I asked Mayor Pilky to wait a week for my decision. She agreed on the condition that “King T-Rex” was willing to wait that long as well. To my surprise, he was.
“I’ve never lived in a garage before,” said the tyrannosaurus. “I don’t mind living under the stars for another week. But it’s kind of uncomfortable in this society if you don’t have a place to call home.”
I was glad he didn’t ask me why I wanted a week to think things over. Of course I wanted to think about where to put my vehicles if a big old lizard moved into my garage (the street or the driveway or the backyard were my big choices—if the latter, I would need to make sure I didn’t park them too close to that big boulder out back). But there were other issues I was thinking about, too.
Why did the tyrannosaurus want to live in my garage so much?
I performed some garage-reconnaissance over the next few days, and quickly found out that while my garage was pretty sizable, there were much bigger ones in town. And some of the bigger garages were not very far away from my own. Why didn’t the tyrannosaurus consider those garages? My garage didn’t have the biggest square footage inside. Nor did it have the biggest doors. Nor did it have the most windows, or the most comfortable flooring, or any other rubric I could think of that might affect the lizard’s decision to want to take over my stuff.
Now, many of the garages, like many of the buildings in town, were under repair. For whatever reason, a number of buildings in Final Pumpkin had fallen apart recently, some unexpectedly collapsing under their own weight, and so every building was being inspected and rebuilt or reinforced around town with new materials. Mine was not an exception in this regard. I had just had the place redone a few months prior.
Anyway, meanwhile, within that week the big old lizard had become a huge celebrity. Hundreds, thousands of people were visiting Final Pumpkin City just to catch a glimpse of the dinosaur. Famous rock stars, actors, even the President of the United States came personally to talk with him. I guess it was a gesture of international relations, in a manner of speaking.
And “King T-Rex” was eating up all the attention. That winning smile was plastered across his face at all times now. He had even started giving out autographs, written in sometimes stuttering, uneven letters by gripping a fountain pen between his two fingers. Sometimes I saw him pinch the pen between his incisors. I understand that he broke the fountainpen he was using on several occasions, but his fans were just as delighted to have a blotch of ink as his often surprisingly legible autograph.
Which is all to say it took me a long time before I could talk with the lizard one-on-one again. I caught him by climbing one of his favorite munching trees (yes, he ate vegetation, believe it or not) and waiting for him to stick his head inside for a big bite. When he did so, even though there were crowds around his feet, I was able to talk with him in relative privacy… though I think I startled him, as he hit his head on a large limb.
“Oh, ow,” he said. “What are you doing in here?”
I was clinging to the trunk of the tree like a slightly overweight ape. I didn’t say that, though.
“I want to know why you are all hot to live in my garage specifically,” I said. “What’s the big deal? There are many other garages that are as good as mine, if not better.”
The tyrannosaurus picked at his teeth with a twig.
“Because it’s mine,” he said. “As I told you before.”
“But now you are a king,” I said. “You can choose any garage!”
“Excuse me,” said the old lizard, pulling his head out without taking one bite. “My public awaits.”
Immediately he started talking with someone I couldn’t see from where I was awkwardly hanging in the branches.
“Yes, what’s that?” he said. “Oh, you want me to sign your beer belly? Certainly.”
I frowned and climbed down as the tyrannosaur chattered on, slathering ink across some idiot’s hairy navel.
“The tyrannosaurus truly and sincerely wants to live in your garage.”
Mayor Pilky was sitting in my house, looking at me with pleading eyes. I crossed my arms and glared at her.
“I won’t force you, Walter,” said the mayor. “But the tyrannosaur has really taken a shine to you. And he is our king now, after all. You really should consider—”
“That old lizard is not a king,” I said.
“Well, he is more like a figurehead,” said Pilky. “Like the royalty in Japan or in England. He doesn’t have complete power over everyone in Final Pumpkin in the same way a king of old would have. But still, he is a king under the modern definition.”
“It’s ridiculous,” I said. “Why would I want a dinosaur living in my garage?”
Mayor Pilky uncrossed her legs and leaned forward placatingly.
“Please understand,” she said. “Any upgrades to the garage that might be installed for our new king’s comfort will be covered by the royal fund. You won’t have to pay a dime.”
“That lizard is a meat-eater!” I said. “He might eat me in my sleep!”
“So far King T-Rex has just been nibbling on the local trees. He doesn’t even have sharp teeth.”
“Yeah, what is up with that anyway?” I said. “Since when do tyrannosaurs not have sharp teeth?”
Pilky tried a smile on me. It didn’t work.
“I think King T-Rex’s winning smile was part of why the judge decided in his favor,” she said. “He really does have nice teeth.”
“I don’t see how his dental pulchritude has anything to do with…”
“We are prepared to pay you,” Pilky said then.
My ears perked up.
“Really?” I said.
“You would be King T-Rex’s official ambassador and caretaker,” Pilky said. “And for that role, you would be compensated generously.”
“Really?” I said again.
“I mean with money,” she said.
“Yes, I understand that,” I said. “But how much money are we talking here?”
Pilky named a number. The number had a lot of zeroes. I might not have been too crazy about the idea of having a giant flesh-eating monster living in my garage, but sometimes a big check makes all the difference when it comes to putting up with the blatantly absurd and potentially dangerous.
Originally submitted to a story contest on Reedsy Prompts, in response to the prompt “Write about someone who’s so obsessed with a goal that it leads to the destruction of their closest relationship.”
Leonard Field watched the blurry white dot high above, longing to pull himself out of the muck at the bottom of the swamp. He was halfway submerged beneath the mud, and the rest of his body too was darker now. He clenched his right hand around a chain that happened to be splayed out across the swamp bottom, the individual links digging into his fresh-rugged flesh.
“I can breathe out there,” he said. “Nothing is keeping me down here.”
He could speak underwater, and when he did, no rush of bubbles emitted from his mouth. He did not breathe air in the way he used to. Technically, he didn’t breathe at all. He didn’t need it anymore.
He felt fleshy tendrils around his shoulders gently press against his body; the armored tubes that pierced his chest expanded and contracted.
“We can breathe here for you,” said the voice on his back. “As long as we need to.”
Leonard allowed himself to sink an inch more into the mud, his eyes still staring upwards. The white blur shifted and twinkled, and the fear he felt that it might go away constricted his heart.
“I have to go up there,” he said. “I can’t stay here forever.”
The voice on his back hummed contemplatively, the vibrations providing his body a warm and gentle massage.
“We must agree together,” it said. “Wherever we go.”
Leonard did not reply. The mud covered his mouth. He pushed himself deeper into the dank sludge, brushing against the chain as he did so. He heard the click of metal links, the shifting of silt. He was beneath the floor of the swamp.
Restless. Waiting.
Leonard and the thing slipped across the bottom of the swamp, exploring. The voice on his back was moving its muscles as they went. Leonard could feel it probing, snapping up weeds and small fish, crunching up crustaceans.
They never rose far from the floor of the swamp, always staying close to the mud, where they could easily escape danger any moment. Though the mud floor seemed like nothing but slime and sludge from the surface, there was a home underneath of tunnels and chambers that could easily be accessed by easing through the filmy, gooey silt and ooze that was the floor and was the ceiling.
Leonard paddled languidly while pulling himself along with his hands, dislodging plants, chasing out small animals so the thing on his back could catch them and eat them.
“You should eat, too,” it said. “Your body can eat them now.”
Though Leonard looked down at the floor of the swamp, his mind was above. He remembered cooked foods. Steak. Hamburgers. Even skewers of fish roasted over a fire. A wriggling swamp worm was not food. It was a horror show.
“Are they still there?” he asked.
“We share much now,” the voice said. “When I eat, you take nutrients, but… If you don’t eat and use your own body, you become weaker. It’s bad for us both.”
“It’s bad for us if I don’t see her,” he said. “It makes me weak not to see her.”
“You want to mate,” it said. “It’s a good thing, to reproduce. But the timing isn’t right.”
“I want to live,” Leonard said, and he turned his body around so that his face was towards the sky.
The white blur was still there, not far away. Still shifting in the waves. Still calling to him. Despite being underwater, his mouth felt suddenly dry.
“Watch out!”
The voice spoke too late. Leonard’s head collided with a large rock. He curled up in a ball, clutching at the back of his skull. When he opened his eyes again, he saw strings of red rising around his line of sight.
“It’s not serious, I think,” said the voice. “I can look. I can lick it and make the wound clean.”
“No, no,” Leonard protested. “I’ll check it myself.”
He touched the wound, flinched.
“Oh, no one saved this one either,” said a voice.
Leonard felt his heart drop, and he began to uncurl himself to get a better look.
The rock he had hit his head on was in reality a piece of concrete, round, heavy, sunk in the mud. Above it was another chain, still mostly clean with only minor accretions of swamp muck in the links. The chain floated upwards towards the surface and attached at the end of the chain was a man, naked, and very much dead. But his body was still buoyant enough to keep the corpse from settling down to the ocean floor just yet. Leonard stared at dead body, the series of bubbles still stringing up faintly from the deathly dumb face.
“We can eat him,” said the voice. “He is still fresh, and the flesh will be good for you. Familiar flesh for your body.”
The man looked familiar. Leonard had not known the man well, but he had been a crewmember on the ship. John or Dell or something, it didn’t matter anymore.
Something was happening up there. Crewmembers were dying, and they were burying them in the swamp, where their bodies could become a part of the ecosystem again—a cold and scientific way to deal with the dead, but one he approved of. It was the right thing to do. But still, why were they dying?
Were his friends okay? And what about her?
“I have to see why these men are dying,” Leonard said. “I can’t stay down here forever.”
“That which floats on the surface is large and dangerous,” said the voice. “It swallows many lives. Even before you fell to this world, that which floats took many lives from below. This voice does not trust it.”
Leonard was quiet for a time.
“I came from there,” he said. “They are waiting for me.”
“Are they?” asked the voice, monotone.
Leonard continued to pull himself along the bottom of the swampland, and a slow prickling annoyance arose and seemed to prance upon his temples. Of course they were waiting for him.
Of course she was waiting for him.
Several days later he caught sight of her. When the voice on his back was asleep, Leonard crept out onto a small island far from the ship. It was barely an island so much as a swath of thick mud and reeds that could only just bear his weight, and his limbs were deep in the muck.
Though he was far from the ship, he knew a way to peer long distances with clarity, as if looking through a pair of binoculars. It was a trick the voice had taught him after they had become one. Leonard’s body had changed in some ways after the voice had fused with his back. His hair had thinned, and webs had grown between fingers and toes. The voice had shown him that he could touch fingers to thumb in a certain way, and then, after running his hand through the water, pick up bubbles that, if he shifted his fingers just right, would form into makeshift lenses in his hand—lenses through which he could peer and see farther away.
Of course, peering through a bubble caused some distortion and warping of the image, and if there were impurities in the bubble—refuse from the swamp water—they could disrupt his vision. It took him several tries that morning on the mud island, hiding behind the reeds, before he could get the bubbles shaped just right in his hands, and clean and clear enough to look through.
She was walking on the deck. Long, dark hair framed her perfect, moon-shaped face, now distorted through the filmy water She was wearing a white one-piece swimming suit that hugged her curves, delineating her body. His mouth watered as he stared at her breasts, her hips. Even through the bubbles in his hand, she was gorgeous.
He remembered the first time he had been close to her, smelling a warm scent of jasmine. When they had held hands, the flesh of her fingers so soft in his rough laborer’s hands, the way she would kiss him fiercely on the lips, how they would…
On the ship, she raised her hand to her mouth, a small red dot winked on, then she flicked something into the water below. A cigarette—no doubt one of the new “safe” ones with none of the dangers and a healthy hit of vitamin C, but still… littering here? That was against regulations. He would have to chastise her lightly when he…
The thing with the voice on his back seemed to hum, a feeling like a light vibration playing against his spine. It was waking up. It wouldn’t want him on the surface of the water. It definitely wouldn’t want him spying like this. He didn’t want a fight over what his body did or where his body went.
He clenched his teeth and backed away into the water, letting the colorful and translucent water cress close over his head.
The voice didn’t say anything about the island visit until they were in the tunnels later that day.
The tunnels stretched in every direction underneath the swamp. They were not just the living quarters that Leonard and the thing on his back called home, but other scampering creatures lived there, too. Leonard was always careful stepping through the tunnels because he didn’t know when one of the clawed, sinuous lyre worms would ping like a struck note and lunge out of the puddles to latch on to his heel.
“It is good to walk carefully above too,” the voice said.
“I was careful,” Leonard replied. “I wasn’t even walking. I was low. I got down into the water when you started waking up.”
He had hoped the voice hadn’t noticed that he had been out. It often slept so deeply, but this time… He clenched his fists, and the webbing between his fingers crinkling uncomfortably.
“Better to stay in the tunnels,” said the voice. “You can’t find anything of value on the mud banks.”
“She is my girlfriend!” snapped Leonard. “She cares about me, and you’re keeping me from her! What do you expect me to do, wait underwater until my balls fall off?”
The thing on his back seemed to tense against his shoulders, and it let out a thin stream of warm water that ran down the small of his back. He used to think the creature was urinating on him, but apparently it thought it was calming him down with a “gift” of warm and comforting liquid stored and heated in its body.
It didn’t comfort him. The anger burned hotter.
“If we leave this swamp, we can find other options,” said the voice.
Leonard felt his eyes flash, and he nearly choked with rage.
“I am a human being! And I want to love a human being!”
The thing on his back seemed to consider this. Leonard waited, expecting another warm trickle of not-urine to snake its way down his thighs. It didn’t come.
“Are you sure who she is?” the thing said.
“I’m in love with her,” Leonard said, feeling an overwhelming longing. “I want her.”
The thing hummed and held him, crouching in the dark in the tunnel.
“I will catch a twinkling eel tonight,” said the voice. “It has a pleasing poison inside, it will make you feel good.”
No, thought Leonard. Nothing would make him feel good enough as long as he was under the swamp, stuck in these tunnels, away from his real life, away from everything that he was supposed to be.
The twinkling eel—a long and sinuous blue creature with dozens of sparkling appendages that snap and writhe as it swims—was delicious in its way. Leonard did not eat it, of course. However, even still, after the thing on his back consumed it, Leonard felt the effects of the toxins in the eel’s body entering his own bloodstream.
They filled him, fingertip to fingertip, toes to scalp, with a sense of kinetic energy and a rush of euphoria. Like jagged waves of energy, he felt his nerves jangle and swim across his skin. It felt as if the allure of the toxin reached into his farthest depths, into his deepest desires.
And he saw her. Salinda Powers. Her flashing smile, her curving waist, her flowing hair. Every word like steam from her lips, beckoning him. Every movement lithe and smooth and seductive, like the most delectable dream.
The voice was silenced on his back. Whatever effects the toxins may have had on Leonard, their force must have been multiplied several times over on the thing as it was the one who consumed the eel directly.
Thinking that the voice could not resist any longer, Leonard stumbled through the tunnels, treading over lyre worms and clicker crabs, and pushed out of the muddy bottom of the swamp, out into the water, and up, up, the excitement inside him building, eyes wide, staring at the blur of white above as it grew larger and larger.
He felt the power inside, felt invincible, felt a lust he could not contain. His webbed hands grasped the chain leading off the side of the ship. The cold metal sent a shock of pleasure through him, almost as if he was caressing her arm. Hand over hand he climbed, his breathing ragged, the thing on his back like a dead weight.
He clawed his way onto the ship, gasping, eyes on fire, teeth bared in desire, and pushed himself to his feet.
“Salinda,” he croaked.
He saw her, pointing at him. He tried to smile.
And the men came. They had sticks of electricity. He could not look at them, but only at Salinda, even as the electricity called out his voice and sent his screams spearing into the sky.
When Leonard awoke, something was missing, and something else was there. In his state of mind, it took him some time to figure out which was which, despite the gaping psychological absence. He tried to feel his face, but found that he was bound, and when he tried to turn his head, he discovered himself encased in wires and tubes at every quarter.
Clacking footsteps rang out, and when Leonard looked up, he saw Salinda. As she came more clearly into view, he saw she was wearing a long white coat over a professional gray top and ironed raven-black pants. Her mouth was open in excitement, and he tried to speak, but heard a strange rasping sound instead.
“Shhh,” Salinda said. “You’ve gone through a lot. Your throat sustained a lot of damage I’m afraid.”
She sounded gentle, and Leonard wanted to lean into the comfort of her voice, but he saw in her eyes a jet professionalism mixed with a frightening excitement that pulled at the corners of her mouth and gave a taut character to the skin around her eyes.
“Salinda,” he managed, hearing his voice finally in that awful rasping.
“You remember me,” she said, and allowed her face to be pulled into a savage smile. “I thought you might.”
Leonard imagined those days before, in the spaceship, holding Salinda close, his hand upon her cheek, her hand upon his side. Feeling his hands now as he clawed at the bedsheets, he only found rough scales, the webs between his digits stiffer now, even more uncomfortable.
“I love you,” he said.
The savage smile softened a bit, and she pressed her lips together in a sympathetic grin.
“That might have been the difference,” she said. “That might have been what finally brought one of you back.”
He stared at her, desperately, willing the restraints to go away, aching to reach out for her.
“You deserve an explanation,” she said, taking notes from the monitors connected to his flesh. “We wanted the parasite. But the parasites are smart. Smart, but, I don’t know, good-hearted? Some of the other scientists are already calling them the Samaritan suckers. They suck onto you, you know—and they are suckers for someone who is dying underwater.”
Leonard almost choked.
“Some people did die,” Salinda said. “The suckers don’t always rescue everyone. They bond with land-dwellers so that they, too, can become ambulatory on land. But they also seem to want to save people, and prefer to bond with sentient lifeforms. We don’t really know why yet, but we are trying to figure it out.”
Leonard thought back to the many times it had warned him, how it tried to help him.
“Turns out we got real lucky,” she said, patting Leonard on the upper arm. “Not only did one of the suckers go for the bait finally, it just happened to be a bait that I had had a fling with. At the time I never dreamed that dalliance would matter. Just a nice pastime, you know, and you weren’t so ugly, and I knew you wouldn’t stay around forever. We just tied you to a rock, like we deal with corpses anyway. We thought the chains would hold you, and then we would have the sucker, too, captured as it tried to bond with you. But it managed to get you loose.”
Leonard felt fireworks in his mind, broken shards of darkness and light.
“Where is he?” he hissed.
“Oh,” said Salinda, frowning a little. “Unfortunately the sucker didn’t survive. Thought it would be hardier than that. But we can still learn a lot from its remains. We are dissecting it now.”
The smile appeared again on Salinda’s face, the same kind of taut excitement returning, pulling open her cheeks so that they revealed teeth that nearly snarled, flashing in the harsh light. She put her hand on his, her flesh soft, her fingers hooking around his scales.
By this time, there were dozens of bystanders taking pictures, posing, and even asking for the tyrannosaurus’ autograph. I didn’t know what to say. For one thing, it was still difficult for me to know what I should say to a giant flesh-eating lizard. If I said the wrong thing, I thought maybe he would bite my head off—literally. But at the same time, I liked my garage. I liked my garage a lot. So, in other words, I had ample motivation to say something.
Thankfully, at that moment, the police arrived. Two of them anyway—though they did not look very intimidating. Not much does next to a rex.
“What’s going on?” said one, eyes popping as he approached the old lizard. “Is this some kind of prank?”
The tyrannosaurus turned to the officer.
“Hello there,” said the tyrannosaur.
“Officers, thank goodness you are here,” I said. “This tyrannosaur wants to steal my garage. Please arrest him!”
The policemen looked at the tyrannosaur, and then they looked at each other.
“I don’t think he would fit in the back of the police car,” said one.
“We will get this all sorted out somehow,” said the other, and he walked up to the tyrannosaur. “Did you try to steal this man’s garage?”
“No,” said the tyrannosaur. “The garage is still right over there. And despite the fact that I am a very large dinosaur, I think it is obvious I am not big enough to carry away the entire building. Plus, and this is the important part—this man Wal lives on my land. So his garage, and this entire town, are legally my property.”
Some of my neighbors were setting up lawn chairs so they could sit and watch what was happening. My neighbor Charlie’s daughter Harriet, always the little entrepreneur, had set up a lemonade stand and was drawing dinosaurs on the paper cups. The policemen just stared at the tyrannosaur.
“Please take a look,” said the dinosaur. And then he showed the police his feet, the fossilized footprints, and how well his feet fit the footprints, plus the hole where he claimed he had been sleeping. He even had a dinosaur-sized pillow.
“As you can see, I took a very long nap, and while I was sleeping, your country was built on my land,” said the tyrannosaur.
“Without my permission,” he added.
The policemen were listening, but they didn’t seem to understand.
“Do you want to see the footprint again?” asked the tyrannosaur. “Look, you can see every wrinkle and line from my feet. You won’t find another tyrannosaur with a foot that matches these prints.”
“Are you trying to take over the country?” asked one police officer finally after a long pause.
“Not the whole country,” said the tyrannosaur. “But this town is obviously mine. You will find more of my footprints all over the area.”
The policemen looked at each other again.
“Should we call the mayor, or the army, or both?” asked one of the officers to the other.
“This isn’t in the training manuals,” said the other. “Let’s just call everyone to make sure. And I think we need to take his fingerprints, too.”
“The big guy’s fingerprints?”
“Yeah.”
That afternoon was very long. Many people came. Many people talked. We had dozens of meetings. The tyrannosaur stayed cheerful throughout. Harriet made a lot of money from her dinosaur lemonade.
Finally, those in charge decided to take the issue to court—and I was called to be one of the primary witnesses. But how do you bring a dinosaur to trial?
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.”
On that morning, one of mountains moved. The people of New First City had been expecting this day to come. Many mountains stood around the city, and the sound of their breathing provided a cadence for the passing of the days. Many said that it was the breath of the mountains that provided the breezes, and the people of New First City often murmured their thanks to the mountains for the services they provided. The mountains were beautiful in their way, covered over with mosses and trees, shrubs that took hold as the creatures underneath the outer-rock skin slept.
But eventually, for reasons that the denizens of the city still did not fully understand, the mountains would sometimes awake. Rarely more than one at a time, but even one was a dire threat that could wipe out the entire city. One walking mountain could be hundreds of kilometers tall, and such a massive, god-like being strolling through the streets would be enough to cause untold devastation and the loss of many lives, even in their technologically advanced civilization.
Panic rose on the morning the mountain awoke. As the mountain began to rise, the evergreens, boulders and moss growing on the creature’s back and sides slipped and shivered, streams of soil fell in black waterfalls. The side of the mountain seemed to open, caves yawning and revealing darkness and secrets. At least a dozen caves opened along the front side of the mountain—perhaps nostrils, perhaps mouths, perhaps eyes. No man knew. All they knew was the blackness of the gawping maws that signaled coming death.
Arms along the mountainsides moved like a coming avalanche. The head shook, and a small forest broke away, twigs showered down. The sound of breathing roared, a reality-shattering rumble sucking in, gusting out.
The mountain was lumbered directly towards the city. They always did. Perhaps they were attracted to the lights, or they could sense the presence of life, or by some chance the mountains could read the thoughts of the citizens and were pulled towards their fear. Scientists made their guesses and their research a thousand times over, but just as they had never found a way to kill the giants, no one knew they had never discovered why they without fail approach the city upon awakening.
But the people of New First City had prepared for the mountain’s coming.
No conventional weapon was powerful enough to stop a mountain. Even the most powerful explosives would do nothing but dislodge dirt, rock, and trees—worthless detritus to be ground beneath the mountain’s feet. In times past, near other cities now long destroyed, when mountains awoke, when missiles and rockets were used, the explosions were known to do nothing but spur the creatures to move faster—enraged or perhaps excited by the attacks.
No, only one method had ever been found that could stop the mountains from coming, and that was the bullet men. They were coming out now, hurrying, stumbling in their haste as they burst from their doors, charged towards the cannons, desperately throwing on their peculiar armor.
Each bullet man wore thick metal armor and a stiff helmet that attached to the shoulder pads below. The suits were equipped with weapons, burst rays, explosives, and more for their mission. The armor was enough to protect them for the trip they had to make.
But usually, when the bullet men were deployed, at best, none of them came back. At worst, they all died.
Harris was the fastest that day. Not because he was the most athletic—he actually had a paunch now, and so encountered some difficulty in squeezing himself into the armored suit—a fact which prompted him to wear the metal all the time. No, rather than for his speed, he was first because of his personality. He lived in anxiety about the mountains, more so even than the usual bullet man, and so every night he barely slept, waiting for the alarm, tormented by nightmares of the coming doom.
He had been known on several occasions to run from his home, thundering down the road half-naked as he pulled on the rest of his gear, only to discover that the alarm he had been sure had sounded was only in his mind.
But this day, the alarm was not in a mere figment in his mind, and he was out and to the cannons with fleet feet. The cannon men were priming the cannons already, warming up the gears, the electricity buzzing, lights flashing. They welcomed him, eyes thick with a kind of detached sorrow. He felt their hands upon the armor on his shoulders, felt them checking his straps, the connections, running final diagnostics to ensure everything was ready.
Harris waited fretfully for the diagnostics check on his armor to be finished. He knew they would find no problems. He examined the armor every day himself, and was aware of even the smallest nicks and lingering kinks, the sections of cloth that were beginning to wear down, and everything on his suit was well above the acceptable rating required to participate in the Shot.
Standing there with those testing hands prodding so slowly, Harris wanted to scream, to just step forward, to leap into the air and into his destiny. And finally they gave him the okay with the sweat of fear dribbling down their chins, beading on their foreheads. Harris strolled forward, worried the other teams might be faster, that someone else might be shot first.
The door to the cannon opened, the shining tube stretched up towards the sky. Harris squeezed in, his paunch squeaking against the sleek sheen of the barrel. He clenched his teeth, worried for a moment that his weight might disqualify him. But no one called him out, and he found himself with face centimeters from the edge, sharp scent of metal and residual explosive powder stinging his nostrils and driving his heart to run.
He had to wait in the darkness then, with the cannon moving into position, the vibrations of the movement numbing his muscles, pinching him where his joint armor shifted uncomfortably. He heard the countdown, and felt it, too, as the sound became part of the vibrations around him. He said the words, slurring the numbers against the metal armor, exiting his mouth in a rope of saliva that bit through his beard.
The final number was called, and then the explosion, and all he could feel was pressure and speed and a horrible kind of deafness, as if the world was gone from him. His armor around his middle burned white hot as his paunch pushed the plates against the bore. Everything was light and roaring sound, and he saw the landscape snap by below, the woods waving at him as he seared towards his target.
The cannon had been fired aiming at the spine of the mountain, just above its slowly bobbing head, which crouched underneath a hunched, bulking back. The only method discovered so far that could stop a mountain from crushing the city was to attack the spine, and it only worked with a human bullet. Usually hitting home was not an issue, as the mountains moved slowly, and so a well-aimed shot was nearly guaranteed to strike.
This shot—the Harris-shot—however, did not hit home. As the mountain took another step forward, its front leg sagged suddenly, throwing off the center of the beast’s weight. With a sudden jerk, the creature twisted sideways slightly—but even that slight movement was enough to cause the shot to miss its mark by some distance.
Instead of the bullet plowing through the dirt and bone into the spine growing up out of the back of the mountain’s neck, Harris found himself pummeled into the thick rocky skin of the mountain’s shoulder. Immediately Harris knew something was wrong. From simulations, he knew what burrowing into the vertebrae should feel like. He knew the solid slap of the bullet armor as it sank into the bone, and how the head of the armor then could dig through gristle and cartilage deeper down. The kind of resistance the material of the monster’s bones provided was a rough grind, a hard and tight feel, according to the simulations.
Instead of the tightness and grit, Harris felt something soft and flimsy, and a rush of warm, sticky fluid coating his armor. Harris’ heart redoubled in speed, chattering against his ribs as he hit the emergency reverse. The head of the armor spun backwards, pushing back, extricating Harris from the musculature. He fell out of the hole and into a waterfall of blood.
Part of the safety mechanism built in to the suit just for situations like this included pikes on wires automatically deploying from his armor upon impact with the beast. Not all of the pikes held in the flesh of the mountain, but enough did that Harris found himself dangling awkwardly in the air, swinging back and forth, shoulder skipping against the blood-slicked rocks that made up the area between the mountain’s shoulder and neck.
Harris knew he was the only chance now. With a failed hit close to the mountain’s neck, dozens of smaller holes in the side of the mountain had immediately gaped across the creature’s face, neck, and chest. Out of these holes surged thundering winds and battering rays of disrupting energy. Any further shots would be disrupted by the wind and fire that was exploding in waves from the creature now. There was no clear shot anymore, though Harris knew the citizens of New First City would almost certainly try again. Any further bullet men would most likely be thrown far off their mark, slamming into thick rock, or being sucked into one of the caves to impact harmlessly inside.
Harmlessly for the mountain at least. The bullet men shot now were also almost certain to perish in the attempt. Just as he was likely to do here, dangling and burnt, twisting in the wind, so scared his legs shook.
Harris scrambled to get himself up the wires, straining to reach up far enough to grasp one of the cables. His stomach burned against any movement, his armor still searing hot. Still, he grabbed the wire with his left hand, then up with his right, up, farther. Moments later he was clinging to the ragged lip of the wound, which was now oozing dark brown ichor.
The vertebrae. Where were they? Brain still spinning a little, Harris scanned the area, with a computer overlay across his goggles analyzing the stony structures surrounding him, probing the flesh in search of the nervous tissue underneath. The sensors caught something, a telltale icon began flashing, and at first in his excitement Harris thought it was the spine.
But the tone was wrong. The sensors had not identified the spine. They had identified a parasite lurking on the surface of the mountain. The alarm screeched in Harris ears, and he whipped his head back and forth while he tried to get a better purchase, partially pulled back into the hole he had made.
He saw it, and his guts turned.
It was like a shadowy goat with glowing red eyes and long, spidery legs that stuck into the rock and pulled out in long, arcing strides. Rather than balancing on the nigh-vertical slopes, it skittered sideways silentl except for a wet popping sound as its legs slipped in and out of the rocks and the mountain’s external, largely nerveless flesh.
Harris let out a yell. He had never seen a devil goat before, not in person—but more than enough times he had seen illustrations and video surveillance, seen training videos where bullet men were torn apart by those arcing legs. He aimed his right arm, swinging it towards the creature just as it pounced onto him.
One of the devil goat’s tentacles snapped through Harris’ left shoulder, but he barely felt it for the adrenaline. As the creature’s face bore down into Harris’ face, he pulled the trigger, and the bone-digging cannon built into the wrist of his right arm unleashed a guttering energy bar that liquified the goat’s abdomen, narrowly missing the creature’s head.
The devil goat’s red eyes jutted and faded, its mouth gasped silently, and the creature seemed to burst apart, falling off the side of the mountain in pieces. As the remains of the creature tumbled down, Harris felt something wet on his shoulder.
The wound. He was bleeding. Seeing the puncture from an angle, he knew suddenly he was hurt even before he felt anything, and by knowing it, suddenly the pain became real.
There were only very limited first aid capabilities built into the bullet suit. And Harris couldn’t really use them while dangling off the side of the mountain. He gripped the rocks with his right hand, scooting along sideways when the mountain moved in such a way as to create semi-horizontal land beneath him, using the mechanical strength of the suit to pull himself up onto a more stable ledge.
He rolled against a bulging crystalline formation to steady himself as it shifted gently below him. Almost immediately he saw a patch of red growing underneath where he lay. Pulling a thick device from his belt, he set it for puncture, and several hypodermic needles emerged from the front end, which he jammed into his shoulder. Pain killers, blood clotting mechanisms, antibiotics flooded into him, but the pain seemed only to redouble.
He had to stay awake, had to keep his brain clear. Harris bit down on his tongue, focusing on the pain as a way to stay cognizant, feeling his mouth fill with a metallic flavor. He allowed himself a full minute’s rest to regain his bearings, but the nausea of panic continued hazing over the forefront of his mind.
The mountain continued to waver beneath him as the massive creature creeped forward. He couldn’t stay seated forever. The longer he waited, the more lives would be lost. He imagined even as he lay there that he heard another bullet man misfire through the air and impact uselessly against a rock outcropping.
Harris forced himself to stand up and keep moving. Worms of numbness crisscrossed with white stripes of pain across his shoulder. He clenched his teeth, blood squeaking against his molars. The augmented reality display on his goggles continued to scan the rocks, searching for an access point to the vertebrae underneath. Also, after the encounter with the devil goat, Harris found himself nervously glancing around to see if there were other parasites that might be looking for an easy meal.
Far above he thought he saw shadowy figures snapping across the cliff-face. Devil goats or rock worms or maybe something worse. Harris didn’t want to think about it. He didn’t have the luxury to think about it, the space in his mind to allow for distractions.
The AR system was flashing, a buzzer going off in his ear. A patch of inconspicuous earth ahead, indistinguishable from the surrounding rock and shrubbery, apparently was the closest access point to the mountain’s spine.
Shakily, painfully, Harris ran as he ignited the bone-digging cannon. Using the cannon was far from ideal. The original shot into the monster’s flesh had been his best chance for success. The cannon took longer, and it called more attention to himself, throwing up smoke and flashing lights that could attract unwanted attention—more devil goats could easily gather around and shred him in moments with his body half in the ground. There just was no choice in the matter. It had to be done.
Harris thrust the cannon down, the bar of light and fire colliding with the ground and instantly throwing up a cloud of dust and sparks. Soon he was choking and gagging, but he followed protocol, burning out a tight circle where he could fit into the hole, yanking out individual rocks and tossing them down the side of the beast.
Within moments he had hit skin, and ichor began to pool, gush over, sizzle and steam against the bar of light. The stench was nauseating, and Harris turned up the power, liquefying the muscle and skin and burying himself down into the body of the beast.
Now that he had made entry, he pushed in head-first, engaging his drill helmet. The body of his armor had grooves and even conveyor belts for taking away rock and bone from the hole so he could make progress. His body went down slowly into the muscle and mess. The heartbeat of the mountain began to ring in his ear, reverberate against his body.
The augmented reality screen showed that he was digging through bone, and that the bones were not thick here. At the rate he was digging, he should be able to implant into the nervous system, and…
A sharp pain slammed through his body. Something had just grabbed hold of his right leg. He could feel claws piercing through the armor, through his skin. Some kind of creature had indeed been attracted to the smoke and fire thrown up by the bone-digger cannon. It had followed him into the dark and was now trying to pull him out.
The suit engaged spikes that shot out in all directions into the surrounding bone and rock, holding him in, preventing him from getting pulled free. The creature—a horned stab beetle, or a viciolizard perhaps—continued to yank furiously at his lower leg, his skin raked and sliced in the process.
It wasn’t going to let go, and Harris couldn’t confront it or shoot the creature in the face. There was really only one solution. Taking a deep breath, bracing himself, squeezing his eyes shut, he engaged his escape and blew his right leg off.
The pressure was immediately gone. The monster that had been pulling so voraciously had been blasted right out of the hold while still holding on to the leg. With any luck, the explosion would send the creature plummeting to its death. The charge, too, had been set up inside his own leg in such a way that, when it blew, it automatically cauterized the resultant wound and prevented Harris from bleeding out. According to design, the explosion was also supposed to burn away his nerves so that he wouldn’t feel the loss of his leg.
In practice, it didn’t quite work that way. Not only did his right leg stump burn and smart, his left leg had been scorched by the explosion as well.
Harris suddenly felt as if his whole body had been battered and beaten, as if he were about to fall apart inside the mountain.
But he pressed on. There was nothing else but to press on.
The minutes ticked by, and Harris kept waiting for another beetle to snap onto his remaining leg. Nothing happened. The rocks continued to be pushed out, the helmet continued to spin, dust and dirt and ground up mountain meat. Through the haze of the medicines pumped into his system, Harris watched the indicators on the display on his goggles. He breathed hard through the tubes built into his suit, sucking the hidden oxygen tanks that had been cut into his sides when he had become a bullet man. He had to prevail. He had to succeed.
The heartbeat of the mountain thundered against him harder as if the massive creature knew what was happening just when the sensors bleated out their triumphant message: He had access to the vertebra, he was inside the nervous system of the monster.
Harris let the drill dig a few feet more, deeper, deeper, waiting to make sure his entire body was inside for maximum contact. The pain in his shoulder was overcoming all the painkillers now, his missing leg as well. He could barely think, barely register where he was. He had to finish his mission. He had to hope that it would work.
He pulled the trigger. He whispered his last words.
“Goodbye.”
His body did not explode. An explosion would not slow down the mountain—not by much. They could shoot a hundred burrowing missiles to try to blast apart the inside of the monster with little effect. Cities had tried that before. Those cities were gone now. There was no destroying the mountain, there could be no successful assassination attempt against the monolith.
Instead, the back of the helmet broke open, and a harpoon-like structure shot out into the nervous structures of the monster. The harpoon was connected to a sturdy cable, and the cable was connected to Harris’ own brain. In a moment, in a snap of electricity, their minds were connected.
He felt all of the mountain’s emotions coursing through him. It’s desire to be free, to move, to mate. It’s fear as it saw the bullet men zinging through the air towards its neck. Its thick sense of touch as it walked, as it stumbled, as it lived.
And Harris engaged his training, sinking himself deep into meditation, sending out waves of peace and relaxation, out past his own panic and anxiety, deep breathing, deep concentration. Harris felt himself winking out of existence as his thoughts molded themselves into the monster, and the peace overcame his every worry.
And on the outside, the mountain began to falter. Its steps grew heavier, the wind pouring from the caves upon its cliff faces chuffed and puffed. One of its great feet reached out, fell down crushing several evacuated residential houses flat to the ground, and then stopped. Smoke and sparks of flame shot up momentarily around the foot, but the mountain did not move again.
Instead the mountain settled down, crumbling into a sitting position that shook the world, shattering windows for miles, knocking over furniture in a hundred houses.
Then everything was still again as the mountain dreamed.
“You want to live in my garage?” I said. I knew what the tyrannosaurus had said to me. I mean, I understood what he had said perfectly. But I still had to ask the question.
“Yes,” said the tyrannosaurus. “Thank you.”
Suddenly my thoughts cleared and I could talk again.
“Wait, wait, wait,” I stammered, waving my free hand. A strange image of a tyrannosaurus driving my brand-new truck arose in my mind. “You can’t live in my garage!”
“Why not?” said the tyrannosaurus. “I have thought about my problem carefully. I have no house. You have the biggest garage in the area. You have a very big door on your garage. If I duck, I can walk inside. I am sure of it. What is the problem?”
“The problem?” I said. “There are many problems! Not just one! Many!”
“For example?” said the tyrannosaurus. And he took another piece of caramel popcorn and ate it while watching me with one eye.
“My truck and my boat are in there,” I said. “There is no room for you.”
“Easily solved,” the tyrannosaurus said. “Just take the vehicles out. Look, your neighbors have their cars on the street. You can park them there, too. This popcorn is very good.”
And the tyrannosaurus somehow took a handful of popcorn (even though he only has two fingers on each hand). Somehow he managed to get the entire handful into his mouth without dropping one piece.
“I don’t want my vehicles parked on the street!” I said. I was upset. “And I don’t have a tyrannosaurus-sized toilet. I am not lending you my toilet. I don’t do that anymore.”
“I don’t want your toilet,” said the tyrannosaurus. “I can use the yard for that. Don’t worry, I will be discreet. I am a very civil tyrannosaurus.”
The popcorn was almost gone now, and for some reason that made me even more angry.
“No, you can’t!” I said. “I won’t clean up your mess in my lawn. I would need a dump truck. And anyway, most importantly, you can’t stay in my garage for one very important reason!”
The tyrannosaurus cocked his head.
“And what is that reason?” he asked.
The tyrannosaurus finished eating my popcorn with one incredible lick that cleaned out the bowl.
“Stop that!” I said. I got tyrannosaurus saliva on my arm, and it made me very uncomfortable.
By this time, many of the locals had gathered and they were watching us with curiosity. We were starting to make a scene, and I wanted to end this conversation as soon as possible. Like most people, I don’t like talking with unexpected visitors—even when they are extinct super predators.
“You can’t stay in my garage because it is my garage,” I said. “I own it, and I make the final decision. Please go away.”
The tyrannosaurus looked surprised.
“You don’t really have a choice,” the tyrannosaurus said. “After all, this isn’t really your land.”
“Huh?” I said. “What are you talking about?”
“Well,” said the tyrannosaurus lazily. “The garage isn’t really yours. It’s mine. This land is mine, and so your house and your garage are really mine as well. I can prove it to you.”
It was at that moment that I realized this was going to be one of the worst days of my life.
This is chapter one of my dinosaur novel, A Tyrannosaurus on my Doorstep. I wrote this novel back in 2018 and 2019 originally, and have been trying to work out the best way to share it ever since. The novel has 98 short chapters, and I am hoping to post them here for free for anyone to read–and I hope to enjoy! Each chapter also has an accompanying illustration done by my friend Sam Messerly, and you can find much more of his work here. I am hoping to publish a couple chapters each week in two forms–one with just the chapter and art, but another with additional material designed to help Japanese readers of English study. My initial purpose for writing the book was that it could serve as enjoyable reading material for English learners in Japan, and I used the book in two of my reading classes years ago–to mostly positive results. Now I would like to make the novel available for any readers and teachers who might like to use it in their classes or for their own study–or just to enjoy. Thank you, and I hope you like the story!
Doesn’t this look like fun?
Chapter 1
One day I found a tyrannosaurus on my doorstep. I was very surprised. He knocked on my door when I was eating popcorn and watching a movie in my living room. I don’t remember the movie. You forget things like movies when you find a tyrannosaurus on your doorstep. Anyway, the knock was very quiet. I did not know a tyrannosaurus could knock on a door very quietly. Now I know. Be careful if you hear a quiet knock on your door.
I flopped around looking for my remote and almost knocked over a pile of broken cell phones I needed to fix yet.
After pausing my movie (Death Dancers and the Swing Thing—it’s really good if you haven’t seen it), I walked to my front door. I thought maybe it was my neighbor, Charlie. Charlie always wanted to borrow something from me. For example, one day he borrowed my truck. Another day he borrowed my best hat. Another day he borrowed my toilet. I mean he actually took my toilet to his house. “I will give it back to you tomorrow,” he said.
He still has my toilet.
I hate Charlie.
So, I opened the door. I expected to see Charlie. Instead, I saw two trees in my front lawn I had never seen before. I was surprised. I don’t expect to see new trees in my front lawn. I think it is very rare for a tree to visit your house. Have you ever seen a tree visit your front lawn? Of course not.
And then the trees moved. And I noticed that the trees were wearing pants.
And then I saw the trees were not trees. They were legs. And the legs belonged to a brown tyrannosaurus with slashes of bright orange. And the tyrannosaurus smiled at me.
“Hello,” the tyrannosaurus said. “I am a tyrannosaurus, and I am interested in your garage.”
I was very surprised. Have you ever been very surprised? I mean, very, very surprised. I could not move. I could not run. I could not speak. I think my face looked very funny because the tyrannosaurus’ smile became much bigger.
You never know who is going to be at the door.
“Don’t worry,” the tyrannosaurus said. “I won’t eat you. Look at my teeth.”
I looked at his teeth. They were not sharp teeth. He had very big, very white, very… friendly teeth. Can teeth be friendly? His were beautiful, friendly teeth. I think a person could sell toothpaste with such beautiful teeth. I saw my face reflected in his two giant molars. I noticed I was scared out of my mind.
“I am sorry,” I said finally. “Do you want some popcorn?”
I didn’t know what to say. You try talking to a tyrannosaurus sometime. Probably you won’t know what to say either. Also, I was still holding a big bowl of popcorn. From that movie I was watching. I thought maybe it was rude if I did not offer the tyrannosaurus some popcorn.
It was caramel popcorn, in case you were wondering. Probably bad for a tyrannosaurus’ teeth. Which means probably they are bad for my teeth, too. And I wondered how much popcorn a tyrannosaurus could eat. I realized that I think about stupid things when I see a tyrannosaurus on my doorstep.
“That is very kind of you,” the tyrannosaurus said. He took one piece of popcorn between two fingers and tossed it into his mouth.
“Delicious, really,” the tyrannosaurus said. “But I am not here for your popcorn.”
The tyrannosaurus moved closer, and I almost dropped my bowl of popcorn.
“I want to live in your garage,” said the tyrannosaurus.
