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Category:
Action/Thriller
Publisher: Kathryn Meyer Griffith
ISBN-10: 1489520538
Type: Fiction
Pages: 439
Copyright: 2012
ISBN-13: 9781489520531
Price: $4.99 (eBook)
There is a live dinosaur in Crater Lake, Oregon...and it's big, clever and hungry. But Chief Ranger Henry Shore doesn't like any predatory creatures in his usually peaceful park terrorizing and eating his visitors so he, a band of his rangers, and two FBI Agents go after the monster in the lake. And they won't stop until they find and destroy it. 290 REVIEWS on Amazon 4.2 star average.
Sept 16, 2016 UPDATE NOTE: NOW DINOSAUR LAKE I, II, III and IV are out!!!! Buy at Amazon and everywhere!!!
books2read.com/u/3RYaxb
http://tinyurl.com/jzycl39
DINOSAUR LAKE (I): An ancient predator has been reborn in the caves beneath Crater Lake
…and it’s hungry.
Ex-cop Henry Shore has been Chief Park Ranger at Crater Lake National Park for eight years and he likes his park and his life the way it’s been. Safe. Tranquil. Predictable. But he’s about to be tested in so many ways. First the earthquakes begin…people begin to go missing…then there’s some mysterious water creature that’s taken up residence in the caves below Crater Lake and it’s not only growing in size, it’s aggressive and cunning…and very hungry.
And it’s decided it likes human beings. To eat.
And it can come up onto land.
So Henry, with the help of his wife, Ann; a young paleontologist named Justin; and a band of brave men, must not only protect his park and his people from the monster but somehow find where it lives and destroy it…before it can kill again. 290 Amazon Reviews 4.2 star average
Excerpt
DINOSAUR LAKE EXCERPT:
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Zeke announced a bit later as if it’d just popped into his head. “I got a mighty queer call already this morning, Ann.”
He ran an age-spotted hand through his white hair, chuckling, and twisted around to look at her through his thick-lensed glasses. “Mighty queer.” His eyes, magnified, were a sharp piercing blue. She noticed his slacks were a little threadbare and his button-down tan sweater over a white shirt was frayed at the cuffs.
“Queerer than usual?” Ann asked. The newspaper received odd calls every week; some on the level, some not.
Zeke liked the ones where people spotted criminals they’d seen on America’s Most Wanted. He often alerted the police to check them out.
Ann was partial to the ones where little blue aliens visited or had abducted the callers.
Zeke sometimes ran the stranger stories if he could, tongue-in-cheek, as a joke, as if they were real news. Their readers loved them. It was a small town, people knew each other and most had a sense of humor.
At her desk in the back, Ann sipped a cup of coffee, and done with the ads, cleared her work area off a little; the rain a lulling presence beyond the cozy room. She liked things neat and usually ended up straightening up Zeke’s and Jeff’s messes as well.
She was working on a last minute article about the recent earthquakes for the next edition. All she had left to do was check her facts, a little polish, and it’d be ready to go. Outside, the rain reminded her of the story she truly wanted, but had to wait to get.
In the meantime Zeke continued his story. “Ya, this guy’s tale was a doozy. And right in your backyard, Ann. He runs one of those tour boats out from Wizard Island and claims there’s a creature, a water leviathan of some kind, in the lake. Can you imagine? We now have our own Loch Ness monster in Crater Lake. Ha! An American Loch Ness monster!”
Ann’s hands froze over the keyboard. Her mind went to those bones Henry had spoken of up on the crater’s rim. Could there be some connection? Henry believed the bones had once been prehistoric dinosaurs, but they’d lived millions of years ago. Dead now. Just bones now. The weird thing was, this call might be something they’d expect to get later, once the fossil bed was public knowledge, but not now. No one else knew about the bones. Or did they?
Henry had also said the paleontologist from John Day suspected the lava rivers under the lake were flowing again, which was why the lake’s temperature was rising. The terrain beneath the volcanic lake was rearranging, shifting and regurgitating ancient rock and dirt. What other repercussions were those changes bringing? What else was the volcano regurgitating?
Certainly not monsters.
Nah. Of course the call was a crank, or an old man’s flight of fancy.
“Did the caller sound drunk?” she asked. “Or just mentally unbalanced?”
“No. I’ve known the guy for years. He keeps his boat in one of those boat houses on Wizard Island and docks it for the tourists at Cleetwood Cove. He always was a little eccentric, and as independent as all get-out. But as far as I know, he’s neither a boozer nor a nut. You know the type?”
Oh, Ann knew the type. They spent their lives doing what they pleased and worked when they wanted. Self-employed and obstinate, they were drifters and dreamers. Oregon was full of them. The park was full of them.
She got up, moseyed over and stood looking down over her boss’s shoulder as he worked. “Well, what else did he say?”
“Not much. He sounded embarrassed to be calling. I had to pull most of the story out of him, like a bad tooth, after the initial confession. He sounded scared and claimed the creature butted his boat, as it was getting dark, the evening before. Rammed it hard enough to rattle him and the vessel. And you know how big those tour boats are.”
“Yeah.” They were big; held up to sixty people. “Was anyone with him?” Collaboration was the first thing a good reporter checked on.
“Nope. Claims he was alone. He’d emptied his last tour group of the day at Cleetwood Dock and was heading back to Wizard Island to put the boat away. He swore he wouldn’t have said anything, but he thinks the creature is a menace and not only to him, but for everyone on the lake.”
“We going to do a story on it?” Ann’s thin face was battling a grin. She was too pragmatic a person to believe in boogey men and lake monsters.
“Well, it might be what we need. A good oh-my-god-there’s-a-creature-in-the-lake story might stir up some commotion around here, might help bring up the paper’s numbers.”
“Oh, give me a break.” Ann laughed. “It might also help bring all the crazies from miles away to camp out in the park day and night waiting for the thing to reappear, too. Like Loch Ness. Only here it’ll be worse because Americans don’t respect privacy as much as the Scots.”
A slight scowl touched her face. Like her husband, she adored the park the way it was, uncluttered and unpeopled most of the time anyway, thank you. Henry would hate to see his peaceful retreat invaded by hordes of wild-eyed monster hunters. He was fretting enough over the fossil find. Now, monster sightings? He’d have a conniption fit.
“I thought I’d send you out to talk to the guy,” Zeke finished.
“Thanks a lot.”
“Well, you live in the park. Wouldn’t be too far out of your way.”
“You don’t think it’ll create a panic among the park’s inhabitants? Reporting about some combative creature lurking in the lake?”
“No, not if we don’t play it too seriously. It might turn into an interesting piece if we do it right. Whimsical like.”
“It might.” Her voice held no sarcasm. It would make a good story. People ate that kind of stuff up. “Okay. I’ll go talk to the guy. What’s his name?”
“Sam Cutler. He captains a tour boat called the Sea Bird. In the mornings you can find him docked at Cleetwood Cove waiting for his passengers. The boat has a flying bird painted on the side. Can’t miss it.”
“I know the one. I’ve seen it on the lake before.”
“Good. Try to talk to him sometime in the next couple days and we’ll see if we can plug it in the next edition. We’re going to be lean on material anyway. We’ll need the filler.” Then Zeke tacked on: “Hey, you’re a fairly good artist, too, as I recollect. So why don’t you try to make a drawing from his description of the thing?”
Ann snickered under her breath, shaking her head. Her drawings were a town joke. She could draw, but no one could say she was the next Rembrandt, not by a long shot. But Zeke thought her sketches had character. Kinda like those things Grandma Moses used to do. Yeah. Kinda cute and primitive. They made Zeke chuckle. But most of the townies made fun of them.
“The things I do for you and this rag,” Ann groaned with a small smile, pretending he was forcing her to do something she didn’t want to do. When in truth, she got a kick out of seeing her doddles in the paper. When she’d worked in New York, her editor would have died before allowing her drawings to accompany her stories. New York was too cosmopolitan for that. Klamath Falls wasn’t.
“Okay. I’ll try to recreate the mysterious creature of the lake. No promises, though. I’ll get photos of Wizard Island and Captain Cutler on his boat, too. Does he know a reporter’s coming out?”
“That’s the problem.” Zeke threw his hands up. “As soon as I mentioned I’d send someone out to take pictures and get more details, he hung up on me. I’m afraid he’s sorry he called. He might be a tough sell.”
“So he might not talk to me?”
“Oh, but I have considerable faith in your powers of persuasion, Ann. You’ll get the story, no sweat. You’re a hell of a reporter.”
“Flattery, flattery,” she said, “will get you everything.”
**********************************************************
EXCERPT of Dinosaur Lake:
Justin heard the commotion first. In the stillness of the night a loud swishing of powerfully churning water came from far away, moving closer. On the air trembled a soft cry, the sound filling the caldera as an echo filled a canyon.
Something rose up underneath the boat. Henry would remember later that in the horror of the moment, as they were lifted high into the air, that Sam Cutler had been right, it was bigger than two houses.
The boat plopped back down onto the lake, the whirling engines grinding, water splashing everywhere, soaking both of them. Another bounce like that, Henry thought frantically, and the boat would capsize.
“My god,” Justin yelped. “It really is a monster!” He sounded like someone who’d just watched the sun explode up in the sky.
“I’ll be damned,” Henry mumbled, attempting to swallow. His body was frozen. Only his eyes could move, but they were glued to the creature’s steep side. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing, though in the dark and the chaos of the attack, all he could actually make out was a mass of dark scaly skin as the boat slid down along side of the creature.
He captured a flash of a thick neck, a huge blob of a head, two glaring crimson eyes and a wicked slash of sharp whiteness that had to be teeth as big as a man’s hand. All in all, their attacker was a nightmare that froze him and Justin to the boat’s rail, holding on for dear life as the boat beneath them bucked and rocked.
The thing was moving fast.
Justin’s head lifted upwards on his neck, his eyes gawking up at the thing. He screamed.
The beast replied with a deep-throated gurgling rattle of a roar.
Justin stammered under his breath, “Forgot to mention, I hate the water. And I can’t swim!”
“Now you tell me,” Henry tossed back. “Don’t worry, your life preserver will keep you afloat. If you go over, paddle like hell!”
The boat repeated its jump. The fiberglass creaked tortuously beneath them.
“If we go in the water will it try to eat us?” Henry’s voice was a hoarse whisper.
“I’m not sure. No way of knowing. If it’s a descendent or a mutant of a species like Pliosaur, its ancestors were flesh-eaters. They ate anything they bumped into.”
The boat was lifted a second time, bouncing it high into the air, then it came down violently, nearly capsizing.
“It’s trying to sink us,” Henry cried above the din. The bullets he’d taken in the line of duty hadn’t scared him half as much as what he was feeling now. But he’d never seen the bullets coming. This was different. He couldn’t miss the monstrosity slamming against the boat, playing with them as if they were a child’s toy.
Then as swiftly as the water beast had appeared, it was gone.
The lake beneath and around them became calm. The boat lunged forward, the engines loud on the night air.
Long seconds went by.
Shuddering, on his knees, Justin whispered, “It’s gone.”
Henry crouched by the rail, listening. It was hard to hear anything over the loud thumping of his heart. “That was close.”
“I’ve daydreamed about when dinosaurs walked the earth,” Justin’s voice was ragged. “I always thought it’d be neat to see one. I don’t think so now. The shock alone could give a person a heart attack.”
The paleontologist came off his knees to lean against the rail beside Henry. He wiped the water from his face, in the faint light, his eyes wide and glazed. “Ha, imagine, and I didn’t want us to hurt it–as if we could have.” An acid laugh escaped his lips. “That thing must be gigantic, by what we glimpsed of it. That tail and head went on forever. And did you hear that awful sound it was making, a rumbling snoring roar? It sounded as if we were under a waterfall.”
“Yes,” was Henry’s only reply. He was still listening.
“What are we going to do, Mr. Ranger? Should we make a run for the shore or what?”
Henry stood up slowly, moved over to the controls and shoved the throttle full open. He put out the other hand to grip Justin’s shoulder. “We get out of here as fast as we can.”
They heard the water and the roaring noises resume around them.
“It’s coming back!”
“I know,” moaned Justin.
The boat began to rock harder. The beast was near.
Later Henry believed Justin’s inspiration and quick thinking were the only things that saved them. “Noise! It’s attacking the noise from the engines…and it sees the lights.”
“Then we turn off the engines and the lights! If we play dead, it might leave us alone.
“And I’ve got a gun,” Henry added, a hand on the Sig in his holster. “I can shoot it.”
“Forget that,” Justin hollered. “That pin prick would probably just make it madder and it’d come after us for sure.”
Henry shut down the engines and switched off the power.
“Flashlights off, too,” Justin breathed.
They blinked into darkness. It’d been a moonless, overcast night, with creeping fog to help hide them. Henry felt as if he were floating in outer space, no stars, no other light source, just endless eternal blackness.
“Justin–”
“Shhh,” Justin hissed, yanking the ranger down next to him.
The wild pitching of the boat ceased but Henry’s stomach remained in turmoil.
They waited for a long time for the creature to make its next move. Nothing. It was as if the disturbance had never happened.
They huddled on the wood of the deck, silent, barely breathing, their craft dead in the water, for what seemed like an eternity, the rest of the night. It wasn’t until the first rays of sunlight filtered through the mist that Henry restarted the engines and gratefully took them home.
“I want to thank you, Justin,” Henry said after the boat had resumed chugging along. “You probably saved our lives. I was ready to shoot at the thing. I think you were right–it would have just angered it more.”
Peering at Henry through water-speckled glasses, Justin gave him a weary grin. “No need to thank me. I was saving my skin, too.”
“Well, thanks anyway, quick thinker. You didn’t panic as most people would have.”
“Ha, I was too scared to panic.” Justin released a shudder. “And I only used common sense.
“I thought I’d never say this, but as unique a creature as it might be, it doesn’t belong here in our world. Here, it’s a nightmare. You’re right, it belongs to the ancient past.”
“That it does.”
“Henry, since you know the park and the lake area so well, where do you think it hides during the day?”
“Let’s see…underneath the lake there’s a honeycomb of caverns and caves formed thousands of years ago by lava streams when the volcano originally erupted. An amphibious beast could live, hide, down there in the connected waterway caverns forever.”
“I don’t like caves. They make me claustrophobic.”
“And you don’t like the water, either.”
“I hate caves more.”
“How did you ever become a paleontologist then?”
“I figured I’d be excavating mostly on dry higher land. Most archaeological sites are up in the mountains or in deserts. So far I haven’t had to dig underwater or in caves.”
“That’s too bad because after what happened last night, what we saw, if it keeps destroying boats and people keep popping up missing, we might have to search for the creature. Might have to find out where it’s hiding, or living; maybe even explore the underground caves.”
“You’d want me to accompany you?”
“If you would. You’re the only paleontologist I know. I could use your expertise in dealing with the, er, dinosaur, if that’s what you think it is.”
Justin’s face was ashen as he nodded. In the dawn’s light he looked a hell of a lot older than he’d looked the day before.
“It, they,” Justin muttered, “could live down in the caves.”
“You mean there could be more than one of those things?”
“Why not?” Justin replied as their boat pulled up to the dock. “Heaven knows how long the creature we saw has been living in the lake. There could be more.”***
********************************************************************
DINOSAUR LAKE EXCERPT:
Henry made coffee and slumped into a kitchen chair. The previous night, a lead suit, collapsed on him. Feeling the exhaustion, he wished he could crawl into bed and sleep, as Justin had; lose himself in black oblivion. Better yet, he wished last night had never happened because now something would have to be done about the beast in the lake.
He stared out the window at the sunny day and tried to wipe his mind clean. But pretty soon he was back worrying over the next step to take. Worried about getting help with the situation and what he was going to say to Redcrow, without coming across as being plumb nuts.
When the coffee was ready he poured a cup, black, and drank it. Then another. He figured a good meal and a shower would revive him; keep him awake for seeing George and the long drive into town. So he fried some bacon and five eggs, plus toast with butter. Once he took that first bite, he realized he was hungrier than a starved bear.
Stark terror must do that to a person.
After cleaning up the dishes, he stood under a hot shower and afterwards put on civilian clothes, a pair of gray slacks and a casual shirt. At least he wasn’t going to look like a crazy.
Henry drove the speed limit to headquarters. George’s car was parked outside along with a couple of others. Shift change. Taking a deep breath, the Chief Park Ranger strode in.
Redcrow was heading out the door. They nearly collided.
“Just the man I came to see,” Henry said.
“Thought this was your day off, Boss?”
“It is.”
George took one look at his face and, gripping his arm, guided him outside into the sunlight.
“Let’s take a walk,” George suggested. “I need to work off those crullers I just gobbled down.”
They walked.
“You were right, George.”
“About what?”
“There’s something, some huge water creature, in the lake. Maybe it’s the explanation for the wrecked boats and those missing men. Could be it’s what’s been butchering the animals on Wizard Island as well.”
George leveled Indian-black eyes at him. “I knew that. I’m the one who was with you when we found the remnants of Sam Cutler’s boat.”
“I remember.” Henry kept walking. His face was turned away from George’s, his shoulders slumping a little.
George understood. “You found it, then?”
Henry slid a look at his friend. “It found us. Last night. Justin Maltin, the paleontologist sent up here from John Day’s, was with me. We were patrolling the lake after dark, as we have been on and off since the first boat disappeared. Looking for...something. Anything. We found it. It came up under our boat. I thought we were dead men.”
“You should have been. You were protected. The water spirits were watching over you and your passenger. You’re a charmed man, Henry. I’ve always told you that.”
Henry threw Redcrow an amused look.
“What did it look like?” George’s troubled eyes glinted ebony, as if he already knew what Henry was going to tell him.
“It was hard to see. But the creature, whatever it was, was enormous. It either had a long neck or a real long body and it appeared to be a dark color. Not really sure. But it did have lots of big white teeth because they gleamed in the dark.”
George’s shaggy eyebrows rose. “Even though I’ve seen the mutilated animals, seen the tracks, I’m still flabbergasted,” his lips pulled back away from his teeth as he inhaled, “and frightened. If it’s as aggressive and as big as you say it is we have a hell of a problem.”
“Tell me about it. A huge problem. It’s an immediate threat to anyone on the lake.”
“Yes, it is.” George whistled softly, dodging a tree.
“I thought it was going to belly flop right on top of us. I froze like a scared kid. Just gawked, dumb-struck, at it. Wasn’t for Justin, who made me cut the lights, the engine and play dead in the fog, I might not be alive to be talking about it. The beast went away.”
Henry stopped walking and leaned tiredly against a tree. In as few words as possible he described the night he’d had and everything he could remember about the leviathan.
“What do we do now? It’s not going to stay gone, is it, Boss?”
“Imagine not. I’m going to need anyone who’ll believe me. I thought you might fill the bill.”
“I might,” George replied with a reserved smile. “What are your orders?”
“We’ll need to keep everyone off the lake, make it off-limits, for now, I’m afraid. Don’t see any other alternative.”
Henry fell silent as a group of chattering visitors swept by and went into a souvenir shop. He had the urge to run after and warn them not to go near the water because a monster would get them. But he didn’t.
“You’re going to report this sighting to the National Park Service, aren’t you?” George’s voice had that same sarcastic humor it usually had when he knew the answer.
“Again I don’t have any choice, the way I see it, George. That creature is dangerous. We’re going to have to do something.”
“Capture or kill it?” George inquired curiously.
“Well, those are possibilities, if we can find it. Or, we can leave it alone.”
“That last one’s not an option. It’s a threat to humans. It’s proven that. And we both know it won’t leave us alone,” George murmured in a troubled tone. “Gonna close the park?”
“Nah, not yet. Just the lake area.”
George grimaced.
“I know. I don’t like the idea any more than you, but it’s better than losing more lives. We’ll close the lake, shut down the boat tours, and see what happens. I’m hoping it’ll be enough for now.”
“If the beast behaves and stays in the lake, right?”
“You got it.”
“And if it doesn’t stay where it’s supposed to?”
“Let’s face one nightmare at a time, please.
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