Aftermath

By Mat Growcott

Notes: This is a part of my "dinosaur trilogy". This is the first part. Look out for the other two coming soon. There will be about 5 chapters to this story, so watch this too!!

For days Joe had looked out onto the beach, seeing all the happy faces come and go. He hadn't the heart to tell them they'd be dead by the end of the week. Nothing could survive the nuclear blast, which was to destroy the whole world on Friday. Nothing, that is except for the group of scientists and politicians whom the government felt were to be needed in the new world.

Yeah, sure. He thought. Ask trumped up politician Alan Jakes to build a house. Ask him to look for food in the deep caves where the missiles won't have effected. He'd rather die. And even then people would want to give him a burial, when there wouldn't be enough wood to keep the survivors sheltered in the first place.

Joe Saunders was a genetic engineer. He knew nothing of survival, and he didn't know why he was being saved in the first place. He hadn't discovered anything special, there were more capable engineers around, not that that would matter, they wouldn't have the facilities anyway.

But, that's what you get for giving an idiot the little red button, which sat near the president's desk. Joe had got the letter 6 weeks before...

IN 6 weeks time, a nuclear blast, powerful enough to destroy the moon, will be launched at Russia. In the unlikely event this destroys humanity as we know it, we want you to survive to help lead us into the new world order. Sadly, you cannot ask anyone along since there will be no room. We hope this isn't an inconvenience.

In the unlikely event this destroys humanity as we know it...the way that sounded. It sounded like it was a routine thing and it happened every week. But...in this America, who knows?

Alan Jakes stood in front of the recently polished mirror, and sighed.

"Damn I'm looking good today." He said, turning as he did so. A group of woman passed. He smiled and winked. He had a few hours to spare before he had to go underground.

"Hey ladies" He shouted "How's about me, you..." he pointed at the second woman "you..." he looked at the last "and you. Go find out what special uses whipped cream has."

The ladies, all 17, giggled together. Once again, Alan Jakes had got what he wanted.

40 minutes later the group came out of an office looking considerably scruffier then before.

"Well, thank you ladies. I'll send you that $50 next week," he said playfully. Yeah...I'll mail it to the heap of ash you've become, he added silently.

Joe got into the seat assigned to him. He'd be sitting here for several hours. What he was sitting in seemed like one of those rides at theme parks, where it takes ages to get to the top and then you sit there thinking "hmmm...is this it?" and then...you hear something rattle and...your at the bottom again. Only this time you knew there would be no cue when you came back to where you started. He looked at the nametag in the seat next to him. "Sarah Marie Lucas." Wow, she was sort of a legend. Extremely thick, yet the head of her field in history. She had written 5 books on "modern history" which all had titles like "The white house revealed" and "What they don't want you to know". It always turned out that the things they don't want you to know is that "Dinosaurs, especially those famous beasts, may still roam several countries." She had no proof, but did she need it? No...she was Sarah Marie and what she said was FACT!

Joe sat silently for 20 minutes. He was alone except for an old man on the front row who was asleep. The latter snored heavily and was stopping Joe from concentrating on whatever it was he was concentrating. So, Joe got up and went over to what he'd be calling entertainment for the next few hours. All very reassuring books..."Nuclear power and me" was one that stuck out. It was one of those little books, which could fit in a breast pocket. It had a smiling child on the front. The child, whose middle finger was definitely shorter then the rest, was pointing at the nuclear power station, and the little bubble coming from his mouth was saying "What? That thing can hurt us," underneath the word UNTRUE was printed in big red letters. Joe considered whether this meant the child's statement, or the contents of the book. He had a good idea which...

Eventually the "passengers" turned up and took their designated places. Eventually all but two places were full. The mysterious and...to be frank...quite mad Sarah Marie was still missing, not to mention the 'special' place at the front. Sarah finally arrived wearing a mini-skirt and a very tight top. She looked like the star in a cheap monster movie. She sat down, making the skirt 3 inches shorted.

"Hey" She said to Joe, more seductively then necessary. "I'm quite a celebrity on this trip and I don't want anyone to think I'm at this alone. If you be my boyfriend I'll pay you." Joe laughed, guessing this was a joke.

"Sorry lady. I don't date people I just met, not even for money"

"Aww poohey" She said, over-enthusiastically. "How about being my brother?"

"Nah...sorry."

"Ok...I guess I'll have to go about this the old fashioned way." She pointed at the badge pinned to her top "I'm Sarah-Marie Lucas. I'm a writer."

"Really? I heard you didn't so much write books as destroy them, and also, is it true you write in crayon?" Joe wanted to say.

But he settled with "I'm Joe Saunders. Genetic Engineer."

"Cool...the world needs genet's" Sarah said, trying to sound the expert.

For the next 10 minutes Joe avoided Sarah the best he could, providing he was sitting in the chair next to her.

The room suddenly went quiet as the special guest walked in with several bodyguards around him. It was none other then Alan Jakes, whose policy, incidentally, to get into the white house was "Why work when we can play?"

Joe looked at the empty seat in front of him, and hoped to god that wasn't Alan Jakes' seat. But, sods law prevailed, and now he was sitting by Sarah Marie Lucas, an insane attention seeker with the intelligence of a gnat, and Alan Jakes, Gods answer to the mail order husband. This trip was going to be good Joe thought sarcastically.

It was about 15 minutes more until the lift began to move. A woman, obviously a recorded voice, piped up.

"Ladies and gentlemen. We will be travelling deeper and deeper for several hours. This trip is to prevent you from dieing, so please bear with us. In the event of an accident there is no escape."

There was another of those nasty "in the event of's".

As the passengers got deeper and deeper, the human race, and almost every other creature on earth, died. It took seconds, an entire planet destroyed.

Somewhere above an egg hatched, and a small solitary creature began to mourn the death of its parents, its brothers and the rest of its species. It thought it was alone. Until it noticed the female of its species. Soon there would be more little stegosauruses running around.

This was the case for every dinosaur left, and it happened again, and again, and again...and it wasn't long until dinosaurs ruled. Food was scarce, but they found it, and life was back on track again...

Life would find a way...