No Road Out

by M. J. Konkel

  “Hello! Is anyone here?” she shouted. No one answered. She tried flicking the light switch just inside the doorway, but the lights did not come on. She went through the different rooms of the house to see if anyone might still be there. She was starving, so she next turned to searching for anything to eat. It was getting dark, but she had a small LED flashlight attached to her key ring that she used to search inside of the refrigerator. It was empty, except for two bottles of water. She immediately guzzled one down, found a chipped bowl and poured the second bottle into it for Nova. The cupboards were bare, except for a half bag of dog biscuits that she gave to Nova. However, she did find two candy bars on top and towards the back of the refrigerator. They were not much, but at least they were something. Karen woofed down the first one, a Chewy Lewey. The second was a Castaways bar that she ate more slowly, savoring the rich chocolate and coconut flavors, even though it was an old bar and a little stale. She loved the taste of chocolate. She wondered where Joe and the kids were at that moment and if they were all right. She knew that Joe was looking for her, and she again wished that she could let him know that she was all right.

  The occupants of the house had apparently moved out and taken almost everything with them. Karen doubted that they would come back soon. But why did they leave their dog behind? If he was a guard dog, he wasn’t a very good one. And who was feeding it? She searched until she found a phone, but it was dead. She needed sleep, but was too frightened to sleep anywhere near a window, especially since one of them in the back bedroom was totally busted. She pulled the cushions off the couch and laid them in a hallway that connected the kitchen with the garage. There were doors on both ends and no windows. She nestled down into the cushions, curled up with Nova next to her, closed her eyes and fell asleep almost immediately.

  Karen woke with a start, immediately realizing where she was but with no sense of the time. It seemed that she was asleep a long time, but it was still dark. She used her flashlight to look at her watch and saw that it was past eight. She had slept almost eleven hours. It was dark because the hallway room that she was in didn't have any windows. There was a little light coming from under one of the doors, but it was not much. After letting Nova outside, she started searching through the house. She felt very grimy, but there was no running water in the house to clean up with. She found a 12-pack of spring water in the garage, but no food anywhere. At least she wouldn't get dehydrated or be forced to drink river water that she was sure contained parasites that would make her ill.

  Her ankle was still swollen, although the pain was down to a dull reminder instead of the sharp stabs of the day before. She located some slats in the garage and nearby she found a dirty old sheet stuffed in a corner. She used these for a makeshift splint for her ankle to keep it from turning while she walked. Before she left, she wrote a note and put $100 on the kitchen table, in case the owners returned and wondered who was in their house. It was still close to a ten-mile trek to Brown's Station from where she was at, and although she didn't know if she could walk that distance, she was determined to try. If she was lucky, she might find someone to help that was closer. It was mid-morning by the time she set out. She had found a dusty old backpack in a closet that she loaded up with the spring water, her purse, Nova's bowl and an old butcher's knife, wrapped in a towel that she also found in the house. She had used the knife to cut strips of the sheet for her splint. It would not be of any use for defense against a monster like Freddie, but she thought that it might still turn out to be useful in other ways. One of her luckiest finds at the house was a pair of crutches.

  She kept up a steady, if not very fast, pace. By noon, she estimated that she had put about a mile and a half behind her. Nova walked beside her and kept looking up at her as if to say, “how are you doing?” That stretch of the road ran between the steep hills on one side and the river on the other. Railroad tracks ran closer still to the river and, most often, there was some backwater slough or pond between the highway and the railroad tracks. At a bend in the road where there was a good vantage point, she stopped to take a rest and pulled another bottle of water out of her backpack. She tossed her old one aside and felt a little guilty about littering. She scolded herself and retrieved the bottle, stuffing it back in the backpack. She poured some of the water into Nova's bowl. But as she took a swig of the warm water from the new bottle, Nova jaunted over to the edge of the road on the other side and stared down over the edge.

  “What do you see, boy?”

  “Woof!” Nova wagged his tail, begging her to come and see for herself. Karen noticed that the grass on the edge of the shoulder was bent down in two spots, appearing as if a car had driven over the side. It was barely noticeable as the grass had mostly straightened itself up, and if she hadn't stopped for a rest and been alerted by Nova's action, she probably would have missed it. She went over to investigate and saw that there was a car down over the side, a police car.

  “Is anyone down there?” she shouted as Nova bounded down towards the car. No answer. She inched her way down to it, not easy with the splint on her leg and the backpack on her back. She considered taking the backpack off, but thought that she might need some of the things in it and did not want to have to return for it once she reached the car stuck partway into a pond. She saw that the car's driver side was smashed in and the front was like an accordion.

  “Is someone there?” The weak and crackly voice belonged to Sheriff Burser.

  “Yes, it is Karen Spechright. I will be down as quick as I can.”

  “Dr. Spechright! Isn't that ironic? I am supposed to be rescuing you.”

  “You’ve seen Joe?”

  “Yup. It’s because of him that I was up here looking for you.”

  “I think you found me.”

  “I guess that’s true.”

  “How are you? Are you hurt?” she asked.

  “Well, I've been better. I think both of my legs are broken.” He coughed. “And probably a rib too, and I am very thirsty.”

  Karen finally got down to him and handed him a bottle of water through the broken window. She yanked hard on the driver side door several times, but she couldn't get it open. She made her way around to the passenger side, having to traverse through muck and foot-deep stinging cold water as that side of the car was in a pond. She got into the car and gave him a quick examination, finding that he had a small gash on his forehead, but his pupils were dilating normally, and he didn't have any other symptoms to suggest that he might be suffering from a concussion. His pulse was a little high which might have been due to dehydration. She felt his ribs and legs. “What happened?” she asked as she performed her examination.

  “I will tell you, but you won't believe me. Hell! I am still wondering if I imagined the whole incident.”

  “After these last two days, I will believe just about anything you tell me,” she coaxed.

  “OK. Here's the story, but don't laugh. I was driving up the highway looking for signs of your car having driven off the road because of that storm the other night. Your husband told me that you were missing, and he is quite worried about you. I rounded the bend up there on the road and the next thing I knew my headlights were on this huge ... I mean absolutely huge animal standing on the road. I have no idea what it was. For a moment I thought it was ...”

  “Was what?” she asked when he paused.

  “I thought I was looking at the side of a dinosaur. At least that's what I thought I saw at the time. I know that sounds crazy. I don’t know.” He shook his head. “It must have been some sort of reflection off the fog. Anyway, I skidded to a stop, and then something hit the side of the car and sent me down over the side. I thought at the time that it was the animal’s tail, but it must have been a boulder that came loose off the ridge. You can see what it did to the door on my side. It’s funny how your eyes can play tricks on you in the dark. Anyway, that's how I ended up down here.”

  “Uh huh! That WAS a dinosaur you saw. Did it look it look like a Bront
osaurus or a T. rex?”

  “A Brontosaurus. You believe I saw it? Did you see it too?”

  “Yeah, I saw several of them up the road a couple of miles. By the way, I think you were right; both of your legs are broken. I don't think that your rib is broken though, just bruised. I could tell better if I could see it.” Karen went on to tell him a synopsis of her story.

  “Holy mother of ... What the hell is going on? My police band radio was damaged in the crash and my cell phone won't give me a signal since the storm, so I couldn't call for help. I shot off a flare last night, but no one came.”

  “My cell’s the same. I think this is some Bermuda triangle-like thing. Brown's Station is still there, but we seem to be otherwise isolated. We have to get back there. I climbed up on a ridge yesterday, and that was the only place that I could see. La Crosse is not there.”

  “Not there?”

  “Where it should be there are only trees and fields.” She shifted over a bit. “Let’s see if we can get you out of here.”

  Karen struggled, trying to help him get out, but between his size and condition and her condition, she couldn't even budge him.

  “It's no use. Even if you got me out of here, I am in no shape to walk and you can't carry me. You will have to go yourself and send help back for me.”

  Karen left him with half of the remaining water bottles and then climbed back to the highway along with Nova. It was very late into the afternoon by then. Karen figured that she could get another mile and a half down the road before dark. She thought she there were a couple of houses down about that far where she planned on spending the night. However, she spotted something that altered her plans. She reversed direction, scrambling back down to the Sheriff.

  “Do you have any more flares?” She asked as she approached.

  “No. Why?”

  “There is a hot air balloon in the sky over there above the town. We need to find a way to signal them. Any ideas?”

  “I can turn on my flashers.”

  “No good. I can't see the balloon from down here. You have to get around the bend to see it, so I doubt that they could see the flashers in the daylight.”

  “I have a cigarette lighter. Maybe you could use it to start a fire up on the road.”

  “That could work, assuming I can get it started.”

  He handed over the lighter. “Just get some small, dry twigs together and get them started. And then keep adding bigger and bigger sticks.”

  Karen flicked it on to try it out and a large flame shot up. “Wow! This is quite a torch. You could do welding with it.”

  “That's funny. I've never seen it flare up like that before. Maybe it was damaged in the crash. Be careful with it.”

  “I will. I'll be back in a while. Try not to move too much.”

  “Where am I going to go?” responded the sheriff.

  Karen crawled back up to the road and found some dry sticks in the woods on the other side and made a small pile in the middle of the road. She flicked the lighter on and hoped that she didn't have problems starting the fire as she never was a scout or much of an outdoors person. She was surprised how easily it started and was even more surprised about how fast it built up to a big bonfire as she added fuel to the fire. She kept tossing sticks and branches on and they seemed to burn as fast as she added them. She added thicker and thicker pieces, ending with logs as heavy as she could drag with her sprained ankle. It was getting close to dusk as the balloon descended and then disappeared. Karen let the fire go and climbed back down to the sheriff.

  Sheriff Burser asked, “Do you think they saw the fire?”

  “If they looked at all in this direction, they had to have seen it. That fire just took off. It was huge, and the wood burned so fast I had problems keeping up with adding firewood to it.”

  “I wouldn't have thought that wood would be that dry,” Sheriff Burser commented.

  “I can't explain it, unless …”

  “Unless what?”

  “This may sound crazy, but I think that the oxygen level may be a little higher than what we're used to. Of course. That makes sense. I felt lightheaded and dizzy the night of the storm. That was because of the rise in oxygen levels. Notice how we're breathing a little shallow now? We've adjusted.”

  “If you're right, that means we can't possibly still be on the Earth we knew. It would certainly explain the dinosaurs,” said Sheriff Burser.

  “You're right. That's exactly what it means. It also means we have to be careful with fires. Things will burn easier and faster than we're used to,” Karen answered. Then she asked, “How long do you think before someone comes to rescue us?”

  “Assuming they know we need to be rescued and can get to Brown's Station, I don't think it will take very long at all. But it might take a while for them to find us if we are down here. You should get back up to the highway.”

  “OK. But don't do anything to attract Freddie or his cousins.”

  “Freddie?”

  “That's what I call that dinosaur that ate my car. I think it is attracted by the sounds of cars so stay off the horn and lights and keep as quiet as possible. And who knows what else may be lurking out there?”

  “You be careful up there too. If those dinos are attracted to car lights, then they might also be attracted to the fire.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that. I will stay hidden up there.

  “I hope that when I see you again help is here and not because you’re running away from one of those dinosaurs.”

  Chapter 14

  By the time Joe and his group got back to the gymnasium, it was starting to get dark. The gymnasium's underground locker rooms and other adjacent rooms had become one of the “safe havens” where people felt they could sleep in safety from the big dinosaurs. The idea of safe havens came up in the morning’s meeting. The other two safe havens were the basements of St. Paul's Catholic Church and the Lutheran Church of St. George. Most, but not all, of the town's people were spending the night at one of those three places. The basements were stuffed full of mattresses, mostly on the floors for people to sleep on. And people from the countryside had started to arrive as well.

  Food tables were set up in the hallway outside of the gymnasium, and people were filling up plates with all kinds of food.

  Joe did not stay long, just stopping to check on the kids as his parents were putting them down to sleep. He grabbed two grilled steak sandwiches and two warm cans of soda on the way out. He told a few people what he saw, and that it is was his plan to go check it out right away. He met Rob, Allen and Mike back at the truck. They had all grabbed food on the way out. They dumped the balloon against the outside wall of the gymnasium and took off with Allen behind the wheel. They raced quickly up to Highway 26, took the Highway 11 Bridge over the river and turned north on Highway 85. They reached the fire they had spotted in about 25 minutes, and a woman, standing next to the burning logs, was waving them down. Before the truck even stopped, Joe leaped out the back and was racing towards her. He stopped short though when a big dog appeared between them and started barking at him.

  *****

  “It's all right, Nova. He's with me,” Karen told the dog.

  As the dog stepped back to her side, Joe reached forward, wrapped his arms around her, squeezed her tight and gave her a big embracing kiss and then another tight hug. Nova wagged his tail while barking excitedly.

  “Are you okay?” he asked when they finally separated.

  “I'm all right. My ankle hurts a little, but I couldn’t be better right now. But Sheriff Burser is badly hurt.”

  “Sheriff Burser is here?”

  “He’s down there.” Karen pointed towards the location of the police car. Then she looked back at Joe. “James and Robbie are okay?”

  “The kids are fine. They're with Mom and Dad. They are all sleeping down at the school.”

  “At the school?”

  “I will explain later.” Joe then called back towards the truck, “Hey, is th
ere a flashlight in there?”

  “Yeah, there's one in the glove box,” Allen shouted back.

  “Turn off the headlights and stop the shouting. We don't want to attract any more attention than we already have. There are some big dinosaurs roaming around out here.” Karen wondered as soon as she said it that they would all think she was out of her mind.

  “Yes, we know,” Joe answered.

  Mike dug out the flashlight and skipped over with it. “What's the problem with the sheriff?” He also handed a shotgun to Joe.

  “He is down there. He may be pinned into his car. He has two broken legs and I couldn't pull him out.”

  “We’ll get him out,” Mike promised.

  “Be careful and be quiet. There is a big dinosaur roaming around here that looks like a T. rex and I don't think those will do much to stop him,” Karen explained, pointing at one of the shotguns. “I also saw three brontosaurs down in the river when it was still light out. I don't think that they are aggressive, but if they step on you it might hurt a bit.”

  Joe said, “There are some dinosaurs running around that are not huge like a T. rex, but just as dangerous. If not more so.” He went on to explain his incident with the raptors and he started to explain his efforts to find her. “... and then I drove up this road looking for you.”

  “I know. I was on top of the ridge over there,” she pointed upriver, but the ridge was not visible in the night. “I saw you driving away. I was shouting, but you couldn't hear me. I think I was crying. But everything is such a blur now.”

  “Man, all I had to do was to look up. What an idiot I was! I thought that I had lost you.” Joe was also crying. “I thought that we were 65 million years apart.”

  Karen replied, “I knew you were here and that you were searching for me. I just didn't know how to get to you or let you know where I was.”

  “Well, you did it. And here we are under the stars in a new world. Wow! There are a lot of stars up there. You know I still recognize the Big Dipper, and over there is Little Dipper,” said Joe, scratching the top of his head.