by catt dahman
“They had to make snakes, too. Hell,” Mali exploded. She faintly wished it had landed on Preston and not Mark.
Mark was bitten three times on his chest and arm before the snake tried to slip away. Sharp fangs slid into Mark’s flesh but the needle-like teeth’s were not painless; in fact, they were terribly painful as venom burned like liquid fire, but hotter. Mark felt crazed with pain and flung the serpent to the ground; Anthony chopped it to bits in fury as soon as it was on the ground.
The venom contained taicatoxin, and each bite began to pour blood. Blood rose to Mark’s skin’s surface, beading and leaking, as his eyes and nose poured blood. “Oh,” he said, looking to Anthony with confusion.
“Mark, sit down. Ummm. Damn.”
A red sheet ran down Mark’s face and body. He stammered, “This isn’t good, huh?” He sounded almost intoxicated as he spoke. Falling to the ground, he looked to Mali, and she felt tears fill her eyes, “Don’t cwwy, Mawi. Maywy.”
His muscles stopped working, and as he lay on the ground unable to move at all, panic filled his eyes. Agony surged through his body, but he could do nothing but lie there, immobile, and suffer. Every nerve throbbed as blood squeezed from the vessels and veins of his skin.
“Mark, are you in pain?”
He couldn’t move but willed his eyes to show it.
“He is,” Mali said, “oh, Mark….”
Mali’s rating surged although she didn’t care, but the audience enjoyed seeing the tough-girl brought to tears. She surged into first place ahead of the men as a favorite, upsetting the odds. Bookies everywhere sweated bullets and cried along with Mali.
Mali and Anthony sat with him, talking quietly while Preston ate and walked around, watching for danger. In a few minutes, Mark’s chest no longer rose as his breathing stopped and the muscle that was his heart went still. Anthony spread a cloth over Mark’s face and looted his bag, getting himself a good pair of boots from Mark and some fantastic supplies. He clipped the extra sleeping bag to his pack with a D-ring.
Mali watched, took some supplies as well, and said, “I feel shitty doing this.” She got a mattress pad, a few tarps, blankets, food, and more, leaving the pack almost empty.
“Thanks, Mark. Your stuff could save me or someone else. Appreciate it,” Anthony said softly, “he’d want us to have his stuff, Mali.”
“Stealing from the dead?” Preston sneered.
“He doesn’t need it now, does he? He’d want us to take what we need like Anthony says,” Mali snapped. “Don’t be such an asshole. Preston.”
“I want some stuff.”
Anthony glared, “I have about eighty-five pounds, now. Mali has another seventy. You have maybe fifty at best, yet you whine all the time about the weight. Seriously? You want more? Have at it, but shut up whining.”
Preston took a few small items and didn’t say anything.
“Come on, let’s head toward those big rocks, maybe climb, and get a good night’s sleep. Maybe we’ll be okay,” Anthony suggested.
Preston grumbled the entire time they climbed.
They hardly had time to re-hydrate themselves and catch their breath before they heard screams and shouts from the line of woods beneath them.
“What now? Damn,” Preston said, “can we ignore them?”
“You want us to ignore you when you need help? Ya freakin’ slob.”
“You need help just to get laid, Mali.
Anthony grabbed her before she could slice Preston’s throat, “Put the knife down, Mali. Come on, let’s help those people.” Mali was millimeters from slicing into his neck and bleeding him out. Anthony wasn’t sure she would back off since she was still upset over losing Mark to a damned snake.
Mali promised with her eyes that she’d get back at Preston.
With tired sighs, they jumped to a higher set of rocks, watched the woods, and waved at the green team and red team that scurried from the trees. At first, they didn’t know why the teams were running, but then, like an army of voracious, starving ants, troodons in pairs and trios surged, snapping their jaws and leaping at people.
“My God, look at all of them,” Mali said.
One or two would not have been a threat. Even a dozen would have been nothing as small as they were, but the creatures numbered in the hundreds as they gave chase. Anthony groaned but yelled for the teams to run to the rocks and to climb as he and Mali fought the creatures, trying to help.
That was how three teams became one.
“We have sixteen dead and one injured. How will your contestant do on,” Bert paused for the audience, “Dinosaur: 65 Million?”
The camera showed more footage, battles and escapes, losses and chases; after what seemed forever, the audience was worked up to a blood lust like Romans watching the lions eat the Christians. Bert waited to sign off, and when all was quiet again, he said his line just as the teleprompter showed, but he also had gotten a copy of the tape with audio intact. He said the words he was supposed to, but he changed the emphasis slightly.
Bert said, “So now you know what happened. Shocking, isn’t it? That’s all for this week. Tune in tomorrow to see who is winning, and remember this time it is them; next time it could be you.”
***Cut to commercial.
Chapter Nine: Peace in the Valley
Ruby read her booklet as they walked. She told them that the tyrannosaurs liked the area they were in because it was where they would find enormous herds of hadrosaurs, the dinosaur equivalent of cows, “They are massive like cows and have elongated duck-bills or jaws and chew kind of like cows. They mostly have funny shaped heads with crests or fancy boney plates that may attract mates.”
“And like cows, they eat plants, right?”
“Yes, Wendy. If the Ts are hunting them, then we should have a little peace today,” Ruby said hopefully. “They look cool in the booklet with the funny heads.”
“Don’t forget about snakes; avoid them,” Anthony reminded them grimly. “Are you limping Marshall?”
“I feel like I bruised my ankle, or it could be a minor sprain. Not too bad, yet. May be a bruise on my heel. It’s sore but not hurting as if broken.”
Jack and Marcus traded worried glances.
“The rules say we win as a team. I didn’t think about what that meant before,” Jack said as they walked.
“But,” Wendy thought, “that isn’t right. We’ve been helping each other. What do we do? Knock each other over and run to the finish line?”
“If we want to win big,” Marcus said as he held up a hand. He motioned them to look into a shallow valley.
A small river ran through the bottom, rushing foamy and white over big grey rocks. Where the edges met the dry ground, no bushes or plants remained as herds had taken advantage of the splashing water and crushed the soil into sandy bars. A herd of massive lambeosaurs stood around, drinking. Pale lilac and pinkish all over, they had large crests that were bright shades of purple and red and were hatchet-shaped. They were beautiful animals.
Babies, as large as full-grown cows and crowned with tiny crests, rolled at the edges of the water, covering themselves with mud. The adults kept a close watch on the little lambeosaurs and sniffed at the direction the humans walked but didn’t look apprehensive. They were inquisitive but not particularly bright.
Farther along, they saw a herd of styracosaurs. The animals were twenty feet long and six feet tall, and the older ones had horns seven or eight horns jutting from their heads like crowns while the younger ones had one or two or just nubs. Each had a horn on its nose. They were majestic and formidable.
While their bodies were a deep emerald green with a light green belly, their crests and faces showed shades of green turning to blue, then purple, and then red. By far, they were the most colorful, most attractive dinosaurs of all.
“Plant eaters, Ruby?” Marcus asked.
“Yup. Amazing, aren’t they? I like them.” Eating protein bars and drinking water, they paused to watch the herd a little.
“Look at that. What is it? A T-Rex? It’s different,” Jack pointed to a lone predator that watched the herd from the other side of the river and drank its fill before lumbering away.
Ruby thumbed through her booklet, “It’s an allosaurus. They are similar to a T-Rex, but they have a longer head, have more muscular bodies, are smaller, and are probably smarter. They have longer front legs, too.”
Marcus huffed, “Do we have to deal with them?”
Ruby nodded, “Yes, we do. We’d do better to avoid them and not fight them.”
“No kidding,” Lawryn said.
After replenishing water supplies, the group argued about where to camp. Some thought close to water was easier so they easily could replenish their water supply and wash off, but others said it would attract predators.
“I don’t think there is anywhere safe anyway,” Marcus said.
Mali sniffed, “You wanna see unsafe? Come to my neighborhood anytime. Predators here are bigger, but they ain’t any worse. If they get you in their sights, they’ll come and keep coming until someone is dead.”
Anthony patted her back, “We signed up for this. Can’t say much except we didn’t know what the game was, really. You see the stuff on television and cheer and are entertained, but you forget real people are here. When I saw Trish torn apart, I couldn’t decide if it were real or something pretend, yanno?”
“Do you feel more scared here or your neighborhood, Mali?”
After she did a little thinking, Mali looked at Jack before she spoke, “It’s just different. It seems almost fair here because this game is about who is smart and strong, and that’s natural, but no, it ain’t fair really. Home ain’t fair either.”
“Now, that we are all depressed, I have to tell you something Jeremy, Marcus, and I found out this morning,” Jack said. “Might as well camp here because we won’t feel like hiking after this.”
“It sounds serious,” Ruby said.
“We checked the rounds. Half are dummies, and the primers are drilled out.”
“What does that mean?” Susan asked.
“It means this part of the show will be edited out,” Jack said bitterly, “because they set us up to fail. They gave us fake bullets so at times, we have fired the guns, and there was nothing to hurt the ones we fired at. We would have caught it sooner, the weight gave it away, but we were too busy trying to defend ourselves and everyone else.”
“They knew?”
“They did it, Susan. Do you think the show wants to pay out sixty-five million dollars when it can pay out five? Or none? We’re not meant to survive.”
“Why?” Susan couldn’t wrap her mind around this; she was perplexed by the fact something could be so unjust. She wanted to ask more about why it happened, “How could they do this to us?”
Mali cursed.
“We’re supposed to die out here. Wow,” Adrian said. “It’s hard enough out here without being screwed over.”
Susan’s face was wet with tears, “We are meant to die? Kathleen and Brielle? Donovan? They were…?”
“Entertainment. We don’t rule here, and we don’t rule out there. We are nothing,” Jack said.
“I want to rule. I plan to make it,” said Jeremy, who never said much; he gripped Susan’s hand and squeezed, “Forget the money. We’re going to make it. Don’t cry, Susan.” Of all things he had witnessed, seeing a gentle soul cry so bitterly made him feel horrible.
“I don’t know what to do. What can I do?”
“You keep doing what you are doing. You’re a healer,” Jeremy said.
“What are you?”
He laughed a little, “A psychopomp. I guide souls. Don’t cry, okay?”
“I’ll try.” Susan didn’t quite understand Jeremy, who was complex and strong but had a soft side that melted her; when she was afraid, looking at him made her feel safer.
Adrian spoke quietly, “Yellow team is over that way. I saw the smoke from their fire.”
“They could join us,” Jack said.
“But we can’t all win this,” Lawryn complained.
“No. But we can make it out. Isn’t survival first now? Forget money. You can have mine; run ahead and win. I just want to survive now,” Susan said.
Jack looked at Jeremy and then at Marcus again. When Jack suggested some go over and find the yellow team, a few stayed, making themselves busy with camp chores and asking people to do various things until only the blue team, Serinda, Wendy, Jeremy, and Mali remained. Mali said, “You know we can’t all make it.”
“What do you mean?” Ruby asked.
She means that we are up against one another really. Not for money. When the troodons got Kathleen, you were saved, Ruby,” Lawryn said. She had already mulled this over as they walked, wondering how the teams would reform and who would side with whom. It was human nature, and in her world, people went with the best bet.
Ruby blinked.
“You can’t be suggesting anything like….” Susan stuttered. “Are you? I didn’t want Donovan to die.”
“I didn’t either, and I saw his face as he fell,” Lawryn said. “But then there is a part that was so glad it wasn’t me. I know all of you; I like all of you a lot. Would I push you to safety and let one of the others be snatched up? Yes, I would. There, I said it.”
“Cut my head off. What would you do with it? Toss it as bait? Carry it like savages? You’ve all gone mad,” Susan’s voice rose a little.
Jeremy reached over and laid a hand across her arm. “Shhh, Susan, what do you want most right now?” He held her hand.
“To be out of here and not see any more death. I want to go home.”
“Me, too,” Ruby said, “so what are you suggesting? Plain words.”
“We get us out alive. Blue team, Wendy, Serinda, Jeremy, and Mali. That means team members turning on their own teams though. It means we make a secret pact to get us out.”
“Jack,” Serinda began and nodded, “if we can get Adrian out, too, I’d like that. But I’m in. Whatever it takes. Wendy, you’re in. Say it. We’re a team, girl.” Wendy slid a hand over to Serinda, and they held on tightly as she nodded, “We…we’re a team.”
Wendy stroked Serinda’s hand with a thumb, daring anyone to say anything and watching their eyes to see if they had a problem with the two women being a couple. She saw nothing that indicated disdain or judgment. Her shoulders relaxed.
“Always a team,” Serinda said again.
“I understand. I think that’s fine,” Jack nodded, “Marshall? Marcus?”
Mali watched the two men nod and lean into the group, “Anthony is cool. Preston is a jerk. He said he made remarks about something sexual and pissed me off. I have no deals made with them or allegiance to them. My neighborhood and my home…we have nothing until I give you my word, but I can offer that here and now.”
Jack held out his hand.
Mali shook his hand and offered her hand to Jeremy, Ruby, and then the rest, “I am in. I have your back.”
Susan looked at them as she checked on Marshall’s ankle and foot. Before he had thick soled, sturdy boots, he had good sneakers that served him well as he ran and dodged dinosaurs. She warned him he was about to feel more pain as she distantly wondered how he walked all this way. His heel was soft and swollen. As she prodded with tweezers, thick infection oozed out, making him gasp.
After the heel was thoroughly drained of pus, Susan washed the skin and told him that at some point, a splinter must have gone through his shoe and into his heel, which had been terribly infected. “Keep it clean and dry and drained. Are you feverish?”
“A little.”
She handed him the antibiotics she had left, noting he was very hot and unusually quiet.
“I’m the weak link,” Marshall said, “I’m a goner, huh? You shouldn’t have included me.”
“You’ve had my back this whole time. Now, I’ll watch yours. Just get better,” Marcus said. He motioned them to get quiet as the rest appeared around
camp, finished with chores. On the ground, he made a fire, fanning it until the flames glowed warm and bright.
“What do we plan to do? If they chase us, do we push them into the path? Do we send them ahead on the trail? Do we cut them open as bait?” Susan asked. Her eyes flashed, and Ruby and Lawryn looked away in shame. Marshall shrugged. Jack and Marcus busied themselves.
Mali excused herself to relieve her bladder.
Jeremy, always an enigma but mostly quiet and reserved, tried to hide a small grin. Susan was showing more fire and spice than she had ever shown, and it amused him greatly. In all the misery, this was the first time he had found humor in anything; he enjoyed it, despite Susan’s anger. No one was watching any of them in particular, so in a rare fit of mischief, Jeremy leaned over and kissed her quickly, exaggerating the smack.
Susan’s jaw dropped as she debated whether to laugh, stay angry, or slap him for his audacity. It was unlike him. Without deciding she rasped, “Why me?” She meant far more than wondering about the quick kiss.
“You’re a survivor. You’ll be around when others fall.”
Susan looked into his eyes and studied him. In a few seconds, she slid a slender hand to his cheek in a rare display of tenderness, “Count me in. I’m with you.”
Jeremy grinned, taking the statement as much more.
Ruby interrupted to ask Susan to look at John. He wasn’t as lively as he had been; Susan agreed that the bruise he took from Brent’s kick had injured him more than they thought; that was why he was content to ride in a pocket and allow himself to be hand fed.
“Will he be okay?”
“I don’t know, Ruby. He’s little and not feeling well; we don’t know what to do for him. Just keep him warm and happy.”
Mali clung to her neighborhood gangland’s codes of loyalty, Ruby carried around a baby dinosaur, Wendy avoided facing facts, Serinda overworked herself, and Jeremy allowed himself to be the antihero. Each of the contestants was drawing deeper into the zone he felt safest in. Susan, with Lawryn’s help, brought back bags full of nuts, claiming they were like peanuts but with a sweeter, pecan flavor. The meat wasn’t as crunchy as it was chewy.