by Geoff Jones
Hank looked at Helen. “Those things don’t seem to be going anywhere. At this rate, we might be trapped in here for a while, no matter what we want to do.” He turned to Lisa. “How many more muffins do you have stashed away?”
“Not enough.”
“That’s great,” Morgan said. “You can add starvation to our list of problems.”
Beth chuckled. “Morgan, you don’t need to worry about starving. You’re gonna piss off someone and get thrown into the river long before that point.”
“I might jump in the river myself if I have to sit huddled back here with all of you much longer. Is it still out there?” They had not heard anything for several minutes.
William leaned around the counter. “Let me have a look.” He stood and crept out into the room. A moment later, he told them the coast was clear.
As Al rose to his feet, Beth placed her hand on his arm. “Hey. That was a pretty cool thing you did earlier, saving my boss.”
Al felt his heart speed up. Normally, Beth would not give him the time of day. She was out of his league. To be fair, Lisa was out of his league as well. But Beth was far too cute to even talk with someone like him. Now she was holding onto his arm, right in front of everyone.
“Um, thanks,” Al said. He wondered how old Beth was. Her face was perfectly smooth, without a hint of a wrinkle.
Beth smiled, gave his arm a squeeze, and let go.
Al felt scared, but he also felt excited. Attention from two babes in one day. He wondered how much he really wanted to go back to his normal life.
[ 13 ]
Thick chunks of white skin hung from the bricks where the hadrosaur cow had scratched herself. The stink of vinegar and rotten vegetation filled the room. Lisa felt a gag in her throat. Morgan walked over and pulled a piece of skin from the bricks.
“Don’t touch that,” Lisa said. “It’s disgusting.” Downy tufts clumped on the skin. “It looks mangy.”
Morgan held it up in the air. “I’m touching actual dinosaur skin. No other human being in the history of time has ever done that.” He leered at Callie. “Now you can put me in the record books too.” The others crowded around and examined the skin, but no one else felt the need to touch it.
Outside, the sun had climbed above the treetops and now shone on their building. Most of the hadrosaurs settled into the cool mud halfway between the river and the tree line.
Lisa retreated to the back corner. She felt more comfortable there, partly because it was where she normally worked and partly because it was as far from the water and windows as she could get. She sat on the station that held sugar, creamer, and wooden stirrers.
William sat down at a table near the front corner. Beth took a seat next to him. Tim stood nearby, watching out the windows. The three of them had formed a tidy little group, Lisa realized.
Al wandered back and sat next to her. Lisa leaned into him and he put his arm around her.
Hank paced back and forth through the room. “There must be something special about this location. Most of us don’t even know each other. We all just happened to be here at the same time. It’s the only thing we have in common.” He stopped next to Helen. She had produced a ball of yarn and knitted away at one end of a short red scarf. Lisa found the noise of the clicking needles comforting.
Hank put a hand on Helen’s shoulder. “I think you might be right. We need to stay close by, in case someone comes looking for us.”
Al spoke up. “A few minutes ago, you wanted to leave.”
Hank looked up, nostrils wide. “I don’t know what we should do. I just don’t like being trapped in here.” He resumed his pacing.
Lisa reached across her body and found Al’s other hand. “Thank you for fishing me out of the river,” she said quietly. Al flexed, hugging her tightly. His arm felt solid. Right now she needed solid. She closed her eyes and listened to the conversations in her café.
“That noise reminds me of the forests in Florida,” William said. A cacophony of strange buzzes came from the woods around them.
“You’re from there,” Tim commented more than asked. “I’ve never seen the ocean.”
“It’s beautiful. I miss it. Being transferred to Colorado was supposed to be a punishment, I think. But it turned out for the best.”
“Punishment for what?” Beth asked.
“A few years back, I blew the whistle on my boss’s boss for phony billings. In hindsight, I think my boss was in on it too. My career went nowhere. I always got the worst routes and the holiday shifts.”
He sat back and looked at the jungle, his long legs stretched out under the table. “The transfer to Colorado ended up being a fresh start. I got off my high horse and just did my job.” He smiled. “The thing of it was, once I stopped being a crusader, things started going my way. I even got a good raise two months ago. Started allowing myself a morning beverage at this place. Maybe that was unlucky, after all, huh?”
“What do you think is happening back in Denver?” Beth asked. “Do you think they’ve figured out where we are?”
“I’ve been wondering about that,” Tim said. “We’ve been here more than an hour now. I keep picturing this gaping hole in the corner of the building, with yellow police tape around it. I don’t know what Julie’s thinking. It’s a hell of a way to get stood up.”
William looked over at Tim. “You just met this girl?”
He nodded. “Get this; she took me flying on our third date. How’s that for cool? We went up in a little Cessna that belongs to one of her pilot friends. Flew south and circled over the Garden of the Gods.”
"So she’s a pilot?”
“She only has a basic license. She really wants to be a commercial pilot for the airlines. Right now she works as a flight attendant.”
Hank stopped pacing and stood next to Tim. “That’s a nice story and I’m sure she’s a real sweetheart, but do you think maybe we could focus on figuring out how to get the fuck out of here?”
William turned around in his chair. “Listen Hank, I’m as scared as you are. I want to get home to my boys. But until those duckbilled dinosaurs leave, we are stuck here. If you’ve got some new ideas – hey!”
William pushed back in his chair and looked down at his leg.
“I thought something bit me. Ow!” He pulled up his pants leg.
“What is it?” Lisa jumped off the counter and ran to the front.
A pale tick the size of a small pancake clung to William’s sock. Eight legs as thick as pencils dug into his skin. The tick’s face was buried in the flesh of William’s calf.
“Aaaahhh! Aaaahhh!! Get him offa me! Aaaahhh!”
Morgan danced around, squirming. “What the shit!” A second tick crawled across the floor under the table.
“Get him offa me! Aaaahhh! Aaaahhh!”
Helen stepped forward, grabbed the tick behind its head, and pulled. An inch-long needle-like proboscis came out of William’s skin, dripping clear fluid. William’s blood pumped visibly inside its translucent body.
“Aaaaaaaahhh!”
Helen dropped the tick and Tim stomped on it. A mixture blood and white guts squirted onto the café floor. Helen pointed to the other tick, which scurried toward her like a crab. Tim crunched it under his heel.
William finally stopped screaming and pulled his knee up against his chest, rubbing his leg rapidly.
Several giggles came from the group. Tall, stoic William had been reduced to jelly. Nevertheless, Lisa was sure as hell glad there weren’t any giant ticks crawling on her legs. She checked again and again and noticed that the rest of the group did the same.
William seemed not to care. He turned to Helen and embraced her. Tears spilled down his cheeks. “Damn bugs.”
Lisa noticed Morgan standing halfway through the front window. He stopped with one foot out on the sidewalk. “Yo, everyone, check it out.” A juvenile hadrosaur peeked its head around the corner of the building.
[ 14 ]
As big as a stallion, t
he hadrosaur calf stood on long toe-tips and sniffed at the same wall the female had used as a scratching post. A blue-gray blaze on its face contrasted the flecks of orange in its eyes. It lacked the red blistery wattle found on the older members of the herd.
Morgan peered around the clearing. The nearest adult stood by the edge of the forest, a good distance away. He turned back to the dinosaur. Morgan thought it looked cute. He had once agreed to watch his sister’s puppy. After the animal pissed all over his bed, he had taken it out to the park. Never before and never since had he received so much female attention. The juvenile hadrosaur was far cooler than a puppy. “Hey ladies, come have a look at this guy!” Beth and Callie walked over and stood along the front wall where they could crane their heads to the right and see most of the animal. Morgan pointed to a series of pale, uneven gashes on the back of the animal’s neck. “Look, this little bastard got bit once.”
Lisa winced. “I think it’s nasty.”
Morgan studied the animal. Mud and feces caked its hide. The folds of its skin were speckled with more of the saucer-sized ticks. “He just needs a bath.”
Hank, crouched over the smashed body of the tick that had bit William, looked up. “Hey! Get away from there, you dumbass. What the hell are you doing?” The calf wailed softly and stretched its neck, sniffing.
Morgan reached out for it, feeling its hot breath on his hand. “I don’t think the little ones are quite so bad, dude,” he called over his shoulder. And he imagined that he looked pretty brave in front of the women, standing so close. The duckbill dinosaur was cool. Not as cool as a Triceratops, maybe, but still pretty impressive.
“Yeah, and Patricia didn’t think the big ones were quite so bad,” snapped Hank. “Get away from there, NOW!”
The commotion seemed to interest the juvenile hadrosaur. It had wandered over after all of William’s screams about the ticks. Now it stepped up onto the sidewalk with one webbed foot. As it shifted its weight forward, a square block of concrete cracked off and fell into the mud with a thud.
The rest of the sidewalk moved an inch toward the river, rotating the building a few degrees. Morgan teetered forward, now fully outside. He caught himself on one of the parking meters. “Shit, you might be right, Hank.” He hurried back into the building.
The juvenile followed him with its gaze, craning its neck around the corner and into the front of the room.
“Go on, now, shoo!” said Morgan, waving his hand.
The hadrosaur bleated and pulled away. It mewled pathetically as it disappeared around the side of the building.
Morgan beamed. “Ha, it minded me!”
The bookshelf wall shuddered as if hit by a truck. Morgan yelped and tumbled out of the way. All of the remaining boxes and mugs flew onto the floor. Helen jumped up from the couch and hurried to the back of the room, taking her knitting and her purse with her.
The wall took another hit. Several shelves broke off and fell to the floor. A hole appeared up near the ceiling and the flattened mouth of the bull’s face poked through.
The bull hadrosaur pulled away and reared back to paw at the opening. Patricia Hayman’s blood darkened its forelegs. The creature’s smell filled the room: shit, mud, blood, and a horrible vinegary musk.
The bull had protected its harem for three years since challenging the previous alpha. It kept the herd small by casting out young males at an early age. A small herd traveled quietly and attracted less attention. Now the watering hole at the center of its territory had been invaded and the bull felt threatened. It pounded the wall again.
Helen stumbled and fell behind the counter. Callie moved to help her.
“You idiot!” Hank screamed at Morgan. “Look what you’ve done!”
The bull slapped at the building like a child kicking a cardboard fort. Chunks of plaster fell away as the hole widened.
Morgan stammered. “I didn’t think -”
“God-damn right you didn’t!” Hank shouted. “We’re gonna die in here because you can’t think!” He slapped his hand down on a display table near the counter, knocking a stack of coffee grinders to the floor.
Morgan froze, wanting to retreat to the back but unwilling to move past Hank.
The building lurched a few inches and another chunk of plaster fell inward from the top of the wall. The dinosaur stumbled forward, its head fully inside the room. Beth screamed. The creature snorted and moved its neck back and forth, slowly widening the hole.
The hadrosaur blocked their only exit. William called to Helen and Callie. “Come on, ladies. We may be going for a swim. He’s going to tear this place apart.”
Hank grabbed an aluminum kettle from the display table, “No shit, thanks to that asshole Morgan!” He slammed the kettle down on the table, cracking the cheap particle board. A clanging noise rang through the room.
The animal froze.
Hank brought his kettle down again on the remains of the table, shattering it with a loud CLAAANNNG!
The bull hadrosaur bleated and pulled its head out of the café.
“The noise!” Tim shouted. He grabbed a pair of metal carafes and brought them together with a metallic bang. “HEY!” he shouted. He slammed the carafes together again and again. The clangs echoed inside the room.
Tim ran to the front and stepped through the window, still banging the metal containers together. The bull hadrosaur twisted away and actually stumbled backwards as it fled from the sound. Morgan burst into delighted laughter as he watched the giant creature run. He grabbed the door handle and began to slam it against the frame. The sound echoed in the clearing.
Hank followed Tim outside, still holding the kettle. Tim held up one container in Hank’s direction and they high-fived each other with their instruments, producing a loud BRONNNG.
Callie, Lisa, and Al picked up utensils of their own and joined in while Tim and Hank moved down onto the mudflat and continued their discordant symphony.
The bull hadrosaur fled with shit pouring from the vent under its tail. It disappeared into the forest in long bounding steps. The other hadrosaurs followed, crashing away through the trees. One, still lying in the soft mud, floundered to its feet and fell over on one side in a panic before finally getting traction.
Morgan banged the door continuously, laughing out loud as the rest of the group joined him, most of them clanging away on whatever they could find. Lisa held a pair of metal espresso filters by their handles. William clapped two ceramic saucers together until they shattered.
“Run you fuckers!” Morgan shouted, watching the last dinosaur disappear into the forest. He turned to the rest of the group with a wide grin. “That was awesome!”
Hank raised the kettle and slammed it down into the mud. He stood in a wide stance and balled his hands in tight fists.
“Listen, dude, I’m sorry about that earlier.”
“Sorry doesn’t begin to cover it. You almost got us all killed.”
Callie moved to her fiancé’s side and wrapped herself around one of his arms. “Leave him be, Hank. He’s not worth it. He’s just a dumb little prick.”
Morgan nodded. He had been called worse.
“Prick?” said Hank. “He’s not a prick. He’s an asshole. Because nothing but shit comes out of him.”
William called down from the sidewalk. “Hank, if he hadn’t pissed you off enough to make that racket, we’d still be stuck inside, you know.”
Hank looked up, noticing his audience. He relaxed and opened his hands. “Our actions here affect one another,” he told Morgan, jabbing his chest with a pointed finger. “Do not do anything like that again.”
Morgan nodded. “You got it, bro.”
[ 15 ]
The morning sun felt good on William’s face, even in the muggy heat. He squinted and examined the scene around the café. The area looked and smelled like a stockyard. Most of the mud had been trampled flat and was land-mined with wet piles of dung.
“Everyone stay within sight of the building,” William d
irected. They all carried their pots and pans, ready to restart the racket at a moment’s notice.
“We should keep together,” Beth suggested. “In horror movies, the people who wander off alone always get killed.”
William nodded. “Sounds like a good idea to me. What other advice do you have?”
“Usually, the biggest danger isn’t the monster. It’s the other people.”
Hank spun around. “Please tell me that was not directed at me.”
Callie took his arm. “Hank, it’s ok. You don’t need to prove anything.”
“I do. Right now, we need to be able to trust each other.” He looked around at the group. “Do you all know where I was supposed to be this morning?”
“Anger management training?” Beth had her arms crossed, but William thought he saw her tremble. She looked defiant and frightened at the same time.
Morgan snickered.
“Very funny. I was supposed to be at a domestic abuse hearing. A guy with a rolling pin pulverized his girlfriend’s face. A fucking rolling pin. You should see the photos from the emergency room.” He pressed his lips together and breathed through his nose. “I’m lead prosecutor. I’m the guy that was going to make sure that cocksucker never hurt anyone again. That’s what I do. I keep people safe. I’m not the bad guy.”
William thought that Hank might be protesting a bit much, but there wasn’t any point in arguing about it. “We hear you, Hank. It’s all good.”
Hank crossed his own arms and breathed heavily through his nose, nostrils flaring.
William walked over and met Helen at the end of the sidewalk. She had finally come outside. He offered her a hand and helped her down. Helen peered across the clearing.
“They’re all gone,” he assured her.
“I’d like to build a fire. Lawrence taught me how.” She wrung her hands together. “Oh, he used to take me on some cold, dreary trips. I never could get warm. I made him teach me how to build a fire quickly, even in the rain. The trick is to leave plenty of room for air.”
