The Great Zoo of China (23 page)

As the garbage truck raced through the tunnel, swerving and weaving, she edged down the running board toward the ladder.

The fluorescent lights of the tunnel whizzed by beside her as she made her way down the side of the speeding truck.

CJ arrived at the ladder, grabbed a rung and hauled herself quickly up it.

She poked her head up over the roof—to find herself staring into the sinister smile of the dragon that had been knocked off the side of the truck earlier!

It was perched on the roof of the garbage truck, tail slinking behind it, its chin pressed against the roof so that its huge head was perfectly level with CJ’s face. It had been waiting for her. It was again grinning its smug, self-satisfied smile.

The dragon sprang forward, snapping, but CJ was quicker. She slid back down her ladder, dropping as the dragon’s jaws came together with a chomp, catching nothing but air.

CJ gasped as she hit the bottom of the ladder.

But she couldn’t stay here. The dragon on the roof would come over the side at any moment.

She turned to look forward just as—
whack!
—another dragon landed on the
side
of the speeding garbage truck, its claws piercing the steel wall like can-openers, blocking her path that way.

It was Melted Face.

This is insane
, she thought. There were now three dragons on the speeding garbage truck.

And she herself literally had nowhere to go.

Nowhere, except—

‘Hamish!’ she yelled into her earpiece. ‘Open the rear loader!’

‘
What?!
’

‘Just do it or I’m toast!’

‘
Okay!
’

CJ edged back along the running board, just as the smiling dragon slunk down the same ladder she had used to escape it. Only two feet ahead of it, CJ swung around the rear of the garbage truck, hurling herself into its rear loader.

The rear tray stank. A hydraulically-operated steel plate—the truck’s compacter—lay before her. Right now it was closed, sealing off the truck’s internal hopper.

Smiley poked his head around the side of the truck, grinning malevolently.

‘Hamish . . . !’

Up in the cabin, Hamish was leaning as far back as he could in his seat. An inch in front of his nose, his dragon’s claw snatched and clutched, trying to get at him.

He scanned the controls of the cabin, looking for the switch that operated the rear compacter.

He saw it—a red button—and ducking under the snatching claw, quickly hit it.

With a mechanical clanking, the compacter began to open, creating a narrow opening at its base.

CJ dived for the gap as Smiley leapt around into the rear tray. CJ rolled through the small opening, through the remains of some stinking garbage. The gap was big enough for her but not for the dragon. She was clear.

‘Okay, Hamish! Now close it again!’

The dragon attacking the cabin rammed its head through the smashed windshield and roared loudly at Hamish.

Zhang recoiled. Syme ducked. Greg Johnson was frantically trying to regather his AK-47 from the floor. And with the dragon now right in his face, Hamish couldn’t reach the button that operated the rear compacter.

At the back of the garbage truck, to CJ’s horror, the compacter’s steel plate continued to open.

CJ was sitting inside the dark steel box that was the truck’s hopper, pressed up against some compacted rubbish, powerless to do anything about the door that was opening further every second.

The dark silhouette of the dragon outside grew larger.

If Hamish reversed the door now, the dragon wouldn’t be able to get in, but in a few seconds, the gap would be big enough for it to enter and then CJ would be trapped in here with it.

‘Hamish! I need you to close the compacter door
right now
!’

With CJ’s cries ringing in his ears, Hamish twisted in his seat, narrowly avoiding the snapping jaws of the dragon hanging off the front of the speeding garbage truck.

Then suddenly it managed to thrust its snout through the cracked hole in the windshield and it lunged for his face—

Blam!

Blood exploded from the back of the dragon’s head and the animal snapped backwards.

Hamish turned to see Greg Johnson with his assault rifle levelled in one outstretched arm. He’d fired it into the dragon’s left eye from point-blank range.

The dragon toppled backwards and fell off the speeding truck, dropping to the road beneath it.

The garbage truck bumped as it ran over the corpse.

‘
Hamish . . . !
’ CJ ’s voice came in over the radio.

‘Oh, no, CJ . . .’ Hamish gasped as he hit the red button again, closing the rear compacter.

But he did it too late.

At the exact moment that Hamish hit the switch, the compacter’s door had come fully open, and CJ—her back pressed against the wall of compacted garbage—found herself facing the dragon she had christened Smiley, standing in the rear loading tray of the truck. Smiley had her.

Clenching her teeth, CJ yanked out her Glock pistol, levelled it and—

Click
.

‘No!’

Click.

Out of ammo.

Smiley grinned.

And then—thanks to Hamish—the door began to close again.

Smiley saw it lowering, so he just stepped inside the hopper, now only a few feet away from CJ.

CJ couldn’t believe it. Out of bullets and out of options, she was now stuck in here with the dragon.

‘Oh, this is
not
fair,’ she muttered. ‘Not fucking fair . . .’

And then she saw it.

A small plastic bottle lying on the heap of compacted trash, one that had somehow avoided being completely crushed in the compacting process. A bottle of turpentine-based solvent.

The door was halfway closed, the gap at its base only four feet high and getting smaller by the second.

CJ grabbed the solvent bottle, unscrewed its cap and threw it at the advancing dragon.

Turpentine sprayed all over Smiley’s face, splattering the dragon’s eyes.

Smiley shrieked, clutching at its eyes.

CJ dashed forward, running low, and scuttled around the reeling dragon before dive-sliding on her belly under the slowly-closing compacter door.

She slid back out into the artificial light of the tunnel—back out into the rear tray—just as the thick compacter door closed with a resounding boom and the squeals of the dragon became muffled.

‘
CJ!
’ Hamish’s voice came through her earpiece. ‘
Are you inside the truck?
’

‘No,’ she replied. ‘But one of our dragon friends is. Crush it!’

‘
Sure thing!
’

A moment later, the compacter door shifted slightly, beginning a powerful pushing motion—a compacting motion that was designed to compress its load of trash against the front wall of the hopper.

The squeals of the dragon inside became high-pitched wails as it realised what was happening.

Those wails reached a crescendo as the compacter closed in on the hapless beast. And then CJ heard a hideous crunching sound as Smiley was crushed to nothing by the compacter.

CJ exhaled a deep sigh of relief. ‘Goddamn.’

I
t was time to get to the driver’s cabin and rejoin the others. But after her previous experiences on the side of the truck, there was only one way she wanted to go: over the top.