TITLE: Jurassic Park: Echoes.

AUTHOR: Bryan Martinez.

RATING: So far, Rated R.

KEYWORDS: Jurassic Park, Echoes

CATEGORY: Drama, Action/Adventure

SPOILERS: Jurassic Park, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, and Jurassic Park III are mentioned, sampled and intricate to this story.

WARNINGS: So far, strong language.

FEEDBACK: Bryan.Martinez@fiu.edu

ARCHIVE: Request to archive fic.

SUMMARY: Echoes is a drama and, eventually, an action/adventure focusing on Alan Grant and the aftermath of Jurassic Park.

DISCLAIMER: This novel is in no way related to Universal or its affiliates.

 

 

 

 

 

Prologue

ECHOES

 

            He was aware and he was unaware.

            He was in that place between dreams and life that murk the clear waters of consciousness. Here alone, suspended, did he allow himself to fear. Not in his waking hours. Not even in his troubled dreams.

            No, just here.

            Here, in the surreal, did he hear the screams. Here he watched as two trapped and helpless children called out in raw despair. Here he smelled the rotten odor of a recent kill as he brushed back fronds. Here he tasted bile that had risen unbidden in time of utter hopelessness.

            Here alone could he feel all the feelings that were his memory in hell: helplessness, terror, exhaustion, pain, heartache, anger, frustration…and hate. Hate. Hate for the very things that once had dominated his heart. All he could do was hate them for what they’d done because he could not love them any longer. Not with what he’d seen.

            Not with what he’d felt. What he still felt.

            Never again.

            They should all be destroyed!

            The voice drifted back to him, firm and strong, the remnants of a man lost. How right he had been. All of them should be destroyed. All of them.

            Alan? A young voice, pleading and scared, imploring from him a safety he had not thought he could give.

            If there’s one person here who could appreciate what I’m trying to do…The old man. Trying to justify his evil, trying to use him as support for his monsters.

            Are the kids alright? Malcolm had said that.

            Are the children alright? The same old man. Changed. He had realized his mistake. Hadn’t he?

            Why had it been him? Why had he been the one? Why had he been chosen, by God, by Hammond (did it really matter?), to experience a nightmare that had ended only when it seemed like it never would. A nightmare which, he felt, really had never ended at all. It came to haunt him here. And it forever would.

            Unless…

            No!

            A tremor rose within him, an angry, bellowing plea that screamed the negation at the unfinished thought. He had vowed never to return and he would not. In this he was adamant and strong.

            The detached voices came back.

            Dr. Grant, my advice to you would be to face your fears—

            You’re still the best.

            --find someway to go back—

            I read your book.

            --observe from a distance—

            She said I should ride with you because it’d be good for you.

            --breathe in your terror and then expel it—

            I rescued your hat.

            --only then will you be able to sleep well again.

            But all he could hear were the screams. Ellie. Gennaro. Malcolm. Lex. Billy. Udesky. Nash. Amanda. Eric.

            And Tim.

            Whenever he thought of Tim, his heart wrenched away, as if he could not bear the thoughts and memories. Tim, whom he had grown to love in a matter of two days; Tim, who had looked on him as some sort of god; Tim, who would have rather died than put his idol in danger.

            Tim, who he had not spoken to in twelve years.

            He couldn’t bring himself to do it, to remind himself or Tim of everything they went through because it was really all they shared.

            He couldn’t bring himself to do it, just like he couldn’t bring himself to any sort of conclusion within himself. He was getting old and he wasn’t the man that had taken a trip to Costa Rica twelve years ago. He wasn’t even the man that had returned home in a helicopter, holding Billy’s hand.

            Billy. Billy, who had died a year ago in a plane crash.

            He had found Billy’s lucky pack the next day. He’d forgotten it.

            Alan, I want to thank you for bringing me along.

            Boy, do I hate being right all the time.

            How’d you do this?

            John, the kind of control you’re attempting—

            I’d like to go back someday. Eric.

            So would I. That was him. He had said that. Why? Why had he said that? To please the boy? Because there was a part of him, the part of him that seemingly died twelve years ago, that still retained that schoolboy attraction? Was it the scientist in him? The thrill seeker? The Tim?

            So would I.

            His whole world was ruined.

            So would I.

            He no longer had loved ones.

            So would I.

            Gone was the respect for his profession.

            So would I.

            Gone was the only woman he had ever loved.

            So would I.

            All that remained was the bottle of Jack he could see through a curtain of haze.

            So would I.

            And far away were people who loved him.

            I’d like to go back someday.

            So would I.

            They were the haunting echoes that bounded off the canyons of his fragile mind and they came to him in his weakest state.