

EXTINCTION

By

Mark Leney

2012
Copyright: All Rights Reserved

Registered: 2012 – 03 – 07

MCN: CXMP1 – PJE6R – LQNF9

For my wife and daughter:

This first book and all the others that follow is for them.

Dedicated to the memory of my much missed grandad,

Harry Warren. I hope you can read this in heaven.
Chapter One

The crowd stood back as the serpentine behemoth came roaring out of the dark tunnel. That roar was replaced by an inhuman screech as the driver of the tube train applied the brakes and gradually brought the vehicle to a grinding halt.

Sean Neal had been waiting for this train for the last two minutes since arriving on the platform on his daily commute to the monotony of his daily work as an Executive Assistant for one of the major corporate businesses that made up London's city central.

He smiled to himself and straightened his tie as he prepared to step onto the train. What a surprise that two minutes actually meant two minutes today, Sean thought to himself as he patiently waited for the passengers from the train to depart. He smiled at a good looking red head who exited within inches of him. She barely even noticed he was there.

As the last commuter stepped off onto Mile End platform Sean made to step on...

His vision was suddenly obscured by the hulking Neanderthal that barged onto the train ahead of him. Sean swore under his breath, so much for queuing etiquette! He hadn't even seen that idiot prior to his arrival on the platform. There was no way that he should have gotten on first. Sean sometimes felt that because he was short and black that was why people liked to pretend sometimes as if he was the Invisible Man. He stepped determinedly onto the train, but was too late for a seat. The Neanderthal was sitting near to the doors. Bastard!

"Please stand clear of the closing doors!" the tannoy cheerily announced.

Sean held on tightly as the train slowly pulled away from the platform.

At least, Sean thought, that he was running on time. He would have time to buy himself breakfast from the canteen before starting work proper. As the train rattled through the winding darkness like an oversized metal worm Sean wondered what sort of ridiculous demands his boss would make of him today. He wondered whether the cute French girl in the canteen would go for a drink with him this Saturday. He wondered whether he'd even have the courage to ask her... this time! He wondered...

Sean found himself suddenly thrown violently head first into the stomach of the Neanderthal. The Neanderthal too was despatched from his seat, landing heavily and becoming entangled with Sean and the other passengers who had been suddenly and viciously displaced by the inexplicable collision. Screams of pain and terror filled the carriage as it tilted over onto its side and the windows became the floor. Gravity pulled everyone who wasn't desperately holding onto something onto the seat backs and windows. The sheer weight of panicking commuters meant that the glass did not hold. Shards of the broken glass were thrown into the mix of bruised and battered passengers. One man lay choking in his own blood where an especially large fragment had sliced open his throat.

For long moments the carriage was filled with the voices of the frightened and injured.

The cloying air within carried the scent of spilled blood and panicked sweat.

It took long minutes before anyone realised that the train had now completely stopped moving.

"What happened?" came one voice.

"Can anyone help my husband? I don't think he's breathing!" came another.

Soon the carriage was filled with unanswerable questions from those who could still find voice.

Sean found that some how he had ended up lying on top of the Neanderthal. His head rested rather indignantly between the man's legs. He eased himself up onto his knees, realising suddenly that he was using the man beneath him as a make shift carpet. Sean turned to apologise. The impossible angle of the Neanderthal's broad neck told Sean that the man was past caring. Sean got shakily to his feet, broken glass crunched beneath his once smart shoes, but he found fortunately that the glass was all that had been broken. It seemed that for the most part he had escaped relatively unscathed apart from a few bruises and scratches, the worst of which was trickling blood down the right side of his cheek.

He looked around at the carnage surrounding him. Those who could were standing and doing what they could to help those who couldn't and that were not beyond it.

"No he can't be dead! He can't be!" this from the elderly woman who had spoken earlier. Her head lay across her dead husband's chest as if listening for the heart beat that had long since departed.

"Has anyone tried contacting the driver?" Sean asked.

"No, no. That's right. The driver, he'll be able to help us!" a tall, bespectacled bald man in a grey business suit answered. He was visibly shaken and his black rimmed glasses had been rendered useless with their shattered lenses. The man crossed to the emergency alarm which enabled communication with the driver. Thanks to the carriage's new horizontal angle the alarm was now located beneath them. The man pulled the alarm lever.

Silence pervaded the carriage as everyone waited for a response.

"Perhaps he's answering a call from one of the other carriages." A young blonde girl offered when it became obvious that no response was coming.

"Or maybe he's dead!" came a less helpful comment from a spiky haired youth in a track suit.

"I hate to admit this," Sean added, "but he could be right. We could be on our own here."

"So what do we do now?" the bald business man asked.

Sean found to his dismay that everyone seemed to be looking to him for an answer.

He looked around at all the faces of those that had survived. The grieving widow, the young blonde girl, the bald business man, the spiky haired youth and six others whose acquaintance he'd yet to make; the young Indian couple, a pretty looking Polish woman and her young son, crying and clinging desperately to his mother's thigh, an attractive black woman with long braided hair now stained with blood and a Chinese man with a goatee. For some reason they were looking to him as if he had all the answers.

He fiddled with the cut on his forehead absent mindedly.

"We should probably stay here and wait for someone to come and rescue us." He stammered.

"But what if another train comes down the tunnel and crashes into us?" this came from the Chinese man.

Sean shrugged. "I guess that's a chance we'll have to take." He replied.

"I say we take a vote!" it was the young Indian man.

"That's right!" his wife agreed, "Hands up if you want to wait here to be rescued and possibly get smashed by an oncoming train."

Sean tentatively raised his hand and noticed that he was joined by the widow and the spiky youth.

"Now who wants to get out of here and try to escape back down the tunnel?" the Indian woman continued.

"And possibly get smashed by an oncoming train!" the spiky youth drawled with thick sarcasm.

Everyone who hadn't raised their hand before raised it now.

"It seems that you are out voted." The Indian woman sneered rather un-necessarily at Sean.

"I just made a suggestion. Everyone was looking at me for an answer and I gave one. If you all want to go and risk your lives in the tunnels then be my guest." Sean replied defensively.

The Indian man began making his way to the back of the carriage, stepping over the dead to get to the door at the back. Fortunately this was the rear most carriage and so they would not have to traverse through any other carriages.

"Shouldn't we at least check the train for other survivors?" the spiky youth asked.

"If there are any other survivors then they can find their own way out." The bald business man reasoned.

The Indian man had gotten the back door open and he was helping his wife through it.

He looked back at the others.

"If you are coming then lets go." He called.

Sean found himself following everyone to the rear of the carriage.

Chapter Two

The tunnel they found themselves in was dimly lit by the fluorescent bulbs that lined the side walls. Before the crash the train had passed through Stepney Green and Whitechapel. Sean had been so lost in his thoughts that he'd barely noticed them passing. Following this tunnel would bring them out into Whitechapel again.

"Perhaps the rescue team is already on its way." The blonde girl said hopefully.

"Let's hope so." Replied the Chinese man.

Silence reigned for long moments as they continued towards the light that was beginning to show at the end of the tunnel.

As the light drew closer and closer the survivors began to pick up their pace until they were all running towards what they hoped would be salvation.

Then something darted across the light at the end of the tunnel.

"What was that?" the Chinese man wondered.

No one could provide an answer. The sudden movement had brought the group to a halt within yards of the tunnel exit.

Something ran into the tunnel, closely followed by several other somethings.

Sean's eyes widened in amazement and disbelief. Could he be lying unconscious back in the train, dreaming what he was seeing right now? Surely this couldn't be real!

Six bipedal lizards – dinosaurs – were sprinting down the tunnel towards them. Their elongated snouts were filled with ragged razor sharp teeth, long arms ended in curved claws. The feet of their long powerful legs also carried piercing talons. Each one had an especially large hook like claw protruding at the side of each foot.

"What the fuck!" Sean exclaimed disbelievingly.

It was too late to run. They were as good as dead.

Everyone braced for the attack. Not everyone who screamed was female.

The dinosaurs ran right by them and disappeared into the tunnel.

For long moments the survivors stood astounded and yet relieved to be alive.

"Why didn't they attack us?" the spiky youth wondered.

"Maybe they're running from something bigger!" the blonde girl suggested fearfully.

"Or maybe it wasn't us they wanted to eat." The Indian man shuddered.

"What else is there?" the spiky youth chided.

The truth that slowly dawned on them was too sickening and horrific to contemplate.

"But I left my husband back there!" the old widow screamed.

Before anyone could stop her she was racing off back down the tunnel towards the train.

Susan Ford and her husband David had been on their way to Tower Hill station. Married for forty five years they had lived in London for over thirty of those years. In all that time they hadn't really seen any of the famous attractions that the great city was so well known for. They had never been on the London Eye, never seen Madame Tussaud's, never even seen the changing of the guard at Buckingham palace.

Since David's retirement two months ago the couple had been doing their very best to rectify this. Already they had taken in the Eye and the Dungeons. Today had been their day to finally see the Tower of London.

That had been before the crash. Before David had...

Susan was sobbing as she stumbled through the semi-darkness back to where she had left him. She should never have left him. Should have stayed with him. Why had she been so ready to leave him? Would David ever forgive her?

As she reached the train wreck she peered in through the back window set into the door which lay partially open.

Those things were in there... feasting on the flesh of those who had died. Susan watched them. Their scaly hides were the colour of pebbled sandy beaches, but their snouts were drenched in crimson gore from where they had been feeding. She did not hear the voices calling behind her. All that she cared about was the sight of one of those vile creatures with its muzzle buried in her David's stomach.

The deinonychus – for that was what it was, though it was not a name that Susan knew – tugged a tangled spaghetti of intestines from the cavity and threw back its head to gulp them back, swallowing them whole.

Any fear that Susan may have had was consumed by rage at the desecration of her beloved. Ignoring the voices that drew nearer she clambered into the train.

The dinosaurs turned to face the new arrival.

"Leave him alone!" Susan screamed hysterically, "You bastards! Leave him alone!"

She stumbled over the bodies and shoved past the nearer reptiles to get at the one which was consuming her husband.

The deinonychuses hissed as she went by, but other wise paid her no heed.

"Get away from him!" Susan shouted at the dinosaur.

It eyed her with apparent contempt and disinterest.

"Get the fuck away from him!" she bent down and rummaged amongst the corpses.

One of the commuters had lost a shoe in the crash. Susan's hand found it. She could hear voices behind her... calling her back.

Instead of listening to them she took up the shoe and threw it with all the force she could muster.

The creature had been about to return to its meal when the shoe struck it a glancing blow, bouncing off its bloodied snout. It spun angrily on Susan, a menacing rasp emitting from deep within its throat. The deinonychus crouched, its arms raised and teeth bared.

Susan's anger faltered as she realised its intention.

The dinosaur sprang onto her. Its teeth clamped around her face and the hooked talons of its feet lanced into her abdomen. The impact threw her onto her back. Susan's scream was cut short as a sickening crack accompanied her head being torn from her neck and slung almost casually to one side in a spray of arterial blood.

The other dinosaurs were drawn to the fresh blood shed, but the victorious reptile stood over its kill and snapped at the others to keep away. Satisfied that its brethren were suitably cowed it settled down to feed.

Chapter Three

Sean pulled away from the back window of the train and heaved the contents of his stomach onto the tracks beneath him. Considering how he hadn't had breakfast yet it was mostly bile and Sean grimaced at the bitter taste it left in is mouth. He wiped his chin with the sleeve of his jacket.

"What happened?" the Chinese man asked. He and the spiky youth had accompanied Sean in his pursuit of the old widow.

"It's eating her!" Sean croaked, "It's fucking eating her!"

"We've got to get out of here... before they fucking eat us too!" the youth stammered.

"I don't think they're interested in us. They only attacked her because she provoked them." Sean replied, "All the same... I don't want to hang around here any longer."

He led them back up the tunnel towards the exit where they had left the other survivors.

The sound of scuttling feet and cracking bones faded behind them.

Back on the platform of Whitechapel station the others were waiting. Apart from them the place was deserted. Where had everyone else gone so quickly?

Then again, if dinosaurs were roaming about it was only natural that people would make themselves scarce.

Sean was surprised that the others had waited.

None of them knew what was waiting outside the station. Surely they would stand a better chance of surviving what ever awaited them if they faced it together?

Sean could only guess that this was why they had lingered.

As he and his companions returned the others on the platform looked to him.

He knew what that look meant. Knew that he didn't need to answer it, but still he shook his head, his gaze directed to the ground, unable to look them in the eyes.

His wordless confirmation of their fears brought gasps and sobs of horror from them all.

"That poor woman!" the Polish mother sighed.

"What happened?" the Indian man asked.

Sean related to them what he had seen. He left out the gorier details, but this did not make it any easier on them.

"Do you think they'll come after us when they've finished?" the blonde girl wondered.

"I don't think so," Sean shrugged, "But I can't guarantee it. This is all new and weird. Who knows what might happen."

"So what should we do next?" the business man asked.

No one was quick to answer that one.

An ear piercing screech brought everyone back to reality.

They all looked up to where the cry had originated.

At the same time as they saw it they felt themselves buffeted by the wind created by the beating of its great leathery wings.

The creature was huge... much larger than the creatures they had just escaped from. Its wingspan was like that of a small plane, the wings like that of a bat. The large head consisted of a long sharp beak that was balanced by an equally long bony crest that extended behind it. The eyes were round hungry yellow orbs with black pupils that regarded the people below with malicious intent. Only its legs looked small in proportion to the rest of its body, but were equipped nonetheless with grasping talons on the end of its feet.

The pteranodon began to dive towards the survivors, feet extended beneath it, poised to grab its intended prey.

"Quick! Up the stairs!" the Chinese man shouted.

The platform had stairs that led into the station building which led to the turn-styles and the exit to street level. The pteranodon was too large to follow them there.

They all made as one for the stairs, but bunched tightly as they were they found their progress hampered and the reptilian bird was almost upon them.

Only the roof of the platform saved them. The creature was forced to come under that roof and alight upon its clumsy clawed feet. It advanced along the platform, making awkward progress using the 'fingers' on its wings to pull itself after them.

The survivors finally reached the top of the stairs.

The pteranodon snapped after them ineffectually, its progress impeded by its bulk not being able to squeeze up the stairway.

The survivors retreated further into the building, the frustrated squawking of the dinosaur-bird ringing in their ears.

Their mind had been made up for them... now they had no choice but to move on.

Sean led the others across the walkway that led to the stairs which would take them through the turn-styles and out of the station.

"Those things are going to be everywhere, aren't they!" the Indian woman despaired.

"Where have they all come from?" her husband asked the question which was on all their minds, but for which none of them had an answer.

When they reached the top of the other stair case Sean turned to address the group.

The screeching of the pteranodon could still be heard.

"Before we go any further we need some sort of plan of action. When we step out of this station we don't know what we are going to find." He turned to the Indian couple huddling to his left. "You're right, there are probably going to be more dinosaurs out there. Some are probably gonna be even worse than what we've already encountered. We've all seen Jurassic Park right?" Sean allowed himself a humourless smile.

"I have not seen it." The Polish woman muttered, she ruffled the hair of her young son. "Peter loves dinosaurs, but he is too small for Jurassic Park. It would be too frightening for him I think."

The spiky youth grinned despite himself. "I'm sure he'd find it a picnic compared to what we've seen so far!"

"If we are going to be staying together for the duration of this then I think perhaps some introductions are in order." The Chinese man said.

"I am Roger Chan." He tapped his chest, "I was on my way to work this morning."

"I'm Michael Harper. I work on a building site." The spiky youth said.

"My name is Anya." The Polish woman went next. "I was taking Peter to see aquarium today."

The young black woman raised her hand nervously. "I'm Aisha." She said.

"Jeremy Lime, at your service." Smiled the bald business man.

"I am Meera and this is my husband, Rav. We own our own business together." The Indian woman said.

"Today was supposed to be our day off!" Rav sighed.

"I'm Penny Jackson and I was just going shopping. It's my birthday today. I'm supposed to be meeting my mum. I hope she's alright. What if a dinosaur's eaten her or something!" the blonde girl was on the verge of hysteria despite her outward calm.

Finally they all turned to Sean.

"And what about our fearless leader?" Roger smiled.

Sean swallowed nervously.

"Sean Neal. And I'm no leader. I'm just trying to help." He sighed.

"Well you're not doing too badly so far." Jeremy assured him.

The window beside him exploded inwards and the great beak of the pteranodon lanced through the shattered portal and snapped vice-like around Jeremy's shoulders and upper body. The business man screamed and beat ineffectually at the crushing jaws that held him. His right arm had been broken and hung like a limp rag doll at his side.

Then the pterosaur's beak withdrew, dragging Jeremy along with it.

No one went near the window. All they could do was stand transfixed with horror... listening as Jeremy's screams faded into the distance.

Chapter Four

"We can't go outside. I don't want to be eaten!" Penny was crying, finally overcome by her hysteria.

"We can't stay in here either. When those raptor things have finished eating the dead they'll come back and the stairs won't pose any problems for them. We can't guarantee that they'll ignore us indefinitely." Sean insisted.

They were all shaken by Jeremy's sudden demise, but they had to stay focussed on their own survival.

"And when we get outside... then what? What do we do? Where do we go? Like you said, we need a plan of action." Rav reminded him.

"We must try and find other survivors and see if there is any place that we can use for sanctuary." Sean said.

"Excuse me, but are we going to stand around here arguing until the next pterodactyl comes flapping along or are we gonna actually go somewhere?" Michael drawled sardonically.

"Surely the Army will be coming. They'll help us won't they?" Meera wondered.

"If they will find us." Anya agreed with a shrug.

"They'll be more likely to find us, I'm sure, if we keep moving." Sean suggested.

"I was gonna meet my mum. She might be there now... waiting for me. If we are gonna move somewhere then can we move there?" Penny asked, her voice small.

Sean smiled what he hoped was a warm and reassuring smile.

"Of course. Why not... it's as good a place as any. We could probably hide out in one of the big shops until the Army find us."

No one raised any objections to this plan of action. So off they set down the stairs to face the outside world.

As they reached the turn styles they found the entrance to the station deserted as they had expected. One by one they vaulted over the electronic barriers that separated them from the outside world. There was something ever so slightly rebellious in the act of traversing the barriers in this non-conventional manner. So it was a surprise when those who had clambered over heard the familiar bleep of an Oyster card being swiped.

Penny blushed like an over ripe cherry when she found the others regarding her with quiet amusement.

"Sorry, force of habit." She squeaked.

The kiosk that stood near the exit was open, but had been abandoned by its occupant.

Outside the story was the same. The market stalls that usually adorned Whitechapel Road lay empty, some had even been knocked over like over sized dominoes, their contents spilled and forgotten on the pavement.

It was not unusual to see the road congested with cars and the odd bus, but the fact that they were all vacant and unmoving didn't seem real.

As the survivors stepped out of Whitechapel Station they felt as if they had stepped onto an alien world.

On closer inspection they could see that some of the vehicles appeared as if they had been put through a compactor and then when looking closer still an even worse picture was revealed to them... not everyone had made it out. Flesh and bone had been mangled along with metal and rubber.

On the bright side... at least it wasn't raining.

Across the road stood the Royal London Hospital. Here is where they saw their first sign of human life since coming out of the Underground. Paramedics were wheeling some unfortunate individual into the hospital on a gurney.

"I suppose if there's gonna be a major disaster you couldn't really pick a more suitable location than outside a major hospital." Michael smirked.

"Maybe we should just hideout in there." Aisha suggested.

"The hospital is going to be full of people already." Rav disagreed, "There is always the Mosque down the road. I'm sure they would give us sanctuary."

"But what about my mum?" Penny protested.

"Couldn't you just call her on your mobile?" Meera said.

Penny riffled through her handbag and pulled out her phone. She brandished it in front of Meera and the others displaying its cracked and lifeless screen.

"It broke in the crash didn't it! I may be blonde, but I aint thick." Penny sobbed, close to tears.

Michael pulled out his phone. "Here, luv. You can borrow mine."

Penny's brimming tears finally spilled over and she broke down, allowing herself to collapse to the pavement, her blonde hair covering her face as she wept uncontrollably.

"I can't even remember me own mum's number. It's saved to the phone you see... on speed-dial... I've never had to remember it. I just want to know she's alright. I know it would be selfish to expect you all to come with me... but I can't do it on my own... I just can't!"

No one moved. No one made to leave.

It was Sean who once again took the initiative. He walked over to Penny and lowered his hand to her.

Penny sniffed and shyly brushed her hair from her eyes, she couldn't help smiling despite her tears, glad that she'd thought to put on water proof mascara. She took Sean's hand and allowed him to pull her back onto her feet.

Sean took out a tissue and gave it to her. He smiled at her.

"Thank you." She sniffed as she began to dab at her eyes.

"Come on, Penny." Sean said, "It's gonna be a long walk to Oxford Circus."

Chapter Five

It wasn't long before the group had encountered its next dinosaurs.

There were seven of them spread out in the small park. These ones were four-legged and at first glance seemed rather reminiscent of very big reptilian rhinoceroses. Like rhinos they had very long sharp horns growing out of their noses. Their mouths were bony and resembled a parrot's beak. The survivors were relieved to see that these dinosaurs appeared to prefer chomping on the plants in the park and barely seemed to notice their human on lookers.

Where the styracosaurs differed from rhinos was in the large bony frill of spikes that encircled their broad necks. Their scaly hides were a beautiful blue-green hue, as if they had been made from thousands of peacock's tail feathers. The tail was long like a lizard's and probably helped them to balance their heavy looking heads.

Though the styracosaurs were vegetarians it was clear that they were far from harmless.

There was no doubt that they had been responsible for the carnage on the roads.

After pausing briefly to gawp at these beautiful, but deadly creatures the survivors moved on.

As they were nearing Aldgate East Station they heard the keening bellow of something nearby.

"What was that?" Meera found herself grasping her husband for dear life.

They stopped and listened.

The cry came again. It sounded like the mournful, melancholy call of abandonment and loss, but it was certainly not human in origin. Neither, however, did it seem threatening.

When they heard it the third time they were able to pin point where it was coming from.

"It's coming from underground!" Anya realised.

"Whatever it is, it's not our concern. Let's just leave it." Roger said.

Sean was already heading towards the entrance to the underground station.

"Whatever it is it might need our help!" he called over his shoulder before descending within.

Michael followed close behind.

"This is madness!" Roger protested before he too went inside.

Penny and Aisha also followed. The rest remained outside and waited.

The cause of the crash that had so abruptly ended the morning commute of so many Londoners was waiting for them within.

The front of the train was sickeningly entangled with the twisted and broken carcass of a styracosaurus. Huge though the dinosaur was it had not stood a chance when it had suddenly appeared in the path of this strange unstoppable metal monster.

The source of the pitiful keening stood on the platform nudging its mother in a hope to awaken her from her slumber.

The baby styracosaur was about the size of a large pony and was almost a perfect replica of its adult counterparts. Only the horn on its nose was smaller and not quite as sharp, as were the spikes of its frill.

Sean approached the baby cautiously, hands outstretched to show he meant no harm.

"It's alright. I'm not going to hurt you." He soothed.

The baby-saurus backed away, braying fearfully.

"Hush now! It's alright." Sean continued. He stepped closer and reached out to touch the dinosaur's nose.

The baby was torn between retreating further and staying by its mother. When Sean's hand felt the bony beak of its mouth and stroked it gently the baby relaxed a little and came a little closer.

"That's it!" Sean grinned.

"Aww! The poor thing just wants to be near its mum." Penny cooed.

"What are you going to do?" Roger asked.

"There are others of its kind up there." Sean replied, keeping his voice low and soothing for the benefit of the styracosaurus. "All we need to do is find a way of getting him up there to them."

"Him? It's a boy now all of a sudden is it?" Michael smirked.

"It might be!" Aisha laughed, punching him on the arm playfully.

"So how are you planning on getting it up the stairs and through the barriers?" Michael wondered.

Sean turned to face them, keeping one hand reassuringly on the baby's nose.

"Simple!" he beamed.

It may have seemed like it at that moment, but Sean and his group of survivors from the train were far from being the last people alive on Earth, let alone in the whole of London.

When the dinosaur phenomenon had struck it had been instantaneous and worldwide.

Many people had taken cover in the nearest building they could find to escape from the prehistoric monsters that had suddenly and mysteriously appeared out of nowhere.

Not many had dared to venture out again since.

And so when Rav pinched a large bunch of bananas from the front stall of a nearby corner-shop the owner, peering out from within, didn't feel particularly inclined at that moment to come out and protest too much.

Rav ran back to the entrance of Aldgate East station and handed the bananas to Roger.

"Here, but I don't know what you expect to achieve with them, unless that's a prehistoric gorilla you've got down there!" Rav chided.

"Come and see for yourself. There's no danger. If anything we now know what caused the crash earlier." Roger told him.

"That thing down there caused us to crash?" Meera gasped in disbelief.

Roger shook his head in exasperation. "Not the baby dinosaur, his mother. I literally don't think she knew what hit her. It is so tragic. So much life lost."

"You sound like you feel sorry for the blasted dinosaur. They are just animals. They shouldn't even be here. They have no right to exist here and now!" Meera ranted.

Roger rolled his eyes and disappeared back into the station.

"What took you so long?" asked Sean as he accepted the bananas from Roger on his return.

"Sorry," Roger smiled weakly, "I just had to endure Meera ranting about dinosaur rights or their lack of them."

"We've all had to endure so much in such a short space of time." Rav's voice came from behind them.

They all turned to greet him.

"I see you decided to come and see for yourself after all." Roger smiled.

"Meera can be quite full on sometimes. I thought I'd take my chances with the baby dinosaur." He quipped.

"I heard that!" came Meera's voice from above.

Rav ignored her and looked at the carnage of the wrecked train and the dead dinosaur for the first time. Then he saw the baby.

"I wonder how they got down here?" he said, not really expecting anyone to be able to answer.

"How did any of these things come to be here at all?" Aisha added.

"Perhaps someone along the way will be able to provide some answers." Sean said.

"How about you start by telling us what you're going to do with those bananas?" Roger suggested.

Chapter Six

Sean stood at the top of the stairs holding out the bunch of bananas, minus one banana.

The young styracosaur had enjoyed its first ever banana, but seemed rather perplexed that this strange two legged creature was making him climb the staggered slope to reach the other tasty fruits. Yet climb it did, slowly and with faltering uncertain steps, goaded on by words of encouragement from the other two-legs gathered behind him. At one point his clumsy, elephantine feet stumbled on the stone steps, but one of the two-legs was there to steady him and reset him upon his upward ascent.

Finally he reached the top. The styracosaur opened his mouth and lunged for the bananas, but Sean still held them just out of reach.

"Just one more obstacle to go." Sean cooed reassuringly.

The baby dinosaur was too big to squeeze through one of the standard turn-styles, but it might just make it through the larger gate that was reserved for commuters with wheel chairs, prams or large luggage. This gate was magnetically sealed however.

Michael and Penny had knocked upon the door of the ticketing office. The staff members cowering inside had not been expecting human company, but had readily agreed to unlock the gate mechanism before returning to their office and locking themselves once more within.

"Those velociraptors can open doors you know!" one of them had confided conspiratorially.

Now Sean backed slowly away from the baby still holding the bananas before him.

And the baby followed, quicker now that he wasn't on the stairs. He really wanted those bananas and before anyone could blink the young styracosaur was through the gate.

Everyone cheered and it felt good in that moment to forget about all the tragedy that had occurred up until then.

Sean gladly proffered the bunch of bananas and they were greedily accepted by the baby dinosaur.

A thunderous roar broke the moment as surely as the wind breaking the bough of a tree.

It came from outside and it was followed by pounding, earth-quaking footsteps.

Something else had come in answer to the baby's distress call and it hadn't come to help.

"What the fuck was that?" Michael exclaimed.

They heard screaming outside. Meera, Anya and Peter ran in looking like Freddy, Jason and the Loch Ness Monster had just rolled up in a pink Cadillac.

"What's happening out there?" Sean asked, "What did you see?"

"We didn't see anything... we just heard something, very big and very scary and it sounds like it's coming this way." Meera stammered fearfully.

"What ever it is it must have heard the baby like we did." Sean reasoned.

"How can you possibly know that for certain?" Roger argued.

"Look, if the baby's crying did bring it here... he's quiet now. Maybe that thing will just pass us by." Sean suggested.

"Sean's right. We'll just wait in here until that monster... whatever it is... is gone." Rav agreed.

The station seemed to shake as more footsteps pounded the streets outside.

From where they were hiding it was difficult to tell if the tremor-making tread was getting nearer or further away. The roar did not sound again... just the WHUMP – WHUMP – WHUMP of the creature's feet.

As suddenly as the threat had come it just as suddenly went away. After the crashing and crunching the silence was almost deafening.

The survivors waited and waited.... And heard nothing more.

"I think it's gone." Anya couldn't bring herself to raise her voice higher than a whisper.

"Who wants to go out and see?" Michael quipped only half serious.

"We need to get Beaky to his own kind." Sean reminded them.

"You've named him now?" Rav barely stifled a snigger.

Everyone was afraid to make too much noise. Who knew how good the hearing of a dinosaur really was.

Sean just gave him a look that conveyed 'so I named him... sue me!'

"But Beaky...." Rav began.

"He's got a beaky mouth okay? Look just shut up will you!" Sean flustered his face darkening with embarrassment.

"You know I've got your back." Michael assured him.

"Me too." Roger added.

"Thanks guys." Sean smiled. He took hold of one of the spikes on Beaky's frill and guided him slowly towards the exit.

Michael grabbed a spike on the opposite side. Roger brought up the rear.

They came out onto the still deserted London street. The road and pavement were cracked in places where something heavy had trodden.

The coast clear the three men began to guide the styracosaurus back towards the park where his larger cousins were grazing.

They had barely covered even half the distance before the world began to shake again.

The tyrannosaurus rex had not gone far and it was thundering towards them from down a side road, its huge head with its gaping mouth of daggers lowered for a bite that none of them would walk away from.

Chapter Seven

This T-rex was easily the largest dinosaur that they had encountered so far.

It covered the ground with long strides of its powerful, muscular hind legs with three-toed feet that ended in lethal looking talons like butcher's hooks. The tiny two-fingered forearms were held close to its broad scaly chest. The head was huge and mostly consisted of mouth and teeth; the weight of it was counter balanced by the long tail that swished out behind it.

As it swiftly closed the gap between itself and its intended prey, Sean and the other two men had no time to admire the predator's lethal grace... admiration was the last thing on any of their minds. They had no time to run or even decide which of them would be the starter and which the main course... the tyrannosaurus probably didn't care any way.

Beaky brayed fearfully. Sean, Michael and Roger screamed... the tyrannosaurus opened wide... the stench of rotten flesh was overwhelming and was that a piece of denim between its teeth?

Sean closed his eyes...

The T-rex's jaws snapped shut on empty air just inches from the huddled group as the Tyrant King of dinosaurs was bowled off its feet by the charge of a pissed off bull styracosaurus.

Tyrannosaurus fell heavily on its left flank and rolled over onto a nearby abandoned Mercedes. The huge predator regained its footing and furiously turned to face the newcomer. A small localised earthquake had accompanied the dinosaur's tumble.

The owner of the Mercedes would later try and claim on his insurance, but oddly enough found he wasn't covered for dino-damage.

Sean and the others now found a styracosaurus between them and the colossal carnivore.

The other members of its herd were also there behind them. They were grouped together facing off against the T-rex, the charging male glaring with his horn lowered, a deep menacing rumble sounding in his throat.

The tyrannosaurus roared angrily, but made no move to attack. Its huge head swayed from side to side as it weighed up the odds before it.

Sean was gripping Beaky's horn so tightly he feared he would break it.

The tyrannosaurus snorted once as if to say 'sod you then' and then it turned on its heel and stalked away back where it had come from.

None of the men spoke for what seemed like an eternity. Sean finally found himself able to release Beaky's horn. Then, rather unnervingly they found that the adult styracosaurs had focussed their attention on them.

Sean found himself eye to eye with the bull that had tackled the tyrannosaurus.

The creature bellowed low in his throat.

"It's okay." Sean stammered, he joined Roger behind the baby and signalled for Michael to do the same. "We were bringing him back any way."

Beaky looked up at the bull and brayed. He was answered by a low rumble from the adult male.

Perhaps this animal was Beaky's father, Sean thought. He was about to give Beaky a gentle nudge in the right direction when the baby dinosaur began to amble forwards of his own accord.

Sean and the other two men watched as Beaky rejoined his own kind. There were brays and rumbles of greeting from everyone as they turned as one group and headed back to the greenness of the park.

As the three men walked back to the station Sean felt the need to unburden himself.

"For a moment there, when that T-rex was bearing down on us, there was a part of me that wanted to abandon Beaky to be eaten."

"You're not the only one, mate!" Michael admitted, "I mean Beaky was cute and all that, but not that cute!"

"I would have run the first chance I got." Roger agreed.

"So why didn't you?" Sean wondered.

"Abandoning a baby dinosaur is one thing... but abandoning a human being... I couldn't do that." Roger replied.

"Besides, that thing was coming at us so quick I don't think we'd have gotten very far." Michael chuckled.

"You know our route to Oxford Circus will take us right through where that thing came from... where it ran back to. We could run into it again." Sean warned them.

Michael sighed and shook his head. "You know by the time we get there I think I'm gonna need to loot Primark for a clean pair of under pants." He laughed.

The others laughed with him as they re-entered the station to join the rest of the survivors.

Chapter Eight

Deborah Jackson was awakened by a terrifying inhuman screeching.

She sat up in bed hugging the lavender duvet cover self consciously to cover her bare breasts. Her eyes were as wide as saucers as she looked around her in the darkened bedroom in a bid to locate the source.

Deborah's sleepy bewilderment gave way to irritation as she realised that it was the alarm clock. One thump from her clenched fist soon shut it up.

First thing she noticed as she got used to being so suddenly awake was that Enrico had let himself out in the night again. That bastard never would stay until the morning.

Then she noticed the time... 9:02am.

"Shit! Shit! Shit!" Deborah leapt out of bed, no longer concerned about her nakedness.

She was supposed to be meeting Penny at nine o'clock.

As she rushed into the bathroom and turned on the shower she cursed herself.

Why did she always set the alarm for the exact time she was supposed to meet someone?

It was why she was always late for everything... it was why it was always best to have doctor's appointments in the afternoon when she was awake... why she worked evenings at the hospital three nights a week.

Penny was never late for anything. She'd be there now. Of course she wouldn't be angry... Penny never was. One of these days, Deborah vowed, she would be on time for her daughter.

Deborah showered quickly, brushed her teeth and threw on her jeans and a t-shirt.

As soon as she'd pulled on her shoes and grabbed up her bag she was out of the house.

When she got outside the first thing that Deborah noticed, naturally, was the dinosaur standing in her street as if it owned it. Her first thought was that since there were no other people in evidence, this dinosaur pretty much had no one to contest its ownership of said street. It then occurred to her that by rights there should not actually be a dinosaur standing there at all.

The dinosaur in question was an albertosaurus and was a smaller cousin of the tyrannosaurus rex with its large tooth filled head, tiny arms, powerful legs and long tail.

Its name and its relationship and size compared to the T-rex were aspects that Deborah remained blissfully ignorant of. Had she known that the albertosaurus wasn't as big as its more famous cousin she wouldn't have cared much... it was still far too big for her liking and it was looking straight at her with a ravenous gleam in its yellow eye.

Trying very hard to remain calm and stifle the urge to scream Deborah hastily turned to unlock her front door.

For the moment the albertosaur regarded her with murderous intent, confident of an easy meal. Then it lunged...

Deborah laughed with hysterical relief as the key turned and she pushed the door open.

She rushed inside and slammed the door shut behind her. For the moment she felt safe.

The door behind her exploded as the dinosaur's head burst through it.

Deborah screamed as she was thrown onto the floor amidst the splinters of her front door, wincing as shards of wood bit into her.

The albertosaur's jaws snapped at her heels only missing by mere inches. She gagged as she inhaled its fetid breath. For the moment the dinosaur was being caught short by the door, but not for long. As it thrashed its head from side to side the door frame shattered and the albertosaur inched ever closer into the hallway.

Deborah scooted backwards, slowly regaining her footing as she neared the door that would take her out of the hall and into the kitchen.

The albertosaur had now completely obliterated the front of the house and was bearing down on her.

She made it through the door and carried on running, limping slightly from her cuts and scrapes, without stopping she unbolted the backdoor and fled out into the back garden.

She scrambled over the fence at the bottom and hit the ground running and she didn't stop.

Chapter Nine

The survivors had made some little progress in their journey to rendezvous with Penny's mother, little realising that the woman they searched for had only just begun her own journey.

Along the way they had encountered no more dinosaurs so far... apart from a swarm of small pterodactyls that had been more intent upon eviscerating a flock of local pigeons than causing problems for the humans.

The tyrannosaurus had yet to put in another appearance... something that the group was eternally thankful for.

There had been very little in the way of human contact too. Considering that this route had become the stomping ground of a ravenous T-rex it was not surprising that the streets and vehicles were deserted.

Occasionally they saw traumatised faces peering out at them in astonishment, but no one attempted to communicate with them. They were literally the only living people abroad in Central London at this moment... or so they thought.

It was in Fenchurch Street that the sound of breaking glass alerted them to the presence of someone... or something, nearby.

The group approached the area from where the sound had originated cautiously, huddled together for safety in numbers, but ready to scatter at the first sign of toothy tyrannosaurus trouble.

The smashed window belonged to a jeweller's shop and it soon became clear that the perpetrators were quite human. Three men stood in the shop, two white, one black... all dressed in hoodies. They were stuffing jewellery from the display cases into hold-all bags. One of the white men (grey hoodie, faded black jeans and a pierced lower lip) was brandishing a sawn-off shotgun.

Before he could stop himself Sean found himself saying: "Oi!! What do you think you're doing?"

The shotgun was on him before its owner turned to look at him.

"What's it to you? Piss off!" the Pierced Hoodie spat.

The other two were taking notice now. The African guy (dark blue hoodie, white jeans) saw Michael and his face broke into an infectious grin.

"Mikey! You made it, bruv! What happened to you? Who're this lot?" Blue Hoodie eyed the other survivors with suspicion.

"You know these people?" Sean glanced at Michael in disbelief.

"Course he does!" the Blue Hoodie replied.

Michael turned sheepishly to the others.

"I'm not really a builder. I made that up. I don't actually have a job." He told them, his face heavy with guilt.

"So where were you on your way to this morning before the train crashed?" Rav wondered.

The Pierced Hoodie provided the answer.

"He was on his way to meet us. We was all gonna rob the Lloyd's Bank this morning while it was quiet like. That was before Jurassic Park hit us. Now it's every man for himself."

"Are you with us, Mikey?" the Blue Hoodie called.

Michael addressed his shotgun wielding friend when we spoke.

"Things are different now, Baz. People are dying! We should be helping people!" he said.

"We are helping people, Mikey." Baz sneered, "We're helping ourselves! Now if you're not with us... piss... off!"

"Come on, let's leave them to it." Roger said turning to leave.

The third hoodie had been silent up to this point (he wore a white hoodie and black jeans), but as the survivors were about to leave he found his voice. Throughout the confrontation he had been leering at Penny, rubbing suggestively at his crotch.

"You don't all have to go." He pointed at Penny, "She can stay."

Penny moved closer to Sean and put her arm around his waist for protection.

"She's with us." Sean insisted.

"I think she'll change her mind when she sees what I've got for her!" White Hoodie made as if to unbutton his jeans.

Before anyone else could react Michael leapt over the counter and began raining punches on the surprised hoodie, knocking him to the ground. Only the cocking of Baz's shotgun brought Michael's tirade to an end.

"Get off him, Mikey!" Baz shouted.

Michael backed away from the bloodied and battered form of his former friend. A groan told them that he was still conscious.

"Is this how you treat your old friends now, Mikey?" Baz sneered.

The Blue Hoodie started helping his battered friend to his feet as Michael rejoined the survivors. He stood defiantly beside Penny and Sean.

"If any of you fucking touch her I'll kill you!" he snarled.

There was a sudden loud retort as Baz discharged his shotgun into the ceiling.

Various members of the survivor party ducked or screamed. Some did both.

"That's right, I'm the one with the gun, remember!" Baz yelled, "I was gonna let you leave... all of you. But maybe I should let Nev have your girlfriend?"

Nobody said anything.

In the distance there was a loud primeval roar that the survivors recognised as belonging to the tyrannosaurus rex. Had it heard the gun shot?

Baz had not heard it, or at least chose to ignore it.

"You've put me in a bad fucking mood now and I'm not feeling quite as generous as I was. Give me one good reason why I should let her go with you."

"We're leaving now. We won't bother you anymore. It'll be like we were never here." Sean soothed in an attempt to placate the psycho before him.

"I'll let you go, including the girl... on one condition." Baz decided.

"Name it." Roger replied, jumping at any chance to get them away from these people.

Baz seemed to pause for dramatic affect.

Finally he said... "Mickey has to stay here."

"Unacceptable!" Sean protested.

"No..." Michael stepped forward, "If it'll keep the others safe I'll stay."

He looked into first Sean's eyes and then Penny's, stopping any protestation with a smile.

"It's alright. I'll be okay. Just go. I'll catch up if I can. Get out of here..." the last bit he added in a sotto whisper, "That T-rex will be coming. Get the others to safety."

"Will you be okay?" Penny asked.

"I can look after my self." Michael assured her, but his words addressed the entire group.

He took Penny's hand and kissed it tenderly. Then he stepped over to stand by Baz.

"Now piss off!" Baz spat at Sean, but the projectile fell short.

With a few lingering backward glances at Michael the survivors filed away.

Once they were gone...

"Okay, so why am I here?" Michael wondered sarcastically.

Nev pounced on him and slammed him backwards into one of the counters. He held Michael by the throat and pulled out a flick knife, holding it to his face.

Michael looked up into the bloody mask of Nev's face, contorted into an angry grimace made even more grotesque by the two missing teeth that had been knocked free earlier.

"Let me cut him, Baz!" Nev slathered furiously.

Baz just shrugged indifferently and the Blue Hoodie (Max) sniggered.

Nev took this as the green light to go ahead. He grinned wickedly and shifted his grip on the knife.

Michael brought his head forward and butted Nev between the eyes. The thug staggered back in pain and bewilderment. Michael grabbed the wrist of his knife hand and twisted hard. The crack of breaking bone was clearly audible.

Nev screamed. The knife clattered to the floor.

Whump! Whump! Whump!

The sound seemed fainter this time as if the creature was attempting stealth. Only Michael seemed aware of it.

Nev was on his knees crying in agony.

Baz was now holding the shotgun to Michael's head.

"You think you're so clever don't you?" Baz sneered.

Michael was staring over his old friend's shoulder out into the street.

He couldn't resist smiling. "Yep, I do!"

The roar of the T-rex was immediately followed by the trickle of Max's bladder emptying.

Baz turned and saw the huge carnivorous dinosaur peering in at them from outside.

Michael took his chance and ran, using the shop's back exit.

The T-rex barely spared him a glance.

Baz stared eye to eye with the dinosaur, shotgun hovering at his side.

"Don't worry, lads. They can't see you if you don't move." He assured the other two.

"You what?" Max stammered dubiously.

"Just stand very..."

The massive jaws sprang forward and bit Baz in two.

As the T-rex threw back its head and swallowed his upper torso, his legs stood momentarily, a length of severed intestine spilling onto the floor at his feet before the knees finally buckled. Before they hit the floor the dinosaur had snatched them up too.

All that remained of Baz was a piece of steaming intestine.

Max and Nev were both screaming. Too terrified to move. Huddling together for protection was futile.

Tyrannosaurus was able to take them both in one bite.

Chapter Ten

Following the trail of Fire Exit signs Michael found himself in Rood Lane.

This wasn't so good. Looking back up to Fenchurch Street he could see the rear end of the T-rex. The cracking of bones could be clearly heard.

On the plus side at the moment the dinosaur's attention was not focussed on him, but on the minus side... it was still there.

If he stayed in the open it would see him. He'd already heard how much use standing still was.

There was no choice but to hide until it went away.

Luckily there was the entrance to an underground car park nearby. Michael ducked under the barrier and disappeared inside.

The survivors had narrowly missed running into the T-rex themselves while getting away from the jewellery store. They had heard the creature's roar, but since then things had gone quiet.

Penny had cried certain that the tyrannosaurus's arrival spelled disaster for Michael.

Sean and the others had tried to convince her that Michael could yet escape. They had only been partially successful. The crying at least had stopped.

And now they had put sufficient distance between them and the dinosaur the group paused for breath.

Should they wait and see if Michael would catch up?

"I should go back for him." Sean decided.

They had taken shelter in an abandoned Pret a Manger cafe. The front windows had been smashed inwards and blood had spattered the walls, floors and tables.

Sean had kicked a gory dismembered arm under one of the tables before anyone else could see it. Now they were helping themselves to coffee and muffins after Anya's son Peter had complained of hunger.

Everyone else had been happy to comply... none of them had eaten since before they'd left their homes this morning. They all needed some form of sustenance or else they would collapse. It had also been the first that they'd heard the little boy speak. His English was marginally better than his mother's and he seemed to know an awful lot about dinosaurs for one so young. That was kids for you, Sean thought.

Now the boy was telling anyone who would listen how much he hoped they would run into a velociraptor. The floodgates had well and truly opened.

Sean had just announced his decision to look for Michael in front of Roger, Rav and Meera.

"And get yourself killed too?" Meera protested.

"We don't know that he's dead. We escaped the T-rex once before." Sean argued.

"You had help then from those big horned dinosaurs... what were they called again?" Rav directed this at Peter.

"Styracosaurus! They were very cool!" the boy enthused.

"Right, what he said!" Rav continued.

"You don't have to come with me." Sean assured him.

"That's not the point. I am not a coward!" Rav bristled indignantly.

"I'm sorry; I didn't mean to imply that you were. I mean you're right... it will be risky so there's no sense in putting us all in danger. That's why I'm going alone." Sean placated.

"Two pairs of eyes will serve better than one." Roger insisted.

Sean sighed and nodded. "Alright, but if you get eaten I'm going to kill you!"

Chapter Eleven

As Michael stepped into the dimly lit loading bay there was no sign of any other life.

The loading bay apparently doubled as a subterranean car park for the people who could afford to bring a car to work in the congested city. A shiny black BMW was parked in one of the bays.

As Michael walked around he saw lots of bins labelled for different levels of recycling, a garbage compactor; on the left side of the bay were some storage lockers for deliveries. There were various doors that led deeper into the building and that probably led to lifts and stairs.

Though he wasn't planning on staying long – as soon as the coast was clear he would try and find the others – Michael wondered why he could see no people. A place like this would have its fair share of early starters who would have arrived before the dinosaurs made their appearance.

Maybe they were in hiding... or maybe something had got inside and had got them...

Michael could see a mailroom through one of the doors. Next to its electronically locked door was a sliding window which was obviously for dealing with couriers. Through that window Michael could see that a light was on.

Where there was light, maybe there was life... Michael approached the mailroom door cautiously.

As he got closer he saw that there were scratches on the door... something had tried to get in...

Michael peered in through the window... and immediately recoiled from what he saw.

Fighting back the urge to vomit Michael steeled himself to look again...

It, whatever it was, had gotten in... the poor guy splayed in the seat behind the desk was barely recognisable as human. His eyes had been eaten out of there sockets, the abdominal cavity had been ripped open and the innards were missing apart from a few lingering scraps, the mouth was open in a hideous silent scream... teeth and gums exposed in a bloody, torn mess where the lips had been bitten off, presumably when the creature had been after the meaty tongue which was also gone.

Pretty much anything soft had been eaten, leaving only skin and bone. The poor bastard must have been taken by surprise, letting the creature in before he could get the door closed... or maybe that is where the dinosaur had appeared?

Michael leapt back with a scream as something leapt at the window from the far corner of the room. The creature smashed through the glass and its momentum carried it just over Michael's shoulder and into the wall behind him where it rebounded and landed upon the hard concrete floor.

It was about the size of a small child and scrabbled to regain its footing on two legs which ended in three toed feet with sharp black talons. One claw on each foot was larger than the others and curved like a sickle; it held its arms before it, brandishing three fingered claws, yellow eyes regarded Michael over a long reptilian snout filled with needle sharp teeth. As well as its ocean blue scales the creature also sported fiery, feather like growths on its head and arms. With a swish of its long tail and a snap of its jaws the velociraptor lunged at Michael...

Chapter Twelve

Sean and Roger approached the jewellers where they had left Michael as stealthily as possible. The T-Rex had gone, but the signs of its presence still lingered.

Droplets of blood, unconsumed scraps of 'meat' and what could only be described as dinosaur drool.

It was difficult to tell if any of the human remains were Michael.

Sean and Roger chose to believe they were not.

"If Michael escaped while those scumbags were being eaten, it was probably through that door there." Roger indicated the rear of the store.

Sean nodded his agreement.

"Let's go!" he said.

Michael instinctively swerved to avoid the lunging predator and the velociraptor sailed past him through the open door and out into the loading bay. It landed on its feet but continued to slide across the smooth surface of the floor where its claws could find little or no purchase. The creature tumbled head over tail, but quickly found its footing again.

While it did so, however, Michael ran out into the bay and past the dinosaur, heading for the ramp which would take him back outside.

Could he out run a velociraptor?

Would the tyrannosaurus be gone?

He was half way to the ramp when he heard a high pitched shriek behind him, like nails on a black board.

Another velociraptor leapt over the ramp wall and landed in front of him, blocking his exit.

Michael dodged to the left and headed towards one of the other doors...

Only to see a third raptor scuttle out of it.

Three more raptors emerged from three other potential escape routes.

There was nowhere for Michael to run... except for the BMW.

He ran for the car and pulled at the door on the driver's side upon reaching it.

It didn't budge. Michael turned to face his pursuers and ducked just in time to avoid another air borne attack.

The raptor smashed into the side door of the car, breaking the window and leaving a sizeable dent. The dazed creature rolled away from the vehicle, but neither it nor its companions was prepared for what happened next.

Trying the door handle had yielded no effect, but the smashing of the window had triggered the BMW's alarm system.

A shrill electronic howling pierced the air and Michael covered his ears, gritting his teeth as he tried to block out the agonising, pulse pounding sonar assault on his senses.

Fortunately, the sound was just as unappealing to the raptors. They screeched in pain, shaking their heads to try and clear their reptilian ears of this terrifying noise.

Almost as a single entity they turned and fled back into the recesses of the loading bay, distancing themselves from the sonic attack as much as possible.

As soon as they were gone Michael reached in through the broken window of the car, taking care to keep one hand over his ear, and he lifted the lock.

He opened the door and climbed into the car. Still working one handed he reached under the dashboard and ripped it open to expose the wires within.

Without hesitation he selected two of the wires and yanked them out.

Abruptly the alarm ceased.

Michael slowly removed his hand from his ear and sat back in the driver's seat. He needed a moment for the pounding echo of the alarm to subside in his brain. Closing his eyes seemed to help alleviate some of the aching he felt there.

When he opened them again it was just in time to see one of the velociraptors racing towards the open door of the BMW.

Michael quickly slammed the door shut, but the creature continued to try and bite him through the open window.

He heard but didn't see another raptor land on the bonnet of the car.

Michael was holding the dinosaur's jaws at bay by gripping its throat and holding it at arms length, but the creature was strong for its size and getting ever closer.

He heard the windscreen chip as the other raptor hurled against it. Luckily the glass of the windscreen was tougher than what was used in the side windows, but even so it would not hold out indefinitely.

Desperately, Michael's grip tightened around the throat of the snapping velociraptor.

As he squeezed harder and harder the raptor's hissing became more of a strangled gasping. It seemed to take forever, but Michael breathed a momentary sigh of relief as he felt the raptor go limp in his hand as the last breath was finally squeezed out of it. He flung the throttled reptile away and turned to face the one on his bonnet... just as its snout burst through the windscreen in a shower of shattered safety glass.

Almost without thinking Michael punched the velociraptor on the nose and sent it tumbling off the bonnet.

Now that it was dazed he took the opportunity to hotwire the car like he had done so many times before in his misspent youth. He giggled hysterically as the engine roared into life.

As the other raptors closed in Michael put the BMW in gear and gunned it towards the exit ramp. He definitely felt it go over something, but he didn't stop and he didn't look back. The car accelerated through the barrier and he was away.

Chapter Thirteen

Sean and Roger both heard the car alarm go off at the same time.

"It's coming from down that ramp." Roger said as they headed towards it.

"Do you think it's Michael?" Sean wondered.

"Could be another dinosaur. There's only one way to find out." Roger replied.

And then the alarm stopped as suddenly as it had started.

The two men paused at the top of the ramp, unsure of how to proceed.

The sound of the alarm was replaced by another sound, a sound that both men knew only too well.

Something else had heard the alarm and it was coming back.

"We should get out of here!" Roger suggested.

"But Michael could be down there." Sean protested.

The two men exchanged a glance as they heard the thunderous steps draw closer.

"Down there would be a pretty good place to hide." Roger conceded.

They were about to descend the ramp when they heard a new sound.

A car engine being started.

Moments later a battered, black BMW came roaring up the ramp and through the barrier.

Sean and Roger dived to one side.

Again they looked at each other in disbelief.

"Was that Michael?" Roger gaped.

Then they saw the velociraptors racing up the ramp in pursuit.

"Run!" Sean shouted as he scrambled to his feet.

But the driver of the BMW had not abandoned them.

A screeching of rubber on tarmac heralded the vehicle's return as it reversed back to them.

The velociraptors were almost to the top of the ramp.

Michael leaned out of the broken side window of the car.

"Get in!" he barked urgently.

Sean and Roger didn't need telling twice.

A velociraptor bounced off the side door just as Sean was pulling it closed.

Michael put his foot down and sped away again...

... Just as the tyrannosaurus rex rounded the corner ahead of them.

It roared and Michael glimpsed the raptors scarpering back down the ramp as he executed a violent U-turn.

The front of the car spun clear of the T-Rex's jaws just as they snapped shut and Michael drove them off in the opposite direction.

The tyrannosaurus gave chase.

"Jesus Christ! Doesn't that fat bastard ever get full up!" Michael complained.

The car swung right at the end of Rood Lane and then right again at the first turning, heading back towards Fenchurch Street.

The T-Rex stayed behind them the whole way.

Once they hit Fenchurch Street Michael spun the car left and headed in the general direction of Oxford Circus.

"Where are you going? We can't leave the others!" Sean protested.

"I'm not going to. We'll go back for them, but first we need to ditch the prehistoric gooseberry!" Michael assured him.

As the car sped along Michael found himself having to drive often on the pavements.

The roads were cluttered with cars that had been abandoned by their drivers when the dinosaurs had put in their startling appearance. Those people who had not been killed or eaten in the initial panic and mass hysteria had found dubious refuge in the nearby buildings or tube stations. Some of these people watched from their hiding places as the battered vehicle roared past them with the gigantic behemoth of death that was the tyrannosaurus rex in single minded pursuit.

This was its territory now and those who were hiding had bought only a moment's respite.

Sooner or later the beast would come for them and no amount of brick-ware and concrete would slow it down.

And of course the T-Rex was but one of the new dangers out there. There were other smaller creatures that could follow them into the tube stations... could smash through shop windows. The velociraptors, the larger pterodactyls, the scavenging deinonychus.

All shared the tyrannosaur's territory... this concrete jungle which had become a carnosaur's killing grounds in the space of a few short hours.

However, even the territory of the fearsome tyrannosaurus rex had its limits, as Sean, Michael and Roger were about to find out.

Keeping his foot down on the pedal and executing a series of death defying evasive manoeuvres Michael was able to keep ahead of the T-Rex's snapping jaws even if not losing the pursuing dinosaur completely.

Then the car crossed into Oxford Circus, but even then Michael did not slow down.

Sean was glancing over his shoulder trying to catch a glimpse of their antagonist.

"Stop!" he called out suddenly.

Michael slammed on the brakes and the BMW skidded into a U-turn, turning the car almost a full one hundred and eighty degrees before stopping short of a collision with a side lamp post.

Michael and Roger looked at where Sean pointed.

The tyrannosaurus was standing at the entrance to Oxford Circus. It didn't roar, or try to charge them. The massive predator snorted in frustration and swung its long tail from side to side, but it would not take another step forwards.

After long moments of staring at its escaped prey the monster just turned and stalked away.

Sean and the others said nothing. They just heaved a collective sigh of relief.

There would be time enough to worry about what had just happened later. Right now they needed to get back to the others.

Then they noticed the state of the surrounding area.

Oxford Circus looked like a war-zone!

Almost all of the shops that drew the daily crowds that Oxford Circus was famous for had been caved in by some unknown destructive force. Those crowds were also conspicuous by their absence. This was not so surprising considering the city's current state of being infested with dinosaurs, but the level of devastation apparent in the buildings was something that none of the men had seen so far on this strangest of days.

Whatever had caused this was big... big enough to scare a tyrannosaurus rex.

"We should get out of here." Sean said.

There was no argument from the others.

Michael put the car in gear and drove away.

As the car disappeared round a corner Deborah Jackson arrived in Oxford Circus...

Chapter Fourteen

Back at the Pret a Manger café everyone was occupying themselves, passing the time while they waited for Sean and Roger to return; with or without Michael. Assuming that they ever did return.

Penny and Aisha were sitting drinking lattes while Anya was trying to stop Peter from stuffing himself with too many muffins. Meera and Rav were sitting in a corner arguing quietly amongst themselves.

"How much longer are we going to wait for them?" Meera asked. "We don't even know if they will come back. They could be dead."

"We've all made it this far together. If we leave now how long do you think we could last?" Rav argued. "There is safety in numbers. What else are we going to do? Go home? How do we know that we still have a home to return to? Like it or not we are trapped in a city that has become over run by dinosaurs. The best we can hope to do is to stay alive until some form of rescue arrives."

As if on cue a black, battered BMW screeched to a halt outside the café.

Everyone immediately forgot what they had been doing and rushed outside.

Roger and Sean were the first to exit the vehicle.

"Did you find..." Penny began.

And then Michael climbed out of the driver's seat.

Penny threw herself at him, flinging her arms around his neck and her legs around his waste. She kissed him long and hard on the forehead.

"You're alive! God, I was so worried about you! Don't you dare leave us like that again!" she scalded, though she was grinning from ear to ear.

Michael carefully disengaged himself and lowered her to her feet again. He too was grinning.

"Alright, I promise I'm not going anywhere." He replied.

"Where did you find the car?" Rav asked as he greeted Sean and Roger.

"That was Michael's doing. Another perk from his misspent youth it seems." Sean explained.

"We were actually in Oxford Circus at one point." Roger told Penny.

"Did you see my mum?" Penny enthused hopefully.

"We weren't there long, but it didn't look hopeful." Sean answered her.

"There's not a lot left of it and it looks like something very big and nasty is living there." Roger added.

"Big enough to scare old T-Rex away." Michael agreed.

"But we aren't going to just give up are we?" Penny looked up at Michael with tears in her eyes.

"No, of course not." It was Sean who replied. "We're all going to go and look for her, but this time we're going to drive there."

"Only, I think we're going to need a bigger car." Michael agreed.

Chapter Fifteen

Deborah looked around in stunned silence at the carnage that was now Oxford Circus.

If Penny had made it here before she did then where was the hope that she was still alive?

No, she mustn't think like that. If Deborah had made it this far then she had to believe that Penny could too.

After her run in with the albertosaurus, Deborah had come straight here, hiding and running whenever the need arose. She couldn't put a name to any of the prehistoric monstrosities she had glimpsed along the way, but the way she saw it she didn't need to know what they were called to get eaten by one.

On the way Deborah had encountered other survivors hiding or braving the dangers with their own agendas.

Here there was no one.

For Oxford Circus that was a big deal.

If Penny was here then she had to be in hiding somewhere.

Or eaten; she might have been eaten, but we aren't thinking about that are we, Deborah mentally rebuked herself.

She picked her way through the debris and ruined cars, trying not to look too closely at the mangled remains of an unfortunate driver who had been caught in his vehicle when it had been trodden upon. At least she thought the remains were male... it was difficult to tell.

What could have done all of this?

And where was it now?

Deborah wasn't in too much of a hurry to find out. All that mattered was finding her Penny.

When she turned the corner at the end of the street Deborah came nose to nose with the very thing she had been hoping not to meet.

Literally nose to nose because she barely stopped herself from walking smack back into the creature's huge reptilian snout which lay before her on the tarmac road.

Deborah back pedalled as quickly as she could to put as much distance as she could between herself and the dinosaur.

The dinosaur, however, did not move a muscle.

It wasn't dead because Deborah had felt and smelt it's warm, fetid breath exhaling from its nostrils. The large scaly eyelids were tightly shut.

It was asleep!

If she just turned and walked back the way she had came then it would never know she had been there.

Yes, that's what she would do...

As Deborah turned to do just that the dinosaur's eyes flicked open...

Chapter Sixteen

The survivor group had ditched the BMW in favour for a larger people carrier which could seat all of them comfortably. The family sized vehicle had been abandoned by its owners, but was undamaged and bore no blood stains or other signs of violence. Maybe the previous owners had gotten out of it in one piece. Sean wondered why it had been abandoned at all. He could only assume that the driver must have been on his own and had panicked when the dinosaurs had appeared. Panic makes people behave in odd ways Sean reasoned.

Where would this group be now if they had all surrendered to panic, if they hadn't all banded together in the common cause of reuniting the sweet young Penny with her mother.

Sean was sure that staying together as a group and having a goal to aim for had kept them all alive under the new bizarre circumstances that had been thrust upon them.

Once again Michael was driving. In just a few moments they would be entering Oxford Circus.

Everyone was thrown forward in their seats as Michael slammed hard on the breaks and brought the car to a screeching halt.

At the same time an attractive blonde woman in her forties just about stopped herself from colliding with the people carrier.

The woman slammed her hands down angrily on the bonnet.

"Watch where you're fucking going!" she shouted.

"Mum?" Something clicked in Penny's head as recognition set in, "Mum!"

The woman peered in through the windscreen. "Penny?"

Then something big, green and nasty rounded the corner.

Forget the T-Rex; this was the biggest dinosaur that any of them had seen so far.

If it had been standing up straight on its long muscular legs it would have towered over the tallest building in the street. It also had long arms that ended in three fingered claws.

Its mouth was like that of a huge crocodile and was home to hundreds of flesh rending sharp teeth. The whole creature summoned forth the image of a gargantuan crocodilian dragon with a sail like appendage growing down the length of its spine from neck to tail.

This was what had quailed even the mighty tyrannosaurus... this was the spinosaurus.

"Get in!" Michael shouted to Deborah.

Without hesitation Deborah pulled open one of the side doors and clambered inside.

Michael performed a U-turn that tested the limits of the people carrier and sped the vehicle away from Oxford Circus.

The spinosaurus gave chase.

Michael's route of escape took them back the way they had spent most of the day traversing; back into the territory of the T-Rex.

An idea began to form in Michael's head.

The spinosaur's jaws thundered shut behind them; its front teeth latched onto the back bumper... for a moment everyone in the car thought they had been caught as they felt the vehicle being pulled backwards. With a screech of tearing metal the bumper tore away from the car.

The spinosaurus tossed away its tasteless morsel and stepped up its pursuit.

Michael floored the accelerator little realising that he was already squeezing the car for all it was worth. The next time their spiny friend took a bite that would be it.

Time for the plan...

Michael slammed his hand on the horn.

The air was filled by a deafening yowl that reverberated through the surrounding buildings.

"What the fucking hell are you doing? You'll have that other one down on us, as if this one weren't bad enough!" Meera yelled.

"That's the fucking idea!" Michael snarled, keeping his eyes on the road ahead.

"You what? Are you fucking crazy?" Meera retorted, missing the point entirely. She was leaning over into the front now. Rav pulled her back down and whispered to her the idea that she had failed to grasp.

The blast of the horn continued.

Behind them the spinosaurus prepared to lunge again...

As the tyrannosaurus rex stepped into the road ahead Michael veered left to avoid it.

The spinosaurus was unprepared for this change in direction and charged head on into the path of the T-Rex.

On seeing the spinosaurus the tyrannosaurus started to turn as if to run back the way it had came. Before it could get very far the spinosaur's huge vice like jaws fixed upon the T-Rex's neck. The force involved in that one bite was enough to snap the tyrannosaur's neck instantly.

The once mighty predator spasmed once and went limp.

The humans in the car did not linger long enough to see what happened next.

Once Michael felt that they had put enough distance between them and the spinosaur he slowed the people carrier gradually before finally bringing it to a full stop.

He turned around in the driver's seat to look at the others.

"Now what?" he said simply.

"We've found my mum. Let's just get out of here." Penny suggested.

"And go where?" Meera once again brought in the voice of doubt.

"I hate to admit this, but Meera's right. We don't know how far this dinosaur infestation is spread. Is it just localised to London? Is it nationwide? It could even be a global catastrophe. What if the whole world is swarming with prehistoric monsters?" Sean surmised.

Everyone took a moment for this possibility to sink in.

"Even so, there must be some places that have been set up as sanctuaries by the Armed Forces or somebody." Rav wondered.

"There maybe rescue teams scouring the city as we speak." Roger conceded.

"If there is then we must find them. It could be our only hope of getting out of London alive." Sean decided.

He was met by nods of approval. Only Michael was doubtful.

"We've survived this long together. If we all stay in this car and stay together then we can drive out of London on our own. If we need to refuel at any point that shouldn't be a problem. First petrol station we come to we'll siphon off enough fuel to last us until we get to where we're going." He said.

"Wherever that maybe." Meera grumbled.

"We can head out of the city by all means, but if we should encounter any rescue teams along the way then we should definitely try and make contact if possible." Sean suggested as a compromise.

Michael nodded. Now they were all in agreement.

The car started up again and they set off north on a route that would ultimately take them out of London.

They had barely travelled a mile before the silence that pervaded the vehicle was broken by a sound that none of them had expected to hear ever again.

Someone's mobile phone rang.

Everyone looked around to see where, or rather, who the noise was coming from.

It was Sean who took out his mobile and answered it.

"Katrina?" Sean spoke into the phone with disbelief.

The others in the car strained to try and hear the tinny voice that spoke from the phone into Sean's ear.

"Katrina, slow down, it's okay. Stay where you are for now. You'll be safe there. I'm coming to get you." Sean responded reassuringly before hanging up.

"Who was that?" Penny asked.

"That was Katrina. A friend of mine from where I work. Some how she made it in, but now she's trapped there and there are dinosaurs trying to get in. I have to go back for her." Sean replied with grim determination.

"And you expect us all to go with you?" Meera asked incredulously.

"Of course not!" Sean retorted angrily, "I would never expect that. I'll go alone on foot. You guys should leave without me. I'll be okay. I'm getting quite good at dodging dinosaurs." He grinned at this despite himself.

"I'm coming too." Michael asserted.

"Me too." Roger affirmed.

"And me." Penny chimed in.

"Penny, no!" Deborah protested.

"I want to, mum. Sean helped me find you. Now I want to return the favour." Penny pleaded.

"You do not speak for all of us!" Meera's protest started a confusion of arguing amongst the survivors. As the quarrel raged as to who would go and who would not Michael pulled the vehicle over. He did this because even over the sound of the car's engine and all the raised voices he alone had heard the helicopter.

"Shut up!" he shouted, sounding like the drill sergeant from a Hollywood Vietnam War movie.

Everyone shut up and all eyes were on Michael and then they too heard the chopper.

They all got out of the people carrier and looked up at the sky.

The helicopter was an RAF Chinook and it was headed in their direction.

Had it seen them? Deserted as the streets of London were a lone people carrier would have been difficult to miss. The survivors weren't taking that chance; as one they began to leap and holler at the approaching chopper, waving their arms about and whooping loudly.

The Chinook was beginning to descend towards them. Now there was no doubt that they had been seen.

The helicopter didn't land completely, but hovered over the road ahead of them, just low enough to allow a soldier to drop down from the passenger compartment.

He beckoned them over. "Come on!"

They all ran forward.

"How many of you are there?" the soldier barked over the sound of whirring blades.

"Just the ten of us." Sean replied.

"Okay, you can climb on board." The soldier instructed.

Sean stepped aside and allowed the others to scramble aboard the chopper.

Meera went first, then Peter, followed by his mother, then Aisha and then Rav. Deborah was the last to climb on and then turned to help Penny on.

But Penny was hanging back along side Sean, Michael and Roger. She was holding Michael's hand.

"Come on, Penny. This is our chance to get out of here." Deborah pleaded, holding out her hand to her daughter.

Penny just shook her head. Hot tears glistened on her young face.

"Your mum's right, Penny you should go." Sean urged her.

"Please!" Deborah begged, she was crying now too.

"I'll see you soon, mum. I promise." Penny sobbed.

The soldier was incredulous that anyone was staying.

"You're not coming?" he enquired.

Sean shook his head. "There's someone I care for deeply who's still alive in this city somewhere and I mean to find them. My friends here have been kind enough to volunteer to help me. If you can return to this spot in two days time, we'll try to be here and we'll gladly leave with you then." He explained.

"I can't make any promises, but if we can return in two days we will. Good luck." The soldier replied before climbing back into the Chinook.

"Penny, no!" Deborah's cry was the last voice they heard before the chopper rose back into the air and flew away.

The four remaining survivors stood and watched the helicopter's departure. At least they knew that their friends were headed towards relative safety.

And then the pteranodon flew up as if from no where and attacked the chopper.

One minute the sky had been clear apart from the receding helicopter; the next thing they knew the great pterosaur had launched out from the buildings below and had collided with the Chinook in an effort to get at the meaty morsels within.

It clung to the underside of the chopper with the clawed fingers on its wings and tried to snatch one of the humans inside with its huge beak.

The creature gave up on that when the soldier slammed the butt of his rifle into its head.

It let go of the helicopter and flapped away just in time to avoid a spray of bullets from the gun.

But the pteranodon hadn't given up. It swooped under the chopper and then rammed its great body into the hull of the air craft. The force of this blow sent the chopper reeling out of control towards the buildings below.

Inside the pilot tried to regain control and pull up, but the approach of the looming cityscape proved too swift for his expertise.

The Chinook struck one building a side on glance. It spun and the upper blades bit into the concrete with enough force to buckle and break one of the blades.

Sean and the others watched on in horror as the chopper sank out of view.

Moments later a ball of flame rose from where the Chinook had landed.

"Oh my God! Mum was in there." Penny was screaming hysterically, tears streaking her face. She moved forward with the intention of running to the crash site, but Michael restrained her.

"Let me go! She might be alive in there!" Penny sobbed.

"I'm sorry, Penny, but you saw that fireball. No one could have walked away from that." Roger stammered, still in shock himself from what they had just witnessed.

"You don't know that. There was enough time before the explosion for someone to have got clear. Mum might still be alive!" Penny insisted.

"It's a very slim chance." Sean replied gravely.

"But it's still a chance!" Penny twisted free of Michael's grip and turned to look at the three men. Looking them in the eye each in turn, her tear stained face silently pleading.

"I'll go with you." Michael said finally.

Penny took him by the hands and kissed them gratefully.

"Thank you, Michael. Thank you."

Michael continued speaking to Sean and Roger.

"You guys take the car and go and get Katrina. I'll go with Penny and check the crash site for survivors."

"Why don't you take the car?" Sean insisted.

"You have further to travel than we do. Besides, I can easily steal another car." Michael smiled thinly.

Sean nodded.

After a brief round of good byes and promises that they would all meet again soon, Sean and Roger got into the people carrier, turned it around and drove away.

Penny and Michael looked at each other. Now that they were taking some form of positive action Penny was no longer crying. She took Michael's offered hand and they set off towards the crash zone.

Chapter Seventeen

Katrina DuPont had come into work on the earliest bus to get in for her seven o'clock start. The bus had been deserted apart from Katrina, the driver and one other passenger.

It had still been quite dark; the streets had been quiet and there had been few other vehicles on the road. There certainly hadn't been any signs at that stage of anything out of the ordinary.

Katrina had arrived nearly ten minutes early for her job working in the restaurant canteen of the Zeeman and Shearling building in Broadgate.

She had walked passed the security booth in the car park and waved at the guards on duty inside, flashing them her cute smile that showed off her immaculately white teeth and adorable dimples that made all her male colleagues lose the power of speech. Some of the female ones too for that matter. Katrina was well liked and popular with many of the people who worked for Zeeman and Shearling; not just the catering staff, but everyone from the cleaners to the senior executives. She had been asked out by several of the male workers, but not by the one guy she was genuinely interested in. He was a work in progress. Maybe today would be the day when her Shy Guy finally plucked up the courage to ask her out on a date.

It was her responsibility that morning to open up the restaurant and serve up breakfast and coffee to the early birds who came pouring in after 7.30. Russo the chef would be coming in soon to start cooking that breakfast. Katrina never had breakfast at home because she always knew Russo would see her right with his mouth watering masterpiece of bacon, scrambled eggs, sausages, mushrooms and crispy hash browns.

That's how Katrina liked to start her average day at work, but today was not going to prove to be an average day at all. Not even close.

Chapter Eighteen

The helicopter had managed to fly further than they thought before the pteranodon had hit it. So now Michael and Penny were weaving through the abandoned vehicles on a once shiny, slightly dented Harley Davidson. Michael sat at the front while Penny clung to him at the back as if her life depended on it (which it did), wearing the only helmet.

"Couldn't you have stolen another car or something?" Penny shouted over the roar of the motor cycle.

"I could've done, yeah. But this is much faster and more manoeuvrable, not to mention a hell of a lot cooler!" Michael called back over his shoulder.

"Well as long as we look cool as the tyrannosaurus is eating the shit out of us then that's alright then." Penny grumbled.

Michael smiled.

They rounded a corner and were greeted by the flaming wreckage of the Chinook.

The time for levity was gone and now the search for survivors could begin.

The fuselage of the helicopter was still largely intact, but had been reduced to a twisted husk of burning molten metal. Other bits of the machine had been scattered about the surrounding area. It was difficult to see if there were any bodies in the passenger part of the chopper due to the curtain of flame which obscured their view.

Michael and Penny had set aside the motor cycle, Penny removing her helmet and hanging it from one of the handlebars, and they were now picking their way through the carnage. The first body they saw was that of the soldier who had spoken to them.

It appeared that he had been thrown from the helicopter. His body was relatively free of burns, but his neck, arms and legs were twisted into impossible angles indicating where his bones had been shattered. Not far away from the broken corpse lay the soldier's weapon, an AK-47 assault rifle. Michael picked it up and slung it across his shoulder. He then crossed to the soldier's body and bent over it to feel about inside the uniform pockets discovering three extra clips of ammunition for the rifle and a combat knife.

Michael pocketed these.

"Well he's not going to need them anymore." He said grimly off Penny's look of disapproval.

"Everyone else must have been caught inside the helicopter when it went up." Michael continued.

Tears were welling up in Penny's eyes as she contemplated the implication of Michael's statement. She still didn't want to believe her mum was dead, not after everything they'd been through to find her.

Then she saw it, lying in a crumpled heap some way past the burning wreckage. The cause of all her heartache, the pteranodon that had brought the Chinook down in its single minded attempt to find a meal. It lay on its back with one wing twisted under it and a long shard of broken rotor blade protruding from its lower abdomen.

Despite all of this the creature was not dead. Its other wing still flapped feebly and it craned its neck towards them, keening pitifully.

Before Michael knew what was happening Penny had snatched the rifle from his shoulder and was marching purposely towards the stricken animal, streaming tears of grief and rage. She took aim at the creature's head as she drew nearer and squeezed the trigger.

Small petite Penny, needless to say had never fired an assault rifle, or in deed a weapon of any kind, in her life and so was unprepared for the massive recoil which kicked into her stomach (she had been shooting from the hip) and nearly drove the wind out of her, sending a spray of bullets into the wall just right of the pteranodon's head, but missing the creature itself entirely.

Before she could even attempt to fire again Michael was behind her, reaching round with both hands and wrenching the machine gun from her. Penny turned around and punched Michael angrily, but there was no real power behind it.

"Let me kill it! That thing killed my mum!" she cried hysterically.

"It's already dying and killing it won't bring your mum back." Michael argued, "Look at it. It's just an animal. It was acting on instinct. Everything out here is just trying to survive, like we are. I'm quite happy to kill one of these things if it's trying to kill me, but the only good reason to but a bullet in this poor creature is to end its suffering. Unless letting it die slowly, in agonising pain, would make you feel better? Well would it? Look at it!"  
Penny looked at the ailing pteranodon. Even now in its death throes it was straining its huge beak towards her in an effort to try and grab a last meal, but its efforts were wasted; feeble and pathetic.

"Do it." Penny sighed in resignation.

Michael nodded. He raised the assault rifle to his shoulder and took aim at the pteranodon's head. One quick burst of fire and it was dead.

"Is it dead?" the voice behind him was female, but it wasn't Penny.

Michael and Penny turned as one.

Aisha was standing behind them, a little more bruised and bloodied than she had been before, but otherwise alive and well.

Penny's tear stained face broke into a smile of tremendous relief.

"Aisha you're alive, but that means... There might be others. Are there others?" she didn't realise that she was babbling.

"Peter is back with Rav in the alley way. I think Rav may have broken his leg when we jumped from the helicopter... before it blew up." Aisha replied, she sounded like she was still in shock.

"My mum... is she?" Penny's smile was fading, her eyes welling once more.

Aisha also looked on the verge of breaking down as she answered. She sounded almost apologetic as she spoke. "It all happened so fast. Anya practically pushed Peter into my arms and asked me to look after him; it's almost as if she knew she wasn't going to make it. That poor soldier was thrown from the helicopter before we even hit the ground. We were all clinging on for dear life so that we wouldn't go the same way. As soon as the helicopter hit we jumped out and just ran. I had to help Rav; because of his leg... we thought the others were right behind us. Then the helicopter exploded. I was thrown forward... I think I blacked out, I don't know how long for. When I came to it was just me, Rav and Peter... I'm so sorry." By the end of her tirade she was crying too. She and Penny held each other.

"No! Mum, mum!" Penny sobbed.

Chapter Nineteen

On the way to rescue Katrina Sean had been faced by an interrogation from Roger regarding Sean's relationship to the damsel in distress. Sean was driving since he knew where they were going and Roger sat beside him in the passenger seat.

"So what is she to you then, this Katrina?" Roger smirked.

"What do you mean?" Sean replied evasively, sparing a momentary glance at his passenger.

Roger could swear that he was blushing.

"You know what I mean. Is she your girlfriend?" he pressed.

"No!" Sean answered far too quickly, "Nothing like that."

"But you do fancy her though; otherwise you wouldn't be risking your life to save her." Roger reasoned.

"She's a friend who needs my help and even if she wasn't she's a fellow human being who needs my help." Sean returned not too convincingly.

"You lurve her!" Roger drawled in a sing song voice.

Sean continued to drive in silence. Some things didn't even deserve the dignity of an answer, even if they were true.

Sean drove straight passed the security booth of Zeeman and Shearling's and into the loading bay car park. Finding a parking space seemed a little pointless so Sean just pulled to a stop within walking distance of the entrance to the building.

"Well here we are." Sean stated obviously as he unfastened his belt.

"So, we're going in, huh?" Roger checked.

"That's why we're here." Came Sean's reply.

"We don't know what we're going to find in there." Roger pointed out, "We should probably be armed."

"With what? This isn't America. London doesn't really do gun shops." Sean countered.

"So we're going to go in there, unarmed and face God-knows-what in order to save a girl you won't even admit you're in love with." Roger surmised dryly.

"That's about the size of it." Sean looked at him and smiled, "We just survived trawling across a dinosaur infested London, unarmed, whilst looking for someone else's mother, whom we've never even met and you have a problem with this?" He raised an ironic eye brow.

"Well when you put it that way..." Roger grinned.

They both got out of the car together and entered the building.

The grey tiled corridor that they found themselves in was lined by a procession of blue and green recycling wheelie-bins, leading up to three sets of double doors that led off into different parts of the building. The plaque on the door straight ahead proclaimed that they would be heading towards the mailroom, whilst the door on the right opened into the canteen; the left hand door bore no plaque, but clearly led to the lifts which would take them up to the office floors above.

"So this is where you work?" Roger enquired.

Sean just nodded.

"Where are we likely to find Katrina?" Roger continued.

"She works in catering, so she'd either be in the canteen down here or maybe in one of the kitchens up on the first or second floor." Sean replied.

"Well according to what you said about her being trapped by dinosaurs I can't see her being upstairs. I doubt there are many dinosaurs that know how to use a lift." Roger observed.

"There are stairs, you know." Sean countered.

"Yeah, but can you seriously see any of the dinosaurs we've seen so far using stairs?" Roger smirked as if he was imagining just such a thing in his head.

"Not a tyrannosaurus rex, no, that'd be too big to fit in here any way, but one of the smaller ones maybe. Besides, I'm no expert on dinosaurs, but I'm sure there are more than a few that we haven't even met yet." Sean reasoned.

"How many dinosaurs do you think are out there?" Roger wondered, "Where have they all come from and is it just London that's been hit or the entire world?"

"Those are some questions that I think a lot of people would like answered right now, but at this point in time we've got more pressing matters to worry about." Sean reminded him pointedly.

"So we're near the canteen. Let's go and see if she's in there." Roger approached the right hand door. "At least we know we're not gonna find a T-Rex in here. What could be worse than that?"

As he pushed the door open three reptilian heads turned almost as one from the large metal door that they were trying to batter down. There were a series of dents in the metal barrier, but otherwise it was holding. That must be where Katrina was hiding.

All three of the dinosaurs were spattered with blood, mostly around the mouth. Someone hadn't been so lucky.

As Roger and Sean took in the appearance of the eight foot, bipedal carnivores that were now focussed entirely on them, Roger wished he had kept his mouth shut and realised just how wrong he had been.

Everything that lives has to be a baby at some point and that's exactly what these were... eight foot baby tyrannosaurus rex.

"Run!" Sean shouted.

Roger didn't need telling twice. They ran, Sean leading the way.

He led Roger through the left hand double doors, towards the lifts and the stairs.

"Now what?" Roger panted.

The pursuit of the 'baby' Rexes could be heard not far behind them.

"Let's see if they can run up stairs." Sean answered him. He pushed through the next set of doors and began to spring up the steps like a gazelle on steroids. Roger was not far behind, but neither were the Rexes. The two men had rounded the top of the first flight just as the juvenile carnivores burst through the double doors. Now the age old question that had been plaguing palaeontologists for decades would finally be answered.

Can dinosaurs climb stairs?

The first baby Rex flung itself forwards in a desperate lunge to try and snap at Roger's ascending feet. It missed and its lunge sent it sprawling across the bottom most steps.

Its siblings crashed into it, their own eager advance unchecked.

For a moment Sean and Roger found themselves transfixed at the top of the stairs, looking down on the tableau of angry snapping jaws below as the three 'babies' squabbled amongst themselves in their effort to regain their footing.

Amongst siblings of any species there is always a pecking order. The older, stronger ones will always bully the youngsters. These Rexes were no exception.

One of the juveniles, almost a full foot taller than its brethren, succeeded in cowing the other two into taking a submissive step behind it, giving it space to attempt the ascent once more. For a moment it stood there, eyeing the steps before it, as if it were assessing the terrain. Then it raised one tentative, clawed foot and placed it firmly on the second step. It slowly brought its other foot up and ascended to the fourth step.

Sean and Roger had seen enough. They could climb the stairs and they were coming!

"Come on!" urged Sean, "We'll try and lose them on the first floor!"

At the top of the second flight of stairs Sean pushed through the fire door that opened into the first floor lift area. Another door with a sophisticated electronic security lock blocked their entrance to the offices.

"Pass, I need my pass!" Sean started patting his suit jacket, torn though it was from the day's ordeal; he hoped he hadn't lost his security pass.

The snuffling exhortations of the clambering Rexes could be heard drawing closer.

Sean reached into the inner pocket and produced the pass with a triumphant flourish.

Without a moment's hesitation he swiped the card against the infra-red sensor at the side of the door. The light went green and both Sean and Roger pushed through into the office area beyond, just as the first of the juveniles nudged nose-first through the fire door.

Sean allowed the security door to close and lock behind him.

"Down, Sean!" Roger shouted suddenly, grabbing Sean's arm and pulling him to the ground.

The two men were showered with broken glass as the head of Big Brother Rex burst through the top window and snapped its jaws shut around the area where Sean's head would have been.

"Thanks for the save." Sean panted.

Roger was already on his feet, helping Sean to his. He didn't take his eyes off the rasping Rex that continued to strain against the frame of the magnetically locked door, its jaws still trying to reach them.

"You can thank me later. That door won't hold them for long." He said.

They ran.

Chapter Twenty

Aisha had taken Penny and Michael to the alley where she had left Rav and Peter.

Rav was sitting with his right leg stretched out before him. A makeshift splint had been tied to the leg to keep it straight. Strips from Rav's shirt had been torn off to tie a piece of wood, liberated from a nearby skip, to the injured limb.

Peter was standing next to the stricken Indian. He looked like he had been crying, but was now fighting to maintain a brave exterior.

Peter had lost his mother, but Rav had also lost his wife. The pain of that loss seemed to have affected him more than the pain of his broken leg. Unlike Peter he was not ashamed to cry. When he saw Aisha return with Michael and Penny he made an attempt to wipe the tears away with the back of his hand.

"We should never have left you." Was all he could say.

"None of us could have guessed that this would happen." Michael knelt in front of him.

Rav had no more words. He just continued to sob softly.

Michael turned his attention to Peter and smiled.

"Rav's leg is tied up pretty good. Did you do that?" he asked.

Peter shook his head and pointed at Aisha.

"Somebody has hidden talents." Michael said.

"I took a course in first aid training as one of my electives at college." Aisha blushed.

"Bully for you." Penny chided quietly.

"Excuse me?" Aisha bridled.

Michael was on his feet again and between them before any more could be said.

"Ladies, please. This isn't the time or the place for fighting." He soothed.

"I'm sorry, Michael, but I've just lost my mum. I'm not in the mood to be nice." Penny replied bitterly.

"And so has Peter. And Rav has just lost his wife. You don't have the monopoly on grief at the moment, Penny!" Michael reproved angrily.

Penny just stared at Michael, her eyes brimming with tears of rage and frustration.

She turned on her heel and stalked away as the tears spilled over.

"You'd better go after her." Rav said.

Michael watched her disappear around the corner and then set off to bring her back.

Penny didn't wander very far. Michael found her standing just feet away from the blistering heat of the still blazing helicopter. She was just staring into the flickering flames, the fire-light glistening off her wet face. Michael came to stand beside her, but said nothing. For a moment he too contemplated the flames. They were probably the only thing keeping some large predator from investigating too closely the site of the crash. He had experienced first hand how quickly any loud noise would bring a T-Rex coming. But all things were wary of fire, even massive prehistoric carnivores it would seem.

"I'm sorry." Penny broke the silence.

"Sorry for what? You're right. You have just lost your mum. You've got a right to be angry and frustrated and everything else you're probably feeling right now. Aisha didn't deserve you being bitchy, but she understands. She's probably got family somewhere too and is wondering what's happened to them. I'm hoping my mum had the good sense to stay in doors, but that's touch and go." Michael smiled at this last one.

Penny smiled too. She accepted the hanky from him and used it to wipe the tears and the last vestiges of her mascara from her face.

"We can go and check on your mum if you like?" she offered as she handed the hanky back, keeping a hold of Michael's hand as he took it back from her.

"My mum can look after herself. If it's meant to be then I'll see her again when this is all over." Michael assured her.

"So what now?" Penny wondered.

"We find another car. Something comfortable for Rav to travel in. And then we're gonna go to Zeeman's and hook up with Roger and Sean. Sound like a plan?" Michael gave her hand an encouraging squeeze.

"Sounds like a plan." Penny agreed.

Michael turned to head back, but Penny kept a hold of his hand and pulled him to her.

He turned to face her and she looked up into his eyes and smiled. Standing on her tip toes Penny kissed Michael on the lips. Michael kissed her back, enjoying the tender caress of her lips on his. It was with some reluctance that he stepped back from her.

"What was that for?" he grinned.

"Just wanted to say thank you. For everything. If there's one good thing that's come out of this whole shitty day it's meeting you."

"I couldn't have put it better myself." Michael agreed.

Hand in hand they walked back to rejoin the others.

Chapter Twenty One

The office area at Zeeman and Shearling's was a maze of open-plan desks, offices and alcoves containing coffee machines and photocopiers. It was this fact that gave Sean and Roger the opportunity to give the Rexes the slip and gain a few moments to plan their next move. By now the juveniles had broken through the security door and were sniffing around for their prey.

Roger and Sean were hiding near the main lifts in the first floor reception area. From where they sat on the reception desk, actually on the desk, they could see the approach of anything that might come from any direction.

"You know we could just use the lifts to go back down stairs and leave them up here." Roger suggested.

"That's the plan." Sean agreed.

"So what are we waiting for?" Roger was puzzled.

"I'm just giving them a chance to get deeper into the offices. That's why I took the longest route to get here. If they're tracking us by scent then hopefully rather than come straight here they'll waste time following the trail we left by taking the long way round." Sean explained.

"That's a bit of a gamble isn't it? They could just head straight here." Roger reasoned.

Sean shook his head. "Nah, they'd have been here by now." He replied confidently.

Something knocked against the wooden double doors that led from the offices to the reception. Like the earlier door by the stairs these were electronically locked, so they held firmly.

Roger and Sean tensed and waited.

There came another knock, this one louder and more determined. They were trying to break through.

The two men looked at each other. "Time to go!" they chorused simultaneously.

They jumped down from the reception desk and raced to the nearest lift. Sean pressed the button to summon it.

The third knock caused the wooden doors to buckle and crack in the centre. On the fourth knock they would be through.

"Come on, come on, come on!" Sean willed the lift to come faster.

CRACK!

The doors splintered open and the Rexes poured in.

PING!

The lift arrived and the doors slid open.

"Go!" Sean urged, pushing Roger into the lift ahead of him.

He quickly followed. Roger had already pressed for the ground floor, but the doors were slow to close again.

Big Brother Rex was closing the gap with long strides of its muscular legs, tooth filled mouth snapping ahead of it.

Sean jabbed the close button repeatedly. He could smell the rotting flesh on the Rex's breath as it darted for him...

And the doors slid closed, the juvenile's jaws had been inches away. The lift went down.

Michael had managed to find and hotwire an abandoned ambulance not far from the crash site. He had driven it back to collect the others. With help from Penny and Aisha he had moved Rav onto a stretcher and lifted him into the back of the ambulance where he was strapped securely into the ambulance's bed. Then Aisha and Peter had stayed in the back with Rav whilst Penny rode up front with Michael.

The trip to Zeeman and Shearling's had been uneventful with no signs of any dino activity. Then again they hadn't seen much in the way of human life either.

There had not even been any more rescue helicopters seen or any other hints of a military presence in the city; but then again, London was a very big city.

What's more it was starting to get dark.

Michael pulled the ambulance up behind where Roger and Sean had left their vehicle.

"Penny and I will go in and look for Sean and Roger." Michael said leaning into the back of the ambulance. "Will you two be okay here looking after Rav?"

"Go on. Find them. We'll be fine." Rav smiled back from his bed bravely.

Michael nodded. He and Penny stepped down from the cabin and headed into the building.

They followed the same route that Sean and Roger had followed over an hour previously.

As they had done the young couple came first to the kitchen.

Michael pushed open the door and entered cautiously...

... and narrowly missed getting his head split in two by a meat cleaver that came swinging down from behind the door.

"What the fuck!?" he stumbled backwards, away from the dark-clad figure that had wielded the wicked weapon.

"Oi! Leave him alone, bitch!" Penny snarled as she came in.

The figure turned to face her and was sent sprawling onto her back (for it was a she) by a punch square on the nose from Penny's fist. The cleaver clattered on to the floor.

Penny stood over the girl ready to hit her again if need be, but there was no more fight in her. She sat on the floor cradling her nose in her hand, blood seeping through her fingers.

Her hair was dark brown, tied back in a pony tail and the dark clothes she wore consisted of black trousers, a black blouse and a navy blue apron, now slightly bloodstained. If she wasn't presently covered in blood she would be a very beautiful young woman.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." The girl winced between her fingers, "I thought you might be one of those things."

"Does he look like a fucking dinosaur to you?" Penny chided angrily.

"I'm sorry!" the girl repeated with a little frustrated exasperation.

Michael glared at Penny, who looked like she might unleash another tirade of abuse.

"It's alright. I'm alright. No harm done, love." He said gently offering the girl his hand so that he might help her to her feet. She accepted the hand gratefully and stood up.

At that moment Sean and Roger entered.

Sean saw his Katrina holding Michael's hand whilst clutching her bleeding nose with the other as Penny stood to one side looking like a coiled cobra about to strike.

"What's going on here?" He demanded.

"Sean!" Michael and Katrina exclaimed simultaneously, Katrina flinging away Michael's hand as she did so.

She ran over to him and flung her arms around him. Sean returned her embrace, oblivious to the blood still draining from her nose on to his shirt.

"I knew you would come. It was you who led those things away right? I thought I heard them leave." She stammered breathlessly.

"Roger and I led them away, yes. They're trapped on the first floor. What happened here?" Sean held Katrina out at arms length looking at her, bloodied yet otherwise unharmed. Roger handed her a handkerchief for her nose which she accepted and applied to the bleeding nostril.

"There was a little misunderstanding." Michael explained.

"She nearly took his fucking head off!" Penny riled.

"I kind of thought that he might be one of those things coming back." Katrina admitted sheepishly, when she spoke it was with a rather endearing French accent.

"Yeah, well about what Sean just said..." Roger smiled, "Those things may not stay trapped up there for long. They might just find their way back down the stairs..."

"So we'd better get out of here while the getting's good." Sean finished for him.

With those words they ventured back outside to their waiting vehicles.

Chapter Twenty Two

Once outside Michael led Sean and Roger round to the back of the ambulance.

Katrina came with Sean, holding tightly to his hand as if to let go of it would mean losing him again, like a helium balloon that would float away if not held firmly.

Michael opened the back of the ambulance and Sean was delighted to see Aisha, Rav and young Peter gazing back at him from within, alive and relatively well apart from the splint that adorned Rav's leg.

"I see you survived the helicopter crash then." He beamed.

"Not all of us." Rav replied, a sob catching in his throat as he thought of Meera.

Sean nodded. He had noted those who were absent. The joy and relief in finding and being reunited with Katrina now tasted slightly bitter, knowing that Rav had lost his wife; Peter had lost his mother and Deborah Jackson; Penny's mother who they had risked so much to find, was also dead.

"I'm sorry for your losses." He said.

"There is nothing you could have done to save them, Sean." Aisha ventured, as if she could read his mind.

Rav nodded. "We made our choice to go in the helicopter. We are lucky that we did not all die when that bird attacked us." Then his face cracked into a smile. "I see you found your lady friend."

Sean blushed; he looked down at Katrina's hand in his and then at Katrina's face as she gazed at him with a look of admiration.

"You brought all these people here? You kept them alive with all these big lizards running around?" Katrina was impressed.

"Ever since the train crashed on the way to work this morning I've been like their adopted leader..." Sean began.

"Train crash? You never said anything about a train crash..." Katrina babbled hysterically.

"There hasn't been time to tell you about the train crash." Sean soothed her gently. "But since that train crash..." He was addressing them all now. "I've felt a sense of responsibility to all you guys; and each loss seems like a failure on my part."

It was Rav who answered him. "We may have adopted you as our leader, but we have all made our own choices and have been responsible for them. We chose to follow you, or not in the case of the helicopter. The consequences of those choices are on the heads of those who made them, not you Sean. You are a good man. It is because of you that so many of us have survived this far. Wherever we go next, it will be with you and it will be together."

Everyone took a moment to let Rav's words sink in. Not one of them made a murmur to disagree. Sean rubbed at his eye discreetly, pretending that a stray speck had gotten into it.

"So where do we go next?" Michael wondered.

"It's going to be dark soon. I don't think we should travel anywhere in the night. We should find somewhere safe to sleep for the night and then decide what to do next in the morning." Sean reasoned.

"Where are we going to sleep then?" Penny asked.

Michael squeezed Penny's hand and grinned. "I think I know just the place."

The Black Pepper was a small hotel situated round the corner from the Zeeman and Shearling office building, so the people carrier and the ambulance did not have far to drive. Michael had seen the hotel as they were driving towards the office block in order to meet up with Sean and Roger. The hotel was an old building compared to the newer buildings that surrounded it, though none of the survivors were sufficiently knowledgeable about architectural history to know just how old.

From the outside it looked quiet and deserted. There was only one way to find out what would be waiting for them inside.

As the vehicles came to a stop in the street outside the hotel, Sean, Roger and Katrina got out of the people carrier and joined Michael and Penny as they stepped down from the front cabin of the ambulance.

"How do you want to do this?" Sean asked them, "We don't know what could be waiting for us in there."

Michael un-shouldered the AK-47 and brandished it before him.

"I'll go in first and check that it's clear." Penny opened her mouth to protest, but Michael continued before she could say anything, "If I'm not back out in ten or fifteen minutes, don't come in looking for me. Get back into the vehicles and drive somewhere else. Sleep in the vehicles if you have to, but do not come looking for me if I do not come back. Okay?"

"No! That is not okay!" Penny bristled angrily.

Michael turned to her and took her face in his hands, allowing the weapon to dangle between them on its strap. "Penny, please. It's a tiny hotel. The most that could be in there is maybe a couple of velociraptors and they aint so tough. Believe me, I know. I don't think there's a tyrannosaurus squatting behind the reception desk, do you?"

Penny shook her head. "Go." She whispered softly.

Michael kissed her tenderly before turning back towards the hotel, the gun back in his hands.

"At least let me come in with you to cover your back." Sean suggested.

Michael turned his head to look at him and grinned.

"I'll be alright, mate. Trust me." He began to ascend the steps towards the entrance.

As he got to the door it opened. A short, rotund man with greying hair, a matching goatee and dressed head to toe in a white towel robe, the initials B.P stitched in black cotton on the left breast and velvet purple slippers stepped out and greeted him with a cheerful grin.

For a moment the two men stared at each other. The man grinning; Michael frowning in bewilderment. For a moment the man's eyes drifted down to eye the AK-47 with disapproval. Seeing this Michael somewhat apologetically slung the weapon back over his shoulder. The man beamed again.

"Thank you, young man. You won't be needing that!" his voice was high pitched and slightly effeminate, but carried a warmth that made him instantly likeable. He finally looked away from Michael and over his shoulder at the others gathered below.

"Now I guess you're all looking for a place to stay the night." He paused, not really expecting an answer. "Well what are you waiting for? Come on in!"

Chapter Twenty Three

Russell Joseph held the door open as Rav was carried in on his stretcher by Sean and Michael.

"Take him through to the ground floor room; first left down the corridor. I've already opened it. Just lay him on the bed in there. There are no lifts here and I don't think you want to try carrying him up those stairs!" he called after them as they promptly followed his instructions.

Sean and Michael lowered Rav onto the single bed in the small room. The bed was the centre piece of the room with a small single drawer bedside cabinet at either side. The sheets were a deep, luscious peach colour with white fluffy pillows. A lamp with a peachy coloured shade sat on the left side and a beautiful, tasteful pastel painted nude portrait adorned the wall above the bed. Rav was not too concerned with décor, he was just happy to have a soft, luxurious bed to rest up on.

Aisha stood at the side of his bed even though there was a lavender armchair for her to sit on.

"Thanks, guys. I'll look after him from here." She smiled as Sean and Michael filed out of the room.

Russell poked his head around the door with his ever present grin. "Spanish omelette with chips for dinner. I'll bring you some soon, my dear." And then he was gone, closing the door behind him.

Once Russell had fed and watered all of his guests he sat with them all, save Aisha and Rav and young Peter who had retired for an early night, in his drawing room. One side of this room was dominated by a wide flat-screen television and entertainment system. Facing this there were two luxurious two seater sofas and two armchairs.

Sean and Katrina sat in one sofa, while Michael and Penny sat in the other; Roger sat in one of the armchairs and the second one was occupied by their host.

"So tell me," Russell began, "What has been happening today? There were news reports this morning about dinosaurs appearing all over London, as if from nowhere. Then the reports said that they were all over the country. And then there were no more reports. Dinosaurs, eh? I find that hard to believe. Though from the look of you fellows something must be happening out there and I have been hearing things. Things a little out of the ordinary."

"There are dinosaurs." Sean told him.

"We've seen more dinosaurs today than I think I've ever wanted to see." Roger added.

And together they told Russell their collective story.

"It seems you are all lucky to be here today." Russell declared once all had been told. "Of course you are all more than welcome to stay here tonight."

"Thank you." Sean nodded gratefully.

"But what will you do in the morning? Where will you go?" Russell asked him.

"That I think is something that can wait to be decided then. Right now all I want to do is sleep for about a week!" chuckled Roger rising from his chair.

With that they all bid goodnight to Russell and retired to their rooms.

All of the rooms on the first and second floors were left unlocked. The survivors had their pick of which ever room they wanted. Russell didn't see the point in following the usual hotelier procedures under the circumstances.

Sean watched as Penny led Michael by the hand into one of the double rooms, a sexy smile across her face. Michael looked back over his shoulder and winked at Sean before the door closed behind him.

Now Sean was all alone on the landing with Katrina. He turned to look at her. Katrina just stood there looking at him with an amused look on her face.

"Well, goodnight, Katrina. I guess I'll see you in the morning." Sean said simply.

Katrina said nothing. She just took a step towards him and grabbed him by the shirt, pulling him to her and kissing him with an animalistic passion that had him waving is hands around as if not quite sure where to put them. He eventually decided that they should go around Katrina's waist as he returned the kiss.

After an age of passionate lip-locked embrace that neither seemed to want to end, they eventually parted with some reluctance. Before Sean could say anything Katrina began to tug him towards one of the bedrooms.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Sean asked her.

"Oh fuck, yes!" this exclamation came from behind the closed door of Michael and Penny's room.

Both Sean and Katrina collapsed with laughter at the sound of Penny's unrestrained enthusiasm.

"Does that answer your question, mon Coeur?" Katrina giggled, "Come on Sean, we might get eaten by dinosaurs tomorrow. Voulez vous couches avec moi, ce soir?"

"Oui, oui, oui!" Sean replied as he allowed himself to be pulled into the room and the door was slammed shut behind him.

Interlude

48 hours earlier...

"I still fail to see how this Time-Window can be of any military use to us." General Alistair Courtney said to his aide Captain Nicholas Franklin as they rode the lift down into the depths of the secret underground facility. The General was there to inspect the work that had been undertaken in secret in this facility for nearly six years now. Apparently some kind of breakthrough had been made and the General felt that this was worthy of his attention even if he did not fully understand the military benefits of the work being done here.

His subordinate, Captain Franklin was the officer in charge at the facility and had been a lot closer to the work in those six years. As such he understood it more and was considerably more enthusiastic about the progress that had been made and the implications of what had been achieved. He said as much to his superior officer as the lift finally came to a halt. The doors slid open and they both stepped out into a long metallic corridor. They walked along this until they came to the double doors that marked the entrance to the main laboratory. Captain Franklin used his key-card on the security locking system, at the same time he looked into a microscopic camera lens fixed at eye-level beside the door. A thin red laser beam seared into his eyeball before an electronic voice intoned: "Retinal scan accepted."

There was a hiss and a clunk of magnetic and gyroscopic components releasing and the doors swung open inwards.

"I'll let Doctor Ottoman explain it all to you, sir. She'll tell you what it's all about." The Captain assured his superior.

They entered the laboratory and the doors swung shut and the locking systems clanged back into place.

Doctor Angelica Ottoman was a tall beautiful woman with long blonde hair that came down past her shoulders. It was currently tied up in a pony-tail neatly tucked behind her so that it could not interfere with her work. Her blue eyes were framed by stylish black framed spectacles and she wore a white lab coat over sensible jeans and a navy blue blouse. When the two Army officers entered she was looking over the large piece of futuristic machinery that dominated the centre of the lab. The machine consisted of a round console that was adorned with a series of complex buttons and switches. In the centre of the console there were three rods positioned at certain points so that they formed a triangle. These rods were tipped with cylindrical protrusions that were aimed at the centre and that crackled with dormant untapped energy, waiting to be used.

Angelica looked up and smiled a greeting to the newcomers. The General noted that her smile seemed warmest towards the young captain.

"You must be General Courtney." Angelica enthused, "Should I salute, or will a hand shake suffice?"

"A hand shake will be more than sufficient, Doctor Ottoman." The General grinned despite himself as he shook her hand.

Once the introductions were complete they immediately got down to the business at hand.

"You know why I'm here." General Courtney began, "I'm afraid I'm going to need a little convincing about the military applications of this experiment of yours."

Angelica was expecting this from the high ranking army officer and immediately launched into her rehearsed explanation. Her Time Window had never been meant as a military weapon, but the funding had to come from somewhere. So long as the Army believed that this research was of use to them they continued to pay well. What she said now could make all the difference between continued financial support in her work and being told to shut down everything and discontinue research. She was confident that the work would be allowed to continue.

"The Time Window does exactly what its name suggests. It provides us with a window into time. Time flows around us all the time, but we can't see it. It can flow backwards, forwards, even sideways. This is going on all around us every day and we are powerless to do anything to interfere with the flow of time. At least we were until now.

The Time Window allows us to manipulate the time stream so that we can travel along it, backwards or forwards and pick a moment in time. Once we have settled on a specific moment in time these cylinders, the ionic bombardment emitters, fire a concentrated burst of ions into the time stream. The right frequency of ionic bombardment will open up the flow of the stream and create a 'window' that will allow us to look into the moment in time that we have chosen."

"I understand all that part, Doctor Ottoman. Just about." The General interjected, "But how is being able to look into a period in history supposed to be of any benefit to the Army?"

"I'm getting to that part." Angelica smiled patiently. "Imagine if we could use small portable versions of this equipment out in the field. Before a platoon of soldiers goes out on a patrol in Iraq or Afghanistan they use the time window to look into the future. If the future shows them being ambushed or wandering into a booby trap, the platoon can use this foreknowledge to avert the future events that they have seen. They can ambush the ambushers or deactivate the booby trap. Think of all the lives that could be saved."

The General nodded seeing the possibilities.

"If every country in the world could have one of these natural disasters like tsunamis and earthquakes can be seen before they happen and precautions can be taken to minimise damage and save lives." Angelica added, keen to illustrate the non-military benefits of her invention too. "Also, wouldn't it be amazingly cool to look back into history and watch Shakespeare writing the last few lines of Hamlet or see Christopher Columbus first step onto the shores of America?" she finished with a twinkle in her eye.

"Alright, Doctor. You've convinced me. I'd like to see a demonstration of the Time Window in action." The General told her.

"Of course I can show you right away..." Angelica began.

"Not right now. I want the Prime Minister to see this too. I'll call him when we return to the surface and he can be here by tomorrow. You can show us how your little toy works then." The General insisted.

"Very well. Tomorrow it is then. You'll have to have a really good think about what period in history you want to look at." Angelica teased good naturedly.

The General smiled. "Oh I think I already have a pretty good idea about what I want to look at."

By the time the Prime Minister had seen fit to grace them with his presence they were well into the early hours of the day following the one he had actually been expected to arrive on.

"A Prime Minister's work is never done." Had been his rather smug sounding attempt at an apology for keeping them all waiting; but now finally they were all gathered in Angelica's laboratory waiting for the demonstration of the time window to begin.

Angelica was busying herself making the final preparations before the demonstration.

She had been surprised when General Courtney had brought his nine year old grandson, Sammy into the facility, but she hadn't asked any questions. She suspected that she already knew why the young boy had been brought along.

Now was the time to find out if her suspicion was correct.

"Have you given any thought to which period in history you'd like us to look back on?" Angelica addressed her question to the General.

The General placed his hands on his grandson's shoulders.

"Not me, Doctor Ottoman, but my grandson has a time that he would very much like to see. I hope you don't mind if we indulge him?"

Sammy smiled up at her hoping that she would not refuse him.

Angelica smiled warmly back at him. "Of course not, General." She knelt before Sammy so that she could see into his eyes. "What time did you have in mind, Sammy?"

"If you don't mind, Miss, I'd like to see the dinosaurs? The very end of the Cretaceous period, just before they became extinct. Please?" Sammy asked her.

Angelica rose and turned to the apparatus behind her with a smile.

"Consider it done." She said as she began keying in the necessary time and spatial co-ordinates. Once they had been set Angelica pressed one last button and stepped back from the machine.

The cylindrical antennae began to crackle with writhing serpents of energy. This energy began to coalesce into a small sphere that gradually began to get bigger. As the sphere expanded an image began to appear. Faint at first but getting clearer every second.

A sandy plain, dotted with tall pine trees and tropical looking ferns, and amongst this there roamed a herd of bipedal lizards with duck like beaks where their mouths should be and long bony crests on their heads. These lizards stood on their hind legs cropping the surrounding vegetation with their beak-like mouths. In the sky above them there blazed an orange sun in a sky redder than the darkest blood.

"Wow! Parasaurolophus!" Sammy exclaimed in awe.

"Magnificent!" the General muttered, scarcely believing his own eyes.

"Remarkable. Truly remarkable." The Prime Minister agreed, "I think I've seen enough."

Angelica nodded and flicked the switch that would cancel the image.

A spark leapt from the console and the sphere that contained the image of the dinosaurs imploded. The resulting pulse of energy that was released threw everyone in the lab off their feet. There was a blinding white flash and then everything went black.

For any astronaut looking down on the Earth at that moment there would have been a barely visible ripple of energy that flowed like a tidal wave across the entire planet.

Blink and they would miss it. The world would never be the same again.

Interlude End

Chapter Twenty Four

On the day after the dinosaurs over ran the entire planet, Sean Neal's small pocket of survivors awoke to an uncertain future. They all met in Russell's dining room after sleeping in until late morning. Sleep had been fitful for many of them, punctuated by nightmarish dreams of the horrors they had all experienced the previous day; occasionally it had been interrupted by the very real sounds of dinosaurs from outside their safe haven. When those noises came it was difficult to ascertain how near or far they were and more than once had the survivors questioning how safe their haven would in fact be if a carnivorous dinosaur sniffed them out and chose to attack. The night had passed without incident, but how long would it continue to be safe to stay at the Black Pepper hotel?

That was a question they were all hoping to address and answer that morning.

Everyone was present, Sean and Katrina, Michael and Penny, Roger, Peter and Aisha. Even Rav had been wheeled out in a wheelchair from the back of the ambulance. And of course their flamboyant host, Russell was present, treating them all to a fine feast of a full English breakfast. In the night Russell had also taken the time to use his master key to sneak into everyone's rooms after they were all sleeping in order to take their clothes and wash them all. That morning when the survivors had awoken they had found their clothes clean, dry, pressed and where necessary repaired. Russell had been busy the entire night and had then taken the time to cook them all breakfast and he was showing no signs of flagging.

"If I close my eyes I can almost imagine that yesterday never happened." Roger grinned through a mouthful of crispy bacon.

"You're safe now my friends. There's no need for any of you to go back out at all into that nightmare." Russell assured them all.

"I wish it could be that easy." Sean smiled ruefully.

"Other than the occasional forage for food there really is no reason that you ever have to leave." Russell argued good naturedly.

"But how long could we really stay safe here without a dinosaur finding us? A big enough dinosaur could break in here if it really wanted to get at us." Sean pointed out.

"We only need to hold out until we are rescued. The Army will surely be sending more forces into the city." Rav insisted.

"Will they, Rav? How do we know there is any army left to help us? We don't know how bad things are out there." Sean replied.

"If we try and make our own way out of London, who's to say we'll all make it? Who's to say what we'll even find outside London once we get there?" Penny reasoned.

"If we do decide to stay here the least we can do is try and fortify the place and be sure of all our escape routes in case of an emergency." Roger suggested.

"I suggest we vote for it." Sean decided, "Stay or go? All those in favour of staying can I get a show of hands please?"

Chapter Twenty Five

When Angelica Ottoman finally regained consciousness it felt like the herd of parasaurolophus she had seen were stampeding through her skull. As she tried to sit up her head span and her vision went blurry so she lay there momentarily, waiting for the nauseating feeling to subside. Thankfully her vision cleared and the pain in her head faded, though it did not leave her entirely. She sat up and the first thing she saw was the Time Window apparatus trailing black smoke from a massive electrical overload, but otherwise in tact. Given time she would probably be able to repair it, but that didn't matter right now. All that mattered was the experiment had been a success. The Window had worked and they had seen real live dinosaurs. Perhaps on reflection they had taken the Window back a little too far for it's first trip, but at least no lasting damage had been done. It was then she remembered that she hadn't been alone in the lab during the experiment. She looked around. General Courtney, Captain Franklin, young Sammy and the Prime Minister were all coming to around her and in varying states of recovery. None of them seemed seriously hurt and Angelica breathed an inner sigh of relief.

"How long were we knocked out for?" Captain Franklin wondered.

Angelica glanced at her watch to see if she could ascertain the time, but the digital read-out was flashing erratically. A by product of the Time Window's overload perhaps?

"I don't know." She replied.

No one was able to provide an answer.

Everyone was on their feet now. The General took out his cell-phone in order to call someone from the base above, but the screen of the phone was blank; another casualty of the blow out. He reached for the wall phone, but that too was dead.

"It looks like we're going to have to make our way back to the surface to find out." The Prime Minister stated matter of factly.

"That's assuming the lifts are still working." Captain Franklin pointed out.

"Well there's only one way to find out." The General said, taking charge as he was so used to doing in any situation. He crossed to the lab doors and exited towards the lifts.

The lift had already been summoned and was stood open waiting for them by the time the others joined him. They all stepped in. The doors slid shut and the lift began to rise.

"We can't have been out for more than a few minutes surely?" the Prime Minister attempted to reassure them as the lift ascended, but as they neared the top a growing sense of unease became ever more palpable.

The lift pinged. The doors slid open.

An empty corridor greeted them. Not unusual in itself. There was no reason why anybody should be walking along this corridor at this time. What was unusual was that the overhead light was being cast by the dim, twilight glow of the emergency lighting, not the main fluorescents.

There was a low, distant rumbling noise that came from somewhere outside.

"That sounded like thunder." The Prime Minister remarked.

"Nonsense. That was nothing like thunder." The General rebuked him, heedless of the rank of whom he addressed. "Sounded more like some great big animal to me. Like an elephant or something."

"An elephant!" the Prime Minister sounded dubious.

"Or something." The General nodded.

"Well we aren't going to know one way or the other if we stand here talking about it." Angelica observed with a degree of patience that she wasn't sure she felt.

"Quite right, Doctor Ottoman. I'll lead the way." General Courtney smiled and continued down the corridor.

As they made their way through the military base they saw no other signs of life. It was as if the whole base had been abandoned by all personnel or had been wiped out in some mysterious attack, yet there were no signs of any violence. No blood, no bodies.

It was Captain Franklin that noticed the clock on the wall, still ticking away. According to the hands it was five minutes to twelve, but whether that was midday or midnight they could not tell. They had not seen any windows yet.

Then finally they came to the entrance hallway and the sunlight flooding in through the windows on the doors told them at least that it was midday. There were still no signs of any other human beings, but the thundering, bellowing noise was closer now. In fact it sounded like it was originating from just outside.

"Ready to meet your elephants, General?" the Prime Minister teased.

"Where is everybody?" Captain Franklin wondered.

"Outside perhaps?" Angelica replied.

They all crossed to the doors and ventured out into the sunshine to see what they would see.

What once had been a top secret military base surrounded by one of the few large forests remaining in England was now crawling with large, placid duck-billed hadrosaurs. The same parasaurolophuses that they had seen through the Time Window were now wandering the grounds of the base. They weren't being allowed to roam around just any where though. Teams of soldiers in army jeeps were herding the dinosaurs towards an outer gate which led out into the forest where many of the hadrosaurs were already enjoying the leafy goodness of the surrounding trees.

The General and the others stood open mouthed in disbelief at the spectacle before them.

"How can this be possible?" the Prime Minister had stepped back to the main building and was leaning against the wall to brace his suddenly weak knees.

"The Time Window couldn't have done all this! Could it?" Angelica was disbelieving.

One of the soldiers from one of the jeeps, a sergeant, spotted the newcomers. He ordered his driver to pull over so that he could get out, then he made his way over to them.

"Sergeant Levene, what on Earth has been happening here?" Captain Franklin demanded.

"Begging your pardon, sir, but I would've thought that was bleeding obvious. Yesterday in the early hours of the morning these dinosaur things just appeared from nowhere. We've been rounding them all up ever since." The Sergeant replied.

"Yesterday morning? You mean to say we've all been unconscious for over twenty four hours?" the General was astonished.

"I don't know about that, sir. If you say so. We've had our hands full up here you see. Lieutenant Bryant has been in charge ever since it first happened. It's happened all over the country so reports say. All over the entire world even." The Sergeant told them.

"But that's impossible." Angelica gasped.

"If you say so, ma'am. Just telling you what I've heard."

It was then that a terrifying roar split the air.

Everyone turned towards where it had came from and saw a large bipedal reptile with a huge head; its mouth filled with dagger like teeth and small arms at its chest each bearing two fingers. The tyrannosaurus rex burst forth from the undergrowth and lunged ravenously towards the parasaurolophuses which panicked upon seeing the large predator striding towards them on its long powerful hind legs.

One of the jeeps pulled up and one of the soldiers reached into the back of the vehicle.

The other soldier next to him stood up and raised his assault rifle to his shoulder, snapping off three short bursts into the Rex's sinuous neck as it prepared to ensnare one of the hadrosaurs within its jaws. The bullets did little damage to the large reptile but served to divert the dinosaur's attention away from the other dinosaurs and towards the jeep. It began to thunder towards them. The other soldier had finished rummaging in the back of the jeep. He came up with a missile launcher which he placed to his shoulder and took aim at the approaching predator. The muzzle of the weapon flashed and a missile streaked out of it and struck the T-Rex dead centre in its mouth as it was in mid roar. Its head exploded in an eruption of blood, brains and bone. For a moment the T-Rex teetered on its hind legs before toppling over with crash that shook the ground.

Sergeant Levene turned to face the others who had watched the ensuing drama with a mixture of horror and amazement.

"That's the second one of them we've had since yesterday." The Sergeant grinned.

Chapter Twenty Six

Once breakfast was finished and the votes had been counted it was agreed that they would stay in the city. Even those who had been in favour of leaving didn't take too much persuading when everything had been taken into consideration. Since the dinosaur phenomenon was global there was no where really that would be safer than where they already were. So stay they did. Now all they needed to agree on was what to do next. This is what was currently under discussion in the lounge.

"I want my mum to have a proper burial. I'm not leaving her out there for those dinosaurs to eat." Penny was saying. She was sat next to Michael who was holding her hand reassuringly.

"They may already have eaten her." Rav replied unhelpfully.

"We've got to try!" Penny riled at him, her anger rising.

"Don't you think I'd want that for Meera too? I'm just trying to be a realist here." Rav tried to placate her.

"I don't want my mum to be eaten by the dinosaurs either." Peter's little voice piped up.

Everyone was silent. Peter didn't talk very much so when he did he tended to be listened to.

Inevitably it was Sean that broke the silence. "We've got to go back out there sooner or later. Can anyone else think of a better reason?"

No one could.

Everyone was ready to leave within the hour. Aisha was staying behind with Rav and Peter, but other than that they were all going. Even Russell had shown willing and volunteered his help.

"Perhaps I'll see myself a dinosaur!" he had enthused.

"Trust me. They're over rated!" Roger had replied.

Michael, Penny and Russell had climbed into the front of the ambulance. It had been agreed that the ambulance was the best vehicle for transporting the bodies once they had been recovered.

Sean approached the driver side where Michael sat and the young man wound down the window so they could talk.

"You, Roger and Katrina gonna ride in the back?" Michael asked.

Sean shook his head. "We're not coming with you. I've got an idea I want to try out which might help to keep any unwanted dino attention away from the hotel."

"Sounds interesting." Said Roger as he sidled up to them.

"Remember that big dinosaur that chased us from Oxford Circus? The one that chomped the T-Rex?" Sean said.

"Peter said it was called a spinosaurus." Roger nodded.

"That's the one." Sean smiled remembering the young boy's enthusiastic ramblings from the day before.

"What's the plan? Please don't tell me you're gonna try and catch one and tame it to be an oversized guard dog?" Michael smirked.

"No, you dick-head, I'm gonna get me some spinosaurus shit." Sean chuckled.

"Say what now?" Roger was puzzled, but Michael was nodding appreciatively.

"Good plan. That T-Rex stopped chasing us when we entered the spinosaurus's territory. One whiff of the shit from that thing smeared about outside the hotel should keep other dinosaurs away from us."

"Exactly!" Sean agreed, pleased that his plan had been approved.

"One problem. How on Earth are you planning on getting it?" Roger pointed out.

"Haven't quite figured that one out yet, but we'll figure something out." Sean assured him.

"Good luck, and be careful." Michael told them.

"You too, man." Sean replied, he held out his fist towards Michael who stuck his arm out of the window and touched his knuckles against Sean's.

A few moments later they were watching the ambulance drive away.

Sean, Roger and Katrina piled into the people carrier and went their own way.

Chapter Twenty Seven

At the army base the herding of the parasaurolophuses had been completed. The placid duck-billed dinosaurs were now inhabiting the woods outside the grounds of the base and the gates had been resealed to keep them out. Not that any of them seemed particularly intent upon returning. If they had wanted to get in, the gate would not have withstood very long against a determined assault. That was where the problem lay. The hadrosaurs might not want to gain entrance to the base, but another tyrannosaurus rex might have different ideas.

This was the dilemma that Captain Franklin had just put to the General.

"Nonsense, Captain. Why would one of those things want to get in here?" General Courtney could not help smirking at the very idea of it. All in all he had taken the startling revelation that the world was now populated with dinosaurs in his stride and was proud of how his men had also quickly adapted to the new, if somewhat bizarre, situation.

"Well, I rather thought they might want to eat us, sir." The captain told him.

"Why on Earth would it want to trouble itself with a few mouthfuls such as ourselves when there is now a veritable banquet of dinosaur flesh plodding about out there for it to tear into at its leisure? Besides if another one of those monsters does show up we'll just feed it the business end of an RPG like we did with the last one." The General assured him.

"If you don't mind, sir, I'll post a couple of guards on the main gate anyway. Just in case. Armed with the RPG and a reasonable supply of ammunition for it too, if you don't mind?" Franklin replied.

"Go right ahead. In the meantime I think we need to get Doctor Ottoman working on her machine to see what she can do about sending these things back where they came from."

"Do you think that's possible, sir?" Franklin asked him doubtfully. He had seen the extent of the damage to the Time Window and he wasn't sure that there was anything that could be done. Granted he was no scientist and maybe he was wrong; the machine had been pretty much in tact, but all of that smoke pouring out of it could not have been a good sign.

"Won't know unless she tries will we, Franklin." The General replied and then he was off in search of the doctor.

He found her standing at one of the perimeter fences, made from six meter high steel wire mesh, it was more designed to keep out people than dinosaurs and even a determined person armed with a pair of strong pliers wouldn't have had too much trouble. For a moment the General wondered whether he should also have guards posted on each perimeter fence, armed with the RPGs. There were four RPGs in the armoury and four perimeters to cover. It could be done, after all the perimeter with the gate was already being covered. The General thought about it, but quickly dismissed the idea. If a dinosaur was to try to break through one of the fences there would be ample time to bring up the RPG team to the desired area in order to deal with the threat. They would be just fine.

Angelica was standing there with the General's grandson. They were looking out in awe at the parasaurolophuses as they fed upon the greenery outside.

"Ah there you are, Doctor! Fascinating creatures aren't they." The last part of his greeting was more of a statement than a question.

"I think they're wicked!" young Sammy proclaimed to his grandfather enthusiastically.

"I bet when I told you that you'd get to see a real dinosaur, you didn't think it would be this close did you?" the General smiled warmly, ruffling his fingers through the boy's hair. "Fascinating though they are, my boy, the poor creatures don't belong here, so the doctor and I need to find some way of sending them all back where they came from."

The General looked at Angelica. "Do you think that you will be able to repair that machine of yours?"

Angelica shook her head. "I'm not sure, General. I'll have to take a look at it; see how badly it was damaged. Even if it can be fixed it's going to take a while."

"Any chance that you can start now?" the General hinted good-naturedly.

Angelica smiled and raised her hand to her head in a mock salute.

"Right away, sir!"

The General chuckled and watched as she started off back to the main building where her underground laboratory lay hidden. Once she was gone he turned back to his grandson.

As he looked out into the surrounding forest he saw the tyrannosaurus rex step stealthily from the undergrowth and start towards the fence... coming straight for him and his grandson!

Chapter Twenty Eight

They had arrived too late. When Michael, Penny and Russell had reached the helicopter crash site the scavengers were already there. There were two deinonychuses fighting over the remains of the soldier while the carcass of the pteranodon was being feasted upon by more of the same and also a new species that Penny and Michael had not previously encountered. These dinosaurs were tall, gangly looking bipeds. Everything about them was long; the legs, arms, tail and neck... the overall impression was of a reptilian ostrich.

This was ornithomimus. They were using their sharp teeth to tear strips of flesh from the pteranodon's corpse. So far none of them had taken any notice of the helicopter wreckage which contained the other human bodies, including Penny's and Peter's mothers and Rav's wife, but it was only a matter of time.

"Michael, we've got to do something! Scare them away somehow." Penny fretted.

Russell was just staring open mouthed at the small dinosaurs ripping hungrily into the dead flesh.

"I'll never eat meat again!" he vowed.

Michael sat there for a moment thinking about his options. He put the ambulance in gear and was about to try scaring the scavengers with the vehicle itself when a dark shadow fell over the macabre seen before them. The three companions looked up to see what could cast such a large shadow.

Michael had one word for what he saw. "Shit!"

The creature bearing down on the carnage before them looked to be a giant-sized cousin of the pteranodons that they had already encountered. The span of its bat-like wings was nearly twelve meters and with its long neck and long javelin of a beak it resembled a bizarre cross between a giraffe and a bird. This was the ruler of the Cretacean skies, the hatzegopteryx. As it fell upon the scene of death and destruction that had been wrought by its smaller cousin the previous day, the other scavenging dinosaurs that had gathered scattered in its wake and fled.

Well, thought Michael, that takes care of them, now what the bloody hell do we do about that thing?

Chapter Twenty Nine

Sean pulled up the people carrier just on the outskirts of Oxford Circus where the spinosaur's territory began. "This is where you encountered the big dinosaur?" Katrina asked apprehensively.

Sean nodded. "We go in on foot. If possible we want to get in, grab the dinosaur shit and get out again without the spinosaurus actually seeing us."

"And what exactly are we gonna use to transport this dinosaur shit when we get it?" Roger wondered.

Sean looked sheepish. "I haven't quite worked that bit out yet. I guess we'll wipe that arse when we get to it."

"Ha, ha! Very good!" Roger winced.

They exited the vehicle.

General Courtney grabbed up his grandson and hauled him away from the fence as the tyrannosaurus hurled itself against it. The wire mesh did not even slow it down and the fence buckled and fell instantly beneath its gargantuan bulk.

"RPG team to me!" the General barked as loud as he could over the roaring of the creature as it bore down on him and his precious charge.

Even if the General's order had not been heard then the rampaging dinosaur had been.

The RPG team ran up. While the soldier carrying the heavy weapon loaded the grenade, his companion peppered the oncoming T-Rex with machine gun fire, drawing it away from the General and Sammy and allowing them to run for cover. The armour piercing rounds from the soldier's assault rifle penetrated even the tyrannosaurus rex's tough leathery hide and the creature bellowed with pain and annoyance seeking to put an end to this bite-sized nuisance. It opened its huge jaws and lunged for the soldier.

The RPG belched flame and the grenade hurtled at near point blank range into the T-Rex's open mouth.

The concussive force of the exploding grenade threw the two soldiers off their feet, but it was the T-Rex that suffered the full force of the detonation. The top of its head and upper jaw were violently blown apart, showering the RPG team with gore and bone fragments.

After a few moments the two gore spattered soldiers gingerly got to their feet.

It took a moment for their ears to stop ringing from the effects of the explosion, but when they finally could hear again they wondered why they could still hear roaring.

The answer soon came when they saw that the other fences had also been breached.

It was apparent that the tyrannosaurs were not just solitary hunters and were also capable of working as a pack and the military base was now overrun with no less than seven of the ravenous carnosaurs.

The other three RPG teams were being stretched to the limit now that they had multiple targets to contend with. The freshly blooded team that had just recovered from their momentary concussion could only watch in horror as one pair brought their weapons to bear on an approaching T-Rex, only to be snatched up and torn to bloody shreds by another T-Rex lunging in from their right flank. The dinosaur did not even eat the ill-fated soldiers, but merely cast their broken, mutilated corpses to one side before seeking fresh prey. The whole base had very quickly descended into total chaos.

Angelica had been making her way to the lift to descend to her underground laboratory when the sound of the attacking tyrannosaurs had brought her running back to see what was happening. She arrived just in time to see another of the RPG teams being ravaged in the jaws of one of the colossal predators. Having slaughtered them the T-Rex saw her standing in the main entrance of the HQ building and made straight for her.

For a moment Angelica was transfixed with terror, but as the dinosaur drew nearer with its long stride she was galvanised into action. She turned and ran back into the building, back down the corridor from which she had emerged. In that split second she had resolved that she must reach her laboratory and do anything that she could as quickly as possible to send these monsters back to when they come from. The pursuing T-Rex had not been in the least bit perturbed by her entering the building. Its mass and momentum had carried it straight into the lobby of the building bringing shards of glass and masonry crashing down around it, but still it came on in pursuit of Angelica as she ran for the lift.

One of the two surviving RPG teams had seen the dinosaur enter the building; it was hardly a spectacle that anyone could have missed; and they set off to try and intercept the T-Rex in order to rescue the young scientist. Positioning themselves at the end of the corridor they took aim at the rear of the dinosaur as it advanced towards Angelica who had just reached and summoned the lift. The soldier with the assault rifle opened fire to try and draw the T-Rex's attention.

"Get down, Miss!" the other soldier with the RPG shouted his warning before releasing the explosive missile.

Hearing the warning, Angelica threw herself to one side just as the lift doors were sliding open. Feeling the sting of bullets punching into its flank the dinosaur skidded on the polished floor, attempting to turn and deal with its attacker. This sudden movement caused the creature to over balance and crash head first through the wall beside it into the rooms beyond. Just as the grenade that had been intended to kill it rocketed over head and hurtled into the waiting lift!

Chapter Thirty

Michael, Penny and Russell watched as the hatzegopteryx came to land and folded its huge wings so that it was hunched over the crash site like a gigantic hideous vampire bat, squatting over its victim. Something inside the wreckage of the helicopter had caught its eye and it started to shamble awkwardly using its clawed wings as makeshift forelegs to pull itself forward.

"Mum!" Penny cried out desperately.

Without a word of warning Michael opened the door of the ambulance, snatched up the AK-47 from the seat beside him and jumped out of the vehicle.

"Michael, what are you doing? Come back!" Penny called, in vain.

Michael strode purposefully towards the dinosaur that so far remained oblivious to his presence. He popped the magazine out of its chamber and noted that only four rounds remained, but he had the three spare magazines in his pockets so that did not overly concern him. His chief concern was as to whether or not the bullets would have much effect on such a large animal. The hatzegopteryx was lowering its huge beak towards the helicopter.

Michael cocked the rifle. There was only one way to find out.

He was aware of Penny's voice in his ears calling him back to the ambulance, but he made an effort to block her out as he raised the weapon to his shoulder, took aim at the creature's head and fired.

The AK-47 kicked against his shoulder sending his aim a little wide of the mark, though he did not miss his target entirely. The bullets drilled into the bony crest atop of the hatzegopteryx's head, shattering a fist sized hole through it. The creature screeched in pain and swung its enormous head round to face its tormentor. As it did so, Michael stepped towards it and fired again. This time the two remaining bullets grazed the side of the monster's head before Michael's weapon clicked empty.

Quickly he ejected the empty magazine, pulled out one of the spares and slammed it into place. The whole process could not have taken him more than five seconds, but in that time the hatzegopteryx had fully turned its attention on him and was lumbering towards him with the point of its beak lowered, ready to impale him.

Michael again raised the weapon and squeezed off as many rounds as he could into the approaching creature. Many of the bullets ricocheted harmlessly from the carapace of its massive beak, but a few of them found their way past that natural armour plating and into the more vulnerable flesh behind. It was the bullet that entered the creature's left eye that brought the hatzegopteryx's advance to an abrupt halt. The creature's awkward limbs buckled beneath it and it crashed down in a sprawling heap, sending a cloud of debris flying in all directions. The tip of its beak lay just inches away from Michael, who had not moved an inch since the creature's attack had begun. A trickle of blood leaked from the gaping hole that used to be its left eye socket.

Michael was jolted out of his reverie as something slammed into him from behind and encompassed him in a constricting embrace. He quickly realised that it was Penny and he turned to face her. She was crying again, clearly pleased that he was alive and unharmed.

He allowed the AK-47 to dangle from his shoulder as he took her into his arms and soothed her gently. Once Penny's tears had subsided she pulled away from Michael and punched him hard in the solar plexus and he doubled over with the wind knocked out of him.

"What was that for?" he wheezed.

"Don't you ever do anything like that again, you pillock!" she chastised.

Michael made an effort to straighten as his breath returned to him. He gave a mock salute.

"I'll try my best, Ma'am." He smirked.

Penny punched him again, and then they went to retrieve the bodies.

Chapter Thirty One

Sean, Katrina and Roger had made their way as stealthily as possible into the domain of the spinosaurus. Keeping to the sides of buildings and alley ways they tried to be as inconspicuous as possible. So far though they had not seen any sign of the large reptile, nor of any of its droppings.

"An animal that size is bound to have a large territory. Oxford Circus is probably just one of its borders." Roger observed.

"Meaning?" Sean asked curiously.

"That maybe we might be lucky enough not to bump into the thing today." Roger explained.

"Shush!! Are you trying to jinx us, Roger??" Katrina scalded with a wry smile.

"I hope you're right." Sean replied, "Still, I thought we might have come across some of its droppings by now. We don't want to get too far away from the people carrier, in case we aren't lucky and have to make a run for it. I don't fancy our chances trying to outrun that thing on foot."

"Maybe the dinosaur has a set place within its territory which it uses for its toilet, no?" Katrina suggested.

"Do you really think that dinosaurs are that particular about where they take a dump?" Roger cocked an eyebrow doubtfully.

"It is not impossible!" Katrina protested with more than a little indignation.

"I think if we are going to find anything, we'll need to follow our noses." Sean reasoned.

"Shit stinks." Roger agreed.

They stopped momentarily and sniffed the air. As one their faces wrinkled with distaste and they altered their course accordingly.

Once they had picked up the vile overpowering stench they wondered how it had previously escaped their notice. Roger was of the opinion that the smell had always been there and that, accustomed as they had quickly become to their unusual predicament, they had not noticed it until they had specifically looked, or sniffed, for it.

It did not take them long to locate the source of the rancid odour.

The pile of spinosaurus droppings was taller than them all by at least a couple of feet and judging from the smell and malleable consistency of the stool it was reasonably fresh.

Just how fresh was attested by the presence of the spinosaurus nearby.

As yet it had not seen them so they quickly retreated back into cover.

"Now what?" Roger hissed in the loudest whisper he dared raise as he did not want to risk the spinosaurus hearing him.

Sean didn't answer for a long moment. He seemed to be deep in thought.

"I'm going to try something." He said eventually, "I want you two to make your way back to the people carrier. There's no sense in all of us risking our lives."

"No, Sean, that is not acceptable! I will not let you do it!" Katrina exclaimed a little too loudly.

For a moment everyone was silent. Sean gingerly poked his head around the corner to see if the spinosaurus had heard Katrina's outburst. He found himself looking into its huge, predatory eyes mere feet away from him.

"Run!" Sean shouted.

Neither Katrina nor Roger needed telling twice. They began to run back the way they had come towards where they had left the people carrier. It was only when they reached the vehicle and were about to clamber into it that they remembered Sean had the keys and in that same instant they also realised that he was no longer with them.

"Mon Dieu! Sean! Where is he?" Katrina cried, sick with worry.

They hovered beside the people carrier, looking for Sean, unsure of how they should proceed.

It wasn't long before they saw him pelting towards them, covered in dinosaur shit from head to toe with the spinosaurus at his heels.

"Get in the fucking car!!" Sean yelled at them. Usain Bolt would have been envious at the speed in which Sean covered the gap between horrible dinosaur death and the relative safety of the people carrier.

Luckily the doors had been left unlocked so it only required Sean to pile into the driver's seat and put the keys in the ignition. The stench of the excrement that covered him pervaded the entire interior of the vehicle within seconds.

"You didn't?" Roger enquired sceptically.

Sean nodded as the engine fired and he threw the vehicle into reverse.

"Yup. I jumped in it." He confirmed.

The spinosaurus closed upon them within the space of a few long strides. There was no time for a U-turn. Sean had no choice, but to look over his shoulder and retreat the vehicle in reverse.

Unlike their previous encounter with the spinosaurus they did not have enough of a lead this time to put a significant amount of distance between them and the fact that they were forced to go backwards did not help. The spinosaurus swung its great crocodilian head and struck the vehicle a powerful glancing blow. Fortunately this attack proved to have favourable consequences as the force of the blow caused the people carrier to spin.

Sean grappled with the steering wheel, steering into the spin to try and control the momentum which, happily, resulted in the vehicle facing in a forwards direction once more. Sean floored the accelerator and managed to pull a little way from the pursuing dinosaur.

Then he noticed the fuel gauge... they were almost out of petrol.

Sean cursed himself inwardly for not thinking to check the fuel levels were high enough before they had embarked on their current mission. There was no option. He would have to try and put as much distance between them and the spinosaurus before the tank expired completely. It was time for some creative driving.

The spinosaurus was beginning to close upon them once more. Katrina in the backseat could not tear her eyes away from the looming image in the rear window of its crocodile-head, lowered for another attack. The bizarre thought occurred to her that the impending terror of the pursuing dinosaur went some way to help towards distracting her from the potency of the smell emanating from her new boyfriend. In that same instant she realised that if they survived this little encounter she wouldn't care how badly Sean smelt.

It was then that Sean slammed the brakes on and the car screeched to a grinding halt.

This is it... we're dead! The dinosaur's going to eat us all! Katrina thought with sudden clarity.

The spinosaurus was quite unprepared for its prey to stop as suddenly as it did. Its momentum carried it so that it tripped over the now stationary vehicle and it toppled snout over tail into a crashing dive that thankfully did not bring it down on top of the people carrier, but it did land heavily on the hard ground ahead of them. That was not to say that the people carrier came away completely unscathed. The entire back end of the vehicle had crumpled in like a wad of unwanted note paper and Katrina had scrambled to the front of the vehicle to escape injury. As a result of this the people carrier, petrol or no petrol, was not going anywhere.

For a moment the three companions stared at the prone form of the spinosaurus ahead of them.

"Have we killed it?" Roger was wondering.

The spinosaur's tail twitched and caught the front of the vehicle a blow strong enough to send the vehicle flipping onto its side. It rolled over onto its roof, then its side again, roof, side until it came to a stop against the front of one of the side buildings.

Neither Sean, Roger nor Katrina had been wearing a seatbelt. Inside the stricken vehicle all was still and the spinosaurus, momentarily stunned though it had been, was now stirring.

When Katrina regained consciousness she found herself sandwiched between Sean and Roger. A predicament she might not have been so averse to under different circumstances.

However, from where she lay she could see that the spinosaurus was now back on its feet.

It seemed confused. Somehow it did not seem to recognise the wreckage of the vehicle as being in any way related to what it had been chasing just moments before.

The creature looked from side to side, trying to discover where its prey had escaped to.

It sniffed the air tentatively, but all it could smell was the pungent odour of its own excrement.

Katrina watched from the midst of her Sean and Roger sandwich, trying very hard to control her breathing for fear that the creature might hear her.

The spinosaurus stood there for a long moment. It was facing the wreckage. Could it see them? For what seemed like many long minutes all that Katrina could hear was the dinosaur's heavy breathing over the lighter, ever so slightly muted breaths of Sean and Roger. Beneath her Roger was beginning to stir. He started to groan from the piercing pain in the side of his head. Katrina could not move her arms, trapped as they were between her two male companions otherwise she would have clamped a hand over Roger's mouth.

It was fortunate then that Roger spotted the spinosaurus in time to shut himself up.

The dinosaur had not heard him. It soon transpired that it had not seen them either as it began to stalk away back to where it had come from.

Roger and Katrina let out the breaths they had been holding collectively. Sean too was now beginning to recover consciousness.

"What did I miss?" he moaned as he cuffed fresh blood away from his eyes.

Roger and Katrina's reply came in the form of the nervous relief of hysterical laughter.

It wasn't long before Sean, despite himself, was joining in.

Epilogue

They made their way back to the hotel on foot, keeping to the cover of the buildings and alleys whenever they could. Half way into their journey they discovered that their caution was far from necessary. At one point they were faced with the presence of a large, hungry albertosaurus. They turned a corner and there it was blocking their most direct route back to the hotel. To take a detour now would have added at least an hour and a half to their journey. There had to be some way of getting passed it unnoticed.

Too late; the albertosaurus turned to face them and sniffed the air. After one good sniff the dinosaur's demeanour altered dramatically. It looked about it with a look of what could only be described as alarm on its great, reptilian features and then promptly turned on its heel and walked briskly away from them; it turned the corner and disappeared from sight.

The three companions looked at each other with bemused puzzlement. Then realisation dawned on them and they laughed together. Three tiny, ordinary human beings had caused a formidable, prehistoric predator to turn with its tail between its legs and run away. All because they now, all three of them, stunk to high heaven with the stench of a bigger, badder dinosaur. Sean's ruse with the spinosaur excrement had worked; it would serve to keep predators away from the hotel which was to be their home for the foreseeable future.

Not long after that encounter the three of them reached the hotel. The ambulance that had borne their three friends was already parked out front. As he ascended the steps to the front entrance, Sean removed his suit jacket and shirt and tied one either side to the railings. From now on any dinosaur that ventured this way would smell the scent of the spinosaurus and, hopefully, steer well clear of them.

They were greeted inside by their friends who were all pleased to see them returned safely and relatively unscathed.

"We're going to hold a memorial service for Deborah, Meera and Anya in the yard out back. We've all agreed that cremation is the best thing for them. We were just waiting for you guys to return." Michael informed them once greetings had been exchanged.

"Thanks. I think if today has proved anything at all, it has shown that we can make a go of living and surviving out here if we all work together." Sean smiled.

"We'll all be out back when you're ready and Russell has laid on a buffet for afterwards that'll make your mouth water, trust me. Only...." Michael sniffed the air with distaste, "The three of you might want to think of showering first."

He just managed to duck out of the reception just before Roger slung his shit stained shirt at him.

When the last of the RPG teams had been caught and slaughtered by the marauding T-Rexes the attack was over as soon as it had begun. The largest of the tyrannosaurs had stood at the perimeter where the attack had first started and bellowed out an ear shattering roar. On this signal the other T-Rexes had halted their rampage and followed their leader back out into the surrounding forest.

The surviving humans emerged from their hiding places. Along with the eight soldiers from the RPG teams the human death toll had amounted to nine soldiers either eaten or fatally mutilated. On the other side only three of the tyrannosaurus rexes had been killed.

"It was a planned attack. They were working together as a cohesive unit. Amazing!" Angelica was awestruck by all that she had witnessed.

"They wanted revenge. That's why they targeted the RPG teams. It was never about food." Captain Franklin gestured to the parasaurolophuses that still roamed outside. "They've got plenty of that out there. We were a threat and they dealt with us accordingly."

"We need to repair that machine and send these creatures back to where, or should I say when, they belong." General Courtney urged. "These things are obviously a lot more dangerous than we ever imagined."

"That's not going to be easy, General." Angelica replied, almost apologetically. "When that dinosaur pursued me into the building one of the RPG teams came to my rescue. The only problem is that their grenade missed the dinosaur and took out the lift just as it was arriving to take me down to the lab. There is no way that I can get down there now and if I can't get down there then I cannot do anything to repair that machine. I'm afraid the dinosaurs are here to stay."

The General took this information in and shook his head as if in denial of everything he had just been told.

"I wouldn't worry too much about that, my dear. There is another way in"

End of Book One

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