The Lost Country

THUNDER LIZARD ROAD-2

There was a single sharp drum beat followed by a fanfare of trumpets—which always reminded Carina of the opening credits to that old show, The Love Boat—as the huge spiral waterslide was activated (marking the beginning of the YMCA’s After-school All-swim), and she launched herself into the sluice.

The loudspeakers blared: Young man, there’s no need to feel down / I said, young man, pick yourself off the ground ...

And then she was sliding and careening down, a little faster than she would have liked, wondering if she would crash headlong into Alex before she even reached the bottom—a thought that was dispelled as she plunged into the four feet of water at the base of the slide ... and surfaced, gasping and disoriented.

“Boo,” said Alex, startling her from behind, and laughed.

“Oh ... you!” she said, and splashed water at him.

He splashed her back, his eyes dancing mischievously behind his goggles, before diving beneath the surface and grabbing her ankles—something he’d been doing with annoying regularity lately, ever since her mother had sewn the quilted patch into the crotch of her swimsuit. Indeed, his behavior in general, the behavior of all the boys in the Water Crew, which was what they called their after-school swimming gang, had become annoying: it was as though time stood still for them; they all still acted as though they were in 6th grade and had not moved onto junior high school at all.

She kicked him away and moved toward the edge of the pool, feeling hungry and eager to join the others in the rec room, but he only surfaced and pleaded with her to go down the slide with him one more time.

“Once more,” she said, exasperated. “Then I’m out, seriously. I’m hungry.”

She couldn’t help but to think, as they climbed the stairs to the top: How many times can you splash down the same stupid slide before it finally loses its appeal?

I don’t know, she asked herself, as Alex launched himself into the jet stream. How many times can your mother fall in love with the same type of guy?

She sat down on the slide carefully and eased herself off. The type of guy who is all presents and attention at first but then disappears like the wind?

She blew down the slide, rocking between the berms alarmingly in spite of her attempt to take it slow, and had a sudden vision of a great white shark waiting for her at the bottom—its spiny-toothed maw opened wide as a manhole, its pink palate gleaming. Then she exploded out the slide and was beneath the water again—waving her arms and legs for balance desperately—and when she surfaced, fully expecting Alex to pounce upon her immediately, she was surprised to find him nowhere in sight.

And that was odd, considering she’d gone immediately after him. She scanned the water around her even as the late afternoon sun, which had been pouring in through the windows, seemed to disappear completely. She peered outside and saw clouds stacking up in what had been a pure azure dome. Ah, she thought, it’s dipped behind a cloud. It’ll be back, unlike your long line of stepdads.

That’s when she noticed the blood beginning to spread in the water all around her ... and was gripped with terror.

Omigod.

Omigod, just ... no.

And such was her terror and embarrassment at starting her first period in public that she nearly fainted—but instead backed toward the edge of the pool, groping for the concrete while thinking, How could there be so much? How could all that possibly be coming from me?

Her fingers touched a face—Alex, of course; he’d been under the water after all—Omigod, omigod, what would he say? Would he tell the others? Would it be all over school the very next day?

And that’s when she realized his head was no longer connected to his body. That it had been completely severed and was bobbing in the intake filter. And then there were screams—others as well as her own—and she turned in time to see someone yanked below the surface not twenty feet away, as well as a fin, black as an orca’s, which rolled like a log in the deep end of the pool. And she screamed until her voice went raw even as she started to climb from the water—until she saw the velociraptor crouched on the wet concrete with its eyes rolled back in its skull (Mr. Stiller said that predators did that right before striking, to protect their eyes) and its sickle-clawed toes tapping, and knew there would be no escape for her.

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