Fight for Survival Read online

  Cutter drew his eyes from the vast room to inspect the government operative in front of him. He was in his early thirties, not much older than Stephen, and his seemingly permanent smirk gave him an air of someone who couldn’t be trusted. Cutter had never seen him before in his life.

  ‘Who on earth are you?’ he said, frowning.

  ‘Professor Cutter is suffering some kind of stress-related amnesia,’ Lester cut in, talking over the man’s shoulder. ‘He seems to have forgotten, well, pretty much everything, really.’

  ‘I haven’t forgotten a thing!’ Cutter protested, annoyed at Lester behaving as if he wasn’t there. ‘I wish I could!’

  ‘And now he’s being enigmatic as well,’ sighed Lester mockingly, still speaking to the man in front of them. ‘What a vivid repertoire.’ The government official looked pityingly at Cutter. ‘Are you really telling me you don’t know who this man is?’

  Cutter stared at Lester blankly. What game was he playing? It was obvious he didn’t believe him – but no one did, for that matter. If Claudia wasn’t around to fight in their corner any more, who knew what silly excuse Lester would find to get rid of the whole team. He could do whatever he wanted with the anomalies, and any dinosaurs that came through them – a move that could prove disastrous for humankind. And if Cutter appeared to be no longer useful, Lester would be itching to have him thrown out at the first available opportunity.

  Cutter groaned inwardly. The only way he was going to find Claudia was if he still had access to the anomalies and the ARC’s resources. He’d have to amuse Lester until he could figure out exactly what was going on.

  Cutter flashed Lester a winning smile. He genuinely had no idea who this person in front of him was, but he was going to have to take a stab. Claudia’s life depended on it.

  ‘Of course I do!’ he said, remembering the name Lester had dropped earlier. ‘You’re Oliver Leek.’

  Leek looked at Cutter uncertainly, not seeming entirely convinced. Lester, meanwhile, was busy sneering at Abby, Connor and Stephen, who had been watching the conversation with interest.

  ‘Is this some kind of industrial action?’ he said, clapping his hands as if herding sheep. ‘Or did none of you hear we have a creature sighting in a shopping mall?’

  ‘We’re on our way,’ said Stephen, leading the team into the storage area. Cutter found himself shaking his head again. Since when had they allowed Lester to push them around? And where had all this flashy equipment come from? Cutter looked at the storage facility, impressed. Rucksacks, camping equipment, oxygen tanks and several pieces of serious-looking firearms lined the walls. Abby, Connor and Stephen began kitting themselves up, obviously familiar with the process. Cutter grabbed what he could as the others made their way out of the door.

  Hurrying down a hallway towards the car park, Connor pulled back. He hadn’t had a chance to talk to the professor since he’d returned from the anomaly, and he had plenty of unanswered questions.

  ‘You didn’t have a clue who Leek was, did you?’ he said quietly, as Abby and Stephen ran ahead.

  As much as he felt the need to lie to Lester, Cutter knew he couldn’t lie to his team. What was the point, anyway? He looked at Connor and shook his head.

  ‘You’re really beginning to freak me out. You’re saying something’s changed because of what happened in the Permian anomaly? That evolution has altered course?’

  Cutter allowed himself a half smile as he looked over at the scruffy student. If it hadn’t been for Connor coming to him about the very first dinosaur sighting, they would never have discovered the initial anomaly in the Forest of Dean all those months ago. Connor might have got himself into plenty of trouble along the way, but his heart was usually in the right place. If he was willing to believe the professor now, then Cutter could really do with an ally.

  ‘I’m glad someone was listening,’ he replied finally.

  ‘OK,’ said Connor, considering things carefully. After all, he loved conspiracy theories and he’d seen plenty of weird things since the anomalies opened up. Who was to say the professor wasn’t telling the truth? ‘I’ll buy it.’

  ‘You believe me?’ Cutter asked incredulously.

  ‘You’ve never been wrong before,’ Connor replied, as Cutter looked like he was about to hug him.

  ‘Connor,’ he said happily, his thick Scottish accent breaking up. ‘I could kiss you!’

  Connor stopped dead in his tracks. This wasn’t normal. Cutter usually wanted to yell at him for something – not snog him.

  ‘I’d rather you didn’t,’ Connor said, noticing Abby talking to Stephen down at the end of the corridor. Connor and Abby were flatmates and he’d had the biggest crush on her forever. ‘Well, not now. But just one more thing,’ Connor pulled his messy, shoulder-length hair behind his ears nervously. ‘How do I know how I’m different when I don’t know what I was like before?’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Cutter laughed, reading Connor’s thoughts about the pretty young zoologist as they finally reached the car park. ‘Some people never change!’

  Abby and Stephen stood outside the shopping centre, filling tranquillizer darts underneath the light of a street lamp. Abby could only guess the dosage – they had no idea what size creature they were dealing with. She knew they could never guess what kind of dinosaur to expect from an anomaly. They’d had everything from twenty-kilogram Dodos to a one-tonne Scutosaurus come through.

  ‘Can I have a gun?’ Connor asked eagerly. The bemused look on Stephen’s face said it all. No.

  ‘Abby’s got one,’ he protested.

  ‘She knows how to use it,’ the handsome laboratory assistant pointed out, as Abby loaded the rifle.

  ‘How many animals have you tranquillized?’ Abby added sarcastically, already knowing the answer.

  Connor scowled. He didn’t like it when people ganged up on him. Especially when it was these two. He knew Abby really liked Stephen, and Connor was beginning to wonder whether she was always going to see him as just a friend and her flatmate, and nothing more. Connor didn’t want to admit it to himself.

  ‘I’ve played darts!’ he said defensively. ‘How hard can it be to hit a giant predator from a few metres?’ His protest was met with a deafening silence. Connor sulked. ‘Sometimes I think you don’t trust me with firearms.’

  ‘Whatever gives you that idea?’ Stephen grinned as Cutter stepped into the lamplight. He turned to the professor. ‘So. What do we do now?’

  ‘We go in,’ he suggested, lifting up a pack and heading towards the brightly lit entrance of the Castle Cross shopping centre.

  A shutter was pulled down over the front door. But before they could discuss how to get inside, they heard a sharp scraping noise moving behind the barricade. Abby’s heart skipped a beat as she raised her rifle, knowing how easily an angry dinosaur could destroy such a flimsy object.

  Without warning, the shutter flew up and open.

  A pale-looking man was standing there, holding his hands up in surrender. He’d had a tense evening, and the last thing he needed was three people pointing large weapons at him. Stephen flipped open his ID as the man explained he was the duty manager at the mall. Cutter was curious about the last thing they’d heard from Graham the security guard.

  ‘He didn’t really say anything,’ the duty manager stuttered, looking forward to getting home and having a cup of tea. ‘He just sort of… screamed.’

  ‘Open the door,’ Cutter instructed, having no time for niceties. The duty manager did as he was told with a look of relief. If someone else was willing to go in there and sort this out, that was fine by him. ‘Lock the doors behind us and keep them locked until I tell you it’s safe. Whatever happens, it mustn’t get out.’

  ‘What mustn’t get out?’ the man asked, looking up from the keys in his hands. But Cutter, Stephen, Abby and Connor were already on their way inside. The duty manager fumbled with the lock and gratefully ran over to the safety of his car. He didn’t want to stay out here any longer
than he had to.

  Minutes later, the team were in the security office, watching the CCTV images Barry and then Graham had spotted earlier that afternoon. There was a tense atmosphere in the room.

  Right now, though, they’d come to the part of the tape that Graham had missed as he ran down to the bowling alley. Barry was crouching down, shining a torch into the pin deck. Seconds later, something dragged him along the ground as he struggled helplessly.

  ‘Can you get any closer?’ Cutter asked, as Connor tried to zoom in on the picture. There was a stunned silence as the image of Graham watching the bowling ball roll back up the laneway came on to the screen. Seconds later, a large creature walked past the camera behind him. Just as Graham turned in horror, Connor froze the picture. Unable to stop himself, Cutter let out an appreciative gasp.

  ‘A Cretaceous-era Theropod dinosaur,’ he murmured excitedly. ‘The genuine article.’

  ‘Some species of Raptor,’ Connor added, nodding. ‘I always hoped we’d get one some day.’

  ‘Beautiful…’ the scientist whispered, trying to zoom in on the vicious carnivore. Before he was brought into the anomaly project, he never would have guessed he’d be able to see a living, breathing Raptor up close. But it wasn’t long before Cutter realized the rest of the team was looking at him curiously. ‘I said it was beautiful,’ he qualified, studying the creature’s razor-sharp teeth on the screen with fascination. ‘I didn’t say it was friendly!’

  The group made their way down to the bowling alley as Cutter instructed them to branch out and search for the anomaly. If this was where the creature had been, there was no doubt the atmospheric rip would be close by.

  It didn’t take them long to find it. Shimmering brightly, the large circle of light glimmered invitingly from the last lane at the far end of the centre. The group clamoured around the glowing light, ducking out of the way as the magnetic pull of the anomaly sent a metal chair flying past them and into the light.

  ‘Maybe the Raptors have gone back?’ Connor asked hopefully.

  Cutter looked at him ruefully. If only life was that simple. Cutter realized if the creature wasn’t here, then they would have to go looking for it. Instructing Abby and Connor to inspect the food court, he and Stephen made their way out of the bowling alley and towards the atrium in the centre of the mall.

  Less than half an hour later, Stephen and Cutter were alerted by Abby and Connor shouting from another area of the mall. As they raced towards the food court, they could see Abby urgently pushing against a button beside a closing partition, desperately trying to close the shutter as fast as possible. She was yelling at a terrified Connor, who was belting towards her at full speed. Behind the frantic student, Cutter could see the very real and awe-inspiring sight of a fearsome Utahraptor.

  The creature was magnificent in its fury, and for a terrible second, the professor wondered how on earth Connor was going to outrun it. With the length of its body and tail, the Raptor was over five metres long and taller than he was. Its long, thin forearms were attempting to reach out and grasp Connor as he wove among tables and chairs trying to disorientate it. Cutter knew if the creature managed to grab hold of Connor with its taloned claws, it would then pull him down and kick him with its powerful hind legs – a move that could prove deadly. With a huge, curved claw on each foot, all it had to do was slash at Connor’s throat and then –

  A wave of relief washed over the professor as he realized Connor was going to make it. With centimetres to spare, the student slid underneath the shutter just as it was about to close. Behind him, the angry Utahraptor battered against the partition, still determined to claim its prey. It was a good few minutes before it gave up, and the team heard it move off to another area of the shopping centre behind them.

  ‘We need more firepower,’ Stephen decided as Abby and Connor caught their breath. The tranquillizer darts they had prepared had nowhere near enough dosage to bring down a creature of that size and strength.

  But Cutter shook his head. It was probably killing the Future Predators that had caused Claudia to disappear. As far as he was concerned, it would only cause them problems if more creatures ended up dead.

  ‘I’ve lost a friend because we played games with nature once too often,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I don’t intend to let it happen again.’

  Stephen looked at Cutter dubiously. Together they’d spent years researching various fossil and palaeontology finds and they knew each other well. Stephen was concerned that Cutter was talking about this Claudia Brown so much, he actually thought she had existed. It wasn’t like the professor to be so scatty.

  Anyway, there wasn’t time to think about that now – the team had to move on. As they headed along a walkway, a skimming sound echoed around the corner. Readying his gun and putting his finger to his lips, Cutter motioned Abby and Stephen to come beside him and together the three of them burst into the open space of the atrium.

  But it wasn’t a Raptor that confronted them. Instead, a startled cleaner on an electric polisher stared at them wide-eyed with surprise.

  ‘Don’t shoot!’ the man begged, holding his hands up.

  Stephen couldn’t stop himself from laughing with relief as he asked Abby and Connor to take the man outside. The cleaner said he hadn’t seen a thing, which was just as well. They didn’t know how they’d explain a five-metre-long Raptor on the loose.

  Back at the ARC, Lester had just finished looking at photos of the shopping centre before placing a call to Stephen. Cutter had confirmed there was an anomaly and yet another random man-eater on the loose. Not for the first time, Lester wondered whether his overtime was really worth all this hassle.

  ‘I’ll put armed backup on standby and tell the owners there’s a security scare,’ Lester said, finishing off the conversation. ‘They’ll have to stay closed for as long as it takes.’

  Hanging up the phone, he cringed as a printed email was thrust in his face.

  ‘Leek,’ he said, with a withering look, ‘has the concept of personal space ever been explained to you?’

  ‘Sorry, sir,’ Leek replied, taking a step back. ‘But it’s from the minister, marked “Top Priority”.’

  Lester groaned and took the page, reading over it quickly.

  ‘A private sector public relations manager?’ he said, raising his voice a couple of octaves. ‘What am I supposed to do with one of those?’

  ‘The minister thinks we need more help with the media,’ Leek replied, with an air of superiority. ‘He feels the situation is getting out of hand.’

  Lester glared at the younger man. Who was Leek to tell him how to handle things? That lunatic Cutter and his three potty sidekicks were chasing a giant prehistoric creature through the local shopping centre with state-of-the-art bazookas right now, and Lester had up-to-the-minute updates. The situation looked perfectly under control from where he was standing.

  ‘His words, sir,’ added Leek, reading Lester’s thoughts. ‘Not mine.’

  Lester frowned. The last thing he needed was some greasy PR supremo sucking up to the press. It wasn’t a reality TV show. Still, if word of this got out, no one would ever go to Castle Cross to do their shopping again. It would go bust for sure. How was he supposed to explain that to the mall’s owners?

  ‘Maybe a PR person isn’t such a bad idea after all,’ he sighed, waving Leek away to write a reply to the minister.

  Lester turned back to the group of photos he’d been studying before Leek had arrived. Flicking through various shots of the Castle Cross shopping centre, he stopped when he came to the one of the cleaners’ storerooms. Straightening the rest of the pictures, he put it on the top of the pile and promptly tried to forget all about Castle Cross. Cutter and his team would take care of it.

  Abby and Connor ushered the cleaner through the back corridors of the mall, towards the staff locker rooms. The man was adamant that he needed his wallet and keys if he was going to be able to get home. Abby and Connor couldn’t help but agree with
him.

  Still, something was wrong as they got closer to the room. They could see the door was ajar. Abby frowned.

  ‘Did you leave that door open?’ she said, eyeing it with caution.

  ‘I don’t remember,’ the cleaner said vaguely. He looked like he just wanted to get out of there. Connor saw them both hesitate and took his chance.

  ‘Give me the gun,’ he said, motioning to the weapon Abby was holding.

  ‘What?’ she spluttered, amazed that he’d even dare ask. ‘No!’

  ‘Oh, come on!’ Connor wheedled, noticing she hadn’t taken any steps closer towards the door. ‘Just for a minute. Do you want to go first?’

  Abby pouted. Of course she didn’t. As far as she was concerned, if there was a flesh-eating predator behind the door, she was happy for anyone to go ahead of her. Reluctantly, she handed the gun to Connor.

  ‘Thought not,’ he said. Pulling his shoulders back, Connor flashed Abby with what he thought was a devilish grin. Did she ever look cute – even when she was scared! With her short blonde hair and tomboy style, she was kind of like a hipper, modern-day Lara Croft. But anyway, Connor didn’t have time to think about that. He had the world to save.

  Connor kicked open the door and burst into the room, spinning around like one of Lester’s SAS soldiers. He turned and nodded to Abby and the cleaner.

  ‘Clear!’ he shouted, stating the obvious.

  Abby rolled her eyes as the cleaner walked over to his locker and Connor waved the gun about, making firing noises with his mouth. He could be such a loser sometimes!

  But Connor wasn’t pretending for long. Without warning the cleaner screamed, as Abby and Connor saw an infant Raptor leap out of the locker and clamp its jaws round the hapless mall-worker’s neck. Although it was less than a metre long, the creature’s razor-sharp teeth sliced viciously at his skin as it screeched furiously. Connor stood frozen to the spot in horror.