The Lost Country, Episode Two

Chapter 3

WE DROVE ON IN SILENCE, Sam having killed the music (The Best of Randy Newman, as I recall), past the TCL Chinese Theatre—where a pack of raptors were picking over the corpse of a diplodocus calf—past the Capitol Records Building (whose round, spired roof was crowded with seagulls and pterodactyls), then left on N. Gower Street and up to Scenic Avenue—which would take us to Beachwood Drive and on to the Hollywoodland hills. That is, had its shoulders not been choked with cycads and its roadway blocked by a black allosaurus (we were all pretty much experts on dinosaurs now): which had simply lazed over in the middle of the asphalt as though it were sunning itself—its long, sinewy legs stretched luxuriously and its tail straight and unfurled, its great, blood-red crests glistening.

“Oh, for f**k’s sake,” I said—and brought us to a gradual halt.

I honked the horn—taking note of the dead triceratops in the reeds (which was partially eaten), as well as the allosaur’s obviously full belly—but there was no response.

“Just go, man,” said Lazaro. “It’ll move. And if it doesn’t, so what.”

“He’s right, Jamie,” said Sam. “I don’t think we have time for this.”

I put it in gear and inched forward—revving the engine even as I laid on the horn, moving to within a few feet of it.

Still it did not move—only twitched a little as though it were dreaming; maybe flicked its tail once slightly.

“Jesus, are you kidding me?” I was beginning to lose my patience. “Let’s go! It’s time to pick ‘em up and move ‘em out.”

I inched still closer—until one of the thing’s outstretched feet vanished beneath what passed for the hood. Then it did move, rearing its head and gnawing at the push bar—only gently, playfully, like a cat disrupted from a nap—before getting up suddenly and shuffling aside; at which I stepped on the gas and we lurched forward—turning wide as we passed through the intersection; rumbling up Beachwood like an out-of-control freight train; breaking off heavy branches like twigs.

I looked into my sideview mirror even as Sam did the same, saw the thing bounding after us like a leopard, like a wraith, gaining rapidly.

“What is it?” snapped Mr. Fantastic. “What’s going on?”

I glanced between it and the road, accelerating rapidly. “It’s chasing us. f**k. Better get up into the Crow’s Nest, Lazaro. Just don’t get trigger-happy; we’re gonna need the ammo. Nigel, I’m going to need you to—”

“It’d be best to just let it go,” said Mr. Fantastic. “I mean, what’s it going to do—bite through solid steel?” He put a hand on my shoulder, comfortingly, reassuringly. “Save the ammo, Jamie. It’ll give up before we get there.”

I looked around the cockpit: at the banks and banks of instrumentation, the suffocating array of dials and switches—before focusing on a glowing blue toggle; and flipped it. “I don’t know about you, Doctor ...” There was a thump-thump-thump as I turned to face him. “But where I’m from—they call that ‘borrowing trouble.’”

And then the smoke grenades had detonated and we were crashing through their clouds—at which I hit the brakes hard and hung an immediate left, skidding onto a side street, and whereupon we quickly circumnavigated the block to burst back onto Beachwood. Where we instantly realized—just before swinging north—that we could no longer see the street south of us; nor, for that matter, any evidence whatsoever of a pursuing allosaurus—black with red crests or otherwise.

––––––––