The Flashback Trilogy

Chapter 4

“No!” shouted Charlotte. She scrambled for the Jeep with her baskets laden with cans.

Corbin began backing toward them. “It fused with the poor bastard—became sort of a man-dinosaur hybrid, just a jumbled mess of flesh with eyeballs in all the wrong places and their organs mixed together, like a casserole. Fortunately, it didn’t live very—”

There was a tumult of cascading cans and jars which clattered and broke against the floor as a velociraptor leapt atop the shelves between them, and he instantly raised his g*n and opened fire. Blood flew off the creature as it danced wildly and its body fell into the adjacent aisle, but was quickly replaced by two more, which pranced along the tops of the shelves, snarling and gnashing their teeth. Corbin bolted for the Jeep.

They had just enough time to close the hatch and pile into the vehicle before the raptors fell upon it and were joined by others, who besieged it no differently than they would a large plant-eating dinosaur, latching onto it with their clawed hands and sickled talons even as Red crunched it into gear and they chirped forward.

“We lost a lot of good men that day,” said Corbin, pursuing the subject as though nothing were going on at all, “while you civilians scrambled to save your own hides. We—”

“Jesus, Corbin, your window!” shrieked Charlotte—too late—as one of the beasts’ heads darted deep into the cab and began thrashing about violently. The Jeep careened against the shelves as Red lost control, first to the left, then to the right, causing groceries to cascade down the windshield and to roll off the hood, as Charlotte slid the pistol from her holster and opened fire on the velociraptor, which bucked and leapt, banging its head against the ceiling, before reversing itself back through the window and falling away.

Corbin cranked up his window and looked at her over his shoulder as Red regained control, and said, albeit begrudgingly, “Thank you.”

But Charlotte was no longer looking at his face; instead she had focused on his shoulder—which had been laid open by the raptor’s flashing teeth and now bled profusely over his policeman’s uniform and down the side of his seat, causing Red to reach behind himself awkwardly and fish around for something even as he accelerated for the front doors of the supermarket.

“There’s a First-Aid kit behind my seat,” he said, and Charlotte quickly joined in the search even as Red added, “It’s right here,” and took his eyes off the wheel just long enough for Corbin to shout, “Red!”

He’d scarcely had time to refocus on the wheel before he noticed a lithe figure awash in the headlights, a figure shorter than the average person and swathed in what appeared to be animal hides, holding a spear, who turned its head to face them and regarded them briefly as its—her—eyes flashed with terror and the Jeeps push bar collided with her body.

––––––––

“It’s human, oh my god, it’s human,” said Charlotte as the Jeep idled and the raptors clawed and bit at the cab.

“No, it’s not,” said Corbin. “I—I saw it clearly before we hit it. It’s ... it’s some kind of ... ape-thing.”

“But the spear, look at the spear!”

“It’s alive, whatever it is,” said Red. He tore his eyes away from the writhing form now laying some twenty feet from the Jeep and regarded them. “And I’m responsible.”

Corbin’s eyes lit up with realization. “Now wait just a damn minute ...”

“He’s right, Red,” said Charlotte. “You can’t go out there.”

Red turned and looked beyond her, through the back window. A glowing green exit sign could be seen at the far end of the aisle. Charlotte followed his gaze. “You better not be thinking what I think you’re thinking,” she said.

“I can make it,” he said, examining the distance, “if you two can get her into the truck. I’ll go through the door and you can pick me up outside.”

Metal buckled as one of the raptors landed on the hood and began gnawing around the windshield, tearing the wipers off. Another joined it, looking in at them with its cold, round eyes, c*****g its head. Corbin gazed at them mesmerized before managing, “The kit ... I’m like, f*****g bleeding all over the place, if you haven’t noticed.”

“Give me your g*n,” said Red.

“Hey, f**k you, I’m bleeding to death here. Look at me!”

Red snatched it from him in one swift stroke. “You’ll survive. She won’t—not when those raptors catch a whiff of her. Charlotte, can you drive this thing?”

She stared at him intensely before saying, at last, “I can drive it.”

He placed a hand on his door handle. “Corbin, give me a fresh clip.”

The ex-police officer just glared at him. “If I could move my arm, I just might.”

Charlotte reached into Corbin’s coat pocket and grabbed one as Red ejected the old clip, then snapped it into place for him. “Locked and loaded,” she said, and smiled tepidly. “You know, it’s not very MIGOW of you, risking your life for a woman like this.”

He looked at her a moment and his eyes flicked up and down her face, and something passed between them which had passed between them before, a thousand times before, in fact. It wasn’t quite attraction, and yet ... “That’s MGTOW,” he said, “and we don’t hate women.” He opened his door less than an inch. “We just don’t trust, deal with, or like them very much. Get the door.”