Caught between predatorial dinosaurs and a group of armed men, Kat worries more about the dinosaurs.
Kat, an out Kat, an outdoor video star, tries to make amends with her mother on her home world, an alternate Earth where dinosaurs never went extin...
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Kat resented that. She never did anything stupid. Okay, so maybe there were times that had not given her the results she had expected. But still, that didn't mean what she had done was stupid.
She faced back down the trail, and a twig snapped somewhere ahead of her. She still couldn't see the soldiers though.
"They're ahead of us," she yelled, needing for the men to all follow and believe that James and her parents were with her. "Turn back." She ran the other direction from the them. Hopefully, her parents and James would be up and over the ridge and out of sight before the soldiers got close.
Through the trees Kat spotted a soldier behind her on the trail. He stopped and lowered his rifle. She rounded a bend and disappeared from his sight before he had a chance to fire. It would have taken a lucky shot anyway through the woods at the distance she had been from him. Was this what James had meant by not doing anything stupid? She thought it smarter to put a little extra distance between her and those chasing her.
"Hurry! I think they're gaining on us," she yelled. She had to draw them away from the path her parents and James had taken.
Then as she went around a corner, her foot stepped on a loose rock, and it slid along with her foot. She dropped her rifle as her other foot slid on the loose dirt, and both feet went over the edge of the trail. Below her the slope was particularly steep at the corner. She reached out a hand and caught a root sticking out of the ground, washed bare by the recent heavy rains. Her grip kept her from sliding down the steep slope.
Her boots caught a grip on the loose dirt, and she tugged on the root to pull herself up. As she pulled herself up to her knees and picked up her rifle, she realized how dangerous the spot was. As she stared down on the corner, she realized it would have been far worse for her if the spot had been wet. She pulled out her canteen from the side of the pack and dumped what remained onto the corner, turning the dirt into slippery mud.
She stared at the canteen. It was plastic, her mom's and not hers. That meant she had her mom's bag. She would have to swap later to get hers back, but she had more important concerns at the moment.
"Faster! Or they'll catch us," she yelled out and then raced ahead. Less than a minute later, she heard screams behind her. From the screaming and shouting, it sounded like two of the men tumbled down the steep slope.
Then her eye caught movement ahead. Damn! Soldiers came at her from both directions, and the ones behind her were going to be particularly pissed even if they didn't suspect it was her who had wetted that bend in the trail. She was being squeezed into a trap. Her rifle rested in her hands, but no – that was not the answer. She had to find an escape somewhere, a place to hide or skirt around one of the squads. She would be outnumbered maybe eight to one if she stood her ground and fought.
Just ahead and above the trail, a large fir tree stood. She raced for it, needing to reach it before anyone spotted her. She stepped on a twig and it snapped with a loud pop. Loud shouting came from ahead. They had heard her misstep. She needed to disappear from those ahead, so she slipped behind the tree. She peeked around through its sprigs and saw soldiers march down the path. She crawled under the tree to the trunk and climbed up, placing her rifle across branches above her and then climbing to the rifle. Not far up, but off the ground. The needles were so thick the soldiers could not be seen, so there was no chance they could see her either.
