At once, everyone started to smash the lights. Soon, the rear monorail car was dark.
Darius slid open the door that connected the rear car to the one in front of it. Wind hit his face as he stepped through the narrow corridor into the car.
“Brooklynn! You’re with Yaz,” he directed. “Sammy, help Ben and Bumpy across!”
The Pteranodons had almost reached the monorail as Darius and the others ran, smashing lights along the way. Everyone had made it into the next car. Sammy looked out the window and gasped. There was a stopped monorail on the tracks. Not just stopped, though. Destroyed. Pteranodons attacked it like it was some pitiful, wounded animal.
“At least now we know what that boom was earlier,” Sammy said.
“If we don’t switch tracks or stop this car right now, we’re going to hit that thing, full speed!” Darius said.
Kenji pointed to the door ahead. “The front car—there’s control panels there! VIP tour—I was eight, they let me drive!”
Darius ran to the door, but it wouldn’t open. “No, no, no!” Darius said, rattling the handle, trying to force it open. The other kids joined him, but it was no use.
Kenji tried to smash the window, but that wouldn’t break.
Darius peered through the window into the car. He saw the control panel, and then something caught his eye. There was a small emergency hatch just above the panel. His eyes drifted back into the car he was in, and Darius saw a similar small hatch in the ceiling above him.
Pointing to the hatch, he said, “I’m gonna get to the control car through there.”
“You can’t go there!” Kenji said. “That’s where the flying whatevers are!”
“We don’t have a choice! Me and—”
Darius looked at Ben, the only other person who could possibly fit through the hatch. Ben was cowering.
“I’m the only one who can fit!”
BAM! The monorail suddenly shook.
Ben comforted a whimpering Bumpy, and he looked at the frightened kids around him.
“Distract the flock while I crawl over the top to the control car,” Darius said. “Use the flashlights, just keep them away from—”
All eyes suddenly turned to see Ben’s legs as he disappeared through the hatch.
“Ben!” Darius shouted out the hatch. “Ben, what are you doing?”
He reached his hand out, but Ben refused. “I can do this! Just distract them!”
Ben turned and saw a Pteranodon flying right in his direction. Darius ducked back into the car. “Come on! We have to keep them away from Ben!”
The kids ran to different windows of the monorail, each person armed with an emergency flashlight they had grabbed from the monorail cars. They started waving the flashlights out the windows, the bright lights distracting the Pteranodon bearing down on Ben.
The creature suddenly changed course, no longer going after Ben.
It was coming after them.
Atop the monorail, Ben wobbled, unsteady. The wind whipped at him, and he struggled to hang on. He crawled ahead, slowly making his way toward the control car hatch.
Closing his eyes, Ben took a deep, long breath.
“I can do this,” he said to himself. “I can do this!”
Inching closer and closer along the roof of the monorail, Ben at last reached the hatch. He pushed hard on the latch, and it opened with a loud POP.
He drew himself toward the hatch and jumped inside the control car.
The control panel was completely confusing, row upon row of lights and buttons. Ben had no idea what was connected to what or what did what or anything.
The only thing he understood was a photograph of a younger Kenji that had been attached to the dashboard with the words BANNED FROM MONORAIL TOURS written beneath it.
Ben started to randomly press buttons. He could hear the Pteranodons outside, slamming into the monorail’s back cars. Then he put his hand on a lever and pulled it. Suddenly, the monorail veered to the left, switching over to a new track.
The monorail shook as the rear car clipped the stopped train and flew off the tracks. Ben looked out the window as he heard an explosion below. Ben could no longer hear the Pteranodons outside—they must have been distracted by the explosion!
Behind him, the other kids started hammering on the window and chanting, “BEN! BEN! BEN!”
Ben pressed the button opening the door between the control car and the one behind it.
“You saved us, Ben!” Darius said proudly. “I didn’t know you had it in—”
Before Darius could finish his sentence, a Pteranodon smashed through the window of the control car. It grabbed Ben and dragged him out of the car.
* * *
The Pteranodon dropped Ben, and he was now dangling out of the monorail as Darius reached through the smashed window. Darius grabbed the boy’s small hand.
“Hold on, Ben!” Darius said, his grip slipping.
“I can’t!”
WHAM!
The monorail suddenly hit another patch of bad track, and then Darius lost his grip completely.
Ben fell into the dark jungle below. Darius could only watch in horror as the small boy plummeted and two Pteranodons swooped down after him.
The monorail moved so quickly that in seconds it felt like Ben and the moment when he had been in the control car had never existed. Darius stood there, too stunned to cry…or feel anything. Brooklynn put her hand on his shoulder. Yasmina was shocked, holding Sammy in her arms.
Kenji held Ben’s fanny pack.
Bumpy wailed.
“He’s gone,” Yasmina said. “He’s…gone.”
“No!” Sammy screamed.
Darius looked away from the jungle and to the monorail behind him. Then he turned, gazing out the windshield.
“We’re going back,” Darius said flatly.
Everyone turned to look at him.
“The monorail is going back!”
The monorail shimmied, and the kids were thrown off balance. Darius saw the lights of the dock, which had only just become visible, disappear.
“When we switched tracks, we ended up on one headed north. We’re not going to the south docks,” Darius explained. “We’re going away from them!”
Darius looked at the control panel and started pressing buttons and pulling levers.
But nothing happened.
WHAM!
Everyone was thrown to the floor of the control car as the monorail sailed over more bad track. Sparks flew as the speeding monorail bucked wildly.
“We gotta get off the monorail, now!” Darius yelled.
Brooklynn pointed out the smashed window. “The track dips down up ahead! We can jump there!”
Darius raced to the side door. With great effort, he and Sammy opened it.
Kenji strapped on Ben’s fanny pack, grabbed hold of Bumpy, and as the car lurched again, the kids jumped.
* * *
They hit the ground hard and rolled down a grassy hillside. Darius was amazed that he was still in one piece.
“Bumpy!” Kenji said, looking worried. “Where’s Bumpy? I lost her when I hit the ground. She’s gotta be here. Bumpy? Bumpy!”
“Shhhh!” Brooklynn said. “There are still dinosaurs out here, including Toro and—”
“BUMPY!” Kenji screamed, ignoring Brooklynn.
“We gotta look for her, don’t we? And Ben and—”
“How?” Yasmina said curtly. “We don’t even know where we—”
A siren blared, interrupting her. Then the sound of an urgent voice over the PA: “Attention. All park-goers must report to the south ferry dock for immediate evacuation. Last ferry departs in one hour.”
Darius looked at the group. “We can make it to the ferry. But only if we go now.”
Kenji’s eyes opened wide. “But…”
“I know, Kenji,” Darius said. “We have to go.”
Kenji looked down at the fanny pack around his waist.
* * *
The kids sprinted through the jungle, moving through the thick brush. Sammy looked over her shoulder and saw Yasmina limping, trying to move as fast as she could given her injury. Sammy was about to say something when Yasmina twisted her ankle, falling.
Everyone rushed to her side as Brooklynn looked at Yasmina’s now very swollen ankle. The injured girl tried to push her away.
“How are you even walking?” Brooklynn asked.
“Last ferry departs in forty-five minutes,” came the voice over the PA.
“I’m…highly motivated,” Yasmina said, mastering her pain with a deep breath.
“She can’t keep up like this,” Sammy said, looking at Darius. “What do we do?”
“The tunnels!” Darius shouted. “Kenji! The maintenance tunnels. There has to be one that leads to the docks, right? Kenji? Right?”
Kenji thought about it for a moment, and then his face lit up.
* * *
The maintenance tunnel was darker than Darius remembered, and the day’s events had him—and everyone—on edge.
“This’ll get us to the dock in half the time!” Kenji said as he took the lead.
“Are we sure Mr. VIP knows what he’s doing?” Brooklynn asked.
“Kenji took me down here before,” Darius answered. “Just trust him. We’ll be outta here in…” And then they turned a corner and hit a dead end. “…no time.”
All eyes were on Kenji as he squirmed. “Everything looks different with the lights all freaky like this, okay?”
Then Kenji snapped his fingers and said, “I remember now! This way!”
Then he ran off. A second later, he was back and running in the opposite direction.
“Guess it’s this way,” Darius said, and the unconvinced group followed.
* * *
“This wasn’t here before!” Kenji said as they ran into a large metal grate separating the tunnel.
“It’s okay. We’ll go another way,” Darius said, trying to stay positive.
A moment later, they reached another dead end. They tried another tunnel that ended in a locked door. Kenji pulled, but it wouldn’t open.
Darius noticed that there were lockers lining the wall. Brooklynn yanked one door open, and something fell out.
A stun spear!
“We can use this for—” Brooklynn started, just as Kenji grabbed the spear. He brought the sparking tip of the stun spear to the metal door handle, which was a really bad idea, because he got an electric shock and fell to the floor.
“I’m fine,” Kenji said.
* * *
“Attention,” came the voice over the park PA, “all park-goers must report to the south ferry dock for immediate evacuation. Last ferry departs in thirty minutes.”
“Uh, Kenji, Darius?” Sammy said. “The way we came from…where does that tunnel end?”
“It opens up into the Park, I guess. Why?” Kenji asked.
Then they turned to look where Sammy had been focused, and they saw a huge shadow cast on the tunnel wall. The shadow of a dinosaur.
Darius could hear his heart beating in his ears, louder than anything he’d heard before.
The kids had thrown themselves against the sides of the tunnels and weren’t making a sound. They watched in silent terror as the shadow grew closer.
It was a dinosaur, all right. A turkey-sized Compsognathus.
Suddenly, shoulders eased, and everyone relaxed.
“It’s like a foot tall!” Brooklynn said, giggling.
“And, uh, not alone,” Yasmina said. She pointed behind the Compy as another Compsognathus appeared. Then another. And another. Soon, a group of tiny dinosaurs had assembled.
“We need to go,” Darius said. “In a group, Compys can—”
“Not really the time for a lesson, Dino Nerd!” Kenji said sharply.
“Why not?” Brooklynn said. “It’s not like you’ve gotten us anywhere even close to the dock, Mr. VIP!”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Kenji said. “Don’t you have some sort of ‘Unboxing Being a Brat All the Time’ video to be shooting?”
“Hey!” Sammy shouted. “Y’all calm yourselves. You’re scaring the itty-bitty Compy family.”
“GUYS!” Darius screamed. “Just stop!”
He looked over to see the Compys all frozen in place, unmoving. The tiny dinosaurs looked back at the tunnel from where they’d emerged, then took off running in the other direction.
There was a loud roar coming from the tunnel now, and as the lights flickered, the kids could see the shape of a large dinosaur coming for them.
“Toro!” Darius shouted.
Kenji looked at the stun spear in his hands, then tossed it to Yasmina. Then he sprinted down another tunnel.
“Now you know which way to go?” Brooklynn said in amazement.
* * *
Toro took off down the tunnel, chasing after the kids. As they rounded a corner, so, too, did the Carnotaurus. But he couldn’t take the corners as fast as they could. The huge dinosaur slammed into a tunnel wall, momentarily dazed. The creature stalked down the tunnel, still searching for his prey as he passed by a grate on the wall.
“We can’t stay here!” Sammy whispered from inside the grate. “The ferry—”
Kenji shushed her.
Yasmina turned her head and nudged Darius. There was a metal plate against the back of the vent wall.
She wedged the tip of the stun spear between the wall and the plate. With effort, she and Darius were able to use it as a lever and finally pry open the grate. Inside was a small opening. It wasn’t very big…but maybe it would be big enough for one kid to fit through at a time.
Darius was about to get everyone’s attention when, suddenly, Toro’s head smashed through the outside vent!
“Go-go-go!” Darius shouted over the screaming of the kids. Grabbing the stun spear from Yasmina, Darius watched the other kids go down the small opening while he jabbed at the Carnotaurus.
With the others safely inside, Darius thrust the stun spear at Toro again, this time striking him right in the large, painful-looking gash that he had received in their first encounter. The dinosaur roared in pain as Darius got away.
* * *
“Attention. All park-goers must report to the south ferry dock for immediate evacuation. Last ferry departs in fifteen minutes.”
Darius heard the voice over the PA just as he fell from the vent to the floor of a new tunnel.
He got to his feet and was stunned to see the other kids were there, smiling at him.
“Why are you—” Darius started to say.
Smiling, Brooklynn pointed to a nearby sign on a wall. The sign had an arrow with the words EXIT TO SOUTH DOCK—1,000 FEET.
The kids ran down the tunnel, turned around a corner, and found themselves in a large room with a high ceiling. The center of the ceiling appeared to be sunken a bit, a monorail track running through it. Crates lined the walls of the room, stacked one on top of the other. Darius spotted a cart with wheels to one side.
This was all fine, but Darius felt his heart sink when he saw that the corridor that should lead to the docks was completely sealed off by concrete.
* * *
“There’s gotta be a door or—” Darius said.
“There’s not,” Brooklynn said. “There’s no way out. They must’ve sealed it off after the Park was finished!”
Yasmina threw the stun spear to the ground angrily. “Can’t anyone associated with this place make just one good decision?”
As if in response, the Carnotaurus roared, still on the hunt for them.
“D
arius…what do we do now?” Kenji asked. One by one, the kids all turned to face Darius.
“I don’t know,” Darius said quietly, sitting down. “I don’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to do about Ben…or Bumpy…or when the Indominus rex attacked. I didn’t even know how to make regular camp work! All I did was tell bad stories and get into trouble and mess up everything.”
He put his head in his hands. “You never should have trusted me. I should’ve just stayed home. I’m a dino nerd who played a video game, and I’m no good at any of this.”
He was surprised to find Kenji next to him.
“But you are,” Kenji said. “Good at this. None of us would have known what to do, Darius. But because you didn’t give up, we didn’t give up, either.”
Sammy looked at Darius, smiling. “You kept us going, no matter what.”
“You made us feel like we were in this together,” Yasmina said. “So we are. We’re a team. We’re your team.”
Then Brooklynn sat down beside him. “Things fall apart. And that’s okay. Because when that happens…”
Darius looked at Brooklynn. “We pick up the pieces, and we keep going.”
Darius stood up as Toro roared, closer than before.
“Let’s see what’s in these crates,” Darius said.
* * *
“Medical supplies,” Kenji said as he lifted a handful of bandages from a crate. “Well, at least our luck is consistent.”
The other kids were opening crates, too, and each was finding only different kinds of medical supplies. Plenty of tape, bandages, and cotton balls.
ROAR. Closer now.
Nothing pointy or good for making a Carnotaurus go away.
“Now what?” Yasmina asked. “We wrap ourselves up like mummies and scare him to death?”
“Or give him a bunch of this oxygen and hope he gets light-headed,” Kenji said.
Camp Cretaceous, Volume One Page 8
