Z. Rex (9 page)

That night, Adam decided to wear the gas mask he’d packed, to ward off the chill and keep the sting of the wind from his eyes. But it did little to improve his comfort, and the rubbery smell didn’t help his nausea any.

He rested his cheek against Zed’s neck. Even through the rubber, Adam could feel the dinosaur’s knots of muscle bunch and relax with every sweep of those powerful wings. He closed his eyes, wished he could sleep and wake to find the journey was over. Or better, that this whole nightmare had been exactly that—a bad dream. Maybe he’d had a fever or something, and would wake to find his dad smiling down at him. “Quite a temperature you had there, Ad, but now it’s—”

Adam jerked awake to find himself in free fall, tumbling through the night, arms and legs windmilling helplessly. For a dizzying moment he couldn’t tell up from down or ground from sky. The sleeves of the hazard-suit flapped uselessly around him in the fierce gale of his descent; the knots Zed had tied in them must have come loose.

He screamed through his mask, a raw shriek of horror.

Buffeted by the wind, turning in midair, Adam saw a dark shadow rushing up to meet him and braced himself for the impact. But the next moment, hard pressure clamped down on his rib cage. His body jerked—and suddenly he was lifted upward in the rough grip of two massive claws. The sprawling shadow was above him, all but swamping the stars as its huge wings beat violently through the night.

Adam felt sick with shock and relief. The killer dinosaur had just saved his life.

Sure he saved you,
a mocking voice said.
He’s not taking you on this little trip for nothing.

By the time dawn had begun to bleed away the blackness of night, Adam could spare no thoughts for the beauty or the wonder of the sunrise over the Adirondack mountains, only a searing sense of gratitude that the ordeal would soon be over for a few more hours.

Zed touched down beside a fast-flowing creek that trailed through a rocky valley like so much black ribbon. He and Adam crashed out in the shelter of the sheer mountainside.

Adam refilled the empty water bottles from the stream. He had never felt more exhausted. His ribs were bruised mud-black. Every movement hurt him and his muscles felt ready to peel away from his bones. And his thoughts kept jerking back to his free-fall flight. The way Zed had swooped down and snatched him from certain death.

He glanced across at the dinosaur, who lay curled up on his side, his wings tightly folded under his bony back. “I thought I was dead last night,” Adam told him. “That was quite a move you pulled off.”

Zed didn’t react, his breathing shallow, black eyes dull.

“Guess I should say thanks, huh?” Adam screwed the cap onto one of the refilled bottles and snorted softly. “Yeah. Thanks to my dad. Thanks for dragging me into this whole stupid situation.” He shook his head miserably, flapped the stretched, grimy sleeves of the hazard-suit. “Oh, Dad—”

“Dad,” Zed rasped suddenly. “W . . . X . . . Y . . . Z.”

Adam looked at him warily. “What’s the alphabet got to do with anything?”

The creature tried again. “Y . . . zed.”

“Yeah. Dad changed the way he said it, thought I might get confused. Must’ve thought I was stupid.”

Zed went on muttering in his hoarse sandpaper voice. “Y . . . Z.”

Adam looked at his disheveled reflection in the water of the creek. “Why
me
?” he whispered.

To Adam, the flight from the Adirondacks to Newfoundland felt like the longest yet, through driving rain and gusting wind. The heavens decided to put on a light show, with toothy forks of lightning zigzagging past over the forests of Maine. Thunder ripped all around. The clouds were like giant, black timbers stacked in front of the stars.

Adam had hurtled on through it all, hunched up on Zed’s back as those wings doggedly knifed at the rain-lashed night.

Now here he was with dusk tugging down the shutters on the fourth day, perched on a desolate crag that stuck out from the churning Atlantic like a bad tooth, staring out to sea. The sun was finally shining, but Adam still felt cold, damp and rotten.

Zed had hardly stirred all day, except to go shark fishing around noon. He had an unusual technique. First, he scraped a daggered claw along his muscular forearm. Then he plunged the bleeding flesh into the sea, and stood waiting, motionless and alert, for as long as it took.

Adam shuddered to remember the sight of Zed snatching his arm from the sea with an enormous shark hanging from the end of it. It had flapped about in a frenzy, refusing to relinquish its scaly catch even as it vanished down inside Zed’s bulging throat like an olive sucked from a cocktail stick. A minute or so later, Zed spat out some bloody lumps back into the water—and so attracted more sharks.

It was typical of the dinosaur’s strategies, Adam decided—intelligent, brutal and entirely successful.

“My stomach’s grown a lot stronger since I met you,” Adam reflected, watching the resting goliath. He supposed that the fact he was able to make jokes about stuff must prove he was getting used to Zed’s existence. Then again, it was tricky to go on disbelieving when you were hog-tied to the evidence, night after night.

But it was one thing to accept the existence of talking, flying dinosaurs, another to have to sit so close to those giant jaws, to have those black, unblinking eyes fixed on you hungrily.

They stood on their tiny pinnacle of rock together, prisoner and jailer.

“How’re you feeling, Zed?” Adam said suddenly. “Those burns on your face look like they’re getting better.”

The creature didn’t react. Adam persisted, craving some kind of acknowledgment. “I ache everywhere. But I’m sort of getting used to it.” He noticed a thick trickle of crimson running freely from the shark bites on Zed’s arm. “Hey, you’re still bleeding from earlier. Doesn’t it hurt?”

Zed regarded him, suspicion in his eyes.

Adam wondered if here was a possible way to get the animal on his side. “We should maybe try to bandage that cut. It could get infected.” He rummaged in one of the rucksacks for the small navy sweater he’d been using for a towel and pillow. “I could use this to stop the bleeding.”

As he held up the sweater, the dinosaur growled in warning. Adam was about to back down, but knew an opportunity like this might not come again. If he could only win the creature’s trust, prove that he had some usefulness over and above whatever Zed had planned for him . . . if he could make this thing start to think of him as a
friend.
. . .

“You saved me before,” Adam said quietly. “Let me help you now.”

The dinosaur shifted uncertainly, bared his teeth. Adam’s legs started to tremble.
Come on,
he told himself,
you’ve been crushed up against him for the last who-knows-how-long. He hasn’t eaten you yet.

Holding his breath, fumbling like an idiot, he placed the sweater around the beast’s gory arm as gently as he could. Again, Zed made that low warning rattle in the back of his throat. Trying not to whimper, Adam tied the sleeves of the sweater in a crude knot and backed hurriedly away.

Zed stared down blankly at the dark woolen accessory he had just acquired. Adam bit his lip as an unexpected smile twitched at his cheeks. It looked as though the dinosaur was wearing a big blue bow.

“There we go,” Adam murmured, turning to hide his amusement. “Much better.” He reached into one of the rucksacks and pulled out the crumpled map. “Wonder where we are now?”

Zed reached over with his bandaged arm and gestured to somewhere around Newfoundland.

“Really? So, only about twenty-five hundred miles of Atlantic Ocean between us and dry land, then.” Adam closed his eyes, lacking the will even to summon a hysterical laugh. “We’ll hit Ireland first. Little hop from there, and we’re home. Easy.” He blew out a long sigh. “Still, I guess we can fly by day as well, now—there’ll be no one below to see us. If you’re up to it, I mean. And if we can survive on a gallon of fresh water between us . . .”

Adam trailed off as Zed turned from him, batting one loose arm of the sweater bandage like an overgrown kitten playing with wool.

“If we do get to Scotland,” Adam began again, “you’ll be going after the people who hurt you, right? To go so far, you’ve got to be.” He took a deep breath. “Just remember, my dad was only at Fort Ponil for eight days. He was forced to work there.”
Just like you’re forcing me to stay with you,
he thought. “He would never have wanted to hurt you, Zed. They made him do it.”

Zed lay down and stared out over the water. “No,” he growled.

“Yes!” Adam insisted. “And so I want to get back at them too, Zed. Geneflow Solutions has messed up everything in my life. I don’t know what you want from me, but if I can help you get back at them, I will.”

This time, the huge reptile made no reply.

“You must be so tired,” Adam went on nervously. “I mean, to put yourself through this kind of strain, night after night . . . how do you do it?” He hesitated, as curiosity got the better of fear. “It’s almost as if you were made for this kind of life. What
were
you made for?”

But Zed kept staring out over the horizon, and Adam’s only answer was the foam and crash of the dark sea.

F
or Adam, the days that followed became a numbing blur of ocean and sky, of flight and fitful sleep. Adam dreamed of soft beds, hot food and as much cool water as he could drink.

As sunlight ebbed from the eighth long day, Adam watched land resolve itself slowly out of wreaths of low cloud. If they were on track, then this could be the west coast of Ireland. Adam felt a sense of growing excitement. He’d actually managed to live through this insane odyssey.

But any happiness was wiped out by growing nerves about what he was going to do when they got to Edinburgh.

Or rather, what Zed was going to do.