Dinosaur Lake (34 page)

“Enough. It’s not coming. We need to regroup and try another location.” Greer had come up behind Henry and yelled in his ear.

A flashlight switched on and Francis rose up, stepped over to where Henry, Greer and Justin were crouched. “I guess it’s not going to show today,” he cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled in their direction.

Another flashlight and a helmet switched on. “I guess not.” Justin stood up. There were rings around his eyes behind the glasses. Blond hair stuck out every which way from under his helmet. His skin coloring was awful. He’d spent too much time in the dark.

Greer winced, putting his hands to his forehead. “Somebody turn that damn music off,” he yelped. “I never told you but I hate heavy metal. Classical’s more my style.”

Justin scooted over and shut the thing off, plunging the cavern into blessed silence.

Henry gave a shuddering sigh of relief. “Now I know why I stopped listening to rock music. My eardrums wouldn’t take it anymore. Give me Vince Gill or Alabama any day.”

Justin made a face, and turned to Greer. “But it sounded like such a good idea, lying in wait and making lots of noise. Should have worked.”

“Nothing’s easy, kiddo,” Greer mouthed. “Don’t take it to heart. It was a good idea. Just didn’t work.”

“Yeah, well, we need to leave the cave and the lake,” Justin urged. “You feel that?” The ground rocked beneath their boots. “This
whole
cave could come tumbling down on our heads any minute. We can wait here forever, but it won’t guarantee our dinosaur will come, especially if there’s other ways in or out of the cave. But the earthquake is going to happen soon. It’s too risky to remain here.”

“And if we sweat away any more water, we’ll dehydrate,” Greer tossed his prognosis in. “Have heat strokes and then we’d never make it to the sub. It’s a long walk.”

“I say we move out now as well. I’m worried about the Big Rover,” Francis said. “We’ve been away from it for three days. It’ll take three more, at least, to get back. A long time to leave it unattended, unguarded, even with its electrical defenses on. I don’t like leaving it this long.”

He didn’t have to remind them the submersible was their only way out. Unless they wanted to swim, unprotected, across the lake. They knew that well enough.

“Well, we’d better pack up and start hoofing it.” Greer shifted the pack on his back into a more comfortable position. “We have little time and hard traveling ahead. Let’s get going.”

“So, Justin, you believe these tremors we’re having are a prelude to the big one?” Greer asked as they gathered the rest of their equipment, getting ready to go.

“My seismologist friend does. He expects a full blown earthquake any time, now.” Justin’s face in the lantern light was anxiously grim.

“Let’s move faster, boys,” was all Greer said then.

No one had to voice the fear they might not make it back to civilization. It was on their minds as the earth shook violently below them.

“We never should have come down here,” Henry muttered apologetically to Justin. “I knew an earthquake was coming. You warned me.”

Justin flashed him an impatient look. “Don’t be sorry for anything. I could have said no, you gave me lots of chances. Same with the others, too. We wanted to come. Can’t change what’s already been done. And we don’t really know when the earthquake will come. No one really knows. The earth could rumble for days or weeks first.” His eyes scanned the cave, as he strapped on his backpack. The others were ready, waiting for Henry and Justin to start moving.

“Now,” Justin snapped, “let’s get out of this cave before it falls on us.”

“I’m with you. Let’s get above ground and see what’s happened in the park since we’ve been gone. See how many more people our hungry friend has trampled or eaten. Clever bastard. It probably knew we were down here all the time and it’s been playing hide and go seek with us. We come seeking it, and it hides. Laughing at us the whole time.”

The ground shuddered as they departed the cavern, single file, as rapidly as their tired legs and the unsteady ground would allow.

Henry didn’t look forward to three more days of cave climbing, grueling heat, exhaustion and dirt. But they needed to get out of the cave. He was also dreading what might have taken place up above when they’d been away. That dread was a monkey on his back he couldn’t shake.

They hiked in the direction of the submersible, following the phosphorescent bread crumb string of ribbon through the tunnels. It’d worked like a charm. But this time, in their desperate urgency, they rarely stopped and slept little. The cave began to disintegrate around them and Henry grew more fearful with each second they’d be entombed forever.

While Francis was worried that something had happened to the Big Rover.

Less than three days later they were reentering the entrance where they’d left the sub. Four walking half-dead men with dirty faces and nervous eyes. The earth had been calm for the last day but there was a strange feeling in the air, a feeling of destiny and finality. A feeling as thick and tangible as the churning mist that clung to the inside of the cave and kept them, at times, from seeing even the man in front of them.

The earth was still experiencing tremors, some worse than others.

So they were relieved their escape vehicle to dry land was waiting where they’d left it, bobbing in the water, unharmed, a beautiful sight. Getting ready to embark, Francis fussed over the machine as if it were his long lost child.

Slumped in their seats from weariness, groaning, Francis piloted the Rover out of the cavern, happy to be out of the furnace and motoring out of danger. It was the same way Henry felt when he left the dentist’s office.

Out of danger, or so they thought.

The monster was waiting for them outside the mouth of the cave. It let them pass and putter along for quite a stretch then it swam in behind.

Henry was the first one to spot it because he’d been looking for it. He’d had a sickening premonition it’d be out there somewhere…waiting.

His eyes stared out the glass portal at it. He wondered how long it’d been waiting. It swiftly closed the distance between them as if they’d been sitting still.

“We’ve got company,” Henry informed the others in a cold voice. “Behind us. Look out the window.”

Glancing out his portal, Francis gasped. “Heaven help us. The creature, it’s here! My god it’s big!”

“Somehow it knew we were in the cave,” Justin whispered. “And was clever enough to figure we’d have to come out eventually. Where we’re at the disadvantage. We can’t use the launchers from inside the sub, can we?” But Henry knew Justin already knew the answer to that.

“No, we can’t.”

“And it’s pretty much invulnerable in the water, remember?” Justin reminded him. The two men exchanged looks. That night on the lake when they’d first encountered the leviathan was still fresh in their memories.

Henry glared at the monster through the glass. It was circling the sub, examining them with hungry, diamond-black eyes. It was so damn
big
. Its eyes locked with his and a chill shivered through his body, though he was sweating. And Henry realized in that awful moment that the sub’s defenses would never be a match for the behemoth. Now his hands were shaking.

He looked around and recognized the terror in the other’s eyes. They all remembered what had happened to Lassen and the Deep Rover.

Henry leaned over to instruct Francis, “Get us back to the cave. We haven’t got a chance out here in the water. You said this ship was fast, now prove it.”

Francis didn’t argue. “We’ll make a run for it. Tighten your seat belts, boys. Here we go.”

The pilot turned his attention to the controls and did what he did best.

Henry felt the craft wildly shift direction and accelerate. It became a bullet flying through the water, its destination the yawning mouth of the cavern they’d just exited.

“Don’t look now but our voracious friend’s
behind
us again,” Justin moaned. “Moving up quick.”

Each man looked out the nearest portals, their hands tightly holding onto any nearby solid surface, preparing for the ride.

If this sub goes any faster, Henry thought, we’re going to hit warp speed.

The entrance to the cave was looming ahead.

“I think it’s through fooling around,” Justin’s voice trembled. “It’s coming in for the kill.”

Henry had to hand it to his team, not one of them cried out as the monster rammed them. Greer cursed under his breath and Justin muttered something feverishly. Sounded like he was praying

The Big Rover bucked in the water and rocketed to the right, the shock of the hit sending it radically off course. Francis was jerked in his seat, but maneuvered the craft back on course. Sweat trickled down his face, leaving dirty tracks through the grime. He tried to outrun the nightmare stalking them.

The beast would not be shaken, nor left behind.

Every time they got close to the cavern’s mouth, the creature slapped the Big Rover away, as if it were a toy, and kept it from entering.

“I’m turning on the electrical juice.” Francis’s fingers flipped a few toggles. “Full force.”

But when the creature hit them again, it reacted as if it hadn’t felt a thing.

“I’m firing the missiles. That’ll get it.” But the beast dodged the weapons and the rockets were lost in the lake’s murkiness. Francis swore out loud.

Justin and Henry looked at each other.

“Oops, that didn’t work.” Justin’s face was a shade of white Henry had never seen before.

Heaven knew where the missiles would end up or what they’d blow up. If they were lucky, it’d be some underwater rock formations or a foundation along one of the islands and not a line of boats anchored at Cleetwood Dock.

“Sorry, the missiles weren’t meant to chase down crafty, agile water dinosaurs,” Francis apologized. “That’s it. The extent of our defensive weaponry.

“I’d like to believe we’re going to get out of this alive,” he then said gently, shaking his head. “But I’m not sure.”

The men didn’t have time to dwell on their plight. The creature, now quite agitated, was relentlessly crowding against the hull of the sub.

“Damn,” Francis snarled. “How can it do that? I’ve got the voltage as high as it’ll go.”

“Because the electricity’s not affecting it, that’s why,” Henry replied. Suddenly he was very tired. Their situation wasn’t looking very good and, on top of it all, he had a splitting headache.

“Nope, electricity doesn’t seem to faze it,” Justin deadpanned. “Its skin must be too tough or too thick. And it’s not scared of us. We can’t hurt it. We’re as vulnerable as Lassen was in the Deep Rover.”

“Shit,” Greer breathed.

“Yeah, oh, shit,” Henry echoed. “Switch the juice off, Francis, it’s only making the SOB angrier.”

Francis shut off the probes.

Henry had to give the pilot credit because he’d nearly gotten them to the cave.

The next shove was so forceful that the men’s bodies were fiercely jostled inside the cockpit. For a second, Henry thought his neck had snapped. The beast had hit them with all it had. A few more of those friendly slaps and something would jar loose inside his head for sure or the sub would burst open like a watermelon dropped on concrete from ten stories up.

The sub spun in a crazy circle and with a loud screeching sound slammed up against a ledge of underwater rock. A huge tail wrapped tightly around the craft and squeezed. Henry could almost hear the metal crunching. Teeth scratched against the hull and claws raked the metal creating horrendous grating noises. A monster eye was plastered outside the portal’s glass near him. It reflected a malevolent intelligence as it blinked. The creature knew they’d been trying to kill it. It
knew.

Henry’s mind reran a similar scene from an old movie.
Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under The Sea.
That was the film. But that had been a movie. Fiction. This was the real thing; exactly what had happened to Lassen, except this time it wasn’t happening to someone else, but to them.

“Lord, I don’t want to die like Lassen did,” Francis exclaimed, furiously working the submersible’s levers, trying to get the sub out of the monster’s grasp.

The Big Rover’s engines were grinding in protest as the creature grabbed a hold and violently shook it back and forth. Its occupants slammed around in its belly, jelly beans in a jar, bouncing against the hard surfaces.

A seatbelt snapped and Henry howled in pain on impact.

The mutant pushed their sanctuary downwards, then, unbelievably, released them. But the submersible’s engines had stalled and it was sinking to the bottom.

“Is everyone okay?” Henry asked as soon as his senses returned. In a small metal tomb with the weight of over nineteen hundred feet of water lying on top of them, and a monster lurking outside waiting to have them for supper, Henry was disoriented. Everything had a dreamlike quality to it, even the terror.

Francis had hit his head against the hull and had put his hand up to cover the wound as blood burst from between his fingers. “Oh, I’ve been hurt!” was all he said, face going blank, and then he fainted in his seat, held in by his harness.