“Now, that's insensitive. Justified, yes, but insensitive. We need to go there. Can you tell them to be at the entrance with many shots of elephant tranquilizer? As many as possible,” Steve said.
“What are you doing?” Bruno asked with his worried voice as he was already picturing himself in front of a 15-floor sized T-Rex. An exaggeration, yes, but this is how Bruno was feeling.
“Listen. The zombie threat will soon be under control. If nobody goes to the dinosaurs, someone must. Otherwise they will destroy these treasures of natural heritage and we, as biologists, owe it to our science and ourselves, dammit!” That was probably Sylvester Van Willis talking through Steve, who was getting in the action movie mood again. He found it strange that he hadn't said any one-liner during the Hôtel de Ville slaughter.
“So, now that you suddenly have become a biologist, do you have a plan or something?” Fiona asked.
“Yes. We will take our guns with the sleep juice and shoot those big crocodiles as many times as needed in order to put them to bed. After that, let the grownups decide what they will do with them,” Steve said. Once again, he was happy to be in charge.
“So, in other words, your plan is for us to be written in History as the first humans ever that have been eaten by dinosaurs. I don't know if it will count though, since they are zombie dinosaurs,” Bruno said and sliced open a zombie that was looking for a snack at the wrong place.
“We will stick together, stupid. And we will shoot them with as many tranquilizing darts as possible. If one dart can drug an elephant, five of them won't be enough for a dinosaur?” Steve said, sticking by his idea.
“Five? Hundred, you mean?” Bruno answered with a question.
“500? Are you crazy?” Steve asked back grabbing his hair with two hands.
“Well, not necessarily. But if a triceratops is as big as twenty elephants, for example, you should calculate about 25 shots to make sure. This means that the first ten probably won't make a difference. He will be fully awake and pissed off at us. And he's not even a carnivore. He will wear us like kebab on his horns just for decoration while eating his salad. The other dinosaurs will congratulate him on his new earrings.” Bruno's comments could be very unsettling. Mostly because he was right.
“All right then. Maybe we can just go home and get some rest. After all, it's... wow! It's 4:00 AM! I'm a bit tired, you know? Don't forget that I need my sleep in order to think correctly,” Steve said as he realized that the odds were pretty much against them.
“No way. It's our chance to see dinosaurs and we'll take it. Mr officer, can you communicate with the museum and ask them if they got the drugs?” asked Fiona, who wasn't willing to sleep through such events, even if it meant that she would have to put herself in serious danger.
The officer reached with the radio the units that were near the museum and returned with the news. “Zey don't have enough drugs.”
While Steve's leadership abilities were temporarily out of order, Bruno had some thoughts. “Do the police here use tasers?” he asked. The officer showed him his taser that was strapped on his belt. “Good. Those things give a lot of electricity. Call the units and tell them to bring as many tasers as possible to the museum. And let's go there, quickly.” He turned to Steve and Fiona. “Let's hunt some lizards, baby.” Steve hated it a lot that the one who got to say the line was Bruno. But the idea made sense.
Before leaving, they made sure that the firemen and the City Hall employees would be all right and asked them to keep calling for backup, to make sure that they wouldn't die, no matter what. And only then did they enter the police car and drove quickly towards the Paleontology museum.
When they arrived there, a lot of cars had already arrived, all of them parked behind the building of the museum, on rue Buffon. The dinosaurs didn't go in the street, but they were attracted to the vast garden with the trees and the flowers and everything with potential nutritional value for them. In the building, where nobody could guarantee their safety, there were many courageous scientists who were excited while watching the enormous animals marching and stomping and, inevitably, destroying everything on their way.
When Bruno, Steve, Fiona and the officer arrived, they checked around and found all the police cars parked clumsily left and right of the street and most of the officers inside them, with a huge 'what do we do now?!' on their frightened faces.
“Mr officer, go and take as many policemen as you can and if they don't want to come, take their tasers. Steve, let's go and see if we can enter with the car. Fiona, wait here,” Bruno said, taking the lead this time.
“Are you fucking kidding me? We came up until here and you'll have me wait in the car? I'm coming with you. And besides, if we enter with the car, we won't be able to move quickly enough. The diplodocus will squish us all on the ground with a simple wave of its tale.”
“So, you suggest that we walk?” Bruno asked while Steve was slowly bringing his knees to his chest in fear while trying to hide in the corner of the back seat as he was listening to them.
“Actually, we run. We must have someone distract them and the others hit them with the tasers from every side possible,” Fiona said. “I just hope that we'll have as many police officers with us as possible. We will need a lot of help for this one.”
As it was expected, Mr officer came with no more than two more officers, a young man and a young woman. In total they were six and they would have to use wisely the 37 tasers they had just acquired. But first of all, they would have to go in the museum before running to the garden, in order to exchange some information and ideas with the scientists that were already there, admiring this unexpected gift that was so generously given to them.
And so they did. Inside there were at least a hundred people, many of them looking towards the garden, some of them through their binoculars. Almost everyone was in awe of what they were seeing and they were too immersed in their view to take notice of anyone who would arrive or had arrived. Through the broken glasses of the entrance wall, in the weak light, the upper bodies of the huge animals could be seen pretty clearly, causing the six newcomers to freeze in spot. The view was beautiful as well as terrifying, as the movement of the animals was giving the impression of watching some kind of shadow theater, a bit too realistic for their feeling of comfort that had returned after the successful fight with the zombies. Finally, Bruno got himself together and asked Fiona to inform the watching scientists of their intentions to catch the animals alive.
Many of the scientists were startled when they heard unknown voices talking carefully aloud, while others just took a short look and kept watching the action outside while Fiona was explaining the plan to them. Much to Bruno and Steve's surprise, there were eight scientists in total who volunteered to take part in the dangerous mission. As Fiona was giving more details about the way the dinosaurs would have to be handled to the new members of the team, one of them, a middle aged woman, who seemed quite serious and less enthusiastic than the rest of the eight -who couldn't wait to see some dinosaurs from such a small distance- asked Fiona who had put her, Bruno and Steve in charge.
This caused a reaction by Mr officer, who told her that he was the one who had put them in charge and when she asked him who had put him in charge, he replied something meaning approximately “Do you see anyone else who could be in charge?”
At least this is what Bruno and Steve managed to understand. Fiona confirmed that they understood well and Steve and Bruno shook their heads up and down slowly, giving each other a duckface of approval for their signs of improvement in understanding French.
The rebel lady agreed to follow them with caution and so, after the distribution of the tasers (two for each person and some of them got three), Bruno reminded them that they had to stick together and only scatter left and right in order for their hits to spread when there were behind a dinosaur. Or a mammoth. Or a gigantic armadillo. There were at least fifteen huge animals and many smaller ones, but not less prehistoric and dangerous.
Right after exiting the building, they could see the triceratops eating the leaves off of a tree. There was a lot of noise from the big animals moving all over the place and groaning, so the triceratops didn't notice the team of tiny humans approaching him and by the time he realized that he had company, 28 tasers were filling him with electricity. Lucky shot and way too effective. The extremely many volts roasted the animal and it fell dead right in front of them.
“Nooo!” one of the scientists shouted, only to be reminded that it will be back very soon, by the lady who had questioned Bruno's authority earlier.
“I don't like her. We must be careful,” Fiona said to Bruno and Steve, as discreetly as possible. Then the taser-holding dinosaur-hunters proceeded to look for their next victim, while they would have to try harder in order not to have any more actual victims.
“Wait a minute. What are we gonna do with all the animals after we tase them?” Steve asked.
“What do you mean? You don't know?” asked back the young policeman, one of the two who had been recruited from the cars outside the museum.
Steve turned to the scientists. “They should know! They are the scientists!”
“And what are you, if I may ask?” asked the not-quite-likable lady in French.
“We are Biology students,” Fiona replied in English.
“And we trusted you to lead us? We must go back to the museum immediately!” the lady said right when three lions with huge teeth growled and attacked.
There was a short battle. Nobody was hurt, since the human team was much larger and it had technology on its side. The prehistoric animals didn't have a chance to taste flesh, as they were tased almost before even approaching their delicious prey. When the battle was over, the lions were overly roasted, just like the triceratops, and there was an unsettling smell of burnt meat in the air. Also, Mr officer and the two other police officers were lightly injured on their arms by the claws of the lions, but due to the self-healing situation to which they had adapted quite easily, they didn't even bother checking their injuries. And then they saw that Bruno was unconscious on the ground.
Fiona and Steve went by him and Mr officer checked to confirm that he was breathing, causing some relieved sighs when he nodded that everything was OK. Steve and a young scientist guy took him on their shoulders and began to move back to the museum while the police officers were covering them from the bear and the huge armadillo that were moving threateningly towards them. After some more tasing, which emptied the batteries and left all of them actually unarmed, everyone rushed back to the museum trying to be silent and avoid being followed, to give the first aids to Bruno and to think of what they were going to do with the animals if they could manage to successfully put them out after all. But the animals were too many, contrary to the tasers and the volunteers, that were too few.
After using the radio once more, Mr officer informed the group that the army and the police had started to contain the zombie outbreak and after a few hours of Steve's 'head in the bag' method being in use, the zombies weren't returning back to life, mostly because their heads were in sealed plastic bags and thrown in the bottom of the river.
“So, does this mean that soon enough the army will come for the dinosaurs?” Fiona asked while holding Bruno's head who was still unconscious or maybe sleeping and refusing to wake up. Or maybe he was just enjoying Fiona's hand on his head and living his moment. A slight silly smile on his face was making the third possibility more realistic.
“Zey will come, but we don't know when. Right now I must tell everybody to leave, ozerwise we are in danger. You will come wit me. Is 'e better?” the officer asked Fiona while looking at Bruno and wondering if this face was normal for a person who had passed out.
“I think that he's sleeping. We've had a hard day, it's true. Maybe that's why he fainted,” Fiona answered, aloud at first and lowering her voice when she realized that she might be annoying him. She wasn't.
“I will take you 'ome. Come,” the officer said. Steve and Fiona were too tired to refuse. They entered the police car and, under the guidance of Steve, who was trying to keep his head straight, the officer took them through various messed up streets, with garbage all over as well as some bodies, almost exclusively headless.
After about 15 minutes of driving, they arrived at their building on rue Darwin. “But I don't live here,” Fiona said.
“You don't mean that you want to go to your place right now, of course!” Steve said, not leaving Fiona much space for an argument.
“I don't have my toothbrush.”
“We have toothbrushes here,” Steve responded quickly, without waiting for Fiona to finish her sentence.
“I don't want to cause you trouble.” The truth is that she wanted to stay, but she didn't want to let herself look vulnerable. Although, with such poor arguments, Fiona managed the opposite.
“Oh, that's very thoughtful of you. Because, you know, in the last 22 hours we fought zombies and dinosaurs but you sleeping at our place would be trouble. I'm not listening to any more arguments. If he was awake, he would say the same. Besides, we can't just leave you alone. You won't be safe.” Steve took his leadership status back. But something was wrong with the last words. Especially the long s in 'safe' made the word sound more like 'ssssafe'. He thought a bit too that maybe the building was not exactly a fortress with all those next door neighbors.
“You remember that in the apartment next to yours there are some zombies, right?” Fiona said. “Are you sure that it's safe to be there?”
“Zere are zombies in your building?” Mr officer asked in surprise. “Why didn't you tell me? Are the other residents safe?”
“The residents are the zombies, Mr officer. We have locked them in our... ummm... an apartment next to ours,” Steve said as he remembered Mr Simonnot and how they were in an indirect, remote way, responsible for his transformation into a zombie.
Fiona's eyes opened wide when she realized that there was a problem and Mr officer, being experienced in reading people's reactions, noticed easily their change of mood.
“Come on. Let's take zis guy to sleep,” he said as himself and Steve took Bruno on their shoulders and Fiona went in front to open the doors for them.
They got to the third floor, they entered their place and they put Bruno to bed. Mr officer took a look at the apartment, which was so obvious that it belonged to at least two male students, that he started feeling sorry for Fiona, who would have to spend the night there.
“You see? That's why I didn't want to stay here tonight,” Fiona said.
“Where are ze zombies you were talking about?” the officer asked in a very serious manner, trying to intimidate Steve and Fiona into spilling out any information that could be interesting.
Steve and Fiona looked at each other. “They are in the apartment next to ours,” Steve said nervously.
They went out to check. They put their ears on the door. There was some noise in Mr Simonnot's place. Not much though. “Strange,” Steve said. “After all these hours, they should be screaming and breaking things.”
“Maybe they already did and now they are tired. They are hungry also, don't forget,” Fiona responded.
“We cannot go inside. I must call for backup,” the officer said without meaning it. He knew that, even if there was any kind of danger, the three students were more than capable of coping with it. He just wanted to see if the youngsters were hiding something from him.
“Mr Officer, may I please ask you one little thing? Can you bring the backup in about 8 hours, so that we can sleep a bit first? If you want, you can stay at our place as well. I think that I will fall down right now if I don't get some sleep. Please, Mr Officer.” Steve was convincing. And he was right as well. The weak neighbors were contained in the apartment and after a long day full of killings, there was a huge need for some serious rest.
“Sank you, but I cannot stay. I must see my wife and kids,” the officer answered.
“Oh, yo
u have a family. How are they?” Fiona asked with sincere interest.
“Zey are safe. We live on the ninth floor of our building and ze zombies cannot go so 'igh. I told them to stay at 'ome with ze door locked.”
“Very well then. See you tomorrow, I hope,” Steve said.
The officer greeted them and headed to the staircase. His uniform was ripped on the left sleeve and there was a visible wound from the claws of the lions after the battle at the museum. Fiona and Steve looked at each other like something was going very wrong and they started pointing at the officer's wound silently with nervous gestures. They ran towards the officer and stopped him.
“Does your arm hurt you?” Fiona asked.
“No, not much. Why?” the officer replied.
“I think that it should be healing by now but it doesn't look like it is. Let's clean it before you leave. And you should check it every two hours. If it doesn't go away, this means that whatever was healing us, is not working any more or it doesn't work on you.”
“Do you think that the boys and girls next door have such problems?” Steve asked while they were all going back to their apartment.
“Maybe most of them are dead of exhaustion. You see, it seems that when the body is regenerated, it needs food and water. If they have neither, it's very possible that they will die within a few hours.” Fiona looked at the direction of Mr Simonnot's place. “In any case, we shouldn't open the door by ourselves.”
“You don't have to tell me this twice!”, said Steve, almost cheerfully.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Let's not kill each other then
“Leave them alone... Leave them alone... Leave them alone...” Bruno was unsure if he was sleeping or not. He wanted to get away, he knew that something bad was going to happen to him, but he just couldn't move. This repetitive voice saying the same thing over and over. “Leave them alone... Leave them alone...”
He couldn't say for sure for how long he was struggling to wake up and get away from the voice and the annoying feeling it was causing him. It could have been five seconds or five minutes, but to Bruno it felt like a few hours. And then, a sudden acute pain on the right thigh, a paralyzing pain all over the body and he woke up kicking and trying to escape. He rolled over and fell on the floor with the blanket like some kind of weird sausage with legs.
Halfway back - Bruno, Steve and Fiona's adventure against zombies that may not be zombies and the secret behind them Page 8