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Dark Dawn: Leviathans II (Act V)
By Vader
~ Continued from ACT IV ~
ACT V: PART A - The Second Arrest
His hand shook nervously, beads of sweat creeping along its surface, in between the wrinkled skin and veins jutting forth from underneath, motioning slowly towards the doorknob on the scarred, dark brown door, which led to the doorstep of the run down house. He touched the cold, gold tinted metal, grasping it for just a moment, breathing heavily, before turning it sideways to release the lock and bring it open.
Immediately after opening it a notch, it was kicked open, forcing him and the two people behind him backwards as men in black and navy-blue uniforms ran into the room, their weapons drawn, pointing up and ready if any if any resistance to the policemen were to be made. The chief officer made his way forward, slamming his hand upon the man's shoulder and turning him around, bringing his hands together behind his back and whipping out handcuffs from his belt to hook them on. "Edward Drakon, you are being placed under arrest for a partnership with RiCorp to form a dishonest contract and the purposed endangerment of lives at the San Diego Zoo," the chief told him, immediately spurring out the man's rights to him afterwards, finally leaning close to his ear, whispering, "You're buddy Rodney Fox betrayed you. And guess what - a visitor had already died at the Zoo because of you."
Drakon's disheveled head hung low, depression consuming him fully and completely as his wife, Laura, and his son, Nathaniel, staring at him in disbelief. The ashamed husband felt their mourning gazes upon him without having to look up, and nor did he want to, for in that moment, he felt worse than he ever had in his entire life - even more so than the moment of watching of the Pangaea emergency trams fall into the darkness of the earthquake shaft. "Edward?" his wife's voice quivered. "You did that?" She could not even remotely believe or accept what her husband had been accused of from out of the blue. Drakon closed his eyes, a lump forming in his throat, nodding his head. "But . . . why?"
As he felt the police search his pockets from behind, he knew this would be the last time he would see his family in years, if not forever. Fox had told all, and he was sure that if RiCorp had been arrested, there was already amounting evidence against him, not to mention an eyewitness account of their deal. He inhaled deeply, mustering up strength to bring himself to look at his wife in the eye, his tired vision becoming clouded with surmounting liquid of tears. "I had to find away, Laura. I had to," he managed, on the verge of crying. "I had RiCorp capture the last Deinonychus in Pangaea, and I sent them last A.I.I. chip we had built, so we could give it to the Zoo for two million. We were going to split it . . . and I knew, that was the only way t get our lives back . . . my only way to provide for you." His brow furrowed as a single tear drop rolled down his dirty cheek. "I had to do it, it was the only way. I knew the chips were faulty, but . . . I thought that they would be able to stop the animal so fast even when it did fail. I thought . . . I knew . . . this was the only way."
They stared at each other for a prolonged time, till finally, an emotionally broken down Drakon, asked one, last request from his family. "Please . . . forgive me," he cried, his head hanging down once again, his shirt becoming stained from his tears. At seeing his father so tormented, Nathaniel stepped forward bringing himself to embrace the man, knowing he would not be seeing the father whom he loved so much for a long time. And then, Laura, ran ahead to give her husband, one, last, final, parting kiss, until they were separated by the tugging of the police, and Drakon was ripped away from his home and sobbing family members, who's provision was the sole reason he had kept himself alive, to face his disgraceful and inevitable fate.
* * *
It stared from behind a patch of bamboo and ferns, its scaley skin wrinkling as its eyes squinted, observing the commotion ahead as several armed and trained men, part of the San Diego Zoo's security force, marched up a paved walkway and underneath a station that contained a large, motor and conveyor belt that transported sky cars into the air and across the cable to the other end of the park on an aerial tour. Each one of them boarded a separated sky car, which contained roofs that hooked onto the cable, glass windbreakers on the front and back side, and open air on the other left and right sides.
Once inside their individual booths, they all were extremely attentive, their rifles ready, taking their cars up and high above the Zoo on the lookout for one thing - the escaped bipedal predator, who, little did they know, was watching them from the bushes straight ahead, a low, aggravated purr sounding from its resonating chamber. The first one to notice the Deinonychus was one of the last men on the tour, Fletcher, who immediately whipped his barrel-nose around to aim and fire.
The bullet missed the animal by centimeters, spraying up dirt from the ground, followed by the whiz of another carefully aimed shot that was avoided by the quick beast. It was now fully provoked, its feathers standing up on end in a display of anger. As Fletcher's car made its way upwards to the first of the many towers that held the cable in their arms across the Zoo grounds, the carnivore leapt onto a nearby boulder inside of a nearby pond just beyond the reeds to its right, scattering quaking ducks anywhere nearby as it sprung itself up to the top of the aerial tour station, turning and making one more jump to reach the attacker's car.
It shattered the glass windbreaker in the back of the sky car in doing so, sending tiny shards to lodge themselves into the surface of Fletcher's eyeball before he could turn away from the breaking. His eyes fluttered open and closed, the insides of his eyelids being severely scratched from the sharp fragments stuck in place atop his pupils. Stunned, he wildly fired his rifle again, not anywhere close to hitting the creature, instead sending a bullet straight upward into the device that held the roof of the car to the cable, sending the sky booth rocking back and forth. He fired again, only to send stray aiming outside of the craft.
Realizing he didn't have much hope of shooting the animal, and in a desperate attempt to escape it before it could attack him, Fletcher raised his hands up to the edge of the roof, swinging himself upward and blindly pulling himself onto the roof, instinctively clinging to his weapon at the chest. Thinking just as fast, the prehistoric predator flung itself upon the roof with a mighty leap, slamming atop the human, causing the rifle to discharge into the connector between the cable and the car once again.
At that, it snapped as sparks flew, and the car plunged through the air, slowly turning upside down on its way to the ground. Before it hit rock bottom, the Deinonychus expertly jumped away from the doomed vehicle, landing on the cement with a tumble, just seconds before its bashed onto the ground atop its roof, crushing Fletcher in the process with a giant splat and thud. Bringing itself to stand upright, the animal shook its shook back and forth, turning slightly to the side, eyeing the wreck. It dashed forward, making an effort to reach the security enforcement's remains underneath he fuselage, but unable to nab it.
Disappointed, the beast looked up, seeing the other men in the sky cars aiming to fire at it, but unable to as they passed over the ledge to another section of the zoo, only taking a few pocks off the cement with some scattered pings. Exploring its surroundings in silence, the dinosaur then saw that it was at the very bottom of a deep ditch, and it was almost a sheer vertical climb to the top of the canyon on all sides. Yet, it made and effort to spring its way out of the location, but to no avail.
After further on looking, it noticed that its only hope for escape from the situation was a shed, that was at the very bottom of a long tower that led to the top of the canyon, where there was yet another shed near the polar bear exhibit. The Deinonychus began to pace forward, examine the entrance to the tower and seeing that it had been left open, just a slight centimeter away from being closed. With a careful nudge with its snout, it swung the door open, trotting inside to be greeted by a staircase that led upward to exit into the top shed several floors up, which would lead him out of the ditch, through another small shed, and back onto familiar turf . . .
ACT V: PART B - Piper
Outside of the main entrance and exit to the San Diego Zoo, inside the small courtyard where the last of the visitors had been evacuated to continue on to reach their vehicles and leave the area, the police had shown up in several standard cars, lights flashing and sirens crying, bringing with them the specialized squat team. At the head of preparing team, who were arming and padding themselves with protection, was Piper Sealey standing inside the bed of one of the law enforcement trucks that had carried all sorts of equipment to the location. "Alright," she announced. "If Fletcher and his team come back from their scanning of the park from the aerial ride without having found the Deinonychus, the swat team can storm the Zoo on the ground. Please note that it will be more dangerous than finding the target from above - the animal is swift and agile and could be hiding everywhere. It is important that each group within the team thoroughly search each of their previously assigned areas."
After giving the instructions, receiving affirmation from the team that they understood, the Head of Security stepped down from her place, walking across the pavement to a bench that sat in front of bushes that had once been trimmed to look like elephants, but had recently been changed to look like the Deinonychus when the star attraction had opened. Upon the bench was a sulking Jonah Crockford, who had a cigarette in his hand, talking a deep wisp of it and then breathing it out, finishing the smoke and tossing it into the ash tray beside him. Piper took a seat next to him, patting his back, herself in the same mood as her boss. "I know how you feel, Jonah," she told him sincerely. "This is all just one big, horrible . . . mess." She felt her sadness begin to turn into anger at recalling the phone call the Administrative offices had received that day, pertaining to how RiCorp had teamed with a certain Edward Drakon, knowing the A.I.I. chip would eventually go haywire from past experiences, but did it to make money. "Why did they have to do that? Why?" she breathed, closing her eyelids.
"Piper!" came an abrupt call from behind her. She flashed her eyes open whirling around to see the familiar visage of her husband, Gavin, running forth to her, his arms wide open. She sprung up, overflowing with joy as she embraced him, tears of happiness forming as they faced each other once again.
"I was so worried about you! You took so long to evacuate!" she gasped, stroking his check with her palm tenderly. No sooner did she notice that her little daughter was not by her side. "Where is Jezelle?" as asked as worry temporarily consumed her before Gavin quickly told her the answer.
"I wanted her to be safe, so I told her to stay inside of a watershed until I sent back help to get her," he explained. "There is no way I wanted her outside with that animal running around." The mother exhaled with relief as she reached in her pocket, fulling out a folded and crumpled up map, which covered the entire zoo grounds.
"Neither would I. Can you pinpoint the shed?" she held the display up for her husband to see, who immediately moved his finger upward to the top of the map, across the walkway from the polar bear exhibition.
"It's right there. You'll need the key to get in, since I kept it locked." With a quick nod, she folded the paper back up, leaning towards his face to give him a kiss.
"Thank you, . You'll need to go wait at our car, since the police are about to spread out here in case the animal tries to exit the zoo through the gates here. I know where the keys are, and I'll be right back with her," she gave a goodbye, hugging him once more, squeezing his hand, before slowly departing from him. After slowly watching him walk off towards the parking complex several feet away, she turned, determination in her eyes as she rushed forward across the square, heading directly for the back employee entrance near the Admin complex.
As she quickly moved to unlock the gate and commandeer a vehicle, she could not get her mind of Jezelle. She could not wait to hold her adorable little body in her arms once again, bringing her back to reunite the entire family, and finally, they would know that they would all be safe - together. That was all that she wanted then - she was not thinking about the Deinonychus, or the disaster of the microchip, or the illegal contract they had made. All her mind was focused on was one thing, one person, and one goal - be back, unitedly, with her family once again.
Once through the gate, she bolted into the drivers seat of one of the trucks, slamming it into reverse and peeling out of the parking lot, shoving it back into forward gear, and speeding ahead down the road. She drove down through the slight decline of the behind of the area called "Fern Canyon", nearing a side road on her right side, which she took eagerly, flying by several small tropical aviaries till she reached a facility that was guarded by a fence that she pulled up to, grabbing a card from inside the glove compartment, scanning it in front of a device beside her that allowed the facility to be accessed. She did not wait till the entrance was fully open, inside zooming inside, just barely missing the edge of the entrance slamming to a stop once inside.
Jumping out of her door and slamming it, she ran up to the door, opening it and immediately entering a room full of shelves - packed full with papers, files, boxes, and what she really wanted, keys. She dove her hand into one of the brown boxes nearest to her, marked F10 for containing keys that concerned the top corner area of the Zoo. Within a matter of moments, she found a copper tinted key, long, jagged, and thin, placing it into the pocket in her shirt and then turned to dart out. Leaping back into her car, she sped out of the building's lot, through gate, back down the road to meet the main drive in Fern Canyon once again.
There wasn't one second of that drive in which she was distracted from her main purpose to get back to her daughter, rescue her, and get her out of the Zoo. She knew that once it was accomplished, it would mean that the whole nightmare for her would be over, and that there would be no further worrying. Before she knew it, the Fern Canyon road went up a hill to meet the main walkway that winded through exhibitions of Zebras, Giraffe, and other types of African animals. She turned to the left, driving against the background collage of the giant, red, setting sun over the horizon of trees and buildings in the distance, signaling the oncoming darkness of night.
She finally pulled up to her destination, parking her vehicle in the middle of the road and getting out, where it was ly silent. The first thing she noticed that immediately aroused dread from within her was the sight of the door to the shed hanging wide open, red footsteps of two large toes the tip of a giant claw leaning outward from within the gloom of the shed towards the bushes around the bend. "Oh, God," she pleaded. "No, it can't be." She walked forward her hand motioning towards the large knife that hung inside of a compartment on her belt. She continued to chant the words under her breathe as she reached out to open the door wider, her own boot making an imprint inside of the animal footsteps that be before her.
She edged herself inside, consumed by shadow. And then . . . bathed in a thin streak of pale light from outside, she saw, laying in a pool of blood next to a staircase that led up from the bottom of the tower in the canyon below, the tiny, torn body of her most beloved child. In that moment, her grief was so horrible, so devastating, it passed any description imaginable. Her body crumpled to the floor as she burst into tears, her face contorting to an expression of complete and total sorrow.
She became an embodiment of agony, her force of life and her drive seemed to black out then, as uncontrollable depression ate up her very soul, causing her to move her hand downward, unbuckling a container at her belt, reaching in to firmly take up the handle of her blade, bringing her other hand around to have both of them hold the long, silver dagger high above her, ready to bring it down and plunge into her heart.
ACT V: PART C - The End
It watched from in between two giant oak trees, leaves and branches hiding its features as it watched the men in black uniforms, heavily armed, spread out in a parameter around the zoo, heading for every opening from the park's grounds to cover it incase the dinosaur would escape. What they didn't know was it at already was ready to escape, high in the top of the trees, within jumping distance of a patch of eucalypti that stood alongside the 3-story tall parking structure. While the swat team rushed inside of the zoo, all kinds of specialized weaponry ready in their arms, as the policemen ran underneath its perch.
Once sure that it would not be noticed, the animal turned its head upward, eying the trees close by, its head bobbing side to side and it readied its legs to make the giant jump. After one more second, it let its powerful muscles shoot it into the air in an arc formation, raising its feet up to catch the closest branch and land. From its new place of hiding, it gazed with curiosity at the parking building below him, a threatening sound beginning to purr underneath its breath as it prepared to jump once more.
* * *
Gavin Sealey sat inside of his van, in which he'd transported his wife and daughter to the Zoo that fateful day. He raised his forearm up to wipe his forehead, afterwards bringing his wrist down, looking at the surface of his watch's glinting blue time face. Nearly twenty minutes had passed since Piper had left him to so a find Jezelle, and by then, the sun had gone down underneath pacific ocean far in the distance, leaving behind a world of darkness, where the cloud layer had moved in to cover much of the stars and all of the moon. As a result, it turned out to be an especially gloomy night.
His tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, beginning to feel himself getting more and more worried for his family. All kinds of questions were running through his mind as to what Piper or Jezelle were doing at that moment. He shut his eyes for just a moment, envisioning in his mind the image of the other two members of his family returning to him again. And in seeing that, his body entered a state of calm, as if everything was alright in that moment. He kept his lids shut for just a while more, soaking in that sight of both his wife and daughter running to him once again, welcoming him with a warm embrace. Yes . . . he had to convince himself that they would return anytime then . . . despite his gut feeling that something was wrong.
He let his eyelids drift open, his pupils looking directly out of the front windshield. It took him a second, after his daze, to realize that standing directly in front of him the shadowy silhouette of the Deinonychus, staring at him with its fierce orange eyes. He literally jumped right out his seat in shock, then hearing a shrill, prehistoric call roaring at him from ahead. As the animal posed for attack, Gavin clamored for the keys, desperately shoving them into in the keyhole and starting the engine. As the carnivore ran forward and jump, his stepping on the gas just an instant soon enough, causing the creature to land and slide off the van's roof.
He drove forward in an effort to escape as behind, the dinosaur got back onto its feet and bolted forward, its jaws snapping at the back tires. It tore into the rubber, causing one of them to pop, snapping the vehicle downward as the metal underneath the tire scraped against the cement with sparks flying. Noticing he was edging dangerously close to the edge of the parking structure, Gavin eased on the breaks in an effort to turn. Taking advantage of the slowing, the animal leaped onto the top of the van once again, immediately digging both of its foot claws into the roof, tearing through the aluminum to make a gap just wide enough for it to slip inside.
While Gavin was still turning the steering wheel, he felt the bang as the Deinonychus fell directly behind him from above. It snarled with menace as it sung its teeth into his chair, ripping it to the side with a jerk and then lunging to use its razor-sharp maw to grasp into the man's back as he fell onto the dashboard. The car spun out of control, driving straight to the very edge of the that second floor on the building. The front tires went over and the edge scrapped into the underside of the automobile, sending Gavin to fall through the glass of the windshield and out onto the hood, slipping further and further downward. He would have fallen to the hard floor of the parking lot several feet below if he had not caught and hung onto the front bumper.
And so the vehicle hung there, half of it leaning out into the cold, night air while the other half balanced it out, still inside of the complex. Gavin's tired arms could barely hold himself from plunging into air, his body badly battered from the glass smacking against him in his fall. As he struggled to try and pull himself upward, he felt the strong vibration as the Deinonychus jumped out of the front of the van to land on the hood. It bared its teeth in another vicious roar, edging closer leaning down and biting the white knuckles of the man. One of his hand fell away, virtually torn open, leaving him to hang by one more. The animal brought its head back to strike again with a damning blow.
A long, silver knife speed out of the darkness from behind the animal with expert aim, boring itself deep into the back of its brain and driving all the way to the between of its two eyeballs on the other side. Gavin watched with wide eyes as the body of his lethal attacker lost all movement, drooping and falling off the ledge to have its bones shattered on the floor below, its head being pierced straight through.
And then, a soft, gentle rain began to fall, almost establishing an aura of calmness in the setting. Gavin felt the cool drops trickle through his hair, as he watched above where a hand emerged reached out to him - the hand that he had held so often before. He desperately placed his hand into hers, moving his feet up to push his body to the top with the help of the person above him.
He fell into her arms, seeing her face stained with endless tears, her eyes saddened and dark. His eyebrows moved upward, and he offered her a questioning look for which she knew exactly - their adored daughter, Jezelle. She could not speak, far to choked up from the crying which she could not halt, and could only shake her head negatively. Gavin could barely even believe her response, his mind and his body not able to accept it. He had been so sure she would be safe, and the fact that she was now . . . gone . . . it was too much.
Piper could feel the guilt and sadness emitting from his features, throwing herself into his arms, her crying intensifying once more as Gavin's began. For several moments, they just stayed in that pose, doing their best comfort each other against the peaceful dropping of the rain outside. Sniffing, with her body shaking rapidly, feeling as if she would simply just explode from the pain and suffering that has reached its crescendo, she managed to whisper with a stutter in her husband's ear, "I al-almost took my o-own life."
Gavin shivered, his eyes shut as clenched as possible, moving his mouth to speak, but unable to calm his voice enough to do so. After taking time do to produce a steady tone, he replied, "I . . . I'm glad you didn't." For more seconds, they remained silent, until Gavin brought himself to continue. "We will get through this . . . . we . . . . will . . . . together."
So there they remained, crouched on their knees, just holding each other as time went by, and eventually, the rain came to a close once washing things clean, and the sun rose again, offering a new hope . . . and a new dawn.
THE END
Thank you to all the readers for their wonderful encouragement throughout my process of writing this story - it is truly treasured.
-Vader
~ Please Comment
7/6/2002 7:07:41 PM
(Updated: 7/6/2002 7:08:33 PM)
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