Sink: Once Upon A Time

by Perrin Briar

  SMASH!

  It hadn’t come from Cassie swinging her weapon, but behind her. Something had caused a great deal more damage to a building on the other side of the castle wall than Cassie could do over the course of weeks, and it had done it in seconds. She stood frozen, her arm raised, and slowly turned to look out the corner of her eye at the creature behind her.

  It was the T-Rex. And Cassie was at perfect chomping height.

  Cassie froze. If the dinosaur turned it might catch her scent. And she would be doomed. She stood there, legs shaking, frozen in position. She was in a low squat position, body bent double under the pressure and weight of her own body. It was the worst possible position to be in. The sweat dripped down her face.

  There was a whinnying sound on Cassie’s right, down on the street.

  No, Cassie thought, and would have screamed if she wasn’t right at the dinosaur’s ear. The dinosaur straightened up, even closer to her position now, and looked down at the lone horseman.

  Cassie could smell the monster’s reeking breath. She turned her head to look away, to block the stench, but she daren’t turn too far or fast for fear of getting the beast’s attention. The dinosaur growled in the back of its throat. The growl of something hungry, and not just for food, but for vengeance.

  Cassie felt relieved. Whoever the lone warrior was, he had just saved not only her and Aaron’s life, for the monster would have surely brought the entire tower down, but he would have also torn through the great hall, pulverizing the locals to mush.

  Her heart lurched in her throat as the dinosaur gave chase to the rider. The awkward angle of the rider caught her eye. He was no hero from the fairytales. He was a hero from real life.

  He was her father.

  50.

  BRYAN COULDN’T recall feeling so scared his whole life. But then again, he’d felt like that often these days. He dreaded to think the grey hairs this whole experience would give him.

  He was playing chicken with a dinosaur, and not just any dinosaur, but the most feared and terrible dinosaur in the history of the world. The T-Rex. The one all dinosaurs feared. And he was facing him on a horse, making himself an even more delicious target.

  When Bryan had emerged onto the street, in full view of the dinosaur at the opposite end, it had been busying itself with smashing a clutch of homes to pieces. It breathed on the rubble, melting it to molten lava-like flows. It pressed its weight on top of the rubble with its giant feet, crushing it. It seemed to find enjoyment in doing it.

  Thankfully no one was inside the house. They were all inside the great hall. They were still fighting for their lives, but what chance would they have had against this giant mass of muscle?

  Probably about the same as me, Bryan thought.

  Bryan’s horse was skittish. Bryan couldn’t blame it. He was scared too. But they were a healthy distance away. The horse was well trained and obeyed Bryan’s commands even when he told it to stand its ground.

  He needed to make a noise, any loud noise, to get the dinosaur’s attention. But what? He cast around, looking for something to beat on a wall. But it would mean getting off the horse. Get off, and he might never get back on again.

  The solution was obvious. He pulled on the horse’s reins, drawing it up into a rearing pose. It expelled a loud whinny.

  The dinosaur turned to face the noise, face him. The dinosaur locked eyes on him. It grunted, and Bryan thought he recognized him. His insides turned to water. The monster lowered its head, and its eyes became slits. It drew its leg back and forth, stroking the earth, like a bull before it pounced. Bryan didn’t need so many obvious signals, but he took heed of them in any case.

  He turned the horse around and galloped. The dinosaur roared, the thud of its heavy footsteps a reminder of how close the dinosaur was. It was fast and kept pace with the horse. Bryan was surprised. He had no idea how fast a T-Rex was, and in hindsight, that seemed an obvious problem they should have thought of before. After all, if a T-Rex was too fast, how could they expect to outrun it?

  And it was too fast. It was gaining.

  The rumble of its feet on the hard packed dirt roads was thunder in Bryan’s ears. Bryan shivered. He rocked his body back and forth, having to push the horse faster than he expected. It was no good.

  He couldn’t outrun the beast in a straight line, and though the exit beckoned to him just ahead, he knew he wouldn’t make it, at least, not in a single piece. He pulled sharply on the reins and steered the horse left, around a corner and onto a side street.

  It would buy him some time, he hoped, and with any luck-

  The large house on the corner exploded like it had been set off with dynamite. Amidst the flying rubble and dust, a huge pair of muscular legs pumped hard, green and bleeding across its giant knees.

  The dinosaur wasn’t smiling, of course—Bryan wasn’t even sure if a such a creature was capable of smiling—but to Bryan’s eyes that was exactly what it was doing.

  Bryan focused on the task in hand. He needed to double back on himself, head back toward the entrance, but he daren’t turn left with the monster right on his heels.

  But he couldn’t afford to waste time either. Who knew how long a horse lasted running at this pace? He decided to take the risk. He shut his eyes and said a quick prayer.

  He led his horse down a narrow alley, and then, once inside, took another immediate left. The building to his left exploded, the shards rapping against him, shards as big as his head. He raised his elbow to protect himself. The horse whinnied and shifted to the right.

  A huge head came out of the destroyed building like a wraith, its tongue lashing like a whip toward Bryan, but he didn’t slow. He didn’t dare. He felt the slime on the tip of its tongue slide across his cheek.

  A large green snake, similar in size to a fallen tree, came rushing toward him. It was the creature’s tail, of course. Bryan reacted the same way whether it was a snake, tree or tail, and took the horse over it with a prowess of skill he didn’t know he had. He pushed the horse on. He was home free!

  He got to the end of the alleyway and entered the main street. He turned right, heading toward the open gates. This part of town was silent. Bryan feared, as he always did, that an impediment would emerge at any moment, blocking him off and making it impossible for him to pass.

  But it didn’t happen. He passed through the gate. He allowed the horse to slow, but he didn’t stop till he was a reasonable distance from the gate on a flat grassy plain.

  Bryan leaned forward and slapped the horse comfortingly on the neck. It was covered in sweat, steam rising off it, nostrils flared, its breath hoarse.

  Bryan turned his head to the side to listen for heavy footfalls, but heard none. There was no sign of the lumbering beast. That didn’t mean the creature wasn’t there, stalking, waiting for Bryan to come back through the gates. The monster had already proven he was a smart and thoughtful hunter.

  The horse’s footfalls were loud and heavy on the drawbridge. It was a welcoming sound, the sound of freedom. Bryan crossed to the other side of the moat and turned the horse around.

  The gates stood empty. There were no loud thudding footsteps, no growls or roars. Where was the beast? Dare he head back to see if it was there? He needed to make sure it followed him. But was the monster now setting his own trap by drawing Bryan to him?

  Bryan had no choice. He had to go back.

  51.

  DESPITE ALL Lady Maltese’s knowledge, there were certain things she simply could not reproduce with the level of technology at her disposal. High technology required the investment and development from thousands of individuals, not just one. No matter how brilliant that one person might be, there was no way she could replicate the level of technology the surface had.

  But she could try. And she had.

  She wanted to build a camera to attach to the top of the T-Rex’s head for better control. For what could be bought for a few dollars in any store on the surface you couldn’t even dream of rep
roducing in this world.

  She could hear the roar of her beloved Rexy. She had learned over the years to read her pet’s agonized groans, the way its roar soared or fell, its delicate intonation. It couldn’t be described as a language, but it did convey meaning. In many ways, vocal communication was better than a camera. She recognized a cry of disappointment when she heard one.

  It could only mean Rexy had failed to snap up one of the family members. Rexy was like that. He didn’t like to lose what he felt belonged to him. He was highly territorial.

  The former Lady Maltese decided to give her pet a gift, as part of her latest upgrade. She picked up her amulet and pressed the big ruby button. At least there were some things she was still capable of reproducing in this world. She grinned, chuckled with a half maniacal grin, and then turned and ran into the caves.

  52.

  THE SKELETAL warriors were not difficult to engage, but they were difficult to kill. They were unlike anything Rosetta had ever fought before. Removing your opponent’s head tended to put a dampener on their attack, but with the skeletons it didn’t make any difference.

  That was why she didn’t bother to decapitate them or slice through their limbs any longer—they would only keep attacking anyway, and judging by the number of dead and injured locals on the floor, that was precisely what had happened. They’d sliced off an undead’s head, only for it to then continue at them. In their shock the skeletons had the perfect opportunity to strike their enemies down.

  Too many locals had fallen to the skeletons, and Rosetta was not about to let more die than need be. She thrust her metal arm into every rotting chest cavity she came to, and tore out their beating mechanical hearts.

  But they were fighting a losing battle. For every skeleton they killed, another two were ready to take its place. Their only saving grace was the limited width of the great hall, otherwise the skeletons would have surrounded them and hacked them to pieces.

  Despite everything Rosetta had been through, despite finally finding Bryan and his family, she had managed to speak just a few words with him. Now she was about to die here, in what looked like the Hogwart’s dining room.

  53.

  IT WAS just then, a moment too late, after Lady Maltese had pressed her ruby button that Cassie brought her cudgel down for the antennae’s killing blow. The George and dragon statue slid off the roof and clattered to the stony ground, flipping end over end.

  The skeletal soldiers stood stock still for a moment before collapsing on the ground, in a pile. The townspeople began emerging from the great hall almost immediately afterwards. One sported a robot arm. Rosetta. She blinked into the light.

  Cassie began to lower herself back down using the rope. She got to the window, Aaron ready to help her back inside. It wasn’t a few seconds later when there was a great roar somewhere to the west of the city.

  This roar wasn’t of fury or desperation, but of pain, Cassie thought. Then there was a great creaking and buffeting noise, like someone was waving a huge fan. Cassie thought she caught sight of a shadow rising into the clouds, but it was gone just as soon as she turned toward it. She let the image of the rising shadow enter her mind. She played it over and over, trying to work out its features.

  “What?” Aaron said. “What is it?”

  “We have to get out of here,” Cassie said, her voice haunted. “Nowhere is safe.”

  54.

  BRYAN APPROACHED the gates cautiously, his stallion’s hooves clip clopping on the drawbridge. The gate was big, built to be impressive, but did not provide the best view of what lay inside.

  The dinosaur could have been right around the corner and he wouldn’t have known. If it came at full tilt Bryan wasn’t sure he’d be able to get his horse to run fast enough in the opposite direction, and so he approached slowly.

  He leaned forward, hands clasped tight around the reins, and peered around the corner. He felt relieved when he found nothing there but empty streets in either direction. He felt nervous. If it hadn’t chased him, where had it gone? To the castle? To the great hall? To the inventor’s tower?

  Bryan eased off the reins to lead the horse into a gallop. When he stopped, he heard a loud fluttering noise like an old airplane’s rotor blades warming up. It was getting closer. Bryan was growing nervous, his horse skittish. He didn’t blame it. He didn’t like it either.

  “Woah there, boy,” Bryan said, slapping it reassuringly on the neck.

  The horse did not relax. It whinnied and backed up. Something was spooking him. He reared up onto his powerful back legs and it was then, with his eyes rising to the sky, that Bryan saw what the horse must have sensed.

  A dark shadow descended from the protection of the thick mist-like clouds, a pair of enormous flapping shadows on either side of it.

  Bryan’s heart froze in his chest, eyes as wide as dinner plates.

  They hadn’t thought of this. How could they? They didn’t know the beast could fly. They had mistaken the metal box on its back for a shield, but it wasn’t a shield. It was an extendable pair of wings. Their plan now seemed ridiculously naive. Things had just gotten a whole lot more complicated.

  The T-Rex fell the final twenty feet, tucking its wings behind itself, and hit the ground, making it shake, like thunder. It took the full force with its two powerful hind legs. Its wings were huge and arched, having opened up from what they had previously mistaken for body armor.

  The dinosaur threw back its head and let out a roar that would have sent a pride of lions packing. It glared at Bryan, licked its lips with a badly blistered tongue, the smoldering fire within already red hot.

  55.

  WHERE HAD Bryan gotten to? He was meant to bring the dinosaur to her so she could continue leading it to the trap, where it would eat, get caught, and they could deal with it later.

  It also meant the kids and Rosetta—speaking of whom, how in God’s name had she managed to get there by herself?—would be able to join them in the caves so they could search for the Passage and get out of there.

  By then, they would have done more than enough to help the locals of this town, to whom they owed no particular loyalty. In fact, they had probably done more than the locals deserved. They had treated the family with suspicion the whole time they were here, and blamed them for everything that had gone wrong.

  Despite the creature comforts, Zoe couldn’t wait to leave this place. It was too small minded and set in its ways. Zoe wasn’t exactly ‘normal’ (whatever that meant) on the surface. She did not believe everything she read in the newspapers, and did not subscribe to widely held beliefs because, as history had shown, whatever the majority of people agreed on and thought was correct, was almost always wrong.

  Where had that man gotten to? Zoe thought. He should have been there by now. More than a finger of concern had wormed its way into her heart. There were too many things that could have happened. Zoe refused to give any of them time nor credence. She would know what happened when she knew. There was nothing she could do if something had happened in any case, and she couldn’t leave where she was camped now for fear Bryan would eventually turn up.

  She heard the familiar soft clip clopping noise of horse hooves coming toward her.

  “It’s about time!” Zoe said.

  But the irritation died on her lips when she saw the horrified expression on Bryan’s face.

  56.

  “WHAT DID you see?” Aaron said.

  Cassie had been silent ever since she came down from the roof, having destroyed the antennae. Despite Aaron’s repeated enquiries, she hadn’t yet responded to his question.

  “We have to get out of here,” Aaron said. “Mother and Bryan will be waiting for us at the caves.”

  Cassie shook her head.

  “No,” she said. “They won’t. They’ll be dead.”

  “What are you talking about?” Aaron said.

  “The T-Rex,” Cassie said. “It really is a dragon. It has wings. It can fly. And it breathes fire. It’s a d
ragon.”

  “It can fly?” Aaron said.

  He took a seat, suddenly feeling light headed.

  “Yes,” he said. “That changes things.”

  “We’ll never get to the caves while that thing is flying overhead,” Cassie said. “It’ll burn us to a crisp before we even get to it.”

  “Then what are we going to do?” Aaron said. “We can’t just sit here. It’s going to come back and get us eventually. Especially with all the dead bodies and the locals in the great hall. What are we going to do?”

  “I’m thinking,” Cassie said.

  Footsteps came running up the spiral staircase.

  “Kids, we have to go find your parents,” Rosetta said.

  “No,” Cassie said. “We have to do more than that. We have to save them.”

  “From the dragon?” Rosetta said. “How?”

  Aaron was looking at Jeffrey’s stash of inventions. There was a pile of weapons on the table beside a stack of white backpacks.

  “I have an idea,” Aaron said.

  57.

  THIS WHOLE time Bryan had been working diligently to get the dinosaur to follow him so they might trap it, when the whole time the dinosaur had a secret on its back, and now they found themselves on the backfoot.

  Bryan ran the horse hard, and when the dragon disappeared into the thick clouds overhead, Bryan had no choice but to rush into the forest, to hide himself as best he could. He changed direction and headed right, running through the forest closest to the town walls, but far enough inside the woods that the dragon would not see him from above.

  The dragon came out of the sky like the harbinger of death, and breathed a hot bolt of flame that fell upon the forest, scoring a line through it. Burnt woodland and charcoal filled Bryan’s nostrils. He never stopped, and only pushed the horse harder.