Cryptozoica

by Mark Ellis

  Their jaws gaped open, revealing rows of needlepointed fangs thrusting up from purple gums. A crest of sharp quills, like those of a porcupine, spiked with red and yellow feathers ran vertically down the center of their skulls and along the lines of their spines. From the ends of their whiplike tails to their blunt snouts, they averaged six feet in length.

  If you return, you will die

  Kavanaugh pushed Honoré toward the rungs. “Everybody climb. Get going, Mouzi!”

  Crowe stepped aside to allow Honoré to follow Mouzi. “They aren’t paying us any attention, Jack.”

  “Yet. You go too, Gus—get aboard the engine and see what you can do to get her running.”

  Halfway up the pylon, Honoré looked down. “What about you?”

  “I’ll guard everybody’s backsides. I need to have that rifle back, Oakshott…unless you’re a world-class sharpshooter on top of all your other talents.”

  “Are you?”

  Kavanaugh feigned a modest smile. “I qualified as a marksman-sharpshooter-expert. The Air Force even gave me a little bronze star on a ribbon. I don’t have it on me, so you’ll have to take my word for it.”

  The big man didn’t respond until a soaking-wet Belleau blurted, “Give him the gun and give me a boost!”

  Kavanaugh quickly checked the carbine over. He said to Bai Suzhen, “Go on up.”

  She hefted her sword, giving two short strokes to loosen her wrist. “I’ll guard your backside, just in case you expose it.”

  “Yeah,” he replied dryly, settling the stock of the carbine in the hollow of his shoulder. “Just in case.”

  Roaring, the Quinterotops spun around in a circle, like a dog trying to catch its tail. With a gasping grunt of exertion, the animal rose up on its hind legs and tottered clumsily along the edge of the stream. It toppled backward in the attempt to crush its tormentors. All six of the agile Deinonychus sprang away as the horned creature slammed into the ground with a sound like a boulder dropped from a great height. The slender raptors circled as the kicking Quinterotops struggled to get its legs underneath it.

  “C’mon, Jack!” Crowe urged from the top of the pylon. “They still don’t see us.”

  As if on cue, the head of a raptor whipped around, staring directly at Crowe atop the elevated monorail track. Its gaze lowered, taking in Kavanaugh and Bai Suzhen. Opening its mouth wide, it voiced a prolonged, nerve-stinging skreek. The other three Deinonychus turned away from bedeviling the Quinterotops, following the gaze of their comrade. Almost simultaneously, they performed a sideways hopping dance step. To Kavanaugh, the movements looked like they were jumping with joy, anticipating a feast of human flesh.

  Get up and run or you will die.

  Softly, Kavanaugh said, “Get ready.”

  The six Deinonychus flung themselves across the grass as if launched from catapults. Kavanaugh achieved target acquisition and squeezed the trigger. A splotch of blood bloomed on a creature’s breast and it tumbled head over heels, tail lashing the air.

  The crack of the rifle startled the sprinting creatures. The raptors slowed, glancing in confusion at the death-throes of their companion.

  “Perhaps they’ll be scared off,” Bai whispered.

  “Not a chance,” replied Kavanaugh grimly, aligning another Deinonychus in the sights of the carbine.

  The five animals snarled and charged, moving in eye-blurring bounds.

  Instead of being frightened by the death of one of their number, they grew enraged.

  Kavanaugh squeezed the trigger again and the top of a feather-crested skull floated away, surrounded by a misting of blood. The four survivors skreeked, and from the far side of the stream, other members of the Deinonychus hunting troop answered the eerie call. They broke off harassing stragglers from the herd and came loping across the stream with relentless speed.

  A pair of raptors ran in opposite directions, but swerved back toward the two humans standing at the base of the pylon. A fist clenched around Kavanaugh’s heart. The Deinonychus displayed independent tactical thinking. They showed it by the way they came on in zigzag bounds to minimize the chances of falling victim to a weapon that, although new to them, they knew was capable of killing from afar.

  Kavanaugh’s finger tightened on the trigger but he hesitated to squeeze it, knowing that he could not afford to miss with either of the two remaining bullets.

  The feather-crested creatures surged over the ground, their maws gaping open in fanged grins of blood lust.

  Bai Suzhen and Kavanaugh stood back-to-back as the two Deinonychus made snarling, rushing feints toward them, eyes gleaming, teeth snapping.

  A creature sprang upward and down, slamming into Bai with breath-robbing impact with its forepaws, the fanged jaws snapping for her throat. Claws ripped three vertical tears in her blouse. Staggering backward, she fell against the pylon. At the same time, she thrust with the jian sword into the raptor’s belly.

  The blade grated against the ribs. The animal twisted away with an agonized howl and went into death convulsions at her feet. Blood pumped out in spurts as it thrashed with its legs and tail in an effort to stand up.

  Reversing his grip on the rifle, Kavanaugh swung it like a club. The stock crashed against the side of the remaining monster’s skull, twisting its head around on its long neck with a crunch and crack of cartilage. It fell to the ground, rolling over and over in a spasm.

  Bai Suzhen put a hand over the rips in her blouse. Not taking his eyes away from the advancing Deinonychus troop, Kavanaugh asked, “Are you all right?”

  She nodded. “Superficial scratches.”

  From all around came a series of prolonged, paralyzing skreeks! as the Deinonychus hailed one another with their unnerving calls. They approached cautiously, hesitantly, moving in half-crouches, their attention divided between the growling, bleeding Quinterotops and the two humans standing over the bodies of their brethren.

  “Up!” Kavanaugh said, spinning Bai Suzhen around to face the ladder. “Now, while we’ve got a few seconds to spare.”

  Hand over hand, she quickly scaled the pylon, not objecting even when Kavanaugh propelled her upward by a hand on her rump. “Go-go-go!”

  Bai pulled herself to the top of the pylon and extended a hand to Kavanaugh, gripping his forearm with surprising strength. She hauled him up over the edge. Glaring down at the raptors swarming around the base, she counted at least ten, with more arriving. They uttered little questioning barks to one another. The scene might have been cute had they been otters and not bloodthirsty predators. One of them sniffed at the metal rungs, even nipping at them experimentally.

  “Do you think they can figure out how to get up here?” Bai asked.

  Before Kavanaugh had regained sufficient wind to answer, the curious Deinonychus hooked a rung with its foreclaws, then planted its hind feet on another.

  “Yeah,” Kavanaugh said grimly, putting the carbine to his shoulder. “I think they can figure it out.”

  “Jack!” shouted Honoré. “Come on!”

  She stood about twenty yards away on a small platform at the rear of the bullet-shaped car. The monorail carriage was twenty feet long, ten in overall diameter. Most of the tube-shaped exterior was composed of curved, transparent panes of Plexiglas. The glass was streaked and dirty, but he saw everyone seated within.

  Kavanaugh and Bai ran along the narrow track to the engine, climbing through the open hatch into the stuffy carriage. Belleau and Oakshott sat in padded leather chairs. Mouzi and Crowe kneeled down at the far end of the car, glowering into a square depression in the floor. The air in the coach was stifling. It stank of old mildew.

  Kavanaugh remained by the open rear hatch, not just so he could keep watch for ladder-climbing Deinonychus, but also because of the drafts of fresh air. He called out, “What’s the story, Gus?”

  “Hell,” Crowe retorted, pulling his Swiss Army knife from a pocket, “I don’t even know the prologue yet. Keep in mind this thing has been sitting here dead for over t
wo years.”

  From his seat near one of the transparent windows, Belleau said tremulously, “I thought monorails were powered by electric motors, fed by contact wires and the like. If there’s no power at the Petting Zoo station, it can’t be started, can it?”

  “This monorail is a hybrid system,” said Crowe shortly, extracting a screwdriver blade. “It uses a diesel motor to generate electricity for the rail motors. We designed a redundancy just in case the Petting Zoo station lost power. We’ve got an onboard high-efficiency Wankel.”

  Honoré cast him a perplexed glance. “You’ve got a what?”

  “It’s an engine,” Kavanaugh explained. “State-of-the-art…or it was a few years back.”

  “Not that bleedin’ efficient either,” muttered Mouzi, reaching down into the engine module. “Give me the tool, Gus…my hands are smaller.”

  Kavanaugh watched the activity of the Deinonychus as they clustered around the pylon, but he was unable to see the creature that had showed interest in the ladder. He remarked casually, “They’re smart little monsters, aren’t they?”

  Honoré swallowed hard. “And diabolically vicious. An adult has around sixty teeth, you know…think of them like great white sharks, only with legs and the brains of sociopathic six year-olds. Together with the Troodonids, the Deinonychosauria represent the group of non-avian dinosaurs the most closely related to birds.”

  “I wish they’d evolve wings and fly away,” Kavanaugh replied. “If Gus can’t get this thing rolling, I don’t know how we’re going to get out of this one.”

  Honoré gestured to the walls and roof. “I assume the train was designed for the maximum-range viewing, for the photographers who paid their fares.”

  “You was assume correctly.”

  “How thick is the Plexiglas?”

  Kavanaugh tapped a ceiling panel with the barrel of the carbine. “About a quarter of an inch, I guess. Tough enough, but we didn’t test it against raptors.”

  Sitting in a seat beside the door, Bai Suzhen said drowsily, “We may have to, and sooner than we’d like.”

  Kavanaugh peered through the open hatch just as a Deinonychus raised its head above the top of the pylon, looking around alertly. Its eyes fixed on the coach and the people within it. Mouth opening wide, it gave vent to a long shriek that held a note of triumph.

  Kavanaugh turned to speak to Bai Suzhen. Only then did he see that the front of her silk blouse was sodden with blood. She closed her eyes in pain, shock and exhaustion and leaned her head against the transparent pane.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Honoré drew aside Bai’s Suzhen’s blouse, peeling the blood-wet fabric away from the three deep lacerations that extended down from her collarbone to the inner curve of her right breast.

  “She needs doctoring and fast,” she announced. “Where’s the first aid kit?”

  Mouzi arose, reaching for the case, but Kavanaugh said, “We need you on the engine. Aubrey, you can help Dr. Roxton.”

  To his surprise, Belleau didn’t voice an objection. Instead he went swiftly to the front of the car and fetched the box. Honoré pulled out a padded thickness of gauze and wiped at the blood welling from the gashes.

  “I don’t think a major blood vessel has been severed,” she said, “but the transverse thoracic muscles are definitely hemorrhaging. Aubrey, give me a pressure bandage.”

  Belleau found the two-inch thick pad in the medical kit and waited for Honoré to pull away the bloody gauze. He laid the pressure bandage over the gash, affixing the adhesive to Bai Suzhen’s flesh, giving it a little squeeze to bring the antiseptic gel to the surface. Bai showed no sign of regaining consciousness.

  With effort, Kavanaugh kept his attention focused on the Deinonychus pulling itself atop the pylon. It crouched down on all fours, studying the rear of the car with bright, alert eyes. Its tail, held out behind it, switched like that of a cat about to pounce. He sensed the creature assessing him, gauging the threat level of the rifle in his hands, extrapolating on how it functioned. It turned its head toward the troop gathered below and uttered a series of yips and squeaks.

  Under his breath, Kavanaugh murmured, “That’s it…tell your homies we’re too dangerous, tell them we’re too much of an unknown quantity. Go on, hell-spawn. Just back off.”

  Then between one eye blink and another, the Deinonychus moved. It was so fast, to Kavanaugh’s eyes, it was if the creature had vanished from where it crouched and then reappeared several yards down the line. Its claws clicked in a maddening castanet rhythm against the rail. Behind it, another Deinonychus climbed atop the pylon, immediately followed by another.

  Rather than risk missing the shot, Kavanaugh fell backward into the coach, dropping the rifle so he could use both hands to pull the door shut. The Deinonychus thrust an arm through before the door sealed completely. Kavanaugh avoided having his eyes clawed out by a fractional margin.

  He launched a straight-leg kick at the door, trapping the creature’s forearm just above the elbow joint between the edge and the frame. He maintained the pressure with his leg as Honoré snatched up Bai Suzhen’s sword and slashed with the blade, the razor-keen steel opening up a horizontal gash in the scaled flesh of the raptor’s arm. Very little blood spilled out, but the Deinonychus howled in pain.

  Noting the denseness of the epidermal tissue, Honoré hacked again, using a swift, back and forth sawing motion until the blade grated against bone. The creature screamed, frantically struggling to free itself. Kavanaugh drew back his leg just far enough so the animal could pull its limb free. It went flailing across the track and over the edge, plummeting to the ground twenty-five feet below.

  Kavanaugh dropped the aluminum locking bar across the door just as three other Deinonychus surged up. They slammed against it, their claws raking over the window. Terror rose in Kavanaugh as he saw how the talons scored the glass, gouging it deeply. Two of the Deinonychus leaped atop the car, affording everyone a view of the leathery soles of their feet. Their claws scrabbled loudly over the Plexiglas.

  Honoré returned to attending to Bai Suzhen. Examining the pressure bandage, she said, “I can’t stop the bleeding. Even if I could, I’d only be prolonging her life for a few hours.”

  Belleau eyed her fearfully. “Why do you say that?”

  She gestured with the blade of the sword. “We’ll suffocate if we have to be locked up in here for more than two or three hours…less than that once the heat of the day hits. We’ll be baked alive.”

  Kavanaugh knew she spoke the truth. The brutal mid-day sun would turn the interior of the car into an oven. They would all die of heat prostration before they ran out of oxygen. Several more Deinoncychus came loping along the rail line and the hope of opening the door to allow an influx of fresh air disappeared.

  Kavanaugh glanced toward Crowe who kneeled beside Mouzi, dabbing at her sweat-beaded forehead with a bandana, as if she were a surgeon performing an exceptionally delicate operation.

  “Do you have any idea what the problem is?” he asked.

  A mechanical throb arose from the floor plates. Little lights panels inset into the coachwork glowed, and then faded.

  After the first jolt of jubilation, Kavanaugh demanded, “What the hell was that?”

  “There’s a loose coupling to the Wankel,” Mouzi said between clenched teeth, her eyes squeezed shut in concentration. “I’m trying to reconnect it by feel, but this ain’t the way to do it. I should pull the entire block and—”

  A fat spark popped and a choked cry burst from the girl’s lips. Her slight body spasmed as she rolled across the floor, hands knotted into fists. The engine drone filled the compartment and the coach lurched forward a few feet, a loud metal-on-metal squeal accompanying it.

  “Thank God!” Belleau shouted happily, averting his face from the snarling visage of a Deinonychus only inches away on the other side of the transparent barrier. “Well done, young lady, very well done!”

  Crowe pulled Mouzi into a sitting position, trying
to pry open her clenched fingers. “’C’mon,” he said gently. “Let me see.”

  “Just a shock,” she said in trembling voice. “Not surprised it happened.”

  Crowe winced at the sight of the reddened flesh at the base of her fingers. “We need some analgesic cream over here.”

  Aubrey obligingly brought the tube to Mouzi, squeezing it onto her burns. Reacting to a touch of a cool breeze on his face, he saw a slotted air-conditioning vent on the floor. “We’ve got air! Exceptionally well-done, young lady!”

  Mouzi only glowered at him.

  Crowe helped Mouzi to her feet. They gazed at the landscape slowly sliding past the windows. The train picked up speed, the grinding of metal becoming less pronounced as rust deposits were scraped away. Then they felt a sudden surge of acceleration, which sent everyone staggering.

  “Now we’re cookin’!” Mouzi exclaimed.

  “Yeah,” Crowe said dolefully. “We’ve got air and we’re moving, but we’ve got no control. The switch-back point has automatic brake settings, but I don’t know if they’ll still function.”

  “What will happen if they don’t?” asked Honoré.

  Before Crowe answered, his attention was commanded by a Deinonychus clinging to the side of the carriage, hanging spread-eagled but slowly slipping down the curve of the Plexiglas. Its claws gouged into the glass as it tried to tighten its grip. He feigned swinging a fist at its head. The creature flinched instinctively, lost its grip, fell off the side of the coach and toppled to the ground.

  “Ain’t that damn smart of a monster,” Mouzi said with a snicker.

  As the train picked up speed, the landscape changed. There were more clumps of trees dotting the expanse of savanna. Rock outcroppings rose from the grassy plain like unfinished sculptures.