The Complete Flashback Saga

Chapter 3

She took a deep drag off the Marlboro and exhaled slowly, leaning back in the booth and closing her eyes.

The radio on the counter went: S-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s ...”

A hodge-podge of the radio-preacher’s words played back in her mind, she didn’t know why. ‘We know now there can be no compromise ... for I have seen a light in the sky, and we must ready our souls ... throw wide the gates of hell, and let loose the beasts of prey ...’

What the hell had he been talking about?

Savanna saw clouds boiling in her mind’s eye—clouds full of strange lights, like something from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. She saw the lizard-thing’s head poking up through the hole in the floor, turning on Roger.

‘And let loose the beasts of prey ...”

There was a tap on her shoulder. “Honey?”

Savanna jumped, opening her eyes. Clara was standing by the booth, holding some magazines.

“Yes?” Savanna said.

The woman held the magazines out to her. “I managed to squeeze by the riff-raff and get you these. I don’t know what you like to read, I grabbed a selection. I thought maybe it would take your mind off everything.” She laughed. “Videogames seem to be working for me.”

Savanna took them, impressed by her concern. “Thank you, Clara.”

The big woman shrugged it off and walked back toward the arcade. Savanna heard one of the bikers sing: “Here she comes, Miss America ...”

She shook her head and looked through the magazines; there was a U.S. News & World Report, a Cosmopolitan, a Better Homes & Gardens, a Discover. This latter’s cover had a picture of a dinosaur on it. She flipped through its pages absently—and passed something which caught her eye. It had looked like ...

She rifled back in search of it, and found it was part of a four-page fold out. She pulled out the staples with her fingernails, her pulse quickening, and spread the diorama out on the table. It was captioned: The Great Dinosaur Predators, and depicted a line-up of nasty-looking saurians. Scanning it, she found Roger’s attacker somewhere in the middle. She stared at it intently. The likeness was almost perfect: the monitor-like face, the avian anatomy, the strange arms. That’s the one, officer, she thought insanely.

She examined it closer. It’s mini-caption read: Velociraptor Antirrhopus. Eighty-million years ago; six feet long; Asia. Aka ‘Dinosaur with an Attitude.’

Trembling, she took a final hit off the cigarette and crushed it out in the little tin ashtray on the sill.

Dinosaur ...

She looked outside, actually noticing the huge snowflakes. What in God’s name is going on? she thought.

The steely knob was an ice-ball in her palm as she twisted it clockwise and nudged the office door open. A shaft of pale light fell slanting across the cot, and the motionless figure lying there. She walked in without a sound, placing her sandals ever so carefully on the plain concrete floor.

Kneeling beside Roger in the dark, she whispered: “Hey Old Hoss, what’cha doin?’”

He lay utterly still. Not even his watch was ticking. Her ears buzzed with the room’s silence. Carefully, very carefully, she eased her head down onto his chest and lay her tear-crusted cheek against the soft wool of his sweater. His heart beat was weak, but steady. She turned her head just slightly and kissed his sweater. Knitted wool pulsed gently and tickled at her lips.

His dry lips kissed at the air once, twice.

V | ChimeraSUNLIGHT SPILLED THROUGH the open window and curtains rustled. Savanna awoke to a breeze. Roger lay beside her, snoring. She climbed out of bed and approached the window. As she took hold of the sliding pane, she heard the sound of animals outside. Looking out, she realized Seattle had been replaced with a forest. Dinosaurs lounged by the shade of a lagoon. A few predators chased their prey. The sky looked down and smiled. Savanna smiled, too. Then clouds began to boil in the distance. She watched as they rolled toward her, bringing with them strange lights. They passed over the apartment building and all was dark. There was a tap on her shoulder. She turned around, expecting Roger. It wasn’t Roger. It was something with huge dark eyes and gray skin, a tapered head, a slit mouth. It stepped up to the window and waved its hand. The hand had only three fingers. The scene outside changed drastically. Where before there had been peace, now reigned chaos. Dresden was incinerated by firebombs. Hiroshima was gone beneath a mushroom cloud. North Vietnam was doused in napalm. The hand waved again; and Seattle was in flames. Gunshots rang out from every corner. In the parking lot below, a white man and a black man died at each other’s throats. The gray man with the huge dark eyes regarded her. He lifted his hand and waved a finger back and forth. The finger was long like a knife. Shame on you, it implied. Then he was gone. She looked outside and the clouds receded. As they withdrew the forest returned. So did the dinosaurs. Sunlight spilled down and the sky smiled. Savanna smiled, too. The world was at peace again. She turned around to tell Roger. There was a velociraptor perched on their bed. It was chewing her husband’s hand off. Savanna screamed.

She awoke to sudden, fitful movement and violent coughing. She swallowed moistly, blinked, then sat up with a start.

Roger’s head was rocking back and forth on the cot as if he were having a nightmare, and he was drooling heavily.

“Bad dreams?” she groaned. “Yeah ... you and me both.”

She reached for the Tylenol and shook out three capsules into her palm. Moving quickly, she cracked them open like tiny eggs and emptied them into a glass of water on the floor. She swirled the water briefly and reached for a needle. Tearing open the package with her teeth, she drew out the syringe and filled it with Tylenol. Then she administered the shot just as she’d seen Clara do, sliding the needle into the soft flesh of his arm joint, and plugging the hole with her thumb when she drew it back out again. She taped a cotton ball over the spot and began stroking his head lightly.

She glanced at his stump—recalling her dream. She recalled the velociraptor perched on their bed, gnawing at his hand. She recalled the boiling sky, and the gray man with the slit mouth. She recalled the flaming city and the struggling men, the long, waving finger which had implied: Shame on you ...

She pushed it all from her head. Things were scary enough already—she didn’t need to be scaring herself, too.

She looked at Roger’s face and saw that he’d fallen asleep again. She stood up slowly and left the room, easing the door shut behind her.

It came just as she entered the front room. A burst of convoluted speech crackled through the airwaves, and everyone in the room erupted from their places, except Clara. Asteroids could be heard exploding and colliding in the little arcade.

Then, as the clerk and the others hustled excitedly toward the counter—Savanna saw the dark outlines of two giant, bird-like legs stride silently past the window. And she saw something else: some kind of rippling muscle held aloft over the concrete, like a huge black dagger.

A tail.

And like a scream-queen in some schlocky B-movie—she put her hands to her head and shrieked.

Everyone skidded to a halt on the smooth, yellow floor tiles, a motley crew of travelers gathered fearfully behind the handsome n***o clerk and his piercing shaman gaze. They all glared at her in terrified bewilderment. Clara Bonner came running in from the arcade, her hard shoes clicking along the floor. Her ship blew up in an electronic bang in the background.

Savanna stared past them through the window. The graceful, mighty legs and rippling dagger were gone. They’d crossed the entire length of the storefront in only two or three strides.

Her eyes shifted to the clerk’s. “There’s something out there,” she said hoarsely.

The clerk’s eyebrow perked up, like Mr. Spock’s. “Yes?”

They were looking at her as if she were mad. The radio squawked unintelligibly. Somewhere in the jumble of static there were words struggling to be heard. Its gleaming dial screamed to be adjusted.

“It walked past the window right after you turned around,” she said, her voice wavering. “And disappeared. Maybe it’s circling the—”

The clerk put his finger to his lips. “Shhhh ...”

He turned his head very slowly.

Outside, blowing flakes of snow fluttered down like chicken feathers onto a handful of vehicles. Nothing new there. He saw a crusty Plymouth station wagon, a row of Harley-Davidsons, and the unfortunate couple’s 4x4 with its broken windshield and crumpled bumper. It was still hanging onto his old Ford like a metal and chrome pit bull. Again, nothing new. Just a bunch of vehicles—all blanketed in a thin layer of white. Nothing for anybody but the insurance company to worry about. Certainly nothing to scream over. He turned back and looked at her with something like pity.

“Oh, I see,” she sighed. “Crazy b***h has flipped her lid, is that it?”

She thought of her dream. The dinosaurs beneath the sun.

Clara stepped forward and touched her arm. “Hey-hey, listen honey—”

“You might even be right ...” Savanna yanked away and moved toward the window.

A biker leaned forward to tune the radio as Clara and the clerk exchanged nervous glances. An instant later the jumbled dialogue on the airwaves ran clear.

“... a travel advisory remains in effect until further notice. Once again, a state of emergency has been announced for the city of Seattle and all outlying areas. In addition to city-wide rioting, it has been confirmed that at 10:43 p.m., Pacific Time, two twisters touched down in the Seattle-Tacoma area. Residents are advised to”—s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s ...!

Son of a b***h!” the clerk cursed, slamming his fist on the counter. “Get it back, man—get it back on!”

The biker was trying to no avail. “It’s gone, man. It’s all gone just like before.”

“Jesus,” the clerk bristled, turning away from them. “Tornadoes? What the hell is going on?”

“Oh my god,” Savanna said.

“What?” he shouted, his voice high, and spun around to face her.

Savanna wasn’t looking at him. She was slowly backing away from the doors, staring through the glass at something outside.

VI | RogerROGER AWAKENED TO SEMIDARKNESS and the sound of shouting. He recalled faintly the smell of shampoo—had Savanna just been in to see him? And he recalled, too, the dream. The dream.

Just a dream.

The details were already slipping away from him, like so much muddy water sluicing through his fingers. He could recall only that he’d waken in the bedroom of their apartment, not to the alarm but to the sound of Savanna screaming. And a sharp pain. He also seemed to recall looking down, and seeing—

Panic gripped him. The reptile. His hand—his hand—oh my god, it was, it ... was ...

Gone.

He lay there on the stiff canvas of the cot, the details of his surroundings becoming slowly manifest as his eyes grew accustomed to the dimness. Gazing up at the metal grid and white corkboard of the ceiling, with its sleeping fluorescent tubes hidden behind opaque plastic, he experienced a sinking feeling unlike anything he’d ever encountered.

No, it hadn’t been a dream. Not that part. Not the hand bit and not the reptile-thing, either. This wasn’t Dallas or Knots Landing or Sci-fi Theater ... It was reality, and if and when he lifted his hand (stub, it’s just a stub, like Captain Hook without his hook) to examine it he’d find graphic proof that his life had just become simpler. No more trouble with mismatched gloves, no more hassling with that left-handight-hand nonsense, no more giving his fellow motorists that potent, ‘curse you and all your brethren’ Right-hand Bird.