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

the very geography itself seemed to blur – the vibrations of a massive quake triggered by seismic blasts along the entire range.

They watched from above as the world seemed to break itself in half.

Chapter 61

Naomi pulled on her harness, trying to follow Jonah as he was buffeted in the aftermath of the blast wave.

The wreckage of the jet impacted the jagged precipice below and exploded in a flaming ball that immediately lit the surrounding forest.

Jonah, hanging limp in his harness, was following the same trajectory, and barely missed the flames as his parachute piled into the trees.

Straining on her own chute, Naomi angled in after him.

She hit the rocky slope, bracing the impact with her feet, cutting her harness away lest she get sucked by the wind right back up into the sky.

Jonah had been caught in the trees, and she could see him dangling ten feet from the ground.

Below him, ready to leap, were three sickle-claws.

Naomi was reaching for her pistol before she even blurted her first curse.

She dropped the first of them with a single shot, but missed the second as it leaped, catching Jonah's harness with its claws, and pulling him down.

“Bastards!” Naomi screamed, starting to tear-up.

She aimed her pistol again, fighting the tremble in her cold hands, controlling herself as her Lieutenant Lucas had taught her.

You had to be cool to be an effective killer, and Naomi found herself emotionally involved.

She let out a slow breath, shutting her eyes for one second.

When she opened them, both dromaeosaurs were perched on Jonah's chest, claws extended, cutting at his harness.

Naomi dropped them in two shots.

Sucking her breath, staying cool, she holstered her pistol and ran to where Jonah had fallen.

She kicked away the dead sickle-claws and bent over him.  She tried checking for a pulse, but her own hands were too cold and numb to tell if it was there or not.

But as the straps fell away, his head dropped, utterly limp, making a loud bonk on the rock.

It was a chilling sound – colder than the ice in the storm.

Then she heard a groan.

Jonah's eyes blinked.  “Owwww.”

Naomi chirped a brief laughter, almost limp with relief, until she looked in his eyes.

He wasn't focusing.  And his breathing was shallow.

Eleven months ago, Naomi had watched her husband die in a fiery explosion.

Today was more intimate.

She felt unwilling tears start to fall.

“You did it,” she whispered.  “You pulled it off.  And you still haven't killed us.”

Jonah tried to smile.

“Not... yet.”

His voice was a failing whisper.

“If I died tonight,” he said, “at least I got to have you.”

He reached up and squeezed her fingers gently.

Then his hand fell away.

Naomi huddled over Jonah's still form.

She found herself remembering what she'd said to him back at the base – about their night together.  At the time, she had thought she was being honest.

What she had actually been doing was rationalizing, trying to preserve a memory.

Lieutenant Lucas Walker had been her husband – he had been the best man she had ever met – ever dreamed of – her hero.

Every girl believes her man is special, but her man was one-of-a-kind.

The very idea of being happy with someone else, let alone some bush-pilot, threatened to cheapen the shrine she kept to him in her heart.  And her memory was all she had of him.  She didn't even have a picture.

Therefore, Jonah had to be an illusion.

Only now, here at the end, when it didn't matter anymore, did it finally occur to her that she might have simply been lucky enough to have found another good man.

After the end of the world.

Naomi lay her head down on his harness and wept.

And somewhere in the distance, she heard an explosion.

A military brat all her life, Naomi recognized a seismic charge.

There came another.  And then a whole string.

Beneath her feet, she felt the first rumbling response in the earth.

Naomi looked up at the sky, where there was nothing but blank, misty white, and decided she was just too tired to run anymore.

As the earth began to shake, she held Jonah close and waited for the end.

But before that happened, she felt the rush of wind and the misty fog directly above was swept away by the blast of a rotor-engine blade.

Naomi looked up as the chopper circled down.

Half-a-dozen armed troops filed out, circling quickly, securing the area.

She'd seen Lucas do this in drills.  She could tell this was a tight unit.  All-American heroes, just like her man had been.

Naomi felt hands on her arms.

“Ma'am?” one of the soldiers said.  “My name is Lieutenant Hicks.  Are you injured?”

Naomi looked up at him, shaking her head, then back down at Jonah.

Hicks bent beside him, touching under his chin.

“I got a pulse,” he said.  “He's alive.”

Naomi's heart skipped a beat.

“This the guy who was flying the plane?” Hicks asked, running a quick field check, looking for broken bones or obvious bleeding.  “The General's gonna wanna meet this fella,” Hicks said.  “Let's see if we can keep among the living.”

Beneath them, the ground was shaking harder, and from the nearest peak, came another series of seismic explosions, detonating all across the mountain.

This region was already unstable.  It was always a volcanic range, but when the West Coast had broken loose, it triggered tectonic movement across the entire continent.

The Rockies were a natural break point.

“Sir?” one of the other soldiers said. “I think we better be getting the hell out of here.”

Hicks nodded to Naomi.

“On board, ma'am,” he said.  “I'll take care of your fella.”

“He's not my...” Naomi began, reflexively, but stopped and simply nodded.

“Please,” she said.

Two other soldiers helped Hicks stretcher-up Jonah's unconscious form, and load him onto the chopper.

As Hicks pulled Naomi on-board, the earth was suddenly rocked again, and this time the quake didn't stop.

“Let's go!” Hicks shouted.

The chopper rose up into the air, even as the mountain began to break itself apart.

Chapter 62

The seismic blasts continued from the Midwestern United States all the way up through Canada.

Tom could see it from space.

And as he