by Jody Wallace
At least Maggie had run in the direction of the armory.
Zeke stabbed the jagged blade as hard as he could through the monster’s clawed foot and set off after Maggie and the Cthulhu. He prayed he wouldn’t be too late. He prayed he wasn’t making her situation worse, since he did, after all, have an angry T-Rex on his heels. He prayed the armory wasn’t empty, because all he had left were throwing stars, daggers, a razor wire garrote, and a pistol.
The garrote, incidentally, was mostly useless until his left arm regained its functionality.
As he ran, he shrugged his shoulder to flip his bad arm up and down. Tingles stabbed his fingers. Good sign. The T-Rex’s roar chased him, growing fainter as he outpaced it. About fifty feet of hallway remained until a split.
Zeke slowed, jogging in place. One fork was dark and led to the bunks and an emergency exit he doubted Maggie knew about.
The other? To the armory. Where he could see Cthulhu flaying the sealed door.
Zeke sprinted toward the three tentacled bastards. Maggie must be inside. Smart girl. Thank God, or thank Adi, that she’d been given the security codes for the outbunker doors. The T-Rex bellowed again, bashing into walls as it thundered in pursuit.
Now Zeke had to figure out how to get inside the armory without trailing any monsters with him. Inside, he could reassess, depending on the weapons he found.
And he could make sure Maggie was all right.
“Maggie!” He shot the pistol into the terrible threesome indiscriminately. The bullets wouldn’t do much to them, but one pinged into the metal door, as planned. “I need in.”
She might not hear him yell, but she’d hear the gunshots.
She might also hear the T-Rex. The bastard was short, comparatively, so it was making better than time Zeke had expected along the tight hallway. He hopped to the other side of the Cthulhu, who paid him little notice, as the T-Rex rounded the sharp bend in the corridor.
The dinosaur, sighting its prey, threw back its head and thrashed its stubby arms. It ripped out a stuttering roar that to Zeke sounded a lot like maniacal laughter.
His gun ran out of bullets. Rather than try to reload with one hand while a T-Rex hurtled toward him, he flung the pistol itself at the Cthulhu.
Shit. If Maggie didn’t open that door, he had nowhere to go but dead.
The T-Rex charged forward. Its head thudded against the ceiling, knocking it into a wall. The ground shook with its approach. It stumbled but barely slowed. Bouncing from wall to ceiling to wall, it galloped toward Zeke with murder in its tiny yellow eyes.
He didn’t have much longer.
“Maggie!” Zeke couldn’t approach fully-tentacled Cthulhu. They could paralyze every part of him that wasn’t covered by vest and boots. He withdrew a throwing star and pitched it off the top of the door. The shriek of abused metal echoed through the hall, a lovely counterpoint to the noisy dino. A Cthulhu howled when the throwing star ricocheted into its head.
That gave him an idea. He positioned himself as close to the Cthulhu as he could without entering tentacle range. They noticed of him, finally, and their many eyeballs rolled in his direction. Two of the three lumbered toward him.
The T-Rex lumbered more violently. It was nearly upon them. Zeke unsheathed a dagger and lured the Cthulhu into the middle of the hallway.
Right before the T-Rex struck, it roared. The smaller wraiths’ tentacles flailed wildly. Zeke ran as fast as he could as the T-Rex barreled into the Cthulhu.
The tangle of monsters slewed down the concrete hall. Shrieks and roars chased Zeke. Wraiths rarely fought each other, but these wouldn’t be able to help it. At least, that was the plan.
He reached the end of the hallway. No doors, no windows. Just a block wall. He whipped around to see the wraiths fighting. The Cthulhu stung the T-Rex over and over with their tentacles, and the T-Rex bit one in half.
Score. But would it work? No time for tests. Zeke, grazing as close to the wall as he could, vaulted over the mound of reptile and tentacle beast. He landed on the T-Rex’s haunch. The massive head swung toward him, snapping at him as if he were a fly. He was already chugging toward the armory and the last Cthulhu.
Right before he plunged into the wraith dagger-first, the door popped open. Its motion bludgeoned the Cthulhu aside.
Maggie’s terrified face was the most welcome sight in the world.
“This sucks!” she yelled.
He bolted into the room. She shoved into him bodily, not to hug him but to do-si-do him sideways.
Out of reach of the Cthulhu in the armory with her.
The wraith seemed to be missing a few tentacles. Maggie brandished a sword in the hand not hampered by her sprained wrist.
Right—he and she were both gimps. Luckily, Zeke’s good arm was damn good. He accepted the sword from Maggie and made short work of the last wraith.
The last wraith in the room with them.
For now.
Panting, they stared at one another.
“Your arm’s not working,” she observed. “Is it broken?”
“Frozen. Their tentacles paralyze.” He lifted the deadened limb with his opposite hand and shook it. A burning sensation crept through his flesh. “They gotta get you in a lot of places to stop your whole body, though.”
“And that other thing? The roar?”
“T-Rex.”
“Really?” She pressed her face against the small glass window in the door. “Where?”
Something slammed into the door. Maggie screamed and fell on her ass. The wall juddered like an earthquake. The safety glass crunched.
The T-Rex’s yellow eyeball peered through the tiny hole at them.
“It’s right there.” Zeke helped her up, careful to brush off the glass crumbles. The monster’s head wove past the door. First they saw an eyeball. Then some sharp white teeth.
The monster pounded the door. The thick metal barrier groaned on its hinges.
Well, hell. There wasn’t supposed to be a T-Rex in the outbunker.
Most wraiths couldn’t foil the reinforced steel doors with which the Somnium built as many of its locations as possible. Security panels and locks thwarted the ones that could manipulate knobs, and the rest couldn’t bash through the thick walls.
An exception was the T-Rex, so hallways tended to be narrow. To keep T-Rexes out.
Just their luck, this T-Rex was a runt. A runt still big enough to chomp them in half, with its oversized head and vicious teeth. The vests wouldn’t protect them from a dino bite.
Actually, it wasn’t their luck. It was Karen’s luck. He had no idea how the curators would react to Karen’s unforeseen abilities, but it didn’t matter right now. All that mattered was getting himself, Maggie and hopefully everyone else through. Getting them through undamaged was already a lost cause, but alive would be acceptable.
The T-Rex continued to assault the door. Zeke flipped open cabinet after cabinet, gathering the remaining weapon stash. Several swords and daggers, no guns, no grenades, no explosives. Crap. Explosives were the best way to deal with T-Rexes, the biggest known wraiths to manifest. While they weren’t full-sized dinosaurs, they did appear in the nightmares of a few neonati, with good reason.
Maggie anxiously nibbled a fingernail. After setting her up with another sword, he slid one into a sheath and kept one in his hand. This time he’d have a spare.
After a particularly vigorous dino bashing, the security door squealed. Dust poofed around the edges as concrete disintegrated. The door itself could be steel, but the concrete might only contain metal rebar.
“So. We’re trapped.” Maggie leaned her forehead against his shoulder for a brief moment. As decorated as they were with blades and flak vests, hugging would be awkward.
Zeke gave her a quick kiss. “Look on the bright side. Since we’re both bellatorix, they’ll cart us
off to the Orbis for training together.”
She grinned. “I kinda like the curator. He’s feisty.”
“It should be an interesting couple of months.” The conversation was meaningless, but meant almost everything. They were in a lethal bind. While Zeke had killed T-Rexes before, he’d never dusted one without his team.
Maggie was smart and determined, but she couldn’t take the place of an entire team of trained alucinators.
The T-Rex, meanwhile, clawed and roared at the door as if his worst enemy were inside, which Zeke supposed Maggie was to Karen. God. He should have killed Karen when he’d had the chance. He shouldn’t have hesitated, too cowardly to murder another human.
“I’m sorry about all this,” he told her. This wasn’t fair to Maggie, that Karen was fixated on her. “It’s my fault.”
She gazed up at him with complete trust—trust she shouldn’t have. It was possible they were about to die, and no brilliant escape plans occurred to Zeke.
“It’s not your fault at all. You didn’t conjure dinosaurs. Nothing you did to Karen and nothing you could have done about Karen would have changed who she is. She’s a serial killer with a split personality, Zeke. This was going to happen sooner or later. No matter who her mentor was. No matter what her mentor did.”
“Harrisburg,” Zeke insisted. Maggie’s words were balm, but he knew what he’d done. “My screw up. I should have noticed she was unstable.”
“She hid it from everyone. Who would have expected she could control wraiths? I didn’t hear the curators describing ‘queen of wraiths’ as a little-known handicap like conduit blindness. In fact, Adi, the curator and everyone else continued to deny wraith control was possible until the evidence was too obvious to ignore.”
It wasn’t that simple, though he wished it could be. “But I slept with her and—”
She bumped him with her elbow. “Shut up, Zeke. You slept with me too, and by God, that wasn’t a mistake.”
The corner of his mouth curled into an involuntary smile. “That’s different.”
“I should hope so.” She flinched when the metal door bowed in with the dinosaur’s next assault. Zeke glanced around the room, seeking inspiration. The T-Rex could tear into any of the armament cabinets. No use hiding in those. Under tables, also useless.
Dammit. He should recommend to the Somnium’s architectural department that all main rooms have escape hatches—hatches that were too small for T-Rexes.
“Karen’s not your fault,” Maggie insisted. “We’ll talk about this later. When we’re hanging out at the Orbis, learning to bellatoricize, eating French food, and drinking Italian wine. I’ve always wanted to go to Europe.”
Not him, but he’d gladly go to be near Maggie. “Do you miss being normal?”
“Don’t ask me that when there’s a dinosaur trying to eat me.” She rubbed dust from her face onto her sleeve. The wall jolted again and again as the T-Rex sought its prey. “Can that thing get into this room?”
“I don’t know.” The armory ceiling was no higher than the hallway, so the dino’s mobility would have that limitation. Maybe they could dodge it long enough to escape. “I guess it depends on how big a hole it bashes.”
They got the answer to that question almost immediately. The dinosaur pummeled the wall one last time. Concrete buckled. The door crunched inward, along with part of the wall beside it.
The T-Rex shoved its ungainly head through the hole and roared. Maggie squinted one eye closed and hunched her shoulders. “It’s too damn loud!”
“Shit.” Zeke darted toward the dinosaur, wondering if he could shove his sword far enough down its throat to saw its head off. He might lose an arm, but he’d rather lose that than his and Maggie’s lives.
He just hoped she could tie a tight tourniquet.
The dinosaur twisted and clawed at the opening, which wasn’t big enough for the remainder of its body. Yet. Its upper arms scrabbled at the concrete in a blur of wrath. Small chips of mortar flew in all directions, but the hole didn’t expand.
Dinos, anacondas, spiders and other monsters manifested by alucinators weren’t accurate representations of their real-world counterparts. Based on fossil records, T-Rexes had had smaller heads, much larger bodies, and longer forearms than the ones created by alucinators. Pop culture influenced wraith physique in the terra firma, and for that Zeke had to be thankful.
The T-Rex, which didn’t need to be the same as its prehistoric ancestors to kill people, roared out its deafening frustration as it realized its body couldn’t wriggle through the hole. Zeke was close enough that the sound sliced through his eardrums like a sonic boom.
“Blind it while it’s stuck!” Maggie yelled at his side. He realized that wasn’t the first time she’d yelled it. She was right—the T-Rex was too damn loud.
He approached it cautiously. The big head snapped at him, but right now the bark was deadlier than the bite. He lunged forward and carved out the critter’s eyeball.
The T-Rex screeched, wraithlike instead of dino-like, and yanked back through the hole. Exposed rebar bent. Concrete rattled. If it continued to batter the weakened wall, it would soon create a large enough crack for its body.
And Zeke and Maggie were still trapped. The T-Rex peered through the rubble at them with its remaining eye. Its teeth somehow managed to gleam in the dim emergency lighting.
It disappeared for a moment. Its monster’s tail lashed through the dust right before the wall received a thunderous jolt.
The T-Rex was going to break into the armory. It was only a matter of time. There was nobody they could call for help. Zeke didn’t even have a radio.
“I used all my bullets, but what about a grenade?” Maggie offered him the one he now recalled stashing in her vest earlier in the day.
“You could have pulled that out sooner.” He worked his paralyzed arm furiously. T-Rex or no T-Rex, this one-armed shit was going to get them killed.
Maggie traded him the grenade for his sword, which she trapped under her injured arm. Her face scrunched with discomfort as she adjusted her sprained wrist. “I’m stressed. I only just remembered I had it.”
“It might destabilize the ceiling.” Would it blow the fucker’s head off? “Or it could spit the grenade at us and blow us up instead.”
She stared at the prowling beast with big, fearful eyes. “Not if you lob it down his throat. Hey, it works in movies.”
“Worth a try.” Zeke’s heart raced. Maggie’s calmness impressed him. She had to appreciate how much danger they were in, and she was terrified but not defeated.
The dinosaur buffeted the wall again, enlarging the hole. Slowly, menacingly, it shoved its head through the new, improved opening. When it reached its shoulders, Zeke held his breath—and the grenade.
The T-Rex continued to slip forward. Inch by inch. It met resistance, wriggled, and its arms slipped through.
He had one grenade. One shot.
It roared at them. Lunged forward one, final, violent time…
And stuck midway through the hole.
Thank God its hindquarters were bigger than its head.
Their brief respite wouldn’t last. With most of it in the armory, it wouldn’t be long before the rest followed. It had more leverage now, and its nostrils flared as it scented them.
Half its face oozed blood where Zeke had stabbed it. Its single eye promised death.
It started to withdraw before Zeke could arm the grenade.
“Hurry,” Maggie encouraged.
How could he keep it stationary long enough for the grenade to work? He shoved the munition into his pocket, whipped out his sword and drove it as far into side of the dino’s neck as he could. The blade and hilt stuck out about two feet.
The monster screeched. It tried to spring at him, jaws chewing. The remaining wall stopped it. Zeke danced out of the way. More co
ncrete surrendered as the powerful beast struggled to bite him in two.
“Other side!” Maggie yelled, holding up a second blade.
He sprinted around the thrashing, furious beast and snatched the weapon from her. After a running start, he struck the other side of its neck point first. The blade sank deep.
Maggie had another sword ready for him as soon as he jumped out of the creature’s range. Chain saws weren’t a standard part of Somnium weaponry, but right now he wished he had one. Working as fast as they could, he and Maggie drove several swords and one axe into the creature’s neck. They had little hope of cutting off the head without extensive sawing, which Zeke somehow doubted the creature would allow, but he did have a plan.
On his final retreat, he was too slow. The T-Rex’s huge head buffeted him. The power of the blow knocked him off his feet. He tucked and rolled, avoiding the teeth. The pain that lanced through his poisoned arm gave him hope it would soon be restored to working order, provided it hadn’t broken.
Maggie, a thin gleam of sweat on her flushed face, helped him up. “You okay?”
He hopped, shaking out his limbs. “Peachy. Let’s kill ourselves a dinosaur.”
The dino’s head and arms thrashed madly, as if suffering convulsions. But it wasn’t. It was just pissed. Saliva spattered them. It pushed a few more feet into the room as its muscular hindquarters strained. Its front claws etched the painted concrete floor.
Unless Zeke was mistaken, the low, dangerous groan that accompanied the dino’s latest lunge was the sound of a collapsing ceiling.
“There are cracks forming along the wall.” Maggie hugged her wounded wrist to her side and gripped a sword in her other hand. “When it goes, will it bring down the roof?”
“Doubt it. These places are made to last.” Actually it might, but why give her something else to worry about? There was a T-Rex fifteen feet from them and it was very, very angry.
Snarling and growling, and with thin, watery blood seeping down its neck and face, the dino struggled to get at them. The concrete and rebar barely held it, and the steel door canted to the side. Zeke edged closer to the beast with a final sword, intending to take out its other eye.
