"If we don't know life, how can we know death?" - Confucius

**

Excerpt from the journal of David Wostyn

**

It had – finally – stopped raining.

David walked outside, Li next to him. The two of them were herded towards the east.

Li stumbled for a moment as she stepped on a patch of deep mud but was caught before she could fall facedown when David shot out an arm to catch her. Getting her back upright, the two of them walked onwards.

David glanced to his left and raised an eyebrow in mild surprise.

"That’s interesting…"

"What is?" asked Li.

"They have a library here. A rather big one too. Isn’t it a bit unusual for a village of this size to have one?"

Li shrugged her shoulders.

"Someone must have paid off some bureaucrat somewhere."

David raised an eyebrow in surprise.

"You’re remarkably cynical about the politicians of the country that you hold loyalty to."

"And you’re not the same about the politicians in your country?"

"Touché."

A few moments later they got to a spot where a large group of villagers were congregating. A man was there, handing out pristine looking rifles and submachine guns. David glanced over at Li and noticed her—barely—holding in her anger. Clearly, the guns had come from the truck she had been driving.

One of the men that were ‘herding’ them went over to the gun-man. A few seconds later a rather…heated….exchange began to develop, with each man glancing over and David and Li several times and alternating turns screaming at each other.

"What are they arguing about?" asked David to Li in English.

"Something about whether or not we should be allowed to be armed."

After a few minutes, their ‘herder’ reached down and picked up two submachine guns. The ‘gun dealer’ was clearly annoyed at this action but it was obvious that he had decided to shut up – for now, at any rate.

Their ‘herder’ slammed in a magazine in each gun and passed it over to David and Li.

Just as Li was reaching for the gun, he pulled his arm back.

"Make sure you understand this very clearly. If you try anything stupid like trying to escape or shoot the others, you will die. The only reason you are even being allowed to hold a weapon is because we desperately need people who know how to use guns. Your usefulness begins and ends on that and that alone."

Li stared defiantly at the man, her hand outstretched.

The man stared at Li back for a few long seconds…and then blinked. With great reluctance he handed over the guns to Li and David. David—with equally great reluctance—accepted the gun.

The two of them—with their handlers—walked towards a group of small buildings where several other armed men were beginning to set themselves up behind stone fences, walls, on rooftops and all manner of other places.

"What’s our target?" asked Li to the main ‘handler’.

"You’ll know it when you see it."

After a few seconds, the handler wandered off to check up on several of the other men.

David held the SMG awkwardly, in much the same way that a person would hold a rat that they are- almost -sure is dead.

Li—her gaze never wavering from facing forward—smirked slightly and reached over with her right hand to David’s gun. With one deft motion, she flicked a switch and pulled the bolt back and brought her hand back.

David glanced down to the gun, then glanced over at Li, embarrassment colouring his cheeks red.

"Sorry." said David, his voice barely above a whisper.

Li turned and smiled at David "Don’t be." She shifted her gaze forwards again. A few seconds later, she replied "Oh—and you’re welcome."

David—now simultaneously embarrassed and bemused—shifted his gaze to his right.

There was a man there, holding a rifle.

He was somewhat older than David, somewhere in that strange gray zone between very old looking middle-age or a very young looking senior citizen. His clothes –even to David’s unpracticed eye—were obviously better quality than the peasant clothes that all the other men, presumably local villagers or farmers, were wearing.

"My name is David."

"Ye Quancheng. Tourist?"

"Yes. You?"

The man smiled.

"Cricket collector. Best in all of the province, if I may be so bold."

"Pardon? Cricket collector?"

"Cricket fighting was one of the most popular sports in all of China! Alas—the youth of today are turning away from the old traditions. But they’re still many of us left! And, of course, where there is cricket fighting there are cricket collectors." The man grinned, showing a set of nearly perfect white teeth.

"Uh—and the reason you are here is…?"

Ye laughed.

"I pay the farmers throughout this region one yuan for every cricket they find. It’s good money for them—they sometimes make as much in one autumn selling crickets to me as they make selling their crops. I sell them in Shanghai –after a very reasonable markup of 400% to cover all my expenses – to cricket markets there. I have an eye for picking the best fighting crickets—my crickets are in demand not only in Shanghai but in Beijing and beyond!"

"That’s…ummmm….very….interesting…."

Mr. Ye seemed to warm up to David, now that he had found a captive audience.

"You need to examine the head, feet and body to judge a cricket properly. It’s quite a complicated subject. You could write a whole book about it!"

Ye laughed again—then reached into a pocket and pulled out a small slim book.

"By an amazing coincidence, I just happened to have a copy of a book I wrote a few years ago. Yours for the very reasonable price of –"

Whatever price the redoubtable Mr. Ye was going to quote was cut short as a young man, screaming incoherently, ran into view from up ahead.

Still screaming, the runner ran to the table laden with guns and picked one up in one quick motion and ran towards a nearby wall.

The gun dealer hovering nearby grabbed several handfuls of magazines off the table and passed them down the line.

Li grabbed four magazines and handed two over to David.

"Remember", she said, "Quick controlled bursts. If you panic and hold the trigger, you’ll burn through a whole magazine in just two or three seconds. This isn’t like those silly Hollywood movies where the hero is able to fire his gun non-stop for the whole time it takes you to go buy some popcorn and come back to your seat."

David nodded his head.

"So what the hell are we fighting—"

A loud roar – a very loud roar – interrupted David.

He glanced up---and nearly felt his eyes pop out of their sockets.

Striding defiantly towards them were two T-Rexes.

Both were a mottled green and brown colour—the one in front slighter larger than its companion.

Mated pair? Siblings? Father and son team? was the one semi-rational thought going through David’s mind as he saw them approaching.

David wasn’t the only one to be on the verge of panicking –as over three dozen men armed with a variety of guns suddenly opened fire from several different directions.

The two T-Rexes shrieked – literally shrieked- and did what all animals would do when suddenly attacked.

They attacked back.

A screaming man dropped his gun as he was plucked from a rooftop by the jaws of one of the T–Rexes. The other one charged at another group of men, its roar echoing throughout the village.

David fired his gun, not knowing or caring if his bullets were actually hitting or missing the creatures.

Li—despite the chaos of the scene—calmly lined up a shot with her gun—and emptied an entire clip into the neck of the smaller T-Rex.

All around David, men screamed and yelled and ran and died as the T-Rexes tore into groups of men or knocked down fences with their tails or stepped on those too slow to get out of the way, gouts of blood and gore spurting out of the T-Rexes mingling with the blood and gore of the dying men.

David was vaguely aware of his hands ripping out the empty magazine in his gun and slamming in another one and firing into the chest of a T-Rex a mere fifty feet away from him.

Again and again the bullets tore into the dinosaurs as the defenders were reduced by ones or twos every few seconds until there were only a dozen or so men left.

And then—as suddenly as it had started—it ended.

First one dinosaur, then the other screamed and bellowed and finally collapsed to the ground and were still.

The surviving defenders blinked in confusion for a few seconds – then a ragged cheer rose up.

They won.

They had actually won.

David couldn’t believe it himself. He stared at the dead dinosaurs, then the gun in his hand, then back at the dinosaurs again.

His hands shaking, David sat down on the ground.

His heart was beating like a jackhammer and he could actually feel the adrenaline sloshing around in his veins.

David glanced up and saw Mr. Ye, standing about thirty feet away from him, grinning.

"Fun, isn’t it? This sure as hell is more exciting than watching two cri—"

Ye screamed as he suddenly collapsed face down to the ground.

Standing where Ye stood was…

For the second time in the last five minutes, David’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.

Standing where Ye stood was…

David screamed—just as a spray of bullets tore into the raptor and killed it where it stood.

He glanced over to see Li, yanking out an empty clip and slamming in another.

All around him, David heard animal roars --and men screaming in pain.

Raptors were appearing all around the village - running in from the forest, leaping over fences, coming from ahead of them, behind them—everywhere.

The whole village was swarming with at least a dozen of them.

Panicked men opened fire.

Raptors and men were caught in the crossfire from the barrage of gunfire as chaos and confusion once more reigned in the village. Some men had decided to run—and several of the raptors had given chase. Other raptors were tearing into dead and dying people and dinosaurs with equal vigour. One or two of them were tearing out chunks from the dead T-Rexes.

"Move your ass!" screamed Li, as she physically half-dragged/half pushed David forward.

David and Li ran.

To David, it had felt like they had run for hours—even though the small tiny part of his mind that wasn’t terrified knew it was only a minute or two.

Around him were scenes from Hell.

For every one raptor cut down, two more seemed to appear from the forest and fields around them to replace their fallen comrades.

Men died while running, while fighting, while standing their ground, while screaming, while weeping and shrieking for their mothers and wives and loved one.

They died in a dozen different ways.

But in all cases—they died.

Through all the red haze in his vision as he ran, David saw the target of Li’s desperate quest.

The library.

Li ran into the library a moment later, David gasping for breath at her heels. She slammed the heavy entrance door closed and frantically glanced around.

"The table! Help me move it!"

David was impressed on how easily the two of them were able to slide the heavy table over to the door and barricade it shut.

"The windows! Check to make sure they’re all closed and barricaded!" screamed Li, raising her voice over the roars and screams and gunfire from outside.

It took David and Li a terrifying few moments as they ran from window to window, throwing tables and chairs up against them as they went through the one story building.

Within ten minutes, they had barricaded the library as best as they could and—exhausted—sat down on the floor.

After a few minutes of catching their breaths, David was able to find enough energy to ask.

"Where the hell did all those things come from?"

"I think I know. Remember what that guy said—about how they’ve killed a whole bunch of dinosaurs already?"

"Yes. What of it?"

"All those dead dinosaurs. All that blood. It must have attracted every predator and scavenger for miles around, even with all the rain. First the T-Rexes—and then those raptor things. They must have followed the T-Rexes hoping to steal a few bites from their meals."

"Looks like those raptors got the jackpot here."

"Well—we’re safe in here for now. How many magazines you have left?"

"Uh—just the one. You?"

Li grinned.

"Managed to—uh—liberate half a dozen of them during all the confusion from the two battles." she said, pulling out the magazines from her pockets as she spoke. "You have any more food in that satchel you’ve been carrying? I’m famished!"

"You want to eat? Now?!" said David, incredulously. He could still hear a few faint screams from outside.

"Good as time now as ever."

Dinner consisted of most of the few remaining snacks left in the satchel. The screams died down to just a few barely audible ones and then faded away completely as they ate.

"So—what’s the plan?" asked David, after they finished eating.

"It will be sunset soon. Between the raptors and the trigger happy farmers, walking around in the mud in the dark is not the wisest of ideas. We stay here until morning and then see if we can make a break for it."

"I defer to your judgement on these matters."

Li stared at David for a very long moment.

"By the way—for a man who obviously never fired a gun before in his life, you fought very well. I was impressed at the way you handled yourself."

"Don’t be—I almost panicked and ran."

"Almost. But you didn’t. You are a lot braver than you give yourself credit for."

David blushed again in embarrassment.

"Thanks."

"If you keep blushing like that, you’re going to end up with permanently red cheeks." chided Li, grinning mischievously.

David’s only response to that was more blushing.

"So." asked David, his voice rising just a bit too high in pitch than he wanted, "So—what do we do until morning?"

Li shrugged her shoulders.

"I was thinking that maybe the two of us could probably have sex." she said, nonchalantly.

There was a very long moment of silence from David.

"Uhhhh—really? Now? Here?!"

Li grinned.

"No silly", she said, standing up and taking David by the hand.

"In the philosophy section!"

David finished writing in his journal and leaned back.

Li was sleeping next to him, her arm cradling David’s shoulder.

David shook his head, trying very hard to keep the grin on his face from getting any larger.

As it was—he was fairly certain that he already looked like the world’s stupidest looking grinning goof.

Oddly—he really didn’t care.

He yawned and went back to sleep, his arm cradling Li’s shoulder in return.

"Damn." said Li, as she stared out the window.

The two of them had been awake for an hour. After eating the last of the snacks in David’s satchel – and another round of sex – they had gotten dressed and crept to one of the window to assess the situation outside.

If anything—it was worse than yesterday night.

Whereas there had been somewhere around two or three dozen raptors running loose around the village last night, today it looked like there were at least a hundred.

"What the hell?" asked David "Did these guys call in a family reunion or something?"

"Looks that way. That—or the twenty tons of dead T-Rex that’s lying around just a few minutes walk from here."

"Do we have enough bullets to make a run for it?"

Li shook her head.

"Only about eight magazines between the two of us. And on foot the whole way to the next village. We’ll never make it.

"Guess we stay here."

"Guess so."

Behind them they heard—at just the very edge of hearing—something that froze their blood.

It was the sound of glass breaking.

They ran to the back of the library, guns in hand.

The raptor was halfway through the window and was almost succeeding in knocking down the table that was being used to barricade it when David and Li came in, guns blazing.

The raptor screamed as it literally exploded in a mass of blood and gore. Its bloody remains fell forward onto the library floor.

Before Li and David had a chance to move the table, another one was at the window.

Li spat out a curse as she fired again, full into the face of the raptor. It fell back outside the library window and David and Li lifted up the table and slammed it into place again.

The table thumped several times as more raptors tried to get through the barricade.

They heard another window breaking.

"FUCK!!" screamed David.

"Hold them off for a minute! I’ll be right back!" screamed Li as she ran off.

David slammed the full weight of his body against the table and hoped that it was enough.

A few seconds later, he heard gunshots. And then—after a short pause—more shots.

And then –

Li screaming.

"NO!"

David spun around and fired a burst of bullets through the table and was immensely satisfied to hear shrieks of pain from outside. He turned and ran towards Li’s screams.

Li had just killed one raptor and was trying to move the table back into place when she saw movement from out of the corner of her eye. She spun around, her gun rising and firing as she did so.

The raptor had leaped at her—and was caught in mid-air by the burst of bullets from her gun.

Its momentum kept it going however and it slammed right into Li, pulling her down as she screamed in terror and pain.

Li looked up to see the raptor’s face, inches away from her face. It was still –barely—alive. Its head reared back, jaws wide open and was just about to bite her when –

--a foot slammed into the side of its head and knocked it off of her.

Li looked up to see David fire a burst of bullets into the dying raptor.

He glanced down at her.

"Are you alright?!" he screamed, tears welling up on his eyes.

"I’m okay!" she said, getting up. "But what about—"

The two of them heard growls behind them.

There were three more raptors coming single file down one of the narrow aisles between the bookshelves.

Li yanked out the empty clip in her gun and slammed in another one at blindingly fast speed and fired a burst of gunfire at the lead raptor. It went down in a heap—but its two companions deftly leaped over their dead leader and came at the two of them.

Ears still ringing from all the gunshots that had been fired, David pulled up his gun and emptied the rest of his clip into the two and howled with delight as he saw the two of them crumble to the ground.

"I’ve got only two magazines left!" screamed David.

"Same here!"

They heard more growls and windows shattering. Above them, they heard the sound of many heavy footsteps running along the roof

Three more raptors appeared at the far end of the library. The middle one with down in a blaze of gunfire from David’s gun but the ones on either side ran off in two separate directions and disappeared into the maze of aisles in the library.

"When have to find another room!" screamed Li.

"There’s a reading room on the other side!"

The two ran down a narrow aisle, David leading.

They were just about to turn a corner when a raptor appeared.

On the very top of the bookshelf.

Li, reacting much faster than David, pulled her gun up and fired at nearly point blank range at the raptor. It fell backwards, its blood splattering David and Li.

As the raptor toppled backwards, the bookshelves—already heavily laden with books – shifted weight as well.

With a massive crash, the raptor disappeared from view—as the bookshelves toppled forwards onto David and Li.

David leaped forwards just as Li leaped backwards.

The falling bookshelf slammed into its neighbour, spilling books in every direction. As it did so, the second bookshelf toppled as well and - like a set of dominos – two more bookshelves toppled.

David slammed hard onto the floor tumbling and rolling inelegantly as he did so. He felt his gun fall out of his hand.

David slowly shook his head and tried to get his bearings as he slowly stood up. He glanced over to where Li had been standing.

She too had made a rather inelegant leap backwards and was now sprawled on the floor, her gun lying on the ground ten feet or so from her hand.

Five feet in front of her, however, was a raptor.

A small red book at David’s feet caught his eye and David reached down and, in one quick motion, lifted it up and pitched it with all his strength at the raptor.

The Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung slammed into the head of the raptor, stunning it and causing it to nearly collapse onto one leg.

Li jumped up and picked up the gun and fired just as the raptor was beginning to recover.

Li turned around to face David, grinning—only to replace it with a look of shock on her face instead. She lifted up her gun and aimed it.

At David.

David ducked just as Li fired.

He turned around to see a raptor, the top of its head missing, topple backwards.

Spying his gun on the floor, David picked it and ran towards Li.

"Are you alright?! I didn’t hit you?!" yelled Li.

"I’m okay!"

"Only have one magazine left."

"Two here."

They glanced around them.

There were at least a dozen raptors scattered around the library.

And those were just the ones they could see.

"Shall we?" prompted Li.

"Why not?" replied David.

They fired their guns.

The two of them stood there back to back as they fired the last of the bullets in the guns.

Li stared at her now useless gun and, shrugging her shoulders again, threw it away. David did likewise.

There were still half a dozen raptors slowly walking towards them. Behind them, a few more began trickling in through shattered windows and doors.

David stood there, thinking about the series of events that had led him here—to this moment, to this spot, to this scene.

He thought about how he had thought that by coming to China he would finally fill this mysterious and odd empty spot he had in his soul. About how—on some strange semi-conscious level—he would finally find himself on this trip.

And strangely enough—he did.

Just not the way he had expected.

David reached behind him and grasped Li’s hand. She grasped it in return and smiled.

And then—

David began to laugh.

It was a loud and long and deep laugh. Li joined in a few seconds later, her high pitched laughter lending a counterpoint to David’s laughter.

They laughed and laughed until tears were literally coming down their cheeks.

They were still laughing when the raptors charged at them….