Dinosaur Lake (16 page)

To Henry the white bundles looked like Christmas presents or huge smooth white rocks. The dynamiting had uncovered many treasures.

Harris scrutinized the wall honeycombed with fantastic impressions. “There’s an entire dinosaur in there. I feel it. The skull, too, I pray, and that’s extremely rare. The world-wide Dinosaur Society, as well as every scientific journal in the world, will want an account. They’ll be fighting to get the story.”

Dr. Harris knelt down and dusted the last bits of dirt off a very large and well-preserved fossil which hadn’t been packed for travel yet.

“My associates are certain we’ve unearthed an entirely new genus of dinosaur, Ranger Shore. Some of these bones are similar, but not quite like, the species of Nothosaur, which was a group of predatory marine reptiles that flourished in late Triassic times. More like a mutant Nothosaur; one we didn’t know existed. Perhaps, the highest evolution of another branch of the species. An advanced creature that roamed the earth for only a brief span of time before the end of the dinosaurs came. That’s why we’ve never heard of them.”

He tapped the piece beneath his hand. “This specimen is from one of those missing links. In its day it was possibly a voracious predator…over forty feet in length, had a rear fin and clawed feet.”

“Could it, also,” Justin broke in, “have been more intelligent than its predecessors?”

“Intelligent? A Nothosaur offshoot? I doubt it. Theory goes none of the Nothosaur family was very bright.” His face broke into a grin as he looked at the wall. “Most dinosaurs had tiny brains, you know that, Dr. Maltin. We’ve talked about it many times over the years.”

Justin said nothing, but his frown showed skepticism.

Harris went on, not noticing Justin’s reaction. “This whole section here is a concentrated graveyard of dinosaur parts. Some I recognize but many I don’t. Complete skeletons might be hidden within it. We’ve found shell fragments and fossilized eggs.” His feverish eyes gloated over the scenery and the freshly retrieved fossils and wrapped parcels. He wiped the sweat off his bald spot with one hand and sighed aloud with pleasure. “And if we exhume baby bones, too, that would be a monumental find.”

“Herds of these beasts must have roamed this area eons ago,” Justin interjected, “to have left such a huge fossil graveyard. I’m thinking a flash flood, an earthquake or a mud slide caught and killed them all at once and left their carcasses imprisoned here along the crater’s rim.”

“Herds?” Dr. Harris gave him a disdainful look. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those heretics who believe all that herd nonsense? Have I taught you nothing over the years? There’s no evidence to substantiate that hypothesis. I’ve never accepted it.”

“Yes, I recall us discussing it,” Justin said, “but the new research supports the theory that most dinosaurs ran in herds; were very social animals, and possessed a higher level of intelligence than previously believed. They were warm-blooded and nurtured their young, as most mammals.”

“Interesting hypotheses,” snapped Harris, “though I’m not sure I’d go so far as to carve them in stone. There are as many schools of thought on the matter of what the dinosaurs were really like as there are scientists. You’re aware of that, Dr. Maltin. All we do know is that these dinosaurs died here. Some great catastrophic event trapped them in this hill for all time. I would accept it’d been an earthquake, or, as the Alvarez theory proposes, a huge meteor, or asteroid that hit the planet. Maybe this mass extermination occurred at the precise time the meteor fell. The impact changed the atmosphere, blanketing the earth in debris and dust and killed these creatures, as well as the other dinosaurs and most of the earth’s plant life. Eventually, without their food source, the rest of the plant-eaters died off, and later, the carnivores, because their food sources were also gone. The plummeting temperatures underneath the umbrella of dust did the rest.”

Dr. Harris then seemed to think of something else. “Dr. Maltin, don’t tell me you believe your monster down in the lake might be an offshoot of one of these?” He pointed down at the fossils around them. “A mutant species of Nothosaur? But alive?”

Henry thought Harris was mocking the younger man. Justin didn’t seem to get it.

“Exactly! Yes. But I disagree that the thing in the lake might be of the same species as these. It could be something entirely different. Something completely new.”

“Surely you’re not serious?”

“I am! You still don’t believe we saw what we saw, do you?”

“Do I look crazy as well?” Harris shook his head.

The two men glared at each other. Henry hadn’t seen Justin angry before, but he was now.

“You’ve got a right to what you believe but so do I.” Justin smoothed things over, his irritation dissolving as he inspected the lengthening shadows dogging their feet. “But I know what I saw. Experienced. I
know
there’s something in the lake.”

Dr. Harris just shook his head. “Been working too hard, Maltin. You need a rest.”

“Well, thanks for the guided tour Dr. Harris.” Henry wrapped up their visit. “But I strongly suggest you get everyone down to the lodge, if that’s what you’ve decided, and it’s time Justin and I get home for supper; my wife’s been keeping it warm for us. It’ll be dark real quick.” Henry glanced down at the lake, his eyes scanning the water. They were too close.

“Don’t you worry, Ranger, we can take care of ourselves. We’re not cub scouts out here, you know.”

“Goodnight, Dr. Harris,” Henry said.
Good luck.

Justin nodded his farewell, his eyes, too, on the lake.

In the blue twilight, they moved at a brisk pace along the trail towards the jeep.

Justin scurried after Henry, running to keep up. He barely made it into the seat before Henry shoved the car into drive and took off in a cloud of dust.

Henry’s expression was grim. He didn’t like leaving those people behind. He could have stayed and escorted them down to the lodge, but that would have been admitting he didn’t trust them and Dr. Harris was offended enough the way it was. Henry couldn’t babysit everyone. It was getting dark.

A revolver and a rifle was what Henry had with him and he didn’t think that would stop the beast if it decided to show itself. He’d put a request in for heavier artillery, but he didn’t know if he’d get it or not. Sorrelson didn’t believe in the monster, either.

Halfway down the dirt road leading to the lodge they heard the screams in the distance, but it was hard to tell where they were coming from.

Henry slammed on the brakes. “Did you hear that?”

“Yes,” Justin’s voice was watery thin.

“Let’s pray it isn’t our hungry friend. We’re not ready for him, yet. All I have on me is a pistol and a rifle.”

They waited for more screams, so they could pinpoint the origin. The minutes ticked away as the light faded. Someone was shouting and then came the bellowing roar of something hideously inhuman–and from the roar’s magnitude, something extremely large.

The unnerving call chilled the blood in Henry’s veins, momentarily incapacitating him with terror. The experience didn’t feel real, he kept waiting for the sounds to subside, so he could forget them. If they continued he’d have to do something and he didn’t know what. His hands were sweating on the steering wheel.

The beast bellowed again.

“It’s down by the lake.” Justin swiveled in his seat to look behind them.

“The reporters,” Henry mouthed in a flat tone. “My God, it’s after the reporters.”

Another shriek from the monster. Another human cry.

Someone desperately needed help.

Henry wrenched the wheel, spinning the car around, and backtracked to where they’d last seen the reporters. Taking short cuts, he forced the jeep over rough terrain, threading the vehicle through trees and rocks; barely making it through a couple of tight places.

He drove as close as he could to the commotion, and when the jeep came to two boulders it couldn’t squeeze through, he yanked out the keys, grabbed his rifle from the rear seat and handed Justin his pistol.

“Know how to use one of these?”

“Sure. I think. Just aim and pull the trigger?”

“That’ll do. Take the safety off first, though.”

Cursing the fading light and the trail that was practically gone, Henry hoofed the rest of the way on foot, with Justin reluctantly trailing behind him. The evening had cooled and the mist rising from the warmer water, a gray steam, made it difficult to see ahead even twenty feet.

He loped through the woods, along the lake’s edge and toward the human cries, aware Justin, younger or not, was having a hard time keeping up.

“Using these weapons will be as useless as using sticks,” Justin yelled breathlessly, “against a mad bear!”

“It’s better than nothing,” Henry yelled back, as he brushed aside the whipping limbs. The forest had become gloomy with barely a trace of residual light. Shadows were everywhere…ghosts waiting to ambush them.

“I hope you’re a good shot!” Justin shouted.

“Expert.”

“Then aim for the head or an eye if you can.”

“I’ll try.”

The tents were smashed flat and wreckage littered the ground around them. There were no humans anywhere.

“They didn’t leave quick enough, did they?” Justin breathed, short-winded from their run.

“No, I guess they didn’t.” Guilt hit him. “I should have handcuffed the three of them and taken them out.”

“You didn’t know the beast would strike so soon, Henry. It isn’t your fault.”

Along the caldera’s rim where the incline to the water wasn’t too steep, they heard a woman’s screams.

Henry sprinted towards them. Justin hadn’t abandoned him. He was panting along behind.

The woman was howling now.

Henry tripped over something. He looked down. By its shape and size, it was a video camcorder. Banged up, but still in one piece. They’d been trying to film the creature instead of running for their lives.
Stupid. Stupid.

Henry kept moving.

Then it was there, hulking above them in the shadows. The only thing that saved them, Henry realized later, was its back was to them. It was busy.

“Damn, it has to be fifty feet tall,” Justin croaked, most likely too shocked to be afraid yet as his eyes traveled up the creature’s height.

Henry didn’t understand why Justin was speaking in a hoarse whisper. The monster was making so much noise; it’d never hear them, even if they’d been screeching at each other.

“Where’s the woman?”

“Over there, hiding behind those boulders. See.” Henry tapped Justin’s head some to the right with his free hand until Justin’s eyes focused on her. The woman, a frenzied shadow, was dodging between the rocks trying to escape.

What was left of the faint light allowed them to see the creature in silhouette only because of its size. But that was enough. With its short, but powerful arms, it was picking up boulders and throwing them out into the water, or knocking them aside as if they were made of paper-mache, working its way to the woman.

Dr. Harris is so wrong, Henry thought. The creature was anything but dim-witted, or slow. It moved like quicksilver for its size on strong legs. Its steps quaked the earth. Its strong-necked head tilted downward, its tail balanced on the ground to support its bulk. An eerie low-throated growling erupted from its massive chest. Its head was large for its body, and the neck wasn’t nearly as long as Henry would have figured, yet its movements were graceful. The eyes, in the dark twilight, were beady hunks of obsidian glass.

Henry had never seen anything like the beast in any movie or book. Justin was correct, it must be a more highly evolved strain of one of the known species, or some completely new one. Where in the world had it come from?

Henry gulped, his throat so dry it’d closed up. It was as if he’d been transported into one of those dinosaur horror movies he’d loved to watch as a kid. But this was real. That titan beast snarling ahead of them, chasing that poor woman, would kill and devour her if it could.

Henry and Justin chased the creature. It moved so fast.

“Where are the other reporters?” Henry growled aloud. A memory flickered behind his eyes: a mauled and half eaten body out in the woods beyond the homeless camp. A leg.

“Dead. The creature probably killed them,” Justin hissed between roars.” I can’t imagine them deserting her if they were alive.”

“I can’t either.” But Henry knew men did funny things when they were scared. They might be dead or they might be hiding somewhere. For their sakes, he hoped they were hiding or running.

The woman was screaming again. The creature had her trapped between the rocks, in a corner below a steep cliff she couldn’t climb.

“Come on, Justin, if we’re going to save her we’ve got to draw its attention away from her.”

“How?”

“We’ll edge closer and shoot it. Might not hurt it much, but maybe it’ll distract it enough for her to get away.”

“Shoot it? You’ve got to be kidding!”

“Does it sound like I’m kidding?”

“It’ll come after us.”

“Yep.”

Justin grumbled something under his breath, as they scuttled in closer. Henry knew he was frightened, his body was shaking as if it were twenty below. But he wasn’t a coward, he wasn’t running away. He lifted the pistol and pulled the trigger.