Chapter Eleven Gasping

Tina stood up straight, revealing her whole self out of the vines. "What was that?" she asked, frightened.

"Uh ... I think it was Sally," I said.

Suddenly, it sounded as though something was coming crashing through the bushes, and then, Sally emerged with a few sticks sticking out of her hair. She was breathing hard, REALLY hard. Tina and I rushed over, along with everyone else.

Sally bent over and put her hands on her knees, breathing harder than I had ever seen anyone breathe before. Mr. Polycarp put a hand on her shoulder and we all waited until she was able to talk through her gasps. "It … I saw … it was Ka … Kale. He … he was … he was dead."

We all gasped and I stood up straight, my breath catching in my throat. Kale; dead? But he was so hot! 'Lane, that doesn't matter.' I thought, mentally slapping myself. No matter how hot I had thought Kale to be, that didn't change the fact that he was dead. Wait, had she even checked?

"How could you tell?" I blurted out. Everyone stared at me. I looked at my feet, wishing I could sink into the earth and never been seen again, at least until the people surrounding me had forgotten my stupid comment … or question, however you want to put it.

"Because the thing was …" Sally tried to say. She shuddered. "The thing was … was eating him."

We all gasped (again? Can't we think of better … noises?). "Sally, Sally what kind of creature was eating him?" Mr. Polycarp said.

Sally gulped, then gagged, and we all stepped back a few steps. We could tell she didn't like thinking about the awful thing she had seen, but Mr. Polycarp was making her. She shook her head and tears welled up in her eyes. "I don't know," she snap-sobbed. It was a strange thing, hearing Sally snap at someone in the middle of a sob. "Like I pay attention in class." Now that had been a true sneer.

Mr. Polycarp shifted his weight. "That doesn't matter now. We need to know, Sally. Just, just describe it for us."

Sally nodded. She wrinkled up her face and then shook it. Her complexion oddly turned a sort of green color. "It was biggish-small. It was … oh how should I know? I don't know anything about dinosaurs!"

"But we need to know," Mr. Polycarp protested.

"Sally, was it about six feet tall … or so?" Tina asked. I looked over at her. She was staring off into the trees and her face looked deathly pale. Sally nodded. "Did it have feather looking things on its head?" Tina asked, her face growing even paler.

"Um… yeah, I think so," Sally said. "Why?"

"Maybe we should … um, you know. Move." Tina said.

"Tina what are you …" I began. But suddenly, something darted out of the trees and pounced on Jessie, squashing him to the ground. I caught a fleeting glimpse of how tall the thing was, about six feet or so, and some feathers on its head. But that was all I saw before more things began jumping out of the trees and surrounding us.

Tina grabbed my arm and we ran. I felt something slash against my back and I screamed in pain, but kept running. Through the trees and bushes, over logs and stumps. I didn't stop for anything. Tina a run a head of me and was nowhere in sight. Maybe she thought one of the animals had gotten me or something; maybe she didn't care. But I kept on running, pushing these thoughts out of my mind and only concentrating on running, running for my life. What if something was running after me, chasing me into the depths of the forest? What if I was running into a trap?

This sudden thought slowed my gait, yet I kept running. Keeping my pace as steady as possible, I was able to keep my breath under some kind of control. But whatever had happened to my back was beginning to shoot sharp pains all through my body and I knew that I wouldn't be able to move very fast for much longer.

Without paying attention, I did not notice the thing ahead of me, running in my direction. The only way I did, was when I ran into it. I fell back on the ground, crying out in pain as my injury hit the dirt. My vision became blurry with tears and I saw the thing leaning over me. It was blue … but too skinny to be a dinosaur. Or was it? I couldn't tell.

"Lane. Lane. Get up, Lane. You need to get up. We're in the open," the thing was saying, trying to pull me to my feet. But every time it jerked on my arm, my back began to hurt even worse.

I wrenched my arm from its grasp and put it back onto the lower half of my back. Gently I inched my hand along. Well, the bottom half of my shirt was missing, I could tell you that. Then, my hands met something sticky yet strangely wettish. I kept slowly moving my hand until I got to the real source of my pain. I quickly pulled my hand away, sobbing in pain. There was a huge gash in the lower half of my back.

"Lane, I know it hurts, but you need to get up. Come on, Lane. Please?" the person (as I had so intelligently discovered it was by now) was pleading now, trying to gently lift me to my feet. I obeyed, but quickly wished I hadn't. The pain was so great, I felt, no, I WISHED that I would die. I bit my tongue, and raised myself to my full height.

"Come on, Lane, we need to run. Do you think you can do that for me?"

I nodded weakly and began walking. As my eyes cleared, my step quickened and I was soon in a run. I couldn't tell whom I was following, but there were two of them. We raced along as I had done before, my back not hurting near as much any more. As we ran, I received a few more cuts and later found bruises. One particular cut I got from a large tree branch that came up out of nowhere was on my upper right arm, and it was rather deep. Clapping a hand over it so that I wouldn't lose too much more blood, I kept on, running doggedly after my rescuers.

Finally, we reached a swamp looking place with what looked like a water … truck … thing in the middle. We hopped up on what I thought was a rock, then jumped onto a desk looking thing, then one of the people opened and hatch and the other person and I climbed inside, followed by … the person who had opened the hatch.

It was rather dark and dingy inside and a bit damp and musty smelling. It was crowded with shelves full of stuff and there were boxes everywhere. The person who had entered before me turned around and smiled. I almost choked. "HANNAH!" I cried.

"Hush!" she said, beaming. "You don't want to attract any unwanted visitors. Now sit down," she said, motioning to what looked like a bed. She pushed a couple boxes off and I gladly sat down.

"What's up?" the other person said, stepping into the light of a lamp hanging from the ceiling. It was Eric Kirby.

"Nothing much," I said. But then, the pain from my wound came back, and it came back strong. I shook my head and rested it in my hands, not wanting Eric to see my tears,

"Lane, what's wrong?" Hannah asked, sounding worried. But I barely heard her before I fainted from the pain.