An anomaly was one thing but trying to deal with an anomaly and its intruders under the influence of alcohol was quite another as Captain Ryan was learning the hard way. He wanted his group of fellow bar goers dismissed to home for that reason but of course it wasn't so easy. For one thing, none of them was willing to go and for another, the anomaly was close by, in a nightclub across the street so their party attire and merry state provided useful cover. Certainly it was more subtle than the soldiers who were waiting outside ready to ruin the cover.
It had been Nick who had suggested they investigate first, no need to cause a scene if it was say just some prehistoric bunny hopping around. The notion of a prehistoric bunny had caused a fit of giggles in Abby and Melina. Ryan hadn't been impressed and he was even less sure about having them armed, alright only he and and Stephen had the bullets and the rest had tranquillisers but still, one alcohol induced aim of sloppiness and some poor clubber was getting an early night.
Entry had been easy enough but after that things had become hellish.
The nightclub was full of neon lights and pounding music, it was impossible to venture at where an anomaly might be. There was yelling and some shrieking but it was either drunken quarrels or over enthusiasm for a song, so far no one was panicking yet. The problem was they had three crowded floors to search and the design of the place wasn't helpful either. The place was titled Alice's Labyrinth and so far it was delivering.
The captain had passed through a plastic, green, heart shaped archway designed to the resemble a hedge cut out and found himself in a circular room of booths designed to mimic hedges with purple lights swirling in circular patterns on the floor and the walls. He was alone and he hated it, it was he and Stephen on opposing sides of this floor whilst Claudia and Nick investigated the bottom and Abby, Connor, and Melina searched the top. The blond would never say it aloud but he didn't like being parted from Melina with danger so close. She'd already been injured twice, he didn't want a third time.
He was suspicious as to why intel suggested there was an anomaly here. So far there was no creature sighting and no sense of alarm. He knew he was going to have to ask Claudia about the source.
On the third floor, unknown to the captain, it was a very different story.
Abby found herself in a maze of mirrors. She couldn't understand what the hell was going on. Was this a nightclub or a fun house? As if the mirrors weren't problematic enough some genius had decided a light show needed to accompany it. Every couple of minutes the lights faded to five seconds of darkness before illuminating the mirrors again. People were screaming, high heels and designer footwear clattered loudly across the hard floors as the club goers tried to flee through the confusion of mirrors to the exit.
Abby tensed as she felt a sudden chill race up her spine and the realisation that whilst there might be music and screams none of the sound was near her, around her was silence. She searched the mirrors cautiously, frowning as variations of her image bounced back at her. She stepped to the left and forward, cursing as she banged up against glass.
A loud snorting noise let the blonde know that she wasn't alone. She turned around slowly, wary now from many previous anomaly dealings, that she was being hunted. The lights dimmed and the five seconds of darkness began. Abby counted them out internally, conscious of what the light was going to bring.
A gasp escaped the young woman as the lights resumed exposing an image of ten hungry, reptilian and yet somehow almost avian faces looking back at her. They stood on two powerful legs, bent over slightly and still taller than she. Two clawed limbs hung down from their chests, turned inwards at the moment they were stained with blood and several droplets leaked down them betraying how fresh it was. Ten sets of nostrils twitched, scenting the air and trying to decide if they were dealing with prey or predator.
Abby felt the air shift slightly behind her as the ten mouths parted slightly revealing long, sharp teeth. The head jutted forward suddenly as Abby dropped to the ground and rolled.
The woman winced as she smacked against glass and the creature roared as its green muzzled snapped at air.
The two powerful hind legs of the creature suddenly charged forward and its head darted down to snap out again. There was a loud crack as its head smacked hard against a mirror unexpectedly.
While the beast was stunned, Abby took her chance to jump to her feet and run. She cursed as her high heels laboured her and instinctively kicked them off, opting to run barefoot around mirrors.
She could hear the beast's feet smacking off the ground as it began a pursuit.
"Damn it!" she cursed as she hit another mirror.
Her palms went up, feeling desperately against cool, glass as she tried to find to the gap. She turned sharply as she heard a snarl at the beast round a corner and found her.
There was a bang and a clatter as Connor tried to shoot it with a tranquilliser but succeeded in hitting a mirror image instead.
"Oi over here!" he snapped as it continued to charge for Abby.
Connor swung his tranquilliser gun about desperately, uncertain as to what blur of green was the creature and what was a reflection. He squeezed the trigger and fired again.
A dart hit green flesh but it was not deep enough. It caused the creature to pause and give an irate growl as it shook its neck and loosened the dart.
Connor cursed as the dart clattered harmlessly to the floor.
Abby had taken a chance to move again. Trying to get to Connor she let out a quiet groan of frustration as her hands met mirror once more.
The young woman pushed back at the mild hint of panic beginning to rise in her. She contemplated her options as Connor fired again.
"Abby!" Melina's voice called out as her image appeared several times over in the mirrors.
This time Connor's dart took, sinking deep into the creature's throat. It let out a loud howl of frustration that was heard throughout the floor. Angry, it swung its tail outwards as it turned quickly, snapping out in frustration.
Connor was smacked hard in the side by the tail and sent sprawling to the ground.
Abby tried to evade the snapping jaws and smacked off glass again. Cursing, she dropped to the ground and rolled.
Melina was stunned as she stared at the multiple images of something that should not exist in this time period. It was a dinosaur, Melina's first it took her breath away in a manner the other creatures hadn't. There had always been the curiosity and wonderment about them but she had never considered the fear. She looked upon it with terror, it was a living, breathing, primordial reptile with a sharp set of teeth and equally deadly claws. A creature unknown to her she realised that was the source of her terror, how could one attempt to fight or evade an ancient beast they knew nothing about?
Panting, Abby moved in a fast crawl as the creature reached out with its claws for her, snarling in frustration as its claws struck out against a mirror. She could hear Melina yelling but didn't realise it was more than panic for her.
Melina fell backwards to the ground, only just evading a pair of snapping jaws. The thrill of terror gave way to the horrifying reality of the situation, there was more than one of them! Wide eyed, Melina turned in a panic and tried to crawl away as she realised how out of her depth she was trying to combat a prehistoric creature like this. It was all she could just to attempt avoiding its fast snapping jaws. There wasn't even time to consider a plan or think of a retaliation, moving quickly and staying alive was enough of a challenge for the young woman right now.
Trying to avoid the mirrors was an obstacle neither of the women needed, it was like partaking in some sort of bizarre and very deadly game show as they inadvertently collided with their own image or shrank back in the wrong direction to evade reflected claws.
When Melina's body smacked against two reptilian legs she knew she was done for. The creature turned its head down to her, ready to snap down when the five seconds of darkness came. Startled, it hesitated.
Abby took her chance in the darkness to crawl again, letting out another curse when she bumped against the hard, cool panes of mirror several times.
Melina was moving too, palms sweating as she scurried across the ground, smacking hard into the smooth, unrelenting walls of polished glass. Her heart was racing now as she couldn't find a way of this labyrinth and its beasts.
Connor was in a confused daze, growing as his head spun and his vision wavered up and down as he swallowed down a mouthful of vomit and tried to push back against the heavy unconsciousness that tried to pull him down. He had hit his head hard on the floor when the dinosaur's tail had caught him off guard and sent him flying backwards with an unexpected force. He blinked in confusion in the darkness, turning his head to the right and letting out a groan of pain and confusion as he glimpsed a blurry show of golden lights dancing in the air.
Melina turned in the last second of darkness in time to see Abby pushing herself forward suddenly to evade a set of snapping teeth and inadvertently moving through a glow of golden diamonds.
"Abby!" Melina shrieked her friend's name in alarm.
Melina didn't think she just moved, forward into the glow of the unknown after her friend.
"Abby! Melina!" Connor yelled in horror as he saw three sets of them slipping into the repetitive image of an anomaly followed by the predatory dinosaur.
There was a loud thump as the creature Connor had shot finally hit the ground unconscious, pinning Connor with part of its rear end as it collapsed.
The young man let out a cry of pain and then a gasp as he felt his ribcage begin to get crushed.
"Help!" he called anxiously.
Abby's crawl had led to an unexpected tumble as the ground had suddenly sloped beneath her. In hindsight, it was probably what had saved her from the snapping jaws of the Herrerasaurus that had followed her through the anomaly. Abby's form went sliding down a slick hill of soil mixed with damp clay and sands unexpectedly taking her with haste from the powerful jaws of the carnivorous dinosaur.
The blonde was unable to help the cry of alarm that escaped her as she fell. The floor passed by in a dim blur as she whizzed by ferns and over small rocks, twisting in the slick muck in an attempt to ease her fall. There were flashes of light only adding to her confusion as the silhouettes of soggy ferns were illuminated briefly.
Her bare feet sank into the mud, causing it to splash up to her exposed legs as the friction of her soles digging into the damp earth started to slow her decline. Abby let out a grunt of annoyance as she finally halted, her tight, purple dress not ruined with dirt.
She pushed her hands back in an effort to sit up and pulled a face of revulsion as her hands just sank into the soft ground and it took a moment as she fought against the suction before she was able to right herself.
She was only a few feet up from a swollen river, still in the sapphire shadows of night its wide, snaking form was only exposed to her by the droplets of rain that smacked into it creating endless ripples.
Abby tensed up as she realised what must have happened since she was no longer in the nightclub. She had come through an anomaly. Alarmed as she considered that they still had no real idea how long any anomaly might stay open for, she readied to turn and retreat back up the hill. Movement in the water caused her to freeze and remain as she was.
Her eyes fixed upon the serpentine sheen of liquid blackness, and she sucked in a breath as she saw the water begin to break at the river's edge just a few feet down from her.
Her eyes widened as there was another white flash of light and suddenly a large amphibian's shovel like head broke the surface of the waters and it scurried up to the damp shores of the riverside with something clenched in its wide mouth.
Abby ventured warily as it tilted its odd shaped head in her direction that the only thing keeping it from her was probably that it already had food to occupy it.
The primeval salamander turned away from Abby as sheet lightning illuminated its unusual form briefly and it returned to the water once more.
Hearing a low snort from somewhere behind her and just up the hill had Abby realising the ancient amphibian had not taken the danger with it.
"They went through the anomaly!" Connor wailed almost hysterically at Captain Ryan, Stephen, Nick and the soldiers attempting to flank them.
Almost delirious with pain now, Connor struggled to convey the urgency he wanted to in his voice. He didn't realise his words were a little slurred as pain screamed through his squashed ribcage and his body tried to urge him to surrender to the bliss of unconsciousness.
"They?" Stephen echoed.
Stephen was eyeing the dinosaur on top of Connor warily. He could see the shallow rise and fall of its chest and wondered when it might awaken again.
"Get that thing off him," Ryan ordered sharply with a glare at his men.
Nick sidestepped mirrors, frowning as he almost smacked into one as he looked around the odd room of the nightclub. The music was still playing, some popular dance song that clashed horribly with the severity of their situation. He had only had a couple of drinks but appreciated the confidence they gave him, he needed it now as he considered what Connor meant by 'they'.
"Over here!" Nick called suddenly as he almost collided with the wavering golden diamonds.
He stared at the anomaly with a wary respect as he considered the fearsome appearance of the creature lying unconscious on Connor. He felt the familiar heat of the time portal as the diamonds hummed through the air resembling the fragments of a shattered mirror. He wondered at the energy they must harness to rip through time and create a temporary passage through the ages.
"Abby," Connor groaned. "Abby and Melina."
Ryan turned white and his mouth set into a stern line before he turned at Nick's call. He hastened to the redhead letting out a loud curse of, "for fuck's sake!" as he smacked hard into a mirror.
His soldiers looked to him warily and exchanged a few glances, unused to seeing their captain quite so ill at ease. The casual attire was doing him little favours with his men either although the hastily put on bulletproof vest did add some seriousness to his suit.
Ryan shook his head as his nose throbbed with the blow of the mirror and cast an angry glower about the club as the lights faded out.
"Cutter!" he called. "What is it?"
"The anomaly," Nick retorted, "it's here but I don't know how long for."
Ryan waited out the darkness impatiently, moving with haste when the lights returned. Every second here was a second of potentially fatal danger for the women now lost in time.
He wasn't relieved when he finally reached Nick and the anomaly as he wondered what could be through it. Dinosaurs certainly but what kind and how many? They were ill-prepared as usual, often when a creature came through Nick or Stephen could more often than not identify it and therefore hazard a guess at the terrain they dwelled in but there was no time for that now.
Ryan raised his gun and gritted his teeth. "We have two of our own on the other side here," he said in a stern, loud voice. "It's a rescue mission, get in, get them and get back before this thing closes."
Ryan did not given the chance for queries or protests, he just headed on through the anomaly with Nick close behind him.
Ryan halted as he swapped the dry nightclub for rain and the temperamental lights for the heavy darkness of an exposed, humid night. The tepid air almost suffocated him, it felt heavy, weighing him down as it immediately caused him to sweat. He squinted out through the heavy rainfall and darkness, wary of predators as he took in their surroundings quickly. They were on a hilltop of ferns, rocks and rain softened ground.
Ryan glanced down, momentarily surprised by white light that illuminated the ground for a few seconds. He frowned as he saw the grooves in the earth indicating something heading down. The lack of prints suggested them moving at a slide rather than a walk.
"This way," he grunted quietly as he started to descend.
Abby filled with surprise when a pair of cold, damp hands pulled her without warning to one side. They yanked her hard across the muddy slope, keeping low as they just managed to prevent Abby losing a limb to a hungry Herrerarsaurus.
When the green muzzle turned in reaction to its prey being yanked away, Abby was forced to pull her legs up against themselves suddenly to evade the second snap of teeth.
"Shit," Melina cursed in alarm as she kept a tight grasp on Abby's shoulders.
The dinosaur was too fast, she had no time to think up a plan or consider options.
Melina threw her weight to the left as the predator came at them again. Her movement was sudden, fast and foolish. A desperate attempt to follow the flight instinct that flooded through her it had her and Abby suddenly rolling down the hill, spiralling through mud rapidly without control.
There was no time for screaming, no chance to slow down or stop the roll as they moved too fast in a tangle of flailing limbs.
It was only seconds before the two women hit the water with a loud, telling splash.
The Herrerarsaurus' amber eye glinted after them as it contemplated giving chase. Spying the grey ridges that bobbed up in the water and started to make a deliberate movement towards the source of the splash the dinosaur knew it had to give way to a predator better equipped than it for snatching up prey in the water.
Abby's head broke the surface first as she kicked off silt, coughed up muck, and paddled hard in a moment of alarm. The water was tepid, still save for the rainfall that broke its calm surface it had the same warm, thick quality of swamp water, and a similar murkiness that hinted at things unseen in its domain.
Abby turned about quickly in the darkness, trying to seek out the edge of the slope they had tumbled down. She was regretting her prosecco now as the fizz tumbled about uneasily in her stomach and she had to subdue a burp.
Hearing a splash, she turned about hoping to spy Melina but in the wretched darkness she couldn't see a thing.
"Aa...Abb...Abby."
Melina's voice sounded out the blonde's name quietly, desperate and yet almost broken as if she knew her plea was futile.
Abby turned again and spied a dark shape bobbing above the water that had to be Melina. When the lightning flashed again her eyes widened as she saw the large shadow just beneath the surface that was curved about Melina.
"Don't move," Abby ordered, her voice serious and quiet as the lightning faded.
Melina looked across the darkness to Abby's shadowy form with fear. Her heart was pounding as she started to feel the water shifting beneath her. She knew what was coming, she had felt it before, that sudden rush of water that was the only warning one had before the predator came. It was in its element, it would be too fast for her just as a similar beast had been too fast for Kaden.
"Save yourself," Melina begged as she felt the rush of current begin beneath her as the beast started to charge.
It all happened quickly. Melina jerked back in a desperate move for survival just as the lightning lit up their surroundings again. In the brilliant flash of white light she glimpsed a long, white open mouth full of gleaming, needle sharp teeth bursting up out of the waters for her. Teeth was all she could, just endless teeth ready to shred her flesh and devour her.
Ryan heard the screams and he started to run in a moment of recklessness.
"Captain!" one of his men called anxiously as Ryan descended the slope too fast, blundering towards unseen danger.
The lightning flashed again exposing the almost demonic reptilian beast that charged through the water towards a figure moving back from it in desperation.
Melina's head sank down beneath the murky waters as she almost did a backwards flip in the water, forcing both her legs upwards in a moment of desperation. Both feet slammed into the lower jaw of the creature, sending its teeth up into the roof of its mouth without warning. It wasn't much, enough to daze it for a couple of seconds or two as its prey swam underneath it, heading back and behind it to try and evade it.
Abby waited anxiously for the lightning, needing it to show her where the predator had gone so she would know where to swim to.
There was another flash.
Abby spied the large form over to the right and moved instinctively to left, keeping her kicks under the water to avoid splashes though she was aware it would cause vibrations anyway.
Melina's head surfaced and she started to break for the shore. She could feel the current sucking back suddenly and made the mistake of glancing over her shoulder as the lightning flashed once more.
There was darkness, a small cavern bearing down on her framed in rows of glistening, sharp teeth. It had breeched the surface, its muzzle open in anticipating, gulping down water without concern as it readied itself to clamp down upon her.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Someone was shooting.
Melina could only think of Kaden vanishing in a cloud of blood in the waters, devoured by darkness and teeth.
This time it was Abby's grasp that saved Melina. Her hands tugging her friend to one side suddenly just as the teeth clamped down.
The force of the creature rushing forward through the water sent over a strong enough ripple to have Abby and Melina bobbing backwards like debris caught in a current. They spun momentarily through the water, Abby never releasing the grasp she had on Melina's arm as she tried to steer them to the riverside.
"Swim! Swim!"
That was Nick's voice calling to them. Abby tried to seek him out as she felt a roll of nausea as prosecco bubbles spiralled through her stomach.
"Swim!"
She could tell where his voice called from even if she couldn't see him or the captain standing ankle deep in the water as he took shots as the grey ridges of a five feet long creature swimming through the water.
Abby kicked again, propelling herself and Melina to the shore. It was a struggle as Melina wasn't really helping much, dazed and lost to nightmarish memories.
Abby filled with sudden relief with Nick's warm hand reached out to her free one as he waded into the water to pull them the rest of the way.
Nick urged the women to their feet, almost hurting them as he pulled the up with an urgent force.
"We need to run!" he ordered, raising his voice for the benefit of the soldiers. It was a struggle however to be heard over the rainfall. "We've been here too long, the anomaly is going to close!"
The soldiers exchanged similar looks of horror. They had always held this unspoken fear of what was considered a fate worse than death, being trapped outside their own time with these ancient predators they knew so little about. Outnumbered, disadvantaged by their lack of knowledge of the environment, kept safe only until their last bullet and facing the potential of being trapped here forever as no one knew if and when the anomalies returned.
"Come on run!" Nick urged.
He started to pull on Abby as he turned back to the slope, knowing the challenge they faced tried to ascend the mud as rain trickled down it.
Abby turned in surprise when Melina failed to move.
"Melina come on!" Abby snapped.
"Kaden?" Melina made it a question as she turned a vacant gaze back to the water.
"Start running!" Ryan's voice roared as their aquatic foe came to shore.
