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

shoulders, locked-on for leverage, just beginning the convulsive slash downward – a strike that on a large prey animal would leave ten-inch deep, slashing divots over four feet long.

But the bullet had caught the creature's heart, and it froze stiff, postured in death, in a perfect strike pose.  Jonah remembered a fossil had been discovered just like that, – a Velociraptor and a small ceratopsian, with the predator's foot claw buried in its prey's throat.

The young man was conscious, blinking up at them, his eyes full of pain.

Naomi grabbed hold of the foot claws.  She eyed the man, her face sympathetic.

“This is going to hurt,” she said, and yanked the sickles free.

The soldier shrieked, and blood spurted from the wound.  Without waiting, Naomi pulled both hand claws loose, and Jonah pushed the dead sickle-claw away.

“Ohhhh, Jesus,” the man moaned. “That hurts.”

“He got you pretty good,” Naomi allowed, leaning over to inspect the wounds.  Jonah began rooting through his pack.  After a moment, he handed Naomi a first-aid kit.

“So, soldier,” Naomi said as she pulled a vial of alcohol and begin daubing, “what's your name?”

“Meyers,” the young man said, wincing at the sting.  “Corporal Meyers.”

Naomi nodded at the empty carrying crate.

“And what the hell were you doing letting those scaly little bastards loose?”

Meyers looked uncertain.

“There was this girl,” he said.  “One of the refugees back at the base.  She said it was a lab animal and they were going to dissect it.  She couldn't bear it.  Said it reminded her of Wilbur the Pig.”  Meyers shrugged.  “It's a scaly little rat.  What harm could it do?”

Naomi held up a blood-soaked cloth.

“How does your ass feel?” she said.

“Not too good,” Meyers admitted.

“Where are you headed?” Jonah asked, keeping his eye on the surrounding trees.

“I can't give out that information,” Meyers said.

Naomi didn't even look up, but her fingers dug where she had been doctoring.

Meyers' face went tight.

“We've got a base up on the mountain,” he said quickly.  “We're a supply-chain.  Delivering to outposts.”  He caught Naomi's expectant eye.  “My Commanding Officer is Major Travis,” he finished.

At that moment, Meyers' radio barked static – the caravan calling in.

“Hey, Meyers?  Anyone there?  This is Bob.  Is our path clear?  Repeat.  All clear?”

Meyers' radio was pinned under his hip, and it was ginger moving him, but even as Naomi started to pull it free, a response sounded – in 'Bob's' own voice.

“All clear,” the voice said.

There was a static bark from the tower, and they turned to see one of the little lizards in the window, standing at the microphone.  Its parrot-like voice repeated, “All clear.”

Naomi picked it off with a pistol shot, sending the little beast spinning.

Meyers glanced at her, brows raised.  “Are you military?”

“My husband was,” Naomi replied.

Meyers glanced at Jonah.  “This guy isn't...?”

“No,” Naomi said, before he could finish, emphatically slapping a new clip into her pistol.

Meyers' radio barked again – Bob:  “Okay, we're coming through.”

And from the brush behind them, an exact repetition, with even the crack of static, “Okay, we're coming through.”

They turned and the other two Ottos were back, perched right in a row at the edge of the forest, their heads all cocked, birdlike.

“What harm could it do?” the first one said, with Meyers' voice this time, in that same apparently mindless, parrot-like mimic.

And then they all screeched together.

From the surrounding brush, more sickle-claws appeared – an entire pack of the wolf and panther-sized beasts that always seemed to accompany the scaly little bastards, like a prehistoric royal guard.

Jonah guessed at least two-dozen animals.  Naomi was a good shot, but in these close-quarters, she didn't have enough bullets in a clip.  And Jonah might pick off one or two with his rifle before they tore him apart.

But then there came the crunch of gravel from the unmaintained former highway that circled the ridge, and the first headlights of the convoy came into view.

“We've got to warn them,” Naomi said, even as she eyed the surrounding sickle-claws.

“Warn them?” Jonah retorted, watching for the first movement, “Warn us!”

The sickle-claws seemed to hang on the moment – and that was another thing that was different whenever an Otto was around – dromaeosaurs were evil-tempered beasts on any given day, but mostly behaved like animals.

But today, they hung like trained attack-dogs waiting on command.

Jonah was frankly amazed there were so many of them.  You didn't see sickle-claws much in the valley because the T. rex rooted them out, and there was no escaping that tyrannosaur nose.  This lot must have been traveling the hills, just like Jonah and Naomi – a disconcerting thought.

Still, this many of them?  How much longer could their combined scent fail to attract one of the local rex packs?

But even as he thought it, there came the first break in the heavy foliage, beyond the outpost – the sound of a large branch cracking under massive weight.

Jonah had read stories describing how five-ton elephants could stand unseen within meters of you in heavy brush.

But it was something else when a T. rex did it.

How could such a giant beast be so damned sneaky?

The first to separate from the forest was Rudy, followed by Moose, Archie and Jughead – the JV squad.

Opposite the clearing, the sickle-claws turned to face them, claws cocked.

Jonah and Naomi exchanged a worried glance.  Trapped between them in the open ground, there was nowhere to run.

“We might be in trouble,” Jonah said.

Chapter 3

Even in a world of monsters, T. rex was special.

Giant carnivorous dinosaurs came in a variety of forms, but among all flesh-eaters, Tyrannosaurus rex stood out like a pitbull in a dog-show.

The massive skull was built for impact – reinforced to take the shock of its own charging attack with its hydraulically muscular neck and skull, while its assault drove home twelve-inch, armor-piercing teeth, scissoring together to CHOMP out a scoop of flesh the size of a fifty-gallon barrel.

The reason T. rex didn't tolerate competitors was because they didn't have to.  Jonah had seen more than one big carcharodont square-off with