Jurassic Park^TM III Novelization by Scott Ciencin

“Dr. Grant?”
    It was Paul. He sounded nervous, as if he wasn’t sure he’d get an answer.
    “It’s okay! Come on over,” Alan called. “One at a time.”
    At the far side of the catwalk, Amanda stepped forward gingerly. She turned back to Eric.
    “Eric, it’s okay,” she said. “Mommy’s got to leave you for just a minute, but you’ll be right behind. . . .”
    “Mom, I’ve survived alone on this island for eight weeks,” Eric said flatly. “I think I can handle the next two minutes without you.”
    Paul and Amanda exchanged a look. Their “baby” was no longer a baby.
    Eric shot his mother a smile. She nodded and moved ahead, into the mist.
    They were all in this together now, that was for sure.
    While he waited for the others to reach the landing, Alan tried to get a sense of where he was and what purpose this place may have served. High arched walls of steel mesh were braced by support beams. It looked as if they were all inside a vast cage. But what was the cage designed to hold?
    The catwalk creaked loudly as someone approached through the dense fog. Amanda appeared.
    “That was fun,” she said, gasping and rolling her eyes.
    “Wasn’t it, though?” Alan said.
    She turned and called, “Okay! Come on, Eric!”
    Alan moved across the lateral support to make room for the others. When his hand touched the railing, he sent a white, hardened substance dropping into the mist. Looking up, he noticed a large strut covered with the same substance.
    “Oh, no,” Alan whispered. He suddenly had a very good idea of what the white substance was—and what this place had been designed to hold.
    “What is it?” Amanda asked.
    “This place,” Alan said. “It’s a birdcage.”
    Amanda’s eyes widened with fear. “For what?”
    “Something else InGen didn’t put on the list,” Alan said.
    Then they both heard Eric’s cries.
    “We’re not alone!” Eric yelled, trying to warn the others.
    He backed up slowly on the catwalk as a looming shape emerged from the fog. A full-grown Pteranodon approached. It was over seven feet tall and walked upright on clawed feet. The reptile’s forty-five-foot wings were folded batlike at its sides.
    The cone-shaped orange-and-black-striped crest jutting from the back of the gray-winged reptile’s skull clearly marked it as a Pteranodon, but according to paleontologists, Pteranodons weren’t supposed to have wingspans this large. This creature was a genetically engineered
giant!
    The way its weight made the bridge shift and sway also made Eric think that it was a lot heavier than the fifty to eighty pounds a Pteranodon was supposed to weigh. That meant it could be stronger than the Pteranodons who sailed the sky 65 million years ago, during the Age of Dinosaurs—stronger and capable of practically anything. A true Pteranodon couldn’t lift a boy his size. But this creature . . .
    The Pteranodon fixed Eric with a terrifying stare.
    It was far from the first time over the past eight weeks that Eric had looked into such dark, hungry eyes.
    You wanna eat me?
an angry Eric challenged silently.
Then catch me!
    He turned and dashed back along the teetering catwalk. The Pteranodon spread its wings and glided directly toward him.
    Eric ran toward his father and Billy. But just before Eric reached them, the Pteranodon swooped out of the fog and snatched him off the catwalk. He gasped, then screamed as he was carried into the air.
    This was one game of tag he’d just lost.
    Eric was carried by the Pteranodon deep into the canyon. They swooped over an isolated outcropping of rocks.
    Then, with a sudden cry, the Pteranodon let Eric fall into the mist below!

CHAPTER 11
    W ITH A JARRING THUMP , Eric landed in what looked like a large bowl of mud and branches the size of a giant satellite dish. Something crackled and crunched beneath him. He looked down and saw that he was sitting on a pile of dinosaur bones, picked clean.
    Then a human skull rolled into his