’Alencon asked with mild disinterest. “That area has been causing problems on the circuit for a while. It was scheduled to be repaired this week, but as you know, the storm delayed the shipment of necessary supplies. All it has to do is hold out for another few days until repairs can be made. It will make it that long, right?”

“Probably,” the Conductor replied, unbothered. He was notoriously flat affect, and would deliver the news that a nuclear warhead had been launched with the same level of excitement he would order a cheeseburger.

D’Alencon rolled his eyes. Like most engineers, the Conductor was terminally boring. But that hardly mattered, the only reason he was in this room now was to check in on his guests and, more interestingly, to watch his own little social experiment unfurl. He felt a little like a Bond villain, sitting in his high tech lair on his private island, watching his schemes come to fruition. It was quite a nice feeling, really. His motives were noble after all, both with the park in general, of course, and for his new little game with his lawyer and his commander. He was deeply fond of both of them and knew they would be great together, so long as they didn’t kill each other first. He had a sense for these things.

The monitor showed the two groups talking amongst themselves in the Hummers. D’Alencon listened to each for a moment, choosing the more interesting conversation to join. Carroughes and Barber were alone in the lead Hummer. Carroughes was shamelessly and ineptly flirting, telling Barber something about the size and function of his dick that was a blatant lie, but Barber simpered regardless. In the rear Hummer, there was an animated battle of wits between the commander and the lawyer, with verbal barbs flying back and forth. Stallworth and Hux prodded them on, like cheering on racehorses they had money riding on.

Much more interesting. D'Alencon grinned and activated his video and audio to join the conversation in the rear Hummer.

“You’re coming up on the triceratops pasture now,” D’Alencon said, announcing his presence on the screen.

“Really?” Stallworth asked excitedly, looking out the window expectantly. “Triceratops were always my favorite, even as a kid.”

The storm and driving rain had the animals being less active than usual. Even dinosaurs had the sense to lay low when a hurricane could soon be laying siege to the island. The Hummers slowed on their electric tracks, crawling through an open meadow like a jeep on safari. Like cattle anticipating a storm, the herd of triceratops were bedded down in the tallest grass of the meadow. Mills had the keenest eye, and he easily spotted the two cranial horns of the largest female protruding from the tall grass. They looked like five-foot long elephant tusks. He helped the group zero in on the horns, but two prongs peeking up through the grass was hardly an impressive sight.

You rested your left elbow on the center console as you watched out the window. While Stallworth and Hux were also focused outside, Mills trailed his thick fingers down your forearm and over the back of your hand. Even that slight touch was electric, making the small hairs on your arm stand on edge. You yanked your hand away and glared at him. He winked back at you.

By the time you had driven through the triceratops paddock, the rain had become a downpour. The windshield wipers whipped back and forth at the highest setting but were unable to keep the windshield clear. If you had been driving on a highway, you could not have exceeded twenty miles per hour without overdriving your visibility.

“You do eventually have dinosaurs on your dinosaur tour?” Hux asked D’Alencon through the screen. He waited for D’Alencon to answer his rhetorical question. Then, he tapped on the backseat screen obnoxiously. “Hello? Pierre? Do we have to pay extra to actually see the dinosaurs?”

“I really hate that man.” D’Alencon was muted but he glared at Hux, whose features were made even more pointed and rodent-like through the distortion of the camera angle.

The fence separating the triceratops pasture from the next enclosure was not only the fifteen foot high reinforced electric fence you had grown accustomed to seeing, but was made extra secure by a deep concrete moat that was as wide as a small river. It followed the fence for as far as you could see, presumably running the length of this new animal paddock.

“Are you ready to see the star of my show?” D’Alencon asked both vehicles through the console. Mills looked over at you and grinned wolfishly when D’Alencon added, “Lady and gentlemen, the Tyrannosaurus Rex.”

The Hummers drove along their track, which was now sandwiched safely between fence on either side, passing by dense jungle and steeper terrain. They drove by a deep ravine that was dammed by concrete, with both the fence and road running along the top. On the other side of the fence, you could see a long drop into a valley below that now ran with rainwater like a flashflood. The Hummers stopped on their own next to a level area with a clearing.

Everyone watched with bated breath, as though the T-Rex would walk into the clearing right on cue like a starlet taking the stage.

Mills held his hand out to you, palm up, smirking sarcastically “In case you get scared, darling.”

“I can’t imagine anything in this park being more frightening than your manners.” You ignored him and looked out of your window, pointedly away from him. His hands are fucking enormous. The thought intruded into your head, followed by imaginings of how they would feel on your body. The unwanted invasion into your thoughts angered you almost as much as your body’s response to the bastard.

The minutes ticked by with no appearance by the T-Rex. The Hummer was silent save for the impatient drumming of Hux’s fingertips. “I daresay Pierre, you could sell tours of Loch Ness promising views of Nessie for much less overhead and with the same payoff to guests.”

“To think, I’m paying for the privilege of being demeaned by a socially inept, celibate against his will, ginger,” D’Alencon quipped. He muted himself and spoke briefly to the Conductor, who immediately began entering commands into his computer.

“We just had a short in the docks,” the Conductor said without a note of concern. “The automated storm gate that protects the harbor delivery docks from high waves failed to close. It looks like it shorted out the rest of the power that supplies the docks.”

“Doesn’t matter.” D’Alencon waved his hand dismissively. “The docks don’t need power until we get another delivery by cargo ship. That won’t be until late next week.” He sighed and looked deprecatingly at the Conductor. “Please try to stay focused while I have to impress these bloody experts. You realize if they aren’t pleased with the park, it will cause problems?”

“It’s your rodeo, man.” The Conductor shrugged and resumed rapidly typing commands.

“Hold tight.” D’Alencon unmuted himself and spoke to both Hummers. “We’re going to bait the T-Rex.”

*******************************************************************************************

Your Hummer was parked next to a deep ravine on the other side of the fence in the T-Rex enclosure. It had been reinforced with concrete like a heavy dam, keeping the fence running across its top level with the road. It was narrow and steep, with a torrent of rainwater gushing through it like a gutter thirty feet below. Ahead of you and even with the lead Hummer in the T-Rex enclosure was a flat stretch of jungle with a grassy clearing. It was in this clearing that the bait was tied, a poor brindled cow that must have sensed its dire situation because it stomped and bawled mournfully.

It took only minutes for the Tyrannosaurus to come for the bait. You couldn’t see her, you could scarcely hear her, but you could feel her approach, vibrating through your bones like the drums of war.

The ground itself vibrated with each step of the approaching animal, like tremors before an earthquake. The water bottles in the drink holders rippled and danced in time with each thundering step. Even the tracks of rainwater that streaked down the windshield zigzagged from the vibration, like aftershocks of an earthquake. The passer side of the Hummer was closest to the T-Rex enclosure and the bawling cow. Stallworth had his nose pressed to his window, as eager as a schoolboy to see some dinosaur action. Hux was pressed as close to him as a horny teenager to a date at a drive-in, looking out of the window beside Stallworth. Their attention was focused solely and intently at the bait.

So was yours.

With your face turned away and your attention elsewhere, Mills had the opportunity to study you openly. He let his eyes linger over the graceful line of your neck, the way your hair hung around your features, the swell of your breasts through your shirt. He inhaled the alluring scent of you, tinged with excitement. He leaned in close to you, leaning over the center console until his shoulder brushed yours. He made a point of breathing on your neck and up beneath your ear. Pretending to look past you out of your window, he watched you closely. Mills saw the way goosebumps rose on your neck where his breath heated your skin, the way your chest expanded with deeper breaths, and the way your nipples perked through the thin fabric of your blouse – all telltale signs of arousal that you tried to ignore and tried to conceal. He knew the effect he had on you, and he knew you wanted him as much as he wanted you, even if you were too hardheaded to show it.

Mills decided to press his advantage. He knew it could go nowhere, not now, but he wanted to feel your desire under his hands, feel the heat of your body on his skin. And he knew that as a bonus, he would get to watch the way your eyes alighted with the flame of battle when he prodded you. He enjoyed that very much. Grinning to himself, he edged closer until his shoulder and arm pressed against you. He laid his hand on your thigh, very near the top.

You involuntarily sucked in breath at his unexpected touch. Mills’ massive hand felt like a scalding iron on your skin, burning through your pants and melting you deep down to your core. The response of your traitorous body was subconscious and unwanted, and you cursed the way your pulse quickened and your thighs trembled, knowing the bastard could feel it. You didn’t turn toward him, or outwardly acknowledge him, other than frustratedly clenching your jaw, but you knew he was smirking at your reaction. You could feel the cocky bastard watching you and loving every minute of it.

Mills slowly slid his hand higher and squeezed you firmer until his pinky brushed the fly in your pants. You knew his hands would feel incredible on you, his huge hands, you thought as you laid yours on top of his. For a moment, you rested your hand on his gently and trailed your nails over his knuckles and his fingers that dipped between your thighs, luring him into submission.

When you felt him shift his grip for a more advantageous angle, you grabbed his thick forefinger and wrenched it back violently. You felt it pop but there was no sound, other than Mills grunting painfully and yanking his hand away. The small drama went unnoticed by the men in back, much less interesting to them than a potential T-Rex sighting. Looking over at Mills, you raised a triumphant eyebrow and smirked at the sight of him rubbing his rapidly swelling finger and glaring back at you. He was fully back in his own seat now, no longer crowding you. So, you leaned over towards him yourself, momentarily taking your attention away from the T-Rex enclosure.

“Having a hard time over there?” you whispered right into his ear, sultry and husky, so close your lips brushed his skin, too quietly for anyone else to hear your words. You trailed your fingers up his inner thigh, tormenting him as he had done to you. You felt the reward of him shifting uncomfortably and his thigh muscle quivering under your touch. “Two can play your little game, Commander.”

“Fuck me!” Stallworth exclaimed from the backseat, ending your contest of wills and demanding your attention.

Outside, the cow was gone. Not a trace of the unfortunate brindled animal remained, only its lead rope swung in the storm, untethered.

“Did you see how fast that was?” Hux was shaking with excitement. “Like a bird snatching a fish out of the water!”

“Man, I’ve made a career out of studying these animals, and I never would have thought a T-rex could move like that!” Stallworth slapped his thigh. “She’s like a grizzly bear that moves as fast as a jackrabbit. I can’t believe it!”

“Did you see it?” Hux asked you, reaching forward from the back seat and grabbing your arm for emphasis. “Holy shit, did you see it? That was incredible.”

“Oh, I saw a big destructive animal, all right.” You glared at Mills. You would make him pay for causing you to miss the T-Rex sighting.

“A predator that size that moves like that…” Stallworth’s voice trailed away.

“An electric fence isn’t going to contain her, even if it is 10,000 volts,” Hux finished. “Not once she gets sight of hundreds of tasty tourists every day.”

“Tasty and annoying tourists,” Stallworth added.

“Nah, the T-Rex isn’t so bad,” Mills said, rubbing his swollen finger. “Your grizzly analogy isn’t far off. I’ve heard hunters talk about bears, both grizzly and black bear. Grizzlies are like grumpy old men who really just want to eat and sleep and be left alone. That’s like our big girl here. She’s not all that aggressive – at her size, she doesn’t have to be. As long as nothing messes with her, she doesn’t get too wound up. The problem with her is that she’s smart and she’s curious. And her way of investigating things can go badly for the, uh, thing that perks her interest.”

The windows were now too steamed in the lead Hummer to know what was going on inside, but you all had a pretty good idea. After the cow’s vicious demise, the passenger door shot open and Barber stumbled out. Her hand was pressed to her mouth and she was hunched over, obviously trying to keep from retching inside the Hummer. Carroughes shouted after her to stay inside, but he was too late. With her hand clamped to her mouth, she bolted for the nearby high-end porta-potties.

“What the hell is she doing?” you asked, watching Barber fail to make the toilet and double over to vomit a few yards before it. “Pierre needs an auto-lock on these Hummer doors, or someone’s going to sue the hell out of him when their kid runs off and gets bitten or even grabs the electric fence and gets fried.”

“When you gotta go, you gotta go.” Stallworth shrugged.

Everyone in your Hummer watched Barber, except for Mills, whose attention was focused intently out of the front windshield. Braving to touch you again with his injured hand, he took your chin between his thumb and swollen forefinger, forcibly turning your head to face forward. Your reprimand died on your tongue and you simply stared. The T-Rex stood very near the fence with her nose almost touching the electric wire, no more than twenty feet away from you in the space of fence that separated you from the lead Hummer. She was much bigger than you expected, her head alone looked larger than the Hummer. She was focused on Barber, watching with clear interest in her intelligent eyes as the human wavered and staggered on into the toilet and slammed the door behind her. Barber hadn’t turned to look back toward the T-Rex enclosure and was unaware she was being watched by the beast.

“She’s used to seeing the Hummers driving around, but not humans get out of them, and she’s probably never seen a human run before,” Mills commented, his brow furrowed and attention on the T-Rex. “As an adult, she’s only seen her handlers and feeders from behind glass and bars.”

As if to emphasize this, the T-Rex raised her nose and sniffed at the air, making a chuffing sound as she took in the strange new scent of vomit and fear.

“What the hell is Carroughes doing? He can get his ass out in the rain and drag her back to the Hummer so we can get this show on the road.” Mills turned his attention to the console screen, jabbing it with his thick finger to hail Carroughes. But the screen was black and unresponsive. Mills’ frown deepened.

“I thought it had gotten too pleasantly quiet,” Hux said as he too tried one of the screens in the back, finding it also dead.

“Is the power out?” Stallworth asked. “Can the power even go out in the park?” He looked around with growing trepidation. “Does that mean the electric fences are out, too?”

Before anyone could answer, the T-Rex edged closer to the fence. She turned and nudged it slightly with her shoulder, like a cat scratching an itch. Nothing happened, no shocks or sparks of electricity.

“She’s checking the goddamn fence,” Mills said in quiet amazement, almost to himself.

“The storm shorted the fence out?” you hissed, watching in horror as the T-Rex turned to face the fence again and rubbed it with her nose. She used more force this time, causing the fence to bow outward.

“Did I ever tell you how lucky I am?” Mills asked sarcastically out of the corner of his mouth.

Metal groaned and then screamed like a living thing suffering unimaginable pain when the T-Rex used all of her mass and incredible strength to push the fence outward with her nose. Lowering her head, she soldiered into the dead electric wires like a running back pushing through a guard. The cables snapped, loud as gunshots, and whipped back away from the T-Rex with enough tension to sever a man clean in half.

“I hate being right all the time,” Hux quipped in a tremulous voice as the T-Rex stepped through the gap in the fence and paused to take in her new freedom.

The colossal dinosaur was so close to the front of your Hummer that you and Mills had to lean forward in your seats to even see her head. She stood between the Hummers and looked at them curiously, first one, then the other. The pupils in her yellow irises contracted as she focused on the vehicles, considering them and seeming to decide they were of little interest.

“Don’t move,” Mills said quietly. “Her vision is based on movement. She can’t see us if we don’t move.”

Whether due to a newfound sense of obedience or paralyzed by fear, everyone in the Hummer remained so still no one scarcely dared to breath. Four sets of eyes were glued to every movement of the T-Rex, and everyone knew that if she decided to destroy the Hummer, it would be nothing more to her than a toddler playing with a toy Hot Wheels car. She looked down at your Hummer, her yellow steering wheel sized eye seeming to look right at you. Then, she jerked her head away, looking in the direction of the toilets. Barber must be vomiting again from the trauma of seeing the cow turned into a snack, the foreign sounds of her retching drawing the attention of the T-Rex.

“Oh fuck, we have to do something!” Stallworth slapped Mills on the shoulder, as though he needed roused to take action.

“Look in the back,” Mills instructed the other two men. “There should be an emergency kit. Find me a flare.”

“A flare?” Hux squeaked, terrified, as the T-Rex stalked toward the toilets, cocking her head curiously. Stallworth crawled over the backseat to dig for the emergency kit.

“Here!” Stallworth shoved a flare into Mills’ hand from behind, holding a second one himself.

“All of you.” Mills glanced briefly at the men in the backseat and then focused on you. “Stay here. Don’t get out of the Hummer. Understand?”

You reluctantly nodded, concern twisting your features as you looked back at Mills. He held your eyes and gave your thigh a reassuring squeeze. This time, you didn’t feel the slightest impulse to pluck his hand away. Instead, you felt anxious when he removed his hand and stepped outside, closing the door gently and silently behind him.

Pelting rain drenched Mills almost instantly when he stood outside, slicking his thick hair and pasting his shirt to his body almost as fast as if he had stepped into a shower. He shook his hair out of his eyes and took a steadying breath. The T-Rex faced away from him, unaware of his presence, as she stalked toward Barber’s hideout. Mills strode away from the Hummer until he felt that the people inside it would be safe, even if he himself would not be, in the event his plan failed. He lit the flare. He was so focused on his task and the enormous dinosaur that he didn’t notice that Stallworth had followed him out of the Hummer.

Holding the red burning flare high above his head, Mills gave a loud wolf whistle. The T-Rex whipped her head around, fixing Mills in her sights. Mills stood stock still, with the flare raised at the full reach of his outstretched arm. He deliberately made a slow, sweeping arc with the flare, then another. The T-Rex fixated on the flare’s glowing tip, following it with her eyes and forgetting all about the man who held it. Mills held his breath, worried that the slightest movement would spoil his plan that, so far, appeared to be working perfectly.

The T-Rex took a step toward Mills, lowering her head as she readied for an attack on the flare. Mills made another arc, drew his arm back, and threw the flare as hard and far as he could down the road away from the Hummers. It flipped end over end through the rain, its fiery tip making a tantalizing spectacle. The T-Rex followed the flare, giving chase as Mills hoped, and ignoring him entirely.

Only then, as Mills followed the T-Rex with his eyes as she lunged down the road after the flare, did Mills notice that Stallworth had lit a flare of his own. He stood by the Hummer and he, too, waved the flare above his head as Mills had done. Then, Stallworth began to sprint. Unlike Mills, Stallworth was flailing wildly and running. A full-sized human, animated with frantic movement, was a much more appealing target than a little glowing flare.

“Ron, freeze!” Mills shouted.

“I played college ball. I got this!” Stallworth hollered back over his shoulder. “Take care of the others!”

“Freeze, goddamnit!” Mills roared again. But even as he did, he knew it was futile. The T-Rex gave chase after Stallworth. A human’s top speed was equivalent to a chicken. Usain Bolt would have a hard time outrunning a rooster. Scenes of humans outrunning animals in movies were fun, and fictional. Mills shook his head. There was no way Stallworth could outrun the T-Rex, but there wasn’t a damn thing Mills could do about it.

Hux had also gotten out of the Hummer, ready to flee himself, leaving only you still inside the vehicle. Mills’ world slowed around him as he watched in horror, his heightened senses and dread drawing out every second. He was powerless to do anything, standing by useless and impotent, as he watched catastrophe unfurl. The T-Rex followed Stallworth, aiming right for the Hummer in her path and the man running away from her on its opposite side. Hux dashed away in the other direction, but the T-Rex remained focused on Stallworth. The T-Rex ignored the Hummer, but as she passed it, her tail struck it broadside with the force equivalent of being t-boned by a semi-truck. Mills saw you in the passenger seat and your wide, terrified eyes as the Hummer was whipped over and sent into a roll.

Two sideways rolls took the Hummer over the edge of the concrete dike, plummeting down thirty feet into the ravine below inside the Tyrannosaur paddock. The Hummer caught in the sheared wires of the electric fence as it rolled, slowed its descent slightly like a haphazard yoyo. Mills heard the vehicle hit the muddy ground far below with a dull crunch of metal, and he felt the icy grip of dread seize his heart.

You had been the only person who had followed his command when he told everyone to stay inside the Hummer.

A cacophony of other sounds filled Mills’ ears and chaos erupted around him, but he only stared at the now vacant spot of road where the Hummer had been seconds before. Where you had been seconds before.

Carroughes bailed out of the other Hummer and ran away down the road in the opposite direction. Hux, unsure of what to do, skulked back toward Mills for protection, half-hunched over as though that would make him less conspicuous. Far in the distance, Stallworth screamed terribly. There were no more sounds from the Hummer below. The thundering sounds of the T-Rex’s footfalls grew louder again as she returned, looking for more of the curious running and squealing humans she had found to play with. Barber opened the door to the toilet and screamed stupidly at the sight of the fresh destruction.

The T-Rex appeared in the road, her attention fixed again on Barber. Standing in the middle of the now vacant road, there wasn’t a damn thing Mills could do. He didn’t have another flare and he couldn’t reach the other Hummer or Barber in time to make any difference. Hux ducked and cowered behind Mills’ enormous body, using him as a human shield between the T-Rex, as if that would do any good at all.

The men watched as, with three quick paces that ate up the ground at fifteen feet each, the T-Rex charged to Barber. The woman whimpered and cried, incoherent with terror. She ran back inside the toilet and slammed the flimsy door. The T-rex cocked her head from side to side, clearly intrigued by all of this new stimulus, as she waggled her little forearms excitedly and watched the door to the toilet like a child watching a jack-in-a-box. When the door refused to pop open again, the T-Rex nudged the small structure gently with her nose, which knocked it apart instantly, sending splinters of wood flying away. Barber sat fully clothed and fully exposed on the toilet, still hiding her face in her hands. She looked pitifully up at the T-Rex, who regarded this shivering squeaking human toy with great fascination. The T-Rex snorted curiously at the scent of fear and Barber screamed, starling the dinosaur. With a quick offended motion, the T-Rex chomped down on Barber’s torso, silencing the shrill obnoxious noise. With a jerk of her head, the T-Rex severed Barber’s body in two, raising her head to swallow Barber’s torso in one gulp while the human’s lonely lower body crumpled to the ground.

Still cowering behind Mills, Hux muffled his scream with a trembling hand. But he had seen enough to know to remain still and silent. The T-Rex looked around, surveying the damage she had caused. Seeing no other running humans or things emitting strange and interesting sounds or sights, she turned and ambled away down the road. She was free from her paddock for the first time in her life, and she was eager to explore her new territory.

“We have to go!” Hux squeaked, pulling on Mills’ arm like a child, ready to piss his pants with terror.

“Get your shit together.” Mills yanked his arm away, following his own gruff advice. He set off in a jog in the direction Stallworth had run. From the sound of his scream, he hadn’t made it far. Not wanting to be left alone, Hux reluctantly followed.

The rain had calmed from pelting sheets to a steady drizzle, and the ground was soupy with mud. Stallworth’s tracks were easy to follow. A groan that sounded not unlike the late bawling cow came from the brush ahead, just off the road. Crashing through the jungle, Mills found Stallworth sprawled on the ground beneath a fallen palm tree with a fractured trunk. His left leg was pinned beneath the tree. Mills knelt beside him, quickly appraising his injuries before attempting to move him.

“She knocked the tree over on top of me before she could get me.” Stallworth smiled painfully.

“You’re one lucky sonofabitch,” Mills said as Stallworth groaned in pain again. “Looks like a broken leg, maybe a fracture even, but it could have been a hell of a lot worse.” He turned to Hux. “I’ll see if I can get a few inches of clearance with this tree. You get ready to pull Ron out.”

Hux knelt by Stallworth’s head and grabbed his collar. Mills found the best purchase he could get on the wet trunk of the palm tree. Its bark was rough and knobby, giving him enough to grab. Mills was already flooded with adrenaline, and he gave his mightiest effort, lifting the tree a scant few inches. Growling through clenched teeth with his effort, the thick muscles in his thighs strained the fabric of his pants, his chest and arms rippled with strain, and his knuckles were white from the force of his grip on the bark as Mills lifted harder, using every ounce of his great strength. He created just enough room for Hux to slide Stallworth free and pull him clear.

Without further niceties, Mills grabbed Stallworth’s left arm, hooked it over his own shoulders, and bodily hauled Stallworth up. Mills didn’t bother to ask Hux to help support Stallworth’s weight as he set off back toward the Hummer with Stallworth hopping on his good leg alongside.

“You two stay in the other Hummer,” Mills gave instructions as they hobbled back toward the site of the havoc. “You should be safe there until someone comes along. It’s only a matter of time. Pierre will know the power’s out and where we’re stopped. He’ll send another car out here to get us.”

“You two stay here?” Hux squeaked with concern as the men closed in on the lone remaining Hummer. “What do you mean two? You can’t leave us!’

“Watch me, doc.” Mills yanked the back door to the Hummer open and helped Stallworth inside. “I have to see if she…” His voice was cut off by a hoarse constriction of his throat, and he took a moment to ensure Stallworth was as comfortable as possible before trying to speak again. “I have to help the damn lawyer.”

“She’s dead!” Hux almost shrieked. “You know she’s dead. She couldn’t have survived!”

Mills rounded on the ginger-haired man, his teeth bared in a vicious snarl. Mills slammed Hux against the Hummer with his huge hand around the other man’s puny throat. Hux squeaked in incoherent terror at the sudden aggression from Mills and at the sight of his meaty fist that was raised ominously.

“I have to know,” Mills growled as low and menacing as any predator. He shoved Hux roughly back against the Hummer and released his hold.

Looking at the gaping hole in the fence at the place of the concrete ravine, Mills quickly ran through his options. There were only two. He could climb up and over the fifteen-foot high fence where it was still intact and land on level ground inside the T-Rex enclosure – and risk the power coming back on and getting electrocuted like a moth on a bug lamp. Or he could enter without risk of electrocution through the gap in the fence. But there was nothing on the other side but a sheer drop down a concrete dam to the bottom, the same drop the Hummer had taken with you inside.

The remaining Hummer was only a few yards ahead of the tear in the fence. Mills jogged to the front of it and planted his feet in the mud and his hands on the hood. With all his strength, Mills shoved the Hummer backward, his boots slipping and sliding in the mud. The Hummer was perpetually in neutral on its electric track and it slid slowly backward. Mills shoved it until it was in the center of the break in the fence, where the other Hummer had been minutes before.

“Give me your belt and get Stallworth’s,” Mills said to Hux. He grabbed the hooked end of the cable winch that was affixed to the front of the Hummer and began to unfurl it. He estimated the drop at about thirty feet and did his best to guess when he had thirty feet of cable unspooled.

Mills went to the back of the Hummer, opened the hatch and rummaged through the emergency supplies. He stuffed three more flares into his pants pockets, along with all the first aid items he could fit, which were primarily bandages and pain pills. He also found a pair of handheld two-way radios. The batteries were very low, down into the red, but they were something. He tuned them to the same frequency, hooked one on his belt and gave the other to Stallworth, telling him, “Keep in touch.”

Taking the belts from Hux, Mills wrapped one around each of his hands like a boxer binding his fists. He wrapped the cable around his waist and hooked the cable over itself. It wouldn’t matter much if he lost his hold and fell, but it seemed more proper than just hanging off of it like Tarzan on a vine. Mills backed to the very edge of the concrete precipice, took a breath, and stepped backward off the edge.

The metal cable burned through the leather belts as Mills tried to rappel down the concrete face. The cable was slick with water, the metal was smooth, and Mills dropped far too fast. He gripped the cable as tightly as he could, feeling the flesh of his palms heat with friction, and he slowed slightly. His muddy boots slipped against the concrete when he tried to steady his descent, making him twist haphazardly. Halfway down the skin of his right palm, his hand that had the stronger grip, began to flay. Growling through the pain, he continued his descent. He hit the gulley of rushing water in the bottom of the ravine with a heavy splash, his legs buckling against the harsh concrete floor. The water cushioned him only slightly, and his shoulder plowed violently into the concrete when he fell fully to the ground.

Soaking wet, muddy, and now bloody from a ragged scrape on the point of his left shoulder, Mills pushed to his feet. The Hummer lay on its passenger side only feet from him. It was as crumpled as a crushed beer can with all of its windows broken out and the windshield cracked and splintered outward. Mills’ boots were heavy as he stalked to the Hummer, not from pain or exertion, but from the fear of what he knew he was likely to find inside.

Mills knelt at the front of the Hummer and looked through its spiderwebbed windshield. You were still in the passenger seat, slumped against the crushed side of the Hummer that lay on the ground. You were unconscious. Or worse. But Mills didn’t see any obvious injuries or blood on your body. He shouted your name, but you didn’t rouse.

The windshield had a few jagged holes broken through it, but Mills couldn’t break it further without risk of cutting you with shards of glass. He figured he already had one hand cut to hell anyway and he re-tightened the leather belts around his hands. Using his injured right hand, he forced it through one of the existing holes in the windshield and used his leather armor to grab hold of the plexiglass and rip it out toward him. The windshield was so damaged, he was able to rip out nearly half of it in a single section, more than enough to pull you out. There was no reaction from you, not so much as a flutter of your eyelids.

Grunting and huffing, Mills struggled to force himself through the hole he had made in the windshield far enough to reach you. He pressed his fingers to the side of your neck, feeling for a pulse. His own heartbeat hammered so thunderously through his body that it was hard to detect a fainter one in you. He palpated your neck with trembling fingers until he felt a faint pulse. His heart soared, roaring in his ears. You were alive.

Mills had no way of knowing if you were badly injured and there would be no paramedics coming to your rescue any time soon. The only medical doctor on site was a brilliant man, but he was also in his seventies and as fat as a hog. He would not be rappelling down into the tyrannosaur paddock and crawling into a Hummer to inspect you. Mills grabbed you under your arms and as gently as he could, he pulled you out of the Hummer through the broken windshield.

Mills dragged you clear of the Hummer and out of the mud to a patch of wet grass and laid you flat on your back. You looked unnaturally pristine, your hair slick with water and your face dewy, as though you were only sleeping peacefully. Mills cautiously examined you for injuries as best as he could. He had basic paramedic training, and he had seen and dealt with his fair share of injuries when he was in the military. You had some scrapes and contusions, but nothing that looked serious, and no broken bones that were obviously apparent. He then turned his attention to your head and neck, which were his biggest points of concern since you were unconscious.

There was no bruising or swelling on your neck, which was a good sign, but he located a big swollen lump nearly the size of an egg on the right posterior of your skull – a common injury in a vehicular collision when the head strikes the window. Mills had no way to assess its seriousness. Mills tentatively pressed the lump with his fingers to better gauge its size and you winced. Your eyes fluttered open, instantly filled with pain and irritation, and you reflexively swatted his hand away.

“I didn’t say you could touch me,” you grumbled painfully and Mills broke into a beaming, toothy smile.

Ignoring your reprimand, Mills pulled you into a crushing hug that you felt may have risked fracturing your ribs more than the wreck in the Hummer. He drew back just enough for you to suck in a quick breath before he crashed his lips to yours. You mewed a protest into his mouth, but almost as quickly found that you too wanted nothing more than to savor the warmth of his lips, the masculine taste of him, and the feel of his powerful arms around you. The feeling of his body was heady and surreal, a calm after the storm you had just weathered, and you wanted to be lost in the sensations he gave you and held in his strong, protective embrace.

After several long and euphoric moments, the throbbing in the back of your head intruded into the pleasure that Mills gave you with his searing kiss. You pulled back with a smile on your lips but a painful slant to your eyes. Mills cradled the back of your head with his massive hand. He fished the bottle of Extra Strength Ibuprofen he had pilfered from the first aid kit out of his pocket.

“Best I can offer,” he said as he shook four pills out of the bottle and handed them to you.

“Stay in the car, huh?” you quipped before swallowing the pills. “Mark that as the first and the absolute fucking last time I will ever do what you say.”

Mills grinned and leaned in to steal another quick kiss from your lips. He then collapsed onto his back in the grass beside you, relieved and exhausted. He closed his eyes and let the light rain fall on his face, pleasantly cool on his skin.

“We’ll give those pills a few minutes to get to work and then we need to get moving,” he told you. Mills took your hand and brought it to his lips, kissing your skin several times. He then pulled a cigar from his breast pocket, looking as though he was going to smoke it the same way he no doubt would after a robust round of sex. Instead, he examined it and frowned at the wet, crumpled tip and reluctantly returned it to his pocket.

“What do we do now?” you asked.

“Stay alive is the main thing, I reckon.” Mills smirked, squeezing your hand. He figured it was better than telling you that he had no fucking idea.

*******************************************************************************************

“A complete power outage!” D’Alencon shouted as he stomped around the command center. “Are you fucking kidding me? This isn’t supposed to be able to happen! How the fuck did you let this happen?”

“I’ve told you for weeks that the malfunction in the nursery could trigger a big outage.” The Conductor shrugged, unbothered by his boss’s shouting.

“The fences are out! The vehicle tracks are out! We have no fucking reception because of the storm!” D’Alencon screamed. “Fix it! Fix it right fucking now!”

“The cellular reception too?” the Conductor asked sarcastically. “I think that’s beyond me. But I think I can get the park back online. I just have to figure out where the glitch actually is.”

“How long will that take?” D’Alencon looked at his watch.

“As long as it takes.” The Conductor shrugged unhelpfully.

“The Hummers died by the T-Rex fence?” D’Alencon asked, knowing the answer. “I guess I’ll take a gas Hummer and go get everyone myself. For what I’m paying all of you people, I shouldn’t have to do the fucking grunt work!”

“Hey man, if you’d rather I go drive around and pick up guests, say the word.” The Conductor was now trying to get auxiliary power to his laptop so he could access the main system. “You can stay right here and fix the entire system instead of me.”

D’Alencon glared at the little pipsqueak, but he couldn’t argue. The Conductor was the only man who could get 65 back online. D’Alencon stomped out of the door and slammed it hard behind him. He was pissed at Mills and Carroughes. He hired rough, competent men like that for a reason. Namely, that he would never have to get his hands dirty doing menial chores exactly like this one.

Why in the hell hasn’t one of those so-called capable men already brought the guests back safely? D’Alencon thought to himself as he stalked through the empty halls on his way to the garage. A little fucking rain and a power outage aren’t the end of the world.

*******************************************************************************************

Night in the jungle during a storm was remarkably dark. You walked close behind Mills as he tried to navigate his way out of the Tyrannosaur paddock. His tall, broad silhouette was blacker than the surrounding darkness, but only just. Intermittent lightning briefly illuminated the wet green around you and Mills in front of you. Both of you were drenched from the rain, your hair and clothes plastered on your bodies. Looking at Mills from behind, you could see every motion of the muscles in his back and shoulders with each flash of lightning. Blood trickled from a gash on Mills’ left shoulder when he pushed a branch out of his way or shouldered through some low-hanging vines. It wasn’t a serious wound, but the rain made it slow to clot.

“Doing ok back there?” Mills asked over his shoulder, keeping his deep voice silent.

“You don’t need to check on me every five minutes.” You meant it to be light, but you were tired and your head throbbed, and it came out more strident than you intended. It was mildly irritating how Mills had just assumed command and taken charge, but as much as you resented submitting to his natural authority, you couldn’t deny it was warranted. Whatever dynamics had developed in your budding relationship of sorts, he was now completely and absolutely in charge. You hated being dependent on him, or on anyone, but at the same time you felt reassured. If you had to find yourself lost in the jungle with monsters, you knew Mills was just the man to get you out. Mills was your man.

“The rain’s a pain in the ass,” Mills told you, glaring up at the water and shaking an unruly tendril of hair out of his face. “But it’s actually good for us. Just like us, the dinos can’t see or hear as well, and it kills their sense of smell. It makes it a lot safer for us to take a fucking stroll out in the park. I want to cover as much ground as we can while we have the rain for cover.”

“We don’t have any weapons. What exactly do you plan on doing if we do run into a dinosaur?” you asked, feeling a bump of fearful adrenaline at the thought.

“Just hope I get lucky.” Mills smirked back at you over his shoulder. “In more ways than one.”

“It’s so reassuring to be stuck out here, trusting my life to a man who has the toilet humor of a horny teenager.” You glared at his back. “Out here in the dark, in the rain, on an island where most things want to eat me.”

“Do I need to make the other joke your bitchy little comment invites?” Mills laughed.

“Funny.” You tripped over a branch as you glared at him in favor of watching your footing. Mills grabbed your arm and steadied you, making it harder for you to stay irritated. And you couldn’t help the way his lips had felt on yours, the exhilaration he had given you from a few simple kisses.

“I’m not too worried about the dinos right now. Not for a little while, anyway.” Mills stopped walking to give you a breather and faced you. Your stumble concerned him more than he let on. He couldn’t rule out a concussion from your bump on the head, and lack of coordination or dizziness were symptoms. “The T-Rex was the only dino in this paddock, and I don’t think she’ll be eager to come back inside her fence any time soon. I also don’t think that any other dinos want to venture into T-Rex territory, even if the fences are down. When we have to cross the fence into another pasture, I’ll be more edgy.”

“More edgy?” you teased. “I can’t wait for that.”

“Try not to swoon. Sudden movements could aggravate that headache.” He smiled at the way your eyes narrowed at him. “But dinos aren’t the only thing to worry about out here, and most of them aren’t even the most dangerous animals in the park. We’re deep in the jungle. In Costa Rica.” He paused as if that meant something special to you. When it didn’t, he shook his head and continued, “Frankly, we’re a lot more likely to get bitten by a snake. There are one-hundred-thirty-seven species of snakes in Costa Rica.”

“Excuse me?” You raised your eyebrows.

“Don’t worry, only twenty-two species are poisonous.” He made a show of looking at a hanging vine and flicking it away from him. “Fer De Lance are highly poisonous and, conveniently enough, also highly aggressive. They’ll downright chase you. Bushmasters can get up to ten feet long, also poisonous as hell. There’s coral snakes, rattlesnakes, and several species of vipers. They come in all sorts of pretty colors, bright yellow and neon green. Oh, and there’s Jumping Pit Vipers. Do you want to know why they’re called that?”

“You’re just trying to screw with me.” You crossed your arms over your chest. “Just like in the helicopter, you’re trying to scare me.”

“We can’t forget the jaguars,” he said dismissively.  “In fact, now that I think about it, the jaguars are probably all up here on the mountain, keeping away from the dinos.” 

“I don’t believe you,” you lied, now looking more closely at the treetops. 

“Jaguars avoid humans,” he continued, indifferent to your challenge.  “But that still leaves the plants.” 

“The plants?” You narrowed your eyes at him skeptically. 

“Only a few will kill you, like the Caster Bean that has ricin,” he stated flatly. 

“Having a little fun, are you?” you asked with an arched eyebrow. 

“Yeah, a little. But I’m telling you the truth. Scout’s honor.” He put his hand over his heart. “I hate fucking snakes, and yet here I am, trudging through the jungle with the snakes and another venomous creature.” 

“You never cease to amuse.” You started walking again, taking the lead and angrily shoving a branch out of your face and ensuring it snapped back toward Mills.

“You didn’t think I meant you?” Mills huffed. “There are venomous dinosaurs too. A couple species. Procompsognathus – we call them compys – and Dilophosaurus. They’re even worse than lawyers.”

“You just say that now because you haven’t experienced my bite yet.” You smiled wickedly.

“Are you coming on to me, gorgeous?” He bumped you with his shoulder, making you flash a genuine smile despite yourself. “It’s about damn time.”

“If you know women at all, you should know you have absolutely no chance of getting anywhere with me until you’ve had a nice long shower,” you teased. “So, the sooner you get me the hell out of here, the better for you.”

“Well hell, if I wasn’t incentivized before,” Mills laughed and set a slightly faster pace. He had also determined that you were lucid, doing well, and capable of going faster. “I’m familiar with this jungle. It’s part of my job to be. The resort – that means the cars and the helicopter – are at the southernmost tip of the island. The T-Rex paddock is in the northern region. With no phones and no electricity, the odds of someone finding us aren’t all that great. I have a radio, Stallworth has the other. But they’re both just about dead, only good for a few quick transmissions. When – if – Stallworth and Hux get picked up, I’m hoping the radios have enough juice to coordinate our pickup.” He laid a reassuring hand on your shoulder. “In the meantime, we need to head south and stick to the high ground. The very high ground.”

As you walked, side by side now, Mills explained that it would take roughly two days to return to the resort on foot if you took the easy route. However, instead of that easy route, the two of you would take a slightly longer route into the mountains and over a peak that lay between you and the resort. The mountain was outside the Tyrannosaurus enclosure in the range of some of the largest herbivores. Although you were near sea-level and Costa Rica was oxygen rich, the oxygen levels in the present day are significantly lower than they were 65 million years ago. For the dinosaurs, evolved for much higher oxygen levels, this environment was to them like a ten thousand foot altitude would be to humans. Because the dinosaurs were not comfortable with modern oxygen levels, Mills informed you, any material rise in elevation and corresponding reduction in oxygen was a deterrent to many of them.

“The bigger the animal, the more oxygen they need,” Mills said. “The smaller ones like the compys and the raptors aren’t so bothered by a rise in altitude. But their natural prey, the other dinosaurs they are programmed to hunt, won’t want to climb a mountain.”

“What happens if we see one of the raptors?” you asked, remembering the sight of those killing machines.

“If we see just one, you can bet we’re already fucked.” Mills grinned sarcastically. “The other two will get us before we can do a damn thing about it.”

*******************************************************************************************

Carroughes was sweating like a hog and grunting like one too as he stumbled through the wet darkness of the jungle. He had left the road behind him miles ago, choosing instead to bushwhack through the cloyingly dense vegetation in a more direct route back to the resort. Plus, the goddamn T-Rex was following the roads. She seemed to think they were convenient trails in just her size. Carroughes had heard her pass close behind him when he had first left the road. Luckily, she wasn’t hunting so much as exploring and she didn’t notice him where he had cowered with his back against a tree.

Carroughes had panicked when the T-Rex broke through her fence. It hadn’t been his finest hour or his manliest. But, fuck it. Everyone else was probably dead by now and he would be the only one left to tell the story. Hell, he might even be seen as a hero. All he had to do was get back to the resort.

Strange hooting sounds echoed in the jungle around him. Owls, maybe? Are there owls in Costa Rica? Probably.

Carroughes had gone through two dead, un-electrified fences since he left the Hummers. He didn’t know which pen he was in now, but he figured it couldn’t be as bad as being stuck in with the T-Rex. He remembered back to how Mills had nagged him to memorize the animal paddocks and better learn the behavior of the various species of dinosaur. But then, Mills had always been a cocky fucking show off.

*******************************************************************************************

Mills guided you through the still-dead Tyrannosaur fence and into one of the large herbivore pastures. This paddock was home to Brachiosaurs, Stegosaurs, Gallimimus, and some other species of grazers and browsers. The mountain Mills aimed for was inside this pasture. Mills avoided open spaces and stuck to the jungle, making your progress slow. It was past midnight when you finally felt a rise in elevation as you began ascending the mountain. Now, in a pasture that undoubtedly still contained dinosaurs, Mills walked more slowly, cautiously. With the fences down, the carnivores could easily have broken into other pastures in search of prey.

Mills took off his tactically-rated watch and handed it to you. “Keep it on you. It has a compass. In case something happens to me, keep heading south and you can’t help but find the resort.”

“If something happens to you, a compass isn’t going to do much for me. Keep it,” you insisted.

You took his hand and he laced his thick fingers through yours, squeezing you back reassuringly. Mills pulled you to him, into his arms for a brief but passionate kiss. He grinned at you when he pulled away and continued walking with you, quipping, “If you play your cards right, I may let you have your way with me when we get back. But until then, you’re just gonna have to show some restraint, gorgeous.”

“How will I ever control myself when you hit me with charm like that?” You rolled your eyes at him but didn’t mind one bit when he landed a playful smack to your ass.

Trumpeting calls that sounded like bassy elephants boomed in the distance. Mills told you it was the Brachiosaurs, several of them, singing to each other in the same way whales do. “They don’t sound alarmed. That’s good.”

“They’re not dangerous?” you asked, looking around futilely in the darkness. The rain had slowed from a downpour to a drizzle, offering you less protection.

“Not unless they step on us.” Mills was pushing you faster, wanting to gain as much altitude as possible before the sun rose or the rain ebbed further.

A quarter of the way up the mountain, Mills stopped short. He grabbed your arm almost painfully hard, indicating complete silence and stillness. As soon as you were no longer moving, you felt it too. There was a presence in the jungle, something you couldn’t detect so much as feel. The jungle was completely silent around you. All the little sounds of nature that you had grown accustomed to had stopped; all the chirping insects, croaking frogs, and other small creatures. The only sounds you heard were the soft patter of rain and your own breathing that sounded loud in your ears.

“There’s something out there,” Mills whispered and gripped your hand tight. “Something’s following us. Or hunting us. Something that doesn’t weigh a ton.”

“A raptor?” you hissed, feeling your nerves tingle.

“Maybe, maybe not. There’s a chance it’s not a predator.” Mills took your hand and crept ahead with you. “Whatever it is, you keep me between you and it, understand?”

Before you could answer Mills shoved you down, all but tackled you to the ground into the tangled roots of an enormous tree. The roots were as large as an orgy of anacondas, easily concealing you and Mills. Your face was nearly pressed against the muddy ground with Mills covering you with his body. He was heavy as hell, but he distributed some of his weight with his arms so he didn’t crush you. Mills watched out over the roots, only his eyes peeking above.

A branch snapped very close in the darkness and you flinched as adrenaline surged through your veins. Mills went completely tense, preparing for an attack he had no weapons to fend off. You could hear the animal moving through the vegetation now and its faint footfalls. The sounds seemed to come from two sources. There were two of them. Or more. Not being able to see made the waiting even worse for you, leaving your imagination to do its worst.

The animals stalked closer and you held your breath as the seconds dragged on. You felt Mills’ body relax against you when he sighed with relief and even gave a quick laugh. Mills pushed back to his feet, hauling you up with him. He unceremoniously brushed some mud off your front and smiled at you. Three four-foot-tall bipedal dinosaurs stared curiously at you. They were graceful looking with long necks and tails, pointed snouts, and bright green eyes. Their scales were peacock hues of blues, greens, and purples, and they had a plume of brightly colored feathers on their tails, which swished back and forth as they looked at you. They looked like smaller, more slender, colorful, and gracile raptors. They cocked their heads at you and chirped amongst themselves like birds. They were communicating with each other in some way. They didn’t run when Mills stood tall above them, but they didn’t display aggression either.

“Troodons,” Mills told you. “They’re some of the smartest dinosaurs we have in the park. Similar to raptors, but smaller and less aggressive. And they have enough sense not to fear or attack the humans they know feed them. Just stay calm and they’ll go their way, and we’ll go ours.”

To prove his point, Mills held out his hand toward the nearest Troodon. It chirped pleasantly and leaned toward Mills’ hand. It let Mills stroke its nose and even canted its head to indicate it wanted to be scratched by its jaw. Mills obliged and the dinosaur let out a sound like a high-pitched purr.

“Are they carnivores?” you asked skeptically.

“Yeah, but they eat small game like rodents and rabbits.” Mills continued to pet the contented animal. “They scavenge too. But we’re too big for them to bother trying to make a meal out of.”

When Mills again took your hand to resume your walk, the three Troodons followed along behind you. They milled around, curiously exploring their newly enlarged environment, and they seemed to think that your path was as good as any. The rain had eased more, falling lightly now.

“It’s good for us if they stick close by,” Mills told you, keeping his voice soft and calming around the dinosaurs. “They can smell and hear better than us. They’ll know if trouble’s coming long before we do, like canaries in a mine.”

*******************************************************************************************

D’Alencon glared at an unsightly smear of mud on the cream-colored linen of his Zegna suit jacket as he drove toward the Tyrannosaur pasture in search of his VIP guests. This was exactly the sort of tragedy he had wanted to avoid – exactly the reason he hired other men to do menial tasks like this. He was above getting his hands dirty, literally and figuratively, and now he had ruined one of his favorite suits. This sort of thing was Mills’ purview. He had never known Mills to slack on his duties. D’Alencon assumed it was because Mills had stolen away somewhere the lawyer, and D’Alencon could hardly begrudge either of them. If anyone needed to get laid to lighten their moods, it was those two hotheads. But Mills sure as hell owed him now. Now that D’Alencon had sacrificed one of his best suits to further Mills’ amorous adventures.

Rounding the final bend in the road that brought him alongside the Tyrannosaur fence, D’Alencon saw one of the Hummers. But only one. How bizarre. Then, he saw the entire section of fence was down, torn through completely from one twenty-foot concrete steel fence post to the next. Bloody hell!

At the sight of D’Alencon’s Hummer, Hux all but dove out of the remaining electrical Hummer. He flailed his arms wildly, as if D’Alencon was not already aiming for him.

“It’s out!” Hux shrieked the obvious. “The rex is out!”

D’Alencon heard the boom of distant thunder, even though the storm had nearly ebbed. Strange. He listened incredulously as Hux explained what had happened. Hux and D’Alencon helped Stallworth hobble into the gas Hummer as another crash of thunder echoed through the jungle. It was louder now, nearer. D’Alencon was so focused on Stallworth, he must have missed the accompanying flash of lightning. Stallworth was mumbling something, but his voice was weak with pain and he wasn’t making much sense.

The next boom of thunder seemed to vibrate the ground itself as D’Alencon walked to the edge of the concrete dike. He looked over the edge, down at the overturned Hummer far below. He couldn’t see any sign of Mills or the lone remaining woman, but at least he didn’t see any bodies or body parts.

The thunder was unnaturally loud now, and coming too close together. Looking down toward the fallen Hummer, D’Alencon noticed the water in a puddle by his foot ripple with each crash of thunder.

“We need to go!” Stallworth shouted as Hux helped him limp from the dead Hummer into the backseat of D’Alencon’s. His voice was strained. “We need to go right fucking now!”

Hux screamed something too. He sounded like a hysterical woman. D’Alencon turned just as the head of the T-Rex appeared around the same bend in the road he had driven minutes before. D’Alencon made a burst for the Hummer. The T-Rex watched him curiously, like a cat watching a scurrying mouse. D’Alencon was tall and had been athletic in his younger years; he ran fast. The dinosaur’s curiosity bought him the few seconds he needed to reach the Hummer and scramble inside.

“Go, go, go!” Stallworth was shouting over and over in the backseat.

“You don’t say?” D’Alencon quipped and gunned the Hummer.

“How fast can she run?” Hux squeaked from the passenger seat as the T-Rex gave chase.

“I daresay you won’t like that answer.” D’Alencon whipped the wheel around as the T-Rex made a lunge for the Hummer. The soupy mud sent the Hummer into a spin, narrowly evading the gnashing jaws of the T-Rex.

With the T-Rex momentarily off balance, D’Alencon floored the Hummer away from her. The fastest he could drive along the muddy curvy road was around forty and the T-Rex had been clocked around forty-five, the speed of a thoroughbred. The T-Rex growled at the escaping vehicle and gave chase.

Looking in the rearview mirror, Hux watched the gaping jaws of the dinosaur loom large in the reflection and snap closed mere feet behind the Hummer’s back bumper. “This is quite literally the first time I’ve hated being right.”

“Do shut up Armitage, unless you prefer to hike,” D’Alencon said angrily. He stomped down on the gas, the Hummer fishtailing but edging ahead of the dinosaur.

The T-Rex lumbered after the Hummer for another hundred yards and then slowed. She was not built for sustained running. Snarling again in frustration, she gave up the chase and let the Hummer escape in search of easier prey.

*******************************************************************************************

Still walking in close proximity to you, one of the colorful Troodons chirped sharply. The other two dinosaurs stopped abruptly, instantly alert. So did Mills. The dinosaurs spread the plumes of feathers on their tails wide and raised them, a mannerism intended to make them look larger. They chattered nervously and bobbed their heads, all focused on the dense brush downhill from you.

The sound of a heavy footfall came from downhill.

Mills quickly surveyed the terrain around you as another crash sounded, closer. Mills grabbed your arm and ran with you to one of the giant trees. He shoved you ahead of him, over the gnarled roots as thick as your waist.

“Climb!” Mills growled and hoisted you as high into the tree as he could. He followed you up as you climbed.

The tree was enormous with thick closely spaced branches, making it easy to climb. Even so, you were clumsy on the limbs slick with rainwater, and Mills shoved you up with sheer brute strength when he was able. Below you, the Troodons squeaked in fright and scattered. You were twenty-five feet off the ground and still climbing when Mills pulled you to him. He circled part way around the trunk and onto a thick, sturdy cluster formed by three branches.

Centered in the tangle of limbs, Mills pressed his back to the trunk and slid down onto his ass pulling you down with him. Mills sat you in front of him between his legs with your back pressed to his chest and wrapped his powerful arms around you.

“Be quiet,” he whispered right into your ear. “And don’t move a muscle.”

On the ground below, the crashing was now thunderously loud. The foliage shook and the tree you were in vibrated from the weight of the animals that moved through the jungle. A huge green and yellow body burst into the clearing. The animal was heaving for breath and stumbling, like a horse ready to collapse after a race. It stood twelve feet at the shoulders and had a conical shaped crest on the back of its head and a duck-billed snout.

“It’s only a Parasaurolophus,” Mills sighed. You felt his chest heave against your back. Then he laughed. “She scared the hell outta me.”

“She’s not dangerous?” you asked as another dinosaur appeared below you. It was a juvenile of the same species the size of a dairy cow, panting with its tongue out. The larger animal bent down to nudge the younger one with its nose to keep moving. It was obviously a mother and its young, or surrogate young.

“Not to us,” Mills said with relief. “They’re one of the friendly dinosaurs actually. Very calm and docile. Something must have really spooked them for them to be up here, and panting like that.”

“Like what?” you asked, as the animals trotted out of sight.

“Let’s hope it’s the T-Rex living her best life with all this new prey and not the damn raptors.” Mills nuzzled your cheek with his large nose, comforting you. He tightened his arms around you. “This seems like as good a place to rest as any.”

“Shouldn’t we keep moving?” You didn’t want to move another muscle for a week and your limbs were heavy with fatigue, but you also didn’t want to be stuck out in the park a second longer than you had to be.

“Now that the rain’s stopped, we’re at a disadvantage to all the dinos who can see better in the dark than we can.” Mills settled his weight against the tree trunk and pulled you back to rest against his chest. “We might as well get some shut eye until dawn. We’ll be safe up here.”

You reached a hand up to stroke his scruffy jaw and he dropped his head into the crook of your neck, kissing you softly and teasing your skin with his beard. You couldn’t help sighing with contented pleasure. It was impossible to feel anything but safe and protected inside his strong embrace. Your eyelids suddenly seemed very heavy and you thought of how nice it would be to fall asleep in his arms in a soft warm bed, after he had exhausted you in much more enjoyable ways.

*******************************************************************************************

Carroughes had to be getting close to the resort. It was almost dawn for fucks sake. He had stumbled around in the fucking jungle all night, probably walking in circles because every square foot of the green hellhole looked exactly the same. A few times, he thought he saw some dinosaurs close by, but whatever they were, they weren’t the T-Rex or the raptors and he was able to spook them off by banging sticks and throwing rocks. He was pretty sure he hit one of the fuckers in the head, which served it right.

He was in a swampy area now, even muddier and muggier than the rest of the damn place. Walking in a knee-deep bog, his boots were completely waterlogged and mud caked most of his lower body. He had almost lost his shit again when he felt a sting on his inner thigh, only to realize it was a fat leech the size of his thumb. He had tried to pry it away with his fingers, only to tear away a chunk of his own flesh that wouldn’t stop bleeding. Carroughes couldn’t name the anti-coagulating enzyme in leech saliva called hirudin, but after he peeled it off and bled like a stuck pig, he remembered hearing something sometime about it. Hours later, his exposed legs were now host to a dozen or so fat, thirsty leeches and he didn’t dare try to pick them all off. He hoped they hadn’t yet managed to crawl higher under the hems of his shorts. If they did, they would only have a journey of four inches or so to get into even worse places. One of the leeches was about the same size as his flaccid dick. He shuddered at the thought.

The strange hooting had seemed to follow him intermittently. He thought he had lost whatever animals were making the noise – there were several of them from what he could tell – but they had resumed their hooting when he had entered the swamp. They were louder now. The hooting calls came from all sides of the swamp, all around Carroughes as he flailed and sloshed through the mud. He could hear splashes now too, and the sounds of heavy bodies moving just out of sight in the vegetation.

Carroughes grabbed the most fearsome pointed stick he could find and shouted at the animals to “Back the fuck off!”

More hooting answered.

Raising his stick like a javelin, Carroughes turned aggressively toward the sound of the loudest hooter, somewhere in the vegetation off to his right. He yelled again, trying to frighten the animal. It must have worked because the creature fell silent.

Carroughes turned back to resume his trudge, and now a dinosaur stood right in his path about twenty feet ahead in the murky swamp. It wasn’t very large for a dinosaur, about six or seven feet tall, standing on its hind legs. It was viper green with twin scarlet ridges that ran up the bridge of its nose up into a tall V-shaped crest on top of its head. Bright red stripes streaked down its green body. It was vibrantly colored, like a venomous snake or a poisonous toad.

Something struck Carroughes from behind in the middle of his back. He stumbled forward. It felt like someone had thrown a glob of mud at his back. It felt hot and sticky, pasting his shirt to his skin. Before Carroughes could turn around, the animal in front of him hooted excitedly, its clawed fingers clenching in anticipation like an eager child.

Carroughes shouted another string of expletives and waved his stick.

The dinosaur in front of him stood taller and with a whipping sound, a huge frilled collar around its neck sprung open. The frill was a kaleidoscope of red and green in zig-zagging patterns, looking like the frilled collar of an evil clown. It made the dinosaur look terrifying. Carroughes looked on, momentarily stunned by the sight. The dinosaur made a hacking sound and another viscous glob splattered Carroughes’ chest. It was spit. The fucker spit on him!

There were venomous dinosaurs in the park. Carroughes had been briefed on them, but he hadn’t really paid attention. What the fuck are they called? Dilophosaurus? That’s it.

Carroughes wiped the sticky spit away in disgust, and his fingers immediately stung where the saliva touched his bare skin. His back was just beginning to burn through his shirt now too. He was struck again from the back. They were surrounding him. As Carroughes realized it, he saw the dinosaur in front of him ruffle its vibrant frill again. A blow like a punch struck Carroughes square in the face and he staggered backward. The fucking dinosaur had spit right in his face.

Sticky venom coated his face. It had the consistency of tree sap and smelled like vomit and carrion. Carroughes gabbed and swiped at the glob on his face, but it was sticky and viscous, and he only smeared it over his skin. And into his eyes. His skin burned like it was on fire. Carroughes started to panic. Shouting with terror, Carroughes forced his eyes open but everything was still black. He rubbed and smeared more of the goo out of his eyes, but still could see nothing. His eyeballs burned and sizzled in his eye sockets. He thought he could feel his eyeballs swelling, but it was but one sensation in a monsoon of agony.

The dinosaurs hooted excitedly and splashed in the swamp around him. He thought there were four of them very close to him.

Forcing his eyes open again, everything was still pitch black. He was blind. The venom had fucking blinded him. Even as he thought it, he felt his right eyeball burst and a hot milky fluid pour down his cheek. Boils were welting on his cheeks and nose, the poison scalding his flesh like acid.

Blind, terrified, and crazed with pain, Carroughes screamed bloody murder and ran ahead as fast as he could. He struck objects, unable to tell if they were trees or dinosaurs. He ran headlong into a black abyss with no idea where he was going or what lay ahead of him. There was nothing else he could do.

*******************************************************************************************

As much as Mills hated the drizzling rain, when he awoke to the dawn breaking on a clear golden morning, he wished it was a thunderous downpour – something to keep the animals less active and to mask your presence as you made your way through 65. Every muscle in his body was sore and cramped, and he had a bitch of a crick in his neck. But you felt warm and soft in his arms, reclining against his chest, and he relished the feeling for a few indulgent minutes, breathing in the scent of your hair and skin, tightening his arms around your body.

The pleasant scratch of his beard as he kissed your neck woke you, even before he rumbled, “Morning gorgeous,” in your ear.

You purred contently and stretched luxuriously as if you were in a feather bed. With Mills as your pillow and back arrest, you had slept surprisingly well and comfortably. “Do you have a plan?”

“Has anyone ever told you that you need to be more spontaneous?” Mills grinned against your skin, still kissing you.

“Is that your way of saying you have no idea?” you teased, reaching back to twist a hand into his long hair.

“I’d never admit to such a thing,” he said as he gently pushed you away. There was enough room on the cluster of limbs for you to turn around and sit facing him while he stretched himself. Mills groaned in obvious discomfort as he worked the kinks out of his neck and back with several audible pops.

His shirt was stiff with dried blood, clotted around the wound on his shoulder. His skin was bruised in angry shades of purple where it showed above the collar of his henley. He must have been in significant pain but he didn’t show it aside from a few surly growls as he pushed to his feet.

“Take it nice and easy on the way down,” he told you as he offered you his hand to pull you up beside him. “I’ll go first. That way if you fall, I might be able to catch you. Besides,” he winked at you. “I’ll have a damn fine view of that damn fine ass.”

“I think you’re more handsome when you don’t speak,” you teased. But eyeing the ground over twenty feet below you, you were glad for his levity. Going up was always easier than going down.

Mills’ quips and bawdy humor kept you distracted enough to make the descent without much difficulty. His shoulder was bleeding fresh from the exertion by the time you were both standing safely on the ground. You wanted to examine his shoulder and fuss over his wound, but he brushed you away.

“There’ll be plenty of time for that later, gorgeous.” He grinned and took your hand. He raised it to his lips and kissed you. “Let’s get moving. Just like taking a stroll through the woods. 65 million years ago.”

The temperature climbed swiftly as the sun rose high. The heat was sweltering and the humidity stifling, feeling like the inside of a sauna. Your clothes were caked to you in that sticky itchy way that only comes from trudging through suffocating humidity and Mills’ shirt clung to every ridge of muscle on his upper body. While you certainly didn’t mind the view, you could do without the discomfort that came with it. Although you were both slick with sweat, the humid heat leeched all the moisture out of your bodies from the inside. Your mouth was dry and your throat scratchy with thirst. Even the murky puddles on the jungle floor had begun to look appealing.

“We’re not far from the river that runs through the park,” Mills said in a hoarse voice as if hearing your thoughts.

“Is it safe to drink?” you asked, although the answer hardly mattered at this point.

“I personally guarantee that when taking a hike through a prehistoric park, drinking some of the water will be the safest thing you can do,” Mills said flippantly. He wanted a cigar, but it would only make his mouth drier and its scent would mark your location to anything with even meager olfactory faculties.

“I suppose parasites aren’t as terrifying as a T-rex,” you laughed.

“Oh, I wouldn’t go that far.” Mills smirked. “In the Amazon, there’s a little fucking fish, the Candiru, that swims up your urethra. I’d take on a T-Rex any day.”

“You’re just a well of pleasant information.” You rolled your eyes playfully.

“That’s not the worst part,” Mills continued, enjoying your reaction. “They can puff out barbs in their body and lodge themselves inside.”

“Is this your way of talking dirty to me?” You laughed, bumping him with your shoulder.

“Is it working?” Mills laughed too. “Actually, it’s my way of telling you it could be worse.”

“When the worse option is fish swimming up your urethra, that’s still a bad sign,” you replied sarcastically.

The terrain sloped slowly downward as you began to decline the mountain. The vegetation was much thicker on the slopes and thickest of all around the base of the mountain, then it thinned out into a wide-open grassy plain. It didn’t seem that you had walked far down the other side of the mountain when you heard a faint and steady roar in the distance. You tensed at once, drawing Mills’ attention.

“Don’t worry,” Mills told you. “We’re getting close to the river. That’s the waterfall you can see from the resort. We won’t have far to go from there.” He cocked an eyebrow at you. “Want to go for a dip first? Get outta these dirty clothes and get even dirtier underwater?”

“Injured, exhausted, dehydrated, and still thinking with your dick?” you teased.

“Gotta play to my strengths.” Mills shrugged.

The ground was level now at the base of the mountain and the jungle oppressively thick, so close around you that visibility was limited to a few yards in any direction. You heard splashing very close through the trees and a trilling birdlike sound. Mills froze, his head jerking in the direction of the noise. He grabbed your arm with bruising force. The sound came again, joined by another deep chirping and more splashing.

Very slowly, Mills leaned in until his lips were on your ear and his voice was little louder than a breath. “Step exactly where I step and don’t make a sound.”

With extreme caution and all the stealth he was capable of, Mills edged forward. He made sure the ground was clear of twigs that could snap, and he lifted his large feet slowly and carefully lowered them heel first then rolling onto the ball of his foot. He pushed even the smallest branches aside so they wouldn’t snag on his clothing. He moved with almost complete silence. You felt clunky and clumsy by comparison. He didn’t go toward the sounds that still continued, but around it, trying to pass it by.

Mills stopped at an enormous freshly fallen tree, no doubt knocked down during the recent storm. Looking down the length of its trunk, you could see through the jungle about thirty feet in the direction of the sound. The splashing and trilling came again. Mills was so still, you wondered if he had stopped breathing. You saw nothing. Mills pulled you another step closer to him, and then you shared his view.

There was a water-filled basin about ten feet in diameter – little more than a large puddle in the jungle. You saw three dinosaurs standing at its edge, facing away from you. They stood between five and six feet tall with thick rigid tails. The largest one was colored in a muted tiger pattern. Your heart stopped. The velociraptors.

The smaller two raptors dipped their noses into the water, then raised their heads high to swallow like birds. They trilled and chirped happily to each other, also very avian, like birds at a fountain. One of them raised her clawed hand to wipe excess water off her mouth. The big tiger-striped raptor yawned, lifted her hind leg and scratched her jaw with the large crescent-shaped claw in the middle of her foot, looking strangely like a dog or cat. They were relaxed and not overly vigilant. There was dried blood on their jaws, and you assumed they had recently killed and eaten, and were now sated. They weren’t on the hunt and, most importantly, they hadn’t noticed you.

Still holding your arm in his vice-like grip, Mills pulled you gently forward. The raptors faced away from you, so they couldn’t see you. As long as they didn’t hear your or the wind didn’t change and carry your scent to them, you might be alright. Sweat dripped down the sides of Mills’ face and even down the bridge of his charmingly hooked nose, but he didn’t dare risk the added movement of wiping it away. Taking seconds for each cautiously planted step, he led you through the jungle away from the raptors.

In your heightened state of fear, your senses were on edge, attuned to the smallest sights and sounds, stimuli that would ordinarily be beyond your detectable range. Through the trees ahead of you, you could faintly hear what sounded like grunting cattle.

“Triceratops,” Mills breathed in your ear. They were noisy herd animals, grunting and stomping like buffalo while they grazed. Mills’ hopes soared. If he could get to them, their noise and smell would easily mask that of a pair of humans. The triceratops themselves would pay you no mind unless you presented some threat to them.

A crash in the trees above made you jump as though you had stepped on an electric wire, then a chittering sound from the trees turned your blood to ice. Mills had gone rigid again, looking up into the trees. Above you in the branches was a group of six or seven little dinosaurs, bright viper green, and no larger than chickens. They had long swan-like necks, pointed snouts, five-fingered hands, and long tails. They looked at you, curiously cocking their heads and chittering. They sat upright on the branches like reptilian meerkats and wagged their tails.

“Compys,” Mills whispered and tightened his hold on you. “Noisy little fuckers.”

Even as he said it, the procompsognathids burst into a riot of excited chirping and chattering. Some jumped up and down on their branches and others rubbed their little hands together like tiny green villains. They were carnivorous scavengers, and highly intelligent. They had a symbiotic relationship with the larger predators. They alerted the hunting predators to the location of prey that the compys could then scavenge after the bigger dinosaurs made the kill and ate their fill.

You couldn’t see the raptors anymore, but you heard one of them chuff and snort. Another raptor made a similar chuffing sound and then you heard one of their bodies crash into the brush.

The hunt was on.

Mills gripped you hard and ran, pulling you with him. He charged headlong through the trees and brush, ignoring the branches that tore at his body and scratched his face. He ran in the direction of the sounds of the triceratops. The raptors snarled in the brush near you, running hard after you both.

It was impossible to outrun the raptors, but they had not yet sighted you and zeroed in on you fully. Still, you had only seconds before they would be on you and tear you apart. As you ran, you heard them in the brush behind you, much closer than moments ago.

Mills burst through a thorny bush and you were assaulted by sunlight, painfully bright after the relative darkness of the jungle. Mills surged ahead, able to run flat out now in the open, still pulling you behind him. You were on the open grassy plain. At the far end of the plain, a river twisted away from you down from the mountain on deeper into the park. Just through the trees on the mountainside, you could see the base of the waterfall you had heard. The river ran away from the waterfall and from you. Ahead of you was the herd of eight triceratops, grazing and milling placidly. They were roughly elephant size, shorter but longer, ten to twelve feet tall at the shoulder, twenty or so feet long, and weighing around seven tons each. They grunted and snorted like a herd of buffalo. Your feet barely touched the ground as Mills dragged you at a sprint across the plain, aiming for the herd.

A pair of baby triceratops calves were playing near the treeline, very close to where you and Mills broke out onto the plain. They were pinkish and looked like very large fat pigs with stubby legs, fat bellies, and short tails. They only had nubs for horns and short cranial crests. One of the little triceratops looked at you both with a bovine complacency, devoid of fear. The rest of the herd was still some twenty feet away.

The hunting raptors stopped at the edge of the trees, still slightly more curious than bloodthirsty. Their attention was deadlocked on you, and they knew they could easily run down their prey on open ground. The tiger-striped raptor looked at you, cocking her head ominously. Her lip curled in something like a wicked grin, exposing a row of razor sharp teeth.

Mills lunged for the smaller infant triceratops. He caught it by the bony crest on the back of its head, waist high to him. The calf shook its head irritably but Mills kept his grip and prevented it from running away. The calf grunted nervously, but not loud enough to alert its mother or the other adult triceratops. Mills pinched the little dinosaur as hard as he could in the flank, a spot just in front of the hip that was highly sensitive on most quadrupeds, like the armpit on a human. The baby squealed in pain and fright, sounding like a wounded elephant.

The three raptors charged.

“C’mon, mama!” Mills bellowed and pinched the baby again, making it squeal shrilly with terror.

The adult triceratops jerked their heads toward the sound of the crying baby, snorting angrily. One of them pawed the ground and charged. That had to be the mother. Head lowered with her pair of six-foot long horns aimed at Mills, she galloped dead ahead. The rest of the herd followed right behind her. The ground vibrated like the inside of a thunderhead under the force of fifty tons of charging dinosaurs.

“They charge a spot!” Mills shouted to you, still holding the wildly struggling calf. “Like a bull or a rhino!’

You took Mills’ meaning and understood his plan.

Teeth bared, the raptors ran at you from one side. The triceratops stampeded toward you from the other. You and Mills stood in the center of a war fixing to explode with only yards left to spare. Time slowed so that it seemed the animals ran in slow motion. You could see the sunlight glint on the exposed teeth of raptors and the red flared nostrils of the triceratops. They were so close now, you could have thrown a rock and hit any one of them right between the eyes. The baby squealed again, and Mills released it.

The calf ran away from Mills, and away from the charging herd and the coursing raptors. Mills lunged for you, tackling you full force in the opposite direction. You hit the ground hard, almost knocking the wind out of you, and Mills rolled with you further away as the triceratops thundered through the spot of ground where you and Mills and the baby had been a second before. The raptors jumped out of the way, turning to evade the triceratops’ charge. The raptors could dodge one or two animals – they were preternaturally agile – but they couldn’t dodge eight of the huge charging beasts.

The triceratops bowled through the raptors. One raptor appeared to be trampled underfoot of the herd and lost in the dust at the triceratops’s feet. Another was broadsided by a sweeping horn and flung high up into the air. The tiger-striped raptor didn’t alter course. She jumped onto the low-hung head of the triceratops closest to her and grabbed the triceratops’ bony cranial crest with her clawed hands.

Mills pulled you to your feet, not sparing you a second to catch your breath. You saw the tiger-striped raptor scramble over the triceratops’ crest onto its back even as the triceratops bucked and tried to shake its hitchhiking raptor off. The raptor snarled and hissed and dug her fearsome crescent talons into the shoulders and sides of the triceratops. The rest of the herd had stopped. They now stood snorting angrily and looking around belligerently. The raptor that had been flung through the air ran to join her alpha, jumping onto the back of the tormented triceratops and biting at the animals’ back and shoulders, trying to bite into its spine and cripple it. The raptor that was trampled stood on its feet, swaying and shaking its head drunkenly, but it was not mortally injured.

The waterfall and river were about fifty yards away. Mills used the opening the triceratops provided and ran with you toward the water. The jungle around you was a cacophony of sound now. The raptors snarling as they tore flesh from the bellowing triceratops; the herd stomping and snorting at the sight; the calves squealing in terror; your own ragged breath in your ears.

Neither you nor Mills heard the T-Rex. Her vehicle-sized head burst through the jungle close on your left in an explosion of green foliage and white growling teeth. You were twenty yards from the waterfall now, but if the T-Rex came for you, it might as well be a mile. Mills pushed harder, using every blast of strength and speed in his reserves.

“Just – My – Fucking – Luck!” Mills grunted between his powerful strides as he ran hard.

But the T-Rex paid you no mind. She had been drawn by the sounds of mayhem and the cries of her natural prey. Her attention was fixed on the spectacle of the struggling triceratops and the two raptors attacking her. The T-Rex ambled almost casually toward the scene, seemingly unnoticed by the other animals. The wounded triceratops was losing the battle against the raptors. Her sides and back were ripped into ragged open wounds, bleeding copiously. Her head hung low and her tongue lolled from her mouth. The two fit raptors were still on her back, slashing and biting. It was astonishing how much damage they could do to an animal twenty-plus times their size. The T-Rex watched them for a few moments, cocking her head from side to side. Then, she swiped her nose across the tiger-striped raptor on the triceratops’ back, knocking the raptor off with no more difficulty than swatting away a fly. She moved for the second raptor, but it squeaked in fright and leapt away, seemingly frightened after its leader was so easily batted aside.

The T-Rex bit down on the wounded triceratops’ neck and gave it a brutal shake, severing the spinal cord and killing it quickly. The T-Rex roared in triumph as the triceratops twitched spasmodically. The three raptors had regrouped, all devoid of serious injury, and surveyed the scene of their loss. They knew better than to challenge the T-Rex, and the triceratops had proved much more hassle than they were worth. The humans, however, were both good sport and easy to kill.

The waterfall wasn’t very large, only fifteen feet or so tall. It plunged into a pool of surging white and cerulean blue, only feet ahead of you now. Mills ran hard toward it with you in tow. Neither of you looked behind to see the raptors give chase. Mills didn’t slow when he reached the water’s edge. He waded in until he was deep enough to swim. You followed his lead and you both swam out into the deep pool. But Mills didn’t try to cross it, he aimed for the waterfall. Close to the frothy base of the waterfall, he took a deep breath, pointed down at the surface of the water, and dove below. You followed him under and swam ahead. The water was clear, save for the churning bubbles, and you swam behind Mills as he passed under the waterfall and then surfaced on the other side.

Mills flipped the long hair out of his eyes and you sputtered for breath, both treading water. You were in a cavern behind the waterfall with a narrow rock ledge along the back wall. Mills sidestroked to it and hoisted himself out of the water and up onto the ledge. Kneeling on the rock, he reached for your hand and pulled you up to join him. You both panted for breath, but all sounds were drowned by the noise of the waterfall. He pushed to his feet, lifting you to stand beside him, watching and waiting. You could see through the falling watery veil, the world beyond looking like a blurred Monet. The water wasn’t thick enough to do much other than distort the shapes on the other side, but it masked all smell and sound. You instinctively pressed your back to the rock wall and took Mills’ hand.

Through the waterfall, you saw three blurry shapes come to the river’s edge. The raptors had seen you go into the pool and disappear, and now they were looking around puzzled and frustrated. The tiger-striped raptor looked at the water intently, scanning every ripple for signs of her prey. She looked across to the opposite bank, trying to figure out where you had gone. The other two sniffed the ground as they paced the bank.

“Can they swim?” you asked in a whisper.

“Yeah, as good as crocodiles.” Mills watched the animals and gripped your hand tight. He spoke to you without looking at you. “If they figure out to look for us in here, I’ll dive into the water and give them something to chase. You make for the side of the waterfall and the opposite bank. Follow the river back to the resort.”

The tiger-striped raptor was now looking at the waterfall, studying it. You could almost see the gears turning in her clever head. “I’m not leaving you. We can fight them!”

“Look gorgeous, it’s a damn rare man I can’t take in a fight.” Mills met your eyes, looking at you sternly. “I admire your spirit, but without a weapon, there’s not a fucking thing I can do against an adult raptor. Let alone three of them. I can only hope to buy you enough time to get away.”

The raptors all looked at the waterfall now, the smaller two taking the lead from the alpha female. The tiger-striped raptor started walking up the bank toward the waterfall, her head bobbing and tail held high. She turned her head side to side as she looked at the sheet of water and tapped her talon on the ground pensively. She edged closer to the waterfall. Mills squeezed your hand, gave you a quick kiss, and stepped out away from you, placing his body between yours and the raptors on the other side of the waterfall. He gestured for you to move to the outer edge of the rock ledge, away from him to the far corner of the waterfall.

Suddenly, the two smaller raptors squawked and shied away back into the brush. The tiger-striped raptor turned and looked back the way she had come. The T-Rex lumbered up to the riverbank, looking aggressively down at the remaining raptor. Like a showdown in an old spaghetti western, the two predators stared each other down. After several long seconds, the raptor hissed in angry defeat and trotted away back into the jungle.

Now alone on the bank, the T-Rex groaned indulgently and lowered her chest into the soupy mud by the river. She pushed herself forward with her powerful hind legs, turning her head from side to side, coating her neck, chest and belly in mud. Her eyes were closed and she groaned again, or maybe purred even, seeming to thoroughly enjoy herself.

“What the hell?” you asked as Mills visibly relaxed and sank back against the rock wall with a sigh.

“All that running and killing and eating works up quite a sweat.” Mills grinned. “But dinos can’t sweat. She’s using the mud to cool off like elephants do.”

“I never thought I’d be happy to see her,” you laughed and leaned against Mills.

“She sure cramps our style for skinny dipping though,” Mills teased, watching the T-Rex wallow in the mud.

*******************************************************************************************

Comparatively speaking, it was a stroll in the park to get back to the resort after the melee you had escaped. For obvious reasons, the resort was the most secure area of the island. It was enclosed in a high electric fence with a surrounding moat. Even with the fences down, the moat was still a deterrent to the animals. But also, there was little reason for any dinosaurs to fight the fence and the moat to get inside. Only the raptors, troodons, and compys would be smart enough and resourceful enough to get inside, even if they were ambitious enough to try. The largest animals could charge through the fence, but there was little reason. There wasn’t tempting graze for the herbivores and, therefore, there wasn’t temping prey for the carnivores. There weren’t any obvious sections of fence that were torn down, which was hopeful.

The grand resort looked like something out of a zombie holocaust when it finally came into view as you and Mills emerged from the jungle. One of the gas Hummers was parked out front in the vacant valet area, so caked in mud that one could only guess at its actual color. No lights shone from any windows inside the resort, and the electric door of the entrance stood open.

Mills went directly to the command center, assuming he would find it abuzz with every capable hand working to fix the power outage. Instead he found only Hux, who started frantically when Mills burst through the door with you in tow.

“My God, we thought you two were dead!” Hux squeaked.

“Disappointed?”  you asked sarcastically as Mills took in the otherwise vacant room.

“Where the hell is everyone?” Mills demanded. “And why the hell is the power still out?”

“Pierre is with Ron in his room, doing his best at playing doctor. Which isn’t very good at all.” Hux shook his head. “To get power back, the main breaker in the maintenance shed has to be reset. Or so the Conductor says. He went out there to go flip the switch or whatever. You just missed him actually.” Hux sat back down in the chair he leapt out of when you and Mills came through the door. “I’m the next best at computers, so I was left here to do what I can when the power comes back on.”

“Is the resort secure?” Mills asked, looking around skeptically.

“Secure?” Hux frowned.

“For fucks sake, have any dinos gotten in?” Mills growled exasperatedly.

“Oh, why yes, they rather enjoy the gymnasium,” Hux sneered. “Of course, there are no dinosaurs in the resort! What would they do? Get a nice mud wrap at the spa?” Before Mills could round on him, Hux added quickly, “You might as well go check in on Ron or get something to eat. The Conductor said flipping the main breaker is easy and he wouldn’t be long. Perhaps then we can all get off this bloody island!”

Those all sounded like very palatable options to you. You squeezed Mills’ bicep in agreement and pulled him toward the door.

*******************************************************************************************

Stallworth’s room was on the same floor and in the same hallway as yours. Mills opened his door without knocking, his concern making him even more brusque than usual. Inside, Stallworth was reclining in bed with his bandaged leg propped up on pillows. He was actually laughing. D’Alencon sat in a chair beside the bed, and stood when you and Mills entered. He held a gallon-sized container of chocolate ice cream, the kind kept in restaurants. Stallworth had a gallon of his own strawberry ice cream sitting on the bed beside him.

“I’m out getting my ass chased all over your park by dinosaurs and you’re in here eating fucking ice cream?” Mills looked incredulously at the two men.

“It’s sensible,” Stallworth said dreamily. His eyes were glazed over and he had a vacant smile on his ice-cream-smeared lips.

“With the power out, how long do you think ice cream will last in this heat?” D’Alencon asked sarcastically. He pointed his thumb at Stallworth. “Besides, it’s the only thing I found to keep this lunatic in bed. He’s high as a kite on morphine and alternating between giving me philosophical lectures and wanting to run out and play football.”

“Touchdown!” Stallworth cheered, raising his spoon high. “Did you know I played college ball? You didn’t see it, Nick, but I almost outran that T-Rex. I bet if I sent a recruit tape of that in, I could be the next big thing.”

“What about paleontology?” Mills asked, amused. “Who’s gonna go out and dig up all those dino bones?”

Stallworth’s face fell and he took another bite of ice cream. “Nah, man, this whole park puts me out of a job. Who in their right mind would want to go look at dinosaur bones when they can come see the real thing? I’m the dinosaur now. Obsolete.”

“Now, you’ve done it.” D’Alencon glared at Mills. “I had him in a good mood.”

Stallworth pouted like a kid, his head lolling with his morphine haze. “It’s your fault,” he said sourly to D’Alencon. “You had to go and open that box – just like that chick Pandora – and all the goddamn dinosaurs jumped out of it.”

“Pandora.” You grinned at D’Alencon who was rolling his eyes. “I like that.”

D’Alencon walked closer to banter with you, but he stopped short. He looked at Mills aghast and wrinkled his nose. “The power should be back on shortly, but I’ll be damned if I’m going get into the enclosed cockpit of a helicopter with you until you’ve showered.”

Mills raised his eyebrows. “The T-Rex could rampage through the front doors of your resort at any second and you’re worried about me not smelling like roses?”

“Yes, yes, it’s all very problematic.” D’Alencon waved his hand dismissively and backed away to a safer distance. “Which makes it even more important to see to those pesky little issues we can bring under our control. If I get eaten by a T-Rex later, I’d rather not spend my last remaining hours smelling you.”

Mills opened his mouth to mount an argument, but you stopped him with a purr. “It’s not such a bad idea, is it?” You grabbed his arm and squeezed purposefully. “I feel awfully dirty myself.”

*******************************************************************************************

Your stomach rumbled with hunger, but a shower was the paramount concern. Also, there was an unspoken understanding that you and Mills would be showering together and working up even more of an appetite before you relaxed enough to sit down for a meal.

Flashing you a broad toothy smile, Mills ushered you into your room. He was on you in an instant, kissing your neck from behind as he followed you in through the door, his hands slipping up under your top to squeeze your tits.

“I’m taking a shower first, handsome,” you laughed at his eagerness, walking through your suite.

“How about we get a whole helluva lot dirtier first, gorgeous,” he argued against your skin, nipping your neck playfully.

“Give me a few minutes and then you can join me,” you said as you disentangled yourself from his hold and made a beeline for the bathroom, ignoring Mills’ pouting lips and his pained, overly dramatic groan.

Steam filled the bathroom, immediately fogging the mirror, as you stripped your muddy bloody clothes away. The shower was large and luxurious, glass enclosed on three sides with both a rainwater feature and a detachable shower head. The water pressure was enough to elicit a gasp from you as you stepped beneath it.  

You were invigorated as the hot water washed away the fatigue your body had accumulated during your trek through the jungle. After tending to the necessities, you ensured that you had just applied shampoo to your hair, a healthy lather of bubbles cascading down your body, when Mills made his entrance.  

A rumbling growl of approval drew your attention to the doorway when Mills entered the bathroom, taking in the luscious sight of you. Turning to face him, you rubbed a smearing of bubbles over your breasts as you arched your back to rinse the shampoo from your hair. 

Mills was already naked, the hardened planes of his body on display for you. You watched as his already half hard cock filled out, heavy and thick, arching toward you, as he walked to join you in the shower.  

“You’re gonna fucking kill me,” he groaned, eyeing you hungrily, as he moved to join you under the water. Replacing your hands with his own on your tits, he squeezed them gently in his enormous grip. “You’re the biggest maneater in this entire park.”

“You’re not allowed to die before you make me cum,” you teased, smoothing your hands over the solid expanse of his broad chest, smearing a soapy lather across it.  

“Sir, yes sir,” he said huskily, rubbing the white bubbles into your flesh with a grin. Bending to kiss you, his hands left your breasts to smooth down your sides and grope your ass.

Grabbing the shampoo, you squirted enough into your hands for Mills’ thick waves and reached to lather it into his hair. You dug your fingernails into his scalp and let them trace down his neck and over the enormous planes of his chest. His body was all hard ridges and dense muscle, hard and hot under your hands. His body was magnificent, just the sight of him enough to make you ravenous.  

Mills raised his head high, tilting it back to rinse the shampoo out of his hair, removing his hands from you to scrub the suds. While he was reared back, you allowed your hands to caress down his body, down his torso and waist. You trailed the lines that cut from his hips downward, earning a groan from him when you reached his cock. Your soapy fingers explored his massive size, heightening your anticipation and teasing him almost cruelly before giving in to both your desires.

Rubbing the conditioner into each other’s hair, you spent the time it needed to absorb kissing deeply and rubbing slick hands over each other’s bodies. Mills ran his fingers through your hair, rinsing out the conditioner before tending to his own. You wrapped your arms around his neck and pulled him down into a searing kiss. Mills growled into your mouth and grabbed your hips, pressing his body to yours and crowding you back against the cool tile wall.

Mills’ enormous hands felt even better on your body than you had imagined, smoothing, gripping, and caressing. His hands were rough and calloused, but his touch was gentle and tantalizing. He hiked your right leg up high over his hip, supporting you easily, and dipped his hand between your legs. His touch was expert and electric, and even his fingers were easily capable of pushing you into a frenzy.

Impatient for more, you arched your back, pushing your hips out toward him. You moaned his name when he filled you with one firm thrust. Mills was slow and sensual, his deliberate motions alighting your nerves as the delicious pressure whirled in your abdomen. You appreciated his size and strength even more when your thighs began to tremble. You wrapped your arms around his neck, clamped one leg tight over his hip, and let him pound into you with mounting force, rocking your body against the tile.

Pleasure flooded you with dizzying force when he pushed you into a pulsing orgasm. He crested right after you, groaning headily as a shudder ran through his powerful body. He had never been so lost in a woman before, so desperate, and those emotions were cemented long after the physical sensations ebbed. He buried his face in your neck and kissed you softly.

“I’m going to want a lot more of that,” you hummed contentedly.

“I’ll give you everything you want, gorgeous,” Mills purred rich behind your ear, encircling you with his arms.

“I want you to get me the hell off this island,” you sighed dreamily. “Then, I think we’ve each earned a real vacation.”

“For once, I won’t argue with you,” he huffed, as he led you out of the shower. He draped a towel over your shoulders, before grabbing one for himself.

A persistent knock on the door sounded from inside your bedroom, intruding into your intimacy. Scowling at the intrusion, Mills wrapped a towel around his hips and stalked into the room, growling, “What?” as he yanked the door open.

D’Alencon stood in the doorway. He looked exhausted and his blonde hair was greasy and lank, but at the sight of you and Mills both still dripping and wearing nothing but towels, he broke into a wide lewd grin. “It’s about time the two of you got around to that.”

“Unless the T-Rex is storming the resort, we’re going to get some rest until the power’s back on and we can evacuate,” Mills said gruffly. “It’s been a long couple days.”

“Yes, yes, long and hard, no doubt.” D’Alencon smirked and walked fully into the room. “There’s still no word from the Conductor and the main power is still out. He should have been there and back an hour ago. So, I’d say it’s safe to assume he’s not coming back.”

Mills exchanged a look with you where you leaned in the bathroom doorway wrapped in a towel. His features were instantly serious, devoid of the happiness from a few minutes before. He knew where this was going.

“I don’t suppose you’d be man enough to go out and flip the main switch?” D’Alencon asked Mills lightly, although the request was anything but. If the Conductor was missing, he had no doubt been killed, and the only dinosaurs smart enough or resourceful enough to get into the resort area and make a kill were the raptors.

“I guess if I’m not man enough, no one else here will be for damn sure,” Mills grumbled angrily. He dropped the towel, unbothered by D’Alencon and unceremoniously pulled on his black boxer briefs and began to dress.

“I’m going with you,” you stately decisively and began retrieving your own clothes.

“Like hell you are!” Mills nearly shouted at you, looking ferocious at the thought.

“There’s no way for you to stop me, and you’ll only piss me off and dig yourself a hole trying.” You returned to the bathroom to dress. Mills followed you.

“A woman has no business going out there,” Mills tried to keep his voice even. “And you’re not just any woman. Now, you’re my woman. And you’re staying here!”

“We can discuss sexism in survival situations at length later.” You buttoned your pants and hooked your bra. “Right now, you need help and I’m going with you.” You pulled your top on and glared at him. “And there’s not a damn thing you can do about it, Commander.”

*******************************************************************************************

The ‘maintenance shed’ was a humble term for a deceptively large complex of outbuildings that housed everything from the spare fleet of electrical Hummers to the backup generator to the main breaker bank. It was two stories with a ground level and a basement level. The basement level was where the breakers and the generator were located. The complex was about half a mile from the main resort building, connected by a narrow walking path cut through the jungle. Under ordinary circumstances, it was a nice stroll.

Under ordinary circumstances, there weren’t the deadliest predators the world had ever known patrolling the jungle.

Mills stood beside you just inside a rear exit to the resort. He looked out through the narrow rectangular window in the door, his eyes straining for any movement. There wasn’t long to watch or wait. The sun was nearly setting, and if you were still outside, or worse yet, inside the dark maintenance shed, when darkness fell, you would be blind and helpless and easy prey for any predators.

“If something got the Conductor – and something must have – I’m betting on the raptors,” Mills said dourly. “You keep the radio. If you’re the only one who makes it to the shed, Pierre can talk you through what to do.”

“Don’t talk like that.” You elbowed him in the ribs for effect. “You don’t even know the raptors are out there.”

“You’re right, I don’t.” Mills chewed his lip. “But the dilophosaurs stick to their swamp, and if the T-Rex was anywhere close around here, we’d damn sure know it. Those girls and the raptors are the big predators in the park. So, if something got the Conductor and he didn’t just die of fright or get lost along the single path, that leaves the raptors. They’re pack hunters, too, so we’re probably in for a menage a trois.”

“What do we do if they are out there?” you asked, feeling the hairs on the back of your neck prickle at the thought.

Mills didn’t answer you, but his frown deepened. You opened your mouth to question further, but Mills pulled you toward him and crashed his lips to yours, silencing you. His kiss lingered as long as he dared while the daylight burned. He pushed the door open and led you outside.

The jungle was humid and still, the afternoon sky a riot of fiery reds and oranges. It was a pleasant afternoon, filled with a chorus of birds chipping around you and the other jungle sounds. The path was just wide enough for the pair of you to walk abreast. It wound through the foliage, making it impossible to see more than twenty or so yards ahead or behind. You couldn’t see more than a few feet into the vegetation around you. Mills didn’t want you to walk ahead of him into any potential danger first, nor did he want you to follow behind in case something stalked you both. He walked beside you, holding your upper arm in a tight-fisted grip, evident of his concern at the danger you were both in.

Mills retrieved a battered cigar from his pocket and chomped down onto it. He lit it and puffed its tip into a healthy glow, savoring the flavor.

“The raptors will smell that!” you hissed.

“Oh, if they’re out there, they knew right where we were the second we opened that door.” Mills looked intently around the jungle, slowly walking ahead with you.

The foliage had become silent around you. Deathly silent. Devoid of chirping birds and insects. You could feel a presence in the jungle, that instinctive feeling of being watched that sends pinpricks of terror rippling goosebumps across your skin and makes your hairs stand on edge. Mills felt it too, but he didn’t show it. The feeling grew more intense as you walked. Halfway between the resort and the maintenance shed, your heart was hammering so savagely in your ribs, it felt as though it might break through them.

You heard the sound of a body moving through the brush beside the path on your left. It was close. Very close.

“Nick?” you whispered, terrified. Mills looked ahead as though he hadn’t heard anything.

“I know.” He clamped down on his cigar.

“We can make a run for it!” you whisper-yelled. “The door’s not far. We can make it!”

“No, we can’t.” Every muscle in his body was tensed and ready, but he tried to walk with easy nonchalance. “We’re being hunted.”

A snort sounded behind you, clearly intentional. You and Mills whirled around to see the big tiger-striped raptor standing in the middle of the path within ten feet of you. She stood tall, eye-level with Mills, and seemed to regard you with something like triumph.

“What’s she doing?” you asked as another snort sounded in the bush beside you.

“Ever seen a cat with a mouse?” Mills grunted around his cigar. He was quickly assessing options, but each one ended the same.

Mills took a step backward away from the raptor, a step closer to the maintenance shed door. The raptor took two steps, bobbing her head, and coming closer to you both. Through the trees, you could see the door, standing open and inviting. The Conductor’s small body lay right in front of the doorway, bloody and disfigured. If you didn’t follow the curved path and cut straight through the jungle, it was only thirty feet away, but it might as well be a mile.

“I want you to run for that door, gorgeous,” Mills said huskily, letting go of your arm. “Two of us can’t make it, but you might be able to if she stays focused on me.”

“No fucking way!” you spat, drawing the raptor’s crisp golden stare.

“Either we both die right now or one of us gets a chance.” Mills smirked sardonically. “Don’t get your hopes up. It’s not a very good chance.”

“Nick…” you couldn’t find the words.

“Don’t look back. You don’t want to see what’s gonna happen.” Mills took the cigar out of his mouth, its glowing tip again drawing the attention of the raptor. While she was focused on it, Mills shoved you roughly off the path and into the trees in the direction of the shed.

Fully in fight or flight mode, adrenaline flooded you and you found that your legs propelled you ahead on their own as your survival instincts kicked in. You ran through the clawing jungle, past the beta raptor who stood confused, waiting on her alpha to attack. The door was only fifteen feet away now.

The tiger-striped raptor jerked her head after you and crouched to give chase, but she looked back to Mills and stopped herself. He was the bigger prize, and she looked at him with hunger and malice. Mills still held his cigar and he stared the raptor down, making eye contact, showing as little fear and as much aggressive confidence as he could. Not that it mattered. It was only to buy you another few seconds. You were now within ten feet of the door.

Mills had been on staff at the park when she was hatched. D’Alencon had marveled at her beautiful tiger-striped color. Mills had seen it as the mark of an elite killing machine. She hated Mills. He had always been bigger and stronger when she was a juvenile, and the man called to check the raptors when other staff members couldn’t. When other staff were attacked, those that survived anyway, Mills was the man who went in to the raptor pen to bring them out – to deprive the raptors of their new toy. Mills knew the only reason she had never attacked him before was nothing more than a sense of self-preservation for not attacking a bigger animal on his turf. Now, Mills was on her turf, and they both knew it.

Still, the raptor was wary as she eyed him. Mills was ingrained in her mind as a big, powerful animal. Even if he had no real chance against her and it was all illusory.

A wail burst through the jungle, and Mills thought for a heart wrenching moment that one of the other raptors had gotten you. But when he turned to look at you, you had just reached the door and dashed inside. You were safe. The wail came again. The raptor was locked onto the sound and Mills followed her gaze down the trail back toward the resort.

Carroughes stumbled out onto the trail. Or what was left of Carroughes. His face was mangled to the texture of bloody hamburger. One of his eyeballs had ruptured, the socket now sunken in and black. His other eye was bulbously swollen and misshapen, protruding from his skull like a grotesque bloodshot egg. He moaned and howled, stumbling around with his arms outstretched.

Looking at Carroughes, Mills thought the raptors might not be such a bad way to go.

The two raptors in the jungle chuffed and snorted excitedly, stalking toward Carroughes, who was zig-zagging in his halting gait, making a tempting plaything. The tiger-striped raptor looked between Carroughes and Mills, snorting irritably at having to choose between them. The other raptors were closing in for the final springing attack on Carroughes. It went against every instinct in the alpha raptor to let her subordinates make the kill.

Mills raised his cigar and the raptor followed its fiery tip with her golden eyes. Mills threw the cigar like a dart, sending it sailing over the raptor’s head toward Carroughes. The raptor followed it in flight, craning her head to follow its arc. She watched the cigar hit the ground between her and Carroughes, then she looked back at Mills. She hadn’t fallen for his cigar trick again. Mills’ heart stopped.

Then, seeming to make up her mind, the raptor turned away from Mills and charged hissing at Carroughes. Mills ran for the maintenance shed. He didn’t dare look behind him. He didn’t see the raptors slicing into Carroughes’ stomach, but he heard the man’s shriek and the sound of his guts hitting the ground like spilling a bag of wet garbage. Mills didn’t see the tiger-striped raptor jump onto Carroughes’ chest and knock him down to the ground, but he heard Carroughes cry for help. At once, Carroughes’ voice was cut off as the alpha raptor bit down on his throat, shaking her head viciously as she tore his flesh into meaty ribbons.

Mills jumped over the body of the Conductor and hit the door with his shoulder at full speed, bursting inside, and slamming it shut behind him. You were only a few feet inside the dark room, getting instructions from D’Alencon on the radio with tears in your eyes. Mills was little more than a minute behind you, but it felt like an eternity. He rushed to you and took you in his arms, spinning you off the ground and crushing his lips to yours. He clung your body to him with your feet dangling off the floor until you could both breath again.

“Quit wasting time,” D’Alencon’s voice crackled over the radio. “Dr. Stallworth is about to run through the supply of morphine and then he’ll be even worse to listen to.”

The maintenance shed was a large concrete building with a ground level and a basement level that housed the power sources for the park, among other things. It was dark inside save for annoyingly flashing red emergency lights. Resetting the park was easy enough. It was literally no more difficult than finding the master breaker panel and flipping the main breaker back on. An electric hum immediately echoed throughout the building and the lights in the ceiling above you winked on.

“See there,” D’Alencon said cheerily over the radio. “Piece of cake.”

Mills laughed and you couldn’t help but join him.

*******************************************************************************************

From your view out of the helicopter windows, the jungle of 65 looked like paradise. Endless green covered mountains and valleys, waterfalls, lingering mist, all surrounded by teal-blue ocean. One would never know what monsters lurk on that bucolic emerald island.

“In 65 mark 2, I think I need a helipad on the roof of the resort, wouldn’t you say?” D’Alencon asked Mills. He sat in the cockpit with Hux, Stallworth, and a couple disgruntled technicians while Mills piloted all of you out of the park to safety. “That ride in the Hummer from the resort to the helipad with the raptors chasing us was a bit dicey.”

“It’ll put hair on your chest,” Mills quipped. He was smoking another cigar, but no one dared say a word about the smoke swirling inside the cockpit.

“You’re going to rebuild?” you asked incredulously.

“Each of those dinosaurs costs around ten million dollars to create,” D’Alencon calculated. “Their worth is significantly more than that. Not to mention the magnificent scientific advances they represent! I’m not going to eat that much loss. So, either I sell them each to the highest bidders, who are going to be even worse than me, I assure you. Or I rebuild. Can you picture Trump and Putin each having a pair of fighting raptors they can pit against each other? Or Hilary Clinton training a fleet of dilophosaurs to spit at stray women who come calling for Bill? Think of the Paris Hiltons of the world carrying pet compys to brunch in their purses. No, the only sensible option for me is to redouble my efforts and make the next 65 even better.”

“Well, I’ll stay on as your lawyer if you double my current hourly rate and give me a nice bonus for almost getting eaten,” you laughed. “But I’m never setting foot in another of your parks again! I’ll need the business. I have a feeling my man may be newly unemployed.” You looked at Mills and teased, “Unless you’ll be manning the new park?”

“Funny.” Mills smirked at you.

The helicopter bounced and lurched as Mills guided it up through the same narrow, turbulent valley he had flown you into four days earlier. Christ, had it only been four days? It felt like another lifetime ago. So much had changed. Not only the implosion of one of the greatest scientific advances of the century, or the mayhem and deaths of several people you had come to know. So many things had changed so quickly in your own personal life. Gazing at Mills from your seat in the co-pilot’s chair beside him, you couldn’t feel anything but relief at escaping together, elation at what had formed so quickly between you, and excitement at the thought of what your entwined futures would hold. Mills looked over and smiled at you, warm and genuine, and you knew he was thinking exactly the same thing.

*******************************************************************************************

© safarigirlsp 2023

Tagging some buddies! @babbushka @in-silks-and-flesh-and-leather @mrs-gucci @mrs-zimmerman @iamburdened @gabesprincess @reborn-rekall @maybe-your-left @rynwritesstuff @candycanes19 @caillea @cas-backwards-tie @queeniebee @mythrielofsolitude @ghoulian13 @icarusinthesea @darkhairedmenrule @reyloaddict55 @reylokisses @fizzywoohoo @heartlight-starlight @richbrittstein @clydesfavoritegirl @bensolodyad @thepalaceofmelanie @celiholland @durangoninetyfive @reveluving @fax4life27 @srorgana1 @vedavan @vixenofcourse @kyloremus @kylofrk @dyaddu @autumnleaves1991-blog

[multiverse-imagines]

@paprikamaustepurkki asked for something fluffy from the reverse Isekai au in an earlier ask!

Technically not completely fluffy, it's more… Wolfwood pining, and before Wolfwood entered the relationship. Enjoy anyway!

Rain

April, year 3.

"Oh, looks like it's gonna rain tomorrow." You gave a non-committal comment, not looking up from your phone

"You mentioned that before. Is that dangerous?" Nicholas asked, worry lining his voice

"Not this time, at least. There's plain old rain, which is just basic rainfall, there's thunderstorms that are harsh rain, with thunder and lightning, and there's tropical storms, when the storm gains power from the winds and water of the ocean, and hurricanes or typhoons, which can decimate entire cities."

"Ah, like Vash being The Humanoid Typhoon." Wolfy nodded.

"Yeah. Typhoons happen in the Pacific ocean and rotate counter-clockwise, and hurricanes are in the Atlantic and spin the opposite way." You whirled a finger around as an example.

"That's scary. Do you have those here?"

"No, just thunderstorms. We occasionally get hurricanes that come far inward, but they just end up being really bad thunderstorms. It's still kinda scary though." You shrugged. Wolfwood had become quite curious about the Earth's weather. It was stranger than anything he'd seen on Gunsmoke. Water, just falling from the sky, freezing and turning into snow, the air generating electricity… it was all so crazy to him.

-

The rain fell hard on the roof of the cabin. It being his first rain, Nicholas watched the rain fall onto the balcony from the living room. You took a look out onto the back balcony.

"You should probably smoke out front today, Wolfy. It's blowing from the east." You recommended.

"N-nah, I'm Good. I don't wanna go out there." Wolfwood shook his head, the nagging of his addiction desiring otherwise.

"Not at all? It's just like a cold shower out there, there's nothing to be afraid of." You frowned.

"Just don't wanna do it." Wolfwood shook his head,

You shrugged, and made her way upstairs. A few minutes later, you came down the stairs wearing a pair of shorts, a T-Shirt, and pulled on a pair of boots.

"Vash! Ready to go play?"

"Fuck yeah!" He cheered coming from his room in similar attire, left arm missing.

"What are you two doing?"

"We're gonna go play in the rain. You can always join us if you want. It's not gonna hurt you." You smiled as you opened the door, leading you and Vash to exit. The two of them carefully made their way down the stairs before hopping around in the puddles outside, the water splashing into their legs. They ran around, giggling, kicking around a kickball, caking it in mud. Vash kicked the ball and it shot into the grove of trees that lined the property.

"Ah, I'll get it!" He cheerily approached you, intending to pass in order to retrieve the ball.

"Hey, hold on a minute." You grabbed his arm as he passed. He gave a questioning look, but smiled in realization. He pulled you close, giving a gentle caress of your face. You pulled Vash in for a sweet tender kiss, the rain picking up its pelting, as if to emphasize your intimate affection.

Wolfwood had been watching from the balcony, watching the sweet moment. A pang of… jealousy? Entered his heart. But for who? Did he wish that was him and Milly? Did he wish to be corralled in the embrace of Needle Noggin's arm? Or did he wish to be holding you so tenderly? Was it all of these things? Rainy days confused him, he decided.

"Wolfy! Come join us!!!" You called, noticing him on the balcony. Wolfwood sighed, giving a thumbs up before retreating inside. While you and Vash returned to playing with the kickball after it was retrieved, Nicholas stepped out from the basement entrance in a pair of basketball shorts, his tennis shoes, and a black t-shirt. He took a deep breath before stepping into the rain.

Cold. This was really damn cold. Like pin pricks to his shoulders, his body quickly became soggy. He made his way to his two housemates, the mud squelching under his shoes.

"I think I made a mistake coming out here." He frowned, not enjoying the cold.

"Just give it a minute, Wolfwood! Ya get used to the cold!" Vash smiled. They returned to kicking the ball around, allowing Wolfwood to join in. On one pass, he kicked the ball, slipping in the mud, and falling onto his ass. After shaking off his shock, he began to laugh with you and Vash who had already been laughing. The two of you held out your hands to bring Wolfwood out of the mud, only for him to pull them down into the mud with him, a snarky smile on his face. You and Vash squeaked at being pulled down, and continued to laugh. Giving in to being dirty, you took a handful of mud, pressing it to Wolfy's face. His dumbfounded face was enough to make Vash laugh like a tea kettle. Wolfwood, regaining his senses, pressed his muddy hand into your face as well before doing the same to Vash.

"Fuckin' assholes!" Wolfwood laughed. Turning to push Vash back into the mud, you soon followed behind, making a dog pile in the mud. The three of you laughed together, the rain beginning to lighten up. Soon the clouds parted, allowing a few beams of light to shine through. The three of you all took in this moment, muddy, laughing and enjoying the moment, the kickball unloved and forgotten in the grove for the time being.

Clambering back inside, Wolfwood used Vash's shower, while you and Vash made your way to the master bath. Wolfwood couldn't help but hear the delicious noises coming from the bathroom as the two claimed to be cleaning up. He felt… lonely in this shower. Not that he'd ever showered with someone before, but.. hearing the two of you have… a little more than fun, made him wish he could join you two… he felt this feeling before… wanting to… spend his tomorrows… with them…. He'd thought that before… but… when?

He nodded again at the notion of rainy days bringing nothing but confusion. He left the shower, and joined you and Vash, who were cuddled up on the couch, somehow finishing their "shower" before him.

"You two are noisy. And I thought you were a quiet book worm, my liege." Nicholas teased the two of you, sitting on the couch with them. Vash gave a light chuckle as you buried your face into Vash's chest, embarrassed.

[leverageclips]

@leverage-ot3 tagged me!

3 ships: The leverage ot3 obviously, Merthur and vashwood (vash the Stampede and Nicholas D Wolfwood)

First ever ship: oh damn probably Naruhina, I really liked the dynamic ADHD extrovert x super shy introvert

Last song: Spookie Coochie by Doechii

Last film: .... It's Aquaman 2, I just really like going to the movie theater and I have a discount on my local one. It's actually a really fun romp if you like dumb adventure movies and expect nothing else from it.

Currently reading: other than my thousands of ao3 tabs I'm reading The Revenge of the Sith novelization by Matthew Stover. It's GREAT. If you like star wars (doesn't matter if you like or not the prequels) you MUST read it, it's insanely well written.

Currently consuming: I fell down the rabbit hole AGAIN and I'm rewatching Black Sails. The brainrot is DEEP and it doesn't help that the show is super well written.

Currently craving: an infinite summer break. My classes start again next Monday and I'm dreading it (I really don't want to do my ambulance rotation this semester)

Normally I forget to tag people but just for shits and giggles: @the-oncoming-tropical-storm what's up girl

[ao3feed-narlie]

We'll Call It Paradise

read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/z15kGWp by desiring_assemblage Sai invites his Cambridge bestie, Isaac, and a few of his mates from St John’s to work in the Caribbean for the summer at his aunt's resort. Oh, and Isaac invites his friend Charlie, since Sai’s aunt wants all the help she can get. Nick’s never met anyone as interesting as Charlie before; does he just want to be Charlie’s ‘good mate’ or could there be a storm brewing in the tropics? 🌴🌴🌴 Words: 4042, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English Fandoms: Heartstopper (TV), Heartstopper (Webcomic) Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: M/M Characters: Charles "Charlie" Spring (Heartstopper), Nicholas "Nick" Nelson, Isaac Henderson (Heartstopper), Sai Verma, Christian McBride (Heartstopper), Otis Smith | Omar, Victoria "Tori" Spring, Jane Spring, Julio Spring, Sarah Nelson, Original Characters Relationships: Nicholas "Nick" Nelson/Charles "Charlie" Spring Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Confident Charles "Charlie" Spring (Heartstopper), Smitten Nicholas "Nick" Nelson, Smart Nicholas "Nick" Nelson, POV Charles "Charlie" Spring (Heartstopper), POV Nicholas "Nick" Nelson, Mutual Pining, Pining, Slow Burn, Light Angst, Caribbean Islands, Beaches, Summer, Sexuality Crisis, Gay Charles "Charlie" Spring (Heartstopper), Bisexual Nicholas "Nick" Nelson, Gay Sex, Sand & Sweat read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/z15kGWp

[nicholascbiase]

Common Causes of Water Damage in Homes - A List by Experts at Boss Disaster Restoration Inc.

Common Causes of Water Damage in Homes - A List by Experts at Boss Disaster Restoration Inc.

Water damage to homes can cause significant and expensive destruction, from the loss of personal belongings to serious health complications. Thus, quickly identifying and responding to potential water-related issues is essential to avoid long-term problems.

Nicholas C. Biase

Water stains, odors, and mold growth are signs of water damage in any household. Left unchecked, mold and mildew could spread throughout your home, causing structural issues and other potential dangers.

Leaky Pipes

Experts at Boss Disaster Restoration Inc. point out that water damage due to leaky pipes is one of the most prevalent household issues, threatening your belongings and costing considerable repairs. Furthermore, its damp environment fosters mold growth - so leaky pipes should be addressed as soon as possible to mitigate their negative consequences and avoid water damage altogether.

One small leak can waste around a liter of water each hour, which adds up over time and could add up to more than 100 gallons over one year - an amount that usually falls outside traditional homeowners' insurance coverage.

Signs of a leaky pipe include discolored walls or ceilings, warped floors, bubbling paint or peeling wallpaper. Listen out at night for any water-dripping noise, and inspect your home regularly for these indicators of trouble.

Leaks that go undetected for an extended period can cause extensive structural and cosmetic damage in your home, from wood rot and replacement need to mold formation that poses health hazards to people with respiratory conditions. Boss Disaster Restoration Inc. experts regularly inspect water bills or pressure changes to minimize damage.

Old Appliances

Most appliances have an expected lifespan, after which they begin to leak. This is especially true of water heaters with tanks constantly filled with water that age over time and start leaking or rusting out, leading to leakage or corrosion of the tank itself. If your old heater spreads frequently and becomes outdated quickly, consider upgrading with one featuring tankless technology instead.

Experts at Boss Disaster Restoration Inc. say refrigerators equipped with an ice maker may also leak. Over time, their supply lines may become compromised or disconnected from their appliances and cause leakage that leads to significant water damage and mold growth.

Not only can leaky appliances cause flooding and water damage, but specific weather events, such as hurricanes or tropical storms, can also create massive amounts of flooding. Hurricane-force winds and high tides from hurricanes or tropical storms may create high tides that flood homes, while heavy rainfall can overwhelm drainage systems, leading to flash floods.

Some of these causes of water damage can be prevented with regular maintenance and inspection. For instance, clogged dishwasher drains can be avoided with regular filter cleanings. A leaking refrigerator's water line inspection should include prompt repairs or replacement when needed, and flooding basements should be protected against through proper home grade and drainage and sump pump maintenance.

Flooding

Water is essential to our lives, yet it can also damage a home. Understanding how water can wreak havoc can help protect against potential issues and minimize risks.

Flooding is one of the leading causes of water damage, occurring when rivers and lakes cannot manage excess rain or snowmelt, professionals at Boss Disaster Restoration Inc. suggest. A flood can submerge buildings and other structures as it spreads, endangering lives and property while potentially polluting drinking water sources with contaminants that could pose health hazards; for this reason, it's wise to remain away from affected areas until professional inspectors have evaluated their safety.  

Plumbing problems are another leading source of water damage, including leaky pipes and clogged drains that lead to mold growth, buckled or warped floors, musty smells, and musty odors. Although water damage caused by plumbing problems is usually easily rectifiable once detected early enough, early intervention is critical to minimize its consequences.

Other forms of water damage may be more challenging to repair and can often involve major natural disasters like floods or fires. While it's impossible to prevent such events, you can still take steps to mitigate their effects by installing flood sensors in flood-prone areas and regularly inspecting roofs for leaks.

Poor Ventilation

As per Boss Disaster Restoration Inc. professionals, unchecked leaks can quickly cause water damage, including damaged floors, destroyed furniture, severe mold, and mildew growth. A humid environment also provides ideal breeding grounds for rust, which can wreak havoc with stored items in your attic and roofing and exterior components of your house.

Odors of decay or mildew can also indicate water damage, while dark spots on walls and ceilings could indicate mold growth. Mold and mildew pose health risks to those with allergies or respiratory conditions who come in contact with them, so keeping an eye out is always recommended!

Paint that bubbles or flakes are another telltale sign of water issues in your home, which should be resolved as quickly as possible to prevent surface damage and structural problems from surface flooding. When walls feel soft or spongy to the touch, this could indicate water seepage requiring repair work behind walls.

Lack of ventilation enables warm, moist air to remain trapped inside buildings, leading to excess humidity and condensation on windows and other surfaces and encouraging rot, structural issues, and increased utility bills. Poor ventilation also promotes the release of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), toxic gases that may cause dizziness, nausea,  and headaches.

[richdadpoor]

Tropical Storm Harold Has Swept Into Texas

Bubba Ferguson drags a boat through a flooded street in the aftermath of Hurricane Nicholas on September. 14, 2021, in San Luis Pass, Texas.Photo: David J. Phillip (AP) Tropical storm Harold made landfall over Southern Texas earlier today, making it the first storm to reach the continental U.S. in the 2023 Atlantic hurricane season. Hurricane Ian Recovery | Extreme Earth The storm has…

[nuadox]

Tropical Storm Hilary pounds Southern California with heavy rain, flash flooding

- By Nicholas Grondin , University of Tampa , The Conversation -

Tropical Storm Hilary made landfall on Mexico’s Baja peninsula and moved into Southern California with damaging wind and heavy rainfall on Sunday, Aug. 20, 2023.

For the first time ever, the National Hurricane Center had issued a tropical storm watch for large parts of Southern California. Forecasters warned of a “potentially historic amount of rainfall,” and the governors of California and Nevada declared states of emergency.

Hurricane scientist Nick Grondin explained ahead of landfall why the storm, with help from El Niño and a heat dome over much of the country, could bring flash flooding, wind damage and mudslides to the region.

How rare are tropical storms in the Southwest?

California had only one confirmed tropical storm landfall in the past. It was in September 1939 and called the Long Beach Tropical Storm. It caused about US$2 million dollars in damage in the Los Angeles area – that would be about $44 million today. A hurricane in 1858 came close but didn’t make landfall, though its winds did significant damage to San Diego.

What the Southwest does see fairly regularly are the remnants of tropical cyclones, storms that continue on after a tropical cyclone loses its surface circulation. These remnant storms are more common in the region than people might think.

Just last year, Hurricane Kay took a similar track to the one Hurricane Hilary is on and brought significant rainfall to Southern California and Arizona. Famously, Hurricane Nora in 1997 made landfall in Mexico’s Baja California and kept moving north, bringing tropical storm-force winds to California and widespread flooding that caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage, particularly to fruit trees and agriculture.

The National Hurricane Center’s three-day rainfall forecast issued Aug. 19, 2023, shows rainfall totals that are well above what some areas typically receive in a year. National Hurricane Center

A study led by atmospheric scientist Elizabeth Ritchie in 2011 found that, on average, about 3.1 remnant systems from tropical cyclones affected the U.S. Southwest each year from 1992 to 2005. That’s a short record, but it gives you an idea of the frequency.

Typically, the remnants of tropical cyclones don’t go beyond California, Nevada and Arizona, though it wouldn’t be unprecedented. In this case, forecasters expect the effects to extend far north. The National Hurricane Center on Aug. 18 projected at least a moderate risk of flooding across large parts of Southern California, southern Nevada and far-western Arizona, and a high risk of flooding for regions east of San Diego.

What’s making this storm so unusual?

One influence is the El Niño climate pattern this year, which is showing signs of strengthening in the Pacific. Another, which might be less intuitive, is the heat dome over much of the U.S.

During El Niño, the tropical Pacific is warmer than normal, and both the eastern and central Pacific tend to be more active with storms, as we saw in 2015 and 1997. Generally, hurricanes need at least 80 degrees Fahrenheit (27 degrees Celsius) to maintain their intensity. Normally, the waters off Southern California are much cooler. But with the high initial intensity of Hurricane Hilary over warm water to the south, and the fact that the storm is moving fast, forecasters think it might be able to survive the cooler water.

The influence of the heat dome is interesting. Meteorology researcher Kimberly Wood published a fantastic thread on X, formerly known as Twitter, describing the large-scale pattern around similar storms that have affected the southwestern United States. A common thread with these storms is the presence of a ridge, or high-pressure system, in the central U.S. When you have a high-pressure system like the heat dome covering much of the country, air is pushed down and warms significantly. Air around this ridge is moving clockwise. Meanwhile, a low-pressure system is over the Pacific Ocean with winds rotating counterclockwise. The result is that these winds are likely to accelerate Hilary northward into California.

Despite the rarity of tropical cyclones reaching California, numerical weather prediction models since the storm’s formation have generally shown Hilary likely to accelerate along the west coast of Baja California and push into Southern California.

What are the risks?

The threat of tropical storm-force winds led the National Hurricane Center to issue its first-ever tropical storm watch for Southern California on Aug. 18. However, water is almost always the primary concern with tropical storms. In California, that can mean flash flooding from extreme rainfall enhanced by mountains.

When a tropical storm plows up on a mountain, that can lead to more lifting, more condensation aloft and more rainfall than might otherwise be expected. It happened with Hurricane Lane in Hawaii in 2018 and can also happen in other tropical cyclone-prone locations with significant orographic, or mountain, effects, such as the west coast of Mexico.

That can mean dangerous flash flooding from the runoff. It can also have a secondary hazard – mudslides, including in areas recovering from wildfires.

In dry areas, heavy downpours can also trigger flash flooding. Forecasts showed Death Valley likely to get more rain from the storm than its average for an entire year. Death Valley National Park warned of flash flooding through Aug. 22 and closed its visitor centers and campgrounds.

Keep in mind this is still an evolving situation. Forecasts can change, and all it takes is one band of rain setting up in the right spot to cause significant flooding. Those in the path of Hilary should refer to their local weather offices for additional information. This would include local National Weather Service offices in the United States and Servicio Meteorológico Nacional in Mexico.

Nicholas Grondin, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies, University of Tampa

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

--

Read Also

Texas A&M conceives novel flooding prediction tool

[heizerux]

Okay. . . That’s funny lol

[rjzimmerman]

The thing was “ragged” just yesterday. It would produce lots of rain over coastal Texas or Louisiana, or both, but would just be a wet tropical depression. Now it’s a tropical storm, and some are saying that by the time it hits land, it might be a weak hurricane.

Excerpt from this New York Times story:

Weather-weary Texans braced for another storm on Monday, setting up barricades and shutting down schools as Nicholas, a tropical storm that could soon approach hurricane strength, traveled along the state’s Gulf Coast.

As of Monday afternoon, the center of the storm was just offshore, moving north over the Gulf of Mexico. Forecasters said it was expected to land on the coast of central Texas by Monday evening.

Nicholas was expected to bring more than a foot of rain to parts of coastal Texas, the National Hurricane Center said. Warnings of a dangerous storm surge extended east to Louisiana, where people are still recovering after Hurricane Ida battered the southern reaches of the state two weeks ago.

From Yale Climate Connections:

Forecast models are consistent in bringing Nicholas northward until landfall by Monday evening over the central Texas coast. After landfall, Nicholas will turn more to the northeast and slow down to a forward speed of 7-10 mph, allowing the storm to keep some of its circulation over water and generate heavy rains for multiple days. With widespread rains of 8-16 inches predicted through Wednesday over much of coastal Texas and Louisiana, damaging floods costing hundreds of millions of dollars are likely.

[caramara3]

To everyone in southeast Texas, myself included, preparing for the impact of Tropical Storm Nicholas please remember to stay safe. After what we experienced with Harvey, not to mention if anyone is old enough to remember the impact of Tropical Storm Allison, do not take any chances.

If you can evacuate, do it now.

Gather as much supplies as you can.

[ashleybenlove]

I’m officially under tropical storm warning because of Tropical Storm Nicholas so that’s a thing.

Here’s the NHC website 

https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/cyclones/

[foreverandalwayscrysis]

LALAKDJFKAL CRYINNGGGGGGGG I LOVE SPACE CITY WEATHER

[llilychen]

harry styles is getting the authentic houston experience

[ah-musing-musings]

Tropical Storm Nicholas musings

I live in the Houston, TX, US area, actually on the outskirts closer to the coast. Yesterday we experienced our first tropical storm of the hurricane season, Tropical Storm Nicholas. The energies during and after the storms are always so unique.

During the storm it's trepidation, anxiety, worry; the wild animal population panics and they try to find viable shelter to weather the worst of it. Last night a raccoon ran onto my porch; he scared me as much as I scared him, but I wondered and worried about the sweet thing all night. I tried to find the feral cats we feed, hoping the kitten was okay (stay tuned for kitten update; spoiler alert: she's just fine!). I obsessively checked the motorcycles (are they covered? at one point I was sure they'd have been blown off their kickstands, but of course they weren't and I was relieved to see them both upright and covered). Is the back patio safe? Are the chairs blown around? Did anything get removed from the yard? Sitting inside, I could hear the wind howling, shaking my bedroom window, and all I could imagine were terrified raccoons and opossums, cats crying for help as the rain flurried around them; I am exhausted this morning.

The morning after a big storm is always interesting. This morning was more akin to Ike's morning after as opposed to Harvey's morning after, thank the gods. Neighbors sweeping branches and leaves out of their driveways, pulling decorative evergreens back into an upright position (the evergreens have more shallow root systems than say, a live oak; I have only seen a few oaks uprooted by storms [typically tornadoes, which thankfully we don't get many of], but I've seen plenty an evergreen knocked over), clearing storm drains of debris, checking their vehicles and their property for damage. For suburban Houstonians, Ike and Nicholas were very much the same. We experienced minor flooding, 20-30mph winds, and rain. They both sounded worse than they were.

The energy though... being outside and seeing all of these people with nothing in common coming together to help each other... it evokes such a unique emotion, one I truly don't have words for. My heart aches with longing like it's full of appreciation for those who put aside petty differences in others' times of need. Ignorant of meaningless neighborly disputes (they keep me up at night with their barking dog, they parked in front of my house, blah blah blah...), these people come together to serve each other without disdain, without thought of themselves or the past. It both breaks and fills my heart, and it reminds me of being a child without all these perceived grudges and hang-ups. It reminds me of riding my bicycle with neighbor kids, no thought given to age/gender/race/religion; just enjoying the company of others, genuinely enjoying true camaraderie.

Harvey, on the other hand, decimated Houston and its surrounding areas; floodwaters caused drainage systems to fail, and a necessity flood-letting of drainage levees. The release of floodwaters from our flood control systems actually caused more damage than the storm, but it would have been worse if the barriers had broken. Millions without power for weeks on end, without food or water; it was devastating. I feel my mind has blocked out much of Harvey (something that happens frequently when I experience trauma; I call it my "Overactive Trauma Filter Technique") but what I do remember was frantic pounding at my door, a neighbor screaming about floodwaters and endangered vehicles. I was living in an (unfortunately notoriously poor and run-down) apartment complex in August of 2017. I hurriedly grabbed my rain boots and my car keys before bolting outside; the experience was incredibly disorienting. Imagine, being awoken from sleep by frenzied neighbors all trying to salvage their vehicles, then immediately stepping outside into the worst rains in 100 years. My car was indeed in danger of being overcome by the bayou overflowing just a couple hundred yards from the parking lot. I sprinted downstairs, and as soon as I stepped into the parking lot itself I realized my rain boots were ineffective; I ripped them off and... honestly I don't remember if I threw them or if I put them in my car... Some neighbors and I, out of necessity, decided to move the construction fence surrounding the only dry-ish land we spotted. There used to be a building next to mine that burned down about a year before I moved in, and the complex's solution was to leave bare foundation surrounded by a "temporary" construction fence. It took three grown men and myself to slide the fence close enough to the bare foundation, closer to the ghost of the building, so that we had space for our vehicles on the sidewalk and the surrounding grass. I get into my car which, fortunately, was able to start. The only option I have is to drive my little Chevrolet Sonic onto the sidewalk and into the grass, so that's exactly what I did. And glad I did, because it ended up being the only way to save my car from total loss.

The reason I tell this story is to demonstrate how, even in the direst of circumstances and when all seems lost, we can create light. Either by ourselves or with the help of those around us, we can accomplish incredible things. This situation stills warms my heart and occasionally brings me to tears; when I remember how grateful my neighbors and I were for each other that night, how one instance can shatter my cold view of humanity, somehow everything feels okay. If I can cooperate with the neighbor that accused my family member of stealing from him, who got kicked down the stairs by said family member for being aggressive and intoxicated, if I can cooperate with a person like that... then what can we as a collective accomplish when we collaborate with like-minded and like-moraled individuals?

Humanity doesn't always have to suck. Sometimes we surprise even ourselves with our capacity for selflessness and teamwork.

Thanks for reading; let me know in the replies if you have any similar stories of humans overcoming their emotional barricades to benefit the greater collective, or even just a nice story of people being cool!

Hope everyone in the Gulf Coastal area is safe.

p.s. The aforementioned kitten update: she was with her mother this morning! Her mother is tiny, barely larger than the kitten; mother picked her up and hurried into my open garage when she spotted me this morning. It was truly hilarious to see that tiny mother with her baby, almost as big as she was! I made sure to put extra food for them in my garage (I often leave my garage open before and after a storm, to encourage the feral cat population to take shelter and keep them safe).

[its-okay-2-decay]

I've lost power here in Texas more than I've ever lost power in every other state I've been in combined.

[dearyallfrommatt]

Monday, September 13, 2021

Monday, September 13, 2021

Tropical Storm Nicholas is about 70 miles south of Port O’Connor, Texas. It’s moving fairly slow and should make landfall sometime late tonight or early tomorrow morning. Right now, it looks like it’ll hit somewhere on the middle coast of Texas around Corpus Christie, head west over Northern Louisiana, and moving on through Mississippi. It looks like it’ll stay a tropical storm but that’s bad…