PANIC ROOM • KENJI KON

V. Gollum Makes A Guest Appearance In The Form Of Eva

Chapter Five: Gollum Makes A Guest Appearance In The Form Of Eva

~~~

The jeep stopped along a stretch of road. The campers curiously followed Dave and Roxie into the jungle. Eva could smell it before they reached their destination— ammonia and rotten eggs. They came to a stop a dozen feet away from a large pile of dinosaur dung. Eva's nose wrinkled in disgust, and she opted to breathe through her mouth.

Roxie turned to Kenji and Darius, quickly singling them out. Smirking, she gave each boy a large shovel. "Enjoy cleaning this up, boys." Eva scrunched her face, her eyes watering, and she accidentally made eye contact with Kenji, and by precaution, took a step backwards.

Roxie turned to Eva and the others. "We're going to the genetics labs."

They migrated to the back of the truck bed without Darius and Kenji, and took their seats as Roxie and Dave climbed in the front. A moment later, they were continuing down the road.

Eva felt bad for Darius, sure, but seeing Kenji holding a shovel and staring at a pile of dung, tasted like sweet, sweet revenge to her.

"Ugh, I'm still dropping followers?" Eva turned her head to look at Brooklynn, who was hanging over the back end of the truck and staring at her phone with discontent. "'When are we gonna see cool stuff?' Chill, dude, I just got here."

"So, what's your next video?" Sammy asked. "Ooh, maybe there's baby dino eggs in the lab. Everyone loves a baby video," She suggested with a smile.

"Whatever it is, it'll be cool," Brooklynn said with determination.

From next to Eva, Ben started humming as he lathered his hands and arms with hand sanitizer. He only stopped when he caught Yasmina's eyes—the girl staring him down in just as much curious wonder as Eva.

"Sanitizer," he said, looking between them. "Who knows what kind of creepy dino goo is at that lab?" Ben picked up his bottle and lifted his leg, drizzling the sanitizer down it. "Gotta be ready for anything." He set down the bottle and began rubbing the liquid into his skin. "The world is a grab-bag of gross, and we're all just along for the moist, sticky roller coaster ride called life."

Yasmina blinked twice before picking up Ben's bottle of hand sanitizer and pouring some in her hand. She held it out, offering to Eva, who shook her head. Yasmina shrugged and set down the bottle.

"I've never gotten sick, so I trust my immune system to protect me," Eva shrugged.

"One of these days, you're gonna regret that statement," Ben replied.

~~~

"What's good Brooklanders?! Today, I'm coming to you from one of Jurassic World's coolest remote genetics labs!" Brooklynn had her phone up and recording, leading their small group into the modernized building.

They headed down a long corridor before stopping in front of two glass doors. Through the doors was a brightly lit room filled with workers in lab coats. There were about four different egg incubators with a dozen eggs each. A small robotic hand rotated the eggs whilst they bathed in a heat lamp. One of the walls was lined with square storage units that held chunks of amber with insects inside each one. One corner of the room had a set of monitors displaying some type of DNA. Everything looked quite expensive.