The Land of the Dead – 01
Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™.
-7-
The breath of the giant dinosaur is overpowering with its stench, its maw – a red and black cavern studded with large, bladelike teeth which snap shut and rip through Katherine and Mick like an oversized bear trap. There's just a flash of something that is suspiciously like pain, and then-
And then it was over. Mick and Katherine abruptly find themselves sitting somewhere else. This place is sunny and windy and definitely outdoors – something that both of them hate with a vengeance. "Where are we now?" Katherine asks flatly of Mick, as she used to for many a year of their professional relationship.
"How should I know?" Mick replies flatly. "The last thing I remember is the dinosaur chomping down on us..."
A pause, as the two of them exchange looks. "This doesn't make sense," Mick finally speaks. "People just aren't teleported out of a dinosaur's mouth to, to- where are we?"
"I asked you that just now!" Katherine snaps as she abruptly gets onto her feet. "Think that that dinosaur had something to do with it? And speaking of that dinosaur-"
"No, let's not speak of the dinosaur," Mick says, with a noticeable bitterness. "I'm done talking about the dinosaur. In fact, I remember saying that I was quitting just before the dinosaur-"
"Oh, come on!" Katherine exclaims impatiently. "You've quit about as often as I fired you, and look at us right now – we're still together!"
There's a pause as the two of them just stare at each other, thinking over what Katherine just said.
"I meant professionally," Katherine finally breaks the silence when it becomes uncomfortable for real. "Seriously, and besides even if you would quit right now – where would you go? We appear to be in the middle of nowhere of all things!"
There's another pause as the quarrelling pair just stand there and look around. As a matter of fact, they were standing in some sort of a mountain valley, steeply-sided and overgrown with some sort of conifer tree. There was also a small, rather comfortable-looking house standing there as well, complete with an antenna.
"Civilization!" Katherine shouted with excitement and ran there, with Mick following her more slowly, still thinking about Katherine's unexpected relationship revelation...
When Mick and Katherine finally got to their new destination, Katherine's excitement had died down, somewhat. The building was solid, but also seemed to have been unused for quite a while, and it certainly had more dust than it was probably healthy. "Well, at least it has an antenna," Mick said, trying to cheer the once more discourage Katherine up. "Maybe it won't be as bad."
"Yeah – maybe it won't be a crazy, anti-social hermit," Katherine snapped and opened the door. A strange sight greeted her and Mick (and now, it wasn't an anti-social hermit) – a small, rather unused TV and radio station, covered in some dust, but still clearly usable.
"Hey, look, there's a schedule," Katherine noticed a rather familiar-looking piece of paperwork. "Interesting – it's a blank, yet it got daily and hourly slots printed out on it, ready and available to fill in and use."
"And who's going to use it? Us?" Mick said, sarcastically. "I may have some knowledge of working a camera, but when was the last time that you've did something, anything outside of your office? Like, for real?"
"Like, today!" Katherine snapped. "Or have you forgotten where we died?"
Once again, silence fell. "So, we died," Mick finally spoke. "Fair enough. What are we doing here, then? Haunting it?"
"Why not?" Katherine shrugged. "It's not like we've got anything better to do for the rest of the eternity. I'm game if you are."
For several minutes Mick appeared to be thinking it over, for the sake of the decorum, if anything else. "Very well, deal," he finally nodded. "I want to see you report, if anything else. Lead on, MacDuff!"
"And damned be he, who cries first, hold, enough!" Katherine grinned back. "You're own, Harper!"
To be continued...
