Zack's father is a paleontologist so Zack knows dinosaurs. He never expected to hatch one, have it imprint on him, and then meet its terrible ferocious mother in all her gruesome glory. "Zack's lungs filled with the wet, stinking graveyard breath of the raptor. Hot, yellow froth drooled down onto him from the spray of ginzu fangs that jutted from the raptor's gums ..".Paul Zindel takes us on a thrill ride into the bowels of the mountains in Utah as Zack and his friend, a Native American young woman named Uta, search for the hatchling and a herd of dinosaurs. They encounter unimaginable creatures and their nightmare trip into the dark regions under the mountains culminates in an encounter with nature's proof that terrible lizards do exist.