by Logan Jacobs
“We are kind of great.” Becka grinned, and Hae-won giggled in agreement.
“You came all this way just to be with us?” I asked, and I couldn’t help but smile.
“Yeah.” Kat smiled back. “I hope that’s not too mental or stalkery sounding. I just know you’re a good guy, Jason, and Becka and Hae-won are badass bitches. Hell, I would be honored to join you guys if you would let me.”
“We are in high demand,” Hae-won observed with a not so subtle smirk.
“It’s bloody impressive you came all this way on your own,” Becka added. “That can’t have been a fun journey to take on.”
“There were some obstacles,” Kat agreed with a tired grin. “I honestly almost fainted with relief when I saw you guys. I thought I was hallucinating. I’ve been tracking every route I could think of that’s quickest, but then roads were blocked, and the humans are getting mental out there. I figured you would choose the smartest track, though, and well… here I am. And here you are.”
I looked over at the bridge to see that Larry had his eyes fixed on our little group, and nobody else had resurfaced from the fort. Then I looked back at Kat’s somewhat red face and her stiff, soldier’s stance, and I couldn’t help the pride blooming in my chest.
“You’re serious?” I checked. “We’re your top pick, end of the world team?
“Sure are,” Kat chuckled. She had a cheeky, lopsided smile, and it lit up her whole pretty face.
I already knew she could be a good addition to our team for several reasons, especially after breaking out of that trap in Peterborough with her, but I didn’t want Becka and Hae-won to feel like they had no say. After all, we were a family, and my lovers’ opinions mattered above all else.
“I don’t need some kind of swearing in ceremony,” Kat assured us, and she looked a little nervous that we’d turn her away. “I just wanted to tag along for a while. You guys are kind of the only people I have right now.”
“What do you say?” I glanced at the girls and waited for them to respond first before I betrayed my obvious enthusiasm.
Hae-won copped a calculating scowl that looked a lot like her attempt at being a corporal, and she walked a slow circle around Kat while she looked her up and down.
Kat chuckled as the Korean tapped her chin and made a huge show of sizing her up, but then my dark-haired lover cracked a cheeky grin.
“I’ve got a feeling you’ll fit in,” Hae-won finally decided. “Becka?”
“You fight many dinos on your way up here?” the blonde asked as she took a turn circling the corporal. “Because we mean business. Dino-slaying business.”
“Oh, I can slay some dinos,” Kat laughed. “Granted, I was almost dino lunch on more than one occasion heading up here, but…”
“But you got here.” Hae-won nodded sagely. “You’ve got strength.”
“Well, then,” I laughed. “I’d say it’s decided. Welcome to the team, Cor-- I mean, Kat.”
The corporal smiled even bigger while my two girlfriends flashed her a pair of sweet grins, and I noticed her shoulders immediately relaxed.
“Anything I should know heading in?” Kat asked.
“Just the usual,” Becka snorted. “Dino’s taking over the world… blood on just about everything I own.”
“I think we’re starting to get an idea of just how bad the situation could get here real soon,” I sighed and rifled my hair. “The dino eggs are only the start. I swear I’ve seen dinosaurs organizing themselves and communicating more and more, but--”
“Oh, God,” Kat cut in, and her face suddenly fell. “I know you’ve all been on the road this whole time, so you probably haven’t camped out to watch the dinos, but I’ve seen some really fucked up stuff this week.”
“Try us,” Hae-won snickered. “We’ve got some stories, too.”
“I’ve got videos,” Kat replied, and she pulled out her phone from her jacket. “Some I took, and some I saved back when I still had Wi-Fi. You guys might want to prepare yourselves for this.”
I didn’t know what the Corporal was about to show me, but I knew I wasn’t going to like it. Even Becka and Hae-won looked worried now, and the three of us exchanged a sober glance while we waited in silence.
“Here’s the first one,” Kat said, and she handed me her phone. “I filmed this at the power plant just before I left.”
Becka and Hae-won huddled close to me, and I made sure everyone could see the screen before I hit play.
The video was shaky to begin with, and Kat’s voice swearing under her breath was the only noticeable sound. Soon the footage steadied, though, and it showed that she was hidden behind a truck, filming the allosaurus herd.
There were four of the huge dinos in the frame, and they stood stiller than I had ever seen a carnivorous dino manage before. It was like they were waiting for something as the sound of screams and gunshots rang out through the tinny speakers of the phone.
“What are they doing?” Hae-won whispered while we stared at the screen.
“The power plant is just out of shot I think,” I said, and Kat nodded.
“They’re watching the plant?” Becka asked, her face scrunched up in disgust. “That’s so creepy.”
A Jeep appeared and rammed into one of the dino’s feet in a brave yet stupid attack. The allosaurus lazily lifted its huge claws and crushed the car in seconds, then it continued to stare off screen with the others.
There was whisper on the video which we couldn’t hear, and I rewound the video to try and listen.
“That’s just me,” Kat snorted. “Losing my mind quietly to myself. I think I whispered that the soldiers had opened the gate.”
Sure enough, a fleet of more Jeeps and military motorbikes flew out toward the dinos, and as soon as they did, the dinosaurs charged forward. They veered around the vehicles and lunged straight over the motorbikes, and then they headed straight for the open gate. The camera got shakier as shouts rose up, and it looked like an allosaurus or two made it through before the gate closed and the video cut out.
“They ran into the power plant,” I scoffed as the video screeched and stopped. “They actually waited until the gate had been opened.”
“No way,” Becka whispered with wide eyes. “No. Fucking. Way.”
“They were so patient,” Hae-won gasped. “It was like they all knew the plan, like they had rehearsed it.”
I felt slightly nauseous as I handed the phone back to Kat. Those creatures had waited for the perfect moment to strike. They waited like they had all the time in the world. Like they knew they could… outsmart us.
“It gets worse,” the curly-haired soldier said as she scrolled through her phone.
“How?” I asked.
Kat silently handed me back the device, I braced myself, and hit play.
The video was taken from what I assumed was a high up apartment building, which looked down onto an abandoned street.
It was dark, and the person holding the camera had a shaky hand as they kept it facing the road below. There was an old white van, and not much else in the shot other than the sidewalk.
“They always come at the same time,” an Irish man’s voice said. “Every night, about nine-thirty. The lads are down now to set up the distraction.”
Something was flung onto the road below, and it looked like some kind of animal carcass.
“That’s the bait set,” the man breathed. “That’s a newly dead one, one of the lizardy bastards that got chopped up the other day. We’re laying it down as a distraction so the lads can finish them off.”
The man stopped talking, and there was silence as he kept filming the road.
“It’s quiet for a few minutes,” Kat explained. “This is a video my dad sent me, I don’t know where he got it from, but I guess it went viral before the internet started to lock up.”
I watched the small screen with a furrowed brow and kept my eye on the pile of meat on the road. Becka breathed heavily beside me, and Hae-won gripped onto
my arm.
“Here they are,” the Irish man suddenly hissed. “Here come the fuckers. It’s your last night of terrorizing this street, you scaly wankers. The lads are going to bash your fucking brains in.”
Six raptors trotted into view, and they carefully examined the meat offering on the road below them.
The camera man was muttering under his breath, and all of a sudden, he cheered as seven burly men leapt out from the parked van, armed with axes and massive kitchen knives. Only one of them had a gun, and he started to open fire with poor aim. Then one of the raptors took a bullet to the foot, and the others quickly leapt on the shooter. The dinos all dove onto the same man together with a screech, and he was dead in seconds.
“They identified the main threat,” I said in shock. “They knew to take out the gunman first.”
The rest of the men were viciously mauled in a short space of time, and I was about to turn the gruesome video off when the camera man gasped. One of the dinos looked up, straight into the camera, and it cocked its head to the side.
I thought I could already guess what was coming next, but I was wrong.
Instead of lunging at the windows, the raptor in the video turned to its herd and roared a bone-chilling scream of a sound. Then they all abandoned their mauled prey to race toward the bottom of the building where I assumed the door was, and the video cut out as the man dropped the camera and screamed.
I silently handed Kat back her phone, and the Irish man’s scream rang in my head.
“Were they breaking into the flats?” Becka asked quietly. “At the end, it was like that raptor told the others.”
“And they knew how to get up to him,” Hae-won added, and her pretty face was paler than usual.
“No,” Becka said, and she broke away from the circle to pace back and forth. “No bloody way could they know how to use a flat stairway. There is no way they knew how to get up to him.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “It sure looked that way to me. They could have jumped on the cars and leapt up toward the windows, but they didn’t. Do you know what happened to that guy?”
“I know he posted the video.” Kat shrugged. “He could have done it right after he filmed it, or maybe he lived long enough to do it later on. But one thing’s for damn sure, these dinosaurs are not going down easy.”
“They ignored the meat,” Hae-won noted. “Do you think they weren’t hungry?”
“If they weren’t hungry, then why would they be trying to get the camera guy?” Becka asked nervously.
“Because they weren’t hunting for food,” I said gravely. “They just wanted those people dead.”
We all stood in a heavy silence, and I could tell everyone needed a moment to process what we’d just seen.
I wandered over to the edge of the blocked-up river and stared down at the murky depth. A hundred thoughts raced through my mind, and all of them involved dinosaurs becoming smarter than we ever could have dreamed. None of this made me hopeful for the fate of humanity. Even with the best weapons and soldiers available, was there just no way to defeat a threat this massive?
“Shit,” I whispered to myself, and I glanced over at my girls.
Becka looked like she was about to tear her hair out, and she asked Kat to replay the video for her. The blonde bit her nails as she watched the footage over again, and I noticed her swaying back and forth slowly like her anxiety was about to crack.
Hae-won had sat down on the ground, and she held her rifle on her lap and had shut her eyes. She inhaled deeply, and I guessed it was some kind of meditation to calm down. I watched as the petite Korean nodded to herself every now and then and tapped the rifle with her fingertips.
I hated seeing them both worried, and I wanted to be able to protect them from anything. So far, I had managed, but it was becoming clear that I was up against something potentially undefeatable. Still, we had survived so much since Cambridge, and clearly we were doing well enough for a military official to want to join us.
That was a silver-lining, at least.
There was something calming about Kat’s presence, even among the chaos and bad news she had brought us from the south. She was tough and more than capable of handling herself if she needed to, yet she had come all this way just to be with us. With me.
I watched the curly-haired soldier put a comforting hand on Becka’s shoulder as the video ended once more, and I knew we would be stronger with her on our team.
“Hey, Kat,” I said. “Is it okay if I have a minute alone with Becka and Hae-won?”
“Of course,” The Corporal nodded. “I’ll go check in with Mr. Bridge Guard over there, see if he’s spotted anything.”
Kat marched over to the local man, and I was amused to see that he looked slightly terrified as she approached.
“You both okay?” I asked gently as Hae-won got back to her feet.
“I guess we have to be,” Hae-won said, although there was still fear in her blue eyes as she looked up at me.
“What the hell, Jason?” Becka muttered. “We’ve come so far and defeated so much. How can it possibly be getting worse so fast? We’ve only barely begun to fight this and…”
“I don’t have the answers,” I sighed. “I wish I did. I know that no matter what these fuckers throw at us, we’ll stick together.”
“That’s for damn sure.” Becka nodded. “I still can’t believe Kat drove all this way for us. Well, I mean I do get it, because you’re the most amazing guy in the apocalypse, but it’s still mad.”
“I think she could help us,” Hae-won said with a glance over at the soldier. “She’s smart, and she’s stubborn. We need as many good people as we can get.”
“I agree,” I said. “I just didn’t want you two to think I needed anyone else. I love you both so much, you mean the world to me.”
“We love you, too, Jason,” Hae-won smiled. “But Kat could be the start of something great.”
“I think we made the right call.” Becka nodded. “You have to be pretty special to fit in with us, but I already know I’m going to like this chick.”
“She is awesome.” I grinned. “I’m not sure how I got this lucky, but I guess we officially have our third badass babe on the team.”
“So, shall we get back to our bargaining?” Becka asked. “I feel like Kat’s uniform has got that bridge lot shaking in their boots.”
“Let’s go,” Hae-won said excitedly.
The three of us strode back toward the bridge, and I let my eyes wander down the toned figure of the Corporal ahead. She had her arms crossed and her boots planted firmly beneath her, and the taut backside of her bloody fatigues left very little to the imagination.
Apparently, I wasn’t the only one admiring the view, because Becka let out a low whistle beside me.
“Our team just got even hotter,” the Brit observed. “Look at those glutes.”
“I’m looking,” Hae-won snickered.
“You’re as bad as those soldiers she just left behind,” I pointed out under my breath.
“Uhh, Jason,” Becka snorted, and she sent me a huge grin. “I think you’ve missed the point here. That gorgeous slice of military ass drove here… for you. You heard her as plain as I did.”
“She didn’t exactly say that’s what she had in min--” I tried, but Hae-won loudly interrupted me.
“Let’s get going, Corporal,” the Korean called with a playful salute to our newest member.
Kat smiled over her shoulder at us, and her lopsided grin lit up her hazel eyes.
Then a thunderous crackling sound tore through the air, and I knew too well what it meant.
Becka, Hae-won, and I instantly dove for cover behind our bikes as we scanned the sky, and we found the portal looming just above the river. I kept my eyes locked on the growing tear as it widened, and from this angle, I could actually see a dark black, stormy sky swirling in its depths while distant winged beasts dove into treetops.
I had a front-seat glimpse into another univer
se.
“Holy fucking shit,” Becka breathed as she clutched my arm, but I couldn’t even form words.
I stared at the portal’s innards while the tumult inside rolled with wings, roars, and thunderheads, but then the ancient creatures started soaring toward the tear in our sky, and for a moment, I wondered if they’d veer away and change their course.
Maybe the portal would close before they made it through, but as I heard the bone chilling screams of the fast approaching visitors, I knew this wouldn’t be the case.
Three seconds later, the pterodactyls converged into a single line, and the whole flock dove through the breach and into our world.
Chapter 4
The screams of five pterodactyls rang out over the river as they swooped down to scan their new surroundings, and they were just as horrifying as I remembered.
Their bat-shaped wings must have spanned about thirty feet long with claw-like hands at the ends, and talons that looked ready to grab something human-sized dangled under their dull green bodies. Their massive beaks swung from side to side as they dove lower to investigate the full length of the bridge, and their grating calls echoed back and forth like they were reporting their findings.
“Fuck!” I muttered as I checked that my rifle was fully loaded.
I was still crouched behind Hae-won’s bike with the Korean ducked down on my right, but by now, Becka had crawled under the Jeep with Kat. Larry was pressed up against the back of his van, and he glared up at the dinos with his pistol held up high. Grey and Tim were nowhere in sight, and the locals in the bridge stayed silent while I wondered if the flying dinos would be able to smell them through all the steel sheets.
“Maybe they’ll find some fish and get distracted,” I muttered. “Damming like this usually catches a lot of fare. It’s gotta be a banquet down there.
Hae-won looked doubtfully up at the sky, and I knew what she was thinking.