The deinonychus reared its head back and attempted to bite the lion’s neck—teeth snapped at empty air.
The other male lion sprang from, what looked like to Broderick, ten feet away. The lion landed on the dinosaur’s chest, bringing it to the ground.
The female lions exited the entrance, and a few seconds later, Broderick saw them tag-teaming the other dinosaur.
“Can we go in the lion cage now?” Broderick asked T-Bob.
“No, there’re two more inside. Those cats are old and sleep a lot. We need to leave while we can,” T-Bob said.
“Past them fighting out there?” Dionne asked.
As crazy as it sounded, they had to take the best of the few choices available. “We’ve got to make a try,” Broderick said. “Follow me.”
The big man helped push the cage door closed, and T-Bob locked it. Then, he quickly led the other three down the hall to the entrance.
It was four on two. The dinosaurs held their own, but they certainly looked worse for wear.
Not only were dinosaurs roaming about, but now four lions would be on the loose too. Broderick wanted to get away from this whole place as soon as possible. Then, a thought occurred to him. He looked at his watch, and said, “T-Bob, the streetcar comes by here at the top of the hour, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Can you get us there in fifteen minutes?”
“No problem. It’s over by the levee.”
“Okay, girls. Follow T-Bob, and I’ll pull up the rear,” Broderick said.
The last glimpse before they turned a corner informed him the male lions had taken down their adversary, enjoying the spoils of the kill. It looked like the females fared well enough to enjoy dinner too.
Several minutes had passed with no surprises holding them back. The few people he had seen fleeing were heading toward the front. He thought about shouting and telling them their plan to take a streetcar out of there. But what if he would have led them to their deaths? He had no idea if this plan would work. He gambled with the life of his family. He couldn’t bring himself to lead others into an uncertain fate.
They ran past the elephant fountain, the Louisiana swamp, Jaguar Jungle, and neared the Rhino Range. The streetcar wasn’t far from that.
Broderick looked at his watch. There was plenty of time to make it to the streetcar. In fact, now that they were at the Rhino Range, he could see the streetcar arrival/departure station.
There was only one problem. When Broderick saw it, goosebumps popped up on his arms.
A dinosaur much bigger than the other two they had encountered loomed by a cluster of trees between them and the station. “Stop!” Broderick called out.
T-Bob and the girls lifted their weary gazes off the ground and over to him.
He pointed toward the station. “Look, by those trees. It’s a dinosaur, and that sucker is big.” Over ten feet tall, if Broderick had to guess. Still, it was smaller than what he thought a T. rex would be. But what did he know about dinosaurs other than what movies like Jurassic Park had taught him? “We’ll have to go another way.”
“There is no other way,” T-Bob said. “Oh no, he sees us!”
Looking around the area, there was no secure place to shelter. Broderick didn’t think bullets from his gun would do much to stop a behemoth like that. He needed a big game rifle or a RPG. “Everyone, listen to me. Run away now. I’m staying and will slow it down.”
“But—” Dionne started.
“No time to argue,” Broderick said. He turned his gaze to Dionne. “I’m sorry for everything. I love you.” He turned to Keesha, and said, “Keesha, Daddy loves you. I’ll always love you.”
“I love you, Daddy,” Keesha said as tears rolled down her face.
“T-Bob? What are you doing? Get my girls out of here!” Brodrick said as he turned his gaze to find the zoo employee by a gate.
“Get over here and help me open the emergency exit,” T-Bob said.
Before he asked why, Broderick’s gaze fixated on the approaching white rhinoceros.
The beast was as large as a truck and surely weighed as much. It trotted over toward T-Bob as he struggled to pull the gate open. It had a stout, pointed horn at the end of its elongated head that looked like it could puncture battleship steel.
“Come help me with the gate,” T-Bob cried again. “Grass has grown up over the bottom.”
Broderick pulled Dionne and Keesha over with him. The dinosaur had picked up its pace. All three helped the zoo employee pull the gate free.
The rhino gave them a leary eye as they hid behind the gate and it stepped out to freedom.
The dilophosaurus’ roaring hiss did nothing to frighten the rhino. It must have taken the battle cry as a challenge to its territory. The rhino lowered its massive head and grunted like a bull. Then, it made a muffled trumpet-like sound—something like the mix of an elephant and killer whale.
It grunted a few more times and lifted its long head up and down, jabbing the thick, protruding horn toward the sky. Its wide, padded feet reminded Broderick of outriggers on a truck crane. The rhino started a slow trot toward the charging dinosaur.
Broderick watched in amazement as the hulking beast gained speed. With surprising grace, the animal looked like it was running near thirty miles-an-hour!
Turning his head, thinking they might need to reconsider the streetcar and head all the way back to the front, Broderick saw a few unidentifiable dinosaurs lurking about on the path they took to get there. His plan had been a gamble from the onset, but now there were no other options. He was all in, and he had bet the lives of those he loved most.
The rhino sped like a locomotive toward the dinosaur, huffing its grunts, and leading with the wicked weapon growing from its nose.
The dilophosaurus leaned its head forward; its back parallel to the ground as its legs traveled wide spans, making it look over twenty feet long. As it neared, a pair of bright red, rounded crests on its skull came into view that ran all the way to its nose.
The two creatures collided without either showing quarter.
Broderick heard the impact before the savage cry of the dinosaur followed.
The rhino’s momentum came to a screeching halt.
The dinosaur’s chest took the brunt of the impact. Its neck came down abruptly, and its jaw smashed against the rhino’s back.
With the rhino having a clear advantage, Broderick hurried T-Bob and his family from behind the gate and led the way to the streetcar, as rhino and dinosaur battled it out.
The dilophosaurus had rolled off the rhino’s horn and laid on its side. But before the rhino went in for another skewer to finish the job, the dinosaur swung its neck and tail about like a catfish out of the water in the bottom of a boat.
The dilophosaurus’ tail slapped the rhino on the side, which made enough impact for it to stumble a few feet sideways, but that was about it.
Coming to its feet, the dinosaur had some obvious difficulty solidifying its balance. Still, it lashed out with an open mouth. The dilophosaurus’ teeth contacted the back of the rhino’s head. The dinosaur’s mouth wasn’t wide enough, nor its teeth long and sharp enough, to maintain a grip.
The rhino shook the dinosaur’s bite away by jerking its head toward it and bringing its horn under the adversary’s neck, leaving a cut that immediately dripped red.
Broderick was amazed that his wife and daughter could tune out the savagery as they ran past. The beasts weren’t a hundred feet away; much too close for comfort!
He saw the streetcar had not made it to the depot. “What time is it?” he called out to T-Bob.
Between breaths, T-Bob said, “My watch says twelve-oh-five.”
Well, that’s not good. Broderick thought the streetcar should be there now.
The dilophosaurus cried out again unlike before. The rhino had the dinosaur on its back, and the white beast pushed its horn past ribs as it powered its way forward. Once again, Mother Earth’s present children claimed victory over thos
e from the prehistoric past.
The depot was empty. When Broderick turned and looked down the tracks, he saw what he believed to be the streetcar. It was hard to tell because of the distance.
After looking in every direction, the Mississippi River several hundred feet away with no means to navigate, the only practical choice available was to head east toward the vehicle.
After a few moments of catching their breaths, Broderick said, “We have to keep going...follow the tracks to the streetcar.”
“The streetcar’s not moving. Do you think it’s broken?” Dionne asked.
“I hope not. I don’t know what’s wrong, but we can’t go west, the river curves north and that puts us back to the front of the zoo. We can’t swim the river. This is our only choice,” Broderick said, thinking how his limited options of late were bound to put him in an unwinnable situation.
“Keesha, you can do this, right?” Broderick asked.
She nodded and fluffed the braids off the back of her neck.
Broderick noticed how Keesha looked so grown up right then. Nothing like his little girl that served him tea in her plastic cups along with cardboard cookies he pretended to eat. Now he feared he wouldn’t get to see her grow old enough to drive a car…graduate college…get married and have children.
“We need to go if we’re going,” T-Bob said.
“Stay together. T-Bob, you lead.”
The zoo employee did as instructed. Dionne and Keesha picked up the pace. Broderick once again ran flank.
The journey took longer than Broderick had expected. The streetcar was over a mile away. His imagination ran wild, watching the wooded area that ran parallel to the tracks, thinking he saw a dinosaur waiting to spring out and attack.
He heard each breath Dionne and Keesha took. If they didn’t find shelter soon, he didn’t know how much longer they could hold out. Heck, he didn’t know how much longer he could hold out. The stress wore him down as much as the physical activity.
As the streetcar came into focus, it was obvious why it was dead on the tracks. There were several dinosaurs, Keesha had called troodons, under the wheels preventing it from moving forward.
Not only that, but a few partially consumed human bodies laid on the ground to either side of the rail.
“Hold up,” Broderick called out.
Everyone trotted to a halt.
Stepping to the lead position, Broderick had his gun held out in front and scanned the area for any signs of dinosaurs. He couldn’t see inside the streetcar or in front of it. For now, it looked as if the beasts that committed this calamity had moved on.
“Dionne, don’t let Keesha see this,” Broderick said.
Dionne nodded, and said, “Keesha, baby. Just keep your eyes on the ground when we walk to the streetcar.”
“Let’s go,” Broderick said.
When they were thirty or so feet away from the streetcar, Broderick held them back as he made a fast dash to check inside.
His stomach roiled as he passed mangled bodies. Gruesome wounds in soft flesh exposed bones and internal organs. Death stares etched onto innocent faces recorded unimaginable horrors.
To his relief, the streetcar’s doors were open and nothing of danger lurked inside, other than what blood had contaminated. There were two mangled bodies near the back of an older man and woman.
Broderick dragged them both outside and wondered if they were husband and wife. Such a pity they had lived to an old age for it to come to an end so violently.
Wiping his hands on his pants, he motioned the others to get aboard.
Bloodstains streaked down the side of the streetcar. As near as Broderick could tell, once the vehicle came to a stop, dinosaurs tall enough pulled passengers out through the windows. For whatever reason, instead of closing the windows and waiting things out, the doors were opened and those who thought fleeing was the best option, did so. That proved to be a bad idea. But he knew when people panicked, rationality became a precious commodity.
“There’s a lot of blood in there. Try not to touch any of it,” Broderick said as Dionne led Keesha up the steps.
“Dinosaurs killed all these people?” T-Bob asked.
“I don’t know what else to think,” Broderick said.
“Do you know how to drive a streetcar?”
“Yeah, it’s not that hard. I used to sit up front whenever I could as a kid and watched the driver. Sometimes the driver would show me how to operate the controls.”
“Don’t we have to move the dinosaurs out from under the wheels so we can go to the depot and turn around?”
“We don’t have to turn around,” Broderick said. “Climb in, and I’ll show you.”
Dionne and Keesha sat near the front on a twin seat. Keesha had her head snuggly in Dionne’s protective embrace.
“See this switch?” Broderick pointed to a round green flange with a square head protruding in the middle. A wrench hung from a chain right next to it. He picked up the wrench and turned the square head. “Now we can travel in reverse.”
Dionne’s large brown eyes gazed back at him. Broderick wanted to tell her not to worry, and that things would be okay. But the last thing he wanted to do now was promise her something he might not be able to deliver.
Words meant nothing.
Action meant life or death.
It was up to him to make things right.
“T-Bob, close all the windows,” Broderick said.
The streetcar was short enough where he could see out of the back. Broderick grabbed the accelerator handle and adjusted the brake lever.
The streetcar hummed to life, and the four headed down the bank of the Mississippi toward the French Quarter.
Dionne’s cell phone rang. She pulled it from her pocket, and said, “It’s my dad.”
Answering, she said, “Yes, Daddy. I’m okay. We’re all okay. Broderick is with us. We were at the zoo.”
Her face went blank as she listened in silence. She moved the phone away from her mouth, and said to Broderick, “Dinosaurs are in the French Quarter too. Daddy’s hurt and hiding in Saint Louis Cathedral.”
She returned to the phone conversation, “We’re on a streetcar heading that way.We don’t have any choice. Dinosaurs attacked at the zoo too. I—”
Dionne looked at Broderick. “Lost connection. Daddy said he was safe. We’re on the way to the French Quarter now. We have to find him and hide out until we’re rescued.”
At least before Broderick believed he had a chance to be free from prehistoric predators. Now, he was on a path leading them to more of the same. His only choice was to jump from one fire into another.
Luck had finally run out.
Chapter 12
The giganotosaurus in the center of Jackson Square roared with a cry that sounded like a snake hiss through a tuba amplified by deep bass subwoofers, when it slammed its head and body into the General Jackson statue.
The twenty-thousand-pound memorial shattered into mostly large pieces. Some smaller chunks shot out like shrapnel, hitting Andrew Jackson and Rev. Martin Scott on the back of their legs as they fled toward the sanctuary of St. Louis Cathedral.
Andrew had Scott’s right arm around his neck, doing his best to support the protest leader’s weight. Perspiration dripping down the man’s face wet his left shoulder. With each step, Scott felt a little heavier.
A piece of the statue slid under Andrew’s right foot and the concrete sidewalk—almost sending both tumbling to the ground. He managed to regain his footing, only to look to his left and see another danger streaking toward them.
This dinosaur had light blue feathers on its lizard-like head and small arms. Its neck was short, unlike the troodons that attacked others in the crowd. Though not as tall, the aura projected by this creature made Andrew feel helpless as a mouse about to be pounced on by a Siberian tiger.
“Reverend!” one of the leader’s supporters yelled and zipped across their path to engage the dinosaur.
The supporter
held nunchakus in his right hand and swung the hardwood clubs connected to a short chain above his head.
The velociraptor looked like a blue demon as it went in for the kill.
Nunchakus swiped through the air where the dinosaur had been.
The creature moved too fast for the unfortunate supporter. It leaped through the air with its clawed feet spread wide and stuck to his chest.
The man screamed and dropped his weapon—grabbing the dinosaur with both of his hands and desperately trying to rip the beast free.
The attempt was futile. Even though the velociraptor was less than half the man’s weight, he couldn’t pry it off for a chance to escape.
The deadly dinosaur proceeded to bite off chunks of flesh from the supporter’s face. The velociraptor had no sense of mercy and ate its victim alive.
The clash had started and ended in a blink of an eye. Andrew caught it all before he and Scott reached the three-tiered water fountain they had to pass before arriving at the black iron gates leading out of Jackson Square.
The giganotosaurus roared again. Thankfully, it sounded like it took a different path toward the river.
From Andrew’s estimation, the number of warriors had thinned greatly. He hoped most had found safe refuge, but his eyes told him many lost their lives today; their bodies desecrated as vicious teeth stripped flesh from bone and entered the bellies of the savage victors.
The two stepped out of Jackson Square and onto Chartres Street. Orange plastic fencing walled off a section of the street undergoing renovation.
Andrew looked from side to side and didn’t see a soul. A three-piece band had abandoned their instruments. Artists had left their masterpieces hanging from the iron fence surrounding the Square. Tables with Tarot cards and chess boards with matches unfinished waited for their owners to return. A discarded drink and ice cream cart held treasures that Andrew thought might soon become more valuable than gold.
St. Louis Cathedral’s white façade beckoned with its gates open leading to the humble brown stained double doors. Standing in its presence made Andrew feel he was in the courtyard of Heaven, and the Almighty was right there on the throne.
The Dinosaur Battle Of New Orleans Page 13