Z. Rex

by Steve Cole

  The time had nudged past nine, and no sign of Hayden. “C’mon, c’mon. . . .”

  By nine-thirty, nerves were gnawing at Adam’s stomach like rats.

  By ten, he was getting angry. He’ll be here, Adam told himself, checking Dad’s mobile for the millionth time. Nothing’s happened to him. He’s just been delayed.

  So why hasn’t he called?

  Princes Street was busy with shoppers and tourists now. Adam wondered with envy what his friends were up to. School must start in a few days, he thought vaguely, and then sighed. Ordinary stuff like that, it all belonged to another life.

  He started worrying again about Zed. He hadn’t given a time when he’d be back; he hadn’t really given much thought to returning to Zed at all. He’d been focusing only on finding his dad again. And after all Dad must have been through, he couldn’t imagine he’d be keen on rushing to the waterfront to meet and greet the giant monster he’d half killed; the dinosaur who’d come here for revenge.

  At ten-thirty, stomach churning, Adam pulled out Hayden’s business card from his jeans pocket and decided to call. The mobile number went straight to voice mail.

  “Hello, it’s Adam. I’m waiting where we said. Please call when you can. Bye.”

  He waited another few minutes and tried Symtek’s offices. The familiar bored voice of Megan the Barbie receptionist came through loud and clear: “I’m afraid he’s out of the office today. Would you like to be put through to his voice mail?”

  “No, thanks. Are his, um, security people there?”

  “Who is this?”

  “Adam Adlar. I was in yesterday. I’m meant to be meeting him right now. Did he leave me any message?”

  “No. I don’t know about security. You can try him on his mobile.”

  “I have,” Adam mumbled, disconnecting. Perhaps Hayden had tried to call him while he’d been calling the office?

  No voice mail message appeared.

  When no one had arrived by eleven o’clock, Adam took a deep breath and resolved to walk up The Mound toward Lawnmarket for a look-see. It was one of many streets that formed the city’s ancient, cobbled backbone.

  Tramping along the pavement, Adam felt miserably apart from the bustle and blare of life around him. He entered the tourist Mecca of the Royal Mile, where the courtyards, landmarks and souvenir shops were packed together as tightly as the people.

  Picking a path through the crowds, Adam wondered what he was hoping to achieve. What was he going to do, knock on every door and hope he found the right place? And then what?

  But suddenly, one face resolved itself from out of the crowd, scarred and heavyset, bobbing toward him. Adam felt like a sheet of ice had hardened over his chest in a single breath.

  There was Frank Bateman, striding toward him.

  17

  LOST

  Adam ducked down behind a trash can, pretending to tie his shoelace with shaking hands, his mind racing. Bateman, the man who’d pushed a gun to Adam’s head and tried to slaughter Zed. He’d never wanted to see that big, scarred face again—nor that smug smile plastered all over it.

  The stocky security man wore a gray raincoat over his dark suit, pressing his paunch through the crowds, a man on a mission. Adam held his breath as the big man strode closer. The street was full of people; Bateman wouldn’t dare try anything here—would he?

  A few seconds later, Bateman had pushed past his hiding place, heading toward the castle.

  No, no, please, no. Don’t let him be the reason why Hayden hasn’t shown, Adam thought in dismay. Did Bateman follow me to Symtek and find out I’d asked Mr. Hayden for help?

  What’s he done to him?

  Adam dug his fingernails into his palms. He couldn’t face being plunged back into the nightmare without even the hope of a helping hand. If Bateman had got Hayden, what could Adam do now?

  Follow Bateman. He’ll know where Dad is.

  Even before the thought had fully formed, Adam was getting to his feet. He turned and started to follow the man’s broad, gray back along the street.

  Bateman ducked inside a narrow alleyway that led into a gloomy but well-tended courtyard, with ornamental urns ringing clean cobblestones. Adam watched the big man stride to his left, over to an old building studded with different shades of blackened brick, and climb the staircase to the door at the top.

  Bateman knocked on the door. A petite black woman in gray trousers and a white roll-neck top opened up.

  “Hey, Sammy,” Bateman drawled loudly, as she stood aside to let him through.

  “She’s Sam Josephs?” Adam breathed, shrinking back into the cover of the alley. She looked so ordinary there on her doorstep, her straightened hair pulled back in a ponytail, holding a coffee mug in one hand. Someone you wouldn’t look at twice. That’s how she gets away with doing what she does, he supposed. By not standing out.

  He watched Josephs take a swig from her mug. “Is our business taken care of?” she asked in a clear English accent.

  “Smooth as clockwork. . . .” Bateman’s gloating voice was bitten off by the slam of the door behind him.

  Is it, now? Adam turned and retreated back down the alleyway. I’ll have to see what I can do about that.

  He turned back onto the main street, his mind racing. Whatever Dad said, I’ve got to go to the police, he thought. But if he did, what evidence could he show them? He’d given all the files to Hayden; they could be anywhere. . . .

  I’ll ask Zed, Adam decided, heading back down the winding slope of The Mound. If he could sniff out an apartment in New Mexico all the way from Utah, maybe he can sniff out those files—before someone else grabs them.

  He broke into a run, feet slapping down hard on the pavement, arms like pistons jerking back and forth, hands karate-chopping the air. He cut a swathe through the armies of tourists, locals and festivalgoers who swarmed the city in search of amusement, barging people aside, ignoring the foul language thrown his way as he raced back to where he’d left his bike. There were plenty of people hanging out in the gothic shadow of the Scott Monument, and as he stopped for breath he couldn’t resist a final, longing look to be certain that Hayden wasn’t one of them, that he’d got the times wrong, that—

  “Forget it,” he muttered, turning his back on the monument and racing up St. David Street. But his way was blocked by a small mob of onlookers, gawping at the turning onto Rose Street opposite. There was an ambulance and a cop car parked there, and a group of policemen were standing outside one of the front doors and keeping back the curious crowds. Maybe it’s Hayden, thought Adam, with a jolt. He could have had an accident on his way here, or . . .

  He pushed past the morbid onlookers to see a pale young woman in bloodstained clothes being brought out on a stretcher by paramedics and eased into the back of an ambulance.

  “Is she all right?” an old woman wondered.

  “Blood loss, they say,” a sharp-nosed man told her. “That and shock. Neighbor found her hiding under the bed, blood everywhere, babbling that she’d been attacked in the street and it was still after her.”

  Adam felt a smack of alarm. There were huge gouge marks in the wall beside the door. Marks that could have been made by giant claws.

  The old dear sighed. “These kids nowadays, with their knives—”

  “Kids?” The man smirked. “The girl said it was a dragon!”

  “What?” Adam demanded, pushing his way forward.

  “That’s what she said,” the man insisted, glancing at Adam. “I heard the police radio their station. A dragon that turned invisible, if you please. . . .”

  The woman was wide-eyed. “It must have been the wild animal that escaped, the same one that killed those poor horses. It was on the news last night—torn apart, they were.”

  Adam turned and walked unsteadily back toward the bike racks in the square, a sick feeling building in his stomach as he remembered Zed’s feverish behavior the night before, the blood on his lips this morning. . . .

  So
much for my last hope. Adam turned and ran back toward the square.

  He wanted to keep running and never stop.

  Zed’s been ill, Adam reminded himself, pedaling hell for leather through the smart boxy terraces of Warriston on his bike. He must have attacked that woman when he went out looking for water. . . .

  But a part of him wouldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe it.

  Maybe it was an accident, Adam decided. If he’d wanted to kill someone, he would have, just like he did at Fort Ponil. He was killing anything that moved millions of years before the first humans came along.

  He thought of the huge gouge marks in the wall, gritted his teeth and pedaled harder, skimming past the traffic queuing to turn left onto the main road.

  As he skidded to a halt on the stretch of weed-strewn concrete outside the warehouse, Adam braced himself for another confrontation. Zed had shown no sign of being violent that morning, but his mood swings seemed to be getting worse. Panting from his exertions, Adam approached the fire doors and pushed them open.

  But the warehouse was dark and empty.

  As his eyes grew accustomed to the gray light scattered through the filthy windows, he saw fresh markings on the wall. A chill plowed through him as he deciphered the letters gouged crudely into the old brickwork.

  GET DAD NOW

  “Oh, no. . . .” Adam rushed back to the fire doors, sent them crashing open. “Zed!” he screamed, staring wildly all around as the echoes cracked across the abandoned warehouse yard. “Zed, where are you? ZED!”

  There was no sign of the dinosaur. No sign of any violence. Nothing. Adam sank to the ground, sweaty and exhausted from the mad ride over. Scared now half to death, his throat raw from shouting, he forced himself to calm down. “Reason it out,” Adam muttered fiercely, just the kind of thing his dad would’ve told him.

  Why would Zed have left a message? Was it a kind of warning, a declaration of triumph? Who knew how Zed’s smashed-up mind worked?

  “I’m not giving up on you, Dad,” Adam promised. “Not till I’ve found you.” The house in Lawnmarket had still been standing half an hour ago. But now . . . ?

  Adam got up and retrieved his bike. He cycled away through the stiff breeze that was building, the bike’s wheels bumping over the cracked concrete. As he pulled out onto the shore road he almost ran into a huge white truck coming the other way. Steady, he thought. No use killing yourself.

  A shiver passed over him. Not when there’s a deranged dinosaur on the loose who can do it for you.

  The day passed for Adam in slow, exhausted confusion, wondering where Zed was, and what the message had meant. Most of all he wrestled with the question of what he was going to do now that Hayden had failed to show up.

  He watched the Lawnmarket apartment for hours. Zed did not come calling, and no one else came or went. Adam even risked a trip to his own apartment. But nothing seemed to have changed since the last time he’d been there.

  Midafternoon, in desperation, he cycled back to the BioQuarter and tried to get into Symtek.

  “Mr. Hayden’s still out,” Megan informed him as soon as he came through the door.

  “Could I wait for him in his office?” Adam asked hopefully.

  She shook her head. “I’m sorry. Maybe you could try again tomorrow.”

  Adam decided to try again right now. “I, er, think I left something there, see. I had some files with me. . . .”

  “There’s nothing in the office. Mr. Hayden always clears his desk.”

  “Well, did he ask you to do any photocopying yesterday?”

  “No.”

  Adam pressed his hands together. “Could I just check in there quickly? It’s so important. Honest. You can even come with me. I might need to show what’s in there to the police.”

  Megan’s pretty face softened just a touch. “No exceptions, I’m afraid. We deal in highly sensitive data here—”

  “I know. That’s why your boss could be in big trouble,” Adam told her, his frustration growing. “Look, if he doesn’t come to work tomorrow, if you can’t get hold of him, maybe you’ll believe me then.”

  The hard mask came down again. “Would you go now, please?” Megan asked coldly.

  “You don’t understand how important this is!” Adam could hear how ridiculous he must sound but he couldn’t help it. “First my dad went missing, now Mr. Hayden—”

  “I don’t want to have to call security,” she interrupted, lifting the receiver.

  “What if they’re missing too?” Adam challenged her. Then, realizing he was getting nowhere with this approach, he turned and stormed out.

  He sat on a bench and tried to cool down. The wind made it easier; it was gusty and stupidly cold for August.

  Almost out of ideas now, Adam decided to try Mr. Hayden’s address in St. Leonards. He checked it in his dad’s phone. Though he didn’t know anything about Hayden’s family life, he decided he might as well call in—if he couldn’t find the files, even if no one was home, he might at least find some clue as to what happened to him.

  He cycled over, knowing this was about his final shot at getting something cast-iron to take to the police. Something they’d have to act on.

  Hayden lived in a luxury town house on the edge of Holyrood Park. The barren sweep of the Salisbury Crags rose starkly from a steep slope of green, like fortified walls guarding Arthur’s Seat beyond.

  Adam tried the door but there was no reply. The place was shut up as tight as a tomb. He tried reaching in through the mailbox to get to the latch, but found it was hopeless.

  How about a window, he thought. But a large metal casing high on the wall declared the place to be alarmed.

  It was after nine o’clock by now, and the slow-falling night was painting the cliffs with ominous shadows. Sick of hanging around, Adam suddenly realized he’d eaten nothing all day. He spent the last of his money on a bag of chips from a convenience store, then cycled into a nearby park, carried his bike up a set of concrete steps and sat down in a quiet copse, chewing mechanically, trying to figure out his next move. There was no sound save for the wind rustling the leaves and distant dance music pumping from somewhere behind the tree line.

  And then Adam heard an earth-shaking boom like thunder. Or like a bomb going off. “What the . . . ?” A sudden, distant gale of sound blew across the twilight, eerie and high-pitched. It reminded him of something. . . .

  Like when you’re at a theme park not far from the really killer roller coaster, and everyone on it is screaming.

  Alarm tingling across his skin, Adam scrambled toward the top of the rise to get a better view. Yes, it was definitely screaming he could hear, coming from the city center to the west. And as he staggered up, another thundering crash cracked apart the night around him.

  He stood and gaped. And suddenly understood the screaming.

  Because Edinburgh Castle was falling down.

  Far across the rooftops, bathed in orange floodlights, that formidable, ancient pile was crumbling like chalk over the craggy ancient rock it stood upon. Adam flinched as a turret seemed to explode under two great impacts, a huge spray of debris arcing through the air. He watched, stunned and disbelieving, as history was demolished before his eyes.

  A poisonous-looking cloud of dust was thickening in the orange lights. Through it, just for a second, Adam caught the barest details of a giant, dramatic shape sweeping through the air, barely visible unless you knew what you were looking for. A hunched, reptilian back. Vast wings extended. A thick tail smashing chunks from the battlements, deadly rain to crush the shrieking spectators who must be gathered below.

  “Zed!” he screamed, as a bloodlusting bellow railed out into the night.

  18

  CARNAGE

  An ancient wall bulged and bowed, then blew apart. Even from this distance, Adam flinched. It was like watching stone fireworks explode in the face of the on-looking crowds. A hollow rattle rose above the crumble of ruined stone—gunfire. There were soldiers at
the castle for all the ceremonies. Perhaps a few had glimpsed that vast shimmer on the air, heard the exultant roar, and were trying to fight back.

  The gunfire soon stopped, buried by still louder crashes.

  And it’s Zed, thought Adam. He’s cracked.

  He’s killing.

  The words GET DAD NOW rang in Adam’s brain. He grabbed his bike and set off for the road at a stumbling run. The castle was maybe a mile away. . . .

  Reaching a wide, tree-lined avenue, he swung himself onto the seat and started pedaling. A police van streaked past, pursued by two fire engines, a deafening chorus of sirens. He passed people crowding together for comfort as they watched that indelible chunk of the skyline being clawed away. Helicopters swept overhead, making for the castle—police, film crews. Adam guessed that soon the skies would be thick with them. He crossed the road and took a left into a tall-walled canyon of buildings. Another police car bombed by, twinned with an ambulance this time. More helicopters buzzed above.

  And a shadow fell over him.

  The next instant, a car across the street buckled flat with a scrunch of steel as violent as any explosion. Adam swerved and lost control of his bike. He tumbled onto the pavement and slammed against a large, black salt bin. Winded, he turned, wide-eyed with fear.

  Zed was striding toward him.

  “Get back!” Adam shouted, cowering behind the bin. “Get away from me!”

  But Zed smacked the huge plastic bin aside with a single swipe of his tail and lunged forward. His dark eyes were wild, his jaws flecked with foam.

  Suddenly a woman’s shriek, arrow-sharp, pierced the night. A small crowd had gathered over on Nicolson Street, and they’d spotted the monster. Before Adam could react, Zed snatched him up and took off into the night sky, switching to chameleon mode so he seemed to vanish, a dark bruise moving over the face of the night.