by Brian Hodge
The silhouetted dinosaur head interrupted the stripe of horizon light, stalking, a gargoyle marionette. The outline read Tyrannosaurus, and that was enough for Case to kick-start his bike and investigate.
The beast was one big trainfucker indeed.
Its architecture and fluidity sustained no comparison to the lumpen elephants or whales of modern times. Its musculature was woven tight as the braids on a bullwhip, girder tendons and cable ligaments tautly tuned beneath the stout mail of leather. Chatoyant eyes glinted in the predawn as it jerked its head around to fix the sound of Case's bike, speedy and alert, spoiling for trouble or some wet, carnivorous fun.
When something the size of a double-decker bus sneezed, a drover might become dino toe-jam in an instant. Case did not hit it with the bike's hot spot and make it bolt, all those crookedly-meshed six-inch teeth rushing down to macerate him. He checked it out, as he had checked all of them out for two years now.
An oilslick smell hung about it, like the rich clots of grimy black that vehicles excreted onto parking lots and driveways. The Rex whiffed Case but did not seem peckish or feisty. Case imagined the thermal pits on its snout processing the air itself. What did its ancient brain tell it about the morning? Was it chilly, warm? Just right? Did it aspire to any goals beyond the prowl, and food for the day? Did it apply any sort of personal style to its killing technique? The fixed grin on the sardonic reptile mask was certainly the visage of a hunter, and most hunters, thought Case, were driven by pride.
Over the bike's phones, he picked up an Arizona radio station kicking off a weekend celebration of the Beatles. That was safe and innocuous enough, yeah; happiness was a warm gun. Case's saddlebags included a .457 packed with heavy-grain slugs, but he rarely used it on drives and had not even taken it out once this trip. What for?
In an emergency, in case a 'dine got uppity or just plain needed to die in a hurry, the drovers had customized ordnance, usually sleeved in a special holster to the right of the terrain bike's gas teardrop. They were commonly called ass-kickers–two feet of scaled-down bazooka pipe with a pistol grip that discharged a canister of Plastique similar to the power-heads used by divers against sharks. The idea was to provide an immediate one-shot stop in a crisis; the only effective way to prevent a contrary shark from gobbling you on the spot was to blow its jaw completely off. The concept had been handily adapted to land use against recorporeated dinosaurs, and a balance of power had been swiftly inaugurated.
Case saw its violet eyes. I know you, oh yes I do.
He yanked the choke ring on the ass-kicker and flipped off the safety. Then he nailed the big Rex with his spotlight.
It was bright purple. One of its flanks was scorched and puckered from a burn–an earthly injury taken with it into the astral and brought back just now. In sum, that was enough for Case.
He shouted, and when the beast turned on him, he sighted through the red plastic grid.
Whitman Case's Corvette had been a thing of beauty to behold, a dream realized and a desire long coveted. It had been something in which he had invested the patience of a Russian consumer. Waiting for something gave you plenty of time to fantasize. Eleven coats of mirror-gloss canary yellow double-dipped in lacquer; chrome like the eye of a flame. A deadly serious 307 four-barrel carb and a police-chaser block. A wheel sleeve of buttery leather that matched the buckets. A total boner of a driving machine, new radials not even dusty yet and it had become history…because some numbnuts Tyrannosaurus Rex had waited a couple million years and an epoch or two just to step on it.
The fireball born of Lloyd Lamed's vaporizing Texaco station in Riverside had drawn Whitman Case to his front window just in time to see a purple dinosaur squash his 'Vette with no more effort than a hiccup required. Then the shockwave shattered the window and Case had other things to worry about.
He let out his breath; let the Rex eat a technological meteor. The explosion woke up the whole camp as thirty tons of Tyranno-casserole clouded the air with the reek of stale blood from another time, the dawn of time itself.
Two hours after breakfast, Aguilar spotted his own 'dine, the green and black one. The saddle markings on the Brontosaurus, he insisted, were unmistakable. It turned out to be a female.
Nobody spoke to Case. They figured him for drive jitters after he fragged the Rex. Shack got swamped once Aguilar reported the Brontosaurus. Pardone señor, we go no place today neether.
They watched the dinosaur all day. It got really boring really fast. By dinnertime most of the drovers had forgotten their noisy wake-up call and were mildly torqued at Aguilar.
"Big fuckin' deal!" snarled Bridges, throwing food and wasting it. He used fluorocarbon deodorant and owned a huge Jeep he used to modify the trails in national parks. Bridges had always been a litterbug; he didn't believe in much else. "Big revelation! Big mystical owlshit! Really pro, Aguilar, you asshole!'
Aguilar likened young Bridges to a behemoth phallus, and the other drovers had to wrestle them apart. The dust they'd kicked up hung around in the firelight, stubbornly. Shack shook his head sadly. Dumb mortals.
"You guys are so anxious to wrap the drive you can't hear the music for all the noise the orchestra is making," said Case. He'd been trying to use logic, like that Seward fella, whom he admired.
"See what?" Bridges was still aching for mayhem. He obviously hadn't had his butt kicked enough by living yet. "That fuckin' green and black 'dine? It's right over there, so what?"
"When did you spot it this morning?" Case said to Aguilar. It wouldn't do to tell Bridges to watch his language.
"About ten or so." Aguilar had coded a marker onto his digital watch to log the sighting. He was that bored.
"And our boy Bridges, with his keen eyesight, can still see it from here."
Jonas didn't get it. "And I hope it stays over there. Geez, don't you guys remember the farting Stego?"
Shack began to smile privately.
"Okay, Bridges." Case focused on the boy. "Maybe you can tell the class what time it is right now. You can tell time, right?"
Bridges was about to aim and fire when he went rigid, his yap stalling in the open position. "Oh. Jeezus…"
Everybody looked at each other. It was poignant, in its way.
Case rather savored playing oracle. This must be how Shack felt when he channeled some blast of psychic insight. "That 'dine, gents, has been solid for over twelve hours. Somebody better call the Guinness Book, because this is a first, as far as my experience goes."
Top end before the average ghost dinosaur frazzed out was generally two hours. They came back, but they never lasted long; that was why the hazard factor had dwindled so quickly. This female Brontosaurus showed no signs of going away, and it was an adult, not a newborn.
"A Maiasaur will be next," Shack said. "It will lay a full nest of eggs."
Case reviewed all. What had he accomplished? To cease the mad forward rush, the stampede of the simple day-to-day, that might actually be nice. He reconsidered all he had done, from losing his virginity to greasing the Rex that had wiped out his dream car, and realized right here, in the middle of nowhere, he had already found a valuable kind of peace. He had never thought in such terms before.
This really wasn't so bad, for a life.
The valley was full of milling dinosaurs. They were waiting and they had the patience of eons, because they had known–if only instinctually–that their time would again come 'round. Case wondered if he could be adaptable as that Seward fella had been.
"What do you reckon we oughta do?" Bridges asked Case. "Start shooting 'em? Is that why you bagged that one this morning?" The kid was actually worried.
Case grinned. Drovers never told all.
"Nope. I think we only need to do one thing, and that's find a way to welcome them home. No wars, no battles for dominance, all that useless military shit. You and I are the experts, Bridges. We oughta act like experts, and find out what the 'dines will need that we can provide, since they're coming home. Either
we coexist, or we become the extinct ones. You get it?"
"What about civilization?" said Jonas. "No dinosaur could ever be a Magritte or a Blake or a Dali." His education was showing.
"Mm. More important, no dinosaur could ever invent Bic lighters or pop tops or bombs that suck away the whole atmosphere. Yes? That green and black Brontosaurus is the first one that's not just going to disappear. It's back to stay." Home again, he thought. The former tenants were resuming residence.
He knew it would take awhile for them all to digest the potential of their new roles. Not everybody was going to like it, but Case wasn't worried. There was time, and time marched.
Right now it was time to fire up another cigarette.
Author's Note:
"Dire Saurians" was the original title of "Sedalia," for reasons explained in the semi-sequel, "Kamikaze Butterflies."
Those of you unschooled in the horrors of late-night Southern California TV deserve a footnote about car king Cal Worthington. Cal is still alive and well, and more people than ever know who he is thanks to cable. Cal replaced Ralph Williams, who replaced Leon Ames, a character actor who can be seen in films as far back as the 1932 Murders in the Rue Morgue. In real life, Ralph Williams was a character about whom volumes of apocalyptic storytelling could be recorded. All three men used to buy up unused commercial time on local stations at cut rates; that's why their ads were so prevalent in the midnight-to-dawn trench. I'm afraid poor ole Cal has finally been usurped by the proliferation of commercials featuring real, live girls who are dying to talk to YOU for only $4 or so per minute.
Nalgadas is obscure caló slang for buttocks.
And yes, the La Brea Tar Pits contain only mammals. No dinos.
A Week in the Unlife
1.
When you stake a bloodsucker, the heartblood pumps out thick and black, the consistency of honey. I saw it make bubbles as it glurped out. The creature thrashed and squirmed and tried to pull out the stake–they always do, if you leave on their arms for the kill–but by the third whack it was, as Stoker might say, dispatched well and duly.
I lost count a long time ago. Doesn't matter. I no longer think of them as being even former human beings, and feel no anthropomorphic sympathy. In their eyes I see no tragedy, no romance, no seductive pulp appeal. Merely lust, rage at being outfoxed, and debased appetite, focused and sanguine.
People usually commit journals as legacy. So be it. Call me sentry, vigilante if you like. When they sleep their comatose sleep, I stalk and terminate them. When they walk, I hide. Better than they do.
They're really not as smart as popular fiction and films would lead you to believe. They do have cunning, an animalistic savvy. But I'm an experienced tracker; I know their spoor, the traces they leave, the way their presence charges the air. Things invisible or ephemeral to ordinary citizens, blackly obvious to me.
The journal is so you'll know, just in case my luck runs out.
Sundown. Nap time.
2.
Naturally the police think of me as some sort of homicidal crackpot. That's a given; always has been for my predecessors. More watchers to evade. Caution comes reflexively to me these days. Police are slow and rational; they deal in the minutiae of a day-to-day world, deadly enough without the inclusion of bloodsuckers.
The police love to stop and search people. Fortunately for me, mallets and stakes and crosses and such are not yet illegal in this country. Lots of raised eyebrows and jokes and nudging but no actual arrests. When the time comes for them to recognize the plague that has descended upon their city, they will remember me, perhaps with grace.
My lot is friendless, solo. I know and expect such. It's okay.
City by city. I'm good at ferreting out the nests. To me, their kill-patterns are like a flashing red light. The police only see presumed loonies, draw no linkages; they bust and imprison mortals and never see the light.
I am not foolhardy enough to leave bloodsuckers lying. Even though the mean corpus usually dissolves, the stakes might be discovered. Sometimes there is other residue. City dumpsters and sewers provide adequate and fitting disposal for the leftovers of my mission.
The enemy casualties.
I wish I could advise the authorities, work hand-in-hand with them. Too complicated. Too many variables. Not a good control situation. Bloodsuckers have a maddening knack for vanishing into crevices, even hairline splits in logic.
Rule: Trust no one.
3.
A female one, today Funny. There aren't as many of them as you might suppose.
She had courted a human lover, so she claimed, like Romeo and Juliet–she could only visit him at night, and only after feeding, because bloodsuckers too can get carried away by passion.
I think she was intimating that she was a physical lover of otherworldly skill; I think she was fighting hard to tempt me not to eliminate her by saying so.
She did not use her mouth to seduce mortal men. I drove the stake into her brain, through the mouth. She was of recent vintage and did not melt or vaporize. When I fucked her remains, I was surprised to find her warm inside, not cold, like a cadaver. Warm.
With some of them, the human warmth is longer in leaving. But it always goes.
4.
I never met one before that gave up its existence without a struggle, but today I did, one that acted like he had been expecting me to wander along and relieve him of the burden of unlife. He did not deny what he was, nor attempt to trick me. He asked if he could talk a bit, before.
In a third-floor loft, the windows of which had been spray-painted flat black, he talked. Said he had always hated the taste of blood; said he preferred pineapple juice, or even coffee. He actually brewed a pot of coffee while we talked.
I allowed him to finish his cup before I put the ash-wood length to his chest and drove deep and let his blackness gush. It dribbled, thinned by the coffee he had consumed.
5.
Was thinking this afternoon perhaps I should start packing a Polaroid or somesuch, to keep a visual body count, just in case this journal becomes public record someday. It'd be good to have illustrations, proof. I was thinking of that line you hear overused in the movies. I'm sure you know it: "But there's no such THING as a vampire!" What a howler; ranks right up there alongside "It's crazy–but it just might work!" and "We can't stop now for a lot of silly native superstitions!"
Right; shoot cozy little memory snaps, in case they whizz to mist or drop apart to smoking goo. That bull about how you're not supposed to be able to record their images is from the movies, too. There's so much misleading information running loose that the bloodsuckers–the real ones–have no trouble at all moving through any urban center, with impunity, as they say on cop shows.
Maybe it would be a good idea to tape record the sounds they make when they die. Videotape them begging not to be exterminated. That would bug the eyes of all those monster movie fans, you bet.
6.
So many of them beleaguering this city, it's easy to feel outnumbered. Like I said, I've lost count.
Tonight might be a good window for moving on. Like them, I become vulnerable if I remain too long, and it's prudent operating procedure not to leave patterns or become predictable.
It's easy. I don't own much. Most of what I carry, I carry inside.
7.
They pulled me over on Highway Ten, outbound, for a broken left taillight. A datafax photo of me was clipped to the visor in the Highway Patrol car. The journal book itself has been taken as evidence, so for now it's a felt-tip and high school notebook paper, which notes I hope to append to the journal proper later.
I have a cell with four bunks all to myself. The door is solid gray, with a food slot, unlike the barred cage of the bullpen. On the way back I noticed they had caught themselves a bloodsucker. Probably an accident; they probably don't even know what they have. There is no sunrise or sunset in the block, so if he gets out at night, they'll never know what happened. But I already know. Right n
ow I will not say anything. I am exposed and at a disadvantage. The one I let slip today I can eliminate tenfold, next week.
8.
New week. And I am vindicated at last.
I relaxed as soon as they showed me the photographs. How they managed the documentation on the last few bloodsuckers I trapped, I have no idea. But I was relieved. Now I don't have to explain this journal–which, as you can see, they returned to me immediately. They had thousands of questions. They needed to know about the mallets, the stakes, the preferred method of killstrike. I cautioned them not to attempt a sweep and clear at night, when the enemy is stronger.
They paid serious attention this time, which made me feel much better. Now the fight can be mounted en masse.
They also let me know I wouldn't have to stay in the cell. Just some paperwork to clear, and I'm out among them again. One of the officials–not a cop, but a doctor–congratulated me on a stout job well done. He shook my hand, on behalf of all of them, he said, and mentioned writing a book on my work. This is exciting!
As per my request, the bloodsucker in the adjacent solitary cell was moved. I told them that to be really sure, they should use one of my stakes. It was simple vanity, really, on my part. I turn my stakes out of ash-wood on a lathe. I made sure they knew I'd permit my stakes to be used as working models for the proper manufacture of all they would soon need.
When the guards come back I really must ask how they managed such crisp 8xlOs of so many bloodsuckers. All those names and dates. First class documentation.
I'm afraid I may be a bit envious.
Author's Note:
When Ellen Datlow solicited "Unlife" for her anthology A Whisper of Blood, she requested some sort of afterword. Here it is, with minor modifications: