Unquiet Dreams (18 page)

Using the sticks in tandem, Billy rooted through the wreckage in the area of his parents' bedroom, finally locating them under a ten-foot square chunk of ceiling. He leaned over to see if, unlikely though it may be, there might still be signs of life. No, they were quite dead. Big dinosaur tears rolled down his face to drip off his lower mandible. Billy nudged his mother's blood-soaked corpse sadly, but a fire raged through his oversized-for-a-dinosaur brain. The fire said, "EAT!"

Almost before he knew it, his jaws snapped open upon her form. The taste of blood was even more exquisite than the smell and he threw his head back to swallow the bits. It was so good, he roared with glee. Billy flicked out his tongue to savor the lingering drops around his mouth. He saw his father when he lowered his head again and felt another stab of guilt, but it was quickly drowned out by the rumble from his whetted appetite. One two, one two, and chew and chew; his father made a second snack. The twins were hardly worth the bother, but as long as he was here and hungry, he might as well help himself.

Billy tossed the sticks away, hunger still uppermost in his hybrid mind. Think, damn it, he scolded himself. Cows, came the answer; not two miles away the suburbs gave way to farm lands and there was plenty of livestock to eat. Billy ambled out of what was left of his childhood home, whacking the red maple with his tail as he passed. He roared with laughter and used his tail to smash each mailbox as he went by, striding down the middle of the sleepy little lane.

People were awake now. Commuters rose and shone and stepped out on their porches to get the morning paper. Billy greeted them. Most were too shocked to react with anything other than horrified stares and slack jaws. A few who'd had their coffee shrieked with fear. Old man Ellison lost it, his last thought a simple "No!" as his mind, his heart and his bowels all slipped out of conscious control, and he sank moistly to the floor. Billy turned at the corner, spying those monstrous Anderson kids out in their front yard, surprised from their morning cartoons by the cacophony of his passing. He bellowed and lunged at them, catching the youngest and slowest one in his razoring teeth before it could reach the safety of the screened-in porch. Billy tossed it in the air and swallowed without chewing, then veered back to the road.

It took longer than you'd think to get the proper authorities out there that day. A string of bizarre calls to the police and animal control finally resulted in a cruiser being sent into the normally quiet neighborhood. The lone cop radioed for help before he was even sure what had happened; there was just too much carnage along the road. By the time the National Guard screeched into action and located him, Billy had munched his way through some twenty or thirty of the finest Guernseys in the country.

Billy was beginning to feel sleepy. The sun was too hot now. But his adrenaline—or whatever the dinosaur equivalent was—pumped up when he saw the Guard, three fire-trucks and a swarm of State Troopers. They had a tank. "Cool!" thought Billy, wistfully yearning for his lost car once more. Obviously they were going to use it on him, which did worry him a bit.

The commander of the forces screamed "Fire!" at a man with a flag, who brought his flag down crisply, so that the guy in the tank pushed his button. Billy was ready. A burst of fire flashed from the tank's snout and the discharge hurtled toward him. Billy ducked to his right just below the trajectory of the missile, which went on to take out three heifers with its explosion. Billy howled with pleasure and triumph.

They tried again—and again, and again. By the fourth shot, the score was Billy 0 and cows 7. The Guards stopped firing while they considered what to do. Billy yawned.

"My god!" shouted one of the cops, studying Billy intently. "It's as if he knows what we're trying to do!"

Billy heard this and nodded his head up and down vigorously. The cop grabbed her partner and gesticulated wildly toward the dinosaur. Her partner seemed to think the eggs had slipped off her plate, but she grabbed more of the cops, including one with a lot of badges and a big walkie-talkie. The crowd around her grew, the Guards joining in. The firefighters remained aloof.

Finally the knot around her broke. The commander of the Guards handed her his bullhorn. She walked bravely out toward Billy, who blinked down at her. He could see her try to moisten her lips before raising the bullhorn to them.

"Can you understand us?"

Billy nodded vehemently. The crowd gasped. It had grown significantly despite the danger; station wagons lined the road outside the farm and the cordon that had been thrown up around it.

"Can you speak?"

Billy shook his head and roared to demonstrate. Hundreds of flashes went off; the media had arrived.

"Why are you killing?"

Billy rubbed his tummy with one claw-tipped hand, hoping she would understand.

She seemed to do so. "Could you take a time out while we discuss a plan?"

Billy nodded once more and hunkered his weight down to a comfortable crouch to doze. The cop looked with awe at the bones around Billy, then reluctantly turned back to the troops. They needed a plan.

They found one.

In six months it was open to the general public, bringing a prosperity to Finleydale that the Guernseys and even the autoworkers had never been able to do. Dino-World tickets out-sold those of Disneyworld in its first year. People were more than willing to shell out twenty-five bucks a head to watch Billy chow down on cows, pigs and the occasional exotic animal. For his part, Billy was a good boy and didn't eat any more people—except for that unfortunate movie producer who seemed to forget, despite repeated warnings, that Billy could indeed understand every word he said. The movie was already made, though, so the company decided not to sue as long as Billy agreed to appear in the TV ads and on Good Morning America.

Billy was happy: he now ate cows for a living and roamed freely around the enormous compound of Dino-Park, posing for pictures from time to time and thinking about dinosaurs in general any damn time he pleased. Margaret even brought out his dinosaur paraphernalia and keepsakes, once she put two and two together and came up with Billy and, of course, once she got over being mad at him for eating the rest of the family. There was just too much money to be made. My Brother the Dinosaur was on the New York Times Bestseller list for over sixty weeks before the paperback came out. Sure, scientists from all over the world would come and scrape little cells off his neck and collect clippings from his claws, but balanced against his three comic books lines and his forthcoming movies, Billy found he could take even those indignities in stride.

All in all, Billy liked being a dinosaur. It was a wonderful life.

 

 

"Mommy?'

"Yes, dear, what is it?"
How am I gonna pay all these bills this month
, Marti thought as she responded absently to Kari's pull on her sweater.

"Mommy, what would you say if I said I'd been touched by an angel?"

Why does the cable bill go up every month? Who invents these bogus charges?
"What's that, dear?"

"What if I'd been touched by an angel?" Kari insisted.

"I'd say get a photo, honey, and then we'd be rich. We could go on TV and all the showbiz weasels would kiss our butts and hand us buckets of money."
And I could smack those self-righteous touched-by-an-angel-folks right in the kisser too
, Marti finished to herself. Damn, but she hated those churchy folk.

"Can I use the camera then, Mommy?"

Marti looked down at her own little angel—well, today anyway. Some days she was a perfect little demon. "What?"

"Can I use the camera then? I wanna take a picture of the angel!" Those big amber eyes smiled up at her winningly.

"Honey, you know you're not allowed to use the camera. Daddy's little toy—and he doesn't like to share it."
Why am I raising two children
, Marti thought for the millionth time.
And why does he always have to buy things like that when we don't have enough money to pay our bills?

"But, Mommy—"

"No."

Kari pouted in her most practiced manner. To no avail—not that Marti was immune to its winsome charm, but right now the complex art of juggling the outstanding bills with their meager incoming checks occupied the uppermost reaches of her cranium.
Damn, there was just no way their cash could stretch far enough this month. No, they would have to cancel the cable, Monday Night Football or no Monday Night Football, because if they had to ask Dan's folks for money again
—

"Well, what if you took a picture of it, Mommy?" Kari had not given up, just changed tactics.

"What? Take a picture of what? The angel? Oh, honey, there's no angel."

"But there is! And you said we could make a lot of money with a picture of it," Kari reminded her, smiling in triumph. "Please, Mommy, please, it will only take a minute!"

Marti sighed, but she put the sheaf of bills down. "All right, but I highly doubt we'll be seeing any angel, young lady. It better have something for dinner if I'm going to believe it's divinely inspired." But Kari had already run toward her little bedroom, pigtails swinging behind her. Marti reached for the Canon. It sat on the top shelf of the dining room, out of the range of little hands like Kari's and her friends'. Ridiculous thing—too much money they could have spent on something useful, and the photo paper! As if the camera itself hadn't gouged their pocket enough.
A monument to Dan's need for instant gratification
, Marti scowled. She swung it by its strap as she traced Kari's tiny footsteps.

Kari was peering gingerly into the depths of her closet. "Where's your angel, honey?" Marti asked, almost smiling in spite of her grumpiness. Her daughter seemed tensely electrified. Marti had to smother her childish desire to poke Kari in the ribs and see her jump. "It's in the closet?"

"It was…" Kari sounded dismayed. She waved her hand inside the darkness of the closet but seemed to encounter no obstacle. Marti reminded herself for the hundredth time that they ought to put a light in there. After all, the closet was half the size of her corner room. "It was here! I think maybe it's hiding," Kari suggested hopefully, looking up to her mother with pleading eyes.

Marti sighed again, suddenly tired. She bent over Kari and peered into the dark. "Sorry, I don't see anything, sweetheart—but ooh, do I smell something. Did you leave a sandwich in here? God, it stinks."

"But it was here, Mommy."

"Maybe, but I think right now you better do some cleaning, closet cleaning. It smells like something died in here, no kidding."

"But—"

"Now, young lady, or you'll be sitting in your room tonight instead of watching TV." Kari hung her head but she didn't argue further. There was a look of determined stubbornness on her face that seemed to be directed at the closet rather than her mother. Marti felt a twinge of worry. "What did your angel look like, honey?"

Kari still stared into the closet, little fists clenched by her sides. "Celia," she said without looking up.

Ouch
. That was no good. Tenderness flood Marti's heart. She bent down beside her daughter, looping her arms around the small waist. "I know it's very upsetting, Kari. The terrible thing that happened to your little friend. It's very hard to understand the awful things that can happen in the world. But you do understand, don't you? You know she won't be coming back?"

Kari nodded, but her eyes still searched the depths of the closet. "Celia was killed by a bad man and that's why we should never get into a car with a stranger even if he has candy or a puppy."

Marti winced. It was like the Bible recitations she had to memorize as a child. Probably just as meaningless, too. She had to know it was important though. "I know you get tired of hearing it, sweetie, but it is very important."

"I know."

"Well, I just want to be sure that you know…how bad…how serious it can be. The world. I couldn't stand to lose you, I love you so much."

Kari finally looked up. Her eyes were kind. "I know, Mommy. And I won't go with strange men who take your clothes and then kill you and hide your body so no one finds it." She smiled, trying to reassure her mother. Marti shuddered and hugged her daughter fiercely.
I would never let you go
, she thought,
never
.

When she felt Kari start to squirm, she stood up again. "Well, still, you need to clean up that closet. There's something in there making it smell. Either you let Pogo run around in there and he pooped, or you left some kind of food in there. Okay?"

"I will, Mommy." Kari watched her mother turn, still swinging the Canon, and walk back up the hallway. When she could hear her turn on the radio in the dining room, Kari said sarcastically, "You can come out now."

Celia seemed to ooze from the pile of clothes in the corner, but she looked and smelled just as solid as she had when she crawled through the window last night. "I couldn't let her see me."

"Why not? Now my Mommy thinks I'm looney tooney."

"I don't think I'm an angel anyway."

Kari snorted impatiently. "You died, you came back, you're an angel. It's just like on TV."

"No wings? I kinda wanted wings."

"They would look pretty," Kari agreed. They both thought sadly of how pretty they would have looked. "Oh, I know!" Kari had an inspiration, "You have to earn them! You do nice things and then you get them, like in the Girl Scouts. It was in that movie my mommy likes at Christmas about that guy who did stuff and then he was like dead but he wasn't, so he got to see everything when he was dead—"

"But what about the wings?"

"I'm getting to it. The angel guy in the movie he didn't have wings because he was still saving up for them."

"I don't see how that works."

Kari puzzled over that. "Well, I guess, maybe…when you do something nice…maybe people give you money." She shrugged. "Wanna play horsies?"