by Russ Watts
Vic took the empty beer bottle from Mackenzie, intending to replenish it. He tried not to look at Mackenzie’s injuries too closely. The beer had helped take the edge off his fear, but still, he didn’t want to get too involved. “You want another? There’s a whole case back there.”
“Vic, can you go out front with James and give us some space? Keep an eye on that thing. We need to keep everyone calm and quiet as best we can, and for that thing to stay outside, well away from here.” Maria turned back to her patient. She really just wanted Vic out of the way. She felt like he was watching in the same way as people watch a car crash. He couldn’t do anything to help her, but she could find another use for him and get him out of her hair at the same time. “It’s important that we know where it is, Vic. If it comes back at us, we need as much warning as possible.”
“God Almighty, what happened?” asked James as he approached with a bottle of beer swinging in one hand. “You get in the ring with that thing? Bad idea, bro’.”
“Mac’s hurt, but he’ll be fine. Mr. Stepper and Myles…” Maria didn’t need to finish her sentence.
“Shoot.” James shrugged and looked around the dim room. Michele was gently crying, her head low, her shoulders slumped, and Akecheta unable to console her. Chris was still laid out unconscious, and the little girl and her dog were picking at a packet of chips. “This is pretty fucked up.”
“You got that right,” said Vic as he hesitated, reluctant to head out front on his own.
“Thanks for that enlightening piece of information, James.” Maria sighed and rifled through one of the first-aid kits looking for something to suture Mackenzie’s cut with. Once she was done with the leg, she still had to look at his hand. “Look, just go with Vic and check on our visitor.”
“What’s the deal? I’m just trying to show a little compassion. I thought Mac might need a little support. I mean, there’s not much we can do for the driver or Myles. They’re history. Six feet under. Worm food.” James shrugged. “So what do we do now? You stitch up Mac and we make a break for it? Did you get through to anyone, Mac?”
“For the love of…look, James, just leave it will you? Just go with Vic and keep watch out front.” Maria took a deep breath. “I really need to concentrate on what I’m doing.”
“James, I think it best you go,” said Mackenzie. Whilst Vic had shown some empathy, James’ sympathy evidently only extended as far as it helped in saving his own neck. His inquisitiveness was insensitive and unwelcome, and Mackenzie could see that Laurel was uncomfortable around him. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t start talking about Myles like that already. His little girl is right over there. You understand? If you want to help find a way out of this mess, do as Maria asks and check what that thing is doing. The bus is gone, our driver is gone, and we’re going to need to find another way out of here. Surely you want to help with that?”
James smiled. “So, I guess running around out there waving those kid’s toys didn’t help much then?” James rolled his eyes and slapped Vic on the back. “Vic, you nearly got yourself killed and for what, some senile old man? Mr. Stepper got gobbled up by the monster anyway. I guess he was dessert after those two backpackers. This is ridiculous. Anyone who is stupid enough to go out there deserves what happens to them if you ask me. It’s Mr. Stepper’s fault we’re in this mess, so if he’s fucked himself up, he’s got no one to blame but himself.”
“You know, I’ve just about had as much as I can take from you,” said Maria, getting up.
“Bring it on, old woman.” James smirked as Maria attempted to stare him down. He still had the knife in his pocket and wasn’t afraid of an old nurse. “Let’s see what you got.”
Mackenzie saw fear spread across Laurel’s face. He couldn’t afford to let things get out of control again. Everyone was tense and afraid, and nothing was getting solved by fighting. “Sit down, Maria. Save it. Please.”
Maria shook her head and knew what she had to do. She got back on her knees and resumed attending to Mackenzie’s leg. As much as she had been tempted to try and teach James some respect, she knew that Mackenzie was right. James got on her nerves and refusing to let him wind her up was the best thing she could do.
“Listen,” said Mackenzie, “we don’t know what we’re dealing with here, but we sure don’t need to give that thing any more reason to come over here again in a hurry, do we? So, James, for everyone’s sake, including your own, let’s all keep the noise down. I think if we try not to antagonize it, or draw it in, we might just stand a chance of getting out of this alive. I’m quite sure you want to get home as much as I do. Arguing amongst ourselves won’t help, so while Maria patches me up, we need to start thinking this through and figure out what the hell we do next. Like it or not the bus is gone. We need all the help we can get, James.”
Mackenzie hoped that appealing to James, asking him for help, might soften his mood and make him see sense. Obviously, he didn’t like being told what to do, and trying to coax anything positive out of him was mission impossible. Not even Tom Cruise could get James to say a good word about anyone.
“Right. Nice one, Mac. I’m pleased to hear that you’re starting to see some sense. I was beginning to think I was on my own.” James cast a sideways look at Vic which only Mackenzie noticed. It was not a look of love, or friendship, or even indifference. It seemed to border on loathing, and Mackenzie began to think there was more to this relationship than they were letting on. Trouble in paradise, perhaps?
“May I offer something to the conversation?”
With the exception of Maria, all eyes turned in surprise toward the far side of the room. Lying on the floor between a stack of hardbound guide books on the formation of the Mojave Desert and two slightly crushed boxes of peanut butter snack bars was Chris, his eyes fully open, and his hands behind his head.
“Thought I should join the party,” he said smiling weakly.
“Chris, welcome back.” Akecheta was closest and leant across to rest a hand on his arm. “How are you feeling?”
“Better, actually. I don’t think I’m going to be running anywhere anytime soon, but…better.”
“Now we’re cooking on gas,” said James as he popped the top off another bottle of beer. “A full house. Now we can really kick on.”
Mackenzie was pleased to see that Chris was conscious again. He had been out a while, and it looked like he was on the road to recovery. Mackenzie had to admit that he wasn’t convinced that Chris was going to make it. The monster had cut him badly, but now that he was awake, things seemed better. All of a sudden, the future wasn’t quite so gloomy. James was right. They could kick on now and figure out what they could do to get out of their prison.
“Let’s start with what we know,” said Chris, “which is not really very much. It’s pretty evident that these earthquakes we’ve been experiencing were as a result of the dinosaur. What damage it has done to the rest of the state we don’t know. We don’t know for sure if it’s been picked up on elsewhere, but my guess is that someone is looking for the source of the quakes. It’s knocked out cellphones and landlines, which suggests the problem isn’t just localized to here. The larger the area affected, the more chance we have of being discovered. On the other hand, the larger the area affected, the more stretched the authorities are. One way or another, communication is out for now.”
“Maybe the big chief can send out a smoke signal,” muttered James looking at Akecheta. Vic punched his partner on the arm and told him to quieten down.
“It would help if we knew what we were dealing with. I don’t even know what to call it,” said Laurel. “Is it really a dinosaur, Chris?”
“Probably. Some sort of mutation at least. Unless we study it, it’s impossible to say for sure. There could feasibly be gargantuan beasts that live underground. It’s not like man has truly explored every last inch of the planet. The oceans are constantly revealing new creatures that we thought were extinct, or that we didn’t even know existed. The more
our technology advances allowing us to explore these places, the more we learn. In the Himalayas, we’re still discovering new creatures that we didn’t even know existed. Just recently, we found out there’s a fish that can walk on land, so who knows what this is.”
“A fish that walks on land? Chris, I think you need to lie back down,” said Akecheta.
“I’m serious.” Chris rubbed the top of his right arm. “I might not be in the best of health, but I wouldn’t lie about this stuff. I’ve still got all my marbles.”
“There is another explanation,” said Akecheta. He looked at Michele, concerned that the conversation might be too much for her. If she was taking any of it in, she showed no sign. Her face was calm, her eyes red and watery, and she gave the appearance of a wax dummy. Her eyes occasionally flitted to Alyce, but otherwise she was not there. Physically, she was right next to him, but mentally she was somewhere else. Her mind was getting used to the prospect of not seeing Myles again, and for that, he was grateful. She had to be able to move on, to look after Alyce. Terrible thought it was, he had kept telling her to focus on Alyce. Evidently, she wasn’t paying much attention to their discussion now, and he felt he could no longer hold it in.
“My grandfather used to tell us stories about the Moerkhanee. I think he used to enjoy scaring us when we were little. My brother and I would listen to him for hours. I only remembered when I was up there on the roof. It was the eyes that reminded me; those big, red eyes. Just like the monsters he used to tell me about.”
“Moerkhanee? I don’t think I know it,” said Chris. “What period is that from?”
“No period from your history books, professor.” Akecheta remembered looking at his grandfather when he had told them the story. It had seemed so real that he was unsure if it had been just a story to frighten young children at bedtime, or if it was a part of their history. His brother was slightly older and told him that their grandfather didn’t lie. All the stories he heard were based on a truth. Over time, things got changed and warped, distorted to fit the modern world. Yet there was something deeply real and unsettling about the Moerkhanee, something that still made Akecheta afraid to this day.
“The Moerkhanee isn’t an it. The Moerkhanee is what we call them: a race of huge creatures that live beneath the surface of the planet. They swim through the dirt as easily as an eagle flies through the sky. They are solo creatures, all birthed from one mother, who can reproduce but once a year in spring. The Moerkhanee exist only beneath the world we know, stirring up the land and causing it to shudder and quake with fear. They are afraid of nothing, except each other. My people never saw them. They didn’t need to. These monsters churned up the earth and could cause whole continents to tremble, such was their power. Nothing could match their awesome power, and so we learned to live with them under our feet, respecting their privacy as they respected ours.”
“So what changed all that?” asked James. “Huge monsters that live underground and suddenly decided to come topside? You sure you haven’t been smoking something funky, Akecheta? I’ve heard about you lot and what goes in that peace pipe of yours.”
“Oh my,” said Maria. She had finished up with Mackenzie’s leg and was now bandaging his hand. “Can you just let him finish? Akecheta knows a hell of a lot more about the Mojave than you do, James. Not everyone is as full of shit as you are.”
James shrugged and laughed. “Look, I don’t know if that thing outside is a dinosaur, or a mythical creature come to life, but I can tell you one thing. It’s real. It’s here. And it’s hungry.”
“We finally agree on something,” said Mackenzie.
“I’ve been thinking about something else,” said Chris. “Unless we study it, we’ll never know exactly what that thing is. But if it was living underground, then it’s not a coincidence that it surfaced around here.”
“What do you mean? Why here?” asked Laurel.
Chris rubbed his right shoulder again. The pain had started up again and spread down his arm. It was like pins and needles stretching from his neck to his fingertips, and he was trying to get the circulation going. He should probably walk around, but he wasn’t entirely sure that if he stood up he wouldn’t just fall on his ass.
“We’re in California, but only just. The Mojave Desert stretches into Nevada, and it seems just too much of a coincidence that this thing has appeared now, not just in this area but at this point in time. Something has to have drawn it out, or forced it up.”
“You’re talking about the test sites aren’t you? Yucca Flats?” Akecheta stood up and began pacing up and down. “Of course. You could be onto something there, Chris.”
“Care to share?” asked Laurel. “What are the Yucca Flats?”
“Jesus,” whispered Maria. “Chris is right. We did this.”
“Sixty years ago, the US started testing atomic bombs at a location in the Yucca Flats. They stopped in the early nineties. Around ninety-two I think.” Chris looked up at Akecheta. “When did they start again? Last year? A few months ago?”
“So what?” asked Mackenzie. “We’re nowhere near there, right?”
“Right,” said Chris. “But we’re close to the San Andreas Fault, and the bombs were tested underground. If the creature was disturbed, affected maybe by the radiation, then—”
“So that abomination outside the store is a mutated, radioactive, fucked-up dinosaur? That’s what you’re suggesting, right?” Akecheta screwed his eyes up and blinked them open rapidly. “This is fairy-tale stuff.”
“Oh, but your Moerkhanee theory is more realistic?” scoffed James. “I reckon you’ve all been out in the sun too long.”
Ignoring them both, Chris went on. “What I mean is, from what I can tell, this thing is descended from the dinosaurs. It has a lot of qualities that are reminiscent of Dromaeosaurus, even Saichania like I mentioned before. At first, I thought we were looking at something from the Triassic period, but it’s more like a Troodon, and probably not fully matured. The species is clearly subterranean in nature, perhaps even nocturnal, and its habitat has been disturbed. This thing could well be exactly what your ancestors talked of, Akecheta. The Moerkhanee and this dinosaur could well be one and the same thing. Why not? Only it has been affected by the recent atomic testing, affecting it on a cellular level, even so much as re-writing its DNA. I’d have to extrapolate some blood or plasma to really know what it is and how it survived.”
“Chris, you want to slow things down a bit? You’re losing me,” said Mackenzie. “Dinosaurs are dead, Chris, dead. They’ve been extinct a long time and are about as likely to make a comeback as JFK’s political career. You want to try again? I find it hard to believe that thing is a dinosaur.”
“That’s what I’m trying to say. It was a dinosaur. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that a creature can stay undetected from man for a long time. Species that we once thought were dead can reappear suddenly. There are animals out there we haven’t even discovered yet, living at the bottom of the ocean or deep within the rainforests. We’re not exactly far from the NTS, and despite what the authorities are telling us, or not telling us, I think they’ve unleashed something out of their control.”
“NTS?” asked Mackenzie.
“Nevada Test Site,” replied Akecheta. “It’s where the army blows up shit.”
“So, this is some sort of monster cooked up by military scientists, now?” asked James. “A weapon?”
“Oh no, not really,” said Chris. The cut on his leg was irritating him, and he resisted the temptation to scratch it. It felt like something was eating away at him, making his blood want to leap from his body. He figured he would have to get used to the pain until they could figure a way past the monster and went on. “I don’t think that they intended this at all. I would suggest that this creature lived peacefully, well away from man, in underground tunnels and caves. There are a plethora of them beneath us, particularly under the desert. There are plenty of abandoned coal mines it could use without us even kn
owing if it wanted a quick look topside. Back in the fifties, the US army tested a load of atomic bombs just north of here at the Yucca Flats. It left the area decimated and irradiated. They began testing again just recently, testing smaller bombs, but with a lot more energy and power. Some were exploded underground, and I believe this is the result. That monster out there was a dinosaur, the Moerkhanee perhaps, and the radiation has accelerated its growth, distorted it beyond what it once was into a new kind of creature, something we can’t possibly comprehend. This is not a creature by design, but by accident.”
“But why didn’t the bombs kill it? Why didn’t the radiation kill it?” asked Laurel.
Chris shrugged. A wave of nausea swam up his throat and he swallowed it down. Others around him had died and he refused to buckle. Besides, he found the conversation stimulating and it kept his mind off the pain. “I would say it was far enough away from the blast to survive, deep in the bowels of the Earth where it was protected. It’s possible that the radiation didn’t directly affect it, but entered the underground rivers and caves and tunnels. It was absorbed into its home, its food, air and water; it’s likely that the creatures first exposed to the radiation did indeed die. But what about the offspring? What if the original dino had young, still growing? Without knowing what these things are, we couldn’t say for sure how it would be affected. Those bombs may have accelerated the young’s growth, shaped its DNA, its emotions; turned it into the thing that’s outside this store waiting to eat us.”
“Awesome,” said James. “So we have a giant radioactive dinosaur on our backs. What a vacation this is turning out to be.”
“If it wasn’t for the tests, we may never have encountered it. It probably would never have surfaced, and we could live for another millennia never crossing paths. This thing could have been dormant, until our angry bombs gave it a wake-up call that it has well and truly answered in style,” said Chris.
“Style?” Mackenzie looked at him, amazed that Chris could be so matter-of-fact about it all. “You seem impressed by this thing. Don’t forget, it’s already killed two of us, and is waiting to finish the rest of us off. My wife is terrified, and frankly, so am I. What should—?”
