“Run. It will clear you out. Remember what I said.”
She did.
Jane cracked another beer and watched.
4
Tuesday, April 29, 2019: 11:39AM
“Holy shit, that’s cold.” Stevie pulled his shirt back over his head. His pants remained unbuttoned. No more than a minute earlier, Emily had pointed out to the water. A junior boy names Peter clung to a destroyed pillar of stone in the middle of the rushing river. He called out gently, his eyes closed and his face going blue. Stevie was about to jump in, but Emily told him he’d freeze, so he stripped to his underwear and then leapt. “What? What?”
Emily was rubbing Peter’s wet back absently, staring out to the river. Stevie looked back over his shoulder, saw then. Bodies amidst the rubble. He looked away and then turned his face up to see only darkness, however they got to where they were, the access had disappeared.
“Are we underground, you think?” Stevie stepped into a pair of battered Reeboks.
It was mostly dark where they stood, but a forest of blazing mushrooms across the river shined enough light to reveal rocky walls trailing beyond sight.
“Earthquake, right? That’s what the shaking was, not Rob Hill.”
Peter turned his head to Stevie. “I killed him. I got him when he was trying to shoot Missus Wabigone. Got him with the shotput ball.”
“You threw the shot at him?” Emily continued to watch the water. She’d seen nine bodies so far, all obviously dead—smashed faces, holes in necks, missing limbs. “The ball is called the shot. That’s why it’s… Did he kill Juliet?”
Peter shook his head. “He shot her and Becky, but only in the shoulders.”
“Fucking idiot.” Stevie wore a furious mask. The trio was quiet a minute and then Stevie changed the topic. “You think we should look for others? Maybe find someplace to climb out of here?”
“It’s real far down. I fell off one of those big mushrooms and then into the river…all the way to the bottom…never been so deep and the fall lasted pretty long too.” Peter rubbed his hands on his thighs.
They started north, unaware of the direction they moved. The ground was a mess of rock and fallen life from the street. Somewhere a fire burned, the stench was thin but there. Peter leaned against Emily, clinging like a child. Their closeness annoyed Stevie—not long ago that was him pressed against Emily, but maybe the other way, like he was the strong one and she needed help.
“That Jesse Carlson’s mom’s van?” Emily pointed with her free arm over to the vehicle, upright in the midst of an overturned world. “It looks okay, right?”
Stevie turned and led the way. The van did look good. At first. Where the windshield appeared clean and normal was but a vacancy. The van had crunched down some, rippling the walls. The rubber had deflated and the rims bent outward. Despite this, the van seemed promising.
“When the van is a rockin’, don’t come a knockin’,” Emily whispered.
“What?” Stevie stopped and watched the van. It did move. “Why’d you say that?”
“I don’t know.”
“I did a day-camp with Jesse once. She was the instructor. We made kites. Ron Kingsong punched Connor Strong in the mouth because he said of course Ron put eagles on his kite. I told my mom and she said Connor deserved it. My mom is real sensitive about racism, but it just makes me remember better all the stuff I think would make my mom mad.”
“Strong is a dickwad anyway.” Stevie started forward again. Only twenty steps from the van, he called out, “Hey, in the van? You need help or anything?”
No answer came back and the van ceased its movement. Stevie continued, slowly. Emily and Peter did not follow any closer.
“Hello?” Fifteen feet, no more, Stevie squeezed his hands, his heart in his throat, and said, “If someone’s in there, say something.”
“Maybe don’t,” Emily said.
Stevie waved a hand like he knew better, kept walking. He reached the bumper and called in through the broken window. Inside was dim and motionless. His angle was all wrong and the floor was a black blanket of shadow.
“Hello?” he tried again and when no answer came back, he started around the passenger’s side.
“Stevie, I don’t know. Maybe don’t, okay?” Emily spoke just loud enough to be heard at that distance, as if afraid of awaking the van.
Stevie moved slowly, felt as if he had to force lead-weighted feet. The sliding door was a crooked mess and he didn’t bother trying to open it. Jesse Carlson’s mother had a catering business that she ran out of her basement. She also used the van as a coffee truck whenever a construction crew or a gas team worked in the area longer than a day. If she knew about them. Sometimes workers came around unannounced and left mostly unseen. The locals didn’t trust that activity at all.
Stevie knocked on the van wall once. A sound came back to him, guttural, maybe choking or gasping. The noise added some speed to his journey. The back doors were crooked, but appeared more functional. He grabbed the handle and tugged. It swung with a creak and Stevie gawked in silent shock.
“Stevie?” Emily took a step closer. Peter matched it. She took a second and third and fourth and fifth, Peter with her all the way. “Stevie, is anybody in there?”
Lasagna pans filled the cargo space, the congealed cheese holding the spillage to a minimum, even after falling as far as the van had. The lids had been peeled away. Like ducks in a puddle, eleven wild turkey-sized lizard birds stood in the orange muck. Their beady eyes peered into Stevie. Their little beaks dripped sauce. They reminded him of the thing that jumped out of guts in the Alien movies, but not pale. The things were grey and had short feathers on their shoulders, down their abdomens, and around their necks.
Stevie took a step backward. The bird things lowered their head in unison, as if linked telepathically. Stevie took another step backward. The things seemed to bend lower, readying knees.
“Stevie?”
“Don—”
At the sound of his voice, the birdy creatures leapt. Some moved toward him and some broke for the front of the van. Stevie sprinted up the side and nearer to Emily and Peter. Peter was frozen, wide-eyed. The things were moving right for him. Emily had already made it away a few more steps.
“Run, you idiot!” Stevie gasped, nearly reaching where Peter stood, unaware of how close the ones that had run up through the van and out the windshield gap were. “Run!”
Peter didn’t run. Instead, he cocked back a foot and punted the closest creature into the air about six feet. Its plumage stretched out as if shocked by electricity and then fluttered down on its stiff tail. It started running again, but in a new direction. The others followed it.
Peter was panting and crying. “One had a finger in its mouth. One had a finger!”
Stevie, seeing Peter’s success, turned and began chasing the fleeing things. “What?”
“A finger! A damned finger!”
“Help!” Emily shouted, suddenly blazing toward the van and the boys.
Stevie turned. Peter turned.
Something chased after Emily and it wasn’t turkey-sized. It towered over her. Its long beaky face stood somewhere nearing ten feet. It had stubby forelimbs with talons like a hawk, and thick hind legs, triple-sized talons jutting from webbed toes. There was no doubt about what this was.
Peter did not stare this creature down. This was not something kickable, this was not something he’d even bother smashing with a shotput shot, this was a fucking dinosaur and his ass was toast if he tested it.
Stevie ran in a loop, grabbed Emily’s wrist, and dragged her speed up a notch, making for the back of the van. On their tail was Peter, behind him was the dinosaur. None of the trio were into that sort of thing, none could’ve explained its probable genetic line or its title, but they knew what they saw thanks to Steven Spielberg.
“Inside!” Stevie stopped at the back of the van and pushed Emily into the lasagna mess. She crawled, seeking any kind of good cover. A scream e
rupted from her mouth. Stevie was right behind her, next to the step of the deformed sliding door.
Peter hopped in last and the light entering in through the open back doors closed off as the dinosaur cast its shadow. It roared a high keening sound through its nostrils. Then it breathed a hot, damp breath into the van, barked with its mouth, chomping its huge white teeth together, and then emitted the nostril keen once again.
Stevie, scared, had jumped forward, onto Emily. She in turn flattened out, her body pressed to the desiccated and half-eaten corpse of Jesse Carlson’s mother. The body was wet and cold, like hugging a mossy log pulled from a snowbank.
“Let me up!” Emily tried to turn.
Peter had his back pressed against Stevie’s ass as he tried to rise from atop Emily, making any real movement for any of them impossible. Peter’s feet kicked at the gilded steel floor, trying to be anywhere but where he was, staring down a monster.
The dinosaur turned its head and neck into the van, craning and snipping, unable to achieve full extension of its jaws in those quarters, at that angle. It pressed against the single row of back seats.
Peter balled up tight as he could. Emily continued screaming. Unaware that he was hurting Peter’s chances of survival, Stevie started to force himself off Emily, pushing against Peter’s back.
“Stop it!” Peter squealed. “Stop it!”
The dinosaur’s snout left a snail trail over Peter’s pant legs, but when it nipped and snapped, it just couldn’t quite reach. Suddenly, it retracted and made the high keen call once again. In the distance—though all too damned close—an identical keen reported back.
The interior brightened and Peter climbed up to his knees and jumped onto the bench seat. It was sticky and crusty with Italian sauces, breads, pasta, and melted cheeses, none of it discernable.
Stevie backed up, finally seeing fully what Emily was screaming about, and gulped down stomach acid climbing up his throat. Emily scrambled forward, between the captain’s chairs.
Then they bounced. The entire van bounced.
Zero balance, Stevie flopped and was make-out distance from the woman’s dead and chewed face. The dinosaur was head-butting the van, like banging the Jiffy-pop pan to unstick the last few kernels. He stopped a moment and keened.
The answering keen was suddenly right there. The van rocked in the opposite direction. The second dinosaur mimicked its brethren. Together, they launched the van back and forth. Inside, Emily clung to the framework beneath the driver’s seat, her hands slickened by automotive grease. Peter bounced and banged, his head slamming repeatedly against the steel interior walls of the van. Though disgusting, Stevie had the least painful position. The body beneath him took the brunt of the activity and he had only to withstand the terror of gore and un-trapping gases belching from her mouth and holes munched from her abdomen.
“Stevie!” Emily screeched, her body half-out the windshield hole as the secondary dinosaur pushed hard enough to tip the van onto its side. “Please, Stevie!”
Stevie reached out and grabbed for Emily’s arm, got a handful of shirt. It came away with the next rock and Emily slipped out the window.
The dinosaurs voiced their opinion of the success. Emily got as skinny as she could against the front end of the van. One of the dinosaurs snapped at her back, his eight-inch teeth tearing at her filthy sweater. The second dinosaur came up tight and butted its brethren, seeking the same meal. They snapped and butted, fighting over the hot dish.
Emily remained small and slim, trying to be a natural part of the van like a hood scoop or the lip of a wheel well.
From within, Peter crawled to the broken window and peeked out. The dinosaurs saw him do it and leapt for him. He bounced back, tumbling onto Peter and then falling the rest of the way onto the corpse, which emitted a great, moist fart.
Emily screamed anew as a claw sliced her back and the beasts tried for Stevie.
The world shook again, but differently, and the dinosaurs stilled, breaths coming heavy through their noses, causing a whistle to fill the van. One straightened and looked around, took off running. The shaking got bigger, louder, closer.
Peter began to moan, his body a bundle against the wall that had become the floor. Stevie rolled and pushed into a crouch behind the dash, wiring surrounding his head and pedals at his knees. Emily remained covered up, tight to the body of the van, despite wanting to put pressure against the burn of the slice in her flesh.
The second dinosaur straightened, looked after its brethren, then spun to face the incoming sound. It keened a half-call before a roar buried all other noise. It was as if a lion crossed with an eagle and called into a megaphone standing at the end of an endless hallway. Then chilly fluid splashed over Emily and weight pressed her hard against the van.
A second roar erupted and Peter had to cover his ears while Stevie winced, hands tangling in wires when he tried to do the same. Emily couldn’t have moved had she been brave enough to dare it.
The thumps tore away. A fresh roar cried out, but it was a huge distance away. Peter whimpered, but did not move. Stevie crouched lower, listened, scooched a little to get his head free. Emily began sobbing. It was a muffled sound.
Stevie risked it and crouch-walked out from behind the dash and saw a single, enormous leg from one of the dinosaurs, ripped free and coated in blood, leaning against the nose of the van. Behind it, beneath it, that’s where the sobbing came from.
“Stevie,” Emily said, her voice wet and distant.
“Shit. Shit.” Stevie grabbed onto the leg and tried to pull. “Peter, you gotta help me.”
“No.”
“Yeah.”
“No.”
“Yeah, come on. Emily’s stuck.”
“No.”
“Fuckin’ do it!”
“Okay.” Peter crawled out of the van and began tugging. They got it moved a foot. “I don’t wanna anymore.” He sat down on the dirty moss and covered his face.
“Fuck!” Stevie climbed on top of the leg and pinched himself between the front of the van and the limb, pushed with everything he had until he saw Emily’s arm. He rolled off and began pulled her. “Come on. Come on.”
She started pushing and kicking, and eventually, she slipped free. She latched onto Stevie and held him, needing his presence and touch. Stevie hugged back, moved his hand when he came in contact with the gash and she winced.
“It’s gonna be all right. It is.”
“I wanna go home.” Peter had his knees tight to his chest, rocking.
Stevie then whispered to Emily, “How big was the third one? Did you see it?”
Emily shook her head and continued crying onto his shoulder.
5
Tuesday, April 29, 2019: 1:48PM
Dick circled, traveling further outward with each pass. He’d discovered four more bodies and two people on the verge of becoming bodies. There was nothing he could do, could only search and hope. And think.
Thinking was Dick’s forte, and in the field of British Columbian flora, he’d put his knowledge against any other, but the moss and the mushrooms were an utter mystery. So much so, that to be away from the noise of Charlie’s pain and Tanya’s coos, he crawled into the remnants of someone’s tin garden shed and thought.
Like grinding cement with a hand mixer, A didn’t go with B didn’t go with C. It was like the Velociraptor remains. He’d tried to disbelieve his eyes, tried to reason away facts. He couldn’t and now he was underground in a lively world of anomalous mutations, not only eking out an existence, but thriving.
On a bundle of chilly sod, Dick stretched out and looked onto the world that had gone unnoted beneath his feet for at least recorded history. He’d seen an inexplicable animal that looked very much like what professionals in the know assume a Castoroides must’ve looked like—also referred to as the giant beaver. It was a small one based on how big they might get, if that was truly one.
“Impossible,” he hissed. “The Velociraptor and the Castoroides
have millions of years’ worth of evolution between then.” Then again, if a Velociraptor had made it, then why not coexist in a screwy fashion with a monstrous rodent. Neither worked with the accepted timeline of events. “Focus on the real issue, Dick.”
He rubbed his head and squinted one eye, watched out into the rubble and the old world through a split in the tin. He saw a child, naked and moving with familiar, secretive strides.
“If not one, why not another and another?” His words came out in a breathy whisper. The kid was crouch-walking to avoid detection, eyes on the women, and did not see Dick. The urge to give her the specimen treatment surged, but he fought it off, they had to get the hell out of there. Once topside and safe, then he could come back, equipped, with a team of spelunkers and climbers, live out his days on the archeological discovery of the gigaanna.
He pushed off and climbed to his feet. Out of the shed, it took a moment for his eyes to readjust. Same for his ears. Somewhere nearby a river ran, and about an hour earlier, he thought he heard screaming or yelling. The quality of light was soft and didn’t carry well, that much matched the sound quality. A big part of him wanted to spend a week just looking at the mushrooms, forget all else.
But no, the human element had to come first, and they needed out. And more directly, the trouble with Charlie kept them stuck and pandering to her emotions. She hadn’t stopped cradling the dead fetus wrapped in newspaper, and ignored her ripped and soiled pants.
Twice Dick had gotten to the point, if only as far as the back of his throat, to suggesting he leave Tanya and Charlie behind to seek out help. He couldn’t quite voice it. Tanya had a look, like she was strapped to a runaway car; she couldn’t leave Charlie and Dick couldn’t leave them.
Dick got back to the crushed Mini, took a deep breath, and said, “Charlie, we need to look for help.”
“For what? She’s already dead.”
Like a knife to the guts. “Yes, but you’re not.”
“So?”
“And I’m not, and neither is Tanya. We need to move. Night will come faster than we think and we have to get somewhere that it’s easier for rescuers to find us.”
Great Big Teeth Page 5