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Chapter 31

 "There is science, logic, reason; there is thought verified by experience. And then there is California." – Edward Abbey

**

"Are we there yet?" whined James.

"That wasn’t funny the first time you said that and it’s not funny the fifth time either," growled Erikka.

"Well—I’m finding it funny!" replied James, grinning.

"James....I have..," said Erikka, icily.

James nodded his head and rolled his eyes, "...a gun. I know."

"Are you being sarcastic with me, James?"

"Who—me? Goodness gracious, perish the thought…."

"How’s Ray?" asked Karla, changing the subject and attempting yet again to be the unofficial peacekeeper between the two.

"Hmmm? Oh—Ray is snoozing contently away on my belly," replied James.

Erikka looked up from the road to take a glance behind her.

"Your ample belly, I see."

"Please!" said James, in mock offense. "It’s not ample! It’s merely a love handles repository! And because I’ve got so much sweet, sweet lovin’ to give, I must have quite a bit of it to satisfy the ladies!"

"Uh-huh. And I will personally slice off those handles of yours – and anything else that’s hanging out – with a dull knife if you don’t put Ray back in his baby seat within the next thirty seconds. Capice?"

"Duly noted."

James turned and started strapping Raymond into the baby seat.

"So—just how far are we from the cabin anyway?"

Karla glanced down at the handful of maps she had in her hands and rummaged through them for a few seconds, tracing her finger along several roads.

"About fifteen miles as the crow flies," replied Karla.

"Of course," continued Erikka, "With the way the roads are like around here, that’s going to be more like a thirty mile drive. But at least we’re getting there!"

James muttered something under his breath, too low for either of the females to hear.

"What did you say?" asked Erikka.

"I said – assuming the cabin is still there."

"Think positive, James!" admonished Karla.

"No offense Karla—but how many cities and towns have we passed that have been destroyed or have vanished? Not counting SanFran and Sacramento, I’ve counted at least three so far. And that’s just the ones we know about. What are we going to do if we get to the cabin and find out the whole area has been replaced with a swamp filled with brontosauruses or something?"

"We’ve got enough stuff to last at least a week or two," said Erikka, a bit defensively. "We’ll just keep going until we hit a safe zone, that’s all."

"And where’s that? If the rest of the country is like California…"

"James—I really don’t need to think about this right now, ok? I’ve got a lot on my mind now."

"Hey—same here. I was in San Francisco, remember? Do you have any idea how many friends I lost last night?" A pondering look suddenly crossed James’ face. "Well—ok—maybe not friends—but colleagues and drinking buddies," Another look. "Ummm---people that I worked with?..," Yet another look. "Well—fuck…," He muttered, shaking his head sadly. He mumbled something under his breath.

"What was that?" asked Karla, as Erikka tried, with limited success, to avoid a series of sinkholes on the road that were masquerading as potholes. The SUV’s shock absorbers groaned with every bounce.

"I said that it just occurred to me that I’ve had more meaningful conversations with the occupants of this car in the last 24 hours than with any of the million or so people in SanFran in the last eighteen months," replied James. "And that includes the psychotic little kid who tried to bite my finger off."

"And how does that make you feel?" asked Karla, a small smirk fighting for control at the corners of her lips.

"Depressed as hell?" ventured James. "That’s pretty fucking sad and pathetic if you think about it."

"But Ray thinks you’re cool," said Erikka. She paused for a long moment. "And so do I."

"We both do."

"Really?"

"In a totally non-hetero and completely platonic way, of course," said Karla.

"Not like there’s anything wrong with the other way, of course," said Erikka hurriedly. She paused again, deep in thought. "Well—actually—yes there is. Guy and a girl together—ick!"

Karla nodded her head in agreement. "Gross!"

"Gee---thanks….," said James, rolling his eyes again.

The SUV continued onwards, bouncing on every hole.

The area around Eagle Lake was a confusing and bewildering maze of roads.

Some had such charming and evocative and easy to remember names as NF-31N02, CR-226 or –and this was James’ favourite name – Un Road. The vast majority of them, however, couldn’t even be bothered to have a name, other than Karla’s descriptive name (‘The squiggly one with the funny looking cedar trees’) or Erikka’s more colourful descriptive name (‘God-damn fucking piece of shit for a road’). Within half an hour, James was completely and thoroughly lost – not to mention hungry, tired, thirsty and firmly convinced that not only had he lost both of his kidneys along the road at some point but also his liver and a few other bits and pieces of his anatomy as well.

By the time they turned onto another road (called ‘Home Stretch’ according to Karla; ‘The Road With The Ninety Degree Turn That Smells of Deer Piss’ according to Erikka), it was nearly a quarter to seven and the sun was just about to set.

"Hey Erikka—what’s that?"

"Park Ranger truck."

"Why is it in the middle of the road with all the doors wide open?"

"Don’t know, dude. Karla—stay in the truck with Ray. James—hand me the rifle and get your ass out of the backseat there and come with me."

"Why me?"

"Cause I need someone to watch my back while I check it out and Karla needs to stay here with Ray."

"Nothing doing! I’ve seen all those horror movies! The poor schmuck who is supposed to watch the person’s back ends up getting chomped by the zombie or attacked by the monster or eaten by the inbred redneck serial killer two minutes after he agrees!"

"Oh good—so that means nothing’s going to happen to me," said Erikka, stepping out of the SUV, carrying her rifle.

James looked at Erikka with a mixture of trepidation and resignation. He turned to face Karla.

"She doesn’t like me very much, does she?"

"Actually—quite the opposite. She thinks you’re pretty cool. If you had breasts—" She gave a furtive and quick glance at James " – well, bigger breasts – she would be all over you like white on rice."

"That’s the way she treats people she likes?"

"You don’t wanna see how she treats the people she hates…"

Sighing, James got out of the SUV.

James cautiously approached the abandoned Ranger Truck, holding the rifle awkwardly in his arms.

"Lot of Rangers up here?"

"Quite a few—a bunch of RV Parks and campgrounds all around this area. Good thing most of them are tourists and stay close to the camps and leave the locals alone."

"Any of those tourists ever make the mistake of bothering you and Karla at the cabin?"

"They never make the same mistake twice," she replied, smirking.

The two of them finally reached the truck.

"Watch my back, dude," ordered Erikka as she poked around inside the truck.

James scanned the trees around them, sweating nervously.

What’s that noise! Oh –wait—squirrel. At least—I think that was a squirrel? Ok, Ok—calm down dude – don’t pani – that bird is looking at me funny!! Deep breath…deep breath…easy does it…

"Dude—you’re ok? You sound like Darth Vader having an asthma attack…"

"I’m fine! What’s the story?"

"No idea. Looks like the guy stopped here, opened the door and went into the bushes – and never came back."

"You think something got him?"

"No fucking clue. Let me try the CB."

Erikka fiddled with the radio for a few seconds.

Nothing came out except for a series of static filled squawks and –at one point and only for the briefest of moments – a faint voice, too low for the words to be heard clearly.

"Nothing? Nothing at all?" said James, dejectedly. "There’s gotta be somebody out there."

"Pretty sure they are—but the CB ain’t picking it up. I wouldn’t worry about it. CB range around here is only good for about twenty miles on a normal day and today sure as hell hasn’t been a normal day. I’ve got a kick-ass radio in the SUV and another one at the cabin. We’ll check out things once we get settled in."

"So we just leave it here?"

"Maybe the guy went to take a dump in the woods. Maybe he got attacked by something. Maybe he just decided to go check something out. Too many maybes to bother with and, to be perfectly honest, I’ve got much more important things to worry about right now than worry about what might have happened to some ranger dude in the middle of the forest. You may think that may be a sucky attitude to have but there it is. Let’s go."

And with that, Erikka turned and began walking back to the SUV.

"Guess you’re right," replied James. He was just about to turn and walk back when he spotted a familiar looking object on the dashboard.

It was a pack of Camel cigarettes.

A nearly full pack of cigarettes….

Clutching the pack in his trembling hand, James leaned down and took a long deep sniff on the pack---and then slowly let his breath out.

Stuffing the pack of cigarettes into a shirt pocket, James walked back to the SUV.

"So that’s the cabin?" asked James, incredulously, a few minutes later. "The place we travelled halfway across a post-apocalyptic and dinosaur overrun state to get to?"

"Yes—isn’t it great?" replied Erikka, a smile bursting on her lips.

James looked at the cabin again.

A few other descriptions of the cabin besides ‘great’ came to his mind.

‘Rustic’ was one of them. ‘Old’ was another. ‘Ramshackle’, ‘decrepit’, ‘small’ and ‘piece of crap’ were four more terms that sprung to mind, quickly followed by ‘antediluvian’, ‘superannuated’, ‘dilapidated’, ‘forsaken’ and possibly even ‘shunned’. ‘Great’ wasn’t anywhere near the top ten. Or the bottom ten for that matter.

"Why so glum?" asked Karla. "At least the cabin is here."

"Damn straight it is!" shouted Erikka. "Told you it would be here! Now—get your ass moving dude and help me unload the truck!"

"Male. Mule. One letter difference…" grumbled James as he got to work.

It took only about ten or fifteen minutes for the three of them to unload the truck but by the end, all of them were suffering from various aches and pains. Karla brought Raymond into the cabin ‘to fix a quick bite and get a drink’, while Erikka decided to stay outside for a few minutes ‘to make one final sweep of the area’.

"Well—if the two are you are going to be busy, I’m going to smoke a few of these," said James, pulling out the pack of cigarettes and waving them triumphantly.

Erikka’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"I told you what I would do if I caught you smoking near me, dude."

"And that’s why I’m going to walk down that path to the lake to smoke them, my Imperatrix. If that meets with thy approval, Oh She Who Shall Be Obeyed?"

Erikka’s eyes became mere slits.

"Very well—but don’t wander too far away."

"Yes Mom…" replied James as he walked off.

James managed to walk about a hundred or so yards away before he figured that he had reached far enough to escape Erikka’s wrath and sat down on a convenient log. Pulling out a cigarette, he lit it and leaned back, savouring the taste of the smoke.

Oh God…nearly a whole day without a cigarette!...I thought I was going to die!...

James leaned back a bit further, drawing another lungful of smoke.

A pained look suddenly crossed James’ face.

He reached around and yanked the offending object out.

Oh yeah—how the hell could I possibly have forgotten about that?

It was the ‘Cannon Handgun’ that Erikka had given him as a gift for his heroism that…morning…

He put the handgun back into its holster behind his back and finished his cigarette.

He smoked two more cigarettes for good measure as he watched the last few rays of the setting sun reflect off the lake.

James crunched out the final cigarette under his sandal. He had gone barefoot since last night but Karla had graciously dug up a pair in one of the boxes as they were unloading them from ‘Becky’ – she was worried that his ‘footsies’ were getting a bit too mangled.

He liked them.

Ok—they were pink, a bit frilly and seemed to be made out of a kind of plastic that were no longer seen – at least in the US – due to what he suspected were EPA code violations.

But they were still comfortable.

Feeling like he had moved from a ‘seriously fucked up’ level to a somewhat better and slightly less stress inducing ‘messed up’ level, he stood up, idly wondering if there was any way he could scrounge up some beer at some point when –

--he heard a sound.

James froze.

He wasn’t sure what the sound was. He couldn’t even describe what it was.

Only that it had sounded…off.

It took him a few seconds to realize what it was.

There was something moving through the dense pine forest.

Towards him.

It came out of the woods a few seconds later.

James gasped and took a step backwards in shock.

It was roughly his height and covered with green feathers. It’s two … wings? ... were capped with massive claws.

An errant and seemingly incongruous thought bubbled up through the small part of James’ brain that wasn’t gibbering in fear.

A giggle almost escaped James’ mouth but he clamped down on it at the last moment.

The creature’s feathers were certainly unusual, he had to agree.

But what James noticed was its head.

The eyes were huge – seemingly two or three times bigger than a human eye.

Its jaws were equally just as huge – filled with sharp canine teeth.

It had a dead eagle in its jaws.

Throwing its head back, it swallowed the bird in a few gulps and then turned to face James again.

It seemed…unsure… of James.

Comically, it cocked its head to one side. Then the other. Back and forth.

James – still in shock and too scared to run – slowly raised his arms from his sides.

"Easy there fellow", he said soothingly "I’m not going to hurt you. You don’t wanna eat me. I smoke and drink and eat nothing but junk food. I’m bad for your health. You’ll end up with tumours and shit if you snack on me. Lots of fat juicy vegetarian squirrels all around here buddy. Go eat them."

James smiled.

He realized almost instantly that that was the wrong thing to do.

The creature reared back, hissing and spitting. Opening its jaws absurdly wide, it started walking quickly towards James, its head bobbing up and down.

Shoot the gun, you idiot! screamed a voice in James’ head.

James reached around and yanked the gun free from its holster and pulled the trigger.

And realized just as he pulled the trigger that he still had the safety on…

"Oh sh—" whimpered James as the creature got within ten feet of him.

Two thoughts raced through James’ mind in that last final long second.

One: He’ll never be able to take the safety off and fire the gun in time.

Two: "Oh sh—" made for a really, really sucky epitaph.

The creature leaped –

--and in mid-leap was hit on the head with something small and round and metallic that bounced off its head and landed on the ground.

Whatever the object was, it had been thrown with enough force to stun it and distract it in mid-leap, so instead of landing on James with its claws extended and ripping into James’ flesh, it landed next to James and awkwardly on one leg instead, its wings flapping.

One of the wings caught James in the face, knocking him down. With a grunt, James hit the ground, feeling the gun fly out of his hand.

Screaming, James lashed out blindly, desperately, with his fist—

--and was immensely pleased and more than a little shocked to feel his fist connect with hard feathered flesh, eliciting a screech from the creature.

Eyes scanning desperately, James tried to look for the gun – and failed.

But he spotted something else.

A rock.

A nice good sized flat hard rock.

Still screaming, James grabbed the rock and turned towards the creature.

It was starting to slowly get up, screeching and obviously really, really pissed. It glanced towards James, its huge eyes widening in shock and confusion and terror as it saw James coming at him.

The rock slammed into the side of the creature’s head with a loud crack and it went down again.

James’ screaming was one long shrilling scream as he slammed the rock over and over again onto the creature’s head until it stopped moving.

Breathing heavily, James sat down heavily on his butt, the rock slipping from his bloody hands.

Slowly beginning to get control of his breathing, he scanned the ground again.

Spotting the gun, he picked it up—and then spied the object that had hit the creature on the head.

It was a necklace. But instead of a locket, the necklace held a small, jagged piece of metal.

"Whaa…?" said James, looking up.

Leaning on a tree about a dozen or so yards away was Erikka, alternately grinning and grimacing.

"That’s the second time I’ve saved your ass, dude. Is this going to be a habit?"

"How?...."

"Was wondering where the hell you ran off to. Came down here but I slipped on a stupid rock and dropped the rifle and fucked up my knee. Was limping along looking for you and trying to carry the rifle at the same time when I heard all this screaming and hissing and stuff. Had just enough time to rip the necklace out…"

"Uh—thanks again?"

"You’re doing the dishes for the next week as my payment for savi-"

A loud scream interrupted her.

A human scream.

As Erikka and James looked around in shock, another scream pierced the air.

One somewhat lower in volume but much higher in pitch than the first one.

A baby’s scream.

"RAYMOND!!" shrieked Erikka.

James was impressed on how quickly he moved.

He was already twenty yards up the path and accelerating rapidly when he heard a second scream…

Got…to…save…the…kid… gasped James under his breath as he tore out of the path and past the SUV.

It had been years since he done any significant amount of running – or exercise for that matter – and the last 24 hours had not been kind to his body either. Every muscle and organ in his body was screaming in protest. The adrenaline rush from his recent dino kill was still sloshing around in his system and his sweat and blood soaked hand was clutching the handcannon with a deathgrip.

It had been over a decade since he had even fired a gun and a part of him was still wondering if he even remembered how. And he sure as hell never fired a handcannon before.

Another part of him was wondering if he would get there in time.

Putting on a little extra burst of speed, he leaped up the front steps of the cabin two at a time…

He burst into the cabin to see Karla –clutching Ray with one arm --backed into a corner. Ray was screaming one long continuous yell and Karla was waving a frying pan with her free hand.

Standing in front of the two of them – looking simultaneously angry, confused and hungry – was another of the Giant Mutant Killer Turkey. Scattered all around it was several partially eaten bags of frozen meat.

Hearing James come in, the creature turned to face him.

And hissed.

And took a step towards James.

"I FUCKING HATE DINOSAURS!" screamed James, as he pulled the trigger, three times in quick succession.

The gun fired - sounding just like a cannon - and spewing a massive cloud of flame and smoke in front of it. Simultaneously, the recoil hit James. Screaming in pain as he felt his wrist nearly snap, the gun went flying out of his hand and landed with a thud on the floor.

Looking up, James had just enough time to see the dinosaur collapse to the ground, very obviously dead.

Letting out yet another deep breath, James sat on the floor again—just as Ray let loose another yell.

"I know how you feel, kid," murmured James.

Erikka limped into the cabin a few minutes later. Between her and Karla, Ray managed to go from ‘ear bleeding screams’ to ‘pathetic sniffling sounds’ within ten minutes or so.

Erikka walked over and looked at the dead dinosaur for a few seconds, then picked up the handcannon and examined it for a few seconds as well.

She turned to James, a smile on her face.

"You did good, dude. Again. You’re becoming good at saving the little guy.

"Thanks."

"Only got one question."

"Go ahead."

"How the hell do you fire three shots from a handgun at a human size target from ten feet away and only hit it once?"

Grinning sheepishly, James replied "Practice?"

At around nine that evening, just as they were finished cleaning up the place, they spotted lights suddenly appear all along the horizon. Erikka and Karla exchanged a few pointed glances between the two of them as they stared and watched the lights.

"Let me guess" said James, as the lights slowly began to fade, "This is what happened last time?"

"Yup."

"Think whatever happened has been reversed?"

"Too dark to tell—we’ll find out about it in the morning. First things first—put Ray to bed. Then we eat."

"Thank God! I’m fucking starving!"

"What the --! Gravlox again?! ERIKKA!"

"Food of the Gods it is! Special treat for all our hard work!"

"Anybody know how roasted dino tastes like?"

"Don’t be silly! That shit is probably poisonous and will kill you!"

There was a long pause.

"How quickly?"

~~

On to Chapter 32

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