Jurassic Mark

The credits rolled amidst a swelling of music.

Mark Anderson sighed, settling back into his pillows. That had been a good episode. God only knew, along with the executives in charge of the streaming service – weren’t they gods in human form? – where they’d go with the storyline for season four. He hit the spacebar, pausing the crawling names, and stretched in the plasma glow of his laptop screen.

A narrow beam of sunshine cut into his room through the crack in his curtains.

No sleep was the price you had to pay for glory. His coworker, Barney, bet him he couldn’t do it. The platform dropped the new season at midnight. There was no way to watch it all at six episodes, each an hour a pop, before work. Well, it looked like someone was going to win a fiver. It was a shame that it would all go towards coffee. Mark crawled out of bed – a funny name for a place where you watched TV and never slept – and staggered for the kitchen.

As it was last night, Mark’s kitchen was an absolute disgrace. Plates and cups towered in the sink, where he’d left them to “soak”. Every pot, pan, and tray he owned sat on the stovetop, encrusted with days-old food.

He grimaced, tiptoeing barefoot across the grimy linoleum. The floor had seen neither mop nor brush in months. Mark supposed if he were Max Danger, he would be able to sort this mess out in two minutes. He’d do it between beating crime, bedding models, hunting lost artefacts, and curing cancer. But Mark wasn’t Max Danger; Max Danger’s fate hung in the balance on a scintillating cliffhanger. No, he was Mark Anderson, who wished he was a hero but wasn’t good at anything. Mark would love to help someone on the roadside with a flat but had never learned to change a tyre. He’d like to deliver a baby in a taxi’s backseat but failed high school biology. Mark longed to perform the Heimlich manoeuvre on a choking man but had never taken a first-aid course. He wished to defend a lady’s honour in a barfight but never took a self-defence class. Mark could have learned those things, but – instead – had watched TV, which was more fun. He was not good at anything, including basics like keeping a kitchen clean. But he was damn good at watching movies. Wiping the sleep – a cruel joke – from his eyes, Mark pulled an expired carton of orange juice from the fridge. Lacking clean cups, he drank from the carton, gazing across the morning cityscape.

The carton slipped from his fingers and crashed to the floor, gurgling its contents.

Mark stared, jaw hanging down to his collarbone, out of his kitchen window.

Towering ferns, cycads, and conifer trees – dense and lush – smothered the grey conurbation. Primitive foliage wavered in the breeze, turning the streets into a green haze. Above the jungle, the sunrise burned the sky with dramatic reds, oranges, and pinks. Thick storm clouds loomed on the horizon, promising a tropical weather shift.

Mark struggled for breath, the sticky, humid air thick enough to bite. The oxygen went straight to his head, and he gripped the windowsill to hold his balance.

Down on the street, among the trees, tiny bipedal lizards chittered and ran over the cracked road.

Mark pressed his face to his dirty window.

A giant, leathery brown bird flapped in front of him, settling on the side of the building.

Mark yelped and flinched back. What in the hell was going on here? Well, he ought to know. He’d seen these creatures before on his laptop screen. They were dinosaurs, crazy but true. Mark might’ve dismissed the notion if he’d gotten a wink of sleep last night. But his sleep-deprived brain accepted it wholesale. Reaching across the catalogue of TV and film he’d studied, Mark put together a few theories. A rift had opened in time and space, bringing two epochs together. An alternate reality – where dinosaurs were extant – had clashed with their own. A scientist had tried to create interplanetary portals but made a miscalculation. The two planets – theirs and one where dinosaurs ruled – merged, like Jeff Goldblum in ‘The Fly’. Take your pick. Sweating, Mark watched the pterodactyl.

The creature surveyed the city as though it were its own. It jerked its head, frozen still for a second. Then, frantic, it took off, flapping its leathery wings.

Mark frowned and edged closer to the window.

The glass in the pane rattled. A box of stale cereal toppled off the top of the fridge, scattering cornflakes across the floor. Smaller trees cracked and fell on the forest floor, crashing into the undergrowth. Car alarms blared.

Goosebumps prickled up all over Mark’s skin. If his years of consuming pop culture had taught him anything, he knew what was coming. His skin was crawling, but man, he felt electrified. Besides, he wouldn’t have to go to work today or ever again. He opened the window and leaned out – but not too far – to get a look at the king, inhaling the prehistoric air.

With the window open, all the sounds of the primordial forest came to him, mixed with the city’s. Birds chirped, dinosaurs cried, sirens blared, and people screamed. And, hidden beneath the canopy, the Tyrannosaurus roared, silencing all other sounds.

Ice flooded his limbs, and his lizard brain dumped adrenaline into his veins. He would see a rex firsthand – a real-life movie star. Mark leaned out further and scanned the trees.

Movement, jerking and awkward, flashed amongst the foliage.

What kind of dinosaur had shiny metal legs? He squinted.

A woman on crutches limped along the street’s ruins, throwing backwards glances. ‘HELP ME! OH, GOD! WON’T SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP ME?’

Uh-oh. This situation wasn’t good. Somebody was about to get eaten. Didn’t everyone know that T. rex’s vision relied on movement? Oh well, there wasn’t anything he could—

The rex roared again, much closer. The ancient rainforest fell silent. The thudding footsteps rocked the neighbourhood.

Except, that was rubbish. Mark had never learned anything, but he’d watched many movies. Not everyone knew to stand still before this beast, but Mark did. In a way, he’d been training for this moment his whole life. If there was anyone who could do something, it was him. Besides, he’d always wanted a chance to prove himself a hero. Ask, and ye will receive. He was glad that he always slept in his clothes. Mark bolted for the stairs, trembling but more energised than since childhood.

At ground level, the world was much darker. Beams of sunlight poked through the trees, illuminating the forest’s carpet. Ferns, mosses, and small trees twitched in the breeze. Conifer needles and deadwood littered the floor. They intermingled with the city’s usual rubbish: wrappers, bottles, newspapers. In patches, here and there, the pavement disappeared beneath rock and soil. Where the road remained, the trees had splintered it by pushing their way through it. Gnarled roots thicker than his whole body gouged deep rivets through the tarmac. Vines squeezed the life out of cars, roadsigns, streetlights, and shopfronts. And everywhere, insects and animals rustled. Something that looked like a fallen tree hissed, then slithered into the undergrowth. A spider bigger than Mark’s head watched him with marble-sized eyes. Its chelicerae and pedipalps writhed. The tyrant roared again, and the creeping things scattered, writhing into their hideyholes.

Mark shivered. His brain whispered that they were on him. He slapped the back of his neck and ran toward the roars and the shrieks.

The woman had stumbled over a conifer’s twisted root. She’d fallen, scraping her hands and losing one of her crutches. She crawled through the undergrowth, unaware of the centipede on her back, searching. She’d stopped shrieking and was now mumbling to herself. ‘Helpmeohgodohplease. Helpmeohnonononotlikethis. HelphelpHELP. Whereisitwhereisitwhere—’

Mark sprinted forward and grabbed ahold of the centipede.

It chittered, its many legs scrambling for a hold. It tried wrapping itself around Mark’s wrist, its fangs pinching the air.

Every nerve ending crackled with revulsion. Mark whipped his hand back and launched the bugger as far as his scrawny arm could throw.

Something grabbed at his trouser leg.

Mark jumped and yelped, gearing up to kick it off.

It was the woman, face streaked with grime and tears. ‘HELP ME!’ she screamed. ‘IT’S AFTER ME! WON’T YOU PLEASE—’

Mark broke free and scrambled for where the glint of metal had caught his eye. ‘I’ve got it, I’VE GOT IT!’

The crutch lay entwined in vines as though the forest were squeezing all the life out of this modern world.

He broke it free of its vegetal shackles and tossed it underarm to her. ‘Here! Now c’mon, my place isn’t too far, we can—’

The lady, who’d staggered upright, widened her eyes as she looked over his shoulder and screamed. She crashed through the ferns, using her crutches like a machete to hack away everything in her path.

Mark’s brain seized up.

Hot breath steamed against his back, and the stench of rotting meat filled his nostrils.

He turned around, neck creaking like a rickety wooden bridge. He whimpered.

Looking down at him with yellow eyes was the T. rex. It was massive, almost 20 feet tall. It was robust and muscular, with a broad head, strong jaws, a barrel-shaped body, and powerful legs. Large, serrated teeth jutted out of its mouth. Two short, muscular arms protruded from its torso, the fingers flexing. It had scaly skin that camouflaged it with the trees. Its two forward-facing eyes regarded Mark. It blinked, a low rumble coming from it in waves.

Mark fought with his bladder and bowels and won by the slimmest of margins. His brain turned to porridge in the face of the creature. But the screams and cries of the woman drilled a question into his skull: What Would Max Danger Do? Mark pushed back against every self-preservation instinct and sucked in a breath. He gagged on the predator’s perfume. Summoning his inner Alan Grant, Mark puffed his chest out. ‘FREEZE!’ he yelled. ‘He can’t see you if you keep still!’

And still, the crackling of branches crashed from behind. And still, the dinosaur regarded Mark, his eyes boring into him.

He swallowed, a dry click at the back of his throat. It was looking at him almost as if it could—

The rex darted forward and snatched up Mark in a single bite. It threw him up in the air and caught him, clamping him by the abdomen. Mark dangled out of its mouth, its bottom row of teeth puncturing through his belly, coming out his back. The rex closed his jaw, and its upper row of teeth crushed his spine, scraping against the bone.

Mark squealed, and blood spurted out of his mouth. TV had lied? How could TV have lied? It was the only thing in his life, and it betrayed him. He squirmed, only his upper half moving. Watery gurgles bubbled out of his mouth.

In the distance, the woman hobbled away on her crutches, screaming.

Even though he was half a man, Mark could die knowing he was twice the man he had been. For once in his life, Mark had been the hero. Take that, Max Danger.

And then the T. rex swallowed him.

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Wednesday, September 18, 2024

Written for the September 2024 #BlogBattle: ‘Motionless’