Anguilas has
MEXICO: 8:33 A.M.
The sky was just tilting its head over the horizon as the Humvee soared by. Jose Puinto snuffed some of his dark hair back off his face. Hector Puinto sat next to his brother, bobbing his head up and down to the radio.
Both brothers had recently graduated from the University of Mexico, and were finally going home to see their parents again. The Humvee had been a present from Jose's girlfriend, Rita. "Hector!" Jose called out.
"What? I'm sitting next to you don't shout!" his brother answered.
"It's time for the news, change the station!"
"Is it eight thirty yet...oh, okay." Hector reached out and turned a knob on their radio. The brothers had made many agreements over the years, and the 8:30 news was one of them.
"...We are just now receiving news on Godzilla..." the
newscaster's voice chirped. "He apparently has just concluded a
fierce battle with the monster dubbed `Space Godzilla'. As you may
well know, the G-Force's M.O.G.E.R.A. was also part of the battle,
and sources say that both the giant robot and the space monster
have been annihilated. Godzilla is swimming safely out to sea.
Damage reports are in the ten billions, Japan is now at a major
financial loss and many ministers of state worry about another
attack by the Red Bamboo, the terrorist organization which has been
striking against Japan from a hidden base..."
10:30 A.M.
A horned lizard sat basking in the sun. At once it felt the ground it was on tremble, then it darted away. Even though it scampered through the desert sand, it could not escape. The sand split apart under the lizard's feet and a huge geyser of black liquid blurted out of the ground, blasting the lizard high into the sky and spraying oil in every direction as far as the eye could see.
A few hours later as Jose and Hector drove along the deserted desert road, they heard a loud pop. The Humvee screeched to a stop along the side of the road and the doors opened. As the brothers got out they looked down at the totally shredded rear tire. "Oh great," Hector mused, "I'll get the spare." Suddenly his brother stopped him. "Wait," commanded Jose, "you hear that?"
Indeed Hector did, it was a low rumbling noise, coming from the distance. Hector leapt into the car and snatched up his binoculars. A quick view in the direction the sound was coming from told him one thing.
"We're rich!!!" he shouted, then hugged Jose. The brothers did a little dance right there in the road.
The next day workmen swarmed over the newly discovered oil well like locusts on a flower. Hector and Jose sat comfortably in lounge chairs with some big corporate executives nearby.
"Alright listen," one of the executives was saying, "there is more oil in this well than in all of Alaska!"
Hector's eyes opened wide. "That doesn't make any sense," he said, scratching his head, "How could there be so much in one well?" A man wearing a large scraggly brow beard adjusted his circular spectacles. "Um, I think I can answer that," the man said. He held out his right hand towards Hector implying a handshake. When he received it he smiled at the youth. "Hi, my name's Robert Bakker, I'm a paleontologist."
He's too friendly, Hector thought. "I'm sorry Mr. Bakker, uh, did you say why there was so much oil here?" The paleontologist coughed a few times before stuttering his answer uncertainly.
"Well…we uh…we believe that millions of years ago this desert was part of the annual migration trail the giant herbivore dinosaurs used. Now it's possible that all these dinosaurs shared a common drinking well because there was barely any water elsewhere in the desert. Over the years the thirsty animals would die in that well from exhaustion and thirst. Natural weathering took its toll and all the dead dinosaurs became fossil fuels."
"So," Hector added, "You think this might have been a drinking well for dinosaurs?" The rugged looking dinosaur expert quickly nodded.
Suddenly there was a commotion over by the entrance to the well and one of the workers ran over to Bakker. "Doctor," he shouted, "I think you should see this!" Hector and Jose rushed to the site along with the paleontologist. Right there, several hundred feet below the ground, was the huge pool of oil. Everyone climbed down a series of ladders to the well. "Jesus," Jose muttered, "there's a cave down here!" Every one gaped at the huge tunnels and catacombs that were beneath the ground. It took a few minutes before the small band of people found what the big deal was. There was a huge skeleton lying in one of the bigger chambers of the cave.
It looked vaguely like an ankylosaurus, but with spikes all over its back. Also, it was much bigger than any dinosaur previously discovered. "Amazing," Dr. Bakker marveled, "It must be 50 meters long! And its jaws, it's a carnivore! It's a completely new species."
The middle-aged paleontologist grinned like a kid who had just egged a house on Halloween. He ran to the skeleton and his eyes opened wide. Curious, the rest of the people in the cave listened for his next words. "It's not a fossil," he said, suddenly in awe, "These bones haven't been here any more than 20 years."
This remark caused murmurs to travel through the crowd. The paleontologist tried to guess at what happened. "A species of ankylosaur must have come here long ago and gotten trapped," he said, stroking his beard, "Over all the years they must have evolved into carnivores and fed on the animals who came to drink here. They must have lived underground in these catacombs…amazing!"
Suddenly everyone heard and felt a low rumbling. Gradually the rumbling grew into a thunderous tremor, causing several people to collapse on the cave floor like bowling pins. Jose looked up just as several small rocks fell from the ceiling onto him. His frantic screams went unheard over the din all around him.
Then the wall on the far side of the cavern exploded. Where several tons of bedrock had been only milliseconds ago, now there was only a fine dust; a dust which had flown clear across the cave as if the earth itself had just sneezed.
On the other side of the wall which had previously been sat a beast from an age long gone. Fifty meters in length, it was bigger than the biggest whale. In the animal's eyes burned black iris and white pupils. Its jaws were as big as three ice cream trucks. The creature's pebbly skin was the same brownish purple as the cave around it. But the most horrific aspects of all were the spines.
The beast was covered in them. Quills and bony protrusions were etched along its back, head, and tail like a New York City skyline. The thing's very aura seemed to be spiny and sharp.
Everyone in the catacombs screamed a primeval wail that echoed
through the underground like the voice of Sam Hane. Then the beast
opened its maw and spewed forth a fiery ball of napalm, incinerating the tiny group utterly.
7:13 P.M.
A pile of rocks lay in the corner of the smoldering cavern. Two hours had come and passed since the huge beast decimated almost all human life in the cave. From within the pile of small brown pebbles came a slight stir, and then Jose climbed out.
Looking around, his eyes saw what he had hoped to never see, the empty shell of his kid brother. Lovingly and longingly, Jose looked down upon Hector's remains. Why has it come to this? He thought. They had both just graduated. Hector hadn't lived long enough yet, and now he'd never have the chance. A dirty tear rolled slowly down Jose's burned face.
Somehow Jose pulled himself to the surface. News reporters flocked to see him, waving microphones in his face like fists in a boxing match. His eyes glazed over, Jose pushed the media aside and started to get in his Humvee. In his arms he was carrying his brother's corpse.
A cry of, "Oh dear Mary Mother of Jesus Son of God the almighty!" came from someone in the crowd. The huge creature had climbed to the surface of the well and poked its gigantic head above the ground. A scientist next to Jose screamed frantically. "It's come out of the oil to kill us all!" News anchors from the National Enquirer rushed over to hear the man's story.
"No," Jose' said. "It's come out of the oil to die!" With that he took a flare out of the humvee's trunk and ignited it. Suddenly a rich investor in the well named Tomakane saw what the young man was doing. "No!" he wailed, "You'll burn all the oil!"
With that, the titan belched forth another ball of fiery hell. This one exploded into the ground the executive was walking on.
"Yes," Jose' said. And he hurled the flare in the general direction of the animal. The well burst into flames. The animal, covered with oil, ignited, and the whole world seemed to burn like Hades. With desperate screams, the creature sank back into the great pool of oil it had come from. But that too burst into fire, and the great dinosaur was burned, tortured, singed, and slain.
Anguilas has chromosomes
He's da' king!
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