Read Online Jurassic Dead by David Sakmyster, Rick Chesler - Free Book Online

talk to you!” Alex got up and ran around the divider, and out into the main cargo hold.
    “Where are you going?”
    No reply came.
    “I'm proud of you for getting your license!” Marcus called out, but he wasn't sure if Alex heard it. He stood from the chair and walked out of his living area. Didn't see Alex, but the crew had cleaned up the last of the crate mess and was now driving the forklift away. There was a cluster of people on the far side of the hold, in the lab area. Alex could not possibly have gotten all the way over there yet. Marcus looked right down the long way through the hold, then left and saw him, almost to the stairs leading to the aft deck. 
    He started after him and then halted. Let him go. Give him some space. Feeling like he'd gotten his point across for the most part, Marcus' growing curiosity over the dinosaur got the better of him. He started walking over to the lab area as he felt the ship's engines vibrate the hull beneath his feet.
    They were underway.

 
    12.
     
    Aboard Oil Tanker Hammond-1, En route to Chile
    Alex walked out of the cargo hold onto the aft work deck, not looking for anything in particular other than to be as far away as possible from his father right now. Soon, he came across a small crowd gathered in a tight circle. He heard shouted instructions like, “Put some pressure on it!” and, “Does anyone have a belt?”
    Edging up to the gathering so that he might see what was going on without bothering anyone, he got a peek between two bodies of a crewman lying on deck, writhing in agony, clutching his right leg. His rubber overalls had been severed at the knee and copious amounts of blood soaked through. A piece of heavy machinery Alex couldn't identify lay toppled on the deck nearby.
    “Where's that damned doctor!” somebody yelled.
    “She's been called,” returned another.
    Since there was nothing he could do to help, Alex thought it best if he stayed out of the way. He climbed the staircase of the ship's looming bridge tower. When he reached the top, he stepped out onto a perimeter walkway that surrounded the tanker's superstructure. He didn't see or hear anyone up here so he paused at the rail, looking out over the water. The sun was setting over the field of icebergs they were leaving behind. He was numbed to the spectacular view, though, as well as the biting wind that pummeled its way through the slightest opening in his parka. Watching the Antarctic coast recede into the distance, he thought about his friend. Tony’s body was still down there in that horrible place. Because of me, and those Russians...what were they?
    He couldn't stand to think of it anymore and turned away from the view of the coastline. Suddenly, he couldn't take being outside where he could see the place where everything had gone so horrifically wrong for him. There was a door in front of him. Didn't know where it went, but he didn't care. He flung it open and stepped into a short hallway—then stopped.
    He was surprised to see a person walking toward him down the hall. He was even more taken aback to see that the person was female, and an attractive one at that. Her haircut was a little weird, cropped short but not in a stylish way, and her outfit wasn't much to look at, either, but hey, this was a working tanker ship at Antarctica, not Spring Break in Cabo San Lucas. He judged her to be about thirty. Her sea green eyes were fixed intently on the screen of her smartphone, but he saw them flick upwards at the noise of the opening door. The black medical bag she carried, as well as the Red Cross and Caduceus symbols sewn into the front of her frumpy sweater, told him that she was the ship's doctor.
    “Hi, uh...excuse me,” Alex began.
    She looked him briefly up and down, probably to see if he needed urgent medical attention, although Alex preferred to think she was checking him out for different reasons. Their eyes met and Alex felt something stir within him beyond the tilting of the