Dinosaur Thunder

by James F. David

  Staring, John found it hard to focus on the posters. His eyes struggling to focus, the wall briefly became clear and then blurry again. Detail and definition were elusive, the poster-covered wall was solid looking but difficult to see. Gingerly, John touched the wall. The concrete blocks under the posters felt spongy.

  John stepped back, still having trouble fixing his focus on the wall. Police had searched inside and out of the theater, but no one could find any dinosaurs or their missing officer. That was especially strange, but there was also weirdness to the wall, just like the passage under the back wall of the Millses’ barn. John concluded that like the space where Nick had disappeared, the passage in time had opened and then closed again—although not completely closed. As in the Millses’ barn, the more time John spent near the wall, the stranger he felt.

  “You feel anything?” John asked the man next to him.

  “Yeah, like a fool,” Mike Stott said. “I can’t find a herd of dinosaurs in an empty theater.”

  Nearly a foot shorter than John, Mike was thick, from his short, broad neck to his tree-trunk legs. Thick lips, cone-shaped head shaved free of hair, Mike resembled a bullet. Mike was John’s second in command in the loose structure of the Field Operations unit of the Office of Strategic Science.

  “You don’t feel nauseated or light-headed?”

  “Light-headed? You mean lightbulb-headed?” Mike said, rubbing his scalp. “Is that a bald joke?”

  “Never mind,” John said.

  They returned through the wreckage to the outside, to find anxious cops waiting. The injured Mounted Patrol officer was in surgery, the injured concertgoers dispersed to emergency rooms. Identifying the young woman who was eaten would be difficult until the men who were with her contacted the police to report her missing. John dodged a dozen questions until his phone rang. It was Elizabeth.

  “What happened in Orlando?” Elizabeth Hawthorne asked.

  “Give me a break, Elizabeth,” John said. “I just got here.”

  “They’re showing it on the news, John,” Elizabeth said. “They said there was a tyrannosaur running through the streets and that it ate a couple of people, a horse, and a policeman.”

  “I can’t confirm any of that,” John said.

  “I can see you,” Elizabeth said.

  John and Mike looked up at a television news helicopter with a big number 2 painted on it, hovering high above. John waved.

  “Is this connected to what happened to Nick?”

  It had been a month since Nick disappeared, Elizabeth calling daily for an update. Hesitating, John fumbled for an answer.

  “It is, isn’t it?” Elizabeth said, answering her own question.

  “I’ll be in Washington tonight,” John said. “I’m going to go through Nick’s files again in the morning. The president has named me acting director of the OSS. I’ll have a new level of security clearance. There might be something there I haven’t had access to before now.”

  “I’ll meet you at his office,” Elizabeth said.

  “I can handle it,” John said.

  “I’m coming,” Elizabeth stated firmly.

  John gave up, agreeing to meet at Nick’s office at nine. The Office of Security Science was located between the Office of Unified Communication and the Department of Small and Local Business Development. Down the block were the Office of Victim Services and the Pretrial Services Agency. John had no idea of what any of the other agencies did, but then he doubted any of the hundreds of government employees on the block understood what the Office of Security Science did.

  Elizabeth was waiting outside. John took her through security and to the third floor. Kaylee Kemper was waiting. Barely five feet tall, Kaylee exuded energy, never completely still, some body part always in motion. Now, her brown eyes were busy, looking John and Elizabeth over. Relaxing near Kaylee was impossible since she radiated tension like enriched uranium. Short brown hair, a pixie face, and delicate hands gave her a childlike persona, although the forty-year-old face had the age-appropriate lines and wrinkles around the mouth and eyes.

  “I’ve been named acting director,” John said, deciding on a preemptive strike.

  “So I was told,” Kaylee said coldly. “Until you find Dr. Paulson. You do want to find him, Acting Director?”

  John ignored Kaylee’s jab.

  “Hello, Ms. Hawthorne,” Kaylee said politely.

  Kaylee was fiercely loyal to Nick Paulson, and like a dog whose longtime master finally married, Kaylee never attached to John, the newcomer. Kaylee also blamed John for Nick’s disappearance, since John was the field operative, and felt Nick had been doing John’s job. John’s elevation to director further strained their relationship.

  “I’m so glad you came to help,” Kaylee said to Elizabeth. “Dr. Paulson has never been out of the office this long without contacting me.”

  “I’m worried too,” Elizabeth said. “We’re going to do everything we can to find him.”

  “It’s about time someone did something,” Kaylee said, glaring at John.

  “Is his office unlocked?” John asked.

  “Of course,” Kaylee said with a chill. “I’ll lock the door when you leave.”

  “I’ll need a key,” John said.

  “You’re moving into Dr. Paulson’s office?” Kaylee said, scowling. “He’s missing, not dead.”

  “I’ll be working from my office, but I don’t want to ask you to open the door every time I need to get inside.”

  “I don’t mind,” Kaylee said, dismissing John’s request for a key.

  After a hug from Elizabeth and another cold glare at John, Nick’s administrative assistant left them at Nick’s office door.

  “She doesn’t like you,” Elizabeth said.

  “She won’t be happy until Nick is back and I’m the one who has disappeared,” John said.

  Nick’s office was semi-neat. The desktop was cluttered, but the bookshelves that covered every available wall space were neat, and ordered by topic. Nick’s computer sat on the short arm of Nick’s L-shaped desk. John sat in Nick’s executive chair, rolling to the keyboard and starting up the computer. Elizabeth leafed through the papers on the desk. With his elevation to director, John would have access to all security levels. Previously, John had had access to virtually all Nick’s files, since he knew Nick’s password, but he hoped there was still something he had missed.

  “Nick really needs another password,” John said.

  “Is it still Elizabeth thirteen?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Elizabeth fifteen,” John said. “The IT fascists force us to change passwords twice a year, so Nick just changes the number.”

  Pushing papers aside, Elizabeth found yellow sticky notes stuck to the desk. “These are interesting,” Elizabeth said. “These say ‘Visitor,’ ‘velociraptor,’ ‘Ocala Preserve,’ ‘carcasses’ with a big question mark next to it, and then this one says ‘jet.’”

  “Yeah, I told you about that,” John said, looking at time stamps on Nick’s files. “That’s what took Nick to Florida. Some guy showed up at the Ocala Preserve with two dead velociraptors.”

  “One of those private dinosaur managers,” Elizabeth said.

  “Yeah. He disappeared with Nick through the back wall of a barn. When I crawled in the hole, I could feel some sort of time distortion. To me it felt like seconds had passed, but the marines told me it was minutes. Whatever the conditions were that allowed Nick to get through have changed.”

  “Take me there,” Elizabeth said.

  “There’s no point,” John said. “Nobody has been able to get through that hole in the wall since Nick.”

  “So how does it connect to what happened in Orlando?”

  “Same kind of weirdness. A tyrannosaur and a herd of dinosaurs popped out of nowhere and disappeared back to wherever they came from. Believe it or not, they seemed to have come right out of a wall. It had the same kind of weird properties as the hole on the farm where Nick was investigating.”
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  “Time distortion?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Something,” John said. “Being there made me sick to my stomach. Elizabeth, I am about to show you what Nick was looking at just before he left for Florida. I’m breaking federal law, so my professional life is in your hands. Swear you won’t share this.”

  “I used to be chief of staff to a president,” said Elizabeth.

  “Swear,” John said.

  “Cross my heart and hope to die,” Elizabeth said.

  John clicked on the file, and the video loop of the moon dinosaur ran.

  “Where is that?” Elizabeth asked, leaning over John, pressing against his back and head.

  “The moon,” John said.

  “What? The pyramid on the moon blew up. I was there.”

  “This is the wreckage,” John said. “The dinosaur is still there, even now. Before the astronauts left, they set up a camera. It sends secure data bursts every six hours. This tyrannosaur is still on the moon, still stuck like this.”

  “But what does it mean?” Elizabeth asked.

  “I don’t know, and before you ask, I don’t have any idea about whether it connects to Nick’s disappearance or not.” Returning to the computer, John searched through other recently opened files.

  “What’s this?” Elizabeth asked.

  John ignored her, finding a file marked “Mission Harsh Mistress.” John got the literary reference, and sure enough, the file held reports on the mission to the moon. John knew most of the OSS secrets but not all, and now searched documents for something he did not know. Virtually all the recent files related to the dinosaur trapped in the folds of time on the moon, and the strange material collected in the surrounding area. After the moon mission, Nick had asked John to send a team to the Yucatán to collect any similar material in the vicinity of the pyramid destroyed there.

  “It’s funny stuff,” Elizabeth said. “It refracts light in an odd way.”

  John looked up to see Elizabeth holding a strange-looking chunk of black plastic. A small lead box sat open on the desk.

  “Don’t touch that,” John said, taking the lead box and holding it out, so she could drop it in. Once in, John closed and latched the lid. “I think that’s what they found on the moon,” John said.

  “Is it radioactive?” Elizabeth asked, looking at her hands.

  “No, but Nick had it in a lead box, so let’s not touch it.”

  “It looks like it came from the interior of the moon pyramid,” Elizabeth said, once again leaning over John.

  They read files together for an hour, and then Elizabeth stood, stretched her back, and went to Nick’s leather couch, lying down. “John, I want to see where Nick disappeared,” Elizabeth said.

  “There’s nothing to see,” John insisted.

  “Then there’s no reason for me not to go,” Elizabeth said. “I won’t be convinced that we can’t get him back until I see for myself.”

  “I haven’t given up,” John said.

  “It’s been a month, John,” Elizabeth said. “I want to visit the place where Nick was last seen.”

  “There is nothing to see,” John said. “We’ve secured the site with marines. I’ll check with them and see if anything has changed.”

  “Call me,” Elizabeth insisted.

  “I won’t stop looking,” John said.

  “All right,” Elizabeth said, knowing she was running out of patience.

  20

  Big Chicks

  The velociraptor is a bipedal carnivore with a long, stiffened tail and can be distinguished from other dromaeosaurids by its long and low skull, with an upturned snout. It [bears] a relatively large, sickle-shaped claw.… This enlarged claw, up to 67 millimeters (2.6 in) … is a predatory device, used to tear into the prey, delivering a fatal blow.

  —www.velociraptors.info

  Present Time

  Near Hillsdale, Florida

  Nearly three months old, the velociraptor chicks were the size of turkeys, with razor-sharp claws on fingers and toes. Most of the purple coloring was gone, replaced by dull greens, mixed with patches and streaks of brown and gray. The chicks looked like they were wearing army camouflage. By now, all of them easily hopped over the box wall Jeanette had built, only Ti still struggling a bit, sometimes teetering on the wall before she had the confidence to hop off. Do, the biggest chick, was the first to leap out. Coming into the barn one morning with Sally, Jeanette found Do waiting for her, hopping up and down, snapping at the food bowls she carried.

  Now, all the chicks hopped out to wander the barn, chasing mice, cockroaches, and occasional birds. They were excellent hunters, and occasionally caught a mouse and killed it, but they never ate their kills. If the food did not come from Jeanette, it was not considered food by the chicks. Graduating from Alpo, the chicks now ate chicken, fish, beef, and occasional lamb—whatever was cheapest. Watching the chicks, Jeanette was struck by two qualities. First, the chicks coordinated hunting to an uncanny degree. If Re chased a mouse into a pile of hay, Me, Fa, and So would circle the pile, stationed an equal distance apart, and then freeze, holding as still as a cat stalking a bird. Then Re would plunge into the pile, flushing the mouse into the waiting claws of another chick.

  Even more surprising than the coordinated hunting was the submission of the chicks to Jeanette and Sally. The chicks were highly sensitive to Jeanette’s and Sally’s moods, responding instantly to a bark or whimper from Sally, or a command from Jeanette. Despite their ugliness, Jeanette found herself attracted to the little carnivores, even knowing she could not keep them. Getting caught with seven unlicensed velociraptors meant jail and fines. Besides, these chicks represented thirty, forty, or even fifty thousand dollars to the right buyer. Maybe more, since they were tame enough to be hand-fed. If Carson ever returned, he would either butcher them or sell them. Watching Me chase a fly around the barn, Jeanette smiled and cheered Me on as she would a kitten.

  The fly got away, so Jeanette got the fishing pole from the corner. The pole had a rubber mouse dangling from the end of it; now she held it above Me, who jumped for the mouse, Jeanette jerking it out of Me’s reach. The other chicks came running, jumping and snapping at the mouse. Sally barked at their antics, but it was a playful bark, and the chicks ignored Sally. Walking slowly, Jeanette led the flock around the barn, teasing them with the mouse, careful to keep it out of their reach. The chicks enjoyed the game, hopping, snapping, landing on one another, and making their hoarse awk-awk sound. The game ended when Jeanette tossed a handful of dry dog food onto the floor and put the pole away. Jeanette stood by the door, watching the chicks scramble for the treats. Sally whimpered softly, watching the chicks eat her dog food, but did not join the fray.

  “What are we going to do with them?” Jeanette asked.

  Jeanette’s phone buzzed, and she took it from the holster on her belt. There was an e-mail response from someone selling a cargo van—Jeanette was negotiating the purchase of another truck. With Carson gone, Jeanette ran the Dinosaur Wrangler business now, dispatching their trucks, doing the billing, reception, and hiring two more wranglers. One hire was to replace Carson—Nate Simpson, Robby Bryson’s cousin—and another to handle the increased business. Doris Melton was the newest wrangler, and the first female. Business was booming, with four or five calls a day about dinosaurs running loose. Jeanette was raking in more cash in a week than she and Carson had previously earned in a month. Between the growing business and raising the velociraptors, Jeanette had little time to think about Carson and where he had gone. She called the Ocala Preserve every day, and every day she got the same response: “Mr. Wills is assisting with a dinosaur retrieval. I will tell him you called as soon as he returns. No, there is no way to contact him at this time.”

  They never said Carson was dead, but Jeanette assumed it. Carson would never work for the government, the military, or any group that made him get up early in the morning or go to bed before 2 a.m. If they had arrested him, Carson would have called and told J
eanette to get rid of the eggs. No, Jeanette was sure something bad had happened to Carson. As the months went by, Jeanette became the face of the Dinosaur Wrangler company, and spent her nights alone.

  Angry chicken clucks and the sound of footsteps panicked Jeanette.

  “Hide,” she said sharply.

  Instantly, the chicks fled in every direction. The door opened before Jeanette could reach it, and a man leaned inside. He was wearing sandals, dark blue board shorts, and a Florida Marlins T-shirt.

  “Les, what are you doing here?” Jeanette asked, trying not to look worried.

  Deputy Les Wilson smiled, showing his perfect teeth. Les Wilson had dropped in regularly, talking to Jeanette, flirting with her. Since he had never met Carson, Les assumed Jeanette had made up a boyfriend to discourage unwanted attention. Ever since puberty, Jeanette had received more attention from men than ten average women, and mostly it annoyed her. She wasn’t above using her body to manipulate men, but had come to hate the constant looks, whistles, lewd comments, and leering of men who undressed her with their eyes. She had reacted to Les Wilson the same way at first, but there was a boyish sincerity to Les that won her over.

  “I got bored and asked myself if I could do anything I wanted to do today, what would it be? So I’m here.”

  “That’s a good line,” Jeanette said.

  “Thanks. I worked on it all night because I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about you.”

  “Wow, a twofer. Did you pull these off the Internet?”

  “I’m insulted. I’m not just some dumb flatfoot.”

  “What’s a flatfoot?” Jeanette asked, looping her arm through Les’s and leaning gently against him. Les sighed involuntarily, letting Jeanette turn him toward the door.

  “A flatfoot? That’s a cop.”

  “Oh, I’ve never heard that,” Jeanette lied.

  For total control over men, Jeanette mixed just a hint of dumb blonde with light physical touch.

  “Flatfoot, dick, five-oh, Barney, bear, bull, fuzz, narc, pig. We get called lots of things.”