Dinosaur Lake 3: Infestation (3 page)

He wobbled his fingers at her and behind the glass
the cat opened her mouth and began meowing frantically. Jumping up against the
window, her paws flailed at the glass as if she was trying to get out. Her eyes
wide. Henry couldn’t hear her, but thought it odd the cat was behaving so erratically.
She never acted like that.

The night had hushed. Even the wind.

He heard something near the tree line of the surrounding
woods. A click-click-snarl sound. Click-click-growl. Bushes and leaves were being
thrashed aside. And his skin prickled. He didn’t want to look, but he couldn’t
help himself.

He turned around slowly and three things happened
at once. He saw he’d left the front door slightly open, the cat came bounding
out onto the porch heading for the edge of it, and he caught something moving
out of the corner of his eyes at the end of the yard. Something that shouldn’t
have been there.

He reached down to snatch up the escaped kitten,
but it slipped through his grasp and raced across the yard towards the mistiness
lurking among the trees.

Almost without thinking, Henry dashed into the
house, grabbed his .40 caliber SigSauer from his gun belt where he’d left it on
the couch, and ran back out in the direction the kitten had gone. Yelling,
“Stay inside, Ann! Stay inside!”

“What’s wrong?” She cried behind him as he slammed
the door shut and took off after the cat down the yard. He didn’t have time to
answer. Not if he wanted Sasha to live. The feline was going after what he’d
heard, glimpsed, at the edge of the woods. Whatever it was.

The kitten had entered the trees and Henry was
right behind her, gun raised and ready. “Sasha! Sasha!” he called out. “Come
back here, you little runaway! It’s not safe out here for you.”

He plunged through the perimeter of the forest and
into instant night. The woods was like that at twilight. One step beneath the
canopy of limbs and leaves and it was utter darkness.

“Sasha!” He yelled again when he saw her. Crouched
against a tree base, back up, hissing like a big cat at something poised above
her. Swooping her up with his hand, he swung around and stared at what she’d
been hissing at. A shadowy form about twenty feet away hiding behind a tree.

“Gosh darn, I should have grabbed a flashlight, too.”
But he hadn’t had time.

The shadow moved. Crept closer. It was about four feet
tall, slender, erect on two thin, but lengthy, legs; with a overlong neck and a
compact angular head. Large claws at the end of upper arms held out, curved, in
front of it. It had triangular stripes across its back and up along its head. Huge
eyes that glittered in the faint light when the creature tilted its head at him.
It saw him. It saw the kitten crying in his grasp and its tongue flicked in and
out in hungry anticipation. Henry knew if he would have been a child or if the
creature would have been bigger, he might have been the intended target and not
the feline.

It wasn’t a natural park animal. Not the way it
moved, stood, glared at him, with a stumpy tail snapping back and forth. Another
low growl echoed in its skinny throat.

Good lord, another dinosaur.
What the hell…was the park infested with them now?
A whole Jurassic Park right where he lived? Well, why not? What had begun years
ago could be finally reaching its full and frightening potential. Dinosaurs, of
different species, roaming the woods. Good God.

Henry, clutching the struggling, crazed kitten tightly
against his chest as it dug its claws into him, stared at the creature. It was
hard to see it in detail but what he saw was bad enough. He knew what he was
looking at. Trouble.

The miniature dinosaur released a shrill wail that
reverberated into the night, a war cry, and lunged at the kitten in Henry’s
arms. The dinosaur butted up against Henry and its mouth, now all razor-sharp
teeth, gaped open as it attempted to wrestle away and swallow the small cat. It
almost got her.

Henry thrust the kitten above his head to keep it
from the hungry maw and with his free hand he brought his duty weapon up and
shot the little monster and somehow–as close as he was–missed it. The explosion
of the gunshot seemed to aggravate it.

Really pissed off now, instead of scuttling away in
fright, the monster hissed at Henry, barred its wicked-looking fangs and
slashed at him with its claws. Its saucer eyes flashing with malevolent intent.

Henry jumped back just in time and the claws barely
ripped through his shirt and raked across his flesh. Pain made him realize they’d
gotten some skin, but the wounds weren’t deep. They’d skimmed flesh, not dug in.
Still hurt like hell, though.

This time when he shot at the creature, at least
one of his bullets hit dinosaur flesh.
Got it!
The little monster shrieked
in pain, knocked Henry and the kitten to the ground, and scuttled away into the
woods.

Sprawled in the grass and stunned, clutching the
meowing kitten with one hand and his gun with the other, Henry watched the dark
forest close around the fleeing dinosaur.

Only when it was gone did Sasha cease meowing, squirming,
and digging her claws into him. Between the dinosaur and the cat, man, was he
going to be scratched up.

He shuddered and came to his feet. “Let’s go home,
Sasha, before that thing returns and maybe…brings a bunch of its little monster
friends with it. Wouldn’t put it past it, either. It looks like the type of
vermin that runs in packs. I know. I’ve seen Jurassic Park. All three of them.”

Sending quick looks behind him every second or so
in case he was being followed, he wasted no time reentering the cabin and getting
inside. Nothing followed, or nothing he could see.
That creature hadn’t been
afraid of him.
Ha, what was next, invisible dinosaurs? Wouldn’t put it past
them. Talk about adapting.

“What happened!” Ann, with anxious eyes, was at the
door waiting for them, and her hands eagerly gathered in the kitten. She
snuggled her, soothing the animal with gentle caresses. Danger and its close
call already forgotten, it began purring. Though not as loud as usual.

Breathless from his getaway, Henry blurted out, “Dinosaur…little
body, big teeth and claws…mean little sucker…out at the edge of the tree line. It
wanted Sasha for an hors d’oeuvre. The cat slipped out the front door somehow and
ran into the woods and practically into the creature’s jaws. I almost didn’t
get to her in time.”

“Poor little kitty,” Ann was murmuring endearments,
nuzzling the feline. “Poor Sasha. You’ve had quite a scare, little one, haven’t
you? That mean old monster tried to
eat
you. Bad monster! But daddy
saved you.” Ann looked up at Henry and bestowed on him a hero’s smile. “Daddy’s
so brave.”

“Daddy was so lucky, is what daddy was,” Henry
huffed, peeking out the front window through a slit in the curtains. But it was
too dark outside and he couldn’t see anything. A sudden blade of black, night had
descended. If the creature had returned and brought friends, he couldn’t see
them. But the thought made him uncomfortable.

There could be more of them out there. Oh boy.

“So there’s another one, huh?” Ann said.

“There’s another one.” Henry slumped down on the
couch and laid his gun carefully on the nearby coffee table.

“This changes everything again, doesn’t it?”

Henry nodded, rubbing his eyes and reclining against
the couch cushions. After a second or two he added, “None of us can go outside
any longer without keeping our eyes open and having protection. Weapons.”

“You going to shut down the park again now?”

“I don’t see where I have a choice. There are possible
Nessies in the lake and now a dinosaur kangaroo with big teeth and a nasty
attitude bopping around in the woods looking for snacks. Oh crap,” he muttered,
shaking his head. “I can’t believe the nightmare continues.”

It was at that moment Henry’s cell phone, attached
to his belt, rang. He put it to his ear and answered. It was his son-in-law
Justin.

“Wow, you must be psychic, son. I was just about to
call you.” Henry glanced up at Ann, whose expression alerted him she knew who
he was talking to.

She sat down beside him and the kitten jumped from
her arms to his lap. Settled there, promptly curled up and fell asleep. The cat
had already forgotten her recent close call or was too exhausted to keep her
eyes open. Oh, the blithe sleep of innocent tiny animals.

“I beat you to it,” Justin responded and plugged
onwards without taking a breath or giving Henry a chance to say anything else. “We’ve
got another dinosaur problem. A big one, too. You won’t believe what I’ve recently
discovered. I waited to call you until I was absolutely sure. Now I am. I know
you’re sick to death of dinosaurs encroaching in your life but this is going to
blow your mind. I know it did mine.”

Henry’s expression became distressed and his eyelids
lowered. He sighed. “Well, you give me your bad news and then I’ll give you
mine.”

“Oh, you have news, as well?”

“Yep. But you go first.”

“Remember when we smashed their eggs and exterminated
all those dinosaurs in the nest a couple of months ago and I thought some or
all of them were sick?”

“Yes?”

“Well, remember when I said that, ill or not,
diseased or not, I suspected there
might
be more…infestations…of the
creatures in other national parks similar to ours–in the future if not already?
You know, parks along the volcanic ridge that travels up the western North
American coast all the way to Washington state? Areas and wilderness reserves with
the same environmental conditions as we’ve had? Locations, like us, that have
been experiencing deep subterranean earthquakes which could be regurgitating
eggs, of various unknown species, that could be birthing more prehistoric
creatures?” A heavy pause.

“Yes?” Now Henry was getting nervous. Ann, sensing
his disquiet, was watching him. Waiting. Outside the night was silent. No
kangaroo dinosaur noises. No noises of any kind. Eerie quiet highlighting the
moment.

“Unfortunately, I’m afraid I might have been correct.”

Oh no. No, no, no.

Justin was forging on. “I’ve made contact,
telephone inquiries and emails, with a number of chief park rangers or
superintendents in Redwood, Yosemite, Death Valley, Sequoia National Park in
California, Great Basin, Spring Mountain Ranch State and Horseman’s Park in
Nevada and grilled them on any strange animal sightings they might have been
having recently. They’ve all had recent powerful earthquakes or a history of
them in the last decade.”

“And they actually told you if they had seen
something suspicious?” Henry was surprised.

“Well, not all of them and not in so many words
exactly….”

“What do you mean?” Henry only wanted Justin to
spit it out now and stop drawing out the suspense.

“Some of them got really odd sounding when they
were answering my questions. One or two cut me off quickly accusing me of being
a crackpot or an out-and-out nut. Some hung up on me the minute I mentioned
prehistoric beasts or dinosaurs.

“But two of them I somehow got through to and they
admitted, yes, some strange creatures were prowling their forests.

“One, Chief Ranger Witter from Redwood National
Park, finally broke down after I’d talked to him three times, sent him digital
pictures of our Hugo, and other irrefutable proof of our dinosaur experiences, and
admitted he and his men had hunted and actually bagged two bizarre looking
specimens in the last six months that
could
have been young dinosaurs.
Two. When he described them to me one of them sounded an awful lot like a young
Hugo before his wings had grown out but the other one didn’t sound like
anything we’ve come across yet. It was larger, had spines on its back and liked
the water. They disposed of the corpses but he took a couple of photos first.
He’s emailing me them later tonight.

“So…more species of dinosaurs are sprouting up. In
more locations. Just what I had hypothesized and feared. Sorry.”

Henry was in shock and had to remind himself to
breathe. This was his worst nightmare. A plague of dinosaurs all along the
American western seaboard. Birthing, breeding, growing. Spreading destruction.
Gobbling up all other creatures in sight. Damn, damn, damn.

“Henry, you still there? Henry?” Justin was
insisting on the other end, his voice sounding worried.

“I’m still here. Justin, what’s the worst case
scenario that we’re looking at? Be truthful.”

“I hate sounding like Chicken Little but the worst
consequence is that these creatures keep multiplying in many places and keep
spreading. Heaven knows where it would stop.”

“Heaven knows. A dinosaur apocalypse?” Henry was now
looking at Ann. Her face was wan, her eyes locked on his. She’d figured out
what he and Justin were talking about. Her reporter’s sixth sense. She picked
up the kitten and hugged her closer as if to protect her.

Henry knew dinosaurs brought back horrifying and
haunting memories to his wife. She’d lost friends in the dinosaur encounters.
They both had. And now there were more, suddenly appearing in different places.
Not a good thing at all.