And I'm keeping on track, I'm now at 10,088 words!
It was a quiet afternoon at in Sildham Meadow. Osric Bodman sat in a chair on his deck, a hot cup of coffee in one hand and his rifle in the other. Today's newspaper was tucked under one arm, and he carefully manoeuvred everything onto the table as he lowered himself down. Once he was arranged, he leaned the gun against hte side of the house, within easy reach of his trigger hand.
This had been Osric's routine for the last twenty years. A nice cup of joe before heading into work, a chance to read the newspaper before all hell broke loose.
He found that if he was very lucky, everything actually worked in that order.
Today was not the day, however. Just as Osric flipped open the sports page, there was a low rumble from the west.
Sighing, Osric put down his coffee and reached for his gun. He did a quick check to confirm it was loaded, and prepared it to shoot. The rumble became stronger, and his coffee cup started to bounce away from him, towards the opposite side of the table.
Standing, Osric swung the gun up resting the barrel on his left hand as his right settled into its familiar position on the trigger. He aimed in the direction the shaking seemed ot be originating from.
Bursting from a copse of trees at the bottom of his yard with a loud roar, the Tyrannosaurus Rex headed straight at him. Osric closed one eye, took a deep breath, and fired.
The dinosaur collapsed with a scream, blood streaming from its left eye and onto the ground. Its flailing head took out a chunk of the picket fence that lined the boundary between yard and field. Osric aimed again, and fired a second shot into the top of the animal's brain. The screaming stopped, and, after a few twitches, all movement ceased.
Osric set the rifle back down, rescued his coffee cup from falling over, and sat back down.
Alarms blared in the background, the warning coming too late that there was an a reptilian intruder in the neighbourhood. Osric's pager bleeped plaintively.
Even if he wasn't a professional dinosaur hunter, he'd still be dealing with these rogue beasts, the ones who wandered out of thick cover with little or no notice. The ones that had lived wild and away from humans for years, unafraid of shotguns and guard dogs. At least with his job he knew when to expect to see them. Here at home it was much more unpredictable.
Of course normally at home he wouldn't get paid for killing a T-Rex. Since the call was coming in to him now, he'd at least get to claim the kill, and make up the cost of replacing part of his fence.
As the clean up team swarmed into the yard, trying to figure out how to move such a large corpse out of the residential area, Osric continued to drink his coffee. No one knew for sure why dinosaurs suddenly started appearing out of nowhere. All they knew is that the incidents were increasing to the point that it was serious public hazard. The government had created killing teams, such as the one Osric led on a regular basis. The clean up crews, and the trackers who tried to flush out nests before they became nuisances, were also government funded. If there was a source out there that could help cut the taxpayer costs of the rampaging reptiles, the government was doing its best to try and find it.
Osric's pager beeped again. He pulled it off his belt and checked the message. "R86&H4. 3-top herd. ASAP." Triceratops rampage at Route 86 and highway 4 again. It seemed to be an area for that species to concentrate on, and again, no one knew why. Unfortunately it was also the home of a shepherd and his family, and he'd lost countless sheep to trampling by 3-top. There wasn't an option to move home and business yet, not and have federal funding to allow a person to also keep everything they owned, so the poor sap persevered as best he could.
Finishing the coffee as he walked through the house, his rifle now slung into a carrier on his back, Osric decided to go with his usual arsenal for hunting the shield-headed bastards that were triceratops. T-Rex was at least mostly flesh, and slow to move around. Triceratops had to be hit in very specific areas to kill and they were notoriously bad at showing those areas off. In the living room was a huge wooden case, triple locked, and Osric quickly and deftly unbolted it. He grabbed some armour piercing bullets, a couple of grenades (in case the job really went south, which sometimes it did), and his revolver. Strapping everything onto his belt as best he could, he headed out to his truck and past the clean up crew who were still working on clearing up his yard.
Fred, the desperately losing sheep shepherd, was standing outside at the intersection when Osric pulled up. "He's in the back pasture!" Fred shouted, swinging an arm wildly towards the far corner of the farm. "I got the sheep in the barn, thankfully, but he's killing the grass back there. Not to mention if he decides to attack the tractor again..."
Osric nodded, and pulled around to park in the driveway. 3-tops had a habit of considering vehicles their rivals to a given territory. A man might be safer in a truck normally, but when a massive triceratops bull is bearing down on you, your chances of escape are actually better on foot.
A horn honked behind him, and he swung out of the truck to see Herbert Ingram pulling in behind him. Herb was about as experienced as a man could be with dinosaur hunts and still be alive and in one piece. He'd been on the original construction team that had confronted the first of the known dinosaurs; legend has it that Herb fended off a velociraptor with a jackhammer and a shovel for the better part of half an hour. That resourcefulness had saved Osric's hide on more than one occasion.
The pager vibrated again. Osric pulled it out as he nodded at Herb. "DR cornered 5th&W. SO at 23rd&M. !Backup."
"Damn!" Herb was lumbering towards him, a quizzical look on his face. "Don and Sid can't make it. Sounds like we've got some sort of flare up of beasts in the county. No backup's available. It's just you and me on this one."
Herb grinned widely. "Alrighty then. Good thing I brought the bazooka." He was already reaching into the bed of his pickup.
This was not going to be fun. Osric waved Fred over. "You got any weapons? We're stuck on this one, could use your help if you're willing."
Fred gave the thumbs up, and jerked his head towards a small outbuilding. "Give me a minute," he said, turning and running towards it.
"Where's at?" Herb asked. Osric pointed in the direction Fred had indicated earlier. Herb nodded, "They seem bad back there, notice?"
Osric paused from loading his rifle to consider that. It was true, most of the problems here did start in that direction. Some made it to the house, true, but for the most part, they all originated at the back pasture.
There was a small forested area back there. Osric made a mental note to get trackers back there once they were done with this job.
Fred was booting it back to their trucks, a semi-automatic strapped across his back. "Marge called," he said pointing to the watchtower he and his wife had built on the roof of their house to try and catch the dinosaurs more easily. "He's heading this way."
"Right." Osric checked everything was reachable and loaded, and nodded. "Let's get back there and see what damage we can do."
It was a took several minutes for them to trek back to the pasture. There were occasional roars from the triceratops, and the odd crash as they approached. Whatever had this guy riled, it seemed to have done a very good job. Once the pasture was in view, they stopped and watched the beast for a while. It seemed to be focussing on a massive oak tree, crashing against it noisily and rapidly.
Osric made sure he had the attention of the other two men. He pointed Fred to the left, indicating he should shelter behind another large tree. Herb he pointed right, into an open area where he knew Herb could get a good shot. Osric headed straight on, intending to distract the beast and turn it so Herb could get a killing angle.
About 1500 meters from the oak, Osric stopped, pointed his rifle upwards, and released a shot. The triceratops stopped ramming the defenceless tree, and looked around. It spotted Osric, and lumbered into a large circle to reposition itself. Osric lowered his gun, aiming at what he hoped was an eye. The dinosaur roared and began to charge.
"Steady," Osric said out loud, more to give some normalcy to the situation and calm his nerves.
"Steady on," followed by a deep breath and a brief prayer as the head and its horns came into view.
Another breath, another tremendous distance covered by the surprisingly agile 3-top. "Any time, Herb," he muttered, repositioning his aim and hoping he was as good a shot as everyone else seemed to think he was. The animal roared.
There was a huge boom to the left, and the triceratops disappeared in a puff of smoke and dirt. The roar stopped suddenly, and Osric tried desperately to focus on the sound of footfalls or anything that might indicate that the beast was still trampling towards him.
A deep silence settled over the area along with the dust. The carcass of the dinosaur lay in the field, a huge hole blown into one side. Osric glanced over at Herb, who was waving his bazooka triumphantly over his head as he headed towards Osric. In the background, the first alarms of the clean up crew sounded, likely called in by Marge.
Fred jogged over, a huge grin on his face, meeting up with the other two men on the path. "Wow, you got some sight there!" he said, slapping Herb on the back. "Way to go!"
Osric grabbed a handkerchief and wiped the sweat off his forehead. Another day, another dollar, he thought.
The pager on his belt beeped again. Herb looked like his had gone off as well, and he was already heading back to the trucks.
It looked like it was going to be another long day at the office. He Osric pointed the cleanup crew towards the forest, and then jogged off to catch up with Herb.
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