by catt dahman
“My kids and wife might survive without me back home; they’ll get help with food, and Serinda and Wendy said they’d give them some money, so that’s better than my trying. I can’t take five million when Adrian, Serinda, and Wendy can take fifteen for their team,” Trevor said. “That’s my choice.”
Jeremy nodded, “Okay. After today’s fight, Jack and a few of us are going with the rest to get them closer, and then we’ll be back. You and Marshall keep the cave safe?"
Bert was staying, “I think it’s best for me. Analisa and I talked earlier, and she wants to stay. If we can?”
“Sure, but why?” Alex asked.
“Analisa was calm enough and able to ask, maybe not clearly, but she touched her bandages and was able to question Susan and me enough that she got a feel for how her face looks or how bad it still will look even when she heals,” Bert said. “Her career will be gone with those scars she’ll have. Have you seen her cheeks and below her eye? Her nose and her mouth; anyway, she won’t be able to work or anything like that.”
“She’ll heal,” Alex said.
“Alex, did you see her? Did you really look? Her hair was ripped out by the scalp, and her face and arms…she cried, saying she was a monster. She’s not pretty like she was. She is ruined. We will stay if we are allowed.”
Alex nodded his head, “Of course. We’re starting a new race of better people here, ones who will walk with dinosaurs and live off the land and eat good food. We have a real chance. The more the merrier.” His eyes were glassy, and his words rang a little hollow as the reality hit him. It was a lot to take in, no matter which way he looked at it.
Adrian came running, “They’re in the pass-through.” Someone was on watch constantly, waiting for Barney and his group to come along and use the worn path through the rocks to cut over to where the contestants waited. Since the creatures were tracking them, it was a matter of time before they showed up.
The green team, minus Susan and Marshall, ran to the edge of the cliff that cut through, moving as fast as they could along the ridge as they had planned and practiced. “Go, go,” Jack hissed, “hit them as soon we are there.”
Serinda and Wendy were with them but climbed higher. As soon as they were at the ledge, they saw below the targets and pushed rocks away, kicked boulders, and started a rock fall. Below and to one side, Jack and the green team did the same, sending the heavy granite crashing down the slope where the granite picked up more, heavier rocks and went flying off the edge and into the creatures.
A few of the red tyrannosaurs and many of the juveniles and babies were injured or killed. They paused, and the roars filled the small path, echoing off the walls and magnifying; it was chilling. Jack and Marcus tossed sharp-ended spears at targets, but only a baby and a small red T-Rex were injured; the larger ones shook the spears off.
Following the human scent, the surviving creatures ran down the path and around the bluff. Jack motioned his group to finish tossing rocks below, and he ran back to the other contestants.
Jeremy was prepared as Barney and three huge red tyrannosaurs came around the bluff. As the rest taunted the beasts just out of reach, the animals roared and scratched upwards with their tiny forelimbs. They tried to nimbly crawl up the branches and trees that reached from the ground to where the contestants stood, thick and covered with sticks and dried leaves. The trees broke and bent so none of the big T-Rexes were able to climb but could stomp the limbs, becoming immersed in the dead wood and branches.
“Come on up,” Marcus shouted to the dinosaurs.
The creatures sniffed, disliking the scents that seemed to cover the limbs and leaves.
Trevor breathed deeply and then nodded, “Pull.”
Mike tossed one of their plastic bottles up into the air and towards the tyrannasaurs. It was filled with light, easy to carry petrol powder, just a little, and re-hydrated with water, which didn’t mix as there was no emulsifier, so they added their version of dish liquid or soap to make a crude napalm-like mixture. It was imperfect, but if it worked, that was all that mattered.
The container exploded as Trevor shot it in the air; the mixture covered the red creatures with splashes, and it stuck to their skin in a gel-like mess, making them roar and toss their heads madly because of the stench of the gel.
“Way to go, T,” Sandra yelled, “that’s how easy it is.”
“Again. Pull.”
Trevor made the second shot, covering Barney’s back.
“Once more, T,” Mike yelled.
Trevor missed the shot, and when the bottle fell, one of the red ones stepped on it, covering his feet.
“Again. Pull.”
Trevor made that shot, and the gel exploded over all three of the big tyrannosaurs, “Got them. Go; go; red team, go.”
Jeremy, Serinda, Wendy, and Adrian ran over to the edge, each carrying a bright red, glowing hot stick by the unburned end. Susan had been at the fire, watching as one end of the sticks lay in the fire and stayed hot while the other ends stayed cool and out of the flames. Susan cheered them on.
The team of four tossed the burning embers into the branches and beside the tyrannosaurs, which made a violent whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, eight times. Blue fire raced up the dinosaur’s skin, burning hotter and slower than ordinary fire as it reached temperatures of almost 2000 degrees Fahrenheit.
The roars became high-pitched shrieks as the sticky gel burned through the tough skin and into muscles and flesh, crisping and turning the skin black. Although they ran from the bushes, the flames covered them. Barney tossed his head and screamed in agony and limped around the canyon, running into boulders and bouncing off the granite.
Jack, watching, noted that the animal’s leg was terribly infected and the flesh was gangrenous where Jack had made a hole with his LAW. The animal’s foot wept yellowish infection as Barney stomped.
One of the big red dinosaurs fell, continuing to burn as it died. The second one ran headlong into a rock wall, leaving burnt skin behind, and finally fell over. Some of the smaller ones were burning in spots from the branches and from the bigger ones of the pack that bumped into them. They ran in the opposite direction, trying to escape the death and torture.
“Die, you bastard,” Jack yelled.
Barney seemed to stare Jack in the eyes for a second. With a defeated look, the nine-and-half-ton giant tyrannosaur fell, rolled a few times, slumped in a messy lump, and breathed his last air. He was dead.
It was a good feeling, an end to a deadly animal, but Jack also felt a certain loss: it was a shame that a game show caused the deaths of his friends as well as such a mighty beast.
Jack let out a cheer matched by the others; they had a better chance to survive. Jack had a feeling Barney was older and smarter than the rest of his herd and that he recognized and hated humans deeply. He had to be one of the first creatures SSDD developed, and what they did to him must have been terrible; his eyes, when they locked with Jack’s, contained an intelligence, a hatred, and a need for vengeance that spoke of ages of genetic memories and fury.
Before he could reflect on the odd creature, something happened.
“Jack!” Lawryn screamed from the far bluff where the green team pushed rocks onto the path to mash dinosaurs and block the walkway. Wendy and Serinda screamed.
Jack ran back to the other side, followed by the other contestants.
“That big thud, it either startled Ruby or caused her to fall. She slipped off the edge, Jack. Get her!” Lawryn waved her arms everywhere as she tried to speak but mostly just gestured hysterically.
Jack slid to the edge on his belly like a baseball player sliding for third base. Marcus was right beside him, calling over his shoulder, “Lawryn, we’ll get her; you, Mali, and T get some cams, paracords, and carabineers. Move!”
Trevor caught a rope as soon as Mali threw it. He slid the cam into a crack in the rocks, tested it, and slid a second in beside it. Clipping the D-rings on like lightning, he and Jack formed a belay, and Jack went o
ver the edge as quickly as he could while the others clipped additional D-rings and ropes.
Lawryn looked over the edge again and saw Ruby clinging to a tiny ledge ten feet below while two injured tyrannosaurs stretched and bashed their heads along the ledge, just inches from Ruby’s boots. “Hang on. We’re all here, Ruby.”
Ruby kept her handholds and didn’t look up for fear dirt and pebbles might fall into her face and eyes, but she called back a muttered response. “Okay. Hurry. Half has already fallen away.” She adjusted again, turning her boots slightly at an angle to stay away from the monster’s teeth.
“Ruby, tie that around you, get a sling, and we’ll walk you right up the wall in a belay, okay? Jack will be right there to help and to keep you steady. Ready?” Trevor called, “It’s easy; just relax and don’t rush.”
“Mmmm. Okay.”
Jack reached her, making sure the dinosaurs couldn’t get to his feet, and as the rope came down, he tied it so she could keep hanging on to the small rocks that were her handholds. Another section of loose rocks fell, leaving her on tiptoes.
Jack marveled at her calm attitude and absolute trust in her friends. He felt the same trust as Jeremy and Trevor spoke to her and gave instructions even though they were terrified. It was as if they were being tested again for teamwork, but Jack didn’t care for the fact Ruby was at the center of the test.
“Ruby. You hear me? I want you to be very still, and Jack will steady you. Listen to my voice. Can you listen to me? Yes, good,” Jeremy spoke in a soothing tone.
Ruby screamed as her right foot suddenly lurched into thin air; Ruby held on with one boot and by two rocks she gripped tightly. The T-Rex’s head barely missed her foot, and she tucked it up just in time, “Jack….”
“You’re tied. Go slowly and climb. Foothold and handholds,” Jeremy ordered.
“Ruby….”
She glanced at Jack.
“I love you. Get up there so I can quit worrying.”
She gave him a laugh and pulled up, groaning from the pressure on her hands. In this position, her weight wasn’t equaled between her arms so that each took half; each of her arms held her entire weight. She couldn’t breathe properly, which scared her more. Jack leaned to the wall with both hands on her rump and pushed.
Hands slipping and feet unable to find a hold, she struggled against the granite wall, thinking of Analisa and the facial cuts she had endured. “Jerm, Jerm, please….”
“Hold my feet,” Jeremy yelled as he launched himself over the side; luckily Brian and Mike grabbed his legs, “Come on. Reach for my hands, Ruby. I won’t let you go. Grab my hands.”
Ruby let go of the rocks and took his hands; he gripped her in iron clasps. He slid a few inches that felt as if he were plummeting while the ledge dug into his genitals with sharp pressure that made him moan and go white-pale. Marcus and Trevor grabbed Ruby’s arms as Jeremy pulled her upwards. Brian and Mike, Ruby, and Jeremy rolled back onto the safety of the topmost ledge and huffed with exertion.
“Thank, God,” Jack sighed and was thankful.
Jack felt weak with relief.
And his boot slipped from the loop.
Lawryn screamed, and the rest got to the ledge in time to see Jack hang sideways, kicking, then saw him kick away to swing to one side, and then watched as he yanked the other boot free before he was tossed upside down for the tyrannosaur’s to feast on. Like jumping into a pool, he kept his legs under him and fell twelve feet to the ground.
Barney was twice as tall as these were; they were twice Jack’s height of six feet. While they were smaller specimens and reddish brown, they were fearsome, hungry, and angered over their pain. If not for the boulders and rocks that the green team tossed down earlier, they would have been on him in a second.
“Oh, hell, no,” Marcus yelled. Before anyone could say a word and while they stared horrified and while Ruby sobbed, Marcus grabbed the ropes and climbed down, jumping the last few feet so he landed still standing. Facing the creatures, he fired at them point blank.
Ruby made a whining noise as Marcus went over the side.
“Catch,” Brian tossed Jack his M16.
They couldn’t fire as long as the monsters were in front of their friends.
Mike and Jeremy ran up the cliff, and Jeremy was slightly slower since his privates still ached, but they found a better spot and fired their guns. Jack dropped the gun, feeling he wasn’t doing any good and that they were both about to be devoured. On the ground lying atop some rocks was one of the strong spears, made of an unknown wood that was so very hard and heavy that the men had taken a long time to shave it into a deadly point, measuring a foot long.
With a war cry, Jack ran at the tyrannosaur and pushed, driving the spear into the animal’s underbelly as hard as he could. Marcus ducked a snap of a jaw from the second dinosaur and lunged into Jack’s back, adding his weight so the spear slid forwards. The point entered easily, and then, as Marcus pushed, the spear gouged its way another foot, then another, and finally five feet into the monster’s belly, leaving only the last two feet of the spear showing.
Buckets of blood fell all over the ground, and blood jetted from Medium Red’s snout, staining its teeth crimson. It comically kicked its leg as if climbing stairs and rolled over on its side.
The other Bigger Red, a half-foot taller and a half-ton heavier than his hunting partner, snapped angrily as Jeremy lined up shots to his head that poured blood down his body, making him Bigger Bright Red. Jack and Marcus ran away from the creature and away from the bullets so their friends could find a better shot, but as Bigger Bright Red turned to roar at Jeremy, the end of his thirty-foot, muscular tail swept around.
The tail caught Jack and Marcus across their butts, sending them flying through the air; when they landed, both scraped their hands and knees but rolled and painfully got back on their feet, weaponless.
“I hope you have a plan,” Marcus said.
“Why me? I had the last plan for the spear. Your turn,” Jack said.
Marcus frowned, “Naw, I thought of that, but you got there first.”
“Run,” Trevor yelled. Both men took off.
Trevor yelled, “Pull.” He had to make this shot. Before, they had a couple of the bottles of pseudo-napalm and time to make mistakes and miss shots; this time, there was one chance and that was all. The creature could run fifty miles an hour if he were in top form. He could still manage forty or forty-five miles per hour in a bullet-stung condition.
The bottle soared, but Jeremy’s aim was perfect, and the bottle paused one fraction of a second right over Bigger Bright Red’s head, that massive head with the huge jaw full of sharp, giant teeth.
Trevor fired, and to his utter shock, the bottle blew apart, drenching the animal in the gel. It roared as it stung his eyes and ran down its neck. Everyone from camp tossed lit pieces of wood towards him, and everyone would argue later about who had the stick that set the dinosaur ablaze but would finally agree that it was either Adrian or Alex.
In a loud whoosh, the gel exploded in dark blue flames and began to burn away the outer skin within a few seconds. Bigger Bright Red screeched as he ran along the path, away from Jack and Marcus, so it hardly mattered. Falling over a big pile of rocks, he collapsed and burned. He didn’t move again.
After recovering the guns and spears, Jack and Marcus walked around the bluff and climbed up at the same place they had climbed to escape the drytosaurs. The stink of their remains was nauseating, but scavengers had taken away most of the rotting carcasses.
When they got to the top and Jack was able to peel Ruby off of him, he hugged Marcus, thanking him, “I’d be dead if you hadn’t jumped down there. I don’t know what in the hell you were thinking and why you did anything so damned stupid, but thanks, Marcus.”
“Eh, you would’ve done the same for me. That’s what we gotta do in the new world, or we’ll be just as bad as them others.” Them meant SSDD and everyone in power in the United States. He laughed as
Ruby hugged him.
Jack and Marcus shook hands all around and thanked the rest.
With guards watching in every direction, Jeremy led the contestants back down to harvest meat that had not been cooked by the gel and fire. They hauled hundreds of pounds of meat up to the cave to dry. Thin strips, flavored with crushed peppercorn that Susan had gathered, dried over several fires they built.
“We’ll gather reeds from that swampy spot, and I’ll teach all of you how to weave them into baskets so tightly that they’ll be water tight; then, we can store food in them,” Susan offered.
“You can make them hold water?” Ruby wondered about that.
“I have some books which I grabbed when we got the supplies that offer ideas for all the grasses and roots, herbs, and anything else we find. Anyway, we can find pine trees and gather sap and use that, but until then, I had the men get me the stomachs and organs of the dino; I can clean them well and use them to line the baskets to be sure. A bladder held water inside the monsters before, so it can hold water again for us.”
They kept the fat they rendered so all the meat could be stored in it to keep it edible.
Jeremy and Trevor decided that dinosaurs might be shaped like birds and have feathers, but their skin was reptilian, and it could be properly cured and used for boots, clothing, and anything else they could think of that needed to be durable.
“There is more here than I ever imagined,” Trevor said. With mammals and the land, there will never be a day or night when I’m cold, and I am sure I have gained a little weight out here which is insane.”
“We said that before,” Jeremy reminded him.
“The only thing I can see that will be an issue is salt,” Susan said, “but I am willing to bet there is colt’s foot growing down around that swamp water. We’ll use that: dry it and make it into powder that tastes like salt and will taste good on food.”
“You’re staying aren’t you?” Ruby asked.
Susan blushed as Jeremy looked at her, waiting for her answer. “Are you?” he asked.
