by catt dahman
Holding the woman’s head by her long, flowing hair, one of the creatures used his grip on her to maul and gnaw her head and face, removing her skin from her skull in seconds. Her head, arms, and upper body gushed blood in red sheets, covering the ground in big splashes as if from buckets of gore. The woman screamed through her lipless mouth until her throat opened enough for her to bleed out.
As soon as she was dead, the rest shot at the monster, ignoring the second one since it was already busy finishing off the man he had grabbed. It was a good fight as the man stabbed and slashed with a huge, long bladed knife, carving off one of the forearms. That left the deadly teeth, and they snapped off the man’s arm in return, leaving a mangled bone, stringy ligaments and flesh, ruined muscles, and jetting blood vessels.
When another man stepped up to fire point-blank into the tyrannosaur’s head, the creature tossed his head, avoided the painful bullets, and knocked the second man to the ground. The creature’s long, powerful tail flicked to the side, catching the man’s head and jaw. The force of the massive tail crushed all the bones of the man’s jaw, cheek, chin, and nose. With the nasal bone shattered, the little bone shards slid into the man’s brain through his nasal passages, and he convulsed on the ground.
Someone yelled, “Run.”
Four stood their ground, and the second tyrannosaur went down, dying, huffing, and breaking wind with horrible dinosaur farts that would have been humorous if under better circumstances. The five survivors quickly gathered their packs and equipment, wrapped some of the meat that the creatures had come to steal, and hiked away, hoping to put at least a half mile between themselves and a new camp and the bloody place where three of their team mates lay dead.
Safe in the cave, Andy watched the flames. “Just like that we are down three people. We ate a dinosaur, and they ate us. Seeing the meat parts and leaving those people behind, we felt gut-punched. It was hell on earth.”
Lawryn patted Andy’s back and said, “I know. I still recall seeing things that I thought would make me sick forever. It’s been a year, and I remember details of losing people…Kathleen; the troodons were eating her alive. I’ll never forget that.”
Andy nodded.
On the third day out, Andy’s team met up with the red team; only six of them were left after one of their members ate bad, red berries and died because the berries caused massive hemorrhaging. Susan perked up; she had often said red was a danger color and to be sure about anything red before eating it.
Another member of the red team broke his ankle, and when a pack of dinosaurs came running into their camp, the man shot himself and died. The worst part was the creatures were not a danger; they were a curious type of oviraptor, feathered in vibrant green, canary yellow, and bright ocean blue with head crests of those colors and enormous, fluffy plumes of white. It was as if they wore crowns of giant feathers. Their heads were yellow, beaks were comically shaped like lime green crab claws, and their eyes were big and sky blue.
Despite the loss, the red team killed the creatures and cooked them, saving the feathers they plucked. Andy’s team joined them for the dinner, and with some packets of honey someone had from supplies and peppers they found, they roasted the bird-like animals with figs and cooked rice. With other ingredients, it turned into a glazed chicken dinner, but with a huge amount of meat.
Andy said he ate until he thought he would burst.
The red team shared information. Early that day, five of the eight members of the team were slaughtered by a pack of tyrannosaurs, all bright red and young adults that were mating and highly aggressive. The animals stood fifteen feet tall at the hips and ran with their heads somewhat raised in comparison to their bodies and their tails down and raised at the tip so their profile suggested a flattened S-shape turned sideways. Each was thirty to forty-five feet from nose to tail tip.
Heavy bodies weighing up to nine tons balanced their gigantic heads, six feet in length. Instead of tapering, their snouts were thick and rounded and filled with large V-shaped teeth. With more bite pressure than a great white shark or a crocodile, their jaws were equal to a prehistorical megaladon shark.
The teeth curved backwards in their jaws, and each were twelve inches long. As the monsters attacked, the yellow team was trampled beneath the huge feet; two people were immediately crushed, and the beast leaned down and ate them, ending their hunt.
As the rest ran away, the other tyrannosaurs gave chase and devoured them in two bites. One woman was picked up and shaken until her body broke, sending her lower portion to the ground where tyrannosaurs fought for the meat. A small herd of a type of triceratops squealed as they burst from a stand of trees and fled the area. Tyrannosaurs left their meal and gave chase to the little animals that were no bigger than cars and were faintly pig-shaped and greyish-blue with frills about their heads and brightly colored necks of blue and aqua.
The yellow team was left with three people alive. The woman died within an hour, unable to move from the blood-soaked ground where she lay because both her legs were crushed to shards and into small pieces. Her pelvis was also crushed, and she had a deep stomach wound that made her wish for death as stomach acids leaked into the rest of her body and killed her slowly. A man tried to help the rest, but he was working with a tourniquet on one arm stub, the limb lost below his elbow.
The third person was a man with deep cuts and dinosaur feces covering his injuries. They walked three miles, met the red team, accepted their help, and died in the night: one of blood loss and shock and the other from the massive infection that came from his deep wounds.
“What of the rest? What about the green team?” Ruby asked, “we were a green team when we were in the game.”
“That was strange,” Andy said, “they fought some dome-headed dinosaurs that weren’t even meat eaters, but were pachy-somethings. What happened was the team walked into their nesting area, and the animals attacked, protecting their eggs or something. One died, and the rest were in bad shape with broken bones.”
Pachycepkalosaurus protected their nests by lowering their heads and hitting interlopers with their ton of weight, driving their helmet-like heads aggressively into perceived threats. They were attractive creatures, covered in pebbled skin of all colors, had small, purple or red-violet knots of bone all over their faces, and massive domes for fighting; the males had larger domes.
Because the males fought among themselves over territory, females, and food, almost half continuously had a deep bone infection within the area of their head domes from the violence. Often a pachycepkalosaurus dropped sick and died within hours because of the infection. The constant illness and pain involved made them irritable.
The seven who got away and had been fortunate to miss many of the most dangerous creatures were reduced to broken, severely injured people with broken legs, arms, ribs, and head wounds. The other survivors thought to help the injured by pulling two of them on litters they had made; some went to gather supplies, carefully negotiating the rocks and finding they were alone. When they returned, they found a horrific tableaux before them: some type of pteradon, a flying beast was there.
Several dozen of the creatures crawled on four skinny legs that ended in four- fingered claws like razors. Their wings, thin and shiny brown, were tucked and folded neatly against their bodies while they moved about, jumping and leaping, slowly creeping, or pulling themselves along. They had long, thin little tails that were naked and resembled those of a mouse, but much longer and bodies with stubby, fluffy feathers of golden yellow that looked almost like fur. Their heads were oddly shaped like a Y, only with the top of the Y stretched and opened so one arm was the beak and the other was a long crest on the animal’s head.
They soared the skies and preferred to skim along waterways, picking up fish, mollusks, squids, and tiny crabs. Without water, they did the same, only grabbing berries, fruit, tiny insects, or lizards. This time, they were drawn to one of their other favorite foods: carrion.
When one of the m
en died of a head injury, he gave off a wonderful, thick death scent that the pteradons smelled and wanted some of. As they circled, more joined, like vultures or buzzards might; they landed in a flock of dozens and stabbed, picked, and pecked at the dead and dying, savoring the warm flesh with the cooling skin.
They went for the soft eyeballs and tongues, the faces, and the stomachs of the injured, who were too broken up to fight back more than a little. A few dead pteradons littered the ground, but they made carnage of the rest, those broken apart by the pachycepkalosaurus, and those who remained to tend them were pecked and eaten alive.
“We walked some ridges, and a woman fell. A man drank bad water, showing off he had a strong stomach and nothing could hurt him. He died vomiting and crapping himself a few hours later. We ran into the allosaurus.”
“We don’t see them often.”
Andy thought, “There were three, not that far from here, and they got us.” Allosaurus were smaller than tyrannosaurs but were as heavy. They didn’t have the same hollow bones as the tyrannosaurs, but had thick, heavy bones that made their huge back legs much stronger; they ended, not with claws, but in a kind of sturdy, deadly hoof-type foot with short toes. They couldn’t run as fast as the tyrannosaurs, and they didn’t eat in the same way either.
Instead of breaking bones and yanking away limbs or eating half a body, they held prey with their hoof-like claws and used their massive maws of small teeth to strip away flesh, fat, skin, and muscle. One tactic they used was that as they found large beasts to prey upon, they would attack and strip away large parts of flesh to fill them. Then they moved on to the next. They didn’t kill any of the other animals and ate only the ones they killed. Over the next few days, the plant-eaters would weaken and be unable to go far, but would remain alive, thus keeping the allosaurus’s food supply fresh and available.
In a few days, they would attack and finish the animal. Tyrannosaurs didn’t mind carrion, but allosaurs were advanced enough to have fresh meat at all times. As they met the humans, they maimed or killed, but left a single survivor, Andy, who hid in the rocks in a tiny alcove.
“I stayed hidden the rest of that day and all night. In the morning, there wasn’t much left of the others, but I took what supplies I could gather and pulled them behind me and started walking, thinking I was about to die at any time, but I found you here. I thought you were myths.”
“Maybe we are,” Wodanaz said.
Chapter Four: Things That Bug You
From their cave, they could see the smoke of a campfire in one of the woodsy thickets. If whoever it were stayed in a true straight line to the finish line, he would bypass the cave. Of course, there was no reason to think that the people wanted to stay in Asgard and give up trying to win the money, but it was possible.
Jack, Marcus, Mali, Andy, and Shimei armed themselves, loaded packs and set out to give the contestants a choice. It was usually a safe route to take unless the allosaurs were roaming. They were so well stocked with supplies that they didn’t gather anything along the way except for some berries and figs, which they ate on the spot. After finding a wild plum tree and each eating several plums, they loaded up with the plums to take back; fresh fruit was always a treat.
The plums that had fallen to the ground and rotted made a miasma of stench: sweet, thick, and ruined. The pine trees didn’t scent the air positively; instead, there was a smell of rotting wood and damp leaves, and the air felt heavy with humidity. It felt like one of the unexplainable bad places that they found sometimes, like the cave of the laboratory, attack sights, and places where dinosaurs tended to gather. The bad places were where people died and where terrible things happened.
“Hello, the camp,” Jack called.
“Well, this is a shock. We didn’t expect to see any people out here,” a man said. He got to his feet, lowered his gun, and smiled in a friendly manner. He was Fred, an older man with a grey beard and iron-colored hair. He had a bandage on his arm that looked fresh.
Dewayne was another one with them and looked like Fred’s twin with his grey hair and beard, but he was a little younger looking and leaner. Other than a few scratches and a slight sun burn, he was in good shape. Carter was young and nervous, Joline was a beautiful blonde with tired, sad eyes, and Nedra was athletic, strong, and lean. Abbott, the final member of the group, looked strong, if not a little weary, and he constantly added wood to the fire and walked guard duty.
“From what we understand, we are legends. We were the first contestants in this senseless game.”
Dewayne’s face lit up with recognition. He grinned, “Jack? Wow. I remember you. And Marcus. You’re taller in real life. And you are…Mali? I thought you were so tough.”
“Good job,” Jack introduced Shimei and Andy, and they remembered Andy at once.
“You went through hell, Andy. Glad you made it,” Fred said. “Your team mates had a hard time. We wondered what kind of bad luck you had with the dinos.”
Jack explained about the cave and their choices and offered to tell them what was up ahead and how best to avoid the creatures that were there. “We made choices to stay because this is a better life than what we had back in civilization.”
“I noticed all of you are a little heavier…not saying fat…but healthier,” Dewayne laughed.
“We have freedom, medical care better than back home, and food, and there’s no way any of us would ever think about going back to a world that is so evil and sickening with what they do to people,” Mali said.
Jack told them, “You can stay here, too, if you want. Your choices fully.”
Dewayne wanted to stay, and the rest were undecided but agreed to spend a night at Asgard, rest, look around, and then decide for sure if they wanted to stay or race for the finish line. It wasn’t an easy choice, and the five million dollars was tempting.
Andy pointed out the pteradons were near by, flying around the path they had taken to reach the campfire, so they plotted a new course to avoid them.
As they walked, Jack and the rest answered countless queries about what life was like now that they had been there over a full year. They didn’t even have time to explain where Shimei came from, just said there was a lot to explain and it would take time. There was no reason to tell any one who was going to run for the finish line because it didn’t need to be repeated in case someone won.
Fall was upon them, and the games would cease over the winter.
“Would ya look at that,” Andy said.
Ahead was a most curious display. The area looked marked off somehow in a vast square, and there was ruined, broken concrete that once was a drive way and walkway. Tall pine trees, somewhat thin, but in good shape, dotted the land, having sprung up in the brush, but there were older trees as well, with big trunks, shady foliage, and the remains of rose gardens; the pink and faded red flowers were wild now and grew in a copse of thorns and blossoms. Wild roses often smelled sweeter and stronger but had less defined shapes; in ways they were more beautiful to any but a rose-specialist.
The house must have been a large, two or three-story structure, an old farmhouse perhaps, a few parts still painted yellow, but most paint was long chipped away. Pine trees were lying across the ruins now; boards and glass were in a jumble as if a storm had flattened the house. Old bedsprings lay in a thorn bush and were almost covered with thick ivy.
“It smells like cat pee,” Abbott said, sniffing. Over the scent of pine, rotting wood, roses, and vegetation, was a sharp, musty smell of what was similar to the urine of a cat.
Shimei paled, “We need to go.”
Around them, the brush crackled and snapped, and leaves shifted.
“What is it?” Jack asked, his skin broken out in goose bumps.
“Oh, no,” Shimei whispered.
Jack looked all over, thinking a big cat, a bobcat or a catamount, might be stalking them. Was there one in a tree?
Nedra, who had gone over to pick the wild pink roses, yelped and half-turned to the rest. It lo
oked as if her body were being coated in dull, grey armor from the feet up. Jack saw that but couldn’t make sense of the situation.
Surprisingly, Fred hit her with a baseball bat he carried, and she fell as the aluminum caught her along her ribs.
“Come on, Nedra,” Fred yelled.
Joline started screaming, and everyone saw what was attacking. Giant grey crustaceans with sixteen segmented limbs and a chitin swarmed over her body, engulfing her just as they had Nedra. Fred beat at the ones he was fighting, and Andy began swinging as well, trying to help Joline.
She tried to run, but they swarmed her, covering her body: biting, chewing, and eating. They preferred rotting wood but also liked human flesh now that they had found it.
One fat wood louse shuddered, and hundreds of tiny, white babies fell from her stomach. They had been in eggs in a pouch, but with the trauma to their mother, they hatched immediately and swarmed out. They were an inch long, enormous compared to natural baby woodlice. Dewayne jumped and danced in place, kicking them away as the adults, fully nine inches long, tried to cover him.
“Water. Water…go...go to the pond,” Mali screamed, already running as she pulled Dewayne with her. She ran full out, yanking him with her, screaming at the rest to run.
Shimei ran, squishing the bugs beneath his boots, enjoying the disgust of his boots cracking and breaking their exoskeleton. He grabbed Nedra’s arm, and Carter got the other arm, but as they pulled her away and brushed away the woodlice which were taking painful bites, her face and head appeared from the center of the mass of bugs, and all she had was a bloody, torn appearance. The woodlice had eaten away most of her face.