Extinction

by Mark Leney

  “How long were we knocked out for?” Captain Franklin wondered.

  Angelica glanced at her watch to see if she could ascertain the time, but the digital read-out was flashing erratically. A by product of the Time Window’s overload perhaps?

  “I don’t know.” She replied.

  No one was able to provide an answer.

  Everyone was on their feet now. The General took out his cell-phone in order to call someone from the base above, but the screen of the phone was blank; another casualty of the blow out. He reached for the wall phone, but that too was dead.

  “It looks like we’re going to have to make our way back to the surface to find out.” The Prime Minister stated matter of factly.

  “That’s assuming the lifts are still working.” Captain Franklin pointed out.

  “Well there’s only one way to find out.” The General said, taking charge as he was so used to doing in any situation. He crossed to the lab doors and exited towards the lifts.

  The lift had already been summoned and was stood open waiting for them by the time the others joined him. They all stepped in. The doors slid shut and the lift began to rise.

  “We can’t have been out for more than a few minutes surely?” the Prime Minister attempted to reassure them as the lift ascended, but as they neared the top a growing sense of unease became ever more palpable.

  The lift pinged. The doors slid open.

  An empty corridor greeted them. Not unusual in itself. There was no reason why anybody should be walking along this corridor at this time. What was unusual was that the overhead light was being cast by the dim, twilight glow of the emergency lighting, not the main fluorescents.

  There was a low, distant rumbling noise that came from somewhere outside.

  “That sounded like thunder.” The Prime Minister remarked.

  “Nonsense. That was nothing like thunder.” The General rebuked him, heedless of the rank of whom he addressed. “Sounded more like some great big animal to me. Like an elephant or something.”

  “An elephant!” the Prime Minister sounded dubious.

  “Or something.” The General nodded.

  “Well we aren’t going to know one way or the other if we stand here talking about it.” Angelica observed with a degree of patience that she wasn’t sure she felt.

  “Quite right, Doctor Ottoman. I’ll lead the way.” General Courtney smiled and continued down the corridor.

  As they made their way through the military base they saw no other signs of life. It was as if the whole base had been abandoned by all personnel or had been wiped out in some mysterious attack, yet there were no signs of any violence. No blood, no bodies.

  It was Captain Franklin that noticed the clock on the wall, still ticking away. According to the hands it was five minutes to twelve, but whether that was midday or midnight they could not tell. They had not seen any windows yet.

  Then finally they came to the entrance hallway and the sunlight flooding in through the windows on the doors told them at least that it was midday. There were still no signs of any other human beings, but the thundering, bellowing noise was closer now. In fact it sounded like it was originating from just outside.

  “Ready to meet your elephants, General?” the Prime Minister teased.

  “Where is everybody?” Captain Franklin wondered.

  “Outside perhaps?” Angelica replied.

  They all crossed to the doors and ventured out into the sunshine to see what they would see.

  What once had been a top secret military base surrounded by one of the few large forests remaining in England was now crawling with large, placid duck-billed hadrosaurs. The same parasaurolophuses that they had seen through the Time Window were now wandering the grounds of the base. They weren’t being allowed to roam around just any where though. Teams of soldiers in army jeeps were herding the dinosaurs towards an outer gate which led out into the forest where many of the hadrosaurs were already enjoying the leafy goodness of the surrounding trees.

  The General and the others stood open mouthed in disbelief at the spectacle before them.

  “How can this be possible?” the Prime Minister had stepped back to the main building and was leaning against the wall to brace his suddenly weak knees.

  “The Time Window couldn’t have done all this! Could it?” Angelica was disbelieving.

  One of the soldiers from one of the jeeps, a sergeant, spotted the newcomers. He ordered his driver to pull over so that he could get out, then he made his way over to them.

  “Sergeant Levene, what on Earth has been happening here?” Captain Franklin demanded.

  “Begging your pardon, sir, but I would’ve thought that was bleeding obvious. Yesterday in the early hours of the morning these dinosaur things just appeared from nowhere. We’ve been rounding them all up ever since.” The Sergeant replied.

  “Yesterday morning? You mean to say we’ve all been unconscious for over twenty four hours?” the General was astonished.

  “I don’t know about that, sir. If you say so. We’ve had our hands full up here you see. Lieutenant Bryant has been in charge ever since it first happened. It’s happened all over the country so reports say. All over the entire world even.” The Sergeant told them.

  “But that’s impossible.” Angelica gasped.

  “If you say so, ma’am. Just telling you what I’ve heard.”

  It was then that a terrifying roar split the air.

  Everyone turned towards where it had came from and saw a large bipedal reptile with a huge head; its mouth filled with dagger like teeth and small arms at its chest each bearing two fingers. The tyrannosaurus rex burst forth from the undergrowth and lunged ravenously towards the parasaurolophuses which panicked upon seeing the large predator striding towards them on its long powerful hind legs.

  One of the jeeps pulled up and one of the soldiers reached into the back of the vehicle.

  The other soldier next to him stood up and raised his assault rifle to his shoulder, snapping off three short bursts into the Rex’s sinuous neck as it prepared to ensnare one of the hadrosaurs within its jaws. The bullets did little damage to the large reptile but served to divert the dinosaur’s attention away from the other dinosaurs and towards the jeep. It began to thunder towards them. The other soldier had finished rummaging in the back of the jeep. He came up with a missile launcher which he placed to his shoulder and took aim at the approaching predator. The muzzle of the weapon flashed and a missile streaked out of it and struck the T-Rex dead centre in its mouth as it was in mid roar. Its head exploded in an eruption of blood, brains and bone. For a moment the T-Rex teetered on its hind legs before toppling over with crash that shook the ground.

  Sergeant Levene turned to face the others who had watched the ensuing drama with a mixture of horror and amazement.

  “That’s the second one of them we’ve had since yesterday.” The Sergeant grinned.

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Once breakfast was finished and the votes had been counted it was agreed that they would stay in the city. Even those who had been in favour of leaving didn’t take too much persuading when everything had been taken into consideration. Since the dinosaur phenomenon was global there was no where really that would be safer than where they already were. So stay they did. Now all they needed to agree on was what to do next. This is what was currently under discussion in the lounge.

  “I want my mum to have a proper burial. I’m not leaving her out there for those dinosaurs to eat.” Penny was saying. She was sat next to Michael who was holding her hand reassuringly.

  “They may already have eaten her.” Rav replied unhelpfully.

  “We’ve got to try!” Penny riled at him, her anger rising.

  “Don’t you think I’d want that for Meera too? I’m just trying to be a realist here.” Rav tried to placate her.

  “I don’t want my mum to be eaten by the dinosaurs either.” Peter’s little voice piped up.

  Everyone was silent. Pete
r didn’t talk very much so when he did he tended to be listened to.

  Inevitably it was Sean that broke the silence. “We’ve got to go back out there sooner or later. Can anyone else think of a better reason?”

  No one could.

  Everyone was ready to leave within the hour. Aisha was staying behind with Rav and Peter, but other than that they were all going. Even Russell had shown willing and volunteered his help.

  “Perhaps I’ll see myself a dinosaur!” he had enthused.

  “Trust me. They’re over rated!” Roger had replied.

  Michael, Penny and Russell had climbed into the front of the ambulance. It had been agreed that the ambulance was the best vehicle for transporting the bodies once they had been recovered.

  Sean approached the driver side where Michael sat and the young man wound down the window so they could talk.

  “You, Roger and Katrina gonna ride in the back?” Michael asked.

  Sean shook his head. “We’re not coming with you. I’ve got an idea I want to try out which might help to keep any unwanted dino attention away from the hotel.”

  “Sounds interesting.” Said Roger as he sidled up to them.

  “Remember that big dinosaur that chased us from Oxford Circus? The one that chomped the T-Rex?” Sean said.

  “Peter said it was called a spinosaurus.” Roger nodded.

  “That’s the one.” Sean smiled remembering the young boy’s enthusiastic ramblings from the day before.

  “What’s the plan? Please don’t tell me you’re gonna try and catch one and tame it to be an oversized guard dog?” Michael smirked.

  “No, you dick-head, I’m gonna get me some spinosaurus shit.” Sean chuckled.

  “Say what now?” Roger was puzzled, but Michael was nodding appreciatively.

  “Good plan. That T-Rex stopped chasing us when we entered the spinosaurus’s territory. One whiff of the shit from that thing smeared about outside the hotel should keep other dinosaurs away from us.”

  “Exactly!” Sean agreed, pleased that his plan had been approved.

  “One problem. How on Earth are you planning on getting it?” Roger pointed out.

  “Haven’t quite figured that one out yet, but we’ll figure something out.” Sean assured him.

  “Good luck, and be careful.” Michael told them.

  “You too, man.” Sean replied, he held out his fist towards Michael who stuck his arm out of the window and touched his knuckles against Sean’s.

  A few moments later they were watching the ambulance drive away.

  Sean, Roger and Katrina piled into the people carrier and went their own way.

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  At the army base the herding of the parasaurolophuses had been completed. The placid duck-billed dinosaurs were now inhabiting the woods outside the grounds of the base and the gates had been resealed to keep them out. Not that any of them seemed particularly intent upon returning. If they had wanted to get in, the gate would not have withstood very long against a determined assault. That was where the problem lay. The hadrosaurs might not want to gain entrance to the base, but another tyrannosaurus rex might have different ideas.

  This was the dilemma that Captain Franklin had just put to the General.

  “Nonsense, Captain. Why would one of those things want to get in here?” General Courtney could not help smirking at the very idea of it. All in all he had taken the startling revelation that the world was now populated with dinosaurs in his stride and was proud of how his men had also quickly adapted to the new, if somewhat bizarre, situation.

  “Well, I rather thought they might want to eat us, sir.” The captain told him.

  “Why on Earth would it want to trouble itself with a few mouthfuls such as ourselves when there is now a veritable banquet of dinosaur flesh plodding about out there for it to tear into at its leisure? Besides if another one of those monsters does show up we’ll just feed it the business end of an RPG like we did with the last one.” The General assured him.

  “If you don’t mind, sir, I’ll post a couple of guards on the main gate anyway. Just in case. Armed with the RPG and a reasonable supply of ammunition for it too, if you don’t mind?” Franklin replied.

  “Go right ahead. In the meantime I think we need to get Doctor Ottoman working on her machine to see what she can do about sending these things back where they came from.”

  “Do you think that’s possible, sir?” Franklin asked him doubtfully. He had seen the extent of the damage to the Time Window and he wasn’t sure that there was anything that could be done. Granted he was no scientist and maybe he was wrong; the machine had been pretty much in tact, but all of that smoke pouring out of it could not have been a good sign.

  “Won’t know unless she tries will we, Franklin.” The General replied and then he was off in search of the doctor.

  He found her standing at one of the perimeter fences, made from six meter high steel wire mesh, it was more designed to keep out people than dinosaurs and even a determined person armed with a pair of strong pliers wouldn’t have had too much trouble. For a moment the General wondered whether he should also have guards posted on each perimeter fence, armed with the RPGs. There were four RPGs in the armoury and four perimeters to cover. It could be done, after all the perimeter with the gate was already being covered. The General thought about it, but quickly dismissed the idea. If a dinosaur was to try to break through one of the fences there would be ample time to bring up the RPG team to the desired area in order to deal with the threat. They would be just fine.

  Angelica was standing there with the General’s grandson. They were looking out in awe at the parasaurolophuses as they fed upon the greenery outside.

  “Ah there you are, Doctor! Fascinating creatures aren’t they.” The last part of his greeting was more of a statement than a question.

  “I think they’re wicked!” young Sammy proclaimed to his grandfather enthusiastically.

  “I bet when I told you that you’d get to see a real dinosaur, you didn’t think it would be this close did you?” the General smiled warmly, ruffling his fingers through the boy’s hair. “Fascinating though they are, my boy, the poor creatures don’t belong here, so the doctor and I need to find some way of sending them all back where they came from.”

  The General looked at Angelica. “Do you think that you will be able to repair that machine of yours?”

  Angelica shook her head. “I’m not sure, General. I’ll have to take a look at it; see how badly it was damaged. Even if it can be fixed it’s going to take a while.”

  “Any chance that you can start now?” the General hinted good-naturedly.

  Angelica smiled and raised her hand to her head in a mock salute.

  “Right away, sir!”

  The General chuckled and watched as she started off back to the main building where her underground laboratory lay hidden. Once she was gone he turned back to his grandson.

  As he looked out into the surrounding forest he saw the tyrannosaurus rex step stealthily from the undergrowth and start towards the fence… coming straight for him and his grandson!

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  They had arrived too late. When Michael, Penny and Russell had reached the helicopter crash site the scavengers were already there. There were two deinonychuses fighting over the remains of the soldier while the carcass of the pteranodon was being feasted upon by more of the same and also a new species that Penny and Michael had not previously encountered. These dinosaurs were tall, gangly looking bipeds. Everything about them was long; the legs, arms, tail and neck… the overall impression was of a reptilian ostrich.

  This was ornithomimus. They were using their sharp teeth to tear strips of flesh from the pteranodon’s corpse. So far none of them had taken any notice of the helicopter wreckage which contained the other human bodies, including Penny’s and Peter’s mothers and Rav’s wife, but it was only a matter of time.

  “Michael, we’ve got to do something! Scare th
em away somehow.” Penny fretted.

  Russell was just staring open mouthed at the small dinosaurs ripping hungrily into the dead flesh.

  “I’ll never eat meat again!” he vowed.

  Michael sat there for a moment thinking about his options. He put the ambulance in gear and was about to try scaring the scavengers with the vehicle itself when a dark shadow fell over the macabre seen before them. The three companions looked up to see what could cast such a large shadow.

  Michael had one word for what he saw. “Shit!”

  The creature bearing down on the carnage before them looked to be a giant-sized cousin of the pteranodons that they had already encountered. The span of its bat-like wings was nearly twelve meters and with its long neck and long javelin of a beak it resembled a bizarre cross between a giraffe and a bird. This was the ruler of the Cretacean skies, the hatzegopteryx. As it fell upon the scene of death and destruction that had been wrought by its smaller cousin the previous day, the other scavenging dinosaurs that had gathered scattered in its wake and fled.

  Well, thought Michael, that takes care of them, now what the bloody hell do we do about that thing?

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  Sean pulled up the people carrier just on the outskirts of Oxford Circus where the spinosaur’s territory began. “This is where you encountered the big dinosaur?” Katrina asked apprehensively.

  Sean nodded. “We go in on foot. If possible we want to get in, grab the dinosaur shit and get out again without the spinosaurus actually seeing us.”

  “And what exactly are we gonna use to transport this dinosaur shit when we get it?” Roger wondered.

  Sean looked sheepish. “I haven’t quite worked that bit out yet. I guess we’ll wipe that arse when we get to it.”