Jurassic Park^TM III Novelization Read Online Free

underbrush. Ahead was a thick grove of large trees with wide trunks.
    There!
Alan thought.
The dinosaur won’t be able to fit between the trunks!
    Alan led the group through the narrow gaps between the trees. Behind him, he heard a thud that made the ground seem to vibrate.
    Rrrrhhhhh-gahhhrrrr!
    Alan sighed with relief as he heard the dinosaur’s roar of frustration. It had run up against one of the thicker trees and bounced off. It could not follow its prey.
    “Come on, keep moving!” Alan demanded. Determined to get as far away from the dinosaur as possible, he led the others at a breathless pace through the grove. The spaces between the trees finally widened, and Alan directed them into a clearing.
    Then he stopped dead and everyone halted behind him, all of them gasping for breath. At the center of the clearing lay a mass of scales the size of a house.
    Alan tensed—until he identified the animal. It was an immense, unmoving sauropod. A plant-eating long-neck. Harmless—so long as it didn’t charge at you, step on you, or smack you with its tail.
    The dinosaur lay on its side, its eyes wide and unseeing.
    “Don’t worry,” Alan said. “It’s dead.”
    The sauropod looked like a Datousaurus, a fifty-foot-long Middle Jurassic herbivore whose fossils were found in the Dashanpu Quarry of central China. Datousaurus lived in well-watered lowland. But . . .
    How could a dinosaur that large even make it into this clearing—unless there was another way in he hadn’t spotted?
    With a low, shuddering growl, a full-grown bull Tyrannosaurus rex rose up from behind the carcass. It had been feeding on the plant-eater.
    Alan heard gasps of fear behind him.
    “Nobody move a muscle,” Alan said. “A rex tracks motion.”
    Alan stood perfectly still as the rex moved its head from side to side. Searching. The gigantic predator sniffed the air and growled in frustration.
    Alan knew that a rex could pick up a scent from miles away. The small group smelled of soap. Aftershave. Perfume. Human sweat. Alien scents for this environment. But the carcass of the dead animal also had a scent—a rather bad one. So long as no one moved—
    A scuffling made Alan look back. “Oh, no . . . ,” he whispered in horror.
    Udesky was
running!
    Alan’s gaze went back to the rex. The predator swiveled its head in the mercenary’s direction. The dinosaur’s eyes blazed. Fresh meat was clearly preferable to an old carcass.
    GRRRR-AHHHHRRRRR!
the rex roared. Then it stomped toward the humans with earth-shaking footfalls.
    Alan spun and saw Paul and Amanda take off with Billy after the mercenary. He ran after them, the rex on his heels!
    They darted between the heavy trees, back the way they had just come. The rex
squeezed
through the spaces behind them. Smashing branches and wailing in rage and frustration, the predator was slowed in its pursuit of its prey.
    Slowed, but not stopped.
    Alan leaped over low-lying branches, darted around muddy ruts in the earth, and headed straight for the golden beams of sunlight breaking through the far end of the thick forest. Behind him, the rex smashed and crashed through the grove, gaining on him with every step.
    Ahead, Billy and the others were breaking through the cluster of heavy trees. The sun nearly blinded Alan as he joined them, wondering why they had come to a stop.
    Then he saw why.
    A shape was towering over them, blocking the sun. The nightmare black form outlined a dinosaur even bigger than the rex behind them.
    Talk about reverse Darwinism!
Alan realized in frustration. This group of “intelligent” omnivores had just delivered themselves to the sail-backed predator they’d fled from in the first place!
    The dinosaur was nearly fifty feet long and over sixteen feet high. A bony sail lined its back, and its head was crocodilian, with rows of curving teeth. Sinewy, long arms extended, revealing three-fingered hands with fourteen-inch claws. The animal reached toward Paul, the closest of