Dinosaur World 7 Page 3

  “It is close by,” the young man replied. “I am sure you will see it soon. But we must kill as many of these creatures as we can.”

  “Any that we don’t kill, could end up in a nearby village,” Tae added from my other side. “We must protect as many people as possible.”

  “Got it.” I nodded.

  The clicking sounded like it was coming from all around us, and I quickly slid my night vision goggles back on as Hae-won did the same. The probability of looking fucking crazy to Kwan for wearing sunglasses at night was worth it for the advantage in a dino fight, and I instantly grinned as the view improved. It took a second to adjust to how bizarrely well-lit the forest became, and I could see all the different tones of green on the palm trees and bushes around us.

  None of the Korean men even glanced my way, and it was clear their hyper-focus was on the approaching enemy.

  The girls stood beside me with their sharp guns poised and ready to fire, and we stared out into the night as the clicking sounds drew closer.

  It made the back of my neck prickle as we listened to the strange noise echo through the jungle, and my throat was dry while my heartrate quickened with every moment the clicks got louder.

  It didn’t take long for the group of therizinosaurus to show themselves, and “nightmarish” was a fitting way to describe them.

  They stood on their hind legs and must have been about thirty feet long and fifteen feet tall. The scales on their chests were a muddy brown with a tint of dark yellow mixed in, and the feathers on their backs looked to be a dark blue color. Although their jaws were beak-like, I could see rows of stout, square teeth inside. Their dark, beady eyes darted from side to side as they clicked and snarled, and long tails swung behind them as they walked.

  The most terrifying thing about them was their claws, though.

  Each therizinosaurus had three huge talons on their arms which couldn’t be any less than twenty inches long. The claws didn’t look like brittle nails that would easily snap during a fight, either, they looked like fucking swords coming out of their hands, and judging by the crusted blood all over each talon, these guys had no problem tearing through skin.

  The therizinosaurus started to slink out of the trees all around us, and the eerie clicking noise grew louder as more and more of them appeared.

  “Look at those claws,” Kat whispered. “Fuck that, those things could have your eye out before they even come near you.”

  “No shit,” I muttered. “Those are some of the deadliest weapons I’ve seen on a dino yet. They don’t even have to get close before they could--”

  I was cut off when the three therizinosauruses suddenly sprang toward some of the men with their talons at the ready, and I aimed my sharp gun at one of their skulls and pulled the trigger. The bullet whistled along into the beast’s eye socket, and the dino’s skull blew open with a gross flurry of brain and bone. The suddenly headless dino flopped to the right and toppled into one of the other herd members.

  Then all hell broke loose.

  The jungle erupted with roars and screams. The men around me broke off into smaller groups, and they each focused on different spots of the forest. They shouted in Korean to each other as they started to mow down the dinos, and it looked like it took a good twelve or fifteen human made bullets to kill just one of the huge beasts.

  The dinosaurs seemed to use the clicking sound to communicate, and they were able to keep their talons from striking each other as they attempted to maul all of our asses.

  Then I heard a cry of pain behind us, and I spun around to see one of the Korean men had been struck in the face with talons, and deep cuts ran along his left cheek as his fellow fighters sprayed bullets into the chest of the offending dino.

  The man wailed as he clutched his bloody face, but it looked like the attack had narrowly missed his eyes.

  Two other nearby men lifted up their injured friend and started to carry him back from the front line of fire. As they walked, I saw one of the dinos notice their turned backs, and it lunged toward the men with its massive talons stretched out.

  I took aim as quickly as I could and shot the long-clawed fucker in the neck. The dinosaur screeched as it swung its body around to face me, and then toppled over onto its back with a thud.

  The beast wailed as blood seeped onto the grass, and it made a choking noise as its head flopped from side to side. The long claws on its front legs flailed in the air, and I strode over to the dino as I pulled the hilt of my fire sword from my belt.

  I’d wanted to chop up some dino bastards ever since I first laid my hands on the sword, and I knew it would be the perfect chance to practice my hand at the alien weapon.

  I hit the button on the hilt, and the scorching hot, black blade sprang to life with a faint buzz while blue glowed around the edges. The beady eyes of the dino rolled back as I approached, and its tail spasmed, but it wasn’t dead yet.

  I raised my sword as I stopped beside the beast’s head, and then I brought the blade down through its neck. The skin of the dino sliced as easily as cake with the alien blade, and a bloody mess of therizinosaurus insides spilled onto the jungle floor.

  I chuckled as I quickly pulled my sword back, and I tried not to slip on the puddle of blood that had started to quickly form around me.

  “Jason!” Becka screamed. “Behind you!”

  I swung around with my sword still clutched in hand as a particularly large herd member lunged at me, but then Becka shot at the dino as it leaped, and my lover managed to hit the beast in the neck so it stumbled.

  The dino could have easily reached me with its jaws if it hadn’t been shot, but it seemed unable to maneuver its neck properly to get at me now.

  I jumped to the side as it tried to dive at me, and I brought my blade down on the claws with a satisfying grunt. The dino howled as I cut it right across the knuckles, and I had to jump to avoid the long tail which swung around to meet me.

  Blood started to pour out of the end of the dino’s arms, and it suddenly flopped onto its belly with a weak cry. As the therizinosaurus laid before me, I decided to use my sword for the final execution before I swapped back to my gun.

  After all, what was more satisfying than shoving a blade into a dino skull?

  I raised my fire sword high, and I brought the black blade down and straight through the middle of its large head.

  The flesh made a sizzling noise as the blade sliced through skin and bone, and there was a smell of burning meat that made me gag as I pulled the hilt back up high.

  When the blade came out of the dino, the beast was left with its head and neck sliced right down the middle. It was horrific to look at, but I couldn’t help admiring how precise the cut was. I could see the dinosaur’s brain under layers of cracked bone and blood, and the flesh started to peel away to opposite sides like gross string cheese.

  “That was awesome!” Sun-hee yelled beside me as he punched the sky with a grin. Then he hurried over to help Tae take on a new trio of dinos, which had erupted out into the clearing.

  I didn’t have much time to celebrate my swordplay as more therizinosauruses poured out of the trees and lunged at the group, so I quickly hit the button on my sword to stash the fire blade, attached the hilt back onto my belt, and swung my sharp gun around again. Then I looked around at the carnage around me and hoped Kwan’s men had brought enough ammo with them.

  We’d started off outnumbering the dinos, but as more and more appeared, it became clear we were not going to win with numbers alone.

  I had no doubt the men were skilled, but without alien weapons for everyone, it would take a hell of a lot more bullets to take every dino down. Clouds rolled in front of the moon as we fought, and I knew it must have been difficult for everyone who had nothing but their own eyesight to navigate in the darkness.

  Suddenly, I heard a yell from one of the Korean men, and I turned to see Adhara step out of her ship with a sharp gun in her hand.

  The lilac-skinned beauty jumped o
ut through the forcefield, and her silver hair sparkled under the stars as she took aim at the nearest herd member.

  Adhara immediately started to shoot at the dinos and ignored the cries and stares from the men around her.

  Sun-hee gasped and shouted something in Korean, and he stared with an open mouth at the alien.

  Kwan looked over at Adhara, and even his steely expression changed to wide-eyed shock.

  There wasn’t much time for everyone to ogle the new member of the team, though, because more and more dinos piled out of the trees in what seemed like an endless parade of taloned bastards.

  Kwan shot an approaching therizinosaurus in the neck while Sun-hee opened fire on the same beast. As soon as the dino was down, Kwan turned back to look at Adhara. His eyes were narrowed, and as he took a step closer to the alien, I noticed him tightening his hold on his rifle, every muscle in my body went rigid.

  Hae-won screamed something at her father before I could react, and the man barked back in Korean before he dragged his eyes off Adhara and worked on taking down another therizinosaurus.

  Once I was sure Adhara was safe, I looked around the clearing to see the girls had all spread out in different directions. There seemed to be more dinos left on the right side where Kat stood, and she seemed dangerously outnumbered as more therizinosauruses snuck out from the trees.

  “We need to stick together!” I yelled as I hurried over to help the soldier. “Don’t let yourself get ambushed by these fuckers. We’re stronger together, come on!”

  Becka and Adhara raced over to join us and arranged themselves in a line beside me. Hae-won was the furthest away, but she took careful steps over to us as she blasted a dino right in the side of the skull with her sharp gun.

  Once we were all together as a group, I noticed the dinos approached us slower. It was as if they knew a coordinated team was harder to kill than an individual, and it still made my skin crawl to think of how intelligent the bastards had become.

  Then a therizinosaurus with a large bite mark in its neck raced out of the trees toward me, and I took careful aim at the skull before I pulled the trigger. The bullet hit the creature right between the eyes, and the splatter of dino brains flew into the air and landed on a nearby bush. When the lifeless body hit the ground, two of the nearby dinos spun to look at their fallen herd member.

  I took the opportunity to shoot one of them in the back of the head, just as Hae-won did the same thing to its buddy.

  Both dino skulls erupted with skin and blood, and a blasted eyeball went flying into the air. The two dinos crashed into each other as they fell down dead, and their long necks tangled together as they hit the ground.

  The teamwork between me and my girls had never been more in sync as we took down every dino we could while remaining in a tight cluster formation. Although the beasts had long legs and enormous bodies, we managed to keep them far enough away that they couldn’t swipe us with their deadly claws, and every time one of us took a dino down, the next shooter in my group was ready to drop the fucker behind it.

  As the Korean men continued to fight around us, the dino bodies piled up, and the ground became slippery with blood. Kwan’s men were all incredible shooters, and it was a world away from the haphazard fighting we’d witnessed back in Ravenscar.

  But the intensity of the fight never let up.

  “They just keep coming!” Becka wailed as more clicks and hisses echoed out from the jungle. “How many of these Edward Scissorhands cunts are there?”

  Sweat had started to stream down my neck as we fought, and the difference in climate became more noticeable every time I moved. I wished a breeze would pick up as sweat dripped into my eye, and my shirt clung to my chest under my jacket as the minutes of gunfire ticked by.

  I took a shot at a smaller therizinosaurus as it scurried out of the trees, and I tried to ignore the rising temperature of my body.

  They just kept coming.

  We were managing to keep them at bay with our guns, but the dinos had some kind of team system in play, and it seemed a new group would appear every few minutes with a whole slew of members in the pack.

  I glanced up at the sky every minute or so, and the goggles made it appear a pale blue rather than the dark navy it truly was. I made sure to keep an eye out for any flying dinos that could have been attracted to the noise, but I half-expected a t-rex to appear through the trees any second.

  So far, it seemed we hadn’t attracted attention from other creatures just yet.

  I managed to get a good view of Hae-won’s father and brothers as they fought, and it was clear to see where the Korean beauty got her skills from. I may have taught her well, but from the looks of it, kicking ass seemed to run in her family.

  The four burly men of Hae-won’s family moved with fast, purposeful motions, and every shot they took hit their targets. They worked together as a well-oiled machine and calmly shot dino after dino in the skull, but her father, Kwan, was especially impressive to watch. He seemed the most unflustered of the group, and even as a dino lunged at him with gaping jaws, he didn’t flinch.

  The underground king just put three quick bullets right between the dino’s eyes, and then he pivoted on one foot to do the same to the beast who came at him from his blind spot.

  “Daewoo Precision K2!” Kat hollered as she noticed me watching Kwan. “That’s the rifles they're using, awesome Korean make!”

  “I thought you might know!” I grinned. “I was wondering, they look good!”

  “Not as good as our alien guns.” Becka smirked as she wiped dino blood from her cheek.

  “Fucking hell,” Kat said as she glanced down at the pile of bodies in front of her. “This is going to attract others for sure, even if we evaporate them quickly. The noise these bastards make is enough to wake the dead.”

  “The clicking is so creepy.” Hae-won shivered as she shot a bullet into the neck of a far off dino. “It’s even scarier than the roaring, I think.”

  “It seems like they're slowing down finally, though,” I said as I looked around to see only three more dinos appear from the forest.

  Two of the new therizinosauruses were shot by Kwan’s men, and Hae-won put a bullet in the final dino skull.

  Then the Korean beauty flicked her ebony hair over her shoulder as she lowered her gun, and I could tell she was pleased her father had noticed her fight.

  I kept my eyes on the edge of the jungle, but no new dinos appeared as I scanned the trees, and I looked around the clearing to see only two men appeared to have been injured in the ambush. The man with a tear in his cheek sat on the ground with his palm pressed to his face, and a second guy stood near the spaceship as blood dripped down from his arm.

  Several of the men took the dip in dinos as a chance to grab their injured comrades and rush them off into the woods, and I assumed that was the direction the base was.

  I kept my sharp gun aimed at the trees as the men jogged off, in case a hidden dino saw it as a chance to attack the weaker members of the group. The men vanished into the jungle without incident, though, and I slowly lowered my sharp gun again.

  We all stood in silence for a moment, and I strained my ears as I listened for any distant clicks or howls. I scanned the forest, but there didn’t appear to be any signs of movement or suspicious shadows amongst the trees.

  “Are they gone?” Becka asked eventually, and everyone looked at Kwan.

  He stood with his K2 swung over his shoulder as he faced out into the jungle, and he was as still as a statue. Then he held up a hand as if to silence us even though nobody spoke, and he cocked his head to the side as he studied the dense jungle ahead.

  “There!” Kwan suddenly growled as he whipped around and pointed to a bush over to the left of the clearing.

  There was a scream as four more of the long-clawed fuckers leapt from the darkness and piled into a group of nearby men.

  Then one of the dinos grabbed a man by the leg with its sharp teeth before any of us could react, a
nd it hurtled back into the jungle as it shrieked like a banshee. The other three dinosaurs were killed almost instantly by Kwan and his three sons, and the wave of bullets splattered dino guts all over the clearing before the beasts fell dead.

  The ground shuddered from the weight, but the screams of the man who’d been taken echoed around the clearing, and I ran toward the bushes where the fleeing dino had disappeared without thinking twice.

  “Jason!” my girls all shrieked at once, but I didn’t pause.

  I hurtled past the pile of bodies and raced after the rogue dino with my sharp gun clutched in hand. I heard more yells behind me, and the bushes scratched my legs as I flung myself into the Korean jungle.

  My night vision goggles made it easier than I expected to maneuver in the dense landscape, and I followed the pained screams of the man as I caught just a glimpse of the lumbering dino ahead.

  The therizinosaurus’ long tail whipped back and forth through the plant life, and it was limping badly. The faster I ran, the more blood I could see on its thigh, and then I realized there were two bloody wounds in its knee as well where bullets must have struck.

  The man in the dino’s jaws was still alive, though, and his yells rang out through the trees as he dangled from the mouth of the therizinosaurus. He flailed around wildly, and I couldn’t see a gun in his hands. Then there was a horrible crunch as the dino clicked, and the man shrieked from what I guessed was a broken bone of some sort.

  I raced as fast as I could, fully aware that I was venturing deeper into a jungle, which I had no way to navigate.

  But I couldn’t make myself turn back. Not with the guy shrieking and flailing only a matter of feet ahead of me.

  The limp of the dino slowed it down another degree, and I was finally able to slow down enough for me to take a shot. Then I fired a bullet into the creature’s spine, and the dino howled as the bullet tore through its lower back. More blood poured out onto its scales as it stumbled, and I took the chance to race closer and fire a shot right into the neck.

  The bullet made the dino howl even louder, and this time, its jaws fell open.