Volume 7: Copal
Issue 13: Homestretch
Florian Reyes Honeywell
By Roach
“What the fuck were you guys thinking?” Hannah slumped down into an armchair, next to the couch where Daniel rested.
Amber, Camilo, and I stood in a semi-circle around them. After arriving at the lounge, Gabriel, Jazmine, and Lewis had joined the others near the podium. Now, they rummaged through the food supplies we had retrieved from the gift shop.
Meanwhile, Hannah had pulled us aside. Her gaze darted restlessly between the three of us, and she rubbed her temples. For once, Daniel was quiet as he lay back—seemingly content to watch over us while munching on beef jerky.
“Oh, come on.” Amber rolled her eyes. “We found Jazmine and Gabriel. What more do you want?”
“Maybe you should say something the next time you plan to go off on your own into a dinosaur-infested jungle.”
I bit back a ‘told you so’ as I sent a burning glare in Amber and Camilo’s direction. Camilo shifted slightly as he looked away from me, but Amber didn’t seem to notice me.
“Fern was hungry.” As she said it, Amber dropped her bouquet of ferns in front of the baby dinosaur. This had been our excuse when we returned with Gabriel, Jazmine, and Lewis—that we had gone on an excursion to find something for Fern to eat, and we simply stumbled over the others. Now, Fern’s nostrils widened as it sniffed at the loose fronds.
“Guess who else is hungry?” Hannah countered. “Every other living thing out there, waiting for someone stupid enough to waltz along.”
“Guys, maybe instead of arguing—” Daniel started, before he was cut short.
“Daniel,” Hannah groaned, “just shut up and get better.”
The football player shrugged and took another bite of his jerky.
“Can’t you just be happy that Jaz and the others are safe?” Amber crossed her arms over her chest. At the same time, the baby dinosaur jumped into the heap of ferns. It lashed out at the fronds with its tail and claws, and emitted a playful chirp.
“Not the point,” Hannah muttered, resignation sneaking into her voice. I glanced in the direction of the others: at the opposite side of the lounge, Gabriel chatted with Jay and Lucy. At the same time, it appeared that Jazmine and Lewis had formed a faction of their own, over a shared bowl of crackers.
A moment later Hannah rose from the armchair. As she massaged the space between her eyebrows, she spoke, “Whatever. Your funeral.” Without waiting for a response, she walked off toward the staircase.
There was an uncomfortable silence. Camilo shied away from my glare, while Amber bit into her lip. Her green eyes flitted between Hannah and I, and a sudden self-awareness prickled through me. I recalled her comment from before: I’m sure Hannah will be fine on her own for five minutes. She won’t even… I quickly tried to push the thought away—I didn’t want to think about that now, about what Amber could see that I couldn’t.
Daniel, waving a piece of jerky at Fern, provided me the distraction I needed. The small creature squeaked and scurried over to him. It leaped into the air and snatched the dried meat out of his hand. After swallowing it in one single gulp, its tail lashed out excitedly—almost like the wagging of a dog—while it let out a chirp.
We all stared at him. If Amber had thought Fern was a Struthiomimus, I was now sure that couldn’t be the case. If I remembered correctly, Archean had told us that the ostrich-looking dinosaurs had been herbivores—but this thing was at the very least omnivorous, if not fully a carnivore.
“What?” Daniel grunted.
“I’m gonna go check on Hannah,” I mumbled. Without hesitation, I hurried away. While I didn’t want to figure out what to do about our unidentified baby dinosaur right now, another part of me was relieved just to get away from Amber’s scrutiny.
I headed in Hannah’s direction. Halfway up the stairs, I found her nestled in the corner of a wide window sill. While it was a simple touch to the Expedition Center’s design, the architectural choice seemed more deliberate. Now that we were between the second and third floor, the large window provided a view of the expansive wilderness outside. The backdrop of large redwoods dwarfed Hannah’s figure, which already seemed small in the oversized hoodie she wore from the gift shop. Dark strands of hair fell down her face as she held up a piece of paper, studying it intently.
“Hey,” I said.
“Oh.” She looked up, seeming not to have noticed me before I spoke. “Hi,” she said. There was a pause where she studied me, as if trying to figure out what I wanted.
“Umh… Sorry about before,” I managed. “We should have told you we were going.”
She looked me up and down. “Just…” She sighed. “Don’t do it again, okay?”
“Deal.” I tried a cautious smile, which—to my relief—she returned. Ready to change the topic, I continued, “What are you doing, anyway?”
She waved the piece of paper. “I found this brochure,” she explained. “It has a map of all of Hell Creek.”
“Can I see?”
“Sure.” Her legs, which had been stretched out across the sill, she now put down on the floor to make space for me. I sat down next to her.
I leaned over to take a closer look. The map was pretty stylized, covered with cartoon dinosaurs and exaggerated geological features. But, in terms of navigation, you could do worse. The Hell Creek Experience appeared to be built into what looked like a massive—almost perfectly circular—crater. Heavily forested hills ran in rings around Hell Creek, interspaced with flat lowlands, rivers, and wide swamps. Thin white lines traced around Hell Creek in a donut shape, and I assumed they were trails. At the very center, a hill rose high above the others—capped with a familiar-looking lodge covered in big windows. A label helpfully rose above it, labeling the building Expedition Center.
Hannah continued, “I’m thinking that we stay here for the night. If a rescue hasn’t shown up by morning, we walk back to the main entrance.”
“You think Daniel will be up for it?”
She nodded slowly. “He will need more time to recover fully, but he’s doing better. And the way back won’t be as difficult now that we know where we are.” As she spoke, her fingertip traced the map’s lined pathways. “We should be able to just go to the gift shop and backtrack from there. But, if anything gets in the way, we can use the map to figure out which paths we can use and what exhibits we should stay clear of.” She motioned toward a cartoon T-Rex to the east of the Expedition Center, then tapped her finger against a small cartoon Dakotaraptor to the south, and I recognized the spot where we had first seen them—when the force field had still been working properly. “I won’t be upset if I never see any of these guys again.”
“Hopefully we don’t have to worry about them anymore…” I said, although I wasn’t so sure. I had no way of knowing how many of them were out there—just the three we had trapped, or could there be others? Considering that all the exhibit barriers were down, nothing would stop them or any other animal from leaving their designated habitats. But, at least the map would provide us an estimate of an area where they had been—even if it was rough, it was better than nothing.
“Yeah, but…” Hannah paused. “I’m feeling… good about this.”
“Oh?” I hadn’t expected the optimism in her response.
“It only took us a couple of hours to get here from the entrance.” She pointed to a cartoon Triceratops on the map, just south of the Expedition Center. “We’re closer than it feels.” As she looked out the window, I traced her gaze with my own. I couldn’t quite pinpoint what she was looking at; but it was as if she could sense our destination, just beyond the trees. And, now that I could see it on the map, the forests didn’t appear as neverending as they had before.
Then, just as abruptly, Hannah turned to me with a bright smile. “We’ll rest up here for the night. Then, tomorrow, we’re getting out of this nightmare.”
***
“Ooooh, look at this!” Amber exclaimed. She leaned over to pick something off the ground.
We had departed the Expedition Center in the morning, and were now passing by the ruins of the gift shop. I recognized some of the rubble from when the shop had still been intact—before the Triceratops had crashed into it. There were plushies strewn about, and I had to tread carefully around shattered glass from snow globes and novelty glasses.
When Amber straightened up again, I realized that she had picked up a necklace. She held it up into the air, and sunlight coated its pendant in gold. At first, I thought it looked like a frozen drop of honey—then, I realized that it had to be amber.
“Is it real?” Daniel asked. If he was in any pain, he hadn’t shown it since we left the Center. He hadn’t really slowed down much, either. I hoped that he really was doing better, and that it wasn’t all for show. I guess we were lucky that he didn’t need his shoulder to be able to walk.
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“Probably mass produced like everything else,” Hannah said. “Let’s keep moving.” Although she spoke with assertion in her tone, she seemed more impatient than annoyed—which I couldn’t really blame her for. Now that we were on the trail we had come from, I started to remember the way back. We really weren’t far now.
Amber turned to me. “Florian, what’s inside of it?” She shoved the pendant into my face.
I squinted at the piece of amber, studying the small shape trapped inside the fossilized resin. “Umh… A spider?” I said.
Amber grinned before putting on the necklace. While I doubted it was a true fossil—more likely, it was something IMAGO produced artificially for their tourists—she looked genuinely happy for the first time in days. I chose not to rain on her parade.
We left the ruins of the gift shop behind us. On the hills around us, Triceratops grazed on the ferns and bushes. While some of them turned to look at us, none seemed to be particularly concerned by our presence. If I hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have thought this was the same animal that had lost itself to a maddening rage and rampaged the gift shop. But, while they seemed at peace now, I still kept my eyes on them. Before we left the Expedition Center, I had sent some of my scouts out ahead. I sensed them now, hovering around the Triceratops herd—reporting on nothing out of the ordinary.
My classmates chatted around me: about how much they looked forward to a warm meal, sleeping in a proper bed, and taking a shower. I kept my attention on the road ahead, and—as we continued down the path—I recognized my surroundings more and more. It wasn’t too long until we left behind the open, fern-covered plains of the valleys, and began trudging up the hill as the slope rose up in front of us. Redwoods once again began to replace the magnolias and monkey puzzles but, for the first time in days, hiking up a hill wasn’t a painful misadventure. The path gently wound through the rugged terrain—through outcroppings of rocks and dense clusters of cypress trees. We neared the Dakotaraptor exhibit once again, and I hoped that the three we had trapped really were the only specimens in the Refuge…
But it wasn’t Dakotaraptors that interrupted us. It was Fern’s chirp that first alerted me to the smell. At first, it had been concealed in the thick forest scents. But, mingling between the lush tones of greenery, I detected a similar smell as I had in the Expedition Center. Albeit staler, it was something I had learned to recognize.
Something dead.
Something human.
“Wait!” Amber exclaimed as Fern scurried ahead.
Fern, obviously, didn’t listen. Amber ran after the tiny dinosaur. She quickly caught up, and scooped the creature into her arms just before it could reach whatever lay ahead.
The others had yet to realize what Amber was about to stumble into, but I already knew. I ran after her.
“Shit…” she breathed as I came to a halt next to her.
A body, face down, lay still on the ground in front of us. A small, familiar-looking brown-feathered raptor perched atop it—Archeroraptor, if I remembered Archean’s tour speech correctly—and gnawed at the rotting flesh. As soon as it saw us, it hissed before vanishing into the undergrowth.
Upon closer inspection of the corpse, I saw that its limbs were twisted and broken into unnatural angles—and the legs were entirely missing. Gashes ran across the back, in the shape of huge claw and tooth marks. Whatever had left them had been powerful enough to tear through a thick vest, and into the camo clothing beneath. Flies, buzzing loudly, flew between wounds like my bees between flowers. Although the awkward angle of the corpse’s neck told me that it had also been broken, its head had remained somewhat protected. Something metallic, like a helmet, encapsulated it—glinting in the rays of sunlight.
Soon, in a flurry of footsteps, the rest of our classmates caught up to us.
We were all quiet—perhaps silenced by the same question. Could this be someone we knew? I immediately dismissed the possibility—it hardly took a second thought to realize that it couldn’t be anyone from Chapel, given the militaristic outfit. Still, that didn’t explain who it could be. If not our classmates, if not a guest, if not the Refuge’s staff… Then who?
Only Fern disrupted our silence by squirming and squeaking in Amber’s arms. She simply tightened her grip on the dinosaur, running her fingers soothingly through its downy coat. Although the gesture was sufficient to calm down the small creature, its huge, round stare didn’t waver from the dead body.
Hannah was the first to make a move. She approached the body cautiously. To my shock, she gave it a light kick with her boot—just strong enough to turn the body over.
Hannah gasped softly, closed her mouth, before opening it again. But no words came out—maybe she had come to the same realization as me.
Face up, I recognized the dead man instantly. It was one of the guys Archean had been fighting a couple of days ago—the man in the metallic dog mask, carrying a stumpy-looking shotgun. If he were here, what about his two companions? Were they nearby?
What about Archean?
I reached out to my scouts, sensing them scattered in the forests around me. But, if anyone else was nearby, they hadn’t noticed.
“What… What is it?” Lucy piped up from behind us.
Hannah murmured, “This explains everything.” She said it more to herself than anyone else—yet, it wasn’t what I had expected to hear.
I took a step closer to her and the body. My swarm bristled, alert and electric throughout my body. “What…” I paused, suppressing the swarm’s hum before finishing, “What do you mean?”
“It’s the First Way. This is Dogwhistle… Err, rather, he was Dogwhistle, anyways…” She leaned in to inspect the corpse closely, eliciting groans of disgust from the rest of our classmates.
“H-how do you know?” Camilo stammered.
“The costume, all the weird shit that’s been happening…”
“Who’s Dogwhistle?” I asked, somewhat meekly. I’d done some research on the villains local to San Francisco, but I’d only heard about the First Way on the news—more so as of late than before.
“He’s a First Way enforcer,” Hannah explained. “Sorta high ranking; one of the original founders along with Red Queen and Sasquatch. He can… Or, he could let out a subsonic scream that drives all animals a few miles around absolutely crazy.” She paused to study the body again. “Usually, it just distracts guards or cops or whatever… I didn’t know it could do this much damage.”
It really did explain everything—from the weird noise my bees had picked up to the strange way the animals had been acting.
“So this whole thing… It was a terrorist attack or something?” Jay asked.
Hannah nodded, backing away from the body. “I’d heard they’ve been planning something big, and hitting the Extinction Refuge of all places fits their M.O….” She glanced around. I waited for her to explain what she meant by it fitting their M.O., but instead, she continued on her own train of thought, “Looks like Archean won his little fight. Those claw and tooth marks are too big for one of those tiny guys—but he clearly didn’t stick around long…”
We lapsed into another silence, which—after a moment or two—Amber interrupted. “How the fuck do you know all this stuff, anyways?” she asked. I had to admit, it was a good question.
“I watch the news,” Hannah quickly said, shrugging. “Come on, let’s move. Can’t imagine it’s safe to stand next to a corpse in a prehistoric jungle.”
I also kept up with the news, but even so, I hadn’t known half the stuff she was talking about. I tried to catch her gaze, but she continued onwards—staring straight ahead.
We followed after her, parting around Dogwhistle’s dead body. I threw one last glance at him, my mind flashing back to Archean’s Spinosaurus fighting the three villains. I never would have guessed that they were First Way, but the full picture was starting to come together now. Which left me wondering…
“If no one has come to rescue us yet…” Lucy’s voice trembled as she spoke aloud what I had been thinking, “…what is happening outside?”
Whatever the First Way’s true motivations were, Dogwhistle’s corpse implied Archean’s victory. But, if that was the case, why hadn’t anyone come for us? Two days had gone by, and we had spent the last night at the Expedition Center. Meaning, we really hadn’t made it far from when we got lost. I knew that now—as the path began to slope downward—we must be close to that massive wetland near the gate. While we had fallen off the trail, we had never gotten too far from where help should have come through. We really shouldn’t have been difficult to find.
So what had stopped us from being found?
“You know, from up in the tree, we saw a whole lot of airplanes…” Gabriel said, turning to Camilo.
Jazmine nodded. “And there was this bright flash of light in the sky.”
“We saw that, too,” Hannah said, grimly. “I get that a terrorist attack is bad news… But really, why hasn’t help come for us? Where has Archean been?”
Uneasy murmurs spread through our small group: about Dogwhistle, the powerfight, the explosions. As we continued along the path, my classmates spoke more quietly—and, I realized that the woods were also more quiet, as if we had subconsciously adjusted our own volume to that of our surroundings.
The atmosphere had changed as we pressed onwards through the redwoods. When we embarked on our trek this morning, I had felt cautiously hopeful. Now, the closer we got to leaving Hell Creek, the more uneasy I became; the swarm twisting and churning inside of me.
What were we going to find when we reached the entrance?
Suddenly, interrupting my thoughts, a terrible rumble cut through the silence. I glanced at Amber and Camilo, who looked back at me wide-eyed. It was the same noise we had heard yesterday—while trying to rescue Jazmine and Gabriel—but louder…
Or was it just closer?
In Amber’s arms, Fern started chirping. Its round eyes darted desperately around, each of its vocalizations louder than the last.
We froze in place as the rumbling came to a stop. “What the Hell wa—” Hannah started, but—before she could finish—the rumbling returned, near-deafening now. The noise reverberated through the trees around us—through my body, rattling my teeth and setting the swarm on edge. As the rumble intensified into a horrible growl, I placed both hands on my ears: partly to keep any bees from escaping, but also because the noise had reached an unbearable level. The others grasped at their ears around me, shouting something that I couldn’t make out over the terrible din. The rumble was so loud, I almost didn’t feel the ground shake beneath my feet.
Almost.
A smell of rotting meat washed over me from behind, the air mixing with pheromones from the handful of scouts patrolling around me. Alert, alert, alert, they chanted. With it, I could feel the ground shaking in the soles of my feet, shaking in a rhythm like a drum beat.
Or footsteps.
As I turned to face where the smell had come from—where my bees had emitted their alarm pheromones—the rumbling cut out all at once. As my hearing gradually returned, I could just make out Fern’s incessant chirping—like its vocalizations hadn’t stopped since the noise began. The small dinosaur appeared to be chirping at a slanting tree trunk…
Except, trees didn’t have legs. This was something entirely different.
Emerging from the treeline, about a hundred feet behind us, was a sight that froze me in place. It was a huge animal, stockily built, held aloft high in the air by two massively powerful legs. None of us were tall enough to even reach its knees. A mottled brown-beige leathery hide covered its body, and it was almost as long as the school bus that brought us to the Extinction Refuge all those days ago. Two tiny arms hung out in front of it, each with only two clawed fingers—apparently useless, yet strangely dangerous-looking despite it all. Most terrifying of all, however, was the mouth. It alone looked bigger than any of us and as its jaws parted—as if it tasted the air—I saw a maw filled with teeth a foot long. I didn’t need Archean here to tell me what we were looking at. It was the only animal in this entire, fucked up zoo that needed no introduction.
Tyrannosaurus rex.
It bellowed a deep, booming cry in our direction—so loud I felt like my eardrums would burst. My ear canals thickened uncomfortably with bees pushing through. Usually I could tune into the swarm’s intentions easily, but now I wasn’t sure if they were trying to shield my eardrums or readying themselves for an attack.
But it didn’t seem to matter. As the eyes of the Tyrannosaurus fixed on our group, I suddenly felt very, very small. The earth trembled underneath its footsteps: it took another step forward, then another. It charged, the ground shaking beneath its huge feet. Over the discord of our screams, Fern’s incessant chirping, and the massive beast’s heavy breathing, I was just able to make out Hannah shrieking one word—over and over again.
“Run!”