explosion consumed rock, soil and air with the same greed and vigor. Adam saw the entrance to the abandoned lab collapse, entombed beneath tons of rubble.
Then he did know what he was doing, Adam realized.
Just what are you, Zed?
The skull-like moon watched balefully as Adam was swept away from the heat and the light on the dinosaur’s back, deeper and deeper into the cold, star-scattered darkness.
10
FLIGHT
I ’m getting used to feeling scared. It’s not so bad.
So Adam had been telling himself, over and over. But hurtling through the skies, clinging to the back of an impossible flesh-eating monster, he knew the lie for the total garbage it was. Each flight was terrifying, from the first lurching takeoff to the final jarring touchdown.
It turned out that Zed could fly incredibly fast over extraordinary distances. But such progress came at a cost. Within minutes of being airborne, Adam would lose all feeling in his face and fingers as the night wind whipped against his skin. His perch on the monster’s back felt precarious at best, but with the high altitudes robbing him of breath, his head kept spinning, and waves of nausea rolled through him. It was like being trapped on the world’s most evil roller coaster for hours at a time with only a big elastic band holding you on board.
Even so, he didn’t dare complain too loudly. There was no one to listen except Zed, who was doing all the real work, flapping those incredible wings of his hour after hour. It seemed the plan was to rest by day and fly by night so as not to be seen; clearly, not even a Z. rex could stay invisible for hours at a time while flying at ridiculous speeds.
Adam soon discovered that even intense fear couldn’t hold off boredom indefinitely. With no one to talk to, he felt as if he were going quietly crazy. He worried about his dad, thought about his friends, about the way their numbers and texts were stored inside his dead phone. A little electronic tomb that held the remnants of his old, predictable life, meaningless in this new one.
After the second night’s flying, they camped out beside an enormous lake as the dawn rose.
Adam rested on the deserted beach, sore, sour and shivering, watching Zed as he built a rocky shelter next to a hillside. The dinosaur worked quickly, shifting boulders with his brawny arms and adjusting their position with his jaws. It was clearly no casual arrangement. Zed layered the stones with mud and brushwood and kept crawling in and out, as though he were testing his shelter not just for cover but for camouflage too.
He doesn’t want to be spotted while he sleeps, Adam realized. Vaguely he wondered how far he might run before the dinosaur woke up and came looking for him—and what punishments he might receive. He felt completely helpless. Even if he found other people nearby who might help him escape, what good would it do? Zed could kill them all, just as he’d killed Bateman’s “friends.”
Adam curled up on the grass and drifted into an exhausted sleep.
Around midday, Adam woke with a start to find Zed emerging from his hideaway, scenting the air. Stealthily, the dinosaur padded toward the beach, shimmering into invisibility as he went.
Adam watched in uneasy wonder. If he squinted he could make out the faint edges of Zed’s form ghosting in the sunlight, but only because he knew what he was looking for. And he saw that the dinosaur was stalking toward a group of large, dark cormorants. “Like a stealth fighter closing on its target,” Adam muttered. The birds shifted about uncertainly, as if sensing some kind of danger, but not its direction.
Then suddenly Zed snapped back into view, jaws lunging, tail swiping, huge claws raking the air with deadly precision. A few of the large birds clattered away, escaping over water. Most were not so lucky. Shaken, Adam could see about a dozen dead or injured on the shore. One by one they vanished into Zed’s jaws, swallowed whole.
The dinosaur
Then he did know what he was doing, Adam realized.
Just what are you, Zed?
The skull-like moon watched balefully as Adam was swept away from the heat and the light on the dinosaur’s back, deeper and deeper into the cold, star-scattered darkness.
10
FLIGHT
I ’m getting used to feeling scared. It’s not so bad.
So Adam had been telling himself, over and over. But hurtling through the skies, clinging to the back of an impossible flesh-eating monster, he knew the lie for the total garbage it was. Each flight was terrifying, from the first lurching takeoff to the final jarring touchdown.
It turned out that Zed could fly incredibly fast over extraordinary distances. But such progress came at a cost. Within minutes of being airborne, Adam would lose all feeling in his face and fingers as the night wind whipped against his skin. His perch on the monster’s back felt precarious at best, but with the high altitudes robbing him of breath, his head kept spinning, and waves of nausea rolled through him. It was like being trapped on the world’s most evil roller coaster for hours at a time with only a big elastic band holding you on board.
Even so, he didn’t dare complain too loudly. There was no one to listen except Zed, who was doing all the real work, flapping those incredible wings of his hour after hour. It seemed the plan was to rest by day and fly by night so as not to be seen; clearly, not even a Z. rex could stay invisible for hours at a time while flying at ridiculous speeds.
Adam soon discovered that even intense fear couldn’t hold off boredom indefinitely. With no one to talk to, he felt as if he were going quietly crazy. He worried about his dad, thought about his friends, about the way their numbers and texts were stored inside his dead phone. A little electronic tomb that held the remnants of his old, predictable life, meaningless in this new one.
After the second night’s flying, they camped out beside an enormous lake as the dawn rose.
Adam rested on the deserted beach, sore, sour and shivering, watching Zed as he built a rocky shelter next to a hillside. The dinosaur worked quickly, shifting boulders with his brawny arms and adjusting their position with his jaws. It was clearly no casual arrangement. Zed layered the stones with mud and brushwood and kept crawling in and out, as though he were testing his shelter not just for cover but for camouflage too.
He doesn’t want to be spotted while he sleeps, Adam realized. Vaguely he wondered how far he might run before the dinosaur woke up and came looking for him—and what punishments he might receive. He felt completely helpless. Even if he found other people nearby who might help him escape, what good would it do? Zed could kill them all, just as he’d killed Bateman’s “friends.”
Adam curled up on the grass and drifted into an exhausted sleep.
Around midday, Adam woke with a start to find Zed emerging from his hideaway, scenting the air. Stealthily, the dinosaur padded toward the beach, shimmering into invisibility as he went.
Adam watched in uneasy wonder. If he squinted he could make out the faint edges of Zed’s form ghosting in the sunlight, but only because he knew what he was looking for. And he saw that the dinosaur was stalking toward a group of large, dark cormorants. “Like a stealth fighter closing on its target,” Adam muttered. The birds shifted about uncertainly, as if sensing some kind of danger, but not its direction.
Then suddenly Zed snapped back into view, jaws lunging, tail swiping, huge claws raking the air with deadly precision. A few of the large birds clattered away, escaping over water. Most were not so lucky. Shaken, Adam could see about a dozen dead or injured on the shore. One by one they vanished into Zed’s jaws, swallowed whole.
The dinosaur
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