Jurassic Florida

by Hunter Shea

  “What the hell happened?”

  She didn’t care about sitting in her own vomit. The thought of moving to get it off her brought another wave of nausea. She lay her head back against the seat, turned and saw Cheryl slumped against the passenger door.

  “Oh my God, Cheryl!”

  Her nausea forgotten, she clambered over the center console and pulled Cheryl close. She had cuts all over her face and there was a huge knot on her forehead.

  “Wake up. Wake up, honey, please.” Nicole lightly patted her cheeks. When Cheryl’s eyelids fluttered, she whooped out loud with relief.

  “Where . . . where is it?” her girlfriend croaked.

  “Where is what?”

  Cheryl swallowed hard and dry. “The lizard. Is it gone?”

  “What lizard? I don’t know what you’re . . . “

  It all came flooding back to her with the force of a tidal wave. It hit Nicole so hard, she actually jolted back into her seat.

  Flush with fear, she looked out the broken windows for any sign of the giant lizard that, at her last memory, had managed to get their car in its mouth.

  Her heart almost stopped when she saw it down the street, its head sniffing the road like a bloodhound.

  “Don’t make a sound,” she urged Cheryl.

  Her girlfriend followed her gaze and clamped her hand over her mouth.

  Nicole undid her buckle, then reached over and unclasped Cheryl’s.

  “Do you think you can walk?”

  Cheryl flexed her legs, grimacing. “It hurts like hell, but I don’t think anything’s broken.”

  “We have to get out of here while it’s distracted,” Nicole whispered.

  Cheryl tried her door, but it wouldn’t budge. The steel had fused together from the force of the giant’s jaws.

  “We’ll have to climb out the window,” Cheryl said.

  Nicole nodded, holding her hand.

  Cheryl squinted as she scanned Main Street, pointing to the alley between the drug store and nail salon. “If we cut through there, we can take side roads down to Depot Street. I bet we can get into the old grammar school easily and ride this out in the basement gym.”

  Polk Elementary had been closed seven years earlier in favor of a more modern school with central air so children and teachers didn’t melt in September, October, April and May. For some reason, the brick shithouse hadn’t been demolished yet. For once, the eyesore would be a welcome sight.

  Nicole and Cheryl had both gone to Polk, Cheryl one year ahead. The gym was super small and all the kids used to think it was haunted.

  Ghosts or not, it was their best bet to stay alive tonight.

  Keeping their groans of pain as quiet as they could, they managed to squirm over the dash and through the crushed window.

  “Hold on a sec,” Cheryl said, panting. “I’m gonna pass out if I don’t catch my breath.”

  Nicole rested her hand on her back. “It’s okay. The lizard is still down the street.”

  Nicole’s brain frantically screamed for her to run like hell, but there was no way she was taking one step without Cheryl.

  After a few deep breaths—Cheryl was a yoga fanatic and into meditation, whereas Nicole preferred watching yoga on TV and taking naps—she nodded and slipped off the hood. Nicole settled next to her, both of them holding the other up.

  “Look,” Cheryl said, pointing down Main Street.

  Two cars made the turn down Main. A mob of people were right behind them.

  Shots rang out. The lizard’s head recoiled, its tail slashing hard enough to flip a car into the air. The Honda barreled through the barbershop’s window. The building’s structural integrity compromised, the entire shop collapsed into a mound of brick, mortar and glass.

  “They’re going to get themselves killed,” Cheryl said, grabbing hold of Nicole’s arm. “But they’re just the distraction we need. Let’s go!”

  Nicole couldn’t take her eyes off the crowd. Many of them brandished guns and rifles. She recognized a few of the faces. There was Megan who did her nails every two weeks. And Mrs. Macias, her ninth grade math teacher. She even spotted Mr. Franks, the old guy who liked to mow his lawn without a shirt on, his sagging man boobs tanned like leather pouches.

  She was dragged along by Cheryl, plunging into the dark alley. She heard screams, more gunshots and the lizard bellowing loud enough to force her to cover her ears.

  People were going to die back there.

  She couldn’t help feeling guilty, even though she knew full well there was nothing they could do for them. The only thing anyone could do was run and survive. Sooner or later, people with bigger guns would come and save them.

  But until then . . .

  Cheryl popped out of the alley first. Locust Avenue was deserted, the homes untouched. The rain had stopped and there was only a whisper of a breeze, but it was getting close to dusk and the gray hung heavy around the town.

  Scooting down Locust, Cheryl urged her to stop and get down.

  “What? Nicole said.

  “There’s one right there,” she whispered.

  Sure enough, a lizard bigger than the one on Main lumbered down the block.

  Cheryl crouched between two parked cars, watching, waiting for it to pass. Nicole cowered behind a nearby tree, almost too afraid to look.

  “It’s leaving,” Cheryl said.

  Nicole exhaled, her legs going weak.

  She edged around the tree to watch the lizard crawl over a house, the sound of its destruction crackling the heavy atmosphere.

  Its gargantuan tail, thicker than a killer whale and longer than a line of subway cars, swung heavily into a car down the street.

  It created an instant domino effect, each car smashing into the other from the tremendous force.

  “Cheryl!” Nicole cried, reaching out to pull her away.

  Cheryl had a moment to look to her with unbridled fear burning in her eyes.

  In an instant, the cars slammed on her torso with such ferocity that her chest exploded, ribcage shattering flesh and muscles, her heart and lungs painting the trunk of the car.

  Nicole screamed and screamed, unaware that her cries of anguish had gotten the attention of a pair of giant lizards that were in the process of devouring the final pieces of the Brandy family one block over.

  Chapter 21

  It sounded as if the world had descended to a brand new level of hell up above. Frank pulled his shirt up to cover his nose and mouth.

  What a stench! And people said New York reeked. The Big Apple on its worst day had nothing on this Florida sewer.

  He was ankle-deep in filthy water. He didn’t even want to look down for fear of instinctively running back out of the sewer and ending up as lunch meat for Godzilla.

  “You fuckers would like that, wouldn’t you?” he said, his voice echoing down the long, narrow tunnel.

  Something heavy thumped the manhole cover overhead.

  “Knock all you want, you big bastard. You ain’t getting down here.”

  He flipped the bird skyward. It was stupid and pointless, but it felt good.

  Well, there was no sense hanging around and waiting for things to blow over. In fact, he was pretty sure the only way this was ending was with the army dropping some big-ass bomb on the place. The sewer had to lead to somewhere out of this fucked up town, and he intended to find it.

  He fumbled in his pocket for his trusty Zippo lighter. It had been a gift from his father on his eighteenth birthday; that and a carton of Marlboro Red and some spending money to take down to Atlantic City. He really missed the old man. He may have been rougher than sand paper and a bit handsy when he was drunk, but he was all man and did what he could to make Frank one, too.

  It was dark as death in the sewer, the Zippo’s light blinding him for a moment.

&n
bsp; “Maybe I can find a stick and some rags and make one of them old time torches.”

  Sloshing down the tunnel, fresh waves of fetid air exploded from the water as he disturbed various pockets of turds and other slop he’d rather not think about.

  When he first saw The Shawshank Redemption, he’d thought that Andy guy was crazy for walking down that shit tunnel. All because he was too much of a pussy to ride out his time in the slammer.

  After today, he’d look at Andy and that movie differently. Frank would wade through way worse to get away from that lizard or whatever the hell it was.

  The sounds of the melee above him became mere echoes as he trudged down the tunnel, taking a sharp right when he came upon a grating that blocked his path. The ironwork was decorated with filtered trash, all of it stained black and thick with ooze.

  A soft, noxious breeze caused his flame to flicker and almost go out.

  “Don’t you die on me,” he said to his Zippo.

  If it did, he was pretty sure he’d lose his shit for good.

  Something splashed in the water. It was impossible to tell where the sound had come from. Frank stopped, Zippo held as far from his body as his arm could reach, hoping to pierce the black and spot whatever it was before it got to him.

  There was silence, then more splashes. So, so many.

  “Who’s down here?”

  It sounded like a bunch of kids kicking up water at a pool party.

  Except he knew there weren’t kids down here. And this was no pool party.

  Logically, it was probably rats, but he hadn’t seen anything logical for the past twenty-four hours.

  He started to run, though for all he knew, he was running to the source of the splashing.

  What he did know was that it was getting closer.

  It couldn’t be the big lizard.

  But what if there were others, maybe not dinosaur sized, but big as a man?

  Or it could be one of those sewer gators, he thought. Just because there are dinosaurs up top doesn’t mean something else can’t get you.

  Frank felt an urgent need to shit. Tightening his sphincter, he plunged down the tunnel, seized by panic, praying his lighter held out.

  “Stay the fuck away from me!”

  Yeah, like that would stop it.

  Breathing heavily through his open mouth, he ingested droplets of liquid sewage kicked up by his running, his stomach revolting instantly, diaphragm hitching.

  The need to vomit hit him so hard, it stopped him in his tracks. Projectile vomiting into the sludge, he also felt his other end let go. Even though he was alone and terrified, he still felt ashamed, having been reduced to a helpless baby, vomiting and shitting himself in a stifling, dark sewer.

  Whatever was in the water didn’t give a frog’s knobby ass he was paralyzed by his rebellious guts. The splashing grew more and more intense. When Frank tried to stand and run, he was rocked by another bout of nausea.

  “Don’t let me die like this,” he sobbed in between hot gouts of vomit.

  Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he recovered in time to see the tunnel was filled with iguanas of every size imaginable. They scampered in a herd, heading right for him.

  “No, no, no, no!”

  He’d already endured having a tide of the babies wash over him. It wasn’t going to happen again.

  Trailing shit from his pants legs, he ran, looking up for an escape.

  He spotted a manhole cover and rungs set into the solid wall up ahead. A jolt of adrenaline put some distance between him and the lizard horde. He hit the ladder hard. Some of the bigger and faster iguanas darted ahead of the horde, latching onto his legs. Their weight unbalanced him. Frank nearly lost his grip.

  Climbing and whimpering while the iguanas climbed up his body, he rammed his shoulder into the manhole.

  It didn’t budge. One of the lizards dug its feet into his crotch. He saw stars.

  Slamming into the cover again, he was pretty sure he heard something crack in his shoulder.

  “Fuck!”

  Squeezing the rungs between his legs, he used both of his hands to push against the heavy manhole cover. A lizard slithered up his chest, latching onto his arm and biting his hand.

  Frank screamed.

  But the bite also gave him just what he needed to make a final, mighty push. The cover popped free. Frank clambered out of the sewer, the iguana latched onto his hand, the other one still on his leg.

  He was in the middle of a residential street. A pair of dino-lizards were heading his way.

  “I can’t catch a fucking break!”

  Making a fist with the lizard on his knuckles, he punched the asphalt, shattering the creature. Pain shot from his hand all the way to the side of his head, but the lizard was toast. He grabbed the tail of the other and flung it onto a lawn across the street.

  Using his feet to slide the manhole cover back in place before the others joined the party, he saw a woman staring at the approaching big bastards, her mouth wide open, screaming incoherently.

  It looked like one of the ladies from the car.

  At least I didn’t kill both of them.

  He ran to the woman, away from the lizards, and grabbed her hand.

  “We have to get outta here,” he barked, dragging her. His shoulder protested but he told it to shut the fuck up.

  “Ch . . . Ch . . . Cheryl,” the woman blabbered.

  “Right, let’s go find Cheryl. Come on.”

  She looked at him, the glaze in her eyes fading. “Cheryl’s dead.”

  “Do you want to join her?”

  Those big-ass lizards were getting awfully close.

  When she didn’t reply, he shouted, “Do you want to live or die?”

  “We, we were going to the old school. We were going to hide in the gym in the basement.”

  The old school. Frank had spent one night there. Kids used it as a skate park, so there were a lot of cops around, chasing them away. Too many cops for his taste.

  “Lead the way, honey.”

  “Don’t call me honey,” she said, coming out of it and leading him between two demolished houses.

  He struggled to keep up with her. She was young and in some fantastic shape. Under different circumstances . . .

  “So what do I call you?”

  “Nicole.”

  He once dated a stripper named Nicole. She’d been a hot mess from Tampa. Her daddy had done a real number on her.

  I wonder if this same shit is happening in Tampa, he thought. Nicole’s probably riding a pole in some Bronx dive by now, anyway.

  As Frank and Polo Springs Nicole ran across lawns and yards peppered with the remains of modern suburbia, the giant lizards lost interest in them and turned away. It was as if something had snatched their attention. They converged on the three-level apartment building on the corner, shearing off the top floor and dipping their heads in like little kids reaching into a cookie jar.

  It may have been the remnants of the wind, but Frank thought he heard screams.

  “Looks like we’re off their radar . . . for now,” he said, panting behind Nicole.

  She gave a quick glance over her shoulder, only to speed up her pace.

  “Wait up,” he cried out.

  Nicole kept going.

  Frank never liked school as a kid. If this place gave them shelter, he’d have to revisit his thoughts on it. If he didn’t have a stroke before he got there.

  Chapter 22

  Don couldn’t believe the scrum that broke out in the sheriff’s office. It started with glass shattering, then his friends and neighbors went crazy opening drawers and tipping over desks. They even knocked the deceased sheriff off his chair in their madness, trampling his body.

  “What the hell are you all doing?”

  No one pa
id him any mind. They were too busy turning the office upside down.

  Don fought against the tide, desperate to find his family.

  He managed to get outside with a few more bruises and contusions. Barbara had moved away from the mob, holding Gary in both arms. Ann was nowhere to be seen.

  “What happened in there?”

  Kissing her forehead, he cupped his hands over Gary’s ears and said, “It looks like the sheriff killed himself. He must have seen what was happening and . . . and . . . I guess it was too much. Everyone’s gone crazy looking for weapons.”

  “Did you get one?”

  Barbara’s look of expectancy, then disappointment that he’d emerged empty-handed, concerned him.

  “They’ve lost their minds. I wouldn’t be surprised if a few of them don’t accidentally shoot one another with the way they’re going,” he said.

  Before Barbara could reply, a pair of trucks rumbled onto Main Street.

  “Sam!” Don yelled, waving.

  The other truck belonged to a friend of Sam’s, another old timer who said very little but smiled often.

  His neighbor pulled up beside them.

  “Jesus, Sam, I thought you were dead.”

  “Not yet. What’s going on?” He nodded his chin toward the sheriff’s office.

  “Everyone’s looking for guns,” Don said, saddened by the state of his town.

  “That’s probably a good idea,” Sam said, lifting his hunting rifle off his seat. “We need to be armed and stay together.”

  Don sighed. “Not the way they’re going about it.”

  “We’re all animals under a very thin surface. Get in.” He popped the passenger door open. Don let Barbara and Gary in first.

  “Are you hurt?” Sam asked them.

  “Not badly,” Barbara said. Gary gave Sam a weak smile.

  “Where are you headed?” Don asked, securing Sam’s rifle on his lap.

  Sam’s concentration flitted to the mob spilling out of the sheriff’s office. There were a lot of guns in the hands of people who’d probably never held one before. Muttering something under his breath, he said, “We tried to get out of town, but of course, the road is under ten feet of water. To be honest, we’ve just been trying to steer clear of those iguanas, if that’s what they really are.”