Dinosaur Lake 3: Infestation (29 page)

Aside, Captain McDowell reported to Henry they’d
discovered where the dinosaurs, most of them anyway, had their lair. “They’re
gathering around the lake, in the lake, which makes complete sense. It’s a
source of water. We’re going tomorrow, three tanks and a complement of soldiers
to kill as many of them as we can find–you still want to ride along?”

“Damn straight I do.”

“See you at dawn then. I’ll be out by the tanks
with my men. You can bring one other person along if you like. There’s room.”

“I’ll be there. With Justin. If anyone can make
sense out of whatever we find, he can. Moreover, he’s turned into a formidable
dinosaur hunter.”

“I agree. Good choice. We can always use another
sharpshooter.”

“He’s become that too. He’s better than me these
days and, as we all know,” and here he had canted his head at her, “nearly as
good as you.”

McDowell had left to see to preparations for deterring
the possible night assault and Henry had helped Ann unload and bring in their personal
items. And the homeless felines.

It made Henry feel good to see Ann smiling as she snuggled
the cats, though cuddling Miss Kitty Cat also made her cry again for what had
happened to Stanton and Kiley. Their loss was just beginning to settle in for
her, and Henry.

But it was nice when later that night they got to
sleep on comfy air beds on their own sheets and amidst their blankets; two cats
curled up between them and other comforts from their home scattered around. They
had their own pillows, coffee mugs, alarm clock, Ann’s laptop, Kindle and all
her work papers. Ranger Gillian, quick thinking as he always was, had also
grabbed every goodie, every can of coffee and a container of tea Ann had had in
the kitchen and brought them along as well. Nice touch.

He felt somewhat guilty Justin and Steven were
sleeping on cots in the main conference room, his men were bunking out in the
other rooms on cots or in sleeping bags and the soldiers were tenting it out in
the yard. But because it was warm none of them seemed to care, so in the end,
he was fine with it, too. Hardships under the circumstances were to be
expected. The soldiers and rangers on duty accepted the conditions without
complaint.

At least Ann was comfortable, or as comfortable as
she could be. That meant a lot to Henry.

In the end, none of them got much sleep that night
anyway because the dinosaurs hit the compound at around midnight and, as the
night before, the fighting was brutal. This time though it didn’t last as long.
The soldiers and the rangers fought them off and the creatures evaporated into
the dark woods and, also unlike the night before, there was no repeat
performance. The dinosaurs didn’t mount another attack.

Later, in their makeshift office bedroom, Ann remarked
on what had already occurred to him, “Now that was odd. Them coming at us so
late. I thought most of them didn’t like the dark? And, did you notice, there
weren’t as many of them tonight…you think you’ve killed more of them than you thought?”

“I don’t know. I hope so. It was peculiar, so few
of them. But I don’t trust them for one minute. I have the sneaking suspicion they’re
up to something.”

“Aren’t they always? Devious little monsters–and
big monsters.” Ann muffled a snort, snuggling into him on their pushed together
air mattresses. There was only the desk lamp for light so the room was dim. The
windows were squares of ink. It was after three in the morning and he needed to
get some sleep before the tanks rumbled out of the compound at sunrise.

Ann was soon gently snoring and the cats, too, were
asleep but sleep evaded him. Restless, he slipped from bed and checked the
weapons he’d be taking that morning for the dinosaur hunt. His MP7 and a
high-powered rifle. The tank was equipped with more aggressive firepower to tackle
the big brutes they’d run into, but he knew at some point their feet would be
on the ground and their weapons in their hands to flush out the stragglers or
the smaller varieties. He had to be sure his weapons were in good working order.
When he was sure they were, he snuck a few hours of uneasy sleep.

*****

When the sun’s rays brightened the windows and the
room, he was already dressed and, after laying a gentle kiss on his sleeping
wife’s cheek, he exited the building and walked out into the humid morning. The
day was going to be another real hot one, he thought. All the dinosaurs were
going to be down by the watering hole.

Captain McDowell was lounging in the sunshine against
one of her MIA2 Abrams battle tanks, speaking with two other soldiers. Probably
the tank crew. As Henry strode up to them, Justin appeared and joined them.

“Morning, Chief Ranger Shore. Dr. Maltin.” McDowell
tipped her head at both him and Justin. “Are you ready for the hunt?”

“Ready,” Henry replied.

“Ready.” Justin pushed his gold-rimmed glasses
higher up on his nose. The sweat was already shining on his face and his
glasses kept slipping. His hair was tied in a ponytail. Cooler that way.

“Where’s your sidekick?” Henry smiled at Justin, looking
around.

“Steven? Oh, he’s riding with another tank crew.
McDowell said there wasn’t room in this one but placed him in the tank that’ll
be behind us. We’ll meet up with him if and when we move out onto the ground. And
that way he gets to interview this one soldier who has an interesting dinosaur
story to tell him.”

“He still trying to soak in the full dinosaur
experience for his book, huh?”

“Trying. Myself, I think we’ve turned him into a
dinosaur addict. He’s hooked. I don’t believe he’s ever going back to the musical
gigs. He wants to be a dinosaur hunter now. Claims we’re going to need more of
them.”

Oh great, another tag-along. Henry liked the
musician well enough but the man was a troubadour, a writer of songs and a
scribe, not a hunter. He had no business being out in the woods looking for
man-eating monsters. But it was
his
life. “Well, as long as he knows the
dangers involved. This ain’t no picnic we are going on,” Henry tossed back.

“He knows. If you ask me he’s simply hooked on the
excitement of it all.”

“That’ll change the first time he’s face to face
with one of these creatures and it takes a bite out of him,” McDowell interrupted
with a straight face, the hot sun glinting off her fair skin which already had
the flush of a sunburn from being outside the day before building the fence.

“Possibly, but he’s already been chased by an angry
rabble of them. Saw and faced the danger they represented up close; yet, I have
to admit, he kept his head. Fired my MP7 adequately, kept the dinosaurs from eating
us, and everything. He’s not a bad shot, either. He won’t be a hindrance at all
from what I can see.”

“All right then. He can join our team on the
ground.” Gesturing at the two Oregon National Guard soldiers McDowell introduced
them. “This is Sergeant Gilbert and Private Harmon. Our crew. Sergeant Gilbert will
be up in the turret driving the tank and Harmon is going to work the guns–when
we need them.” Gilbert was a small wiry man probably somewhere in his thirties
with close cropped black hair and a pock-marked face, probably from a bad case
of early acne. But his eyes, a flat blue color, were alert; his manner open and
friendly. The Private was a young guy maybe in his twenties with an innocent looking
face, a crew cut and intense eyes. He kept tapping the fingers of his right
hand on the hull of the tank he was leaning on. Nervous, but trying hard to
hide it. It wasn’t often, Henry surmised, he went out into the woods hunting
for dinosaurs.

“You know how to drive this baby?” Justin asked
McDowell, gazing up at the tank in all its metal glory. It looked like it could
protect them from anything. Well almost anything.

“I’ve been trained on it and can drive it if I had
to.” There was confidence in her voice. She was in army fatigues, gun at her
hip and rifle hanging from her shoulder, as were the other men with her. She
was a true soldier and played the part.

“We’re going out to the rim, then, huh?” The rim
that Ellie Stanton had once been snatched from on a snowy night. And for a moment
images of Ranger Stanton and Kiley flickered in Henry’s mind and sadness washed
over him again. He still couldn’t believe they were dead. He’d phoned Stanton’s
sons, asking permission to bury her in the park, a place she’d loved, and
they’d given it, because he didn’t have a clue how long they’d be holed up at
headquarters, and that phone call had been difficult.

Kiley had been put into the ground beside her in a
grassy spot underneath a large maple tree behind headquarters. A lovely spot
Henry knew they would both have approved of.

A somber group of them, rangers and soldiers, had
attended and Henry had spoken heartfelt words over the graves; Ann had cried silently
through the whole service. Many of the rangers, him included, had damp eyes as
well. The official memorial services still had to be arranged and he had no
idea when that would be.

“Yes, our destination today is the rim. That’s the
place my men saw tracks yesterday of where they’re gathering. They followed the
signs and located a herd of them as far as Cleetwood Cove. Some, the amphibious
species, must be tucked away in those caves along the shoreline or in the woods
around and below the crater’s rim. They spotted some of the larger creatures hunkering
up on Garfield Peak and not far from the lodge. But, truthfully, they’re hiding
all over and throughout the woods. They’re sprinkled out there like hidden
Easter eggs.”

Henry had a sudden image in his mind of Easter egg
colored dinosaurs, with pink and blue stripes or purple polka-dots and shiny ribbons
tied around their necks nestled in the tall grass around the lake, ready to be
found. But when a person found one they didn’t get to stash it in a pretty
little Easter basket to be eaten later with a dash of salt…instead it hopped up
and ate them. Surprise!

“I’m ready whenever you are,” Henry said. He wanted
to get it over with. The sooner the interlopers were dealt with the sooner he’d
get his park, his life, back.

“Gonna be another sultry day, huh? In the nineties I’ve
heard. Maybe even hit a hundred or above again.” McDowell continued the
conversation, shading her eyes with her hand and looking up. As if she had all
the time in the world. “It’s nothing like our last adventure together. Remember
Ranger Shore? On Mount Scott in the freezing cold and snow. Brrr. Doesn’t this
place have moderate seasons and temperatures? Like anything between sixty and
eighty degrees? Not hot as the sun or cold as the North Pole?”

“It does, but they’re extremely brief ones.” Henry
wanted to hurry her along.
Let’s go. Let’s go.

“Yeah, so brief if you blink you can miss them,
right?”

“You got it.”

Henry decided it was as good a time as any to query,
“So our men and the tanks can take care of any land dinosaurs we come across,
but what about the population of the lake? There’s some formidable leviathans
in the water. I’ve seen them. These tanks can’t go underwater, can they?” Of
course they couldn’t. He knew that.

McDowell shook her head negatively. “They can’t
Ranger Shore. But my superiors are tackling the problem of the water dwellers and
I’ll leave it up to them to handle it. It is in the works. There has been talk
about dropping a sonar grid of buoys across the lake by Apache helicopter and when
the sonar shows anything dinosaur-like moving below the water, the Apaches or
the F15s
from Kingsley ANG Base in Klamath
Falls
will return and bomb them. There’s
nothing in the lake those explosives can’t blow out of the water, no matter how
deep they try to hide. Home base will let me know if and when they’re
successful. My orders are to take care of the land intruders and the Apaches and
F15s will take care of the aquatic ones.”

Well, Henry thought dolefully, there goes the
lake’s delicate eco system. Boom!

“It’s a shame we can’t use the helicopters to rid ourselves
of all the park’s dinosaurs. Drop bombs on their heads and explode them back to
the stone age, or whatever age they came from.”

“But, as you are well aware, Captain, from our last
thrilling adventure together,” Henry interjected, “it’s hard to lower a
helicopter into deep forest growth, much less find and shoot at the smaller dinosaurs
bopping around beneath the forest canopy. They move too fast. Dropping
explosives into the woods would also decimate substantial sections of the park.
And with this heat wave we’ve had the parched conditions could be a catalyst
for massive forest fires. Far too hazardous. A match in a tinder box. As if the
dinosaur trouble isn’t enough try adding a forest fire to the mix.”

“As you say, I’m well aware of those complications.
No bombing in the tinder box. Though,” she added, “barbequed dinosaurs would do
the trick, too.”

Henry wrinkled his nose at the idea of burnt to a
crisp stinking dinosaurs. But the last thing they needed were forest fires.
There’d already been enough destructive upheaval in the park and more was
coming. He tried not to think about the harm they were doing to the wild lands,
yet they were past that signpost. He tried not to think about the F15s dropping
bombs in the lake and blowing the leviathans to pieces. Remembering the water
monsters’ battle in the lake that day still gave him the willies. He and his
companions so easily could have become fatalities.