Footprints of Thunder (69 page)

“Elemental, guys,” Ripman said. Ellen noticed that Cubby and her son glowed in the light of Ripman’s praise. “Except for one thing,” Ripman continued. “You used up all the ammo shooting at those assholes back there.”

“Wrong again, Sherlock,” John said, pulling two clips of ammunition out of his jacket pockets. “Now if we can only figure out how to change the clips.”

Cubby kept walking but began fumbling with the gun, turning it at different angles and pushing and pulling on anything that looked like a release. Ellen and John flinched every time the barrel of the gun turned toward them.

Finally, Ripman snorted derisively and said, “Let me do it before you shoot someone.” Cubby gave up the gun reluctantly. Ripman turned partially away, so Cubby and John could not see what he did, and when he turned around the empty clip was out of the gun. John handed over another clip and Ripman slipped it in the handle, then slapped it home with the palm of his hand. He didn’t volunteer to show anyone how to change the clip, and it was then Ellen realized how insecure he was.

Ripman, she saw, needed an edge over John and Cubby to stay their friend. They were willing to give their friendship to Ripman, but he needed to earn it, or perhaps, Ellen thought, buy it. Ripman wouldn’t take anything for free or do anything the easy way. He didn’t want anything from anyone that he didn’t pay for. Cubby’s and John’s friendship was paid for in myriad ways, but mostly by the way Ripman doled out esoteric knowledge, bits and pieces of skill, and expertise he had been husbanding for just that purpose. Her son and Cubby’s resourcefulness at disabling the motorcycles and obtaining a gun had disturbed Ripman’s balance with his friends. Their independence had devalued the only commodity he felt he had, skill. So Ripman ridiculed them for missing one motorcycle, and then reestablished his value by changing the clip in the gun. He needed that edge and Ellen was willing to let him keep it for now.

Cubby held out his hand. Ripman hesitated, then slapped the gun into Cubby’s palm.

“Wish I still had my bow, guns are a crutch, but a bow-—”

“I know, Ripman,” Cubby cut in, “a bow is el-ah-mental,” When John harmonized the word with Cubby, all three of them laughed, diffusing the tension and reaffirming their friendship. They walked in silence for a way, not wanting to disturb the good feeling.

Ellen grew impatient. They needed a plan, a goal, and in her mind the only goal could be to get out of dinosaur land as soon as possible. She was about to speak when Ripman saved her the trouble.

“Cubby … it’s really gone, Portland’s gone. You can’t go home.”

Ripman’s tone was conciliatory, his comments an act of compassion.

“It is there! We saw it!”

“I’ve seen it too, Cubby. But something’s not right. It comes and goes, and when it’s there, I’m not sure it’s really there.”

Cubby walked in silence, sorting his thoughts, while Ellen hung back. She had already decided on her course of action. She and John were getting out as fast as possible. If Portland was there, it wasn’t all there, and her part of it, her home, her friends and neighbors, were gone. She had her son, a husband somewhere, and a daughter. So far she had lost only things, and of the things lost only the mementos mattered, those markers of personal passage through time. And they mattered little compared to her family. She cared about Cubby and Ripman for their family’s sake, but she would not risk her son and herself for them. She and John were leaving.

“I know the city doesn’t look right, Ripman, but it’s something,” Cubby said. “My family is in there, my mom and dad. This isn’t the rapture, I’ll admit that. But it’s something, something only God could do. There’s a purpose behind this, a plan. My dad will understand it, he’s probably explaining it right now. You guys don’t have to come with me,” Cubby finished. “I’m going into Portland.”

Cubby’s decision sounded as firm as Ellen’s, but she wanted to give him options.

“Cubby, you can come with us, live with us as long as you want. I know your mom has relatives in Georgia or someplace, we can get in touch with them. You too, Ripman. We’ll move down to the beach until someone figures out what is going on.” Ellen could tell by their faces they were looking for a kind way to say no.

The return of the helicopter spared them for a moment.

When Ellen heard the distant sound she sprinted ahead looking for thin canopy and began waving her arms. The helicopter never passed within sight of their group, but when the sounds faded they heard the brief distant roar of an engine, which soon died, replaced by the silence of the forest. The machine roar returned, and then faded, only to come back again. The rhythm continued, the sounds coming closer and closer.

“They’re tracking us,” Ripman said. “We better find a place we can defend.”

Ripman lead off, but his injuries kept his pace down. As tired and hungry as he was, even Ellen could keep up with him. She was more than just physically tired, she was tired of being afraid, and tired of being a victim.

Something moved in the trees up ahead. Ripman spotted it with his good eye and veered to the right. The others followed his lead. Ellen spotted a long green tail protruding from behind a tree, but no head was visible. Whatever it was, it was content, and they ran on ignoring it, Ripman led them into a tiny clearing and to an ancient fallen tree on the far side, which had sprouted new trees along its entire length. Ripman paused looking around rapidly.

“This is as good as—” He stopped in midsentence, distracted by the noise behind him.

They all followed Ripman’s gaze to see a dinosaur coming through the trees. It was half the size of the one that had gotten Angie, but its jaws were still big enough to bite a person in half. Cubby was pointing his gun at it, waiting for a clear shot.

“Don’t shoot it with that, Cubby, you’ll only make it mad. Everyone spread out, back away slowly,” Ripman ordered.

Ellen fought down the urge to run and obeyed him, looking to see where John was. She was next to Ripman, then Cubby, and John was on the far side. She punished herself mentally for letting John get so far away. The dinosaur stepped into the clearing, walking on two huge hind legs, dragging a long muscular tail behind. Its forelegs were small but powerful looking. Its triangular head had massive gaping jaws showing rows of pointed teeth; its breath came in liquid heaves. Most noticeable were its eyes—its
eye.
The left was a brown orb barely distinguishable from the olive skin, but the right eye was a large crusted scab. Blackened blood stained the right side of its face down to its shoulder. John gasped, and Ellen heard Cubby say, “It’s One Eye.”

The animal was swinging its head from side to side, keeping its good left eye on them all. As they backed away it became more difficult for it to keep them in sight and the arc of its swings increased. Seeming confused, it paused at the edge of the clearing, its head continuing to swing, watching them inch backward.

The four continued backing slowly while the dinosaur watched. They were only a few yards from the trees when the dinosaur started forward again. Ellen watched its head swing wide, tracking each of them, and it gave her an idea. If they waited until the head started its swing away, and they peeled off in sequence, it would give them a precious few seconds head start. She was about to yell instructions to the others when Cubby tripped and fell backward, the gun in his hand firing wildly into the air.

Now the dinosaur screamed and charged directly toward Cubby, who was struggling to his feet. Ripman began hollering and waving his arms, and Ellen followed his lead, but the dinosaur’s dead eye was blind to Ellen and Ripman, and its own screams drowned out their voices. Cubby started firing at the creature’s chest. Either the impact of the lead slugs or the report of the pistol froze the dinosaur in its charge, stopping just in front of Cubby, its head thrown back into a scream,

John yelled something to Cubby but no one could hear him. Cubby emptied the last bullet into the dinosaur and then rumbled with the gun, trying to eject the clip, forgetting John had the spare one.

All Ellen could do was yell and wave her arms. Blood, from the bullet holes, speckled the dinosaur’s chest. The creature took the last step toward Cubby, its gaze fixed on the boy’s head, its jaws opening. Cubby threw the useless gun into the gaping mouth and turned, stumbled to his feet, and ran.

The dinosaur shook its head throwing the gun out toward Ellen and Ripman. Ellen jumped for it, forgetting that it wasn’t loaded. But as she moved she saw John charging at the dinosaur from the other side, a stick in his hand. Blind to Ellen, the dinosaur swung to take John’s charge, but as it turned the tail swept toward Ellen, catching her as she bent looking for the gun, tumbling her over her right shoulder into the fallen tree. Her ribs flexed, absorbing enough of the impact to keep them from breaking, but the blow knocked the wind from her. When she collided with the log, she put out her right arm to absorb the shock. But her arm slipped, breaking as it slammed against the wood.

In agony, flat on her back, she saw the tail fly over her head splintering tree limbs above. When the tail fell toward Ellen, she screamed, then rolled up on her broken arm, flattening her body against the log. The tail slammed behind her and then was gone. She slipped back toward the ground, but arms encircled her chest and began pulling her through the grass. They were Ripman’s arms. Through her tears she saw Cubby and John dancing in front of the dinosaur, poking sticks at it, wide apart, with Cubby keeping on the blind side, so the dinosaur had to keep swinging its head to keep track of him.

With a roar the motorcycle entered the clearing, carrying two riders, and Ellen’s dread became hope. The animal did a quick, powerful pivot to face the new threat, its tail sweeping through the clearing. Diving into the grass to avoid it, Cubby and John disappeared.

With Ripman’s help Ellen was up and running. The boy stopped inside the forest and leaned Ellen against a tree, then turned to check behind them. A rifle fired rapidly three times and Ellen saw the dinosaur charging the motorcycle as Butler revved the engine and Carl stood behind the bike firing his semiautomatic until the dinosaur collapsed to the ground screaming in pain.

Carl yelled in triumph. Butler said something to Carl that Ellen couldn’t hear and then reached down to pull his rifle from the sheath. As he did the engine died. In the silence Ellen could hear the wet gurgling breathing of the dying dinosaur and the triumphant “all rights” of Carl and Butler as they walked forward to deliver the coups de grace.

Ripman pulled on her arm to go, but Ellen hesitated, her eyes searching for her son. John and Cubby were nowhere to be seen. Ripman pulled harder, and as she started to turn she noticed the dinosaur’s back legs were pulled up under its body, its tail still moving slightly. With a paralyzing roar its head jerked up, its one good eye targeting Carl.and Butler, and then its muscular hind legs launched at its executioners. Butler shouldered his rifle and fired two quick shots. At the same time Carl threw himself out of the dinosaur’s path. Butler dropped his rifle at the last second and brought his arms up in a futile attempt to protect himself before he disappeared under the dinosaur’s falling body.

Ellen tried running but the movement bounced her arm, blurring her vision with pain. Finally, Ripman circled her waist with his arm to support her. Her ribs, bone bruised, ached nearly as badly as her arm, and Ripman’s support was almost too much to bear. They had just managed to develop a walking rhythm that minimized Ellen’s pain and maximized their speed when the sharp crack of a rifle buried a bullet into the tree ahead of them.

Ripman helped Ellen turn to face Carl, whose leg bandage was black with old blood while new blood stained his arms, legs, and chest. The biker’s smile was finally gone and his swagger lost to a bad limp. The rifle was leveled at them from Carl’s hip, and Ellen recognized the murderous rage in his eyes. She pushed Ripman’s arm off and tried to step away from him; the semiautomatic rifle could kill them both in a second unless they moved apart.

“You take another step, Ellen, and I’ll kill you both.”

Ellen and Ripman froze. They had no doubt Carl would do it. Carl switched his hate-filled gaze from Ellen to Ripman. He leveled the gun at Ripman’s stomach.

“Kid, I owe you big-time. Now Ellen here still has somethin’ I want, but you … I mean you backshoot my friend Bobby, you send Miller off to get eaten by that dinosaur, and then you double-cross us. You and those friends of yours were supposed to give us enough time to get out of there before that dinosaur got to us. That was the deal. We kept our part of the bargain, we let you and her go, but you tried to kill us—kill me!”

Ellen once again tried to distract Carl.

“What happened to Kishton, he get away too?”

“I’ll tell you what the fuck happened! It bit his head off, that’s what happened. But when it did I pumped five bullets into its brain. I killed that mother—twice as big as that other one—the one that got—”

Carl’s eyes glazed over as he realized the last of his friends was dead. He was alone now, but in an instant his eyes refocused in a cold stare.

“Carl, I’ll give you what you want. Just don’t hurt him,” Ellen pleaded.

“Give? I’ll take what I want, and do what I want, when the hell I want to.”

Carl swung his gun back to Ripman just as Cubby’s deep menacing voice came out of the trees to Ellen’s right.

“Freeze, maggot, or I’ll blow you away.”

Carl spun and fired twice toward the voice. As the second report sounded, another gun fired three times, the slugs ripping through the flesh of Carl’s back, pitching him forward. Ellen, stunned, tried to understand what had happened. Carl had fired at Cubby but Carl ended up shot dead from behind.

Now Cubby emerged from the forest on Ellen’s right, and then John emerged from the left, holding the pistol. Waves of relief swept over Ellen followed by concern for John: Her child had killed.

Ripman sent Cubby and John back to the clearing to retrieve Butler’s rifle and ammunition. While they were gone he used his hunting knife to cut three limbs the length of Ellen’s arm. Then he cut strips of cloth from Carl’s clothing. Ellen’s broken bone wasn’t protruding, so to Ellen’s relief, Ripman didn’t try to set it. The splint did nothing to relieve the pain, but the sling made it easier for her to immobilize it. Ripman finished the first aid just as they heard the motorcycle again.