Fire and Water

by Simon Guerrier

  He couldn’t steer too severely because of the sand, but a wider arc gave the raptors more time to catch them up. That’s why he’d wanted two cars in the first place — so the creatures wouldn’t just be chasing a single target.

  There they were, in his peripheral vision, as he brought the car around. Five furious, scaly beasts, intent on making him and Jamie their supper. He reached for his tranquilliser gun again, fired blind in their general direction, and caught one of them in the knee. It stumbled and fell into the dirt, but the other raptors ignored it.

  “Use a proper gun!” Weavers muttered, clinging to the seat. But Becker ignored him as he crunched through the gears. The vehicle struggled in the mud. And the bloody raptors were gaining.

  The anomaly gleamed at them from above the edge of the river, broken glass glinting in the sky, reflecting on the water’s surface. They had a hundred metres, maybe a bit more...

  The pieces of the anomaly were starting to rotate a little slower; the brilliant light wasn’t gleaming quite so brightly. It was starting to fade — and if it closed, the two soldiers would be trapped a hundred million years from home.

  Becker had his foot flat on the pedal, but the car wasn’t built to be nippy. It growled as he forced it hard up the slope. He just prayed it wouldn’t conk out with the effort.

  The raptors had almost reached them. In his mirror he glimpsed mad, hungry eyes.

  Weavers screamed in pain, his face suddenly pale.

  “Hold on!” Becker ordered. He whipped the pistol from the strap on his leg and shot the raptor without a moment’s hesitation.

  “Thank you,” Weavers croaked, exhausted, his face grimacing in pain. “It’s taken a chunk right off my leg.”

  “We’re almost there!”

  The armoured car shook as something large leapt onto its roof. A claw appeared in front of Becker, on the far side of the windshield, hooking itself round the wipers. He realised what the creature was reaching for just as a huge, toothy mouth poked into his open window. Becker shot once, and the raptor toppled off into the sand.

  Three left.

  And forty metres...

  Thirty...

  Becker could see right through the fading anomaly now, to the trees that stood behind it. Any second now it would wink out of existence.

  “Sir,” Weavers said in a small voice.

  “Almost there,” Becker insisted.

  “Yeah,” Weavers acknowledged. “But they’ll just come through with us again, won’t they?”

  Becker looked quickly at the man next to him. Blood drooled from his nose and lips. And his legs no longer smacked against the outside of the car.

  “Hold on,” Becker insisted.

  “Tell Janine —”

  And then, thwip, Weavers was gone. He didn’t cry out, didn’t make a sound. Looking in the mirror, Becker’s stomach turned in horror as he saw the three remaining raptors tearing what was left of Jamie apart.

  There was nothing he could do.

  His survival instinct kicked in as he pressed on up the hill and through the anomaly. That awful sparkling, magnetic sensation, like going through a cheese grater, and then he was back in the grey and rain.

  Safe.

  “Lock it,” he barked at the soldier working the tripod on which sat the strange sci-fi bazooka Connor had constructed. The anomaly locking mechanism burbled with power, ready to seal the way through so that the raptors couldn’t follow him.

  But before the soldier could fully activate the mechanism, the anomaly disappeared.

  Becker sat forward, his forehead on the back of his hands as they gripped the wheel. They were slick with sweat. He stayed there, getting his breath back, listening to the slop and plop of the never-ending rain, knowing this moment couldn’t last. He’d have to explain about Jamie Weavers. There’d be family who had to be told. The team would need to get back to London, anyway, and be ready for the next call from the ADD.

  He just had to keep on fighting.

  He sat up and wiped the sweat from his eyes. Men were running towards him, slushing through the floodwater. And his earpiece pinged to tell him someone had left him a message.

  “Now I can’t get hold of Sarah either,” Abby said, and she sighed audibly. “I think we’re on our own.” She put her phone away in the pocket of her waders and batted Connor’s booted foot away from her face. Connor wasn’t a great respecter of people’s personal space.

  Or, at least, of hers.

  She didn’t like to examine her feelings for him too closely, but she did like to have his attention. And Connor was ignoring her, lying on his front watching the Deinosuchus couple through his field binoculars. The two giant crocodilians had made no move to pursue them, so for now the boat was moored to a lamppost and they bobbed leisurely above the brackish water, conducting decidedly voyeuristic observations.

  “I think they’re finished,” Connor said quietly. “They’re just not doing anything.”

  “Maybe they’re exhausted.”

  “Mmm,” Connor mused, wriggling round to face her. “But also, all that rubbish wedged around them. I don’t think that’s right.”

  “You think he should have taken her somewhere nicer?”

  He grinned.

  “Like a nightclub or something?” he suggested. “It’s more that it’s not just any old rubbish.” He handed her the binoculars. “It’s got lots of bits of fast food, tree branches, berries and flowers...”

  Abby adjusted the focus and picked out the two incredible creatures floating together in the dark water. The rubbish bobbing all around them was very specific. No traffic cones, no planks of wood, none of the other crude artefacts the flood had gathered up.

  “You think it’s some kind of nest or something?” she asked.

  “It makes sense,” Connor said. “They live in the water, but they breed in the shallows or on land.”

  “But if they’ve only just mated, why would they be so quick to settle down? Abby asked.

  “Don’t know,” Connor admitted. “Maybe they’re the romantics of the Cretaceous set. And how does a bloke let the ladies know he’s found the perfect spot? What would you want if you were a lady crocodile?”

  “I’d like flowers and a nice dinner,” Abby told him. “With you in a suit.”

  “Exactly,” Connor said — oblivious to her hinting — “and that gives me an idea...”

  “No, wait,” Sarah said into her phone. “They’re on the move again. Heading away from the Deinosuchus... I think they’re going into one of the shops.”

  “Right,” Becker said, and he sounded tired. “I’ll get over there now.”

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” she asked.

  “I’m fine,” he said curtly. “Just another day at the office.”

  And he rang off.

  Sarah stared at her phone for a moment, worried. Becker sounded exhausted and angry to have lost one of his men. But he refused to admit it. He liked to maintain an air of cool efficiency, the old-school kind of army officer standing tall and unruffled against any enemy. He probably ironed his socks. Yet he was also young, and nobody could ever really get used to the things the ARC had to deal with.

  Again she saw the team as Lester must have seen them: amateurs, bluffing their way as best they could, yet inevitably getting ground down. While waiting for Becker’s call, she’d been reading up on some of the ARC’s older exploits. The anomalies overturned so many basic assumptions about science and history, and thanks to her years as an academic, she saw radical papers and post-doctoral theses in every line she read. She could easily envision herself as unofficial archivist — not that Lester would let her publish anything, even internally. He wanted the anomalies contained and kept secret. The government thought they could control them.

  That mindset was why they kept losing ground. If she could just get him to see reason —

  Sarah turned, sensing movement behind her, but there was no one in the labs. Lester’s office overlooked the ADD, a
nd she peered up at the window, but saw nothing. She must have imagined it.

  Still, she couldn’t shake the sensation.

  “Hello?” she said, getting to her feet. Why this nervous feeling? The ARC was one of the most secure buildings in the entire country — even the Palace of Westminster did fewer scans and checks. And why shouldn’t there be ARC staff working in the evening? In fact, wasn’t it more strange that the place seemed to be so empty?

  You’re being silly, she told herself as she walked over to the swing doors that separated the main room from the labs and offices. Before she could reach out to the door, it opened out at her.

  Sarah leapt back, yelping in surprise as masked soldiers rushed at her.

  “Who are you?” she demanded, but before she could say anything more, a soldier grabbed her arm. She fought to escape as he pulled her close. His body armour pressed hard into her flesh.

  “Let me go!” she demanded, terrified.

  She felt a prickle at her throat, twisted round to see the soldier withdrawing a syringe.

  “What...?”

  The room began to swim around her.

  She was unconscious before she hit the floor.

  SIX

  The dinosaur charged at them.

  Sophie raised her rifle but the creature’s tail sent her flying into the wall. Lester dived out of the way, arcing over some upturned chairs. Sophie’s gun lay out of reach in the middle of the room.

  Danny took a step forward and shot at the creature with his tranquilliser gun, aiming at its head. He could already see that he’d misjudged the shot, and underestimated just how quickly this thing could move.

  The dart punched into the creature’s flank. It stumbled slightly in its stride... And kept coming.

  Danny worked quickly to load a second dart into the gun. His brain was racing, trying to think of something that might help.

  From what little he was beginning to understand about the creatures they encountered, he saw that it was a theropod — it ran on two legs, a great long tail behind it and three-toed feet. Its twitchy, quick movements were like those of a small bird. Even as he aimed the gun, Danny’s quick mind processed the details so he could describe it to Connor later.

  Maybe six or seven metres from nose to tail, and tall enough to lick the ceiling. Um...

  Blood oozed from the wound in the creature’s side, where the dart had punctured its skin. It turned to face him and roared angrily, its teeth and chin were spattered with blood and gore — clearly not its own. It wasn’t a vegetarian. So perhaps Danny shouldn’t have been so quick to get its attention.

  “Uh,” Danny said, and he gaped. He was the only one with a gun now. He had to keep the thing away from Sophie and Lester.

  “Can’t we talk about this?” he said.

  The creature’s roar was met by an echo from outside — from the pride of lions. The dinosaur hesitated, considering the sound.

  Danny fired again, but the creature was already on the move, ducking its head low as it charged.

  The dart smacked into the wall.

  He took a couple of steps back, wishing he hadn’t declined Sophie’s rifle, now lying on the floor. As the dinosaur launched itself with a roar, he knew he didn’t have the time to aim.

  A chair smashed hard into the creature’s head, knocking it off course and straight into the wall next to Danny. He ducked under the huge tail as it followed the creature round and slapped hard where his head had just been.

  “Everyone out of here!” Lester ordered, panting from the effort of throwing the chair. The three of them raced back out into the hallway as the dinosaur clambered to its feet. The Winchester rifle lay behind them, on the floor in the middle of the mess room.

  Danny skidded to a stop and ran back to close the door behind them. But the latch of the door didn’t quite meet the plate. The door wouldn’t stay shut by itself. So with the dinosaur heading towards him again, he slammed the door and pressed himself against it at an angle, his feet wedged between the wall and floor behind him.

  Thwapp!

  The force of the impact threw him back against the wall. The door swung open and the dinosaur poked out its long head, gnashing at him. Prone on the floor, Danny looked up into its slavering, drooling teeth.

  It didn’t half have bad breath.

  “All right,” he said hoarsely. “We can call it a draw.”

  The creature lunged forward to bite him.

  Danny turned his face away instinctively — just in time to see four lions charging down the corridor. They hurled themselves at the dinosaur, slashing at it with huge claws, knocking it back into the debris of the mess room.

  Lying vulnerable on the floor, he watched incredulous as the creature fell back from the onslaught, surprised and hurt and outnumbered. Then it reached nimbly forward and bit through one lion’s throat. The lion gargled and spat in agony, pawing ineffectually as it was lifted from the floor by its bloody, open neck. The dinosaur twirled like a dancer, letting the lion go mid arc so the huge cat sailed across the room and smashed into the upturned sofa. The creature roared with satisfaction and launched itself at the three remaining lions.

  Gingerly Danny eased himself off the floor and reached up to close the door on the pitched battle. The whole lodge shook as something slammed into the wall just beside the door. The roaring, rasping, seething cries did not die away.

  “Just leave them to it, shall we?” he said, and he reached for the up-turned bookcase with the body underneath it.

  “Good idea,” Lester agreed. Danny might have been surprised to find that his superior had stayed behind, but Lester looked keen to help. They lifted the bookcase so that it wedged against the door and kept it closed. “Perhaps a nearby hotel...?” Lester suggested wryly.

  “What is that thing?” Sophie asked, her tanned face white with shock. She stared at the remains of the man they had just exposed, a man she must have known and worked with.

  “I’m sorry,” Danny said. “There’s nothing we can do for him now.”

  “It isn’t possible,” Sophie protested in a quiet voice, her tough bravado seeming to have fallen away. Danny recognised the look in her eyes. It was the look of someone who had seen prehistoric creatures invading their modern world, the fear and wonder as their sureties collapsed. He wanted to find some way to reassure her. But they were on a mission, and he guessed Sophie’s defiant nature wouldn’t welcome his gesture, no matter how well meant.

  “We can discuss that when we get to the hotel,” Lester said, his clipped tones invading Danny’s thoughts. He looked around and winced, as if this was all too wretchedly inconvenient.

  Sophie glared at him. “We’re not going anywhere,” she told him flatly, nodding her head towards the door that led out into the night. In the darkness, they could just make out three more lions prowling round the platform. One poked its nose in through the door and sniffed at them — as if, thought Danny, deciding which of them it would dine on first.

  “Ah,” he said. “We’re a bit stuck.”

  “It’s the cubs,” Sophie explained. “Kept safe while the adults go to work. But the kids don’t know to be wary of us, either. We won’t make it to the car.”

  “We can’t stay here,” Danny said.

  Again from behind the closed door came an almighty crash and the roar of a lion giving as good at it had received.

  “We need a position we can properly defend,” Lester agreed.

  Danny looked around. The hallway only offered the room where the dinosaur still fought the lions.

  “We could get out onto the roof,” Sophie suggested. “There’s a panel somewhere up here.”

  They scanned the ceiling, and Lester located a narrow hatch.

  “I’ll give you a leg up.” Danny interlocked his fingers so that his hands made a kind of stirrup. Sophie didn’t hesitate, placing one booted foot into the stirrup and then pushing herself up by pressing down on his shoulders. Danny exhaled, surprised by her weight. The thick sole
of her boot cut into his skin. She smelt of soap and sweat.

  “It’s not opening,” she told them as she fussed with the panel, involuntarily kicking downward as she did so.

  “Take your time,” he said, and he grimaced. “Don’t mind me.”

  Sophie cursed under her breath as she fought with whatever mechanism held the hatch in place.

  “It looks like it might be on hinges to your left,” Lester offered, standing to one side.

  “I can see that!” she snapped. Angrily, she punched at the panel with a firm left hook. The hatch clicked, swinging neatly up and open.

  “Brillia —” Danny began before Sophie smacked him in the jaw with the foot he had been holding. She wriggled, eel-like, through the tiny opening in the roof. Through the pain he admired the graceful movement of her long, bare legs as she drew them up after her. And then the hatch slammed shut.

  “Hey!” he shouted.

  They heard frantic skittering from above, which might have been her trying to reopen the hatch.

  “Sophie? Sophie!”

  “It’s stuck!” she called back to them. “I think it’s wedged itself.”

  “Come on,” Danny said to Lester. “You’ll have to get up there. See what you can do.”

  Lester sighed and did his best to accept Danny’s leg up while retaining some semblance of dignity. He seemed lighter than Sophie had been, his polished brown brogue smaller than her boot. Danny found he had to compensate when Lester leaned too far in all directions, whereas Sophie had kept her balance like a gymnast.

  “It’s not budging,” the man muttered from above him. “You’ve only bent the pin.”

  “Give it more power,” Danny snapped at him. “You’re going to have to smack it.”

  “Do shut up, Quinn.”

  He felt Lester’s body tense as he brought the punch around. Of course, all the ARC staff had learnt some unarmed combat. Danny had even heard wild tales of Lester taking down some escaped future predator without even breaking a sweat. He looked up to see the man’s knuckles crack sharply into the edge of the hatch.

  It lifted, just a fraction, then clicked shut again.