The Running of the Tyrannosaurs Read online

  “I am sorry,” I groan, or try to; when my mouth opens, more fluid comes out, then nothing but dry heaving. My mother held my hair once, when I was four, when I was puking my dinner into a glass bowl. Afterward, she pulled me close and rocked me and cried a little and said, “Poor baby, poor baby.”

  Firm hands grip my arms, pulling me to my feet. A damp cloth is scrubbed swiftly across my chin. The prick of a needle in my wrist and a rush of energy into my body. I breathe in quick gasps, the world becoming visible and steady again around me. I wonder what violence is being done inside my body to keep me standing. The faces of my crew, anxious. Fingers dabbing cosmetics on my face.

  Then they are backing away, leaving me to the cameras and to Mai’s displeasure, or the President’s, or yours. Madame President reaches the bottom of the steps, ready to cross to me. Blue, red, and green lights sweep across the sand, and tyrannosaurs stand with athletes on their back a short distance down the road, surrounded now by handlers with quick, hard voices; I can see the snap and spark of their rods. The tyrannosaurs are silhouettes against the billowing red dust, mournful in their wheezing now that the run is over. I feel a pang of unease, knowing the great bulls will be butchered at the ceremony’s end.

  And up on the high walls, all of you in your seats, millions of seats curving up along the side of the cylinder and arcing over my head, enclosing me in an endless tunnel of your shouting faces. I hear my name. The cameras must have cut away from my retching; you have no idea. You are too far away. You only saw me stumble and then rise. I am not Alicia. I am not lying in the sand. I am yours, and all your voices claim me.

  Though my heart is hollow, I lift my arm. Liberty’s torch. You are losing your minds in a roar of praise and desire. Watch me. Love me. I am your sacrifice. I, Egret, stand on the red sand, and I am alone.

  FINIS

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  It has long been a dream of mine to write a dinosaur story, and I couldn’t have made that happen without the assistance of quite a few excellent and creative people. My patrons at Patreon have made so much possible, funding the publication of The Running of the Tyrannosaurs and offering me fierce encouragement. I’ve been aided as well by my early readers, particularly my editor Richard Ellis Preston, Jr., who has an excellent eye for story, and by the other writers at Westmarch Publishing. Roberto Calas made the book’s cover. I am grateful to you all. And, most especially, I am thankful to my wife Jessica and to my two little ones, River and Inara; their love for me and mine for them burns at the heart of my fiction. And four-year-old River’s love for dinosaurs has reawakened my own. May we make the world that River and Inara—and all our daughters—will grow up in one that is, each year, a little kinder to women, a little more empowering, a little less like Egret’s.

  DID YOU ENJOY THIS STORY?

  If yes, consider joining my Patreon membership:

  http://www.patreon.com/stantlitore

  I use Patreon to fund my independent work and to make it possible for my fiction to support the needs of my disabled, three-year-old daughter Inara. You can learn more at my Patreon page—and if you join as one of my members there, I will send you ebooks! I have many more exciting stories for you to read.

  You can also reach me at [email protected]. I look forward to hearing what you thought of the story!

  Stant Litore

  MORE BY STANT LITORE

  Stant Litore is the author of the Ansible stories and The Zombie Bible. He has an intense love of ancient languages, a fierce admiration for his ancestors, and a fascination with religion and history. He doesn’t consider his writing a vocation; he considers it an act of survival. Litore lives in Colorado with his wife and two daughters and is at work on his next book.

  His other fiction includes:

  The Ansible Stories:

  Ansible 15715

  Ansible 15716

  Ansible 15717

  The Zombie Bible:

  Death Has Come Up into Our Windows

  What Our Eyes Have Witnessed

  Strangers in the Land

  No Lasting Burial

  I Will Hold My Death Close

  and:

  Dante’s Heart

  The Dark Need

  You can learn more about Litore’s work at:

  www.stantlitore.com.

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