And then suddenly the picture was staggered and spinning.
There was one brief shattered image – indecipherable – as if the chopper had somehow been physically struck in mid-air.
The video-feed went dark.
There was nothing else after that. The little screen went blank.
For several moments, the small group of them stood, staring at each other.
“Okay,” the big burly fellow asked aloud, “what the hell was that?”
The clerk was shaking his head. “All I know is that it all went down literally within the last hour – and it was the whole damn city. And before the audio cut out, they said it was starting to happen everywhere.”
“What do you mean everywhere?”
“Everywhere,” the clerk said. “New York. L.A., Chicago... London, Paris – fuckin' Beijing.”
But the big guy was shaking his head stubbornly.
“Oh come on. This doesn't even make any sense. What? Did every country in the world just go psycho overnight and suddenly decide to blow each other up?”
He turned to Jonah, as if for confirmation. Jonah stared back doubtfully.
“Wait a minute,” the woman-in-flannel said. “What's 'happening everywhere'? What exactly did you see?”
The clerk blinked back at her, hesitant to put it into words.
“I... don't know what I saw,” he stammered helplessly. “There were... things.”
The big guy snorted derisive laughter.
“'Things',” he repeated. “Great.”
He tossed twenty bucks for gas and groceries on the counter,
“My sister lives in L.A.,” he said, “I've got a land-line at home. I'll give her a call.”
Now he actually chuckled. “That's one of the benefits of living in the Northwest – no one ever wants to bomb Oregon.”
He hiked his grocery bag over one shoulder and walked out, still tapping his phone, trying to raise a signal.
Jonah flipped back his own Star Trek screen to see if he could at least access voice-mail. Walking with his head down, he nearly tripped over the woman-in-flannel standing at the door, who was likewise trying to activate her own dead phone.
She looked up with a neutral shrug. “Nothing.”
Jonah held the door for her and followed her outside.
He almost bumped into her again as she suddenly stopped cold, her breath catching in an abbreviated gasp.
Nearly stumbling, he reflexively caught her shoulders in his hands, before he looked up to see what was the matter.
Standing in the parking lot, just between the store and gas-pump, was a dinosaur.
In fact, it looked like a T. rex.
It was eating the burly gentleman who had walked out before them.
The five-foot head tossed back the still-kicking mouthful the way Jonah had seen a pelican toss down a flopping fish.
There was a wet, gulping swallow, and then the beast turned its attention to them.
Its head cocked, fixating like a hawk.
Jonah froze, unsure whether to move.
Beside him, however, the woman-in-flannel pulled a pistol from her deceptively frumpy jacket. Feet spread, demonstrating obvious training, she began to shoot – firing off an entire clip.
The first sting startled the beast – it snapped at empty air after each successive shot.
Then with a low growl, it turned to them again, apparently making the association – and appearing displeased.
Jaws gaping, it charged.
Chapter 2
That was another thing different from 911 – the impression that it was all very far away.
This was right here and right now.
Jonah was flashing instant recalls of recent headlines – the latest batch of UFO/Bigfoot stuff that had been making the rounds – the sort of stuff that always popped up during slow news-weeks, whenever no one particularly important was shooting at each other.
Not that he had been paying attention, anyway. Sequestered up in his cabin, Jonah had mostly hidden himself away from all that – as he liked it, world events tended to pass him by.
That is, until one day they came right up to your door.
The teeth moved towards them at startling speed.
Jonah had read that Tyrannosaurus possessed a particularly destructive bite – several tons of bite-force, an almost mechanically-reinforced, shock-absorbing skull and neck, with a jaw lined by armor-piercing teeth that bit out huge holes.
Three steps and it would be upon them.
The woman-in-frumpy-flannel, her smoking pistol still in hand, turned and ducked back inside the store.
Half a heartbeat later, Jonah followed.
The clerk turned wide-eyed as they burst back inside – he'd heard the gunshots – and Jonah started to shout a warning. But the point was almost instantly moot as the beast struck the doorway behind them.
Jonah had seen footage of elephants rampaging through towns in Africa – drunk off of fermented fallen mangos – four and five-ton animals that bulldozed human-constructs like paper.
T. rex weighed what? Eight tons? More?
The entire store-front collapsed as the beast crashed through. The clerk was crushed right along with the architecture, even as the store alarm blared its warning.
Pinned under a collapsed cross-beam, the old man struggled briefly.
Then the massive jaws came down, rooting him out, yanking him free of the debris like a crow grabbing after the early-morning worm.
The jaws snapped the clerk in half. Another pelican toss, and both pieces disappeared down the cavernous gullet.
Then the beast's eyes turned to where Jonah and the woman-in-flannel had been knocked to the floor. The crocodile-jaws seemed to smile.
“Out back,” Jonah said, his voice a terse whisper. “My truck.”
The woman gave him another quick appraisal, but nodded, and the two of them scrambled out through the stockroom, stumbling in the dark for the rear exit.
Behind them, there was a loud crash – the rex moving to follow.
And above them, the timber began to creak. The primary support post had been taken out with the front wall, and now the
