Michael Crichton - The Lost World

Levine pointed out the window. "Daylight," he said. "We're trapped here in daylight."

"We were trapped here all night, too," Thorne said. "We made it okay."

"But daylight is different," Levine said.

"Why?"

"Because at night," he said, "this is carnotaurus territory. Other animals don't come in. We saw no other animals at all around here, last night. But once daylight comes, the carnotaurus can't hide any more. Not in open spaces, in direct sunlight. So they'll leave. And then this won't be their territory any more.

"Which means?"

Levine glanced at Kelly, over by the computer. He hesitated, then said, "Just take my word for it. We have to get out of here right away."

"And go where?"

Sitting at the computer, Kelly listened to Thorne talking to Dr. Levine. She fingered the piece of paper with Arby's password on it. She felt very nervous. The way Dr. Levine was talking was making her nervous. She wished Sarah was back by now. She would feel better when Sarah was here,

Kelly didn't like to think about their situation. She had been holding herself together, keeping up her spirits, until the helicopter came. But now the helicopter had come and gone. And she noticed neither of the men was talking about when it would come back. Maybe they knew something. Like it wasn't coming back.

Dr. Levine was saying they had to get out of the store. Thorne was asking Dr. Levine where he wanted to go. Levine said, "I'd prefer to get off this island, but I don't see how we can. So I suppose we should make our way back to the trailer. It's the safest place now."

Back to the trailer, she thought. Where she and Sarah had gone to get Malcolm. Kelly didn't want to go back to the trailer.

She wanted to go home.

Tensely, Kelly smoothed out the piece of damp paper, pressing it flat on the table beside her. Dr. Levine came over. "Stop fooling around," he said. "See if you can find Sarah."

"I want to go home," Kelly said.

Levine sighed. "I know, Kelly", he said. "We all want to go home." And he walked away again, moving quickly, tensely.

Kelly pushed the paper away, turning it over, and sliding it under the keyboard, in case she should need the password again. As she did so, her eye was caught by some writing on the other side.

She pulled the paper out again.

She saw:

SITE B LEGENDS

EAST WING WEST WING LOADING BAY

LABORATORY ASSEMBLY BAY ENTRANCE

OUTLYING MAIN CORE GEO TURBINE

CONVENIENCE STORE WORKER VILLAGE GEO CORE

GAS STATION POOL/TENNIS PUTTING GREENS

MGRS HOUSE JOG PATH GAS LINES

SECURITY ONE SECURITY TWO THERMAL LINES

RIVER DOCK BOATHOUSE SOLAR ONE

SWAMP ROAD RIVER ROAD RIDGE ROAD

MTN VIEW ROAD CLIFF ROAD HOLDING PENS

She realized at once what it was: a screen shot from Levine's apartment. From the night when Arby had been recovering files from the computer. It seemed like a million years ago, another lifetime. But it had really been only…what? Two days ago.

She remembered how proud Arby had been when he had recovered the data. She remembered how they had all tried to make sense of this list. Now, of course, all these names had meaning. They were all real places: the laboratory, the worker village, the convenience store, the gas station…

She stared at the list.

You're kidding, she thought.

"Dr. Thorne," she said. "I think you better look at this."

Thorne stared as she pointed at the list. "You think so?" he said.

"That's what it says: a boathouse."

"Can you find it, Kelly?"

"You mean, find it on the video?" She shrugged. "I can try."

"Try," Thorne said. He glanced at Levine, who was across the room, pounding on the walls again. He picked up the radio.

"Sarah? It's Doc."

And the radio crackled. "Doc? I've had to stop for a minute"

"Why?" Thorne said.

Sarah Harding was stopped on the ridge road. Fifty yards ahead, she saw the tyrannosaur, going down the road away from her. She could see that he had Dodgson in his month. And somehow, Dodgson was still alive. His body was still moving. She thought she could hear him scream.

She was surprised to find she had no feeling about him at all. She watched dispassionately as the tyrannosaur left the road, and headed off down a slope, back into the jungle.

Sarah started the car, and drove cautiously forward.

At the computer console, Kelly flicked through video images, one after another, until finally she found it: a wooden dock, enclosed inside a shed or a boathouse, open to the air at the far end. The interior of the boathouse looked in pretty good shape; there weren't a lot of vines and ferns growing over things. She saw a powerboat tied up, rocking against the dock. She saw three oil drums to one side. And out the back of the boathouse there was open water, and sunlight- it looked like a river.

"What do you think?" she said to Thorne.

"I think it's worth a try," he said, looking over her shoulder. "But where is it? Can you find a map?"

"Maybe," she said. She flicked the keys and managed to get back to the main screen, with its perplexing icons.

Arby awoke, yawned, and came over to look at what she was doing. "Nice graphics. You logged on, huh?"

"Yeah," she said. "I did. But I'm having a little trouble figuring it out.

Levine was pacing, staring out the windows. "This is all well and good," he said, "but it is getting brighter out there by the minute. Don't you understand? We need a way out of here. This building is single-wall construction. It's fine for the tropics, but it's basically a shack."

"It'll do," Thorne said.

"For three minutes, maybe. I mean, look at this," Levine said. He walked to the door, rapped it with his knuckles. "This door is just - "

With a crash, the wood splintered around the lock, and the door swung open. Levine was thrown aside, landing hard on the floor.

A raptor stood hissing in the doorway.

Sitting at the console, Kelly was frozen in terror. She watched as Thorne ran forward from the side, throwing the full weight of his body against the door, slamming it hard against the raptor. Startled, the animal was knocked back. The door closed on its clawed hand. Thorne leaned against the door. On the other side, the animal snarled and pounded.

"Help me!" Thorne shouted. Levine scrambled to his feet and ran forward, adding his weight.

"I told you!" Levine shouted.

Suddenly there were raptors all around the store. Snarling, they threw themselves at the windows, denting the steel bars, pushing them in toward the glass. They slammed against the wooden walls, knocking down shelves, sending cans and bottles clattering to the floor. In several places, the wood began to splinter on the walls.

Levine looked back at her: "Find a way out of here!"

Kelly stared. The computer was forgotten.

"Come on, Kel," Arby said, "Concentrate."

She turned back to the screen, unsure what to do. She clicked on the cross in the left corner. Nothing happened. She clicked on the upper-left circle. Suddenly, icons began to print out rapidly, filling the screen.

"Don't worry, there must be a key to explain it, Arby said. "We just need to know what - "

But Kelly was not listening, she was pressing more buttons and moving the cursor, already trying to get something to happen, to get a help screen, something. Anvthing.

Suddenly, the whole screen began to twist, to distort.

"What did you do?" Arby said, in alarm.

Kelly was sweating. "I don't know," she said. She pulled her hands away from the keyboard.

It's worse," Arhy said. "You made it worse."

The screen continued to squeeze together, the icons shifting, distorting slowly as they watched.

"Come on, kids!" Levine shouted.

"We're trying!" Kelly said.