by Logan Jacobs
“Go!” I hissed as I heard a crack of glass. Hae-won dashed over to me with Becka right behind, and we looked over at the staff door, which was opposite the next aisle.
“They’ve broken the glass,” Hae-won whispered as she looked out to the shop front. “A tiny crack, but it won’t take long for the whole thing to collapse.”
“Run,” I hissed, and I leapt toward the staff entrance to grab the door handle. I pulled it open and ushered the girls through before I flung myself in behind them. As I closed the door behind me, I saw one of the dinos cock its head as if it had heard something.
Fuck.
“I think they heard us,” I said as we leaned against the back of the door. “Does this thing have a lock?”
We felt around and found a keyhole, but there was no key inside. Hae-won turned her flashlight on, and she pulled her sleeves over the beam of light to dull it. She shone the pale beam toward the small table, and there underneath, was the nest of dinosaur eggs. There were four of them, all a palish-gray in color, and much bigger than I expected for raptors.
“Wow,” I whistled. “Brand new dino babies. We’re so fucked.”
“We should kill them,” Hae-won said as we stared at the nest. “That’s four more dinosaurs that won’t terrorize the world.”
“Yeah, screw them,” Becka nodded. “Let’s squash them while we have the chance.”
“You guys are out for blood,” I laughed as quietly as possible. “We can’t squish them, because I have a feeling that Mom dino is out the front, and she would be pissed if we had her babies’ blood all over us. She’d probably smell that shit a mile away.”
“We could keep one?” Hae-won asked. “One for a distraction, and crush the rest?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said. “These guys are bad enough now that they’re organizing their attacks, but can you imagine what they’ll be like with babies to protect? If we kill their eggs, they could fucking hunt us down for it.”
“Fine,” Becka sighed. “So, what now? We just chuck the eggs out the back door?”
“Maybe not chuck them,” I said. “That would just result in the whole scrambled baby dino scenario we don’t want. We need to move the whole nest as carefully as we can.”
There was another smash out at the shop front, and while it didn’t sound like they had broken through just yet, it would only take a few more attempts.
“Um, Jason,” Hae-won said as I pressed my ear against the door.
“Yeah?” I asked, and the raven-haired girl looked at me with a grimace.
“I think we’re about to become dino parents,” she said, and I spun around to look back at the nest.
Sure enough, the egg at the very back had started to rock gently, and a tiny crack had started to appear at the top of the shell.
“We better do this quickly,” I said as I strode over to the nest. “Who wants to pick up some baby dinos?”
“Ew,” Becka groaned. “What if it hatches while I’m holding it?”
“Then you’ll be the Mum.” I grinned. “We would throw a baby shower and everything.”
“Oh, shut up,” the blonde sighed as she gave me a playful smack on the arm.
“I can hold a couple of eggs,” Hae-won said as she bent down. “So, we are putting them out back?”
“I think that’s the only way we can get to our bikes,” I reasoned. “If we put it out the front, then they’ll be able to see us through the windows. If we get the raptors all heading around the back, then we can make a run for it without being seen.”
“But how will we get out the front?” Becka asked as Hae-won carefully picked up one of the gray eggs. “It’s locked.”
“I think there will be a way out there pretty soon,” I said as we heard glass fall to the ground. “Let’s get the table in front of the staff door, though, in case they get through while we’re moving the nest.”
Becka and I grabbed the table and carefully lifted it over the nest and up against the door to block the staff entrance. Hae-won had picked up a second egg and clutched them both carefully with a scowl. She muttered something in Korean as she glared down at them, and Becka grimaced as she knelt down beside the remaining two.
“You left me the hatching one,” she groaned. “I swear if a head comes and starts looking for a nipple to suck, I’m dropping it.”
“I’ll check it’s clear out back,” I said as I watched the blonde Brit gingerly reach out to the eggs. “If there’s nothing out there, then we place the eggs down carefully and wait for the herd to sniff them out and head back here. Got it?”
“Got it,” the girls said in unison as Becka scooped the final egg under her arm and stood up.
I grasped my rifle tightly with one hand as I gripped the exit door handle with the other. Just as I was about to press it down, we heard the front door of the shop break, and the screech of the herd as they started to stomp into the store.
The girls both stared at me with wide eyes, and I hurriedly opened the back door of the store. I peeked out through an inch-wide gap, and I couldn’t see any hints of movement or shadows. The crashes from the shop floor suggested that more than one dino had made its way inside, and I knew it was only a matter of time before they headed for the staff doorway.
I jumped out onto the grass and gestured at the girls to follow me.
Hae-won raced outside and carefully laid her two eggs down under one of the overgrown bushes. Becka hurried along behind her and did the same thing, and I noticed that the hatching egg had split further open, almost enough to see inside.
I didn’t wait around to see what a baby dino looked like, though. I ushered the girls back inside before me, closed the door as quietly as I could, and flicked the lock.
“How long until they know it’s out there?” Hae-won asked.
Her question was answered by a strange gurgle which came from the back where we had laid the eggs. There was a choking screech, and a gentle crunch.
“I guess the first baby’s here,” I whispered as we stood frozen, rifles in hand and ears strained to work out the raptors' next move.
I glanced at the table propped against the staff door, and I quietly stepped toward it to add more weight to the makeshift barrier. Nobody spoke, and there was silence from the shop floor.
The sound of the baby dino must have carried, and I wondered if the raptors were waiting for the noise to come again. I could just picture their scaly heads tilting as they listened for their lost offspring, and I gripped my rifle tightly in case they chose to smash through the staff door as their planned route.
There was another cry from the baby raptor, and it was louder than before.
The noise definitely caught the herd’s attention, and the sound of their screeches and scraping claws echoed around the small staff room. There were hurried thumps and cries of pain as the herd of utahraptors jumped back out of the shattered shop entrance, and I could hear their perilous claws scraping against the asphalt as they hurried around the back to find their young.
It was our chance.
“Help me lift this,” I hissed, and both girls hauled the table with me so the door to the shop was free. We heard the claws striking the ground just a few feet away from the back entrance now, and Hae-won kept her rifle aimed at the door as we hurried through into the store front.
The glass of the entrance door was completely smashed, as were two of the windows. This left plenty of space for the three of us to fit through, and it seemed that the herd had all disappeared to check on the eggs.
“Let’s hope the hatching keeps them there,” I whispered as we hurried down the aisle toward the door. “Keep quiet, and the second we get on the bikes, we drive, okay?”
“Got it, Jason.” Hae-won nodded.
“Let’s go,” Becka agreed, and both girls treaded lightly on the linoleum floor.
The panels were covered in shards of glass and dino blood, and when we reached the doorway, I jumped through the broken glass first. I had n
o problem fitting through, which meant it would be a breeze for the girls’ slim frames.
Once I was out in the open air, I turned to wave the girls out to join me, but just as I reached a hand out to help Hae-won, I saw a shape move around near the back right corner of the shop.
Becka must have seen it, too, because she dove behind the register counter and pulled Hae-won down with her. The blonde gestured urgently at me to join them, but I crouched behind a trash can at the entrance. It was way too risky to climb back into the shop.
Then there was a lazy thud, and a tearing noise.
Clearly one of the utahraptors had decided to stay and forage, rather than check on the eggs, and it seemed the dino hadn’t noticed us as it tore into the snack section.
I could see the girls from my hiding spot, and they both looked over the top of the counter they crouched behind with their weapons ready for action.
I peered around the trash can to check out the predator, and I was relieved to see a short and wiry utahraptor with its back to us. It was about a quarter the size of the others, so I guessed it was an adolescent.
It would be easy to take out quietly.
Or so I hoped.
We needed to kill it, and I was hyper aware that the rest of the herd could prowl around the corner at any moment and see me crouched down like a sitting duck. If we killed the rogue dino with a bullet, there was a real danger we wouldn’t reach our bikes before the rest of them were alerted to our presence. We had to kill it quickly, quietly, and without alerting the others. I was confident that we could take down a young, skinny dino no problem. We had fought off beasts ten times the size, and I had no doubt we could pull it off without being spotted.
There was a dull thud, and it sounded like the creature had tried to get into the drinks cabinet, which was at the very back of the store. I held my breath, and I used the chance to dash from my hiding place, through the broken glass, and dive down beside the girls.
Hae-won grabbed me to pull me in closer, and Becka peered around the side of the desk to check I hadn’t been noticed.
“We need to kill it without the others hearing,” I whispered so quietly that the girls had to huddle up close to hear. “It looks like an adolescent, I think we should be fine if we make sure to do it silently. No bullets.”
Hae-won nodded, and she flipped her rifle upside down and gestured to the blunt stock of the gun. Becka grinned, and the blonde also grabbed a huge pair of scissors that sat on the low shelf beside her.
The dinosaur apparently got bored of the soda fridge, and we heard it start to drag itself down toward the front of the store.
The small dino stuck its head into the ice cream freezer, and I knew it was our chance to attack without being seen.
“Go,” I mouthed, and we leapt out from our hiding spot to jump on the beast.
I grabbed the fire extinguisher next to the door and lifted it over my head as I sped toward the freezer. I ran at the raptor with the metal canister held high, and I brought it down on the creature’s skull while its nose was still amongst the tubs of ice cream.
Hae-won’s petite frame flew through the air, and she threw herself at the dino and brought the butt of her rifle down on the raptor’s spine.
Becka stabbed the scissors into the back of its neck, and in seconds, the young raptor fell face down into the freezer as blood poured from its head.
“That’ll do.” I smirked as the raptor’s body slumped further down. “Nice work, team.”
Hae-won had already stepped over the blood puddles and headed toward the door, and I carefully placed the red canister down on the stained linoleum.
“Let’s go,” Becka hissed as the raptor’s leg twitched in its final moments. The blonde grabbed my arm, and we rushed over to Hae-won, who had jumped out of the door.
Outside, there was no sign of the herd, and our bikes were still standing in one piece.
“Hell yeah,” I whispered as my girls and I rushed over to our vehicles.
We climbed onto our bikes, and I glanced up at the store before I hitched my rifle strap over my shoulder. Bloody, broken glass littered the ground both inside and outside the shop entrance, and we had managed to kill the young raptor without alerting the nearby herd.
“To Ravenscar.” Hae-won smiled as she climbed onto her bike.
“Let’s go get Becka’s mum,” I agreed.
Becka smiled at us, and we started our engines to begin the journey back down to the highway.
But as Hae-won swung her bike around and started to lead the way, we heard a crash, and the sound of lightning fast and heavy feet.
I spun my neck around to see an adult utahraptor sprint right toward us, and it knocked Becka from her bike before the Brit could gun the throttle.
Then her rifle fell from her hands, and the beast stood over her as it let out a shrieking roar.
Chapter 2
The sound of the utahraptor’s roar cut short with a splutter as Becka swung a long leg up and kicked it right in the stomach.
The rest of the herd cried out behind the shop, and a cold sweat came over me.
Our cover was blown, and any hope of escaping without being noticed by the creatures was gone.
“Fuck,” I spat as I screeched to a halt and raised my rifle toward the dino’s head.
I pulled the trigger quickly, and the bullet lodged right into the beast’s ear cavity. The raptor’s blood splattered my face as it stumbled, and then it fell flat on its face with an almighty thud.
Hae-won had jumped off her bike to help Becka scramble back onto her feet. Then the girls both hauled Becka’s motorcycle with all their strength until it was upright, and we heard the army of dinos approaching as the blonde clambered onto her vehicle.
“Let’s fucking move!” I yelled.
My heart was in my throat as I watched the two girls steady themselves, and the first of the herd appeared at the side of the building.
“Go!” Hae-won shouted.
The girls sped toward me just as the first raptor spotted us. My engine roared as we tore back down the hill toward the motorway, and the herd roared in unison behind us.
I tensed my body and prepared for the snarl of teeth, and the slash of long claws at my back, but it didn’t come.
I glanced over my shoulder as the shop disappeared from sight, and I saw five raptors stand around the dead body and roar after us. They barred their blood-stained teeth but made no attempt to follow our bikes.
They just watched as we vanished from their lair and screamed into the sky, and my stomach knotted while I whipped my head back around.
“What the fuck?” Becka gasped as we made it back onto the motorway. “They’re not chasing us? They just let us go?”
“The eggs,” I breathed, my heart still going a million miles an hour. “They’re not leaving the eggs.”
“They’re staying in their territory,” Hae-won said as she glanced over her shoulder. “To protect the babies.”
“Are we sure those fuckers aren’t going to start sprinting down after us?” Becka asked.
“Doesn’t look like it,” I replied as I checked behind me. “Holy shit, that was close.”
“The timing was just right,” Hae-won said. “The hatching stage means they won’t leave the area, but they don’t have anything they need to hunt for to feed yet.”
“God help the next people who stop there,” Becka said. “They’re going to be baby dino breakfast.”
“I think we got lucky there,” I replied. “I wouldn’t like to be around when they’re teaching dino junior how to hunt.”
“Thank you, by the way.” Becka let out a loud exhale of breath. “Both of you. Holy crap, I think I pissed myself a little when that dino jumped at me.”
“Gross,” Hae-won giggled. “But we will always save each other. We’re a family.”
“Damn right,” I agreed. “We help each other. That’s what we do.”
“You were right, Jason,” Hae-won said.
&nb
sp; “About what?” I asked.
“The babies,” the Asian girl replied. “If we had killed them back there, we would all be dead now for sure. Protecting their babies is the only thing keeping them there.”
“It was just a hunch,” I admitted. “But I’m glad we did it, and now we know how protective they are of their young.”
I shivered slightly as I thought about the hatching dinosaurs, and the new generation of beasts that were being brought into the world. There was a rumble from above us, and a small drop of rain splattered my cheek. I wiped it away and glanced at the dino blood which had come off on my palm.
“I’m looking forward to my next shower,” I groaned as I wiped more of the sticky blood off with my sleeve. “I think that deodorant will come in handy after all, even if it’s just to mask the stench of dino blood.”
We swung back onto the highway from the exit road and continued down the quiet concrete. Our bike engines and the rumble of wind were the only sounds that echoed around us.
“We’ll need to get on the M180,” Becka called. “I think that’s coming up pretty soon. Just keep an eye on the signs.”
We drove past more empty cars and abandoned bikes, and I tried not to look at them too closely. It was still tough to see the aftermath of dino attacks, and there were too many signs of the lives that had been torn apart so suddenly. Judging by the vehicles scattered along the roads, plenty of other people had tried to escape the cities and flee to the countryside for safety. I glanced down at one of the objects on the road and saw it was a small teddy bear, and I sighed and hoped that whatever kid it belonged to had somehow managed to escape.
Clearly, the countryside wasn’t much safer than the cities, anymore. It really did seem that the portals had opened up everywhere, and I wondered if there was any place left on Earth that remained untouched by the prehistoric creatures.
“Guys,” Becka hissed suddenly as we neared an overhead bridge. “Look, under there to the right.”
We slowed down and squinted into the dark section of road, which was covered by the shadow of the bridge. Over on the right side of the highway, there was the huge shape of a triceratops. The massive creature seemed to be asleep, and the low rumble of its deep breathing echoed under the bridge. Beside the sleeping dino, was a huge nest with three eggs inside.