Jurassic Park^TM III Novelization Read Online Free PDF

overgrown parking lot was littered with abandoned vehicles. Some lay on their sides, while others had been flipped over.
    Well,
Alan thought,
we’re not going to be driving to the coast.
    Alan felt troubled as he looked through a partially caved-in windshield.
    It looks like a giant head-butted the glass,
he thought.
    Alan guided the group up to the front door of an enormous building. As he approached, he thought he saw catlike movements out of the corner of his eye on the high ridge overlooking the complex. But when he looked that way, he saw nothing.
    Nerves,
Alan decided.
I’m jumping at shadows. At least, I hope they’re just shadows.
    Inside the building, the once opulent corporate lobby was now in the process of being reclaimed by the jungle. Roots and ivy poked through the floor and walls. In the waiting room, the cushions of the sofas and chairs had been gnawed and pulled apart. Dusty coffee mugs and filled ashtrays sat on the tables.
    Alan glanced at the nearby water cooler and saw that the water had turned brackish. He looked up at the sound of flapping and spotted birds nesting in the rafters. It left him with an eerie, haunted feeling.
    “Eric!” Amanda called.
    “Son, are you here?” Paul shouted.
    Nothing.
    Alan watched with interest as Amanda picked up the phone at the reception desk, but it was dead, as he expected.
    “Omigosh,
food!”
Paul said as he pointed to a pair of vending machines standing at the end of the long, vine-covered hallway. Frantically, he started pulling change out of his pockets.
    “Let’s see,” said Paul. “I’ve got about a dollar seventy-five. How about you guys?”
    Billy watched this with a frown, then simply smashed in the windows of the two machines with his boot.
    Paul sighed, glancing apologetically at Amanda. “Guess you can take the man out of civilization, but . . .” Paul’s voice trailed off and he simply shrugged.
    “We can eat later,” Alan said after Billy handed out the candy and snacks. “We need to look for weapons and communications equipment.”
    “We have to make this place secure,” Udesky added.
    Alan and Billy led the group as they explored the rest of the building. Alan pushed through a set of doors and found himself in a cavernous hatching facility.
    Much of the equipment was the same as what Alan had seen on the first island, Isla Nublar, but the sheer size of what confronted him now dwarfed the facilities on the other island.
    As Alan walked down the ramp and onto the floor, he glanced at the incredible array of technology and noticed an enormous freezer whose plugs had been pulled years ago. Empty incubators and tanks of formaldehyde with dinosaur fetuses and body parts surrounded the freezer. Machines with intricate tubing and swing arms stood beside conveyor belts crisscrossing the room at different levels.
    Amanda turned to Alan. “This is how you make dinosaurs?”
    “This is how you play God,” Alan said sourly.
    Alan watched as Billy looked around the lab. He could tell the young man was impressed.
    “Okay if I take pictures?” Billy asked.
    Alan nodded. Amanda walked past the dinosaurs in formaldehyde and stopped.
    “This tank has a sign on it,” she said. “Raptors.”
    She peered into the eyes of the raptor head that seemed to be floating inside—then she screamed. A
live
raptor lunged at her from behind the tank.
    The dinosaur’s snapping maw was filled with a razor-sharp collection of broken, mashed, and jagged teeth. The creature’s powerful three-fingered hands slashed wildly, while the retractable crescent-shaped hooks on its feet clicked and scraped at the floor.
    “Aaaghhh!” Amanda cried.
    The raptor’s spittle splashed her face. But the predator couldn’t press its body between the closely spaced tanks to reach her.
    “Amanda!” Paul called.
    “Back out! Move!” ordered Alan. He led the group through the lab, hoping to get them to safety before the raptor found a way between the tanks.
    The group