Flyers (8 page)

CHAPTER 17

The waiting was the hardest. Eric and his mom stood behind Josh, who had used the computer in the corner of the communications room to call up a live news feed. Satellite cameras were being used to relay the crisis at the lagoon. The flyers were riled up and it was almost full dark. The park’s lights illuminated the scene.

The Pteranodons were going crazy, cawing wildly and circling the humans in the lagoon! Suddenly, they began to swoop in. One of the larger flyers reached down with its claws and plucked up a human. Then another swooped in, and another—

PTERANODON

Josh gasped, seeing that one of the people snatched was a dark-haired man in a blue shirt.

“Dad!” Josh yelled.

The screen suddenly went blank.

“They yanked the feed,” Amanda said in horror.

“We gotta go,” Josh said. “We gotta go now!”

“Alan hasn’t called with the signal,” Amanda said.

Josh rocked back in his chair, causing Eric and Amanda to jump out of his way as he darted to the control panel for the attraction’s many outdoor speakers. He flicked the on button and started the looped recording from Manly’s camera before Eric or Amanda could stop him.

CHAPTER 18

The sound came from the other side of the park. An angry, unmistakable hiss, a screeching, and a furious, frantic whipping of wings. It was low at first; then it rose, growing louder, moving from one part of their new domain to another.

Fire
cawww
ed with concern. His son was in trouble!

Dropping the human, he rose into the air. The feast was abandoned as Fire flew high, his mate right behind him. Lightning sounded frantic. The sounds moved and Fire soared, following them. Lightning was in trouble, Lightning was—

Lightning was at the lagoon.

BLACK PTERANODON

It was a trick! He doubled back and saw Keepers climbing onto the boats and flooding into the docks. His sons were clawing and attacking as many as they could, but some were getting away!

Screeching in rage, Fire led his mate and the Elder to the fray.

The Keepers would pay for this.

CHAPTER 19

“Hurry!” Alan commanded, fumbling with the fireworks.

“You hurry,” Manly said, his hands shaking as he primed a launcher.

Everything had happened too quickly. They weren’t ready. Why hadn’t Amanda waited for his signal?

Manly looked out the window. “They’re going crazy! Those people don’t stand a chance.”

Alan looked down at the stockpile of fireworks around them.

Grimly, he said, “Maybe they do.”

Eric ran through the darkness, the screams from the lagoon rising. Josh was ahead of him, Amanda behind. The chilly night wind sliced through them like icy daggers.

“Eric, we’ve got to get out!” Amanda yelled. “Eric!”

They were racing toward the lagoon. The flyers were overhead, diving down at the terrified horde of people trying to escape.

Suddenly, a deafening explosion came from five hundred yards off, and the shack where Alan and Manly had been disintegrated. Shards of wood and debris shot out over the lagoon as the fireworks ignited and a kaleidoscope of brilliant colors burst out. A curling, sparkling fire clawed at the night sky as streamers and rockets shot out in every direction!

“Alan,” Eric whispered, shocked so badly his legs nearly gave out beneath him.

Cawwhhrrr!

In their confusion and terror, the flyers fled from the lagoon, and waves of people lapped onto the boardwalk and sped toward the street that meant freedom.

“Dad!” Josh yelled. Not even Eric, only a dozen feet away, could hear the cry.

Some people had been clawed; many were hurt.

Josh saw a woman who had been in the water near his dad. Her blouse was covered with blood and she was terrified.

“That guy you were with,” Josh said as he grabbed her arm. “The guy in the blue shirt!”

She shook her head and tore herself away from him. “Let me go! They’re gonna get me, too!”

The woman was lost in the crowd.

Eric caught up to Josh. “We’ve got to go. We don’t have much time.”

“Why didn’t you do something?” Josh hollered.

A voice stopped him. “Josh?”

“Dad!” Josh yelled, racing toward the smiling man. His father was shivering and drenched. He grabbed Josh in a hug, then ran with him into the crowd.

Amanda snagged Eric’s arm. She pointed at the main thoroughfare. “Eric, the way out is this way. Come on, honey!”

Eric saw the female flyer soar away from her disoriented family, heading across the lagoon toward the open area housing Fievel’s Playland. A man in a flannel shirt ran after her.

Manly. If he was alive, Alan could be, too! They must have dived under the water before setting off the explosion!

But—why was Manly following the female? The other five Pteranodons flew higher and higher, the fireworks driving them away as they rocketed into the sky.

The other five. Six, total.

This time. The first time that they knew of.

Suddenly, it all became clear to Eric. He understood what Manly was up to and knew he had to stop him!

Manly knew he was risking his life as he raced after the female Pteranodon, but he no longer cared. The story was all that mattered. The bright, shining future he’d been chasing all his life was in his grasp—and he’d get it, no matter the cost.

The adult flyer settled down, wings flapping, near a small storage shed. The door was open, just a crack. Pitiful chirps and cries drifted out.

He’d been right. He stopped, drawing from his pockets the small bottle and the wide band of gauze he’d taken from the medical supplies.

“There weren’t six of you,” Manly whispered. “It was seven all along. That’s why we saw six of you total, but only five at any one time. You’ve got someone wounded, and one of you was always staying with the flyer in the shed. Until dinnertime, anyway. Then you were going to bring him back something to eat.”

The female spun on him, her great wings kicking up a breeze. She
cawww
ed and launched herself at him.

Manly responded with an athlete’s reflexes. He pitched the bottle right at the female’s face. It shattered and the female screamed as rubbing alcohol splattered in her eyes, blinding her. Manly snatched up a piece of debris that had fallen from the explosion in the lagoon and smacked her on the side of the head. She collapsed in a heap and he bent beside her, tying her beak closed with the gauze.

Rising triumphantly, he opened the door to the shed and peered inside. What he saw made him grin ear to ear.

“You are going to make me a fortune,” Manly said. “On tour, coming to your town, Manly Wilks and—”

A tap on the shoulder made him nearly jump out of his skin. He spun so fast that he never even saw the blow that sent him reeling to the ground and into complete darkness.

CHAPTER 20

Eric stared at the figure on the ground. “He’s out cold. How’d you do that?”

“Ah, he’s got a glass jaw,” Amanda said, rubbing her knuckles. “They always do when they’re that pretty.”

Eric looked inside and saw the shuddering, golden-winged flyer.

“He might be dangerous,” Amanda cautioned.

Eric shook his head. “He’s in too much pain. He looks like he’s been burned somehow.”

YOUNG PTERANODON

A sudden fluttering of wings startled the pair. Eric saw flyers coming in from every direction. One settled beside the downed female and tore off the gauze wrapped around her beak.

The others darted toward them.

Eric grabbed his mother’s arm and hauled her inside the shed.

Alan climbed up a pier, water draining from his clothes. The fireworks were over. Only a small pile of rubble was left where the fireworks shed had been.

He saw all the flyers gathering near another small shed and heard human voices. Stumbling on, he came to the shed just as shooters converged on the scene from all sides. SWAT teams. Local police. Army reservists.

Eric and Amanda were in the shed. Manly was on the ground, the wobbly female’s hind claw on his back.

“Don’t shoot!” Alan yelled. “There are people in the way.”

He looked inside, where Amanda and Eric were talking. She took off the small medical pouch she had strapped on in the first-aid station.

From within, she drew out a tube of burn cream and gently rubbed it on the wounded flyer’s wings.

The golden flyer eyed her curiously, with no fear, and chirped happily. The anesthetic in the cream immediately took away the pain.

“Dr. Grant, get out of the way,” the SWAT team leader said. “We know what we’re doing. We’ve got to neutralize the threat!”

“Really?” Alan asked. “They’re not doing anything. Which of you wants to take the shot that starts the bloody end of this? And I mean bloody. Which of you is so sure they can’t miss the flyers and hit those people? Which of you thinks you won’t just make them angry or scare them off so all this happens again another day?”

The mass of shooters edged around the scene uncomfortably.

Alan looked at the alpha male. “There’s another way. . . .”