Bubble

Chapter 13

I was sleeping when a loud sound startled me awake. My eyes shot open, and I looked down at the clock on my nightstand to see that it was only one-thirty in the morning. It was still pitch black out, and I wondered what I had heard. An ear-piercing squawk rang through the air, the same one we had heard in the jungle our first day in Eos. Chloe suddenly burst through the door and crawled whimpering into my arms.

"E, what is that?" she asked, sniffling slightly.

"I don't know, Chlo. Come on," I told her as I took her hand and led her out of their room. We found my dad already in the living room, peering out the front window.

"Dad? What is that?" I asked cautiously. He turned to face us, his brows furrowed in confusion.

"I don't know. It sounds like some sort of bird, but I'm going to go check it out. Stay here," he said, grabbing his gun as he walked out the front door.

"Emma, I'm scared," Chloe said with wide eyes, tugging on the hem of my night shirt. I picked her up and put her on her hip, smoothing her hair with my hand.

We stood in the middle of the room, waiting for dad to come back in and confirm his earlier suspicions that it was just an annoying bird. He had been gone nearly five minutes when I began to worry. Another loud screech came from outside, and we heard dad yell and curse.

I set Chloe down, instructing her to stay put before running out the door. I was not at all prepared for what I saw. My dad was out in the street, and there was a huge creature standing in front of him. It looked as if it was almost seven or eight feet long, and had the appearance of a giant lizard, although it's legs were a bit taller. It let out another squawk revealing razor-sharp teeth, and a spiked collar around its neck flared up. My dad jumped at the sound and powered up his pulse-gun.

"Emma!" he shouted, "Go back inside and get my comms unit! Call Command and tell them to send some people out here stat!"

I hesitated for a moment before running back into the house and fumbling around my dad's nightstand for the communicator. My mum was still sleeping (god knows how), but heard me and rolled over groggily to ask what I was doing. I ignored her and ran back out of the room, comms unit in my hand. I found his contacts and selected Command off the list. A voice picked up after a few moments, sounding tired.

"Hello?"

"Hello this is Daniel Scott's daughter. My dad needs you to send some people over to our unit immediately! Its urgent!" I practically yelled into the small microphone. Another screech came from outside, and the man obviously heard it through the line.

"What in heaven's name was that?!" he asked. I didn't bother answering his question, simply telling him to hurry before hanging up.

Mum and Austin walked out of their rooms, confused by the commotion. "What's going o--" Austin began, but stopped short when he looked out the wide open front door to see dad fending off the giant reptile. Chloe ran up to mum and hugged her legs, scared half to death.

"What is that?" Austin demanded, and I followed him out onto the porch. The lizard made the sound again, and took a step towards dad. He cautiously backed away, but the reptile lunged forward and dad fired a pulse at the monster. The creature didn't stop, though, and he fired off three more rounds at it.

"Dad!" I yelled. The lizard began running towards him, and he was already running away from it, still firing off electronic pulses at the creature that was attempting to kill him.

Sharp claws reached out, and nicked the back of his calf, eliciting a yell. It raised its arm to swipe at him again, but two vehicles pulled up and half a dozen soldiers jumped out, firing stronger weapons at the animal. It slowly went limp, and an extra pulse was fired through it's head to make sure it was dead.

One of the soliders walked up to my dad, and I recognized it as Will. Of course I was in my pajamas and most likely looked like I had crawled straight out of hell. I pulled the elastic out of my hair as we all raced towards them, hoping I would look less like Frankenstien.

"You alright, Director Scott?" Will asked, and dad nodded.

"What was that thing?" mum inquired, gesturing to the animal the soldiers were shoving into the back of an armored truck.

"That," Will began, "was what we call a Carnotile. It's one of the most dangerous animals in the jungle, but I don't know how it got inside the gates." He ran a hand through his hair. "We'll take care of it. Why don't you go have that gash looked at, Director," he said, gesturing to my dad's leg. "I'll have them buzz you down to medical." He pointed to one of the vehicles, and mum helped him hobble over to it, then they zoomed off towards the main square.

Austin took Chloe back into the house, and I turned to follow them, but Will placed a hand on my arm. "Hey, Emma, are you alright?"

I turned around to face him, noting that he had called me by my first name. He looked slightly disheveled and tired, his hair a bit tousled. However, he still managed to look even more attractive than the two previous times I'd run into him. I felt extremely self-concious.

"Yeah. I--I'm okay. Just surprised is all. Not used to seeing man-eating lizards in my front yard everyday."

He chuckled, but eyed me carefully. "Okay. Let me know if you guys need anything." He started to turn towards the vehicle, but paused and shifted back to me. "I can stay with you and your siblings until your parents get back, if you'd like."

 I waved my hand dismissivley at his offer. As much as I wanted to be around him, I didn't really feel like hanging out at two in the morning while I was babbling from exaustion and looking like a zombie. "Nah, it's okay. They'll probably be awhile. I'll be fine."

"Okay. I'm on call all night if you change your mind." He jogged back over to the vehile. "See you around, Miss Scott," he called back, before driving away down the lane.

I smiled, my heart racing from both from the crazy reptile and talking with Will. I was beginning to think that there was a lot more to this place than I could ever read about in a manual...