Kingdom of Monsters

by John Lee Schneider

  The four troops fanned out of the chopper, weapons drawn, forming a perimeter as the others deboarded.

  Sitting up abruptly, just on the other side of the tarmac where it had been dozing in the sun, was a young adult male T. rex.

  Its head cocked in their direction, atilt in that oddly birdlike way.

  With an abbreviated curse, Johnson jerked his rifle to his shoulder, but Shanna shouted out behind him, “Wait!”

  Johnson was wide-eyed incredulous as Garner pushed his gun-barrel down.

  Rudy stood up, and began to pad in their direction.

  The big tyrannosaur looked the worse for wear, riddled with munitions fire, and it looked burned.

  Johnson jerked at his rifle. Garner held him down. “Wait.”

  Still clinging to Cameron's reluctant shoulder, Shanna raised her hand.

  The five-ton T. rex sniffed it like a dog.

  Then it lay down on the runway beside her, its head at her feet.

  Johnson shook his head, unbelieving.

  “What the hell is this?”

  “This,” Shanna said, “is why we came here.”

  She ran her hand along Rudy's bony brow.

  “The northwest,” she said, “is tyrannosaur territory.”

  “Come again?” Mark blanched, gawking at this gangly teenage version of the beast that had chased him for six-hundred miles – not to mention its biting baby offspring.

  Shanna turned to the others, beckoning.

  “Come on,” she said. “Come meet him.”

  Amazingly, it was Allison who stepped up first, Lucas still crooked in her arm.

  Bud actually reached out to stop her. Allison paused uncertainly, but cautiously held out her hand. Bud stood helplessly at bay as she ran her fingers lightly across the massive fanged jaws.

  Then Lucas himself reached out to touch Rudy's snout, his eyes goggling.

  It seemed the rex twitched a little.

  But Shanna's voice was soothing, and her hands never broke contact.

  She waved to the others, and one-by-one, the soldiers shuffled forward, all touching the big rex, as if on a dare.

  Mark hung back. Mr. Wilson did likewise.

  Maverick smiled as he patted the thick, muscular neck.

  “I wanna ride him.”

  Shanna smiled. “Let's make friends first,” she said.

  Rosa held back with Mark.

  Not that she sensed any threat from the prehistoric super-predator, but because she found herself wondering what might come next.

  Rosa guessed Shanna was in the first trimester of her pregnancy – and correlation suggested an ever-increasing influence on the new wildlife.

  They'd seen what followed her to the mountain. Clearly, for at least some of the resurrected beasts, she was a beacon.

  But T. rex meant no other predators – like having a king snake under the house to eat the rattlers.

  Shanna reached out to touch Lucas' cheek even as he ran his delighted little hands over Rudy's speckled hide like the fur of a giant Labrador.

  Rudy let out a slow sigh, like a dragon's purr.

  Shanna's hand fell to her own barely-showing belly.

  Cameron's arm curled over her shoulder, squeezing softly, as they looked around at the surrounding peaks that sequestered the little valley all by itself.

  “We can live here,” Shanna said. “We don't have to hide in the hills.”

  She patted the bony crest on Rudy's massive skull, not yet even fully grown.

  “We don't have to be afraid.”

  Maverick shrugged. “Fine by me.”

  He reached into his pocket, and tossed the chopper key to pilot Bradbury.

  “Here's your helicopter back.”

  Bradbury frowned, glancing at Johnson and Cooper, before simply putting the key in his pocket.

  Maverick turned to Rosa.

  “That reminds me,” he said. “I owe you dinner. I don't suppose you can cook?”

  Rosa blinked back earnestly. “Not if you really were the last man on Earth.”

  Mr. Wilson snickered. “I like her.”

  On the ridge, a development of houses circled the hillside around a modest lake.

  Like the rest of the valley, it was abandoned but intact.

  Rosa had always wanted a house on the water. Now she had her pick.

  These days you had to take your blessings where you found them.

  A year ago, the world had ended, and she'd been left almost without hope.

  But this might not be the worst of lives.

  Chapter 65

  The Mount was designed to protect from a nuke – not an assault from the mountain itself.

  Sally was getting reports from below. So far, they had not yet gotten a full tally on the damage.

  Nor had they counted the dead.

  The mountain had shrugged off a single splintered segment from the cliff upon which the Mount had been built, dropping the chunk into the canyons, and taking the attached portion of the facility along with it.

  It had been living quarters, mostly – they hadn't lost as many soldiers, who were scrambled and on-duty.

  Their civilian numbers, however, had taken a hit. No survivors found – or expected – from the section that had broken off the mountain.

  Ironically, the Coven, in detention at the time, were just fine.

  Rhodes had been unequivocal in judgment of their actions – he called it treason.

  Sally, personally, would have called it what it really was – attempted genocide.

  Sacrifice your own for the Dragon.

  She had spent one night in the woods with this cat-crew of psychopaths, and that was all it took.

  Rhodes still didn't seem to fully appreciate the vengeance nihilist, the pursuit of total blaspheme.

  Sally had told Rhodes she believed their 'men-folk' had been led right to the dragon's fangs.

  What she hadn't told him was how Lily had also mentioned children with these men.

  Sally suspected that was the real sacrifice – the symbolic transition to their new Lord – the progeny of their past lives had to go.

  It was just a suspicion. A creeping suspicion that Sally believed with all of her heart.

  She wondered what Rhodes would say if she told him.

  Sally knew she wasn't the only one bending the General's ear anymore. It now seemed Michelle was always around – lately, the deceptively obedient, good-girl.

  If Sally was Rhodes' adopted daughter, then Michelle was what? Hot-tail on the side?

  She'd not seen anything overt. On the other hand, Rhodes had been similarly succinct on his position towards the Coven.

  They were still fertile women, and therefore, still their most valuable resource.

  Lily, in particular, had come out as pregnant. Corporal Stevens seemed to believe he was the father, and Lily had done nothing to dissuade him. Sally, however, found herself somehow doubtful.

  Dr. Shriver had taken over the infirmary, and particularly the nursery, where Lily and Sally were currently the only pregnancies on the Mount.

  Shriver wanted direct supervision on any potential births. Lily had been granted a stay from the holding cells to a bed in the infirmary, on the doctor's recommendation – for the good of the baby's health.

  The young girl/woman said little, just stroking her still-flat belly self-consciously. And she never seemed to meet Sally's eye, her face always turned down and away, like a little girl with a secret.

  Dr. Shriver was also attempting to rebuild his lab. The lower levels had collapsed.

  Rhodes currently had a crew attempting to dig it all out. Important assets had been buried there too – among other things, a sealed cabinet filled with vials of the Food of the Gods – enough to infect the entire continent.

  So far, tons of rubble blocked their way. Unstable rock continued to collapse.

  They were also still trying to locate Major Tom, who had not reported in since re-entry. Kristie, the young woman Hicks brough
t in from the Maelstrom-site, had been pestering Rhodes anxiously over any news there.

  Rhodes, himself, had not said much in conversation, speaking only in monotone orders.

  Johnson's chopper had disappeared. Shanna had disappeared with him.

  Their most valuable asset.

  The last contact with Johnson's rescue chopper had been right when the seismic seizures hit – reported safe and away... and they had not been heard from since. Presumed dead.

  Sally, for her part, didn't think so.

  'Johnson's' last report said to 'Keep a candle burning'.

  Sally had recognized the voice. And it wasn't Johnson. It was actually someone else Rhodes thought long-dead.

  The turn of phrase was the last thing Mark had said to her.

  And Sally also knew right where he would be going.

  The northwest coast was his home and where he'd been trying to get back to for two years.

  If this 'Shanna' was with him, that's where they would find her too.

  A woman Sally had never met, who seemed to be of her own mind about being anyone's asset.

  Sally could get behind that. And so she said nothing.

  And Mark would never even know. One more time, he had unknowingly left her behind.

  One more time, Sally was forced to stay silent, and simply let him walk away.

  Her hands stole to the lump in her own belly, just starting to show.

  This was her value as an asset.

  The Arc-Project remained. And would begin again.

  If for no other reason than defiance in the face of extinction.

  Chapter 66

  Jonah woke up in the infirmary.

  The first thing he was aware of was bright light. The second was throbbing pain.

  He had fallen out of a tree once as a kid, hitting every branch all the way down, and landed on flat hard earth. He'd lain for several minutes, battered and stunned, and when he finally climbed to his feet, it was as if every inch of his body had been beaten with a hammer.

  This was like that. It hurt to move the tips of his fingers.

  The effort forced a low groan, and he blinked the room into focus.

  He saw Naomi leaning over him. Behind her was a man in a lab coat, who seemed to be preparing a needle made for a horse.

  “Hey,” Naomi said softly. “Welcome back.”

  Jonah started to speak, now realizing an even more throbbing pain in his head.

  The third man in the room stepped forward, square-shouldered in hard-worn military fatigues and four-stars across the shoulder.

  “General Nathan Rhodes,” the man said, extending his hand.

  Jonah started to reach out reflexively and grimaced. Rhodes turned the reached hand into a salute.

  “Rest easy, son,” he said. “That was a hell of a gutsy move you pulled.” The General nodded to the gaunt-looking man in the lab coat. “Dr. Shriver says you're going to live.”

  Dr. Shriver approached with the giant needle, hovering briefly – and then injected it into the IV tube beside the bed.

  “You've taken quite a beating,” Shriver informed Jonah, unnecessarily. “You have a broken femur and shin. Assorted cracked ribs, and a humerus. Most problematically, you took a hard blow to the head, a fairly significant concussion, and some nasty lacerations along the scalp.”

  “These days,” Rhodes said, “we call those 'flesh-wounds.”

  He turned to Naomi, indicating her wedding ring.

  “Mrs. Walker,” he said. “I knew your husband. Lieutenant Walker was a hero.”

  Naomi nodded.

  “I know,” she said.

  “Speaking of that,” Rhodes said, turning back to Jonah, “we're damn short of pilots these days.”

  Naomi shook her head.

  “I keep telling him – they still are.”

  Rhodes smiled, nodding down at Jonah.

  “Heal up, son. You've just been drafted.”

  Jonah absorbed this silently as the General turned to leave.

  Hicks met them at the door, popping his head in after Naomi.

  “Ma'am?” Hicks said. “We've got some temporary quarters set up for you. Clothes and a shower.”

  Naomi's eyes brightened. She wasn't sold on General Rhodes, yet, but Jonah could tell she liked Hicks – certainly cut in the Lucas Walker mold – highly-trained and disciplined, testosterone-military.

  Probably, she was going to be around a lot of them now.

  Naomi rose to follow Hicks, but stopped at the door, looking back at Jonah with an odd look on her face, as if there was something she wasn't sure she should say.

  “Get some sleep,” she said instead. “I'll come see you later.”

  But Jonah had lain awake in the time since.

  Whatever Shriver had given him brought his pain down to a duller ache – not quite enough to relax. And if there was any sedative, it was kept at bay by his red blinking eyes as he contemplated his future.

  Drafted, Rhodes had said.

  Heal-up quick, so you can make sure and get yourself killed.

  He'd used up at least eight of nine lives just this time.

  But he'd pulled it off.

  Why couldn't that mean he could just rest?

  He supposed it simply wasn't that kind of world anymore.

  Jonah shut his eyes, feeling the swelling capillaries in his bones pulse like a background organ-beat.

  It at least kept him from wondering what Naomi was waiting to tell him.

  While on this particular occasion he thought he'd finally won her respect, he had little doubt that the headline was something to the effect of thanks-for-everything, and good-bye.

  Somewhere over the next several hours, Jonah finally drifted off to sleep.

  He was awakened sometime around midnight by a nurse in whites fidgeting by his bed.

  The lights in the infirmary were out. Groggily, Jonah watched apathetically, as the nurse detached his IV from the wall.

  Then she popped the wheels on his bed, rolling him out into the hall.

  Jonah blinked.

  Dr. Shriver was lying on the floor, his leg twitching. Corporal Stevens lay next to him.

  The nurse held up the taser she had in her hand, zapping up a couple sparks, and Jonah realized it was Naomi.

  Jonah started to speak, but Naomi pinched his lips.

  “You just keep your mouth shut,” she said. “I got this one.”

  In the hall, she transferred him to a wheelchair and rolled him down the hall at a quick jog.

  A couple more taser-zaps got them into the upper decks and the vehicle warehouse where she had an RV waiting.

  The power was still out over large parts of the compound, and the upper grounds were dark. Naomi kept the lights off until they reached the front gates.

  Then she revved the engine and the unsuspecting guards jumped to attention.

  “Hang on,” Naomi said, flaring the brights, flooring the gas, and blasted through the gate.

  Jonah heard shouts from the guards as they dived aside, but Naomi was already squirreling past, down the road.

  It occurred to Jonah he'd never actually driven passenger-side with Naomi before.

  He never knew how lucky he'd been.

  She skidded back and forth, down the narrow mountain road, until the bare-moment the terrain flattened enough for her to turn the rig directly into the trees, where she angled downhill and just kept going.

  The bumping Jeep kept Jonah's full attention on his every damaged bone.

  They were miles down the mountain before Jonah thought to disobey Naomi's edict to keep quiet.

  “What,” he managed, “are we doing?”

  “The General was right,” Naomi replied, bumping them along. “Lucas was a hero. Turns out I've been lucky that way.”

  She glanced at him.

  “That's the thing about the military,” she said. “You sign-up, your ass belongs to them.”

  Naomi shook her head.

  “You're mine,�
� she said.

  Jonah considered.

  He decided he was fine with it.

  “Any idea where we're going?” he asked.

  Naomi pointed ahead into the blind dark.

  “That way,” she said.

  Jonah nodded, settling into his seat.

  If I died tonight, he thought.

  But he hadn't.

  Not yet.

  He glanced at her sideways as Naomi carried them away into the night.

  The forest was dark and deep.

  Jonah had no idea what beasts and monsters might yet wait, hidden in that darkness. Or what other dangers might lie ahead.

  But the future could bother him tomorrow.

  For now, he was content.

  Chapter 67

  Mark stayed a week in the valley before continuing on to the coast.

  When Trix came traipsing over the hill, that was the last straw. He didn't care how well-behaved tyrannosaurs were around Shanna, Mark was like a postman around dogs – they just didn't seem to like him much.

  Besides, it was the coast that had been his home, the last place he'd seen his family, before that cruise-trip job, forever and not so very-damn long ago.

  Who knew what he might find?

  No doubt devastation and not much closure, except perhaps for seeing the final stake driven into his last associations of the old world.

  But it seemed like it was something he had to do.

  Besides, these damn T. rex scared him.

  The little lake community was remarkably well-preserved and Mark had been able to find a stored four-by-four, and a stock of canned goods to load it with. He even found an old-style Walkman radio and headphones, and CDs to go with it.

  Shanna had asked him to stay.

  When she had touched his hand, he felt that odd internal glow.

  It reminded him a little of Sally – still so recently lost.

  And of course, Lily, who'd turned that glow into the lure of a Venus fly-trap.

  A glow was something you fixated on – for you, it seemed a personal experience, but it was actually a light shining down on everything and everybody.

  In his heart, Mark couldn't help believe Lilly was a punishment for letting Sally down. And whether it was or it wasn't, he would continue to punish himself accordingly.

  Mark had thanked Shanna, and even though he knew he already loved her, just like everybody else did, he turned and left the valley behind.