"That Thing Outside" by Don Anelli

That Thing Outside

by Don Anelli

There it was! Safety! Glorious safety!

It was close, I can make it!

Through the driving rain, he could see the lone guard shack waiting for him, ready to offer protection and maybe a chance at escape since the phone lines would still work. His lungs burning, his chest aching, and he was gasping so hard for breath that he was afraid of passing out. It was one last dash to get inside the building before that thing found him.

Finally getting inside, locking the door, and ensuring all the windows were shut and locked, Dan could finally relax and calm down for a second. The whole thing had been a blur, and it was something he needed to process. The last few minutes, from Dr. Kansdell's experimental time-travel device malfunctioning, the arrival of the strange creatures through the portal it generated, and the chaos of what happened, had started playing through his head. Jackson, Danny, Bennett, Claire, and Bo are all dead in a matter of seconds from those things.

What were they, though? He tried to remember from the dinosaur books he read as a kid. Velociraptor? Deinonychus? Utahraptor? Whatever it was, the brightly colored, feathered creations that were there in the room ripped apart everyone on the team except for him and Diane. Being the two farthest from the portal gave them the best chance to get out of the room, but since escaping the facility, he went right, and she went left. He hasn't seen or heard from her since.

Looking back on everything, that allowed him to calm down a bit and regain his composure, but that also meant that he could hear the noises outside. Through the pouring rain, he could hear the unnatural chirping and chittering those dinosaurs made, crying out close by. It seemed inquisitive, like it was searching the new world it found itself in. This was a prehistoric animal, and now, all of a sudden, it was in our world where it had no business being. It was new trees, new dirt, new surroundings, and new buildings it knew nothing about, trying to make sense of where it found itself.

The chirping grew louder, as if the creature was getting closer. Was it able to sniff him out? Did it see him get inside the shack? Was it just pure dumb luck that it found him? Dan didn't know, but he had to think fast. Realizing he spent the time to make sure the creature couldn't get in, but not what was inside the building, he quickly took a look to see what was around him. It didn't seem like much, being a shed for a generator humming away in the backroom and a table next to the far wall with a clipboard full of maintenance duties written across it. The door into the generator room was right in front of it, and was thankfully locked as well.

Beyond that, nothing.

That was when the footsteps outside became noticeable. The grassy ground outside must've been hard enough to register that, and it was right outside. The nervous skittering and clicks it made were right outside the door, as if it were inspecting this strange structure it was looking at for the first time. It was coming up to the front door and trying to make sense of everything from the chittering and chirping sounds that were going on. The strange scratch against the door had to be it trying to determine what it was, not trying to get inside, like that movie made it seem like they were capable of doing. With the footsteps making it sound like the creature was walking around the side wall of the shack.

It was on the side wall now, checking out the side of the structure, leaving the front door open. Could he risk moving from the spot and head into the woods again? What would he do in the woods to get away? Wouldn't he be back where he started a few minutes ago? Yeah, that was it, he's thinking to himself, and that ends everything right there. He'll wait for the creature to leave and hopefully leave him alone so he can get away.

That freaking out was apparently the way to go, with the creature walking around the side of the building and disappearing behind the boarded-up section with the generator. So far, so good, and not freaking out was the right thing; let the creatures' curiosity and unfamiliarity with the world around them be the distraction so he could leave properly. Taking a deep breath, he tries to leave the shack and see what's going on through the pouring rain into the woods around him.

Then came the chirping screech from the treeline to his left. The mate, he forgot about the mate.

Dan didn't have time to react, as the charging dinosaur came out of the woods and leapt at him, digging the spiked talons on its toes into his chest as he was tackled to the ground. It was the last thing he remembered within a haze of chirps, chittering cries, and wet squelching noises that filled his ears before it all went black.