Prehistoric Survival | Book 1 | Doomed City

by Sander, K. G.

  “Why are you telling me this? You’re not coming with me?”

  “I’m coming with you,” Mason said, reaching out and grabbing her hand. “But you need to know the plan. No mistakes. Ellis lives six houses down, across Louise Ave. You’ve been there, right? Mom has sent you to get me before?”

  Kennedy nodded vehemently. The door banged again, and high-pitched chirping sounded from the other side. There were a few of them, sounded like five or six. Mason knew they had to get out of here.

  “Okay, I’ll tell you when to go, okay?”

  Another nod. Tears were forming in her eyes and it made Mason’s heart break. He needed to save his sister.

  “Okay. Hold tight kid, I’m leaving the door.” Mason didn’t wait for her to answer. He stood quickly, just as another bang sounded, and a screw from a door hinge fell to the ground. Lunging forward, he grabbed the shotgun then quickly ran to the other side of the dresser. Gritting his teeth, he pushed as hard as he could, never being so grateful for hardwood flooring as he was now. The heavy dresser slid easily across the floor. Kennedy scrambled out of the way and Mason pushed the dresser to replace her.

  Silently, he grabbed her hand, and they darted together to the window. Using the butt end of the shotgun, Mason smashed the window. Kennedy hopped out the window, Mason following close behind.

  Turning quickly on the roof of the garage, Kennedy screamed.

  An Albertosaurus stared at them, bright yellow eyes blinking in the sun. They’d caught him by surprise, and the dinosaur, as tall as the garage, stared at them, beady eyed.

  Mason couldn’t appreciate the significance. The shock both species, separated by 65 million years, had when seeing each other for the first time. And not just seeing each other, but really taking a look.

  The carnivore bobbed his head, not unlike a turkey, and stared at the fleshy pink beings in front of it.

  “Duck,” Mason said.

  Kennedy scrambled away on the garage roof.

  Mason pumped the shotgun and pulled the trigger.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  John

  John sat on the tailgate of the ambulance parked outside the emergency room, watching the setting sun. The air was humid and hot, not unlike a jungle. He’d been to a jungle once, with his wife. They’d gone to Brazil for their honeymoon.

  That was before their lives changed, when she was assaulted. When he asked her to do the unthinkable and say she’d lied, just for a small reprieve from being in the public eye.

  Not a day went by that John didn’t regret it. He should have stood behind her. And, honestly, he should have punched that asshole in the face.

  Years of marriage counselling and they were finally starting to get through it. One day at a time.

  His heart ached as he thought of his family. A few people had trickled in off the streets, and the word was that there was no way out of this. People from the South said the city ended in jungle. As did the people who trickled in from the East, West and North. Jungle, exactly where the supercollider mound lay on the ground, in a circle around the city.

  Jungle and dinosaurs.

  “Can I bum a cig?”

  John jumped and turned. Jimmy, the resident drunk, stood beside the ambulance. “Sorry,” he said, shrugging, “I thought you heard me.”

  “What are you doing out here, Jimmy? It’s not safe.”

  “You’re out here,” he said through gapped teeth. John shook his head as Jimmy opened a new pack of cigarettes and placed one between his teeth. “And besides, I thought I could bum a cig.”

  “You have an entire pack. Why do you need one from me?”

  “First rule of living on the street,” Jimmy said, lighting the cigarette and offering John the pack. John shrugged and took one. Cancer was the least of his worries right now. “Always ask first before you show your full hand.”

  “It’s a good rule,” John said.

  “Is Becky gonna be alright?”

  John shrugged, “She’s out of surgery. They saved both legs. But the generators will not hold out for long. Not sure if she will make it without power.”

  Jimmy nodded and took a drag, “Shame. I liked Becky. Always nice to me.”

  “Yeah, she’s a good person.” John relished the nicotine.

  “Yeah. Well, maybe that ambulance driver can take care of her when you leave.”

  “What makes you think I’m leaving?”

  Jimmy shrugged, “I ain’t stupid. You’ve got a family. What do you owe these people, staying here when you got kids running around with dinos and shit?” Pulling a tiny bottle out of his pocket, Jimmy squirted it into his hand and drank it.

  The antiseptic smell of hand sanitizer hit John. “Jimmy, that will kill you. Don’t drink that shit.”

  “As far as we know, we’re already dead.”

  John shook his head. Jimmy leaned his head back against the Ambulance.

  “I’ll go with you, if you want,” he said finally.

  “You don’t owe me that. It’s not safe out there.”

  “Not safe here neither,” Jimmy answered. “I’ve been on the street for ten years. You’re gonna need my help, City Slicker.”

  John couldn’t argue. “We should wait til sun up.”

  “Bad call, nurse,” Jimmy said, “The generators are gonna dry up. People are gonna panic. We need to get ourselves some juice and a couple sammiches, then hit it before that. I’ve got a couple places we can bunk out for the night.”

  “That seems dangerous, wandering around at night. Dinosaurs roaming the city.”

  “I’d take the dinos over those people in there anyway,” Jimmy said. “I’m leaving, John. Soon. You’re gonna need help if you go. And those people, they’re scared. When the generators go off and the power stays off, scared people are gonna do stupid things. I don’t want to be here when they do.”

  “I can’t just leave these people here to die. I took an oath. I take my job seriously. What you’re asking me to do is make me turn my back on everything I believe in.”

  Jimmy shrugged and took his last drag of the cigarette. “Them or your family, nurse. You’re gonna have to pick. Leaving in five if you wanna join me.” Jimmy squirted more hand sanitizer into his hand and licked it up. “Your choice.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Maggie

  The concrete floor dug into her knees, and Maggie looked around, trying to calm herself. They were in a line facing a bolted in table with a man sitting on top, peeling an apple with a knife.

  It didn’t take long for Maggie to know where she was. The Regional Psychiatric Center was a full hospital made for inmates of the Federal Penitentiary. She’d been given a tour when she’d been hired on at the University. It was a full working medical building, with resident doctors and nurses.

  Really, if a jail and a hospital were merged together, that would be the Regional Psychiatric Center.

  The man sitting in front of them peeled his apple slowly. Dressed in a white t-shirt and blue scrub pants, there was no denying that this man was an inmate. Well, ex-inmate, as there wasn’t a guard in sight.

  “Did you know,” the man said, carefully peeling the apple, “That, in a time of Apocalypse, the guards are required by law to open all the cages and to walk away?” The knife went around the apple and he put a ribbon into his mouth. “They didn’t even wait five minutes. Word came down that a T-Rex was out wandering the streets and they left so fast we almost didn’t see them leave.”

  Well, that explained the lack of guards.

  “Now,” he opened his arms wide. “Who am I? Why have I decided to put you poor bastards where we just got out? To lock you up like we were. Like animals. You fine, upstanding citizens of our wonderful Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.” He smiled. “It’s just business.”

  “Julio,” Trudy called from right beside her.

  Shocked, Maggie turned towards the woman beside her. A hand smacked her in the back of the head, and Maggie faced forward.

  “Who is
talking while I’m talking?” Julio asked. “Really? That’s just disrespectful, man.”

  “You owe my family a blood debt,” Trudy said. “My brother, Inogo Hernandez paid his life for yours.”

  Julio stood and turned. “Let her up.”

  The man holding Trudy’s shoulder removed his hand and Trudy stood. Head tall, she waited for Julio to approach her.

  “You are Inogo’s sister?”

  “I am.”

  “But you’re not in the life.”

  “No, I moved to Saskatoon a few years ago after Inogo died. It seems that you were transferred here as well.”

  “Cancer is a bitch.”

  Trudy smiled. “Yeah it is. So, can me and my friends go?”

  Julio smiled back. “Take everyone but her group to their living arrangements.”

  People were hauled to their feet and removed. Some begged, some cried. With curses, blows and threats, they were hauled away down a hall. Maggie, Dirby, Ginny and Lindsay stayed on their knees, watching slack-jawed as Trudy talked their way out of their predicament.

  “So, why the people? Slavery wasn’t part of the Skulls in Inogo’s day.”

  “Times have changed in the last day,” Julio said. “We are just going with the times.”

  “And slavery is where the times have led you?”

  “I have all the medicine,” Julio gestured to a stack of brown boxes behind him. “I have water,” he gestured to a stack of blue water bottles. “And there’s food in the kitchen. Soon, there won’t be a need for drugs or fake passports. People. They are going to be what people need.”

  “Your plan is to kidnap people, and what? Trade them? To do what?”

  “Whatever people want them to do. That’s not up to me. I’m a provider. I find and provide what people are looking for.”

  Trudy shook her head. Maggie wanted to stand up with her, but her guard kept her in place with steady pressure on her shoulder. She sneaked a glance to her right. Lindsay looked like crap. Sweat beaded off her forehead, and she was swaying slightly on her knees.

  “She needs a hospital,” Maggie said, interrupting Julio. “Now. We need to get her to St. Paul’s.”

  “Why does she need a hospital?” Julio said. “That’s none of my concern.”

  “It is if she spreads disease here. It’ll spread like wildfire.”

  “Then we throw her out of the fence line, let them big ‘ole critters finish her. That’s not my problem.”

  Trudy scowled. “You owe me a blood debt,” she said crossly. “Me and friends need safe passage to St. Paul’s.”

  “I owe you a blood debt,” Julio countered. “Not them. You’re free to go whenever you’d like.”

  “I’m not leaving without them.”

  “What you owe to them isn’t a me problem either.” He was getting impatient, Maggie could tell. His eyes furrowed as he talked. “You’re free to go and my debt to you is paid.”

  “Hardly,” Trudy fired back. “Word is that Inogo saved three people that day. You and two others. So, that’s three debts.”

  Julio sat back down, thinking.

  “You don’t want word to get out that you don’t pay what you owe,” Trudy said. “That wouldn’t be good, especially in this unknown world.”

  Julio tapped his knee, then smiled thickly. “Done. Inogo’s life for you and your three friends,” he said. “But, there must be blood for the fourth.”

  Trudy blanched. “What do you mean, blood?”

  “Well, my brother lost his arm that night,” Julio said, the smile not reaching his eyes. “Inogo shot him. So, I guess I’ll take an arm. You,” Julio pointed at Maggie. She was hauled to her feet.

  “No,” she said. “Wait. No!”

  Her stomach dropped as she was dragged towards the table. A large man in prison gear walked forward, smiling, holding a large fire axe.

  “No! What? Wait!”

  Maggie tried to fight but was smacked on the back of the head. Dazed, she was hauled to the table.

  Trudy was flushed. “This is not what the bosses said at Inogo’s funeral!”

  “Well, the bosses aren’t here, are they? And word on the street is that it’s forest all the way around the city. The bosses aren’t anywhere near here.”

  “Stop-”

  A gasping call from behind them. Julio held up his hand, and they stopped dragging her.

  “Wait,” Lindsay said from behind her. “Take my arm.” She gasped between words.

  Julio smiled. “See? I knew we could come to an agreement.”

  Lindsay was brought forward, too sick to fight.

  “No!” Maggie yelled, desperately fighting her guard. She was hit again on the head, this time hard enough to send her sprawling to the floor.

  Lindsay was dragged past her, not fighting, sweating and pale. They knelt her beside the table and two of the recently free prisoners held her arm out straight.

  “Lindsay, you don’t have to do this,” Maggie sobbed from the floor. A knee pushed down between her shoulders, keeping her prone on the ground.

  “It’s better this way.”

  Maggie closed her eyes.

  “See? At least one of your group isn’t a pussy.”

  Maggie kept her eyes closed.

  She could hear Lindsay’s breathing quicken. She smelled her own breath against the cold concrete floor. Her eyes firmly shut, she breathed quickly in time with Lindsay.

  A swish of an axe as it sliced through the air.

  It thumped hard against the table.

  Two seconds later, Lindsay screamed.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Maggie

  “Now, you and the armless can get out of here,” Julio said, grinning. “And I’ll keep the other three. Then my blood debt is repaid.”

  They allowed Maggie to scramble to her feet. She lunged towards Lindsay, who was breathing fast and whose face was white.

  “Give me a belt,” Maggie yelled, looking at the oozing stump. “Now.”

  Nobody moved.

  “Hey,” Maggie yelled. “You said an arm. Not her life. Give me a belt, or you’ve killed her.”

  Julio laughed. “Lady you’ve got some fight in you, I’ll give you that. Hey! McFeeney, get this lady a belt. Actually, to show her how much we honor our debts, grab her a couple vials of antibiotics too.”

  “Hold on,” Maggie muttered to Lindsay. She was breathing faster and wouldn’t look at her arm. Tears streamed down her face, but she didn’t make a sound. “Lindsay. I need you to slow your breathing down, okay?”

  Lindsay took a big breath through her nose, and Maggie’s heart broke. “That’s a girl,” she said, putting pressure on the stump, blood oozing over her hands. Lindsay gasped at the touch. “I know, I know. That’s a girl.”

  “Hey Julio! What’s an antibiotic?”

  “Penicillin, you dumbass.”

  “Umm…”

  “Top right of the boxes.” Julio turned to Trudy. “Dumbass.”

  “This isn’t over,” Trudy yelled. “You’ve gone back on a blood debt. The leaders-”

  “Will do what? Call me from Toronto? Look around this fucking city, lady. There’s no Toronto left. And I should kill you on sight, given how Inogo almost took me down with him.” He stood, leering. “I don’t owe you shit. No one is here to keep me in line. I’m the boss now. And I say that you and the stumped arm bitch go. If you keep arguing, I’ll just kill you all on principal.”

  McFeeney brought a belt and a vial to Maggie. She ripped it out of his hands and tightened it around the wound. Lindsay gasped and a couple tears leaked out of her left eye. “I know,” Maggie breathed. “I know. It’ll be okay. Lindsay, it’ll be okay.”

  Maggie looked at the vial. Well, at least the guy could read. She drew up the dose into a syringe and pushed it into the vein on Lindsay’s arm.

  “Take me,” Trudy said from behind them. Maggie wasn’t really paying attention to what was going on. She was focused on the ugly stump in front of her. The
vision sent her stomach churning, and nausea rose. There was another world look about the stump. An arm was supposed to be there. It had been there moments before. And now was a mess of tissue and blood. A clean cut, which was a blessing, but the offness of what was in front of her shook her to her core.

  “I owe you your freedom,” Julio said. “Not them.”

  “I don’t care,” Trudy said. “My life for theirs. It’s less than what you owe Inogo.”

  Silence fell behind her.

  “Send them out. Give them a car, even. If it will stop your squawking, it’s worth it. Take her to our living arrangements. She’s the prettiest one of them, so should fetch a pretty penny.”

  Trudy blushed and hung her head.

  “Get them out of my sight.”

  Maggie was hauled to her feet and, before she knew what was going on, was dragged to the door and thrown out into the cool night.

  Dirby was thrown into her, and they fell to the ground. Ginny followed and lastly was Lindsay. She stumbled into the dirt, Ginny reaching for her but missing.

  “Have a good night,” McFeeny laughed, and he tossed a set of keys onto Lindsay’s limp body. McFeeny and his friends laughed and locked the door to the psych center behind them. Leaving Trudy trapped inside.

  “Give her back!” Ginny yelled and tried to charge after them. The door was locked tight. It was a prison, after all.

  “Ginny,” Maggie said. “Ginny, we’re not getting her back. Lindsay’s going to die if we stay here. She’s bleeding a lot.”

  “Why does that matter,” Dirby said desperately.

  “It means,” Maggie said, grabbing the keys and leaning over to check on Lindsay. She was still conscious, but barely, breath coming in pained gasps. “That there are predators all around us. Odds are one of them can smell blood from a distance. We need to get out of here as soon as possible. Help me lift her up,” she said to Dirby. “Ginny, go find this car they so graciously gave to us.” She tossed over the keys.