by Logan Jacobs
“Hae-won thought she saw something,” Becka hissed back. “We’re your backup, remember?”
“Not my backup,” I replied. “You watch my back. And you can do that from here.”
“Easier to do if we’re near you,” Hae-won pointed out.
I wanted to argue, but I caught another flash of movement near the back of Timothy. I ducked into a crouch and started to lope across the grassy expanse with the two girls right behind me. When we were only a few feet away, I heard human voices, all males and definitely English.
I froze for a moment, as did the girls. I motioned for them to stay in place while I inched closer, partly to get a headcount but also so I could overhear whatever they were planning. Both girls nodded, and then Hae-won pointed toward the bottom of our truck. I glanced down and counted six pairs of shoes, all standing against Timothy. It was odd how quickly I had come to think of the truck as ours, and the idea that these men might be planning to steal it made me angry. I nodded at the girls again, then gritted my teeth and inched forward.
Chapter 3
The men were just as cautious as I was, and their conversation was carried on in low whispers. It was hard to hear much more than a humming sound until I was practically on top of the truck.
“... just left it here?” one of them asked.
“They might come back for it,” a second man replied. “We shouldn’t mess with it.”
“It’s a bloody war out there,” a third man argued. “I think we should take what we can get. For all we know, it’s stolen already. Do you see any army blokes around here?”
“Well, not right now,” the second man answered. “but that doesn't mean we can just take it.”
“I think that it does,” the third man said.
One set of shoes, a pair of Nikes, stepped toward the back of the truck and onto the ladder. The handle rattled as someone tried to open the door, and then the Nikes rejoined the rest of the group.
“Bloody sots,” Becka whispered into my ear, and I turned around to see both of them crouching next to me like sneaky ninjas.
“You were supposed to stay back,” I mouthed to both women, but they both smiled and gave me a thumbs up as if they knew and planned that I wouldn’t send them back, so I just shook my head before I turned my attention back to the men.
“What are we going to do?” Becka asked in the smallest of whispers.
“Nothing yet,” I mouthed. “Let’s see if they decide to give up and go away.”
“Told you, they must be coming back for it,” the second man explained.
“Nah, I don't think so,” the third man replied. “And even if they were, why shouldn’t we just up and take it? They’re doing fuck all for us. Alan, help me with the window, will ya?”
The feet shuffled around, and then someone started to pound on the truck. I realized they were trying to smash the glass on one of the windows, but the stuff had been designed for desert warfare. So far, it was resisting their attempts to break in, but it wouldn’t take them long to get a pipe or something that would break it.
I didn’t want to lose Timothy, and while the girls had proven themselves handy against the dinosaurs, I wasn’t sure how well they would fare against a group of desperate men. That left me and the gun, and that was only an advantage if none of the men were armed. True, we were in England, where guns were rare, but that didn’t mean someone hadn’t found one.
And then there was the whole issue of revealing ourselves. I’d like to believe that everyone would come together and share what they could in crazy circumstances, but I was also a realist. If we revealed ourselves, they would know we were here, and they could very well decide to return with a bunch of their buddies in the middle of the night to steal whatever else they could find.
And if they knew we had a gun, they’d probably show up with one of their own. Then we’d be super fucked.
It all sounded so medieval in my mind, and I decided the best way to avoid a war with the townies was to stay hidden unless they managed to get inside the truck. Even then, it would probably take more talents than any of this lot had to hotwire the thing. So for now, I would just listen and see if anything more happened.
“Oh, give it a rest, will ya?” the first man said and the banging noises ceased. “Look at that thing. You're not going to break in with a bloody rounders bat.”
No guns, then, I decided, but a bat would cause damage enough.
“Then what do you want to do about it, huh?” the man I assumed was Alan asked.
“Just wait,” the man replied. “We’ll keep an eye on it. If someone does have the keys, they’ll come move it, and then we can talk to them about it.”
“What do you mean?” the second guy asked. “It’s not like they’re going to want to share.”
“You never know,” the first guy argued. “Maybe we can reason with them.”
“I suppose we don’t have much other choice,” the third guy admitted. “I wonder if they’re holed up on this campus somewhere. Maybe we won’t have to reason. I bet it’s some snotty uni kids who wouldn’t know a punch when it hit them in the face.”
“We’ll know soon enough,” the first man replied. “Just be patient.”
They didn’t say more, and I watched as their feet started to wander away from the truck and off into the street.
“Jason,” Hae-won whispered as she tapped me on the shoulder. “What should we do?”
“We shouldn’t talk here,” I replied. “Let’s go back to the gallery, and we can try to figure something out.”
“Okay,” the Asian girl nodded.
I led the three of us back toward our gallery base and looked over to the tow truck as we passed. As much as I wanted to get rid of the massive dino corpse, there was no way we were going through the gate right now. The men could still be lingering close by and would approach us as soon as we moved Timothy. They’d made it clear that they wanted the armored carrier for their own use, and though the one man seemed willing to talk, the rest were prepared to take it by force.
Once we were back inside the gallery, we locked the door and moved the barricade into place before we risked removing any of our armor or weapons. As the girls piled their gear near the door, I picked up the bullpup rifle again and decided I should probably keep it close at hand. Becka and Hae-won both glanced at the gun as we started up the stairs together, but neither of them made a comment.
We returned to the staff room and dropped into the chairs at the table. I glanced around the room, and as soon as I saw the fridge I realized just how hungry I was. It was well past noon, and we hadn’t eaten anything but the crumpets for breakfast.
“Let’s get some food,” I said. “Maybe sandwiches.”
“I am definitely hungry,” the Korean girl replied as she stood up again and moved toward the refrigerator.
“I’ll put the kettle on,” Becka added as she stood on her long legs and glided over to the sink.
I picked through some of our other supplies and set out some doritos as well. I added napkins and a package of chocolate digestive biscuits for dessert. Hae-won soon had cold sandwiches for us, and Becka poured us each a cup of strong black tea. It was a hodgepodge of a meal, but the three of us were so hungry that we didn’t care. I ate my sandwich so fast that I couldn’t even be sure what it was. No one spoke until we had eaten the last few cookie crumbs and slurped down the final drops of tea.
“So what are we going to do about the townies?” Becka asked.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” I said with a shrug. “If we confront them, we let them know we’re here, and they’ll probably return with more of their buddies to try and steal everything we have. Our best bet is that they grow bored with the truck or they get scared off by the dinosaurs at least long enough for us to get the tow truck out.”
“I thought you were a bloody yank,” the blonde girl groused. “Aren’t you supposed to be all about fighting? We have three guns, and all they have are poles and sporting equipm
ent. I don’t understand why you didn’t just confront them there and scare them the fuck off.”
“Because,” I explained. “It would give them the upper hand. They would know where we live, how many of us there are, and what type of weapons we have while we learned almost nothing about them.”
“But surely the gun would scare them off for good,” Becka argued.
“We don’t know that for sure,” I said. “And you’re assuming they won’t find a gun of their own. If I’d walked out there with a gun, and they’d left without me having to shoot someone, you can be sure they would have scavenged the whole city if they had to to find one of their own. And then they’d come back, and we’d shoot at each other, and that’s not nearly as fun as it looks like in the movies.”
“And we should save our ammunition for the dinosaurs,” Hae-won added.
“Exactly,” I agreed. “Orrrr…”
“Or?” Becka asked with a perfectly raised eyebrow.
“I could have just shot and killed them all.” I shrugged. “Then we would have known for sure they wouldn’t ambush us in the future. I dunno about you two, but I’m not quite ready to kill another person yet. I mean, hopefully this dinosaur portal thing stops, and we can go back to normal. I don’t really want to murder anyone.”
“Yeah, I agree.” Becka sighed as she crossed her arms in front of her perfect chest and frowned in displeasure. “I hope things go back to normal, but… what if they don’t?”
“Then I’m prepared to do whatever it takes to keep both of you safe,” I said as I looked at both of their beautiful faces.
“Thanks, Jason,” Becka purred as she smiled at me.
“Yes.” Hae-won nodded and smiled at me. “We would be dead without you. You are a good man.”
“It’s not just me,” I chuckled. “The three of us work well together. We are lucky we found each other.”
“What do we do with Timothy?” Hae-won asked. “Should we move him in case they come back?”
“No,” I replied. “We leave Timothy where he is. Right now, the townies can’t get into the campus, and they can’t take the armored carrier which they think has just been abandoned. If we move it, they’ll know that someone has the keys, and they’ll probably guess that we’re staying inside the campus, especially if we replace it with more car barricades.”
“That makes sense,” the dark-haired girl agreed. “It just doesn’t feel right to hide away, though.”
“It doesn’t,” Becka said. “But I do agree with Jason that we don’t want those dolts sniffing around the campus.”
“And the tow truck?” the dark-haired girl asked.
“Yeah, that’s a problem,” I sighed. “That Torvosaurus already attracted one pack of scavengers. There’s bound to be others.”
The three of us contemplated what those other scavengers would look like, and I saw both girls shiver at the idea of something bigger and scarier deciding to investigate the stench of dead dino.
“We could move it later,” the British girl suggested. “When it’s dark. I’ll bet those townies won’t be out, then.”
“I don’t much like the idea of being out at night myself,” I replied. “Who knows what kinds of creatures we would run into, and we may not even see them until it’s too late.”
“And we would have to use the headlights,” Hae-won added. “That would attract attention.”
“But I thought we wanted to get rid of it quickly so we wouldn’t have any more dinosaurs show up,” Becka replied.
“Maybe we could move it at sunset,” I suggested. “If we time it right, we can unload the dino before it gets dark, and then we can drive back quickly. Without the dinosaur’s weight, we can drive a lot faster.”
“Okay, I like that idea,” Hae-won agreed.
“What about the flying ones?” Becka asked. “Will we have time to move them as well?”
“Those will have to wait,” I said. “They aren’t as big so hopefully they won’t attract anything else. We’ll do a second run tomorrow at sunset. I think we’ll be able to take all the vultures in one load, and we can probably add some of the smaller dinos as well once we get them out of the buildings.”
“What do we do until sunset, then?” Becka asked.
“Let’s get the boards on these upper windows,” I suggested. “Now that we know there are other people still out there, we shouldn’t make it too easy for them to find a way inside.”
“But shouldn’t we be trying to help people?” Becka asked.
“Once we’re sure they won’t try to kill us and make off with our supplies,” I said. “But until then, we keep our base camp secure from dinos and people.”
“I was hoping this would have ended already,” the blonde sighed, “and that the police and the army would maintain order a bit better. I mean, what are they for?”
“Most people would probably agree with you,” I replied. “But from what we’ve been able to read online, it sounds like they have their hands full just dealing with the dinosaurs.”
“I hope they solve this soon,” Becka said. “What will we do if the dinosaurs just keep coming?”
No one at our table had an answer for that, and the British girl’s question was met with a long moment of silence. I thought about my scattered family members back in the States, and hoped that somehow, they were all still alive.
“So what’s this plan for the windows?” Becka finally asked.
“I’m thinking we use the same boards from the library, but we leave about a six inch gap between each one,” I explained. “That should give us some light, but still keep out any flying things.”
“The boards are very wide,” Hae-won pointed out. “We would only have two or three narrow slits over each window. We wouldn’t get much sunlight.”
“Yeah, I thought about that,” I agreed. “But we don’t have the kind of tools we need to saw them in half.”
“There are axes,” Becka said with a note of excitement. “The ones from the armory exhibit.”
“That might work,” I mused. “It would be more like putting up bars, but we’d get more light. Will it still be strong enough to keep the dinos out, though?”
“As long as we anchor them well, they should hold,” the dark-haired woman replied.
“Why don’t you two start sorting the boards and making sure we have enough nails,” I said. “I’ll go take a look at the axes and see if any of them will work. Just remember to watch out for rusty nails in the boards.”
“Trust me, I learned my lesson,” the beautiful blonde Brit replied as she held up her bandaged hand.
“We will be very careful,” Hae-won assured me. “I have no desire to injure myself like that.”
“One silly accident and everyone thinks you’re an idiot,” Becka sighed. “The curse of being blonde.”
I laughed, and Becka and Hae-won soon joined in. Becka finally shook her head, and after giving me a smirk and an eye roll, she stepped into the gallery followed closely by the Korean. I waited until their voices faded down the steps before I stepped out of the staff room and made my way through the maze of display rooms to the weapons exhibit.
There were several axes on display, though I hadn’t paid much attention to them before. They were heavy and unwieldy in battle, and not as easy to use as a sword. Now, however, I needed something that was heavy enough and sharp enough to slice through the thick wooden boards we’d removed from the library. I discarded two of the axes quickly since they appeared to be more ceremonial than useful, with intricate carvings along the handle and gemstones set into the blade itself.
A third option had a plain appearance, but the knicks in the blade and the smoothness of the leather wrapped around the handle testified to a lifetime of use. I tried to imagine having to swing the thing in combat, and then decided I was happier with the gun, or even the sword. I was about to reach for the much used tool when I spotted another axe tucked to the side.
Though the last one had an intricate set of e
ngravings in the handle, the blade itself looked solid and heavy. It also looked a good deal sharper than the one I had been about to grab, and I wondered if someone in the museum had taken the time to hone it for some reason. I eased the axe from its spot and gave it a few practice swings. It was well balanced and easy to maneuver, and I rethought my position on using an axe in battle. I ran a finger lightly along the edge of the blade and a drop of blood appeared. Definitely sharp enough to cut wood.
With the axe in hand, I went in search of my companions. On the first floor, I discovered that the barricade had been moved and the door propped open with a heavy board. I shook my head at the breach of security, but I understood why the girls had taken the measure when I stepped outside. The pair had gathered a nice collection of boards in the flower beds beneath the windows and were sorting through the collection to find the best pieces.
“So, do we have enough?” I asked as I joined them by the pile.
“Yes, it should be plenty,” the blue eyed girl said. “Did you find an axe?”
“I did,” I replied as I held out my find for her inspection.
“It is nice,” she observed. “And sharp. It should work very well.”
“And I think I may have figured out our best way to get those dinos out of the other buildings, too,” I replied.
“You mean chopping them up, don’t you?” Becka sighed.
“Yeah, I don’t think we have much of a choice,” I replied. “I was thinking that we might be able to move the raptors in the library on our own, but the two blue boys in the basement are heavy. They would take way too long for us to move… unless…”
“I get it,” Becka said quickly. “Fine, we have to chop them up. Just as long as we get all of these things out of here you can chop up all the giant lizards you want.”
“Don’t you want to take a whack?” I teased.
“Oh, yes, please,” the Korean replied in a sing-song voice.
“Maybe one,” Becka admitted.
I smiled at my companions, then turned to study the boards they had laid out. I spotted one of the longer pieces that had once been the side of a bookcase and set out on the flattest bit of grass I could find. I lined up the axe dead center then brought the axe back and then down as hard as I could. The blade bit deeply into the wood and the piece of board on the right side of the blade cracked and splintered. The other half remained intact, though, and another blow of the axe split that one in two