by catt dahman
“Eat as many as you can for protein,” Susan said. She shared the few little fruit, similar to apples, that she found, but they were smaller and more tart with an almost melon-type flavor. “I have never seen these before and don’t know them, but they are fine and taste good. I wonder what they are?”
“Good stuff,” Ruby said, biting into one. The juice was light and fresh like a pear, but melon-like as well, “Maybe they are extinct? Which begs us to wonder what SSDD used to bring things back and how they did it.”
“Like I have been saying, SSDD scientists are crazy smart, and I think they did some weird things that, if we knew about them, would make us more terrified. It’s creepy,” Lawryn said.
“I agree, Lawryn. They did do some strange things, I think,” Jeremy said.
“We’ll pick more when it’s light and carry them with us. Fruit and nuts are very good for the trail for energy.”
Jeremy chuckled, “Susan, I could make a survivalist out of you.”
“Have at it,” she smiled back, “I think SSDD got into some strange things.”
“Hello, camp,” a voice called out.
Anthony and Preston came back with two men. One was Skate, and the other was Trevor. Both looked healthy and enthusiastic but tired. They were the only ones left of their team. Trevor’s eyes were smudged with purple, and he seemed faintly sad and stressed almost past his limit. He nodded and raised a hand to greet everyone, shook hands, and repeated names to learn them.
No one knew either of them but made the men feel welcome.
Trevor and Jack talked about their LAWS and how handy they were.
They ate: barbecued chicken; black beans and potatoes, which tasted spicy and rich; and pasta with re-hydrated mushrooms, zucchini, and black olives covered in marinara sauce. Combining a few packets, they also made a thick stew of lentils, pinto beans, ham, and brown rice. It all tasted good; they were hungry.
When the yellow team came over, following Anthony and Preston, the team shared a large shank of a hadrosaur they had shot and carved. It smelled appetizing while it cooked, and it was tasty; Jeremy said it tasted like frog legs or chicken, and it added more protein. It
“Everything tastes like chicken,” Ruby said.
“When I turned sixteen many years ago, my parents had a party for me. My mama and dad, granny, and my little sister, and I had dinner from a shop where the cook wrapped a burger in paper, and I told them what I wanted on it? And we each had a serving of French fries. And we had a cola. Each of us. It was so good, and Mama told us that back in her day, people always got burgers and fries, and they were pretty cheap. It was normal for everyone to eat that once a week or more,” Lawryn spoke, “Each burger was wrapped in paper…like a gift. Well, I loved it and I loved watching my family eat, and my little sister was crazy for the French fries.”
“That was a great party, huh?” Ruby said.
“I can’t imagine how expensive it was for five burgers and five papers of fries and five sodas. I guess it was well over a hundred dollars, and I’ll never forget that. This is good food, to me; it’s really good, but that one time was the very best.”
As they worked, Susan made pouches for breakfast: bananas, pineapple, papaya, and raisins with maple oatmeal, and then they would have left over hadrosaur, a little sausage and dumplings, orange drink, and instant coffee. She shrugged, “I don’t eat this well at home. Potatoes and beans, always. Fruit, I have never been able to enjoy fruit like we have out here.”
“Work, television. Rinse. Repeat. Eat what we can. Sometimes, I kind of appreciate life out here more,” Jack said. “I never eat like this…all this and the fruit and nuts…fresh meat…even if it is dino….”
“I like it a lot more here,” Jeremy agreed.
“Except for people dying around me,” Trevor explained how they lost four members of their team.
“That’s rough. We lost a lot, too,” Mali said, “They are all just…gone.”
“I’m a favorite to win,” Skate announced.
“Was that before or after your team was slaughtered?” Jack asked, “Sorry, Trevor. I meant that just to him for bragging.”
“I know,” Trevor tried to stop wincing.
“It only takes me crossing the line to win,” Skate said, “I love it out here. This is the ultimate. The rest of the shows are things we know…they are like...our world, yanno. This is the unknown and new. Old. Ha ha, it’s both.”
Everyone looked at Skate, wondering how he could be this foolish.
“We could join forces,” Trevor offered. He was fit and well outfitted, and he told them he was former military, “I want to make it out alive; I have eight children who need me.”
“Okay,” Marcus said, “maybe we can.”
“We can, but all of you have to keep up with me,” Skate bragged. “That sucks you removed your cameras ‘cause I need my air time to keep me on top. I’m boss for ratings, you know. I‘m the bomb.”
“Are you serious?” asked Ruby with disgust, “Seriously, what is wrong with you? I will be shocked if even three people want you to win after this.”
“You’re an ass,” Mali said to Skate, “you suck worse than Preston.”
“And you’re a mongrel gang banger. Who do you think the audience prefers? You wanna side with the winners. She’s a whiner,” Skate pointed to Susan. “And you have lesbos and the colored people,” he pointed to Marcus. “Bib Nose Jimmy probably tripped over his nose and fell into the dinos’ eating space and became the main course. Ha! I’m a white skater, and people like me. I have fans.”
“Hey….” Jack frowned, glancing at Marcus with an apology in his eyes.
“Are you drunk?” Ruby asked.
“Nope. Are you? Got anything? Got some weed? I want some…craving it.”
“He’s always this way,” Trevor said, “chill, skate.”
“Oh, they know I am the favorite.”
“Hardly,” Lawryn said.
“You want me, don’t you?” Skate asked Ruby. “What about you, Trailer Trash? You want me? Eh, Mali wants me. She wants what I got.” He leered at Lawryn.
Lawryn held Mali back and watched Ruby.
Mali glared, “You are like Preston…perverts.”
“You watch yourself, or I’ll cut your throat, asshole. Don’t underestimate my anger. You come near me, and you’re one dead asshole, got it?” Ruby warned him, barely able to keep herself from going around the fire and slapping Skate. He gobbled his food while he talked with his mouth open, “Know this: I am going to survive and win this. You can be dino food for all I care.”
Jack went over and pulled Ruby to her feet, “Let’s walk it off.” He took her arm and walked with her, ready to punch Skate if the man said another word. He felt a tide of pure rage.
The show’s rating went up several notches.
Chapter Nine: Yellow Team
Tonight, the cameras showed the yellow team, something the fans had been waiting for. The leader was Trevor, a former military man who was level headed and brave to the point of putting himself in danger for others. He shouldered some of the weight to give the women less bulk to contend with. He did what he could to keep himself and his team alive, and he offered ideas and theories when asked, but other than that, he was quiet about his personal life.
Skate often mugged for the camera and constantly reminded everyone that he was a favorite and in the best shape of everyone. Out of his hearing, the rest made jokes about him and his endless supply of duct tape. He often grabbed his crotch when he spoke to the women, mistakenly believing this endeared him to females; he lost fans for his antics.
Far to the east of the other teams, the yellow team crept into a shallow forest of very tall, unusual trees interspersed with large pine trees and palms. The air was cool, and the atmosphere was quiet except for the whine of insects. Tina remarked on the solitude of the area, saying it was pleasant to be out of the sun a while; she was hopeful they would find water farther on since they would need it in
a few hours.
Trevor didn’t hear anything unusual or see anything, but a niggling twitch bothered him at his nape. Something felt wrong, but he couldn’t sense what it might be other than niggling anxiety.
He followed Kwan, the one on point, who was watching the forest and looking down at the man’s footprints. Nothing stood out, and each grouping of trees was like the next. They walked along the plain ground, leaving footprints behind. Trevor paused, “Hold up.”
“What?” Sophia asked.
Trevor didn’t know what made him stop and look around. He stared again at Kwan’s footprints in the sandy, bare soil. Kwan had sneakers that were wearing thin already.
“Gnats. I’m about out of repellent, too,” Skate complained, slapping at clouds of insects that buzzed his face.
“Foot prints,” Trevor said.
“So?” Skate asked irritably.
“Why? Look around us. Bare soil. Look.” He pointed and looked as well. Under the trees where sunlight hardly reached, the earth was barren of grass, bushes, or any other vegetation. Strangely, that wasn’t all. There was nothing but bare ground.
“Vegasaurs ate it all,” Tina said. “It was the plantasaurus types.”
“All? That doesn’t make sense. In every ecosystem, there becomes a balance, right? I mean if there were enough plant eaters to literally eat the place bare, then there would be meat eaters to eat them. Only humans screw up the environment this much. I think there would be a balance.”
“Seriously? An environmental nut?” Skate scoffed.
“No. I just think this feels wrong.”
“It feels better. I am hot and thirsty,” Harper said.
“We need to leave this place.”
Skate ignored Trevor and walked on. In seconds, the smell of decay surrounded them, seeming to come from all directions at once. Kwan stepped over to a particularly large dirt pile and found that it wasn’t dirt, but the remains of something that resembled a triceratops without the horns and fancy frill. It was ripped almost totally apart and left to rot, most of the bones gone. Flesh puddled into the soil.
Skate tossed a pebble at the carcass, causing maggots and flies to boil and part, deflated as a cloud of gas rose, nauseating the contestants. Like a child enjoying causing mischief, Skate grinned, but no one appreciated the stench at a time when they needed to be quiet, retching loudly could be dangerous and alert predators to their presence.
Kwan shrugged anxiously and readied his cans of pepper spray.
Trevor found another carcass, minus most of the bones and similar to the other creature behind some close-set trees; it was a fresher kill. Tina pointed out another up ahead that was even fresher.
“Move quietly, and let’s get out of here: head north and west out of the trees. There’s no underbrush, so we’ll have it easy.”
“There’s another, Trevor,” Stephanie said, “Trevor was right. The plantasaurs are dead and rotting.”
“There were so many that the meat eaters got their fill and didn’t finish them,” Trevor said. “There’s a pack hunting here. There are probably dozens of rotting bodies.”
“What was that?” Tina asked. She wasn’t sure she saw anything move, but something was slightly different, and her brain tried to make sense of what her eyes saw.
“Huh?”
Trevor ignored Skate and looked at Kwan who shrugged again. They looked where Tina pointed and saw nothing except the trees with dark, pebbled-textured bark in perfect rings around each tree. Slick trees, bumpy trees, and gnarled trees with age grew in the present and wasn’t right for the time of the dinosaurs. A slight movement to his left made Trevor turn, but when he looked straight at the spot, nothing was there at all.
“When we look directly at something, we do not see the totality,” Kwan said. “My grandmother always said that.”
Trevor turned away and watched the woods peripherally.
There was movement again, more to his right, “Okay, turn around, and we’re going back the way we came. Something is hiding in the trees.”
“They can’t be,” Harper argued as she stared at the ground at her eye level and below, “there’s nothing.”
Kwan turned and drew in a deep breath.
A megalosaur stepped out. It towered above the humans, looked to be thirty feet long, weighed two tons, and was one of the best well-structured dinosaurs of all. It had sturdy but graceful back legs, medium-long forelegs, and sharp barbs on each foot and hand. Sleek and muscular, it was streamlined with a bony ridge down its back for protection.
It, like the rest of the pack, was well hidden and camouflaged perfectly because its skin was mottled and pebbled in shades of brown and striped, so among the trees, it was invisible. The large head was more balanced against his body than that of the T-Rex and was built to be a perfect predator.
Had the contestants had time to examine the mouth, they would have found its teeth were less serrated than the teeth of other dinosaurs, but its teeth were sharper, spike-like, and more plentiful in a long jaw. Instead of roaring, it made a growl-purr noise that was far worse as others joined in. It was a sneaky, rumbling noise. All around, the vibrating sound filled the air; there had to be at least a half dozen more hidden.
“Ideas?” Skate asked.
“You tackle them all since you’re the favorite to win,” Harper snapped. She had no idea of what to do.
“We run and head for the rocks we saw back there or climb the trees we found. Fight back, and go for the nose, like a shark, I think,” Trevor said.
“Move,” Kwan said.
They took off at a run; Kwan stopped in front the megalosaur and sprayed it with his pepper spray. The scene was almost comical. The squealing creature raised his head and shook it violently. Kwan was as shocked as anyone to see the pepper spray had actually worked. The reaction from the creature was all they needed to get by the beast, turn, and run back along the trail they had used coming into the forest.
One of the other megalosaurs leaped as Stephanie fell, and he planted a clawed foot on her back. Kwan and Trevor paused a second and then ran for their lives. There was no saving their teammate; they could only hope for a quick ending for her; in fact, there was no way to save her now that the best had her pinned with a large foot. She screamed for help and used her fingers to dig into the soil.
With glee, the animal used his other foot to rake her back and legs. He ripped her hair and scalp away so her skull showed dull white; it sounded just like when Skate tore a section of duct tape from his roll. She screamed wildly as he tore away clothing from her back and rump, raking its filthy claws down her skin and leaving deep gashes in her pale skin. Blood washed her in bright red, but not a good thing, since the color indicated bleeding from a vein as opposed to deep red that would mean an artery and a quicker death.
The rest heard her screaming as they ran, and while the sight was horrible, the sounds made them desperately run faster.
Trevor pulled ahead, grabbed one of the LAWS he had, aimed, and fired at the lead megalosaur. A ragged hole appeared in the middle of the stripe on the dinosaur’s chest; he froze, looked flummoxed, and fell with a two-ton thud. Trevor was as shocked as the dinosaur.
“Gotcha, son of a bitch,” Trevor yelled. He aimed for the next one, and it darted, still running toward the fleeing humans. Trevor cursed angrily as he missed and furiously threw the second LAW.
Sophia ducked behind a tree. Kwan and Trevor yelled for her to keep running, but she leaned against the rough bark and gasped for breath, shaking her head; she was out of breath and terrified. She had never panicked this way before, but her legs were as weak as jelly, and she hardly stayed upright. Kwan met Trevor’s eyes, and while Trevor shook his head, knowing it was a deadly choice and likely to be the cause of his death, he ran to Sophia to pull at her arms, saying she had to keep going.
Kwan and Sophia stared at the two megalosaurs, which cornered them, making the growl-purr noise as they eyed one another. Kwan closed his eyes. “I wasn’t
finished,” he muttered. He wondered what had made him try to play hero and why he hadn’t stopped himself from doing something so foolish.
Trevor, Harper, Tina, and Skate kept running, but when they glanced back, they saw a pair of megalosaurs tugging at one and then the other of their teammates, ripping and shredding. Sophia and Kwan were like rag dolls that spurted and dripped blood and then revealed grey-pink coils of intestines that the beasts nipped at. Their teeth were so sharp that death was fast; both bled out in minutes. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as fast for the pair, so their screams matched those of Stephanie.
When one of the other creatures tried to snap up Skate, the man slammed his knife into its eye, getting lucky. The megalosaur whined and squealed as it tossed its head, lost footing, and went down. Skate grinned madly, feeling he was satisfying his fans. Before the dinosaur could get up, Skate and Tina jumped on top of the animal, yelled obscenities, and stabbed its other eye, leaving the megalosaur blind as the eyes oozed down its face. It was confused, furious, and off balance; it rolled around in pain, startling the other megalosaurs with its twisting and shrieking.
Two tons of reptilian mass writhed on the ground, spinning and rolling. Tina was able to make a small sound as it rolled over on her and crushed her spine and neck.
One of the megalossaurs stopped and in a blood lust, nipped and tore at its own kind, taking big hunks from the other creature’s throat. In a frenzy, it bit and tore with its back claws, confused and almost insane with the scent of blood in its nose. They resembled sharks in a feeding frenzy.
Trevor, Skate, and Harper kept running with one megalosaur in pursuit. It was running fast and would overtake the men, so they dove behind a trio of trees. Trevor went low to slash with his machete, and Skate pulled Harper along. If he had to, he would push her in the path of the predator and use that time to get away. Trevor ran alongside the pair, yelling at them to hurry.
