by Russ Watts
Seconds later, and he was free. It seemed to be over so quickly. One second he was drowning, and the next he was lying on his back, staring up into a clear blue sky, the blazing sun warming his cold skin. He rolled over, and spat out a lump of saliva choked with dust. He coughed and then sat upright, brushing the dirt off him, catching sight of the blood on his shirt, trying to forget about how it had got there.
“Melanie? Thank God.”
Her face was streaked with tears, her eyes sad, yet full of fear. She embraced Norman, and he could feel her shaking. This wasn’t the same happy woman he worked with. Her enthusiasm and love had gone. Her eyes were full of desperation.
“How long was I down there?” Norman guessed from the position of the sun in the sky he hadn’t been down there long. It was not yet above them, so it was still morning. He had only been down there for perhaps a few minutes, yet it had been an agony, and felt like years.
“Are you okay?” he asked her. “What about the children?”
“Quiet,” she whispered. Her eyes darted around from side to side, and she gripped his shoulders tightly. She leant into him, so her face was barely an inch from his, and she lowered her voice to almost nothing. “It’ll hear you.”
Norman glanced around, but saw nothing that Melanie could be referring to. What was it? There was nobody around. “Melanie, calm down. The children, where are they? Did you manage to get them back to the bus? We need to—”
She put a bloody hand over Norman’s mouth. It was then that he noticed the scratches and blood on her face. Her shirt was torn, and her shoulder was badly scraped too. When Norman looked into her eyes, the eyes that he had so fondly looked into over the last few years, he didn’t recognize her. It was as if she was possessed and had taken on the aura of a crazy woman. Maybe she had suffered some sort of breakdown? Perhaps the earthquake had shaken her up? He was beginning to feel physically better, now that he was free of the tomb below. How he was going to explain this to the school board he didn’t know, but he was focussed now on helping Melanie and the children. They were his priority. He had to get the situation under control.
Norman gently removed her hand from his mouth. “Melanie, listen to me, the earthquake is over. We’re fine, okay? We need to make sure the children are—”
Melanie looked at him with bewilderment. “Earthquake? Is that what you think? An earthquake?”
Her lips curled up into a smile, and then she began to laugh. She tried to hide it behind her dirty hands, but it erupted forth like a geyser, her giggle soon turning into a maniacal laugh that Norman had only ever heard in bad horror films on late night TV. She had lost it. Norman could tell that she had truly lost her mind.
“Melanie, I know this is a traumatic time, but we have to get out of here. Come on.” Norman stood up, and held out his hand to her.
As her laughter died, she stood up and looked at him. She shook her head. “That wasn’t an earthquake.”
Exasperated, Norman looked around for help. He couldn’t see any children, nor hear any, and the clearing had gone completely. The whole ground seemed to have been blasted apart. Many of the trees were scattered around with boulders the size of cars, as if something had picked the ground up, shaken it around, and dumped it back down forcefully. The area had been destroyed, and Norman hoped the quake had been confined to the desert. If anything that strong hit LA, the damage would be off the chart.
“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” Norman said, taking Melanie’s hand in his. “We’ll slowly find our way back to the bus, and take it from there. Remember the bus?” He had no idea if the bus was still there, but it was all he could think of. The driver would be able to relay a message for help so they could get someone out here to look for the children. They had probably run, scattered into the desert, terrified.
“It’s too late for that,” said Melanie. Her voice was devoid of hope, and dropped when she spoke. “They’re gone. They’re all dead.”
Norman shivered. Despite the unbearable heat, despite Melanie’s psychosis, he didn’t doubt for one second that she was telling the truth. Christ, surely not all of them? Surely at least some of the children had gotten to safety?
“Miss Sykes, you need to think very carefully about what you’re saying. Those children are in our care. There’s no way they can all be…”
He couldn’t bring himself to say it. He couldn’t imagine going back without them. Benji, Lizzy, Liam, Lisa, Robert, and all the others; he would give anything to have them back, to have them annoying him and pestering him, singing loud songs on that hot stinking yellow bus, farting and giggling incessantly, rather than face the awful thought that they were all gone. He needed to get Melanie back in one piece. He couldn’t do this alone. He needed her as much as she needed him.
“Look,” he said forcefully, trying to muster up as much confidence as he could, “I expect you to—”
A noise interrupted him, a bellowing sound emitted from somewhere close by that seemed to fizz through the air and across the desert. Norman whirled around. There was nothing there. No children, no animals, nothing; yet that noise had been loud, wondrous and terrifying all at the same time. It had to have been a coyote, he told himself, perhaps injured and scared.
“I told you,” whispered Melanie. “It can hear you…”
“Miss Sykes, let’s—”
The ground rumbled again, making the loose dirt jiggle and jump as if on hot coals. He could feel something underneath the ground building up, like a pent-up pressure steamer ready to explode. The vibrations were growing stronger.
“Melanie, run!”
Norman grabbed her hand, and together they ran across the desert. Norman tried to lead them back to the bus, but any sign of the path was now long gone. He was running blindly, hopefully, just running anywhere that was away from whatever was going on. The earthquake and the noise seemed connected somehow. Had he been mistaken? Was that noise not natural, but a sound made by the earth’s crust below? He knew a little about how earthquakes manifested themselves, and the damage they could do to the surface, but he hadn’t read anything about them making a noise like that. A slight rumble, maybe even a bang, yes, but a bellowing sound?
Melanie yelped as she fell, twisting her ankle as she collapsed to the ground.
“It knows we’re here. It knows.” Melanie began to cry, clutching her foot. The ground still shook, and she looked from left to right, scanning all around.
Norman had never seen her look so scared. Something had gotten to her. Something had scared her so much that she had left the realms of reality. She was babbling something about monsters as he tried to lift her, when he saw movement ahead: a figure running toward them, then another. Two small children came bounding towards him, their faces a picture of horror. As they came closer, he recognised them: Rachael and Kelly, two sisters who were amongst his brighter students. He could see their clothes ripped and torn, their hands and arms covered in blood and deep cuts. They ran hand in hand. Rarely did they leave each other’s side, and Norman was glad they had stuck together.
Norman left Melanie and began running toward them. “Rachael, Kelly, where are all the others?”
As they came nearer, the ground jolted once more beneath his feet, sending Norman down to the hard ground. He wasn’t sure what came first, the sound or the explosion. There was fifty feet between him and the two girls, and as he looked at them running toward him, the ground exploded upward sending huge lumps of rock into the sky. They began to shower down around him, and he tried to see if the girls were all right. As the ground shook around him, he heard the same bellowing sound again, and something emerged from underneath the ground, something huge and monstrous and terrifying. Norman watched in disbelief as two massive claws appeared, swiftly followed by the creature’s back, its skin covered in what looked like scales, its flesh a dark black color, jarring with the blue sky. Its spine was rippled, as if the bone was protruding through the thing’s skin. The appearance of the monster, what
ever it was, shocked Norman to his core. He couldn’t identify what he was looking at. This couldn’t be, couldn’t exist. He was hallucinating, he had to be. The animal was like nothing he had ever seen before, certainly nothing that lived in the Mojave. Hell, it was like nothing that he had ever seen living on Earth. Except, maybe…
Norman saw Kelly trip, the girl falling face first into a boulder. She was knocked out instantly, and her sister paused, caught between running for help, and stopping to help her sister. Norman saw Rachael look up at the monster, her mouth open ready to scream, her face bewildered. He had never seen her look scared before, and it broke his heart.
“Rachael, run to me!” he shouted. There was still a chance she could make it. Maybe they could find a way back into the underground cave, find some place to hide. He had to get the girls to safety. He had to…
The monster towering above them raised a huge foot in the air, and Norman watched as it swung toward Rachael. The beast had to weigh several tons, and as it moved, the ground churned with it. Its foot came down right in front of Rachael, smashing the boulders there into dust. Norman thought it had missed her, and that she would still be able to make it, but then he saw the raised claw protruding from the center of the thing’s foot. It was like an eagle’s talons, razor sharp and poised to strike. The single claw had to be six feet across at least and as soon as the foot was planted on the ground before Rachael, the monster stabbed the claw forward. It struck her right through her chest, shattering her ribcage and pinned her to the ground. A fountain of blood erupted from her body as Norman watched her struggle and fight.
“No!” Norman got to his feet. “Leave her alone!” he shouted, hoping to distract the animal. There was still a chance for her. She was in trouble, but she wasn’t dead yet.
Norman watched as the claw retracted from Rachael’s body, and it seemed to have worked. The monster was going to turn on him now. Norman began to run toward her, but no sooner had he started than the claw smashed down again, this time obliterating Rachel’s head. One second she was there, the next she was gone. Her body convulsed before going limp. The monster flicked her battered body up into the air deftly, using the claw on its foot like a fork. Norman watched as it caught her in its mouth, and swallowed her whole.
“Yakazar-yakazar!”
The giant monster roared its satisfaction at the meal, sending shivers down Norman’s spine. There were no words to express what he felt. Fear, paranoia, horror and the urge to run all swept through Norman. But then he remembered he wasn’t alone.
Kelly.
Norman saw the girl still lying near the thing’s feet, unconscious and immobile. He had to get her away from here, away from whatever this nightmare vision was, away from the beast. It wasn’t a hallucination, that was for sure.
As if anticipating Norman’s thoughts, the monster turned quickly to Kelly. That was when Norman saw its arms. They had been tucked down by its side, but now Norman saw them extended fully. The forearms were thick and muscly, and they ended abruptly with three fingers on each hand. Each finger had to be the size of a man, yet with more of those razor sharp claws on each one. The monster reached down and scooped Kelly up with ease, lifting her high into the air.
“No, don’t,” pleaded Norman.
Kelly appeared to regain consciousness just as the monster brought her up to its mouth. Norman saw her eyes grow wide, and then she uttered a short, terrified scream that was abruptly cut off as the monster threw her into its jaws. The upper half of her torso was ripped away and swallowed, and Norman watched in amazement as it chewed on her body. The thing’s arm swung down loosely, still holding the girl’s lower half, with blood pouring copiously from the dismembered legs. Norman felt dizzy. It wasn’t the heat, or the terror at standing beneath the shadow of a hundred foot monster that was causing him to stumble, but the sheer disbelief of what he was seeing. His brain couldn’t comprehend what was going on. After the earthquake, the disappearance of the children, and Melanie’s erratic behavior, he somehow had to accept this thing standing in front of him: a giant monster in the Mojave Desert, eating his children, a fantastic creature that couldn’t, shouldn’t, exist.
As it devoured Kelly’s lifeless, warm body, the monster turned slowly until Norman could see its face. It swallowed Kelly’s legs quickly, and let out a series of short barking sounds, almost as it if were coughing. Norman looked the thing over. The nearest he had seen to anything like it was in picture books, when he had taught the third grade about how the world was formed. The class had studied the dinosaurs, and one in particular jumped to the front of his memory now: Dromaeosaurus.
“No,” whispered Norman as his brain tried to accept what he was watching. Had it done the same to his other children? Had they all been devoured? Surely some of them had got away. As Norman watched the creature swallow Kelly, he thought back to the picture books. This was different. To begin with, it was standing in front of him, whilst Dromaeosaurus had been extinct for 100 million years. Then there were the others things. Its body mass was different: thicker, muscly, and more robust, as if it spent a lot of time building up those muscles. The toe claws were different too. He had never read about those on any kind of dinosaur. As he ran over the options in his mind, one of his pupils sprang to mind and he heard John’s voice in his head.
“Coelophysis, sir? One of the best killers of the Triassic period.”
Norman looked down at his hands, covered in blood and dirt. The sun was already drying them out, and the semi-dry blood was caking his fingers like cement. “Quiet, John, it’ll hear you.”
He could still see John standing in front of class, reading aloud from the book proudly, whilst the rest of the class looked on bored. He was a good kid, but he was wrong about this. It wasn’t like a Coelophysis either. It was some kind of rogue mutant; it had to be. It couldn’t be a dinosaur, it just couldn’t. Norman saw Matthew’s decapitated head again in the darkness, smelt the fecund death that had almost driven him insane, and realized he was losing it like Melanie. John was gone, like all the other children. He had no time to wallow in grief now and certainly no time to lose his mind. He had to find some survivors. Rachael and Kelly had hidden so perhaps there were more out there, hiding amongst the rocks. There may be more still alive, hiding in the shelter of the Joshua trees. He had to get home to Joan. He had to find Melanie. He had to…
A shadow fell over Norman, and he looked up into the creature’s red eyes. They were a deep crimson, and in the center of each a jet black pupil stared at him. The non-dinosaur seemed to stare at him for a while, unblinking, sizing him up, probably deciding whether he had enough meat on him to eat. Norman stared back, a cold sweat breaking out across forehead despite the heat. Maybe he could play dead. Maybe this was like a bear attack. As Norman saw its hands reaching down for him, he knew that playing dead wasn’t going to work. Norman waited for the inevitable. There was no outrunning this thing. There was no hiding from it. That didn’t mean he wanted to wait to be eaten though.
Norman looked around and noticed the blood; a splash here and there, the leaves of a nearby Joshua tree red instead of green, and pools of it at the monster’s feet. How many had it killed? All of them? Had any of the children escaped? Melanie had said they were all gone. Rachael and Kelly had managed to hide, but only for a short while. Melanie would know. He had to make her tell him. If he could get through to her, and avoid this monster, he might be able to find some of the others. He might still be able to save some of his children. Even if only one, even if he died trying, he had to do something.
Norman dodged the advancing claws and whirled around to see Melanie where he had left her nursing her ankle. He rushed to her, scattering up stones and dirt as he ran. When he reached her, he skidded to a halt, and hoped that the cloud of dust would give them some cover, maybe just enough to hide them from the beast and get away.
“Melanie, get up, we need to get the hell out of here.” Norman quickly dragged Melanie to her feet, aware of the monste
r following him. He could hear the thudding noises it made as it walked and felt a vibration run up his spine every time it planted one of its feet on the ground. He would have no more than a few seconds under the cover of the dust cloud. Shaking Melanie’s shoulders, he started to drag her away. “We have to find the children.”
“They’re all dead,” she said softly, letting him lead her. Melanie’s moist eyes looked at Norman. “I’m sorry, I…”
A puzzled look spread across her face, and blood began to drip over her lips. Her body seemed to jump, as if hit by an electric shock. Norman reached for her, waving away the spurious dust he had thrown up into the air around them. “Melanie…”
She slowly shook her head and looked down. The tip of the monster’s claw was sticking through her chest. She reached out a hand to touch it, pressing on the tip of the claw as if she could push it back in. Her fingers traced a line through her own blood, and she looked up at Norman curiously.
“But…”
Norman took a step backward as Melanie was suddenly flung to the ground face first. Her face smacked into the ground, and Norman heard her nose break. The sharp corner of a jagged edge of rock sliced through her skull. When she looked up at Norman, he could see a piece of bone sticking out of her skull. It was glaringly white against the blood on her face and the dark tissue of the monster’s claw. The monster was stood right behind her, its foot inches away. Norman watched in shock as it retracted its claw from Melanie’s back. It was coming for her now. It was leaning over them, reaching for the wounded woman, preparing to finish her off.
Without thinking, Norman leant forward and grabbed her outstretched hands.
“Melanie, hold on to me, I’ll…”
Melanie was wrenched from his grasp easily. The giant monster threw her up into the air, and Norman heard her scream before it caught her in its jaws. Her body became wedged between its front teeth, and then it began to chew on her, breaking her bones like dry sticks. Norman collapsed to the ground, feeling tiny droplets of Melanie’s blood rain down upon him. Her body was tossed from side to side as it ate her alive. An arm suddenly dropped on to the ground beside him, mangled beyond recognition, resembling a chewed piece of meat that that even a butcher would discard. Norman rolled over and threw up.
