by Logan Jacobs
Hae-won just smiled in response, and Becka cut in.
“What should we do now?” she asked. “Is there a point in searching the rest of the building?”
“We should probably check the janitor’s closet,” I replied. “But I can’t think of anything else we need from here.”
“This will be enough to start on the bullets,” Hae-won said. “We can come back later if I need something else.”
“Not so sure I like that idea,” Becka huffed.
“Well, we don’t have much choice,” I pointed out, “since we can’t carry much more. So let’s just move on to the closet and then figure out what we'll do next.”
The girls both nodded, and now laden with our supplies, we made our way to the janitor’s closet on the first floor.
We headed down to the first level and over to the spot where we found the other closet. We found more bin bags, and we quickly filled two of those with everything we’d found in the arts building. Becka filled a third bag with the rest of the useful supplies from the closet, and then we gathered around the bags to admire our haul.
“Maybe we should double bag this one,” I said as I hefted the bag with the clay and the blowtorch.
Becka handed me an extra bin bag, and I dropped the heaviest bag inside. I lifted it again, then nodded in approval.
“What do you guys want to do now?” Becka asked. “Should we go back and get the rest of our loot?”
“There is one more thing I would like to do,” Hae-won said shyly.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“It won't take long,” the blue-eyed girl said. “Just come this way, both of you.”
Hae-won started to walk away, and Becka and I exchanged shrugs. We followed the Korean girl down the hallway toward a set of double doors. Hae-won pushed through one of the doors and flipped on a switch. Becka and I stepped inside and found ourselves in a small auditorium, with about fifty theater seats covered in a blue velour fabric, and a small stage occupied by a glossy black, baby grand piano.
“This is where we perform for our graded recitals,” Hae-won announced as she climbed the two steps to the stage.
“Will you play something for us?” Becka asked.
“Maybe a short piece,” Hae-won said with a smile as she sat down on the bench and ran a hand over the keys.
While Hae-won warmed up, Becka and I slipped into two seats in the front row. It was a strange sight, to see this armor-clad woman with damp hair sit at the piano and perform a few quick exercises. When her fingers were stretched and ready, Hae-won stared off into the distance for a moment, then started to play.
“This one was one of my recital pieces,” the dark-haired woman said as the first notes filled the air.
Hae-won’s face was focused on her hands, and it was clear that she was soon lost in her own world. The song she played, soft and slow to start, gradually grew louder and far more complex. The Korean girl’s hands flew across the keys as the notes poured out, and I found myself wondering how one person could even produce such music. Surely, the piece was at least intended to be a duet. But the music went on, and I listened in amazement as Hae-won filled the auditorium with beauty.
Hae-won’s hands slowed again, and the tempo returned to those first opening bars. There was a last glissando, and then Hae-won’s hands fell away from the keyboard. She seemed to come out of a trance with a shake of her head, and then she turned toward the seats with a tentative smile on her face.
“Well?” Hae-won asked as she stood up.
Becka and I were on our feet by then, and we clapped and cheered for the amazing performance we’d just heard. Hae-won’s smile grew wider, and I saw a blush creep up her cheeks. Then the Korean girl did a quick curtsy before she bounded off the stage.
“That was incredible,” I said enthusiastically.
“Brilliant,” Becka added. “Positively brilliant.”
“It wasn’t that good,” Hae-won sighed. “I messed up three times. I will need to practice more whenever school starts again.”
“It sounded perfect to me,” I assured her.
“Thank you, Jason,” the dark-haired woman said with a smile.
“How long have you been playing?” Becka asked.
“Since I was four,” Hae-won replied. “I used to play on my grandmother’s piano when we would go to her house. She was my first teacher.”
“Wow,” the British girl said. “That’s mental. No wonder you’re so good.”
“Thank you,” the dark-haired girl said. “And thank you for letting me practice. What should we do now? I would still like to go to my room.”
I was tempted to ask the Korean girl if she would play another piece because it was nice to have that bit of normalcy again, but we still had so much to do. With the rain still coming down, we couldn’t move any dinosaur bodies or do some target practice, but we could certainly take care of the research we needed to do.
“Let’s head to the library,” I said. “We can get started on our list, and then we’ll go to your room before we head back to the gallery.”
“What about the rest of these buildings?” Becka asked.
“It’s taken longer than I thought to search the first couple and pack up those dinos in the basement,” I explained. “I don’t think it’s worth the time we would spend searching the other buildings, at least not today. I want to get some research done first. The buildings will still be here, but we don’t know how much longer we’ll have the internet or power.”
“Yeah, that makes sense,” Becka replied. “But what about that flying bugger?”
“We’ll just have to keep an eye out for him,” I said. “We’ll stick close to the buildings for cover. We can stop and add these bags to the rest of our collection.”
“And get the umbrellas,” Hae-won noted.
“For all the good that will do now,” Becka sighed. “I’m soaked through.”
“All the more reason to get this over with,” I said. “We can get back to the gallery sooner and get into dry clothes again.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever be dry again,” Becka sighed.
“I thought you English thrived in lots of rain,” I teased as we collected our garbage bags and made our way out of the auditorium.
“Only when we have somewhere dry to sit and tea to drink,” Becka replied.
“The English drink a lot of tea,” Hae-won said. “Even more than most Koreans.”
“Tea is the solution to all life’s problems,” Becka said.
We laughed until we reached the front door of the building. I studied it, then realized that this one, at least, wouldn’t require a key. I cast a questioning look at the two women, who both nodded, and then unlocked the door and pulled it slowly open. As quietly as I could, I stepped through the door and scanned the sky for any sign of the Pterodactyl or any other flying dinos.
“Maybe the rain kept the rest of the buggers away,” Becka said as she and Hae-won stepped outside and stared across the empty yard.
The pleasant square of grass was now a quagmire, and large pools of water collected on sidewalks and in flower beds. I couldn’t imagine driving the tow truck across this without getting stuck, and I shook my head at the thought of another night with dino bodies nearby. At least the ones in the basement were now sealed tight in the bin bags.
“Should we just run for it?” Hae-won asked as she looked at the downpour.
“Yeah,” I said. “Let’s add this to our collection, and pick up the extra ink and paper in case we need it.”
“I hope we don’t catch colds with all this rain,” Becka said. “That’d be great, on top of everything else.”
“I’m sure we’ll be fine,” I replied. “It’s not that cold out. And maybe we can find some paper towels or something in the library that we can towel off with.”
“Or maybe some tea,” the British girl added with a grin.
“Okay, I’ll motion for you to come out when the coast is clear,” I said as I scanned
the sky again. “Don’t worry about anything else, just run for the window and get inside.”
“Okay,” Hae-won said as Becka nodded.
I took a few tentative steps into the rain, but no dark shape appeared, either among the clouds or in the muddy grounds. I signalled to the girls, and the pair bolted for the first building like a pair of rabbits being pursued by a hawk. I ran after them, and we climbed inside with our new haul of supplies in record time. We took a few minutes to wring out our hair and clothes and to shift a few printer supplies into yet another bin bag, and then we grabbed the umbrellas and axes, and climbed back outside.
We hugged the buildings as much as we could on our way to the library, but there were still spots where we were exposed to any curious eyes. I kept the gun in my hands as I constantly scanned the area, and I ignored the rain that poured down onto me as best as I could. Our luck held, and the dinos remained missing during our sprint to the library. I heaved a sigh of relief as we tumbled beneath the portico, and the girls shook out their umbrellas.
“Did you see anything?” the blonde girl asked as she sucked in a breath.
“No, it looked clear,” I explained. “That thing from earlier may have been frightened off by the gunfire for now, but it could still come back. We’ll just have to add it to our list of things to watch out for.”
“You think it will return?” Hae-won asked.
“Most birds have a territory that they frequent,” I replied. “Not sure if flying lizards are the same way, but since they’re the ancestors of birds, I would guess they are.”
“I knew there was a reason I always hated Mrs. McGregor’s chickens,” Becka snickered. “All right, we’re here, so let’s get this over with.”
“Well, look who’s the go-getter, now,” I grinned.
“I just want to be done and get out of these wet clothes,” Becka explained.
“And have tea,” Hae-won added.
“How do we want to do this?” Becka asked.
“Let’s print what we can from the internet,” I replied. “But we should also check the stacks, see if they have any books on dinosaurs that we could use to identify the ones we’ve seen. And it would be nice to have something on survival skills.”
“I can handle the printing,” Becka said. “I’m very fast at online research.”
“And I will help Becka,” Hae-won said. “It will go very fast if we are both searching, and I’m not so good at using the books.”
“Take a look at the printers in here,” I said. “See if there’s any we could take back to the gallery to use with the laptop once you’re done.”
“Will do,” Becka agreed.
“After that, maybe we can deal with the raptors,” I added.
The girls nodded, and we opened the door and peered inside the library. The place was quiet, even more so than usual. It took me a moment to realize that was because I couldn’t hear the sound of pages turning in a book or the occasional gentle cough. There was the usual faintly musty smell of old books still, but the smell of decaying flesh had started to dominate, and most of it seemed to be coming from the desk where the librarian had been killed.
I sucked in one more breath of fresh air, then stepped inside and peered at the disarray we had left behind. Nothing moved in the shadows, and the only sound was the wall clock behind the desk. I heard the girls step in behind me, and then Becka tapped me on my shoulder.
“What about…?” Becka pointed over to the front desk.
“I’ll deal with that,” I said. “You two should head on back to the computer room.”
“Are you sure?” Hae-won asked. “We can help?”
It would certainly be faster and easier with the extra hands, but one look at the girls’ faces, and I knew they weren’t up for disposing of what was left of the librarian.
“I can manage,” I said. “You two head on back. And here, take the gun. I’ll have my hands full with this.”
“Okay,” Hae-won replied as she accepted the rifle.
I pulled out a roll of bin bags from the supplies we’d brought with us, then watched the two women walk toward the computer room. They stepped inside, and a moment later, I heard the short tune that indicated a computer had been powered up. With a sigh, I turned to the desk again and decided it would be easier to deal with the remains now, and then I could recover by losing myself in the stacks.
The blood had dried and formed a thick, red coating on the desk and the floor behind it. It looked like spilled paint, and I tried to tell myself that’s all it was as I stepped around the desk and peered at what was left of the librarian. There wasn’t much, just bones, shreds of fabric, and torn muscle all piled together into a heap. It was a gruesome scene, to be sure, but after the last few days, it was starting to seem almost normal.
I opened up the trash bag and turned it inside out so I could try to pick things up without actually touching them. I blanked out on what I was about to do, and scooped everything up into the bag with just a few quick motions. When I’d found the last few bits of bone and flesh and added them to the bag, I twisted the top and then tied it with a double knot. The stench was still there, but with the remains in the bag, it didn’t seem quite so overwhelming.
I didn’t know a thing about the librarian besides his disdain for Americans and their coffee habits, but I offered a prayer anyway before I carried the bag to the front door and set it to the side. As I checked outside, I wondered if I should have checked the pile of bones and tissue for the key, and then decided it wouldn’t make much difference. The door was glass, and if any dinosaurs happened to look inside and see us, a simple lock wasn’t going to keep them out.
The rain, fortunately, still seemed to keep most of the giant lizards away, so I wandered back into the main section of the library and looked around. I knew there was a large section of the lower level devoted to history books, but I really had no idea what else the library even had. I was trying to decide how best to proceed when my eyes fell on an old relic, the card catalog. With a grin, I walked over to the massive block of wood and scanned the listings for each drawer. I found the section organized by topic and flipped to the cards related to dinosaurs. There were hundreds, if not thousands of cards, but after checking their numbers, I realized that most were located together in the same set of shelves on the second level.
I hoped that section hadn’t been part of the shelves we’d toppled over in our battle with the raptors, and decided there was only one way to find out. But first, I did a quick check to locate chemistry books, since I couldn’t find anything specifically about bullet making, and then checked on the location for biology books, as recommended by several of the cards for dinosaurs. Everything was on the upper level, and with a sigh, I turned toward the stairs and hoped I wouldn’t have to pick through the scattered volumes to find what I needed.
I started with the dinosaurs and was happy to see that the books were still safely located on their shelves. I walked the length of the shelves, ignoring those that seemed too specific, like the book detailing fossil finds in a small corner of Russia. Eventually I came across some heavy volumes that went through dinosaurs of the different periods, namely, Jurassic, Triassic, and Cretaceous. I grabbed those, on the theory that if nothing else, we might at least be able to put a name to some of the creatures we’d seen, but maybe we’d find some more useful information as well, like how well they could see or smell.
I stacked the books up together and decided to head over to the chemistry and biology sections. There, I found a couple of books that detailed chemical reactions, including one that had an entire chapter on explosive compounds and their uses, which I grabbed, and a few feet further on I found a biology text on early evolution, which featured several chapters on dinosaurs. Satisfied with my haul, I gathered up all the books I’d pulled and returned to the lower level. I considered checking the history section for anything on dinosaurs, but it seemed redundant given what I’d found, and I knew the real reason I wanted to go there
was to peruse the medieval section again.
I reminded myself that the girls had probably printed off a good deal of information by then, and I should probably join them and help finish the list instead of wandering through books about the Plantagenets and such. With a sigh, I turned toward the computer room, where I could already hear one of the printers hard at work.
I was halfway across the reading room when I heard the strangest noise echo up and through the library. It was hard to even describe, but the closest thing was probably somewhere between a jet engine and an electrical short.
“Jason!” I heard Becka yell from the computer room.
“I’m here,” I said and dropped my books to run toward the room.
The girls were standing in the doorway, with their swords in their hands.
“What is it?” Becka asked as she stared uneasily toward the library’s main door.
“It is coming from outside,” Hae-won noted.
I walked past them to the entrance and saw a faint blue light pouring in through the window. Though I knew I still needed to be cautious, it was too hard not to give in to my curiosity at least a little. I pushed through the door and took a single step onto the library steps so I could get a better look at the light.
When I finally saw what it was, I forgot my caution completely and stepped out further to see the whole thing. A floating blue portal the size of a small office building had opened up in the middle of the quad, and something large was stepping through it.
Chapter 7
“Shit!” I muttered as I watched the dinosaur emerge from the glowing circle.
“Shit,” Hae-won repeated as the girls joined me on the steps.
The dino’s head appeared first, and a long tongue flicked out like a snake’s while the massive skull moved slowly from side to side as it studied the new surroundings. It took another step forward, and then another, until the rest of the body appeared. This guy was big, bigger than even the Torvosaurus had been. It had to be ten to twelve feet tall and at least thirty feet long from head to tail. The arms were longer and bigger around, which gave it a greater reach than any of the dinos we’d encountered so far. As it moved forward, I noticed that it walked mainly on the back legs, though when it stopped, it would use the front legs for support. It reminded me of sprinters in the blocks, and I felt a chill as I imagined this thing taking off suddenly after prey.
