by Rick Chesler
“What the hell are they doing?” Veronica shouted.
“Who cares?” Xander yelled back. “Come on, super agent, or I’m ordering the kid to leave you up here.”
She backed up, right to the edge of the chopper, the wind from the rotors and the engine roaring in her ear, so she couldn’t—and didn’t—hear the other roar. The undamaged Cryo that had leapt over its wounded and writhing sister climbed the ramp, and in a huge bound, jumped to the bombed-out third level, then extended and locked its jaws around a jagged section of the rooftop and hauled itself up.
It shook itself, raised its head and, seeing the chopper, sniffed the air. As its crest changed color to a burning crimson, it bellowed out a challenge.
With the battalion of slavering zombies in its wake, following it like it was a medieval battle ram, it charged toward the chopper.
#
Veronica dove in as Alex fumbled with the controls. He shifted and pressed the wrong foot pedal at first, turning the nose toward the rampaging dinosaur. Then he tried to compensate by pulling back on the cycle pitch lever between his knees, but the nose was already tilting up. The tail rotor sparked against the rooftop surface and Alex cursed and grabbed the collective on his left side. He pulled that back to urge the craft upward.
It wobbled, tilted, and Xander and Veronica went tumbling to the side.
“Kid!”
“Trying,” he shouted back.
“Try harder!” Veronica shouted, sitting upright through the next turn. She aimed at the Cryo—only twenty feet away now and gaining. She fired one burst, but then the helicopter rotated in a 180-degree spin and Alex cranked the lever in front of him, the chopper soaring ahead and over the roof.
He looked back—and wished he hadn’t.
The Cryo, with three zombies riding maniacally on its back, never slowed down. Caught in bloodlust, it took two huge strides and then threw itself off the roof after its prey.
No, no, no! Alex was lost in the act of trying to control this unwieldy bird with a combination of both hands and feet, forgetting which limb did what. He gripped the collective lever, twisted and sped up just as he felt the jarring impact along the tail. A series of screams and gunshots and scraping sounds like giant nails on a metal chalkboard, and then the chopper was spinning and spinning.
Falling.
#
As they plummeted, the Cryo hung on with an unyielding grip like a mad pit bull at first, but then crunched through the metal, dropped from the tail, then caught on the landing skid.
“Son of a bitch!” Alex shouted, heaving back on the lever, trying to keep them from falling, even as the forward trajectory kept them moving ahead, still spinning. Victoria fired a volley of bullets out the open doors at the flailing beast, but then had to brace herself before slamming hard into a seat and flying into Xander against the inside wall.
Trying to work the pedals and counter the Cryo’s weight, Alex screamed. “Not working! Can’t shake it and we’re going down!”
Not entirely true, he thought suddenly, seeing the landscape spinning around, and the research facility closing in. They had spun around, and now the acceleration took them back toward the building.
Gritting his teeth, Alex leaned back and to the side, tugging hard on the cyclic pitch. The chopper turned sharply just in time, its nose missing the wall, but the tail banked fast—and slammed the dinosaur right into the brick.
Take that! He thought in short-lived exuberance. The weight dropped as the screeching Cryo finally let go, stunned, and fell to the ground. Alex was about to yell back that they were free, but then he saw the gauges spinning, the warning lights flashing, and felt a pit in his stomach.
“We’re going down.”
#
“I thought you could fly!” Xander yelled, shoving Veronica aside and grabbing onto the nearest chair to brace himself. She scrambled to do the same.
“Single engine props!” Alex shouted back, kicking at the pedals and madly wrestling with the levers as the craft banked left, then right. It spun again in a wild 360 as it dropped, rose, and then dropped again. “Big freakin’ difference!”
“Great, but a landing is a landing,” Xander yelled. “Just get us down, preferably away from the—”
Maneuvering and precision were the last things in Alex’s thoughts at the moment. All he could do was fight the rotors, bent tail, and eke out enough control to keep the skids level as they dropped. “Hang on, going to hit…!”
Alex winced and the others gripped the seats, expecting a massive crash… which never happened. Opening his eyes, Alex looked out on the courtyard, peppered with corpses and bullet-ridden vehicles and trees. He took a deep breath. They were on flat ground.
Near perfect landing. He smiled and started to turn to check on his passengers when his heart stopped.
The Cryo that he had knocked loose had fallen some fifty-feet, crushed a Jeep and rolled off, but now was up, shaking its head, straightening its spine and turning to face them.
It charged.
Not again! Alex looked down, wishing this was some military grade Apache with side mounted machine guns or missile launchers, but they had nothing. A sitting duck, wounded and flightless at this point. Worse than nothing, really.
“Guys?” He tried to yell over the roaring engine.
Their door was still open, but there was no way they could get a clean shot, even if they could react in time. Paralyzed, Alex couldn’t move, couldn’t cry out, couldn’t do anything but sit and accept his fate as the beast screeched maniacally and bounded toward him, head on, head—
Alex blinked and saw it—and made a silent prayer that the angle was just right, that the height was lined up.
Unlike so many other times, with his father, his mother’s cancer, his own life’s wildly chaotic events…this prayer was granted.
The Cryo never knew what hit it. Charging upon the defenseless bird, it opened its jaws wide for a killing blow to tear open the metal skin and devour the occupants, when it ran directly into the whirling path of the main rotor blade.
It sheared off half the creature’s jaw, and kept thunking into its carapace, slicing through its temple, ripping off the crown, then gouging through the right eye—and jamming nearly through the skull. There was a wretched squealing sound—whether from the rotors or the dying beast, Alex wasn’t sure, but then the rotor assembly sparked and popped. The chopper itself tilted toward the beast until the blades snapped off and the craft rocked back with such force it tilted over and dropped hard on its side.
After shaking off the minor bruises, Alex climbed into the back, grabbed Veronica’s arm and helped her up. Xander, rubbing his head, collected himself from a heap behind the cockpit.
They climbed up and out and jumped onto the ground. Alex stood, still staring at the twitching dinosaur with a helicopter blade lodged in its skull.
“Creative kill, kid.” Xander slapped Alex on the back and shoved a backpack into his arms, bulging with grenades and spare magazines. “Carry this shit for us. Now…”
“We have to move,” Veronica said in a deathly voice. She hefted the AK and pointed to the building, to the roof to be exact.
Where a crowd of zombies perched, wavering, watching, and then, like lemmings, one leapt, and the others followed.
#
A wave of bodies jumped from four flights up. They struck the ground—and each other. Some tipped or bounced off one another and fell headfirst—bursting their skulls on the ground, but the others landed upright enough that their craniums were spared.
“Please tell me,” Alex said over the sound of the sputtering engine behind him, “that they’re not getting up from that. Their legs are broken, and…”
“Shit.” Veronica aimed at the first wave of reptilian zombies, rising and stumbling on legs with bones protruding from the split flesh. Some crawling, some hopping. None stopping.
“Xander?” Alex asked nervously. “Sorry about the flight disaster, but I hope you have a Plan
B?”
Cocking the M5 and slamming another magazine home, Xander grumbled. “Yeah, I have a Plan B, but it sucks, and it involves getting to a Jeep, like that one there, across the courtyard.”
He pointed over the heads of the onrushing zombies, across the way, where something else just lumbered into view from around the building’s west corner.
Missing half its insides, its ribcage blackened and its neck torn out so that a flopping black gullet flapped in the wind, the other Cryo staggered toward them.
It screeched, and rushed them.
35.
“Screw this,” Xander said, unleashing a spray of bullets at the wave of zombies charging from the right. Five went down in an accurate blast that ripped through skulls, eyes and cheekbones. “We’re not going to make it.”
Alex, gripping the bag, had an inspiration. It didn’t happen often, but something clicked, and he remembered Tony, remembered his sacrifice—and his specialty. Digging into the bag, he turned and ran around the chopper. “Follow me!” He yelled back. “Get behind the chopper.”
Veronica didn’t need to be told, she was backing away anyway, firing at the onrushing dinosaur. Even though gimpy and nearly slipping on a flood of yellowish-red blood oozing from its wounds, it was gaining fast, marching ahead of the zombies—the ones that weren’t getting picked off by Xander’s shots.
Bullets scattered across the Cryo’s body as Veronica led Xander back around the helicopter. She adjusted her aim, trying to hit the head, but the beast kept shaking and roaring, its bounding movements making it a hard target, even if the bullets could penetrate the thick skull.
Xander followed, emptying his clip at the horde that continued to grow as the rest of them leapt from the roof, then got back up, chasing and hungry.
“What are we doing? The Jeep is the other way.”
“Got to clear the roadblocks first,” Alex said. “Trust me, this’ll work. I think…”
“Great.”
“Or,” said Veronica, emptying her clip, “Xander, you could load another rocket in that RPG and try to hit the thing’s head this time!”
“Only one shell left,” Xander said, “and not enough time to load it. Give me the time, and…”
“Don’t need it.” Alex led them back at an angle now, so that the rattling and busted chopper was in the path of the onrushing dinosaur as well as the rampaging crowd of zombies.
He smelled gas from the ruptured tank, hoped it was enough. He reached into the bag, yelled, “Run!” and pulled out a grenade. He yanked the pin and dropped it back in the bag with the other three grenades—then tossed it at the rear of the helicopter.
“Shit, kid!”
Now that they understood what he intended—they ran after him, turning and sprinting for the nearest cover—the only cover—a stack of crates and barrels near the back wall.
They didn’t get there in time before the explosion.
Alex glanced back as a wave of kinetic energy roared through him. Shrapnel exploded in all directions and a piece of the tail rotor spun like a boomerang just over his head.
He had a glimpse of the Cryo’s neck and head lording over the helicopter. It was in mid-jump, attempting to leap on the chopper’s body and then over it in pursuit, but then the grenades exploded, igniting the fuel tank. All Hell roared out in fury. The chopper’s insides gutted the dinosaur, shredding it tooth to claw, scattering bones and flesh high into the air in all directions. Metal pieces flung out in an enormous radius, fragmenting and blasting through the crowd of crazed zombies, annihilating their flesh and bones, the force pulverizing their bodies as the heat incinerated their flesh.
Veronica peeked up through her arms and Xander lifted his face from the dirt. Alex, on his knees, rose with his ears ringing painfully. He was bleeding from a half dozen cuts, so far all minor.
They surveyed the smoking ruin in front of them and watched as more pieces of the helicopter fell to the ground, interspersed with falling bits of dinosaur cartilage.
Xander pulled out the .45 and aimed as he walked ahead, firing a few rounds into dazed zombies’ skulls. One was on fire, waving its arms in the wreckage, unable to get its bearings. Another dragged itself into their path on shattered legs.
Two more shots and the courtyard was quiet.
He and Veronica looked back to Alex.
“Good going,” Veronica said, “even if you did blow up our ride off this rock.”
Alex shrugged. “Wasn’t fixable anyway. Hopefully, your buddy there has a good Plan B.”
“Let’s get to the Jeep,” Xander said, “hotwire it, and start hauling ass out of here before the rest of this bunch smells us and comes after us. I’ll explain on the way.”
Veronica loaded another magazine as she followed behind Xander, aiming at his back.
Alex figured he’d better say something, or they were going to be back to two members in this team, the two without a plan. “And hey, let’s not forget about—”
Behind him, the trees crunched, the wall shook and cracked, and a sound like a wrecking ball cut through the silence, just as the ringing in his ears had quieted.
“—that.” Alex whispered, backing away.
“Shit,” Xander shouted. “Run!”
The wall split open and with a deafening roar, the T. rex burst through.
36.
Alex reached the Jeep first, but Xander got in and shoved him aside. He shook the RPG off his shoulder and thrust it in the back seat with Veronica, who leapt in, about to aim back with the AK.
“That won’t do a thing against it!” Xander yelled.
“Maybe we should’ve run back inside,” Alex offered, sitting helplessly—without even a weapon, just watching as Xander fumbled around for the key and luckily found it under the visor. “Sweet, I hate hotwiring.”
Trying not to look as the ground trembled with each stomp of the seven-ton dinosaur roaring toward them, Alex fidgeted as the engine started—and stalled.
Veronica stood up, aimed anyway with the AK, and for all the good it would do—opened fire. Sparks flew off the T. rex’s teeth.
The engine turned again, and this time caught. Xander thrust it in reverse and hauled back, and then out in a whiplash-inducing J-turn that propelled them just ahead of the dinosaur’s snapping jaws. It swung its head down and roared at them.
Veronica screamed, leaned back against the inertia and emptied the clip. Bullets tore through the dinosaur’s chest cavity, ripped up the tough hide and blasted out pieces of its thorax before again deflecting off teeth or being swallowed up in the gaping maw—where Alex saw the gruesome signs of recently devoured prey: tattered soldier’s uniforms, an arm, and a partially chewed abdomen.
The Jeep kicked up clouds of dirt and obscured the view as it spun out and ripped free. Out of the compound and racing down the dirt trail, Xander banked hard and then accelerated and tore ahead, gaining distance between them and the pursuing beast.
The T. rex bounded after them, its dead eyes flashing in the low-level sun, shimmering red, feral and entirely remorseless. Its shoulder broke through the masonry on the side of the entrance and it kept going without so much as breaking stride.
“Faster,” Veronica said, reloading, “and I’m out of ammo after this!”
“That’s why I gave you the RPG!” Xander yelled back as he twisted the wheel, dodged an outcropping of boulders, and twisted shrubs lining an embankment. The volcano rose in their view through the windshield.
Veronica set the AK down and picked up the RPG, grabbed the case and reached inside for the last shell. The Jeep hit a hole and jarred her grasp and the rocket ammo almost slipped from her hand. She gripped it tighter, shooting a glare at Xander. “Loading it,” she yelled, fitting it carefully into the slot.
The T. rex tore around the corner, almost slipped, then lowered its neck. It bared its monstrous teeth and picked up steam.
“So what the hell’s our plan?” Alex asked, fastening his seatbelt.
Xander po
inted way down into the valley, east of the volcano, where the road banked and Alex could just make out a small domed-shaped building at the end of a long, straight road.
“Is that—?”
“An airstrip! Yes, kid, you have good eyes. DeKirk kept quiet about it, but I checked when I first arrived. There’s a plane there, resupplied only two days ago. Should be fueled and ready to go. It’s a Cessna, something I hope you can actually keep aloft this time.”
“Shut up, I know planes, not damn helicopters.”
“Both of you shut up,” Veronica yelled, “and drive straight so I can get a shot off.”
Xander banked and accelerated again on the twisty road as it turned into a steep decline. “Your target’s about forty feet high and twenty long. You can’t miss, just aim and fire!”
“Trying for the damn head,” Veronica shouted back, “and I haven’t exactly had a lot of practice with this weapon back on the range at Langley!”
The ridge temporarily blocked her sight of their pursuer as they roared down the hill, but then it was there, airborne, leaping after them with surprising speed.
“We can just outrun it,” Alex said. “It can’t do over thirty, maybe forty if I remember right.”
“Textbook theories don’t count here,” Xander said.
“I don’t think,” Veronica added, “that this creature read any of those books. It seems to be gaining!”
She aimed again, trying to keep her body steady through all the bumps and jolts.
“Oh shit,” she heard Xander say as she felt a drag on the transmission and a slowing of the Jeep.
“You’re not going to believe this!”
Alex looked back, his face deathly white. “Veronica… Fire—we’re out of gas!”
#
