The Complete Flashback Saga

Chapter 4

He lifted his arm—and nylon rustled in the dark. Floating in space several inches from his eyes was the bandaged stump he’d laid there fearing.

“Hey ...!” he mumbled in a poor parody of excitement. “You can’t show that on television ...”

The pain was terrible, but it was a constant, droning kind of terrible, and so he found he was able to ignore it to some extent, though the thought that he could do so amazed him.

Far worse was the itching. Not the itching of flesh, which would come when he began to heal—but the itching to be whole again. It was a dull, persistent torment, like a cramped leg beneath the sheets. Something inside him couldn’t quite grasp that his hand was actually missing ... Couldn’t quite grasp, he thought insanely. Get it? Get it?

The problem, boiled down to its essence, seemed to be: If his hand was gone, why then could he still feel it? And he could feel it. It was right there, responding to his commands, opening and closing, making a fist ...

But it’s NOT there, Roger, he reprimanded himself. So bury it. Bury it before it buries you.

He dropped his arm to the cot. Melodramatically, he sang: “We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun ...”

Right-o. Okay, then ... The question was: Where the hell was he? And where had Savanna gone?

He could vaguely recall being helped into a building. It had been hailing, hadn’t it? Yes, he suddenly remembered that very clearly: hailstones the size of grapefruits raining down at a thousand miles per hour. And he remembered being carried into a bathroom, where Savanna and someone else had flushed out his wound with hot water and soap, and then she’d whispered something in his ear, something reassuring ... and there had been pain.

But where was he?

He blinked once, twice, focusing his eyes, and then rolled his head on the canvas and began glancing about the dim room. He saw a little wicker basket spilled over with refuse, a jacket hanging from the door, a battered-looking golf club standing alone in the corner. There was a small desk directly across from him, an entirely crude affair which looked like it had been purchased from Fingerhut or something like that, and assembled in a rush by someone’s dog. Its surface was cluttered. There was a slim stack of manila envelopes which seemed in danger of toppling off its edge, a paperweight shaped like a woman of impossible proportions, a six-pack of 7-UP with two of the cans missing, a small digital clock: Its little glowing numbers read: 11:59 am.

Lunch-time, he thought inanely.

Lastly, the desk supported a dormant reading-lamp minus its shade. Close behind it was a small window, set into the concrete like the slits found in prisons. Big flakes of snow fell slowly past its port, set aglow like embers by the cold orange glow of a light somewhere outside. Directly beside the window was a small poster. It was hard to discern any details, but it seemed to depict comic figures of some sort, workers in hard-hats, maybe. Bold, green lettering read: THINK SAFETY.

Something blotted out the view through the window and his eyes darted back to it. There was nothing there now but a faint sheen, like a buffed, black fender in twilight. He threw wide the covers and sat up.

He took three steps and fell. His head swam dizzily, and he wavered on his hands (his hand, rather) and knees. Was he still in shock?

His thoughts swirled. The dream ... Savanna ... she’d been screaming ... the smell of shampoo—could a real scream have carried over into his dream? Where was she and what the hell was going on? The window ... something blocking the window ... start there ...

Suddenly, amazingly, his sneakers were shuffling across the floor and he was reaching for the lamp switch. Its brassy tip kissed his fingertips and he twisted—click!

Something blinked, constricted, and he suddenly realized there was a tremendous eye staring through the window. He caught just the briefest glimpse of a vertical black ellipse dividing a yellow halo, like a giant cat’s eye reflected in headlights. Snow drifted lazily down past its stare and clung to the membrane of its iris like lint. It blinked again. Then the lamp’s bulb blew and the room fell dark, and he could see only snow and the faint glow of a light outside.

VII | RexROGER EMERGED FROM the back room to find himself inside the Ozark station. He stood at the rear of the store and blinked, feeling like a zombie. His flesh was pale and bluish, his hair wild. The bright of the room made his eyeballs throb.

He saw a group of people clustered at the window in the front, about ten individuals, all turned away from him. His wife was not among them. Two of the people wore the brown tunics of cashiers. Two others stood arm in arm, a short fat chick and a skinny guy in a cowboy hat. Of the remaining six, Roger saw only long hair and black leather, and recalled the roaring procession of Harleys which had passed his 4x4 on the interstate. Bikers, he supposed, though he couldn’t quite make out the inscription on their jackets. ‘The Dusty’ something.

Roger walked forward.

Everyone was muttering amongst themselves:

“s**t, man—it’s as big as a house!”

“Gods, what a monster.”

“The thing could weigh two tons.”

“It’s called a mass hallucination. It’s happened before ...”

Moments later, peering between the shoulders of two grunting bikers, Roger saw his totaled 4x4 sitting askew in the snow. He had no idea how it had gotten that way. A shadow fell across its cab. Something big appeared at the edge of his vision, he shifted his gaze ... And felt his blood run cold.

The thing was gray-green, with black stripes. It measured at least forty feet from its long, deep snout to the tip of its tail (which was held high and rigid as a lance), and walked on two powerful hind-legs, knees and ankles flexed like a bird. Its neck curved in an S down from the razor-toothed head to its upper body, which lay nearly horizontal, and its tiny forelimbs gripped at dead air with forked claws. A bony ridge ran up the middle of its snout, like a racing stripe. The ridge was blood red. The animal itself, give or take a genus, was a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Bowed low, it crept past the window, padding stealthily for Roger’s wrecked 4x4. Stalking it. The muscular neck dipped gracefully to the snowy asphalt (like a swan on steroids), and the rex squeezed its snout beneath the truck, causing the left tires to raise off the ground. It worked its massive jaws in shadow. From beneath the vehicle, a stain of dark blood spread creeping through the snow.

Knock-knock-knock!

Somebody was rapping on the glass.

“Who the hell ...?” one of the cashiers barked, leaning back and staring down the line.

The tyrannosaur lifted its great head, swinging it toward the window, and the 4x4’s tires slammed back down. Everyone gasped.

“Nobody move!” the cashier shouted.

The rex stared at them, its dark eyes glinting under horny brows, its deep snout tapered like a wolf’s. Its jaw dropped to reveal rows of worn daggers.

The clerk murmured to himself: “Easy ... that’s a boy, nothing in here,” and to the others: “I think we’re okay. He can see us, but he can’t smell us. We’re just part of the scenery ...”

The rex turned away at last, stooping to chew blindly at its elusive prize again.

The red stain in the snow grew larger.

Roger held up his stump and looked at it. My god, he thought. I’m part of the food-chain ...

Then his eyes rolled back in his skull, and he fell.

“Roger!” Savanna shrieked, and rushed to where he lay. The cashier and the Bonners followed close behind her.

The bikers laughed raucously. “Had you going there, didn’t I?” said one, elbowing a partner.

Roy Bonner stopped in his tracks, and pointed his finger at the man. “You could’ve gotten us all killed!” he snapped.

The biker turned to face him, his face deeply tanned, his beard mangy, his expression cold. He sized Roy up and said: “I don’t think so ... Tex.”

Roy Bonner glowered at him. Clara pulled him away by his arm.

The biker laughed and turned away, reflected light running across the gold letters at his back. They sparkled one by one and spelled: T-h-e D-u-s-t-y M-o-t-h-s.

Savanna lifted Roger’s head and cradled it in her arms; he’d hit his forehead and lacerated the skin on one of the plastic-coated tables.

“It’s just not my day,” he said, looking up at her forlornly.

She leaned down and kissed him next to his new wound. “Understatement, honey. Can you stand?”

He nodded, and Savanna and the clerk helped him up. Then, at Roger’s urging, the two stepped back. He wavered, but motioned them away when they moved to assist him. “It’s all right,” he insisted. “I got it.”

“How do you feel?” Savanna asked.

“Thirsty ... come to think of it,” he said.

“I’ll get you some water.”

She returned a moment later with an Ozark Super Tanker cup in hand. She tilted it against his lips and he drank greedily. “Easy,” she said.

He swallowed a few more times. She took the cup away before he was finished. “Let’s see how you handle that before drinking any more, okay?”

She sat the cup on a nearby stamp machine.

Roger groaned. His head pounded. He lifted his right arm to rub it, but the sling rustled and he stopped. He rubbed with his left instead. “Any luck with the radio?” he asked.

Savanna and the clerk shook their heads.

“Phone?”

They shook their heads.

He dropped his arm to his side. “Right ...” He glanced toward the bikers and back. “We wait, then. Question is for how long?”

“That all depends on the ...” The clerk looked toward the windows. “Hell, if it looks like a thing and walks like a thing, it must be that thing. The rex.”

He stepped over to the double-glass doors and peered outside. The two couples stepped up beside him, and the five of them watched as the gigantic saurian pranced back from the 4x4, obviously agitated. It threw back its head and bellowed like a lion. A flock of small birds erupted from the row of newly-planted trees opposite the parking lot.

The clerk shook his head. “I don’t get it, man. What’s under your truck that he wants so bad?”

“It’s called a velociraptor,” Savanna told him. “It’s a type of dinosaur.” She tried not to think about her dream as she continued: “We hit the thing on our way in and it latched onto the undercarriage. The rex must smell its blood.”

The man stared at her, bewildered. Roger stirred against the glass. “Look,”

The rex was pacing back and forth in a semicircle, padding around the 4x4 with quick, restless strides. Its hip-bones shifted stealthily beneath the folds of its flesh as it moved. It stopped and swung low its head. Again, it wedged its massive jaws between the white asphalt and the Toyota's underbelly.

Except this time it jerked its snout upward. The muscles of its thick neck rippled and constricted, swimming beneath the flesh like taut steel chords—and the snow-covered 4x4 tumbled over with a crash. Metal groaned, shrieked, and collided with asphalt. Shatterproof glass crumpled and gave way. The tyrannosaur's jaws closed around the velociraptor's torso.

The big rex began backing away from the overturned vehicle. Even from inside the building, Roger and the others heard the wet, ripping sound of the animal's carcass being stripped from the undercarriage. It sounded like a Velcro wallet being opened very slowly. The tyrannosaur dropped its prize in the snow, pinning it there instinctively with its tri-clawed foot.