Dinosaur Lake 3: Infestation (20 page)

“I don’t like it,” he mumbled. “It’s too quiet
again.” The thunder and lightning was a memory and the rain had ceased. The
wind had died to an anemic breeze. The heat had returned.

They kept walking, treading hesitantly between the
trees and rocks of the forest because it was hard to see. Henry had excellent
night vision but, moonless, the forest was a shadowy place.

“Wish I had a flashlight,” his voice a grumble.

All in all, he’d begun to feel optimistic about
their survival–he knew they were close to headquarters by the landmarks they
were passing–when the forest came alive with sounds again. Things careening
around in the night. Dinosaurs. Looking for them. Somewhere behind them.

“Good grief! They’ve found us again,” he hissed. “
Run,
Ann, run!
”

They ran, or ran as fast as they could in the dark.
Until breathless and stumbling like two drunks, they came out into a clearing.

Headquarters, the most welcome sight Henry could
have seen, was rising up in front of them. It was lit up like Christmas,
soldiers and their vehicles everywhere. He counted at least six of his rangers
outside the building, rifles slung over their shoulders, on guard as if they’d
been waiting for him and Ann.

As they sprinted to the door, his men rushing to
meet them, he heard the increasing brouhaha in the night woods. The dinosaurs
were coming.

Enclosed and shepherded into the sturdy building
Henry welcomed the cheers of his rangers.

On the other side of the metal door Henry heard repeated
gunfire and shouting as the National Guard repelled the invaders. He hoped they
had enough big guns, they’d need them. The squeals and squawks of the attacking
monsters were deafening. He and Ann had led them straight to the human
smorgasbord.

Inside, blinking like bats in the light, they were
slapped on the back, hugged, and handed coffee and sandwiches. It felt so good
to be safe. Ann’s eyes were filled with tears and he held her as he told their
story to his men. How they ran from and escaped the dinosaurs now residing in
the park; hid in the creek and killed a huge one.

Everyone was tossing questions at them and they did
their best to answer. Not easy because he was so exhausted, as he was sure Ann
was, he could of fallen asleep in his chair right there. And almost did.

Ranger Gillian was standing above him. “Thank God
you two made it. We’d about given up on you after Zeke called hours ago from
Idaho, of all places, and asked if you’d gotten here in one piece. There’s men
out looking for you. They haven’t come back. Yet.”

“How many men and how long have they been gone?”
Henry grilled his ranger.

“Three soldiers and Ranger Lauder and Duley. Too
long.”

 Henry was looking around for Ranger Stanton and Kiley.
He didn’t see them. “Has Ranger Stanton and Kiley made it in yet? They were
behind us but we lost them after our car crashed.”

Gillian shook his head. “They haven’t made it back
yet. But, Chief, don’t worry, I’m sure they will. They can take care of
themselves. Ranger Kiley knows these woods better than anyone else here and Stanton,
well, Stanton is a superwoman, as we all know. I bet they’ll be here soon. I’ll
radio the search team and let them know you and Ann are safe but they should
keep looking for Stanton and Kiley.”

“Thanks Gillian.”

Henry glared at the door, listening to the battle
going on beyond it.
We should have gone back for them.
But there’d been
no time. He and Ann had been running; fighting for their lives. And it had been
dark. Rainy. The guilt stung anyway, though, piercing deep. The two rangers
were more than his employees, they were friends.
We should have looked for
them.

Too late now.

“Chief, I’m sure they’re fine. They can take care
of themselves. Probably hiding out somewhere until dawn. You’ll see.”

Henry wanted to believe him. The two would show up
any minute. He took Ann’s hand. At least he and his wife were alive. That was
something to be thankful for, wasn’t it?

Then a woman soldier came up and threw her arms
around him.

“Well, I’ll be, if it isn’t Captain Sherman
McDowell!” Henry was glad to see her. The woman soldier had proven herself to
him the last time, when they’d fought the flying dinosaurs. She’d handled
herself and her men with level-headed courage.

“Chief Ranger Shore,” the woman declared. “About
time. You had us worried sick.” She hugged Ann too. “Ann. I knew you’d both
make it here. I had faith in you.”

Then she turned back to Henry and answered the
question in his eyes. “Yes, I’ve been given command of this little band of
soldiers here. Since I’ve dealt with your, er, problem before, the army, in its
infinite wisdom, thought it would be more efficient if they dumped the whole kit-and-caboodle
in my lap again.” Her smile was warm. “I was tickled to have the honor. After
out last adventure, dinosaurs are in my blood, I’m afraid. I’m ready to
continue the hunt. Rid your park of these monsters once and for all.”

“And I’m pleased the army sent you. I feel safer
already. Is Patterson here, too?” Patterson, a free-lance ex-FBI operative, was
her fiancée and also a very good friend of Henry’s. Another friend who knew how
to fight, from past experiences, prehistoric interlopers.

“Not this time, Chief. He’s consulting on some top secret
case for some bureau or other…zombies, I think.” And her grin let Henry know
she was teasing. Or maybe she wasn’t.

“Zombies?”

“Well, it’s so secret no one knows what it’s about.
He can’t even talk to me about the case. What’s new? It’s a wonder I love that
man, always running off to places he can’t tell me about; to do things he can’t
speak about. Could be we’ll see him later. You never know. He checks in with me
periodically just to let me know he’s still alive.”

Henry nodded. With Patterson you never did know. “I
thought he was retired?”

“Supposed to be. But you know Scott, always ready
to help on a difficult case. Your fault. Ever since his first dinosaur
adventure here he’s become another Mulder to them. He’s in high demand.”

Henry laughed. The thought of Patterson being a
Mulder from the X-Files was funny. Mulder had been so much better looking.

Outside the sounds of fighting had stopped. Optimistically
the soldiers and his men had either killed off or repulsed the horde. He was sure
he’d find out soon enough.

He sent Ann to sleep on the couch in his office,
she was so worn-out, and he sat down around the table in the conference room with
Captain McDowell, her people and his rangers. They had much to talk about. To
plan. Things had changed so quickly and they had to decide what to do about it.

The whole time his mind was on Ranger Stanton and Kiley,
wondering if they were all right. And his eyes returned to the door often but his
two lost rangers never came through it. There was no way he would accept their
deaths. They had to be alive. They just had to be. Somewhere.

Chapter
9

Stanton and Kiley

Ellie Stanton whispered, “Is it gone yet, Matthew?”

“I don’t know. I don’t hear any dinosaurs skulking
around out there but that doesn’t mean anything. Those freaks are clever. They
know when to be quiet. Stealthy. I swear they’re out there in a huddle, scaly heads
down, arms intertwined like a football team before kick-off, scheming how best to
ambush us again. How to get in here and gobble us up.”

Kiley’s body relaxed and he lowered his rifle,
laying it across his lap. He was breathing heavily, his body and clothes sodden
from the raging storm outside as he slumped to the floor under the window. His
back was against the wood, feet splayed out before him. When the lightning
flashed and momentarily lit up the room, there was a steely expression on his
face she’d seen many times before. No way lousy scurrying dinosaurs were going
to get the best of him. He’d show them.

Well, that was until the big one showed up. It’d
been doggedly tracking them now for over an hour. The thing never gave up.

Ellie sighed, put her rifle on the floor beside
her, and also leaned her backside against the inner wall of the cabin they’d
taken refuge in. A rental now empty because the park visitors were gone. She’d
known the cabin well and how to get into it, and it hadn’t been far from where
they’d left her car. They just hadn’t made it to headquarters. The creatures
had been too close behind. Running and hiding from the big guy and the rest of
his pack, they’d been lucky to come across the cabin and scramble into it
before the dinosaurs had caught up to them. But it was a small cabin meant for
one or two people. So the building was an eight by ten square with two modest windows.
Not a whole lot of protection, but better than nothing.

Now they were trapped inside, unable to get where
they’d been going. And she knew they were near. Headquarters couldn’t be but a
few miles away. So close.

“I lost my cell phone somewhere out there in the
mud…I think when we slogged through that creek in the dark,” he said. “It must
have fallen off my belt. Damn.”

“I never had a chance to grab mine out of the glove
compartment before we began the wild flight for our lives.” Strange how
something as simple as the loss of a cell phone could doom their rescue, when
they were so near to safety. In this modern age, they took way too much for
granted. Life was too easy. Too cushy. She was tired, wet and hungry. A little more
than frightened. And there was nothing she could do about any of that. At least
they were out of the rain, the night, safe and in one piece. Together. For the
moment.

At first, inside the park, they’d been following Chief
Shore and his wife as they’d fled from the dinosaurs, finally losing them. Matthew
thought the Chief’s car had gone over a precipice somewhere and crashed. They’d
searched for them, but the storm had come and in the rainy gloom they hadn’t
been able to find anything. Not the jeep or their friends.

They could both be dead for all she knew.

Then their enemy had caught up to them. A mob of snarling,
narrow-eyed, fast-moving, nasty looking little bastards with one collective
thought in their brains. Catch the humans. Eat the humans.

She and Matthew had abandoned their car when the
dinosaurs cornered them up against a rock cliff and started jumping and tearing
at it. The creatures had dented the roof and torn off one of the doors. Strong
little buggers.

Somehow they’d gotten out and fled on foot. It was
easier to travel that way. Weaving between the trees and splashing through ditches
and creeks, hiding behind and under things. Once, her suggestion, they’d laid
on the ground in a ditch and burrowing into the leaves and mud as deep as they
could manage using only their hands, had kept as still as they could. Some of
the creatures didn’t seem to have a decent sense of smell, but a handful of
them did, like some had keener eyesight and others could throw like baseball’s
pitcher Walter Johnson. Smart devils. So their respite hadn’t lasted long.

Three ugly little suckers about four feet in height
and teeth sharper than pointed nails located them and one jumped on her and
tried to bite her leg. She shot the miniature creep between the eyes and Matthew
shot the other two. But their cover had been blown. Within seconds the call had
gone out and the woods was full of hungry dinosaurs hot on their trail.

Hounded by the animals, they’d had to run on or be
overrun. Ellie felt guilty about that. They should have kept looking for their
friends, but the monsters kept finding them and they had to keep moving.

When, at long last, they’d seemed to be free and
clear, a huge brute had broken away from the others and come after them with a
vengeance. They finally lost the other smaller ones in the murky woods but nothing
they did, not shooting at and sometimes hitting, trying to evade or hiding from
the largest one stopped its determination. It always found them. Must be
starving.

For a time they’d continued to dodge it. Once it’d
found and had almost gotten them; taking erratic flight again, they’d
practically bumped into the empty cabin in the dark when they needed sanctuary
the most. A place to hide and rest. Thank goodness.

Now here they were. Hearts beating wildly, run to
ground like horrified deer before an unstoppable and voracious predator.

She couldn’t help but brood:
You’ve escaped
these monsters four times now…three times you’ve escaped death at their claws
and teeth. You faced, shot that one out in the woods that day and saved that
visitor’s life. It almost killed you. On Phantom Ship Island one attacked you
and knocked you down into the rocks and almost got you. Another close call. You’ve
been carried away by one and dropped into its nest. You survived by hiding and
waiting; being smarter, more patient, than they were. Matthew, Ranger Shore and
the others rescued you. Now this. How long will your luck last? How many times
can a person cheat death if it’s their time?

A shiver crawled up her spine. Why was she thinking
of these things? She didn’t know. But, suddenly, the world was so much darker
and it wasn’t because it was night. She had a premonition this time would be
different. She’d had premonitions all her life and she’d learned to trust them.
The spirit world was always near to her. And it wasn’t just her Indian ancestry,
she’d been born slightly…psychic. Knowing things from beyond the grave she
didn’t want to know. Seeing and hearing other unearthly things she didn’t want
to see or hear. How she hated her
gift
. Lucky her.

“We’re
so
close to headquarters,” Kiley groaned.
“I can’t believe we can’t get to it because of some freakin’ dinosaur blocking
our way.”

She took his hand. “We’ll make it out of this,
don’t worry, or the other rangers will find us. I know. They’re looking for us
now, I sense it. It’s only a matter of time.”

“Yeah, time.” He inched his body up from the floor
and peered out the window. One quick glance. “I don’t see anything moving out
there. This time I think we really lost it.”

“What can you see out there in the murk and rain?”
she spoke, careful not to talk too loud. She felt grimy, covered in mud, sweat
and rain as she was. But, if she forced herself, she could almost believe they
were safe. Almost.

“I see with night eyes.”

“You have night eyes? What, exactly, are night
eyes?” For the first time since they’d began running from the dinosaurs she
felt herself relaxing, just a bit. Her muscles and legs hurt. Her head was
pounding. It was a relief to rest. She was in good shape but fear along with
prolonged physical activity and dinosaurs attempting to devour them at every
turn could deflate anyone.

“I see better in the dark than most people, is what
it means. That and I have extra sensitive hearing, too. I’m just lucky like
that.”

A snicker slipped from between her lips. “I have
the same sharp senses. We are a good match.”

What she didn’t say was that her psychic ability,
or her Indian blood or both, also sometimes gave her secret messages, warnings,
she’d come to think of them as that, and suddenly she was receiving a very
strange one.

Time is short. Pray. But do not be afraid.

Sometimes she wondered if the messages were from
her Yahooskin grandfather or some other of her Indian ancestors. Or some other
ghost.

Remember nothing ever dies.

Now she was scared. Why was a spirit–and what
spirit–talking to her? Now of all times. What was happening?

She studied the shadows collected in a corner. A
tall pale wraithlike shape formed and stepped forward from them and smiled at
her. Her dead husband. Charlie.

Hi Charlie, it’s been a long time since you visited
me…why are you here?
her thoughts
asked him.

Been a long time. Yes.
His ghost hand reached out to her. She could
almost see the love in his dead soldier’s eyes. It’d been years since he’d died
in Afghanistan but he was young now as he appeared to her, twenty-something, as
when they’d first been married. So long ago.

She couldn’t help herself and smiled in the dark at
him. So many good and bad memories. He’d been her first love and the father of
her two sons. She still missed him.

She kept calm, so as not to upset Matthew or let
him know what was going on, and listened to the ghost whispers in her head. Her
ghost talking
only freaked him out so the less he knew the better.

You’ve raised our sons well, Ellie,
her husband told her.
They’re good men. I’m
proud of them and you. I wanted you to know that. Thank you.

Are you angry because I love someone else now? She wordlessly
spoke to the ghost. Are you disappointed in me? I waited a long time….

Charlie waved a spectral hand at her. A smile on
his white lips, he said,
No. I’m happy you found love again. Especially now.

Especially now?
So why are you here?
She was
getting more uneasy by the moment.

I just wanted to see you, be with you….

Why?
But the ghost didn’t answer because he had vanished, fading back into the
shadows and time.

What had all that been about? As warm as she was, she
shivered.

Matthew, as if guessing her inner turmoil, scooted against
her and put an arm around her. They’d been seeing each other for months and she
already suspected she loved him and he loved her. It’d been that way from the
first time she’d met him at headquarters. He’d never been just another co-worker
or ranger to her. They’d had a strong bond from the beginning. They thought
alike. Had the same goals and outlook on life. Were fighters. He was an
excellent ranger, a strong man and she trusted him. He’d come looking for her in
the summer when she’d been carried away to the flying dinosaur’s nest and had
saved her life. And she hadn’t felt this way about any man since Charlie.

She knew she loved Matthew Kiley.

Outside she could hear the wind and rain, nothing
else. They had truly escaped those blood hungry monsters and when the light
came they’d leave the cabin and make it to headquarters where they’d be home
free. Where they’d join up with the rest of their fellow rangers. Henry and Ann
would be there, too. Everything would be all right.

Ellie kept seeing Charlie in her mind, even though
his ghost had left. Why had he appeared to her? What had he wanted? As hard as
she looked, though, she couldn’t see him in the corner any longer. Couldn’t see
him anywhere. Poignant memories of their marriage, their boys, their life
together, his death and her overwhelming grief that had lasted far too long
haunted her. They’d been so happy. Long, long ago.

Matthew brought her thoughts to the present by saying,
“Ellie, I know this isn’t really the best time to ask but, if we get out of
this alive…will you marry me?”

She didn’t know what to say, she was speechless and
not much could do that to her. Well, except rioting dinosaurs and ghosts. Oh,
she knew the question he’d asked might have been coming but still it was a
surprise.

“Well?” Now his voice was unsure.

“Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes…yes.”

He leaned over and kissed her. “I don’t want a
lengthy engagement, either. We’re not getting any younger.”

And the dinosaur problem wasn’t getting any better.

“How about we run off as soon as we get out of this
mess and go before a Justice of the Peace in Klamath Falls at City Hall? Next
Friday at noon? I have a few days off. We could have a mini-honeymoon
somewhere, your choice.”

She smiled at him in the dark and she thought he
was smiling in return. There was no lightning to show his face. She just had to
imagine it.

“No sense in wasting any of our precious time,” he
continued. “No use in waiting until this problem is resolved, either. According
to Chief Shore’s son-in-law, Justin, it might never be.”

She didn’t like hearing that, but kept her mind on
what they were talking about at the moment. Almost dying a couple of times that
day had made her more than aware life was short. For some shorter than for
others. She loved this man and didn’t want to waste another week living without
him.