Read Online Dinosaur Lake 3: Infestation by Kathryn Meyer Griffith - Free Book Online Page B

animals scurrying about in the tree limbs or from
bush to bush. Not a bird, a bunny or a squirrel. That wasn’t normal.
    She slowed the car down as she drew near the park’s
exit. She’d picked a little used one because she knew there’d be no check point,
no barricade, with rangers to stop her.
    That’s when she saw it.
    Planted in the middle of the road on its stringy haunches,
it was just sitting there watching her car approach. It stared at her with
large shining eyes. Unafraid. Unmoving.
    She slowed the car down a few feet away from it
because the creature wouldn’t budge. And she looked at it. It was about three
feet or so tall, maybe a little more and a burnt reddish color in the sun,
scaly, with a thin bumpy torso, a small head and long neck. Stripes crisscrossing
its back. Actually quite graceful looking. A stunted tail kept thumping back
and forth as if the creature was irritated. Or hyper. Definitely of a
prehistoric genus. Definitely a dinosaur.
    Oh, crap.
    Could it be the one Henry had come up against the night
before, the one that had tried to eat Sasha? Its appearance looked to be
similar. But she was over ten miles away from the cabin. What was it doing so
far from their house? If it was the same one.
    But she wasn’t afraid. It was one little dinosaur
and she was in a big car. Protected. For a moment, she thought of pulling out
her phone and taking a picture of the creature. But she couldn’t find her phone
in her purse. She knew it was in there somewhere, but her hand couldn’t locate
it. Darn. And she couldn’t take her eyes away from the thing in the road to
look for it, so she kept searching with her fingers. Still no phone. Oops, I
hope I didn’t leave it at home.
    She inched the car forward but the animal still
refused to move. She was on a stretch of the road very close to the exit itself
and there were small trees and bushes lining each side so tightly she really
needed to drive on the road itself up to the exit. If she attempted to go
around the little monster she’d be driving through the bushes. It’d scratch up
her car. Maybe she’d get stuck in a ditch.
    “Move, you little devil,” she grumbled at it, her
foot lightly tapping down on the accelerator pedal. Now she was only about five
feet away.
    It scowled at her, lifted its angular head; opened
its mouth and made a noise like she’d never heard before. A kind of hissing snarl
loud enough for her to hear through the closed car windows. The dinosaur might
be small, but it had rows and rows of really sharp teeth. Like a piranha.
    Then, in one swift movement it jumped onto the
car’s hood, hopped up to the windshield and throwing itself at it, tried to get
at her, claws raking and teeth biting at the glass. The look on its wizened
face one of frustration when it encountered the clear barrier. Cheeky little
bastard.
    “What the–!” was all she could get out before her
eyes caught more movement on the sides of the vehicle. “Oh God…more?” By then
she’d stopped rummaging in her purse for her phone.
    A herd of the things were swarming around her car,
jumping on it and trying to get to her like she was some sardine morsel tucked
into a can. But they were small and so were their claws and mouths and they
couldn’t break through. There were so many, though, so quickly, the car began
to rock. The suddenness of the attack took her off guard and she screamed. That
seemed to make them even more belligerent, hearing and seeing her fear. Their
claws scratched, gouged, and ripped at the hood and roof.
    And, turning to glance over her shoulder she
thought she saw more of the monsters rushing out at her from the woods. An army
of them. Oh, my.
    Time to get out of here, her inner voice yelled. Now!
    “Get off my car, you vicious gremlins,” she cried.
“I’m leaving.”
    She rammed down the accelerator, the car lurched
and sped down the road. She purposely jerked the wheel violently to the left
and then to the right. Stopped as