Story by Nicholas Driscoll.
Art by Sam Messerly.
Click here to start at the beginning.
The tyrannosaurus led me to my own back yard, talking all the way. The crowd of bystanders began to follow us as well. Everyone was taking pictures, but the tyrannosaurus didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he sometimes put his fingers up in a “peace” sign. Or maybe he was just waving. It’s hard to tell because a tyrannosaurus only has two fingers.
“Look, before we go any further, let’s at least exchange names,” I said. “Unless you just want me to call you ‘Rexy.’ My name is Walter.”
“Come back here, Wal,” said the tyrannosaurus. “Follow me. I think you will find this interesting. You know, I guess maybe you haven’t seen any dinosaurs for a while. And you can call me ‘your majesty.’”
“You are right about not seeing your kind around for awhile, Rexy,” I said. “You are all supposed to be dead.”
“You might think that,” the tyrannosaurus said, noting my insolent remark with a raised eyebrow. “But you would be wrong. Really, did you think we all just died? All of us? I heard people were pretty smart. Maybe it was just a rumor.”
“Don’t tell me there are more of you?” I said.
“There are more of us,” the tyrannosaurus said. “Of course there are. But maybe my friends aren’t going to come out right away. At least, not from your perspective.”
Behind my house was a clearing with a big lawn. Beyond the lawn was a rocky area, with plateaus and cliffs in the distance, most notably a large, towering rock structure relatively close to my property called the Pumpkin Smasher Rock. The Pumpkin Smasher Rock is a tower of stone poised precariously as if it could fall at any moment, though I am told it actually is quite stable.
Anyway, it’s a nice view, which is why I picked this place for my house. Who doesn’t like looking at big, dirty rocks?
We were starting to walk into the boulders and dust and what-not. While the stony structures are pretty in their way, I hadn’t often gone out there due to the possibility that there could be so many big poisonous snakes and spiders. But I had a passing thought that I would rather deal with snakes and spiders than a tyrannosaurus.
“What are we supposed to find out here?” I asked. “A rock with your name on it? Or maybe a 65-million-year-old bill of sale?”
“Kind of like that, Wal,” the tyrannosaurus said. “But it’s not a paper deed. I was actually sleeping out here for a long time. You wouldn’t be able to say my name.”
“You were asleep for 65 million years?” I asked.
“Sixty-five million years, six thousand years, a day—it all feels the same when you’re asleep!” said the tyrannosaurus. “You try counting the years when your sleeping underground! Ah, here we are. Here is where I woke up.”
In the space the dino was indicating, rocks and dirt were broken away and a big hole had been ripped out of the ground. Something had definitely clawed its way out of the ground here. Stones and bits of dirt in all sizes were scattered around the terrain. Some cactuses and plants had been torn up, too.
“You can’t imagine the kind of dreams a fellow has when he sleeps that long,” the tyrannosaurus said.
“A smelly old cave doesn’t prove anything,” I said, and crossed my arms.
“Look beside the cave,” the tyrannosaur said. “I marked this territory as my own many years ago. You can see the proof and I can prove its from me.”
After searching for a few moments, we found what the tyrannosaurus was talking about: a series of huge dinosaur footprints imbedded in the stone. These were very old footprints, but extremely well preserved.
“These footprints are from my time,” said the dinosaur. “And as you can see, they fit my feet perfectly. I was here before you were, I claimed the land myself, I was sleeping on this land and so occupied it all along. You have to admit, this land—actually, this town, come to think of it, is actually mine.”
I almost fainted dead away.
