Instead, they were running diagonally across the clearing, toward a tree near Thorne. Beneath the tree they paused, their heads turned upward. Thorne doused his lights, and waited. Now he saw the animals only intermittently, in the flashes of lightning. In one crackling burst, he saw them take down the baby from the tree. Then he saw them nuzzling the baby. Obviously his sudden arrival had made them anxious about the infant.
The next time lightning flashed, the tyrannosaurs were gone. The clearing was empty. Were they really gone? Or were they just hiding? He rolled down the window, stuck his head out in the rain. That was when he heard an odd, low, continuous squealing sound. It sounded like the extended cry of an animal, but it was too steady, too continuous. As he listened, he realized it was something else. It was metal.
Thorne turned on his lights again, and drove forward slowly. The tyrannosaurs were gone. In the pale beam of the headlamps, he saw the second trailer.
With a continuous metallic squeal, it was still sliding slowly across the wet grass, toward the edge of the cliff.
"What is he doing now?" Kelly yelled, over the rain.
"He's driving," Levine said, looking through goggles. From the high hide, they could see Thorne's headlamps cross the clearing. "He's driving to the trailer. And he's…"
"He's what?" Kelly said. "What is he doing now?"
"He's driving around and around a tree," Levine said. "A big tree by the clearing."
"Why?"
"He must be running the cable around the tree, Eddie said. "That's the only possible reason."
There was a moment of silence.
"What's he doing now?" Arby said.
"He's gotten out of the Jeep. Now he's running toward the trailer."
Thorne was down on his hands and knees in the mud, holding the big hook of the jeep winch in his hands. The trailer was sliding away from him, but he managed to crawl beneath it, and get the hook around the rear axle. He pulled his fingers clear just as the hook slammed tight against the brake cover, and he rolled his body away. Newly restrained, the trailer jumped sideways in the grass, the tires slamming down where his body had been moments before.
The metal cable from the winch was pulled taut. The whole underbelly of the trailer creaked in protest.
But it held.
Thorne crawled out from beneath the trailer, and squinted at it in the rain. He looked carefully at the wheels of the jeep, to see if they were moving at all. No. With the cable wrapped around the tree, the counterbalancing weight of the jeep was enough to hold the second trailer on the rim of the cliff.
He went back to the Jeep, climbed inside, and set the brake. He heard Eddie saying, "Doc, Doc."
"I'm here, Eddie."
"You manage to stop it?"
"Yeah. It's not moving any more."
The radio crackled. "That's great. But listen. Doc. You know that connector is just five-mil mesh over stainless rod. It was never intended to - "
"I know, Eddie. I'm working on it." Thorne climbed out of the car again. He ran quickly through the rain toward the trailer.
He opened the side door, and went inside. The interior was inky black. He could see nothing at all. Everything was overturned. His feet crunched on glass. All the windows were shattered. He held the radio in his hand. "Eddie!"
"Yes, Doc."
"I need rope." He knew that Eddie had all sorts of supplies squirreled away.
"Doc…"
"Just tell me."
"It's in the other trailer. Doc."
Thorne crashed against a table in the darkness, "Great."
"There might be some nylon line in the utility locker," Eddie said. "But I don't know how much." He didn't sound hopeful. Thorne pushed his way down the trailer, came to the wall cabinets. They were jammed shut. He tugged at them in the darkness, then turned away. The utility locker was just beyond. Maybe there would be rope there. And right now, he needed rope.
Trailer
Sarah Harding, still hanging by her arms from the top of the trailer, stared up at the twisted accordion connector, leading to the second trailer. The pounding from the dinosaurs had stopped, and the other trailer was no longer moving. But now she felt water, dripping cold onto her face. And she knew what that meant.
The accordion connector was beginning to leak.
She looked up, and saw a tear had begun to open in the mesh fabric, revealing the twisted coils of steel that formed the connector. The tear was small now, but it would rapidly widen. And as the mesh broke, the steel would begin to uncoil, to lengthen, and finally snap.
They had only minutes before the hanging trailer broke free and fell to the ground below,
She climbed back down to Malcolm, bracing herself to stand beside him. "Ian."
"I know," he said, shaking his head.
"Ian, we have to get out of here." She grabbed him under his armpits, and pulled him upright. "And you're coming with me."
He shook his head, defeated. She had seen that gesture before in her life, that futile shake, giving up. She hated to see it. Harding never gave up. Not ever.
Malcolm grunted. "I can't…"
"You have to," she said.
"Sarah…"