Author: admin

By me, with art by Sam Messerly.

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The snake had multiple arms, dozens of them, and they were moving, pulling its long, sinuous body across the side of the huge rex and down towards Warbell’s prone form. I could hear the old lizard groan. I stopped and stood shivering, holding my rock as the spinal-like centipede maneuvered over my friend’s wounds and towards his head.

Suddenly there was a flash of green light, and a burst of that familiar green fire sprouted on the larger rex’s head. Up to this point every dinosaur I had seen hit by the green flame had fallen immediately, but this time I could see the larger rex struggle and groan for a moment before the fire deactivated the cybernetic systems. The larger rex crumpled over awkwardly and painfully, chin banging against Warbell’s kneecap.

That was enough to get Warbell up with a bellow of pain. The spinalpede tried to hold on, but Warbell turned and shook himself and managed to dislodge the unnatural beast, which fell in a tangle into the field.

At that moment the parasaurolophus appeared, having apparently approached invisibly until it was in position to strike. Warbell stomped on the spinalpede, but glared down the parasaurolophus.

Suddenly a horrible buzzing sound erupted, and a cloud of dust and detritus was thrown up around the fallen larger rex. Instinctively the parasaurolophus ducked and flinched as the whirl of flying junk battered against its body. The air seemed to vibrate all around the larger rex and was building in intensity, appearing like a forcefield around her enfeebled form. The body of the big rex suddenly flew straight up into the air, and as it did, the rex’s shoulder cannons also sprang to life, spraying small blasts of fire in a circle. Gouts of flame burst and spattered across the field, peppering Warbell’s body and making him lurch back. Several shots hit the parasauralophus and sent him sprawling. One blast hit close enough to me that the fire engulfed part of my body, knocking me off my feet.

I crumpled from the impact of the explosion, but I felt no heat. The fire didn’t set me aflame, and instead I felt a wave of prickling numbness followed by a strange sense of refreshing coolness, like I had been coated in menthol. Moments later it was gone, but then I was hit again.

The body of the larger rex was still shooting, over and over, blindly scattering shots across the entire field and filling my ears with the sound of endless explosions. Warbell hunkered down and let the fireballs fly, taking many direct hits. I tried to run, though the explosions were still bursting nearby.

As I dashed away, I saw a shot hit the smaller theropod. He must have been hiding nearby in his invisible cloak (or whatever), but a stray shot struck him, short-circuiting the cloak and knocking him off his feet. I heard him hit the ground with a grunt and a wheeze.

A few moments later, the flying super predator took off in an arc back towards First Pumpkin, leaving behind a field of spitting, bursting green flames.

That was a heck of an exit.

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I paused for a moment, and that moment was long enough. The larger rex pushed Warbell aside with a blow that sent him reeling, and turned its attention towards us, shoulder cannons blinking yellow. Colander yelped and jumped away from the truck. Then there was a flash of light followed by a sound like a hard, sharp snap, and my truck split in half, parts flying in a spray as the truck shuddered and broke apart into spinning, wheeling pieces of shattered trash.

I let off a desperate shot at the dinosaur, but didn’t keep looking long enough to see if I hit. I started running and ducked into the ditch by the side of the road. I heard the hard snap again, and this time a three meter cross section of dirt mere steps away erupted into the air. Top soil, moisture, rocks, shredded vegetation, earthworms and even a section of the street shattered, breaking into smaller and smaller pieces that washed into the air, and I was knocked over by a wave of dust and debris.

In the resulting crush and rush of dirt thundering in my ears, I also heard Warbell’s counter attack and the shriek and terror of dinosaur combat. I couldn’t see anything, though. I just heard the roars as I was buried in dirt and choked on the detritus.

I lay still for a few moments under a layer of soil, my body feeling like one big bruise. Then I began to crawl forward, blinking away the dust, patting blindly with my hands, groping for my rifle. I had dropped my firearm in the explosion. My nose felt like someone had stuffed burnt charcoal and dirt where I should be breathing. Unthinkingly I picked up a big chunk of rock or a piece of the broken blacktop, as if I could somehow use the thing to bash a prehistoric beast into submission, then slowly rose to my feet.

The air was filled with fine dust, which combined with the dim light from the dying green fires and lights on the side of the road, made it hard to see. But clearly by the time I got up, Warbell was down and the larger rex was standing above him doing something. Gloating?

Still not thinking clearly, I wobbled forward gripping the rock I had picked up. As I started to get closer, my blood turned cold.

Warbell was indeed on the ground, multiple gashes on his body, dark liquid seeping out. The larger rex was above him, leaning over, one hand on Warbell’s neck. And something was moving along the larger rex’s back.

It looked like some kind of snake with ropy arms was emerging from the flesh of the enormous orange beast.

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I heard Colander scream, and the triceratops and Warbell both paused. Suddenly a green fireball hit the trike straight in the face, streams of fire spiraling off the big beasty’s frill. The enormous herbivore gaped as the paralyzing effects took hold and collapsed on the spot. Warbell turned around, the green fires that had been clinging to his body beginning to slide off with a series of crackles and pops.

I finally dared to look back at the truck, and though for a moment I had hoped to see Furbud with a nose cannon, instead the massive hulking figure of the oversized tyrannosaurus from the city came into view. Both shoulder cannons were out and activated, but one had drastically changed shape, with a thicker neck and nozzle. It was swiveling around automatically, spraying bubbly foam and putting out fires.

Colander tried to raise the potato-cannon, but the enormous rex batted it out of her hands with its snout. I heard the cannon tumble and crash into the brush at the side of the road. The rex snapped at Colander, and if she hadn’t ducked just in time, the attack would have cut her in half.

Warbell stood staring at the much larger tyrannosaurus and a great weariness seemed to take over his body. All the pain that must have been plaguing his bones and muscles seemed to hit him at once, and his posture slumped. He let out a low groan.

The enormous tyrannosaurus said something in dinosaurian which I couldn’t understand. It sounded very angry, full of hisses and shuddering growls. Warbell shook his head, replying with a quieter series of grunts and rumbles. The larger tyrannosaurus replied again, getting louder still, stomping towards the old lizard.

Warbell stood his ground, and the larger dinosaur rammed its head into the old lizard’s side. Warbell stumbled back several steps, but did not fall. The larger rex continued its tirade, its voice rising to a shrieking rage. But Warbell kept shaking his head.

I started edging my way back to the truck. Colander was getting her potato cannon out of the ditch. She was wearing her belt of grenades, but didn’t look very optimistic about the effectiveness of her set of weaponry.

Just fight,” I said, but the words turned to mothballs in my mouth. “Fight back!”

“I have tear gas,” said Colander. “Maybe that would make everyone cry really hard at least. That’s what I feel like doing.”

“Whatever you shoot is just going to hit them both,” I said.

I looked back at the two rexes. The larger one was snapping at Warbell, butting the smaller rex again with his head, shrieking and roaring. I yanked open the door to my truck and pulled out my rifle. I checked the bullets, my hands shaking, cocked the thing, then carefully raised the sights.

Warbell saw me, and he came to life. He dodged another attack from the larger tyrannosaur and took a step in my direction.

“No!” he yelled in English. “Don’t shoot her!”

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Immediately the dinosaur trio responded with their green-fire cannons, and the evening air was ablaze with emerald flashes and showers of sparks and shimmering, spitting arcs of flame. The green balls of fire exploded off of Warbell’s skin in luminescent waves, flames pooling around him, burning, flashing. But Warbell kept right on walking.

“You want to make this a fight?” Warbell said. “I turned off my cybernetics. Your green fire has no effect. My whole body is in pain. Do you know how mad that makes me?”

I realized that, for whatever reason, Warbell was talking in English so that we could still understand what was being said. Possibly because he was still trying to include us as part of the conversation. Maybe just out of common courtesy. The other dinosaurs for whatever reason followed his lead.

“You have to go back to the Kingdom of all Eternity and Perfection of our People and the Future,” said the parasaurolophus as the other two dinosaurs continued to fire their cannons. “You aren’t supposed to be here, in this age.”

Warbell looked incredibly scary wreathed in the inferno, eyes flashing in the crackling flames, sharp teeth glittering in the jade light. And he just kept stalking forward.

“You knew what was happening, didn’t you?” he asked, standing taller. “You knew what really happened to (here he spoke what I assume must be the name of his mate in dinosaurese), didn’t you? You knew it wasn’t a heart attack! But you didn’t tell me! You didn’t tell anyone the truth of what happened to their loved ones! But anyone who cared to look into the matter would soon find out it wasn’t a heart attack. So what kind of conclusion do you think they would come to? Huh?”

Warbell was almost upon the trio of dinosaurs, and they started to back up. The theropod especially almost pranced away.

“I loved her!” Warbell roared, his voice so loud I had to cover my ears. “I would never hurt her! Yet some accuse me of murder! And you took her away from me!”

The theropod and the parasaurolophus broke and ran, but the triceratops stood his ground. The twin horn cannons on his head changed shape subtly, and the green light again morphed to that sharp, searing yellow I had seen in the city.

“There is more than one way to stop you,” said the triceratops. “We will do what we have to do.”

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By me, with art by Sam Messerly.

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No, I didn’t have any sort of grand plan. I had no idea what I was doing. But there is a certain point when all the insanity going on in my life kind of crystalized into something similar to bravery, which just proved to me that bravery is a few steps away from insanity itself. Sometimes you are so scared that the only thing left to do is something other people will think is brave.

I certainly didn’t think I was being brave. I didn’t think anything very clearly. I just started walking, and it was really uncomfortable because my pants were still wet from having peed them back in town.

Given this was the second time I had wet my pants dealing with dinosaurs, it really underscored the fact that I need to make sure my bladder is empty whenever working with Warbell.

“Hey!” I yelled. “Hey, you guys! Look, I know you’re not happy. Believe me, I am very much not happy right now, too. But let’s talk this through.”

The triceratops and the parasaurolophus were looking at me now, and they very much did not look happy. The theropod with the limp was still ignoring me and looking over my shoulder at the truck. I waved at him.

“Hey! We have a lot to talk about! So stop shooting green fireballs and start listening!” I shouted.

The parasaurolophus shook its head at me and snorted.

“This matter does not concern you, human being,” it said in a grumbling monotone. “This is a matter to be dealt with by the dinosaurs.”

I stopped in my tracks, but now I was getting mad. I yanked up my pantleg and pointed at my artificial leg.

“This doesn’t concern me, huh?” I yelled. “You know how I got this fake leg? Because of this “matter”—this “matter” that your people are stealing from earth! How do you think you are getting your babies? You’re stealing organic matter and taking it to your stupid immortal dimension when you go back with your young, and all that muscle and tissue in your babies’ bodies comes right out of us! You stole my leg, you freaking monsters!”

All three of the dinosaurs were looking at me now, and they looked surprised. At least I think that was the emotion. They stopped advancing, anyway.

“You don’t know anything about our kingdom,” said the triceratops, though its pronunciation was pretty bad due to its stiff face and beak. “We did not steal your leg.”

“Yeah?” I yelled, shaking my fist. “Are you telling me your people don’t come over on honeymoon trips to this world? And how old are you? You’re immortal, right? How long do you think humans live? Usually less than a hundred years. Yet your actions are stealing our lives, and you just keep on living forever!”

“Who told you these things?” asked the theropod in a surprisingly high and whiny voice.

The three dinosaurs started squabbling and sniping at each other, throwing barbs, grunting, barking as they slipped into dinosaur talk and back into English. After a few rounds of chattering and snorting and squalling, a sizzling stalemate seemed to settle over the situation.

“Don’t listen to him,” said the triceratops finally. “We have to finish this quickly.”

“Alright, if you won’t listen to him,” came a voice from behind me. “Then listen to me.”

I looked. There was Warbell in sharp-tooth mode striding angrily around the truck straight for the three dinosaurs.

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Chapter 70

The first dinosaur that we got a good look at was a triceratops, stalking forward, its horns (instead of its shoulders) jerry-rigged into cannons. The beast had a colorful frill and by this time I was yelling out some colorful expressions. Nearby was a parasaurolophus dashing towards the road, tail waving behind, the now familiar cannons emerging from it’s upper arms. The last was some kind of theropod dinosaur—look, I don’t know what they are all called. This one had lots of spots and a nasty annoyed expression. He also had a limp. I hoped that was from Furbud.

I was going to try to just dash through at top speed, but then the triceratops shot twin blasts from his cannons at a patch of road in front of my truck, causing a massive dome of green fire to block our path. I hit the brakes, and we skidded to a stop. The smell of burnt rubber assaulting my nose shortly after we stopped moving.

 “A bit of a warning would be nice,” called a cramped voice from the back of the truck. Colander. “I think I just got plastered against your back window.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m distracted!”

Warbell slowed nearby, though he walked around in circles several times instead of completely stopping.

“My legs are killing me,” he said.

“What do we do?” asked Colander. “My grenades aren’t real grenades. Itching powder isn’t going to scare these big bruisers away.”

“Stall them,” Warbell said, crouching awkwardly behind the truck now and grunting in pain. “I am going to turn off my cybernetic enhancements, but it will take some time. After I accomplish that, they can’t stun me. And if I actually try to fight them physically, there is a good chance they will run away. These dinosaurs have lived immortal lives for countless centuries in the frozen world. They are probably extremely uncomfortable right now, just being here, knowing they can die. They are probably nearly as scared as we are.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Not entirely,” said Warbell. “But I am very confident that they would never turn off their cybernetics. They are in for quite the surprise.”

There were more green explosions nearby, on the road behind us. I could hear people screaming and yelling—other drivers caught in this nightmare trying to escape from First Pumpkin. I could see some of them, too—a couple in a little two-seater, cowering and crying not more than a hundred yards away, parked awkwardly on the side of the road. Colander in the back seemed to be trying to find a miracle bomb that would kill three giants in one blow.

She was like a female Jack and the Beanstalk.

This wasn’t going to work. None of this was going to work.

I swallowed. The dinosaurs were getting closer. Another green explosion erupted nearby. I took a deep breath.

And I stepped out of the truck and started walking towards the oncoming dinosaurs.

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It was at this time something crystalized in me. I knew then, deep inside, that Warbell was telling the truth.

It just came together for me. The doubt fell away. Seeing the mammoth, the fire, and my friend fighting for his life—yes, suddenly I thought of this dinosaur as my friend. And it was at that time I knew I had to do everything I could to help him with his mission.

Looking back on it, I think a big part of me just didn’t want to see the old lizard die.

At any rate, I sped out of First Pumpkin in my truck, weaving around cars and fleeing civilians. All my old driver’s instincts were coming back to me with renewed clarity and urgency as I barreled from Cornelius Street to Pumpkin Way to Cornelius Pumpkin Straightaway and out of the city.

Warbell was beside me the whole time, moving at an impossible speed, giving a literal running explanation of why he could run this fast.

“I shouldn’t be going this fast,” Warbell said. “Though my cybernetic enhancements make it possible to move much faster than a normal dinosaur, it isn’t good for my body. I should have broken quite a few bones already, and would have if it weren’t for some structural enhancements done to my body. What I mean to say is, this really hurts.”

“Did you find your wife?” asked Colander. “Were they her bones?”

“No,” said Warbell. “I was able to confirm that they were not her bones. There would have been a number of technological enhancements, such as the malleable teeth that I possess. I scanned the skeleton before being attacked. It wasn’t her.”

I couldn’t read Warbell’s emotions from what he said. He spoke with little feeling, though his words were punctuated and interrupted by the rhythms of the crazy headlong dash he was doing to keep up with my truck.

“What is that green fire?” I asked. “Sulfur from hell or what?”

Warbell calmly dodged around an oncoming bus, then sidled up beside my truck again.

“It’s a special artificial flame that, upon contact with the body of an enhanced dinosaur, deactivates the cybernetic systems inside,” Warbell said. “The cybernetic systems are so deeply connected to our bodily tissues that if they are turned off, we can’t move—at least at first. The foam I was exuding, obviously, is a defense mechanism. It puts out the fire, and helps to restart the cybernetic systems inside our bodies. Thankfully it doesn’t take very long to work.”

“So that big guy wasn’t trying to kill you?” I asked.

“Probably not,” Warbell said. “At least, not yet.”

“It’s not going to be fun going back to Final Pumpkin,” shouted Colander. She was in the back of the pickup with the potato cannon, holding on for dear life.

“Oh?” asked Warbell.

“We were followed,” Colander shouted. “We saw them chasing us in the fields. Your mammoth tried to stop them, but we don’t really know what happened in the end. We just sped away as fast as we could.”

Warbell almost missed a stride, stumbling visibly as he reacted to the news.

“You found Furbud?”

“More like Furbud found us,” I said. “I don’t know where he came from.”

“I was hiding him,” Warbell said. “Apparently he was worried about me, the big galoot.”

“But how do you hide a mammoth in a city?” asked Colander. “Don’t tell me you painted his toenails red and put him up an apple tree.”

“No, we put him in Final Pumpkin Lake,” said Warbell with a dinosaurian shrug. “We gave him optional gills, Thinkwilder and I. Plus you may have noticed he can turn invisible.”

I accepted what Warbell said with little reaction. Everything was ridiculous at this point, so an invisible mammoth with gills sounded about as plausible as a breakfast of toast and eggs tomorrow—which I wasn’t sure was plausible at all.

It was really dark now, and I was straining to see past my high beams. I was still dodging around cars as the local residents retreated from the city. It couldn’t have been a comfortable ride in the back for Colander, but she didn’t utter a single complaint. In fact, I could hear her humming an old hymn.

“We need to close the portal,” said Warbell. “It’s obvious the people of my world don’t want to give up stealing physical matter from your world. And your people would not be able to survive a war against mine. The key to closing the portal is built into…”

“Sorry to interrupt, but we have trouble ahead!” I said.

Warbell looked, and groaned.

Three dinosaurs were moving through the shadows of a nearby field, huge, black, thundering through the crops right towards us.

Furbud was nowhere to be seen.

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The larger tyrannosaurus made landfall, the vibrating air that had previously been holding the creature aloft giving out in one dramatic whoosh. Patches of green fire nearby wavered, dust and junk scattered across the stones. As it approached, the tyrannosaurus was saying something—I only heard a series of grunts and whistles, but it obviously must have been dinosaur language.  Really freaking scary dinosaur language. The hissing, grinding, roar of its voice had me paralyzed.

Just then I heard a whoomp from behind me, and I saw something arc through the air right towards the larger tyrannosaurus. The enormous predator jerked its head, seeing the object coming, but before it could react further, the projectile smashed against a nearby wall, exploding into a brownish dust cloud that partially enveloped the menacing dinosaur’s lower body.

“Take THAT, you nasty meat-muncher!”

I heard Colander’s voice, then saw her standing astride the truck, potato cannon in her arms. She was already loading another bomb of some sort into the chamber of the cannon. I looked back at the tyrannosaurus, which was now bearing its teeth at us, its semi-biological shoulder cannons turning our way. The ends of the bio-cannons noticeably reformed, becoming sharper, more focused, the green glow that had been pulsing inside them changing to a piercing yellow.

Then the tyrannosaurus stopped, its eyes wide, and it dashed out of the dissipating brown dust cloud and began raking desperately at its thighs with its claws while snorting with fury and confusion. I glanced at Colander who pursed her lips.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Must’ve been the itching powder. I just grabbed the closest bomb. Here we go!”

And she shot another grenade at the huge rex. The dinosaur dodged. Even though the grenade was way off, in stepping away the beast put one foot into a remaining patch of green fire that continued spitting and sizzling. Instantly the rex froze, its muscles spasming, and it was down, falling over as if KO’d by Punchface.

Warbell meanwhile was almost completely covered with the bubbling foam, and he started to move.

“Thanks for coming,” he said to me, switching his teeth to herbivore mode and attempting a tense smile.

Colander was already loading another grenade into her potato gun, this bomb with a leering smiley face painted on one side. She raised the cannon to fire.

“No!” barked Warbell, and we both looked at him bewildered.

The same bubbling foam that had seemingly reawakened Warbell was now seeping out of the prone, yet visibly angry, orange rex—who looked about ready to spit at us. We hesitated.

“No more death,” he said.

Twin shoulder cannons emerged from Warbell’s shoulders, and a look of fear broke out on the face of the fallen rex. But Warbell didn’t shoot his foe, and instead shot all around its fallen body, the resultant green fire flaring up and bursting into smoke where it contacted the burping foam.

“Let’s go,” he said, turning back around, backlit by the horrible shimmering green light. “We need to get back to Final Pumpkin.”

“What?” I asked. “Why?”

Warbell grimaced.

“We need to close the portal for good.”

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First Pumpkin was a city of about thirty thousand, and the first of a clutch of towns and settlements founded by Cornelius Pumpkin, the great frontiersman and gourd enthusiast. It was said that Mr. Pumpkin had personally crossbred at least fifty different varieties of gourds, and while rumors persisted among some (delusional) individuals that pumpkins themselves were named after Mr. Pumpkin, apparently he was actually inspired by his last name to get into the gourd business. He argued that his own specially-cultivated “Pumpkin pumpkin” (I can’t make this stuff up) was the best for carving jack o lanterns, something about the stiffness of the rind and the pleasantness of the scent of the slop inside. Some of the other cities and towns founded by Mr. Pumpkin were Second Pumpkin, Middle Pumpkin, and Best Pumpkin.

He wasn’t very imaginative with the names he bestowed upon his settlements. Not that it’s either here nor there, but he also named his two sons Cornelius. Both of them.

So it was that we entered First Pumpkin via Fifth Pumpkin Street, and Colander (who was much more familiar with the area and knew where the target museum was located) directed me to turn onto 23^rd Pumpkin Avenue, then onto Cornelius Boulevard toward the center of town. We were both tense, and neither of us spoke much. At least, not until we heard the explosions.

We saw the green shimmering against the sky long before we witnessed what was happening. Folks were running away from the scene, and folks drove like maniacs trying to escape from… something. I was nearly sideswiped several times by panicking drivers, first by a sedan, then by a man in an orange electric car that purred as he blasted down Cornelius Drive.

Pretty soon we saw the crackling, spitting green fire that danced along the streets and hovered menacingly over the buildings. Strangely, the conflagration didn’t seem to actually burn anything, but just floated inches over each physical surface, coughing and spitting chunks of green fire and lightning. We heard the sirens as well—police, firemen. We passed a team of firefighters futilely spraying water at a wall of green flame with little effect. When they saw us, they tried to wave us back, but for some reason I stubbornly drove past them, ignoring their warnings.

Just then, Warbell came dashing around the corner of Pass the Gas Station (a local fuel chain with flatulence-inspired decor), dodging and leaping over the sputtering green flames with unreal speed and dexterity. An eerie mellifluent honking roar reverberated through the air, morphing into a series of angry grunts and wheezes. While I didn’t see the source of the sound yet, it had to be the enormous orange rex that had visited my house, now chasing Warbell.

I put the truck in reverse, trying to back up.

“What is that noise?” asked Colander, covering her ears. “It sounds like a gaggle of giant geese getting slaughtered in the midst of a death metal concert.”

Before I had time to respond, and as Warbell came barreling toward us, the wall next to him exploded in a burst of green fire. Warbell tumbled and crashed to the ground, coming to a stop mere feet away from my truck.

I got out of the truck immediately and heard Colander bang the door open on the other side. All around Warbell’s body I could see a bubbling foam exuding from his skin that began flowing across the pavement, and when it hit the green fire, with a hiss and a puff of blackish smoke, the fire went out. Warbell saw me.

“Walter,” he said.

Then from over the roof of Pass the Gas Station came a figure, and it took me a moment to recognize what the horrible nightmare vision was. It was the massive orange tyrannosaurus, now flying, the air around its body seeming to vibrate as the tech-enhanced creature skimmed over the roof. On its shoulders were biomechanical cannons, the same kind I must have seen emerge from Furbud’s body.

The cannons turned and aimed at Warbell’s fallen body.

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“They’re following us,” I said in a whisper.

“I don’t think you have to whisper,” Colander said. “They don’t seem to care very much if you can hear them.”

“But they are invisible,” I said. “It looks like they don’t want to be seen.”

I was trying not to stare out at the magically self-trampling fields, given that I was driving. I tried accelerating, but the invisible monsters accelerated, too—their noisy charge getting even louder as they plowed through the corn faster. Furbud was making urgent grunting noises, as if trying to tell us something.

“What do we do?” I said again, still whispering. “We’re leading them right to Warbell. I mean, is that good or bad?”

“We need to find out before we throw Warbell to the wolves, don’t you think?” Colander said. “Or in this case, before we throw him to those who walk behind the rows. That sounds even worse.”

“Yeah, I agree,” I said. “I don’t understand half of what was written in that journal, but it seemed pretty honest—or drunk. Often that’s the same thing.”

“Well, you could just drive to Port Lollard instead of First Pumpkin, and lead them on a wild goose chase,” Colander said.

“Yeah, assuming they don’t just jump out of the shadows and eat us!” I said. “Besides, I already told the dino authorities where Warbell is when I talked to the big orange guy. Unless this is another splinter group or something.”

“True,” Colander said. “Maybe they are just trying to keep an eye on you. At any rate, we can’t have them following you around if we can do something about it. I’m going to try something crazy.”

“What?” I said as she started to open her window. “What are you doing? You aren’t going to jump out, are you?”

Colander leaned out the window and gestured emphatically at the invisible monsters in the field.

“Furbud!” she shouted. “Go get them!”

Somehow, the overgrown furry pachyderm understood and veered off into the field with a mighty trumpet. Instinctively I punched the gas, putting distance between ourselves and the conflict. In the rearview mirror I saw something emerge from Furbud’s shoulders, and moments later the evening sky was lit up by domes of spreading green fire that crackled and spat. In the light I saw that the skin on Furbud’s shoulders had stretched and formed into organic cannons covered with fur.

Furbud began firing again, and the resultant gouts of green reached for the sky. In the chaos I saw shadowy beasts emerging, horrific monstrous roars rising in the green firelight. Then I locked my eyes on the road and drove and floored it, the continuing horrific lightshow receding in the distance.

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