Cretaceous Sea

rain. Con dug in the rain-softened earth with her hands to enlarge the cavity. Eventually, she excavated a space in which to wedge her body. She crawled out of the rain, curled up, and fell into the merciful arms of sleep. CON STOOD BEFORE an immense pink cake decorated with white confectionery roses. There were nine lit can-dles on top. The smell of burning wax blended with the aroma of vanilla and sugar. 'Make a wish! Make a wish!' called voices around her. Con made her wish, the same one she had made for the last three years. She blew out the candles. 'Cut the cake! Cut the cake!' called the voices. Con was very hungry, and though the cake smelled wonderful, she hesitated. As she held the knife poised over the cake, her eyes were on the door. She was waiting for it to open and make her wish come true. Con's dream dissolved, leaving only hunger and mem-ories of vanilla and disappointment. The memories faded as the hunger grew. She awoke. Her feet were cold. She looked at them and was surprised that she could see them. They were black with mud.

Rain still fell from an almost, but not completely, black sky. It had the eerie, unnatural look of overcast night reflecting a city's lights, except this dull sky was without color. Its feeble light was strongest overhead, suggesting that, despite a predawn level of illumination, the light of a noontime sun filtered through the thick clouds. Meager as it was, this was the first daylight she had seen since the sky had burned. She crawled out from her shelter to look around.

The rain was not as heavy as before, yet in the dim light, it obscured most of the landscape. Con could see the near shore of the river, but not the distant one. She could vaguely discern the silhouettes of hilltops nearby. She was standing close to the crest of a hill. It was a bleak and barren place. Whatever had grown there had burned, and even the ashes had washed away. The dead Tyrannosaurus was the only landmark. Con climbed to the top of the hill to get a better view. There was nothing new to see, the barrenness was complete.

Con peered into the gloom, hoping to spot a light. There was none. She reasoned that Rick and Joe must be conserving the batteries. Drawing in a deep breath, she shouted as loud as she could, 'Rick! Joe! I'm here!' She listened intently for a reply. The only sound was rain. She called out again. 'Can you hear me?' Silence was her answer. She screamed, hoping the shrill sound would carry farther. Silence. She screamed again, then over and over. Her cries voiced her despair, her fear, and her lone-liness long after she abandoned hope for a reply. They turned into sobs that racked her as she stood alone in the empty, shadowy landscape. Only hoarseness and the cold caused her to stop crying.

Con held her head back and tried to drink the rain and ease her raw throat. I did not work; too few raindrops hit her open mouth. She was forced to drink from a puddle. She sucked in the muddy water through clenched teeth in an attempt to filter some of the dirt.

'Where should I go?' she asked herself aloud in a hoarse voice. Speaking eased her loneliness. She knew little about surviving in the wilderness, but she did know purposeless wandering would only hamper rescue. It seemed foolhardy to leave the hilltop without a destina-tion. Furthermore, she was poorly dressed to be out in the weather. The rain had already chilled her. She would need shelter to live. Her gaze returned to the dead dino-saur on the hillside. 'Is that the best I can do?' Scanning the barren land around her, she concluded it was.

Con returned to the Tyrannosaurus. The clean air of the hilltop had cleansed her sense of smell, so, as she approached the carcass, she recognized the onset of de-cay. Still, she knew she had little choice but to stay. 'I ignored the smell before, I guess I can do so again.' With resignation, Con set about improving her shelter. First, she piled earth against the dinosaur's uphill side to seal the drafts and scooped out a little trench to divert the flow of water around it. Next, she dug in the earth to enlarge the cavity that was her den. She scoured the hill-side for rocks to build a crude wall between the front of the dinosaur's abdomen and the ground. A gap in the wall served as a doorway. Just outside the doorway, she ex-cavated a hole to collect rainwater to drink. 'If only I had something to cover the doorway,' she said,

'it would be almost cozy.'

Her exertions warmed her,1)ut sapped her energy. The hunger pangs transformed into stomach cramps. She knew her body was running out of fuel, fuel she would need to fight the cold. Con crawled into her cramped, muddy den and removed her shirt to wring it out before putting it back on. The mud-caked garment was only slightly less wet.

Speaking to herself, she said, 'God! I'm hungry!' Yet the problem was not a lack of food, but rather its nature. Her situation was ironic. 'You're lying under tons of meat.' Only it was raw flesh, rotting on a hillside. In comparison, the charred dinosaur meat was dainty fare. Here, nothing would obscure the fact she would be de-vouring a dead animal. The idea made her squeamish.

The only other option was to starve. 'I'm not hungry enough yet!' By her very declaration, she admitted she would be. When will 'hungry enough' be? she asked herself. When I'm sick? When I'm so weak I can barely move? When I'm freezing to death? The sensible thing would be to eat while the meat was less spoiled and she still had some strength. She resolved to eat some and quickly encountered a problem. 'How can I take a bite?' Con felt the thick hide above her. She'd need a knife to penetrate it. The idea of her gnawing through the tough, bumpy skin was ludicrous. 'I could chew for hours with-out making a hole.' Thoughts of her puny teeth made Con think of the Tyrannosaur's knife-like ones. An idea came to her. 'They can be my teeth, too.' She emerged from her den, rock in hand. Even in death, the Tyrannosaur's head was fearsome. Its nightmarish mouth seemed too large for a natural creature. Only a wheelbarrow of flesh would fill it. Above the mouth, a large yellow-green eye stared blindly sky-ward. Con looked into it, but only saw her mud- stained face peering back. She returned her attention to the mouth and its teeth. Con felt a pointed, six-inch tooth. It was sturdy and curved, with edges that had razor-sharp serrations like those on a steak knife. She struck it with her rock at the gum line. The blow sent the tooth flying into the partly open mouth and Con had to stick her whole arm between the jaws to retrieve it.

Tooth in hand, Con surveyed her forty-six-foot-long meal. 'I wonder what's the best part to eat?' She chose an arm, purely for convenience. Compared to the massive body it looked tiny, yet it was the size of a man's and more heavily muscled. Con discovered the serrations on the tooth sliced easily through the thick skin. Dark, sticky blood oozed slowly from the incision. She sawed through muscle, tendons, and cartilage until she held the severed limb in her bloody hands. Despite the cold, she butchered it in the rain rather than where she would rest. She sep-arated the upper arm at the elbow and sliced through the skin and peeled it away. 'Brunch is served.' Con placed her stone, her Tyrannosaur tooth, and the lower arm next to her shoe within her den, then crawled inside with her food.

The rain had soaked and thoroughly chilled her, but she did not want to wring out her shirt with bloody hands.