The Land of the Dead – 01

Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™.

-9-

The first thing that Helen Cutter realized that her back didn't hurt and that there was no raptor-theropod lying on her. The second thing was that she wasn't lying on the sun-baked soil and rough rocks of the Pliocene Africa's Rift Valley either, but somewhere else.

"Well, can't say that I'm surprised to see you finally show up," a rather bitter and familiar female voice spoke from Helen's left.

"Ms. Johnson, nice to see you, really," Helen said flatly as she got off... a bed. "What are you doing here?"

"I've been asking myself the same question for a while," Christine admitted, "but eventually I decided that it is a mystery beyond my comprehension, so nowadays I just live here."

"Alone?" Helen asks, incredulously. "That's a bit of a stretch, wouldn't you say?"

"Not alone, with me – uh, technically speaking," Ryan says as he enters the room. "Got to admit, Mrs. Cutter, we haven't expected you for a good long while."

"You were wrong," Helen languidly shrugs as she begins to examine the contents of her backpack. "I was actually ready to get here for a good long while."

"You know that here's the afterlife?" Christine says, incredulously.

"It looks like a semi-permanent base I've been forced to set up in the Jurassic over the years," Helen shrugs. "Of course I recognized this hellish place as soon as I got here – this is my place of eternal damnation, it seems."

"Oh, come on!" Ryan rolls his eyes. "Sure, these little flying dinosaurs are pests, and there's nothing like being awakened by a giant herbivore, snacking on foliage right outside your window, but Hell? That's a little harsh, don't you think?"

"First of all, the flying reptiles are pterosaurs – hasn't Nick told you that?" Helen responds to Ryan's questions with a question of her own.

"No, before I died this never came up, even if the flying reptiles did," Ryan begins, but catches Helen's incredulous look and something in his head just clicks.

"He's here," he states rather than asks, "and because of you, I suppose?"

"Yes," Helen nods in reply. "Even since Stephen died... it was only a matter of time before the two of us had that sort of a confrontation."

"I've heard rumours, but this? This is richer than I expected to," Christine cannot help but put her two cents in.

Helen whips her head from facing Ryan to facing Christine incredibly quickly. "Oliver Leek," she says a name that Ryan hadn't heard before.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Christine colors but stands her ground.

"I know that you do, and so does Lester – so do his superiors: how do you think Lester was able to shake-off your coup so quickly?" Helen isn't bugling either. "There is blood on my hands, and I fully deserve to spend my eternity in here, but at least, unlike you, I was honest enough to myself to recognize myself for what I am, and also brave enough to get my own hands dirty while striding for it. You, on the other hand, don't have even that."

"That's enough!" Ryan snaps, seeing Helen get progressively angrier and Christine progressively pale. "Helen, that's enough!"

"It probably is," Helen agrees suspiciously easy. "Well, it's been pleasant catching up to you, but I got to get going and find myself a cave somewhere or something-"

"You're not going anywhere," Ryan finally says. "This is your place, Christine and I have figured it out, and it is not right for us to stay if you'll leave."

"What makes you think that I have any moral right to be here?" Helen asks flatly.

"The correct question here is what moral right do we have to stay here if the rightful owner won't?" Ryan shoots her head. "Quite possible that your self-disgust is justified, but think of it this way: what better way to repent it than to hang around with Christine, if she disgusts you so much? And maybe the three of us can help each other, somehow..."

Both women stare at Ryan as if he was a future predator that suddenly began to tap-dance. "What?" Ryan asks, a bit uncomfortable. "I was in the army, working with people with whom we may not have gotten along is what I did. This isn't too different, I suppose..." he trails away, noticing that the two women exchange thoughtful looks between each other.

"This could work," Helen finally admits, "and I can always sleep in my workshop, leaving the bed to you two."

"I tend to sleep on the roof, actually," Ryan admits, sheepishly. "This isn't the right sort of a bed, um..."

"Well, I probably have a fishbone saw in my workshop, and then there's that," Helen pulls out a small and folded entrenching tool from her backpack. "It can work as an axe – I've tested it."

Ryan stares at the e-tool was something suspiciously like an orgasm in his eyes. "I think," he speaks more to the tool than to Helen, "that this is the beginning of something great."

"Yeah," Christine says, a lot less enthusiastically. "Great."

"Oh, relax," Helen says with less hostility than before. "The captain here has a point – let's try to co-exist and see if it works, shall we?"

"Fine," Christine nods, and pulls one of her hands forwards. "Shake on it?"

Reluctantly, Helen shakes Christine's hand – clearly the two of them will not be friends any time soon.

"That's the spirit!" Ryan obviously knows when to pick his battles. "Now let's go and see what we can do about furniture!"

To be continued...