Claw

by Katie Berry

  The bears were about one-hundred metres from him now, coming around the edge of the glowing lake near the rear corner. They strode confidently, moving like they had a purpose -- and he figured he was their purpose. Reggie VanDusen turned and fled into the tubes.

  He huffed and puffed as he hightailed it to the main entrance as fast as his flabby legs would carry him. Unfortunately, after several hundred bacon-triple cheeseburgers from the Burger Barn, that wasn’t very fast.

  Between wheezing gasps, Reggie could hear what sounded like several tons of hungry bruin pounding steadily along on the ground, approaching him from behind as the moved steadily down the tunnel toward their next meal.

  Sprinting forward, Reggie looked for a boulder to hide behind or something to climb up on so he could perch safely out of the cubs reach, but there was nothing.

  Ahead was a junction; he had to choose left or right with no time to think about it. He looked down and saw tracks leading in both directions. He couldn't remember which way they’d come and felt his adrenaline surging as he heard the prehistoric nightmares drawing closer.

  “Shit!” Vandusen shouted in frustration and chose a direction, taking the tunnel that branched to the right.

  Four pairs of clawed feet scraped along the tunnel floor in the darkness at his back, and he surged forward, running for his life. The twin beasts sounded so close now that he thought he could almost feel their fetid breath tickling the sweaty folds of his neck fat. The twin creature’s excited, anticipatory breathing echoed through the tunnel behind him, so loud now, it threatened to drown out Reggie’s own terrified gasps.

  Chief Reggie VanDusen ran as fast as he could. And Chief Reggie VanDusen did not look back.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  Austin and Alex jogged through the kitchen to the casino floor and quickly surveyed the room. There were about a dozen and a half seniors scattered throughout, some on the slots and some playing electronic Texas Hold’em and blackjack. Looking back toward the lobby, Austin knew the front was taken care of for the moment.

  “Alex, see if you can go talk to some of them, and let them know what's happening.” The boy nodded and trotted over to a gaggle of senior ladies to tell them of the urgency of the situation.

  Moving toward a group of men clustered at some slots, Austin hollered, “Can I have your attention, please!” A couple of white heads turned slowly toward the sound of his voice and then turned away once more. The rest just kept pumping credits into the machines, pulling levers and pushing buttons, utterly oblivious to the tall, goateed man shouting at them in the middle of the room.

  Knowing that he needed to get the attention of these people as quickly as possible, and that talking just wasn’t cutting it, Austin decided that now was the time to go loud, or go home.

  Not wanting to injure anyone by firing into the ceiling of the building, Austin aimed the T-Rex at a slot machine located in a far corner, located well away from everybody else. He pointed the gun, secured it against his shoulder and hoped that the internal dampening worked as well as Christine said it did.

  He pulled the trigger.

  The Tyrannosaur rifle roared, letting loose a blast that cleared all thought of gambling from most of the minds around him, and anybody else within several hundred metres, Austin was quite sure.

  It had the desired effect. The seniors seemed to react all at once and deaf or not, wheelchair-bound or not, most of them jumped about a metre in the air when Austin pulled the rifle’s trigger.

  “Holy hell!” A small, white-haired gentleman with a face like a sultana raisin shouted. Startled from the blast, he said, “What in tarnation did you go and do that for, ya jackass? You just about blew my pacemaker up!”

  “There’s a killer bear headed this way!” Austin tried to herd the man toward the kitchen.

  “What are you talkin’ about, ya jackass?” “I don't see any goddamned bear!”

  Exasperated, Austin said, “Not in here, outside! And it’s coming this way!”

  “Well, it'll just have to wait, I still have a dozen credits in this machine!”

  The other seniors nearby had gathered around Austin and Mr. Pacemaker to see what all the commotion was about. They began to look about in concern for this bear being mentioned.

  Austin turned and addressed the rest of the group as a whole. His raisin-faced friend muttered, “Jackass” once more under his breath as Austin turned away.

  ***

  Jerry jogged into the kitchen and found no one in sight. He burst through the galley doors, relieved to see Austin and Alex getting things under control in the main gaming room.

  Sprinting toward the front of the hotel, he prepared to tell anyone that cared to listen that the bear was approaching and that they needed to get to the upper floors in case it broke through to ground level.

  Across the lobby stood an elderly couple next to a huge, one-armed bandit, the Million Dollar Slots. The man held a cupful of casino tokens, dropping them into its coin slot. His companion stood next to him, ready to pull the plunger once he’d satisfied the electronic behemoth’s insatiable appetite. Adorned with so much flashing neon and LEDs, Jerry felt his eyeballs throbbing after looking at it for more than a few seconds, but this didn't seem to affect the elderly couple adversely. They stood next to the machine, feeding it coin after coin, pulling the lever and watching the wheels turn, utterly unaware that they were in mortal danger.

  Jerry ran to the front desk, hoping to get some assistance, but the front desk attendant was nowhere in sight.

  “Hey! You two!” Jerry shouted at the couple next to the giant slot machine.

  Startled, the elderly man and woman looked over toward the dishevelled, unshaven man with the wild eyes yelling at them, a look of concern finally registering on their faces.

  “Yes! You two!” Jerry pointed at the pair. “You need to get upstairs NOW! The bear is here!” Jerry bellowed, pointing toward the entrance.

  There was an enormous explosion from the casino portion of the building. Jerry snapped his head over in that direction and saw that Austin had just terminated a slot machine in the corner with the T-Rex rifle for some reason.

  Whatever the reason, the concern in the seniors' eyes near the Million Dollar Slots cleared immediately as the blast shattered the casino’s peace. The man grabbed his walker, then his companion’s arm, along with her walker and started pushing and rolling them toward the elevator across the lobby with a speed that some would have called downright sprightly.

  But the little old lady would have none of it and turned back, scurrying over to put several more coins secreted away in her pocket into the machine’s slot. At the elevator, the man, reaching for the call button with his cane, looked back in dismay, seeing the woman over at the machine once more. He spun his walker around and scuttled back across the lobby so quickly it was surprising his wheels didn’t leave skid marks. As she was about to pull the lever, he grabbed the old woman by her sweater sleeve, rolling them both back across the lobby to the safety of the elevators, making sure not to let go of her this time. All the while he guided her, the woman kept looking back toward the slot machine, more anxious about missing out on a huge jackpot win rather than ensuring their safety.

  Jerry’s concern for the elderly couple at the slot machine vanished as soon as he looked toward the lobby doors. A woman, crawling on all fours, was trying to get inside the lobby of the casino. She had made it through the first set of doors in the air-lock-styled entry, but the secondary doors refused to open for some reason. Behind her, a monstrous shape surged out the thick fog.

  Frozen to the spot, Jerry’s terror from the campsite returned, smothering him once more when he saw the thing that approached the woman. He’d witnessed this creature up close only once before, but now, seeing it in perspective next to human-made structures, he couldn’t believe its mind-numbing size.

  The beast lumbered forward, its bulk filling the three-metre-high doorway that surrounded the woman. She was still on her
stomach in the airlock, scrabbling with her fingers at the stubbornly closed inner doors, trying to pry them open.

  Jerry flew toward across the lobby toward her, hoping it was only the fog affecting the external sensor and that the one on his side was working. If he could trigger the doors with his approach, he could grab her when they opened and drag her into the casino to safety.

  “Please help me! For God’s sake, help me!” she screamed at Jerry through the glass. Her face was terror-stricken, tears flooding her cheeks. Looking over her shoulder at what was almost upon her, she let out a low whimper.

  Leaping toward the entrance, Jerry discovered that as he’d hoped, the internal sensor was working and the doors began to slide open from his rapid approach. He reached out with his good arm toward the woman, ready to pull her to safety.

  The bear arrived behind the woman at the same time as Jerry reached her front. The beast thrust one of its log-like arms into the airlock and pounded it down onto the lower half of the woman’s body to stop her forward movement. This immediately ended her cries for help. The force generated from the paw slapping down on her lower body squeezed everything from below her waist forward all at once. Her face and upper body became engorged with blood and fluid as her internal organs ruptured from the pressure. It was as if her head were a balloon with the face painted on beforehand, only revealing itself as it was inflated. Her body was punched forward into the thick, partially open glass doors.

  A safety release mechanism freed the doors from their track in case of an emergency. If someone pushed hard enough on the glass to flee the building during a crisis, it would swing outward into the parking lot, allowing them to escape, even if the power was off. Unfortunately for the woman in front of Jerry, since they did not release inward as well, she was plowed into the doors, bursting like an overripe tomato as she hit the glass.

  Jerry’s view of the woman through the door was suddenly obscured as blood and viscera from the woman sprayed forth due to the paw’s immense pressure. The metal door frame tore from its bottom safety track, the edge hitting Jerry broadside, throwing him across the lobby. He landed on his back, spinning along the highly polished marble floors, and slammed into the base of the Million Dollar slots. The bells on its top jingled loudly as Jerry jarred it. Lights flashing the machine beeped and booped, and the wheels began to spin. Each prize on the display locked into its final position, all five now showing dollar signs. A red light started strobing at the top of the machine, and its bells and sirens began ringing and blaring. A series of clunks and whirs came from the unit, and suddenly the payout tray was filled with one dollar tokens spilling out onto Jerry’s unmoving feet and legs where he lay slumped and unconscious.

  Unfazed by the flashing lights, or the bells and sirens from the slot machine, the monster slid its paw back out of the airlock, the remains of Edna O'Toole still squashed into its pad. Dragging its catch-of-the-day onto the icy cobblestones of the courtyard, the beast began scooping the woman’s dripping crimson remains into its ravenous, salivating maw.

  ***

  Now that he had everyone’s attention thanks to the T-Rex’s blast, Austin shouted once more, “Your attention, please! There is a killer bear on its way here! You need to get to the second floor or into the kitchen coolers for safety!” The seniors still looked at him questioningly. One bald, oblong, prune-like man shook his head in disbelief, saying, “What’re ya talkin’ about? Are ya drunk, sonny?”

  A resounding crash came from the lobby, and all heads turned toward the main entrance. Jerry was on his back next to a machine labelled, Million Dollar Slots, tokens pouring out of its coin tray onto his prone body.

  Visible through the central archway were the entrance doors. Through them, most of the seniors in attendance were able to see the drama unfolding as the massive beast dragged something under its paw back out of the blood-drenched airlock and began to eat it.

  The temporarily mute gaggle of white-hairs shrieked and moved all at once. Like birds in a flock separating from each other, half a dozen seniors swarmed toward elevator doors and another contingent branched off toward the coolers in the kitchen, with Alex guiding the way.

  The first part of the flock arrived at the casino side of the elevator doors, finding them closed. They hammered at the call buttons, and the doors pinged open only to reveal the elderly couple from the Million Dollar Slots slots hiding inside, holding onto each other tightly. Mild though the earthquake had been at the casino, it had created enough havoc to throw the elevator off its pneumatic ram, and it no longer rose to the second floor.

  Seeing the elevator out of commission, Austin yelled, "Shit on a cracker!” He glanced to the front doors and saw the beast trying to worm its way inside the entrance, pressing into the metal frame, the steel straining around the creature’s muscular body. He needed to do something, and he needed to do it now. Turning, he ran from the room.

  “Dad!” Alex shouted, “Where are you going?”

  Shouting back over his shoulder, Austin said, “Stay here with these people! I’ll be right back! Try to get everyone into the coolers in the kitchen if you can! The elevator is out!”

  Austin sprinted from the room, hearing one final word uttered at his back as he ran, “Jackass!”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  Mayor Bob Nichols stumbled in panic down the tunnel toward what he hoped was safety. He didn’t see the girl anywhere and presumed she was somewhere up ahead. When Chance got jumped by that alley cat from hell back there, all conscious thought had flown from his mind. The only thought he’d had was to get the hell out of there as quickly as possible. He was still hoping the cat would be busy enough with Chance that he’d have the time to hide or something. Hearing VanDusen’s shotgun blasts echoing through the caverns as he fled, he’d hoped that the Chief’s aim was true.

  Finding the flashlight at the junction, he’d scooped it up and shone it around, unsure of which way to go. Perhaps some other horror had attacked the girl, and she’d dropped the light as she was dragged away, or maybe she’d just dropped it in a flight of panic herself. As he moved, the light’s beam flashed back and forth across the tunnel walls. Reflected in its glare, yet another vein of gold swirled through the tunnel walls. He scowled as he ran by the gold, sorry that he’d ever become part of this. The ground began sloping downward quite noticeably in spots as he progressed.

  The passage suddenly opened out into another cavern before him. He felt relief, hoping there might be something to defend himself with inside or at least a place to hide temporarily. He heard the sound of running water, but space seemed free of steam, likely the boiling aquifers didn’t extend this far. He could see quite a ways into the distance with his light and shone it carefully around. There didn’t appear to be any creatures wandering close to the entrance as he entered.

  Nichols walked slowly into the cavern in wonder, his fear currently on the back burner by what he saw before him. The ceiling was immensely high, the tips of the closest stalactites barely discernible to his probing light. He directed the beam toward the sound of rushing water. There was an opening on the far side of the cavern that looked to be an outflow from the lake above. Bob wondered if it were something caused by the recent quake, or if it had been pouring through the gap for millennia. The waterfall roared, jetting from the rock and spraying out in a high-pressure stream over a precipice, spraying down into a black void far below. He glanced off to his right. There was a solid rock wall that ran for about thirty metres then ended in the same precipice the water shot over on the opposite side. Walking to the edge, he shone his light down into the chasm’s depths -- there was no bottom in sight.

  He was at a dead end.

  Looking for someplace to hide, he turned in a full circle shining his light all around. There were a few smaller boulders scattered here and there, but nothing of any appreciable size that would hide a man of his stature. He walked back toward the cavern’s entrance, beginning to tentatively move up the tunnel’s incline in the
direction he’d come. As he moved along, he stopped and carefully peered around each corner, just in case something was lying in wait for him.

  Nichols noticed the grade more now that he was going back the way he’d come and his breathing became laboured and ragged. He paused for a few deep breaths and then rounded another corner, stopping dead in his tracks.

  Approaching from the blackness at the end of the lava tube, four dancing dots of light moved down the tunnel toward him. Rescuers, he thought at first. Hallelujah, I’m saved! But just before he called out to the sparkling lights at the end of the tunnel, he looked more closely and realised the dancing lights were not flashlights at all. They were the reflection of two pairs of predatory eyes moving in his direction, gleaming back at him in the light of his torch. Bob began slowly backing up, then turned and fled toward the cavern as fast as his arthritic hips would carry him.