Part Three

Da-dum-da-dum, da-dum-da-dum – the boys' hearts thundered, stampeding madly like a herd of frightened wildebeests.

'Run' an inner voice screamed at them, rising above the rapid drumbeat, rising above the savage rhythm of their fear.

Another howl, louder, and possibly more furious than the first.

Forgetting his twisted ankle, Xander lurched to his feet, oblivious to the pain. He had taken his first two strides away from the truck before he even realized he was running. Two more strides, and something hit his back. Xander fell. Hard.

The wind was knocked out of him, otherwise he would have screamed. A weight on his back pressed him face-down into the dirt. Xander flailed and struggled, assaulted by images of a huge monster with gleaming teeth and claws like knives tearing into his flesh. His scream was muffled by dry earth and a resounding smack against his head.

"Are you nuts?" A voice hissed into his ear. "Where d'you think you're going?"

Jack. Not the monster. If he'd been standing, Xander's knees would have buckled. As it happened, he merely sagged with relief.

"Listen, chicken. We stay together. If I say 'run', we run. But not before." Jack underlined his words with a shove. "Understood?"

All for one, and one for all? Not quite, but Xander nodded.

A moment later, the weight on Xander's back was gone. The other boy grabbed his collar and hoisted him to his feet. "Come on, chicken." Jack practically manhandled him back to the truck where Daniel and Jesse were waiting.

Jesse. His best friend. Who was looking at Xander like someone had just died.

Xander could feel his face burn with shame. He'd run. Turned tail. Without his best friend. He hadn't planned to. It had just happened.

He crouched down beside Jesse. "Look, I'm—I'm sorry," Xander stammered, wishing the earth would just open up and swallow him whole. "I didn't mean to—I just freaked, you know? I wasn't thinking." 'Please don't look at me like that, please don't look at me like that,' Xander chanted in his head.

However, the wounded look in Jesse's eyes showed no signs of fading. "Yeah, whatever," the boy muttered without inflection. He shrugged, and looked away.

"Hey, I nearly freaked too," Daniel said softly.

It was a nice gesture, and ordinarily Xander would have appreciated it, but they were in what amounted to enemy territory, surrounded by wild beasts, and Xander had just lost his best friend to the wilderness of hurt feelings. "Who asked you?" he snapped at the other boy.

"If you're done talking," Jack interrupted, "you might wanna take cover."

His words were drowned out by another howl.

"Whoa!" As one, the boys scrambled for cover. A mere second later, the four boys were huddled underneath the tail end of the big truck, flanked by two sets of over-sized wheels that afforded them a certain amount of protection.

This time, the howl was followed by loud banging and a blur of other, unidentifiable noises. Shouts too.

Xander looked down, and saw Jesse clinging to his arm, fingers digging painfully into his flesh.

"What is that?" Jesse whispered, staring wide-eyed into the dark. His face was deathly pale. He looked as scared as Xander felt.

"I don't know," Xander whispered back, wondering if he should put his arm round his friend's shoulder. He was still trying to find the necessary courage, when Jesse let go of his arm and inched away from him, nearer to Jack.

Xander swallowed. Deep down he knew he deserved his friend's deliberate rejection, nevertheless it made him sick at heart.

The howl had sounded dangerously close, as though the unknown beast was merely a stone throw away.

"I know one thing," Jack said under his breath, "it wasn't a lion. I know a secret way into the zoo. Been there more often than I can count. Lions or tigers don't howl like that. Same goes for hyenas."

Xander had seen enough western movies to know that they hadn't heard a wolf or coyote either. Their howls were higher-pitched, and more forlorn. But compared to Jack's first hand knowledge of animal sounds, watching a lot of John Wayne films didn't quite have the same coolness to it, so he held his tongue.

"I know it sounds crazy, but what if it's a dinosaur?" Jesse asked. "Like a big T-rex or something."

The four boys savored the possibility. Dinosaurs, huh? Of course they knew that dinosaurs were extinct, but wouldn't it be cool if they weren't? Okay, scary too, but definitely cool.

"There were no dinosaurs on the flyer," Daniel pointed out, almost sorry to burst their bubble.

"Only one way to find out," Jack said. He edged closer to the sharp line on the ground where silver moonlight met the blackness of the sixteen-wheeler's shadow.

Xander watched Jack's outline raise his head to listen and – yeah, he was sniffing the air.

Xander sniffed and listened too. He couldn't smell anything except motor oil and diesel, but he could hear a multitude of sounds riding the silken nighttime breeze: not that freaky howl but other animal voices, like horses whinnying and at least two elephants trumpeting. Some large cat roared, a lion maybe. All these sounds seemed to come from the far side of the camp.

Jack crawled out of the shade and into the open. When he straightened up, Xander could no longer see his face. Only a pair of denim-clad legs.

Xander twitched nervously. Did Jack expect them to follow? To leave the safety of cover and stumble around in the dark? What would Daredevil do, The Man Without Fear? Probably what Jack was doing: find out what was going on.

Jack crouched down to look at them. "Wait here," he murmured, "I'll be right back." A few seconds later, the darkness had swallowed him.

TBC