Prehistoric Survival | Book 1 | Doomed City

by Sander, K. G.

  But that bitch McKenzie had made fun of her coat again, and that was the last straw. After the weird headache that happened at the end of lunch hour, Kennedy had bolted, Mason’s skateboard in hand. She doubted that anyone would notice that she was even missing. Not like her teachers cared about her either.

  She’d get back to school in time for Mason to pick her up. After that weird headache that everyone at class got at once, the school had gone on lockdown, giving Kennedy plenty of time to slip away.

  Kennedy got back up and jogged after the skateboard rolling down the path.

  “Okay, feet spread,” she said, repeating her brother’s teachings, “Good balance. Kick down and slide.”

  She kicked down at the back edge of the board and slid her left foot up to the top, trying to jump at the same time. The board popped off the ground. Surprised, she tried to keep the board center as she landed, but her balance was thrown. The board slid out from under her and she hit the ground hard on her bum, completely knocking the wind out of her.

  Too excited to care about the pain, Kennedy lay on the ground breathless and stared at the blue sky. It was a hot day today. Hotter than any other day in May. Her coat lay by the swing set and her jeans were rolled up past her knees.

  She was cool. She felt it in her bones. Pink shoes, pink shirt, rolled up jeans and her brother’s skateboard. Life was good. Someday she’d be a professional skateboarder. She knew it.

  A large bird flew high above her. Kennedy shielded her eyes. It looked really big. Too big. It must a trick of the humidity. Her mom had told her once, back when her mom cared about her, that water can make pictures seem funny. It tricked the eye and “bends the light”. Humidity was water in the air, so it must be the same.

  Kennedy lay on the ground, relishing the freedom she felt in her soul.

  Professional skateboarder. That was it. Her future.

  A rustle in the trees that circled the park startled her out of her daydream. Kennedy sprang up to her feet and ran after the skateboard again.

  She didn’t see it coming.

  Without warning, she was tackled around the middle and dragged to the ground.

  “What the-”

  Her words were cut off by a hand around her mouth.

  “Shut up,” Mason whispered in her ear.

  The fear she felt doubled. The anxiety she heard in his voice trumped relief that it was Mason. Something was wrong.

  The ground rumbled beneath them and Mason gripped her tightly on the ground, covering her mouth with his hand.

  A miniature Tyrannosaurus lumbered by the park in the middle of the street. About twice the height of Mason, it sniffed the air and stopped in front of the park.

  Kennedy wanted to scream. She would have if Mason wouldn’t have been there. The dinosaur would have seen them. All it had to do was look to the left, and they were dead. Kennedy knew it in her bones.

  The dinosaur sniffed the air again, and Kennedy sobbed into Mason’s hand.

  A cat sprinted across the street, and the dinosaur pounced. Mason pulled Kennedy up to her feet.

  “We run to our house, okay?”

  “What’s happe-”

  “Shut up. Ken, we run to our house. Don’t look back. Now. Go.”

  “I’m not leaving you.”

  “I’m right behind you, kid. Go. Now.”

  Kennedy ran, and she felt Mason right behind her. She didn’t know what was going on, and she didn’t care. Mason was scared. And that terrified Kennedy more than anything.

  Leaving her skateboard, she sprinted towards home.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Maggie

  They trudged through the abandoned cars, heads on a swivel, adrenaline wearing off to leave a ragged fatigue behind. The industrial part of the city lined the streets, but the buildings were already abandoned. Or locked up tight. They didn’t have time to check every building. The cars were packed so tight and abandoned that their only option was to walk slowly in between, dodging the puddles of T-Rex piss and wreckage as they went.

  It was so damn hot. Maggie had already stripped off her jacket, but it had done little. The sweat seeped through her blouse, leaving a sheer white garment behind.

  Maggie didn’t care about her shirt. Her thoughts drifted towards her children. How the hell was she going to get to her children?

  “I’m sure they’re fine,” Lindsay said, her uncanny ability to read her boss’s thoughts showing itself. “Mason’s a good kid, he will find Kennedy and take her home. I’m sure of it.” She winced and rolled her shoulder.

  Maggie gave a non-committal shrug. Sure, that was fine in theory, but what would happen if the dinosaurs got there first? Or someone who was using the end of the world to their advantage?

  Maggie tried not to think about it, but an image of Kennedy, dead with a Tyrannosaurus feeding on her blasted through her head. Maggie stopped and rubbed her forehead, trying desperately to clear the unwanted image. Her little blonde baby would NOT end up like that. There was no way.

  Snapping out of the image, Maggie gave Lindsay a hard look. She was struggling and wasn’t doing a good job at hiding it.

  “Let’s break,” Maggie said.

  “Shouldn’t we go inside a building? Get some cover?” Dirby asked, looking around.

  “I’d rather be able to see what’s coming,” Maggie answered. She pointed towards the empty and half crushed city bus laying strewn across the meridian. “Should we try that?”

  Not waiting for an answer, Maggie headed that way, closely followed by Ginny and Trudy. Lindsay came last, leaving Dirby to stand alone in the middle of the street.

  “I’ll go first,” Maggie said, clutching her tire iron. She dropped the bag she was carrying onto the asphalt. “I’ll yell if anything is in there.”

  The women nodded, and Dirby rushed up to join them. He didn’t want to be left alone, even if it meant following Maggie.

  Maggie didn’t have time to think about her leadership decisions. If Dirby didn’t want to follow, that was on him. She really didn’t care about much other than getting Lindsay to a hospital and finding her kids.

  Creeping forward, she raised the tire iron over her head. She wasn’t worried about the big ones; the area was clear except for buildings, and there weren’t a lot of places to hide in this concrete jungle. No, it was the little ones, like the one that had bitten Lindsay. Their immune system was not used to these animals. A touch, let alone a bite, could lead to disaster. Hell, Lindsay’s arm could fall off, or she could die just from the saliva breaking the skin.

  The back half of the bus was flattened, and the top was ripped off. Blood spattered the windshield and Maggie gulped. It was clear what had happened here. The T-Rex had used a back leg to flatten the bus, then ripped it open and had gorged.

  A cold sweat erupted between her shoulder blades. The silence was deafening. It had been a full hour since the blast, and the noises from the center of Saskatoon had gradually faded to nothing.

  One thing was sure, shit had hit the fan all over the city. Maggie wrenched the door of the bus open, twisted metal grinding. She flinched at the noise and sent a worried look over her shoulder. Trudy was keeping watch, and she gave a thumbs up. So far, nothing had heard the noise and come to investigate.

  Maggie squeezed through the doorway into the bus. Nothing but the splash of blood in the driver’s seat remained. Breathing a sigh of relief, she lowered the tire iron.

  “Good,” she called, and she continued looking through the bus. A couple backpacks lay abandoned, and Maggie took them.

  Apple AirPods. Useless. A new Mac computer. Useless. A smart watch. Useless.

  All the things that were once coveted and signs of wealth. Useless. Hell, Mason had even said once that he needed wireless headphones.

  Her heart ached at the thought of her son, but she didn’t have time to dwell. The door screeched as Dirby squeezed his way inside, followed closely by Trudy and Lindsay. Ginny, the largest of the group, had some troubl
e and it took Dirby and Trudy pulling on the door and her hand to pull her through.

  “Nice digs,” Dirby said, sitting on the ground beside Maggie.

  “Then leave,” Maggie snapped. “No one said you had to stick with us.”

  “Woah. It was a joke. Don’t get your panties in a twist.”

  “Well, I’m tired of your fucking attitude.”

  “My attitude?” Dirby rose and his voice rose with it. “You’re tired of my fucking attitude? You sent the fucking city back to the stone ages! And, in case you haven’t noticed, there’s fucking dinosaurs, Knight. Dinosaurs. When I got out of bed this morning, I didn’t think I’d have to deal with T-Rex pissed soaked shoes.”

  He was yelling, and Maggie let him. The other women turned away awkwardly, refusing to look at him as he lost his cool.

  “And, in case you haven’t fucking thought of it, there’s probably no way back, is there?” He looked at her desperately. “Is there?”

  “Not that I can see,” Maggie said, bluntly. “At least not how we got here. There’s no way of generating enough power to run the collider, even if we fixed it after the-”

  Maggie stopped, not wanting to bring up Theo or the distinctive crunch his body had made under the foot of the giant, stampeding dinosaur.

  “Yeah,” Dirby said. “Yeah. That’s what I fucking thought.” He sat down in a huff and hung his head.

  Maggie felt bad for him. Dirby didn’t have anyone in the city. At least Maggie had the thoughts of saving her kids to keep her mind occupied from the worries that Dirby had just voiced.

  “Listen,” Trudy blurted.

  Maggie listened. A huff and some large footsteps sounded outside the bus, and all of them dropped to the ground. Lindsay looked at her fearfully, and Ginny sobbed into the metal floor.

  The huff sounded again, and Maggie pinpointed it as closer to the ground than the T-Rex. Slowly she raised herself from the floor of the bus and crept, bent over to the window.

  “Ankylosaurus,” Trudy said from beside her, making Maggie jump in surprise. “Herbivore.”

  The large armoured dinosaur lumbered by beside the bus, giant clubbed tail swishing through the air as it walked.

  “Wow,” Maggie said. From the vantage point and perceived safety, the beauty of the dinosaur struck her. This was something that no human had ever seen before. A giant, only ever seen in fossilized form and as CGI in movies. It roared, and they both jumped. Another Ankylosaurus lumbered behind it, this one smaller. It voiced its response. Suddenly the bus was surrounded by the low riding armoured dinosaurs, and Maggie couldn’t help but watch them as they moved.

  Once the herd of about ten had passed the bus, Maggie and Trudy crept back to the center of the bus floor. Lindsay was asleep, cold sweat on her brow, head in Ginny’s lap. Ginny was caressing her hair, not unlike what Maggie would do when Kennedy was sick.

  “She’s fevered,” Ginny whispered.

  “Let’s look,” Maggie said.

  Together, they unwrapped her bitten arm. Trudy gasped and recoiled. Ginny sobbed and closed her eyes.

  The bite was red and inflamed. So much so that Lindsay’s forearm was twice the size. Blue veins spidered from the bit itself and made their way up to her elbow.

  “What do we do?” Ginny gasped.

  “She needs a hospital,” Maggie said. “I have found no antibiotics. And I don’t want to-” She stopped herself. They would cross that bridge when they came to it, if it was needed.

  “What?” Dirby asked. “You don’t want to what?”

  “Nothing,” Maggie said. She quickly wrapped Lindsay’s arm in the ripped piece of fabric again. Lindsay groaned.

  “Shh shh shh,” Ginny hushed, stroking her hair.

  Maggie retreated to sit by Trudy.

  “You’re no ordinary preschool teacher,” Maggie said, hoping the conversation would distract her from what she knew she’d inevitably have to do.

  Trudy shrugged. “I have an autistic boy in my class. Loves dinosaurs. Doesn’t speak but will listen to me talk about dinos for hours. So, I go at night and research one for the next day. Helps.”

  “Well, I’m glad I met you, Trudy, the preschool teacher.”

  Trudy smiled back. “You know we can’t wait to do it, right? The longer we wait, the more chance that the poison will spread.”

  “RUH is only a few kilometers away,” Maggie said, referring to the hospital. “I’m hoping it can wait.”

  “She won’t make it.”

  “She’s a fighter. I know she will.”

  Trudy shrugged again. “Your student, so your decision. Life over limb, isn’t that what they say?”

  Maggie stopped and digested, knowing that the longer she waited the worse it would be for everyone. But she wasn’t John. She didn’t work in a hospital in the emergency room. She didn’t see the things he’d seen. She missed her husband, her heart aching for his calm demeanour and how steadfast he was.

  Maggie sighed.

  “Let’s wait, see how long she makes it. It has to be up to her.”

  Trudy didn’t answer, but her words echoed in Maggie’s head.

  Life over limb.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  John

  “I am telling you to go upstairs and physically find Dr. Gardner and drag his ass down here.”

  John spoke slowly and clearly, trying to keep the “pissed off” out of his voice.

  “You don’t have to be an asshole, John,” Abby snapped back. “I told you, I saw him leave for lunch an hour ago. And as the phones are down, there are no pagers.”

  John had never wanted to hit a woman so much in his life. He shoved his hands in his pockets in case he wanted to try.

  “Abby. I need you to listen to me,” he was trying to keep his voice low, so the rest of the emergency room couldn’t hear. He wasn’t succeeding and Jimmy, the homeless man, leaned forward in his chair, strangely sober eyes catching every word. John noticed and pulled Abby farther into the glass-encased triage room. When he thought they were far enough away, he continued, “You need to find someone, anyone, to fix Becky’s legs. And you need to do it fast. You know as well as I do that there are no pulses in her feet.” He looked at her soberly, “She will lose her legs, Abby. And there’s fucking dinosaurs running around.” He gestured to the dead Pterodactyl in the middle of the emergency room. Hell, it completely filled it, leaving people to awkwardly walk around it and try not to notice it. “If Becky loses her legs, odds are she’s going to die of sepsis. And I will not allow her to die because she saved us.”

  Abby paled and nodded. The woman was young and naïve. She had not thought of anything past “there’s a fucking dinosaur in the emergency room.”

  That’s fine. John could do the thinking.

  “Okay. Yes. Okay. I’ll head up there and see if there’s a resident or something.” Abby hurried in the elevator's direction.

  “Abby,” John said, trying not to snap, “Take the stairs. We don’t know how long the generators are going to last. And the last thing we need is you getting stuck in the elevator.”

  Abby nodded gravely and took off, trying not to run.

  “John,” Hannah said, coming in from the trauma rooms, “We need you.” She looked at the medic, “You too, Chad.”

  They nodded and took off after her.

  “What are we supposed to do?” Someone yelled after them from the waiting room.

  John didn’t listen. They walked through the trauma doors and into Trauma 2, where Becky lay on a hospital bed.

  “What’s up?” John asked, rushing to her side.

  “Her pedal pulses haven’t returned,” Hannah answered, “And it’s been half an hour. Her left foot is going cold.”

  John went to the foot of the bed. Becky was lying in a cold sweat, still high, but John could tell the morphine was wearing off. The dressing wrapped around her left leg had blood seeping through it where the point of the bone stuck out. The right leg still looked flat, making John’s
stomach lurch. Which hadn’t happened in a lot of years.

  Becky was going to lose that leg unless they found a surgeon fast. Abby needed to hurry her ass up.

  John touched the tops of her feet. They were cold and try as he might, he could not find a pulse in either foot. Becky groaned and tried to pull away from his touch. “Can you give her five more?” John asked Chad. Chad nodded and pulled a newly filled syringe from his breast pocket, then busied himself with the IV in her arm. He was prepared and even-tempered, something John was coming to appreciate.

  “Let’s talk outside,” John said to the room. The morphine in, Becky relaxed again into the bed.

  “What do you think?” Hannah asked.

  “I sent Abby to find Gardner, but I’m not sure how much longer she can last.”

  “We can try to set the left one,” Chad said. “Use some traction. It might return the pulse.”

  John thought about it. “What happens if it doesn’t?”

  Chad shrugged his shoulders. “She’s going to lose the right one either way,” he said, “We might as well give her the chance to save the left one.”

  John’s stomach lurched again. “The only reason she’s in this mess is because she was the only one smart enough to go after the Pterodactyl with meds. The rest of us were scrambling around like fucking idiots.”

  “I know,” Hannah said, placing an arm gently on John’s arm, “But being mad at ourselves will not change that.”

  “Let’s set the left,” John said, ignoring his boss. “And hopefully Abby hurries up with Gardner.”

  “You sure?” Chad asked. “I’ve never done it.”

  “Me neither.”

  “I have seen it done once,” Hannah said. “Back in the day.”

  “Just like school teaches us?”

  “Pull at the heel,” Hannah said. “We should dope her up first though. It’s going to hurt.”

  “We need her to be conscious though,” John answered. “In case we need to leave the hospital in a hurry.”