The Extinction Games

Chapter 4

4

The Devil turns his head to the side as the fog swirls around his face. I see what I’m up against. His long neck is thick and powerful, but his satanic horns sit atop a short head with a hooked jaw. The skin is hardened pebble scales with lumps along its back, giving the creature the look of a dragon that guards the gates of Hell.

One saving grace is his lack of grabbing arms. He has little stumps where arms would be. I just need to worry about the mouth. There’s many teeth which seem quite small for the size of the mouth they’re in, but they’ll still rip me apart.

My comms regains signal and reconnects. Charles appears.

‘The fog is dissipating, nothing to do with the rain, so I managed to boost the signal—what in the name…’

‘He’s come for my soul.’

‘Carnotaurus. Great sense of smell. Also known as the meat-eating bull.’

‘Devil’ll do just fine.’

The Devil hears me whisper and turns his head.

Charles is right, the fog is disappearing, and the Devil takes a step forward. He’s huge. I don’t even think my sword will cause any damage to that hardened skin.

Charles clears his throat.

‘Carnotaurus eyes look forward more than other dinosaurs. Gives him—’

‘Binocular vision.’

‘He weighs at least a ton, but that’s light for a theropod his size. You won’t be able to outrun him, and he’ll pick you off a tree before you get a decent footing.’

‘Not helping, Charles.’ I sheath my sword as quietly as I can. ‘So I can’t run. I can’t take it head on. What should I do, offer myself up as dinner?’

‘Use your smoke bomb, it’s your only hope.’

I only have one of these left. I doubt it’ll send the Devil scarpering, but it might give me a chance to escape.

I gently unzip my backpack. The Devil takes another step forward, his foot planting into the muck. I reach for the smoke bomb.

The Devil roars and adrenaline shoots through my body. Fight or flight? I hope I manage either and don’t freeze. He takes another step forward.

My hands are shaking, and I throw the bomb at the Devil’s feet. He glances down at the smoke that billows out of the canister. Soon the smoke is thicker than the fog, and as his features evaporate, I make a run for it.

The Devil roars again, knowing his dinner is escaping.

I don’t care what direction I’m going, I just run, hoping that I can escape him before the lactic acid burns in my arms and legs.

The fog is thicker in this direction, and I can’t see the Devil, but I can hear his pounding steps, and I keep running.

Something barges into my back, and the wind is knocked out of me as I fly face first into the mud. I can’t breathe and I look back to see the Devil’s foot raised, just as it lands on my backpack. He pins me down, and roars.

‘Charles?’

The comms has no connection. I register the shock coursing through my body and my brain rushes to make sense of what has happened. Schoolboy error on my behalf. The Devil couldn’t see me, but Charles said Carnotaurus had a great sense of smell. I’d been running with wind against my face.

He presses down on me with his clawed foot, and I scream involuntarily. If he presses any harder, he’ll break my ribs, perhaps even my back.

A quick death. The words enter my mind, and I find myself hoping for it.

I close my eyes and say a silent prayer for planet Earth and the billions of people I’ve let down.

The Devil cries a final roar, one that sounds so pained it sends a shiver down my spine. He releases the pressure on my back, surely lowering his head for the kill.

‘Gets up!’ I open my eyes and see Pip waving manically at me. I must already be dead and in Hell. The abandoned Pip is my punishment. ‘Gets up, ya!’

He runs towards me and drags me along the ground. I see two other humans attack the Devil. The boy lodges a long spear into the Devil’s neck, and he whines in pain. The girl lines up a shot with her bow and arrow. I don’t know how an arrow is going to pierce that armour but—

The arrow takes flight and strikes the Devil in the eye. Bullseye. He thrashes around, snapping the blade from the wooden spear. But with no hands, he can’t remove the arrow, save for rubbing his head against the ground. The girl runs towards him with a courage or stupidity that I’ve only seen in myself, and pulls the arrow from his eye without breaking stride. She lines up her bow for another shot.

But the Devil has had enough; he turns away and retreats into the forest, leaving the four of us panting for breath.

The girl returns her arrow to its bag, and places the bow over her shoulder. The boy picks up his broken spear and curses.

‘You’re welcome,’ says Pip.

‘How did you find me?’

‘We must’ve been heading in the same direction, ya? Then we saws that big horned bulldog—’

‘Carnotaurus,’ the other boy says.

‘Ya, same thing. We saws it stalking something. We were thinking we gots lucky, we’d pass it while it ate—’

‘Then Pip saw you.’ The girl with short black hair, offers her hand to help me up, and I accept. She’s only the height of Pip, but she’s strong.

‘I’m Jersey.’

‘I totally had you down as an Emelia,’ says Pip, looking surprised.

The girl rolls her eyes.

‘Name’s Dana.’

‘That’s hers English name.’

‘What’s your real name?’ I say and I wipe the muck from my face.

‘I doubt you’d be able to pronounce it if I told you.’

‘Spell it for me and I’ll try.’

‘Fine. Z-H-E-N.’

The name sounds Chinese. She doesn’t know my DVD collection back home includes House of Flying Daggers and 2046. I know that Chinese names in pinyin (which converts the Chinese characters into the roman alphabet) sometimes have different pronunciations, like X sounds like ‘sh’ rather than ‘ex’ and Q is like ‘ch’ rather than ‘qwi’.

‘Like Jen?’ I say, feeling like I’m cultured and fabulous.

She nods approvingly.

Pip points and clicks his tongue.

‘I totally thought it was Zee-hen,’ he says.

‘Shut up, Pip!’ says Zhen, and she punches him playfully on the arm.

‘Hey, cools your jet, man.’

‘And let’s put this to bed right now. I’m Chinese.’ At least I got that right. She points to the boy. ‘Takeshi is Japanese. We’re not one or the same.’

‘I’m American,’ says Pip. ‘Indian-American. Like, an American-born Indian, not a Native American. Although I’m borns in America, does that makes me native?’

Takeshi is taller than me, but not by much.

‘You’ll get used to Pip,’ says Takeshi. ‘He likes to talk.’

‘Takeshi is our resident optimist,’ says Zhen. ‘There’s nothing he won’t give credence to.’

‘The truth is out there,’ he says with a straight face.

I snigger.

‘Fan of The X-Files?’

‘The what?’ He looks genuinely confused.

‘The TV series about the paranormal and aliens?’

‘Never heard of it.’

Pip puts up his hand like he’s in a classroom.

‘I’ve heard of the X Factor. British TV.’ He raises one eyebrow and pinches his chin. ‘I think I may has it.’

‘Shut up, Pip,’ we all say in unison. We laugh although he’s not seeing the funny side.

‘We need to make a move,’ says Takeshi. ‘The Carnotaurus might come back.’

Takeshi is about to ditch his spear when I try to hand him my knife.

‘I owe you this at least,’ I say. ‘You could tape it to the end of your spear.’

He lifts his hand and gently pushes my arm away.

‘It’s fine. I wasn’t great with this thing. I’m no Donatello.’

‘He means the Ninja Turtle’ says Pip, ‘not the painter, ya?’

Takeshi grins and my mouth twitches.

‘If you’re handy with that knife, you best keep it.’

‘At least let me fix this for you,’ I say and I grab the broken spear. ‘I’ll use my knife to sharpen the end.’

He nods in agreement.

Pip is smiling beside me.

‘Don’t you have any weapons?’ I say.

‘I don’t, no. I just has my charming personality which has been known to disarms many a dino.’ He reaches into his pocket. ‘Oh, and a pairs of binocular.’ He lifts them to his eyes. ‘All the better to sees you with, muahaha!’

I manage a smile. I want to tell Pip that I’m sorry for abandoning him but I don’t. If he had followed me, perhaps I would have led us both to our deaths. It’s a sobering thought. The three are surviving as a group, and there’s a quiet camaraderie between them. I’ll never fit in, and maybe they won’t want me to.

‘So you’ll join us?’ says Pip.

Zhen and Takeshi walk ahead, not waiting for my answer. Maybe Pip has already told them about me leaving him in the lurch. But they did risk their lives for me, regardless.

The thought of being part of a group still unsettles me, but I can’t deny the inherent benefits. I push my stubbornness away, and take a leap into the unknown.

‘None of us will survive this, unless we stick together. So yeah, I’ll join you.’

Pip’s smile is beaming and for the first time in a while, I feel at peace.