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

It was, in fact, perhaps the one sea-beast that could swim among them unconcerned.

Pliosaurs were technically short-necked plesiosaurs.  In practical fact, they were like seals with the jaws of a crocodile.

And for whatever reason, they shared with tyrannosaurs a particular resistance to dominance – a resentment – and they did not at ALL like that psychic stench on the brain.

Jaws bigger than the Anchorage itself split, as the pliosaur bore down, clamping onto the sub like a gator snapping up a trout.

The sub exploded in the pliosaur's jaws, seconds from the first launch.

Two-hundred and twenty miles above, Major Tom, who had just raised General Rhodes, shrugged.

“Well,” he said.  “Never mind.  I guess we don't have to worry about that one.”

Chapter 55

The canyon was bloody slaughter – rabid titans killing each other.

In the narrow valley, giant corpses piled between the cliff walls like a dead-fall, damming the flow of the invading army.

Brutus and the rogue stood atop the mountain of carrion, facing off the relentless march of beasts.

The storm yet masked their numbers beyond the canyon, but they went on for miles.

Brutus and the rogue were the last of the defenders.

Big Joe had gotten between two carnosaurs and a bull Triceratops.  He managed to break one of the big meateater's necks – a large Allosaurus – before the trike gored him.  He might even still have gotten away except for the second carnosaur, this one a much larger carcharodont, got a free strike with its saw-blade jaws from the back.

The teeth cut deep across his shoulder into Big Joe's neck, and might have caught his jugular, but it quickly became irrelevant as the trike bored in again, spearing the big ape deep in the chest, and finally bearing him to the ground.

Konga had tried to trip up a titanosaur with his horned-ceratopsian shield and gotten himself trampled.

Josie and the pussycats had the most difficulty with the trikes – T. rex simply hadn't evolved to fight a ceratopsian face-to-face – it would have been stupid.  A hunting tyrannosaur bit Triceratops from behind.

Circumstances, however, put them nose-to-nose.  Worse, there was the sheer fact of numbers.

To their credit, the pussycats got their bites in.

Josie accounted for two-dead trikes, with the horns and shield bitten away from two others, before they surrounded her, gouging her legs in the manner of modern boars, before taking her down.

Not one of the pussycats fell without at least a piece of someone's ass in their teeth.

But now it was almost over.

Having gained the high-ground, through the sheer accumulation of piled corpses, Brutus and the rouge had so far held off the horde.  But the relentless march hadn't slowed, and the invading beasts continued to funnel into the valley.

Brutus knew they were fighting to the end.  Perhaps it was even a blessing, as the cycle of madness need not run its course.

And he knew he had given Shanna her window – a chance to get away.

That's what he was good for.

The rogue knew none of this.  It had followed a light.  Now it was being attacked.  All its actions were cause/effect.

It would fight to the end, because that was all it knew to do.

And so it stood beside Brutus, the two of them framed in the storming electric light-show, staring down from the mountain of their slaughtered foes, daring ever more.

Brutus glanced at his impromptu ally – only a short while before, the rogue had been at his own throat.

Now he prepared to die fighting beside him.

They turned together to face the horde...

… even as somewhere in the sky above, there came the roaring sound of twin jet engines approaching fast.

Chapter 56

“There's our ride,” Garner shouted, as he waved at the chopper.

His radio barked alive.  Captain Johnson's voice.

“Anyone left alive down there, Garner?”

“Not if you don't get us the hell out of here,” Garner shouted back.

From the chopper above, gunfire erupted.

Trix roared in outrage as bullets dotted her hide.  Caesar growled, covering up.

“Hold your fire, goddamn it,” Garner yelled into his radio.

Johnson's voice coming back was incredulous.

“Are you kidding?”

“Shoot the sickle-claws,” Garner shouted back.  “Leave the big ape and the tyrannosaurs alone.”

With more directed fire, the chopper was able to clear a path to land.

Garner and Wilkes both waved.  “Let's go!”

Ducking under the still-spinning rotors, Allison climbed on board, clutching Lucas, followed by Bud and Mr. Wilson.

Still exchanging gunshots, Mark glanced at Maverick.

“Maybe this is a bad time to mention this, but I'd really rather not end up in military custody.”

Maverick glanced up at the chopper, eyeing the pilot and the soldiers helping the others on-board.

“Don't worry about it,” he said, pulling another shot.

Rosa climbed aboard, reaching for Shanna as Cameron carried her on one shoulder.  But Shanna stopped, turning to Caesar, even as the big ape cleared the way, waving his broken tree trunk at any encroaching sickle-claws that remained.

Caesar glanced over his shoulder.

In that same growly voice, he said, “Go-ohhh.  Ru-uhh-nnn.”

Shanna turned to the canyons, where Brutus and the rogue faced-off Otto's advancing army.

It didn't matter for them.  They were already under a death-sentence.

Shanna turned, climbing on-board.  Cameron hopped up behind her.  Then Maverick and Mark, as the craft lifted into the air, buffeting in the heavy crosswind.

Caesar stared up after the departing chopper as it was carried away in the storm.

Beside him, Trix and Velma and the other two pussycats stared up as well.

And somewhere over the buzz of rotor blades, the crash and bash of the storm, and the battle yet raging in the canyons below, Caesar's sensitive ear picked up the sound of a jet engine.

Turning to the west, he saw approaching twin flares.

Shanna was safe and away.  It was time to get the hell off this mountain.

And as if it was an option, he somehow felt he couldn't leave Trix behind.

As the rex pack's attention focused on their fading star, Caesar turned and bounced his broken tree trunk off Trix' broad nose.

Then he turned and ran for the hills, with the furious rex pack hot on his heels.