by Geoff Jones
Callie took Hank’s hand. “Come on. Let’s get the lady some firewood.”
“Hey, maybe I can put my mad barista skills to work,” Beth said. “I’ll get some water and brew us some coffee.” She disappeared inside.
Callie and Hank returned with several dead branches from the tree line and within minutes, Helen had a small blaze going on the ground near the café. The wet wood produced thick smoke as it burned.
Helen sat on the square of sidewalk that had broken off under the juvenile hadrosaur’s weight. She beamed at the flames. “A fire always made us feel safe, no matter where we were. I guess those trips were good for something after all.” She looked up at the sky. “Thank you, Larry.”
“He ain’t up there,” Morgan said.
Helen looked confused. “What do you mean?”
“Your old man. He ain’t died yet, so he ain’t up there. He won’t be up there for a million years.”
Helen frowned and looked down at her fire.
“That was helpful Morgan,” William said. “Come on, let’s have a look around.” He gave Morgan a shove.
“I’d like to come too,” Tim said.
The three of them began walking downstream. As they approached the lone boot on the bank, William saw something that looked like road kill which had been passed over again and again until the animal could no longer be identified. He decided he didn’t want to see any more and cut inland. He wondered what had happened to Patricia’s soul. Would she be alone in heaven for millions of years? He decided he did not really want to find out the answer to that question.
When they reached the tree line, they stopped and looked back. White smoke rose from the front of the building chunk. Broken beams and concrete jutted from each edge of the café, as if all of the other parts of the building had been knocked away by a wrecking ball.
“What is that on the roof?” Morgan asked. “Is that air conditioning equipment or something?”
“That’s not the roof,” Tim explained. “We were in an eight-story building. That’s whatever was in the room upstairs. We should see if there’s some way to get up there.”
William pointed upstream, “First, let’s go have a look from over there and see if we can tell how much of our little building is still on solid ground.” The bank jutted out into the water near the upstream edge of the clearing.
As they started walking, Morgan pulled out a cigarette and lit it with a flip-top lighter. The metallic chirp of the wheel scratching the flint triggered an old yearning William felt right behind his eyes.
Morgan offered up the smoke. Tim shook his head. William accepted. “I haven’t had a cigarette in sixteen years, since my first son was born.” He drew in a long drag and let out a small giggle. “And I have missed them every single day since.”
Morgan took back the cigarette. “I gotta be stingy with these. I’ve only got two more after this one. Then I guess I’ll have to quit whether I want to or not.”
- - - - -
Al extended an empty coffee cup over the camp fire. “What’s the charge?” he said, trying to sound clever.
Beth poured from a French press. Water bubbled in a stainless steel carafe at the edge of the fire. She gave Al a coy smile. “Well, since you saved the owner’s life, I think maybe it will be on the house.”
Beth’s smile was beautiful. He had seen that smile directed at other customers and yearned for it. Never mind the fact that he was twice her age. Not sure what to say, he took a long sip of coffee. It was strong and bitter. Perfect.
“You’d jump in and save me if I fell in the river, wouldn’t you?”
Al nodded. “Of course I would.” He felt his heartbeat race and his face flushed. He hoped it wasn’t noticeable.
Helen coughed and poked at the fire with a stick. “We’re going to need more firewood.”
Al looked up at the café. Lisa had disappeared inside and he had been hoping to go in and check on her.
Beth winked at him. “Don’t worry. I’ll get the firewood.”
Al nodded again. It felt as if she could tell what he had been thinking. It made him uncomfortable and excited at the same time. “Thanks for the coffee.” He stepped past Helen and climbed up onto the sidewalk.
Inside, Lisa worked in the back corner, in the collapsed hallway that led to the restroom. She crouched by the light of several small votive candles. A few thin slivers of sunlight bled through from where the ceiling had fallen in.
“Candles, huh? I’ve never seen candles in here before.”
“Well, I was hoping to class up the joint.” Lisa hefted a fist-sized chunk of concrete off to one side. “I’m trying reach a storage pantry right over there.” She pointed to a door. Debris blocked all but the top edge. “It’s mostly sugar and coffee beans, but there are two other items I wanted to find.”
“Is one of them a hunting rifle? ‘Cause I’d be in favor of that.”
She laughed. “Afraid not. The first is oatmeal. I usually add it to the menu in the fall, and I’m pretty sure I’ve still got a few cases left. The other is wine.” She turned around and looked at Al. “It dawned on me with singular clarity that I could use a glass of wine right now. Or four.”
“You running a speakeasy back here?”
“Ha. Hardly. I spent far too many afternoons sitting alone in the café waiting for a customer to walk in. Waiting and wishing I had a glass of wine at hand. Wine always makes waiting easier. When I realized I could operate a wine bar in the afternoons, it felt like a light bulb going off overhead. I submitted the application for a liquor license several weeks ago.”
Al wondered if drinking something that dulled the senses was really a good idea, but decided not to bring it up. It looked like she had a long way to go before she would reach the pantry anyway. “How much do you have?”
“Two cases from a trip to Napa Valley with my sisters last year and a few samples from one of my vendors.”
Lisa looked back at the pile. “Oh, hey. Come have a look at this.” She picked up a silver box the size of a toaster oven and held it in the candlelight. “I found this in the rubble. It must have fallen through from the floor upstairs.” Heavy wires sheathed in thick metal bands protruded from one edge. “You were in computers. Stevens Information Systems, right? Can you tell me what this is?”
Al studied the box, moving close to her. “It’s not anything I’ve ever seen.” Circuit boards were visible through a crack on one side, but there wasn’t any sign of a keyboard or monitor, and the cables coming out of it were nearly two inches in diameter. “That isn’t your normal office computer. I wonder if much of the second floor came back in time with us. How do you get up there?”
“I don’t know. They have their own entrance in the other side of the building. There must have been an elevator back there.” Lisa put the box back on the floor. “There were some strange people working upstairs,” she explained. “They were very secretive. They would always stop talking any time you got too close. I usually saw them out in the alley smoking cigarettes.” She studied Al. “You don’t smoke, do you?”
He smiled. The answer to this one was easy and he could see that it would earn him some points. “Never touch them. Barely drink, either.”
“Yeah, well, if we find the wine, you gotta have a drink with me, ok?”
Al took a risk. He reached out and touched her chin with his thumb. He wanted to move in for a kiss, but he was terrified she would pull away. After the smile from Beth, he already felt aroused. Was that clouding his judgment? The candlelight added to the mood, but it was too dark to read her expression. She owed him a kiss, didn’t she? He had saved her life and risked his own in the process. She owed him a hell of a lot more, when it came right down to it, but for now he would settle for a kiss. Al looked at her lips, wondering if he should move quickly or slowly.
Before he could take a chance with either approach, Helen clambered inside through the front window. “One of them is coming back,” she called across the room.
>
Lisa pulled away. “Come on, let’s go show him who’s boss.” She picked up a pair of metal travel mugs.
Al wrenched his jaw in frustration. As Lisa pushed past, she seemed to notice. “Hey.” She tilted her head down while looking up at him. “Why don’t we continue this conversation later?”
Al swallowed her promise and followed her out of the building.
“Be careful out there,” Helen called as they passed by.
Outside, Beth stood at the far edge of the jungle, holding a half-dozen sticks under one arm and her serving tray under the other. She leaned this way and that, peering into the depths of the forest. Something big moved around in the trees.
Beth dropped the firewood and pulled a long serving spoon from her back pocket. She raised the spoon and banged on her tray like a gong.
At the upstream edge of the clearing, William and Tim crouched and looked back at the chunk of building. William rose to his feet as the young barista clanged away. Each crash reverberated with a musical twang.
Callie and Hank held hands in the center of the clearing. Callie’s red hair gleamed in the sunlight, almost as bright as Hank’s running shorts. Al and Lisa joined them. Lisa took Al’s hand and gave him a wink. He smiled at her like a kid in a toy store.
“Beth, that might not be a good idea,” Hank called out.
The rustling in the jungle grew louder and closer. Al finally saw movement and realized he was looking too low. A shape grew in the shadows, towering over Beth. She stopped swinging her spoon.
A forty-five foot long Tyrannosaurus rex shouldered through the last few rows of trees.
[ 16 ]
Beth dropped her instruments, turned on her heels, and ran, all in one fluid motion. She made it ten feet before the platter and spoon hit the ground. The tyrannosaur stepped onto the mud flat and lowered its jaws toward the girl.
Beth continued to scream as she ran. Her blood-curdling cry pierced the jungle, louder than any of the ruckus they had made with the pots and pans. She screamed like someone in pain, even though she had not been hurt yet. She did not realize she was screaming. She only knew that the monster coming out of the trees looked far more dangerous than the hadrosaurs and did not care one bit about her little clang-clanging.
As Beth ran, one thought went through her mind over and over: Don’t slip, don’t slip, don’t slip. The mud was thick, but she wore a decent pair of shoes. Her job required her to stand on her feet for hours, after all.
She felt the ground shake with each step of the giant dinosaur behind her. Beth pushed herself faster. The café was within reach, but she meant to run past it, around the back, and then leap into the river. The current would sweep her right behind the building and out of sight. She pictured her escape as a scene in a movie, both clever and thrilling. Hollywood producers would line up to buy her story once she got home. She wouldn’t need to save for film school. She wouldn’t need to work her way up the ladder.
Beth closed in on the building, only a few steps from the corner.
The tyrannosaur snaked its head forward. Beth felt pressure on the sides of her body. For a fraction of a second, she thought someone had grabbed her to shove her out of the way. Probably William. William had come to save her.
The pressure tightened and Beth knew she was wrong. The ground dropped away as the tyrannosaur lifted her. She looked down on the café and the open floor above it. Then the jaws ground together, separating her hips from her body. Beth felt a horrible incontinence as organs slipped from her abdominal cavity. The tyrannosaur bit down again. Nine-inch teeth frayed Beth's spine in three places and she ceased to feel anything at all.
- - - - -
Hank grabbed Callie and Lisa by the shoulders and started backing away slowly. “Don’t run from a predator,” he hissed. “You’ll trigger a pursuit instinct.” They weren’t quite in the center of the clearing, but they were close enough. There was no cover nearby.
The tyrannosaur raised its head upward and pulled Beth’s mangled body deep into its mouth with its pale tongue. Her legs, arms, and head all disappeared down its gullet at the same time.
Without pausing, the tyrannosaur turned toward the two couples out in the open. It normally ate two thousand pounds before it felt full. Beth Caldecott barely broke one hundred.
Hank, Callie, Al and Lisa had been backing away steadily. Now Lisa froze, hyperventilating. Hank gave Callie a firm shove toward the forest. Al began to run also, holding onto Lisa’s hand and yanking her along. The tyrannosaur took two steps in their direction, blood dripping from its lips.
Not my wife, Hank thought, even though Callie was still only a fiancé. He stuck two filthy fingers in his mouth and whistled, a high-pitched screech that he used at parties and weddings to silence a noisy crowd.
The giant dinosaur stopped and tilted its head. That’s it, Hank thought. He dug in his heels and sprinted downstream along the riverbank.
The tyrannosaur raised its tail high in the air and kicked forward after Hank, ignoring the others. Prey that ran in a group often scattered in different directions, causing it to lose focus. It preferred a single target.
Hank knew instinctively that he had no chance. He could feel the dinosaur gaining on him. He lowered his head and ran harder, pushing himself. His foot slipped in a wet patch of hadrosaur shit and he tumbled forward, arms spinning. Miraculously, he somehow brought his leg up under him and caught his balance, banging his knee into his chest.
Closing the gap, the tyrannosaur turned its enormous head to one side and started to swing it forward for an easy strike. As the motion began, it caught a strong whiff of the smell that had attracted it to the river in the first place, before it had heard the banging pots and pans.
Even more than a lone target, the tyrannosaur favored carrion. Dead prey didn’t fight back. It circled to a stop next to the river.
Hank threw himself into a clump of tall fern-like bushes, gasping for air and wondering how he was still alive. A quick glance over his shoulder showed that the dinosaur was no longer directly behind him. He crawled forward through the foliage and deeper into the trees by the downstream shoreline.
Pawing at the ground near the bank, the tyrannosaur bent over the mud and began pulling with its mouth and tongue.
- - - - -
Callie, Lisa, and Al had reached the forest as well, straight out from the river. They stopped to look back. On the right, Callie saw Hank flit through the trees by the shore, circling in their direction.
The tyrannosaur continued to bite at the ground. The animal stood with its legs wide apart as it bent over. Short, matted tufts grew from its body, giving its skin a moldy appearance. Its naked head and legs looked pale and sickly.
“What’s it doing?” Callie asked, breathing heavily. “It’s eating the mud. Why is it eating the mud?”
“That isn’t mud,” Al said, holding Lisa tightly, trying to quiet her sobs against his chest.
With a small tug, the beast pulled a knotted strand of Patricia Hayman’s ruined torso out of the ground and gulped it down. Another bite followed, equal parts leg and mud.
“Let’s get out of here,” Al said. He took Lisa’s hand and began to pull her again as the dinosaur sniffed the ground, looking for anything it might have missed.
They ran deeper into the woods, directly away from the river. Callie wanted to call out to Hank, so that he could find them, but she could not force herself to make a sound. The realization shamed her. He had lured that monster away with a whistle, yet she was too afraid to shout out his name.
[ 17 ]
“Shit shit shit,” Tim muttered. He stepped forward. He wanted to do something, but there was nothing to do. Beth no longer existed. “Shit.”
“Let’s go,” William whispered. “We got to stay together, like that girl said.” William and Morgan walked quietly upstream. They entered the forest right where it crept down to river.
Tim looked back one last time. Oh crap! Helen. They had left a seventy-something
year-old woman alone inside the café. He saw no sign of her.
The tyrannosaur wandered around the clearing, sniffing at everything like a dog. It paused and lifted its nose as it walked around the back side of the structure. With its thick neck extended, its chin reached the top of the building. It sniffed and moved on.
As it passed, Tim saw a woman’s face above the broken wall on the second floor, just above the dinosaur’s head. Tim wondered if Helen had somehow found a way upstairs. It seemed impossible, but someone was up there.
The tyrannosaur grunted, snorted, and turned to look in Tim’s direction. Both eyes focused forward on him. It snorted and lumbered directly toward him.
Oh, shit shit shit! Tim turned and took off into the woods.
Somewhere ahead, he heard William shouting, “Stay Close!” and “Stay together!” Tim followed the sound. A thick layer of dead needles carpeted the ground and small boulders dotted the forest floor. The light grey rocks were easy enough to see in the morning light, but Tim felt a pervasive paranoia that he would slam into an unseen branch at any moment. As he ran, he searched for a boulder that might be big enough to hide behind or crawl under, but he saw only smooth low shapes. The feeling of exposure ran up his spine like nails on a chalk board.
The crashing sound of breaking tree trunks came from behind. The tyrannosaur was gaining.
Tim found himself planning his route carefully as the rocks grew more numerous. Ahead, through the trees, he saw William and Morgan catch up to Al and Lisa. Lisa stumbled to the ground with a shriek. Al pulled her to her feet without stopping. She kept running, but favored one foot, the one without a shoe. The four of them moved to the right, where the ground rose slightly. Out in front, Tim caught a glimpse of Callie, farther ahead and alone.
A new shape came out of the woods next to Tim. His heart skipped and he flinched away before he realized it was Hank. “It’s coming,” Hank said between breaths. They could hear branches crack as the tyrannosaur followed them through the woods.