Dinosaur Lake 3: Infestation (15 page)

“Zeke, where are you? Zeke!” Ann moved through the
living room and entered the kitchen. She found him there speaking on the wall
phone. She thought he must be one of the last people left in the country who still
had one.

He glanced over, smiled, gestured a hello and for
her to sit, and continued talking. Ann lowered herself into a chair. The
kitchen was a mess. Dirty dishes in the sink, the table stacked with papers,
plates and things that hadn’t been put away. The floors didn’t appear too
clean, either. When Zeke got off the phone, Ann reasoned she’d guilt him into letting
her clean up some. Wash the dishes. Sweep the floor. Put things away. He was
usually such a stickler for cleanliness but she’d noticed his high standards
had fallen drastically since he’d begun feeling bad.

Zeke’s pet baby squirrel was curled up in a box by
the stove, sleeping. A tiny ball of gray fur. It must be unafraid of people or
a heavy sleeper because it didn’t stir or wake.

Ellie had trailed her into the house and Zeke, also
acknowledging the other woman’s presence, signaled her to sit as well. This
time a smile covered more of his face before a frown replaced it. Zeke, no
matter how sick he was, loved company.

“Now, Wilma, take it easy.” Zeke was in animated
conversation, shaking his head, shutting his eyes for a breath or two as if he
were overwhelmed by what he was being told. He looked tired. Thinner. Weaker
than the last time Ann had been there. She wondered when was the last time he’d
seen his doctor.

Zeke’s eyes popped open and his voice rose. His
wrinkled hand touched the side of his cheek. “Are you sure? Outside your
house…your window…
now
?”

Ann’s reporter sense kicked in and she sat up
straighter. Oh, oh, trouble. She could hear, feel and smell it.

Zeke cried out, “Wilma, don’t! You stay in the
house, lock the doors and I’ll call the police, ya hear! They’ll be there in
minutes. Wilma–”.

Ann heard the screech through the line and abruptly
cut off. A woman’s cry for help.

The old man dropped the phone so it dangled from
its cord. As he dashed past her and Ellie into the living room, he yelled,
“Going to get my shotgun out of the hall closet and head down to Wilma’s.
There’s something–some nightmare monster as she calls it–outside her back door,
peeking in the windows and giving her the evil eye, and she’s so scared she’s escaped
the house coming this way. I have to get to her before that thing, whatever it
is, gets to her.” He didn’t wait for their reactions, he was already in the
next room at the closet grabbing his gun.

Some nightmare
monster
? Oh, no.

“Zeke! Wait!” Ann shouted as she met Ellie’s eyes.
The off-duty ranger, too, had come to her feet and they chased Zeke who,
shotgun in his arms, was already out the door and stumbling down the sidewalk
in front of the house.

Ann and her friend rushed out behind him. She was
glad to have the SigSauer on her hip. Glad Ellie was carrying a weapon, too.
They might need them.

She knew who Wilma was, everyone in town did, and
she knew where the old woman lived. Wilma Stuart, a retired grade school
teacher, resided in a rambling derelict of a house a block down from Zeke’s.
She and Zeke had lived near each other for decades and had been friends since
childhood. Years ago Wilma had worked as a secretary at the newspaper. A widow,
as Zeke was a widower, she was alone in the world; her children long grown and
gone, scattered to distant states. Lately, Ann suspected there was more between
the two old folks than merely friendship. There was nothing Zeke wouldn’t have
done for Wilma.

“Zeke! Zeke! Wait for us. Don’t go over there by
yourself.” Ellie, faster than Ann on her feet, caught up with him, grabbed an
arm and swung him around. “You’ll need help. It could be more of those dinosaurs
you faced. You can’t go charging over there by yourself. It could be too
dangerous.”

But that poor old woman, Ann thought meeting
Ellie’s gaze, how terrified she must be.

“Okay,” Zeke spat out. “But we have to hurry!”

As they ran down the sidewalk Ann was aware of how
hot it was. The heat took her breath away. Sultry waves shimmered above the
concrete and made the trees and buildings they passed look like mirages. The
sun was a round oven above them radiating out its heat. Sweat was trickling
down over her shoulder blades, covering her face and arms with a thin
glistening film.

Ellie was communicating frantically on her cell
phone and by the tone and content of her dialogue Ann assumed it was the local
police on the other end. Good luck, she thought, getting any of the cops to
help them. The police chief still thought they were a bunch of loonies with
their dinosaur stories.

They were nearly to Wilma’s place.

And there was Wilma hobbling towards them. She was
crying and carrying on hysterically. Her elderly face a mask of terror as her
arms flailed around as if she was trying to fly or something. She was moving as
fast as her seventy-something legs could move her. A tiny woman, barely over
five foot tall, she had close cropped hair a silvery gray and pale blue eyes. She
had a kind, generous soul and usually had a big smile for anyone she met. She
wasn’t smiling now.

“It’s chasing me! It’s…right behind me.” The old
woman collapsed into Zeke’s arms. “We have to get out of here! I think it wants
to eat me!”

Then Ann heard the creature. Its roar shattered the
hot day. The buildings around them shook. She looked up and there it was. The
monster. It was framed by the houses and businesses of the town’s main street
and completely, unbelievably, out of place. Barreling down the sidewalk, it was
as vicious as a rabid bear, but a hell of a lot bigger. An otherworldly nightmare
plopped into their mundane everyday existence. She almost couldn’t believe her
eyes until it roared again. A louder, angrier bawl of rancor.

It wasn’t the same as the beasts that had swarmed
over her in the park or, by his description, had assaulted Zeke. This was a genuine
monster, gigantic, rising at least thirty feet above them. Godzilla-like in so
many frightful ways, but not the same as the first dinosaur that had terrorized
the park years ago and Henry had called by that name. This one had scaly skin
the color of dirty water, ran on four powerful legs, had a short, bulging neck
with a ruff of fins, small beady eyes and a mouth, full of jagged teeth, that
took up most of its small head. No wings.

Whoa, but the brute was big. And mad. Probably
hungry. How in the world had it gotten all the way into town without anyone
else seeing and reporting it? Now that was a mystery. It couldn’t be missed as big
as it was.

Ellie stopped and looked upwards and Zeke’s mouth
dropped open. Wilma was panicked as she peered over her shoulder at what was
tracking her.

People around them had noticed the creature as
well. Suddenly there was screaming and yelling, people tripping over themselves
to run away. Cars whizzing by with wide-eyed people at the wheels. Staring at
the monster in the middle of town.

All of it was so…unreal.

But the monster was real enough and Ann knew, in a
heartbeat, there was no way of fighting the thing, just fleeing–as quickly as
their human legs could carry them away. If she pulled her pistol and fired at
the behemoth the act would only anger it more than it was already angered.
She’d been here before and knew, with a dinosaur this big, regular guns rarely
did the job.

Ellie drew her weapon and fired at their pursuer.

Zeke raised his shotgun and did the same. Ann
couldn’t be sure if their bullets hit their target because the monster kept on
coming. Ha, she knew tiny bits of metal wouldn’t faze it.

“We have to find a place to hide!” Ellie shouted
above the sounds of pandemonium as townsfolk scurried around and past them.
Probably also searching for a place to hide, or get a stiff drink, somewhere.
“Follow me!”

No one argued. They staggered behind the park
ranger between two large houses and across the next street.

Ann heard, but didn’t see because she was too busy
helping the old ones whose legs weren’t as spry as hers, a house being smashed
to smithereens behind them–had people been in that house? A board embedded with
nails zipped by her head, barely missing her.

A human scream and a series of guttural ranting
curses erupted somewhere in their wake. Someone was being hurt; someone was
dying. Ann’s stomach heaved at the memories it revived. This, too, had happened
before. People injured and slaughtered. Too many times. She couldn’t believe it
was happening again.

The stampeding nightmare bellowed. So close. Too
close.

Someone, a man, was shrieking for help and it made
Ann sick they couldn’t backtrack and help him, they had the old ones to get to
safety. His cries ceased abruptly.

Where to go.
Where to go!
They had to find somewhere
to burrow into until the danger was past.

Ann took a chance and looked behind her at the
commotion. The creature was looming above them, not more than a house’s yard or
two behind them. It was busy. It had grabbed a woman from a front porch–thank
God no one she knew–and was EATING her! Ann almost lost her stomach then and
there, but Ellie yanked her on.

“Don’t look!” Ellie cried. “Keep moving or you’ll
be next!”

“There’s a cellar in Skeeter Lockwood’s backyard
here.” Zeke was breathing hard, his useless shotgun still in his grasp. He
pointed at a dirty red rectangle of ribbed wood hidden in the grass about
twenty feet from them. “The old coot never locks it, says there’s nothing worth
stealing in it. He won’t mind if we use it for a bit.”

Ellie didn’t falter, she ran over and pulled up the
cellar door and ushered all of them down the stone steps into the gray hole, slamming
the door over them. None too soon. The ruckus above let them know the beast was
very near.

Wilma stumbled on the steps but Zeke caught her. She
was weeping with exhaustion and fear and Zeke consoled her. “It’s all right, my
dear. We won’t let it get you. You’re safe. It won’t find us down here.”

The humans huddled together in the murky space
beneath the door among the dirt and spider webs and listened. The noise, roars,
cries and thuds of destruction, rose and then dwindled away. The creature had
moved on, or so Ann prayed.

Outside there was silence.

“You think it’s really
gone
?” Ellie asked, crawling
towards the door in the dark.

Ann pushed past her, and lifting the cellar door,
peeked out. The sunny day, the heat, was still outside. But now a destroyed
neighborhood was out there, too. At first she could see no sign of the monster.
Slowly she came out from the shadows of the cellar and stood staring around,
blinking in the bright sunlight.

From the lower steps of the cellar, she heard Zeke
say, “I got to get home to my baby squirrel, Ann. He’s probably shivering from
fright under a dresser or something. He needs me. I got to go.”

“We’ll go as soon as we make sure it’s safe,” Ellie
said. “Give us a minute.”

In the distance Ann heard the echoes of something
crashing around and her eyes located the cause.

The rear of Skeeter Lockwood’s house, as Zeke’s,
was bordered by woods and as Ann inspected the scenery she saw the monster
poised at the edge of the wood line, its head raised to the skies as it
screeched its annoyance. Apparently, it’d gotten tired of wrecking human
habitats and businesses; tired of chasing and devouring screaming humanoids,
and was leaving the vicinity. But as the creature merged into the woods Ann spied
the other one. Not as large as the one that had been chasing them, but large
enough.

There were two of them. At least. And for an awful
moment she could have sworn she’d seen a third tail whip through the branches
before the creatures disappeared, growling and spitting so she heard them
clearly as they thrashed away.

She rubbed her eyes. Perhaps she’d been mistaken?
No, there couldn’t be more than one, could there? What the hell had been
happening…were the dinosaurs now multiplying like termites? If they were, then
humans were in deep trouble.

Her fellow refugees had crept from the cellar and
were gawking around. She looked, too. There was a wide track of destruction
scarring the yards surrounding them. Ruined buildings and debris strewn everywhere.
Just one of the creatures had totally annihilated a considerable section of the
neighborhood. Just one.

“I need to call Henry. Right away,” she told Ellie.
“He needs to know the town’s been infested, too. Something’s going to have to
be done. Soon. If those monsters are lurking nearby in the woods it’ll only be
a matter of time before they decide to rampage out here again.”

Ellie nodded. “We’ll get back to Zeke’s house and
our cars. I can’t wait to talk to the police chief again. I wonder if he’ll believe
me this time when I say the town’s in grave danger.”

“Well, if he doesn’t, all we’ll have to do is bring
him out here, have him take a look around, or speak to some of the other
witnesses who ran from that monster like we did. Tally the missing people or
left behind body parts. The smashed houses. I bet he’ll believe then.”