He hadn’t run far when he came across the first body, as well as the first raptor (the body laying slit open from throat to crotch while the raptor devoured its unspooled intestines), and Red squeezed off a round, blowing a hole in its head which shot a stream of dark blood no less than six feet before the beast dropped like a sandbag and Red circled around to find the others—but mostly to find Charlotte.

He heard her shout above the engine of one of the rides. “Red! I’m over here! The Scrambler!”

He scanned the amusements quickly and saw her long, brown hair blowing from one of the ride’s carriages: she had activated the thing and sought refuge on it, and was now being swung and whipped about dizzyingly even as a trio of cavern raptors tried to attack. He ran to the fence which encircled the attraction and quickly chambered a round, but found it difficult to target any animals as they scrambled to dodge the carriages, darting this way and that with frantic precision even as they persisted in the assault.