We can’t stop them, Bishop thought. With a sweep of his arm, he thrust Felice and Knight behind him, and started swinging the hot barrel of his machine gun like a scythe.
There was a satisfying crunch as his impromptu club swatted one of the raptors out of the darkness. He felt and heard another impact on the backswing, but then something struck his legs and burning claws raked his chest.
He let go of the M240 and swiped his bare hands at the unseen attackers. His fingers closed on coarse plumage and he flung one of the beasts away, even as its sharp talons slashed at his skin. Another one rushed in to take its place.
Bishop matched their primal fury with his own, clawing and biting at anything that came within reach. There was a sound, like cracking ice, inside his mind. He could smell more vividly. He felt faster, or the world was slower. Pain faded, and he became destruction. A life-taking force. When the attacks ceased, he groped blindly for any raptors that might have gone for Felice and Knight. It was only when he heard their voices — not crying in pain or alarm, but urging him to stop — that the animal instinct driving him began to relent.
As the cloud of rage dissipated, he realized that he could see them. Knight had thrown out half-a-dozen glowsticks, surrounding them in a ring of faint illumination. Several raptors lay scattered beyond the circle, broken and torn, some still twitching, but the attack was over. Knight and Felice were unscathed.
Bishop turned slowly until he found their guide, huddled against the wall with his arms covering his head. Bishop’s bloodied fingers curled into claws, as he started toward the old man.
Suddenly Felice was standing in his way, hands outstretched, palms facing Bishop. “Stop.”
“Move.” Bishop’s voice was the low growl of a stalking lion.
“No. Leave him alone.”
He continued forward until her hands were pressing against his chest. He could feel her touch against his bare skin, where his shirt had been torn away by raptor claws. Her skin felt cool on his, and to his complete surprise, he found his rage cooling as well.
“That son of a bitch set us up,” Knight said. His fever made his outrage seem even more intense than Bishop’s. “He knew those things would be here. This was a trap.”
Felice refused to yield. “Why would he do that? He could have just left us back in the woods, but he didn’t.”
“No. He ran us through the jungle until we were exhausted, then brought us here to feed his pets.”
“Ask him,” she persisted. Then, without breaking contact with Bishop, she turned her head to the old man and rattled off a question in French.
It was only then that the old man seemed to grasp that he was the focus of attention. He answered in a deluge of words, strung together in short little outbursts that came out too fast for Felice to translate. When he finally took a breath, he slowed, and she began to explain.
“Yes, he knew about the beasts, but he didn’t bring us here to be killed. They don’t attack unless they are threatened. He thought we would be safe here. If we had stayed silent and not shown a light, we would have been fine.”
“How does he know that?”
She asked him, then interpreted his answer. “He found this cave when he was just a boy. He says his name is David, and he’s been coming here for many years. He says he knows how to move among them without being attacked.” She swung her gaze to Bishop. “What are those things, anyway?”
“Velociraptors.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No.”
“Dinosaurs?”
“Yes.”
“That’s impossible, you know. They didn’t look like raptors.”
“You’ve seen other raptors?”
“I’ve seen Jurassic Park,” she said, her face revealing that she knew how foolish the answer sounded.
“Jurassic Park got it all wrong. Velociraptors were small, not much bigger than turkeys. Actually, most dinosaurs were more closely related to birds than to reptiles.”
“Uh, huh. Wouldn’t have guessed you were a dino nut.” When he didn’t respond, she went on. “I’m no expert on dinosaurs, but I do know a thing or two about evolution. Dinosaurs have been extinct for sixty-five million years.”
“That’s what I thought, too. I guess we were both wrong.”
Felice let it drop. “Whatever they were, they did a number on you.” She gently parted the tattered remnants of his shirt. “Are you hurt?”
“What? No. Just a few scratches.”
“You don’t have to impress me. I already know how tough you are.”
“I’m fine.” And indeed, he seemed to be. Although his clothing was in tatters, the only sign of injury was a crust of drying blood that she brushed away. There were long red stripes on his swarthy skin, which looked no worse than scratches from a frisky house cat. He’d been lucky.
“What I’d really like,” Bishop said, trying to redirect her attention, “is some answers from our friend here. Maybe start with how he found this place.”
David nodded at the translated request and sank down on his haunches. He told them the story of how he, as a young and naïve child soldier fighting with the Simba rebels, had fled into the jungle and discovered the cave behind the waterfall. Though his companions had been killed by the creatures inside, David had never forgotten the amazing discovery, and had eventually returned to explore the cave.
Knight, who had been huddled on the floor in silence, looked up. “And he never thought to tell anyone that he’d found living dinosaurs?”
David returned a blank look, even when Felice had translated the question. “Maybe he doesn’t know the word dinosaure.” She tried again, but this time used the word monstre—monster — but again, the question seemed to perplex the old man.
“I do not understand,” he finally admitted to her. “Why are you asking me about these creatures? Do you not already know of them?”
“We call them dinosaurs,” she explained in French. “But they have been extinct — completely gone — for many thousands of years.” If he didn’t know dinosaurs, he might have trouble grasping the idea of millions.
David shook his head. “No. They are not dead. They have always been here, though few ever see them. They only leave the cave at night, and never come near to the village.”
“It sounds like something from a movie,” Bishop said. “A lost world. It’s incredible.”
“Impossible is more like it. Genetically speaking, it’s just not feasible. Even if some dinosaurs survived the extinction event, they would have undergone evolutionary changes over the course of time.”
“Aren’t there some animals today that are the same as they were back then? I remember reading somewhere that certain shark species have been around for over a hundred million years.”
Felice inclined her head, ceding the point. “Some species seem to show less genetic drift than others. But the odds of something like this happening on land — I don’t just mean surviving, but surviving undetected — are really, really… well, impossible.”
Bishop glanced at Knight, who said, in a weary voice, “We’re kind of used to dealing with the impossible.”
Felice seemed to weigh that, as if she also had some experience with things that couldn’t be easily explained. “Here’s the problem. For a species to survive, it needs habitat and it needs food, and those things are always in flux. When there’s a lot of food, the population will grow until it starts to put a strain on the resources. When that occurs, the population will either migrate or experience a die off. The point is that populations don’t remain stable. If dinosaurs have been around for sixty-five million years, someone would know about them by now.”