Exerpt

‘Dr Weston, are you still here?’ Max Granger, night-watchman at the Museum of Palaeontology, paused in his patrol of the deserted building when he came across the young palaeontologist pacing the exhibition hall.

‘Looks like it,’ Nick said distractedly, tearing his fingers frantically through his hair. His attempts as writing notes for the lecture he was giving to undergraduate students the following day were littered in crumpled balls at his feet. As Max’s footsteps faded away, Nick screwed up another sheet of notes and hurled it at the life-size robotic Tyrannosaurus Rex. The creature’s eyes flashed red. Nick blinked, shaking his head. Too many hours spent on his own with nothing but bones for company was starting to mess with his mind.

He stalked over to the long, narrow display case housing the T-Rex thigh bone that had changed the course of his career. Leaning over the case, he scowled at the 80-million-year-old fossil.

‘If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be stuck here doing this,’ he hissed, fighting the urge to reach in and snap the bone in two. He’d discovered the remains of the dinosaur during a dig in Derbyshire, the first evidence that the therapod had once walked on English soil. It was the kind of find every palaeontologist dreamed of, but Nick wished someone else had had the glory. Lecturing students only a few years younger than himself and entertaining parties of school-children wasn’t what he’d dreamed of.

Sighing, Nick squatted to pick up his crumpled notes. He dropped the wads of paper into the bin at the back of the hall, and reached for the light switch, plunging the room into the semi darkness of the security lights. A creepy sensation, the feeling that something was watching him, shuddered down his spine as he used his shoulder to push open the double swing doors.

‘You could have left us where we were.’