Flash | Run For It

Dinosaurs and Cadillac by shadowstheater DeviantArt

“Run For It”

“Remind me, Randy, who’s idea was it to put an interdimensional transponder in my caddie!?” asked Coop.

With only a two breath hesitation to unload a couple rounds into the face a t-rex chasing him and Coop, Randy responded simply with: “The cat. It was the cat’s idea.”

The scatter shot bounced off the t-rex’s hide, doing no more damage than buzzing flies.

From behind the wheel Maurice responded to Randy’s accusation with a curt and indignant, “meow.”

Randy did a double take. Unbelieving that a grey with black stripes cat drove his best friend’s caddie. Even more unexpected, the cat drove the caddie well.

On either side of the caddie and its passengers hanging outside the back windows, a dozen dinos fled the rampage of the t-rex. Gentle herbivores. Tiny little mouse-like reptiles. Even raptors with their vicious claws preferred escape to a tango with the king of all dinos. Maurice easily nudged the caddie around these fleeing dinos. Keeping the tires from running over critters. Dodging away from the raptors, making sure a stray talon didn’t gouge a furrow in a tire. Swinging wide of a dino with a hard tumor-thingy on its head that could dent the caddie’s candy apple red paint job.

A brontio tripped over a tangle of roots in the field the caddie mowed. The blue and green heifer stumbled forward, its head pitching down. It’s horns hit the ground, puncturing, upending the thing’s massive girth and flipping the brontio forward and into the path of the caddie. The reptile called out in pain and fear.

Maurice yanked on the caddie’s wheel. The caddie squeeled in sudden protest but turned just in time to miss the fallen bontio. The only damage the caddie might’ve taken was probably to the chrome bumper but the cat knew that to be unacceptable.

Randy was in mid-pump after reloading as the caddie jerked around the brontie. His shutgun went off, straight up in the air, the round useless. Randy nearly fell out of the caddie window. He grabbed hold of the canvas convertible top to steady himself.

“Damn it, Maurice!” Randy cursed. “Watch where you’re going! I nearly shot my face off.”

Maurice hissed and didn’t take his glowing yellow eyes from where the car continued its breakneck pace.

“Why is the cat driving?” Randy asked. “The cat shouldn’t be driving. I should be driving!”

Coop squeezed off a burst of fire from his semi-automatic, aiming for the pursuing dino’s thick legs. Streams of blood leaked from its wrinkled, leathery hide but it didn’t slow its pace.

“Because the cat doesn’t have thumbs, Randy,” Coop answered, this time aiming for the dino’s chest. Its tiny arms swatted at the bullets. “You have thumbs. You can pull a trigger.”

A peppering of scattershot spread across the t-rex. “Take that you scaly bastard!” Randy let out a whoop and waved his shotgun in the air, bringing it back into the crux of his arm while at the same time ejecting the spent shell with a quick pump of the slide. “Damn straight I can shot, Coop. Damn–“

The t-rex roared in anger. Blinked its beady black eyes.

A raptor struggling to escape the t-rex’s path and pass the caddie caught the rampaging monster’s attention. In its ire at Randy, the t-rex dipped its head and closed its jaws over the raptor’s head and around its neck. With a crunch of bone and a splatter of gore, the t-rex tore the smaller predator in half, tossing the lower half forward at the caddie.

“Shit, man,” Randy said, his whole face turning green around his curly brown hair.

At the same time Coop yelled out a warning: “Incoming! Get in!”

Randy was too busy holding down the contents of his stomach to hear his friend or notice the flying raptor carcass.

Coop swung himself back inside the caddie, reached across the backseat, grabbed hold of Randy’s jean waistband, and yanked his friend backside the car.

Above their heads they heard the thump of the raptor carcass hit. The canvas top dented. A long gouge tore down the middle from a stray claw.

In a breath the raptor tumbled up and over the caddie’s hood.

Both Coop and Randy flew out of their seats as the caddie jerked up, rolling over the raptor as it passed underneath the car. For his part, Maurice kept the caddie on course and straight.

The cat took one paw of the wheel and flicked a switch on the dashboard.

Rubber wipers swished and squeaked across the front windshield, tossing away bits and pieces of scale and dino meat, spreading blood.

“I’m gonna be sick,” Randy warned.

Coop picked up a handheld box more at home in a mechanic shop to diagnose cars than in the world of dinosaurs. A cable attached to the bottom wound its way between the two friends, through the backseat cushions, and into the trunk.

“You puke in my caddie I’ll feed you to Rexxie back there,” Coop told Randy. “Take it outside.”

Randy shoved himself out the window again in time to witness the t-rex surge forward, widen its jaws, and bear down on the caddie’s backend. The hundreds of jagged teeth came down on the chrome back bumper. Metal groaned and squealed as the prehistoric monster tore off the caddie’s bumper and the car jerked up on its back wheels for a moment before crashing back down with a violent thump.

Randy pulled himself back inside. “I’m good. Better now.” He hugged his shotgun and then turned his attention to Coop. “How much longer, Coop? We can’t keep this up forever.”

Sweat beading his brow, Coop scrubbed his bearded jaw with one hand, sighed, and showed his friend the device.

A red display reminiscent of an old alarm clock presented a counter: 80%.

“We’re doomed,” Randy said quietly as he sat back and slumped down in the seat.

“Almost out of gas,” Maurice said, not turning his feline head from upfront. His grey ears flicked with annoyance. “Quarter left.”

Coop closed his eyes, drew in deep breath. Exhaled. “Let’s make it count then.”

Maurice stuck up a paw and gave the two human males what Coop took for a cat’s idea of a thumbs up.

The caddie surged forward, picking up speed, kicking up dust. Behind them the t-rex let out a call. Dismay. Rage. Its meal wouldn’t escape. No.

Even inside the car everyone could feel the ground beneath the caddie shake with the large dino’s increased footfalls.

Coop glanced back down at the meter.

85% and climbing.

“Faster. Faster, fur ball!”

###