Dinosaur Lake (25 page)

“Because I’d be damned if some fancy lawyer was going to get him off on a technicality, or plead him insane. That man was never going to walk the earth another day or be allowed to ever kill again. That human monster had to die. I had to rid the world of him forever. Because that’s what you do when something is so maliciously evil. You exterminate it.”

Henry glanced behind at Greer as if he’d never seen him before. Most people wouldn’t have understood or approved of what the ex-FBI agent had done. Henry didn’t one-hundred percent, either, but he understood. Fully. And he understood what Greer was telling him.

Greer didn’t always follow the rules. And the guilty, the evil, must pay for what they did.

“Sounds like he deserved it,” Henry offered simply.

Greer smiled, as he reclined back against the seat, and Henry returned it. He was starting to really like the man.

He slowed the vehicle down even more. He was sure they’d put enough distance between them and the lake. For now.

“You know, though, this case is different, the perpetrator isn’t human,” Greer went on. “I’ve dealt with some strange cases, but this is the first one dealing with a…dinosaur. Because, that’s what my eyes tell me we saw in the water back there. Or something like it.

“I’ll tell you something, Shore, I never liked going to the zoo when I was a kid, either…and those creatures were all in cages.”

“And they weren’t as big,” Henry tossed in.

“No, they weren’t. This is going to be a pickle to deal with. We’re going to need really big guns for this one.”

“You’re telling me,” Henry shot back. “Can you and your friends get us any handheld missiles? That’s what Maltin here thinks we’ll need to kill it.”

“I can get you anything we need.”

“Good. Bigger the better. Sooner the better.”

“I’m working on it.”

Dr. Harris had stopped listening and with squinty eyes was avidly searching the road and forest around them.

“You hear something?” he kept insisting of anyone and everyone. “I thought I heard something.”

Henry speeded up again.

That morning Laura had taken Phoebe to the doctor’s because the baby had a cold and needed medicine. So the coast was clear. Good thing, Laura would have known what she was up to and would have stopped her. No doubt about it.

Ann told Zeke she was going shopping and left him, unsuspecting, at the kitchen table pouring over the open newspaper and munching from his bowl of Rice Krispies.

She caught a glimpse of him through the kitchen window as she drove away. He was shaking his head, probably over some typo he’d found in the copy. She made sure he couldn’t see her before she turned down an alley and went the other way towards the park.

She checked to be sure she had her note tablet and her digital camcorder. It was an older model; she’d given Henry her new one. Her acceptance in leaving the park and staying out had had to look good. Her husband wouldn’t have fallen for anything less than a perfect performance.

But darn it, there was only one way she could save the newspaper and her job. She
had
to get a photo of that creature in the lake, whatever it was, any way she could. Or she had to find that dead reporter’s digital camcorder that Henry had mentioned the night he and Justin had crashed the jeep. She was sure, if she could find it, that it held film–if it wasn’t smashed up so badly there was nothing left to salvage. She was going to look for it and find it, too. Oh, not just for the Pulitzer the pictures would probably bring when they were published all over the world, and not just for the money (they could make her and Henry rich) but for Zeke and the newspaper.

Ann couldn’t let the paper close; couldn’t let Zeke down. She loved her job and the newspaper too much to lose them. To lose Zeke. He’d wither away if he didn’t have his beloved paper to live for.

Oh, she respected Henry’s theories on how conniving the creature was, and it was terrible how many people had died, so she would be
so
careful getting her proof. But in the newspaper business sometimes taking risks was a part of the job. You either got used to it or you gave your press card away.

Henry would kill her if he knew what she was planning, yet she shrugged that thought away. She understood why he didn’t want her in the park. It was dangerous; he loved her, and didn’t want her to get hurt.

But she was a smart woman, smarter than any old overgrown fish, and she could take care of herself. She had a car and she had her eyes, ears and wits. She’d be safe enough.

She needed that exclusive, before the newspaper shut its doors, or all the other newspapers horned in, which wouldn’t be long according to the rumors she’d been hearing. Now that those reporters were officially missing it was only a matter of days or even hours before the tabloids and other newspapers, or television crews, would send in their commando teams. Then she’d be left out in the cold. A second hand story wouldn’t save the Klamath Falls Journal.

So, anticipating the story of a lifetime and all the good things that’d come from it, Ann was grinning as the car bumped over the country road and took one of the lesser used rear entrances into the park. It was a lovely sunny day. She didn’t need a sweater. Summer was brief in Oregon, but it was sweet.

Winding through the park’s narrow highways she reflected on how beautiful the forest was in its new silence. The only noises those of nature’s. While in town, she had missed the solitude more than she’d admit. All those years living in big noisy New York had made her appreciate the woods even more. And as nice as Zeke had been to them she wanted so badly to be back at home with Henry. That’s where she belonged. She prayed he’d take care of the creature problem soon so they all could go home.

After she got pictures of the demolished archeological dig, she’d go to the lake, search for that lost camcorder; keeping her eyes and ears open so the creature couldn’t surprise her, and if it did, well, she’d get photos before she fled. How fast could something that big move?

Besides, from what she’d heard about the monster, it preferred darkness. She was safe in the sunshine.

Henry had described the location of the reporters’ camp well enough for her to know where it was. It was easy to get to. She knew the lake area well after exploring around it as much as she had, so it shouldn’t be hard to find.

She parked the car in a circle of bushes and trees, for camouflage, and hiked down to the lake, her camcorder slung on her shoulder and a lunch of ham sandwich, an apple, and a bottle of water stuffed in her oversized purse in case she got hungry. Careful to be quiet and as inconspicuous as possible, not only because of the monster, but because if Henry or his rangers caught her, they’d escort her to the entrance and boot her out. She couldn’t have that, not until she’d taken those pictures and found that camcorder.

She took photos at the dig site, astonished and frightened at the devastation she found. As she swept her eyes over the crushed RVs she almost lost her nerve and hightailed it back to town. Anything that could do so much damage must be huge. Vicious. Then her reporter’s hard headedness kicked in and she set her jaw.

So what if she was a woman and a grandmother. She’d get her story. She wasn’t a fraidy cat. Death was too far away to worry about. Or maybe because she’d never seen the creature, a part of her doubted its existence.

Once she’d climbed below to and passed Cleetwood Cove she began her search, eyes on the ground, bent low. The sun blazing warmly above her. She couldn’t have felt safer. It seemed like any summer day in the park, except for the peculiar silence, the empty lake and abandoned boats bobbing along the shore.

For hours she hunted for the camera in the shrubbery and along the rocky shoreline, losing track of time until her stomach protested. Then she sat on a grassy spot higher up overlooking Cleetwood Dock, so she’d have a better view, and settled down to eat her lunch and rest a little. She hadn’t found the camcorder and the sun was beginning its decent towards the other horizon. She didn’t want to be in the park after dark. She wasn’t that stupid.

Where could that damn camera be?

As she ate, she thought about the creature many of the rangers had jokingly started calling Godzilla. Not that Henry did. He had other more colorful names for the beast. She remembered those whimsical drawings she’d made that day on the lake as she’d waited for a Sam Cutler who’d never return. The drawings had been done and published only weeks ago, but it seemed years. According to Henry and Justin, who’d seen her drawings and the real thing, her sketches looked nothing like the monster. Nothing.

Ann gazed at the serene lake and listened. She heard little but the wind sighing through the trees. Not even birds. Strange.

All those weeks Henry and Justin had been seeking the creature, she hadn’t believed in its existence. What sane person would? In the beginning, oh, she’d accepted there might be
something
in the water bothering boats and people, something large. Maybe someone had dumped a shark or a huge squid in the lake. Possible. But not a real monster. When Henry had seen the beast that first night, she’d been as surprised as anyone. And if it had been anyone but Henry she wouldn’t have believed it in a New York second. But Henry would never have made that sort of thing up. Henry didn’t lie.

Ann shook her head, brushed the crumbs off her clothes, and crunched her teeth into the apple, her eyes sharply scanning the lake and the area around her. On the lookout. The lake was so placid, peaceful. How could it hold such a deadly creature.

After Henry’s sighting, the disappearances and sudden deaths, the fear had come, fear for Henry and Justin, fear for the people in the park, as well as for her daughter, granddaughter and herself. But along with the fear had come a voracious curiosity that had fed on itself until she could no longer stay away.

She had to see the monster.
Just once. She mulled over the serendipity of that happening. Fat chance. It was daytime. The monster didn’t come out in the bright sunlight. She frowned slightly. Henry had worried that it might begin to emerge during daylight hours…if its hunger were great enough. She quickly pushed that thought out of her mind. It was too scary to dwell on now that she was back in the park.

It was so quiet. Spooky.
I shouldn’t be here doing this dumb stunt. People have died. Do I want to die? No.
Her hands were quivering slightly. Her mind seemed a little fuzzy, as if she were in a dream.

But she couldn’t leave until she had some kind of proof of the creature’s existence; not until she had her story for Zeke. She’d come this far, worked this hard. No, she wasn’t leaving until she’d accomplished her task.

It was as she was getting ready to resume the search, that she heard the commotion below and was startled to see her husband pacing on the dock. Justin, bent over the water, a short ways from him. As far away as she was, she could tell Henry was furious. It was in his hunched over walk and his angry clenched-fists. The way he rocked his head back and forth in obvious frustration. She knew that gesture. He was upset. Real upset.

Where had he come from? Her eyes followed as he climbed back down onto one of the bigger boats and disappeared below deck.

Oh, so that was their headquarters for the submarine launch? Henry had told her about the Deep Rover and the scientists who were piloting it, and he’d vented his concerns of the whole scheme. He was afraid it was too dangerous. For the pilots.

Ann’s reporter’s sixth sense kicked in. Something had happened. Something was wrong.

A few minutes later a group of men exited from the boat. Justin joined them. Huddled in a tight group with frantic eyes, they hurried towards a park vehicle, practically dragging some man who couldn’t seem to walk. Henry driving, the car started up and went careening wildly up Cleetwood Road. Coming her way.

Grabbing her things, she ducked behind some bushes and the car screeched by her so close she could see the horror in her husband’s face.

They were speeding in the direction of Ranger Headquarters.

Time to get out of here.
Ann raced to her car. She was on the road when she heard the noise. At first it was water splashing and then a sort of roaring sound. Her foot automatically hit the brake and the car came to a grinding halt in the middle of the road. She glanced over her shoulder at the water.

And she looked up…up…up.

“Oh, my god,” she whispered, lips trembling.

She’d seen dinosaurs in books and movies before. But nothing had prepared her for what she was seeing at that moment. With the bright sun backlighting it, it was the biggest damn thing she’d ever seen. Alive anyway. And it was definitely alive. Breathing. Snarling. Advancing.

“It’s got to be at least fifty-sixty feet tall,” she breathed, oddly calm, because she wasn’t believing what her eyes were seeing.

The creature had climbed out of the water at Cleetwood Cove and was posed glaring up at the sky. It was an ugly greenish-brown color and possessed a mammoth body, a strong neck and a gigantic head that swiveled around gracefully for its size. The creature had short front arms that it held up before it as a Tyrannosaurus Rex might have, but the arms seemed powerful and ended in webbed wicked-looking claws.

It flexed its neck and yawned open its jaws and she spied the jagged teeth and slimy narrow tongue that licked lips that weren’t really lips. The long, long tail drug half in the lake, thumping and spraying water everywhere. There were no spikes on the tail, it was smooth.

Ann squinted, shading her eyes. The water beast reminded her of some dinosaur she’d seen in a text book, but not really. It was unlike any drawing she’d ever seen. Must be a new species of dinosaur. Amazing. Unlike the dumb stare the book dinosaurs usually had, this dinosaur had a strange, fierce glimmer in its reptilian orbs as its glare roamed along the abandoned boats tied up at the dock. The beast was hunting for something.

The determined way it was behaving scared her. This creature before her was aware.

Ann felt with her fingers along the seat beside her and brought the camcorder up to eye level. She filmed a short video quicker than she’d ever had before as she held her breath, her heart slamming in her chest.

The dinosaur rose the rest of the way out of the water, strong hind legs, moving it along.

Its head began to tilt downwards and its eyes riveted on her.

Oh, oh.

Ann dropped the camcorder in her lap, turned her head around, and pushed the gas pedal down. Hard.

She didn’t look back to check if it was chasing her, figuring she didn’t have the time, she knew it would. If she could get to Ranger Headquarters she’d be safe. Henry would protect her; know what to do. He always did. They’d surely have guns there. She hoped they had big ones.

The gas pedal was to the floor and she kept busy by watching the road. Afraid to look back even once.

She was just a curve away from the long low building she was racing towards when the monster’s foot came down on the front of her car and smashed it dead.

Ann scrambled out of what was left, leaving everything but the camcorder, she fled into the woods. Her heart was screaming as she ran, but her vocal cords were frozen. She hurdled her body towards the welcoming building and the people down the path in front of her as the monster finished demolishing her vehicle. She could hear the awful crunching sounds behind her.

Headquarters was directly ahead. She was nearly there.