Volume 7: Copal

Issue 15: Reunion

Florian Reyes Honeywell

By Roach

As muddy water crawled up to my knees, the fabric of my pants clung to my legs—weighing my steps down like stones. Branches crackled and trees creaked as the Tyrannosaurus emerged from the forests behind us. Left with no option but to press forward, we waded deeper into the wetlands. Just behind me, Amber’s mutters faded into gasps—choked with panic—as Fern continuously chirped in her clutches. Each of the tiny dinosaur’s vocalizations grew louder and more piercing than the last.

Fern’s noises quickly drowned away in the T-rex’s rumble. As the swarm shifted and bristled inside of me, I resisted the urge to glance back. Instead, I took in the distance between us and the Hell Creek entrance. When we first arrived, the trek across the delta’s footbridges had been one of marvel. Now, it seemed like a boundless, impossible distance to cross.

Scattered across the landscape, grazing Edmontosaurus lifted their heads and looked in our direction—undoubtedly alarmed by the arrival of an apex predator. However, the herd was too far away to be immediately concerned by the possibility of an attack, yet close enough to keep their eyes on us as they started wandering farther away.

Could we somehow turn the T-rex’s attention to the Edmontosaurus instead of us? If we got close enough? Or, maybe Camilo could use an illusion to make them seem closer? Surely, the Edmontosaurus must be more appetizing for such a huge animal…

But, seen through the eyes of a Tyrannosaurus, maybe we were easier prey. And, for all I knew, this T-rex had never had live prey before. While we had seen the Dakotaraptors feeding on Purgatorius, I doubted a tiny mammal would be enough to sustain a T-rex. And would IMAGO want to extend their, undoubtedly costly, resources to recreate large prey species? Resources that could be going into another exhibit?

I didn’t know. Maybe it could explain why this thing was so dead set on chasing us, in spite of Camilo’s illusions. But, regardless of what was driving the T-rex—simple hunger or some kind of deeper instinct—it wouldn’t matter if we didn’t survive this.

These thoughts raced through my mind in a matter of seconds—seconds that stretched out like a rubber band about to snap—while the water slowed my steps from a sprint to a jog.

At the same time, a loud splash sounded behind us. The water stirred around my legs, before welling up into small, sloshing waves. I steadied myself as I cast a glance back. About ten feet behind us, the Tyrannosaurus stepped its huge feet into the water. It stalked through the shallows with ease.

As much as I pushed myself—straining my muscles beyond normal human limits, thanks to the swarm’s anatomical architecture—I couldn’t physically move any faster.

And, no matter how fast I did move, we were only heading deeper into a death trap.

Even if the Edmontosaurus herd could serve as a distraction, they were still far out of reach. And, even farther away, lay the entrance… It was hard to tell for sure considering the distance, but it looked like some sort of campsite had been set up there—with tents and small figures moving between them. Did the people there even see us? Know we were in trouble? I didn’t have time to question what was going on, but—if this wasn’t all some mirage—maybe we could find help…

A shiver ran up my spine as the T-rex let out another rumble behind me. Each splash of its footfalls now grew closer; its sound followed a steady rhythm, neither hurried nor slow. Yet—as it stalked through the wetlands—it easily overtook our desperate steps, quickly shrinking the distance between us.

We would never make it to the Edmontosaurus herd in time, let alone the campsite.

No, we needed a solution now.

I turned to Camilo, who ran beside Gabriel. His eyes darted between the Tyrannosaurus, our classmates, and the delta—and I wondered if he were still creating illusions. But, if he were, the T-rex didn’t seem to mind them. Had turning everyone invisible simply been too much effort? Did the smells—of sweat, running blood, fear—overpower any guise? Or was it the sounds of our feet splashing through mud and water—of panting and shrieks, Fern’s incessant chirping—that caught the predator’s attention?

At the back of our group, the T-rex’s long shadow fell upon Daniel. He had fallen a few paces behind the rest of us—probably because of his injury, I realized. The Tyrannosaurus’ towering stature had dwarfed his brawny, football build. Once again, it occurred to me how easily it could fit any one of us in its huge mouth. At this distance, I could see each crease and wrinkle of its leathery skin; each curve of its yellowing fangs.

It was only a matter of moments before it would catch up to us.

But, if Camilo couldn’t fool the T-rex, maybe he could fool our classmates. The swarm buzzed from the waxy tunnels and chambers throughout my body, as I prepared for one last stupidity; a final Hail Mary.

New waves of water splashed toward us as the T-rex came closer.

Once I managed to catch Camilo’s restless gaze, I mouthed at him, “Cover me.” As I did, a bee crawled out from between my parted lips. Considering everything else that was going on, I hoped no one else had noticed it—and, more importantly, I hoped that he understood what I was trying to convey.

Daniel shrieked—but, simultaneously, new speed reinvigorated his feet as he fled across the mud. The Tyrannosaurus’s shadow inched closer to us, now nearing Lewis and Jazmine as well.

At first, Camilo’s eyes appeared glazed over—unfocused—and I worried that amidst the chaos, he hadn’t understood me after all. But then, after a split second, his expression grew firmer and he gave a brief nod.

That was my cue. But, even with the knowledge that his illusion would conceal my secret, I still found myself hesitant to release my swarm so openly. Instead, I found myself acting upon something else. A sort of autopilot; just pure, simple instinct, guiding the swarm as much as it guided my own movements.

Bees welled up my throat. Through searing eyes, I tried to catch the expressions of my classmates. I briefly glimpsed Hannah, dashing through a patch of horsetails as mud splattered across her face—then, bees quickly consumed my vision, pushing out from my mouth and under my eyelids.

If anyone reacted, I had no way of knowing. Through the din of shrieking, growling, splashes, and buzzing, I was completely disoriented.

I released about a third of the swarm, still retaining the rest in my body. A cloud of bees formed a trail after me as I kept running—each step pushing through the building pressure in my head; the buzz burning from my lungs up my throat. And, within a matter of seconds, the bees receded into my peripherals. My vision cleared up again as they shot toward the T-rex.

I glanced back over my shoulder. Considering the T-rex’s thick, leathery skin, it would be pointless to attack it mindlessly. For a moment, I remembered my mom talking about the irony of elephant’s fearing bees; how beehives could be placed to deter elephants from entering farmland. While bees couldn’t sting elephants, they could crawl up their trunks or into their eyes.

I knew bees had existed for a long time, sharing a common ancestor with ants and wasps. How far back their history went and how much they had interacted with dinosaurs I was less sure of: would a T-rex have developed any sort of wariness toward insects? Did evolution even matter, considering I was dealing with an animal that had been created in a laboratory?

Regardless, my bees were nothing like anything it could have possibly encountered millions of years ago. While sharing a lot of similarities to the European honeybee, I had never been able to pin down an exact species. Mine were bigger, meaner…

And—as I directed them to the T-rex’s mouth and eyes—I hoped that was enough.

At first, the Tyrannosaurus didn’t seem to react to them at all. Whatever Camilo was doing, maybe it really did conceal my swarm.

But, even if the T-rex couldn’t see or hear them, it was about to feel them.

Its mouth opened, as if tasting the air, when they flitted through the crack of its parted lips. Others crawled into its nostrils or covered its eyes, effectively blinding it. I commanded their attack, and their stingers penetrated the soft skin of its gums and nasal passages.

The Tyrannosaurus halted. It swung its giant head back and forth, shaking it violently in an attempt to rid itself of the swarm. The force of its movement was enough to fling some of my bees off, while others clung on desperately.

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I quickly surveyed the faces of my classmates. But, if they were aware of what was going on—the reason why the T-rex had reacted so suddenly and violently—they didn’t show it. Instead, they pressed onwards, heaving for air as they ran through the mud. Camilo and Gabriel had grabbed Daniel’s arms, and dragged him back into a sprint.

Although the dinosaur had halted, it now roared ferociously in our direction. As it did, I sensed my swarm scattering—the shaking of its head flung off some, while its heavy breathing deflected others. The ones that managed to hold on, I secured around its eyes. If nothing else, I wanted to continue obscuring its vision for as long as I could; to keep those hawk-like eyes from pinning down its next meal…

While the T-rex growled and shook its head, trying to reorient itself, we managed to regain some of the lost distance between us. The shallows ebbed into more solid ground as we neared a small, gravelly islet—one of many scattered across the delta.

But it didn’t take long before I heard the spluttering thuds of footsteps in the buzz’s quell. Behind us, the Tyrannosaurus huffed before charging after us again. It moved much faster now, its feet casting huge waves as it stomped through the muddy water toward us. The dinosaur threw back its head, snapping viciously at the few bees still swarming around it—but didn’t stop. It crossed the distance between us in seconds, sending gravel flying in its wake as it reached our little islet.

I hadn’t even bought us enough time to catch our breaths.

The Tyrannosaurus paused only momentarily to scan over us, but it felt like a million years as its eyes flicked from person to person. Was it… appraising its next meal? Figuring out which one of us had the most calories?

There was a flash of movement to my right; Hannah had scooped a handful of river-smoothed rocks. She hucked them with shocking accuracy at the dinosaur’s eyes. Her face was frozen in a perfect image of pure, defiant rage as she glared up at the beast above us.

All for nothing.

The Tyrannosaurus shook its head under the onslaught from rocks and the few bees that had managed to cling onto it, but didn’t budge. It took a step closer and snarled a deep rumble at us. Between the beast’s rumbling and Fern’s incessant chirping, all other sounds drowned out. The entire world around me seemed to fade away as the cloud of its rotten breath washed over me, and I stood there frozen in place.

I almost missed the frothing water behind the looming T-rex, but I definitely didn’t miss the huge, dark shape which lunged from the muddy waters. A flurry of long claws and moss green scales tackled the Tyrannosaurus from behind, dragging it to the mud in a spinning roll. The new arrival quickly tore itself away from the T-rex and scrambled—briefly on all fours—onto our gravel islet. Lucy almost shrieked as it approached, but the cry died in her throat as a wave of recognition washed over all of us.

The long, crocodilian snout… The distinctive sail on the huge dinosaur’s back… It was a Spinosaurus. Archean’s Spinosaurus: the same one we’d seen the day the force fields went down. As if to confirm our thoughts, the dinosaur skidded to a halt on the islet and turned to face the T-rex—revealing Archean mounted on the Spinosaur’s neck. “Hey guys,” he said with a smile and a wave. “Looks like I made it just in time!”

He looked like he was in rough shape; rougher than us even. Archean’s costume was torn and muddy, patched up with dirty bandages. His cape looked tattered now, and one of the horns of his Triceratops-shaped mask had been broken off. While he smiled wide our direction, I could see his shoulders sagging—and I wondered whether or not he had even gotten as much rest as we did.

Behind him, the T-rex scrambled back onto its feet. Its hide—now glistening with mud—seemed to quiver as the dinosaur let out an ear-splitting roar, louder and deeper than any we had heard so far. The Spinosaurus screeched back in kind, letting out a deep, whistling howl which sounded more like a bird call from Hell than anything else I could imagine.

“Don’t worry!” Archean shouted over the dinosaur cries. “This will be over soon! You’re not a good enough meal for a T-rex to risk—”

But, interrupting Archean’s attempts to reassure us, the Tyrannosaurus suddenly lunged at the Spinosaurus. In an instant, the T-rex had its massive jaws around the Spinosaur’s long, almost graceful neck. Blood gushed from the puncture wounds as the beast wrenched its jaws downward, rolling the Spinosaurus to the gravel below.

Archean just managed to scamper off his mount to avoid getting crushed beneath the dinosaurs, and limped over our direction.

“I… I don’t understand,” he breathed. Now, he stood between us and the two battling dinosaurs, his arms spread wide. “It’s not like she’s hungry… We’re not…” Archean’s eyes slowly drifted over our group, before widening as he saw Fern clutched in Amber’s arms—still chirping at the two fighting dinosaurs.

“Amber…” Archean said, slowly and carefully. “Where did you get that baby T-rex?”

“W-what?” Amber stammered.

“Amber…” Archean repeated. “Where’d you get him?”

Silence passed between them as Amber’s eyes darted between Fern and the hulking Tyrannosaurus still wrestling with Archean’s Spinosaurus. The rest of the class seemed similarly dumbfounded, although—for some reason—I was more surprised that Archean had remembered Amber’s name more than anything else.

“Oh my fucking God, Amber,” Hannah muttered. “Seriously?”

“What?” Amber hissed back. “There’s no way Fern can be… that,” she said, gesturing toward the fighting dinosaurs with one hand while the other clutched onto Fern. “She’s so small,” she added in protest. She was right that—considering its downy coat and tiny stature—it was difficult to imagine the baby dinosaur growing up into a Tyrannosaurus. At the same time, once Archean said it, it was like it all clicked together. Fern’s weird behaviors, the T-rex’s persistence…

“Look…” Archean paused, casting a glance in the direction of the two battling dinosaurs. The Spinosaurus snaked its neck out of the T-rex’s grasp, but hadn’t freed itself without long gashes running over its scales. Archean took a step closer to Amber and Fern. “Maybe he’s small now, but they grow up to be very, very big.”

“B-but…” Amber started, tripping over her words. “She… She was just lost.” Resignation crept into her voice as she studied Fern with huge eyes. Maybe she could see it now, too: that—even if its small, awkward limbs had yet to grow into the massive animal before us—there was an undeniable resemblance. Underneath its feathers, I hadn’t been able to see it before. Yet, there was something about its face—its sharp teeth, and those round, observant eyes…

“And now it’s time to go home. His mother is waiting.” As Archean studied Amber, I wondered what his expression looked like beneath the skull mask. Whatever was running through his head, his measured tone and the tight line of his lips didn’t give anything away. He continued, “My Spinosaurus… This is the only fossil I have that can stand up against a T-rex. But my fossils… They’re only constructs. It won’t stay intact for much longer.”

The two giants continued to exchange snarls as they wrestled each other. The Spinosaurus slammed its massive tail into its opponent’s flank, momentarily knocking the T-rex off balance. Its huge feet sunk into the mud, but it quickly steadied itself—lunging at the Spinosaurus once more. Dark streaks of blood ran down the Spinosaurus’ sides, and it breathed heavily as it struggled against the Tyrannosaurus’ weight. As huge as the Spinosaurus was, its delicate build and long, swan-like neck contrasted its opponent. It appeared almost graceful—clearly more at home in water than land. The T-rex, on the other hand… It was stocky—built like a semi-truck—and it was becoming increasingly clear that the Spinosaurus could only buy us time, not beat the deadlier dinosaur.

Amber’s eyes glistened with tears as she stared at Fern, who struggled in her arms. She seemed locked in place, as if paralyzed with indecision.

“Oh my fucking God, just give the T-rex its baby!” Hannah shouted at her, breaking the silence.

“Holy shit, Amber. Just do it!” Camilo yelled.

“If you don’t drop—” Jazmine started, but Amber cut her off.

“Alright!” Amber snarled at everyone. She turned back to Fern, her expression instantly softening. Then, she looked to Archean and somberly nodded his direction. Her grip on Fern slowly relaxed. And, finally, she let go entirely—placing the baby dinosaur onto the ground.

“Be good now,” I heard her whisper.

We all watched as Fern took a few hesitant steps into the swaying horsetails. It halted, and emitted a loud chirp as it glanced wildly between the two fighting dinosaurs and then back at Amber. It took a step toward the battle, then retreated two steps back toward Amber again.

Amber waved her arms, shooing Fern. “Go, Fern! Go!” she encouraged.

The little dinosaur squeaked again, looking back and forth between the battle and Amber. Just then—perhaps willed by Archean—the Spinosaurus backed up. The T-rex snapped after it, biting into thin air as the Spinosaurus slunk away. Although covered in wounds from its opponents’ bites, it managed to maintain its position between us and the Tyrannosaurus.

The T-rex swung its head around, its attention captivated by Fern’s desperate chirps. Its growl softened, fading into a low rumble. The baby T-rex looked back at us one last time before scurrying toward its mother.

The small creature leaped between rocks, as to avoid being swallowed up by the shallows. It darted past the Spinosaurus, straight to the T-rex.

The T-rex leaned down its enormous head, its rumbling little more than a low rattle now. Its muzzle touched the baby dinosaur with a surprising gentleness, and Fern chirped and wagged its tail in return. The T-rex’s nostrils widened as it inhaled deeply, and—once the mother had taken in the scent of its offspring—it lifted its head again, facing the Spinosaurus.

I sensed my classmates holding their breaths as the two giants stared intently at each other. After a moment of silence, the T-rex let out a loud, deafening roar. Next to it, Fern let out a much smaller squeak—as if trying to mimic its mother.

The Spinosaurus, standing with its feet firmly planted in the mud, opened its long jaws and let out that strange, eerie bird-like call again. The two predators fell into another silence as they continued to stare at each other. For a moment, I worried that the T-rex would decide to finish the fight and lunge at the Spinosaurus once more. But, to our collective relief, it only let out a grunt before turning its attention to Fern.

It lowered its head to nuzzle its baby, nudging it back toward the redwoods. As it started walking toward the treeline again, Fern sprinted behind it—jumping through mud and leaping between rocks to keep up. The Spinosaurus only stared after them, blocking the path between them and us.

I looked around at my classmates. While Amber blinked away tears, her expression had softened. Next to her, Daniel slumped back into a patch of horsetails, exhaustion rolling over him. I exchanged a look with Camilo. He sent me a weak smile, looking more worn out than ever as Gabriel held onto his shoulders. Then, I glanced at Hannah who—despite everything—shot me a grin, her expression both giddy and nervous at the same time.

A quiver ran through the swarm. Except, this time, it wasn’t panic which prompted them. Instead, relief washed through me. And, as my bees settled down again, it finally hit me; we had made it.

Archean had walked over to his Spinosaurus, where he rested his palm against its leg. Blood still trickled down its scales. After a moment of watching the Tyrannosaurus as it walked off into the woods, Archean turned to us with a weary—but warm—smile.

“Let’s go,” he said.