by catt dahman
Seeing the supplies they scavenged reminded Jack of that day and how he shared a gun with Ruby, whom he hadn’t known then. He had handed her a gun and hoped she might be on his team; she had been.
“What?” Ruby asked as he stared at her.
“I love you.”
“I love you, Jack. What’s up?”
“Just remembering when I first met you. It’s all been worth that,” he said. “Okay you’ll hate me, but I am gonna clip a sleeping bag to each of you. It’s only three pounds. I know we have a huge amount of stuff, over sixty-five pounds, but it’s worth it. When we stop, we can make a sled or something to haul it back.”
Ruby groaned as he added a bag to her back. She could barely carry it all. “So you’re getting all misty, remembering that? Ha. I thought you were really cute back then.”
“You don’t now?”
“I still do, but I mean, even then, I noticed you. You kept staring at me,” she laughed.
“Well, I liked looking at you,” he said as he kept working.
Adrian and Jack gave Chris some of the food they found that was still sealed and good because they could never have too much. Then they took all the ammunition they found if they had guns for it. The ammo would have to be cleaned and the rust removed; most was long scattered and buried, but there was enough to be worth the trouble of gathering it.
The guns they found were rusted and would need to be well soaked in oil and well cleaned before they could be used. The stock of one rifle was kind of soft and looked rotten, but Wodanaz said he could make a new stock for it that would be stronger, last longer, and even look better. He had in mind a nice piece of oak.
“What do you think happened?” Nina asked.
“I guess a pack hunted them and trapped them in here, and they had no where to run. They would have checked first and found it empty, but the fast-moving pack must have been smart and come from both ends and quick,” Jack suggested.
“That is clever,” Ruby said, “I mean, that is a hunting technique; working together as a team…two teams…that’s scary. It means thinking.”
“The dead one there looks like a carnotaurus to me. I can’t believe they died here in this trap,” Chris said.
Jeremy-Wodanaz stared at the bones of the dead predator and angled the skull this way and that, studying it. “The bones are too many and too big, but look how small the skull is…two feet…and the teeth are long and pointed like a carnotaurus and look….” He ran a thumb over a small horn set over a very small eye socket. A matching horn was over the other eye as well but had the tip cracked off.
“That’s a carnotaurus for sure. Nothing else has those horns over little beady eyes. And the skull is short and blunt.”
“Creepy. All of them just gone all at once. They were half way through when they were attacked. I can’t imagine how cheated they felt. How terrified. The pain…just being trapped and slaughtered, they had no chance, and it scares me about the things which planned this hunt,” Ruby shivered.
Jack took Ruby’s hand, “Come on. We have miles to go.”
Sometime later when they were exhausted by the weight they carried, Adrian pointed and said, “There.”
“I am so glad to hear that,” Nina said.
Seven months before when Adrian was at the cave, one member of his group died a horrifying death from an infestation of worms from the bad water, one died of suicide, and one was killed out of mercy as she was covered in third degree burns. Adrian shivered with the memories, knowing those three bodies were still there, albeit stacked respectfully in a deep corner, along with two more bodies. He still had nightmares of his days in that little cave filled with horrors.
When Adrian and the rest entered the cave months ago, they found a female skeleton/mummy in a sleeping bag; she had died of unknown injuries. They also found a male, laid out on the floor where he had fallen with a rictus of horror on his leathery face; they felt he died of sheer terror and a heart attack. That was possible.
The reason for his terrified reaction was the skeleton Adrian and Mike carried all the way back to the home cave to prove what they had found; no one would have believed them otherwise: a partially human skeleton with saurian attributes. It looked to be a half-human-half-dinosaur and had obviously scared the dead man, probably to death. The bones alone were chilling enough to cause anyone to have nightmares.
It was a mystery that they needed an answer to. Was it natural or something more sinister? Why did it exist? The answers might cause more bad dreams but not knowing was threatening somehow.
“New skeletons,” Adrian said.
“Joe and Carol. I knew they shouldn’t have gone on, but they thought they could make it; besides, we were crazy for staying,” Chris said. He pointed to the emblems on their packs that designated them as group three. With a kiss on Nina’s forehead, Adrian said that he and Nina were the only two who survived from that group. Their cave, Asgard, might not be perfect, but it was a better life than they had ever had back in their own worlds.
“I wish they had stayed with us,” Nina said.
“Me, too. But that five million…it’s a strong temptation, and when a person gets this far, he thinks maybe he can make it.”
“I felt that way,” Adrian admitted.
Wodanaz looked at the skeletons and said, “Both her arms are broken, and I see marks on the bones. I think she was attacked and mauled and came here and died.”
Jack nodded, “He’s missing an arm. It may have been taken away by scavengers, but I think whatever got her, got him as well.” He was sorry it happened. The pain and fear had to have been horrific. If nothing else, at least they didn’t die alone; they were together.
They respectfully moved the bodies and set them with the others in a far corner so they could set up camp, make a fire, eat, and get some sleep. Their camp was messy and loosely formed as they were so worn-out that they could barely think.
Luckily, no enemies came around because the guards on duty fell asleep.
Chapter Two: Caving
Being nothing like their home cave, the small cave the survivors found was dirty and merely an open spot in the rocks, littered with mysteries and bones: it was a place of death. They didn’t know what they hoped to find in the small cave where others had died terribly, but through numerous discussions and revealing facts by those who came as military and stayed as free people, there were secrets to be found.
Why had the SSDD group taken over more than two former states, walled and fenced them to develop dinosaurs, and then refused to show them to anyone outside of the venue of a reality television show? Why were there whispers that the government and SSDD officials planned to hide deep within the dinosaur facility as economic collapses worsened and violence increased? Only the genetically strange skeleton offered any clues to what SSDD might have done, and it was found right in this cave.
The floor was dirty but bare. Rocks and rock walls were all around, but nothing appeared interesting. Why was this place important when they had found nothing but bugs and dirt?
“That crack, look, is that something up there?” Nina pointed upwards to a faint black area almost hidden by a ledge, a dozen feet above their heads. “Boost me up, Chris.”
“I don’t know….” Jack stared upwards. It could be something, but he was feeling as if there were nothing to be found.
“Be careful,” Chris said. He boosted her carefully.
“Yeah, yeah.” She climbed up and looked around.
“Where is she?” Ruby said. She saw Nina seemingly vanish.
Chris looked back at Ruby and then upward, “Nina?”
He was about to demand a boost to look for her, but Nina reappeared. “You big guys will have to scoot through, and we will have to shove our packs in, but it’s open and not far. In fact, three feet tops and then it’s all open into another cave.”
“Why are we climbing up there to go into another cave?” Trevor asked. “A cave is a cave, right? How will another one help us? Ho
w is this one different? Did you find something?”
Nina laughed, “Because this one is right behind a door that opens up to…ready? A building?”
“A building of what?” Trevor asked, and then he stopped talking as he stared, “Oh. A building. What? Impossible. How did that get there?”
Ruby brushed past him, “That’s what we need to find out. Nothing is impossible when we live in a world with dinosaurs that died sixty-five million years ago.”
With a cam device, they rigged a way to climb up. Scooting through a small space and with jaws agape, they saw the door that Nina opened and went through; it was unbelievable, but it was right there.
They skirted around the old looking building, well protected from predators and well cared for. It took several minutes for them to accept a building was down in the mountain, but after a full circle around the building, they went to the door and looked at each other. While Nina knocked, the rest stood prepared, guns at the ready.
Someone had built the building within the rocks, using them as walls and using pre-fabricated materials to make a sort of bunker that would have been state of the art back in the 1950s or so.
As the door opened, a voice called out, “There is no need to come in armed and ready to fire. We wish you no harm,” said a female, dressed in military gear with her gun on her back as she opened the door. “We saw you on the cameras and hoped you might visit.”
“What is this place?” Ruby asked.
“Here? The beginning of everything. Probably to you, this is the place where many questions will come up and where a few may be answered.”
“You’re in a building….” Jack said to the officer who identified herself as Sarah Bright.
She laughed, “Yes, we are. I’m sure that’s a shock to you since it’s unexpected. Would you care for a hot shower? Something to eat? Both? Clean clothing? We have military garb in better shape that what you have on. Pants, boots, and socks.”
“Maybe. We…we….” Jack was nervous. He never expected to find a building deep inside a cave, inside a mountain; he really didn’t count on finding people inside: clean people, military people who actually expected them to come and visit.
Wodanaz, Trevor, and Adrian looked over the hallway suspiciously.
Bright sniffed, “You are more than safe here. There’s no reason to be nervous around me.”
“You’re the other side. You’re the side we ran from,” Jack said.
“Ahhh. I can understand why you would think that, but no, this place isn’t anything like your old world and its ideology. This place was leaning that way. Those here and those way out there thought some of the same things, but then, this place went way different, and out there went different in a well different way. Now, there is out there, there is here, there is you, and there is out there different.”
“You’re talking in riddles,” Jack said.
“I’ve lived in a riddle for a very long time, to be honest,” Bright said, her face sad and voice expressionless all at once. She motioned them to follow her. “Come on in. If nothing else, you can get supplies and find out some answers to some questions I know you have.”
As they walked down the hallways, they were aware of how ragged their clothing was, how worn their boots were, and how rugged they appeared now, but it was okay; their looks were their badges of honor and survival.
The building barely had been updated over the years; it was about a hundred years old, actually maintained to a point, but seemed as if in the last twenty years, it had been almost forgotten. Doors led off the hallway and to parts unknown. Some paint was chipping.
“Are you taking us hostage?”
“Of course not. In fact, the opposite really. No one wants to take you back to your old world,” Bright assured them. “We are as much refugees as you are; in fact, some of the personnel are gathering to answer questions for you.”
“Oh,” Ruby said.
“Your coming here is very exciting for us. We’ve kind of waited and hoped for this. We would have come to you in time, though.”
“What is this place?” Trevor asked.
Bright shrugged, “Once a cave, then a crash site, a laboratory, a government-run laboratory, a bunker, and now our home because like you, we have no desire to return to the world out there. We know how bad the world is.”
“You know there are dinosaurs out there, right? Beyond the cave?” Nina asked. She wanted to snicker because it felt funny to say such a thing, but she was curious.
Again, Bright laughed, “Yes, we know. My duty here began after they were here in the cave. I guarded those who designed the dinosaurs.”
“They’re in the cave?”
“Yes,” Bright told Ruby, “but we’re safe in here. They can’t get in here, and they can’t harm anyone. I promise all your questions will be answered although you’ll then doubt your sanity. Just know you are in the very heart of where the dinosaurs began again by accident, fate, and then scientific design.”
Led into a room with a long table and chairs, they sat down, confused and curious. Bright asked them to remain calm and to lower their weapons, and since no one had them at gunpoint, they complied.
Several people came in; most of the facial expressions were undistinguishable.
“We don’t understand any of this….”Jack began.
“Then allow Shimei to tell you a story, and I will join in at the proper time,” a man told them. His name was Tony; he was a handsome Italian-looking man with dark eyes and dark hair; his smile was friendly but somehow sad.
Shimei nodded to them as they introduced themselves. He welcomed them. “I know you are confused, and I understand since I was once in your place. Coming here is like opening Pandora’s box. All the evil and weirdness just pour out, but if you recall, there was still hope left inside.”
“That’s kind of scary.”
“Oh, it was for us as well. Horrifying to be truthful, but it was a very long time ago when I came here. This place was already seventy years old when I arrived. It’s over a hundred now. It’s old and full of secrets, amazing things, and nightmares as well. Fifty years ago, I was a student in college, studying psychology in a class led by Dr. Rick Parker….”
“Fifty years ago? Right. Look, are you going to hand us bullshit?” Trevor asked. He was suddenly angry. If they wanted to lie, he wasn’t interested.
“It’s the absolute truth. Things down here are different. It isn’t magic, but surely you understand, having seen the dinosaurs, that there is a brilliant science going on, right? There are pure scientific methods here that are in play, not magic spells or
Voodoo.”
“I know we don’t understand how they did it or really why, but yes, I can accept there is a brilliance to the dinosaurs,” Jack admitted.
“It’s simply science technology. That’s all. No magic involved. New ideas and abilities and someone took the abilities, and we have dinosaurs,” Shimei said.
“No magic. So, you are far older than you look, but that was science, too?” Trevor asked.
“I know it seems impossible, and in ways, I almost wish I had aged normally and died, but as you see, I am, by any standards, beginning middle age, and baring accident, disease, murder, or suicide, I will live another century. As you hear my story, long as it is, you will understand why I have not aged properly and why you have walked into a building set right in the middle of a cave. That isn’t magic either, right?”
“No. It’s advanced abilities. Someone built this in the middle of a cave and used science to bring back animals from sixty-five million years ago,” Ruby said.
“We agree. Science. Okay,” Jack said.
“Exactly. Some elements came together perfectly, and it all became possible. A perfect storm, if you will. Like it or hate it, it all fell into place, and here we are,” Tony said.
Shimei sighed, “I know you will find this impossible to believe, but all of the story is true as you will find. My story begins fifty years ago, as I sai
d. I was young, and we were on a class trip,” he said as he began the tale that would explain everything, and yet leave a million questions to be asked.
Part II: Early Twenty-first Century: Shimei’s Story
Chapter One: Mysteries
“I can’t pee over there; there’s a dead body,” Haylee said as she ran back to the group, almost dancing in place, her face drawn in lines of pain. She held her jean-clad legs tightly together and moved in place, causing several of the males in the group to watch her full breasts bounce beneath a taut tee shirt. Had anyone asked them what Haylee had just said, the males would have gazed back blankly and asked if she had, indeed, said anything to them. They were transfixed.
Behind her, numerous tiny waterfalls fell from the high, rocky bluffs into the pool at the bottom of the rocks, forming a little pond of sorts. Listening to the sounds of the water made Haylee wince; she was sure she was about to wet her jeans and become the butt of jokes for days. No one seemed concerned about her statement or her problem; Haylee clenched her teeth.
“A body or something,” Haylee added as she motioned over her shoulder.
Beginning to darken, the sky took on a purplish cast along the top, revealed dark blue behind the trees and rocks, and finally became a dull, sickly white where the sun slipped away.
It was getting late in the day, and nerves were already on edge. Everyone groaned. More than a few eyes rolled, aggravated at Haylee, the youngest and the most prone to giggling.
“Haylee, we stopped because you said you were in need of a break. We have to find a place to camp very soon,” said Dr. Rick Parker as he tried to calm this discussion before some of the rest began giving her a difficult time. They had been cooped up, driving all day, and were irritable. Why Haylee was dancing in place and grimacing was a mystery to him, but her stunt was going to earn her enemies, bouncy breasts or not.
That was how it began.
“It’s getting late, and we really need to find a spot so we can explore a few days,” Dr. Rick Parker said. He repeated himself because no one was listening. They were either watching Haylee’s tee shirt or giving her malevolent looks for trying to be the center of attention.
