Volume 7: Copal

Issue 12: Fern

Florian Reyes Honeywell

By Roach

I carried a paper shopping bag branded Hell Creek Souvenirs, filled with water bottles, granola bars, potato chips, and crackers from the gift shop. While the water was lukewarm and the food options weren’t exactly luxurious, what mattered was that none of it was immediately perishable.

Now that the Dakotaraptors had been secured inside the meat freezer, we had started to gather supplies from around the Expedition Center. Considering the dead body inside the food court and the faint snarling coming from the meat freezer in the back, we had settled into a lounge area instead.

The orange light of the midday sun streamed into the lobby as I left the gift shop. From there, I headed up a set of stairs toward the lounge.

The lounge was about as spacious as Chapel’s theater, with floor-to-ceiling windows and comfy seating arrangements all around. Several models of dinosaur skeletons were displayed along the walls, with the larger specimens—like T-rex and Edmontosaurus—used as centerpieces throughout the venue.

The lounge appeared to have two main functions. Firstly, it was a place to hang out or take a break from walking around the Hell Creek Experience. Secondly, there was a podium at the other side of the room—perhaps meant for guest speakers, press conferences, performances, or the like.

We, however, had a different function in mind. This was the perfect place to stay until Daniel had a chance to rest, and we could attempt leaving the Refuge again.

Upon entering the lounge, I started toward Hannah. She sat on a chair opposite of the couch where Daniel currently slept. Although she had finished disinfecting and rebandaging his shoulder, she still wore a look of worry. She held her hands up to her lips, palms pressed together. Her eyes flitted between Daniel and the windows—seemingly staring out at nothing in particular.

I wanted to ask her if there was anything else we needed. I had brought everything I could think of from the gift shop, but she had proven to have more foresight than anyone else here—checking with her seemed like a good idea.

But, before I had the chance to, Amber’s voice drew my attention.

“Hiii Florian!” she called out with a sing-songy lilt. She stood by an Ankylosaurus skeleton. Waving to me with one hand, she used the other to play tug-of-war with the baby dinosaur—using an Edmontosaurus plushie as a prop. The gift shop toy had already lost one leg, leaving behind lumps of cotton on the floor.

I put the bag of groceries down on a nearby chair, then headed over to her.

Amber dropped the plushie, and the little dinosaur proceeded to chew at it—just like a puppy. “Where’s Camilo?” she asked.

“I think he was looking for a change of clothes,” I said. I had already replaced my outfit, as my clothes had been covered in dirt and still smelled like campfire from the night before. The gift shop apparel was limited to tourist motifs, and I had ended up with a Tricerachef shirt.

“Let’s find him,” Amber said. “I need to tell you guys something.”

I looked around the lounge. Hannah remained seated by Daniel, while Jay and Lucy occupied another couch in their own corner of the lounge. They shared a bag of potato chips, seemingly in deep conversation about something that I was too far away to hear.

“It’s important,” Amber added, as if detecting my hesitation.

We headed downstairs, back to the gift shop. Amber’s baby dinosaur followed at her heels, but appeared more restless than before the Dakotaraptor encounter. It chirped as we continued onward, occasionally snapping at a fly buzzing past. I wasn’t sure if the attack had rattled it, or maybe it could be hungry?

Inside the shop, Camilo had moved on from the apparel section—now wearing a simple black shirt with the Refuge’s logo—and we found him collecting travel-sized toiletries from one of the aisles.

“Now that I have both of you here, let’s talk,” Amber announced.

Camilo leaned against the shelves, crossing his arms over his chest—more so in a tired gesture than a defiant one. “Yeah?”

She grinned, almost triumphantly. “I know where Jazmine is,” she said.

“How?” Camilo said, raising an eyebrow.

“And Gabriel,” she continued. “And I think Lewis is with them, too.”

“What are you talking about?” Camilo asked now, his eyes lighting up.

“Who… Who’s Lewis?” I said, trying to remember.

“You know, from bio?” Amber said.

I imagined the classroom, as if somehow it could help me place his face—but, as I searched my mind, most of my classmates’ names blended together.

“Anyways,” she continued, “I see their bonds. All their connections, coming right back to us. Do you know what that means?”

Camilo and I exchanged a look.

Amber grinned. “If I can see them, they must be really, really close.”

“Let’s go get them.” Camilo didn’t wait to leap into action. He grabbed a small basket, and started filling it with water bottles and snacks—as if anticipating what Gabriel and Jazmine might have been missing out on for the last 24 hours. Once he had a small collection of supplies, he started toward the exit. Amber looked expectantly at me.

Once Camilo noticed that I wasn’t immediately following him, he added, “What are we waiting for?”

“What about the others?” I said. Daniel was still in a vulnerable state. And, even though we had dealt with the Dakotaraptors, who was to say that something else wouldn’t happen?

I wasn’t necessarily just thinking about the Refuge’s wildlife. What if that high-pitched piercing sound came back, or the explosions continued? What about the villains that Archean had been fighting? The airplanes I had seen in the night? We still had no idea what was going on outside.

Amber simply shrugged. “What about them?”

“We should tell them,” I said.

“Tell them what?” Amber said. “That I have superpowers, which let me track down our lost classmates?” The baby dinosaur trailed after her as she paced down the aisle. “We’ve gotten this far. I don’t think so.”

She had a point. We had no reason to know how to look for Gabriel and Jazmine… Or, Lewis, I supposed. I couldn’t really come up with a decent cover story, either. How did you explain that away? “I… I don’t know. But we can come up with something.”

“Oh, Florry-worry. We’ll be quick,” Amber countered. “I’m sure Hannah will be fine on her own for five minutes. She won’t even notice you’re gone.”

“That’s… That’s not what I’m saying,” I said—a mix of self-consciousness and annoyance rising through me. Did she think I was hesitant to leave because of Hannah? “It’s just… We’ve only gotten so far because we’ve stuck together. We don’t know what’s out there.”

“Then, what would you tell them?” Amber asked.

I still didn’t have an answer. At least, not a good one. Even if we said we were just going for a stroll, it seemed like an unnecessary risk to wander off into a prehistoric wilderness. There was no need to search for supplies, either—we had everything we needed right here.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“If there’s something dangerous out there, we have to find them,” Camilo said. “I’m not leaving Gabriel to whatever is still lurking out there.”

A smug smile crossed Amber’s lips. “Not to mention, Fern is hungry,” she said.

“Fern?” I echoed, confused.

The baby dinosaur looked up at me with its round, glimmering eyes, and let out a small chirp.

***

We meandered between the sequoias and waded through a blanket of ferns. The baby dinosaur was barely taller than its namesake, but didn’t seem too bothered to be swimming in fronds as it pranced after Amber. Camilo walked beside them, carrying the small supply basket.

“So, why exactly is its… her name Fern?” I asked.

“Ferns are her favorite,” Amber explained. “So it seemed fitting.”

“I still prefer Skippy 2,” Camilo chipped in.

I studied the small dinosaur, which occasionally snapped at the air—swiveling its head back and forth like a bird. “Are you… sure?” I said, turning to Amber again. Although I remembered it chewing on one of the ferns when we first found it, it had seemed more interested in eating flies than anything else.

“Of course I am.” Amber rolled her eyes. “I’m basically the closest thing she has to a mother, poor thing.” Her voice slipped into the same cooing, baby voice she used for her dog.

I raised an eyebrow, then glanced at Camilo—trying to read his reaction to Amber’s attachment to this animal. But, he only stared ahead, perhaps too focused on finding Gabriel to care.

In spite of my skepticism, I couldn’t deny that Fern was pretty cute. But—looking past the dinosaur’s small figure, round eyes, and fluffy feathers—parenting an animal that had been extinct for eras past didn’t seem like the best of ideas. We didn’t really know anything about what it needed, not to mention what it was capable of.

Then again, maybe Amber was right about one thing. Maybe it really didn’t have any family; for all I knew, IMAGO had incubated it in a laboratory before dumping it into an exhibit. When I recalled the Triceratops calves playing alongside their pack—the moments of peace before everything went wrong—I couldn’t help but feel an ache, imagining Fern alone in the endless wilderness.

“What do you think it is, anyways?” Camilo asked.

“Huh?” Amber said.

“What kind of dinosaur is it?”

“Hmmm.” Amber looked thoughtfully at Fern. “I think it’s one of those Strutho-somethings—you know, the ostrich-looking guys?”

I looked closely at Fern, not quite convinced. While I could easily see the downy feathers blossoming into the extravagant plumage of the mature specimen, its neck and arms seemed way too short to be a Struthomimus.

At the same time, as I watched the baby dinosaur, I had to admit I knew nothing about dinosaur ontogeny. The ferns rustled in the wake of its skipping, crow-like steps. Then, it came to an abrupt halt. It only took me a moment to realize that Amber had stopped as well.

“I see them!” she exclaimed.

I wasn’t entirely sure how she saw them. From where we stood at the edge of the treeline, I couldn’t see anyone. A meadow unfolded before us, interrupting the wooded terrain. Only a Triceratops hinted at a sign of life. Maybe a hundred or so yards away from us, it rubbed its horns against the trunk of a sequoia—altering between each of the three. The animal was somewhat smaller than the grown adults we had seen, with shorter horns that curved back rather than forward. Growing pains, I wondered?

“Whe… Where are they?” Camilo asked, lowering his voice so as to not draw the attention of the dinosaur. But, if it had noticed us, it didn’t seem to particularly care as it switched from scratching its horns to grazing on the ferns below.

“Up there.” Amber pointed up. And, far above the Triceratops, I spotted three figures nestled in the branches of a sequoia. I was too far away to see them clearly, and only recognized Gabriel and Jazmine because Amber had known they would be there. The third figure—a gangly, blonde boy—was only vaguely familiar to me.

“So…” Camilo nodded in the direction of the Triceratops, still circling around the tree. “Looks like that thing is keeping them from climbing down.”

While this Triceratops seemed mild-mannered in comparison to the enraged, crazed animals we had seen yesterday, I still couldn’t tell whether or not it was hostile. The way it scrubbed its horns against the bark reminded me of a young buck testing out its growing antlers. Had it gotten separated from the rest of its herd during the chaos? Or, maybe it was a transitory male striking out on its own for the first time, establishing a new territory? At least, that’s what all the Animal Planet shows I watched as a kid would have me think. Both scenarios seemed equally plausible. But, even if Triceratops weren’t hunters like the Dakotaraptors, my instincts still told me to be wary.

“Why is it so interested in them?” Amber said, squinting at the tree.

“Maybe this is its territory,” I suggested. “They’re intruders.”

Camilo’s brows furrowed together. “That would make luring it away much harder…” He picked at the feathery fronds of a nearby fern, slowly taking it apart like daisy petals. “Maybe there’s some type of illusion I can do. Even if we only get it away momentarily, there would be an opening for them to climb down.”

“Are you feeling up for it?” I asked. While he seemed to have perked up since our confrontation with the Dakotaraptors, that had only been a few hours ago. Could he make an illusion large or sophisticated enough to fool a Triceratops?

“I’ll try,” Camilo said. “Maybe…”

But, whatever he was about to say, he was cut short. A deep rumbling reverberated through the woods. Although I couldn’t identify its source, the noise itself rattled through my very bones. The swarm buzzed in response, immediately alert and preparing to defend their hive.

The Triceratops stopped scratching its horns against the tree, and stood rigid. It paused for a few seconds, while the sound stretched out and hovered over the trees. And then, just as quickly, it turned and charged deeper into the woods; away from the rumbling.

“Was… Was that you?” I said, turning to Camilo. But, I knew the answer before he could say a single word—his eyes had widened in terror, while his muscles tensed.

“No, that was…” A nervousness edged his voice. “That was something else,” he said.

Meanwhile, Amber knelt down. “Fernie, what’s wrong?” she said as she leveled with the tiny dinosaur. The animal had lifted its head as high as it could above the fronds, its pupils shrunken as they darted around our surroundings. Then, it emitted a small, squeaky chirp. A second or two passed between each vocalization. Somehow, its calls seemed more feeble now than before, yet, simultaneously more insistent.

“I think she’s scared,” Amber murmured, before scooping Fern up in her arms. “Let’s get Jaz and get out of here.”

“And Gabriel,” Camilo added.

“And that other guy,” I muttered—although Camilo and Amber didn’t seem to hear me, as they had already started walking away.

I trailed after them to the sequoia tree. By the time we made it over, Gabriel, Jazmine, and Lewis had started climbing down its branches.

“Hello!” Camilo shouted, waving his hands in the air. “Gabriel! We’re here.”

Gabriel, startled, stopped his climb. Jazmine and Lewis followed suit.

“Camilo?” Gabriel squinted down at us. “You… You’re okay!” he exclaimed. He resumed his descent, at a faster pace now.

Soon, all three of them had made it to ground level. Gabriel ran into Camilo, almost toppling him over as he embraced him. Meanwhile, Amber smiled in relief. She took a couple of quick steps toward Jazmine—but came to a sudden halt.

“What the hell is that?” Jazmine said, frowning at Fern which lay in Amber’s arms. Lewis, who stood next to her, looked equally concerned.

Up close, I did recognize Lewis. He was someone I’d never had a reason to speak to, but had seen in the hallways, in class, and playing Uno on the bus. I wondered where the rest of his friend group could be, if not with him?

“How about ‘thank you for saving my sorry ass?’” Amber snapped back, clutching Fern tighter.

After everything we had gone through, I had nearly wiped their quarreling from memory. I vaguely remembered that it had started over the stupid t-shirts, but whatever lay behind it seemed even more petty to me now than before. But, however long Jazmine had been stuck in that tree, it seemed like she had plenty of time to stew on it.

I looked at Camilo, but he didn’t seem to notice—instead, he struggled to break free from Gabriel’s hug. “You stink,” he said, shoving his classmate away playfully.

“You too.” Gabriel chuckled as he let go.

“I brought food.” Camilo lifted up the basket. This was enough to draw Lewis and Jazmine’s attention, too. “There’s more at the Expedition Center.”

An ephemeral smile lit up Gabriel’s face before disappearing again. “Is there… Is there a rescue?”

“We… We don’t know.” Camilo bit his lips. “Daniel was hurt. Badly. So we’re staying there for the time being.”

“The others…?”

“Jay and Lucy are with us. They’re okay.”

“Anyone else? Katie? Blake?”

Camilo shook his head. “Only Hannah and Daniel. We haven’t seen anyone else.” Then, he paused, as if reconsidering. “Well, we did see Archean. But he was fighting some guys…”

“What the hell?” Gabriel momentarily paused unwrapping the granola bar he had picked out. “Fighting who?” he said, cautiously taking off the remaining wrapper.

Camilo looked between Amber and I. Amber ran her fingers through Fern’s downy feathers, and stared into thin air—avoiding Jazmine’s scrutinizing eyes.

“Let’s get back to the Expedition Center,” I said. Whatever we heard from the woods, I wanted to get away from it sooner rather than later. “Once we’re in a safer place, we can all get caught up.”

As we headed back the way we came, Camilo and Gabriel were the only ones who spoke. During our short walk back I learned that—after we got separated—an enraged Triceratops had chased them. While some of our classmates had taken off in different directions, Gabriel, Jazmine, and Lewis had sought out safety in the treetop. They had essentially been trapped there since.

While Gabriel ran through the sequence of events, Jazmine and Lewis walked behind them in silence. Amber led the way, picking up a bouquet of ferns as she went along—undoubtedly to feed the baby dinosaur later.

I kept glancing back, into the redwoods. Although basking in the orange glow of early evening, the forest seemed quieter than before. Aside from Camilo and Gabriel’s chatter and the rustling of our own footsteps, there was no sign of life. Nothing moved through the undergrowth, and no pteranodons screeched in the sky.

I kept expecting something to happen—for that deep rumbling to come back, for the sound of steps in pursuit. But nothing happened. As the Expedition Center emerged ahead, the forests remained as still as a photograph around us.