Dinosaur Lake (36 page)

“Greer!
” Henry wailed in despair. “I’ll save you!”

Henry heard the other man shrieking over the chaos; crying for Henry to fire, not to worry what happened to him.
Kill it,
Greer screamed.

But it had him! Henry couldn’t fire another rocket while it had Greer in its clutches. The ranger stood there, indecisive, horrified at the awful turn of events.

“I’m a dead man, so kill it…kill
–” Greer’s agonized plea dissolved into a gurgling death rattle.

“Do as he says, Henry. Shoot! Kill it now!” Henry heard Justin begging from behind him. “The cave floor is ripping open. We have to get to the Big Rover or we’re all dead.”

Justin stumbled across the quivering ground to collect Francis as Henry glanced at the crack in the cave’s floor. It was a chasm full of bubbling lava and fire yawning deeper and wider, rippling into thousands of smaller fissures, spreading and widening towards them. Tearing the cavern floor apart. Soon there’d be no cave, just molten lava and boiling water.

Henry experienced a terrible loss, as he accepted Greer’s death and perhaps his own. No way were they going to get out of this mess alive. Any of them. But he could kill the beast and rid the world forever of its threat. He could do that.

Henry turned and fired straight into the creature’s mouth.

That’d surely kill it. But he didn’t have time to cheer. Greer was dying.

In the illumination of the collapsing chamber Henry had a last look at his captured friend. Held high and impaled on the monster’s claws, Greer was something bloody and mangled that barely resembled a human being any longer. But the man was beyond pain, his body limp in the monster’s embrace.

Phosphorus from the rockets had lodged deep in the monster’s flesh and glowed in circles of glittering fire. Still it stood, unwilling to die. Unwilling to go away.

Grabbing for him now.

He was out of rockets and fated, too, for the monster’s jaws, as Greer before him. There was nowhere to run. A ravine was gaping open behind him. The monster in front.

He shut his eyes, prepared to die, his last thoughts on Ann and the love he had for her. On his daughter and granddaughter. He opened his eyes when nothing happened.

Before him the monster bellowed in outrage and defeat as the spreading crevasse behind Henry zipped around him, leaving him safe on a small island of earth, and opened up beneath the creature instead. Its bulk toppled into the precipice and into flaming oblivion.

Henry stood there, smoking launcher in hand, staring in shock at the abyss around him, feet away, and at where his enemy had just been and was no more.

“I’ll be damned,” he swore. Nature, in its own way, had taken care of its mutant creation. As if the earth had realized it’d spawned an unnatural creature out of its time and had simply, finally, stepped in to rectify the problem.

“I’ll be damned,” Henry exclaimed again.

Justin was beside him. He’d seen what had happened and was grinning like a happy kid.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” he shouted. Francis was in Justin’s arms. He was strong for such a thin person, Henry thought, as he nodded, speech beyond him, and helped carry the wounded man into the water.

Together, Henry and Justin, with a still unconscious Francis between them, made their slow swim to the sub, which was rocking wildly in the water. Justin didn’t sink once. He was swimming. Amazing how necessity forced people to do things they never thought they could or things they were terrified of doing. Justin’s courage rose to the occasion.

They’d left the packs and the grenade launcher behind.

As they crawled into the sub, Henry stole a last look at the cavern they were leaving behind. But it was already gone, as was most of the cave probably. Nothing remained but a quivering pile of smoldering rock sinking into the water and vanishing before his eyes as he shut the hatch. The Big Rover shifted in the water. It was so hot he could barely breathe. Time to go.

Justin maintained later they’d fled the place in the nick of time. Active lava erupting from the disintegrating cave would have fried them alive, or the catapulting rocks would have smashed them, if they wouldn’t have left when they did. Seconds away from death.

Henry was unsteady operating the submersible alone and he was worried about Francis, who’d not yet regained consciousness. He felt awful about Greer, his emotions unable to grasp the circumstances of the man’s death or the knowledge that he could have, should have saved him; not let him die that way. While his mind told him nothing could have saved Greer. He’d done all he could have done, and that gave him some relief. Still he grieved for the man and the new friendship he’d lost, on the heels of losing his best friend, George, so recently as well.

But, at least, he’d returned with three alive and the creature was dead. Gone forever.

The lake was seething and roiling from the earthquake, but Henry got the sub going in the right direction and somehow coaxed the crippled machine into the main part of the lake.

Once within range of the shore, working the radio, he called for backup and aid. So there were people at the dock by the time they arrived to talk him in and to take care of Francis, who was rushed to the hospital. Henry was thankful he was going to live. The pilot had a concussion, but would recover.

The first question Superintendent Sorrelson asked as Henry and Justin pulled Francis’s limp body from the Big Rover was, “There was four of you? Where’s Greer?” Sorrelson was angry no one had cleared the mission through him, but there were too many reporters around snapping pictures and writing down everything said, that he had to put on a happy face no matter how upset he was. As a rising politician, bad publicity was something he had to avoid.

“He didn’t make it.” Then Henry’s grimy face glanced towards a frantic Dr. Harris, who’d been grilling Justin about the safety of his beloved dinosaur and who’d just heard it, too, was no more. “Your precious monster ate him alive, before the earthquake ate it.”

Harris’s expression was horrified…for the dinosaur’s demise.

Henry turned away from the senior paleontologist in disgust as soon as the man began railing about how unacceptable it was that such a wondrous, unique creature had been allowed to expire. Not a word of sympathy for Greer’s death, or spoken relief that the other three men had made it back alive. All Harris cared about was now there was no longer a prehistoric animal to capture and make him famous.

None of Harris’s bitching mattered because the monster was dead. In Henry’s heart, he knew it had to be. And he was ecstatic it’d never harm or kill another human being.

Everyone else, Patterson included, said it had been a miracle they’d come through the terrible earthquake, which had been an eight pointer easy and had centered under the caldera itself, must less escaped the monster. There’d been massive damage done to areas in the park as well as to the nearby towns, Henry’s rangers reported. There was a lot of clean-up to do.

Patterson was the only other one who knew the truth about their mission. He was the only one Henry informed that they’d fired rockets into the beast before the fissure swallowed it. That they’d dealt with the monster before the earthquake had finished it off. Patterson had congratulated Henry, but he grieved for his friend’s death.

Henry told everyone else, Dr. Harris, Sorrelson and the reporters, the earthquake had destroyed the creature, and left it at that. A half-truth. Why get in any more trouble than he already was? He wasn’t a fool. He liked his job too much to put it at risk, if he didn’t have to.

The creature was gone, that was all that mattered.

“Too bad, that the beastie had to die that way, huh? Such a rare animal. Truly a shame,” Patterson had commented to Henry and Justin, with a sarcastic grin, playing along in front of a raving Harris. It’d killed his friend, too. So good riddance to it. It’d gotten what it deserved.

“Yeah, too bad,” Henry had expressed mockingly.

Justin was heard to say, “Dr. Harris, all is not lost. There’s still the buried fossils at the dig. You can’t forget how great a discovery they are.”

But Harris wouldn’t be consoled. “I’m demanding a full investigation of this. You’re hiding something,” he’d blustered, jumping about like a mad scientist on acid.

Justin threw up his hands. As Henry, he was exhausted to the bone and hungry. He only desired to get away from the clamoring people and the questions and find some peace with those he loved.

Henry said as little as he could about where they’d been and what they’d been doing in the Big Rover to the reporters, all greedy for information and photos. He’d decided to save the real story for Ann and the Klamath Falls Journal. That story and the video should do it.

“You want a ride into town?” Henry asked Justin, as they walked away from the crowd, after promising Sorrelson he’d have a written account of every move they’d made the last week, doctored of course, in the man’s hands as soon as possible. As bleary-headed and used up as Henry felt, more than anything he wanted to see his wife and his family. It seemed a century since Henry had last seen Ann’s smile and had had her in his arms. He assumed Justin wanted to see Laura and Phoebe in the same desperate way.

“Sure.”

The two men got Patterson to drive them to the lodge, which had become a temporary ranger headquarters until a new one could be built, and Henry called his wife. She was really happy to hear from him. Ecstatic, in fact.

Then, with dragging steps, they found their way to Greer’s old car, climbed in, and fighting the whole way to stay awake, Henry somehow got them to Zeke’s house where two women were very glad to see them.

Justin and Laura were married at the end of the summer, soon after Laura, with her father’s help, located Chad and received a no fault divorce, and earned her high school diploma. Justin’s mother, father, and a sister he’d never met, attended the wedding in Ann and Henry’s cabin, content to have found their son and eager to resume a relationship with him and his new family. Justin and his parents made peace with each other. In fact, they turned out to be nice people and Henry and Ann ended up liking them much more than they’d thought. Apparently, time had wrought some changes in all of them, not only Justin.

Henry had observed his new son-in-law with his parents. Justin’s father had beamed with pride over what Justin had become and over his heroism at Crater Lake. And Justin, happier than he’d ever seen him, ate it up. Ann said the shadow she’d seen lurking over the boy was gone.

After the wedding, Justin and Laura remained in the park because Justin was working at the dig and busy writing a scientific paper on it and the fantastic discoveries they were uncovering. Later, if Justin had to travel for his job, Laura and Phoebe would go with him. But for now, they were happy where they were and Justin expected them to stay in their cozy new little cabin in the woods for a long time. The dig was turning out to be even more important than anyone had expected. There was lots of work to do.

Laura had liked school so much she’d decided to keep going at a community college.

Justin encouraged her and both of them seemed happy.

Laura considered her father and Justin heroes. They’d rid the park and the world of a terrible monster and had come out alive. And all the surrounding towns thought they were heroes, too, since Ann’s prize-winning series of stories on the
“Summer of the Monster”
, had run, though some crucial parts of the story had been left out. Ann had hinted between the lines enough for most people to glean what really happened in the cave, without incriminating her husband and jeopardizing his job. Everyone was a winner.

And the infamous video had become a phenomenon. The monster, in vivid living color lived and breathed on it for the world to see and exclaim in horror over. The five minute tape had been run on every station for weeks. It was everywhere. Photographic stills had been captured and had been printed in every newspaper in the world. All over the web. Even
The National Inquirer
. The residuals had been huge. Ann had taken the money and stashed it in the bank, for Laura’s college and for their retirement someday. The amount was still growing.

The video, the stories and the fossil site made Crater Lake Park even more famous world-wide. The tourists flocked to see where the adventure had taken place, to see where the only known living dinosaur had lived and died. Someone was even dedicating a museum to the dead prehistoric beast in the park. Next spring the park would boast a life-size replica of the dinosaur in its own building complex along with movies and a written history recreating the legend. Crater Lake Park had become Dinosaur Park. Crater Lake, Dinosaur Lake. Everyone wanted Henry to give daily oral recounts of his fateful trip into the fiery bowels of the underwater cavern as they’d tracked down the fiendish predator. They’d offered him a lot of money.

Ha,
Henry had put his foot down,
leave me out of all that
. That memorial was one place he wouldn’t be wandering in too soon. Who needed to see a fake? He’d seen too much of the real thing when it’d been alive.

Now that the voracious beast was dead, they were making a damn money-making legend out of it. People!

At least Ann’s articles had taken the heat off Henry and his men when the army had rolled in the day after Dr. Harris had pressured his politician friend to deploy them, unwilling to accept that the creature was truly dead. The soldiers had swarmed over the lake area and park for days searching for the monster. Of course they never found it. Eventually, that and the printed stories convinced the army the creature had expired in the great earthquake and they moved out, after they’d helped clean up and rebuild the destruction from the earthquake. In fact, the army helped a great deal, even Henry had to admit, and he’d been grateful, as had been the nearby towns.

Dr. Harris had wanted Henry fired, suspecting he’d been the cause of the creature’s death all along, but Sorrelson and the park authorities had refused to prosecute a national media hero and Henry kept his job.

No one else except Justin, a recovered Francis, and Henry, would ever know about the destroyed dinosaur eggs or that other amazing wall of frozen dinosaurs inside the caves. Justin joked that Dr. Harris would have a heart attack if he knew about either of them. So no one would ever tell him.

The weeks went by and the horror of that fateful expedition faded a little in Henry’s mind. The nightmares stopped after a while. But he often thought of the four of them in their awkward cave gear bravely stumbling through those hot caves and fighting the good fight. Slowly, he even grew to cherish some of the memories. Justin had been right. It’d been an adventure of a lifetime. Nothing, Henry was sure, would ever top it. Not that he wanted anything to, he was ready for the quiet life with Ann in his beloved park, for as long as he had left.

The summer had been a nightmare and he was grateful to have it behind him.

He and Ann were happy. She never forgot she’d almost lost him forever. Or that she herself was lucky to be alive. It’d made their lives more precious.

He was getting ready to go on duty; had been heading out the door one fall morning when the phone rang. In uniform and grinning, he felt like the old Henry. Ann said he was the old Henry and she was glad to see him back, too.

“The kids are coming over for supper tonight,” Ann said.

“Again?” Henry teased. “Isn’t that the third time this week?”

“Well, yes. But Justin loves my cooking.”

“Don’t I know it.”

“Laura wants to talk about her new college classes. Justin says he has some more pages of the book he’s thinking of writing on the dinosaur to show you. You don’t mind do you, honey?”

Henry stood by the table, his hand on the back of his recently vacated chair. He leaned over and gave his wife a soft kiss on the lips. “No, you know I don’t mind. I love having them over. You know that. Anytime.” He was also thinking about challenging Justin to another chess game. That kid was always beating him and Henry was sure this time he’d figured out the strategy that would give him the match for once.

“Good. They’ll be here at seven. Don’t be late, sweetheart.”

“What are we having?”

“Fried chicken. Justin loves my chicken.”

Henry laughed. He loved Ann’s chicken, too, and gave his wife a goodbye hug and a lingering kiss. “I’d better get going. I have an early meeting with Sorrelson. He’s letting me hire four new rangers. Isn’t that great? The increase in tourists are running us ragged. We need the extra help. He says we’ve got the funds, no sweat. We’re getting the new bigger ranger headquarters and anything else we want, as well. He’ll approve any budget I put in front of him.”

“That’s great, honey. The summer wasn’t for nothing, then, was it?” Ann’s voice was gentle, though.

“No,” Henry answered, but couldn’t keep the touch of melancholy out of his voice. Every time his thoughts touched on the summer, he remembered George, Lassen, Greer, and the other deaths. It’d always made him sad.

“See you tonight, honey,” he said. “Have a good day at the paper.”

And he knew she would.

***

Ann walked him to the door and stepped out on the porch to watch him get in his new jeep and drive away.

She didn’t go back in the house immediately, but settled down on the swing to enjoy the sweetness of the autumn woods around the house. Summer was over. There was snow expected tonight, a lot of snow, though it was only late September. She hoped she’d be home snug in front of a fire long before the white stuff started. Her husband warm by her side. She smiled wistfully. Everything was back to normal. Almost.

She went back into the house and got ready to go to work. All the publicity from the monster, the exclusive video, had saved the Klamath Falls Journal. The circulation had gone through the roof as they’d hoped. In the beginning, people heard about the monster on the evening news and wanted to know more. For a while the only place to read more about the doomed dinosaur was in the Klamath Falls Journal.

Then after Ann was sure the paper was back on its feet, she’d sold the story and the video to larger newspapers across the country. She’d received amazing employment offers from three of those newspapers and turned them down. Zeke needed her. And she liked her life the way it was. Comfortable as an old shoe. In the park with her husband and her family. That’s where she wanted to spend the rest of her days. No more excitement.

She thought about George Redcrow often. She hadn’t known Greer as well, so George was the one she missed. He was the one, after all, who’d saved her life and had been her friend. He’d been in her stories, a remembered hero, like Lassen and Greer.

She’d had guilt over George to work through. At first she’d blamed herself.

If she wouldn’t have gone out there that day to get a story and pictures, he’d still be alive. If she would have moved quicker. Yelled, grabbed at him, or something. Done something other than what she’d done.

Eventually Henry and Justin had convinced her he might have died anyway, whether she’d been there or not. Many men had died that day. George had been on duty; he’d been a ranger. It wasn’t her fault. But, in the end, it’d been what Henry had confided in her late one night when he’d caught her weeping behind the bathroom door that had finally healed her blue heart. He’d said if George would have had a choice of a way to die, he would have picked that way, doing his job, being a hero, while saving a friend. George had admired Ann. Liked her. Known how much Henry had loved her. He hadn’t died a useless death. He’d saved another’s life and in doing that other’s lives as well. That would have made him happy.

And George had confessed to Henry he’d dreaded getting old and ending up a human vegetable in a lonely nursing home. With no relatives, wife, or children that was what he’d feared it would come to some day. Maybe she’d saved him from that indignity.

After she’d gotten enough of the wood’s beauty, Ann went to work, smiling, her thoughts on her husband. She knew she’d almost lost him and these days their marriage had a special poignancy. They were newlyweds all over again.

***

At the same moment, Henry, sitting on a rock overlooking Crater Lake from the rim and killing time until his meeting with Sorrelson, wasn’t thinking about his wife. Not at that moment, anyway.

He was staring out at the water as he’d done every day since the monster had been swallowed by the earth below the lake.

Half of him still expected the creature to suddenly emerge from the water and resume its rampage. The other half was sure it was dead, stuffed and rotting in the earth’s reclosed fissure deep under the lake.

The earthquake, which had been officially a 8.2 on the Richter scale, hadn’t noticeably damaged the caldera or the land around it. Though it had transformed the underwater terrain, geologists believed, collapsing many of the lava tunnels and caves beneath the lake. Maybe all the underwater caves were now gone or closed off. Henry prayed they were, because when he thought about that underwater cave they’d been in he saw again the piles of human bones and the eggs waiting to hatch. If the caves had collapsed, there’d never be any more eggs. Never be another creature.

But he often wondered…were there more of those eggs somewhere under the lake in a cave even now, incubating, waiting to hatch? Ready to birth more potential monsters that would terrorize humanity?

It was something he didn’t want to dwell on too long. It gave him the willies.

Things were finally back to the way they’d been, and he’d be the first one to admit, he’d never been so glad to see those nosy, noisy park visitors as he was when the park had reopened. Routine was comforting.

If only they wouldn’t all pester him about telling the tales of the dinosaur. He hated reliving it so much. Oh, well, nothing was perfect, was it?

Laughter played on the air off to his right, gulls called to each other over the lake as a chill breeze ruffled his hair. He appreciated the beautiful fall day. It was sweet to be alive.

Henry sighed as he watched the tour boats putter across the water far below. The old boys were back, as were the locals and the workers in the restaurants and shops. It was good to have the park full of people again.

The homeless had returned to their original camp. Now it was Henry and Ann who took them supplies and helped them when they could. With the newspaper’s help, Ann had found some of them jobs. It was the least she could do for George. She’d written heart-tugging stories about them, as well, and people sent in money, clothes and food. There’d been enough money so some of the families had been moved to modest houses in town. Ann had become dedicated to the cause and it made her happy to help.

George would have been proud of her.

It was downright cold today, Henry thought. The metallic odors of winter were already in the air, crisp and tangy. He’d had to wear a jacket, and he pulled the collar up tighter around his bare skin. Never should have gotten that haircut. He missed the warmth on his neck. He’d need gloves by the time he went off duty if the temperature kept falling. The skies above were filled with puffy, fat grayish clouds he recognized well enough. Snow was coming. The water mirrored the sky’s grayness. The water wasn’t crystal blue today, the way George had liked it.