cerise; owen grady

Chapter Seven: Forceful

Zach's POV

We were pushed by the dinosaur's foot as it kicked the hamster ball and were immediately sent flying. Straight into an ankylosaurus. The gyrosphere stopped spinning when it landed conveniently upside down. The upright system was broken, as it wouldn't move at all.

"Great," Cameron whispered, her emerald eyes watering,"not only am I going to die being eaten by a dinosaur, but I'll pass out beforehand from the friggin' blood rising to my forehead."

The monstrous dino wrestled with the ankylosaurus as we watched in fear. It eventually won the fight and began to stomp off and it seemed we were in the clear until that damned cell phone of mine started vibrating against the plastic enclosure.

"Almost got it," I mumbled, tongue peeking out,"Almost..."

"Zach," Gray squeaked. "Zach, look."

I glanced away from my phone to meet the dinosaur's crimson eye. It blinked before letting out a roar; suddenly it began attempting to break open the gyrosphere! We were spun around and the creature broke the glass. I immediately had an idea that could get us to safety. I unbuckled all of us quickly as the dinosaur dropped the ball once more.

Shards of glass were all around us as we ran for our lives. The monster sniffed the air twice and turned around to chase after us.

"Gray go!" I yelled. I would never forgive myself if something happened to my brother.

"Oh crap!" Gray cried when he saw it trailing not far behind. It let out a roar that shook the ground and stomped onward.

We approached the edge of a waterfall that plummeted into a lake, and I held my arm out so that none of us would fall in.

"We're gonna have to jump!" Cameron nodded, agreeing with me. My breathing was getting shallower because of the creature that was nearing us.

"I can't!" yelled Gray, grabbing my arms.

"Are you ready?" I panted. "One. Two - COME ON!" As our feet left the edge of the cliff, the dinosaurs teethed snapped together and she realized that she hadn't caught us. Gray screamed a steady,'AHH,' all the way down to the water.

I knew that the dinosaur would still be waiting for us, so I motioned with my finger to Cameron and Gray to be quiet. Cameron nodded and was sure to keep her tough exterior; if I were in her position I would probably be crying. I felt pretty bad for her, because I was the one who had gotten her into this mess. If only she didn't get stuck with us on that stupid gyrosphere, she wouldn't have already almost lost her life so many times today.

The dinosaur let out a roar and stomped off so I knew the coast was clear. We swam out of the water and into the mud to catch our breath.

Suddenly, Gray jerked his foot out of the water - or at least tried. His leg was caught on something in the murky lake and he instantly began freaking out. I placed one hand on his shoulder and one over his mouth to stop his screams.

Cameron jumped up and fumbled around with something in her belt. She pulled out a pocket knife and I shrunk back from being startled. She offered me a wicked grin and stuck the knife into the water near Gray's leg. He let out a babyish shriek and crawled back in the mud.

"Christ," I panted. "Do you always carry knives around?"

"Only when I'm stuck with a pair of idiots at a dinosaur themepark," She muttered with a shrug, concentrating on Gray.

"Ouch," I said. She gave me a sympathetic smile and I chuckled. 

"Hey, little bud. You gotta stay still, okay?" Cameron grabbed onto Gray's shoulders with a reassuring squeeze. He nodded, breathing heavily. "Where does it hurt?"

Gray held onto Cameron's shoulder with one hand and with the other he pointed to his foot. Cameron reached into the water and immediately pulled her hand out. Her hand had a deep cut in it and was bleeding pretty bad. 

"Fuck," she muttered before getting to work on the metal that was wrapped around Gray's foot.

"Hey, fuck is a bad word!" Gray shouted. I smiled a little, then grabbed the knife from Cam, cut of a piece of my sweatshirt, and tied the fabric around her hand to stem the steady bleeding. I handed the knife back to her and she kept working once more.

Cameron brought up a large piece of sharp wire and set it onto the sand before pulling Gray out of the water.

"What the hell was all of this doing in here?" She wondered aloud. The shredded pieces of metal looked like they belonged to what once was a large cage. I instantly thought of one of Alan Grant's novels that I had plucked from Gray's stash of dinosaur souvenirs and toys. Er, um..I mean, it's not like I actually read the book or anything..Or all of the books..Or played with the dinosaur action figures..Anyways, I thought of one of his books where he had described being stuck in what seemed to be a,'giant bird cage,' filled with pterodactyls and dimorphodons. He wrote about he and Billy being chased and attacked in the water, near a waterfall. 

My eyes widened in fear and I slowly turned my head and glanced at the waterfall that was above us. 

"Everybody good here? Because we've gotta go. It's not safe." I said, grabbing Gray's small wrist and pulling him up. I knew that there weren't any of the flying dinos around, but now that I knew the history of the area that we were in, I just wanted to keep my friends safe. They followed me out of the mud and we kept walking into the deep forest until we reached some sort of golf cart. It was crashed against a tree trunk and the seat was stained red with - what I assumed was - blood. Gray gasped and began to walk forward until he stumbled on a white worker's hat that also had red blood stains dripping down it.

Near the cart, Cameron tripped on a stone and I stepped up and caught her. She stared up at me and I stared down at her, and there was no way that anything could break us apart as we leaned in -

"Ahem. Please: my young, virgin eyes are not ready to see what's about to happen," a small voice clarified. Gray stood there staring up at us with an innocent smirk plastered on his face. Then he turned and pointed to what Cam had tripped on; not a rock, but stairs. The stairs led to a building that seemed to be as old as the dinosaurs in that damned park and we all piled in the help open the heavy door. 

We entered the building to see some sort of what-used-to-be a cafeteria of some sort, which had been overruled by the plants of the island. I looked down to my feet to see what was either a dinosaur bone or a plank of wood. I grabbed it and turned to Gray.

"You still have those matches?" He glanced down at his "dork-pouch" and pulled some matches out, handed them to me, and lit up the wood so that we could see.

We walked by a mural of some herbivores on the wall and I shined it near the wall so we could all see. Gray stood behind us as we stumbled into an old garage with some jeeps that had,'Jurassic Park,' painted onto their sides.

"1992 Jeep Wrangler Sahara." Gray mumbled, glancing between the flames and the jeep.

"You remember when we fixed up Grandpa's old Malibu, right?" I asked with a slight nod. Gray nodded.

"Yeah?"

I stomped on the bone and put the fire out quickly and began working on the car. After a few more minutes, I raised my eyebrows at Cam. "Fire it up."

I crossed my fingers and in a few seconds heard the roar of the engine. Gray and I exchanged a high five as we laughed and climbed into the car.

"I thought you failed your driver's test?" questioned Gray.

"Oh, only the driving part." I said as I flashed my trademark smile at Cameron. She grinned back but with a slight blush on her cheeks. 

"Okay, why does Gray get shotgun? Not fair." She pouted. I laughed and backed out of the garage, driving us farther into the green woods.