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

Tom Corbett,” the radio said.  “I'm on the International Space Station, I've been picking up on your broadcasts for a year.  And I've got a satellite camera on your location right now.”

“Ohhhh-kay, 'Major Tom',” Kristie said, looking uncomfortably out the window up at the sky, “I've actually got kind of a situation here.”

“I know, I'm zeroing in on your building.  Wait just a second.”

There was a beep, as if he'd switched lines, and dead-air for thirty seconds until he came back on.

“You've got help coming,” he said.

Downstairs, the pounding on the door grew louder, and was now accompanied by a widening creak.

Kristie picked up her rifle, standing ready at the top of the stairs.

Then she heard the air-blast of a chopper passing low overhead, the sound of its engine seeming to trail a half-second later,

The chopper landed just outside the building.  Within moments, there was the sound of gunfire and the squalling of sickle-claws.

Kristie looked out the window as troops fanned from the chopper, laying out a barrage of bullets, dropping the surrounding packs of clawed dromaeosaurs like ducks in a shooting gallery.

These were all big ones.  The little talking lizards seemed to have vanished.

After thirty seconds and a lot of shooting, the path to her building was clear and Kristie heard the downstairs door being battered down.

Troops flooded the hall, guns up and drawn.

The leader turned his rifle sights up the stairs and found Kristie, who held up her hands, wide-eyed.

“You must be Kristie Morgan,” the soldier said.  “I'm Lieutenant Dwayne Hicks, and you're going to need to come with us.”

But as he spoke, a large sickle-claw appeared at the door behind him, unerringly catching its prey in its one unguarded moment.  Hicks brought his rifle up, even as his team turned towards the door.

The sickle-claw, however, never reached its target before Kristie shot a hole in its chest, blowing it back, just as the foot-claw slashed within six-inches of Hick's throat.

Hicks glanced up at Kristie as the creature twitched in death-spasms at his feet.

“You are definitely coming with us,” he said.

Hicks' radio scratched static, followed by Major Tom's voice.

“Did you get her?”

“Got her, sir,” Hicks replied.  “We're moving onto the silos now.”

“Due north,” Tom said.  “Satellite image shows empty grounds.”

Almost the moment he said it, another entire pack of sickle-claws materialized from the surrounding buildings.

“Oh for...” Hicks blurted as he dropped his radio, grabbing up his rifle.

There was another eruption of machine-gun fire, and Kristie could tell these troops understood the mobbing tactics employed by dromaeosaurs – they gave no quarter, spraying the clawed devils in a solid blanket of gunshots.

Hicks grabbed up his radio.  “Does it still look clear?”

“Uh, no,” Major Tom responded.  “Actually, now it looks like they're crawling out of cracks all over the base.”

Kristie was reminded of one of those old karate movies, after Bruce Lee single-handedly kills a hundred ninjas, but they just kept coming anyway, right down to the last man.

Sickle-claws were evil bastards on a good day, but Kristie had never seen them this aggressive.

And where were they all coming from?  It was as if every last dromaeosaur in the territory was converging on the site.

Hicks and his team maintained a steady fire until the second attacking wave was chopped into carrion.

But even as the troops began to move across the grounds towards the silos, more of them began to appear at the perimeter.

A few came running in, only to be shot down, but most of the others held back, waiting for greater numbers to launch another mob attack.

As they reached the first of the silos, the squadron formed a perimeter, continuing to pick off individual sickle-claws as Hicks bent to access the entrance-key.  After a moment, he cracked the lock and kicked open the door, filing in with his troops behind him.

And as she followed close behind, Kristie saw where all those little lizards had gone.

The warhead was crawling with them.

“What the hell?” Hicks breathed, before the first of them attacked, claws outstretched.

Hicks caught the little lizard in a single shot, and a moment later the silo echoed like a rat-shoot as he and his men started picking them off.

“Please, take care,” Hicks instructed over the ricocheting bullets, “to not shoot the nuclear missile.”

It shouldn't matter, but why take chances?

One of the soldiers kicked at one of the twitching lizards.

“What is this thing?”  He looked uncomfortably up at Hicks.  “Lieutenant, I let one of these loose just last week.”

Hicks turned, frowning.  “What are you talking about?”

“This girl back at the base.  She said she wanted to set it free.  I thought it was a lab animal.”  The soldier's expression was pained.  “She said she couldn't bear to see it put down.”  He held up his hands helplessly.  “What harm could it do?”

“Um, actually sir,” another soldier spoke up, “I did too.  Same thing.  There was this girl.”

Hicks turned towards the rest of the troops.

Several raised their hands, nodding.

“What harm could it do?” Hicks muttered.

“I've seen these things,” Kristie said.  “They talk like parrots.  I found them in the broadcast booth.”

Hicks nodded.  He pulled out his radio.

“You seeing this, Major?”

“On high-definition,” Tom responded.  “I'm guessing they've been at every missile on this site.”

Hicks turned towards the soldier who had spoken before.

“A girl you say?”  Hicks shook his head.  “Why do I think I know exactly who?

He tapped his radio.

“This is Lieutenant Hicks, urgent for General Rhodes.  I think we've found our leak.”

Chapter 42

When Lily left Dr. Shrinker's lab, she had gone right to Ginger.

That way, when Rhodes had appeared at their door with a dozen armed soldiers, there was nothing out of order.

Having been introduced to the Mount as a group, the Coven had more or less commandeered the majority of the lodgings on their hall, and most other civilian refugees tended to avoid their entire area.

Each hall had its own rec-room/laundry facility, and this was where Rhodes found them.

Lily found the General intimidating any old time.  Today, he wore his war face.

And beside him, Corporal Stevens, who Lily