Kingdom of Monsters

by John Lee Schneider

  Maverick swerved, clinging to the road by sheer momentum.

  There was the smell like burning brimstone as the deepest crevice splitting the island began to spark, like a long-dead engine trying to fire.

  And again there came the deliberate staccato explosions of seismic charges.

  It was beginning to seem like overkill.

  Maverick burst through the trees, firing the Jeep out onto the beach like a shooting pinball, barely braking in time before sliding the full length of the clearing out onto the dock, right up to the edge of the lagoon.

  Their renewed view of sky revealed a solid patch of smoke, spreading overhead, like a dark black wing. Bits of fire and rock sparked like fireflies amid the closing shadowy curtain.

  The Cessna rocked against the dock as waves splashed over the pier. The pontoons threatened to tear away before the plane broke its mooring.

  Maverick jumped from the Jeep, running for the floundering seaplane. Kate started to follow, with Cameron pulling Shanna on his shoulder, but then the trees behind them burst.

  Kate let loose a reflexive scream as Congo bound into the clearing.

  They could see his eyes were glowing green.

  “Oh, Congo,” Shanna mourned, as the big ape galloped after them to the end of the dock.

  The Cessna's engine kicked once and died, followed by a volley of oaths and curses from Maverick. Kate paused at the dock as the waves crashed over the paneling.

  Cameron pulled lightly at Shanna's shoulder as Congo reached out a paw to touch her.

  “We've got to leave him,” Cameron said, eyeing the big ape, and his newly emerald-eyes. “I'm sorry.”

  “He understands you,” Shanna said through tears, holding her hand up to the giant ape's massive paw.

  Congo blinked at her touch. Then he set back on his haunches, and signed.

  Shanna nodded, tears streaming.

  “I have to go,” she agreed. “I'm so sorry.”

  Another sign with the giant hairy paw.

  Shanna's voice broke.

  “I love you too.”

  Behind them, the Cessna engine kicked alive as Maverick fired the propellers.

  But now the jungle brush was broken yet again.

  This time, as if in deliberate defiance, the trees that bordered the threshold were physically broken and knocked aside.

  Big Rex stepped into the clearing – eyes glowing green.

  Congo turned to face his long-time rival as the rex paused, eyeing the tableau of the big ape and Shanna together.

  “Hey!” Maverick hollered from the cockpit. “Can we get the hell out of here?”

  The rex took a step forward. Congo stepped away from Shanna to face him.

  Cameron estimated the rex' stride. Five steps down the beach, onto the dock, and the rex could have a mouthful of sea-plane long before Maverick could have it in the air.

  The rex advanced another step, blinking its glowing eyes.

  Congo twisted a large branch from one of the fallen trees, brandishing it like a club.

  Big Rex' lips pulled back into a snarl.

  Cameron sensed Shanna's intention a second too late to prevent it.

  With a sudden lurch, she pulled free from his hands, still stumbling off-balance, as she ran between the two posturing beasts.

  There was another slew of cursing from Maverick in the plane.

  “Please,” Shanna gasped, out of breath and sobbing. “Please stop...”

  The rex hovered over her, blinking down with its glowing eyes.

  Congo paused, his tree-limb bludgeon held ready, growling warily.

  Shanna stepped forward, raising her hand for the rex to sniff.

  “That's right, Rex. It's me. Everything's okay.”

  The big tyrannosaur nosed her outstretched hand, nodding at Congo with a snort, but stepped back another step.

  Then Shanna jerked again, as if being struck, staggering, with one hand to her temple. She dropped to the ground, apparently unconscious.

  At the same moment, both Congo and Rex snarled, shaking their heads as if with a stinging shock.

  Even Cameron thought he felt a taste of acid in his sinuses.

  For Big Rex, Shanna's distress was catalyst enough – a genetically-embedded attack-command – and Congo was right in front of him, already long-hated and long-envied.

  More than ten tons of T. rex lunged forward, jaws agape.

  Congo caught the charge, shoving the tree limb into the rex' open mouth. The teeth clamped shut, expecting hairy flesh, but instead latched onto the branch like a dog onto a bone.

  The two titans clashed, just over Shanna's crumpled form.

  Cameron dashed forward, between the crushing feet, and grabbed her up.

  Overhead, the black cloud was threatening to swallow the entire sky. The tremors crashed the Cessna against the dock.

  Maverick was now broadcasting over his loudspeaker.

  “Will you people please get on the goddamn plane!”

  Kate turned, stumbling over the shaking wharf, even as roiling waves tried to wash her off either side. Cameron was close on her heels, carrying Shanna's limp form as they piled into the sea-plane.

  Maverick jerked them away from the dock, snapping the mooring, before Kate even shut the cabin door. And then they were riding the chopping surf like speed-bumps, battering the already damaged pontoons.

  Back on the beach, the rex chomped the tree-limb in half. The combatants pushed apart and circled menacingly.

  But then they were knocked from their feet as a massive and final tremor shook the entire island.

  There was a deep volcanic rumble, wafting out from the island's deepest crevice – no seismic charge this time.

  Within the circular cap that had once been the mountain's broken peak, the trapped cove of ocean rocked against the surrounding walls like water in a bathtub, sending a microcosm of repeating rogue waves ricocheting back to shore.

  Maverick jerked the sea-plane out of the water before the bucking breaker-waves could overtake them, pulling the aircraft up in a near-vertical climb, and sending his passengers tumbling.

  And as he stretched out over the reef, struggling for altitude, the crashing ocean broke once again as seventy-feet of pliosaur surged like a breaching sub, snapping its crocodile-jaws shut less than ten feet from their wing.

  “Knew you were coming that time, you son-of-a-bitch!” Maverick hollered as he angled away.

  The pliosaur crashed back below the surface.

  With the margin of a high-jumper, Maverick cleared the Cessna over the crest of the surrounding wall, just as the volcano erupted behind them.

  For a moment, the entire sky seemed to light on fire.

  Then came the blast of smoke.

  Within seconds, the explosion caught up with them, fire and smoke, riding on the blast. The sound hit them half-an-instant early, deafening their ears, a moment before a tsunami of turbulence rattled their teeth.

  They tumbled through the sky, with Maverick struggling to maintain a general forward trajectory.

  Somewhere in the middle, the engine quit.

  “Oh, you son-of-a-bitch!” Maverick roared as he wrestled the wing-flaps against naked wind.

  The Cessna dipped, dropping into a dive, straight for the ocean.

  'Oh, shiiittt!” Maverick groaned, straining.

  The plane's nose arched up.

  The sea below, however, had no intention of helping. The swells breached twenty and thirty feet high as the eruption displaced water for miles in every direction.

  Without an engine, they were going down, sooner than later.

  Maverick leaned his back into the arc, leveling them into a straight glide, coasting barely fifty-feet above the surface.

  Uncertain if the pontoons were even still attached, Maverick touched them down to the water, just at the crest of the highest swell.

  The pontoons caught, planting them face down and forward as the wave dipped. The landing struts bent in half, teari
ng partially loose.

  Kate was thrown forward, nearly landing in Maverick's lap. Shanna was still unconscious, but Cameron had managed to belt the two of them in.

  Which wouldn't matter if the pontoons broke away, and the plane sank.

  The impact drenched the cabin, flooding them with icy ocean.

  But the second pontoon held, and together they propped the main cabin between them, and the Cessna stayed afloat, riding the swells, its wings propped awkwardly like an injured bird.

  Maverick, who had simply thrown the controls aside near the end, collapsed limply in the pilot's seat.

  “Maverick,” Kate muttered, crumpled at his feet, “you are so fired.”

  Behind them, the sky continued to darken with smoke. There were echoes of continued rumbles.

  The chill of seawater had roused Shanna, and she looked up groggily at the burning pier that had been her home.

  No one spoke as the ocean rose and fell around them, carrying their little wreck like a floating leaf.

  They all jumped as the radio suddenly barked static.

  A hailing signal. A summons.

  “That's your Navy buddies,” Maverick said. “Coming to arrest us.”

  He glanced around at the empty ocean.

  Or at least a hopefully empty ocean. Who knew what dragon-beasts might be lurking about.

  Maverick squinted as the first of the Navy vessels were now visible on the horizon.

  “You know what?” he sighed. “I'm fine with it. I could use the rest.”

  He picked up the radio, clicking on the speaker.

  “Okay,” he said, “come and get us.”

  Cameron nudged Shanna, who lay, spent and listless in his arms.

  “Well,” he said, “it looks like you're going to see the real world after all.”

  Now there was the sound of choppers, as the first of their escorts appeared overhead.

  Kate sighed, popping up next to Maverick, looking out the window.

  “More likely a military base outside Washington DC.”

  Maverick waved out the window as the choppers circled. They spent twenty minutes extricating them from the crashed Cessna.

  Then they were taken into custody.

  Chapter 23

  The ship that picked up Shanna and Kate's team was far from the only vessel that appeared to surround the smoldering remains of Monster Island. At least half-a-dozen destroyers patrolled.

  Clinging to a bit of flotsam that had once been part of the dock, Congo heard the repeated sound of munitions.

  Some of the other beasts had escaped the island, and were currently floundering in the ocean. There were steady canon blasts as the circling ships picked them off one by one.

  Congo tried paddling away from the convoy, but before long he was spotted by a chopper, and one of the destroyers turned his way.

  Helplessly, he watched as the ship approached.

  Exhausted and resigned, he waited for the sound of the canon.

  Instead, a soldier leaning out of the chopper above shot a tranq-dart into his back.

  Almost instantly, Congo's eyes fluttered, and he started to slip from the floating pier.

  On the destroyer, sailors with ropes dropped over the rail. As he drifted out of consciousness, Congo felt himself bound and secured.

  And while the Navy occupied themselves with Congo, only a short distance away, Big Rex floated at the surface, riding the swells with only his eyes and back exposed. The furrowed brow rather resembled an enormous crocodile, although when the big rex began to swim, it was actually more of a dog-paddle, his powerful legs churning the water like a motor.

  The blinking green glow of his eyes was the only tell of his presence.

  He had taken a battering in the eruption, and been tossed and thrown with the surf. For a brief time, he had lost consciousness. When he had awakened, stirred by the sound of explosions, he had found himself floating like so much driftwood.

  Knocked into a state of semi-apathy, as well as still feeling the effects of the sedative, the big tyrannosaur had watched impassively as the other surviving animals struggled in the surf, drawing attention from the patrolling navy ships.

  The rex saw Congo loaded onto one of the vessels – spared for some reason.

  Big Rex also sensed the presence of Shanna, growing quickly distant, like a rapidly-fading star.

  His glowing green eyes blinked, locking in on that star, and with its simple-minded focus, began to follow.

  Chapter 24

  Kristie had been traveling through Montana for a week, and according to her map, the site up ahead was the Maelstrom nuclear base.

  As she scoped the grounds with her binoculars, however, she could see it was now being patrolled by sickle-claws.

  Kristie had picked up on cross-talk coming from the site within the last week. But as she perused the grounds, the base now seemed abandoned.

  A sickle-claw raid? Kristie knew first-hand the packs of dromaeosaurs were particularly vicious – even mindlessly so.

  That, however, was something Kristie had learned could be used against them.

  Vacationing in the tropics, she had once seen native fishermen 'jigging' for four-foot Humboldt squid – mollusks that would swarm prey in aggressive packs – but the moment one of them was hooked, the others cannibalized it within seconds.

  Sickle-claws were like that. Kristie knew if she could kill one quietly, the others would dog-pile.

  At the distance, she would have preferred a rifle shot, but her pistol had a silencer.

  She lined up her shot and fired.

  Two-hundred yards away, one of the beasts dropped, twisting and kicking in spasms. Immediately, the others pounced, savaging their downed comrade.

  Now that they were gathered together, they were easier targets. It was rather like herding mackerel.

  Of course, the tactic didn't work if those little ones were around – the ones she sometimes saw riding the bigger beasts like birds.

  Kristie wasn't sure what the little lizards were. They looked like a small sickle-claw, but she knew they weren't infants – adult dromaeosaurs ran with the hatchlings. These creatures were clearly different.

  She'd encountered a lot of them on her path just lately. And Kristie, who would doctor a bird with a broken wing, had taken to pot-shotting the little vermin on sight – always with an unconscious shudder of revulsion.

  There had been a troop of them not twenty-miles back.

  Kristie had been keeping to the high-grounds – you tended to get the smaller animals there – and she stumbled onto what looked like a military unit, setting up munitions – a single vehicle and equipment scattered in a makeshift day-camp.

  The soldiers were missing.

  There were, however, nearly a dozen of the little scaled lizard-rats skittering all over the site. Kristie was reminded of cockroaches. With her scope, she was able to take out six of them in succession, like shooting gallery ducks before the others vanished into the rocks.

  Kristie had salvaged what she could from the site. The Jeep's keys were missing, and there was no food, nor did she have much use for seismic munitions equipment.

  As she searched the area, she found no human remains, not even bones.

  She wondered what the military had been doing up there. Seismic testing seemed rather risky after what she'd heard over the airwaves about the San Andreas fault.

  Over the last year, she'd felt more rumbles and quakes than in her entire life put together.

  The dormant volcanic chain seemed to have been awakened.

  Even the beasts succumbed to the rage of the Dragon under the Mountain.

  She had left the abandoned munitions unit two days ago. And it seemed that whatever happened there had also happened at Maelstrom.

  Kristie held her position on the hillside while she waited for more sickle-claws to reveal themselves, attracted by the scent of the beasts she'd already killed.

  She pulled out her radio, dialing up military chann
els.

  “Hello?” she said. “Anyone there?”

  There was nothing but static.

  Keeping a wary eye to the surrounding brush, Kristie began picking her way down the hill.

  This had been a nuclear site. Now she found herself simply walking up to the main gate, which was standing wide-open.

  It looked like it had not been abandoned all that long. There were still tire tracks leading out onto the main road.

  Unlike the field unit, however, this time there were bodies.

  Or more accurately, there were remains – piles of bones, some with scraps of clothing, but otherwise gnawed clean.

  Kristie shivered as a gust of wind whistled through the empty ghost-town.

  The base was organized in a typical military grid, which meant the communications building would be near the center. Kristie had seen little actual damage to the facility itself – it seemed a good chance the radio-equipment was intact.

  As she made her way cautiously along, the rows of barracks opened up into the administration sector. A satellite-disc and radio tower identified the building she was after. And with the same, seemingly lax post-apocalypse security, she found the front entrance left standing open.

  Kristie frowned. What did they do? Just go around and unlock every gate and doorway in the place? Then get slaughtered by sickle-claws?

  She had no more finished the thought when a screeching cry suddenly pierced the silence, echoing down the empty sage-brush street.

  Kristie turned and saw nearly a dozen dromaeosaurs trotting up in a pack.

  They moved in formation, like flocking birds, scenting the air as they followed her path.

  Then they spotted her.

  Kristie slid her rifle from her shoulder.

  She'd become quite an adept skeet-shooter in the last year – she didn't wait for the attack, but simply opened fire.

  Three of them dropped in quick succession, but the rest launched themselves at her in a mob.

  What did they call it? A murder of crows?

  She took out three more, before stepping back behind the open door and pulling it shut behind her, locking the bolt.

  There was impact half-a-second later, and the door vibrated on its frame.