Kingdom of Monsters by John Schneider (microsoft ebook reader .TXT) 📗

himself.  Better not forget that again.

As he stole a glance at her, folded-up in her corner, head bowed and her face bent in the frown she wore far too often, Jonah wondered if she would miss him.

He was already starting to miss her.  And it seemed that their final hours together would be spent in stony silence.

But then abruptly, she spoke.

“I owe you an apology,” she said.

Jonah perked.  That was a first.

“For what?”

Naomi sighed, resigned and tired.

“For all of it,” she said.  “You've been great.  Through everything.  Right from the beginning.”  She sighed.  “And I've put you through your paces.”

“You're a pace-setter,” Jonah allowed cautiously.

Naomi unfolded from her ball, and turned to face him directly.

“I just wanted to tell you that you deserved better,” she said.  “After our night together, I mean.  You deserved better.”

Jonah sat back, listening.  It was the first time she'd brought it up.

Naomi held up the ring she still wore.

“It was our anniversary.”  She looked at Jonah apologetically.  “I should have told you that.”

Jonah had actually surmised as much.

“You know what?” he said.  “I'm sorry.  I saw the wine...”

“It wasn't the wine,” Naomi interrupted.  “I'm a big girl.  All grown up.  You didn't take advantage of me.  What I'm apologizing for is that I totally used you.  And in the morning, I just utterly blew you off.”

With extreme prejudice, Jonah thought.  But he waved it away.

“Forget it,” he said.  “I've had more than one woman regret me in the morning.  Like my ex-wife.”

Naomi smiled a little.

“That was never a problem for Lucas.  I was always so proud of him.  I bragged on him with my friends.  I paraded him about town.  The way it felt when we were together.   I thought we were so special.”

She shook her head, puzzled.

“But with you,” she said, “it was just the same.”

Naomi paused a moment, looking strained.

“A deliberate drunk surrogate,” she said.  “And it was just the same.”

Deliberate drunk surrogate, Jonah repeated quietly in his head.

“I'm not stupid,” she said.  “I understand psychology.  Imagination.  It just scared me that what I felt with Lucas... that I could have just projected that on anybody.”

Naomi eyed him seriously, clearly wanting him to understand.

“It made me feel like I couldn't trust my own head,” she said.  “And I guess I needed to separate a little until I reminded myself what was real.”

Jonah nodded stoically, saying nothing, but couldn't help note her unquestioned presumption.

If it's good with you, it must be my imagination.

Even his ex-wife wouldn't have hung that one on him.

And the hell of it was, the one night he got to step-up as deliberate-drunk-surrogate, was a night he wouldn't give up for his life.

He almost said it out-loud.  Part of him wanted to.

If I died tonight, at least I got to be with you.

That was his reality.

Instead, he simply sat silent.  Naomi said nothing more, satisfied the air between them was cleared.

Jonah supposed it was.  And he supposed he had an answer to his question – you didn't miss a surrogate.

They sat quietly together, strangers who had been thrust together in a storm – perhaps finally about to separate once again.  After all, the only thing that had ever held them together was the continuing crisis and lack of options.

The silence in the cell highlighted the sound of activity in the yard outside.

It also boosted the acoustics of the first gunshots, followed by the familiar warbling yodels of sickle-claws.

And just behind that, the echoing dragon-roar of a Tyrannosaurus rex.

Jonah and Naomi both sat bolt upright, exchanging alarmed glances.

An explosion of military fire erupted from the main yard – the gun-turrets from the towers now aimed down into the compound itself.  Baying roars turned into screams as the high-caliber ammunition tore like a rototiller into saurian hide.

Jonah could imagine it all clearly enough – just like the convoy – the smallish dromaeosaurs darting through the grounds, drawing the rex pack to the chase, in turn, drawing gunfire.

It was the kind of behavior sickle-claws only displayed when Otto was around.

And this time, they were on a top-secret site, commanding nuclear assets.

Shouts echoed in the hall outside their cell, and a rush of soldiers filed in front of the main entrance, rifles drawn.

Jonah saw Major Travis himself, his hand pistol aimed and ready, as they faced the doorway.   Beside him, Sergeant Meyers had his rifle shouldered.

Almost simultaneously, there was a crash as the main doors came down, followed by the eruption of gunfire, and a goon-squad of sickle-claws flooded the main hall like a wave.

Jonah and Naomi could see it from their cell.

In the close quarters, it was a massacre.

These sickle-claws were big – larger than Utahraptor – all arms and legs, with a small body, and slender neck and head – difficult to hit while moving – definitely hard to hit under pressure.

Major Travis shot two of the beasts before he was beheaded by a slashing foot-claw.

Sergeant Meyers was taken a moment later, disemboweled.

Most of the men barely had a chance to cry out.  The two-dozen armed soldiers crowded into that hall might as well have fallen into a cage full of hungry lions.  It was over within minutes.  Absolutely and graphically over.

And as the sickle-claws hovered over the torn and scattered remains, with the main hall now secured like a trained infiltration unit, a troop of Ottos came scurrying in between their feet.

“Aw, shit,” Naomi muttered.  “You little bastards.”

And the sound carried.

The sickle-claws perked at the bare whisper, uttered among screams and munitions fire, and the pack turned in the direction of their cell.

The troop of Ottos bobbed at their feet, and recited Naomi's voice back in stereo, “You little bastards.”

In the blink of an eye, the sickle-claws moved, taloned hands wide and flailing, reaching for purchase, with their lethal foot claws poised and cocked.

Naomi and Jonah both fell back against the cell wall as the first of them hit the bars.

But the cage saved them.  These dromaeosaurs were the size of tigers and the gap between the bars was not quite wide-enough.

Jonah