The Dinosaur Chronicles

by Erhardt, Joseph

  “Has a second treatment ever been done?” Harbaugh asked.

  Gillespie nodded. “It seems to be working, though it’s too soon to know for sure.”

  “Well I can’t live like this,” the sergeant snapped. “Make the arrangements.” He hesitated and added, “Please.”

  —

  Gillespie passed through the swinging doors of the veterans’ hospital’s east wing. Here, on the basement level, only a couple of examining rooms bled light from the bottoms of their doors. The hall was dingy and poorly lit, not like the facilities he’d gotten used to in his years with the institute. Purgatory, Gillespie thought wryly. The institute had dissolved in the wake of the Mnemonic Excision scandal, and the staff had scattered to whatever facilities would accept them as doctors. For Gillespie, working in a veterans’ hospital seemed somehow appropriate, a way to make up for past mistakes.

  The doctor walked up to one of the occupied rooms and removed a memory chip from the slot on the outside of the door. The tiny data modules had quickly become standard when they were introduced, but Gillespie still longed for the tangible feel of a cardboard folder. With papers, written on in ink, and odd notes and even sheets from computer printouts. The modules were lifeless, he thought. Papers were organic. He plugged the memory chip into his reader.

  “Progress,” he muttered under his breath. “Three steps forward, two steps back.”

  Gillespie opened the door.

  The stooped, slightly balding man sitting on the examining table extended a hand. “Hello, Doc.”

  “Sergeant.” Gillespie took the hand into his own sinewy grip and dropped into the doctor’s chair. “How’ve you been?”

  The gray-haired warrior shrugged. “About the same. What I’ve got, I can deal with.”

  “How long since your last treatment?” Gillespie knew even before looking down at the display on his reader, but he asked the question anyway.

  “Six weeks.”

  “The new pills don’t help?”

  Harbaugh shook his head. “No. Just the treatment.”

  Gillespie nodded. For years now, there had been no point in arguing. “I’ve reserved a slot.” He got up and led Harbaugh from the examining room to a larger room farther down the hall. There, he strapped Harbaugh into a patched but still serviceable recliner. Behind the chair, an opening in the wall revealed a short tunnel of bars, arcs and wires. The opening was big enough for Harbaugh’s head and the recliner’s headrest.

  Gillespie injected Harbaugh with the ozone-carrier and began talking in the droning, even voice that in years of practice had become second nature. In only minutes, he’d put Harbaugh under.

  Gillespie ran through the preliminaries and said, “All right, Sergeant. Listen closely and visualize. You’ve arrived at your destination. You’re suited up, ready for action. Can you see?”

  “Yes-s-s.”

  “Fine. You walk to the door and ring the bell. In your hands, you hold up the corsage, so it’ll be the first thing she sees ...”

  Afterword

  “Two Steps Forward” was accepted for publication in Penny-A-Liner, a mixed-genre magazine, back in 2000. Alas, I never received any contributor’s copies, nor could I ever find any further information about the publication. Such market disappearances are not uncommon in the small press, and a writer must just shrug his or her shoulders and move on.

  Because it appears that “Two Steps Forward” was never actually published, I did succumb to my baser instincts and run a detailed edit over this puppy.

  “Two Steps Forward” is a “surprise ending” story. For such stories to work, the ending must be set up by what goes before. If the ending is not well set up, not well telegraphed, the reader will be disappointed and angry. For a time, it was very difficult to get an editor to accept a “surprise ending” story, probably for this very reason.

  One of the very best surprise-ending stories is John Collier’s “The Chaser.” It’s a classic and much anthologized. If you haven’t read it, read it. You get the ending handed to you with practically every paragraph and when the ending finally arrives, you’re still surprised.

  The TV anthology series, The Twilight Zone, for all its merits, was complicit in the killing, at least for a time, of the surprise-ending story. That’s my opinion. Rod Serling strove so mightily for the surprise and ironic ending, both in stories that he wrote and in stories that he adapted, that he overdid it.

  Consider, as a prime example, Burgess Meredith’s character Henry Bemis in the TZ episode, “Time Enough at Last.” The first twist is that the world comes to an end and voracious reader Henry Bemis finally has time to read all of civilization’s great works. But for the second twist both the original author (Lynn A. Venable) and Serling (for not fixing this) are to blame. I won’t spoil the ending for those who want to see the episode for themselves, but it has been described variously as “irony porn” and “sadism.”

  Other episodes with surprise endings not worth waiting for include “The Fear,” “Stopover in a Quiet Town,” and the execrable “Probe 7, Over and Out.” Among others.

  In contrast, time has treated the episodes of the 1960’s The Outer Limits anthology series much more kindly. This is because the OL episodes were meant to be stories and adventures, and not emotional punchlines. Even today, episodes like “Don't Open Till Doomsday,” “The Guests,” and “The Architects of Fear” can be viewed again and again. For me, the epitome of an Outer Limits episode is the utterly classic “O.B.I.T.,” a story with a powerful message more relevant today than even when it aired. Jeff Corey—who was blacklisted in the 50’s Red Scare—brings off a performance as the alien operative that is downright creepy.

  Okay, I’m stepping off the soapbox. Now.

  Punkin’ Vipers

  Stretched before me, ready for harvest, lay rows upon rows of bright copper pumpkins. With rolling hills to the left and right, the valley looked like something out of Grant Wood, or maybe Grandma Moses.

  In my hand I held a tall, sweating glass of ice tea. I took a sip and nodded gratefully to the old man in the rocker.

  “Of course,” the farmer said, “you won’t be able to use your air conditioner, and the belts’ll all have to be re-tightened once you get to a fillin’ station, but that ol’ tractor belt’ll get you down the road. Jeremy’s a smart boy. A bit hot-headed, like all younguns his age, but he’s got a good head on his shoulders.”

  Jeremy was the farmer’s son. Probably the youngest of several siblings, as the age difference between father and son looked more like the difference between grandfather and grandson.

  With the sour red eye of a dash light glaring at me for more miles than I could take, and with funny noises coming from under my car’s hood—noises that called to mind the live vivisection of some uncooperative rodent—I’d finally pulled my old sedan to the side of the road just outside their property. When I lifted the car’s hood, I found a smoking and very frayed alternator belt. And when I looked up from surveying the damage, I found Jacob Hoger standing beside me, quietly resting on his cane.

  Jacob Hoger, my host and the owner of the farm, had gotten his son to jerry-rig the belts and pulleys so I could continue driving the car.

  “I appreciate it, Mr. Hoger,” I said, trying to sound grateful enough to warm the old geezer’s heart but not so grateful as to embarrass the man. As I spoke, I had a chance to study his face. He had dark, sunbaked features and white, bleached hair. The years had not been kind to him, I thought, and now age was shriveling his once-massive frame.

  Still holding my tea, I slipped my free hand into my jacket, searching for my billfold. “Is there anything I can do in the way of thanks?”

  But Hoger waved it off. “Pshaw. It’s good to talk with someone from the outside once in a while. We’re pretty isolated out here, y’know. We don’t often have visitors.”

  Hoger’s ancient rocker creaked, and the boards under the front porch of the farmhouse creaked in response. An empty fruit crate sat betwe
en us, serving as a table, and I myself sat in a weathered Adirondack chair, comfortable despite its peculiar angled design.

  Hoger and his son may have been isolated, but they weren’t alone. A number of workers tended the fields that made the farmhouse an island in a sea of orange dots. While I’d been sipping tea with the old man, I saw Jeremy go out and order the workers around. The boy had cultivated a retro-fifties appearance, adding a large pompadour to his baby-faced good looks. But his swagger I found disgustingly arrogant.

  Jeremy returned just then, tromping up the porch steps and nodding perfunctorily to the both of us. He walked by without a word and disappeared into the house, letting the screen door slam in his wake.

  Hoger winced at the slamming. “So what do you do, Mr. Carbin?”

  The name was Corbin, not Carbin, but there was no point in correcting the old man. “I teach at Boyer State, Mr. Hoger. Physics.”

  Hoger nodded. “Lotsa phys’cal education majors these days. You should have a good many students.”

  I smiled and took another sip of my tea. In the field just off the porch, I’d been watching three workers slowly make their way around a great circle. All were carrying equipment, and I’d assumed they were putting down fertilizer or pesticide. But as they drew nearer, I saw that the two outside men were carrying fire extinguishers, and the one in the middle was holding close to the ground an acetylene torch with a long, extended nozzle that allowed him to walk almost upright. He was scorching a path about six feet across.

  As I’d told Hoger, I’m a physicist, not a farmer. But this looked strange even to me. I pointed my finger. “What,” I asked, “are those men doing?”

  Hoger grunted. “Cuttin’ off the field. What you call it? Quarantine.”

  “Quarantine?” I parroted. “Why?”

  “Punkin’ vipers,” the old man said. “Field’s riddled with ‘em.”

  Every now and again you hear something that totally disrupts your train of thought, your command of language. It took me several long seconds to recover from this incredible response. Carefully, and as naturally as I could put it, I said, “Never heard of snakes messing with plants.”

  “Well,” Hoger said, shrugging, “I reckon that, strictly speakin’, they ain’t vipers, they’re worms. But they’re half an inch across an’ half a foot to a foot long, so they look like snakes. An’ if one touches you, it burns like all Hades. So we call ‘em vipers.”

  “You can’t kill them off? With pesticide?”

  Hoger shook his head. “Tried to, at first. Drop enough poison to kill the vipers, and the field’s dead for years. Can’t burn the field, either. Too dangerous, dry as it is now. Half the county could go up in smoke.”

  I could understand that. The fire-warning signs in the hills above the valley had warned of “emergency” conditions. No open air fires. Don’t throw your butt. Don’t park your catalytic converter over dry leaves.

  “But,” the old man continued, “nature takes its course. You quarantine the spoiled field and let it rot. The rot takes care of the vipers.”

  “They won’t cross the burn?”

  Hoger shook his head. “Seed vipers travel from one punkin’ to the next, usually at night, but they won’t cross dead ground.”

  I coughed. “How come the rest of the world hasn’t heard about this?”

  Hoger laughed. “You think the growers and the distributors want the public to know about our little problem? Why, there’d be big black headlines in all the papers and maybe even a Congressional Investigation. Punkin’ futures’d collapse like a month-old jack-o’-lantern! And independent growers like us—well, we always carry a lot of debt. Somethin’ like that could tip us over.”

  “It’s just a bit hard to believe—”

  “Believe it, Mr. Carbin.” Hoger pushed aside the cane that he’d looped around the arm-rest of the rocker and tugged up the leg of his jeans. “When I was twenty, I accidentally stepped on a bad punkin’. Been limpin’ ever since.”

  I looked. Instead of an ankle, I saw a gnarled, braided knot of scar tissue that still, after all these years, looked like yesterday’s hamburger. I swallowed hard, barely keeping down my tea and my breakfast.

  At that point the screen door slammed again.

  “Pa!” Jeremy’s sharp voice rang out but quickly dropped to an uneasy patronizing timbre. “Are you filling our guest’s head with your stories?”

  I looked up at the youth. It was the first time I’d met him eye-to-eye. He was trying to smile, but the corners of his mouth twitched. His explanation came quickly, with words tumbling out in bunches punctuated only by gasps for breath.

  “Pa’s had a stroke y’see that’s why he’s got that cane—and the burn on his leg’s an old farm injury—and since his stroke he tends to fib a lot—”

  “Jeremy!” Hoger blurted out, interrupting the stream of words, and his eyes widened till you could see the whites all around.

  “—fibs a lot since then,” the boy repeated. “He likes to tell his fables to the slickers, just to see how gullible they are.”

  Hoger growled, “Don’t you call your Pa a liar!” Hoger lifted his cane and waved it back and forth. “I may be old, but I can still tarnish your hide!”

  The boy glanced at his father, then looked back at me. A lock of his pompadour had fallen across his forehead and now lay pasted to the emerging dampness on his baby-smooth brow. Jeremy said, “The stroke also affected Pa’s temper, as you can see.”

  For a moment, both Hogers were silent, and I should have kept my mouth shut as well. But I didn’t. You can blame my education and my penchant for cold scientific analysis. “Your explanation,” I said to the son, “almost makes sense. But it doesn’t explain the three workers burning the circle.”

  Jeremy blinked, and his voice took on an edge. “No it doesn’t, does it?” He turned on his heel and dashed back into the farmhouse, and I got a real bad feeling in my gut.

  “Thanks for the tea and everything, Mr. Hoger,” I said as I rose from the chair and hustled down the porch steps. I didn’t wait for the old man’s reply. I was fifteen paces from the house when I heard the screen door slam one last time.

  Hoger’s voice carried over my shoulder. “Jeremy, No!”

  I ran. Fear bristled up my back and I hardly noticed the path of dead earth as I crossed. A rifle shot broke the stillness of the fall afternoon, and the whistle of the shell as it whizzed by my ear made me gasp. Ahead of me, a large golden pumpkin shattered, spilling pulp and orange and white wriggly spaghetti about half an inch across.

  Punkin’ vipers!

  I skidded to a stop. For a moment I forgot about Jeremy’s rifle and simply stared, horrified yet fascinated by the writhing, twisting mess.

  Jeremy’s laugh broke through my astonishment. “That’s them, Mr. Smarty. They don’t last long outside a pumpkin, but long enough to run after the nearest sound they hear. Go ahead,” he taunted. “Take a step.”

  I angled off to one side. The worms, which had been wriggling aimlessly in the midst of their destroyed pumpkin, took off immediately in my direction. For their size, their speed was breathtaking. Like the leading rivulet of a flash flood, they raced through the irrigation gullies and tractor treads, making an undulating white arrow pointed directly at the object of their wrath.

  They were fast, all right, and I could barely outrun them. But with dodging pumpkins and fighting the clumpy footing with my dress shoes, I knew I couldn’t keep up the effort for long.

  Another shot rang out. Ahead of me, another pumpkin exploded. In my mind, I saw again the terrible scarred flesh of Hoger’s ankle, and I changed direction once more, drawing my way a new tangle of white hellfire even as the first worms finally fell off the pace.

  Jeremy yelled, “You think I’m gonna let you kill the industry, Mr. Smarty? And kill my farm? My farm? I earned it! After my brothers and sisters left, who was there to take care of Pa and the farm? Me. And you’re not gonna take away what’s mine!”

 
My legs began to shake even as I pumped my arms harder. I puffed, “So you’re going to kill me—in front of all these witnesses?”

  Around the edges of the field, workers had stopped to watch the spectacle. A few were crossing themselves. Others hid their eyes.

  “Who’re they going to tell?” Jeremy shouted. “Inmigración?”

  The word had an electrifying effect. As I ran, I saw more of the workers turn their backs.

  So most, or all, were illegals. That didn’t surprise me. And I doubted that few, if any, would tell a story about a man in a gray summer suit burned to death by parasites the world knew nothing about and would certainly not believe.

  I looked over my shoulder. Jeremy was leisurely dogging my steps. Because I was the closest source of noise, the released vipers followed me and not him. Whatever they were, they were simple organisms with simple reflexes. But that didn’t help me now.

  “Pa did have a stroke,” Jeremy yelled as he followed. “It fried some of his brain cells and it’s the reason he can’t keep his yap shut when he ought to.”

  Another shot. Another pumpkin obliterated, and I had to turn again. It was obvious Jeremy was a practiced marksman. And playing with me. He could have killed me a dozen times already.

  And I was running out of steam. Air came into my lungs in hot, dry blasts and my ears pounded with a pulse like knocking pipes. Sweat ran into my eyes, blinding me, and I stepped into a depression I didn’t see.

  I fell, nearly putting my fist through a pumpkin and landing with my nose pressed against the vegetable’s fat surface. I gulped. If my hand had penetrated that mass ...

  “Stay right there,” Jeremy’s voice called, “face to the pumpkin, and it’ll be over real quick.” He laughed, and my adrenalin-laced senses picked up the click as he fed the rifle. I scrambled on hands and knees as he fired again, and a shower of orange pulp spattered my back. I took a quick look. I didn’t see any white. The pumpkin must have been one of the uninfected ones.

  I heard Jeremy curse. In his anger, I knew the time for playing was over. His next target wouldn’t be a pumpkin.