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  “I didn’t think I was your type,” Conn smirked, trying to play it cool and hide his shock. “I’m not sure if you have noticed, but you tend to go for assholes.”

  “You could say that again,” she replied, shifting in her seat.

  Now he was getting somewhere. She was opening up. At least, Conn hoped she was. Conn wasn’t sure what it was, but he needed to know where Lex and Brett where at. If he was going to make a play, he’d feel better if he knew they were over. As much as Conn didn’t like Brett, he didn’t like the idea of having a hand in breaking up a couple. He knew better than that. Conn was about to say something when Lex interrupted him.

  “Where’s Benny?” she asked suddenly. “He hasn’t checked-in, for a while.”

  Lex was right, Conn realized. A sickening feeling took hold deep in his gut. Both of them leaned forward in their seats, scanning the roadside, looking for some sign of their companion and his motorcycle. On their left, they zoomed past another broken down car, smaller than the last, rusted, and missing all of its tyres. Continuing on, they encountered others: cars, minivans and trucks, all in varying states of disrepair. Some were burnt-out, others missing doors and side panels, windshields shattered, and even roofs caved in. Gradually, the collection of automobiles grew thicker, beginning to choke the wide highway. Conn slowed his F-350, carefully winding the cumbersome truck in and out of the maze of car wrecks. Every so often, he checked his rear-view mirror, making sure Brett and Reilly were keeping up with them.

  They were finding more and more cars and vans on the actual tarmac now, rather than littered at the fringes of the highway. On their right flank, the trees lining the highway were beginning to thin out, quite considerably in some places. Conn made a mental note of this.

  “It’s like a graveyard…” Lex breathed, her voice trailing off, as they passed another cluster of charred vehicles.

  Conn didn’t respond to her comment. He honestly didn’t know what to say. He was trying to come up with a response when a large shadow swept over the pick-up, blacking out the sun for a brief second.

  “What was that?” Lex said, her voice embarrassingly high-pitched.

  Conn tried looking for the source of the momentary blackout, but he also had to be mindful of the congested highway. He didn’t want to bang up their truck unnecessarily.

  “I don’t know,” Conn said feebly, “I can’t see anything.”

  Unexpectedly, the warren of abandoned automobiles ended. Breaking through to the other side, and no longer distracted by the bounty of wrecked machines, Conn found the Wraith’s Den was no more as well. The trees and foliage belonging to the Wraith’s Den, previously situated on their right, was now completely gone from view, ending somewhere further back the way they had come.

  Wow, it actually doesn’t go on forever.

  Now in place of the Wraith’s Den was a glistening, blue-green, crystalline lake. The flat surface of which was seemingly blanketed with diamonds, its undulant waters trapping the sun’s rays. Although large, the lake wasn’t so big that Conn couldn’t see the opposite shore. The lake was bordered on its farthest shore by a series of low-lying, barren hills. As for the team’s other flank, slightly ahead of their position was a smaller forest located just on the margins of a sprawling, pale green savannah. A herd of dull brown iguanodons, a dozen of them, glided lazily across the prairie, the ornithopods moving in a quadrupedal stance, their backs arched high as they grazed.

  Unfortunately, Conn and Lex were unable to appreciate the beauty of the scenery, or the wildlife, around them. Standing a few hundred meters ahead of them, in the middle of the highway, was a lone, dark, ominous figure, seemingly robed in all black. The jet-black shade was tall, its presence unnerving. Trying to get a better look, Conn leaned over the steering wheel, pushing his face as close to the windshield as he could get it, without bumping it. He couldn’t tell if the figure was looking at them or if it had its back to them.

  “What the fuck’s the deal with the Grim Reaper?” Lex asked as Conn slowed the pick-up to a complete standstill.

  6.

  The second of the bulky pick-ups, carrying Brett and Reilly, lumbered up alongside Lex and Conn. Momentarily, the truck rolled to a halt just a few feet in front of the other vehicle. The quartet exited their respective automobiles near-simultaneously, eyes focused intently on the odd figure loitering as it was at the centre of the road. Going by the looks on their faces, each of them was as bewildered as the next by the unusual sight before them. The lonely dark figure didn’t seem to notice their arrival. Its dark outline was making short, sharp movements like it was fidgeting with something, but the team couldn’t see exactly what that something might have been. Whatever it was, it obviously had the thing’s undivided attention.

  Conn agreed with Lex’s description. The wraith-like shape did look like the Grim Reaper, only minus his trademark scythe. Tall, sleek, and seemingly donned totally in black, the shape appeared to be hooded and standing slightly hunched over. Conn decided it must have its back to them, for if not it would have picked up on their presence by now, surely. Hood or no hood.

  The team progressed forward, guns up and at the ready, safeties off, fingers resting tentatively on triggers. At first, no one said anything as they advanced on the strange outline. Conn’s eyes darted left and right, inspecting both sides of the highway. Something wasn’t right. It smelled like a set-up. He was honestly waiting for a horde of reivers to pounce on them and spring some kind of a trap. Yet, it didn’t happen. In a way, this unnerved him even more.

  Brett eventually spoke, his voice booming and authoritative. “Who goes there?”

  “Seriously?” Conn scoffed, peering over the side of his weapon at his leader. “Who goes there? Is that the best you could come up with?”

  Brett grimaced, but he didn’t bother to offer up a retort.

  Without needing to be instructed, Reilly swept around to the right, side-stepping and moving on an angle away from the others. The remaining three continued forward, approaching the cloaked character head-on.

  “Identify yourself!” Brett roared at the thing.

  Quickening his pace, Conn detached himself from Brett and Lex, leaving them slightly behind. Edging over to the left, mimicking Reilly’s movement on the opposite side of the group, he closed on the ominous figure. Brett and Lex maintained their slower progress, covering Reilly and Conn, from a distance, drifting slightly apart from one another.

  Conn’s eyes fell upon the mangled remnants of a blue-and-white dirt-bike, further off to his left. The light vehicle’s metallic chassis was crumpled in, and even torn in a few places, liked it had been punctured by something. What’s more, Conn’s nostrils registered the smell of gasoline. Looking at the sight before him, things didn’t seem all that promising. As Conn glided further leftward, the picture in front of him became clearer.

  Benny’s bike…

  Ben was folded over on the bitumen, his skinny arms and legs pointing off in unnatural directions, white bones poking through pink flesh in some places. Perhaps more horrific, his neck and head were lying on awkward angles, almost opposite to one another, a sea of dark red blood pooling around him. The obscure character continued to hover over Ben like some kind of hungry scavenger. In that particular moment, Conn thought it really did look like Death was there to claim his next victim.

  Seemingly out of nowhere, a long, almost serpentine, feathered neck emerged, poking out from between the thing’s ‘hood’. At the end of the appendage was a small, rather narrow head, connected to a slender, scimitar-like beak. The polished and yellowed mandible, pecked at Ben’s mutilated corpse, tearing wet-looking strips of flesh away from bone. Conn suddenly realised Ben’s ribcage was exposed, picked clean with the exception of a few bits of gnarled flesh dotted about the bones. A wary, beady, black eye watched Conn as the unusual creature feasted. It took a moment for Conn to figure out what he was looking at. What he originally thought was a hood, he now decided was the animal’s shoulders.r />
  “Jesus H. Christ!” Conn rasped in shock, confounded by the thing standing before him.

  What are you?

  He didn’t have to wait long to find out. Either, the monster was telepathically answering his question, or he had stepped too close it. In any event, it wasn’t impressed with him and apparently not all that afraid either. The small head, with the long, curved beak, turned his way. The animal’s globe-like eyes narrowed menacingly at Conn, half-squawking, half-hissing at him. Next, quick as a flash, it spread its wings in what he assumed was some kind of defensive posture. The towering thing definitely looked fierce, the question was however; was it going to attack him? Conn backed up, taking in the animal with inquisitive eyes. It was massive, about six-and-a-half feet tall: a giant bird, similar in appearance to a condor, or a vulture. What he thought were its shoulders, were in fact the tops of its wings, folded back against the sides of its body.

  Wrong again, Einstein!

  The massive avian stepped towards him, its wings splayed out to their maximum length. Conn estimated the creature’s wingspan was close to twenty feet, from tip to tip. He looked at its feet, splayed out against the dusky tarmac. Positioned at the end of each was a set of three intimidating, hooked talons. Taking the beast in, in its entirety, Conn finally surmised just what he was looking at. The enormous predator was a species of teratorn, known colloquially as a ‘thunderbird’. Although, it was known to pre-Flux science as Argentavis magnificens. Someone had once told him that they could weight up to 150lbs. Looking at the animal stalking its way towards him, Conn honestly couldn’t be sure how much it weighed. It definitely looked big, but he wasn’t sure if it was an optical illusion, resulting from the dense, charcoal-black plumage covering its entire body, save for its wrinkled, haggish legs.

  The animal continued to advance, and Conn continued to retreat, rifle up and pointed at the animal. The giant bird tensed, preparing to strike. Conn wasn’t going to freeze this time. He was about to squeeze his trigger when he heard something humongous lumbering through the trees behind him. Distracted by the resultant tremors, breaking of branches, and the rustling of leaves, Conn craned his neck around to look, forgetting all about the encroaching teratorn for the briefest of moments.

  Then, he heard Reilly yelling at him; “Conn, get out of the way! I’ve got a clear shot!”

  Whipping his head back around, Conn was greeted by the screeching jaws of the teratorn, only feet from his face. Out of the corner of his right eye, he picked up on movement. It was Lex and Brett. The former let loose with a burst of her MP-5. Almost instantly, gouts of blood erupted up and down the bird’s dark plumage as a deadly spray of red-hot bullets riddled its feathery frame. The teratorn squealed in agony, the projectiles tearing into its body. The big black bird collapsed; its wings and limbs flapping and twitching spasmodically as it lay on the ground.

  Reilly cantered forward, AK at the ready. Standing over the jerking beast, he fired off a sharp blast from his assault rifle. The gun barked, bullets shredding the downed thunderbird.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Reilly growled at Conn. “I had a clear shot, all you had to do was move!”

  Conn tried to tell him about the commotion behind him, but he wasn’t given the chance. The sound of snapping branches and swirling leaves took his attention once more. This time however, he wasn’t the only one who heard it. All three of his companions were also watching the swaying collection of trees behind him, jaws slightly parted.

  “What is that?” Reilly scowled in the direction of the tree line.

  “I don’t wanna know,” Conn gasped, hesitantly looking over his shoulder.

  “Back to the trucks!” Brett commanded.

  Making to flee, before whatever was trampling through the small forest made its appearance, the team started for the pick-ups. A moment later, a shadow washed over the fleeing quartet, followed by a horrific high-pitched shriek. Looking up as one, the team was greeted by a wide curtain of black, the sun all but inked-out.

  Conn caught a glimpse of slashing razor-sharp talons. On instinct, he threw his arms and gun up in front of his face, trying to shield himself from the incoming attack. When he lowered them to look again, Reilly was floating away, up into the sky. It was a second teratorn, a mate perhaps, and just as big as the other. Instantly, Conn remembered the shadow that had swept over the pick-up, just as he and Lex reached the end of the graveyard of cars. More terrifying than the tertorn’s sudden appearance, was that it had Reilly held firmly in its grasp. It flapped its enormous, black wings, gaining altitude, carrying a screaming, terrified Reilly away with it.

  Brett stepped forward, his M4 raised to the sky. He peered down the barrel, preparing to shoot. Reacting with some anger, Conn cut him off, grabbing the nozzle of the carbine, and pointing it down at the bitumen.

  “No!” Conn roared. “You could hit Reilly!”

  Brett seemed to realize the stupidity of his actions. Conn felt his team leader ease his grip on the assault rifle. Conn turned back around to look at the thunderbird, and his captured friend. It seemed to be heading for the quaking forest on their left. The teratorn was struggling to keep a hold of Reilly, who was frantically trying to resist the animal. His comrades watched as he swiped at it, trying to hit it in the lower body with balled fists. It appeared Reilly had lost his weapon.

  “C’mon!” Conn urged the other two towards the forest. “We have to help him.”

  Suddenly, the oversized bird banked hard to the left, losing altitude. It plummeted towards the canopy of trees, wings splayed and flapping hard, fighting to maintain a grip on its non-compliant prey item. Reilly continued to contest the animal’s grip on him, even as they fell, clearly angry and afraid. Already struggling with the weight, Reilly’s continuing protestations were taking their toll. The teratorn couldn’t expect to hold onto its prey much longer. That much was obvious to the stunned trio watching below.

  Conn’s ears picked up on more tumult coming from within the forest. “I don’t like the sound of that,” he said, actually frightened.

  Then suddenly, the teratorn fell lower again, the bird banking just above the forest awning. Quite simply, its wings were giving out on it. Without warning, the emerald façade of the canopy was shattered in an explosion of leaves and broken brushwood. A massive set of dark brown, scaly, gaping jaws, lined with jagged teeth- sharp as steak knives- appeared. In that instant, the sight reminded Conn of a breaching Great White snatching an unsuspecting seal from beneath. The cavernous maw clamped shut around the teratorn’s right wing. Conn heard the sickening crunch! from where he was standing. A second snap of the behemoth’s jaws, followed quickly by a third, and the teratorn was gone- and so too was Reilly.

  The giant lizard seemed to hover in mid-air, for a second, suspended like a marionette. Then it fell back to earth, its powerful forelimbs smacking into the forest floor. The impact sent a shockwave thundering through the ground that even the three humans felt from their vantage point. Conn was in awe at the size of the reptile, despite the fact he couldn’t actually see all of it. At least half of its mass was concealed by the opaque collection of trees and other foliage. Still, Conn could tell from the blunted snout at the end of a long head, attached to a sagging, trunk-like neck, that it was some kind of giant monitor lizard, similar in appearance to a Komodo dragon.

  Conn didn’t have the time to ponder its identity, because it was looking right at them. Its pinkish-red forked tongue tasted the air, undulating in their direction. It blinked its onyx, wet-looking, orbed eyes, sniffing the air and breathing them in. Tendrils of viscid slaver oozed from its parted jaws, pooling about the ground underneath its chin.

  “We need to leave,” Conn said, his voice little more than a whimper.

  “Agreed,” Lex squeaked.

  7.

  The enormous monitor lizard seemed to increase in size, its barrelled body appearing to inflate as it let out- what at first was- little more than a soft hiss. After a few seconds, the demonic
rasp gradually ascended, morphing into a bellowing roar. A second later, the monster was trundling right for them and with astounding speed, its weight sending shocks snaking through the earth. Moving on all-fours, its scaly belly scraped along the rough ground. Even so, the creature was surprisingly agile for its gargantuan size. Now, the remainder of the reptile’s humongous frame swiftly appeared from out of the brush, the sight sending a chill down Conn’s spine. The remnants of the beleaguered team didn’t waste any more time. Pivoting on the spot, they bolted, fleeing for their vehicles.

  “Get in the truck!” Conn bellowed at Lex.

  She didn’t protest. Lex wrenched open the driver’s side door belonging to the grey Ford, quickly climbing inside. Whilst she did this, her companion went for the same vehicle’s mounted .50 cal, brushing past the remaining dirt-bike. On the other hand, Brett jumped into the blue pick-up, firing up the engine a split second later. Before they knew it, Brett was off, zipping down the centre of the quadruple-lane roadway leaving Lex and Conn behind, without so much as offering up a backwards glance for his supposed comrades-in-arms.

  For some reason, the grey pick-up hadn’t moved yet. Conn stepped away from the machine gun, moving to the top end of the tray and began angrily banging on the roof of the truck’s cabin.

  “C’mon, Lex!” he cried, frustrated at their lack of momentum.

  “It won’t start!” came the reply from below.

  “Give me a break!” Conn whimpered, as he heard the engine struggle to turn over.

  He twisted back to look at the advancing reptile. The brute was barrelling its way towards them, its massive appendages kicking up clouds of dust as it attempted to cover the distance between them. The fine, grimy mist, tossed up by the leviathan, swirled about it like a sandstorm, the cloud of particles virtually blacking-out the interweaving mass of trees behind it. Even so, the entirety of the dusky, brown monster was visible by now, having fully emerged from its forest sanctuary. Trailing behind the animal’s narrow head, and long, rough-skinned, keg-like body, was a thick, powerful tail that tapered to a point. The appendage whipped about wildly as it closed on Conn and Lex. The lizard’s wide jaws hung open in a kind of ghoulish smile, revealing two rows of triangular, serrated teeth much like a shark’s, situated at the front of a cavernous, reddish purple gullet. Conn watched the scaly animal in a kind of daze, utterly astonished at its sheer size. From tip to tail, it must have been thirty-feet long.