Day of the Predator - Alex Scarrow [60]
‘Becks!’ he called out. Her head turned sharply towards him, and her posture instantly adjusted to one ready for action. Every other head turned his way as he stumbled awkwardly across the ground towards them.
He saw Juan and Leonard scrambling to their feet and reaching for spears. He realized his voice must have sounded shrill as if he was shouting a warning. Kelly reached into his trousers for his penknife, Whitmore for one of their hatchets.
By the time Liam arrived beside the campfire, breathless and sweating from the exertion, everybody stood poised with a weapon and ready to run for the safety of the palisade.
‘What is it?’ asked Kelly. ‘Something coming?’
Liam looked at them all. They were wide-eyed, some of the girls terrified even. Glances skipped from Liam to the far side of the clearing from where he’d emerged sprinting as if the devil himself was in hot pursuit.
‘What’s happened, dude?’ asked Jonah.
Becks said, ‘Your voice indicated a threat.’
Liam shook his head. ‘Ah no, not really. I just had an idea.’
‘Fossils, that’s what you’re talking about,’ said Franklyn. ‘Fossils. They’re not even the original print that’s left behind, but just an imprint of the print: sediment that has filled the footprint, then hardened over thousands of years to become a layer of rock.’
‘Yes, but it’s still a mark that’s survived through all that time. An impression of that original mark.’
‘Of course,’ sniffed Franklyn. ‘Yes, of course that’s exactly what it is.’
Kelly shook his head. ‘That’s it? That’s how you intend to communicate with your agency? Leave a mark on the ground in the Cretaceous period and hope some lucky fossil hunter finds it?’ He shrugged, exasperated. ‘Oh, great …’ He gazed at the fire. ‘And there was me thinking you and your robo-girl here had some sort of high-tech beacon or something to bring them here!’
Becks shook her head. ‘Negative. No beacons.’
Liam raised a hand to hush her. ‘That’s just the way it is, Mr Kelly. There’s nothing I can do about that.’
Laura bit her lip. ‘That … that doesn’t sound like much of a chance, though – a message traced in the ground surviving millions of years in one piece?’
‘Survivin’ that long,’ added Juan, ‘and bein’ found as well, man. What’s the chances of that?’
Liam shrugged. ‘Maybe we can improve our chances.’ He looked at Franklyn. ‘Do we not know where the first fossils were discovered? I mean historically? That’s actually known, right?’
Whitmore and Franklyn exchanged a glance. ‘Well, yes,’ said Whitmore. ‘It’s common knowledge where the first American dinosaur fossils were discovered.’
Franklyn nodded. ‘In Texas, of course. Right here in Texas.’ Behind his bottle-top glasses, his eyes suddenly widened. ‘Yes! Oh, hang on! Yes … Dinosaur Valley. Right, Mr Whitmore?’
Whitmore nodded. ‘Good God, yes, you’re right, Franklyn. Near Glen Rose, Texas.’
‘Glen Rose?’ Liam shrugged. ‘Would that be far away?’
Kelly’s scornful frozen expression of cynicism looked like it was thawing. ‘Not that far from where the TERI labs were, actually. About sixty miles away.’
‘Dinosaur Valley State Park,’ continued Whitmore. ‘It’s a protected area now, a national landmark. At the beginning of the 1900s, I think, some of the first fossils were found along a riverbed there. Lots of them.’
‘The Paluxy River,’ said Franklyn, ‘where the fossils were found, was thought to be the shoreline of some Cretaceous-era sea.’
Liam looked from Whitmore to Franklyn. ‘So? We could get to this place, right? You fellas know exactly where it would be?’
Both shook their heads. ‘Not really,’ said Whitmore. ‘How could we know that?’ He gestured around at the jungle. ‘It’s an entirely different landscape.’ He laughed. ‘Hell, it’s out there somewhere!’
‘I know where it is in relation to the TERI labs,’ said Kelly. The others looked at him. ‘Well, I drive in to work from Glen Rose. It’s where I live. I pass the signs for Dinosaur Valley Park every day on the way up to the interstate. It’s just outside Glen Rose, about a mile north of the town.’
‘I have