by Logan Jacobs
“Okay,” Becka replied.
I pulled out my phone and verified that the next block would actually connect to the street we needed to turn on. “Yeah, it’s okay that we take the next road.”
The girls nodded, and we took another careful glance around before we started forwards down the street. Further along in the other direction, the surroundings were less bleak. It was still empty and weirdly silent, but there was no evidence of the battle that had gone down just a street over.
“It’s so creepy,” Becka whispered as she nodded at the empty streets.
“Yes,” Hae-won said. “I actually like it.”
“You are so weird sometimes,” Becka snickered as she smiled at the other woman.
“It made you smile.” Hae-won pointed out.
“True, so never change. Promise?”
“Promise.” Hae-won nodded.
We passed the first couple blocks in silence. I checked the map every so often, but mostly I kept my eyes glued on the surrounding area. After ten minutes, we turned a corner onto another street and we were forced to come to a stop.
“Shit,” I said as I looked over the area.
Everything around was crushed and shattered: windows, fences, cars, even some sections of houses. Halfway down the street we could see the main culprit of all the destruction. Flat on its side laid one of the massive stegosauruses that we had seen the day before. For all I know, it could have been the same one, but we were pretty far from the little corner shop where that one had appeared.
“What the hell happened here?” Becka asked as she surveyed all the debris.
“Jason, do you think we should go this way?” Hae-won asked.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “The stegosaurus looks dead to me. It might attract some other predators, though. Let me see if there’s a way around it.”
Hae-won and Becka kept watch while I looked over the map and tried to recalculate our route around the massive body. Studying it, though, I wasn’t sure it was possible.
“Well?” Becka asked.
“We would have to backtrack on our path,” I explained. “I don’t want to do that in case there is anything out there to possibly catch our scents. Besides, it would add at least half a mile to the journey.”
“So we should just go past it?” the blonde asked with a quiver in her voice.
“I think if we’re careful, it’s the right choice,” I explained. “Even if there is something attracted to the body, it’s unlikely that it would go for us unless we really drew its attention. I mean, they’d have a free meal just sitting here.”
“You should get your gun out,” Hae-won suggested. “Just in case. If it comes after us and it’s small, the two of us can try to get it, but we should have that as a backup.”
“Are you sure?” I asked. “I won’t be able to grab my sword easily. Can you two really handle something like those raptors we saw? I don’t want to waste bullets on them, we have less than ten left.”
“You’re good with that, right, Becka?” the blue-eyed girl asked.
“Yeah, we can handle a little thing,” the blonde agreed. “If one of the toros shows up, we need to have the gun ready.”
“Okay,” I said as I put my sword in the sheath, took the gun carrier off my back, and got the rifle ready. “Let’s go.”
We picked our way through the rubble of the street and toward the giant pile of dinosaur flesh in the center. The closer we got, the more sure I was that the thing was really dead. Soon I could make out bullet holes on its underbelly and something else that looked like burn marks.
I wondered if they were from more grenades or if the military was using flamethrowers as well. I thought that was likely to do more harm than good if it were the case. That was especially true when it came to this guy. He caused the most damage just by lumbering around, and if they had scared him into a run, it was no wonder that the area surrounding him was nearly leveled.
He must have been whipping his tail around, too, because the houses by it and even the ones behind it were knocked through like with a wrecking ball.
“They really did a number on this place,” Becka commented. “I’ve seen Greek ruins in better shape.”
“Yeah, this thing must have been pretty frantic,” I said. “He destroyed twice as much space around him as the one from yesterday.”
“We should just get out of this place,” Hae-won said. “Even I can smell this thing from here. It’s bound to attract one of those larger ones soon.”
“Yeah, let’s go around by its feet,” I said. “I think I see some space there. We can work up over those fences and around the rubble there.”
“Okay,” Becka said, and Hae-won nodded.
We edged around the creature carefully and made sure to give it enough distance so that we wouldn’t be blindsided by anything coming around from the other side. I looked at all the rubble of bricks and wood from the nearest house and hoped that nobody was inside when the fight went down. If anyone was, there was little chance that they were still alive after the place had been levelled by the huge spiky tail.
We made it around its huge feet and up toward its face. There I could see its dead eyes, and I almost felt bad for the thing. He looked so sad lying there like that, in the middle of all the city wreckage. There was no doubt that he didn’t belong here, but that wasn’t his fault. As we edged further out toward the street, I thought once again about who could be responsible for this. I knew deep down that it didn’t matter, not while we were still fighting for our lives anyway, but the curious side of me still wanted to know.
If I had to take a guess, my money was on aliens. The portals looked like something that I’d never seen before, and even the ones in the Sci-Fi films didn’t look quite like that. It had to be something from another planet, some kind of foreign technology. Then that brought up another question that I had no idea how to answer. If it was aliens, then why were they attacking us like this? Was this even an attack, or was it some kind of an experiment?
“Feel bad for him, you know,” Becka said from beside me. “He looks so helpless laying there, and you said it was a vegetarian. I know that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t hurt us, but it feels different because he wouldn’t mean to.”
“I liked his spikes,” Hae-won mused. “They looked punk.”
“We just need to keep moving,” I said to the girls. “I know he looks sad now, but it’s better for everyone if we can stop all these creatures.”
“I know,” Becka replied as the three of us continued down the street. “You’re right, we can’t think of them the same way as animals. They don’t belong here, wherever they came from.”
“If it’s an attack,” the Asian girl mused, “I wonder why they would include ones like him. And why the little ones first?”
“Why any of it?” Becka replied. “We could guess all day, but no one is going to come in and tell us the correct answers.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Although, if we could figure out a few things it might help. We should look into where the portals have been sighted when we do our research. I’m sure people have started to track them. If there is some kind of pattern or reason to it, we might be able to prepare for it.”
“We can look, I guess,” Becka said, and the three of us kept on moving in silence.
It wasn’t too much longer before we came across the area where we originally planned to go on foot from. The entrance to the park was there and after we crossed it, there would only be a few more roads left to travel before we came to the clinic. I walked up to the tiny alley, the sides made by tall bushes, and looked into the park space. On the far side of the field, maybe half a mile away, I could see shocks and flashes of electric blue and bright orange moving around.
The two girls stepped up beside me on the path and studied the movement.
“What do you think about that?” I asked them.
“Are they fighting?” Hae-won guessed.
“It looks like the colors of the ones f
rom the quad and the one in that shop,” Becka said.
“Yeah, I think it is,” I replied. “And that probably means they are fighting, since they’re different species. I bet there are at least a couple of each. I don’t think they would go into a brawl alone.”
“The blue one could be alone,” the blonde said. “It is a lot bigger.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But I still think one would run from a group of those. They don’t exactly look docile.”
“Should we try to move past them?” the Asian girl said. “They are all the way over there.”
“Normally I would say no, but they do look pretty distracted,” I replied. “They could be fighting for a while and whichever one wins will probably spend its time eating afterwards.”
“Where is the point we’re going to?” Becka asked.
“It’s a straight shot that way,” I replied and pointed toward the path that cut along the side of the park right in front of us. “Are you guys up for crossing? I don’t want to be forcing you into everything.”
“I’m good with it.” Hae-won smiled and gave me a small wink. “Besides, you wouldn’t have to force me into anything.”
“I trust you, Jason,” the blonde said. “We can go that way.”
“They’re the smaller type,” I said. “I’ll switch to the sword, just in case they do come after us.”
“Are you sure?” the Asian girl asked. “There are multiple ones.”
“We know the swords can kill them,” I explained. “The Torvosauruses are still out there, and I doubt we could do much to them with these things before they could bite our heads off. We have to save the ammo for them.”
“Alright,” she replied. “I hope we can manage them, if it comes down to that.”
“We will,” I assured her as I swapped out the weapons and replaced the gun on my back. “Okay, let’s go. Stay low and quiet.”
They nodded, and the three of us made our way into the park with our weapons drawn and at the ready. I kept a careful eye on the warring dinos across the park, but they didn’t look like they were getting any closer to us, so my confidence grew as we continued on the path.
We approached the halfway point, and I shot another glance back at the blue and orange flashes. We had a better view from this angle, and I could see that there were two of the larger blue dinos and three of the smaller orange ones, yet they seemed to be evenly matched as they danced around each other and exchanged bites. I was fairly satisfied that they were going to pay attention to us when they all suddenly stopped fighting and looked behind them in the direction of the trees.
I heard something rustling there, so I put an arm out to motion for the girls to stop. We all listened as the sounds grew, and then a loud screech rang out through the park. The other dinosaurs scattered, and that’s when I saw them.
Two fucking huge Torvosauruses broke through the trees and crashed into the park.
Shit.
These things were huge, the smaller one had to be at least ten feet tall, and they were a much brighter color than the one we killed the day before. Their shades blurred in the distance and I wondered if the deeper oranges and darker blacks meant these were more important, like pack alphas. They lashed and snapped at each other with curling claws and razor rows of teeth. Their massive thigh muscles bulged around them and pounded the field so hard I could swear I felt it from all the way on the other side.
Strangely, they didn’t pay any attention to us or the other dinos which had fled in every direction. Instead, they were entirely focused on each other and seemed to be in a fight, too. I didn’t know why they would be battling their own species, but I did know that we needed to get the hell out of there fast.
“Move!” I shouted. “Run for the edge of the park!”
The girls needed no further encouragement, and the three of us took off at a dead sprint for the end of the path. Off to the side I could see a blur of orange and gray flashing around with the occasional scream from them, but I didn’t bother to watch the brawl. They seemed to get nearer as we approached the edge, and as I reached the gate, I gave them a glance back.
They tumbled around together, crashed through the park, crossed the path we had been on, and crashed into the side of an adjacent building. The bricks spewed up dust, and the building started to cave in.
Shit.
Hae-won grabbed my hand to pull me out through the gate, and just before I turned I saw one of them rear its head back to strike the other. I moved out through the gate with the girls and heard the crashing sound of the building they hit crumbling. We kept moving down the street and didn’t slow until we had rounded another corner.
“I think we’re fine,” I huffed and glanced around for any signs of a threat.
“What were they doing?” Hae-won breathed. “I thought they would just fight other kinds?”
“I don’t know, maybe they’re territorial or something like that,” I replied.
“Lucky for us,” Becka said. “They could have cared less.”
“Yeah, we did get pretty lucky,” I agreed.
“They destroyed that building,” the dark-haired beauty observed. “Do you think people were inside?”
“I hope not, but there isn’t much we can do if any were,” I replied.
“I doubt there was,” Becka said. “I’m pretty sure that was a bank.”
“Do you think they could do that to the gallery?” Hae-won asked.
“I guess so,” I said. “I didn’t think they would be that strong, to be honest. They’re tall, but not like giants.”
“It must be the weight,” Becka offered. “Especially with two of them hitting the same point.”
“I guess it could happen to the gallery,” I said. “But there are other buildings they would have to get through first. All the ones around the edges of campus are like medieval fortresses. Unless they figured out how to get into the campus and then started their brawl, which I don’t think is likely.”
“Good,” Becka said. “Crushed by building was really not the way I saw myself going.”
“Beats being some lizard’s snack,” Hae-won laughed.
“Speaking of ways to die, we should keep moving to the clinic,” I said.
“Ugh, yes,” Becka groaned. “You don’t have to keep reminding me like that.”
“Just let me check the map to make sure we didn’t run off the route,” I ignored Becka’s comment and pulled out my phone to check our route. “Yeah, we’re close now. We just have a few more streets to go.”
We started moving again and worked our way through the remaining blocks and alleyways. When we reached the last alley, we all stopped at the sound of a helicopter overheard.
“Military?” Hae-won asked as she looked at me.
“I’m not su--” I started to say, but then we all froze when we heard a loud cawing overhead.
“Was that the flying one?” Becka gasped.
“It sounded like it,” I replied. “Everyone stay toward the wall.”
We all flattened ourselves against the side, and I looked up at the sliver of sky between the buildings in the alley. For a while there was nothing, and then another caw rang out louder than the sound of the distant helicopter blades, and a large shadow fell over us. The creature flew past the alley, and I could see its huge shape against the overcast sky.
“Holy shit,” Becka gasped, and we all looked up in awe as another dino passed by cawing as it chased the first one.
Their wings beat the air repeatedly and the noise grew louder until I wondered just how many flying lizards there must be to make a sound like that. I kept an eye on the streak of sky and began to feel a rush of wind on my face.
“Are they that close?” Hae-won whispered to me.
“I don’t think--” I cut off as the massive helicopter crossed the alley above us. It was low in the sky, maybe only a hundred feet above, and it was covered with machine guns.
We heard more screeching followed by the staccato sound of a lot o
f gunshots. Something fell on the next street over and landed on the ground with a massive thud.
“They shot it,” Becka observed.
“The helicopter did?” Hae-won asked.
“It looked military.” The blonde nodded.
“They only shot one,” I said before more screeches cut through the air.
“How many are there?” Becka asked.
“At least two,” I said. “Maybe even more.”
We froze when we heard what sounded like people shouting up above us. There were more caws from the dinos, more gun shots, and loud thuds and clanging sounds echoed through the air. The helicopter wings seemed to beat louder and there were more sounds of a struggle.
Then there was an ear-piercing scream, but it didn’t sound like a creature. It sounded like an engine screaming. Then a loud cracking noise sounded, and I saw a smoky shadow pass overhead.
Then there was an earth shaking explosion.
“What was that?” Becka gasped. “Did they just crash the helicopter?”
“Probably,” I panted. It was hard to tell exactly what had happened without seeing anything, but I doubted the lizard-birds exploded on impact.
“What do we do?” Hae-won whispered. “Do we keep moving?”
“We need to wait for a few minutes,” I replied as I watched the sky. “If the creatures took down the helicopter, they could still be circling.”
“Okay,” the blue-eyed girl nodded.
“But as soon as we think it’s clear, we should make a run for it,” the blonde added. “I feel crowded here, like we’d be easy to pick off.”
I gave Becka a quick nod, turned my attention back to the sky, and listened for anything out of the ordinary. I thought I heard the roaring of car engines in the distance, but it didn’t look like the girls had heard anything, so I couldn’t be sure.
After a few minutes, Hae-won’s whisper broke the silence. “Should we move now?”
“Yeah,” I replied after I listened out for a couple more seconds. “Let’s get out of this alley, the clinic is close.”
As we started back up, I felt a few drops of rain hit me on the face.