Dinosaur Lake (19 page)

“Why did he come?” Henry asked Patterson. “He doesn’t seem happy to be here.”

“Well, let’s say he has special talents. Over the years in the Bureau he acquired a reputation for the unusual cases. The unexplained spooky stuff, if you know what I mean.” Patterson pursed his lips and refused to divulge anything else about his friend.

Greer
was
like George. Enigmatic. “You mean cases involving things like UFO’s? That kind of stuff? Like Fox Mulder on the X-Files or on Fringe?” Henry voiced with a nervous grin.

“Sort of. He’ll tell you about it when it’s time. I can’t speak for him. All I can tell you is he can see, accept things most people can’t. He brings a different perspective to his cases.”

Oh, great,
Henry mulled tiredly,
I have a spook seer on my team.
No wonder Greer was ex-FBI. The Bureau frowned on people who could see things others couldn’t. At least, Greer would be more open to believing in lake monsters than the normal man.

“I’ll tell you another thing, Chief Ranger, if I had to choose one man to guard my back in any situation, I’d pick Greer. He’s a remarkable individual. A quick thinker and cool under pressure. You’ll see.”

It was all Patterson was able to say because Greer rejoined them and they accompanied Henry to the door.

Dr. Harris appeared out of nowhere, pale and frantic-eyed, and attached himself to the group like a parasite.

“I heard you’re going up there. Of course I’m coming with you. I have to see what’s left at the site, if any of the equipment can be salvaged. John Day wants a detailed account of what has been lost. Perhaps there are footprints we can get impressions of or some other proof of the dinosaur’s existence lying about the campsite. The newspapers and scientific journals are crying for pictures. Any evidence at all.”

Henry felt disgust. Harris didn’t want to see if anyone had survived, were perhaps hiding, wounded, in the brush somewhere. He only wanted proof the dinosaur existed. The image of the reporter’s camcorder plagued Henry. He’d have to retrieve it. No way, if he could help it, was Harris going to get his hands on that video and profit from those poor people’s deaths.

Henry halted before the door, Greer and Patterson observing, and glared at Harris. He didn’t like the man. He didn’t like him at all. He seemed the mad professor, his clothes stained and rumpled, his face etched with a fanaticism that only made his wild eyes look wilder. What hair he had around the bald spot was going every which way like one of those troll doll’s his daughter had loved so much as a kid.

Harris turned his attention to Patterson and Greer and was zealously attempting to convince them they mustn’t hurt the creature, but capture and safeguard it for humanity.

“Yeah,” Greer quipped with a perfectly straight face, “you can feed it with spare body parts and teach it to do cute tricks for the people. Until it breaks out of the cage and eats them.” He slipped out the door without a glance back.

As Harris stood there with open mouth, Henry chuckled. The sarcasm had gone over the doctor’s head. Zealots had one track minds and no sense of humor.

But in the end, Harris joined them. As Henry thought he should, if for no other reason than to remind the man how vicious the beast had been.

George was outside waiting behind the wheel of one of the park’s four-wheel drive vehicles. The five of them crammed into it. Henry propped himself in the front with George, and fought to stay awake. In the rear, Harris rattled on endlessly about how fantastic discovering a live dinosaur was and all the plans he had for it. What the world would say when they learned of it. Saw it. Henry wanted to reach back and knock him on his troll head, or, at least, kick him. Must be lack of sleep, he told himself. He wasn’t usually vindictive.

Henry had George drive them to the remnants of the reporter’s camp first and he walked and talked the group through a brief scenario of what had occurred there the night before, his stomach queasy the whole time. But he wanted Redcrow and Greer to know everything. He recounted how Justin and he had vainly fought to save the woman reporter and described the way the monster had behaved. The blood stained rocks around them illustrated the horror. He couldn’t let the others see him as weak and tried not to let the memories get to him. It wasn’t easy.

The others spread out and began their investigation by stuffing bits and pieces of material and flesh into plastic bags. Henry tried not to look. He didn’t want to look.

Then they visited what was left of the paleontological
camp site.

They found no traces of anyone, dead or alive, though the men shouted for survivors to show themselves. No one responded. Trash skittered across the earth, bits and pieces of the place and the people that had once been there, but were no more. A section of a wrecked RV lay on its side, gleaming in the sunlight. The creature had demolished most of the tents and campers and there was twisted metal everywhere. Personal belongings were strewn along the ground as if a hurricane had vandalized the site. Empty soda cans stuck in the dirt. The meticulously plaster-packed bundles of fossils were smashed to flattened lumps of white powder and the neatly cultivated mound of bones was trampled.

Henry returned to the vehicle after the initial scouting, and slumped against the fender as his men combed what was left of the dig. Harris darted around like a maniac raving about the damage and the money it’d take to replace everything; how many fossils had been destroyed. Not a tear for his dead and missing comrades.

Henry’s eyes took in the mess, heartsick. It looked worse in the daylight. The stench of blood and fear was a pall hanging over everything.

Patterson sent up a yell when he discovered the body.

Henry strode heavy-legged towards the shouting. He knew what the mutilated body would look like, so wasn’t as shocked as the others when he saw the bloody corpse. Patterson’s face had gone a funny shade, but Greer wasn’t affected by the half-eaten carcass. Obviously, he’d seen mauled bodies before.

“You have any idea who this is…was?” Henry asked Harris.

Harris barely looked at the thing. “No idea at all. It’s too mangled. Sorry. Could be Lawrence Sanders or Earl McCarthy. They’re both missing. I’m not sure.”

The entire time they dealt with wrapping up the body for later retrieval, Dr. Harris continued to avidly lobby for preservation of the monster. He drooled over every claw impression and every sign the monster had left behind, no matter how small.

As Patterson and Redcrow did some final scouting, Henry sat in the car, closed his eyelids and listened to the familiar and comfortable noises of the one place in the world where he’d been happy for the first time in his life since childhood. Now nothing would ever be the same. Not unless they got rid of the intruder.

“So what do you think, Ranger Shore? You believe the creature that chased you and your friend, demolished this place, and killed those people, will be back?” Greer had snuck up and was eying him through the car’s window, his fingers caressing the chain to his watch. The notebook nowhere in sight. Henry took one look at the man’s face and knew Greer felt as he did. Mass devastation, missing people, and mutilated dead bodies were not good.

“That’s a foolish question, Greer.”

Greer waited.

“Of course it’s going to come back. It’ll come for food,” Henry snapped bluntly. “Like any predator that has no fear of its prey, or of anything.” The sun shone in his eyes and he lifted a hand up to shade them. “The monster isn’t out to get us, Greer. It isn’t evil or anything like that. It’s just hungry, that’s all. And, like our cattle, it sees us as its food. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“Except this predator isn’t like anything you’ve ever come up against, is it, Shore? It’s huge and it’s crafty and it eats people. It enjoys it. That’s what makes it so dangerous. You don’t consider that evil? You don’t believe there are entities in this world that are pure evil, do you?” Greer’s tone had changed and it gave Henry a spooky feeling.

“Not really. I’m a realist, after all. In nature, nothing’s truly evil. Predators hunt and feed on prey to survive. That’s life.”

“I think you’re wrong. There is evil in the world. Yes, even in nature. The trick is recognizing it when you see it. Because the creatures touched with evil cannot be salvaged, they must be destroyed
at all costs
, no matter how unique or valuable they are.”

Henry met the other man’s eyes and wondered exactly what he was trying to tell him. That animals could be evil and if they were they had to be killed? Strange belief.

“And we can’t count on it to come out only at night anymore, can we?”

“No.” Henry sighed. “It knows by now we can’t hurt it. We don’t scare it. It’s learning new tricks. Coming out in the daytime, if it’s hungry and desperate enough, could be the next one. Scavenging further afield, widening its territory. It’s coming into its own. Growing bigger and smarter. We have to be prepared for that.”

Henry’s gaze swept past Greer’s shoulders to the woods beyond.

“It could be out there watching us at this very moment,” Greer spoke Henry’s fears aloud. “A scary thought.”

“Very. Especially if Godzilla’s hungry again. We’d both make yummy appetizers.”

Greer broke out a grin for the first time. So the man could smile. “Here’s something else to be afraid of. As soon as it gets out that those newspaper reporters were eaten by a prehistoric beast, the Inquirer and every other gossip rag in the country will be sending out a flock more of them reporters to find out what really happened. They’ll be sneaking in left and right like rats scenting fresh carrion. You said there were miles of back roads and paths into the park and that anyone, if they really wanted to, could get in.”

“True. We don’t have enough men to guard every back road.”

“A battalion of armed men won’t be able to keep out the reporters and television crews we’re going to have out here. It’ll be a free-for-all. The beast will have plenty of fresh prey. So, the way I see it, we don’t have much time to take care of this problem.”

Henry leveled his eyes at the man framed in the sunlight.

“And we’re wasting it,” Greer finished.

“You know, you’re right. We’ll discuss this further at a later time.”

Greer smiled again. “I’ll be there.”

“Are we about done here? I need to wash the stink of death off me and go into town, that’s where my wife and daughter are. Then go home, get some food and rest.”

“We’re done, Shore. But I’d like to hang around a bit longer with Patterson and your ranger, Redcrow, to wrap up a few loose ends.”

“Good. I’ll send Redcrow back after he drops Dr. Harris and I off at headquarters. He’ll drive you anywhere else you want to go.”

“Thanks.”

Henry’s eyelids were as heavy as lead. The surrounding scenery appeared fuzzy and unreal. He kept hearing the monster’s growl on the breezes. Boy, did he need sleep.

“Shore, I want you to know, I think you were a brave man, trying to help that woman reporter, whether you succeeded or not. It took courage. You must have been a damn fine police officer.”

“Thanks, but I did what anyone would have done, or thought they would have done. Someone needed help and I tried to help, that’s all. Only wish I could have succeeded.”

“You know, the Governor wants us to capture alive whatever is in the lake. If it is a prehistoric throwback, all the more reason not to harm it, he claims.”

“You called the Governor?” Henry experienced a hint of irritation.

“No, Harris did, but I happened to be nearby and he put me on the phone after him, demanding I listen to what the Governor had to say.”

Henry whispered an obscenity, his eyes stormy.

“The Governor wants us to take it alive. In fact, he insists.”

“And how many more innocent people will we have to lose,” Henry’s voice was sharp, “before he changes his mind, I wonder?”

Greer shrugged his shoulders. “Myself, I’ve always thought most politicians are clueless. They have too much damn money, don’t live in the real world and care more about publicity and what things look like than the people they’re supposed to represent. Just my opinion, mind you.”

“You’re going to get along great with my wife, Ann. She feels the same way about politicians, politics and the government.

“And what did you say to the Governor?” Henry had to know.

“Not much. I stalled. I knew nothing about the situation at the time and I never make a decision on anything until I know what I’ve gotten myself into.”

“And now?”

“Off the record, I say we find the thing and kill it, no matter what the Governor wants.”

“I agree, wholeheartedly, but rifles and guns don’t stop it and this creature isn’t something we want to play games with. Justin Maltin, that paleontologist I mentioned before, might have an idea of what kind of weapons would affect it. Won’t be small artillery, I’d wager.”

“Well, when he figures out what weapons will kill it I’ll make sure we acquire them. I have old friends at the Bureau who’ll help us.”

“Don’t forget, we’re going to need a mountain of luck, too, to find that thing before it kills again. Ask your friends at the Bureau where we can get some of that,” Henry added. “But now, I want to see my wife and catch some sleep before I drop. Won’t be of any use to anyone if I can’t think straight or keep my eyes open.”