Dinosaur Lake 3: Infestation (31 page)

“Yes, Captain.”

“Good. Sergeant Brinker get out of here. Get away
from the rim!”

“Yes, Ma’am. Going now.”

“Lieutenant Lansing?” she beseeched. “Lieutenant
Lansing?”

There came back a garbled reply Henry had a hard
time understanding. Then the series of words that sent chills through his body
and he’d never forget.

“Going down…dear God! Hitting the water! Something
has us…something in the water has us! Must be huge as a
whale…help!…help…aaaagh–”
And then
the terrified voice, all the voices, were gone.  

The bedlam quieted into an eerie tomblike silence.
Henry had never heard the tank hit the water. Too far away. But, sickeningly,
he knew it had. There was only one thing below the rim. Water. Very deep water.

“Steven!” Justin demanded. “Steven…are you still
there?”

“I am still here,” a voice from the other tank was uncharacteristically
subdued.

Henry caught the look of relief as it washed over
Justin’s face, practically in the same instant as the guilt. Sure he was happy
his friend was alive, his tank hadn’t been the one to plunge into the lake, but
others were gone. Soldiers, good men, with families. Dead. Henry’s stomach lurched.
And it was about to get worse.

They didn’t have time to mourn the dead. They were
busy fighting off the new wave of dinosaurs coming at them. Another giant, as
big as the one that had toppled over with the tank; emerald of skin with a
rapacious snarling mouth of fangs, was now targeting McDowell’s Abrams, coming
behind it and ramming it towards the cliff.

The tank slowly, inch by inch began to move in the
opposite direction they wanted to go.

“Driver, reverse this machine! Get us out of here!”
McDowell ordered the soldier steering their tank, her voice somehow calm. She’d
learned a lesson. Stay away from the rim of Crater Lake when dinosaurs were
attacking.

After a grinding halt, the tank shuddered in its
tracks and held its ground for too brief a moment and then slowly began to be thrust
towards the rim again.

Henry’s gut was screaming.
Get out! Get out! GET.
OUT.

The tank was nudging closer to the ledge foot by foot.
Outside the dinosaur roared and continued to push.

“Should we abandon ship, er, tank?” Justin squeaked,
swaying in his seat as the vehicle jerked over and over.

“Where would we go? We’re surrounded…and by some of
the big brutes.” Henry was studying the video screens, yet all he could see was
a misty sky. They must be near the rim’s brink. Tilted upwards. Next stop the
lake. Would they end up in a waiting leviathan’s stomach like the tank that had
already gone over? He fought to remain composed, though fear had dried his
mouth and frozen his blood. He needed to remain calm to face whatever was
coming next.

The Abrams dragged across the ground, shifted a
little, stopped, jerked again and tipped over further. The machine gun was
still firing, finding targets, and so was the cannon, but the tank had
continued to move towards the rim, even though the driver was valiantly trying
to maneuver away from it.

They were balanced precariously on the cliff.
Seconds until space launch.

“We get out of here or we go into the lake! That’s
our only choices,” McDowell cried. “Everyone grab your weapons and abandon
tank! Sergeant Brinker has escaped, is in the clear, and is waiting a short
distance away to pick us up. We won’t have to be on the ground long.”

Henry and Justin didn’t need to be told twice. They
grabbed their MP7s, flipped up the hatch, and seeing their flight path
basically unobstructed and how precariously near they were to the rim’s edge–feet
away–the five humans scrambled out, slid along the tank’s surface, and dropped
to the ground.

Swinging around when his boots hit the dirt, Henry
saw there was only one direction to run. Forward. “This way!” he shouted and sprinted
away from the rim, firing the MP7 as he went and dispersing a bunch of smaller
herd dinosaurs that had seen them exit and had closed in on them. The big mutant
pummeling the Abrams had also seen them but could do nothing about it…as it
went over into the lake with its empty prize clutched in its arms.

They’d gotten out just in time. Henry muttered a
quick
thank you God!
and kept shooting as he and the others escaped at a
dead run into the copse of trees in front of them.

There were monsters crowding around and their guns fired
as they stumbled and wove through the line of them, sometimes barely avoiding injury
or capture, and slid in among the trees.

They were free.

And they ran in the direction McDowell led them.
“The other tank is waiting for us. This way,” she’d yelled.

And after endless, or that’s what it felt like, minutes
of violent fighting, swearing and sweating, Henry spied Sergeant Brinker’s tank
in a thicket, hidden among the trees, and they made a final dash for it.

The hatch slammed open and they dived into the hole
like mad rabbits with slavering wolves on their tails.
Safe!

Henry had never been so happy to see an army
vehicle. There were too many humans jammed into it, but McDowell swore, tight
as it was, they’d make it back to headquarters. At least they were away from
the slavering horde. Justin was relieved to see Steven alive, as Steven was to
see Justin and Henry okay.

“Hold your breath, men, squeeze in and think
skinny,” the Captain told them. “We’ll make it.” And they did, running the tank
at its top speed. Fighting dinosaurs with cannon and machine gun the whole way.
As they traveled dinosaurs died, littering the blood soaked ground behind them.

At one point, during a break, they’d wheeled up
over a hill and McDowell gestured Henry to glance at the screens. “Take a look behind
us.” Her voice grave, the look in her eyes dark as she wiped her face with a trembling
hand. Losing two tanks, one full of her soldiers, had shaken her. There was
sadness mingled with the determination to survive on her face and rage at the creatures
that had killed her men.

There behind them, moving and shifting, was a sea
of dinosaurs. Endless numbers of them. Again of all species, except there
weren’t any of the flying gargoyles that had tormented them in the spring. They’d
seen none of them. Not so far anyway. It reminded Henry of a mass migration or
of one of those history channel documentaries that animated the process. A
migration from hell was what it most looked like.

They were in a race for headquarters. One they
couldn’t lose. There were times Henry thought they were done for. Out
maneuvered or outnumbered. Blocked in by lone enemies or facing a multitude.
They cut through them with their weapons and tediously surged onward.

Finally, as the sun was setting, the headquarters compound
loomed ahead and McDowell confessed to Henry, “There weren’t that many of the
creatures yesterday when my men exploded those areas. Where could they have
been hiding? Why are there so many now? I underestimated their numbers and the
danger. I won’t do that again. We need even more soldiers, weapons and bigger
tanks. When we return to headquarters, we’ll have to rethink our tactics. Take
a fresh look at things. I’ll contact my superiors. Even the extra troops they
sent this morning aren’t going to be enough. This operation has gotten out of
hand.”

Henry spoke what he supposed she was thinking. “If
there are these many in the park, if they’ve proliferated this rapidly, to save
surrounding homes and towns you might yet have to bring in the air power.” It
was difficult to say and he regretted it as soon as it came out of his mouth.
The collateral damage of bombing the lake, park or surrounding areas would be
terrible.

“That would be a last resort, Ranger Shore, I
promise you. The last resort.”

He prayed she was right. But he kept seeing that sea
of dinosaurs swarming below the hill. He remembered the terror he’d experienced
barely escaping the tank in time before it plummeted into the lake. He kept seeing
the T-Rex mutants pushing the first tank over the rim. Heard in his tortured
mind those poor souls trapped in the lost vehicle crying out…
“Going
down…dear God! Hitting the water! Something has us…something in the water has
us! Must be huge as a whale…help!…help….
Then blood-curdling screams which
dwindled away until there was nothing but the absence of sound interspersed
with static.

Now there would be more night terrors to add to his
growing list of night terrors.

He no longer had to dream of dinosaurs…they’d come and
taken over his real life. No waking up any more.

*****

The army sent out more men and bigger tanks. Henry
and McDowell spent the remainder of the week going out and thinning the herd,
as they’d taken to calling their daily incursions into the forest. Using all the
army’s deadliest machines, weaponry and man power they could muster from the
ranks of soldiers and rangers. They dispatched hundreds of the beasts. Yet more
kept appearing. Like magic, Justin was wont to say. Yeah, black evil magic,
Henry would retort.

They stayed away from the lake’s rim or any place
like it where they could be shoved over or locked in. They’d learned their
lesson well.

*****

Over the following weeks, using the forest for
cover as much as they could, they fought and killed dinosaurs. Endlessly.

Most days Henry could hear the explosives going off
inside the crater, exploding the lake and the monsters living in it. The F15s were
busy as they swooped in and targeted the leviathans and destroyed them. After a
while the lake appeared empty; sanitized.

After a while the land appeared clear or mostly
clear of unwanted predators.

Key word being
appeared
.

“Maybe they’re hiding again?” Justin said one night
to Henry.

“Maybe.”

“But we have killed a considerable amount.”

“Perhaps the dinosaurs,” Henry couldn’t believe it
was over, “have migrated to the outlying villages and towns?”

“Could be we’ve gotten all of them this time.”

“Could be.” But Henry wasn’t sure. The park had
become too quiet. The weather had cooled and with the lower temperatures, after
the heat, the woods filled with a creeping fog. It covered the land and the
water, crept around the boulders and buildings. It hid the world around them.
It made Henry extremely uneasy.

The attacks on headquarters had completely stopped.
Not a sign anywhere of dinosaurs. For days and days. But they kept going on the
hunting raids because Henry didn’t trust the false peace, not for a second.

He still had this really bad feeling.

One night, weeks later, Captain McDowell told them
Klamath Falls was essentially deserted. The townsfolk had fled, frightened by
continued attacks. The businesses were shuttered or were piles of debris. The
dinosaurs had slithered in and taken full residency. McDowell alluded to the
town as Dinosaur Falls.

“According to reports I’ve had recently, the place
is in shambles,” McDowell confided. “The National Guard has vainly attempted to
evict the creatures, but they keep sneaking in; nesting in the ruins and ferociously
defending their turf. Multiplying like rabbits.”

“Yeah, giants rabbits with razor sharp teeth. What
is the army doing about it?”

“Just what we’re doing. They’re hunting down and exterminating
any dinosaurs they find. Using strategically placed bombs and tanks. From what I
hear they’re not having much luck, though. There’s so many of the creatures.”

Henry was shocked but not surprised. He’d feared as
much. He felt sorry for the townsfolk. For the town. For all of them. For Ann.
How was she ever going to get the medical care she needed if the town had been
taken over permanently by dinosaurs? Was Ann’s doctor still there? Alive? Was
the hospital still there?

He’d telephoned the doctor’s office and the
hospital’s switchboard but no one answered. His wife was losing weight, was pale,
and always exhausted and he was worried about her. For him a growing frustration
had set in. He didn’t like being helpless and there was nothing he could do under
the circumstances, other than to love and care for her as best he could.

But returning from the latest hunt everyone was cautiously
optimistic. They hadn’t come across any dinosaurs. And after many targeted
bombings Captain McDowell had confidence the lake might be dinosaur free as
well.

It was something to celebrate. And after what
they’d gone through the last weeks, how they wanted to be able to relax. Henry
understood that. Declare their freedom, pick up their normal lives and start
rebuilding what had been destroyed. Ann, especially, was anxious to return home
and begin her chemo treatments, even if she had to travel to another town to
get them. And he was just as eager as she was. He, too, was sick of living in
his office and being trapped behind the stockade in the prison compound that
headquarters had become.

Thing was, he didn’t trust the dinosaurs. They were
sly devious devils. They seemed to know when they had to lay low and keep out
of sight. That’s how they’d evaded extermination so far. But…they always came
back.