UNDERSTAND THIS: WHILE it certainly was a T. rex—or something very much like it—it was not, by any stretch, a monster. It was not, for example, Godzilla (or any other behemoth as depicted in popular movies and books; including, I dare say, Jurassic Park). No, this was just an animal, big as an elephant, it’s true (but no bigger), and yet, ultimately, no more outlandish than a spotted leopard or a crocodile (at least not since the Flashback); meaning it played well enough with its environment that I hadn’t even noticed it—until it was too late.
Too late to get a shot in, anyway—not too late to run; which I did, dropping the gas can and bolting (even as the rex paused to sniff some spoor) before coming to a massive tree (a Caribbean pine, as I recall) and—after jamming the flare g*n into my
