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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The sky rapidly grew darker, and Kat glanced back. The spino had disappeared. They always left rivers or lakes before electrical storms. How did the creatures know they would become lightning rods in the water? Lightning flashed from across the river. The distant shore appeared hazy; the rain had already begun to fall over there.
She turned her head back forward and drew her Glock back out before she hurried onward. Her pistol would have been useless against the rex or spino, but she was concerned about smaller dangerous dinosaurs, especially raptors, that might lie ahead. By the time she found the deer trail, light rain fell all around her, pattering the leaves on the trees and the top of her head. She didn't think it would matter with her already damp clothes, but it did. Her arms and back began to feel soggy. She turned onto the trail and hurried to catch up.
The trail split several times, but she kept to the most level path leading forward, figuring that was what James and her parents would have done. The rain fell harder, and she wondered why James had not stopped her parents and sought out a shelter – especially since it would be dark soon. Perhaps he had, and she had passed them somehow without spotting them. Perhaps under one of the thick fir trees she had passed.
She stopped and scanned ahead and then behind her. Where could they be? Could they have run into trouble? Surely, she should have seen signs of that. She considered backtracking to see if she had somehow missed them.
"James!" She yelled at the top of her lungs.
"Kat!" James yelled back. "Up here!"
Kat let out a sigh of relief before she turned and climbed toward where she heard James yell. Forty yards up, she came upon them.
"In here," her dad said. "Get out of that nasty rain."
The three had taken the upper deer path and had found a cave. It only went seven or eight feet back into the sandstone bluff, about the same in width at the mouth, and maybe five feet high at the mouth, but it was enough for them to sit back up in it and stay dry.
"Your mom's idea." Her dad waved at the path just below them. "She saw the path looked like it went close to these bluffs and thought there might be caves like this up here. We thought we'd hear you go past and could call out to you. But you're so darn quiet in the woods we'd never have heard you if you hadn't called to us."
"Saw a boat while I was trying to get away from the dinos," Kat said. "With more of them soldiers."
"Mm." Her dad stared out at the trees below. "So, they're still looking for us."
"Yeah, looks like it," Kat said. "Doubtful they'd use a boat to look for their own copter. They must think we're not dead yet."
"Or least they're not sure." James stared at Kat. "You're shivering. I'm gonna get some firewood." James stepped out into the rain.
Her mother handed her a protein bar. Kat gave her a flicker of a smile and accepted the food. A short while later, James returned with an armful of broken sticks and small logs. He split a few with the machete and cut off dry splinters from the interior of the wood. Soon he had a small fire flickering at the mouth of their little cave. Kat huddled up close to the warmth as she stared out at the rain falling just beyond. It fell harder as the sun disappeared, and James commented on how he was glad he had gathered firewood when he did. Her dad commented how he was thankful they had the cave for the night. The fire hissed with the occasional splatter from when some of the bigger drops splashed down near the glowing embers.
