Near Extinction

by R. A. Spratt

  The guards did not have any questions. Dad realised he made an authentic looking Russian. It was probably his beard. One guard pointed a taser at Mum, while the other guard put her back in wrist and leg shackles. Once she was safely contained, Dad stepped forward, took Mum by the elbow and led her out of the small exercise yard slowing his steps to her shuffling pace.

  They walked side by side up three flights of stairs. It’s hard to climb stairs quickly when your ankles are chained together. If you want to get a sense of how hard, go to a discount department store where the shoes are all tied together with zip ties, try some on, then try running in them as if you were escaping from armed terrorists. You’ll appreciate the difficulty of the situation. There was so much adrenalin coursing through Dad’s veins screaming at him to RUN RUN RUN! But he couldn’t. He had to walk slowly and unsuspiciously as if he had every right to be there leading his wife through a maximum security secret prison.

  ‘Why are you here?’ Mum whispered. Her lips barely moved. Dad was not sure it was her who spoke at first, or just his own thoughts in his mind.

  ‘We got your message from Svetlana,’ said Dad.

  ‘But the message was not to come here,’ said Mum.

  ‘No, but . . .’ said Dad. He wasn’t entirely sure how the decision had been made for this rescue mission.

  ‘What’s the exit strategy?’ asked Mum.

  ‘Er . . .’ said Dad. ‘There isn’t one. At least . . . not that I know of.’

  ‘No matter,’ said Mum. ‘I can get us out of here. We’ll go out through the sewerage system. There are pipes that lead out to the river. The water is sub-zero and there is a waterfall two hundred metres downstream, and obviously they are sewerage pipes so there will be a lot of excrement. But they’ll never expect us to go out that way. Turn left into the next corridor, that will take us to the main toilet block off the dining hall.’

  ‘No!’ said Dad over-loudly, his voice echoing about the stairwell.

  ‘Shh,’ hissed Mum.

  ‘I can’t leave,’ said Dad, in a quieter voice. ‘Not without Ingrid. I’m not leaving her behind.’

  ‘Ingrid?’ said Mum. She knew who Ingrid was. The interrogator at the prison had shown her a photo, when he had tried to break her down and reveal all her secrets. Nothing angers a middle-aged mother of three more than seeing a photograph of the stunningly beautiful twenty-eight-year-old Nordic goddess that her ex-husband is living with.

  ‘I’m not leaving her behind,’ said Dad. ‘She did all this. She got us in here. I can’t abandon her.’

  Mum shook her head at Dad’s naiveté. ‘She won’t mind, Harold,’ said Mum. ‘She’s a professional operative. She’s trained for this. Her mission was to get me out. I’m a senior operative with vital information. I am a greater asset. If I get out and she is trapped, the mission is still a success.’

  Dad’s forehead crumpled with confusion, ‘But this isn’t a mission,’ said Dad. ‘This is just us, trying to rescue you. Ingrid arranged it all. Now I’m staying to help her.’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, Harold,’ said Mum. ‘You’re not from this world. Maynard will take care of this. It isn’t your concern.’

  Dad shook his head. ‘Maynard won’t help any of us. She didn’t want us to help you.’

  Mum looked at her perpetually confused former husband. She was an expert at telling if someone was lying, but it was harder to tell if someone had no idea what they were talking about. Trusting Maynard was the bedrock of her operational practice. If she couldn’t trust Maynard then she was all alone. A rogue operative, with apparently no one to help her except her psychologically scared husband and a Swedish au pair.

  Mum nodded. ‘Fine. You’d better take me to the interrogation rooms then. If she’s just been captured, that’s where she’ll be. They’ll be trying to break her while she is disorientated. How good are you at acting, Harold?’

  ‘Terrible,’ said Dad.

  ‘Hmm,’ said Mum. ‘Well you’re going to have to turn that around in the next three minutes. You are about to put on an Academy Award worthy performance.’

  Ingrid was not happy. No one had started torturing her yet. But she was pretty sure that was just because it was late at night and they had to get the torturer on call to come back to the prison and work overtime. In her opinion the poorly designed metal chair she was being forced to sit on was torture enough. Absolutely no lumbar support and such an unpleasant grey colour. This prison really could learn a lot from Scandinavian design. You can be minimalist and still pleasant.

  She was pretty sure the interrogator talking to her was some sort of work experience interrogator. He seemed very young and unsure of himself. He kept glancing at his notes all the time. Perhaps all the experienced interrogators were away at a conference. Or perhaps this incompetent interrogator was a strategy to lull her into a false sense of security. She must stay alert.

  The steel door flung open. A short wiry prisoner was shoved into the room, and a guard followed her yelling in Russian. It took Ingrid’s brain a second to process that this angry Russian was in fact Dad.

  ‘You, you are collaborating with 24601,’ accused Dad, pounding his fist on the table. ‘Do not deny it. Tell me who you work for and your death will be swift.’ Dad lunged forward and grabbed Ingrid by the neck. The work experience interrogator was shocked. He started to get to his feet, but he didn’t get far. He was so busy watching Dad wrestle Ingrid to the ground, that he didn’t notice Mum’s foot flying towards the back of his head. If her foot hitting his occipital bone didn’t knock him out, then the blow to his forehead when it slammed into the table certainly did. Meanwhile on the floor, Dad wasn’t wrestling with Ingrid. He was wrestling with her handcuffs as he struggled to set her free with his shaking fingers.

  ‘Hurry up,’ ordered Mum, as she slid the work experience interrogator to the ground.

  ‘I’ve got the handcuffs off,’ said Dad. ‘But she’s handcuffed to the chair as well.’

  ‘That’s my fault,’ said Mum. ‘They started doing that because I choked out too many interrogators.’

  Ingrid got to her feet and grabbed the chair. It had been bent over backwards when Dad tackled her to the ground. She gripped tightly and ripped the bolts out of the floor. The chair was still handcuffed to her wrist, but she held it easily in one hand.

  ‘Let’s go!’ said Ingrid.

  The bus was barrelling down the dusty highway. It was only going at about sixty kilometres an hour. But it felt really fast because the bus was so old and rattly, the road was so lumpy and uneven, and three of the passengers were not sitting on seats, they were on top of the bus, two of those inside a giant dinosaur.

  ‘I’m going to die!’ wailed Fin.

  ‘Yeah, you are, cause I’m going to kill you if you don’t stop wailing like a big baby,’ snapped April. Fin might have his head inside the dinosaur, but she had her whole body in there and his yells were deafening in the confined space.

  ‘Why must you be so relentlessly horrible,’ accused Fin. ‘All your life, since the day you were born, you’ve been vile every single second of the day.’

  ‘Perhaps because when I was born, one of the first things I saw was you,’ said April. ‘And because it was you, you were no doubt whining about something.’

  ‘My head is stuck in a dinosaur on top of a hijacked bus,’ yelled Fin. ‘I have every right to whine.’

  April’s foot flew past his head. Fin couldn’t see it in the darkness but he felt the movement of it brushing past his hair and heard the impact of it in the fibreglass above his head.

  ‘What are you doing?’ yelled Fin. ‘Why are you trying to kick me?’

  ‘I’m not trying to kick you in the head, you idiot,’ said April. ‘I’m trying to kick the dinosaur in the head.’ She stomped out with her foot again. Fin realised April had braced herself upside-down against the neck of the dinosaur and was kicking out with all her rage.

  ‘Stop it!’ cried Fin.
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  ‘No,’ grunted April as she kicked again and again and again.

  Fin just started screaming, ‘Aaaaagggghhhhh!’ Using words was having no effect and screaming seemed the appropriate thing to do when you’re pretty sure you’re about to die.

  April was still stomping. And considering how skinny her legs were it was amazing how much wallop she could pack into each kick. STOMP, STOMP, STOMP . . . CRACK.

  She stopped kicking.

  Fin stopped screaming.

  ‘What was that?’ asked Fin.

  ‘I realise you’re too emotional right now to thank me properly,’ said April. ‘But a large box of chocolates and a little thankyou note later will be acceptable.’

  ‘Huh?’ said Fin.

  ‘Try getting your head out now,’ said April.

  Fin pulled back on his head. He felt the upper jaw of the dinosaur give a little. He grabbed the jaw with his hand and pushed it up as he pulled his head. The jaw only gave about a centimetre but that was all he needed, he was able to pull his head free, dragging it out as the fibreglass teeth scraped through his hair and across his scalp.

  ‘I’m free!’ said Fin. He enjoyed the feeling for about one and a half seconds, before the bus turned with a bend in the road and he nearly slipped right off the side. Luckily Joe had been making his way around the outside of the T-Rex, hand over hand to get to Fin, and was able to grab his wrist just in the nick of time.

  ‘H-h-hold on to something,’ said Joe.

  Fin reached up and clutched on to Joe’s wrist with both hands.

  ‘N-n-not me,’ said Joe. ‘Something on the bus, so you don’t slide off. If I fall off, you’d come with me.’

  Fin reached over and grabbed a light fitting on the roof of the bus. It was not a very secure hold. His legs were still sliding side to side with each lurch.

  There was a scraping noise inside the dinosaur, then April’s head popped out from the abdomen. ‘Urgh, I don’t feel good. I think I’m dinosaur sick,’ said April.

  ‘What’s dinosaur sick?’ asked Joe.

  ‘It’s like travel sick, but worse because you get it from travelling inside a dinosaur,’ said April. ‘I think I’m going to hurl.’ April then acted on her prediction, being sick over the side of the bus.

  ‘Gross,’ said Fin.

  ‘I’ve had enough of this,’ said April clutching to the outside of the dinosaur and making her way around to Fin and Joe. ‘It’s bad enough that those two jokers are clearly jewel thieves, and violent thugs who shove kids in dinosaurs. But they also drive like morons.’

  She moved past Fin and Joe and kept crawling towards the front of the bus.

  ‘Where are you going?’ panicked Joe.

  ‘I’m going to stop the bus,’ said April.

  ‘How?’ Fin shouted over the sound of the noisy engine.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said April. She was still feeling ill. ‘Maybe I’ll ask our hijackers really nicely. Ow!’

  ‘What happened?’ asked Joe.

  ‘I just whacked my hand on the skylight,’ said April.

  ‘But that’s good,’ said Fin.

  ‘Do you want me to whack your hand and see if you think it’s good?’ snapped April.

  ‘No, I mean the skylight,’ said Fin. ‘You broke the latch earlier. We can open it up and get into the bus.’

  ‘Okay, you’ve just de-idioted yourself by two points,’ said April.

  Constable Pike quite liked highway patrol. He was obliged to spend half of one shift per week doing it. It was the closest he ever got to enjoying his job. Currawong did not have a lot of crime, at least not until recently. There had been a spate of bizarre illegalities ever since the Peski kids turned up in town. But in general, his job was not so much about arresting people as about mediating squabbles between neighbours, business owners and families. As well as dealing with disasters – both natural disasters and the more frequent unnatural ones. The residents of Currawong had a talent for causing those. Like the great Christmas Tree Inferno of 2012 or the Sleepy Vale Retirement Village Riot of 2014.

  Highway Patrol was the time on the job when Constable Pike could relax. When he was actually paid to park by the side of the highway and do nothing, for hours. On the main road he might get two or three cars and perhaps a truck drive past in an hour. And all of them would be driving at or below the speed limit because everyone in town always knew where and when he was on patrol duty.

  The local radio station broadcast his location as part of the news, the gossips told the other gossips and even the church got in on the act posting some sort of witty comment on their noticeboard like, ‘The Lord will forgive you, but Constable Pike won’t so avoid the Bilgong Road’. The Vicar had never forgiven the constable for giving him a speeding ticket when he was running late for a christening.

  In the eight years since he’d been stationed at Currawong, Constable Pike had only been involved in one high speed chase. It had happened during his first week. A pair of thieves had robbed the jewellery store in Bilgong. Constable Pike had seen them speeding at the Currawong turnoff and given chase. It was really exciting. They were driving a ute that didn’t have nearly as much acceleration as his patrol car. But the robbery had taken place at closing time, so the chase was happening at dusk and out in the country, dusk means kangaroos on the road. A huge big red jumped straight in front of the patrol car. Constable Pike did exactly what all his police training had taught him not to do, he swerved to avoid it, went off the road, the car went into a ditch and flipped onto it’s roof.

  The thieves were eventually caught in the next state trying to board a shipping vessel. But they had hidden the jewellery somewhere along the way and it had never been recovered. It had been very embarrassing. Constable Pike’s commanding officer had yelled at him very loudly volume about how he would be demoted for the stuff up if he weren’t already the lowest level a police officer could be.

  Constable Pike fully intended to enjoy his rest this evening. It had been a particularly exhausting day of police business. He had spent the first half of his shift chasing a stallion around the school oval. He’d had no luck catching it. In the end, he’d had to call in the town’s animal expert, the Cat Lady. When she arrived in her beaten up old station wagon, Constable Pike was a sweaty muddy mess. He had fallen over several times and been headbutted twice. Irritatingly, the Cat Lady had just whistled and the stallion trotted over to her obediently to have its nose scratched.

  So when Constable Pike pulled in to the layby on the Bilgong road he was looking forward to a nice rest. He parked the car, tilted the seat back and allowed slumber to wash over him. He did the deep breathing exercises the Academy psychologist had taught all the cadets to help them cope with traumatic stress. He did these exercises every day. Currawong might not be traumatic, but it was certainly stressful.

  Out on the side of the dark highway it was totally quiet. Constable Pike was imagining himself lying on a beautiful sun-drenched beach. He imagined he could hear the rush and rumble of the surf. It was so peaceful. But then the surf started to sound louder and sharper. There was a terrible grinding noise as well. Constable Pike snapped awake just in time to see the giant pink school bus blundering past at top speed with a huge dead dinosaur strapped to the roof and dragging its tail behind it.

  Constable Pike’s first thought was that he had gone mad. The pressure of the job had finally made him snap. He wasn’t a very good student at school, but he distinctly remembered learning that dinosaurs became extinct millions of years ago. How could one now be riding a bus towards Currawong?! Then he remembered that some kids from Currawong High had gone on a school excursion that day. The excursion had been to the dinosaur park, and the most annoying family in Currawong, the pesky Peski kids, had been on that excursion.

  Constable Pike flicked on the police siren, hit the accelerator, and fishtailed the over-powered police car onto the highway. He was going to get to do a high-speed chase just like in the movies. Well, maybe a bit slower than the
movies because the school bus couldn’t go very fast, but he’d enjoy it none the less. Especially the bit at the end where he’d finally get to arrest those pesky Peski kids.

  April grabbed hold of the frame of the skylight and swung down into the bus. She hadn’t put much thought into this course of action. She found herself dangling fully stretched from the opening, her toes still well above the floor. She didn’t want to break her ankle so April swung her legs about to catch hold of a seat. This didn’t help much. Now she was holding on to the skylight with her hands and a seat with her feet, while her rear dangled over the aisle. The problem was soon solved when the bus hit a pothole, she lost her grip and landed in a heap on the floor. The bus was so noisy that neither Georgia nor Bruce noticed the extra sound.

  April had winded herself in the fall, so it took a moment to catch her breath. When she looked up it was to see Fin about to drop on her head, April quickly commando rolled out of the way. Fin landed with a thump on the floor.

  ‘Hey,’ complained Fin, rubbing his butt. ‘You were meant to catch me.’

  ‘Urgh,’ said April. ‘I’d rather catch cooties. I’m not going to let you land on me and break my neck.’

  April shoved Fin to emphasise her point. So of course Fin shoved her back. Which led to her putting him in a headlock. Which led to Fin trying to poke his finger up April’s nose. Which led to neither of them noticing Joe dropping in through the skylight and landing on them both.

  ‘S-sorry,’ said Joe.

  ‘Eurgh,’ said April.

  Fin just whimpered.

  ‘S-so what’s the p-plan?’ asked Joe.

  ‘The plan is there is no plan,’ said April. ‘We just hijack back the bus.’

  ‘But what if the bus crashes,’ said Fin, ‘or they’ve got guns?’

  ‘That will be a delightful surprise that we’ll deal with if and when it happens,’ said April.

  ‘I’ve got a plan.’

  Joe flinched. Fin and April looked up. Loretta was suddenly standing right behind him, and Tom was with her.