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Updated Saturday 10 May, 2008 12:19 PM | Headlines | Discussion Forum | International Edition |
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Extinction Event By Doctor What
Chapter 13 Reality leaves a lot to the imagination. - John Lennon ** Wednesday Aug 20, 2008 – Rutgers University – Piscataway, New Jersey
Shortly after midnight “So how bad do you think the flooding will get?”, asked Behrouz. “Pretty bad—Manville is already knee deep in water by the looks of things. The part of the river east of Bound Brook drained away a bit because of that forest blocking it but now that the Raritan is flowing down the 287, the river is flowing again. The Ukrainian Village looks badly flooded. All the parks on the banks along this side of the river look pretty bad as well—I think that the water level will almost certainly reach River Road by the morning.” “Uh—Charles—River Road is—“, said Janice. “—where the University begins, I know.”, finished Charles, shaking his head. “That’s why we gotta get out of here no later than tomorrow.” “You’ve got a plan, Professor?” asked Behrouz. “My instinct would be to stay off the road as much as possible as Jersey has the worst traffic this side of LA when civilization isn’t collapsing and large sections of highways haven't been replaced by primordial forests. With civilization collapsing and freaking dinosaurs running around…”, said Charles, trailing off. “So what then?” “We loot some stores for supplies, get ourselves a boat and follow the river to the Atlantic. Should be no more than twenty or thirty miles, even with the way the river is meandering all over the place now.” “What if there’s aquatic dinosaurs in the river?” asked Behrouz. “In that river?! I pity the poor thing that tries to swim in that toxic wastedump pretending to be water—probably be dead of every form of cancer within five minutes.” “What then? What happens after we get to the ocean?” Charles shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t know—go for Staten Island or maybe head north to Woodbridge or Newark. Or hug the Jersey shoreline south until we get to someplace safe. There’s two or three military bases down there, if I remember correctly. If they survived this, then those guys would have certainly set up some kind of safe zone.” “A rather… dubious plan, sir—but it’s not like we have much choice in the matter.” Charles nodded his head. “I’m not crazy about it either but it beats staying here. What’s the food supply like?” Behrouz grinned “I really hope you like junk food and soda, sir—because until we loot some grocery store somewhere, that’s all we’re going to be living on. The good news is that we’ve got enough to survive for weeks, if necessary.” “Well—so much for that diet you had me on.” said Charles, smirking at Janice. “Don’t get cocky—once all this is over, you’re going right back on it!”, said Janice with a ‘Don’t even think about disagreeing with me’ look on her face. “Ah—true love….” said Behrouz, smirking and pointedly ignoring the dagger like stares from the two of them. “By the way”, continued Behrouz, “I found a radio in one of the offices.” “What’s the bad news?” “Most of them are going on about what’s happening in New York and the surrounding areas. Things are still pretty confusing and crazy and it looks like everyone is evacuating Manhattan. Not a word yet from the Feds about what to do or what’s happening—which is making a lot of people even more scared.” “Lovely.”, said Charles, rolling his eyes. “Guess we really are on our own for a while.” “So—a few hours sleep and then we make a run for it first thing in the morning?” “You read my mind, Behrouz.”
Charles and Janice’s sleep was fitful – Charles kept having nightmares of the T-Rex eating the man he saw over and over again while Janice kept worrying about what was happening to all her friends and family. She had tried to reach them earlier- but the cellphone system seemed to be completely overloaded and the landline system was mostly dead. Those few instances that she actually managed to get through merely resulted in the phone ringing and ringing for minutes on end without anyone picking up. She tried to convince herself that they were alright and everything was going to be okay. It wasn’t working. Behrouz—on the other hand—was sleeping deep enough for all three of them. His snoring was an unusual counterpoint to the occasional roar and growling that could be heard from outside. He had only one dream the whole night—the same dream he always had whenever he felt stressed out. He woke screaming half an hour before sunrise. Sunrise The door of the university building slowly swung open. Three heads peeked their way around the corner and glanced around for a few seconds. “Anything?” “Nope. You?” “Nothing in this direction.” “Good. Run!” They sprinted to the car and piled in, driving off a few seconds later.
They went to three gun shops. The first one was already looted. Someone had driven a jeep through the front door - totally trashing the jeep in the process and abandoning it there. Except for a few boxes of ammo scattered on the ground, they had cleaned out the entire shop. The second gun shop they came across was…missing. The city block where it used to be was now a large putrid smelling pond instead. The three of them spotted a pair of reptilian eyes staring at them from just beneath the surface of the water and wisely decided to keep driving. The third one they came across – Rutgers Gun & Boat Center - was—amazingly—still intact and locked up. It took them five minutes to break their way into the shop. Janice stayed behind to watch the car. Upon entering the shop, Behrouz immediately walked towards the rifle section and proceeded to start pulling out various rifles and placed them on the counter. One by one he would pick up a rifle and hold it in his hands--feeling its weight, checking the sighting and even pulling the trigger. Sometimes he would nod his head and place the rifle aside. Other times he would shake his head in disgust and drop the rifle on the ground. Charles—who had been looking at the handgun section—noticed this. “So Behrouz—I take it you’ve had some experience with rifles?” Behrouz grinned. “Iran-Iraq War. 1986. On my fifteenth birthday I ran away from home to join the army. Three days after I joined, I was at the front lines. The soldiers at the front were beginning to realize how idiotic the war was but knew that disobeying orders to fight would just get them killed. So we fought. Of course we couldn’t do much fighting at night, so the soldiers from each side would hang out with each other. We would talk and make jokes and share food and drink coffee and play chess and backgammon. An Iraqian captain—who was a grandmaster player before the war-- taught me all kinds of tricks and techniques for chess. I went from being an amateur chess player to the best chess player in my unit in a space of just one month. Ah—interesting times. We would just sit and laugh and forget about the war all night. Then the sun would rise up and we would go back to our respective sides.” Behrouz paused, lost in thought for a few seconds. “And then start shooting each other again. Until the sun set again.” Behrouz glanced at Charles—who was staring back at him in shock. “I…I did not know that about you, Behrouz.” “Not something I like to brag about. Saw too many bad things that I don’t like to think about.” “How long were you at the front?” “Two and half months. My father figured out where I ran off to and had spent weeks trying to look for me. Finally tracked me down and literally dragged me off the front lines by my ear. Haven’t held a rifle since then but it’s like riding a bike—you never forget. And you, sir? I noticed you looking at the handguns. Played lots of videogames as a teenager?” Charles smirked. “Actually I’m a pretty good shot with a handgun. Used to do quite a bit of practice at the range with my dad on the weekends when I was a teenager. Haven’t done much of that lately, though, not since he….” Charles trailed off and shook his head. He suddenly seemed to became very interested in the gun rack next to him. Behrouz saw Charles surreptitiously wiping away a tear from an eye. He diplomatically decided to change the subject. “The rafts are behind you, sir” “Huh? Oh—so they are. Hmmm…any ideas on what kind of raft we should take, Behrouz?” “You’re asking an Iranian on what’s the best type of ocean raft to use? ”, said Behrouz, smiling. For the first time in nearly a day, the two of them laughed.
The two of them walked out of the gun store a few minutes later. Between the two of them, they had half a dozen guns, two knapsacks stuffed with assorted ammo and various hunting gear—and a 12 foot long inflatable raft. A few minutes later they were driving towards the river. “By the way, Behrouz—something I’ve been meaning to ask you. What were you doing near my apartment last night when all this shit happened?” asked Charles, trying to keep an eye on the road. Behrouz blinked in surprise and confusion and—after a few seconds—smiled. He wordlessly reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a crumbled book report and dumped it on the dashboard. “I had a plane to catch –“ , Behrouz looked at his watch, “—in about 30 minutes from now, in fact.”, he said, still grinning. “I didn’t have time to drop the report off in your office so I was going to leave it in your home mailbox.” Charles picked up the report with one hand, making vague sounding disapproving sounds and raising an eyebrow in mock disgust. “I see. You realize, of course, that I’m going to have to take off a few marks for the deplorable appearance of this book report?” “Masha'allah” replied Behrouz, trying very hard not to smirk. “Do you two want a moment to yourselves?” came Janice’s voice from the backseat. That got the three of them laughing again. They were laughing so hard that they almost didn’t see the Hadrosaurus walk out from a side street until nearly the last instant. “Look out!” “Other direction! Turn the other way!” “FUCK!” The car swerved…and then skidded…along the road and sideswiped a parked car and bounced off, twisting and turning along the road for a few seconds before eventually coming to a stop. For a few seconds the three of them sat in the car, too stunned and scared to move. The sounds of loud bellowing snapped them out of their semi-consciousness enough for them to glance up. The Hadrosaurus—due to anger, fear, confusion, curiosity or some combination thereof – was now charging towards the car… The three of them had just enough time to leap out of the car just as the Hadrosaurus stomped on the hood of the car, bellowing loud enough to ring their ears as they scurried for cover behind other parked cars. With a loud popping sound, first one front tire than the other, blew and almost immediately began to deflate. The Hadrosaurus moved forward, crushing the front end of the car and then the back end, blowing out the two rear tires with a loud double boom. With a final stomp on the truck of the car, it quickly moved forward and, still bellowing, kept moving. It disappeared a few seconds later as it rounded a corner, its bellowing shattering the quiet morning air. Behrouz, Charles and Janice slowly walked towards the wrecked car and stared at the crushed and smoking remains of the car in total silence for a few seconds. Behrouz was the first to speak. “I just know that this is going to screw up my insurance rates….” “What the hell do we do now?”, asked Janice a few minutes later as the three of them tried to salvage whatever items they can from the wreckage. The raft—amazingly—survived, as well as several of the guns. One knapsack full of food and drinks didn’t survive, however, and was now filled with an ungodly looking mish mash of powdered chocolate, crushed chips and a gallon or so of five different soft drinks slowly leaking on to the ground. “Simple—we steal a car and transfer all this stuff into it and go with the original plan. We passed a parking lot filled with cars a few blocks back.” said Behrouz. “I don’t know anything about hotwiring a car, Behrouz.” said Charles. “Guess what—I do. C’mon!” Several minutes later, the three of them—burdened with the raft and supplies—wandered into the parking lot. Behrouz glanced at the collection of vehicles for a few seconds and spotted a promising looking vehicle—a black jeep. Using his crowbar, he smashed the car window and sat down in the driver’s seat. He took out a shotgun and, using it as a glorified club, pounded on the ignition switch for a few seconds until it popped out. He fiddled with it for a few seconds and then put it back in, turning it as he did. With a loud roar, the engine started. Behrouz sat there, grinning like the Cheshire Cat. “I suppose you learned that from your Iraqian captain friend too?” said Charles. Behrouz shook his head. “Nope. From watching Terminator fifty-seven times.” Behrouz suddenly pumped his fist into the air. “Go Arnie!”. They stopped briefly at the wrecked car to salvage a few more items and then slowly drove off. All three of them were carrying loaded guns and keeping a careful watch for anything dangerous. Along the way, they spotted several more dinosaurs – but not the tyrannosaurus from yesterday—and three or four groups of people holed up in various buildings. They gave both the dinosaurs and the people a wide berth. Minutes later they were at the corner of River Road and Raritan Avenue. There had been a office building on the corner but the top floors was on fire and the bottom floors were now flooded. It was anyone’s guess which was going to destroy the building first. Barely glancing behind them, they pushed the boat into the fast rising river and rowed away—down towards the ocean. A few moments later they floated underneath the Jersey Turnpike Bridge. It didn’t surprise them to see a handful of abandoned cars on the bridge. Looking down at them from the bridge were four wolf-sized dinosaurs that looked like some bizarre hybrid cross between giant eagles and reptiles. They stared down at the raft as it slowly floated beneath the bridge. Charles did a double take as he realized that the creatures were…drooling. CRACK! One of the creatures fell backwards, the top of its head exploding in a cloud of blood and gore. The creatures hissed and shrieked and backed away from the bridge edge. Charles glanced to his left to see Behrouz sitting there, a smoking rifle in his hands. “Fucking dinosaurs.” A few seconds later they passed the bridge. Charles looked back to see what the dinosaurs were doing. They were ignoring them—and busily tearing apart their dead companion and eating it. One of them looked up—the severed front claw of the dead creature hanging from its mouth—and stared at the three humans. Charles could have sworn that it almost… smiled … at him. The raft kept floating slowly eastwards…
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