MenoSaurus

INTRODUCTION

Have you ever traveled away from your world, outside of this solar system, beyond the stars, beyond this galaxy? People often wonder if anybody else is out there. Is there life beyond our planet?

Well, I’m here to tell you the answer is yes.

Millions upon millions of light years away, beyond our universe, dwells a race of highly developed superhuman beings. They once lived on our Earth, millions of years before us … before even the dinosaurs.

Have you ever seen a crater in the Earth? Did you think, What made this gigantic hole? What caused this impact all those millions of years ago? A meteorite?

Well, yes … and no. I’m talking about what was inside of the meteorites.

Inside meteorites there’s water. And if there’s water, then there’s life, right? You see, that superhuman race living millions of light years away traveled to Earth inside of asteroids.

Just as we grow inside our mother’s womb, this race grows inside the rock. When the asteroid reaches its destination, it explodes on the surface of the planet, making a deep crater in the ground. But this isn’t the end; this isn’t destruction. This is birth for the superhuman beings; it’s the beginning of their new life.

They’re called Menosaurs, an alien race that’s half humanoid and half dinosaur, aliens who can change into any dinosaur at will.

The Menosaurs first landed on the Earth thousands of years before the dinosaurs even existed. Actually, they created the dinosaurs as we know them today. Created them and destroyed them, leaving our planet to die when they left our world to return to theirs. They left behind only the traces of craters, fossils, and bones.

For millions of years, the Menosaurs have been gone from the Earth, leaving our planet alone until now. But something has changed; something has shifted in space. A new gravitational pull is drawing a mass of asteroids toward our galaxy, toward our planet.

Inside this mass of asteroid rock, something is growing … something is heating up. The hotter the asteroids become, the more the creatures inside grow. When the rocks hit our Earth’s atmosphere, while they are at the highest temperature, that’s when the creatures inside are almost fully grown, expanding at a tremendous rate.

Inside are the Menosaurs. Their asteroids will strike Earth at any moment. The Menosaurs’ mission, their purpose, is to take the Earth back. Or so we are to think …

CHAPTER ONE

BLAZING TRAIL OF FIRE

In upstate New York, in a forest clearing, stands a farmhouse. In the depths of night, the full moon hangs high above its shiny slate roof. A silver luminous light reflects into the brilliant starlit sky. A dog barks in the distance just as a large bat swoops across the gnarly wintery treetops. Its leathery wings break the deathly silence as it flaps past a square-framed bedroom window with dark glass.

If you look inside the window, you’ll see the room is pitch-black. The only light source is the moon. Its glow slices across the wooden floorboards, illuminating toys, comics, a skateboard, and a 1970s square-headed robot. Its shadow is a huge ominous giant on the bedroom wall.

The moonlight is sectioned into squares by the window design. It replicates these shapes throughout the room in a symmetrical ghostly fashion, cutting sharp, black lines over the floor and up the walls.

The light catches dark-gray fur. You see a face like a human’s but not quite. Its sharp features are surrounded by hair that splays out thick around the outer rim of its head, leading up to pointy black ears. Its pink, moist nose in the center of its face breathes softly, the only sign that the creature is alive.

Across the room on a twin bed, lies a mound of blankets in a fetal shape. They move up and down with something’s gentle breathing. The eyes of the boy under the blankets move rapidly behind closed eyelids.

For a moment, everything is complete calm, still, just how it should be in the dead of night under the full moon … until there comes a slight shake.

It starts as nothing, then grows as if it’s the beginning of an earthquake. The farmhouse rattles. The skateboard rolls forward, the robot tips headfirst to the floor, and the distant dog begins to bark once more.

The furry creature opens his eyes wide and bright, like sharp, piercing laser lights. They’re fiery-orange in color, surrounding large, jet-black pupils. They shift quickly from side to side while the creature thinks in nanoseconds about what to do next. The room shudders violently as if the house were being ripped from its foundations.

The sound grows deafening. It’s as if the newest seven-story-high aero cruise plane, equipped with an Olympic-sized swimming pool and grand casino were about to pass directly overhead.

The furry creature springs to his feet. He stands over seven feet tall. As his ghostly shadow darts across the room, he reaches out a long, apish arm. His hand, with long black talons, grabs at the bedcovers, shaking the boy.

"Rex, Rex! he shouts in a computer-like voice. Rex, wake up. Wake up, Rex, quickly!"

Under the blankets, Rex stirs. A murmur barely escapes his lips. Just five more minutes, Dad, please.

"Rex, I’m not your father. It’s me, Rion. Wake up, Rex, now!"

What? Rex murmurs. What is it? What’s going on? His eyes remain squeezed shut, though he slowly enters reality. He had been dreaming of a lost world where he was king and everybody was at his command.

The deafening noise slams into his ears like a freight train with no brakes. His eyes widen as though a tiger were attacking, and he springs out of bed like a martial artist in a combat stance.

What’s that, Rion? he shouts as their eyes meet.

Rion’s eyes are staring wild and bright, circling around in rapid motion. He’s in survival mode.

I don’t know, Rex! he shouts. "It’s coming from outside. Something’s passing overhead. It sounds big … really big!"

As the farmhouse vibrates violently, they both rush toward the Georgian window and stare outside. Something shoots over the roof, just missing it by yards. Slates rip off, flying in all directions as if hit by a wild tornado. Now a yawning scar along the roof catches fire.

The boy and his creature watch the blazing sky in total awe; their eyes widen in disbelief, taking in what’s unfolding.

It’s a massive meteorite! Rex shouts, his left brain computing the situation. "Look! It’s a meteorite about to crash into the Earth! It’s the end of the world!"

Rion’s eyes shoot into focus faster than a card-counter while he, too, computes the situation. He zooms in with his infrared night vision. This makes a luminous, green-squared diagram from his pupil home in on the giant burning rock. It’s traveling at tremendous speed, with a blazing trail of fire streaming behind it.

Rion’s inner-eye computes; it is indeed a meteorite. While his night vision gives the meteorite’s size, shape, and weight, plus the speed it’s traveling, it also states: Warning. Warning. Incoming alert. Take cover now. Warning. Warning.

"Get down, Rex!" Rion shouts, flinging his buddy to the bedroom floor before jumping on top of him to shield him with a mass of gray fur. The wiring of Rex’s rebuilt brain shoots his body full of fear messages. His heart thuds. Wha—what’s happening? he wonders. There’s only a split nanosecond of calm before Rion’s computer-brain flashes in red the word: Impact.

A massive explosion erupts like a volcano.

The farmhouse shudders uncontrollably as if it were a passenger jet in severe turbulence. The Georgian window blows inward, scattering shards of glass darts across the room. Panic hits as Rex presses himself to the floor. Holy moly, we’re going to lose the house!

Silence now.

Even the dog is quiet.

Not a sound …

… just as if nothing has happened.

As Rion stands, glass falls from his fur, and he exposes Rex, who lies face-up staring at where his bedroom ceiling once was. A billion stars, like his own private planetarium, twinkle above him.

His right eye blinks sharply into focus behind his black-framed glasses. Regaining his senses, he computes the situation, running data through his half-human, half-computer, boy brain. It glows, transmitting in colors inside his head.

He pushes his dark-blond hair back from his pale face, exposing one blue eye while the other is slightly larger with a black center. It’s his camera-lens eye; it zooms into focus, staring up into space through the missing lens of his glasses.

Rex is an only child. He lives in the farmhouse in upstate New York with his father, a very wealthy, very important man. He lost his mother in a plane crash that he was also in. Though his mother died instantly, Rex had survived, although he was at first thought dead. He was revived by the droid-paramedic whose robot hands thrust through the smashed cockpit screen,