Dresden files-verse
Had this idea a while ago, found it on my old USB. Hey kids, did you know that before there were 1 GB USBs there were the 100someting KB-ones? And we called them cool.
Book 7, Dead Beat. Remember how Sue the Dino-zombie crushed an army humvee and literally scared those two GIs stiff? How did they explain that to their CO?
Col. Jones promised himself a beer when this was over. Chicago was one hell of a funky town, literally. Usually, they could all just pretend there was a parade balloon being blown along by the wind, or a prank involving a parade float like the cops used to do back at home. As the person with the most experience in the so called ''logical bullshit'' reports, his superiors immediately decided this was a job for him. But there was a video, and once the two soldiers saw it, they had trouble lying to themselves about what they saw. Not that Ettison was even trying, the idiot.
"There was a dinosaur. With some guys riding it." Ettison was staring straight ahead, at parade rest. He didn't even blink when Mason screamed at him again.
"I heard shit in my time, you little shiteating worm, but this has to be the shittiest piece of bullshit I ever heard! -…!" Etc, etc. He really liked the word 'shit' when he raved. Must be a DI thing. "…-really think I'll buy that fucking shit?"
"It's on the tape, sir." Ettison said in a flat tone. He was a short young man with pale coloring, but he stood taller than Rivera who stammered something just then, staring at the floor, pale and sweating - Rivera wasn't an idiot. Of course, that brought just another round of screaming. Ettison was stating the obvious for the sixth time in a row, but Lt. Mason was still in denial about the tape. And the big damn footprints, too.
As it was, there was footage from the cameras inside, one displaying the legs and the other the dinosaur in question approaching, with two people on top of it. The people were fuzzy and the static bad, but he was pretty sure one of them had a staff in his hand. And they found the skeleton of a T-rex near the crater caused by the unknown thing they'll be calling a freak storm and college kids playing pranks, possibly with explosives.
Ettison and Rivera, along with two others that were smart enough to claim they saw nothing, were here to explain the tapes and the very expensive wrecked humvees. And the corpses of the 'rioters' they had to shoot turning to a handful of bones and goo come morning.
He wasn't panicking. He was 52 year-old New Orleans native, so hell yeah, he knew there were things in the dark. And five years in PR meant he'd dealt with freaky before.
He knew how to sort out over-zealous XOs, too, so he kept herself still until he was sure the hysterical Lieutenant pretty much forgot he was there. Then, when he stopped for breath, Jones cleared his throat. The man nearly choked on his own spittle as he tried to gasp and resume screaming at the same time.
"Thank you, you may go," he said in a calm, precise voice. "I will take care of this. Thank you," he added sharply, when it seemed the red-faced man would object. He was careful to keep his voice drawl-free, so he sounded educated. A coolly calm and smart CO was always more feared than a yelling one.
As soon as the door slammed, he sat down behind the desk and leaned back in the chair.
"Ettison. Report," he said.
Ettison repeated the story for the seventh time that night, this time actually finishing. He didn't bother with Rivera. The man looked at the end of his rope.
"Alright. So he told you to get out of the way?"
"Yessir." Ettison was about done in, too. The shock was probably catching up.
"And both were in gray cloaks of some sort and armed with staves?"
"Yessir." He breathed a sigh.
"Did their mount look translucent in any way?"
"No, sir."
"Gray? And with black markings?" The videos weren't color, damn it.
"Gray and black. Sir." And now the kid was looking at him as if he'd said something crazy.
"Good, good. I'll be expecting you in the morning to get your statements about a man driving around a Halloween decoration of a Tyrannosaurus and that's that."
Rivera looked like he was going to puke.
"Sir? We was hallucinating, right?" He sounded desperate.
He sighed.
"I don't know, Rivera, do you think Jurassic Park was a documentary?" He said it sarcastically and let the man draw his own conclusions.
Rivera looked relieved. Thank God the Nile was more than just a river.
"So you should probably get yourself checked out. Dismissed."
Ettison stayed behind. Damn, boy, you don't want to do this. Come on. Take a swim in the Nile.
"Sir." He was swaying. Shock, soon to become shellshock, the kind the pussies at Politically Correct called PTSD nowadays.
"Sir. I know we saw something."
He sighed.
"Yea. But people see something all the time. And they call it vivid imagination or too much stress, depending on their age."
Ettison shuddered and deflated from his stiff posture, eyes on his boots. He looked young and lost and a little like a drowned rat.
"Sir. I don't know what to think. Was it a government experiment of some sort?"
He laughed. Oh, thank you, X-files. Everything was a conspiracy involving a secret lab and alien technology these days. Made his job easier.
"No. Magic, I'm guessing zombies. Remember all those corpses we had to clean up? Dino was probably a magical construct of some sort, made by those two yahoos ridin' it."
And really, weren't horses good enough? Elephants, camels, hell, three-tailed-tigers – something that looked like a still existing animal. But nooo. Dinosaurs are cooler. And a nightmare to explain away. He'll be accidentally losing those tapes after deleting and over-recording them very thoroughly later. That left zombies…Humm. Hallucinations? Nah, they over-used that, in his opinion. Rioters in masks? Better. And they took their wounded with the bullets in them, too. And the rain washed the blood away.
Meanwhile the boy went a shade paler.
"Oh." He swallowed. He was shocked, scared and tired, but he wouldn't go thinking himself crazy, at least.
"If you're gonna hurl, the trash can 's right there." He pointed. The boy shook his head mutely. Tough kid. He might try to forget it, or he may go out to search the truth, either way, it took guts to tell the truth. Now all he needed was the brains to lie and he'll be a fine officer one day.
"So you'll come by to sign the statements tomorrow?"
"Yes Sir."
"Right. Get outta here."
He watched as Ettison dragged himself out the door, feeling uncharacteristically sympathetic. The National Guard shouldn't deal with shit like this. Let 'em call whoever dealt with terrorists next time. Things they could pass off for mutated animals he could deal with, but zombies and dinosaurs were where he drew the line.
Heh. At least he can now tell his grandkids what color a T-rex really is with a straight face. Purple, right.
Disclaimer:
It's fan-fiction, hence the name of the site. I'm not Jim Butcher. Clue? No? Okay. I don't own the Dresden Files Series, making no money, the story is fictional and any resemblance to the actual persons is strictly coincidental, don't try this at home, etc.
Rating is M since in these days no-one younger than 21 listens to rap and the evening news and therefore they may get traumatized by the f-word, (known among the vulgary honest people as 'fuck.' Germanic origin, rhymes with 'duck'). Honestly, people. You say it, you think it, you make the nine-month-parasites with it, but god forbid we write it down? Come on.
I'm not making any changes, so feel free to comment. Or flame, I'll just make vodoo dolls so the trolls get crabs and pimples.
|post scriptum|: Aaand here's the proof everyone goes back on their word once in a while. I switched `` for " and added a few missing dots. Fixed a sentence in I didn't like, 'cos I'm the author and I can. Renamed it, since I got some other stuff like this to post, too. Toodles.