by Logan Jacobs
I looked around the fire escape, but our only options were to keep climbing or to test the metal fire door.
“Door’s locked,” Becka said when she caught my glance. “We already tried it.”
“We’ll have to keep climbing, then,” I said.
Hae-won helped me to my feet, and though the wound still stung, I found I could put weight on the ankle. We climbed up to the next landing, much to the excitement of the mini raptors, but found there was another locked fire door. With a sigh, I started up the fire escape to the third and final floor, where I was happy to discover a window rather than a door.
The window was locked, so we stood to either side as I brought the hilt of the sword around and smashed the glass. A few shards sparkled in the sunlight for a moment and then drifted down toward the road and the pack of mini raptors. I heard the creatures hiss as they tried to make sense of this new attack while I cleared away the rest of the glass in the windowpane.
One by one, we eased our way inside and walked carefully across the remnants of the window. We were in a small apartment that smelled musty after being closed up for so long. There was a hint of burnt toast and mold as well, and I could just pick out a tiny kitchen through an open doorway. The room we were in was what my mom would have called the family room. There was a faded and patched recliner, a coffee table that could have come from the Brady house, a lamp with a frilly shade, and stacks of newspapers scattered around the floor. A sofa with an orange and yellow floral print faced one of those old cathode ray TV’s that weighed about a hundred pounds.
“Do you think anyone is living here?” Becka asked.
“If they are, they’re not home,” I said. “Or I’m sure they would have at least tried to find out what smashed in the window.”
“Maybe that’s why the fire escape was down,” Hae-won mused. “That is how they were getting in and out.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But the doors and the window were all closed. There wouldn’t be any way to get back in except to break the window.”
We looked around the room again, and I decided that whoever had lived here had long since left. There was an abandoned feel to the place, and as I stuck my head into the kitchen, I was certain we were alone. There was a package of bread on the counter that had started to turn moldy and a couple of overripe bananas in a bowl.
“Are we going to stay here until the raptors leave?” Becka asked. “It’s sort of creepy in here.”
“I’d rather not,” I replied. “Those helicopters might come back and start shooting at those things. We’ll use the front door while those things are still trying to figure out the fire escape.”
“Let me check the bathroom,” the Korean said.
“Um, okay,” I said.
“In case there are any medicines we can use,” Hae-won laughed. “It looks like an old person lived here, which means lots of stuff in the medicine cabinet.”
“Oh, right,” I replied.
Hae-won slipped down the short hallway and after opening a couple of doors, found the bathroom. We could hear her rooting around through the cabinets, and a few moments later, she emerged with more tubes and pill bottles, and somehow, two more bottles of saline, all of which she tried to squash inside her backpack.
“Should I carry the backpack?” I suggested. “It must weigh a ton by now.”
“I am strong,” Hae-won insisted. “I can carry it.”
“Well, I’ll at least take the rifle back and return this to you,” I said as I pulled the gun from my back. “It’s lighter.”
“Okay, Jason,” Hae-won said with an eye roll.
Becka snickered, then opened the apartment door as quietly as she could. We stepped out onto the landing, but the same eerie feeling of abandonment permeated the rest of the building as well. Dust motes floated in the air as we made our way to the stairs, and the only sound besides our footsteps was the creaking of the old wood. We checked the other apartment doors, but they were locked from the other side, and we gave up on the idea of finding more supplies.
At the bottom, we found ourselves in a narrow hallway. At the far end was the door that led to the street, and to our left was a door that probably led onto the ground floor store. That just left the door behind us, which looked like a store room for the store.
“Shall we see if there’s anything interesting?” Becka suggested.
I nodded, and Becka knelt down to examine the lock. It was an older model, like everything else in the building, and after a few moments, she managed to pop the lock open using the blade of the short sword. Then she opened the door and looked inside and let out a frustrated sigh.
“Just our luck,” Becka remarked. “Of all the stores we could have ended up in, this one is full of fucking yarn.”
I looked over her shoulder and chuckled. It was a good sized storage room, but it was filled with arts and crafts supplies. There were tons of yarn and knitting needles, as well as sewing supplies and boxes of beads.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to take some?” I teased. “You could knit yourself a scarf while you sip your tea.”
“I never have and never will knit a scarf,” the blonde retorted.
“My grandmother knits,” Hae-won mused. “She makes little sweaters for her cats and dogs.”
There didn’t seem to be anything to say to that, so I moved away from the store room and walked down the hallway to the door to the street. There was a narrow window by the door, just enough to let in sunlight and to let the tenants see who was on the other side. I scanned the street, but I didn’t see anything moving, so I opened the door and stepped outside. The girls followed me a moment later, and we all studied the street with our guns at the ready.
The only signs of life came from the side street, where we could hear the mini raptors still attacking the fire escape. I pointed in the opposite direction, and we started to jog along the sidewalk as quietly as we could.
Hae-won took the lead again and soon led us into another warren of old streets. When we couldn’t hear the mini-raptors anymore, we slowed to a fast walk and made sure to stop at every corner to check for dinos before we crossed. We passed more looted stores and buildings damaged by dinos. Just a few blocks from the campus, we saw a smoking crater and rubble that looked like a scene from those old photos of London during the Blitz.
“Wow,” Becka murmured as we stared at the damage. “Hope they got the bastard, or you’d have to wonder whether or not it was worth it.”
“Judging by the smell,” I whispered as we snuck by, “I’d say they got it.”
“It does smell like burnt bacon,” Becka noted.
“Almost there,” Hae-won said happily.
A few minutes later, Hae-won led us around a corner, and I knew we were back on the main road that edged the college and that the gate was just a short distance away. In fact, I could see the armored carrier, still parked to block the gate, and let out a sigh of relief.
“Okay, let’s not get careless,” I said aloud, though the reminder was as much for me as it was for the girls. “We know there are still people around here, so before we go marching up to the gate, let’s make sure we’re not being watched.”
We stepped around the corner, then moved quickly and quietly down the sidewalk, close to the buildings. We scanned windows and doorways as we went, and walked past Tim to check the rest of the street. When we were sure there was no one else around, we moved back to the armored carrier where I unlocked the door. Then we climbed inside and out the other door, and then I relocked our trusty gatekeeper.
“I’m just going to say that I actually missed this place,” Becka sighed as we started back to the gallery.
“It does sort of feel like home now,” I said with a grimace. Now that we were safe, I was starting to notice my injured ankle, and it was not feeling good.
“We need to look at your ankle again,” Hae-won replied. “We should clean it again and wrap it up with gauze. Who knows what kind of germs those dinosaurs are carr
ying.”
It wasn’t something I had considered before, but now that the Korean had mentioned it, all I could think about was nasty, prehistoric bacteria swimming through my bloodstream. We made it to the gallery, despite my more noticeable limp, and I unlocked the door for the girls. I took a last look around before following them through the door, then darted inside.
We stripped off our armor, checked that the guns were safe, and made our way to the stairs. I frowned as I looked at the climb to the next floor, but I really didn’t want to hang around downstairs on my own, either. The girls were already halfway up, so I gritted my teeth and followed after them.
“Sit,” Hae-won urged when I entered the staff room. “I will clean the wound again.”
I dropped into the nearest chair and tried to wince as Hae-won pulled my shoe off. It was coated in blood, both inside and out, and I added shoes to the list of items we needed to gather.
“It looks like it’s just the scratch and this hole,” Hae-won said.
“Here,” Becka replied as she handed some of our medical supplies to the Korean girl. “There’s a bottle of open vodka if we need more alcohol.”
“Yes, let’s use that,” Hae-won said as she studied the wound.
Becka retrieved the nearly full bottle of vodka from the counter and passed it to the raven-haired beauty who studied my foot. Hae-won accepted the bottle, and after considering the wound for a few more moments, she began to cleanse it with vodka and paper towels. The Korean worked quickly but was careful not to cause too much pain. Despite that, I know I had a grimace on my face while she worked.
“So, just making a mental note to myself,” Becka announced as she watched my face, “Try to avoid injuries caused by dinos.”
“Says the woman who injured her hand on a nail,” I pointed out.
“Mine’s healing,” she said as she held up her hand.
“Still looks nasty,” I replied.
“Just a scab,” she sniffed.
“Okay, Jason,” Hae-won cut in. “See if you can walk.”
I stood up gingerly, and though the ankle was sore, I could move around the staff room pretty well.
“I won’t be running in the Olympics anytime soon,” I said, “but I can get around the quad well enough.”
“It’s not the Olympics you need to worry about,” Becka pointed out.
“It does put a ding in our off campus antics,” I agreed as I sat down again.
“Well, I picked up some more supplies at my dorm,” Hae-won said as she replaced our medical supplies in the cabinet.
The Korean girl then moved to her backpack and started to pull out her collection, which included, she proudly displayed, a couple of bars of unopened soap, a bottle of shampoo, two tubes of toothpaste, and a roll of toilet paper. She was near the bottom of the pack when she uttered something in Korean and began frantically pulling out the rest of the contents.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“The birth control pills,” the blue-eyed girl explained. “They must have fallen out. I thought I grabbed everything, but they are missing.”
“Okay…” I cleared my throat as my heart beat a bit faster. “Is… that going to be an issue?”
“We should look for some in a store.” Hae-won nodded. “Soon.”
“And some condoms,” Becka said. “You know… just… we don’t want any babies.”
“Yeahhhh,” I looked at the two beauties and imagined both their stomachs swelling. It was a turn on, but the absolute wrong time to be getting two women pregnant. Hell, I wasn’t even fucking Becka, but the blonde woman's remark about the condoms made me think we were going to hook up sooner rather than later.
“Do you at least have your contacts?” Becka asked Hae-won.
“I’m missing one box,” the dark-haired woman replied. “That’s three so I still have nine pairs left.”
“Are they the dailies?” I asked as I tried to figure out what we do if she only had nine days worth of contacts left.
“No, not dailies,” Hae-won answered. “I use a new pair every two weeks or so. So that is four and a half months at least.”
“So we have four and a half months to find replacement contact lenses or a pair of glasses,” I stated.
“As much as I like you two, I really hope we’re not going to be here in four and half months and still scavenging for scraps while dinosaurs roam the city,” Becka sighed.
“Amen to that,” I replied. “Still, it wouldn’t hurt to keep an eye out for an ophthalmologist, no pun intended.”
“And I have my prescription now,” Hae-won said. “It’s here on the label.”
“Well,” Becka declared. “I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry after running around Cambridge, and we never did get a chance to stop and eat. Shall we have those sandwiches now?”
“Yes, please,” I said heartily.
“It is good that I have the contact lenses,” the Korean girl sighed. “But we do need to worry about the birth control.”
“We’ll find a chemist,” Becka replied as she started to hand out the mangled sandwiches from her backpack. “I don’t imagine there was a run on Levonelle, birth control, and condoms when the dinosaurs first appeared.”
“Levonelle?” I asked.
“You don’t have it in the states?” Becka asked as she raised an eyebrow. “A girl takes it the morning after a bloke pours his baby batter in her.”
“Ohhh, the morning after pill,” I said.
“I would like some of those.” Hae-won nodded. “I should be fine, since it is my off week, but I will need the pills soon.”
“Right.” Becka nodded. “Just save some fun for me, eh?”
Hae-won and I looked at the Brit for a moment, who kept a straight face as she added a snack sized bag of Doritos and some lukewarm water to our meals, but Becka finally giggled, and then I started laughing.
“We’ll figure it out,” I finally said as I picked up my mashed meal. “Pills, condoms, whatever. We should have grabbed some when we were getting the tetanus shot, but we can go out again. Whatever you both need.”
“Yes… need.” Becka gave me a wicked grin that promised we would find plenty of times to use the condoms.
“I think all of my chips are broken,” Hae-won said as she looked inside her snack pack.
“They probably all are,” Becka sighed. “I sort of sat on the bag when I climbed up that fire escape.”
“So a rough day all around,” I noted as I unwrapped my sandwich. It was hard to say what it had been but it tasted like ham and cheese with mustard.
We ate more slowly than we had in days as we sat and talked. We were still alive, despite a few close encounters with dinosaurs and helicopters laden with bombs, and we all wanted to savor the moment for as long as we could.
“I guess we should check out the news,” Becka said as she picked up her phone. “Maybe there will be something about those bombs they’re dropping.”
“Or at least a warning about where they will be next,” Hae-won said.
“I think that would go against the military mindset,” I replied. “Though with dinosaurs, you don’t have to worry about them learning your plans.”
“Not yet,” Hae-won said.
We all chuckled, though the statement was a little too close to reality. Some of the dinosaurs we’d encountered had shown some real intelligence, and the idea that they could evolve into creatures that were as smart as us didn’t seem so far-fetched.
“I’ll check to see if anyone else has seen any of those little dinos,” I said as I picked up my phone as well.
“And I will check for news from other countries,” Hae-won declared.
The room was quiet for several minutes as we scrolled through the latest news of the invasion. I didn’t have much luck identifying the pack we’d just encountered, but I did find some articles about other dinosaurs with a pack nature. The one thing all the experts seemed to agree on was that dinos that preferred packs never traveled alo
ne and were never far from the pack. If you saw one, you could bet that the rest of the pack was nearby.
“Hey, look at this,” Becka said and slid her phone across the table to me. “This must be what those helicopters were doing.”
Becka had found an official release that warned city residents about a final sweep of the city streets by the military before they were sent to protect critical infrastructures such as power plants, phone towers, and internet ports.
“That’s got to be good, right?” the blonde woman asked. “At least we know the power will stay on.”
I passed the phone to Hae-won to read as well. Becka waited for one of us to say something, but I didn’t want to speak until I’d worked out all of the implications.
“They are leaving the city?” Hae-won asked in disbelief. “But I just saw an article that said at least a million people have been killed. Shouldn’t they protect the people first?”
“A million!” the British girl said. “Here?”
“Yes, that is what they said,” the dark-haired woman replied. “In the U.K.”
“That can’t be true,” the blonde woman argued. “Just a few days ago they said fifty thousand. How can it jump up by that much?”
“I don’t think they can get an accurate account,” I sighed. “How would you even know if someone got killed and eaten? The police won’t report it.”
“Bloody hell,” Becka sighed. “I should be crying, but all I can do is wonder how. It jumped so high and why our government doesn’t seem to have a plan.”
“There are more dinosaurs now,” I pointed out. “And more arrive every day. We’ve nearly been killed ourselves, and we have guns. Even the military has lost people. Most people out there don’t have guns and probably aren’t that close to a military base. And if the military was focused on protecting the cities, that still leaves a lot of small towns vulnerable.”
“The number could be wrong,” Hae-won said. “I have noticed from living in England that the people follow instructions very well. Most people are probably still sheltering in their homes.”
I wanted to reassure Becka, but Hae-won was right. The real number of dead might never be known, especially if this invasion dragged on much longer.