Pteranodon Mall (7 page)

“Are you going to stop smiling, Jeffdude? You look like you’ve been snorting coke, or in your case, frigging tea leaves. Look, if we can get out, then let’s do it. We need the police. No, fuck them. We need the army and lots and lots of guns.”

“Wait on, no. What about Alan and Sandy, man? We can’t leave them in here.”

“What other choice do we have? I mean. We’re not fucking superheroes. There’s me, some woman, and a guy with a cricket bat against some of the most efficient killers ever to walk the Earth. It doesn’t take a genius to see that we’re fucked if we stay.”

David’s fidgeting grew worse, that wasn’t his only concern either. Janine was shaking, really shaking, like she was about to have a fit.

“Oh, and let’s not forget the one obvious flaw in this!” he yelled. “It’s still fucking time travel, and if we haven’t gone back, then someone or something has come here!” He grabbed the front of Jefferson’s shirt. “And they’re still here, waiting for us on the next fucking level.”

Jefferson felt the woman’s legs go. It took most of his strength to stop Janine from smashing the back of her head on the floor tiles. He spun to face her, grabbed Janine’s other arm, and eased her down on the floor. David had quietened down, but Jefferson could still hear the lad rattling on in the background. “For the love of God, will you shut your gob for a second?”

He slipped out of his jacket, scrunched it up and placed it under her head, and stroked the back of her hand with his forefinger. Jefferson didn’t have a clue what else to do.

“My sister has epilepsy, you know,” said David. “Don’t worry. Your new girlfriend will be out of it soon. You just need to make sure she doesn’t swallow her tongue. Tip her head to the side. She’ll probably want a drink once she’s done. That’s what our Debbie asks for.”

The woman tilted her head towards Jefferson and slowly opened her eyes.

“Are you all right?”

“I think so.” She suddenly gulped down a mouthful of air. “Oh God. That was bloody horrible. It felt like my eyes were going to explode and all my internal organs were on fire.”

Jefferson looked towards David, and then switched his gaze back to Janine. He never believed in coincidences, and Janine feeling like shit all of a sudden fit right into the category. She wasn’t faking it, that much he did know. “Okay, David. Let’s go with your ridiculous bollocks idea of some time travelling thingies are hell-bent on stopping us from escaping. I mean, who’d be daft enough to stick around once they unleash their pet dinos? Apart from you that is, but you’re a bit of a prat. I mean normal people.”

“Dunno, I guess it depends on their tech level.”

“For crying out loud, David, they have time travel. How more advanced do you want?”

“I’d use an energy shield. Yeah, that’s what I’d do.”

This was getting him nowhere. So much for David being the crown king of geek. “I was thinking of some kind of science fiction gas that makes people want to stay inside. It fucks with people’s heads when they the opportunity to get out arises.”

“Yeah, sure, seems reasonable. It won’t be called that though, cos your name is lame.”

“Doesn’t fucking matter about the name, man.” Jefferson helped Janine into a sitting position. “You don’t want to go back to the furniture shop, honey.”

She shook her head. “Oh God, you must think me a complete fool. No, I don’t want to go back there. Most of all, Jefferson. I don’t want you to leave me.”

“I’m not going to leave you. I promise.” He grabbed the cricket bat by the middle and offered the handle to David. “Here you go, buddy. You might need to hang on to this. If you do manage to make it outside, can you please be quick with the rescue teams? Oh, and make sure they bring some heavy artillery.”

David frantically shook his head. For a couple of seconds, Jefferson though he was going to have to look after two epileptics.

“Come on, guys. I don’t want to leave you behind, but it makes sense to get help.”

“Don’t worry about it, man. We’ll probably be okay. Oh, I forgot to mention. I saw one of those seal thigh dinos in the furniture shop.”

“Seal thigh? You are such a dork. They are pronounced Coelophysis.”

“Whatever. Anyway, this guy ended up being another dinosaur’s dinner. It just reached down and bit its head clean off. A real big bastard it was too. In fact, that little guy in Alan’s pet shop, trying to eat all those bats with beaks, looks just like it.”

“Oh fuck.”

The blood had drained from David’s face. He wrenched the bat out of Jefferson’s hand before pressing his back tightly against the wall.

“There might have been two of them, David,” said Janine.

“What are we going to do?”

“We make our way onto the next level. We look for Sandy and Alan, then find another way out of this place. Before that, I want to go back to our shop and grab a screwdriver set.”

“What the hell for?”

“There’s something in the sporting shop that I want.”

Chapter Eight

Zinik-Tow had already told Desmond that the shock of seeing the plague of the hairless vermin infecting and ruining the planet was enough evidence to prove that the sons of Maulis-Bow had been right all along about denying their true nature. He’d explained that the great deity didn’t want any of his creations to evolve and flourish, to become a technically advanced society. At first, Desmond thought this featured fuckwit was banging on about the humans, until it dawned on him that he was going on about his own species.

It took Desmond a while to work out what it was trying to suggest. The feathered fuckwits use of long words confused the hell out of Desmond, but eventually, its reasoning did sink in. Somehow, this idiot believed the humans were a punishment from their Great Deity, to prove to that following the way of reason only led to destruction.

It obviously hadn’t thought this one through. If the idiot hadn’t set off that bomb in the first place, then none of this wouldn’t have happened anyway. The feathered fuckwit reminded Desmond a lot of his granddad. Now that was one complete religious nutcase. He spent his life using the God excuse to explain everything from the crappy weather to losing his wallet at the bookies.

Desmond was the youngest boy from a large family. He had another five brothers and two sisters. His mum’s sister hadn’t exactly been known for her ability to keep her legs shut either back in her wilder and prettier days. She had given poor Desmond five older cousins, who just loved knocking the crap out of their ugly cousin. Thankfully, the beatings were few and far between as the two families only met up once a month, when they all converged on their grandparent’s place for Sunday lunch.

While Gran entertained the adults, Granddad took the kids upstairs, out of the way. If it hadn’t been for the others, Desmond might have enjoyed playing with the old toys and listening to his granddad bang on about the evils of the world and how God came down harshly on any bastard who stepped out of line.

He sighed heavily. Perhaps if Granddad had looked a little closer to home, he might have noticed a few bastards stepping out of line as soon as the old man left the room to visit the toilet. As soon as they were alone, his cousins took turns punching Desmond in the guts or nipping him, or slapping his face, while Desmond’s brothers looked on, giggling away.

Granddad visited the toilet a lot in those days.

After Granddad died, Desmond used to wonder why the old man’s God never bothered to tell granddad to get himself checked out. They might have detected the bowel cancer early enough to do something about it.

The old man’s God obviously thought that telling him that it would be pissing down when he went to collect his horse race winnings was more important.

Even so, despite his grandad’s dodgy interpretation of God, the old man had been the only person who’d ever treated poor Desmond with any respect when he was growing up. Perhaps his religious ideas weren’t as daft as he once thought?

After all, Desmond was still here, walking around this mall, still alive and relatively safe, unlike all the other poor buggers who’d been caught up in all the excitement. Oh, Desmond didn’t put his narrow escape from the jaws of death down to his granddad’s God, fuck no. He put it down to meeting someone who acted just like that mental old bastard.

Zinik-Tow told Desmond that the Great Deity had allowed their species to conquer their planet before reaching for the stars. In the millions of years since discovering warp drive, they’d colonised the nearby star systems, encountering over two hundred other sentient species as they spread throughout the outer spiral arm. Naturally, their species believed that the Great Deity had placed these alien races on those planets just to taunt the species, implying they should have reached these planets long before such lesser creatures could develop to become an embarrassment to the Great Deity. Consequently, they had wiped them out.

His new pal explained that he believed his species shouldn’t have used kinetic warheads on their planets followed by the release of millions of assault drop-troops landing on the surface, ready to vaporise anyone still standing once they had demolished their cities. Zinik-Tow said that using such advanced weaponry against creatures who couldn’t defend themselves was blasphemy. The Great Deity created them to hunt and to kill their prey in face-to-face combat. Where was the honour to their God into turning a city of millions into molten slag from the safety of an orbiting weapons platform?

If it was truly necessary to conquer the galaxy, then instead of taking a few days to annihilate the new alien races they encountered, the species should follow The Sons of Maulis-Bow and show the proper respect to The Great Deity by hunting them down in a more appropriate manner. Why should it matter that the extermination would take a couple of years?

Back in that chamber, with the dinosaur sleeping with her head resting on her blood-stained claws, Zinik-Tow had spoken in great detail over his plans to complete to work of The Sons of Maulis-Bow. First, there would be a great purge, to remove most of the hairless vermin before starting work to create a new species, combining his advanced DNA with his ancient ancestor. The combined creation would spend their lives hunting the remaining humans and mating, as The Great Deity had intended.

Desmond had no issue with his new pal’s grand plan, especially as he’d be spending all his time impregnating the females to ensure the new species had a sufficient stock of young prey to hunt and eat. The thought of him producing hundreds of annoying brats for Zinik-Tow’s creations to eat pleased him greatly.

His new pal’s companions couldn’t be allowed to win. That’s for sure, not after what Zinik-Tow had told him. He had asked the feathered fuckwit why they didn’t just time travel back to the past and stop Zinik-Tow before he could set off his bomb. If they did that, then everything would be put back right. Desmond had obviously asked this question after his new pal explained that the quantum chamber, currently wedged in Martin’s Department Store, stored the whole knowledge of their species advancements in its data storage crystals. His new pal patiently explained that the materials needed for the quantum chamber’s repair were located on just two planets, the nearest one was thirty-four light years away. Also, the commander would have no wish to go back and fix the past. Why should he want to do that? Thanks to Zinik-Tow’s bomb, he now had the opportunity to building up the species from scratch. He would see this as the ultimate gift from The Great Deity. To go back would mean the commander’s name would be forgotten within a few thousand years. This way, his revered name would fall off the lips of his descendants for millions of years in the future.

Desmond had asked whether any of his pals had families and wouldn’t any of them want to go back to be reunited. His new pal didn’t understand the question. He then thought of his mum who ignored Desmond. His siblings and cousins who used to beat on him. Desmond then remembered his own dad telling his young son that he was a mistake, and if he had his way, he would have drowned the little fucker in the hospital toilets before they even had chance to come back home.

“Apart from three technicians who will be monitoring and perhaps attempting to repair some of the systems damaged in the explosion, the rest of the crew will be on this level of the vermin-built hive.”

“It’s called a shopping mall.” Desmond almost called his new pal a
feathered fuckwit
but managed to bite his tongue. He was sure Zinik-Tow wouldn’t understand the reference, but he’d certainly understand the implication. “So, this is your timeship?” he murmured, so wanting to run his fingers down the smooth contours of its shell. His new pal had brought him up to the second floor in the large department store. They’d walked straight past three other feathered fuckwits and four humans. It made Desmond’s day when the humans, despite their predicament, shrank back as he and Zinik-Tow marched past them. His new pal had used that gizmo on Desmond, so he now looked just like a feathered fuckwit as well.

Desmond had wondered what was going to happen to the four humans and why the feathered fuckwits had made them all stand on the roof of that car. In the end, he realised that he didn’t really care. One of the men was Mr. Dillon. He was the manager of the Happy Mex, a taco-themed restaurant next to the mall cinema. He once threatened this poor janitor to throw him out of the window if he ever caught Desmond rifling through the bins behind the shop.

Their timeship was nestled between the store’s cafe and the cookshop. Right beside Desmond’s hand was half a kettle and a quarter of a sandwich maker. Their ship had sliced a large crescent through the entire shelf. Zinik-Tow had explained to Desmond about what had happened to the rest of the stuff now occupied by their fancy time machine, but Desmond’s brain went for a hike when the feathered fuckwit came out with words like
displacement physics
and
quantum compression
.

“Are you sure it’s safe to go in? I mean, there won’t be any cameras or some kind of laser guns embedded into the walls?”

Zinik-Tow didn’t even bother to reply. He slid his claws into five recessed holes in the oval doorway. He then uttered a combination of growls and hisses. Desmond guessed that he was hearing how they spoke to each other. Unreal. To him, it sounded like sausages sizzling in a frying pan. A thick grey membrane split in two and rolled back, revealing a dark interior. His new pal then fastened his claws over Desmond’s arm and dragged him inside the ship.

His new pal took his claws off Desmond once the membrane had rolled back. It took a great deal of effort to stop him from spinning around and sinking his nails into that grey stuff that looked like skin. He wanted to rip his way out of here and into proper sanitised white light instead of all this dirty-green glow, which seeped out from the numerous slits in the curved wall.

“I don’t want to be in here.” Desmond stopped beside a transparent panel, which moved. It looked like it was breathing. “Oh fuck, I’m in hell.” He would have tried to escape if his new pal hadn’t reached out and grabbed him again.

“Come. We must hurry. The power for my image resonator will not sustain the increased outage for a finite period.”

Desmond groaned aloud and did as he was told. He could do that. He’d been following orders, which he hated, for most of his life. He passed more breathing panels, organic tubes, bright blue cubes made from what looked like crystal, and dozens more membrane doors. As they moved in a straight line, it dawned of Desmond that they should have run out of weird, disturbing corridors ages ago. How was that even possible? By now, they should be out of the mall and in the middle of the city centre.

He kept quiet about this, but Desmond couldn’t stop himself from asking one question that his new pal had repeatedly refused to answer ever since leaving the chamber. “Are you going to tell me now what we’re supposed to be doing in here?” He thought the feathered fuckwit was going to ignore him again until he stopped and turned to face Desmond.

“Desmond. It has been my observation that even for a hairless vermin, your mental facility is not that advanced. Would you not just prefer to obey my commands without me having explain myself?”

He shook his head. “Please?” Desmond jumped away from one of the blue crystal cubes when it began to oscillate.

“It is very simple. Back home, we use pacifiers to ensure the herds do not deviate from their trails. It is a perfectly acceptable method to control the lower lifeforms.” Zinik-Tow performed a very passable version of a human grin. “It does not surprise me that something we use on brainless sauropods works just as well on you hairless vermin.”

“Okay, so we’re a lower lifeform. I get that. You still haven’t told me anything.” That blue cube had now returned to its previous state. “Why are we here, Zinik-Tow?”

“I am constantly surprised at how your species was able to climb down from the tree without assistance. Desmond. I turn off the field. The hairless vermin do what all herds do in this situation. They panic and stampede. Giving us the diversion in order to leave this hive.”

A thin line appeared down the middle of the breathing panel behind the blue cube. The panel split and rolled back, revealing another chamber. Bright blue light spilled out and showed Desmond the first truly beautiful sight he’d seen since entering this hellish place. “Oh God! That’s the hot chick from the nail bar. What’s she doing in here?” He ran through the opening into the next room. Desmond moved past the two men, both fastened to long slabs with ropes of black shiny material. He stopped by Sandy and dug his fingers into the stuff tying the woman to the bed and tried to pull it away.

“Don’t just stand there, help me get this off her.”

“Why?”

“Because,
I want her
. That’s why. You said I would be impregnating females. Well, I want to start with this one.” He screamed out in rage and hurt when he broke one of his nails in the black stuff. “Come on, help me here!”

“You are in no position to make any demands. By rights, you are my slave. Slaves should only obey without asking questions, without needing to understand, and without making demands.” He turned around. “Now come along, slave, or do I have to leave you here and find myself another one? As I do not think you are the only individual who wishes to live.”

“Oh for crying out loud, you feathered fuckwit. Just seeing it as doing me a favour. As for finding another one like me, good luck with that. See, most of these people around here have something which I don’t possess, they’re called principles, integrity, and empathy. They’ll see you and want to murder you. It’s that’s simple. They’ll do everything in their power to make sure you and your kind are exterminated.”