by Brian Rowe
“Not quite. But we're getting closer.”
“Yes we are,” I added.
I grinned. I was just a few short hours from meeting Mira. Everything I had hoped for and dreamed about since stumbling into that chat room in May of '97 was about to come true.
But then I caught my face in the rearview mirror. First I smiled, then I pouted.
“What is it?” Frankie asked.
“She doesn’t know what I look like,” I said.
“Who?”
I glared at him.
“Oh, Mira?”
“Yes. What if…” It was hard to say it. It was hard to even think it. “What if she doesn’t think I’m pretty?”
“Don’t talk like that,” Frankie said. “She'll think you're beautiful.”
I wrapped my arms around Elle. “You really think so?”
“Zippy, you’re a piece of work. But you’re an adorable piece of work. If this Mira girl sees what I see, she’s gonna love you.”
I smiled, and pinched his cheek. “You’re just saying that because you’re gay. You don’t have to think I’m pretty.”
“What does gay mean?” Elle asked.
I patted her on her big, frizzy hair. “I’ll tell you when you’re older.” I peered back at Frankie. “You’re a sweet guy. I hope you find what you’re looking for. Whether it's in Seattle, or back in Orlando.”
“You think I’ll ever find a guy who loves me?” he asked.
“You're gonna have your pick. I mean... you’re a stud.”
“A stud!” Elle giggled, like she found the word funny. I bounced her up and down on my right knee.
“So is it time we have that talk?” Frankie asked, with a loud sigh.
I leaned my head back. “What talk is that?”
“What we’re going to do when we reach Seattle.”
“What do you mean?”
He picked up speed, even though the fog before us appeared to be getting thicker. “Don’t be naïve, Zippy. Once I get you to Mira, we’re all going to split up, right? I have my dad to find, Mr. Balm has whatever he’s looking for, and Elle here—well, I don’t know what we’re gonna do about her.”
“She doesn’t have anyone,” I said.
“And what? That’s going to be you? You and Mira are going to adopt a seven-year-old girl?”
“I don’t know.”
“Wait. Didn’t she say she had cousins in Seattle?”
“Oh yeah, that’s right,” I said. “It’s okay. We’ll figure it out.”
“Have you even thought about what happens after you find Mira? Then what? The world’s a mess.”
“You think I don’t know that? Don’t ruin this, Frankie. I’ve been waiting two years for this girl. Don’t turn this into a bad day. This is a good day.”
He picked up more speed, as the road curved to the right. “I just want you to be prepared, that’s all.”
“Yeah? Prepared for what?”
“Anything. At any moment. Because in this new world we're in, I feel like we have to expect the unexpected at any given—”
Something strong and fierce smashed its claw against the driver’s side door.
“Oh my God!” I shouted. I pulled Elle toward me and shielded her with my body.
“What the hell!” Frankie shouted. “What the hell was that?”
The creature returned a second later and struck the door a second time, so hard the car tilted onto its side for two whole seconds before it crashed back down to Earth.
“Oh Jesus!” Frankie screamed.
“What is it, Frank—” I screamed when a hand grabbed my shoulder from behind.
“What’s that ruckus?” Mr. Balm asked.
“Goddamn you!” I slapped his hand away. “Don’t scare me like that!”
“What was that noise?”
“I don’t know,” Frankie said, “but I’m going to speed up.”
“Do you think it’s a dinosaur?” Elle asked.
“No,” I said, even though I figured it was. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”
“Will it get in here? Will it hurt us?”
“It’s not going to hurt you. I won’t let anything hurt you, Elle. You understand me?”
She nodded, and I brought my arm back over her head, to shield her from danger.
Frankie glanced in his side mirror, then in the rearview. “Damn it. It’d be nice if I could actually see what was out there.”
“Just go as fast as you can,” I said, holding Elle tight against my waist. “Maybe we can outrun it.”
“Do you think it was a stegosaurus? Or a triceratops, maybe?” Mr. Balm asked, hovering over me so close his warm breath wafted against my cheek. “Or do you think it could even be the Tyrannosaurus—”
“No!” I shouted. “Don’t even say it!”
“They’re bound to be out here, Zippy. I wouldn’t be naïve and think they’re not.”
“Why do you both think I’m naïve? I’m not naïve. I’m tough.”
“I’m sure you are,” Mr. Balm said. “But you’re the size of a munchkin.”
“So what if I am?”
“So, you have to be careful. If I’m betting on a fight between you and a T. rex, I’m probably gonna go with the T. rex.”
“Gee, thanks,” I said.
“Okay,” Frankie said. His breathing finally calmed down. “I think we lost it. Whatever it was.”
“Are we safe?” Elle asked, looking up at me with her big, brown eyes.
“Yes,” I said. “We’re fine.”
I spoke too soon; the Explorer started to shake, like an unexpected earthquake was erupting beneath us. Frankie’s hands trembled on top of the steering wheel, and Elle bounced off my legs without any movement from me.
Then the passenger side window exploded.
“Zippy!” Elle shouted.
“Elle! Elle, no!”
I brought Elle’s head down and covered her, again.
“Whoa!” Frankie shouted. “What is it? What is it?”
The dinosaur charged alongside the vehicle. It pounded its slim but powerful head against the passenger door. I caught a proper glimpse of its face before it disappeared from view.
“Oh shit,” I said.
“Is that what I think it is?” Mr. Balm asked, crouching in his seat.
“Yes!” I shouted. “It’s a velociraptor!”
Frankie shrieked with terror as the raptor’s head smashed through his driver’s side window, shooting glass all over him. He swerved the car to the left and tried to run it over.
“Don’t crash!” I shouted. “Frankie! Please!”
“I’m trying!”
The raptor struck the driver’s side door, like it was trying to tear that away, too. An eerie tap-tap-tap noise emanated from below.
“What’s it doing?” Mr. Balm asked. “What the hell is that noise?”
“I don’t know.” Frankie pushed the remaining glass at his window away, then peered down.
“What is it?” I asked, trying not to faint from the mounting tension.
“It’s slashing at the tires. It’s trying to blow one of the tires!”
“Well you have to do something!”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know! Anything! If it stops us, we’re dead!”
He looked out the windshield, then out his open window. “Okay, okay,” he said. “I have an idea.”
I pulled Elle back toward me and held her in a death grip.
Frankie gritted his teeth. “All right, everyone. Hang on!”
He slammed the brakes so hard Mr. Balm catapulted to the front of the car and slammed his head against the gear shift.
“Mr. Balm!” I shouted. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine,” he said, sitting back up. “Did we lose it?”
Of course we didn’t. The raptor leaped right onto the hood, then the top of the car.
“Crap!” I shouted. “Frankie! Go, go, go!”
He shoved his foot against the pe
dal, and we zoomed from 0 to 50 in a matter of seconds.
The lean creature didn’t fall off the car; it pounded its jaw against the roof and tried to scratch its way in.
“Elle, get in the back,” I said. I unbuckled my seatbelt and handed her to Mr. Balm.
“What are you doing?” Mr. Balm asked.
“Trying to keep us alive.” I scooted to the corner of my seat. “Make sure she's safe, all right? That’s your job right now.” I turned to Frankie, who looked like he wanted to cry. “Frankie, go faster. And don’t freak out.”
“Freak out? Why would I freak out? There’s just a goddamned dinosaur on the car!”
I kicked open the glove compartment and searched for a weapon. All I found at the bottom was a long, heavy flashlight. I grabbed it.
“Wish me luck,” I said, and pushed away from the seat.
“With what?” Frankie asked. “What are you doing?”
“What do you think? I’m gonna kill this thing.”
He stared at me. “You’re gonna what?”
Of all the dinosaurs, the velociraptor was the one I liked the least. It was menacing, predatory, ruthless. And as soon as it put Elle in danger, there was only one simple truth: I needed to bring it down.
I pulled myself out of the shattered window. I sat my butt on the opening and locked my legs around the headrest. I turned on the light and flashed it right into the raptor’s eyes. It stopped trying to make a hole in the top of the car, which was good. But then it jumped toward me and snarled, which was bad.
“Get off the car!” I slammed the flashlight against its head. Judy barked from the back seat, rooting me on.
The raptor was taken aback by my stroke of bravery, but it didn’t move away. I swung the flashlight even harder, at its right eye. I waited for it to pounce on me again, but it didn’t; the raptor swung its tail and struck the flashlight right out of my hand.
“Damn it!” I tried to catch it, but it was gone.
“What is it?” Frankie asked. “What happened?”
I swung back inside the car and tried to roll up the window, before I remembered it had already burst into particles.
I saw the raptor’s teeth again, this time right outside the open window. I waited for the creature to dart inside and try to peck at my face, but it instead leaped to the windshield.
“Oh my God!” Frankie yelled. “What do I do? I can't see!”
“Wait a second!” I shouted. I jerked my head around. “Mr. Balm? Don’t you have a gun?”
“What?”
“You said you had a gun, right?”
He blocked his backpack with his hands. “Yes, but it’s only for emergencies.”
“Emergencies? What the hell do you call this, Sherlock?” The raptor started scratching at the windshield. While it had been able to shatter the side windows with ease, the windshield was a lot sturdier.
“But… I…” Mr. Balm looked for an excuse. “I haven’t even shown you how to use it!”
There was no time to argue. I grabbed the backpack out from under him and ripped the handgun away from the bottom pouch.
“Zippy, no!” Frankie shouted. “What are you doing?”
I had never fired a weapon before, but I’d seen other people do it in plenty of action movies—I remembered all the times I sneaked into my brothers’ bedroom to watch Commando, with them not even knowing I was there.
I leaned out the window and aimed the gun at the raptor. It pounced toward me so fast I only had a second to pull the trigger.
“Eat lead!” I shouted, and fired. The bullet struck the raptor in the neck. It landed on its legs, injured—but not dead.
The force of the bullet was so staggering that the gun tumbled out of my hands and onto the road.
“No!” I shouted.
“What happened?” Mr. Balm asked.
I slid back into the car.
“What is it?” Mr. Balm covered his hand over Elle's horrified face.
“Check the back for another weapon!” I shouted.
“What happened to the gun?”
“I dropped it, okay?”
“You what? I’ve had that gun for thirty years!”
I pounded my fists against the center console. “Who cares right now! Seriously! Look in the back!”
The raptor returned to the windshield. The claws on its left foot started digging through the glass.
Mr. Balm pushed himself over the back seat and stuck his legs up in the air.
“Found something!” he said.
“Good!” I said. “What is it?”
He threw a golf club at me. I caught it right before the club-head struck the top of my chest.
“Will that work?” he asked.
“A three iron?” I glanced down at it, unsure. “Wait, didn't you have a grenade?”
He shook his head, fast and definitive. He tried to pull his backpack away, but I grabbed it just in time. I reached for the grenade—but my fingers struck something better.
I dropped the golf club, and pulled out an ax. It was two feet in length, with a dark brown haft and a sharp, silver blade. The name LYMAN was sketched into the knob at the bottom.
“Mr. Balm! You've had an ax in here this whole time?”
“Yes, but, please, I don't want anything happening to it—”
“Is this your name? Lyman?” I pointed to the bottom of the ax.
“Uhh, maybe,” Mr. Balm said.
“That's a nice name! Why hide it?”
“I just think it makes me sound old-fashioned.”
Frankie floored the car even faster, and screamed, “This is so wonderful, you two bonding and all, but Zippy, can you please try to get this asshole off the car?” The raptor pounded its claws against the bottom of the windshield.
“All right, all right!” I said, with a confident glance at Frankie. “I've got this!”
I moved up out of the window a third time. The raptor spotted me and jumped toward me, again.
It stopped above me, waved its tail into the wind, and jerked its claws toward me, like it wanted to take off my head. I swung the ax against the raptor’s injured neck, with all my strength, and knocked its body down against the top of the car.
It looked more surprised than anything else, but I wasn’t done yet; I gripped the ax tight in my hands and brought it down against the raptor’s head, once, twice, three times, four times. The ax came down a fifth time and broke in two, the handle still gripped in my fingers, the blade lodged inside the raptor’s skull.
Frankie swung the car to the left, and the dead dino tumbled off the back.
I didn’t move into the car right away; I stayed outside for a few seconds, breathing in and out so hard and fast I thought I would faint.
I threw the broken ax past Mr. Balm and dropped back against the passenger seat. I stared at the ravaged windshield, as Frankie turned on the wipers.
“That was… that was…” Frankie couldn't get the words out.
“I know,” I said.
I turned around. Elle was crying, still in shock. Mr. Balm held her tight.
“I need water,” I said. “Is there water in the back?”
Mr. Balm leaned over, grabbed a bottle, and tossed it my way. He shook his head. “Zippy. You just killed a velociraptor.”
I chugged half the bottle. “Yeah, so?”
He searched for the right words. “Nothing. Just... good job.”
“Thanks. Sorry I lost your gun. And broke your ax.”
“It's fine. I'm just glad we're all right.”
“Me too, Lyman,” I said, with a grin. He rolled his eyes.
I leaned over and glanced at the speedometer. We were going 50.
“Jesus, slow down,” I said.
A stop sign appeared ahead. Frankie finally slowed, to 30, to 20, all the way to 0.
“Keep going straight?” he asked.
“Hold on.” I pulled up the map and found our location. “Yes. Straight.”
A mile later a big sign a
ppeared on the side of the road. I didn’t need to tell Frankie to slow down again. He veered the car off the pavement, onto some dirt, and stopped.
The sign had a few cities listed on it that I didn’t care about, like Eatonville and Puyallup. But below those two was a name I was ecstatic to finally see up close.
“What does it say?” Mr. Balm asked.
“Seattle,” I said. “78 miles.”
“78? That seems like so much!”
“It's not far at all, actually,” I said. I patted Frankie on the shoulder. “Thanks for driving, man. You rock.”
“Thanks for killing that raptor,” he said. “So once we get there, we're going to Mira's, right? Do you have the address?”
“Right here.” I reached into the center console and pulled out the post-it note.
“You sure you want to see her now? It’s late. Shouldn’t we wait until the morning?”
I sighed, and shook my head. “She might not be there in the morning, Frankie.”
“You’re right. Okay.” He pulled back onto the road and kept the speed to a manageable 40. There were barely any cars before or behind us. It was like we were the last people left on Earth.
“Here I come, Mira,” I said. “Please be home.”
CHAPTER TEN
Monday, June 14, 1999
We finally made it.
Her neighborhood didn't look quite as I expected. Nowhere did the Victorian mansions hang over cliffs and look out at the Pacific Ocean. Nowhere did the little children frolic through fields, holding hands and singing Christmas carols, even though the holiday was still six months away. And nowhere did I see Mira standing in front of a shiny green palace, the angry clouds parted just enough so that a small, circular light shined down on her luminous face.
No, none of that was here. In the posh neighborhood of Laurelhurst, only destruction remained. Many of the houses had been decimated, like a fierce tornado had swept through, or like a clan of sauroposeidons—the largest dinosaurs known to man—had trampled through town. The streets were eerily quiet, and the lone car that passed by was a Toyota 4Runner with its entire roof blown off.
“What’s the address again?” Frankie asked. He had the windshield wipers turned on at full blast; it had started raining soon after we pulled into the city.
“1231 Stone Canyon,” I said.
