Jurassic Park^TM III Novelization by Scott Ciencin Page A

mouth. He was trying to communicate with the raptors!
    With a deep, shaky breath, he blew through it once more, creating the same eerie pitch that he’d heard the raptors make.
    Hrrrrrr-rreeeee! Hrrrrrr-rreeeee!
    The alpha female studied Alan closely. How could this creature be making the sound of their tribe?
    A single male raptor started forward. The alpha female barked a sharp command. Cowed, the male backed away, unwilling to challenge the authority of the alpha female.
    Alan blew into the cast again. The raptors bayed in confusion.
    This was a cry for help, Eric thought. A sign made only by a fellow raptor. He’d heard it many times in his eight weeks on the island.
    The alpha female suddenly swung around toward the coast. All the raptors fell silent, as if they could hear something the humans could not.
    Then the sound drifted in. A distant thrumming. The sound of the keepers, the makers, the humans who had raised and caged these animals.
    The alpha female barked twice and quickly picked up one of the eggs. The male who had advanced before came forward and picked up the other one.
    The circle of raptors broke. One by one the nervous predators leaped into the jungle—and were gone.
    As Eric’s parents hugged their son close, Alan stood and let out a shaky sigh of relief.
    Suddenly, a new sound pierced the air. A voice on a bullhorn. “Dr. Grant!”
    “It’s coming from the ocean,” Alan said. He rushed over the rise, Eric and his parents right behind him.
    Eric couldn’t believe what he was looking at. A man in a business suit stood in the sand.
    “Dr. Grant?” the man asked through a bullhorn in his hand.
    The battle-weary foursome charged out of the scrub, waving their arms and yelling.
    “That bullhorn is a very bad idea!” Paul and Amanda told the man at once.
    What they saw next stopped them in their tracks. Eric’s eyes widened.
    A massive military presence sat off the coast. Eric counted half a dozen U.S. Navy warships. A helicopter gunship rested on the beach, rotors still turning.
    “Whoa,” Eric said. Then he laughed as he saw his mother and father embrace, then kiss.
    Eric walked beside Alan toward the military rescue party.
    “Dr. Grant, that friend you called?” Eric said. “You have to thank her now. She sent the navy
and
the marines!”
    “Bless you, Ellie,” Alan whispered.
    Inside the chopper, Dr. Alan Grant experienced the shock of his life. A heavily bandaged figure lay upon a stretcher, his face turned toward the light streaming in from outside.
    “Billy!” Alan cried.
    Billy’s hand weakly rose. Alan rushed forward and clasped it.
    “Glad to see you, Billy,” Alan said. His voice was choked with emotion. “You’re a good man. I’m so sorry this happened to you.”
    Billy smiled. “Are you kidding?” he said hoarsely. “You know the kind of great stories I’ll be able to tell now? Hey, it was worth it. Oh, and one more thing . . . I saved your hat.”
    Shaking his head, Alan smiled, seeing the battered fedora on the floor next to the stretcher. “Well, that’s the important thing, isn’t it?”
    A medic eased Billy’s head back. The young man’s eyes fluttered and he drifted off to sleep.
    “He’s lost a lot of blood, but he’s going to make it,” the medic said.
    Alan nodded. He strapped himself in with the Kirbys and leaned back, relaxing for the first time in days as the chopper lifted into the air.
    Eric sat nestled between his parents. He looked to Billy, then to Alan, who smiled and nodded.
    Turning to the window, Eric looked out on the island, his mind filled with unanswerable questions. He had come here a boy filled with dreams of adventure. What he had experienced had changed him. Could he exist in the world outside again? Or would his dreams be filled with this island for the rest of his life?
    Suddenly, the pilot shouted, “Hostile! Nine o’clock!”
    The two military pilots in the cabin snapped to action as a Pteranodon dropped into view through