by Daniel Pyle
Her feet squished on the wet carpet of the boys’ room. Zane’s bed was on one side and Greg’s crib on the other. She clicked the light switch. Nothing happened. Burnt-out bulb or power outage? She guessed it didn’t matter. There was enough light coming in through the windows to see by.
She put Greg on the changing table while Zane packed his little backpack. She quickly got Greg into a new diaper, pants and shoes, and a dry shirt, this one with Bob the Builder on it.
“Why do we have to go?” Zane asked. He had packed the stuffed panda he used as a pillow inside. She almost told him not to take it but decided the only thing she really cared about right then was getting out of the house.
A shadow filled the door. They turned toward it, and in a moment a creature appeared at the threshold. It was another lizard on two legs, but this one was five feet tall. It had a long neck and nasty looking claws on each foot that could probably disembowel a person with one stroke.
The thing stood there, seemingly trying to decide whether to go for the appetizers or the full meal. Lori picked a toy fire truck off the floor and threw it at the creature. Then she threw a Buzz Lightyear figure, a basket of diapers, and the baby monitor that still sat near the crib.
Getting into the spirit of things, Zane started throwing toys at the monster too. When it made an annoyed sound and backed off a step, Lori pushed the crib against the door, slamming it shut. “That’s why we have to leave,” she said. Then she upended Zane’s bed and pushed that against the door as well.
“That was a real dinosaur, wasn’t it?” Zane asked.
“Dinosaur!” Greg said, pronouncing the word surprisingly well.
“Dinosaurs are extinct,” Lori said. She took Greg off the changing table and held him. He looked around, quite excited by what was going on.
“But Mom—”
“How are we going to get out of here?” she asked, not expecting an answer from the boys.
The window. It was the only way. She looked outside and finally saw the full extent of the unfolding disaster. Water splashed against the house, inches under the window. The view was water, water, and more water. The town was in the water, under the water. Only a few of the Spanish tile roofs showed above it. She had chosen the house on the edge of the valley because she liked the view. Or maybe just to be as far as possible from the tower in the center of town, the HQ of Collins Research Ltd. That put the house at a higher elevation than most of the homes.
Although she never could have known it at the time, she realized now that that choice had saved her life, and those of her children. She tried not to think about the others, the scientists and their wives, husbands, and children. It wasn’t a flood, it was more like a sea into which someone had dropped a bunch of cheap houses.
And Steve? She could see the top of the tower. He’d told her his lab was deep underground, but maybe it wasn’t flooded. She had to believe that.
• • •
She had a Ph.D. in history, and she had assumed she would be a professor, but universities weren’t hiring. Steve had his own doctorate in an area of atomic physics so rarified that only ten people in the world could pronounce it. In another time, his expertise might have gotten him some deeply classified position within the government, but even top-secret budgets were on hold these days.
Then Collins Research came calling. You have to move to our location, they’d said. It’s all very hush-hush. You have to sign a contract with terms that would make a lawyer’s hair turn white.
It had been the only offer either of them had, so they packed up and drove from the east coast to a town that was still being built when they arrived.
He couldn’t tell her about his work. That was absolute. The contract stipulated that anyone who told anything to anyone would be fired instantly, and the implication was that the blabber would never work in his or her chosen field again. Lori didn’t like it, but Steve said, “Five years, then we’ll have enough money to move wherever we want, and you can look for work in your field too.”
She’d agreed. What else could she do?
All of that now seemed like it had happened a million years ago.
• • •
They had to get on the roof. It might not buy them much time, but it was the only option she could think of.
But how? The roof stuck out above the window. Was there any way to grab it? What if she got in the water? Could she reach up high enough to grab the gutter? Would the gutter hold?
She looked back at Zane. The water in the room was higher, up to his shins. They couldn’t stay.
BANG! Something hit the door from outside. The crib and the bed shifted.
They really couldn’t stay.
Lori put Greg back on the changing table and opened the window, glad it was a big one and not some small hole she’d have to force herself through. Strong wind brought the sharp scent of sea water into the room. She pushed the table against the window. Greg giggled as it moved.
BANG! The bed holding the door closed slid down a little.
“Where did the water come from?” Zane asked.
“I don’t know.” She attacked a shelving unit that had kids’ clothing on it. She pulled a shelf free.
“Why is the water stinky?”
“It’s salty. Don’t drink it.” She glanced back. Zane was knee deep. She put the shelf through the railing. It stuck out the window over the water like a diving board.
Would it hold?
“Are you making a fort?” Zane asked.
“We’re going on the roof,” she told Zane. “I’m putting Greg up there first, then I’ll take you up with me.” Lori placed the remaining shelves into the base of the changing table to help hold the table in place. She needed something to hold them down. She looked around.
BANG! The door cracked open, and the big reptile poked its snout in.
“Mommmmmmm,” Zane said.
She dragged a low bookcase to the window, grunting with the effort, and pushed it face down on the shelves. It would have to do. She picked up Greg. Climbing up on the pile of furniture, she edged out onto the shelf. The shelf didn’t immediately crack and dump her and Greg into the seawater. She grabbed the gutter and looked over it onto the roof. No dinosaurs.
Dinosaurs. Now even she was thinking like a child. They couldn’t be dinosaurs.
It wasn’t easy to get Greg up on the roof with one hand while holding the gutter with the other. She placed him on his rear on the Spanish tiles.
She would have to take her eyes off of Greg for thirty seconds or so while she helped Zane. She didn’t want to do it, pictured Greg sliding off the roof and into the rising water, but she didn’t have the strength to pull all three of them up at once. It was this or wait here in the bedroom for the creature to break through the door. At least the roof wasn’t steep. At least she had some chance of making it work.
She looked down, into the bedroom. Zane looked at her with wide eyes, as if he’d just had a horrible thought.
“Is Fuffy going with us?” he asked.
The bedroom door banged open a little wider. Lori saw one scaly hand/paw/whatever enter the room. Next came a snout. The shelf bent under her weight.
“No, honey, he can’t come. Now climb up here.”
“Why can’t Fuffy come?”
She sense one of his epic tantrums coming on. They started with sniffling and ended with a screaming fit.
“He’s, uh, guarding the house,” she said, trying to head it off.
“I WANT FUFFY!” Zane screamed. Behind him, the reptile thing clambered over the furniture that was no longer holding the door closed.
She jumped forward without thinking. That thing was not going to get her son.
“I WANT FUFFY I WANT FUFFY!”
She snatched Zane up as the reptile jumped. It landed right where Zane had just been. Lori turned and shuffled back out onto the bowed shelf. The thing snapped at her heels, lightning quick. Zane bawled in her ear, crying but no longer shouting.
&n
bsp; One hand firmly around Zane, her other hand gripped the gutter. She put all her weight on that hand and lifted her feet. The reptile snapped at her rear, its teeth tearing her pants, but it had not noticed its precarious footing. It reached the end of the shelf and fell into the water below. It thrashed and bellowed loudly, then went under.
Lori put her feet back on the shelf.
“Fuffy,” Zane whispered.
“Fuffy saved us,” she told him.
“He did?”
She nodded. “When he barked I knew there was trouble.”
“He’s guarding the house?”
“That’s right. Can you climb up?” She pushed on his rear until he was up on the roof. “Is Greg all right?”
There was no answer. She pulled herself up until she could see. At first she thought the things flying around the house were seagulls. Greg stood, high on the roof, raptly watching the birds. They swooped down, snapping their beaks. Long beaks, lined with teeth.
Zane stood nearby, looking scared. One of the birds landed on the roof and walked toward Greg. Then more landed. They were almost as tall as the two year old, and clearly considered him an afternoon snack.
Lori pulled herself onto the roof, or tried to. The section of gutter pulled away from the house and she landed back on the shelf.
“ZAAAAAAANE!” she yelled. “Stand next to Greg! Shout at the birds. Wave your arms. Try to scare them away!”
She launched herself at a different section of gutter that was still attached to the house. If it failed she would fall in the drink and her kids would be bird food. It held, and she swung her feet up onto the Spanish tile. It was a little awkward to push herself up, but in a moment she was on her feet, and running.
“Shoo! Go away!” she shouted as she ran toward her kids. Zane stood next to his brother. The large birds showed no fear of her at all. Lori kicked one and it fell away, squawking. She tried to guard the boys, moving around to cover all angles. When she turned one way the birds approached again from her rear. She had to turn around and around to make them flap their wings and move back.
“Go find a garbage dump! Filthy things!”
Finally the birds on the roof gave up and took to the air, but they didn’t go very far. The flock wheeled around the roof, looking for an opening.
“Everyone all right?” she asked and looked around. For the first time she was aware of the sky. Low clouds made the day dark. It looked like rain, and a lot of it.
Lori kneeled and hugged the boys. “Good job, Zane,” she said.
“Birdies!” Greg said, pointing up.
“I was scared, Mom.” She felt Zane shivering against her as she held him close.
“Tell you a secret. So was I.”
The roof was an island, but it wasn’t far from shore. Waves lapped against the lip of the valley and the jungle beyond.
“I believe you now, Zane.”
“Believe what?”
“They are real dinosaurs. Look that way. Don’t be scared, it’s far away.”
Zane looked where she pointed. Some distance down the beach a Tyrannosaurus Rex, or one of its close relatives, tore chunks of flesh out of a corpse the size of three houses. It couldn’t be anything else, certainly nothing that existed in the modern world.
Zane stiffened, and his eyes went wide.
“It’s okay,” Lori said. “It’s eating. It doesn’t care about us.”
“Barney!” Greg said.
Lori grimaced. Greg had learned to run the DVD player soon after he started to walk. The purple menace’s theme song was forever stuck in her head.
“I want to go home,” Zane said.
“We’re standing on top of it.”
“I mean Boston.”
“Oh. Me too.” She was surprised he remembered it. Their tiny apartment in a questionable neighborhood seemed like heaven now.
Lori assessed the situation. It wasn’t good. They had left the house without Zane’s backpack, the diaper bag for Greg, her purse, or any means of communication. Usually going out with the kids meant carrying more gear than a hiker on the Appalachian Trail. She had nothing.
And they were standing on the roof of the house surrounded by water with killer birds overhead.
At least she had some time to think about what to do next; no more dinosaurs could get to them for now.
Unless they could swim.
She pushed that thought out of her head.
A flash of lightning filled the sky, and a moment later thunder rolled across the valley.
Don’t let it rain.
It started to rain. Not too hard at first, but dark clouds in the distance promised a lot more.
“Mom,” Zane said. “Mom. Mom.”
She sat on the roof and pulled Zane into a hug. She wanted to tell him it was all right, but it wasn’t.
“I’m thinking,” she said. She sat Greg on her lap. She would protect them to her last breath, but she didn’t know what to do.
Were all her neighbors dead? Drowned in their houses? The scientists would be in the tower, alive she hoped. But all the wives, and kids, and a few house husbands? What was happening? How could it happen? Grief and confusion threatened to overwhelm her, but she had to keep her head together for Zane and Greg.
She kicked at a bird that landed on the roof near them. It took off. Rain did a dance on her head, the water trickling down. All three of them were soaked.
The water level was completely up to the roof line now. The inside of the house would be filled.
Two fins moved by the house, then one submerged. She couldn’t believe it. Sharks? Did they have sharks in dinosaur times? Whatever they were, they circled behind the house and out of sight.
That ruined any idea of swimming to shore.
Greg raised his arms and made a bubbling noise with his lips. Zane leaned against her.
“Zane? Honey?” she wanted him to stand so she could move.
Zane was asleep. Eyes closed, completely out. Amazing. She didn’t think she’d ever be able to sleep again.
Waves lapped up the roof, within about two feet of Lori’s legs now. If this kept up, they would be swimming, like it or not. One of the fins surfaced. A huge, dark shadow moved through the water below.
The other fin moved in the opposite direction, past the house.
The sharks must have been licking their lips—or whatever the shark equivalent of lips was.
She touched Zane on the head to wake him up. “We have to move,” she told him. She tried to stand up, first putting Greg on the roof next to her. Zane fell into her lap, still sleeping. As she scooted her butt higher on the roof, one of the sharks jumped out of the water and landed on the shingles. Its teeth snapped just an inch from Lori’s foot.
She scooted backward fast, trying to bring both boys with her. She gripped them hard, jerked them toward safety.
The shark slid back down the slanted roof. Its toothy grin seemed to say, “Next time.” The weight of the huge carnivorous fish, at least as big as the Great Whites she saw on Shark Week, tore away shingles and exposed the decking.
“Mommy, that hurts,” Zane said. Greg started to cry.
At least Zane was awake. She loosened her grip on him.
“We need to stay alert, kids,” she said. “We have kind of a situation here.” The shark fins circled the house.
“Eeeeeeew,” Zane said and put his hand over his nose. “Greg’s stinky.”
He was right. Greg’s diaper was loaded. Her maternal instinct was to change him, but of course she couldn’t. She managed to stand up and picked up Greg. He reeked.
“Come on,” she told Zane. They moved up to the highest point on the roof.
“Why is the water higher?” Zane asked. “Why—” his eyes grew big. He saw the fins in the water. He watched Shark Week too.
“We’re safe up here,” Lori said. One of the fins cruised closer still. The rain intensified.
Her foot slid on the tiles. She almost dropped Greg. Some kind of pipe s
tuck up through the roof. It had a cap on it to keep rain out. Ventilation over the stove? Maybe. It didn’t matter. It was something to hold on to.
“Grab onto this,” she told Zane. He did, for once not asking why. Greg continued crying. She tried to comfort him, but it was hard. She needed someone to comfort her.
The roof shook, and her feet flew out from under her. She landed hard on her side, pain shooting up and down her body. She managed not to drop Greg, but that meant hitting an elbow on the hard tile, and that hurt a lot.
“Mommyyyyyy!” Zane shouted. He lay on the roof, clutching the pipe. Lori slid down the roof on her belly. Toward the water. And the sharks. She reached her free hand up and managed to grab the ridge of the roof, but her fingers slipped on the wet shingles, unable to find purchase.
She slid farther down, wanting to push Greg up, to save him at least, but knowing he’d have no more luck holding on than she’d had. This was it. The sharks would feed and this primordial world would win. She couldn’t see the shark jump again, but she felt it thump against the roof. She kicked at the tiles, trying to slow herself, delay the inevitable. Zane stared down at her with wide, unblinking eyes.
She wished she could see Steve one last time.
A roaring, mechanical sound filled the air. Then it changed tone, and a warm liquid splashed against her. As she continued her slow slide, dark red liquid and gobs of meat landed in puddles all around her.
The roaring noise stopped. Lori’s legs hit something that kept her from sliding into the water.
Lori flipped onto her back and tried to make sense of what she was seeing.
“You all right, girl,” a voice said. “It’s sushi.”
“Mrs. Graden?”
“I told you call me Bonnie.”
The woman had to be a hallucination. Lori blinked. She was in the afterlife, or she was dreaming. Bonnie Graden, grandmother of Kenny, the young star of the scientific staff at Collins Research Ltd., stood in a small boat bobbing up and down next to her demolished roof, holding a chainsaw.
Pieces of shark and shark blood lay everywhere. The shark’s head, full of wickedly sharp teeth, bobbed in the water next to the boat. The rest of it was gone.