Agent Larson turned to one of the nearest soldiers. “Get some grenades, or anything else explosive that we can set around the portal. We still might be able to interrupt the portal’s frequency with something smaller than we originally planned.”
Murky continued to scream at Chicago as he refused to let go of the creature, which was finally forced to turn all of its attention to the dinosaur. It raked its huge mandibles against the leg Chicago was chomping, an act that succeeded in dislodging the dinosaur but also tore off a large portion of its own leg. The cry the ant-lion gave was unearthly, unlike anything they had ever heard before, but Laura took it as a good sign that maybe they might be able to win this. A couple of soldiers ran forward with open crates of what Laura assumed had to be the explosives, although to her they looked more like ropes made out of some kind of long, thin, clay-like material. “Um, is this stuff really explosive?” Laura asked as she gingerly pulled one out and held it up where she could see it.
“It’s something experimental,” one of the soldiers said. To Laura’s surprise, he didn’t make a fuss about the fact that a teenager with no military experience was handling a volatile substance. Instead he showed her how to stick the detonators into each of the ropes. “You don’t need to worry about setting it off. That can only be done by remote.”
While Laura was preoccupied with that, Henderson found himself next to a similar crate as it was opened. But instead of the strange explosives, this one had a large number of grenades. “Oh hell yeah!” Henderson said and reached in to grab a handful, startling the soldier that had opened the crate.
“Wait, kid, what are you doing?” he asked. “You can’t just…”
“Watch me!” Henderson said, then ran in the direction of the portal and the giant ant-lion. The soldier didn’t seem to know whether he should be trying to stop him or direct him about the best place to throw the weapons. Henderson, however, was smart enough to not just go tossing the hand grenades willy-nilly at the ant-lion. With his luck it would probably hit the creature’s chitin and then bounce back to explode in his face. Instead he looked for a large spot between the edge of the portal and the ant-lion’s body where he would be able to chuck the grenades, some place where their explosions wouldn’t shower the townsfolk and soldiers in shrapnel.
While Henderson, with assistance from Jesse, started lobbing the grenades down the portal like they were basketballs, Murky ran over to the spot where Chicago had been thrown to the ground some distance from the raging battle. “Chicago! Please, please be okay!”
But she could tell just from a quick look at him that he was not going to be okay at all. The leg that she had previously wrapped up with Henderson’s gym shirt was twisted at a sickening angle, and there were gashes and cuts all over him that bled profusely. This wasn’t something she would be able to patch up with torn pieces of clothing this time, and she doubted there was a veterinarian in the area who was practiced with healing damaged velociraptor anatomy.
Still, she didn’t want to give up on him just yet. “Come on, Chicago. Get up. We can still get you somewhere safe. Just get up and I promise I’ll take care of you for as long as I live.”
Chicago looked at her, and there was absolutely no doubt in her mind that he knew what she was trying to say, whether he understood her language or not. If there was something he wanted to say back to her though, it was beyond his abilities. He was at least able to stand back up, even though it caused him obvious pain and gave Murky one last look that was almost tender in nature.
Murky understood. Before he could do anything, she flung her arms around his neck and hugged him. “Goodbye,” she said through copious tears.
Henderson and Jesse’s maneuvers with the grenades must have been doing quite a lot of damage to the creature down in the hole where they couldn’t see, because the ant-lion was slipping slowly back in. That didn’t stop it from trying to grab a few of the townspeople to take down with it. Before it could reach anyone with its mandibles though, Chicago threw himself into their reach. The ant-lion grabbed on to him and tried to crush him, but the dinosaur slashed at the giant insect’s face, tearing up its eyes and causing the thing to howl in pain.
“The charges are set!” Laura called out. “Everyone get out of the way!”
The last few people who hadn’t already run dove out of the way for cover. Murky looked away from the flash as the explosives went off. At first she didn’t think they had worked, but then the edge of the portal became erratic, and the color of the blue light intensified. The ant-lion gave one last scream of agony then dropped all the way back down the hole.
The blue portal snapped shut with a terrific boom, leaving nothing behind to show that it had ever been there but dirt, rock, and broken pavement.
Chapter Sixteen
As the buzzing and thrumming that had been caused by the portal died down and echoed off into the night, an uneasy silence fell over Kettle Hollow for several seconds. Then, as one, everyone in the center of town cheered. Or at least, the ones who were still alive did.
The four young friends found each other and made their way through the throngs, looking for anyone in authority that they might be able to speak to. Agent Larson was at the edge of
