Following Jack's directions I concealed the rife in a guitar bag as I walked hesitantly past the barriers that prevented cars from entering the underground garage. Once I was far enough down the sloping pavement to be concealed from the road I cautiously unzipped the bag and pulled the gun out. This specific type of rifle only allowed me to hold one tranq dart at a time so I had to carefully place the others in my coat pockets and prey I didn't jab myself in the side with them. There was no light once I moved away from the exit except for that which would come from the little torch on the end of the barrel.
After I finished loading the gun I paused in a crouching stance. My eyes were straining to see through the dark, ears perked for the sounds of claws on pavement or, if I were lucky (lucky?), cries. I flicked on the light and moved forward on silent feet. When I was young and Dad was trying to wean me off my mother's Torchwood stories he would buy me books on top of books about dinosaurs and paleontology. In hind sight it made a lot of sense, perhaps the young mind that had been entranced by extraterrestrials could be persuaded along a more harmless path with offerings from the wonder her own planet had to offer. Alas it never really took and after Gwen died he stopped trying. He let me hold onto those stories for they were my purest memories of Mom.
Now in the dark my mind races to recall everything I'd ever heard over the years about raptors. They were small for dinosaurs, only about as tall as an average man. They were most likely warm-blooded and feathered. As far as dinosaurs go they had a fairly large brain to body ratio, meaning they were clever. They may have been pack hunters… how certain was Jack that only one had slipped through the rift?
A clattering somewhere in front of me made my entire body seize up. I listened intently for more but no sounds came. I forced myself to rotate my body, to shine the light around the garage to try and find the source but there was nothing to see. The light cast by the torch was weak and in comparison to the amount of area I had to cover nearly useless. There was another clatter, like the sound of a can of beans on hard floor coming from the direction of a cluster of pillars. Anwen sucked in a deep breath and sprinted around a concrete column with my rifle at the ready. I leapt poised to shoot when an old man came into view sputtering and coughing as he tried to pick up some seemingly useless garbage to replace into a black shopping bag.
"Oh dear, officer I was just leaving. Put that light out," he muttered shielding his eyes from the light.
"What are you doing down here?"
"Just collecting my things. Found me-self a place in the park. Should be real quaint what with the weather turning," he babbled.
"Is there anyone else in here?"
"No, this was my place. Soon it will be no one's place," he answered stubbornly. "Is that a gun?"
"So you've seen nothing? Heard nothing? Not even, oh I don't know, a dog? A bird?"
"No not a thing, could you put that light out?"
"Get out of here," I snapped. I watched the old man run back to the halo of light coming from the road carrying his few worldly possessions in a few old shopping bags.
"What's going on down there?" Jack's voice sound rough and broken as it was emitted from my radio.
"Just some homeless man but he didn't see anything. You know this thing could have horrifyingly advanced night vision for all I know."
"Or it could be asleep, keep looking."
I turned off my radio and cursed rather creatively at Jack. After clearing the first level of the parking garage I found the slope leading to the level bellow. The sound of my boots on pavement echoed in the large empty space: click, click, click, splat. The smell hit me before I could process what I might have stepped in.
Raptor dung.
I shine the flashlight at my feet to investigate, and slap a hand over my mouth and nose. My boots were never going to be the same again but I prodded the pile with the toe of the defiled boot and could see it was moist and there was steam rising. Fresh, warm, and moist raptor dung. I gagged and tried to wipe some of the shit off my foot along the curb. There was a clicking sound somewhere in front of me. Like a cat or dog's claws on the pavement, but the frequency of the clicks was completely wrong. Hastily I fumbled to get the gun prepped and aimed.
To my shock there it was coming around the corner carrying its head high with all the swagger of a flamingo. It turned its long snout to get a better look at me as if it were merely curious about the obnoxious mouse to dare disturb it while preening its feathers. Which it was covered in, feathers that is. Bright blue plumage protruded from its crown like the display of a peacock while the rest of its body was coated in a beautiful brown laced with blue flecks.
"You're a beautiful boy, aren't you," I remarked, reminding myself the gun was loaded with tranquilizers. It pulled back its lips exposing a menacing row of dagger-like teeth, dipping its head while puffing out its feathers and making a hissing sound. "Alrighty, enough flirting."
I pulled the trigger and watched the tranq marked with a bright red tail embed itself in the raptor's collar bone. It made a sound like a yelp at being hit and shook out its feathers scratching off the dart. The raptor staggered and shook its head in confusion but quickly recovered and this time when our eyes locked a roar erupted from deep within its chest and I shrieked. The beast began to charge.
