Jurassic Park

Ge

"No question what happened," Muldoon was saying. "The T-rex got him." Muldoon looked up the hill, then back to Ge

"Yes," Ge

Muldoon was walking back toward the Jeep, carrying the leg. "I guess we better bring this along," he said. "Doesn't seem right to leave it here. Christ, it's going to make a mess of the car. See if there's anything in the back, will you? A tarp or newspaper…"

Ge

"Two tarps," he said. They were neatly folded plastic.

"Give me one," Muldoon said, still standing outside the car. Muldoon wrapped the leg and passed the now shapeless bundle to Ge

"Okay." Ge

"Jesus," Muldoon said.

Ge

Muldoon looked around briefly, pointed to the left. "There." The second Land Cruiser was twenty feet away, crumpled at the foot of a tree.

"What's it doing there?"

"The T-rex threw it."

"Threw it?" Ge

Muldoon's face was grim. "Let's get this over with," he said, climbing out of the Jeep. They hurried forward to the second Land Cruiser. Their flashlights swung back and forth in the night.

As they came closer, Ge

"I wouldn't worry," Muldoon said. "It's very unlikely we'll find anyone."

"No?"

"No," he said. He explained that, during his years in Africa, he had visited the scenes of a half-dozen animal attacks on humans in the bush. One leopard attack: the leopard had torn open a tent in the night and taken a three-year-old child. Then one buffalo attack in Amboseli; two lion attacks; one croc attack in the north, near Meru. In every case, there was surprisingly little evidence left behind.

Inexperienced people imagined horrific proofs of an animal attack-torn limbs left behind in the tent, trails of dripping blood leading away into the bush, bloodstained clothing not far from the campsite. But the truth was, there was usually nothing at all, particularly if the victim was small, an infant or a young child. The person just seemed to disappear, as if he had walked out into the bush and never come back. A predator could kill a child just by shaking it, snapping the neck. Usually there wasn't any blood.

And most of the time you never found any other remains of the victims. Sometimes a button from a shirt, or a sliver of rubber from a shoe. But most of the time, nothing.

Predators took children-they preferred children-and they left nothing behind. So Muldoon thought it highly unlikely that they would ever find any remains of the children.

But as he looked in now, he had a surprise. "I'll be damned," he said.

Muldoon tried to put the scene together. The front windshield of the Land Cruiser was shattered, but there wasn't much glass nearby. He had noticed shards of glass back on the road. So the windshield must have broken back there, before the tyra

"Empty?" Gc

"Not quite," Muldoon said. His flashlight glinted off a Crushed radio handset, and on the floor of the car he saw something else, something curved and black. The front doors were dented and jammed shut, but he climbed in through the back door and crawled over the seat to pick up the black object.

"It's a watch," he said, peering at it in the beam of his flashlight. A cheap digital watch with a molded black rubber strap. The LCD face was shattered, He thought the boy might have been wearing it, though he wasn't sure. But it was the kind of watch a kid would have.

"What is it, a watch?" Ge

"Yes. And there's a radio, but it's broken."

"Is that significant?"

"Yes. And there's something else… " Muldoon sniffed. There was a sour odor inside the car. He shone the light around until he saw the vomit dripping off the side door panel. He touched it: still fresh. "One of the kids may still be alive," Muldoon said.

Ge

"The watch," Muldoon said. "The watch proves it." He banded the watch to Ge

"Crystal is cracked," Ge

"That's right," Muldoon said. "And the band is uninjured."

"Which means?"

"The kid took it off,"

"That could have happened anytime," Ge

"No," Muldoon said. "Those LCD crystals are tough. It takes a powerful blow to break them. The watch face was shattered during the attack."

"So the kid took his watch off."

"Think about it," Muldoon said. "If you were being attacked by a tyra

"Maybe it was torn off."

"It's almost impossible to tear a watch off somebody's wrist, without tearing the band off, too. Anyway, the band is intact. No," Muldoon said. "The kid took it off himself. He looked at his watch, saw it was broken, and took it off. He had the time to do that."

"When?"

"It could only have been after the attack," Muldoon said. "The kid must have been in this car, after the attack. And the radio was broken, so he left it behind, too. He's a bright kid, and he knew they weren't useful."

"If he's so bright," Ge

"Yes," Muldoon said. "But perhaps he couldn't stay here. May the tyra

"Then where'd he go?" Ge

"Let's see if we can determine that," Muldoon said, and he strode off toward the main road.

Ge

"You notice these prints?" Muldoon asked, still looking at the ground. "What prints?" Ge

"These footprints-see them, coming toward us from up the road?-and they're adult-size prints. Some kind of rubber-sole sboe. Notice the distinctive tread pattern.

Ge

"You can see," Muldoon continued, "the adult prints come to here, where they're joined by other prints. Small, and medium-size… moving around in circles, overlapping… almost as if they're standing together, talking… But now here they are, they seem to be ru

Ge

Muldoon got to his feet and stepped back. He looked down at the ground and sighed. "Say what you like, I'll wager one of the kids survived. And maybe both. Perhaps even an adult as well, if these big prints belong to someone other than Regis, We've got to search the park."

"Tonight?" Ge

But Muldoon wasn't listening. He had walked away, toward an embankment of soft earth, near a drainpipe for rain. He crouched again. "What was that little girl wearing?"

"Christ," Ge

Proceeding slowly, Muldoon moved farther toward the side of the road. And then they heard a wheezing sound. It was definitely an animal sound.

"Listen," Ge

"Shhh," Muldoon said.

He paused, listening.

"It's just the wind," Ge

They heard the wheezing again, distinctly this time. It wasn't the wind. It was coming from the foliage directly ahead of him, by the side of the road. It didn't sound like an animal, but Muldoon moved forward cautiously. He waggled his light and shouted, but the wheezing did not change character. Muldoon pushed aside the fronds of a palm.

"What is it?" Ge

"It's Malcolm," Muldoon said.

Ian Malcolm lay on his back, his skin gray-white, mouth slackly open. His breath came in wheezing gasps. Muldoon handed the flashlight to Ge

Then Ge