by Logan Jacobs
“My contact lenses,” Hae-won replied. “And some medications.”
“You have medications?” I asked in surprise. “Is it life-threatening if you don’t have it?”
“The opposite.” Hae-won nodded. “But I don’t want to walk there in the rain. Maybe we should just go to the library today.”
I guessed Hae-won was talking about her birth control, but she merely smiled and waited for me to agree. Becka seemed to catch some sort of girl signal from the Korean, because the Brit’s eyes went wide for a moment, and then she smiled as well.
“Right,” Becka cleared her throat, “We should get Hae-won her stuff.”
“We should probably do the online research today, also,” I agreed. “Before the internet goes down. Maybe we could take turns doing research while the other two are moving the dinosaurs. It might save us some time.”
“I still have that list we made,” Becka said as she shuffled several pages of paper.
“Can you read that back to me?” I asked. “Maybe we’ll think of something else we should look for.”
“Let’s see,” the blonde girl said as she held up a sheet of paper. “We have, in no particular order: food storage, gardening, water filtration, knot tying, fire starting, dinosaur stuff, maps, medicines, and diseases.”
“Add water collection and storage,” I said. “Is there anything else you two can think of to add to that?”
“Hmm,” Hae-won said as Becka wrote down “water” on the list. “Just the dinosaur names we know.”
I nodded and then poked through the items on the counter. I found the last few pastries and carried them to the table.
“So let’s have a quick breakfast, and then we can head to the library,” I suggested.
“Or maybe we should check some of the classrooms first,” Becka said as we took seats around the table. “It would be nice to have those big bastards out of the way, and then we can relax in the library afterwards.”
“If you don’t mind trying to move them in the rain,” I said with a shrug. “And maybe the rain would work in our favor. Keep the other dinosaurs away.”
“I think that will work,” Hae-won replied. “And I would like to be rid of them as well after we saw those bird things yesterday.”
“When are we going to collect those?” Becka asked as she brushed some powdered sugar from her lips.
“If it stops raining, we can give it a try,” I replied. “But they’re probably pretty slippery right now. It might not be that easy to move them.”
“Gross, good point,” the blonde agreed. “Okay, then, we’ll do the blue buggers, search the class buildings, and then see how the weather is?”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “If it’s clear after that, we can do the ones in the quad, and if it isn’t, we’ll head to the library.”
“I like that plan,” Hae-won agreed.
We finished our pastries, washed the mugs, and then looked around the room.
“I hate to say it, but this place is starting to feel like home,” Becka said. “In a medieval sort of way.”
“It is,” I agreed. “But we shouldn’t get too comfortable. Eventually, even the government is going to run out of resources, and if they haven’t stopped the dinosaurs from arriving by then, then we’ll need to start making some long term plans. Like finding a place with access to food and clean water.”
“Like my mum’s place,” Becka noted.
“Something like that,” I agreed. “But for today, let’s load up those big dinos and then do some research.”
The girls nodded, and we grabbed a few supplies before we made our way back to the main entrance. We slipped on our armor, checked our weapons, then moved the barricade from the door. I opened the door and peered outside, and found myself staring at a downpour. I looked back at the lobby, then ducked behind the welcome desk. As I’d hoped, there was a collection of umbrellas behind it.
“Here,” I said as I passed each girl an umbrella. “And let’s take the other two guns as well as the axes. Maybe we’ll get a chance to use them later. I just need one of you to carry one of the bags over there with the extra ammo, and then you can each carry an axe.”
“Yay!” Becka cheered as she accepted one of the umbrellas and then grabbed an axe.
Hae-won accepted an umbrella as well, then picked up one of the ammo bags, which she slipped over her shoulder, and picked up the last axe. I scooped up the other two guns and slung one over each shoulder, then grabbed an umbrella for myself. We slipped outside, and then I closed and locked the door behind us. We watched the rain for a moment, but there was no sign that it was going to let up, so we opened the umbrellas and dashed across the quad.
We found the open window, and I set the rifle aside and made a cup with my hands to boost each girl up to the sill. Becka went first, and dropped her sword and the axe she carried over the edge before ducking inside with her umbrella. Hae-won did the same thing, then leaned back out far enough to take the rifle and umbrella from me. I grabbed the sill and pulled myself onto the ledge, then tumbled into the room. I stood up, and Hae-won handed me the rifle and then grabbed her own gear. We left the umbrellas by the window as we moved toward the center of the room.
“Okay, yeah,” Becka said as our shoes squelched across the floor. “This is not good weather for target practice.”
“It’s not good weather for anything,” I agreed. “And maybe that will keep the dinosaurs away.”
“Should we go to the basement first?” Hae-won asked. “How are we going to move the dinosaurs once we cut them up?”
“We should try to find something like those carts they use to move people into the dorm rooms,” I said as I looked around the classroom.
“That will still be rather messy,” Becka mused. “Oh, but we can use these.”
She went over to a trash can by the door and pulled out the black plastic bag from inside.
“Bin bags,” Becka said. “We can keep blood from getting everywhere.”
“That’s a great idea,” I said.
“Okay,” Hae-won agreed as she headed for the hallway. “So let’s find one of those carts and more bags.”
Hae-won strode down the hallway, her ebony hair weaving from side to side over her metal plate armor as she walked. It was a stunning image, and I soaked it in until I heard Becka make a noise in her throat. I glanced at the blonde, and she met my own gaze for a moment, then she flushed and turned away.
“Here is a janitor’s closet,” Hae-won announced as she stopped by a small door.
“Let’s have a look,” I said as I opened the door.
There was a meager collection of supplies and sanitation tools inside and definitely no large carts. I handed out toilet paper, paper towels and a bottle of hand soap, but the rest were industrial strength cleaners that we didn’t need at the moment.
“Here’s the bin bags,” the blonde Brit said as she reached across me to a shelf on the side and grabbed a large roll of the bags.
“Looks like there’s plenty in that roll,” I agreed. “That should be enough. Let’s take these rubber gloves as well.”
“So all we need now is a cart,” Becka replied as she brushed against me.
“I’m not sure that will work,” Hae-won said as she looked around the hall. “This is an older building, so no elevators. How would we get it downstairs and then upstairs?”
“She’s got a point,” Becka replied.
“We’ll have to carry the bags up, then,” I said. “We can stack them by the window until the rain stops, and then load them on the tow truck.”
“Oh, this is going to be fun,” Becka sighed.
I gave the Brit a reassuring smile, then led the way back to the steps and the dead end hall in the basement. The smell of decaying flesh hit us as soon as we started down, and we all covered our noses and mouths with a free hand. The nauseating smell was soon joined by the incessant buzzing of flies, and I braced myself for what was sure to be an unpleasant scene.
Chapter 5
“It smells like… rancid meat,” Becka noted.
“Well, that’s basically what it is,” I replied. “Just breath through your mouth as much as you can.”
“Uh, I think I might gag,” Becka said.
“Yes,” Hae-won agreed as she shook her head and covered her nose with her hand. “I think I might as well.”
“I know it’s hard, but we can work through this,” I said. “And the sooner we seal them in the bags, the sooner we can get rid of the smell.”
“Okay, let’s do this,” Becka said as she set her gear on a clean spot near the steps and held up the roll of bags.
Hae-won and I followed suit and added our weapons and ammo bag to the pile. We each donned a pair of rubber gloves, grabbed an axe, and then walked toward the bodies. A wave of flies flew into the air as we approached, and I swatted them out of the way as best as I could.
“Where do we start?” the dark-haired woman asked as we stared at the bodies.
“I guess the arms and legs will be the easiest place,” I said. “Let’s start with this one. I’ll cut near the top, where the leg is thickest, and you chop at the knee. That should make the leg short enough to fit inside the bag. When you get tired, just swap out with Becka.”
“Yes, okay,” the Asian woman said.
“Jolly good,” Becka snickered.
While the blonde looked on, Hae-won and I took our first swings at the corpse. The axe was heavy, but it bit through the flesh and muscle cleanly. Another wave of flies swarmed into the air at the disturbance, then settled on other parts of the body while we worked.
Soon, we were both sweating, and then I heard the crack as I hit bone. My pace slowed down as I worked to break the hip bone, but there was a final crackling sound, and then the axe was slicing through nothing but flesh again. With one last blow, I separated the leg from the body and stood back to admire my work.
“Nearly done,” Becka remarked, and I realized that at some point, she and Hae-won had switched places.
Becka took two more swings with the axe, and then the leg was split in two. Hae-won stepped forward with one of the bin bags at the ready, and Becka and I quickly dumped them inside along with lots of flies.
“Let’s do the other leg,” I suggested. “Then the arms, head and tail. I think the torso will fit inside a bag all its own, and we won’t have to deal with the organs.”
“Bugger all this,” Becka huffed as she tried to blow a few stray strands of blonde hair out of her face. “If I ever find the cunt who caused all this, I’m going to use this axe to remove a few of his organs. Starting with his todger.”
Hae-won and I looked at the Brit for a moment, and then the blonde started to snicker. The Korean and I soon joined in, and it was only the threat of swallowing flies that forced us to stop laughing and return to work. We took turns, though I only stopped once, and we soon had a stack of black bags stuffed with dino parts. The flies still buzzed around, though most soon settled into the dried blood.
“We should probably try to clean that up,” I said as I remembered the industrial cleaners in the closet. “Or it will just attract more flies.”
“Fine, but not right now,” Becka huffed. “I need a break.”
“Let’s carry these upstairs at least,” I suggested. “Then we can take a break.”
“Such a slave driver,” Becka said as she grabbed one of the bags.
“At least he is handsome,” Hae-won replied. “Imagine if we had been trapped here with….”
The Asian paused as she tried to think of someone she would not want to be trapped with during the apocalypse. Becka stopped as well and stared into the distance as she tried to come up with an appropriate name.
“I would say Prince Charles,” the Brit said. “But if we were with him, we’d probably be surrounded by troops, and we wouldn’t have to chop up our own dinosaurs.”
“Oh, that American with the red hair,” Hae-won declared.
“Shaun White?” I asked. “The Flying Tomato?”
“No,” Hae-won said in confusion. “I think he is a different vegetable. A carrot?”
“Carrot Top?” I suggested.
“Yes, him,” Hae-won affirmed.
“Oh, I would definitely take my axe to him,” Becka agreed.
“So what you’re saying is that good looks can be helpful,” I said.
“Of course,” Becka replied. “Good looks can get you out of a lot of difficult situations.”
“You sound like you have personal experience with that,” I chuckled. “So what did your spectacularly good looks get you out of?”
“Speeding tickets, mostly,” the blonde replied with a wink. “I like to go fast.”
It was hard not to smirk in return, and even Hae-won had a grin on her face. It would have been something straight out of one of my fantasies, except for the bugs that buzzed around the room.
“I’m tired of getting dive-bombed by these flies,” I finally said. “Let’s get these bags upstairs and check on the weather.”
We carried the bags upstairs and piled them by the window, though the bags with the torsos required two people. It took a few trips, but we eventually had the collection neatly piled by the window. I even managed to convince the girls to return to the basement with me one last time with the paper towels and some of the industrial bleach to clean up what we could of the blood. There was still a brownish color to the floor when we were done, but the smell was gone and the flies moved onwards in search of other food sources. We filled another bin bag with the paper towels and the bloody gloves, and placed it on top of our collection.
“Assignment one is now complete,” Becka said as she studied our pile of bags. “Now what?”
“It’s still raining pretty hard,” I replied. “Why don’t we poke around the rest of the building and see if we can find any other useful items to take back to the gallery?”
“Should we split up?” Becka asked. “It wouldn’t take as long.”
“But what if more dinosaurs appear?” Hae-won asked. “Jason is the only one with a gun.”
“Hae-won’s right,” I said. “We should stick together. Let’s take a few of those bin bags with us. We can use those to carry anything we find.”
“So where do we start?” Becka asked when we were back in the hall with our weapons in one hand and plastic bags in the other.
“Let’s start at the top and work our way down,” I replied. “That way we won’t have to carry supplies up the stairs.”
“Not only good-looking but clever,” Hae-won remarked as she gave me a coy smile.
“We are lucky we got the yank with us.” Becka grinned as well, and then the two women exchanged a quick glance. Then they both smiled at me again before they strolled toward the stairs.
The third floor was a bust, since it was mostly empty classrooms. We found a pod coffee maker in a teacher’s lounge, as well as another roll of paper towels and stacks of paper cups. We tossed the paper towels and cups into one of the bags, but decided to leave the coffee maker and the box of pods for the time being. We could always return if we managed to use up our current supply, though by that time, I wasn’t sure if we would still have electricity.
One floor down, we found a pair of chemistry labs. There was the standard equipment, like flasks, beakers, and bunsen burners, as well as some more serious equipment, like imaging equipment and a centrifuge. The storage room for the chemicals was still locked, but Becka found a ring of keys in the desk reserved for the lab tech, and we soon had the door open. I peered inside, but I only recognized a few of the names o
n the various bottles.
“This is good,” Hae-won said as she read each label. “We might be able to make something with these. Or use it to purify water and such.”
“Are you sure we have the right stuff?” I asked. “I wouldn’t want to poison ourselves by mistake.”
“I will do some research,” the Korean sighed. “For now, I can take pictures of the bottles. Then I can compare what is here with what we will need.”
I nodded as the blue-eyed girl started to take pictures of the shelves with her phone. Becka watched for a moment, then perked up as she studied the shelves.
“We should check the art building,” Becka said. “They have all sorts of cool stuff there, like blowtorches, wire cutters, glue guns. We might need some of that if we’re going to be here for a while and have to make repairs.”
“Where’s the art building?” I asked.
“Uh, two buildings over, I think,” Becka replied.
“Three,” Hae-won corrected. “It is three buildings over. That is the one I take piano classes in.”
“Should we go there next, then?” I suggested. “And then go to the library?”
“Sure,” Becka agreed. “We’ll just make a circuit of the quad.”
“It will be just like a circuit workout at the gym,” Hae-won said. “Lots of sweating and swearing.”
“Or that other workout,” Becka added.
Both girls snickered again, and I had the feeling that I had somehow missed part of the conversation. The look the two had exchanged before we’d started our search of the building was at the heart of whatever agreement they had reached, and I wondered how long it would be before someone decided to inform me what the terms were.
But the girls had moved on without me, and I could hear their voices engaged in a quiet conversation as they moved toward the stairs. I caught up with them as they reached the first floor, which was mostly lecture halls filled with desks and chalkboards and little else. Even the staff room was bare except for some dusty DVD’s Becka found shoved into the back of a cupboard. The Brit skimmed the collection, then dropped a pair into her bag.
“Dare I ask what movies you found?” I inquired.