The Volcaldera Event

by Fiancheeto

Summary:

October 201M2023BC. Autumn. Anon is back in Volcaldera to reconnect with a certain ptero gf. Across the city, Inco continues his studies in St Hammond, growing ever closer to Olivia.

But things aren’t all they seem.

The winds of autumn have brought more than just a cool breeze. Strange things are happening. Strange sights, strange people, strange illness; and no one can explain the hows or whys. But everything is under control. After all…

The Volcaldera Event is contained.

It has always been contained.

Chapter 1: Tutorial

Summary:

“We need help, the poet reckoned.”
- Ed Dorn

Prologue

 

When she woke, she lifted herself to her knees with her arms stretched, swiping and groping at the world around her like a lost woman with a dimming lantern. Nothing but the darkness beyond darkness, the sense of blindness beyond a blind man’s world. Her knees dragged along the ground, coarse like sandpaper, with pin-like fibers that raked her clothes. 

She stopped and knelt there gasping, the fear crawling up to her from the nothingness. Her hands covered her ears. There was a white noise from somewhere, a buzzing to drive the stoic to insanity. She craned her head upwards and closed her eyes. “Hello, is anyone there?” she called out.

The world answered back with her voice, echoing and garbling as if she were in the belly of a great beast. “Hello? Where am I?” she called out again, and the voice returned in that same great garble to mock her. She eased her legs and laid on her back, waiting for a response, a different voice, anything, holding onto the glimmer of hope that this was a surreal dream and that a door of light would be conjured there in the endless void for her to stumble through it and wake up in bed covered in sweat but in safety. 

“I don’t know where I am. I want-” she gasped, holding back the tears. “I want out. I have to get out of here…let me go…” she whispered. 

A chill breeze ran down her bare arms. She rolled to her side and shivered with her hands along her shoulders. She curled up into a ball and tucked her head between her knees with her thick troodon tail wrapped around her body. Waiting, hoping and pleading as she laid there wheezing.

She panicked at the thought of the hours and the days and the weeks that may pass. How long can she endure before she shrivels up and be consumed by the darkness? Then, the whirring and purring of machines, rising in pitch. Clicks and whining from the ceiling, bolts shifting in place. The sound of buzzing passing through steel plates and air howling through winding passages. 

Rays of light pierced through the thin gap between her knees. A gentle warmth basked her scales. She uncurled from her protective ball and opened her eyes. She hissed from a brief stinging pain. A hundred fluorescent suns shone upon her from a cloudless gray sky. She rolled to her side and rubbed her eyes.

Gathering her wits, she rose and stumbled, getting herself on her feet. She stood there looking and listening, feeling as though she were an alien to this land. Poplar trees all of the same height planted everywhere, the cracks and wrinkles on the barks and branches of identical patterns. The leaves were all pristine green and unwilted. She tested the ground. The grass was thin like toothbrush bristles and made of hard plastic, the soil rubbery. She wandered in a small perimeter. It was a siren’s world. 

She backed into a tree and stood there scared and confused for a long time. Then, her right ear gave out a dull ache. She felt at it. Her fingers touched something smooth and made of plastic. An earpiece of sorts. A set of wiring. She scraped at it but both were lodged in there good. 

A brief electronic screech from the earpiece. She groaned and clenched her ringing ears as she grimaced.

“Jane Doe, turn right and keep walking.”

A voice from the earpiece. It was monotone and deep, the kind that would give recorded military messages on a radio. The ringing ceased. She regained her senses and propped herself up with a tree. She looked around in confusion. ‘Jane Doe?’ she thought. ‘Were they referring to me?’ The voice must be playing tricks. All of this must be a sick joke. She knew she wasn’t Jane Doe. Her real name was… 

She gasped and shook her head. “What’s my name?” she uttered. Her hands clenched her hair as she paced thoughtlessly as if the trees might give her a clue. “Why can’t- why can’t I-” A sudden revelation that shook her to the core: she couldn’t remember. Her childhood. Her family and friends. Her goals to strive for. All the memories burned or locked away somewhere to be lost, perhaps forever. 

“Turn right and keep walking,” this time, the voice spoke with a tinge of annoyance. 

She turned and followed the voice’s instructions. She crept through the false forest like a soldier watching for guerillas. Camera lenses shimmering from somewhere. Smooth and round boulders in a nearby field. She stopped. A patch of dried blood in the grass. She studied it for a time before moving on. 

Soon, she found a narrow gravel path that cut through the brush. She crouched and inspected it. No signs of recent tracks or prints of any kind. 

“Follow the path,” the voice ordered.

She walked beside the path, careful not to cut her bare feet. Around her was the chirping of birds and crickets that didn’t sound quite right. Far away was the downpour of water as it crashed into a waterfall, though she was sure there could not be water around here. She stopped to watch one of the fluorescents above her flicker before continuing her journey. 

It led to a clapboard cabin, simple and generic in appearance. The front door was open. She maintained a distance and watched. Total silence. Nothing stirred within.  

“Enter the cabin.” 

She continued until the cabin was in front of her. She took one last look behind her. There was no one around. The boards creaked under her feet as she stepped onto the porch and went inside. 

A wave of nostalgia hit her, though she didn’t understand why. The rustic kitchen seemed familiar somehow, like fond childhood memories. A place she could have enjoyed staying in. An old wood-fired stove. Cabinets and a sink wrapped with plastic. Boxes stuffed with bubble wrap. She ran a hand on the mahogany table. Silverware and napkins for a group of four. She tried to pull a chair back, but it seemed glued to the floor.   

There was a steel door at the far end of the room. She walked to it and tried the door’s handle, but it was locked. She peered out the window next to the door and saw a dirt path leading to a windowless log building with an assortment of tools propped on the wall. Hard plastic shovels and rakes. A coiled-up garden hose. An empty wheelbarrow. She stared at the building for a long time. There was a faint, metallic rattling in there. 

“Find the bedroom, then look for the key.”

She set one foot into the adjoining room and hesitated. There was dried blood on the walls and floors. A deer skull hung on a wall, antlers and all, staring down at her with its hollow eye sockets. All the windows were boarded up and the curtains torn off. She shivered, feeling as if a dozen pairs of eyes were judging her. She hurried upstairs.

She entered the first room down the hall. It was a humble bedroom with two steel cots and no pillows. Nearby was a low, empty bookcase with a lamp set on top of it and hardwood wall shelves with toys and a plushie of a plump orange and brown cartoon raccoon eating a hamburger. She searched the drawers and shelves and came out empty-handed. She stood thinking for a moment before reaching under the cots. There was something cold and heavy in one of them. She grabbed it with both hands and dragged it out. It was an army footlocker. She undid the steel latches and opened it. Inside was a brass key wrapped in cloth.

“Return to the door.”

But she didn’t want to. Not now, at least. She sat on the bed with the key in hand, staring at the hall outside, staring as she tried to rationalize this, releasing a deep breath as she searched her mind. Hard truths among the broken and misleading memories. The one thing she could recall came in fragments. A fleeting image of her behind the wheel of a car with a friend in the passenger seat. The downpour of rain refracted the view outside the windshield. Headlights beamed upon the windowless side of a house. A sand pit and a child’s tricycle tipped over on the grass. To her right were empty streets, the dotted white lines old and faded. The rural country. Her hand clutched the receiver of a car phone as she spoke to someone.  

“Get up,” the voice warned.

She didn’t want to. Her past was slipping from her fingers.

“Get up. We don’t have time for this.”

She ignored the voice. From the earpiece, the scraping of chairs mixed with an indiscernible conversation. Then, an ear-piercing electronic screech assaulted her. She fell onto the ground and shielded her ears, her claws digging into the scales of her head. She screamed trying to drown out the noise and pain as she writhed around. Then the assault ended. Her head was pounding, and her ears rang. The voice greeted her once her hearing returned. 

“Get up. Don’t try to be smart.” 

She did. She stumbled into the hall and went downstairs and returned to the kitchen. She slid the key in place and twisted it. A click as the door unlocked. She pushed it open and stepped outside.

“Approach the building.”

She walked past an area enclosed by a low chain-linked fence. Within were bags of soil and empty wooden crates. She stopped in front of the building. There was another steel door, this one linked to a keypad. 

“The code to the door is Five, One, Seven, Two.”

She keyed in the numbers. A green light flashed on the keypad, followed by the kerchunk of metal shifting. She tried the knob and the door creaked open. The lights outdoors could only shine a few feet ahead of her before the darkness swallowed the rest. She turned to look behind her. Again, no one was there. She started into the building. 

A few feet into the darkness when the lights clicked on. She realized this was far from a workshop or a tool shed. Sterile white walls and floors. A steel table in the middle of the room with a yellow folder, as if she stepped mid-way into a detainee’s interrogation. Further ahead was a tinted one-way window and a door. A rattling noise was coming from inside there.

“Approach the table.” 

She approached the table and opened the folder. Within it were half a dozen polaroids. She looked through all of them. 

The first was a black and white picture of an ankylosaurus woman in her teenage years in a dress dancing with a triceratops man in an auditorium. Her dress swirled mid-spin, nothing but happiness in her eyes. 

The second was faded but still in color: a picture of her, older now, in a wedding gown. Her hands resting on the arms of the same triceratops. 

The last one drew her breath. It showed two children seated on a park bench with the woman and the triceratops standing behind them. Their smiles all the same.  

She flipped the photo. Behind it, scrawled in neat handwriting, were the words ‘Carla, Oct 1987’. She stared at it, her hands trembling, her breathing erratic. Memories once scrubbed now returning in full force. 

She took that picture. That was the woman sitting with her in the car. 

The photos scattered as she dropped them, one hand clutching her chest as her eyes locked onto the door and tinted window. 

“Approach the door.”

She refused, retreated, and glanced behind her. The door leading outside was closed. The voice repeated their command. Every step felt like a trudge within a great cold bog. Her hand had reached the door’s handle when the rattling returned. It was loud and impossible to ignore, like a strange changeling creature’s lure. 

“Open it and enter.”

She did and entered more darkness, the air thick with the lingering stench of decay and thriving carrion. Her feet were chilly on the concrete floor, and the walls were menacing and closing in on her. 

Then the lights switched on. 

Who was at the far end of the room was unmistakable. There was Carla with her hands chained and cuffed to a wall as if in a medieval dungeon. Her eyes were bloodshot and crazed. Head tilted down as if in a prayer. Clothing old and ranked with blood. Jane Doe made another step inside. Carla wheezed and snarled and sniffed. She locked her gaze upon Jane and lurched forward, the chains unrolled and clinked, her feet shuffling in place. Her mouth snapped in the air, revealing a set of blood-stained teeth. 

Jane Doe screamed and stumbled and brought her back to the wall, her claws scratching against the white paint. 

“Everything is provided in front of you.”

On a table sat a shotgun and one shell. 00 buckshot. She kept her eyes on Carla as she crept to it. She picked up the shotgun and pulled back the pump. No shells in the chamber or in the tube magazine. She took the shell and slotted it into the magazine and pumped it into the chamber then brought the gun to her chest like a sigil or talisman to ward off danger.

“Shoot her.” the voice commanded. 

She stood there whimpering, tightening her grip on the shotgun. Her eyes wet with tears as she held off the urge to scream again, to cry to the voice to stop it all. She watched as Carla continued to lunge, her wrists straining against the chains, growling and groaning and roaring as if to call a bluff. 

“Shoot her.”

She eased the stock against her shoulder. Sweat beaded on her head. Her hands jittered and the gun’s barrel shook as she tried to level it to Carla’s head.

“Shoot her. Do it.”

Then she pulled the trigger. And in a second, all of Carla’s memories, her joy of growing up, the bonding with the love of her life, the husband and children she will never see again, all flowing down the wall in clumps of red matter. And with that, Jane Doe’s hopes of understanding her past were gone.

A ringing in her ears, then silence. She dropped the gun on the floor and sat leaning against the wall, her head pounding from the sound of the gunshot and the stress of everything, watching as the blood streamed down the ankylosaurus’s neck and onto the floor. “Why?” she muttered.

“You wouldn’t understand,” the voice said.

Then the earpiece went silent, and she was left to piece together this bizarre reply. The pool of blood was now inches away from her legs. 

“Why did you kill her?” the voice asked.

She glanced at the body and then at the gun lying useless on the floor. Her trembling hands wiped her face. “Because you made me,” she said finally. 

“If you were to see this again - this…condition. Would you do it? If they were your friends? Your family?”

She did not answer. 

“Would you?”

She craned her head to the ceiling, her voice as quiet as a mouse. “I don’t know,” she said. There could have been a better answer, something that might have meant so much more, but again she repeated, “I don’t know.”

Chapter 2: Business As Usual

October 20th, 201M2023BC

 

Boeing Flight 325 soared 30000 feet above sea level. It flew just above a limitless realm of thick clouds that basked in the sun’s fair glow. To explorers, the view looked akin to a polar ice sheet. But Anon Y. Mous, one of the 154 passengers onboard, isn’t going to uncharted lands. No, he’s on a familiar path, somewhere close to his heart. 

He lay in his seat, arms crossed and head planted on the headrest, looking like someone relaxing on a massage chair after a long day’s work. Jutting out of one ear was an Airpod, where Larry Underwood strummed his guitar, singing Baby Can You Dig Your Man?

The plane’s announcement system crackled to life, and a brief jingle played before a voice said: “Passengers, please fasten your seatbelts; we are about to descend.” Anon followed the words of the voice, and soon, he felt the plane’s downward pitch as it parted the clouds. He peered out the window and saw the rapidly revealing world below: great green plains with spots of golden farm fields split by busy razor-straight highways and, in the distance, an ever-growing city: bustling commercial and industrial districts, towering skyscrapers, cozy suburbs, and apartments. 

Home, nostalgia, Volcaldera Bluffs.

Landing gears skidded against a wide runway as the plane touched down at Volcaldera International Airport. Anon followed the flow of passengers exiting the plane, which led to the river that was Terminal Seven. Hundreds of families, friends, businessmen, and women—human and saurian alike—flowed in and out of planes like streams of water.

He followed the flow to a checkout zone, where he waited a grueling hour for his turn. ‘A week,’ Anon mumbled. He smiled at those words. A week of college break. It's a prime opportunity to get some R&R, to enjoy life a little. And what better way to do that than to pay the woman who changed your life a visit? The plane tickets were cheap this time, so there was no need to fuss.

Suitcase in hand, he made his way through the halls and corridors until he found his way to the parking lot. She said she would be waiting here. He looked to his left. Just rows upon rows of cars. He looked to his right. Still the same. He took out his phone to text her when he felt a hand sink into his shoulder. He turned around and saw a sight he would never miss: the monochromatic pterodactyl, Lucy Aaron.

“Lucy!” Anon said. At this moment, he felt the familiar hug he loved and missed—the kind only she could give: wings wrapped around him like a blanket; she lightly squeezed him as her snout snuggled into his chest. They stood like this for some time, enjoying the rush of emotions. 

Lucy finally said, “Let me guess, long line?”

‘Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it,’ his brain begged. Yet the urge was uncontrollable. He wrenched out a dumb grin and replied in a deep voice: “Kept you waiting, huh?”

“That’s a reference to some video game, isn’t it?” Lucy said, a smirk forming on her snout.

A brief, awkward silence followed. Good work, Anon. You managed to ruin a romantic reunion in 10 seconds. Anon’s face flushed red. “Y-yeah…”

“Gosh, you’re the same dweeb I fell in love with.” She chuckled. Then she dug into her purse and fished out a car keyfob. “Come on.”

Lucy held Anon’s hand as she guided him through the rainbow rows of cars, vans, and trucks. Eventually, she stopped in front of a blue Toyota Celica. Anon could see his reflection off its hull, which looked fresh from an assembly line. She pressed a button on the keyfob and the car chirped.

“Damn, nice car,” Anon remarked.

“Thanks. I passed my driving test a few months ago, and my dad bought it for my birthday.”

They climbed into the car. She started the engine and steered the car out onto the main road. The airport gradually became a blur in the distance, partially blocked by the concrete jungle of Volcaldera. 

His eyes shifted to Lucy, then to the cars beside them, and finally to the buildings they drove by. He felt so excited that he could barely sit still. He had her for a week. The world was their oyster, and there was too much to do.

She found an empty parking spot in front of a ten-story building. She parked the car, shut off the engine, and led Anon inside. They went up to the sixth floor and stopped by Room 612. She opened the door and said, "Welcome home."

"Woah, Lucy."

"You like it?"

"Look at you, Queen of the castle."

In its way, the dorm was more inviting and homier than a castle’s royal chambers. The living room had a couch that was a few years away from being considered brand new, yet had just a few minor peels here and there to show its age. By the wall was a flatscreen TV that looked fresh out of the box, and finally, dead center was a coffee table on which a picture of Lucy’s family sat. 

“There’s a spot for your stuff in my bedroom.”

She opened the door on the left side of the living room. There was a single-sized bed that looked comfy and most definitely had a ptero feather or two that made the bedsheet their home. Next to it was the wardrobe, opened to reveal the aforementioned ample space for Anon’s possessions.

Anon concluded that this place was a five-star hotel compared to his Skin Row shit-shack. Then he looked around again and realized the particular cleanliness and tidiness that only manifests when you don’t have roommates. ‘Scratch that,’ he thought. This place even puts his college dorm to shame. It might as well be a penthouse suite fit with a personal pool and minibar.

It took him a moment to convince his mind to let go of the habit of viewing every room and even the fridge as divided into separate ownership like the borders of nations with souring relationships. ‘This?’ he thought. ‘This I can get used to.’

So he took a moment to unpack his suitcase. By then, it was evening, and his stomach announced its craving for dinner. 

“So, you hungry?” Anon asked.

“Yep, wanna go out for chow?”

He did, but where though? He went through the process of word association. Something cheesy, Italian, and with a lot of meat. Then it clicked. “How about Dino Moes?”

 

—

 

Arriving next to the building at quarter to seven, they felt the evening's chilly breeze as they stepped onto the sidewalk. The flashing neon sign at the entrance that read "Dino Moe's " drew them like a moth to a lamp's hue. They entered the establishment.

A jingle of a bell announced their entrance. They were instantly met with the chatter of patrons sitting around clothed tables. The place smelled of pepperoni and homemade dough. At the far end was a stage with a stand-up microphone, waiting patiently and eagerly for a prospecting singer to use it. Their feet shuffled against the polished wood veneer floor as they approached one of the two empty tables.

The troodon woman at the cash register looked at them, her eyes glistening with surprise. She turned to the kitchen and called out to someone. They heard a rumbling as the hulking figure of a T-rex rushed out. 

“Lucy…and Anon? It’s been so long! How ya doin'?” the T-rex said, extending his tiny hand. He was wearing an apron over a red T-shirt and jeans. The apron had a dribble of tomato sauce that had long since dried off, forming a stain. To Anon, it looked like some far-off, unnamed constellation. 

“About as good as I can be, Moe,” Anon replied, shaking his hand. It was rough and warm from handling woodfired ovens.  

“Boy, why didn’t ya tell your old pal Moe you were back in town?” Moe was stern as a frown formed.

“Ah, well I-”

“Ah, just messing with ya!” Moe laughed. Then he patted Anon’s shoulder teasingly. Anon responded with a chuckle. “No use standin’ here. You two take a seat ova’ there and let Uncle Moe treat ya!”

They made their way to Table Six, Moe following behind them. As they took their seats, Anon looked at the occupied tables around him. “Pretty busy today.”

“Sure is. business is booming! I’ve never had this many customers since that concert you guys held.” 

VVURM Drama’s first successful gig. Very pleasant memory. Anon felt all warm and fuzzy recalling how much the crowd loved the band. “Ah, it was nothing. We all got a little something out of that day.” He glanced at Lucy. “So-”

A shaky voice cried from the kitchen. “Moe, where are you? I look away for a second and you go vanishing into thin air? Come on man! I’m getting overwhelmed back here!”

“Ah, was gettin’ too carried away. That was my new cook, kid’s fresh from high school. I need’sa get to the ol’ fort out back.” he chuckled. “Might as well take ya order while I’m here. So whatcha’ feeling like today? Wants’ da usual?” 

“Yep, you got that right. You know us too well,” Lucy said.

Moe tightened the straps on his apron then hurried his way out of sight. It’d take a while for him to work his culinary magic so Anon decided to use the opportunity to do some catching up.

“How have things been?” Anon asked. 

Lucy reclined into her seat. “Eh, I’m coasting by. I was thinking of signing up as a music teacher in Volcano High.”

“Aren’t you still doing your degree?”

“Well, yeah. But Mr Clarke said he would be happy to accept me even if I hadn’t graduated yet.”

“Mr who-what-now?”

“Bill Clarke, the new principal at Volcano High.”

“What happened to Spears?”

“You don’t know?”

Anon shook his head.

“He quit. Couldn’t take all the parents bickering I suppose. He works at a car dealership now.” She said.

“Huh, figures.”

“Well, that just about brings you up to date,” she said.

“That’s all that happened since we last met?” 

“Yep,” she drummed her fingers against the table. “It’s been pretty quiet lately. The old gang’s too busy to hang out.”    

Busy indeed, life doesn’t wait for anyone, as they say. Anon recalled how they fed him a main course of text messages and the occasional phone call for dessert. Naser was out of state studying for his MD, Trish was busy raising money to kickstart her horn salon, and finally, Reed, who was also out of state studying a degree in…pharmacology? At least that’s what Anon could solve from Reed's messages.  For all he knew, Reed could be in New Rexico cooking up carfe for the cartel.

“So there’s only Rosa, Stella, and…Naomi living next door. I mean, sure. We go out for lunch sometimes, maybe a trip to the mall or two. It’s fun and all, but…”

“But…what?” 

Lucy blinked, her face shifting to that halfway point between curiosity and concern. “There is a question I’ve been meaning to ask,” She leaned forward and spoke slowly. She sounded almost furtive. Almost. “Did you smell anything weird on the way out of the airport?”

Anon’s hand unconsciously shifted to rub his nose. Unless oxygen has a distinct smell, there was nothing out of the ordinary on their way to Lucy’s car. ‘Well, maybe I caught a whiff of weak exhaust fumes or jet fuel,’ he thought. But that isn’t what people are looking for when they say weird .

He shook his head. “Don’t think so.”

She paused for a moment. “Huh. I swear there was something off when we looked for my car.”

Anon processed this for a while, unsure of what to say. “I think it’s some damaged sewage pipe or something. There was this one time back in Skin Row when the pipe outside my apartment finally gave up after years and years of neglect. It took what? A few days to fix?”

“That’s probably it…but it gets weirder.”

Anon cocked an eyebrow. “Weirder…how?”

“The smell is erratic. It doesn’t stick to one place, sort of drifts around,” Lucy said. 

“What do you mean?”

“Like, last week, everyone walking on the streets by my dorm could smell it. Then after two days, it disappeared. I didn’t see any workers digging into the pavement to fix anything. Happening in other places too, Rosa said she smelled it around a city block for a day then never again. It’s weird like that, but…” she shrugged. “Ah, no one seems too bothered. But still…” 

Outside, arc sodiums flicked on, basking the evening streets in an ambient glow. A peach-colored aquilops shivered, stuffed his hands into his coat pockets, and went on his way down the street. A yellow taxi rolled by. Its headlights came to life. A woman pushed a baby stroller on the other side of the street. Business as usual.

Whatever is happening is not in their circle of control. And all this seems like a bunch of sewage workers finding the fastest way to board a bullet train on a one-way trip to unemployment. He gave Lucy a reassuring grin, “Eh, it’ll go away eventually. Besides, we can’t let trivialities out of our control ruin our day.”

Then, their conversation became casual. A funny ordeal on their college campus, an interesting sight they saw yesterday, a fact from the news. Around ten minutes later, Moe came out to personally deliver their meals.

Anon’s mouth began to water and he rubbed his hands in excitement. “Oh, words cannot describe how much I missed this.” It was Moe’s meat lover’s pizza. The cornerstone of an Italian dinner. Best Italian pie on this side of town and certainly better than whatever they served back on Anon’s campus. They dug in.

Halfway through their meals, Moe tapped a finger on the microphone at the stage. Feedback spread across the room. “May I have your attention please?” Silence shrouded the room.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I’m pleased to announce that our all-new Dance-X-tinction event is starting, where diners are free to compete to win this beaut over here.” he held up a gold-painted trophy. It showed a young velociraptor couple standing under a bandshell. The couple was captured mid-dance, holding hands. One of the man’s legs was suspended off the ground. Moe’s eyes scanned the crowd from left to right. “Now, who will be our first contestants?”

“Hm, I don’t remember Moe holding dance competitions the last time I was here…” Anon mused, hand rubbing his chin. 

“I’d say we give it a go,” Lucy said.

“Ah, I don’t know…I haven’t danced since forever.” Anon scratched his head and made a weak laugh.

Anon felt her hand on his. “Come on, it'll be fun.” She smirked.

He couldn’t say no to that face. Now, that weak laugh became lively. He got out of his seat and patted her shoulder.  “Oh, what the hell? Let’s do it.”

“Glad to hear,” Lucy stood up and raised her hand. “Uncle Moe, we’ll give it a shot!”

Moe responded with a nod and a swipe of his hand. Oh, you dare approach, challengers? The crowd peppered them with encouraging applause as they worked their way around the packed tables. 

They stood side by side on the stage. Lights dimmed around them, a soft murmur from the back of the crowd, then silence once more. The mood was set. It’s showtime. The speakers worked their magic.

Feet shuffled and tapped, hips swayed in mesmerizing motions, and shoulders wiggled. They danced with no particular choreography, but that didn’t matter. They did it with grace and burning passion. They let the song decide their moves, and its rapid tempo gave them a workout. Anon thought that fit fine for a song about the life of a newlywed teenage French couple.

♪It was a teenage wedding, and the old folks wished them well

 

You could see that Pierre did truly love the mademoiselle

 

And now the young monsieur and madame have rung the chapel bell

 

"C'est la vie," say the old folks, it goes to show you never can tell♪ 

 

Whether they win or lose it didn’t matter. They were having fun, they were bonding. And so they continued to dance. Dance the night away, dance the stresses of life away, dance to the beat of young love. 

As they held each other’s hands, Anon wished. He wished this moment could last forever, he wished he could hold onto this feeling, one of being at ease, one of everything just being right.  Most of all, he wished he didn’t have to bid the inevitable farewell and return to the hubbub of college life. 

 

Chapter 3: Plague of the Dead

Summary:

‘I called my doctor on the telephone.
Said doctor, doctor, please, I-I-I
I got this feeling rocking and a-reeling
Tell me, what can it be?
Is it some new disease?’
— The Sylvers

Act 1: Plague of the Dead

October 21st - October 24th, 201M2023BC

 

—

 

Inco G. Nito was running for his life. His feet slammed against the rubber track field, and his chest rose and fell from rapid, ragged breaths as sweat poured down his forehead with the intensity of a waterfall. 

Ahead of him was the pack, his classmates of St Hammond. ‘Why is this happening? Why can’t I be anywhere else on this fine morning?’ he thought of this repeatedly, refusing to accept the obvious: because Coach Solly willed it, and he knew full well that whatever his four-star general of a gym teacher said, everyone must follow…or else.

“Ah, isn’t it great to be out again?” Damien said. “Air hasn’t been clearer in weeks. Windy, cold,, best time for a run! Right Inky?”

Good weather was a rarity recently. Today was the first day in two weeks that the foul stench wasn’t unbearable. Too bad Inco couldn’t enjoy it. He groaned. “Oh, I wish, Damien, I wish.”

Damien gave him a friendly nudge to the shoulder, his staple ‘no thoughts, head empty’ smile shining brighter than Times Square on New Year's Eve. “Hey, chin up. This is better than being cooped up in the gymnasium.”

That was a million miles away from the truth. He would give up everything to escape this torture. He wished that whatever was in the air would return to force everyone indoors. The violent dodgeball sessions they held were a trip to Wonderland compared to this.

His legs started to wobble, and he began to wheeze. If only he could lie down for a moment, let his legs heal, take a breather, preferably a long one…

That was when Inco felt tremors behind him. At first, he mused that it came from Mia, who usually led the pack. Perhaps she got too far ahead and started another lap before the others could catch up. If he had been more perceptive, he would have noticed that Coach Solly had long disappeared from his usual observation post by the bleachers.

A voice from behind rocked his world. “INCO! DAMIEN! THIS IS THE LAST TIME YOU’LL FALL BEHIND! IF I REACH YOU MAGGOTS BEFORE YOU MAKE IT TO THE FRONT OF YOUR CLASS, YOU’LL RECEIVE THE PUNITIVE MEASURE.”

Coach Solly was in hot pursuit. Clutched tightly in the furious ape’s left hand was the Punitive Measure in question: a riding crop, a tool used in horse riding to beat the creatures into obedience.

To Inco’s horror, the rampaging coach was rapidly closing the distance. Even worse, the coach was hounding on him specifically. 

On second thought, his legs were fine, totally fine, never felt better in his entire life. He didn’t need a break anyway. Breaks are for sissies. It was time to get the hell out of dodge. Fight or flight took over. A sudden burst of energy surged through him, second wind most likely, but he came to think of it as an early Christmas miracle. 

“NO-NO-NO-NO! I DON’T WANNA DIE! OH MY SWEET RAPTOR JESUS ON A CROSS GET AWAY FROM MEEEEEEEE!” Inco cried out. Gusts of wind blew into his face as he bolted into the crowd with long leaps, his feet barely grazing the track. Inco and the word ‘strong’ were incompatible. Yet he found himself pushing and shoving past students twice his size. Adrenaline works wonders.

“Yo, wait up!” Damien yelled. By the time his adrenaline ran its course, he had found himself at the front of his class, the thumping of dozens of feet behind him; Solly was just a blur in the distance. “Inco! Inco!”

Damien zipped through the crowd, barely breaking a sweat, until he was closely shadowing his friend. He slowed his pace until it matched Inco’s. “Woah, what’s gotten into Solly? He’s fuming!” he said. “I haven’t seen him take out the Punitive Measure in months. You don’t want to know what happens if he catches you while he’s holding it.” he shudders. “We don’t want to start another ‘brachiosaur pretzel’ incident.”

Inco grimaced. He didn’t know what a pretzel had to do with a brachiosaur but knew a vague idea of Solly’s handiwork, which largely depended on how merciful he felt. If that happened, he would be the sorriest sight this school would ever see, and he wouldn’t be alive to complain about it.

The coach reduced to a jogging pace and then a walk. He observed Inco and Damien like a sniper would scope in on their target. Satisfied, he grunted and returned to his post. 

“Thank goodness,” Inco muttered. He ran a few more laps - by Solly’s standards - before he was saved by a high-pitched whistle cutting through the air. 

“ALRIGHT CADETS! THAT’S ENOUGH FOR TODAY! DISMISSED!” 

The students around him began to disperse. Sighs of relief were heard. Some collapsed on the spot, most made a beeline back into the school proper. 

Inco hobbled to the locker room. A shower and a change of clothes can wait. Now, he can take that breather he desperately wanted. He collapsed onto a bench, his legs losing their ability to function. He wondered if he could make it to AP Photography in time.

He did but barely. By the time he rushed into the classroom, Mr Iadakan was beginning to take attendance. 

The curtains were drawn, and the lights were turned off. Only the teacher’s desk and whiteboard were basked in the soft glow of a projector and Mr Iadakan’s laptop screen. It gave a presentation about today’s subject: editing software, Photoshop, and the like. He went through the features and appropriate methods for each software. 

Inco already knew all this. It was mostly self-taught. But he had to admire Iadakan’s presentation skills. It was good to see someone with enthusiasm, pulse, or any energy, for a matter of fact. He wished that was the same for certain history classes he had to attend.

However, the class still felt empty. 

His eyes shifted to the vacant seat by his side. He hadn’t registered it until now - he was still coming down from his scramble to class - where was Ben? Come to think of it, he didn’t see the parasaur when school started. Was he not coming today, or was he late? Late seemed out of the question. Ben was deadly allergic to tardiness. 

At the far end of the room, a door creaked open, and a wave of light from the halls splashed the classroom. Iadakan paused his presentation and craned his head to the saurian figure standing under the door frame, half bathed in the halls' light. It was Ben.

They stared at each other, unsure of what to say. There was a brief look of surprise on Iadakan’s face. Then he offered the parasaur a smile before waving him in.

Ben hurried his way through the aisle of occupied tables. He propped his bag by the leg of the table and sat next to Inco. 

Almost instantly, Inco knew Ben wasn’t all himself. His illusion of health was betrayed. His face was no longer its vibrant ocean blue; paleness painted his cheeks and seemed to have begun spreading to his jaw. His chest rose and fell laboriously. A stiff tail, seemingly devoid of life, dragged across the concrete floor. He produced a tissue from his jeans pocket and pressed it to the tip of his snout, blowing his nose.

“Not feeling well?” Inco asked.

“Uh-huh,” Ben said, his voice muffled and croaky from phlegm. “I think I caught a cold, maybe ate something bad. I don’t know, but I feel like I swallowed a handful of glass shards.” He groaned, and a hand covered his snout, muffling a cough. “My throat is killing me.”

“You sure you’re okay to be here? You look-” Inco paused. “-pretty messed up.”

Ben looked at Inco gravely. “I’ll pull through, honest. I took some medicine this morning,” he said, straightening himself. He looked reassuring with those still-bright eyes.

“Alright, just-” There it was: the hesitation, the uncertainty of how to react. “-Take it easy, okay?” there was a lump in Inco’s throat when he said it. 

What followed was the most uncomfortable class of Inco’s high school life. A sniffle, sneeze, a hack, a wheezing plea from the lungs, again and again, as the clock’s minute hand marched on. He worried for him, then he worried for himself. Could he catch this disease?

Eleven thirty. The projector was shut off. Light returned to the classroom. Iadakan was packing his laptop when he said: “I saw some half-focused looks, so we should stop here. There will be no assignments this week. So off you go now!” his cheery attitude vanished as he turned to Ben. He spoke in a grave tone. “And Ben, could you stay for a minute?”

Murmurs from the back, then a ceaseless wave of chatter as cliques of students left the classroom. Inco stood up, his seat scraping against the floor. He followed the crowd into the halls, leaving Ben alone with the blonde pterodactyl.

Inco made his way to the cafeteria. Somehow, it felt more packed and rowdy with every passing day. A group of students brawling over the selection of meats, bar-like arguments at tables all around. Same battle royale, always finding a way to get worse. His eyes shot to a wall clock. A question crossed his mind. ‘Isn’t it still early? It’s not peak hour, and all the other classes should still be ongoing.’

He chose a selection of foodstuffs and trudged to his clique’s table. As if stoking the day’s oddness, all of them - Olivia, Damien, and Liz - were already there. A wary aura shrouded them, and they didn’t look particularly interested in their meals. They stared at Inco with curious gazes as he took a seat.

“You’re off early too,” Olivia said.

“I guess so,” Inco shrugged. “Iadakan said we were losing focus, but I don’t think that’s all there was to it.” he paused. Should he just get straight to the point? “It was probably because of Ben. He’s not feeling well. He’s sick.”

“Sick?” Olivia said. “Prockling lost her voice halfway through the class and started croaking and coughing. Looked pretty tired too. Maybe she caught whatever Ben has.” Damien chimed in. “The same thing happened in my class, people started sneezing and coughing half an hour in. Some guy had a bad case of it. He almost puked his guts out.” He paused, frills twitching for a second. “All of this is giving me the creeps.”

“Guys, I’m not sure what all the worrying’s about. This just seems like a case of the flu,” Liz said. “I’d say it started getting active this month or something. Cases will pop up in the whole city, and there will be those infection hotspots people keep talking about in medical journals.” 

“Hm, that could be it,” Damien’s hand propped itself on his snout. “but those people look awfully sick and seem to be getting worse with every passing minute.”

Amidst the typical cafeteria hubbub, there was a cough, two coughs, then more, then a series of uncontrollable sneezes.

“One hell of a flu,” Inco murmured.

There was a heavy thump from several tables away, followed by the ringing of silverware as it met the ground. Several loud gasps erupted. A group of students gathered in a circle around the source, fearful and concerned.

“Shit…what’s happened to him?” A velociraptor student said as he crouched down.

“Should we call an ambulance?”

An aquilops woman’s eyes fluttered. Her voice was shaky when she said, “Raptor Christ on his cross of stone…”

Inco and the others plodded through the swamp of onlookers. When they finally made it through, they found themselves a few feet in front of a collapsed parasaurolophus. It took them a split second to identify who he was. Of course, they knew, and that made things so much worse.

Ben laid on his back. His eyes were weak and blank. One arm was sprawled over his chest. His hands were a palsied mess, twitching and twitching away, grasping at nothing. A flipped-over tray was beside him, his lunch splayed on the floor in a pile. 

Inco stood there in disbelief, trembling hands finding their way to the temples of his head. In his total shock, he mouthed two words.

“Holy shit.”

“Ben? Ben!” Damien cried out. He released the handlebars of Olivia’s wheelchair and ran towards the parasaur. He knelt beside Ben. His hand slid under his head and lifted. “Oh, no. Speak to me, man. Speak. Come on, don’t do this. No, please don’t.” he shook the parasaur by the shoulder. 

“Oh my god, this isn’t happening.” Liz’s  eyes were wide with horror. 

Damien turned around and cried out: “Liz!? Anyone!? Get to the infirmary and call the nurses for help! Call anyone for help!” 

Liz stood there dumbfounded for a moment. When she composed herself, she said, “I’m on it!”

Ben remained in his lingering state of near unconsciousness. His mouth barely opened, only to make a single lethargic, defeated groan. It sounded like a drowning man’s cry for help. Then his claws began scraping against the floor. He started to gag.

“He’s choking, do something!” Olivia yelled.

“What?” Damien shouted back. He grabbed Ben by the shoulders. “What do I do? Roll him over?”

Ben made a retching sound and released a painful cough, a streak of mucus and phlegm shot out of his snout. His breathing reverted to slow coarseness. He tilted his head upwards. “Damien? Inco?”

Inco crept over to the parasaur. He knelt beside Damien, still shaking.

“What…happened?” Ben croaked.

“I don’t know, we didn’t see what happened. But it seems like you passed out,” Inco said.

Ben’s head planted on the floor again. His hand left his chest as he groaned away. Soft and weak. “Will I be alright?” 

“Yes, but stay here for a little longer. Someone will come to help.” He had a fever, the kind that was severe enough that Inco felt the massive heat even without touching him. How Ben endured two hours of photography class with his brain getting fried was downright cryptic. 

“I thought I would be fine, last night I was fine, this morning I was, last class I was-” He coughed again, rapidly and loudly like a car engine failing to start. A small streak of mucus left his throat and landed on his chin. “What’s happening to me?” He whispered.

Inco and Damien looked at each other, afraid of answering, but someone had to do it. Finally, with much hesitation, Inco said: “D-don’t think about it.” 

A series of heavy footfalls from a distance. Indiscernible chatter.

Ben lay in silence for a moment. Then a sudden horror struck him. He struggled to his knees and grabbed Inco by his jacket. “Mom had a sore throat this morning. What’s happening to her? Do you think she has it too? Do you think-” he briefly bent forward, sneezing. His breathing became burdened. 

This time neither of them dared to answer. The footfalls were louder now. Closer.

“Where is he? Where is he? Move out of the way!” a voice yelled out. Students from the crowd scattered like sand blown by a gust of wind, and two nurses emerged. The nurses were holding onto a stretcher. “There!” one nurse said. They ran to Ben. Inco and Damien stepped away. The nurses took Ben by the arms and legs. They secured him to the stretcher and rushed him into the halls outside, towards the infirmary.

Damien went over to Inco. He shook his head and sighed. His voice was shaky when he said, “Goddamn it, man, all of this is like some horrible nightmare,” he continued. “Look, I’m gonna go to the infirmary. I think he needs us more than ever. Inco, you coming?”

“I guess I will,” Inco said. He wiped beads of sweat off his brow. “Shit, my heart is racing.”

“Olivia?”

“I…I guess I’ll go too.”

They made their way through maze-like halls until they reached the infirmary. Liz and the two nurses stood around Ben, who was limp on a bed. 

“He’s out cold,” Liz said.

The nurses tended to Ben, trying to stabilize his condition. ‘There’s not a chance he’ll be standing up any time soon,’ Inco thought. ‘They’ll have to call an ambulance, get him to a hospital. They’ll treat him, cure him. He’ll get better. This is all just a freak accident. It has to be.’ 

He was right. The school had to call an ambulance. Half an hour later, three blue-clothed EMTs. All of them wore matching-colored face masks. They looked like they just got off from running a marathon. The nurse pointed them to their patient. They wordlessly transferred Ben to a stretcher and took him out of the infirmary. 

Minutes later, another student came in; a rhinorex. She was held by the shoulders and legs by two teachers. One arm was slumped down lifelessly. She was pale and shivering. An ambulance’s siren was whining miles away. It was getting louder.

There will be no more classes in St Hammond. 

Chapter 4: Invisible Killer

She stood in the halls with her trembling hands squeezing the knob of a windowless metal door. All her effort led up to this, yet she still didn’t want to do it. They said what was in there would save her if she made it in time. She released her grip on the knob and glanced left and right. Long halls with no turns in sight. The tracks of her bare feet among the dust of the cold linoleum floor. The dim glow of the filament lights hanging on the ceiling. Remnants of white paint on the aging walls. No sign of her pursuer. 

She listened and heard her breathing and the flickering incandescent lights. Several rooms away, there was a faint humming of an industrial diesel generator and water dripping from a pipe. Again, there was no sign of her pursuer.

She stayed there for some time, thinking it through. “Please let this be it,” she whispered. She twisted the knob, and the door swung open. There in the room were bodies by the dozen. Men and women. Humans and dinosaurs. Their skins were bloated with rot. The stench of it all was unbearable. Yet their faces were so strangely peaceful, with waning smiles here and there. There were no signs of external injuries. No cuts or bruises. It was as if they all decided to drop and never wake up. 

Insects everywhere, their carapaces thick like beetles. Buzzing in the air, rising and landing and skittering with relentless speed. They swarmed in the thousands, filling the room with a constant droning hum. She stood there gasping into her hands, tears flowing down her cheeks, trying not to gag. One bug landed on her arm and skittered around, its bobby pin-thin legs pricking her skin. She shook her arm. The bug took off and flew around her before landing again. It stopped and shifted in place, something like curiosity in its tiny brain. Then it lifted its abdomen, pulsating and unsheathing a stinger. Too sudden, too quick. She felt a jolt of pain as the stinger sunk into the skin. She instinctively swatted at it. Only then was it deterred enough to retreat to its brethren by the bodies. 

Anon took his eyes away from the big screen and the motes of dust floating in the light of the overhead projector. He crunched on the buttery goodness of popcorn as he glanced at Lucy sitting beside him. She was shivering in fear. 

“Come on, it’s not that scary,” he teased.

“Oh, shush."

He grinned and turned back to the screen. Nearby, a velociraptor rose from his seat, coughing and sneezing into his shirt as he climbed the stairs to leave the theatre. 

The woman stumbled backward until her back touched the wall. The insects had begun to swarm in the middle of the room, an amorphous blob of blackness floating an inch above the ground. It began to mold itself. A pair of slender legs. Then a pair of arms and a chest, and finally, a humanoid head. A genderless creature levitating in place, turning slowly and tilting its head. Like watching a rotoscope animation. It stopped when it faced her, observing with its eyeless sockets.

Then it started to levitate closer.

She slammed the door and ran. When she dared to glance behind her, she found the creature had reassembled itself after squeezing through the gap under the door. It was gaining on her fast.

Anon leaned into the folding seat and pawed a handful of popcorn from the paper bag. ‘She’s gonna trip over and fall, isn’t she?’ he thought.

She barrelled down the hall, panting and wheezing. The lights flickered and shattered as the creature passed them. The droning buzz of insect wings grew louder as the swarm approached her. She passed familiar rooms. The one where she first woke up, the one she first encountered it , the room housing the generators. Now she was in areas she hadn’t explored. Barricaded doors and pipes on the ceiling. Ahead the hallway split into two. She veered left, tottering on her feet before falling over: kicking up dust into the air. 

“Oh, man,” he mumbled.

But the creature didn’t catch her, instead slowing down to mock her. What followed was a long chase scene then a flashback explaining the creature’s origins that Anon couldn’t quite comprehend. In the end, the swarm was beaten when the woman burned the insects by luring them into a room full of gas. As the woman staggered to freedom, the scene faded to black, and the credits began to roll. A group of teenagers rose from their seats and left the theatre. One paused to take a tissue out of their pocket before continuing up the stairs. 

As the credits ended, a final scene played: one of the insects hid itself on the woman’s back as she limped away on an open field. The camera panned to the morning sky, and the words ‘The Pursuer II” appeared.

Lights splashed on the theatre as the projector turned off. Anon ate the last of his popcorn and turned to Lucy. “Wow. That was…something,” he said.

She stared at him for a moment before replying, “Okay. It kinda sucked, didn’t it?”

“Yup.”

They got up and made their way out of the theatre. Dried oak leaves crunched as they stepped onto the sidewalk. They were next to a ticket booth when they heard the braying of sirens. Not a second later, three ambulances zoomed by, briefly flashing the cinema in a brilliance of red and blue. 

"That's the fifth time I’ve seen a bunch of ambulances go along like that today,” Lucy shook her head and sighed. “Anon, what the hell is going on?”

"I’m not sure. Maybe it's a pile-up on I-5 or something?" Anon said. 

She looked at Anon with brooding eyes. “I don't know, Skreeter has been going nuts. People are saying there's a crazy disease going around. Everyone started falling sick at the same time."

“You worry too much, Sweet Tooth.” 

Another siren wailed, getting louder, echoing along the tall walls of metropolitan buildings before dissipating into the distance. The streets had changed in a matter of hours. But it was subtle. Neither of them noticed it. The woman at the food cart who usually sells him those quick-bite one-dollar hotdogs was gone. Shops had begun to close earlier than usual. Some apartments' windows had their curtains drawn.

Lucy stood there, scanning the streets. For a brief moment, Anon could see a grave look on her face. Then it was gone. Extinguished like how one would snuff a candle. “Hey,” she said finally. 

“Yeah?”

“Do…you want to go back earlier?” Her eyes locked on the streets, then back at him. “Stay home and cuddle for today? Just for the day. Got a wing hug with your name on it." 

He nodded, then quickly said, "You had me at wing hug."

This day kept getting better. It already topped last night’s competition, which they sadly didn’t win. (A raptor couple stole the show. Oh, well. It is what it is). They could ride out whatever’s happening outside. Everything will be back to normal by tomorrow morning. Anon was sure of it. Besides, he still had a long time before he had to fly off. It won’t change things too much.

So they walked down the sidewalk holding hands. Then they got back home. They locked themselves away from the uneasiness outside, Anon got the cuddle he was promised, and the coveted wing hug too. As he felt Lucy’s head pillowed against his shoulder in the twilight of night, he started to forget about all his worries without understanding that the sounds outside Lucy’s dorm meant the end of it all. Soon, he wouldn’t have to worry about his flight, nor would there be any college classes to attend anymore. Because an interloper was brought into the dorm. It wasn’t human or saurian but had a murderous intent. It had used a disguise, a vessel, an organic Trojan horse.

As Anon and Lucy drifted into a dreamful sleep, a faint sound could be heard. Outside, someone trudged down the halls of the dorms, slow and laboriously. Who were they? A tenant back from a nightly errand or a cleaner on overtime? It didn’t matter. What mattered was that they stopped halfway between Lucy and her neighbor’s room and propped themselves against the wall.

They covered their mouth and released a muffled cough. 

Notes:

Peak franchise. Sold a pursullion tickets.

Chapter 5: Interference

The sixth sense. There are moments when the wrongness lingers in the air, subtle and unrelenting. Cracks in the veil you can detect but not understand. 

Inco stood with his hands on the windowsill, watching and listening. He should have seen his neighbor taking out his pair of huskies for a walk and children playing on the lawns. He should have heard the rolling car tires onto driveways, cartoons playing on distant flatscreen televisions, and the stomps of the morning jogging group. But there was nothing but silence. 

He shivered. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said. He took out his phone and went through his messages, then his emails. He skimmed through conversations with Damien, Olivia, and Liz from earlier this morning and the night before. Further back were words of concern from his AP subjects’ group chats - finally, an official message from the school board.  

‘...in the light of recent cases of influenza, St Hammond will be shut down until further notice. We apologize for any inconvenience.’  

Inco reread the end of the announcement and shook his head. It was sent to everyone on the night of October 21st and had all the traits of your average message from high school staff: sterile and frustratingly vague. He usually wouldn’t pay any attention to what they had to say, but this was a grave matter, affecting him and the people he cared for.

It wasn’t the whole picture, Inco knew it. Whatever it was, it had descended upon his school like a swarm of locusts and only worsened since the cafeteria incident two days ago. Around twenty more fell ill overnight - though, he was judging through text messages and the likes; the true number must be higher. The new cases included janitors, students, and teachers he didn’t recognize. 

A gust of wind blew through the open window and ran along his shoulders and chest, the fabric of his plain long sleeved shirt offering inadequate protection. He shivered and pulled back the panels. It was still a few weeks into autumn, and he hadn’t expected the temperature to turn so quickly. 

He ditched that fashionable blue jacket, the one he wore to the last day of school. He gave it less of a wash and more of complete sterilization. One glance at it could have convinced someone that he put it in an autoclave for an hour. Yet, he wouldn’t dare wear it. Not for as long as it reminded him of how Ben touched it.

In his mind, he once more found himself crouching on the plain tiles of a school cafeteria. A sudden force pulled him forward, causing him almost to lose his balance. Claws were digging into his clothes and his skin. A fragmented reconstruction of Ben was grabbing onto his jacket with jittery hands layered with a god-awful concoction of sweat, tears, and half-dried mucus. And when Inco looked down, he saw the ghastly face of Ben washed with the waning belief that he could be saved then and there. 

But what could Inco do but watch? 

Then there was only blackness, and he was left solely to the aftermath: the emotions, unfiltered and raw. He buried his hands into his face and shuddered. “Poor Ben. Poor everyone,” he said.

Yet there was still the opportunity to help, to do so in his best capacity. Yesterday, Damien called St Christoph Hospital and managed to get a visitation approved. Inco didn’t hesitate to tag along. It was the least they could do for Ben. 

Well, by now, it was the only thing Inco could do for him.

He had some time to kill before Liz came to pick him up. He did some chores around the house since his parents were out on a business trip again. After that, he sat on the couch browsing YouSnoot. He watched a gaming channel, a few movie reviews - anything other than the local news channels bombarding his front page. The disease had made a wave in the headlines, and he didn’t want to hear any more of it. It was fine to tune into the news until the place you lived in became news yourself. It made him feel uncomfortable. All the channels gave some off-hand comments on the situation in Volcaldera, reassured everyone with promises of recovery, and gave the standard advice on disease avoidance. Then, somebody would brush off the story to make way for the next big headline. After all, government doctors said it was a new strain of the flu, no more, no less. 

After lunch, he walked to his bedroom and reviewed his selection of clothes. He decided on a jacket that went well with his shirt. It was 2 p.m. He stood at the front door, waiting and tapping his feet. Liz should be here any moment now.

A long honk from outside almost startled him. Peering out the window, he saw a beaten red sedan parked on the side of the road. He grabbed his phone, left the house, and approached it. Through the tinted window, he could see the figures of Liz, Damien, and Olivia. He entered and sat next to Olivia. Olivia looked at Inco, then stared longingly out the window. No one spoke as they drove off.

They passed the rich suburbs - designer homes with their curtains drawn and their occupants turned to recluses. A local playground was almost deserted. The few pedestrians outside passed in a hurry. It was a neighborhood of phantoms.

“Damien,” Inco said. 

Damien looked at Inco through the side mirror. “Yeah?”

“What did the hospital say about Ben? Is he getting better?”

“Well, I called them this morning,” he replied. “The doctors are doing everything they can to help him. They’re monitoring him and have a whole intensive treatment plan. I think he’ll be okay."

“Is he getting better?” Inco repeated.

“I…He’s getting all the help the doctors have to offer. He will be up on his feet.” Damien looked away, eyes locked onto the road ahead. He muttered something that sounded like ‘Has to.’

They passed a commercial district. Family-owned businesses that they may have visited once or twice had their signs flipped to ‘closed,’ their tables vacant, and their products collecting dust. A popular herbivore restaurant had only a stegosaurus in a face mask manning the counter despite it being their peak hour. Several coffee shops had a barista or two missing. They watched the passing buildings through it all, feeling a conflicting sense of worry and acceptance as if stuck between reality and fantasy. 

They drove onto a long, straight road, and for a moment, it felt like forever. The only sounds were the engine humming and cars blazing in the opposite lane. 

Then Olivia spoke up. “Why him?”

For a brief moment, Damien tensed up in his seat. He turned, seatbelt making a soft zipping sound as it extended. “What do you mean?” 

“Out of all the people who could catch a crazy fever, why must it be him ?” The word ‘him’ came out like a hiss. 

“Anyone could have caught it,” Liz said suddenly. “Ben ain’t different. It’s bad luck. That’s all there is to it. I don’t even get why you’re feeling this way.”

“I don’t want to talk about that. It's between me and Ben.” 

“You agreed to come with us, did you not?”

“Yes…” Olivia said, her head drooping down. 

“So why be here if you didn’t want to see him?”

“Look,” Damien said. “Why don’t you use this opportunity to talk to Ben? Work out whatever’s worked up between you two. He’s gone through enough. Clear it all up, show some support to him.”

She considered what he said for a moment, sighed, and then returned to gazing through the window, sinking into a silent brooding.

The car approached an intersection. It stopped for a moment until the traffic light turned green. Liz turned left. Now, they were cruising on Fernwood Street. It was a tight road known for its market. Today, bins and baskets that should have been brimming with fruits and vegetables and the fresh scent of a farm were empty.

Inco watched Olivia until his heart couldn’t take it anymore. He seated his hand on her back. “Olivia,” he said.

She slowly turned to face Inco.

He nodded in approval. “If not now, then when?” he whispered.  

Their eyes met. His words lingered in the air like a coastal fog. “Okay,” she whispered back. “Okay.”

A moment later, the car stopped. In front of them was a vast stream of automobiles that seemed to stretch on for miles. It was as if half of Volcaldera agreed to create the Dinofornia’s longest traffic jam in front of them. 

Liz strummed her fingers against the steering wheel. “We’re gonna be here for a while,” she said. She turned on the radio, which was set to Fly FM, one of the most popular stations in Volcaldera County. They caught the ending of an advertisement about a new set lunch for a fast food chain called Spiffo’s, then a brief message from ‘Dinofornia’s most charming radio host’.

“I’ve seen the posts. It’s getting tense in Volcaldera. But we’re gonna stray away from all that, folks. Quit the doom and gloom, if you’re feeling down in the dumps, here’s our fan favorite to liven you up.”

They listened to the radio. The cars inched forward at a snail’s pace. They drove by the gated entrance to a condominium. The gate was open, and an ambulance and a police car parked nearby gave off a red and blue light show from their overhead bars. A human sat on the hood of his car as a police officer questioned him.

Paramedics in white suits and face shields lifted a stretcher down the steps of the lobby. On the stretcher was a Utahraptor, pale and shivering with eyes sunk deep in its sockets, he strained against the stretcher’s harnesses as he coughed and sneezed. They carried the sick saurian down the parking lot and into the back of an ambulance. A Baryonyx watched from the balcony two floors up. A few pedestrians slowed down as they passed the unfolding scene, then they shook their heads and hurried away. The paramedics returned to the condominium and came out with another infected saurian.

“I wonder how many people have they shoved in there,” Inco said as he eyed the ambulance.

“Jesus, man. I don’t want to know,” Damien replied.

“The doctors must be working around the clock. At least all those people with the flu are getting treated,” Liz said. 

Inco studied the paramedics and the patients they lifted. “I don’t see people with the flu coughing that bad.”

Two hours passed before they could squeeze through the streets and reach the parking lot. Despite its expansive size, it was full. However, luck may have it, someone had walked out of the lobby, got in his car, and driven off. Liz went into the now vacant spot and killed the sedan’s engine. 

Ahead of them was a wide white building that cast its shadow onto the asphalt, automobiles, and shrubbery like a titanic act of shadow puppetry. St Christoph Hospital. They got out of the car and entered the lobby.

It was less of a lobby and more like standing in an Old York subway train during peak rush hour. It was choked and full of people, and unease filled the air like miasma. Around a quarter of them were as pale as a ghost, had a runny nose, or were coughing their lungs out. Two men, each holding a red trauma bag, ran through the lobby and into an elevator.

They merged with the line to the receptionist. A stegosaurus and his daughter were at the front. It was getting heated. There were mutters of frustration and desperate pleas. But the stegosaur did not win. A final saddened sigh sent him and his daughter away from the counter.  “When can we see mommy?” she asked.

The father looked at her. “Tomorrow, dear. We will try tomorrow,” he said, taking her out of the lobby.

When it came to their turn, they met with the receptionist,  a violet compsognathus. He had a blank expression as if an evil revenant had sucked out all his life. The circles under his eyes made him look like a scaly raccoon. He sluggishly turned to Damien. “May I help you?” he asked.

“Hey, we are here to visit a patient named Benjamin McKnight,” he said. 

His expression soured the moment Damien mentioned the word ‘visit’. “I’m sorry sir, but all visits have been permanently suspended,” he said, sounding a little curt. 

Damien frowned, drawing closer to the counter. “What?” he said, voice rising in a pitch. “But you said you were open to visitations this morning!”

The compy did his best attempt at a sorrowful look. “Sir, we apologize for the inconvenience. We understand how distressing this may be, but it is a necessary precaution urged by the authorities. It is for both the patient and your safety. You will be notified as soon as restrictions are lifted.” 

“You don’t get it. He’s our friend. He needs us, he-” his fists clenched in frustration. “Don’t do this to us!” he slammed his hand against the counter.

“I’m sorry, sir. We cannot make exceptions,” the receptionist said. He was as impassive as a stone-cold soldier.

“You don’t know what he’s going through!” Damien was flushed now, his voice shaky. “We need to see him. We-”

“Damien,” Olivia said, her voice trembling. “Let’s…go. Please. I don’t feel like staying here anymore.”

Damien paused for a moment. He glanced at Olivia and then at Inco. He opened his mouth to protest but resigned. He returned to the receptionist. “Alright…but update us on his condition. Please.” 

The receptionist nodded as Inco’s group left.

When they were halfway out of the automatic doors, Damien glanced at the lobby. The receptionist had already started handling another anxious patient. A guard by the elevator stood razor straight, impassive about the plight of the crowd. There was nothing they could do. He followed his friends outside.

They walked to the parking lot. An ambulance stopped by an emergency entrance. A few paramedics rushed out and carried a patient inside. High above, a helicopter touched down on the roof of the hospital. They got back into the car and drove off.

Back on the main road, Olivia’s head had retreated into her hoodie, her hands tucked away into her pockets. She returned to her familiar brooding spot by the window.

Inco peered through the back window. He could see the side of the hospital. Nondescript and unassuming. Ben was in one of the rooms on the fifth floor. He stared at the little lights in the rooms as the hospital shrank in the distance until there was nothing at all.

—

“This is your stop,” Liz said. 

Inco had thanked her and swung open the door and stepped out onto the sidewalk in front of his two-story house when Olivia shifted, one hand on the button to release the seatbelt. “Wait,” she said, planting her other hand on the seat before her. “Damien?”

Damien turned to look at Olivia. 

She paused as if reconsidering what to say. “I want to stay with Inco for a while.” 

He had a face as if she had asked him if the sky was blue. “Hold on, like right now? Are you sure?”

“Olivia, I don’t think this is a good time...” Liz said.

Olivia frowned at Liz before returning to Damien. “I want this. I…need some time with him to think about things,” she replied, her voice firm and almost curt.

“Well-” Damien started.

“Damien, I’ll be fine. It will only be a while.”

Then he just stared at her, studying and thinking before he sagged and relented. “Alright,” he straightened himself in his seat and leaned over to the car’s door, looking at Inco. “What do you say, Inco?”

Inco glanced at Liz, Damien, and finally, Olivia as if they were all pressuring him for a correct answer. “I don’t mind, “ he said. “I could use some company. ”

Damien put his hand on the bottom of his snout, scratching and thinking momentarily. “Okay, then,” he said. “If Inco is fine with what you want, then I’m fine too.” he wrapped an arm around his seat’s head and pointed a cautionary finger at Olivia. “But you gotta tell Mom and Dad.”

“Alright. I know,” Olivia took out her phone and speed-dialed a number before raising the phone to her ear. A short time passed before she said, “Hello? Misses Payne? I wanted to ask you if I could stay with Inco,” a concerned voice from the phone, almost too soft to hear from Inco’s distance. Olivia sank into her seat and closed her eyes. “Yes, I know what’s going around the city,” she said. “I want-” she released a frustrated sigh. “It's been a rough few days. I won’t be here for long.” 

The back-and-forth phone call dragged on for a time. The negotiations and agreements were not heated, but Olivia wasn’t backing down. Inco stood there waiting while Damien tapped his claws against the dashboard. 

“Okay, I promise. Two hours tops. Okay, thank you. Bye.” Olivia pocketed her phone. “They said it would be fine,” she told Damien.

“Guess that settles it,” he replied. 

“I’ll get the trunk,” Liz said. She reached beside her seat and raised a little lever. “Take care, you two,” she said. 

Inco heard a clunk as the trunk unlocked. He walked to the trunk and raised it open. He lifted out the folded wheelchair, assembled it on the sidewalk, and wheeled it beside the door. Olivia heaved herself onto the chair and rolled slightly away from the car, closing the door behind her. 

Damien poked his head out the window. He had a weak smile when he said, “Stay safe, you two.”

They both watched as the car drove off, disappearing into the distance. Now, the streets were barren save for the odd car parked here and there, with no other people or traffic. A peculiar world populated by the two of them. They marveled at the strange silence a while longer before Inco took out his keychain. “Let’s go,” he said. He unlocked the door, and they both entered. 

Olivia wheeled around the living room, lifted herself onto the couch next to Inco, and let out a deep breath. Blades of sunlight seeped from the blinders, casting patterns across the room and onto the flatscreen TV. The ceiling fan swished softly above them. They said nothing for a while, sitting there, caught in their thoughts. Olivia brooded. Outside, the sun had begun to set behind a concrete jungle of highrises. Arc sodiums automatically flicked to life, orange globes beaming onto the still streets. 

Finally, Inco looked at her and broke the silence. “Olivia, what’s wrong?” he said.

He waited, but there was no answer. Olivia stared at the spotless, matted floor. 

“Olivia, talk to me.”

Inco’s eyes widened when she faced him. She looked as if she aged ten years in ten seconds. She opened her mouth to speak but stammered out, “It’s…It’s.”

“Do you…want something to drink?” 

She nodded, then shied away. 

Inco poured them each a glass of water from a kitchen pitcher and returned to hand one to Olivia.

“Thanks,” she uttered.

He sat and watched her drain the glass, then leaned forward. “Could you tell me what’s wrong now?”

Olivia set down the glass. Her voice cracked as she spoke. “It’s everything that’s wrong. Everything since school ended,” she sniffed and dropped her head down. 

He took a sip from his glass. “It’s a lot to take in, I understand. I’m feeling it, too. But there is something that’s eating away at you, isn’t there?”  

“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, there is.”

Inco waited, giving her some space and some time to think. Then he asked, “May I know about it?”

She tensed up, shaking her head as if she could make the question disappear. At last, she looked at him. “Ben. It’s Ben. What’s happening to him is-” she gasped, and Inco could see all the worry in the world etch itself on her face. She continued, “It's so messed up. And it keeps getting worse. First, he was put in an intensive care unit, and now they won’t let us see him. We don’t even know if he’s still alive.”

“They will let us see him eventually. Yes, it’s bad. Yes, he’s in trouble. That I will admit, but it isn’t over.” 

“They said it was for our safety. Do you get what that means? Whatever is inside him could be contagious. It could be deadly.” she clutched the sleeves of her hoodie, her claws leaving marks in the fabric. “Do they know what’s going on? Do we?”

Her words hung in the air, harsh and cold. Inco tried to think of some retort, evidence that said otherwise, but nothing came up. He deflated into the cushions in frustration and winced. “I don’t know what to say,” he admitted. “except, well, hope for him. That is the best we can do.”

“Have you ever had a moment where you realized you can’t fix things with someone? That you’ve let it fester for too long, and now it's too late? That you’ll never have that opportunity again?”  

“Well,” Inco folded his sunglasses and twiddled them in his hands. He saw his reflection in the darkened lens as if staring into another world. “What kind of things?” 

“Just amending things. It doesn’t matter who did what.”

He ruminated on the question, still feeling caught off guard. “I suppose…maybe I have, maybe not,” he said after a moment. “I don’t think about it; I never had the time to do so. I don’t get to know people well with how often I’ve moved lately.”

“It’s strange. All these years, all the pain he put me through writing that one article. I hated him for it, Inco. He tore away our chance to be friends, and I hated him so much.” She rubbed her eyes with one hand, and there was a thin layer of tears on her finger. “And it all led to this moment. It doesn’t matter now, and that makes me feel…” she paused, sucked in the air, and curled her hand into a tight ball. “Damn it, I can’t even describe it. Why can’t I explain how I feel?”

Inco sat in silence, waiting for all the emotions to pour out, waiting for the moment to speak.

“You know,” Olivia whispered. “This tiny part of me feels like he had something coming. I know you think it's a terrible thing to say, and you’re right. It is. But this? This isn’t right. He doesn’t deserve this. I never meant it to be this way.” Her voice cracked on those last words. She stared at her hands. “If not now, then never,” she muttered, then spoke no more.

Inco set his glass down and turned to face her. “Look,” he said. “Don’t beat yourself up over this. You’re not a bad person. The fact that you care and are willing to talk to him speaks for itself.” Inco shifted closer and rested a hand on her shoulder. 

“But what if that disease wins and nothing goes back to normal? What if Ben…” she got caught in her own words, but Inco knew what she was implying.

“Fact is, you have to make peace with that scenario,” he said, almost grimacing from how harsh and apathetic he sounded. “If you get to see him, go talk to him. Clear out all that stubbornness and disdain and do it. And if you don’t? If he…doesn’t make it,” He paused, searching for the right words. “You still have to find a way to let it go for your own sake.”

Olivia looked at him, tears glistening in her eyes. “How?”

“That’s for you to uncover. Remember, I’m not you. But I’ll be there when you’re in a hard place.” he leaned back and softened. “And don’t convince yourself that it’ll end this way. You still have to believe; be sure that it’ll end up okay.” 

Olivia trembled but managed a simple nod.

Inco spread his arms and brought her in for a gentle hug. He closed and felt her respond by wrapping her arms around his back. “It’ll work out in the end.” 

“You’re sure of it?” she murmured.

“Yes,” he whispered. “I’m sure of it.” 

They stayed like this, not counting the seconds and minutes that passed. It felt nice, the kind of silence that made Inco wish that it would last forever. He shifted slightly for more comfort, his hand brushing against Olivia’s hoodie.

“I still have a while before I have to go,” she said.

“So what do you wanna do now?”

She thought, then replied, “Wanna just talk?”

“About what?”

“Anything. Beats stressing over today.”

Then they sat there as time passed, talking about nothing in particular, trying to normalize the days. There was a vibration from Olivia’s phone about half an hour later. “That must be my cue to leave,” she said. She took it out and pressed it to her ear. As she spoke, Inco stood, went to the front door, and removed his keychain from a holder. Peering through the window, he expected to see the Paynes roll up at any moment, but he saw nothing.  

He waited there for a hot minute before walking back to Olivia, keychain in hand. Randy’s voice was about audible on the other end of the phone. When the call ended, Olivia turned to Inco, eyes filled with concern and confusion.

“What’s the news?” Inco asked.

“There was an accident in Northside Park. Whole streets are clogged.”

“Can you make it home?”

She shook her head. “No. I’ll have to stay with you. For the night, at least. They’ll only be able to pick me up come morning.”

“Damn,” he looked around the room and crossed his arms. “We gotta find you a place to sleep.” He thought about the guest room and being able to put it to good use at last but was soon hit with a wave of embarrassment. He eyed the spiraling staircase, then at Olivia’s wheelchair. “Do you mind if-”

“I’m fine sleeping here,” Olivia replied.

Her swift response took him aback, but he showed no physical reaction. “Okay, I’ll bring down some blankets and pillows later,” he said. Looking at the wall clock, he asked, “How about dinner? I can order some food for us.”

She thought about it. “Okay, but you don’t have to go of the way to pamper me or anything.”

“Nah, you ain’t troubling me one bit,” he snapped his fingers. “I remembered something: I got a coupon for Dino Moes,” he said, reaching into a little plastic basket on the table and grabbing a gold slip of paper. “One large, two-topping pizza shared between the both of us.”

“Well, lucky us,” she grinned. “I’m down for pizza.”

Inco took out his phone and dialed the local Dino Moes, speaking to a tired lady on the other end. He muted the call momentarily to ask Olivia for her choice of toppings before unmuting to relay the information to the lady. Then he ended the call and rested his arms on his thighs. 

Twenty minutes had passed when the doorbell rang. Inco rose from the couch and opened the door to meet a microraptor delivery driver wearing a face mask. The raptor passed him a square box and a tied plastic bag with two cans of Pop fizzy drinks and gave Inco a prepared and obviously ingenuine apology for a late delivery. Inco thanked the raptor, and the raptor hurried back to his bike and sped off. 

Inco went to the kitchen, placed the food and drinks on the dining table, and returned to Olivia. “Looks like that coupon turned into a freebie all thanks to ‘Thirty Minutes or Less,’” he said. 

She eyed the table and then herself. “I can’t. My wheelchair won’t fit underneath the table. Besides, I figured we could watch some TV if you’re fine with it.”

“Of course I am.” Inco backtracked, got the box and the cans, and set them on the table. Inside the box was an eight-slice pepperoni and smoked beef pizza, still warm to the touch despite the time. He took a slice with more pepperonis, pulled the tab on one of the Pop cans, and took a bite off the pizza. 

Olivia grabbed a slice and reached for the remote. She turned the TV on and browsed through the channels. They both agreed on an anime with a title Inco failed to pronounce, one that Olivia recommended to him a few days ago. She checked the time on her phone. “Where’s your parents anyway? It’s getting late,” she asked. 

“Oh, they’re on one of their trips out of town again. They won’t be back for a couple of days.” 

They ate and drank, watching the heroes and their new recruit battle a squad of assassins using magical spirits bound to their souls. In a glory of flames, shiny spiked crystals, and flurries of punches, the heroes overpowered the attackers through superior tactics and creative utilization of their spirits’ supernatural abilities. After thirty minutes, the first episode ended. The heroes finished their preparations and started their journey to Egypt to confront a villain whose features were concealed with an ominous shroud of black smog.

“So…” Olivia seemed to trail off. “Did you like it?” 

Inco glanced at the TV. The credits had finished and were replaced with the menu screen. “I don’t know where you find all this, but I’m loving it and I’d-”

“Wait, really?!” she lit up, leaning forward with the biggest gator grin Inco will see in his life before catching herself, “Oh, uh. I mean,” she straightened and cleared her throat, forcing a restrained poker face. The edges of her snout still twitched from excitement. “That’s cool. We can watch more if you’re down to it. They made three seasons, and it’s only going to get better.” 

“Man, you must love these shows,” Inco asked, smirking.

She pouted and crossed her arms, her cheeks flushed red. “I would kick your ass if it weren’t for my legs,” she quipped and snatched the remote and selected the next episode. 

They had eaten all but two slices of the pizza by the time the episode reached its halfway mark. Olivia lowered the TV’s volume and looked out the window. By now, the sun’s rays were paling in a gray world. A world so empty. Still, no cars or trucks were driving around—no people in the streets. Birds, crickets, and cicadas chirped in the distance before they, too, fell silent. Now, there was nothing at all. “Is this normal?” she asked.

“What is?”

“All of this,” she gestured from one end of the room to the other. All the paintings and hand-carved furniture were dustless and arranged so tidy. The China vases and their intricate artwork were candy to the eyes. All worth so much yet with no purpose, a sense of something that simply was not there. “Being alone in this big house.”

He leaned back and crossed his arms. “I suppose it is.”

“Are your parents always gone like this?”

He shrugged. “Well, yeah. They’re busy with jobs and all that.”

“So you’re just here? By yourself?”

Inco nodded. 

“It’s so quiet here.”

He shrugged and said, with a stone-cold face, “I’ve gotten used to it.”

Olivia studied him. A complicated expression of concern and pity formed on her face, but she pressed no further. 

They finished their current episode and moved on to the next. They ate the last of their meals and finished their drinks. Inco took the greasy box and the empty cans and disposed of them in the kitchen. He washed his hands and went back to continue enjoying the show. The heroes had defeated one of the villain’s higher-ranked bodyguards and interrogated him on his boss’s whereabouts.  

“One day, you have to remind me to repay you for all this,” Olivia said. 

“You don’t need to.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re my friend. And I don’t want to start debts between us.”

A few minutes into the third episode, the raptor apprentice froze during his house-to-house escapade. He remained there for some time, his sword mid-swing above his shaggy hair with a group of bandits dodging out of the way. The scene progressed for a few frames. Then it stopped again. Then, the TV was blue-screened. “Huh, looks like the Wi-Fi is out,” Inco said. 

Olivia lifted her hand off the remote. “Maybe I accidentally pressed pause or something,” she pressed a few buttons on the remote and checked the settings. The TV still had that disappointing bluescreen. She groaned. “Dang it.”

Inco rose and went into his dad’s office. On one of the filing cabinets was a wireless router. He walked to it and found the internet and 5G lights flickering before going out for good. He turned the router off and on, then waited. Both lights remained dead. “You gotta be kidding me,” he said in an annoyed tone.

He frowned and entered the kitchen. Behind the dining table, a landline was on the white wall. He picked up the receiver and held it to his ear for a while. There was no tinny electronic chirping, only an unusual silence. He placed the receiver back in its holder and returned to the living room. 

“Yep, telecoms kicked the bucket,” he said. “And it looks like everything is also knocked out. The router’s gone, and the landline isn’t working one bit.” He plopped onto the couch with his fingers wrapped around his chin, contemplating the situation. It was strange; his parents upgraded that router over a week ago, and there have been no freak storms recently.

“I have mobile data. We can continue watching on my phone.” Olivia said. She checked her phone as she swiped around the screen. Her calm look began to disappear. “That’s odd…” she uttered. “It’s not working either.” 

Inco turned on his phone. The ascending bars symbolizing the signal were replaced with tiny words spelled ‘emergency calls only.’ He checked the network options. All other networks, including his next-door neighbors’, were gone, too. He stared at that bright screen and reread the words on it before refreshing the page, expecting that he had experienced some wild visual glitch that would fix itself with time, but the phone was telling the truth.

They were all out. Every network at the same time. 

“What the hell?” Inco muttered.

Inco rose and peeked out the curtains. He stood like a sentinel for a long moment. The shadows of a man or woman or child twisted in a few lit houses. A flat-screen TV or two glowed behind half-drawn curtains, but most homes were dark. He had a sinking feeling in his gut. He turned to Olivia and said, “I think we should call it a day. I’ve had my fill of that show anyway.” 

Olivia did not answer. She lifted herself into her wheelchair and wheeled over to join him, her eyes lingering on the window. “...maybe it's for the best,” she replied.

Later, after having a warm shower, brushing his teeth, and slipping into nightwear, Inco rummaged through his bedroom closet, finding a spare down-feather pillow and blanket under his arms. He then went downstairs to find Olivia on the couch, scrolling futilely through her phone. 

“I wonder what Damien’s doing,” she said, taking the blanket and pillow from Inco. 

“Thinking about his step-sister, for sure. And Vinny must be missing you already.”

Olivia let out a quiet laugh but did not respond. 

Inco stood next to Olivia. Their shadows twisted, reformed, and twisted again as the overhead fan spun above them.

“I wish everything would go back to normal,” Olivia said.

“Me too.”

“And…” Olivia sucked in the air. “And I hope Ben gets better soon.”

Inco stared at the floor for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah. We had a long day. Try to get some sleep. Take your mind off all this for the night.” 

Olivia unfolded the blanket and put the pillow on the armrest.

Inco went around double-checking the door locks. He switched off the lights in the kitchen and bathroom before returning to the living room. Inco stretched and yawned. He walked across the room, put his thumb on the light switch, turned to Olivia, and said, “Give me a shout if you need anything…oh.”

Olivia had already pulled the blanket over herself and laid on her side, sleeping. The pillow had disappeared from the armrest and was wrapped under her arms. Inco took it all in. A small smile etched on his lips. She looked cute, looked at peace. 

Inco flicked the lights off, climbed the stairs, walked down the hall, and went to his bedroom. He stared at his reflection in the mirror before shielding his eyes with his elbows as if shying from judgment. All the pressure of the prior days and the days to come unwrapping to be displayed. He paced around the room, recalling previous events and considering his options. Then he looked at the blue jacket hanging on the clothing rack, the one he wore to school the day it all started. It was segregated from the rest of his jackets. His mind now accounted for this evening. At last, a realization dawned upon him, making his mind wonder about its implications.  

‘All the networks are out, including the phone lines.’

The heavy words made him shiver like a gong sounded inside his head.  

‘Including the phone lines.’  

An unorthodox idea came upon him. He went into his parents’ room and opened the closet. On the floor were luxury leather shoes, bought with a king’s ransom and still untouched within their boxes. He dragged the boxes to the other side and revealed a small electronic safe. Feeling like a common criminal, he made a cautionary glance behind him, then studied the safe for a long time. It had a six-digit code that only his parents knew. He squatted and tried a random set of numbers, and then he tried another one. He yanked the safe’s handle, but it wouldn’t give. Shaking his head in resignation, he thought, ‘What has gotten into me? ‘This is getting ridiculous. Why do I need to snoop around their stuff?” 

The boxes were pushed back into place, and Inco checked whether he had misplaced any of his parents’ other belongings. He locked the closet and walked to his bedroom. He laid on his bed and wrapped himself in his blanket. He tossed and turned. After a few minutes, he fell asleep.

Inco woke later that night at 2 AM with his eyes aching and his muscles stiff as stone. There was a patch of cold sweat on his pillow. He sat up and adjusted to the darkness. He clenched a fist and pressed it against his forehead. “Damn, night terrors,” he said. It was so vivid, yet he couldn’t recall what he saw. He stumbled into the bathroom to use the toilet and went to the sink to splash some water on his face. He blinked out the blurriness and looked at his reflection in the mirror. “I hope Olivia is faring better,” he said.

When he returned to his room, he popped open the window and bent forward on the windowsill. He gazed at the streets, the city, the people coming and going, thinking about the world and his friends. A cat passed the street below him, meowed, and disappeared behind a high fence. Farther out, In spite of recent events, some squares of light still shimmered from the hundreds of hotels and condos, office towers, and advertisements. An alien nightlife. Perhaps this was beauty revealed during a time of need, or maybe it was beauty in ruination. Echoing along the concrete jungle were the wailing sirens. The city’s lymph and blood cells, the police, and paramedics. The hospitals and police stations. “And I hope everyone else is faring better, too.” He straightened himself, then stopped. He thought he heard a faded rumbling, a foreign noise, but he figured it was his imagination. 

He closed the window and laid back on his bed. Staring at the ceiling with his body still and his breathing slow, his eyes feeling as if weighed down with bags. He shivered and turned. A harsh cold penetrated the windows and slipped through his blanket. A strange lullaby began to play among the darkness and still air. One of faint helicopter blades and jet engines, the rumbling of heavy-duty vehicles, and a periodic pop-pop-pop. But Inco didn’t recognize any of that. He closed his eyes and fell asleep.

Notes:

And we are back with another chapter. Sorry for the delay, folks. I fell sick halfway through writing. Ironic, ain't it? I'm still coughing my lungs out but I'm starting to feel better.

Chapter 6: Interception

“Lucy, Anon.”

A voice from outside. It echoed, garbled, and distorted in a radical form of mental encryption before being processed by Anon’s brain. It was the voice of an intruder who wished to rob him of his dreams. Go away. Just a few more minutes . He didn’t want to wake up. He had the most wonderful dream, the kind that you still remember vividly after a long day. He was lying in a prairie, bare feet resting in the grass, hands groping at a wild array of flowers that would make a florist gush. Lucy was within arm’s reach, marveling at the view of the countryside sky. There was a smile on her face; a beautiful Lucy smile. She opened her mouth to say something and-

“...Open the door…”

Now the voice was clearer. It was deep and breathless, accompanied by faint knocking: knuckle against wood, growing in intensity and frustration. Anon climbed out of the sandpit of sleep, his hand feeling around the end table until he found his phone. It was a few minutes after midnight. Through his blurry vision, he saw Lucy beside him, shifting under the thick felt blanket. There was a mumble. Lemme sleep…

“Lucy! Anon!” The knocks turned into frantic bangs. 

Anon and Lucy jolted up almost simultaneously, the blanket slipping off their nightwear. Confused, they stumbled out of bed and fumbled for the lights. The voice was impatient - more pleas, more slamming. Anon’s confusion turned into dread and annoyance. ‘Who does this at night?’ he thought.

“Shit there must be a fire,” Lucy said and hurried into the living room. It made perfect sense at the moment - the alarm could have malfunctioned, and a frantic neighbor came to warn them. However, the seeds of doubt had already been sown. The only person living in this building who knew both their names was Naomi, and as the stupor of disturbed sleep dissipated, the voice didn’t sound like hers.

Anon followed Lucy in time to see the door swing open, revealing the hulking figure of a pterodactyl. He was in a police uniform, sleeves creased from who knows how many years of use. His face was as pale as a full moon. Sweat leaked down his forehead, his breathing rapid. He snapped glances to his left and right as if expecting the boogeyman to jump out of the shadows.

Anon knew this dino, but for a long moment, he refused to believe his eyes. It couldn’t be him, Ripley Aaron? The Ripley he knew was an iron-willed strongman. Now he looked like someone who narrowly escaped a life-ending car accident. 

“Dad? What are you doing here? It’s the middle of the night,” Lucy said, then took a step back. “Is something wrong?” 

“Yes, horribly wrong. We have to talk. Now.” 

He ducked under the doorframe. Anon and Lucy stepped back to give him space to move in. He shut the door behind him and walked past them, peered out the window, and shut the curtains.

“Did something happen to Mom? To Naser?” 

“No, it isn’t about them. It’s worse than that,” Ripley said. “I want both of you out of Volcaldera tonight.”

“Wait, what? Leave? Why?” Lucy said. 

“I know, I know. But you must understand that everyone is in deep trouble, and when trouble comes, I want my children to be safe. Get dressed, get your things, and get as far away as possible. This is the only chance you’ll get.”

“What chance?  Anon said. “You come here past midnight, and now you’re saying we have run away. Ripley, what’s going on?”

“It’s dangerous, I need to get you two to safety,” he said, then stopped. His lips quivered, but only phantom words came out. 

Anon rubbed his head in confusion, then a realization struck him. “This is about that flu going around, isn’t it?” Anon asked.

Ripley did not respond.

“This is insane,” Lucy said. “What is so bad that we have to leave?”

He stopped, tensed up. The question itself was so simplistic, yet it somehow caught him off guard. It was as if it shattered every window on his train of thought. He stood there with his back turned, and for a moment, the only sounds in the room were the panic-stricken commissioner’s heavy breathing and the whisper of the AC.  

Anon flinched when Ripley abruptly turned towards them. “Because this is more than just the flu. Far worse,” he thought for a moment. “Anon, you’ve snooped around the internet, haven’t you?”

“Yes, but it all seemed like scare talk-”

“It’s real, Anon. It is lethal. I know a lot of people who possess information that isn’t released to the public. A bunch of doctors are on a hotline with pathologists, the best of the best from the health department, the CDC headquarters in Atlanta.”

“Wait, the CDC-” Anon began.

“Yes! The whole CDC! Those doctors have been feeding them projections, numbers, a thousand different scans of a saurian’s body.” Ripley continued. “They’re terrified, all of them. This thing…it’s different and it’s deadly. Nothing like what they’ve worked with, nothing like cholera, malaria, anthrax, and even smallpox.”

“Raptor Jesus, oh sweet Raptor Jesus. I knew it was bad,” Lucy uttered.

Ripley leaned in, “Listen carefully because this part will get me in trouble if anyone else hears this,” he whispered. “They were running in circles but now they’ve gotten their shit together and have a plan. They’re sending in people, I don’t know who, but they’re the kind that don’t take no for an answer. Every exit in this city will be sealed, and what they did this evening was part of ‘initial preparations’ .”

“The Wi-Fi’s been knocked out,” Anon said. “And the phones too…was that because-” 

“Exactly. Now you’re getting all the pieces together in your head, and it paints a terrible picture, doesn’t it? That is why you two will leave immediately.” 

“Do-” she stuttered, swallowed. “Do we have time to pack?”

“Look!” he snapped. “Just pack the essentials. If you two aren’t out of this building right now, you’ll never make it.” 

Ripley stopped, shook his head, and planted a hand on a countertop. Anon and Lucy were left standing there to process the commissioner’s grave warning. ‘ The old man has gone mad, he must have misinterpreted something his police friends told him, ’ Anon thought. Yet in the biting cold of the night, replaying Ripley’s words, they seemed to at last make sense.  

“Hurry it up!” Ripley yelled.

Anon and Lucy ditched their nightwear for the first set of clothes they found. They packed more clothing, loose change, and anything important within arm's reach. Anon clung onto the hope that this was a strange and vivid dream - no, a nightmare. He will wake up in the morning in a cold sweat but feel fine. Then, he’ll take Lucy to the beach, meet with Rosa and Stella, and have the time of his life. They’ll eat dinner at Jule’s , that classy restaurant Stella thought would fit the occasion. Then-

Then his hopes were shattered when he saw Lucy freeze up; she clutched a bundle of clothing against her chest, trembling from an unmatchable, pure terror as her eyes met her dad’s.

“What about you and Mom?” 

“We will be fine. Just go.” 

“I can’t just leave you and Mom here. What if something happens?”

“Whatever happens will have to go through me. I’m not open to negotiations, put your clothes in the bag.”

“Dad, you can’t expect us to go through with this without knowing-”

“I can and I will. I will see you out of here if it is the last thing I’ll do,” he approached them, towering over them as he spoke. “And you’re not getting rid of me until I see you two get into a car heading on a one-way trip past city limits.”

They went outside wordlessly, expecting the moment a neighbor’s dorm light flicked on and the inescapable myriad of questions, but it didn’t come to that. Ripley was true to his words. He never took his eyes off them until they reached the parking lot.

“Stop, come here, I need to tell you two about the rules,” Ripley glanced around. It was absolute silence save for the whirring of his car’s engine across the street.

“There are rules??” Anon.

“Yes, three big rules: do not approach police officers. Do not tell anyone where you’re going. And once you’re out, do not mention the names ‘Lucy Aaron’ or ‘Ripley Aaron’ to anyone. Got it?”

Anon and Lucy both said yes.

Ripley continued, “Now listen closely, the fastest way out of here is I-5. Get on the interstate and keep driving, keep your head down, and make sure no one finds you. It doesn’t matter where you two decide to stop. Anywhere else would be better than getting stuck here.” 

“That’s the plan?” Lucy said. “Dad, I just got my driver’s license - three months ago. What if we get lost?”

Ripley paused. Was that hesitation in Ripley’s eyes? “You two will manage. You need to stick to the main road and follow the signs, the freeway shields.”

“Dad-”

“I wouldn’t tell you to go somewhere you couldn’t,” Ripley’s voice softened. “Listen, you can do this, I’m confident you can. It’s simple. Now, get in the car; this is a narrow window you have here. What happens next is beyond my authority. ” Ripley said, and Anon and Lucy were left to decipher the implications of his bizarre reaction. Anon and Lucy tossed their bags into the backseats of Lucy’s car. They drove off, the ever-watchful commissioner standing there until they were out of sight.

—

Tires screeched as the car made a hard turn. With the few vehicles on the road and even fewer people, they were going above the speed limit. Several turns ago, they were following an overhead sign for I-5, but following Ripley’s advice was harder than it looked. In this part of the concrete jungle, they couldn't find any of the few landmarks they knew to give them directions. It was written on the walls - they were lost, yet neither of them dared to speak up to admit it. 

They had spent thirty minutes trying to navigate this maze of a city. The glow of a phone bathed Anon’s face. He silently pleaded for Gruggle Maps to load. He swore the app could work offline, but what he saw was a blank screen. 

“Wait,” Anon said. “Sweet-tooth, stop here for a moment.”

She did. Anon reached for the backseat and grabbed his bag. He unzipped the front compartments.

“I don’t know what you’re looking for, but I don’t think it’ll help.” 

“Yes, it can. There might be directions here.”

Anon began hauling out all the miscellaneous things he didn’t unpack when he settled at Lucy’s place - a pack of tissues, a few snack bars, his passport. “Please be there. Please be there,” Deep in the third compartment, his hand felt hard paper. “Yes. Yes! Found it!”

He held it in front of him. It was a crumpled map of Volcaldera. Anon bought it on a whim before his trip. It was a ‘sure, why not?’ kind of purchase for an emergency he believed would never come, but the emergency was here now, and the price for solving it was three bucks at a clearance sale.

Anon turned on the dome light, unfolded the map, and secured it against the dashboard. The map was huge, reaching Lucy’s side of the car. Anon studied it, realised it detailed the names of major roads in the entirety of Volcadera from Skin Row to Little Troodon, with lines here and there indicating highways - a simple map in the eyes of a skilled mapper, but not the average Joe.

“Where are we?” she said.

“Can’t tell. What’s the last street we passed?”

“Mosswood Avenue, I think. That was a few minutes back.”

Lucy leaned towards Anon and also studied the map. As the seconds ticked by, she started to look anxious.

“A moment,” Anon said. “I think I’m on to something…”

Anon’s eyes traced the map from top to bottom, left to right. He saw names like Breighton, Maryweather, and Swanic, but no Mosswood. 

“I can’t find it, Anon.”  

“Maybe it’s not written here. Maybe - I don’t know!” Anon said. He had resignation in his voice. “I don’t know. I- just keep driving. Look for the signs and stick to the main roads. That’s what Ripley said, right? We’re bound to find out where we are if we know the names of the main roads.”

Lucy drove in a straight line as far as she could. She took one turn when she had to, and that was when the road got bigger. Up ahead was an overhead sign, and she slowed down enough for both of them to read the names listed. ‘A grace from god,’ he thought. The road they were on was Breighton, and he told Lucy to park in the empty lot of a beauty parlor. 

They studied the map again and recalled the other names on the sign. Breighton connected to Rosewood, and Anon used that fact to deduce the direction they were driving. He pressed a finger on where they roughly were, traced the lines to I-5. These were the thinnest, convoluted series of crisscrossing lines Anon’s eyes would ever see this year and it was all because of a shitty map that someone in the topographical industry would laugh at. He mumbled, “Straight ahead, left turn, another left, straight, right…” he blinked and turned to Lucy. “Okay. I think I got it. You drive, I give directions. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“We’ve gone off track quite a bit, but we’re still fine. We still have time to make it. This place is huge, they can’t have sealed us in yet.”

Lucy drove on, got caught in an unlucky yet thankfully quick hindrance at a red traffic light, then continued on. They had spent over two hours, starting from their encounter with Ripley, to get to this point - the ramp to I-5. The car blazed down this straight line to freedom as they bid farewell to the life of Volcaldera.

Anon thought about what they’d do once they got out of here. It started with him figuring that they’d get to the nearest town and rent out a room in a motel for the day, which was high on his priorities. Then, he began to see many more factors in play, and it started to put him at unease. 

“I can’t believe what I’m seeing, we’re on the run,” Anon mumbled. 

“What?” Lucy said.

“I…nothing. Just keep driving.”

‘We were never supposed to be here,’ Anon thought. Were people going to look for him and Lucy? He wasn’t some supercriminal, and he wasn’t Houdini. Anon couldn’t disappear. If the people in charge caught Saddam in the middle of the desert, then they can just as easily catch them. 

But criminal or not, this was it. City limits were just a few miles ahead. Beyond that were hundreds of miles of road slicing through hills, deserts, and forests, the lifeblood of this country. This was freedom, and the first step was getting past-

“Stop your vehicle immediately!”

Lucy floored the brakes. Anon lurched forward in his seat, seatbelt biting into his chest. Tires screamed as the car fought a flash war against momentum, skidding to a stop mere feet behind a series of stalled automobiles.

A blinding light ripped through the car’s windshield and wrapped around their faces, causing their eyes to strain. It was as if they were in one of those old, cheap movies where the aliens would use elaborate machines to capture their victims in beams of intense light before abducting them.

Except this was not science fiction. Beyond the stalled automobiles stood a Humvee and an armored personnel carrier, parked bumper to bumper, blocking the lanes. The APC was rigged with loudspeakers, acting as a PA system. A neanderthal, face marked with old, jagged scars under one eye, popped out its back door. He shot a glance at a nearby technician and then ducked back inside. 

Anon witnessed a whole ant colony’s worth of activity. Saurians clad in military gear and gas masks marched around the ad-hoc barricade, their carbines clattering against their thick vests. Combat engineers erected fences, laid spike strips, and assembled Hesco bastions. Crates were tossed out of olive-colored trucks parked in the distance.

The PA system screeched before a voice split the air.  

“Attention! This city is now under strict quarantine! All civilians are to return to their homes at once! You will be redirected off I-5. Do not attempt to cross this barrier! Any unauthorized attempt to cross this barrier will be punished under the full extent of the law!”

‘This can’t be real,’ Anon muttered. His eyes flicked from the soldiers to the roadblock and the trucks. Yet it was as real as the air he breathed. It was right in front of him - the soldiers, the commands, and the guns. 

A hand wrapped around Lucy’s snout, her eyes wide with confusion, denial, and an ever-encroaching sense of despair. This was what Ripley meant by complete containment.

Yet this sentiment was not shared by some people. Hooked on a collective combination of dangerous bravery, frustration, and unrestrained impulse, got out of their vehicles. They yelled, pleaded, and shook their fists in defiance. 

“What the fuck do you mean? I was only driving through this city! I’m not even sick! Don’t lock me up in this mess!” 

“You people are crazy! You can’t do this! I have rights, you know! Rights!”

“I’m not turning back! My car is staying here until you let me through!”

Far ahead on the rightmost lane, a man emerged from a pickup truck and began walking towards the barrier, arms raised, palms open.

“I’m not sick. Please just let me through!” he yelled, eyes dazed and dazzled under the glare of floodlights and beams of military vehicles. “I was here for work, only for a day. Please, I live in Oakdale, barely an hour away. My wife, my kids…they’re waiting for me. I don’t want to be stuck here.”

“Return to your vehicle at once!” the PA system boomed.

“I’m not sick! Let me through! I need to see my family!” his voice cracked with unraveling fear and desperation, footsteps faltering as he neared the barricade.

The soldiers shifted, their carbines rising.

“Please. I want to go home,” he pleaded. For a moment, he stopped, the back of his workman's shirt pooling with sweat. “Please.” He was now within twenty feet of the barricade.

Then, a series of flashes and the sound of shots erupted into the night sky. 

Tracers streaked across the sky like a dozen shooting stars. Screams and cries of horror escaped the surrounding cars, and those still outside dove for cover. Anon expected the unmistakable scream of a man in his last moments with over a dozen bullets pummeling his body, but it didn’t happen. The soldiers aimed at a high arc, toward the sky. Warning shots. The man tumbled to the ground, knees scraped by asphalt. He lunged at the guardrails and picked himself up, hands scratched by the roughness of steel. He sprinted, tripped once, adding minor bruises, then dove into his pickup.

“Oh god…” Lucy muttered. Her hands trembled against the steering wheel. “Oh god, oh god, oh god.” 

“I repeat! Do not attempt to cross this barrier! Any unauthorized attempt to cross this barrier will be punished under the full extent of the law!” The PA system bellowed. ‘Full’ came out like a snarl. The message was clear: no more funny business, or those warning shots would be more than just warnings.

For a brief moment, the highway was still. All the crowd’s shrieks of terror had left a residue of shock, an almost collective realization that no matter how the soldiers were tested - pleas, reasoning, insults - they would never budge, they would always pass their tests. Then, people started scrambling back to their cars, doors slamming shut, engines whirring to life. One by one, headlights flickered to life as cars were guided back to the city.

“They shot at him, they really did,” Anon said. He winced as he deflated in his seat, hands moving to cover his face. “Holy shit.”

The line of cars in front of them crawled forward. Lucy’s hands were still trembling on the wheel, but she slowly relaxed. She managed to follow the line. “It all happened so fast,” Lucy said. “It all…”

Beyond the blockade was a dance of headlights. More trucks rolled in, more armor. A sick feeling churned in Anon’s throat as he watched soldiers hop out. Ripley’s voice echoed within him. What happens next is beyond my authority .

They moved forward. A soldier stood by the shoulder of the road, an impassive sentinel. He signaled them to an opposing lane. His commands wheezed through the filters of his gas mask.  

They drove off into the night, along a string of cars that had met a similar fate. Anon swore he caught a glimpse of the man with the pickup truck. He looked so broken as he shrank his seat with all his cuts, bruises, and tears-

Tears.

A string of troubled gasps beside Anon. It was from Lucy. The trembling returned, and her breathing was haggard as tears welled in her eyes. 

“Lucy,” he said. 

She did not reply. She pulled over to the side of the road, and then she began to cry.

“Just let it all out,” he said, hand wrapping on her back.  “Just- We’ll be alright. We’ll find a way,” he glanced at the trickle of cars passing them. Everything felt so uncontrollable. “We…have to,” he added. 

They sat there for a while, the city looming on the horizon. Then, they continued forth, every turn taking them through streets that should have been inviting and filled with friendly faces, but now felt like they were hiding dark secrets about to be unleashed.

Lucy never spoke up, her hands always stiff on the steering wheel, in full autopilot, not thinking too hard about what had just happened. She drove past St Christoph Hospital, where the nightmare continued. 

Chapter 7: The Bad Undeath of Benjamin McKnight

Summary:

‘When there’s no more room in hell, the dead will walk the Earth.’

— Dawn of the Dead

During the late hours of darkness, when the wolves would come out and howl at the moon, Benjamin McKnight crawled to lucidity from the feverish unreality of delirium and unconsciousness. He laid on a white bed in a white room. He couldn’t quite remember how long he was out (a day? Two days? A month?) or where he was. All he knew was a vague image of classmates and teachers crowding around him with fear, shock, and pity sewn onto their lips and eyes. A horror show where he was the victim. Yet, he was a victim of what he couldn’t quite figure out.

A faint beeping from his right. He turned his head and saw a machine, its screen a complexity of sine graphs and jagged lines and numbers. To his left were two bags of clear liquids hooked to a stand, a tube snaking from the bottles and under his blue blanket. He stared at the two contraptions in disbelief, memories knocking at the back of his mind like rushing water. He sniffled and felt the base of something smooth, plastic-like, discomforting. His eyes rolled down, and he saw two tubes the size of cables traveling up his nose. 

He gasped, fingers clenching against the bed. His mind lifted the floodgates, and the memories seized and overwhelmed him. Olivia, Inco, Damien, Liz, classmates, everyone. They were scared because something was eating him from the inside out. They tried to help wherever, but there wasn’t much they could do. This was a problem for the doctors and the hospital. 

‘Oh my god, I’m sick, I’m sick, I’m very sick.’

His head began to pound, feeling like a hammer striking his head. He grimaced, gasped, and tried to move his arm but felt it caught onto something rough. He wiggled and heaved and tried to lift his legs. All in vain. His body gave out in its weakened state. He was restrained to the bed with two belts. 

‘Why am I tied up? Did I do something wrong?’

It felt like something was in the back of his throat. He coughed and gagged and groaned; the sound came out like hissing, his airway blocked from swelling. Lifeline was now nothing more than the size of a juice box straw. He thought the medical devices scared him enough, but now he faced true terror. He sneezed and coughed again, and the pounding in his head begged for relief, for help. The room blurred out, and the walls drained of their brightness.

“Hello? Anyone? I can’t move, can’t breathe. Let me out! Please! Hello?” but what should have been yelling came out as coarse whispers. Then he stopped and listened, but nobody came. He closed his eyes, head sinking into a sweat-soaked pillow. He shivered, panicked. He floated in a great darkness in the abyssal depths of his mind. In the distance stood a solitary creature. Pale and hairless, standing with its back to Ben. Its thin arms hung to its feet, scales taut over its emaciated form, and its ribcage bulging from its chest. 

Ben closed his eyes. When he opened them, the creature was within arms reach, standing on all fours. It bent its head and revealed its pulsating brain. It turned its shriveled horse snout, staring with its chiseled slate eyes, baring its bent rebar teeth. Rising on digitigrade legs, it ran its hand on Ben’s forehead like a faith healer and opened its mouth, salivating as it began to speak. It spoke the languages of common folk and it spoke the savage grunts of tribesmen and it spoke the chants of priests. Ben didn’t know why, but he felt like he understood all its words. It was famished, and Ben felt that he owed it something that he could not fulfill. 

Again, Ben closed his eyes. He waited. The next time they opened, the creature was gone.

A shadow seeped from the gap below the door. It danced and morphed in the light as the knob twisted, and there entered two hulking figures clad in green pressure suits, faces hidden behind tinted visors. One of them clutched two metal containers in its rubbery gauntlets. They looked at Ben and then talked among themselves for a moment. Their breaths and words were tinny and alien-like through the integrated speakers. Garbled tones that Ben couldn’t understand, the language of beasts and bridge trolls.

The words stopped flowing. They lumbered towards him, steps ponderous like walking on the moon, long tails in thick plastic dragging on the sterile tiles. They stood by his bed, and as the light shimmered down their hoods and reflected against the material of their suits, Ben realized these ‘people’ were sent by the creature. They were monsters that lurked in the darkness and under the beds. 

They had come for him. 

“Hello, Mr Mcknight. How are you feeling?” one asked.

Ben wanted to talk about wanting to live, seeing his parents, and begging to go home - about the life he had and now missed, but the words came out in a blathering mess. Then he coughed again, a wet and wheezing sound of anguish. 

The two monsters stared at each other and shook their heads. Then, the one holding the containers set them on a desk and opened the one marked samples. Cold air wheezed out. Within it, an empty syringe was retrieved.

“We want to help you,” the monster with the syringe rasped as it approached. “Hold still. It will only be a moment.”

But Ben didn’t want what these creatures offered. He struggled against his restraints. Dire and weak movements like a fawn in a trap. 

“Please…Don’t…” he whispered.

The monster stopped, its sausage-sized fingers almost hiding the syringe. It stared at its comrade by the bed. For a moment, Ben thought he was safe, that his words had some talismanic power, and warded off the monster. Then, it nodded, and its comrade nodded back. It continued its approach.

The blanket is peeled away, revealing Ben’s color-faded arms, his veins thick and puffy as diseased, viscous tar-black blood flowed within. Scales flaky like the mummified bodies of ancient millennia. His body shivered the instant the blanket was off. Such precarious life struggling to exist. 

The other being held Ben’s struggling arm steady. The needle was inserted close to his shoulder. He felt a tiny prick. The plunger was drawn and dark, plagued fluid entered the syringe. Then it was over; the needle withdrew from his flesh. They wrapped the puncture with a bandage and a bit of cotton. The monster returned to the metal cases and stowed the blood-filled syringe. Slow, precise movement like a medieval torturer selecting its tools. It unlatched the second container marked serums and retrieved a new syringe filled with colorless fluid.

“This is medicine. It will make you feel better. Please let us help you,” it rasped.

Again, Ben struggled, incoherent words sputtering out of his mouth, a devil’s mix of phlegm and spit caking his lips. But the anonymous beings showed nothing but mild annoyance. Again, he was held still - a ritual between doctor and patient. The fluid was injected, and soon his words became mutters. His vision blurred and sounds slurred, his head sinking into the pillow. Eyes fixated on the fluorescents before closing shut.

The two figures stood there for a moment, watching their patient fall into a coma. Then, the one who held the syringes walked back to the desk. It stowed the Serum syringe in the container before sealing it. It started towards the door but stopped with its hand on the knob, looking behind. Its comrade remained by the bed, studying the unconscious patient and his shallow, desperate breaths. With its snout, it gestured to the other figure and then at the door. The figure nodded and followed behind.   

They retreated into the halls, rooms brimming with the sick and mad, living on borrowed time, passing through as if they were fading phantoms in a world where they shouldn’t belong. No one saw them again. 

The medicine was of no use. Something acidic and sour crawled up his throat during his slumber, clogging the thin lifeline of his breath. He gagged and gulped and squirmed, Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. Red imprinted on his arms as they dug into the restraints. The bed creaked. The lines on the monitors rose and fell, tumultuous sine waves in a storm-struck ocean that determined life and death. Beeps warned of the point of no return.

He retched, a globule of phlegm and bile tainting his chin, jaw left unhinged, but the struggle didn’t stop. A groan of pain - a wordless cry for help. Those desperate gasps weakened until they were nothing but a faint gurgling, which soon disappeared. Finally, there was but one twitch of the fingers. Then, he was limp and silent. A long beep sounded from the machines.

This was how he died.

Three doctors arrived. Too late. Resuscitation wasn’t possible. They unplugged the machines, and IV drips and cleaned the foulness off the cadaver. A wordless process, still clinging on to the tradition of decency. One doctor left and later returned with a roller tray containing a body bag, the light shining off its white PVC layers. They lifted the body inside and zipped it up. They flicked the lights off and rolled the tray out into the corridors. In the darkness, the room was silent and uncaring…for now. Another sufferer of the sickness would be brought in, and the cycle would repeat. 

The smell of sterility and medicine and recovery was now fading. Dying patients were strapped on roller beds here and there, snouts agape and eyes weak and hallucinating worlds that don’t exist. Two doctors rushed in the opposite direction, wheeling a decrepit velociraptor into an ICU room. A nurse stood in the halls with her head down, hands covering her snout, uttering a silent prayer in sadness. The deranged words of the delirious were the only answer.

They reached the elevator at the end of the corridor and called it. They went in and sent the cabin to the basement. They traveled down the halls, frosted glass doors left and right. Rooms were marked for radiology, autopsy, identification, and marking - a bureaucracy for the dead. The body bag was given a tag. 

They stopped before a steel vault door with yellow warnings pasted above the valve. A junior doctor was made to turn the valve. They took a step back as the door swung open. Chilling coldness seeped outside. Darkness as far as the eye could see. They went in and found the light switch.

Bodies coated the steel shelves and the sterile tables. Men, women, young, old–a stench of decay permeated them all. The air was cold and dry, and the walls were a drab gray. The doctors’ footsteps echoed against the concrete floor, the tray’s wheels squeaking. Despite their fused eyelids and plastic tombs, the dead seemed to gaze upon the living in judgment. The doctors were indifferent as they trudged on.

They found an empty spot at the far end of the room. There, Ben will be left on the table in the darkness, the cold unforgiveness of the belly of the hospital with the sickening silence company of cadavers, waiting to be cut up in an autopsy.

 

…

 

…

 

…

 

…But that autopsy will never come.

 

Evil always happens in the cloak of night, but what occurred in this crypt was more than evil. It was unnatural and wicked. It assaulted the very concept of life and death. 

There was a certain wrongness that could never be undone, a dark tale from a medieval story of witches, orcs, and devils. There was no way to tell the time, no clock in the room, yet there was the ticking of an unearthly pressure to disturb the stillness of the corpses. Something was coming, rising. 

It was here. 

It was inside Ben.

A great terror in him thrived in a world of dying cells and tissues, its microscopic structure settling its tendrils and roots, dug in deep. It was a puppeteer with no audience, no rules, and no masters. 

A mere twitch of the fingers. A pulse forced through his slackened veins. Another twitch, and then his muscles spasmed. His fingers curled, uncurled, claws leaving marks on the bag’s seal. The stiffness retracted, never to return.

Then his eyes shot open, dark like the venom of Amazon spiders. Dark and full of hate. Full of primal anger. Of hunger. 

Now, there was no more death, only undeath. 

His movement was unnatural, the flesh foreign and untrustworthy to his bones, not Ben but a thing that shouldn’t be. Claws gored the seal, and PVC strained and tore. He thrashed. He rolled off the table and landed with a thud. He rose and shambled; PVC dragged along his feet before getting caught in a tattered pile by the table leg. Foul air was forced into his lungs, no longer of any use.

His head lifted. Bodies coated the steel shelves and the sterile tables. The smell of blood was rich. A sound escaped him and hung in the air, not a scream or yell, but a half-growl, half-groan. Forgotten instincts forced their way to resurface. 

He moved in the darkness, driven by instinct, a mindless beast. He stopped in front of a body. The scent was strong. The bag was improperly sealed. He tore it open. There was a dead human in there - what remained of one that is. His skin was purple with bruises, and chunks of his legs were missing. His face was forever glued with shock. A car accident? Industrial malpractice? Murder victim?

Not like it mattered.

The scent of raw flesh and bones drove him closer. Ben was no more. In his mind remained only an unreasonable force driven by rage and hunger. He bored into the cadaver’s chest, claws like butcher knives. The flesh was tasteless on a lifeless tongue. It didn’t matter. The flesh was everything, a necessity. 

He stopped. There was a creaking sound, metal grinding against metal, followed by hard knocks. 

“Jane, did I lock you in there? The team’s not ready yet. What’s that noise? Hello?” called an echoey voice.

His head snapped to the sound. A growl escaped his throat. His lips drew back, and his snout wrinkled like a wolf prepared to kill. He stood up and shambled to the door, drops of stale blood flowing from his fingers and onto the concrete. He wanted more.

The door swung open. A doctor stepped in and glanced around the room. He froze. Something was in the darkness, something wrong inches away. It was growling, hateful, and murderous, not an illusion but real, very real.

He took a step back and fumbled for the door. His time was up.

It lunged.

 

Chapter 8: Overrun

Summary:

‘The Volcaldera Event is contained.

It has always been contained.

America is safe.

We are safe.’

-General Ryan Greenlaw

Act 2: The Zombie Threat

October 24th - October 28th 201M2023BC

 

—

 

Anon stood on the balcony and peered at the streets below. The city was a battered dog unable to lick its wounds. Cars were everywhere, honking and inching forward in the clogged and suffocating main streets. Droves of people rushed into a strip of shops and came out carrying bags filled with things they thought might help; a scream from somewhere far away, followed by glass breaking.

He released his grip on the railing and went back inside. Lucy was sitting by the Formica table, her eyes on him and searching for something he couldn’t give. He turned and stared at the window for a moment, then looked back at her. He shook his head and went to his seat. They ate their breakfast of ham, eggs, and toast with their heads down in silence.

His eyes were heavy, and his head was pounding under the stress of the prior days. They hadn’t slept last night after the incident at I-5. The city had changed. The police were already rolling out and setting up their barriers and checkpoints. Dissenters were pleading and raving and clenching their fists against an immovable wall of saurians with guns and armor, anger and confusion on all sides. It was a disaster waiting to happen, so they did what made the most sense in the thick of it: going home and hoping for the best.

“We could have tried talking our way through those cops,” Anon said. 

“They wouldn’t have cared, not even if I told them about Dad. Just like the soldiers and the man with the truck.”

He took out his phone and checked a messaging app. Last night, he texted his friends, but nothing got through. He stared at the screen before turning it off and placing it on the table. “The phones still don’t work, the internet too,” he said. “Nothing works. Does he even know we didn’t make it?”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to go out there to find out.” 

In the distance was a fire truck, the constant wailing of police sirens, and a car accident from somewhere. There was another scream followed by the popping of gunfire, faint but insistent and unignorable, yet they finished their breakfast with a facade of normalcy. 

“We’re stuck here, aren’t we?” he said. He stood up, took the dishes, and put them in the dishwasher. 

At first, Lucy stared down at the table. “I don’t know, but we’re safe, I suppose. I just hope Mom and Dad are doing alright.” 

He washed his hands and dried them with a hanging cloth. Then, he stood looking at her, then at the window. “And I hope everyone is doing alright…” he mumbled. The TV was on in the background, looping the same emergency broadcast that played all night. A cold, uncaring, and droning voice echoed through the building. Martial law is in effect. Stay inside. Lock your doors and do not open them to anyone. Don’t interfere. Let the military and doctors handle everything. Stay calm, don’t panic, and obey. The situation will be contained, and we will come for you.

He walked to it and looked at the screen - big white words against a black background. It was a surreal sight that meant nothing to him. He grabbed the remote, turned off the TV, and collapsed onto the sofa, his head buried in the cushions, just staying there and thinking.

“How long will we have to stay here? For help to come?” he said.

“It’s crazy out there,” Lucy considered. “Maybe awhile, a week at most. Dad will have to get it under control. He has to.” 

The soldiers, the police checkpoints. Too late and too slow. A few minutes could have changed it all. He snuffed out the bitter thoughts and shifted his gaze to the kitchen. “Do we have enough to eat?” he asked.

“I guess we do. I didn’t get to stock up for all this,” she went to the sofa and sat beside him, her hands resting on her thighs as her head drooped down. “I’m scared, Anon,” she said.

“I know, sweet tooth. I know. I’m scared, too.”

“This, whatever it is, is everywhere.” she tensed up and shook her head. “It’s all so wrong. We were supposed to be safe. But now it’s all falling apart. Why did we have to get caught in all this?” 

Anon opened his mouth, but no words came. He wanted to offer words of reassurance and comfort, but what was he in all this? He didn’t know any better. They could only wait. That’s the cold truth. He ran his hand across his face.

“What if it doesn’t get better? If they had to bring soldiers-” Lucy started.

He wrapped an arm around her and brought her close. “It will. Your dad and all those people in charge have a plan. They have to know what to do. Besides, we’re together in this. We’ll make it through.”

Then they just sat silently, listening and watching as time ticked on. Someone was out in the halls upstairs, trotting with hurried steps. A muffled and breathless voice passed down the halls. Then came whumps of heavy slams, fists against cheap Hut Depot wood - the shattering of either glass or porcelain. 

Outside, a shotgun went off, a booming sound that echoed through the city, bouncing along the highrises. Anon grimaced and muttered, “Goddamn.”

“Do you think anyone here has it?” Lucy asked.

“I…a lot of people must live here,” he said. The thought had circled him for quite some time, and he yet dared confront it until now. “shit.”

He tried recalling the number of people they had passed in the last couple of days. How many were sick, and how many were healthy? A cough could snuff their lives out. This room would turn into their coffin. He looked at her, and she seemed okay. He put his palm to his forehead, feeling for heat, anything wrong. 

Lucy rose and paced about the room. “You don’t think we caught anything?”

“I’m feeling alright,” he said. “You don’t seem sick either. I don’t think we caught anything.”  But he knew that it didn’t sound so reassuring. Diseases take time to settle in and to multiply and conquer and destroy. It could be days until he’d know for sure. The only thing they could do now was wait and pray. 

“We can’t get sick. The hospital is several blocks away,” Lucy said.

“I’m sure we’re fine.”

“Dad said it was dangerous.”

“Don’t worry about it. Like I said, we’re fine.”

“How do you know?”

“If we were sick, we would have felt something wrong. Don’t worry about it.”

Just don’t think too hard about it. Just don’t think too hard about it.

Then came a loud snapping from above. Either wood or metal tumbled onto the floor. They craned their heads to the ceiling and listened and heard a dragged shuffle followed by a carnal growl. Something, no, someone was up there. Someone big.

“Who the fuck are you! Stay back!” a shaky voice cried out. Rapid and heavy footfalls followed, then a sharp and sickening crash of metal clanging onto the floor the floor.

Anon tensed up, instinctively pulling Lucy closer, hearing both their heartbeats thumping into his ear. “Raptor Jesus…” Lucy said, her body trembling. 

The shuffling didn’t stop. The voice returned to shout, only to be cut off by a muffled scream. Porcelain broke, followed by a heavy thud as if a body had slammed against a wall. The shouts turned into shrieks of pain followed by a ripping sound and a wet groan in the air, and then even worse, a choking and thick gasp before finally silence. 

But it didn’t last. 

There was a snarl - low but furious and animalistic. Something in its monstrous tone was triumphant and malicious. Then, an unmistakable sound: teeth grinding and tearing at the flesh and bones, feasting. 

Anon found himself reaching into his pocket to take out his phone. ‘Get help. Call the police.’ he thought. That wasn’t going to work. Not now, not for a long time. His fingers retreated. He continued listening, his eyes wide in dumbfounded dread.

The sound drew the life from their faces: a thud, very close. It came from this floor, a room or two away. It continued, ponderous but persistent and scaling in power, like a battering ram testing and toying with a structure made out of straw.  

With three more thumps, a door rattled against its hinges, and wood splintered. Someone ran, their footsteps dimming as they climbed down a floor. 

The battering ram made an almost explosive sound, wood giving way and turning into a hundred bits and pieces. Claws raked against a surface, rough and hard like stone.

Anon stared at the door. Then he stood up and crept to the countertops, unsheathing a knife from the hanging rack before returning to Lucy. She had a hand clamped on her snout, silencing what would have been a scream.

Whatever was out there landed with a thud, a sweeping sound as it dragged itself on the floor. Then, the sound was gone, and there was nothing but suffocating silence.

‘Worse than all the noise in the world,’ he thought. 

Anon heard two taps. A pair of legs shifted, balancing themselves as someone rose. Another growl as forced shambling footfalls traveled down the halls. It was out there, lurking, scenting the air. It was testing.

Hunting.

The sound was unbearable now. As each footstep grew louder and closer, a shiver ran down Anon and Lucy’s spines. A scraping sound from something long and spiky dragged behind it. Then, there was a brief bout of silence.

And a cloud of shadow leaked from the gap under the door. 

Their door. 

He tightened his grip on the knife, his knuckles white, and pointed it at the door like a wand to ward off evil. Lucy still had her hand wrapped around her snout, eyes locked on the shadow. She dared not blink, gasp, or shriek. For a moment, the chaos of the streets filtered out. Only the faint creaking of floorboards and the dance of dust motes in the air of the small room remained in the rising tension and pressure of their eternal standoff with the creature.

He swore he could hear scratching against the door’s structure. It knows. It knows. It has to. Lucy pulled herself further into the sofa, tightening her hand around her snout. Her eyes squeezed shut. A whimper escaped her throat, followed by a stifled scream.   

It lingered there for who knows how long, waiting, breathing, and deciding. A wet, low snarl spilled through the door, almost curious, annoyed somehow. The shadow retracted, a slow drag across the floor growing softer with distance. 

Anon let out a small sigh of relief before he realized and stopped it. 

He heard the shuffling drag to the other end of the hall. Then, a different noise: footsteps as someone climbed up a flight of stairs, hard, nimble, and hurried, mixed with a panting voice.

The footsteps came to an abrupt, squeaking stop. The floorboards screamed under a series of shambling stomps, and the creature gave off a deep, gurgling growl. It was a declaration. It knew. It knew . 

“No!”

A feminine shriek. Anon bit his lip and strained his eyes. ‘Her? It can’t be,’ Anon thought. 

“No! Get away from me! You freak!”

The shriek continued, panicked and unmistakable. It was Naomi.

He heard her dart through the hall. A door slammed shut and a lock clicked in place. The shambling was closer now. 

Then it stopped, and the inevitable thumps began - the same powerful and constant battering ram. The door was under punishment. On a countertop of their room, a coffee cup rattled with the creature’s every strike. Anon shifted his gaze from the door to the knife. The handle had a layer of sweat. ‘Is it enough?’ he thought. It felt light to swing and stab. The blade was sharp but still felt like a crude joke to the creature’s might. 

The familiar strain of little metal hinges. A doorknob rattled in that unnegotiable siege affixed on a singular goal. He had maybe a minute, maybe less, to make a decision. 

“If it gets through, I’m going to go for it,” he said.

“You’re what?”

“I’m going for it.”

“With what? That?” she pointed at the knife. 

“Don’t see anything better.”

She stared at him. “Whoever’s doing this could be armed. We don’t even know if they’re-”

“It’s Naomi out there. We have to do something.” 

“This is crazy, Anon. Crazy. You could end up more than hurt.”

“It’s better than letting it happen.” 

A final, almost glorious crash as the flimsy structure protecting Naomi shattered. The doorknob snapped and rang as it hit the floor. The time to decide was up. Anon ran to the door. 

“Wait!” Lucy yelled.

He swung it open and ran into the halls. It looked like the shit-beaten aftermath of a hurricane. Splinters were everywhere. A set of broken panels hung loosely on the door frames and bits of metal had been bent out of shape from an unnatural force. Claw marks gouged on the walls. Anon pushed through the jagged remnants of Naomi’s door.

At the other side of the room was a stegosaurus, stains of rancid bile and spit coated its nightwear. Both its arms were raised, twitching and grasping in the air. Blackened veins puffed and bulged through the gaps of its dry scales. Its tail snaked down to the floor. It was thick, plated, and serrated, movements erratic. It left scratch marks on the flooring as it dragged on. When Anon flicked his eyes to the end of the tail, he froze. 

Because there, its muscles and bone clumped into a club of small spikes akin to a medieval marauder’s weapons. 

The stegosaurus’s back was to him. No awareness was in those movements. No hesitation or mind or thoughts of consequence. Only purpose. Within seconds, it reached the corner of the room and lunged at Naomi, its hands latching onto her shoulders as she screamed and struggled. 

Time was running out. Anon readied the knife. “Hey!” he called out. He charged and took hold of the stegosaurus’s back and strained his muscles as he pulled the saurian by its scales and shirt. It worked. The stegosaurus released its iron grip, tottering as it was thrown off from Naomi.

This only angered the saurian in its demented way. The stegosaurus hissed, and a vile drool leaked from its mouth as it balanced itself. Then, it turned to face Anon. Now he could see the reality of it, to see what it was and no longer is: a thrall with all the white drained out from its eyes, leaving a black pool. Only instincts were left behind.  

Killer instincts.

Anon stepped back, knife pointed at this sickly creature. “Oh shi-”

That was all Anon could say before the stegosaurus lurched forward, swiping its claws. It was frighteningly nimble. Anon sidestepped just in time and slashed wildly, turning its shirt into peeling strips and sending tiny pieces of scales flying as he drew blood from its arms and chest. By the time the stegosaurus faced Anon again, he had made a final slash at its face. 

But there was no reaction from the stegosaurus.

It roared, spread its arms wide, and threw itself forward, reaching for him. Anon ducked under the oncoming attack and forced its snout upwards with a free hand. 

The knife plunged into its neck. The blade sliced through the scales and muscles until it punched through the windpipe and jugular. Blood should have surged, death within a minute. Yet what pooled out was instead a manageable trickle of viscous black-red fluid, like watching tar. 

The stegosaurus looked down at him, jaws unhinging. The throat wound bubbled and hissed with a gurgling rumble. Blood sputtered out its mouth and onto Anon’s face. It thrashed, wrenching itself free from Anon’s grip. 

The stegosaurus raised its arms while Anon stumbled back. He had maybe less than a second to make another strike. The moment the stegosaurus lunged again, Anon thrusted the blade into its path and stabbed the side of its head. The blade broke through its tough scales and bore through a thin layer of flesh before stopping at the skull.

It swung its arms to and fro, swatting Anon’s hand away. The knife flew and clattered onto the floor. Its claws shredded the fibers of Anon’s shirt and grazed his chest. He winced and sucked in the air as he regained his footing. 

Anon prepared himself for a flurry of claws, but his eyes went wide when he saw the stegosaurus’ tail swinging low and fast. It was too late to dodge. Nerves fired up, and involuntary reactions kicked in. Anon bent one arm to shield himself. The club struck him on the elbow and above his waist, spikes ripping the skin and lacerating the muscles.

The pain was blinding and hot. Anon staggered, the air getting knocked out of his lungs. Blood dripped and soiled the carpet. No mercy. No chance to recover. The stegosaurus clamped its hands on his back. Claws dug through his shirt and sank into Anon’s flesh as he was brought closer to its jaws, closer to death. Anon struggled to hold the stegosaurus’s head back as they stumbled across the room, their gladiatorial arena, in their struggle. 

“Help!” Anon yelled. 

But Naomi was shrieking away as she squeezed herself against the wall.

A China vase shattered. A chair flipped over. Anon’s back was pressed against the Formica counters. Pots and pans clanged onto the floor. Its jaws snapped and threw more blood and saliva onto his face. The energy drained from him with every passing second. His options were running out. His arms began to shake. The monster’s teeth inched towards his nose.

“Get off him!” 

So fast his eyes could barely catch it. There was a crash as a chair was brought down onto the stegosaurus in a high arc, creating an explosion of splinters. It released its grip on Anon as it swung sideways from the impact. One of its eyes began to bleed and bulge. Lucy was behind it, clutching a pair of shattered wooden legs.

At last, a small window of opportunity. Anon shoved the stunned stegosaurus to the ground. It lay with its arms raised, clawing at the air, its legs flailing as it tried to rise. Anon tried to step back, but it seized his left ankle and hauled it closer to its snout.

Anon kicked its head, bobbing it as blood flew onto the kitchen cabinet doors. It hissed and attempted to grope for his other ankle. Anon lifted his foot and stomped down on its forehead.

It released a roar of anger as it writhed beneath him. Anon looked down, expecting a cry of surrender, a throw of hands. Yet the creature’s eyes locked onto his and retorted everything. He blinked in disbelief and stomped again, an expanding pool of black on its shirt as its throat bubbled. He could feel its grip tightening.

“Damn you! Let go of me!”

Yet it didn’t want to let go. It didn’t want to give up. Anon thought that it would start drilling its claws to sever his foot. He only stomped harder. 

“Let go of me! Let go of me!”

“Anon!” Lucy cried out.

His sneakers were a mess of clumped hair and blood by the time he heard the cracking and snapping of a broken skull. He released his foot from the disfigured mess and stepped away from the creature, his hands squeezing the wound on his waist. The room was silent save for his tired breaths. He looked at the corpse, then at Lucy. She stared at his sneakers and then at the corpse. 

“Oh my god,” she said. “Oh my god.”

Anon stumbled to Naomi and crouched in front of her. He grimaced, the wound on his waist straining and releasing a fresh shot of pain. She was shivering and cowering. Her hands covered her face like a penitent. Loose threads hung from a torn sleeve. At first glance, Anon saw no signs of anything more severe than superficial injuries.   

“Naomi?” Anon said.

She did not reply. 

“Naomi?” 

Her hands slowly uncovered her face. She stared at him before shaking her head. 

He cast a glance at the body for a moment. A pool of black had started to spread around its neck.

“He, he-,” she stuttered. “H-he tried to kill me.” 

Anon glanced at Lucy. She was creeping towards the body with slow and careful steps. He returned to Naomi. “He can’t hurt you now.”

“He tried to kill me.”

“I know. You’re safe now,” Thin lines of red leaked from Anon’s elbow and flowed to his fingertips, slow drips like a water clock. He pressed the wound against his chest, trying to slow the bleeding.

“You’re hurt bad,” Naomi said.

“I’ll worry about that later.” He glanced at her broken door and then back to her.  “Right now, we have to go.”

“Go where?”

“Lucy’s dorm.”

“I heard more of them out there.”

“If we leave now, we’ll be fine. It’s someplace safe.”

Naomi steadied, her breath shaky as she rose. “Okay. Okay.”

Footsteps from upstairs and downstairs, snarls followed by a dragged-out scream and the shredding of flesh. There were whumps as someone threw themselves against a door. Anon saw Lucy peeking her head out of the doorframe. “We really should get going now,” she hissed.

“We have to go. Come on,” Anon whispered loudly. Due to his wounds, he rose and tottered before gaining his footing. Lucy grabbed him by his uninjured arm and led him outside, leaving a dotted trail of red. Naomi followed their lead. In the halls, they saw a pair of feet shambling down from upstairs. 

Lucy gasped and ran to her door, twisting it open. She and the others went inside before she shut and locked the door. She pushed her body against it, panting from fear. Whatever was out there was now shuffling in the halls. 

Anon scanned the room. “The sofa,” he groaned and pointed to the door. The pain of his wounds intensified as adrenaline started to run its course. 

Lucy looked at the sofa, then ran and pushed it to the door. Anon expected the shambling to close in on them, followed by the thumps and creaking of their door. The growls, the roars of a creature that cannot be held at bay. But it never came.

Mingling with the dragging gait of the creature was the squeaking of rubber soles. There must have been two people running outside, maybe more. The running ceased halfway into the hall, close to their door. Then, the animalistic and guttural growl of a creature that found its next target. 

Someone out there cursed and yelled warnings at the aggressor to stay back, words that fell on deaf ears. Then came five gunshots in rapid succession, booming like claps of thunder, followed by a heavy thump. Anon and the others moved to cover their ringing ears. A smoke detector tripped off and began wailing. 

“I got 'em!” a voice outside called. “Come on, let's get out of here!”

The rapid footsteps continued, then stopped. A knock on the wall as if someone had fallen onto it. Coughs and dry heaving. Gasps for air.

“You’ll be fine,” the voice said. “I’ll get you a doctor. Don’t pass out now.”

A sharp wheeze as if a person were lifting a heavy object. The footsteps dissipated as the group went downstairs. Then nothing. For now, the halls were finally silent.  

Anon collapsed against the wall and wheezed. He checked his hands. Both were covered in a mix of red and black ooze. The wounds on his back and waist throbbed with pain. His clothes were glued to his body from sweat and blood. Purple bruises and broken skin. He felt dizzy.

“You’re going to need a doctor,” Naomi said.

He looked out the window and sat there. He released a groan of pain and finally answered, “I don’t think I’ll find one any time soon.” 

“We have to stop the bleeding,” Lucy said. She opened the door to the bathroom and went in. She rummaged through the vanity and medicine cabinet. From within, she found a bottle of disinfectant, bandages, and a first aid kit. She opened the first aid kit and retrieved some painkillers, a pair of scissors, and a roll of medical tape. The sink tap was turned up all the way. 

“Naomi, could you help him up?” Lucy called out.

She nodded and propped Anon by his shoulder. She took him into the bathroom and rested him on the floor. They washed and dressed Anon’s wounds in their makeshift hospital, trying their best to ignore the new sounds added to the war outside. The gunshots from the ground floor. The destruction of doors and windows from floors above and below. The echoey screams and cries and begging of neighbors…

And finally, the calls, the guttural moans of more creatures beginning to rise.

Chapter 9: The Horde

A helicopter droned overhead on its third fly-by. It could have been military or police or even civilian; it didn’t matter. Inco sat in the living room listening in frustration. An anonymous voice hailed through a speaker, distant and hollow as if a ghost were attempting to call out to the living. It spoke of the rules of law, urged for calm among the public, and crafted promises of a world soon returning to normalcy. 

Inco looked at his ceiling, imagining that he could see the helicopter and its faceless crew inside. He muttered, ‘You are up there, and I am down here.’ 

The streets answered in defiance, with a dawn marked by the roaring of hundreds of engines in a pilgrimage on wheels. Car horns blared, and drivers yelled and cursed to form a strange orchestra that carried in the air. Headlights sliced through the still paling light as the stream of vehicles moved westward, deeper into the city to sate a vulturous hunger for supplies, or eastward, in an exodus to some unheard-of refuge. No birds tweeted or critters of any kind could be seen lurking during this boundless migration as if all were sent into hiding from the rank fumes and fear lingering in the air. 

Inco turned and saw Olivia coming into view from the kitchen. She wheeled around the sofa and coffee table, one hand guiding the wheelchair, her face dimly lit by her phone. “I shouldn’t have come here,” she said. “I’m such an idiot.”  Her claws swiped frantically on her phone. She muttered, “Please work.” 

Inco shifted uncomfortably, his attention split between the unraveling world beyond the safety of his house and the baryonyx by his side. “Olivia…” he whispered.

She paid no attention. Her thumb tapped harder on the screen. “Damn it! They aren’t picking up,” a bitter laugh escaped her throat. “of course, they can’t.” she stuffed her phone into her hoodie’s kangaroo pocket, winced, and slumped forward. With a shaky voice, she wailed. “Oh my god. All of this overnight?! A quarantine?! How the hell am I gonna get home now? No-no-no. If hadn’t decided to come here, none of this would be happening.”

"Olivia.”

She froze, her breath uneven. 

“You wouldn’t have known. No one in this whole city would have known.”

“You tell me that, but it doesn’t help us now.” She ran a claw through her hair, then continued. “It’s crazy out there. People were screaming last night, Inco. Screaming. How do we even know if we’re safe here? How?!”

“Olivia, listen to me,” Inco’s tone was firm but calm. “Please.” 

Olivia ceased her rant in troubled gasps.

“The people outside? The cars and the screaming? They-” he paused, “They’re just scared and confused, that’s all.” His words came with a rising sense of uneasiness. Deep down, he knew what he said was far from true. “We’re safe here. Whatever danger is out there won’t get to us.”

Olivia stared at her hands and shook her head. 

Inco continued. “What you need to do is wait,” he said. “The Paynes will come for you, and we’re not going anywhere until they show up.” 

“With how much traffic is out there. Randy and Sophia, they could get stuck…” she muttered under her breath. “Could they even reach here? And…” she came to an abrupt pause.

Inco waited for her to finish.

“And it’s just us now.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“You know what I mean. I’m saying it’s just us and no one else.”

“Well, I-” Inco wanted to give further proof of reassurance, but all the words he considered felt hollow before his breath.  What more could he realistically offer and later deliver? So he repeated. “They will come for you. And while that happens, I’ll-” he was caught in his own words for a moment, then he continued. “We’ll look after each other. We’ll figure everything out. I promise.”

Olivia stared at him for a while, her eyes glossy, and her lips trembled. She opened her mouth in preparation to protest but let out a resigned sigh. “Okay,” she took a deep breath and spoke again. “Okay.”

Then they said nothing, staring at the muted flatscreen TV with its white words on a black background. They reflected on the world around them, trying to understand that this wasn’t a dream. The only sound in the house was a faint buzzing from the TV’s electronics.

“A waiting game,” Inco said under his breath. He glanced at the wall clock. “It’s getting late; how about we have something to eat? I have some frozen breakfast burritos we can heat up.” 

“Yeah, sure.”

Inco rose and walked into the kitchen, Olivia following behind him. He removed a paper box from the freezer and took out two chorizo and egg burritos. He used a fork to poke a few holes in each of them before putting them in the microwave set on medium. When the microwave pinged, he opened it, put the steaming burritos onto two paper plates he found in the cabinets, and gave one of the plates to Olivia. Inco got his plate and a glass of water. He sat behind an Island table and looked at Olivia. 

“You don’t want to sit here?” he asked.

“I don’t think I can.”

“What do you mean?” He pushed back his chair and stared downwards. “Oh.” Her wheelchair won’t fit in the meager space underneath. “Well, that’s no problem. We can eat outside.” 

He stood. They left the kitchen and sat on the sofa. Olivia did not hesitate to chow down on the burrito despite the fact that it was still steaming. She glanced at Inco, then at her meal. “The inside is…cold,” she said. 

“Man, I’ll never figure out how to get them right.”

“Try wrapping them in a moist paper towel next time. It helps even out the heat.”

“Huh. I haven’t thought of that.”

Inco turned off the TV, letting the room seep further into stillness. He waited a moment for his meal to cool off before taking a bite. They ate in silence. Olivia chomped down on her burrito and was done in a few quick bites. She put down her plate, looked at the wall clock, then at the curtained window. She sighed. “I wish my Da were here. He’d know what to do.”

Inco chewed and swallowed a piece of the burrito. Then he said, “You barely talk about him.”

“I didn’t think to, I guess. And I don’t mean it in a bad light or anything. Sure, the Paynes are a second family to me, but he’s still my dad.”

Inco nodded. “Where does he live?”

“In one of those small homes in March Avenue. You know where that is?”

“Nope. I don’t think I’ve even seen a quarter of what this city has to offer.”

“It’s a cozy place, a little old-fashioned. I’m convinced it has never changed since the Paynes brought me under their roof,” she said. “Da said it was worth its weight in gold since it is close to where his service pals stay.”

“He served?”

Olivia nodded. “He was an Air Force pilot before he met my mom. Never told me why he joined, but I think he just loved it. Always kept a bright face when he’s around his old pals from service.” 

“He lives alone, you know? It’s been that way for years.”

Inco nodded slowly. 

“The last I heard from him was yesterday morning. He said he was fine, wasn’t sick, but was looking after the old World War Two marine living a house down.” she let out a heavy sigh. “All these good people…”

“He’s doing what he can.”

“But what if something happens to him?”

“I’m sure he’s holding up fine. He and his pals have probably been through worse,” Inco made a semi-reassuring smile.

“Yeah, he’s a big guy and all,” Olivia replied with a waning smile of her own. “But a part of me wishes he was here, that’s all.” 

At first, Inco didn’t reply. He cast off his gaze at nothing in particular. He imagined himself in Old Jersey, where his parents went on their trip. If talks about the flu were news three days ago, then this would be international headlines that were impossible to ignore. They must know, Inco thought. They must be trying to find a way back. He nodded slowly. “Yeah…” he whispered. 

Minutes later, there was an abrupt crash of clay and wooden objects falling. Inco jerked his head and almost spilled his drink. He sat his cup and empty, greasy plate on the table and turned in the cushions. The sound came from somewhere across the street.

“What was that?” Olivia said.

He walked to the window, then scanned the street and the houses on the opposite end. There was a brief silence before another crash. He traced the source to the building at the far end of the street. It was a two-story designer home that he vaguely recalled belonged to a friendly couple. Squinting, he caught a figure swaying like a shadow puppet behind the curtains on the first floor. It disappeared, then reappeared again behind another window. 

The figure began to stir, and its shadow turned into a great, black blob as it bent forward, pressing its hands against the curtains. For now, there was silence as the figure gripped and twisted the fabric. Inco studied the figure and its unpredictable actions, feeling the hair on the back of his neck rising. Something inside that home felt wrong. He had only seen the couple once or twice over the past few months, but he felt compelled to call out to them and ask if they were okay. 

A sudden blaring honk, followed by the screeching of tires, derailed his train of thought. Inco tilted his head at an angle that gave a better view of the street and distant intersection but couldn’t see the source of the commotion.

When he turned his attention back to the house, the figure had erupted into a frenzy. Its shadow morphed into twisted shapes like disturbed spirits as it tore the fabric with crazed ferocity. Strips of cloth shredded and fell limp, bringing forth thin rays of sunlight to cut into the dim interior. It persisted in its unforgiving assault. The curtain and its hanging rod strained before snapping free, clanging onto the floor.

From behind, Inco heard Olivia call his name. “What’s going on?” she asked. She pulled herself into the wheelchair and started across the room. Inco paid no attention to her, instead remaining glued to the window.

In that room was a grey liopleurodon, ghost-like in the morning light. Its hair was untied and unkempt, and its bile-stained nightgown stuck to its taut and blanched scales. Its eyes darted wildly, and its chest heaved with wheezing breaths. It panted and hissed as if it were an old witch preparing a horrible curse.

Inco bit his lip as the liopleurodon unhinged its maw, straining against the swollen and purplish glands of her neck. It gnarled and stiff hands slammed against the glass, leaving claw marks as they dragged down the pane.  

On the second floor, another creature lumbered into view - a triceratops. Its lips cracked and bleeding from its multiple teeth marks, and the skin on the bridge of its snout permanently creased into a grimace, something that looked impish and crazed. The triceratops raked the glass door with one half-curled fist. Then it rammed its massive and unfiled horns against the panes, the first strike so strong that a spiderweb of cracks formed in the place of impact and expanded out to all corners of the flimsy squared glass. It roared, an animalistic war call that disturbed the air and strained Inco’s ears. 

“The hell?” Inco whispered. When he turned, he found Olivia next to him, one claw lifting up a small section of the curtain to give a view of the outside.

“What are-” When her eyes met the dim house and its occupants, she gasped. “Their faces…what happened to them?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen them in days.”

“Those are your neighbors? They look like maniacs.”

Inco slowly shook his head. The triceratops brought its gaunt head into the door once more. The weak structure gave up its feeble resistance and exploded into a shower of shards, which rained onto the connected balcony. The thin rod framing buckled, split into two, and blew outwards in opposite directions. The creature roared again. Lunging forward, clawing, and groping around the frame, further punishing the already shattered structure. 

It shambled out. Glass snapped from the edges of the door and embedded into the vulnerable fleshy gaps in between its scales and slashed away at its threadbare undershirt and shorts. One jagged rod sliced the saurian’s face right under the brow. Blood slowly oozed from the wound, flowed down, and sealed its twitching eyelid, blackened and glistening, as if it were some resinous artifact dug out from a cave.

The triceratops did not care. 

It staggered to the balustrade in ponderous and drunkard steps. There, it paused. Its head tilted slightly downwards as it gazed at the world below. At first, Inco thought it might be scanning, the way a scout might do in search of enemies. But when his eyes locked onto the creature’s caved and wretched face, he found no cohesive intent there, only impulsive fixation. Regardless, Inco tugged the curtains of his window, better concealing him in the safety of his home.

The triceratops shifted further until its waist was pressed against the thick marble. It leaned forward and clawed at the air until its feet lifted off the ground. For a split second, it hung there, its chest tethering on the edge of the handrail. Then it began to fall, flipping once a few feet away from the impact before slamming back-first onto the grass. It lay there squirming. 

Still, the triceratops did not care.

The triceratops moaned and twitched. A fall of that height would have easily broken bones, yet its claws ripped out tufts of grass and furrowed the soil as it righted itself, rising to its twisted feet that jittered in place. Then it limped around. Shards jostled in its flesh, chipped scales, and purpling bruises on its arms and legs. The tip of one horn had snapped and got caught among the trash hung on the grate of a nearby storm drain, and it limped into the middle of the street. Trailing behind it was the liopleurodon, who had headbutted its way out of the window, scampered onto the porch, and righted itself. 

They wandered onto the streets and stood among the vacant cars with their pitch-blood dyeing their tattered clothes, looking hysterical, looking as though they were the war victims emerging out of a swarm of shrapnel.

But neither of them cared.

An ear-splitting honk pierced the air as Corolla barreled down the asphalt apron. Ahead, two saurians raised their heads and glared at the oncoming vehicle, their eyes unyielding and unblinking. The tires screamed from the emergency brakes’ tension as the driver made a hard turn left.

The front bumper missed the triceratops by the slimmest margin. The liopleurodon was not as lucky. The car struck it with the stopping power of a mortar blast. The liopleurodon flipped onto the hood, rolled over the roof, and crashed down behind the car. It sprawled with shattered bones piercing through its chest. Its head twisted at an unnatural angle.

The car, now with its windscreen cracked and streaked with blood, swerved left and right. The driver wrestled with the steering wheel in an attempt to regain control. Grass threw several feet into the air as the car drove onto the sidewalk, then to someone’s lawn. It skidded clockwise, the front chassis acting as the head of a sledgehammer as it swung at the SUV parked up the driveway. The car’s headlights exploded, and steel screamed as it bent. The windscreen and windows shattered and rained down on the shocked driver. A thin line of smoke rose from the still-growling engine as the Corolla screeched to a halt, and the SUV’s alert wailed into the morning sky.

The Corolla’s driver pushed open the still serviceable door and staggered out, one hand squeezing the flesh under his blood-drenched hair and the other dangling uselessly with a dislocated bone bulging through his elbow. He managed perhaps three steps before his legs gave out. He stopped his fall by grabbing onto the door’s storage compartment with his good arm. With his improvised support, he tried to pull himself up, but his grip came loose from his blood. He fell on his good elbow, concrete breaking his skin. He pressed his arm against his chest, gritted his teeth, and closed his eyes. He gasped and groaned. Rolling onto his side, he left a trail of red as he dragged himself to the garage gate and slumped over. His eyes darted in his pale face as he stared off into nothing in particular. 

The triceratops approached, its footsteps slow and deliberate. The man stared at the saurian and called for help. He raised a hand and swayed it from one horizon to the other as he pushed his feet on the ground, attempting to squeeze himself against the garage’s gate further.

Now, the triceratop’s shadow covered the man. He tried to yell something but was cut short when the triceratops tilted its head down with its horns gleaming like sabers. It rammed into the man’s chest and swung its head upwards, goring two gaping holes in the gaps between the ribs. The man lifted off the ground and flew several feet backward into a low picket fence. The wood rattled violently in place. Blood gushed out of his wounds and pooled on the soil. His hand raised itself before his terror-filled eyes, trembling and seeming less of a shield and more of a silent plea. The triceratops closed the distance and lurched forward and grappled the man, its teeth clamped and tore off half of his hand in one swift motion. His screams were short-lived. The triceratops bore and bit into the man’s neck, the veins, cartilage, and tendons torn with a ferocity that left silence in its aftermath. Then, it stood over the dead man, raised its head, blood dripping out of its jaws and thin strips of meat lodged between its teeth, and roared. 

Olivia retreated from the window. “Oh my god,” she whispered, holding her snout and shutting her eyes. “Oh my god.”

Inco swore under his breath and slowly slid down the wall, his hand pressed against his mouth as he swallowed hard against the urge to gag.

Glass shattered from all directions, followed by growls and moans amidst the SUV’s alarm. From the unlit houses they came, pairs of pale hands pushing on the panes and gaunt faces peering out with all the same empty, psychotic eyes as if they were all insectoid creatures part of a hivemind.

With their fists or horns or even their skulls, they smashed through their former homes, weathering down and breaching doors and windows. They clambered out of the openings, swaying and stumbling into view, with one being a saurian youngster no older than sixteen, and two being a husband and wife with their wedding rings and jewelry shimmering like comets, and one being a shriveled geriatric who had long lost all its hair and dragged along its frail limbs, and one being a troodon stripped off all decency save for its boxers. 

They marched an otherworldly gathering, drawing closer to the deceased man. Towards the bones and blood, they went to answer the call to satiate their insatiable urges. They moved with their arms extended outwards and their minds beyond reason. Death was here, and it was a march with no end. 

“Come on. We need to hide.” 

The words blurted out of Inco’s mouth before he could process them. His eyes frantically darted across the room. The horde had moved closer, their moans blending with the wail of the SUV. Then Inco saw the stairwell. “Over there, hurry.”

He scrambled to Olivia and grabbed the handlebars. Without waiting for her consent or protest, he pushed her to a space under the stairwell, dark and at an angle that he believed would be hard to spot by anyone peering from outside. Tucked farther back was a steel door. “Open, damn it. For the love of god, open,” he hissed. He dug into his pocket and took out his keys. His sweaty palms flipped through the little jagged shapes, a task slow-going with the heightening fear, moving without rationality, moving without accepting that none of them fit. He brought his shoulder onto the door and growled. “Come on, COME ON.”

“Inco…” Olivia’s voice was strained, eyes wide as she stared past Inco at the window across the room, pointing one trembling finger at the shifting shadow beyond the glass. 

Shambling past was a velociraptor. Its tank top was shredded, exposing bites and scratch wounds on his arms and torso, pulsing and oozing dark fluids. The tendons on one wrist were exposed, and a flap of skin and scales hung loose from the crook of the arm. 

Inco held his breath. He pulled Olivia close, further into the darkness, pressing the both of them as far into the corner as they could manage. 

The raptor swayed in place, its maw unhinged as it turned its head agonizingly slow. Then, it moved on, its gait carried past the window.

They remained in that borderline compromised hiding spot, the SUV still wailing with its alarm, watching as more of those monsters shambled from their wretched dwellings, adding to the serried crowd around the wreckage.  

By the time the alarm ran its course, the horde had swelled to over a dozen saurians packed shoulder to shoulder, with their teeth red and gnashing on odd pieces of flesh, their faces haggard and indiscernible, and their blood-soaked faces glistening in the sunlight like cultists partaking in a profane sacrifice. 

Among the chaos was the man, his face no longer recognizable, his cheeks torn away, exposing his bleeding gums and limp tongue. His head twisted at an impossible angle that seemed to stare directly at Inco.

‘Thank god that isn’t us,' Inco thought.

Chapter 10: The Body

The sound of a landline receiver clicked into place and echoed throughout the Payne household. Above Damien, the floorboards creaked as someone paced back and forth.

“The phone lines are still down,” A voice - Sophia’s voice. She sounded like someone who experienced an irrecoverable defeat. 

“Are you sure?” Randy grunted. The pacing turned to stomps across the room. A few seconds later, Damien heard him curse and slam the receiver home.  

“Randy,” Sophia said. “Listen, we don’t have time for this. We have to head out and get Olivia back now .” 

“Our chance to do that was yesterday. Look outside. Where would our car take us at this point?” 

“What other options are there? I don’t care how many cars are out there. We have to do something.”

Damien dropped the bag of oats and assorted dried fruits next to the wooden cage on the desk. Skittering inside was a rat with black and white patches of fur. It sniffed the air and stood on its hind legs, its little teddy bear eyes staring at Damien. ‘I’m sorry she isn’t here, Guts,’ he thought briefly. ‘I could have done more. I could have said no and told her otherwise.’ 

He opened the bag and scooped a serving of food and poured it into a metal bowl. Then, he grabbed the bag and started out of the room. He stopped and stood before the door. “Is that…” he whispered. He backtracked and planted his hands on the desk. His eyes went wide as what he saw filled him with dreadful disbelief.

On the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street, an allosaurus lay with his head hidden behind a tree stump. One of his arms extended outwards, its claws almost touching a pair of cracked and bent glasses. Farther ahead was a handphone with its screen down on the pavement. His clothes were now apt for a pauper’s rags. The threads of his dress suit and pants were snapped and frayed, and the undershirt stuck to his chest with a makeshift epoxy made of blood, sweat, and grime. Both sleeves were almost split into halves to reveal bulbous and troubled veins, his alabaster scales and flesh pleading for healthy blood. 

A road rover droned by. When it passed Damien’s house, the driver slowed down and looked at the allosaurus. The driver shook his head in unease and picked up speed, the crunch of the tires receding around the bend. 

Damien’s claws dug into the softwood of the desk. He tried to reason it away. He fabricated theories that this was a prop to be used in a tragic stage play, but the more he studied the blood that pooled under the allosaurus’s waist and spread to the crook of his legs, the more he came to comprehend that this was true flesh and wounds with the scales and limbs maimed to the bones.

This was a dead body. This was a dead body right in front of his house . Dead for how long, he had no clue, and no one was doing anything about it.

“Where are you going?” Randy asked.

“I’m getting the car keys. We have to try at least,” the springs on a bed squeaked. A doorknob twisted, and footsteps marched out.

“For crying out loud, Sophia, think for a moment!” The footsteps stopped. “They said it’s martial law. If the police get their hands on you, then I don’t know what I’ll do.”

Close your eyes and inhale, exhale. Open them and look again. There was more than meets the eye, something familiar that was missed. Look at the victim's wrists.

On his right wrist was a personal oddity—a bracelet. It was a series of hand-carved wooden beads strung together and inscribed with the words of God—mantras and scriptures in traditional Japanese, the words mimicking the strokes of a calligraphy brush.

A realization struck Damien. He didn’t need to see his face. The allosaurus’s identity was obvious. No one else in a ten-mile radius would wear that bracelet but him.

“Mr Nakamura?” Damien whispered. He planted one hand on the window panes and stared in silence. 

Damien recalled him well. Shintaro Nakamura moved into that classy home half a block away back in the summer of 2019. He first met the middle-aged allosaurus standing with his wife and kids by his side, calling out to the uniformed movers hauling boxers under the sweltering sun. Damien came out with his family to greet the Nakamuras and they exchanged gifts. Damien remembered how he shook Nakamura’s calloused hand as Nakamura smiled and introduced himself.

Now, that same hand was twitching from final electric stimuli as Nakamura lay alone, dead in front of Damien’s house.

Someone called his name. Damien turned around. It was Vinny. He had his hands stuffed into his pockets as he looked around nervously.

“Yeah? Do you need anything?” Damien asked.

Vinny leaned and tried to look past his brother. He pointed at the window. “What’s outside?”

Damien glanced at the allosaurus and then at Vinny. Panic began to crawl up his spine. “Oh, it was…” he shimmied so his body blocked most of the view. Sweat caught on the back of his frills. “It was nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Yeah, nothing.”

“But you look so worried.”

“Oh, no. I thought I heard a cat mess around in the garden, that’s all,” Damien wrenched out a politician’s smile. “Why don’t you go sit over there?” he pointed at the couch past the open door. “Mom and Dad will be down in a minute.”

Vinny glanced behind him, then at the ceiling. He listened to the footsteps, the stressed voices. “But I don’t want to go,” he said in a weak tone.

Damien’s smile disappeared. He closed the curtains and knelt so that he was at Vinny’s height. “Why not?”

Vinny had his eyes cast at the floor, his hands curled into balls. “Because the man on the TV is scary,” he mumbled, then continued. “and so is what he’s saying.” 

Damien closed his eyes and nodded. A wave of guilt and pity washed over him. To have his younger brother like this, so unnerved, so vulnerable. It made his heart ache. “Alright,” he whispered, patting Vinny’s back. “Then I’ll sit with you, and we’ll talk about all this. How about that?”

“Okay.”

Damien stood, and they left Olivia’s room and sat side by side. The TV was on, and coming from it was a voice that was deep, robotic, and monotonous. It could have been some anonymous government official. Damien thought it sounded like it came from a game over screen from that game he used to play with Olivia in the arcade, Space Invaders. The voice talked about rules and orders and most important of all, martial law.

They listened to the voice drone on. Then, Vinny asked, “Why do we need martial law for the flu?” 

“I don’t know. To help stop the spread, I guess. Like a sort of stricter quarantine.” 

“But martial law is bad, isn’t it? It means soldiers coming in and ordering us around.”

“Yes, it does,” he said. This was the one thing he had no choice but to agree with. There was no way he could sugarcoat it. Vinny probably knew all that kind of stuff from playing Rock Ring. “Yes, does mean that.”

“Do they have to do it? I don’t wanna be stuck here forever.”

“It won’t be like that. Let’s put it this way: what if by doing this now, bringing in all the experts and fancy equipment and getting everyone working together, they’ll be dealing a strong first strike to prevent the danger from settling in for the long run. This way, they’ll be able to fix all this faster.”

“I guess…”

“So you’ll be able to head out in no time and we’ll put all this behind us. Once the WiFi gets back on, we’ll play the xrox with Inco and Olivia. Oh, and you can bring your friends too,” Damien paused. From time to time, he would see Vinny’s friends visit his house during the weekends. They would huddle around the Xrox and play Rock Ring or take turns duking it out in JurAssKick. He tried to remember the name of the one Vinny met in his karate class who had blue scales and a dolphin laugh. “Like Georgie,” he said.

Vinny’s expression darkened, and he turned away, his voice low. “He has it,” a long pause before he continued. “He got it a day after school closed down.”

“O-oh,” Damien muttered. “I-I’m sorry…” He locked his fingers as his head drooped down. “I’m so sorry, Vinny.”

Silence stretched between them. The TV screen went black. Then, a series of drawn-out beeps played. The voice returned and began to list down symptoms of the disease. It urged those with families to do a strict quarantine for any suspected of being infected.

Damien picked up the remote, and the imposing voice’s warnings were gone with the press of a button. 

“If they had to do all this, does that mean that the flu is getting bad?” Vinny asked.

Damien didn’t answer immediately. There was a voice at the back of his mind. Its tone was garbled and it was scared, hurt, and confused. I thought I would be fine. Last night I was fine. This morning I was, last class I was… 

Damien sighed, then spoke up, “I’ll have to admit, it’s not looking good.”

“They had to take Georgie to a hospital. A lot of my classmates too, like the three kids who always goofed off at the back, half of the V squad that I always sit with during lunch. They had to take them all-” Vinny suddenly stopped. “And now they’re all there.” 

“Don’t worry about it. They’ll get well soon.” 

He stared at Vinny, his eyes going wide as if he were undergoing a trance. Holy shit, they’re just kids, and they’re stuffed into the back of ambulances, lying in beds and ICUs, coughing and puking their guts out . He’d heard about deadly epidemics like ebola, cholera, or malaria in those faraway countries ravaged by war or were so underdeveloped to the point of having a handful of homes with running water. There were always those NGO videos everywhere, the kind involving reporters in face masks interviewing a dino wearing a blue helmet. They would show clips of the reporter team stepping into huge tents. You could see steel cots with people buckled onto them, IV drips stuck to their wrists. Rows upon rows of those stinking cots, stretching from one end to the other. Now, he didn’t have to buy a plane ticket to see all that. A fifteen-minute drive through town will give him a first-hand experience. 

“What if I get sick?” Vinny spoke up.

Damien felt his frills twitch. His tail constricted around the leg of the couch, tugging and causing it to creak. “You won’t. I swear you won’t. Please don’t say that.”

“But what if I do?” 

“Then I’ll be there for you. And Mom and Dad will take care of you. We all will.”

“And I’ll get better?”

“Yes, that’s right. You will. Because I won’t allow the world to do otherwise.”

Vinny shifted in place. “I’m sorry if I said something dumb.”

“No. You didn’t,” Damien planted his hand on Vinny’s shoulder. “It’s fine to worry sometimes. It’s a little like instinct, it helps keep you out of trouble.”

Leaves rustled, twigs snapped and crunched. Damien rose and walked to the window. His eyes trained further up, towards the street, then at the opposite sidewalk. He pressed his snout against the glass panes as he stared in disbelief.

Where was the allosaurus?

The pool of blood had spread out, and a handprint was faintly smeared on the tree stump. The phone had been displaced and now lay on the white line painted on the side of the road, and the glasses were missing. Beginning from behind the tree was a trail of little red dots and footprints winding off the pavement and across the road. It almost made a pattern - a footprint, three dots, then another footprint, like the cover page of a classic detective novel.

The trail led to the low hedge wall that flanked the walkway to his house. Specks of drying blood coated the little cone-shaped leaves and twigs in a dull red. The trail ended there; whatever prints were concealed among the grass, but Damien could make out some green blades tipped with red like poison daggers. 

A hand slapped against the window, and five lines of red streaked down the panes as the hand slid, then retracted. “Hello?” a voice called. “Is anyone there?”

Damien responded with a scream. He tottered and fell flat on his back, tipping over a chair. His frills flared. He pushed himself into a sitting position and looked up just in time to see a figure limp past. Its torso was arched forward with one hand on its hip and a clumped mop of hair covering its eyes, hobbling like some hunchbacked gremlin.

The figure hobbled out of sight. Damien heard heavy footsteps, pained whimpers, and mutterings that were almost cohesive enough to sound like words. The footsteps stopped. There was a weakened groan as claws raked against the clapboard walls. The footsteps continued until the front door knob began to rattle. 

“Help me. Please help me,” the voice rasped.

Behind him, two pairs of feet stormed down the stairs. “Vinny? Damien?” Damien’s parents called in unison. 

Damien got to his feet and ran to the couch. He wrapped Vinny in his arms and brought him close as the child shivered in his dance of terror. “W-who’s out there?” Vinny stammered. 

“Help me,” the voice whimpered. “You have to help me.”

“Vinny? Damien?” his parents called again. 

Sophia was the first one down. She rushed towards the two shivering brothers. “Damien, Vinny, are you two alright-” she began. The door rattled against its hinges as the voice again hollered for help. Sophia stood hesitating for a second, then she reached for the keys and unlocked the door. The figure opened the door before her hand could wrap around the knob.

Sophia dropped the keyring in terror. Standing there was the same allosaurus, his glasses hanging loose on the bridge of his snout and the light clinging onto what seemed less of a face but a work of deranged taxidermy - the bulging veins on his temples, the quivering membranes of the snout, the patchwork bits of scales among the rendered cheeks. Damien tightened his grip on Vinny. He took a few steps back. 

Upon reaching the bottom of the stairs, Randy spotted the allosaurus and lifted one trembling hand out, his jaw slowly opening. He swore under his breath and shook his head. Then, he ran to Sophia’s side.

The allosaurus brought one hand onto the frame and stumbled forward. Sophia took a step back. “Mr Nakamura? Why are you-” Sophia wrapped her hands around her snout, her eyes wide. “Oh, sweet Raptor Jesus, what happened to you?”

Nakamura inched past the frame. His stained shoes ruined the doormat as they dragged him into the house. “My daughter. My wife. They went crazy, they-” he wheezed and clutched his chest. Pained tears rolled down his cheek and mixed with the blood. He held one arm aloft, his eyes fluttering. “Please…help-”

His legs began to jitter, and he swayed to one side. He took one last step forward and began to fall, his head fast approaching the corner of a shoe cabinet. Sophia yelped and jerked forward, her hands held out. She managed to catch the allosaurus by the arms, redirecting his course and turning what could have been a lethal blow to a light bump. A second later, Randy gave support by grabbing Nakamura by his torso. 

“Over there. Put him over there,” Randy said. Damien stepped out of the way, pulling Vinny along with him as his parents heaved and dragged Nakamura into the living room and lay him on the floor before the TV. 

Randy crouched beside the allosaurus. “Mr Nakamura?” he gripped the bottom of Nakamura’s snout and turned it. “Can you hear me?” He waited, gazing at the absent-minded eyes that rolled in its sockets. There was no answer. Randy swore under his breath. He pressed two fingers on Nakamura’s wrists and began counting his pulse. 

“There’s so much blood,” Vinny closed his eyes and turned away. He locked his hands behind Damien’s waist. “What happened to him, Damien? What happened to him?”

“I…” Damien started, but he had nothing else to say. ‘I wish you didn’t have to see this,’ he thought.

Sophia slipped Nakamura’s left arm out of his suit jacket and grimaced. She slipped out his other arm to reveal the great, jagged ravine dug into the flesh, among which were the sickle-shaped teeth marks, hardly recognizable to untrained eyes. “I don’t think even sutures can fix this. How is he still alive?” 

“I can barely feel a pulse!” Randy yelled, retracting his fingers from Nakamura’s wrist. He examined the allosaurus’ chest. “I think he’s stopped breathing!” 

Damien glanced at Sophia’s sweater. It was unsalvageable. It looked like someone took a paintbrush, drenched it in red paint, and did a poor job of slashing out Dino-Mouse. And to think she got it a few months ago.

Sophia rose and paced around. “Oh my god,” her face paled. She ran to the little hook attached to the wall next to the way outside and swiped a keyfob from it. “Oh my god, we need to take him to a hospital. Right now.”

Randy shifted his position so that he crouched beside Nakamura’s head. His hands slid under the allosaurus’ armpits and prepared to heave. He stopped to look at the two brothers. “Damien help me,” he said.

Damien turned to Vinny. “I have to go,” he whispered. He released his grip and started towards Nakamura. He stopped, feeling Vinny tug at the back of his shirt. Tears were welling in his eyes. 

“Is he-” Vinny said, pointing at Nakamura. “Is he gonna be-”

“It will be okay. Everything will be okay. We’re gonna take him to a doctor, and he will live.”

With that, Damien ran, then knelt beside his dad. Damien grabbed the allosaurus by the back of his feet. Randy counted down from three, and they lifted him. Nakamura’s arms dangled down like a hung scarecrow. 

Sophia swung the door fully open and went outside. A moment later, the family SUV chirped, and Damien heard her start the engine. 

As they hauled Nakamura out with Vinny trailing behind, they passed Olivia’s room. Damien could just about make out Guts rasping his claws against his cage, gnawing at the bars and squeaking in a frenzy as he tried to climb out. 

The Paynes approached a white SUV parked up their driveway. One sliding door was open, and Sophia was almost done folding, flipping, and pushing forward the middle-row seats. Once she was done with the last one, she dove into the driver’s seat and grabbed the steering wheel. Damien and his dad maneuvered the allosaurus through the gap and laid him onto the back row. 

They reassembled the seats and drove off. As they left their silent street, Damien watched the pool of blood. It shimmered in the light, its edges trickling down the road’s shoulder and into a small pothole. Swaying in the distance among the homes was a solitary saurian, its features sequined through the glare of the morning sun. 

They blazed through the neighborhood. Standing by the streets and glaring from their homes were saurians, indecent in their nightwear or underwear or completely nude, their bare feet dragging on concrete. Their snouts against the panes and their strange breaths condensing in front of them. Some shuffled with their arms aloft and mouths aghast as if they were drugged patients who fled from some mental institution. Dogs tied to pens or with their snouts squeezed against gates of homes were yapping and growling.

Sophia pressed on the brakes. Ahead was a microraptor in a tank top and shorts. She honked the horn. The microraptor turned and glared. It raised its arms and shambled towards them. The SUV came to a complete halt in front of the microraptor, but the microraptor maintained its course. Sophia honked the horn one more time, then she reversed the SUV and maneuvered around the saurian. 

A man watched the SUV cruise by, his windbreaker hastily worn and his hands grabbing the balcony railing, dark expressions and weary-eyed like a lieutenant overseeing the return of his shattered troops. Damien looked up and caught the man watching them. He shied backward and left through a half-opened glass sliding door. 

Damien saw the seeds of doubt beginning to sprout in Sophia. She shot prodding glances at the sights they passed. “What is going on,” she muttered. 

Randy’s eyes flicked towards the swaying dinosaurs outside, then back at Sophia. Then he shook his head in frustration.

They drove on and entered the main road. Damien dared to take cautionary glances at Nakamura. Damien decided that he’ll never want to sit back there for the rest of his life. The seats were stained with Nakamura’s blood and the blood was turning black. Vinny sat in silence. He peered out, watching the heavy stream of cars pouring down the opposing lane.

All the shops had their security gates pulled into place, and alarms sounded in the distance. In one alleyway, among the haphazardly tossed garbage bags and scurrying rats, was a man slumped against a wall. He lay with his head on one shoulder, and his lips parted as if trying to whisper a secret to a friend. Squatting beside him was a parasaurolophus, its claws gouging out the flesh in his belly and its serrated tail erected. One bystander took out her phone and began filming. Then, a series of flashes as she took a few pictures. The ankylosaur rose and raised its head. A chunk of flesh and bone fell out of its open jaw. It began tottering out of the alley.

Vinny pressed his snout against the window, his eyes going wide. Damien peeled Vinny away from the window. 

Minutes passed. Randy lifted himself in his seat. The seatbelt twisted against his chest as he glanced behind. “What on Earth did this to him? I haven’t seen animals attack so viciously, not even bears.” Randy said.

“The first and last thing I heard him say was something about his wife and kids, he said they went crazy and attacked him,” Sophia replied.

“His veins are pumped full of adrenaline, and there’s nothing but pain coursing in his brain. There isn’t a chance in the world that he knows what he’s saying.”

“You can’t fabricate all those wounds.”

“We’ve had dinner with them before. They’re one of the nicest people in the neighborhood.”

“Sure, and when a dog gets mauled by a bear, it’ll start whimpering the next time it sees one. He isn’t lying.”

“Damn it!”

“Randy!”

“If we could call an ambulance, then none of this would happen,” Randy looked outside. “These people are mad. Where are the police in all this? People standing in the middle of the road, neighbors getting attacked, and we can’t call the police for help. And the hospitals, too. Whoever’s working on this might as well turn off the power.” 

They drove on. Sophia began to slow down the SUV. Coming into view from the horizon was an endless line of stalled vehicles.

Randy leaned against the dashboard. He bit his lip and frowned. “Oh, you’ve got to be joking,” Randy said. His claws made fine lines on the hard plastic. “No, no. Don’t. Not here.” Randy slammed his fist into the dashboard, sending a stuffed Doberman plushie off its display mat and onto his waist. He yelled, “No! Damn it! Not now!” 

The SUV came to a complete stop.

Randy seemed on the verge of a tangent filled with curses to god, but he deflated in his seat. Sophia stared outwards. She rubbed and gripped the wheel, claws tensed and her palms turning red. The SUV inched forward, struggling through this serried kudzu of cars.  

Then Damien heard it. He jolted upright. A noise to overthrow the din of the crowd. Once you recognize what it was, you’ll never mistake it. Several bangs - the report of gunfire. It came from beyond the cars’ beyond the crowd that had formed ahead. From a distance of perhaps a quarter of a mile, a row of flashing police barricades lined the street, along with several patrol cars parked bumper to bumper. Among the thick mist of white tear gas stood police officers, anonymous under their gas masks and helmets and their riot body armor like obsidian. 

They beat their batons against their shields like Roman legions. Silver badges and shoulder patches reflected far into the sky, glinting like war trophies. At the center of them stood a megalodon in the cupola of an armored van, yelling orders into a megaphone that was almost invisible in its huge hands. And further back, the rear ranks clutching shotguns. Then came a flash from a muzzle, a flash of light in the mist, and then another boom. 

Vinny flinched and squeezed into his seat. He tugged his seatbelt. 

“Sweet Raptor Jesus,” Sophia muttered. “Oh, sweet Raptor Jesus.” 

Damien checked the time on his phone. Too much time had passed. Not good. The nearest hospital was still a distance away. 

Damien kept checking on the allosaurus. The allosaurus’ eyes had rolled in its sockets, but they seemed foreign to the saurian’s body. There was not a speck of white left in those black doll eyes. Damien considered that Nakamura’s pupils had dilated in some medical phenomena. 

But since when do dead people dilate their pupils?

Damien’s mind ran miracle scenarios where Nakamura hadn’t died from shock or had bled until he turned into a dried fossil of a dinosaur. Yet deep down, he knew Nakamura couldn't make it out of this alive. It was plain impossible. With all these blockades, you might as well consider digging a hole to China to find a doctor, and even if they got him to a hospital, he would have long since been dead - no chance of resuscitating that. The doctors would be able to do nothing more than give him a death certificate and an autopsy. Damien felt that his parents understood that fact, too - their faces were drenched in sweat. They were carrying a dead body in their car, and there was nothing they could do to change that fact. 

Sophia searched for an opportunity to turn into a clearer street. The officers at the checkpoint marched on. 

Scratching. 

There was scratching inside the SUV, and it was coming from the back of the vehicle. Damien waited. He sat in silence. ‘The scratching was not real,’ he thought. It was a figment of his imagination or a product of the stress getting to him. 

Vinny turned to Damien and tugged the hem of his shirt, his small hands trembling. He had that same face Damien was familiar with, wide eyes, and a tight snout. It was the kind Vinny had when the power went out from that freak typhoon five years ago or when that huge psychopath of a kid broke two of Vinny’s fingers during one of his karate classes. 

Damien’s frills fluttered, and then they began to rise. The color slowly drained from his scales.  

The scratching was real.

Damien pulled against his seatbelt as he looked behind him. “Hello?” he called out. 

Mr Nakamura was still there, with the same coagulating blood and darkened eyes. But the muscles revealed from one rolled-up sleeve were pulsing, and his index finger was digging into the leather of the seat.

Nakamura was…

Alive?

Vinny said, “Mom? Dad? I think Mr-” 

The allosaurus bent and unbent its spine in grotesque spasms, its jaw quivering. Its fingers twitched and curled into stiff, clawed sickles. A gurgling sound escaped its throat. It retched out a glob of yellow bile that landed on its chest. It collapsed, its upper body slumped to the floor. 

Damien put one hand on his seat’s headrest. He rose to a half-kneeling position to get a better view. 

“Mr Nakamura?” Damien whispered.

Damien looked at the allosaurus’ face - pallid and sunken, drooling spit and residual bile onto the rubber mat below. Its hair was all over the place, and he could see the wrinkles on his forehead. It was like watching a victim of some foreign spy’s poisoning. His mind was racing, the words tumbling and faltering. There were a million things to say, yet all of them felt wrong. They couldn’t come close to helping him understand what he saw. In the end, the only thing that came to him.

“Hello?” 

The silence stretched to the heavens, broken only by Vinny’s soft whispering. Then, the allosaurus’ legs began to shift. Its dress shoes made marks on the door’s hard plastic cup holder.

Randy looked in suspicion at the two brothers using the rearview mirror. He called both of their names. “Is everything alright back there?” he asked.

Damien didn’t answer. To him, Randy sounded as if he were on the other side of an ocean. All eyes were on the allosaurus. He started to hope it wouldn’t respond.

But it did with a low moan. 

Damien wished he hadn’t said anything at all.

The allosaurus’ eyes shot open, and it lay there looking at Damien. It didn’t blink. It didn’t weep. No, it glared . Its lips drew back, and it ground its teeth together - great and grotesque hooked carnivore fangs.

Vinny squealed and shook his head wildly while Damien sank back into his seat. Damien was about to yell out to Mom and Dad when one arm raised behind him. It slashed through the air and then swooped towards his seat. Damien leaned to the right just as a set of claws bored into the leather upholstery where his shoulder was a second ago. Stuffing tangled on its claws as a layer of leather started to rip. 

Another hand swung aloft, then seized the headrest of Vinny’s seat, tendons bulging through its scales as the allosaurus raised itself. A shadow loomed over the middle seat. There was hissing - air being forced through the nostrils. Its head craned down, vile spit coating its teeth and trickling down the leather. Nakamura was craving something. It growled and turned to Vinny. 

Vinny started to scream. 

The allosaurus kicked around, with one leg hanging suspended off the floor and the other bent with the ankle on the edge of a seat. It flailed and whipped its tail, flaying and scratching everything in its path. It pushed itself further through the gap between the heads, dragged itself up, and draped itself over the seats.

“Vinny!” Damien yelled. “You need to-”

Vinny shielded his face with his hands and closed his eyes. He removed his seatbelt in a series of fumbling movements and squeezed himself against the door. The allosaurus drew closer. It swiped one hand at Vinny and grazed his palms. The other reached out and tried to seize Vinny’s wrists. Its teeth snapped as it came closer to its target. 

“No!” Damien yelled. He lunged and seized the allosaurus’ neck, locking his arms together in a rear chokehold. “Vinny! Get out of here!”

The allosaurus swiped the air in wide arcs. Vinny turned and pulled the lock lever and pushed the door open. He scampered halfway out when the allosaurus roared and seized Vinny by his ankle and tried to drag him to its snout. Vinny grabbed onto the chassis of the SUV and shook his leg. 

“Stop…Don’t! Let go of him!” Damien yelled. He hauled the allosaurus as far away as he could, its legs dragging behind and its feet caught on the little rods that held up the headrests. Now, the allosaurus lay diagonally across the SUV. 

Vinny lay sideways, his palms reddening as his grip was tested. Tears streamed down his face. He stomped on the allosaurus’s hand. He stomped again. He tried bending his restrained leg, but the allosaurus held firm.

“Mom! Dad!” Damien yelled.

He heard his parents screaming. A glove compartment clicked open, and Randy shoved his hand into it and searched. “You keep your hands off my children!” he yelled. 

Sophia fumbled to unlock the door beside her. She dove outside and ran towards Vinny. She wrapped her arms around him and fought the allosaurus’ grip. 

The allosaurus had its jaw pressed against Damien’s elbows, and it snapped at the air above as it jerked its head left and right, trying and failing to bite Damien’s hands. It swung its free hand at Vinny, its claws out of reach by less than an inch. Its eyes bulged in its sockets. Damien tightened his grip. He jerked its head, hoping that the allosaurus would loosen its grip from the pain.  

The allosaurus raised its tail, its tip like a fencing sword. The tail swayed and jabbed at Damien. Damien struggled to dodge and weave. Holes perforated in the leather, and a small crack in the window formed. The tail then it dropped down and made a broad swipe. It ripped through Damien’s jeans and drew a thin red line on his thigh. He grimaced and drew his injured leg back. Vibrations traveled around Damien’s arms as a rumbling ran through the allosaurus’ throat. It let out a wheezing roar, and then the roar tapered off to whispers, and now there was nothing at all.

Sophia cocked one leg and slammed her foot onto the allosaurus’ forearm, grinding it against the seat. With another stomp, its fingers released, Sophia grabbed Vinny and dragged him out to safety.

The allosaurus went into a fanatical frenzy, thrashing and kicking and jerking its head forward in what looked like a childish fury over it getting barred from receiving its morning meal. By now, the arteries in its neck would have been bruised, and all the air forced out of its damaged lungs, but tiring out was a concept told in only legends. The tail flopped down and slithered until it made contact with Damien. It wrapped around his left forearm and pulled. It felt like someone applying a tourniquet and then twisting a full 360 degrees. Damien dug his fingers into his other arm, trying to re-secure his faltering grip.  

Randy yelled out Damien’s name, then a flurry of threats directed at the allosaurus. He waved something, clutching it in one hand, and there was a subtle clicking. He yelled at Damien - frantic words - and Damien couldn’t catch what it was. 

The tail squeezed and pulled tight. Damien screamed in pain. His fingers started slipping away from the allosaurus’ neck. The allosaurus threw itself to one side, breaking free. It flipped around to face Damien. Tiny holes were perforated in its neck, and there were claw marks under its snout, but it didn’t mind one bit.

Damien fell flat on his back as he pushed himself onto the door. The allosaurus swiped a hand at him. He dropped his head back and watched it swish in front of his snout. The allosaurus raised its other arm. Before it could strike, Damien cocked his leg and kicked the allosaurus under the chin.

Its head shot upwards, bumping against the ceiling. It lay draped on the seats, stunned for a moment. Acid built up in Damien’s throat. If he had to do it, then so be it. 

Then, from the corner of Damien’s eye, Randy had one arm bent and the other steadied. His finger squeezed. The sight was unneeded. A hammer drew back and released. It made a sound no louder than a whisper. 

click

A flash, brief and white. There came forth a burst of flame. Heat dissipated before he could sense it. A bullet zipped forward and rendered through the allosaurus’ left eye, drilling ten grams of expanding lead into its flesh and bones.  

Finally, it arrived, shattering the stillness. And as always, it was unmistakable. 

BANG

Damien flinched. He closed his eyes. He snapped his head to the side and raised one hand in front of his face. He watched the white motes dance in his blind void. His ears were ringing, and he could only hear his own panicked huffs. 

Something wet trickled onto him. It stuck to his shirt and leaked down one arm. The faint scent of iron and gunpowder traveled down his nose.

He opened his eyes. It was blood, blackened and viscous, with a few tiny bubbles on its surface here and there. It smelled horrible. Damien turned his hands and splayed his fingers. It was there too, stuck between the gaps and smeared on his palms, and it began to feel cold. He raised his other hand and splayed and checked the front and back. It was spotless, and Damien used it to wipe the sweat off his forehead.

“Holy shit,” he whispered. 

The allosaurus lay limp over the seats, its blood leaking out of a gaping hole and sliding down the smooth surface of the leather. Its arms were dangling beside its head as if it were a diver mid-jump. Its legs slipped around its rod entrapment, and it began to topple. Damien shoved the allosaurus away before it could land on his legs. 

Damien blinked. He rolled and saw Randy holding a revolver, finger off the trigger, but still aimed at the allosaurus. He held it, frozen still as if he were a wax gangster statue in a crime museum. Randy’s lips were moving, but Damien couldn’t hear him.

Damien couldn’t see through the rear window. A sheet of blood covered over half of the glass, and fragments of skull slowly slid down the blood. Among it was a small chunk of white and reddish-black. 

Is that a piece of its…?

He stopped staring and slid down his seat, shaking his head. Feeling queasy, he wrapped his hand around his snout.  

Vinny stood before the SUV. He looked at the body and he looked at Damien. He grimaced, tears streamed down his cheeks. His Adam's apple bobbed as he said something in between his gasps. Sophia hurried to cover his eyes and pulled him beside her leg.

Damien’s eardrums started to throb with pain. Using his thumb, he pressed his earlobe and rubbed it. He grimaced. He did the same process to his other ear. The throbbing in his eardrums was at last subsiding. Soon, he could hear again, and the first thing to greet him was Vinny’s screams and sobs.

Chapter 11: Take Stock

The next time Anon woke, he found himself on a bed, with his sole company being Stygy Moldrix and his bandmates staring from a poster. By his side, a table fan hummed as it ran cool gusts of air onto his bare chest. The door was open, and outside, there were footsteps and the subtle clinking of tin and steel. He checked the alarm clock on the end table. It was 11:45 in the morning, and it was still the 24th of October, yet he swore that he had remained in that inky nothingness of unconsciousness for weeks. 

There was a tingling sensation in his hands and legs. ‘Stiff muscles,’ he thought. Anon shifted and stretched his legs. Then, he began kneading his hands. He debated whether he had climbed onto this bed himself or someone else hauled him instead. Not like it mattered much anyway. His wounds will still be wounds. 

The one thing he knew happened for sure was the last thing he saw: himself lying on the floor of a bathroom with two figures knelt beside him, Lucy and Naomi, their faces woeful as if surrounding a dying family member. Hanging above, the incandescent bulb reminded him of a surgery room. Their saurian hands held him in place as they took their tools of trade from a green box - bandages and bandaids. A bottle of wound spray and disinfectant. They had seized one of his arms and turned it and wound the bandage. He sealed his eyes and grimaced, and he fought the urge to scream from the-

Oh god! The pain!

Anon felt it shoot up through his left arm as he tried bending his elbow. He sank his head into the pillow and let out a low groan. He rolled to his side and clenched the side of the bed, leaving a dark red splotch where his back was lying. 

‘Take it easy,’ Anon said. He lay counting his breaths. Soon, he gained the courage to ease his grip on the bed. ‘Take it easy. It ain’t all bad. Take it easy…there we go.’

Shifting some more, he lifted himself and sat on the edge of the bed. He ran a hand on the bandages on his chest and felt a dull ache, growing in intensity. He reached for a cup of water left on the end table and sipped as he stared at the door. He rose and started towards it. Halfway, he had to stop. The world around him appeared to darken and blur around the edges of his vision. He leaned and propped himself on the wall and shook his head. 

‘Legs, don’t give out on me. Come on,’ he mumbled.

He stood resting until the dizziness subsided. Figuring that his blood flow or pressure wasn’t singing kumbaya over what had happened to him, he made a mental note not to stand up so quickly. Then he tottered out. 

The kitchen looked as if it were prepared for a bugout. Lucy was crouched as she rummaged through the cabinets, cool air escaping from the opened fridge and freezer. The scent of cleaning fluid hung in the air. On the counter were assorted cans - sauce, corned beef. A bag of pasta, a small pack of rice, a plastic container with dino nuggets, and so on.

Naomi was slumped on the couch, cradling her phone in a sort of trance, swiping and typing away. She whispered, “Please. Please, pick up.” to herself and shook her head.

Anon considered calling out to either of them but decided to do that later. He turned and continued into the bathroom. 

A balled-up towel, along with Anon’s shirt, socks, and shoes, were dumped into a tied plastic bag in the corner. The bag looked like what a forensic cleanup crew would bring out of a gang war, with all the thin lines of dried blood and clumps of hair. The smell of cleaning fluid was also here, and on the floor tiles, he saw the remnants of his emergency room operation: the vague outline of dried blood belonging to him and perhaps some of his attacker’s. He stepped around the outline and went to the mirror and looked at his reflection. He touched his cheeks and turned his head. It took him a hot second to register that this was him . He was as pale as a ghost, and he wondered how much blood he had lost. The worst part was that anything below his neck made him look like a victim out of a Liveleak video he watched during his early teenage years. 

“Damn,” Anon said. 

He took inventory of his body: scratches peppered his forearms and back and the sides of his torso; the skin was red and bruised here and there. Anon decided that those were his flesh wounds, nothing a few days' rest along with bandaids couldn’t solve. What worried him was where the stegosaurus’ tail had struck him. 

He ran his hand over his left elbow and upper waist, feeling the flakiness of odd ends of broken skin and scabs, feeling the rough cloth bandage, then squishy moisture. He held his fingers before his eyes - a pungent smell of iron and medicine. The wounds ran deep, punctures perhaps. He expected to come out of this some form of scarring, yet he hoped he wouldn’t need stitches for them. At least saurians had their scales to offer some form of protection. 

The dull ache grew stronger. He reached for the vanity and took out the first aid kit and opened it. The medical tape was almost out, and the disinfectant was half full. There used to be three rolls of bandages, but now two of them were gone, and the one remaining was almost used up and rolled thinner than your average pencil. He sifted through the medical scraps to find a pill bottle of ibuprofen. Better than nothing. He uncapped the bottle and shook out a pill and swallowed it with a sip of tap water. Then he splashed water on his face and wiped it dry with a towel. 

What remained in that little plastic box wasn’t going to cut it. He was going to need a change of dressing soon, and he wasn’t receptive to the notion of fighting a two-front war against wounds and a bacterial infection. He thought that he could find all he needed here, bound the lacerations with a towel or, even better, with a few strips of cloth. He could cut them out from the curtains or a spare blanket. Then, boil away all the germs and dust and secure these improvised items around his wounds with the last of the medical tape. But with what good his left arm was doing him, he’d have to ask for some help.

When he came out of the bathroom, Lucy had moved to the sink cabinet. She reached in, found a pipe wrench, and sat it aside. She stood and turned, her eyes locking on the human standing in the doorway. 

“Anon?” she said. “You’re awake. Oh my god, you were so pale that I thought, we thought-”

“I’m still here. I’m far worse for wear, but I’m still here.” Anon offered a faint smile and held out his good arm. 

Lucy ran towards him, her wings stretched and her arms ready for an embrace. Then, she stopped short and studied his chest wounds. “You look terrible.”

“I know.”

Anon wrapped his arm around her. Lucy smiled. She rested her hands carefully on his back and let her wings hover behind him, wary of his wounds. “You could have died,” she whispered.

“But you came in to save me. That stegosaurus was- I don’t even know what to say. Gone mad? He was something else.”

“A human trying to fight a dinosaur, what were you thinking?” 

“There wasn’t any time to think. Something had to be done.”

“And you still charged out there. That’s not a plan at all. You’ve gone nuts.” 

“Still, something had to be done. At least we got Naomi to safety. Can’t imagine what would happen otherwise.”

“I can’t believe this. Anon, you really are crazy,” Lucy said. “If I live to a hundred, I’ll always see you as the most reckless son of a bitch on Earth.”

“I’m a lucky son of a bitch.”

“Yeah,” she snorted, “you’re a lucky son of a bitch who would have died if I didn’t get to you in time. If I lose you during all this, I don’t know what I’ll do.” 

“Sorry…” Anon murmured.

“So please, never ever do that again,” Lucy’s eyes locked onto his. “Swear on it.”

“Okay. I won’t.”

“Swear on it.”

“Okay. I promise.” Anon raised his right hand, “I swear.”

Lucy stepped back. “And go get some rest. You shouldn’t be walking around.”

“Okay. I’ll do that in a moment. How are we doing on food?”

Lucy went over the cans and ran a finger along them. “I think if we stretch it out, this might last us around four days,” she considered. “Well, for the three of us, it might.”

“Do you think it’s enough?” Anon asked.

“I think it’s good for now.”

“Better than nothing. And that?” he eyed the pipe wrench. 

“Found it. It’s here just in case,” she said. “After all the good the knife did you.”

Naomi spoke up, “I’ve called and I’ve called. I’ve even texted everyone. Nothing is going through. Nothing,” She planted her phone on her lap and wrapped a hand on the tip of her snout.

“I told you, all the lines are down,” Lucy said.

“But there has to be a way to get a message through. All of the lines can’t be down at the same time. Right? Right?”

At first, Lucy did not reply. She looked at her phone on the table, then at Anon. “We tried,” she said. “This morning, we did. It’s not working for us. It’s not working for anyone else, either. I’m sorry, Naomi.”

Naomi seemed to blank out for a moment. She tilted her head down with her eyes wet with tears. “Why us? Why now? No…what’s going on?” she whimpered. 

Anon and Lucy exchanged pensive glances. Lucy sighed, then said, “She’s scared.” 

“I think we’re all scared.” 

“Scared isn’t coming close to describing what I’m feeling,” Lucy looked at Naomi. “I’ve talked to her, you know? While you were out.”

“Did she say much?”

“Not really.”

“Maybe give her a while, give her some space.”

“Maybe,” she said. “Those bandages are starting to get soaked.”

“That is what’s got me worried, sweet tooth. The ones on my elbow and waist need to be redressed soon, and I checked around. We’re almost out.”

“That first aid kit is the only one I have.”

“I know. We’ll have to get creative,” Anon explained his suggestions to her, and she nodded in agreement. “But right now, my arm’s no good. It hurts when I try bending it.”

“That bad, huh? Don’t worry, I’ll cut up a blanket for you,” Lucy said and left into the bedroom.

Anon looked at Naomi. She was still slumped on the couch, her gaze distant. 

He followed Lucy. She opened the closet, took out a spare blanket, and laid it on the bed. From a drawer, Lucy found a pair of scissors. Anon helped wherever while she cut a part of the blanket into strips. When they decided it was enough, they returned to the kitchen. She took out a pot, filled it with water, dropped the strips into them, and turned on the stove. 

“This will have to do,” Lucy said. 

“I hope so.”

“You won’t get worse. I’ll turn this place into a hospital if I have to.”

Anon watched the bubbles slowly begin to form in the pot. No one stirred in the hallway. He knew for sure that a door or two got smashed down while he was being treated and wondered if other people on this floor were holding up all right.

Then, across the street came a series of whumps - a man’s screams and hollering for help mixed with the shattering of wood.

Lucy froze in place. One hand tightened around the countertop, and the other reached for the pipe wrench. 

Anon glared at the front door and its sofa blockade. He tried to listen for anyone shuffling down the hall. “Fuck, when will this end…” he mumbled.  

“That guy is going to die,” Naomi said. “Oh, it’s happening again. Oh, that poor guy.”

The whumps ceased, and when the screams became a high-pitched squealing, Anon knew it was over. What followed were those guttural crunches, ones that Anon wished his brain could filter out. Glass shattered. Then, an almost explosive thud echoed throughout the block. A car alarm began to wail.

“Oh my god!” Naomi cried out. She jolted in her seat and gasped rapidly. “They threw him off the building. Why isn’t anyone coming to stop this? Everything’s going downhill. Who are those people? They’re out there. They’re-” 

“Naomi-” Lucy began. 

“And they’re in here too. You know what’s next door? My room. And who’s in it right now?”

“Naomi, look-”

“A stegosaurus. And you know who lives down the hall?” 

“Naomi, stop. Look at us. Listen to Lucy. Listen to-”

Naomi glanced at Lucy. “Our neighbor - my classmate! He went insane and tried to kill me. Kill us. There’s more of them! There’s-” 

Lucy seized Naomi’s shoulders and shook her. “Enough with the yelling, or everyone in this block will hear us .”

Then Naomi was silent for a moment, with her hair frazzled and glasses smeared with tears and all her makeup ruined, she looked like the sorriest depiction of a failed pageant queen. “At least tell me what- what-” she paused and stared at Lucy. “Tell me what the fuck is going on?”

“I don’t know, but you have to get a hold of yourself,” Lucy said. “The police will be here soon, and you’ll get your explanation.”

A floor below, someone shuffled around. There was a faint, drawn-out growl, then scratching against what sounded like a window. Far away, among the distant honking of traffic, was a burst of automatic gunfire. 

“Those people are still in here,” Naomi hissed.

“Like I said, the police will be here soon. They will take care of it.”

“They’ll shoot them,” Naomi said.

“I know how my dad does things. Maybe it won’t have to end up like that.”

“You had to kill that guy.”

Naomi’s words hung in the air. Lucy opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. She stood with her gaze shying away from Naomi, focusing on her own hands, her claws.

“We did?” Anon said.

“What?” Naomi said. “What do you mean ‘we did’? Yes, he’s dead. I don’t have to be a doctor to tell you. What are we going to say when the police get here?”

“Oh. Oh…shit,” Anon said. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit! He’s dead. He really is dead.”

“It’s self-defense. Listen. Ripley would say so,” Lucy said. “It has to be self-defense. Right? We didn’t just-”

“I killed someone.”

“What are we gonna say to the poli-” 

“I didn’t mean to!” Anon whispered loudly. “Once we got him on the ground, he was flailing, roaring, reaching for my ankles, I thought I could knock him out so I-” Anon paused, and he seemed to stare out into the horizon. “He’s dead,” he said. “I did that. Me.”

Anon realized he even went to extreme lengths to make sure the saurian wouldn’t get up again, pulping the saurian’s skull, no less gruesome than what the stegosaurus was likely intent on doing. All the evidence was wrapped up in that forensic plastic bag in Lucy’s bathroom for the detective and the judges. 

So, how do you plead, Anon? 

Anon stumbled across the room. He clutched his belly and pressed his head against the wall. He stood gasping, feeling like he was about to gag, feeling as if he were stuck in a room where he was bound to a chair in front of a steel table and forced to study the images slid in front of him - the shattered skull, the caved-in snout, the knocked-out teeth, the clumps of hair and blood stuck a pair of shoes.

His shoes.  

The only words that came out of Anon were: “I did that.” 

“Anon, are you alright? I think you have to sit down,” Lucy eased him onto a stool by the counters. 

“There’s nothing in any of this that makes sense,” Anon said. “All these people don’t make sense. You heard what they did to the guy upstairs after they, well, killed him.”

“Don’t remind me,” Lucy turned away and covered the tip of her beak.

“And the blood. Look at his blood.”

“What are you saying?” Naomi asked. “That he has some kind of new bubonic plague?” 

“I think it’s the flu, and we should stop calling it that,” Lucy said. “Maybe it’s turning people rabid.”

“Rabid, maybe. But I saw him up close. People don’t bleed like that. That stegosaurus probably woke up today changed, somehow. I’m not even sure if he was alive.” 

The blood of an alien, the face to scare children that stayed awake past their bedtimes, the eyes that worshipped feral hunger- so vivid that he’d be able to redraw it with total accuracy. All of it felt so familiar, features of nightmares during his life in middle school caused by a movie he watched. In that movie, there were monsters, and that stegosaurus was the same. That stegosaurus was like-

“It’s like he was a ghoul,” Anon blurted.

All eyes were on Anon.

“A what?” Naomi said.

“I…I said he was a ghoul. An undead-” Anon paused and caught the words in his throat. ‘How did I get myself into this mess, and how am I gonna explain it?’ he thought. “Look, I see something familiar in all this.” 

Lucy had her mouth agape, looking like she saw a tree walk on its legs. 

Naomi stared at him. “You’re crazy. Ghouls. You’re telling me that there are fantasy creatures out there.”

“Hold on,” Lucy spoke up. “You’re saying that you have an idea of what’s gotten into these people?”  

“I can’t believe that I’m saying this, but yeah.”

Naomi leaned back and laughed. “You’re joking. You’ve got to be dragging me into some kind of prank. Next, you’re going to say that the guy on my floor is made out of confetti.”

“I’m being serious here. Hell, I didn’t even get to say a thing and you’re throwing it all away.”

“Come on,” Lucy said, “at least give him a shot.” 

“Fine.”

“Where are you getting this from, some kind of book?” Lucy asked.

“You could call it that.”

“You don’t read books,” Naomi said.

Anon pursed his lips in frustration. He almost crossed his arms but stopped right as the pain in his left arm gave him a firm reminder. “Okay. Fine. I’m getting all this from a movie. It’s called Night of The Living Fossil.”

“Night of The Living Fossil?” Naomi said. 

“Yes.”

“Never heard about it,” Lucy said.

Anon doubted that anyone in a five-mile radius had heard of Night of The Living Fossil. The sole reason he even found this movie was stumbling upon a slow-going discussion in an esoteric Mongolian basket-weaving forum several years back. The movie bombed hard, with almost empty cinemas everywhere, so no one remembered it. The director gave up on filmmaking after the debacle. That poor human couldn’t stand his ground in the dino-centric media that was the 60s. The ending and the gory effects probably contributed to the movie’s failure, too, ticking the checklist of what pissed off most people at the time.  

“Doesn’t matter. Regardless, it’s a pretty old movie. The whole story is about a group of people trying to fend off these things called undead ghouls. Dead people brought back to life to kill and eat the living.”

Anon continued, “You don’t negotiate with ghouls. Like I said, kill and eat. That’s their entire world. They’re hard to kill, too. Break their arms or their legs or even their spine, and that wouldn’t make them flinch.”

“So how did they kill them?” Lucy asked.

“Someone in the movie, a news reporter, I think, said you do it with a shot to the head, blow their brains out. You have to do it. Nothing else works,” Anon said. “And you know what’s so eerily similar to all this?”

“What?” Lucy said.

“There was a disease inside them that caused this. In the movie, it came from space. Radiation or alien technology, I don’t remember. They bite, too. Biting is the next thing they try to do after getting their claws on you, and that’s how you become one of them. The stegosaurus tried to do that to me.” 

Anon looked at his bandages, his blood. Lucy had a point about rabies; there was some science to it. The writer took some real-life inspiration. As for scratches, Anon didn’t know what they did, and he’d rather not sit and speculate on that taboo. What mattered was that it was a miracle that stegosaurus didn’t bite him. Anon felt indebted to a higher power. 

Lucky.

“You’re telling me that those people out there have turned into undead freaks?” Naomi asked.

“That’s what you heard.”

“You cannot be serious,” Naomi’s head decided that her hands were better company than the bald human. 

“But we’ve all seen them,” Anon said. 

“I just can’t believe it. There’s no way this is right. How could any of that make sense? You can’t explain that with a biology textbook.”

Anon peered out the window.

“What are you trying to find?” Naomi said. She rose and started towards Anon. “It’s all violence out there. It’s all- what is happening out there?” 

They hopped through the display windows clutching their crowbars and pistols and knives, a roving band of face-masked bandits, kicking and tilting mannequins and racks and display tables, odds and ends of food and miscellaneous items rolling onto the street as they fled with their backpacks and sacks bulging with their plunder, the anti-theft alarms and shattering glass mingled with the reports of gunfire. 

The bandits, refugees, and infected all anonymous and blended in the pandemonium of the streets, Anon and Naomi like anti-partisan soldiers watching for urban guerillas. 

All were anonymous except for a solitary pterodactyl standing beside an abandoned Ciera, a battle-scarred imp not of this world with its leathery wings outstretched and bloodied and its membranes torn. The claw end of a hammer was embedded in its chest, with its tar blood dried into a solid crust around the hammer’s head and down to its handle. The pterodactyl looked up with its head titled. Its lower beak was dislocated and hung limp against its collar. It stopped. It swayed, eyes uncaring as they stared into the sky and the sun and the endless horizon and yet thinking of nothing at all as if it were a shell-shocked conscript.

Then, it caught sight of a man running nearby and shambled towards him, one hand aloft. 

“Anon?” Lucy called. She was standing behind him with a hand on his shoulder. Her eyes downcasted onto the streets. 

“Yeah?”

“The movie called them ghouls?”

“That’s right.”

“So there’s nothing left of them, as in their minds. They’re supposed to be dead?”  

“That’s what I’m theorizing.”

“So these people are walking corpses. Did we just kill a monster?”

Anon thought about that. They’re dead, right? He supposed two philosophers or scientists could sit down and debate the question all day. 

“Anon, did we kill a monster?” Lucy said.

Anon stepped away from the window and looked at her. He made a mental compromise. “Yes. Yes, I think we did, we did kill a monster.”

Notes:

And we are back, folks. I must apologize for the long wait, I've been very busy irl with the beginning of my time in uni. But things are starting to move into place, starting to find some time to write and all.

Chapter 12: Desperate Escape

Damien opened the door of the SUV in a scramble, kicking away from the body of Mr Nakamura and tumbling outside. He lay sprawled on the street like a victim of a car accident, squinting from the glare of the sun as he breathed heavily. Randy climbed out of his seat and hauled Damien to his feet. He said something, but Damien only heard fragments of his father's words in his daze. 

“...Damien?...” 

“Huh?” Damien replied.

Randy spoke again; the one word Damien could make out was ‘hurt’.

“What? Who’s hurt? Mom? Vinny?”

Randy shoved the revolver into his belt and brought Damien closer. Finally, Damien could make out what he heard, “Did he hurt you? You have to tell me. Did. He. Hurt. You?” 

“No…yes. Only a little.”

Damien didn’t get the chance to say more. His dad brought him in for an embrace. “You’re alright,” he whispered. “My son is alright.” 

With that, Randy let go of him. He put one hand on the revolver and peered into the SUV. He swore to himself as he began to take in the aftermath of the murder. Sophia was standing by the driver’s side of the SUV with Vinny hugging her leg. Before Damien could start towards them, a group of bystanders exited their vehicles and approached the family. 

Damien started towards the crowd, but stopped when he felt Randy’s hand on his shoulder. “Let me handle this,” he said. “I’ll explain everything; ask for help. Stay with your mom.” 

Damien watched Randy walk towards the crowd before he hurried around the SUV. Sophia was squatting next to Vinny, speaking to him as she inspected his leg. When Damien neared them, Sophia stood. “Damien! Are you bleeding? Are you-“She stopped, looking shocked when she focused on his face. “What did that man do to you?” 

“I’m fine,” Damien said. 

“No, you’re not! Look at yourself!”

“I’m fine, it’s just his blood-” he began. He swiped the back of his hand against his forehead and cheek. He thought he got most of it off, but here it was, cooling on his scales. “Damn.” he also felt stings of pain where the allosaurus whipped its tail at him.

Sophia ran to the SUV and got her purse. She took out a kerchief and began wiping Damien’s face. She didn’t even stop as Damien crouched next to Vinny. 

“Vinny?” Damien said.

Vinny did not respond.

“Say something to me, big guy.”

“Dad shot someone.”

“I know,” Damien said. “But the guy was…” he shook his head. “Please, don’t think about it. I promise it will be okay. You have to stop shaking now.”

“I can’t,” he said. 

Damien looked into his brother’s eyes. ‘You shouldn’t have seen this,’ he thought.

“Don’t look at the car, dear,” Sophia said. “Keep looking at us.”

“We shouldn’t have left the house,” Vinny said. “Why didn’t we just call the ambulance?”

“We couldn’t,” Sophia said. “It’s a complicated situation, not something I can explain here.” 

Damien noticed a series of cuts on Vinny’s ankle. They caused streaks of blood to flow, splitting away the little gaps between the scales and merging again in a growing pool in the cuff of his sock. Damien couldn’t stop staring at it. He knew it was nothing more than a bad scratch.

But he just couldn’t stop staring. 

“He tore up my leg.”

“No, it’s a scratch,” Damien said. “You’ve gone through worse.”

“I have?”

“Yes, you have. Trust me, it’s nothing bad.”

“Damien?”

“Yeah?”

“I want to go home.”

Then Vinny shivered as he pointed further ahead, at the police checkpoint. There was a bruised and bloodied therizinosaurus lying among the ever-maddening crowd, and by and by, a pair of feet would trample the body. It awoke and seized a man's leg, its huge, sickle-like claws creating deep marks from knee to ankle as the man fell to the ground. A tricetops ran forth to the man’s aid. She tried to grab its shoulders, but the beast turned and broke free. It began to claw at the triceratops. It tore into her chest and face, and left her blundering backwards onto the pavement. 

Damien didn’t dare to see the rest. He heard the popping and whizzing of tear gas fired and spiraling into the streets. He heard a series of screams, then a burst of gunfire. He took Vinny by the shoulders and turned him so that Vinny’s back was to the chaos. “Listen, listen. Those bad people back there won’t get us. We’re going home. We’re going to wash up and patch those scratches and bruises.” Then Damien stopped to think. “We’ll stay in the attic for a while. No one will ever dare hurt us-not if your dad is there, mom, or especially your brother. Okay?”   

“You promise?”

“Yes, and that’s a big brother’s promise.”

Damien heard a shriek from the stalled cars. He and the crowd turned to find that a parasaurolophus had scrambled out of a sedan. The parasaurolophus yelled about his friend waking up and turning mad. He didn’t make much ground before a velociraptor from the backseat of his sedan pounced, throwing him onto the hood of a nearby car as it began to gore him.

Randy pulled out the revolver and made cautious steps towards the parasaurolophus. A bystander broke off from the crowd and sprinted towards the unfolding scene, seized the collar of the velociraptor, and pried it off its victim. The velociraptor turned and lurched forth, its jaws clamping down on his arm. 

When the first shot came, the crowd dashed this way and that as if they were enormous fowls. The bullet pierced through the velociraptor’s forearm and went tumbling into its chest, ripping through the gaps between its ribs and stopping at its lungs. The force of the bullet caused it to release the allosaurus. It swung around to face Randy, letting out a gurgling hiss. Randy shot again, and the thing went down with its blood bubbling on the side of its head.

Randy ran back to the SUV, rummaged through the glovebox, and retrieved a small ammunition box. He took out some bullets and reloaded the gun before stashing it in his pocket. “Get the kids. We have to go!” he said. 

“Randy, look at their legs! They can’t run far.”

“Then carry Vinny, the car’s not moving, but we’ve got to move somewhere safer.”

“Move where? ‘Somewhere’ isn’t a place! We need to find someone to give us a ride.”

“Ride from who? The jam stretches far back. All we need to worry about right now is getting far from here!”

The family decided to run, Sophia carrying Vinny. They stuck to the sidewalk as they passed stalled vehicles, their occupants sitting anxiously. Many of them had one or two passengers in the back, clutching their arms and legs, trying to stop the bleeding from their bites or scratch wounds. Those who weren’t physically maimed were sneezing and releasing weak coughs, their eyes darting around, trying to catch sight of some feverish hallucination, their faces covered in mucus and the glands of some of their necks swollen and flabby as if these sick saurians morphed into some deep sea creature that was forced to the surface of the ocean. There were even a handful of saurians slumped over the backseats, limp and lifeless, pale from their wounds that drained them of their blood. Yet they didn’t stay dead for long. For every vehicle they passed, Damien heard the screams of its occupants as they rose from death to pounce on the drivers and passengers. 

They were approaching the end of the traffic jam when they saw a grey car with the driver’s side window open. The driver was a brachiosaurus with its neck wrapped around a hook attached to the car's ceiling. The brachiosaurus’s hands were splayed on the steering wheel, and its head was drooped down, resting on the dashboard. With its vacant face, for a moment, Damien thought the brachiosaurus looked like someone who had spaced out after getting drunk, but it acted far from the average bar-fly. It perked up when it saw them and began to uncoil its neck aggressively, far from Liz's elegant yet casual movements. Its head slammed against the car's ceiling as its body squirmed in its seat, the seatbelt stretching and in place.  

“Back! Back!” Randy yelled.

The brachiosaurus had fully uncoiled and poked its head out of the window. Randy had pushed Damien aside and leaped back just as it attacked. Its head jabbed forth and stopped right where Damien and Randy were moments ago. Its teeth clicked as its head swung in a wide arc. Randy aimed the revolver at it, his hands trembling. He looked ready to pull the trigger, yet he didn’t. He signalled to everyone to back up. They ran across the street, and as they rounded the other side of the car and proceeded further down the street, the brachiosaurus tracked them. It retracted its head into the car, struggled with the seatbelt, and managed a half-turn. It began slamming against the passenger door, its teeth scraping against the window. 

They decided to run down an alley. It was dank, dirty, and rank with the ever-growing stench of gunpowder and trash that had not been cleared for several days. Randy was leading ahead, already reaching the sidewalk at the other end. He turned towards the rest of the family and prepared to signal something to them when a pterodactyl lunged at him. He slammed into a wall. He seized the sudden attacker’s wrists, trying to keep its claws away from him. The pterodactyl cawed and beat its leathery wings wildly against Randy’s back. 

Sophia squeezed Vinny tightly and backed away from the pterodactyl’s wings. She looked around for a safe place to hide him. Damien found an empty glass bottle amongst a pile of trash bags. He grabbed it, closed the distance to the fight, and brought the bottle down with a crack that sent shards flying everywhere. Randy used this brief opening to strengthen his grip before throwing the pterodactyl into the street. It tottered back, almost tripping. 

An ambulance swerved down the street, and the pterodactyl was right into its path. It rammed into the pterodactyl and tossed it onto the hood before it spun off to the ground. The ambulance screeched to a halt. In front of the ambulance was a paramedic yelling for help on the built-in radio. From the back, the doors burst open as a paramedic came out screaming; a patient had thrown itself onto her and clawed the facemask off her. Blood bags toppled onto the floor. Her foot caught on an IV drip’s tubing, and she fell out of the ambulance.

The paramedic on the radio got out and ran towards her. As he rounded the ambulance, the pterodactyl started to move, and the scales and hide on one of its legs bulged from a dislocated bone. The pterodactyl crawled and seized the paramedic’s leg. Then, it dragged him down and began biting him. 

By now, Randy had the revolver trained on one of the patients. His grip was tight, but his hand started to shake, and sweat began flowing down his head. Damien had time to cover his ears before Randy fired at the patient - two quick shots for a quicker death. He swung the revolver around and shot the pterodactyl at the back of its head. He kept squeezing the trigger a few times, hearing the subtle clicking of the hammer striking empty cartridges before releasing his finger. 

The woman made a weak attempt to push the body off herself. The other paramedic shook his leg off the jaws of the pterodactyl and hobbled towards the ambulance before falling. He managed to brace himself against the broadside of the ambulance and carefully slid to the ground. He stared at the family as he squeezed his hand against his bite wound. 

“The trauma bag. I need it. Please,” he groaned. “They’re in the back, red dufflebag.”

Damien watched as Randy climbed into the ambulance. The rolling beds were tipped over, and their straps were snapped in half. The medicine refrigerator was broken wide open, and the stench of chemicals, bile, and blood rose from the floor amongst the bits of shattered vials. Randy took the trauma bag off the counter and tossed it to the paramedic. He unzipped it, dragged himself to his colleague, and started to treat her. 

“We can’t stay here,” Randy said. “We have to get inside somewhere safe.”

“What about those people?” Vinny said.

“We’ve done all that we could,” Randy said. “This way!”

They ran down the street and past the front of a shuttered building with a security gate. Then they swung into the next alleyway. Halfway through this path, a door lay next to a dumpster. Randy lunged towards it, and he tried the knob, but it was locked. 

“Anyone in there? Open the door!” he cried, banging his fist against the door. “Help us, I have a wife and kids out here!”

There was no response. With every passing moment, the slamming of Randy’s fist became increasingly erratic. He also started to push and yank the knob, the door jostling in its frame. 

“Hello? Hello?!”

Randy stepped away. Again, the only response was the chaos of the streets. He stared at the door, frustrated, then at the alleyway. A report of gunfire came down the streets and along the walls. There was the roar of a T-rex, followed by pounding footsteps.

Randy rubbed his elbow and swore under his breath. He began throwing himself against the door. “Come on! Come on!” he hissed.

“Open it!” Damien yelled. 

“I’m trying!”

A man came limping down the streets. His fingers were clamped around his thigh where blood sputtered from a wound so deep that it looked as though he was thrown into a pit of spikes. The roar returned, louder than before. When Randy was on his seventh attempt, the door began to creak. He backed away to make a powerful kick, swinging the door wide open. 

Sophia and Vinny were the first to enter, followed by Damien and Randy. It was dim, but from his carnivore night-vision, he could make out the run-of-the-mill convenience store shelves lined up in aisles and the glow of a few display freezers and an ice cream cooler. Randy slammed the door shut, but the knob was now woobly and the door itself was insecure in its frame. Damien and Randy hauled an ice cream cooler behind the door. 

The T-rex was outside, each stomp travelling down the alley. It stepped on a puddle, crushed aluminium cans and plastic bottles, and finally, there was an explosive crash as they heard it slam into the dumpster and bounce off the wall. It released a wheeze as it began sniffing the air. Four pairs of eyes shimmering from their night vision, trained on this most vulnerable barricade, listening. All of them huddled behind Randy, who trained the revolver at the door even though he had no more live rounds in the chamber. 

The T-rex hadn’t caught their scent and stomped to some unfortunate civilian nearby. Randy popped open the revolver’s cylinder, the empty brass tumbling onto the tiles. He unpacked the little ammunition packet, set it on a space on a shelf, and began taking out bullets to slide into the cylinder.  

“Honey, your elbow.”

“Huh?” Randy lifted his arm. There were purpling bruises and cracked scales on his elbow. He began kneading the hide of the bruises. “It’s nothing bad. It’ll heal in a day.”

Damien took a moment to find the light switch and turn it on. When he returned to the others, Randy had finished reloading. 

“Okay,” Randy said. “I’m gonna make sure this place is locked up good. Hold down the fort.” Randy took a key ring from under the checkout counter and went into the back of the store.  Damien, Sophia, and Vinny stood by the counter. 

“I can’t stand looking at how bad you kids look. I’m going to look around for something to patch you two up,” Sophia said. Damien sat with Vinny as Sophia went around the aisles. 

“How’s your leg, big guy?”

“It’s bleeding a lot.”

“Yeah, it is. You’re not gonna pass out on me, right?”

“No. Not on you.”

Damien made a weak smile. “Alright, let’s get you up there,” he lifted him onto the counter. “Rest your leg. Yes, like that. Take it slow, take-”

“Ow.”

“Shi- Sorry! Sorry...”

“I’m fine now. It just stings a little, and I feel a bit dizzy.”

“Hang in there, okay. You’re still not gonna pass on me?”

Vinny shook his head.

 “Good,” Damien let out a sigh. “That’s good…”

“Lucky for us, the alarm didn’t go off. I think that guy out there would have gotten in.”

“Yeah…”

“It would have been like Uncle Ray. Something sets off a hothead - sets him off. Punched a hole straight through a wall. Remember that?” 

“Yeah. I remember. It was an accident, though.”

“He blamed the wall for it.”

Sophia came rushing back with her hands full of various medical articles—a roll of bandages and antiseptic. She cleaned Damien and Vinny’s scratches with a bottle of water, wiped them with antiseptic, and dressed them with a bandage.

“Damien, mind heading to the back for a moment?” Randy called out.

“Coming.”

Damien went to the back. It was a small storeroom with several shelves packed with boxes of assorted things. Randy was busy unloading the boxes from one of the shelves.

“Need something, Dad?”

“You see that door next to the garage? I’m thinking of blocking it off, worried that someone might try to get in the same way we did. So I need some help hauling all these things off this shelf. Then, we’re going to drag the shelf over there.” 

They were hauling the boxes for quite a while. When they were done, they grabbed opposite ends of the shelf and dragged it in front of the door. Then, they began stacking the heaviest boxes they could find onto the shelf. 

“We broke into a store, didn’t we?”

“Well, not us. Probably just me. If the owner were here, I wouldn’t have needed to do it,” Randy said. “We’re not here to take their money.”

“Or here to bite their face off, I think getting arrested is the least of our worries.”

“Mhm.”

Damien spoke no further for a while. A quarter of the shelf was now packed. Outside, an ambulance wailed ceaselessly. Damien thought it was the same one they saw before they arrived here.

“We’re gonna be staying here for a while, aren’t we?” Damien said.

“Oh, more than a while at this rate. I don’t know if the cops can even get this handled. I think we’ll have to stay here until there’s a tank in the streets.” Randy replied. “You should get your hair washed.”

“I know. I can feel the blood clumping my hair together.”

They set their boxes down when they heard a thump.

“I think that came from above us,” Damien said, staring at the ceiling.

“And I’d say you’re right.”

“Is there a second floor to this building?”

“And here I thought securing the ground floor first would be the best idea.”

“Did you look up there?”

“...Shit. ”

They went to the front of the store. Behind the counter was a set of curtains, and behind that was a little cube of a room with a pair of furred slippers in the corner. There was a door with a sign that read ‘Private’. Randy unlocked it, revealing a flight of stairs. Echoing down towards them was muffled, droning static and the faint voice of an EBS announcer. 

“Does someone live here?” Damien said. 

"I'm thinking it's the owner of this place." 

They fell silent, waiting until they heard a knock.

 “I’m telling you, someone’s moving up there,” Damien said.

“That must be them.”

“The owner?”

“Right.”

Another knock.

“Well, it might be them. And I ought to see if that ‘might be’ can be turned into ‘is’. We could finally get another person to help us.” 

Damien followed him up the stairs. Halfway to the top, Randy stopped, held his hand, and said, “I don’t want you getting hurt.”

“Me? What about you?”

Randy paused for a moment. “Alright then.”

He went back down the stairs and left. He returned holding a fire axe. “Here, something from the storeroom.”

Damien took the axe from his dad.

“Just stay a little farther behind me.”

Damien was content with that concession. He watched his dad reach the next floor. He called out words of peace and waited. There was no answer. Then, he signalled to Damien to come upstairs. They crept down the hall and peeked into the rooms they passed—a simple kitchen, an office, and a packed and cleaning closet now less clean than the rest of the store, home to a few daddy long legs skittering on the floor.   

When they reached the end of the hall, they found a shut door with light seeping under its gap. It was a bedroom. It smelled awful, perhaps from the stale half-eaten meal on the end table or the wastebasket half full of crumpled tissues, stained with snot and phlegm. The two passed a desk with a copper jungle of wires connecting to half a dozen electronics. They passed the TV; it was on and, as expected, also playing the EBS recording. 

The knocking was coming from the bathroom. 

Damien looked at the bathroom and then at Randy. He shook his head. They stood waiting until Randy called out, “Hello?”

This time, they heard a snarl. Damien reached toward the desk, snatched a computer mouse, and threw it. The mouse smacked into the cheap, thin wood panels that were the door.

Within a moment, splinters burst forth as a pair of hands cleaved parts of the panels. Randy fired twice, aimed higher, then fired again. The hands became limp and slid away from the holes they created. The door slowly swung open, revealing a troodon slumped against a bathtub, its curtains almost torn from their fixtures.  

Notes:

"You will have free time at university," they said.

It's been a long, long while, but I have returned. Couldn't really work on this project with what my uni has been throwing at me. But now, I'm on holiday. Progress should restart now.

I'll tell you this, folks: the day I abandon this fic is the day hell freezes.

Chapter 13: Barricading

An hour had passed, and Inco decided that it was time to make a move. He was tired of being squeezed into a small corner of his house as if he were a rodent. He pressed himself against the wall and shimmied until he could manage a peek down the hall. It was empty.  Feeling more adventurous, he tilted his head further out for a small view of the kitchen. He counted the seconds in his head and was convinced that none of those mad saurians had found it enticing to break in. 

Yet.

“I know where the key is,” he said. “I’m going to get it.”

Olivia spoke from the darkness by the steel door: “But they’re still outside.”

“Yes, but they’re further away, I think. It’s a little safer to do this now. Besides, it’s better to be somewhere safer than to stay here.” 

“What’s behind this door anyway?”

“It’s a place where we keep a few drinks, but that’s not the important part. This is,” he slid beside her and tapped against the door, creating a gonging of solid steel. “This is safety. Nothing is going to get through that.”

“Where’s the key?”

“It’s in the kitchen. Stay here, I’ll be back in a moment.”

Inco cupped his hands against his mouth and took several deep breaths. “Okay,” he whispered. “You can do this.”

He pressed himself against the wall and began sliding out of the darkness. 

“Wait.”

Inco turned to Olivia. 

“Just…be careful.”

“Right. Careful.”

Inco’s hand traced the wall as he crouch-walked down the hall. He felt like his house and its surroundings were only two worlds in his mind, and he pleaded for their total silence. While passing through his Dad’s office, he heard rustling and twigs snapping. He slipped into the office and concealed himself behind the filing cabinets, far away from wherever he thought those things could catch sight of him. He listened for any more sudden stirring, but there was none.

When he left the office, he felt someone staring at his back. Olivia had wheeled herself to the edge of the wall. He signalled ‘I’m okay’ to her and, with a brief wave of his hand, convinced her to return to the safety of the stairwell. 

Inco made it into the kitchen. The paring knives, high-end chef’s knives, and a meat cleaver sat in their racks or holders, looking like an armoury. His mom’s often unused culinary tools were now available for his taking, his weapons for defense. But he was here for one objective and didn’t want to deviate to risk getting one. He wasn’t the strongest or toughest guy in any room except for a daycare centre, so he believed he couldn’t do much with them anyway. 

The keyring hung on a hook above the counters next to the sliding doors leading to the patio. Inco crept behind the counters and popped his head out for a glance, checking if the stranger who snapped the twigs or anyone was waiting in ambush, but all he saw was his patio.

Inco reached for the keys. When they were in his palm, he sat in the safety of the counters and studied them. There was never a moment in his life when he was happier to see a bunch of keys. There were half a dozen of them clipped onto the ring, and he separated the big silver one. Then, he tightened his fist around the others so they wouldn’t jingle. 

Inco was rising when someone crashed against the patio’s vinyl flooring. He pushed himself against the counter as if he were some prisoner who witnessed a baton-wielding guard enter his cell. He heard their feet dragging, plastic screeching as the lawn chairs were knocked about. 

All was quiet except for the ticking of the clock that hung next to the fridge.

A shadow grew on the counter, merged with the counter’s shadow, and spread in front of Inco’s feet. He heard tapping from above, squeaks as the intruder rubbed its palms against the windows. He listened to its dogged breathing with its snout pressed against the glass panes. He tucked in his legs, tried to slow his panicked pants, and waited. Inco thought about making a mad dash to Olivia and getting her to the cellar. He had the keys, after all. That was all he needed - the keys to the kingdom, keys to save his life. But he felt that the creature would shatter the window if he made a move, seize him, and drag him out before he could escape. 

Then came a scream from several houses down, followed by the distant shattering of glass. The creature made a grunt that sounded almost like dumb excitement and shuffled off. Inco realised that he had the keys pressed against his chest as if they were a trinket for prayer. He didn’t dare move until he heard no more. Inco looked outside. Blood stains remained where the creature's palms had pressed on the glass. The lawn chairs were knocked out of place, and the round table was flipped to its side. There was blood on a section of the wooden railings around the patio. 

Inco crouched and ran back down the hall. Returning to the stairwell, he immediately slotted in the key.

“I was getting worried, you were gone for a long time.”

“That long time could have turned into forever,” he shook his head, then held the keys before her. “But I got it. Thank you, sweet Raptor Mary, Mother of Raptor Joseph, I got it. Let’s get in before those things decide to join us.” 

They had to climb down a flight of stairs. Olivia dismounted her wheelchair and steadied herself with one arm around Inco’s back and the other gripping the hand railing as they descended. They came to a cellar dug circularly into the earth. A single lightbulb staved off the dimness. It had a pungent smell of stale fruit and citrus. The walls looked as if they came from a nuclear bunker, yet the only supplies stored here weren’t what Inco described as a ‘few drinks’. Lining both sides of the cellar were a dozen artisan wooden racks filled with bottles of assorted fine wines. Olivia shimmied herself from the foot of the stairs to one of these racks.

“Your parents own all this?” She thumbed the bottles - 26-ounce bottles of Caymus, Yellow Tail, Jacob’s Creek. All of them had been aged for at least half a decade.

“Yeah. It’s a…” Inco cleared his throat. “Let’s just say it’s a passionate hobby of theirs.”

“Each of these bottles has to be worth over a hundred bucks, and—” Olivia’s eyes stopped at the kegs at the far end of the room. There were so many kegs that they covered the entire wall. “Sweet Raptor Jesus, there must be over two dozen kegs.” She was trying to keep her voice down, but it still echoed about. 

“Okay, it’s a very passionate hobby.”

Olivia wheeled herself to the kegs and tapped her claw on one of them. “I understand hobbies. But why? Why all of this?”

“It’s a collector's thing. Well, half of the time, that is. It also treats them during the long nights after they get home from work, a little sip here and there from time to time.”

“This is more than anyone can drink in half their life.”

“That’s my parents for you. Anyway, this place serves them, but now it’ll serve us. I think it’s a decent place to hold out until everything up there settles down,” Inco said. “We’re behind half an inch of solid steel; nothing is getting in here.”

They sat in the center of the cellar. The air was a little stuffy. 

“It’s kind of chilly here,” Olivia said.

“Don’t feel so chilly for me. It’s the dinosaur blood, isn’t it?”

She nodded.

“Welp. I guess I’ll add blankets to the list for the next time we have to head up there.”

“There are only bottles of wine here, Inco,” Olivia said. “You know we can’t stay here forever.”

“Yeah, I know. And that reminds me of your wheelchair. Moving up and down from here seems far from convenient.”

“It’s better to be safe than to be convenient. I can manage it.”

“Christ on his cross of stone, I got a whole list of things to worry about, starting with figuring out how to make this house safer,” Inco said, sitting on a keg. “One good knock on a window and they’re in.”

“So we need to block off the doors and windows,” Olivia said. 

“Exactly. It’s a long day ahead of us.”

They spoke for some time, and then the conversation died down. After a while, Olivia started to shiver. Inco shifted closer to her and tried to share his jacket, letting it cover both their bodies. In this cellar, huddled close together, they looked as if they were campers in a forest of wine bottles. 

It was midday when Inco went upstairs and checked around the house, but found no signs of damage. The crowd around the car crash site had dispersed, and now shambled in small pairings of twos or threes in the streets here and there. He returned to the cellar, helped Olivia upstairs, and got her into her wheelchair. 

“Let's get to it,” he said. 

“You think we’ll finish before nightfall?”

“We have to pick up the tools to find that out.”

Entering the garage, they cleaned the whole place for everything of use. They set their findings on and around the coffee table - a toolbox, several boxes of nails, and rolls of duct tape found in a cabinet, the bundle of planks that Inco hauled out of a stash in the corner. The whole bottom floor had to be secured, and they started with the living room. It was a long time nailing the planks to the windows; they worked like engineers in an enemy stronghold, quiet and methodical. They tried muffling the sound of their hammers with pieces of cloth with limited success. As for the kitchen and its entry points, Inco covered them with duct tape. This was especially the case for the sliding doors. It was a temporary solution; they both knew that it at best offered some concealment and a mere token defense against intruders. 

Come 2 p.m., Inco had the room’s defenses finished by dragging a sofa to the door. With the slanted and thin rays of sunlight coming through the planks, the place was so dark they thought it was close to dusk. They had their small lunch on the sofa. Inco nudged a box with his foot. 

“Only bits of wood scrap left in there,” Inco said. “Not much use for us. And we still have much more of the house to board up.”

Olivia snapped her fingers. “I got a suggestion,” she said. Have you ever tried setting up stuff you bought from D-IKEA?”

“Maybe once or twice.”

“I’ll tell you something: Da used to fix up furniture around the house, and had watched a few episodes of a TV show to learn a few tricks too. When I was a kid, I’d watch him; other times, I might help here and there. You know what I’m thinking?”

“You mean to disassemble the furniture?”

“That’s right. Take them apart and use them for the barricades.”

They finished their lunch and picked up their tools again. They started with the bookshelves by the TV, holding books that Inco once watched SnootTube essays on but never bothered to read himself. Then they worked with other parts of the house - the coffee table, the door leading to the office, and an unused desk. They were stripping this house of unneeded things, even if it was nailed down. And in such cases, they pried out the nails and used them too. It was slow and hard work, and Inco initially wasn’t all that productive, ending up with bits of scrap here and there. Yet, after a while with Olivia’s helping hand, they ended up with a large pile of repurposed wood. This was enough to barricade the remaining rooms. 

As the afternoon progressed to evening, Inco emerged from the cellar and sat on the couch. He had just returned from carrying two boxes - one with canned food and the other with bottled water - into the cellar. In the kitchen, Olivia was preparing lentil soup for dinner. She raised an eyebrow over the state of the pantry, which Inco's mom had left unused for weeks. Nevertheless, Olivia was working just fine with what she had, and Inco could tell the aroma of her cooking, and it smelled amazing. 

The two of them agreed to stay above ground for the most part, using the cellar when it was time to sleep or as a panic room in case of a breach. Inco was checking off a list of things to bring down there. He went upstairs into the guest room. He folded up a blanket and hauled the mattress from the bed frame. He was about to leave when he decided to look outside.

Most houses had been broken into, and everywhere was littered with debris. The curtains in the shattered windows blew in the wind. The man from the car crash now looked as if it were something you’d find picked by badland vultures, with nothing but bones and scraps of flesh below the ribs. This was supposed to be one of the safest neighbourhoods in Volcaldera, not some gangland warzone in Skin Row. Yet down the street, he saw pockets of saurians shambling about. 

‘They have been standing out there for half the day,’ Inco thought. ‘These are my neighbours, and not even a quarter of them have shoes or a jacket on. Here they are standing out there in the cold and the wind and they’re not feeling a damn thing.’

A velociraptor shambled to the human’s remains. It looked like it had taken a bath in a butchery. It knelt and tore a piece of the human’s arm and gnawed on it. Inco wondered where the police or the neighbourhood watch were. Someone should have driven down here to put a stop to all this by now.

Inco flinched. A gunshot rang down the street. It came from behind Inco’s house. The creature rose, drool and chunks of meat falling from its maw. It began to limp down the street, as did a handful of others, splitting off from their groups. 

Inco grabbed the door frame and swung himself into the hall. “Olivia,” he muttered. They would pass his house any moment now, and he had to be faster. He almost tripped getting down the steps before entering the kitchen.

“Inco, was that your neighbour? There was a gun-”

“Quiet. They’re coming towards us,” Inco whispered.

They were staying still and silent. There was the popping of bubbles, the click of a boiling kettle as it powered off, and the simmering of broth in a pot. The pot brought out the scent of four different spices, mixing with the smell of an opened tin of meat and caramelizing onions in a pan. Inco wondered if those things could smell their food. Inco wondered if those things could smell them. Some saurians acted like a whole new breed of bloodhounds. 

“I don’t hear anything,” Olivia said. 

There was a bump against the waterspout, and then nothing. They waited until they heard a far-off door getting smashed to pieces. When he got back upstairs, a few more saurians had shambled from a few houses down to take the place of those drawn to the gunshot.

 

—

 

It was night, and the lentil soup was finished. Inco and Olivia poured it out into bowls and ate together on the couch, trying to pretend that nothing was happening outside. The room was so barren that it looked like it belonged to a house for sale.  

“Man,” Inco said. “This is some gourmet soup. Tastes even better than it smells.”

“You should see what I can do with a hotplate, some leftovers, and a can of beans.”

“Color me surprised. Of all the people I know, I would never expect you to be a good cook. I can’t imagine what I’d be doing if you weren’t here now.”

“You’d be eating a meal you shoved into the microwave,” Olivia said. “You really should eat something nicer, healthier, even. Well, after all this, you know…”

“Ends?”

Olivia nodded.

They were silent for a while, then Inco said, “It’s been quite a day, huh?”

“Right.”

“But we’re not hurt, at least.”

“Let’s not talk about it too much.”

They started to drain their bowls. It was a cold night, and Inco had dragged a heater next to their legs. The streets were silent, but the silence didn’t feel reassuring to them.

“We did a lot of work in a few hours,” Inco said.

“That’s true, feels good to do something useful.” 

“And dad’s gonna kill me when he gets back and realises what happened to all the furniture in the house, especially to his coffee table.”

Olivia smiled.

“This can be a home away from home for you. Safest place to stay until the Paynes come and get you.”

“Do you think they’re still okay?”

“I reckon they’re holding up quite well. Nice people like them don’t deserve to suffer. They’ll come for you soon, give it a day or two.” Inco took a sip from his cup and stood. “You done with your bowl? I’m heading off to do the dishes.”

Olivia handed Inco her bowl, and he went to the kitchen to clean it along with his. When he returned, they sat in silence. They turned on the TV to the lowest volume and watched the EBS recite the same warnings they heard this morning until Olivia turned the TV off again. 

“They’re still outside, aren’t they?” she said.

“I thought you didn’t want to talk about it.”

“I did, but now it doesn’t feel right. So are they still outside?”

A pause, then Inco replied, “Yes.”

“More now or less?”

“I don’t know. I’ve gone upstairs a few times to check. But I'd rather not look at them for too long, they give me the creeps.”

“I can’t believe I’m talking this way about your neighbours,” Olivia sighed. She studied the barricades. 

“It’s the flu-thing they warned about. They must have got it.”

“Like hell it’s a flu. The flu doesn’t make people kill each other. This feels more like rabies,” Olivia said. “It felt so off from the beginning.”

“It’s something worse,” Inco said. “But rabies or not, there’s nothing we can do about it.” He thought about his classmates and teachers. He recalled how many of them contracted this disease. If the doctors couldn’t help them, everything points to them being-

That also means that Ben, Miss Prockling, and everyone else were now…

“Do you have anything around here to defend ourselves?”

“The knives in the kitchen, the tools from the garage,” Inco said. “I don’t think we can do much with them, though.”

“Anything better than that? Longer? Maybe sharper?”

“I don’t think it’ll come down to that. If we keep quiet, they won’t bother us.”

Inco looked at the door and listened for a moment. In the silence, he was almost convinced that those people were gone.

“But if they do get in, it’s back to the cellar - and they’re not getting through that. That’s the worst-case scenario,” he mumbled, and the little cogs in his head turned and thought about that scenario until the time came for both of them to sleep - yes, perhaps sleep was what he needed. He lay with Olivia on the mattress in the cellar, the blanket shared between them. He stared at the flight of stairs and the door at its peak, listening for any noise, any danger - shuffling, growling, fists rapping against steel. Yet, there was none. It was a long time before he fell asleep.

Inco felt his back sink deep into the mattress, and he swore the mattress wasn’t this soft. He tossed and turned, kicked away the blanket, and opened his eyes. It was dawn, and he heard birds chirping, the garden sprinklers working. He was on his bed, and this was his room. Getting on his feet, he left the room feeling lighter.

“Olivia?” he called. 

On the couch, there was a blanket covering a huge bump, the end of a tail poking out of it. This had to be Olivia, but when did she drag herself way up here? Inco called to her again, but she did not stir. He removed the blanket and saw Olivia sleeping on her side, clutching a pillow. He pried that off her arms and turned her. Where a part of her neck once was, there now resided a bleeding ditch of flesh with teeth marks.

“Olivia,” Inco whispered, knelt down, and squeezed his hand over the ditch. She was cold, and there was but a trickle of blood flowing through the gaps of his hand. 

“Olivia, please wake up. Please. I need you.”

He released his hand and placed it on her cheek. 

“Please,” he whispered. “Please. Please. Please. Don’t be-”

Inco heard snapping, then saw a hundred claws protruding from the gaps between the boarded windows. Scratching and groping, the fingers were so serried that they looked as if they all belonged to some amalgamate creature. The voices of the creatures outside came from every walk of life, from men to women to the young to the elderly, forming an ear-splitting wail that robbed Inco of all courage.

Inco wrapped his arms around Olivia and carried her. He heard the nails pop out of the walls and the boards snap, toppling to the ground. He was almost at the stairs to the cellar when he felt Olivia shifting, her tail tugging at his ankle. 

“Olivia, they’re breaking in! We need to go! We need to-”

Her eyes were open, her mouth agape. She snarled. 

Inco woke on the mattress with a gasp. His head was pounding, and a patch of sweat was on the back of his shirt. He turned to the baryonyx beside him and studied her neck. It was Olivia; she was breathing, and she was fine.

Thank the lucky stars, she was fine.

Olivia let out a soft groan, stirred in place. “What’s wrong?” she said. 

“Nothing, it was a nightmare, that’s all. A stupid nightmare. Go back to sleep.”

“What was it about?”

“Those crazy people we saw. No surprise there. I’m going upstairs to get my mind together. Go to sleep, I’ll be back in a moment.”

Olivia studied Inco, his twitching hands, his color-drained face. Then, she sat up and drew her gaze to the stairwell as he left.

Inco went to the bathroom and splashed water on his face. Then he looked at his reflection and judged what he saw. “What a mess,” he said. He went around the house pressing his hands against the boards, trying to jiggle the nails to see if they were loose. He tested the locks on the doors; he tested everything. Yet, there was no fatal vulnerability in their defenses.

He wandered into his room. Everything inside was left as it was the last time he was here. His hand trailed the bed sheet. It was cold and untouched. He sat on a swivel chair and propped his head on his chin. He listened, counting screams from the suburbs and gunshots coming from every block and alley of this combat-whittled city. Inco rose and paced about his room in frustration. This was a siege by an army of cannibals, and he and Olivia were two civilians caught amongst it. They got lucky with the nearby gunfire and luckier with the initial car alarm. 

He wondered how he was going to get Olivia back to the Paynes.

He wondered how the Paynes would even get here in the first place.

…He wondered if those people were still outside. 

Peeking through the curtains, Inco saw a dilophosaurus under a streetlamp, its head tilted down as it swayed in place. In the darkness that the streetlamps dare not reach were pairs of reptilian eyes, shimmering from their natural night-vision. 

They were unblinking and uncaring, yet oh-so patient as they waited for their prey.

According to Inco’s phone, it was 1 AM, October 25th. This was Day Two. Many catastrophes in his life ended within a day, through his efforts or his parents, but not this one. As he stood there watching those eyes and the figures those eyes belonged to stalk those homes, he realized that he and Olivia would be on their own.

He went out into the hall and wandered about before he found himself staring at his parents’ wardrobe. He once again dragged out the shoeboxes to uncover the safe. He keyed in his parents’ birthday, his birthday, any other important dates that he could think of. This was his father’s safe, and in it was not jewelry but the man’s tools to protect his jewelry. 

“You must open for me,” he whispered.

And open it must, because Inco knew that the safe held a pistol, several boxes of ammunition, and a couple of magazines, to boot. 

Chapter 14: Containment

Notes:

Btw had to make some tweaks to chap 6

An eyeless beast was projected onto the wall of the meeting room. It was a quarter past four in the morning, and this was the fourth time Greenlaw replayed the video.

The corpse was a mosasaurus. They said they retrieved it off the coast of Volcaldera a few hours ago, too close to the boundary for Greenlaw’s liking. It had swum towards a patrol boat, clambered onto it, and tried biting off a crewmember’s head before getting gunned down. Now, it was strapped onto an operating table, or what Greenlaw assumed was an operating table. It was so big that it hid whatever the scientists put the mosasaurus on. Flanked all around it were scientists in full biohazard gear picking fragments of bullets out of its skull. 

For over 40 years, Greenlaw had served this country, starting from a simple private. He had served as a general under three presidents and even shook hands with one as he received a medal. He fought and led the fight against human extremists in the tundra, helped topple ‘invincible’ dictatorships in the deserts and jungles. He had given up a piece of himself for his country and had planned missions with people the government claims did not exist. Needless to say, Greenlaw had walked every square inch of this earth and seen everything that could be seen and could say with confidence that few things scare him. Yet, gazing into that crushed-up, eyeless face of the mosasaurus, all he could think about was the disease harbored inside it. 

It was real.

And it scared him.

“General?”

Standing in the doorway was a human in an army jacket and a satchel about his waist. He was Charles Declan, and he was holding two cups of coffee. Greenlaw knew it was Declan because he was one of three humans on the base and the only person who carried that satchel everywhere.

“Major, come in.”

The major set the cups on the long table, then saluted. The general saluted back, and they sat down opposite each other. 

“It’s been an hour since the meeting. I thought you’d be long gone.”

“A saurian like me spends much time thinking in solitude,” Greenlaw said. “It’s hard to leave a room that was full of bad news.”

Aside from Greenlaw’s office, the meeting room was one of the few places on the base constructed with soundproofing materials. The windows were one-way, great for stopping anyone from snooping around. They drank. Greenlaw studied Declan. His grey uniform was crumpled and creased around the sleeves. His eyes looked like they belonged to a raccoon, and he had a face that looked as if he were constantly fighting off a yawn. Overall, he was dead-tired.

Declan glanced at the projector at the other end of the table, then stared at the dead mosasaurus. “Trips…” he muttered. 

“Worst thing I’ve laid my eyes on. I never thought I’d see it again, yet here it is, detailed in this folder.”  

Greenlaw lifted a yellow folder in front of his face. If the wrong type of people picked it up and looked through its contents, they wouldn’t go to jail; they would disappear. 

Greenlaw shifted in his seat. Behind him was a map of Volcaldera Bluffs flanked by the American flag. “And here it is, in a city of almost 4 million people. Now, what brings you here other than coffee?”

“I wanted to give you an update, sir. Five more security incidents occurred in the last hour. Four of them involved drones, all of them trying to slip into the Exclusion Zone. They didn’t make it past the first layer of security, and we tracked down the drone operators.”

“And the fifth?”

“This one was a physical attempt; you might find the perpetrators rather interesting.”

“Will I now?”

“Indeed, you will, it’s Andrew Maitland and his crew.”

“The Andrew from Rex News?” 

“Yes, that Andrew. He tried sneaking in through a back road with the help of a man with an off-roader. ‘A worried man trying to find the truth,’ Maitland called him.”

“The poor fool.” 

On the few days he was free, Greenlaw would turn on the evening news and watch it with his wife. Andrew was there: Rex New’s prized reporter. He was always so persistent in outdoing the other media companies, always finding the next big thing to pin as a blunder by the current administration. He was charismatic, sure, but not enough to prevent himself from getting shoved into an open-air cage in the middle of the woods with several guns trained on him, not charismatic enough to find an excuse not to have needles get stuck into him to test for infection. However, Andrew was a slippery little worm; he and his team would be free within two days, Greenlaw could guarantee that. Media vultures tend to have people with the tendency to act like hawks protecting them - lawyers, friends in high places.

“How far did he get?” Greenlaw asked.

“He got past the border, still picked up very quickly, though. The boys at the secondary patrols found them. Grid C-12.”

“That’s very close to I-5.” Greenlaw didn’t have to turn to check the map. “And you said it was a back road?”

“Yes, a back road.”

There was a spoon in Greenlaw’s cup of coffee. He took it and tapped the rim of the cup, and then stirred. “Any further and he would have left the zone in a body bag,” he said. “Our performance is not impressing anyone. We should’ve sealed off I-5 first.” 

“Just like Oliver said. And I hate that he was right.”

‘And acceptance is the last stage of grief,’ Greenlaw thought.

“We could have made it work by this margin,” the general made a claw with his thumb and index finger. “If the police followed everything down to the letter, it would have saved two hours of playing cat and mouse.”

“Still, it isn’t enough to put us at the estimated nine hours to secure the whole perimeter.”

“Now those vehicles are ghosts. Over a thousand of them. When they slipped past those unfinished checkpoints, that’s where their trail ends. They’re never going to be found in a week.”

“They can’t hide forever.”

‘Stop kidding yourself, major. You don’t have to go through the five stages of grief over this, too,’ Greenlaw thought. He said, “It won’t make a difference. The damage is done.”

They sat in silence for a moment and drank. Through the one-way window, Greenlaw saw a light yellow allosaurus trudge down the hall. He resembled Greenlaw, had the same scale color, but looked thirty years younger. He had stacks of documents stuffed under one arm and several folders under the other. One folder slipped out and swished to the ground, and the officer bent down to pick it up before walking out of sight. Greenlaw made a mental note to assign another junior to runner duty. 

“I gave it some thought, sir. About the police.”

“Some revision convinced you enough to switch teams?”

“You can’t ignore the merits of the evidence - a whole unguarded corridor leading to a highway and inconsistent radio activity,” Declan said. “You think someone tried to pull off a runner?”

“People allowed them to do it.”

Silence in the room.

“We can’t chalk it off as incompetence,” Greenlaw continued. “Perhaps it was one of the police chiefs, or commissioner…”

“Commissioner Ripley Aaron, sir.”

“Yes, he or any one of them tried to do it.”

“You’re going to make a few phone calls?”

The general took another sip of his coffee. “Yes, Declan,” he said. “A few calls.”

A long silence in the room. The general shifted and leaned forward.

“Major.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Did the analysts key in my requests?”

“On what topic?”

“That one,” he cocked a thumb at the mosassaurus. 

“Yes, sir. They got to work as soon as you asked. The results say that the bite force for this one is six thousand psi.”

“Six-triple-oh,” Greenlaw said. 

“That’s right.”

The general drummed his fingers against the table. “Declan, have you ever been to Arizona?”

“Home of the Grand Canyon. Yes, on official business, once or twice.”

“What I mean is for vacation. My wife went there for some sightseeing, some adventuring. She went canoeing in a section of the Colorado River known as Lava Falls. Now, Lava Falls has these powerful rapids that would toss folks around and chew their asses the second they fall overboard. So she had to get this whitewater canoe, the kind specially made to power through jagged rocks. It was made out of Royalex with sections reinforced with Kevlar, and was about as wide and long as this table.” Greenlaw paused, stared at the Mosasaurus. “And this sorry individual we found out at sea can bite chunks off it easier than I can snap my fingers.”

“If it gets close enough.”

“And if it does, you’re going to lose more than a leg and an arm. How long has this thing been moving after reaching the final stage of Trips?” 

“Twenty-two hours. I imagine it died alone in some fisherman’s shack, got back up again and wandered into the waters…and it was swimming just fine.”

“Twenty-two,” Greenlaw said. “I think it’s a bad number. Or a bad omen.”

“Why’s that?”

“I’ve been seeing a lot of twos lately.” 

It took two days for Greenlaw to be put in charge of the operation, from October 21st to October 22nd. Two days to find out that something was very wrong in Volcaldera, then have the information travel down the slowest train on Earth, bureaucracy, to drag a bunch of government officials into a room and have them convinced that they were in deep shit, then another round of debating how to drag the country out of this expanding sinkhole of disease. That was when they called him, two days later. Two would be his unlucky number. 

Greenlaw checked his watch. “What’s the status on my helicopter?”

“The crew finished with inspection and maintenance, and has also been refueled.”

“Looks like it’s time to leave,” Greenlaw rose from his seat, and Declan followed. They saluted each other.

“I’m glad you’re the one who found me here. It’s been a nice chat.”

 The General started towards the exit. 

“Oh, wait. General?”

“Yes, Major?”

Declan looked at the length of plastic secured onto the end of Greenlaw’s tail, slender and coated with several superficial scratches. “You didn’t put it on?”

“The new one?”

“That’s right, sir.”

“I didn’t like it. The old one’s better.”

Charles smiled. He put his weight against the door to hold it open. After the general walked past him, he shut it.

The two soldiers standing guard saluted Greenlaw as he entered the command centre. Almost every control panel for the monitors had documents and folders sprawled over them. On a desk in the middle of the room were stacks of coffee mugs, a whole exhibition of military-grade Leaning Tower of Mugs. There were tired faces everywhere; the junior officers were glued to the radios. One hollered about the status of troops from Fort Waylon, another about contacts sighted near a checkpoint, and another about the bad optics regarding troop and civilian interactions at the border. The allosaurus from earlier ran from desk to desk, monitor to monitor, handing out folders. 

This thing grew wings, he thought. Trips was supposed to be dead, burned up in an incinerator on the other side of the country . How is it here, of all places? 

His wife had an uncle and aunt in Volcaldera, both doctors, the worst job to have in this situation. What was he going to tell her? ‘Oh, have a seat, hon. About Uncle Eric and Aunt May, I think it would be best to arrange their funeral services. Well, after a cop or soldier puts a bullet between their eyes, that is. You see, through their doctoring, they certainly caught that disease that’s been running around. In the army, we call it Trips, and it turned them…let’s just say it turned them aggressive, made them do things you might not want to see. And speaking of Trips, I got word that it might have slipped out of quarantine today. You may or may not see a car turn up in your town, and the driver might appear a bit pale. Do you remember that tornado shelter we built in the backyard? Pack your bags. I think you'd better stay there until next year.’

He walked outside and stood under the many floodlights installed in this compound. With all the glare, he almost forgot that it was still night. He took another sip of his coffee. In the past 48 hours, he had gotten exactly four hours of sleep - it was a habit of his to count the hours. He travelled around this fenced area until he reached the helipad. He could see the sky turning orange, a strange twilight with no sirens and no screaming, but that didn’t make Greenlaw feel any better.

Day Two.