Pteranodon Mall (11 page)

He took out the necklace and held it above his head, watching the mall’s soft lighting reflect off the gems. Sandy was going to love this. It would be his peace offering to show that he did care about her. He sniffed and shoved the necklace back into his pocket. Not that she’d have much of a choice in the matter. Once Zinik-Tow had finished putting every other human male down, there wouldn’t be anyone left for her anyway.

The three meat-eaters literally leaped over the grazing herd, each one landing on a soldier’s head. He shook his head in utter disbelief as their snapping jaws tried and failed to bite through the soldier’s protective head coverings. It struck Desmond as such a strange thing for them to do, considering they ignored the huge carcass. Did they know their attack would be a futile gesture? One soldier grabbed a tail and pulled it off its head. The soldier held it by the hips and slammed its body into the floor. One of the other small meat-eaters had fared even worse. A mushed-up mess of skull and brain was all that remained of its head. The tiny fact that its attacker was already dead couldn’t have reached the soldier’s brain as it continued to stamp the meat-eater into the ground.

Only one was able to leave the soldier’s impromptu rest area alive. It limped away from them, occasionally turning its head to spit at the laughing soldiers. One of the lookouts dropped the severed leg, aimed his big gun at the retreating animal, and fired. His laughing increased as the meat-eater’s body dissolved.

That had to be the weirdest thing he’d seen so far. What had possessed those things to commit suicide? They weren’t stupid. Desmond had already seen that those little monsters had more brains than those plant-eaters. “It must be hate,” he surmised. “Or fear.” He tried to remember if Zinik-Tow had said anything about having anything like those animals in his alternate time-frame. Something told Desmond that in their time-frame they had no animals at all on the planet. That made sense, considering how much respect for life that they’d shown so far.

He watched the commander berate his two lookouts. It pulled the hind legs out of their grasps and threw the meat over to the other soldiers before he pulled something from his side. His took two steps back while the lookouts bunched together. The commander then aimed the small device at the pair. Desmond leaned forward, hoping it was going to turn the pair of those lookouts into puddles of slime.

The commander fired. Desmond shook his head in disgust when all they did was fall to the floor and writhe about in the blood while screaming in agony. If he’d have been that commander, he would have killed them both, just to teach others a lesson.

After a few more seconds, the lookouts got to their knees, and threw up before getting back onto their feet. The others crowded around the lookouts. From where Desmond stood, it looked like they were helping them get themselves sorted out as their commander silently watched over them. It almost brought a tear to Desmond’s eyes, watching how they acted together.

It brought back the memories of his short stint in the forces. For the first time in Desmond’s crappy life, he had been happy. Oh, just like his family, they too the rip out of him. Unlike those of his blood, his army buddies would watch his back. They looked after each other. They were his true family.

Judging from the reactions of the other soldiers, Desmond guessed that they were surprised as him to find their two lookouts still breathing. He didn’t think it was the sudden spurt of sentimentality on the commander’s front. It was more of the simple fact that those soldiers were an endangered species now. Once they were gone, that was it, no more biological tanks. Just like the rest of the feathered fuckwits and the dinosaurs, they were stuck here. There was no going back home.

The soldiers reformed their squad and continued on their way, disappearing into the department store. It didn’t take long before the familiar sound of weapons’ fire reached him. Desmond left the store’s alcove and made his way other to the over side of the concourse, keeping his eyes fixed on the entrance to the department store. It would be just his misfortune to have one of those soldiers turning around at exactly the same time as he passed the store. If that happened, it would be
goodbye
to Desmond. Unlike those lookouts, he wouldn’t get a second chance.

His luck had held out so far. And he wanted it to stay that way as well. Desmond reached the scene of the slaughter and eased his way past the animals still grazing on what was left of the vegetation. He heard screams and shouts coming from the department store, but just like these four-legged beasts, it had nothing to do with him. Desmond didn’t care who those soldiers melted. He knew for a fact that if the shoe had been on the other foot, none of those idiots would give two shits about him.

The door leading to the lower level was within sight now. He skidded to a halt just before he reached the mall’s restaurant area and watched a couple of smaller dinosaurs as they climbed on top of a large carcass. A brown one with a long neck pulled off a strip of meat and attempted to swallow its prize, only to find another, slightly larger animal had sunk its teeth into its tail. They snapped at each other for a moment before a large roar, coming from somewhere else on this level, scared them away.

Desmond felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end when he heard that noise. So far, he hadn’t had the dubious pleasure of bumping into anything much larger than him yet, and he intended it to stay that way. He gave it another few more seconds before he ran past the carcass, almost jumping out of his skin when the dinosaur that he thought had fled hissed at him from inside the dead animal’s ribcage.

“Bugger off,” he muttered. “I’m not interested in stealing your food.” Desmond got to those double doors without getting his arse bitten. “I must have some Irish in me.” He grinned, reaching for the door.

Two pairs of hands whipped out and fastened around Desmond’s wrists as soon as he pushed the doors opens. He yelped in shock and found himself gazing into the furious faces of the mall manager and one of the security guards.

“Fancy meeting you here,” said Mrs. Killmore. She turned to the guard. “What do you think we should do with him, Mo?”

Desmond tried to struggle out of their grip and received a sharp slap across his cheek for his trouble.

“Do that again, you little shit,” she growled, “and I’ll punch you in the balls. Now stay still.”

“Get off me! I haven’t done anything to you!” This was so unfair. Why were they doing this? Desmond so wished his pal was here. He’d soon fix their wagon. He did think of using him to threaten them but backed out at the last minute. The furious looks on their faces told him that his association with the feathered fuckwit was probably why they were acting like this.

“He’s a turncoat. A traitor to his own kind.” Mo straightened his ripped black jacket. “If this was war, then we’d have to execute him.”

The woman turned around, and then Desmond saw that these two were not alone. Another five people were standing on the landing twelve steps below them. He didn’t recognise any of them. He guessed they must be what remained of the shoppers. Desmond tried to smile without snarling. “Please, I’m just like you lot, trying to stay alive. I haven’t hurt anyone.” He swallowed a couple of times, trying to dislodge the lump that had appeared at the back of his throat. Was he appealing to their sense of good nature?

“I saw him with one of them,” shouted a young blonde girl. Tears poured down her cheek. “He stood there and grinned when those evil bastards let the dinosaur rip my Jeremy apart. I say we do the same to him.”

The others nodded in unison.

“Seems fair to me,” said Mrs. Killmore. “Desmond, I have never liked you anyway. There’s been more complaints about your attitude than anybody else in the mall. I was going to let you go in a few days’ time anyway. Looks like I won’t have to now.”

“What do you want done with him?”

“We’ll throw him off the balcony, Mo. The fall won’t kill him, but it should break his legs. We can then all watch as the dinosaurs pull him apart.”

Desmond’s screams were cut short when the security guard clamped his hand over the man’s mouth.

Chapter Thirteen

Jefferson wrapped the bandage around Sandy’s arm one last time before tying it. “That should do it,” he announced. Janine had already removed the girl’s previous bandage, a blood-soaked strip of blouse, and popped it into a plastic bag. Jefferson thought she was just being generally neat and tidy, the way women are, until it twigged that she’d done it to stop the predators from catching their scent. Considering that he was now down to just three bolts, they needed to take every precaution.

“He’d make a great nurse,” said David. “Seriously. I reckon we should all put together and buy Jeffdude one of those sexy numbers, complete with black stockings and everything.” He winked at Alan.

“And to think I was actually missing the idiot,” muttered Sandy. She smiled at Jefferson. “Thanks for fixing me up, by the way.”

“No problem. Alan did a good job on the first one.”

“Do you think it could be infected? I mean, you reckon I should grab some antibiotics or something?”

Jefferson shook his head. “I think that’s only for bites, Sandy. I guess if you start to see any pus coming out of the wounds then we can see if we can find some. We were always told to seek medical attention in a case like that. Our first aid course only covered the basics.” He looked over at the store front, noticing more activity. He heard some shouting as well as more movement. “I think we should move away from the entrance.”

Janine passed the plastic bag to David, then hurried over to one of the stone pillars and peered around it. She looked back at Jefferson. She didn’t look at all happy at what she’d just seen. He grabbed his crossbow and motioned Sandy, David, and Alan to move back.

He ran over to her position, a bolt already notched. “Oh shit.”

Jefferson had gleaned everything he could from Sandy’s adventure in the nightmarish place. A job made all the more difficult with David’s constant interruptions. It was like he didn’t even care about the trauma that his friends had been through. He acted like some excitable child, wanting to know every detail of everything they’d seen in there. In the end, Alan had to take him aside before Sandy knocked him out. The only time when he’d stopped talking was when Sandy first described the creatures.

“They don’t look like what attacked Sandy.”

He shook his head. “No, something tells me that we’re in more trouble than we even realised.” Jefferson saw a similarity to Sandy’s stick-like yellow bird men but only superficially. It was like comparing a dwarf giraffe with a two-legged rhino, wearing a suit of armour and carrying a gun the size of a lamp stand.

They looked a bit like the armoured soldiers they sold in the Gaming Warbox store on the level below. David had loads of the things in his bedroom, all painted up and posed on a model battlefield. He sighed, so wishing that everything was back as it should be. Jefferson didn’t think he could take anymore of this bullshit. To think that just a few hours ago, he’d been craving for some excitement in his life.

Janine took his hand. “We’d better go join the others,” she whispered.

He wondered if it was possible to wish everything back to how it was, with perhaps a couple of changes. Jefferson didn’t want to lose Janine, that’s for sure. “It looks like we’re going to have to find another way downstairs. We won’t be able to get past those things.” They stopped beside a herd of grazing dinosaurs. “We can’t fight them. I know that much.”

His crossbow wouldn’t be any use against those things. Janine was right, they should go back before those armoured rhinos came in here. Right now, though, it looked like they were having too much fun torturing one of those poor dinosaurs to bother coming in here. Jefferson didn’t think that would last long. The quicker they were out of here, the better.

He looked back at the others. Alan sat on the floor with David and Sandy crouching beside the man. God, he looked terrible. He hadn’t been right ever since they had stumbled upon Sandy and Alan. Then again, after what Sandy had told Jefferson what they’d been through in that place, it didn’t surprise him. Alan had never been the most robust of individuals.

Janine pulled him away from the pillar just as those armoured monsters had grabbed one of the plant-eaters. Jefferson didn’t even want to think what they’d do to the poor thing. He twiddled with his crossbow, that feeling of being helpless reappeared. Oh God. He so wanted to get out of here.

“What is it? What did you see?”

“You know your collection of Star Marines, those few stupid plastic soldiers on your top shelf?”

David nodded. “Two shelves now, Jeffdude. I bought two full battalions of Space-cluster Judgmentors from eBay a couple of weeks ago.”

“Yeah well, that’s who’s now outside the shop.”

Both Sandy and Janine grabbed an arm each when David tried to rush past him. “This isn’t a game, you fucking idiot,” hissed Jefferson. “Those things are real and will so enjoy pulling off your arms and legs.” He could now hear their deep booming noises. Whatever they were doing, it was keeping them out of the store. “You okay, Alan?”

The other man raised his head a couple of inches. “Sure, just tired, that’s all.” He glanced over at David. “That guy’s annoying enough to sap the life out of anyone.”

The man’s poor attempt at humour wasn’t fooling Jefferson. He could see there was something wrong with him. He walked over to where Alan sat and gently pulled him up. He frowned; the guy’s skin felt weird, like it was slipping around his bones. “We’ll be out of here really soon now, dude. Just a little longer.”

“We can go through the back of the store,” said Janine. “This place shares a staff toilet with the phone shop next door.” She kept a firm grip on David’s arm while moving over to Jefferson. “Is your other friend going to be okay?”

Jefferson looked over at Alan. He’d been asking himself the same question. He so wanted to put the lad’s pale complexion and his inactivity down to shock, but it was more that. He really did look ill. Right now though, there wasn’t anything he could do about him, apart from getting the poor bugger out of here as quickly as he could.

“It’s okay, Jefferson,” said Sandy. “I’ll grab him.” She nodded at the crossbow. “We need you to watch our backs.”

“Like this will make a difference,” he muttered. Jefferson waited for his friends to hurry past him before taking up the rear. Those armoured things really disturbed him, even more than everything that had happened to them. He had just seen the beginnings of an army. From the brief glimpses, Jefferson guessed that nothing his species possessed would be of any use against them. Jefferson might be wrong; he could be allowing his natural disposition to worry about everything and anything get the better of him. None of them were acting right. David was being more of a cock than normal. From what Sandy had told him, and with his own eyes, she had turned into a frigging warrior ninja.

It had to be shock. Alan might be at home in a high-stress environment but only when the stress came from managing staff holiday rotas, organising stock replenishment schedules, and ensuring the product planning sheets adhered to the parent company’s regulations. At no time did his job description include battling dinosaurs or escaping from something that belonged in a crappy science fiction movie.

He put his troubled thoughts away and focussed on the task at hand, namely getting him and his friends out of here in one piece. Thankfully, the predators were now very few. They had heard their roars and growls in the distance, but they were now few and far between. He guessed they must have either eaten each other or gone in search for more prey. Jefferson skirted past a chewed-up human skeleton. There was also the possibility that the bastards had all gone to find somewhere to sleep off their meals of plant-eating dinosaurs with a side dish of terrified shopper.

If that really was the case, the need to get out of here only became more urgent. There wasn’t many of them left now. He had seen glimpses of other humans but that was more scarce than hearing the meat-eaters.

Janine stopped beside a plain white door. She tapped the security combination lock on the side. “I have a friend who works in the department store. Thankfully, this is one of the days when she doesn’t work.” The woman tapped in a six-digit code, turned the metal handle to the side, and then pulled open the door. “Come on, we’ll be safe in here. I’m not really supposed to know the code, but I don’t really think that matters anymore.”

Jefferson waited until everybody else was inside before he let the door close. It wasn’t much different from his shop’s staff area, just better equipped. For a start, they had their own vending machine and a canteen. Gloria would have loved it in here. Bloody hell! He hadn’t given that woman a moment’s thought until now. “David, any idea what happened to Gloria?”

His friend shook his head. David helped himself to a bowl of biscuits left on one of the tables. “Not a clue. To be honest, I was kinda surprised that she wasn’t still behind her till when we nicked that set of tools earlier.” He pushed one of the biscuits in his mouth. “Knowing her, she probably hasn’t even noticed the bleeding dinosaurs.”

A bit of a cruel assessment of their co-worker, but he had a point. Nothing ever phased Gloria. It seemed like an age since they had all sat around that table, listening to David bang on about him taking down that shoplifter. In truth, it had been Gloria who had collared him first and pushed the guy towards the exit. David’s only contribution had been to panic when Gloria told him to keep an eye on the guy while she went on her break.

Janine gave him a kiss before she left them in the canteen while she scouted out the route. She pointed to the sword when he asked her if she wanted him to go with her. Jefferson watched her leave before he too snatched a biscuit. He wanted to laugh when he saw the clock mounted on the wall above the microwave. According to that, their shop would be closing in about five minutes. He looked at the biscuit before dropping in back in the dish. Like there was anything remotely funny about their situation. He kept saying to himself that everything was going to be all right once they left the mall,
if
they left the mall, that is. Yet, according to that clock, he’d been in here for over four hours, witnessing all this senseless death, running from animals that should be fucking extinct, and now they were hiding from huge rhino-sized bastard lizards!

He turned around and placed his forehead against the cold wall. To top it all, to make this situation even worse than it already was, Jefferson firmly believed that there wasn’t going to be any help from beyond the mall. He slowly spun around and watched the others. David was still eating those bloody biscuits. Sandy had sat down next to David and was running her fingers up and down the bandage, while Alan sat on a wooden chair in the far corner of the room. He looked to be sleeping.

After four hours, this place should be overrun with police and ambulances. He then remembered the pissing dinosaurs. And David’s star bollocks marines. No, scrap the coppers. The army should be in here by now. They weren’t, so something else must have happened somewhere else. It was bloody obvious. All this must be happening in the other large buildings across the city, or even across the country. They could be in the middle of a full-scale invasion.

Jefferson closed his eyes and silently counted to ten. It shouldn’t come as any surprise to find himself going through the stages of shock about now, and why not? According to Janine, only the department store’s employees could come in here, meaning this place was safe. He didn’t even think the rhino soldiers would bother trying to get through that door either. An ideal place for him to have his little breakdown.

There was some kind of commotion going on in the background. As he could only hear Sandy’s voice, he put it down to David acting up again. What else could it be? After all, they were all safe now. Jefferson slid down to the floor and put his hands over his ears to block out the noise. His legs had started to shake. It wouldn’t be long for the rest of his body to follow suit. Jefferson wished Gloria was here right now. She’d tell him a couple of silly jokes, make him drink some warm tea, and generally take the mickey out of David.

Gloria wasn’t here, though. His Janine was around somewhere.
His Janine
. Those words sounded like they were made for each other. Perhaps something good had come out of this clusterfuck after all.

Even through the improvised ear protection, her voice still penetrated his brain. What happened to keeping quiet until Janine came back? It then dawned on him that it was Janine’s voice he could hear.

He snapped open his eyes. Both women stood in front of David. He was still stuffing those biscuits down his throat. Their formless words made no sense, but their gestures were all too familiar. Both women were terrified. Sandy pointed to the corner while Janine looked over towards where Janine said they’d be able to escape to.

Her eyes then found his, and Jefferson’s
fly on the wall
situation abruptly vanished when she ran over to him and pulled him onto his feet.

“We have a problem,” she said, dragging Jefferson over to the door. Both David and Sandy were over by Alan now. She was shaking Alan’s knee while his other friend stood at a safe distance wringing his hands. None of them seemed all that bothered about Janine’s anguished state.

She opened the door and pulled him through.

“What’s wrong with Alan?”