by Russ Watts
“Amy, get out. Get out, now!”
John felt the ground move, and then the lumbering creature above him turned. Had it heard Amy’s scream? There was so much noise coming from the park that John had hoped the strange dinosaur would move on, or perhaps be scared and forced back underground. The expression on the monster’s face told him it was anything but scared. In fact, it looked…hungry.
As the monster turned, it dropped its head slightly, opened its bloody jaws, and let out an almighty roar. The noise that emerged from the thing’s throat was so loud and deep that it felt real enough to touch. John felt his whole body vibrate, and he dropped the hammer. What was he thinking? He should’ve made sure Amy was safe before he tried to help the animals. Now the thing knew they were here, and it didn’t sound like it wanted to do anything but make sure they were as dead as the lions.
Amy screamed again, and John turned to her. He dropped the hammer and began to run. She stood by the exit door. Her face, though still beautiful, was suddenly old. She wasn’t a girl anymore, but a young woman. She was scared too, terrified. John looked at her as she receded from view. He kept kicking his legs, trying to run to her, but he was kicking at thin air. It was so quick that he didn’t even have time to register what was happening. It was only as Amy began to get smaller that his brain accepted he was being lifted up into the air. It was odd seeing Amy from above, as if he were flying. She was his beautiful girl, always the little girl chuckling at his bad jokes and funny faces. He tried to shout to her, to tell her to run away, but he found nothing came out of his mouth. There was too much pressure on his throat. It was as if he was in a vice and it was crushing his body, squeezing all the oxygen out of his lungs. He saw Amy open her mouth, her face full of terror, but he didn’t hear anything. There was just silence.
John heard nothing but the sound of his own pulse throbbing in his head. It was odd, but he didn’t really feel frightened. It was almost inevitable, and his brain had no choice but to accept it: he was going to die.
The sky abruptly turned dark, and John felt the creature’s grip around him loosen. Blood dripped over John’s face and he understood then that it wasn’t the sky turning dark, but that he was upside down and looking now at the creature. Its head was glorious, and its eyes deep red. John took it in, amazed at what he was looking at so closely. He could hear Amy’s screaming but was mesmerized by the fantastic creature. Suddenly, he was falling. He fell only a few feet, but the landing was surprisingly soft. He was in its mouth now, on its tongue. A smell of fetid death threatened to overpower him, but John grabbed onto a tooth to steady himself. He wrapped both hands around a front incisor and tried to pull himself away from the creature’s throat. There was a glimmer of sky above, but it was disappearing quickly as the monster closed its jaws. It was like a steel door shutting on him, and John lost his grip on the tooth, falling backward onto the tongue, his feet slipping in a mixture of blood and saliva.
As his heart quickened, John tasted blood in his mouth. It was thick, like syrup trickling down his esophagus. He started to gag as the warm liquid filled his throat and he coughed up great globules of sticky phlegm and blood. With his throat partially cleared, he tried shouting again, but the creature’s jaws tightened around his midriff and he felt incisors tearing into his flesh, scything through his intestines and guts like a knife through butter.
The monster had gotten him good. There was no escaping this. He could take the pain. He could accept he wasn’t going to make it. He just wished he could see Amy one more time. The jaws opened briefly, and his body had been twisted around so he was now facing the thing that was eating him. He could see right into its eyes. Did it want him to know he was dying? Was this a game, a chance to prove it had won? Did it even know what it was doing? John reached out a hand and pulled a fragment of bone from between two teeth. It was nestled there beside a stringy piece of his own flesh that dangled like a fish on a hook. John wondered if the bone belonged to the lion it had eaten, and then jammed it back into the gap between the tooth and the gum. The monster’s eyes flickered, and John knew he had hurt it. He was pleased. Why should this thing have everything its own way? Suddenly, the world began to turn black as he was turned around in the creature’s mouth, and pointed down toward its throat.
Searing pain blinded him and he lost feeling in his lower body as his legs were ripped off, the hips pulled from their sockets. Frantically, he pushed his arms upwards and felt nothing but the inside of the creature’s mouth. His hands slipped across the roof of its mouth as he was pulled downward, the muscles contracting and sucking him towards its throat where he would be pulled down into its stomach to be digested.
John saw a flash of blue, a tiny crack of light appearing between the monster’s closing teeth, and he knew that would be the last he saw of the world. He felt faint now. He tried to pull himself upward but there was nothing to get hold of, and he had no strength. Half of his body had been torn away, and the rest was nothing but a mangled mess.
Slowly, he fell backward, sliding down the monster’s leathery tongue, and the throat closed around him, crushing what was left of his pulverized body. His eyes popped out of his skull, and he tried to imagine Amy’s beautiful face as he died. All he could think of though was how horrible it was to be eaten alive. John died, with Amy’s scream the last thing he heard.
“Dad!”
Amy staggered backward. John was gone. He was dead, torn apart in front of her. The cacophony of sounds suddenly filled her ears: the sirens, the screaming and shouting, the crying.
“Dad?” Amy sank to her knees as goose bumps rippled down her arms. The monster was standing before her, its belly satiated by the two things it had just devoured. Amy watched it take a step toward her, and a trickle of pee ran down her leg.
“I’m sorry, Dad. I love you.” Amy sank to the earth, and let her tears fall. There was no running from this thing, nowhere to go where it couldn’t find her. She wished this nightmare would end soon, and thought of what her mother and Mackenzie would think when they found out she was dead. She had always thought she would die peacefully, perhaps in her sleep years from now. Eaten by a monster had not been part of her plan, and Amy tried to find comfort in her tears before she died.
CHAPTER 11
Akecheta crawled up onto the roof and found Mac standing at the front of the store. The bus was burning far away in the distance and black smoke palled into the blue sky. The store’s roof was covered from end to end in solar panels. With the sun overhead, they sparkled like an ocean, and Mac was nothing but a vague shadow in their midst, a ship surrounded by glassy waves of pure, warm light. The heat radiating from the panels made him gasp for air. It was like being submerged in a hot bath, so encompassing was the heat on the rooftop.
“Mac? Over here.” There was no way Akecheta was going back down without him, but it appeared that Mac hadn’t heard him. He was holding his cellphone high in the air, trying to make a call. As Akecheta spoke, he watched as the black smoke parted and the monster emerged, a giant and monstrous sight that sent shivers down his spine. It was like a mirage, a vision of Hell wrought real. The beast approached with a lumbering gait, each leg planted on the ground heavily, as if the gravity was too much for the sheer weight of the monster. Although it was slow, it could be quick too. It seemed to take only seconds to reach the store. All the time that it was approaching, Akecheta had also been creeping forward, ready to drag Mackenzie to safety back down the hatch.
Akecheta knew they only had seconds. The monster was advancing on them now, bringing with it only one certainty: death. Mackenzie didn’t see it until the last moment, and he fell back as the monster prepared to take a swipe at him. Akecheta saw Mackenzie fall and cut his hand on one of the panels.
“Mac,” hissed Akecheta in barely more than a whisper. Should he make a run for it and try to grab Mac? Should he risk calling out and alerting the monster to his presence? Mackenzie brought the phone to his ear and said something. Akecheta then heard a n
oise behind him and saw Myles appear through the hatch.
“Get back,” said Akecheta. “Get away from here.”
Myles ignored Akecheta and climbed up onto the roof. His face was full of wonder when he saw the creature above Mackenzie. From a distance, it almost didn’t seem real. Up close like this, only a few feet away, it became all too real. The smell, the scaly skin, the deep red eyes and the monster’s rasping breaths all sent shivers down his neck. Myles took two steps forward and saw Mackenzie lying on the roof. Instinctively, Myles began to jump across the solar panels, shouting for him to get clear.
“Myles, no, stop.” Akecheta stood up, and what he saw made him suddenly regret ever getting on the bus that morning. The monster had been looking down at Mackenzie, but now its head was raised, and its fiery red eyes locked first onto Akecheta’s, and then Myles’.
“Run!” screamed Akecheta as the monster came forward.
Straddling the store, it snaked an arm across the rooftop with its claws extended, each one the length of a man. Two thick claws like saw blades raked across the roof, gouging out a deep line in the roof and destroying some of the solar panels, narrowly avoiding cutting Mackenzie in half. Myles wasn’t as lucky.
Mid-step, Myles was scythed into two distinct pieces, severed at the waist, the monster’s claws cutting him in half like he was no more than a gingerbread man being snapped in half by a child’s greedy fingers. His legs continued to run for three steps before tripping and falling beside Mackenzie. The upper half of his body was thrown over the edge of the store, and Akecheta caught sight of the shock on Myles’ face before he plummeted over the side. So quick was the attack that Myles had no time to shout for help, to scream in pain, or to say anything that suggested he knew his death was imminent. One moment he was there, the next he was simply gone. When Myles was cut in half, huge plumes of blood cascaded over the roof, showering out from his dismembered torso and exposed arteries. Much of it cascaded over Akecheta and the hatchway behind him. Myles’ life was reduced to opulent amounts of red liquid, bestowed upon Akecheta like some cruel wicked gift, one that he wished he could refuse, but found wiping from his chin and face.
With Myles dead and gone, the monster reared up and bellowed, the somber sound echoing across the hot desert. Was it a call of victory, or something else? Akecheta watched as the monster looked down at him and their eyes locked together. Slowly, it backed away from the store, each step of its powerful legs shaking the store to its foundations. The monster was leaving. Akecheta felt momentarily confused. Was it actually leaving? It could so easily take him and Mackenzie out as well, yet it was backing off. Seizing his chance, Akecheta wiped the blood from his face and jumped over the broken line of panels to Mackenzie.
“Take my hand.” Akecheta reached down and hauled Mackenzie to his feet.
“Wait. The phone,” said Mackenzie urgently as he got to his feet. “I dropped it when—”
“No time,” said Akecheta, worrying that their carnivorous friend might rethink its retreat and attack them again. He risked a glance up at the monster, and noticed it had stopped. It seemed to be looking at them with what passed as curiosity. Akecheta couldn’t figure out what had stopped it, but he wasn’t going to let the opportunity pass. If they could get out of sight, and keep quiet, they stood a chance. Perhaps it wouldn’t just back off, but leave altogether; burrow itself back underground and find someone else to haunt. “Leave it.”
Mackenzie knew Akecheta was right. Hanging around on the roof was akin to writing a suicide note. He ushered Akecheta back toward the hatch and they began the journey across the roof, monitoring the beast that still cloaked the building and could attack again at a moment’s notice. Mackenzie’s left hand was bleeding, but now that he was up on his feet, he felt a throbbing in his leg that overtook the pain in his hand. He noticed a rip in his jeans, the outer frayed edges sodden with blood, and he realized he had cut his leg as well on one of the broken solar panels. A sliver of one of the panels had gouged a deep line in his shin, tearing through his slacks and skin almost down to the bone. Despite the pain, he couldn’t help but feel guilty. Myles had suffered more than a few cuts and wouldn’t be coming back down with them. The lower half of Myles’ body was still there on the roof, the splayed legs cooking on the remaining intact solar panels. Such was the intense heat that Mackenzie wondered if they actually would burn. There was a faint smell in the air like burnt charcoal, as if someone had left a grill on too long and burnt hamburger meat. The smell permeated the hot thick air and tickled his nostrils. The monster’s odorous stench still lingered over them too, an exquisite stench of rotting seared meat. As they passed Myles’ remains, waves of fetid air swept up in the heat and made Mackenzie feel dizzy. He felt like he was standing on the precipice of a cliff with an unseen presence threatening to push him over.
How was he going to explain to the others what had happened? How could he tell Alyce and Michele that Myles had been horribly killed?
“We’re coming down.” Akecheta began to climb down into the store and Mackenzie followed, his hands trembling as he gripped the lip of the roof. He closed the hatch as he descended, casting the store room into gloominess again. A sense of relief hit Mackenzie as he closed the hatch. Somehow having a physical barrier between him and the beast provided some comfort, no matter how flimsy it was. Still, the relief was tinged with grief and guilt. Whenever they tried something, it was one step forward, two back. Myles was dead. Mr. Stepper was dead. Mackenzie couldn’t help but wonder who was next.
There was a lot of chatter and whispering in the room as Akecheta helped him down. When his feet finally hit the floor, he found Laurel hugging him tight.
“What happened up there?” She kissed him all over his bloodied face. “I thought I’d lost you. What were you thinking?”
Mackenzie noticed Laurel was covered in blood too. “What about you? Are you hurt?” he asked her in a panic. “God, Laurel, it’s all over you.”
“It’s not mine. From the roof. I thought—”
A single scream silenced the room. It quickly faded into a muffled sobbing, and the whispering in the room stopped instantly. Mackenzie looked over Laurel’s shoulder to see Michele in Akecheta’s arms. Alyce was tugging at her mother’s waist, a look of desperation in her eyes. There was a reluctance to accept the truth, but he knew Alyce could understand what was going on. Her father hadn’t returned from the roof. The hatch was closed. The beast had claimed another victim.
Beers seemed to understand too that his master was not coming back. The puppy whined and nuzzled up against Alyce. Michele was sobbing into Akecheta’s arms, and Mackenzie watched as Alyce dropped her arms and sat back down on the floor. She hugged Beers and stared at the floor with glassy eyes. Mackenzie wanted to say something, to explain how it had all happened so quickly that there was nothing either of them could do. He wanted to help to comfort Alyce and Michele, but he knew there was nothing he could do or say to help them. A part of him was relieved that Akecheta had already taken responsibility and spoken to Michele. He had to admit the prospect of telling Michele what had happened scared him. He wasn’t anyone special, just a man from Milwaukee with a garage full of cars to sell. He fulfilled a certain role in life and being a hero wasn’t one of them. He had a slightly paunched belly, a receding hairline, and a stepdaughter who he loved as much as humanly possible. He didn’t have the words or the experience to deal with this situation, and though he felt miserable and ashamed, he knew it was best to let Akecheta deal with it.
“Let me take a look at you,” said Maria as she pulled Mackenzie away from his wife. “I need to dress that cut on your leg before you get an infection. Was it the thing, the…dinosaur?”
The whispering died down, and Mackenzie sat down on an upturned case of bottles of sun screen as Laurel fussed over him. Maria began to examine his leg.
“No, I fell and cut it on those panels you’ve got up there.”
“I only had them installed a week ago. Somethin
g tells me they’re not in pristine working order anymore?”
“You could say that,” said Mackenzie trying not to let the pain show as Maria continued to work on his leg.
“Mac, we need to elevate your leg and stop this bleeding. Laurel, grab me something to rest his leg on will you?”
Laurel dragged a huge box full of Cheetos over and Mackenzie raised his injured leg.
Maria looked at the leg with concern. It was a mess. The cut was just below the knee and scythed all the way down the shin to the top of the ankle. Some of the skin had peeled back exposing tender muscle and tissue. Blood was dripping everywhere and she knew she had to wrap it up quickly or Mackenzie could go into shock.
“Laurel, there’s some first-aid kits up there on the second from top shelf. Grab a couple for me, please. Then find me an emergency blanket - you know the silver ones? There should be some close by to the first-aid kits. I need to clean this up. There are some bottles of mineral water over in the fridge at the back there.”
Vic approached them as Laurel retrieved the items Maria needed. “Can I do anything?” Mackenzie looked pale, and Vic hadn’t needed to hear the conversation between Akecheta and Michele to know things had turned sour up there.
“I’m fine,” replied Mackenzie. “Although that cold beer you’ve got looks mighty good right now.”
Vic handed the beer over, and Mackenzie drank swiftly. “Don’t suppose you’ve got a cigarette as well?”
“No, he hasn’t,” said Laurel as she dropped the first-aid kits and a blanket at Maria’s feet. “Really, Mac, do you think that’s a good choice? How many times—?”
“All right, all right, I know. Don’t start on me now.” Mackenzie regretted snapping at Laurel, but once she got started on her anti-smoking crusade, she was likely to get a bee in her bonnet all day. And that would be the end of any chance he might get to sneak a cigarette.
