by Rick Chesler
“But the Robinsons believe you?”
“Yep. And they’d be the only ones in town to do so.”
Noel stared into his beer, his chin quivering. Erin wanted to touch his hand but resisted the impulse. Compassion would almost certainly irritate him. Instead, she gave him a few moments. To pass the time, she sipped at her mineral water.
At last, he said, “I know it sounds crazy.”
“Not to me. Can you describe the lizard?”
“Like I told you already, a big bastard.”
“What did the shape of its head look like?”
Noel looked up, raised his eyebrows. “The shape of its head?”
She nodded.
He managed to chuckle. “Well, exactly like the head of a giant bloody lizard.”
Softly, softly, she reminded herself. “Triangular like a blue-tongue?” she said. “Long and thin like a crocodile?” She had to be careful. It was important not to lead the witness. “Blunt with a beak, like a turtle?”
The old man sighed, dropped his shoulders. After a gulp of beer, he said, “It looked like a dinosaur, that’s what.”
Under the table, Erin laced her fingers together and squeezed hard. Arranging her face into a smile, she said, “You know, there are so many different kinds of dinosaurs. I’m really not sure what you mean.”
Noel pursed his lips. “A big forehead and a snout like a skinny T-Rex. And it had a tongue, a long forked tongue like a snake that it kept flapping about.”
Holy shit.
Erin had to use every ounce of self-control to sit quietly and still. Her blood whipped through her veins. Adrenaline and cortisol fired up her muscles, raced her thoughts, and tamped her lungs.
“I think I know what it is,” she whispered.
“Without even seeing it?”
“Varanus priscus, commonly known as Megalania, a relative of the Komodo dragon from the Pleistocene era which ended about twelve thousand years ago,” she said, breathless. “Some Australian animals were gigantic versions of present day species. Kangaroos triple the weight and size, and wombats as big as baby hippos.”
Noel laughed. “Are you bullshitting me?”
She shook her head. “It was the age of Megafauna, huge beasts like something out of a nightmare. Ducks the size of emus, the precursor of the emu three metres tall and weighing over half a tonne. And then the apex predators, chief among them Varanus priscus, your monster: a huge Komodo dragon.”
Noel regarded her, drained his glass. “Look, you’re the expert, but we don’t have Komodos in Australia. Not outside of zoos, anyway.”
“Yes, you’re right,” Erin said, lightheaded. “The Komodo dragon is only found on certain Indonesian islands, thanks to the rise of sea-level after the last glacial period, which turned Australia into an island and cut off the free movement of Pleistocene animals....”
“I don’t know the hell what you’re talking about.”
“Varanus priscus was thought to be extinct. Over the past century, there have been rare sightings of it throughout south-eastern Australia, but no photographs, nothing confirmed. At least not yet.”
Varanus priscus: she knew the classification by heart—Animalia Chordata, Reptilia, Squamata, Platynota, Varanoidea, Varanidae—and could still remember the first time she’d ever seen a picture of the beast, when she’d been about twelve years old....
At the time, she had already owned a couple of terrapins—Buster and Atlas—that she kept in a glass aquarium by her bedside. Her bookshelves were filled with various tomes on crocodiles and lizards. Year after year, her parents had flat-out refused, under any circumstances, to allow her a pet snake. This had seemed particularly ridiculous, considering that Erin’s father had been an assistant curator of an animal park, and had known that many varieties of snake were not only without venom but docile, easily handled. Suffering from a cold or flu, while idly flipping through a dog-eared dinosaur book in the waiting room of a doctor’s surgery, Erin had seen a two-page colour spread of the Varanus priscus. She remembered catching her breath. According to the text, only scattered fossil remains had ever been found, so the artist had used his or her imagination: the colossal lizard, grey-scaled, with torn, bloody flesh hanging from its jaws, standing over a felled Diprotodon....
Noel said, “Dr. Harris, are you all right?”
Erin blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“You look like you’re about to faint.”
“No, I’m fine.”
“I’ll get you a whisky.”
“You know what I need?” she said. “To see the remains of that cow. Please tell me you kept the animal’s remains.”
“I did this time.”
Erin sat back in her chair. “Your cattle have been attacked before?”
“Yeah, two other times this year. Those corpses I burned and then buried.”
“When can you show me the remains of this latest cow?”
“This afternoon. I’ve kept it under a tarp in one of my barns. The vet wanted a squiz, thanks to the story in the local paper.” Noel checked his watch. “Meet me at my homestead at about two o’clock. I’ve got to make lunch for my daughter. My son-in-law can’t cook to save his life, so I’ve taken over kitchen duties. Chicken liver is good for a growing baby, so I’ve heard.”
“What?”
“My daughter is pregnant, remember? Seven months gone. She needs iron.”
“For sure,” Erin said, and laughed a little wildly. “See you at two o’clock.”
“You know my address?”
“I know it.”
Noel stood up. “Take the last dirt road out of town and follow it towards the ranges until it stops at a gate. Drive on in, but shut the gate behind you, mind. I don’t want any of my cattle wandering off.”
He grabbed his hat, tipped it towards her before putting it on, and walked out. She watched through the window as he strode across the car park and got into his ute.
After he’d driven away, she continued to stare at the bluish-green haze of the ranges that lay on the horizon. The idea that there could be only one giant lizard in the park was implausible. Out there somewhere, hiding in those 30,000 hectares of national park, feeding off the plentiful supply of native, feral and farm animals, would be at least one small population of lizards. She would find evidence. When she did, she would dub the species Harris’s dragon to the world’s media. The moniker would stick. And if the lizard turned out to be a new species entirely, then the scientific community would definitely name it after her: the Varanus harrisii. Either way, her name would go down in history.
Just the thought of achieving such an accolade sent a shiver down her back.
Devil Dragon is available from Amazon here