by Jake Bible
Cash checked the area then nodded for them to proceed.
“I’m right,” Cash said.
“Probably,” Ivy said from behind them.
Olivia looked over her shoulder and Ivy shrugged.
“He is,” Ivy said. “I hate to admit that, but he is. Two days at the least to make repairs and get supplies ready and loaded. That’s if we start right after we survive all of this.”
“If we survive all of this,” Zach said quietly as he walked next to Ivy.
“Exactly,” Ivy said. “Don’t forget to count today and tomorrow, Liv. Add in two days for prep and we really only have two days left to get from here to the west coast of a wild continent that is not only filled with creatures that will want to eat us, but is also in a lot of geological upheaval.”
“I know, Ivy, I know,” Olivia said. “The Rockies are currently being formed. Wide fissures, severe tremors, flash floods if it rains due to lack of stable riverbeds. All of that. I know.”
“Then what are you on about?” Ivy asked.
Olivia stopped and yanked the T-shirt she’d found out of her pack. She held it up as the others stopped with her. “My wife may still be alive and I won’t be able to find her if I’m stuck in a fucking bunker that we are currently using as a morgue.”
“We don’t know that she is—” Cash started to say, but Olivia held up a finger and got in his face.
“Do not finish that sentence,” she snarled. “Do not even think about finishing that sentence. We were under your protection when it all went to shit. Should I blame you for the geological anomaly that really was the reason I lost my wife? No. That is crazy. Am I still going to blame you anyway? Yeah, I am. Because right now that’s about all I can hang onto.”
Olivia stepped closer and Ivy got between the two.
“He doesn’t get it, Liv,” Ivy said. “He just got here. We’ve been living this shit for months.”
“Don’t we need to be moving and working?” Zach asked.
“Yes, we do,” Cash said and frowned at Olivia. “If we live through this, then we decide the next course of action. If the majority want to leave, then we leave. I’ll go along with whatever decision everyone makes together. I promise. But right now? Right now, we move ass and get shit done before those combots rip us all apart.”
He held out his free hand. Olivia stared at it then took the hand and shook.
***
“I’ll get the power back on down there,” Mike said as he, Tressa, and Barbara approached the entrance to the tourist bunker.
Haskins had already taken off to find the highest point in the base where he could be overwatch and Thompson and Dr. Raskov were currently laying on an improvised sled that was hooked up to Elvis. The dino was not happy being a beast of burden, but a couple soothing words every few seconds from Thompson kept him from freaking out.
“Get Doc set up for the chopping and Mr. Thompson somewhere safe and out of the way,” Mike continued.
“That has been my lifelong dream,” Tressa said with a wry grin.
“Still not deaf, daughter,” Thompson called from the sled.
Barbara patted Mike’s arm as she stared at the double doors they were about to open.
“The power has been off in there?” Barbara asked.
“Uh…yeah,” Mike admitted. “We have been relying on the bunker being about ten degrees cooler to help with…” He trailed off and rubbed his face. “Yeah. Power is off and it is going to stink. Bad. Very bad. Probably make us all puke bad. Sorry. I want to tell you a different story, but that’s the truth, dude.”
“I’m not a dude,” Barbara said.
“Everyone is a dude to Mike,” Tressa said. “Don’t try to fix him.”
“You can stay up here,” Mike said to Barbara. He nodded at the rifle she held. “You said you grew up on a ranch and you know how to shoot. You can cover us while we work.”
“No,” Barbara replied. “We need all hands to clear the morgue out, right?”
“It would help,” Mike said.
“Then we rely on Haskins to cover us or alert us to what he can’t cover while we all work,” Barbara said. “I’ll pick up the rifle only when we have no choice.”
“Alright,” Mike said and stepped to the double doors of the bunker. Then he stopped as the calls of various prehistoric birds caught his attention. “You hear that?”
“Birds?” Barbara asked. “Not dinos, but birds, right?”
“Yes,” Mike said and locked eyes with Tressa. “This is not good.”
“Why?” Barbara asked.
“Because the geothermal generators put out a resonance that most of the bird species cannot stand,” Tressa said. “It took a few years to figure out why no birds were around the base. Then we brought back an ornithologist and she explained it.”
“Oh. So if we hear them and they are coming back…?”
Everyone looked toward the closest set of lights. Two of the five bulbs flickered and died as they watched.
“It’s not the bulbs,” Mike said. “The system is shutting down redundancies in order to maximize efficiency. Except the base is basically destroyed. All the generators are running are the lights and the power to the armory and the bunker. And the power in the bunker isn’t even on.”
“The geothermal system is dying,” Tressa said.
“Ain’t we all,” Thompson called.
“Not helping,” Tressa snapped.
“We go down there without stable power and we’re dead in days,” Mike said. “We stop the combots and we might have a chance since we can open the doors and let in fresh air, but we’ll still have dinos to deal with.”
Mike stood stock still. He remained that way for a couple of seconds, causing Tressa and Barbara to exchange worried looks.
“Fuck!” Mike yelled and threw down the tablet he held. Then he panicked and picked the tablet up, flipping it over in his hands as he looked for damage. It was fine, but that didn’t really calm Mike down at all. “Fuck…”
“We knew they’d go down eventually,” Tressa said to Mike.
“I know, I know, but that was when we thought we had a rescue party on the way,” Mike replied.
“I don’t understand,” Barbara said. “Are you saying that even if we clear out this bunker, it’s not really any good to us?”
“Not long term,” Mike said. “Especially if we don’t stop the combots and have to retreat inside it.”
“Am I dissecting cadavers or not?” Dr. Raskov asked from the sled.
“I believe the plan is about to change, doctor,” Thompson said. “My daughter is simply figuring out how to break the news to her brother. Because he will not be happy at all when he hears this.”
“He really is as smug as he seems in all his interviews,” Barbara said quietly to Tressa.
“And this is him sick and weak,” Tressa said. “You should see him healthy and fired up.”
“Still not deaf!” Thompson called.
***
Cash had to take several deep breaths before he could respond after Tressa relayed the bad news to him.
“Are we sure?” he asked once he knew he could form words without rage shouting at the universe.
“No, of course not,” Tressa replied over the radio. “Mike’s been monitoring them for the past few months, but that was before a squad of transport drones crashed into the base. His theory is that something got damaged and is causing feedback within the power system, basically killing off the generators one by one. They’re automatically shutting down so they don’t overload and explode.”
“And we don’t have time to diagnose and fix,” Cash replied. “Fine. Everyone is now on defenses. If the bunker is no longer a viable option, then all hands are now working on cutting up bodies and prepping buckets.”
There was a series of clicks over the radio and Cash looked at the handset clipped to his shoulder.
“Sis? You still there?” Cash asked.
“Yeah, Tre, still here,” Tr
essa said. “We’ll get started on the slop buckets.”
“Good name for them,” Ivy said.
“We’re going to do what we set out to do,” Cash said, depressing the transmit button on his handset. “We’ll get traps built and then fill them with slop buckets once you guys have them ready.” He looked at Olivia. She held five fingers and flashed them three times. “Fifteen minutes?”
“Oh fuck me,” Zach gasped. “That’s not enough time to do shit, right? We can’t set up twenty or more traps in fifteen minutes!”
“We can’t if we stand here bitching,” Cash said.
Zach held his hands up and started backing away. “No way. No way am I going to spend my last few minutes on this planet building traps that won’t do shit. We should hide. Just hide. If we hide maybe the machines will—”
Olivia clocked him across the jaw and he spun around one hundred and eighty degrees before his eyes rolled up and he dropped to the ground in an unconscious heap.
“Great. Now one of us has to carry his ass,” Cash snapped.
“No. He stays right there,” Olivia said. “Ivy? Back me up.”
“Freak-outs are a leave-behind offense,” Ivy said. She fixed Cash with a look that stopped the argument that was about to cross his lips. “You’ve been in bad shit, Trevon. You know that panic like that leads to death. He would have kept freaking out and gotten one of us—”
“Or all of us,” Olivia added.
“Or all of us killed,” Ivy finished.
“Fuck!” Cash shouted then put his rifle to his shoulder and took aim at the three pterosaurs that lifted off from a huge light rack and began to dive at them.
They died before they made it more than a few yards in the air, their heads expertly blown apart by Cash’s shots.
“Cash? Tre?” Tressa called over the radio. “What’s happening? Are the combots here?”
“No,” Cash replied. “I got mad and killed some wingers.”
“Oh…” Tressa replied.
“Zach is out cold,” Cash continued. “He started freaking out at the fact we have fifteen minutes to get done what needs to be done.”
“Leave his ass and get back here,” Tressa said. There was some shouting in the background from Barbara then Mike began shouting at her. Tressa continued. “Just come here. We’ll get the bodies out, lock the doors down, then tackle the future as it happens.”
He rubbed at his head and sighed.
“Tell me we have a chance,” he said.
“I’d love to, Tre,” Tressa replied. “But you haven’t been here like we have. Chances are few and far between, here in good ol’ Flipside.”
Cash looked to the two women for something, anything, that would tell him they weren’t on a fool’s errand. All he saw was sympathy for his pain, but no hope.
“Copy that,” Cash said. “We’re coming to you to get the bunker secured.”
He let go of the handset and turned to face Ivy and Olivia head on.
“Let’s get something straight,” he said.
“Oh?” Ivy replied.
“Please, do tell us what we have to get straight,” Olivia said.
“Sorry. I’m not giving orders or minimizing what you have been through,” Cash said apologetically. “What I’m saying is I need everyone to start telling me the truth. Stop letting me think we have a chance when you know we don’t. Alright? I’m an adult that has spent most of that adulthood around death in some form or another. If we’re gonna die, then tell me we’re gonna die. I’d rather shed all this bullshit and take a load off for the last moments of my life than fight to the end for absolutely no reason.”
Ivy and Olivia looked at each other then back to Cash.
“Sorry,” Olivia said. “I think we all sort of hoped you’d have a fresh perspective.”
“No more coddling your precious ass,” Ivy said with a warm smile. “We’re going to die here, Trevon. Just a matter of when.”
Cash nodded several times then looked at Zach.
“Then I guess it doesn’t matter if we bring his panicky ass along, does it?” He laughed. “Who wants to carry him?”
Fourteen
Haskins watched the combots approach. From his vantage point, he could only see five of the first wave, with the ten stragglers far off in the distance. Five combots was still enough to make his guts tighten and nuts shrivel up.
“Incoming,” Haskins said as he slung his rifle, tightened the strap, then began the less than fun climb down to the ground with only one hand.
Although he had gotten good at using his stump for balance and leverage, it had been a long day and even with the protective covering he wore on it, and the weeks of toughening the skin, his stump sang out with every ounce of pressure he exerted upon it as he attempted to climb down as fast as possible.
He was almost to the ground when he looked down and saw what was waiting for him.
“God dammit,” he muttered then hooked his elbow through a strut and clicked his radio.
“Haskins? You okay?” Ivy responded.
“Sort of,” he replied as he depressed the button on his handset. “Except I have a bit of a fan club about three meters below me?”
“Dinos?” Ivy asked.
“Yeah. The little raptors,” Haskins said. “Hesperonychus, right?”
“That’s them,” Ivy said.
“We got him,” Cash said, his voice cutting into the conversation. “Infirmary is a bust. It’ll take too long to dig for injectors even using Elvis. I’ll bring the big guy to pick you up, Haskins.”
“Sure would appreciate that,” Haskins said.
There were ten of the small raptors down at the base of the short tower Haskins had used for overwatch. They were chattering to each other all while staring straight up at him.
“Kiss my ass,” Haskins said and spat. The glob landed on one of the small raptor’s head and it shrieked at him. “What? You gonna fly up here? Those wings of yours don’t work for another million years or so, suckers.”
The raptor leaped and hooked its weird looking arm-wings around one of the tower’s struts. Its back legs scrambled for purchase, found it, and it let loose with another shriek. Two more followed its lead and leaped up onto the tower as well.
“Me and my stupid mouth,” Haskins said. He started climbing back up the tower.
“Hold still!” Cash called and all of the raptors whipped their narrow heads around to look at him.
While riding a galloping Elvis, Cash fired and obliterated one of the raptors. The rest scattered fast, whether afraid of the rifle or the Ankylosaurus that was charging at them.
The first raptor that had leaped onto the tower turned to face Elvis. It let out an angry shriek, did a strange little dominance strut back and forth for a couple seconds, then took off after its pack, lost to the darkness that was spreading across the base as the lights continued to fail.
“Hop on,” Cash said as Elvis came to a stop under the tower.
“You can ride him like a horse?” Haskins asked. “He listens?”
“Not exactly. I told him to come get you,” Cash said. “He followed his nose. I said you were in trouble, so he hurried. You can’t steer or control Elvis like a horse. If he doesn’t want to do something, he won’t do it. Just feel glad that he even let me up here.”
Haskins hurried down as fast as he could from the tower and onto Elvis’s back. He gave the dino a good pat.
“Glad he wanted to come save my ass,” Haskins said as he settled in behind Cash.
“Guys, the combots have reached the perimeter,” Olivia called over the radio.
“On the way,” Cash said. “E? Take us to everyone else.”
Elvis gave a quiet grunt and nodded his head up and down before turning around and galloping off in the direction of the bunker.
Both Haskins and Cash had to yank their shirts up over their noses well before reaching the bunker’s double doors. The stench from the removed corpses was more than even two battle-hardened o
perators could handle. Elvis was not pleased either and his nostrils clamped shut as they navigated around the hastily made piles of bodies.
Elvis slowed and Cash jumped off his back before he stopped. Haskins took the offered hand and slid down as well, his eyes staring at the bodies.
“Jesus, Cash, what are we doing here?” Haskins asked.
“Ask me that question tomorrow,” Cash said and nodded at Ivy as she waited at the double doors. “I can’t even think about it today.”
“I’ll think about it tomorrow at Tara,” Ivy said.
“Do what?” Cash asked as he started steering Elvis toward the doors. “What does that mean?”
“That old movie, Gone With The Wind,” Ivy said.
“You all need to stop talking about old movies I haven’t seen,” Cash said.
“You should probably get used to the quotes since you’re about to be locked in a bunker that smells of dead ass with us all for probably a long while, Trevon,” Ivy replied.
“Until we run out of food and water,” Haskins said. “You only have to deal until then.”
“Get inside,” Ivy said and gave Haskins’ ass a swift kick as he walked past her.
She was right, the bunker stank of dead ass and so much more. Haskins walked down the sloped ramp that was boxed in for about twenty yards by very thick concrete walls. He’d watched the training videos, but was still always amazed that walls like that were able to be built Flipside. He felt a pang of regret that those very walls were probably going to turn into his crypt.
“Dammit, E!” Cash yelled from above and outside the bunker. “Get your bony ass inside!”
Elvis let out a long, argumentative trumpeting and even Ivy started in trying to talk the dino into going into what the creature must have thought was a hole at best and a grave at worst.
“Elvis!” Thompson cried from farther inside the bunker. “Come here, Elvis!”
The trumpeting stopped and Haskins barely had time to shove his body against the wall as Elvis came stomping down the ramp.
“Do you know how much that pisses me off?” Cash said as he and Ivy slammed and locked the double doors then joined Haskins. “I can never understand why Elvis loves that man so much. No human does.”