The world exploded with the sound of twisting metal and screeching tires.
When he came back to himself, Zach was lying on the road, laid on his back with his knees by his head and all of his weight pressing down dangerously on his neck. Gray was lying on his side a few feet in front of him. Past the prone body of his little brother was the ambulance, now on its side, the front wheel still spinning.
He groaned and peeled himself from the road. His heart fluttered in his chest, and his arms shook as he pushed himself up into a kneeling position.
"Gray?" he hissed. When he got no answer, he thumped the road, as if the dull sound would be any better at rousing his brother. "Gray!"
His head was swimming. The sight of the ambulance on its side inspired a faded panic, but he couldn't make out any thoughts behind the fog that had settled on his mind.
Oh shit, he thought suddenly, forcing himself to his feet. Aunt Claire!
He sprinted towards the ambulance, only making it halfway before he skidded to a halt.
Something was moving.
His first thought was that it was some kind of snake, hanging out of the drivers side window and thrashing victoriously in the night air. Then his memory returned.
It wasn't a snake- it was a tail. A raptor tail. That meant that the rest of it was-
Oh God...
He didn't realise he'd been backing up until he tripped. Beneath him, Gray grunted. Zach righted himself and checked the ambulance; the tail had begun to wriggle, sending shards of glass flying as the animal it was attached to struggled to back out of the narrow window.
"Gray, get up!' he muttered. Gray stirred, but didn't wake. "Gray! Please!" He got no response.
Blood pounded in his ears. He didn't have time for this. Throwing a final glance back over his shoulder at the ambulance, Zach bent down and hefted Gray into his arms, holding him carefully against his chest and cradling his head with one hand, just in case, then retreated into the forest as fast as his brother's dead weight would allow.
The staccato beat of gunfire echoed through the trees, getting louder the further in he went. He slowly became numb to them as he continued on, stumbling through the foliage and clinging to his little brother for dear life.
A gentle voice snapped him out of his trance, and he hugged Gray tight as he stopped to listen.
In the distance, somebody screamed. The noise sent ice through his veins.
"Fire!" the voice was saying. Zach furrowed his brow- something about the voice sounded off, but he couldn't place it. "Light it uh-uuup!"
A twig snapped somewhere ahead of him, and he leapt back as though struck.
"Don't- don't give me that shi-hiiit!" Something about the way the voice spoke was almost familiar. Despite knowing he should probably run and hide, he remained where he was, listening intently in the hopes of satisfying the sudden burning curiosity that had taken over him. "Aaaaaand we're movin'!"
Suddenly, he realised what it was; his girlfriend back home had a parrot, and when it mimicked her voice, it often failed to match her tone. This was the same thing, except it sounded bigger, somehow, seeming to resonating deep within the chest.
A flash of movement split the brush before him, and finally he moved, taking off into a denser part of the brush.
"Oh she's pretty isn't she pretty!" The voice warped as its owner moved. It was too dark to see. Is it coming closer or moving away?
"Zach?" The closeness of Gray's voice startled him so badly that Zach nearly dropped him.
"Shh!"
"My head hurts," Gray muttered.
"Shut up! It'll hear you!"
"What'll hear me?" But Zach wasn't listening. He could still hear the rustling, but whether it was drawing near or not, he couldn't say. "Zach? What will hear me?"
"Hear me?!"
Suddenly it seemed as though the jungle burst into life. As the brush around them erupted into madness, Zach dropped Gray and ran, pulling him along by the wrist and ignoring his startled protests. Gray, to his credit, hit the ground running.
"Velociraptor! I saw it!" Gray cried, stumbling as he attempted to look back again.
"Just keep running!"
Behind them, the raptor pack began a mad chorus of warped phrases and half-words.
"We can't outrun it!" Gray called. "A hungry velociraptor can reach speeds of up to fifty miles per hour!"
Zach growled. Of course they can. "Well what do you suggest?" He turned a sharp corner, darting between two thick tree trunks, and heard claws on wood a second later as the raptor tried to follow him. He didn't stop. He was running on auto-pilot now, the only thought he could bring to mind was one of survival.
A frustrated roar followed him as he vaulted a fallen tree, the bark burned and smouldering still.
He lost his footing as he landed on the other side, and Gray followed him down.
Many of the shrubs nearby were either burning or burnt, and the ground was covered in ash that flared up into giant plumes as they landed in the dirt. Zach could feel it tickling the back of his throat, but he didn't dare cough.
As he moved to get up, Gray held onto him. He turned, glaring into the most terrified expression he'd ever seen in his life.
"No, stay down," Gray whispered, pointing to something behind him.
He looked, and bit back a scream- there were bodies strewn all around them, some whole, some not. The nearest one was only a few inches from Zach's face, blood oozing from a gigantic bite mark in the abdomen and turning the ash below it into a swampy brown mess.
Bushes rustled from the direction they'd come from, and both boys stiffened.
"Play dead," Zach mouthed, and Gray nodded, tears in his eyes, then put his head down and shut his eyes.
Zach watched him struggle to keep himself calm, trembling forcefully and whimpering quietly into the sleeve of his jacket. The rustling was slowly getting closer- either the raptors thought they'd fallen too far behind, or they knew they wouldn't have to run anymore. Zach prayed it was the former.
Keeping himself low to the ground, he shuffled towards Gray and pulled him into a hug. Gray flinched violently, then relaxed into the contact and slowly, the shaking stopped.
They waited like that for what seemed like an eternity. He fought to control his breathing, kept his mind on the movement of air, and listened.
A heavy foot landed nearby. Gray flinched, Zach didn't. The footstep was quickly followed by half a dozen more as the raptor made her way into the burnt clearing.
She sneezed, and the noise would have been comical if not for its proximity.
"Pre-tty girl," she chirped. "Isn't she- pretty isn't she- atta girl Blue-!" Zach heard her sniff at one of the bodies, and her rhythmless rambling cut off in a fit of hacking and sneezing.
Zach dared to open his eyes. The raptor was standing less than two feet away from them, illuminated only by the still burning brush nearby. She was facing away from them, head turning rapidly as she squinted around the clearing and snorted to clear the last of the dust from her nose.
"Pretty- she's pretty- she's pre-tty and she's- oh look isn't she-!"
Her tail swung as she turned herself around, the cluster of feathers that adorned the end of it grazing Zach's hair and brushing some of the ash from his head. The raptor sneezed again.
She leaned down to sniff Gray's hair, and for a second, Zach's blood ran cold. Then she recoiled, grunting and hacking.
She was getting frustrated. After another failed attempt at getting a good whiff of air, she stepped over them and continued on, ducking under a flaming tree branch and disappearing out of the clearing.
Once all that was left of her was the faded echo of 'pretty, pretty, pretty', Zach dared to lift his head.
"Come on," he whispered, getting up. "We've gotta move." As if to emphasise his point, a branch from a nearby tree split from its trunk with an almighty crack and crashed to the ground just inches away from them. "Gray! What's wrong with you?"
He knelt down and nudged Gray's shoulder, and only then did he notice his brother sniffling.
"Where's aunt Claire?" he asked. He rolled over to look Zach in the eyes, and half of his face was hidden by ash. Zach didn't answer.
"Come here." He lifted Gray to his feet and drew him in close, brushing the ash out of his hair as he did so. "We're okay." He hugged tighter, finding comfort in the contact as he fisted his fingers in Gray's jacket. "We've gotta try to find the road."
"Okay." Gray broke the hug and wiped his nose with the back of his sleeve. The tears in his eyes and on his cheeks were glowing red with the fire's light, an eerie effect that unnerved Zach more than he cared to admit. "And then we can go home, right?"
"Yeah! First boat out of here, and we'll be home by morning. Mom and Dad'll pick us up, and everything will go back to normal."
The faint hope that had risen on Gray's face blinked out at the mention of their parents, and it took Zach a moment to understand why.
"Hey," he said, putting his hand on Gray's shoulder. "Everything's gonna be okay. No matter what. I'll make sure of that."
The promise sounded weak even to his own ears, but it seemed to work. Gray's smile came back, and Zach offered his own in return.
The crackling of the fire was getting louder, the glow spreading further into the brush as the fire slowly grew out of control. The air smelled strongly of smoke and burning meat, a grim reminder that they were standing in what was essentially a graveyard. The sooner they got out of here, the better.
"Come on," he whispered. His eyes found the source of the smell- a female soldier whose back was in flames, her uniform melting to her flesh and sending plumes of reeking smoke into the clearing.
He took Gray's hand and led him away from the bodies. Somewhere deep in the jungle, something roared, it's cry long and loud and terrifying. The sound nearly froze him, but he forced himself to ignore it. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Gray looking up at him uncertainly. He gave his best reassuring smile.
"Probably nothing," he said, sounding braver than he felt. Gray nodded.
"Okay."
