Day of the Predator - Alex Scarrow [42]
‘I think we’re on a sort of island,’ Kelly continued.
They’d spent the morning exploring the immediate surroundings beyond the clearing. Whichever direction they’d taken they’d soon come across the energetic roar of water and glimpsed the glinting, fast-moving river through the thinning jungle.
Island was about right. Approximately three or four acres of jungle with a central clearing, shaped roughly like a tear drop. The pointed tip of the island was where they stood now staring at the rolling water. The river split in two around their spit of land; to the right of them it broadened out into a wide, slower-moving channel. Slower-moving, but still brisk enough so that Liam wouldn’t dare chance trying to cross it. But then he couldn’t swim. More than that … water scared the bejeezus out of him. Not that he needed the others to know anything about his pet fears right now.
To their left the river compressed into a narrower channel thirty feet across, lined with boulders, and became a violent roaring ribbon of snow-white froth and energy. A fool might try to swim the wider channel, but only a completely mad fool would attempt a crossing on this side.
‘We’re trapped on here,’ said Laura, looking around at the others. ‘Aren’t we?’
‘At least we’ve got drinking water.’ Liam shrugged. He gave them all a cheery smile. ‘So it’s not all bad news.’
Becks took a couple of steps down the wet shingle towards the raging river and silently appraised their surroundings. After a while she turned round. ‘The island is a suitable defensive position.’
‘Defensive?’ called out one of the students. Liam turned round. It was a large boy, whose cheeks glistened with sweat beneath a mop of dark frizzy hair and he was still wearing his name tag: JONAH MIDDLETON. ‘Defensible against what, dude?’
‘Dinosaurs,’ uttered Laura, her voice shuddering slightly.
Whitmore nodded. ‘Yes, dinosaurs.’ He turned to Franklyn. ‘How good’s your knowledge of the late Cretaceous?’
‘Pretty good,’ he replied. ‘You want to know what species we can expect to encounter?’
‘Please, tell me we don’t get the T-rex,’ blurted Laura. ‘Not that.’
‘Oh, we got those all right.’ Franklyn put his hands on his hips. ‘But they’re more likely found on open terrain. Not jungle like this.’
‘It’s the velociraptors that scared me,’ said Lam. His head bobbed energetically as he talked, his dark ponytail wagging like a dog’s tail as he looked from one person to another. ‘Seriously scary things, those.’ He nodded sombrely. ‘I seen all three Jurassic movies, guys … and it’s those smart little ones you got to watch out for.’
‘There are no raptors.’ Franklyn shook his head. ‘They’re Asian and died out eighty-five million years ago. We should expect to see … lemmesee … ankylosaurus, that’s the tank-shaped one with a spiky club for a tail. Pachycephalosaurus, that’s the upright one with, like, a cyclist’s safety helmet on his head. Triceratops … you all know that one, right?’
Heads nodded.
‘Parasaurolophus … the duck-billed one with that Elvis-quiff bone sticking out backwards.’
‘But those are all herbivores, aren’t they?’ said Whitmore. ‘What about the carnivores?’
Franklyn pursed his lips. ‘We got rex, of course, but no raptors. That’s the good news.’
‘Oh, great,’ sighed Laura. ‘That means there’s bad news.’
‘Well … I’m afraid there are several varieties of the smaller therapods,’ he said, by way of explanation.
Liam shrugged at him. ‘And those are what?’
‘Therapods – same genus as the raptor,’ Franklyn continued. ‘Small predators, three to six foot tall. They walk on their back legs and have poorly developed front arms. They’re pack hunters.’
‘Three to six foot?’ said Liam. ‘That doesn’t sound so bad, then.’
‘Yo, dude,’ said Jonah. ‘You actually, like, seen the Jurassic Park movies?’
Liam shook his head. ‘No. I presume it