A large mahogany door stood between the Pteranodon family and the final stage of the lesson. "It's been a journey," the Conductor said.
"I know," Don said.
"Shut up, Don," the Conductor said.
"You're grounded," Mrs. Pteranodon said.
The conductor pushed a button on the wall, and out fell a key. The conductor put the key into the lock holding the two doors closed. The conductor pushed another button, and another key fell from the ceiling. This key was then inserted into the first key. With both key and keyhole unlocked the door opened, revealing another door. Both keys were inserted into the tops of both doors, and another key fell from the wall. The conductor tapped the left door three times and the right door four times. This caused Don to cough up a key. The Conductor used this key, and the path was finally revealed.
Red lights illuminated the hallway. The ground was covered thickly in dirt, and tattered beds lined the walls. In each, a rotting corpse lay, some of which appeared butchered, or even diced. "Aw, cool, I didn't realize there would be a buffet cart!" Buddy exclaimed, going to town on the first good smell he had experienced that day.
Tiny and Don both manually turned the conductor around. "Okay, this is really going too far, man. We want out."
"The train stops for no one," the Conductor said with no trace of remorse in his eyes. "This is the cycle. This is a part of your life that you will have to face one day or another."
Shiny said nothing as the reality of what those rocks that morning were sank in.
The last door on the train slowly crept open. "Buddy, stop eating and come here," the Conductor said sharply. "You need to be here for this." Buddy reluctantly put down the Apatosaurus rump and slunk over.
The door to last room slammed shut behind the family, almost severing Buddy's tail. The room was much smaller than the other ones they had gone through, and the only objects in the room were two beds bolted to the wall in front of them. Blankets were wrapped tightly around the occupants, head and all, and cords connected them to slowly-beeping life support machines.
"We don't have enough resources to support both of these patients," the Conductor smiled. "They'll both die unless we funnel all available power to one of them. The other one will be used as food. Gotta feed the carnivorous passengers somehow."
Mom shuddered and put her barely-protective wings around her two nearest offspring. "You didn't tell me about this part. I didn't sign up for this. I want a refund."
The Conductor turned on a heel. "Well, this is it. It's time to make your choice." He backed up to the two beds on the wall. He pulled back the sheets near the top of the left bed, revealing none other than the Conductor's own mother. "This is choice one. And here's choice two." He loosened the right bed's blanket and Grandma Pterandon's head met the world.
"Grandma?" Shiny squawked
"This is my grandmother," Don gasped.
"I think I need another tampon," said Tiny.
The family looked from Troodon to Pteranodon, and Pteranodon to Troodon. The Conductor tapped his wrist. "Pep pep, time is of the essence."
The family huddled.
"We can't just let granny die," Tiny shuddered.
Don nodded his head. "She's family, and we love her."
Shiny felt nostalgic. "Remember that time she gave me a clamshell? It was beautiful."
Mom added, "So we save grandma, no contest."
Don uneasily brought up a counterpoint. "But the Conductor would lose a family member, too. That's not much better."
Buddy nodded. "Based on how he's been acting so far, I don't want to know what he'd do if we let that happen."
Tiny reflected on Mrs. Conductor. "She has been nothing but nice to us all these years."
"Oh yeah, she gave me a clamshell, too," Shiny remembered. "And hers had a pearl in it."
"Yeah, what gives?" Tiny complained. "Couldn't spend five more minutes looking for one, grandma?"
"Grandma really has been asking us for a lot of money lately," Don said. "I'm starting to think she was the one trying to hack into my ."
"You know what?" Buddy grumbled. "My nose finally caught a break last car, but one whiff of Grandma's grody-ass perfume made me want to cut it off."
"That seashell still had meat on it and I hate Grandma," Shiny growled.
"She's not even my mother," Mom said. "And besides, Mrs. Conductor and I touched nipples back when I was in her college seminar. Grandma never had what she had: non-familial nipples." The children all nodded in mutual anger at Grandma.
"So we save the Conductor's mom, no contest," Mom concluded.
The family turned around. "Mrs. Conductor," Don began, "We've decided-"
Mrs. Conductor made the long ear-piercing "o" sound she always made whenever she felt any sort of emotion. "Pick me!" she resounded.
The Pteranodons winced in pain and huddled back together. "Oh yeah, I forgot about her hellish voice," Tiny murmured.
"At least Grandma's voice was tolerable," Shiny snarled.
The five unwilling participants were at a loss. They couldn't decide. But they had to decide.
"We should just flip a coin," Buddy shrugged. "This is getting kind of old."
"Very well," Mom sighed. She pulled out the only piece of currency in her wallet and flipped it in the air.
Just as the coin was about to hit the ground after what felt like an eternity, a deafening crash and a blinding insurgence of sunlight made everyone in the room jump. A figure stood where the wall once was. It was not a dinosaur.
"AAAAAAAAA." The shirtless human being hollered and screeched like a monkey with rabies. He grabbed the life support system and hurled it from the train, and with it went the beds along with the paneling they were connected to. In the midst of this, the Conductor lost his footing and tumbled out of the hole in the wall. The bed struck him mid-fall and sent him careening straight into a tree at 130 miles an hour. The sweaty, reddened man from a time not yet seen stood in the middle of the room, breathing heavily with all muscles tensed. Mrs. Pterandon did her best to hold her kids back from the half of the traincar with no wall. The brawny figure, unfazed by the wind took one step forward.
"I AM DR. SCOTT THE PALEONTOLOGIST, AND I FUCKING QUIT."
