Kingdom of Monsters by John Schneider (latest novels to read .TXT) 📕

“Oh, you son-of-a-bitch!” Maverick roared as he wrestled the wing-flaps against naked wind.

The Cessna dipped, dropping into a dive, straight for the ocean.

'Oh, shiiittt!” Maverick groaned, straining.

The plane's nose arched up.

The sea below, however, had no intention of helping.  The swells breached twenty and thirty feet high as the eruption displaced water for miles in every direction.

Without an engine, they were going down, sooner than later.

Maverick leaned his back into the arc, leveling them into a straight glide, coasting barely fifty-feet above the surface.

Uncertain if the pontoons were even still attached, Maverick touched them down to the water, just at the crest of the highest swell.

The pontoons caught, planting them face down and forward as the wave dipped.  The landing struts bent in half, tearing partially loose.

Kate was thrown forward, nearly landing in Maverick's lap.  Shanna was still unconscious, but Cameron had managed to belt the two of them in.

Which wouldn't matter if the pontoons broke away, and the plane sank.

The impact drenched the cabin, flooding them with icy ocean.

But the second pontoon held, and together they propped the main cabin between them, and the Cessna stayed afloat, riding the swells, its wings propped awkwardly like an injured bird.

Maverick, who had simply thrown the controls aside near the end, collapsed limply in the pilot's seat.

“Maverick,” Kate muttered, crumpled at his feet, “you are so fired.”

Behind them, the sky continued to darken with smoke.  There were echoes of continued rumbles.

The chill of seawater had roused Shanna, and she looked up groggily at the burning pier that had been her home.

No one spoke as the ocean rose and fell around them, carrying their little wreck like a floating leaf.

They all jumped as the radio suddenly barked static.

A hailing signal.  A summons.

“That's your Navy buddies,” Maverick said.  “Coming to arrest us.”

He glanced around at the empty ocean.

Or at least a hopefully empty ocean.  Who knew what dragon-beasts might be lurking about.

Maverick squinted as the first of the Navy vessels were now visible on the horizon.

“You know what?” he sighed.  “I'm fine with it.  I could use the rest.”

He picked up the radio, clicking on the speaker.

“Okay,” he said, “come and get us.”

Cameron nudged Shanna, who lay, spent and listless in his arms.

“Well,” he said, “it looks like you're going to see the real world after all.”

Now there was the sound of choppers, as the first of their escorts appeared overhead.

Kate sighed, popping up next to Maverick, looking out the window.

“More likely a military base outside Washington DC.”

Maverick waved out the window as the choppers circled.  They spent twenty minutes extricating them from the crashed Cessna.

Then they were taken into custody.

Chapter 23

The ship that picked up Shanna and Kate's team was far from the only vessel that appeared to surround the smoldering remains of Monster Island.  At least half-a-dozen destroyers patrolled.

Clinging to a bit of flotsam that had once been part of the dock, Congo heard the repeated sound of munitions.

Some of the other beasts had escaped the island, and were currently floundering in the ocean.  There were steady canon blasts as the circling ships picked them off one by one.

Congo tried paddling away from the convoy, but before long he was spotted by a chopper, and one of the destroyers turned his way.

Helplessly, he watched as the ship approached.

Exhausted and resigned, he waited for the sound of the canon.

Instead, a soldier leaning out of the chopper above shot a tranq-dart into his back.

Almost instantly, Congo's eyes fluttered, and he started to slip from the floating pier.

On the destroyer, sailors with ropes dropped over the rail.  As he drifted out of consciousness, Congo felt himself bound and secured.

And while the Navy occupied themselves with Congo, only a short distance away, Big Rex floated at the surface, riding the swells with only his eyes and back exposed.  The furrowed brow rather resembled an enormous crocodile, although when the big rex began to swim, it was actually more of a dog-paddle, his powerful legs churning the water like a motor.

The blinking green glow of his eyes was the only tell of his presence.

He had taken a battering in the eruption, and been tossed and thrown with the surf.  For a brief time, he had lost consciousness.  When he had awakened, stirred by the sound of explosions, he had found himself floating like so much driftwood.

Knocked into a state of semi-apathy, as well as still feeling the effects of the sedative, the big tyrannosaur had watched impassively as the other surviving animals struggled in the surf, drawing attention from the patrolling navy ships.

The rex saw Congo loaded onto one of the vessels – spared for some reason.

Big Rex also sensed the presence of Shanna, growing quickly distant, like a rapidly-fading star.

His glowing green eyes blinked, locking in on that star, and with its simple-minded focus, began to follow.

Chapter 24

Kristie had been traveling through Montana for a week, and according to her map, the site up ahead was the Maelstrom nuclear base.

As she scoped the grounds with her binoculars, however, she could see it was now being patrolled by sickle-claws.

Kristie had picked up on cross-talk coming from the site within the last week.  But as she perused the grounds, the base now seemed abandoned.

A sickle-claw raid?  Kristie knew first-hand the packs of dromaeosaurs were particularly vicious – even mindlessly so.

That, however, was something Kristie had learned could be used against them.

Vacationing in the tropics, she had once seen native fishermen 'jigging' for four-foot Humboldt squid – mollusks that would swarm prey in aggressive packs – but the moment one of them was hooked, the others cannibalized it within seconds.

Sickle-claws were like that.  Kristie knew if she could kill one quietly, the others would dog-pile.

At the distance, she would have preferred a rifle shot, but her pistol had a silencer.

She lined up her shot and fired.

Two-hundred yards away, one of the beasts dropped, twisting and kicking in spasms.  Immediately, the others pounced, savaging their downed comrade.

Now that they were gathered together, they were easier targets.