“The portal’s still open!” Laura said. “We may still have a chance to do this.”
“Um, I don’t think we’re going to have that chance for much longer,” Henderson said. “Look!”
He pointed back down the tunnel. Something was coming, something huge. Something that blocked the light behind it. Something with giant, over-sized mandibles at the front of its head.
Something that was going to be here any second.
Chapter Fifteen
Laura got separated from the others on the desperate run up the stairs, so she somehow ended up near the front of the line of townspeople as they spilled out over the glowing blue edge of the portal. It was tough to tell who was more surprised: the townspeople who suddenly had guns stuck in their faces, or the soldiers, who had given the town up for dead and were now surrounding the portal, doing whatever preparations they needed to blow it closed. There was some frantic shouting from the soldiers, but it stayed fairly organized until the unholy scream of a monster echoed up from the bottom of the hole and caused both military and civilian alike to start running away from the edge in chaos.
The vast majority of the townspeople got out of the hole and over the edge of the portal before the creature came up. Murky wasn’t sure which direction to run, so instead she just stayed near Chicago and let his fearsome snarl scare away anyone that came close to trampling her. Mr. Turnbull ended up being the last one on the stairs, but he never got a chance to step over the blue line that separated the dimensions. The monster came up behind him and snatched him up in its jaws before rearing up and giving everyone in town a clear view of the thing that had been pursuing them.
Murky had never seen an ant-lion before, so she could only assume that Jesse was right in his assumption that this was some kind of cosmic mutant version of one. It towered almost two stories over everyone, and that was with a significant portion of it still down in the hole. It was mostly insectoid, but just like the ants and aphids, it had more legs than it was supposed to. Unlike the other extra-dimensional bugs though, it had at least ten legs that Murky could see. But the truly terrifying aspect of the creature, the part they had only gotten the barest hint of earlier, were its massive, out-of-proportion mandibles clicking at the air. The mandibles crushed Mr. Turnbull into paste, allowing the creature to more easily consume its prey.
Chicago growled next to her. He almost looked like he was aware that Murky was in danger and didn’t want to let anything happen to her. He took several steps forward, putting himself between her and the beast.
“Chicago, no! Please don’t do it!”
There was no doubt about it this time. As the velociraptor turned its head to look at her, Murky was positive that it completely understood what she was saying, or at least the sentiment behind her words. It even did something that might have been a response this time, a guttural and sad sound from deep in its throat. Then it turned back to the massive ant-lion and hissed a clear challenge.
The creature finished gulping down Mr. Turnbull, then started scanning the running townsfolk for its next victim. Multiple soldiers were running toward the portal, their guns firing, but none of the bullets seemed to phase the enormous ant-lion. Chicago rushed up to the swirling glow at the edge of the portal and jumped, his mouth wide and ready to snap. His jaw latched tight and hard on one of the ant-lion’s legs, causing an audible crack of chitin to be heard. The ant-lion screeched and shook its leg, but Chicago held tight.
“It’s distracted!” one of the soldiers yelled. “Everyone, aim for the head and eyes!”
The air erupted with gunfire, and Murky screamed as she saw one or two errant shots hit Chicago. Even though the dinosaur winced and flailed in pain, he still held on, and the ant-lion was so preoccupied with him that it seemed to barely notice the bullets hitting it.
While the townsfolk ran screaming in terror and the soldiers confusedly shot at anything that didn’t seem human, Laura saw Agent Larson trying to command several troops off to one side and ran toward her. Larson saw her coming and tried to wave her away.
“Kid, this is seriously not the best time.”
“You said something earlier about ordinance to close the portal,” Laura said. “You have to use it now!”
“Are you crazy? The plan was to destroy the entire town, and to do it from a distance. We can’t do it while everyone is still right here!”
“If you don’t do it or something like it, then that ant-lion thing is going to escape and get out into the world,” Laura said. “If you’ve got the means to blow it up, it might be better to try doing it now than if it makes a beeline for Milwaukee or Green Bay!”
As if in response, the ant-lion pulled its enormous body up further out of the hole and used one of its legs to swipe at a group of more official looking soldiers. One of them tried to call out an order, but before he could complete it, they were all swept aside and flung through
