The Lost Country

THUNDER LIZARD ROAD-4

Sammy could literally see the individual insects stuck in the grill of the Peterbilt when it simply vanished—pow, like that. As though it had never existed.

“You’ve got to be f*****g kidding me,” he said, struggling to get out from under the bike, while Annie did likewise and scrambled to her feet. They both flipped up their visors.

“I think we need help,” she said, and, contrary to her character, began crying. “Where’s your cellphone? We need to call DJ.”

“This is no mescaline trip, Annie,” he snapped, grunting as he righted the bike, then tore off his coat and began cleaning the bug guts off the windshield. “Look at this s**t. This is real.”

She moved to respond then paused, staring off down the highway, first north, then south. “Where is everybody? Where are all the other cars?”

He dusted himself off and followed her gaze. “Just vanished, I reckon. Like that truck.”

She looked at the sky forlornly. “Jesus ... look at it.”

He did so, watching as the clouds boiled and spiraled slowly and what appeared to be heat lightning flickered in the distance. But it wasn’t just the otherworldly weather that struck him and filled him with terror, it was the strange lights that seemed to bleed in and out of each other, lights that were of a color he had never seen, and which hurt his mind to behold. “The party is on hold, we need to stop at Pine Stump Junction,” he said, and seated himself on the bike. “They’ll be cops there, radios. Guns.” He looked at Annie, who continued to gaze at the sky. “People are going to need our help.”

“Guns,” she whispered absently. “But we have a gun ... right there in the saddlebag. And DJ is expecting us ...”

“Annie, please.” He held out a gloved hand.

At last she climbed on behind him and he kicked it into gear.

And then they were on their way, and Sammi was doing his best to focus on the road ahead even as the countryside all around them became a phantasmagoria of prehistoric flora and fauna. And perhaps it was only because he was so intently focused that they didn’t crash when a Tyrannosaurus rex lumbered across the road directly in front of them—carrying a dead buck in its mouth.

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* * * *

Carina looked at the water slide and knew it was her only chance. She dove for it even as the velociraptor lunged at her—nearly toppling into the water as it did so—then took its upper edge in her hands and began working her way up its length. That’s when the plesiosaur’s head and neck—she knew it was a plesiosaur because she’d seen one on the Discovery Channel—burst from the water, snapping at her viciously and managing to strike only centimeters from her foot—before she kicked it in its snout and forced it back, albeit momentarily. But it was enough that she was able to work her way farther up—slipping in the jetstream, fighting the current—until she had escaped its range and was well on her way to the top.

And then she was there, she was out of the water and gripping the platform’s railing, and what she saw below was a pool turned virtually red with blood ... as more than one plesiosaur continued to pull people beneath the surface and the “lucky” ones who had escaped were torn to pieces by the raptors.

Then she was running, bursting through the door to the upper promenade and finding her way to the stairs, which she descended so fast that she nearly fell sprawling, and when she reached her bicycle she immediately went to work on the lock—although her hands trembled furiously—until, at last, she realized the bike’s frame had been fused with a cycad bush ... and something in her just quit, gave up.

After which the only thing to do was to shrink into the corner and make herself as small as she possibly could, and hope that someone might come, an adult, perhaps, a cop, her mother, even, with yet another stepdad, one who maybe, just maybe, wouldn’t abandon her.

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