In the fading afternoon light, the helicopter skimmed low along the coast, following the line where the dense jungle met the beach. The last of the fishing villages had flashed by beneath them ten minutes ago. Now there was only impenetrable Costa Rican jungle, mangrove swamps, and mile after mile of deserted sand. Sitting beside the pilot, Edian Gomez stared out the window as the coastline swept past. There weren't even any roads in this area, at least none that Gomez could see. Gomez was a quiet, bearded American of thirty-six, a field biologist who had lived for the last eight years in Costa Rica. He had originally come to study toucan speciation in the rain forest, but stayed on as a consultant to the national park in the north. He clicked the radio mic. and said to the pilot, "How much farther?" "Five minutes, Señor Gomez." He turned and said, "It won't be long now." But the tall man folded up in the back seat of the helicopter didn't answer, or even acknowledge that he had been spoken to. He merely sat, with his hand on his chin, and stared frowning out the window. Jackson Dream wore sun-faded field khakis, and a wrinkled orange shirt. A battered pair of binoculars hung around his neck. But despite his rugged appearance, Jackson conveyed an air of interest. Behind his wire-frame spectacles, his features were sharp, his expression intense and critical as he looked out the window. The truth was that Jackson-brilliant as he was-was drawn to the past, to the world that no longer existed. And he studied this world with obsessive intensity. He was famous for his photographic memory, his arrogance, his sharp tongue, and the unconcealed pleasure he took in pointing out the errors of colleagues. As a colleague once said, "Dream never forgets a bone-and he never lets you forget it, either." Field researchers disliked Jackson, and he returned the feeling. He was at heart a man of detail, a cataloguer of animal life, and he was happiest looking over museum collections, reassigning species, rearranging display skeletons. He disliked the dust and the emptiness of life in the field. Given his choice, Dream would never leave the museum. "Señores," the pilot said, interrupting them, "Juan Fernández Bay is ahead." Jackson said, "Circle it first."

Jackson looked out the window, his expression intense. They were flying over jungle that extended up into the hills for miles, as far as they could see. The helicopter banked, circling the beach. "There it is now," Gomez said, pointing out the window. The beach was a clean, curving white crescent, entirely deserted in the afternoon light. To the south, they saw a single dark mass in the sand. From the air, it looked like a rock, or perhaps a large clump of plants. The shape was large, about five feet across. There were lots of footprints around it. "Who's been here?" Dream said, with a sigh. "Public Health Service people came out earlier today." "Did they do anything?" he said. "They touch it, disturb it in any way?" "I can't say," Gomez said. "The Public Health Service," Levine repeated, shaking his head. "What do they know? You should never have let them near it, Edian." "Hey," Gomez said. "I don't run this country. I did the best I could. They wanted to destroy it before you even got here. At least I managed to keep it intact until you arrived. Although I don't know how long they'll wait." "Then we'd better get started," Jackson said. He pressed the button on his mic.. "Why are we still circling? We're losing light. Get down on the beach now. I want to see this thing firsthand."

Jackson Dream ran across the sand toward the dark shape, his binoculars bouncing on his chest. Even from a distance, he could smell the stench of decay. And already he was logging his impressions. The corpse lay half-buried in the sand, surrounded by a thick cloud of flies. The skin was filled with gas, which made identification difficult. Even so, it was clear that this had been a substantial creature, roughly the size of a cow or horse before the bloating began to enlarge it further. The dry skin had cracked in the sun and was now peeling upward, exposing the layer of runny, yellow fat beneath. Oof, it stunk! Levine winced. He forced himself closer, directing all his attention to the animal. Although it was the size of a cow, it was clearly not a mammal. The skin was hairless. The original skin color appeared to have been green, with a suggestion of darker colors running through it. The surface was pebbled in polygonal patterns of varying sizes, the pattern of the skin of a lizard. This texture varied in different parts of the animal, the pebbling larger and less distinct on the stomach. There were skin folds at the neck, shoulder, and hip joints-again, like a lizard. Dream moved slowly around the corpse, toward the front of the animal. No, he thought, it wasn't a lizard. The carcass lay on its side, its left rib cage toward the sky. Nearly half of it was buried; the row of skin that marked the front of the backbone were just a few inches above the sand. The long neck was curved, the head hidden beneath the bulk of the body like a duck's head under feathers. In fact, the more Dream saw of this carcass, the more carefully he thought he should proceed. Because one thing was clear-this was a very rare, and possibly unknown, animal. Dream felt simultaneously excited and cautious. If this discovery was as important as he was beginning to think it was, then it was essential that it be properly documented.

He heard a thumping, and looked up to see a second helicopter circling the bay, its dark shadow sliding across the sand. This helicopter was ambulance-white, with red lettering on the side. In the glare of the setting sun, he couldn't read any of the letters. "Sorry about all this," Gomez said, coming over. "But the pilot just refuses." The pilot was nervously following Gomez, standing beside him, watching carefully. "Edian," Dream said. "I really need to take pictures here." "I'm afraid you can't," Gomez said, with a shrug. "It's important, Edian." "Sorry. I tried my best." Farther down the beach, the white helicopter landed, its whine diminishing. Men in uniforms began getting out. "Edian. What do you think this animal is?" "Well, I can only guess," Gomez said. "From the general looks I'd call it a previously unidentified iguana. It's extremely large, of course, and obviously not native to Costa Rica. My guess is this animal came from the Galápagos, or one of the-" "No, Edian," Dream said. "It's not an iguana." "Before you say anything more," Gomez said, glancing at the pilot, "I think you ought to know that several previously unknown species of lizard have shown up in this area. Nobody's quite sure why. Perhaps it's due to the cutting of the rain forest, or some other reason. But new species are appearing. Several years ago, I began to see unidentified species of-" "Edian. It's not a damn lizard." Gomez blinked his eyes. "What are you saying? Of course it's a lizard." "I don't think so," Dream said. Gomez said, "You're probably just thrown off because of its size. The fact is, here in Costa Rica, we occasionally encounter these new forms-" "Edian," Dream said coldly. "I am never thrown off." "Well, of course, I didn't mean that-" "And I am telling you, this is not a lizard," Jackson said. "I'm sorry," Gomez said, shaking his head. "But I can't agree."

Back at the white helicopter, the men were huddled together, putting on white surgical masks. "I'm not asking you to agree," Dream said. He turned back to the carcass. "The diagnosis is settled easily enough, all we need do is collect the head, or for that matter any of the limbs, for example this thigh here, which I believe-" He broke off, and leaned closer. He peered at the back of the thigh. "What is it?" Gomez said. "Give me your knife." "Why?" Gomez said. "Just give it to me." Gomez fished out his pocketknife, put the handle in Dream's outstretched hand. Jackson peered steadily at the carcass. "I think you will find this interesting." "What?" "Right along the skull, there is a-" Suddenly, they heard shouting on the beach, and looked up to see the men from the white helicopter running down the beach toward them. They carried tanks on their backs, and were shouting in Spanish. "What are they saying?" Dream asked, frowning. Gomez sighed. "They're saying to get back." "Tell them we're busy," Dream said, and bent over the carcass again. But the men kept shouting, and suddenly there was a roaring sound, and Jackson looked up to see flamethrowers igniting, big red jets of flame roaring out in the evening light. He ran around the carcass toward the men, shouting, "No! No!" But the men paid no attention. He shouted, "No, this is a priceless-" The first of the uniformed men grabbed Dream, and threw him roughly to the sand. "What the hell are you doing?" Dream yelled, scrambling to his feet. But even as he said it, he saw it was too late, the first of the flames had reached the carcass, blackening the skin, igniting the pockets of gas with a blue whump! The smoke from the carcass began to rise thickly into the sky. "Stop it! Stop it!" Dream turned to Gomez. "Make them stop it!" But Gomez was not moving, he was staring at the carcass. Consumed by flames, the torso crackled and the fat sputtered, and then as the skin burned away, the black, flat ribs of the skeleton were revealed, and then the whole torso turned, and suddenly the neck of the animal swung up, surrounded by flames, moving as the skin tightened. And inside the flames Dream saw a long pointed snout, and rows of sharp teeth, and hollow eye sockets, the whole thing burning like a medieval dragon rising in flames up to the sky.

A/N
Just remember, I still need seven characters for my book. Please add in your own characters!!!
A/N 2:
This is was supposed to be two different chapters, but got turned into the longest chapter ever.