The Flashback Trilogy

Chapter 8

I indicated the trail—the horses snorting and shuffling about—even as Shawna followed my gaze, and gasped.

“Oh, my God.”

“Shhh ...”

We didn’t budge, didn’t blink, as the allosaur approached: its leg muscles working beneath black and pebbled skin; its blood-red crests gleaming (for, indeed, it appeared to be the same one we had encountered earlier in the day).

“No way, man,” moaned Lazaro—quietly, unsteadily. “No f*****g—”

I waved him to silence even as Shawna worked the horses—stroking their manes, rubbing their snouts; trying to calm them—as I recalled something about horses and predators in the wild, something I’d read: which was that they didn’t fear predators so much as the act of predation—meaning, I suppose, that those who hadn’t encountered dinosaurs before (which these hadn’t, according to Shawna) would have no reason to fear them—unless, of course, they (the dinosaurs) behaved in a threatening way. Which, curiously, this one wasn’t doing.

I carefully reached behind me and pressed the emergency button on my radio. “Here’s where we find out if Mr. Fantastic is right ...”

I glanced at Shawna, who looked back at me questioningly.

“About their vision,” I said. “Predatory dinosaurs. About it being movement-based.”

To the others I mumbled: “I just alerted Mr. Fantastic; we gotta give him time. He’ll hear it and then arm the .50 cal. Just hang on. And keep your horses steady.”

“Here it comes,” said Sam, indicating the allosaur.

And it came—but did not attack; striding instead to a nearby trough (or rather a bathtub on blocks) and beginning to drink—deeply—before plopping down in a cloud of dust and beginning to yawn and stretch ... after which it laid its chin flat and just stared at us—as though we were friends. As though we were one big, happy family.

I exchanged glances with Shawna, who smiled earnestly, unguardedly, even as something whirred—Gargantua’s .50 cal, which swiveled and lowered, training itself on the allosaur.

I shook my open palm, indicating he shouldn’t fire.

“Shawna,” I said—breathlessly, tensely—eyeing the animal carefully, “Walk back to your house. Don’t be afraid. Just ... walk. Slowly. Non-threateningly. Go.”

“Oh, my God, Jamie. But—”

“Do it,” I said, feeling for my rifle, touching its wood stock. “We’ve got you covered.” I gripped the weapon and brought it around—slowly, non-threateningly—saw Sam and the others doing the same. To them I said: “Don’t fire unless I tell you to.”

Lazaro harrumphed, sneering. “What should we do, then, introduce ourselves?”

I looked at the allosaur: at its golden eyes, which were entirely free of the glow—"the Color,” as we often called it, the mysterious light by which we always knew an animal had been affected, been swayed, by them, by the Others—which seemed almost passive, meditative.

“Easy ... He’s not a threat.” I watched as Shawna went, cautiously, reluctantly—then motioned again to Gargantua.

Do not engage, I repeated, staring at its tinted windows. Hold your fire.

“This is ridiculous,” cursed Lazaro, and pumped his long g*n—slowly, smoothly, with hardly a sound. “Are we going to leave it? What—so it can come after us the moment it starts to feel hungry? Are you kidding?”

But I’d already decided; the allosaur would be spared.

We weren’t going to butcher it—even if it meant facing it later, and increasing our risk. Because it was important, somehow—keeping it alive. It was ... I can’t explain it, not really—I couldn’t then and I can’t now. I just knew that we couldn’t kill it. That it—had a purpose, somehow. A mission. Just as we.

“That’s exactly what we’re going to do,” I said, and patted Rusty’s shank, encouraging him forward. “Now let’s move.”

And we moved, trotting up the orangish-tan clay like Chieftains, like a posse, our rifles in one hand and the reins in the other (the allosaur closing its eyes and seeming to doze as Gargantua’s cannon hummed and realigned, following us as we went), Shawna watching safely from her window.

––––––––

It was at once garish and sublime, hipster and gauche, a burnt-orange relic of a bygone era with a tip of the hat to Frank Lloyd Wright and a debt to Googie architecture—a thing as righteous as it was ridiculous, which sat amongst its desert like an outsider, an intruder, as out of place as the transplanted palms and piped-in water, as artificial as L.A. itself.

“They weren’t kidding when they called it the Lost Aztec Temple of Mars,” I said, as Rusty fidgeted and nickered, and shook flies from his ears. “But what’s with all the high fencing and concertina wire—only to leave the entire front-perimeter open? There’s just a hedgerow. No fence at all.”

Nigel sat up in his saddle and looked on, the sweat beading along his forehead. “Be damned if I know; it wasn’t like that before.” He looked around the area—skittishly, I thought. “Maybe he had it removed when they took out the road. He was like that, you know. All about the visual.” He pointed at the house itself. “Wouldn’t have been a problem, though, even if it were there—there’s a man door in the fence just beyond that breezeway.”

I held out my arm as everyone started to move. “I—hold up. I—ah, I don’t like this.”

I scanned the overgrown yard and the cosmetically-placed boulders (some of which were the size of moving vans); looking for traps, looking for threats. “It doesn’t feel right.”